by Lily Luchesi
“Ever hear of email?” Angelica asked. Danny felt the tension in her body flowing in waves. She was just barely restraining herself from launching at the wolf, getting revenge for her fallen employee. “You of know me, eh? Well, then you know what I’m capable of.”
“Oh, I do,” it growled deeply, as if pleased. “And I want to challenge you.”
“Challenge me?” Angelica asked. “To what?”
“A fight. Just us, to see who can win in an old-fashioned, one-on-one brawl.”
“It’s been a while since I was challenged hand-to-hand. You sure you’re up for it?”
Angelica’s smirk was a little alarming. Danny saw Brighton open his mouth to speak, but thought better of it at the look on her face. Angelica was about to go one-on-one with a cursed shifter. Any idiot could tell you that that was a bad idea, even for a full-blooded vampire.
“Can you promise me that your male harem back there won’t get involved? Because if they do, this whole thing is off the table,” the wolf said.
Angelica chuckled. “They know better than to interfere.”
Brighton grabbed Danny’s sleeve. “Are you really going to let her do this?”
“Do you think I can stop her? Or even help her? You know her, Brighton. She’ll incapacitate me in a second before going about the fight as if I never interrupted,” Danny said. “Stubborn as a mule.”
“I can hear you,” she said as she began to remove her black gloves. Her eyes never left the wolf in front of her. “Tell me, why do this? Your orders are to kill me, not challenge me.”
The wolf growled before it answered. “I heard what you did to the ones who came before me. They underestimated you. The only way for me to get a real, fair fight is to challenge you head-on. Why do you think I let that crazy witch turn me in the first place? For the power. I love a challenge. You, Angelica Cross, are a challenge.”
Angelica turned around and placed her two guns on the ground, as promised. She had not brought her sword in her haste to catch the wolf. “Then let’s go—monster to monster.”
The shifter scoffed. “At least I’m not still part human.”
Angelica’s eyes darkened, turning blood red. Her claws started to extend, something that had never happened when she was a vamplet. Finally, Danny watched as her jaw became distended, and her fangs released. These were not the two Dracula fangs she’d had before: these were the long needle fangs every vampire had. Each tooth became thin and sharp, while the canines on the top and bottom reaching over two inches in length.
“See, that’s the thing: neither am I.” Her voice was low, raspy. Had she not been flashing a mouthful of piranha teeth, Danny would have found it sexy.
Angelica launched herself at the shifter, ready to cut, but it easily dodged, swiping back at her. It didn’t even faze her.
“Try harder,” she said, kicking it in the stomach with her silver-tipped boots. It howled and she used her elbow to knock it in the back, making it hit the ground.
It leapt back up, launching itself at her, knocking her to the ground in its place. Its paw pressed into her abdomen, and she cried out. Danny could hear her rib snap. It was killing him not to leap in and help her, but he knew she’d hate him if he did that. He was more concerned about her feelings for him than helping her. That seemed backwards, even to him. However, this was Angie out there: he knew she could hold her own, and a broken rib was nothing but an annoyance.
She took her claws and sank them into its calf. Danny was sure the werewolf blood burned her, but it was effective, as the shifter hurriedly moved away from her. She got up, wincing with the pain. She made an odd move, and he could hear another crack. Did she really just snap her own rib back into place? How?
He and Brighton watched as the vampire and the werewolf got deep into the fight. It was so fast, he felt like he was back in college, watching early episodes of his favorite action anime, where the punches went so fast all he could see were blurs.
It looked as if Angelica was winning, as she literally had the wolf backed into a corner, but they could hear growling that was counteractive to the were’s. Where was it coming from? Danny and Brighton looked as another cursed wolf leapt down from a nearby rooftop, right behind Angelica. She was going to be ripped apart!
He was silly to worry. Angelica used the werewolf she was attacking as a stepping stone and she leapt up in the air. Using the brick wall for momentum, she flipped in the air, landing cleanly on her feet behind the new shifter.
