Rock Paper Sorcery

by L. J. Hayward

  Still, that was understandable. There was a reason for my leg sometimes giving out on me. I just hoped I was right about the psychic backlash theory. I couldn’t afford to lose any more trust in my body, not and keep going with Night Call as I had been.

  My hand felt normal by the time I got out of the shower and the ache in my leg had subsided. I strapped a brace around it, regardless, found clean clothes and dressed.

  Honestly, the way I felt, a week should have gone by since I locked Mercy away last night. So much had happened, starting with Aurum’s phone call, it seemed impossible to encapsulate it all in one day, and the day wasn’t even over yet. Sheesh. The only way I’d feel part way normal about this is if I walked into Mercy’s room to find her wasting away from lack of blood, the bed covered in spider webs and the sucked-dry husks of insects.

  Sucked dry by the spiders, not the vampire, that is. I mean, how could a vampire even feed off an insect? The bug would be squished on a fang, not pierced by it, unless it was a very big insect, which only reminded me of the ROUSs in the storage unit—ugh—and I highly doubt an insect’s blood would be compatible with a vampire. There’s the whole lack of haemoglobin to start with, let alone…

  And I was babbling inside my own head.

  Slightly better than babbling aloud to an audience, but still, not crash hot. Shaking my head, I went to wake Mercy.

  On my way to her room, however, I was distracted by a knock on the front door. I eyed it suspiciously for a moment, wondering if I could get away with not answering.

  Whoever it was knocked again, then followed with, “Matt? Are you decent?”

  By the way I scowled at the intrusion, I would have to say no, I wasn’t decent. A decent person wouldn’t be annoyed at the neighbour coming by, surely.

  Sue had clearly seen me come home so I couldn’t pretend to be out. Grumbling under my breath, I went and opened the door.

  “Hi!” Sue stood on the other side of the security screen, smiling widely, lovely in a flowery summer dress and holding a plastic container full of something liquid, from the sloshing sounds as she adjusted her hold on it.

  “Hi,” I returned, warily. “Did you want something?”

  Holding up the container, she said, “I brought you some soup. I made far too much and it’s not Charlie’s favourite and I’m not going to be able to eat it all, so I thought perhaps you and Mercy might like it.”

  “Um, thanks, but we’re—”

  “It’s chicken and sweet corn.”

  Oh. In that case, and if it got her off my doorstep. “Well, okay. Thanks.” More earnest this time. I unlocked the screen and opened it. Holding it back with my hip, I reached for the container.

  Since the incident, I have replayed it over and over, trying to work out how it happened, but I still don’t know. Somehow, between handing over the soup and me letting the door swing shut, Sue got inside the house. She was either ninja-fast or cast some sort of spell, because when I became aware of the situation, I was alone at the front door, holding a container of soup, while Sue was in the middle of the living room, looking around curiously.

  “I like what you’ve done here,” she announced brightly.

  A little baffled, I scanned the room, trying to work out what she was talking about. It was then I realised my place looked about as temporary as the Belascos’. Unimaginative couches, bland coffee table, reasonable sized TV, lifeless carpet. The shelves on either side of the TV cabinet, however, did have some personal touches, meaning a couple of photos of the family.

  Sue arrowed in on them.

  “This your family?” she asked, peering at one of the photos.

  It was the whole family, about the last time we’d been happy in each other’s company. Taken at a beach up north, mum and dad sat on the seat of a picnic table, smiling sedately at the camera, under the impression we were all posing for a serious family shot. We kids, however… We were supposed to be sitting on the table behind them. In reality, my older brother, Joseph, eighteen at the time, had me, sixteen, in a headlock, knuckles grinding into the top of my skull. We were both laughing though. For brothers pretty close in age, we’d always got on well. Our little sister, April, twelve, held her hands at the back of our parents’ heads, bunny-ears bombing them. Her expression was one of wickedly delighted terror.

  “You were cute when you were younger,” Sue announced, grinning at me.

