Rebellious Hood

by Kendrai Meeks

  “They are.”

  He spoke with an air of confidence that sent a shiver down my spine. I shouldn’t ever forget that while Yan seemed to be a pretty passive and go-along-to-get-along type of guy, he had lethal capabilities that could cut me down at the drop of a hat if I wasn’t vigilant.

  He must have sensed the mood shift, as he took one glance at me, plastered on a huge smile, and moved the conversation to lighter fare. “Sounds like the two of you had quite a bonding two days, then.”

  “We did.” I looked out to the horizon, where a thin line of pink sliced the blanket of night. “Sun will be coming up soon. I should... um, put you in silver, I guess.”

  “Probably best if I pull over first.” Yan laughed silently at his own joke. “I saw a sign a few kilometers back that said there’s a service station coming up. I’m okay with a little bit of sun until then. Besides, Markus likes a man with a nice, golden tan.”

  Good. Not about the tan; I couldn’t care less what my cousin’s proclivities for his paramours were. But even though I didn’t want to admit it out loud, I liked having someone to talk to. Someone who didn’t have a dog in the whole hood-versus-lupine show was especially welcomed. No pun intended.

  “What did you do, by the way, while Ann-Marie and I were out?”

  “Mostly, I entertained the pups.”

  “Meaning?”

  “The kids returned when you left, and I don’t know....” He shrugged. “They’d never seen a vampire before. They wanted to see my fangs, know if I really drank blood, if I hated garlic... The usual. But I was happy to answer. And bless the parents, they encouraged the curiosity rather than shame or dissuade it. For such an isolated pack, they are amazingly progressive.”

  “That’s not surprising, seeing as they also call Gerwalta Faust the Guardian instead of the Betrayer.”

  “One man’s terrorist is another one’s freedom fighter, as the saying goes.” He was silent for moment, before slipping in, “Still...”

  “Still?”

  The corners of the vampire’s mouth notched downward. “Please don’t misunderstand. I’m glad to hear you’ve gotten a fresh perspective on your ancestor. I believe that will help you deal with the trials you have coming. But something about what you’ve learned... It creates more questions in my mind.”

  “Such as?”

  “Ann-Marie said Faust led a revolution against the hoods.”

  “Yeah, so? Every culture in the world has had uprisings. Why should supernatural ones be any different?”

  The vampire turned, even as he guided the car off the exit ramp. Just in time, too. The first crimson ray of sunrise peaked over the mountains, stinging both our eyes. Only in Yan’s case, his actually turned red.

  “Why doesn’t your history record anything more than this one betrayer, and not a movement? Who was doing the revolting and why?” he asked. “What would victory have looked like, and did they achieve it? And most importantly, who was her enemy, and who, her ally? That is probably the question that gnaws at me the most. One rebelling hood does not an insurgency make, after all. There must be a greater context to the events of that era. One, it seems, that may still be having ramifications now.”

  “Maybe.” Any sense of satisfaction I’d gathered during my visit dissipated. “Were you a journalist in your human life? You got a thing for framing questions.”

  “No, I was steward under the Portuguese flag.”

  “Like, on an airplane?” He didn’t seem that young. That was, he didn’t look much older than his mid-20s, but way of dress and manner of speaking didn’t suggest he’d been too long a vampire. Based on his formality, I was actually guessing later Victorian era.

  “No, not an airplane.” He pulled into the station and up to an empty pump. “You said Vlad was surprised when he bit you to discover you were an asaenic.”

  “Yeah, he said he didn’t think any of us truly existed.”

  “And the most famous asaenic, you’ve recently learned, was born right around the time the Ravens were entombed,” he said. “You don’t honestly think that’s a coincidence, do you? I mean, Gerwalta Faust’s story is infamous enough in supernatural circles that the Ravens would have undoubtably been aware of at least the possibility. Even if they hadn’t known contemporarily, they must have heard since resurfacing in 1945.”

  I bit my bottom lip, remembering what one of the female packlings had said. Coincidence is never coincidence.

  “I suppose so. But maybe he just meant he knew it was possible, just not likely. Hyperbole isn’t the sole art of the hueys.”

