by Kater Cheek
Elaina watched them with a mixture of curiosity and fear. She didn’t say anything more until they left, but as soon as the door shut behind them, she tore into me with questions.
“What is going on here? Since when do you have vampire friends? Do you have any idea how dangerous they are?”
“Yeah.”
“Tell me what’s going on!”
“Fenwick and I helped them.” Oh God, Fenwick. “I don’t want to get you involved.”
“They drank blood from you, didn’t they? Goddess, you look like death warmed over. Is this what they do to their friends?”
“There were extenuating circumstances. Elaina, can I borrow your phone?” I had already picked it up from the coffee table.
“What for?”
“Please?” I was hardly able to stand. “I’ll keep it short.”
Elaina folded her arms and watched me.
I called the hospital first. St. Jude’s insisted they didn’t have anyone by the name of Alan Fenwick. I insisted they did, described him, when he went in, and the type of wound he had.
“Let me check.” The nurse who answered put me on hold for a long time. I waited impatiently, and hoped Elaina didn’t have limited minutes on her calling plan.
The woman came back on the line and said that they had a John Doe who came in that matched Fenwick’s description. She wanted more information about me, but I only had one concern.
“He isn’t going to die, is he?”
“I can’t discuss his condition over the phone.”
“Please tell me he’s alive.”
She sighed, but relented at my desperate tone. “Yes, he’s alive.”
“Thank you.”
I hung up and flipped through the white pages. Elaina snatched the phone from me. “No more calls until you tell me what’s going on. Why is your boyfriend in the hospital?”
“He got shot.”
“Shot! When did this happen? Who shot him?”
“It concerns the vampires, so I think the less you know the better.”
“The vampires shot him?”
“No, the vampires took him to the hospital. I don’t know who shot him. Quit asking so many questions. Can I please use your phone again?” I reached for the phone, but she wasn’t budging, and I felt too weak to get up off the couch.
“Who do you want to call this time?”
“I want to call Fenwick’s parents. They don’t know he’s in the hospital.”
Elaina sighed and tossed it back to me. I paused with my finger over the screen. Some girlfriend I was, I didn’t even know his parents’ first names. They lived in Newhaven though, didn’t they? There were only two Fenwick listings in Newhaven. I found two numbers. One was disconnected, and the other had voice mail. I hung up quickly.
Call me a chicken. “I can’t. I can’t leave a message.”
“Call him tomorrow.” Elaina left the room, and came back with her own quilt to cover me with. She tucked me in, put an extra pillow under my head, and gave me a glass of water to drink. I was too weak to protest.
Chapter Twenty-One
Hunger woke me, hunger so strong that even cold congealed fast food seemed like a good breakfast. Elaina was already awake—despite the fact that it was her day off—drinking herb tea and reading a paperback by the light streaming in from the window.
She wrinkled her lip as I wolfed down chilled bacon burgers. As soon as the second burger sat uneasily in my stomach, I stood up, and immediately had to sit down again, as a wave of dizziness overcame me. “Elaina, where are my shoes?”
“Under the couch.” She didn’t look up from her book.
“Thanks.” I leaned over to get them and swooned again. The world lurched and if I hadn’t caught myself with my arm, I would have done a face-plant into the coffee table.
“Hey, watch it.” Elaina veered me onto the couch. “Goddess, Kit, you look terrible. Where do you think you’re going?”
“St. Jude’s.” I pressed my palm to my forehead, trying to make the dizziness go away.
“You should have done that last night.”
“I wasn’t well enough last night.”
“You’re not much better now.”
“I have to see Fenwick. Can you hand me my shoes?”
“No, you’re not well enough yet. Besides, how do you know he’s up to receiving visitors?”
“I have to see him. I have to know he’s all right.”
Somehow, I had fallen over, and was now lying down on the couch.
“Goddess, Kit, you’re not going anywhere.”
I closed my eyes. “I have to see him,” I whispered, before falling asleep.
