Almost Lovers

by Cassidy Raindance

  “No shit,” she said, dropping her cigarette onto the floor and crushing it as the smoke crept from between her lips, “But I don’t care about the boy toy. I want to know what your business is with the Queen, with Victoria,”

  “I file papers,” I said, numb as the full picture of the past few weeks events became clear to me, “I used to be normal. I used to work at a grocery store. I miss normal,”

  I looked at the blood that had now soaked down to almost where my belly button would be under my blouse. It looked good on me, red. I should have gotten the blouse in red instead of the lighter color.

  “You drive a Maserati,” said the woman, “You walk around in the Queen’s perfume, and you’re telling me you’re not even her secretary? You just do some light filing?”

  “The perfume was a gift,” I mumbled.

  Up had become down and down had become up. If Sebastian really had lied to me, if the entire thing had been staged, then maybe he had been the reason Robert and I had been attacked in the park. Maybe he had gotten the same guy to attack Robert. A tear raced down my cheek at the thought of Robert in the park, laying so still. I wanted to wail for hours. I wanted to rage against the person that had done this to us, to Robert, to me.

  “The Queen really doesn’t have a use for you, does she?” the woman asked me, “You’re just a well-pampered pet for her grandson,”

  The thought of being a pet for Sebastian made me furious. The insinuation, the audacity, and the possibility that this crazed woman could see after a few moments what I had been blind to. I had been so very blind.

  “I don’t know anything!” I screamed at her.

  If I could spit fire at her I would have. I didn’t want to be Sebastian’s anything, let alone a pet. And Victoria could keep him. I had been right to tell her I didn’t want anything to do with her grand son. If only I had known that monsters had been circling me, closing in on me, taking all the goodness out of my life, I could have gotten away.

  ‘You’ve been surrounded by vampires for months and you know nothing?” the woman said with an accusatory tone.

  “Vampires? Who the hell would ever even think they were working for vampires?” I yelled, “Are there werewolves? What next? Are you part troll too? I’ll tell you what’s really going on. This is some sort of crazy bad dream, a fucked up nightmare that I can’t wake up from.”

  The woman’s face became calm but tight, the way a house looks before a hurricane with boards and nails. I didn’t realize it at first but I held my breath. I forgot where I was. I was in the lair of monsters and I had the blood soaked blouse to prove it.

  “While it may be your worst nightmare, you’re not dreaming. If you were dreaming, could you feel this?” asked the woman.

  She was behind me in the blink of an eye and I felt the adrenaline rush through me as I knew what was coming. I now knew what it felt to be the rabbit. Soon I would know what it felt like to be somebody’s dinner.

  I felt the tearing and the ripping as my flesh was torn and shredded. She ripped into the curve of my neck and shoulder that Brad had bitten on first, gnawing with vigor. I could feel the blood spray the side of my face and a trickle began down my blouse.

  I screamed as loud as I could. It didn’t sound like me. I had a moment where I thought there might be someone else here, someone else being eaten until I screamed a second time. But there wasn’t anyone else. I screamed with my entire body from deep in my gut. That scream had come from me. No one would come. Only more monsters.

  I tried to scream again but settled on tears and sobs of despair. I felt dizzy, sick, tired. My eyes wanted to close, to go to sleep. I wanted to wake up and for this to all have been a bad dream. Somehow, as my heart pounded in my chest and my head pounded in pain I knew that if I went to sleep I wouldn’t wake up. I tried to scream again but all I got out was a cry of pain. The jolt of this insane woman, this monster, digging down deeper into my shoulder and hitting nerve after nerve.

  Brad opened the heavy steel door and strolled in. He looked mildly interested, even turned on. My vision had become doubled, almost tripled, but I could read his face enough to be thankful that his perverse emotions were for the leech latched on to my neck.

  “Are you finishing her off?” he asked.

  Brad smiled at her, his face already spattered and smeared with thick but drying blood. His hair slick and greasy, he laid on the charm for her. If I had the energy I would have spit at him.

  “She doesn’t know anything,” said the woman, licking blood off of her hands, “She may just be a pet but she’s still in the way. We can’t have her popping up anywhere alive,”

  “Want me to hang her in the ice box?” asked Brad, taking a few steps toward me.

  “No, finish her off,” said the woman, eying me with moderate disgust as she stepped around me and Brad.

  The woman smiled at me as she stepped out of the room, closing the heavy door behind her. I could only imagine the smile had been the result of my fate, which she knew more of than I did. By her smile, I didn’t hold my breath that it would be a pretty fate. The resounding thud the door made when it slid closed made my heart drop into the pit of my stomach.

