It was late, well past two in the morning, and Rebecca sat on the fire escape of her building. The noise of the city was always comforting. It helped with the noise in her head. Night-time noises ought to be distant though, any sound from the street below at that hour was bound to be bad. Like the sounds she heard drifting up to her just then. Slow footsteps and soft, dreamy singing. The voice was sweet and gentle and that was exactly what made Rebecca sit up and look down. This was a rough neighbourhood. Sweet and gentle didn’t belong there, definitely not after dark. She leaned out as far as she could and on the street below her she just caught a glimpse of long, light brown hair. A strange girl was wandering idly down the street.
Rebecca hesitated, but before she could make up her mind she saw the trio standing on the corner of the street. Damn. They had probably spotted the heedless brunette already. She was walking straight towards them. Rebecca grabbed an empty bottle from the small collection on the step below her, aims, and hurled it into the dark. The sharp noise of shattering glass was enough to startle the guys on the corner into temporary inattention. More importantly, the girl stopped walking, which gave Rebecca time to climb down the fire escape and hurry up behind her.
“Nice of you to wait up, babe,” Rebecca complained loudly, coming to walk as close beside the stranger as she felt she could without startling her.
It wasn’t very successful. The stranger hastily turned to face her and for a moment they were both startled. But the young woman—very young, Rebecca concluded—looked far too shocked for her to change her mind.
She deliberately turned her back on the guys on the corner and made very pointed eye contact with the strange girl. “Joke’s on you though,” she continued cheerfully. “Cause I have the keys.”
She was dressed like a hippie, she realised. Flower print and tassels as well as the long hair. “I—” she began uncertainly. “I— Um.”
“Come on, babe,” Rebecca urged, trying for a meaningful look once again. “This way, remember?”
She nodded sharply towards the street on the left and finally the hippie moved and walked with her.
Rebecca kept up her boisterous chatter for the benefit of the trio that was still watching them, but she didn’t look back. Instead she studied her unexpected damsel. She was short and slight, and it could be a trick of the street lights, but she looked very pale. She was also very quiet and seemed almost afraid to look at her. Well, Rebecca didn’t blame her for being rattled. What the hell was this girl doing out here anyway? The two of them rounded the corner, and by then they were out of sight of the three lurkers.
Rebecca let out a measured breath and slowed her pace a little. She gave the girl a questioning glance, trying to make eye contact again. “You okay?”
Two dark eyes stared back at her. “…yes.”
“Good,” she said, giving her an encouraging pat on the shoulder. “That brings me to my next point of order: what the fuck are you doing here?” She began walking again and the girl followed, still looking at her with an almost distressed expression. Perhaps she felt guilty about needing to be rescued.
“I…I just wanted to go for a walk,” she muttered. “Clear my head.” Her accent was American, Rebecca realised, she hadn’t clocked that before. Figures she’d be a tourist.
She gave the girl an incredulous look. “A stroll? Here? You make shit choices, girl.” The stranger glanced down and Rebecca felt a pang, adding hastily: “I dig your style though, sick bellbottoms.”
“Thanks?” She didn’t sound very convinced.
Rebecca repressed a sigh. Even when she did something genuinely good, she had to fuck something up. “This is a bad neighbourhood, is all I meant,” she said. “And those guys back there are trouble.”
“Yeah,” she muttered, eyes still on the ground. “I figured… Um… Thank you.”
Rebecca made a dismissive noise and flinched inwardly. Great, now it must have sounded like she was angling for gratitude. She held still, pointing at the building on their left with her thumb. “This is where I live,” she said. “Up there somewhere anyway.” By taking two lefts Rebecca had led them to her own front door. She didn’t really feel like climbing up the fire escape and through the window again.
“Right…” The hippie looked at her, and for the first time Rebecca noticed how deep brown her eyes were. Beautiful. Not just her eyes, all of her, and without the fear on her face it was suddenly very hard to miss.
Rebecca cleared her throat. “I’d invite you in—” she began and the girl’s eyes widened in shock, “—but you don’t know me,” she finished hastily. “So I won’t.” She tugged on the hair at the back of her neck. “Um, do you know how to get home? Or to your hotel, or…? Do you want me to walk you to the nearest bus stop?”