It was afternoon when Elaina woke me up.
“Ready to go see your boyfriend?” She shook a set of car keys in front of me. “My mom let me borrow her car.”
She didn’t have to offer twice. I dressed and showered with a minimum of swooning, though Elaina had to help me walk to the car.
Hospitals are terrible places, especially when your loved ones are patients. Elaina pushed me in a wheelchair to Fenwick’s wing, because otherwise I might not have made it. The door to his room was ajar, but I pushed it open, fearing what I would find.
Fenwick was awake and leafing through a worn copy of National Geographic.
“What are you doing here? Don’t you have work to do? Boughs to make?” Fenwick asked with a smile.
I didn’t say anything, just rushed to his side and clung to him. He held me back, and kissed the top of my head. He was here. He was holding me. He wasn’t dead. Thank God he wasn’t dead. I clung to him until my knuckles turned white, pressing my face against his chest. Thank God he wasn’t dead.
“Guess you’re glad to see me too. Kit, are you crying?” He lifted my face and touched the tears pouring down my cheeks. “Why are you crying?”
“I was so scared you were going to die. I mean, you were lying there unconscious, and there was all this blood. There was so much blood everywhere, and the vampires made me leave, and—”
“Shhh, it’s okay. I’m going to be fine.” He pulled me closer, stroking my hair.
I leaned against his chest, half draped over the side of the hospital bed. The stiff white sheets were askew enough to show the pale blue hospital gown. Those ugly things made everyone seem weak and pitiful, but the chest under me rose with strong breaths. He was alive. He was going to be okay.
“Kit, what happened to you?” He kissed the top of my head, then pulled me up to look at my face. “The last thing I remember was seeing you fall. I was afraid you’d been shot. Then I woke up in the ambulance. They wouldn’t tell me where you were.”
“I didn’t get hit at all. I just tripped.” I ran my finger along the trail of shaved hair on his head, where a neat line of stitches ran from his temple to just behind the ear. “You got shot in the head.”
“The bullet cut my scalp, but didn’t go through the bone,” he explained. “But what about you? You look sick.”
I summed up what happened. “I wanted to be here earlier, but I couldn’t walk. Elaina had to give me a ride tonight. Did someone tell your parents?”
“Yes. The hospital called them when, I guess it was you, told them who I was.”
I nodded.
“They were pretty upset, but by the time they got here a doctor had already cleaned the wound, and stitched it up. I told them we were helping some friends. I’ll tell them the truth about the Guild later. Actually, we can tell them together. My parents want you to come for dinner this Sunday. They won’t take no for an answer.” He was smiling as he said this, and rubbing his thumbs gently into my palms.
I kissed his hand and smiled at him. “Three Fenwicks against one Melbourne?”
“I took a hit for you. You owe me.” Fenwick leaned back against the mattress.
“I’m sorry about that. If I hadn’t—”
“No. No apologies.”
“But if you hadn’t—”
“No. We saved his life. That’s always some
thing worthwhile. I was just teasing about taking a hit for you. You didn’t shoot me.” Fenwick reached out and touched my face with his fingertips. “I can’t bear the thought of losing you.”
“Me neither. I worried about you so much, not knowing if you were going to die or not, and thinking it was all my fault, for introducing you to the vampires in the first place. You mean so much to me.
“I wake up in the morning and I think about where you are, and how you’re doing, how much I miss you, and when I’m going to see you again. I mean, that’s nothing new, because I always think about when I’m going to see you again, and—”
And I meant to say, ‘I love you like a brother,’ but that wasn’t true anymore.
“You love me?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yeah, I love you.”
He took my hand again, and brought it to his lips to kiss. “Does it make you nervous?”
“No, but, yeah, but…”
“But you still love Rob.”
I looked down at our hands. “I love you both, but in different ways. With Rob all I feel is the fireworks and butterflies in the stomach, but with you I went straight past that to ‘I can’t live without you.’ I feel comfortable with you. I trust you.”
