Revenant's Kiss (Chronicles of the Afterlife)

by Robles, Joyce

  "Of course," he stood without any warning which she could have lived without because she almost fell out of her seat when he did. "I did bring you something, I’ve heard through my very mysterious informants that you find yourself here, unarmed." Jennifer waited, when he reached into his coat she half expected him to pull a weapon and kill her. What she wasn’t expecting was for him to pull her Bowie knife off his belt, flip it so that the handle faced her and offer it back to her.

  "But I stabbed you," she reminded him.

  "Yes," he laughed at her surprise, "I remember, and I thought about keeping it as a souvenir but as knives go it is rather large and awkward. If I have a knife I want a knife, otherwise I prefer my sword," He raised his eyebrows at her hesitation to take the weapon he was offering her, "would you rather I kept it?"

  "No," Jennifer immediately snatched the knife out of his hands, "thank you." She looked back to him, for probably the first time since he’d arrived, finding herself capable of seeing the details. He hadn’t changed much, he was still wearing faded jeans but he had changed out of the shirt she’d put a hole in. "Are you kidding me," she asked in what was almost complete disbelief.

  "No, I’m perfectly serious about the knife, and you are welcome, of course." Jennifer dropped her blanket to point at his shirt.

  "I mean your shirt," she didn’t think she’d ever had a vampire throw her one curve ball after another, she would think after the church reveal he wouldn’t be capable of surprising her.

  "Appropriate don’t you think?"

  "Batman is a heroic icon and he certainly isn’t a vampire," Jennifer looked back up at his face and could tell he was laughing at her, again.

  "I could argue with you but I do really have to get back to work, I don’t think we have much longer before this is out of all of our control." He started to make his way back out of the aisle, which he had to brush back past her to do, unless he wanted to do it inhuman style, she grabbed his hand.

  "I’m coming with you," she didn’t let his appendage go when she got to her feet, determined to hold on incase he attempted to bolt. He started to shake his head so Jennifer made her case, "I function fine when I’m messed up, at least clearly as long as I know why I’m messed up, and I know now. Revenants are clearly a problem for me, but I can deal, I did deal today, and I can be an asset."

  "You are you know, but you’re a much more valuable asset alive, besides you really can not go like that." He was looking down at her and Jennifer became aware again that she was wearing a flimsy, nearly paper-thin gown and nothing else. She did her best to try not to blush but she was pretty sure her blood pressure, unlike the vampires, was out of her control and she was standing in front of him practically wearing nothing. It really wasn’t a situation that she would want to find herself in with a regular human male that she didn’t know let alone one without a pulse. Out of habit she wrapped her arms around her chest, she was pretty sure it wasn’t transparent but she wasn’t one to take chances. "So take me home," she blurted out.

  "I would love to take you home," he leaned in and she nearly stumbled back into her seat, probably would have if he hadn’t put a steadying hand on her. "But I don’t think I’d be going anywhere fast if I did." Jennifer slapped his steadying hand off in an attempt to prove that he wasn’t putting her off kilter, but it was probably a wasted effort given all he had to do to mess up her equilibrium was enter a room.

  "I didn’t mean that, I can get cloths, weapons, and be ready to go," she was hoping that he’d agree because she wasn’t sure that she had enough stamina at the moment to attempt convincing him.

  He stepped in uncomfortably close again, "shame," he breathed, without any warning at all he leaned in and put his mouth against the pulse in her neck. She had only herself to blame, she’d let him this close, let him get close enough to touch her. She briefly felt his fangs brush her skin but before she could so much as jump he pulled back. "Say I was interested in taking you home for completely unsexual reasons, how exactly do we intend to get there? I think you must know I hardly drove here and it seems a waste of resources for me to accompany you back to your house to get you dressed when I’d much rather do the opposite."

  "What do you suggest," probably not the wisest question given he’d mentioned getting her naked and having sex in his general thought process. She wanted to be in this to the finish, she wasn’t willing to sleep with the vampire to accomplish that but she would find a way.

