by Hati Bell
There was a stretch of silence, but then Jo started talking again. “Why are you the only one with a Scottish accent?” she asked.
Kellsey understood her need to change the subject. It was easier, of course, to make small talk than to talk about a life-altering decision. “I’m the only one who grew up in Oban,” she explained. “My brothers were born in different parts of the world. They were teenagers when they moved to the Highlands.”
“They don’t look like you,” Jo said.
“No, we don’t look alike.” Although she resembled Riz the most, with her slightly-colored skin and raven hair.
Jo blinked her eyes as if a new realization hit her. “Are you a vampire too?”
“No, I’m an amazon.”
“Amazon as in female warrior, like in the myths?” Jo looked at her breasts and Kellsey grinned.
“Not all myths and legends are true. You’ve seen me half-naked before. You know my breasts are perfectly fine.”
Jo rose to her feet. “Open the door, Kells.”
The amazing thing about Jolene Wylde was that she looked like a delicate English rose, but she mentally had the strength of a tank and then some. Kellsey didn’t know what else she could say or do to convince Jo. She also knew that a choice wasn’t really a choice when you made it under duress.
She opened the door and pointedly stepped aside.
Jo wrapped her veil around one hand and with her other hand, she lifted the hem of her dress. She carefully walked out of the cell, her eyes focused on Kellsey.
When Kellsey didn’t move, Jo dashed out of the dungeon like a bat out of hell.
Kellsey’s shoulders dropped. She couldn’t blame Jo for taking off. She followed her up the stairs and stopped when she saw Leroy sitting at the kitchen table, eating.
His fork pointed to the front door. “Runaway bride ran that way.”
Fortunately, Jo had fled through the cemetery and not along Krik’s bay. Kellsey’s Kraken had a ‘eat the human who runs past you’ policy. On foot, it would take Jo an hour before she’d encounter another living soul. Kellsey doubted if Jo would breathe a thing to anyone, but even if she did, no one would believe her. She’d end up in a real asylum for sure.
Leroy got up and took her in his arms. “You okay?”
“No,” she replied honestly and she buried her head in his neck. “She came here for help, Lee. Of all the people she knows, she chose me to turn to and I failed her. I don’t even know where she’s going. I doubt if she knows herself. Jo doesn’t have a big family to fall back on like I do. She’s an only child and her father is the type who will only help her if it benefits him. I don’t know how I can protect her.”
He pulled her outside. “Come on. Let’s get my car.”
“Get your car?” she asked absently, as they followed the path to the graveyard that Jo had taken.
“To take her to her hideaway place,” Leroy said.
She threw her arms around his neck and gave him a sizzling kiss. It felt good to know that she could count on his support.
They stopped when they reached the top of the hill. From here she could see Jo’s white figure running. Her veil fluttered around her like ghostly wings in the night.
“I’m not sure if she’ll step into a car with me right now,” she said.
Jo made it to the cemetery before she stopped and sank to her knees in the grass.
Strong arms wrapped around Kellsey in silent support. She leaned against Leroy, grateful for the support. “I should’ve convinced her,” she said. “She’s afraid of my family. I could’ve told her stories about us. About how family isn’t always made of blood ties.”
They stayed like that for a few minutes, until Jo got up and walked back towards the Asylum. Kellsey grabbed Leroy’s hand and they returned home where they sat in the kitchen.
It took her a while, but Jolene finally walked in. She’d lost her veil and her dress was torn and dirtied, yet she sat in a kitchen chair as regal as a queen.
“Does it have to be Leviathan?” Jo asked.
Levi didn’t like to be called like that, but Kellsey decided to keep that to herself. Jo didn’t look as if she could handle much more. “No,” she said. “I could ask another dhampir. But you have to understand, that way, you won’t have any say over your life anymore. There aren’t any rules about how a dhampir should treat his disciple.” Dhampirs weren’t known for respecting the personal freedom of their disciples. “Levi, however, would leave you alone.”
