by D. R. Perry
I shake off my empathy. I’m fed up at this point. Esther wakes me up in the middle of the day, nearly turns me into a crispy critter, and almost walks off with gear essential to protecting my identity. The alchemist has just made my shit list, and I want her to know it. I narrow my eyes, hoping I can tell her off harshly enough to make her run away in tears. Or at least leave my apartment without making any trouble or asking too many questions.
“Back at you, bitch.” Impostor syndrome clubs me upside the head. I’m no drunken sailor. Gosh darn it. I can’t match the level of cussing Esther is accustomed to. Some fake boyfriend I am.
“I’m only here because I tracked you from my studio.” She steps forward, getting in my face. “Where you stepped on my seal and fucked up my spell, you undead toilet-circler.”
“Look, I’m sorry. I put it back the way I found it.” I blink and step back. “Wait. Undead?”
“You made my fucking squared circle worse, shit-for-brains.” She takes another step. “Badass alchemists like me can sense vag-pire perma-death and your fleabag fuckboy’s distemper like flies smell shit.”
“So you know I’m a vampire?” My back’s against the counter by this point.
I don’t know if Esther’s going to kill me or kiss me. Either possibility absolutely terrifies me. It takes everything I have not to flinch. I put my butt on one of the stools at the counter and yawn because daytime makes me zonky. She rolls her eyes, puts the package next to me, and then her hands on her hips. Her left shoulder is a little crooked, sitting lower than the right.
“Why in the name of Lazarus’s ever-living anus do you think I came here in the fucking middle of the day, dumbass?”
“I don’t know jack shit about magic.” My brain flails for a witty comeback, but her talent for cussing is downright biblical, and I’m exhausted. “Dammit, Esther, I’m a vampire, not an alchemist.”
“Damn straight.” She sits on the stool beside me. “You fucked my spell worse than an industrial sander up the ass, but vampires are creatures of their word. I expect you to fucking pay up.”
“And I will.” I lean my elbows on the counter. “But I’ve got a couple of psychic hunters trying to kill me and my perfectly normal human dad at the moment. Once I handle that, I’ll make up for being a clumsy asshat, okay?”
“Hunters?” She raises an eyebrow, lowering her voice in both pitch and volume. It’s scarier than the Killarneys’ weaponized dining room table. “I. Fucking. Hate. Hunters.”
“Yeah. They’re armed for overkill, too.” I’m not going to say that her name’s on a hit list. She’s scary, what do you want from me?
“Fine. You can pay off maybe a tenth of a percent of your debt to me by telling me about them.”
I oblige, mostly because it’s a relief to have Esther’s anger facing away from me and toward the enemies. Maybe it’s a side-effect of her magic, but Esther’s emotion emanates from her like heat off fresh blacktop in the summer. I’m willing to bet Tolkien knew an actual magician from the way he wrote about Gandalf, Saruman, and the rest.
“Listen, I’m gonna let you finish this beef with the hunters.” Esther cracks a grin. “I’ll fucking brew up a few things that might help you kick their asses. It’ll fucking cost you, but not an arm and a leg.”
I decide to just take Esther at her word. She seems to know what she’s doing even if her execution seems unstable. Maybe all the cussing is a weird form of punctuation. Who knows?
“The entire city of Providence is going to own a piece of me at this rate.” I head toward the kitchen to heat up a bag of blood since sleep isn’t going to happen. Then I look over my shoulder at her before opening the fridge. “I owe someone pretty high up.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass.” Esther’s grin turns into a full-on smile. It’s almost as scary as contemplating direct sunlight. “I want the fucking hunters out of the damn picture. They don’t like magicians any more than bloodsuckers. And I don’t want to risk my fucking investment by letting the assholes kill you. I fucking know how the hell vampire debt works. If one of your dead-alive butt buddies stakes your ass, they fucking pay your debts.”
“Well, I was going to make a plan to confront the hunters but can’t without knowing what kind of support you’re supplying here.” I smell the AB+ to make sure the donor hasn’t died before dumping it into the carafe.
“Tell the Amazing Dog Boy to get his ass over here and we’ll talk about it. I can do a fucking location spell if you’ve got any of their shit lying around.”
