• Chapter Four

    “I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean.”
    -G. K. Chesterton



    Quick footsteps echoed just outside the building. The sound of footsteps echoed through the walls before the knock on the door came.

    Dante jumped up, walking to the door as quickly as he could. He opened it, and stared into the light with a mixture of anger and disbelief. “You.” He mumbled the word in a hushed whisper, almost breathing it.

    “Oh boy. Council sent me a wolf for a messenger instead of a pigeon.” Kalvier pushed his brother in law aside. “Don’t think of me as a rival - I’m just another vampire.”

    Gritting his teeth Dante just glared at him, “You’re kidding, right?”

    “Of course I am.” He chuckled, his face becomming grave instantly, “But really, don’t try anything.”

    Gregor stood up, still much shorter than both the other men. “Well, I really hate to interrupt, but mind telling me what’s going on.”

    Dante shot him a threatening look. “Nothing, nothing at all.”

    Kalvier, in all his wisdom, just laughed. “Well, let’s hear your message Dante. No doubt that’s why you’re here.”

    Sighing and looking to Gregor, he began to speak. His voice emotionless and dry. “The Grand Council report that the main pack leading the wolf uprising had vanished and they think the pack has traveled over here.” He paused, looking to Kalvier. “Carrion has escaped from their jails, but Council doesn’t want us to worry about him. They just want you to report back if you happen to see him anywhere.”

    Kalvier sighed, “Do they know the name of the pack?”

    “Yes. Blood Claw, lead by a pure blood named Bryant.”

    Kalvier winced, and Gregor finally noticed the unfamiliar scent that lingered over him. “Kalvier, what scent is on you?”

    “Wolf. Bryant of Blood Claw.”

    “So, they are here then.” Dante shook his head, “Did you kill him, or at least wound him so we can track him better?”

    “He didn’t do anything wrong, only struck down a human in self defense and that isn’t against our laws. He didn’t seem like a rebel so I didn’t see the need to harm him.”

    Gregor spoke, “They are tricksters, smart, too smart. Dante, did Council tell you anything else about the rebels?”

    He nodded, “Most of Blood Claw is pure blooded, and they pride themselves in being the oldest pack of wolves in existence. It was started by Cain, son of Lucian.” He paused, “Those of the pack that aren’t pure blood work as spies, but they aren’t even allowed to breed so their aren’t many.”

    “Do they govern themselves in the old way?” Gregor asked, with a childlike curiosity.

    “As old as it gets, alphas, betas.” He chuckled, “The half bloods are all omegas.”

    Gregor nodded, “Smart and traditional, but why are they revolting if they are going with the old ways? In the old days we and wolves working together, not against one another.”

    Kalvier smirked, “Agreed, and I was around when the revolt began. Maybe it’s because the wolves feel unneeded. Abused maybe.”

    “No.” Dante spoke now. “Bryant spoke with Crysto, they don’t want to kill us but they claim they will fight back if we try to put the revolt down.” He sighed. “Crysto said that Bryant claims he is leading the revolt because the Gods told him of the mistake we are, and that it was us who were meant to serve the wolves.” He let out a low chuckle. “To protect them during their moon baths.”

    “Don’t laugh Dante.” Kalvier had known about the old Gods that both vampires and wolves used to worship. Though now modern forms of religion had washed away the old beliefs. Only elders and older packs of wolves could even remember the days that the Gods were actually worshiped, but Kalvier knew of the Gods and actually believed that they existed in one form or the other. Though the wolves’ version of the Gods differs slightly from the version he knew of. “If the Gods are influencing, or if they think that they are, I don’t think we should fight back.”

    “Not fight back?” Dante laughed again, this time in a mocking tone, “You would let them enslave us all then?”

    “No, they won’t use us anymore. At least I don’t think they would. They don’t need to now. Innocents are stupid enough to think that we are just myths. They don’t hunt us anymore, we have been reduced to just characters in books and movies.”