For the first time something that looked vaguely like a smile flickered across the girl’s face. It was still hesitant and a little incredulous, but it was visible. “No, thank you,” she said. “I know the way.”
“Okay, good,” Rebecca nods, but she was almost disappointed.
The hippie swayed on her feet a little, as if she was still undecided whether to start walking or not, and because she couldn’t think of anything else to do, Rebecca held out her hand.
“Nice meeting you. And um, stay safe and stuff.”
The girl hesitated for a beat, but then reached out a delicate hand and shook Rebecca’s.
“Fucking hell,” Rebecca breathed as soon as her fingers touched hers. “You’re freezing.”
The girl immediately let go and drew back.
Rebecca looked at her with genuine concern. It wasn’t as cold as it had been the past weeks, but she wasn’t from around here and—upon further consideration—definitely wasn’t dressed to be outside at night. “How far is it to get where you’re going?” she asked with a frown. “Wait, here—”
Before the girl could answer Rebecca shrugged off her jacket and put it around her narrow shoulders. The black denim looked wholly out of place on her floral blouse.
“Oh, I can’t—” she stammered. “You don’t have to—”
“It’s an old jacket,” Rebecca waved her protests away. Her being slightly more covered up made her feel better about letting her go on alone anyway. The thought left a bitter taste in her mouth, but it was the truth.
“Oh… Alright, thank you,” the hippie muttered, drawing the jacket closer around her. “…you’re very kind.”
The sudden level of earnestness in her voice took Rebecca by surprise and left her scrambling for a response. She nodded, half-shrugging it away by force of habit. “Yeah, well…g’night.”
“Goodnight,” the girl nodded and she started walking as Rebecca hurried up to the front door of her building. She fumbled with her keys, but looked back over her shoulder as soon as she managed to unlock it.
The street was empty, the strange girl nowhere to be seen.
Rebecca could feel her shoulders sag a little, both hands still on the door. It suddenly occurred to her that she didn’t even know her name. Oh well, this was a memorable night at least. She went back inside, locking the door behind her. As she walked up the stairs without her jacket, she thought that it really was rather a cold night. Cold and dark. She frowned one more time. Really not a night to go for a stroll.
This is the start of my urban fantasy novella The Rescue of Laurie Cadieux and you can download it as Epub or PDF!
“I was wondering when you’d show up,” the exorcist said with a shake of her head. (She personally preferred the term incorporeal entities removal specialist, but it was impossible to advertise with.) “It was common knowledge your place was infested by the time you bought it.”
“Haunted,” the tired young man corrected. “I have ghosts, not bedbugs.”
“Good thing too,” she winked. “I wouldn’t know how to get rid of the latter for you.” She gave him a reassuring nod. “But your problem I can solve. Give my team twenty-four hours, or twelve if you’re willing to wait until the next full moon, and we’ll have your house cleansed top to bottom. Tell you what. If it turns out there’s more than four in there, I’ll give you the bulk discount too.”
“There’s six,” the young man replied. “But I do not want the whole house cleansed. I only want you to remove three of them.”
The medium-turned-businesswoman looked up from the form she had wanted to hand him. “Excuse me?”
“I don’t want the whole house cleansed, I don’t want it to be spiritually uninhabitable.”
“You-” She gaped. “Why on earth wouldn’t you want to sweep the hole house?”
Even through the fatigue on his face the young man looked indignant. “Because there’s kids in there!”
Her lips moved silently around unspoken words. “There’s…”
“Kids in there!” he repeated. “Children! Three of them. Two little ones and their older sibling, I think. They haven’t talked to me yet.”
“Sir, you’re talking about ghosts,” she emphasized.
“I’m talking about children,” he said stubbornly. “And I’m not throwing them out. They’re more scared of the others than I am!” He shook his head. “No, the wailing one in the attic and the two who keep scratching at the windows and leaving wet footprints on the carpet definitely need to go, there’s no reasoning with them. But the kids stay. If you can’t guarantee their safety during your procedure I will find someone else to help me.”
Never in her twelve years on the job— “Well,” she said hesitantly, looking at her potential client rather more nervously than before. “I suppose I could call in a colleague to…I presume some sort of personalized ward would do it.” She crossed her arms. “But this is highly irregular! It means a custom job. I won’t be able to give you a reliable estimate of the price, and it’s certainly going to cost you!”
