When I was attacked, I wanted to tell someone else... anyone else, but especially the authorities. Tara warned me against it, telling me that no cop would believe me and it would only put me in greater danger.
That didn’t make any sense at all, I thought. Why were vampires some great secret? They burned in the daylight and their bodies were as cold as the grave itself... it didn’t seem like it would be easy to hide.
I couldn’t ask them now, I thought sourly, with a glance at my phone... the only part of the spy rig Claire had given back to me. It had battery remaining, but no signal and Claire had informed me that it wouldn’t be able to call out until after they had left. “Feel free to call your friends then,” she said without looking at me.
My friends, I supposed. Well, there wasn’t a whole lot I could do now. I finally began to relax. I wondered what my roommates and coworkers were doing.
Somewhere or another, I drifted off, not to sleep, but sort of a pleasant blankness.
***
Chapter 8: Perspectives
A rapping on the door interrupted my thoughts. This time, I remembered where I was.
“Um...” I said, unsure if I was supposed to invite someone in if it was really their house.
Screw it, I thought. Now wasn’t the time to be obsessed with etiquette. “Come in.”
The door opened and Jason entered the room, wearing a black tee-shirt and blue jeans. “Just checking up to see how you were doing,” he said.
“I’m fine,” I said reflexively, gazing at the floor.
My stomach growled and I blushed as the lie became apparent.
He raised an eyebrow. “Well, why don’t you come out for a bit anyway? Claire will fix you something.”
I nodded and rose from the chair.
I exited the room with Jason and walked down the hallway leading to the dining room. On the right was an open door, leading to a room lined with bookshelves from top to bottom. When I had entered, the shelves had all been crammed with books. Now half the books were in boxes. A small mahogany table, precisely square and trimmed in gold, sat at the center of the room beneath a beaten-up cardboard box filled with books.
We moved past the door and back into the dining room. The table had three placemats, but only two plates and two glasses. Jason showed me to one of the chairs, the old armchair that had been sitting in the living room earlier. It didn’t match the table very well.
“Hold on a sec!” Claire’s voice came from the kitchen. “Lunch is almost ready.”
Lunch? I must have slept longer than I thought.
Jason took his place at the placemat with no plate and no fork, only a spoon.
A few minutes later, Claire emerged carrying a large metal pot. “Hope you like pasta,” she said, setting it down at the center of a table with a relieved sigh. She looked up and smiled cheerily at me, but the smile seemed forced.
I looked at her. Her green tee-shirt was splattered with tomato sauce. It didn’t seem like she was used to cooking.
“What about me?” asked Jason teasingly.
Claire’s eyes flicked to me and back so quickly I might have imagined it. “Yours is still settling in the kitchen. You can wait until our guest is served.”
She lifted the lid and scooped some spaghetti onto my plate. “Uh, thanks,” I mumbled.
“You’re welcome,” she informed me. “You want anything to drink? We have Coke, Pepsi, diet, milk, chocolate milk, unsweetened ice tea, sweetened ice tea with lemon...”
“Just water is fine,” I said.
“Water then. Be right back.”
Jason and I stared at the table until she returned. Neither of us said a word.
Claire returned with the water and shortly departed again. She came back with a large bowl, filled with a dark red liquid and set it down in front of Jason.
I looked at the bowl. It was too dark for me to easily pretend it was tomato soup, especially with a plate filled with an actual tomato sauce next to it.
A thought floated into my mind, unbidden. Did it come from anyone I knew? My pulse quickened.
“That’s from the hospital, by the way,” Claire said, seeing my worried look. “Jason doesn’t hunt.”
Jason sighed. “Isn’t there a better way of putting that? Like ‘I respect the sanctity of life’ or something like that?”
“If you want to use poetic language, you can explain,” Claire said. “I prefer efficiency, at least when talking about this stuff. Anyway Anna, please, feel free.”
