by Aya DeAniege
“But you’re her Maker,” Quin said.
“It’s not ripping it off if he has to guess,” I said to Sasha.
“I’m the Great Maker, Quin,” she said just a little louder than she had said the previous bit.
Sasha turned to me as if to ask if that had been done the right way. I nodded in response and looked at Quin, who was frowning at Sasha.
“So?” he asked.
“So?” she asked. “I’ve lied all these years. I knew you were Wraith and… and you say so?”
“We all have our secrets, we all lie to one another. It’s the only way we can survive. So how does you being the Great Maker change anything?” he asked.
Sasha swallowed hard, then motioned to me. “She is either learning all of our powers or can do what the last vampire who touched her can do.”
“And you were the last one to touch me,” I said.
Sasha nodded. “You and I are going to take on Lu and Death. It’s a standing command. He can’t touch me. He might think he can as Death, but it’s not true.”
“You’re using me as bait,” I said.
“Yes. Death is riding the body of a mortal. A mortal body is subject to mortal rules. It’s even human. He’s no faster than a mortal and is just as vulnerable to vampiric powers. I need you to kill him before he snaps your neck.”
“He’d need a weapon to take off my head, but he has the tool.”
“It can’t be on his person. If it were, his mortal body would fail quickly. They’ll have it nearby, but not with them. Maybe even in a spelled box. Lu is readying himself. I think he means to start another sickness. He’s not going to risk carrying the tool when he needs to be at his strongest.”
“He thinks I’ve carried it about with me.”
“He always spreads it about,” Quin said. “The more points you start a fire at, the faster it consumes the wood pile. It’ll be here and possibly across the border. It’ll be made to circumvent the first world medical system, or to play off it.”
“I think they’re called MRSA,” Sasha said. “It was why we had to turn her. Why Balor has been trying to get a hold of you. Where is your phone?”
We walked back to the bench and searched for my purse. It was gone. Lu and Death must have taken it with them.
“Did you have a password on your voicemail?” I asked.
“Troy would have burned the phone,” Sasha said. “He’s a smart one, that one.”
“Why is my IT guy burning my phone?” Quin asked.
Sasha took in a long breath, held it for a moment and just looked at him. When he didn’t seem to get what she was trying to tell him with her eyes alone, she sighed out loudly.
“He was infected.”
“Damn it,” he said. “His mother is going to attempt to murder me.”
“So, Balor turned him,” Sasha said.
Quin stiffened, a hand smoothing down his shirt as he considered Sasha. He frowned at her.
“That’s illegal,” he said.
“It is, but baby vampires need baby vampires, and he was infected. We had to turn him to kill the infection, Balor was supposed to end him, but ran off to hide.”
“I told him that I could kill people with my mind!” Quin roared.
“I think he’s hoping you’ll calm down some and see that she needs a companion. The rest of the Council agree that you have a right, but encourage mercy. Showing Balor mercy, not Troy.”
“Troy was my stock!”
“He was. They couldn’t get a hold of you. They did what they had to, to protect mortals. The only difference being that Balor ran off afterwards.”
“I should kill Balor for what he did.”
“That is absolutely your right. On the other hand, you can ask for a hefty fine.”
“I’m rich beyond what I need,” Quin said.
“For her,” Sasha said, motioning to me. “A lift from the Council to make stock, maybe?”
“Oh,” suddenly Quin’s anger was gone. He considered me. “It was nice having someone going through the same things as me. But he’s too young, isn’t he?”
“A little baby-faced, but he’s lean as could be, no muscle on him. He’ll do fine. Might even fill out. Some of us have changed over the centuries.”
Quin continued to consider me. Finally, he made a sound at the back of his throat.
“I will take it into consideration. It’ll be a lot harder to find Balor if I don’t.”
“That’s true,” Sasha said. “So, last I heard, Margaret is at her house. You go do your thing, we will do our thing, and then we’ll meet back at Council Chambers and go from there, all right?”
“Don’t get her killed, Sasha.”
“I’m not planning on it.”
“Oh, can I borrow your phone?” Quin asked.
Sasha handed it over without comment. “As of dawn, Sasha DiLucrecia is dead, so have at it. I’m guessing you’re recording?”
He shrugged and handed me the other phone. “I’ll grab the tablet and see if I can get in contact with those in charge to get you a new one. I’m betting they’re going to want all of this.”
“Oh, I need that holder,” I said.
Quin pulled the broken tablet out of the holder. As he did so, the screen fell forward slightly. He grimaced and pushed it back into place with a finger.
I placed the phone into the holder, then put it around my neck. The new phone fit perfectly.
“Shouldn’t have called a duck a cow,” I muttered with a shake of my head.
“This backed up, though, that does not,” Quin said. “So be careful. I don’t want to act any of this out later because you lost it.”
“Well, maybe the one part,” I said with a smile.
He made a sound at the back of his throat.
“She means sex, Quin,” Sasha snapped at him.
“Oh, oh, right. Sorry, Helen, I’m distracted. Of course, we can act that out again later.”
He gave me a half-hearted smile, then turned and walked away.
