However, as I untangled myself, I realized that his assassins probably never looked this good, not even on their best day. I stood up and found myself face-to-face with Starlight, a look of surprise on her face quickly giving way to abject terror.
“Oh my God, Bill!” she shrieked.
“Star,” I replied, dusting myself off.
“I’m so sorry. She got away. Gan, I mean. I turned my back for one second and she was gone. I’m trying to find her. Please, please, don’t be mad,” she rambled. There was more, but it was increasingly becoming a panicky blur of white noise. One of these days, I really needed to undo the fear of God I had instilled into her months back. For now, though, there was no time. I held up my hand, and she immediately stopped talking. Sometimes it’s good to be king.
“Enough, Starlight. I know. I’m not mad. But I need to find Gan, too. If I don’t, someone is going to die who doesn’t deserve to.” Mostly, I guess. “Can you help me?”
She nodded. “I’ve been tracking her.”
“Good,” I replied in as patient of a voice as I had, which wasn’t very. “I’m tracking her intended victim. Let’s split up (and get hacked to death by Michael Myers ... oh wait, wrong story) and hope one of us gets there before it’s too late.”
She again nodded, the panic slowly starting to seep out of her face as she saw that I wasn’t going to chew her any new orifices, figurative or otherwise.
“I appreciate the help. Now get going.”
Starlight took off again without further hesitation hot on Gan’s trail, or so I hoped. She apparently had no qualms about going all out speed-wise. Guess that made sense for her. I doubted too many New Yorkers would be all that big on giving the police a report on a leggy super-model running through the streets at a gallop that would make a race horse weep.
I resumed my concentration and attempted to pick up the scent of Sheila’s perfume again. It was easier this time, as she had probably only passed this place a few moments before Starlight and I collided. Good thing she hadn’t been around to see us ... that would have been a wee bit embarrassing.
♦ ♦ ♦
Finally! I turned another corner and spotted them further down the street. This was a residential neighborhood and, considering the time of night, it was a lot emptier than where I had chased them from. I also happened to know from ... ahem ... some research that Sheila lived pretty close by. The question was: was Decker walking her home or had she invited him up? That latter thought again brought a twinge of blinding anger back into the far corners of my brain. I needed to cut this crap out otherwise I’d end up cheering Gan on instead of stopping her.
I tried to focus on the saving aspect of things and not so much on any possible sweaty aftermath of their date.
Grrrr, I was doing it again. Focus, stupid! Unfortunately, my little mental back and forth cost me precious seconds. I was closing in on them, but, as it turned out, so was Gan.
I was still maybe a dozen yards away when I realized I had no idea what the hell I was going to say once I caught up to them. Hopefully I’d think of something more clever than “Get your arm off my girl before I rip it out of your socket!” but hey, who knows?
I was closing fast when there came the most God-awful shriek. We all stopped dead in our tracks. Holy crap, was someone strangling a bobcat?
But no, it was Gan. She emerged from a side street and screeched again, a look of pure animalistic rage on her face. Whoa, she looked pissed. With my enhanced vampire night-vision, I could also tell she was armed for battle, claws and teeth at the ready. She spotted the two I had been tracking and went straight after them.
This was it, only one chance. I put on all the speed I could muster and launched myself on an intercept course with the little she-devil. As I accelerated, time seemed to slow down.
Sheila appeared rooted to the spot, a cross between confusion and fear on her face. Mr. VP of Marketing, though, wasn’t quite so frozen. He gave a shout of surprise and actually jumped behind Sheila, raising his arms in some sort of gesture as he did so. Jesus, what a fucking pansy!
But I didn’t have (much) time for name calling. As Gan closed on them, I launched myself and caught her, full bore, on the side.
“Gotcha!” I yelled as we tumbled head over heels into a pile of garbage on the side of the street.
“Let me go. I do this for you!” she hissed at me, struggling to get up.
She was a lot older, and in a fair fight could easily have taken me. However, I had a pretty good adrenaline rush going on, as well as the advantage of size and leverage. I managed to wrap my arms around her and drag her to her feet.
“You need to knock this crap off now,” I said.
“Bill?” a heavenly voice suddenly called to me. Oh, yeah. The woman who held my heart in her hands was standing not fifteen feet away, watching me manhandle a little girl. This had the potential to be a bit awkward.
I thought fast. Nothing good came to mind. Oh well, time to wing it. But first things first. I whispered in a barely audible tone, but one that I knew Gan would hear just fine, “Whatever you do, please be quiet for now.” Then it was show time.
“Sheila? Is that you?” I asked, turning toward her with a big, sunny smile on my face. “Funny running into you here. Wow, small world.”
