"I think you should have called him on it, he would have respected that."
“On what?” Bri asked not sure what she meant.
They watched one another for a while saying nothing, but her eyes held a knowledge Bri knew but never spoke about. Ashess had been loved once, had loved whole heartedly in return and now hated watching Bri fight herself on it.
"Your right but in reality this night was all about Winter.” Bri said out loud again as Win and Belle watched closely. “I didn’t want to make a scene."
Ash laughed. “Honey, that was worth a scene. Bri that was your man not hers and she held his hand knowing full well she was the dinner and didn’t care. Fangs was using her for a rise from you, you just gave him the wrong one."
"Then I guess it’s a good thing I can hold a grudge." She said leaning back in her chair.
“Holding grudges is actually your worst quality Bri. It’s why you’re in this mess in the first place.” Belle stated so elegant and aggravating.
"I knew what he was doing and if an eager twenty-something wants to willingly get used as a suck and fuck that’s fine. That was the one thing I would never be." This conversation had gotten into some super deep way beyond territory. For the first time in all their years as friends Bri had never talked openly about her love life. The shock of her friends did not go unnoticed, but bless em’ they let her continue.
“You wouldn’t have been a suck and fuck Bri. Don’t you get it?” Belle asked.
“No she doesn’t.” Ash said
“I get it.” Winter chimed in and Bri wanted to growl in defense.
“Tell me, what would I have been then?" She asked all her frustration running its toll on her. Winter flinched and looked around the bar. “Calm down Bri, we only want to help.”
“I’m fine let’s just get this over with now.” She moaned streaking her fingers through her golden waves, tugging slightly realizing it was the same move Fangs made when at his limit. That reflection made her tug harder and moan louder. “I’m so fucked.” She mumbled to herself.
"Fangs made you his lover not his happy meal." Belle stated happily and Bri cringed at the mental image.
"I know." She mumbled quietly.
"Then why are you still sitting here? Go let the little girl know he is taken and any sucking or fucking tonight will be from you."
They all looked at Winter completely shocked for the vulgar language from such a pristine mouth and from the violent tone she used as she pronounced each word.
"Well I'll be." Said Belle dropping a fifty on the table and standing with her jacket and purse in hand. "Snow White finally turned twenty one today."
Winter rolled her eyes and laughed. "Where are you going? You can’t leave yet!" She whined and made it clear no more margaritas for Princess.
"We are all going to drag Bri out of here and home to get skankafied before we send her ready and willing to Fangs."
They laughed the whole way to Bri’s house, teasing each other and discussing her plan of action. The same one that took a nose dive right into hell the minute she walked through the door.
*
"This is awkward." Winter said and stepped out the front door back first. "We can come back tomorrow."
Bri wanted to tell them, beg them to stay once she got a glimpse of the anger around Fangs, but he made it clear that this little visit was strictly invite only. "Trust me it is for the best." His eyes were pinned on Bri though his words were meant for Winter.
"How was dinner?" She asked immediately wanting to kick herself. At this point she was egging him on, it was a defense she used often. She had been ready to walk in his crypt just five minutes ago and confess her undying love to him, but the minute she saw his face and his black eyes a glow with anger she jumped the defensive.
She wasn’t about to break down if he was only here to fight some more.
"There she goes.” He tossed his arms in the air. “I come to talk and see what the bloody hell is wrong with us and you go raising my hackles not thirty seconds from walking in the bloody God damned door." He spoke with one hand in his pocket and the other flapping around as he spoke.
Bri threw herself down on the couch burying her head in the couch cushion resisting the urge to scream or go running from the room. They were so hopeless that it reeked of pathetic.
"What the hell am I supposed to do Bri? It is my bleeding nature to feed off of blood, and you’re not offering to assist so I have only one choice." He sounded as tired as Bri felt. However she would take his exhaustion over anger any day of the week.
"Why did you have to rub it in my face then?" She asked sitting up and forcing herself to look at him. He was the most frighteningly handsome man she had ever seen. His long hair always layered perfectly, with a permanent five o'clock shadow. He wore his usual clothes but somehow tonight they seemed to draw on his beauty just so it would hurt her a little more. In faded worn blue jeans and a grey T shirt, Fangs looked like sex and lust and power. It was him though, always him. He was the sex, he was the lust and he was an extreme power.
"This is what you wanted. Remember that when you’re feeling jealous. What am I supposed to do? I can’t avoid feeding in the chance you may get your feelings hurt. I'm not a hero Bri, I won’t starve to death because you can’t deal with your own decisions."
He stood motionless in the entry way to her kitchen but she could feel the anger coming off of him in a mad rush and forced herself to remember that even though this was Fangs, he was still a very lethal very frightening Vampire who never made threats. His own words ran through her mind as she watched him seething in anger. I will never threaten to kill you or warn you, I will simply do it fair or not.