When I call Scott, I put the phone on speaker and tell him an Esther-friendly version of the situation. When we hang up, I think about whether I’ve got anything that belonged to my ex. I do. It’s one of Kayleigh’s old love notes from High School. Admitting I kept that would be embarrassing, but it’s not easy to feel too bashful around an alchemist with a bad case of potty-mouth and an attitude.
I sit around reading The Scarlet Pimpernel and drinking blood while Esther draws a chalk circle on the floor of my closet. She’s using symbols straight out of an astrology chart and geometric shapes like I’ve seen in Masonic Lodges. It’s some kind of prep for the location spell she’ll do when we’re ready to leave. After that, she ransacks my kitchen.
Scott gets to my place about an hour later, after he’s done helping with Dad. He’s also picked up a list of ingredients Esther asked him to grab on the way over. We’ve got just over three hours before sundown to prepare our supplies and strategy. I’m not sure we’ll come up with much until Esther goes to work literal magic in my kitchen.
“I don’t get why Stephanie wanted me to read this book so badly.”
“Why? What's the fucking book about?” Esther sprinkles some yellow powder into a simmering pot. It smells like rotten eggs.
“Basically, there's this vigilante who helps refugees escape from Revolutionary France. Somehow, the dude keeps people from knowing his secret identity for thirty-one chapters by acting like a fool.” I snort. “Can’t believe anyone would fall for something like that.”
Esther turns around and stares at me. I hold both hands up and shake my head. She points at the book. I show her the cover so she can see the title. She rolls her eyes, but in the smiley way that I’m starting to realize means she thinks something’s funny.
“What is it?”
“Whoever the hell gave you that homework assignment is a goddamn fucking genius.”
“Huh?” I scratch my head.
“Because you fucking come across as a harmless shitbrain, you idiot.” Esther turns back to her work, stirring the concoction that’s got to be ruining my only saucepan. Not that I’ll use it at any point in the near or distant future. Her tone tells me she’s not angry despite the cussing. The casual f-bombs and nonchalant insults are her version of normal conversation.
Whatever. For all I know, it’s a way to prevent casting spells by accident. Maybe all magicians talk like this. I can accept a non-binary vampire Attaché, so I can handle an alchemist whose vocabulary would shame sailors worldwide without a problem. At least I hope so.
“I do kind of see Esther’s point, Tino.” Scott yawns and stretches, refreshed after his wolf-nap on my bed. I hope the stench doesn’t linger, even if I’m slowly getting used to it. I can’t tell him the bed’s off-limits, or I’ll sound like I’m anti-werewolf. Jeez. Wait a minute. Did he just insult me?
“Um, you agree with her?”
“Well, yeah.” Scott stands up and shuffles off toward the bathroom. “You’re less Broadchurch and more Brooklyn 99. At least you were while you worked at Cranston PD.”
“Holy shit. You were a pig? Shoulda fucking known.” Esther chuckles.
“Uh, thanks?” I set the book down and get up. “I guess I should go put my game face on.”
The box with the greasepaints is on the counter. I wrestle with the tape until Scott ambles over and slices through it with a fingernail. Showoff. Newbie vampires can’t pop out object-shearing appendages like King DeCampo, but a
pparently two-year werewolves can. Just one more thing that sucks about being a bloodsucker.
I’m in the bathroom, thinking about how ironic it feels to put on exactly the same makeup I’d been so desperate to take off just the night before. Maybe I could make a full mask someday, one that won’t itch or smudge while sneaking or fall off if I get punched in the face. But masks have their own issues, including limited peripheral vision and removal by enemies, so I just apply the damn greasepaint, already.
Back out in the kitchen, I find Esther barking vulgarity-embellished orders at Scott. He’s holding a small bottle while she steadies her hands to pour some of the saucepan concoction into it. I interrupt even though Esther’s clearly in a fouler mood because her hands are shaking. One breath through my nose tells me why.
“Wait a minute, guys.” I point at the saucepan. “Put that down. There’s a funnel in the cupboard under the sink. Something to take the edge off for Esther, too.”
“Edge?” Of course, Scott doesn’t get it. He’s not the type of teenager to get hammered at a house party.
