Two cars pulled up into the Wards' driveway, pausing while the garage doors opened. Seryna and Nicole pulled their vehicles into the garage, while Darren parked his in the driveway.
"Let's have a talk inside, without it." Darren suggested. His sisters followed him readily while Matt gestured over to Nancy and Kristen. He gave them a meaningful glance. Seeing this, Nicole hesitated at after entering the house. Kristen, Nancy and Matt stood with their backs to the door, watching the closed trunk where the man thumped angrily.
"It's' not a vampire," Matt said quietly. "- no twitch."
Nicole stepped back out into the garage, watching the quiet conversation. She leaned back into the house, out of sight of the three yet straining to overhear.
"It was fast," Kristen noted in her normal voice. "– it got you and shoved Jenny before Nancy and I could react. That suggests that its' not entirely human."
"No, I don't think that it is. We could follow it to its master."
"What about the others?" Nancy questions. "I doubt the Wards and your sister will be all right with our methods."
"We aren't doing anything illegal in their living room." Kristen insisted. "Look, let's get back- "
"Hey, what's up?" Darren asked, walking up behind Nicole. Nicole startled, motioning Darren to be quiet. She took his arm, pulling him off towards the bathroom.
"I think that Kristen's friends have another agenda." Nicole whispered. "Something about following it to its' master… and methods."
"Your sister and you haven't hunted in a bit." Darren spoke normally. "I think that you need to remember that. She's been working with these friends- as you've been working with us."
He leaned in, studying Nicole's face. Nicole glanced away, unhappy with the scrutiny.
"You haven't spoken. Not really. You should do that, Nicole. No, look at me. Nicole," He insisted quietly. Calmly. Sometimes that calm irritated Nicole, but the insistency did cause her to look towards her cell mate.
"-you're avoiding the subject with her. Why? Are you not in the habit of opening up with her?"
"She's my sister. We open up plenty."
"Not about the hunt. She caught you in a lie about that, right?" Darren needled, earning an irritated glance. "You're not the big sister teaching her about this in the Hunt, Nicole. She left – and you were mad about that. Mad that you couldn't protect her. But maybe a little mad that you couldn't teach her."
"I could have taught her so much more."
"You had been hunting for six days before you were hospitalized. She has just as much experience as you do. This isn't a punch card; six punches get you master professor rights. Don't lecture her."
"Yeah, you let Jenny have so much freedom."
"Don't do that. You're deflecting." Darren jerked, not liking the barb in Nicole's voice. "Yes, I need to work at not seeing Jenny as a child. But we're not talking about me- I'm talking about you lurking on private conversations. This isn't how you have a healthy relationship with your sister."
"I missed when you got a degree in psychology."
"Fine," Darren put up his hands. "- be defensive and angry. Its' so helpful right now." There was an angry bite to his tone as he strode away.
"Okay, so we missed most of what happened in that alley," Darren spoke loudly, cutting over private conversations in the living room, not waiting for Nicole to join the group. She entered as he was saying. "- happened, Matt?"
"He came out swinging the blade," Matt began, giving a quick description of the fight. "He was fast – and he knows how to use that knife. We need to be very careful when we get him out of that car."
"What are we going to do?" Jenny asked. "I felt how strong he was. I missed my first two holds on him and I feel damn lucky to have caught him when I did. I feel like something is wrong with him."
"My guess is that he's a ghoul." Nancy stated, taking a seat on the couch. "- he gets supernatural strength from suckling from a vampire. I always envisioned it like the old history accounts suggest that the Puritans saw witches feeding familiars. We've heard stories that they can get other powers from this relationship."
"Like what?" Jenny asked.
"Strength. Speed. Unexplained knowledge that seems almost like telepathy. The ability to shrug off wounds that should cripple a man or accelerated healing."
"I certainly saw the speed," Jenny nodded. "- he came out before I registered him. I was staring right at that space, too."
"He was strong. It took all four of us to get him down." Matt stated. "I also felt lucky to have done so when we did. Getting at his hands was a good idea," He looked at the women who had done so. "- if he'd had free range to swing that knife, it could have had a very different ending."
"Which brings us back to if he's going to be a problem when we question him." Seryna stated, sitting in the computer chair and rolling it to sit beside Nancy. "I certainly think that we need to ask him a few questions."
"Let's not forget that in the eyes of the law, he's a man. We have to be careful in the questioning or we're looking at jail time." Nicole said pointedly, not meeting Kristen's gaze.
"You have that friend, Kim." Kristen brought up. She frowned as Nicole nodded, glancing at Matt and not at her. "What if you told him we made a citizens' arrest and he can have him? We ask him the cop – free questions in the time it takes him to scramble cops over here."
"And we'll just say that he attacked us?" Jenny asked.
"Yeah," Nicole nodded. "-I'll do that."
"So you two think of what to ask him." Darren suggested, indicating Nicole and Kristen. "You're bona fide Private Investigators. The rest of us will get him out of the car. Nancy and Jenny, the three of us will pull him out. Matt, could you block the exit from the garage. Seryna, you stay by the garage door and witness, shout if you see any of the creepy, unexplained powers. We all need to be very careful not to get grabbed."
