by P. Mattern
Cass and Ian on the property at the same time again… it just couldn’t happen!
After giving the twins their snack and leaving them with Buttercup to blood nurse them as they fought over what video they wanted to watch for the misnamed ’Quiet Time’, Mitzi stripped off her sundress and jumped into a cooling shower for a few minutes. The tepid water flowing down the length of her body seemed to soothe and center her, and the scent of the cucumber and lavender soap was soothing also. By the time she stepped out of the shower she felt refreshed and revitalized. Donning a fresh white eyelet dress with cap sleeves and a heart shaped bodice she walked barefooted into the Great Room to await Cass’s arrival. Buttercup would no doubt fall asleep with the twins as they napped, and this was her usual hour or so to read and relax. Taking a Chuck Pahalniuk novel off the shelves she began to read.
Ian was walking up from the road outside the Farm by a circuitous route, hoping not to run into any of the hired hands that were frequently on hand doing routine mowing or repairs. It was hotter than it had been in a while, with very little breeze. He was comfortable in a sleeveless brown tunic that showed off the musculature of his arms.
Across his body he had a suede pouch that contained a gift for Mitzi.
When Ian reached the place where the abandoned hedgerows intersected he stopped to shade his eyes so that he could see if the opening to the portal was there. It was. He could see the slight visual disturbance suspended in the airspace over the hedge perfectly. Yet each time he came to it he had a fear that it might have disappeared. He wasn’t quite sure why this was. He knew that it was an anomaly for a portal. All of the well-traveled and mapped ones were much larger and located differently. This made Ian wonder if some portals were either malformed somehow, (as this one apparently was), or if it was a portal that had been large once and was shrinking, or if it were a brand new portal opening that hadn’t yet attained its full size and scope.
He was looking upward with a quizzical expression on his face when he heard a twig snap behind him and instantly whipped around, his hand on the hilt of the dagger tucked into his belt.
It was Cass.
“Hello Ian.” Cass said, nonchalantly as he walked up to stand within two feet of the Welshman. “I have to assume you’re lost, since I can’t for the immortal LIFE of me think why you would ever set foot on my property again, considering how CLEARLY I made my position known the last time we spoke. I never took you for being slow-witted… but are you hard of hearing perhaps?”
Ian felt his Welsh blood boil upwards from the soles of his feet. Even his ears were starting to burn.
“I’m waiting for a LADY,” he retorted, his eyes narrowing.
“You may be acquainted with her-she’s one of the owners of this estate. Her name is Parmitsvia.”
“AHHHHHH YES - I AM acquainted with her - what was her last name… oh, that’s right, NOBLE-the same as mine… perhaps because we are still MARRIED.
So I suppose my NEXT question should be… ”Cass cast his eyes heavenward and made a balancing motion with his hands as if he were trying to decide something , then,
‘WHY ARE YOU WAITING FOR MY WIFE?” Cass finished loudly, glaring at Ian and placing emphasis on every word.
Although, as he always had, Ian felt Cass’s manner was both insulting and meant to be intimidating, he stood his ground.
“Because we are lovers.” Ian answered quietly, knowing that each one of his words would pierce Cass’s pride more painfully than a sword could pierce his skin.
But Cass was quick with a comeback.
“I will have to correct you on that, Ian - you WERE lovers, due to a particularly unfortunate set of circumstances that have prevented me from assuming my husbandly role. But as of this INSTANT your “inferior services’ to my wife are no longer required. I’m not sure how marriage works among ‘Taffys’ isn’t that the slang term for the Welsh? Maybe wife - swapping is ROUTINE for your sort… BUT NOT FOR ME.
Now I must AGAIN ask that you leave. I will give your regrets to my wife. If you refuse…” Cass’s raised his face upward to the peerless blue sky again, and then back down to look Ian squarely in the eyes.
“Well, It is a beautiful day to kill trespassers, especially when I have one in my sights!”
