by L.J. Hayward
Chapter 27
Mercy sulked on the way home. Either that or she really was spaced out on a Martínez high. I left her to it and tallied up the new wounds. The total was starting to get depressing.
“So, that was her, huh?” Roberts said as we hurtled north on the Gateway.
“Her who?” Of course I knew who he meant. But a little bit of intentional cluelessness was always good at steering nosey friends away from thinking that you liked someone. At least it had been when I went to school.
“Idiot. She’s got guts. Tore the gun right out of my hands and hit him first try.”
“Ex-cop and you’re a useless shot. You need to get to the range if you want to keep coming along on these excursions.”
Roberts almost choked. “Can you pronounce senility? Cause, you’re getting it. Check my phone logs. You’re the one who called me, remember?”
“You’re the one who offered to stick around in town and help out.”
“I meant I would hold your coat while you did manly battle. Not save your cranky arse from a well-deserved whooping. Which brings me to my next point of contention. What was with all the strutting at the start there? Why did he let us get your girl out of the way before going all Jackie Chan on you?”
I eased down in the seat, trying to adjust my legs so my knee wouldn’t cramp. “If you remember correctly, it was Mercy who made the first move. He doesn’t actually want me or Mercy dead. Terrified and liable to make mistakes, yes, but dead, not so much. I think he wants us so he can study why Mercy is the way she is. If he can make more vampires as strong as she is as quickly, then he’s got an advantage over the rest of them. That’s my working hypothesis, anyway. Aurum seemed to think we’d reached saturation point with the damage we could incur on the local clans before they took serious note of us, but I’m not sure. If that were the case, Big Red woulda painted that street with us, not just played around.” Cutting him a glare, I added, “And she’s not my girl.”
Roberts snorted, but he shut up for a while. I twisted around to look at Mercy. My nasty kitten slouched against the door and stared out into the night. She looked sad and a little lost. What was she thinking? Was she thinking? Or had she just shut down because I hadn’t given her command? Damn Aurum and his meddling. I thought I had her all sorted out before he showed up.
“How you doing, Merce?” I asked gently.
Mercy ignored me, just kept staring out the window.
The look she’d given Erin hadn’t cheered me up at all. It was a look previously reserved for the nastier things in life; ghouls, enemy vampires, clotted blood. I can’t say it was a welcome revelation. Having a relationship outside of work, something personal and separate, hadn’t really occurred to me before. Guess I’d just relegated it into the pile of things I would never do again since Mercy crashed head long into my life. Like go to the Caribbean for a sunny summer holiday. Not that I had done that previously, but the chance had always been there. Now, it would probably be cold showers all the way.
So, no matter what I thought of Erin, or her legs, after tomorrow, that would be it. She would be a footnote in my memoirs, probably a dry side comment on the chapter about Big Red. No one would have to get jealous. And no one would get hurt because of that jealousy.
Mercy had the starts of some impressive bruising showing on her face, neck, arms and legs. There was an indent in her ribs that would be mended by tomorrow night. Her little outfit wouldn’t make it to the washing basket though. We’d say a final prayer over the poor scraps of material and consign them to the bin. There wasn’t anything even big enough to turn into cleaning rags, and that would still have been true had they not been torn to smaller pieces by the fight.
“Hey, just remembered,” I said to Roberts. “When we were in the Fringe, there wasn’t anyone wearing anything like what Mercy was. Jeans and tights all the way. You lied to me.”
“No, I didn’t. It’s nearly winter, man. Fashion is seasonable. Mercy’s just a summer girl at heart, that’s all.”
I scowled at him.
When we got home, Mercy dashed out of the car and inside as soon as I’d unlocked the door. Even from outside, unloading the unused heavy assault gear we’d believed we would desperately need at the start of the night, I heard her slam the outer door to her room and then crash shut the cage door.
“Wow. The terrible twos, huh?” Roberts carefully set down a crate of garlic bombs. Think stink bombs but with garlic. Yeah, I guess they still were stink bombs.
“Been a while since she hasn’t won against another vampire,” I said. Didn’t bother to add I was sure that wasn’t the whole reason.
“So what’s happening with Private Dick Erin?”
Just grateful that Roberts had waited to ask after Mercy wasn’t around, I let him have his little bit of fun.
“I’m going to her office tomorrow for a meeting with the woman who hired Erin to find me.”
“Who is it? Long lost lover pining for you? Nah, even I don’t believe that. Um… an old uncle died and sent his sexy yet repressed lawyer to find you so she could give you what the old fart left you?”
“I wish. Don’t know this woman at all, but apparently she thinks I stole something from her.”
We trudged into the garage and put the gear away.
Roberts brushed off his hands. “Hey, you’ve done some bad shit, but I didn’t think you were ever a thief.”
“I’m not. I’m sure it’s just a mistake. I’ll sort it out and then it’s back to the peace and quiet.” I began to head inside. Roberts didn’t follow. “You coming in?”
“Nah. I’m staying at Gale’s till this whole thing blows over. Call me if you find anything out.”
I waved goodbye, watched him pull out and take off. He was right. I’d never stolen anything in my entire life. What could this Veilchen woman want from me?
Inside, I grabbed a bag of O pos, noted that we were almost out and went to see Mercy. She was just putting Bad Boys into the DVD player. I picked up the remote and turned it and the TV off. She spun around and glared at me with silver flashing eyes.
