Into Death's Arms (9 page)

       Damn Dayton Tameron anyway.

      I woke up pissed.
I followed the smell of coffee to the
living room.
Only there was a priest sitting in our overstuffed
green
armchair and my dad was giving him coffe
e.

The little grey man blinked up at me. I blinked back. Apparently, we spoke the same language when it came to embarrassment.
I ran back into my room to get dressed.
My p.j.s consisted of a tiny pair of
carebear,
grumpy bear shorts and a light blue tank top.
Also being half naked in front of
the clergy
was
not high on my list of things to do
.

    I shimmied into a pair of low-rise jeans and searched for button up that covered all my
best
parts
. 
It was a search that took me a little bit o
f time. I was raised by a man who
didn’t pay much attention to my wardrobe
. A
s long as they didn’t throw me out of school
,
he was good.
Actually,
my dad had a very liberal
viewpoint
for a parent. If I wanted to dat
e, fine. I wanted sex, whatever. W
e couldn’t get human diseases
,
and an Ao
had a real hard time getting pregnant by anyone but
their significant other. For an AoD
,
that would be his or her AoLi. Therefore, he didn’t have a lot of
the concerns
other
parents did.
That was one of the reasons there were so few of us. Take out one half of the pair and you cripple the other’s ability to breed.
Also
,
drugs weren’t
on my big list of things to do
,
as I knew there we
re monsters
lurking in the dark. You tend not to run into the
judgment-impaired state when you know
one of your hallucinations could possibly eat you
.

     
I brushed my hair and my teeth and c
hecked myse
lf in the mirror.  M
y eyes were wide
and
a little dark around the edges from the whole being strangled by a
Vamp
ire
thing
last night but the green
of my irises
still looked bright.
Okay, I
had to admit the truth to myself. I
t wasn’t
just
being strangled
,
but more that
I didn’t sleep because the gorgeous bloodsucker had bee
n present in most of my dreams. Damn Tameron again
.

    
I’d somehow
managed
to bust my bottom lip last night.
Swollen it
made me look like I’d had
Botox or something. I mean my lips
were way too big to begin with
,
but bruised I had to laugh at myself.
I looked like one of those movie stars the tabloids make fun of. “How much is too much?” I asked my image in the mirror.
Finally, I
made sure I spritzed myself with just a smidge of perfume,
and t
hen I went back into the living room.

     “I understand you
r
viewpoint
Mike
.
I really
do, but the answer is still no,
” my father finished.

     The priest also p
ursed his lips. “She is in grave
danger. It is your duty to see she is protected,” he sighed
,
obviously irritated with my father. A sentiment I could usually get behind. Caden
Reece
was one of the most stubborn men alive
. “Caden
,
what would Iris have wanted?” Whoa? Were they talking about me?
I wasn’t terribly
happy about being left out
,
especially if I was the topic of discussion
.
I made what my father always called my petulant face at the
man’s
back. I realized that in the world of Ao
,
technically I was still a child, but here in the real world
,
I was twenty and more than capable of making decisions on my own.

   
My father glared at the man. Was it okay to glare at priests? I didn’t think so.
“Iris and I discussed this when she was born. I believe you know that.” My da
d took a sip of his coffee. Yup,
they were talking about me.

     “Um, want to let her know what we’re discussing?” I asked
,
plopping myself down on the couch.
I crossed my legs and made myself comfortable
. T
his was going to be interesting.

      Father
Micheal
l
ook
ed at my dad questioningly and D
ad
shrugged
his big shoulders
. “Go ahead, she’ll tell you the same.”
My father and I had a lot in common
including
that unbearable stubborn streak. W
hatever they’d been
discussing,
he was sure I’d take his side.
After
all,
he’d raised me.

   
Father
Micheal
looked at me
with
his
grey
eyes full of hope.
That hope made me twitchy; I wasn’t comfortable with people pinning their hopes on me.
“We want you to come live under the protection of the church.”

   
I was proud of me
.
I managed not to laugh directly in his
serious round
face.
I wanted to ask who
the “
we
”
were
,
but I knew.
It was t
he Ao council
. T
hey all
had Ao blood somewhere in their veins
. I
t enabled them to see the
Shadow-born
. It’s hard to be able to see the truth and not try to do something about it.

     
I put on my most serene face and said with all the respect I could muster.
“I really appreciat
e the invitation, but no thanks,
” I
re-
crossed my legs.
They’d gone
numb.

