It was too warm for a February afternoon, even with the clouds obscuring the sun. Without the biting wind or freezing rain Hector had come to expect from a life in the northeast, the grey sky of winter felt otherworldly. He leaned on the railing of the parking garage and put a cigarette in his mouth, pausing before lighting it and inhaling deeply.
“Ooh, let me get one.”
Peering over his shoulder he gave a small wave to Millie before offering her the pack. She shuffled her way over to him and reluctantly withdrew a hand from her coat pocket, reaching for the offered cigarette. “Thought you were quitting.”
“Thought you had,” she replied, leaning forward and allowing him to light it.
“Ah,” he shrugged, intending to leave it there but instead feeling compelled to explain. “New guy I’ve been seeing smokes.”
She seized on the conversation opportunity and leaned beside him against the railing. With an over exaggerated sound of interest she nudged him with an elbow.
He put his hands up in front of him in mock defeat. “Just some guy who had his eye on me for a month, apparently.”
“A month? No, you can’t be that oblivious.”
“I had a lot on my mind, give me a break,” he scoffed, waving a hand in her direction. He decided against bringing up the fact that his judgment had been clouded by Ansel’s hidden nature; he’d spent that month keenly aware of his interest, but assumed it had been something far more sinister. The thought still caused a pang of guilt in his stomach. “He bought me breakfast at Misty’s.”
“Wow, a gentleman.”
Hector opened his mouth to speak before reconsidering and chewed on something in his cheek. “He’s old fashioned, I guess,” he admitted at length, smirking at his own inside joke.
A siren blared from down the street and the pair smoked in silence as an ambulance pulled into the bay on the other side of the building. Millie tapped a fingernail against the railing and waited for her phone to buzz, but when she didn’t get pulled away from their conversation, she spun on her heel and leaned against the railing.
“As luck would have it, I met someone, too,” she said. “Though I can’t say I’m seeing her,” she added, ashing her cigarette over a drain.
“Mm,” he intoned, nodding at the empty air in front of him. The way her expression had turned distant implied she and him were going through much the same murky waters; the uncertainty of where a relationship could go if one was even possible. “I’d wanted this to be more casual but it’s getting—” he inhaled between his teeth, “ —complicated.”
“Complicated like your schedules don’t match up or complicated like his ex is going to come after you?” she grinned at him.
He snorted, a plume of smoke escaping out his nose. “You’re pretty close with the latter.”
Her expression turned serious. “Oh, damn. Sorry.”
“No, no, it’s—” he shook his head and sighed. “This thing we’ve got going can’t last. And he knows that, but it still feels like I’m leading him on, I guess. I don’t know why.”
She pondered the edge of her cigarette as smoke curled up into the air. “This woman I met, she’s worried she’ll hurt me somehow.” She paused and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “But I feel like I’ll be the one hurting her. Maybe it’s something like that with you and your guy? Maybe it doesn’t feel as doomed to him.”
The word doomed hung in his mind, an all too accurate description of what he felt waited for him and Ansel. Oath or not, determined or not, there was an ever-growing part of him that held his interference was never going to change anything. He knew nothing of Baptiste specifically, but he’d known his share of lieges and every one of them was more likely to cut their losses in some way to save their own skin. Whether that meant taking out Hector, Ansel, or just moving out of reach remained to be seen, but the odds were all against Hector winning this battle.
And yet Ansel must be holding out whatever scrap of hope he had left that something else would happen. Something unexpected. That somehow Hector could pull through and deliver him from the hell he’d been living. That there was a real chance. Desperation was an incomplete answer for what was driving him; without his noticing it, Ansel had developed a real sense of trust in Hector that seemingly came out of nowhere.
Realization hit him like a truck. There was a sudden weight in his stomach and he sank down onto the balls of his feet, holding onto the railing and dropping his head down to his chest. All the tender glances and lingering touches Ansel had given him in their brief periods together came to mind; little pieces of evidence he’d been content to ignore were now stacked up large into a single terrifying conclusion. “He can’t be in love with me,” he whispered at his feet.
Millie choked on nothing and held her chest when a coughing fit overcame her. “Love?” she gasped. “You said it’d been a month, right?”