  “Thanks,” I muttered, a lot less sincere this time.

  “Oh, you grew up handsome, don’t worry.” She moved to the other set of shelves. “What a gorgeous dress!”

  No, not me in drag, but Joe’s wedding photo. His wife, Sarina, made her own dress and it had been, in a word, gorgeous. I believe the words bandied about at the time included ‘empire waist’ and ‘champagne’ or something. Mum and dad, again, were smiling seriously at the camera on one side of the happy couple, April was laughing at something out of sight on the other side, and in between Joe and Sarina just looked at each other with silly, totally in love, expressions.

  A year after that photo, Joe had been in intensive care, fighting for his life.

  Six months before his marriage, he’d been accepted into the dog squad of the police force, a job he’d loved, combining working with animals and upholding the law (he’d always been massively righteous, even as a kid). Then one night, he answered a domestic disturbance. He walked right into four high calibre rounds fired at close range. The dog took down the bastard with the gun.

  Joe survived. His dog didn’t.

  Like me, Joe had learned he couldn’t rely so much on his body after that. He quit the force and began breeding dogs—German Shepherds, from some of the best bloodlines in the world—trained them up and then donated them to the police force.

  “You’re not in this picture,” Sue said, wonderingly.

  “No, I wasn’t…” Invited.

  Well, no. I was, just not officially. I was out on my own by then, tossed from the family for one too many indiscretions. Joe, however, had hunted me down and asked me to be his best man. No matter what I did, or who I did it to, Joe always defended me. I nearly did it, nearly agreed, but I couldn’t. If I’d shown up at the wedding, then the day wouldn’t have been about Joe and Sarina, but about me and how I wasn’t fit to be part of the family.

  “I wasn’t available,” I finished lamely. Rather than see Sue’s reaction, I took the soup to the kitchen.

  Sue, naturally, followed. I put the soup in the normal fridge and, hopefully in a totally cool and casual way, leaned against the cupboard that hid the blood fridge. It was locked but after the day I’d had, I wasn’t taking chances. I mean, there are reasons I don’t have cocktail parties, or even generally allow strangers into the house. Not that Sue was a stranger, but she wasn’t clued in on just how weird her neighbours really were.

  “That container’s microwave and freezer safe,” she announced. “And keep it for however long. I have plenty.”

  “Thanks,” I said again, feeling rather awkward and out of sorts.

  “So, is Mercy around?”

  I stopped myself from frowning before Sue could wonder why I found the question questionable.

  “She’s in her room.”

  Sue brightened. “Oh. Can I just go pop my head in? I wanted to see how she was doing after last night.”

  Had Charles got to her? Had he infected Sue with his Hawkins-is-taking-terrible-advantage-of-the-poor-simple-girl virus? Was she here spying for him?

  “You’d better not,” I said and something in my words or tone made Sue’s eyes widen. “She’s sleeping.” Behind a wall of bars and a locked door.

  Sue hesitated, then nodded. “All right. Is she okay?”

  There was something wrong here. Sue had never acted wary around me. She’d always defended me and Mercy to Charles, blasting through the blatant weirdness of our lives with a cheery smile and honest joy it was impossible to not like. She had always asked after Mercy.

  There was something wrong here, and i
t wasn’t Sue.

  It was me.

  With a physical shake, I knocked the suspicious thoughts from my head. When I focused on Sue, she was looking at me with concern.

  “Are you okay?”

  How had I ever doubted her sincerity?

  “Yeah,” I said, forcing my tone into something apologetic. “I may be coming down with something.”

  Which was entirely possible. Headache, lingering muscles pains, cramping limbs. Not the perfect time for the flu, but better than other possibilities.

  Sue smiled. “Well, have some soup and get some rest. You’ll be right as rain in the morning. Maybe Mercy’s got it too, if she’s sleeping at this time of day.”

  “Probably caught it last night, in her wanderings,” I agreed. “Might be best if you don’t go see her then. You could catch it, too.”

