Hello everyone! As requested, this chapter is longer. Thanks for reviewing, or just reading the story! (Included a David Sedaris quote this chapter :D)
Chapter 4 Rollbacks
Maria
"Look. What. We. Have. Here." He pressed his nose against hers, the dark elegant cut of his eyes boring into her gaze.
"Oh. Hi?" she tried feebly, stammering. "Nice to see you again, Elijah. Nice suit."
"I wish I could say the same for you. You're dressed," he paused, and a look of distaste came over his face, "like a lady of the night. A promiscuous girl playing dress-up."
"Well, you look like a slut too. And I'll call—for more help," Maria got out shakily. She was pretty sure she was lying though. Vera wasn't going to be able to use the same trick twice. And this vampire seemed to be in no mood to show any leniency.
"I will kill your friends if they try to stop me," he said silkily, confirming her fears. He shook his head disbelievingly. "My dear, where is your outfit? Are you always dressed so sparingly?" he asked, waving a hand at the vicinity of her dress.
"Hey now. The look I was going for was Victorian orphan. A sexy Victorian orphan," she reiterated, using Chan-juan's line.
"You are dressed like Little Bo Peep, if her life as a shepherdess proved unfulfilling and she decided to enter a brothel."
Unfair! She wasn't usually so dressed up. Most days she stayed in sweatpants at her house and went on the Internet, because the Internet was glorious. If she looked a French prostitute on crack today, well, it wasn't an everyday look. So what if she had decided to diversify—
She shook her head. "Look, I have great style. And why are we arguing over my dress anyway?"
Elijah
A fair question. Elijah had been irate to observe that his heart had sped up like a human's upon seeing her. Which was unacceptable, of course. He frowned.
"Yes, let's get back to the matter of your betrayal."
"Betrayal," she gasped, her brown eyes flashing in anger. "Um, you tried to kidnap me?"
"I was trying to recruit you," Elijah corrected.
"I had no wish to go," she cried, and again, that light accent came out. It sounded Caribbean, like she spoke Spanish, mixed in with something else.
He grit his jaw, cleared his mind from this line of thinking. It did not matter anyway. "I was prepared to give you a generous offer. Twenty thousand dollars," he enunciated clearly, and saw her eyes widen. "I should have figured," he said with satisfaction, thumbing a lock of her black hair with his fingers, simply because he could not help himself. "It always comes down to money."
"As. If," she spat out. "I would have taken your money and left. Or did whatever I wanted while I went shopping and ignored your ass."
He tsked her. "Now, now. I was hoping for you to display, shall we say, a more professional work ethic."
"Well you know, witches. You can't trust any of us to a good job." She smiled at him.
He looked at her, gave a suspicious sniff. "Mayhap you would prove more professional… in other matters. You are dressed for the occasion."
Understanding his meaning, this strangely fierce woman lashed out and hit him on the chest. It was like a light touch of feathers, a gust of wind, not particularly strong, just a light breeze. It struck him that she had was small, somehow, despite her height, and so typically breakable like the rest of her kind. He did not know why the thought worried him. He clasped one of her hands in his own to make her stop her futile raging.
Elijah looked at her clearly in the eye. "Remember, Maria. I will not hurt you. If you don't make me."
"How gentlemanly of you." Her look of fury actually made him feel some small sliver of guilt. The matter was important, but she was not to be trusted yet with the particulars. She was meeting with forces beyond her understanding.
"Fine. I'll go with you. Just leave my friends alone."
"A bargain, then. I promise you that if any harm befalls your friends, it will not be from my hand."
"Or anyone on your team," she emphasized.
"Of course," he said blandly.
She looked at him with suspicion, shook her head. "I need to get home first. To get my clothes and things."
"No. Who could be waiting there?"
"You expect me to go to wherever you're going like this?" she asked disbelievingly. "I look like a hooker."
"You do," Elijah agreed. "We will go to not any of your regular shopping places. A place where you never go, in case your allies will be waiting." And he gave a very slow, chilling smile. "Buy them from Walmart." He laughed out loud. The she-demon really was forcing him to get creative. Sometimes interacting with mortals really did bring livelihood to his routine. For the first time in months, he felt a knot inside of him lesson.
"You wouldn't?" she gasped. "You would? Really? Not to get explicit, but I also need underwear. Are you going to make me buy underwear. IN PACKS?"
"In fact, I insist on it. I wouldn't want you to get any ideas when we're traveling. I don't know who you are going to try to seduce first."
"Well, I won't if I'm going to have to wear granny panties." Her eyes, luminous and large, looked like they were starting to tear up. "You suck," she muttered wearily, glancing sideways at the ground.
Elijah looked at her seriously. He did have to admire her spirit, but now, it was much to his advantage if she were properly heeled. "Cheer up," he said. "I'll take you to eat some gourmet cuisine after. I'll even teach you how to use the utensils."
Meanwhile, at Walmart
Elijah chivalrously volunteered to be the one to push the Walmart cart. One of the back wheels occasionally squeaked and stalled, but he seemed not to notice. Of course not. He was enjoying himself too much. Maria had been bundled up in his jacket, of some impeccable material that you wouldn't dream of putting in the washer. He had also bought her cheap flip-flips at a gas station to replace her sexy shoes. She looked like a moron.
"I want tots," Maria stubbornly protested at the entrance.
"Tots are a frozen food. As we will be traveling in my private plane, I fear that this will not be the most logical choice for consumption." He even said this with a calm, measured tone, like he was explaining this with all seriousness.
