Masquerade in Chaos: Kable VonSable

by M J Hutto

  “What are your plans for today? You staying here or going to haunt Jon again?”

  She was sitting on the edge of the bed with a pinched look of concentration on her thin features. “I’ll stay out of your way. You don’t have to worry about me barging in. I want this to happen, remember.”

  I rolled my eyes dramatically and turned toward footsteps in the hallway. “Nothing is going to happen. I’m not worried about you getting in the way, I just wanted to know.”

  Detective Hottie’s footsteps stopped outside my door, he knocked softly. “You okay in there? I thought I heard voices. You on a video call?”

  Jaylin and I glanced at each other, could he hear her? I motioned with my chin for her to say something. Then closed my eyes in hope it would be appropriate.

  “Well, I guess I’ll let you go. Sound like you’ve got company.” She winked at me, and I thought, Oh shit. “Don’t have too much fun with your afternoon delight.”

  There was a choked laugh outside the door, and I looked at her with wide eyes and an OH; he could hear her. I also swung out to slap at her shoulder but went through her which left my hand cold and tingling.

  I opened the door and motioned him in before I thought about where we were. He looked around, his eyes hesitating over Jaylin but moving on without reaction. His gaze landed on a pile of my unused charms and then to Thibbs’s box.

  “What’s that?” he asked, pointing at the unused charms.

  “Those will be charms once I soak them in a potion and further instill them with chaos. Different charms for different things but really anything would work. I find that some last longer or have a better…” I rubbed my finger between my eyebrows in thought. “Um, affinity.”

  “Makes sense. Certain things are better conductors, seems like some would be better reservoirs for chaos as well.”

  He smiled at me hopefully. “Would you be willing to make me one?”

  “Depends what you’re looking for,” I said as I walked over to him looking through the pile of charms.

  “How about the ability to see ghosts?”

  I frowned and met his eyes. “I don’t think you need that one. I think you’ve got a bit of sensitivity running through your veins. Plus, I don’t know of anything to make that happen. I can give you a nice protection charm, some luck, or maybe you need a little extra wisdom. Those I can do.”

  His lips lifted at the corners in the hint of a smile. His eyebrow raised in question as if waiting for me to ask. Daring me to ask.

  I walked out of the room and he followed me into the living room. Jaylin trailed behind us, uncharacteristically quiet.

  “This is very presumptuous of me, and you obviously don’t have to answer me if you don’t want to, but did you not get the vaccine? Did your parents not get it for you? Did they know about the gene mutation and decide not to get it?”

  He leaned back in the cushions and slipped his hard soled shoes off. He was wearing a pair of slacks and button down with a tie today. He gestured in question before fully removing them and I acquiesced. He put his socked feet on the coffee table after I did. I spread my blanket out over myself, I wasn’t sharing that.

  “I was an orphan. I don’t remember my parents and there isn’t really a record of them. You know that old story about the baby being left in the manger of the nativity scene?” He stopped and pointed at himself.

  “I was in the newspaper and everything. Miracle baby survives coldest night in recent history. Don’t even have a birthday, just a week. The week of Christmas that year.

  “I didn’t get the vaccine. The foster home I was in at the time, the parents-and I use that term in the loosest sense of the word-didn’t think they should bother. They figured if I died of cancer, it was just one less little bastard the taxpayers had to be responsible for.”

  My mouth was hanging open. I hadn’t expected any of this and certainly hadn’t meant to bring up past hurts.

  “Oh, no. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

  “No worries. So, after I ran away from that home, they found me and put me in a worse one, it was really just one awful place after another. The only good one was when I was sixteen.

  I got placed with this old grizzly cop. She didn’t have any kids and was trying to pay penance for past misdeeds-her words, not mine. She helped get my head on straight, gave me safety and a swift kick in the ass when I pushed too hard. We had some legendary yelling matches.

  “She was the only one in the world who gave a damn if I lived or died. I graduated from the academy a month before she died. She called me all kinds of a fool for doing it but,” he smiled and shook his head. “You should’ve seen the proud grin on her face when I was sworn in.”

