Hunter's Strike

“You should have eaten the cake,” Callie said as soon as they stepped into the apartment. She was sitting at the kitchen counter, a white bottle in her hands.

“It wasn’t cake.” Angie’s voice was tired and her nose was stuffy again. When was this cold going to go away?

Callie smacked one hand on the counter. “Damn. It was a brownie, wasn’t it?”

“Nope.” Angie shook her head. Gabriel rolled his eyes and started stocking the fridge.

Callie was stumped now. “Can I have a hint?” she asked, pleading a little.

“We were at Serendipity 3.”

She thought for a moment. “...hamburger?” she guessed.

“Ice cream.”

Callie’s eyes widened. “Ice cream! I should have guessed that! You LOVE ice cream!”

“You should have guessed that, even without psychic powers.” Angie grabbed a tissue from the box by the couch and held it to her nose. “Some future-seer you are.”

“I don’t see into the future like watching it on TV or something.” She raised her arms in the air dramatically. “I peer through a murky haze of twists and turns, branches leading off in every direction. The future’s is not simply written in stone! It’s constantly in flux and I must use all my powers of concentration to find meaning in its spidery web.”

“Gypsy,” Gabriel called from the kitchen.

Callie ignored him. “And that is the reason why I’ll never win the lottery.”

“What are you doing in our apartment?” Gabriel asked, shutting the refrigerator door. “Is this why you don't want us to have locks?”

Callie pressed a hand to her chest. “I am insulted you think think I cannot pick a perfectly good lock.”

Gabriel walked over to the door, opened it, and gestured to the hallway. “Leave.”

“Why? So you can have Angie all to yourself?” The blond vampire pouted.

“Or maybe just some peace and quiet?”

“Geez, what vampire pirate got your panties in a bunch?”

Over in the living room, Angie started giggling, then had to lie down quickly.

Gabriel stepped through the door he had opened. “I'm going to go buy Evangeline some soup and cold medicine, and possibly an IV. When I come back I don't want to see you here.” He shut the door sharply.

Callie tossed out her empty bottle and pressed her hands together gleefully. “Well now that the riff-raff is gone...” She swung her legs around to the living room side of the counter and slid off. She walked to the back of the sofa and peered over at Angie. “How are you holding up?”

Angie looked up at her wearily. She had a hand on her head and her cheeks were flushed. “I thought I was fine. I had so much energy before, but now I'm wiped out.”

“Yeah, well, Donovan Blackswell will do that to you.”

Angie smiled. “Hey, you got his name right on the first try...”

She held her hands up to the side of her head. “Yeah, cause it's like a blaring neon sign in my head.” She grimaced. “You be careful around him, or he'll drain you dry.”

“I won't let him get to my neck,” Angie assured her. She reached up and patted her arm.

“It's not your neck you should be worried about, hun. Why do you think you feel like crap right now?”

“Because I'm still sick and I over did it by going out today?”

“That's part of it, but the rest is purely on Donovan. He's not like your average vampire, and he's much more powerful than he lets on. We all have our gifts, like my future sight for instance.”

“Gabriel can kill plants and move things with his mind. Also his saliva can paralyze people.”

Callie's eyes widened. “Really?” Angie nodded. “Jesus...” She shook herself. “Well, Donovan doesn't absorb life from plants like Gabriel does, but he can absorb it from people. Like Desyre, he can feed off of emotions. They're a peculiar bunch, the vampires that are like him. They crave attention and gather people around them.” She frowned. “The complete opposite of the rest of us.”

Angie looked at her for a long moment. “Thank you for being such a good friend to me.”

Callie laughed. “That was rather unexpected. Are you dying?”

“No, it's true. You always have my back, Callie.” Angie gave her a serious look. “You tell me things about vampires and look out for me. You're my best friend and I love you for it. I know vampires are solitary. Gabriel is so antisocial and I know it takes so much effort for him just to be around me, but you don't even look like you're having a hard time.”

“You're hard on yourself for someone who saved my life.”

“I've legitimately saved Gabriel's life at least twice so far. I know that really doesn't have anything to do with being best buds with a vampire.”

She laughed again. “Well, no, I guess not. Let's just say you saved me at the right time. I lost my sister that day, so there was a vacancy.”

“You still miss her a lot.”

“Every single day, and I know that I can't bring her back.” She lowered her eyes. “I'm not so great on my own. I can take care of myself, sure, but I need someone to be there for me the way that she was. She looked out for me and provided for me, so that I could fully immerse myself into my ability. Nothing makes sense when I have my eyes open.”

“I think we all feel like that sometimes.”

Callie's smile was wry. “Yes, but not all the time.”

“I know that there's someone out there for you. There's someone for everyone. Maybe even two or three someones.”

