by Kiki Howell
Isaac took a few steps toward her. She didn’t even flinch. Is she that confident in her abilities against me? Is she not scared by or even grossed out by my disfigured face? He fell to his knees on the floor at her feet. He’d heard of necromancy, it’s use – how it let witches control vampires, made them do their will. What buzzed through him, made him want her, made him feel like he knew her? He had to find it’s source and stop it. It didn’t make sense anyway. Why would a goddess like her want a monster like him to want her so badly? She knew he was a vamp. Surely she isn’t trying to get attacked and drained? Or, does she have a fuckin’ death wish? She’s said she didn’t fit in, but she didn’t seem to care about the fact at the same time.
Trying to get back to the most essential point at the moment, he knew if he could block the magic, find it and stop it – and usually he was good at sensing such things – he could glamour her into giving him, or getting him if what she said was true, the information he needed. The first signs of day sleep were hit him, didn’t help his predicament at all, or keep his mind sharp and clear.
“What are you doing to me?” he tried to hiss, but it came out like he was pleading, breathy and whiny, and it would’ve infuriated him if he could find where he’d misplaced his anger. It was like he dropped the damned emotion when he’d picked her up.
“Nothing. I swear. It’s my magic—”
“I knew it!” Isaac grabbed her, his hands wrapped tight around her arms until she took in a deep breath.
“No! You don’t understand. I’m not using a spell on you. Your body, it probably recognizes my magic from the night you died, or were changed. Please, you’re hurting me. I’m not doing anything to you. I’m glad you are alive. I’m sorry if I had anything to do with your beautiful face not healing the way it should have.”
Despite the fact he still had her upper arms in his hands, she moved her hand up to lightly brush aside his hood and let her fingertips move over his scarred cheek and jaw. Warmth caressed his skin, like a plush blanket just pulled from the dryer. It snapped whatever was left of his restraint like a worn rubber band. He pulled her into his arms.
He ran his hand down over her hair, luxuriated in the smooth feel of it as it twirled around his fingers. He smelled her, pulled in her warm honey scent, mixed with chamomile. Yeah, that was it, as much as he could take of her without giving into his bloodlust. It was a fine line, but he hovered over it without thought. Then, with all the willpower he had, he let her go.
“What could you have to do with my face? No one knows why when I become a vampire the supernatural healing powers that come with the change didn’t work on the injuries I sustained to my face in the accident. You keep saying you were there? I don’t understand. How in the hell would I know your magic, or recognize it, as I think you said?”
“I was there that night of your accident. I remember it like it was yesterday. You were just barely a man, what twenty years old?”
“Yes, exactly. How do you—?”
“I was just a teenager then,” she interrupted him. She sounded like one all of the sudden too. Her voice held a high pitch of over-excitement. “I was sixteen to be exact. I saw you from time to time around town. You were back in the Willows working that summer between college semesters, right?”
“How do you know all of this about me? Were you some kind of teenage stalker?” He gave a faint laugh, the feeling vibrated in his chest, let him know he was barely breathing. Not that he needed to, but it was a habit even the dead never outgrew.
“Stalker? Well, maybe. Ah, lets say though that I was a teenager infatuated with a college guy.” She waved her hand at him as if she’d erased what she’d written on some imaginary chalkboard. “Actually, I think I secretly had a crush on you long before that. Anyway, no real need for me to embarrass myself by divulging all of that information, we – as in me and a few other young witches – were in the woods that night, the evening of your accident, we were playing with our new and growing powers, as teen witches will do. It was the full moon. Do you remember that?”
“Yes, of course. I remember every detail of that night in vivid color. I saw the moon as I lay there on the ground, as I died, a bright gray ball in the sky. I remember thinking that it was like something out of a horror movie to die under such a thing. Just one of the millions of thoughts, half sane, half not, that go through your head when you know death is coming. That night something had run out in front of my car, instinct had me swerve, and I hit a few trees – going too fast – driving like I was invincible of course, as teenage males will do. Were your spells making the animals scurry away, out into the dangerous roads?”