"Could you record?" Nicole suggested, handing Seryna her camcorder. "For the Network."
"Sure.' Seryna agreed, beginning to record as the three approached the car.
Kristen placed the dining room chair in the center of the living room while Nicole grabbed the duct tape.
"He's likely going to resist all efforts at finding his master. Or where his master lives. We should come at him from what Kim won't discover. Why he was in that alley- why he attacked us. Whose territory that is."
"That's good," Nicole nodded as Kristen continued. "We need to establish how long he's been here- maybe reference the power outage last Easter and the gunman scare at the community college last month."
"I'll try and think of questions with those," Nicole said slowly, noticing that Kristen was excited. She barely waited for Nicole to stop talking before continuing.
"We need to see if there are other ghouls. Ask if he's working with anyone. If anyone is waiting on him. Who we'll find in that opening in the alley."
"That's very worrisome, that opening." Nicole nodded.
"Yeah," Kristen slowed, thinking for a moment. "I doubt it would be a lair, in a public alley. But what if it went through- if it's like a tunnel?"
"It's' going to be creepy going in there." Nicole sighed.
Kristen swore as she remembered that the police would want to know where the man had attacked them.
"Your friend. He shouldn't go in there."
"You're right… we're going to have to say that he attacked us here."
"At the house?"
"It sounds better than saying we threw him in a trunk. I can't believe I didn't think of how that's going to look." Nicole pulled the clip out of her hair, her hair falling down as she raked her fingers through it.
"Hey," Kristen put an arm around her. "- you're shaking."
"Adrenaline." Nicole smiled weakly. "Your phone call really scared me."
"I didn't even think of that."
"You weren't scared." Nicole said slowly.
"What? No. Of course, I was."
"I'm the one shaking." Nicole laughed nervously. "You're jacked. Excited? I was the one whose scared."
"Jacked? No. Okay, maybe I'm not processing it right. But if this guy knows who killed Brandon and took those men, we need to know. I'm just trying to figure it out as fast as I can. Before the cops get here. Before…"
"Before what?"
"I don't know. I was thinking of something else. Worrying about that tunnel."
A slew of curse words in a deep voice announced the arrival of the guest. "Okay." Nicole checked her watch. "Five minutes. In case anyone saw us pull in." She set her stop watch.
Jenny and Darren wrestled the man down into the chair as Nicole duct taped him in place.
"Your little hidey hole," Kristen leaned in front of the man. "Do you live there? You don't look homeless."
"I live with your momma." The man twisted in his chair, trying to look at Darren.
"So we're going to go back in a few minutes. With some fire. Some real nice torches," Nicole walked behind the man. "- how many of your little friends are we going to find?"
"Maybe a whole bunch. I'm a popular guy." The man smirked, checking his bounds. "You did this nice. You into this sort of thing?"
"Eh, just something I picked up around that blackout last year. We found some friends of yours. Toasted them up nice."
The mans' eyes narrowed as he tried to turn around and look at Nicole. Darren squatted in front of the man, studying his face.
"See, we figure that they'll be tougher. More badass than you." On cue, Jenny stepped up beside her brother, all 5 foot 6 inches of her.
"My little sister might need a hand. Won't be as weak as you."
"She might need a casket." The man scowled, struggling. "What did you say about last year, that you torched some homeless guys?"
"Nah, man. Vampires." Matt smiled, leaning in close to the man. Too close. Kristen and Nicole shifted uncomfortable with Matt's closeness to the ghoul. Both women were recalling terrible memories of the last ghoul that they had encountered. Nicole unconsciously rubbed her hand, wincing. Kristen put her arm around her sister, moving behind the man and out of his line of sight.
"Vampires," Matt repeated boldly. "- real lazy mothers, too. Seemed all terrifying at night, but middle of the day? Like blind school children."
The man tested his bonds.
"This one was a redhead," Nicole spoke quietly, feeding a line of truth. "- she had a girl with her."
The man went still.
"I felt kind of bad for the girl." Darren said. He was looking at the floor. "She looked young. Like she just stepped off of a college campus somewhere. Ought to be driving back to her moms'. Not dressed like some slut, strung out and crazy. Not…"
The captive turned and looked at Darren. The two men locked eyes.
"Not dead."
The man lurched, rocked the chair.
"You killed Summer."
"Worst name ever for a ghoul." Matt observed dryly. "Like Snowflake. Sunny and Cher."
"She wasn't- "The man shuddered, looking down. Closed his eyes.
Nicole glanced to Kristen, worried that the man was composing himself. Steeling himself.
"It was the vampire who threw Summer in like she was a doggie treat," Nicole said, forcing her voice to be callous. "She tried to run."
"No, Ka- she wouldn't. She had a fearsome- "
"Fearsome fear of fire. Like I said. Torches." Kristen leaned in over the man's shoulder, speaking quietly into his ear.
"Maybe your friends don't have to die. The ones' that aren't eating people. Maybe we look into rehab, or just admit there's no help for being a vamp junkie and look the other way."
The man didn't move a muscle.
"So they die, then." Kristen straightened. "That's okay. That's what we do. The business we're in. Speaking of, territory. Who sent us. That's' what you said, right? So, does someone have an eye on your territory? Someone who's not a pushover like you?"
