Daughter of the Night

I snarled at several faeries that made the mistake of occupying my path, startling them into flight like a flock of panicky birds. I swept down the hall of the Summer Palace with every intention of ripping to shreds the next person who so much as looked at me the wrong way. Aerrinaekaiyan! Damn him!

He had no idea what he put me through. None at all. That werewolf should have died, end of story. The two of them entered a death match, and Aerrinaekaiyan was by far the superior warrior. He should have won, hands-down. End of story.

But oh no, Aerrin couldn’t bring himself to kill one foul mutt. Despite the fact that not doing so meant his death. I held no illusions that had I not interfered, Aerrinaekaiyan would be one very dead Summer Knight. The problem was that Aerrin himself couldn’t wrap the concept around his impenetrably thick skull. It clearly had never occurred to him that his death would be a far worse detriment to our cause than the death of an inexperienced Alpha.

And what I hardly even admitted to myself was that his death would have a huge impact on me. I didn’t want to think about how I would react if Aerrin died on me. His appalling lack of self-preservation was an insult to me and to everybody who cared about him.

When the thought of my current situation ran through my mind, I inhaled sharply and punched a hole into the stone walls, enjoying the way my fist turned the smooth granite into powder. Not only was I now a public enemy of the state of New York, my actions had attracted the attention of the Vampire Hunters. I wouldn’t have minded this if it was to save Aerrin’s life, but the knowledge that he had been perfectly capable of saving his own skin and just didn’t see the value in it was what had me turning stone to rubble with my bare fists.

My mind flashed back to the night that I helped the doctor patch Aerrin up. There had been blood, so much blood. A deep amaranth blood, but blood nonetheless…

*********************************************

“That’s all I can do for him,” Doc said, removing the surgeon’s gloves on his hands. I grimaced at the sound of the plastic peeling off his skin.

My gaze fell to Aerrin. His breathing was shallow, but steady, which was as good as could be expected, according to the doctor. We had bound his chest with thick white bandages after Doc had finished sewing him back together. That had taken almost four hours. There were layers of sinews and muscles, and they had all been severed. Patching them back together so that they would heal properly was where the difficulty lay. The doctor also had to give Aerrin medication to keep his fever down, had to give him transfusions of blood (human blood, no less, I shuddered to think of the consequences of that), and had to set his ribs so that they would heal properly.

All in all, it was a very stressful evening. I wasn’t the only one who was overjoyed when the Doc proclaimed that he was done. I thought back to when I lifted Aerrin up so that we could wrap the bandages around his chest and secure the gauze we had taped over his wounds. There had been two vertical slits on his back that I had never noticed before because they blended in so well with his whip marks. Well, they weren’t slits, precisely. They were thin white lines maybe sixteen inches line, each one stretching over one of his shoulder blades, effectively covering his upper back. I wondered at what they were and I made a mental note to ask Aerrin later.

The Doc was amazed at how Aerrin’s fever broke within a twenty minutes of giving him the medication; he explained excitedly to me that it usually took hours for a regular patient to break a fever of that magnitude.

“He’s a faerie, remember?” I replied. “They heal at incredibly fast rates. If Aerrin pulls through this one, I’m sure he’ll be back to normal within a week.”

The doctor’s eyes widened. “A week? That’s not possible. There’s no way-“

“You’re probably right,” I sighed. “I don’t know what kind of effect the transfusion of human blood will have on him. From what I understand, Fae magic is infused within their blood. It’ll be a while before he can recover that.”

The doctor’s eyes widened even further, a feat I had not believed possible. He returned his gaze to the Summer Knight, and I followed him.

Aerrin’s mahogany hair was plastered to his forehead, which was damp with sweat. The doctor had injected some sort of anesthetic, sending him into even deeper unconsciousness. I could barely hear his pulse, but it was there, fast and steady. It was at that moment that I realized I would do anything, anything, to keep him alive.

“Hey, Doc,” I said slowly, “is he still in critical condition?”

