The Keeper's Vow

by B. F. Simone

  It was Larry. Larry from the ice cream parlor. Except he wasn’t wearing a blue polo with a fat cat licking ice cream. He was wearing a tailored black suit and looking at Katie’s outfit thoroughly disappointed. She blushed wishing she had something to cover up her chest.

  “La—Larry?” Allison stuttered.

  “I told you to get a new boyfriend, Katie.” He waved them in.

  “Thanks gentlemen, I’ve got it from here—oh I know he’s got a temper I think we’ll be fine from here.” Larry closed the door and offered them a seat on the cream colored couch next to a large window that over looked the city. “Please, do sit, from what I understand you’re probably exhausted after wrecking my club.”

  “S—sorry,” was all Katie could say. She still couldn’t wrap her mind around the fact that Larry was walking over to a mini bar and grabbing two cokes. Allison’s purse fell and everything splattered across the floor. The noise was louder than anyone had expected.

  “Excuse me,” Allison said, picking everything up quickly.

  Silence.

  “I’m guessing you don’t want one,” he said to Tristan. “You usually like your drinks stronger, right?”

  Tristan’s eyes were burning holes through Larry’s head. “What’s your game?” he said, flexing his fist.

  “Well I was sitting at my desk doing paperwork when I got the message that you started throwing one of my customers around my club.” Larry handed Allison and Katie a can of coke. He started to sit down, but took off his jacket first. “Please, Katie, put this on.”

  Katie was mortified. She looked like a hooker. She’d known Larry long enough that it was like being caught by an uncle. An uncle that did not just own a ice cream shop with delicious ice cream, but also a club. In Gray City.

  Tristan stood up and took off his own jacket, holding it out, roughly, to Katie. He was staring Larry down.

  “Just take it,” Tristan said between his teeth. Why was he making this already awkward situation worse?

  He looked at her. “Goddamn it, can’t she just trust me for once?”

  Katie squinted her eyes, “I did that and got burned,” she thought back.

  “Damnit, Katalina.” Tristan held his head. His hand still twitched a little from the taser.

  Larry looked between them and a dark look crossed over his face. He folded his jacket in his hand and nodded for her to take Tristan’s. She put it on. His smell covered her and she almost choked. Her heart pulled and twisted as if encased by barbed wire.

  “I guess it has become obvious to you that I am not just an ice cream shop owner,” Larry said, smiling at Katie and Allison.

  Tristan shifted in his seat. He wanted to leave. He wanted to grab her and leave, he was contemplating it and thinking hard on it. Katie wished he’d shut up. His thoughts were beating at her making it hard for her to think.

  Larry looked between them again. “In fact I didn’t buy that shop until I moved here.”

  “Let’s go.” Tristan grabbed her hand.

  Katie didn’t move. Fear was sinking into her like maybe she should run, but she couldn’t just stand up and walk out the door. She knew Larry.

  “It’s not your choice, Tristan.” Larry looked tired.

  “She doesn’t care about what you have to say,” Tristan spat. “Now, Katalina.”

  Katie looked to Allison, but Allison shrugged.

  She pulled her hand back. What was wrong with him. He’d spent two months ignoring her and now he was acting like a raging lunatic on steroids beating people up and deciding what she did and did not want to hear.

  “For once, will you stop thinking about yourself and just trust me.”

  “When did you take the vow?” Larry said it abruptly.

  All three of them turned to him. How did he know. How could he possibly know.

  “I can see it in the way you two look at each other. Not many can recognize the signs, but I was one of the last few to ever take the vow. I thought it was no longer in practice, now I see—I’m wrong.” He cut a dark look at Tristan. As if maybe it were Tristan’s fault that he was wrong.

  Katie shuddered. Who was this man. This man that smelled so powerful. Katie blinked back the thought. How could she smell power?

  “It doesn’t matter who he is. Let’s go now,” Tristan said, but she wasn’t looking at him. She was staring at Larry, his accent—the reason she couldn’t place it. The textbook said the vow hadn’t been used since the dark ages. He was a vampire—that she had figured out the moment she stepped into his office. But vampires couldn’t walk out in the day time. Not unless they where half—or pure.

