Denial Part 2

Delay is the deadliest form of denial.

C. Northcote Parkinson

xxXxx

It was Haru like Machida had never seen her before. She was older now, like his current body, perhaps twenty years old. She was dressed in a simple white button-up shirt and navy blue skirt that would have gotten her by without a glance in Tokyo, though she may have gotten some strange looks for the old-fashioned boots peeking out from under the hem of the simple skirt. She seemed skinnier than he was used to, but that could have been thanks to a corset, considering the time period. It was the first time he had ever seen her with her hair down instead of a ponytail, though the brush in her hand seemed to say that they had interrupted her in the styling of it. It was as black as onyx, and fell down to her hips instead of short and… how long did Haru have her hair again?

But as quickly as he catalogued all this about Lucy, the plain fact ringing in his head like a church bell was that Haru definitely was going to become a knockout in a few more years.

Lucy's sapphire eyes turned as hard as their namesake as they locked on him. "Lord Holmwood," she said with a certain frostiness in her tone. "You haven't gaped at me like that since you returned from Africa."

Quincy gave him a quick elbow nudge before tipping his hat politely at her. "I'm terribly sorry about this, Miss Westenra, but Art isn't right in his head at the moment. He's convinced that someone will be trying to kill you soon. He begged his father and I to let him warn you."

Lucy sighed tiredly before tapping one boot. "Well, Lord Holmwood? Who would bear me that much of a grudge? Besides you, of course," she added as an afterthought.

That took Machida by surprise. "What, me, no!" he protested, waving his hands in a negative gesture for emphasis. "I'm here to help you, I swear!"

"Then out with it," she replied without batting a beautifully thick eyelash at him.

This was it. Time to change history. Machida drew his new body up with a deep breath for courage.

"All this is going to sound crazy, but I need you to trust me on this. There's a vampire running around named Count Dracula-"

One perfect eyebrow arched. "The same one that the van Helsing family has supposedly been chasing for over a century?"

"They've been on him already? Good," Machida approved with relief, though he didn't remember that detail from the book. "Anyway, he's going to target you and drain you over the period of two weeks until you die and return from the grave." 'Sweet heavens, she'd make a gorgeous vampire!' "I don't know when he's going to find you, but he gets at you while you're sleepwalking at first," he added to keep himself on task.

Lucy huffed in indignation. "I haven't done that in years, but that's fairly easy to counter. Did he have a particular reason for targeting me as a food source?"

"Well, you know how vampires are," Machida said a little evasively, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand out of nerves. "Why drink from an ugly glass when there's a gold chalice available?"

Lucy gave him a long, hard look. She didn't say anything, only glared at him as if she had expected a better response.

"Um, Miss Westenra?" Quincy asked a little hesitantly. "I know it sounds ridiculous, but Art is just trying to keep you safe."

"That's not why I'm bothered," she responded flatly, never taking her jeweled eyes off of Machida. "I am merely remembering in vivid detail when he would have rather had all his teeth drawn than admit that I wasn't an eyesore to him."

Machida flinched, remembering that the only time he had really paid Haru any attention since they started middle school together was when she religiously tried to sneak into homeroom a good ten minutes later than everyone else. He tried to think of the best way to apologize, but all that came from his throat was an uncertain sound.

"So tell me, Lord Holmwood," Lucy invited while adding a special coldness to the formal tone of address. "What makes you so certain that Count Dracula, if he exists, will attack me at all? He's Transylvanian if the myths are to be believed."

Machida froze, knowing how the truth was going to sound to this goddess. Her behavior made it clear that Arthur had offended her, but surely it was something that would pass. They get engaged, don't they?

"Go on, Art," Quincy encouraged sadly. "Tell her what you told your father to allow you to come in the first place."

That perfect eyebrow arched again. "Go on, Lord Holmwood. Shock me."

Well, at least she was willing to hear him out. Machida took in a deep breath.

"The truth is I'm not Arthur. I'm starting to think that I'm his reincarnation in about a hundred years from now."

Both of her eyebrows were raised now.

