Kaitlin's Tale

by Christine Amsden

  Matthew wanted to believe that Scott was joking. Unfortunately his thoughts were coming through loud and clear right now. He was serious. He wanted Matthew to play spy in a deadly serious game. Matthew wasn’t even a combat sorcerer, and he knew very few spells that would be of use in a confrontation.

  “You’re confusing me with Evan,” Matthew said.

  “No, I’m not. Do you think brute force is going to get you into an underground fortress with thousands of sorcerers living within it? No one’s that strong. Not Evan. Not me. Not my wolves. Not every single person you’ve recruited to the White Guard. If you’re going to do this, it’s got to be subtle. What did you say your specialty was?”

  Matthew didn’t reply.

  “Alexander has issued you several invitations to visit his headquarters over the last year, hasn’t he?” Scott asked, knowing the answer.

  “Not lately, but yes.”

  “Well?”

  “I appreciate your opinion.” Matthew drew in a deep breath. “Why don’t you go home to your mate? You’re clearly eager to get back to her.”

  Scott stood. “It wouldn’t hurt anyone’s opinion of you if you got married,” Scott said as he slid open the balcony door. “Or at least, it would help Evan. I don’t care.”

  Matthew let Scott show himself out while he sat on the back porch, continuing to stare into the sunset. Well, he’d asked. Never ask a question if you’re not ready to hear the answer was another one of his father’s truths. He’d asked Scott because of the man’s intuition, and now he had his answer.

  Chapter 8

  THE FIRST TIME HIDEYUKI BROUGHT KAITLIN’S son in to see her, Jay hugged her so tightly that he broke two of her ribs. And Kaitlin barely noticed. She was so relieved, so happy, so overcome to see him that she wept. Fat tears spilled onto the fuzz atop Jay’s head that still hadn’t decided if it was going to be blond or brown.

  “Sorry about that,” Hideyuki said as he drew Jay safely away. “Maybe it was too soon to unbind his gift.”

  Only then did Kaitlin notice the pain. She winced on her next inhale. “Doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter. I just want to know he’ll be okay. Will he?”

  Hideyuki didn’t meet her eyes, and she recalled him telling her not to trust the hunters. What had he meant? And would he finish telling her the truth?

  But no matter how hard she tried, both on that and subsequent visits, Hideyuki barely spoke. He tended to use single words when he could, single sentences when he couldn’t, and he only spoke when absolutely necessary.

  Kaitlin spent a week in that hospital room, in that bed, recovering from severe blood loss and the weakness that the healing itself had created. The broken ribs probably added an extra day or two as well, but no one said so outright. It was a dreary time, with little to do except watch TV and read whatever she could convince the healers to bring her. Mostly, they brought her old issues of The Wizarding Word to “help you acclimate to your new home.”

  Only the arrival of Jay, for an hour or so every afternoon, broke the dreariness of the hospital room. As soon as the door opened, Jay would rush in, jump onto her bed, and throw himself into her arms. It only lasted five minutes – not as long as she liked but a bit too long for the squirming child – but for now it was all the joy in her world. This was why she was here, thousands of miles from everyone she knew and loved. For herself, she would probably take the risk and go home, but not for him.

  Kaitlin read to Jay while he played with some trucks he’d brought along. Then she sang to him, making him smile, though he didn’t sing along. He didn’t even talk – yet another thing to worry about.

  Hideyuki stood outside in the hallway during most of their visiting hour each afternoon, but on the last day the door opened early. Only it wasn’t Hideyuki on the other side. Kaitlin saw a middle-aged woman with chin-length platinum blonde hair and a warm, friendly smile. The woman held out her hand to Kaitlin, who sat on the only chair in the room.

  “I’m Aileen Rose, one of the empathic healers on staff here. Do you mind if we chat for a few minutes?”

  Kaitlin took the offered hand a little warily, but she nodded. She stood and moved to sit on the rumpled bed, giving Aileen access to the chair.