  "I believe I suggested that you stay here," like her brain turned back on when he said those words she unwrapped her arms from around herself and took hold of his hand before he could run off.

  "I might have cloths here," she tugged on his hand to try and indicate he should follow her downstairs.

  "Ah does this mean I’ll get to see your mysterious dungeon," Jennifer shook her head, they didn’t have a dungeon here, it would be pointless considering they’d been under the impression a vampire couldn’t enter without killing themselves.

  "I thought you had spies everywhere," she kept her hold on his hand but didn’t have to look back at him to know that he was smiling at her. It was eerie the way she seemed attuned to him that way, mostly because it wasn’t at all unpleasant to be attached to him in that way. The more she encountered him the easier it was to forget there were very good reasons to run screaming from him in the other direction.

  "You’d be surprised how difficult it can be to get a spy in among religious bigots who think you’re the spawn of Satan, that and I didn’t really try. I prefer not to send my people in to get burned at the stake if I can avoid it, and I know how much zealots love to burn people at the stake." He tightened his hand around hers like he could sense she was getting ready to turn and smack him, all the while she could feel him smiling behind her, laughing at her. "Besides, you only said you had cloths here, which leads me to believe you don’t have a giant cask of weapons stashed in the building."

  "Kids come in and out of this building, we can’t afford to have weapons here," a fact that she was regretting at the moment, although she did have some of her arsenal in her Cousin’s trunk. It looked like that was one mistake that was going to work out in her favor after all. "I’m less worried about weapons then I am about how exactly you think we’re leaving this building. I’m inclined to hope that you’ll be fine with taking my car," but she wasn’t stupid either, why would he when he could travel faster then that without it all on his own.

  "Sounds cozy, but I think this is already taking up a great deal of time," Jennifer pushed through the door that led into the back room and headed for the stairs.

  "I can speed," she informed him, "besides if we’re busy til sun up I’ve no phone, my government friend has custody of it for now and I’ve no idea how long he’ll hold onto it so I can’t call for a ride."

  "I can remedy that," Jennifer stopped just as they reached the stairs to look at him, "the phone I mean, we’ll have to stop by the club anyway."

  "I said I was willing to hunt with you for this thing, I didn’t say that I’d go steady with you," she spun back on her heal. "I can get my own phone," she snapped dropping his hand and making her way down the stairs, which was ridiculously more painful then she expected. Surprisingly the vampire stayed behind her, she had half expected him to take off considering he’d already admitted that this was an expenditure of time he didn’t have. She made her way past the kitchen doing her best to sneak so she could avoid her tea-making cousin but he noticed her.

  "Jennifer, are you okay?"

  She paused pushing the vampire back so he couldn’t make his way past the door frame. "Fine, just going to put on the cloths I have stashed here."

  "You’re not going out again tonight are you, not after this morning," he made his way toward the door and she knew she wasn’t going to be able to hide the vampire from him. She was tempted to try and run from having to confront this but at the same time knew that it would be pointless to attempt escape.

  "Doug, I have to but I won’t
be going out by myself......."

  "Tom, I don’t think that’s a good idea right now," his words died off when he made his way into the hall.

  "Then you’re really not going to like this one," she mumbled to herself.

  "Whose this?" He looked between her and the vampire but didn’t seem to notice that he was looking at, as Ethan put it, the spawn of Satan.

  "He’s the help, did you get a hold of Malcolm or Marcia?" She asked him, hoping to detour around names, or questions of any kind where Ethan was concerned. She understood how her cousin failed to notice that he was undead, vampires just didn’t dress the way he did, and if she could avoid telling him what was in his church she would.

  "I was just going to start," he answered still looking over her shoulder at Ethan. "What was your name again?" He addressed the vampire politely.

  "We have to hurry Doug, maybe later okay," she ignored her impulse to grab the vampires hand to make sure he followed. That was not something she wanted her Cousin to bare witness to especially since eventually she was going to have to tell him that Ethan was a vampire.

