by Bree Wolf
“Hello sunshine,” Arnaud greeted her, grinning to a point where it should have hurt his face.
“Cut it out and dish!” she hissed, taking a seat at the kitchen table. Looking down, she found a family tree rolled out on it, the ends weighted down with kitchen utensils. It was a family tree of the McPherson line.
“What is this?” Quinn asked, lifting her eyes to Arnaud and then shifting them to Tate who had come to stand beside him.
“This is the answer,” Arnaud said, shrugging. “Or …one answer, more precisely.” He too took a seat. “I’ve spent all day going over the articles on your relatives’ deaths, trying to establish similarities. But they all died at different ages, different points in their lives, different places and in different ways. All not good, pattern-wise.” He held up his left index finger. “But then I remembered something dear Mr. Sanders said before …you know.” He winked at her.
“Yes!” Quinn said impatiently. “What did he say? What do you mean?”
“Well, besides all the stuff he didn’t know, he said that he had only been told to kill you, and to make it look like an accident, preferably. But he also mentioned that he was ordered not to decapitate you.”
“Ugh!” Quinn said, shaking herself with disgust. “How is that important?”
Arnaud shrugged. “At this point, not so much. It’s only an observation that none of your relatives were decapitated. Maybe whoever killed them received the same order. Why, I still don’t know. It’s just something to keep in mind.”
Looking at him, Quinn was starting to feel annoyed. “Please, don’t tell me that’s all you’ve discovered today.”
He grinned at her. “We are a bit moody, aren’t we?”
“Yes, we are,” she hissed, mimicking him. “And with good reason!”
“Arnaud,” Tate warned. “You might want to cut out the crap!”
“Appreciate the support,” Quinn said, pulling out the chair next to her and gesturing for him to sit down.
“What? Is this a mutiny?” Arnaud asked, looking from one to the other, the stupid grin still on his face.
“It could be,” Quinn said sweetly.
“Alright, alright,” Arnaud said, lifting his hands in mock surrender. “Well, to make a long story short. I—”
“Too late for that,” Quinn said, resting her head on her arms propped up on the table.
Arnaud grinned at her. “Touché. Anyway, after all the dissimilarities, I actually discovered one thing they all had in common.” He looked at Quinn and then turned his eyes to Tate. “You ask what that is?” he mocked. “Well, I will tell you. If you direct your eyes here,” he pointed at the McPherson family tree where certain names had been circled, “you will find our dearly departed marked in red. And looking closely, a keen observer might discover the one thing they all shared.” He looked at them questioningly.
“This feels like school,” Quinn mumbled as she leaned over, letting her eyes sweep across the paper.
The red circles ran through all generations. At first glance Quinn couldn’t make sense of them. She couldn’t see whatever it was Arnaud was seeing. But then when she was about to give up and ask for the answer, her eyes picked up on the bond that pulled the individual names into an intricate pattern.
Looking up at him, Quinn saw Arnaud nodding as though he could read her thoughts. “They’re …they’re all first-borns,” she whispered. “Like me.”
“That they are,” he said. “Now at least we know why you’re a target. Which means that you don’t have to worry about your family.”
Quinn nodded. “That’s good.” She actually felt relieved, realizing that worrying about someone she loved was far worse than worrying about herself.
“But we still don’t know why,” Tate stated the obvious, looking at Arnaud. “I don’t suppose you have an idea how to …,” He stopped, eyeing his friend more closely. “You do have an idea, don’t you?”
Arnaud grinned, one of those superior smiles on his face. “I don’t know if it will help, but I think we should at least try it. Besides, it’s the only idea I’ve got.”
“What?” Quinn asked.
“Soo-Ji,” Arnaud said, and Tate nodded, obviously understanding what that meant.
Waving her hand, Quinn asked, “What is …Soo-Ji?”
“Not what,” Tate said. “Who.”
“She’s a friend of mine from Korea,” Arnaud explained. “And I think she might be able to help.”
