Chapter 7 – To The Wolves

Chapter 7 – To The Wolves

Callie lay draped across a low sofa, obviously made to be an outdoor furniture. Her bare feet, crossed casually at the ankles, were propped against one rounded stone armrest, while her head rested against a sofa cushion at the other end, near where she’d dropped her agonizing-looking heels. She had her face turned away from me and the streaks of chatter that reached us from inside the house.

The house had an open garden in its depth, divided into sections by weaving paths made from artistically rough-cut pieces of wood joined together. The grass around these paths had been allowed to grow long, selectively lapping at the edges of the wooden paths, and, like islands, garden decorations of whim – water features, stone sculptures, more outdoor furniture – sat in the middle of each little section.

Occasionally, the door to the garden would give way to a couple stumbling out. The couple, sometimes two vampires and sometimes vampire-human mixed (and mostly Brandon-animate object) would not get any further than four or five islands before dropping somewhere out of sight, and it wouldn’t be until the noises of body against body ceased, and the door was opened and closed again, that Callie and I would be left back to our silence by the far shore.

After I was congratulated about my posting, and Brandon and Cara had had their fill of putting each other down – Cara revealed that she was also posted onto the Patrol following her help in Greece. I supposed at that point that Kellan and Caspar were merely trying not to be outdone. In any case, Caspar would definitely be with that mindset – Callie signalled that she wanted to go outside. When we’d stepped outside into the garden, she walked down the winding path ahead of me, and, reaching the farthest corner of the garden, sank into the sofa and stayed silent.

The season was rounding her way back to winter, and the first friends she greeted were the nights. When Callie’s badly suppressed shivers began getting ridiculous, I got up from my position by her foot and sat next to her. “Do you want to go back inside?”

“No I do not want to go back inside,” Callie replied, still staring up into the sesame-seed speckled sky. I tried to angle her to look at me but she conspicuously shook me off. A flash of annoyance shot through my jaw, and I had to stop myself from grabbing her harder.

“You two alright out here?” I’d smelled Cara approaching, but waited until she’d spoken to acknowledge her.

“We’re fine. Cal just wanted some air.”

“Can’t blame you, smells like a brothel in there,” Cara took in our positions without much amusement, and strolled across to Callie. “Still, it’s getting cold here.” Giving me an admonishing glance for not offering mine, Cara took off her heavy winter coat and placed it on top of Callie, but not before withdrawing a packet of cigarettes from one of the pockets. She jammed a smoke between her lips, offering another to me, then, without reacting to Callie’s call of protest, lit both with her cross-shaped lighter. “What?” Cara smiled at my raised eyebrow. “I like irony.”

Callie sat up and whisked the cigarette out of my mouth. Expecting her to throw it onto the ground, I had to reflect Cara’s smile when Callie put it between her own lips, and took a deep, unpractised drag. Of course, the smoke came back out through bouts of coughs.

“Don’t you know smoking can kill you?” Cara asked sarcastically, taking the spot on the sofa that Callie’s head had vacated. Without a place to lie back onto, Callie handed me back the cigarette and pulled the coat around her shoulders.

“So why do you smoke?” she asked into my shoulder.

“We’re already dead, what’s left to lose?” I said, and exchanged a look with Cara over Callie’s head; Callie was a very verbal smoker-hater, so something had to be very wrong for her to do what she did. “Are you okay?”

“What does it mean now that you’re a Patrol?”

“Ah…well I guess it means that I would be away for a while for training.”

“And then?”

“And then, I guess I’ll come back and be a Patrol.”

“And a student?” Callie didn’t let her face be seen, but I knew her well enough to know that she was fighting tears she deemed childish. I gave Cara a small shake of the head. I was sure that she already knew, but I didn’t want to verbalize the fact that around a year ago, Callie had lost her dad. Now, a year later, Callie was going to lose me.

“You can’t get rid of her that easily,” Cara said. “There was a reason Lord Dante invited you to this bad excuse to have sex, you know.” Off my confused expression, Cara sighed. “Why are you so dumb sometimes? Your Father obviously wanted all the important Nobles and Officers here tonight to notice Callie. He wanted all of them to associate Callie with you, Sera.

“When the child of such an important Pureblood is made Patrol, it’s a sensation in vampire-world! You remember the craze your cousin Colin’s posting caused. Well, now that news is getting out about Kellan Dante’s daughter being a Patrol, with Callie right by your side as your human ally, you and Callie will become the icon of Co-Ex!”

“How is exposing Callie’s face to all the vampires out there a good thing?” I asked back, even though I was starting to guess the answer.

“Because she’ll be completely protected by politics. Look, if something was to happen to Callie,” Cara reached down and tapped the wooden boards under her feet, apparently still fond of her irony, “and it looked a bit suss, like vampire suss, then the Council would receive grief from all the repressed and fed-up Third-Gen vampires out there trying to keep a normal living, so to speak.”

“And if something happened to me,” this time, both Callie and Cara knocked on the weathered floor, “and it looked like us humans did it, then it would seem like the human government isn’t cooperating with vampires’ efforts, right?”

“Exactly. So as long as you and Sera are best friends in the public’s eye, both sides can go on screwing over whoever they want. You don’t have to worry about losing Sera.”

“You don’t sound like you care very much for Co-Ex, Cara,” I snubbed the cigarette out, careful not to look too keen on what she would say next.

“Well, I just don’t like all politics in general, but,” Cara, in one swift movement, stood up and manoeuvred herself to stare nose-to-nose down at me, “if you’re wanting an answer, then I say I’m against Co-Ex, yes.” I stared back into her strong Mediterranean face, sharpened by the vampirism. “Do I have to explain everything? I’m in the After-Life.”

