Asanni

by J. F. Kaufmann

  I laughed. “I gave you a nasty shock, didn’t I?”

  “It was a shock, but it shouldn’t have been nasty. I’m so sorry, Astrid.”

  “It’s okay, Ingmar. Back then, I wasn’t very happy about it either.”

  My thoughts drifted back to the day when I’d told Ingmar about my monthly transformation. I had been simply tired of making excuses to secure a few days alone every month. I remembered his utmost shock mixed with disbelief and rejection, and the immediate shame that followed because he had allowed himself to show such low feelings. I’d felt hurt and betrayed, and didn’t give him a chance to deal with the fact that his girlfriend had to spend one day every month in her alternative shape. I’d been too harsh, of course, and acted impulsively; but Ingmar’s negative reaction, in the end, had had a positive outcome: I’d finally come to terms with my identity.

  His little betrayal had been long forgiven.

  “You are an Ellida, aren’t you?” Ingmar said more in the form of a statement than a question.

  I was pleased. “So you really did your homework, didn’t you?”

  “At first, I wasn’t sure what to think. I thought you were hurt and angry, and that’s why you disappeared. But then I started thinking. It was so unlike you to do that. I couldn’t get anything from your grandparents, except that you were fine. I couldn’t find you anywhere. Then that boy came to me with his fractured clavicle, and started talking about how an ER doctor had fixed his leg, and how he was able to walk again within days. When he described you, I didn’t have any doubt. I had to know why you came here. Astrid, are you hiding? Are you in danger? Is that why Jack is here?”

  “Yes, sort of. You met my friend Liv. She’s—”

  “A Tel-Urugh. I know.”

  “She told you that?” I exclaimed, surprised.

  “No, but it wasn’t hard to figure it out. The moment I parked in front of your house, she was sitting beside me in my car. Scared the hell out of me. The next thing I remembered, we were sitting here and talking. Actually, she was asking questions and I was answering, like a pupil in front of a teacher. She’s your guard, isn’t she?”

  I told Ingmar a short summary of my last year, with enough relevant details about my mother, her clan and their plans, my werewolf family, Jack… a brief account that covered almost everything. He listened to me without interrupting, his eyes filled with concern.

  My story finally reached the present time and I smiled. “God, it’s good to see you, Ingmar. I’ve missed you so much.”

  “Not as a boyfriend, apparently.” He sighed. “I missed you, too.”

  “We messed up our perfectly happy friendship for no reason.”

  Ingmar rolled his eyes. “Come on, it wasn’t that bad. We just added a little bit of spice to the mix. And that spicy part was great, admit it. But we are better as friends, I agree.” He stopped abruptly. “Hey, your boyfriend can hear us, can’t he?”

  “Possibly. But I don’t think he’s listening.”

  “Well, that’s chivalrous. You sure he’s not a wizard?” Ingmar laughed, and for the first time that night he looked completely like his old, dear self I’d known almost all my life.

  “Your hair grew. I like it,” I said, tilting my head to get a better view.

  Ingmar’s gorgeous blond hair was shoulder-length and pulled back in a thick ponytail. Like most of our kind, he looked elf-like: tall, slender and elegant, yet unmistakably strong. His facial features were clear and proportional and his eyes brilliant blue. Ingmar was a powerful wizard. But as with most of us, he rarely used his incredible energy and skills, except for his job. My grandparents knew him well and liked him a lot. No wonder he was so uneasy when they refused to tell him anything about me except that I was okay.

  “Astrid, I’m going back to Seattle tonight, not totally relieved, but enough to leave you here with your boyfriend and your vampire Praetorians.” He stood up and came close to me. He took my hands between his and crouched beside the sofa. “Those people will probably try to harm you again. I know that your family and friends will do everything they can to protect you, but please count on me. I’ll come. I’ll help.”

  I opened my mouth, but before I was able to say anything, Ingmar interrupted me. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Because we are different species, we are not supposed to interfere with each other’s affairs. Bah! To hell with those rules! You are both a wizard and a werewolf so you are our concern, as well as werewolves’. And I can’t imagine your vampire friends standing aside while somebody’s trying to harm you. Astrid, when the time comes, when you need me, I’ll come and I won’t be alone. I have a friend or two who think the same way.”

