chapter two
"You know my name," he said, sounding like a cat looks with its fur standing on end. He instantly cursed himself for being idiotic, repeating the obvious. But she didn't seem to notice his own internal turmoil, her brow furrowing lightly.
"I've seen your face a lot. In dreams, in crowded places. Your name took longer to come to me. But that doesn't explain why. Who are you?"
His mouth opened and closed several times before he finally decided on, "Look, you and I need to talk. Somewhere--" he glanced around, taking into account all the faces turned toward the scene they were making, staring shamelessly, "--else. What would you say to me buying you dinner?"
"I'd say you're definitely forward."
"Consider yourself a special case, sweetheart. So is that a yes or no?"
She looked for all the world like she was going to tell him to go jump off a cliff, but her nose finally scrunched as if she had caught a whiff of something distasteful, and she said warily, "Okay."
"Good. That's settled. C'mon." He reached for her hand, then broke off the motion abruptly. Skin to skin contact, he chided himself. We wouldn't want her to have a panic attack in front all these nice people, now, would we? They're liable to stake you. Carefully, he pulled the sleeve of his sweater over his fingers before taking hold of her wrist--it was the middle of summer, but the cold or heat meant little to a vampire, and he thought he looked rather dashing in this particular piece of clothing. The only temperature that had ever mattered to him was the warmth of a fire.
She must have unconsciously sensed the tail end of his thought because she dug her heels in determinedly and wrenched her arm away. Taking advantage of his moment of stunned inaction, she seized his arm, drawing the fabric of his sleeve reverently back from his flesh. "Ash," she breathed, and something about the way she spoke to him, the way she looked at him had changed tremendously. Like he was no longer a stranger.
Vampire tissue has a remarkable capacity for healing. There was nothing on the exterior that would have suggested there had ever been ugly burns across the entire exposed surface, but she seemed to know instinctively where each one had been, her fingers disturbing the air mere millimeters above his arm as she traced the shapes they had once taken. Then she touched him, and it was something like a power line exploding.
Collision. They were jarred instantly and almost painfully together. Stunning pink fireworks in his mind heralded their reunion.
I know you, her stray thought was a whisper in his head.
Mary-Lynnette, he answered her.
She stiffened, and he felt her flinching from him, jerking her hand away. Shaken was the best way to describe her expression, surprised, maybe even traumatized, and certainly and understandably distressed. He had a suspicion he appeared very much the same to her.
"Marianne. My name's Marianne."
Oh. "Oh." He shook his shoulders, smoothing his composure back into place. "Yeah. Well, Marianne, are you coming?"
He braced himself for a flood of demands about what had just happen, but instead she said, "Cindy. I've got to call Cindy."
"Cindy?" He got the impression that she was casting around for any excuse to escape him, and that was unthinkable. Now that he had her in sight again, he wasn't sure if he could remember how to breathe, how to be without her.
"Yeah, Cindy's my aunt, and she's been taking caring of me since I was little. She'll want to know where I am."
"There's a phone you can use back at the place I'm staying. We can pick up some carry-out on the way, and you can call Cindy from there." He didn't mention he had a perfectly functional cell phone in his pocket.
She rolled her eyes, and he could have sworn she relaxed minutely. "I can just imagine that conversation. 'Hey, Cind, I just met this handsome bloodsucker on the way home from work today, and he invited me to dinner! We're going to hang out at his place for a few hours, so do you think you can waive curfew just this once?'"
There was no suppressing his reaction; he raised his eyebrows and smiled lazily at her. "'Handsome'?"
She flushed brilliantly, coloring all the way to the tips of her ears. "Pig," she admonished him.
It was so like…herself. He smirked, and his hand fluttered dramatically to lie over his heart. "Point," he conceded in a poor imitation of a fencer.
Their eyes met and both their burgeoning smiles flickered out as electricity surged between them. Slamming down his defenses, Ash turned his back on her and began once again weaving through the throng of people. He called over his shoulder, "Coming?"
