Close Enemies

by Marc Daniel

  “It looks like you’re not that smart after all, Wizard. You never saw that one coming, did you? Amateur... This is what happens when you mess with a high fae. You should have stuck to your paygrade, harassing witches and sorcerers, instead of playing in the big boys’ league.”

  The fae’s fingers moved impossibly fast, drawing glyphs in the air as Ezekiel looked powerlessly at his executioner.

  The fae’s feral smile was a sight to behold but it quickly evaporated when he saw his spell had no effect on the beaten-up old man.

  Suddenly he felt his heart constricting in his chest, as if something was squeezing it from the inside.

  “Two can play that game,” he heard the wizard saying, but the voice hadn’t come out of his mouth. It had come from directly behind the fae. He turned around to find the wizard standing ten feet away, his intact staff in one hand. His other hand was erected towards the fae, balled up into a fist.

  The old geezer had played the exact same trick on him. He’d projected an image of himself to deceive the fae… and it had worked.

  As the wizard squeezed his fist harder, the fae felt his heart contracting further and further until it finally exploded.

  It took Ezekiel a few minutes to erase all traces of what had happened and walk to Helen Fletcher’s front door. Hearing only two voices, he opened the door and let himself in.

  He was surprised by what he found on the inside. Wrapped in a towel, Michael was talking to what clearly was a vampire elder. Where had that one come from?

  “Ez, this is Wawetseka. An old… acquaintance.”

  “I go by Irini now, Michael. I took my maker’s name after you slaughtered her in that cabin in the French Pyrenees.”

  “I didn’t know you had… acquaintances of her kind.” Ezekiel sounded more disappointed than surprised.

  “Michael was my babysitter back in the day. Of course, at the time I didn’t belong to the kind you and Michael so clearly disapprove of, old man.”

  Ezekiel appraised Wawetseka from head to toe before turning his attention to Michael. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “She just saved my life, Ez. Without her I’d be dead right now.”

  “My apologies but I was busy dealing with a high fae out there,” said Ez defensively. “And you know I cannot get involved in a purely praeternatural fight.”

  “It wasn’t a reproach, Ez. I was simply explaining that things aren’t always black or white.”

  The image of Wawetseka bent over the lifeless body of his neighbors’ daughter came to Michael’s mind. An image that had haunted him for centuries. He’d been too weak to kill Wawetseka when he should have, and his neighbors’ little girl had paid for his weakness. Her and so many others… Wawetseka had been a vampire for nearly three and a half centuries. There was no telling how many humans she’d slaughtered to quench her unholy thirst during that time.

  “What about that one?” asked Ez, gesturing towards Lucy. “Didn’t we cremate her?”

  “Apparently we didn’t.”

  Ezekiel nodded and got busy cleaning up the mess and disposing of bodies. Within ten minutes, the place looked good as new. No one had said a word the entire time; they just stared at Ezekiel working his magic. It really was something.

  “I fear my presence is affecting the quality of the conversation. I’ll leave you alone with your new friends, Michael.”

  “Thanks, Ez. I owe you one.”

  “I’ll put it on your tab,” said the wizard as he exited the house.

  Chapter 106

  “It’s nice to see you again, Michael,” said Lucy. Ezekiel had just made his exit and Michael was left standing in the company of the two vampires in the middle of Helen Fletcher’s living room. Or what should have been her living room, hadn’t Katia abruptly ended the woman’s life to usurp her identity.

  “Good evening, Lucy,” he replied neutrally.

  “You don’t seem surprised to see me.”

  “You’re wrong, Lucy. I am very surprised to see the two of you. I really didn’t expect to fight a tiger and a lion when I entered this house an hour ago, and I couldn’t have imagined in a million years that the two of you would show up and save me.”

  “I like to repay my debts,” said Irini, sitting on the couch. The room looked exactly the way it had when Michael had first walked in. Ezekiel had done a very thorough job.