She grabbed a bottle of parmesan cheese and shook it onto her pasta. I followed suit, burying the dish in pale yellow powder. Tomato sauce or not, I felt a little queasy eating something covered in red chunks of meat while someone sipped human blood right next to me.
On the other hand, I was hungry.
I took a bite, then another and another. And unfortunate connotations or not, it tasted good. The sauce had definitely come from a can, but the pasta hadn’t been overcooked and I had covered it in enough cheese that it was hard to tell. My stomach settled. I finished my plate quickly and Claire loaded me up with another.
The meal continued in silence until Claire put her fork down. “In any event, we’ve been remiss in introducing ourselves,” she said, taking a deep breath. “I’m Claire and this is Jason. These aren’t the names we were born with, but we’ve been using them for a long time and they fit us. ‘Evans’ is a new name, though. You’ll forgive us if we don’t give you our real ones.”
I nodded. “And I’m Anna Holland.” That really was my real name, but it felt rude to point it out.
“As I’m sure you’re aware of,” said Claire, “my brother has vampirism and I do not.”
She set down her fork. “I do, however, practice sorcery. That was how I detected your... device.”
I shook my head. “Sorry, I don’t really know what you mean by... sorcery and vampirism? Is that how to put it?”
Claire nodded. “Yes. Vampirism is a condition, it might be best to call it a ‘blood condition’ and ‘vampire’ is an individual who has it. Humans can have vampirism, but so can other animals.”
“I... see.” That didn’t really explain anything at all.
Jason sighed. “If you won’t ask, I will, Claire. Anna,” he said, turning to me and looking into my eyes. “Are you a hunter?”
His expression was calm, but the intensity of his gaze scared me nonetheless. “No,” I said, quickly putting my face down. “That is... I’m not the same as Tony and Tara.”
“Are those the hunters you were with?” Claire asked gently.
“Yes,” I said, forcing myself to speak. “They... wanted me to get you alone.”
Claire nodded, “A decoy then. A sacrifice so they can kill the vampire.” She raised an eyebrow and took on an incredulous tone. “I’m impressed you agreed, I suppose.”
My head snapped up. “They saved my life,” I said defensively, voice rising despite myself. “I didn’t know anything about any of this before coming here to this city, and I’ve nearly been killed every other week since then, and half the time it wasn’t even on purpose!”
I bit my lip before saying anything more. My arms shook and I clenched them to my sides.
Claire’s face softened. “You’re right to be afraid,” she said, looking a little guilty. “Not all vampires are like my brother. In fact, most aren’t.”
“I just wanted... to do something.” I said, quietly. “And to live.”
“I understand,” Claire sighed. “Sorry. We’ve had to live our lives in the shadows, too.”
“Why do hunters hunt you, though?” I asked, “Jason, maybe, but why you?”
“Why me, indeed?” Claire murmured, leaning back in her chair and staring off into space. “In some ways, they want to kill me even more than Jason. But as to why... it’s complicated.”
“If you don’t feel comfortable, it’s okay...” I started saying hesitantly.
“No, you have the right to know,” she said, drawing herse
lf up. She looked into my eyes, her expression sad but determined. “You’ve been dragged into this whole mess, risked your life many times and now you’re stuck here until we can get out of town. You at least deserve to know what started it all.
She took a deep breath. “It started about three thousand years ago... when humans first wrested fire, and then magic, from the gods. They became the first sorcerers and ruled the great kingdoms of the world.”
“Magic was a great power back then, far greater than it is now. It could summon great floods, destroy a city with a word and even breathe life back into the dead.”
Claire laughed bitterly. “It was too great, in fact. Three times, conflict between sorcerers threatened to destroy the world, to unmake it utterly or to alter it in such a way that it wouldn’t be recognizable as our ‘Earth.’ In between these great conflicts, they warred amongst each other with mighty armies of both the dead and living, devastating everything in their path.”