  “Of course. Well, don’t hesitate to ask if you need anything. I’m usually home most days.”

  As far as I could work out, Sue was some sort of artist, working from home. I’d never come right out and asked because that would indicate I was interested, which would invite all sorts of shenanigans. Like this one, happening right now, in my Fortress of Solitude.

  “Thanks. Um, perhaps you should go, before you get infected.”

  That right there was another reason why I don’t do this sort of thing. I just wasn’t good at it.

  However it came out, Sue took it well. She laughed and made a few more offers of help on the way to the door, but left without argument, waving as she went.

  I waved back, smiling, feeling like I was missing something right in front of me.

  Chapter 23

  Mercy was awake and watching a movie. She was lying on her belly on the bed, head propped up on her hands, feet kicking air. Still in her My Little Pony PJs.

  “Evening, Merce,” I said, picking the key off the hook on the wall.

  “Hey,” she said, distracted by the bright images on the TV.

  Unlocking the cage door I went in and looked at the TV. It was the movie about the Formula 1 racers. I sat on the bed and, because I was feeling a bit sore, stretched my legs out and leaned back against the pillows.

  “Why are you watching this?” I asked Mercy.

  She shrugged but flipped around so she was sitting next to me. With a little wiggle, she snuggled into my side, still watching cars whiz around a track. I draped an arm over her shoulders and considered her.

  What was she thinking while she watched her movies? Were they just a series of bright colours and fast imagery? Or did she follow the story? Could she understand the situations the characters found themselves in? Did she empathise with them, care about what happened? Or did she just like the explosions?

  A couple of weeks back, Mercy had nailed me with a pretty accurate accusation and, in between the hurt and bruised pride, it had got me wondering if maybe my vampire was starting to be, well, less my vampire and more of her own vampire. Perhaps she was starting to think for herself, process information and draw her own conclusions. I mean, it’s not like I generally thought of myself as a ‘control freak’, much less a ‘Neanderthal’. So if not from me, where did she get those ideas? I’d been watching her pretty closely ever since, trying to see if it was a growing trend or simply a one-off.

  Well, amongst the tantrums and just plain crazy, I was still looking. Maybe I’d miss-read the whole ‘control freak Neanderthal’ thing. Lord knows, I’m not that thuggish.

  Regardless, I tried again. “Don’t you prefer action movies?”

  Mercy tore her gaze off the TV long enough to glance at me. “You like race cars.”

  “I do. Didn’t think you did.”

  She shrugged again.

  Sometimes I wondered if my inability to understand what went on in her head was the vampire thing, or the female thing.

  On the screen, one of the cars crashed and burned spectacularly. I watched Mercy, looking for a bigger response to the carnage than to anything else. Yeah, I couldn’t detect any difference.

  All right. No more procrastinating. Time for the talk.

  “Can you turn that off? I want to talk to you.”

  Mercy scowled at me. “Why?”

  “Because I want to know some stuff. Come on, indulge me.”

  Fangs flashing momentarily, she turned the TV off, tossing the remote off the end of the bed in a little act of rebellion. I didn’t care. It was her remote. If she broke it and wanted a new one, she’d have to save up for it.

  “Thank you.”

  Shrugging my arm off, Mercy squirmed away from me. Awesome. This was going swell.

  “What did you want to talk about?” she asked petulantly.

  “Last night.”

  Her eyes sparked silver and I felt a wave of vampire irritation down the link.

  “I didn’t run away,” she snapped. “I was going to come home.”

  Huh? Oh. Right.

  “No, that’s not what I want to talk about. I know you would have come home.” I know I hoped she would have come home.

  “Then what?” She seemed truly puzzled.

  This was going to be awkward. I just knew it.

  “It’s about what I did. When I took over your body. I just wanted to make sure that you were okay with it.”

  Mercy looked away from me. “It was okay.”

  “Was it? Mercy, look at me.”

  Reluctantly, she met my gaze. “It felt weird.”

