Jamie

by I D Johnson

  “Not really your man,” Jamie whispered in the woman’s ear, pulling back on her.

  “Just pretending,” Lee assured him, but Jamie could tell that wasn’t the case. She really was jealous. He watched the pair vanish out the back door and turned around to face the front, hoping Kit would join them and follow Wes and the Vampire out the back door.

  She was nowhere to be found.

  “Where’d Kit go?” Jamie asked.

  “I don’t know,” Lee replied, “but we need to go, just in case Wes needs us.”

  Jamie signaled at Teresa, who’s lithe fingers continued to fall across the correct keys even as she turned her head and saw that Kit was gone. The piano music came to an abrupt halt as she hurried out the front door.

  Knowing they needed to stay with Wes, Jamie let Lee rush him out the back. Hopefully, Kit had gone back out to report to Carson. He knew she wouldn’t likely be too upset that she was no longer lead. It would be easier to get Fritzy this way, after all, since she was naturally attracted to Wes.

  Up ahead of them in the dark alleyway, Jamie saw two figures pressed against the brick wall and assumed that must be Wes and Fritzy. It looked like he was in control of the situation as he had her back against the wall and towered over her, his six-foot-frame much taller than her barely-five-foot in heels.

  “Let’s go,” Lee said, tugging on his arm again.

  “Hold on,” Jamie insisted, telling himself it wasn’t the fact that he was about to enter a dark alley with a vampire that had him hesitating. “It looks like he’s got this, for now. Perhaps one of us should go around to the other side.”

  “Don’t you suppose that’s where Kit went?” Lee asked, stepping back into the shadows so that she would be harder to spot, should the Vampire decide to pull her eyes off of the handsome man in front of her and survey the area.

  “I have no idea,” Jamie admitted. Not wanting to leave either of these Hunters unprotected, and still wondering where Kit might be, he gave in and went along with Lee. They crept forward, getting close enough so that, should Fritzy make a run, they could head her off.

  From here, they could clearly see Wes kissing the vampire, and not just on the lips either. His hands trailed down her ample bosom, and his lips found a spot on her neck that had her crying out in pleasure even before she bit into him, not that she could turn him.

  “What the hell is he doing?” Lee asked.

  “I haven’t the foggiest,” Jamie admitted. It was as if he were under some sort of spell. Jamie had heard of sirens before, both of the Vampire and Guardian variety, but he’d never seen one in real life. Until now. “We need to do something.”

  “Right,” Lee agreed, but before she could step forward, they saw movement at the other end of the alley. The figures of two women stepped into the narrow footpath. Jamie recognized them right away. Kit and Teresa.

  The two women seemed to be marching with purpose, though Kit was leading the way, and from here, Jamie could see their footsteps in unison as they made their way up the alleyway. He knew angry Kit when he saw her, even from this distance, and he didn’t wish to be the one to step between her and whatever it was she was headed for. In this instance, he assumed that would be Fritzy.

  “Do you want to go back to my place?” Jamie heard Fritzy ask in a husky voice, and he thought that quite odd considering she usually just laid waste to her victims here in the alleyway. Puncture wounds, draining, quick slash of the throat, a dead body for someone to stumble upon the next morning.

  “Yes, please.” Wes’s familiar voice almost sounded foreign it was so full of lust.

  “What the hell?” Lee repeated.

  “I think she’s gotten to him,” Jamie tried to explain. By now, Kit was almost there, and all he and Lee needed to do was cover the exit. “Come on,” he said, pulling on her sleeve and pressing her to move closer. She was still stunned but did as he insisted.

  Fritzy didn’t see what she had coming to her until it was too late. If she’d been a real woman, Jamie would’ve been inclined to feel sorry for her. But she wasn’t, not anymore, anyway. Kit took them both by surprise, wedging her way between the other Hunter and the Vampire, shoving Wes back in time for Teresa to catch him. While Jamie assumed it was Kit’s revolver she had in her hand in front of her as she came up the alleyway, he could see now that it wasn’t. It was something much more sinister; a hatchet. She pounded it into Fritzy’s neck before the prostitute had time to blink.

