New Year's Resolution Story

[Anna]

This is where I am going to be posting the sections to my story I am writing for my New Year's Resolution. Later I will add a summary here.

[Anna]

This part is very rough and needs a lot of work. I more or less just kind of dove into the story and feel like I can come back and edit this part later. I tried to establish Jace's character as someone who can really just go with anything, even if he thinks it's full of crock, to save his own sanity. It's gotten some of the extra work it needs, but I'm posting it as proof that I am working on my resolution.




“Aeva quit that!” Jace yelled at the rattling pipes, his hands beginning to shake with nerves. “I’ll feed you when I’m done watching my show.” Not that it was a very interesting show. But it was better than the other junk on at this time and it allowed him just a few more minutes to not be down there in the cellar with her… and he knew it would annoy her.

But the pipes continued to bang and rattle, even louder now. He responded by bravely turning the television volume up, trying to ignore her. The rattling got louder and was now accompanied by a faint whine.

“Aeva! AEVA!” The rattling still continued. He took a deep settling breath, swallowing his heart back into his stomach. She was not going to stop until he went down there. Even under his nerves, he could not help but to feel deeply inconvenienced. “Oh, damn it. FINE! I’ll be down in a second!” Pulling his hoodie close, Jace padded to the kitchen and snatched the refrigerator open. Inside, he dug around, pushing the beer and leftovers out of the way to a hidden panel in the back that opened with a gentle push on the bottom right corner. Trails of cold smoke snaked their way from the panel as he pulled a frozen pack of blood out of it. Closing it all up tight, he threw the pack into the warmer his great uncle had claimed to design, wiping the splash of water off. It would take about thirty minutes to thaw. Thirty minutes of pipe rattling fun.

Even knowing what the sound was did not help to keep his teeth from setting on edge every time he heard it. He had lived here for four weeks, listening to that horrible noise, trying to ignore it. Jace had even called a plumber to try to get the noise fixed, but the house had apparently been removed from every service list ever. The only people that would come here was a single Chinese restaurant downtown and a repairman who worked out of his home from somewhere – the man never listed an address.

Eventually he just had to grab a flashlight and go down there, all the way to the unlit cellar. It was technically two stories below the actual house, below even the basement and it was dark as pitch with no lights installed to speak of. Jace’s first impression was of the inside of a tomb, like the ones so popular in his video games. It was dank, damp, and frigid, even in the warm, autumn weather. And the banging. It got louder as he went down. All the way down the dark stair he could not stop thinking of what other synonym for creepy would best describe what it was like going down there.

The word “terrifying” still came to mind even now after he entered the door at the bottom of those stairs.

That old wooden door at the bottom of the stairs, swollen from the moisture, its green, slimy paint coming off in great big curls. The pipes were so loud it sounded like someone was hitting them with a wrench. He remembered taking a whole minute to gather his nerves enough to simply touch the damp, tarnished, brass knob, then another minute to turn it and finally push the door slowly open. The banging stopped. He wished it hadn’t.

Because what replaced it was a woman’s voice, shrill with anger. “What took you so long? I ought to rip out that pretty throat of yours and lap you up dry. You didn’t bring a single drop with you, did you?” Her words suddenly stopped. “Wait. You’re not him. You’re someone else. Please! Please, get me out of here!”

What was a woman doing down here, locked up in his Uncle’s cellar like the man had been some kind of creepy serial killer? “Are you okay? Who are you?” Jace sprinted over to her, crouching by her side, pulling the shackles into the light of his flashlight. Locked tight and wanting for a key. Damn.

The woman sniffled lightly, as if she was about to cry from fear. “Aeva, and I’m not okay. Please, you have to get me out of here. He’ll come back and he’ll kill me!”

“Who will?” Jace asked, his flashlight frozen on her as she leaned in close, huddling against his shoulder, her fingers wrapping in his shirt.

“Kaleb.” She was not crying anymore. In fact, her voice was soft as silk now, brushing against his neck.

“My uncle?” So he was some kind of creepy serial killer. The woman, Aeva, pulled him more tightly against her, her soft breasts pressing against his chest. He swallowed a gulp of suddenly very warm air.

“Yes. He locked me down here. You have to find the key and get me out of here.”
“But…” It was hard to form a sentence. His brain felt like it was wreathed in cotton. “But…why did he lock you down here?” There, he got it out. He did not really want to hear the answer any more though. He didn’t remember why it was important. He just wanted to lay his head on her chest and fall asleep.

“Because I am dangerous,” she whispered to him, her lips tracing down his skin just behind his ear, sending shivers racing across his skin.

It happened without him even realizing what was going on at first. He was lying there, content, empty minded, then suddenly he was on fire! He screamed and thrashed, tearing away from the woman, sprinting for the doorway. He stopped only once to look back at her patiently licking the blood off of her mouth in the light of his forgotten flashlight, a smile on her lips.
Jace slammed the door so hard he broke the doorknob. His feet had never flown so fast before. He was up the stairs and in his car, driving somewhere.

“The hell was that?” he yelled at the road, weaving around parked cars. “What did she…?” That was when he saw it in his rearview mirror: the blood.

“Holy shit…” His car drifted to a stop in the middle of the dark neighborhood street. The crickets even fell silent. His shoulder…

He pulled his shirt neck down, wincing just at the sight. Two swollen, bruised purple holes in his neck pumping thick, red blood out that ran down his chest. And it hurt!

“She bit me. That crazy bitch bit me!” He couldn’t believe it. What kind of a person, locked in a cellar, bites someone trying to help them? She should have been grateful, maybe crying, but she bit him! But he looked in the mirror again. The bite was not right. If a normal person had bitten him, it wouldn’t be two punctures. It would have been a semi circle. This looked like a damn snakebite! Had there been one in her clothes?

No, he didn’t see any. And it certainly looked like his blood on her mouth. No, she had bitten him with…fangs? “You have got to be kidding me.” He had to be making this up. That’s all it was. He had actually been bitten by a snake and the venom was making him hallucinate. Which meant…

“Shit! I’ve got to get to a hospital!”

He ended up having to spend the night in the ER after they patched him up as they observed him for any reactions to possible invenomation or allergic reaction, but the wounds were clean of any venom. A dry bite, he was free t go home, the doctors told him as they shooed him from the clinic. But he could not stay the night in that place. He could not go home, knowing something, maybe that woman, was down there.

A hotel was his paradise, secluded but full of other people, witnesses should any other weird stuff happen. And for the whole next day, nothing did. There were waffles and TV, some people speaking foreign languages, but no weird, legless women who bit people in their cellars.
But that night, when he put his head down to sleep, he found her. He could hear her, see her. It was like she was there in the bed with him, whispering into his ear.

“Come back,” she called. “Come back and let me out. Find the key.”

And he began to look in his dream world. Where would his great uncle hide a key like that? He rifled through drawers and drawers of old paperwork, not even looking at what they were. He had to find the key. He overturned desks and pulled the drawers out of everything, searching, frantic. Where was it? Why would his uncle hide something so important this well?

“Where is it!?”

The sound of his own voice snapped Jace awake. His eyes blinked once, twice. But he was awake and he was not in his hotel room. Papers were scatter everywhere, the furniture in a wreck. He was home. He had really come back home and been looking for a key.

A sense of horror turned his stomach. This was not real. This was not real, he was still asleep! But a quick pinch on the arm, and he was still awake, standing in a ruined office.

“I can make you do you do more,” Aeva purred into his ear as if she were just behind him, but there was no one when he turned. “You are mine.”

“No! You’re just a figment of my imagination! You are nothing!” He was at the door, flying into the hallway towards the front door. He had to get out! Out! Now! He was still asleep! This was a nightmare!

“You only wish I was,” the figment chuckled, seeming to watch him flee, even though there was still nobody in the house but Jace.

He tried staying in a different hotel, in a different part of town, but the moment his head touched the pillow, his dream began again. He was searching, desperately for a key, tearing room after room apart. Then he would wake up, the true nightmarish terror of the situation sinking in.

“What did she do to me?” he asked his trembling hands still clenched around a mattress he had been overturning. “It…she must have…she must have slipped me something…in that bite…” It was the only thing that made sense, but even as he said it, Jace could hear the crazy in it.

But even worse than that, what if he found the key one time? What would that woman do if she got out? If she could fuck with him while he was at a hotel thirty minutes away, what would she do to him when he was right in front of her?

If he could have moved to another state just then, he would have, but he did not have the money. And he didn’t want to stay at a friend’s house. What if she made him do something worse that just looking for a key? What she made him hurt one of his friends or one of their family members? He could not do that to them. He had to face her. But he did not have to do it unarmed.

It still took more than a few drinks to get up the courage to go down there. The door swung open easily, its knob still missing. She was there, where he had left her, dressed in rags with tangled, dirty hair, and shackles clamped about her wrists. She watched him with quiet, predatory eyes that glowed yellow in the light from his flashlight, sending shivers up and down his spine with their unnaturalness. He tried to open his mouth, to deliver some sort of ultimatum that she stop whatever it was she was doing to him, but nothing came. He could not make himself speak. His voice seemed stuck in this throat and all he could do was stare at her, his spine frozen stiff. She was the first to break the tense, shivering silence.

“You’re his, aren’t you?” she growled, her voice sounding almost resigned. He could still see her canines, long and sharp, in the light. He had not imagined those. Oh God, what was she then? Maybe he was exaggerating them to himself. There were people in the world who used dentistry to sharpen their teeth. But those people were not chained to a wall in his great uncle’s cellar, and usually did not haunt people in their dreams.

“He left this place to you. Oh, don’t seem so surprised I know,” she snapped when his breath caught in his throat at the mention of his great uncle’s death. “I may be trapped down here, but I know what goes on up there. I hear it all.” She let her head fall against her chest, hiding her face from his light.

