If you wanna get ahead you can always subscribe at patreon.com/99geek where I've been writing three books at once, one chapter at a time, releasing the chapters like episodes of a TV show. This one is a sequel to my first published book I have on amazon (http://a.co/6YdsyYV) but you don't have to buy it there for 5 bucks. You can subscribe for just a dollar on the above patreon and it's included. Every canon piece of writing is. The other two books are different genres, one sci-fi and one fantasy. I will eventually catch you up to all three if you stay here, and then to fill in the space between new chapters I'll eventually catch you up on the first book as well.
So what's the incentives to subscribe if everything is free? There's scripts I've written that I wont put on here, mainly because well the formatting is bad enough for prose. Beyond that there is no incentive. But no one was subscribing anyway. I'd rather get these chapters out to as many eyes as possible. I'm trying to build an audience. I just wanna tell stories people wanna read. If you like what you read, sure you could subscribe, but I'd be just as happy if you followed me on Twitter @AndrewGeczy or even posted a comment below, just telling me what you think. The prologue got 300 views, and no one said anything or followed me. Did all 300 people hate it.
Yes I'm very insecure. Does that mean I'll never be a celebrity writer like Joss Whedon? Probably. But I can still tell a good story, so without further ado, here's a whole lot of set up with very little pay off, chapter 1 of a 5 chapter arc about child vampires. If you haven't read the first book or anything else, don't worry, I set up all the pieces right here. It's a long chapter, but it puts everythign in place for the much better stuff to come next friday and every friday hereafter.
* * *
Previously on a Suburban Fantasy, and the prologue of Urban Fantasy (It's literally below)
Rachel Lin Smith was just a quiet shy teenage girl, until a serial
killing vampire turned her into a monster like him against her will.
Getting away, she was able to cope with the changes in her life with the
help of her geeky friends Ian, Andrew, Bilal, and Jason. They shared
adventures pitted against time traveling mayors and Toronto gangs before
finally stopping Rachel's Ex from ever hurting anyone ever again.
Last week a new kid moved into town from the US, and the time travelling mayor Dixon finally came clean to Rachel's mom about magic and the realities of the world she lives in. He did manage to leave out the part that her daughter is a vampire, though,
Last week a new kid moved into town from the US, and the time travelling mayor Dixon finally came clean to Rachel's mom about magic and the realities of the world she lives in. He did manage to leave out the part that her daughter is a vampire, though,
There was a pounding of music as the over-the-top intro
to City News flashed across the screen.
“It’s a cold Sunday evening as this weekend comes to a
close on a somber note,” the reporter began his evening scroll. “Our top story
tonight, Toronto DJ T-BOAT was found naked with his neck snapped in an alley
hours ago, near the intersection of Eglington and Spadina. Police have cordoned
off the area, and if you’re making your way out of the city tonight it’s
suggested you take Queen Street to Dundas.”
Another murder in Toronto. Neck snapped? Was that just
some kind of code? Would the police even report if the man had been drained of
blood? Ever since Tanya had come to terms with the existence of vampires and
other types of paranormal activity, she found herself questioning everything
and seeing monsters in every shadow.
Was she being paranoid? Men were certainly capable of
being evil to one another. She’d seen quite a lot of that when her own father
had tried to walk out on her and escape somewhere into the distant future. He
was going to leave her mother without her ever knowing where he went. Without any
attempt at an explanation. Was there anything more evil than that?
And she’d met Eckhart Ghens, if briefly, but that was a
whole different evil. The kind of evil that turned little girls into vampires.
“In Oakville, election season is fast approaching,” the
news reporter said on the TV, moving onto his next topic. “This is set to be
the third consecutive running that Mayor Joseph Dixon has gone unopposed.” That
unopposed mayor was also Tanya’s father, and the fact he was unopposed kind of
ticked her off. If only people knew the kind of man he really was, and not just
the clean renewable energy and other engineering breakthroughs he’d been able
to bring to the city. Her father was a philanthropist, as every rich man was if
it could save them even a cent on taxes.
Tanya hated it all. Not just the praise her dad got
from the people and the media. She hated the money, the name Shawna Dixon, and
the mansion they lived in. The seventy-four inch TV blaring the news was
grossly oversized. The couches were too soft and too pristine. If it were up to
her she’d give it all away. She’d live in a tiny townhouse like Rachel and work
a shitty job like Andrew. She’d give up all her opportunities, privileges, and
belongings to no longer have a connection to the man who gave her life.
“Things couldn’t be more different for President Robert
Daggers,” the reporter continued inconsiderate of Tanya’s internal turmoil, “in
our international story tonight as the US still reels from the terrorist
attacks in Texas, and the abjudication of their first female president,
tensions are high. With elections still a couple years away, the interim
president has shown little willingness to host an emergency election, instead
shutting down the opposing senate as well as foreign military operations.”
They switched to a shot of the president at a podium
within the White House. He spoke clearly while saying, “This is a time of confusion
and hasty decisions, when we don’t know who our friends are or who we can
trust. This isn’t the time to be fighting other people’s wars abroad when we
have violence occurring every day on our very soil.”
Even clear voiced and smiling, there was something off
about President Daggers. The way his eyes never smiled with the rest of him,
perhaps. He was a skinny man, with balding hair and a darkness in his face. It
was the kind of face that would give anyone a shiver down their spine, even if
that person was his mother. Likely from remembering the slap the doctor gave
her when he was born.
“Oh excellent,” said a voice coming into the living
room that could only belong to Tanya’s mother, “Did Ruby make sandwiches right
before she retired for the night?” Her voice was almost melodic, if it didn’t
trail off at the end. Tanya didn’t have to look at her mother to know the woman
had been taking pills again.
She had been referring to a sandwich that sat neglected
on a plate balanced carefully on the armrest of their couch. “No,” Tanya said
quietly. “I made it myself.” She’d been hungry when she made it, but as Tanya
had gotten lost in her thoughts, her hunger had been forgotten. Reaching out
for it now, her mother got to it first.
Her mother had bleached blonde hair, and a mask of
make-up on her face at all times to hide the signs of the many plastic surgeries
it took to maintain her youth. As she took a bite of Tanya’s sandwich, some of
the sauce dribbled down her artificially chiselled chin and the expression that
crossed her face gave her botox a serious workout.
“Is that vinegar?” she asked between swallows.
Tanya shook her head. “It’s salad dressing.”
“Well it’s atrocious.” She took another bite.
“Why don’t you make your own then?” Tanya asked her
mother sarcastically. Tanya could count on her hand the number of times she’d
seen her mom take one step into their kitchen. She always either relied on
their housemaid Ruby, or ordered out.
“I was thinking of ordering Chinese actually,” her
mother said predictably. “Don’t suppose you wanted to have a family dinner
tonight, just you and me.” It was considered a successful family dinner if two
out of the three members of their household ate in the same room for more than
five minutes without fighting. It had been months, this time, since that last
happened.
“No,” Tanya said, quite sure. “Thanks. I’m heading
out.” It was late, like after eleven. But Tanya knew her mother wouldn’t complain.
Tanya didn’t have a curfew. To be honest, Tanya wasn’t even sure they cared the
nights she never came back.
“You don’t even want to finish your show?” her mother
asked, not relinquishing Tanya’s sandwich. On the TV the reporter was just
coming back from a commercial break.
“Back in Oakville tonight for some somber news, five
year old Stephanie Blalock pictured here was reported missing last seen near
Kerr Street and Lakeshore.” Her picture was of a small cute little thing
dressed up in a puffy winter jacket and a big hat so she looked like a stuffed
teddy bear. Pictures of other children joined her on the screen. “She’s now the
fifth child reported missing around that area in so many months.”
“Depressing,” Tanya’s mother said as the reporter
continued on discussing a statement for calm released by the police chief. “How
can you even watch that disturbing stuff.”
Tanya got up and folded her arms. “That’s real life,
mom. It’s important! This shit is happening to real people, not made up
characters on HBO. That girl could be dead somewhere.”
“Probably dead somewhere,” her mother interrupted.
“Do you not care at all?” Tanya asked with disbelief.
“What does it help?” Tanya’s mother said, sitting down
and changing the channel. “Why think about all the horrible things happening to
all the little girls in the world. Knowing now what you know, what exactly
changes? Are you going to go out and find that little girl?”
“Maybe,” Tanya said, storming into the hallway and
grabbing her jacket. “Watch me.” What would be the point of telling her mother
about her time travelling father? Perhaps they deserved each other. Besides,
she had a better way to spend her night than looking after her prescription
drug abusing parent. Like spying on the cutest Asian bad ass of all time.
“Shawna!” Her mother called after her, using her birth
name. “Wait!”
“Don’t call me that.” The door shut before Tanya could
hear her mother’s reply.
* *
*
The distance between the buildings was vast, but that didn’t
mean Rachel Lin Smith was going to slow down. Bunny hopping over an outdoor air
conditioner, she used her momentum to propel herself forward and, with all her
vampire strength, she leapt off the edge.
Across the alley parking lot she soared. Oakville
wasn’t like Toronto. The buildings weren’t nearly as close together, but Rachel
landed on the other side no problem and rolled to absorb the impact in her arm,
shoulder, and knee pads. She’d been running a lot lately, and practicing
parkour. At risk of sounding too much like The Flash on the CW, she had been
getting faster. She wasn’t sure if working out her vampire muscles had any
effect on their efficiency or if she was perhaps just getting more and more
comfortable with her abilities, but she could feel herself getting stronger.
She had to be strong. Eckhart Ghens was almost more
than she could handle, and she wanted to be ready for the next time something
happened. She might not be able to rely on luck next time someone challenged
her. She had the potential to be the most dangerous person in North America,
she could feel the power bubbling beneath her skin. Rolling over a skylight,
she stopped at a brick chimney and began punching it. The bricks broke and
shattered under her fists, leaving two massive fist sized holes in the chimney
when she was done.
Maybe she should have been holding herself back a bit,
but with the padded gloves her fists didn’t even hurt. Ian had been worried
about her going out at night. He’d seen her practice, and how hard she was pushing
herself, quickly insisting she wear his rollerblade pads over her black hoodie.
He’d been keeping the pads pristine in his closet, and she didn’t think it was
to maintain their resell value.
“Never been worn,” he had told her before the holidays,
and she was inclined to believe him. Ian didn’t even like to run when he could
help it, Rachel couldn’t imagine him on rollerblades. More than likely he’d
received them for his birthday from a far more active member of his family.
As her thoughts settled on Ian, her mind darkened. She
set off into a run again, with each step of her running shoes crunching on the
cold gravel. They’d had a fight just hours ago; it was her frustration that
fueled her now. Not necessarily frustration at Ian, but more at the world.
“You’re running out of blood bags,” Ian had told her
earlier that night, holding up the remains of her supply in one hand. They had
been special ordering the blood from butcher houses, but those special orders
cost money and since her place of work burnt down she hadn’t had any kind of
regular income.
It’s not like she had been blamed for what happened.
Her boss had made it quite clear that she was more than welcome back, and was
allowed to take as long as she needed to get over her trauma. The reality was
that she couldn’t bear to be trapped there any longer. She wanted to be running
across rooftops, and keeping an eye on her city. Well suburb. She had so much
power to make a difference, and the world was so much more dangerous than she
had thought when she was younger.
She jumped from the roof of a second story low-rise
apartment onto the second story of a five story car park. She bounced on her
feet upon landing, rolling over a barrier and running up a moving car as it
turned the corner of the parking garage. Hopping off the back of the car, she
ignored the yells of the driver and ran up the ramp to the next floor. Leaping
up to grab a hanging light from the ceiling, she began doing chin ups.
Maybe all of this was a waste of her time. Maybe the
chaos that erupted in her life last year was an isolated event, and things were
meant to get back to normal. Sure enough these patrols were never close to as
effective in real life as they always seemed for Buffy or Batman. Maybe it was
the location. After all, nothing ever happened in Oakville, it was the
sleepiest suburb in Canada.
All Rachel knew for sure was that she couldn’t spend
another eight hours behind that counter. It felt like such a waste of time now,
and she hated that the world had gotten to the point where young people like
her were being forced to work for minimum wage at the worst kinds of jobs.
There was a time when North America was full of opportunities for work. Now
most people, it seemed, were stuck working menial positions for major
corporations. Time also was when employees were treated with respect, and given
regular wage increases for loyalty. Now employees were being taken advantage of
any way companies could get away with, and Rachel wanted no more part in it.
She still lived with her parents and yet even she could
tell that the price of living was continually going up, and the average wage
was dropping. What was a person to do? How could someone still live their life
as their own when they were stuck devoting so much of their life to being
someone else’s puppet? It was a fundamental problem with society that didn’t
seem to have a fix. And so Rachel ran, and did chin ups. She ignored the
growling in her stomach, punishment for refusing a bag from Ian after his long
diatribe making her think she could last till tomorrow. She would make it, of
course, but now it wasn’t seeming like it had been such a great idea.
Everyone had to make sacrifices.
A distinctive smell of smoke made her stop what she was
doing, and pause the Chvrches album playing in her ears. It wasn’t like she
only knew one person who smoked cigarettes, but there was only one smoker she
had already caught following her multiple times since the holidays. She dropped
from the ceiling, and listened for the familiar beating of Tanya’s heart.
“Shawna?” Rachel didn’t need Tanya to respond. She
could follow with her senses the heartbeat all the way around the bend to the
other side of the lot where Tanya sat in her new yellow Corvette. Rachel could
pick it out without even seeing it by simply the smell of its leather seats.
She imagined the car sitting in its spot, and herself standing beside it. She “slipped”,
her body moving faster than even she herself could perceive, to place herself
leaning casually against Tanya’s car.
“I liked the van,” Rachel commented quietly. Her friend
almost dropped her cigarette out the window she was slouching against. Tanya
had her dirty blonde hair hastily done up in a messy bun, strands of hair
hanging sloppily in all directions and down her face. Rachel couldn’t help but
admit she found Tanya attractive in almost an animalistic way. She wanted to
pull the student council president from the car, pin her down, and bite into
her shoulder through that black leather jacket. Rachel imagined Tanya wouldn’t
like that too much, even as the student council president watched her through
her side view mirror.
“What is that,” Tanya asked without turning around.
“Your super suit?” Rachel’s pads were a long way off from being a superhero
costume, missing a mask, cape, or super hero insignia. She was acutely aware of
how dorky she looked, especially standing next to the most popular girl in
school.
“Ian made it for me,” Rachel said, adjusting a strap on
her elbow-pad and stepping into Tanya’s view. “I’ve been wearing it for a few
weeks now.”
“I know,” Tanya said. “Not that I’ve been watching
you.”
“Yeah you have,” Rachel told her, knowing better.
Tanya touched Rachel’s hand. “You look nice,” she said, saying the last word in
such a way that implied she meant more.
“Not as nice as this car,” Rachel tried to change the
topic to hide her self-consciousness, “How does it look even more awesome on
the inside?” She’d seen Tanya ride to school in it many times, but never
bothered to glance at it up close.
“You should feel the seats on your skin,” Tanya said,
beaconing for Rachel to join her inside. Rachel slipped around the car, opening
the passenger door and sliding into the seat.
She bounced in place, the leather cushions conforming
to her body. “You were right,” she said to her friend. “These seats are pretty
great.”
“And now it puts you close enough for me to do this,” Tanya
said leaning in and kissing Rachel on the cheek. Rachel could feel herself
blush, and she fidgeted, her leg brushing against something she reached down
for. It was a giant bottle of cheap beer.
“The hell?” Rachel asked, showing the label to Tanya.