He let go of the railing and ran his fingers through his hair. Now that he’d said it out loud, it was the only thing that made sense and he spun the notion around in his head. Fuming, he got back to his feet and spiked his half-finished cigarette into the air like a dart.
She awkwardly patted his back and turned to watch cars lumber along the road beneath them. “Glad I could help,” she said. “I guess this means it isn’t mutual.”
He sagged into her, resting his head on her shoulder. “I’m a fucking asshole, I should’ve seen this coming,” he croaked. No wonder he felt like he was leading Ansel on; he very much was.
A stranger’s voice addressed him from far too close. “Maybe you should just dump him.”
Millie’s eyes widened as Hector pushed her away from the wall and positioned himself in front of her. A cloud of mist drifted up from the empty space beyond the railing and pooled where they had been standing. Too fast for the eye to register, the mist turned into a human’s solid shape — a woman in an oversized coat with the collar pulled up to just below her dead, grey eyes. The two locked eyes and her mouth twisted up into a coquettish smile when Hector didn’t back down.
He took an instinctual step backwards and bumped into Millie whose hand reached up to grip his sleeve. “Millie, you should go,” he said without breaking eye contact.
She shook her head so hard he could feel her sway behind him. “No.”
He gritted his teeth and resisted the urge to face her; he didn’t have time to figure out what she was thinking. The woman in front of him hadn’t advanced on them yet, but she eyed him up like a cat to a bird. “You should listen to him.”
Millie’s grip tightened and she said nothing.
The stranger swayed on her feet in seeming indecision before taking a confident step towards them. “Fine.”
“Who are you?” Hector asked her. Anything he could do to keep her focus on himself would buy him time to think of how to get Millie away.
“Loverboy didn’t tell you about me?” she asked, tilting her head off to one side. “How very like him.”
He swallowed hard. “Carmen.”
Her face hardened with unconcealed rage and she jerked the collar of her coat down below her chin. She flashed her fangs at him and snarled, “It’s Olive to you.”
“Okay, right, got it,” he said, holding his hands up in front of him. The invisible sigil on the back of his left hand ached for him to materialize his sword. A month ago he would have obliged, but now he had fleeting memories of Ansel’s face, his fangs, his too-cool touch on his skin clouding his judgment. His hands trembled in the air.
Emboldened by his fear, Olive took another step forward and flicked her hair over her shoulder. “You’re wrong, you know. He’s not in love with you.” She winked as she watched his impassive face, her gaze fixed on him like a predator. “But it sounds like you’d prefer that anyway, right?”
Bait. Hector wasn’t rising to it. “What do you want?” he asked, curling his lip.
Quicker than he could track, she rushed forward and grabbed him by the collar. With one firm yank, she pulled him away from Millie and spun him around, slamming his lower back into the handrail behind him. He grunted in pain and surprise, at least grateful she’d separated him from Millie. His Honor flared in his chest, spurning him to act, but he forced it down; it had never been so denied by him and it chilled him from the inside out.
“What I want,” she purred, her fangs perilously close to his throat, “Is for you to stay the fuck away from Ansel.” His name sounded somehow wrong in her mouth.
He swallowed hard and forced himself to look her in the eyes. Something in her gaze flickered, something that felt more complicated than simple malice. “Why?” he asked, and he tried to soften the question as much as he could.
She faltered for a moment, some of her bravado leaving her face temporarily before she recovered. “Do you know how many people he’s hurt? Let down? Believe it or not, I’m doing you a favor here.”
With the wind whipping at his exposed back, with the only thing keeping his feet on solid ground this woman’s steady hand, he couldn’t suppress the nervous laugh that erupted from his mouth. “And why do you care?”
“Because I’m not a total bitch,” she huffed.
Over her shoulder, Millie crept forward and though she froze in place at his stern glare, he couldn’t stop her from speaking. “You’ve got it wrong. Hector’s trying to help.”
Olive’s grip slackened in surprise and her attention went squarely to Millie. Panic rippled through him and he gripped hard at the edge of the railing; all his healing abilities wouldn’t save him from a fall at this height. “Millie,” he hissed.
“Help?” Olive repeated, curling her lip. “This shit again?”
Taking the opportunity to move away from the edge of the roof, Hector slid along the railing until he could circle off to Olive’s side. “She’s right, though. I’m helping him.” He swallowed hard, weighing his choice of words before pressing on. “I can help you, too.”