"Yeah, we need a challenge." Matt walked around the chair.
"Too easy." Jenny smirked. She carried it off.
"Oh, you find the coterie?" The man smiled. "They'll carve you up."
"See, you're not the first vamp's bitch to say that to us." Now Matt crouched in front of the man. "But thing is, you could be right. You'll still be dead, though."
"You can't scare me." The man smiled. "I've been to Court."
"The Court?"
The man's eyes glittered. A shadow seemed to pass over his face. A bead of sweat formed on his brow.
"Maybe we want this Court," Kristen smiled, running a hand down the man's shoulder. He flinched away.
"What's the address?"
"1234 Dead Hunters."
"Okay, so you're tough. Big man." Matt smiled, punching the man in the shoulder with his good arm. The others' still saw him wince as he moved away. He stepped behind the man where he couldn't be seen holding his injured arm.
"Your friends as tough as you are?"
"You're not going to get anything there. By the time you get back, it'll be clean."
"Cleaned out?"
The man didn't respond.
"No one saw us take you."
They waited a few seconds, but the man stared resolutely forward.
"This coterie that wants your territory, maybe they don't see you around and they move in. Do they like your friends?"
The man's eyes glinted to Kristen.
"No?" Kristen smiled. "So you want us to find them before this coterie. So, this coterie. Who is it?"
"They'll eat you alive."
"The address for Court?" Matt prodded the man's back. The man tossed his head, mouth clenching.
"Always a possibility." Kristen admitted. "But assuming they don't- the boss, he a big guy?"
"It's run by a woman." The man smirked. "You don't know a thing about this. You know nothing."
"That's okay, I'm very comfortable admitting my ignorance." Kristen continued. "Why the path, though? It's just the taco shop, that new club…"
The man was silent.
"Clubs not really new," Darren put in. "- its' just gone through a hundred names. Last time you drove by, it was probably Pearl."
"I think that was the name before." Seryna said. "But the club is where you're going to? No, the club is across the parking lot."
Silence. The cell let the silence grow. He didn't need to know that they were worried about what the police might think of the timeline. The man that they suspected was a ghoul refused to speak. Darren took Kristen and Nicole's hands, pulling them out of hearing into the kitchen. "We're running out of time. We're going to try and scare him suggesting firing his Sire."
Agreeing, the three moved back as Nancy stated.
"He doesn't want to talk about the club."
"I wonder if there are vampires in the club."
"Ooh," Jenny smiled over at Darren. "- I have an idea. Maybe instead of killing him, we let him go. Hey, shouldn't you call your friend?"
Nicole's watch beeped. "Yup, time to arrange the whole release." She pulled out her cell phone, moving to the kitchen.
"What friend?" The man tried to move again.
"The friend who can tell the next buddy we catch that you told us all about Court and the club. That we'll be there soon. Then – oops- we let that guy go. How long will you be suckling vamp blood then?"
"You run a terrible catch and release program. How do you find any vampires, blind luck?"
"No. We just find them when they're hungry. This Court – that's what you're scared of? I'm guessing for it to scare you, it's pretty bad. Does it have a lot of vampires? Older vampires? Or just viscous ones?"
The man turned away.
"Hey, no problem. Look what I found." Jenny held out a black leather wallet. "It was in your pocket. I probably should have mentioned this nifty matchbook from Priceless. That sounds like a real den of whores."
"Just where I drink."
"Yeah, right where we found you. Maybe where you meet your master. Or where she hunts."
The man's head snapped around to Jenny's eyes. "Careful."
"Oh, we will be. Careful to stir the ashes twice. Need to make sure the fires completely extinguished once your friend's dead- it's a drought, after all."
The man tested his bonds. The cell fell into silence, watching him. Nicole took a picture of the man's face, moving around to get a front and side view and careful not to get any of her cell in the frame.
"Just so we can be clear on what you gave up, with visuals." Nicole explained. Taking a full picture of him in bonds, she continued. "Maybe we'll do the same with your master, but with chains. Really strong, thick stuff so he can't escape. Is your master a guy?"
Silence.
"Oh, so you like girls. I was starting to wonder about you." The head jerked towards her.
"A girl. Okay. Maybe like Summer's master, who threw her away like trash. Is that how these women treat you?"
"I'm thinking we take the blowtorches, the molotovs. Real big fire." Matt said to Nancy.
The cell was quiet for a moment, listening to their captive. He gritted his teeth, testing his bonds.
"We leave one clear avenue. The honey pot. We grab her. We hound her with torches, so we can see the whites of her eyes. What sort of eyes does your honey have, big guy?"
"Do not speak of her."
"Blue eyes?"
"Eyes that see everything." The man snarled. "Into your doomed souls."
"Whoa, that's deep."
"Wow."
"Brown eyes?" Matt persisted.
The man jerked, attempting to rip his legs free. His legs strained against the restraints, but could get nowhere.
"Does she go for that cheesy horror thing, get colored contact lenses?" Kristen leaned in. "Gold eyes, like a wolf?"
"She would never be so crass." The man snarled. "She is a woman of class."
"Class." Kristen nodded. "I bet you think we aren't very classy."
