Page 41 of The Mermaid's Bubble Lounge
The builders had lately completed this world. Clive and I had sneaked in to explore last week when the dragons weren’t looking. Holding my hand, we had walked to the village, while he told me stories of his childhood. The folly allowed me to see and feel his life, a life so far removed from mine as to seem like a fairy tale, but now he was able to share it with me. I’d never be able to thank the dragons enough.
Fergus sniffed at the meat sticks I had in my hand that I’d forgotten all about. I gave him one and Vlad made a tsking sound.
“What is with you and food today?” I asked.
“You don’t take care of yourself,” he said, sounding angry. “You’re a wolf. You should be eating far more than you do. And what were you thinking going jogging in an area where he’d just killed a woman jogging with her dog?” He walked on, fuming. “You know he’s terrified of losing you, don’t you?
“You go on about his cars bringing him joy,” his tirade continued. “And you don’t even realize that he stopped buying them when he found you. They were a distraction from endless night. You are his love, his joy, his reason for upending his undeath so you wouldn’t have to live in a nocturne filled with vampires who make you uncomfortable. You are his weakness. And you—you race into danger and don’t take care of yourself!” He was shouting by the end, and I felt it like a punch in the gut.
NINETEEN
I’m Not Feeling Hopeful
We continued through the folly in silence, eventually entering the Shire, the first of the worlds the dragons had built. My mother had introduced me to Tolkien when I was a child. Every time I walked through the Shire, I felt close to her and to the world I had escaped into when we were on the run.
I didn’t respond to Vlad right away. I wanted to think about his words and his anger. Vlad had lost his beloved wife, a werewolf, so I understood the rage over what he saw as my carelessness.
“Do you know my story?” I finally asked.
He glanced at me, one shoulder twitching. “Bits and pieces.”
“I’ll give you the condensed version,” I told him as we walked down the center path of Middle Earth. “My mother was a Corey wicche and my father a Quinn wolf. Star-crossed lovers that neither family accepted, though the Quinn side was far more hostile.”
“Werewolves,” Vlad said, as though that explained everything, and perhaps it did.
“My grandfather, Alexander Quinn, hated wicches and wouldn’t stand for his son marrying one. He banished my father after he married my mother. Not long after I was born, my dad was killed.” I turned to Vlad. “I still don’t know the story there. I think anyone who might know is dead. Anyway, my assumption is that my mother’s sister Abigail killed him. She was a sorcerer, jealous of my mother’s magical talent, and incensed about my mother sullying the pure Corey line with a werewolf abomination.
“One of my first memories is her trying to drown me in the tub. My mother smashed a vase over her sister’s head, grabbed me from the tub, and ran. I spent the rest of my childhood on the run, my mom trying to keep us a few steps ahead of her sister, trying to keep me alive. My mother was a very strong and gifted wicche, but this took a toll on her. She used much of her magic to keep us hidden. When that didn’t seem to be holding, she made me a pendant, pouring her magic into it, so that she could keep me away from her sister. It dampened both my wicche and wolf natures. I had no idea we were magical, no idea she was a wicche, until last year.
“Money was tight. We stayed in rundown rentals in seedy parts of town. Sometimes we stayed for a couple of months and I started at a local school, but more often than not, Mom felt her sister closing in and we were running in the middle of the night again.”
I stopped at a pond, taking in the beautiful green hills, the doors to the hobbit houses in the distance. “When I was seventeen, Mom said it was time to go again. I wanted to stay. We’d been there a couple of months and graduation was coming up. I was hardly ever in school long enough to complete courses, but I was smart, worked hard, and did well on tests. It was stupid, but I wanted this one thing.”
I shook my head, staring into the water, angry with myself all over again. “I wanted to graduate. I wanted one normal thing. Mom gave in—I rarely ever asked for anything. Abigail found us. Mom hid me in a closet, using her magic to keep me from her sister’s notice. Abigail called up her demon to cut my mother to shreds. I couldn’t move, but I watched it happen, unable to help.
“I was alone after that. I didn’t know anything about my mother or father’s families, so when a man found me and told me he was my father’s brother and he wanted me to live with him, I went. I didn’t know what else to do. He took me to the Santa Cruz Mountains, to his pack grounds.
“It was okay at first. I didn’t know about werewolves. I thought they were just outdoorsy people. One night I was attacked. Taken. I woke blindfolded and chained in a shack in the woods. Sometimes he was a man, sometimes a wolf. I was raped and beaten, cut, bitten, slashed. It lasted forever. Or a day and a half, depending on whether or not you were the one being tortured. When I was found, my uncle didn’t know what to do with me, so he sent me to San Francisco to stay with a wicche he said was a friend of my mother’s.
“Clive told the supernatural community that I was under his protection—not that I knew that at the time—and he eventually helped me plan and open The Slaughtered Lamb. I hid. For seven years I hid in my bookstore and bar, too afraid to engage with the world. It was only last year, a little less than a year, that all the craziness started again. That pendant my mother made me when I was a child was destroyed and Abigail found me.”
I picked a flower by the pond’s edge, marveling at how realistic it was. “I’ve been running and hiding most of my life.” I met Vlad’s gaze. “It’s still hard for me, but I won’t do it anymore. I won’t hide, hoping the scary things leave me alone, because I end up missing all the good things too. I wouldn’t have Clive if I hadn’t come out of hiding. I wouldn’t have my home, Fergus, my friends.
“Clive understands all of this and as much as it may scare him, he encourages me to stand on my own two feet and fight what comes at me. He’ll be there right beside me, but he won’t hide me away again. So, while I understand your concern, and I thank you for it, I won’t retreat and let everyone else take all the risks. I may not be a day-walking vampire or a two-thousand-year-old Mayan warrior, but I do have unique gifts that make me useful.”
I moved back to the path and he followed me, continuing our walk. “I normally eat more, but I had really upsetting nightmares and my stomach is tied in knots today. I went out last night because I’m not defenseless. I’ve been trained in hand-to-hand combat and know how to use my axe. I’m better able to fight this monster than a human. We needed information, so I went in search of it. Regardless of what you think of my abilities, I’m neither weak nor stupid. If I hadn’t gone for a run, we wouldn’t know anywhere near as much as we do now. You all would probably still believe it was a contingent of vampires who want to come out to the world.”
I shrugged. “Be angry, if you’d like, but you’re not the boss of me.”
Vlad didn’t respond, but he walked beside me. By the time we made it to my apartment, I expected him to stop. He didn’t. He followed me into the kitchen. Dave was already there, his head in the refrigerator.
I turned back to Vlad. “What are you doing?” I pointed at the door to the bar. “The sun is right on the other side of that swinging door. What are you, a daredevil?”
Dave had turned at our arrival and was now leaning against the counter, watching us.
Vlad tipped his head toward Dave. “Get out your axe and ask him a question.”
Shit. I hadn’t stopped to consider— “He’s not wearing his glamour. The pooka wouldn’t know what he really looks like.”
