Swear

by Amanda Hocking

  Because of the arthritis in her back leg, the walks were often relatively short, and Jack tended to stay in a close proximity to the apartment. But the warm air seemed to be sitting well with the dog tonight, so we ventured farther than the normal radius.

  "You know what it is?" Jack asked me as we turned onto a new street, walking away from the river and the usual route.

  "What what it is?" I asked.

  "Mattie's happy your home. So, she's extending the walk for as long as possible so she can spend more time with you."

  "Oh is that what it is?" I asked with a laugh. "I spend plenty of time with her at home."

  "I know." He leaned over and kissed me on the temple. "Thank you for coming on the walk tonight."

  "Thank you for letting me," I said, and he laughed warmly, sending delighted shivers running through me.

  When he was happy, Jack truly had hands-down the best laugh in the whole world. It was so clear and exuberant and just perfect, and it always got to me. I started thinking about how nice it would be to get back home, climb into bed with Jack, and pick up where we left off this morning.

  "So, what should we do for our date night?" I asked, since Matilda didn't seem ready to head back in quite yet.

  "Are we actually leaving the house now?" Jack asked. "Because I thought the original plan involved a lot of time spent inside, preferably horizontal. Although, we could try some vertical. We haven't done that in a while."

  "Yes, inside is part of it, but we could do something before. Maybe get all gussied up and hit the town."

  "What do normal couples do? Dinner and a show?" He was replying to me, but he had started glancing back over his shoulder, and he pulled the dog's leash tighter, so she'd walk closer to us.

  I looked around, but I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. "Is everything okay?"

  "Yeah, yeah, everything's fine," he brushed me off unconvincingly. "I don't know about going to a movie. It's nice to get out of the house, sure, but we already watch a lot of movies at home."

  "I'm open to whatever," I replied since he definitely wasn't paying much attention to this conversation anymore.

  He'd tensed up, and his smile had completely evaporated. His heart even sped up, and he'd quickened his pace. None of this would be super noticeable to anybody watching - he still looked relatively casual - but I could feel the change. The shift from languid to hurried.

  "I think we've had a long enough walk for tonight. Why don't we head back?" Jack asked, struggling to sound natural, but he'd unlooped his arm from mine so we could both walk faster more easily.

  "Jack, what's going?" I whispered.

  "Nothing." His eyes darted to the side. "I just have a feeling I can't shake. Like..." He lowered his voice, so low a human wouldn't have been able to hear it. "Somebody's following me."

  "Who?" I started to look around but he grabbed my arm, stopping me.

  "Let's just get home."

  I wanted to stop, or at the very least slow down and investigate but Jack was dragging me along. He knew I'd want to rumble with whatever might be after us, and he didn't want to risk it.

  Matilda couldn't go very fast anymore, and her pace was slowing us down as she jogged alongside him. If he got anymore panicked, I'm sure Jack would pick her up and carry her back to the apartment.

  "It's fine," he said, attempting to placate me as we hurried back toward our complex. "I've been paranoid lately."

  "What do you mean lately?"

  "I've just had this feeling..."

  I stopped short this time and wouldn't let him pull me along. He let go of my arm and turned around to face me. Matilda had been panting loudly, but she stopped and her ears pricked up when she looked behind me.

  "What have you been feeling?" I asked.

  "I don't know." He let out an exasperated sigh. "I've had these weird feelings. Sometimes like someone is watching me. And I think I'll hear footsteps but there's no one there. Just paranoia. It's probably nothing. But I would feel better if we went back home and talked about this there."

  "Jack, if someone is following you, I want to know who it is."

  He rubbed his temple. "This is why I didn't tell you. You always make a bigger deal out of this kind of thing than it really is."

  "If you're right, and it's nothing, we'll both feel better knowing it for sure," I insisted.

  I stepped back from him, and that's when Matilda let out a low growl. She was a happy dog who generally welcomed strangers, so that was not a normal sound coming from her.

  I turned around to see what she was growling about, but there was only an empty street. At least that's all I saw at first... But then, in the dark shadows in a gap between buildings, I saw movement. So, subtle and murky it would be imperceptible to the human eye, but it was enough where I knew that we were not alone.