"Yes," she panted as she jogged to keep pace with his long strides. Aunt Cindy was completely forgotten. "Wait up."
---
There was pervading sense of unreality to the whole situation. Average, bookish, conservative, and normally cautious, seventeen-year-old high school student Marianne Pierce was not a person given to flights of fancy. But in spite of a life full of well-informed and conscientious choices, one hastily given answer had thoroughly turned the whole world on end and landed her in her current position, seated in the kitchen of a lavish townhouse in Old San Francisco that she had recently discovered belonged to the infamous patron of Circle Daybreak, the Thierry Descourdres, listening to the patient if somewhat stumbling explanations of her undead soulmate from another life. Marianne could barely recognize herself.
Her mind wandered back over the events that had turned a nearly typical day into something extraordinary, and she came to the fairly absurd conclusion that her car had betrayed her. The ancient, ramshackle hunk of junk that Cindy must have bought used in pre-War days should not have been running under any circumstances, but thus far Marianne had treated her only form of transportation with the utmost respect and consideration, and it had treated her in kind. The mystery of it was why it had chosen that day of all days to stall in the parking lot of the local restaurant where she worked summers as a waitress, and the fact that its long-expected demise had led her directly to Ash seemed too great of a coincidence to disregard absolutely.
But, no, the car was not entirely to blame. There were her eyes, too. Eyes that had refused to stay focused on her feet during the long walk home, instead persistently clinging to the scenery about her, revealing to her an obviously supernatural creature brooding below her feet in a crater that had been a body of water before her birth. A guilty fascination with the state of affairs that had deposited one clearly unhappy Night Person in the former San Francisco Bay had held her rapt, and fear had kept her legs immobilized when the vampire had unexpectedly climbed the cliff between them and come stalking her way.
Her instinct about his species could have been easily attributed to her familiarity with the telltale otherworldly beauty and innate grace of the non-human races--there was a shapeshifter in her English class, two lamia in World History, a werewolf in art, and at least a dozen more she had seen in passing in the halls--but the reason she didn't want to admit to herself was that his face had been a fixture in the disturbingly realistic dreams which had been recurring since before she turned fourteen. It had been two years since she had first heard herself call him 'Ash' and less than a year since a slim nymph who played a brief, one-time part in her dreams had dubbed him with the last name 'Redfern,' but it was not until that moment as she recognized the figure rapidly approaching her--blond hair to suit his namesake, long lanky frame, strikingly handsome, that arrogant swagger, the barely concealed power in each step--that she ever considered him anything more than a figment of her imagination, created to entertain that remote, outnumbered part of herself that yearned secretly for adventure. Acknowledgement of his actual existence twisted the breath out of her throat with a combination of elation and dread, effectually preventing her from fleeing long enough for him to reach her.
And then through everything else, she discovered she was angry with him. Furious, actually. Because he had hijacked nearly every one of her nights, creeping uninvited into her private thoughts, because he had taken so long to show himself, because he hadn't stayed away quite long enough. Because he was Ash Redfern, and there wasn't supposed to be any such thing. Her hands had clenched at her sides. Rage gave her the courage to speak to him.
She could have told him no when he asked her to dinner, but it would have been self-defeating and contrary to dismiss the one man who happened to have the answers she had only now learned she so desperately needed. Besides, she got the sense that he was challenging her, questioning her courage, and she didn't want to admit that he knew more about her than she did about him. She should have told him to get lost after the strange incident in the street, when a brief flash of wisdom that wasn't exactly hers had prompted her to touch him, and she'd nearly fried her nerves. It was frightening how fast everything had gotten out of control between them, and it appeared to be an indication of worse to come. But she'd been mesmerized by the brief glimpse of something unbelievably vast and beautiful and right, by the undeniable awareness him, Ash Redfern, far beyond anything a five-minute conversation could give her. It was remarkably effortless to give in to him, blithely discarding the anger that she had clutched at for the nerve to speak when he smiled heartbreakingly at her; it wasn't like he was deliberately disturbing her sleep, anyway.