I shook my head. “That seems a bit much to believe. I mean, wouldn’t records of that make it into history?”
“The difference between ‘history’ and ‘myth’ is far less than you imagine,” replied Claire. “Many records of that time do exist, but the evidence is gone, wiped away by the very wars that nearly destroyed the world. Only stories survive and gradually even they fade away as they’re passed down through oral tradition, until it’s almost impossible to say what is true anymore.”
“Anyway, vampirism was one of the conditions that sorcerers invented, from dark experiments in raising the dead. These creations became known as ‘vampires’ or ‘nightwalkers.’ They became soldiers in the Magi Wars.”
“The Third Magi War shattered the world, erasing the existence of millions of people, killing hundreds of thousands more and wiping entire continents off the map. All kingdoms destroyed each other, in effect, in an attempt to prevent themselves from being destroyed. But in the end, only the wild lands beyond their reach survived.”
“The surviving sorcerers and their tribes rebuilt the world, slowly and painfully. But before they did, they gathered one last Sorcerer’s Council.
“After seven days and seven nights of debate, it was decided to abolish magic entirely, to wipe it from the world.”
“This was easier said than done, magic resides in the air, earth, sea, and consciousness of humans. In fact, it still does. The survivors could bar the doors to the Hidden Realm from where gods and spirits come, and so they did. But they couldn’t ensure the doors would remain shut or that future sorcerers wouldn’t discover paths back to the Realm.”
“Then there was the problem of the sorcerers’ servants. Most were destroyed in the final days of the war, but others remained, warriors with no master.”
“In the end, the last of the sorcerers split into two groups: the Keepers and the Penitents. Together, they made The Vow: the Keepers pledged to use their magic to bury all knowledge of it, while the Penitents would track down and eliminate the last of the servitors using powerful magical relics. Once both tasks were complete, the Keepers would destroy all their magical knowledge and the Penitents would destroy their magical artifacts.
“But fate changes all plans. The Keepers hoarded knowledge and secreted it away rather than destroy it. Some even turned from The Vow and attempted to amass power anew. Meanwhile, the Penitents dispersed among the surviving humans, forgetting their history and their pride--forgetting everything, in fact, but their hatred and lust for vengeance.”
“Moreover, the servitors of the ancient mages were more cunning and resourceful than any had given them credit for, none more so than the breeds of nightwalkers and shapeshifters; that is to say, lycanthropes such as the werewolf. Most of the rest of the servitors were destroyed by the Penitents or as they became in a few short centuries, the hunters.
“And so what may have taken only a few centuries to complete ended up stretching out for nearly two millennia... until today.”
Claire took a long gulp from the glass at her side. “And that is, in a nutshell, the history of the magical world.”
I stared at my plate. “And... forgive me for asking, but how old are you, to speak of... all this? Sorry to be rude.”
Claire laughed. “Not rude at all. I wasn’t speaking of personal experience anyway, but of the legends as they were passed down by our mother. I’m older than I look, but still fairly young for a witch. I was born just after the American Civil War, though in a location quite a bit south.”
“And I was born around the turn of the century,” added Jason.
“Oh, is that all,” I said sarcastically. “You two are practically spring chickens.”
He shrugged. “Honestly, it doesn’t feel all that long when you can only spend a decade or so in one place before people get suspicious.”
“Anyway,” said Claire. “That’s the short version of why we’re here and why we’d... prefer if you stayed here for another day.”
I sighed. “Yeah, I understand,” I managed to say glumly. “I just wish I could explain things to my boss... not that I’m probably not fired anyway.”
Claire nodded. “Well, if it’s money you’re concerned about, we can share what we have. We don’t really collect wealth, it’s traceable in more ways than one, but we don’t want for it either.
I flushed and looked up. “N-no, it’s fine,” I stammered.
“So is sharing,” said Jason, turning to look at me straight on for the first time, “With us. It’s only fair.”