    “He has a point Dante, we weren’t really using the wolves all that much when this revolt began.”

    “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Still though, we can’t let them rule over us. Or even let them think they do. We’ve tried that before, they just end up spreading the infection and killing too many people in the first few days of their reign.”

    “That’s only because they were younger, and they couldn’t control their changes all that much. Now though, they understand better. Plus, the pure bloods don’t bother to spread the infection anymore because they don’t need to. That keeps new wolves from coming up, and that in turn prevents the madness.” Kalvier smiled, “Besides, I don’t if the other packs are following the same rules as Blood Claw they won’t let the half bloods breed and that will keep their numbers down too.”

    Dante sighed, “What if they do though? We can’t risk it, there is still the small chance that something like that would happen again. I don’t know about you two but I don’t want to be known as the vampire that messed up the order, destroyed the council and let a pack of wolves take over. I mean, they would probably announce the existence of werewolves and vampires to the world.”

    "It’s let them, or start a war. I don’t know if we could fight them off Dante. The do outnumber us, and they can fight us during the day. It’s not like the old days anymore, most vampires are too young to fight and the rest are too old and stuck up to get their hands dirty. We wouldn’t last half a year if we started a war and you know it.”

    Gregor coughed, “Look, as much as I love the talk of wars and werewolves can we stop and get some lunch? I’m half starved and it’s been a good four years since I had something to drink.”

    “Four years? Ha. You’re funny, it’s been at least thirty for me.” Kalvier chuckled when he looked at Dante’s shocked expression.

    “Are you two mad? It’s been two days and I’m starving!”

    Gregor smiled, “Well Dante, if you weren’t so obsessed with the taste of human blood you wouldn’t feel as hungry right now.”

    “Look, I’m not obsessed. I just enjoy women too much and after I-” He paused, “Well, I am not going to tell you two details. I’m sure that after a couple hundred years of living without a girl you two would get excited about just thinking about that.”

    “Actually…” Gregor’s smile faded, “I don’t like women, so I don’t have to deal with that type of obsession.”

    “And as far as women go I think that they are all pretty much the same so it isn’t really worth my time anymore. It gets boring.” Kalvier yawned. Of course, he knew he was lying. But he had forced himself to live alone. Anyone he dragged into his life ended up dead or just in pain.

    “So we can say this session is over then?” Dante’s question was one that they all had been thinking the moment they had walked into the building. Except Gregor, he was always a goody two shoes vampires when it came to council meetings. Though this couldn’t really be called a council meeting considering half of the members were missing but that was only because they were all too busy visiting family and friends. It was almost Thanksgiving and they still celebrated holidays.

    “Yup. Done.” Gregor laughed. “I’ll see you two in a week. Unless these wolves start acting up.”

    “Which they won’t do … if they know what’s good for them that is.”

    “Dante, where you headed?” Kalvier was already ready to go and halfway to the door.

    “Out, to a bar maybe. Pick up a chick or two. Get some blood in my system, the whole shebang y’know.”

    “Sounds like fun. Enjoy yourself, don’t leave too many marks.” Kalvier left, closing the door behind him.

    “What’s his hurry?” Gregor yawned, “You two move too fast. What’s the rush?”

    “Well, I’m starved and Kalvier probably leads a second life that we have no idea about.” Dante chuckled, as if thinking of an inside joke. “Oh, and it’s not that we’re fast. You’re just too slow. See ya round rainbow chaser.” Dante followed after Kalvier and left the warehouse as quickly as he had entered.

    “Left alone again. In the dark. Eh. Maybe I’ll go for a walk. I need the sunlight.” Gregor looked down at his skinny pale arms. “Yeah. Definitely need more sun.”