“It looks like I don’t have another choice,” Jo whispered. She rubbed away her tears and produced a weak smile. “Does this mean I’m going to glisten like diamonds in the sun?”
Kellsey burst out laughing. “Gods, no. And don’t ya dare ask Levi that. He isn’t exactly known for his sense of humor.”
“So, what is he known for?” Jo asked seriously.
Despite her putting on a brave face, Kellsey could see her friend was afraid. How could she not? She had fled her own wedding and gone straight out of the frying pan into the fire. “Levi kind of comes with an instruction manual,” she explained. “The two rules about Levi Callahan that you should know are: never bet against him, because you will lose. The second is: never touch him without his permission.”
Leroy sent her an amused look when she quoted Liam.
She could’ve also told that Levi was surprisingly protective at times. However, she didn’t think Levi would appreciate that. He cherished his reputation as a ruthless loan shark.
“I only have summer clothes with me,” Jo said. “My suitcase was packed for my honeymoon to Bali.”
“I’ll get you some clothes after I’ve made you my famous mac ’n’ cheese,” Kellsey said, as she grabbed a pan. It was the ultimate comfort food. “None of us are much of a cook, so we take turns. Though I have to say that I’m the one who actually makes the effort to cook instead of ordering in.” She took some pasta and cheese from the fridge. “We used to have a cook, but she left after only one day. I think my brothers scared her off.”
“No, your pets did,” Leroy said, his voice dry. “Then your brothers.”
“You eating with, love?”
“Your famous mac ’n’ cheese? Wouldn’t miss is for the world,” Leroy said with a grin.
Jo cleared her throat and looked from Kellsey to Leroy and back. It took a second for Kellsey to get that she hadn’t introduced them to each other.
“Jo, this is my boyfriend, Leroy Leandros.” She realized that it was the first time she’d introduced him as such. It felt right.
“Nice to meet you,” Jo said and she gave him a hand.
Kellsey prepared the pasta while she told Jo about how her brothers had found her. She left out a few details. It wouldn’t do to make her friend even more anxious than she already was. Every now and then Leroy frowned at the plot holes in her story but he remained silent.
Jo clung to her every word when she told how her brothers had raised her in the Highlands, an area they didn’t know when they first arrived in Oban.
“What about your parents?” Jo asked.
“I have no idea who my parents are,” Kellsey admitted. “It may be hard to believe, but with six brothers, I never felt like there was something missing in my life. Besides, you can’t miss what you’ve never had. What I’m trying to tell you is that we’re simply a family, just like a human family. We take care of each other.” Ten minutes later she put three plates on the kitchen table. “I’ll give you some of my clothes in a minute. You can wear them until Levi buys you new ones.”
Jo’s fork fell to her plate with a clatter. “I’ll buy my own clothes.”
“Once you’re his disciple, it’s Levi’s responsibility to–” Kellsey started to explain.
“No. I said I will buy my own clothes.” It sounded final.
“How do you plan to support yourself? It’s not like you can happily skip back to work with humans again.” She’d explained to Jo that it would take over a month before she could be amon
gst humans and a century before she could walk in daylight again. “Have you ever even held a job before?”
Jo lifted her chin, a clear sign that she was going into her “as stubborn as a mule” mode. “I will find a job.”
“And I’ll help you with that,” Kellsey immediately promised. The dynamics between master and disciple clearly were a conversation for another day. “You won’t regret this, Jo. I’ll help you find your way in our world.”
All she had to do now was convince Levi that he wanted his own vampire.
18
LEROY
Leroy walked to Kellsey’s clinic after having delivered yet another bottle of blood to Qasim. The hydra poison still spread through his body and they were no step closer to finding an antidote. He feared the moment when he would die and Liam would wake with his curse. It was time to turn off his worries for a while and look for his source of joy.
Kellsey sat knee-deep in sea water. The bay of Oban was just a dot on the horizon. She was feeding two selkies. Krik made a wounded sound in the background. A tentacle was stroking Kellsey’s leg where sea foam splashed against it.