  Tristan pulled her out of the chair, and she decided maybe he was right. Maybe they should leave. Something about Larry didn’t sit right. A pure blood vampire running an ice cream shop. Giving her free ice cream every Friday…it was beyond creepy.

  “Your friend is worried that I’ll say something he’d rather keep quiet. But, I only want to ask when Ivan did it. When did he bond you both?”

  This time it was Tristan who stopped. “Don’t talk about my father. Don’t ever say his name.”

  “He was my friend before he was your father,” Larry said. “I thought we’d already reached that understanding. You’re too old to play that game Tristan. Let me—”

  “I still don’t want or need your help. Katalina is no different.” Tristan said.

  “You’ve—you knew him? Before you met him at the ice cream shop? That’s why—who are you, Larry?” Katie said.

  Larry and Tristan watched each other for a while before Larry said, “A friend. I knew his father. When I found out what happened—I decided I’d best keep an eye out on you two.”

  Tristan’s grip on her hand eased a little. Was this the man Tristan stayed with? Larry? Why didn’t he ever say anything.

  “Please sit back down. I only want to talk,” Larry said.

  Katie moved her hand from Tristan’s, and sat back down. Whether he wanted to or not was his own prerogative. She’d known Larry for years, if he’d wanted to kill her or do any number of demented things, he would have done it a long time ago.

  Tristan hovered by the couch but didn’t sit.

  “Why did he do it?” Larry said almost to himself. “Do you know why we ended the Keeper’s Vow? Why we made sure our fathers were the last to ever utters the words?” He was looking at Tristan, but his eyes ended on Katie.

  The words keeper and vow rolled over and over in Allison’s mouth. They all listened to her as she tried to remember something they all knew.

  Tristan was rigid again. He was about to open his mouth, to deflect the conversation. He still didn’t want her to know, but his eyes widened as he listened to the answer rise in her mind. Yes, she knew why they’d stopped doing it, how barbaric it was, and how it forced one person to protect the life of the other.

  “Because, if I die he dies.” Katie said.

  “So you know?” Larry said, raising an eyebrow.

  “Only because I read books.” It was a gibe aimed at Tristan but Larry looked apologetic. “I mean, I had to find out from a book. No one bothered to tell me.”

  Now it was Allison who looked offended. Katie tried hard to pretend she didn’t see the stern look on her face. Katie forgot she’d never told Allison. No—not forget—she never wanted to. It felt like a dirty secret—a secret she never wanted to be true.

  “I can’t imagine why he’d speak the words that tore so many families apart.” Larry was talking to himself.

  “He felt obligated,” Tristan said, burning holes through Larry again.

  Larry’s face went apologetic again. “You’ve had to endure a lot no doubt. It’s not an easy burden to bear.”

  “I’m not listening to this crap,” Tristan laughed cruelly and left.

  Katie was caught in between running after him and sitting awkward with Larry the ice cream man turned vampire. It was odd, after the initial shock it really didn’t bother her. Her shock levels were recalibrating aga
in.

  Katie stood up. No, her body did. She meant to stay sitting because it was the polite thing to do. “Sorry—uh—he’s—not easy to get along with,” Katie said, feeling him move further and further away. He wasn’t moving fast though. He wanted her to catch up.

  Larry released a deep breath. “You used to be a caterpillar. Now I can see you’ve turned into a butterfly. Strange, I thought when it’d happened I’d be delighted, but it saddens me in a way.”

  Creepy.

  Super creepy.

  What was she supposed to say to that. Could he tell she’d taken her first drink only hours ago?

  “I suppose you’d like to go check on him?” he said.

  “Uh—yeah, sorry,” Katie said, a bit out of sorts. Could she ever go back to that ice cream shop now?

  Katie turned to leave, but not before waving at him awkwardly.

  Allison stood up. “I’d like to apologize for the damage we caused, and say thank you for all the discounted ice cream. I hope what we’ve done hasn’t changed your opinion of us.”