The young man smiled the smile of a man who had very recently bought a twice cursed, triple haunted house both willingly and gladly. “We all live under the spectre of capitalism,” he said wryly. He dragged the form towards him and began to fill in his address. “The kids stay. Whatever the costs.”
“The place is fucking haunted. I knew it was too good to be true.”
It was the first time in a year and a half that he could confidently say he looked and felt just as tired as his sister. He shouldn’t have bought the stupid house. He should have questioned the price, shouldn’t have been taken in by the woodshop in the basement and the French windows.
“Maybe it’s not quite haunted,” his sister suggested hopefully. “Maybe it’s just cursed. You could get a witch in. I’m sure I could find you one, trans kids love growing up witchy.”
“No it’s definitely haunted,” he grunted, rubbing his face with his hands. “There’s some thing that wails in the attic whenever I go near it and whenever it rains there’s this awful scratching at the downstairs windows and four sets of footprints appearing on the carpet.”
His sister opened and shut her mouth, her optimism flagging.
“There’s hardly a whole mug left in the house, the keys to the attic just went missing, and then there’s the screaming every night and the sobbing every morning and my damn books being dragged around and stacked in front of my desk.
His sister took in a singing breath. “Sounds like kids.”
He lifted his head out of his hands, staring at her. “What?”
She grimaced. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to be that mom. I’m listening, I swear. It sounds horrible, I’m sorry.”
“No, what did you just say?” he pressed.
She gave him a tired, wry smile. “I don’t know about the attic and the windows, but, screams of terror in the night, crying in the early morning, things breaking and getting lost and being set out for you to find… Sounds like just like kids.”
He was still staring, almost frozen, at the lines of fatigue and determination etched into his sister’s face.
“You… You’d be able to tell a child’s cry apart from any other wouldn’t you?”
She snorted. “From five miles away with my ears plugged. ‘Only the birthing parent gets superhuman hearing’ my ass.”
“If I find someone to help Millie with the kids for an evening, will you come to my house to…listen to ghosts?”
It was now her turn to stare. “You think you’re haunted by children? By child ghosts??”
“I mean…” His mind passed frantically through every sensation of crowded panic he had ever felt in that blasted house. But it was his house now. His responsibility. What if there were kids in there? “Maybe!”
There was a single beat of silent, parental horror.
Inviting a vampire into your car was probably just as stupid as inviting them into your home, but going separately wouldn’t have left them any control over this mess of a situation and Harper was not willing to let this go. It was a good thing they were so angry, or they would likely have lost their nerve the moment Lysander told them to pull over.
“This does not look like a place slayers would hole up,” they muttered, parking the car.
“Of course not,” he grunted. “You want to do this discretely, don’t you? We get out here and cut through there.”
The thought that Lysander might have done something like this—perhaps exactly like this—before is made them nauseous in a way no amount of blood had ever done. “What—” They steeled themself. “What are you going to do?”
Lysander seemed to be purposefully avoiding eye contact, but since they were walking side by side it was hard to be sure. “Don’t worry, Florence Nightingale,” he sniffed. “I’m just going to give them a little scare. There's only three of them and they're green as grass, only interested in making a name for themselves. If I show them I'm more trouble than I'm worth they'll be out of here before you can blink.”
Making a name for themselves. Harper had to make an effort to unclench their teeth. Well, they could bloody well go do that in some other place. An outburst of loud, unpleasantly familiar voices reached their ear and they halted, hackles raising already. They could not get Mrs Lupus crestfallen expression out of their mind.
“There we are,” Lysander breathed. “Stay put.”
“Wait—d” they began, but they were too late. They had been too slow, too preoccupied. Lysander was already gone and they did not even see him more, did not even see what direction he went. Harper stood in the shadows, their back pressed to a brick wall, and stared at the building just visible beyond the end of the sheltered alleyway.
Time crawled by for what seemed like uncountable minutes, and then everything went sickeningly fast. There was a slam as if from a door swinging open in the wind, a brief, violent cry of distress, followed by the unmistakable sound of a body, a person, hitting the ground. Harper stood frozen to their spot, their heart pounding with distress. What happened? What had they done? What had they caused?
“Time to get out. Now. Walk.”
Lysander appeared by their side as suddenly as he had left and Harper nearly flattened themself against the wall. The familiar scent of blood filled their airways and their eyes fixed on the smudge of blood on Lysander’s face unmasked horror.