  There was no blood, but the sight was still unsettling as the woman he often shared his bed with pulled the blade out of her neck and swung it backward again in a long arch, taking aim and letting it go again. This time, the head was severed, and Fritzy’s decapitated top let out a slight scream of breathy air as her head toppled to the ground and spun around a few times, her body crumpling at the knees and then folding up, bursting into ash as it mingled with the rest of the grime on the alleyway at Kit’s feet.

  “What in the world is happening?” Wes asked, swiping at his long blond bangs as they fell over his eyes. He looked around in confusion, stepping away from Teresa. “How did I get here?”

  Teresa’s calm voice filled the alleyway as Jamie and Lee came over and Kit continued to hold the hatchet in front of her like a prize. “She was able to manipulate you, Wesley,” the older Guardian explained. “She’s some sort of siren. Or was, anyway.”

  Wes continued to sputter as the rest of the team looked around at each other. This was the first time Jamie had witnessed this phenomenon, but something told him it wouldn’t be the last time.

  Carson’s heavy footsteps sounded behind them, and they all turned to look at him. “Got her did you then, Kit?” he asked, a pleased smile on his face.

  “No thanks to any of them,” Kit replied, still holding the hatchet. She looked at Jamie particularly sharply and then turned to head back the way she’d come.

  “Meet in my office for a debrief in twenty minutes!” Carson called after his granddaughter, but Kit continued to march back down the alley much the way she’d come in a few minutes ago.

  It didn’t take a brilliant doctor to figure out that she was upset at him, but since Jamie was one, he got the sense he should follow along, although the fact that Kit was wielding an axe was heavy on his mind. She could use it to maim him, or even murder him, if she wanted. “Kit,” he called, rushing up behind her but not tugging on her shoulder. “Well done. Brilliant kill.” His words didn’t match what he was thinking inside, that she’d gone over the top, but he thought it wouldn’t be appropriate at this juncture to point out that she’d gone a bit too far, not while she was still carrying the murder weapon.

  “I’m sure you think so,” she muttered, turning steely blue eyes in his direction. “You wanted Wes to get the kill, didn’t you? Even though I was lead?”

  “Oh, well, I just thought… I could see that Fritzy was interested in him, that’s all. I didn’t expect it mattered much, so long as we got her.”

  Kit stopped a few feet from the end of the alleyway. “You never seem to think it matters much, but it does, James. You need to think about what happens every time you take over a hunt like that. You’re not the one calling the shots, you know? Grandfather was the one in charge, and he knew what she was capable of, knew it would be best to send in a woman. But you just did what you wanted to do anyway without any regard for the danger you were sending Wes into!” She continued to stomp off, and once she’d reached the sidewalk that ran along a busy street, she had enough forethought to slide the hatchet into her pocket.

  Jamie stood and watched her, stunned, not sure what to say. Clearly, she thought he was making a habit of “taking over the hunt” or whatever it was she’d said, and while he didn’t see it that way, he needed to do something to calm her, to apologize. “Kit,” he said, catching up to her and gently pulling her shoulder this time. She shrugged away. “I’m sorry you see it that way. I didn’t know. I only picked up on the cues from what was happening.”

 
“And you picked up wrong!” she squealed at him. “This is not the first time, Jamie!”

  He could feel his own blood beginning to boil now. “Oh, really?” he inquired, his own voice beginning to grow louder than he intended. “When have I ever….”

  “Lots of times,” she interrupted. “At Ferguson last month. That time on the Potomac. What about Bourbon?”

  He had no idea what she was talking about. He remembered the hunts, but couldn’t rightly put his finger on any decisions he’d made at any of them. “Kit….”

  “Listen, Jamie! There’s something you need to understand. You’re not a leader! You don’t have it in you! You never will!”

