Thanks for the reviews, I really appreciate them. To answer the questions, my stuff is a series of story arcs...posted as one big one over at MLF but I separated them into short stories here and at MLL to help make them easier to read.
Thanks again.
The metallic rumble of the garage door snaps Andy's head towards the kitchen. A lump suddenly forms in her throat and she stands up from the loveseat where she had been staring blankly at her wedding ring. She jams it on her finger as the kitchen door opens. Mark freezes briefly on the threshold, then hurriedly drops his keys and a folder on the table and walks slowly towards Andy. He looks down at her for a moment then pulls her into a hard embrace.
"Where were you?" He whispers hoarsely into her hair.
"I had to help a friend." Andy clings to his chest.
"Who?" He loosens his arms and pulls back a little.
"I…you don't know…them." Andy temporizes with her face still pressed into his shirt.
"But, why? Why did you leave? You didn't even wake me, or take anything. Who would come to our house needing your help at…I don't know…six in the morning? On a Saturday? This doesn't make any sense." Mark reaches up and brushes Andy's hair from her face. "Look at me."
She looks up, brow furrowed with anxiety, "Mark…I…"
"What's going on? Why won't you tell me?" He frowns.
Because I'm Lady Hawk. I'm Lady Hawk. Becau…How can I say it? "I just can't. I-I can't. I was helping a friend a-and I…got a little banged up. Like I told you last night. So I stayed at her place to rest up a little and got home about an hour ago. That's all. I really can't tell you more. I promised." Andy grimaces at the first real lie. The only one I promised anything to was you. Nine years ago. And I lied then, too. Big damn hero I am, hiding from the man I swore to honor for the rest of my life. God, when I finally eat it, he won't even know why I didn't come home. He won't know why he's alone.
Mark searches her face, his eyes full of hurt. "I still don't understand. Why don't you trust me? I love you. I'd never do anything to hurt you. Nothing could change that. Nothing."
Andy looks down at her hands on his chest. "I love you, too. You have every right to know what I was doing, and I wish I could tell you, but I can't. I wouldn't do anything to hurt you either." Except lying to you for years. She grinds her teeth. She knew that she had walked straight into the trap she was standing in. By letting herself fall for Mark's slightly shy and gentle advances, she was entirely at fault. She knew that eventually something would happen to hurt him; that she would be responsible for darkening his beautiful blue eyes with pain. I'm supposed to help people. I may not know anything else, but I do know that. So what the hell am I doing? I'm ripping the heart out of the man I love, but would die to save the life of a random stranger. This is crazier than the fact that I can turn into a bird or kill a demon!
Mark closes his eyes and sighs at Andy's prolonged silence. "I'm glad that you are okay, at least. I won't push for more for now." He turns away and picks up his work folder. "I've got to work on this data; we're going to try to finish the proposal tomorrow." He walks past her without making eye contact towards the little bedroom he uses as an office. He stops before stepping into the hallway, and without turning around, "If you ever feel like you can trust me, I'll be waiting." He moves out of sight, and Andy hears the door click shut behind him.
She looks up to the ceiling and bites her lip. She scrubs at her eyes with the heel of her hand; she didn't deserve the relief of tears. She walks dejectedly to the kitchen and checks the dishwasher. Of course he ran it. It was Saturday night. Dish night. But I don't ever want to miss 'dish night' again. Or any other simple and wonderful little routine that's as precious as…breathing. She takes a shuddering breath. I'm going to lose him if I keep lying, and I'm going to lose him if I tell him. She slowly starts to unload the dishwasher while her mind flutters against the familiar bars of the cage she'd locked herself into almost a decade ago.
Mick guides the Mercedes to the curb of the corner that the Cleaner had specified. He sees the familiar white van and smiles slightly to himself. Looked like the usual "vamp kills someone and bails on the payment", since her team was busying themselves on the dark side of the street bordering the railroad tracks. He cuts the engine and unfolds his lanky frame from the car. He approaches the formidable woman dressed neck to foot in matte black leather. "New look?" He smirks.
"St. John. Glad you're here. Follow me." She pointedly ignores his sally.
