by Lu J Whitley
“Stein,” she called excitedly. “Stein!”
“Shh!” He appeared around the corner with his index finger pressed to the middle of his full lips, his head bent at an odd angle because of the low ceiling. “What?”
“How did he do it,” she whispered, trying to use her inside voice. Mady was still sleeping soundly, draped carefully across a set of seats in the plane’s tiny cabin with a pair of seat belts stretched over her to keep her in place.
He gave her a quizzical glance. “How did who do what?”
“Jami,” she said in a frustrated huff, “How did he talk in my head?” Stein’s face turned a little green, like he’d eaten a plate of bad seafood. She wasn’t sure if it was because of the plane lurching forward or the nature of the question. He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to the side, depositing her roughly into one of the available seats as the plane began to pick up speed down the icy runway. When he reached down to fasten her seat belt, she swatted his hands away. “I can do it,” she grunted. He nodded and dropped into the seat facing hers, his big hands making quick work of buckling himself in. “How,” she repeated.
He sighed and leaned his head back against the seat. “I’m not really sure. And I’m not really sure you’d want to know either.”
“What?” She was baffled. “Did he have to deflower a virgin or sacrifice a goat or something?” Whatever it was, she’d do it. No problem.
The big man laughed nervously, his tail - man, she was never going to get used to that - swishing around his ankles. “Greta… I…”
“Seriously, Stein.” She leaned into his personal space as much as she could while battling the opposing force of gravity. She wanted to leave no doubt that she’d beat it out of him if need be. Or at least try. “How?”
Stein let out a puff of air. His right hand dropped to the inside of his left wrist. It was wrapped in a piece of black fabric that she’d thought had been a fashion statement. “I’m pretty sure he’ll kick my ass for this.” He didn’t have to add, ‘if he’s still alive.’ Stein rolled the fabric between his fingers, pulling it out and away from his skin. She didn’t know what she was looking for exactly, until he angled his wrist under the glow of the bare 40 watt that poked out of the ceiling. She gasped in a breath, reaching her hand out to ghost a finger over the two symmetrical puncture wounds that sunk, angry and red, into the big man’s pale skin.
“No,” she found herself whispering. He couldn’t, her brain reeled. He wouldn’t.
Stein let the fabric fall back into place, his right hand snaking up to palm the back of his neck. “I told you you didn’t want to know.”
Vampire. She couldn’t get the word to stop galloping in circles in her head. She shook it, attempting to break the thoughts loose. “So… is it just your… blood?” She gulped, trying to be calm as she fought against the bile rising in her throat. He just shook his head from side to side, his fingers dropped to the armrests and turned to whitened talons as the plane hopped into the air. She nodded. Even though she’d suspected that answer, it still stung. “So who?”
The question hung between them like a guillotine blade, ready to drop. It seemed like hours had passed Greta by before Stein opened his mouth and whispered, “Doesn’t matter. Just the blood matters.”
Oh, it mattered. She’d been gone less than a day before Jami’s voice had broken into her head. Who had he fed from? She couldn’t stop the ridiculous surge of jealousy that coiled low in her belly. He’d been so adamant. She could remember him yelling at her that he was not a vampire. He didn’t drink human blood. For food. Looking back on the conversation, that tiny caveat had seemed so insignificant. She’d been so stupid. Enough! She scolded herself. Get over yourself and focus, she repeated her new mantra over in her mind. “So…” She began so suddenly Stein startled slightly, the armrests creaking under his hands. “I have to drink blood then.” Yuck. Eww. Heebie Jeebies. Etc.
“I don’t know,” he said honestly, “The beast that gives Jaromir his power, it required blood to do what it did. With you…”
“What beast?”
“Shit!” Stein ran his fingers down his face and grimaced. “Now I know he’s gonna kick my ass.” He shook his head. “Forget I said anything.”
“Too late,” she huffed, “Spill!”
“Nuh uh.” The big man crossed his arms over his chest petulantly, his tattooed biceps rippling with the action. “Not my story to tell.” He pressed his lips together and hummed softly. She couldn’t help but smile.