  OF COURSE, I DIDN'T HAVE my weapons on me. Most nights when I hit the street, I either had a stake or a knife hidden somewhere on me, or I had Bobby with me, and he had the weapons. But since I'd just been going for a casual stroll around the neighborhood with my fiance and our dog, I hadn't thought to bring any along.

  I stood tall and decided to just face the problem head on.

  "Come out!" I shouted, my voice echoing off the buildings around us. "I know that you're there!"

  At first, there was nothing. Then - strangely and rather disturbingly - I heard giggling. Light, flirtatious, girly, like a couple teenagers at the mall having a laugh at an unpopular kid working in the food court.

  By the time the giggling turned into full-on laughter, they finally stepped out from the shadows. Aisha Moore - Jack's ex-girlfriend - stepped out first, her lips stained deep crimson as she smiled widely at us, and her elegant jumpsuit clung to her substantial curves in all the right ways. She brushed her dark curls back from her face, in a dramatic sort of way.

  This other vampire, I didn't recognize, but I guessed she'd been in her forties when she turned. She was shorter than Aisha and slenderer, but she was just as beautiful, with delicate features and bright blue eyes. Her hair was almost white blond, and she had it pulled up, leaving a few strands loose around her face.

  As they strutted toward me - Aisha with her sparkling chandelier earrings and matching bib necklace, her blond comrade in a fitted trench coat and knee high boots - they looked every bit like models posing for an editorial.

  "We didn't mean to scare you," Aisha said, barely stifling her laughter. "We were just having some fun."

  "Do I know you?" Jack asked the blond woman as he came over so he could stand beside me. "We've met, haven't we?"

  "Once," the woman said with a thick accent that was hard to place. It had the harsh edges of German with the soft lilt of Australian combining together. "At your shop."

  Recognition washed over Jack's face, and I remembered last week when he had told me about a strange vampire that had come into his store. She kept ogling him and following him around, and he had resorted to hiding in the back office until she left.

  "This is my friend, Liesel Tepelus," Aisha explained. "I've been staying with her while I was in town, and I told her about you, and seeing you at the wedding, and she was curious."

  "Aisha had no pictures of you, and I wanted to see you for myself," Liesel attempted to explain with a bashful smile, and her eyes were locked solely on Jack. "So I thought I would just stop into your shop."

  "I can buy that," I said. "But how did that end up with you stalking us?"

  Aisha threw her head back and laughed. "We weren't stalking anyone. We just happened to be in the area."

  "My friend is protecting me, but that's not entirely true," Liesel said. Her cheeks reddened slightly, and she hadn't taken her eyes off Jack since she came out from the shadows. "I must confess that after we met, I developed an infatuation with you."

  "Oh...okay," Jack said, clearly unsure of how to respond.

  He'd gotten used to humans fawning all over him, though he never quite knew how to handle it. But vampires usually
kept their cool around other vampires. Assuming they weren't blood bonded.

  "I know you have a girlfriend." She motioned to me then, but still didn't look my way. "I'm not trying to break up your family or anything. I only wanted to... to see if we could be friends."

  "Um." He glanced over at me. "I mean, sure. You know, it never hurts to have more friends."

  "That's wonderful!" Liesel enthused, and Aisha tittered beside her. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to be like this. I've just never felt anything like this before. I want to know you."

  "Well, I, uh, can connect with Aisha, and we can maybe arrange a time where we can all get together and get to know each other," Jack suggested lamely and gestured to all four us.

  "Oh, you have my number?" Aisha asked brightly.

  He cleared his throat. "Um, no, I don't think so."

  "Well, I'll give it to you then." She pulled her phone out of a hidden pocket. "What's your number? I'll just text you and then you'll have mine."

  Jack rattled off his phone number, trying futilely not to look as uncomfortable about all of this as he so clearly felt. Liesel just kept staring up at him, while he avoided her gaze and rubbed the back of his neck.

