“Kent’s not gonna like him,” Jill commented when the faery was gone, kicking off her shoes and padding over toward the bedrolls.
“Another good reason I didn’t bring him along this time.”
Jill snorted. She sat down and slapped the spot in front of her to indicate that Devan should come sit down. When her friend was situated, Jill reached up and began combing tangles from Devan’s luxuriously long dark hair. Her hair was the center of Devan’s powers and it had grown longer as she’d come to embrace the magic within her.
“He should be here, though,” Jill continued as she began French braiding the strands. “He should meet your dad. I mean, you’re kind of serious right? That’s what people do when they’re a couple.”
“I know. I miss him already. That’s stupid, huh? We’ve hardly been apart for all these weeks and I kind of like sleeping up against him.” Devan gently elbowed Jill. “Not that I don’t like sleeping with you too.”
“I know what you mean. You get used to having a person there with you. Maybe you should go ahead and bring him over. Ask, Roon. I’m sure he can tell you if it’s safe. And I could go back if you want. You wouldn’t need both of us and–”
“You have to come too.”
It was Roon’s voice sounding from the doorway and both women looked up at him with wide eyes. A little critter scurried from behind him to perch at his feet. The animal cocked its head at them and appeared to study Devan with glistening green eyes.
“Whatcha got there, Roon? Did that little ferret just wander up to you?” Jill asked, holding out her hand toward the creature.
Rooney laughed boisterously, then tapped the little ferret on the hind-end to force him into the cottage so he could close the door.
“Oh–my–goodness!” Devan gasped, crawling onto her hands and knees so that she could approach the little furry fellow.
“What? What’d I miss?” Jill hated being left out, especially when she had the sense she should be able to easily figure out what ever was happening. She looked from Roon to the critter and then back. Finally the red-headed faery nodded his head in the pet’s direction.
“He lives here. He’s become McKenna’s pet of sorts. He resented it quite a bit but he needed a home and she was the only one here who would take him. Look closer. You already know this guy. Although rather than a ferret I’d probably call him a weasel.”
Devan began laughing hysterically, rolling over to her back and clutching her stomach. Jill stared harder into the animal’s eyes for several more seconds, then the light bulb went off and she grinned.
To her utter shock the animal opened its mouth and spoke, “I’m glad to see you two find this so funny.”
“Robbie! It’s Robbie! Here, it is, what is,” Jill repeated Roon’s previous words, “And here you truly are the weasel you always were.”
The Past – Fall from Grace
“Who ever said you were stupid, girlie?” Charlie asked, a pair of bifocals perched on his bulbous nose, “Stupid girls don’t remember stuff like this.”
“Smart people can’t just regurgitate stuff, they have to know how to make something out of it. Just ‘cause I have a practically photographic memory doesn’t mean I’m smart,” she argued, carefully jotting notes down while the older man examined slides under a microscope. He snorted and she winked when he looked up at her above the glasses.
“It certainly doesn’t hurt none,” he said.
When she had finished marking down the appropriate numbers in the charts she herself had designed to keep track of the lab results, she leaned back in her chair and began chewing the end of her pencil pensively. “I’m not good at putting it all together. I can recite it verbatim, but figuring out what it means and how one thing I read fits another thing. Well, my brain just can’t seem to do it. I don’t mind. It’s why I chose business as my major. I don’t have to analyze and compute. It’s like these charts. I can organize all this, keep it straight and even come up with different ways to spit out the info. This I’m good at.”
Charlie understood why Doc was so fond of the pretty blonde next to him. He had just met her and already wanted to bundle her into a package and keep her forever. Unfortunately he was too old for a young woman like Jill. And of course, she only had eyes for Doc anyway.
“And when do classes start up again?”
“Uhm… soon.”
He glanced up again as he switched slides. “How soon is soon?”
“I’d need to leave in just a few days actually.”
“You will leave in just a few days,” his tone was stern, parental even.
Jill didn’t miss his intention. “When you guys get this thing with the Org done and you get ready to open the medical center, I could help run it. Like I said, I’m a business major. And I have a knack.”
“You can’t stay, Jill. He wants you to get your education. It meant enough to you just a month ago. He thinks it should mean just as much to you now.”
“Well, then maybe I can come back? During breaks maybe? I’ll be finished soon.”
Charlie was quiet and she joined him in his silence for a few minutes until she hopped up from her seat and approached the counter where he was working. He pointed to a tray of slides and she obligingly passed them to him.
“How’d you get to know him? You’re not a vampire or a warlock or a magical creature so how’d you come to work on this stuff?”
“Doc and I were mates at med school.”
Her eyes widened, “You were in school together?”
The bearded man laughed, rubbing his grizzled chin. “Don’t worry, girlie. I’m a bit older. But only a bit, mind you. Anyway, after graduating we both chose different paths. I got married, wanted the quiet life. Lived not far from here actually. He went off to become a surgeon with a specialty in cancer. Cancer’s a nasty thing, but it’s what gave him the idea to do away with the Org. If we can find a way to get a dhampir cell into the bloodstream of the vampire, a way that would remain in waiting just like a cancer cell. If we could hide it just right, it might actually work,” He dropped his head sheepish when he saw her look. “But I digress.”
