Zamani

by Angelic Rodgers

  Even in the moment she left Wren in the corner waiting for the flash of blue lights and the throng of police officers and crime scene investigators, Olivia knew eventually she would go to her and help her. She could hear Wren’s whisperings in the back of her brain in the quiet hours of the early morning, calling to her, asking for help, much in the same way Renfield had cried out in his mind to her father for release. She resisted; she knew the time would come when she would go to her, but she wanted Wren to suffer a little first. The whole thing was a mess, she realized now. She’d kept Wren from fully developing her abilities, just as she kept Christophe from fully realizing his. Both of them had progressed on their own and now she would have to do some clean up from the fall out. Her best option was to work through this with Christophe before another tragedy occurred.

  Olivia relied on information about Wren from donors and vampires who worked in the prison system. For now, her secrets were safe, as Wren was weak and too much in shock to do much other than babble. Olivia kept her that way; donors were allowed to let Wren feed from them only enough to keep her from being truly rash. Wren had only vague memories of these light feedings and in her fevered state thought they were merely erotic dreams.

  Olivia also had been busy trying to establish some normalcy. In the days following the murder, Olivia played the part of the concerned professor. She’d canceled classes and encouraged Alex’s classmates to check on Liz and to go to the memorial service for Alex. She’d gone herself even though she’d feared seeing Liz in mourning would be too much to bear. She needed time to unravel the puzzle Wren had set up for her, and she knew Liz needed time to process the loss. After seeing Liz so deep in her grief at the service, Olivia was relieved when Liz left the city to spend time with her father. Liz would be on her own for awhile, which was unfortunate as she was not yet aware that she, too, was turned, but Olivia knew instinct would guide her. After all, it wasn’t her first lifetime. She had some knowledge in the deeper recesses of her brain of her time as Daniela.

  Olivia knew this because she’d been called back to New Orleans. She’d dreamt of Liz and Alex, seen them in her mind before she ever arrived. It was an experience unlike anything she’d had before. She was familiar enough with the city from her visits to Lisette that she’d recognized the place quickly enough. In her dreams she’d first not clearly seen either woman’s face, but she knew she had to go and find them. She’d followed the dreams here, and it was clear the first time she looked at Liz’s face over the bar at The Ruby that she was Daniela. Her face came into focus and it was like stepping back in time. Olivia had followed Alex and Mike Courtland, a fellow faculty member from the department, to the bar in hopes of seeing Liz. She recognized Alex immediately upon meeting her in her Reading the Vampire class; images from her dreams flashed in her head, the face finally materializing as she looked up and saw Alex enter her classroom the first night. And as she searched Alex’s mind, she saw Liz.

  She’d been careful in cultivating her connection with Liz over the weeks that followed. She went to her in dreams, first simply reaching out to her mind, alerting her that she was near, then calling for her to come to her in the night. Like Olivia, Liz couldn’t see faces distinctly in her dreams at first. She felt the presence of the woman, though, and she always woke from those feverish dreams to rush to her sketchpad in an attempt to remember the face and bring it into reality by drawing it.

  Liz was fiddling with her sketchpad at work at The Ruby the day she and Olivia finally met in person. As Olivia stepped in the door, Liz felt something different in the air. It was charged to the point it almost crackled. She walked up behind Alex slowly, and she looked Liz directly in the eye. She saw Daniela’s face. Liz’s response made it clear that she felt something, too. She fainted upon seeing Olivia, realizing that she was the one she’d seen in her dreams.

  After their first meeting Olivia increased her presence in Liz’s dreams. Her first attempt to make full contact with her failed. As Liz slept, Olivia reached out to her with her mind, calling to her, leading her to Washington Square Park. Olivia sat on one of the benches in the shadows. Liz entered the Park and moved towards her. Olivia spread her arms wide, making the long cloak she wore spread out like wings, welcoming Liz into her embrace. She’d seen the glint of recognition in Liz’s eyes and was near bending forward to kiss her. Sounds of a mugging taking place on the other side of the fence broke the spell; Olivia’s desire to protect Liz took over. She transformed into a Carpathian shepherd, removing the threat and losing her chance to reclaim Daniela. When Liz came around Olivia had neutralized the danger. Liz saw her still in transformed, blood on her snout. She could see Liz’s revulsion and fear, and she knew she would have to wait. Her chance for that night was gone.