  “But she didn’t help you get vaccinated?”

  He laughed. “By that time the genetic mutations were well known, and people were freaking the fuck out. I didn’t know my family history, but I did know they weren’t letting cops on the force at that time if they changed,” he shrugged. “Things aren’t great now, but they’re a damn sight better than they were then; you know?”

  I knew all too well. It had been a long road and my family had dealt with a lot of backlash, but we had enough money that most people looked the other way. Not the kids, of course, but administration. The parents hadn’t been much better than the kids.

  Things were better now, mostly because we had better representation and they knew it wasn’t contagious. I still got the side eye sometimes but largely I was able to ignore them. Fortunately, it wasn’t usually dangerous, malicious, or murderous. But like I’d told him earlier, it hadn’t always been that way.

  “I’ve thought about getting the vaccine now, but they charge a kidney to get it now as an adult. I’m sort of attached to those.”

  He wasn’t wrong. To put an end to illegal organ procurement one payment for the vaccine as an adult-if you chose not to get it as a child-was “donation” of a kidney, part of the liver, skin and even a portion of a lung. Most chose to get the vaccine as a child, or their parents chose that for them.

  “Wow. That’s a lot. You said you had some questions for me. I feel like after all the sharing you just did, I can only pale in comparison.”

  He looked everywhere but at me. “I haven’t told anyone any of that in a long time. Maybe only Momma Blue. I don’t know why I told you all that.”

  “I’m easy to talk to,” I smiled.

  He nodded with a small smile. “I need to know if you know a man named Drex Angelo, might’ve gone by DA.”

  I laughed. “You know names are fluid out there. Today it’s Drex, tomorrow Dick, the next day Ramundo. Angelo at least is the last name they use when they’re from Angelo Avenue. So. That might be a good start, but it looks like I’m telling you things you already know.”

  He nodded. “Unfortunately. I went out there, but no one would talk to me. I didn’t really expect them to, they don’t know me and I’m new and I haven’t proven myself yet. I thought, or well Dorian thought you might know someone that can help us.”

  My shoulders shrugged. “I’m willing to try. Let me think about the best way to do it.”

  He nodded and smiled warmly at me. I leaned my head back on the cushion and blinked heavily. I let my eyes rest for a moment and when I opened them next, he was watching TV and drinking lemonade.

  I think he asked if I wanted some, but I blinked again so it was hard to tell. I was so tired, and my head was fuzzy, and I couldn’t make any words come out. I stopped fighting it.

  ***

  The dream came upon me as soon as I let go.

  I was standing in a dark room. I could smell water and hear my own heartbeat. I tried to turn but I couldn’t, I was stuck in one position. Suddenly I knew I was tied down to something. It was so dark in the room I couldn’t see anything, like I was blind. I tried to scream out, but I was gagged. I started to struggle but made myself calm down and think. How did I get here? Where am I?

  None of those questions had answers, so I
centered myself trying to use my surroundings to understand what was going on. My hearing was working fine, nothing to do about not being able to see. I could hear my breathing and creaking above me, like someone walking. So, a room below another one? The smells of water and mildew were strong. Maybe a basement? Why was I in a basement? And tied down?

  Footsteps were coming closer, and my heartbeat increased. I felt the fatigue and ache of my body then. It was battered and bruised and exhausted, it also wasn’t my own. I understood then, this must be a dream. The footsteps were coming closer, and an eerie whistling began, like a song I should recognize but couldn’t. My heart was racing, and I felt a tear trickle down my cheek, then another. I didn’t cry out. This was probably the end.

  I had to get out of this. I couldn’t stay here while this person was killed. I had to get out. I had to get out. Oh, God! Let me out, please. Please. The footsteps were getting closer. The door had opened but no light shone. Are they blind? I felt the person getting closer, the whistling louder and the body I was in began to shake uncontrollably.

