"Starseeds, or Kerby Lane. I'm sure both have blood. I haven't been anywhere without blood since I left Ireland, and I was just a kid then." She sat in the passenger's seat of my car, directing me back downtown.
"I am not hungry. The decision is yours." I watched her as she gave me turn by turn directions, motioning every now and then, talking about the buildings we passed, lit up for the night. She commandeered my iPod and began compiling a play list as she sat with her feet curled beneath her. I tried to pick up her accent as I listened to her talk, but it was very faint. She was wearing the same dull orange skirt she wore the night before, with a worn, black tank top. She let her hair fall loose over her shoulders and I could smell my soap on her. She had produced a pair of shoes from somewhere and many strands of cloth, which she tied around her wrists.
"I guess we'll listen to it on the way back," she said as she laid the iPod down on the center console. I had just pulled into the parking lot of a rather run down looking diner off of highway 35 near 34th street. I walked around the car to open her door for her and offered my hand to help her out. She laughed at me and stepped out on her own, heading towards the door of the diner.
From the look of the place I was expecting loud music and dirty teenagers. When I entered the establishment, however, I was presented with a mixed clientele. There was a table of three well-dressed businessmen having drinks in a small dining room to my right, and there was a family with two little boys, and a couple enjoying a night out in the dinning area to my left. The place was dark, and strung around the ceiling were multi colored Christmas lights. There were multiple pieces of repurposed furniture for the bar and the hostess station, but it was more or less clean and there was a pleasant mix of alternative music playing softly in the background.
"Devon!" I looked up and saw Devonee embracing a man with an apron and a pitcher of margaritas. He was thin, short, mid-twenties, covered in tattoos, and his shirt said something about pi. His smile faded when he saw me. "New company?" he asked with a sad smile.
"Eric, Joss. Joss, Eric." She smiled and looked from Joss to me and back again. "Eric's been helping me out, er, ahh… well he let me crash at his place last night." Her ear-to-ear grin faded into a weak smile.
"Have a seat, Babe. I'll be by in a sec. Drinks are on me tonight." Joss walked off to replace the businessmen's empty pitcher.
Brazenly, she grabbed my hand and led me to a booth in the left hand dinning area.
"It's August so the crowds won't really be back for a few weeks when the fall semester starts." She explained as she followed my gaze around the nearly empty diner. "They have good food and good prices, but nothing is ever as busy uptown as it is around Sixth Street."
Joss crouched down by our booth and looked up at Devonee. He had managed to replace his smile.
"Margarita?" he asked.
"Water, thanks. And some biscuits and sausage gravy, and four eggs over medium, and some sweet potato fries. And whatever flavor blood for Eric." She smiled sweetly back at his shocked expression. I wondered where she was going to fit it all.
"We have Blood Type, True Blood, and True Blood: Mixed Blood."
"What types do you carry in the True Blood?" I asked. Blood Type brand was bottom shelf and Mixed Blood was the equivalent of what Sookie would have called 'bitch beer'. I settled on an ABneg and let my attentions fall back to Devonee.
"Why did you break the bottle?" I asked as my mind flowed back to the events of the previous night.
She sighed and looked at a strand of lights that were hanging precariously above her head. I sat there patiently waiting for a response as Joss returned with her water, my blood and a steaming plate of orange fries and ketchup. He promised the rest would be on its way soon and made his way back behind the bar.
I leaned back in the booth and took a swig of my blood. My eyes never left her face. What was she thinking? If she was trying to show me how long she could hold out, she had no idea what she was in for.
"Question for a question," she sighed. She reached her hand out to the plate of fries and they began disappearing in short order.
"I am somewhere around eleven-hundred years old. Your turn."
"He was being a dick and he deserved a bottle to the skull. Only, I missed and hit the doorframe instead, then he locked me out. See, Daniel usually lets me crash at Halcyon on the nights he closes, but the bar manager was there. Dan is a bit of a pussy anyway, so he backed out on me and Keaton kicked me out. It wasn't that he wouldn't let me sleep there. He called me, what was it? Oh, yeah. 'White-trash-fucking-freak-whore.' I'm just fucking sick of it. He can go to hell."
