When the world closed down to a point, and I studied him through eyes gone nearly blind, he let me go. Our eyes locked and his were satisfied.
“There.” He steadied me on my two wobbly feet again. “I wanted to leave you with your eyes gone blurry for me. You’re more likely to dream of me that way. I want you to want me, to dream of wanting me, while I want you.”
And then he disappeared.
I wiped a hand across my lips, but the weak gesture did nothing to erase his touch. I walked up the stairs like a sleepwalker. Damn, he was good. Even if that was a cheesy line, it applied.
At the top of the stairs, when I opened the door, stood my mother. If that wasn’t a dash of cold water in the face, nothing ever would be. I felt a bit like a teenager, caught necking. I wondered if my clothes lay in their appropriate places or if my lips looked swollen. Not that there was a thing I could do about it if they weren’t or were, as the case may be. In the movies, characters always have perfect hair and makeup, whether they have been sleeping, fighting, or have just made mad, passionate, love. In real life, you get tousled, bled on and bruised. And guilt raises its ugly head if you have been turned on and must face your mother. Even if she is the Queen of the Fairies.
“Hi!” I tried to sound normal and not guilty. I failed.
She squinted at me. Her brow rose. She knew something was up. She was my mom. I must have at least appeared guilty, probably more. Shoot.
“Vickie never woke up, not once.” She sounded mildly disappointed.
I breathed out. She studied me intensely. “That’s good.” I spoke quickly, and bit my lip when I sounded a little breathless.
Her head tilted at me slightly. She hoped I would break and spill. I knew her game. I had a kid now. There was no way I would fall for such obvious tactics.
I hoped. “You wanted to talk about something?” I moved past her to plop on the couch, and she perched imperiously on the edge of a chair. I thought of the last time my mother had come to Odd Stuff and the conversation we’d had then.
It was easier to feel unmoved by maternal guilt if I remembered that conversation and how little she thought of my father and me. She didn’t have human emotions to hurt. She was, after all, one of the monsters. No matter the window covering, no matter how human my mother might appear, she remained a power hungry bitch. Good to remember that.
Hard to remember that because she was, after all, my mom.
“Janie, I’ve planned an engagement party for you and Avery. I expect you both to attend. It is to reintroduce you, in a non-confrontational manner, to our people and to show them that you want to help. Having Avery at your side, since he is entirely our kind, will help reassure them that you have our best interests at heart.”
I breathed in very deeply. This was why my mother and I did not get along. This kind of thing exactly! Did she care what I felt? Did she care that I wanted nothing to do with fairies, fairy politics, or my fairy fiancé?
Nope. It had always been about what was best for her people. She had admitted that the entire reason I was “created,” her word, not mine, was to ensure power over the day and night worlds. No love between my father and her, or even lust, had resulted from their union. I was a planned pregnancy…planned, as in, evil science experiment. And now she wanted to move me around like a pawn on a chess board.
I thought about it, though. Chances were good I could have a lot of fun at an engagement party. If she wanted non-confrontational, I would be confrontational. She wanted a party? I would invite my friends. She wanted to announce my engagement…I would bring my boyfriend.
If I still have one. Bitterness edged into my mind, but I cast it aside when I felt my eyes flash. I glanced at my mother. She watched my face carefully.
“What are you thinking?” Her eyes had that pinched, squinty expression she gets. The one that screams, Let’s dissect our science experiment. All she needed was a lab coat and a microscope.
I sighed heavily. “No problem, Mom. We’ll come to the party.”
“No problem? No hour-long debate about your engagement and your responsibilities? No, ‘I can’t come?’ No negative response at all?” She appeared surprised.
“I will come.” I gritted my teeth. “Are you trying to talk me out of it?”
Just then the door opened and Avery and Mia came in.
She turned to glance at them, and I glared at the TV, which was off. Even a blank screen was better than meeting anyone’s eyes.
“Well, I will expect you at The Winery on Friday then. It will be a formal affair, so please dress appropriately.” With that comment, she raked my appearance with her condescending eyes.