  “You’re just children being children. The next scoop is on me, alright?” Larry said, crossing the room to open the door for them.

  Why hadn’t Katie thought to apologize? Why hadn’t she thought to say thank you for not busting them? She was almost angry at Allison for being so damn good in situations like this. Why did Allison always know what to say or do?

  Katie said goodbye again and walked in silence to the elevator, through the club—avoiding eye contact with Yellow-hair, who was staring at her for way too long—and out onto the street where she followed her Tristan-compass.

  Allison didn’t say anything and Katie didn’t want to touch whatever she was fuming about with a ten-foot pole. Not when Allison probably had a knife in her pocket and knew how to use it.

  It wasn’t long before they caught up with Tristan, he wasn’t exactly making it hard to follow him, but as soon as they were close enough he picked up his pace and led them out of Gray City.

  It was strange to Katie how completely different she’d felt when she’d taken the elevator into Gray City. She’d been overflowing in excitement and adventure. Now she was quietly cooking. Even though she was standing in a small elevator, moving towards the above world, she couldn’t hear Tristan’s thoughts. Maybe he’d caught on that she could hear them easily. Maybe like Larry he could tell she’d drank blood. Maybe she looked different—or smelled different.

  Anyway, his silence was undeserved. If anything he had gotten them into this mess. So she showed up at the same club as him. He didn’t own the place and she had the right to dance with whoever she wanted—

  Tristan banged his fist against the elevator wall and Katie and Allison jumped. The doors opened and a morning haze drifted in. They had to squint and adjust their eyes.

  “Anyone have the time?” Allison said, opening her purse. She searched through it faster and faster. “I don’t have my phone. I lost my phone. Katie call it.”

  Katie? Allison was pissed. Katie looked at her own phone. It was dead.

  Tristan was off walking again. He always had a watch on. He could have told them the time, but as Katie looked closer, it wasn’t there. Maybe he’d given it to one of his girlfriends. Or maybe the girl he slept with every Tuesday—

  Tristan spun on her like a cornered cat. “SHUT UP!” His voice travelled down the empty street.

  “Don’t tell me what to do. It’s not my fault you can hear me and I don’t give a damn. Hear it all, Asshole.” Katie’s voice grew louder and louder with every word.

  “Why did you follow me here tonight? To prove a point? Well you did, and you looked like a slut while you did it.”

  “Why are you here? WHY TRISTAN? Why did you ever come back? You should have just stayed where ever the hell you were and left me alone. No one wants you around! My dad hates you. You only piss off Lucy and you’ve ruined her life, Will’s life, Brian’s life, and the numbers keep growing because you’ve completely destroyed mine.”

  As Tristan stared at her his eyes went dead. He walked toward her, past her, and back into the elevator. He pushed a button and the door shut severing everything that held them together. The magnetic pulse she felt, his thoughts, the sense of him. It was all gone.

  She’d gone too far. What the hell had she done. She’d gone too far.

  She pushed the elevator button but it wasn’t working. “Allison, how do I get back into the el—” Allison was walking away. “Allison!” Katie shouted. She needed to get back down there and find him. She’d gone to far.

  Allison kept walking.

  “Allison!” Katie reached out and touched her arm.

  Allison grabbed Katie’s arm and flung it off her.

  “Alli—”

  “When were you going to tell me?” Allison grinded her teeth. What was she talking about. This wasn’t the time to get upset because she didn’t tell her everything. Allison wasn’t her personal diary. Katie could keep whatever she wanted from her.

  “Tell you what?” Katie was out of breath. It was her heart. It had been pounding ever since she’d gotten out of that elevator.

  “The Keepers Vow, Katie.” Allison said her name like it was a joke. “I read books too.”

  “Allison, get off it. So I didn’t tell you it’s not something to tell.”

