Daughter of the Night

The dark, white-marble buildings below me gleamed in the moonlight. The moon was almost full, not a good thing for Aerrin or I. It was nine-thirty at night, and the sun had only recently set. I was out early, hunting to replenish my energy and expedite my healing from the wounds I had achieved sparring with Aerrinaekaiyan.

The monster within me was very close to taking control, so I had to hunt with haste. The smells of human sweat, breath, and blood was becoming more and more pronounced with every passing second. Pulling my lips back in a grimace of self-loathing, I leaped from the rooftop of an apartment complex and let myself fall through the air to land on the roof of a lower building.

It was another twenty minutes before I heard a scream for help maybe a quarter mile off, muffled by the din of cars and people. I leapt from the building and employed my speed to fly to the source of the scream. I arrived in an empty parking lot outside a gasoline station to see two people struggling, the larger trying to force the smaller into a black SUV. I spat venom on the ground before approaching; black SUV’s were always a bad sign.

I stopped in front of a woman struggling to free herself from the unyielding grasp of a heavyset, swine-faced man. He had one thick arm around her waist, and I watched with disgust as the other began creeping down the front of her blouse. At the same time, he was using his superior weight to pull her into the SUV.

The woman gripped the arm across her front with renewed vengeance and used the elbow of her other arm to drive a blow into his gut. His grip slackened, and she turned and broke free, breathing hard.

“Kick him where it hurts,” I advised. The woman gasped, turned, saw me with my black cloak, red eyes, and white fangs, and shrieked with abandon before grabbing her purple purse from the sidewalk and running off into the night.

At this time, the revolting man had recovered from the blow to the gut and was about to pursue the woman, a gleam in his eyes that wasn’t there before. I saw him pull a pistol from his jacket pocket and I knew this was about to get ugly.

“Hey, pork chop,” I called to him, letting some of the vicious nature of the monster slip into my voice. “Why don’t you try raping me? Your success rate may be higher.”

The man turned towards the sound of my voice. As soon as he saw me with my vermillion monster irises, he pulled the trigger of the pistol. Several sharp cracks whipped the air as he emptied the chamber at me.

Although the bullets sped towards me at hundreds of miles an hour, my reflexes kicked in and my hands shot out. I grabbed the bullets out of the air as if they were cutting through the air at the speed of mere butterflies and crushed them in the palm of my hand.

“I said rape me, not shoot me,” I said, taking a smooth step towards the man. “Not that either would work, of course.” The whites of his eyes gleamed in the darkness, and I could smell his terror. He started hyperventilating, and the monster within me rejoiced at his fear.

I felt the black web of hatred in my heart expand as I realized that I was acting every inch the monster I was supposed to be. What would Aerrin think if he saw me now? A torrent of shame swept through me at the thought. I was playing with my food, no less complacent than a cat toying with a mouse, as if human life was completely irrelevant. Aerrin believed in second chances. My throat tightened with the thirst. I couldn’t afford to.

Without any more stalling, I shot towards the man, grabbing him around the throat and pulling him towards me.

I hunted and exsanguinated several other criminals within the hour before returning to the Summer Palace in a horrible mood. I entered the Palace in my shadow form before resuming my humanoid one and heading to Aerrin’s chambers. I had to collect him so that we could leave for New York.

I knocked briefly before entering through the huge oak double-doors into the living room of the Summer Knight’s quarters.

“Aerrin?” I called, with no immediate response. I eventually heard a grunt of acknowledgment and saw the light on in the bathroom through the bedroom. I also noticed a shadow falling through the entranceway. I could smell Aerrin’s scent, one of pine trees and smoke, so I settled on one of his leather sofas. I waited for five minutes before becoming impatient and rising to my feet. I wouldn’t have approached the bathroom if the door were closed, but it was open, so I went in.

Aerrinaekaiyan was concentrating at a large mirror over the bathroom vanity, both of his hands in his thick hair. I saw a bottle of hair gel open on the counter and realized that he was fixing his hair.

