“No,” Brandon said in a flat tone. “If you were crazy, you wouldn’t know you were crazy.”
“The sun,” she said and spread her hands at her sides with a horrified expression. “I won’t be able to feel the sun again.”
“Okay,” I said, trying to go for a different tactic. “But you stay out of the sun anyway, right? You’re skin burns in twenty minutes. Then again, we don’t get much sun in Chicago? It’s not like we live in Florida or California.”
“But the sun is essential,” Kendall said. “Humans have needed it for—”
“You’re a night owl on the weekends. If it’s sunny in the morning before you go to work, just cover your skin. Or hell,” I said, hoping some humor would offset her rightfully confused and hurt feelings, “use an umbrella! People will just think you’re stuck up. And if they insult you...go ahead and suck their blood. Then compel them to forget it but frighten them so they’ll never pick on someone again.” I appealed to her past as a bullying victim because she would never feel helpless again, and if she encountered another person victimizing someone, she would have the strength and speed to stand up to not just one person but many…at the same time.
Brandon dabbed a fingertip against the flesh she’d victimized and cringed. “I’m partly to blame for letting this happen to you, so I’m not upset that you attacked me, but if you’re dying of thirst, all you have to do is ask.”
I searched Brandon’s eyes and saw an incredible amount of self-condemnation inside them. It seemed we both blamed ourselves for Kendall’s poor fortune. I just hoped Kendall could forgive us.
The fear and confusion vanished from her face. “Yeah,” she whispered and nodded. “Yeah, I can do that.” She set her gaze on mine. “This won’t be so bad.” She nodded to convince herself. “I can do this.”
Watching so many emotions whip through her, I appreciated that I’d only had to deal with becoming a witch. I had to make some big adjustments, but they were nothing compared to the major life change Kendall now needed to manage. No matter where this development led her, I would never abandon her.
Kendall shook her head and took a few deep breaths. Afterwards, she opened her eyes and stared into mine, irritated. She raced over to me and clamped her hands around my throat.
And I didn’t fight it. Without me, her life wouldn’t have ended. The woman I knew, whose friendship I cherished, the woman who would have put me before herself, the woman who had a speech impediment…wait a minute, she no longer struggled while pronouncing her words. Not once since she’d turned had she had difficulty speaking.
Kendall quirked an eyebrow, mired in thought. “Wait a minute…” A slow smile spread across her face. “Wait…a minute!” She stared at her arms. “I’m supposed to be stronger, right? And faster?”
Soon after we met, Kendall stopped ruminating about past insults and the bullies that had gained strength from verbally assaulting her. Instead, she dismissed past abuse, accepted her speech impediment and refused to allow others to shape her reality. She looked forward, not backward. This explained why she quickly disregarded her frustration at losing her humanity and considered the possibilities of living as a vampire. I also suspected that deep down, where she locked away her inferiority complex, she could now throw off those substandard feelings and be better in so many ways.
“This might not be so bad,” Kendall admitted, looking neither happy nor sad, but somewhere in the middle.
I knew what she meant. Upon discovering that I had pyrokinetic powers and the ability to astral project, I had felt invincible until I realized that those abilities were more of a hindrance than a benefit. I had to learn how to control those powers, something I still struggled with, but I would have given them up if it meant my ancestors hadn’t been witches with the power to create supernatural beings that walked the Earth and harmed (or killed) others.
Kendall glanced at Brandon. “I don’t need to feed on you…there are billions of people on the planet.” Then she turned toward the door and made her way in that direction.
A second later, however, because Brandon was closest to the door, he strapped his body against it, preventing Kendall from leaving.
She put a hand on his shoulder and attempted to move him, but he didn’t budge. “Wait,” she said, puzzled. “That’s not supposed to happen. I’m supposed to be really strong.”
A wavering grin that teetered between fright and pride played along his lips.
“You took my strength...when I was on the floor, unconscious.”
“I’ve got it for three hours,” he said. “I don’t want you to hurt anyone.”
“You stole from me?” she asked, making her way toward him.
I remained on her heels. “You’re not leaving!”
She twisted my way with an obnoxious grin. “Oh, is that right? Try to torch me, and I’ll leave you in the dust. Just don’t burn the apartment down, okay? I still need someplace to sleep.”
She pulled out her cell phone and started tapping away. She obviously saw something she liked because she smiled. “Brandon?” She looked up at him, not with her typical dreamy eyes, but with a hard gaze, revealing that she would do everything she could to remove him if necessary. “I have someplace I need to be.”
“I can’t let you leave.” He swallowed, looking uneasy, knowing that he might need to rely on his strength to stop her, probably fearful that he might hurt her in the process.
“Get away from the door.”
“I can’t. I won’t.”
Kendall turned around and darted past me. She streaked through the kitchen. A second later, the back door leading to the alley slammed shut.
No longer bound by a physical limitation that held her back, her subconscious had taken control of her faculties. It meant she’d want to release the anger that she’d held at bay for years.
“We need to stop her,” I said.
“Why?” asked Brandon.
