by Jaz Primo
Upon pulling around the sweeping circle driveway, we were quickly approached by two vampire guards wearing rain coats. Alton immediately rolled down his window as one guard approached our vehicle.
“I’m Alton Rutherford,” he said. “And this is my associate, Katrina Rawlings.”
“You’re expected. Pull your vehicle over there,” prompted the guard, pointing to a nearby paved easement.
The estate’s interior appeared orderly, but decorated in a manner reminiscent of an early colonial museum interspersed with modern conveniences.
We were conveyed to a large den where a tall vampire stood from his seat in a reading chair strategically placed before a lit fireplace.
It all appeared remarkably rustic; a vision of the perfect country gentleman’s estate.
“Mr. Rutherford,” he greeted, extending his hand toward Alton. “So good to see you again.”
“Miss Rawlings, welcome to my estate,” he greeted me in turn, taking my hand in his.
Following further pleasantries, Alton and I sat together on a settee before Newton, who returned to his high-backed reading chair.
“My territory extends through most of Connecticut and then continues into Rhode Island to the east and a brief portion of the southeastern tip of New York to the west,” he explained. “My western territory borders with Rudolph Pitt’s area.”
“I’m unfamiliar with that name,” I said.
“He claims much of southern New York, but particularly New York City proper,” Newton replied. “The entire city area is his; something he’s very possessive of.”
“Yes, I’ve heard of Pitt,” Alton said. “He wasn’t at the conference, as I recall.”
“Ah, well, he keeps to himself for the most part,” Newton said. “However, we get along well enough, and there have never been any disputes between us.”
“Would there be any reason that Pitt might be interested in New Haven?” I asked. “Or any other vampires who you’re aware of, for that matter.”
Newton frowned. “To my knowledge, Ms. Rawlings, you’re the only vampires who have recently taken up residence in my territory, though Mr. Rutherford arranged that with me well in advance beforehand. Has there been some trouble that I should be aware of?”
I briefly described what had taken place with my mate.
“Oh, dear,” he said. “I’m terribly sorry to hear about that. I do hope that your mate is well.”
“He’s improving, thank you,” I said. “But I’m very interested in locating those responsible for attacking him.”
Newton adopted a grave expression. “That’s certainly understandable. However, I think it important to note that I’m remaining solidly neutral in the recent rise of vampire factions around the globe.”
“Why is that?” Alton pressed.
“You might say that I’m a traditionalist,” he said. “I like the way that things have been maintained over the centuries. It’s worked quite well, overall. Maintaining individual territories around the globe is quite a manageable arrangement.”
“So long as you’re one of the vampires in control of a territory,” I added.
He nodded in deference. “Naturally. How very egalitarian of you to point that out.”
“Yes, well,” Alton quickly added. “We’re not here to challenge the merits of the past, though I’m mindful that flexibility is often helpful in the face of evolving conditions.”
In addition to our conversation, another scan of the dated room décor suggested to me that Newton was likely not only a traditionalist, but also an antiquarian.
“I must agree with Alton,” I said. “Times are changing, and we must be prepared to change with them.”
“You sound a lot like that fellow, Bob Dylan,” he said. “However, traditions are important; they’re stabilizing, which is something people are quickly forgetting.”
“I’m afraid that even Bob Dylan has been passé for some time, Mr. Newton,” I said, glancing sidelong at Alton. “Incidentally, do you have Amish roots?”
Hasn’t Newton listened to contemporary music in over forty years?
Alton gave me a sharp look. “What Katrina means is that, traditions aside, modernity in moderation has its merits.”
I repressed a sigh. That wasn’t what I meant at all.
Newton comes off as an old fuddy-duddy.
Wait, fuddy-duddy? Now I sound dated, too.
“…respect your personal choice in being progressive, Rutherford,” Newton said. “I merely ask that my own traditions be respected, particularly in my own territory.”
“Certainly,” Alton said. “We mean no disrespect, and we appreciate the courtesy you’ve given us in permitted our temporary residence in New Haven on Katrina’s mate’s behalf.”
Newton appeared more settled. “Very good. In the meantime, if I hear anything further regarding other vampire activities, I’ll see that the information is forwarded to you.”
We exchanged farewells and were escorted back to our vehicle.
“Well, that was less than helpful,” I said as our vehicle pulled back onto the main road.
“Mm,” Alton murmured. “Back to square one, I’m afraid.”
“What now?” I asked.
He remained silent for a time, appearing to be in deep thought.
We traveled westward on Interstate 95 when both of our mobile phones received text messages. Alton pulled off to one side of the highway to check his message as I retrieved my phone.
My message was from Gavyn Osborn, one of Alton’s most trusted vampires; a knight from his own period.
“A new group of vampires has appeared in London,” I said. “The latest patrol has located their operational center and requests orders.”
“It appears we received the same message,” Alton said. “We should return to London immediately. Matters like this require both of us, so we can’t continue to be derailed by dead ends here.”