“Damn,” he muttered when he saw me staring at him with a quirked eyebrow.

“I’ve lived a long time, but I never thought I’d see the day when a guy takes longer than a girl to do his hair,” I said, smirking wickedly. Aerrin always managed to make me feel better.

“This is a definite loss of man points,” Aerrin agreed sulkily, returning his gaze to the mirror. “You weren’t supposed to see me, though. That’s why I didn’t say ‘come on in’ or ‘feel free to join me’.”

“Mmm-hmm,” I said. “You didn’t say ‘hang on a second’ or ‘be with you shortly’ either. In fact, if I recall correctly, you didn’t say much of anything intelligent.”

He grunted again as he spiked the hair in front. After a few seconds, he looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “You know, the longer you watch me, the more man points I lose.”

I maintained my smirk. “Funny how that works, isn’t it?”

“That was a subtle plea for you to return to my living room, in case you didn’t pick up on it.”

“Oh, I did,” I assured him. He rolled his eyes and proceeded to ignore me. After another second, I left the bathroom and returned to living room where I stretched out on the couch again. My own long black hair cascaded over the side, and I looked at it.

Straight, thick, shiny, waist-length. Black as the light-swallowing nighttime. A monstrosity. When I had been human, I thought dully, my hair had been curly. This was his fault. I, a monster, was his fault. He would pay.

Aerrin came into the room, clad in his typical jeans, tee shirt, and black leather biker jacket. His hair was expertly spiked and I had to admit it did look good. The piercing he wore on his right eyebrow shined silver in the light, but it went almost unnoticed when compared to the sparkle of his brilliant emerald-green eyes.

“Ready to go fight some werewolves in the name of peace?” Aerrin asked, smirking at me. His canines and incisors, wider and shorter than my own, were wickedly pronounced.

“Of course,” I said, rolling back a sleeve to admire the rapidly closing wound on my forearm. Now that I had some fresh blood in my system, my wounds were disappearing quickly.

I was back to my Chanel outfit, for the most part, although now I was sporting my heavy wool cloak over the outfit.

“Before we go,” Aerrin said, “reach under the sofa there.”

I narrowed my eyes at him to let him know I didn’t entirely trust him and carefully extended my hand under the sofa. My fingers made contact with a cold, hard metal. I grabbed the bundle and pulled it up, eyeing it suspiciously.

“Gauntlets made from faerie steel,” he explained. “That way, next time you encounter an edged weapon like Wildfire, you can block it without risk of injury.”

“Please tell me this isn’t a gift,” I groaned.

“It is,” he replied with a grin, “but not from me. These are from Tristan. He saw some of our sparring and appreciated it enough to spring for these.”

I worked my jaw angrily before exhaling sharply through my nose. “Why are all of you Fae so damned nice? What do you want from me?”

Aerrin chuckled, a warm, contagious sound. “Tristan doesn’t want you to lose an arm trying to block a sword. That’s what he told me, at least.”

My gaze pulled down to the gauntlets. They were a deep grey, fingerless, and covered my forearm up to my elbow. The top was hard faerie steel, but over the bottom of my arm they were a thick, protective black fabric with tiny threads of steel woven in for maximum protection and flexibility. Metal buckles secured the gauntlets around the wrists and around the back of the gauntlet, just above the forearm.

“I don’t need them,” I finally told him.

Aerrinaekaiyan shrugged. “You might, you might not. Better you should have them, though. If you refuse to use a weapon, you should at least be well protected against them. It was foolish of me to fight you without armor.”

I hissed, irritated. “You came out of it with more bruises than I did, genius. If anyone should have been wearing armor, it would be you.”

He smirked. “At least I wasn’t bleeding all over the place. Which is why you should have been the one wearing armor.”

“And if you were wearing armor, you wouldn’t have purple skin instead of brown.”

He cocked his head at me, offended. “You think my skin is brown?”

“You’re a bit vain, aren’t you?” I noted, hiding a smile behind my hand.