Suddenly, her shoulders began to shake and she lifted her face to show streaks of red dripping down her face. She was crying, and crying blood! Her voice was harsh as she sobbed and wailed, obviously to make him pity her but it only made him back further away. “You have to let me out of here! What he did to me was wrong! Look at me! Look at what he did!” Jace could not help but to stare at the fleshy stumps she slapped against the ground to draw attention to their gross mutilation. “I’ll never walk again! Why would someone do this to me?”

This was too much. “I-I don’t know,” Jace stammered, taking a step back. He was not drunk enough for this. “Why?”

“I don’t know!” she wailed, the blood on her face flowing thicker. “I don’t know. He was crazy! Please! You have to let me go!”

“I can’t,” he answered feebly, drawing back two more paces as his head began to spin and fill with cotton again. “My uncle…”

“Your uncle was crazy and a fool!” she shrieked suddenly, yanking against her chains, laughing when he jumped so badly he dropped his flashlight. “You can’t keep a vampire chained up forever! I’ll get out one day and I will rip out your throat while you are sleeping!!”

Jace scrambled for his light, shining it on her like a ward, his hands shaking violently. But with all her screaming, she never budged. The shackles that had held her through his great uncle’s stay in this house were still holding her. She was all talk and no bite. As long as he did not get within her reach, he was safe from her. As long as he did not sleep, he was safe. “Tell me. What are you?” he demanded.

Her incessant screaming stopped, a coy smile brushing across her face. “A vampire, dear. You think I grow fangs just to fit in with some little goth clique?”

The hysterical strangeness of the situation almost made her story believable. She was just a crazy person though. That’s all she was. A crazy person locked in the cellar. His cellar. “Then why are you down here?”

“Your uncle put me here. I don’t know why!”

“You must know why. My uncle wouldn’t have done it without a reason.” He hoped. It wasn’t like he knew the guy.

“I don’t know!”

“Tell me or I won’t…” What was a threat he could use against a vampire in this situation? “Ah…tell me or I won’t feed you!” That sounded reasonable, as reasonable as it could sound with the word vampire in it. He really was cracked. Mental, really.

She was stubborn though. “You already don’t feed me!”

Fine, he could work with that too. Why not? “Tell me and I will feed you, then.”

Her lips pursed, as if she was not going to answer, but her eyes began to stream again and she sniffled pathetically. “Alright,” she cried. “If you promise to bring me something. Please? I’m so hungry…”

“Yes, but you…” And this was what was most important. He remembered now. How had he forgotten? “You have to stay out of my head too!”

Her sniffles stopped, her eyes crinkling in annoyance. “No promises…” she said, her voice a low hiss.

“Stay out of it! Or you can starve down here!”

“I could just make you feed me again…” Her lips didn’t move. Her voice was in his head again.
He clamped his hands over his ears, trying to block her out. “Stop it! Stop it! I will let you starve!”

Her soft purr coated his mind, tugging at his legs. “No you won’t.”

One foot slid forward, dragged against his will. This was insane! He tried to backpedal with every ounce of his will, trying to make his muscles budge, but it was to no avail as his other foot set itself forward. Enough was enough. This shit was ridiculous.

Reaching inside his coat, Jace dropped his flashlight and pulled the 9mm from his coat and pointed it straight at the woman. Even in the half-light, he could read the sudden agitation in her stance. The tugging force on his legs disappeared, as if it had never been.

“Not so immune to guns, huh?” Jace laughed, retracing his steps backwards. His finger pressed the trigger, pulling it so tight, it was a miracle it had not fired already. “Now, you will stay out of my head, and I won’t shoot you. And if you are really good, and tell me why you are down here, I might just feed you too.”

Silence was his first response. Then the chains on the vampire’s manacles began to clink and rattle as she pulled herself away from the light of the flashlight, into the utter blackness of the room. He followed the sound with the barrel of his gun.

The woman hissed, a cat-like sound that made his hair stand on end. “You can’t kill me with that. I’m a vampire, not some whore locked down here for your amusement.”

“I don’t have to kill you, just give you a really bad headache, now start talking or you get nothing!” He really hoped she was bluffing about the not killing her part, because he had banking on his gun to level the field for him.

She hissed again, but it was lower, agitated. He could hear the chains rattling as she shifted again. “I tried to kill him. He caught me in one of his traps outside that mangled my legs so badly I couldn’t grow them back.” Her voice changed suddenly, raising a pitch, as if she were upset. “Then he locked me down here and interrogated me. Now bring me blood! I’m so hungry!”

It wasn’t enough. Nothing she said was making sense. “What did he interrogate you about? Why would he lock you down here?”

“He…He asked me about my blood brothers, about their plans. Locked me up so I couldn’t warn them. Now please bring me something! Please!”

He lowered the gun. She had told him something. There were more things like her. There were other things out there like her. “If I bring you some blood, will you answer some more questions?”

“Yes! Yes, please!” She sounded urgent now, pleading, begging. He knew he should shoot her, get rid of her before she could make him do something else, but he couldn’t. It just felt wrong. She was trapped down here, alone, in the dark by his great uncle for some reason. If he felt she was important enough to keep alive, maybe there was something to her. Besides, she was the only one who could tell him exactly what she meant by her “blood brothers.”

There was only one hitch to this entire deal. “Where do I get it for you?” She wasn’t going to ask him to kill anyone, he hoped, because they were both shit out of luck then. He was not killing anyone for this crazy bitch.

“The refrigerator!” she snapped, her chains jerking again, sending Jace back another step until his back was pressed against the damp, cold wall. “He said there was a panel in the back that hid my blood and a machine to warm it in the kitchen. Please, go get it…”

A panel in the back of the refrigerator that held blood? This was getting more ridiculous by the minute. Next she would say there were drugs buried in the backyard and the mob was going to be there in a few hours to wrestle them from him. But he would look. Nothing could be any crazier than what was already going on. “I’ll…I’ll be right back.” He would have added, “don’t go anywhere,” if he thought she could do anything.

He edged towards the door, wondering if she would do anything to stop him, but she was still, even her chains were quiet. It was hard to navigate the stairs in the pitch black, but he was not going to pick up it up. A solid few minutes later, he was staring stupidly at the back of the refrigerator, trying to figure out how to access this supposed “secret panel.”

“I am officially insane. I’m getting blood from a secret refrigerator panel for a crazy woman in my basement that bit me so she can tell me about other people that will hypothetically bite me or kill me.” He sighed heavily, poking the back of the refrigerator with one hand, not finding anything. “I think I must have had a stroke. This is all a crazy, delusional stroke dream. Someone will walk into my room and find me foaming at the mouth and take me to the hospital and this will all go away.”

But, apparently not yet. He kept prodding the metal, only just beginning to wonder if the woman had been lying to him after all, a fact that concerned him on some level. Finally, a part of the panel gave with a tiny pop of a magnet disconnecting and swung open. A rush of much colder air flowed from the tiny space, not much bigger than a microwave, eddying with frozen white mist. So there was a panel.

Jace rolled his eyes and crouched so he could see inside the hidden freezer, his lips pressing together until they turned white. There were stacks and stacks of frozen bags of blood, ones that looked like they should be in a hospital for people that actually needed it. Pulling one out, he found that the labels were different from the ones he had seen at blood drives. On one side were the normal blood labels telling where the blood came from, what type it was, and whether it was Rh positive or negative, and on the other side was a second label. But this one had a logo on it, a white fang with a red droplet dripping from it and a company name underneath: First Bite Supplier.

“Okay, this is definitely a joke.” But it was still blood. So…to thaw it. “She said there was a machine.” But there was no telling where it had been moved after his great uncle’s death with family scouring through for anything not explicitly left to Jace, even though he had written that his house and the possessions within were to be left to him. Jace still had yet to figure out why. He didn’t even know the guy. They had met only a few times at family holidays and the guy had always come off as a little weird and off-standish, never saying much and always watching everyone like a damn creeper. Of course, after what Jace had seen in the cellar, his uncle may very well have been a serial killer.

“Great…I’m living in a God damn serial killer’s house.” He pulled a ridiculous number of pots and pans out of the oak cabinet on the ground next to the gas stove, but there was nothing. He went cabinet by cabinet, following the curve of the counters, pulling everything out until, at last, he found something strange. Tucked away under the stainless-steel double sink at the back as if to catch water was a strange looking contraption. It had a ceramic bowl on top and a bulky base with a long power cord spiraling from it. It was a candle warmer. His mom had one once until it cracked from heat. This could work. But it would take a while.

He stared into the kitchen, looking for another way when he finally looked back at the sink. That was it. He could use that! The blood pack made a loud slap as he dropped it in the bowl and set the warmer on the center island, plugging it into one of the six outlets available on just one side of the butcher’s block island. Great uncle not only was a serial killer, but must have had a fetish for appliances in the kitchen. A red light came on the front of the warmer, signaling it was gaining heat. While that was heating up, Jace grabbed a pot and turned on the faucet, letting the water run until it was hot. Filling up the pot, he carefully turned and poured the steaming water into the ugly, chipped ceramic bowl, making sure to douse the blood, but not to overfill the container. Now to wait.

As if that was no hard enough, the pipes began banging again. How warm was warm? He poked the blood pack. Still cold. The pipes sounded a little louder. Still cold. Still banging.

“Hurgh, fine! She can drink it cold! It’s not like it’s frozen solid!” He unplugged the warmer and snatched the blood out, storming from the kitchen, through the family room to the closet under the stairs. Pulling on the old-fashioned ring handle, he hauled the trapdoor on the floor up and marched back down into the cellar, one hand on the wall, the other tucking the blood close so he would not drop it.