Tanya grabbed it, and placed it in the back seat,
somewhere within reach. “It’s a forty for later,” she explained sheepishly. “I
was thinking of parking somewhere pretty and just drinking till I pass out.”
“Classy,” Rachel muttered, amused.
Tanya finished her smoke and tossed it out the window.
“Well I don’t feel too much like being classy tonight anyways,” she said,
starting the car. “You want to come with me?”
“Where?” Rachel asked as the car lurched into motion.
“I might be too classy.”
“The roof,” Tanya said, backing them out of her spot.
Hitting a button on the dashboard, the roof retracted and Tanya sped the car
down the parking lot, slowing only just enough to make the turn up the ramp and
to the fourth floor.
“How did you afford this beast?” Rachel asked, having
no problem keeping herself steady as the car turned another bend. Super balance
was another of Rachel’s many vampire abilities.
“My mom tried to make a whole thing when I told my
parents about the van,” Tanya said, “but when I took my dad aside and explained
there was a vampire on it when I pitched it off into the lake, he told me to
pick out whatever new car I wanted as long as I didn’t tell that story to mom.”
“So she’s still in the dark?” Rachel asked. “But your
dad knows everything--”
“About you being a vampire?” Tanya interrupted her,
with a quick glance away from the road even as she spun her car into a drift
with a cheer. She hit her MP3 player and started ‘This is what it feels like’
by Armin van Buuren. “Well I mean he saw you work your stuff. He seemed already
familiar with the extraordinary, but neither of us has been very motivated to
swap stories. Honestly I think he’s scared and I don’t blame him.”
“Afraid of his own daughter?” Rachel asked. Tanya was
just pulling them out of the drift, and her long brown hair flew untamed around
her face. Tanya was wearing a grin, the first wide smile she’d seen from the
woman in months.
“Scared of what would happen if I get involved anymore
in his business,” Tanya suggested instead, making it to the roof, and making a
wide lazy turn into a parking spot right by the edge. It was a fair point. Last
time they’d had a real father-daughter conversation he’d tried to leave her for
good through time itself, and she’d almost killed him for it.
“Oh look,” Tanya said without enthusiasm as she peered
out. “Kerr street.” It was, admittedly, one of the poorer zones of Oakville
which was why Rachel thought she’d have better luck finding some kind of
trouble there. “We were probably better off without the view.” The streets were
narrow and uneven, and some of the stores were abandoned. The apartment
buildings around were all low income, and looked the part.
Rachel watched her friend pull the keys from the
ignition, and reach for the bottle behind her seat. “You know I can’t drink,”
she told Tanya with a slight smirk.
“Well,” Tanya said, taking a deep swig, “I guess you’ll
just have to watch me get drunk.” She put the bottle to her lips and went
bottom up, chugging away at the brew.
“This is going to be a much better use of my time than
training,” Rachel muttered sarcastically, though deep down there was no better
way she could imagine spending her night. She looked across the street and
through a window at a woman watching a Disney movie with her kids. It looked
like Untangled.
Looking back at Tanya, Rachel frowned. “Oh, you’re
still at it?” Tanya was done almost half the bottle and still going. “Are you
even breathing? How are you doing that?” Still she drank and drank and drank.
“Okay I’ll wait.”
Finally Tanya removed the bottle from her lips, with
only a bit left sloshing around at the bottom and most of that seemed to be
foam. “I could help you train,” Tanya suggested, reaching out and touching
Rachel’s hand again. “You could fight me.”
Rachel tried to hold back a laugh but she failed. She
could imagine Tanya punching her to no effect, and the vampire easily pouncing
on top of the student council president to tear away and drink from her throat.
Rachel tried to repeat “Fight you?” but couldn’t get the words out through her
giggles. It seemed she didn’t have to.
“Well I was hoping you would hold back,” Tanya admitted
with obvious disappointment. “I figured you could teach me something. How to
hold my own like you did against Eckhart.”
So that was what this was about. “It was all luck that
I beat him,” Rachel told her. “I almost didn’t.”
Tanya leaned over in her seat, her dark lipstick
accentuating her cute mouth. “It wasn’t luck I saw when you were holding your
own against him. He was swinging to kill and you held him off for longer than
anyone else I know could have. Just show me some of that Jackie Chan and maybe
I’ll stop following you.”
Tanya paused to consider for a second. “No promises, of
course.”
“You do realize I never really trained with anyone,
right?” Rachel asked. “It would be like the blind leading the blinder.” It
didn’t matter anyway. Tanya didn’t have a sword like Eckhart did, and Rachel’s
was destroyed in the fight.
Tanya’s hand, looking like it was about to grope
Rachel’s leg, instead hit a button on the dashboard opening the trunk of the
car. “I’m not all that blind,” Tanya told Rachel with a hint of insulted pride.
She raised the volume on some techno music, and opened
her car door to step around the back and grab something from the trunk. Rachel
got out and joined her, to find her pulling out two long red metal rods. They
were maybe a little longer than a meter stick. Tanya threw one at Rachel, and
swung the other in her hands, to take a ready position behind her back.
“I got these off some old mops the cleaning lady left
in our garage,” Tanya told Rachel.
Rachel screwed up her face. “You have a cleaning lady?”
she asked her friend. The metal bar felt good in her hand, and she spun it in
front of her, letting it slide out of her grip and around the back of her hand
to catch it again. She did that faster and faster, before swinging it behind
her back and matching Tanya’s posture.
Tanya shrugged, breaking her stance absentmindedly to
say, “She’s really more of a maid.” Tanya realized she was opening herself up
to attack, and quickly readied her weapon. “And a nanny at one point.” Rachel
wasn’t sure but she thought she saw Tanya blush.
The music filled the air around them. This time it was
a woman (from the band Corona) singing through her auto tune about the “Rhythm
of the Night”. They both stared each other down for a moment before Tanya again
broke the silence. “So how are you going to attack first?” she asked Rachel.
“I usually try to gauge my enemy before attacking,”
Rachel admitted to Tanya. “Judge their strength on defense before going on the
offense.”
“Well if we both do that now,” Tanya said to Rachel,
“Then this stalemate is gonna go on for a bit.”
“Damn,” the teenage vampire said, thinking of a
sarcastic joke. “They didn’t cover stalemates in my dream training manual.” She
swung into action, with that said, and started off with an easy swing from
above. Tanya tried to block the attack with her stick held high, her fists
close together.
“Go-easy-on-me!” Tanya said quick and loudly, somehow
before Rachel’s weapon struck hers. Tanya’s makeshift staff gave way easily,
and Rachel struck heavily against her wrist.
“Ah!” Tanya said, backing away and shaking her hand.
“I tried,” Rachel insisted, horrified.
“I’m fine,” Tanya said, not seeming so completely.
“Just thought I’d go more than one swing.”
Rachel raised her weapon like Tanya had before. “You
need to widen your grip,” Rachel explained, widening the distance between her
fists. “They’ll be getting a little more strength or momentum from out here,”
Rachel showed her, “which you can easily repel if you meet it right in the
center here, from the core of your body and a place of strength.” She went back
to the stance she’d just introduced Tanya to.
Tanya tested Rachel’s grip, stepping in and swinging
down with her rod. Rachel raised the right of her weapon to block Tanya’s light
attack, deflecting Tanya’s attack and then raising the left of her stick to make
an attack of her own. Her blow came slowly from the side, Rachel trying to give
Tanya time to react. Tanya blocked the attack heavily between her grip, and
Rachel chortled with pride.
“That’s it,” she said.
“I feel like I’m in the kindergarten of weapons
training,” Tanya muttered, not seeming nearly as impressed. She knocked Rachel’s stick away, and swung
quickly for Rachel’s head. Rachel swung her rod to lock it with Tanya’s just in
time.
“So close,” Tanya said, and Rachel could tell the
student president was pushing with all her might. Rachel was holding back, but
still impressed how much she had to give to keep Tanya in place. For the most
popular girl in school, she was no pushover.
Tanya leaned in and kissed Rachel on the lips, flicking
Rachel’s upper lip with her tongue as she pulled away.
Rachel jumped back, putting a hand on her mouth. “Would
you stop it?” she asked, embarrassed at how much she’d liked the kiss. “Can we
not focus here? You said you wanted to train.”
“Jeez you’re dedicated tonight,” Tanya said to Rachel
with a frown. “Can’t two friends share a kiss in the heat of battle?” It was
obvious Tanya was trying to tease Rachel, but Rachel still felt wrong. And yet
she wanted it, more now than anything. Was it her hunger for Tanya? Or her
hunger for blood? The only thing holding her back was her guilt.
“What about Ian?” Rachel asked.
Tanya looked nonplussed, tilting her head and opening
her mouth to respond, only to stop and try again two or three times. Finally
she got out what she was meaning to say.
“What about
Ian?”
* *
*
“Rachel and I got in a fight,” Ian told Andrew, though
Andrew only barely heard him over the customer’s order coming through his headset.
“That was two big macs, a large fry, and large
Fruitopia?” Andrew asked the customer, repeating the order he saw on the
screen.
“Yes,” the customer said with a dull tone that told
Andrew she hadn’t really paid attention. Aw well, if the order was wrong it was
her fault now.
“Your total is fourteen twelve. Please drive up and May
the Force be With You.” Andrew released the button on his mic, and repeated
Ian’s last words in his head to remind him what they were just talking about.
He frowned as he remembered. “What’s new?” he asked Ian
rhetorically, as the both slightly taller and far chubbier geek stood leaning
against the door of Andrew’s little drive-thru closet, “You two argue like
you’re dating.”
“Trust me. We’re not,” Ian said in such a way it seemed
like he wished they were.
Andrew opened the window, shivering at the chill
wafting in. He took the woman’s money and tried to close the window fast he
could before his fingers froze off. Looking back to Ian he asked, “Doesn’t have
anything to do with the most popular girl in school being a muff muncher and
taking an almost singular interest in your favourite sexy Asian vampire, does
it?”
Grabbing eighty-eight cents he opened the window again
quickly and handed the customer his change. “May the force be with you,” Andrew
said to the woman again, raising his hands to make a Vulcan V with his fingers.
“Um that’s wrong,” the woman said with a frown. She was
about to continue but Andrew interrupted her.
“Good story,” Andrew said with irritation, shutting the
window on the woman.
“Do you really think Tanya is a threat to me?” Ian
asked Andrew with concern, his mind seeming to churn behind his eyes.
Andrew replied quickly. “No,” he lied, and thought he
was pretty convincing. Still Ian reached into a pocket of his tan cargo pants
and pulled out his phone likely to check for messages.
“Hey,” the voice of Andrew’s boss rang out from behind
the front counter, “No talking to your friends while on the headset!”
Andrew peered out from his closet, at the sterile
almost hospital-like lobby of his store. Most McDonalds in the area had gone
through major renovations to make their lobbies more warm and welcoming. Andrew
had been told repeatedly for months that theirs was coming. The boss, a fiery
middle aged Latina, was behind the counter and she looked mad. Nothing new
there.
“He was asking me where to find the ketchup,” Andrew
yelled to his boss, putting his lying skills to the test again.
His boss pointed to the condiments section beside the
counter. “It’s right there.”
“I’ll let him know,” Andrew said, stepping around Ian
and back into his booth. He appreciated that Ian had come by to keep him
company as he worked the late shift.
“Do you wanna know what we argued about?” Ian asked,
looking up from his phone. Andrew didn’t appreciate Ian THAT much.
“Not really,” Andrew said, deciding to try honesty for
a change. His headset chimed. “Welcome to Mcdonalds, how can I help you?”
“Right,” Ian said, putting his phone away. “Well I’m
thinking of getting Rachel a Christmas present.”
Andrew told the customer to wait a moment and gave Ian
a dirty look. “You know it’s middle of February, right?”
“I had a present for her,” Ian said, pulling out a
small box from his pocket and opening it to show Andrew the contents.
“Is that a wedding ring?” Andrew asked him, almost
blinded by the gleam off the diamond.
Ian frowned. “It was supposed to be a friendship ring,”
he admitted.
Andrew quickly pointed out, “Friendship rings don’t
usually have diamonds,” and reached out to close the box in Ian’s hands, almost
as if someone could jump out at any moment and snatch it from them.
“I know that now,” Ian said, slipping the box back in
his pocket. “A sad realization on Christmas Eve.”
There was a knock on the window of the drive-thru
closet, and Andrew opened it to a man in a suit, driving an expensive looking
car. “Did you get my Quarter Pounder?” the man asked.
“No,” Andrew said, “I told you to wait a second.” He
typed in the man’s order. “Seven twenty five.”
The man paid him and added quickly, “That was without
pickles, right?”
Andrew wasn’t sure how the customer expected him to
know that without previously mentioning it but he smiled. “Of course.”
Closing the window he left the closet and closed the
door behind him.
“I didn’t realize they let you out,” Ian said,
following Andrew through the lobby.
“Only for good reason,” Andrew promised him. He then
thought he’d try changing the topic away from Rachel. “So I’ve been thinking a
lot lately about Harry Potter.”
“Because of Fantastic Beasts and Where to find them?”
Ian suggested.
“No,” Andrew said, ignoring a homeless woman sleeping
on a table, her garbage bags jutting into his way. “I mean, a little I guess. But
no. I’m talking about Hogwarts.” He was careful to step around the lady.
“What’s that?” Ian asked, giving the lady a weird look.
It was a similar look that Andrew gave Ian. “Okay yes. Your dumb wizard stuff.
Go on?” Ian was a nerd like him, but he thought Harry Potter was just child
stuff. All while being a Nintendo fanatic.
“Well, I mean. It’s all real, right?” Andrew pointed
out as he finally got to the counter.
“No,” Ian said as Andrew went behind the counter. “Harry
Potter didn’t happen. It’s fiction. Is this another one of your psychotic
breaks?” He crossed his arms. “I keep telling my mom a sixteen year old has no place
working a job on top of school. It’s traumatizing.”
Andrew reached into the kitchen and pointed to the
screen. “That’s no pickles,” he told the greasy cook. What he got in return was
close enough of a thumbs up for him to return to Ian.
“I know Hogwarts isn’t real,” he told Ian unamused.
“But magic is real. I think maybe instead of all of us waiting for our owls to
arrive with our invitations to Hogwarts…”
“No one does that.”
“…We should actively seek out some magic. The Sunfire
gang has that book. I could go back there. Or Michael’s wizard friend in
Mississauga might be willing to teach me something.” Andrew’s head was suddenly
running ragged with imaginary scenarios that all ended with him slinging spells
around like an androgynous teen in a Final Fantasy game.
“Fill these,” Maria, Andrew’s boss, told him while
shoving fry cartons in his hands.
Andrew’s imagination immediately gave way to reality
again, and reluctantly he stepped up close to the searing greasy heat of the
fry machine. He could hear Ian call out to him even as he started scooping.
“You would really go back to that Toronto gang?” Ian
asked with disbelief and rightfully so. Not for a thousand bucks would he step
back there. “And don’t you think Michael’s mayor friend is a little above you.
What makes you think she’d so much as give you the time of day?”
“Fine,” Andrew yelled back at Ian over the beep of the
fryer, “those ideas weren’t strong. I’m simply brainstorming here. There’s a
whole world of magic out there to figure out. It’s time I stopped playing
Skyrim imagining what it would feel like to hold a spell in each hand, when I
can just go do it in real life. I feel like there’s so much more I could be
doing with my life than asking people if they want fries with that.”
“So now you’re not just throwing yourself into
dangerous situations,” Ian said darkly, “But you’re quitting your job and video
games too? I feel like I just had this same argument with Rachel. What are you
going to do when you keep poking the bear and it wakes up? Hide behind my best
friend?”