Mitzi was getting nervous. Her tribite prescience was kicking in strongly but she couldn’t seem to discern anything clearly. She chewed on her lower lip intermittently as she read the twin’s favorite children’s book, ”Sam Saddlebags” by I. Martinko over to them for the third time. It was no wonder the boys loved the story - it was a poignant tale although a simple one with a good lesson embedded in it.
Suddenly she heard strong, decisive footfalls coming down the hallway. A little too rapidly.
She got up quickly, smoothing her skirts and met Cass as he appeared in the doorway. Buttercups eyes were round, and the twins had ceased their squabbling as soon as he stepped into the room.
They were standing about 18 inches apart. The look on his handsome face was unreadable.
“Mitzi I -“ he started to say, then abruptly reached for her, pressing his mouth firmly over hers. At first his kisses felt rough with desperation, then quickly, as she felt herself responding, remembering his lips, his tongue, his skin against hers, she became lost in time and space.
Their kiss seemed to go on forever. Then just as abruptly as he’d reached for her and planted his mouth over hers, he held her back from him.
“Mitzi I won’t lie to you, I couldn’t anyway. And I don’t remember everything… and some of the most important things I don’t remember at ALL…
But I do know THIS - I am falling in love with you - again. I am DOUBLY in love with you. Twice-enamored. I can’t get you out of my mind. Being apart from you makes me hungry to be near you. I’m not yet back to the man I was, but Lux says I’m getting really close-
I don’t want to scare you, or crowd you, and I know what happened after the Hybrid Attack has scarred you. But I have to let you know where I stand.
Mitzi…I LOVE YOU!”
Buttercup clapped one hand over her mouth as she watched the scene between Mitzi and Cass unfold. The twins seemed mesmerized, probably because they hadn’t ever seen anyone kiss for so long at a time, and for once they were quiet. Cass’s golden brown eyes had pleading in them. Although he held her away from him he took both her small white hands into his.
“These beautiful hands.” He said” I can’t imagine being away from them, not feeling their touch again. Please Mitzi, on any terms you want. Please return to me.”
Mitzi was stunned by her own physical reaction to Cass’s unexpected kiss, which seemed to meld them both into a powerful electrical flow that made even her extremities burn and hum. She found that she didn’t want to be anywhere else at that moment, that her brittle layers of hurt and subsequent self-protection were melting away, as if she were an ice sculpture and Cass was an open flame.
She was mute, but her eyes told him everything he needed to know.
Turning to Buttercup as he scooped Mitzi up into his arms, Cass smiled ebulliently.
“You’ll excuse us, won’t you Buttercup? The lady of the house and I have some unfinished business… I think we’ll be in the far guest room, no need to disturb the twins… let them watch a video or play a console action game for awhile.
Swinging Mitzi onto his back as she giggled he leaned down and tousled the hair of first one twin, and then the other.
“And if everyone behaves themselves, we’re going out for ice cream after!!!”
The twins jumped up and hopped up and down excitedly, shouting “Ice cream! Ice cream!”
Before Buttercup could say a word Cass had disappeared, with her mistress on his back, legs around his waist.
Her happy laughter could be heard wafting back to them all the way down the hallway.
Ninety action filled minutes later, Cass collapsed onto his back.
“You tribites can wear an immortal out!” he commented. �
��Insatiable! That’s what you are!”
Mitzi, tousled and brilliantly happy, stretched long and gracefully, sighing.
“Not insatiable,” she demurred, correcting him”Just GREEDY!”
He laughed, pulling her to him.
“You are allowed to be greedy Mrs. Noble. As we made love I had more flashes of our past amorous activities. It appears that we have set quite a standard, not to mention probably broken a few records! We’ve set the bar pretty high…. but for you, my love, I am willing to exceed my personal best!”
Mitzi closed her eyes relaxing into the curve of Cass’s body, then suddenly sat bolt upright.