Nodding, Quinn asked, “She a vampire too? Or a werewolf?”
Arnaud shook his head. “No, Soo-Ji is human but she is … gifted. She can conjure the dead.”
Quinn’s mouth dropped open. “What? You mean like ghosts?”
Arnaud nodded.
“Who do you want to talk to?” Tate asked.
“Martin.”
“Your friend?” Quinn asked. “From back when people still wore wigs?”
Again Arnaud nodded. “Yes, he was your ancestor. A first-born himself. Maybe he can tell us something.” His face grew darker. “Who knows maybe he was killed himself. And for the same reason. I don’t know how he died. Or when.”
“But wouldn’t the amulet have … told you if he had been in danger,” Quinn asked. “Like it did with me.”
“Only if he had been wearing it at the time.”
“And you think he didn’t,” Quinn asked, sensing that they were getting on dangerous grounds, full of painful memories.
Arnaud shrugged. “It’s a possibility. We didn’t part amicably.”
“But you still think he will help us?”
Again he shrugged. “Maybe he won’t do it for me.” His eyes turned to her. “But I think he will do it for you.”
Chapter 31 – A Dead Giveaway
Tuesday came sooner than she thought. With all the worrying about who was out to kill her, Quinn was constantly occupied. Not even at night did the scary memories and horrifying visions leave her alone. Apparently, shutting off her mind for some quality sleeping time was out of the question. And now there was more than just her life at stake. Suddenly there was some kind of huge conspiracy aimed at killing off the first-borns of her family. It had been going on for decades, maybe even centuries and no one had noticed anything. That was what bothered her the most, that no one had ever caught on. That people kept dying and no one seemed to care.
Thinking that, Quinn immediately realized that she was being unfair. Caring had nothing to do with seeing the truth. Without a doubt she knew that her parents loved her and yet they had no idea what was going on in her life - even apart from the continuous assassination attempts.
Sometimes, in still moments when she was able to take a step back and look at her life from almost an outside perspective, Quinn was still amazed at the supernatural forces that had taken up residence in her life. By now, Arnaud and Tate were as much and as normal a part of her life as her friends at school. When she saw them, she didn’t think of them as different any longer. Them not being human was just something she knew about them, like the color of their eyes or their favorite cereal. A fact. A detail. Like all the other little things every living person was made up of. So when they arrived at Arnaud’s on Tuesday night, it was almost like any other dinner invitation.
The de la Roche place had become so familiar to her over the last week or two that Quinn marched up to the door and opened it without even thinking of knocking.
“Quinn,” her mother called, putting a hand on her daughter’s arm and pulling her back. “What are you doing? Didn’t I teach you anything?”
Suddenly realizing what she’d done, Quinn stepped back. Quickly closing the door, she put an apologetic expression on her face and knocked.
“Hello, come on in,” Arnaud said, when he opened the door a moment later. “I’m so glad you could make it.”
Meeting his eyes, Quinn saw an amused gleam in them and knew that, thanks to his vampire hearing, he had picked up on the small exchange outside his door. Her parents however didn’t se
em to notice the familiarity with which she and Arnaud looked at each other. They were busy inspecting the house, having wondered what it would look like on the inside ever since Arnaud had moved in.
With the patience of a perfect host, he showed them around. They walked through every room and he pointed out old furniture that he had restored only recently and told little anecdotes that, according to him, had been passed down through generations. Now and then his eyes shifted to her and there was a barely noticeable smile illuminating them.
When they came into the guest room that Quinn had already spent two nights in, her eyes opened wide in shock as they fell on her pajama still lying on the bed. As though Arnaud knew, he drew her parents’ attention long enough for her to make it disappear. Although her parents knew that she had been to Arnaud’s house before, revealing to them that been to was code for slept at was definitely not a good idea. That, they seemed to agree upon.
