Fatal Allure Collection

by Woods, Martha

  On the outside, my life looks to be uncomplicated. I’ve got a great boss, Rick, who treats me like his daughter. A loyal and loving boyfriend who works odd hours like me. I have friends, who I haven’t spoken to much lately, but who I know would drop everything to be by my side. There is a roof over my head, and my job pays pretty well. But beneath the surface, things are a little more complicated. I’m the survivor of abduction by a lunatic werewolf shaman who wanted to devour my soul. I’m some kind of medium or psychic or something, according to a witch I met recently. I’m dating a hunter who kills evil, supernatural entities for a living.

  I’m supposed to be a proponent of science, but these days I know there are some things science can’t explain, and those things scare me more than I like to admit. Although nothing really scares me as much as love does. And that is the problem. I am slowly finding myself falling in love. I’m not sure how to work that out. I’m not sure what love even means. I just know that I’ve never missed someone this way before. I’ve never worried about someone when they gave me a kiss goodbye as much as I do when it comes to Damon.

  Then again, I have good cause to worry. Damon hunts the supernatural for a living. I’m still not clear on where his income comes from – it’s not as if our taxes go towards vampire killing – but I’ve decided that’s too serious a discussion for us to delve into this early in the game. I’m starting to think I need to bring it up though because as of late, I’ve pretty much been living in his apartment. He has enough wards around it to keep out the supernatural that he hunts, and besides, I want to spend as much time with him as possible. We both try not to bring our work home with us, but the cases I work are pretty grim. The things I see, most people wouldn’t be able to deal with. I see how terrible people really are, and it’s not a comforting thing to realize. Damon sees at least as much darkness as I do, so in a way, I suppose we’re each other’s support system.

  It has been six months since the night in the sewer that left me with scarring on my neck, chest, and stomach. Six months since I found out the supernatural is very real. Six months since I caught the attention of a sociopathic shaman werewolf on a killing spree. He slaughtered my dog, Bella, and left bits of her all over my apartment – I don’t feel 100 percent comfortable in my apartment anymore, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to look for a new place. All of my happy memories with my pup are there as well, and it’s in the same building as Damon’s apartment. Besides, moving in with Damon permanently is a step in the relationship I’m not yet ready to make.

  There is also another problem, a vampire named Vincent—I haven’t seen him since he helped save me from Elric, my abductor. Granted, it was his fault I was ever on Elric’s radar in me in the first place. But I still can’t seem to shake the thought of the vampire. I’m not sure what it is about him, but Vincent sometimes appears in my dreams, and sometimes I imagine I can see him even in my waking hours. I dream about the place he promised to take me, somewhere peaceful and soothing and calm. It is something I try to find with Damon, but it is elusive. Most nights I can ignore it, but tonight I sit here, staring out at my balcony expectantly, waiting for Vincent to return.

  Being in my apartment is still painful, unbearable almost when the flashbacks come. But I keep returning to it. A part of me keeps hoping that Vincent will come back.

  He’s not really big on social conventions and likes to break into my apartment via my balcony while I sleep. Red flag number one. Red flag number two was that the first time I saw him, he was sucking the blood out of someone. When he caught me watching, he left bruises on my arms – angry at me for catching him in the act of feeding and anxious to know what I saw. I don’t know why he was so worried. The very mention of what I saw got me put on leave, with my boss blatantly concerned for my sanity. And it was not as if I could ever prove anything; it’s hard to prove the existence of something that has been made into a Hollywood horror flick – even harder to say that a vampire is the one smooching vulnerable ladies in a dark alleyway, particularly when said ladies survive the encounter without a mark on them. Humans like to be willfully ignorant that there are monsters more terrifying than themselves.

