by L. A. Jones
“If history remembers you at all, it will be as nothing more than a murderer.”
Dereck gave Aradia a look of pure hatred. “You know so little after all. And your friend Kaiser held you in such high esteem. I never wanted to kill.”
“Then why did you?” Aradia cried out.
“I was given no choice. It was necessary evil.”
His mood was erratic. He was flipping between full blown manic rage and something bordering on remorse. He seemed more indrawn now than he had at any point so far, and Aradia thought it would be the best opportunity she’d have to escape.
Aradia was still holding the ice cream carton, and she slammed it against Dereck's face. He sputtered as Aradia slid herself on top of the counter and kicked him with both of her legs right into the old moth eaten couch in front of the spare TV. Her mother had fumed when her father had insisted they bring the old sofa with them cross country. He’d been adamant, though. The couch collapsed entirely under Dereck’s weight. Sorry, Dad!
Aradia had no idea when her parents would be home, and she could not risk putting them in danger. With all her might she bounded up the stairs, using all her strength and agility to take the steps four at a time. She heard him bounding along behind her. When she reached the top of the stairs she slammed the door behind her, but before it had closed she got a good look at her villain.
He grinned wickedly as he pursued her. He flexed his hands which morphed into hideous hairy paws. Halfway up the staircase he jumped and landed on all fours. His teeth grew larger and longer and sharper, his eyes darker, and his body hairier. His clothes ripped apart as his body grew and expanded. His face elongated into a short snout with fangs protruding over his lower lip like sabers. His eyes turned a piercing yellow and were set murderously on her.
So, definitely a werewolf, Aradia confirmed as she deadbolted the door behind her. That won’t hold him long.
Indeed it did not. She earned herself an extra stride before the basement door exploded in splinters behind her. She was out the front door as fast as she could go, with wolf-form Dereck hot on her tail.
I’ve got to get him out of the neighborhood, she realized. She wasn’t even thinking about him blowing the whole hidden secret. She just didn’t want an innocent neighbor to get torn to shreds by an irate werewolf.
She headed for the woods. It was clear that she could not outrun him. She was running fast, as fast as she’d ever gone, and he was keeping up. She knew she couldn’t keep up that pace forever, or even for much longer.
I’ll fight him in the woods, she decided. It was as close to home terrain as she’d get, and she’d already bested one werewolf. Something told her he’d be more challenging of an opponent than Roy.
Morgan gasped and rose sharply from her slumber. A smile came to her lips and she summoned her staff and crystal. It grew cloudy, then clear, and she knew all she needed to know.
With pleasure she whispered, “The last witch.”
“My, my, my! Aren’t you the difficult little bitch?” Dereck sneered at her as he stalked her through the woods. So far she’d managed to evade him. She led him into dense foliage where his greater size would be a hindrance.
“You can talk as the wolf?” she asked. She knew it was no time for such questions, but she was so surprised she couldn’t help herself. Well, I’ve only seen full moon werewolves so far. I guess the rest of the time they can talk. Weird.
In response, he showed her he could laugh as the wolf also.
“You lost your washcloth. The one you were going to use to knock me out,” Aradia taunted as she ran. She considered climbing one of the trees, but with those claws and bulging muscles she thought he’d probably be a better climber than she was. “Along with your clothes. Gross, by the way.”
“Shame,” he replied. “Without the process you won’t pass for a Vampire Murder. I’ll have to settle for just killing you. You won’t serve a role in my Greatness after all.”
“Why knock your victims unconscious?” she asked, hoping to keep him distracted by running his mouth.
“The heart must be pumping at the time of exsanguination for the effect to look natural,” he replied.
“There is nothing natural about what you do, Dereck.”
I could try running onto the lake again, she considered. He probably wouldn’t be able to follow. She rejected that option too. Her powers didn’t work reliably. She got different kinds of reactions when she tried things all the time. They were especially erratic when she was under immediate stress like she was now. If she attempted to freeze the water and run out onto it like she had when Dax had seen her, she could just as well end up freezing herself in a block of ice.