His eyes flickered away before returning resignedly to my face. “Maybe a little bit,” he admitted. I couldn’t help it; I laughed. He grinned in spite of himself.

“All the Fae are, if you haven’t picked up on that from the excessive opulence in the Summer Palace. Anyway, now that my secret’s out, I can say that my skin isn’t brown,” he informed me, still grinning. “It’s tanned. Huge difference.”

I raised my hands, palms flat in a sign of surrender. “Okay, okay, I get the idea. Your hair, however, is definitely brown.”

Aerrin shook his head slowly, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. “’Brown’ is such a dreary word. I would prefer a less dull adjective, like ‘coffee’ or ‘mahogany’. But lay off the brown. Please.”

I snorted. “Mahogany it is, then. Although I would have thought you were more concerned with the shape of your hair than the color from the way you spent twenty minutes gelling it.”

His expression became pained. “I’m going to be getting a lot of those hair insults now, aren’t I?”

“I’m not going to lie,” I told him. “Yes.”

He sighed and grabbed Wildfire from where it was leaning, sheathed, against the fountain and headed towards the doorway. As he heaved open one of the heavy oak doors, I heard him mumble, “I was just doing it to look nice for you.”

He disappeared through the door before I could say anything, not that I would have, anyway. I blinked, unsure of what he was implying. Was it really what I thought he was implying? After a second I decided that I had imagined it and I rose from the sofa and followed the Summer Knight out the door.

We had decided that taking the train again would not be a good idea, purely because of nostalgia, and Aerrin had promised another method of transportation to me instead. Of course, he had never told me what it was, which was why I was slightly anxious as I followed him.

We exited the Summer Palace and hopped on the metro, riding it for two stops before getting off. Aerrin led me to a parking garage where he nodded at the man in the registration booth before walking into the garage. I followed, looking with trepidation at the all the Mercedes and Lexus cars in the lot.

Aerrin led me to a parking spot with a motorcycle resting inside.

“No,” I said immediately. “Absolutely not.”

“Please?” he asked, his eyes sparkling innocently. “You have the black cape and everything, people would think you’re Batman! You can’t tell me that wouldn’t be awesome.”

“Grow up,” I said. “This is ridiculous. I’m not riding a Harley. I don’t care what you say, we’re not going to New York on a motorcycle, no matter what.”

Five minutes later I was secure on the back of Aerrin’s motorcycle. I scowled at the moon as I wrapped a forearm around his hard waist, trying to smother the impulse to knock the black helmet off his head with my fist. The wind swept my hair off my shoulders so that it cascaded out behind me, as did my cloak, as Aerrin had said it would. I suppose I did look like Batman. I preened slightly at the thought before I caught myself and returned to glaring at the back of his head.

Aerrin gunned the engine before accelerating, which might not have been the best idea because we were already going twenty miles over the speed limit, doing eighty on a sixty mile per hour road.

“If a cop pulls us over, I’m feigning kidnap,” I told Aerrin. He wouldn’t have been able to hear me if he was human, but as one of the Fae, his advanced hearing picked out my words over the howl of the wind.

“If a cop pulls us over, I’m feigning kidnap,” he responded. “No one would believe you’re helpless for a heartbeat. I, however, have a mean innocent civilian face up my sleeve.”

“Aerrin,” I said slowly, in case he was mentally incompetent, “you have a sword.”

“You captured me from a cosplay event back in the city,” he explained like it was obvious.

“You know,” I sighed, “I could be flying right now. That would be much simpler.”

“Can you do ninety as a cloud of smoke?”

I grumbled under my breath.

“What was that?”

“No,” I muttered grudgingly.

“Debate over.” I heard the smile in his voice. I had to smother a tiny one of my own.

We got to New York at about four in the morning, thanks to Aerrinaekaiyan’s maniacal driving. We had triggered three different speeding traps, one in Maryland and two in New Jersey. I had managed to extend my shadow form to encompass the motorcycle, hiding us from view long enough for the cops to give up the chase.