  Yan clicked his tongue. “Or he wasn’t talking about what you thought he was talking about. Think about it, did he actually say he thought asenaics were impossible?”

  My brain tried to pull out the details from a detritus of emotional trauma. “I... can’t remember. But if he wasn’t talking about asenaics, what was he talking about?”

  “A wonderful question.”

  I rolled myself through a stretch before getting out of the car. “Maybe it’s time to pay the matrons another visit, shake them for the truth. Or at least, as much of the truth as they know.”

  He grinned. “Shall we storm the castle? I’ve been employed at Schloss Wolfsretter for over a decade now. It’s been a good run, and I would enjoy the distraction.”

  “I was thinking more like sending Markus to appeal to their better natures. You know, with threats of violence and the such.”

  Yan rolled his eyes. “What makes you think my Markus would rise up against his own? Other than having an unnaturally strong interest in vampires and their history, there isn’t a rebellious bone in him.”

  I kept talking as we got out of the car, doing the pass-and-gas routine. “What do you call him taking on the Ravens with me in Istanbul?” I settled in behind the wheel. “A peaceful protest?”

  “I call it following orders.” Yan closed the door behind him, trapping in the interior of the vehicle a subtle odor of singed hair. “Your mother’s orders, as you’ll recall, to aid you in whatever mad quest you were undertaking insofar as to keep you from harm.”

  “Maybe, but I don’t think my mother ever anticipated I’d take on Dracula himself. If she had, she’d have probably told Markus just to call when I was killed.”

  “Of course, she anticipated you facing down Vlad. Or, at least, planned for the contingency.”

  “You almost make it sound like she was trying to help me. Trust me, she wasn’t. I’m quite sure Markus also had orders to kill me if the escape from Vlad’s took a turn for the worse. It’s part of the unofficial hood handbook; the scorched earth policy. Now—” Making sure no one was watching, I pulled down the silver grafted to my arms under my sleeves. It pooled in my hand, then took on the form of a jar. “Ready to play Aladdin again?”

  The vampire crossed his arms and frowned. “You give your mother too little credit.”

  “On the contrary, I credit her with a great deal, just very little of it to do with my welfare or happiness. Now,” I tapped the container, “smokie-smokie.”

  He closed his eyes. “Okay, but only because I do not savor a hellish sunburn. We shouldn’t let this go. I have a feeling what happened back then has a lot more to do with what’s happening now than you might think.”

  “I do too. But all those answers are at the end of this drive.”

  TEN

  Amy

  “Oh, god, I— Ahh!”

  Caleb was beside Alexandra in a flash, but for all the good it did, he might as well have taken his time. She was pregnant, not under attack. Unless slayers had some sort of “do not break water here in this totally badass training gym hidden behind a secret wall in the basement” power, I didn’t see what his Flash impersonation achieved.

  Show off.

  Caleb braced her. “Alex, are you okay?”

  The gravid (isn’t that an awesome word? I picked it up reading Bronte. It only means pregnant but it sounds so much more... intellectual) woman squatted agains
t the wall and holding her bulbous stomach like bowling ball. Or at least, like the way I hold a bowling ball.

  “I’m fine.” She didn’t look fine. “The baby kicked. Very hard. And possibly, ruptured my spleen.”

  Caleb drew Alex to her feet with a great deal of tenderness as he spoke from the side of his mouth to the dozen or so slayers working in the space. “Okay, everybody, let’s call it a night. Hit the showers and grab some dinner before you turn in for the day.” Then, once they had filtered out, he said to Alexandra, “I told you, you shouldn’t be down here. You should be upstairs, relaxing. I know you’re a badass chick, but you’re also carrying the future of our race in there, and she gets preferential treatment. Hey, Barbie?”

  He was talking to me. Of course, he was talking to me.

  I raised an eyebrow. “Yes, Buffy?”

  Caleb grimaced. “Can you help Alex back upstairs? I’m going to practice a few more forms before bed.”

  I mockingly inspected his backside. “Your forms look fine to me.”