I ignored her and continued to stare at the TV.
“Be there by eight. There will be a dinner, but I would prefer if you and Avery made an entrance and came afterwards.”
I nodded. Other than that, I kept on staring. The hope was, if I stared long enough, she would leave.
She bent and kissed my cheek. Or rather, I was assuming it appeared like a kiss to the room at large. It was more a brushing of her skin against mine. Perhaps the scents of vampire and whatever Chance was deterred her from actually making contact.
Then she was gone, leaving me alone with Mia and Avery in silence. I sensed Mia waiting. This was the portion of the evening where I, as most best friends do, should have unloaded the weight of what happened on Mia. She would listen, nod sympathetically, and offer up words of wisdom. Since I had never told Mia about the game, as she was friends with Vance as well, there was more back-story than I cared to share. Also, she, in my opinion, was not in a position to understand my unique circumstances.
At times perhaps I underestimated Mia. A best friend does not always understand because something has happened to her, but instead understands because nothing could be so awful that a best friend would judge. But, that night, I couldn’t trust that bit of wisdom. Mia would not get it, so why would I have bothered to lay it all out to her?
Instead, I silently stared at the TV while another abyss grew in one of the major relationships in my life. I had no clue how to mend that bridge. Instead, I got up after the weight of the silence became too much to bear. I stretched and turned to the fairy. “Where do you sleep?”
“Where you do.”
I snorted. “Try again, little buddy.”
“I must sleep wherever it is you are sleeping.”
“You got floor, then.” And with that, I headed to bed.
When I woke, he had curled at my feet like a dog. Close enough to the end of the bed that he hadn’t woken me. I resisted nudging him to the floor.
Also, when I woke, I grimaced. Because, he was right. Chance, not Avery. I had dreamed of him. I had been lost in a maze made of some kind of metal. It resembled stainless steel plates that had been welded together and when I ran my hands along them, my palms had bled. I tried to use the blood to mark where I’d been, but it soaked into the metal, and I remained lost. The sky overhead reflected the same dark, steel gray as the maze itself. I walked and ran but no matter how many turns I chose, how many times I went left…I was lost and never came to the end of the maze.
I kept running, sides burning, searching for the way as fear narrowed my focus and panic clutched at my chest, making it hard to breathe. I had to get to the end of the maze. He called for me. I tried to use the link, anything to find him, but nothing worked in the maze. He needed me, but I could not find him. I was not even sure, while in the maze, who he was. Only that I had to find him. I had to. He needed me.
Finally, I came to a dead end. When I reached it, I pounded on the wall and screamed my rage as tears poured down my cheeks. I had not come that far to hit a wall. I had to get through. I had to. I felt my way along the steel plate. Eventually, I came to a door that opened to a courtyard, and there he was.
He lay on a stone table carved with curling flowers that would have been beautiful anywhere but that grey world. But there, all they did was emphasize his red hair against the cement gr
ayness. They pointed to how pale his usually golden skin was. How glassy and blank those sharp green eyes were.
I ran to his side. My hands, my bloody hands curled around his face. “Wake up! It’s me! I’m here.”
His eyes moved to mine. “You’re too late.”
My blood streaked his cheeks, showing me just how pale his skin had become. When I tried to wipe it away, it smeared instead. I cried but he simply gazed back at me, calm and resigned.
“No!” I cradled him close. I crawled onto the table and pulled him into my arms. He was limp, barely breathing. “I came. I came back!”
“Too late.” A bare whisper of sound floated to me and then he stopped breathing.
I screamed. I did not know what to do without him. I awoke with a scream in my throat and had to choke it down. I don’t think it was exactly what Chance hoped I would have when he’d taunted me and asked me to dream of him.
I studied Avery and wondered what it could mean. Avery curled as I said, like a dog at the foot of my bed. I dragged a hand through my hair.