Marius Clayton’s eyes glazed over as he ran through his mental calculations and medical experience. “We’ve done all we could. He’s all right for now, although I would prefer having an IV bag for him, and an oxygen mask wouldn’t be a bad second. His condition could worsen at any time, though. This is a very fickle stage of the healing process. He could reject either the blood transfusions or any of the medications I’ve given him.”

I sighed. “Doc, I’m going to need to keep you with me then. At least until the sun goes down tonight.”

His face tightened. “It sounds like you’re asking my permission.”

“I’m not. I’m doing what I have to in order to keep the Summer Knight alive. If that involves locking you in a church basement for a day, so be it.”

He looked at me for a long time before his gaze fell back down to the faerie on the makeshift cot between us. I saw his jaw twitch, and I wondered at what he was thinking.

“I detest the way you kidnapped me,” the Doc eventually said, “but… I understand your situation much better now. I was imagining that at the worst your friend was involved in some gang violence. I did not realize that he was not human. I would not have believed you even if you had told me.”

I felt my eyebrows rising in surprise. “Is this empathy?” I asked dubiously.

He looked at me sideways. “I’m saying that I’m not condemning you for doing what you had to. Yes, I believe that is empathy.”

“Even if you mean what you say,” I thought aloud, “you will have to explain otherwise to the authorities. Here’s your story; I did indeed kidnap you, but so that you could provide aid to my comrade, who was, indeed, wounded in a gunfight with an opposing gang just outside the city. I appear to be a twenty-five year old Caucasian male, very tall and physically impressive to be able to carry you here. You saw little of my face because you were operating for the most part in darkness, and you couldn’t fend me off because I took you by surprise in your office and knocked you out with a blow to your jaw.”

The Doc’s eyebrows knitted. “But I have no bruise on my jaw. Such a story would not be believed.”

I rolled my eyes and cracked my knuckles. “I can deal with that. Of course, I can’t just knock you out, but I can bruise you enough so that it looks like I did.”

He grimaced. “Right now?”

I felt bad for him, so I closed the distance between us and landed a soft blow on his chin before he even had time to blink. He grunted and crumpled to the floor. I helped him up, admiring the way his jaw was swelling nicely.

“Ouch,” he said, spitting out some blood. “You could have warned me; I bit my tongue.”

“Sorry,” I replied, trying to ignore the enticing smell of his blood. “At least your story is believable now.”

He snorted. “I’m going insane. That’s the only logical explanation to this whole thing. I’m stark raving mad.”

“What made you draw that conclusion?” I asked, curious.

“You say you’re a vampire,” he told me, grinning a little. “Then why are you not trying to suck my blood? I’m wearing a silver watch and you don’t seem to care, even though vampires are supposed to loathe silver. You’re not acting superior to me, as one would expect of a species that preys on humans. Nothing you do makes sense.”

“First off, the silver thing applies to werewolves, not vampires,” I told him. “Second, I’m not trying to suck your blood because my appetite is sated for a while, and even if I was thirsty, you’re far too respectable for me to consider hunting you. Third, most vampires do have a bit of a superiority complex, I’ll admit it. Seeing as you’re the one with the Medical Degree, however, I have to bow to your authority in this situation.”

He looked dazed. “Do you sleep in a coffin? Are you harmed by sunlight? Is it true you’re immortal? Will I ever see my family again?”

I smirked. “I sleep in earth, which may or may not be in a coffin. I am rendered immobile by sunlight, as you are soon to discover. I can be killed, but I don’t age. And you will most certainly see your family again, but I have need of your services until Aerrin is recovered enough for me to take him to the healer at the Summer Palace.”

He looked relieved. “Really? This whole thing may not be so bad if I can just get home.”

“I’m sorry I had to put you through this, Doc,” I said, meaning it. A thought occurred to me, and I reached over to the shredded remnants of Aerrin’s leather jacket. I fished around in the pockets awhile before I found what I was looking for.

“Catch,” I told the Doc, tossing him the keys to Aerrin’s Harley. “I can’t use it to get back to D.C., and I hate the stupid thing, anyways.”