The woman had his flashlight in her hands when he got back down and she took the liberty of shining it in his eyes. “You brought some! Give it to me! Give it now!"

“Ah, sure, here. Just get that out of my eyes!” he said, shielding his face as he tossed the pack her way.

The flashlight went clattering again as she scrambled across the floor to catch the errant throw. Jace made to go for the flashlight, but had to stop as his stomach turned at the horrible sounds the woman….Aeva was making. She was slurping and gulping and a low, contented purr rumbled in her chest. She was one great big freak. A freak who now owed him some answers.
“Alright, now what was it you were saying about trying to kill my uncle? And what about your blood brothers? Will they be visiting anytime soon?”

She did not respond until the last drop of blood was gone from the pack he brought her, the thick plastic crinkling and tearing as she tore it apart with her fingers to lick the inside thoroughly. Only then did she acknowledge his presence and his question. “Probably. We have a nasty habit of holding grudges against families. If someone knocks on your door and asks to be let in, you should probably say no.”

Can’t you tell me anything more useful?” Jace grumbled, perturbed at the vagueness of the answer he had earned. But she just grinned up again him, her red canines protruding. “Well, then…I think it’s time we came to a real arrangement. I will feed you if you will stay out of my head and stop whatever it is you are doing to the pipes. Deal?” His nay-saying inner voice nagged at him, reminding him of the temporary insanity he seemed to be thick with, but not having anymore of those dreams, wandering out of bed and looking for a key, was too good to pass up.

Aeva looked him up and down with the speculative eye of an appraiser at an antique show. “Perhaps. It’s not like you have a choice.” She giggled at his frustrated sigh. “You really are just like him, you know. Well, you talk a lot more, but I kind of like that.”

Jace’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “What are you mumbling about?”

“Oh, nothing.” She scooped up the flashlight next to her foot again and pretended to examine her nails. It’s just…nice…to finally have someone else. Your uncle used to struggle so deliciously against me too. Of course, he let me taste him once in a while in exchange for my help.” She ran her tongue along her lips suggestively. “Is there anything you want to know oh so badly?”
“No. Never.” Even so, Jace had to pull his fingers away from the stitches on his shoulder. He had a thousand questions he would like to ask her, especially concerning his uncle she seemed to know so well, but he was not letting her bite him again. Ever. “Now…stay out of my head and I will make sure you don’t starve down here. Okay?”

She sighed heavily, her shoulders sagging, though she could not hide the smirk on her lips. “It’s a deal. But still…are you sure you don’t want to know how I do it.”

“…No.” She heard his hesitation though.

“If you say so,” she mocked as his hand touched the door to leave. “I’ll still be here when you need help. Your uncle told me you would. Of course, you could always find that key…then maybe I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

Jace closed the door behind him without another word.

And, here he was, warming another pack to feed her, trying to keep her from worming into his head again by keeping her placated. Aeva seemed more amused than anything by the song and dance. For all he knew, she could do that…thing and get in his head again. He had done some research on the internet, also known as browsing Wikipedia, and after ignoring the fact that he was crazy, he thought he found something related to what had happened to him. According to the great wisdom of fiction literature and forum speculation, Aeva may have made him into a “thrall.” Article after article described the mindless thrall that followed its master vampire’s will, bleeding itself dry to please him or her until they died. Unfortunately, since Wikipedia was such a reliable source of information, there was no way to tell if anything he read was even applicable to what Aeva claimed to be. She could go by an entirely different set of rules.
Of course, this was assuming he believed she was a vampire at all, and that vampire’s existed.

“Why haven’t I woken up from my stroke dream yet?” he grumbled, poking the blood pack that was warming.

A sudden knock at the front door interrupted his inner monologue of crazy. Glancing at the clock, Jace frowned at the time. It was almost eleven. At night. He checked his waistband where he had tucked his handgun that he always took with him when visiting Aeva to reassure himself.

There unfortunately was no peephole on the front door, so the only way to see who was outside was to just crack the door open. Outside stood a man, maybe in his thirties, dressed in dark slacks and a respectable looking tie and shirt with the white sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his brown hair cut short for business. He kept his face angle out of the light, easy to do since he was so tall, so it was impossible to see his eyes in the shadow the porch light cast over him.
“May I help you?” Jace prompted politely, hoping the man was just going to say something about sprinklers running too often or something mundane like that.

“You’re the new neighbor, right?” the man asked. It looked like he was smiling, though it was still hard to tell.

That was…definitely mundane….at eleven at night. “Ah, yes. Can I help you?”

The man extended one pale hand. “I’m Cane. I live across the street. I saw the light on and I figured I would come over and introduce myself.”

Jace shook his hand after a moment’s reluctance, trying to relax. “Ah, nice to meet you. Name’s Jace.”

“Jace eh?” he squeezed Jace’s hand once before letting it go, letting out a long exhalation that might have been a sigh. It sounded more like an imitation of one. “You must be Kaleb’s kid. Real sorry ‘bout what happened to him. My wife and I miss him a lot. He was a good man.” He snapped his fingers as if he remembered something, the light catching a brief glint in his eyes as he lifted his head ever so slightly. They were brown. “Hey, that reminds me, my wife wanted me to invite you for dinner this week. How about Thursday at eight? Hamburgers sound good?”
“Yeah, sure. Hamburgers are great.” The simple normalcy of the conversation was really making Jace’s hair stand on end.

“Okay, I’ll see you then.” He turned to leave but paused on the stairs. “Do you drink Bud?”
“Oh. Yeah. Of course. Bud’s fine. See you then?” And hopefully not until.

Cane nodded, grinning widely. “Good, yes. Have a good evening.”

It was not soon enough when Jace could close the door. He saw those teeth. That mans mouth looked like he had stolen a tiger’s jaw and put it to use. “What the hell is with this house!”
His stroke must be getting worse. He was going to start slowly spiraling into stranger and stranger places until he finally just died. “Maybe Aeva can tell me who he was.”

He snickered to himself as he grabbed the pack of blood from the warmer and went down to see her. He’d only known her for maybe a week and he already acted like she wasn’t trying to kill him. Of course, she had kept her promise and stayed out of his head and dreams, and she had been oh-so-polite to not try to bite him when he came down to feed her.

[Anna]

He groped briefly to find the battery powered lamp he had brought down to the cellar a few days ago and clicked it on, ignoring Aeva’s hiss. Being able to see down here made the trip a little less awful, but not by much. The room itself was as ill kempt and slimy as the door and the concrete floor was stained horrible swaths of brown and red, which he tried not to think about as leftovers from Aeva’s previous meals.

She graciously accepted the pack from him, her fingers purposefully brushing across his knuckles when she did, probably just to watch him flinch. Biting a hole in one corner, she sipped daintily from the pack, nothing like the mad gulping she had done the first time he had fed her. She was much calmer since he started feeding her regularly. He figured her erratic emotion before may have been a product of the starvation she suffered while the house changed hands. She seemed to have slipped back into a comfortable cunning, willing to wait for the perfect moment. And by the way she looked at him now, glancing at him form under lidded eyes, she must have known he had a question for her. Might as well get it over with.

“Do you know who Cane is? He stopped by, said he knew my uncle.” Had teeth that looked worse than yours.

“Of course,” she said after a lengthy draw on the pack that left it half empty. “Are you asking because he was someone your uncle knew, or because you saw something up there that you just can’t explain?”

Jace’s lips pressed together tightly. She knew all right. “Yes.”
A snort of laughter escaped her, and she had to cover her mouth to keep from dribbling blood down her chin. “Ah, you sound just like him. I suppose you want to play the same game he did too?”

“What game?” He couldn’t imagine what she might be talking about. What did a game have to do with his questions? Was he going to have to ask in rhyme or something?

Aeva delicately readjusted her rags of clothing over her body, leaning back against the damp wall so her dirty hair clung to it like a pale, silvery spider web. “You ask your questions, and I determine the price on them.”

That did not sound promising. “Price? Like what?”

Her lower lip stuck out in a pout. “Don’t sound so suspicious. I rather liked to play this game with Kaleb and I think he liked it too, haggling and bribing me until I gave him what he wanted. He was a terrible flirt. But, I suppose you are looking for an example. Say…you wanted to know just what Cane was and whether he was a friend. Two items of information. One costs more than the other. What he is would be something cheap, like…a taste of your blood again.” She raised her hand when Jace’s face twisted in disgust. “His relation to you is something that would cost you a bit more, like say…and hour of searching for that key?”

So this was her ploy. She was hoping that one day there would be something he wanted to know badly enough that he would be willing to let her free so she could kill him. But the two “prices” she had just offered were not much better in his opinion. He was not about to let her bite him again and be damned if he went looking for that key. What if he found it? Maybe it would be better just to hide his gun on him when he went to Cane’s house and feel the situation out for himself.

Aeva must have seen his deliberation. Her voice was terse as she scoffed at is hesitation. “I’m not asking to rip your throat out again. Just a quick nip on your arm to remind me of what it is like to be free of this horrible cellar.” Her chains rattled against the ground as she tossed the empty plastic pack to Jace’s feet. “And would looking for that key really harm anyone?”

What a load of crock. “You would break your promise to stay out of my head if I did that though, and there is no way in hell I am letting you bite me again.” He did not trust a single thing she said, probably the first sane decision he had made in a long while. “I can figure it out on my own and I have a gun in case it turns nasty.”

“A gun, hm?” She laughed openly at that, the chains rattling like demons. It was enough to make him hesitate. “Oh a gun won’t help you if he gets mad. His tail is rumored to be quicker than the eye, especially with that disguise he wears. You will never see it coming. Literally.”