“It’s nice to have a vampire on speed dial,” Andrew
admitted while handing the fries to a pale teen goth girl in a similar uniform.
She gave him what seemed like the closest thing to a smile she was capable of,
and returned to the counter.
“Who was that?” Andrew whispered to himself. What was
he talking about? Oh right, he turned back to Ian. “It would be worth it,
right? To have something more than a normal life.”
“And you get to decide now,” Ian asked loudly, “what’s
worth risking our lives for? Who made you team leader?”
“Well who else would it be,” Andrew said, stepping
closer to Ian. “You don’t think it would be you.”
Ian looked taken aback. “I brought the vampire,” he
postured.
“And Rachel has more claim to be team leader than you
do,” Andrew made it clear to his friend. “Here’s how it works. I bring you to
the table, and you bring the vampire. Then I also bring Bilal to the table and
he brings Jason and Mike. It’s a pyramid and I’m at the top.”
Ian didn’t seem convinced. “Is that supposed to be
math?”
“It’s social geometry,” Andrew joked. He remembered
something else Ian had said. “And I have no intention of quitting video games
or this job,” he told his friend. “I happen to like having money I can spend on
whatever I want. It's funny to me, though, that you were talking about work in
high school being traumatic, but then argued with me and apparently Rachel to
keep our jobs.”
“Better you both be traumatized than dead,” Ian
reasoned with Andrew.
“I know you were raised Catholic to ignore and hide
from things you don’t understand,” Andrew said, knowing full well he was going
too far. Ian wasn’t even a practicing Catholic in any serious sense of the
word. “But I’m not wired that way. If magic is out there, I have to find it. I
can’t just put my head in the sand and whistle the Game of Thrones theme. I
mean I could…”
They had both been talking loudly the whole time, but
their conversation had been so outrageous Andrew hadn’t expected anyone to
follow along. It surprised them both, then, when the goth girl from earlier
interrupted them.
“Were you guy’s talking about magic?” she asked, her
hair dangling as she tilted her head to the side. She had her hair up, through,
and around her visor in pseudo dreadlock strands that were also beaded in
places and braided in others. It was a complicated structure that seemed almost
like a work of art. “I’m a practicing wicca, you know.” She had a dead-pan
voice that betrayed little emotion except perhaps boredom.
“Well of course you are,” Ian told her flatly. Andrew
knew Ian would instantly disapprove of the young woman’s thick black and white
make-up. And her two face piercings. “We were actually having a very private
conversation.”
“Maybe don’t yell your very private conversation across
a packed restaurant,” the goth teen suggested with a frown.
Andrew quickly opened his mouth to talk before Ian
could get a chance. “Ignore my friend,” he told her with a wave of his hand.
Looking down at her nametag, Andrew couldn’t help but notice how her body
seemed to curve in all the right places. “Michelle,” he said her name, “What do
you know about magic?”
“I know it’s not wands and Hogwarts,” she said, giving
Andrew a dirty look he felt was a little unjustified. “The magic I practice
involves the channeling of primal and sexual energies, and holy possession by
the old goddesses.” Andrew felt something grow in him, but while he kept what
he thought was a mature silence, Ian let the cat out of the bag instantly.
“Sexual?” he asked with disbelief and a little
curiosity. Even the puritan geek child had urges, Andrew supposed.
“Keep it in your pants,” Andrew told him, hoping
Michelle wouldn’t judge him too harshly for the company he kept. He found her
beyond pretty, but he always had an eye for the unconventional. And the
out-of-his-league. “What goddesses do you channel?” he asked trying to keep the
conversation flowing.
“It depends on where in the sky the moon is,” Michelle
explained, seemingly happy to have found people willing to listen. “Sometimes I
channel Venus, Isis, Aphrodite, Eos, or even Aradia the wiccan Goddess.”
“Does it ever work?” Ian asked.
A customer butted between them. “Excuse me,” the man
said, belly protruding out so far he pushed Ian against the wall. “Can one of
you three help me, there’s a line up forming behind me.”
“Do I look like I work here?” Ian asked, getting in the
man’s face. “Can you wait your turn while I order, or are you some kind of
damaged?”
“See,” Andrew said to Michelle. “Sometimes it pays to
have a friend like him.”
Michelle seemed to eye them both for the first time and
Andrew noticed her one eyebrow subtly rise. ”What about this,” she told them,
almost licking her lips. “Why don’t you guys come back with me to my place
after my shift, and I’ll show you some real magic.”
“Yeah,” Ian said with a shake of his head, “that’s not
going to mmmmm--.”
Andrew slapped his hand on Ian’s mouth and quickly
spoke for his friend. “He means ‘Yes. We’d love to.’”
Andrew’s boss, Maria, interrupted the group before Ian
could complain. “What is this, Woodstock? Get the hell back to your work
stations.” She cut into the group and gave Andrew a glare as if she blamed only
him.
“Sorry ma’am,” Michelle said, getting back to her cash
register. Calling to Andrew as he headed for his drive-thru closet she added,
“See you two tonight.”
“We’ll be there!” Andrew said to her, quickly
remembering they were walking with her and not meeting at her house. “I mean, here.
With you. Wherever you are -- is where we’ll be.”
“Too creepy,” Ian coached him in a whisper. “Pull up.”
“Or whatever,” Andrew added quickly, happy he at least
nailed the dismount.
Ian checked his phone again. “She drew me a picture of
the two of us together for Christmas,” he told Andrew, clearly thinking about
Rachel again. “What can I possibly give her that can compare to the cool of
this?” He showed Andrew a photo of the picture on his phone. It was a photo
realistic portrait of the two of them playing a video game together.
“I dunno man,” Andrew told Ian, opening the door to his
drive-thru closet.
“What do you think she’s doing right now? Ian asked,
his face softening.
Andrew patted his friend on the back. “I’m sure
wherever she is,” he assured Ian, “she’s thinking about you.”
* *
*
“He’s nice enough I guess,” Tanya said, blocking an
attack. “I mean, for a nerd.”
Rachel’s attacks were coming in faster, and Tanya could
feel herself getting better at predicting where she’d need to be next and pushing
her weapon’s momentum to help her instead of hold her back. “Me though,” she
said, waiting to continue until the song blaring from her car caught up to the
right spot before singing, “I want a girl with a short skirt and a looooooooong
jacket.”
Tanya deflected a flurry of attacks and swung with one
of her own. Rachel blocked it easily but with Tanya’s last note she kicked the
vampire flat in the stomach barreling her over.
“Yay!” Tanya said with a whistle of victory, pumping
her arms in the air. She spun for the whole crowd to see. “I knocked you over,
I drink!” She opened the back of her car and pulled out another large bottle of
beer. Ye Olde 40 was the worst of all beers, but it made up for a lack of
quality in its abundance of quantity.
“You came with more?” Rachel asked in surprise, already
rolled back to her feet.
“My dear,” Tanya warned her sexy vampire friend, “I
always come with more.” She opened her second beer and took a deep swig. Rachel
was watching her disapprovingly, arms crossed so that her elbow pads jutted
out. She was so pale, looked almost cold and trembling. Only she wasn’t
trembling. There was nothing vulnerable about her. She was a warrior princess.
As a kid Tanya used to watch Xena Warrior Princess and dream that she could be
Lucy Lawless. Now that she was older, she wanted nothing more, it seemed, than
to be Gabrielle.
“You wanna get out of here?” Tanya asked, dropping her
stick back into her trunk.
Rachel smiled and even laughed quietly. “I thought we
were fighting,” she said, not ready to give up her weapon.
“I thought I won,” Tanya said, and to prove her
declaration she took another swig from her bottle. “I also think, as the
victor, I should get to choose our next destination. And I choose the beach.”
She had to suppress a shudder as the beer’s marked after taste hit her. Only
thing to make it go away was to drink more.
“And you’re gonna drive us to the beach?” Rachel asked.
“Right after you finish your second beer?”
It took a moment for Tanya to realize Rachel was being
sarcastic. In her defence, she was already starting to feel just a little
tipsy. “Of course not,” Tanya assured her, thinking for a moment. “Can you
drive?”
“No,” Rachel said, her black lipstick curving into a
smile. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Tanya promised, definitely having a
thought now. “I can teach you.” Rachel looked like she was gonna complain. “No
seriously. You’re training me to fight. Why can’t I train you to drive?”
She dangled the keys from her finger. “What do you say?
It’s not like you’ve actually stopped a single serious crime this whole winter
you’ve been patrolling.
“Nothing ever happens in Oakville.”
* *
*
Erika needed two thousand dollars. Sure, Melanie had
given them a bit of cash before telling her to go north, and sure the safe
house was paid off for years, but the four hundred dollars left was woefully
short for the fake ID’s she needed.
It wasn’t Melanie’s fault. After all, her movement had
been poorly funded as it was. Erika knew her mother’s friend had done the best
she could, especially after her mother had traded her life for the woman many
years ago. Erika hadn’t thought about her mother in a long time, and wasn’t
about to start now.
She needed one thousand six hundred dollars more, and
she had no one to rely on but herself. Getting a job was out of the question.
She’d never get hired at a place without the proper documents, and even if she
found a place willing, she still wouldn’t be paid quick enough to suit her
needs. President Daggers wanted her, and more than that he wanted Jon. Now that
he had the resources of the entire US government at his disposal Erika couldn’t
take any chances. She needed the money tonight. The sooner they were integrated
into the community, and living their new made up lives, the safer they were
going to be.
Erika had to imagine that it was situations like these
that led innocent girls her age to become strippers, or worse walk the street.
But Erika had no intention of degrading herself like that. The crime she had in
mind was a victimless one. After all, any respectful business, such as this
Mac’s corner store just off Kerr street, would be properly insured. And being
as it was across town from their safe house, there was no way Erika would be
implicated.
She’d keep her hood up, and her scarf wrapped twice
around her mouth. It was cold after all. Once inside, she’d wait till the coast
was clear, then put her hand in her pocket and pretend she had a gun. She didn’t
actually have a gun, obviously. She had to stash those before crossing the
border, since Canadian’s didn’t quite agree with the whole mentality that the
only thing that can stop a bad person with a gun is a good person with a gun.
It was a bullshit conservative argument, fighting for
the open carry law to extend nation wide. The second amendment was created to
protect the people from the government. Of course if you were really going toe
to toe with the government, there was nothing your little pea shooter had any
hope of doing against their trained military, and advanced equipment. Oh and
tanks. Poland tried that in World War 2, charging German tanks with men on
horseback. Erika had never paid much attention to history class, but she seemed
to remember that Poland lost that battle.
But people were still afraid of guns. Even little pea
shooters. Even the idea of a gun. If she could wield just the idea of a gun,
and leverage fear itself, she might be able to get what she wanted without
anyone getting hurt. Not her, and not anyone innocent. If there was anyone left
innocent. The things that had been done to her, the time she spent in seclusion
as a possession by another, left her caring less and less about the innocence
of others. Their innocence had gone alongside her own.
She knew she had to be careful. She knew she could slip
and become the cliché of a girl broken by cruelty. She wasn’t going to be that
girl, broken by anything. Not ever. Not even because of money problems.
She opened the door of the Mac’s, ducking her head away
from the bright lights. There were cameras above her. One was all the way at
the back of the store to her right pointed towards the door, and the other
watched the counter, pointed away from the door. Her best hope was to look
straight ahead, and head for the milk. She had to get a sense of the
environment before trying anything. And make sure there was no one else around.
The store sure seemed pretty empty.
The clerk behind the counter looked Middle-Eastern, or
European, maybe African, Erika didn’t actually have a clue. He was in his
thirties, bald, and probably had a kid. He seemed nice, and Erika hoped he
didn’t lose his job because of her. Because of what she was about to do.
Her hand went in her pocket.
The door opened.
Now wasn’t the time.
Three kids stepped inside, the last one closing the
door behind him. Maybe it was just two kids, the last one seemed older. They
were laughing about something stupid. A prank or something.
“I think we have enough,” one of the young ones said,
looking into his felt knapsack with a strange expression on his face.
His young friend slapped him on his back, still
laughing from the last thing they’d been discussing. “Stop worrying about it
Sam,” he said, almost with a hint of warning in his voice. “My brother won’t
take you with us if you keep complaining.”
The older of the three looked in the sack. “You’re
right,” he told Sam. Sam seemed to breathe a deep sigh of relief. “It’s enough.
It’s just still not worth it yet. All this trouble we went through we gotta
make it worth it.”
“They’re two for one,” the clerk said, and it took a
second for Erika to realize he was talking to her. “I know the best before
dates aren’t great. I’ll give you a good deal.”
Shit, she’d been standing in one place too long. What
had she been looking at? The milk, right. “I just couldn’t decide,” she tried
to make an excuse quickly, “between two percent or skimmed.”
“It’s two for one,” the clerk said. “Why not get both.
If you want one percent you can just mix them.”
What would she even do with two massive jugs of milk a
week from expiring?
“Hey!” the oldest of the kids said, grabbing a sack of
chocolate loonies off the counter. “I love these. Chocolate money. It’s
ingenious really. Everyone likes money, why not money you can eat.”
He pulled out a knife, cutting a hole in the sack and
grabbing a chocolate for himself.
“You’ll have to pay for that,” the store clerk said,
looking a little concerned at the young punks now treating his store like their
property.
The oldest kid peeled back the tinfoil from the first
coin, and bit into it. He closed his eyes, savouring the taste. “Mmm, so good.
How much are these?” he asked the clerk, approaching the counter.
“Two fifty for the sack,” the clerk said.
The younger kid who wasn’t Sam laughed and said to his
brother, “You hear that, Dicky. Two and fifty for his ball sack.”
Dicky smiled. “That’s a bargain.” He smiled wide enough
to show teeth, reaching into his jacket and fidgeting around before pulling out
a handgun and pointing it at the clerk. “How much I gotta give you for what’s
in the till?”
As soon as the gun was in view, Erika knew what it was,
a CM9 and it regularly had six shots, plus one in the barrel. This gun was
already fired twice, the information written in the very air beside the gun,
looking as real to Erika as the gun itself. It was her sixth sense, and it also
immediately fixated on Dicky’s brother who was concealing a gun of his own.
Another six shooter, this time a Ruger LCP. She couldn’t even see a hint of it,
but still she knew it was there. She knew. These kids had been up to no good.
“Are you asking dollar value?” the clerk asked, trying
to keep his cool. His hands started to rise in the air.
“I was thinking more paying you in lead.” Dicky waved
the gun. “Start piling up the money, my brother’s friend here will put it in
his bag. Right Sam?”
Sam stumbled forward. “Right,” he said placing his
knapsack on the counter.
The younger brother had noticed Erika, and was in fact
staring at her. “Hey,” he called to Dicky. “Hey bro, look at this.”
“What?” Dicky asked, looking to his younger brother.
The young brother gestured to Erika. “What about her?”
Dicky looked at her and then back to his brother,
ignoring the clerk behind him piling money on the counter. “Why ain’t your gun
out, Danny boy?” he said to his brother at last.
“Right,” Danny said as he began fishing for his gun,
apparently forgetting that it was in his belt line. Erika could see it through
his shirt almost as if she had x-ray vision. She didn’t of course, but since
the government had done those experiments on her there were a lot of things she
was suddenly finding she could do.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Erika said to
Danny, their eyes meeting. Danny’s hand came to rest on the hilt of his gun,
behind his back. Danny didn’t pull it, seeming a little intimidated by her
gaze.
Dicky wasn’t however. “You wanna leave bitch?” he
asked, and Danny seemed to gain the confidence to pull his gun.