“It’s okay, Charlie. I don’t mind hearing about it.”
“Well, but you asked about Allen and I. We got back together when Michelle was diagnosed with cancer. I tracked him down because I knew he was the best. But sometimes God decides these things for us and even Doc couldn’t eradicate her disease. It was only a few weeks after she died when he got changed.”
“Oh,” she murmured, staring off into space, “Yeah, the change.”
“You know a little about the change, but by the time I got to him he was nearly crazy. It consumed him. He was lost, without a purpose. They had already put him to work treating the children. He found something to cling to, something that was familiar. He knew how to be a doctor. He’d never be able to be a surgeon again, but this was close.” His voice trailed and she thought she detected anger bubbling under the surface somewhere when he spoke again. “When he found out the truth of the Org and what they were doing, that was when he almost gave up.”
“What does the Org think about you? Do you work for them?”
He shrugged, “It’s a bit complicated, but they believe I’m his supplicant. On the side they expect me to work for them, treating some of the kids.”
“But you’re not his supplicant. You just bring him blood, right?”
Charlie laughed. “Yeah, that’s the way we do it. I’ve offered to feed him. I’d never even remember it if he used the reverie, but no. He wouldn’t even consider it.”
“And so how long have you two been trying to figure this out. This ‘vampire cancer’?”
“Probably since you were just a little girl.”
“Wow.”
He sighed, returning to his slides. “Yep, wow.”
She paused before speaking, afraid she’d be creeping into something she shouldn’t. “What about Craig? Were you with him when that happened?”
She couldn’t tell whether he was angry, hurt or despondent, but the physical response of emotion from the old man was clear. His hand trembled and the breath that escaped his lips got caught in his throat. “He tell you about Craig?”
“He did. He said he let him die. He said the boy asked him to do it.”
“You know, Allen and I are different people. In school I remember us getting into a pretty lively debate about euthanasia. He believed it should be a person’s right to choose to die, that even a doctor couldn’t be the appropriate judge of what type of life was too agonizing. I argued against, said it was against the will of the maker to destroy or allow the creation to be destroyed. No matter which creator you believe in. When he held that boy and eased him into the hereafter with the most unselfish affection. I knew I was wrong. The boy found a peace he’d never once had since we’d started treating him.”
“But Doc didn’t find peace.”
“No, no, no. He didn’t find any peace at all. He found anger. And a need for vengeance like no other. He may have been intent upon stopping the Org before, but after.” The old man ran his hand through his hair. “Well, he wants to eradicate them now. He won’t stop until they’re destroyed.”
“What if it destroys him?” she asked softly and swallowed a few times so that she wouldn’t cry.
Charlie placed a hand over hers. “You shouldn’t worry about these things, Jill. Sometimes in life, we just have to roll with the punches. He’s doing the best he can.”
“Jill! C’mon, I finally got the damn thing finished. It’s time for you to get your paintbrushes wet.”
It was Doc’s voice and she smiled with one corner of her mouth when Charlie looked back at his slides. “You know he hates that I’ve started helping you and uses any reason to get me out of here.”
Charlie spared her a glance to wink. “He knows you’re secretly in love with me, darlin’. Jealousy pure and simple,” then when she turned around he made a motion to smack her on the rear, but she squealed and skirted out of the way before he could touch her.
She found Doc in the third exam room where he’d finished priming the walls. A few days ago they’d replaced all of the Sheetrock on one wall. It took him a few tries to get the hang of taping and mudding the seams, but eventually he was satisfied with his work and began the process of priming. This, Jill had convinced him, was a good chore for him because her arms would be so tired that she wouldn’t be able to paint the “real stuff.”
When she entered the room she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Mmm, don’t you just love the smell of fresh paint.”
He snorted. “Not sure how you could smell it since you haven’t started it yet.”
“Pfft, primer smells just like paint. Which you knew and you were just teasing me. Okay, got it,” she laughed at herself even as she began sorting paint cans on one side of a temporary table made of a sheet of plywood across two sawhorses.
They’d removed one of the windows for the room during the remodel and Jill had been painting the panes with small designs that she assured him would look great in the sunlight–he told her he’d take her word for it since he couldn’t stand in direct sunlight. For now, the window was propped against one of the sawhorses waiting to be reinstalled.
“Have you decided yet?” he asked as he stood from his stooped position, moving toward a chair. He intended to sit, then thought better of it and instead walked toward her. He slid himself behind her, placing his hands around her waist and pulling her against his front.
“How’m I supposed to work with you doing that to me?” she whispered, even as she felt her body respond instantly to his touch.
“Perhaps we could delay your work. I’m hungry for you, Jill.”
She turned in his arms and smiled at him. “You just fed yesterday.”
Doc’s hands slid down the curve of her back to grab her backside and pull her tight against him, “That’s not the type of hunger I was talking about.” He inhaled deeply as he kissed her neck. Anticipation mounted when she reached for the buckle of his jeans and her mouth found his.
