by T M Linville
She was startled from her thoughts as someone walked into the small room. In an instant she was crouched on the balls of her feet, claws to the floor, her eyes beginning to burn as the vampire half of her DNA took over.
The woman that walked into the room stopped suddenly and smiled at her.
“It’s okay, Lily,” she said in a soft, soothing voice. “I won’t hurt you, I promise.” She took two steps forward and sat a plate on the bed and a glass of something on the floor. “Thought you might be hungry since you were finally awake,” she smiled. “You’ve been asleep for over sixteen hours, dear. You must be famished.”
But Lily never relaxed her stance. After the week she’d had, she didn’t trust anyone
“Erica?” Lily asked in a harsh voice. Her mouth and throat were bone dry.
“Vincent brought you here,” she said, still smiling. “He just told me that he had some business to take care of before he took you home.”
Then the smell hit her. There was blood in the cup on the floor and it smelled so good. On the plate she could smell animal blood in the rare steak.
“My name is Ashley,” she said. “You need to eat something, Lily. You’ve been asleep for a while. You must be hungry.”
As she began to relax her stance, she felt the spikes in her back retract, but the holes didn’t heal quite as fast as they had in the past. She retracted her claws slowly and stepped closer to the cup.
Ashley walked over to the bed, straightened the blanket then patted it for her to come back to the bed. Lily hesitated then figured that if this human were going to hurt her, she probably would’ve done it by now. In Lily’s brief experience, if something wanted you dead, it didn’t spend much time talking and it never smiled.
Lily climbed onto the bed and Ashley handed her the glass. She drank it quickly but pushed away the plate of steak when Ashley offered. About three minutes passed and she began to feel dizzy. The room began to slowly fade.
Lily felt hands on her sides and started to swing her arms in protest. She was not going easily this time. If someone wanted to take her they were going to have to work for it.
“Ugh!” She grunted, struggling to get free.
“Shhh, Lily, it’s okay. It’s okay,” a woman’s voice purred.
Lily felt the breath against her hair as the words were spoken and could feel the cloth of a blouse in her fist and against her face.
She slowly lifted her head and opened her eyes. She was in another room. She was awake, but barely. Her body stiffened instantly and before she could even focus her tear filled eyes, her claws were out and she was swinging at whatever was near her. Then she felt strong arms wrap around her and hold tight.
“Lily, you’re safe,” said the voice as the arms held her.
When her eyes finally focused for a second through the tears, her face was inches away from Erica’s. She looked down at her and smiled. She wiped the tears from Lily’s face and wrapped her hand gently around the fist that had a grip on her shirt.
“Erica,” Lily grumbled roughly and let go of the shirt.
Lily was still half asleep and could barely hold her eyes open.
“Yes, it’s okay,” she said and held her hand to her chest. “We’re away from Eric for the time being. Vincent had some pretty harsh words for him and threatened to do physical harm if he ever did something like that again.”
Onyx growled lowly and head butted Lily’s leg with his head.
“Lily, you are the only person that wolf has ever liked,” Erica laughed talking about Onyx.
Erica let Lily go and let her play with the wolf. Apparently he did like Lily. He kept licking her face every chance he got and Lily kept trying to stop him.
“He doesn’t make it a habit of licking people’s faces,” Erica laughed. “But he likes you.
“Vincent went after the assassin as soon as he heard it was supposed to kill you. And then “Onyx put a bloody end to one werewolf vampire assassin. Don’t you worry, Lily, you have a very solid personal force of your own. Onyx comes with his own pack if he needs one and apparently, earlier you needed one. You’re going to be with Onyx and me for a while. Alexa will be meeting us in the morning in the city along with two more wolves. Lily, stay with Onyx. That will be the safest place for you until everything is finalized.” Erica said, pushing Lily toward Onyx. “Don’t worry, Eric rarely ventures out into the open country, he’s more of a city kind of guy and stay’s pretty close to the city. He won’t come looking for you here.”
Lily just stared at Erica, thinking about being bit by the werewolf in the alley.
She walked up to Onyx and he head butted her again, nearly knocking her down. They walked to another part of the house, where it smelled like the place she had been days ago.
“Ash-lee?” Lily asked hoarsely.
“Ashley’s dealing with some husband issues,” Erica answered. “She’ll be back in little while.”
Lily Day Three
Lily later found out that she had been taken to Ashley’s so Vincent would have time to make room for her in Erica’s house and move Eric’s residence to the opposite side of the coven. Vincent was furious with Eric and had it not been for Alexa, Vincent would’ve done a lot more than just relocate him.
After leaving Ashley’s, Erica, Sarah and Lily went shopping. Sarah was a feeder that Erica brought along in case Lily got hungry. No one knew what her feeding schedule would be, so Erica brought a feeder in case she needed blood. They loaded in the horse and buggy and headed to town. There was a lot of pointing and calling off words. Lily picked up quickly on the nouns, it was the verbs that gave her trouble, at least at first. Erica was very patient with her, though. They stopped by to see the seamstress and she took all of Lily’s measurements for new dresses. Then they actually went to go look at horses. Apparently Eric wasn’t lying when he told Lily that she would need a horse. Like Eric, Erica was curious as to whether or not she could ride one.