  “Oh Ingmar, I know,” I said, and deeply moved, hugged him tightly.

  “Tell that to Jack, in case he is indeed not listening to our conversation,” Ingmar said wryly and patted my shoulder. “I think I should go now.”

  “Do you need to go back tonight? Look outside, it’s horrible.”

  It was raining heavily, it was foggy, and I didn’t want Ingmar to spend several hours on the road.

  “I don’t think Jack would be happy to have me for a sleepover.”

  “But we will be.” I heard Liv’s voice from the hallway. She had a creepy ability to enter any space without a sound. Jack might not have been listening, but Liv apparently had. Behind her I saw Jack, and my heart bounced. Oh, how I’d missed him!

  “My husband would like to meet you,” Liv continued. “We seem to have an interesting topic to discuss. You’re welcome to stay with us tonight.”

  “As a guest or as dessert?” Ingmar said.

  “Ah, another wizard with a sense of humor,” Liv said with a chuckle. “And here I’d always thought you have electronic chips in your heads instead of a brain.”

  And there we were again, the four of us together in the tiny space. Most of the tension had disappeared, however. I peeked at Jack, who moved to my side and snuggled me. I squeezed his hand.

  Left arm snug around my waist, Jack offered his right hand to Ingmar, who accepted it. I silently let out a deep breath.

  I hugged my friend and he kissed my cheek. “Take care, Astrid. I’ll be there for you when you need me.”

  INGMAR’S DEPARTURE was far easier than his arrival. As the door closed behind him and Liv, Jack turned to me.

  “I’ve been awesome, haven’t I?” he said with a wide smile and pulled me against him.

  I looked up at him and met his soft amber gaze.

  “An epitome of tolerance. I’m impressed,” I said and locked my arms around his neck. “Just a tiny kiss, may I?” I asked moving my lips toward Jack’s.

  “A tiny one,” he warned me, and met me halfway.

  “You know what?” I asked a bit later, dizzy and breathless, but in total control over my wild side. “I’ll cook tonight.”

  “What are we going to eat?”

  “Do we have anchovies and capers and black olives?”

  “Ah, Pasta alla Puttanesca. You usually don’t cook, but when you do, you cook sexy food. Why I am not surprised? Good, then. What should I do?” he asked as we moved to the kitchen.

  “Mince the garlic.”

  “Garlic? I thought you don’t eat garlic and onion.”

  “I eat it once it’s been sautéed or cooked.”

  “But not fresh? When we were at Palatine Hill—”

  “I thought... ahem... we might end up kissing, so I didn’t want to risk it.”

  Jack shook his head, laughing. His finger tilted my chin as his mouth came closer to mine. “You know what, Miss Spock, let me kiss you now, just in case we don’t sauté the garlic properly. Not that I would mind, but you might have some concerns,” he said and kissed me tenderly, cautious not to wake up my wolf. “Now that I have you, I believe that love at first sight is actually a process that lasts a whole eternity.”

  “You are turning into a poet.”

  “That’s because you are my muse.” He turned me around and, planting a gentle kiss o
n my neck, grabbed the kitchen towel from the hook and tucked it into my jeans. “The kitchen’s all yours, love.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  DID YOU two live together?” Jack said. “I know it’s not my business, but if you don’t mind telling me...”

  They had finished with the Penne Puttanesca and a salad of mixed greens. Jack had praised her cooking, making her feel proud.

  Astrid smiled. Given who he was—who was he, indeed? she wondered—and, even more, knowing how important she was to him, Astrid couldn’t help but admire Jack’s efforts to keep his possessiveness under control. Nonetheless, a part of her wanted to tell him exactly that: none of your business. A small part.

  “I’d never lived with a man until you moved into my spare room,” she said instead.

  “Did you love him? You don’t need to answer.”