“It’s too late to meet with the werewolves,” I told Aerrin. “The sun’s going to come up in less than two hours. I can go to one of my hideouts, but you should get a hotel room somewhere. The Marriott’s really nice.”

He grinned. “I still have my apartment, remember? I am employed here, after all.”

I had forgotten about that. Strange, to think that the faerie in front of me was the same as the boy I had saved in the back alley such a long time ago.

“So where should we meet tomorrow?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Grand Central Station? We could beat up the bastards that fed you wolfbane.”

He smiled slowly, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “That could be fun. But we’re here for an alliance. We should try some diplomacy, first.”

I sighed. “At least one of us is responsible. All right, we do it the diplomatic way. I can meet you at your apartment. Where is it?”

“Chelsea,” he said before giving me more explicit directions.

“So I’ll be there around nine thirty,” I confirmed.

“Sounds like a date.”

I blinked before shaking it off, decidedly ignoring that comment. “See you tomorrow.”

The next evening came slowly for me, because as usual I was trapped in the not-awake-not-asleep coma of a vampire during daylight hours. Over the years, I had developed ways to deal with myself during the long hours of paralysis. Right now I was re-teaching myself the causes of the Age of Exploration. My mind, however, kept flicking back to Aerrinaekaiyan, with his catlike green eyes and pointed ears and contagious smile. Why was he still my friend? Were we truly… friends? It had been so long since I had one. What would I do if he suddenly left?

Terrified, I realized I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I never saw him again. I would miss him terribly, certainly, but more than that, I might not be able to readjust myself to a life of complete solitude. And if I couldn’t do that, my safety would be at jeopardy.

You’re getting soft, I scolded myself angrily. Just because you’ve escaped his clutches for a few decades, you relax your guard enough to tie yourself down? Especially now that you know he’s after you? Fool.

But… it was too late. The damage was done. Aerrinaekaiyan was my friend, and he was my ally, as was the powerful nation at his back. And together, we would bring down him. I had committed myself to this. Although I still didn’t know the full extent of the Fae’s motives, resolve, or plans of action, I planned on finding out soon. This would be the beginning of a war to overthrow Dracula.

And I was devoted to the cause.

The next night came after what seemed like a century of waiting, but it did come. And I was ready for it.

I rose from my bedding of earth and picked up the gauntlets that Tristanarium had given to me. I had brought them with me, against my better judgment but aligned with Aerrin’s own. I slipped them over my forearms, savoring how light they were. The faerie steel was something else, I thought. I opened and closed my fist, testing the gauntlets. My fingers and most of my hands were free from the gauntlet’s constraint. I buckled on the gauntlets, admiring the way they collaborated with my outfit.

I flexed my hand, admiring the way my fingernails threw light like chips of diamond. They truly were claws.

I buckled on the other gauntlet before readjusting my cloak and exiting my hideout.

I arrived at Aerrin’s apartment in a matter of minutes and waited in the foyer. In a matter of minutes, Aerrinaekaiyan came out of the stairway, Wildfire strapped across his back.

“Did you gel your hair again?” I asked, grinning.

He rolled his eyes. “You shouldn’t even have to ask. Obviously I did, because it looks amazing.”

I snorted skeptically and we left the building. Aerrin had parked his motorcycle in the apartment complex’s parking garage, so we decided to walk to the headquarters.

“How long has it been since we were there last?” I asked him. “Two weeks?”

He frowned thoughtfully. “I think so. Something like that. Anyways, the werewolves aren’t going to appreciate our little visit. Maybe we should bring some sort of gift to signify a truce.”

“Nah,” I said. “What do you give a dog? Bones? I don’t think they’d appreciate that.”

He sighed. “I feel like we shouldn’t just walk in, though. I mean, I’m armed, and you don’t have to be. And how do we know we should even start with this werewolf pack?”