  Jay crossed to his mother and clung to her leg. Kaitlin rubbed his head unconsciously, her attention fixed on this intruder into their time. And what was an empathic healer anyway?

  “I didn’t mean to intrude,” Aileen said, still smiling warmly. “But you’re being released tomorrow morning and they wanted me to have a word with you first.”

  “I am?” Kaitlin hadn’t heard, although she was starting to get antsy here. Even her broken ribs had mended, thanks to some kind of accelerated healing magic.

  “They needed to make sure all the vampire venom had been flushed out of your system before they could let you go,” Aileen told her. “As long as that remained in your system, you could have turned.”

  “I know. They told me.” Kaitlin shuddered at the thought.

  “I see you understand. That’s good. But what I’m here to talk to you about is your future in the Magical Underground.”

  Kaitlin had been wondering about that herself so she sat up straighter and nodded.

  “I’m told you have no magic or gifts at all. Is that correct?”

  “Yes,” Kaitlin said, feeling suddenly like a cripple. The flash of feeling gave her a brief glimpse into how Cassie must have felt all these years, but she pushed it aside.

  “That’s okay. We do have some people in the compound with limited or no magic at their disposal. We can’t get back the magic for everyone who’s been emptied, and sometimes it’s not safe to send them out into the world. But there are always jobs that need doing. I understand you have experience waitressing?”

  “Yes,” Kaitlin said hollowly. She did not like the direction this was going.

  “Then we’ll put you to work in the kitchen. I think they need someone to work the food cart, delivering meals around the compound.” Aileen stared at Kaitlin for a moment, her smile faltering somewhat. “It’s not exciting work, but it will give you a chance to meet almost everyone here, which is nice. May help you make new friends.”

  Kaitlin’s stomach churned at the idea of meeting new friends. She liked her old friends, but she wasn’t likely to see them again anytime soon. She hadn’t been able to get in touch with Cassie since coming here. What must she be thinking?

  “You don’t seem happy about that idea,” Aileen said gently. “Can you tell me why?”

  “What is an empathic healer?” Kaitlin blurted.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I should have said. Most of the people around here already know. An empath is someone who can feel another person’s emotions. We often internalize them, especially if they’re strong or persistent. An empathic healer is someone who uses that gift to help people through their troubles.”

  “Like a psychologist?” Kaitlin asked.

  Aileen pursed her lips. “Not exactly. But I suppose the analogy is as close as you’re likely to get in the mundane world.”

  “So you can tell what I’m feeling right now?” Kaitlin asked.

  “Anxious. Afraid. Depressed. There’s some self-loathing mixed in there too.”

  It could have been a lucky guess, Kaitlin supposed. It wasn’t hard to imagine how someone who had just run away from the two most wanted vampires in the world in order to save a son who had only been in danger because of her stupidity in the first place might feel. But Kaitlin didn’t think it was a lucky guess. She believed Aileen, partly because the woman had no reason to lie and partly because she had seen glimpses of what magic could do. She supposed she was about to experience a lot more of it now that she would be living here for the foreseeable future.

  At least until I can figure something else out. I don’t want Jay to become a hun
ter.

  “I can help you work through your feelings,” Aileen said, her voice still gentle. Almost annoyingly so. “It’s one of the things I do here. No one blames you for feeling depressed right now. It’s only natural.”

  “Was it only natural to run away with a vampire in the first place?” Kaitlin asked bitterly.

  “I don’t know. How were you feeling at the time?”

  “Empathy doesn’t work back through time, huh?”

  “Not that I’m aware of. But we’re always meeting people with strange new gifts. So you never know. In the meantime, I’ll have to rely on your memories. How were you feeling?”

  Kaitlin thought back to the day Jason had made his offer. She’d been sickened, actually. Revolted by the thought. But also... so desperately lonely. She’d felt that way before the baby was born, but afterward it became a weight that wouldn’t stop pressing down on her, no matter how many times Cassie, Madison, her mother, and even Jason’s mother came to call.