The doctor held the keys up to the light. “Harley Davidson?” he read off the key disbelievingly.

“You’ll have to go to the Eight Bells apartment complex in Chelsea,” I instructed, “And say that you’re a friend of Aerrin. The number of the parking space is thirty-eight. The Harley is a black 2008 Nightster. Got it?”

The Doc nodded slowly. He still looked dazed. “How are you going to D.C.?”

I rolled my eyes. “I’ll probably jack someone’s car. Not many other options with an unconscious faerie. Anyways, Doc, it’s getting late. It’s almost six, and the sun’s about to come up. You can’t get out of the basement because I barred the only door out. I’ll be… sleeping.”

“Sleeping?”

“Like I said, the sun renders me immobile. Not that you could harm me.”

Before he asked another stupid question, I turned and crossed the damp basement to my hole in the cement where the dark soil spilled through. I knelt and began burying myself in the earth.

I covered my face with my cape before scraping soil over myself and succumbing to the sunlight.

*********************************************

I blinked and the Summer Palace returned to my vision. The hole my fist had carved into the wall was just below my eye level. I turned and continued walking, exhaling slowly through clenched jaws.

I hadn’t told Aerrin that I had given away his Harley because I hadn’t wanted to upset him, but now I wish I had.

It wasn’t even safe for me in the city during the day now, thanks to him. The Vampire Hunters had tracked me to the city, and the only reason they lost me was because I had set a false trail before backpedaling and going to the Summer Palace, which they didn’t know of.

Normally, a bunch of puny humans armed with stakes and holy water weren’t enough to bat an eye at, but I couldn’t spare the time with Aerrin still in such a bad condition. And now that they knew where I was, they would be scouring the basements and cellars of the city during the daytime, when I would be defenseless.

It had all started because of my rotten, thrice-damned luck. Once I had helped the Doctor take possession of Aerrin’s Harley, we parted ways. I took the Summer Knight and began searching for a good target to carjack. The car I had set my gaze on was an old, beat-up black Ford Taurus. Nice and simple. I had bribed the homeless man sleeping on the bench beside the car not to inform of my theft to the police. What I hadn’t planned on when I broke the lock was the fact that several Vampire Hunters owned the car.

I was made aware of that when I opened the glove compartment and found the keys, as well as bottles of holy water and stakes and silver and rosaries. I had turned to see a huge Van Helsing logo in the backseat.

I hadn’t had any option but to take the car since the Vampire Hunters would have been able to sense my presence, so I had dragged Aerrin into the passengers’ seat and peeled out into the road.

Of course, fortune would have it that the Vampire Hunters had seen me pulling out as they were returning from the bar across the street. They were still quite sober and very, very furious when they realized that a vampire was making off with their wheels.

I had been gone before they had much time to react, but I had known that they would have the cops on me in no time.

It had been fifteen minutes later, and I was almost at the southern city limit, when I had seen the flashing red and blue of the cop cars. Police were like gnats; insignificant but persistent. If I hadn’t pulled over for them, they would follow me to the edge of the state.

I had pulled over the way they wanted, but then I had broken the windshield and leaped out of it, pulling the Summer Knight along with me. The cops had begun shouting and pulled out their handguns, aiming them at me.

I had known that I could withstand bullets without difficulty, but if one harmed Aerrin… I then grabbed the Taurus’s front bumper and, with a heave of my shoulders, raised the thing above my head and chucked it at the cops.

I had made it fall short, of course, so that none of the policemen would be killed. The screeching sparks the metal made as it hit the ground lit up the night long enough for my profile to be illuminated. I had ignored the sounds of panicked gunshots and bent to pick up Aerrin. While I was certainly strong enough to carry his weight, he was physically bigger than I was, which made it difficult to run. Still, I had managed.

I had sprinted across the highway and leaped into a red Corvette convertible that had swerved to avoid the police and flying cars. I had landed in the backseat with the Summer Knight in my arms.