“If that's true then there's someone for you, too.”

“No, not me. I'm the exception that proves the rule. I don't need anyone, Callie. I have my best friend and my roommate. Between the two of you, there's enough excitement to last a lifetime.”

“So you're really going to give up on love after one try?” Callie looked skeptical.

Angie sat up quickly. “What do you know about that?” she asked warily.

“That you have an ex with a crooked nose running around somewhere in the city.” Angie's eyes widened. “Angie, need I remind you that I'm clairvoyant?”

“Yeah, you're supposed to see the future. Not the past!”

“A timeline is a timeline. I can read it backwards or forwards.” She held her palms outward in a comforting motion. “It's okay, I'm not going to tell anyone. It's your secret. Have you at least told Gabriel what happened?”

“Why would I do that?” Angie's voice rose in pitch. Her heartbeat turned erratic. She closed her eyes and tried to calm herself. “I told him about my ex a little while ago, but not much. Not about how we broke up.” She clutched at her elbows and breathed shakily.

Callie wrapped her arms around Angie and rested her cheek against the side of her head. “It was a terrible thing to go through. Trust me, I know that. And I'm not talking about the cheating. What that man did...” her voice lowered slightly, a dark tone that lowered the temperature in the room. “But, that does not mean the whole world is dark. There are going to be so many people in your life, I can see it. Good people that will mean many things to you, except one. You give so much, but you keep one piece locked away.”

“No one would want that piece, if they knew where it'd been.”

That was the darkest secret, Callie knew. The trauma had all but passed, wounds had healed, but the feeling of being broken had not. Deep inside, Angie felt tainted by her past, by someone she had trusted.

“One day I hope you can see that you are whole, and you are good. One day you'll see that nothing was taken from you. You were not made less.”

Angie was silent. There was nothing to say. Callie was a vampire. The rules were different for her, surely. She was strong enough to never let something like that happen to her. Being human was different. Things hurt so easily, and there were no special abilities to help muddle through.

***

When Gabriel returned, Callie was still in the apartment. She sat alone in the living room, leafing through a magazine. Gabriel shut the door sharply, preparing a verbal assault.

She shushed him by raising her hand. “Angie's asleep. Don't wake her.”

“Leave.” Gabriel kept his voice low. He placed his bags on the counter and started unloading them.

“What are you doing here, Gabriel?” she asked without looking up from her reading.

“Leave.” He stacked up cans of soup in a cabinet and put half a gallon of milk in the fridge. “Now.”

“You had a chance to go off and do your own thing after the house burned down. Katrina's finally dead, Nora's cold in the ground too. Don't you think it's time you started over? Isn't running away your thing?”

“What are you talking about?” he asked suspiciously.

Callie closed her magazine with a snap. “Why are you staying with Angie? I can see all of the whats and whos and whens and hows, but I can never see the whys.”

“You're one to talk. Why are you hanging around her so much?” Gabriel finished putting the groceries away and turned towards her. “Don't you have better things to do?”

Callie shrugged. “No. Angie saved my life.”

Gabriel placed both hands on the counter and leaned on it. “She saved my life, too. Multiple times.”

“I also find her physically and mentally attractive.”

Gabriel looked down at the counter top. He was silent for several moments. “I owe her. She fought for me when I was dead. She finished a fight that I had started the better half of a century ago. She got hurt, lost her home, and almost lost her life. I owe it to her to look after her.”

“She doesn't need you, or anyone else, to look after her.”

His hands balled into fists. “You think I don't know that? I know that more than anyone. That girl... that woman... is single minded in her strength. Even when she's frightened out of her mind she never backs down. She charges straight ahead and she doesn't look at what's around her.” He lifted his head and looked at Callie. “She leaves me in the dust, and it infuriates me.” His fangs were bared.

“She's only human, Gabriel.”

He let out a bitter laugh. “Like that stops her. Her leg is still healing, weeks later. Even when it's done it'll never be as strong as it was before. It'll bother her when the weather turns bad, and she'll never be able to run as fast. Even then, she'll keep getting herself into trouble.” He brought his hands to his chest and clutched the front of his shirt. “I'd like to think that I can be there to help her. That one day she'll face something she can't overcome and I'll be beside her to return the favor. I know now that won't ever happen. So instead I'm just going to watch her. I want to see what she does next, because as much as I hate to admit it, I'm sure it'll blow me away.”

Callie twisted her mouth. “Maybe you will be able to help her one day. She's strong on the outside, but you don't know everything about her. She's got a dark creamy center.”

“Then I'll look forward to that too. It can't be as dark as mine.”

“No. There's nothing else quite THAT dark.”

Gabriel's eyes flashed red and he looked to the side. “You'd be surprised.”