  Luckily for Olivia, she’d not had to wait long. As Wren pursued Alex, Liz worked on a mural for a friend in the Garden District. Lisa’s house was not far from Olivia’s, and she’d gotten easy access. As Liz worked in the upstairs room, Olivia called to her from the sidewalk begging to be let in to the house. Liz opened a window in the room where she worked, and when she fell asleep, she was quick to let Olivia enter. Liz had, in those dream states, become Daniela. She welcomed Olivia into the house and into her arms. Olivia marveled at having found Daniela and those stolen nights were bittersweet. At the same time she struggled with the fact that Liz’s heart belonged to someone else. Her desire won out over her conscience, though, and she lost herself in the warm curves and long kisses. That first night, she’d been tentative, letting Liz take the lead, fearing she was projecting her own desire and was mistaken about her true identity. She soon was relieved to find that Liz was her long lost Daniela.

  Liz started with tender kisses, but those quickly became more urgent. Olivia’s head swam as she felt Liz’s hands slide under her shirt. There, she found the pendant Olivia always wore, a small dagger in a sheath, the blade razor sharp. When her hand grazed it, Liz pulled back from the kiss a bit, and she looked into Olivia’s eyes, smiling. She moved her hands, bringing them to the back of Olivia’s neck, grasping the thin, fine chain. She slid the chain over Olivia’s head and unsheathed the blade. Carefully, she made a small cut on her own wrist before grabbing Olivia’s hand and making a matching wound on her arm. Pressing the wounds together, she leaned forward for a quick kiss before pulling Olivia’s wrist to her mouth. Olivia did the same. This time, Daniela had chosen her fate.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Wren and Alex were trouble from the start. Wren hadn’t started dancing yet, and in the early morning hours she and some of her street colleagues were looking for an easy mark for a good mugging. Alex was tending bar at one of the gay bars on the end of Bourbon toward Esplanade. They saw her leave, headed toward the Marigny on the way home at the end of her shift. It wasn’t until Wren bumped into her that she realized she wasn’t a boy; Alex’s eyes flashed in anger as Wren brushed up against her. Alex saw only a threat, but Wren saw the most beautiful eyes. Alex had a cigarette tucked behind one ear and her hair was short.

  “Hey, you got a light?” Wren asked her. While this was a signal to her compatriots to stand down and not move in for the strike, she also wanted to talk to Alex more than she wanted to rip her off.

  Alex relaxed and smiled. “Sure.” She shook out two cigarettes and handed one to Wren, then flipped open her Zippo and lit them both. She kept moving though, mumbling “Have a good night” before Wren could distract her further.

  She watched her turn a corner and disappear and then she and her friends went in search of better pickings. She made a note of it though. She knew she’d try to find Alex later, as she’d felt a rise of excitement when her eyes met Alex’s. Besides, her smile was too good to ignore. There was fun to be had there, Wren was sure of it.

  She’d just arrived in New Orleans a few weeks before, and her first order of business had been to make some fast money. Even once she picked up work as a waitress, she kept running with the pack of street kids she’d fallen in with. T
hey had a system, but she was growing weary of rolling tourists for whatever cash was left in their pockets when they drunkenly stumbled out of the bar at the end of the night. After the chance meeting with Alex, she knew it was time to grow up a little. She couldn’t very well chase after her and say, “Hey, we were about to mug you, but you’re so cute, so let’s start over.” She didn’t make the decision to clean up her act right that moment, but it was a tipping point for her. She decided to try less criminal forms of thievery.

  She was serving at one of the smaller, less touristy restaurants by day. The owners were older and preferred to focus on breakfast and lunch service. Locals and those who worked in the Quarter welcomed the old mainstays. They could afford red beans and rice or a good bowl of gumbo at Lena’s on their way to work. She enjoyed working there, too, which was the main reason she didn’t mind they didn’t do dinner service. Initially, she’d been glad—it allowed her to spend her evenings playing and making trouble.