“What are you talking about?” A tail? Really? Now she was seriously messing with him. Vampires, as ridiculous as this sounded even to himself, felt a little more believable than anything with a tail.

She sucked on her lower lip, looking somehow even more devious than she did with a smirk. “You get one free half-answer. Because I like you. Have you looked in your uncle’s library?”

He had a feeling where this was going and it was much better than the offers that were still standing. “No.”

“You should.”

That was it That was his hint. It wasn’t anything like wht he had been hoping for. Big friggin’ help that was. “Thanks. I don’t know what I would do without you,” he growled, leaving the lamp on as he slouched through the door to the stairs.

“You would be dead.”

His spine stiffened. That was not true. He would be living normally, as he had intended. Still, his heart hammered when she giggled at his quickened footsteps. Horrible bitch.

Still…it couldn’t hurt to look, could it? It was only one bookshelf of books in his uncle’s old bedroom. If anything, it would not take long. Maybe he could find a diary or something stashed in there that would say something about any of this crazy shit. And maybe Aeva would disappear from the cellar.

But he looked. He padded up the wooden stairs to the second floor, also wooded like the rest of the older house, passing the three other bedrooms until he came to a tiny corner room that looked more like a converted closet than a room. The old man had apparently refused to use the master bedroom himself, though the room was still furnished and full of clothes, as if someone had used it. The family knew so little about him, even his brother, Jace’s grandfather, had not seen more of the house than the den and dining room.

The bedroom he did sleep in had been found with heavy bolts on the inside, unlocked since he had died elsewhere, but it made a lot of the family nod their heads and mutter about paranoia. Jace had agreed then, but somehow, after meeting Aeva, he was starting to see why it might bee a good reason to have these locks. It was also the only bedroom besides the furnished attic to not have a window. Another wise choice in Jace’s opinion. He had no idea if anything was true about vampires, but he had a strong suspicion that windows were definitely not a problem for them.

Sitting on the twin bed squeezed against the right wall, Jace was able to lean over and browse the bookshelf. It had been rifled through, probably by a relative searching for money that was not there, but the all of the books were intact and present. A few of them were not even books but pages bound together with twine that looked like they had been ripped out of other books and scribbled all over by a manic three year old with a doctor’s handwriting. Those were the first things he checked, but he could not read them. The handwriting was completely illegible. There was other text on the pages, but it did not seem relevant to anything he needed to know, so he switched to one that looked kind of like a published book.

It wasn’t by any author he recognized, and it read like fiction, but the book touted it had true information on the myths of the world. This book was scribbled in as well, with great swaths of the printed text highlighted in yellow. Gargoyles, gryphons, gremlins, grigori, gulon, he seemed to be in the G section of a mythological encyclopedia. Then he noticed the bookmarks, pages here and there that were dog-eared with a little plastic tag sticking out from the top.

He flipped to the first one, landing on a page that read “Familiar.” A paragraph of handwriting filled the margin, describing something, while the page of text was highlighted in bits and pieces, but the most interesting thing was the single sentence of text up next to the title. He could not read most of it, but he could make out one word well enough: Elsa. Was that a name? Flipping to another bookmark, he squinted next to the title “Gallu” and tried to pick out a word. There. Nikito, Grete, Iren. They were names. It looked like his uncle had written names next to the titles of the bookmarked pages.

Jace’s heart pounded in excitement. These could be people that his uncle had actually known. Then his face paled. Oh God. What if these were people his uncle knew? Were there really this many…creatures out there?

“No…this is…insane. There can’t be…there just can’t…” But what about Aeva? What about the teeth in Cane’s mouth that he saw? If this was his stroke dream, anything was possible. It was a dream. Still, reading about it somehow made it too real to bear, like knowing about all of them would some how make them appear in his life, drawn to his knowledge. But…he really did not want to walk into a stranger’s house without knowing. Some of these names in here sounded kind of…horrible.

Jace looked at the bedside clock, sighing at the late time. It was going to be a long night.
It actually took him almost an entire day to find the name penned into one of the volumes. He was in the bedroom, curled up with a cup of coffee when he found it. Cane. It was penned in next to the title “Manticore.” Unable to read the mad scribbles on the page, Jace limited himself to reading the highlighted parts of the typed text. It made the beast sound terrifying. Lion-like with a tail full of deadly, poisonous quills it could throw at enemies with a flick of its tail. Teeth that could regrow if they were removed or lost. Sometimes possessed wings or horns. Nothing on temperament or personality though.

So…assuming he could go along with the idea that Cane was a manticore in disguise, as Aeva had mentioned, why would he want to do anything bad to Jace?

“Okay, maybe not the best question to ask,” Jace admitted aloud. “He could have a grudge against my uncle for…knowing what he was?” He could not help but to groan. “This is so stupid. I would have taken vengeful mob ties over a stroke.” The book went back on the shelf and Jace let himself wander back downstairs, savoring a mouthful of hot coffee. “He’s just being a good neighbor. I am going to go to dinner tomorrow, and I am going to have a decent time, then I probably wont have to ever talk to the guy again.” That was how neighbor meet-and-greets went. “And if he tries anything, I have a gun I can use just fine. Even…” It felt odd, but right to add the amendment as he pretended to take aim at the front door form the bottom step. “Even if the bullets don’t kill him, it’ll slow him down long enough to get outside.”

Even in movies, that usually worked. Energy transfer, his physics professor had told his class while they spoke about why bulletproof vests were not really bullet proof. The energy transfer still hurts, can still knock you on your ass, and can still give you a nasty bruise. Besides, if Jace killed the guy, it would be murder. If he just shot at him while running out of the house, someone would call the cops and it would definitely be self-defense. At the end of the day though, he would really prefer not to have to shoot anyone.

His thoughts were interrupted by the jingle and ring of his cell phone form the kitchen. Swiping it from the counter, he read the name of the caller and mashed the accept call button. “Jace Coleman speaking.

A low man’s voice growled into his ear. “You have work at the theatre Saturday. Wear something nice.”

Jace could not hide his grin, or his excitement. Another job. Finally. “I will be there.”
The caller hung up, leaving Jace to tuck his cell into his pocket and sip his coffee victoriously. “I knew they would call me back. My record is spotless and I am impeccable…” He frowned suddenly. “…And in the middle of a stroke. Note to self, if anything weird happens that no one else responds to, ignore it and hope it goes away.”

But even that thought could not ruin his caffeinated good mood. He had avoided giving Aeva anything she wanted and still “figured out” what Cane was, and he had a job. It could not get any better. This required bragging to the only person he had to brag to that would not call him crazy at the first word.

The trip down to the cellar was on light feet. “I found the books,” he grinned at Aeva as he strode through the door. “And I figured out what Cane is.”

“Oh really?” She seemed less than impressed, yawning as she sat up from where she had been curled up on the floor…sleeping?

“Yes. He is a manticore.” Because in his head, people could be anything.

She blinked her sleepy brown eyes, yawning. “Congratulations. You figured it out. That still leaves one question. Friend or foe?”

He shrugged, his smile growing. “Don’t care. I have a gun, a good sprint, and good lungs. And I have until tomorrow evening to read up on him. Nothing weird is going to happen.”
Aeva did not look convinced. “Mm, what if he poisons the food? Sticks you with his tail while you aren’t paying attention?”

“I’ll watch him eat first and I won’t let him stand behind me.” She was digging now, trying to aggravate him into asking her and taking he deal. But he had figured it out on his own, without her and he was not going to let her trick him into doing anything stupid. Well, even more stupid than him going along with all of this.

But she simply shrugged casually at his response and reclined back to the floor, as if to go back to sleep. “If that makes you feel safe.”

Oh, he knew she did care. He could prove it. “If I die over there, I won’t be here to feed you. You’ll go hungry again down here. Think about that.”

He saw her jerk ever so slightly at the word hungry. Pinned that fear right down. But she hid her anxiety well with a smile and a reassurance. “Oh, don’t worry about me. I’ll just wait for the next couple idiots to come down and try to set me free, like good little Samaritans. All I have to do is wait for them to get within reach.”

Oh yeah. He had forgotten for just a second about that. Any normal person who came down here would probably do the same thing he did and try to free her. They would get the same treatment too, except he had a feeling she would not let them have free reign. She would knuckle them down under her control and make them let her go. He had a suspicion that there was something she was not telling him that had to do with why she was not constantly in his head, making him look for the key to her freedom or bringing him within her arm’s length. It was probably something subtle and patient that would probably end with him dead somehow.
The hairs along his arms stood up as he thought about it and he was suddenly glad for the lamp and the chains.

“I think I’ll just go…do some more research. On Cane.” He knew the quiet giggle he heard when he closed the door was aimed directly at him. She knew. She always seemed to.

~~

It felt too soon when Jace was knocking on the red front door across the street. He had thrown on some decent looking jeans, a white button down shirt, and an old windbreaker to hold off the rising gusts form the approaching storm forecasted to hit tomorrow. It all fortunately hid his gun fairly well, which he had ended up stuffing into the back of his pants, lacking a belt to carry it. Not the smartest thing he had ever done, but he still felt better having it with him.
The door finally swung inwards, revealing a young woman, presumably Cane’s wife he had mentioned. She was small in every possible way and looked so frail that the gusting wind might break one of her delicate bones. It only served to muss her straight black hair. She gave him a welcoming smile, showing her white, flat, even teeth as she invited him in.

“You must be Mr. Kaleb’s nephew,” she greeted him, her voice carrying an unfamiliar, but distinctly Asian accent. “Please, come inside out of the weather.”

“Ah, yes. Thank you for inviting me,” he said as he stepped through the doorway, stripping his coat off when the woman asked for it. He had not expected her to recognize him so easily. Did his great uncle have pictures of him or something? Or maybe they had just seen Jace out and about at his house. Either way...