“Because Dracula tried to blackmail them,” I responded immediately. “He wouldn’t waste his time twisting the arms of a bunch of small fry. This werewolf pack is definitely the most powerful in the city for exactly that reason.”

Aerrin didn’t say anything, and I looked over at him to realize that he was appraising me silently. I read the unspoken question in his eyes; how did I know so much?

“Don’t ask,” I warned him.

He sighed again, his hand wandering up to the katana hilt poking over his shoulder. We wandered through the blocks of the city, both of us walking more slowly than we should have been. In truth, neither of us wanted to return to the werewolf headquarters. I was still recovering from the long-term effects of my exposure to the sunlight, and Aerrin wasn’t going to forget so soon the feeling of dying from wolfbane. We both harbored personal grudges against the mangy animals, and Morhiannara expected us to set those aside in order to form a pact.

Aerrinaekaiyan would, of course, do so without hesitation for the greater good of the Fae. I, however, didn’t have that kind of moral standards. The monster within me was screaming for vengeance, and even the rational part of my mind was in accord. The only thing holding me back was my own alliance with the Fae and my determination not to lose control in front of Aerrin. He had already seen the monster once, when we first met. I didn’t want him to see it again.

The familiar abandoned hotel rose before us, the huge doors looming tauntingly. The stoop of the hotel was crumbling from disrepair, just as I remembered. My eyesight was pulled up and up, past the multiple stories to the rooftop. The roof. Just remembering that day gave me pain.

“So… I guess we should knock,” I eventually said, after smothering the memories. I looked over at Aerrin, and I realized that he had been going through the same thing.

We smiled uncomfortably at each other, acknowledging silently our mutual anxiety. Aerrin stepped forward and grabbed the giant knocker on the door, banging it repeatedly against the ancient wood. He stepped back and we waited in silence for a few seconds.

“It smells like mutt,” I said distastefully as Aerrin wiped off the odor of werewolf from his hands onto his jeans.

“Yeah,” he grimaced. “Maybe they’re not home. With their speed, you would think they’d have opened the door by now.”

I heard shuffling through the door and felt my fangs extend slightly. Speak of the devil.

The door swung open, and I saw two werewolves on the other side. Both were young, maybe high school aged. One girl and one boy. They seemed nice enough just looking at them, but their smell was awful and my every nerve sang with distrust.

When they saw Aerrin and me their eyes grew to the size of dinner plates. I could just imagine what was going through their minds; a vampire and a faerie on their front porch, both enemies of the pack and both enemies with one another. I looked over at Aerrin, who was probably reading their emotions. He appeared to be biting back a smile.

“I am Cross, Betrayer and Direct Descendant of Dracula,” I said, deciding to take the initiative. “This is Aerrinaekaiyan, Summer Knight of the Court of the Fae. We are here to arrange a meeting for the negotiation of terms of alliance with the ulterior cause of dethroning Dracula.”

The two young werewolves blinked at me as if I was speaking in Yiddish and the next thing I knew the door slammed close in my face.

“That was rude,” I remarked after an initial moment of surprise.

Aerrin snorted. “You terrified them. And anyways, what would you expect of werewolves? Manners?”

“You’re right,” I agreed. “That would be too much to hope for. ”

I heard a grunt from the other side of the door, which informed me that the werewolves could hear our conversation. I scowled at the door before exchanging glances with Aerrin. We came to the silent conclusion that this probably wasn’t the best time or place to insult the werewolves.

I could hear the arrival of more werewolves through the door, and then an exchange of voices too low and fast even for me to make out. Werewolves could communicate with each other with a simple matter of animalistic motions and sounds and understand each other perfectly. I had no idea how they did it.

Finally the door swung open.

Three new werewolves stepped out of the door. From their body language and their dark expressions, I got the impression that we weren’t going to be invited in any time soon.

“So it is you,” the lead werewolf growled at me, hatred illustrating his features. “You killed our leader! You will die!”

My gaze darted over to Aerrin, who shook his head slightly. These dogs were really mad. This was not looking good.

