by brett hicks
I nodded and I waved my hands in a dramatic sweeping gesture.
“Have at it fang-boy, saves me the trouble.”
Liam’s lips twitched into a small cocky and deeply knowing smile. I had come to realize this was his, “I know something you don’t” smile. That damn smile pisses me off! Cocky fang-hole!
“Thea, we should have a meeting and take extra safety precautions until this criminal is found. I make no promises about that being alive if he dares to come within five-hundred-yards of my daughter.”
That was a sobering thought, I nodded in agreement.
“If that’s the case, “I’ll be the one helping your feed him to the kelpies when the time comes Patty.”
Patty smiled wider and she raised her glass in salute. She had barely held the starving populace of inhumans of Harlem together before I came along and decided to declare myself the queen of my own damn castle two days after being turned to a vampire, or Necrovamp in my case.
Patty’s daughter, Chelsea, is an adorable blonde ten-year-old with a heart of gold and a spine of steel. She is already stronger magically than her mother, which is saying a lot! Chelsea has adopted me as her auntie Thea now. Not that I mind, hell I love the hell out of that kid! Growing up so very like her as a street rat myself, I knew the hard-knock life she had already lived as a child of the big city streets.
“I believe this entire kingdom would be up in arms if our fair princess were to be harmed, or if harm dared to come within a mile of her general direction.”
This time Liam was referring to Chelsea, she was basically the most likely to rule if anything ever happened to me down the road. Everyone in my kingdom accepted this eventuality and everyone adored the child because she is impossible not to love!
Yes I know I am gushing! Sue me! Growing up an orphan as I did, one learns to find a family where one can. I never anticipated having a little girl so close to my heart, despite the fact that the marshmallow gooey center in my heart desires children. So my connection to Chelsea was a happy accident and Patty has become close to me as well.
“Chelsea has finally settled into her new school. Sigh. She was very restless and frustrated when her school refused to admit her because she’s a vampire. Damn humans, they can be such assholes when they want to be.”
I hummed in a vague agreement and Liam poured himself a tall dark ale. As I caught a glimpse of a red-clad female figure approaching the bar, coming right towards the three of us. I didn’t bother to inspect the new arrival, I knew it was no one I was on a first name basis with, but that did not stop the tall brunette from sitting down beside me and placing her smartphone on the counter right next to me.
“Excuse me; you’re Thea Salvo, correct?”
The lush tone was attached to a stunningly attractive woman with baby-blue eyes and an icy-pale complexion. I would have known her to be an ice fae, even if she was not advertising her magic and wearing no glamour to subdue her high-featured and sharply chiseled curves.
I looked down at the phone on the counter, noting the red “record” icon and I groaned.
“No comment, now please let me go back to my drink.”
She pursed her lips and she narrowed her eyes slightly as if she had never heard the word “no” before just now. I could see her intelligent eyes advertising her quick-turning thoughts.
“Miss Salvo, I’m Rebecca Lowman from the Fairy Flare. I just wanted to ask your thoughts on the murder of Miss Jamie Herndon this evening. Is this a hate crime?”
I had not heard the young shifter’s name before now. I was so wrapped up in my role on the crime scene, or jumping four stories up tracking the killer’s path that I had not remembered to even ask. Part of me cringed inwardly feeling as though I had somehow disappointed the dead woman with my callousness.
I huffed and I took a deep sip of my blood and vodka to fortify myself. I then turned back to face the lovely fae reporter. I then crossed my arms over my chest and I straightened up to my unimpressive height of five-six.
“Miss Lowman, you are welcome to stay in this bar, but I will have to ask that you stop recording inside the fourth level of Cold Coffin. My kin enjoys the privacy of this level for all our people. Do not break our sanctuary with your fact-finding quest.”
Her expression was still largely unchanged, but I thought I saw just a flicker of shame cross her features, but it was gone as quickly as it appeared. Rebecca Lowman seemed to dig in, determined to get her sound-bite.
