by Martha Woods
“Hey,” I asked, “Where did you two meet?”
“I was friends with Tariq’s wife, though I floated around in my earlier years. I always belonged here with the clan but I wanted to go out and experience things of my own, but she was determined not to have me go completely alone.” If I looked closely I could swear that she was getting misty eyed, but I wasn’t going to be the one to bring it up. “We travelled around together for a while before she decided to go her own way, I guess that she had finally caught the same bug that I did, and wanted to go and find her own kind of adventure. I went around for a bit more, but eventually I came back here. Imagine my surprise when not only has she reached the clan before I did, but she has a new husband in tow? Now I was not enthused by that at all.”
“That’s putting it lightly,” Tariq laughed, “I managed to win everyone over quickly, but you… you were like a brick wall. In fact I think I would have had less of a chance of getting hurt if I headbutted a brick wall over and over again rather than trying to speak more than five words to you.”
“You two didn’t get along?” Damon asked, “I’m… having a hard time believing that.”
“She was my best friend,” She said, “And here was this random guy who had come out of nowhere and swept her completely off her feet, what else was I supposed to think other than ‘I’m losing my best friend?’”
“Uh…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Literally anything else?”
“Come on Damon,” I said, “I don’t think any of us are in any position to talk about what we do when we’re jealous, do you?”
“That’s a… good point,” He said, “Doesn’t mean that I can’t find it funny though.”
“Oh definitely,” I laughed, smiling up at Christine, “Sounds like you were being protective huh? What did she think of the two of you being at each other’s throats?”
“She wasn’t thrilled about it, to put it lightly. Eventually she forced us to sit alone in a room and actually talk through our issues, it was the most embarrassing thing that I’ve ever been put through in my life.”
Tariq chuckled, “She came this close to strangling me, I’m one hell of a witch but… what was I going to do, incinerate my wife’s best friend? That wouldn’t be something that I could just explain away with a shrug and a massage.”
“But then we got to talking, and he didn’t seem like such a bad guy actually, a little on the overly nice side, but you could at least tell it was genuine. I’ve met way too many people who just ooze with that fake happiness, way too slimy for me to tolerate for too long at a time.”
Overly nice was the right word to describe Tariq, almost to the point that he’d been hurt for it, but it was rare that you could say that about someone and have it be a genuine compliment. He was just one of those guys who wanted to see the best things for you, whether he’d known you for a minute or a year, he was just devoted to people. Unless you were one of the people threatening someone he cared about, in which case you were liable to wake up with half your body missing, but if you managed to piss off one of the nicest people in the world to the point that they hurt you like that you probably deserved every bit of it.
There wasn’t really much point in saying anything to agree with Christine however, it was obvious that everyone was in agreement. Hell, who in the world could say that they’ve never run across someone who just crawled underneath their skin in the exact wrong way, like your very own walking, talking parasite? I know I’d definitely dated at least a couple of them in college, and trust me, that was definitely a part of my past that I wasn’t keen to think about any time soon.
“Well, looks like this is where I’ll let you go,” Christine said, slipping away from Tariq and stepping back to look at all of us, “You should have an hour or so more of darkness, don’t get caught out in the middle of it because you’ve gotten distracted. And Tariq… bring Cara around here sometime, I’d like to be able to meet her personally, I want to see if she finds me scary or not.”
“She’ll probably think that you’re adorable,” He laughed, nodding his thanks and pinching his temple in irritation, “Now, as much as I would like to stand here and talk more, I’ve got one hell of a headache that I’m going to try to sleep off. Good night to all of you.”
Watching him walk off into the night was definitely a sad sight to see, if his headaches were anything like the ones I used to get back when I was an investigator I didn’t envy him right now, they were enough to make you want to drown in aspirin for the rest of your life. Cara would be there for him tonight but… well, this was an ongoing problem rather than something that could be solved in one night, this is probably only the first of many headaches to come. So, not so great all around.
“As for the three of you,” Christine said, looking us up and down with a small smile growing larger across her face, “I’ve got to say, I’m interested in seeing how you work through all of this. I’ve heard the stories, don’t get me wrong, I’ve heard the stories, but I’ve been away trying to find more of our allies every time that something has happened here. I’m very interested in seeing if you’re all as impressive as the stories tell, or if that’s just an exaggeration. Which do you think it is?”
“Well...” Damon trailed off, glancing at Vincent and I before shrugging. “I’m not gonna put words in their mouths, but I’d say that yeah, we’re pretty fucking good. A whole hotel of dead hunters can’t really say much else right?”
“Mm, that was one of the most popular stories going around.” The grin that passed over her this time actually gave me chills, and I was quickly reminded of the fact that vampires weren’t the only creatures in the alliance that had a bloodlust. “I’d like to hear the three of you tell it someday, rumors are all well and good but… there’s something special about hearing the details from someone who was there, who actually did these things and shed all that blood...I’m sorry, it’s just very exciting.”