"My name is Mishuzi Machida, and I know you as Yoshioka Haru," he continued, now looking at her boots and skirt hem so he wouldn't get distracted by her queenly gaze until he was finished. "In the future, there's this book named after Dracula that talks about him, you… us," he offered a little hesitantly. "I got forced to read it for a school report. In the book, that's how you die. I don't know how I switched bodies with the Arthur you knew, but I'm pretty sure that the reason it happened was so that I could warn you to always keep a crucifix on hand and eat a lot of garlic, as well as making sure that you have a way to keep yourself from sleepwalking. You were lost because no one wanted to believe in the supernatural until it was too late. You were gone far too soon, and your death was what spurred everyone else into hunting that vampire down until we got him. Dracula had moved on to Mina after your death, and Quincy, van Helsing and I along with others were doing everything in our power to keep her from following you past the grave. For Pete's sake, Lucy! I wind up staking you after you turn into a vampire! Don't make me do that!" he begged, the weight of how much he had to lose finally coming down on him, even if it was going to be Arthur's burden instead of his own.

"… My. That is a gruesome tale," Lucy responded carefully after a long awkward moment of her careful contemplation. "You won't object to me obtaining more details, will you?"

"No," Machida answered with relief that she was taking him seriously after all.

"You say you're from the twentieth century?"

"Twenty-first," he corrected, looking up at her with a nervous smile. "Fairly early into it."

Her face was strangely calm and unreadable. "Did any evidence ever come to light about Count Dracula's existence?"

"Yes," he confirmed. "He runs a hotel in Transylvania and he's got a daughter and grandson. You as Haru can't stop gushing about how adorable his grandson is."

That perfect eyebrow arched again. "But you just indicated that you as Arthur didn't rest until you 'got him'."

Machida flinched. "Okay, I'll admit that one of your favorite things to rant about in the future are all the plot holes in the book, but the fact that you are real, and are probably dead by the time the book is published says that at least part of the book happened, and that you died young."

Lucy hummed thoughtfully. "A hotel, you say? Are humans allowed?"

Machida nodded without thinking. "Just for the past eight years or so, when monsters came out of hiding."

There was an immediate snapping branch from the side of the house bordering the woods.

Quincy immediately reached for a gun on his belt that Machida hadn't noticed before.

"Oh, put that away," Lucy scolded with disgust. "The handful of times that sound doesn't come from a deer, it's a fox, sometimes a racoon. It's a rather annoying price to pay for living this close to the woods, but I've wasted enough sleep checking such sounds in the middle of the night. Now, back to that hotel, Dracula allows humans to come and go as they please?"

"… I guess so," Machida confirmed uncomfortably. "I occasionally hear about you-I mean, you as Haru- and your mother getting frustrated because her boss won't give her enough time to come to the hotel."

Now both of those perfect eyebrows were raised again. "My mother?" she asked in surprise. "It's all she could do to force herself to scare me into obedience with monster stories when I was a child!"

The trapped teenager raised his hands helplessly. "Then something happened in the future that didn't happen now, because she loves ripping that book apart even more than you do."

Lucy was shaking her head slowly with surprise. "My mother. Holding down a job instead of living off my father's inheritance? I'm sorry, Arthur, but that doesn't wash. Even with a maid to do most of the heavy work, she'd sooner die than sully her hands with a career."

"Look, I don't know!" Machida yelled. "I've never met her! I just hear rumors at school, and your dad… I don't think he's been around in years, I never hear talk about him. Your mother had to work, but that's not the issue right now."

"For once, you're right," she agreed, shaking her head to clear it and accidentally sending her long jet-black hair shimmering in waves like a flowing river over her back and shoulders. "The humans that enter this hotel, are they ever harmed?"

Machida stared at her blankly.

"Oh, come now!" she snapped while tapping her foot at him. "You mean to tell me that the most famous vampire on the planet opened his hotel to humans, and the police don't bother to check guests for bite marks after they leave?"

Machida didn't really think about that. "I, uh, erm… I didn't research him before switching bodies, okay? That's your thing! Haru could probably tell me everything down to his favorite blood type, but I don't know!"

