At Death's Door (Wraith's Rebellion Book 1)

by Aya DeAniege

  “I’m sure mortals thank you.”

  “I’ve been told that I drive like an old grandfather. Only in this car, however. The old girl has been through a lot. May I walk you up?”

  “Walk me up?” I asked.

  “To your apartment, may I walk you up?”

  “Oh, of course, come on up.”

  I knew a great deal about Quin and his past thanks to the hours we had spent talking. He, however, knew very little about me. I hadn’t shared my background with him.

  “I have a roommate, but she’s out of town,” I said as I got out of the car.

  As the door slipped out of my fingers, it occurred to me just how that sounded. It sounded like I was assuring him that there would be no one upstairs. My words might have even been taken as an invite.

  “You don’t live with your boyfriend?” he asked, setting his arms on the roof of the car as he peered across it to me.

  “I don’t have a boyfriend. I have a cat.”

  “You can have a boyfriend and a cat.”

  “Okay, I have two cats. That I may or may not dress up in little outfits for my holiday pictures.”

  I sounded like a spinster.

  He was quiet a very long time, then he said, “I like cats. Lead the way?”

  “What? Oh, right, come on,” I grumbled.

  As we walked towards the apartment building, I struggled to come up with something else to say.

  The building looked nice from the outside. It was U-shaped, with a courtyard down the center. Three doors on the front, one on either branch of the U, and one in the middle. The two doors on either side would open but often didn’t shut properly again. We were only supposed to use the middle door.

  Smokers, especially late at night, would use the side doors. There were two people on the left side as I walked up, gossiping drunkenly as they smoked.

  Perhaps they weren’t drunk. Some in the building had abused substances all their lives. It showed in how they moved and spoke, the wasted look of their faces. They still used, so it was hard to tell if they were wasted until they started getting agitated.

  Nice people when sober, though.

  “If you don’t have a man, whose scent is on you?” he asked. “Do you have a fuck buddy? Not the type I took you for.”

  “Smell?” I asked. I looked down before I recalled that I had borrowed items. “Oh, the shoes and purse are my roommate’s.”

  “That means that’s not quite your scent,” he said.

  I swore he sounded pleased.

  Look up vampires and smell.

  Wait, was there any point in that?

  I fumbled with my keys for a moment before I got them into the lock and opened the front door. The building was quiet at that time of night. Most mortals were in bed, for a good reason.

  For probably the third time that night, I cursed not wearing a watch. I had no actual clue what time it was despite looking at my phone.

  It was one of those times, where I looked at my phone and even looked right at the time, yet it hadn’t registered.

  The front lobby of the apartment was relatively clean. That could be expected of the place. They often cleaned it and tried to keep the elevator clean as well. Visitors and prospective renters got a decent view.

  Everything was painted a creamy white colour. The paint looked old thanks to how much yellow was in it, even though it had been done only a few weeks earlier. The floor was an old linoleum, dark brown in colour. There was a carpet leading from the door, to the elevator to encourage people to wipe their feet.

  Against the wall that held the outer door, there were radiators. The whole building had radiator heat. I heard that could be annoying, but I was on the top floor, and all the heat rose up from the other floors. In the winter, it was quite cozy. In the summer way too hot.

  Atop the radiator was a pile of flyers. The flyers were perpetually there, but always the most recent ones. The landlord cleaned them out each week, and each week they returned. Sometimes they ended up scattered across the floor of the entrance way.

  I led Quin onto the elevator and hit the button. Up we went to the top floor in silence. He made no comment on the smell of urine in the elevator or the graffiti on the walls. Not even on the cockroach that scuttled out of the crack in the corner.

  The cockroach was new. Normally they avoided the elevator.

  I knew he saw it, though. His head turned and then followed its motion across the floor.

  I did notice how he didn’t lean on the back wall, or touch anything as the elevator moved. His hands remained firmly in his pockets.

  While he didn’t look disgusted, there was a certain something on his face. Like he wanted to say something but was biting his tongue.

  Sure, vampires had probably all lived with pests at some point. It wasn’t exactly possible to avoid them in ancient history.

  Rats and mice and fleas, on and on.

  That was something to ask about, but I was afraid of insulting him. Instead, I stared awkwardly at the elevator doors, struggling to come up with something to say.

  There was a smudge on the door that may have been blood. Hopefully, it was blood, the smell of urine was so overpowering in the small space that I couldn’t tell.

  Dried blood or shit, someone in the building had a bad trip, either way.

  I always seemed to forget the state of my home until I was on my way into the building with a visitor. Like I didn’t think about it, or at the very least tried hard not to.

  “It’s a starter apartment,” I said.

  “I see that, bedbugs as well?” he asked as the doors opened onto my floor.

  He almost sounded casual about it, like we were discussing dinner plans. Downtrodden mortals, or did he not think it was that bad because he had seen worse before?

  “All over the damned place. They spray one apartment, and the pests run to another, then back out when they give in and spray the next one. You get respite about three months at a time.”

  “Diatomaceous earth and a steamer can help with that. Borax with the roaches, the cats won’t help with that, however.”

