Kaitlin's Tale

by Christine Amsden

  The vampire almost didn’t seem wholly connected to this world. He didn’t see it the same way humans saw it. There was something alien in his eyes and cold in his touch – and it wasn’t just the fact that no blood ran through his veins. Maybe the vampire hunters had it wrong, maybe he wasn’t entirely evil (though she wouldn’t say the same about Xavier), but she didn’t trust the vampire sitting beneath her. He wanted to seduce her into turning for reasons she could not possibly fathom, like trying to understand the will of God.

  “Who will take care of Jay after I turn?” Kaitlin asked.

  “You will.”

  “What if I don’t want to?”

  “Sara will. Or we’ll hire someone else. What does it matter?”

  Indeed. “Just give me a few days. I told you I need to wean the baby. I can do it quickly. We’ll drop one feeding per day so that will be...” Kaitlin tried to think. How many times per day did a one-year-old nurse? Well, she’d go with the number of bottles she gave him a day and figure it was close enough. Jason wouldn’t know the difference. “... four days.”

  Jason snorted. “And in four days you’re going to want to turn?” He gave her a piercing look, and she suddenly knew – just knew – that he didn’t believe her. “I want you to want this, Kaitlin. Xavier says it goes better when they want it.”

  “I do want it. Of course I want it.” She placed soft kisses on his cheeks, his forehead, his ear. He lifted his face to give her better access, making her think she had convinced him. Lulling him into a false sense of security.

  “Liar!” He shoved her off his lap, not onto the couch, but onto the ground. Kaitlin, not expecting the movement, fell heavily to the hardwood floor and yelped when her bottom connected with the unyielding surface.

  “Jason?”

  He stood, towering over her, and she scooted backwards on hands and knees, getting tangled in her long blonde hair.

  “Xavier intercepted that e-mail you sent to Cassie the other day,” Jason said, stalking her as she scuttled across the floor.

  “What?” Oh no. But that did explain Sara. And why Cassie hadn’t replied.

  “You were going to give away the baby.”

  “Why not?” Kaitlin asked. “You don’t want him! You said it didn’t matter who raised him.”

  “This host wants him, and so do I.”

  Kaitlin’s eyes widened. This was the first time Jason had ever let slip a hint that he was not the same person he had been before he’d turned.

  “You can’t run from this fate,” Jason said.

  Kaitlin’s scrambling hands had found the edge of the stone fireplace and she stopped, able to move no further. Jason knelt to loom over her, cupping her face in his hands. From anyone else, it might have been a caress.

  “Cassie and Evan can’t protect you or the boy, you know,” Jason said. “Evan’s strong, but he’s never been much use against a vampire. I should know. I saved his life once.”

  “You did? Or your host?”

  Jason scowled. “There’s no place you can run. No one to protect you. Give up. Give in. Come gracefully.”

  He still wanted her to agree to this, Kaitlin realized. He still wanted her willing cooperation. She had no idea why, but she’d take any opening she could get. “Three days. Give me three days.”

  “We have your blood,” Jason said.

  “So?”

  “Didn’t you learn anything about magic from Cassie? I haven’t just eaten from you. I have your blood, and I’m a sorcerer as well as a vampire. I can use it to find you anywhere on this planet, so unless you can get to Mars, you can’t hide from me.”

  “Oh.” Kaitlin was shaking now. She wished she’d thought to start a fire in the fireplace behind her, though she doubted the warmth would have penetrated.

  “Tomorrow night,” Jason said. “That’s as much time as I’ll give you to prepare.”

  A reprieve. She had no idea how, but she had a reprieve. Twenty-four hours wasn’t much, but it was more than she’d had a few minutes ago.

  “Tell me you understand,” Jason said. “Tell me you’ll come to me tomorrow. Tell me like you mean it.”

  “I understand,” Kaitlin said.