"Trash. Filth."
"Filth." Kristen nodded. "Is that because we killed Summer?"
"Summer." The man popped his knuckles. "Summer's Sire would not throw her away."
"But she did." Nicole leaned in. "Get them, Summer. Don't sit there like a cow! You must protect me!" Nicole quoted a vampire and in the man's eyes, she saw him register the truth. He flinched.
"She tried." Nicole said quietly. "She did too well. We didn't go there for Summer. You know that."
"You deserve it all, filth." The man rumbled.
"Your sires' pretty eyes will be so happy to see you back again." Matt mused. "Once she busts you out of jail. What will you tell her?"
"Jail?"
"That's where you're going. She might not take you back. Maybe you ought to tell us where we can find her. Make sure you're free when you get out."
"Or we'll let her know you gave her up when we light her up. You'll be locked up. But when they let you out… we'll see who catches you first, us or them. Your friends at Court."
"Nobody has friends at Court." The man scoffs. "You don't know anything about it. Its' a hornet's nest."
"Like your little hole. What's in there? Just a place to drag meals? Or is it a real tunnel to somewhere?"
"Tunnel?" The man laughs.
"So it is a tunnel."
"It's a wall. How can it be a tunnel?"
"Okay, so we'll see where it leads. You've been a great help."
"I'm going to shove your teeth down your throat."
With that elegant response, Kim and his coworkers walked in. The man was taken into custody. In an irritating course of events, the group was separated for statements for nearly two hours before the detectives were satisfied. Nicole was suitably queasy about her lies about the location and his transport, but hoped no one could contradict their story.
"Not a great deal of information. I thought he'd give us something." Matt lounged in the easy chair. "I'm pretty sure that his Sire is a woman. The way he talked, too. He's not a street kid.."
"A woman of class. Perhaps she doesn't pick up just anyone. She chose him because of the way that he spoke."
"We learned that it is a tunnel- that it's a Court. A vampire court. And he knew the last group you torched." Kristen stated. "Don't forget that he practically confirmed that the club is a hotspot."
"Any club could be." Matt stated, walking around the living room. "If they see us surveying, they may just pack it up."
"Good point." Kristen nodded. "What else did anyone catch?"
The group was silent for a moment, thinking. "The coterie is run by a woman. So, we know that a woman is involved and that there's more than two in this coterie."
Kristen picked up her notebook and made a note of all the observations, taking several minutes to make a transcript of the questioning. Her notebook was half full of lists and notes. She was a visual person and loved to see things laid out on paper.
"Did you ever talk to Brandon's brother?" Seryna asked Nicole.
"Yeah." Nicole sighed at the memory. "It was rough. He's taking it hard."
Nicole explained that she had talked to Brent, Brandon's older brother. He had no clue why Brandon was on that front door. Brandon was a manager at a local hardware store. He didn't have a girlfriend and the last girl had left him to move back home out of state nearly a year ago. As far as he knew, Brandon wasn't interested in strip clubs.
"I did run a background check on him," Nicole continued. "-since Brent was nice enough to give me all this information. His boss loved him. Said he was very efficient at his job, people liked him. He'll be missed. He hadn't missed work or had any performance issues."
"So not a ghoul." Nancy deduced.
"Far as we know, no. I ran into him a few weeks ago and he looked healthy. Very personable." Nicole swallowed hard, checking her notes again.
"It's getting late." Seryna noted, checking her watch. "How about we put the case to bed for the night. If anyone's hungry, I'm going to make some omelets. Please, stay."
She looked down at her phone as it rang.
"Just a second." She excused herself.
"Omelets?" Matt wondered. "It's' night."
"Seryna and I eat smaller meals more often instead of three big meals. We'll be up for another two hours." Jenny explained. "Researching sometimes. Or I do my schoolwork."
"Well, we'll get going." Matt said as he and Nancy rose, bid goodbye and left.
Nicole yawned. "I think we should go, too." She said to Kristen.
"I'm not that tired." Kristen replied. "I could go for an omelet. I think that I'll stick around."
"Okay." Nicole said her goodbyes, popping into the kitchen to bid goodbye to Seryna, who was still on the phone. Seryna waved to Darren, who excused himself and entered the kitchen. Jenny gestured for Kristen to join her on the couch.
"I was hoping that you'd stay. We're both the youngest of hunter sibling teams."
"Oh, we are, huh."
"Yeah. Darren and Seryna are driving me nuts right now about these safety precautions. Like I'm a total idiot. Did Nicole ever make you do that?"
"What kind of precautions?"
"Boring ones." Jenny shakes her head. "When we're on a hunt, I can't even answer the door."
"You're younger than I was when we started hunting," Kristen shared. "- and Nicole was never honest about her hunts. I found out when she was hospitalized."
"Seriously?"
"Yes. It was pretty messed up. Honestly, I'd rather have open protectiveness." Kristen pauses at the lecturing tone that she had adapted. That wasn't exactly how she would feel about it. Kristen could recall the impotent rage that she had felt looking at Nicole as she lay in her hospital bed. The frustration with Nicole's friends who insisted that the police should be the only ones focused on what had happened to Nicole. If Nicole found the Wards trustworthy, then they had passed her skeptic outlook. Kristen turned to look at Jenny.