The dim sunlight of the afternoon was snuffed out and the trio was engulfed in a murky blackness, as if a dense fog had settled in around them. Millie’s arms wrapped protectively around herself and Hector staggered on his feet as Olive stalked in his direction. Despite the magical darkness, her enraged face was crystal clear. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” she spat out. “No human can help me. No one can.”
Images of a bar appeared projected on the fog around them accompanied by the muffled sounds of patrons. Behind Olive was the ghostly apparition of Carmen, leaning against the bar and chatting with Ansel, their conversation muted. Hector shook his head and took a step back; he’d never experienced a vampire’s psionic influence before.
“Ah, there’s your man,” Olive sneered, unperturbed by the sudden appearance of this memory. “Charming, isn’t he?”
He was still unable to make out any of their words, but the weight of the memory carried its emotion to him — Carmen was isolated, lonely, desperate for any meaningful connection and here was Ansel providing it in spades. He’d come in every few nights for months at that point, he was a genuine highlight of her shift and it was self-evident in the way Carmen’s eyes lit up to speak to him, in the way she leaned forward on the bar to just be nearer to him.
“How do I know all this?” Hector whispered to himself, his fingertips pressed to his lips. A sideways glance at Millie’s stricken face told him she felt the same.
“This is thralling, loverboy,” Olive said.
The word stirred something in Hector’s chest and his Honor bucked and writhed against his ribcage. This was wrong, this shouldn’t even be possible, and the old magic buried in his bones was furious. It strained against his resolve and for just a moment, the scene around them wavered and dulled in intensity.
His knees trembled when Olive caught his eye with her piercing gaze, her mouth split open in a grin. The memory intensified as the colors oversaturated and bled into the observers, poised to overwhelm them. It lurched forward in time and dropped them into a cramped stockroom piled high with boxes, bottles, and containers, leaving just enough space for Ansel and Carmen, who were backed in against the far wall.
Her terror was palpable by all three observers. Millie had moved closer to Olive, but when she placed a hand on her arm she was harshly shrugged off.
“What are you doing?”
Millie looked as if she might answer before shifting focus back to the memory playing out; it had been Carmen who had spoken, not Olive. Ansel loomed large over her, casting his broad shadow over her frightened face. His glamour melted away and she pressed herself flat against the shelving behind her. “What kind of monster are you?” she gasped, one hand flying to her mouth.
“Shut up and listen,” he growled. There was a dangerous edge to his voice Hector had never heard. Even in this space of memory his feet itched to place his body between Carmen and this supernatural threat. “On nights you work, some fellas are gonna start selling shit in the back corner. Dope, guns, whatever. You don’t see ’em. You don’t call the cops.”
Through the fear, Carmen’s face screwed up in rage. “Like hell I’ll — “
Ansel’s large hand slamming into the shelf above her head cut her off. “You will. The cops are on the take with us anyhow, nobody you can tell would give a shit.”
Trembling now, she backed off and lowered her head in a sign of defeat. She said nothing else, but she lifted her eyes to his and an unspoken question passed between the two of them.
“I’ll be here, too,” he said, much softer than he’d been a moment ago. “Nothing’s gonna happen while I’m around.”
In the present, Olive laughed to herself. At her side, Millie again reached out to her; her touch was not rejected a second time. The scene around them wavered and shifted, melting from storeroom to bar once again. A pair of young men — and men was a charitable word for the scraggly youths before them — shuffled past Carmen and took a seat in the far back booth. She followed them with her eyes before her gaze was intercepted by Ansel’s, who had positioned himself off to one side of the room.
A flash of anger that didn’t belong to Hector washed over him, Carmen’s clear feelings on the situation making themselves intimately known to him. It was a disorienting sensation, to so strongly feel an emotion that wasn’t his own. He opened his mouth to speak, to say something to try and end the scene, but Carmen moved in the next instant to stalk her way across the floor.
“Not to them,” she said, slapping her hand down on the table between the youths and the men they had been talking to.
One man drew himself to his full height. His eyes were cold and the muscles in his neck and shoulders taut as he stared her down. Again, Hector had the phantom sensation of someone else’s fear gripping his heart and constricting his throat.
