Cronin's Key II

by N. R. Walker

  Alec finished his drink, and a third appeared in front of him. He was already a little buzzed, so he sipped his next drink and scanned the floor while Cronin and Kennard talked of vampire matters. It was all rather political, and Alec was too busy checking out the dance floor to pay any attention. He wasn’t one to dance often, but in the end, it got the better of him. Alec downed his drink and stood up. “I’m gonna hit the dance floor,” he said.

  Cronin started to object, naturally, but Kennard put his hand on Cronin’s arm. “Ah, Cronin,” Alec heard Kennard say. “Let him dance while we talk business. No need for the three of us to be bored senseless.”

  Not caring they had company, Alec leaned down and kissed Cronin soundly before going back down the stairs and making his way through a sea of people. They were a mix of men and women, and from the lingering, knowing looks by some of them, Alec knew they were a solid mix of human and vampire.

  Alec didn’t care. He let his head fall back and closed his eyes, feeling the bass of the music in his chest. It felt good to be doing something so normal, so human. He knew Cronin never took his eyes off him, and once upon a time that would’ve annoyed Alec. He’d have forbidden such possessive behavior, but now he reveled in it. He craved being owned by Cronin, as much as Cronin longed to be owned by him.

  Being fated was a beautiful thing.

  Alec couldn’t believe he’d once tried to rebuke the idea.

  A warm body pressed a little too close, making Alec open his eyes. He knew it had to be some human—no vampire in the club would be stupid enough to approach another vampire’s mate, and Cronin’s mate no less. It was a guy who smiled at him, but before he could even speak, Cronin was in between them, staring at the now-pale human man until he backed away.

  Alec pulled himself against Cronin’s ass and laughed. “Jealousy looks good on you.”

  “We must leave,” Cronin said.

  “He didn’t mean anything by it,” Alec started to say.

  But Cronin had Alec’s hand and was leading him to what Alec realized was the back way to the fire escape. “No, we must go. Now.”

  Alec knew from Cronin’s tone something was wrong. He tried to clear his head. “What happened?”

  “It’s not what has happened,” Cronin said as he pushed through the back door into an alley where Kennard stood waiting. “It’s what’s going to happen.”

  Alec had no sooner stepped into the alley, than Cronin looked around and checked that the three of them were alone. He put his arm around Alec, pulled him close, put his hand on Kennard’s shoulder, and they leapt.

  CHAPTER TWO

  As soon as they’d landed wherever Cronin had leapt them to, Alec took in his surroundings. He was never sure what would greet them, if they would arrive in a vampire-filled warehouse for a coven meeting or a deserted battlefield in Scotland. So his senses were always alert, and he took in every detail.

  It was night, of course. They were outside, surrounded by trees. The air was humid and thick, and smelled of cloying undergrowth and rain. No, not rain. Rainforest. The trees towered over them, the ground was damp underfoot, and the warning cries of exotic animals told Alec he was far from home.

  “Where are we?”

  Cronin kept him close. “We are in the forests near Rurrenabaque, Northern Bolivia.”

  “I’m gonna assume you mean the Bolivia in South America?” Alec said, trying to see past the closest tree, then into the darkened canopy. “And not the Bolivia in North Carolina, right?”

  Kennard snorted quietly. “Correct.”

  “There is a vampire here we need to speak to,” Cronin said. He nodded at the darkness ahead. “He lives just through there.” He started walking, slowly, no doubt to allow for the human who couldn’t see too well in the dark. “Though there is something you should know before we meet him.”

  Alec almost tripped over a tree root. “Oh yeah? And what’s that?”

  “He’s a child,” Cronin said.

  “A vampire child?” Alec repeated. “Is that even legal?”

  Kennard snorted again. “It’s not preferred, no. They pose a risk to our secrecy, but this one is… different.”

  Cronin helped Alec navigate his footing in the dark and said, “His name is Jorge. It is believed his human parents disowned him as a small child, around a hundred years ago. Villagers were superstitious about such things and cast him out so as not to anger the gods.”

  “What was wrong with him?” Alec asked. His eyes had adjusted to the dark now, just in time for them to stop walking.