I turned my attention to Sasha.
“I’ve been in the park a while,” she said. “I just figured I’d let you finish first.”
“And now I’m embarrassed,” I said.
“Don’t be, through most of history that was not behind closed doors. Mainly because there were no doors to close. We’ll break you of that habit.”
“Sure. Uh, so how are we finding them?”
“Death and Lu? I’m the Great Maker, remember? I can find any vampire. They’re in a cemetery. They probably needed some time to collect themselves.”
“You never mentioned tracking us before.”
“And as of the start of your interview last night, there was only one way to kill a vampire,” Sasha said pointedly. “I can’t track all vampires all the time. Just one at a time. It takes a lot of concentration and can get foggy, the further away they are.”
“Great. Did you bring a car?”
“I did, there’s food in the car too,” she said, motioning for me to follow her. “If that’s not Quin’s phone, whose is it?”
“A dead man. Quin killed a mortal, and we almost got caught by the cops.”
Sasha sighed. “He’s never going to hear the end of this night, is he?”
“He’s doing Council work, so I would think he’d be safe. No mortals saw him do anything, just me. I kind of popped in there.”
“On the power topic, don’t tell any other vampire which it is. They’ll guess, but keep them guessing. Then again, few are likely to read whatever it is that you plan on doing with all that audio and... are you typing at the same time?”
I had brought up the phone to enter a bit of information. To say that we had reached the edge of the park and Sasha had just stepped around a white vehicle to the driver’s side. It was a newer vehicle possibly a hybrid, and couldn’t have been more than six months old.
“Uh, it’s kind of seamless with me now, I don’t notice it anymore,” I said.
“Using you as bait is going to eithe
r be a wicked amount of fun or get you killed again,” she grumbled as she got into the car.
I climbed into the passenger seat and closed the door beside me.
“Well, if I could have taken video, that would have been easier, but also would have outed you all and made it harder for you to disappear afterwards,” I said.
“That’s true,” she muttered.
“Where does Margaret live?” I asked.
“Not far from here. Quin will get the whole thing down for you. He seems quite capable at that. You can then use it in your thing there. Though, isn’t switching heads a bad idea?”
“Uh, yes. But this whole thing is going to be … like… about him, from a third person point of view. I think. Right?”
“Oh boy. I don’t think you should cut out the parts where you were not just transcribing what he said. Think about that. Not long, but in that hard fashion that mortals do.”
“That’s beside the whole point of it. I’m supposed to be like the background, not in there and… shit, I’m my own main character, and no one knows anything about me.”
“You have cats and taste good, that’s all I need to know,” Sasha said. “Lucrecia said he was still recording while you were unconscious, so he’s already messed with your plan to tell the story.”
“That was on the tablet and may have been broken.”
She made a small sound at the back of her throat as she pulled to a stop at a light. Her blinker was on, and as we sat waiting for the light to turn, that was the only sound in the car.
I realized Sasha and I had nothing to talk about. I didn’t know her hobbies, and she didn’t know mine. We were only connected through Quin. Who we constantly talked about.
“Am I a bad female character?” I asked.
“You kind of went crazy tonight in a way that only vampires would understand,” she said as she pulled through the light. “But you have great instincts.”
“That’s not what I asked. Am I a bad female character?”
She was quiet a moment. “I think most real women would make a bad female character, but only to certain readers. There are going to be people who don’t like you, that’s the way it’s always been. The way it will always be.”
“I Mary Sue’d myself.”
“Uh, not really, but I suppose. Are you concerned about being sexist? Should we talk about something that’s not Quin for a bit, so you don’t appear one-dimensional?”
“Fuck it, I’ll be one dimensional. What would we talk about? Video games?”
“I also read, like long walks on the beach, and romantic candlelit dinners.”
“That old bag of bones?”
“The beach is only interesting during a storm when all the mortals are running for cover, and the waves are threatening to swallow you whole. And at the candle light dinner, let’s face it, I’d be eating whoever else was attending.”
“The old bag of bones with a little ribbon to make it look new.”
“This old bag of bones can still eat you, you know.”
“I’m not having dinner with you,” I said, then sighed. “How far away is this cemetery anyhow?”
“About twenty more minutes.”
“Okay, then I’m going to shut this off to preserve battery.”
“Oh, plug it into my car charger too, that cord there? Yeah. That one.”
“Calling Sasha,” my car informed me cheerily as I grumbled under my breath and sat in the coffee shop parking lot.
“Because I said so, that’s why,” Sasha said upon accepting my phone call. “You know, I used to eat people who questioned me, right?”
“You don’t get to pull that every time you want your way,” I said sternly. “Especially to kidnap my Progeny, who I know you don’t like.”
“I have you on speaker phone,” Sasha said.
“Hi, Quin,” Helen said meekly in the background.
I could hear the uncertainty and yet the fear at the same time. Helen probably didn’t know the difference between dislike and hatred. Vampires who disliked one another got along just fine. They would even work together and be kind to one another.
We were all human, once. That meant that we were still affected by the petty reasoning that drove humans to dislike one another.