A door opened down the other end of the garden, and we heard Brandon’s voice luring senseless giggles from a female escort. Cara placed her wrist beside my lips, an act of complete loyalty and trust. I kissed her wrist, returning the gesture, and she straightened up quickly.

“You can’t trust anyone whose position you’re not sure of,” her manner had changed. I realized that she was a lot better prepared for Patrol than I was, emotionally. “And even then, don’t trust them completely.”

“I trust my Father to keep Cal safe,” I said defiantly.

“Good choice. That’s the logic I used to convince myself to tell you who I am.”

~~~~

This exhilarating exchange was cut short when the giggles at the other end of the garden ceased. More out of habit than actual worry, I buttoned Cara’s coat tighter around Callie’s shoulders, and without a word of agreement Cara got up to stand between Brandon’s approaching footsteps, and I placed Callie further behind me.

If Brandon had somehow caught wind of what we were saying, and he was sympathetic towards Co-Ex, this could problematically escalate.

“Why are you ladies sitting out here in the cold?” Brandon arrived at our shore, his shirt hanging open, his bowtie barely clinging on. The same could not be said of the female escort at his arm; if she’d let go, alcohol would hand her over to gravity. Brandon’s breath smelled of alcohol, and his words were running with a fake slur – vampires simply do not become drunk.

The escort, however, would definitely not be able recite the alphabet backwards, and probably not because of the alcohol. At her neck, blood was slowly oozing out of two puncture marks, running down her tanned skin and staining her strapped gown. The blood, which would appear black in the night to Callie but was glowing crimson to the rest of us, was also smeared shamelessly across Brandon’s face and fingers like molten lipstick.

“Christ, Brandon, how can you leave her opened like that?” Something was wrong. Brandon’s blue eyes were too blue, too piercing, overwhelming Cara’s demand as if she were standing beyond a stone wall. Did he hear us? Could he have heard us?

Brandon took a peek at the girl, then down at his own hands. “Oops, my apologies,” licking his fingers, he smiled a pointy smile. “Why don’t you help me close her up, Sera?”

I felt something shoot through my jaw again, this time it was not annoyance. My throat roared in sudden protest, and I realized that in all this revelation, I had failed to drink. I had not had a drop in a week, and felt like a marooned sailor suddenly catching a whiff of meat roasting over a fire. Brandon’s eyes bored into mine. A small part of me wondered why he was torturing me – the other part just wanted to lap up that pulsating red.

Turning away in the dark, I felt my face contort and my tots shoot out from my gums. I felt Callie squeeze my hand, but the pressure only made the thirst roar louder. I felt my muscles tighten, and knew with that crushing terror that I was about to go over the edge.

Next to me, Cara took Callie’s hand away from mine, pulling the shorter girl from me. I had enough restraint in me to see Cara’s long fingers fold Callie’s head into her arms before I was pushing my tots deep into the escort’s open neck. She let go of Brandon, weakly grabbing onto me.

Something was still wrong. I was gulping down fresh human blood but my thirst was not quenched. If anything, I felt more and more thirsty.

A patch of searing pain threw me off the now unconscious escort, and as I fell to the ground, my neck on fire, I felt that mad thirst suddenly disappear. My senses caught up one by one, and I realized that I had water thrown on me before I realized that Brandon had taken Cara’s lighter and burned a hole into my neck. I realized that the escort was wearing a silver necklace before I realized that she was lying very still with blood still flowing out of her.

Brandon picked her up, licked her neck clean and sealed off the puncture marks. “She’s still alive,” was all he said.

“Why…” I felt a wave of nausea, followed by a stabbing migraine crash into me for the first time since I was Draked. I hoped Callie couldn’t see me. “Why was she wearing silver? How did I lose control like that?”

“You’re in the Patrol now,” Brandon replied. “You’re going to be targeted in your duties; low-Gen scum will try to make you lose your inhibitions and the best way to do that is with silver.” Silver; it not only affected werewolves in myths, it also had a great effect on vampires in real life – all vampires, even Purebloods, were weak to silver. “‘A poison so wicked that its very presence can amplify the smallest of thirsts, cloud the clearest of minds, muddy the noblest of bloods.’ It’s dangerous going for you to be without blood even for a day now, Sera.”

“Did you put that necklace on her just to show me that I’m weak to silver?” I demanded, my strength returning as my body healed itself from the burn. Climbing to my feet, I stalked towards Brandon, who held out the silver necklace in front of him like a crucifix.

“With all the respect that has to be due, Sera, you’re sheltered. You haven’t been constantly exposed to silver at home, you haven’t had to deal with vampires attempting to compel you or put the Eye on you.” He raised the necklace higher as I snarled in outrage. His eyes were so piercing before for a reason. “You want to do well in the Patrol? You have to survive first. As your friend, I have to show you your weaknesses.”

“Like this? By letting me almost-” I swallowed my words. I didn’t want Callie to hear that I’d almost claimed a life.

“If you can’t even stand having your friends tell you where you’re wrong,” Cara said from behind us, Callie still folded into her arms. “Then you won’t survive in the Patrol.”

“Your rank means nothing there.”

“Your life here means nothing there.”

“Your destruction, while regrettable…” Callie broke free from Cara’s arms at these words, and moved towards me, not noticing that my face was darkened by blood.

“Means nothing there,” I murmured to myself. In my old life, I was nothing. It seemed that I was going to have to remember how that was like.

I trust my Father to keep Cal safe, I had declared. I wondered if I could have the same confidence when it came to my safety.