“What did you do?”
He roughly wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “I had to show them I meant business.”
Panic clawed at their throat. “I heard someone fall, was—”
“I didn’t kill him,” Lysander snapped. “He’s only paralysed.”
Their eyes darted from his face to the end of the alley.
“By all means, go back to check his pulse,” Lysander hissed. “Except then of course I will have to kill him, because then he’ll have seen your bloody face.”
Harper stood reeling a moment longer and then hastily fled the direction they had come from with Lysander on their heels. Neither of them spoke a word until they were back in the car, but once there, with their seatbelt buckled and their hands on the steering wheel, Harper simply couldn’t drive. Lysander was sitting slumped in the passenger’s seat, looking at them from the corner of his eyes.
They swallowed. “What did you do to paralyse him?”
“Bit him.”
They stared at him, colour rising into their face.
“Keep your shirt on, Florence,” he sneered. “I didn’t drink from him. It’s just the vampire venom. With a gentle bite it just gives a little buzz, but with a deep bite the dose is high enough to paralyse. It’ll wear off.”
“...oh.” They took a breath, exhaling most of their fear.
“Can we go now?”
Silently they started the car, driving mechanically back towards the other side of town via a different route than they came. This wasn’t what they wanted, but they had to admit that they were no longer sure how they had wanted this to go. At least, as far as reasonable expectations went. Lysander was leaning silently against the window, his gaze on the dark street, and he looked...sullen. Not a sign of what had happened save for the pink smear in the corner of his mouth.
He barely reacted when they pulled up near the cemetery and for a moment they sat in the idling car.
“Lysander…”
He looked at them, eyebrows raising in surprise.
“Why didn’t you do this before? If you could get rid of them so easily.”
It was an honest question, but his face clouded over again at once. “I might have killed them, probably would have,” he replied curtly. “You’d have dragged me from my proverbial grave.”
“And that stopped you?”
He gave them a long, sneering look before turning resolutely away from them. “Fear tastes bitter, I don’t care for it.”
Harper stared at the dashboard, struggling to admit that piece of information.
“Anything else you want from me?” Lysander broke in impatiently.
“I—no, but—”
“Good.” Apparently he could open car doors as fast as he could move, they were not even in time to lean forward to watch him go.
“—thank you,” they still tried, but he had already vanished from sight.
When he climbed over the wall around the witch’s garden he still thought he had done so unseen. Even when he snuck up to the neat little rows of rapunzel he was convinced he was completely undetected.
It was not until the very last moment, when the furious form of the garden’s mistress was baring down on him, that he realised his mistake.
“How dare you,” spat the witch, her indignation raising her up to far more than her usual height. “To steal into my garden like a thief to plunder my vegetable beds. I will make you regret your insolence.”
“Please have mercy,” the terrified husband stammered. “I came only because-”
“Only because of me!” a strained voice panted behind them.
Both witch and thief whirled round, staring at the woman leaning heavily against the stone arch in the garden wall. She was very round around the waist and rather green in the face, but she was making a great effort to compose herself.
“Please don’t be angry,” she pleaded. “He only did it for me. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“You asked him to sneak into my garden?” the witch asked, confused, but not enough to lose all her indignation.
“She didn’t!” the anxious husband cried, but his wife protested:
“I might as well have.” She looked up at the witch with pleading eyes in her pale face. “All your vegetables grow so lush and green,” she explained with a sigh. “And I just keep thinking…if I could only find something fresh enough, it would fix my mouth.”
The witch blinked at her, perplexed. “Fix your mouth?” She had seen her neighbour often enough as she passed by her windows, with dimpling cheeks and curving lips, and it had never seemed to her that her mouth needed any fixing at all.
“Everything tastes wrong,” she sighed. “And no matter how much I drink, I can’t wash this…mustiness out of my mouth. It’s only on account of the baby, it will pass, or so they tell me.”
“On account of the baby?” the witch spoke in dismay. “But surely that isn’t the normal way of things?”
“Quite normal,” her neighbour said resignedly, but the husband made a pitiful sound.
It seemed now to the witch that his broad shoulders were unusually slumped. Not with any fear of her, but with fatigue and worry.
“He can’t stand to see me upset,” the pregnant wife said softly. “I’m very sorry he broke into your garden.”