It looked like they were standing in a tiny foyer, with dark wood floors underfoot and rows of hangers on the opposite wall. A tan carpeted staircase hugged the wall to the left, leading to the second floor. Just in front of the stairs on the wall was an open doorway that lead to a formal living room, complete with brick fireplace and comfortable looking furniture that seemed built for the room. To the right was a formal dining room that attached to a kitchen he could only glimpse from where he stood. But branching away from the dining room was a short hall that led to, as he saw when he passed it, a family room with a ridiculously large television and an equally large couch.

After hanging his coat, the woman led the way to the kitchen, speaking to Jace the entire time as he half-heartedly took an interest in the very normal décor. “You can call me Sunny and it is no problem at all to have you by. We realize you must still be settling in over there, so we thought we might invite you for a good dinner.”

They were in the kitchen now and Jace could not help but to stare in awe. It was massive. There was more counter space here than all the surface areas of his collective tables, desks, and counters in his entire house. And all in beautiful black granite. The appliances looked more expensive than any Jace had ever seen used in restaurants, all in stainless steel with copper accents. And the cabinets. They had to be custom. He had never seen such intricate details in wood on anything he had ever seen before.

“Did you all build this?” he asked a little breathlessly.

Sunny smiled demurely, gazing proudly upon her kitchen. “My husband built this as a wedding present to himself. Believe it or not, he does most of the cooking around here. I’d tell you he is an amazing chef, but you will be able to judge for yourself tonight.”

“No kidding…” There weren’t any psycho killers who were great cooks were there? Jace was sure he had never heard of such a story. Of course…you didn’t have to be completely mental for a revenge killing…Gah, he hated thinking about all of this! He just needed to survive tonight and he wouldn’t have to talk to the guy again.

He realized, belatedly, the young woman was speaking with him again and he only caught the tail end of the sentence.

“…on the deck. You should probably go out and say hi. I have to get started cooking in here.” She must have caught his slightly puzzled expression because she pointed behind him to door in the corner of the kitchen that led outside.

“Ah, thank you,” he mumbled, wishing he could not feel his face turning an obvious shade of red before he could escape out the door.

The delicious scent of a charcoal grill burning overwhelmed Jace’s embarrassment with a mouth-watering hunger. The red dome was perched on a corner of the wooden deck, smoking happily in the bright deck lights as it waited for the hamburgers laid out in a container on the nearby glass and metal table next to the chef. Cane smiled and leapt to his feet when Jace wandered over, shaking his hand firmly.

“Jace! Good to see you. How has the week been? Not too stressful, I hope?”

“It’s been good. Can’t complain,” Jace answered absently, trying to smile with as much honesty as he could muster while trying to keep an eye out for any tails or teeth.

Cane’s grin was as flat and even as his wife’s though, if white enough to blind the sun. In fact, dressed in jeans, barefoot, with an older collared shirt pulled on that perfectly matched his reddish hair, he looked the epitome of normal. “Well, here. Sit down. I’ll grab you a beer. I was just about to throw the burgers on.” He squatted on the other side of the grill, pulling open an orange cooler and digging down through the ice for a glass bottle.

“So,” he prompted as Jace eased into one of the cushioned chairs. They were really comfortable. “What do you think of the old place? Kaleb took really good care of that house while I knew him. Place was always spotless.”

A beer plunked down in front of Jace, the top already removed and he took a grateful sip of the pleasantly bitter swill while Cane began to tend to the grill. “Yeah, it’s nice. Beats my tiny apartment.” Though why he inherited the house and its workings was still a mystery. “Haven’t found any leaks or anything while I’ve been there.”

There was a plume of smoke as Cane pulled the grill’s lid off and began to plop patties onto it, wafting a delicious smell across the deck. “That radiator still knocking?”

Jace’s blood froze. Did he know about Aeva? What if he didn’t? “Ah…yeah. I’ve…um…checked it out. It doesn’t seem to be too much of a problem right now though.”

There was an awkward silence as Cane finished putting on the last of the burgers. Jace’s teeth hurt his jaw was clenched so tightly. He found his hand had somehow wandered up to his shoulder where the stitches were still puckering his skin closed, due to be removed tomorrow.

“There,” Cane said as he put the grill’s lid back on. An egg timer appeared from some pocket and he set some number of minutes on it before sitting and setting it on the table. “Well, I hope it doesn’t keep you up at night. Kaleb always said a good Benadryl would help him sleep through it.”

It did not sound like he knew about Aeva. Jace slowly exhaled, trying to calm his nerves as he pulled his hand away from his neck. The idea of sleeping through Aeva’s insistent pipe banging brought a thin smile to his face. “That sounds like an idea.”

“Yeah, he was full of them and a whole lot of other shit,” Cane chuckled, taking a sip of his beer. It looked like he was trying to hide a grimace. “He talked about you a lot, you know.”

That was weird. “Uh, no.” Jace didn’t even really know the guy. He didn’t even know how old he was until he read the obituary. But his great uncle talked about him? What did that guy know? Did he say anything about why he inherited the house? “What did he say?”

Cane settled into his seat and stared into his manicured lawn, smiling as he recalled something fond. “He used to talk mostly about your personality. He said he saw you were very tenacious. You coped with things that would send most people running and screaming just by hanging on and pushing through. He made it sound like you went through an inordinate amount of stress everyday.”

His job was the first thing that came to Jace’s mind. It sounded, somehow, like his great uncle knew about it. But that didn’t make any sense. “Well, neither does a legless vampire chick or a manticore, but there we go,” Jace mumbled to himself before smiling at Cane. “Some say I do. Nice of the old man to say so. Did he…” He hoped. “Did he ever say why he decided to leave the place to me?”

There was a nod. Jace’s chest ached with anticipation, his fingers tightening around the beer bottle he had taken a sip from. “He said something along the lines of you being the best one fit to take care of his life he left behind, whatever that means.” He paused to take a sip, eyes squinting in thought. “My best guess is whatever trouble he was always sticking his nose into, showing up at my house night after night with stitches and broken bones. Never liked to talk about it, though I would like to think if he ever told me, I would help him.” He paused, looking straight at Jace when he said his next words. “If it is some kind of trouble he left you, you can ask me for help. I promise to do what I can.”

Well…that was unexpected. “Ah, thank you. I think I might take you up on that if anything lands in my lap. As long as you promise not to leave me bleeding in an ally.”

Cane snorted with laughter, nearly choking on his beer. “I swear. On the honor of my mother and sister.”

Jace could not resist. “Are they honorable?”

“Most of the time,” Cane admitted.

They shared a good laugh and a sip of beer, musing over the implications before Jace tentatively broke the silence, his confidence won by the pleasant, normal conversation. “So what did uncle Kaleb do exactly? I mean, I really never knew him at all. He didn’t talk a lot at family stuff, and he didn’t really visit. You seem to have known him pretty well…so…”

Cane snorted, checking his timer before answering. “He always told me he owned a business, though he never really said what it was. It sounded kind of like a foster home or a help home, really. He was always talking about these women and kids with crazy problems. I thought he was making it up sometimes, except I met one once. On accident of course.”

He took a sip of beer, swilling the bottom of the glass bottle, watching it foam and swish, drawing out Jace’s curious stare. “I went over there just to talk. I didn’t call ahead because we were friends and all that crap. A woman answered the door. She was bruised from head to toe and she looked like she had been crying. She was a mess. Kaleb came up behind her and pulled her out of the way, apologizing for not answering the door. He said she was one of the girl’s from work, that she had showed up at his house and he was about to leave and drive her back.

“And I know Kaleb didn’t hurt her. He wasn’t like that. I asked him about it again later, and he told me the same thing. I think the only reason I didn’t suspect him of anything crazy like some else might is because I just knew him. That man would do anything to help someone in need, even take a bullet for a stranger.” Cane’s expression slipped ever so slightly into something dark and haunted, though he tried to hide it with another glance towards the timer that prompted him to get up and check the grill.

The answer was not one Jace expected. Of course, he was not sure what kind of job left a vampire in your cellar. Maybe a tax advisor by day, and a supernatural mobster by night. It had a good superhero movie vibe to it. Of course, the story he just heard actually gave the man a mysterious, violent vibe that worked with the serial killer view Jace was currently holding. That did not sit so well with Jace’s gut. His response was an obvious cop out as he tried to steer away from the conversation that was quickly confirming the creeping sensation in Jace’s gut, despite Cane’s assurances that his uncle was in something legitimate and would never beat a woman senseless…or lock them in his cellar after hacking her legs off. “He sounds like a good guy. Wish I could have known him better.”

“I am sure you two would have gotten along if you had more time,” Cane said between masterfully flipping the patties on the grill and shaking some mystery seasoning on top. “But we get the hand we are dealt. You should try reading some of his books to try to learn more about him. It might help you feel closer to him.”

“I tried,” Jace admitted without thinking. “I couldn’t read his handwriting.”

“What about the text he wrote on?”

Jace’s skin prickled with goosebumps as he suddenly remembered what books Cane was talking about. The books that had Cane’s name messily scribbled next to the title “Manticore.” The books that listed name after name of mythical creature with people’s names and unintelligible notes written in sloppy scrawl in the margins.

“Ah, I just skimmed it really. It looked like he was studying for a fantasy story or something he was writing. Looked pretty interesting.” That’s right. Feign innocence. He probably just thought Jace were just a stupid kid anyway.

“It is,” Cane assured him, leaving the grill again to tend to his timer. “If you come by again, I’ll see if I can remember most of the plot to the story he was working on. It was a bit convoluted, so you’ll have to excuse me if I have to find a rough draft around here somewhere to brush up.”

