by N. R. Larry
I pressed my lips together to keep the smart ass replies inside my mouth as I picked up Bao, and then headed her way. When I entered, Ada was bent over under the sink, rustling things around. I glanced around, confused. It was like the kitchen was a part of someone else’s house. Unlike the shit mess the living room was in, the kitchen was pristine, almost as if a germaphobe lived there. I spotted a couch in the corner and laid Bao out on top of it.
Ada popped up holding a silver toolbox which she dropped on the kitchen table and then went to one of the many glass covered cabinets. Mumbling to herself, she rearranged one of many mason jars. When she found the one she wanted, she held it above her head and turned to me with a smug smile on her thin lips.
I lifted an eyebrow and was about to ask what the black glob inside was for, when she pointed at me. “You sit there and open that case. I’m gonna need your help with this one.”
Slowly, I sat down and eyed her as she went over to Bao. Handling her with the gentleness of a wild bull, she forced open her mouth and forced the black blob down her throat. I shot to my feet, but it was too late. “What did you do to her?” I demanded as I crossed the room.
Bao’s eyes shot open and she shivered like a biting cold was passing through her body. After a few tense seconds, she sighed, and then flopped back down on the couch, knocked out.
I pushed past Ada. “Bao?” Placing a hand on her forehead, I glared up at Ada. “What the hell?”
She hobbled back to the table. “Relax, Hex. The girl will be fine. That’ll keep her sedated until I’m ready to examine her.”
I shook my head as I joined her. “Examine her? What did you give her?”
She snatched open her tool box. “Valerian resin.” Without looking up, she started to arrange several tools on the surface in between of us. “Strong enough to make even the deadliest beasts sleep.” She hacked and handed me a thick, plastic tourniquet. Then, she held her arm out toward me.
My gaze went from her arm, to the instruments on the table, and my blood went cold. There were several scary ass tools laid out, including a medical grade scalpel and a bone saw. This bitch was serious about cutting her arm off.
I swallowed down a surge of vomit that threatened to come up as I stood. “Hell, no! Nope!”
She placed her hand on my shoulder and pushed me back down into the chair. I could have stopped her, easily, but I wasn’t about to resist one of my elders. “I don’t have time for weak stomachs around here.” She frowned. “You want help for your girl, you’ll help me.”
I sighed. “Why can’t you just go to the hospital?”
She snorted. “Hospital!” With a huff, she sat down in the chair next to me, bunched up the fabric of her housecoat into her lap, and scooted closer. “Those people don’t know nothin’ about treating supernatural shit.” Her mouth pressed into a hard line. “Sure, The Heights accepts it more than most other places, but they don’t have people willing to do what needs to be done.” She nodded to the tools lined up on the middle of the table. “Now grab that scalpel. Time is wastin’.”
I eyed the tools and then studied her stony expression. With a slight whimper, I swiped my hands down my face, trying to find some resolve. Then, something occurred to me. Something I had been too worked up to consider before. Dropping my hands, I said, “If you were bitten by a vampire, you won’t die. Why do you think you need to remove the arm?”
She gave me a look like I was a child she had to explain basic hygiene to several times. “Wasn’t no regular vamp, and I’m never wrong about these things.” She banged a fist on the table. “Now hurry up, girl!”
I blinked at her. An image of the man that fell apart in Ryland’s hands flashed across my thoughts. “Not a regular vamp?” I asked dumbly.
“Damnit!” She slapped the surface of the table and I jumped. “I need to get this done. So, stop acting special and move.”
A blur of questions whispered inside my skull. With a shaking hand, I picked up the scalpel and swallowed a phantom lump in my throat. I was really going to have to do this. I wouldn’t get anywhere with Ada Anne until I did what she wanted.
Closing my eyes, I asked, “Do you have any thick plastic?”
She nodded and pointed to the cabinet under the sink. I got up, retrieved a clear roll that was as thick as a tarp, and then arranged it on the table. Once I was finished I placed the tools back where they were. Ada then pointed to the cabinet she’d gotten the resin from. “In there on the top shelf, get that pure moonshine out.”
