Flutter

by Amanda Hocking

  “So we’re just going there because that’s where he usually goes?” I still couldn’t wrap my mind around Peter hanging out in Finland. That just didn’t sound… exotic enough?

  “No. Peter’s had a run-in in Finland. I don’t know exactly where he is, but I’m certain he’s there,” Ezra said.

  “A ‘run-in?’ What happened?”

  “I’m not entirely sure,” he said at length. “And I’d rather not speculate.”

  “You’d rather not speculate?” I repeated. “I’m on a plane flying half-way across the world, and not only do you not know where we’re going, but you’d rather not even speculate on why we’re going?”

  “Finland is not half-way around the world,” Ezra corrected me.

  “Whatever.” I sunk down in my seat and crossed my arms over my chest. “I can’t speak Finnish.”

  “You don’t need to. I can.” He flipped another page in his book, and I sighed.

  “You’re gonna be a hoot to travel with if you’re like this whole time,” I muttered, and he laughed to himself.

  I borrowed a book from Ezra so I had something to do with the rest the flight. After a couple hours of reading about native Finnish wildlife, I vowed to get as many magazines and books as I could when we landed at JFK. That was my plan until we actually started de-boarding the plane, and Ezra grasped my hand in his.

  “There’s a layover here,” Ezra told me quietly as we walked. “You can’t eat until we get on the next plane, because you’re a mess when you eat. I need you to stay by me and never let go of my hand, no matter what. Is that clear?”

  “Yeah but….” I was about to ask him why, but then we were stepping beyond the plane, and the smell hit me for the first time.

  There hadn’t been that many people in the Minneapolis airport. In fact, I would go so far as to say there weren’t even that many people in Minneapolis. JFK terminal is a city unto itself, full of hot, sweaty people pressed up against each other.

  Suddenly, my thirst appeared with a vengeance.

  Waiting in the airport was torture. Most of the time, I had to grip Ezra’s hand so tightly, I don’t know how I didn’t break a bone or something. I sat rigidly, my eyes locked on my shoes in front of me.

  Ezra sat next to me, a leg crossed over his knee, with a magazine open on his lap and telling me all about Martha Stewart’s recommendations for making Halloween treats. He was trying to keep me calm and focused, but hearing about making Rice Krispies treats orange made me want to vomit.

  Going through security was very hard, but Ezra told me to keep saying the alphabet backwards in my head. It didn’t really soften the burning thirst inside of me, and I kept my eyes locked on the throbbing pulse in the security guard’s neck, but I didn’t bite him. So I counted that as a success.

  Ezra gave me the window seat and belted me in, which made both of us feel better. I closed my eyes and tried not to think of Jack. He lurked painfully in my thoughts and only made my bloodlust increase. The whole situation felt very precarious, and I started to think that I wasn’t ready for this trip.

  When the engines of the plane revved, Ezra leaned over and whispered, “If the plane crashes, it’ll be in the ocean. The ocean’s full of sharks, and they can kill us. You actually have something to be afraid of this time.”

  “Is that supposed to comfort me?” I asked through gritted teeth.

  “No, not at all. I wanted to scare the hell of out you so you’d stop thinking about… things.” He squeezed my hand back, and that felt reassuring somehow. “But it’s still true. Sharks are brutal.”

  The instant we were free to move about, Ezra grabbed the cans of blood from the overhead bin and led me back to the restrooms. We got a lot of weird looks from the other passengers and the flight crew, but nobody stopped us. I doubted that any humans ever stopped Ezra. He was too beautiful and confident.

  There was hardly enough room in the bathroom for one person, let alone two, so he swiftly lifted me up and set me on the sink. He set the cans on my lap, and I imagined that I could smell it and trembled with hunger.

  “You are so pale,” Ezra murmured to himself. He pushed a strand of hair out off my face and looked at me fully in the eyes, inspecting them for their level of hunger. “I’m going to give you two cans, okay?”

  “Yeah, whatever, fine,” I nodded quickly. I didn’t care at all what he said as long as I got the blood.

