Blood, Smoke and Mirrors

by Robyn Bachar

  Becoming a vampire doesn’t make a person evil. They become one because they already are. And now every vamp in the tri-state area was gunning for me. Great.

  “So, what’s the plan?”

  “When you’re ready, I walk you home.”

  “That’s it?” Sounded too simple to be true.

  “That’s it.” Lex nodded. The man was as blasé about the subject as though there were angry Chihuahuas outside planning to nip at my ankles, instead of a posse of vampires waiting to turn me into a magical piñata.

  “Huh. Well I guess I better finish cleaning up then.” I slid out of the booth, and Mac looked at me, sadness in his eyes. His expression alone nearly broke my heart, and I swallowed the lump that suddenly formed in my throat.

  “You don’t have to clean up, Cat. I can handle it,” Mac offered.

  I did my best to give him an encouraging smile and shook my head. “I’ve seen you clean. It’s better if I do it. Won’t take me very long. Just give me a few minutes. Do you want more coffee while you wait?” I asked Lex, in my very best customer-service-first voice.

  “Sure, Cat.” He smiled, and I looked to my cousin.

  “Okay. Tybalt, get Lex coffee.”

  I turned and walked away. Mac coughed, sounding as though he was swallowing a laugh, and I picked up a half-full bin of dirty dishes. Hefting the weight, I headed back into the kitchen, and Mac followed. I set the bin next to the sink and started to empty it.

  “Of all the cafés in all the world, he walks into mine. Again.”

  “Well, at least he’s one of the best,” Mac said. “He comes from a long line of guardians. There’s Duquesnes across the whole country.”

  “Yeah, I know.” I began placing dishes into the washer. I’d only met one member of Lex’s family, but I’d heard a bit about the rest of them. Besides, I didn’t need to know about his family history to know the Duquesnes were model guardians-Lex’d already proved that one when he’d turned me in to the witches’ council. Takes a special kind of devotion to duty to turn your girlfriend over to the firing squad.

  “Exactly what did you do to piss the vamps off this badly?”

  “Oh, a little of this, little of that.” I waved a hand dismissively. “Swore vengeance on my father in a faerie mound while invoking the Lord and Lady.”

  Mac snorted in amusement. “Nice one, Cat.”

  “I’m nothing if not creative.”

  I headed out to the dining room and went about the rest of my routine-clearing, cleaning and getting the café back to its pristine glory. While concentrating on the music playing through the overhead speakers, I almost managed to ignore the guardian drinking coffee and the certain death that waited outside, lurking in the shadows my own stupidity had caused when I’d blown out the streetlights. See what losing your temper gets you, kiddies?

  As I worked I hummed along with the music until I recognized the song-“This Kiss” by Faith Hill. I stopped so suddenly I nearly tripped over my own feet, and then ignored the guardian’s stifled chuckle as I tried to regain my dignity. With a full bin of dishes I retreated into the safety of the kitchen, and when I returned I found Lex and Tybalt enthralled with their battle plans. I almost felt bad for the vampires outside. Almost.

  Despite being distracted by his discussion, I felt Lex’s eyes on me as I moved through the room. Usually men only watch me when they’re wondering where their order is, or if they want their check. I assumed Lex was trying to gauge how useful I’d be in a fight, which is not much. Sure, I own a sword and a few knives, but they are forbidden from drawing anyone’s blood but my own (and really, I didn’t want to be encouraging my own blood loss in the middle of a fight). I also have been through a few self-defense training courses, but that knowledge would do jack against a vampire. They’re just about indestructible, as long as they’re well fed. Stab ’em, they keep on coming. Shoot them. Run them over with a car. Drop an anvil on their head.

  Okay maybe not the anvil, but as long as their heart isn’t completely destroyed or their head severed, vampires just keep coming back for more. It’s really damn unfair, and the horror-film solutions for vamp slaying don’t do a damn thing. Garlic? Uh, no. Silver? Please, they drape themselves in it since it looks so wonderful with their all-black wardrobes. Sunlight? Unless they get burned red like a tomato with fangs, it’s not going to slow them down much. Which leaves us with wooden stakes. Really, any kind of stake (not steak, stake, the difference is important) would work if you managed to totally obliterate the heart in one shot. The tough part is hitting that one shot right on, and the wood does help if you’re looking for a lovely splintering effect to do maximum damage.

