The Redwood Trilogy Box Set

by Jaxon Reed

“The High Council has voted to disallow the participation of vampyres in future games. They decided you provide an unfair advantage.”

  I laughed. “Let me guess, Martell complained?”

  He nodded.

  “Don’t worry about it, Jacob. I wasn’t planning on playing very often anyway. Hey, I did find something that may help you.”

  I tapped some commands into the keyboard, and a hologram appeared. A man stood wearing an all white suit, a mesh helmet covering his head, and a slender foil in one hand.

  “This is a fencing lesson. From what I’ve read, the truly great fencing masters began training as children. They focused on footwork first, before even handling a sword. Anyway, this program will train you on the basics. Even if you never become a true master, I bet if you go through all these lessons and get into the advanced skill sets, you can at least get as good as Martell is with a sword.”

  Jacob’s eyes lit up.

  “Thanks, Marc!”

  Chapter Ten

  I was the first to say “I love you.” It happened shortly after classes started in the fall, back when we all lived in the dorm. Dee Dee and I took a picnic basket into the park, found an isolated spot and sat for a couple hours watching the sky change colors as the sun set and the stars popped out.

  My head rested in her lap. She looked down at me while gently placing the last of the strawberries we’d brought for dessert into my mouth, and I said it. It just seemed so natural, and right.

  Since then, we’d said those three words to each other several times. As the months rolled by, we became inseparable, except for class and studying.

  The way I saw it, there didn’t need to be anybody else. We were alike in more ways, and not alike in too many ways with others. If I was going to live longer than 120 standard years, I didn’t want to be with anyone else. She felt the same way, and we expressed our love to one another often.

  We grew closer as time moved along, and no one posed a serious threat to our relationship.

  Then one day, Morgan showed up.

  I was alone in the suite at the time, studying for an upcoming Anatomy exam, when the vid screen came alive.

  “Incoming call.”

  Kent’s face appeared on the screen, his eyes wide.

  “Mr. Savitch? There’s a woman down here to see you. Says she’s from your asset management company. Her credentials check out, sir.”

  I considered it for a couple seconds. Odd, I thought. I had only communicated a couple times with the management company. They seemed to be doing a good job. The bottom line on Kalinowski’s old spreadsheet kept increasing each month as my net worth kept growing.

  I shrugged.

  “Send her up.”

  A few moments later the elevator dinged and out walked the most attractive woman I’d ever seen. Shoulder length hair with frosted highlights. Lightly tanned skin. Her eyes were a kaleidoscope of colors that seemed to shift with the light. One moment they looked green, the next moment they flashed hazel.

  She took my breath away.

  She wore a tailored skirt tastefully hemmed above the knees, but not too short. Silk blouse. Black high heels.

  She extended a perfect hand with perfect red-polished nails. I caught a whiff of her perfume.

  “Mr. Savitch, I’m Morgan Lannen. I’m in charge of your account with our company.”

  I shook her warm hand, drinking in the sight of her.

  “Uh . . . hi . . . um . . .”

  Morgan brushed off my verbal stumbling. She seemed used to stunned reactions from men.

  “I’d like to go over with you the current status of your assets and discuss some possible future allocations along with their potential risk assessments.”

  She stopped and looked at me with those color-shifting eyes. I noted her eyeliner, mascara . . . the smell of her perfume . . .

  “If that’s okay with you?”

  “What? Sure! Come on in. Would you like something to drink? Let’s go to the library.”

  -+-

  We spent the next two hours discussing my finances. I don’t remember much. I just remember her.

  We were interrupted when the elevator dinged and Jacob walked into the library a moment later. His jaw dropped at the sight of her.

  We stood up from the desk, where we’d been near one another, shoulders touching, going over her vid sheet filled with data about my investments. I made the introductions and she shook Jacob’s hand.

  He didn’t say much, just kept staring slack-jawed at her.

  “Well, I’d better be going. I’d like to continue our discussion, Marcus, if I may. Are you free for lunch tomorrow?”