  And then she wound her arms around Jason, kissing him for all she was worth. She explored his mouth with teeth and tongue, tracing the outline of his fangs. He bit her lip, stinging her for a moment before the pain-numbing property of the vampire venom set in. After a minute, he drew his head back, traced the column of her neck with his index finger, and sank his teeth in with such force that for a moment she thought he’d snapped her neck.

  “Oh!” she cried, trying to make it sound like a moan. It didn’t hurt, but it didn’t feel as good as it once had, especially now that she worried Jason wasn’t planning to wait another night after all. What if he took every last drop? What if he drained her dry? He had never pulled from her so hard or drunk so long.

  “Jason!” Kaitlin finally cried. “Please. You said tomorrow.”

  He pulled back, fangs and lips stained red with her blood. The venom coagulated the wound so she wouldn’t bleed out, but she felt so lightheaded she wondered if she’d lost too much blood anyway.

  Jason ran his thumb across his lips. “Yes, tomorrow night.”

  “Blood replenishment potion?”

  “No.” Jason rose to his feet, taking several deliberate steps away from her. “I don’t think I want you strong enough to escape.”

  “You said there was no escape.”

  Jason didn’t answer, he just turned and walked away, leaving Kaitlin on the floor, her head spinning, her breath coming in shallow gasps, her pulse weak and thready. But she wasn’t dead yet, and as long as she wasn’t dead, there remained hope.

  Chapter 2

  NEW YORK CITY WAS THE LOUDEST place Matthew Blair had ever visited. He didn’t care for cities. They were too crowded. Closed in. Oppressive. But since his telepathic range was only twenty feet or so, he rarely had trouble navigating even sprawling metropolises. He would catch snippets of thought as he passed a person on the street, or from the car in the next lane. It was constant and kept him from finding real peace, but it had never been quite like this.

  Matthew had spent his entire life in the Midwest. Actually, he had grown up in a small town, which suited him perfectly, but even when he’d visited Midwestern cities, they just didn’t move like New York. There were people everywhere. Pedestrians crowded the streets like swarms of insects, barging into intersections en masse with no fear that the cars might hit them. It almost seemed as if the drivers were warier of the pedestrians than of the other cars.

  In New York, twenty feet felt like twenty yards. It was like attending a party, but one without a convenient restroom he could slip into for a few minutes (as he had done during countless political functions). He could slip inside a store, but they were hardly free of the endless buzzing of mental impressions. They came at him like snippets of partially overheard conversations, making little sense on their own, particularly if he couldn’t attach thought to face.

  Hurry...

  My feet! Never should have bought...

  Damn Frank...

  Get the money for...

  Two more streets...

  Dance...

  Too much...

  That last thought had been his own, Matthew realized. But it still didn’t stop. If only telepathy worked the way he often saw it portrayed in science fiction movies. Picture a wall, he often heard people say in movies. Build it in your mind, brick by brick. He could do that. He could think about a wall. He’d still hear everyone shouting their private thoughts at him. Or worse, glean an echo of their perceptions, such as sights, sounds, or tastes. There were too many hot dog vendors in New York, and he hated mustard, even as a ghostly impression.

  “Are you okay?
” asked Evan Blackwood, his ally on this mission. “Maybe we should get another cab.”

  They had taken a cab part of the way, but traffic had been so bad they realized they could walk faster. No wonder so many people walked these streets! But the cab ride hadn’t been much better. The driver’s mind had been filled with dark, suicidal thoughts, and far from wanting to help the man (as he usually did when confronted with suicidal thought patterns), Matthew found himself thinking maybe the man should end it. If the cab driver didn’t kill himself, Matthew feared, he might kill someone else instead. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, every few feet a new car and a new set of thoughts pulled up alongside them.

  “We’re almost there,” Matthew said. “I’m fine.”

  “If you say so.” Evan’s mind was a mystery to Matthew, since the powerful sorcerer knew how to block him. At the moment he found it helpful that at least one mind in his near vicinity was not shouting at him, although he would love to know Evan’s thoughts.