Danny pressed the nozzle of the gun against Erika’s
cheek as she didn’t move. What was she supposed to say?
“D-D-Did you hear my brother?” Danny asked her, getting
in her face, far too close for comfort. She could almost make out his brother
through his massive ear spacers. The man was eyeing her body.
“Maybe she wants to stay,” Dicky said, licking his
lips. “Do guns turn you on girl?”
“Yeah,” Erika said as she reached out and grabbed
Danny’s gun, “can I have em?” Danny’s face changed and his gun turned red as
his finger squeezed on the trigger. She ducked her head to the side as the
bullet fired off, breaking the glass of the fridge behind her in a rain of
shards and milk from a four litre jug impaled with the bullet.
Erika twisted Danny’s arm, breaking it with a crack as
he held tight to the gun. Danny’s brother, Dicky, turned his gun on her, and as
he did she could see a white line extending from his gun showing her his
potential trajectory. As the line got to her it turned red.
She grabbed a can of soup from the shelf behind Danny,
throwing it at Dicky and knocking the gun to throw his aim off. Danny was
screaming and Erika pulled the gun free of his grasp. Triggering the safety and
sliding the gun into her belt, she elbowed Dicky’s brother in the face and then
left him to close the distance between her and the only remaining armed
troublemaker.
His gun was almost on her again, but she slapped it
easily aside. She punched the man in the face, but for a skinny loser he took
the blow rather well. Instead of trying to shoot her again, he swung the gun
into her gut, knocking the breath out of her.
Sam didn’t seem ready to just watch his friends get
beat up, even though he hadn’t seemed too enthusiastic on even being there.
Grabbing the knapsack off the counter, he swung it at Erika. Erika blocked it
with her left arm, but it was heavy and hurt more than she’d expected. Dicky
was still the bigger threat, however, and she kept her focus on him. He punched
at her and she saw it coming, blocking it with her other arm. She tried to kick
him in the shin but he kept his footing.
A flash to the side of her sight was her instincts
letting her know Danny wasn’t completely out of the fight yet. As she turned,
her synesthetic mind was already suggesting a trajectory she could push him in
for greatest effect. He was charging at her, cradling his broken arm. Dicky
grabbed her left arm, and the pressure where he squeezed hurt from where Sam
had hit her just moments before. She kicked Danny away and he stumbled back
onto the milk, slipping and hitting his head on a shelf.
“Danny!” Dicky yelled, and the gun in his hands turned
blue to Erika’s eyes. It was a sign, she presumed, that the gun was free for
the taking. She grabbed at it, and Dicky was so distracted his grip loosened
and it went easily.
She elbowed him to get her arm free, and saw a red
flash to her left. Sam was coming in with the knapsack again. A red line made
it clear to her it was gonna hit her head dead on, and memory told her it was
going to hurt. Instead of blocking it, or worse yet taking it to the face, she
dropped below the bag and it swung past her to peg Dicky hard in the face and
chest.
She quickly hit the safety on her second new gun, and
slid it also safely on the other side of her belt. Coming up again, she could
see Sam had relinquished the knapsack, and stepped back in concern for his
friend’s older brother. Erika punched Sam in the face and he was done in one.
Spinning, she kicked the hurt Dicky as hard as she could and he crashed into a
pile of chocolate bars with the knapsack of money held to his chest. He dropped
hard and didn’t get up.
“Oh thank you,” the clerk said. He’d lowered his hands
during the fight, and was now furiously dialing on his cellphone. “I’m calling
the cops, you just hold them there till they come.” That didn’t sound like a particularly
good idea. The cops wouldn’t possibly let her keep her new guns.
She grabbed the knapsack that Dicky was clutching
tightly. She opened the neck and peered inside, and saw a soup of coins and
bills. It was impossible to even guess how much was inside, but it would have
to do. Maybe she wouldn’t have to rob a corner store after all. Not directly
anyway.
“Are there any clips for these in here?” Erika asked
Dicky, who was watching her with contempt. He tried pulling the bag away from
her but she placed her combat boot on his chest. Checking the side pockets she
didn’t find any clips. Swinging the pack over her shoulder, she next checked
Dicky’s black jacket, and pulled four extra clips from his inside pocket.
“What about you?” she asked Danny, who was only now
struggling to his senses. “Your brother give you any reloads?”
“He didn’t give me jack shit,” Danny strained to tell
her, touching the back of his head and wincing. “I didn’t even know my gun was
loaded, I swear.”
“You were handed a gun,” Erika stated to him in
disbelief, “and you didn’t bother to check the barrel or the chamber?” That was
rule number one, she’d learned that during her time in military school. “You shouldn’t have a gun if you don’t at
least know that.”
She left the convenience store, bag in tow. The store
clerk yelled after her but she ignored him, following the sidewalk to the end
of the street. It was best she disappeared from there, hopping on a bus that
passed, even though she was completely unsure where it was headed. She’d figure
out a way home later, she had to get some distance first.
She sat down by a window and watched as the three boys
ran from the store, Sam holding up his friend Danny. The clerk was yelling
after them, but she knew they too would be long gone before the cops arrived.
* *
*
“Dammit,” Ian said, checking the time on his phone and
putting it away. “It’s almost midnight and there’s school tomorrow,” he grumbled,
complaining of the late hour not for the first time. “I can’t believe I was
talked into being out this late.”
He was walking a little ahead of Andrew, who was making
sure to stay close to Michelle. There was a way to her, that sort of
disinterest she had with everything around her. Andrew found it alluring, and
wanted more. Even now, she was applying fresh black lipstick with the help of a
handheld mirror.
“You know,” Andrew told Michelle, “We could send grumpy
pants home and have a quiet night just the two of us.”
Michelle looked over her mirror at Ian and seemed to
shrug. Andrew couldn’t tell quite what her motion meant, nor the expression on
her face, but that only added to the mysticism that was so turning him on.
“Pessimism doesn’t bother me,” she said at last with a flat one-note voice,
looking at herself one more time in her mirror before sliding it into her shirt
and out of view. “You might even say we’re bedfellows.”
“So,” Ian said, seemingly looking to change the topic.
“Have you come across any mystical creatures in your exploration of the witchy
arts?”
“You mean like werewolves?” Michelle asked Ian, who
nodded a non-verbal reply. Andrew didn't think that had been exactly what he’d
had in mind. “I’ve bumped into a few in
my time.”
“Seriously?” Andrew asked as Ian didn’t look like he
believed her. “How can you tell?”
“What do they look like?” Ian asked
“Like people,” she said, her pale skin almost glowing
in the light of a passing streetlamp. “Hairier. To really tell, you have to be
able to perceive them with your third eye.”
Andrew caught Ian’s frown, his friend becoming less and
less enamoured with their new found wiccan by the second. “Which eye is that?”
Ian asked her.
“The one you see with when you close your eyes,”
Michelle explained. “They’re aggressive, and primal,” she then went on
discussing werewolves. “They also make excellent partners.”
“In crime?” Ian asked hopefully.
Andrew quickly corrected him, “I don’t think that’s
what she meant.”
Andrew didn’t understand, exactly, how Michelle wasn’t
cold, but he didn’t want to question it. He had bundled up tight in his winter
jacket and toque, but she was wearing what could barely be described as a vest
over her work uniform. He could see her breath, and knew she wasn’t a vampire.
He thought he recognized the area she was taking them
through. It wasn’t far from his house in a much nicer side of Oakville than
he’d expected her to come from. He wasn’t sure why, after knowing her for quite
a little amount of time, he had made such a snap judgement as to assume she
came from an unfortunate background. He supposed he didn’t know much about what
makes a woman like Michelle be the person she was.
“What about vampires?” Ian asked, grabbing Michelle’s
arm and turning her so they were eye to eye. He immediately let go of her.
“You’re freezing.”
She didn’t move, and it seemed her eyes were going to
pierce into Ian’s skull. “You have no conception of how deep the cold goes.”
“Deep,” Andrew repeated, mesmerized almost by proxy. By
her attention, though, he might as well have not been there at all.
“As a kiddie pool,” Ian said, having enough of her
attention and attempting to dodge past her gaze. Upon failing he added, “I have
conception of hypothermia. And pneumonia”
“Those things can’t hurt me,” she said with confidence,
passing him to lead them off the sidewalk towards an apartment complex Andrew
had passed many times before. “I’m protected by the Goddess’ will.” Andrew made
a faux impressed face to Ian behind her back, and his friend did not look back with
similar enthusiasm.
Andrew had tried to gain entry to this building before,
and was immediately deterred by its advanced complex security systems. He could
see, through the door, a beautifully bright lobby with a winding staircase that
lead to the second floor. On the second floor were shiny elevator doors, and in
the center of the lobby hung a large expensive looking chandelier. Last time
he’d been there the security had looked at him from the desk and it had almost
seemed like they were laughing. This time, Michelle non-challantly waved what
looked the shape of a credit card across a black sensor in the wall and the
door noisily unlocked.
“Ms. Tracey,” the guard said to Michelle, nodding to
her and them. It was the same guard from before, though he didn’t seem to
recognize Andrew at all. Andrew didn’t really expect him to; it had been
months.
“At ease,”
Andrew said to the guard as he passed, and he could feel the man’s glare on his
back while they got into the elevator. As soon as the doors closed, Michelle
turned to face them and Andrew’s heart skipped a beat upon her blue eyes
hitting a certain light. She had strikingly attractive features.
“You have nice blue eyes,” he told her genuinely,
almost getting lost in them.
Michelle was about to say something assuredly pleasant,
but Ian interrupted her with a snort. “Big deal,” he said unimpressed, “I have
nice blue eyes too.”
Andrew couldn’t help but look, and sure enough his eyes
were as blue as anyone from the Lord of the Rings movies. “Huh,” he said
surprised. “I’d never noticed before.”
“You didn’t know the eye colour of your best friend?”
Michelle asked in a flat voice.
“I think I liked it better that way,” Ian said, looking
self-conscious of Andrew’s gaze.
“We’re men,” Andrew explained to Michelle as they got
off the elevator. “We just don’t connect in that way.”
“Men,” Michelle repeated, looking at each of them in
turn. “So what do men connect with?”
“Video games,” Andrew said without a pause.
“Movies,” Ian added.
“Game of Thrones,” Andrew continued as their elevator
reached the top floor surprisingly fast and the doors opened.
Ian agreed. “Definitely Game of thrones.” They followed
Michelle to her door, and she slid in her key. The door number read 1204.
“So what about you?” Andrew asked as she opened the
door and let them in. “Let me guess. Do you watch reruns of Charmed? Sabrina
the Teenage Witch?” His voice trailed off as he took in her apartment. It was
two floors, the door opening into a large living room and kitchen. There were
stairs leading up to the second floor that overlooked the living room with a
glass railing. There were doors to rooms on that floor, more than one. “The one
season of The Secret Circle on CW, just like over and over again.”
“Actually I mostly just watch Criminal Minds,” Michelle
said as she joined them inside. It was toasty warm in there, a sharp contrast
to the cold outside. The apartment was decorated peculiarly, with swords and
shields and other strange medieval weaponry adorning the walls. There was also
a fish tank under the second floor railing, but as much as Andrew searched it
with his gaze he couldn’t spot a single fish.
“Mom?” Michelle called out loudly, satisfied with the
quiet that followed. “She’s probably in her hobby room.”
Ian was examining an ornate dagger on a pedestal, and
looked up when Michelle spoke. “This isn’t her hobby room?” There were a set of
flails behind him against a shield crest, hanging off the wall near a chainmail
suit of armour.
Andrew found their TV, and sat on the long L shaped
couch. It was soft leather, black as the granite kitchen countertops nearby.
The living room and kitchen were separated by an island with the same black
granite, and even there, in the center, was displayed a beautiful scimitar.
“I’m surprised this sofa isn’t made of swords,” Andrew said, really sinking
into the cushions.
“Like Game of Thrones,” Ian said, and Andrew was quick
to agree.
“That’s what I was thinking.”
Michelle crossed her arms, looking almost bored. “God
you guys are dorks,” she said, and Andrew wondered if she was starting to
regret inviting them over. “You guys wanna see my room?” she asked them, “Or
would you rather watch Game of Thrones?” she nodded to the TV.
Andrew got to his feet faster than he thought he was
capable, and followed her up the stairs. “You’ve got some real swelter in this
place,” Andrew commented, taking off his coat to leave at the bottom of the
stairs. “What’s the thermostat set to? Thirty degrees?”
“We don’t have a thermostat but you can take off your
shirts if you like,” Michelle admitted, taking them past one door to her
bedroom. Andrew saw that Ian looked as uncomfortable about taking off his shirt
as Andrew was. Michelle didn’t want to see their white pale bodies. “My mom
believes in,” Michelle said, pausing a moment before continuing, “alternative
heating.”
“You rub a lot of sticks together or something?” Andrew
asked, taking in the room. The walls were painted black, with glowing light
panels providing the only illumination. She had what looked like a dreamcatcher
hanging over her bed, and multiple potted plants on her bedside tables. She had
crystals hanging from the ceiling, and animal horns plaqued to the wall.
“What,” Ian said as he took in the room. “No medieval
artifacts?”
“That’s my mother’s thing. Not mine,” Michelle said,
setting her bag down on the bed. “Is that good or bad?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” Andrew said honestly,
surprised at the softness of a rabbit furred rug that he’d just stepped on. He
was curious of the books on her shelf. Her bedroom had many such bookcases,
some filled with books, or ingredients of different sorts.
Ian pulled out a jar of mushrooms and seemed to
consider it with disgust. “At least your stuff couldn’t be used to kill me,” he
said to Michelle. Andrew supposed that was the closest Ian ever came to a
compliment, but she immediately shut him down.
“Actually those mushrooms are poisonous,” Michelle said
from her bed, where she had begun to sit cross-legged.
Now Ian really looked nauseous and he hurriedly put the
jar back. “What the hell you got those for?”
“For cursing people,” Michelle insisted in her defence.
“I put curses on people.” She seemed to pause again, this time before
elaborating, “Diarrhea curses.”
“So you poison them,” Ian rephrased her, while Andrew
made a clear point not to even touch her Criss Angel auto-biography and instead
joined her by the bed.
“Give her a break” Andrew told Ian, who was joining
them at the bed. “You’re not going to do that to us, are you?” Michelle gave
him a look.
“How’s all this work anyway?” Ian asked Michelle who
seemed to give him an even more judgemental look. “That magic, I mean.”
Michelle pulled a matchbook from her bedside table and
some candles. “We start by making a power shape with the fire.”
“Like a square?” Ian asked. “I’ve come across power
shapes before.”
“They help wiccans channel the elements,” Michelle
explained as she pulled some kind of stinky herb from her bedside, lighting it
on fire and waving it so smoke filled the air even as Andrew tried to place the
candles. “No, a power shape is only as strong as the will of the person casting
and the number of sides.”
‘A square won’t do,” she continued flatly. “Most
witches use a pentagram because it has so many internal sides, and the circle
surrounding it is like an ace in Blackjack. It can signify no sides, or
infinite sides, depending on the mood of the goddess you choose.”
“I’ve seen a square,” Ian insisted to her. “It was used
in a form of blood magic.”
Michelle looked up in surprise from her stinky smoky
herb. “You’re gonna tell me about magic now?” Michelle asked. “I’ve tried to
cast spells with blood magic before, but it’s never worked.” Andrew wasn’t
surprised that it hadn’t, as far as he knew blood magic only affected vampires.
“And this has?” Andrew asked skeptically, smelling the
stinky herbs. It smelled something like Diana sauce meets an old shoe. “I still
don’t really understand the point.”
