by T Nisbet
Chp. 7
After eating, we made our way through the huge mansion to Brianna’s room, well, suite of rooms to be more accurate. She asked Toby and I to hang out in a large, garishly decorated sitting room that held three of the largest LCD televisions I’d ever seen. Two doors led from the big pink room to other areas of her lavish suite. The light crimson washed walls of the room were adorned with autographed posters of various half dressed teenage actors and singers.
Toby and I sat down in a couple of comfortable, purple dyed, leather recliners as Brianna disappeared through a doorway with Carla and Ivy.
Toby pointed at a poster of James Dean. “How’d he get in here?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No clue. Doesn’t really fit though, does it?”
“Let’s see if there is any football on.”
Toby grabbed a high tech pad that sat on a lacquered, plum colored table and started pressing the touch screen.
“I wouldn’t mind having one of these in my house, let alone my room,” Toby said.
“Must be nice.” I offered.
“Yeah,” he agreed.
Toby managed to get the screens working, and in no time there were three different games going on all three mammoth TVs. We sat there watching, but I couldn’t concentrate on college football, even if USC was playing Notre Dame. McNally was going to escort us to the estate of a guy named Memron. We’d been dismissed before I could ask anything about this Memron guy, or where the hell his ‘estate’ was. It had to be far away though. Why would Mr. Kline offer Coach his freedom, and make him a full vampire for a task, if it were just around the corner? I felt revulsion at the thought of traveling with ‘McNutty’. The best part of the ending the football season, a win over an undefeated team or not, was knowing I wouldn’t have to be around Coach until spring ball started, and here I was, apparently about to travel with the son of a bitch.
I cursed remembering something, and motioned for Toby to mute the TV’s. It suddenly occurred to me that I probably wouldn’t be home when my parents arrived. As I said earlier, they didn’t allow me to stay out late. 10:30 was my curfew as a rule.
“I’m so frickin screwed, Toby!”
“It’ll be okay Dude, I’ll be there. Nothing is going to happen to you,” he said.
“Not this whole… thing, Tob, my parents! How long are we going to be gone? What am I going to tell them?”
“Crap! Didn’t think about that at all,” he groaned. “We are screwed!”
“We need to find out how long this is going to take and where we’re going. We have to tell them something!”
My mind was immediately awhirl with ideas that were discarded almost as quickly as they were formed. If I told them I was spending the night, or weekend at Toby’s, they would call his parent’s and thank them for their hospitality, if they allowed it at all. That was the only lie that made any kind of sense, and there was no way it was going to work. Not a chance.
“I’m drawing a blank Jake,” Toby groaned, pressing the pad and turning off the TV’s.
“Me too.”
We had been sitting in silence for quite awhile, both of us trying to think of an excuse that would possibly work, when the girls returned. Brianna came in first, dropping a stuffed Louis Vinton duffle bag on the floor. Carla and Ivy followed her. Carla and Ivy had both changed clothing. I did a double take, embarrassed, but unable not to gawk. Worries about my parents vanished.
Ivy was wearing a pair of designer blue jeans and a snug, light blue tee shirt that Brianna had obviously lent her. Gone were the crazy, bag-like bohemian clothes she had been wearing, that she always wore. Her new jeans and tee shirt unveiled an incredible figure that was beautiful and amazingly shapely. Her legs were long and muscular, her waist was thin, and her chest, well, it was during this part of the examination that I managed to avert my eyes, and blushed furiously. I stared at my shoes trying, to calm my suddenly racing pulse.
Brianna giggled and sat on the floor between Toby and I. I heard Carla laugh, and Toby fake a groan as she landed in his lap on the recliner next to me. I kept staring at my shoes trying to compose myself.
“We have about ten minutes to get to the observatory,” giggled Brianna.
I went through my panic attack breathing routine, trying to calm myself, and pretend none of the girls had noticed me staring at Ivy. As I breathed, I felt the flush fading from my face. I never had panic attacks on the field, no matter how stressful the situation became. I never had them during any sports. Off the field had been another matter.
Over a year ago my parents had taken me to the doctor to find out what was going on with my occasionally elevated heart rate and claustrophobia. He had done all sorts of tests and found nothing wrong, so they took me to a psychologist, who ran more tests. When all the tests results came in she explained to my parents and I, that what I was experiencing were anxiety attacks, sometimes referred to as panic attacks. She called it a “fight or flight” response, affecting the parasympathetic nervous system. Apparently, most people get them because of a physical problem or an irrational fear of death. I was perfectly healthy, and I never felt like I was going to die. I didn’t really fear death, no more than anybody else does.
There were ‘triggers’ she called them, that set off the “fight or flight” response in a person’s body. It could be an irregular heartbeat, like the occasional skipped beat that everyone gets now and then, but most people don’t notice, or any one of a million other things.
