Chapter Three: Slán Agat, Peaceful Times

I set my sketch down and frowned. Art was not a favorite subject of mine. The sketch I was supposed to do was "an interpretive self-portrait". In other words it could be a drawing of anything we wished, it just had to represent us. I had only recently graduated from sketching stick figure people, so I decided to stick with either inanimate objects or animals. On the pale paper was a nearly-finished, rather cruddy color drawing of a vividly green eye, with multicolored flecks, peering through a golden keyhole. Some might interpret this as saying I felt like an outsider peering in. Not so: I felt like someone locked inside their house, rifle clutched firmly in hand, peering out and yelling "Who goes there?!". Things had been happening around my neighborhood. //And by "things," I mean the recent murder of a human Rowen fed off of....// The hunters were in America. There was no other explanation. A human had been found, deliberately drowned, in the lake at the local park. As there was a weight tied to his ankle it was suspected that this was a suicide. But the half-healed puncture marks on his neck told the magical community otherwise. Rowen was a mess-he'd fed off the sleeping homeless man two weeks ago, and was worried the man's death was partially-if not completely-his fault. I had been trying to persuade him it wasn't. It was the fault of the hunters.

The hunters were in America. When they'd gotten here, why they were becoming active now, and whether or not they were planning to reveal themselves to the greater public, no one knew. And they'd decided that those who vampires had fed off of were also "impure" (tainted by our fangs), and had to be destroyed as well. Anyone with a puncture mark, or odd mark anywhere near a major vein, (roughly a fifteenth of the people in our town) was fair game for the hunters-even though over half of them were marks from the mosquitoes that had plagued us until late in October. I was deliberately avoiding drinking from people native to our town. I didn't want any murders on my hands.

Rowen is a slightly happier topic: a male vampire from the Blackwater clan. Blackwater had emigrated to America, along with my clan, Bloodletter, Coldskin, and some of the Nightwalker clan. He and I met about ten years ago in school and had stuck together like glue since. And no, we are not "going out". I have no desire for any kind of relationship. Never had, probably never would. Especially not when the entire world was crumbling at the foundation.

I sighed and decided my interpretive self-portrait was good enough. I could hear the sounds of "The Addams Family Reunion" coming from downstairs: Mamo was at it again. She enjoys watching old TV shows and movies, but movies about older topics (i.e. the Tudor family) are her main vice-she says it's really amusing to see how wrong they get the good ol' days. Mamo would know... (Her first Christmas was the first Christmas. Her first birthday was celebrated way before most people knew what dirt was. I am not even joking.) I got up, opened the door to the stairway that led beneath the house, and called down, "Mamo!"

"Yes, leannán?" I smiled. We'd worked hard not to use our Irish vocabularies among other people (sticking out is never good when most people believe you don't exist. But Mamo retained a slight County Cork drawl. And in both public and private, her pet name for me remained "leannán"-"sweetheart" in Irish. (She used to call me an English pet name. However, I forbade "ducky" after I got old enough to realize I did not have webbed feet and feathers.)

"It's dark out-I'm going over to Sky's now. Anything you want me to do before I leave?" I didn't mention that on the way to my lycan friend's home, I would probably make sure Rowen hadn't done anything stupid.

The TV was muted. An uneasy silence settled from downstairs. After a pause, my grandmother appeared at the feet of the stairs. Long, wispy white hair was pulled back from her face by a fuzzy black hair band. Milky blue eyes surveyed me warily from a pale, ancient-looking face. My grandmother had aged well. One could almost forget the fact that she was supposed to be recovering from a broken leg. It had broken two months ago when she tripped down the stairs at the town library. Of course, it healed within minutes after we'd gotten it x-rayed at the hospital. It'd be another four months until she could walk-or so we had been forced to tell our human acquaintances. So she was stuck in the house, unable to drive or walk me over to Sky's as I know she would have liked to.

"Stella," she finally said, "be careful. And I'd mightily appreciate it if you'd take that charm off." I looked down: my clan sign, a silver dagger blade with bat wings instead of a cruciform hilt, was wrought in metal and hung from my neck on a leather strap. My favorite gemstone, an amethyst, was set in the hilt. I quickly took it off and stuffed it into my jeans pocket. Mamo's face still had worry etched in every crease.