  “Sure!”

  “There’s a café over on Jones Street. . .”

  “I know it!”

  “Meet you there at one?”

  “Sure!”

  She shook my hand, shook Jacob’s again, and we followed her to the elevator.

  When the doors closed and it whisked her away, Jacob shook himself, as if snapping out of a trance.

  “Dude! You can’t let Dee Dee know about her. She’ll kill her. Then she’ll kill you.”

  -+-

  Of course, I did let Dee Dee know about Morgan. As the afternoon wore on, and her lingering spell started to dwindle, I got to thinking. Why would the company bother sending someone now, after I’d inherited the account months ago?

  Other questions began popping up in my mind as I mulled over her visit. How had we managed to be sitting so close to one another when Jacob walked in? I’d jumped out of my seat, feeling a little guilty when he showed up.

  When had we switched over to a first name basis? When she introduced herself, I was “Mr. Savitch.” When she left, I was “Marcus.”

  I leaned back in reflection and couldn’t decide if I was being paranoid or not. I decided Dee Dee would be able to tell. She’s smarter about these things than I am, I thought. I suppose women can sort these things out better than men, generally speaking.

  Around the dinner table that night, I told Dee Dee and the boys about Morgan’s visit. When he realized I wasn’t going to keep it a secret after all, Jacob enthusiastically contributed what he could to the story.

  “She was hot! Oh my gosh, I’ve never seen anything like her! You should have seen Marc. It was like she had a glamour spell on him or something.”

  Dee Dee looked at me and raised a questioning eyebrow.

  I smiled, embarrassed. “She was fairly attractive. But this is supposed to be a business lunch, not a date. Why don’t you come along with me?”

  Dee Dee leaned back, chewing the last bite of her food, a thoughtful look on her face.

  “I have class during that time. But I think I’ll skip it and go with you instead.”

  -+-

  I don’t know a lot about women. Being raised an orphan, and at an early age sent to Redwood as a Servant of the State, I hadn’t spent much time at all with females until I met Dee Dee. Redwood City had virtually no women, just a handful showing up briefly on tourist jaunts. They weren’t allowed to stay. They were given a cursory tour of the city, then whisked away on the next outbound spaceship.

  But despite my inexperience even I could sense the tension between Morgan and Dee Dee, although most of it went unspoken.

  We showed up at the café to find Morgan already seated. She’d dressed more casually, but still looked stunning: her skirt shorter, red high heels instead of black, tighter blouse. She smiled warmly when she saw me, showing perfect white teeth. Then she saw Dee Dee and her smile dropped.

  Dee Dee grabbed my arm as we approached the table, in a possessive gesture.

  I made the introductions. They shook hands with one another, but their greetings seemed cool. Frosty, even.

  “How do you do?”

  “So pleased to meet you.”

  I flagged the waiter and we put in an order of sandwiches and iced tea. The ladies hardly touched their food the entire time. I finished my sandwich and chips, then started on Dee Dee’s
chips and her glass of iced tea. I decided to prompt Morgan to discuss my finances, which was the point of the whole meeting in the first place.

  She took out her vid sheet, then stopped.

  “Are you sure you want to examine these figures with Ms. Fremont present? Some of the content is highly personal.”

  “Sure, it’s fine. Dee Dee already knows most everything anyway.”

  Reluctantly, Morgan opened a spreadsheet and began a very curt, and short, discussion of my proposed future asset allocation.

  When she finished, I said, “Well, if this is what the company recommends, I’ll go along with it. Y’all have certainly done a good job with the money so far. Actually, I don’t see how these allocations are all that different from the past, so it looks fine to me.”

  Morgan nodded, and an awkward silence fell over the table.

  Then she jumped up from her chair.

  “Oh! I forgot. I have another appointment that had to be scheduled close to this one. I’ve got to go. Thank you for your time, Marcus!”

  She grabbed her vid sheet and quickly walked away.