“That’s the best kind.” He rubbed his thumb gently. “But we’ve had some fireworks too.”
I grinned in agreement, blushing slightly, and wished he weren’t in a hospital bed.
“Pull that chair closer,” he said. I moved the chair closer and leaned over him. He tried to sit up to meet me halfway, but I pushed him back on the bed and kissed him deeply. Fireworks again. I flung one leg over him and put my hands on his shoulders. Much better.
We were just getting into it when the door shut.
One of the vampires from the theater had entered the room. He stood by the door, wearing scrubs and holding a chart under one arm. He was almost twice as old as Palmer, though not as old as Holzhausen, and looked like he could have been my brother.
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
“No.” I quickly climbed off Fenwick’s lap, blushing. “You’re Fain, right?”
“And you are Kit Melbourne, and Alan Fenwick.” Fain lifted the chart and read it, nodding at Fenwick. “You took a gunshot wound to the head while working for us.”
Fenwick nodded, puzzlement showing on his face.
“And you,” Fain directed this comment at me. “You gave quite a lot of blood last night. I’m surprised you’re up walking around.”
“I’m not feeling great, but it was for a good cause.”
Fain nodded. “One could say you saved the life of a Guild member. That's the excuse Holzhausen gave to the Council, anyway. Knowing him, there's another reason he's not talking about.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, wondering where this was going.
Fain closed the chart and held it at his side. “The Guild Leader declared that you are allowed to become a Guild member. As a human. It’s all very unusual, but Holzhausen wants it, and Palmer has agreed to sponsor you. Congratulations.”
“That’s it? He’s made me a Guild member?” I asked. Did this mean my troubles were over? The Guild could protect me, right?
Fain smiled and shook his head. “Not yet. There are still background checks, paperwork, financial arrangements—these things take time. Holzhausen is pushing things through quickly. You might be in the Guild by the beginning of May.”
“May?” Fenwick asked. He gave me a sideways glance. May wasn’t soon enough. What if someone killed me before then?
“Of next year, even.” Fain said, misunderstanding our expressions. He made a show of looking at his watch. “I have to get to work. I’ll let you get back to your … conversation.”
Fain slipped out the door so fast that I didn’t register he had moved until the latch clicked shut.
“Let’s get back to our conversation.” Fenwick pulled me into an embrace and held me there, until the awkward posture became too difficult.
I winced.
“You okay?” He asked.
“Yeah. Kishimoto-sensei’s class on Thursday reminded me of how many days I had missed. I’m getting weak and flabby.” Was that only Thursday? It seemed a lifetime ago.
“I’m glad you’re going back again. That’s how I knew you were upset, you know, because you stopped going to the dojo.”
“I still can’t go to sparring classes for a while. My gear is stuck in my van until after Halloween on account of the curse.”
“That’s Tuesday.”
“Already?”
“Why? Aren’t your boughs done?”
“No, they’re done. Silvara got them earlier this afternoon.”
“Great then. You should be getting paid soon.”
“Yeah,” I agreed listlessly.
“What’s wrong?” He took my hand and began to rub my palm.
“I just remembered, James has something planned for me on Halloween. I’m not sure if I want to go through with it.”
“You’re a bit old for trick or treating, and you wouldn’t be upset about getting a chance to go to the Samhain festival in Ipswich Park, so which unlucky neighbor is going to get egged?”
I stood and gave him a kiss on the brow. “I have to go now. Elaina gave me a ride and she’s probably waiting impatiently outside, complaining the Vogue issues are out of date.”
“You’re not going to tell me?”
“I’ll tell you later, when it doesn’t seem so scary.” I stood with the help of the bed rails, and leaned against it for a moment, waiting for the vertigo to fade.
“You’re not going to do something dangerous without me, are you?” he said.
“No. It’s not dangerous, just spooky.” The vertigo passed, so I walked slowly to the doorway.
“Kit, wait, I almost forgot.”