“Get the fuck back to that bar,” the man said.
“They’re just kids,” Carmen said, and she almost kept the waver of fright out of her voice. “Whatever it is you’re selling, you’re not doing it to them.”
Although she was distracted by the men looming large over her in the past, Hector was free to let his attention drift over to Ansel. Like a junkyard dog on alert, he had gone still as a stone, his face expressionless as he watched and waited for the situation to tip in some direction.
And it did when the first man grabbed Carmen, his thick hand wrapped nearly all the way around her forearm. She froze, unable to even breathe, no matter how much she was desperate to move away. Out of the corner of Hector’s eye, Millie tensed as if she might insert herself between the two, despite this being a scene long since past.
It was Ansel who stepped in, his face inches away from the man. No word passed between them, but the man jumped back from Carmen as if she were red hot. “Hey, man—” he started.
“You’re done,” Ansel growled. “Get the fuck out.”
The man started to protest, but thought better of it as Ansel tightened his jaw and squared off his shoulders. He and his partner exchanged a look before slipping out around Carmen and heading to the door. Their opportunity lost, the two would-be buyers took the hint and scurried away, jostling Carmen in their haste.
The trance on her broken, she turned to Ansel, prepared to say something, but he cut her off with a stern glare. “I told you none of this was your business.”
This lit a fire in her and her face twisted up in anger. “Those were kids,” she hissed. “You can’t expect me to sit back when high schoolers are buying god knows what from—”
“That ain’t your problem what some shithead kids get up to.”
She looked at him with disbelief and her eyes simmered with contempt. “You’re a fucking monster,” she said before spinning on her heels and storming back to the bar.
The scene continued to play out behind them as Olive turned her blank face to Hector. “He’s such a great guy, isn’t he?” she sneered. “Still think he’s worth your time? Still think he’s worth your help?”
“I never said he wasn’t an asshole,” was Hector’s distant reply.
She let out a peal of laughter causing Millie to grip tight to her sleeve from surprise. He felt as if he should say more in his defense, but nothing she was saying and nothing she was showing him was defensible. He’d known what kind of man Ansel was, he’d heard the whispered rumors from those unfortunate enough to have crossed his path, he’d witnessed firsthand the cold and ruthless pursuit he’d given to Malcszyn. Hector had seen other vampires who had done lesser crimes, whose only real sin had been trying to survive, but he’d been less lenient on them.
He had been the sword, he had been the light in the dark.
He had cut them down.
His stomach lurched and he felt a cold sweat forming on his forehead. His fingers crawled up his face and covered his mouth. “Stop,” he mewled, almost too quiet to hear.
“Not a chance,” was Olive’s reply.
The scene dissolved from barroom to sidewalk, as Carmen left work a few nights later. Passing in front of a dim alley, a pair of rough hands grabbed her and pulled her off her feet. She opened her mouth to scream, but a brilliant pair of green eyes stared her down from the end of the alleyway.
Be silent.
The command was an echoing din in her mind, an all-encompassing force which snapped her mouth shut. Her whole body went rigid and cold with fear as she was carried forward, and her eyes darted down to recognize Ansel’s scarred forearms wrapped around her. She worked her jaw back and forth, desperate to unstick her tongue from the roof of her mouth, but the strange compulsion held firm.
At her side in the present, Millie’s hand was clamped to her own throat as if she was under the same spell. Olive’s eyes flickered in her direction and the vision around them wavered for a moment before sharpening once more. She leaned over, her lips close to Millie’s ear, and whispered something Hector couldn’t hear.
The stranger in the alley stalked towards Ansel and his captive, his feet so silent they seemed to glide over the ground. His hair was long, blond, and immaculately straight, flowing around his shoulders like water. His pale skin had a blush of color in his sharp cheeks, despite the glamour he wore giving him the false appearance of vitality. Altogether he looked like a wraith, a malevolent spirit haunting the streets of Odette.
The mood in the alley seemed to bend around him, becoming dense and heavy like the depths of the ocean. Even though he was not a very physically imposing man, Baptiste carried himself with the grace and confidence all predators had, and the prey around him reacted accordingly.
“So,” he said, already bored with the situation. “She is the one causing you trouble.”