“I see. So, Caleb takes a back burner to vampire politics then?”
“Please. Need I remind you of what happened the last time we had a sleeper cell operating in London?” he countered.
“You mean the one that Caleb stumbled upon?” I asked meaningfully.
“Yes, well,” Alton said. “Such as it was.”
“Mm-hm.”
He gave me a sober look. “In the meantime, I’ll send my best investigators here to take up where we’re leaving off. We’ll bide our time until the culprits are identified. Then we act decisively.”
Admittedly, he made a good point about sleeper cells; they had to be rooted out as quickly as they were located. But the idea of leaving Caleb with our investigations unresolved made me grit my teeth.
“What if our nameless entities return to New Haven?” I asked. “Or, worse yet, make another attempt against Caleb?”
“Caleb is in secure hands. For the time being, we need to keep him occupied, as well as under tighter scrutiny,” he replied. “He’ll be just fine.”
I looked sidelong at him.
“Trust me,” he said. “I know what I’m doing.”
Famous last words.
Chapter 8
Caleb
Despite feeling very tired, I had trouble falling asleep while Kat was out on her adventure with Alton.
It wasn’t as if I was overly worried for her safety, just merely concerned. To say that she was capable in her own right was an understatement.
Kat was like a red-haired Wonder Woman; my own personal super heroine. In fact, if anyone deserved their own comic book, it would be her.
I was still parked on the couch, watching a cartoon marathon on television when the front door opened.
I looked over the back of the couch to see Paige, returning just past midnight from dropping Ethan off at the airport.
“Oh, I thought you were Kat and Alton,” I said.
“Well, you don’t have to look so disappointed,” she said.
I let that go unanswered.
She plopped down onto
the nearby recliner, one leg casually draped over one armrest. To her credit, she waited quietly for nearly fifteen minutes before harassing me.
“What the hell sort of crap are you filling your brain with now?” she asked.
“McCluck,” I said.
“What the cluck?” she asked.
I gave her a wan look. “Oh, fun—ny. That’s my favorite cartoon you’re talking about there.”
“Somebody, please shoot me,” she said, pressing the back of her head further into the recliner cushion.
“Just watch it for a while before passing judgment,” I said. “It grows on you.”
“Whatever,” she said, folding her arms before her.
To her credit, she watched TV for a time before saying anything further.
“Okay, so who’s the chicken wearing the trench coat?”
“He’s the hero, Bantam McCluck, police detective,” I replied.
“Right. And who’s he beating up?” she asked.
“Robbie the rooster,” I said. “He’s one of the town’s biggest mobsters.”
“What town?”
“Barnville,” I said.
She groaned and pressed her fingertips to her temples. “I should’ve known.”
I pointedly ignored her.
“Okay,” she said. “I need popcorn and lots of beers for this.”
Around 2 a.m., Kat walked through the front door, fully engaged in a mobile phone conversation. Most notably, Alton wasn’t accompanying her.
“No, just give me the short version,” she said, casting off her black leather coat and flinging it onto a chair as she proceeded upstairs. “Yeah, give me the scoop on what happened in the Baltics, too.”
She never even paused to say hello.
More and more, I felt like even when Kat was around she was mentally somewhere else.
Alton’s scale of endeavors seemed to be growing exponentially. I couldn’t help feeling that it was becoming less a venture and more of an epic as time passed.
And I felt less hopeful that things might come to a conclusion anytime soon.
Maybe that’s why I was having trouble sleeping, though there seemed to be no shortage of reasons for that.
I would have scarcely noticed the passage of time had it not been for the McCluck episodes ending each half hour.
Finally, Kat came downstairs dressed in a pair of sweatpants and T-shirt. She sat on the couch beside me, curling her bare feet beneath her.
She wrapped her arms around my neck and leaned in to kiss me.
“I’m back,” she said.
“Really? I scarcely noticed you’d left,” I said.
“Why, Caleb, such sarcasm,” she said. “It was just a quick errand, that’s all.”
“A mysterious errand,” I said. “The nature of which is on a need to know only basis.”
“Caleb—”
“And where the hell’s Alton?” I asked, growing more agitated by the moment.
“He has some last-minute details to handle before returning to London to attend to urgent matters,” she replied.
I shook my head over having to draw information out of her like that.
“Somebody’s angry with me,” she whispered into my ear before kissing it.
I remained silent, watching the television, but not really paying attention to what was happening.
“It was just a fact-finding endeavor that we undertook,” Kat said. “I’d tell you if I was leaving for an extended period.”
“Better pinky swears to that,” Paige said.
Kat gave her a dirty look and then adopted a maddeningly patient expression as her gaze shifted back to me.
“Alton and I went to check into a lead,” Kat said. “We’re trying to find out who hired your two assailants.”
“And?” I asked.
“We didn’t find the answers we were seeking,” she said. “The search continues for now.”
“The search continues,” Paige said. “Way to go, Agatha Christie.”
“Oh, dry up,” Kat said.