  "Nice to meet you Father," the vampire said as he passed, following close on her heels. As soon as she motioned him into a room, and he was inside she closed the door behind the both of them, "nicely done Miss Ryan. It’s decent of you to let him live in his safe little cocoon of a church, are you going to tell him the truth?"

  "Why, you’re the only vampire that’s ever set foot in this place, I think there might just be something wrong with you, that’s why you can come in here without becoming a tiki-torch," not that she knew for certain that vampires lit up on holy ground, she’d never seen one do it before. She did her best to ignore him and made her way to the bag that she’d left stashed under her desk. She had forgotten about it, it was work-out cloths she’d worn for a hand to hand combat exercise a few weeks back that she’d failed to remember to take home. They were dirty but she was going revenant hunting so odds were the cloths would end up being trashed anyway. She pulled the bag out and started rummaging through it, she’d forgotten it’s contents, what she found inside were exercise pants and a sports bra. She thought she’d worn a shirt for that training session but with as often as she got spattered with blood she supposed she shouldn’t be surprised that it was gone. "Damn," she grumbled but it was going to have to be good enough, she should probably be grateful that at least it wasn’t as cold as it had been yesterday.

  "Problem," he asked from behind her.

  "Asks the man with no pulse," she said it under her breath even though she knew he’d hear her, "no problems," she said louder. She looked back over her shoulder at him, "are you going to turn around?"

  "No," at this Jennifer spun around to glare at him, he was leaning against the wall next to the door watching her like a hawk. "Time is of the essence," he offered when she stood there staring back at him.

  "You’re a bully you know that," but he didn’t turn around, or display a shred of common decency, "fine." Uncomfortable but aware that the vampire was trying some kind of test of wills on her, she wasn’t going to back down, she was bad like that. Grudgingly she turned back to her bag and pulled out the exercise pants, she shimmed into them underneath the gown wishing she didn’t have to go commando. She was far more hesitant to put on the sports bra with him in the room, "voyeurism is a repulsive pass time you know."

  "Normally I might agree with you," just his tone made her shiver so looking at him was out of the question. When this was all over she needed to invest some time into trying to figure out why she was so attracted to this particular vampire, there was no compulsion, no brainwashing, she just wasn’t sure if there were any options left outside of the reality that she was attracted to a vampire. She was really hoping to find some other reason for it because it was going to be difficult otherwise to deal with the reality of potentially having to kill him. Taking a deep breath and trying to forget there was a potentially lethal male, who was looking at her like a meal in the room she pulled the medical gown off over her head. It took her a little longer to struggle into the bra just because her ribs were killing her and she had to pull it on over her head.

  When she turned back around she could tell that the vampire didn’t like what he saw, ignoring a pang of hurt at that knowledge, she set her mind to trying to figure out if she had any shoes lying around. "I sometimes forget how fragile and slow healing mortal types are, you are more damaged then I thought." He said when she moved around the office, there was a chance that Marcia and her were the same shoe size, outside of training exercises the woman always wore heels but she could hope.

  "I told you, I work well when I’m a mess," although she would really appreciate the potential for taking a little less damage, however small that chance was.

  "What are you looking for?" He had moved away from the wall and was trailing her around the room.

  "Shoes," Jennifer announced trying to ignore his proximity, it seemed to be his thing to invade, at least where she was concerned, personal space.

  "They took your shoes," he seemed perplexed by this, Jennifer had just been pissed, she’d understood the need, didn’t leave her any happier about it.

  She finally located the shoes Marcia wore for training and stopped to look at the size, it was a half size bigger than hers but it would do. She stuffed her feet into the sneakers and looked up to find the vampire, of course, nearly less then a foot away. "What," his eyes were glued to her midriff, which was still a becoming shade of black and blue. She sat up and wrapped her arms back around her mid-section, a surprisingly painful move, but at least it blocked his view. She was pretty certain there was at least one broken rib if not more behind the bruising, it didn’t stop her from saying, "it’s nothing." In her opinion as long as the rib hadn’t punctured anything she needed to live she was in good shape.