I sighed again and did as she asked. When I unscrewed the jar, the spirit practically stabbed me in the nostrils. I held the jar away from my face. “Whew!”
She let out a throaty laugh. “Yeah, they don’t make it like that no more.”
I dipped the scalpel in the liquid and then poured some over her arm. “This is insane.”
She snatched the jar up and took a healthy swallow. Wiping her mouth on the sleeve of her housecoat, she offered me the jar. I shook my head. “Might calm your nerves,” she said with a crooked grin.
I frowned as I used a marker to outline where the arm needed to be removed. “No, I’m good.” I picked up the scalpel and stared down at her flesh. That was when I noticed that the skin on her wrist was starting to harden. She was right, this wasn’t an ordinary vamp bite. Sucking in a deep breath, I held it and met her stern gaze. “You ready?”
“I been ready.” She sat back without removing her gaze from mine.
I gulped. “Do you want something to bite down on?”
Slowly, she shook her head.
Damn, this woman was gangsta as fuck. As I stared at that black line, I prayed for some nerves. They didn’t come. I clenched my jaw. I would just have to do this without them. I gripped the scalpel tight and rested the blade against her flesh. I realized how pliable and vulnerable she was.
And, I froze.
Several beats of silence passed. The blackish gray skin around her wrist was spreading upward, forcing me to move the line and tourniquet. But again, as soon as the metal pressed against her arm, I couldn’t move.
“Oh, Christ!” She swatted me aside, grabbed the scalpel, and then sliced into her own skin.
With a gasp, I covered my mouth with my hands and stumbled backward. Her jaw was tight, and she was shaking her head and mumbling, “We used to be made of tougher stuff. Messing around with you, I’m going to lose my whole damn arm!” She sliced into her arm again and purple blood spilled, flowering across the plastic. Pink muscles sprouted like a morbid artichoke. I stared at her in a sort of out of time disbelief. She went rigid, and the more muscle she cut away, the less color was left in her face. She swiped her hand across her forehead, leaving a bloody strip, and then went back to work, huffing and puffing.
“Jesus,” I said, reaching out and grabbing the scalpel from her. “Just try to imagine you’re somewhere else,” I added, before going to work. Blood seeped into my skin and my stomach rolled, but I swallowed any potential vomit. If this old woman had a steel enough vagina to start amputating her own arm, surely, I was woman enough to finish it for her.
Before long, I took up the handsaw and sawed back and forth until I reached the bone. Then, I used the bone saw to cleanly slice off the rest of her arm. By then, blood was splattered across the plastic and dripping onto the pristine floor. I gazed across at her as I set the saw down. “Iron?” I asked her.
Her head was slumped to the side, and I thought for a second that she had passed out. Then, she shook her head slightly, and said, “Get a blade, heat it up on the stove.”
I nodded and rushed over to the knife block on the counter. Then, I turned an eye on the stove all the way on high. Good thing everyone around here still had gas ovens. I held the metal to the flame and then turned off the stove top. Sucking in a deep breath, I crossed the room again and then pressed the red, hot blade against Ada’s bloody stump.
It wasn’t until then that she let out a howl of pain. I gritted my teeth and wanted to pull th
e blade away, but I knew I had to close off the wound. I held it there for about a minute and removed it. Without speaking, I used the rest of the supplies in her toolbox to dress and wrap the wound. Then, I brought the moonshine to her lips and picked her up. This time, she let me. I took her back into the living room and laid her on the messy couch.
She blinked up at me, all the fierceness removed from her expression. Her thin mouth opened to speak, but all she did was hack up a cough and pass out.
ADA WAS SNORING LIKE a freight train with oversized metal tonsils when I went back into the kitchen to check on Bao. She was still knocked out, but her expression was twisted into such a mask of fright, that I almost woke her up. Then, my mind flashed onto her chasing that girl down at her school and I decided against it. Instead, I poked through Ada’s cabinets, trying to figure out what she was. The woman had everything, from wormwood to dragon resin. It made my own collection of supernatural supplies look sparse, which was saying something. You’d think that Ada and I would have met before now, but she was a shut in, and from what I understood, Ryland was the only person that she spoke to on a regular basis.