The witch faltered for a long moment. She had never before met her cheerful neighbours, no matter how many times she had seen them, and now she had felt so mistreated and had gotten so very angry… “I suppose I could make something?” she suggested. “Something fresh. Perhaps…a potion. Such subjective senses are not hard to bespell.”
“Can you really!” her neighbour exclaimed, and the eagerness and hope shining in her eyes were suddenly so bright that the witch felt herself sway on her feet. She glanced at the nervous man at her side.
“Is suppose I see why you snuck into my garden,” she muttered.
The impulsive, but loving husband, who now found himself beside his suddenly blushing wife and in much closer proximity to the attractive face of a stranger he had been used to only see glimpses of behind the window, managed an apologetic smile.
The witch cleared her throat. “I shall make something,” she decided. “I will bring it round as soon as it is done.”
“Oh thank you,” the woman exclaimed and her husband said:
“I’m really awful sorry.”
“We both are.”
The witch tried to wave them away, but now there was no stopping them.
“You must let me make it up to you,” the man begged, putting his arm out for his wife to lean on as if he no longer had to think on such things before doing them.
“Yes,” his wife agreed emphatically. “If you are coming over all the same, won’t you stay for dinner?”
And they both pressed her to accept their invitation with such earnest and eager hospitality that the witch heard herself agree before she knew how her tongue had ran away with her.
A little dazed, a little smiling, and a little more nervous still she watched how her neighbours made their way out of her garden. She watched them until they were out of sight and then she hastily knelt, to start plucking rapunzel.
Inviting a vampire into your car was probably just as stupid as inviting them into your home, but going separately wouldn’t have left them any control over this mess of a situation and Harper was not willing to let this go. It was a good thing they were so angry, or they would likely have lost their nerve the moment Lysander told them to pull over.
“This does not look like a place slayers would hole up,” they muttered, parking the car.
“Of course not,” he grunted. “You want to do this discretely, don’t you? We get out here and cut through there.”
The thought that Lysander might have done something like this—perhaps exactly like this—before is made them nauseous in a way no amount of blood had ever done. “What—” They steeled themself. “What are you going to do?”
Lysander seemed to be purposefully avoiding eye contact, but since they were walking side by side it was hard to be sure. “Don’t worry, Florence Nightingale,” he sniffed. “I’m just going to give them a little scare. There's only three of them and they're green as grass, only interested in making a name for themselves. If I show them I'm more trouble than I'm worth they'll be out of here before you can blink.”
Making a name for themselves. Harper had to make an effort to unclench their teeth. Well, they could bloody well go do that in some other place. An outburst of loud, unpleasantly familiar voices reached their ear and they halted, hackles raising already. They could not get Mrs Lupus crestfallen expression out of their mind.
“There we are,” Lysander breathed. “Stay put.”
“Wait—d” they began, but they were too late. They had been too slow, too preoccupied. Lysander was already gone and they did not even see him more, did not even see what direction he went. Harper stood in the shadows, their back pressed to a brick wall, and stared at the building just visible beyond the end of the sheltered alleyway.
Time crawled by for what seemed like uncountable minutes, and then everything went sickeningly fast. There was a slam as if from a door swinging open in the wind, a brief, violent cry of distress, followed by the unmistakable sound of a body, a person, hitting the ground. Harper stood frozen to their spot, their heart pounding with distress. What happened? What had they done? What had they caused?
“Time to get out. Now. Walk.”
Lysander appeared by their side as suddenly as he had left and Harper nearly flattened themself against the wall. The familiar scent of blood filled their airways and their eyes fixed on the smudge of blood on Lysander’s face unmasked horror.
“What did you do?”
He roughly wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “I had to show them I meant business.”
Panic clawed at their throat. “I heard someone fall, was—”
“I didn’t kill him,” Lysander snapped. “He’s only paralysed.”
Their eyes darted from his face to the end of the alley.
“By all means, go back to check his pulse,” Lysander hissed. “Except then of course I will have to kill him, because then he’ll have seen your bloody face.”
Harper stood reeling a moment longer and then hastily fled the direction they had come from with Lysander on their heels. Neither of them spoke a word until they were back in the car, but once there, with their seatbelt buckled and their hands on the steering wheel, Harper simply couldn’t drive. Lysander was sitting slumped in the passenger’s seat, looking at them from the corner of his eyes.