    Chapter Five

    “Last night I dreamed I ate a ten-pound marshmallow, and when I woke up the pillow was gone.”
    -Tommy Cooper



    The setting was an odd one. She didn’t know where she was, much less what time. It was an odd dream, she concluded with a matter of the fact thought. The room she was in was something out of a pleasant nightmare. The ones where everything is going perfectly and suddenly something happens to pull you away from everything and rip it apart. She looked around, at the walls. They were almost bare, just two shelves side by side on the far left side hung from the off white of aged walls. The items that rested of those shelves belonged to someone she didn’t even know existed. She was in someone else’s house. Looking in front of her, and slightly to the left she saw the dresser. The dresser filled with clothing that was not hers and that would never be hers. The door was shut, and for that she was thankful. She disliked this dream, she hated being somewhere she didn’t know. She hated not knowing anything. In her head she repeated her name, in case she would forget it in this dream, a dream that wasn’t even hers to being with. Mia. My name is Mia.

    The sunlight filtered through the window above the bed that she laid on. For a moment she stopped saying her name in her head to wonder why someone would put a window above the bed. Realizing she had stopped though she continued to chant in her thoughts. She could hear noises very faintly but she still didn’t dare to move. She finally spotted something that was hers laying on the floor next to the closed door. Her white hoodie lay in a heap, like some discarded flyer or yesterdays forgotten newspaper. It was all she had here though, and she wanted to grab it and know that she had some piece of her left here. Thankfully she had her other clothes on too, this wasn’t one of the nightmares in which she forgot to wear pants to school.

    She began to become more aware of the noises, but that only made her wish she would wake up sooner. The noises, once just the scuttle of feet across hardwood floor was turning into mumbles of conversation. It sounded like only one voice though, perhaps the voice was talking to itself. Perhaps Mia was going insane.

    Then she heard it, the opening of a door.

    She didn’t know what door, she didn’t know who opened it. It was her lack of knowledge that lead her to fear, the same reason why the child fears the darkness. She was unsure. The noiseless door opener spoke, or so she assumed. This new voice was different than the other, male instead of female. She tried to make out the words.

    “Liza?” The first voice seemed to be calling the first. Now the first had a name.

    “Hm?” Liza spoke, and now her voice was loud enough for Mia to be able to tell she was a girl, or rather an elderly woman.

    “Is the girl still here? Has she woken up yet?”

    Are they talking about me? Her thoughts began to panic, her mind racing as his footsteps inched closer to the closed door. She drew the covers, the covers that she had never washed, closer to her heart.

    “I’m not sure. You can check on her if you want, just try not to wake her up if she is asleep… and try not to scare her if she is awake.”

    “I’m not that scary Liza…” He was just outside the door.

    The handle, the reflective gold surface, turned just slightly and the door pushed open.

    “Ah. So you are up.”

    She didn’t speak, she didn’t move except to tremble. Her mind, her torment and confused mind seemed to scream incoherent thoughts but she understood them. Who is he. What is he. Why does he look like he hasn’t slept for year? Why am I here? Is this a dream. What is he doing to me? What has he done already…

    “Do you speak? Do you understand English? Deutsch? Italiano?

    “I can speak. I’m not stupid.”

    “Mhm… sure you aren’t.” He chuckled under his breath.

    “Is this real? Am I dreaming?”

    “Why do you ask? I’m not that perfect am I? It’s real, not a dream… why would it be?”

    “Stop with the smart remarks, I’m somewhere I don’t know and with someone I don’t know. The last thing I need is someone teasing me while I try to figure things out for myself.”

    “Sounds like someone needs a hug.”

    “No. Stay away from me.”

    Kalvier took a step into the room, “and if I don’t? Are you going to spray me with pepper spray or something?”

    “I don’t know who you are but keep away from me!” She threw a pillow at him, hitting his chest.

    “and if I don’t?” He laughed, his eyes were playful and taunting. It was like he was a younger brother teasing his sister.

    The panic in Mia’s eyes was evident. At her age she knew enough to fear him. “You’ll go to jail for what you’ve done!”