"I want tots." She gave him a very dark look. "Nice way to throw in a mention about your private plane by the way. Whenever you talk about your house do you say, 'my home, well, one of my homes,' to make sure that they all know about your villas?"
Elijah merely smiled at her, which was more than a little creepy. "Would you like to look at the dollar deals?" he asked her politely.
She cursed at him. Elijah only gave her one of his grins, sophisticated and cheery. Nice to see that he has a sense of humor. If only at my expense.
They stopped while she browsed at a five-dollar DVD bin. "Can you buy me some DVD's?"
He sighed. "To what purpose?" You would need a device that played them."
"Exactly! Glad you brought that up."
"I don't trust you with anything that can connect to the Internet, if that's what you're going for. I will buy you a portable DVD player, only."
"Tech savyy, Elijah! Who woulda thunk. Gold star."
Maria threw them over her shoulder once she had decided, choosing ten of them.
Elijah picked up some titles with over-careful hands, like he was handing explosive devices. "Deep Blue Sea? Transformers? High-craft fare. I expected nothing less."
"Movie night, Elijah? I'll give you cornrows."
He ignored her.
"As we are here," the Original said after a few minutes, still pushing the blue cart over the rubber tiles, "I think it is time to address our, ah, interaction together and subsequent attack in the club." His voice was annoyingly smooth and dispassionate.
"Oh. That." She peeked at him from under her hair, actually feeling slightly remorseful. "I didn't have a choice. I needed to keep you in the same place, so people would know where I was. So I danced with you," Maria said vaguely. "You know."
"And the seduction. That was always part of the plan?"
"No!" Gosh, this was uncomfortable. "I was just planning to dance with you. And then, I was like tongue? Ear? Why not? It was the music. It was a really good song. I usually don't do that."
He gave her a bemused look. "So you don't regularly seduce men and have them knocked unconscious? What was this spell anyway?"
"Ack. I don't even know. It's my friend's specialty. Really unreliable though. She mostly blows things up."
"That unfortunate predilection would preclude her from being on my payroll, I confess."
"Wow. That's going to destroy her if she finds out."
"And the bartender? Was he involved? When I tried to question him, the man had conveniently disappeared."
"No, he wasn't. I just needed the liquid courage. Though I normally hate beer, I'm more of a tequila girl," she offered.
"Shocking," he said drily. "Let's go now to buy you some clothes."
Maria looked mournfully at her dress. It was so pretty, and he was probably going to force her to burn it…
The clothing section was horrid. Sure, everything was good and cheap enough, but Elijah took it upon himself to decide on what she had to buy.
Jeans that were sizes too big, large T-shirts in primary colors, a few grungy sweaters, and some disastrous pajama pants.
"How about this set? This one has cats. Do you like them?"
"You're purposefully dressing me like a dork! I feel like I'm in reverse Pretty Woman."
And the underwear was moderately cute, ruffly and girly and such, but Elijah, Evil Overlord, forced her to buy the packs.
"Whatever, I'll buy four of them so I don't have to wash any underwear on the trip." "Good planning," he said encouragingly. "Remember: Save money. Live better."
Remember to run in the other direction when Elijah starts smiling at you. It can mean nothing good, Maria thought morosely. He was good at getting revenge.
He let her choose the DVD player, some paperback books, magazines, toiletries and just because she felt like it, a tiny planted fern.
"We should leave now."
"I have to get more food."
"Your idea of food supplies appalls me."
Maria had already thrown in candy at every opportunity. "Don't care."
They settled on Twizzlers, Doritos, Pringles, Red and Orange Gatorade, Cliff Bars, every flavor imaginable, and the Tater Tots, at her insistence. Elijah threw in some vitamins for good measure.
"Given of what I'm seeing of your normal diet, I would think you might be in some need of this."
"Har. Har."
They finally made it to the checkout, patiently waiting behind a long line of shoppers.
Elijah examined the nutrition contents of her wonderful food. "These… Twizzlers you have chosen have an ingredient called sulfur dioxide. That cannot be healthful."
"Mmmmmm. Delish." She batted her eyes at him.
"And if I may ask, what is your age?"
"Old enough," she said lightly. "Seventeen since yesterday."
After a concerned look, he actually had the decency to laugh. "And I am a boy of fifteen."
But when going out to his swank rented car, Elijah gave her one of those distrustful looks and said, "You understand I still cannot trust you at all. Most people—whether they are aware of it or not—have their heart patterns disturbed when telling a lie. Much like a lie detector test, I can hear a deviation in their natural rhythm. I consider that my specialty."
A little shaken despite herself, Maria asked, "and mine?"
"Has not changed. Even when you have lied to my face." He leaned closer. "Not one beat."
Later that Night
Forced to stay at a rather pedestrian hotel, in case her allies searched for recent check-ins at luxury accommodations, Elijah spent much of the night sitting by the door, forcing himself not to stare at her. Dinner had been a disaster, of course. He had truly never met a more difficult creature in his life. Could she really help them with Silas? he wondered gloomily. She was a delicate, frilly, fretful girl. Perhaps the seer had predicated wrong.
Maria murmured in her sleep and partially kicked off the sheets. She threw an arm over her head, moved to her side, wrinkling her pajama bottoms.
Even in sleep she would not be still. He gave one final smile. He rather liked the pictures of the cats on the pajamas.