“Please Miss Salvo, you tell me what you can about the murder of Miss Herndon. What is the climate of the shifter populace of Manhattan like tonight in the wake of the first human hate crime against an inhuman since The Dawning?”
Liam did them the favor of slamming a beer mug down on Miss Lowman’s cellphone and he gave her an easy smile.
“Sorry about that, didn’t see yer phone was sitting right there, bullocks.”
Liam looked about as repentant as the cat that ate the canary. He smiled his charming and lethal smile. His magic rushed off him in waves and the unspoken threat was issued.
“We do not conduct such business here at the Cold Coffin. You are pledged to our kingdom and you are allowed a very independent status because you prefer to chase the news. That’s well and good; in fact, we need media right now, but please respect the sanctity of this establishment. This is the very seat of power of our Queen.”
Liam was giving the pretty fairy a healthy reminder of who it was she now served. Rebecca shot me an apologetic smile that we both knew was more for Liam’s sake than any sincere desire to repent of any perceived crimes.
“Forgive me, Miss Salvo, I shall leave you, but I do hope you will remember me in the days to come.”
She placed a blue card with a small fae glamour of falling snow with her business number and all her various information. Liam turned his ale mug up and gulped it down steadily.
“Bloody vampires, the whole lot of them!”
I snorted and shook my head resisting the urge to get sucked into the black hole that was Liam’s ridiculous sense of humor.
Six:
Seri had been planning to let her kin settle in before she approached her and asked about her first day working as a detective. She regretted this decision as she watched the ice fairy flirting with Thea and licks her lips invitingly. Seri was about five seconds from punching someone, namely a busty brunette with a tacky blood-red dress.
You want blood...
Seri sighed and closed her eyes, massaging her temples in a fast rhythm.
“She’s not happy about the woman at the table. Liam is letting me listen in via telepathy. Her name is Rebecca Lowman and she is a reporter working for Fairy Flare News.”
She watched as the woman crowed Thea’s space and her hands were white-knuckled.
“I am cursed above all vampires Bix. I must be the only vampire in history not to be able to date my kin when I finally found her after three-centuries!”
Bix sighed and nodded in concession. She did not exactly agree with Seri, but neither did she attempt to disagree. Seri’s relationship with Thea was vicarious at their best moments. Thea was closed down tighter than a sealed bank vault. While she did not date anyone else now, she also did not seem to want Seri anywhere near her. Hell, she is already planning to rent some damnable little apartment just to keep her “freedom” from Seri.
“Your situation with Thea will take time, think of the shit I put Liam through for years.”
Seri snorted and shook her head.
“Yeah, you were ruthless. I used to laugh and laugh about your interactions with him until I met Thea.”
Seri’s eyes were trained on the beautiful young light-tan skinned Latin girl. She was so young, but so mature and still immature in some of the most crucial ways. Thea was brilliant and powerful beyond imagination, and she was Seri’s kin. To inhumans, kin is the soul’s other half. Their essence sings to one another. While many find relationships without ever meeting kin, the bond is sacrosanct to al
l inhumans.
Seri had not heard of many kin who were half as contentious as she was with Thea. They were both powerful and both princesses in their own right, but Seri knew that more was happening to cause the constant friction between them.
Even thirteen-months after her turning, Thea was just as evasive and closed off to Seri as she ever was. The girl further tortured Seri with seemingly endless nights of fantastic dreams of what her subconscious wanted to do to Seri. Thea was terrible at controlling her dreamscape ability. Seri had not had many nights of peace from her constant craving to taste her young kin’s flesh and drink in her lips. She shivered at the very prospect of sharing blood while they made love.
Shit
She sighed and took a long swig of her amber draft beer.
“I know she needs time and that we have a lot of time, but dammit Bix, her every movement is like a provocative invitation for me! I know you’re straight, but look at her and tell me you would be able to control your urges if you were into girls.”