  “How weird?”

  She shrugged and got off the bed. “Are we going out? You’re dressed, so we’re going out.”

  “We’re not going anywhere until you answer the question.”

  “Fine. It felt weird like part of my head was gone.”

  I frowned. “How gone?”

  Mercy began grabbing clothes out her closet. “Gone gone. Like it wasn’t there anymore.”

  Silly me for asking, I suppose. “What part was gone?”

  “The part that’s you.”

  That stopped me in my interrogation tracks. The part that was me. What the…?

  “Do you mean the link?” Which I guess it might be. If my psyche was in her head, there was no need for a link.

  “No,” she said, witheringly patient with the dunce. “The part in here—” She waved her hands around her bouncy black curls. “—that is my thoughts and your thoughts and our thoughts. The part that, when you go away, vanishes and all I feel is hungry and like I want to run and chase something and eat it.”

  So, basically, the bits that let her rise above the primitive vampire urge to hunt and kill. The humanity I gave her to balance out the soulless creature she’d become.

  “What do you mean, when I go away?” I hadn’t left her since rescuing her from the Mentis Institute.

  “Like when you go to sleep, but not sleep.” She screwed up her face in concentration. “When you’re unconscious.”

  That was news. “Whenever I’m unconscious, you vamp out?”

  Mercy shrugged and peeled off her PJs.

  Right then, my state of consciousness controlling Mercy’s baser instincts wasn’t something I wanted to get into. Thus…

  “I won’t take over your mind like that again, all right?”

  She nodded. “Whatevs.”

  Maybe the bit I didn’t understand was the teenager bit.

  “We’re going hunting, so dress appropriately,” I advised, hauling my arse off the bed.

  I got another careless response. At the door, I stopped, recalling what Erin had said.

  “Mercy, how did you feel about what happened to Sean?”

  “Sean?”

  “The guy at dinner last night, the guy Erin’s investigating.”

  “Oh. When his head exploded?”

  “Yeah, that.” I swallowed hard.

  “It was okay.”

  “Okay?”

  Those brown eyes regarded me like I was a couple of meat pies short a footy grand-final. “I rip the heads off vampires.”

  She did. Rather flamboyan
tly at times. It had never bothered me before, so why did it unsettle me now?

  “Whatevs,” I muttered and left her to get dressed.

  For once, Mercy took my ‘appropriately’ at face value and appeared in dark jeans and black shirt. It didn’t help that tonight’s slogan was ‘Doesn’t play well with others’. I let it go and grabbed the keys for the Moto Guzzi. While Mercy danced and cheered her way to the garage, I reasoned it was best to leave the injured Goliath at home, where it couldn’t be spotted so easily by interested parties. Namely the cops and Roberts.

  Hehe. Cops and Roberts. Say it really fast.

  Snickering, I joined Mercy at the bike. She had her hot pink helmet on and was already in prime position, little hand held out for the keys.

  I’m a softy. I handed them over.

  Still, being the late half of the duo, it was up to me to walk the bike out of the garage and turn it around. Mercy grinned at me, eyes sparkling in glee at getting to be in control, and all my doubts about everything in the world vanished in a puff of stupid delight.

  When your vampire is happy, you are happy.

  I got on the bike and barely had my helmet secured before she was kicking it into gear and revving the engine. I’m sure, if we hadn’t rocketed past at such a great rate of knots, I would have been able to see the confused look on Sue’s face as she stood at her front door, watching us leave.

  It was, I guess, understandable. Two supposedly flu-afflicted people shouldn’t be doing wheelies down the road.

  “Tone down the theatrics,” I sent down the link. “We don’t need unnecessary attention tonight.”

  Mercy replied with a little snap. “What did you do now?”

  Before I could answer, she snaked around my head and caught the action replay while burning down Griffith Road. She unflinchingly wove us through traffic while laughing at the memory of the Colonel chasing Dev and I out of the hospital. She did, however, shiver in sympathy at the rats.