  Jamie felt all of the blood drain from his face. He’d never even thought about the possibility of asking to be promoted to a leadership position. He knew his place—at least he thought he had. He stared at her, his mouth agape, for several seconds.

  Kit began to calm down some. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice better under control. “I know I shouldn’t…. It’s just, you’re a Healer. That’s what you’re good at. That’s what you’re great at. I can’t have you changing the plans in the middle of a hunt.”

  Puzzled, Jamie tilted his head to the side and asked, “You can’t?”

  She let out a long sigh. “I’m taking over here. Grandfather is moving on to… someplace else, someplace warmer. Jordan’s already agreed.”

  “I had no idea….”

  “I want to keep you on, I do. It’s only… this business between us would have to stop. And also, you’ve got to stop interfering, stop trying to take over. Do you think you can do that?”

  Jamie couldn’t believe his ears. “Why haven’t you told me before?” It explained why she’d been so on edge recently and the conversation they’d had earlier in the day.

  “I wanted to,” she admitted with a shrug. The gaslight on the corner illuminated her face as she tilted it up to look at him, and Jamie couldn’t help but notice how lovely she was. “I just didn’t know when the right time might be.”

  “When you were in my bed last night or this morning might’ve been a good time,” he reminded her.

  Exasperated, Kit let out a groan. “No, it wouldn’t have been. You were too busy talking about marrying me, Jamie. I don’t… I don’t want to marry you. You’d think you’d catch on to that by now. But instead, that’s all you can think about.” She took a step forward. “Do you remember how awful Jeffrey and Sol thought I was when I was first starting out, how they thought I’d never amount to anything?”

  He remembered. He’d also agreed with them, particularly when she’d shot him. He only nodded.

  “Well, I’ve worked very hard to prove them wrong, to prove everyone wrong. Now, I finally have the opportunity to show everyone what I can do. I won’t let you screw it up for me. I won’t let you take it away from me. So you can stay if you’d like, but no more bedding. And no more taking over.”

  Jamie had never felt so dejected in his entire life. This whole time, she’d thought of him as a nuisance, another challenge to overcome. “I’ll be out of your hair by morning,” he promised, his voice quieter than the hum of the nearby light.

  Kit let out a sigh, tears beginning to fill her eyes, though she didn’t dare let them fall. “Where will you go?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know, but I can tell when I’m not wanted.” He spun around on his heel and headed back toward their hotel, thinking there’d be no reason to attend the meeting if he wouldn’t be part of the team by the time the sun came up. He knew he had options, knew plenty of teams who would be more than happy to have a Healer of his caliber. Whether or not Kit’s assessment that he always tried to take things over or not was accurate remained to be seen, but for now, he’d have to find his way--without her.

  Chapter 22

  Kansas City, Missouri, USA, 1893

  With the turn of the Twentieth Century looming, Jordan and Janette Findley were determined to bring their operation ahead of the curve, bringing their finest and brightest members together to work on advancements that would revolutionize the way they did things. Toward that end, they were in the process of building a training facility on the outskirts of Kansas City, the likes of which no one had ever seen before. When Jamie was summoned there in the fall, after having spent six months bouncing around from one team to another on special assignment, trying to find his place, but also trying to get over Kit. Neither task had been easy, and he was fairly certain he might not ever be able to do either completely.

  Jamie was met at the train station by a woman with long strawberry-blonde hair. She was overly kind, and he felt at easy from the moment he took her hand. “Welcome to LIGHTS,” she said, ushering him toward a waiting automobile. “I’m Hannah Roberts. It’s nice to finally meet you, Dr. Joplin.”

  She walked more quickly than he expected considering they were trying to blend in with the humans, but he was able to keep up. “It’s nice to meet you as well,” he replied. “And please, call me Jamie.”

  Nodding, she gestured for him to climb in, and after he stowed his single suitcase in the back seat, he climbed in beside her. The auto was quite impressive. He’d never seen anything like it; there were so many switches and dials on the dash. She used a stick of some sort attached to the gears to shift it into drive and took off, not having to crank anything or even shift to make the car go faster.