The look on her face was absolute confusion. “What are you doing?” she asked in a small voice.
“Oh, this? Yeah, probably looks pretty whacky,” I said, sounding far too chipper. “I was just ... playing with ... my niece, Becky.”
Gan had put away her fangs for now, but she was still giving Harry a look of murder. Fortunately, for once, she did as told and kept her mouth shut. Otherwise, this could have ended badly.
“Your niece?” Sheila asked, looking between myself and the little Asian girl in my arms.
“Yeah. What can I say? We’re one big diverse family. Fun on the holidays, I can tell you.”
She still had a doubtful look on her face, but at least the fear had drained out of it. She opened her mouth to speak again, but that’s when Harry stepped back up next to her. Guess the pussy was done with his cowering. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Sheila gave him a not-so-kind look (yes!) and said, “Harry, this is Bill Ryder. You know, from the Games Department.”
“I know him,” he said in a slow, malicious voice, something cold sparkling in his eyes. However, then he apparently realized his tone as he lightened it considerably. “You’re one of Jim’s boys, right?” Jim’s boys? Fuck you, you brown-nosing cocksucker.
“I work for Jim. I’m pretty sure we’ve met,” I said in an even tone, locking eyes with him. He stared back. Yeah, well screw you, pal. I’ve stared down centuries-old predators. No way was I backing down from some marketing drone.
Before things could heat up, though, Sheila spoke and ended our little pissing match. “Harry has a point, Bill. What were you doing?”
“Oh, you know,” I said, again adopting an innocent tone. “We were just horsing around. I took Becky here to a movie tonight. Afterwards, we went and got some ice-cream. I guess I sugared her up a little too much.” God, this sounded awful. “She decided she wanted to play ... a game of tag, and I’ve been stuck chasing her, the little scamp.” I gave Gan’s shoulders a playful shake. She continued to say nothing, which was a minor godsend, although she still kept staring at Harry like he was a side dish on the dinner buffet. “Sorry she scared you back there,” I said to him, a big grin on my face. “Guess I shouldn’t have taken her to see that zombie flick.”
Harry glared daggers at me in return. I couldn’t help but notice that Sheila gave him another minor look of disapproval as he was doing so. Oh, yeah. Whatever moves he had put on her earlier had just gone down the drain. Take that, limpdick!
I was trying to think of an appropriate out before any of the parties present wised up and realized that my story made absolutely no fucking sense when I heard another voice shout, “Gan!”
I tur
ned my head to see Starlight come running down the street toward us. Upon seeing that we weren’t alone, she quickly slowed down to a more normal speed as she approached. Oh crap! Just what I needed, more complications.
“Gan?” asked Sheila.
“Oh ... that’s just our little nickname for Becky here,” I sputtered as Starlight came up to us. I needed to think of something fast or risk this whole mess unraveling. “Oh hey, Alice!” I said to her, using her real name. “Sorry we missed you at the ice cream shop. Just playing a bit with my favorite niece ... your daughter ... here.” I threw her a wink, praying she picked up on things. Even if she didn’t, hopefully she was scared enough of me to play along without questioning.
“This is your sister?” asked Sheila. My, she was an inquisitive little thing.
“Yes,” I said. “This is my ... sister, Alice.” It was then that I realized that together we probably all looked like a workplace poster for diversity training, so I quickly added, “She’s adopted ... so is Gan ... err, Becky. Yep! That’s my family. Almost too much love to go around.”
“Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry. I think that’s wonderful, by the way,” Sheila quickly replied after pausing for a few moments. Thank goodness for politically correct politeness. There was still confusion in her eyes. She certainly wasn’t stupid, but I think she figured it might be rude to probe more.
“Yeah, isn’t it?” I said, continuing with the smiles. “Well, will you look at the time? Way past Becky’s bedtime here, wouldn’t you say, sis?” I nudged Starlight with my foot.
“Oh ... yes. Time for little growing girls to be put to bed,” she stammered unconvincingly. An actress, Starlight was not.
Fortunately, Gan was our out here. Despite the fact that I was sure that they, or at least Harry, wanted to put me under a lamp and grill me until I cracked, the old “I need to put the kids to bed” routine was a surefire escape route. Trust me on this. I’ve seen more than one of my now married college friends use that excuse.
“I guess it is getting late,” replied Sheila. The tone of her voice suggested that she was saying it to everyone present, Decker included. So maybe this whole debacle didn’t turn out to be such a clusterfuck after all.
“Goodnight,” I said to her fondly before turning to the asshole by her side. “Good to see you again, Harry.” My tone hopefully implied I didn’t feel anything of the sort.