"Are they open about what's going on?"
"I guess." Jenny hedged. "Sometimes I feel like they leave me out, like I'm at the kids' table."
"Well, I won't do that. How old are you?"
"Nineteen."
Jenny was six years younger than Kristen was. When Kristen was 19, she was at Basic Training, struggling with diet restrictions and feelings of inadequacy during training. Kristen had not dealt well when her sister had excluded her from her hunting in the beginning.
"I won't do that," Kristen assures, looking over to the youngest Ward. Kristen realizes how Jenny has moved to her, their knees are touching. She's leaning forward with her upper body, listening intently. Kristen realizes that she has been sizing her up like she does her clients – trying to gauge if they're being honest with her. Kristen doubted that Jenny would be playing her with those wide open blue eyes.
Kristen decides to be certain. The brunette closes her eyes and rolling them back in her head, finding a small bit of circuitry there and presses. This activates a little gift from the Company. When she opens her eyes, and looks at Jenny, the hunter sees a haze of color.
These are Devils Eyes – eyes harvested from a vampire and hardwired with circuitry into the eye. They look normal to everyone else, but they have enhanced Kristen's sight. She can determine emotional states. It's been a huge help in her harvesting career. Kristen's willingness to undergo the surgery was what put her on one of the most active harvesting locations. That and her ability to decipher what is seen as a monster or person. When Kristen surveys Jenny, she instantly feels like a jerk. The color that sparkles around her like dissipating bubbles is hope… and something a shimmery green that can't quite be identified. But it's not a threatening color.
"Are you okay?" She asks, touching Kristen's shoulder gently. "Your eyes did a rolling thing."
"Maybe just acclimating to the heat," Kristen lies, feeling worse. "It was still April showers in Ohio."
"I've never been to Ohio… is it really so backwards?"
"So backwards? What have you heard?"
"Hillbilly twang, and banjos… Deliverance…"
"Ouch, Deliverance." Kristen winces. "It's nothing like that. They're nice, open people. I have a hard time understanding directions, mostly. Its 'turn where the old barn used to be'… and I'm like, 'what's there now?' and its 'Well, an empty field where the barn used to be…' "
Jenny giggled leaning against Kristen's shoulder and Kristen felt herself relax, watching the colors haze around her. She was genuine in her emotions, not hiding a thing.
"I hope you're not a vegetarian," Seryna is striding in carrying a food tray. Darren walked in behind her. He carries calmness most times but as Kristen looks at him with her Devil's Eyes, she can see a haze of color. Kristen glances over to Seryna and sees the same colors mirrored there. Jenny is getting ahold of her giggles, a hand still brushing Kristen's shoulder. Kristen can follow the two gazes as though a line had been drawn. Overprotective of Jenny, she guesses. Yet that color…
Seryna hands out plates of fluffy omelets with something green peeking out- spinach? That is Kristen's least favorite food. To be polite, she eats a forkful. She considers the feeling that she'd had earlier in the morning, the feeling of jealously that these people had spent so much more time with Nicole than she had in the last year. Perhaps more meaningful time.
" I asked Nicole about your family. Your elixir use. The Family legacy… I don't really understand it."
"What do you know about it?" Seryna asks.
"Nicole mentioned that you used the elixir to hunt a vampire in a night club. How?"
"How in-depth do you want me to go?" Seryna asked me as she picked at her sausage.
"Tell me all of it. "
Darren smiles, shooting Seryna a look. There is a color sparkle underneath Seryna and Darren's emotions, but Kristen can't recognize it. It has the same hue as a drunk person that she had observed. Yet nothing about the behavior suggests that Seryna and Darren are under the influence of anything. I realize that Darren is glancing at me out of the corner of his eye as he eats his omelet. He's looking at my eyes, Kristen realizes with a start. Kristen's heart lurches in her chest and begins to hammer. How? She has never seen anyone act differently around her for this before. Maybe he's just making eye contact…
Kristen turns to look him in the eye, giving the interested in your statement attention that she does for her client's initial visit. Darren's dark brown eyes match Kristen's honey brown eyes. The two lock eyes and stare for a moment, the intensity startling. Kristen looks away first, closing her eyes and pressing in on the circuitry within. This cuts off the Devils Eyes perception.
Darren continues to eat, not looking at Kristen particularly closely. Kristen feels uncomfortable with the stare that he had given her, feeling as though he had been trying to read her and not the other way around. Or had he known that she was trying to read them?
"I'll try. Let me know if I'm going too fast. We grew up with this, so I forget sometimes that it's not inherent. I brewed an elixir-"
"Can you explain what you do?"
"Okay…" Seryna leaned back, her eyes rolling upwards as she focused. Kristen watched her quietly for a moment as she stated. "So we used a special venom that my cousin got for me. It's lethal- but I was able to use my family's' ability to use it for perception. This is called Asp elixir. I used it by filling an eye dropper and dropping it into my eyes. This gave me better perception than most people. Darren went with me to help me through the club."
Kristen glances at Darren and he smiles. "She can look odd when she uses this elixir. Her eyes are too wide. Sometimes it's an um…"
"Alien." Jenny supplied. "It looks very odd behavior."
