by Jasmine Walt
The vampire glowed so brightly she had to look away, putting her arm in front of her eyes for good measure. “Turn it down, D.”
“Turn what down?” he asked, innocently.
“Whatever you’re doing that’s making you glow so bright. My eyes can’t take it.”
“Child, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t play innocent with me, vamp.” She dug in her purse, pulled out her sunglasses and put them on her face, turning tentatively toward her roommate. Still squinting, she found it tolerable to look at him. “What did you do? Tell me. Have such good sex with Sultana she made you glow?”
D’Raynged appeared truly perplexed. “She called and told me she had to rush out of town. We’re to reconvene tonight, if your bounty hunter hasn’t already done her in. I still sense her, though, so I think you’re safe.”
“I’m safe? Me? I’m on some sort of hallucinogenic trip only I don’t know what kind, how I did it, who did it to me, or when it happened. Therefore,” she snapped, “I don’t know when it will end.”
“Oh.” He drew out the word in a long, knowing manner. “Come. Sit with me before I depart. I’ve prepared some refreshments.”
“More dead rats? Headless chickens? Snakes?”
“My, child, whatever is the matter? You’re in a worse mood than yesterday. And here I thought things would be pleasant between us tonight.” He shook his head, turned, and strode toward the front room.
A crackling fire burned in the fireplace.
“You made a fire?”
He rolled his eyes. “No your dead grandma made it, what do you think?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Seriously. Who made the fire?”
“Me. Who else? What’s got you so suspicious? I know how you humans like to be warm. I’m not that old. And definitely not out of touch,” he added with a sniff. He poured a glass of wine for her, lifted his goblet of serum bloody awful whack juice, and said, “Thank you from the bottom of my dead heart for your gift. It meant a lot to me. I consider us back to even ground, as long as my vampire lover lives. No human has freely offered me blood as a gift in such a quaint, endearing manner.” An actual tear seemed to form in his eye.
Chia squinted at him through her dark glasses. Okay, it’s a blood droplet but it’s in the correct place for tears. “Um, you’re welcome. I’m sorry. I’m having kind of a weird, stressful day.”
“You shouldn’t be now,” he said, lifting a tray of crackers and cheese. “Same old cheese from last night. You really need to get to a grocery. But I found an unopened box of crackers in the pantry.”
“Thank you. And why shouldn’t I be stressed?” She took a cracker and nibbled the edge. Hunger took over and she popped the whole thing, cheese wedge and all, into her mouth and chewed like a…well, like a dog.
D’Raynged arched an elegant eyebrow. “Because I accepted your gift. I ate it, although much more politely than you’re eating right now. And while I found the chocolate cheap and tasteless, the blood was delicious.” His eyes took on a dreamy appearance. “Type A, I think.”
“Yes, you’re right. Um…I hope it doesn’t…um….well, you know, I hope you don’t have some sort of power over me now. You know, like the literature suggests?”
“What, control you like a puppet? Like I have the time to do such a thing.” He waved a hand at her. “Child. You have the oddest ideas. While I’ll be able to sense you easily until the blood digests, you’re the one who should be experiencing a difference. Oh, my!” He pressed his palm against his smooth, unlined forehead. “Your current state of mind…why didn’t I put two and two together?”
“What about it?”
“It could be…yes, it might be…you might possess latent skills and our energy exchange has enhanced it. You could be more than a mere human. Wouldn’t that be something?” He snorted. “You, an itty bitty woman who looks like a cupcake having supernatural powers?” He hooted with laughter. “Or even strength?”
“Stop trivializing me. I get so tired of men sexualizing me or dismissing me because I’m cute.” She glared at him, furious. “Stop it! D’Raynged, cut it out!”
“I’m sorry,” he wheezed. “Really, I am.” He worked to quell his laughter.
“Look,” she said, exasperated. “I’m short, I’m cursed or blessed with cuteness and sexual appeal but there’s far more to me that that. I’m intelligent. I have good instincts and a mind for strategy, although there’s been no evidence of it lately. All you males see is my appearance.”