"That was a bit longer of an answer than I was expecting." Just then the rest of her meal arrived. It covered the entire table, barely leaving room for our drinks. She was so preoccupied with her food she failed to hear my next question. I repeated myself. "I said, why don't you have a place to stay?"
She looked up from her eggs, dejectedly.
"Daddy dearest kicked me out. Happens when you tell someone they're a worthless piece of shit. But I was having a bad day."
I raised and eyebrow in question and she just smiled at me. My bullshit meter was screaming. She was pushing the rest of her meal around on her plate. She no longer looked pleased with the food before her.
"Hey, I'm getting a headache. Do you mind…?" and suddenly she slumped down into the seat next to her.
***
It took me only seconds to revive her, but fifteen minutes to settle the bill and assure Joss she was in capable hands. He wanted to leave with us and make sure she made it to the hospital, but settled with leaving his cell number with me, and instructions for her to call if she needed anything.
She was wide awake now and curled up in my back seat, hands fisted into her hair. I kept sneaking glances over my shoulder the entire drive home. She had refused doctors and insisted that the incident had been nothing more than embarrassing. She did not look well.
Once we were back at the house I reached into the backseat. Ignoring her protest I cradled her to my chest and headed toward the front door. Pam was home and peering through one of the front windows at me.
"My hands are a bit busy, Pam. Open the door."
She opened the door before I had reached the first step and stepped back into the great room. I kicked the door shut behind me as I entered the house. Pam was leaning against the back of the sofa, arms crossed, with an amused look on her face. I strode passed her setting Devon on the couch. She was sweating and shaking.
"Well she doesn't look very appetizing. Where'd you find her?"
"She is obviously ill, Pam." I knelt down beside the couch and pulled the now tangled hair back from her face.
"Oh, I know that look." Pam smirked at me. "You might want to get out of the…" Just then Devon rolled her head to the side and deposited her dinner at my feet. "Too. Late." Pam smiled widely. "I've seen it happen to many young human women at Fangtasia. They try to bolster their courage with alcohol. It never does much good."
I took a step back as Pam headed to the kitchen in search of rags and cleaner.
"Sorry," Devon moaned into her hands. "I haven't had anything to drink. I swear."
"No. There is something else… Pam will help you get cleaned up. There is a guest room down the hall that you may use. Please try not to vomit again." I turned to go upstairs to my computer. I had correspondence to reply to, vendors to pay, and a meeting scheduled for the end of the week at La Zona Rosa that I needed to prepare for. All in all the business of 'flipping' bars was progressing well, and I had little hands on work to deal with. Several e-mails and forty-five minutes later, Pam was standing at the top of the stairs, tapping her spike-heeled shoe on the floor.
"Where did she come from? She smells delicious," she grinned as I looked up from my laptop.
"I hope you didn't mention that to her, Pam." I glanced back at the invoices in front of me.
"I would never." When I looked up again, the smile had left her face. "She is a child, Eric. What do you want with her?"
I leaned back in my chair. Since leaving the political world behind me, my relationship with Pam had become much more casual. Almost friendly. I had always loved my child, but there were times when my authority as a maker, and sheriff, had served my purposes. Of course, Pam could leave me anytime she wished, but there was a comfortable familiarity between us, and I realized that I didn't want her to leave me any more than she wanted me to leave her. That being said, she still sometimes pushed the boundary. I let my eyes express my thoughts.
She quit tapping her foot and lowered her chin. "Master."
"She… she could be useful to us. How is she?" That earned me another smirk from Pam. This would not do. She was not something to be so concerned over. "She's not vomiting on the guest linens, is she?"
"No. I bathed her. She's wearing some of your old clothes… they were in her bag. And she's sleeping, I think. But she complained of hunger. I forbid her to eat anything more until her stomach settled."