  Brad, with the greasy hair, knelt next to me and smiled. I could barely focus on him at all but what I could focus on were his teeth. Compared to the blood already around his mouth, they were a brilliant white to the background of deep red smears all over his face. He picked my hand up though I couldn’t feel it. I knew that he had my hand because I could see that he had it. I watched but I stopped feeling. I couldn’t keep my head up as it bobbled to the side weakly as I tried to protest. He bit into my wrist and I could hear a strange ripping sound as his teeth tore into my flesh and his mouth created a seal, sucking my life force into his mouth eagerly.

  A second goon, one I hadn’t noticed before, stepped out of the shadows and walked behind me. At first I only felt his hand on my head. When he tilted my head to the other side I knew what his intentions were. He wanted the side of my neck that hadn’t already been ripped apart. I imagined him a neat vampire. It didn’t matter. I looked at the floor and could see the concrete floor slanting down to the drain in the room.

  My eyes fell to the floor as I couldn’t move my head. I could feel him biting in, my head bobbing slightly and the pain fading to almost a dull pressure, a pinching sensation. The light was fading in and out but I focused all my attention on what I could see, the drain. My eyes were fading along with my consciousness and my will to keep fighting. I kept my eyes on the drain and only the smallest flame of worry burst to life as my eyes followed a small trail of blood less than a foot away from the drain. It snaked, without any hurry, toward the drain.

  I had no doubt whose blood made its way to the drain. It may have felt like hours but it could have been as little as ten or as much as twenty minutes that they fed on me. I began to wonder if they were drinking my blood at all or just chewing their way through me they were taking so long. I thought it would be quick. It seemed impossible and cruel that they would drag it out, killing me.

  I watched as my own blood circled the drain slowly. When the drain finally ran red and began slipping down the filthy pipes, I knew that I couldn’t have much longer. Having survived as long as I had felt inhumane though every second meant another second alive. Would anyone be looking for me? The one person that had cared at all for me, as long as I had been in this crowded and desolate city, had been murdered in front of me. By the same kind of monsters that had their fangs, literally, sunk into me now.

  In that spark, that anger at watching Robert killed and the realization that no one would be looking for me, I heard a shriek. I couldn’t move but I knew who it had been. The neat eater. I heard footsteps faintly from outside the room coming toward the door. I felt more than heard the goon that had been latched on to my neck for the better part of 20 minutes let go and stumble. Brad, gnawing at my wrist, stopped. I could tell because I didn’t feel my veins twinge and twang at his constant readjust
ment to get a better bite.

  My view became obstructed. I could see his bloody hand clutching at my mangled shoulder and then he fell onto the drain, the blood slowly pooling around him as he looked up at me. My face had to hold shock. Had I done this? Had my rage made my blood go sour? I tried to hold on to my thought of rage but my shock kept my mind slippery with questions.

  He looked as though he couldn’t breathe, gasping for air. His face tense, he clutched his bloody hands toward his chest. I watched as droplets of blood streamed from his eyes and the corner of his already blood smeared mouth. Whatever had happened wasn’t something I had any control over. I watched in amazement, gratitude and thankfulness as his face contorted in pain.

  “One drink too many,” said Brad, still at my wrist.

  He sounded far away or as if he were mumbling but I knew that to just be my current condition. I had no idea how much blood I had left in my body. But apparently, the neat eater had been a lush.

  Brad squirmed in agony, gasping at the air and his eyes bulged at me, his face turned an ash color. My fascination turned to horror as his skin began to glow the color of hot embers, tiny blazed veins racing across his skin. It lasted less then a second. His body imploded in a fiery frenzy of flames and the ash fell to the ground an instant later. Small flakes of ash piled onto the ground as my blood attempted to run a course right through it. As a river cutting through a singed mountain, my blood streaked a path through the ash to the drain.

  I closed my eyes not wanting the nightmare to continue. I heard the door open and frantic shouting but that was all I heard. I didn’t care. Whatever burst through the door was of no concern in my world. A world full of vampires and killers, torture and murder, it wasn’t a place I wanted to exist. I welcomed the darkness. Only it didn’t stay long. As soon as the darkness closed in, taking me away from the blood and the shouting, my mind turned on a light for me. I drifted into a peaceful white light and, as the saying goes, let the concerns of mere mortals fall away.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX - Lydia

  I paced from the marble grand staircase in the center of the castle where royal court ceremonies were held all the way to the front door. At first I paced alone in anxious anticipation but then I began walking the same path to see in the arriving members.

  The castle had become eerily quiet the few moments after Penelope left. I had watched her carry Prussia right out the front door. I stayed toward the marble staircase, well away from the Queen’s chamber and corridor. I checked the front door every few minutes for arrivals. Penelope had only been gone a few minutes before the first Lords and Ladies began to arrive. Penelope had been right about sending the message to everyone when I had. While it felt like an eternity to me as I waited I knew that the ones arriving the earliest had probably dropped everything they had been doing to show up.