  “Michael saved your life before?” asked Lucy.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “He spared it,” Irini corrected. “That’s the same thing.” There was a sadness in her eyes that Michael hadn’t noticed before.

  “What happened?” Lucy was constantly looking from one to the other, awaiting an answer.

  “Michael and I were friends ages ago,” Irini said finally. “He was there the day I was turned. His bear was the first thing I saw when I woke up a vampire. He immediately knew what I had become: an abomination, from his point of view. A plague requiring eradication. I can still remember the feeling of his fangs biting down on my neck as he meant to behead me.” Irini was looking at him now. “But Michael couldn’t go through with it. In the end, he just couldn’t kill his little Wawetseka.” She’d pronounced the last words with a joyless smile.

  “When was that?” asked Lucy.

  “1679,” answered Michael.

  “You remember the year?” Irini sounded surprised.

  “How could I forget?”

  Irini stared at him in silence a long moment. “How many times have you regretted your decision since?” she asked finally.

  “You have no idea.”

  “You wish you’d killed her? Even though she was your friend then and just saved your life now? She also rescued me from the Western Covenant’s vamp, by the way.”

  “I should have killed her, yes. For years I tried to tell stories to myself. That she’d be different from other vampires. That she wouldn’t harm innocents, somehow. Over the years, I’d almost managed to convince myself.”

  “Why did you change your mind?” asked Lucy.

  He turned towards Irini.

  “Don’t look at me. I don’t know why you changed your mind,” she said.

  He shook his head, the move so slight it was almost imperceptible. He resumed his story for Lucy’s benefit. “A century went by before our paths crossed again. I lived in the French Pyrenees by then and my closest neighbors were a farmer with his wife and little girl. Nice people. Good people. But that didn’t stop her and her maker from slaughtering them.” There was anger in his voice now. “Her maker—the original Irini—was still feeding on the parents inside the house when I arrived. I immediately recognized her as the vampire who’d turned Wawetseka. I felt the blood boil in my veins; she never stood a chance. When I walked out of the house after killing her, I found Wawetseka bent over the child. She’d drained her dry.” Michael was trembling now.

  “Is that what you think happened?” said Irini. “You think I killed the child?”

  Michael was staring at her, confused. What was she trying to say?

  “I never killed a child, Michael. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a vampire and I have killed plenty of humans. I don’t feel the need to apologize for this—humans don’t often apologize to the steak they have for dinner. But I have never killed a child. The little girl was already dead when I found her. You got to the house before I did, Michael. I was tracking Irini down. She’d been on a rampage and I was sent to try and stop her. She killed the girl, not me!”

  Michael sat down in one of the armchairs. He felt exhausted. Could she be telling the truth? Had he truly misread the situation all these years ago?

  “Is this true, Wawetseka?” he asked.

  “I swear to it.”

  Could he trust a vampire’s word? And did it even matter? Assuming she’d never killed a child, she’d still murdered plenty of adults.

  “Whatever you’re thinking about, Michael, you can stop. I no more care about your approval today as I did yesterday. I only told you
because I wanted to correct a misconception. It changes nothing between us. I don’t need your forgiveness. I don’t regret anything I’ve done to survive over the past three centuries.”

  She paused, maybe hoping for a reply, but he remained silent.

  “Now that I’ve paid my debt, I’d like to ask you a few questions about Dragos if you don’t mind. That’s the only reason I’m in this country in the first place. I need to understand the exact details of what happened last year. Particularly the piece about the daywalkers.”

  Michael looked up suddenly. He’d almost forgotten. “Since when can you stand sunlight, Wawetseka?”

  “My name is Irini. And the answer is, I don’t know. I’ve known for a couple hundred years that UV light has no impact on me, but I don’t know why or how it happened.”

  “How did you find out?” asked Michael.

  “I was on a mission and things went south for me. I was dropped in the middle of the desert at night and left to wander. It was meant as an execution since the closest town was a day away at my top speed. I was terrified, ready to die at dawn, but when the sun finally appeared nothing happened. I’ve been walking in daylight ever since.”