  "My kind suffers very few injuries that last longer then a minute, the expedience of our healing rate has made it so that your condition eludes me but it must be painful." He tilted his head like he was trying to see the injury past her arms, although her arms had their fair share of bruising too.

  "Good for you," Jennifer finally decided to drop her arms as hiding it was useless given he’d already seen it anyway.

  "My group is very particular about how they work, they won’t like that you are so," he didn’t finish, they were both aware that she was injured, damaged goods, and as far as vampires were concerned she was already a liability without that problem to add to the package.

  "Well they can shove it," Jennifer did a little more rummaging to see if she could dig up a jacket but Marcia had nothing lying around and anything Manson or Clive had here would be monstrously over sized. "Damn-it," she all but growled when nothing turned up, she really did not want to run around in nothing but a sports bra, ever really, but this damaged and showing it off to vampires seemed like wheeling out a meal cart. She supposed she could put the medical gown back on but that didn’t seem like it was a good choice of camouflage either considering her company. She was just thinking that she was out of options when there was a knock on the door. "Crap, who is it?" She wasn’t sure if she was comfortable letting anyone in on the vampire in the room until she was sure what was going on.

  "It’s me," Doug called from behind the closed door.

  "Crap," Jennifer was still trying to come up with some excuse to send him on his way but the vampire opened his fang-filled trap before she did.

  "Come in Father," he said without missing a beat, Jennifer glared at him, easily done considering he was so solidly in her personal space, still.

  Her Cousin came in with a bag that when he put it down dramatically thunked against the desk, "I brought your stuff for you from my trunk." He unzipped the bag and pulled out some of her forgotten arsenal from the night before.

  "Thanks Doug, I don’t suppose you have a shirt lying around that I can borrow, preferably something you don’t care if you ever see again as it will probably have to be burned after tonight an
yway." She really hoped so, she was not enjoying having just one vampires eyes on her broken places let alone a potential covens worth of them.

  "I probably have something in the lost and found," he smiled and turned to go check. As soon as he was out of the room Jennifer exhaled, she was waiting for the vampire to say something she didn’t want him to. While they waited for her cousin to come back she made her way over to the items that Doug had brought in for her. She had one Beretta, the Remington and assorted harnesses, which she knew with one look were going to hurt putting over her bruising.

  "You could stay here tonight," the vampire suddenly broke the silence out of nowhere.

  "Yea right, like I’d trust you to do this," she had no idea what he was doing when she wasn’t around. She thought his activities were more likely to involve blood orgies rather then revenant hunting. "I appreciate the act of you trying to cut me out but Dimitri was mine first, so curb your impulses to treat me like a helpless human female, kay?" She was hoping there wasn’t anything else on the subject that he felt the need to cover, again, because she was getting tired of hearing it. If he didn’t actually want her to come along he should have left by now but he was still standing around waiting for her, which was a mystery all in itself.

  She was still rummaging pointlessly through her weapons when he grabbed her shoulder and spun her to face him. Jennifer was going to tell him to keep his mouth shut but words failed her again at his proximity. "You don’t like it," she was going to ask him what but he put his hands on her ribs, they were cold and filled her with a sense of calm even though his hands anywhere near her should have installed panic in their place. "You don’t like anyone taking care of you," he clarified when she stood stock still as he ran his hands over her bruised ribs down to her waistline. One hand trailed haphazardly lower his fingers flirting with the waistband of her elastic exercise pants. She should have reacted in some way, slap his hand away, punch him in the jaw, but all she found herself capable of was holding her breath. "I find however the idea of looking out for you, as a helpless human female, rather appealing." He seemed to sense that he’d pissed her off again but he didn’t move back because that would give her better leverage for punching him, instead he leaned in.