“I have no idea. Wasn’t really a concern. Can’t even say anyone thought of it. We were reckless with our gifts at first. All I know is we heard it, the accident, your car hitting the tree. The crunch of metal and wood carried in the silence. But, by the time we got there from where we were, Drake was already there with you. It looked like he was feeding from you at first, but when he bit into his own arm and squeezed the blood from his wrist into your mouth, we knew he was actually saving your life by turning you. The witches I was with took it upon themselves to see if they could prevent another vampire from being brought into this world. They wanted you just to die.
“I couldn’t let that happen. You were so young, so...well, so much a thing of my fantasies, that even if you were the walking dead, it just didn’t feel right to me for them to interfere. I felt protective of you. I couldn’t let you go. So, I blocked their magic as best I could, me against them. Drake sensed it, the magic, and came after us. But, we hid, used an invisible spell, our only real protection against your speed if you come after us like that. Anyway, I never knew what happened to you after that, only what the town knew, that your car had been found and your body had not.”
“My face then, the reason it didn’t heal like it should have, was because of the magic?”
“I can only assume. We interfered with the process, the change. At some point, they were stopping the change and I was trying to stop them. Whatever happened, the result was that you didn’t heal on the outside like you did on the inside, I guess. I mean who knows what can happen when a magical sort of war is going on as a body makes the change from human to the walking dead. It’s too much for even the paranormal world to reconcile, or explain, I guess. I’m sorry for my part in it.”
“No, it’s not your fault. Everyone there tried to alter my fate, it seems. I was meant to die from a human standpoint, which is all I was going into that night. After my conversion, to this town I had to die. Drake hid me away. I could no longer walk in the sun. There was no way to come back to my family and live among them as a vampire and explain why I couldn’t go out during the day and other such things. Besides, this face, as it is now, it isn’t meant for light. It works best for me in the shadows.”
“No,” she spoke softly. “I still see a beautiful man, a strong, intense…”
He cut in when she left off. “I’m not. I’m a monster. Don’t forget that,” he clipped, moving her hand from his face, because it just felt too good there. He couldn’t give into that right now. It had to be her magic, something that had saved him from death; just as Drake had so his body craved it like a lifeline. But, he wasn’t worthy of such a beauty. And, for fucks sake, this siren is a witch. Could you at least remember that? He spoke in his mind to his dick.
“If you say so. Fine. You’re the big bad vampire now. My mind, it just hasn’t caught up. To me you’re still twenty. You still look it of course. And, you’re still the boy I wanted so badly. Listen,” her voice had softened as the blush on her face had grew. “I’m sorry about your maker. I don’t know what will happen now to this town. War has been declared on all three sides. The clans are going to battle, and who knows what or who will get caught in the crossfire. I never understood why we couldn’t all just get along, why we had to be natural enemies. Yes, we each have powers over the other, but does that mean we have to use them against each
other? Do we have to hate each other just because we are different? Or should we be joining together because we are different from the mortals, the thing we have in common. We’re sitting here talking, the walls of this house haven’t exploded out, and the world hasn’t imploded in on itself.”
Maybe not yours!
“We are talking,” he agreed. “And, not exactly how I’d expected the conversation to go. I had thought I would have to glamour you to get the information I wanted. But you never gave me the chance.” He looked down at his watch when a yawn took him, made his eyes water. “Shit, we have been talking for some time. I’m sorry. I can’t take you back now. The sun is coming up. I can feel it. I’m not sure what to do with you now. Fuck!” His mind had gone, the day sleep made his body feel lethargic, his eyelids heavy.
He’d created a real problem for himself. He’d really intended to grab a witch, glamour her for information, and return her to her world. This witch, though, he hadn’t planned on.
“It’s not a problem. I mean, they already know I’m gone, I’m sure, or will soon. Anyway, got a phone?”
