Inhuman Heritage (10 page)

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It’d taken me a while of sitting in my apartment, hiding from my best friend, staring at a worm swimming in the bottom of a bottle of Tequila to realize I’d really crossed a line. People-whether human or non-drew lines in the sand for a reason. I was not this person, I did not go round publicly distressing my friends, I was stronger than this. I reiterated this to the worm-who I had fondly named Norbert-thinking that he would understand. After all his life, too, was buried under an incessant pool of liquor.

My phone rang again on the coffee table, Incarra calling for the seventh or eighth hundredth time. I just watched it do its merry jig on the wood, ignoring it and watching the colors of the late afternoon sky through the skylight. They turned brilliant orange, then fresh pink and were closing to deep lilac and purple shades when I got a knock on my front door. Imagining I’d ordered a pizza as I felt a rumble in my stomach, I got up from the floor and walked to answer it. I opened the door and went flying to the floor as arms and hands and in fact whole bodies tackled me. Incarra was riding on my chest trying to pin my upper body as I flailed at her. Anton had very gingerly wrapped his arms around my ankles and was holding them tightly closed trying to keep his eyes from wandering up my dress. I’d changed for my later meeting.

“This is an intervention!” screamed Incarra as I bucked and tried to throw her off me. I screamed in fury at being attacked, in my home and by my friend.

“What the...? Get the hell off of me!”

Anton peered around Incarra.

“Um, we can’t, this is an intervention. It’s for your own good.”

I wailed and made another attempt to throw Incarra off me suddenly aware of what time of day it was.

“No, you can’t be here! You’ve got to go.”

Incarra dug her skinny knees into my sides to hold onto me while she looked back at Anton.

“Didn’t you bring the cuffs?”

“Sure I did but I’m not going to be the one that tries to put them on her. I’m not stupid.”

Incarra snatched at what he was offering to her and brought them into my view. I was looking at a pair of purple fluffy handcuffs, the kind you bought if you were thinking of “experimenting.” I was about to be restrained by fluffy manacles which was not only ridiculous but embarrassing. Incarra climbed up my body so that my face was pressed against her abdomen, silencing all my protests as she secured my wrists into their bindings. The sun set and I shuddered from my fingers down to my toes. Incarra looked around sharply.

“What the hell was that?”

“I think the handcuffs did it for her?” said Anton cracking a cheeky grin. Trust him to be the one to make a joke. Incarra sat back letting me breathe and looked from side to side like she could feel the change in the air as I whimpered beneath her.

“It’s too late,” I mumbled and just to make my night complete, Aram walked out of my bedroom.

Chapter Eight

Aram stared at us and Incarra and Anton stared back. I threw my head back against my now cuffed wrists and mumbled.

“I am fortune’s bitch!”

Aram was dressed as well as ever. Tight leather pants, floppy topped black boots that had to be vampire made because the design was not of this century. He had a white poet shirt on, all billowing with the lacing undone to let his pale flesh peek through. His hair was carefully tousled, his eyes torn between intense and amused. A small smirk quirked his lips.

“I came to see if you were yet recovered pet, and what chaos do I come upon? Both a man and a woman, your new found desire for intoxication makes you so liberal.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Don’t get the wrong idea. Besides, Anton would rather do you than me any day of the week.” Anton gave a slight nod as if to agree with my statement while still being dumbstruck by someone of Aram’s beauty. I used their all-consuming fascination with staring at my ex-boyfriend to push Incarra, my hands still cuffed, off me and onto her butt on the floor. She rubbed it cursing softly.

“Someone should tell you if you really want to restrain someone you cuff their hands behind their back.” I looked down at Anton who let go of my legs without a word from me and scurried back. Aram reached down and lifted me by my elbows to set me to right on my feet. He’d finally settled on being amused whilst stroking the fluff of the cuffs.

“Why did we never think of handcuffs?” I shoved him slightly in the chest and to his surprise he wobbled a step back.

“Don’t get cute, Aram.”