    He stopped, sighing. “Look. I don’t know what you think I did, but I can promise you that what I did won’t send me to jail. Now can I clean you scrapes out? If I don’t clean them they’ll get infected.

    “What? What are you talking about? What scrapes? I don’t have-” She was cut off by Kalvier.

    “You have them on your knees and your hands. Your hands might be worse than your knees though but I haven’t had a chance to look at your knees.”

    She looked at her hands where the blood had already dried over the various cuts and gashes. It was more than a small scrape. Small drops of clear liquid oozed from the cracks in the scabs. “Why can’t I feel these?”

    “A very powerful painkiller. Can I clean them now?”

    “How did I get them?”

    “You fell. Well actually, you were running and then I think you passed out… or maybe that was after you fell that you passed out. I’m not too sure.”

    “So, why am I here then?”

    “Well, I took you to my apartment because no one else was around and I didn’t want to just leave you there. That wouldn’t have been very gentleman like of me now would it?” He sighed. “So are you going to stop asking questions and let me tend to your scrapes now?”

    “Oh. Yeah. Sorry.” Mia tried not to look directly at him as he walked toward her. There was something about him that made her feel uncomfortable. As if he knew too much and she knew too little. She pushed the covers back and sat down at the edge of the bed, keeping her eyes on the floor the whole time.

    “I’ll have to reopen them, it probably won’t hurt but don’t think about them or look at ‘em or it might.”

    “I’m sure I’ll be fine if that painkiller is as strong as you say it is.”

    Kalvier moved her hand slowly, twisting it in odd directions and sending more hairline fractures into the scabs. He would have to peel the scabs off too. “Liza!” He shouted into the other room, tilting his head and body towards the door so she could hear him better.

    She rushed into the room, wearing a form fitting grey dress and her hair done up in a bun she looked almost like the perfect maid. Only, she was about sixty years too old to be anywhere near the fantasy type maid that men would tend to dream about. “Yes sir?”

    “Fetch me a bucket of warm water, peroxide, Neosporin, gauze, and some medical tape.” Liza turned to leave the room. “Oh; and a bottle of water and maybe some sort of bread.”

    “Um. Would garlic bread do?”

    Kalvier gave her a strange look, “Why do we have garlic bread?”

    “Well, I made some spaghetti one ni-”

    “It’ll do Liza. It’ll do. Please be quick about it though.”

    She rushed off into the kitchen, where both the food and medical supplies were kept.

    Mia’s gaze followed the old lady as she left the room, glancing back at Kalvier as he focused on moving her hands in every possible direction the crack the scabs further she spoke. “Is she like you slave or something?”

    “She is, like, a Housekeeper. Now hold still.” He continued moving her hands around.

    “Can you be a little nicer? You don’t have to be so rough. Why is Liza, you’re Housekeeper… so old?”

    “Well, she has worked here since before I was born.” He lied so easily now.

    Entering the room again Liza set the bucket of warm water next to Kalvier.

    “Thank you Liza.” He grabbed the dark brown bottle of peroxide from her.

    “I’ll be back with the gauze and the other stuff soon, as soon as the garlic bread is done.” She left the room again, only this time she moved slower.

    Mia sighed. “Is the garlic bread for you?” Her stomach let out a small wail of hunger and she felt the blood rush to her cheeks even though she knew he probably couldn’t hear it.

    He grinned to himself listening to her stomach and without looking up at her he answered as he pulled the bucket onto the bed and set her hands in the water. “I don’t eat. It’s for you, you are probably hungry by now, right?” Of course, he already knew that answer. Sitting back slightly he sighed, looking up at her for the first time since he had started working of loosening up the scabs. He pointed to her pants, which had bloodstains on the knees. “Either take them off or we’ll have to cut them off above the knee.”

    She felt herself blush again. “I won’t take my pants off in front of you.”