  The tension left the table with her. I noticed Dee Dee visibly relaxing. She even took a little bite out of her sandwich.

  “Well, what do you think?”

  I meant about the asset allocations, but that’s not how Dee Dee took it.

  “Get rid of her, Marc. She’s up to no good.”

  -+-

  I forgot about Morgan as the semester rolled on, tests and papers piled up, and other things pulled for my attention and time.

  Then one day I stopped at my favorite Coffee Cart for a cup of Black Gold.

  “I don’t got no more coming in, Mr. Savitch. This was the last batch from New Indonesia. I ain’t selling it to nobody but you now. I’m keeping it for you and you only, ’till it’s all gone.”

  “Thanks, Carl. But you’re going to charge me full price. No freebies.”

  “Sure thing, Mr. Savitch.”

  A woman standing nearby turned around. It was Morgan.

  “Marcus! How are you?”

  Talking to her was pleasant. Easy. Before I knew it, half an hour had passed until we parted ways.

  Spending time with her was almost a magical experience. I thought back to what Jacob had said about a “glamour spell.” Maybe there was something to that.

  I found Jeremy out by the pool when I got home and talked to him about it.

  “Albert Einstein supposedly once said something to the effect of, if you put your hand on a hot stove for a minute it seems like an hour. If you talk with a pretty woman for an hour, it seems like a minute. And that explains how time is relative.”

  I nodded, trying to process his statement. It seemed deep, somehow, yet didn’t help my situation.

  -+-

  Over the next few weeks, Morgan kept showing up again and again. Sometimes she waited near the exit to my classroom’s building. Sometimes she found me near the Coffee Cart. Always she’d show up somewhere I happened to be, but only at times when Dee Dee wasn’t around.

  She also started getting close, physically. It got to the point every time we met she’d stand so close we were touching. I found myself backing up a couple times. She’d move back in closer.

  My paranoia grew a little more each time Morgan showed up. Finally, I decided to take action by confronting her directly.

  The next day I saw her near the Coffee Cart. Not a coincidence, I thought. She knows my schedule.

  “Morgan, I can’t keep seeing you like this.”

  She stepped in closer, until the front of her body pressed against mine. She smiled, with a glint in her eye.

  “What do you mean? Should we go somewhere more private?”

  I stepped back, trying to open up some distance.

  “I mean, I don’t want to see you anymore, Morgan. I’m in a committed relationship.”

  She moved closer to me again.

  “Commitments come. Commitments go. It’s not like you’re married or anything. I’d really like to get to know you better, Marcus.”

  She started to kiss me, leaning in her head toward mine. I turned away at the last moment, and she ended up kissing me on the cheek instead of my lips.

  “Morgan, you don’t want to be with me. You don’t want to be like me.”

  She pouted from the failed kiss.

  “Yes I do. I want to be with you. I want to be like you.”

  “That’s just crazy talk.”

  I put my hand on her shoulder and gently pushed her away.

  “Why would you want to be like this? There’s nothing great about it, believe me.”

  “Are you kidding, Marcus? Eternal youth! Forever young! To look like we look now forever? And with your money, life will be great.”

  “Nobody knows for sure how long I’ll live, and we won’t know about the youth thing until a lot more time has passed. You’ve been reading too many teen mags.”

  “I know I want to be with you, Marcus. Forever.”

  She moved in close and wrapped her arms around me.

  I tried to push her away again.

  “I’m in love with someone else. I need you to leave me alone.”

  I untangled myself from her, and walked quickly away. She followed close.

  At that moment, Jeremy walked around a corner. He waved and I headed his direction.

  Morgan stopped, lingered for a while as we talked, then faded in the distance as we walked away.

  He glanced over his shoulder and smiled.

  “Looks like I just saved you from Potiphar’s wife.”

  “Yeah, something like that.”

  -+-

  We talked it over that night at supper. I told the triplets and Dee Dee everything that happened.