  They weren’t friends. They could probably never trust one another enough to be friends, but they were allied against Alexander DuPris, self-appointed leader of the magical world.

  Stain on my...

  Forgot to...

  Stink...

  That last thought didn’t come to him so much in words as in sensation, and with a slight wrinkling of his nose Matthew realized that he agreed with the assessment. All of New York stank to him, largely of car exhaust, but in some areas of the city it smelled more or less like a sewer. In this part of the city, it was a bit more. And they were nearly to their destination. At the next corner they hung a right and found themselves on a more residential street, which wasn’t much less crowded than the street they had just left.

  “Why would any self-respecting sorcerer want to live here?” Evan asked. “There’s no node for miles, and nothing natural for that matter. It’s nothing but concrete and steel.”

  “You’re a naturalist,” Matthew said. So was he, but he didn’t mention that part. Not everyone was. “New York is the heart of commerce in this country; sorcerers looking to use their gifts to get rich might think this is a good place.”

  “Okay, but then why does Devon live in this neighborhood?”

  Evan had a point. Matthew stared up at the towering apartment buildings lining either side of the street. It was three o’clock in the afternoon, but it felt like evening for all the sun that penetrated to street level. This wasn’t a nice neighborhood. It wasn’t a bad neighborhood either, from what he’d been told, but looking around now he wasn’t sure he wanted to know what a truly bad neighborhood looked like.

  Matthew was also starting to detect a new tone to the thoughts of those he passed. It took him a minute to realize what it was, but then it struck him that he and Evan were just about the only two white men on this street – certainly the only two wearing designer clothes – and the people passing them had noticed. Matthew glanced down at his own clothing of choice – slacks, a polo shirt, and loafers. They were what he wore when he didn’t wear a suit; he liked the comfort of slacks and had always found that jeans chafed him. Maybe he should have dug out a pair for this trip, although Evan was getting plenty of dirty thoughts for his designer-label jeans.

  The trick to a situation like this, Matthew had learned from long practice, was to hold his head high and look as if he belonged. He didn’t smile or make eye contact – no one in New York would think he belonged were he to do that – he just put one foot in front of the other and exuded a sense of purpose.

  It didn’t work. They continued to stare at him and, most especially, at Evan. It suddenly struck Matthew how strange it was that a man who could exude such an aura of danger in their hometown – who was, in fact, a very dangerous man – could look so much like a gawking tourist in a big city. Evan’s eyes darted this way and that, never making eye contact – he rarely did that in Eagle Rock – but taking in the buildings, the people, the sky, the street, the cars, and the sidewalk as if trying to keep an eye on all of it at once. His posture and body language drew attention, and undermined Matthew’s efforts at looking as though they belonged.

  Sighing, Matthew worked a simple magical compulsion around the pair of them. He was a minimalist when it came to mind magic, always feeling that the less he did, the less likely anyone would be to notice what was happening. People who did not realize they were being manipulated were not likely to fight against the manipulation. That was how one laid the foundation for the most powerful mental whammies. Sometimes he avoided the use of magic entirely; psychological tricks could work wonders, particularly coupled with his gift of telepathy.

  Tricks and telepathy were just not going to work today. So he focused his will on a simple imperative: There is nothing of interest here. With more force, this spell was his version of an invisibility charm, but he didn’t need to go that far. He didn’t care if they saw him; he just didn’t want them to pay attention. And, after a few seconds, they stopped looking. They stopped seeing. Their thoughts reverted to their own troubles and he once again found himself immersed in the constant babble of the thoughts of passersby.

  “We’re here,” Evan said, stopping before a building indistinguishable from its neighbors. If Evan had noticed the undercurrent going on around him, he didn’t show it. He didn’t even pause as he walked up a flight of concrete steps to a front door that stood slightly ajar. A row of buzzers would ring the various apartments, but Evan didn’t bother with them, he simply pushed his way into the building and walked swiftly up two flights of stairs, emerging into a short, dingy hallway lined by doors with peeling green paint. They strode to the last of four doors on the right, paused for a heartbeat, then Evan knocked.