The Chinese food he had picked up for her at some dubious hole-in-the-wall place was sticking unpleasantly to her ribs while she chased the remaining contents of the stryofoam container with a plastic fork. Across the table from her, Ash was fiddling nervously with his fingers on the oaken surface as he brought to a close his nearly hour-long discourse on her past life as Mary-Lynnette Carter. She caught herself studying him clandestinely from beneath her lashes for the umpteenth time that evening, taking in the fatuous smirk that hovered perpetually around the corners of his lips, the mischievous, slanted eyes, inspecting them with interest as they shifted colors, unfathomable obsidian to midnight blue to a warm amber that reminded her distantly of melted butter. He didn't look any older than twenty-one, but if the account he was relating to her was to be trusted, he was at least twice that.
You're just as crazy as he is if you believe anything coming out of his mouth, her cynical side reproached her straying thoughts.
He's crazy. You're crazy, another, even less helpful voice added sanguinely. You're meant for each other.
Shut up, she commanded both of them. I'm only crazy for talking to myself.
"Mare?" The unfamiliar nickname drew her attention back to the vampire, the intimacy it implied making her distinctly uncomfortable. Just at that moment, his eyes were a vivid jade, and they were focused apprehensively on her face. " Do you, um, have any questions?"
She rummaged frantically through her recollection of his words for something real she could grasp, something she could understand. "I died?" she asked at last, an unfortunate squeak in her voice betraying her.
Shame flamed in his expression, hastily suppressed. "I'm sorry," he muttered, sounding a far cry from his usual smug self.
"And now I'm sort of an Old Soul?"
"Well, I wouldn't say 'old' exactly. It's only your second time around, so to speak. You're more like a Middle-Aged Soul, or a Teenage Soul. An Adolescent Soul. When you get to be Hannah's age, then we'll talk about old."
"Hannah?" A fleeting quiver around his mouth, the slightest of grimaces, told her that she had failed some unspoken test.
"She's an old friend of mine. I'll take you out to Las Vegas sometime to see her. She'd love to meet you."
Already he was making assumptions about their relationship, planning someday trips to introduce her into his world, and that stirred an acute upsurge of panic in her. She was barely seventeen, not ready for a soulmate of any kind, much less a vampire one with a indolent smile who was still in love with a version of herself she couldn't even recall.
"Look, Ash, there's a lot here that you're expecting me to take on faith alone, and I just don't have that faith to give. I mean, number one, I barely even know you. Two, I don't believe in reincarnation, or whatever. And three…three…" Three had suddenly gone out of her head under the intensity of his gaze, but she was certain it was something important. She felt keenly that she was in danger of losing herself in him again, surrendering to his will. "I need to go home. Now."
"Don't!" His outburst was sudden and startling.
"What?"
"I mean, please. Please, don't leave. There's plenty of room here; you can stay the night."
She narrowed her eyes at him. Her line of questioning was making him squirm, which made her all the more intent of continuing it. "Why?"
"Honestly, because it's been a long day." He wilted in his chair, every lanky appendage becoming artfully limp, radiating weariness. "A long week, even. I'm dead-tired, and I need a shower." He motioned, indicating the light brown smudges of dirt across his face and clothing. "I'm really not all that motivated to drive you home right now."
A twang of something invisible in the air between them made it unmistakably clear that he was lying to her. "Really," she insisted, "why do you want me to stay?"
The lines around his mouth deepened into a scowl, defensiveness flickering instantly to the surface. "Forget it. It was a stupid idea, and I'm not really all that tired, anyway. I'll go get the car." He started up out of his chair.
She did everything she could short of touching him to convince him to sit back down. "Ash, after everything I've been through today I deserve better than to be lied to. What is it that you can't tell me?"
Something feral and deadly passed swiftly through his eyes, a light glittering on and off again in the distance. She knew at once that she had goaded him past some limit by prodding at this sensitive area, and a tremor of alarm ran through her muscles.
