December15
Since Part 3 was a little over 5, 000 words long, I split it up into two parts. Hence 3.1 before 4. Technically, yes, I could’ve changed the post titles, but where’s the fun in that?
———————
There was a short silence. I was sorting through questions again.
“Unicorns?” I asked, somewhat hopeful.
“Extinct, I’m afraid.”
“Darn. What else is there, then?”
“Vampires, ghosts, gargoyles, and many other mythical creatures.”
“Vampires?”
He nodded at me again.
“Ew.”
“Ew?” he asked, sounding baffled, “Why ew?”
“Blood-suckers? Come on. I don’t even like the smell, who would want to live off of it?”
“Ah, I see,” he said, enthusiastically, “that’s where it gets interesting. You see, a vampire’s taste buds are chemically alter-”
“Enough!” My uncle cut in.
I snapped back to reality. “Uncle Jake, is he telling the truth?”
My uncle nodded. “There’s more, D. Your family – well, our family – has certain talents that fit into the same world.”
“Talents? Do we turn into mice or something?”
He chuckled. “No, D. No shapeshifting. We have, well, mental capabilities beyond what is considered normal.”
Something inside me stilled. Nobody should have known that. I’d never told anyone. Ever.
“Like what?” I tried desperately to sound nonchalant.
“Telekenisis, telepathy, premonitions and prophecy, and the like.”
I stuck my hands in between my legs to hide the sudden trembling. “Even me?” I asked, trying to sounding curious now.
He frowned. “We don’t know,” he admitted, “you’ve never displayed any talent in that direction, but we don’t know why. You should, but if you had any such talents then they should’ve manifested by now.”
I giggled. It was an unusual sound for me to make and I groaned inwardly. “Maybe I was adopted.”
He shook his head and offered me a grin. “No, D, I was there when you were born.”
Cautiously, I lowered my mental barriers to taste the moods in the room. Brandon tasted like pickles, projecting bitterness and a sullen, irritated mood. He smiled at me. Turner tasted like a hot brownie, comforting and solid. Underneath I tasted a little tart. He was concerned about me. Uncle Jake tasted like, well, cardboard. Flat, bland, utterly uninteresting. I fought the urge to frown at him and push harder. He should have a flavor. Nobody was that blank. I smiled brightly. “Well then why don’t I have special powers?”
*Oh, but you do*
I jumped. That was not my Uncle Jake. In fact, it wasn’t anyone in the room with me. Turner looked at me intently. “I think you need to get some rest, my dear. You’ve been through a lot today.” He turned to my uncle. “I suggest we leave her for a while to consider what we’ve all learned today. She needs to rest and come to terms with everything.” He slid a card in front of me. It was blank, but for a phone number printed in shiny, black ink. “This is my number, Miss Waters. If you feel ill, or even overwrought, just give me a ring and I’ll come to help you out. I’m a certified MD and Psychologist.” He lowered his voice and pitched it for my ears as they rose to their feet. “I can tell you need to be alone to deal with your grief and your concerns, but I will be here if you need someone to talk to.” I nodded. The card was something right out of an action movie, but I took it anyway.
Mentally, I was searching for the voice I’d heard in my head. I murmued my thanks and walked the men out the door. My uncle turned on the threshold and gave me an awkward hug. We never displayed affection. “I’m here for you if you need me D.” He stode away quickly to catch up with the other two men. I scanned the neighborhood for anyone who looked strange to me, but everyone was safely tucked away inside their homes, out of the nasty weather so I just shut the door behind me, locked it, and activated the security system. I listened as their car started and coasted out of the driveway. There they go, I thought, riding off into the sunset.
———————————————————————————————————————————
Silently, I acknowledged that I probably needed to deal with things, but I refused to grieve. I felt anger more than anything else. They’d left me nothing but secrets and doubt. I wasn’t sure at all that I believed any of the men who had just visited me, but on the other hand, I knew what my uncle was talking about.
Telepathy. Telekenisis. Premonitions.