“Fine,” she grunted. “I’ll get it out of Jami if he gets out of that place.” As soon as she let the words slip past her lips, she regretted them. The pained look that flashed across Stein’s features spoke volumes.
“When he gets out of that place,” he corrected her.
“When,” she agreed, nodding solemnly. “But we have to at least try to contact him, right? It’s what he would do.” He nodded back at her as the aircraft shifted, finally leveling out. They nodded at each other like a pair of bobble head dolls on a dashboard. Each one trying to think of something to say. “Can I drink your blood,” she blurted.
He let out a stiff chuckle, then a snort. “You really know how to turn a guy on, you know it?” He flashed her a genuine grin, the tension easing from his muscles a little.
She let out a long exhale, letting some of the tension drain from her as well. Humor. This is where she could live. “Not my fault you’re easy.”
“Ouch.” He gripped a hand to his chest as if she’d wounded his pride. “It only hurts ‘cuz it’s true.”
She laughed, taking the chance to steer the conversation back on course. “So can I?”
He shook his head and shot her a wry smile. “I’d love to let you suck on me princess, but your boyfriend almost bled me dry.”
“My boy…” She blushed. “He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Riiiiight.” He gave her a dramatic wink. “Anyway,” he began when she opened her mouth to protest a second time, effectively shutting her down. “Like I said, blood worked for him, but it might not work for you.”
“Well, I have to try something.” She let out a sigh and slipped down in the seat, feeling deflated. The plane gave a stuttered hop, and Stein’s eyes slipped closed. He took a worried inhale and went back to holding the armrests in a death grip. Big baby, she chuckled under her breath. Suddenly, she didn’t feel so bad about her fear of flying. The big man didn’t seem like he’d be much help from here on out, so she followed suit, letting her eyelids droop. Focus, she thought. Her mind drifted from idea to idea. None of them holding much weight.
Sleep crept up on her fevered mind, slowly slacking the tension in her muscles. Warmth flooded through her body as she flitted weightlessly into the soothing blackness.
★ ★ ★
The slow tumbling churn of water through a drainage pipe had Jami’s ears pricking to attention. He cracked his eyelids a margin, dried blood flaking off around the seams. He recoiled from the sudden influx of brightness. The sun shone, hot and oppressive, through the tall, leaded windows in the southern wall. His father had designed them that way for his mother’s benefit. The lady of the castle had always liked to curl up in the salon and watch the sun rise over the mountains. Jami still remembered her bright smile. Her long platinum hair. Curious now that her favorite thing would be his undoing.
He groaned, trying to stretch his pained muscles, but each movement was torture. He was staked - large iron nails driven through his wrists and ankles - to the wall of his mother’s crumbling hideaway. Blood pooled beneath him, marring the surface of the smooth granite, though his skin had hours ago healed around the stiff metal spikes. It was lucky he was immune to tetanus, he chuckled humorlessly to himself. Though the sunlight was a definite problem.
At the moment, his corner of the room was still cloaked in darkness, the light of day not yet reaching him. But he didn’t have long to wait. A few hours at most. When they’d brought him to this room in the wee hours, instead
of the dungeon or any of the other countless rooms in the castle, he’d been confused. Now, he knew.
Under normal circumstances, he would’ve just pulled himself free of the spikes and been on his merry way. It shouldn’t have been a problem, considering how many Takers he’d gorged himself on the night before. But these weren’t normal circumstances. Brandt had done something to him. Some dark magic had him in its hold. Jami had studied the bands that encircled his wrists at length over the past few hours. He’d had little else to occupy his time. The metal was one he didn’t recognize, the seamless surfaces gleaming dully in the shadows. They seemed to produce a kind of artificial sunlight that charred his flesh whenever he moved, or breathed, or thought about moving or breathing. The endless surges of pain kept him in a weakened state that left him completely vulnerable to Brandt’s whims.
Brandt was a fan of torture. It was one of the reasons Fraktion had kept him on the payroll for so long. Until, of course, his skills proved a little too unsavory. So Jami wasn’t surprised that Greta’s father had chosen to prolong his agony.