“Cass ,” she said, wanting to be honest and feeling somewhat guilty, ”I need to tell you something before…we reconnect. Something you might already have discerned…”
Cass quickly pulled her warm roseate body back down onto him, placing a finger gently against her lips.
“I think you are about to tell me that you’ve been ‘naughty ’- committed some indiscretions… and I know that you’re aware that I’ve been a rutting fool for the past few months, worse than I ever was when I was younger… word spreads fast along the V-net grapevine… Lux tells me I’ve chalked up quite the reputation. He’s rather pissed about it, and with good reason. It’s not exemplary or responsible behavior, especially for the father of two…
If you feel you must confess your ONE paltry…yes, Mitzi I know how many lovers you’ve been with because of our connection…dalliance, fine, feel free. But know this. I blame myself, and our circumstances, not you. It would have been an oddity if you HADN’T taken a lover. But I don’t need to hear anything… I love you. You are a incredible female energy, and I don’t claim to deserve you.
But I DO know that I have fallen in love with you TWICE and that convinces me that I will always BE in love with you… even if we have to start over a thousand times. We are meant to be together.
Now, Vivi - yes, I remember that TOO my sweet-how do you feel?”
Mitzi had a soulful look in her eyes as she responded. She was basking in the unique warmth of their bodies together, feeling free and relaxed at last. She was realizing how desperately she’d wanted to get close to Cass since she’d given birth to the twins.
“It just was what it was,” she answered.” And It did have everything to do with circumstance - and I may never know why, other than, I guess, physical appetites, which I seem to have in spades since I had the twins for some reason… and the emptiness I felt because I was without you-the you I had fallen in love with. And because he was kind to me.” she finished, her voice starting to break.
Cass’s voice was soothing, ”Mitzi no need to weep. And don’t worry, I won’t GELD your lover as tempting as that sounds. I ran into him today in fact - that text message you meant to send to HIM you sent to ME in your confusion. I believe he and I have reached a gentlemen’s agreement. He has agreed to comport himself differently from now on. The local V-net community- speaking in virtual terms - is like a small town. And there’s a storm brewing love… we can’t afford to alienate each other. Any of us. For any reason.
“ANYWAY,” he continued, stretching himself, “Didn’t you know that tribite females have voracious sexual appetites? That they are considered the nymphomaniacs of the vampire phylum? Haven’t you ever heard any of the jokes?”
The President of the United States sat at the important end of an immensely long table in a room that had been ‘swept’ clean three times. Twice by the canine squad and once thoroughly by security personnel with sophisticated surveillance detection equipment.
Like all his predecessors, he was on his way to becoming completely gray halfway through his second term in office. He thought his graying might have ramped up a bit lately, though, given the way the world was turning. The latest two intelligence bytes were way past unbelievable.
The first was - there really were vampires, and they had infiltrated the existing infrastructure of government worldwide and apparently were thriving in the midst of the much larger human population.
The second was that a Great Upheaval was imminent - a perfect storm (to use an overused hackneyed term) of confluences sure to cause political upheaval around the globe, making more efficacious population control a necessity.
In short, that meant ‘chipping’ citizens with RFID devices.
The President looked up to see his cabinet members and top military brass filing in and awkwardly taking their seats. Someone smelled of expensive cigars. The rest had the odor of fear collectively emanating from them.
He retreated aback into his thoughts as the group went through formalities. All of them had had their irises scanned before entering the room.
Half of them had, preemptively and as a show of loyalty, had already volunteered to be chipped themselves.
When the appropriate moment came, he cleared his throat, and everyone present stopped breathing for a moment.
“Gentlemen it seems we have reached a critical point in our nation’s history. We have discovered resident non-aliens living among the general human population, which, for lack of a better term, are known as ‘vampires.’
We are officially calling them “Resident non-aliens V-class.” Or RNAV, “R-Navs” for short.”
We are faced with a daunting task. Theobold Schiuster, Director of the CIA will now read an update on the situation.