Bix tried to bite back her smile least she tempts the vampire princess to wrath. She shrugged and neutrally said, “I would be wise never to own such desires if I wish to keep my neck intact Seri.”
Seri snorted at Bix’s very polite and vague answer. Seri’s strawberry hair fell into her left eye and she quickly combed it from her eye, tucking the strands behind her ear.
“Do you think she just doesn’t want me? It has happened before, akin not desiring or trusting their other. Her birth into this life was extremely grizzly. Could that have deadened her to any hope of trusting inhumans as a whole?”
Bix chewed on her lip for a moment and she shook her head in a clear “no.”
“Seraphina just allow your kin time, possibly a lot of time and you shall win her.”
She took another deep gulp of her amber beer. Liam is a micro-brew genius! He’s insane and possibly the most insufferable vampire in the history of the inhuman kind, but damn if he does not create some spectacular beer!
“How goes your taming of Liam? Is he still causing you a lot of grief?”
Bix snorted and rolled her eyes. Bix was typically very stiff and a bit too serious, but she had loosened up a lot since she and Liam had become real kin. Cementing the bond between them had changed them both in some ways. Seri really tried not to envy her friends their happiness together, but sometimes she was too petty not to.
“Have you met Liam?!”
Bix sarcastic response was spoken with a slight tip of steel to her tone. Yep, Liam was still driving Bix bat-shit-crazy. They were typically ether fight to blood or fucking just as violently. Many a window or wooden object had suffered the wrath of their disagreements. Sri gave up on trying mediating their disputes because she often came in too late and they were in the process of making up. There was only so much of Liam’s lily white ass Seri’s eyes could handle!
“Have you ever thought of investing in a shock collar?”
Seri gave Bix a self-satisfied smirk at her joke. Bix’s smile widened quickly as if she was envisioning shocking the hell out of Liam when he started to fight with her.
“You are your father’s daughter Seraphina Herrington.”
Bix declared as if there was ever a single thread of doubt to the truth of that statement. She was indeed Cain’s child, just hopefully not as bat-shit-crazy.
She looked back over and watched Thea staring down the reporter girl. Her jaw clenched and she looked up at Bix with her control threatening to slip.
“Tell your kin to handle her or I shall.”
She let the threat trail off ominously and Bix seemed to go rigid. Seri could pick out the subtle magic that sparked between the two, only because she was so in tune with each Bix and Liam. Liam poured a pint of ale and he smashed it down on top of the woman’s phone in the next moment. Seri couldn’t help the evil smile creeping up her features. Oh yes, she was Cain’s daughter all right!
The reported sat something down on the counter and then she picked up and left in a hurry. Liam slumped and went back to drinking and shooting the breeze with Thea and Patty.
“Crisis averted, we will be sure to make the no reporters rule stick more firmly starting tomorrow night. She was fishing for leads on Thea’s first murder case.”
Seri’s spine chilled, she had inspected the crime scene herself and the body after the cops had finally delivered her to the morgue. Thea had such a penchant for trouble, even when she didn’t seek trouble out actively. She had barely left her graduation when she was called to the first high-profile inhuman murder since The Dawning.
“Will you shadow her and keep an eye out Bix? I regret to burden you with such a task, considering she is powerful and all…”
Seri’s words trailed off. Bix shrugged and said, “Sure, but keep in mind that Thea has already managed to hold her throne from several worthy challengers and she has the respect of her community. Manhattan Island is prospering under your shared rule and she has become a young inhuman visionary for our possible future.”
Seri nodded in agreement.
“Aye, but we need to protect her while she’s young and slowly maturing. We all forget that what she is right now is not even a fraction of what she will become. That she rivals me so newly awakened is almost terrifying.”
Bix bobbed stiffly in agreement and she gave very little away with her impassive expression.
“She’s as potent as the legends of old Seri. She will either save us all one day or destroy the world.”
Chills swept down Seri’s back and she reluctantly tipped her head in agreement.