  “Postpartum depression, perhaps?” Aileen suggested.

  Kaitlin’s mouth hung open for a second. She hadn’t thought about it in those terms, but maybe... or maybe she was trying to foist off blame.

  “I don’t know if I’m ready to talk about this.” And when she was ready, she didn’t know if she could bring herself to talk to Aileen. There was an air of something almost too sweet about the woman.

  “Fair enough.” Aileen stood. “I’ll send word to the kitchen to expect a new employee the day after tomorrow. We’ll give you tomorrow to settle into your new quarters, which have already been arranged. They’re on the fifth floor, just below us.”

  “Wait!” Kaitlin cried out suddenly.

  “What?”

  “Isn’t there anything else I could do here? Anything at all? I’m a good cook.”

  “The cooks here employ various forms of food magic.”

  “I can learn.” When Kaitlin saw no reaction from Aileen she glanced around the bare walls of the room, searching for something, anything else she might be able to offer.

  Her train of thought was momentarily broken by a soft knock on the door, followed by the entrance of Hideyuki to pick up her son. Their hour was up.

  “Hello, Yuki,” Aileen said.

  “Aileen.” He nodded. “I came for Jay.”

  “I was just leaving,” Aileen said, picking up her folder and shuffling some papers inside.

  “Maybe I could work in the daycare,” Kaitlin said, still seeking some alternative to the kitchen. “I love kids.” This was stretching the truth a bit. She loved Jay, but she hadn’t spent a lot of time around kids in her life and was wary of the ones that weren’t hers.

  Aileen seemed to sense this. “I don’t think so, Kaitlin.”

  “I could help decorate this place,” Kaitlin finally said, desperately. She gestured at the bare walls. “It could really use some help.”

  The imperturbable Aileen stood there, staring at Kaitlin, with her mouth hanging slightly open. The strange reaction made something clench in the pit of her stomach, bringing with it a strange sense of danger. Wildly, she looked to Hideyuki for support, but he was staring at her as if he had never seen her before.

  “What’s wrong with the décor?” Aileen asked. She had regained some control, but her smile was gone.

  “Too bright,” Hideyuki supplied. He gave Kaitlin a meaningful look that she didn’t have to be an empath to read. It said, Play along.

  “It is pretty gaudy,” Kaitlin agreed.

  Aileen knew she was lying. She knew Hideyuki was lying. She pursed her lips and looked at Kaitlin more thoughtfully, but when Kaitlin didn’t back down she simply shrugged and left the room.

  “What was that about?” Kaitlin asked after Aileen had gone.

  “Be careful,” Hideyuki said in that cryptic way of his. He barely ever spoke, and when he did she didn’t always understand. But Jay seemed to like him. Jay came out from behind Kaitlin’s knee and smiled at the older man with genuine affection. It made Kaitlin feel... jealous.

  “The walls are all decorated,” Hideyuki said. “They change the pictures every week, but they’re all decorated.”

  Kaitlin frowned, opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it again.

  “They’re decorated,” Hideyuki repeated. “Make sure you see them that way. And don’t trust anyone.”

  * * *

  It was official. Kaitlin had come full circle. She had run away with a vampire to escape a life as a waitress only to end up running from the vampire to resume serving food.

  And unfortunately, despite Aileen’s prediction, Kaitlin found it very hard to meet people as a trolley girl. She spent little time in the kitchen, where laughs and gossip abounded. Instead, she spent most of her days going from room to room, sorcerer to sorcerer, handing them trays with a smile and a courteous, “Here you are.”

  They made her nervous. Each and every person she delivered food to was some kind of superhuman. Someone like Evan, who had always made her nervous, even if she did think Cassie was the luckiest girl in the world to have ended up with him. Or, more likely, someone like Jason who would use her and break her heart.

  They didn’t see her, or at least, most of them didn’t. Some of the younger and, Kaitlin assumed, unattached men would give her body a blatant appraisal, but that wasn’t exactly the same thing as seeing her, was it? It was more like seeing whatever it was on the walls that Kaitlin still couldn’t perceive.