My knife didn’t buzz around her, which meant that she was most likely human. I was running my fingers across her many impressive blades, when my cell rang. I reached into my back pocket, and then answered it.
As soon as the phone was against my ear, a din of screams, roars, and laughter buzzed inside my skull. I narrowed my eyes. “Ryland?”
“Yeah, I headed to your spot early. Where you at?”
I sighed and sat back down at the table. “Still at Ada’s, she fell asleep.”
“Asleep?”
“Yeah, I’m still waiting for her to wake up.”
“Ay, man! Yeah, calm down,” he interrupted, obviously talking to one of the kids. Probably Darnell. “I’ll play that shit with you in a minute!”
I grinned while the two of them argued. Finally, Ryland sighed. “Alright, you said she was asleep?”
“Yeah, should I head back? Sounds like you need to be relieved.”
There was a low growl from the other end in the phone. Then, everything in the background fell into silence. “Go outside,” Ryland whispered with little too no inflection in his voice. “Before I put you all in my drain bank.”
A shiver spider walked up my spine. I knew he wasn’t serious, but still, when he used his ‘I’m a savage killer,’ voice, it always gave me pause. I bit down the feeling and reminded myself that Ryland loved my kids well enough to not eat them.
After a few more moments, he cleared his throat. “Nah, I’m good. That’s not like her, to sleep with company over. Besides, we need answers. My people have two more bodies. I’m not putting up with too much more of this shit.”
“Shit.” A throat cleared from behind me. Taking the phone away from my ear, I turned around to find Ada Anne. She still looked pale, but the annoyed expression was once again pinching her features.
She planted her hand on a frail hip and tilted her head to the side. “Well, well, well,” she said, shuffling toward me. “I finally get to meet the badass hunter of The Heights proper like.” She paused. “Oh, yeah. You look in your upper twenties, maybe.” Her eyes narrowed. “But, you’ve got some years on you. Centuries. I see it in your eyes.”
I faltered. Ada scoffed, swallowed a bunch of pain pills, and then limped around the kitchen making tea and refusing my help. “How did you know that?” I asked in a low voice. “That I’m... Older than I look?” She finished, sat down across from me, poured two cups, and stared at me as if considering my question.
“I’m not psychic, if that’s what you’re wondering. Just regular old human that happens to attract a bunch of freaky shit.”
“Then how did you know?”
“I thought you were here about your little beastie.”
I glanced back at Bao, and then across the table at her.
Ada waved her hand through the air. “She’s fine.” She nodded at my cup and half smiled. “Go ahead and taste that tea.”
I frowned. She seemed a little too eager for me to drink, and the fact that she wasn’t drinking made me even more suspicious. After a few beats of silence, Ada snorted and laughed. Without speaking, she raised her cup to her lips and took a long sip. I lifted an eyebrow and still refused to drink.
“It’s rude to refuse tea when you’re a guest in someone’s home,” she said, leaning back in her chair.
I shrugged. “Not much of a tea person.”
She took another sip, only this time it seemed intentionally loud. “I drink at least six cups of green tea a day.” Her shoulders squared. “It’s part of the reason I’m still alive. And why I look so god damned good.”
I couldn’t’ help but smile. She was right. She practically glowed at eighty.
She put her cup down and narrowed her eyes at me. “What are you, girl?” She rested her remaining hand on the table. “I’ve never been around something quite like you.”
I licked my bottom lip as I considered what to tell her. For some reason, I didn’t want to admit that I had no idea what I was, only that I could fly, had super strength, and was invulnerable. I didn’t want to tell someone I didn’t know that I knew what I wasn’t, or that my only clue to where I came from was a golden blade with my mother’s soul trapped inside of it.
