Not all that much goes on in this chapter except for even more tension growing but I swear, it'll get interesting really quickly after this. Hopefully you'll be able to tell where in movie time the story is. On a different note, be sure to check out my interview with Jamison Newlander (Alan Frog). The link is in my profile. You might be able to help sway what we get for a third movie! Also, my fanfiction now has a companion site so I can flesh out the characters a little more. David and Paul have already made appearances. This should get . . . interesting. That link's also in the profile.
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"Where are yoooooouuuuuuuuuuu going?" Paul stretched to Dwayne as he made to climb up the entranceway.
He stole a quick glance behind him to see that Paul was trying to balance a joint on the tip of his nose. Dwayne merely shook his head.
"Out."
"With Mariaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?" he stretched the vowel again as his own breath puffed the joint up and into the crevices of the couch.
Detta noticed that Dwayne didn't even bother to turn around as he made his way into the tunnel, shaking his head at his blood brother's nonsense. They hadn't been back long. Marko came to pick up Detta at her home on his way back from taunting the new kid, Michael, his name turned out to be. She figured their goal was to get him to question his sanity because they knew full well what was happening to him at this point. What's another insult to the injury, right? Detta refused to take part, even at Marko's behest that it would help to let off steam. She said she'd let it off on him later, and she fully intended to stick to her word.
Star remained distant, and understandably so. It turned out she tried to warn Michael about the bottle, outright told him it was blood. Thankfully for the rest of the group he had his pride to protect and thought Star was joking. His drinking, though, didn't stop Star from receiving a punishment, the greening bruises of which she kept hidden under her dainty shawl. She hadn't moved much beyond her cubby hole since she'd woken except to wander over to Laddie's and sit in its frame, huddled within herself and occasionally peering out into the main lobby.
Thanks to Michael's drink, they were free to roam around inside his head although all but Star decided to keep that door shut. Detta watched as the gypsy's eyes glazed over, losing herself in thought, more than likely not her own. It was a knack she seemingly mastered over day but Star had been blocking them out since night came. They were all sure that if they tried, they could penetrate her defenses but there was no reason to. Not yet. Tonight, for once, her thoughts were her own and no one cared enough to deny her that.
Tinkling metal and expletives rolled out of Marko's back tunnel yet again as Detta waited for him, wondering what all the commotion was about. It sounded like he was looking for something, and frustratingly so, but whatever it was was just nowhere to be found. Moments later Marko came bounding out, throwing his jacket haphazardly onto his arms as he approached Detta. While seemingly mumbling to himself, he grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her towards the cave entrance.
"Remember Max's at four," Detta heard David's voice reverberate over the stone to her ears.
Marko threw up a hand in acknowledgement but soldiered onward. Detta looked over her shoulder to see David standing next to the couch Paul was lying on, staring after them with a blank expression on his face. Yet again he was unreadable. He raised his eyebrows slightly when she caught his eye, his mouth slightly agape but the look still meant nothing. It was as empty as the nonsignals he was sending her.
"Fucking kid," Marko bellowed into the roaring night once they reached the top of the stairs.
"Laddie?" Detta asked, skipping steps just to keep up with him.
"The kid is a god damn crow. If it's shiny, he's attracted to it."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Detta managed as she grabbed a hold of his shoulder, spinning him around to face her just before he reached his bike.
"My patches. The twerp's been stealing my patches," Marko said, throwing out the front of his jacket for emphasis. "He's gotta be doing it while I'm gone. It's the only way."
"He's ten."
"He should know better! I didn't sign on for some kid to get grabby with my stuff."
"C'mon. Can you blame him? He's young, in anyone's standards, and stuck at home most of the time. I'm surprised he hasn't burrowed up under city hall yet. Besides, it's not like they can't be replaced."
"That's not the point," Marko stated harshly, slamming his hand down onto the handlebar for emphasis. "The little shit obviously had parents that failed."
"The whole runaway part didn't sound any bells before this?"
Ignoring her wiseass comment, Marko continued his bitch. "He should know about rules and personal space and privacy. I knew them. Why can't he?"
"Oh yes," Detta mocked, climbing onto the bike behind Marko. "Marko the precious, leather-clad prince of Chicago. He never did nothin' to no one," she taunted in her half-cocked Italian accent.
He turned to her, his eyes scolding over his shoulder as if she'd been caught with spitwads. "You think this is funny?"
"I think you should give him a break. Even the most stately little boy would bounce off the walls if cooped up any place for too long. Tack on the whole vampire thing and I'm surprised he's not Spiderman. You can't expect him to sit in the fountain and remain invisible. At the same time you can't duct tape him to a chair."