      
Micheal
frowned
. I
t looked like he had about six frowns. He looked very priestly in his disappointment with me. I felt like confessing
,
a
nd I hadn’t done anything wrong. W
ell nothing worth confessing. Did naughty dreams about evil bloodsuckers count as sins of the flesh?
I sure hoped not. H
ow would I confess that? 
“I don’t think you un
derstand,” he said like I was a five-year-old child.
“
Now that the
Shadow-born
have exposed themselves the Ao
,
especially the uninitiated Ao
,
are in severe danger.”  Duh, I thought
, weren’t
we always in danger? I mean there
were monsters killing us in our sleep while we were still weak
. It
was kind of their forte
.
Did he think I was stupid
?
Well obviously, but
I mean really
,
I lived with the AoD of San Francisco
,
he didn’t think I knew it was dangerous?
We were so few in number usualy there was only one AoD per city. Some major cities didn’t even merit one depending on their Shadowborn population. I knew Tokyo had two but there was only one more AoD on the entire island.

     
This
time I did laugh.
“Yeah
F
ather,” I hesitated, “
Mike
is it?
”
I couldn’t
quite
believe his name was so undignified but
he nodded enthusiastically
so I guessed it was
. “I am a little smarter than that. I happen to know that in the last fifteen years
,
the church
has lost no less than twenty-two
prospective Ao under their protection. This year
,
only three new Ao will be initiated and that includes me.
” I scrunched up my face at him.
“
I think my father is doing a ban
g up job
of
keeping
me safe.” The priest’s
mouth had fallen open.
Oops
,
I guess he didn’t think I’d give him the facts straight out like that.
Besides I was used to living here and doing things my own way
. A
dmittedly once I went through the ascension
,
I would have to allow the Ao Council to tell me where to go
,
but I wasn’t going to be treated like a child
.
I’d go in as a fully initiated adult.

  
  
My
father smiled in triumph.
“
I told you
Mike
,” he said evenly and maybe even a little smugly.

      “Caden…
I
…
” Father
Mike
took
a deep breath and exhaled hard.
“I owe
you my life.” Huh?
News
to me, I didn’t even know Father
Mike
existed before today.
I was getting a lot
of new
information about my father lately
,
and I was kind of pissed he’d kept me in the dark for so long
.
Maybe Father
Mike
wasn’t the only one who still saw me as
a
child.
“So if you insist on this path
,
I think we only have
only
one choice. I think we should do the
ascension
ritual
right away. I don’t think two month
s
is going to make a difference
,
and I’ve talked to Deanna,
and
she’s
willing
to help us.”
This time my father’s mouth fell open.
I liked that
. T
he last time I saw my dad react with surprise was when I told him Laurna’s mom was taking me shoppi
ng for bras in the fifth grade. It had been awhile.

   He actually sputtered, “
Mike
,
you could be…” H
e glanced at me
. I
t was pretty obvious he didn’t want me to hear what he had to say
,
but I wasn’t going anywhere.
“You know the punishment for disobeying the council
,
and I have to tell you your life span is a great d
eal shorter than mine.” He whispered in a small voice and shook
his head. “And how on Earth did
you wrangle Deanna into this?”  I felt like I’d swallowed a live goldfish. Go through the ritual early,
I thought
,
but I could die! On the other hand, with the
Vamp
s coming out I could die anyway.
Especially with Dayton Tameron k
nowing exactly
who and what
I was. Fuck, tal
k about
being stuck between
a
rock and hard place
o
r a befanged place as it were.  What was
the punishment for disobeying the council
? Was this about what Tameron had said
about my dad?

     Father
Mike
looked sheepish. “It was her idea. She’s afraid the other Ao will try to take Macyn by force.” Great the bad guys wanted to eat me the good guys want
ed
to kidnap me, being
me sucked!

    
I could actually see my father’s blood pressure rise. Red rose through his neck and up to his face straight to his forehead he looked like a cartoon. I could almost hear the temperature rising sound they always played
you know the one that ends with steam shooting out the ears accompanied by a whistling sound
.
“By God
,
they will not,
” My father roared
standing as he yelled!
I’
m embarr
assed to say I jumped.  My dad wa
s a big
man;
big men can get
loud, really loud
.
I thought maybe
the neighbors jumped too.