  “I’ve already told you: if I don’t like the question, you won’t get an answer. We dated for about a year. It wasn’t exactly a When-Harry-Met-Sally relationship, but it was nice and carefree. See, Ingmar and I’ve been friends since we were kids. And that’s exactly how I love him—as a friend. We are close, as you could see.” Astrid sighed. “I’ve missed him. I’m glad he found me. And I know I can count on him. Are you okay with all that?”

  “Do I have a choice?” Jack uttered a short laugh and ran his hand through his hair. “We are possessive, territorial and prone to jealousy. These are primitive instincts, I know, and I try to keep a lid on them.”

  “But?”

  “There is no but. I’m also a civilized person. I’m okay, of course. Nothing matters but you. As long as you are mine.”

  “I am, Jack. And I bet my alternate self doesn’t like sharing either.”

  Astrid moved closer and tucked herself beside Jack. She rested her head against his chest, breathing him in. Enough about personal issues and ex-boyfriends for tonight, she decided.

  “Do I smell as nice to you as you do to me?” she whispered into his shoulder.

  Jack kissed her hair. “You smell wonderful. Better than anyone else.” He lifted her chin with his finger, studying her eyes. “Astrid, love, try to keep her under control. I know it’s not easy, but just try. Okay?”

  “Okay, okay. Let’s talk. Tell me about your family, your father. His name was Brian, right? He died fighting alongside my father.”

  “That’s probably one of the best ways to go, or at least I believe he’d think so. Yes, they died together, fighting Seth’s men. We found their bodies after two weeks and brought them home for the funeral.”

  “You cremated them?”

  “That’s what we do.”

  “And Seth? You let him get away with double murder?”

  “We couldn’t prove he ordered it. He said he agreed to meet Hal and Brian, but the meeting never happened because ten of Seth’s mercenaries ambushed them and killed them, but not before Hal and Brian killed four of them. Four survived. They said it was self-defense.”

  “Self-defense? Ten against two?”

  “Well, under normal circumstances, Brian and Hal could’ve taken down all of them.”

  “You said there were ten of them. What happened to two?”

  “Ran away. Nobody saw them ever again. I was looking for them for years. I had their names, everything, but they vanished off the face of the earth.”

  Jack didn’t tell Astrid that their fathers’ bodies had been so mutilated they could identify them only by their birthmarks: Hal’s pearl-size mole on his left shoulder blade, and a crescent-shaped birthmark on Brian’s upper back.

  “Anyway, Seth washed his hands of the murder. He had those four arrested and soon executed, but of course nobody in Red Cliffs believed in his innocence.”

  “And my mother was the cause of all that tragedy,” Astrid said quietly.

  Jack stroked her cheek. “I’m sure she never wanted that. Nobody knows exactly what happened. Rowena was eighteen then, she wanted to become one of us. Your father had refused to turn her, she was too young, impatient, and her reasons were wrong. Seth promised her what Hal had refused to give her... A perfect set up for a tragedy. She was our Helen of Troy, in a way.”

  “Had Seth hoped she’d bear him a child?”

  “The fool had hoped for no less than an Ellida. But he turned Rowena too early and made her barren. Or he couldn’t sire another child. For one reason or another, they couldn’t have children together. That was a big blow for Seth and his grand plan.”

  “Grand plan? Then there’s more than just marrying me to his son?”

  Jack nodded. “Let me tell you first a bit about Seth’s father, Leidolf. He was a great leader. He founded Copper Ridge and under his rule, in a span of several decades, a small village became a well-off and prosperous town. Unfortunately, after a while, Leidolf crossed over to the dark side.”

  “And Seth killed him, I guess.”

  “Seth had to kill him. Sometimes this is the only way, Astrid… At the beginning, Seth seemed competent, tolerant and wise, but then gradually started losing his mind.”

  “Does anyone know why?”

  “Maybe he ended up with more power than he could handle, maybe it was the result of interbreeding, who knows? For many generations Withali men had been marrying their close blood relatives, seemingly without consequences, until Leidolf lost his sanity. Seth broke with the tradition, but unfortunately, it was too late.”

  “Among humans, inbreeding results in increased possibilities of genetic defects,” Astrid said. “Take European royals, for example, among whom interbreeding was common. Queen Victoria was the original carrier of a recessive X-linked hemophilia gene, and in the next one hundred years, more than twenty members inherited the disease... Or the Hapsburgs. They were particularly infamous for it.”