  In short, if you should find yourself in a fight against a vampire, you are really right and proper fucked.

  The thought was less than comforting to me.

  When my tasks were finished I popped into Mac’s office to say goodbye. He did his best to look encouraging as he gave me a hug and a quick peck on the cheek.

  “Blessed be, Cat.”

  “Thanks, Mac. Are you still leaving tomorrow for the conference in D.C.?” There was a big librarian get-together he was going to. I wasn’t sure what librarians did when they had a conference. Maybe they all sat in the same room and read spellbooks, or had lectures on the finer points of casting anti-dust wards.

  “Yeah.”

  “Have a good trip and a safe flight. Maybe I’ll already be Titania by the time you get back,” I joked.

  “Maybe. I can get you a snow globe of the White House as a congrats gift,” he offered.

  “Sure.” I smiled. “Love you, hon.”

  “Love you too. Good luck.”

  I headed back into the dining room. “I’m ready,” I proclaimed, and Lex nodded. “So, what’s the plan?”

  “I doubt they’ll leave quietly, so Tybalt and I are goin’ to convince them to let us alone. After they’ve lost a few limbs they’ll get the message and clear out.”

  I wrinkled my nose at the thought of severed dead-people parts.

  “Are you sure we can’t just kill them?” Tybalt asked, sounding disappointed.

  “Nah, that’d just end up in too much paperwork.” Lex shook his head and slid out of the booth. I’d forgotten how tall he was. I’m on the tallish side, so I don’t encounter a lot of people taller than me. He was wearing all black as usual, from his steel-toed boots to his jeans to his plain cotton T-shirt and long duster. No one wears a jacket in June in Illinois unless we’re experiencing one of our more freakish weather patterns, so I was willing to bet there was more than muscular arms and a tight butt under that duster.

  I scolded myself for wondering about the state of Lex’s posterior and then shrugged. “Anything else I need to know?”

  “Nope. When we step outside, you shield yourself and don’t distract us.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Great.” Excellent plan. It was simple, easy to remember. Probably stupid as all get out, but hey, he’s the professional, right? I’m just the target. “Sure you don’t want to duck out the back?”

  “They won’t learn anything that way. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”

  “Right.” I motioned toward the door. “After you, gentlemen.”

  Squeezing my eyes shut, I hugged my arms to my chest as my shields snapped into place. It was a globe of safety that moved with me, but also made it harder to maneuver, like walking through water. I did my best not to be terrified out of my wits as I walked through the door of the Three Willows. There were no less than five vampires out there waiting for me in the dark, ready to tear me apart and bleed me dry, just as they had my mother and Maureen, two women who were by all accounts much stronger and more knowledgeable about their arts than I. The door shut behind me, and I shivered with fear. I was outside neutral ground. I was fair game.

  “C’mon, let’s go,” Lex said. I obeyed, following behind him. He turned in the direction of my apartment, thankfully, and I hurr
ied to keep up. It’s damn hard to move and shield at the same time, and because it takes a lot of concentration it slowed me down.

  The silence frightened me the most. A Saturday night in the city should be louder, full of urban noises like cars and cell phones and televisions, but here there was nothing, not even the rumble of an approaching train on the tracks. A slight breeze brushed my face and I caught the scent of vampire magic. It’s a peculiar but memorable scent, the smell of the last dying ember clinging to a candle’s wick, refusing to be snuffed. Really, that’s all vampires are, that last spark of life clinging like hell to this world, terrified to give in to what lies beyond. I knew that smell all too well, remembering how it had mixed with the fear and death in my mother’s house, and I panicked. Something squealed high and hideous just out of arm’s length, and I turned as a small, skinny woman recoiled away from me, her pale hands smoking where they had touched my shield. Glaring at me from beneath her black bangs, she hissed and snarled something that was either incoherent or a completely foreign language, possibly both, and launched herself at me again. The woman bounced off my shield and was thrown backwards like she’d leapt onto a trampoline, a much louder electric sizzle scorching the air.