“We’re going to a have a talk,” I said firmly. “De-vamp, now.”
She resisted. Bless her little heart, she tried. I glared her down and after several blinks, her eyes went dark and her shoulders slumped. If I was a contortionist, I would have kicked myself in the stomach. I hated pulling that crap on her. The last thing I’d set out to do when trying to help her after the change was go all Stockholm on her. Sometimes, I think that’s all I was to her, a captor who’d psychologically tortured her into thinking she loved me. And who knows, maybe that’s all it was. Two years in and I was still out of my depth with her, only I was doing nothing but sinking.
“Get undressed, please. I’ll look at your wounds.”
Naked Mercy meant little else than a physical check these days. Not so many years ago, it would have been anything other than clinical. I did my best not to think about that anymore.
She lay on the bed and let me catalogue the injuries Martínez had caused. Two broken ribs, thankfully neither had punctured a lung, several long rents in her skin that were already starting to close and nearly two dozen bruises that would be gone in a couple of hours.
“You’re very lucky, young lady,” I said as she crawled into some flannelette PJs with pink and blue unicorns on them. “Big Red could have broken you in two.”
Her whole response was to pull the sheets up over her head. I sighed and pulled them down.
“Mercy, what is your problem?”
She touched her belly and pulled a face. We were going with mute sulkiness. Great. Give me an honest to God toddler any day. They at least had a real excuse.
“Eat something that didn’t agree with you, huh? Why did you chow down on him? You don’t like vampire blood.”
I caught her arms in mid shrug. “Mercy, talk to me. Please.”
“I don’t like her.”
“Erin? This about her and not Big Red?”
>
She was wrapped around me before I could blink. “Don’t leave me,” she whispered, her voice shaking with honest fear.
Dear Lord. A vampire with separation anxiety. I hugged her, rubbed her back. “Mercy, you know I’ll never leave you. Erin’s just someone doing her job, and it crossed ours for a small way, that’s all. Why do you think she’ll make me leave you?”
Mercy held on tight enough to make breathing a trifle hard. “You like her. I felt your like for her today. You had dreams about her.”
Ah shit. A symptom of the link I’d never considered before, probably because I’d not had any such dreams since… sheesh, in a long, long time.
Another aspect of Mercy’s nature I’d not really wanted to think about. Little vampires didn’t come from a mummy and daddy vampire who loved each other very much. They had no need for sex for procreation, but it wasn’t entirely absent from their ecology. Luring folks with sex was a common and lucrative feeding means. I suppose I was like any average father with a teenage daughter. If you don’t think about her and sex at the same time, then it obviously isn’t happening and never will, just so long as you don’t think about it.
Mercy could ooze the sex appeal without even trying. She usually just had to walk into the room. On a dance floor, even straight women and gay men had to stop and stare. It’s what snagged Roberts’ attention, way back when my control of her wasn’t so fantastic. She’d nearly eaten him from the waist up before I found them. But since I’d refocused her appetite on juicy plastic bags of blood instead of juicy fleshy ones, she hadn’t shown any interest.
Or maybe I had just not thought about it very well indeed.
Until my subconscious and naughty little interlude with Erin.
I tugged at Mercy’s arms and she let go reluctantly. “Is that why you dressed the way you did tonight?”
She rolled her eyes and let out a short, sharp sigh. “No. I dressed for dancing.”
“Then you don’t want to… make me dream about you?”
“Eww!”
I swear, I’d never understand her.
“Then what’s got your fangs in a knot?” I demanded.
Her pout was one of the best in the world. It could make little puppies with big, soulful brown eyes and floppy ears feel ashamed. “You went to her and didn’t come to me.”
I had. When Erin’s paintball had hit him, Martínez had yodelled his lungs out, then buzzed off so fast he’d spun me around on the spot. It had also cleared my head and the first thing I’d seen was Erin, crumpled up, clutching her chest as if in the throes of a heart attack. The paramedic part of me had roared to the fore and taken control. I knew Mercy would be all right. I didn’t know that Erin would be if she wasn’t seen to immediately.
“Knuckle head,” I muttered and ruffled Mercy’s hair. She swiped my hand away and fixed her curls. “She’s only human. You’re the Mercinator. You’ll always be back.”
Mercy stared at me, her tongue in one cheek. She wasn’t buying it, but at least she wasn’t shaking with dread anymore. Anything, even weary condescension, was better than that.
“Can I watch my movie now?”
“Sure, just keep the sound down. I want to catch a snooze while its dark out. Pretend to be a normal guy for a bit.” I dangled the now warmed blood in front of her. “Want a midnight snack?”
She just grabbed the remote and turned on the TV.
“Fine.” I began to get up. Before my arse had even stopped touching the bed, the bag was out of my hand and under the sheets with Mercy. “Just don’t spill any this time. Goodnight.”
There may have been a muffled reply, or it could have been slurping.
I locked the cage on my way out. Not before hesitating though. Tonight had done much to appease my fears, and I had never meant to keep her locked up forever. But old habits die really, really hard.
I grabbed a quick shower before flopping onto my bed. My knee was swollen but I didn’t feel it. Mercy’s compulsion was something else this time. Trying not to think about what would happen when it wore off, I drifted off to sleep.
I didn’t dream about Erin. I had nightmares about Big Red instead.