Mick feels a hint of trepidation at her abruptness, he and the Cleaner enjoyed a remarkably… amicable relationship. He follows her, curiously eying her team members scattering dirt in the lank weeds as he passes.
"All right. This is…unpleasant." She steps fluidly out of Mick's way and offers him a large aluminum flashlight. He takes it, staring at her with disbelief. He'd never heard her utter even the tiniest suggestion of distaste for the victims or messes that she and her team dealt with nightly. Knowing that she'd been a vampire nearly as long as Josef and that she'd been responsible for organizing L.A.'s entire cleaner system decades before he'd even been born, her obvious discomfort with what he was about to see rocked him down to his boots.
He points the powerful beam down the slight ditch. He follows the path of crushed weeds with the light until he sees the outline of a small form. He blanches and looks sharply over his shoulder at the Cleaner and back to the body. He moves closer, careful to avoid the bent stems as he approaches. He crouches on his heels and takes a deep breath, the scents of blood, cold steel, musky sweat, vampire, and hate swirl into a picture of violent death. He moves the light around the scene slowly, taking in the footprints of several different people. He looks up at the Cleaner, raising an eyebrow in inquiry.
"The only one that wasn't already there is that one." She points at a smaller print at the edge of the path of crushed weeds. Mouse stumbled on the body. We got the call about an hour ago; the vamp didn't give her name and didn't stay to arrange payment. So she obviously wasn't able to direct us to the clean up. We all could smell the blood from the van, so we began searching the area. This is what we found.
"So what are your guys doing over there?" Mick points to the trio still scattering dirt about twenty feet away.
"There's a circle stomped down in the grass. There is a lot of blood in the spot. It's probably where this one was killed and they dumped him over here afterwards. Stupid. My team's disguising it, so hopefully when the neighbors walk their dogs tomorrow they'll not be able to tell why Fido is so interested." She looks down at her phone. "Damn. Another call. I'm going to have to send out Alyssa. She's going to enjoy this entirely too much."
Mick shakes his head; the Cleaner positively despised the young vamp that had presented herself to her no more than a year ago. She'd propositioned the Cleaner, practically blackmailing her to let her join the Cleaner's team. Mick didn't know what Alyssa knew, but assumed it was pretty big since she'd been accepted and led her own little crew on calls when the Cleaner was busy.
With the Cleaner's voice a staccato background, Mick turns back to the body. The cause of death was obvious, bite wounds on the neck and the scent of vampire combined to assure the blame lay square on one of the community. The finesse of the bite suggested a vampire fully in control, and the scent suggested at least a century of unlife. What didn't fit was the circle filled with the victims blood smeared and spattered messily, there shouldn't have been enough blood to both feed a vamp and make that mess. Mick continues examining the scene, slowly moving the light over the area. There were three sets of prints distinguishable as the dew settled on the unmarred weeds. One set was the vampire's, but the scent of human lay heavily on the area as well. Why would there be evidence of two humans and an experienced vamp at the scene of a feeding? Why didn't the vamp consume at least the majority of the blood, rather than wasting it? Why didn't the vamp eat the watchers? This definitely is more than a simple case of non-payment. Or even of outrage at the choice of a meal. There's something very, very wrong about this.
"St. John. Got anything yet?" The Cleaner snaps her phone shut with a grimace of distaste.
"Well, there were two humans as well as the vampire responsible here tonight. From the scent traces and the overlap of the footprints they had to be here at the time of the…incident." He stands and moves back up to the curb. He turns back and points the flashlight back down the ditch, cocking his head at her with inquiry. "Isn't that what you noticed and why you called me here?"
She glances at Mick, and back to the body. "That was a big part of it. But I called mostly because we can't afford to allow a vampire to indulge this sort of preference. This monster must be stopped. "
Mick frowns with surprise at the venom in the Cleaner's voice and nods slightly. He looks back down in the ditch where the pitiless light illuminates the lifeless form…
Of a child.
Note: The reference to the Cleaner's age is by permission and courtesy of Silvanelf, "The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship"