  “I’m surprised you aren’t commanding me to move.”

  “While it is another cliché, I am resisting that urge. This is your home, and I do not own you. That does not mean I will not offer friendly advice. Unless you want me to swoop in and save you from this?”

  “I’m not dying, just living in a situation that is uncomfortable and out of my control for the moment.”

  He smiled and motioned to the open elevator doors.

  I stepped off, and he came directly behind me. He looked back at the doors, a frown creasing his brow.

  “It’s probably stuck again,” I said.

  “I’d suggest taking a bat to it, but I suspect they simply will not fix it. There are stairs, yes?”

  Because the elevator was on the end of the apartments, it opened onto a little area. Every floor looked exactly alike. Sometimes the elevator would open on random floors, and I’d get off on the wrong one by accident. They didn’t label any of the floors, but when the building was only four floors high, I suppose it doesn’t matter as much.

  I walked around the bend and motioned behind me, to the street side of the apartment building. Then I motioned down the hallway towards my apartment.

  My place was smack in the middle of the floor. Halfway between the elevator and stairs on the other side. It also faced inward on a little courtyard. My window overlooked the room of an elderly man who wasn’t quite right.

  Many mornings I woke to him shouting obscenities as he smoked at his window.

  Class up the apartment. It’s so depressing.

  “Why didn’t we take the stairs?” Quin asked.

  “Little worried, this time of night, of what I might find,” I said. “The building is really quiet during the day because everyone is sleeping off whatever they took. A few of us are at work too. It’s the after hours that concern me.”

  “Ah,” was all he said
in response.

  “Are you resisting the urge to tell me that you’d protect me?” I asked.

  “I am,” he said. He reached up and stroked his beard with a thumb as he seemed to consider his next words carefully. “There’s a time, a place, and a woman to make that offer to. This is not it. Are you a social justice warrior, or just a feminist?”

  “I believe in equality, why?”

  “Whining about babies threw me off,” he muttered.

  “That wasn’t—you can’t just casually toss in baby murdering whenever you want,” I said. “And why are you asking?”

  “There are different approaches to wooing various political beliefs,” Quin said.

  “You’re not doing it to avoid a social justice warrior?”

  “Are they bad now? For me they’re a new title, sometimes it takes me a while to catch up.”

  “Bullshit.”

  He shrugged and offered nothing else in verbal response.

  I couldn’t tell if he was trying to be subtle and failing, or if he was cutting to the core of who I was rather than leading up to it.

  I suppose it was only fair. I had been asking him uncomfortable questions all night. Perhaps he was just returning the favour, to put us on even ground.

  I turned to the hallway that led to my apartment and grimaced.

  The walls were painted in a faded purple over top of that creamy white. The purple was stencilled on in a floral print. The stencilling had been done sloppily. There were splotches all over, but at least it had been done straight.

  The hallways had always reminded me of an old woman’s house.

  The lighting overhead cast a yellow light, which made the whole thing look like it was coated with twenty years of cigarette smoke, which may have actually been the case. No one smoked in the hallways any longer, but I knew it had been brought up a time or two.

  Underfoot the carpet was almost threadbare. It was worn out and hadn’t been washed in years. Vacuumed and coated in some chemical powder, yes, but not cleaned. There were stains and spots all down it.

  As I walked down the hallway something felt wrong, apart, different, moved. It all flooded my mind as I came into sight of my apartment door.

  Kicked in.

  Not even just open, the door had been brutally beaten on. It had been splintered and stood open, the doorknob barely hanging on.

  Someone must have taken a battering ram to it. The thing was, no one in the building would file a complaint if they heard thumps or screams. Loud music, television at full volume, sure. But if there was pounding and smashing, nothing ever came of it.

  Quin was past me in a moment, pushing me back against the opposite wall as he went into the apartment. I stood in shock, the only thing that held me up was that wall.

  I had nothing to steal. The designer clothing, on the other hand?

  My roommate would kill me if we got robbed because someone knew I was going to be out all night, or if her work laptop or gaming laptop had been taken.

  Quin returned in a matter of moments.

  “Call the police,” he said.

  “My cats.”

  “Helen, call the police.”

  “But my cats!”

  “Helen!” he snapped. “Call the police!”

  My hands shook as I pulled out my cell phone and dialed the number. Quin stood firmly between me and the door as I explained. The moment ‘vampire’ came out of my mouth, in explanation and to who I was with, I heard the change in the operator’s voice.

  I just wanted in my apartment. Fluffy and Scruffy were all I had left in the world.

  I didn’t name them. I had simply rescued and then loved them.

  The operator made me stay on the line until the police arrived. Two OPP showed up. That is to say, two Ontario Provincial Police showed up. It can be a big surprise for tourists and even people moving from other provinces, but the RCMP weren’t everywhere. I couldn’t say the last time I saw an RCMP officer in the city, but I may have just not been paying attention.

  I’m not comfortable giving their names or badge numbers. The whole inclusion area is a little murky, but I did obtain permission to include them. I simply don’t want anyone being mean to them for doing their jobs, as I know can happen. Some might say they were too callous or forgot to ask something.