They swallowed. “What did you do to paralyse him?”
“Bit him.”
They stared at him, colour rising into their face.
“Keep your shirt on, Florence,” he sneered. “I didn’t drink from him. It’s just the vampire venom. With a gentle bite it just gives a little buzz, but with a deep bite the dose is high enough to paralyse. It’ll wear off.”
“...oh.” They took a breath, exhaling most of their fear.
“Can we go now?”
Silently they started the car, driving mechanically back towards the other side of town via a different route than they came. This wasn’t what they wanted, but they had to admit that they were no longer sure how they had wanted this to go. At least, as far as reasonable expectations went. Lysander was leaning silently against the window, his gaze on the dark street, and he looked...sullen. Not a sign of what had happened save for the pink smear in the corner of his mouth.
He barely reacted when they pulled up near the cemetery and for a moment they sat in the idling car.
“Lysander…”
He looked at them, eyebrows raising in surprise.
“Why didn’t you do this before? If you could get rid of them so easily.”
It was an honest question, but his face clouded over again at once. “I might have killed them, probably would have,” he replied curtly. “You’d have dragged me from my proverbial grave.”
“And that stopped you?”
He gave them a long, sneering look before turning resolutely away from them. “Fear tastes bitter, I don’t care for it.”
Harper stared at the dashboard, struggling to admit that piece of information.
“Anything else you want from me?” Lysander broke in impatiently.
“I—no, but—”
“Good.” Apparently he could open car doors as fast as he could move, they were not even in time to lean forward to watch him go.
“—thank you,” they still tried, but he had already vanished from sight.
A flock of seagulls screeched overhead, providing very unwanted backing vocals to the screaming of the flailing young man that was currently being hauled towards the shore by a particularly ill-tempered selkie.
“Seabed below, could you please cooperate!” she snapped, beating her tail against the waves. “I am trying to help you!” It was hard enough to swim half transformed like this, let alone having to use both arms to keep hold of this panicking idiot.
At long last she reached shallower waters. Shallow enough at least, to safely let go of the human.
“There!” she cried, heaving him in the general direction of the beach. “Get yourself ashore!
He flailed some more for a few moments, screaming his head off and thrashing in the shallow water, until he realised he could stand and began wading frantically to the shore.
The selkie watched him go with exasperation. “You’re welcome,” she barked after him, and then pulled her pelt back up over her head and dove back into the waves.
She did not show her human face again until she had reached her favourite rock. A nice, big, flat one, that rose just above sea level. Arms were helpful in pulling yourself out of the water. The selkie flopped comfortably on her stomach, her lower half still in the foamy water, determined to still enjoy at least something of the early morning. It had been such a nice morning, before all the screaming, with the wisps of mist that drew from the sea towards the shore only barely dissolving.
It was not to be, however. She had barely folded her suntanned arms under her head, or an annoyingly familiar shape came through the faint haze of the last morning mist. A black mare, the gate of her hooves as smooth as poetry and her manes dark like the night. Kicking up and trampling pebbles under gleaming black hooves the horse charged across the beach and straight into the water. The selkie watched the proud head disappear beneath the waves with narrowed eyes. A moment later there was a splash of water beside her rock and two pale hands gripped its slick edge.
The selkie met the sea-green eyes of the transforming kelpie with a scowl. In the grey light of morning her skin seemed almost silvery, but she knew the lighting didn't matter, her frustrating kelpie companion always looked equally and annoyingly beautiful.
“I swear, if I have to rescue one more of your stupid victims—” she growled.
“Good morning to you too,” the kelpie tutted, arranging herself on the rock with an effortless grace the selkie felt she never possessed while she had human limbs.
“I mean it,” she snapped. “That was the third one this week!”
She was sick and tired of it. You’d think humans would eventually learn, but they never did. There was always someone stupid enough to mistake the kelpie for a normal horse and anyone foolish enough to climb onto her back got galloped straight into the sea. She didn’t actually hurt them, she just left them to splash around, but only very few of them managed to swim back to the shore on their own. Most of them needed help. Help that usually took the form of a very annoyed selkie.
The kelpie grinned, teeth gleaming in the pale light of morning. “You don’t have to rescue them.”