  “Hapsburger Unter Lippe... Some of them, luckily, escaped the curse,” Jack murmured, more to himself than to Astrid.

  “Yes, the Habsburg jaw,” she carried on, “which, among those less lucky, progressed through generations so that the last Habsburgs couldn’t chew properly. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. They suffered mental disabilities, severe physical deformations, epilepsy, infertility, impotency, stillbirths... the list is long. Interbreeding must affect all humanoid races in a similar way.”

  “It might not be Seth’s case, but messing with genes is very dangerous for us, Astrid. The Beast of Gévaudan, Fenrir, Hatti, Sköl... they weren’t mythical creatures. I mean, they are now, because they’re not alive anymore.”

  Astrid gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. “Real monsters.”

  “It happens. We’re small in number, which means a small genetic pool. That’s the reason why we so often mate with humans. We depend on their blood to keep us healthy.”

  “And they get longevity and vitality in return.”

  “Or they can choose to become one of us. They have to decide before they are one hundred years old because the aging process can’t be averted after that, but that’s enough time even for such a big decision, I believe.”

  “Do they ever refuse?”

  “Approximately half decide to stay human.”

  “Well, I guess immortality has its downsides... Jack, I sidetracked you, I’m sorry. What exactly is Seth’s plan?”

  “He’s been obsessed with the idea of infiltrating his people into human institutions and taking over them: governments, big corporations, wherever money and power are. Total insanity. He hoped for an Ellida with your mother to start the whole process. Now he wants you.”

  Astrid swallowed hard. “He must be stopped, not only because of me. His own people must be suffering terribly.”

  And her mother as well, she thought panicky. She had been living with a lunatic!

  “I won’t let him or anybody else hurt you, Astrid,” Jack said firmly. “We’ll keep you safe.”

  “That’s not enough, Jack. I can’t live my life waiting for Seth to strike. I don’t want to live in fear or under constant protection. I can’t let hi
m hurt my mother.”

  Jack pulled her closer against him. “Rowena has survived all these years. She’ll be okay. Let me now quote one of my real-life heroes: ‘Remember that all through history there have been tyrants or murderers, and for a time they seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall. Always.’”

  “Mahatma Gandhi.”

  Jack kissed the tip of her nose. “I knew you’d recognize it. There’s a strong resistance movement inside Copper Ridge, Astrid. Seth can’t fool anybody anymore. And there is Darius, his son.”

  Astrid snorted. “Ah, my supposed future husband.”

  “He’s been in Europe, first studying and then working. He’s an oil engineer. He’s in Scotland now, on an oil rig in the North Sea. He seems a good man, nothing like his father. We know he wants to end this chaos.”

  “Not so long ago, Seth also seemed normal, didn’t he?”

  “Darius is different. I can’t explain how I know, but I’m sure everything’s fine with him. Anyway, he spent his childhood and youth in Copper Ridge with his father, until he went to Edinburgh to study engineering. Seth had left Darius’s mother, Aida, a few years before he married Rowena. Aida died shortly after that. Darius is close to his maternal aunt Arina, and his cousin Amilla, Arina’s daughter. And to your mother. Rowena raised him. Darius regards Rowena as his mother. He’ll protect her, Astrid.”

  “Oh. That’s good,” Astrid whispered, feeling jealous, glad and relieved all at once. “They’ve had each other. She’s not alone.”

  Feeling Astrid’s distress, Jack quickly returned to the topic of bringing Seth down and restoring normal life in Copper Ridge. “We are neighbors and relatives. We used to be the closest and most connected two clans on the whole continent,” he said. “We lived side by side for generations, intermarried, visited each other, traded, built, celebrated together, even fought together.”

  “Is there any contact between Red Cliffs and Copper Ridge now? Do people go to visit each other?”

  “It’s impossible to sever all connections, of course, but in general, Red Cliffers are not welcomed there and people from Copper Ridge can’t leave their territory without Seth’s personal permission. We have to work around it.”