His breath caused his dark hair to stir gently and his face, in sleep, seemed almost so translucent that I could see the tracery of his veins through his skin. He looked so peaceful, so calm, and so innocent.
Temptation became too much for me. Resisting was too much to ask. I stretched my feet and watched him start to slide toward the floor.
He came awake before he went over the edge and clawed to catch himself, eyes gone wide and wild, hair sticking up crazily, blankets coming down around him in an avalanche of blue.
I pushed harder to give him the final impetus to fall.
Over the edge he went with a deep shout and landed with a satisfying thump. And just like that, in a fairy yell and a gale of my laughter that chased away the nightmare, Wednesday began.
After I found my way to the kitchen and coffee, I managed to get Vickie off to school with no tattoos, hair color changes, or tails. All in all, Wednesday dawned far better than Tuesday had. Even with the dream lingering in the back of my mind. I almost forgot all of the strange Chance issues.
Almost. Had he not lingered in the back of my mind, trailing there like a grandmother trails the scent of peppermint, I would have been able to ignore him completely. He was there, though. I could feel him. But he remained a faint presence in the distance. Perhaps, if I left it alone, he would fade from my mind entirely.
One could hope.
I dialed Shawna’s number while leaning on Mia’s kitchen counter. The FBI lady paid my bills, so I figured I should check in. Of course, since I had not really solved the Harbor Hammer situation and had only found a body, she might not continue to pay those bills for long. I needed results. Even though we had never really outlined what I would have to do to prove myself worthy of the government’s time and money, I figured I should do something constructive.
Shawna answered and after exchanging cordial greetings, I gave her what information I had gathered. I left out what Old Mother had told me. Until I proved something, it was of no use to Shawna. Old Mother had agreed that the ghost was in someone. The questions were who did the ghost possess, which ghost, and how did I find it, get it out, and stop it, while dealing with everything else?
Come to think of it, it would probably be good if the FBI never found out about the ghost and everything connected to it. I sighed.
Shawna got my attention back when she asked me, flat out, “Have you looked into Vansickle Masterson?”
I blinked at the ceiling of Mia’s kitchen. It was painted with white dots and stars. “Vance?”
“The vampire according to our reports. I told you, I am researching all the odd things in this town and Vansickle Masterson, from what I am reading, has been in this area for years. Local lore and rumor place him as a vampire, head of the local vamp hives, if you believe in that sort of thing. In this town, I’m not going to believe everything I read, but there is evidence that he has been around too long to look that good. Have you checked into him?”
I’ve not only checked into him, I’ve slept with him, I thought with a barely restrained giggle. “He is not—”
“And besides…,” I heard her shuffling papers around. “He found the first body a couple weeks ago and someone that fit his description found two other bodies in past Harbor Hammer incidents.”
I stilled, all humor gone. “He did?”
“Yeah, do you know him?”
“I can check into it.”
“Great.” Shawna sounded relieved.
We spoke for a few more minutes, but the conversation was no more than a buzzing in my ear as I processed the information. The FBI suspected both that Vance was a vampire and that he was the Harbor Hammer. I was not sure whether to go into full defensive mode or to tell him and let him deal with it.
My best bet seemed to let him know and see what he thought. But as it was daytime, I had a big space of time to kill before he woke up. Surprisingly, though, the day whipped by. I had spent so little time being human since the transformation, taking a day for it was a blessing. I bathed. I hung out with Mia, and we talked of nothing of catastrophic importance unless you considered our favorite books and movies catastrophic. And I ate. I ate more real food on Wednesday than I had eaten that entire week combined. I helped Vickie with her homework, and I laughed with Sven over a game on the computer. It was an exceptionally mortal day, if I ignored the fairy following my every footstep.
As the sun set, I called Vance. I closeted myself in my room and locked the door. My stomach, which I had not realized had been knotted for about a week, clenched with stress. When he picked up, I realized how terribly mundane it was to call him on a phone. I mean, if I had a vampire boyfriend, shouldn’t I have a cooler way of getting a hold of him than the phone?