  There is also the giant red flag that Vincent isn’t human and is possibly hundreds of years older than me. There was no way I could ever have a relationship with Vincent, and maybe that’s why I yearn for him so much. I keep telling myself I could have a future with Damon. But the truth is, there’s no guarantee of that. Hunters don’t have a long-life expectancy. Which is why he would train me to fight like a hunter to protect myself from the supernatural but wouldn’t allow me to go on hunts with him.

  Helping kill a murderous shaman-werewolf gave me a bit of a hero complex. My actions helped free the spirits of the girls who Elric had trapped on this Earth long after their bodies had been buried in the ground. The girls came to me in my dreams, showing me their deaths, and then revealed themselves when I was awake, begging for me to avenge them. And, with Damon and Vincent’s help, I did.

  That’s another thing that changed for me over the past six months: the realization that I’m not entirely human either. I thought becoming a witch was something that a person trained for. But I learned it is also something a person is born with. And apparently, it’s something I was born with too. I can’t say I’m a full-fledged witch, though. I have not taken the leap into becoming awakened – whatever that really means.

  The water stops boiling, and I make myself a cup of chamomile tea. I walk out to the balcony and take in the chilly air, looking over the city that looks too peaceful. The hot water that is rapidly cooling as I stand outside. I shiver in Damon’s sweater. It is close to 3 a.m., and I’m getting ready to go back to his apartment. Just one cup of tea and then I’ll go wait for him.

  Someone bangs on my door. I jump and nearly drop my tea. Who would be knocking at this hour? Is it Damon? A sudden wave of guilt overwhelms me because I’m not sure how I can explain to Damon what I’m doing over at my place when he knows I get nightmares from it. I walk to the front door and peek through the peep hole. There is a man I’ve never seen before with someone flung over his shoulder. He’s covered in mud and blood. I can taste my pulse in my mouth as I open the door.

  “Are you Amy?” the gruff man asks me.

  “Yes,” I stutter out. I have to actually crane my head to look at the man. He’s well over 6 feet tall, pure muscles like one of those meatheads at the gym. There is a scar across his right eye, and the lid is shut over it, which makes it even harder to meet his gaze. He screams intimidation, but then again, he is holding an axe in one hand and a limp body in the other. Maybe I should have brought my gun to the door. Damon’s voice appears in the back of my head scolding me for being vulnerable and unprepared – nice things don’t bang on doors at 3 a.m., and you certainly shouldn’t open the door to said things.

  “Do you have a key to Damon’s apartment?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I say, narrowing my eyes. “Why?”

  That’s when it dawns on me. The man turns slightly, and I see Damon’s unconscious body dangling over his shoulder. There are multiple fang marks on his neck and arms as if a host of vampires decided to make a feast out of him. Damon is pale, his breathing labored. Breathing. He is breathing.

  “He’s in bad shape. Hurry,” the man says. I scramble to get the keys to Damon’s apartment door, letting the large man go in front of me – my heart is straining hard not to break. I want to scream.

  Chapter 3

  The stranger lays Damon on his bed. His shirt has been ripped open, and I see lipstick marks where the teeth have gone in. I touch his face, and he feels ice cold. I take his hand in mine and bring it to my lips to press a kiss to it. No response. His pulse is so weak.

  “I’ll be back shortly,” the man says before vanishing out of the apartment. His words are dull to me as I try to make out what has happened to Damon. He has come home before with wounds, bruises, black eyes, and a scratch or two, but at least He’s always bee
n in one piece and walking on his own two feet. I understand his job is incredibly dangerous, but it’s hard to really grasp the extent of that danger when he always comes back to me relatively safe and sound. And he never talks about his scars even when I ask. He tells me better to live in the now and not dread on the past. Well, I am living in the now, in reality, and it is possible I got the last kiss I would ever get from Damon yesterday evening.

  The man returns after what seems like hours, holding bags of blood along with other medical equipment. My eyes go wide, but he just grunts at me to get out of the way as he starts sticking a needle into Damon’s arm, connecting him to a bag of blood. He hangs the bag from the bedpost, so it will drip down the hose and into Damon’s veins. The man says nothing to me, just works on Damon, checking every wound, stopping the bleeding where he can, even stitching up some of the larger wounds. I might as well be a fly on the wall because he ignores me the entire time. I try to ask questions, but the words stick in my throat.