"That is all, Pam." I had not dismissed her like that in a very long time, but I was in no mood for her quips this evening. I watched as she turned and walked back down the stairs.
I leaned my head back until I was staring at the ceiling. I tried to wipe clean my mind, but I hadn't finished questioning the girl at the diner, and those questions would not release me.
***
Two days later, the girl was still occupying my home. Pam had traveled back to Shreveport to deal with business at the bar. For the last ten years she had been seeing to the running of Fangtasia. My interest in all things having to deal with Louisiana had dwindled, to say the least, and I had seceded majority ownership to Pam. I was, at best, a silent investor. I collected my revenue checks and that was fine with me.
The third night, when I awoke, I sensed something was not as it should be. I had been checking in on the girl a few times each evening, asking 'would she like food', seeing that she stayed hydrated and making sure there was no more vomit to be cleaned up. She had hardly left the bedroom, and only then to use the toilet. I decided that she must eat something and began to order soup and salad to be delivered from a deli down the street. On my way downstairs from my office, the scent hit me like a brick wall.
Unclean blood.
I was down the stairs and in her doorway in seconds. She was laying on the floor crawling towards the bathroom. She rolled over when she saw me, clutching her stomach. She had been sleeping in my boxers and an ancient Fangtasia t-shirt for the past three days. I now noticed the blood dripping down her legs making the black silk of my boxers cling to her thighs. She let out a pained gasp and went slack.
I already had the phone in my hand and ninety seconds later I could hear the ambulance about three blocks away. She was still breathing as I carried her into the great room and laid her out on the floor in front of the door. I opened the door and stepped aside as the paramedics carried in a gurney.
"How far along was she, Mr. Northman?" one asked me as he checked her pulse and respiration.
"I didn't know she…" I trailed off. I should have known. Pam should have known. Any vampire within fifty feet should have been able to smell it on her. "I'm sorry? Are you saying she was pregnant?"
"I said what is your relationship to her, Sir?" I hadn't heard him the first time.
"She is an acquaintance, a guest." The frail little EMT standing in front of me huffed and rolled his eyes in her direction. I reached for his throat. I clenched my fist instead as he backed away from me. "She was not a meal," I growled through clenched fangs. "But I am getting hungrier the more you try my patience. What is wrong with her?"
"She's having a miscarriage, Mr. Northman. This is actually quite normal in girls her age. We'll be taking her to Seton ER for an emergency D&C. She should recover easily, but she'll need someone there when she wakes up. Do you know of any next of kin?"
I glanced at my pocket watch. (Old fashioned, but practical when you are using your wrists for other things.) Just now 7:45 PM. I had almost eleven hours of dark left. If the procedure took any longer, I'd have to find someone else to be there with her. I thought of the cellular number Joss had given me. I nodded curtly to the EMT and grabbed my keys from the coffee table.
"I'll follow you."
***
Four hours later I was shown to a recovery area. Instead of beds there were partially reclined chairs filled with patients in varied states of consciousness. The more time I spent around her, the easier it became for me to pinpoint her smell. An odd mix of fae and something much more guttural than human. Almost…
"Mr. Northman," suddenly, there was on orderly standing between me and the recliner at the end of the long, rectangular room. "We understand that Ms. Blair has no insurance. Do you have an address where we may send her hospital bill?" She was trying to sound professional and organized, but her voice wavered and she kept letting her eyes flit nervously from her clipboard to my face.
I handed her my business card. "I'd appreciate it if all further billing is forwarded to this address." I quickly bypassed her as she muttered a thanks under her breath and turned down the hall. Devon was seated at the far end of the room. In her lap there was a clear plastic bag containing the odd assortment of clothing and jewelry she had been wearing when she was admitted. She was staring out the window at the darkened hospital campus below. Her eyes were half opened and rimmed with dark circles. She was wearing a white hospital shift, hospital socks, and a grey hospital robe. She had a green blanket draped across her shoulders. Her nose was red and a little bloody, and then I realized that she had forced her nose stud back into place.