Then he was in front of her.
“I’m going to kill you now, baby.”
“Don't call me baby!” Aradia snapped.
“It doesn't matter what I call you. All you are now is so much dead meat.”
The time to fight had come. While she’d been running, she’d found a good, fist sized rock with a sharp edge. She waited for Dereck to lunge at her, planning to jump to the side and conk him in the head.
The plan didn’t work quite as well as she had hoped. Dereck lunged, but he outmaneuvered her. She jumped to her right, but instead of continuing on his original trajectory, he shifted his weight and came around from her other side.
He’s so fast.
Now he was on her right side, and if she swung at him she’d have no power behind it.
With her left hand she summoned a fireball. She was too scared, though, too distracted. The flames sputtered into nothing as quickly as they came.
Dereck gave her no time to try another tactic. While she was distracted, he lunged again and landed on top of her, pinning her to the ground. His muzzle was open, and he was drooling on her.
His breath was so foul that it caused Aradia to call out, “If you were planning to eat me, the least you could have done is brush your teeth!”
“What do you mean ‘were’?” Dereck growled.
She bunched up both of her knees and kicked with all her might into his chest. He flew several feet upwards from the sheer force. Aradia rolled on the ground away from him and sprung up as quickly as she could. He landed on his feet, rose on his hind haunches, and the two of them circled each other.
After a few feints back and forth, Dereck finally scored a blow on Aradia, sinking his teeth into her arm, the same arm Roy had bitten.
“Awghf!” she cried.
This isn’t what getting hurt is supposed to feel like. When the hero in a movie gets stabbed or shot, he can grit his teeth and get through it. It almost makes him tougher. Aradia did not feel tougher. She didn’t feel very tough at all.
Her sense of hearing fell away. At first it was like she was hearing noises muffled by a heavy, damp blanket. Then she heard nothing at all. She didn’t feel movement herself, but had a vague sense of activity around her. Her vision sparkled as it, too, failed her. She had a sense of gushing blood, but she couldn’t quite feel it. She wondered if she was dying. This is definitely not what getting hurt is supposed to feel like.
She was about to pass out. She knew if that happened, she’d never wake up again. She fought with all her will against that. She forced the stars out of her vision, and she started seeing again. She extended herself into her surroundings and her hearing returned. She could hear the growling werewolf gnawing on her arm. She could feel the blood coursing from her arteries onto his face and mouth.
He was confident. She used his attack as an opportunity.
She quickly ripped off her jacket with her uninjured arm and spun. His teeth tore at her flesh, and she cried in the heightened pain, but she kept her wits about her and got her arm free. She jumped on his back while wrapping the jacket around his neck. She squeezed.
For all her strength, she did not think head on close combat was so wise after all. While gasping for air he reached back behind him and tore at her with his claws, lacerating her all over her back a
nd arms. She bled profusely, soaking her clothes.
Just a little longer! she urged herself. If she could knock him out, this would all be over, all of it.
She couldn’t do it though. Her strength gave out, and she let go. He gulped air in greedily as he spun around to face her for her death blow.
Then he stopped. His ears perked up and he turned to peer into the woods. Even in his wolf form, he gave a weird shrug and growled, “Until another time, baby!”
He was gone.
She reached for her phone. She needed to call someone. Her parents or 911.
Her phone was gone.
Roy, she realized. After her call with him, she’d plugged her phone in to charge on her bedside table.
She tried to stand. She made it to her feet, but then collapsed into someone’s gentle arms.
“Wha?” she mumbled. She’d thought she was alone. Her vision was failing again and all she saw were stars. This time she couldn’t find the will to fight it.
This person must be what scared Dereck away. Aradia willed herself to heal, but she couldn’t feel it working.
“Aradia! Oh, bloody hell, Aradia!”