  “Not real bright, are ya?” I smirked, suddenly feeling much braver than I had any right to be. A small crowd of vampires circled around us, and a quick count revealed a few more than we’d expected, nine attackers in total.

  “They really aren’t the smartest breed, cousin,” Tybalt commented. The faerie brushed his disguised white-blond hair out of his face and eyed the mob.

  “Settle down now,” Lex warned them. “This woman is under my protection, so you’d better head on home.”

  “You said there were only five.”

  “There are,” he replied. “The rest are just necromancers.”

  “Oh great, I feel so much better now.”

  “Go on, get out of here,” the guardian repeated to the crowd, as though scolding a disobedient puppy. They ignored him.

  “Step aside, Duquesne, you have no business here,” said the vamp who’d bounced off my shields. The overly goth outfit she wore made me wonder if the vampires had lowered their standards for membership. She would blend in perfectly with the late-night Denny’s crowd. It was damn hard to take her seriously.

  “Now, Merrideth, I just told you that this young lady is under my protection, so if you and your people don’t turn around and walk away, we’re going to have a problem.” Lex slipped his hands into his duster, reaching for whatever weapons he had concealed beneath it and sending a clear message to the crowd that he meant business.

  “Maybe I should kill one, Duquesne, just to set an example,” Tybalt suggested.

  “Don’t even think about it, Silverleaf. Just cut ’em off at the knees, that’s always fun.”

  Apparently they took offense to that idea, and without another word they attacked, moving in a dark blur that was hard to see. As the vampires swarmed him Lex drew his weapons in a quick flash of bright metal, swinging a short sword in each hand. Guess that answered the question of why wear a long black coat in June, because swords were a tad hard to conceal without it. The guardian moved with inhuman speed as the fight boiled into the street. I couldn’t spot how he was wounding them, but I smelled the stale scent of vampire blood in the humid night air.

  Tybalt’s rapier appeared in his hand and his clever human disguise vanished as he abandoned all pretense of hiding his true nature. The vampires around him hissed in surprise, and he launched himself at them, moving in a dark blue blur I couldn’t follow. I felt pretty useless inside of my safe little bubble, but there wasn’t anything I could do to help. I wasn’t trained as a fighter, and thanks to my witch upbringing I didn’t know any offensive spells. Best I could do was hurl harsh language.

  A vampire fell away from the fray in the street, stumbling and then scrambling about searching for something on the ground. After a moment I realized it was looking for the rest of the severed arm that had rolled under a parked car. My stomach heaved and I swallowed hard, looking down at my feet and trying to shove that image out of my brain.

  “C’mon now, that had to hurt,” Lex teased the armless vamp. “Why don’t you just take your hand and go home?”

  “Only a flesh wound,” the vampire growled as it stretched to reach beneath the car.

  Like the worst part of a horror film, it was morbidly fascinating, and I couldn’t help but watch. They were stronger, faster and outnumbered him, but somehow Lex held his own. While the vampires were slashed and bleeding, the guardian didn’t have a scratch on him. Yet.

  “Come out and play, little Cat,” a new voice crooned. Turning my attention away from the fight, I found four strangers pacing around the edge of my shields. Necromancers, from the awful smell of them. They circled me like hungry sharks, searching for a weak spot in my shields. Yeah, good luck there. It’d take a lot more than four necromancers to get through my shields, as long as I stood still and concentrated. Unfortunately I couldn’t stand there all night, and it’d be a real long walk to my apartment with them trying to sabotage me the entire way. Not a happy thought.

  “No thanks, I like it here.”

  “What’s wrong? Afraid?”