"Yes, an odd behavior." Darren nodded. "That's why I go with her to look for anyone showing her interest and to try and block them from coming in too close to Seryna. But, Kristen… you were staring very intently at Seryna and I a few minutes ago. What was that about?"
"Curiosity." Kristen swallows. She shovels in a bite of breakfast. Darren shakes his head.
"No, it wasn't like that."
"Okay," Kristen sighed. Darren and Seryna exchange a look. Concerned? Suspicious? What did it matter? Kristen felt a prick of anxiety as she weighed how much to reveal. Darren's expression was darkening She plunged on without a plan.
"I can do something like that. Look for perceptions in people."
"You were weighing Seryna and me," Darren nodded. "I thought that you were doing a behavior leakage thing, but you were only looking at our faces."
"Leakage?" Jenny grimaces.
"Its signs that someone make unconsciously when they try to lie." Darren explains.
"How do you know about that?" Kristen wonders.
"My cousins Pete and Isabella- and our mother – handle diplomatic missions. Sort of like a mediation. They can be manipulated if they're not careful. But don't change the subject, Kristen." His voice sharpens.
"How can you do this? You are not an elixir user."
"It's a thurmutech surgery," Kristen confides. "- that a specific doctor implanted into me. It allows me to see emotions."
"In your eye?" Seryna blinks.
"Why?" Jenny frowned. "Nothing was wrong, why get surgery?"
"To detect threats. I was involved in a group in Ohio that was very involved in detecting monsters before they did terrible murder sprees." Kristen glances between the faces nervously. Seryna looked pensive. Darren was calm, Kristen didn't think that he was upset. Jenny was frowning and dry washing her hands.
"Say something." Kristen implores, her anxiety rising.
"Okay," Seryna stated slowly. "- then you may understand this elixir better than anyone, Kristen. Its' how I spotted a peculiar behavior that no one else had. Do you do that, too?"
"I try to." Kristen states quietly. She glances to Darren and Jenny, biting her lip. She recognizes the pain and stops, rubbing her lip with her fingers.
"You're not supposed to tell us, huh?" Seryna smiled. "Kristen, relax."
"That's kind of hard." Kristen objects. "This is really personal and scary. I've never…"
"Okay, breathe." Darren snaps. Kristen takes a sharp breath.
"We're not afraid, Kristen. We … well, honestly. We thought that you would be scared about the elixir. Your sister wasn't excited."
"She wasn't?" Kristen takes a breath and holds it for a second, battling to combat her emotions. "You're not upset with me."
"No." Darren glances to his sisters.
"Nope." Jenny shrugged. "You were honest with us, Kristen. I can see that it scared you, but you don't have to be. So, how did your sister react?"
I don't say anything, looking at my hands.
"Oh no. "Seryna sighed. "Why?"
"She's so… Nicole." Kristen made a face. "She judges everything so fast. It all made so much sense in Ohio. And I was making a huge difference. How can I explain that it wasn't something bad?"
"Just the way you did with us."
"Can we not do this? I know I need to tell her. But I'm not ready to right now."
"Okay," Darren nodded. "So… our elixir is more like a family practice. I guess you could say religion, although we don't worship anything. Our mother was taught this from her parents. It came over from the Middle East. We've been raised with it all of our lives, a feeling that we need to face the things that harm us fin the night. There was a tale about a man who brewed the first potion and it worked wonderfully. He led his armies against the Darkness, night after night. Then after some successes, he died. The story goes that the trail of death continued until one man decided to temper the potion with poison. Knowing that too much potion would kill him, he took just enough to survive against the Dark. That's essentially what we are doing. We know how to ingest elixir for ways to detect supernatural things."
"That sounds so impossible." Kristen shakes her head. "You ingest poisons and don't die."
"I can see how its' not the garden variety hunter. Yet you've been hunting for how long?"
"Two years now."
"Two years. You've spent a year in Ohio, so you didn't stay with Nicole for very long."
"No..." Kristen glances over to Darren. "Nicole and I can get on each other's' nerves."
"You stayed together for your first three hunts." Jenny leaned back in the couch. "Nicole told us about your first hunt the first night that we met her."
"Did she?" A prick of surprise stabs at Kristen. "It wasn't very special."
"Special?" Seryna smiles. "You took out a ghoul that was preying on the neighborhood. That's special to the families that live here."
"We never cut off the head. We never found the head."
"The vampire." Jenny shivers. " They're terrible."
"I wanted to make sure that it was gone. The way that we did it, it just moved to another place. Some place where it can feed with abandon."
"We didn't see it that way." Seryna said softly. "You met something that was terribly strong. It threatened you… "
She glances to Darren. "What was that threat?"
"Her mother."
"It said that it would turn our mother over to his master." Kristen whispered.
"It was terrifying. Nicole told us she couldn't sleep for weeks after that. The look in his eyes…"
"It looked so human." Kristen whispers, recalling the dark pools of the ghoul's eyes. "Like the guy whose had so many bad things happen to it. You know if you can get it to the rehab place, it can get better. But this one – he resisted so hard. He fought like a man possessed even as he howled that he'd ruin us if we went near his master. But in the end, he looked like a person."
