Deadlock

My nails clicked against my steering while as I told myself just one more minute. If my sister doesn’t show up I’m leaving and she could resolve whatever mess she had gotten herself into. 25 just one more minutes have already passed, but I was certain this one would be the last.

My sister, bless her leather cladded heart, had called me at the dead of night, during my working hour, begging me to pick her up. And when I did show up at the address she had sent me, she had the nerve to tell me to wait one minute. I was still dressed in my hellish velvet dress, determined to get back to work once I dealt with whatever trouble my sister'd gotten into. I rubbed my left arm; the lace sleeves making me itch like crazy. This was a type of dress I wouldn't be caught dead in, but working at a public magic shop required some sacrifice and the norms paid more when a magic shop had an aesthetic going. In this case my boss chose the primped goth one.

From across the street I saw a curtain pulled back from a white trimmed window and it quickly fell back into place. I made sure to keep my inherited van in good condition, but nothing would ever wash away the kidnapping stigma that these kinds of vehicles gave off. This neighborhood definitely had a norm majority to it and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a cop show up if I continued to loiter. It's been thirty years since the Reveal, but humanity still hadn't adjusted to the night life activity most supes lived by. I leered at the house with distaste. Since I never knew what my sister would get me into I had put illusion charms on my license plates. As a supernatural creature, as my I.D. declared in vibrant red print, getting involved with norm cops was something I went out of my way to avoid and getting caught with illegal charms would put me away for a few months too. Or getting shot in the head considering I was a shifter and norms argued that that made me half-animal. I picked up my phone and texted my sister, again. Hurry or I’m leaving.

Her reply didn’t come via text, but by slamming into my passenger door, screaming her head off. The phone launched from my hand, hit the ceiling and rebounding back, hitting my nose painfully. I almost didn’t recognize her at first. Aurora normally dressed in tame goth apparel, an effort to piss off her legal guardian, our aunt Lydia, but tonight she was wearing something that would give our aunt a heart attack. My sister was dressed as a vampire’s thrall. Aurora lacked her heavy make-up, but her eyes were clouded by black smoky eye shadow and her lips made fuller by bright red lipstick. The terror on her face was much more clearer as she begged me to unlock the doors.

“They’re already are!” I yelled back. I expected some deranged and pissed off supe to come chasing after, but as she opened her door the back one slid open and a pile of dirty people scrambled in. They were covered in various nasty filth and the odor was murder on my sensitive nose. I couldn’t even guess who or what they were. The only thing I sniffed clearly were the wafts of terror.

“What the hell-“ I started to say.

“Drive!” Aurora shouted.

Someone shot at us.

I drove.

*

*

Ten minutes later I cut off someone and was cursed at through an open window. I stuck my arm out of the window and flipped them off. I wasn't in a very good mood. I was right in the middle of a chase that I thought only existed in movies. If I wasn't so occupied the hysterical laughter tickling the back of my throat would have vomited out of my mouth. Something hot grazed my ear and I cringed away, nearly sending my vehicle into a pole with a sign that read STOP. My front window was given another hole and my sister was nearly yanked out of her seat by a vampire on a motorcycle. She had a stash of charms on her and had been lugging them out the window at our pursuers. In a flash I had her by the ankle, trying hard in making sure my clawed hand didn't hurt her.

"Some help would be nice!" I yelled to the supes in the back. I had only gotten a glimpse of them earlier and from the looks of it they had been somewhere filthy for a very long time. "There's a bag of charms behind my seat! You can use the blood from my shoulder to activate them! Their incantation is attached to the string!"

I pushed down on the gas, tearing through a red light and my sister managed to wrench herself and sink back into the passenger seat. “I told you to put your seat-belt on!” I shouted as I made a sharp right, slamming into and running over something that I hoped had been the vampire. I pulled onto the sidewalk, taking down a bush and forcing a pedestrian to dive onto the street.