I leaned against the doorframe and turned back to listen.
“Those names you asked me to investigate? I did. I found their addresses and snooped around. No luck. Lee’s a man, Francis was a woman, but she was out of town, and Olivia’s in a wheelchair.”
“What about the other name, uh …”
“Mary. I checked her out too. I couldn’t tell by smell, but I doubt she did it, she was really short and had small feet.”
“Guess Monica’s a penny loafer kind of person after all.”
“Be careful, Kit.”
“I will.” I blew him a kiss and walked out the door.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Kit? How are you feeling?” James must have been concerned, since he ignored his customer to greet me as soon as I walked into Ishmael’s.
“Better.” I pulled up a stool and sat next to the counter. “Still weak, but I managed to walk here from the bus stop.”
“How’s Fenwick?”
“Recovering. They think he’ll be okay.”
“That’s good.” James was already making me a cup of chai, ahead of three legitimate paying customers. Must have been feeling especially guilty.” Are you ready?”
No, terrified. “Sure. Where exactly are we going?”
He cleared his throat and addressed the other employee. “I’m going to clock out now. I’m going to be busy for the rest of the night, so if there are any emergencies, call Barnabus.”
The pierced, blue-haired part-timer (whose name eluded me) nodded, and went back to her conversation. James retrieved a sack and his tweed coat, double checked his pockets nervously, and led me to the door. In an uncharacteristic lack of stinginess, he had called a cab. James gave the driver an address in Bromley, the respectable and higher priced neighborhood south of Ipswich.
Normally, we’d have to pass through the park to get there, but traffic was re-routed for the Halloween festival. Through the trees, the bonfires flickered, and the distant booming of amplified speeches echoed hollowly. Even a mile away, every
lot had signs advertising pay parking. Costumed revelers chatted and walked en masse towards Seabingen’s famous festival.
&n
bsp; “We’re going to Bromley? That doesn’t seem very, I don’t know, not very Halloween-ish. Aren’t we supposed to use a gravesite? Or at the very least, a dark underground cave?” Secretly, I was pleased that we were going someplace mundane. There was something out there tonight, something in the darkness.
“She said the best place would be somewhere he had lived. I tried to get the use of his old apartment, but that area’s all gone condo now, and the woman who owns it winters over in Florida or something. Ms. Black said—”
“Ms. Black? Is that her real name?” There was a note of hysteria in my remark.
It was a night for wild things. Spirits and untamed fey glided between the trees. A gaggle of children giggled maniacally and begged for sweets. A twitching scaly tail peeked out from under one of the kids’ sheets.
“Kit, don’t be flippant. She’s an expert. I had to call in every favor I knew to get her to do this for us.”
“Why can’t you do it yourself?”
A group of grotesquely masked teenagers walked past, as the cab stopped at a streetlight. I stared, unbelieving, as the last one of the group turned and winked at me, hairy brow and twitching ear more motile than latex ever was.
“Raise the dead? I’m nowhere near witch enough. I told you.”
“But she is?” We got stuck behind a bus, and I turned to see a young woman run to catch up. She didn’t notice the eerie mist trailing behind her, nor did she flinch when dark claws nearly snatched at her hair.
“She’s an expert necromancer, and she doesn’t come cheap.”
“It hadn’t occurred to me that you had to pay people to do this sort of thing.” Pay them to raise the dead, with all these restless spirits moaning and wandering free?
“You don’t really pay them. Most witches think that you should never accept money for spells.”
“So, what are you paying her in then, sexual favors?” He was right. I was being flippant. Flippancy kept the fear at bay.
“Coffee. I told her she could have free drinks at Ishmael’s for a year. She’s a two-latte-a-day woman.”
“That’s,” I added up in my head what two lattes a day would cost in a year. “That’s very generous.”
“This is important,” he said, though he didn’t have to. His knee was shaking, tapping up and down. Stay-at-home James was going with me across town to disturb the rest of his beloved uncle.
