Ten, p.25
Ten, page 25
“Very well then,” she said before slipping into one of the empty rooms to change. She led with her bare leg through the doorway and muttered a quick prayer of relief that she had remembered to shave during her last shower. She smiled as she heard a slightly lispy wolf-whistle coming from the hall.
“Such a tease!”
“Tell me,” Georgia said as she sauntered over to the now delightfully shirtless Ren. “Are you going to keep those new pearly whites after you take those pills?”
“I’ll probably need to get dental work I’m afraid.”
“Do you feel any different? You know—”
Ren rolled his eyes. “Is this going to go on all night?”
“Maybe,” she said in an exaggerated drawl. “Can’t a girl be curious? I mean is the barbarian hair a side effect?”
“Apparently so,” Ren sighed. “I still have a reflection mostly, and I’m not burning in the sun, so it’s really rather minor.”
“But you used to say you felt a monster inside you—”
“It’s gone,” he said in his typical robotic voice. “Now come on, hot tubbing, booze, wild sex—”
“I do like all these things,” she sighed as she followed him towards the roof. “It is so weird without the vampires here. I mean the other vampires.”
“I’m not a vampire yet. I’m just infected,” Ren corrected. “Now if you will excuse me—”
He ducked into his third-floor room. Georgia soon found herself toying with the strings on her top as she waited and waited for her prince to appear again. Finally, she knocked.
“You OK, hon?” she asked.
Ren popped out of the room in nothing more than bright red swim trunks and a towel. He smiled apologetically and tossed one of his many phones back on his desk.
“Were you doing work on our romantic evening?” Georgia asked.
“I’m sorry, I just had to report in that I was neither dead, nor drinking your blood,” he said. “Then while I was waiting for their response I saw some troubling email security reports. Some asshole has been trying to hack into the Matsuoka database in Irvine, and you want me to shut up now so we can go to the hot tub, don’t you?”
Georgia nodded.
“Well you have to stop asking me about my infection as well,” he sighed. “Deal?”
“Deal.”
They made their way slowly up the central staircase, stopping often to watch the snow gathering on the glass roof. Ren darted ahead once they reached the sixth floor and by the time Georgia meandered after him, the hot tub was already coverless, and a little path had been cleared. A bottle of champagne and a tub of ice cream, however, had been thoughtfully left in a nearby pile of ice and snow.
“Oh, it’s freezing!” she said. Her shivering soon ceased as she slipped into the warm, frothy water. “I feel like those monkeys at the Japanese hot springs now.”
“Are you calling me a monkey?” Ren asked as he slipped into the water too. He curled next to her, and she smiled as she leaned against his chest to enjoy the steady thump. At this distance, he
could see the new engraved medallion on her necklace. “What’s this?”
She lifted it up, so he could read the characters. “Mina gave it to me. What does it say?”
“Ten ni tsuba suru,” Ren said softly. His eyes darkened as he read the words.
“Ten what?” Georgia asked.
“Not ten… ten,” he sighed.
“Oh, of course,” she said with an exaggerated eye-roll. “Are you going to be a little less smart-ass Ren and actually tell me what it means? Is it something horrible and sexual?”
It was Ren’s turn to roll his eyes. “Ten ni tsuba suru, ” he read again. “It means ‘I spit at heaven’, um, it’s like I invite disaster or look for trouble. It’s pretty much everything that you stand for.”
“I don’t know whether to be honored or offended. . . which is probably exactly Mina’s point. Wouldn’t spitting at heaven be kinda dumb? I’m pretty sure you’d just end up with spit on your face—”
“I do love you, my beautiful disaster,” Ren whispered before kissing her. The tip of one of his new fangs ended up nicking her bottom lip. She pulled away quickly.
“I don’t want to tempt you,” she said as she blotted the blood away.
“Yeah, good call,” Ren said as he turned away from her. It was only when the massive tattoo of his owl on his back began to shudder that she dared reach a hand towards him. “Just give me a minute!” he snapped.