  I recalled what he'd told me about Liesel, after he'd first met her at the comic book shop. He'd described her as totally awestruck, and that's exactly what it was. Her affection for him appeared go beyond some type of crush to the point where I half-expected to her to fall to her knees before him and start worshiping him.

  Jack's phone chimed in his pocket, so he pulled it out. "Yep. Got your number, Aisha. So, we can totally get together sometime."

  Aisha smiled, looking almost sickeningly satisfied. "Sounds perfect."

  "I am free most nights, for whenever you'd want to get together," Liesel added.

  "Yeah, I mean, I'm not. I'm busy with work a lot and stuff like that," Jack said, sounding as friendly as he could manage.

  "And you, you must be busy with work a lot." Aisha turned her attention on me, and her dark eyes hardened. "You're some kind of hunter, aren't you?"

  I bristled and realized dimly that I'd have to get to the bottom of how my occupational status was becoming public knowledge, but now wasn't the time, and I didn't fully trust any answer that Aisha gave me, so I decided that demurring would be my best course of action.

  "I actually haven't really been working for a while," I lied. "I've mostly been travelling and spending time with Jack. Catching up on my reading. That sorta thing."

  "Really?" Aisha narrowed her eyes. "I thought I'd heard something different."

  "That's good that you took a break," Liesel said, looking over at me for the first time with a meek smile. "Hunting can be a stressful line of work, and it's always much better to curl up with a good book."

  "Yeah, well, it's been interesting chatting with you both," Jack said, interceding with the conversation before it went someplace even more awkward. "But my dog is pretty old, and it's late, so we should head back."

  Aisha looked down at Matilda and gasped. "That's Matilda? I can't believe she growled at me. We used to be such good friends." She leaned down to pet the dog, but Matilda took a step back from her and tried to hide behind Jack's legs. "She must be getting old and senile."

  "She's getting up there," Jack agreed dimly. "So we gotta get going. I'm sure I'll talk to you all later."

  He put his arm around my waist and started ushering me away, not that I needed any encouragement. I think it was more about reminding both Aisha and Liesel that we were together, and also he probably felt safer, knowing he could physically touch me.

  When we'd made it almost a full block away, with their chatting and giggling growing more distant, I finally whispered, "Should we take the long way home?"

  "They probably already know where we live, and I'd rather just get home."

  Neither Jack nor I said anything until we were in the safety of the elevator, away from prying eyes and ears. Only then did he lean back against the wall and let out a huge sigh of relief.

  "That was strange, right?" he asked.

  "So strange. It was downright bizarre."

  "I don't know what their deal is." He shook his head in disbelief. "I haven't talked to Aisha since the wedding, and I barely talked to Liesel when she was in my shop. I don't understand what's happening."

  As carefully as I could, I asked, "How do you feel about Liesel?"

  He looked over at me. "What do you mean?"

  "She just seems so enamored with you. Like maybe..." I trailed off, too afraid to say what I was really thinking.

  "Like maybe I'm bonded with her?" he supplied for me.

  The doors to the elevator opened so we both stepped out into the hall. I started walking toward our apartment as I casually attempted to explain my thought process, but Jack stayed a step behind me.

  "Everything was just so weird with our bond. It could be possible that you were really meant for someone else."

  "But that would mean you were meant for Peter," Jack said with a hint of bitterness twisting his words.

  "Or maybe for someone else entirely," I added quickly. "I'm not saying that I want that to be true. I love you, and I don't want to be with anyone else. But I have to consider the possibility that maybe you were meant for someone else."

  He took my hand and stopped, so I turned to look back at him.

  "I don't feel anything for Liesel," he insisted emphatically. "I mean, she makes me uneasy and self-conscious, but I definitely don't want to spend more time with her and I am certainly not attracted to her. At all."

  He moved closer to me and held my face in his hands, gently forcing me to look him in the eyes. "The truth is that I love you, madly, completely, eternally. And it doesn't even matter what my blood wants. I know deep in my heart that I was meant for you and only you."