Incarra and Anton exchanged a look mouthing “Aram” to each other and then went back to staring. Anton look suspiciously like he was checking out the rear of my ex vampire honey a little too intently.

“What is the situation here, pet? Have I come in to foil a kidnapping?” I shook my head.

“No, they’re friends. Better than I deserve,” I said mumbling the last bit to myself so that pretty much only Aram’s vampire hearing could pick it up. I held the cuff on my left wrist with my right hand and manipulated my hand till I could pull it free of the loop. I quickly did the other hand as well and tossed the cuffs back to Anton. This was a problem. The sun had set, my friends were now effectively in the other world, I looked out into the corridor-my apartment door was still sitting wide open and I could see the difference. There was also the fact that if Aram stayed there was the entire likelihood that Incarra or Anton might twig that he was a vampire. It was going to take some major bullshitting to get myself out of this and I already felt horrible for how I had treated my friends of late. I was also starting to sober up which I wasn’t ready for. I knew I had to face the truth but I didn’t need to face it tonight on top of this mess.

My land line started ringing. I would have answered it if I hadn’t been greeted by three hard stares. I let the machine get it. I listened to my own voice telling people to leave a message after the beep. Magnus’s smooth timid voice came across loudly.

“Cassandra, I know you’re mad at me about the other night. It’s only temporary but if you would consider trying again, I’ll ask her to move out. I really wish she hadn’t interrupted us because I’ve really missed you. I want to see you again, so please call me.”

I stumbled to find words turning to Aram deluding myself that I needed to explain it wasn’t what it sounded like. Aram was snarling, his fangs were exposed under his curled back lips and his eyes shone with an angry otherworldly light. Anton and Incarra both got wide eyes and crawled towards each other and way from Aram for safety. I looked at Aram and without explanation or ceremony shoved him into my bedroom. I locked the door behind me.

“Aram, calm down. You’re frightening the humans.”

“Calm? You ask me to be calm when I have just heard that! That you were so desperate for a bed partner you returned to the half-breed. Did he bed you?” I didn’t answer him, he didn’t deserve an answer. He grabbed me by my shoulder shaking me harshly.

“Tell me? If he did, his life is forfeit. You were drunk, you smell as if you still are, you are not in your right mind.” I shoved him away from me.

“What the hell are you so angry for? What is it to you?”

“Because I do not share my beloved,” he said grabbing my arm possessively.

I couldn’t stop my arm before it came up and slapped him right across the face. His head turned to the side and I could see an imprint of my hand on his cheek. He blinked a little startled. I was too but I kept on track with my anger.

“Your beloved? Not twenty-four hours ago you turfed me out, dropping me on my butt might I add, in the street. You turned me away when I needed someone. If that’s your bloody idea of love and caring you need some serious re-schooling.”

“So you went to him?”

“No, he came to help me when I was too drunk to be rational. He was worried about me, unlike you!”

“You did not ask me for help? You attempted to seduce my brother and then an underling.”

“What did you want, a big flashing neon sign listing my problems? I thought vampires were masters of the subtle and reading between the lines. Or did you just not think to worry about me?”

“You think that I don’t worry about you?” he said looking sad and offended. “That I do not know that something I have probably done has led to this.”

I blinked at him very tempted to slap him again but I settled for poking him in the chest.

“Do you really think I am this torn up just because of you? Why do you seem to think I am so selfless that my world must revolve around what you do or do not do? Do you not think that maybe, just maybe, I had a problem that was to do with me? Just me and the depth of my own soul that I was struggling with?”

“Pet...”

“Get out!”

“Andra?”

“I mean it, I really mean it. Get out!”

“What are you saying?”

“I...” I was very close to tears. “I revoke your invitation.”

Warm wind whistled past me, Aram was taken away with it out of the balcony door that with a flick of my hand shut and bolted behind him. I sat on the cool floor of my room and cried till my eyes ran dry. I didn’t have time for this; I had Incarra and Anton sitting in my living room no doubt awaiting a plausible explanation. I was abruptly tired of lying to them and decided that the vampire was technically already out of the bag. I needed a drink. So when I opened my bedroom door I was horrified to find Incarra pouring the contents of several liquor bottles down the sink.