I pushed him toward the door. “She’s going to hurt…Come on, let’s go!”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Where’s Kendall going?” asked Brandon in the passenger seat beside me.
“Fractured,” I said, referring to a new dance club that had just opened. Kendall and I had checked out the nightclub a couple weeks ago because various media outlets had reported on dance club that, rather than playing the same top 40 hits that pumped through the speaker system of every club, featured remixed hard rock music that concentrated on a heavy bass and drum beat just as much as squealing guitars.
“Check my sister’s status on Facebook. Find out where she’s at.”
Brandon went to work on his smartphone.
Intuition told me that Kendall must have also scanned my sister’s status on Facebook to determine her whereabouts. After all, a couple days ago at a different club, Alexis used her mind-control ability to force Kendall to mimic her dance moves, only to freeze half of her body in ice. Kendall obviously wanted retribution. I couldn’t blame my friend for wanting retribution. If my sister had compelled me to replicate her moves on the dance floor, I’d have felt humiliated and would have had a difficult time putting that behind me.
“Yep,” Brandon said. “Fractured, it is. Your sister reminds me of the Tomb Raider. Hot, powerful, and unrelenting. Guess I’ll call her the Mind Raider.”
I couldn’t deny the suitable nature behind the nickname.
“So what’s the plan?” he asked.
“Something tells me that you can…steal abilities at will.”
“What do you mean?”
“You took Alexis’s mind-control ability, practically without even trying. Granted, no one had ever done that before to her, so you caught her off-guard. For that reason, I’m certain she won’t be so easy to manipulate this time. Remember what Zephora said: every witch is afraid of losing her powers. Alexis, more than any other person I could imagine, would be paranoid about losing her mind-reading abilities. For that reason, I’ll bet she’s spent a lot of time working on her abili
ty to prevent you from stealing that again.”
“But I have Kendall’s strength for the next few hours or so. Won’t that help?”
“Against Alexis? How will strength help you when she slings snowballs at you or turns on the polar vortex?”
“Good point. So what are you thinking? I should swap the ability I took from Kendall and take Alexis’s power so I’d become the Snow Queen…I mean, The Abominable Snowman?” He gave that some thought. “Hey, that wouldn’t be so bad, me and Elsa hooking up.”
I ignored his comment regarding about the Disney character from the animated film, Frozen. “I’ve stopped her from using mind-control on me, so I need you to work on taking her freezing capabilities.” I didn’t want to contemplate how Alexis had ended my life using those abilities. It conjured up too much fright, uncertainty. Last time, I’d faced Alexis when she couldn’t anticipate the strength of my abilities, but now she knew what I was capable of, and she had most likely prepared to face me again, especially after our confrontation at The Angels of Babylon. Which meant she’d be more cautious.
“Do you think she’d be ready to stop me from taking her snow-making abilities as well?” Brandon asked.
“Yes, but that shouldn’t stop you from trying.”
Brandon didn’t look convinced. “This could blow up in our faces.”
“She’s already killed me once,” I said. “It can’t get any worse than that.”
“For you, maybe. But do you remember the way she looked at me? What she said? ‘I’ll even things up with you!’” Worried, he looked out the window. “She wants to kill me!”
I couldn’t overlook the pure hatred with which my sister had glared at Brandon. “We’ll figure something out,” I replied, uncertain that we would indeed follow that course of action.
Within ten minutes, I pulled to the curb a few spaces behind the spot where Kendall had parked, although on the opposite side of the street. She jumped out of her car as though she’d been shot out of a canon, and rushed to the door.
Just as Brandon and I exited my vehicle and headed in her direction, Kendall entered the club. We rushed past traffic, approached the door, and tried to open it…but it was locked.
Brandon took a turn doing his best to pull it open, but the door didn’t budge. “I took her strength, so why can’t I open the door?”
“Your level of strength matches that of the weakest witch me. It’s that way for all the powers you take from any supernatural creature.”
“So I’m like some half-assed Aquaman, is that what you’re saying?”
I ignored his remark. “Let’s go around back.” I ran alongside the north wall until we came to an alley and then turned into it before curling back around toward the back end of Fractured. We jumped a three-foot fence, raced alongside the sidewalk, and approached the back door.
I tried to open it, but it remained locked. I knocked a few times, but when no one answered, Brandon pounded his fist against the metal door until a large, black man wearing a black “STAFF” shirt opened the door with an annoyed expression.
Knowing he’d only answered the door thinking that an emergency had occurred, I didn’t give him a chance to slam the door on us. I jabbed a few fingers into his neck, sending him backwards, grabbing his throat.
The place smelled of peppermint. The song “Pour Some Sugar on Me” by Def Leppard pumped through the speakers, only unlike the original version, the bass and drums pounded in a tribal rhythm that made the song dance able.
Brandon hurried inside and ran up a small flight of stairs before turning right.
As much as I wanted to follow him, I felt guilty for disabling the big guy who was now bent over with both hands grasping his throat as though he’d suffered a tracheal hemorrhage. Unable to leave him in such torment, I stayed behind him, dropped a hand on his shoulder, and told him to bend over to get his breath and that the pain would soon subside.