  ***

  Crying out, I woke to Detective Hottie standing over me. He was gently shaking my shoulder and I had tears streaming down my face. I was hyperventilating and my heart was racing. My skin was cold and clammy.

  Taking a few deep breaths, I asked him to bring me some orange juice. While he was gone, I took the time to re-center myself and repeat a grounding chant. I caught a glimpse of myself in the TV screen, my eyes were huge, and my face was even paler than normal. I looked like one of those big-eyed children with cyanosis. Super cute and sexy. Woohoo.

  He brought back a large glass of orange juice and a few pain killers. I smiled gratefully up at him and took the medicine. My head was already starting to ache. Between the dream and last night, I was going to have a whopper. I hoped it didn’t turn into a migraine. Sometimes, if my dream was prophetic that happened. It could be debilitating.

  “You okay now?”

  I nodded. “A dream. They can be pretty vivid and realistic. Thank you for waking me up.”

  “Dorian says sometimes you have dream visions.”

  “Does he, now?”

  He just looked at me steadily, his dark eyes shining with intelligence and questions. He watched me closely for a hint of confirmation.

  “Maybe. It’s easy to say something means something after it happens. Dreams can be difficult. Sort of like armchair quarterbacking. It’s easy to find correlation when you know what you want to find. It’s taking something beforehand and using it to help that counts.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest and frowned pensively. “What good does it do after the fact? None, that’s how much.”

  “You’re a little hard on yourself, aren’t you?”

  “No harder than the rest of the world. You can’t cut yourself breaks. I’ve found I need to be harder on myself. Too many people want the easy way out. The guided experience,” I said with raised hands.

  “I don’t know if that’s better or worse. It’s hard to say what the best way to handle life is. I guess I have to say since I’m a tarot reader I promote the guided experience. I just wish I understood it better sometimes.”

  “I think that’s something we all wish for. Who doesn’t want to understand why their life is the way it is? But, honestly, isn’t it usually just the choices we make. The chances we take. Each step we take is toward a destination of our own making.”

  “Deep, my friend, very deep. I didn’t know you were a philosopher.”

  He laughed loudly and abruptly. A bray of laughter that was completely uncharacteristic of how he portrayed himself. “I guess you bring that out in me. So, what was this dream that had you so upset.”

  I told him about the dream and waited for his reaction. People usually had one of two reactions, they loved the idea or hated it. He was fairly indifferent. No, more impartial. He asked questions and listened intently.

  He was a really great listener and I thought perhaps it was one of the reasons he was a good detective. Although that was an assumption on my part. I didn’t know what sort of detective he was at this point. But his technique seemed great to me and to be fair my observations were usually on point.

  “So, you were in a secluded place. You were tied up? And either blind or it was pitch black. And you felt like you were about to be killed?”

  “Yes and no. All of those things were true, but it definitely wasn’t me. I was in someone else’s body…with them,” I said, questioningly since I wasn’t really sure. “They knew it was about to be the end and I guess I did too. At first, I didn’t know it was someone else but by the end I did, and we both knew they were about to die.

  Their body was so tired and weak and abused. They couldn’t keep fighting but it was going to hurt. A lot. They were SO scared.” Tears leaked out of my eyes. These were the types of dreams that had led me to scary places before.

  He silently asked me if he could touch me, when I nodded yes, he hugged me. It was a very basic thing but made me feel immensely better. I was so tired and my head hurt, so I snuggled under my blanket with strong arms around me and went back to sleep; suddenly and deeply.

  My next dream was of decidedly more pleasant things.

  17 Laissez le Bon Temps Rouler!

  I woke up to the smell of food. I love waking up to food. However, I’m not usually in the habit of waking up that way since I don’t have a roommate. So, I was confused when I woke up. I was more confused when I realized I was on my couch, and it was morning. I tried to think back and finally remembered the previous day.