I raised my hands. “That is a false accusation. I never even met him; I certainly did not kill him.”

“Her,” Aerrin hissed at me. “Their leader was female!”

Too late. The damage was done. The werewolf in front went rigid, inhaled sharply, and then exploded into his wolf form, snarling violently. Every single one of his teeth was exposed and his ears were flat against his skull. His amber eyes took me in through a haze of bloodlust.

Before the situation could become any worse, Aerrin stepped forward between the werewolves and me. Their eyes followed him distrustfully, but I was willing to bet they were curious. I also assumed that Aerrinaekaiyan was manipulating their emotions as best as he could, because the tendons in his neck were strained with effort. His face, however, was relaxed. I will admit I was relatively impressed.

“Greetings,” he said formally. “I am Aerrinaekaiyan, Summer Knight of the Court of the Fae, and I come on behalf of my Queen Morhiannara with the interest of forming an alliance between our races.”

The werewolves stared at him with a flabbergasted expression. “Why?” one of them eventually asked. The one in wolf form growled an affirmative.

I had to resist the urge to massage my forehead.

“To carry out the demise of Dracula,” Aerrin replied patiently. “It was he who killed your leader. He also greatly offended the Fae. The time has come for him to be shown his place.”

I wondered again at what he had done to kill the Fae, but now was not the time to question Aerrin on that subject.

The werewolves continued to scrutinize him, and the silence stretched out as the seconds ticked by.

“Have I met you before?” one of the werewolves finally asked. I focused on her and realized that she was one of the werewolves who had originally captured Aerrin back at Grand Central Station. I automatically disliked her.

Aerrin had a slightly pained expression on his face. “Um… sort of?”

The female werewolf narrowed her eyes dangerously. “Were you the one who jumped Steve at the taxi stand last week?”

“Who? No, I was in D.C. last week. Actually, can we just forget I ever said anything?”

“We’re here to arrange a date and location for a conference with the leaders of the werewolves with the leaders of the Fae and myself,” I interceded.

The female werewolf waved me off with her hand. “Hang on,” she said, “this is really bothering me. I’ve definitely seen him before, and recently…”

Aerrin heaved a sigh. “I was that human you poisoned with wolfbane to capture Cross,” he explained resignedly.

“How did you switch species, then?” another werewolf asked suspiciously.

“It’s a long story,” he informed them, “but it was sort of a disguise. I’ve always been of the Fae.”

“So we… poisoned the Summer Knight?” the female said slowly. “And now the Queen wants to form an alliance with us? Did we impress her or something?”

A flash of irritation passed so quickly over Aerrin’s face before vanishing that I wasn’t even sure it had ever been there. When he spoke, his voice was neutral and he betrayed no emotion.

“I am here as an ambassador of the Fae, and Cross is representing herself, and we want to arrange a conference between the leaders of the werewolves and the leaders of the Fae with the intention of overthrowing Dracula. That is why we are here. I assure you, Morhiannara was not impressed with your actions. She does, however, see the value of joining the strengths of our races.”

I had to applaud the unfinished sentence; the Queen may see value in an alliance, but her Summer Knight certainly didn’t. The werewolves didn’t pick up on it, though.

“And what is your part in this, vampire?” the female asked me sharply, her eyes regaining some of the loathing that Aerrin had managed to smother.

“I want to see Dracula die,” I said carefully, “and this alliance is the most efficient way to achieve that goal. I am willing to set aside my personal grudges against the Children of the Moon for that reason.”

The werewolves exchanged long glances before finally turning back to Aerrin and me. “We’ll take you to the new Alpha,” the female finally told us. “But you’re going to have a difficult time convincing him of not ripping out your throat with his teeth, let alone call a conference of the most powerful packs in the city to form an alliance with you.”

The way she said this almost eagerly made me realize that while we had put off their bloodlust, they weren’t expecting us to walk out alive from the abandoned hotel. Who was this new Alpha?

Aerrin and I looked at each other before entering through the front door of the werewolf headquarters.