As my van struggled to regain its former speed the supes in the back decided to be useful and someone pressed a charm against my neck, a tiny shock informing me that it had been activated. When Aurora had called me, asking for help, I had bought some offensive charms from my boss, who wished me good luck. These charms were anything too illegal, but they should mix asphalt and vampire very well together.

Downtown Deadlock was vigorous tonight as supes and a few daring norms went about their business, stopping in their tracks as a van tore down the road with shooting vampires that were desperate to get back what my sister stole, or whom she freed from them. I wouldn’t have to worry about the cops being called from this part of the city. My concern was for the norms a few neighborhoods back who were treated with the sight of a high speed chase between creatures they wanted exterminated.

"Do you have a plan on where to take them?" I asked at her, swerving into the opposite lane and narrowly avoiding a tour bus. Flashing lights blinded me and I hissed at them, my sharp canines having come out at some point during this madness. My hands were furry and having a hard time clutching the steering wheel.

"I was hoping your place," Aurora answered meekly and I gritted my teeth and looked around. Oldtown, called Deadlock by the supes, wasn’t a town anymore and had an impressive array of high rises and exclusive supe bars and hotels. It was pretty much a strip that included famous places like the The Witching Hour and Blood of Plenty. I hardly ever went down here, as I wasn't that kind of supe, but my boss would take me out to a restaurant or two every month. Towns with high concentrations of supes grew fast and with the amount of ley lines scattered about downtown was a web of booming businesses and population.

Slamming down on the breaks, I winced as my van protested. I glanced up at my mirror, and saw the supes had opened my back doors and were throwing the charms at the approaching vamps who were now getting out of their cars and off their bikes. The fact that the vamps weren’t going apeshit crazy meant they didn’t want to risk killing what was liberated from them.

"Shit," I muttered, pressing the gas again.

"Go down that alley!" Aurora shouted, pointing.

Now she was someone who knew this place better than I ever would. I just hope she got us home safely before the vamps or the norm cops showed up.

Little by little and a few more explosive charms and screaming vamps later we had lost them and were now praying my van got us to my house. It was making awful noises and along the way something fell off. I risked turning around, only to see that one of my back doors was gone.

I groaned, wanting to bang my head against the steering wheel and I was forced to stop. One of the supes slipped out to retrieve the the door.

"I'm so sorry," Aurora said. I looked at her, giving her a glare that must have been really ferocious because she looked away. Our family was spread incredibly thin and between me, Aurora, and our aunt, I was the alpha. Top dog so to speak. The only member of this immediate family who dared challenged me was my mom’s cat, Tiger. The little bastard that found his way back to me no matter how many times I tried to lose it in the fields outside town. My alpha status wasn't much, not compared to the larger packs, but there was still some power in it to pack a punch.

No cop sirens followed us in the time it took to get back home, but I could hear them. It was only when pulled into my garage I allowed myself to take a deep breath and relax. The garage door closed, leaving us in complete darkness. We had gotten away, only because everything happened too fast for the vampires to react. Had they started spelling back with their vile magic, the outcome would have been far different.

I opened the van door and told everyone to get into the house. I rented it with someone, a roommate I hadn't expected to get along with, but now couldn't imagine living without. I had made a home here, it was small and not very new, but it was comfortable. The garage door led into the small kitchen, where an island and suspended cupboards separated it from the living room. The sudden presence of supes made it even smaller. I pointed to the table and obediently they sat down or leaned against the wall when the seats filled up, my sister hanging back and eyeing the hallway.

"Be a dear and get them something to drink," I said, brushing past her. "I have to go tell my roommate we have company."

I walked down the short hall, coming to second door to my left, one with a Wicked Desires poster crudely taped upon the tan wood.

Del wasn't thrilled by the turn of events, but he worked daylight hours and I wasn't sure if he even fully comprehended what I told him. He muttered something and fell back to sleep. I just wanted him not to be surprised to wake up and find the house trashed in the morning.

I went back into the kitchen, where my guests were drinking some glasses of water and all eyes fell on me. They were so dirty I couldn't tell what they were or smell their race either. Leaning against the counter, I ignored my throbbing shoulder and focused in on my sister.