Georgia watched as for a second his reflection flickered and disappeared from the nearby bottle. When it finally showed back up, all the light seemed to vanish from his eye sockets. She blinked, and everything turned to normal with a horrified Ren clutching the side of the tub with a death grip. Georgia dipped down and slid under his arm.
“It’ll be all right,” she whispered as she curled against him.
“Everything will be all right.”
“Of course, it will,” Ren said as he pulled himself together. “I’m sorry. I guess we just have to be a little careful until this thing is
gone.”
“Yeah. I mean, we should just take it easy on anything that might cause, you know, bloodlust—”
They ended up having a drink and watching the stars from opposite corners of the tub. Soon they were talking and laughing again until they finally got so pruney that they had to curl up in their towels and retire into the penthouse. Towels quickly became their only article of clothing as they tossed the bathing suits in front of the fire to dry.
As they snuggled in front of the TV and some terribly dubbed Kung Fu masterpiece, Ren kissed the top of her head. “This is pretty much perfect,” he sighed. She responded by curling her legs around his.
“Yup, pretty much perfect.”
This time they were able to make out and caress without any unfortunate fang eruptions. By the time the credits rolled, Georgia drifted off peacefully to sleep in the arms of the man she loved.
She woke up first in a tangled mess of limbs. Ren mumbled random sounds as she tried her best to slip an arm free. As she pushed his unwieldy pile of hair out of the way, a new tattoo dead set between his shoulders caught her eye. While all the characters were in Japanese, she quickly matched up the symbols mixed in with the feathers on his back with the very same text etched into her necklace.
“So, you spit at heaven too, huh?” she asked. “Why would Mina
—?”
Ren’s eyelashes fluttered open. “Hey you,” he said. He smiled weakly as he enjoyed the prize view of her boobs as she was curled around to look at his back.
He began kissing her chest before she could question him any further. They ended up rolling from the sofa to the floor and making love the moment Ren managed to fish a convenient condom out of one of the media cabinet drawers.
“Well, it is an entertainment center,” he mumbled as Georgia giggled in surprise.
“So. . . I’m killing you?” Paige asked. She eased onto the sofa in Lorcan’s apartment and took a long slow drink of hot whiskey and lemon. The vampire poured his own hot drink from the carafe on the table before joining her on the ivory leather.
“A mutated virus is killing me. You just happened to be the very effective delivery system,” he sighed. “I can only hope that Kyle finds his focus again and discovers a way to save me.”
“I’m working on it, Jesus!” Kyle cried from his perch in the apartment’s lab.
“I see his hearing has been improved as well as his strength,”
Lorcan sighed. “We’ll try not to talk about you too much.”
“I’m putting on fucking headphones, you two,” Kyle snapped.
Lorcan turned his attentions back to Paige. “He’s going to change again soon. I hope the cage in the bedroom can hold him,” the vampire said. “It’s rated for me, but even at my worst, I’m no match for a living, breathing, male werewolf.”
“I didn’t mean to infect him,” Paige said. “I didn’t mean for any of this.”
“You don’t have to tell me that, Miss Paige,” Lorcan sighed. He had changed into a slouchy sweater and loose-fitting pants. Even in the flattering dim light of his apartment, the hollows of his cheeks and the circles under his eyes were pronounced. His normally wavy dark hair fell flat against his neck.
“Nadia has been a big help getting Kyle to settle down,” Paige said between sips. “He’ll figure it out, but it would probably be better if you got her back here—”
“Kyle needs to work with Dr. Langer, and I need to spare Nadia that if at all possible,” the vampire said softly.
“I don’t understand—”
“Dr. Langer is the western world’s foremost expert on the werewolf virus and a trusted servant of the family. His sister, Neeha, is my wife’s personal assistant, and their family has been with us since the first occupation of India. When Nadia was younger, he
cared for her, helped her control her abilities, and recover from everything those butchers in Siberia did to her—”
“So—” Paige started.