He knew from the chatter among his rotating series of guards that Stein had succeeded in freeing Greta, along with another prisoner named Mady. He would’ve shaken his head at that last piece of information if he’d been able to. He’d actually laughed, despite the streak of pain that shot through his body. Stein wasn’t one to turn away a damsel in distress… Or a damsel in any state of being, for that matter. Life hadn’t been kind to the troll where women were concerned, and though he always put on a brave face, Jami knew it weighed on him. He just hoped the big ape would find someone to make him happy one day. Maybe now he was out of the way, Stein and Greta could… He couldn’t finish the thought without feeling like they’d pounded one of those metal spikes through his heart as well. Greta. Gods.
Jami? Her voice flitted through his mind as if it’d been conjured by his errant thoughts. Jami, can you hear me? Maybe he was imagining it. If he was, he’d have to remember to thank himself later.
“Greta,” he said aloud, before he’d had a chance to think better of it. He should’ve let her think he couldn’t hear her. That they had no connection. It would be easier for both of them that way.
Oh my god, Jami. He let his eyes slip closed to focus on the sound of her voice in his head. I was so scared.
“Greta, I’m fine.” She’d be able to tell it was a lie. The pained, breathless quality of his voice couldn’t be helped. He kept his eyes firmly shut though. If this connection worked the way it had in the past, she’d be able to see what he saw. And his bruised body staked out on a wall was the last thing he wanted her to see.
We waited as long as we could… He hadn’t been holding out hope that a daring rescue was in the works. Stein knew better. The troll would get Greta and whoever this Mady was to safety, and then Fraktion would send in a team. For cleanup. He didn’t have a habit of deluding himself. It would only take Stein and the two women a little over two hours to make the trip to HQ, but even if a team was on stand-by and ready to deploy, an operation like this would take days to plan. Perhaps weeks. By that time, there wouldn’t be anything left to save.
“You shouldn’t have.”
Don’t say that, she huffed indignantly, They’ll come back for you. You just have to hold on.
“Greta, listen,” he said, ignoring her plea and the way her voice sounded a little ragged around the edges, like she’d been crying. “Your father said he’d activated your power in some way. You need to stop using it.” He took a bracing breath. “You need to break this connection, now.” Even the beast in his head roared at the thought of being without her voice. Without her.
I don’t even know how I got here, she said, and he could tell there wasn’t any hint of deception there. I fell asleep, and I was… Anyway, I just ended up here. He wanted to ask if she was dreaming of him. If he had to be tortured by something in his last hours, he could think of worse things than imagining the contents of Greta’s fevered dreams. And worse things were surely coming his way.
The door to the room shoved open with a creak and the groan of rusted metal. Jami opened his eyes despite his good intentions to keep them closed, damning himself at the sound of Greta’s sharp intake of breath. Brandt sauntered into the room, his spotless Italian suit taking on a subtle sheen in the presence of the morning sunlight.
“Jaromir!” The man clapped his hands together as if he was genuinely pleased to see Jami hanging there. “You are awake. How wonderful.”
Jami, Greta whispered in his mind, as if her father would hear her disembodied voice rattling around in there. Jami ignored Brandt, focusing instead on trying to find a way to push Greta out of his mind. If these were his last moments, he’d like nothing more than to cling to any connection to her. But he knew it was selfish. He didn’t want her to have to see him suffer, especially not at the hands of the man who, for all intents and purposes, was still her father. Jami? He could hear her voice fading a little, and he silently asked the beast in his head for just one last favor. For old time’s sake.
“Goodbye,” he mumbled under his breath as he felt the last tendrils of the connection breaking free.
“Goodbye,” Brandt echoed with an evil glint in his eye. “Oh, but Jaromir, we have only just begun!”
★ ★ ★
Greta was shoved back into her own body with surprising force. The trip was disorienting, and it didn’t help that her physical body was being shaken by a pair of big calloused hands while her mind was trying to right itself. “Get off,” she grunted, pushing against Stein with all the force she could muster. It was unfortunately like a mosquito trying to order around a bear. The big man sure was solid, she’d give him that.