  BOBBY AND I WERE CAMPED out on the couch binging on Netflix and waiting for the sun to go down. Milo was at the restaurant, and Jack was at the comic book shop - somehow suffering through the wretched daylight to handle his responsibilities. But for the first time in days, neither Bobby nor I had anywhere we had to be.

  I hadn't been awake that long, and I could see the sun make its descent for the night through the slits in the blinds. I lay sprawled out on the couch and suppressed a yawn before declaring, "I should get up and shower."

  "We could just sit here all night," Bobby suggested. He sat beside me, still in his sweats, with his feet propped up on an ottoman, and his non-injured arm behind his head.

  "No, I should head down to the Agency and talk to someone about how everybody in the whole damn world knows I'm a vampire hunter."

  "Maybe they can just tell because you look like such a badass," he teased, and I gently kicked him with my foot. "Hey, you don't know. It could be. I mean, I doubt, but it could be."

  "These people don't even know me and they're making that assessment. First, there was Cate, then those two jerks in Prague, and then last night, Aisha called me on it. As far as I can tell, these people aren't connected, so there has to be some word on the street."

  "You stake a few vampires, and it's bound to get out," Bobby commented. "I don't know how it ever stays secret."

  "Olivia claims she kept her identity under wraps, and Abner says vampires don't know about him unless he tells them," I countered. "But I also know I'm not the first hunter to ever let that info loose."

  "Right. Everyone knew about Blade," he interjected, referring to a popular vampire hunter in comic books and portrayed in films by Wesley Snipes.

  I rolled my eyes. "Blade is a fictional character, Bobby."

  "Allegedly."

  "Yeah, yeah," I muttered. "Anyway. I should get up and head down there."

  "But it's a Friday night. Don't you think anyone at the Agency ever takes time off?"

  "You should know better than that," I said as I finally sat up. "Crime never takes a night off."

  He looked genuinely impressed. "Ooo, good one."

  I was about to stand
up when my phone rang. The screen flashed with the name Agency, and I held it up to show Bobby. "See? They're always working."

  "Hey, Alice," Abner said when I answered the phone. "I know you weren't scheduled for anything tonight, but I was wondering if you'd be able to come down to the office."

  "Sure. I was thinking I should stop in anyway," I said. "Can I ask what it's about?"

  "Ettie and I just want to go over some things with you," he said. "It'd probably be best to explain when you get here."

  "Sure thing. I'll see you soon."

  "What was that about?" Bobby asked once I'd hung up the phone. "Do you need me to go with you?"

  "Nah, I think you're fine laying low for the night. They just wanted to go over some stuff with me," I told him vaguely as I hurried to my bedroom to freshen up and change out of my pajamas.

  I arrived at the Agency headquarters thirty minutes later, and Sabine sent me back to Ettie's office without asking me what I was there for. I didn't know Sabine very well, so I couldn't say it for certain, but her wide eyes seemed unnerved behind her thick lenses.

  When I went down to Ettie's office, the door was ajar, and she was sitting at her desk, hunched over several 8x10s that were splayed out in front of her. Abner stood right beside her, looking over her shoulder to scrutinize the same photos.

  "You wanted to talk to me about something?" I asked after a light rap on the open door.

  It was another ten or fifteen seconds before she finally looked up at me, and the expression on her face made me almost wish she hadn't. Ettie's lips were pressed into a thin line, and her dark eyes carried a world-weariness in them that she usually managed to hide.

  "Alice, come in." She leaned back in her chair. "I want you to have a look at something."

  Abner finally looked up at me, wearing a grim expression that nearly matched Ettie's. "I know you'll find these photos upsetting, but I think it's best if you see them for yourself."

  I started walking over to the desk but before I even reached it, I saw them, and knew exactly what it was. It was this weird minute, where a memory overtook me, and it was like I was existing in in the past, reliving a moment I'd rather have forgotten.

  It was years ago, back in Minneapolis, and Ezra had called me into his old study to show me something. He had tilted his computer screen toward me so I could get a better view of a "U" branded into pale flesh, leaving a red and bloody mark on human skin. He'd explained that prostitutes - both dead and alive - had been picked up with this mark on them, that my best friend Jane had been freshly branded before she was murdered.