I worked with a therapist for a few weeks and learned that my “triggers” revolved around intimate situations. Because I didn’t like being the center of attention, fear of that attention could start an attack. She taught me to be aware of how I was feeling, the warning signs that preceded an attack, and to how to control them through breathing exercises. Clammy hands, shallow breathing, rapid heartbeat and flushed face were my warning signs. Unfortunately for me, those were the same feelings most guys felt around a girl they liked, great huh? I solved the problem by avoiding girls. I wanted to date; I just didn’t want to suffer an attack.
“Thanks again for letting us borrow the clothes,” Carla said.
“They look good on you. On both of you! Who would have known Ivy had such an unbelievable body!” giggled Brianna, elbowing me in the calf from where she sat.
Great! They had noticed. I could feel the flushing starting all over again and worked my breathing.
“We may have a problem...” Toby said. “Where are we going? We have to say something to our folks. We can’t just disappear for however long without giving them a heads up. They’ll call the police if we just go missing.”
“Mother told me she would take care of it if we’re gone too long,” Ivy said, sitting down on the arm of my chair. She put her hand on my knee and squeezed. “Don’t worry.”
I looked up, and my eyes found hers. In that look, I could tell that she forgave me for staring at her, that our friendship would survive it, but it also hinted of something more.
“We should get there on time. Father doesn’t like it when people are late.” Brianna stood up, and picked up her bag grunting with the effort.
“I’ll get that for you,” Toby offered.
Carla got off of his lap and rolled her eyes, but didn’t say anything.
“Would you?” Brianna gushed.
Mr. Kline and Coach McNally were standing in the observatory when we arrived. The observatory was a fifty-foot circular room with several doorways and a glass-domed ceiling. Far above the incredibly high glass roof, murderously dark clouds roiled, threatening rain. I had expected a large telescope or something, but there were none, just a couple of sectional couches.
Coach pointed at a couple of large backpacks. “Put those on boys,” he smirked.
“Mr. McNally here is in charge. Is that clear?” said Mr. Kline.
“Coach in charge, got it,” Toby grumbled, giving me a glance that said he wasn’t at all happy about it.
“We better get you goin
g then, it is quite a ways to the first safe house, and it would be best if you got there before dark.” Saying this last, Mr. Kline started for a doorway to the right. Toby and I picked up the backpacks. They were very, very heavy, and I’m not your prototypical high school quarterback type either.
I’m 6’2” and still filling out, but I can already squat four hundred pounds and bench three-hundred-and-fifteen pounds. I get my strength from both of my parents. Dad had been an alternate on the Olympic squad in Barcelona as a decathlete and Mom had been an alternate for sprints. They had met at the twenty-fifth Olympics in Spain, and had fallen in love.
Toby helped me secure my pack, and I helped him with his, then we hurried after the others who were already leaving the room. We walked briefly through a couple of lavish rooms and exited the mansion through a set of etched French doors that opened out on a worn flagstone patio.
We walked past statues and topiary cut to resemble all sorts of creatures, past ponds and waterfalls, over stone bridges, along pathways of marble, granite and finally onto wet grass. The blustery late afternoon wind swirled about us as we made our way into a grove of trees. It was then that I recognized where we were heading.
The fairy circle was much like I remembered it. Mr. Kline stopped before the ring and held up his hands. The darkened trees moaned as they whipped back and forth ominously around us. Large drops of rain began to fall.
“When I call your name, enter the circle and go sit on the bench,” the ancient vampire yelled above the noise of the wind. “Do not hesitate, time is different on the other side. Minutes here are hours there. Make sure you wait for everyone to arrive on the other side before setting out for the estate.”
He hugged Brianna closely and said something in her ear, then released her looking at his watch.
“McNally!” he shouted.
Coach slapped Toby on the shoulder with a lopsided, evil grin and stepped over the mushrooms into the ring. He walked over to the stone bench in the middle of the fairy circle and sat down. Suddenly, he was no longer there. I blinked, but it didn’t help, he had vanished!
“Woah!” I heard Toby whisper.
“Brianna,” he said.
Brianna took a deep breath and stepped into the ring, then walked over and tentatively sat on the bench. A moment later, she was no longer there either.
“Magi,” he said.
My heart hammered into my throat. I wanted to go with her, or stop her from going. She reached out and squeezed my arm, then stepped away from me into the ring and walked over to the bench. She looked back at me as she sat, then she was gone!
“Jake,” he said, “then Toby.”
Heart still pounding furiously, I leapt over the mushrooms and ran to the bench as fast as I could under the extreme weight of the backpack. With an effort of will, I sat down.