  Apparently, my body took the rest it required. And I had a guest. I imagined Dorian in my kitchen in my bathrobe. It wouldn’t be the first time. I was going to need to wake up a little more before I faced his perky morning attitude. It was almost sickening how chipper he was in the mornings.

  I needed caffeine to deal with that level of morning person most days. I glanced at the grandfather clock, five-fifteen showed. He probably had to work this morning which meant he’d have to leave in about fifteen minutes. I shambled into the kitchen to find him dancing with earbuds in. Ugh, way too energetic. He was already in his uniform.

  I sat at the island and waited for him to notice me. He was cooking pancakes, a whole lot of pancakes. It looked like he was planning to feed an army. I wondered what music he was listening to when he broke out into a popular song. He turned, saw me, and popped the earbuds out with a grin.

  “Sorry if I woke you sleeping beauty. But you really did need to get up.”

  I grinned back and he tossed me a bottle of water and motioned for me to drink it. He handed over a plate of pancakes and sat with his own. We ate in silence for several minutes, the hum of the refrigerator the only sound.

  “Sorry I slept so long. I don’t remember you coming in or your detective leaving.”

  “Not my detective. I’m pretty sure you’re more his speed.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Sure. He probably likes to rescue damsels. I was acting like a damsel yesterday. I seem to be doing that a lot lately.”

  Dorian snorted. “Okay. Or maybe you have just been in a few situations that have been difficult to manage. If you’ll recall, you’ve been saving yourself, not waiting for someone to come along to rescue you. Give yourself a break. You don’t have to slay every dragon on your own.”

  He glanced at his watch, shoved in another giant bite, and grimaced. “I gotta go. I’ve arranged for someone to check on you in a little while.”

  I raised a skeptical, suspicious brow.

  He grinned even harder, both of his dimples showing and his eyes shining. I threw a dish towel at him. He used it to wipe his hands and face then sauntered off.

  “Who, you little shit. You think you can smile that stupid pretty smile and I’ll forget. Wrong one buddy. I don’t care how pretty you are, were related. I know you’re just a punk ass little bitch.”

  He laughed all the way out the door. I saw him pop his ear bud back in and dance
all the way to the street. He stopped to pet my dogs on the way.

  “Your family is too damned attractive.”

  Jaylin was looking over my shoulder watching Dorian dance away. I glanced at her, same outfit, same Jaylin. Nothing new there.

  “Maybe it’s the Fae blood.”

  She furrowed her brow. “Hmmm, maybe.”

  I scoffed. “I was joking. I don’t think we have Fae blood. That was Granda’s joke. And Babushka always said she was Romani. Also, Dorian is from the other side.”

  She stared at me expectantly.

  I shrugged, “Hell, I don’t know. I always thought they were stories. They both sort of escaped to America and left their pasts there, except for stories. Does it really matter? I’m me, we’re us regardless of what’s come before. Fae, Romani, rich, pretentious, poor, mystic; none of it is me. I’m just me.”

  Jaylin’s face became hard. “Spoken like someone with a heritage to learn from and a future to save.”

  My shoulders slumped. “I didn’t mean it like that at all! I just meant; I don’t know. I guess it doesn’t matter. You’re right, I should have paid more attention, but I just figured I was the start of something else. Probably the end of it too but definitely something new.”

  I rolled my head on my neck. “But the past is always there, always just a memory away from breaking free. I love my family. I cherish the stories they told and I’m probably the only one who ever paid attention. I used to ask them to write them down, I don’t think they ever did.”

  Her face softened. “Maybe you should.”

  “Me?!”

  “You have some of it in your grimoires, right? Potions from your Granda and spells he either wrote or helped you write. Write the stories and histories down too. Add them to your books or make a new one, a book of shadows.”

  The idea was appealing, and I’d been thinking of doing something like that for awhile. Ever since I kept coming across things outside the ‘norm.’ I nodded to myself, wondering if I had anything large enough to last. Maybe I could write a spell to accommodate, a book with never ending pages. Or maybe I could just buy a three-ring binder and use loose leaf paper. It could definitely work.