by Jamie Ott
Chapter 4
The next day, the staff was confused by Nia’s sudden disappearance from a shift. But they didn’t discover anything on the security cameras because Starr managed to tamper them before locking her own self in for the night. Not that they didn’t figure out that the cameras had been messed with, which was why the jail was now on security lockdown.
Everyone was stuck in their rooms for a few weeks. When they were finally allowed to make phone calls, Starr got in touch with Blakely.
“Why is it that I’m still taking orders from you? If you need blood bars get them yourself; if you owe someone a favor, take care of it yourself.”
“Marla and Shane have gone missing. As long as I have to deal with Council business, then I’m not really quit, am I?”
He sighed.
“Now, I want those blood bars delivered immediately. I want regular updates on your search for Marla and Shane. Last, make sure Nia’s kids are safe and taken care of. I owe her; this was my fault. Please do these things. Don’t make me have to get reinstated.”
Blakely acquiesced, thankfully. The last thing she wanted was to have to use authority over him. She just wanted to find her friends and be on her way. She’d come to love being in jail, but lately, it was turning into the same old life back at the Council.
Jana glared at her from across the room, that afternoon over lunch. In her eyes, she didn’t see embarrassment for her lies, but rather scathing anger.
“If looks could kill,” said Morenia, and then she took a bite of her pasta.
“It’s crazy that she’s mad at me. I mean, she’s the one who got herself in here. I don’t know her, and I don’t owe her anything. She lied to me!”
“She has a misplaced sense of entitlement, or rather, an ego problem as my Grandmother would call it.”
While everyone went off to work out or exercise, Starr sat in the lounge and read her tablet.
Later that afternoon, Mikaela called her into the meeting room. Two men in suits were already there. One had a red tie, and the other held a tablet and stylus pen.
Mikaela left, closing the door behind her.
“Who are you?” asked Starr.
“I’m Scott; this is my associate, Will,” he said, indicating the man with the tablet. “We’re lawyers who have been hired to escort you off the premises.”
He handed her a business card with his name and law firm on it.
“Any paperwork?”
Scott opened his file folder and pulled out some documents.
“Basically, the judge has approved an early release for you.”
“I don’t understand why.”
“A friend has helped you out.”
“Why?”
“That’s between you two. As soon as you’re discharged, we’ll take you to him – the person who has helped you out.”
But Starr wasn’t fooled or intrigued. She knew he spoke of Peter, most likely.
“No thanks,” she said and slid the papers back across the table. “Tell ‘him’ I don’t just accept debt from strangers.”
“Debt? It’s a gift; a favor.”
“If there’s a catch, then it’s a debt, not a favor. Why would I need either? I’m only here for a few more weeks. Have a good day.”
Her chair scratched the floor as she scooted out, got up and left.
Back in the commons room, Mikaela exclaimed, “Hey, you get to go home! I bet you’re happy.”
“No, I’m staying.”
Mikaela looked at her as if she were crazy. “Starr, you can’t stay. If you’re approved to leave early, it might as well be an order. You must go now. The staff is preparing for your release.”
Starr felt bad about leaving without saying goodbye to Morenia. She wrote her a note and included her email address, phone number and promised to be in touch later.
Instead of happy, she was real disappointed as she said her goodbyes to her jail mates and walked the long bright hall out to the back parking lot.
She stood on the sidewalk and looked around. It was going to be a long walk for her because she didn’t think a cab would come out that far to pick her up. Everyone else she knew lived too far away.
From the right side of the lot, she sensed that they were there, parked in a dark Lincoln. She didn’t want to deal with them.
Starr contemplated taking to the sky.
Peter opened the door and said, “You might as well get in. You can’t fly on a day like today; it’s too clear. You’ll be seen.”
She looked away and was about to take off walking.
“Come on,” he begged. “Give us just a few minutes of your time. It’s the least you could do. After all, I got you out of jail and finished funding the first part of construction for your castle.”
Starr looked at him, trying to sense if he told the truth. Against her desire, she got into the car.
Dylan was inside, looking smug. He stared at her, unblinkingly.
She turned in her seat and asked the driver, “Can you take me to the Regal Hyatt in Sighisoara?”
“Haven’t got a place yet?” asked Dylan.