The horses had grown accustomed to pulling the buggies carrying vampires, but they still would not allow any vampires to ride on their backs. When they arrived at the stable, Erica didn’t go in. Sarah and Lily went into the stables cautiously, not wanting to spook the horses in such a small enclosure. Sarah pointed to a strong bay mare. Lily walked over to her and stroked her neck. The mare lowed her head to Lily but didn’t seem to mind her presence. That was a good sign.
Sarah paid the man for the horse and a saddle. Then he loaded the saddle into the buggy, tied on the horse then they headed home. Lily guessed that riding lessons would come later.
Weeks passed and it would seem like years. Lily’s intelligence grew leaps and bounds very quickly. She looked like she was 20 years old and soon acted like it, too. Her education continued with Erica. She caught on quickly to grammar and mathematics but it was the sciences that fascinated her the most.
Lily started spending time with Dr. McGregor and learning about genetics and DNA. It was amazing at how much he knew just by his experiments and testing. Hi-tech gene splicing machines, neutron cameras and hi-powered microscopes didn’t exist yet. McGoo managed to create his own equipment with the materials he had and he did quite an amazing job. He taught Lily about genes and how they were passed from parent to child, how dominant genes would dominate recessive ones and how she had ended up with the crystal blue eyes. He simply made sure that all the gene choices were blue. He told her that her mother had blue eyes. She didn’t ask which mother, the one from which part of her DNA was taken or the one that carried her. Maybe they both had blue eyes.
Lily always quizzed McGoo about what she was and how she really existed. The best explanation Lily had gotten was that she was genetically engineered from various vampire, werewolf and human DNA. She did find out that the human DNA was from feeder stock, who had blue eyes, and the vampire DNA was from more than one source but she couldn’t get any specifics. But obviously, one of the sources was an Elder.
Erica spent countless hours with Lily. Teaching her not onl
y about the social sciences, but she also taught her what it was to be a vampire. She told her their history and how they had survived undetected for so long. They had human allies outside the covens that helped them remain discreet. Every coven had its own people working in local law enforcement. They did a lot of covering up and shredding of files where sightings or interactions were involved.
Erica was like Lily’s mother, her best friend and sister rolled into one. She made sure that Eric stayed at a distance and she was usually successful. But on more than one occasion Eric and Lily had exchanged blows. Yes, they fought, claws, teeth and all. It took years for Lily to learn to control her temper but occasionally she still had problems remaining calm when Eric was around.
Eric and Lily simply hated each other. They couldn’t be in the same room without a fight breaking out and many fights resulted. On one particular occasion, Eric decided that he was tired of always being second best when it came to their scuffles. He surprised Lily early one morning and he nearly took her head off. Literally. He hid inside Lily’s house, behind the door to her room and waited for her to come home. When she walked into the room he attacked. She was taken completely by surprise and he nearly sliced her in two with an ax. He went straight for the kill and aimed his swing at her neck. She saw him just in time to duck out of the way.
As she ducked she took a swipe at his legs with her claws. She cut through his trousers and clean through his legs down to the bone. The pain caused him to lose his grip on the ax and it flew across the room. That was the last major encounter before Vincent threatened to turn Eric over to the Guardians for discipline or kill him. Alexa was the only reason Eric was still alive and with the coven.
Underground
That was over one hundred and fifty years ago and a lot had changed since then. Lily had learned a lot since then, too. She had matured into one of the coven’s most trusted vampires but still, on occasion, her temper would flare. Usually something got broken when that happened and Eric was usually the direct cause. The coven had moved twice since Lily was born and both of those times were the result of Eric’s murderous tendencies. He always seemed to find the worst possible crowd to run with, no matter where they moved. And since he was Alexa’s son, he usually got away with murder because she wouldn’t let Vincent turn him over to the Guardians for discipline.
It wasn’t that Eric went out and killed at random. It was usually another vampire he killed and not a human, although, it had happened. Eric’s problem was that he always chose the wrong vampire friends in each city they moved to.
Every city had what the vampires call, the Underground. It’s a place where vampires that chose not to belong to a coven went to congregate. They weren’t a very good place to be, not for vampires and especially not humans. It was a very cut-throat environment. In each city, there were storefronts that doubled as entrances to the Underground. Every vampire had a general knowledge of each city’s coven, as there was only one coven for each city, some bigger than others, but there was always only one. Lily had been with the coven for almost eight years before Erica introduced her to the Underground and its practices. It was definitely not like a coven.
On Lily’s first visit, she learned very quickly to never let her guard down. The worst of the species resided in the Underground. And it was literally under ground. Networks of tunnels and caverns ran for miles under the city, crisscrossing the sewer lines as well as gas lines and phone cables. It was a city under ground. They still lived near Nashville when Erica took Lily downtown for her first visit to the tunnels and her first encounter with the undesirables. And Erica took Lily for good reason.