Lucy glared at him. "If his hotel has been open to humans for years, the police would be checking the humans to be sure they aren't being fed on. If they weren't harmed in any fashion, that means that Count Dracula has an alternative food source and is only after what any other hotel manager is after; the money and comfort of his guests. That doesn't sound like a ruthless killer to me."

"He's a vampire!" Machida protested helplessly.

"And you are an idiot!" she snapped while suddenly brandishing the brush she was still holding like a weapon. "I'm going to be honest with you, Lord Holmwood, I don't completely believe this interesting story of yours, and it more or less doesn't matter if I did."

That made Quincy choke in shock. "Miss Westenra, I should think that whether or not monsters exist should mean a great deal, indeed."

"Then you weren't listening to the words that came out of your own friend's mouth," she grated at him, enough to even make that 'fearless' adventurer take a nervous step back. "If he merely hit his head in the middle of the night or was driven insane by last week, some soup and bedrest will set him straight again. If he's right and monsters are real, then it just means this world has a few more layers than I originally thought."

Neither of the men standing on her doorstep were able to reply to that. Machida tried to ask how she could be so calm about it, even though he knew that Haru was one of the people that had been most excited when monsters came out of hiding.

"I should have studied to be a schoolmistress," Lucy growled, now almost using that hairbrush as a baton to emphasize her point. "If monsters exist," she stated slowly and clearly, as if speaking to simpletons, ", then they have powers humans don't. We could try to keep up with brute force and technology, but if monsters were interested in power or anything like unto it, they would at least try to assert dominance over the human race. We would fight back, naturally, but it would be a noisy enough war that everyone would know that it was going on."

Machida blinked. 'Come to think of it, why haven't the monsters ever risen against us? That would have been in at least one history book.'

Lucy kept talking after a minute to let that sink in. "Monsters would have their powers and likely a long list of superior advantages, humans will have technology, brawn and numbers. Regardless of who would win, there would be severe casualties on both sides. What would really stop the monsters if they wanted to take control of entire countries, especially in this day and age of cynicism, as you pointed out earlier? I can think of a dozen ways to use that to a monster's advantage, and I'm not the one with the wisdom of the ages."

Then she leveled that brush like a sword between Machida's eyes. "But by your own words, Count Dracula is perfectly content with managing his hotel and doting on his family in your own time. Who's to say that the other monsters aren't content with just living their own lives? We humans hate each other for petty reasons like skin color, opinions and religion. Why did it never occur to you that if monsters are taking such pains to let humans think they don't exist, it's because they want to be left alone?"

Then she took in a long, slow breath. "The most heartening thing you've said all morning is that a day will come when monsters can be out and about without drawing a mob."

"That depends on your definition of 'mob'," Machida muttered under his breath, remembering that Haru's mother had a very open crush on the famous vampire. He knew for a fact that the woman wasn't the only fangirl Dracula had.

"The point still stands. If that's not enough to convince you that your precious book is nothing but garbage, did it say that I accepted your proposal?" Lucy demanded with a glare.

"… You didn't?!" he gasped, only now realizing what his current 'father and best friend' had been dropping hints about before allowing him to warn the one he wanted to marry.

"No! And since you're in such a forgetful frame of mind today, I'll explain myself again," she snarled, using the brush to poke him in the chest to drive him backward down the path as Quincy worriedly followed them. "It hurt every time after a dance, when you would boast about dancing with every pretty girl in attendance, and I was never on that list."

Machida winced. "Okay, so I missed one-"

"Every! Single! Dance!" she yelled for emphasis, poking him with the brush a little harder to force his backward retreat. "Since we were both fourteen! You never even recognized me as a girl until after you came back from Africa for two years and found out that I'm a late bloomer! All you had to do was share one dance, or even one talk with me years ago, and I would have happily given up on you and saved myself all those wasted years of pining!"

"Wait, wasted?" Machida asked while nearly tripping over one cobblestone that was sticking up a little more than its brethren.

Lucy was fuming worse than ever before. "You are dead boring, Arthur! The handful of times I let you take me for a walk after getting back from Africa, I had to pinch myself when you weren't looking to keep from falling asleep! And you scold me for having a heart!"

"I what? I don't understand," the confused boy protested, making it past the archway and trying to retreat to the far side of the car so that she would stop jabbing him with that harsh brush.