The sound of the front door closing followed by squeaky footsteps, climbing the two-and-a-half-century-old winding staircase, announced the arrival of yet another dinner guest.
Introducing Tate to her parents, Arnaud seemed quite at ease with a situation that had Quinn all tensed-up, as two separate halves of her life suddenly collided.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Arnaud said. “But I asked Tate to join us for dinner.”
Her mother almost rushed to assure him that they did not mind at all but were indeed glad to meet a friend of his. The only person that looked a bit annoyed, not necessarily with Tate’s presence but with the dinner in general, was Cora. She had argued to be let off the hook and be allowed to spend the night at Jo’s place. Their parents however had insisted equally strongly that the invitation had been for the whole family and that it would have been rude of her not to accompany them. The expression, that had settled on Cora’s face thereupon and was still there for all to see, was not to their mother’s approval. Again and again she nudged and quietly urged her to behave appropriately.
Before long they were all seated around the long festively set dinner table in the first-floor dining room. The old chandelier hanging from the high ceiling cast the room in warm shades of orange.
Slowly walking around the table, Arnaud poured the wine, Quinn’s parents had brought as a welcome-to-the-neighborhood present.
“Since my cooking skills are nowhere near yours,” Arnaud said, looking at her mother. “I have decided it would only be torture to subject you to it. So I asked Tate to ... whip up an actually edible meal.” Grinning at his friend across the table, he placed the chicken platter and bowls with steaming vegetables in the center for all to reach.
“And you thought I would take credit for it,” Arnaud said, grinning at Tate.
“Your words not mine,” he replied good-naturedly.
“It smells wonderful,” Mrs. McPherson said, scooping vegetables onto her plate. “Did you sauté these?”
What followed was an animated discussion of recipes and the pros and cons of using herbs while cooking instead of sprinkling them on after.
“I didn’t know Tate knew so much about cooking,” Quinn whispered to Arnaud, eyeing the two at the other side of the table. They were deeply absorbed in their conversation.
He grinned at her as she turned to him. “Well, what can I say? That’s not the only thing you don’t know.”
“Again with the cryptic,” Quinn replied as quietly as possible, eyebrows drawn. “Can’t you ever just stop?”
Arnaud just shrugged, turning to her father. “Quinn told me you spent the weekend in the country visiting relatives.”
Mr. McPherson nodded. “Yes, with all the work, free time is rare and it was quite nice to spend some quality time with family.”
Quinn snorted. “C’mon dad, you got to admit that time with those people is far from being of any kind of quality.”
“Quinn!” came her mother’s scolding voice, apparently her ears were tuned to her daughters’ misbehavior lately.
Arnaud laughed good-naturedly. “I guess family is sometimes difficult to get along with. As much as you love them, they can drive you crazy every now and then.”
To Quinn’s surprise, her mother nodded knowingly. It was like watching a magician. For some reason, no matter what Arnaud said her mother would agree with him.
When the conversation again shifted to a more neutral and less dangerous topic, Quinn whispered, “Did you do something to my mom to make her behave like that?”
He frowned at her. “Behave like what?”
“Like you can do no wrong. It’s creepy.”
Arnaud smiled devilishly. “Well, you just gotta know how to talk to people.”
“That’s not an answer.”
With a mockingly serious expression on his face, he looked at her. “I’m just being my usual charming self.” His voice dropped even lower. “Nothing supernatural involved in this.”
Quinn frowned. “I’m not sure I believe you.”
A smile back on his face, Arnaud just shrugged.
“Yes, she’s amazing,” came Cora’s voice from the other side of the table. Her head was turned to Tate who listened intently.
“Who?” Quinn asked, wondering about the less annoyed expression on her sister’s face.
“Missy,” Cora replied, obviously enjoying everyone’s attention suddenly focusing on her. “Tate saw her practicing the other day.”
Everyone but Arnaud nodded knowingly.
Seeing his wondering expression, Cora said, “She’s awesome with bow and arrow. The best of the entire team.”