“Likewise,” he replied dryly and then added, “I’ll see you again soon,” in that creepy tone he had used earlier. This was a guy in desperate need of a personality transplant.
Sheila said goodnight to me (oh, to only hear those words in a different context) then did a quick “Nice to meet you,” to Gan and Starlight, and that was our cue to exit stage left.
Starlight and I started walking away with Gan tucked closely in between us. She was fast, but probably not so fast as to be able to bolt without one of us getting a hold of her first.
“You should have let me kill him. The world would not miss his kind,” said Gan, sensing that it was now okay to break her silence.
“I know you think humans are less than us, Gan, but that doesn’t make it right to kill them for no reason.”
“You are angry?” she asked in a slightly disappointed tone.
I thought about it for a few seconds and then smiled at her. “Actually I’m not as angry as you might think. In fact there’s a small part of me that’s pleased.”
“I do not understand. I did not kill him as you had earlier wished.”
“No, you did not, and that’s a good thing. On the other hand, you sure as shit guaranteed that he’ll be sleeping alone tonight. And that, believe me, is a pretty damn good happy ending if ever I’ve heard one.”
Heads Up
I decided to accompany Starlight and Gan back to the Loft, mostly to keep an eye on the latter. Along the way, I tried to think of a way to explain to her why she needed to stay with the coven. Considering my previous failures in doing anything to get her to stay put or listen, I decided to change tactics. Gan wasn’t from our society, and thus our normal ways of getting someone to comply (“please,” or the ever popular “do as I tell you or I’ll kick your ass”) wouldn’t make any sense to her. I wasn’t very well versed in Asian culture, but I had seen enough anime – and not just of the tentacle porn variety – to be able to make an educated guess.
“Despite your motives, what you did tonight was very ... disrespectful, Gan,” I said in a stern but otherwise emotionless voice.
She turned to face me, but then actually averted her eyes. Yes! She had no doubt been read this riot act before. No matter her age or station, I was learning that there were still some kid parts in her brain. And regardless of the attitude, most kids knew when they’ve done wrong, especially when they got called out on it. I remembered this very well from my own childhood. Parents knew which buttons to push on a child. If I was right, and Gan’s reaction told me that I probably was, she’d been ingrained to react like Pavlov’s dog at any mention of disrespect from any person in authority. Since I was technically one such person and she was on my turf, I was hoping I could instill a similar reaction in her. Thus I pressed onward.
“When I first arrived in your land, James – the Wanderer – asked me to stay where I was. I was new to the land, and there were dangers about. I did as I was asked (sorta) because it would have been both foolish and disrespectful to do otherwise.” I glanced over and saw that her eyes were downcast. Oh yeah! Every fish just needed the right bait to be caught.
“Think about that, Gan. The same is true of you. You don’t know this city. Trust me, there are many dangers here (her being one of the biggest). I didn’t ask you to stay with Starlight as punishment. I asked you to do it because this is my land, those are my rules, and (time for another Oscar moment) because I care about your safety. You disappointed me tonight, Gan.”
Her eyes were still downcast, but I could have sworn my sensitive vampire ears picked up a small sniff from her. She finally said, in a very small voice, “I am sorry, Bill. You are right. I have acted shamefully. I will not do so again.”
Wow, I gotta remember to browbeat kids more often. Now the question was whether or not she meant it. That was a big if as I was sure that, sooner or later, she was going to remember who was who on the vampire food chain. But, for now at least, I could let out a nice, long sigh of relief.
Then, as we neared our destination, a thought hit me. “Starlight, speaking of disrespect, where the hell is Dusk Reaper? Wasn’t he supposed to be helping you?”
She hesitated for a few seconds, no doubt debating between the lesser of the two evils of covering for him versus ratting him out. Once upon a time, it wouldn’t have been much of a choice. However, these days I was holding a lot more cards than he was.
“He ... wasn’t very helpful,” she finally said.
“I gathered that.”
“He pretty much just went down to the bar.”
Not too surprising. The Loft was located on the third floor of its building. The second story was kept bare for the purposes of a little extra noise insulation, as well as storage. The ground floor was home to a small, but fairly popular, lounge. It provided both enough sound to cover some of the nastier goings on in the Loft as well as occasionally served, in times of need, as a convenient hunting ground for the coven.
“What about after Gan left?” I asked.
“I went to get him, but he told me that he’d stay behind. You know, just in case Gan came back.”
“How noble of him,” I remarked. Unfortunately for Mr. Nobility, I still had just enough anger in me from the events of the past hour to ensure that I was going to enjoy having a little talk with him when we got back.
The Tome of Bill Series: Books 1-4 (Bill The Vampire, Scary Dead Things, The Mourning Woods, Holier Than Thou) Page 46