  “This is one of the contraptions Jordan’s got going in the laboratory,” she explained. “He’s got some of the best engineers in the world working on transportation.”

  “Fascinating,” Jamie said, staring from one switch to the next.

  “He’s very interested in air travel, as well,” she continued.

  “You mean, air balloons? Zeppelins? That sort of thing?”

  “Think more sleek, easier to take off and land, although we do have various types of both of those transports in our arsenal.”

  “It will be amazing to see what they come up with next,” Jamie muttered.

  “I think you mean ‘we,’” she corrected. “I’m fairly certain he wants to speak to you because he has a special assignment for you. Weren’t you working on the Transformation serum?”

  Jamie thought back to his experiments in Boston. He felt he’d been close, but he’d spent so much time out in the field these past few years, he hadn’t been able to give it his proper attention. “Yes,” he finally replied. “I was.”

  “Well, perhaps his summoning of you has something to do with that.”

  Hannah wound her way through streets that looked like the ordinary suburbs he was used to through parts of town that reminded him of states further west, California, Oregon, those sorts of places. Kansas City seemed like a town made up of lots of different versions of the same place.

  “How long have you been here?” he asked. She looked relatively young.

  “Not long. I Transformed a few years ago. I’m from Blue Springs, which is close by, so I’ve spent most of my time training here, at LIGHTS Headquarters.”

  “You used that term before. I’m afraid I’m not familiar. What is it?”

  “LIGHTS?” she asked, looking at him out of the corner of her eye. “Lincoln International Guardian and Hunter Training Station. It’s what Jordan and Janette are calling it now. Once the facility is finished, the plan is to bring in all new Hunters and Guardians from all over the world to spend a few weeks training here and then assign them to a team based on their strengths and the needs of various locations.”

  “Really?’ Jamie asked, his mouth gaping. “That sounds like quite an undertaking.”

  “It will be, for a while, especially those coming from overseas, but once we have the capability of traveling through the air, things will be easier.”

  The idea of traveling by air on some sort of colossal craft seemed nearly impossible to Jamie, but he didn’t mention that to Hannah. “And you are a Guardian, I take it?”

  She smiled at him. “How could you tell?”

 
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I tend to know my own kind, I suppose.”

  “Well, if that’s the case you might have already picked up on the fact that I’m also a Healer, though not to the degree that you are. I was studying counseling when I began my Transformation, so I have a tendency to work well with the emotions of others.”

  “You don’t say?” Jamie asked. “How interesting is that. I’ve always been rather curious about human emotions.” His mind flickered to Kit and how he could never tell what might set her off. “And how does your background affect your abilities?”

  “I can influence the emotions of others. Make them happy, or sad, or what have you. It’s been a bit difficult to practice because I don’t want to distress anyone for no reason, but I do have a lab set up, and Jordan has allowed me to take volunteers. I’m getting quite good at it, actually.”

  Jamie pondered her response for a moment before he said, “Well, I should like to volunteer at some point, should you be so inclined as to try your skills out on me. I’d love to experience it for myself.”

  A smile crossed her pretty face. “Why, thank you. And should I ever be in need, you may most certainly apply your skills to me, as well. Your reputation certainly proceeds you, sir.”

  He didn’t know exactly what to say to that, despite the fact that he heard nearly the same description of himself no matter where he went. Perhaps, a few years ago, back before the unsettling discussion he’d had with Kit the night they’d killed Fritzy, he might’ve answered a bit more arrogantly than he tended to now. The woman he once thought he’d been in love with had certainly humbled him with her comments, if not crushed his very soul. “Thank you kindly,” was all he could say, and he realized they were out in the country a bit, headed toward a gate attached to a very high stone wall. “Is this it, then?” he asked as she slowed.

  “It is.” Hannah pressed one of the buttons along the dash, and the thick, iron gates swung open.