  “This is gonna hit you hard, but I need you to walk back out to your seat, okay?” Ezra said. “And you can pass out as soon as you sit down.”

  “Okay!” I snapped.

  He pursed his lips but unscrewed the can. The small room instantly filled with the scent, and I ripped it from his hands and guzzled it down. As soon as it slid down my throat, ease grew in my muscles. Even though the blood was very cold, it spread hot through my body.

  Before I even finished the first can, Ezra opened another one. He wanted me to get them down me as fast as possible, so we had a chance of me making it back to my seat before I blitzed out.

  After I drank them both, he shoved the empty cans in the garbage. I licked my lips clean, but he inspected me for any blood on my face. The world already had that hazy glow to it, and a wonderful tranquil feeling wanted to take over.

  With Ezra so close to me, I had the strangest urge to kiss him. That was just the blood talking, so I lowered my head before I could act on it.

  We walked back to our seats, him with his arm on me to steady me. It took all my strength to keep from stumbling or doing anything ridiculous. All the colors seemed to shine brighter. My green sweater looked like grass, and I wanted to pet it, but Ezra was sliding me into the seat.

  “How are you feeling?” he whispered as he buckled me back in.

  “Dreamy,” I murmured with a dazed smile on my lips.

  Before he could put the bag back in the overhead compartment, I passed out. Even with his new threats about sharks and the gnawing ache for Jack, I slept soundlessly the entire way to Finland.

  Ezra shook me awake, and while I’d been sleeping, he’d gotten me a pillow and blanket. He had a blanket folded on his lap, and I wondered if he’d slept at all.

  “We’re about to touch down in Helsinki,” Ezra informed me.

  “Really?” I yawned and stretched, then looked out my window. It was dark out, but the city was aglow with twinkley lights. “What time is it?”

  “It’s ten o’clock, Wednesday,” he said.

  “Oh.” My brain scrambled to figure when we left, but it didn’t seem right. “Wait. Didn’t we leave at ten on Tuesday?”

  “There’s a time difference. You might suffer a bit of jet lag,” he said.

  “I hope not.” I didn’t even really know what jet lag was, but it didn’t sound like something I’d want to suffer from.

  A flight attendant came to collect our blankets, and the captain came on, saying things about making the descent into Helsinki. He repeated the same message in Finnish, or at least I assumed he did since I didn’t understand a word of it.

  As we got closer, the city looked much more stunning than I expected. In my mind, it had been more of a cold, desolate place, but in reality, it was glamorous and historical, the way I imagined Paris or London might be. Not that I had ever seen either of them to have any real comparison.

  “This is where Peter went to live off the grid?” I asked as I admired the architecture.

  “No, he’s not here.” Ezra shook his head. “We have one more flight to make.”

  “Really?” I wrinkled my nose. Even though I had slept through this flight, my body felt stiff.

  “Just up to northern Finland, in the Lapland,” Ezra said as if that meant anything to me. “I’ll explain more once we land. We have another layover.”

  “Fantastic,” I sighed.

  We got off the plane, and Ezra got everything sorted for the next flight. I made sure to hang out by a large window. I was determined to admire the view of Helsinki. Not that there was a view from the
airport. It was mostly planes, landing strips, and traffic. But that was more than I had seen in New York.

  “It really is a beautiful city,” Ezra said, coming up to stand next to me.

  We watched a plane taxi down the runway. He knew I was trying to catch a glimpse of something I would miss entirely. I sighed but refused to leave my post at the window.

  “You’ve stayed here before?” I asked.

  “Many times, mostly before Mae.” He nodded. “I’ve managed to drag her out here a few times, but she doesn’t like to leave Minnesota very much. But Peter loves it here.”

  “How come?”

  “The cold, the dark, the wilderness, the seclusion. He stays further up north. They have a few national parks and some ski resorts. And Helsinki, Stockholm, Amsterdam, they’re not that far away, whenever he requires bustling city life.”