  She tried not to, but she looked at the walls every day as she wheeled her trolley down the corridors. There simply wasn’t anything there. Nothing! This place was as bare as a newly finished building, without so much as a nail hole where a picture might once have hung. It was like living “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”

  “Stop staring at the walls,” Hideyuki whispered to her once in passing. Another one of his cryptic warnings. But what was she supposed to do without more information? Hideyuki was the only person she thought she could trust, and he avoided talking to her about anything other than Jay.

  Finally, one afternoon as Kaitlin was pulling dishes out of her trolley and getting ready to leave for the day, the other trolley girl walked up to her and put out a long, thin hand.

  Kaitlin shook it, awkwardly.

  “I’m Janelle,” she said, and Kaitlin felt her eyes widen in recognition. This was the eighteen-year-old girl whose father had stolen her magic, and who, according to the article she’d read, was slowly having it returned. “I see you’ve heard of me.”

  “Yes,” Kaitlin said, pulling herself back together. “I’m Kaitlin.”

  “Nice to meet you. I was hoping you’d introduce yourself, but you haven’t so here I am.”

  “Thank you,” Kaitlin said, meaning it.

  Janelle smiled, and that’s when it struck Kaitlin that Janelle was an extremely attractive young woman. She was tall and lean, but curvy in all the right places, and her skin was the color of milk chocolate.

  Kaitlin had never had a black friend before. Or was it supposed to be African-American? She almost winced at the thought, hoping that noticing didn’t make her racist or something. It had never really struck her before, but Eagle Rock didn’t have minorities. Or at least, none that weren’t just passing through, or on TV. There were plenty here in the Magical Underground, but Kaitlin hadn’t had much opportunity to speak with them, except for Hideyuki. And she wasn’t sure she could call what he did speaking.

  “I haven’t been here much longer than you,” Janelle went on. “They helped me out after my daddy took my magic.”

  “I read about that.”

  “Yeah, word gets around. Got ‘round about you too. Hear you’re on the run from vamps.”

  “That’s me.”

  “This place is just one big gossip mill, and you’re working at Gossip Cen
tral.”

  Kaitlin smiled. Some people used to call The Main Street Cafe “Gossip Central,” and it had been fitting. She wished she were there now; if she had to serve food, it might as well be there.

  Kaitlin was about to say something when one of the dishwashers, a large black man she thought she’d heard people calling Drey, came right up to Janelle and smacked her on the butt. Kaitlin expected Janelle to slap him, but instead she giggled.

  “What’s up?” Drey asked.

  “Meeting the new girl. Kaitlin, this is Drey. Drey, Kaitlin.”

  “Hey,” Drey said, barely glancing at her.

  “Hi,” Kaitlin said. She wondered what his story was, and what he was doing in the kitchen. Most of the people working up here had little to no magic, and some were drained, but she had trouble thinking of this large, muscular man having been stripped of his magic like that. Besides, she’d never heard of magic draining happening to anyone but women.

  Or maybe it just wasn’t talked about.

  “Drey here’s an empath,” Janelle said, standing very close to the man in a blatantly flirtatious manner. “He won’t be here long, but the healers and security are fighting over him so he got shunted to the kitchen for a few weeks.”

  Another empath. Kaitlin was about to ask how many of them there were in this place when she heard someone passing behind her whisper, quite clearly, “Slut.”

  Kaitlin spun around in time to see an older woman with hair just starting to go gray slip into the freezer. But it was Kaitlin who felt the chill. Slut. She hated that word. Hated it. Hated it. Hated it.

  You’re a slut just like your mom.

  She tried to push the voice aside, but it tore at her soul.

  You know you like it.

  “Queen Beth,” Janelle said under her breath. “Don’t pay attention to her. She’s a hateful old woman.”

  “I... yeah,” Kaitlin managed.

  “Hey, do you want to come to The Watering Hole with me tonight to chill out?” Janelle asked.