The voice sounded so very familiar. “Who…?” she tried to ask.
“Shhh, love,” he said. Dax took off his own jacket and wrapped her in it as well as he could. Carrying her as gingerly as possible, he ran for his car.
“Dax,” she finally whispered. Even with his heightened hearing, Dax could barely make out her voice. “Dax… help me…”
“I will, Aradia,” Dax said, ignoring the nearly irresistible smell of so much warm, fresh blood. He leaned her head against his shoulder as he opened the rear driver’s side door of his car. “I swear it.”
It took them twelve minutes to get to the Dayton manor. Dax hit the horn twice as he pulled up the driveway. By the time he made it to the front door, Xan was there swinging it open.
Xan saw Aradia bleeding and lying limply in Dax’s arms. He chuckled and said, “Wow, Dax, I didn't know you did home deliveries!”
“Just get Dad!” he snapped as he shot past his brother and into the living room where he laid Aradia on the couch.
He raced to the kitchen, got a bowl of water and bandages and returned to her. He dipped a clean cloth into the bowl, held out her arm, and gently cleaned the area to get a sense of the wound. As he went he saw that the bite wound on her arm and the gashes all over her were already closing. The flow of blood had nearly stopped on its own.
No werewolf victim's wounds heal that quickly, Dax thought to himself, at least not until after they turn. Not even hiddens. He looked down at her with an impressed smile slowly curving on his lips. For the first moment since he’d found her bleeding, he started to think she might survive the attack.
Just when I think that this girl could not surprise me more... His thoughts trailed away as he reached out his hand to softly stroke Aradia's cheek.
Mr. Dayton cleared his throat and motioned with his head indicating for Dax to leave.
Dax hesitated. He took one last glance at Aradia's unconscious form and brushed her hair out of her eye, then he slowly rose.
“Will she survive?” he asked his father as was leaving the room.
His father said, “I don’t know. I certainly hope so. She has better chances here than anywhere else. You did well bringing her.”
Dax smiled and left the room. As he was passing near the front door on his way to the staircase, the doorbell rang. He opened it and said, “You rang?”
Roy stood outside glaring at Dax ruthlessly.
“Where is she?” he demanded.
“Who?” asked Dax.
“Don’t give me that! I know she’s here! I smelled her blood in the woods and followed!”
Not waiting for a reply, Roy pushed Dax out of the way and stormed into the house.
“You can't come in here!” Dax shouted angrily.
“Sure I can. I don’t need to be invited in!” Roy gloated.
Roy stormed into the living room following her scent and saw Aradia sleeping on the couch, Mr. Dayton hovering over her. He rushed to her side kneeling like a prince from a fairy tale about to kiss his princess.
“I’m sorry, father,” Dax began.
Mr. Dayton shook his head. “It is fine. What’s your name, boy?”
Roy glared at the elder vampire. Seeing that he was tending Aradia’s wounds though, and realizing he was alone in a house full of vampires, he decided to show some civility. “My name is Reynaldo. I go by Roy.”
“I am Mr. Dayton, Dax’s father.”
Roy wasn’t quite sure about the exact relationship. He assumed they’d been a mortal family which had all been turned about the same time, but he didn’t really know. He’d always thought the whole Dayton family of vampires was a strange setup.
He was in their home, though. “Good to meet you. Sir.”
Dax advanced. He knew he’d already been dismissed, but with Roy’s appearance, circumstances had changed.
“I believe she will recover,” Mr. Dayton said as he continued his work. He cleaned, applied a balm, and wrapped. Cleaned, applied a balm, and wrapped. There were many gashes to treat. “The ointment will help. She is a remarkable being.”
“She is,” said Dax.
Despite the good diagnosis, his father’s face remained solemn. Part of him suspected he’d be better off not knowing, but he couldn't help asking, “What’s so troubling, Dad?”
His father exhaled and glanced down at Roy, then shook his head sharply. Not in front of him, Dax translated.