“Fangy fuckboy to the rescue!” Esther sets the pot on the stove and opens the cabinet.
The alchemist goes straight for the jug of rum I haven’t touched in over a month. Vampires can’t get drunk because fuck you, that’s why. Um, Esther’s vocabulary seems to be contagious. Excuse me.
As I was saying, we only get intoxicated if a person we drink from is three sheets to the wind. That’s risky for both, so only the most hardcore alcoholic vamps try it, and they leave a trail of bodies outside bars whenever they go on a bender. According to one of Raven’s most popular officially unofficial rumors, the king has alky vamps put down before that happens.
With the funnel, the alchemist and the werewolf manage to fill two dozen bottles. Esther corks them, then melts wax to seal them all. I fill up on blood while Scott just lounges around. Must be awesome to have all your supernatural powers at your fingertips instead of needing to consume the blood of the living in order to function at a more-than-human level.
The sun’s still a hair too far over the horizon for me to risk going outside, so Scott loads everything we need into the truck. After he’s done, Esther fires up the locator circle in my closet without getting chalk or anything else on my stuff. I thank God that she’s not a giant klutz. The spell involves dangling a crystal on a string over the art project. More of the glittery green stuff surrounds her hands. Scott sneezes three times, and then Esther says it’s done.
We get downstairs, where we decide on travel arrangements. Yeah, Rhode Island’s a small place, but you kind of need a car everywhere except the downtown areas of Providence and Newport. I want to go with Scott while Esther takes her car by herself, but we have stuff that has to ride up front with him, and I won’t fit. I steel myself, mentally preparing for a thankfully short ride with an abrasive person.
Esther hangs the crystal on the rearview as I expected. But when she turns over the ignition, the stereo’s on. Cranked to eleven or whatever. And emanating from her speakers are the bass beats and tinny lyrics of a musical act from the 1990s. Aqua. You remember them, right? They’re the people who gave the world Barbie Girl. Genius, I know. A truly astute contribution to humanity’s musical repertoire. You can’t see me, so you don’t know my eyes are rolling like dice on the craps tables down at Foxwoods Casino.
I listen to bubbly pop songs the entire way to Western Cranston. Esther makes no apology or even a sign that she cares what I think of her musical tastes. I’m so stunned by this unexpected facet of her personality that I’m speechless all fifteen minutes in the car. I’m stunned enough to forget that she shouldn’t have been driving after drinking half a fifth of rum.
Maybe alchemists have a hard time getting drunk, too. Or she’s a functional alcoholic. I don’t have time to ask because we’re there already. Esther pulls into a spot at Meshanticut Lake Park, and Scott takes one a handful of spaces down. We get out and go over to the truck. Scott hoists the duffel from the front seat on his back. I get a hip bag full of potions.
“No need to pull any pins, just throw. But make sure you’re clear when you do.” Esther buckles on two bags of her own. One jingles, and the other rustles. She pulls a watch on a chain out of her front pocket and checks it, then pushes a button.
Before I can ask her why, she holds up the string with its crystal. She glanced at it the whole time while driving over here, but I couldn’t figure out what she was looking at. I still can’t. But it’s telling her something only a magician can see apparently because she walks with it wrapped around her hand. It’s like she’s following its lead or something.
She turns down one of the trails I took last night. We’re getting close to the hunter’s house, and Scott taps me on the shoulder. I don’t want to grab or tap Esther. Like I said, she’s more than a little bit scary in the volatility department. Raven says she can’t summon fire at the drop of a hat, but I don’t want to take any chances.
That’s why I push through the bushes to the right of the deer trail we’re on. I hold up one hand where Esther can see it and pull a leaf out of my hair with the other. She stops, puts one hand on her hip and shrugs.
“This leads to the hunter house. If she’s in there, we’re out-gunned.”
“Of fucking course.” Esther jerks her chin at the path ahead.
“It’s still early. Probably why they’re still home.”
“We should get a little closer.” Scott gets ahead through the same shrubs I did. Not a leaf on him, of course. He winks. “Let’s silence our phones.”
We do that and then continue.
Esther stops us farther back from the spot we hid in the night before.
We wait.
