Awakening

by Warneke, A. C.

  Celeste frowned and started to shake her head no, but then began to shake her head yes. Kim offered, “There’s a problem with Adam?”

  Celeste made a face and Kim wasn’t sure if it was a confirmation of that statement or a rebuttal. “Adam is the problem?”

  Celeste actually growled, doing a strange head shaking no and yes at the same time. “A p…A p…A p….”

  “Penis?” Kim volunteered, desperate to snap Celeste out of her brain-freeze. “Adam is a penis?”

  Celeste finally thawed out enough and laughed desperately. “No, he is an Apocritum.”

  “Ah!” Kim smiled, then frowned. “An Apocritum?”

  “Yes,” Celeste managed, still unable to complete more than short sentences. “Adam.”

  “Adam is an Apocritum?” Kim asked with disbelief. If that were true…. “That makes no sense; he bit you, you should be a Calix.”

  Celeste stared wild-eyed at her friend, gnawing on her lower lip and she realized that fangs would have totally sucked. Somehow, she found her voice in the hopes that Kim might have an explanation. Slowly, she shook her head no. “I never… fed off of him.”

  Kim’s eyes widened in alarm as she stared at Celeste, “But that would mean….”

  Kim's hand flew back to Celeste’s forehead, nearly knocking Celeste over as it slammed against her brow, insanely checking for a temperature, or the opposite of a temperature. Pushing her friend’s hands away, Celeste asked, “What are you doing?’

  “Checking for a lack of a pulse or cool, clammy skin,” Kim answered frantically, her hands quicker than Celeste’s. “Whatever it is that Thraells develop.”

  Luckily, Celeste began to make quick progress after the initial brain freeze thawed out. She pulled away from Kim’s touch with a half-smile, half-smirk. “I’m not a Thraell, Kim.”

  “I knew that,” she said guiltily, glancing down a moment to collect her thoughts. “Of course you’re not a Thraell.”

  Celeste managed to smile, realizing that dealing with Kim’s alarm made dealing with her own so much easier. Taking a deep breath, she said, “Adam’s not the one who is different, Kim. I think I am.”

  “No, that’s not true; that can’t be true; you're just as human as I am.” Kim frowned, obviously unable to accept the fact that her friend was a freak. “I don’t think there is anything wrong except for nerves; you’re probably just anxious about starting your new job today, Celeste. It has to be a little overwhelming to be working in the research department of BioGenesis, with all of those… Others. That’s why you’re freaking out; there’s no other reason.”

  “I’m not nervous,” Celeste denied, shaking her head. “Besides, your mom told me only top level researchers deal with the supernatural element. As a mere research assistant, I doubt I will even meet a lesser demon.”

  “But there’s always a chan….”

  “Kim, what if I’m Other?” Celeste asked in a hushed whisper, putting into words what she feared to be true. No matter what Kim said, Celeste knew something was wrong.

  A bubble of nervous laughter burst out of Kim, “Of course you’re not Other, you’re just a really lucky human. I mean, what would make you even think such a thing?”

  “Must you really ask?” Celeste asked with an arched brow, pulling the neck of her shirt down to give Kim a clear view of one set of fading bite marks.

  “But Adam….” Kim began, ending with a frown.

  “I knew he was an Apocritum the first moment I saw him; I had to talk myself out of what I knew was true,” Celeste murmured, seeing the image perfectly in her mind. “You know me, Kim, you know my behavior was… odd.”

  Kim laughed at that extreme understatement, finally sitting on the floor next to Celeste. “It was odd; you disappeared for two days, Cel; I am still angry at how you for disappearing like that.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Celeste apologized for the thousandth time, knowing that she would never be able to make it up to Kim. “but it was almost as if I had been waiting my whole life for him; all the rules flew out the window the moment I laid eyes on him. It’s as if I was made for him.”

  “That’s crazy talk, Cel,” Kim grumbled.

  “I know!” Celeste cried, her eyes wide as she looked at her best friend since infancy. “Do you think I should have stayed with him? Figured it out together?”