"He wasn't." Darren insisted. "He once was a man who could be saved. But once it… the Beast warps his soul, it's beyond saving. It becomes the thing that preserves his master's existence." His dark brown eyes look into Kristen's. "That mission is just as evil as the vampire's perversions."
"Did you feel bad?" Jenny blinked. Her eyes widened as though she were surprised. Kristen fights the urge to look at her and really see her emotions. Kristen looks down and closes her eyes, resisting the temptation to pull on her Devils Eyes and truly see into these people. If they were to trust her, she should be able to trust them. Kristen didn't want to answer. She remembered the coppery smell of blood. The deep, tortured breathing. The terrible tightness in her chest when her friends, her sister and herself were trapped in the alley with the ghoul. The look in its eyes when she had pressed the barrel of her pistol to his chest and fired. The blessed relief that came after.
"Yes," Kristen nodded. "- it felt bad."
"You were the one who killed it." Darren blinked. "Nicole said that the cell shot it-"
"Four times." Kristen whispers. "Mike shot it twice. Nicole had been trying to immobilize it with her baton, but it… it hit her. Later we found out that her hand had been broken in two places. She fell to her knees on the ground."
Nicole's tortured breathing as she lifted her head and stared into the ghoul's eyes. The ghoul's inhuman snapping motion with his mouth when it lunged at her face. The smell of gun powder as Kristen squeezed the trigger. The movies never really prepare you for what a man's chest looks like when it dies. The smell of foulness mingled with the stench of sickness as Mike vomited. It was awful.
"It's over." Jenny squeezes my arm. Kristen smiles weakly, trying to dismiss her emotion. "I'm fine." She lies. "You're right, its' over."
The smell of eggs waffles by, nauseating as it mingles with her memories. Kristen looks away from my neglected plate.
"I hadn't meant to…" Kristen lose track of the sentence. She had come for information about these people. She still wasn't sure what this was. But She knew that something was different, now. Kristen could feel a certain relief. No, not relief. That word was associated with the feeling after the first ghoul was dead. This felt like a refreshing clearing of the air, a lifting of her burden. Kristen smiled at the pompous thought, surely something that trickled in from the horror novel that she had been reading the night before.
"Do you feel better?" Jenny asks.
Seryna lifts the plates and carries them away, the half-eaten food gladly removed from sight.
"Yes." Kristen nods. "Yes."
"Good." She squeezes Kristen's hand again and relaxes. "You say you want to know more about the elixir. You came at a good time."
"I did?"
"Yes. Seryna is going to teach me something."
"Oh." Kristen glances between Jenny and Darren. "Is it okay that I see?"
"Of course." Darren rises. "I have to head home. Neith is in her first dance recital tomorrow. There's a hundred things to get done before, so I should try and get some sleep."
"It's' at six, right?"
"I was curious…" Kristen stood as Darren moves to the door, walking with him. "Neith. I've never heard that name before."
"It my wife's idea." Darren smiled. "In mythology, she was the goddess of war and hunting. Jewel really liked the thought of that."
"You want your daughter to be a hunter."
"You're surprised." Darren's smile fades. "Yes. I want that for her. That's our family, Kristen. My mother, my father, my uncle and my aunts."
He says his goodbyes and leaves. Kristen imagines a four-year-old girl holding a heavy pistol. Imagining her in an alley one terrible night.
"It's odd for you." Jenny speaks from the couch. "But we're all hunters."
"Really… all of you are hunters?"
"Okay. Our cousins Leanna and Lexie are an accountant and a dentist." She makes a face. "Broke their momma's heart."
Kristen giggles as I join her on the couch. "So how many cousins do you have?"
"Mom has one sister and a brother, Edward and Katherine. Edward's kids are Isaac and Isabella. Katherine's kids are Gefri, Hebe and Arius. My dad has one brother, Richard. He has Robert, Peter and Barbara. "
"Very unusual names. "
"Katherine chose all of the names for qualities she wants in her children from the Greek mythology." Jenny explains. "Names have a lot of meaning. I think that only Seryna got a name that our family believes is really meaningful."
"Really, Jendayi Kalika?" Seryna smiled as she entered the room. " One who is thankful, one who is greatly loved."
"One who resembles a rose," Jenny smiled. "Seren is 'from the starlight'. Although I like 'Serena, having a peaceful disposition. Because she's so peaceful."
"See? Didn't live up to my name at all." Seryna sticks out her tongue. "But are you going to learn or babble about names all night? Get out my blessings chest."
"Blessings chest?"
"Seryna is melodramatic and clings to the old... old ways," Jenny says lightly as she moves to the cedar chest in the corner of the room. "Most people just call them real words. 'Blessings'. Honestly, sounds like you're shaming faith believers."
"It's something that our Grandma said to me when I was little," Seryna explained as Jenny brought out a medium sized mixing bowl, a pestle and three small plastic vials. "I guess that it stuck with me. Now, let's go over the basics while Jendayi prepares the elixir."
Seryna reaches into the cedar chest and pulls out a small leather fanny pack. Kristen leans in over her shoulder and points to the larger black back pack.