“Did you really think I couldn’t smell a second wolf? Amateurs. ‘One-on-one’ my ass. I know you shifters always play dirty.” She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out her custom silver double-bladed dagger. She released the blades, and stuck one deep into the new wolf’s chest. Its eyes bulged, and it gurgled as blood began to drip from its muzzle. She turned it around, and shoved it into the wolf she’d left leaning against the wall, the other blade piercing its heart as well.
Reaching for the handle between the wolves, Angelica used what looked like about one tenth of her strength to twist the blades around and yank them out, bringing their hearts with the blades, skewered like shish kabobs, and still pumping blood as the nerves still hadn’t completely died yet. It pattered on the ground at Angelica’s feet like rain. She shook the blade and the hearts fell onto the cold concrete before she crushed them under her heels, popping them like water balloons.
She looked up as she shook her boots off, walking toward Danny and Brighton. Brighton smiled at her. “That was amazing!” She completely ignored him, trailing her red eyes on Danny. Her fangs and claws had been retracted, but her eyes were still burning with Undead fury.
“Has your opinion of me changed?” she asked, her voice still low and throaty, somewhere between sexy and frightening. “Because this is what I am now: a monster.”
***
In her apartment, Angelica’s adrenaline finally ran out as she slumped on her couch with a microwaved mug of blood. She had barely managed to get out of her jacket and bloody boots before getting her dinner. She had hurt her fingertips when she’d stabbed the werewolf with her claws, so the blood should help them heal. It had pained her burned skin to send a text to Mark, letting him know she was not coming back to the PID office that night. Brighton could fill in for her so Mark could rest. Lord knows that Brighton never sleeps anyway and is still on London time.
She wished with all her heart that she had Danny there to provide her his sweet, hot blood. He was not there, however, and she needed to come to terms with the fact that, now that she had revealed what being a full vampire was to him, he’d never be there again. In saving her, he had unknowingly lost her. No mortal would be dumb enough to want to be with a monster like her.
And tonight had proved, even to her that she was a monster. She was bloodthirsty, and tearing apart those two shifters had just barely managed to slake that thirst for violence. She knew she’d want more, and probably soon. Probably before the sun rose. This was the vampire’s curse: never being satisfied. Always wanting more blood, even when they couldn’t drink it. How had her mother managed to stay docile for so many centuries? How did all the full vamps she knew do it? Bloodshed gave her more of an adrenaline and oxytocin rush than the best sex ever could. It was an addicting feeling. She’d be looking for someone to rip apart like a junkie looking for their next fix.
How could she run the PID? She was becoming one of the very monsters that they hunted: violent and vicious. Hungry for blood and death. She was not a hero anymore. All her hard work could be ruined if she turned to the darkness in her soul, but how could she ignore such a strong pull? One day she could very easily kill someone close to her, simply because of her insatiable hunger. She was a villain in a headquarters full of heroes.
A monster. Yes, a monster barely playing at a human facade. She had been mistaken for a saving grace for the paranormal community, and now she was a hypocrite.
She looked at her TV. She’d turned it on automatically when she came
in, for background noise. Maybe watching something could take her mind off of what she was going through. Not so much, as she turned up the volume and listened to the familiar dialogue of one of her favorite shows.
“I may be on the side of the angels, but don’t think for one second that I am one of them.”
She clicked the DVD off. “Oh, shut up, Sherlock.” She got up, rinsed her mug, and went into her bedroom. She had slept in a bed when she was a vamplet, true, but under that bed had always lain her coffin, which she kept just in case it was ever needed. A coffin is a vampire’s greatest protector and most faithful companion. A way out of a world that wants to kill them. Most vampire’s coffins these days were more than just metal or wooden boxes. They were engraved with spells that only allowed the vampire to whom the coffin belonged to open it, protecting them from hunters and the sun alike.