Chapter Fifteen
When Esther’s crystal moves, so do we. But the first thing we see is Kayleigh Killarney emerge from her house. She doesn’t get into her car. I wonder if maybe she’s out on mundane business at first. She’s wearing a long jacket and carrying a small case that almost looks like a handbag, but the scent coming off her is metallic and deadly like the stuff on the table last night. She’s planning something, then.
We follow through backyards. From her posture, I can tell that Kayleigh walks with purpose. I hear her heartbeat, too. It’s faster than usual but not by much. Wherever she’s going, trouble’s a possibility but not an absolute expectation. She stops at a double-decker, takes a deep breath, and heads up the front stoop.
The cuss words exiting Esther’s mouth as Kayleigh picks the lock and goes inside rush out as fast and evil as demons through the gates of hell. The alchemist’s teeth grind, and I sense when she’s about to leap out from behind the trash can enclosure. Burning blood to outrun her, I grab her under the shoulders and hold Esther back. Her left arm feels funny, but I forget about that in a hurry.
“That cunt! That’s my fucking apartment. I’ll tear her tits off and shove them so far up her ass they come out of her felching mouth!”
“Holy. Shit.” Scott’s jaw might as well be on the lid of the trash can. His eyes look like the moon phase that supposedly makes him wolf out.
I hiss. Scott growls. But neither of us can stop Esther’s tirade. That’s a huge big deal because vampires are pretty scary, and werewolves are exponentially worse. All we can do is weather it. She’s swearing even more hardcore than her initial reaction, but the words are garbled and high-pitched enough to be cats rutting. Or bears. I’m not sure which. And I can hardly blame her.
Sometimes you’ve got to lose your shit, or you end up full of the stuff. I was due for that myself, all things considered. If it were my apartment, there’d have been a Category 5 shitstorm named Hurricane Tino. I’d have rushed in already and gotten ashed. Neither Scott nor Esther are fast enough to stop me. Moving quickly is my one advantage. My wits are pretty speedy too, so I get an idea.
“Well, she’s not at her house, surrounded by weapons. Let’s kick Kayleigh Killarney out of Esther’s apartment.”
I unlea
sh the alchemist. The hound follows. I bring up the rear on purpose so I can replace the blood I used stopping Esther. This bag of AB smells wrong, but I drink it, anyway. Whoever donated it is really most sincerely dead. I don’t care because I’m just topping off. Down the hatch it goes. I tuck the empty sack of plastic back in my coat. What? I’m a vampire, not a litterbug.
Esther’s place is the whole first floor. When I get to the door, everyone’s inside, Mexican Standoff-style. Kayleigh’s got pistols with silencers on the ends, pointed at Scott and Esther. My nose tells me they’re loaded with silver. Awesome. For me, anyway. No wood.
I have a plan. I hoist the hip bag up to my Kevlar-enrobed chest and take a breath I don’t need. But Kayleigh’s a slow, still a live person. How slow? I don’t know, but I can’t stand there waiting. I’m dressed for bullets. I burn blood and run for it.
By it, I mean straight at my ex-girlfriend. She turns the pistols on me. I smile. She squeezes the trigger. Scott takes Esther to the floor behind me. Glass shatters before my ribs. Even with the Kevlar, that fucking hurts. My smile turns upside-down.
The stench is magically undelicious.
Kayleigh drops her weapons and clutches her stomach one-handed. The other goes on her mouth. One pinkie lifts like she’s drinking tea. Elegant. Instead of acting high-brow, she pitches a hurl. I stand and wince, reaching to subdue her. Flashback to Homecoming. She sicked up Dad’s stolen limoncello exactly like this.
“What the fuck?” Esther’s yelling from the far doorway. Her voice is muffled.
I turn my head. My friends are standing in the kitchen. They have dishcloths over their mouths. Kayleigh doesn’t. They aren’t puking. Kayleigh is. I’m with her. Oh, shit.
Retching hurts almost as much as the bullets. I can’t stop it this time. I barf in misery and company. The world is pain, radiating from my brightly burning busted ribs down to a dull ache in my gut where dead muscles spasm. Ma would still say it hurt less than childbirth. The last dregs of that AB come up, and that’s when it happens. My Gift reveals itself.