He pulled his cell from his pocket. The brief touch of her hand on his as she took his phone sparked a few more minutes of life into him.
“Penny, it’s Winter,” he heard her say into the cell phone, her name rushed over him like a cool breeze. Her pale skin was definitely of winter, but not the fiery red hair that cascaded over her white shoulders. “Listen. Yes, I know someone broke in. I tried to go after them, but of course lost them in the woods. They were too fast for my magic to stop. Anyway, I didn’t feel like coming back, so I grabbed an empty cabin. I’m going to sleep. Will see you later.”
She hung up the phone and handed it back to him. He shoved it in his jeans pocket as if he was afraid to touch anything she’d had in her possession.
“See there, all solved,” she gloated. “Many cabins are still empty this time of year. No one will come looking for me. Trust me, I disappear all the time and no one cares. As I said, I’m kind of an outcast among my kind these days.”
Isaac just shook his head. “Thanks, I don’t know what to say. You covered my ass. But, what will you do now?”
“Stay here if that’s okay with you. I promise, I won’t hurt you if that’s what you’re worried about. I won’t stake you in your sleep or put a spell on you. After all of these years, I’m just too relieved to see you alive.” She looked to the bed across the room. Everything was in one place, one big room like a one room studio apartment underground with the exception of the bathroom in the back. Sparing no expense, Drake had even managed some sort of plumbing system. The entire place ran off a generator in this underground suite, due to the fact there were no windows at all.
“Well, in my sleep fogged brain, I hadn’t thought of getting staked or spelled, but thank you for putting the thoughts into my head. I don’t fear death though. Well, dying again that is. I should have died years ago, alone with that moon on the side of the road. So go ahead and stake me if you wish.”
He gave her a sly smile as he moved to the bed like the walking dead, not energetic enough to care if he was even capable of fearing this beautiful creature.
As he fell like a wooden soldier onto the mattress, she whispered, “I’m glad you didn’t die. I’m thrilled that I got to talk to you tonight. It has always a dream of mine.”
He turned to look at her; beauty, sheer, exquisite allure, too pure, too innocent, too golden for the likes of him. But, he appreciated the view as his eyes closed.
Chapter Two
His phone rang in his jeans pocket. The grating sound resonated pain through his entire body and up through his head, set his teeth on edge as it roused him from sleep. The feeling was reminiscent of the time he’d made a bad bite and scrapped his teeth against bone. Hey, that had been worse than nails on a chalkboard, he could attest to that fact. After he’d fumbled with the phone, a glance at the damned blaring lighted numbers on the clock beside the bed showed night had fallen.
“What?” Isaac barked into the phone.
At the same time the voice on the other end yelled at him for not calling last night. Before he could respond, a hand moved over his stomach, made him flee the bed, turn with his back to the wall, into a fangs-bared ready-to-pounce stance.
There lay Winter. Her hand grasped the sheet he’d been on. No it looked like the sheet he’d been under. Had she covered him while he slept? The idea of it sent his mind running in all different directions. He had to focus.
“Isaac. Isaac. Are you there?” the phone screeched.
“Yes, Achim, sorry. You woke me up. Still shaking off the day sleep. Sorry I didn’t call but I got in just in time to flee the sun coming up and to go to sleep,” he lied. It made him feel like a petulant, disobedient child. Still against the wall, his face held as tight as his fists, he probably looked the part too.
“We were worried about you.” Achim’s voice got lower and deeper. “Look, we are going out, talking to a few sources planted in the area, and then we will be over to figure out our next step. Maybe two hours. Stay inside, okay. Gives us one less thing to worry upon.”
Achim, he fell so easily back into his old language, let some old terminology or ways of speaking slip, when he was upset in any way. Isaac agreed to stay in then closed the phone and looked at Winter. He was awake enough now to realize that jittery sensation he got around her flowed through him again, made him feel – well – mortal. And, damn it all, was that happy? It was much like adrenaline flowing through your blood when you wanted something so bad you could taste it. Excitement he had no right to.