  The way he said “life” I knew he meant more than dinner and a show. Actually, he just meant dinner. Peter might enjoy isolation, but he needed a population to eat, preferably a mixture of vampires and people. Vampire bars and blood banks made eating so much easier, and the fewer the people, the less the options.

  “So that’s where we’re going? Up north?” I turned to Ezra. “What’d you call it? The Lapland?”

  “Yeah. It’s the northern most territory in Finland.” He took a deep breath, and he sounded reluctant when he continued. “There’s something I haven’t told you.”

  “There’s lots of things you haven’t told me.”

  “This is important.” He licked his lips and shifted his gaze. “You’ve heard stories of werewolves, right?”

  My stomach dropped. Sure, I may be a vampire, but there were certain things I couldn’t take. Like finding out an endless stream of monsters and folklore were real. After this, maybe we’d roll with a Yeti or go swimming with the Lochness Monster and a Leprechaun.

  There had to be some point where fiction remained fiction, and I was determined that it ended immediately after vampires.

  “No, no, no.” I shook my head. “Jack told me there weren’t any werewolves. There’s no such thing.”

  “No, there’s not,” Ezra agreed. “Shape shifting of any kind is an impossibility. Or at least as far as I know.”

  “So…” My heart slowed a little, but he was still holding something back. “Why even bring them up?”“You’ve heard the stories about them, though, haven’t you?” His deep brown eyes looked at me intently.

  “Yeah,” I answered uncertainly.

  My knowledge of werewolves was very limited, and mostly based on Michael J. Fox’s portrayal in Teen Wolf. I had never thought the film was very factual, because I couldn’t imagine how surfing on a van could be possible, werewolf or not. The only thing I carried from it was that wolves were good at basketball. This information did not seem pertinent to the situation.

  “How the full moon makes them come out, and they attack without reproach?” Ezra went on. “They turn into vicious animals, unfettered by remorse or logic.”

  “Okay, sure,” I nodded, hoping he would just hurry and make his point.

  “Do you remember when I told you about the vampires I had encountered when I first turned?” He grew more solemn. “They were … rabid animals.”

  “You’re not… they’re not…” I faltered. “What are you saying exactly?”

  “Sometimes, some vampires, either by choice or just by design, don’t ever fully civilize,” he explained carefully. “The ones that are entirely primeval are killed quickly. Even vampires can’t stomach rampant monsters. But some willfully seek out a different life, one separate from people and humanity.

  “We believe the early stories of werewolves are based on vampires living like this.” He took a deep breath and looked out at the night sky. “In small packs they hunt together, living more like animals than people. By necessity, they can’t kill most of their food, but they want to hunt and kill. They hunt big game, like bears and elk, even wolves. Not for food, but for sport.”

  “People do that too,” I interjected, but I’m not sure what point I was making with that.

  “We call them lycans. It’s short for lycanthrope, which just means werewolf. It’s a little inside joke for vampires.” Ezra smiled at me with that, but I didn’t really think it was funny. “Lycan, I think, just means wolf in Greek.”

  “This was a round about way of giving me a lesson in Greek?” I asked dryly.

  “There’s a pack of lycan that live in the Finnish Lapland,” he ignored me. “I’ve come across them before, but it’s an ever changing group, with only the leader remaining. He’s a sadist, and the life expectancy for his pack isn’t anywhere near what it is for the average vampire, or even for other lycans. They’re known for their brutality, and they’ve killed people and vampires indiscriminately.”

  I swallowed hard and focused on the bright lights flashing outside of the window. By now, I figured out how this story ended up with us here, waiting for a plane to take us to the lycan. Our destination was very much connected with theirs.

  “Last week, Peter killed a member of their pack. They want revenge, and they won’t stop until they get him. And, Peter, in his current state, seems happy to offer himself up,” Ezra said quietly. “We have to find him before they do.”

  I could barely control my own bloodlust, but we were going out to the wilderness to track down a pack of crazed werewolves-cum-vampires so we could save a vampire that tried to kill me before. It all made perfect sense.

  “Alice?” Ezra asked when I just kept staring out the window. “Do you have any questions?”

