Ten, p.19
Ten, page 19
“I’m not that good, but can you at least humor me for one destined dance?” Steve asked as he held out his hand. “I promise not to bite.”
She rolled her eyes again but took his hand and sashayed onto the crowded little dance floor. Among the drunken late-night crew, her patented off-time shuffle fit right in. It was only when she looked over at the mirror behind the bar, saw all the waves of humans, and the pointedly empty spot where Steve should be, that her smile returned. “It’s déjà vu all over again,” she muttered as she wrapped her arms around his neck and enjoyed the rest of the song.
“It’s OK to enjoy yourself even when something terrible is about to happen. In fact, it’s the best time to do it,” he whispered in her ear.
They danced for a few more energetic, if slightly off-key, covers.
As they hopped about to Whitesnake, both Steve and Georgia’s jaw dropped as they saw two young buxom lasses each trying their very best to attract the attention of a very smooth criminal in a custom-tailored pinstripe suit. Mr. Lambley shook his booty in perfect time and even the slightest glance to an onlooker made the poor victim blush.
“So why don’t you have that effect again?” she asked as a third girl joined the fray.
Steve pointed to his chest. “Me, hunter.” He then pointed to the pack of shimmying damsels. “He, annoying Pendragon showboat.”
“Jealous much?”
They danced, and drank, and continued to watch the elder vampire cut a rug until finally the last bloodsucker stumbled into the bar in an uneven dress and fresh lipstick. She raised a brow at Steve and Georgia’s entwined arms.
“So, I am not zee only one getting lucky tonight,” she laughed.
“Where’s—?” Georgia started.
“I wore him out, I’m afraid. Tag, you’re it, mien bruder!” Minnie said as she cut in and dragged Georgia right back out on the dance floor. “He needs a top off!” she called to Steve.
Georgia tried to slip away from Minnie, but the blonde vampire was simply too fast to outmaneuver. A few younger guys at the bar
catcalled as the German slid against her stunned friend. “You don’t get away zhat easy, Berliner.”
“What? Can’t hear you,” Georgia said as she tried to shimmy closer to Geoffrey and his new groupies.
Minerva didn’t skip a beat and slithered around Georgia until the human could hear the vampire breathing in her ear. “We are going to have a word, whether you like it or not.”
Georgia motioned towards the exit. This time Minnie allowed Georgia to toss a few bills on the counter and finally leave the neon, glass, and white plastic room. Once outside in the relative quiet of the halls, Minnie tossed her hair playfully over her shoulder and made sure to adjust her dress right in the sightline of a very tall and handsome stranger.
“Just planning dinner, schatzi,” the vampire said. “You know it is so sad that casinos have gotten so dreadfully clean. I never know if I’m in a den of sin or a shopping mall anymore.”
Georgia took in the clean tile paths, bright lights, and multiple coffee and gift shops all within a few hundred feet. An old lady with a cigarette and a walker gave them nasty glances as she shuffled past them on the way to the slot machines. “The old ones have better flavor, no?” Minnie sighed. “It’s like all meat really. It is always the sweetest right before it rots.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Georgia muttered.
“Substitute in fruit. It’s zee same thing. I vaguely remember apples, and there vas this pastry chef in Baltimore who said that the secret of his banana crème pie vas fruit zhat vas all black and nasty.
What? I’m trying to make pleasant conversation, and you are making this face like you smell a schleicher—”
“You just compared a human to the black bananas you use for cream pie,” Georgia spat. “I had almost forgotten just how little you thought of us.”
The vampire shrugged. “Vat do you vant me to say, Berliner?”
she purred in an extremely exaggerated accent. Georgia simply stood there with her arms crossed. “All right, all right. I hate it vhen you give me that look. I know that Ren has been ill—”
“Then I suppose you know that he’s having a reaction to vampire blood. Do you happen to know where he got plenty of that?” Georgia snapped.
“I know that he was certified by zee Matsuoka family so that this sort of thing never should have happened,” Minerva hissed. She circled around the human and flicked her tongue menacingly over her fangs. “In fact, until you showed up, ve had no problems at all.”