I grimaced. Not wanting her to worry about me for the entire weekend, I tried to put her at ease: "Mamo, no one suspects us of being anything other than humans."

"Ye wouldn't know that unless ye asked the hunters yerself, now wouldja?" Mamo sighed. Her accent was coming out strongly, as it always did when she was upset. "Look, all I'm askin' fer is that yer careful. Alright, Stel?"

I nodded seriously.

"Matter o' fact, perhaps I should get Alastor to walk ye over-" //Oh, no. There is no way I am walking anywhere with that slimy git.// Alastor was my grandmother's rather creepy gentleman friend. He had no fangs, but had hinted at having some magical connection. He always surveyed myself and my friends with a strange, almost wild gaze. I wasn't sure what he was, all I knew was I didn't like him. My grandmother didn't understand my aversion to him, nor would she tell me what exactly he was. That only made me more paranoid with all matters Alastorian.

"Mamo, I'll be fine. I swear-and you know that I know what to do if anyone, hunter or not, walks up to me." //Scream. If no one's around, kick where the sun don't shine and run. If the attacker is female, punch them in the face, which may or may not break a facial bone, and run.// Having unnatural strength gives you a confidence that no amount of tae-kwan-doe/kickboxing/karate/self-defense classes can instill in you. "I promise I'll be careful-and Sky's house is two blocks away. Five minutes tops."

"Alright, alright. I won't send Alastor out. Just be careful, lass!"

I walked down the stairs and hugged her. "Always, Mamo." I could feel anxious eyes on my back as I climbed up the stairs, grabbed my black duffle bag, and proceeded out the door.

" Slán leat, leannán!" she called up the stairs after me.(Good-bye, sweetheart!)

" Slán agat, Mamo!" I replied as I shut the door behind me. (Goodbye, Granny!)

I proceeded down the street, but instead of going straight as usual when I went to Sky's, I turned when the road forked. Three houses down was an ambiguous, pleasant-looking house. A wreath of leaves hung on the door. Grinning jack-o-lanterns sat on the stoop. If only the person inside it was as happy as the house itself was. I glanced over at the driveway connected to the house: no car. I smiled, relief and serenity spreading through my brain. //He's actually out of the house. So he's getting over it. And here I was worrying he'd lost it. Fantastic.// I made a mental note to tell Mamo the good news when I got home. She'd been worried about Rowen. I walked back to the fork of the roads and, this time, I took the straight path. Trees began to appear as I walked further and further on. In another five minutes, I reached a white house with a tar-black shingle roof. A large area of the facade of the house was obscured by the trees. The Bladesons didn't spend much on landscaping for that purpose-nature did it for them.

I made my way past the tree line and up the walk. I knocked on the door-the doorbell didn't work. I waited five seconds, then heard footsteps hammering down the stairs. The curtains at a window parted a crack, then closed. A few seconds later. the door opened to let me in. I stepped inside.

A half-animal greeted me at the door. Feral eyes glittered from an otherwise humanoid face. Teeth that were more canine than human, hands with doodles on them and fingernails that were more like claws, and the fact that she smelled distinctly of bacon... yes, this was Sky.

"Hey, Stella."

"Hi, Sky." I looked my friend up and down. "Answering the door as a half-wolf might not be the best idea."

Sky raised her eyebrows. "One: I looked out the window first. Two: No one but you comes over here. Three: Stella, you have pupiless white eyes, giant fangs, and sharpened incisors, and were walking through town. You might as well tattoo 'I BITE' across your forehead in capital letters."

I chuckled and sat on the couch. "Yeah, but that's too subtle." Sky rolled her eyes. I chuckled again, amused at her exasperation. Then, I noted the house seemed empty. Mr. and Mrs. Bladeson weren't home. "Where's your parents?"

"Getting dinner. We kind of ran out of meat."

I nodded, understanding. Then, a corner of my mouth slid upwards as I remembered the empty house. "By the way, I think Rowen has recovered from his bout of depression."

Sky swallowed, hard. Then, turning from me, she seemed to freeze, so frightened of the cold reality of what she was about to say. When she finally spat it out, I felt it like a knife at my throat:

"Rowen's going into hiding. The hunters found out about him."