  “We believe, in his human form, he suffered from dissociative identity disorder because, well—” Cronin made a face. “—he has taken that form in his vampiric life. He talks to himself as though he is two people. One is pleasant, one is… not.”

  Alec wasn’t even surprised. After Egypt, nothing surprised him when it came to vampires. “Like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?”

  Cronin nodded. “Yes.”

  “In the one vampire?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, great.”

  “Adelmo is his caregiver,” Cronin continued to explain. “He’s a kind vampire who taught Jorge our laws. Jorge needs constant care, as he is and will always be, just a child.”

  Alec considered this. “Excuse my curiosity and my insolence for asking, but if he posed such a threat to vampires, why not just kill him?”

  “He has a certain skill set,” Kennard said. “A valuable one. His caregiver or owner, if you will, uses the boy for his own purposes.”

  Alec couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “He what?”

  “He does not harm the child,” Cronin said, knowing what Alec was thinking. “In fact, quite the opposite. He treats the child as if he were his own. Adelmo cares for the boy, and the boy can warn him if there is danger.”

  “What’s the skill set?” Alec pressed. “What can this boy do?”

  “He is a seer, a very good one,” Cronin answered.

  “He tells the future,” Kennard furthered. “He sees everything. Unlike other seers like your Eleanor, who gets snippets and flashes, nothing is hidden from Jorge.”

  Alec knew there was something they weren’t telling him. “What’s the drawback? I mean there has to be a drawback, or he wouldn’t be hidden away living out here in the middle of a forest.”

  Cronin smiled ruefully. “He speaks in riddles.”

  “His visions are accurate, like no other,” Kennard said. “You just need to decipher what they mean.”

  Cronin nodded. “And the dual conversations are a little unnerving.”

  “How Adelmo lives with it, I’ll never know,” Kennard added.

  “He loves the child,” Cronin said simply.

  In silence, they started walking again, and after a few hundred yards, they stopped at a clearing. It took Alec a second to notice the hut at the back of the clearing. There were no lights on inside, then Alec realized, of course, there wouldn’t be. Vampires didn’t need them.

  Despite the hut being a good eighty yards away, Cronin spoke with a normal voice. “Adelmo, it is Cronin. I bring with me Kennard and Alec. We need to speak with Jorge.”

  “You bring a human,” a voice replied, Alec strained to hear it. “I can hear its heart beating from here.”

  “The human is with me,” Cronin stated flatly. “He is not to be harmed.”

  Alec wanted to say, “The human has a fucking name,” but figured it might not be the icebreaker he should aim for.

  Alec still didn’t even know what they were doing here or what it was this kid vampire could see. But he trusted Cronin completely and knew he’d find out answers soon enough.

  “You may come in,” the voice said. It was stilted English with a strong Spanish accent, and Alec realized Cronin—who spoke many languages—had started the conversation in English for Alec’s benefit. They walked to the hut and the door opened, though it was too dark for Alec to see inside.

&n
bsp; Cronin stepped through the doorway first, and a moment later, he held an old lantern that diffused a soft light over the hut. He smiled at Alec, seemingly pleased with himself to have thought of Alec’s needs. Alec stepped inside and was shocked by what he saw.

  The hut was humble, filled with simple furniture. A man, who Alec assumed was Adelmo, stood by the table. He was tall and thin, with kind eyes, a broad forehead, and thick black hair braided down his back. He appeared to be no more than thirty in human years. Despite Adelmo’s threadbare, somewhat-modern clothes, he reminded Alec of the images he’d seen of Inca warriors, and Alec wondered just how old Adelmo was. Regardless, Alec liked him immediately, but what shocked Alec was the child sitting at the table.

  Jorge was possibly the cutest kid Alec had ever seen. He could be no more than six years old, with shaggy black hair, bright eyes, and rosy chubby cheeks. He was clearly excited to have company, and Alec wondered how a cute-looking kid could be so… what did Cronin call it? Unnerving?

  Then Jorge smiled, and Alec had to stop himself from taking a step backwards.

  Jorge’s mouth was full of small, squared baby teeth, and vampire fangs. He laughed and said something in what Alec assumed to be a local dialect of Spanish. Alec knew some Spanish, and could make out the words human and pet, and he laughed. Then Jorge asked Adelmo, in English, “Can we have one?”