“Hey, hey,” I yelled at her. She ignored me and kept pouring till the last drop was gone from all the bottles she’d wrangled from around my living room. I sat down on the floor and sighed. Incarra came to sit down on the couch. We sat there in an awkward silence. Anton broke it with a quibbling voice.

“What’s wrong with your boyfriend’s teeth?”

“They’re prosthetics,” said Incarra. I rubbed my hand over my face.

“They’re really not,” I said sheepishly.

“But that would mean...”

“That Aram is a vampire, yeah it would. Look,” I said to their disbelieving faces, “I’ve got a lot to tell you, please just listen, okay.” I started my story watching their faces every moment as I spoke. The shock, the disbelief, the annoyance and the doubt.

“You can do magic? Real magic?” said Incarra looking much as I had feared she would if I ever confessed my life to her. I was so sick of lying but telling the truth did not feel as good as I would have hoped. “And we’re in another reality.”

“Surprise,” I said throwing my arms into the air. Incarra crossed hers over her chest and gave me a level look.

“Prove it.”

I looked under the couch. Lying on its side where I had knocked it was a half full vodka bottle. I’d just opened a new one because I had been too lazy to reach under and pull it out. I held out my hand and called it to me, it shot to my hand much to Incarra and Anton’s mutual surprise. I uncapped it and took a long swallow. I looked at the clock on the wall above the cooker.

“Damn it, I gotta go, I have a meeting.” I stumbled to my feet brushing off the dress I had put on to be presentable. They stared at me as I put my coat on heading for the door. I spun on my heel and turned back to them.

“Okay, I can’t actually let you leave the apartment, it’s dangerous out there. So stay put.”

“Cassandra, you can’t just…” started to whine Incarra but I was out the door before she could stop me. I locked the door and pressed my hand over the lock, sealing it so that even if they found my spare key they couldn’t use it to get out. It was for their own good. I had to believe that as I took the elevator down.

Chapter Nine

The Worcester werewolf community is like a town within a city. The high brick walls sectioned off their little world from those that would not understand them. It had everything inside the gates that they needed. A supermarket, beauty salon, a bar, even a dentist’s office. If they never wanted to venture out into the larger world, they never had to. The wrought iron gates were large and luminous in the moonlight and whoever was on gate duty was hiding somewhere in the shadows. I wrapped my hands around the bars and rattled them to get attention. The large man that melted out of the darkness I’d seen before, he was tall and bald, hairless muscular arms in a tight white vest and rugged blue washed Levi’s. I wondered how he erupted in fur under the full moon when he had no hair now. I giggled thinking he might look like one of those Sphynx cats, hairless and wrinkled.

“What do you want?”

“Here to see Urquhart, I should be expected.” He reached over flicking on a small light that momentarily blinded me and checked a chart that was hanging next to the gate. He ran his finger down the page and huffed putting it back on its hook.

“Alright,” he said and he opened a small insert in the gate designed for pedestrian traffic. I stepped through and his nose scrunched up as I passed him. “Been out on the town have we?” I rolled my head to him.

“Like I’d waste this dress,” I said opening my coat and flashing him my ensemble. He smirked. The little black dress was indeed little. It hugged my thighs and only shared a passing acquaintance with the top of my boots. I flipped back around knotting the sash of my coat and marched myself towards where Simian lived. He had a large brown brick town house in a row of similar houses away from what I considered the main street where all the shops and offices were. I walked up to the door and took the brass knocker in my hand banging it down hard. The curtains twitched in the living room and I smiled through the little gap that appeared. Simian opened the front door letting me inside. He had his head turned to the living room telling Sophie, who was sitting curled on the couch with a book, that it was just me. Zoe ran at me screaming, as she often did. Zoe was Urquhart’s daughter, she was now four years old and I was her godmother. I squatted to pick her up and swung her around and around. She hugged my face and then leaned back from me pulling a face.