He was kidding right? Was everything scribbled in those books about fantasy characters? Oh, Aeva was going to hear about this. Wait. Maybe…maybe his stroke was clearing up. Yeah. Someone must have found him and dragged him to the hospital. Just a few more hours of wacked out dreams and he would wake up, pleasantly high on painkillers in a cold, starchy bed, staring at the white ceiling.

The creak of the backdoor interrupted his elated thoughts as Sunny stuck her head outside. “Cane, can you come here for a second?”

Her husband smiled, pocketing his timer. “Of course, be right there. Jace, you think you can handle making sure nothing catches fire?”

“I will do my best,” Jace said with a sarcastic salute, earning a chuckle of amusement.
“Alright, I will be right back.”

Cane’s absence as he slipped inside left an odd gap in the atmosphere of the deck. It felt really strange suddenly to be sitting outside, alone, like some fundamental part of the scene was gone. Jace chalked it up to too many stroke-induced dreams, but there was something more than that. Maybe it was the sudden quiet without awkward conversations dancing about a dead serial killer and his mysterious hobbies. Maybe it was the dark, strange yard, but it left a chill emptiness in the air that made you want to look over your shoulder.

What ever it was, it made the dark yard seem very, very unfriendly, and Jace found himself gripping his beer bottle tight enough to turn his knuckles white. “I’m getting paranoid,” Jace grumble to himself, trying to slow down his racing pulse with a few deep breaths.

Wait. What was that?

Jace’s heart froze as he stared into the dark just beyond the deck light. It looked like there was something there, something big. It looked like a really big dog, the way the shadow stood, hunched on all fours, but it was definitely not a dog. The outline was…wrong somehow. It looked deformed, like there were extra limbs, or too much bulk. Definitely not a dog…

“Okay, sorry about that,” Cane’s voice interrupted, door banging behind him.

Jace’s beer went flying, soaking his lap with frosty Bud. “Ah, damn it! Cold!”

“Woah, hey! You okay? Here, here.” Cane was at his side, handing him a towel, balancing a tray of side dishes on his other hand. Man that guy moved fast.

“Yeah, I’m fine, I’m fine. Just, startled me.” God how embarrassing. He tried to towel his pants somewhat dry, wincing at the cold, his eyes straying into the yard. The shadow was gone. Whatever it was, the ruckus on the deck had scared it off. He was not complaining, although it had probably all been a trick of the light.“Fucking stroke…” he mumbled to himself.

“I’m sorry again for startling you,” Cane apologized as he set the tray of food down on the table and scurried to the grill to pull off the burgers. “You must have seen something interesting out there. You looked pretty deep in thought.”

Saying he was having a stroke-induced hallucination didn’t sound like it would go over well anyone. Sometimes the truth was better, even if it did make him look like a beer-soaked idiot. “Ah, thought I saw a dog or something. Just the dark I think. Seeing things.”

“I brought another towel!” Sunny said from the door, handing over the fluffy bathroom towel to mop up the remaining mess on Jace’s lap. “I saw what happened. I could through them in the wash if you want. No?” She took Jace’s polite, embarrassed smile as an answer and fluttered to a stop. “Did you see a ghost?”

“Just a dog,” Cane answered, leaning over to give his wife a peck on the cheek.

She stuck out her lower lip. “Oh, I hope he didn’t dig under the fence. We only just got it fixed.”

“I’m sure we could fix it if he did, but for now,” he turned to the table dramatically, his plate stacked high with hot burgers. “Dinner is served.”

There were no other signs of big, dog-shaped things in the yard for the rest of the evening, just absent, lighthearted conversation about local happenings and political affairs. Jace couldn’t keep up in that respect. He had no taste for politics. He found his own brand of subterfuge his job employed to be much more satisfying than the obvious lies politicians played. Even so, he ended up staying later than he intended, wrapped up in the comfortable, normal conversation.
But, with a promise to visit again soon, a leftover burger, and an uncontrollable need to yawn, Jace excused himself home. But the moment the door closed behind him and left alone him with an empty stretch of lawn and black asphalt, he had a sudden lurch of anxiety that maybe…maybe that dog...thing…wasn’t just a part of his imagination because he swore he could feel that niggling sensation of someone watching him. He glanced back. The windows to either side of him were empty and the other houses were all dark.

“Just nerves. Just nerves,” Jace repeated, trying to convince himself it was true as he took his first step off the front stoop. The unfortunate thing was that he usually prided himself on being right about this kind of thing. It had even saved his neck a few times.

He was at the curb now. The road was empty. Not even a car at this time. Loose gravel crunched under his sneakers, Bad substrate for sprinting. He hurried across, hopping the curb. Still nothing but crickets and wet grass. The door. The door.

It closed behind him with a satisfying clunk of solid wood construction. He sighed loudly, a chuckle escaping him. “Stupid…this stroke is getting you paranoid.” It was time for a good hard sleep. He did have a job to do in one more day and he still needed to check the place out.

[Anna]

But before he could take one step, there was a rattle of pipes banging. Aeva. Already. She was still awake. “Damn that woman…” He would ignore her and go to sleep, except he had heard how loud she could be when she was ignored. It was damn annoying.

So he trudged down to the cellar, growling sleepily from the door at her. “What?”
She batted her eyes at him with a devious, toothy grin spreading across her features, her eyes flickering darkly in the lamplight. “So, I see you are still alive. Have fun playing with your manticore friend?”

Great, a session of gloating. She liked to subscribe to weird stereotypes. “Loads. What do you want? I’m tired.”

She rolled her eyes, slumping back against the wall with a tiny “hmph.” “Just to see how you are. I wouldn’t want my generous caretaker to die and leave me all alone now would I?”
Sarcasm. She must really be in a good mood. “Well I am alive and unharmed save for a splash of very cold beer. Now I am going to bed. Good night.”

“Wait!”

He twisted back around from the doorway he was exiting, his brows furrowed. He had not heard that tone of voice since he first met her, when she was trying to trick him. Nothing she said next would probably be true.

“Don’t you…” She hung her head suddenly, as if she was embarrassed by her own behavior. “Don’t you want to know anything about Cane? Or maybe Kaleb?”

Oh yes, ever so tempting to trade information he could easily get on his own for another hole in his neck. “Yeah, no.”

“Not even a little bit?? Don’t you want to know what your uncle did? Why I’m down here?”
He snorted in disbelief. “He was a serial killer, and you are a psycho. I’d call the cops to let you out if I wasn’t so certain you’d try to bite me or one of them.”

The sneer she gave him was impressive, even by his standards. “Tch, your uncle couldn’t kill anyone if his life depended on it. Why do you think I’m down here and all those girls stayed up there?”

“Not a serial killer, hm?” Yeah, he did not believe a word she was saying. He was right, she was lying. “Serial killers and perverts are the only people I am aware of that keep people in basements.”

“You forgot the seriously disturbed,” she corrected, her expression settling into the cold, emotionless set she used when she was upset with him. It made his hair stand on end suddenly. He had forgotten in his aggravated state how dangerous she was. She could get in his head. And she was insane. There was no telling when she would lose patience with whatever game she was enjoying letting him do what he wanted to do. Fuck, how did he forget that shit?

“Good night,” she called after him as he pulled the door shut.

~~

He was glad when he woke up to an alarm clock that said it was one in the afternoon. Perfect timing. It felt great to scrub clean in the shower and scrap his face smooth again. He hated growing facial hair. It itched way too much, got caught on everything, and was way too high profile. Not something for his lifestyle.

He threw on a crummy pair of jeans, making sure to grab the one with the most holes (they were the most comfortable). Over that went a printed t-shirt he had bought two sizes too big and washed one too many times, turning what he thought he remembered once being a skull insignia into patches of flaking yellowish fabric paint and turned the black fabric to grey. He threw the ugliest, chunkiest necklace he could find over his head and pulled a tattered, faded black fedora from a drawer suspiciously full of other hats and threw it on his head.

Returning to the bathroom, he gave himself a once over and grimaced at the sight in the mirror. It was a perfect disguise. He even had the slouched, defeated look down perfectly. Now just for the worn out black boots, and no one would recognize him tomorrow when he went dressed to the nines. If only he had clip on piercings to really finish it out. “I love my job.”

He clodded down the stairs, practicing his world-weary frown even as he turned the corner into the kitchen to grab his tasty leftover burger. Leaning against the counter, he took his first bite before Aeva intruded into his thoughts. Not literally, like before, but it was certainly not welcome to be thinking about her at any time. He had to wonder though how she would react if he was gone all day and night without feeding her, though. She did not seem like the type that would simply shrug it off.

“Bitch would probably knife me in my sleep if she could,” he grumbled as the taste of his burger fell flat in his mouth. Nerves. That woman always got his nerves up. Like she was going to suddenly pounce from around a corner or something! She was shackled in the cellar with no legs!

He slammed the refrigerator shut and slouched back the way he had come to get his wallet, phone, and the keys to his second hand car. He was going to go out and he was going to forget about that woman for a day and focus on his job.

He was not able to breath a sigh of relief until he was almost into town. All he could think about was what Aeva would do if she got pissed with him. If she had been anyone else, it would have been no problem just to toss out a lie to her, but…there was something about her. She felt so…unnatural. Even thinking about her made his stomach churn just a little bit. She was a subtle kind of creepy that, even in a stroke-induced dream (or nightmare as it was turning out so far), you could just sense, but couldn’t put a finger on. It wasn’t like anything else he had ever known, and he had put himself into a lot of what normal people would call scary situations. But nothing creepy like Aeva. She belonged in a horror story somewhere.