"Oh, that's right!" the beautiful woman scoffed while glaring and walking slowly around the car to try to keep up the torment. "You didn't believe or refused to listen to all those rumors about me being willing to sacrifice my silk dress for a drowning child, or ruining my hair helping someone or something down from a tree, or any other ridiculous emergencies that happen when I'm around to do something about it. A lord's wife needs to be more controlled than to rush off every time something odd happens. I have no interest in signing up to be scolded for the rest of my life for having a personality or signing up to catch you with the upstairs maid as soon as my looks start fading. Your father put it best; I am too wild for you."

That hit Machida like a ton of bricks. Haru? Plain, bland, 'being late for school is my defining trait' Haru… wild?! That was why he wouldn't look at her!

"If this monster tale is your way of proving me wrong and convincing me to stay, it backfired," she informed him coldly. "You've proven that you're a bigot that wouldn't know how to draw conclusions from facts even when they're spilling from your own mouth! Go back to your precious dogs and save your 'affections' for someone you like for more than their appearance."

"But Haru-" he protested, but got the hairbrush thrown right at his nose for the trouble. "Ow!" he cried out, holding both hands to his face and already feeling the warm trickle of blood pouring out of his nostrils. The impact made him take several steps back as his eyes watered painfully.

"If I am Haru later, then I'm Haru later! For now, I am Lucy, and I reject you and your close-minded beliefs!" She gave him a withering look while retrieving the brush. "I wasn't good enough for you as an 'ugly duckling'. But as a 'swan', you're the one that's not good enough for me anymore. You waited too long, which made me a little too used to a life without you. I'll hold out for someone that's at least going to prove to be worth the wait. Now leave."

"Use your handkerchief, Art," Quincy urged, pulling a plain but serviceable bit of cloth from Machida's pocket before balling it up and pressing it against his nose. "Hold it like that. Thank you for your time, Miss Westenra," he apologized while herding his friend into the passenger side of the car before winding the motor up again.

For Quincy, she was able to manage a tight smile. "Please convey my apologies to his father. I didn't think I'd need to give him that speech twice." With that, she turned on her heel and walked through the archway once more.

"I'll take the necessary precautions since you did try to warn me, Arthur," she informed him over her shoulder with a cold look. "But only because of how dear you once were to me." Then her head suddenly turned a little bit more, noticing a single old woman hobbling from the forest. "What are you doing this far out of town, Grandmother?" Lucy asked, losing all of her bad humor as she carefully walked through the flower garden and to the short stone wall that was closest to the old woman. Lucy casually sat on that wall in order to pivot her skirt-covered legs to the other side of it to approach the beggar. "I don't recall seeing you here before," she continued in a gentle, conversational tone that was the complete opposite of what she used for 'Arthur'.

"I got lost from my friends. I'm so thirsty," a crackling voice nearly wept, making Lucy lean down and set a professional hand on the brow hidden by a black shawl with magenta flowers.

"You're as cold as death, Grandmother. I have some water boiling for tea in my house; why don't you come in for a cup and a bit of rest?" the goddess asked with real concern. "If we get lucky, your friends will catch up and at least ask if I've seen you."

"That sounds lovely, dear," the old woman cooed, keeping a hand covered with the shawl as it braced against Lucy's arm so that she could slowly escort the old beggar woman to the stone archway.

"That," Quincy stated sadly as he sat and turned the car around to head back to Arthur's home.

"That what?" Machida asked nasally around the handkerchief.

"That is why I deeply regret not courting her before you did. If we weren't such good friends, I'd have tried anyway." He sighed as they headed back up the road. "Do yourself a favor, Arthur. If you aren't crazy and somehow make it back to the twenty-first century, don't make her wait that long again. She's too good to grow sour on love."

Machida nodded while carefully keeping the cloth to his bleeding nose, but not before something caught his eye, making him sharply turn around to stare at the back end of Lucy's cottage.

There was a group of shawled women clustered between the house and forest, but all the boy could see was that one of them in particular was glaring straight at him with glowing green eyes and undisguised hatred.

That one… had a cat's face…