  Most this time, I spent staring off, trying to focus on what was going on but finding myself unable to pay attention to much. I was numb and didn’t know what to do with myself. I briefly considered calling my mother, but that would be foolish. She didn’t know where I lived for a good reason.

  The officers asked what happened and if either of us had touched anything. Quin responded that he had opened the door, and indicated where on the door he had touched.

  Then the questions began. When did I arrive, how had everything been, had I been in the apartment? They interviewed Quin as well, pulling him down the hallway at his request. Whatever Quin said, I saw the officer stiffen.

  I turned to the one who was still trying to question me.

  “I have cats in there, and he won’t say anything about them,” I said, my voice quivering.

  “Wait here,” the officer said.

  The man went into the apartment and was back moments later. He hadn’t been in there any longer than Quin had been. When he returned, his face was a mask. I couldn’t read into what he had seen inside.

  “How many cats did you have?” he asked.

  “Two.”

  “Then why are there four bodies?”

  “My cats are dead?” I shouted, bursting into tears.

  It wasn’t the pretty kind of crying either. It was the sobbing and making loud noises at the same time, face scrunched up, body trembling crying. There was nothing elegant about me in those moments.

  Even after a break in, you wouldn’t worry too much about a cat. Who the hell would do such a thing? My cats were skittish. They hid from visitors. Some days they even hid from my roommate.

  Arms drew me close. Despite my tears, or perhaps because of them, Quin pulled me towards himself. He held me as I cried.

  “Er, Helen?” I heard the landlord say.

  I sniffled and turned to him. The man sheepishly set my cat carrier at my feet.

  “A pipe burst shortly after you left. We removed the animals so they wouldn’t walk between the apartments while we cut into the wall and checked on things,” he said. “Seems Edith’s cats were put in your apartment by mistake. She’s a floor down, visiting her family. Is it possible to retrieve them?”

  I blinked down at the carrier as Scruffy meowed at me. Fluffy stuck her head against the end of the carrier and started meowing loudly. She had abandonment issues and probably thought I had left her for good, probably.

  “This is a crime scene, no one can enter,” the officer said sternly. “How many cats did Edith have?”

  “Four.”

  My eyes went wider as I realized what was going on. While my cats were all right, my downstairs neighbour would be coming home to some terrible news. She was such a sweet old lady.

  “We realized the mistake when the pet sitter came down to the office with these two.”

  “And when were you in the apartment?”

  “Oh, about seven thirty to eight. We locked the door on the way out. Called Erin, only contact on the lease. She said it was okay.”

  “Who is Erin?”

  “My roommate, she’s out of town for the week,” I said. “She has a boyfriend, but they’re on good terms.”

  “We’ll need her contact information. If they broke up while she was away, this could be a lover scorned thing. Certainly, would explain the events.”

  He hesitated before saying ‘events.’ That hesitance made me wonder just what was waiting in the apartment. How many pieces had the cats been in?

  “You can’t stay here tonight, the lock is broken so it wouldn’t be safe, for starters,” the officer said. “We’ve got a crime scene crew coming in. They’ll be processing for some time. So,
you and the cats should go somewhere else for the night.”

  “Oh, okay,” I said.

  My mind was still reeling. I felt weak at my very core.

  I had no place to go.

  “You can stay with me,” Quin said. “Don’t even argue, I know you can’t afford a hotel room. You can sleep on the couch.”

  “But the cats,” I said.

  “I told you, I like cats. Have one, in fact. So already have litter and food.”

  “You have a cat?” I asked.

  He had said that he hadn’t ever owned another pet after his dog. A cat could serve as a mouser, and therefore not be a pet, but I would have thought he would mention them alongside horses.

  “Yes,” he said, frowning. “They can live up to twenty years and make good listeners. You can’t exactly gossip with other vampires. They’re all a bunch of tattle tales.”

  “Great that that’s worked out,” the officer said. “Now just going through, I saw a television, game console, two laptops, money sitting on the counter. It doesn’t look like this was a robbery. It does look like the person was trying to find something. The laptops are mangled, bookshelves ripped apart. Can you think of anyone who would be going through your apartment looking for something?”

  “No, I don’t think Erin’s boyfriend would be going through the books. I swear he thinks they’re paperweights or decorations.”

  “That camera work?” his partner said, motioning down the hallway towards the elevator.

  “It’s on the fritz,” the landlord said.

  Had been broken for two months, stolen the month before that, and unplugged two days after installation. I think the cameras had worked for a whole of three days, but they advertised a secured building.

  Half the time the locks didn’t work either, so the front door was just propped open. If you came around before nine, there were usually people hanging around out front smoking cigarettes. They let anyone in, assuming the strangers were visitors for someone in the building.

  “Okay, and you placed the wrong animals in the apartment, resulting in the death of four pets not related to this incident.”

  The landlord went a funny sort of colour. “They all look the same to me.”

  “Those are all black. These two are brown and grey, are you colour blind? That’s a serious question, not an accusation.”