She couldn’t sit there looking at him knowing that his anger was directed at her. She had so much she needed, wanted to tell him and knew that maybe letting him vent was best. "Beer?"She asked walking by him, just like a little kid who pokes the angry dog then cries when the dog snapped.
Please do not snap at me Fangs.
He stayed standing in the entry way and took the beer she offered him, popping the cap and tossing it in the trash beside him. Neither of them spoke, they just stood there in an unbearable silence waiting for the other to speak up.
Fangs played with the label to the bottle. "This is good." He said and she assumed he meant the beer.
"It's Sam Adams seasonal blend... A Pilsner I think."
He laughed. "I meant us, it’s been five minutes and we aren’t yelling."
"We haven’t talked either."
"What can I say Bri?"
"What if...." she said and stopped as he spoke. She almost did it but stopped when he asked her that.
“What if what?”
What if you used me to drink from?
“What if we tried to be friends?” Because I miss you and I want to be back where we were before I freaked out and ran from you. I miss you so much and your right here but I can’t reach you to tell you I need you and I’m so sorry.
"You know we can’t Bri" he said pulling her from her mental plea. “Every time I needed to feed this would happen. There is just too much history between us to be just friends.” He motioned between them, his anger was gone and his voice held a note she couldn’t place but his eyes, his eyes knew exactly what she wanted to ask.
What if I fed you? Because I'm a demon and that’s why I never let you before...
"What if you drank bagged blood? Could you I mean?" Her voice betrayed her as she spoke because there was so much need inside for him. Fangs pushed himself from the wall and stalked towards Bri as she backed up against the counter. The smooth granite was cold against her palms and she gripped the edges. He rested his hands on top of Bri’s and bit back a hiss at their touch; letting her know she still affected him. He hadn’t given up, not yet.
"Be sure that is really what you wanted to ask me Bri, be damn sure."
He squeezed her wrists as she went to answer silently shutting her up. "Be very sure because whe
n I leave here I won’t be back. I'm tired of this charade." Shaking his head he looked at her, his eyes hooded. "I can’t do this with you anymore."
Talk about pressure. She didn’t know what to say. She had been on the edge with Fangs for the last several months trying to figure out what the hell she was doing without him all while wanting him back. She couldn’t give him all or nothing now, this instant. She still had a knife out there that would end her sentence with Fil or send her right back. She preferred her dull pirates blade but this was her guarantee, her free kill card.
She looked at him and was terrified because he wasn’t bluffing. He would leave and she knew why he wouldn’t stay. She made the toughest call of her long life and lied to the only man she had ever loved, the only one she ever would. Lied knowing he would leave her with no more chances. She loved him enough to let him go though. Fil had too many dark corners in his closet and he would go after Fangs and use those dark corners to kill him. If she promised forever to Fangs now, and never found the knife, Fangs would die trying to free her. His death is one she could not bear, so she lied.
"I only meant that perhaps it would be easier. I meant nothing else by it, I swear." And with those words she ripped her own heart out.
Fangs eyes locked on Bri and she memorized the beauty in the black depths, letting the memory of his face sear itself to her memory. He showed emotion and he would never again grace her doorway. He stood there for a few long drawn out moments and she felt an immense fear that he may strike her dead now but as he let her wrists go she felt the connection between them get severed, he shut her out that quickly and she became nothing to him. He turned and walked away from Bri, the only sound she heard was his fist slamming down on the granite counter shattering it in a thousand tiny pieces before walking out her door.
She slid to her knees and cried. He was gone, he was finally gone.
*
Chapter Six
Monday morning came at the same time it did every week but Bri found it damn near impossible to drag her sorry self from bed, but life went on and as old as she was you would think she would have remembered that. She got to Ashess' house a little passed nine am and growled when she needled Bri for being over an hour late.
"Where have you been?" She demanded as Bri walked into her kitchen and took a mug from one of her cupboards and filled a cup of coffee. Bri’s hair was down and the giant Dolce sunglasses were still on. Bri assumed that Ash was either being polite by not saying anything or she hadn’t noticed the new look of being glamour free. She figured it was the latter because Ash was never one for the former.
Bri had decided earlier that morning that her fear and lies cost her Fangs. Even if he didn’t know the real her, it was still the reason she had to let him go. That and if she had a fighting chance in hell at getting the knife she needed all the help she could get and that meant using her powers for fighting not a perfect appearance.
"I’ve tried calling you where is your cell?" Belle asked coming down the spiral staircase that sat off to the side of the dining room and kitchen area. "I think we have the buyer of the knife."