  When he has done all he can, the man steps back and looks at me. There is nothing friendly or hopeful in the one-eyed gaze.

  “This is why we don’t form relationships. You’re useless to him. I know your story, how you got caught. You could have been used as bait,” he says.

  I am taken aback. Damon hasn’t even been hurt protecting me and this man is blaming me for his injuries? “If it wasn’t for me, Elric wouldn’t have been found,” I fire back.

  “Then he should have used you and said goodbye. Now he might die because of you,” he says.

  “Wh-what do you mean?”

  “I need a cigarette.”

  “There’s a balcony,” I say. “You can smoke there.” I don’t know why I’m even deigning to answer him.

  “There’s nothing we can do now but wait,” he says as he walks out the door. I follow him onto the balcony, angry. I watch him light up a cigarette and lean over the edge of the balcony; he ignores me as he takes in two long drags. His jeans and black sweatshirt are beaten up, a little dusty, a little bloody. I try not to think about that. I’m not sure what he has done with the axe. There are a couple of ways to kill a vampire. Decapitation is one of them, but it would take a strong arm to swing through bone and cut the head clean off. Looking at this man’s arms, I can tell he has the muscle to do it, and then some.

  “There is a group of vampires known as the Sisters in town. Nasty bitches. They travel from place to place, only staying long enough to collect what they want and then go. Damon found their nest and went in after them, but he should have known better. You can’t fight the Sisters if you have attachments.”

  Attachments? I guess that means me. Hunters live a very lonely existence. They rarely even hunt with each other because vampires tend to exploit human weaknesses such as love, friends, and family. But what does that have to do with fighting a group of vampires? Especially when Damon knew I wasn’t in danger? It’s never been a factor before. At least, not since Elric.

  “You mean me,” I say, my words echoing my thoughts faintly as if I can’t quite get them from my mind to my mouth. I want to be back by Damon’s side, holding his hand, brushing the hair from his forehead. But I need answers. I cough as a puff of smoke clouds around my face.

  “Right. Like you. The Sisters get into your mind. They take the shape of the person you love the most, then come in close and drain your life. They’ve been on our radar for over a hundred years now; their stories have been passed down, so many hunters lost to them. Damon managed to escape, I’m not sure if he did any damage, but he dialed my number. I tracked his cell phone and found him unconscious,” he says.

  I try to get the words straight in my head. Vampires are able to get into most people’s minds and compel them to see certain things or feel a certain way. Except for mine. For some reason, vampires couldn’t always control what I am thinking or feeling. But Damon has experience with that. He’s always been able to resist it in the past. He’s not immune to it in the way that I am, but he’s always been able to shield himself somehow.

  “You’re saying Damon loves me?” I ask. We have never said those three words to each other – that would be dangerous. Now I’m wishing I could hear Damon tell it to me instead of having this gruff, unsettling man tell me that those emotions almost got my boyfriend killed. This whole love will be the death of him talk isn’t making me feel any better.

  “They wouldn’t be able to get to him if he didn’t. They work off of emotions,” he says. “Damon is one of the best hunters in the business. Or he was until you came along.”

  He turns his gaze to me, and I feel the malice crawling under my skin. It mixes with the strange realization that Damon has fallen in love with me. All this time I have been fighting it and he has just quietly accepted it, given me his love in ways that were not words. He knows my fear of love, so he kept his own to himself. I am beginning to see the small ways Damon showed he cared for me in a deeper way. The way his hands would move over me as he helped stretch me out after a long work out of fighting techniques. The way he would laugh when he sparred with me – letting me get a couple of good hits in before taking me down to the ground – never too rough. I swallow and look away from the man, leaving him on the balcony with his cigarette to go back to the bedroom where Damon lies unconscious.