It was early, too early for her to get into her coffin, but she saw her cell phone light up with Danny’s name and picture. She didn’t want to talk to him. Not now. Why would he want to talk to her, anyway? She was poison. A killer. A true creature of the night.
She looked at the cover of her ornate, well-polished black coffin. It had her name on it. Just like her mother’s had. “Angelica Cross,” she read aloud. Funny name her mother had given her, considering what she was. “The sociopath has a point. My name might be Angelica, but I am no angel.”
Before she climbed into her coffin, she went to her laptop and sent Danny what was probably the most painful email ever written. She was much better at writing her feelings than speaking them.
***
Danny sighed as he sat in his living room. She wasn’t picking up her phone, and he knew damn well she was there. Why wouldn’t she talk to him? True, her transformation had frightened him, as it would have frightened any sane mortal. He knew it was just one part of her. She was more than just a vampire. She was different. He had no words to truly explain it, but there was something about her that was unlike any full vamp he had ever encountered.
“Damn it, Angie, where do you get off calling yourself a monster?” In his opinion, everyone had a monstrous side, deep down. When he’d been with the CPD, he had seen some unimaginable things. Unspeakable things. Angelica might like to drink blood, but he knew that even she wouldn’t torture and mutilate a toddler for kicks. Experience had shown him that not all monsters had fangs and hovered in the shadows. Some of them wore suits and attended PTA meetings in the sunlight.
As he was musing, his computer beeped, letting him know he had a new email. He wouldn’t have read it, had he not seen that Angelica was the sender.
Danny, I apologize for not answering your calls. You need to understand that my silence does not have anything to do with you, per se. That is, you have not done anything wrong. I know you, and I know that that is the first thing you’ll think: ‘did I upset her’? No. You did not. You have been nothing but sweet, loving, and supportive, even when I was being a little shit.
I will be honest, I do not understand why you keep calling me. Why you keep trying to still be close to me. What I am, what I did tonight, that scared even me. Do you know how terrible it is to fear yourself?
I appreciate that you decided to keep me alive by turning me, that you did not want to lose me. That devotion is part of why I love you so much. However, you need to understand that my being turned without warning changed a lot in me. Physically and mentally, I am not the same Angelica you met last year. That Angelica may not exist anymore. Turning isn’t just getting different blood, Danny. Turning is changing on the very molecular level. I do not know myself anymore.
I need time. And that means I cannot have you around me until I can figure out what I am capable of, what I will do, what I can’t do, and so much more. I love you. It is difficult for me to admit love, because all my life I saw love as a weakness. I believe it is a weakness. It makes you vulnerable, so for me to tell you I love you means I am willing to be vulnerable to you. To be honest, that also scares me. If you love me, please, read this next paragraph and follow my every instruction. Do not deviate unless it is truly a matter of life and death.
I want to keep you as a PID agent, obviously. You are an amazing asset, and one of the best hunters we have ever had working for us. You do not need to go into the offices to be employed. You can stay at home and wait for a mission to come to you. If you elect to come in, you are to only be there from sunrise to sunset. To have you around me would be counterproductive to my goal. During the day at the office, Brighton said he would be willing to help you train mentally, and exercise your powers. I think it’s a good idea for you to take him up on his generous offer. As for contacting me, the same rules apply. Unless you are injured, or have information regarding Fiona and Leander, do not contact me in any way, be it a phone call or carrier pigeon.
If you love me, you’ll listen to me. If you love me, you will give me the time I need to figure everything out.
I’m sorry. Angelica.
Chapter Eight
“You know what I am doing here is very invasive for me,” Brighton said to Danny. Over two weeks had passed since Angelica had cut him off from all contact with her, and he was getting tired of sitting around, going on tedious missions, and basically twiddling his thumbs. So he went into the offices hoping that Brighton would help him make the most out of his powers.
Of course, just working with Brighton was an exercise in patience. He was not the most personable man Danny had met. “I know, but Angelica said you made the offer,” Danny reminded him.