Marko arched his eyebrow. "Why not?"
She nudged him with her shoulder and he finally cracked a smile. "Besides, you never had a problem with Paul and he's a dowsing rod for shiny things."
"He has an excuse. He's a pothead."
Marko kicked the bike to life and it roared between their legs, adding a quake to their voices and only adding to the background noise of persistent breaking waves.
"And ten isn't? If Paul smoked him up, would it be OK then?"
Marko thought on it for a moment, puckering his lips to feign the look of concentration, even going to far as to scratch his chin in thought.
"I might be able to let it slide if he was high."
"You know what? I don't think that's too far off considering how often Paul bakes out the cave."
xXx
"Has the deja vu kicked in yet, Max?" David asked snidely as he lounged in one of Max's armchairs, his legs draped over the side with a cigarette in one hand, flicking ash onto the carpet.
Max's eyes narrowed when he saw the small pile of soot collecting on his pristine rug. "Must you?"
David did nothing more than take a drag and return his arm to its dangle above the slowly forming mountain of cigarette debris. "Relationship's starting off a little rocky, don't you think? Some'd call it a sign."
"Dude, Mama ran out on you on the first date. Never a good thing. Did you get a little tickle at least?" Paul chirped in, oblivious to the daggers thrusting out of Max's eyes.
At this point the stoner was physically incapable of being purposely mean-spirited, having figured out earlier how to fashion a conch shell and a piece of candelabra into a functioning bong.
"I-I-," Max stumbled. "Must you let him near the marijuana before you bring him here?"
His look of loss and confusion fell on David, Max's bough of an arm pointing in Paul's direction, as if David needed another look. The blonde biker merely continued to suck smoke from his cigarette, adding yet even more ash to the ever-growing pile, much to Max's chagrin.
"Right now," he replied, curls of smoke rolling out over his tongue, "I could go for some too. It would take the edge off the Brady bunch blade you have up against our necks."
Fed up with David's burning cancer stick, Max marched up to the prone vampire, yanked away the cigarette that rested precariously on his lips, and clamped the end with his fingers. Gently placing the stick on the glass table so it wouldn't roll and further dirty the carpet, Max reached into an interior pocket in his smoking jacket and retrieved a box of matches. The quick scent of sulfur flicked into the air when Max struck one before he touched the flame to a wick on a cream-colored candle.
"Tell me it's scented."
Waving the match out, Max snapped his head towards Dwayne only to see an eyebrow cocked in his general direction and a look of contempt meant only for him. Max walked back to his original position on the far side of the room, his perch that allowed him to see the faces of all of his vampire children at once.
He sighed a labored sigh, one a man exhausted with his circumstances would emit, before he opened his mouth to speak.
"You boys just keep--"
The rumble of a throat clearing cut off Max's words. His jaw tightened as his hand clenched even harder on his box of restaurant matches when he looked towards Detta. Her face was flexed in an expectant look, expecting Max, at the very least, to correct himself.
"You boys," Max said, putting particular emphasis on 'boys' just to elicit a defeated arm flail-turn-scoff from Detta. "Just keep doing what you're doing. The hard part's over--"
"Ha!" David's laugh was dripping with disdain and contempt for his undead father. "Just shows how much you know." He righted himself in the chair and slouched, resting an arm on the rest and positioning a finger at his temple.
"He hasn't killed yet, Max," Marko's voice echoed David's sympathies. "We're still on edge until he does."
Detta could hear Max's teeth grinding together due to his boys' impertinence. Whatever happened last time was obviously coming back to haunt the children while it seemed to be nothing more than a housefly buzzing around Max's head. It appeared to her that he wanted what he wanted regardless of how anyone else felt and Detta had just better stay out of the way and let the men handle it. To think that she couldn't handle what it was that they were doing, to think that Paul was more qualified than she was to help the rest soldier through the mission. At least she did more productive things with her immortality than ponder ways in which to turn a surf board into a hookah.
"Just get Michael to do it." Max punctuated each word with an authoritative thrust of his voice. "Just . . . dangle it in front of him," he added, waving his hand about to brush them off. "He's weak. Give him the scent and he'll cave."
"Yeah, Star's weak too, remember?" Detta finally chimed in, her voice an audible mumble. "Should we just . . . keep dangling with her or just duct tape her face to a neck?"