“So, when she got older, he cared for her in a very different way, and she ended up nearly ripping off his arm by mistake. She’s never forgiven herself, and I intervened. That’s why I’m asking you to help keep Kyle calm and in his right mind, while he works on a cure. If we need Nadia, I’ll summon her, but for now, I want to spare at least one more person pain at my expense.”
Paige made certain that she could hear rocking power ballads coming from the lab before she asked, “Why didn’t you tell Kyle the truth back at the vault?”
“I didn’t lie,” the vampire said dismissively.
Paige flopped against the sofa and instantly winced as her tail got squished. She yanked it out and flopped it over her thigh. After a few twitches she finally faced the vampire again.
“You didn’t tell the whole truth either.”
“A truth known only to the select few. It’s true though; this body belongs to a traitor who hated Arthur possibly even more than Mordred ever did. Merlin chose it because he knew it had the best chance of survival.” Lorcan raised his drink and gave a little smile.
“Go on, you know you want to ask, and you also know that I can’t lie to you,” he sighed.
“I don’t care about the past right now, Lorcan,” Paige said softly.
“Do you honestly think you are going to die?”
“I know I will, Miss Paige,” he said, leaning a bit closer. “I’m just not sure if this virus will kill me, or if my grandfather is so displeased that he’s arranging my demise by any means necessary.”
“What about your wife?”
“If she wanted me dead, I wouldn’t be here,” Lorcan said flatly.
“No, this is Merlin being clever. He’s looking for a way that also furthers his goals. Either I’ll be dead, or I’ll finally be Mordred again –
the vicious, fully shapeshifting monster he helped create all those years ago. If there is one thing Merlin excels at, it’s a win-win scenario for himself.”
“So, Irvine is somehow infected with this super-werewolf virus, and I bite him and become the carrier to infect you. Well, that seems super random and likely to fail, doesn’t it? Why would some ancient vampire take that chance?”
It was Lorcan’s turn to lean back and ponder. Just like Paige, he ended up wincing the moment his spine touched the cushion. She helped him settle into a comfy position leaning against the armrest.
Paige blushed uncontrollably as she felt his hand slide along her thigh.
“Pardon me,” the vampire said as she jerked away. “You’re right though. It is a trifle random.”
“I mean, if I were a megalomaniacal werewolf hell-bent on a mission to kill all vampires and I had a super virus in me, I’d just spit in everyone’s drinks and see who goes all wolfy—”
“Paige, you are a genius!” the vampire cried. In his excitement to get to his feet, he ended up stumbling. Only Paige’s superhuman reflexes allowed her to dive across the sofa and catch him. It was at that exact moment that Kyle decided to burst from the lab.
“Seriously, you two?” he asked as he saw Paige and Lorcan locked in a tight embrace.
“Not what you think,” Paige growled as she lifted the vampire back to his feet.
Kyle narrowed his eyes at the pair. Paige noticed his claws peeking out on his clenched fist. She took a step towards him and kept her eyes locked on his. “Not what you think, Kyle,” she said slowly and calmly. Kyle shook his head.
“S-sorry,” he said as his eyes regained their focus. “I need more time and equipment, but I found out something pretty damn impossible in my first few minutes of research.”
“And?” Lorcan prompted.
“I can’t yet identify if the virus is the same between Mordred and you, but I took a sample of the crusty bit on your back and you aren’t going to believe this, Grandpa,” Kyle started gushing.
“Yes?”
“The cells on your back aren’t dying. In fact, they are very much alive, and you have pus in there.”
“Eww,” Paige said.
“Excuse me,” Lorcan said flatly. “Did you just say—?”
Kyle nodded. “I don’t know how, but you are having a lymphatic reaction to an infection. You have living white blood cells—”
“You know that is impossible, Kyle,” Lorcan snapped, his voice teetering dangerously into its Irish spectrum. “That would mean—”
“You’re not dying, Grandpa; your body is slowly coming back to life.”
“Best day ever,” Georgia sighed as she landed a definitive blow on the side of her laughing boyfriend. He raised his red, plastic, laser sword in a paltry defense before Georgia used her blue one to whip up a flurry of snow in front of him. Two more snowballs later and Ren toppled to the deck.