  I lie down beside his cold form and try to give him some of my heat. I was right to think that love was evil. It’s messy and painful and fragile, and it can be used against a person. Now because of his feelings for me, Damon could die. It all sinks in like an arrow to my chest. Damon looks a mess, but under that pale skin, I can remember the warm charm.

  “There isn’t much more I can do,” the man says coming to the doorway, I look up at him but I don’t rise. I should ask him his name. His open hostility makes me hesitate. He doesn’t seem happy about me curled around Damon’s body, but I don’t move away. I wonder if this man even knows what happiness is.

  “Tomorrow you’ll have to go get Faye,” he says.

  “Why?” I ask. I don’t want to talk to this man anymore. All he has for me is bad news.

  “She can’t drive,” he says simply.

  “No, why do we need her? Can she help heal Damon?

  “No, but she can erase you from Damon’s mind.”

  My heart stops beating for a second as I cling tighter to Damon. No, he can’t forget me now. Not when I now know how much he cares about me.

  “The Sisters take the form of the one most loved. But now that they’ve attacked him, fed on him, they’ve tainted that memory. If and when Damon wakes up, when he remembers you, he will kill you, thinking you’re one of them. There is no way to get the vampire’s control out of his head unless you’re gone from it.”

  I won’t let this man see me cry. I gulp down my tears and just curl in closer to Damon. I can see him snarl the more I cling.

  “I’d move your stuff out of his apartment tonight. Consider this your break up.”

  “Is there anything I can do?” I manage to squeeze out.

  “Yeah, you can disappear out of his life so you don’t almost get him killed anymore.” He walks out of the room then, slamming the door behind him, leaving me trying to pick up the pieces of my heart he’s just managed to trample.

  Chapter 4

  Damon continues to sleep through me getting my clothes from his drawers and closet. He sleeps through my ugly sobbing as I try to come to terms with giving up the best thing that ever came into my life. I try to tell myself there’s another way, that I shouldn’t listen to this strange, angry man and take his word as gospel. But deep down, I know he is right. It was foolish to think our relationship could work. It was a mistake, getting so close to someone and thinking it could last. I can’t stop myself from pausing in my weeping and packing to press lingering kisses on Damon’s lips, trying to remember what it feels like to have him melt against me. I want to see those dimples and bright green eyes in the sunlight one last time.

  I’ve been tending to him, too. The
man left me with the medical supplies and no instructions, but I’m a forensic scientist, after all. I can figure out a simple IV. When there are no more blood bags to be changed, and I note some color coming to Damon’s skin, I leave his apartment for the last time. The sun has already risen in the sky. I know what I have to do. I get in my car and drive.

  Faye lives in a seedy part of town, above a little shop where she sells stones, tarot cards, and mainstream books on magic. She gives tarot readings and palm readings to those she sees in need of some guidance but never charges them. I guess she’s a good witch, but she looks more like a punk rocker. I seem to get to her place faster than I want to. I want everything to slow down so my emotions can catch up. I’ve changed out of Damon’s sweater, leaving it folded over a chair. I wondered if I should wash my scent off it but decided against it. Let there be some traces of me in that apartment.

  When I pull up outside her store, Faye is already waiting for me with a black backpack slung over her shoulder. She wears a pair of tight black jeans, a black shirt, and a black trench coat really going for the whole emo-witch look. Her head is partially shaved, while the hair she does have is currently dyed blue. Faye has piercings and tattoos all over her body; not what I would describe as a typical witch. But then, what do I know? Movies about boy wizards and old episodes of Charmed? I’m also not sure how old Faye is; she’s got a pixie-esque that doesn’t seem to age. All I know is that when I talk to her, I feel like a child talking to a wise woman. And she talks to me like I’m a child as well. I decided after our first meeting not to let it bother me. She’s quite the contradiction.