“Roy,” Dax said, “do you, by chance, know the number for Mr. or Mrs. Preston?”
“No,” Roy said, realizing Aradia’s parents needed to know what was going on. “No, but my dad would. They exchanged information a while back.”
“I suggest you get in touch with them. Father, would they be welcome?”
Mr. Dayton nodded his agreement. Roy made the call.
Dax and his father stepped aside and lowered their voices.
“I got the test results back from Dr. Krostenial. I know what Aradia is.”
Dax smiled and said, “That’s wonderful! Isn’t it?”
“It is good that we know,” his father said nodding, still looking solemn.
“And yet…?” asked Dax.
“If she is what I think she is, and I have no reason to doubt it, then by all rights Aradia should already be dead.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“This Mr. Dayton, he seems like a good fellow,” Ross said to his unconscious daughter. He carefully held Aradia’s battered hand while he spoke. “He’s not a doctor, but he seems to know more about hidden biology than human doctors would. And I never really liked doctors anyway. What I’m saying, honey…”
“What your father’s saying,” Liza took over, “is we love you, and we’re here for you, and we know you’ll wake up. Please wake up, baby.”
Mr. Dayton had done everything he could. When the Prestons arrived, he and Dax had left the room to give the parents some time alone with their daughter. Roy stayed in the room, but he took a seat out of the way so as not to intrude upon the Prestons.
Mr. Dayton was confident she would wake up and have a full recovery, but he couldn’t say anything with certainty. The Prestons had never seen Aradia hurt before.
“Liza,” Ross said, tenderly placing Aradia’s hand back at her side, “I haven’t felt this way since–”
“Since the adoption,” she cut him off, finishing his sentence.
He nodded. “That was the only time I’d ever felt uncertain that we’d be able to take care of and raise our little girl. Even after the house fire, then more recently, when she’d sleep for days… that was just part of the territory, you know?”
“I do,” she agreed.
“When we finally signed those papers, that was when I knew for sure that she was our little girl, and that we could protect her…” He trailed off, remembering that day which had set all their lives dow
n this path.
“Well now, everything seems to be in order,” the Social Services worker, an amicable and slightly overweight older woman by the name of Cheryl, had said with a flourish of papers. Ross and Liza had both been grinning from ear to ear, while in the crook of Liza’s arm slept the little girl they had found in the woods.
“All we need is a name.”
“A name?” the new parents had repeated in unison.
“Why yes, a name,” Cheryl had replied, smiling. Tone changing slightly, she’d said, “Don't tell me you haven't thought of a name for her?”
“Oh, sure, we have a whole list,” Ross protested. If ‘sweetheart,’ ‘angel face,’ and 'firecracker’ can be considered names, he thought.
“Well, since you’ve given it so much thought, how about telling me your favorite so I can seal the deal?” she had proposed, chuckling at the implication that adoption was rather a bargain sale than a life-changing decision.
Ross was struggling for a stall tactic, when Liza suddenly announced, “Her name is Aradia.”
“Hmm?” Ross had replied. Cheryl didn’t say anything, but the way her eyes widened showed she’d been expecting something more traditional.
“Yes, her name is Aradia,” Liza had stated firmly.
“Is that one ‘R’ or two?” came from Cheryl.
“Just one.”
Ross had leaned close to his wife as the social worker wrote the name down and asked, “Where did you get that name? Is it from a book or something?”
“It’s her name,” Liza had repeated.
“Is that an ‘E-A’ at the end?”
“‘I-A,’” Liza had replied without missing a beat.
“I’m fine that it’s her name, but… why is it her name?” Ross had asked, looking at her with large curious eyes.
“I just think it’s… really her name, you know?” Liza had shrugged, uncomfortable under her husband’s scrutiny. In truth she had felt the same curiosity that he did, but she hadn’t felt at all comfortable exploring it. Instead she just whispered, “Remember when I told you to check the axle again?”