  “I’ve been walking in daylight from day one,” Lucy chimed in.

  Michael looked at her in surprise. “What did you say?”

  “I said I’m a daywalker too. Just like Irini. And I can also eat steaks, apparently.”

  This time both Irini and Michael stared at her.

  “You eat steak?” said Irini. “It doesn’t make you sick?”

  “Nope. At least not yet. And it also seems to tame my craving for…”

  “For blood?” finished Irini.

  “Yeah,” said Lucy. She seemed embarrassed to talk about this in front of Michael. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m a vampire at all.”

  “You and I have a lot in common, Missy. Though I don’t eat steak.”

  “What else do you have in common?” asked Michael. He was intrigued by the revelation.

  “Lucy and I are stronger than your average vampire. Lucy managed to beat up her own maker last night. Granted, he wasn’t very old, but that’s still impressive.”

  “Thank you,” said Lucy, bowing theatrically.

  “And I, too, could resist my maker’s call.”

  “Your maker’s call?” asked Michael.

  “Newly turned vampires are telepathically connected to their makers. It’s like hearing a voice in your head. A voice that orders you around, gives you instructions. I think from an evolutionary standpoint it’s supposed to prevent newbies from going nuts or on a rampage should they become separated from their makers during the first few months. But anyway, I’d never heard of any vampire able to resist the call beside me before Lucy.”

  Michael had no reference point for any of this, but he trusted her judgment and found the coincidence troubling. “Have you ever tried to eat steak?” he asked Irini.

  She stared at him blankly. “Never,” she articulated slowly.

  “Have you ever craved meat?”

  “No, I don’t think so. I remember craving berries a lot the first few years after being turned, but I don’t recall ever wanting steak.”

  “Have you ever tried eating berries?”

  “No. I’m a vampire, Michael. I know it’s hard for you to come to peace with this, but it doesn’t change the fact.”

  “What’s the worst thing that could happen if you did try and eat some?”

  “I would get very sick.”

  “And then what?”

  “I suppose I’d eventually get better.”

  “Then I think you should try, Irini.” He’d purposefully used her adopted name.

  She gave him a look meant to convey the stupidity of his suggestion.

  “I have a theory. But it would need to be put to the test,” said Michael.

  “A theory?” repeated Irini.

  “Do you know which large predator eats berries?”

  “I’m gonna go with bear,” she said drily.

  “Correct. Unlike most predators, bears are omnivores.” He paused to let his statement sink in, but the two vampires clearly weren’t getting the point.

  “Lucy. You don’t crave berries, do you?”

  “Not even a little.”

  “Did Olivia tell you what happened when we found you dead in the woods after the battle?”

  “Nooo,” she said, stretching the vowel. She looked intrigued now.

  “She was in her wolf form when she first saw you lying on the forest floor. Her first instinct was to try to save you the only way her wolf knew how: by biting you in hope of turning you into a werewolf.”

  “She did what?” Lucy looked astonished.

  “I thought you were truly dead and didn’t think anything of it at the time, but now I’m starting to wonder if her bite didn’t have an effect after all.”

  “And you think your bite might have had an effect on me as well, don’t you?” asked Irini, who was starting to understand.

  “Why did you bite her?”

  Irini decided to answer Lucy’s question herself. “Michael’s motivations were very different from your sister’s, Lucy. His mind was set on beheading more than saving, but it doesn’t matter. His bear still bit me shortly after my turning, just like your sister bit you after yours.”

  “And that’s why we crave steak and berries?” asked Lucy, confused.

  “I think the two of you may not be full-blooded vampires but some sort of hybrids. You’re mostly vampires but you can do things other vampires can’t. Lucy’s cravings focus on meat because wolves are true carnivores. But only twenty percent of a bear’s diet comes from meat. Bears do have a thing for berries, however.”

  “So you think I’m a vampire-werewolf hybrid and Irini’s a vampire-werebear?”