“Okay, here you go, you big baby,” she said and she threw a piece of fish to the Kraken. After a final screech, the sea monster disappeared underwater. The selkies followed him.
Leroy couldn’t fault the Kraken for fighting for her attention. He was just as bad, though he hid it better. He knew that Kellsey needed some time for herself and her clinic after they had returned from Indonesia. He’d even made the mistake of telling her that.
That was something that had earned him a hurt look. He’d then made love to her all night, so the ridiculous notion that he already regretted them had disappeared from her mind.
He stepped into the icy water, right behind her. She yelped when he pulled her up and turned her head. Their lips found each other’s and she moaned when he slipped his tongue into her mouth. Nothing felt as good in his arms as Kellsey.
With her legs wrapped around his waist, he carried her to the clinic. The old porter’s lodge threatened to fall into ruins a few years ago. When Kellsey had announced she wanted to rebuild it into a clinic, her brothers had offered to demolish it and put up a new building. Kellsey had declined. She’d wanted the old stone building to be renovated. She didn’t easily give up on something because it was old and rickety, just as she hadn’t given up on him.
He walked inside and dropped on the plush couch next to the aquarium with her on his lap.
“How did your talk with Levi go this morning?” he asked.
Kellsey pulled a face. “It took some.... convincing to get him to agree.”
“You gave him big, golden puppy eyes, didn’t you?” he guessed.
“Levi told me that he’d rather jump naked into a pit with hydras than take Jo as his disciple.”
Leroy knew that to be an understatement. No one hated his own kind more than Leviathan Callahan. There was a world of pain and rage hidden behind his expensive tailored suits.
“I even had to stoop to a real female weapon,” Kellsey said shameful. “I shed a tear.”
He breathed in her unique scent of wild cherries and kissed the top of her head. At least, Jo didn’t have to be afraid that Levi would use her as a sex slave, like some dhampirs did. As far as he knew Levi only fucked humans. Not that anybody had an idea what was exactly going down with them. He erased their memory afterwards. The dhampir was extremely discreet and adamant about his privacy.
“When is he going to turn her into a vampire?” he asked.
“As we speak,” she whispered.
He felt her internal conflict. “She made the right choice,” he reassured her.
“Ya think?”
“Yeah.”
She sighed. “I just hope she won’t regret it. I’m the one who convinced her. Which wasn’t an easy feat, by the way. I talked about the future after telling her about my own past. Did you know that my brothers found me in a garbage dump? It was the happiest day of their lives,” she said proudly. “They were discussing whether or not they should just leave me there, when Kuno transformed into a man for the first time. It was also the first time that Levi voluntarily touched another living being. According to Riz, however, above all, it was the moment that we became a family.”
“I had no idea,” Leroy admitted. The past of the Callahans was shrouded in fog and mystery. However, he always knew that it had to be a special story. That many different mythos normally couldn’t live under the same roof without starting a small war.
“Nobody does,” she told him. “We kind of keep our story to ourselves.”
The thought of someone leaving Kellsey on a dump made his lion growl. “Good thing you were found by your brothers instead of by humans. A golden-eyed baby would have caused a stir and you would’ve ended up in some government lab being prodded and poked.”
“Oh, I couldn’t have been found by humans. The dump was in another dimension.”
“Another dimension?”
“Aye, in the Chaos dimension,” she said absently and his body went cold. It felt like a frost giant had injected him with ice water. “My brothers came to Earth through the portal in the backyard of the Asylum. None of them had ever been to Oban before. They named me after a name on a tombstone in the cemetery next to it. Kellsey Callahan. They decided to adopt the same last name to make it clear that we are family.”
Leroy got up abruptly and dropped Kellsey on the couch. “I have to go see Riz. Speak to you later.” He pressed a rough kiss to her mouth and hurried off.