“It’s not fair; you’re from the frozen north. I can cream you in a surfing challenge,” Ren said as he tried to get back on his feet.
“I just like to think of it as life imitating art,” Georgia said triumphantly as she helped him up. “You know, brilliant girl with a lightsaber totally trashed her skinny, floppy-haired opponent in black.
Just tell me the truth, did you use all your vampire connections to get a character in Star Wars named Ren?”
“Please! If I had used my connections, Ren would not have gotten his ass kicked,” Ren laughed. “I thought you whispered the idea to Lady Pendragon.”
He raised his plastic blade and made a little come-hither gesture.
“Best four out of seven?” he asked.
She batted his toy down. “Yeah, that would require you winning four straight in a row. Seriously, you are awful with a sword,” she said. She gave him a quick kiss to assuage his ego. “Well a plastic sword,” she added slyly.
“I was not hearing any complaints earlier, my dear,” he said as they wandered back into a pile of half eaten snack food and empty
wine glasses. “Of course, if the day was truly perfect, we wouldn’t be snowed in.”
“Eh, we can get out if you want, but I’m having a much better time here with you,” she said. “When will you get it through your thick skull that I’m rather boring and just like lounging around at home?”
“Boring is one of the last words I’d ever use to describe you, Georgia. Maybe I still feel like I need to make up for all the time I was impressing you on my master’s behalf.”
“I’m going to slap you, Ren.”
“Ooh, the rough stuff,” he said as he lapsed into the twenty-first century terrible habit of phone checking.
“Still not dead or feasting on my entrails, right?” she asked as Ren continued to flip through his screen. Ren smiled apologetically as he put his phone down.
“I’m sorry. My father was just letting me know that there was yet another DDOS attack last night in the California office. To make matters worse, several identities might have been stolen, including a whole batch recently purchased from Russia. If my family hadn’t disowned me, I might be more upset at their troubles.”
“So, someone is hacking vampires? Should we tell someone?”
she asked.
“It never lasts long. Any hacker stupid enough to try this will end up either recruited or eliminated quickly enough,” Ren said. His voice had slipped into its most chilling and emotionless tone.
“When you’re free of all this, are you still going to work for them?”
Georgia asked as she finally dared to sit next to him.
Ren set down his phone and leaned against her. She began toying with his hair.
“Georgia, I have a very particular set of skills, and more likely than not, the only way I’m ever going to support us—”
“Is by balancing the books if I open a little pastry shop?” she offered. “And no, you won’t be running some smuggling racket out of the kitchen on the weekend.”
“A pastry shop, eh?” he asked as he curled against her. “Where?”
“I dunno, some warm tropical island maybe? A warm, sunny island where vampires wouldn’t really want to go ever?”
“Okinawa,” Ren sighed.
“Okinawa?”
“Yeah, Okinawa was an island full of diplomats for centuries.
They were the only humans to ever successfully negotiate a treaty with vampires. Even the Lung won’t mess with it, and there is the added bonus that the two most common languages there are Japanese and English. I’d have to be cured, of course, but—”
Georgia pulled out her own phone and started looking at pictures of beautiful beaches. “So why didn’t we try to run away here last time?” she asked.
“I thought we were going to need the Lung’s help, and Hong Kong might be a little easier to disappear into. I suppose that is still an option. It’s not an island though. And you think this would really work?”
“I’ve got two-hundred-thousand dollars in cash saved up, and I’m pretty sure you know a thing or two about investments, huh?” she asked. “You also claimed that my pudding was just about the tastiest thing on this planet, didn’t you? You weren’t lying to me, were you?”
“No,” he said as he cuddled against her. “I’m just imagining the idyllic life of selling adorable little pastries to GIs and tourists. You’d have to name it something ridiculous and in English and probably make little tako-yaki because those are my favorite food on the planet other than fish tacos. . . and your coconut-chocolate pudding of course.”