“Maybe...” I said, avoiding his gaze. “Let’s talk about that later.”
“Fair enough,” Claire cleared the dishes off the table, opened the freezer and put them inside one by one.
Okay, that was a bit odd. She didn’t seem to think anything of it. “Also, you can stay in the living room if you like.”
I shook my head. “No, I’ll head back. Food’s making me a bit tired.”
“Sleep well, then.”
As I returned to my room, really, more like both Jason’s room and my prison cell, I wondered again at how natural it felt to be with them, a normalcy that felt, somehow, special.
***
Chapter 9: Anger and Memories
When I was fifteen, the teachers found out about my mother’s boyfriend or more accurately when I couldn’t hide it any longer. The cops led him away in handcuffs and she blamed me, claiming I had “seduced” him.
Days filled with fights and nights with tears. One day, she threw a kitchen knife at me and I left.
I never saw her again.
So when I awoke from a troubled rest to find Jason standing over me, I decided resentfully that it all was just par for the course.
“Oh, it’s you,” I said, too tired and numb to even manage embarrassment or outrage.
He backed away. “Sorry. You were saying something in your sleep and I thought you were calling for help.”
“Maybe I was.” I stretched with both arms.
“You’re awfully calm given the circumstances,” he noted.
“Hysteria wouldn’t do anyone any good,” I said. I forced a small mischievous smile at the end. “Though I do wonder what would happen if I screamed loud enough to wake the neighbors.”
He sighed. “Please don’t.”
I raised an eyebrow. “So you’re blocking cell reception, but not sound?”
“I mean it,” he insisted. “Look, we’ve only gotta be here a few hours longer. One of my friends is coming to help us move at sunset.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “But what would you do then?”
He shrugged. “Most likely, Sis would cast a spell on whoever came to investigate to make them forget they ever heard it. Then she’d throw a fake scream across the street to discourage further investigation and a silence spell in here. By the time they got everything straightened out, we’d be gone.”
I laughed. “Magic’s convenient,” I said, with a slightly bitter smile.
He shook his head. “Mostly, it’s only good for hid
ing.”
I decided to change the subject. “So, what do vampires do for a living? You said you were a contractor, but...”
“And I am. It’s just the jobs are all dealing with messes of our world. Rogue vamps, troublesome hunters, the odd werewolf incursion...”
“So you’re a mercenary?”
“You could say that. Mercenary, bounty hunter... whatever keeps the blood supply flowing. I can’t really work a normal job and even if I did, you can’t access the blood market with normal money.”
“You seemed okay in the day when I met you.”
He smiled slightly. “That’s because it was cloudy. Also, because of this,” he said, reaching one hand up to the ceiling. The light flickered then it went out.
“Magic?” I asked to the suddenly pitch-black room.
His voice sounded behind me, and I jumped. “Of a sort... a sort that only nightwalkers can use. I’m not as strong as most, but most don’t have my kind of power.”
“Sounds handy,” I commented, managing to keep my voice from shaking. There was no response.
I didn’t hear him again for a moment and though I strained my ears, I could pick up nothing. Then, an inch from my right ear, he whispered, “You frightened?”
I jerked out of the chair in surprise. My elbow hit the ground hard and I ground my teeth. I did not cry out, though. I was determined to retain some control.
He chuckled. “That’s a bit more like I expected.”
Jerk. I seethed in the darkness.
A pause, “You know, we probably could handle it if you screamed a little.”
Like hell I would now, I thought, although that resentful thought was rapidly being overwhelmed by an animal fear of the dark and fear of the monsters in it.
His next words were inches away from me, and the cold breath from them stroked my cheek. “What would you do, I wonder,” he said, “If I turned out to be like my horror movie namesake?”
“I don’t know,” I said, in a small voice, breathing slowly and carefully. I could feel his fangs inches away from my head. “Probably die.”
Siren Nights (Series Part 1) (The Lure) Page 4