“Let us hope for the former of the two. I believe in her and in her moral compass. She’s nothing like my father or any of the old-bloods.”
Bix’s lips twitched but she fought back the smile that threatened to spread.
“While I am looking out for Thea I will dig for clues into this case for our sake. I trust Thea to keep us all apprised, but an extra set of trained eyes would not hurt for such a massive case.”
Seri gave her a warm smile.
“Thank you, my old friend, what would I do without you?”
Bix twitched her lips and she did finally break into a full smile this time.
“Go bat-shit-crazy from trying to manage Liam all by yourself?”
Seri let her head cock back and she laughed a deep and musical laughter of the soul. Sadly, she could totally see that possible threat of fate! She wiped a tear from her eye and she waved her hand as she took a sip of her beer.
“Nah, I would have had him neutered if that was the case.”
Bix laughed loudly which caused Liam to look across the room and frown at the two immortal women. He gave them a very wary gaze as if trying to riddle out all potentially life-threatening possibilities for himself.
Bix waved casually to Liam and smiled widely and blew him a kiss. He smirked at her in that cocky way of his, but his eyes narrowed a bit as if trying to figure out her game. This is exactly what happens when two apex predators are kin to one another. Such powerful egos collide with a deadly force that nature is warped around them. Seri couldn’t help but wonder how much worse this would be with Thea.
She tried to relax and let the music and the alcohol carry her away. She needed to calm down and unwind. Lately, she was spread so thin that she barely had two moments of freedom or privacy. She still had to speak with the parents of the dead shifter who were flying into JFK Airport in the morning. So much needed to happen and times were moving rapidly in the post-Dawning world. Old powers were shifting and new contenders were seeking out ambition. Magic was in the open now so no more restrictions about exposure. Not that Seri was encouraging her people to go out and advertise themselves to the general public.
Seri could feel an ominous wind blowing through New York and she feared for the direction of the future of the inhuman species. Fear and anger were at an all-time high in the nation. She had not seen such backward thinking in the common human since the Civil Rights movement!
> Change is never easy and it is always accompanied by pain and hardship. Humans and inhumans alike tend to cling to the past with romanticized views of yesterday. She sipped on her beer and tried to steer her mind off of heavy topics.
Seven:
Too damn early and too damn soon, the morning came with a vengeance. My sleep-addled mind was barely cognizant enough to shower and scrub. I stepped out of the tub and brushed my teeth and combed out my growing mane of hair. I was going to need to cut it off a bit, but I really hated cutting my hair! It’s my one girly aspect.
When I dressed in what I hoped was business-casual, I grabbed my wallet, my phone, and my brand-new detective’s shield. I fastened my black leather shield holster onto my matching black leather belt. I wore grey dress slacks and a dark blue blouse. I pulled my well-worn leather jacket over my ensemble and my trench coat of that. Late fall in New York was brutal in the mornings!
As I peered into the mirror I hardly recognized the girl staring back at me. She was capable and clean-cut, not at all the street-rat I was so accustomed to seeing. Still, the streets had hardened me and are shown in my eyes and my posture. I felt like this was my first day of college all over again! I didn’t know what to expect and I was both dreading and longing for the day to unfold.
How have I made it this far? How am I still standing here, I should be dead!
My slightly morbid ponderings colored my mood a bit. I stepped outside and I managed to get to my car with just a slight chill creeping up on me. If I was human or purely necromancer as I once was, I would have been frigid by now. Liam was already up and he had tossed me a large bottle of blood on my way out the door.
We now had two synthetic blood companies in the states, one of which was in New York. Seri had invested in the company a long time ago. She had a lot of foresight and more money than all the nations of the world to work with as a budget.
Now, with fifty-percent of the total North American synth blood profits, she was only becoming richer still. Her company Hemo-Type was the leading manufacturer of all things artificial blood for the hungry vampire masses. Besides, wouldn’t you be inclined to trust your dietary needs to the Crown Princess of Earth?