  Alec could feel Cronin tense beside him as he spoke back to them in short, angry clips of their dialect of Spanish. Alec didn’t need to understand every word to know Cronin didn’t like what Jorge had said.

  Adelmo put his hand on Jorge’s shoulder, quick to pacify. “He means no harm.”

  “I know,” Alec said. And truthfully, Alec understood. Kids had a tact all their own and weren’t inhibited by social etiquette. Alec looked at Jorge. “My name is Alec. Nice to meet you.”

  Jorge smiled that innocent/evil smile. “We are Jorge.” Then he looked at Cronin and Kennard and addressed them both by name. “Jorge we are. How can he know that? Of course he knows that.” Then he seemed to argue with himself for a moment.

  Okay, so the kid referred to himself in third person and as though there were more than one of him. Alec’s disturbing meter pinged. And sure, the kid looked five or six, but Alec had to remind himself that he was closer to a hundred years old.

  Everything about him was contradictory.

  But he obviously knew Cronin and Kennard and spoke to them like he’d seen them both just last week. “Hello. Jorge happy to see you again.”

  “We come seeking news,” Cronin started to say. “I am not sure if you heard of the trouble in Egypt some months ago.”

  “We saw it, saw it we did,” Jorge said. “Sand and dust. Such poor old souls.”

  “Yes,” Cronin said, his tone neutral.

  Then Jorge looked straight at Alec. “This one killed them all. From his blood comes the sun,” he said. Then he snarled. “They knew not what they did.”

  Cronin clearly didn’t appreciate the child’s tone, but Alec put his hand on Cronin’s arm and stopped him from speaking. Alec looked straight at the small boy. “He’s right. Jorge is right. The sun came from my blood, and yes, it killed them all. Those returned vampires didn’t know what they were doing. The woman who made them was very cruel. She refused to feed them and teach them. They didn’t know what they were doing was wrong.”

  “They were a clear threat to our kind,” Cronin said.

  Adelmo nodded and bowed, almost apologetically. “He knows this.”

  All the while, Jorge mumbled and argued with himself, going from angry to sweet in the blink of an eye. “So wrong. No it wasn’t. Tell our secrets, they would have. How? No teachings of rules. Jorge hates rules.” Then when he was done in English, he started again in Spanish.

  If Alec had wondered why Jorge hadn’t been ‘acquired’ by larger, more powerful covens, he now knew why.

  Jorge was forever a child, with the attention span and temper to match. And that was without the creepy double personalities that talked to each other in fluent conversation. Both personalities seemed present at the same time, and like most kids who didn’t like sharing toys, Jorge seemed to be in a constant state of flux, one personality always bickering with the other. He reminded Alec, very sadly, of Sméagol from The Lord of the Rings.

  After he was done arguing with himself, Jorge laughed again and smiled delightedly at Alec. Whether it was because Alec had agreed with him, or if he just found it amusing that a human would speak to him at all, or if the kid was just pure batshit crazy, Alec didn’t know. He looked from Cronin to Alec and back again, and his smile was now an angry glare. “It wasn’t the Queen who did wrong.” He glowered for a long moment. “Jorge not happy. No, not happy.”

  Kennard, obviously trying to steer the conversation forward, looked at the boy and said, “We were wondering if Jorge has seen anything else that might jeopardize the secrecy of our kind.”

  Then Cronin added, “Specifically in China, or even Russia.”

  Alec looked quizzically at Cronin, something Jorge didn’t miss. The small boy gave Alec a fanged and toothy smile that was more menacing than jovial.

  Kennard said, “I heard a vampire coven from southern Russia had gone north, asking for clemency for invading territories. And that is something that doesn’t sit well with me.”

  Cronin followed with, “Coincidentally, just today I read of a string of unexplained disappearances in and around Shaanxi Province, China. Their police is investigating a suspect serial killer.”

  “And you believe them to be related?” Adelmo asked.

  “I’d rather not take the risk. Given such rumors were how the mess in Egypt started,” Cronin said simply.

  All the while, Jorge hadn’t taken his eyes off Alec. He looked at him with a childish wonder, and Alec couldn’t help himself. He slowly pulled a chair out from the table and sat down next to Jorge.