***
Don’t let it be true. Please don’t let it be true. That was the only thing that echoed through his mind as he ran down the stairs leading to the dungeons. Fuck. It was the only explanation for why Riz would be looking for Hades’ helmet. Only the ancients, like himself, knew what dwelt in the Chaos dimension: the worst of the worst. It also explained why Neptune had detected and wanted her light. Kellsey possessed something that was fuel for gods. Riz had some explaining to do.
He found Kartal and Qasim in the basement, shooting pool.
“Do I have to remind you of Phoebe the frost giantess again?” Kartal asked. “You know, when she almost froze your dick off while she had you in her–”
“That was an accident,” Qasim said indignant.
“Sure, sure,” Kartal said while placing the balls in the rack.
“My worst date doesn’t even come close to your fuck-up with Medea,” Qasim claimed. “At least my dates have never tried to sell me as a sex slave.”
Kartal snorted. “That was a misunderstanding, man.”
Qasim’s eyes narrowed. “Three words: Bolrock the troll.”
“Hey, that troll told me his name was Belinda! And I’d been drinking gallons of firewater. My eyes were fuzzy, so I missed the Adam’s apple.”
“I don’t want to interrupt your bromance, but I’m looking for Riz,” Leroy interrupted the duo. He could easily come up with a few worse dates of Kartal, but the burning feeling in his gut threatened to overwhelm him.
Kartal’s head pointed towards the door leading to the dungeons. “He’s entertaining himself with a nest of vampires.”
“In the pocket,” Qasim said, and he shot the ball perfectly in the corner.
“Fuck,” Kartal cursed. “Sometimes I hate your brain that just calculates all angles and axes. I don’t even know why I still shoot pool with you.”
“Because you’re avoiding Griselda,” Qasim said pointedly.
Leroy walked past them and opened the door to the dungeons.
“You sure you wanna go in there?” Kartal asked. “It looks like a parade of tortured hedgehogs in there.”
“Riz and Levi are just pissed off because they haven’t been able to find Spike yet,” Qasim said. “In the meanwhile, they’re enjoying themselves with what’s left of his nest.”
Leroy barely listened to them. He walked down the stairs to the shadowy dungeons. The scene was just as Kartal had described. In a c
orner lay the broken bodies of a dozen vampires. Their bloodshot eyes, the first sign of blood deficiency, stared deathlike to the ceiling. Two more vampires were chained to the wall. One of them was a female baby vampire, not even a year old. Her eyes shot hungrily toward Levi, who stood before her. She was clearly past her feeding time. The other vampire was a hulking blond.
“Tell me what I want to know and I’ll put an end to your suffering, blood bag. Where is Spike?” Riz sounded cool and collected, as always.
“Lestat. My name is Lestat, not ‘blood bag,’” the vampire hissed.
“Lestat, you say? I’ll put that on my list of things I don’t give a fuck about,” Riz snarled. “Where is Spike?”
“He went to our new master,” Lestat spat out. “When our master rises, you will all bow to him. The Blood Games were only a taste of what is yet to come.”
Leroy wasn’t surprised to hear that. A vampire like Spike, who was only a few centuries old, would never dare attack someone of Riz’s caliber unless someone was pulling his strings in the background.
Riz pushed another stake into the blond vampire’s chest, and Lestat cried out. “You keep saying that, but you still haven’t answered my question: where is Spike?”
“Our master will destroy the Asylum!” Lestat bellowed. “Oban will burn. He will salt your earth; your crops will be destroyed. The earth will tremble beneath your….”
Riz ripped Lestat’s canines out and the vampire roared in pain. “We don’t live in the Middle Ages anymore, but you continue like this and I will fucking burn you at the stake.”
Levi went to stand next to the baby vampire, far enough from her so that she couldn’t touch him, but close enough to make her swallow, longing for his blood.
“I don’t know where Spike is,” she softly said, “but I did hear the name of our new master.”
“Shut your mouth!” Lestat snarled.