  Jacob was mad about her comments regarding money.

  “She’s a gold digger! Imagine a rich attractive seductress who lives forever. This is a joint property planet. Everything you have would be hers. She’d kill you off or find some other way to get you out of the picture, and then she’d be set for life. A long, long life.”

  Dee Dee was furious. Her face flushed red in anger, and sparks seemed to fly from her eyes. When she finally calmed down to the point she could talk, she indicated she was more concerned about Morgan’s comments regarding eternal youth.

  “It’s a good thing you didn’t kiss her. What effect would your saliva have on her?”

  I hadn’t thought about that. Dee Dee had been the only girl I’d ever kissed. And she was already hematophagous.

  “I mean, you and I got infected from bites. But how was the infection transmitted? I know with rabies, the virus is transmitted through the host’s saliva. If you or I kissed someone on the lips, would they become like us, too? Or would it need to go into their bloodstream directly?”

  “That’s a question for Physician Kumai.”

  When we finished supper, and as the maid bot cleaned up the table, I sent a note to the financial management company asking them to remove Morgan from my account.

  That didn’t stop her from trying to speak to me again. Over the next couple of days, she confronted me when I stepped out of class, when I left Price Faculty Hall, and other times.

  Once I literally ran away from her.

  “Marcus, stop! I just want to talk!”

  She ran after me. Eventually I lost her in the park where Andrea’s team played Capture the Flag.

  I stopped to catch my breath. This must be what the triplets feel like when girls are chasing them, I thought.

  When I returned to the suite, I put in a call to Counselor Kotov.

  “Yes, Marcus, what can I do for you?”

  “I have a stalker on campus, ma’am.”

  I filled her in briefly on the details. Kotov looked some things up on her terminal, nodded thoughtfully.

  “I’ll take care of this, Marcus. Ms. Lannen won’t be bothering you again.”

  I don’t know how Kotov did it, but I never saw Morgan on campus after that.r />
  Chapter Eleven

  Dee Dee and I asked Physician Kumai if someone could become hematophagous when we kissed them.

  “I don’t think so. I think your saliva has to enter their bloodstream directly, like through a bite. However, it’s not something we want to experiment on, in case I’m wrong.”

  We nodded in understanding.

  “So, I suggest you don’t kiss anybody, other than each other.”

  We nodded again.

  “No problem there,” I said.

  Walking back home from the Health Science Center that day, holding hands, I proposed.

  “You know, we should get married.”

  Dee Dee squeezed my hand.

  “What?”

  “I know we’re considered young to get married. I know most people like to wait until after they’re established. But I’m already rich thanks to Kalinowski. And we’re both stuck being ‘vampires.’ And I love you. And you love me. It makes all the sense in the world. I mean, why wait any longer?”

  Plus, it might help stymie some of these other issues like people chasing us, I thought to myself. Morgan and others like her might be dissuaded if we were married.

  We walked along a bit further. Dee Dee staring off in the distance, lost in thought.

  I stopped walking. She stopped and turned toward me.

  “What do you think?”

  I got down on one knee and held her hands in mine, looking up into her beautiful eyes.

  “Diane Fremont, will you marry me?”

  She giggled, pulled me up and closer, wrapped her arms around me and kissed me on the lips.

  “Of course I will.”

  -+-

  We planned the wedding for the day after the last day of school. We reserved the All Faiths Chapel, and the girls helped Dee Dee nail things down to the last detail, from wedding dress, bridesmaid outfits, flowers, and tons of other nitpicking things I had no idea went into a wedding.

  Dee Dee wanted Charlie to be her maid of honor, so I preempted a fight among the triplets by choosing Jason as my best man.

  “It’s nothing against you guys,” I reasoned with Jacob and Jeremy. “It’s just that, if we go by girlfriend, boyfriend, then Jason’s girlfriend will go down the aisle first. Everybody will be paired off on either side of the altar. So, Jason will be the best man since Charlie is the maid of honor.”