She could feel pride swelling in her chest but it wasn't hers. A collective, silent salute from Dwayne and Marko, and most surprisingly David, Paul too oblivious to offer much beyond a puddle of drool. Marko's was a little hesitant, slightly fearful but patting her on the back nonetheless. Dwayne's was equivalent to one of his taps on the shoulder or hand on the knee; a subtle sign but coming from Dwayne, a strong one. The positive vibe radiating through her blood from David was the strongest due to the fact that next to nothing was ever mutually positive between the two. Rarely in agreement, even less often civil, it was a foreign entity in her and at first she was frightened and a little taken aback but when she saw his smirk, one that placated her instead of made her cringe, Detta knew he was proud of her retort. For once it wasn't directed at him and now the boys had one more person on their side in the hopes of making Max see the strain he was putting on the group.
Max cocked his head and touched his eyebrow to his hair line. "You're biting back too now? I always knew you were a follower, not a leader." Detta's body stiffened at his remark and the corner of his mouth turned up, seeing that he had shattered her barrier. "Remember, Detta, you keep living with my permission. You should be grateful, not biting the hand that feeds you. The orders are simple. Do as you're told. Do I need to write them down for you?"
Detta's jaw tensed under Max's careful mastication of her pride. Pieces of her wit lay strewn about the floor as her nails dug into her palms and her teeth clamped onto her tongue. The blood that started to seep down her throat reminded her to just keep quiet. She looked to Marko in the chair opposite her and could see his jaw twitch. He needn't look at her to know she was casing his mind. David's cocksure demeanor was gone and Dwayne's face remained stone, unreadable. Paul began to rouse himself from his pot-induced coma thanks, in part, to the growing tension in the room but still wasn't lucid enough to decipher what was happening.
Grateful for the silence in the room and wanting nothing more than to take advantage of the full vampire attention he had, regardless of the death being stared at him, Max spoke.
"I'm having dinner at Lucy's tomorrow night. It'd do you all wise to tread quickly."
"I think you're treading fast enough for all of us. At this rate you'll be married by the end of the week." David couldn't leave the sardonic tone alone but all in the room echoed his thoughts.
"I'll handle my business and you handle yours. Understand?"
"Capische," wafted Pail's voice, cracking his cannabis cocoon.
"Can you get him out of here, please?" Max nodded in Paul's direction, disdain curling itself in his lip.
Dwayne grabbed Paul by the scruff and threw him off the couch before he stood up himself. Detta crossed the room to Marko and he placed his hand on the small of her back to usher her out of the house. As always, they left David momentarily behind.
"Is this what it was like . . . last time?" Detta asked hesitantly as she approached Marko who had already climbed on his bike.
"It's starting to feel like it," he returned before he kick-started the bike. "Let's hope that's as close as the two come to each other." He held steady to her elbow as Detta placed a hand on his shoulder and straddled the bike behind him. "I take it you're coming with me."
Detta looked down to the rumbling bike between her legs and then looked in the direction of her house that lay hidden behind a row of trees.
"You'd think so but I'm really just that lazy."
Marko reached behind him and managed a playful tap to Detta's head for her wiseass remark. When David finally emerged, the motorcycled pack roared to life, not caring for the waking ears around them, and thundered off to their cliffside home.
xXx
"Do you think he's angry?" Detta whispered into Marko's mouth, her breath labored thanks to his nude body on top of hers.
"Probably," he said before he nipped at her lower lip. "But not because he actually is."
She combed her nails along the side of his head, his curls weaving in and out of her fingers. Her brow furrowed at his quizzical answer. The shadows from the candle light flit about his face as the flame remained trapped in his eyes. She tried to search for a clearer answer in his darkened features but came up empty handed. Only when he saw her confusion did he clarify.
"David'll only get angry because he can. He doesn't give a shit who Star fucks, but he's say it's the 'spirit of the situation.'"
"So Michael in Star's bed doesn't bother him but just for shits and giggles she'll get a beating anyway?"
"That sounds about right. Why do you care anyway?" Marko asked as he lazily placed his head on her shoulder, draping himself across her body.
She could feel the sunrise in her bones and her strength was quickly depleting. "About him, I don't." She yawned before she could finish her sentence. "But Star's taking it hard for the sheer hell of it. I feel bad."
Marko grunted. "It sucks," he mumbled into her chest. "But not much you can do about it. Worrying about it won't make it better."
Had she not been a vampire, she probably wouldn't have heard the last few words that leaked out of Marko's groggy mouth but all Detta could do was grunt in return. She was able to rest her hand on the back of his head before sleep finally overtook her and closed yet another vampire's night.
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