"What did you do?" I asked Aurora.

"You know that vampires deal in the Underground, right?" she began.

"Of course," I answered. Vampires were cold-blooded beasts, their soul having detached itself from them upon their first death. They primarily ran the Underground; where forbidden and illegal magic was sold and bought, where slaves were kept, and the most vile of creatures met up to have disturbing chats over occult activities.

"Well, a few months ago my friend Angel went missing," she lifted a hand to a supe who nodded at me. "I looked and looked for her, until a friend of mine, a vampire thrall, overheard her master saying that some witch was causing problems down in the crypts. He said "That bitch nearly caved in the nest with her damn earth magic."

I glanced at Angel, who looked immensely proud of herself.

"Apparently there was some shallow ley lines underneath the crypt," Aurora continued. "It was the only lead I had. So I started hanging out at the vampire bar and...and I managed to catch the attention of a vampire."

A noise escaped my mouth and I crossed my arms over my chest. Shifters, always mistakened as werewolves, did in fact have a deep hatred for vampires. We were beings of earth magic, but vampires were that of blood magic. To put it straight, earth magic was good and blood magic was evil. Ley lines were the primary source of earth-based magic, whereas sacrificial rituals belonged to blood-based magic. Of course one could argue that good and evil depended on the person, not the type of magic, but often it was very clear on which side of the line these magics stood upon.

"Couldn't he tell you were a shifter?" I asked, my voice strained, taking on a throaty sound. I wasn't going into a rage, but my anger, the sudden swell of protectiveness was stirring up the magic within me, pushing it the surface. At this rate I wasn't going to shift back to normal anytime soon, or at least until the sun came up.

"Some vampires like shifters, that's how I caught his eye. And because he smelled the fairy dust on me," she added quickly, as if I wouldn’t catch the last part. I knew my sister was a drug user, so that was no surprise to me. "Anyway, we hung out more and he liked me well enough. Didn't find it weird when I asked him about the Underground and the auctions. I told him I dabbled in magic and was looking to get my hands on...more aggressive earth magic spells. He really liked that.” A strange look fell on her face and my anger rose, filling the air and causing a few of the supes to shift in their chairs with unease at the sudden flare of aggressive pheromones I was giving off.

"Did he hurt you?" I asked, hissing the words.

"Playing hard to get turned him on, but there were some bloodlettings," she admitted. "But you don't have to set a blood feud with him." She nodded to a supe who sat next to her, their light brown eyes the only clear thing about them. They were covered in dried blood and dirt and it was hard to see where clothing began and ended. "This one got him in the mouth with one of your charms. That's the vampire that exploded everywhere and made…made Angel throw up in your backseat."

"Good," I said and decided to ignore the last part. The van was already trashed. "So that vampire got you to the auction house and..."

"A friend of his showed me some books and I bought one, you know so my cover wouldn't get blown. To assure me it was an authentic book he let me test out a spell. He had some ingredients, but I just made a simple sunshine charm and they were both vampires so they couldn’t tell what I was doing and..."

My claws dug into my arm. "Why didn't you ask for my help?" I demanded. As much as I made it clear that I hated getting involved with her life-style, I would drop whatever I was doing, jeopardize my life to make sure her's didn't end. "You went there without any back up. Just you against the worst of supes who are decades older then you and who kidnap and enslave people! They deal with demons. Demons!"

"I had help!" she shouted and gestured to all the supes present. "I got to the slave hold and freed a bunch of people while looking for Angel. I'm not stupid; before I went down there I got a batch of charms with me to defend myself."

Something clicked within my mind, a missing box of charms that I had to deliver to some circle. Those warlocks nearly teleported me to some hell dimension when I showed up one box short. That was half my paycheck gone and another month of me telling Del my half of the rent was going to be late. "You stole from me!"

"I'm gonna pay you back!"