I came to a halt several feet from the chair and waited for her to speak.
"I don't want to talk about it." Her voice sounded rough after the removal of her intubation.
"I have clean clothes for you." I had gone to a shop down the street from the hospital called Andy's while I was waiting on her to come out of the procedure. I helped her get up and close the blinds and curtains to her recovery pod. She sat back on the edge of her seat and began by removing her socks. Next came the robe. I turned to leave her in privacy.
"Eric." I looked back over my shoulder. She was untying her shift. "I can't do this alone. Still really woozy." She demonstrated this by trying to stand. I quickly stepped back into the pod and caught her under her arms before she slumped all the way to the floor.
I sat her back on the chair and she shed the shift, looking at the floor the entire time. I helped her into her new clothes. I had purchased a grey, calf-length scoop neck tank-dress with an elastic empire waist, and a pale green, tunic-length sweater coat. I Bushed my fingers through her hair and replaced her earrings, rings, and the strips of clothe she wore as bracelets. All of these tasks we performed in silence.
When she was clothed and standing steadily on her own, I took her left arm and guided her from the hospital back to my car. Her medical instructions were to rest, stay hydrated, and eat small meals every three to four hours for the next day. She was given a weeks supply of Darvon for the pain and a three months supply of birth control pills. I opened the car door and prepared to lift her in, but she slid down into the seat on her own, curling her bare feet up underneath her.
When we were well on our way back to my home, she began speaking.
"I was done with school by the time I was fifteen. Graduated. And people had been avoiding me for a few years before that. When I was twelve, I started to say things bout people I would meet that would turn out to be true. Like when I met you. By the time I graduated, my dad was dying. Drugs. He wasn't doing a great job of providing, so I went to work as an intuitive. I worked in bookstores and coffee shops, herb shops, smoke shops. Then about eighteen months ago, I got an opportunity to sublet a loft down by campus. Beautiful two story, furnished. I signed a contract for two years and between waiting tables and my other 'odd jobs', I could just afford it. About three months ago, the owner calls me up and tells me that a friend of his from St. Martin was going to be in town for a week or so and needed a place to stay." Here she became silent. We were almost back to my home. I kept my eyes on the road as my mind wandered, trying to piece together her story and her wild scent.
Finally, I broke the silence. "Where was your mother?"
"Dead."
I parked in front of the garage and walked around the car to retrieve her from the passenger's side. This time she took the hand I offered and allowed me to lead into the house. I placed her bag of bloodied clothing just inside the garage and paced back into the great room where she was curled up on the far corner of the couch. The couch was long enough for me to stretch out on and she looked so small condensed into a ball in the corner. She was staring at the quilt lying across one arm of the couch.
"That is the ugliest quilt I've ever seen."
"I couldn't agree more," I hid the smile I knew was creeping across my face and paced to the center of the couch where I sat down and pulled her bare feet into my lap. She shivered as my cool fingers began to massage the arch of her left foot. She was still curled around her center, subconsciously protecting something that was no longer there. As I continued with my hands she began to relax and stretch out across the length of the couch towards me. Finally she laid her head back and began speaking again.
"He was the father. His name was Luc. He spoke nothing but French and a week later, he was gone. I lost the apartment after that. My 'indiscretion' offended my landlord and he kicked me out. Said he couldn't have crazy trash doing God-know-what in his loft. So I've been without residence for the past six weeks, give or take, and I only just realized I was pregnant – the night I met you, in fact."
I watched her lean her head back and close her eyes. Her neck was arched away from me, extruding her collarbone as her chest gently rose and fell in time with her breathing. Her pulse was slowing and the muscles of her calves were relaxing under my cool hands. I gently shook my head to bring my thoughts back to the present. So many questions left unanswered, but so many new questions as well. I chose my next words carefully.
"What were you planning to do?"
"I don't know really," she sighed, her eyes still closed. "The doctors said they couldn't tell, but I knew it was a girl. I had dreams about her."