  “Nope.” I shook my head. “But Jack’s gonna be so pissed when he finds out what we’re doing.”

  - 5 –

  The hotel was a cross between a Holiday Inn and a hunting lodge, with fireplaces and antlers hanging on the wall, but I was still pleasantly surprised by the set up. After another flight, followed by a short drive in a rental car and a brief stop at a local blood bank to stock up, we checked into the hotel.

  Our room had hardwood floors, and it had that same nice, generic look any other hotel would have. They had internet access and a television. Based on the amount of cars in the parking lot, it was relatively busy.

  Ezra busied himself with unpacking, while I had just dropped my luggage on one of the beds. I claimed the double bed closer to the window.

  “I’m going to take a shower,” Ezra said and gathered up his change of clothes and toiletries. “Then we’ll get some rest and have a go at finding Peter tomorrow.”

  “Do we really have time to waste?” I tried to ask without accusation. We left in such a hurry, and I wasn’t sure how imminent the danger was.

  “We have to rest, or I’ll be of no use to Peter.” He shrugged, as if he couldn’t see any way around it.

  Once he’d gone in the bathroom and I heard the shower running, I changed into my pajamas. They felt tremendous after spending the past twenty hours or so stuck in jeans and a sweater.

  I had gotten sleep on the plane ride over the ocean, and with the time difference, I’d just be getting up in Minneapolis. Plus, Ezra had amped me up when he dropped the news that we were really chasing after werewolfian vampires, so I didn’t feel like sleeping.

  I pulled out my cell phone, and I was surprised to find that I had a signal (subconsciously I guess I had been thinking that Finland was in the stone ages).

  Crossing my fingers, I sat down on the bed and hoped Jack’d be awake. This had been the longest we’d gone without talking to each other since I’d turned, and it felt very strange. Like the chemicals in my body were off-balance without him.

  “Hello?” Jack sounded frantic when he answered the phone. “Alice? Are you okay? Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” Irrational tears welled up in my eyes. It was stupid how much I missed him. “We just got to the hotel. I was calling to let you know that we got in alright.”

  “Good. Good.” He was genuinely relieved but didn’t relax
. “How was your flight?”

  “I slept through most of it,” I said. “This is my first time being out of the Midwest, though, and it sucks. I was in New York City, and I didn’t see any of it. I barely got a glimpse of Helsinki when we were coming in.”

  “You’re in Finland?” Jack yelled, and I realized that I might’ve said too much. “That’s where Peter’s in trouble with vampires?”

  “Um…” I shifted on the bed, thinking of a line to feed him.

  “They’re not really vampires, are they? It’s lycan.” He sighed when I didn’t say anything, and he held the phone away from his mouth. “Mae! Mae!”

  “Why are you yelling at Mae?”

  “Because. If she knew that’s what you guys were doing-”

  “What?” I interrupted him. “What would she do?”

  He grumbled something under his breath but didn’t have a follow-up for that. Even if Mae had known about it before we left, she would’ve tried just as hard to talk Ezra out of it. Ezra hadn’t told anybody where we were going for that reason. He had made up his mind, and he didn’t want to waste time fighting about it.

  “I should get on a plane right now,” Jack said.

  “Don’t be silly. Ezra wouldn’t let anything happen to me. I’m just here to try to talk Peter into coming back, not to fight any stupid vampires,” I said.

  “Peter doesn’t need to come back,” he muttered.

  “Have you been to Finland?” I quickly changed the subject. I couldn’t make him feel good about me being here, but maybe I could distract him enough where he worried a little less.

  “Yeah, once, a few years back,” he said disdainfully. “We went skiing, and it was terrible. I broke a snowboard and rolled down the hill. It wasn’t that fun. Finland’s not that great. You should just come home.”

  “Jack.” I smiled when I pictured him tumbling down a hill, but it faded when he went back to trying to convince me to leave. “You’re wasting this call. My phone’s going to die, and I don’t have a charger. Do you really wanna spend this time arguing with me, when you know you’re not going to change my mind?”