To my surprise, he nodded with no ill will.
When I was confident that he wouldn’t pass out, I sped in the direction Brandon had gone and found him ten seconds later, near the edge of the dance floor. We didn’t spot either Kendall or Alexis anywhere. Dancers slinked across the floor, raising their arms in the air, swaying their hips side-to-side.
Then I remembered that the building had a second floor. I looked up and didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t occurred. I hurried for the stairs, jumped two stairs at a time, and stopped six steps from the top to avoid being seen from those above, while still permitting me to see what took place on the second floor.
To my right, beside a large plate glass window, sat various cocktail tables, where a couple dozen people chatted. Moving my gaze toward the other side, I spotted a couple female bartenders, serving a handful of people awaiting service, while to the back left corner, ten more people danced. I didn’t spend a second of thought on any of them. I concentrated on the two women fifteen feet ahead from me.
Kendall faced Alexis. Both women moved in a clockwise pattern, sizing each other up like wrestlers in the WWE, searching for a weakness to attack.
On the first floor, the DJ on the raised platform had fused the Def Leppard song into a Rob Zombie tune called “American Witch.” The track lent an eerie tone as strobe lights flickered and swirled across the ceiling.
Without looking, Alexis somehow sensed that a six-foot-six inch man stood near her. She motioned toward him and used her supernatural ability to move objects within an orbit of three times her height sent him skittering into the wooden bar, knocking the drink from his hand and eliciting a grunt of pain. Alexis stepped into the spot he’d just vacated before continuing in the circle that she and Kendall moved in.
She met Kendall’s gaze with a smile. “You’re ready to dance for real this time, huh?” she asked.
Kendall smirked.
“Something’s different about you. Did you turn…” The enthusiasm on her face vanished. “Ah, you got turned into a vamp, didn’t you?”
Kendall grinned, revealing fangs.
The cockiness in Alexis’s expression transformed into uncertainty.
“What’s wrong? Never faced a vampire before?”
“You’re the first.” Those unfamiliar with Alexis wouldn’t have noticed that her cheeks twitched with uncertainty for an instant before they lifted into a hideous grin filled with dark intentions. “Darius?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Only…you’re not glad, no matter how much you want me to believe that.” She analyzed Kendall’s expression. “Wait a sec. You’re afraid of yourself, afraid of what you’ll do.” She chuckled, eliciting an expression of pity.
“Stay out of my head.”
“Saying it won’t make it happen. But don’t worry, you’re not going to hurt me.”
I launched myself up the remaining steps, making my presence known. “Block it, Kendall. You can compel her, too!”
“Hey, it’s the Revengers!”
“No,” I said. “Me and Brandon are here to make sure neither of you do anything…unbecoming of a lady.”
“What is this? The Regency Period? Mr. Darcy can eat me.”
It surprised me that my sister had either read the book or seen the film or television adaptations of the Jane Austen classic, “Pride and Prejudice.” While many were first introduced to Austen’s work before they graduated from high school, I couldn’t imagine Alexis wasting her time on anything related to the story during that period in her life. I’d imagined her as someone who regarded art conceived before her birth as meaningless. Furthermore, when it came to education, I had difficulty believing that she had enrolled in college and was taking night classes to receive her Bachelor’s degree. Since she drank every day around the clock, wouldn’t she be too wasted to concentrate while studying? And why call me Little Miss University if she, too, attended college? That made no sense. Similarly, I found it preposterous that she designed lingerie and owned a substantial portion of that business. I made
a mental note to look up her business online sometime soon to see if it actually existed. Nevertheless, it seemed I’d underestimated her.
“I might have to kill your friend,” Alexis said. “She bit her lower lip, feigning uncertainty. “Hope that’s not gonna be a problem.”
“Why should it? You killed me. I wouldn’t expect anything less from a murderer.”
She chuckled. “Takes one to know one, I guess.” She tilted her head to the side, contemplative. “By the way, who’re you planning to kill next? It’d be helpful to know if I need to prepare a eulogy.”
I didn’t need the reminder. I thought about her numerous times every hour. Alexis underscored that point to either piss me off or to distract me. Probably both. Regardless, I wouldn’t allow my mind to waver.
Kendall grunted, frustration lining her face. “Can we skip past the family reunion and—”
“You’re right,” said Alexis. She slung a snowball at Kendall.
She dodged the ice, which smacked a man walking up the steps in the face, sending him sprawling to the ground. Nevertheless, since most everyone on this floor was tipsy or even intoxicated, they didn’t notice the disruption. To anyone looking this way, the man appeared to stumble on the top step, the result of having consumed too much booze, although pieces of snow-tinged ice splintered across the ground at his feet. His date almost tripped over him and barely managed to correct her balance before leaning down to help him up. She didn’t think anything of the ice on the ground, probably assuming that ice cubes had spilled from his glass before he’d stepped on them.
It didn’t surprise me that, other than the participants, only Brandon and I had seen the attack. None of the customers nearby expected a showdown between two supernatural beings. Why would they? As far as they knew, the situation sounded as unbelievable as angels on planet Earth.
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