The bespectacled middle aged gentleman with dark good looks and his hair pomaded back from his face, looked around the table, nodding to each dignitary, before he began reading his report.
“We have an inside source, one of the most ancient of the R-navs, that has come forth and provided information on the current V-net subculture in the United States, including approximate population and settlement statistics. His actual name cannot be revealed for his safety but his code name is Source A.
This gentleman has been instrumental in several codefensive measure we currently have in the works. You may be aware of the RFID provision included in the Congressionally mandated Patriot Act. The implementation of RFIDs would serve a dual purpose.
One - it would protect our citizens from being mistaken for R-Navs, allow law enforcement to ascertain their identity from a distance and allow us to terminate any spies for the R-Navs instantaneously.
The other purpose would be to exterminate the R-Navs from the human population. We have found by experimenting on the two R-navs that we have in captivity currently that implantation of the RFIDs interferes with their abilities - floating or ‘flying’, mesmerization of humans, … it even inhibits them from gaining full nutrition from human blood - and yes, gentlemen, that is what they subsist on… all of them with the exception of Source A - the vampire had worked with Russian scientists over decades to develop clones that can supply human blood to himself and his ilk without harming humans.
Any questions on my report so far? Yes General Albios?”
The oldest official in the room, General Albios took a moment to find his voice. When he did it was deep and resonant, not the voice you’d expect from an older man.
“Dirctor Schiuster, why are we granting immunity to this creature, Source A? Isn’t he a security risk? Especially if we are on a path to eliminate the vampire pestilence in our nation?”
The Director looked thoughtful.
“That would be one way of looking at it. But this ancient representative of his phylum is self-contained - he lives in Motuo County, China in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, one of the most remote locales on the planet - by choice and is a recluse. He operates in his own private ecosystem with no impact on either the United States or any other country, for that matter. And of course if he stops cooperating, nulling our contract, we can blow him and his little kingdom to smithereens and no one will notice.” Director Schiuster ended his response with a smirk that was appreciated by all present, who grasped that the United States would continue to have the upper hand and could use one of the recently developed mini-nukes to take Source A out at their dis
cretion.
Any other questions at this point?” But there were none, so he continued.
“Another use of Source A is its creature ability to create more of its own, though venom injection into humans. We have a series of experiments we plan to perform using individuals currently incarcerated in the Correctional System in the U.S. Although we refuse to allow these creatures to remain embedded in our current system, we are studying whether it would be advantageous to raise separate populations of them for possible use in combat situations. A population of these creatures, strictly controlled, could be available as a proxy militia. These creatures are fearsome fighters, gentlemen, absolutely fearless in warfare situations. The benefits could be staggering.
The president raised a finger, and the Director said immediately, “Yes Mr. President?”
“The RFID chip… any drawback or contraindications for implantation into humans?”
“No sir!” The Director said confidently, relieved that the President’s first question was such an easy one. ”Some increased chance of miscarriage, 1 in 1,000. Very slight chance of seizure activity - 1 in 10,000. We’ve been studying clusters of paid volunteers across the United States since post 9/11.”
Percy Ballin, Head of Domestic Defense, the organization that had replaced the failed Department of Homeland Security, raised his hand.
“I have two questions-is it true that an organization called the Citizens Protection Corps will be implemented to oversee the chipping of individuals, and – didn’t I hear something about a guy with a RFID chip’s head exploding? Or was that just a new Urban Legend?”
A flush of irritation could be seen creeping up on his neck from the white collar of the Director’s expensive shirt.
“That story was fabricated-call it Urban Legend if you want. The real story was that a mentally unbalanced man in North Carolina shot himself in the head four months after volunteering to have himself and his family chipped. He also tried unsuccessfully to remove the chips implanted in his three daughter’s hands by first trying to cut them out, and then cutting their hands off. Two of the children survived his attack, one was able to have her hand reattached-the younger one. The wife ran from him so she survived as well.”