“The goddesses give me strength,” Michelle tried to
explain. “Help me do things I wouldn’t normally want to do. Helps me push past
my anxiety to reach new heights I couldn’t imagine myself capable.” Andrew
still didn’t really understand. When his body and mind told him not to do
something, he generally listened to himself. This whole wiccan thing was starting
to seem like another excuse to sexualize women beyond their comfort level. Who
came up with these rules anyway?
Andrew bet it was a guy. This whole thing was starting
to sound like a big spiritual roofie. Only if women were choosing this for
themselves, wasn’t that the same as consent? Were there any men out there doing
this, or was it a women only club? Andrew had so many questions he wouldn’t get
the chance to ask as Michelle took off her shirt. She wasn’t wearing a bra.
“She’s here,” Michelle said, lying back on her bed and
spreading her legs. “I can feel her.”
“Can I feel her?” Andrew asked under his breath, though
they weren’t talking about the same person.
“She wants this,” Michelle said, writhing about on the
bed. “She wants you both. Now Ian. Now Andrew. Shed your clothes so I might
take you both at once and our sexual energies will combine and strengthen one
another so that we are one pulsing entity.”
Andrew had never wanted anything more, and was already
taking off his shirt when he heard Ian from beside him.
“I’m out.”
Andrew pulled his shirt back down in time to see Ian
heading for the door. Of course Mister no-fun-at-all would be so quick to ruin
everything. “Wait,” he yelled after his friend, “at least give me a chance to
argue my case.”
Ian stopped.
Andrew knew he’d have to pick his next words carefully.
After all, it wasn’t everyday someone was offered a threesome with a hot pale
goth chick. When opportunity came knocking, Andrew was the type of person to
answer the door, not walk away. What could he say that would possibly change
Ian’s mind?
Andrew bore his gaze deep into Ian’s eyes, widening his
as he spoke his fateful words. “I really want this,” Andrew begged Ian.
“I’m out,” Ian repeated, turning and leaving the room.
“Ian!” Andrew yelled after him, feeling his heart sink.
Still he forced a smile on his face as he turned around, ready to take on this
mission alone. “So it’s just you and me now.”
Michelle was already putting her shirt back on. “We’re
not doing this without him.”
“Dammit!”
* *
*
“Give it a bit of room,” Tanya said, coaching Rachel to
guide her car into the parking spot. “And swing around lazily, yeah like that.
Perfect.”
Rachel had to admit, she wasn’t regretting their choice
to teach her how to drive. She also wasn’t regretting the first car she ever
got behind being a 2017 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1. The power behind the pedal was
intoxicating, and she was shocked at how little pressure she had to put on it
to jolt the car forward with a startling amount of speed. She was starting to
realize that was perhaps the highest learning curve to get past. Once
she knew how lightly to feather the pedal, something she was able to pick up
quickly, the rest seemed to be repeating the same steps she’d watched the other
people in her life do a thousand times.
Tanya was drunk, slumped on her seat in such a way that
seemed more than comfy, her gaze held on Rachel, as the vampire squeezed the break
and put the car into park. “I award you an A for lesson one,” Tanya said to
Rachel with mischievous smile sneaking on her face.
“What was lesson one?” Rachel asked. They’d covered
prep before driving, speeding, breaking, turning, merging, and parking. Rachel
had felt the past few hours should have been worth at least five lessons.
“Ya gottus to the beach without gettin pulled over,”
Tanya told Rachel, only barely slurring her words as she took a sip from her
third oversized beer.
“Well that’s incredibly reassuring,” Rachel told her
attractive friend. They’d parked right in front of the water, and Rachel could
hear the waves crashing against the rocks of Bronte Harbour. It was a quiet
night.
“I think a good student deserves a reward,” Tanya cooed
flirtatiously, ignoring what Rachel had said, and leaning in close. Their lips
met, and Rachel kissed back this time, giving into her want for Tanya. At least
for a moment, anyway, and then she pulled herself away. She could hear Tanya’s
beating heart thumping like a jackhammer even as she punched the dash of her
car.
“If you mention Ian again, I’ll freak.” Tanya said
angrily. “Just because he has a thing for you doesn’t mean you owe him
anything. You’re not dating him, and you don’t suddenly belong to him for
life.” Tanya touched Rachel’s arm, and seemed desperate to hold her attention.
“Sometimes you can get what you want. You just have to make the choice.”
“It’s not that,” Rachel said quietly, looking straight
ahead at the water and avoiding Tanya’s gaze. She realized she’d need to
elaborate. “It’s not Ian.” She didn’t want to admit the truth, but with shame
she added, “I’m just hungry.”
Tanya laughed, but that only made to irritate Rachel
more. She frowned, and still refused to meet Tanya’s eye. “I didn’t eat today,”
she told her friend.
“Bite me,” Tanya told her, and Rachel could feel Tanya
caressing up her arm. “Feed on me. It’s okay.”
“It’s not,” Rachel said quickly. “Shawna. You don’t
know what you’re asking for.” She wanted to, god she wanted to. But she
couldn’t let herself want to. She remembered what had happened to Ian when
she’d fed from him. She also remembered how good she’d felt.
“I DO know,” Tanya said in a whispered slur. “I was bit
once.” She turned to Rachel, and it was like there was fire behind her eyes. “I
wanna do this for you. I trust you not
to take too much. I trust you with my life.”
“Well I don’t trust myself,” Rachel admitted quietly. She
dared not let herself even hope. She’d sworn herself off human blood. Honestly
or not, she didn’t want to give into her vampire side.
Tanya wouldn’t abate. “I can’t stop thinking about you.
All the time, every minute of every day. When I’m not with you, it hurts.
You’re like food to me, and I feed off your strength, and if there was anyway
that I could give back to you any of what you give me, god I would give you
everything I have.” Tanya reached up and stroked Rachel’s face, scraping the
vampire’s cheek with her chewed up nails and chipped nail polish.
“At least let me give you this,” she insisted to
Rachel, her blue eyes wide. “Let me feed you like you’ve fed me. I have so much
to give. Let me love you, unconditionally. Because I can’t stop, even if you
asked me to.” Tanya lifted her shirt over her head, and threw it into the back
seat. “Bite me,” she said, ending how she began. Her neck was exposed, and
tantalizing. But Rachel had a better idea.
Her hands reached down, tugging at Tanya’s belt and
unfastening her pants.
“Mmm,” Tanya seemed to purr, and reached over to the
radio. “Maybe we should play something romantic.”
Rachel slapped her hand away. “I think the driver gets
to decide what we listen to,” she told her friend, plugging in her iPhone and
playing “Now is not the Time” by Chvrches while Tanya threw her pants into the
back with her shirt. She had sunk back in her chair, and was watching Rachel
with a goofy smile.
“So do you like what you see?” Tanya asked, posing for
Rachel. Rachel answered her question not with words, but with a kiss. Tanya’s lips
tasted like alcohol, and were both wet and welcoming. Her body was radiating
with heat, her heart beating heavily beneath her ample bossom.
Rachel traced her finger across Tanya’s nipple, and
down past her belly button. As the finger found its destination, Tanya shifted
and bit her lip, her muscles tensing for just a second before easing. Rachel
danced her finger around, stroking and petting at Tanya who twisted in her
grasp.
“How are you so good at this,” Tanya asked between
groans, as Rachel went down on Tanya and assisted her finger with her tongue. “Have
you been with a girl before?”
Tanya smelled so good, so appetizing. She tasted
amazing, and Rachel could feel her blood rushing past just beneath the skin.
Rachel traced her tongue along Tanya’s thigh, her finger still stroking at just
the right spot. Rachel had no problems finding Tanya’s artery, and could feel
her teeth extending in her mouth.
Rachel kissed Tanya’s leg, and then let her teeth break
the skin ever so slightly. Tanya groaned only louder, completely absorbed in
the moment. Rachel could taste the slight trickle of blood, and let the cool smooth
fluid wash over her tongue. She backed away, and the two puncture holes she’d
made in Tanya’s thigh swelled a little. Rachel supposed there was something in
a vampire bite that kept a bit artery from bleeding out. Like the venom in a
mosquito bite that caused swelling.
“Don’t stop,” Tanya begged Rachel, who did as she was
told and this time went deeper.
* *
*
Ian was sweating balls. It was so uncomfortably hot in
Michelle’s apartment, he couldn’t imagine how high their power bill must hike
every winter. Michelle had said something about alternative heating, but Ian
couldn’t imagine any alternative in modern heating able to facilitate the sauna
they kept their place at without a bottomless fortune.
It was too bad, without that one fault this apartment
would have been like his dream place to live. There were weapons on the wall
that looked out of the new Legend of Zelda. Two muskets over there looked like
the pistols Alucard used in Ian’s favourite manga, Hellsing.
He supposed in his apartment, his fish tank would
actually have fish in it. But besides that and the heat, the place was pretty
amazing. That TV on the wall was like seventy inches. Ian supposed having fish
would be a lot of work. To be honest, he never really considered himself a pet
person. Too much responsibility. Ian
couldn’t imagine having to clean the tank every week. Their tank seemed clean
enough, he supposed, without fish to muck it up.
He probably should have left, but he had a feeling if
he waited a moment Andrew wouldn’t be too far behind. He didn’t feel the
slightest regret for turning Michelle down, and it had nothing to do with
Rachel. It didn’t matter that they weren’t officially dating, and that he was
single and available to sleep with whoever he wanted. That didn’t mean he was
going to lose it the first chance he got, like Andrew. On the one hand, he
wasn’t too keen on seeing Andrew’s junk. For another, if he lost his virginity
that night to Michelle, the sex would have been as empty as her fish tank.
Was that a bubble? The water seemed to be almost
boiling at points, churning and spooling ever so slightly, and when Ian reached
out to touch the glass it was so hot he immediately recoiled his hand. Was the
heat coming from the tank?
Or was it coming from behind? Ian could feel the heat
radiating hotter out the back of the tank. And even warmer against the wall
itself. Ian tried to move the fish tank, and to his surprise the entire wall
moved with it. The two pieces seemed to be on a track of sorts, and the wall
opened to reveal a hidden room underneath the second floor.
Ian’s face was blasted with a wave of heat, and he had
to look away for a moment until he could adjust. The room inside was similarly
outfitted as the rest of the place, with weapons and shields hanging from the
walls. That was where the similarities with the rest of the apartment ended,
however, with no furniture in the strictest sense. Not unless Ian considered an
anvil to be furniture, and he did not.
The place seemed to have been renovated into a workshop
for practicing blacksmithy, with a forge against one wall built into the
ventilation to outside. The work and money that must have gone into it all was
mind boggling to Ian, who could at least finally understand why the apartment
was so hot.
There was a middle aged woman standing in the middle of
the room, holding the handle of a piping hot sword in one hand, and a large
hammer in the other, held over her head ready to strike the metal against the
anvil. She was frozen there, staring at him, and when he looked back she
finally spoke.
“I think you’re lost,” the woman said to him, her
blonde highlights standing out through her dark hair matted against her sweaty
round and tanned face.
Ian was inclined to disagree. “I might have found
exactly what I was looking for,” he admitted to her, his mind racing. “Though
I’m surprised this whole thing isn’t one big violation of the building’s safety
code.”
“It is,” the woman said sheepishly, and Ian realized
that was probably why it was all hidden behind a fake wall. “I had it all
properly ventilated, and all the fire is securely contained and completely
under my control at all times.”
“Why?” Ian had to ask. “Why go through all this
trouble?”
It was then that Andrew decided to find his way back
downstairs. “What’s all this?” he asked Ian, joining beside him.
It seemed only then that the woman noticed the cooling
sword in her hand, no longer glowing like it had before. “I love this stuff,”
She told them, brandishing the unfinished weapon with a hasty sort of
admiration before dumping the blade in cool water. The water barely bubbled,
and what she pulled up didn’t look much like a sword. “Well this one’s a mess,”
she admitted. “But when it comes to the general practicing of metalsmithing,
I’m the best in the world.”
“Those are all yours?” Andrew asked, pointing his thumb
over his shoulder to everything adorned around the apartment.
The woman nodded. “I made them,” she told the boys. “I
have a knack for it. Or I used to,” she looked down at the ruined sword and
tossed it aside.
“So you’re Michelle’s what?” Andrew asked, seeming
desperate not to believe the obvious. “Sister?”
“Guess again,” Ian asked, already having figured it
out. “You’ll get it.”
“Let me guess,” the woman said, stepping around the
forge to offer Ian her hand. He moved to shake it. “My daughter asked you both
over for a threesome.”
Ian stopped, with his hand just short of hers. “Uh,” he
said, quick to think of a response. “I turned her down.”
“You’re a stronger person than me,” the mother
admitted, grabbing at Ian’s hand and shaking it. Ian could feel his face
crumple as he tried to figure out what exactly she’d meant by that.
“In every generation only one is chosen,” Andrew joked
to the mother, quick to rush past the awkward topic to his preferred one:
mocking Ian. “One man capable of resisting temptation.”
“You’re stuff is amazing,” Ian said, looking past the
woman to an axe on the table.
“The way the blade is tied to the handle is very
reminiscent of 1200 AD peasants in Spain,” the blacksmith said. She lifted it
off the table and let them touch it. “Careful, its sharp. I’ve spent many years
studying the intricacies of now lost arts to smithing and weapon engineering.
There’s a good market for identical replicas indistinguishable from artifacts
of that time period. I recently sold an authentic Roman legionnaire’s tower
shield for over two hundred thousand dollars.”
“Holy shit,” Andrew blurted.
The woman put her arms around both their shoulders. “I
don’t have to worry about either of you telling anyone about this,” she asked,
“right?”
“We came here to ravage your daughter,” Andrew
reassured the woman in such a way that Ian hoped it was a joke. “What’s not to
trust?”
“Could you make me something?” Ian asked, feeling like
he was being too bold. “Not that I’m blackmailing you.”
“I could make you something,” the woman told Ian. “But
why would I?”
“Because it would be unique,” Ian told her. He was
gambling on the thought that all these recreations and replicas were starting
to bore her. It seemed like he betted right.
“I’m still listening,” she said.
And so it seemed was Andrew. “What are you getting at?”
Ian’s friend asked him.
“I’m looking to get a Christmas present for someone,”
Ian told the blacksmith. “A sword.”
“For a Christmas present?” the woman asked Ian. “Isn’t
it the end of February?”
“That’s precisely what I said,” Andrew told the woman
from behind Ian’s back.
“Rachel loves swords,” Ian said, “and recently lost
hers.”
“Well she’s a girl after my own heart,” the blacksmith
said. “How big is she?”
“She’s an adorable little thing,” Ian said, getting
lost in his description of her. “About five four maybe? Like to here.” He
placed his hand close to his chest.
“She sounds cute,” the blacksmith said. “She and you
have a thing? Because that would explain how you resisted the gothic siren
upstairs.”
Ian was going to deny it, then thought about not
denying it. Finally he decided on not answering at all. “She’ll need it to be
discreet,” Ian told the woman instead. “like in an umbrella, or something.”
He’d actually put quite a lot of thought into this, he just hadn’t told anyone.
Or thought he’d ever had a way to actualize his ideas.
“What’s she going to be doing?” the woman asked, making
notes now on a notepad with her large scorched fingers looking awkward when
holding such a small pen. “Carrying it in public? You do know this won’t be a
can of pepper spray right?”
“She knows,” Ian reassured the blacksmith. “But she’s
going to have to use it. Likely quite a lot. It’ll have to be functional.”
The woman placed the notepad on her anvil, and
whistled. “I haven’t had an order for regular practical use in forever,” she
told them. “There’s a few experimental techniques I’d love to try on it, see if
they can hold up in the field.” She left her anvil to search a bookcase sealed
behind a glass door.