“I like my sea free of screaming humans, thanks,” the selkie grunted. “Seriously. Can’t you give it a rest for a while?”
“I would, but they make it so easy,” the kelpie grinned. “Besides, if I stop, who knows how long I’d have to wait for you to come and chat to me again…” She winked and slid off the rock back into the water. The silky ripple of the kelpie’s long, black hair fanned out wide and seemed to stain her skin until a moment later a beautiful black horse raised her head up above the water.
The selkie gave a furious scoff, jumping out of her pelt in order to stand up, tracking the dark shape in the water with her eyes. “You came to see me!” she yelled after the equine form galloping triumphantly into the sea foam. “You always do!”
There was no reply. Just a distinctive kelpie laugh, sounding loud and neighing across the waves.
Inviting a vampire into your car was probably just as stupid as inviting them into your home, but going separately wouldn’t have left them any control over this mess of a situation and Harper was not willing to let this go. It was a good thing they were so angry, or they would likely have lost their nerve the moment Lysander told them to pull over.
“This does not look like a place slayers would hole up,” they muttered, parking the car.
“Of course not,” he grunted. “You want to do this discretely, don’t you? We get out here and cut through there.”
The thought that Lysander might have done something like this—perhaps exactly like this—before is made them nauseous in a way no amount of blood had ever done. “What—” They steeled themself. “What are you going to do?”
Lysander seemed to be purposefully avoiding eye contact, but since they were walking side by side it was hard to be sure. “Don’t worry, Florence Nightingale,” he sniffed. “I’m just going to give them a little scare. There's only three of them and they're green as grass, only interested in making a name for themselves. If I show them I'm more trouble than I'm worth they'll be out of here before you can blink.”
Making a name for themselves. Harper had to make an effort to unclench their teeth. Well, they could bloody well go do that in some other place. An outburst of loud, unpleasantly familiar voices reached their ear and they halted, hackles raising already. They could not get Mrs Lupus crestfallen expression out of their mind.
“There we are,” Lysander breathed. “Stay put.”
“Wait—d” they began, but they were too late. They had been too slow, too preoccupied. Lysander was already gone and they did not even see him more, did not even see what direction he went. Harper stood in the shadows, their back pressed to a brick wall, and stared at the building just visible beyond the end of the sheltered alleyway.
Time crawled by for what seemed like uncountable minutes, and then everything went sickeningly fast. There was a slam as if from a door swinging open in the wind, a brief, violent cry of distress, followed by the unmistakable sound of a body, a person, hitting the ground. Harper stood frozen to their spot, their heart pounding with distress. What happened? What had they done? What had they caused?
“Time to get out. Now. Walk.”
Lysander appeared by their side as suddenly as he had left and Harper nearly flattened themself against the wall. The familiar scent of blood filled their airways and their eyes fixed on the smudge of blood on Lysander’s face unmasked horror.
“What did you do?”
He roughly wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “I had to show them I meant business.”
Panic clawed at their throat. “I heard someone fall, was—”
“I didn’t kill him,” Lysander snapped. “He’s only paralysed.”
Their eyes darted from his face to the end of the alley.
“By all means, go back to check his pulse,” Lysander hissed. “Except then of course I will have to kill him, because then he’ll have seen your bloody face.”
Harper stood reeling a moment longer and then hastily fled the direction they had come from with Lysander on their heels. Neither of them spoke a word until they were back in the car, but once there, with their seatbelt buckled and their hands on the steering wheel, Harper simply couldn’t drive. Lysander was sitting slumped in the passenger’s seat, looking at them from the corner of his eyes.
They swallowed. “What did you do to paralyse him?”
“Bit him.”
They stared at him, colour rising into their face.
“Keep your shirt on, Florence,” he sneered. “I didn’t drink from him. It’s just the vampire venom. With a gentle bite it just gives a little buzz, but with a deep bite the dose is high enough to paralyse. It’ll wear off.”
“...oh.” They took a breath, exhaling most of their fear.
“Can we go now?”
Silently they started the car, driving mechanically back towards the other side of town via a different route than they came. This wasn’t what they wanted, but they had to admit that they were no longer sure how they had wanted this to go. At least, as far as reasonable expectations went. Lysander was leaning silently against the window, his gaze on the dark street, and he looked...sullen. Not a sign of what had happened save for the pink smear in the corner of his mouth.