  As each court member arrived I felt more relief that there would be one more witness but also more anxious at what it meant would happen sooner rather than later. It’s not every day that a non-titled and, until recently, banished Lady responsible for the death of the previous Chancellor accused the Queen of abuse of power, demanded the appointment of a fair Chancellor and, if the mood of the court permitted, the resignation of the Queen. That kind of agenda would lead any vampire to turn into a stress-drinker almost instantly.

  I continued to pace between the staircase and the door as I saw in more arrivals. My disappointment had never been greater than when I saw Sebastian coming toward me as I returned to the front door. I wanted to avoid him but it wasn’t an option. He looked beyond angry and he stopped me only twenty feet from the front door. I could see every guest as they came in and they could also see and hear me.

  “Prussia has been taken,” Sebastian said with an accusatory tone, “Your friend from the park, where can I find her?”

  It wasn’t really a question and three guards showed up at his back. It must have been a serious situation, I snorted to myself.

  “I have more important things to do than worry about the Queen’s pet,” I said, pointing a finger toward to the gathering court.

  “Don’t underestimate her importance,” warned Sebastian, a dangerous glow in his eyes.

  “Her importance to the Queen,” I said, “Or her importance to you?”

  “Both,” said Sebastian, “Now tell me where I can find your friend from the park,”

  The only comfort I had in that moment, realizing that he really had developed feelings for this pesky human, is the knowledge that she wouldn’t survive the night. It would take time but I knew now that I wanted Sebastian more than I had ever cared to admit. And I wanted him back.

  “I hope you enjoy your frail human,” I said, no attempt to conceal my distaste for the entire affair, “Perhaps when you’ve tired of playing with your food you’ll crawl back and we’ll talk about what a complete ass you’ve been,”

  “We don’t need to talk about our history together,” said Sebastian, taking a single step towards me, “I’m fully aware now of what an ass I’ve been following you blindly to the ends of the earth.”

  Sebastian took another step toward me. He had stepped so close to me that I could lean forward and lay my head on his chest. I wanted to. I wasn’t sure if it would be a smart gamble. He’d either attack me or hold me. The way he barked about getting his charge, Prussia, back I assumed he’d attack me sooner than hold me. I wished I could let out a deep sigh of defeat but settled for resting a hand lightly on his chest and looking into his eyes with as much pout as I could muster. And I got nothing. Not a single emotion or twitch from him.

  “You’ll come around,” I said, as sweetly as I could get away with given his steady glare. It would take time but he would, as they all did eventually.

  My heart strings plucked a sad tune as he picked up my hand off his chest as if carrying the plague and flung it away from him. His gaze held mine the entire time. I didn’t flinch, didn’t cower, and didn’t give away the hurt I felt at this slight but powerful gesture.

  “Where is she,” he growled.

  “I can’t be sure,” I said, trying to look disinterested in the conversation now. I turned my nose up and turned my face away from him.

  Apparently he hadn’t wanted to play anymore because no sooner had I turned my nose up than he snapped his fingers and two guards moved to either side of me. Grabbing me at the wrist and elbow, the two lifted me ever so slightly up from the ground. I could do nothing but glare at Sebastian now at the indignity of the position.

  I tried to hide my face but the guests that were trickling in could see now that the show had begun ahead of schedule. And not one of them seemed surprised that I turned up to be the center attraction. My toes skimmed the plush carpet but I still kept my back as straight as I could once I realized I had an audience. A small gathering of court members began behind Sebastian. Sebastian and the circle of guards kept the onlookers at bay as his gaze continued on me.

  “Tell me where she is or I’ll have you arrested,” said Sebastian.

  I tried to think quickly about my options. It didn’t look like I had many at this point. I had to give him something. If I gave away her location then I had to warn Penelope, my Master, before Sebastian got there. She didn’t need to clean up the mess so long as she got out of there before Sebastian showed up.

  “You can’t arrest every unsuspecting vampire in the city for sampling the Queen’s favorite pet,” I said loudly, playing to the small but growing audience.

  Every moment I could stall would be crucial and playing it up for the drama-loving court members didn’t hurt either. Sebastian looked annoyed at what I was doing. He looked around at the audience and didn’t miss a beat as his attention focused back on me, held up in the air with a guard at each arm.

  “There will be no arrests,” he said.

  A quiet murmur rippled from the edges of the small audience all the way to where public court ceremonies were held. Sebastian tried to play off as though it didn’t concern him but I saw hi
s shoulders hitch up a few centimeters. He had a nervous tell in that way.

  “A lot of force and show just to retrieve a lost toy,” I said, trying to get a rise.