“You’ve gotta call, Doc!” cried Charlie and the echo of his voice clearly indicated he was moving their direction through the hallway. “It’s Dearmon!”
The growl that emitted from Doc’s throat was one of intense frustration, but he squeezed her buttocks with rough affection, kissed the top of her nose, then headed out of the room.
Jill took a moment to languish in the residual desire his touch had elicited, then returned her attention to the paints before her. Doc asked if she’d decided and she had indeed chosen a theme for this room. Given the nature of the children treated here, she thought it most fitting to paint a mural based on Disney’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Magic in homage of magic.
The flourishes of color seemed to come naturally to her. The twists and turns of her wrist flowed like honey; thick, smooth and sure. Before long the shadows of characters and figures began to fully develop on the walls.
Doc had been gone a good while when she noticed a small flaw in the tape at the top of the wall near the ceiling. She was up on a chair touching things up when she saw it. After a moment’s thought, she decided she could just as well paint a star over it to cover the crack. It was just barely out of her reach, so she stretched, teetering with one leg out for balance.
Briefly the thought crossed her mind that she should just step down off the chair and move it a bit to her right, but she forced that thought aside and leaned a bit further. Just a touch more of paint and it would be finished. A curl fell against her forehead and without thinking she jerked her head to fling it away.
She realized her mistake almost as soon as she made it, but it was too late. Her arms went flailing and her body began tumbling backwards. She heard the paint brush hit to floor with a thunk. Her initial reaction was to lament the smudge of paint it would surely leave on the tile. In the next moment, blackness consumed her.
When she awoke her first thought was that she was wet. She rubbed a hand into the sticky liquid under her arms, frowning as she considered what it might be. She tried to sit up and that was when white hot pain shot through her entire body. It seemed to originate in her back and left shoulder, so she reached up with her right hand. That was when she realized the wet she was laying in was her own blood and it was coming from a wound on her back.
Placing her hand against the gash, she felt herself get woozy when it occurred to her how rapidly she was bleeding. She had no idea how long she’d been laying there, but something told her it had been a while. She opened her dry mouth to call out for Doc, but all she could manage was a hoarse sound. She sucked in a breath again but the dark inked into her mind and once more went all went black.
The Present – The Faery’s Pitch
The crossing from Summer to Fall was drastic to say the least. A clear line indicated the division between the two sectors. The grass immediately changed from vibrant green to a yellowish-green. The foliage was no longer full and lush, but was sparser and now multicolored with reds, oranges, yellows and some browns. The wind howled with a chill and carried sweeping flourishes of fallen leaves to and fro and in swirling cyclones all around.
Rooney was trudging out ahead of them, leading the way and Jill noticed that Devan was beginning to shiver. Her friend held out a hand as if to call out to the faery, then she stopped and shrugged. The magic never ceased to amaze her as Jill watched her witchy friend draw in a huge breathe and two jackets appeared in her outstretched hand.
While Jill slipped her arms into the sleeves, she grinned impishly. “Well at least that answers the question about whether your magic is still intact.”
“Were you wondering about that? I could have told you. I would have felt it if it were gone. It’s become a part of me now.”
“C’mon slowpokes!” Roon exclaimed to them, rolling his arms to indicate they should hurry.
“I guess he thinks he’s in charge,” Devan muttered as she buttoned up the jacket and walk
ed double-time to catch up with him.
It suddenly occurred to Jill that she really was cold and the jacket she’d put on truly was warming her. As a vampire she was always cold, but not in an uncomfortable way, just as a matter of being. Here, it was like some small part of her was becoming human again even though she could still feel the darkness, the battered and ugly thing in her being that always ate away at her.
The night before when she’d offered to go back, to let Kent make this journey with Devan instead, it wasn’t just a kind offer. It was a sudden panicked feeling in her breast. She liked it too much here, was feeling too comfortable and that in and of itself made her uncomfortable. Doc was gone. She didn’t want to have this life now.
You have to come too. Roon had told them. He hadn’t elaborated when Jill pressed him later. He just told her again that she had to come, that the Women wanted her there. The Women seemed to be maneuvering everything, Jill thought as she fingered her beads not for the first time during their journey into the faery realm.
Just then a light appeared in front of Devan and it took Jill a moment to realize it was the golden door opening up. When the door completed its transition to their location, Jill could make out the faint outline of Langston standing just inside it.
“Hey, Andre!” She called out, waving her hand like a kid.
The giant nodded his head, looking at her affectionately before turning his gaze to Devan, “Hello, little one. It appears you are safe.”
“And I still have my magic,” she noted, flicking an energy ball out to the side so that he could see the truth in what she’d said.
Just then Kent peeked his head around the corner of the door and looked longingly at Devan, “Everything is okay, then?” he asked.
Jill noticed that Roon was shifting his weight from one foot to the other uncomfortably. This must be difficult for him, to be so close to the woman he loved and yet know she wouldn’t be his. She supposed she was lucky that she’d never had to feel jealousy with Doc. He was hers from start to finish. A prickle of shame stabbed her when she thought of those days just after her change and she shook her head to force the memories away.
The Bend-Bite-Shift Box Set Page 27