“With two beers in me already and a third on the way, not likely,” Paige said. “At least, not anytime soon, thank you.”
Kat ignored her response, instead looking at me while stroking her fingernails lightly across my cheek and down my neck.
It felt pretty amazing, actually.
“Alton said to remind you about your new training regimen,” she said. “He said he’ll want an error-free demonstration the next time he sees you.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll be able to bludgeon someone with a heavy stick like the best of them by then.”
“I know you will,” she said. “Still, it’s a rather ungainly looking routine, if you ask me. I’d have preferred advancing your knife fighting techniques instead.”
“Alton’s ancient,” Paige said. “He probably learned it in Ye Olde Branch Beating School. Hey, maybe next month, he’ll teach you how to string a lute.”
I chuckled aloud at that.
Kat ran her fingers through my hair as she snuggled beside me. “You’re up especially late.”
“Can’t sleep,” I said.
“Consequently, he’s torturing me with cartoons,” Paige said before crunching on another handful of popcorn.
“What are we watching?” Kat asked.
“McCluck,” Paige said. “It’s really pretty good.”
I smiled at Paige and she winked back at me.
One of the program’s characters made a screeching sound.
“McCluck?” Kat asked. “Hey, isn’t that woman a chicken?”
“Her name’s Polly Poultry,” Paige said.
I grinned. She was catching on fast.
“An investigative reporter, as well as Bantam McCluck’s girlfriend,” I said. “She’s a French Hen.”
“Odd, but strangely endearing,” Kat said, leaning her head against my shoulder.
At least she was trying. However, I was still annoyed by how she had abruptly left town with Alton without even a word to me.
Still, it was times like this, just quietly curled on the couch together watching television, that were among the most enjoyable moments.
I want a lifetime filled of moments with Kat just like this one.
That would make me truly happy.
After the episode finished, Kat said, “It’s getting pretty late. Shouldn’t we get upstairs to bed?”
“Mothering me again,” I chastised.
She playfully nipped at my earlobe with her teeth.
“There’s nothing motherly going through my head right now,” she whispered.
“Hey, just take your tawdry sex-capades upstairs, you randy wench,” Paige said. “I’m trying to watch McCluck here.”
Kat stuck her tongue out at her, then reached out to take me by the hand and lead me upstairs.
“And try to keep the headboard banging to a minimum up there!” Paige yelled after us. “I’ve got vampire hearing, you know!”
* * *
It was only after sex that Kat shared with me that she would be joining Alton on his impromptu departure for London.
“You could have mentioned this earlier,” I said.
She gave me a sly look. “Yes, but then I probably would’ve missed out on sex.”
She removed her suitcase from the closet and began packing.
“So, instead you used me and you’re just going to fly away?”
“My mate gets snippy when he’s tired,” she said.
“Don’t change the subject,” I said.
“Caleb, a sleeper cell in London is something we have to react to with a sense of immediacy,” she said. “Surely you remember how dangerous that group beneath the city became during our spring break visit?”
“True, I suppose.”
Subways seemed like creepy, ominous places following that nearly lethal experience.
She folded some articles of clothing that had been hanging in the closet and neatly placed them into her suitcase.
“Besides, you’re very busy here and I don’t want to be a distraction to your progress,” she said.
“I’m more distracted when you’re not here,” I said.
She gave me a sympathetic look and walked over to enfold me in her arms. She kissed me on the top of my head.
“I so love you, my dear,” she said. “I wish that I could stay, but we both have our obligations and objectives to confront.”
I tightly hugged her body against mine and tilted my head upward. Her warm lips met mine.
“Both of them keep mounting, too,” I said. “I’m starting to resent words beginning with ‘O’ as time passes.”
She smiled into her next kiss.
“I miss the life that you and I had after Chimalma was eliminated,” I said.
“I know,” she said. “Me, too.”
“Do you think we’ll ever get back to that again?”
“I certainly hope so,” she replied.
That wasn’t exactly the reassuring response I had hoped for.
“You could have lied a little bit,” I said.
“True,” she said. “But then it would feel even worse when the truth finally raised its ugly head, wouldn’t it?”
I held her close as her response echoed in my thoughts.
“When do you have to leave?”
“Just before dawn,” she replied. “Alton chartered a Sunset Air flight for us already. He has a way with arranging things on spur of the moment.”
Damn Alton’s efficiency.
Chapter 9
Caleb
I didn’t sleep much at all before Kat and Alton left. However, sleep or not, my training continued with all of the promptness that Roman could muster.
Training was followed by rigorous coursework at the campus, though my attention span was scarcely focused. My mind kept wandering to thoughts of Kat, worldwide vampire factions, and hopes to return to a simpler life; the kind we’d lived not so very long ago.
I longed for my old life, boring and routine though it might have seemed to others.
There’s one key difference between watching an exciting, adventurous life presented in the movies and living one in real life; a movie will eventually end, leaving you with the vicarious thrill sans all of the lingering wounds and emotional baggage.