  She was ready to start working toward something better, though. Wren’s original plan had been to open her own business in town. She arrived with a freshly printed college diploma and plans to be the next big thing in New Orleans. Reality set in pretty quickly when she arrived, though, and she’d run out of money even quicker. Hustling and petty crime were things she’d been doing since she was a kid, and she’d immediately fallen back into her old habits. It wasn’t long, though, before partying and picking pockets both wore thin.

  She decided to check with some of the clubs in the Quarter to see if any of them needed help with bussing tables or serving drinks. One of her housemates told her there was good tip money in strip club serving, as long as you didn’t mind a little grab-ass. Wren figured she could take care of herself and if she didn’t like it nothing was really lost other than a few nights of her time.

  So, she wandered down to the Casbah after Lena’s shut down for the day. The club doors were closed, but there was someone outside smoking a cigarette. She’d seen him there before, and she was right in her assumption that he managed the club.

  She approached him tentatively. “Hi, mind if I bum one of those?” He eyed her up and down before reaching into his shirt pocket and shaking a cigarette loose from the pack. She noticed that he handed it to her with the filter facing her and he was ready with the lighter. She smiled at him and they smoked in silence for a few minutes. She wasn’t sure how to broach the subject of a job. Just as she was about to try to make more small talk, he dropped his cigarette on the pavement and stepped on it. Taking another out of the pack and putting it between his lips, he turned toward the club and pushed the door open. “You coming, sweetheart? I suspect you’re looking for work, as pretty girls don’t stop and share a smoke with Frank unless they want something. Bring your cigarette with you—you can smoke in here. I was just taking a break.”

  The club was drab and sad during the day. Without the music, lights, and scantily clad dancers, it was just an oblong room with a bar at one end, a stage in the middle with chairs packed around, and a doorway in the back that led to the dressing rooms. There was also a partitioned private dance section at the back of the club. The chairs were all tired leftovers from who knows how many diners and cafes, and the tables were also likely salvaged from street cafes fortunate enough to replace them with newer, better tables. More likely, the cafes failed and left the furniture behind for some enterprising club owner like Frank to make use of.

  The bar was at the front of the club, allowing the bartender to keep an eye on people as they entered and left. There was a two-drink minimum, and Wren later found out the guys who tended bar had clickers they used to keep a tally of how many drinks should be going out. This was in part to ensure the girls knew who to run drink orders to, but also to help ensure the dancers were not skimming drinks for themselves. Frank kept a pretty close eye on the books and made sure every dime was accounted for. He always got his cut.

  He slid behind the bar when they came into the club and started making sure things were stocked and ready for the night. He’d started as a bar back many years ago and moved his way up. As a younger man he’d been more fit and able to serve as bartender and bouncer. He’d moved up into management at another club and when the Casbah’s owner was ready to call it quits, he’d stepped in and made him an offer for part ownership. Under his management, the club thrived and he was eventually able to become sole owner.

  He watched Wren taking in the club and he cleared his throat as he set a shot glass on the bar and nodded to the barstool. “Have a seat. What’ll you have? No charge, as this is shoptalk. And don’t refuse the drink offer. In this business it’s bad form to not drink with your potential boss.” He got out another shot glass for himself while Wren took a seat.

  “I don’t suppose you’ve got a bottle of vodka in a freezer somewhere?”

  Frank winked at her. “Of course I do. A good bartender’s always ready.” He poured them both shots, the vodka fogging the small glasses. They raised them in a silent toast and downed them. He refilled them without asking and went back to checking the supplies. He knew she’d eventually get to what she came here for, and he was enjoying the company. She was easy on the eyes. She looked young, and even though she was dressed in khaki pants and a t-shirt from Lena’s, he could tell she was in good shape. Her long, dark hair was pulled back from her face into a ponytail, but a few wavy tendrils had fallen out. He could imagine her on stage, and his silent waiting was part of the job interview. He wanted to make sure she had the personality to go along with the body.