“Honey,” D’Raynged said, arching an eyebrow. “You smell like you’re in heat all the time. You need it more than most, I’m guessing, but you get it less than many.”
“Come on. It’s not that bad. I’ve been far too stressed. Now I’ve set myself up good and stupid. I promised the townsfolk results within twenty-four hours…now it’s down to eighteen and a half…or else I’m resigning.”
D’Raynged grew still. “You said I’d have to move if you lose your job.”
She shrugged. “I did. And you will.”
“I like our living arrangement. I like you.”
“You do?” Her mouth fell open.
“Of course. I love our practical jokes. No one’s ever retaliated.”
“Or lived to retaliate, I presume. I’ve got other things to think about.” She made the same swishing motion D’Raynged had done. “That’s why I need to use my strategic skills to their fullest and not be distracted by weird ghostly things that twirl with my ghosts, or tiny sprites or supernatural hearing.”
“You met the Fae, I take it? And the wee sprites?”
“I didn’t meet anybody. I witnessed quite a bit. And I think I killed a few of them. They were splattered against the window as I drove.”
“It happens.” D waved his hand. “Daily. The little ones are like insects. They have short lifespan anyway so…” He scoffed. “No harm, no foul. And yes, there’s a fairy who’s taken keen interest with one of your ghosts. They’re often hermaphrodites, did you know? The Fae, I mean.”
“I didn’t, no. I thought they were fictitious creatures.”
“Oh, Lord, no. I’ve witnessed quite a few encounters between your ghosts, as you call them, and the supernatural world. This one seductive fairy in particular. I’m surprised you don’t feel it when you’re awake. They take off at night, while you’re sleeping and do all sorts of naughty things. Since you’re ‘all one,’” he said derisively, “you should feel what they feel.”
Hmmm, I do feel horny a lot. “Hey, speaking of feeling what they feel, could they have alerted me to danger?”
“How so?” He sipped at his bloody drink.
“Last night…I was with…never mind. I was out near the outcropping on the other side of town, where another shifter got killed I might add, and one of the ghosts started buzzing around my face. A few seconds later I heard a branch crack and Red Spotted Dick stepped into the opening. Then, they flared around me, concealing me. Do you think they did that intentionally?”
He brought a slender finger up to his lips and tapped, thoughtfully. “It’s possible. If they’re offspring of acts you’ve done and feel badly about, as you’ve told me, they’re intrinsically a part of you. Don’t think of them as separate. What qualities do they represent?”
She pointed in the air at the energy bursts. Currently, they hung from the overhead fan, set on low to disperse the heat from the fireplace. They spun around and around as if on a merry go round. “The red one, that’s rage. Orangish one is sexual transgressions. Green is, um, envy, jealousy, whatever you want to call it, resulting in a broken heart. Yellow and pink one is greed. Pale orange is a lesser sexual transgression. That colorless one is a ‘better than thou’ situation.”
D’Raynged chuckled. “You have your own version of the seven deadly sins of Christian origin. All you’re missing is sloth and greed. I’m curious why you have them and others don’t. People do ridiculous, horrific things every day.”
&n
bsp; “I know, right? That’s what I tried to explain to you last night.”
He lifted his eyebrow again. “We had other, more pressing things to discuss, if I recall. I do hope they’ve been taken care of.”
“Sort of. I’m working on it.”
“Anyway, it’s hard to tell if your energy bursts do things to protect and serve or merely to protect and serve their food source.”
“Their food source? Me?”
He rolled his eyes again. “Use your bright mind.” He tapped the side of his head with a tapered finger. “They come from you, so you say. They’re part yours, so you say. They can’t exist without you giving them energy. Of course, you’re their food source.
“There must be a way to utilize that energy until or unless you’re willing to deal with it at all.” Once more he made the dismissive hand wave. “Let’s move on. As for the other phenomena you’re experiencing, all I’ve done by ingesting a drop of you, if I’ve done anything at all, is awaken you to the world around you. You probably saw Fae, sprites, shades, ghosts, spirits and all manner of bothersome things outside, am I right? And your senses were no doubt keen, right?”