“But she never competes, does she?” Mrs. McPherson said, looking from one daughter to the other. “Why is that?”
Quinn shrugged. “Except for class, she never participates anywhere. The fact that she uses the shooting range alone is a sheer miracle. For some reason, she doesn’t like attention.”
“A feeling you’re not familiar with, isn’t that right?” Cora said, grinning.
Eyeing her sister, an approving grin spread over Quinn’s face. “Nicely done. But maybe you should practice some more. Every now and then.” Her eyes narrowed. “But on someone else, if you know what’s good for you.”
“Girls!” their mother said with a careful glance at their host, who in turn smiled cheerfully, looking like he was enjoying himself immensely.
After the main course, when Mrs. McPherson immediately rose to give them a hand, Arnaud and Tate quickly cleared the table, insisting that they didn’t need any help. “Please, you’re my guest,” Arnaud said, taking a plate from her. “Please sit down and let me pour you another glass.”
Grabbing the silverware collected on the empty chicken platter, Quinn walked over to the kitchen. She was filling the dishwasher as Arnaud and Tate delivered the plates and bowls.
“You don’t have to help us,” Arnaud said, trying to take the plates back.
“Oh, drop the nice act,” Quinn said, carefully arranging the dishes so they all would fit. “What are we having for dessert?” she asked closing the dishwasher.
“Peach cobbler,” Tate said.
“Mmh, sounds yummy,” Quinn replied, irrationally glad that it hadn’t been Arnaud who’d made the wonderful dinner. Right then and there, he was getting on her nerves again and she couldn’t even say why.
Arnaud looked at her carefully. “If I ask you to carry in the dessert plates, will you throw them at me? Or would it be better if I have Tate ask you?”
“Funny,” she commented, rolling her eyes at him, before jerking the plates out of his hands. “You’re just hilarious.”
Although on dangerous grounds, luckily they got through dessert without another incident. A little bit of small talk here and there, a few niceties now and then and they left the dining room to stroll through the house some more. Not venturing upstairs, Quinn’s parents were drawn by the large oil paintings in the hall and the antique mantel in the sitting room. The carvings were intricate and could only be appreciated on a closer inspection. When standi
ng too far away, they softened the smooth contours of the slightly bulky fireplace, which almost towered over Arnaud with his 6’1’’.
“This is a beautiful place,” her mother mused, turning a book from the shelf by the china cabinet in her hand. More than carefully she ran a finger over the old and almost brittle spine barely keeping the pages together. “I wish we still had all these old treasures from our family.”
The old McPherson home from the 1700s burned down in 1925, killing Julius McPherson in the process. Most of the antiques saved from times past were lost back then, erasing an entire family history.
Taking a seat on the couch facing the fireplace, Mrs. McPherson continued her lively conversation with Arnaud and Tate, while her husband and their daughters mostly sat by. Mr. McPherson didn’t seem to mind. He listened intently. The expression on Cora’s face however returned to the annoyed scowl, she had worn before dinner had started. Again she looked bored with the turn the conversation had taken. The good old times often tended to bore the young, and although Tate and Arnaud didn’t look it, they did not qualify as young.
Although young herself, Quinn was a bit intrigued by their conversation simply because she knew that Arnaud had actually lived in these times and she was still amazed by that fact.
The conversation dragged on without a change of topic for quite some time and Cora’s face grew longer and longer. “Anyone want some coffee?” Quinn asked, gesturing to her sister to follow her. “It sounds like we’ll be here a while longer.”
Her parents were taken a little off guard, exchanging unsure looks, but Arnaud nodded. “That’d be great. Would you? Or do you need my help?”
Shaking her head, Quinn pulled Cora after her. “Stay there. I got it.”
Leaning against the counter in the kitchen, Cora said, “Thanks,” while watching her sister make coffee. “But why?”
“What do you mean?” Quinn asked, scooping coffee powder into the filter.