“No offense taken,” I said, maybe a little too quickly, “Maybe after all of this is handled we can get together and make a night of it, have a few drinks and swap war stories, how does that sound?”
“That sounds wonderful,” She giggled, “And to think, some of us weren’t sure about whether we should actually join this alliance or not. That’s enough to make you feel really stupid isn’t it?”
“I know right? You get some new friends to watch your back and you get to have even more fights, what’s not to love?”
“Oh I like you, I think we’re going to be very good friends…” Checking her watch, she waved at the air, obviously dismissing us. “Alright, we’ve pushed it enough. Get home before most of you die.”
That was something that I was more than happy to do, a full night of traipsing around the city trying to fix everyone else’s problems could be draining on your mind, not like that would help me sleep when we got home though. I was so caught up in my thoughts that I barely even processed waving goodbye to her and sitting myself in the driver’s seat, only snapping back to myself when Damon took his seat next to me and laid his hand on my shoulder.
“Hey, you alright?”
“What?” I asked, shaking my head to clear the fog that had taken over temporarily, “Yeah, yeah I’m fine it’s just… a lot to deal with you know? As if it wasn’t bad enough that we have an incredibly powerful and intimidating enemy heading our way, but we have to find out that they’re perfectly fueled by hate and revenge. I guess I was just hoping that we were done with everyone taking everything so personally.”
“This is the world of the Paranormals Amy,” Vincent sighed from the back seat, “Sorry to say, but we tend to take everything personally, it’s something that we need to work on.”
“I’ll say, you can’t just keep throwing hands at everyone who looks at you the wrong way, you’ll never get anything done that way.” Grunting, I turned the key in the ignition with enough force to almost snap it in half. “And to think, all the work that we’ve put into this alliance really means nothing
across the country. Sure, everyone is reaching out and telling their friends, and some of those friends are pretty keen on the idea, but then you get these stupid shifters and their idiot leader who just want to take the opportunity to settle a score for something that was a lifetime ago!”
“On some level, I can really sympathize with them.” Vincent tapped his fingers again the door, staring up and watching the street lights passing us by. “Which of us has ever not had that feeling, that you need to avenge the people that you lost. I’ve felt it, Damon made a living from it, even you Amy, even you weren’t shedding any tears over some of the people that we’ve been a part of destroying.”
“The difference is that the victims that we were avenging were innocent, they never did anything to anyone else and they were repaid for that by being butchered horribly. These shifters treated the local towns like a killing floor, then when everyone else turned around and decided to stop them they have the gall to think that they were the ones who were wronged?” I shook my head. “No, that’s just not right.”
“We don’t know that to a certainty, that story that we heard tonight could be just that: a story. Unless we actually ask everyone, including them, what happened, we’ll never have the full picture. I’ve fought in enough battles to know that not everyone is telling the truth all the time…”
“What, you think that they could have been lying tonight?”
“I’m not saying that they’re lying to… I don’t know, make them seem like an even bigger enemy than they are, but come on. They’re coming to us for help, they know we don’t trust them, and they have nowhere else to go...” Vincent shrugged, inclining his head like he was projecting his understanding onto us. “If you were going to someone for help and you’d done some bad things, don’t you think that you might… leave those out a little, make yourself look better so you don’t stand such a huge chance of being rejected?”
“Make themselves look better…” Much as I didn’t want to think about it, that was definitely a possibility. My bullshit detector was pretty good, I’d been able to sniff out when someone was lying more than once in cases over the years, but I wasn’t infallible. Rick had managed to successfully hide everything from me until it was almost too late, and even though I wasn’t looking to have a repeat of that whole incident I knew that it was definitely something that could happen. No one ever wants to be lied to, it just happens, and sometimes it works.
“Either way,” Damon said, “For now we’ve made our bed. We’ll keep an eye on them as everything goes on, and if it turns out that we were wrong then we can just cut them loose, with the numbers that we have that should be no trouble at all. Thinking any harder about it won’t do us any good, it can all wait for tomorrow.”
He was right, ever the voice of reason that he tended to be. Getting home and getting some rest would do us a world of good, we could think about how everything was going to shit later on, once we have some coffee and energy back in our systems. In fact, I was going to start relaxing right now, with the street lights passing us by and the cool night air drifting in through the window, it was easy to start to forget about everything that was wrong and everything that was bothering me, including some things regarding people sitting in this very car. But that could wait until we got home, for now, I was just going to turn the radio on.
* * *
“Home sweet home,” I groaned, tossing my keys into the bowl on the table and collapsing into the couch, feeling all the exhaustion just leech out of my body and into the gentle fabric wrapping around me. All the worry was starting to come back now that I didn’t even have the energy to move anymore, let alone block out thoughts, but the feeling of the couch shifting beside me as they took their places on either side of me did wonders for my nerves. “You know, we really should do this more often.”