“I suppose. It overwhelmed me, to be honest.”
“Make use of it. It won’t last forever, any more than my connection with you will. You’d have to bring me more blood offerings and I may or may not be in the mood to consume them. There are no guarantees. It depends on the day and the quality of chocolate.” One of his eyebrows arched. “Splurge a little. And on your reasons for offering—they’d better be good ones. I will not be bought.” Again, his long hand lifted in a dismissive swish.
“Understood. So how do you think I should use it?”
“How should I know? Scout around. You can hear things like I hear things, I assume, am I right?”
“I guess so. I hear things far away. And my vision seems sharper.”
“There you go. Restore yourself from this paltry repast, then go and have fun.”
“Fun? This situation I’m in is more a matter of life and death. How is that fun?”
“I’m not going to explain everything to you. It’s like a game. It’s fun to hunt. Think like a boy for once.”
“If you say so.” She reached for another cracker, added three more to her palm and proceeded to wolf them down. “Oh. We’re going to have yard guests for a time.”
“What kind of yard guests?”
“Local dog pack. They’re serving guard duty.”
“Mmm, tasty.”
“Don’t even think about it. One of them is my friend. Speaking of which, I need to leave a t-shirt or something on his bed so he knows where to rest.” Better yet, Hung’s pants. “I’d better keep moving. Thank you for the nourishment.”
“Thank you for the blood droplet.” He lifted his glass to her once more. “And good luck saving Sultana’s existence.” The vampire’s demeanor swiftly turned from warm and friendly to cold and deadly. “I’d hate to have to kill you now we’ve made peace.”
Chia stood, draining her glass of wine, but prudently not refilling. Not going to make the same mistake twice. “Yeah, me, too.” She giggled nervously. “I’d hate to think I got my hair all pink frosted and other places waxed for nothing.”
12
Unable to come up with a better plan than the one D’Raynged suggested, Chia wandered outside to listen and observe. When she made new rules, she had a reputation for being cool, calm, and collected. She fought, she explained, she rationalized. In the end, everyone signed on the dotted lines. Never in all the years she’d been in charge, had she been faced with such a dilemma. They want me gone? They want to get rid of the shifters? And never in her life had she felt as weirdly high as she did right now. It was one thing to smoke a little weed now and then, or catch a tequila or wine buzz, but this high seemed bewildering.
She brought a thermos of hot chocolate to stay warm, an old waxed canvas piece on which to sit, as well as her revolver snug in a holster strapped to her hips. Best to be prepared. The minute she stepped outside, her senses were assaulted. “Augh! Too much.” She shielded her eyes and ran back in the house to get earmuffs. “How do you cope with this level of sensation, D?”
He looked up from the TV, then flipped to a news channel showing the logo for Lemming News.
“Hold on. Stop there.”
Red Mountainbear grinned from the television screen, talking about changes coming to the town of Charming. “All the industry locks, from fishing, to mining, to hunting, to building, currently in place by local town manager Chia Petit are about to come to an end. This is a resource rich region and we need to act, and act fast. Plans to bulldoze new roads into and out of Charming are in place, ready to roll. Once the leadership transition takes place, you’ll see a whole new Charming.”
“Oh, God,” Chia groaned. “I can’t deal with this right now. Tell me how to deal with the sensation assault. It’s all I can handle at the moment.”
“Imagine you’re channel surfing. Choose your channel.” He shrugged and focused on the screen. “Like this.” He pointed the remote and pressed, flipping it to another station. Another scene from The Matrix played--Neo dodging bullets in slow motion.
What, we’re begin treated to a Matrix marathon? Same as last time, Neo’s face loomed onscreen. He seemed to stare at her for a few intense seconds. She shook her head. Maybe I really am losing my grip on reality. “Splendid advice,” she grumbled, placing the earmuffs over her ears.
Once she stood outside again, she appreciated the muting the muffs provided. I had no idea so much life happened at night, she thought, crunching through the snow. This is incredible. She followed the iron fence for several yards until she reached the edge of a wide clearing that stretched for miles.