"Is that your bug out bag? Nicole mentioned that you'd get me to make one."
"You ought to," Seryna said simply as she unzips the fanny pack. "This is a mini bug out that I take on hunts. This –" She pulls out a small glass vial. "- is the eye of Ra."
"What does it do?"
"The sun-god Ra sees all that transpires beneath his fiery gaze. By anointing ourselves with sacred oils, the Ascending Ones gain a measure of this divine perception." Seryna explains. "It allows us to sense things better. You know about vampires."
Kristen nods, trying and failing to repress a shiver.
"My mother used this when her group went after vampires." Seryna explains. As she talks, Jenny and she don blue nitrile gloves and white dust masks. Seryna offers Kristen one and frowns until she accepts and dons it.
"It puts you on slightly more even footing. You're still hunting something terrible, but now you can hear when it's sneaking up behind you or see where it goes when it races away from you. Jenny, what is it that we're making tonight?"
"Red resin." Jenny responds promptly. While the two women have have been talking, Jenny has been systematically adding pinches of some powder to a thick, gooey resin. She pauses to stir it with the spoon, blending in the powder. She tilts the bowl and surveys the contents with a frown.
"Not quite enough." Seryna takes the bowl from Jenny, adding a generous pinch of powder. She stirs continuously as she speaks.
"This is something that Darren and I have used before with great success. When he and I go into some place crowded – like a club – it can be impossible to pick out the predators from the run of the mill jerks. Jenny, how will you use this?" Seryna's voice is crisp and professional now. A teacher's voice.
"I will smoke it in a cigarette." Jenny states. "One that we will roll ourselves. With the smoking laws, I'll have to do it farther out from a club. It will still work, though, right?"
"We'd have to hurry." Seryna states quietly. "Look." Seryna hands the mixture to Jenny to survey and scoop into a plastic canister. Jenny makes a second batch under Seryna's watchful eye.
"Tell me again how you don't die."
"It's a discipline." Seryna states, calm and professional. "If you were to ingest this, you would die. Yet my family has learned this over generations. It's a part of who we are."
"Okay." Kristen watches as the two secure the elixir before they allow Kristen to remove her mask.
"I get that it's hard to understand. I do. I'm trying to think of how to explain it." Seryna said. "Darren says we don't worship anything. Its' based partly on faith. We think deeply on this- meditate. A teacher – our parents- taught us this as children. When I was thirteen, my mother gave me something to drink. It scalded my throat." She grimaced. "My mother taught that I had not truly wanted to change. She waited several months until we had a long talk and I was convinced that I was ready."
Seryna looked into Kristen's eyes.
"She said 'You are going to meet a vampire tonight. This will help you see its' emotions. You can help us with the meeting, if you are ready.' When I realized how much I wanted to be a part of my family's mission, how much I wanted to be strong, I could take the drops. I felt something shift." She touched her stomach. "Something inside changed me."
"You didn't really meet a vampire when you were thirteen."
"Yes, I did. He was a contact of my mothers for a peace that she was brokering."
"You have eight others who hunt with you?"
"Pete, Isabella, Isaac, Robert and Uncle Richard are a part of the Crescent." Jenny explains. "This bothers my mother, so we don't hunt with them. I know that Darren goes hunting with them, sometimes."
"Why does it bother your mother?"
"Your sister was a police officer and she didn't like this, either." Seryna states slowly. "The Crescent does a great many services for our organization. They help pay the rent on our house – and on my grandmother's house, for one. They are great chemists."
"Your mother dislikes chemists." Kristen states skeptically. "When she taught you all of this."
"They are what can be considered a street gang." Seryna said, resigned. "They run an efficient organization – supplying elixir to a great number of Ascending Ones hunters across the state. Yet they also have an illegal arms trade."
"Fantastic." Kristen frowns. "Darren hangs out with them?"
"He doesn't take the illegal guns." Jenny points out. "They are our family and we do see them at family gatherings. They just conduct these things away from us."
"Alright. Family is family."
"There's something that I want to ask you." Seryna stated. "I have a contact who can get me a supply of very rare feathers. I can use one feather in a very special elixir to heal someone. If we are going after ghouls and vampires, I think that I should get these feathers."
"I didn't hear the question." I reminded.
"The contact is a little old fashioned. She wants to meet out of town, farther than I would normally go by myself. It's in a small, isolated area. I was wondering if you – and Nicole- could come with us."
"Of course. Can I ask why not Matt and Nancy?"
"I don't know them."
"Seryna, you're never going to get to know them if you exclude them." Kristen reminds. She leans in close to Seryna's face and waits for her to meet her gaze.
"I trust them. Do you trust me?"
"Yes."
"Then you should trust them. Spending time together will help us get to know each other. I know that they'll want to help you, Seryna."
"They don't know me, either."
"They know that you're important to my sister and that I want us to be friends."
Seryna smiles. "I would like that. I know that it was difficult for you, tonight."
"Yes." Kristen said shortly.
"All right. All of you. Can you be here at 9? It will be a nearly two-hour drive."
"You weren't kidding about isolated. All right, deal. We'll be here at 9."
The three women bid goodbye and Kristen heads out, returning to the apartment that she shared with her sister.