“Organize for all-out war?” Damon laughed, sinking into the cushions behind him, “I’m gonna have to pass on that, if that’s alright.”
“Not what I meant Damon, you know that.” I turned with a groan, not having to look behind me to know that Vincent was staring at him as well. “You know what I’m talking about. This, right here, the three of us sitting together and just… being, that’s what I want.”
“I want it too,” He said, “Of course I do, there isn’t anything else in the world that I love more!”
“Then… why do you keep leaving us?”
He didn’t know what to say, matter of fact the expression that came over him looked like I had reared my hand back and smacked him clean across the cheek, and to be honest it felt a little bit like I had. It wasn’t a question that I’d wanted to ask, hell it wasn’t a question that I’d wanted to think about, but that didn’t change that it was one big, dirty obstacle between us, the elephant in the room that just refused to leave no matter how much we ignored it. From the intake of breath and the supportive hand on my shoulder, Vincent was in agreement.
“Please Damon, don’t try to deflect,” He said, stopping Damon mid breath, “You’ve been distracted, even angry over the last months, it’s not hard to see it. You wear your emotions on your sleeve so often that it’s rare that we don’t know exactly what you’re feeling, but what hurts is that you just want to pretend that everything is fine instead of actually talking to us about all of this.”
“Nothing’s going on though!” Damon said, far too defensively to be telling the truth, “Come on I just… can we just sit here and enjoy this, please?”
As much as I wanted to do that, and I really wanted to, you have no idea, I just couldn’t. Not when there was the chance to actually talk about what was happening between us, why we’d started to drift apart when everything looked like it was going to work out just fine. I couldn’t just lay back in his arms and pretend that this wasn’t stuff that was all happening right now, even if I felt good in the moment it would all come roaring back in time, and then where would I be? Alone again, and without the chance to speak to him like this.
“Damon… you know we love you, you know we care about you, but we can’t just keep… pretending like you’re ok. You haven’t been ok for a long time, and it all started when you died in that alleyway.” I laughed, not quite believing the words that had come out of my mouth, “Wow, that’s not something you hear every day, is it?”
But Vincent wasn’t laughing about it, and when I remembered the state that Damon had been in when Vincent had given him his blood I stopped laughing as well. No kidding that Damon wasn’t alright, he’d been lying beaten and shot to the point of death in some shitty alleyway in the ass end of this city, wounds that had been given to him by the man who had once been his best friend and the person that he in all likelihood would have died for. He’d gone into that cold, long dark ready to accept that his time had come, and because of our selfish need to have him back we had dragged him out into the muck once more and turned him into one of the creatures that he had spent his entire life destroying.
One look at his face and you could tell that all of this was racing through his mind, the feelings of fear, of betrayal, feelings that you could never help except to fight to keep them just under the surface, just deep enough that maybe you could fool yourself into thinking that you weren’t thinking them, but would come back to you right when you thought that you had finally gotten over everything.
“I… I…” Under normal circumstances it would have been worrying to see him speechless, but right now we figured it was best to give him time to think. Much as I didn’t want to think of it this way, we had more or less ambushed him with these questions, some time to get his answers together was only fair. “I don’t… I’m not angry at you, if that’s what you’re thinking. Am I pissed off? Sure, maybe I’m not having the greatest time not being able to ever look at the sun rise again. Am I annoyed? Yeah, maybe because now I’m so pale you could put me through a fucking printer, but angry? No, no I’m not angry.”
“Then why?” I asked, “Why haven’t you come to us? Why haven’t you told us any
thing? I just… I feel like we’re losing you Damon, and that’s exactly what we didn’t want to happen.”
“You’re not losing me,” He said, standing up and moving over to the window, “Not even close, I’m never going to leave as long as I can manage it. But… I guess that’s what I’m afraid of.”
“What are you afraid of?” Vincent asked, “Damon… what is it that you’re afraid of?”
“I don’t… I don’t know, ok? I don’t know why when I wake up and look at the two of you I start panicking, why I can almost feel my heart trying to beat when it’s never going to do that again. I don’t know why when we all talk about what we’re going to do in the future my throat gets tight and I can barely see straight, I don’t know why just looking at you two right now fills me with so much love and so much dread that I can barely stand!” Squeezing his temples between his palms, he let his back thump against the wall and let his body slide down to the ground, resting himself with his knees against his chest and his head in his hands. “I just… I don’t know why I’m afraid…”
Of all the things that I had expected I hadn’t been expecting… fear. Anger at how unfair this all was, anger at us for pushing it on him, but I never thought that when he looked at us that he would feel afraid. We were supposed to be each other’s safe haven, something that no matter what changed in the outside world would always pull through in the end, something that we could grab and hold onto for dear life when everything else was falling apart. I know that what we put him through was utterly traumatizing, I wouldn’t ever be able to imagine what it was like to be dying and then… not, but did that really make him fear us? In saving him had we just… made him afraid of everything?