  Oh, please. Like that was going to tempt me into throwing a temper tantrum and let them jump me. I wasn’t falling for that lame trick. I put my hands on my hips and smiled again, more confident this time as I glanced over the speaker. Another sad fashion disaster dressed in black from head to toe, the necromancer reminded me of one of the many reasons why I hate the goth trend: it was created and nurtured by vampires. The woman wore a ridiculous getup of black lace and vinyl complete with spider-web hose and a corset top, doing her best to look dark and mysterious. She’d make a fabulous vampire stereotype when they killed her.

  “I’m real scared of that outfit. Was there a sale at Hot Topic?”

  Apparently I hit a nerve and she snarled at me. I opened my mouth to toss another witty insult at her, but was interrupted by a distinctly male sound of pain cutting through the tumultuous noise of the fight, too deep to be a faerie’s voice. My panic level rose as I smelled the scent of strong magical blood. Lex had fallen to one knee.

  Charging into the fray, I rushed to Lex’s side. My shields bent perilously inward for a heartbeat before rebounding and hurling vampires out of the way like undead bowling pins. When I reached him my shield stretched and enveloped Lex. My brain paused for a heartbeat to wonder about that bizarre detail, because really it should’ve bounced him out of the way as well since I hadn’t had the good sense to drop them before reaching his side. Deciding to ponder that later, I focused on the set of claw marks slashed across his midsection as I hauled him to his feet.

  “This qualifies as distracting me,” he growled in annoyance.

  “What? You’re hurt, you need help.”

  “Barely a scratch. Ol’ no thumbs there, now he needs a medic.” He nodded at a nearby vampire who was indeed missing his thumbs and most of his fingers, which were scattered around his feet like fat, pale worms.

  My stomach bolted up near the back of my throat and I realized we were in trouble, because I was sure I couldn’t shield and retch at the same time. “I think we should let him set an example.” I nodded at the faerie-sized blur darting in and out of the mob.

  “No, we’re not, and I was doin’ fine on my own.”

  “We need a new plan.” Poking at his wound, I tried to gauge how severe the damage was, accidentally coating my fingers with his blood in the process.

  “Had to call a guardian and your pixie buddy, eh witch? Not strong enough to defend yourself,” another new voice commented. I spun around to watch in morbid fascination as the limb-impaired vamp reattached his severed arm.

  “And you? Needed a hand?” Lex drawled. “Now you, stay here,” he ordered as he glared at me. He lunged toward the vampire, and the two circled each other in a frenzied dance. “You tired yet? You’ll run outta blood ’f
ore I even break a sweat,” he taunted the vampire.

  “Kitty!” Tybalt called out to me as a vamp landed with a thud at the faerie’s feet.

  “What?”

  “Better idea. Conjure sunlight!”

  “What?”

  “Just do it. Invoke Apollo, trust me,” the faerie ordered.

  I shrugged, not sure where Tybalt was going with his request, considering sunlight doesn’t hurt vampires like it does in movies. Instead of burning them into a pile of ash it gives them severe sunburn, but hey, I didn’t have much else to do while inside my shields, so I decided to run with it. Grabbing my lighter, I held it tight in my right hand, and after sorting through the collection of symbols hung around my neck, I found my sun medallion and clutched it in my left. Holding the button down on my lighter, I turned the flame up to its highest level and held it aloft.

  “Great Apollo, drive your chariot hence,

  Burning bright for our defense.

  Life from light, push back the night,

  Chase the darkness from our sight.”

  Honestly, I wasn’t quite expecting the result I got. I figured the spell would give me a little bit of sun like the one that had illuminated the room beneath the faerie mound. Instead a small supernova formed from the fire in my hand, a bright white light that blinded me for a moment with its pure intensity. I squeezed my eyes shut as piercing inhuman howls split the summer night. The awful scent of burnt flesh and toasted vinyl filled my nostrils, and I flinched at the heat building up in my grasp. My brain warned me that it would be a smart idea to drop the lighter a split second before it exploded.

  I shrieked, shaking my open hand back and forth as lighter fluid and melted plastic rained down on me and scorched my skin. The light died, but I was in too much pain to care at that point. My hand was on fire, I was sure it had to be, even though I hadn’t opened my eyes to actually look at it. The pain was all the information I needed right then.