The person in the driver’s seat had been barely thirty and quite fit, so I hadn’t hesitated to grab him by the collar and throw him out of the vehicle. The Corvette was hardly going fifteen mph, anyway. I then secured Aerrin in the passenger’s seat and then got myself behind the steering wheel.

The Corvette’s tires had screamed on the asphalt as we accelerated into the night.

Of course, the SWAT helicopters had caught up to me when I was about forty-five minutes from D.C., and I had had to crash the car and run the rest of the way with Aerrin in my arms. The Corvette had made a huge bonfire on the side of the highway that was sure to attract attention and bring wary eyes away from me.

Of course, the Vampire Hunters had still been on my trail, so I had had to be careful. Because of them, it had taken me another three hours to get to the Summer Palace. I finally handed Aerrin off to Lemariastra, although she had wanted to make sure that I wasn’t hurt either, mostly because my clothes had caught fire and were still smoldering.

Then I had reported to the Queen, telling her first of the werewolves’ agreement and then the course of events leading up to and following it.

Morhiannara had offered me residence in the Summer Palace during daylight hours, and I had had no choice but to accept.

And then, when Aerrin had woken up, I had been so grateful that he had made it though. And then he had opened his big mouth and told me that all my efforts could have been entirely avoided if he hadn’t been so damned stupid.

I had been wandering the halls of the Summer Palace for about an hour after I had left him and the Queen in the hospital ward. I didn’t know where I was going, but I did know that I didn’t want to leave the Palace. Despite my fury at Aerrin, I knew that he was still far from recovered. He had been given transfusions of human blood, after all, although I knew Lemariastra had immediately begun removing the human blood and transfusing faerie blood as soon as I had delivered him.

I growled, enjoying the way the sound carried through the stone corridor.

As I walked, I heard the sounds of two faeries approaching from around the corner. They were involved in a serious conversation, and I couldn’t help but eavesdropping when I heard the topic.

“He’s in the hospital ward again?” a male’s voice asked, exasperated. “What’d he do this time, fall off a skyscraper?”

“He dueled the werewolf prodigy that we heard about a few months ago in the news,” came a second voice, also male.

“Did he win?”

“It was a death match, but apparently he took a serious hit to avoid killing the werewolf in order to form an alliance.”

“And now he’s being idolized for it, right?” the first voice said bitterly. I heard the sound of a fist hitting the wall, although the result was not destructive as mine had been. “Damn it! What do I have to do to catch up with him?”

“Control yourself, Kechek,” the second voice said sharply.

The two faeries rounded the corner. The first faerie stopped, startled, when he saw me. He had pale yellow hair that was pulled back into a ponytail and fierce orange eyes, I noted with some surprise. He was dressed in greaves on his legs, dark pants that appeared to be made from a canvas material, and a wine-colored tunic. I noticed a pair of short swords strapped to his waist.

“You must be the vampiress I’ve heard so much about,” he said when he overcame his surprise.

“How insightful,” I mocked, my temper short. “And who might you be?”

The faerie’s mouth pulled down into a disapproving frown, but he still tilted his head and replied smoothly, “Siamarkechek, at your service. My companion is Helerothan.”

The second faerie bowed to me, his pale auburn head bobbing slightly. “A pleasure.”

I smothered the urge to roll my eyes. “Indeed.”

“As I understand it,” the faerie called Siamarkechek continued, “You were present at the duel between the Summer Knight and the Alpha in New York. Could you shed some light on the events?”

I shrugged. “They dueled. The Summer Knight was victorious, but injured. He’s recovering in the infirmary now.”

The yellow-haired faerie really did roll his eyes. “Could you be more specific?”

There was something about him that was getting under my skin, and it wasn’t his flippant attitude. I had the sudden urge to get away from him.

“I was rather busy keeping the werewolves from attacking, “ I replied. “And I need to hunt, so if you’ll excuse me…”

Before they could respond, I slipped past them. As I continued down the hall, I felt their eyes on my back.

It was a complete lie, of course. But all I wanted was to let Aerrin heal enough that it would be feasible for me to have a… conversation with him.