  “Something like that. You’re obviously much more vampire than were, but there’s still enough were in you to give you superior strength and provide immunization against the sun. But most importantly, you may not require blood to survive.”

  “I was wondering when you were going to get to that part,” said Irini. Her voice had a defensive edge.

  “He may be right, you know. After that steak, my craving for blood decreased a lot.”

  “Maybe you are some type of hybrid, Lucy. But I’m not. I’m a vampire and that’s all there is to it.”

  Trying to diffuse the tension, Michael handed his phone to Lucy. “You should call Olivia to let her know you’re OK. She’s probably sick with worry about you.”

  “So you knew I was back and you knew that Olivia is as well?”

  Michael realized he’d just betrayed himself with his question. “I’ve known you were back for some time, but I’d appreciate if this stayed between us. Olivia doesn’t know that I know, and I don’t want to have to explain—”

  “That Daka betrayed her trust and told you?” Lucy interrupted.

  Michael didn’t reply; he didn’t have to.

  “I called my sister first thing this morning, Michael. I didn’t want her to worry about me.”

  He nodded. That explained why Olivia hadn’t seemed overly concerned when he’d seen her. He suspected Daka didn’t know about the phone call though.

  “I still have questions about Dragos, Michael. Lucy wasn’t able to tell me everything I wanted to know.”

  “I’ll answer all the questions you have on the way to my cabin. We shouldn’t stay here much longer. Being seen at the house of a missing person the night she disappeared could generate lines of inquiry I’d rather avoid.”

  They headed for Michael’s pickup. With a few hours left before dawn, the night was still dark.

  “I just have one more request for you before we move on to Dragos,” said Michael. “Please tell me how you found me here in Helen’s cabin?”

  “I wanted to come and talk to you,” answered Irini, “but when we got to your house you were playing with a tiger. I’ll admit I was a bit surprised but intrigued as well. W
e watched you kill him and hide the body. When you got in your truck, we decided to follow you at a distance.”

  “I never even knew you were following me.”

  “That’s the advantage of not needing a car. We were also careful to remain downwind the whole time we were watching you.”

  “I see you are still cheating,” said Michael, remembering the days the two of them used to play hide and seek.

  “Some things never change.”

  Chapter 107

  As Irini and Lucy entered the alley, they recognized the silhouettes of the four men standing in the shadow halfway down the narrow street. Jacob and his friends were patiently waiting for them.

  “Irini,” said Jacob, slightly tilting his head in greeting: a mark of respect.

  “Good evening, Jacob. I brought your new toy back,” replied Irini. Her tone was jovial.

  “Was she useful?”

  “Yes. I suppose one could say that. I still have some questions about the whole Dragos business, though. You can tell Grigore that I’ll stop by for a chat in the coming days.”

  Jacob made no reply, but his eyes spoke for him. The leader of the Western Covenant would know how to deal with her. At least that’s what Jacob thought.

  Lucy’s maker stepped forward and grabbed his pupil by the arm. “Let’s go now. We’ve wasted enough time.”

  Irini gave him an amused smile. “For once I agree with the chihuahua. It’s time for me to have a bite before these streets empty further. Ta ta, Jacob.” She was gone in an instant, leaving Lucy with her four new friends.

  They walked down the alley towards the quieter of its two intersections. Lucy’s arm was still trapped in her maker’s grip. She made no effort to get away; there was no point.

  They’d nearly reached the intersection when a group of three men and two women appeared around the corner, effectively blocking the way.

  Jacob glanced over his shoulder, looking for a potential exit. What he found there were three more men and a very large wolf blocking any possible retreat.

  The skinwalkers shifted in a split second, engaging the enemy with expert practice. The vampires were so outnumbered it was almost unfair. Daka and Olivia focused on Jacob while Daka’s packmates spread themselves between the two vampires on his right. The fourth vampire was Lucy’s maker and he had his hands full dealing with his latest victim. Lucy wasn’t going easy on him.