  “I think you did the right thing in coming home,” Kim murmured thoughtfully. “If he really was an Apocritum then it is better to be as far away from him as possible.”

  “Kim,” Celeste protested half-heartedly.

  “It’s true.” Kim’s voice grew more secure with her conviction. “If you had stayed you would have been taken to the Adytum and disappeared forever. He could have made you his blood slave or shared you with the other Apocritae and there would have been nothing you could have done about it. You’re in the best possible place, Cel; you’ll be able to use the resources at BioGenesis to figure out why you didn't change. But you are human.”

  “I guess,” Celeste reluctantly agreed. Kim’s words made a lot of sense and her fears receded some; she was human, of course she was.

  After a drawn out silence, Kim abruptly smiled and pulled Celeste to her feet. “Let’s just forget all of this stuff for now. We’ll get through this week and on Friday we can go to the club; we haven’t been there in ages.”

  “We’ve been in Europe, Kim,” Celeste reminded her with an amused smile. It was a good idea; it would be smart to get her mind off of Adam and what she left behind; she didn’t want to spend too much time thinking about any of that. “But, yeah, I think we should go.”

  “I’ll get a hold of some of the girls,” Kim grinned, excited by the idea. “It’ll be like old times.”

  “Great,” Celeste offered, forcing excitement into her voice when she was still reeling inside.

  “Now, get ready,” Kim said cheerfully. “You don’t want to be late for the first day of your new job.”

  *****

  Later that morning, Celeste stood in the middle of the large library, completely surrounded by thousands of books. Several computer terminals were spread out through the massive library, all connected to the main frame where vaults of information were stored on the hard drives. It was, quite frankly, overwhelming and not a little bit intimidating. Her supervisor kept laughing at the dazed expression she wore as she walked through the maze of shelves housing hundreds of years of information. Hundreds? It could well be thousands.

  There were even scrolls, but those were in a special preservation room. Even though everything had been entered into the computer, and redundancies were in place, the originals had to be maintained at all costs. Often, the material the words had been printed on contained hints on how to interpret the archaic verses. With a wealth of information, one would think that it would be nearly impossible to find anything; but it was a surprisingly straight forward system. Of course it was going to take many, many weeks to learn all of the nuances but she was excited to learn everything.

  On the plus side, it was going to prove most effective in keeping her thoughts from straying to Adam too often. Well, more than once or twice a minute. Once she felt capable of thinking about him, she might start being able to deal with her… uniqueness. And once that happened, she should be well-enough versed in the intricacies of this library to start searching for information relevant to her situation.

  “Do you have any questions?” Mrs. Barnes asked as they ended the tour where they had begun it in the break room. They grabbed a couple of drinks and sat down.

  “Only about a billion,” Celeste answered honestly. “It’s just that I can’t seem to get a lucid thought together right now to think of a single one.”

  “It’s all right,” Mrs. Barnes said with a soft chuckle. “It’s all so overwhelming at first but you’ll grow to love it.”

  “I already do,” Celeste heartily agreed. Bibliophiles, technophiles and mythophiles alike would kill to work in such a prestigious company and competitio
n proved fierce for the few spots that opened up over the years. Celeste was lucky because her father worked for BioGenesis as did Kim’s parents so she was sort of grandfathered in. The Supernatural world liked to keep their secrets limited as much as possible and if they could keep their employees within the same family all the better.

  For the first time since forsaking Adam, she felt almost good about returning home.

  Chapter 6

  Celeste looped her arm through Kim’s as they walked down the sidewalk in Minneapolis, on their way to The Chalice to meet their friends and hear the band. It was a bar that was reported to be owned and operated by supernatural creatures. There were rules in place to keep humans safe as they flirted with the dark side and they hosted the most amazing bands.

  Kim decided to go with a black leather mini skirt and a silver halter top that showed her flat abs and belly button ring. Celeste’s outfit was a little tamer but still considerably more daring than outfits she once wore: tight black jeans and a sheer black top over her black satin and lace bra. Since Paris she discovered a new level of confidence in herself and it was making itself at home in her skin. It was a good feeling.