“She is not disposable, Sasha.”
“I never said she was,” Sasha said calmly. “I said I was going to use her, not break her. The command I gave to you was for you to go away. I can’t have you near the tool. The Oracle says it’s dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” I protested. “I’m the only one who can wield it. No one else can even pick it up bare handed. And I know I can’t use it, she told me that when I visited her earlier tonight. That’s no reason to command me to go away while you kidnap my Progeny!”
“Baby brother…”
“Don’t call me that!” I snapped.
“With all due respect,” Sasha said over my protest. “Anyone using the tool is a bad idea. Now, you can do the same job without the tool. Why don’t you be a dear and go kill my Progeny for disobedience?”
“Shouldn’t you do that?” I asked.
“I can’t. It’s this weird motherly instinct thing, I think? I don’t know. I just know I can’t. I tried with her too, possibly that’s why she’s so mad at me that she’d make a pact with the devil to get me out of the picture.”
“Kali is dead,” Helen said suddenly.
“I can feel when one of us dies too, so I knew that,” Sasha said. “Quin, be a dear.”
“If I do this, Sasha, so help me, it is the last time any of you use me.”
Silence from the other side of the phone. I knew that silence too well, having heard it and seen the struggle in Sasha’s eyes as she tried to get a hold of her emotions. I had to see her face, however, to know what she was struggling with. I had no idea what decision she was weighing, or if she was simply trying to keep the bite from her words.
Great Maker or not, I would beat her into a bundle of broken bones if she tried something that I didn’t agree with.
“This is the first time I’ve asked you to do something like this,” she said. “But it will also be the last. Please, Quintillus, walk away. Let me do what I should have done centuries ago when he turned you, instead of waiting for everyone else to gather their courage. Just. Walk away.”
“I meant dealing with your Progeny. We aren’t talking about you giving me a command to get your way.”
“Is it possible to kill her and leave the body in one piece?” Sasha asked.
“Mostly, but why would I leave a body behind?” I asked.
“Do it. Once it is done, your child will carry a message to the Council. Have you used your mask yet?”
“No, I don’t think to do this, I should enter as a Younger Council, do you?”
“Uh, you’re about to kill a Council Member. I might advise it. I may also have a desire to speak with you as the Council’s hound tomorrow or a week from now. At some point, we need to talk about that.”
“And if I do this as the hound?”
“Then Quin stays out of it, and only Wraith is involved, who most vampires still believe is a separate entity. Quin can stay with his arts, and his quiet life and the others will continue to send their messages wherever they have been, falling on deaf ears.”
I turned in my seat and looked at the mask, cast casually onto the back seat. A cold washed over me as I swore I heard an inhuman voice howl in the distance.
It was all in my head though, no one was screaming at the night.
“And what does my lady want?” I asked.
“Whatever you can get out of her. All of it. Presented to Margaret as Younger Council, you have a right to question any action and be given an answer, she must answer Wraith’s interrogation.”
“And her stock?” I asked.
“I think the poor bastards have suffered enough. You have plenty, but they’ve seen too much. Bring it to the Council for a vote. But it has to be a clean house.”
&
nbsp; “Fine, but we still need to talk.”
“And we can, and you can make your demands and decide whether we can still—if you want anything to do with me.”
“That will depend on our talk,” I growled.
“Oh!” Helen said loudly. “Don’t wear the mask while driving. I think there’s a law about going around in a mask. Just. Err on the side of not eating cops.”
“The mask is spelled, Helen. We discussed that, but I wouldn’t eat them. Though if any of them were high on the job, or I passed someone who was high, that would be difficult to explain. Thank you for the warning.”
“Good luck, Quin,” Sasha said.
“Keep her safe, Sasha.”
I ended the call and hit my wheel once. Running the palm of my hand over the leather of the steering wheel, I considered the parking lot in front of me, then looked behind and considered the street.
“Fuck,” I said.
Because it was succinct and to the point, because it was how I felt about the situation. Nothing more could truly be said about the events of that night or what was about to happen. I couldn’t discuss how my life and been thrown under a bus by a mortal woman.
I had to remind myself that changing Helen hadn’t set out the course of events. The things that had happened to me, happened because of other vampires and their choices. Things were going so wrong because of the choices we had all made, and the secrets we kept from one another.
Helen being a vampire hadn’t changed anything, her presence had done little more than catapult the problems of the past fifteen hundred years into the present. Those things had existed for all my life, those injustices had always been there.
Helen had simply been the first person to point to them and say, “that’s not right.”
She was forcing me to confront the problems of my past, which drew out the troublemakers and the secrets. By doing so, my life would change forever.
We as a race had simply accepted the world we lived in as how it was. None of us had attempted to change anything in centuries, and I think that person who tried to make a change had been me. That hadn’t ended well for me, but I hadn’t had support then. I had been on my own, fighting against the problem on my own.
It was the only thing I had ever tried to do. There had been several things I had wanted to sort out over the centuries, but Helen was the first one to make me feel like I could do those things, make those changes, and have a say over my future.