“Winter…how did you get your name? How do I not remember you?” he stammered out through the thoughts in his mind.
“Not remember me? Well, do the math. Last time we lived in the same city, you were twenty and I was sixteen. You were not about to notice me. We witches dressed Goth, basically because what choice did we have. We weren’t going to fit in anyway. Everyone was better off if we were outcasts. And, my name is simply the season I was born in. Pretty lame, right?”
“Not really. It suits you.”
“The vamp’s calling me cold, good one!”
“No!” He cleared his throat, lowered his voice that had gotten the same memo as his dick apparently; get up, get excited, full power ahead. “No. What I meant was, it is…it is beautiful, pure, just like you.”
“You think I’m beautiful?” She sat up, her thin nightgown slipped down off her breast a bit, give him just another half inch of skin to look at, and he got lost in the view. Really, was it her energy, the lighting in the place, or did her pale skin really glisten like snow under the sun, something he hadn’t seen in well over a decade?
“Are you kidding me? I…but, we can’t go there. Let me lay it out for you – no, for me. I’m a vamp and you’re a witch. Our clans have declared outright war against each other. You are, for all intents and purposes, the enemy, and a mortal. Your blood is my food. The life I’ve lead these past ten years, I’m nothing like the boy you thought you knew. Is that enough?”
“Well, if you want to point out the negatives.”
“Yeah. Guess I do. I have to for both our sakes.” His feet didn’t listen though. He walked closer to the bed. “Why did you risk sleeping beside me, beside a monster who could have woken up thirsty?”
“I’m not afraid of you. Maybe I should be, but I close my eyes, and I see you as you were. My heart, it flutters like I’m a teenage girl all over again.”
“Well, I’m nothing like I was, body, face, mind, soul or lack of one. So, stop it. We can’t go back. Even if we did, what would it change? Open your eyes and look at me now! Really look at the thing I am in front of you today. I’m ugly, inside and out. I can never be again the boy you thought you knew. Maybe I wish I could be, but even he would have ravished you like he shouldn’t…” he left off when she scooted over to where he now sat on the bed.
Her fingers, warm, rested close to his, her magic flowed from them an
d through him, intensified with each inch she dared get closer to him. He did feel like he had known her forever, a virtual stranger, made intimate by something otherworldly.
“You’re not ugly.” Her fingers ran over his scars – lines that ran like track marks – like he’d been clawed repeatedly but were pale like the rest of his skin.
“Then you aren’t really seeing me.”
“I think I am,” Winter whispered. “Do you think you could ever forgive me?”
She dropped her head, and her hand came to rest on his shoulder, her fingers gripped his skin. It had been a long time since someone had held onto him, like they needed him, like he had something to offer them.
His hand covered hers and removed it from his flesh. He placed it on her thigh where her nightgown had ridden up baring half of the area, faintly freckled to match her fiery red hair.
“There is nothing to forgive. You tried to help me. Intention is unforgivable. Outcome is a whole other story.”
“Thank you for looking at it that way, but—”
“But what? We have to get you out of here, back home. My family will be here soon. They can’t find you, or even find out that I took you.”
“I’m not ready to go yet!”
Isaac was shocked – and not much surprised him – by the sheer force of her voice, her will.
“Winter,” he sighed, his hands pulsed, ached to grab her, to hold her, to kiss her until she knew him, knew all of him intimately. Yet, her safety, the possibility of her rejection, kept his hands on his own lap where they gripped his thighs.
He bedded woman all the time – ones who didn’t care in the dark club, later in the dark of his hole in the wall apartment – what he looked like as long as he was a good fuck and had given them a warm place to sleep. He took care of the whores, if that redeemed him in any way after he’d enacted retribution, for a high price, on the streets where he worked for a bounty hunter. He never asked why, just did as told, took the money, bought sex, and tipped the poor waifs well. Yeah, he was a fuckin’ saint.