A massive headache was building inside of me and I just wanted to scream. Or bite something. If Del was awake he would have jokingly offered me some catnip, only this time I may have said yes.

"They helped me escape," she continued. "The ones that were grateful and wanted to repay me. We went through one of the tunnels and ended up at some warlock's house. It was empty, thankfully, and I texted you to come pick us up."

"But you were late and you told me to wait one minute. Which turned into-”

"We had to catch our breath and one of them needed to heal a twisted ankle. Then company showed up and we had to take care of them. Had we not a lot more vampires would have followed us to the van. I set a fire and a lot of them lit up like tissue paper."

“So that’s it. That’s the truth?” I asked.

“Yes!” She had no right to look so offended. There was a reason I didn’t trust her. I’ve been screwed over so many times that I had stopped trying to believe her and took the lies as they were. But this took the cake. I started at her, replaying the story in my head. Would she really go through all that to rescue some witch. Perhaps this Angel dealed in fairy dust and Aurora didn’t want to go to someone else for the drug. Instead of finding someone else she decided to piss off half the vampire population and any other supe who had dibs on the slaves.

“She’s telling you the truth,” one of the supes said. “She saved us from that hell. And, if you don’t mind, can we clean up now? It’s been months since I had a proper bath.”

Yeah, I can smell that. “Okay,” I said. “Aurora order something for us to eat. There’s emergency money taped under the kitchen sink.” I pointed to the supe who had killed the vampire that laid his filthy fangs on my little sister. “You get to use my bathroom. The rest of you can decide who uses the hall one. There’s a jug of hand soap underneath the sink and Aurora can take out some rags for you to clean yourselves with. There’s also norm first aid in there too. That's all I have here.” All my medical amulets were at work, if I still had a job that is.

“Do sandwiches sound good?” Aurora asked and there was a chorus of approval. They were looking at her like she was a saint, which was a good thing considering that a bunch of vamps were gunning after us. I felt horrible for thinking it, but her life would come before theirs if it came down to that.

An intense argument over who got to shower in the hall first and with a nod at the lucky supe who earned my appraisal they removed themselves from the table and followed me down the tiny hall to the master bedroom.

I closed the bedroom door and directed them to the master bedroom’s bathroom. Del had insisted I take it when I moved in with him and for a minute I hadn’t understood why. But this house was a duplex, sharing the wall with someone else. A someone who had terrible taste in music and hadn’t discovered earphones yet. But they were a warlock and no one in this house had the guts or power to tell them to shut up. Del didn't like pulling out his my uncle is scary as hell and will disembowel you card and I was just a shifter that couldn't even get rid of a stupid cat. However I had a house full of supes now, so maybe I could give our dear neighbor a good scare tomorrow.

If we survived of course.

“What’s your name?” I asked the dirty supe, turning on the light and feeling bad when they flinched. Taking a good look at them, and spying bite marks that looked too familiar, I knelt down by my bed and pulled out a small box filled with my first aid potions and pain amulets. There wasn’t enough for the other supes, not even enough for the one standing before me, but it at least it would take away some pain.

“I…” their voice was rough and uneven, as if they hadn’t used it in a long time. “Gabriel,” they stuttered out. “That is my name.” I looked up to see them staring around the room and though I was a bit messy, I didn’t have any embarrassing laundry thrown about and my taste in decoration wasn’t bad either. But it still was room full of secondhand furniture and it showed that I didn’t have a lot of money to begin with, a common thing for shifters. I wondered how long they've been in the Underground.

“Well, in case you missed mine, I’m Tamira Solis.”

“Your sister is very brave,” they told me. “I’ve…I’ve been down there for several years and not once has someone ever tried to help me, much less rescue me.”

That outlook on her will die soon enough, I thought, opening the box and putting it on my bed. As soon as the fear left my sister, her old ways would return and Gabriel would find himself screwed over. “I didn’t know they kept people down there that long,” I said. Usually slaves were taken out once bought; becoming servants or familiars to supes. Those who never left the underground were organ donors to blood magic users or in line to be sacrificed in occult gatherings.