I wasn’t one to overshare.
Tilting my head, I drummed my fingernails against the dark, wooden table. “What are you?” I sniffed. “And why does Ryland think you can help me?”
This time, she shrugged. “The Heights has always been a pretty...” She gazed over my shoulder as if the words she wanted would be found somewhere in the air. “Special.”
When she didn’t continue, I cleared my throat. “Is that right?”
“People that don’t belong anywhere else tend to find themselves here,” she went on as her gaze slowly found mine again. “And they’re good people. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.”
I smiled. “Is that why you’re so social? Because the people here are so good?”
She stared at me in such a way that I had to shift around in my chair to be comfortable again. There’s nothing quite as uncomfortable as the silence that follows a failed joke. Ada took another loud sip of her tea. “I was explaining why I haven’t kicked you and your beast out of my house yet,” she finally said. “You protect The Heights. Well, at least you have been, up until now.”
I blinked. “What do you mean, up until now?”
She waved a hand in Bao’s direction. “I know you care for the beast—”
“Bao,” I corrected, jutting my chin upward. “Her name is Bao. And she isn’t a beast.” I leaned forward, ignoring the disdain in her expression and asked, “Do you know what’s happening to her?”
Her eyes narrowed. “I know what she’s making happen.”
“What does that mean?”
Ada jabbed the table top with her finger. “You’re going to have to make a choice soon, girl. Innocent lives, or this Bao you care so much about.”
Her words buzzed around in my skull like angry bees. I shook my head. “I still don’t understand what you’re saying.”
She placed her cup down on the saucer. “Sure you do, Hex. You’re not stupid.”
I blinked again.
“I’m saying that if you don’t kill your little beastie, then a lot more innocent folks in The Heights are gonna wind up dead.”
Chapter Six
Her words steamrolled me, and I felt like a flattened version of myself as I went over them again and again in my head. I rubbed my temples and finally managed to say, “You think I’m going to kill Bao?”
Without speaking, she got up to pour herself another cup of tea. “No, I think you’re as stupid as you look.” She crossed the room and sat back down at the table with me. “I think you’ll let whatever nonsense is going on continue out of some stupid notion that you need to protecting her.”
For several moments, all I could do was st
are at her. “I don’t understand.” I noticed she seemed a lot livelier. The color in her cheeks was almost back to normal, and I had to admit, that was pretty impressive for someone that just had a home arm amputation.
Ada reached into the pocket of her housecoat and pulled out a black-and- mild, a cheap cigar sold at the corner store and usually smoked by teenagers. When she lit it, the harsh, sweet scent made my eyes water. She exhaled, leaving a cloud of smoke around her head and then hacked for the next several minutes. While beating a fist against her chest, she waved her gutted arm in the air and grumbled something I couldn’t make out. Her eyes watered, and yet, when her coughing fit was over, she inhaled another lungful of smoke.
I tried not to smile. “Might be time to quit.”
“Might be time to give up being a smart ass,” she replied without missing a beat. Her eyes narrowed at me. “Now, you want to know what I know about this girl, or not?”
I was relieved that she had at least stopped referring to Bao as the beast. With a nod, I said, “That’s why I’m here.”
She inhaled another wisp of smoke, and then put it out in in an ashtray to her right. “She’s been going through changes lately,” she began in a faraway voice. “A little more aggressive? Bleeding?”
My eyelids fluttered in surprise. “Um, yes.” I sat up straighter. “How did you know that?”
She sighed. “I didn’t, it was just a guess, child. The beast is jiangshi.”
I nodded.
Ada closed her eyes and slowly got to her feet. “Well, that’s the problem, now, isn’t it?”
I followed her movement with my gaze. “Why would that be a problem?”
She stopped at one of her kitchen drawers and reached inside. “There’s a lot you don’t understand, girl.” She sighed, and turned to me, holding up a long, silver needle. “Not all blood drinkers are turned.” She nodded toward a cabinet. “Make yourself useful and fill one of them mugs up with water.”