Lily had been increasingly defiant at the coven and had been fighting with the other vampires. She was just bored and wanted attention but the confrontations usually led to some kind of scuffle. It wasn’t the fighting with the other vampires that bothered Vincent and Alexa. It was her picking fights with the younger feeders that had begun to wear on them. The older feeders would just blow her off and that was no fun, but the younger ones, the 15 to 17 year olds would argue back and eventually it would come to blows. Lily never meant to hurt any of them, but she did hurt one pretty badly. He healed rather quickly but that wasn’t the point Vincent reminded her. That was the interaction before the visit to the Underground.
Vincent had warned Lily on several occasions to cool her temper and to stop picking fights or there would be consequences. He never told her what those consequences would be, just that there would be consequences. So of course, she didn’t take it very seriously. She was like a daughter to Erica and since Erica was Vincent’s favorite, he had always been very lenient on Lily. And Eric too for that matter. Eric and Lily would get into vicious fights. They simply did not like each other. Since her very first day at the coven, he had wanted her gone and he’s tried ever since then to make that happen. He hated that Lily was faster than him. She was stronger, too. And once they nearly killed each other trying to prove which one was the best fighter.
It was shortly after that serious fight that Eric had made himself scarce. Lily asked Erica where he had been and that’s what led to the visit to the Underground in Nashville. She had no idea what was in store for her.
Erica, Onyx and Lily drove one of the coven’s 1933 Chevrolet downtown, parked it in a nearby vacant lot and walked into the south end of Centennial Park. After walking about half a mile through the park and past the Parthenon, the three of them ducked into a wooded area just off the main walkway. They walked to a rock overhang, pushed some vegetation to the side and walked into a pitch black cave.
They walked for a few minutes in complete darkness until they could see a faint light coming from a crack in the wall. Erica grabbed hold of a rusted handle and pulled. A heavy metal door creaked open and they stepped through and closed the door behind them. Then they walked another ten minutes through what felt like an empty hospital. Plain white tiled hallways with lanterns placed every fifteen feet or so. There were heavy doors at varying intervals of the hallways and Lily wondered what could possibly be on the other side of so many doors. There were doorways that opened to unfinished passageways, doors to large empty rooms, even doors with more doors inside. After about fifty yards they came to an intersection. The hallway to the left was tiled for about twenty feet, then there were bare dirt and rock walls supported by wood four by four timbers. The hallways straight ahead had finished walls but the lighting was more spaced out, making it appear darker. They took the hallway to the right and after only a few yards Lily could hear commotion up ahead. When they got to where the noise was coming from, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to be there.
The hallway opened up to what could only be described as a modern day shopping mall. An enclosed space that was lined with stores on each side and an open sitting area in the middle with chairs, tables and benches. The chatter silenced and there were at least two dozen vampires staring at them when they got closer to the businesses. Some of the vampires in the center area were smoking cigarettes, others drinking from whiskey bottles and two draining the last few red drops at the bottom of a shot glass. Lily could see knives and guns attached to most of the vampires that were congregated. Leather was the preferred attire. After a few moments they returned to their previous conversations and the chatter grew loud again.
Most of the storefronts were glass with displays in them. One of the shops sold leather clothing, and another sold blood. The storefront they walked toward had a sign that read ‘Fights’ above the door and on the glass in bold white letters it read: Guardian approved fights every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night. Guaranteed to have at least one top rank fight a week. All fighters welcome. In smaller print it read: All fights supervised and rated. Erica led Lily into the “Fights” store and they walked into what looked like a three ring circus.
The rings stood about two feet off the floor, had four ropes on four sides and a concrete slab for a bottom. In each ring, there were fighting vampires. It was a bustle of commotion and people y
elling, “Go for the chest”, “Dodge to the left,” and then a bell rang.
A woman in a leather skirt walked up to them and asked which one was fighting.
“She is,” Erica told her.
“Fighting?” Lily mumbled as the lady stopped in front of them.
“Has she fought before?” the woman asked in a monotone, unenthusiastic voice.
“No, she’s new to the fights.”
“Do you want warm up matches or do you want to jump right in?” the woman asked as she turned to face Lily.
Lily looked at Erica and shrugged her shoulders and Erica only shrugged back.
“Jump right in, I guess,” Lily said to the woman with a little uncertainty in her voice.
“Do you prefer a male or female opponent?” she asked as she walked toward a desk between the second and third ring.
“Male,” Lily answered as she and Erica followed.
The woman picked up a thick pile of papers filled with a list of names and lots of numbers. She wrote something on a sheet of paper, tore it off and held it in front her.
“Really. Pretty sure of yourself for a first time fighter, aren’t you,” the woman said, handing Erica the piece of paper.
Erica only smiled and took the piece of paper.
“We don’t fight wolves here, you’ll have to go over to the east side if you want those fights. Too bloody for my taste. You can place bets on the fights here if you like,” the woman said. “The weekday fights are less controlled than the Friday night and weekend fights, less monitored, too. So if you would like to make your debut on the day after tomorrow, you can.”
“No,” Erica said. “She’ll start today.”
There were two other wolves in the room and they seemed tiny compared to Onyx. They watched him closely as he followed Lily and Erica. The woman led them into one of the three secondary rooms. There was only one ring in this room. It was bigger than the ones outside and had a mat made of patchwork leather on the floor.