In front of his liege, Ansel had none of his prior bravado or laxity; his posture was ramrod straight and his eyes pointed forward at the man’s face. “She ain’t trouble, I said —”
“Isn’t,” Baptiste snapped. “And I have no interest in your interpretation. You have wasted my time.”
When his lip curled, his teeth were straight and flat, with no indication of the fangs Hector knew lurked beneath his glamour. He was directly in front of the pair now, his eyes intent upon them even as the rest of his face expressed bored annoyance.
“Please,” Carmen croaked out; she’d found her voice again somehow.
There was no indication of surprise from Baptiste that she had broken his thralling, but his eyes locked into hers again. “I said be silent.”
She screwed her face up in fear and a few stray tears escaped her eyes. “Ansel,” she whimpered, unaffected by this new attempt to keep her quiet. His frigid hand tightened around her face and his fingers clamped her mouth shut instead.
“I can work another bar,” he said to Baptiste. “There’s a place down on Sycamore —”
Baptiste cut him off with a stern look. “Had you thralled her as I’d suggested, this would not have happened. You have wasted your time and my own.”
Hector’s eyes darted from Carmen to Olive, his brow knitted. If Baptiste was having this much trouble holding onto her with his commands, he failed to see what luck Ansel would have had. Not that it would have mattered to a man like him, failure seemed inexcusable no matter the reason. It did send a shiver up Hector’s spine, though — for all Ansel’s talk of orders and lack of say in the matter, he was sure Olive was here because she wanted to be here.
With what must have been an incredible show of courage, Ansel again tried to plead his case. “She can still be useful.”
With a curious tilting of his head, Baptiste fixed him with a keen eye and folded his arms behind his back. He didn’t say a word, but took a half step closer and waited for Ansel to continue.
He licked his lips and pressed on. “She’s smart. She’s got guts. We been shorthanded since we lost Winter.”
Buried in his arms, silenced by his strong hand, Carmen’s eyes darted up to the side of Ansel’s face in confusion; she’d clearly lost the thread of the conversation. But this being her own memory, Olive was stony-faced in her observation and her knowledge of what would come next.
A weight was settling in Hector’s stomach as he watched and he clamped his hand to his mouth. Olive’s eyes met his own in recognition. He knew what must be coming next, too, though he prayed he was somehow mistaken.
“Turn her,” Ansel said.
Something like a smile played at the corner of Baptiste’s mouth. “Would you like her for yourself?” Ansel made no verbal response, but an expression of hesitation flitted across his face and Baptiste took that as his answer. “No? Very well.”
A sudden understanding overtook Carmen and she tried to pull away from Ansel, but his grip tightened around her. She had no chance of overpowering him, but still she struggled in vain against him. Baptiste watched her with keen interest, like a hawk turning its head towards movement in a field.
Worried that the conversation was getting away from him, Ansel tried again. “Baptiste —”
An order cut through his words. “Kill her. Now.“
Frantic, Carmen twisted and pulled at Ansel’s grip to no avail. Although she was unable to scream, she made noises in her throat and worked her mouth against the palm of his hand. She succeeded in sinking her teeth into his flesh, the taste of his bitter and stale blood filling her mouth — and Hector’s own in this strange space of memory — causing her to gag.
Heedless to her struggling, he produced a knife seemingly out of thin air. The gleaming, cold blade wavered for an instant in the air just beyond her before it sank into her abdomen up to the hilt. Hector’s fingers clenched at his midsection as his own gut burned with phantom sensation.
Millie cried out wordlessly and buried her face in her hands. At her side, Olive’s arm twitched and she almost reached for her, but she chose to keep her distance. Instead, she directed her focus over to Hector, and not the now-sobbing woman beside her. The last words they heard as the scene faded from vibrant colors to muted grays was Ansel’s quiet voice.
“At least let me be with her when you do it.”
When the vision was gone, so was the phantom pain and rancid taste that had overwhelmed Hector. Sweat beading on his brow, he raised a shaking hand to his face and turned towards Olive. She was impassive, her expression set in a careful neutral. If it weren’t for the simmering heat in her eyes, nothing would betray the depths of her rage at that moment.
“Well?” she sneered at him.