“There are tournaments,” Gabriel said, looking down at his hands. Considering he hadn’t shifted the slightest bit during the car chase made me sure he wasn’t a shifter. “I…I was taken down there as punishment, but then I kept winning and I was lended to a more appropriate master. I became a male champion and the only chance of escape was to die. To lose.” He shuddered. "They kept promising me freedom, before every match. They never kept their word."

“You don’t have to tell me this because you feel obligated too,” I said quickly. “I…my sister and I don’t expect anything from you." Well I didn't. "There is no debt to be owed. If talking about it causes you pain, you don't have to tell us.”

“The vampires will be angry. My owner…the bets placed on me will have to be returned and the supes and norms who regularly bet on me will lose a considerable amount of money. If your sister’s identity is discovered-“

“My sister, despite some of her actions, isn’t dumb. Witches just don’t go missing, they’re usually taken. Aurora would have worn glamour amulets to conceal her identity. No one would recognize her.” Not to mention her face was lacking its usual layer of heavy makeup. I could slap on some scent-altering amulets on her and she would be safe.

“But you didn’t.”

I opened my mouth to refute him, but I realized he was right. Aurora wasn’t dumb, or else she wouldn’t have lasted long in the world that was brutal to the weak. And I wasn't weak and though my skills in magic were light compared to other users, they were still powerful. The wards upon my house were of my own making and they were powerful enough to be considered a quarter of my rent. I knew they could withstand most malicious magics and more importantly locator spells.

“My…face was pretty changed,” I said. In fact it still had yet to return to its human normality. My appearance wouldn't put off a supe, but it might cause a riot in a norm populated area. “And a lot of magic users drive vans and the…uh…smell of you lot would have masked mine.” That didn’t sound like an impressive argument.

He made a face, his mouth opening and closing a few times before words finally came out. “I’m grateful for what your sister has done for me. Extremely grateful and that extends to her family as well, to you. I don’t know about the others, but I can guarantee you that my…my admirers and my master will look very hard for me.”

“Believe it or not, this isn’t the first time my sister has brought to me some interesting and homicidal supes to my front door.” I said. “Or the first time I have relocated to avoid getting assassinated on her account. I can...I will have to leave and start new somewhere else." Somewhere more dodgy. "Del has a scary uncle to look out for him and as you can see I don’t have much to begin with. I can move out and find some place and my sister…she’ll do whatever she does on occasions like this. Vanish.”

“Most would have abjured her from their lives and if they did...they would not speak without anger. You're not bothered by the predicaments she has forced your hand in?”

I shrugged my shoulders and went to my closet. I knew there was some large sweats I had accidentally gotten and never found the time to return. I snatched them from underneath a blanket I had spilled a spell on. “I’m use to this. My dad did it and now my sister does it. It’s something I have to live with and there’s no use in getting mad anymore.” And it would kill my mother more to know that I shunned Aurora. My mom was already dead, but I didn’t want her turning in her grave. “I’ll leave clothes and a towel by the door for you. Underneath the counters are soap bars and shampoos and conditioners. Use whatever you need.”

“Thank you,” he said more clearly, revealing a deep voice. "And as dangerous as it is for me to stay with you, you'll still be in danger with me gone. If you want it, you have my help and strength. Once I get it back." He bowed his head to me, a gesture among supes that meant deep respect. I was never high enough to be acknowledged in that way.

"I'll...I'll sleep on it," I said, smiling. They turned around and went into the bathroom.

That was if we made it to dusk. Morning was a few hours away and sunlight bleached magic from the earth and the local ley lines were a way off, so my wards would still remain up, though they would weaken. Vampires were dead while the sun was up, but other supes were still about and vampires weren't picky with whom they employed or enslaved. And then there were the blood-magic users that wren't vampires...

I held back a sigh and looked around my room. It was a nice house and Del was a great roommate. But once again I'm forced to leave, running away from the monsters my sister brought to my front door.