  She wore her hair pinned up, a few tendrils hanging down around her face, and minimal makeup – just mascara and some lip gloss. Kim told her that she had a sexy librarian look going for her that should attract some attention. Celeste didn’t care; she just wanted to dance and hang out with the girls and try not to dwell on Adam; just a night of normalcy.

  The music was spilling over into the streets and the line that snaked around the building was bobbing in rhythm to the beat. Kim sighed, her body throwing itself against the air in a pout, “Damn, look at the line.”

  “At least it’s a nice night,” Celeste smiled, tilting her head back and imagining the stars that were hidden by the city lights.

  Kim stood on her tip toes and peered over the crowd at the bouncer who was accepting the entrance fee. She really didn’t want to walk half way down the block only to walk slowly back. Besides, the entrance was a mere ten feet away, and the end of the line was much further. The guy gestured for a few people to go in and Kim’s lips spread into a winning smile. “Hey! He’s waving people in!” Grabbing Celeste’s hand, she began pulling her straight towards the man, not bothering to get in line, “Come on.”

  “Kim, stop!” Celeste laughed, dragging her heels and halting her friend’s forward movement. “It’s not going to work; look at who he’s letting in.”

  “You’re full of shit, Cel,” Kim retorted, pulling harder. “We totally have a chance. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen? He’d tell us to get in line.”

  “Fine, we’ll do it your way,” Celeste relented, following her friend. “But when I am refused entrance, I am going to turn around and go home. And sulk.”

  “Oh, God, we can’t let that happen!” Kim said with mock horror. Stopping in front of the very large, very muscular man with obsidian eyes, she flashed him a brilliant smile. “Hey, there, I noticed that you were the man in charge here. Is there any chance my friend and I could maybe skip the line?”

  *****

  Raven’s eyes narrowed as he looked down at another human – this one blond – trying to break the rules and it was getting annoying. Before he could refuse her entrance, though, his gaze drifted to the top of the brunette’s head. And when she lifted her head and her eyes met his, he felt an odd… loyalty to her. He knew that she wasn’t a fellow Calix, but there was something….

  The girl smiled and turned her head to the blond and he studied her profile. She was attractive, for a human, though she lacked the perfect beauty of his fellow Calices. Perhaps he would bite her before the night was through…. Except that wasn’t what he wanted to do to her. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do to her.

  “Kim, I think I stepped in some gum,” the enchantress laughed, the sound reverberating through his body doing strange things to his insides. She reached out and unconsciously grabbed his arm to steady herself as she pulled the sticky mess from her shoe, scrunching up her nose in disgust. Her fingers sent tingles of… desire through his arm, making his body respond. He hadn’t responded to a human in nearly thirty years, when he had been a human.

  With a guilty expression she looked at him and released her hold. “I am so sorry, sir.”

  “Uh,” he tried to make intelligent speech but words seemed to be in short supply at the moment. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a handkerchief, taking the gum from her fingers, “Let me get that for you.”

  “Hey! What’s the hold up?” someone called from further down the line.

  The interruption seemed to pull him out of whatever strange spell the girl cast over him, though his erection still pulsed with desire for her. Smiling, he opened the door for her and her friend, “Please, have fun tonight.”

  “Don’t you have a cover charge?” the blond asked, glancing from him to the brunette.

  “Uh, five dollars,” he mumbled, watching the brunette stuff her hand in the back pocket of her very sexy jeans and pull out a ten dollar bill. He wondered what she would look like naked, her human body opened to him; an Apocritum could not compare to her. She started to hand the money to him, but he shook his head and covered her hand with his, feeling a pulse of electricity sweep through his entire body. “For you, I’ll let it pass.”

  “Interesting,” the blond murmured, pushing the brunette forward and into the crowded club. Smiling foolishly after her, it was a few moments before he became aware of his surroundings.