  Caleb pointed toward the door, even as he turned away. “Help. Alex.”

  Alex put a hand on my shoulder. “No, Amy. I’m fine. The pain has passed, and I don’t want to become a burden for anyone. I’ll be fine.”

  And with that, the toughest pregnant chick I’d ever met waddled out the door.

  I tried to draw from my limited prenatal knowledge, which claimed extensive breadth on the first 15 to 30 minutes of the process and was a little vaguer on the latter parts. “Alex is huge. Shouldn’t we, you know, start making plans for the delivery? Is there some kind of special slayer OB-GYN or something? It’s like a regular birth, right? Or do you guys have tentacles or something that fall off when you get older?”

  “Yeah, like fifty of them. I still have one.” Caleb worked his body through a series of blocks and jabs. “Markus has asked the hoods if they have a midwife on retainer, one familiar with supe birth. Turns out, their staff physician serves that role. She’ll make herself available when the time comes, if we’re still here.”

  I wasn’t a werewolf; I didn’t have hackles. Still, I felt mine rise. “What do you mean, if we’re still here? I thought the slayers accepted the contract, that we were staying.”

  “They did, but you see what they’re like,” Caleb said, turning to me, his bare chest so very glisten-y. “The men can’t even conjure solaria, and the women don’t know how to use them properly. None of them has any weapons or combat training. They’re not ready to take on a clutch of vamps with centuries of strength and experience behind them.”

  “You guys literally make liquid sun. How hard can it be to hurl it at something?”

  “Oh, ye of little...” His eyes went to my chest. “Well, not those.”

  “Ha ha, a tits joke. I never heard one of those before. Now answer my question.”

  Caleb picked up a towel and dotted it against his forehead. “Fine. It’s like this: a solarium only has a ground life of three to five seconds, and vampires are quick enough to dodge out of the way if the assault isn’t made close enough. They’ll have to know how to strike hard and run fast before we encounter them. And if the Ravens come here first...” Caleb swallowed. “Then they’ll be hardly more able to defend themselves than you are.”

  Heat flooded my face. “No thanks to you.”

  “No thanks to me?” Caleb threw the towel against the wall. “I’m sorry, Barbie, but did I miss the part of orientation where you were my responsibility?”

  “You told Geri you’d help me learn how to fight.” I crossed my arms over my chest. Not to push up my cleavage, but que sera sera.

  “Geri isn’t my boss. And since she broke up with me, she’s not really my anything. I’m being nice because the welfare of my people needs me to be and because we’re both after the destruction of the Ravens, but you can bet I’m skipping town the second that’s no longer true. Besides, Geri already taught you basic self-defense, and that’s about all you’re going to master as a huey that will stand any chance.”

  I took two steps forward; Caleb eyeballed my advance with some sort of malicious glee. “So you’re saying if I kick you in the balls, it will hurt just as bad as it would a human male?”

  “Of course, the anatomy is the same. We just—”

  Thwack!

  “What the fa— Owwww...”

  There are times in life when you wish you could just roll back your memories and frame a picture. Seeing smug, self-important, cocky Caleb double over would have gone up on my fireplace mantle, if I lived to have my own place again.

  “Why did—” A terrible wheezing noise. “—did you—” A delicious cough. “—do that?”

  I bent at the waist, bringing myself eye-to-eye with him. “I was trying to see if you were right. Guess you were. All I have to do is kick a vamp in the nutsack and I can run away screaming. Oh, unless he’s smoke!” I shot to my feet. “Then what the hell do I do?”

  Caleb shook his head, braced his knees for support. “I wasn’t...” Hack. “Damn that was hard.”

  “That’s what she said.”

  What? I couldn’t help it. He left that window too wide open not to crawl through. Even though I very much wanted Caleb to choke on his own tongue for treating me like some defective teacup that couldn’t hold a cuppa, part of me lightened when he grinned at the joke.

  Gasping, he righted himself. His recovery time was miraculous. Next time, I might want to kick him twice. “I suggest you do the same thing you do with men: date them. That sure seems to get rid of them fast enough.”