He sighed. “I do recall that, yes. Now, what I do when I don’t want someone to read my thoughts or memories is compartmentalize them in my mind. Have you ever watched Hannibal?”
“Excuse me?” Danny asked. “You mean the guy who eats people in Silence of the Lambs?”
Brighton nodded. “It’s that character, but on a television show. Anyway, the author who created Hannibal Lecter stole a little thing from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Conan Doyle used the method of loci, a mnemonic device coined in the days of the ancient Romans and Greeks. In layman’s terms, which I think you will find it easier to understand, it is this: you take your memories, and you picture them being enclosed in walls in your head. Then you picture yourself locking the doors around them and hiding the key, so that only you can access them.
“Try finding one memory that you don’t want others to know. Picture—and I mean really picture—yourself doing what I described, and then give me your hand.”
Danny thought of the time he’d let a friend who’d been speeding go without a ticket when he was a rookie cop. He could have been fired, and he still bristled with shame when he thought about it. Picturing himself locking the twenty-three-year-old him in a room, he grasped Brighton’s hand.
Brighton closed his eyes and appeared to be concentrating very hard before he broke into a grin. “Ooh, perhaps you should have hidden what you did with Angelica in her shower.”
Danny gave him a whack in the arm. “Quit that!”
Brighton let him go. “You did it. Whatever is behind those walls, I cannot see it. Quite good, for your first time. Gradually, do that with all of your memories and thoughts. The more you shield your mind, the less people can see into it and use what they find against you. You should be able to work on it by yourself, but come to me in a few days so I can see how that is progressing.”
Danny nodded. “You think Leander or Fiona can do something to read my mind?”
Brighton pursed his lips. “I don’t know about Leander. Demons confuse me. I think that yes, Fiona could conjure up a spell that could enable her to read minds. You can’t be too careful when it comes to witches. A good trick to keep people out, briefly, is to keep a song playing in the forefront of your mind. A poem would also work, but the more catchy or rhyming a song or poem, the better.”
“Do you do that?” Danny asked.
“Yes, in fact. I keep the poem ‘Jabberwocky’ there. Were anyone to try and get in here,” he tapped his
forehead, “they’d leave after hearing that!”
Danny laughed. “All right. I’ll come up with something. What now?”
“Probe into my mind. It is already compartmentalized, so no need to worry about seeing anything too personal.”
“Look, you say that like it’s so easy,” Danny began, “but in reality you have been doing this for over thirty years. I have only had my powers for a year, if you don’t count this flash of my past I got during a near death experience a few years back. It’s not going to be so easy for me.”
“I never said it was,” Brighton said. “I merely said to try. I will open my mind for you as well as I can. It won’t be this easy with everyone, but once you get the hang of it, it will get easier over time.”
Danny sighed, and took Brighton’s proffered hands, wondering what Mark would think, were he to walk in and see them. That made him smile a bit, and relaxed him. He closed his eyes, and concentrated. He could feel the shockwaves passing between their clasped hands, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He was instantly blocked by what must have been “Jabberwocky”. Isn’t ‘frumious Bandersnatch’ some celebrity? Danny pictured the odd words floating in front of him, like a wall, and he pictured that wall crumbling before him. It worked! The words fell in a heap at his feet, and he stepped over them to see a long corridor with many, many doors on either side. It looked like a British mansion, nearly organized and cool, like a museum. It fit for Brighton somehow.
He started walking, coming to doors that were locked. The third door to the left, however, opened at his touch and he was instantly transported to London. Brighton was sitting in a laboratory in the PID offices, mixing what looked like blood in a beaker.
The door opened, and Danny saw Angelica walk in. “How’s it going, Bri? Any progress?”
Brighton sat back and sighed. “Does it look like I’m having progress?”
She bent over his shoulder, and Danny could smell her perfume, as well as the blood that was in the room. It was a very vivid memory.