Starr, unsure if he was trying to provoke her, looked at him and said, “How about I kill you and take yours?”
His jaw tightened. “I didn’t mean anything by it…”
“Okay,” she cut him off. “What do you guys want?”
“As you know, people have gone missing in my city. And yes, most of them are human, though there were a few vampires. My sister, who doesn’t know about my condition, has also gone missing. She was three months pregnant and her husband is out of his mind. Like you suggested last time we met, I went to the Council for help, but the response was general. I started doing research on my own. I learned that these disappearances have been happening in many cities, but it all started in Thailand, some years ago. I know that you know the head magistrate of that territory, Anchali. I’ve already tried to see her, but they won’t let me anywhere near her. So I’m here to ask you to help me. If I don’t find my sister, it’ll break my mother’s heart.”
“I keep telling you that I have no authority anymore. The only reason Anchali would talk to me was because I was with the Council. Now that I’m solo, do you think she’d listen to me? Where are we going?”
They were on the road to out of town.
“To your destruction,” said Dylan.
Starr, who was also pyrokinetic, almost lit him in his seat. He yelped as his skin warmed and turned red.
“He meant to your castle,” Peter told her. “Calm down. I don’t think I’ve ever met a vampire quite like you before. You’re different somehow, just like the rumors say.”
What Peter and the rumors likely referred to was how she’d been touched by her soul, some years ago in her war against the old vampire queen. Ever since, she’d become more feeling, and more specifically, short tempered.
Twenty minutes later, they turned onto the road that led to her father’s property. She saw the foundation had been completely laid and the walls of the first floor had been raised. Construction workers were all about the place, hammering and digging. A small group on the other side of the property hovered over pipes, looking at plumbing plans.
Starr couldn’t help but raise her eyebrows. Quite a bit of work had been done in a short time.
“Why do you call yourselves Miscoptus?”
“It’s a nod to our people and religion, only we are non believers,” Peter answered.
“Are you Satanists?”
“No, though I understand why you’d think that: the name kind of implies it. Again, we’re nothing more than a social club. We meet and greet, and drink and hang around. We’re all still fairly young, so we’re only out to have a bit of fun. We don’t have delusions about our own grandness, and we’re happy with the world the way it is.”
“That still doesn’t explain the high rate of conversion. Turning people en masse is unethical, not to mention dangerous. You risk not only exposure, but also cr
eating a population that will need policing. What would you do if they get out of control and try to take over the world?”
“We, ourselves, have not turned anyone,” Dylan interrupted. “We don’t know who’s spreading the vampire virus, but we swear it isn’t us. Yes, it is someone in the city, which is why we’ve promised to fully cooperate with the Council, if they wish to investigate.”
Starr hoped for their sakes that they told the truth. When vampires were turned in large numbers and groups, many of them were targets for extermination by the Council. Although she supported the extermination act of 1507, she and many others dreaded it. Many who could have had normal lives, and who didn’t deserve to die, would perish.
Despite feelings on the matter, the extermination act was necessary because, as she’d experienced a decade before, some people went crazy after being turned. Their egos inflated and suddenly, they’d think they could and would own the world; they’d take what they wanted and kill whomever they disliked. Such behavior would lead to humans discovering that vampires existed; discovering vampires’ existence would surely lead to war.
Too many vampires in the world would love to herd humans like cattle. And if humans got the upper hand against vampires, they’d become scientific experiments. Even if vampires learned to live without hunting humans, both groups would fight forever, never winning or losing, for vampires need humans and humans would never fully dispose of vampirism.
Starr felt the world was better as it was now. Some vampire revolutionists called her small minded, and without the will to change or to envision a brighter, better future. Starr didn’t care; if the world worked, then why rock it?
Besides, she’d had enough chaos to last a lifetime. Finally, she understood why the Primordials and older vampires went to rest – into unconsciousness. She was beginning to feel like she needed a nap herself, and she was only in her late twenties.
Being alive in a supernatural world was nothing but problematic, and always on a world balancing scale. Someone’s life or lives were always at stake, and Starr, being the new vampire queen, was always supposed to act passionately on these matters.
How many times had she said it before? All she really wanted was to be left alone.
Secrets