  “Oh, and here comes the sequel.”

  But before my hand could connect with his cheek, he’d fetched the assault form the air, holding my arm in place.

  “Amy...” So he did know my name. “Can I tell you a little secret?”

  “A supe with secrets? How novel.”

  A momentary flicker of his customary annoyance, but it faded in a blink. “I wish I could teach you, but some things vamps do a huey could never counter. Smoke, for example. A slayer can push it away with solarium blast, but since you can’t summon those—”

  My confidence dripped to the floor, taking my righteous posture and the tension in my arm along with it. I dropped the attack and turned to leave. “No, I guess not. Sorry I kicked you in the balls.”

  “Amy, wait—”

  No sooner had I turned to leave than he was before me.

  “Not that I enjoyed having my testicles against the back of my teeth, but I guess I deserved it a little. I haven’t been very nice to you lately, or like, ever.”

  “No, you haven’t, and I don’t get why.” I spun on my heel. “Even when I thought Geri was crazy for not hooking up with Tobias—before I understood why, I mean—and she was dating you, I was telling her to put her big girl panties on so you could take them off. It wasn’t like I was trying to undermine you or anything.”

  He buried a laugh into his chest. “Geri’s right. You don’t have a filter.”

  “And... you’re right back to insulting me in the blink of an eye. So, bye.”

  “Shit, no, I wasn’t insulting you.”

  This time, instead of rounding me, the bastard tugged me back by the arm. I was two seconds from a second attempt at a ball-drop chaser when his words alone stopped me.

  “You’ve already mastered your weapon.”

  My hand paused at my side. “What weapon?”

  “This.” He motioned vaguely to my body. My whole body, from top to toe. “This façade you’ve got where people believe this is all you are: a materialistic, man-eating, dumb blonde. But really, it’s like your shield. It keeps back the danger until you gauge your enemy, find all his weaknesses, and exploit them. And that honesty you have? That’s your sword. No, it isn’t going to overpower a pair of fangs, but a warrior learns to choose his battlefield. Yours is interaction, relationships, and I’m willing to bet you’re undefeated there, aren’t you?”

  Only when my lungs cried out for air did I realize I’d s
topped breathing. What the fuck? What the actual fuck?

  “If you mean, did anyone ever break up with me instead of the other way around, then the answer to that is a brilliantly red hell no.”

  He crossed his arms, examining me like I was a piece of art in which he’d just found a heretofore unnoticed brush stroke, framing the muscles of his chest. Caleb had, like, one percent body fat, but damn, it didn’t make him look bad.

  “It’s because all you’ve done so far is sparring,” he said. “Practice runs with opponents you knew you’d best. But be advised, Amy Popowitz, you’re working up to something, I know it. You’re going to find a worthy adversary someday, one who’s going to hit you blow for blow, one who’s going to pin you to the mat and get a few blows in before you even realize what happened. And you know what?”

  His arms fell to his sides and my jaw went to the floor as Caleb stepped in closer. The no-man’s land between us suddenly became a one-man land. One man who was crazy hot. And half-naked.

  And touching me.

  The slayer’s heated breath parted my lips, the angle of his head tilt demanded me to reciprocate.

  I managed to lick my bottom lip. “What?”

  An inch, a half an inch, a quarter of an inch. My eyes closed...

  And reopened to him, six feet away and laughing.

  “Oh, come on, Barbie!” Caleb struggled not to double over. “Did you really think I was going to kiss you? I’m still nursing my broken heart here.”

  Oh, he so didn’t want to try to out-burn me. “Actually, when I passed your room yesterday, I heard you nursing something else. Pretty sure it wasn’t your heart.”

  I hadn’t, but by the way that smile fled his face told me I’d stumbled on to the fact by dumb luck. Might as well play it for all it was worth. “Which is odd, because aren’t you sharing a room with Mikael and Ezekiel? Or were they watching?”

  “They were asleep, and I haven’t... You shouldn’t have...” Red as the dawn, his wide cheeks burned. “If you tell anyone...”

  I put up my hand to end his suffering. “Chillax, Buffy. My lips are sealed.”