“Before I showed up, Ren was a slave that you used—”
“Zee Matsuoka are sworn servants. It is an honor—”
“Don’t act like you believe that crap, Minnie,” Georgia snapped.
To her surprise, the vampire remained eerily silent and actually let the human have the last word. She stared pensively out one of the many windows.
“Do you know how old I am, Berliner?” she asked out of the blue.
Georgia shook her head.
“I turn three this year,” the vampire sighed. “By tradition it means I’m finally old enough for my father to marry me off. It’s supposed to be one of zee big announcements at zee ball, I think.”
“I’m, um, sorry? Or should I be congratulating you?”
Minerva turned her attention to the redhead now commanding half the dance floor. Georgia raised a brow. Finally, the lightbulb went on over her head. “Wait… you don’t think—?” Georgia trailed off as she saw Mr. Lambley actually manage a full-on twerk.
“I vanted to see if he was his old self,” she said softly. “When I saw that I was supposed to take him to zee ball, I thought that maybe this was my father’s plan.”
“You think that you’re going to have to marry. . . Mr. Lambley?”
Georgia choked out. “I think I might need another drink.”
Minnie nodded in agreement and made a beeline for a rather tipsy-looking, tall drink of water. She only needed one toss of her blonde mane and a quick whisper in his ear to get him to follow her like a lost puppy. Georgia went right back to the bar and upped her ante with a whiskey sour. No sooner had she nibbled the cherry off the top did her phone vibrate.
“Georgia, need you now- room 519,” the text from Steve read.
Paige’s eyes snapped open. She clawed furiously into the sheet and found nothing next to her but a pillow and a sweaty discarded T-shirt.
Her heart echoed in her ears, and she sniffed the air until she caught a familiar scent.
“Morgan?” she called. A soft glow peeked from under her bedroom door. She tugged on his discarded shirt and padded her way into the living room where she was greeted by bare, scarred shoulders and a laptop screen on her coffee table. One of Billy’s old books lay splayed next to the machine, and Morgan typed furiously into various cells in a spreadsheet with one hand while he scrolled through notes on Kyle’s tablet with the other.
“Why are you wearing glasses?” she asked as she rubbed her eyes.
He pulled off his thick black plastic frames. “They help me think,”
he said hoarsely. “Old habit.”
“They make you look like a really buff hipster,” she sighed as she wandered over to the sofa. “It’s kinda cute.”
“The clicking didn’t wake you up, did it?” he asked apologetically.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
She eased onto the cushion next to him and took in the vast array of paper that concealed her table. Billy’s book laid over a mix of napkins, receipts, and envelopes – all covered with a mix of chicken scratch handwriting and surprisingly lifelike pencil sketches.
She gasped as she saw a familiar face baring his fangs as shadows blacked out his eye sockets.
“I know, it’s weird,” Morgan muttered as he kept typing.
Paige delicately slipped out another image, one of an exotic woman in a veil and a nose ring. Her slightly slanted eyes gave a come-hither look even though she was trapped on the back of a cable bill. “These are incredible,” Paige whispered as she collected more faces. “Did you draw Kyle as a barbarian?”
Morgan shook his head. “I don’t know who he is,” Morgan said. “I just see Evil Not-Kyle in my nightmares.”
“Evil Not-Kyle?” Paige asked as she took in this version of her roommate with a scar cutting across his face, definite guyliner, and a goatee. “Wow, he really is his mirror universe version. He has awesome hair though.”
“I dream of him stabbing me almost every night,” Morgan muttered. He quickly snatched the bill with the beautiful woman on it.
“I won’t tell you what I dream of with her.”
“I’ll bet.”
“It’s just dreams. I’m pretty sure neither one of us has any right to be jealous of dreams,” he muttered as he finally stopped typing in notes. He then turned to the book and growled under his breath.
Paige peered at the title. “Ledger of Notable and Noble Deaths?”
she asked.