  Shaking his head, Raven turned back and saw the very disgruntled expression of his boss glaring at him. With hands on his hips, his lips in a tight line, his black eyes flashing annoyance, Jones asked, “Who the hell was that?”

  “I don’t know,” Raven answered honestly, still holding the tissue with the gum in his hand. “Just a girl, I think. She was… she was perfect.”

  “You should return to the Adytum, I think there’s something wrong with you,” Jones said, turning and going into the building to find a replacement. It was not natural for a Calix to be attracted to a human.

  *****

  The two girls made their way through the club to reach the bar, Celeste’s thoughts on the strange bouncer with black eyes. She had been so sure that he wasn’t going to allow them to enter and then he suddenly relented. It was the strangest thing. And if she wasn't mistaken he had sharper than normal canines. “That went better than expected.”

  Celeste smirked at Kim’s observation, turning to the bar and attempting to get the bartender's attention. He looked over and walked the few feet to stop in front of her. His eyes were also black and his canines were sharp. She shook off the shiver that tripped down her spine; it was nothing, simply a coincidence. “A bottled water and a cherry martini, please.”

  With a sexy little smile, the man bowed his head and quickly filled the order, placing the bottle of water and the cocktail in front of her. “Nine fifty.”

  Celeste smiled as she handed him the cash she still held in her hand, taking the martini and handing it to a gaping Kim as she grabbed her water. “Thank you.”

  “My pleasure, Miss?” he fished, leaning against the counter, his dull black eyes brightening the longer he looked at her, more closely resembling Adam’s beautiful…. No, she wasn’t going to think about Adam, not tonight.

  She smiled at him, ignoring her invasive thoughts of Adam, before she turned away. Spying two of the girls from their old sorority standing by the bathrooms, she grabbed Kim’s hand and tried to pull her through the crowd. At the resistance, she turned around and faced her friend, a perplexed expression on her face to match the perplexed expression on Kim’s face. “What is it?”

  “It's very interesting,” Kim smirked. “You seem to be casting a spell on the men who work here.”

  Celeste laughed to cover her discomfort. She was almost positive the two men were Calices and that made her oddly nervous and a little giddy. She had been going to the bar for
years and was just now realizing the employees all had the black eyes of a Calix. Of course she had known the employees were Others, she just hadn’t realized they were Calices. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s the girls, let’s go say hi.”

  Kim let out a little groan before she let Celeste lead her away.

  A squeal of three girls pulled her back to the present. Shaking her head, she saw Genevieve Hunter and Rachel Blythe, who were now seniors at their old school. Genevieve and Kim could almost pass as sisters, their coloring was so similar, but Genevieve’s eyes sparked with mischief that was somehow at odds with her angelic appearance.

  In truth, Genevieve was positively stunning, easily one of the most beautiful women Celeste knew, with her long, golden blond hair and large violet-blue eyes; full, pouty lips, slender nose, all on a heart-shaped face. With a lithe body and dramatic curves; she was perfection. Gen was a few inches taller than Celeste, probably Kim’s height of five seven, but she also had the habit of wearing four inch heels everywhere she went and seven inch platform heels while out clubbing. Celeste never figured out how Gen's legs and feet could stand being in that position, let alone managing to dance as well as Genevieve did.

  Rachel had short, fire-red hair and warm brown eyes, just a little shorter than her best friend Genevieve and almost as beautiful. Whereas Genevieve looked like an angel, Rachel looked more like a naughty imp, her eyes always lit with wicked determination. Like Kim and Celeste, Gen and Rachel were rarely apart and they were closer than sisters.

  Celeste wrapped one arm around Rachel’s shoulder and the other around Genevieve’s as she hugged them, grateful for the somewhat secluded corner. With the barrier blocking out the music, it wasn’t too difficult to talk either. “It’s so good to see you guys again! I hadn’t realized how much I missed the two of you!”

  They returned the hug with equal affection as Genevieve spoke, “I know! It’s been miserable without you guys here.”