  “Not the vow you idiot. The fact that only vampires can take it. The fact that you have to at least be half-vampire to be bonded that way.” Allison flexed her hands in and out of fists. “You’re half-vampire and you didn’t tell me. You dragged me out tonight not because you wanted to hang out with me after being a complete and utter bitch for the last two months, but so you could follow him down there and make him jealous. It’s always about Tristan. I am so sick and tired of taking a back seat to whatever boy is in your life. We were never friends I was just someone you bitched and complained to when Brian made you angry, and when Tristan showed up—don’t even get me started. Do you even know what’s going on in my life? Do you even know that my parents are filing for divorce because my dad has been cheating on my mom for a year? That he missed my Preliminaries because he was picking up that woman’s son from a baseball game? Or that I broke up with my boyfriend two days ago?”

  Katie took a step back. She stuttered but nothing came out. Her dad had been cheating? A divorce? When had Allison gotten a boyfriend? Who? Why didn’t she tell her? “I—I didn’t know—”

  “Of course you didn’t fucking know! YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT ANYONE BUT YOURSELF.” Allison was done. She didn’t wait for Katie to respond, or for Katie to say she was sorry, or say that Allison was being a little unfair.

  Katie followed behind Allison until Allison made the left turn to take her home. She never once turned back to see if Katie was behind her or not. Katie wanted to scream. She wanted to slump down onto the sidewalk and scream. Of course she didn’t. She’d have to wait until she was in her bedroom face-first into a pillow.

  She tried to focus on how’d she’d sneak back in. It was better than seeing the dead look in Tristan’s eyes and the way Allison’s red hair swung after she’d turned her back on Katie. She decided to go up the same way she’d left. It wasn’t so hard, not with her new body.

  As soon as she put her head into the window it was over.

  “YOU SNUCK OUT?! AFTER YOU WERE ATTACKED BY A WEREWOLF AND SHOT BY A VAMPIRE. YOU SNUCK OUT TO GOD KNOWS WHERE? DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE LOOKING FOR YOU?” Her dad was pacing. He’d flung over her bookcase in a rage. Why was every one in her life so violent? He went on for at least twenty-minutes telling her that she’d never leave the house again, that he was going to take her to an omitter because she wasn’t responsible, that she’d wasted peoples time and energy, and again and again, how stupid she was.

  When he was done he’d called Lucinda to tell her that Katie had been found and Lucinda spent thirty-minutes screeching through the phone repeating everything her father had already covered. One word hovering—selfish.
/>   Katie didn’t cry. She was numb.

  Everyone hated her.

  She took a shower and fixed her bookcase. Her favorite Peter Pan book was pinned under the case. The cover was bent and the spine tore when she pulled it from under the bookcase. She tried to fix it. Stupid book. She never liked the story. Never even read it. Why was she trying to fix something that was never going to be whole again?

  She charged her cell phone and it blew up with missed calls and text messages. She didn’t dare listen to any of the voicemails. She started to delete them all until she came across a strange number. She listened to it.

  “Hello, Katie? It’s Larry, I think your friend left her phone in my office. I’ll bring it by the ice cream shop, don’t let me forget next time you stop by. See you soon. Oh—I’ve been thinking about adding frozen yogurt to the selection. I’ve ordered a few different ones. Free “froyo” if you girls can tell me which ones are best. See you soon.”

  Katie breathed deep and fell back onto her bed. She didn’t feel every fiber like before, not unless she paid attention. It was almost eight o’clock and she hadn’t slept at all. She wasn’t tired either. Must have been a side effect from the blood, like her ability to see, smell, and hear, and piss people off to exaggerated extremes.

  She rolled over on her side. Traci would be here any moment and the last things she wanted was to explain why she hadn’t touched any of the work she assigned her. She wasn’t in the mood for it.

  “Katie did you do any of it?” Traci said in her squeaky voice. The squeaks used to be enduring but that was when she saw Traci once a day for an hour.

  “I got busy, I—”

  “Busy doing what? You just don’t care. I can’t help you if you won’t help yourself.”

  “I’m not allowed to slack off for one day?!” Katie ran her hands through her hair her fingers got caught in a tangle.

  “One day off? Katie I’d be glad if you only took one day off. When’s the last time you did all the work I asked you to? When was the last time you did an entire assignment? You’re full of excuses.”

  “I’M TRYING!” Katie screamed. They were all attacking her today it wasn’t fair.