The emblem on the back of his hand burned and he resisted the urge to grab it. For a moment he felt like a teenager again, lost and angry inside his own head. His mouth opened and closed a few times before he settled on saying, “You didn’t deserve that.”
This didn’t seem to be the answer she wanted or expected. She stalked closer to him, stepping past Millie who was still overcome with emotion, and jutted out her chin at him. “No. I fucking didn’t. But your man made it happen, didn’t he?”
Behind the two of them, Millie had found her voice. “Would you rather have been dead?”
Olive whirled around, furious. “I didn’t even get a choice, doc. I didn’t get a chance. He set me up from the start.” She tilted her head back over her shoulder at Hector. “He’ll do the same to you.”
“I know. He told me he’s supposed to turn me.”
She narrowed her eyes and squared her shoulders in his direction, a quiet hurt in her eyes. “How noble. And he gets to keep you all to himself?” She looked him up and down, her fists balled at her sides, before she shoved at his chest. She’d put in none of her prior strength, but the suddenness pushed him back a step. “And you’re okay with that, you fucking idiot? You should be three states away right now. He’s not worth your life.”
The back of his hand itched fiercely now, as a warning against the words on the tip of his tongue. “It doesn’t matter. It won’t work. It can’t work.” He let his grip on his Honor slip just enough to flare out across his body, to allow his supernatural protection to shimmer between them.
She jumped back, her arm in front of her chest. “The Hunter?” she whispered. Her head whipped from him, to Millie, and back again. Her expression at first was a mixture of bewilderment and fear, but all conflicting emotions gave way to her familiar rage. “He’s fucking the Hunter?” she snarled.
She was on him in an instant, her cold hands gripping at the collar of his coat. Taken by surprise, the two of them tumbled backwards to the ground, the wind knocked out of him when she landed on his midsection. He stayed his hand, held his sword inside him even as his empowered blood coursed through his veins, chilling his body to the marrow.
“Don’t hurt her!” Millie cried out behind them, her throat raw.
Trembling, Olive scrunched up the fabric between her fingers and bared her fangs at him. When he returned her stare, her expression faltered and fell. “Why?” she whispered. “I don’t —” Her words ended in a stifled sob.
Without any insight into her thoughts, Hector let them hang incomplete. Behind the two of them Millie approached, her footfalls deafening against their ears.
“He has to help,” she urged, her hand hovering above Olive’s shoulder. “You can trust —”
She shrank from Millie’s touch, her body heavy and shaking against Hector. She choked out a gutteral sound that turned into a laugh and buried her face into his coat. “You don’t get it,” she said. “You have no idea.” She pulled her face away and her cheeks were ruddy. “He’s just a killer.”
Millie hesitated, then took a step away. “He’s not—”
“She’s not wrong,” he said, and there was a raw edge to his words.
Olive’s eyes met his and one corner of her mouth twitched as if they were sharing a private joke. Quick as a flash she lunged forward, her fangs bared and ready to strike.
The world around Hector went silent, his body rigid. Cold fire coursed through his veins and for a moment his sword materialized in his clenched fist, heavy with purpose. But it’s gone in the next instant, furious to be dismissed by its wielder.
Something hot and wet splashed on his cheek and trickled down to his ear. Olive hovered inches from him, tears rolling down her anguished face, her lips pressed thin and white. She leaned away as Millie’s hands drew her closer to herself, her arms wrapped tight around her chest.
“Don’t,” Millie sobbed into her back.
No longer preoccupied, Hector’s Honor roved through his body and found no injuries, save for the cuts his fingernails dug into his palms. It danced in his chest, trying to spur him to act one last time while his prey was still in striking distance, but his limbs were leaden with spent adrenaline. He met Olive’s gaze for another uneasy moment before she shook her head and disappeared in a cloud of mist.
No longer supported by her weight, Millie lurched forward and landed flat on Hector’s chest with a strangled cry. “Olive,” she gasped, propping herself up. “Carmen!”
Too winded and strung out to speak, Hector wrapped an arm around Millie, exhaling in relief. He held her close as she weeped into his coat, ignoring his own tears stinging at the corners of his eyes. Cold crept into his back from the concrete beneath him and it couldn’t have been any kinder to her knees, but it was ages before either of them thought to move.
< Chapter XXV || Chapter XXVII >