“It’s the history of our pack,” Morgan said softly as he traced his finger over the different handwriting every few rows. “Billy took over as record keeper when he was just a teen ditching high school. Here is where we record the names of everyone that joins the pack, and, eventually, it’s our duty to write out the inevitable conclusion of our kind. In the old days, there were storytellers and bards who memorized the stories; but Old Scratch, a record keeper from the Wild West, made it his life’s work to write it down in an old accountant ledger. I guess I’m not the first werewolf accountant after all.”
Paige leaned against him. “So, this is—?”
“Fester Scarskin, ripped in half while defending his village,”
Morgan read. “Oh, here is the tale of Scratch who was impaled with pitchforks after being discovered by local Puritans. You know, the Puritans were a decidedly nasty bunch. They are second only to vampires and the Spanish Inquisition for werewolf slaughter in recorded history.”
“Snarl. . . Lance Boil. . . are these real names?” Paige asked.
“Werewolves don’t have many traditions, but we take on new names when we join our packs. Most of the time they are bestowed on you by an alpha, and alpha males are assholes for the most part.
Rex, the alpha before Irvine, named all his pack after cities if you couldn’t guess.”
Paige gulped as she saw the entry at the bottom of the current page. “Lincoln Wolf, throat ripped open by the Red Devil while saving his son,” she read.
“Billy gave me this to write the last entry in the ledger. I’ve been putting it off for way too long. I can’t decide how honest I want to be.”
He flipped the page to show the name Irvine Wolf.
“Bastard traitor died selling his own kind to vampires?” she offered. “So, if Billy is the record keeper, why are you supposed to do this?”
“Because I am his closest living family. Billy left it in my hands to decide how the next generations should remember him. There are so few of us anymore, I don’t know if it’s right to just leave his only memory as traitor douche bag,” Morgan sighed. “Maybe I should just keep it simple. Irvine Wolf, shot and killed by the legendary Shadow Eyes.”
“Legendary Shadow Eyes?” she asked with a raised brow.
“Oh, he’s in here quite a few times, right up there with the Undead Pirate and the Silent Hunter. Considering that this is a death ledger, there wasn’t much chance to get the vampire’s real names.
You know, Irvine always said that he’d be writing my pathetic little death in this ledger. Funny that.”
“Come on, it’s three AM. Let’s go back to bed,” she said as she tugged his arm.
“I want to finish something,” he muttered. “Either just writing those damn words down or finding something I can use in this mess of data. Someone is trying to hide money, a lot of money, but Lorcan won’t believe that someone is stealing from him without a mountain of proof. He’s surprisingly fair for a legendary bloodsucking fiend.
There was a supposed mistake in the foreign currency translation for a reparations payment to Japan, but I’ve met Lorcan’s other accountants. They may be only human, but they don’t normally make such big mistakes.”
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out—”
Morgan tugged at his hair and rubbed his stubbly chin. “Maybe it is just a mistake, and I’m being paranoid, but three million dollars being swapped for three million yen isn’t a mistake. It’s just lunacy—”
“Baby, if you are questioning your paranoia, now I’m getting worried. Let’s get some sleep or at least go to bed,” she whispered before giving his ear a little nibble. As she got closer, she saw another sketch under his mouse, this one of a girl with long braids kissing none other than the Legendary Shadow eyes. “I’ve seen that very scene before,” Paige said as she pulled away.
Morgan lifted his mouse and pulled out the full image. Unlike his other drawings, this one had warranted a full piece of proper sketch paper. Paige gasped at the familiar circle of stones and the second knight with wild hair and an eyepatch. “He looks like you,” she gasped as she saw them together. “I thought I just imagined you there, like some sort of echo.”
“Yeah, it’s a little weird to see yourself in a vampire blood hallucination from hundreds of years ago. So, do you recognize anyone other than Lorcan and One-Eyed Me?”
A man in a black cloak stood with the lovers and the one-eyed knight. A second figure remained curled in shadows, with only ornately embossed gloves and a hood visible.
“I don’t know, but in my dream, I was definitely the man in the gloves.”
“So was I. Now, logically, these are Lorcan’s memories, right?”