“Probably best to keep those packed away safe,” Andrew
pointed out, still keeping one eye on the raging fire of the forge.
“And I do,” Michelle’s mother told them, pulling out a
book and closing the case behind her. “These are only my most detailed records.”
She was flipping rapidly through the pages. “I came across an absurd Greek
philosophy to weapon making. It was very fringe. But it believed that there
were powerful connections between all of us. He believed our bonds of
relationships with each other created a sort of energy that would stick to
objects.”
“Are you talking about a kind of magic?” Ian asked the
woman.
“Well not the kind of magic she practices,” the
blacksmith nodded upstairs to her daughter’s room. “But something like it,
perhaps.”
“I’ve read that it’s possible to weave that energy into
a blade if you have all the right ingredients, equipment, and know how.”
Ian looked to Andrew, wondering if he was hearing all
of this. But his attention was still on the bookshelf.
“My name’s Andrew,” he said, offering the blacksmith
his hand absentmindedly. “You mind if I read some of your books there.”
“Helen,” the blacksmith told Andrew. “And I think I’m
doing enough favours already. You want a peek at my bookshelf of horrors,
you’ve gotta bring me something worth my time.”
Ian tried to ignore Andrew, as was his custom. “So what
would you need from us?” Ian asked Helen. “For this to work?”
A grin was crossing Helen’s lips, and Ian was beginning
to wonder how much of a good idea this was. “Do you have anything of hers?” the
blacksmith asked, looking excited to get started.
Ian shook his head, then remembered the ring in his
pocket.
“I’ve got this,” Ian said, producing the small diamond
ring in its precious case. “I never gave it to her, but I was going to.”
“You were going to propose to her?” Helen asked, coming
to the logical conclusion.
Andrew was quick to jump in. “Again, that’s what I
said.”
“No,” Ian insisted. “But I love her. More than anyone
or anything.”
Helen took the ring from Ian’s hand, tossing the case
into the forge. Ian grimaced.
“I still needed that if I wanted to return it,” Ian
said, definitely regretting things now.
“This’ll do,” Helen assured him, palming it and getting
lost in her thoughts. Likely where to begin.
“Come back tomorrow afternoon,” Helen told them, after
not even noticing that they were still standing there for a good five minutes.
“I’ll have it for you then.”
“A day?” Andrew commented to Ian as they left
Michelle’s apartment. “That’s rather fast. You think we should be impressed or
concerned?”
* *
*
“That doesn’t seem fast to you?” Jon asked his only
friend as they walked the quiet empty streets of a suburban Oakville at 3 in
the morning. “I’m not sure if I should be impressed or concerned.”
“Thankful will be a good place to start,” Erika said,
pretty sure she knew where she was headed. “He’s supposed to be the best at
what he does.” At least that had been what Erika’s rebel friend had told her.
Said they’d met him through Twitter and Reddit, and that he was capable of
doing more from a keyboard in Canada than her people could accomplish in the
field.
“What makes you think he’ll even be awake at this time?”
Jon asked Erika, though what he failed to realize was that she didn’t care.
“Odds are good he’s asleep at this time, like a seventy four percent chance.”
Erika wasn’t too surprised by Jon’s C3PO act, but even
then seventy four percent seemed pulled out of thin air. “You can tell all that
with your abilities?” she asked him, worried that his abilities were advancing.
He shook his head.
“Not completely,” he told her. “First I looked up the ratio
of people on average working nights to days, then cross referenced that to the
number of people who only need a few hours of sleep a night. I compensated for
possible overlap and then added in the variable that he’s a computer hacker.”
“That all sounds like fun,” Erika lied, hoping he would
keep the rest of his calculations to himself, “But I think we’re there.” She
hadn’t called ahead, didn’t even have a private number if she wanted to. Just a
name, and a quick phone book search gave her an address. Not everyone needed
computer expertise to get anything done around here.
“No lights on,” Jon pointed out annoyingly. He was
carrying the backpack she had stolen, and went back to sifting through it.
Erika imagined he was likely counting the money, but she already knew how much
was there. “Four thousand three hundred twelve and eighty two cents.” Okay she
was off by a couple hundred.
The house wasn’t small by any means, but the ratty car
in the driveway was just the first clue that this wasn’t a rich household.
There were many other clues that could be picked out. The unkempt grass, the
weeds crawling up the wall and enveloping the mailbox, or even the rusted bikes
chained to their porch. There was a doorbell that glowed through the weeds, and
Erika gestured to it before asking “You think I should push that?”
“Don’t,” a voice said from… well Erika wasn’t
completely sure. It sounded like it was playing through a speaker somewhere.
“Wake my mother and you’ll lose a finger.”
“You Gordon?” Erika asked. How did he know they were
there? Jon pointed to a speaker in the window beside the door.
“This is the Gordon residence,” the disembodied voice
confirmed for her vaguely. “Now get your butts off my patio before I come up
there and kick your ass.” He quickly added, “Very quiet like.”
“I have money,” Erika told the disingenuous voice.
Within moments the front door unlocked, and a rather imposingly tall and
muscular black man answered with a gleaming white smile. Despite his size, he
had a young look to him, no older than Jon.
“What can I help you folks for,” he whispered to them,
welcoming them into his mother’s home. “Don’t
answer that yet. Just follow me.”
They moved to follow him but he stopped them again.
“What the fuck you doing?” He whispered sharply and they both stopped dead in
their tracks. “Take off your shoes.” He seemed to shrink within his red hoodie.
“If you track mud in the house my mom will kill me.”
Their house was messy, strewn with toys, laundry, dirty
dishes, and garbage amongst other things. He led them past a den that smelled
of cat, though Erika couldn’t see any signs of a cat anywhere, and down a
narrow rickety wooden staircase into what may as well have been a whole
different building.
Gordon’s basement was an open space concept, messy in a
sense, but with wires and electronics instead of human filth. Gordon had
screens on every wall and dim blue tinted lights as the only source of
illumination on the whole floor. A desk took up most the room, large enough to
be three desks in one, curving around to provide Gordon with access to multiple
keyboards, and every type of input all from reach of his chair.
“We can talk here,” he told them, sitting down in that
very chair, and swivelling in it. The black leather looked comfortable. “I had
the whole basement sound-proofed.” He put his hands together and elaborated, “I
could kill you both and no one would even hear the screams.”
“Try anything and it’ll be your screams your mother
doesn’t wake up to in the middle of the night,” Erika told Gordon, not really
appreciating the attitude. “Melanie told me you were one of the greatest assets
her group have been able to find outside the US. Does she even know you’re in
diapers?”
“I’m sixteen bitch,” he said, certainly capable of
looking much older. But Erika could almost smell the immaturity on him. “And I
am the greatest asset Melanie’s got. Foreign or domestic.”
“We weren’t sure you’d be up,” Jon told the imposing
geek as he looked around the room.
Gordon worked at a keyboard on something, not even
looking at Jon as he responded, “I don’t need much sleep, Pasty. Just a few
hours in the mornings before school.”
“You know,” Jon said, piping up with a random fact.
“Two percent of people in the world share your reduced need to sleep.”
“I know,” Gordon said flatly, distracted by something.
“It’s ta do with the way our brains store and access long term memory. I also
believe dats what gives me my superior motivation and productivity. As we speak
I’m downloadin an upgrade to my server’s bios, researchin volcanic activity in
the early nineteen hundreds, just caught a Pikachu in Pokemon Go, and finishin
the touches on your fake IDs. Oh, and that computer over there is still breakin
down the firewalls at Service Canada. I’m like the ultimate multi-tasker.”
“Doesn’t do much for your humility though,” Erika said
rudely. “Did they give you our fake names?”
Gordon gave her a dirty look out of the corner of his
eye, and lifted up two folders from his desk, underneath a bunch of papers and
a binder. “Mason and Vicki. Yeah, I got it.” He moved to hand the folders to
them but stopped. “So who wants which?”
“Funny,” Erika says, grabbing both, and opening hers.
Inside was a drivers license, health card, birth certificate, and more
paperwork nearly as thick as her fist. It seemed she’d been born three days
before Christmas at a Credit Valley Hospital in Mississauga.
“You know, I’m charging like a G each for those right,”
Gordon warned them, and Erika rolled her eyes. She had his money. “It’s not
exactly a high price. You go to the dark web and you’ll be paying easily ten
times that for what I’m offering.”
“Just so we’re clear,” Erika said, finishing her quick
browse of the Mason folder before handing it to Jon, “these are going to hold
up under any scrutiny right?”
“Well nothin’s flawless,” Gordon admitted to her.
“Innocent people ain’t done shit get flagged as guilty, you bet your ass anyone
can get flagged at any time for any dumb reason the government chooses. But
I’ve ironed out as many red flags as I could, and it should hold up to basic
record checks if for instance you need to buy property, start a business, or
whatever.”
“Enroll for school?” Jon asked, opening a mini fridge
at his feet only to find a computer inside.
“I was having overheating problems with that baby,”
Gordon explained to Jon. “Doesn’t overheat anymore though. And yeah, school
should be no big at all. You decide on a school yet?”
“I was thinking Abbey Park.”
Gordon chortled a little. “Long as it ain’t Loyola than
yer makin a good choice,” he told the two of them, but Erika had heard enough.
“Give the man his money,” Erika told Jon, who placed
the knapsack on the nearest surface and began piling bills. “Then we can clear
out of here.”
“So your mom is okay with all of this?” Jon asked
Gordon as he continued to count out Gordon’s payment. “Does she even know
you’re hacking into government servers?”
“She don’t even know what a server looks like,” he told
them. “I help her with the rent and bills, and she doesn’t ask too many
questions. But yeah, livin in my mum’s basement can be a real drag sometimes.”
He started counting the money as Jon placed it down. “I’ve thought about gettin my own crib,” he
admitted.
As he said that there was a loud feminine yell from
upstairs. “Charles Gordon, who shoes are these? You got guests down there?” It
sounded like his mother was pissed. There was the noise of a door opening, and
footsteps on the stairs.
“Shit,” Gordon said, pushing the money off his desk
onto the floor behind. The mother came into view, tall with a frilly afro that
touched the low ceiling.
“What the hell are two white people doin in my
basement,” the woman screamed at Gordon at the top of her lungs. “ARE YOU
SELLIN DRUGS?”
“No!” Gordon insisted. “Mom! I thought we agreed this
was MY basement.”
“Yes we did,” his mother gave him, “but you’re also my
son. And as my son all of your things are also mine. What does this shit even
do? A hundred screens you got down here, you can’t spare one for your baby
brother?”
“I’ll buy him an iPad, mom.”
The mother threw
her arms in the air. “Oh we don’t want your charity, boy.” She slapped him
across the face and put her finger close to his nose. “But my rules could use
with a little respect.”
“Maybe we should go,” Erika said to Jon as they inched
together to pass Gordon’s mother for the stairs.
“I’ll see you tomorrow at school,” Gordon yelled to
Jon, and for the first time Erika realized Gordon probably went to the very
same school Jon wanted to apply to. She supposed she should have figured that
out sooner.
“Wait,” the mother said, grabbing Jon’s arm and making
him gulp. “Were you two here because of school?” Behind Gordon’s mom, Erika
could see Gordon nodding his head frantically.
“Yes,” Jon said, raising the folder to show off its
cover and girth. “I’m actually new to the neighbourhood. I was just gonna start
my first day tomorrow, and Gordon was giving me the homework I needed to catch
up.”
The mother glared at Jon, and Erika was pretty sure Jon
was visibly shrinking before her eyes.
“What a polite white boy,” the mother said at last,
slapping his shoulder and laughing. “Why didn’t you just say all that to begin
with?” She asked Gordon who could only shrug. The mom turned back to Jon. “I’ve
been tellin him to be more polite like all you white boys. But he’s a punk just
like his daddy.”
She looked at the name on Jon’s folder. “Escort Mason
and his sister to the door and then get your punk ass to bed,” she ordered him,
and bowing his head he obliged. He led them up the stairs, and his mom went to
the kitchen for the water she’d gotten up for.
“Thanks for the save,” Gordon told Jon, as they slipped
back into their shoes. “How’s about tomorrow I’ll give you the grand tour and
introduce you to some people and such.” He was fidgeting a little. “Startin in
a new place can be hard. But I got some good people who can take care of you.”
Jon smiled at his new imposing friend. “Sounds good,”
he said, and Gordon opened the door for them.
* *
*
Rachel threw open the door to her house, and stepped
inside, finding the kitchen empty. She had to find her brother, but it didn’t
look like he was here. “Jacob?” She called his name but there was no response.
If they had eaten breakfast she couldn’t tell. The
counter they usually ate around was immaculate, dishes all cleaned and put
away. The barstools were all tucked under the counter, and the floor sparkled
like it had just been cleaned. Rachel wondered when her mom might have had time
to clean after her business trip but quickly supposed it didn’t matter. She
still had to find her brother.
She found her father in his office, but she wasn’t
looking for him. He was hard at work on his new book, typing away at his typewriter
in a white robe that only seemed to highlight his receding hairline.
“The door was locked,” he told her without looking up,
or stopping the furious tap-tapping of his fingers on the keys of his
typewriter. “Too bad it only locks from the outside.”
“Have you seen
my brother?” Rachel asked her father as he continued to type away.
Her father looked up and out the window, his fingers
still rapidly smacking at the keyboard. “He’s gone to school,” her dad told
her, and Rachel followed his gaze out the window to the elementary school she
didn’t remember being right outside their house. “You could probably find him
there.”
“It’s quiet,” Rachel commented.
Her father nodded, looking back to his typewriter as if
he had never stopped. “It’s easier to get my work done that way,” he told her,
and she tried to see what he was writing but it all looked like gibberish.
“You writing your best work?” she asked him, giving up
on trying to decipher it. He just shook his head and kept typing.
“I already gave birth to my best work,” he said, giving
a quick glance to a picture on his desk and then back to the page in front of
him. It was a picture of a grave, and a tombstone with her name on it.
RIP
RACHEL LIN SMITH
PRETTIEST VAMPIRE OF THE YEAR
RACHEL LIN SMITH
PRETTIEST VAMPIRE OF THE YEAR
“Aww,” Rachel said, touched by the engraving. “You
think I’m pretty.”
“You’re beautiful hun,” Her father told her warmly.
“Now shouldn’t you be finding your brother?”
He was right. She crawled through his office window,
and crossed the tarmac to the front doors of her brother’s school. It was a
large beige building, with inviting blue front doors under an overhang. From the
angle she was approaching the doors, she could only just make out her friend
Ian. He was standing on a chair at the edge of the overhang, a noose hanging
from above and tied around his neck.
“Ian!” Rachel yelled at him, coming around in front of
him, but another’s voice distracted her.
“He’s okay,” Tanya said, from a chair on the other edge
of the overhang. She too had a noose around her head. “I could really use some
help though.”
“So could I,” Rachel told her friend. “I can’t find my
brother.”
Tanya smiled down warmly on the vampire. “He’s inside
waiting for you.”
Rachel thought something felt a little strange there,
but looking around the lot she didn’t see anything. Just the playground, the
tennis court, the soccer field, the hill they used to toboggan down in the
winter. Wait, it was winter now, wasn’t it? Why was it so hot? And…
“Why is it so quiet?” Rachel asked Tanya.
“It helps me think,” Ian said, seemingly more to
himself.
“Is that what the nooses are for?” Rachel asked Tanya.
Tanya smiled warmly again. “If you help me down,” she
told Rachel, “I can help you find your brother.”