The burbling creek sounded like it was being piped through a loudspeaker, even through the fluffy padded ear warmers. The fence came to an end, punctuated by a solid wood post carved into a humungous bear standing on its hind legs, head thrown back, teeth bared. Her grandfather had been a true artist. She cocked her head and studied the giant totem.
Is it glowing, too? Sure enough, it shimmered as if infused with magic. She turned to study the land surrounding her home. This parcel of land, acres and acres, had been in her family since the 1800s when the gold miners swooped through Alaska in a lustful feeding frenzy of golden greed.
The acre surrounding the house and outbuildings glimmered in a delicate spider web cocoon of light strands heading toward the sky, connecting in a pyramid point. Huh. How could I have missed this? Some ancient protection spell? A Star Trekkie force field? Had my family known shamans? Had my grandfather known some sort of secret magic? Puzzled, she turned to the task at hand.
Big animal tracks, no doubt grizzlies or other bears, led from the creek into the clearing. She sniffed and wrinkled her nose. “Pee-ew. Bears stink.” Lifting her head, she caught more scents, but since heightened senses were new to her, she didn’t know what they were.
Resting on the waxed canvas, with her back between the carved bear’s legs, she tried her best to get a handle on all the sensations. With her vision, she caught all manner of shapes slinking through the night, and illuminations of every kind—glowing eyes, glowing beings, glimmers and glitters of light.
If she softened her gaze and didn’t try to look at anything in particular it became a kaleidoscope of color. Okay, this isn’t so bad, she thought, growing comfortable with the vibrant, shimmering world around her. Tiny sparkling lights appeared and twinkled around her head. She pushed her hood back to get a better look. A strange tingle, like feathers tickling her scalp, indicated the sparkly things settled in her hair, making a nest. “Great. I’d hate it if they were like head lice. I hope they don’t breed and lay eggs in my hair.”
Ready to see if she could handle the aural assault, she shifted one of the fake fur ear pieces behind her ear. Sounds were everywhere. As before, she heard mammals breathing in the distance. Animals’ paws crushing through the snow. Somewhere up
stream, something filled its belly with water, accompanied by the slurp, slurp, slurp of its tongue.
Chia gently slid the muffs around her neck, disturbing the sparkles on her head, uncovering both ears, creating a richer, stereo sound. The glitter beings settled back into her hair. Grasping the thermos, she unscrewed the stopper and poured hot chocolate into the accompanying cup.
For a moment, she closed her eyes, savoring. Everything, from the taste of chocolate to the burbling creek, to the scents and smells around her, felt like a gift of exquisite richness. “I miss so much stuff in life,” she said in a low voice, “caught up in the business of running this town.”
“You do,” a masculine voice answered, just as her nose caught the scent.
She opened her eyes, dropping her cup of cocoa in her lap as she stared into the sun-kissed blue eyes of Hung Durand, bundled from head to toe in winter gear. “Shit!” She fumbled for her holster, desperate to get her gun out.
Hung quickly crouched before her, placing his broad, gloved hand on hers. “No gun. I’m here in peace.”
“What are you doing out here? How did you sneak up on me? I have enhanced senses tonight.”
“Enhanced senses? How so?”
“I gave my…never mind.” She tried to pull free of his grasp. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t shoot you?”
“Well, for one, I’m holding the hand you shoot with.” He cocked an eyebrow at her.
“True but when you release this hand it’s going to grab the gun and plant a bullet in your chest.”
“You know you don’t want to do that,” he said. “Any more than I want to kill you. We’ll both only do it if we have to, with heavy hearts.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel all warm and cozy? ‘Oh, Chia, by the way, if you wake up dead, I’m sorry but I had to do it.’”
Ignoring her snark, he brought her hand to his lips and kissed the knuckles. “You look so pretty with sparkling sprites in your hair. It makes you look like the queen fairy.”
“How much have you had to drink tonight?” Chia squinted. Is he high? He’s giving me a compliment?