Slamming the driver’s door a little harder to make sure it stayed closed, Jace slumped and bemoaned his way to the front of the theatre. It was old, like his new house or his car, but this kind of old was different. It wasn’t creepy or unreliable. This theatre could call its age wisdom and experience. It had been there since the beginning of this city, all plaster and peeling gold leafing and Greek style. It had not been refurbished recently (money was too short for that), but it still held its cherub-wreathed head high, ignoring its flaking and cracking and discolouration. Those were simply signs of the ineffable wheel of time.

To say the least, the place was old and fancy. Jace realized he might even need to get a suit to get in. “Ugh, well, I can try the slacks and a button down approach and if it doesn’t work, I’ll sneak in.” Not very hard considering all the back entrances for the performers. But it would still be a pain in the butt.

Clodding into the triple arch entrance, he leaned casually against the faux marble statue of Venus and plucked a piece of paper tucked inside the carved letters on her massive base that stood as tall as he did. The paper had written on it the seat he was to meet his boss in: K438. Hopefully that was him and not the mark.

“Guess I’ll find out when I get there.” Or he would get in trouble. Either was likely.

He craned his head around the statue and checked the posted title and times. A Kiss and a Dance. Eight o’clock Saturday evening. Sounded fun.

Jace was about to head out, satisfied with his legal look at the outside of the theatre, when he got that sudden prickle at the back of his neck, like someone was watching him. Pretending to stretch, he slid his eyes left and right, even looking above him as he twisted into positions that made his back crackle and pop. Nothing. He didn’t see anything at all. But the feeling only got worse.

“Security?” he wondered vaguely, slouching at a much more determined pace now back to his car. He could not afford to draw attention to himself now.

His hand lighted on the door to his car when he heard the sound of rubber sole on asphalt clearly as if he could hear nothing else. He barely had time to take more than a few steps back before two men came from around the other side of his car where they had been crouching. They weren’t burly by any stretch of the imagination. They were not even much bigger than Jace, though they were significantly taller, but they had the look of men who knew how to throw a punch and really make it hurt. They both had dark hair that sported a longer length than Jace thought was seen outside of chick-flicks and they wore clothes that he distinctly could tell smelled of “douche.”

He wasted no time turning heel and hauling ass, but they apparently were faster, something Jace was not proud of. A hand closed on the back of his throat, easily stopping him in his tracks so suddenly, his feet jerked off the pavement. They guy’s arm didn’t move. He just held Jace there in the middle of the air as he squirmed and writhed to get free.

The other guy the one in the too tight black shirt stepped around in front so he and Jace could see eye to eye. Jace tried to ignore the ring of red he swore he could see around the outside of the guy’s iris. It was not the first thing on his mind.

“Where is Absinthe?” the guy in front of him asked, his expression eerily pleasant as he leaned over Jace’s struggling form.

What kind of a question was that? They must have been doing some really good drugs. Great. That would explain the crazy guy behind him still holding him off his feet. Some kind of drug induced adrenaline spike? “Have you tried the liquor store?”

The arm holding Jace snapped him sharply forward, rattling his brain in his head, his legs wobbling like a doll’s in mid-air. He was certain his neck would have more to fear if the guy did that again any harder. What the hell did they want? What were these guys?

“Funny kid,” the drugged up giant in front of Jace chuckled, tucking a piece of hair behind one of his studded ears. “We’re talking about Absinthe, the woman. Black hair, green eyes, scales. Last seen with Kaleb, your…great uncle.”

A lady with snake skin boots. Of course his crazy, serial killer uncle had eventually reached that end. Where these guys her relatives maybe looking for a little vigilante justice? God, he hoped not. “I…I have no idea who you are talking about. I really didn’t know my uncle. I just inherited his house. That’s all.” Somehow he felt like that answer was not going to be enough.

Jace did not like the way the man’s face drew into an unpleasant-looking smile before he spoke again. “Well then. Did you hear that Mannoraas? All of our searching for nothing. He says he doesn’t know anything.” Sarcasm. Jace’s pulse, already pounding, began to hammer so hard he thought it might burst his jugular right under those fingers digging into his neck. Sarcasm always preceded something very painful.

The man’s hand moved to Jace’s gut, below where he could see, and he could feel something very sharp prick him through his shirt. When had he gotten a knife? “I want you to tell us where Absinthe is and what you know about her. If you prove to not know anything, or to be lying, I have been informed that we are free to do what we please with you.” His eyes flickered Jace towards the man holding him up. “And I do believe Mannoraas said he could use a new familiar.”

“Familiar?” Jace knew he shouldn’t, but he could not help his wildly babbling tongue. This was insane! These guys were insane! And all he could keep imagining was his mutilated corpse turning up in an alley somewhere. Or never turning up. “Is that what they are calling it these day? I always thought the proper word was-!!”

His voice strangled off as his insides seemed to melt suddenly, his muscles contracting violently around his middle. He clutched his middle, the center of the pain and tried to scream. But his mouth opened and closed with no sound, his eyes clouding with pain until it suddenly stopped. It took him a full half a minute until he could finally take a gurgling gasp of air, coughing at the scent of rotten eggs. His hands felt no blood from the knife in the man’s grip against his belly, only his own cold sweat. “The fuck was that?” he choked between coughing fits.

He could see the man’s smile grow wider through his teared up eyes. “Tell us what you know about Absinthe, or I will allow you the pleasure of experiencing that again.”

“I don’t know anything! Please don’t – AAHH!!!” He screamed this time, his vision blurring into a haze of white and red. The knot of fire in his gut was radiating along his veins, boiling his blood, splitting his skull down the center, torching his thighs. He couldn’t hear anything over the crackling of his own flesh and fat burning.

Then it was gone again. He was heavy. He was floating. A haze of colour swam in front of his eyes, an ocean that left an empty echo in his ears. Where was he? Did he die?
“I can’t die yet…” he thought through the muzzy layers of cotton wrapped around his brain. He had something he had to do. It was too early to die. “I have to…I have a job tonight…” That was right. A job. He had to go get ready for it.

His limbs paddled slowly, finding the rough concrete beneath him. “That’s it,” he coaxed his body as it tried to push upright.

“Not so fast…” cooed a voice from beyond the haze. A weight dropped into Jace’s gut, dropping him back against the concrete. “Here, let me make sure you can appreciate this.” It was as if a blanket had been forcibly peeled back after he had pulled it up over his head. A sudden cold breeze left him shivering and wide-eyed, staring up at two grinning faces, his senses raw and aching, without any haze to block or obscure anything. He suddenly felt very naked, vulnerable. He wanted to believe it was all a nightmare, a horrible, horrible nightmare, but he hurt so much. Dreams didn’t hurt, right?

He wasn’t so sure anymore.

The two white grins looked at one another, salivating. “I don’t know Saas. I think he might just know a little something about Absinthe. We should ask him again.”

“I agree. One can never be too careful when dealing with liars.” The blade that was in his stomach came back and Jace could not help but to glance down and see what was causing him so much pain.

There was no blade. What he had thought was a knife was an impossibly long nail growing right out of one of the man’s fingers sharpened to an impossibly sharp point. This was not right. This was fucked up.

He slapped his hands down on the concrete and tried to push himself upright, but the single finger did not budge. It was as if Jace was pushing against an iron bar sunk three feet into a brick wall. His fist swung at the men’s faces, but they seemed to grow further way, their arms stretching out to an impossible length.

The two men smiled even bigger, pressing the nail down into Jace’s stomach until he grunted in pain. “So…what do you know about Absinthe?”

“I don’t know fucking anything!” Jace shrieked, wriggling against the concrete, suddenly intent on getting away. He had to get away! This wasn’t making any sense! Where the fuck was anybody to help him? This was a city damn it! Why wasn’t there anyone around!?

His nails dug into the pliable, fleshy hand, ripping and tearing. His feet kicked at muscle-bound stomachs, but neither man moved except to lean in closer. “Agh! Get off! I don’t know anything!”

“If anyone knows anything about liars, it is us,” one of the men crooned, digging his knife-like nails into Jace’s chest. “Now scream. I will make you scream the pretty truth out of you.”
Jace squeezed his eyes shut, trying to shut out the pain he knew was coming.

“HAH!” There was a loud thud of leather boot connecting with face and Jace’s eyes snapped open just in time to see one of the men over him go flying, skidding across the concrete. Taking his place to grapple with the other man was a woman, a black braid down to her waist and dressed in black, skin-tight leather that would have put her squarely on a movie set. “Move your ass!” she shouted, ducking as the man slashed at her with his knife-like claws. “Now! Up! Move!”

She was yelling at him! Jace bolted to his feet, sprinting for his car. He was not waiting around to see if this crazy chick was going to help him. He was getting the hell out of there!

But he had forgotten about the other guy. A vice closed on Jace’s arm, whipping him around like a ragdoll. The world spun briefly, then he was facing one of his attackers’ grinning faces. Jace reacted without even thinking, lashing out with one fist as hard as he could. The guy did not even move. Jace’s hand throbbed. But he was not going down without a fight!

Neither was the guy he was attacking. The vice on Jace’s arm tightened and yanked him forward, twisting the arm up in between his shoulder blades. “Ah, I wish I could kill you,” the man crooned in Jace’s ear just loud enough to be heard over the young man’s pained gasps as he wrenched the arm higher. “But my master still sees something useful in you. He did not say anything about leaving you in one piece though. You don’t need this arm, right?”

“Let go!” Jace shrieked, slamming his head backwards into the man’s face. He felt a nose crunching and pushing inward, nearly laughed at the scream of pain. But the man still would not let go.

Jace’s shoulder gave a loud pop and he screamed again. “Ah, you are feisty.” The man was laughing now. “This is going to make twisting your limbs off even more satisfying.”

But before he could pull Jace’s arm even further, the man began to shout, his hands flying to his ears, leaving Jace free to run. And he did. That was when he heard what was making the man shout. The woman! She was saying a prayer of some kind.

“Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take!” She was standing over the other man who was curled up on the concrete, the skin melting from his face and chest like candle wax. It made Jace’s stomach churn.

“Or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night!” She jerked her chin towards him and then the car. A signal to leave. He was right on that.

Giving the man clutching his ears a wide berth, he grabbed the handle to his door, startling at the gut wrenching sensation that ripple through him. It was like going down the first hill on a roller-coaster, his stomach floating somewhere in his throat. Suddenly the noise of heavy afternoon traffic and the idle chatter of a thousand people flooded his ears, taking the place of the eerie silence he had not even noticed before.

“You are damn lucky kid,” a voice snapped from behind him, making him start again. A quick glance: it was that woman. “If I hadn’t noticed that bubble come up, you would probably be spewing gibberish by now.”

Jace struggled to process what she said. It was like his brain had turned to mush. She just stared at her emptily, groping for the appropriate emotion. The only thing that came out of his mouth was a dumbfounded “oh.”

The woman looked concerned for a moment, her narrow hips cocking to one side and her index finger pinching between her white teeth as she frowned at him. He took dull notice of the leather belt festooned with silver crosses holding up her thick lather pants, the tiny crosses on the tips of her boots, and even the crosses studding her ears. She seemed ready for any occasion calling for a cross.

“I should go home with you. Just in case they get any other bright ideas. You mind giving me a ride?”

He did not say anything, contrary or confirming. He swung his car door open and slid inside, cranking the car as fast as he could. It was not soon enough when he was finally away from the theatre. His eyes slid closed for a moment, trying to block out the cold emptiness, the headache, the trembling hands the adrenaline left him with as it slowly burned out of his system. He felt like he was about to shake apart at the seams. He tried turning on the radio to drown out the jabbering white noise his thoughts had turned into, but the screeching voices and thudding bass only made his nerves fray further.

He was in his driveway now. He wasn’t sure how he got there. Slamming his car door, he rushed to the front door, anxious to hide upstairs and forget everything that happened.
The front door opened on silent hinges and he thanked everything under the sun that he had locked it before he left. Over the jangle of his keys though, he heard something move in the kitchen.

He had no control over his next action. He grabbed an umbrella from the dusty stand by the door and stormed into the kitchen, ready to beat whoever it was into a bloody pulp. Be damned if someone was going to catch him again.

The woman ducked his wild swing easily, catching umbrella and twisting it out of his hands so he stumbled against the counter. “Whoa! It’s okay! I have a key! Relax!”

“How do you have a key?” Jace growled, reaching for the knife block on the counter behind him.
“You’re Mr. Moore’s nephew, right?” Her hands twisted anxiously on the umbrella when he nodded very hesitantly, still groping for that knife block. “Well, he was a friend of mine. He gave me a key so I could come in when I needed to.”

“You were a friend of that serial killing bastard?” Where was that damn knife block! He flipped around, finally wrapping his fingers around a cold, black handle. But before he could turn back around, a pair of leather-clad hips pinned him to the counter and pale hands locked around his wrists. “Get off me!”

“Mr. Moore was not a serial killer! He was a great man, you ungrateful brat!” Her fingers tightened when Jace twisted his hand, trying to angle his knife just right so he could cut her.
“He was a serial killer and a crazy person that locked women in his basement and left me this stupid house to pin it on me!!” God, if only he could twist his hand a little more! He had enough crazy for one day!

Her nails dug into his wrists, making him wince in pain. He almost dropped the knife. “Mr. Moore never did that! He would never do that! Why would you say something like that!?”
Enough with the crazy! “Because it is true!” He kicked her ankle as hard as he could, making the woman lose her balance just enough to let her grip on his wrists loosen. It was all he needed. His elbow snapped up, catching her chin and he whipped his knife hand around, almost stabbing her in the throat. But she was more limber than that.

She slapped his knife hand aside, blocking his wild punch was just as much ease. He just kept swinging, and she just kept backing up until they were in the main hall. That was when she made her move.

All she had to do was redirect his vicious stab, grasp his wrist, and step past him, pressing her hand into his shoulder as she twisted. The knife went clattering to the ground and he nearly with it as he stumbled to catch his balance. She wrenched him roughly, bending him over double until his gut was almost pressed against his knees.

“Are you finished being utterly ridiculous?” she asked, her tone cold and impatient.
Jace panted painfully, trying not to give in and sink to his knees to relieve the pressure on his shoulder. He would be at her mercy then. “Ah! Let go!”

“Not until you are finished trying to stab me,” she stated with a firm shake that made Jace’s eyes water.

He had no choice. She would put him into the floor if he did not say he would behave. His shoulder, already wrenched from earlier, throbbed. “Alright! Alright! I won’t stab you! Let go!”
His knees buckled against his will when she released his arm and he cradled it against his chest. God it hurt.

“Now can we speak like civilized humans?” the woman demanded, crossing her arms over her chest impatiently.

“I don’t know,” Jace groaned as he slowly got to his feet. “Can we?”

“Oh good God!” she scoffed, her hands slipping down to her hips. “I saved your life! Like I would waste my time doing that if I was going to behead you! Quit acting like a brat and get up!” She stamped her foot when he did not move fast enough. “Now!”

Bottling his suspicions into a tense brood, Jace slunk to his feet and glared at her, waiting for that moment of inevitable betrayal.

“There.” She crossed her arms over he chest again, this time leaning forward and sinking onto her heels. “Now, let’s start with the basics. Do you know who those two men were or who they were working for?”

Begrudgingly, Jace shook his head. He didn’t know, but he was not sure she would even tell him something that was true. She could lie all she wanted, and he wouldn’t know.

He could see her expression visibly relax when he answered her. “Well then come with me. You are going to want to sit down for this.”

He expected her to head towards the sitting room in the back of the house, but instead, she pushed past him and made her way upstairs. It was a trap. Jace knew it had to be a trap. There was no way he was following her.

He tapped he pocket of his over-sized jeans. His cellphone was still there. He had a plan.
Ducking into the kitchen, he grabbed a knife and tucked it into his jeans, easily accessible, but hidden. He punched in the number for 911 on his phone and left his thumb on the dial button, ready and waiting.

Hesitant, but curious, Jace followed the woman upstairs. He wanted to hear what she had to say, but he also would like to not wind up with his legs hacked off and chained up in the basement. For all he knew, she was his uncle’s accomplice come to finish cleaning up.

She certainly knew her way around. The woman had gone straight to Jace’s current bedroom and sat on the bed, thumbing her way through the bookcase until she found what she wanted. The pages fell open to a title that churned Jace’s stomach. “This is what they were,” the woman said, holding the book out to him so he could see the hand-written notes crammed into every available space around the title and the crazily highlighted text in different colours. “Demons. You may think I’m crazy for saying it, but that’s what they are. And I think they are with the Invegardi family, but I will have to look into it to be sure.”

He pinched his brow as she continued to ramble on about local clans and old families with enough clout to summon demons for low work. Really? After this entire day? “Look, I don’t know who you are, but I have had enough crazy for one day. Thanks for saving me, but please, take your crazy on the road and leave me out of it.”

Her rambling cut off mid-sentence. Her eyebrows were high, her mouth a perfect “o” of disbelief. “You still don’t believe me?” She barked with laughter, dropping her face into her hands. “Didn’t you see what they were doing to you? Haven’t you met Aeva yet? You are so deep in denial, you don’t even realize you are not in Africa.”

“What? Wait? You know Aeva?”

“Of course I know Aeva, the annoying beast.” She took a deep breath, finally looking up at him again, her expression a mix of amusement and incredulous surprise. “You have no idea about anything, do you?”

Now she was really pissing him off. “What are you talking about?”

“Your uncle’s business. What he did in his time away from work and away from the trite, normal world you pretend to still live in.” A chuckle escaped her, incredulous. “Ah, that old fool didn’t tell you a single scrap of information. I should have gotten here sooner, but it took me a long time to hear about his death. Friggin’ slow mail.” She scratched the back of her head, her mouth working in thought. “Ah, where do I start with this…?”

This was a load of bullshit. “You are kidding right?”

Her expression sobered. “Not at all. You know, I know this all sounds insane but…just go with it for a little bit. It will make more sense later when the stuff starts to hit the fan.”

You know what, if it made her go away. “Sure. Fine. Whatever. Tell me your stupid story. Then get out of my house.”

“Such a spoilsport,” she teased, crossing and uncrossing her legs. “I’ll make it simple and leave out the finer details. Just give you the meat and potatoes-“

“Get on with it!” Jace interrupted impatiently, his hand itching to have his knife in it. He didn’t mean to brag, but he was a decent hand with a knife and she would not get a hold of him if he had one.

She mae an ugly face at him. “Don’t be rude! I am telling you! I could tell you nothing!”

“And spare me thirty minutes of my life? Certainly.”

“Fine!” She stamped to her feet, shoving past him as hard as she could and stomping down the hall. “I’m not telling you a thing! But you aren’t getting out of my agreement with Kaleb that easily! I promised the old man I’d keep you alive long enough, and I am going to do it even if I have to hog tie you and throw you to Aeva! She’ll keep you from hurting yourself whether you like it or not! Where’s the rope?”

“I don’t need your help!” Jace hollered after her, racing down the hall as she began to sprint down the stairs. The knife had leapt into his hand before he could even think to draw it.

“Sure!” she yelled back, already on the second flight down. She was fast! “And I am sure you were just waiting for the opportune moment to pry those demons off of you!”

He rounded the second flight down. Was that the cellar door he heard opening? “You stay away from Aeva!”

“What!? I can’t hear you!” The voice was so muffled he could barely understand her. She was going down into the cellar!

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