Morgan asked. “Now riddle me this, if we were the man in the shadows then how can we see Lorcan? Furthermore, why do I want to disembowel him every time I look at this image? Enquiring minds want to know.”
“Which him?” Paige asked, leaning over to get a better look. She studied the image further. “Maybe it’s a. . . um. . .”
“It’s not a reflection,” Morgan growled. “Something about this one dream. I know you’re going to think I’m nuts—”
She gave him a squeeze. “Oh, it’s way too late for that. I’ve seen you eat.”
“I once had this dream, and I wasn’t the man with the gloves,”
Morgan said softly. He pointed to his one-eyed doppelganger. “I think. . . I think that I was him.”
“It’s just a dream, right? Even with all the craziness we’ve seen, there aren’t past lives or time traveling werewolves,” Paige said. “But
I’m pretty sure vampire blood and fevers can make you dream the wackiest—”
“But do you ever dream like you’re back there? You have seen this guy. You’ve seen me for lack of a better word.”
“Maybe I just dream of you,” she said as she curled around him.
“I may be a werewolf, but I have dreams just like any other girl. You know, prince charming—”
“White picket fence, big wedding, two-point-five perfect little cubs running around?” Morgan asked as he folded down his screen and turned his attentions back to her.
She gave him a kiss. “Everything but the wedding. You wouldn’t catch me dead at one of those overblown Catholic affairs. I think my mom’s influence is a little strong there. We’re a little gun shy in our family, but I would happily elope in Vegas or just live in sin with our two-point-five hellions,” she sighed.
“Duly noted,” Morgan said. “Also, slightly relieved that I wouldn’t have to convert for you. I am such a devout agnostic after all.”
Paige laughed a little and pushed him so that he made a better angle for a pillow. They curled around each other as their eyelids grew heavy. Paige sighed a deep sigh of contentment and enjoyed the warmth. As she closed her eyes, she could just see one more bit of art peeking from under a coaster. Since Morgan was already sawing logs, she reached over and tugged the scrap free. Her heart sank as she saw Lorcan with his arms wrapped around a figure with long dark curls and a distinctive, petite stature. His teeth were in her neck and she wore what looked rather like a wedding gown.
Georgia tried her best not to gag as she surveyed the mess. “I wish I could make us both forget this,” Steve muttered as he tried his best to wipe up the mix of blood and vomit by the bed.
Georgia wasted no time hustling to the bathroom, where she grabbed some towels and soaked a rag in cool water, before rushing back to start wiping the red off Junior’s now completely jaundiced
face. The old man smiled weakly but couldn’t do much more than groan.
“It’ll be OK,” Georgia said as she returned his little smile. “It’s just a bit of a mess. We’ve got this.”
She carefully peeled off his dirty shirt and wiped his chest. As she cleared away the sick, she saw familiar striations. Steve grit his teeth as he focused on furiously blotting the carpet. The old man pointed to a glass by the bed.
“I’ll get you some water—”
“Whiskey,” Junior choked out. A little more blood dribbled down his chin.
She tiptoed around the scrubbing vampire to reach the minibar.
As she filled the tumbler with ice and poured a little bottle of Jack, she could hear a terrifying rattle coming from the old man’s chest.
She spied an oxygen tank tucked by the luggage.
“Would it help?” she asked, pointing.
Junior coughed and shook his head furiously. “Whiskey—”
She brought the glass back to his bedside, cringing as her heel stabbed through something meaty on the floor. As she propped him up on every pillow she could, the old man somehow found the strength to cop a wimpy feel on her tush. Her smile tightened, but she still helped him take a sip of cold liquor.
“Feeling better?” she asked.
His bloodshot eyes rolled over to a pack of cigarettes on the nightstand. Georgia sighed and pulled out a smoke. She did a quick scan for detectors before lighting it up. For once, the mix of tobacco and chemicals was a welcome relief to the senses.
He took one puff before wheezing, and then he shut his eyes.
Georgia sat by his bed, flicking the ash into a glass as his breathing grew slower and slower. Steve eventually stopped scrubbing and perched on the end of the bed. His eyes darted between the dying embers and the dying man.