    Kalvier lifted an eyebrow and chuckled. “That’s not what I meant. The third option is me fetching a pair of shorts and letting you change into those.”

    “I’ll go with the third choice. And you can’t watch me change.”

    “Now why would I do that?” He flashed her a quick smile being careful not to let his small fangs show. Even though during the day and he was mostly human through the years his human canine teeth and began to turn the into fangs.

    She glared at him, a surprisingly strong gaze and an unexpected anger were in her eyes. “Just go get me the shorts.”

    He sighed, “Sure.” Standing up he turned to leave the room. He glanced back to Mia. “Don’t move your legs too much. I’ll be right back.”

    He walked past Liza on his way out and made sure to whisper something in her ear. “Make sure she eats and drinks, the medicine will get her sick if she doesn’t.”

    “Don’t worry Kalvier.”

    Mia looked up from her knees at Liza. “Mm.. Garlic bread.” She took a small piece from the white plate that Liza had carried in. There were still four slices of bread left. “How much do you expect me to eat?”

    “I just made the entire loaf, it’s easier to make in the oven if you just throw the whole thing in.”

    “So, Liza, I’m wondering. How much do you get paid?”

    Liza chuckled slightly, “Nothing. I’ve been working with Kalvier’s family since I was eighteen or so. He takes care of me more than I take care of him now.”

    “So his name is Kalvier?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Weird name. So, I guess working here has it’s benefits then doesn’t it?”

    She laughed. She had a very hearty laugh, almost like a female version of Santa clause… only hers wasn’t as deep or as obnoxious. “Yes. Put your hands back in the bucket if your not eating.”

    She plunged her hands back into the warm water. “So how old is Kalvier.”

    Liza paused, a small frown on her lips. “If I remember correctly, he is eighteen.”

    He tossed the pair of white shorts at her. They were an odd material, almost a cross between denim and polyester. “There, have some shorts.”

    Mia smiled at him. “Thanks. Hey, Kalvier. How old are you?”

    He had the same expression as Liza did on his face, a sad look. Almost as if remember about something that hurt had hurt him a long time ago. Mia was tempted to run up and hug him. “Eighteen.” his answer was dry, like a mechanical response. She got that odd feeling again, that something was different about him. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. She would find out eventually.

    “Oh! I know your names but you don’t know mine!” She smiled, and for a moment was glad to see that her absent mindedness did something good because the frown on Kalvier’s face was replaced as he laughed. “I’m Mia. Nice to meet you. But, uh, I need to change my pants now.”

    Kalvier laughed again. “Have fun with that.” Liza left the room without saying anything and close the door behind her. Kalvier looked at her with the same sadness after the door was shut. “We can’t let her stay here, but what else can we do? The wolves might attack this city at any moment. Bryant didn’t seem too bad when I ran into him but -” He trailed off, realizing Liza would have no idea what he was talking about. “Never mind. I’ll fill you in later.”

    Liza sighed. “Glad to know something is happening to drag you out of bed Kalvier. You know, you’ve been in your room for the past twenty years. Acting like a zombie. You didn’t even sleep until last night. Why did you even come out this morning?”

    He looked shocked, “Twenty years? It didn’t feel like that long, it only felt like a few days….” He looked slightly distracted and he didn’t finish his sentence. Kalvier seemed to go into some sort of a trance.

    “Kalvier?”

    “Oh, sorry. But, I got up because of the dream I had. I don’t know… I guess it kinda made me realize that I actually have to do something instead of letting things slip away.” He smiled. “Anyway, enough talk of these things. Think we should take our guest out to eat?”

    “But she just had some garlic bread.” Liza looked at Kalvier like he was insane.

    “Oh yeah.” He rubbed the back of his head, looking just about as clueless as a ten year old boy. “Why is she taking so long?”

    He opened the door just barely.

    The room was empty. The silence he had heard was just that - a silence. Mia was gone.