  She didn’t disappoint.

  “So, I’m hoping maybe you have some work I could do around here; I work at Lena’s during the day,” as she said this she pointed at the logo over her left breast and grinned. “I’ve heard sometimes you need girls to work the door or serve drinks, bus tables, that kind of thing.”

  Frank eyed her silently, wiping a glass with a bar towel. “Oh, honey, I don’t know that kind of work is your best bet. I think maybe there’s other things you could do here that would work better.”

  Any other man would have come off as creepy in saying this but Frank had a way about him that made it ok. She had seen him eyeballing her, but he wasn’t a letch, which she found interesting considering the business he was in. He continued, “You? A busser? Honey, you really should consider dancing. We’ve got room for more girls, and trust me, as a busser and server you’re going to get hands on your ass. You might as well get paid for it and get paid more than the $2.10 we’ll pay you an hour to sling and clean up warm beer.” Frank lit two cigarettes, handing her one. “I’ve gone to only having fellas do the bussing anyway; the girls do some of the serving. I want the money going to the dancers, where it belongs.”

  She explained to him that she’d never danced before, but she was willing to give it a try. He gave her the paperwork she needed to fill out for legal purposes while he got on the phone. “Rachelle? This is Frank. Can you come in early? I have a new girl who needs to be trained, and I’ll cover your usual take for the night.” Rachelle agreed and was there by the time they raised their shot glasses in a toast to the paperwork being done.

  Rachelle was not much older than Wren, but she’d been dancing for a while and was one of Frank’s more established dancers. She led Wren down to Checkpoint Charlie’s for more drinks and some talk about her stage persona before they went shopping for some clothes she could wear on stage. They took their purchases back to Rachelle’s place where she quickly transformed herself into Tabitha, her innocent blonde stage persona. Wren became Morrigan, a much darker character decked out in all black leather and lace, complete with a long, billowy duster. Rachelle explained how the duster would swing dramatically when Wren worked the pole, and she showed her how to work it to maximum effect. Under the duster, she wore a pleather bra with a black lace top over it, a G-string and black pleather hot pants. A black leather fedora and mid-thigh black leather boots with a substantial heel completed the outfit.

  She soo
n made her debut on stage, and she quit waiting tables at Lena’s after the first week. The money was too good, and she started living a nighttime existence that clashed with the early morning and afternoon service hours at Lena’s. She promised herself she’d be a better customer than server for Lena’s, and work at the club became her focus. She was squirreling money away where she could. She still had her eye on opening a business of her own someday. But for now, she was going to enjoy herself.

  The second time she saw Alex was a night Frank sent her to the podium outside the club to do a little street advertising and work the door. She was enough of a draw that he could send her out early to sell tickets and the club would fill faster. Those drawn to her would also sit longer and buy more overpriced drinks if they knew she’d be on stage. She built up a bit of a following quickly, and she started dancing with other girls, which also brought in more money and put her in more demand. She was doing her best carnival barker imitation when she saw a flash of a smile across the street. Even though Alex’s hair had grown out and was near her shoulders, Wren knew it was the same girl she’d seen before.

  Alex was with her friend Kirby that night. They’d been to dinner, and they were headed toward Oz--Alex for work and Kirby for drinks and a little dancing. Wren spotted Alex through the crowd, and locked her eyes on her, watching her move closer to the club. She and Kirby were laughing at some private joke as they passed near the club, and Wren spoke up above the din of the crowd trying to get their attention. Other than a quick glance in her direction, they ignored her. She watched them move up the street.

  Later, after her shift was over and the only customers left in the club were the few sad, lonely tourists who had spent more than they could afford to spend sat nursing their warm drinks and negotiating with dancers for a little private attention, she went in the back and pulled jeans on over her G-string. She left the lace t-shirt on, and she pulled the duster on over it. She had shorter boots with a short heel that she often wore to work, and she slid those on. She left her nose ring in place, shook out her hair, and freshened her lipstick. She made her way down the street to Oz.