“Would you people stop doing that to me?!” He set her back in the chair roughly and blew out a breath as he raked his thick fingers back through his hair. “I swear my ticker can’t take it.” He dropped his hand to his heart for emphasis. “I guess I don’t need to ask you where you were.”
Her head was still spinning. “What?” Stein gestured to the inside of her jacket, and she looked down. Even through the thick fabric, the fading glow from her birthmark was visible.
“Must be something with you glowworms.”
She’d thought it’d all been a horrible dream, but she’d known it wasn’t the case, even before her giant alarm clock had shaken the life back into her. Not even in her worst nightmares could she have imagined what she’d seen in that room. A sob threatened to climb out her throat, but she choked it back. “Jesus, Stein.” He dropped back into the seat across from her as if he knew he was going to want to be sitting down for this. “They… They…” The sob broke free despite her best efforts.
He nodded and leaned back, closing his eyes as he sunk into the seat. “He’s alive, though?”
“Ye…es.” Her breath hitched around the word, and she fought against the urge to tag a few more at the end, like ‘but not for long.’ He nodded again and rose, offering a hand to help her from her seat. She was glad for the assistance. It seemed her legs had forgotten how to work sometime during the short flight. They shook like Jell-O. Her hands had taken up the habit as well, her fingers quivering in Stein’s grip.
Greta spared a glance at the row of seats on the opposite side of the aircraft. A mussed pallet of blankets greeted her, but no tiny blonde. “Where’s Mady?”
“She’s safe,” he said in his soothing voice. She didn’t know how something so calming came out of such an imposing figure. “I took her inside earlier and then came back for you.” He braced a strong arm around her shoulders and pulled her through the cabin, pausing at the entrance to let her eyes adjust to the darkness.
“Where a… are we,” she stuttered, trying to keep her teeth from chattering. Her quiet voice seemed to echo out into the blackness.
“Fraktion,” he whispered, as if she might balk at any higher volume. Maybe she would. She was wound a little too tightly, and she was clinging to the big man like he was a life raf
t in a raging sea. “HQ,” he added when she gave him a puzzled stare, the light from the single bulb in the cabin barely highlighting his features.
“Why’s it so dark?”
“Because ‘sunshine is our destroyer.’” Stein opened his mouth in a false roar, and she smiled weakly at his attempt at humor. “Nothing? Really? Tim Curry gets no love.” She could see the haunted look of worry behind his smile, but she didn’t bother to point it out. If that’s the way he dealt when the shit hit the fan, she wasn’t going to be the one to rain on his parade.
“Okay,” she said, “But why no electric lights?”
He dropped down suddenly, exiting the plane. She felt a moment of panic until his big palms came up on either side of her waist to help her safely to the floor. “Because most of us don’t need them.” He said plainly, and she could tell by the change in his grip as he moved his arm to her shoulders again that he’d shrugged. “Why pay bills if you don’t have to?”
“I guess.” She shrugged as well, wishing she could see in the dark like everyone else in her new world could. It felt strange being led through a dark, unfamiliar space by someone she’d met only a few hours before - who had a tail. Though she knew if Stein had wished her any harm, she’d have been dead already. And she trusted Jami. Jami trusted Stein. Logic dictated that she just get comfortable with the whole scenario. It wasn’t likely to change soon.
Stein led her through a set of swinging double doors, into a hallway where one naked light bulb illuminated the way every fifty feet or so. She was glad for the return to light, but she had a few unwelcome flashbacks to late nights playing Silent Hill alone in her room. She stepped forward in time with Stein’s footsteps, making plans in her head to push him in front of her and run like a bat out of hell in the other direction at the first hint of trouble. Luckily, all her carefully laid plans weren’t necessary. At the end of the hallway, they emptied out into a large room that, to be honest, wasn’t what she’d expected. She didn’t really know what she had expected. Some movie version of a covert agency that employed the cursed and… Whatever Stein was. But she was standing in a room that more closely resembled a college frat house. Worn couches filled the interior space, butted up against end tables covered in empty beer bottles and stained coffee mugs. The whole place smelled like the ass end of a pig farm. On a bad day.