  Matthew let Evan take the lead. His head was only starting to clear now that there was more space between himself and the nearest human being. Line of sight did not impact his gift, only distance, so he could hear the thoughts of the people inside their apartments to the left, right, up, and down. But by the time they got to Devon’s door he could only “hear” four minds, one of them Devon’s.

  Devon’s mind was racing. He kept thinking about making a run for it, going to hide in the woods or something, but he had never lived outside the city. Some of the images going through his mind were confusing – a beautiful mocha-skinned young woman who looked to be in agony, an old white man hurting her, a flash of something and then she was gone, the room she had occupied now empty.

  Evan knocked heavily on the door. Devon’s thoughts jumped, for lack of a better word. He saw the old white man outside the door. Seemed to expect him there. Then he remembered a phone call. Matthew’s voice.

  Waste of time...

  Devon opened the door. He was a thirty-something black man with closely-shaved hair and a thin mustache. He looked between the two of them nervously, then glanced over their shoulders, leaning out of the door to peer both ways down the hall.

  “Were you followed?” Devon asked.

  “No,” Evan said.

  Matthew did not reply. He couldn’t be nearly so sure. He had been too preoccupied by the minds of the city to have paid attention, and now he could almost feel Devon’s fear. He didn’t feel others’ emotions the way a true empath like his mom or brother did (a fact for which he was grateful), but emotions constituted a basic undercurrent to the thoughts he sensed.

  “Get in,” Devon said, reaching out as if to grab and pull Evan inside. But the instant his hand approached Evan’s arm, Devon flew backwards, landing hard on the threadbare carpet in his sparsely furnished living room. “Hey!”

  “Never touch me,” Evan said.

  “No kidding! You Matthew?” Devon asked.

  “I’m Matthew Blair.” Matthew stepped inside the apartment, past Evan, who stood slightly aside to allow him to enter first. It wasn’t that Evan was anyone’s flunky, but Evan wasn’t a strong leader. He preferred to go his o
wn way, using power as a shield around himself and his loved ones. Matthew, on the other hand, wanted to rule. To control. He asserted that control now by making it clear who was in charge.

  “Yeah, you sound like the guy on the phone,” Devon said as he picked himself up off the floor, wincing.

  “You told me you know something about Alexander DuPris that we would find useful.” Matthew focused and fine-tuned his gift of telepathy now. At times he wished he could turn it off, such as while walking down the street, but now it gave him power. He scarcely noticed the three other minds babbling in the background – two now, actually. He concentrated only on Devon, on what the man’s thoughts would tell him that words would not.

  “I want something from you first.” Again Devon thought of the mocha-skinned woman and thought, Where is she? “A promise.”

  Matthew thought he knew what the man wanted, but he asked anyway. He did not like too many people to know about his gift. “What promise?”

  “Find my daughter for me.” He saw the mocha-skinned woman again, but in a different light. She looked younger now. She was a child. He was remembering her as a baby, and a little girl. Then his mind flashed to the old white man. “They drained her magic and sold her – I have no idea where.”

  “Who did?” Matthew asked. “Alexander’s men?” Strangely enough, though Matthew wouldn’t put much past his nemesis, he would be surprised to find out Alexander had stooped to this level of hypocrisy. Alexander was outspoken against magic theft and slavery.

  “No,” Devon said. Again he thought of the old white man, a slaver. She’d made a bad decision, she’d disobeyed her father, gotten involved with the wrong crowd. But she hadn’t deserved what happened to her. “Look, they’re coming for me. To arrest me.”

  “For what?” Matthew was still trying to make sense of the jumble of thoughts inside Devon’s mind, but he lacked the proper context. There were the images, the fear, the concern, but no story to piece it all together.