"Fine," he snapped. "You want to know the truth? The truth is, that for some insane reason, I missed you. You. Irritating, frustrating, irksome, argumentative, you. And if you leave me again--" He sputtered over the words, his eyes sinking to the tabletop, his voice abruptly dropping until she could barely hear him. "If you leave, I don't know how I'm going to make it through the night."
It was unsettling to see him so quickly stripped raw before her. She had an astonishing and overpowering desire to throw her arms around him and shelter him from the world. No one's well being, no one's life had ever depended on her before, and it was immense burden to undertake. She thought that if Cindy had been there to see Ash, she would have understood her niece's decision. "All right, I'll stay."
His eyes swung back to her face, staring at her piercingly. They were a misty gray now, like trying to peer into a fog. He snarled, an astoundingly feline sound. "I don't need pity, least of all from you."
"It's not pity. I want to stay."
He blinked, anger evaporating. "You what?"
"I want to." She met his gaze, willing him to believe her, and suddenly it was difficult finding enough air in the room to breathe. Everywhere her body touched, everything in her vision shimmered with hazy, static energy. She was falling into him even as he leaned towards her, the ground sliding fluidly away from beneath her seat. She knew with certainty that if she just reached out to touch him, she could complete the circuit, and then they'd be…somewhere else. Somewhere better.
The same thought must have been consuming his mind, because he reached out his hand to her, fingers curling inward as if he was going to stroke her cheek. Only a few more seconds, a few more inches, and he would make contact.
Crazy. Crazy, crazy, crazy, a small, disregarded part of her mind chanted.
"Ash."
"Mary-Lynnette."
In the next instant, his eyes became utterly vacant, like the curtains had been drawn somewhere inside. His hand fell back to his side, out of her field of vision, and he abruptly found something in the middle distance extraordinarily interesting, effectively avoiding her eyes. She gasped for breath, and the found the air exactly where it had always been. Leaning despairingly against the back of her chair, she tried to shake the sensation of being a magnet, lured irresistibly to her polar opposite through some inescapable external attraction.
What had she done wrong? Why had he pulled away from her?
Oh, right. The answer was cold wind, successfully destroying any lingering thoughts of throwing herself into Ash's arms. Her name was Marianne, not Mary-Lynnette.
"You should call your aunt," he said, recovering first. "I'm not in the habit of kidnapping teenage girls, and I have a reputation to maintain. There's a phone on the wall over there that you can use."
The ramifications of her decision were daunting, now that she had a functional mind to consider them with. "What am I supposed to tell her?" she wondered out loud.
Ash shrugged languidly as he rose from his chair, lazy smirk falling back into place. "I dunno. Why not try the truth?" He slunk away, disappearing farther within the house, presumably for that shower he so badly needed.
The truth. The offhanded suggestion stuck with her. She could tell her aunt the truth. The truth was so implausible that Cindy would never believe her; she would most likely jump to the worst conclusion possible, like that she had eloped with some middle-aged biker with skull bones tattooed on his bicep. Cindy wouldn't know where to start looking for her, and nobody would find her until she wanted to be found.
Did she want to be found? The thought startled her so much her finger froze in the middle of dialing the telephone number. Some immense revelation lay just beyond her reach like a tidal wave looming in the distance, promising both uncompromising change and unimaginable rewards. But as she stretched for it, it shrunk back into some hidden part of her conscience.
She forced herself to finish the number, listening expectantly to the ringing of on the other end. Phone call now; think later.
Nine reviews! I'm so thrilled! I never expected that kind of response for this little nagging idea going around my head. Which means I owe each of you a big thanks for the encouragement you gave me: Charlotte, magick-wolf, SpiritofEowyn, name (whoever you are), Lunatic, laura, Aglaia di Willow, Corinna, and incarnated-soul.
Now, just a small request I have for my readers. While I'm not too bad at writing descriptions, I really struggle with dialogue, and I feel that Mary-Lynnette and Ash's relationship has a big base in their conversations, and particularly in their arguments. So, if you catch either one of them saying something completely out of character in this fic, call me on it. Criticism and praise will be accepted with equal gratitude.
Catch you next chapter,
happy accident