It made a lot of sense to Rachel. She helped Tanya out
of the noose, and offered her a hand to step down. Still holding her hand,
Tanya tried to lead Rachel to the front doors. Rachel tried to resist, looking
back at Ian.
“Shouldn’t we help him too?” Rachel asked, but she
could hear Tanya’s voice in her head. “Don’t worry about him,” Tanya said
without speaking. “He’ll be fine.” As Rachel walked away she heard a clutter
and a thud but she didn’t look back.
Stepping through into the elementary school she was
disappointed to find Tanya gone. The hallway was a long unending corridor of
blue lockers, all immaculate and clean. Seemingly unused. The floor shined,
everything was quiet. Empty. No one had been there in a very long time.
“Jacob?” she called out.
“Help me!” she heard him scream from a classroom
somewhere down the hall. She ran, rushing past lockers and doors, her feet
slapping against the tile floor as she pushed herself faster and faster.
“I’m coming Jacob!” she screamed, her legs burning, her
lungs begging for her to give up. Locker after locker after locker.
Finally she came to Jacob’s class, and swung the door
wide open. The teacher was silent, continuing on with his lesson as if Rachel
hadn’t just made the noisiest entrance ever. On the board was written Magic 101 and pictures had been posted
around it. The teacher’s mouth was moving under his long blonde hair that
covered his eyes, but no noise was coming out.
Rachel looked at the pictures on the board. She saw the
Mayor of Mississauga, Sylvia Gray. Saw the woman’s staff. There were pictures
of piles of keys and baubles. Of clothing, and a mirror, and other staffs.
There was a picture of the moon, a large one, and pictures of its surface, and
a moon like temple structure, with three large altars on a stage. There was
also a picture of stars, and something in the stars. It was blurred, some kind
of object. Or creature maybe? There was a drawing beside it in marker, looked
like a beast, something with more arms and teeth than she had.
“I don’t think we’ve gotten this far,” she said to the
teacher, though she didn’t expect a response. The teacher didn’t say anything,
but he did point to a picture of Toronto. It was a bird’s eye view of the city,
but there was something different about it. The CN Tower didn’t look quite
right and there was a kind of bubble around it.
“I don’t know what that is either,” she told the
teacher. Maybe she should have taken Magic 101 in elementary school. Now she
was going to be so far behind.
Turning around, she found her brother Jacob. He was
sitting at his desk, with his short spikey black hair and pale skin. He had his
binder turned to a page, but something looked off about him. More importantly,
something was off about the rest of the class. All the other desks were empty.
“Where are all your classmates?” Rachel asked her
brother.
“Please,” her brother begged her, ignoring her
question. “Don’t let this happen.” He looked out the large window beside him,
and she followed his gaze. Outside in the park the sky had turned red. Was it
sundown so soon? Then she saw them. The bodies. They were everywhere. A woman
and her dog, both dead on the sidewalk, blood oozing from bite marks. At the
Tennis court dead bodies were lying on both sides, rackets still in their
hands. There were bodies piled, and blood everywhere.
Looking back at the classroom, Rachel didn’t know how
she hadn’t noticed the blood that was all over the desks and chairs.
“Who did this?” Rachel asked, turning to her brother,
but he had fangs now, and a little bit of blood was dripping from his chin. He
was a vampire? How did this happen? Why didn’t anyone tell her? When did things
get so out of hand? Rachel tried to extend her own fangs, but they didn’t
extend. She tried to move but she was powerless.
Her brother jumped on her, bringing her crashing to the
ground, and bit hungrily into her neck.
* *
*
Rachel awoke with a start, screaming and thrashing
against Tanya’s naked body, pushing against her in the tight space in the back
seat of her car.
“Jacob,” she screamed, as Tanya tried to calm her and
wrap her in a hug. “Ian! Shawna!”
“I’m right here,” Tanya insisted. Rachel was still
pawing against Tanya’s face when she finally realized where she was and let
Tanya squeeze her tight.
Rachel started to cry, overwhelmed by what she just
saw, she sobbed into Tanya’s bare shoulder as they both laid back on the car
seat.
“God,” Tanya said, stroking Rachel’s skin. “You’re
covered in sweat.”
Rachel tried to talk, but there was a lump in her
throat, so she continued to cry instead. The sky was turning red outside the
car, it was nearing sunrise.
After a few moments Rachel finally regained the
composure to speak again. “This is why I don’t sleep much anymore,” she said
darkly to her friend, comforted strangely by their skin-to-skin contact. Her
dream was already slipping in parts from her mind, but one part surfaced
sharply to the front as Rachel bolted up and started looking for her bra.
“We need to check on my brother,” she insisted.
* *
*
Jacob awoke slowly, with one eye first while leaving
the other one well enough alone. The open eye looked to the clock and saw that
it was only five thirty in the morning. It had worked. He’d wanted to wake up
before the sun, and he’d succeeded. Getting up off the floor, he sat on his bed
and shook his best friend Sabrina who’d taken to the bed while he slept in a
sleeping bag on the floor.
“Come on,” he pleaded to her, shaking her again so that
her short brown hair covered her eyes. “We agreed to get up early.”
“Just give me a minute,” Sabrina said, splaying out in
her woolly pajamas on the bed. He watched her with fascination, the way her
chest heaved with every breath. This was a whole other person right here in his
bed, someone with the same thoughts as him. With hopes and goals and
motivations. It was weird, like he was seeing her for the first time. Or at
least what she really was, or at least what she meant to him. Something like
that.
“You’re like the sister I never had,” he told her,
promising himself that he’d look after her no matter what. If she let him, of
course.
“You already have a sister,” Sabrina reminded him, and
sure enough he’d almost forgotten Rachel. Or at least tried to, she’d been so
distant lately. “Besides,” she said, turning to face him on the bed. “Is that
really how you see me?”
“I dunno,” Jacob said, stroking Sabrina’s brown hair
from her pale Caucasian face. He looked Caucasian too, but deep down he had the
same mixed genes as his sister. He’d never really felt for anyone else like he
did for his sister. Even though she infuriated him so much sometimes, he
couldn’t imagine his world without her. “I really like you,” he told Sabrina.
He’d never had many friends, but he was pretty sure this felt stronger.
“You know,” Sabrina said, pulling Jacob down to lie
with her on the bed, “We’re both thirteen now. There’s other ways we could hang
out than just as friends.”
Jacob wanted to play dumb, but he was starting to
figure where she was trying to go, and he knew he had to shut it down fast.
“Boyfriend / Girlfriend, really? But then there’s all that gross kissy stuff.”
He’d promised himself at a very young age he would never give into that gross
kissy stuff adults did.
“We don’t have to,” she told him, wrapping her arms
around him and squeezing him tight. “We can just do this.” They lay there, in
one another’s arms. “Hug and stuff. Hold each other and talk about whatever.”
“Sounds a lot like just friends,” Jacob told her but he
wasn’t minding the way he felt at her touch. He wrapped his arm around her
shoulder and she placed her head against his bony chest.
“We’ll keep this our secret then,” Sabrina said, and
Jacob saw her close her eyes. “As far as anyone else needs to know, we’re just
friends. And we can just do this.”
“I like this,” Jacob admitted to her, and her long stretching
groan was all he needed to know she did too.
“But we gotta get up,” she told him, taking charge and
kicking the covers away. There was, after all, a reason they had convinced his
dad to let her sleep over. They were finally going to confront Hassan on his
bullying. Getting out of bed, Sabrina raised the Bristol board they had made
last night from the desk and showed it off to Jacob. He could only just make it
out in the dark, but thought the collage of images did a good job of getting
their message across.
“Wait,” Jacob said, noticing something missing. “I
think our picture of Boromir and the ring is still downstairs.” They got
dressed, Jacob careful to look away as Sabrina took off her top. He didn’t look
back until they were done, and they snuck out of the room together with the
Bristol board.
Jacob saw that Rachel’s room was untouched, which
wasn’t anything new as of late. His parents’ room also being untouched was a
bit more of a surprise. “My mom never came back last night,” Jacob whispered
his theory to his girlfriend.
“Guess again,” his mother’s voice rang from downstairs.
The light came on in the foyer, and she was standing there with her arms
crossed. She seemed to be trying to hide a bandage on her hand and failing
completely. Her gaze was solely focused on Sabrina. “Did she stay overnight?”
Jacob’s dad came rushing in from the other room,
apologetically. “I gave them permission for a sleep over,” he told her, and the
look she gave him seemed to imply that didn’t make things better. “They had a
project they were working on.”
“It’s okay mom,” Jacob insisted, hoping he could calm
her down before she embarrassed the hell out of him.
“Nothing happened,” Sabrina assured Jacob’s mother with
a warm smile and a sweeter than normal voice. Almost melodic. Her eyes were
wider too… was she trying to manipulate his mother?
“In fact,” she continued, passing him on the stairs,
“Your son has been NOTHING but the perfect gentleman.”
“That’s not the point,” Jacob’s mother said,
stubbornly. “You’re both at a certain age where you’re going to start having
feelings…” oh god, was Jacob’s mother about to give his first girlfriend ever
the sex talk?
“Not me,” Sabrina insisted, so fast that Jacob almost
believed her. “I’ve hit puberty. Had my period and everything. And I still
think boys are yucky. I just like girls.”
“That’s not the point,” Jacob’s mother was even more insistent.
Jacob was filled with pride at Sabrina’s ability to bullshit, but his mother
could see through all lies.
“I’m a raging lesbo though,” Sabrina continued,
undeterred. “There’s this girl in class who has started wearing bras, and I
just can’t stop thinking about her.”
“Stacy,” Jacob said dreamily. He could still remember
her in that tight red shirt.
“Seriously,” Sabrina insisted. “You can think of me as
one of the boys.”
“Still,” Jacob’s mother said shaking her head. “This
can’t happen again…” She seemed about to say more, or maybe justify herself, or
just say anything that might embarrass Jacob more, but she was stopped short as
Rachel stormed into the house, her clothes from last night hanging loosely off
her.
“Jacob!” Rachel yelled seeming more dishevelled than
ever. She ran past her mother to hug Jacob on the stairs. He didn’t know why
the girls in his life kept hugging him, but he was starting to like it.
“Where have you been all night?” Jacob’s mother asked
her daughter in disbelief.
“I found your underwear. It was inside the glove
compartment,” Rachel’s popular friend Tanya said just loud enough for them all
to hear as she came through the front door to find the whole family standing
there in the foyer. “Oops.”
“I think that’s hot,” Sabrina said from the stairs but
everyone ignored her.
Jacob’s mom looked to his father angrily. “So when I’m
gone we just throw all parenting out the window then.”
“I gave Rachel permission to sleep at her friend’s
house,” their dad tried to lie for her. Jacob knew better, and so did their
mother.
“You can’t stop standing up for her,” their mother
chastised their dad.
“And what happened to YOU last night?” Rachel asked
their mother who was covered in bruises. Her hair looked wet, like she had just
taken a long much needed shower.
“I fell down some stairs at work,” their mom said after
a moment of silence.
Rachel looked down at her mother’s bandage. “Those
stairs impale your hand?”
“Yes.” Their mother hid her hand in her shirt. “This
isn’t about me,” she focused her deep brown eyes on Rachel. “You know the rules
of the household. I shouldn’t have to be here for you to follow them.”
Rachel stood stubborn against her mother, the two
waging a war like Jacob had never seen.
“You just have to be here to have a say.”
Jacob cringed, waiting for the next explosion from his
mother, but an explosion never came. Rachel had just defeated her. Jacob didn’t
even know she could be defeated.
“My work is important,” their mother said quietly, her
head dropping a little.
“And what I’m doing matters too,” Rachel told her
mother, starting to soften. Jacob let out a breath of relief and Sabrina
squeezed his hand.
“I know you think that,” their mother told them. “But
you’re a teenager. Your head plays games with you. Your hormones are wild right
now, and none of you are capable of making sane decisions. I can relate to you
Rachel, I was your age once too.”
“Maybe that’s how YOU were at my age,” Rachel insisted,
her voice getting louder and more guttural. “But you don’t know what I’M going
through and YOU don’t get to set rules on how I want to live MY life.” Rachel
was really telling her.
“Yeah mom,” Jacob tried to join in. “Who do you think
you are? The US Government?”
“You’re not helping Jay,” Rachel told him.
He leaned in and whispered back, “Least I didn’t get
caught doing laundry at a friend’s house.”
Their mother sighed with exhaustion, and climbed the
stairs to her bed. “This conversation isn’t over,” she called down to her kids.
“Just delayed. Rachel, walk your brother to school. I’m passing out for a few
hours.”
Once she was gone, Rachel’s friend Tanya hugged her,
and Jacob had to wonder if perhaps it was hug day or something. Sabrina,
seeming to take cues from them for some reason, gave him a hug as well.
“Sorry you had to see that,” Rachel apologized to them.
“You kidding,” Jacob told her. “It was brilliant. I’m
sorry I got you in trouble for me.”
“I don’t mind going to bat for my little bro,” Rachel
said, and he wondered if she realized he was almost taller than her. “What are
you working on anyway? Is that Fred Flinstone?”
“Well you know,” Jacob said, remembering why they’d
gotten up so early, “he always bullied Barney. We were hoping to make a case
that bullies in popular media don’t prosper.” He put the Bristol board down on
the kitchen counter, and they all took a step back.
“Is someone bullying you?” Rachel asked Jacob. He
couldn’t even remember the last time she had given him so much attention.
“Even if someone did,” Jacob told her. “I have three
bad ass babes who would kick ass for me. Hassan would be crazy to pick a fight
with me.” It wasn’t completely true. Hassan had picked plenty of fights with
him, but Jacob didn’t need Rachel to fight his battles for him.
“He’s been picking on Billy,” Sabrina told Jacob’s
sister. Billy was a scrawny geeky kid like them, but at least Sabrina and Jacob
had each other. Smart people at his school partnered up, because if you were alone
you were doomed to be the victim at recess.
* *
*
Sure enough, by the time Rachel had walked them to
school, Hassan was already there causing trouble. Jacob couldn’t find Billy in
the recess lot behind the school, but Hassan had simply chosen to distract
himself with a different victim for the day. Today it was Stacy.
“Let go of me,” Stacy screamed, her reddish blonde hair
whipping in her face as she struggled against Hassan’s grip. He was grabbing at
her zipper, trying to pull on it in such a way to expose her chest. She was one
of the few girls in their class who had started developing, and she was
constantly self-conscious of it. Which made her the perfect target for Hassan.
Today she was wearing a grey zip up hoodie that was clearly too loose.
Jacob shared one look with Sabrina and knew right away
that they were going to intervene. Hefting the bristol board collage that
they’d made in his grip, he led Sabrina across the playground. The last
snowfall had only just melted, with another one predicted to come soon, and
Jacob had to be careful to step around a large muddy puddle.
“Hassan,” Jacob said, holding the Bristol board up like
it was a shield. “Leave Stacy alone!”
Hassan let go of Stacy, and she fell to the ground
hard, her hoodie dishevelled and partially unzipped. He spotted Jacob with what
Jacob could only describe as an abject glee at the sight of his favourite
victim.
“I was going to get a peek at Stacy’s rack then rub dem
titties in the mud,” Hassan said, clearly a criminal mastermind. “Guess I’ll be
doin that to your little bitty girlfriend instead while you two watch.”
Sabrina stepped forward so that she was barely a foot
from Hassan, straightening to show off that she was in fact nearly a foot
taller than him.
“There’s another way,” Jacob said, trying to remember
all the arguments they’d talked about last night and this morning together with
his sister. Now that he was in front of Hassan, his entire argument seemed
dumb. They weren’t ready for this.