He barely reacted when they pulled up near the cemetery and for a moment they sat in the idling car.
“Lysander…”
He looked at them, eyebrows raising in surprise.
“Why didn’t you do this before? If you could get rid of them so easily.”
It was an honest question, but his face clouded over again at once. “I might have killed them, probably would have,” he replied curtly. “You’d have dragged me from my proverbial grave.”
“And that stopped you?”
He gave them a long, sneering look before turning resolutely away from them. “Fear tastes bitter, I don’t care for it.”
Harper stared at the dashboard, struggling to admit that piece of information.
“Anything else you want from me?” Lysander broke in impatiently.
“I—no, but—”
“Good.” Apparently he could open car doors as fast as he could move, they were not even in time to lean forward to watch him go.
“—thank you,” they still tried, but he had already vanished from sight.
Steve hurried up into his room and closed the door quietly. He leaned against it and slid to the floor.
He leaned his head back against the door and let out a shuddering breath as he waited.
Sure enough about ten minutes later the front door slammed then the sound of a car trunk opening and closing then a car door doing the same, before the car tore out of the driveway.
Only then did Steve let out a breath and closed his eyes. He was safe. For now.
Clint’s expression became dark. “This victim mentality of yours is unbecoming, you’re an adult now. Act like it.”
Steve opened his mouth to protest, but slammed it shut. His dad was just going to keep acting like Steve was the problem. This so-called ‘crazy-making’ like Nichole’s mom would going on and on about whenever her daughter brought home a boyfriend.
“Didn’t I tell you,” Clint asked, his frown mirroring his son’s, “we’re moving your mother from Nevada back to Indiana and I was getting the paperwork completed.”
“You didn’t even tell me she was in Nevada in the first place,” Steve said pained.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Steven,” Clint growled. “I told you over Christmas break.”
Steve reared his head back. “But you were in the Bahamas over Christmas break, I had to order in for Christmas dinner.”
Steve frowned at him as Eddie walked around to the back of the flyer and hit a button Steve didn’t even know was there.
Suddenly the back end opened to reveal a small cargo bay. Just big enough for the flight bike.
“Holy shit,” Steve breathed. “I didn’t even know it was there. That’s amazing!”
Eddie’s grin got bigger. “I’m a bit of a nerd when it comes to these older space flight air craft. And this is a Kline A140. And its not for a pilot and co-pilot it’s for a pilot and a mechanic.”
Steve blinked at him for a moment, then looked up at the star flyer. “You drive a hard bargain.”
Then he looked around. “I don’t know if there are any tools around here...”
Eddie chuckled and held up a finger, then he walked back to his flight bike. He opened a hatch on the side and pulled out a tool kit. He came back to Steve holding it up like a kid showing his mom the frog he caught.
“And if I’m right, we won’t have to leave the flight bike behind,” he said with a grin.
Eddie’s head rocked back in shock. “That thing has proto-ion engine and you want to fly it? Are you insane?”
“You don’t have to come with me,” Steve reminded him. “You can go back to work, tell them I held you hostage and that I forced you to drive me to the middle of nowhere and then let you go.”
Eddie blinked at him for a moment. Abandoning Steve had never even crossed his mind. Yes, he would be a galaxy of trouble, yes he would be in space like he was terrified of, and yes he would be leaving behind a company he had built from the ground up and he would most likely lose it. But all that paled in helping Steve get off world to hide from the company that had ruined both of their lives.
“You’re going to need a mechanic to keep that thing from falling apart before you even pass the atmosphere,” Eddie said with a scoff. “Unless you want to have the shielding crack as reach escape velocity.”
“I haven’t seen a code based security lock in ages,” Eddie said peering over Steve’s shoulder. “Isn’t it super easy to hack?”
Steve shrugged and began working on pulling of a large tarp off the object in the middle of the hangar. “Most of these hangars have been picked clean for decades. No one is coming here looking to score.”
“So why do you have a...” Eddie trailed when he finally saw what was under the tarp. It was an early model star flyer. Two seater, back to back like those old fighter jets from the 21st century. It was red and silver and the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. “Holy shit.”
Steve smirked. “My dad was a collector but because collecting pre-nuclear engine star flyers is illegal, he stashed them all over the galaxy.”
