The Legend Keeper

Half an hour later, Radar parked his car in his apartment’s garage. Ava hadn’t said anything since they had left Quinn’s. He had planned to ask her questions, but her attitude had been slightly standoffish. Which he shouldn’t have known after knowing her less than twelve hours.
“So…where are you staying while you’re here?” he asked slowly.
It took Ava a moment to speak and when she did, it was almost as if she was forcing the words out. “Hotel. About ten minuets from here.”
“Do you want me to drive you there?”
Ava heaved a breath. “No I’m fine.”
“It is almost midnight.” Radar was mentally hitting himself for not thinking of asking her earlier.
“Don’t beat yourself up; it’s a lot to take in.” Her voice was becoming a bit slurred.
“Come on, you can stay with my tonight.”
“I think not. I have lost most of my old-world attitudes, but staying in a single man’s one-bedroom apartment is still crossing the line for me.” She opened the car door and stepped out. Radar stepped out as well and watched her sling the backpack over her shoulder. The pack really was big and she was beginning to look pretty frail.
“I’m tougher than I look,” she said, even as she stumbled.
Something inside Radar tightened seeing her stumble. The next moment he was next to her and steering her towards the elevator. “The hell with your old-world attitudes.”
At that, Ava laughed. “Now this is one of the turn-offs of our abilities. Using them to any extent, especially when you’re out of practice, drains you.”
“You’re out of practice?”
“I’ve been trying to keep a low profile so for the most part; I just read a mind occasionally. Today I’ve used the hell out of my powers.”
“That calming thing you did…”
“That’s a very fine tuning to telepathy. Telepathy is such a complicated ability and very draining when you get into the fine details.”
“So that thing you were doing to me…”
“Really difficult, especially when the person is resisting,” she sent him an accusing look.
He smiled slightly. “Well now that I know that…”
“You’ll get better. After a while the weirdness goes away.”
“I’ve heard that before.” They entered the elevator and he waited until the doors slid shut to ask, “So who else do we have to meet?”
“Your friend Kate, and then there’s one other guy that I’m hoping will help.”
“And what is he?”
“He’s human.”
“He’s what?” Radar exclaimed as he hit the button for the fourth floor.
“He’s human.”
“So why are you asking him to help?”
“He’s former special forces. All supernaturals have abilities that help us top humans in some way or the other, but we need someone who is going to understand humans on their level. And he’s strong enough to almost hold his own against a vampire.”
“What kind of powers do vampires have?”
“Super speed and super strength and when they’re feeding, they have absolute mind control.”
“Damn.”
“All other supernatural blood is toxic though.”
“You never did tell me what other kinds of supernaturals there are,” he said as the elevator doors opened and they walked down the hall.
“You’ll learn as we go along.”
“Is that code for you’re not going to tell me?” he asked as he slipped his key into the lock.
“I’ll get around to it. Not tonight.”
They both walked into the apartment. Radar picked up the pieces of his phone and shook his head. “Well this is going to be a little difficult to explain to the phone company.”
“You dropped it off a balcony,” Ava said, making her way into the kitchen. She took the book out of the pack and spread it on the center island.
“What are you doing?” Radar asked.
“Come here,” Ava said. She looked just about dead on her feet.
“Don’t you think you should get some rest?”
“I have to check something first. Come here,” she said again.
Radar walked up next to her. She had flipped the book open to a page that was only half full. One of the only things written was the day’s date.
“What-?” But before he could finish his sentence, there was suddenly writing on the page. He froze. Before his eyes, the page filled up with writing and then the next page. This writing he could actually read as it was in English. Ava flipped the page and they watched writing fill up a third page, then a quarter of the fourth.
“Well that was a slow day,” Ava said after a moment.
“What…was…that?” Radar managed to ask.
“It’s really hard to keep up with a world of seven billion people and about a billion supernaturals. It’s pretty much impossible to keep up with all of the happenings that the human world notices about supernaturals. So this book is under a very powerful spell that taps into The Legend Keeper’s abilities of telepathy and prediction and basically just writes down everything that she would.”
“Well that’s convenient.”
“It’s how The Legend Keeper knew that someone was looking for the book.” She flipped back a good clump of pages to a date six weeks earlier. “It describes a situation where a vampire revealed himself to a human in Washington DC and that human’s response was to call a meeting several days later.”
“That’s kind of jumping to conclusions don’t you think?” Radar asked.
“Not when the Legend Keeper sends a supernatural to listen to the meeting.”
“We have super hearing too?”
“Nope, this certain supernatural just happened to be a private investigator and knew how to get into a government building to bug it.”
“You said a vampire…how much do you trust your friend Quinn?”
“I trust him with my life,” Ava said without hesitation. “I found him when he was eight years old trying to steal some bread from a bakery where I lived in London. Both of his parents had just died of the measles.”
“He was a vampire when he was eight?”
“No. I took him in and we moved to France and a couple years later he was involved in the French Revolution where he almost got himself killed. Except a female vampire had taken a liking to him and turned him right before he died.”
“This is so weird.”
“Oh the story gets more interesting from there. After the French Revolution, there was a brief period of mass hysteria where people started hunting vampires and witches so we had to get the hell out of there so we moved to Ireland. And then you know how Quinn screwed that one up. I got us out of that one by convincing another captain to take us to Caribbean where Quinn embraced his Irish heritage and fell in love with alcohol,” the last sentence she said on a yawn. She shut the book and put it back in the pack.
“I thought you said Quinn was from London?”
“No, he was born near Dublin but his parents moved to London when he was six.” She yawned again. “This is too long of a story to go into this late at night.”
“You take my bed,” Radar insisted.
“I think not.”
“Well I’m sleeping on the couch so if you want to share…”
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re as stubborn as a mule?”
“Nope, normally people do whatever I ask them.”
“Yeah well I’m immune. That’s one thing you’re going to have to get used to. None of your powers will work on other supernaturals.”
“But you can still read my mind.”
“Other active supernaturals.”
“I’m not active?”
“Not until you start using your powers. You’ve got some decisions to make. Once you start using your powers, there’s no going back. You’re no longer human, you stop aging forever, and there’s no turning your powers off. As simple as I make it sound, this is a huge decision.”
Radar paused to think for a moment as Ava made her way towards the bedroom. “You wouldn’t have come to me if you didn’t think I would say yes,” he said with certainty.
Ava paused. “Still, just make sure you’re making the right decision before you ask me to start teaching you how to read minds.”