“Look,” he said, pointing to a picture of Darth Vader.
“These are all pictures of bullies. People who thought it was okay to mess with
other people for their own benefit. People like the Godfather.” He pointed to
Marlon Brando.
“There’s something called empathy,” Sabrina told Hassan
with a slight push. His body seemed ready to retaliate, but his face was frozen
in shock at their ineffectual verbal defence. “Actually imagining how others
feel, putting yourself in their shoes and feeling others pain.”
Jacob continued where Sabrina left off. “This board
shows a history of people in popular culture who didn’t practice empathy, who
took advantage of others, and in every case they eventually get what’s coming to
them. It pays not to be a bully, all the evidence is right here on this chart.”
He moved his hand across the board, stopping at the data points they’d arranged
on a graph.
This all seemed more than Hassan could take. He
followed Jacob’s focus with his gaze, and stepped past Sabrina seemingly to
take a closer look at the board. Jacob handed the board over to him, backing up
with a satisfied smirk on his face. Sabrina was smiling too.
Then Hassan ripped the board in half. Jacob supposed he
should have seen that coming. Putting the two pieces together, Hassan tried to
rip it into fours. “You must have spent a lot of time on this,” Hassan said,
Sabrina’s jaw dropping beside Jacob. “Now I’ll have to fuck you both up.”
“It’s your language too,” Sabrina said to him, over Jacob’s
shoulder now. “Language can hurt people too, you know.” She pushed Jacob
forward, and he tried to take what was left of their project from Hassan.
“Doesn’t hurt as much as this,” Hassan said,
relinquishing the Bristol board to kick Jacob in the groin. Jacob dropped, the
pieces of the Bristol board flying from his hands to flutter in the wind around
him. The pain shot straight from his groin to his stomach, doubling him over,
and making the whole world just a little fuzzy. He tried to breathe but his breath
was short. He waited for Hassan’s next blow but it didn’t come.
He was instead charging at Sabrina who had stepped forward
to try and help Jacob. He jumped at her, grabbing her by the neck and pulling
her to the ground with all his weight. She hit directly in a puddle of mud, and
Hassan crawled on top of her. Jacob could see her struggling against him, but
Hassan just pressed on her face, pushing it deep into the mud so she couldn’t
breathe.
“Hassan!” Jacob screamed the boy’s name. “Let her go,
you little shit.” Jacob charged at Hassan, just finding his own breath, and
tackled Hassan off Sabrina to roll around with him in the mud. Hassan was
stronger than his stature seemed to imply. He was in fact the only person Jacob
knew, his age, who actually lifted weights on a regular basis. Jacob tried to
punch Hassan in the ribs, but Hassan only punched back and far more
effectively. It was no understatement to say that every punch by Hassan hurt a
lot.
Jacob ended up on his back in the mud, with Hassan
sitting on his chest. A fist came right in on Jacob’s face, and the pain seemed
to reverberate through his entire skull. His vision blurred, he couldn’t even
notice the slosh of the mud beneath him. Just the blinding white pain of each
fist, pounding against his head.
Suddenly Hassan was off him, Sabrina having leaned all
her body weight into a punch across his jaw. She fell on top of Jacob, and the
two looked up at Hassan who backed away. The bell rang.
“You two lovers look perfect for each other,” Hassan
said, leaning forward and kissing Sabrina on the cheek. “Better get used to the
mud, you’ll be in it again tomorrow.” He turned to leave, but blew a quick kiss
to Stacy, who gave him the most disgusted look back.
Sabrina leaned into Jacob, the two of them too exhausted
and hurt to get themselves out of the mud. “I’m sorry,” he told her, or tried
through the blood in his mouth. He spit some out into the mud. They were both
covered in the wet dirt. It was already starting to dry like crusty glue on
their skin and clothes.
“It’s not your fault,” Sabrina assured him, and Stacy
grabbed Sabrina’s arm to help them up.
Stacy handed Sabrina a wet nap from her backpack, and
Sabrina tried to clean some of the mud off her face. “It’s Hassan,” Stacy told
them, and her facial expression belied that she was tired of his bullshit.
“He’s such a shit stain. I wish someone would teach him a lesson.”
“I dunno if there’s anyone who can,” Sabrina said,
taking another wet nap from Stacy and using it on Jacob. Her touch was far more
delicate and welcome than Hassan’s. “I’m starting to think some people just
can’t be taught.”
Sabrina was close to Jacob, and he touched her face
while their eyes gazed deeply into one another.
“I forgot everything,” he said. “The whole argument.”
“He wouldn’t have listened,” she said. “Don’t blame
yourself.”
“I couldn’t even protect you,” he said to his friend,
kicking himself figuratively.
“I thought you did a pretty awesome job of it,” Sabrina
told him, and gave a little smile that made him smile despite himself. “And
besides,” she said, holding his hand and squeezing it. “We protect each other.”
“He was right about one thing,” Stacy said, and when
they both looked at her, she clarified. “You two look really cute together. The
whole grade ‘ships you two, you know.” She grabbed them, and tried to lead them
towards the school. “The girls bathroom by the offices are almost never used,”
she told them. “We can get you cleaned up there before class.”
By the time they did finally get to their homeroom,
their teacher had already done his attendance.
“My god,” the vaguely British teacher said as they came
in. “What in the world happened to you two?” Though they had cleaned up a lot
of the mud on their skin, it was still all over their clothes. Sabrina’s pink
top didn’t even look pink anymore.
“We fell,” Sabrina muttered, hiding her face from the
rest of the class with her hair. Jacob heard an “ooo” from a few kids in the
class, making him wonder if perhaps what Stacy had said about them was true.
“Sorry we’re late sir,” Jacob said to Mister Jefferies.
“It’s quite alright,” he said, erasing their ticks on
the attendance to Jacob’s surprise. Usually if you missed the taking of
attendance you were SOL.
“Did you happen to see Billy out there?” he asked them,
and they traded a glance at each other and then both instinctively to Hassan’s
desk. Hassan was sitting there, with his feet up on a girl’s desk beside him.
With a disgusted look the girl got up and chose a different seat. Of which
there was more than usual.
“No,” Sabrina told the teacher. Did Billy not come to
class today because he was afraid of Hassan?
“What about Rebecca M? Or Rebecca C?” They shook their
heads. “Lauren? Meghan Grace? Eddie, Terry, Khloe?”
“It was just us,” Stacy said from where she’d taken her
seat. There were a lot of free spots for Jacob and Sabrina. Were all these kids
afraid of Hassan?
Hassan seemed happy with all the absentees. He had
three desks pulled together now. It was like Hassan had no concern for the way
he was bringing down everyone around him. Hassan was evil, and he was turning
Jacob’s seventh grade into a nightmare.
* *
*
Kate didn’t want to open her eyes. She’d been awake for
what felt like an hour at least, but she didn’t want to open her eyes. Why
would she. When Kate opened her eyes, she knew her nightmare wasn’t going to
end.
After all, she could still feel the binds on her wrists.
She had fallen asleep bound to a chair. A man, in her boyfriend’s clothes but
most definitely not her boyfriend, spent the same night sleeping in their bed.
When she did finally open her eyes he wasn’t there anymore, but at the
computer, furiously typing away.
He had brought the TV in from the other room, hooking
it up to be a second screen. Both screens, and other monitors he must have
grabbed from around the apartment, were rapidly flashing through internet pages
and Wikipedia entries and news reports. Twitter feeds, Facebook memes, Stock
market numbers, even episodes of what looked like the sixties Star Trek were
all playing out simultaneously on different screens..
Kate’s stomach growled. She was starving. She’d come
home last night after going out for dinner with a co-worker. Only they’d never
actually made it to the dinner. When she arrived home, it was this man who’d
greeted her. He seemed savage, even in T-BOAT’s suit and tie.
He was wearing a different suit now, having ditched the
flashy one from last night for an even flashier one that was a brighter more
neon purple. T-BOAT usually only wore it to media events, but Kate had to admit
it seemed to look better on this stranger. He’d showered, and groomed himself
as well. He didn’t seem nearly as dirty or scary.
Kate wished she could shower. And she had to pee. On
top of all that, her head hurt from the shots of tequila she’d done last night.
She tried to get her hands loose, but the ropes were tight. He must have tied
them like a pro. She looked down, shocked to find that the ropes weren’t tied
at all. They were just draped casually over her arms, glowing a strange yellow luminescence,
but all the same she was hopeless to move.
The only thing going for her was that this aged and
weathered intruder didn’t yet know she was awake, and the more her bladder felt
like it was going to explode, the less that advantage mattered to her.
One screen flashed with what it didn’t take Kate long
to realize was porn, and he seemed to focus on it for a second. The sound of
sex filled the apartment and Kate decided she couldn’t hold it anymore.
“What are you doing?” She asked with equal parts
desperation and disgust.
“Ah good,” the man in the suit said. Getting up, he
almost seemed to dance across the room to her. “I’ve been learning. Turns out
these computers, and by proxy the internet, are both invaluable tools for
knowledge and power. There are many things about this modern human society that
I have come to respect. And some that I do not.”
He had certainly become far better spoken overnight,
but Kate didn’t have any better luck understanding what the hell he was talking
about. “That’s fantastic,” she said, hoping her response to be satisfactory.
“You respect me enough to loosen my bonds?”
The old man laughed, a deep thick laugh. “No,” he said
quickly.
“What is this stuff?” she asked, looking down at her
wrists.
“Rope.”
“How is it holding me?” she asked. This question he did
not answer. Instead, he just clicked his teeth together in a grin and circled
her around the room. “If you don’t let me out of this chair I’m going to pee
myself,” she warned him.
“It’s your chair,” the man said coldly, and Kate
thought she could sense some of his savageness still there, under his trimmed
beard.
She closed her eyes, trying to hold onto her bladder.
She could feel sweat dripping down her forehead, but this was getting her
nowhere. “What did you do to my husband?” she asked, afraid what his answer was
going to be.
“It made the headlines,” the old man told her in his
dark charming voice. He waved a hand, and a paper beside Kate floated into the
air like a feather on an air current towards Kate’s face making her scream. She
used to have horrible frights as a kid some nights that regular ordinary
objects like newspapers were going to come alive and kill her. It had all
started shortly after her first viewing of Fantasia.
Fighting against her past childhood trauma, Kate looked
at what the man was trying to show her.
Toronto DJ
found murdered in alleyway near bar district
Dammit. Kate had read enough. She didn’t want to
believe it; looking away, she couldn’t have read more even if she hadn’t. Her
eyes were too full of tears.
“Don’t start feeling bad for him now,” the old man told
her surprisingly matter of factly. “I know you were cheating on him with
another man.”
Kate choked on her own tears. “How could you?”
“It’s quite obvious if you know the right clues to look
for,” the man insisted. “It’s quite alright that you did. You felt ignored from
him, what with all his hours out of the house. Constantly performing. When he
finally did have time with you he was exhausted, no longer himself. It’s
completely understandable that you would seek affection that you weren’t
getting at home elsewhere.”
“Shut up,” Kate begged, unable to stop crying. She
didn’t care what the old man said. “I loved him.”
“Oh I have no doubt that you did,” the old man said,
still so annoyingly calm. “It makes perfect sense. You see, because you loved
him your relationship felt sacred to you. It felt necessary, like it was
important. I’m sure all the money and things helped. But your relationship was
broken, at a fundamental level and you knew this. So, with flawed logic, you
set about to fix the apparent error. Fill the warmth in yourself without sacrificing
what was most important to you.”
“You were wrong of course,” the man continued. “He knew
you were cheating on him, Kate.”
“Why do you care so much?” Kate asked, tired of crying,
and tired of his never ending talk.
“I don’t,” the man said, with no emotion. “But your
television has taught me how deliciously complex modern human drama can be.
It’s fascinating to me.”
“Like the migration patterns of penguins?” Kate asked,
suddenly being reminded of the cold narration in March of the Penguins. “Anyone
ever tell you you kinda resemble Morgan Freeman.”
“Your boyfriend,” the man told her, “as a point of
fact. Morgan Freeman is an Actor. Born Nineteen Thirty Seven. Was the president
in Deep Impact. Nineteen ninety-eight. And God in Bruce Almighty in two
thousand and three. I think I’ll accept that as a compliment. Thank you. He
sounds like a fascinating individual.”
“So what do I call you?” she asked him, emotionally
defeated. She was willing to surrender to him, do whatever it took if he’d just
let her take a piss.
“You won’t need to call me anything,” he told her in
such a way that made her suspicious.
“Why not?” she asked him with concern.
He frowned then, as if explaining himself to her was
the greatest inconvenience in his life. “Because you’ll never see me again,” he
said at last.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that I have an appointment,” he said. “This
has been most invaluable and I really do appreciate your hospitality, but it’s
time for me to go now.”
“But you’ll release these ropes first,” Kate begged
him, “Right?”
The man was already heading for the door when he
stopped. “I don’t think I will, no.” he said, almost as if he was thinking to
himself. “Be comforted in knowing that you’ll be dead in only a couple days, long
before the painful throes of extreme hunger kick in.”
“Don’t leave me like this!” Kate screamed after him but
he was already out the door and it was closing behind him. “You can’t do this!”
There was no reply.
“Help me!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.
“Somebody help me please.” It was no use. Her boyfriend had sound proofed the
whole apartment for when he wanted to record the show from home.
But what else could she do?
“Help!”
Next Time on Urban Fantasy
It's snowing on Jon's first day of school, and Tanya has to show him around school. But is he exactly what he appears? And what happens when Rachel and Erika come face to face? I know. You probably don't, but if you come back next Friday you will.
* * *
Alright, so that was the chapter. I'm gonna use the end of each of the releases to blog a bit, the beginning and end I guess. Like I was doing with my podcasts for a short while. But I don't think I'm good at podcasts, so I'm gonna put my focus here. Also if you've been to this blog before you probably noticed I deleted a lot of my posts. Everything that wasn't a release of some of my writing is gone now, because I'm trying to focus my brand a little here. If you're wondering what you missed, basically I'm very anti-social, I suffer from depression, and I've been having a really hard time quitting cigarettes. If you don't smoke... don't start ever. It's not worth it.
I hope people are enjoying this free writing, cause it's been a lot of hard work writing everything I've written so far (Four chapters, this length of each of the three books on my patreon) and I have many more chapters to write. I'd love to hear feedback, or just some acknowledgement that people are there, and they're coming back. I love you guys. Give me strength. Comment below, subscribe @AndrewGeczy on Twitter, or subscribe on my patreon at patreon.com/99geek
Top Picks of the Week
- Star Wars Battlefront 2 I've been playing a lot of this game lately. I know it's been getting a lot of hate, but it all seems to stem from people who haven't played the game. It's like they've ruined it for everyone else, because there was nothing particularly wrong with the game. THat said, I've been playing almost exclusively Starfighter Assault, and it's worth it. Criterion Games, of Burnout fame, has made that gametype a Triple AAA game in itself. So visceral and intense. I wish without all the hate the microtransactions could have funded like 50 more maps and that's all the mode really still needs.
- Crisis on Earth X The Flash, Arrow, Supergirl, and Legends of Tomorrow had a huge 4 episode 2 night crossover event where they combined into one show, and told one huge story about nazi's from a parallel Earth invading our Earth and our heroes had to team up to stop them. It was done so well, and was so satisfying. In my opinion all four shows are worth being caught up on, but if you're gonna take the plunge make sure you watch them all together in broadcast order. The crossovers are so much more enjoyable when you're caught up with everything.
- Justice League I'm kidding, Please don't go see that movie, it sounds god awful. Wait for an extended fixed cut, as per usual.
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