  Now, Alec didn’t have a great deal of experience with kids, but he knew enough that sitting down with them and meeting them at eye level was a good way to start. “Cronin tells me you’ve got quite a talent,” Alec said.

  The boy smiled. “We can see dos.” He held up two fingers.

  “Two?” Alec didn’t really know what that meant, but he went along with it.

  Jorge nodded. “Eyes and mind. Eyes and mind, here and gone, Jorge sees.” Then he frowned. “Of course he understands.”

  Okay, he could see with his eyes and his mind. Alec nodded. “That’s pretty cool.”

  “Jorge doesn’t like it,” Jorge said. “Not everything he sees is good. No, not everything he sees is good.”

  “Must be a bit scary sometimes,” Alec agreed. He couldn’t imagine seeing the horrors he saw in Egypt in graphic mental images as a six-year-old kid.

  “You not afraid of Jorge,” Jorge said. “He should be afraid. Humans are always afraid. Not this one.”

  Alec smiled and nodded pointedly at Cronin. “I’m not afraid at all.”

  “Cronin es el marido de Alec,” Jorge said. “Yes, marido marido. Jorge sees it.”

  Alec wracked his memory for Spanish. Marido, marido…. “Husband? Is Cronin my husband?” Alec snorted. Well, for all intents and purposes, especially to a six year old kid, he guessed he was. Alec smiled at Cronin. “Yes, he is. Sort of.”

  “Fuerte destino,” Jorge said. “Jorge sees fuerte destino. Strong fate, in English so the human comprenda.” He was frowning now, as though one personality was arguing and scowling at the other. “Red hand in the stones. Yes, yes.”

  Okay, he lost Alec on most of that, except for the fate part. “Yes, fate,” Alec said. Wanting to distract Jorge a little, he looked around the room and noticed a soccer ball in the corner. Alec nodded toward it. “You like to play?”

  Then Jorge snarled, his eyes full of rage. “Jorge cannot play. No, not allowed to play.”

  Oh, shit. Okay then. Thankfully Adelmo clarified. “He cannot play with the
village children.”

  “Oh, right,” Alec said, nodding slowly. That must suck as a perpetual child, to never have any friends. So, why the hell not. “I could play with you?” he asked. Alec was pretty sure Cronin was about to object or pop a vessel in his forehead, but Alec wouldn’t be deterred. He smiled at Jorge. “Though I bet you’d be too good for me.”

  Jorge obviously liked this development. Before Alec could blink, Jorge got up, retrieved the ball, and stood in front of Alec. His eyes were dark, his cheeks still a rosy red, and his little fangs dominated his smile. And he handed the ball to Alec.

  Now, Alec had never played American football. His father, being Scottish, had objected to anything that wasn’t traditional football, or soccer as the other kids had called it. But he also hadn’t picked up a soccer ball in over a decade. He stood up in the small hut, and knowing all eyes were on him and hoping like all hell he didn’t make an ass of himself, he dropped the ball, catching it with his foot. He balanced the ball on one foot, then kicked it to his other and back again.

  Jorge laughed and clapped his hands. “Jorge do it, Jorge do it.”

  Of course with his vampire agility and reflexes, he did the footwork with masterful skill.

  “See? You’re too good for me!” Alec said, snatching back the ball. He quickly spun it on his fingertip like basketball players do.

  Jorge laughed and bounced on his toes. “Jorge do it, Jorge do it.” He snatched the ball back and again performed the trick like he’d done it all his life.

  Still smiling, Alec sat back down at the table and glanced at Cronin. He seemed concerned and confused but, of course, said nothing. Then Jorge took Alec’s hand, startling Alec a little, and studied his watch.

  “You like it?” Alec said.

  “Jorge will have it,” the small vampire child said. “Yes, Jorge will have it.”

  Adelmo intervened. “No, Jorge, it’s not yours. It belongs to Alec.”

  The boy glowered and bared his fangs, snarling a little. Alec now understood why Jorge needed a parental caregiver. He was certain, if left unsupervised, Jorge and his childish temper could level a small village if he got angry enough. It was clear Adelmo spent a great deal of time reminding Jorge of his manners.