That had Bri ripping the glasses from her eyes and almost jumping in joy. "What?" She shrieked.
Belle and Ash both paused when they saw Bri’s scars on full display but she shook her head no. Knife talk was more important than her new urge to go all natural. "Later about the scars, for now tell me what we have."
They all walked to the table as Belle pulled up the Bridgette Monroe Auction house on her laptop. "It says here that a man by the name of Carl Mortimer III purchased the Blessed Knife in 1818. It was passed down from generation to generation until an ugly divorce caused a stir. Avalon Whelch, the wife of Charles Mortimer found old Charles in bed with another woman and filed for divorce in 1963, each battling in court for the knife upon the finality of the divorce when Avalon was awarded the piece. When Avalon moved to the US in 1970 with their two children she brought the knife with her." Belle was positively glowing as she turned the laptop towards me. "Guess who got the knife upon Avalon’s death in 1992?"
She looked at the photo of Clarke Vincent Whelch, business tycoon for Fortune 500 companies of Vincent, Page and Abbot. The article went on to describe why Vincent chose to use his middle name for the company not wanting to have any relation to his estranged father. "Oh my God Belle, this is huge." She cried and hugged her. "Have we found Whelch?" She asked mentally tallying how soon she could be on a flight to London.
"That’s where we get a little confused. It says here that Whelch placed the knife for auction in 1963 claiming there was no value if it was without the proof of the artist. He had no idea obviously that you are in fact real and figured the piece was a knock-off of the original. When Whelch refused offers from the underground world, AKA our kind, he sold it to the highest bidder." Belle said grimly and Bri deflated knowing damn well there was more.
"And....."
"And, the last known owner of the knife was Mr. Timothy Hall, a single male with no children who died in 2008."
"Did he leave a will?" She asked knowing better.
"No. He lost his fortune when his fabrication business went under. It says on his website and a few other articles I was able to find, that he was a welder by trade, specialized in weapons and had planned on making a fake in the design of the knife. It was a smart plan for sure, to capitol on Disney’s portrayal of your life with the knife being played on like the sword and shield. However, in doing so also made a few recreations of the Blessed Knife."
The fuck Bri said was a resounding echo to the shit storm they were about to start. "Let me guess, in his final days before the company went ass over tea kettle Hall tried selling the fakes for well above their worth."
"That is correct. Ash tell the lady what her prize is." Belle said but there was no humor in the joke.
"We have a list." Ashess said and took the few sheets of paper from off the nearby counter. "These are the names and addresses to the people we found out he sold the fakes to."
"But the odd thing is, we have four names and addresses from his files for bills of sale but it says here that he only made three of the replicas."
"Son of a bitch!" She gasped. "He sold them all didn’t he, even the original?"
Belle nodded. "And for a lot of skrill Bri, a ton of money. Not a shot in hell at finding them and buying them back."
"What’s a lot?" Bri asked knowing full well the number would make her sick. She had money but with the market being down for so long she hadn’t been investing and was trying to live cheap. All she had was her savings and though it was a small fortune and would only get bigger, unlike all the rich humans she didn’t have death to look forward to when the money ran out. Her fortune had to last forever.
"Quarter of a mill each, as individuals."
Well…fuck!
"Two million dollars are you kidding me? How the hell did this guy go bankrupt?" She asked completely shocked that he was able to sale fakes for such an insane price.
"His business was worth more and he didn’t have enough when the bill came. But the even stranger thing is Vincent had a client whose company bought and sold other companies piece by piece and this guy sold Hall fabrication and steel for over ten million. Sound a little fishy to you?"
It did, oh hell yes it did. "Money laundering?" She asked though it didn’t fit the profile.
"I think it goes much deeper and darker than that." Belle said and pointed to the bill of sales in her hand. "Read those names Ar."
As Bri read the names her stomach dropped. "He sold them to demons? I can’t believe I'm seeing this. Every name on the list is a name from my father’s pantheon. Demons are marked and sometimes sold by the mark of their owner. Ezek's symbol has been the same for over a thousand years. There isn’t a demon alive that bares the mark of the Arch Demon before him." Bri stopped talking because the time it took to process what she had just said. It was enough to make her pass out.
"They know then?" Ashess asked
, still a little skeptical and who could blame her, Bri was skeptical.
"There is no way that this info is correct." Bri said insistently. "There is no way that Ezek knew about this, let alone we can’t tell his men about the knife knowing that it can cancel any contract and kill any demon."
"You need to call him Bri, he needs to know about this if he already doesn’t." Belle said, choosing her words wisely.
"He doesn’t know about this Belle there is no way. The knife was created to guarantee my freedom. It can kill even him." Bri said defending the only man who had ever done right by her, even if it was a little too late.
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