“Janie, I hoped you would call.” His velvety voice slid across the line and gave me goose bumps.
“Hey.” Unless I wanted to drive him mad, my voice was not velvety that I knew of. It was just normal. Then again, I couldn’t hear how it sounded to others. Maybe it sounded special. I doubted it.
“There is so much I want to discuss with you.” His distress leaked through the phone line.
I chose not to hear it. “Great, because I have a lot of questions for you.” I tried not to let the velvet of his voice wrap around me. I tried to still my memory. I tried not to let him get to me so I could keep up my interrogator’s tone.
I must have succeeded because his reply snapped kind of sharp. “Like what?”
“Like why, when I told you I was investigating the Harbor Hammer situation and told you all about it, did you not mention that you had already heard of it and had actually found some of the bodies? And that in previous Harbor Hammer incarnations, you, or someone looking remarkably like you had found bodies as well? Almost as if you had been investigating it before.” I left off the silent supposition that he may have done it. I had read through my case files far more thoroughly after my conversation with Shawna, and I found out more than I wanted about my boyfriend. Was it wrong to still think of him that way?
“That wasn’t really what I had hoped to talk to you about. Finding the Hammer is important, Janie, but it’s not really the priority here.”
I fell silent a moment. Dead people were not the priority? His outlook shocked me. Then I remembered I was talking to a vampire. I guess I could kind of understand his attitude. They were, after all, human dead people. Why would he concern his everlasting soul for other dead people? I got angry. He was supposed to be the good guy.
“How can you say that?” I was appalled and it rang loud and clear in my voice.
“You took that the wrong way, or I said it wrong, or…wait.” He took a breath. “I am getting this all wrong because it means too much. Of course, murder is a priority, but I wanted to talk about us first. I have to tell you something.”
I was stunned silent a moment. “A relationship talk takes precedence over the loss of human life?” My voice sounded cold and sharp.
> “Are you going to take whatever I say the wrong way today?”
I breathed deeply. Okay. Maybe I was being touchy. He wasn’t refusing the topic. He was saying he wanted to put us first. Most women would have been thrilled. I sighed and dropped whatever clever repartee I had planned. “What had you hoped we could talk about?”
“I seem to have a bit of an issue with Julia Whitehouse.”
Again, astounded silent. Was he admitting what I thought he was admitting?
“There is this principle…I never really believed in it before. Anyway, really, it’s based on one person being meant for another and is hokey at best. Sort of a soul mate thing. Anyway, I was going to have to sort it out and explain it to her. Regardless, I wanted to tell you that it does not have any bearing on us. I told you that I care about you and have never felt this way about anyone. I wish we were talking in person, but Mia said…well, anyway, Janie…”
The silence on the other end of the line had me clinging to the phone and holding my breath.
“I care. I have feelings for you. I think you’re beautiful, wonderful and the kindest and most loyal person I have ever met. I have waited a lifetime for you. And I am not losing you like this.” He could not see it but I blinked back tears. “I love you. I want to be with you, Janie. And for me to say those words to you, well, especially after this small amount of time, should tell you how simply extraordinary I think you are.”
He thought wrong. I wasn’t extraordinary. I wasn’t even ordinary. I actually wasn’t any of the things he listed. I sat down hard on the floor because my legs would no longer bear my weight. It’s kind of funny because there I was, supposedly a super-powered, supernatural creature, weak as a kitten. Suddenly everything Chance said made sense.
Vance saw what he wanted to see. I was flawed, so very flawed. I was mean and hard, and I made terrible mistakes. Most of the good things I had done to date were by accident. I was not kind or loyal at all. I was basically cheating on him, and he had no idea.
I had deluded myself and then told myself everything I had done was for us. Was it for us though? If it was for us, why hadn’t I told him, like he was telling me? If I was loyal and kind, why had I been willing to hurt Chance and Vance to get what I wanted? Was I any better than Chance? Or was I like him…deep inside?
Odd Melody (Odd Series Book 2) Page 17