I’d discovered the talent as a child and for some reason I kept it a secret, even from my parents. I thought I was doing something bad by hearing other people’s thoughts, or tasting their moods, by moving things without having to physically reach for them. Strangely, I had blocked it out until my uncle mentioned it but after he did it was like I’d never pushed it out of my mind. I considered that. I also considered the fact that most people I knew couldn’t deal with things the way I was doing now. I went upstairs to my own little office room. My parents had set me up nicely in the computer department since it had been one of their interests. The only one they admitted to, anyway. I opened up Firefox and typed in the web address for several search engines. In each of them I typed the word ‘telepathic’. I came up with varied results. Some for animal psychics, some that seemed like the page was genuine, and a few from obvious crackpots. There was even a wikipedia article on it, as well as a link about erotic telepathy. I pondered that for a moment. Erotic telepathy. Would that be like…mind sex? Weird. I opened the link in a new tab and did likewise with several others. I closed the search engines and started tabbing through pages.
The first one offered a definition of telepathy on a horribly designed site. The next looked like a blog. The guy talked about practicing telepathy with him family. Interesting, but not very useful. The next two were also short articles defining telepathy. Finally I gave up. The magical internet had failed me. I was looking for something dealing with how I was able to divide my own mind into pieces like that. It was like I had just created a partition or barrier in my brain. Information could go in, and I’d be aware of it, but I wouldn’t have to think about it or deal with it until I wanted to. I wondered how long it would hold and shrugged. Maybe forever. I felt driven now that I was alone. I wanted to be occupied while I thought about everything I’d learned. As for the voice I’d heard in my head, I was starting to believe that I had imagined it. Idly, I wrote down what I knew about that voice.
Male. Sounded young, but felt older for some reason. I pondered possible reasons for that and came up with nothing. I tried to remember how it had tasted to me. I closed my eyes and tried to put myself really back into the memory. I heard the echo again in my head. I mentally “tasted” the voice of my memory and shivered. Cool, clear water with something unidentifiable in the background. That last taste made me frown. It wasn’t an emotion like most of what I could pick up from people, it was a sense of…something about the speaker. An aura? Did I even believe in auras? I shook my head and opened my eyes, feeling a little disoriented. I thought about where the voice could had come from, who it may have belonged to. I was certain it hadn’t been anyone in the room with me, but it had been close. Suddenly, I felt very paranoid. I ran downstairs and checked the outside doors. They were all locked. I started testing the windows. Locked as well. A thought occured to me and I raced up to the second floor. I burst into my parents’ room. The window above the bed was wide open, but that became secondary to everything else. I felt all my emotions pushing against that mental barrier I had erected. Their bed looked like it had just been slept in, their pajamas tossed onto the bed carelessly, the closet door open revealing clothes, shoes and an open gun safe. There was a book on the bedside table. The lamp was on, shedding a dull yellow glow over everything. I felt dizzy and realized that I had stopped breathing. Cautiously, I took in a breath. I went to the gun safe to close it. I knelt down by it and realized that I didn’t know the combination. If I closed it, I’d never get into it again. Impulsively, I opened the door wider. It was crammed with ammunition, but there were only two guns left. I recognized one. My dad had tried to teach me to shoot once, but the loud noise bothered me, even with ear plugs. He said we’d try again later. I picked up the gun and checked the clip. It was empty. Feeling ever more paranoid, I loaded it, snapped the clip back in and double-checked the safety. I propped the safe open with a shoe, trying not to think about how useless it would be now that there was nobody here to wear it.
I stood, gun in hand, and walked to the window. The wind had continued picking up and I was smacked by a couple of leaves before I could pull the window down. I wondered if it would rain. The window finally snapped down to the sill. The security system went off downstairs and I jumped about two feet into the air. The phone next to my bed rang and I picked it up automatically. It was the security company. I explained that I had set it off by accident. They cut the alarm for me and hung up. I wondered briefly if I should’ve asked for them to call for police to check out the place just in case it had’t just been me, but dismissed the idea. I had the feeling my uncle would not only disapprove but feel that I was risking my parent’s secret career. I’d rather face the bad guy alone than face an angry Uncle Jake later. I considered my options and decided I’d better check the house over again for safety’s sake. I felt my heart speed up at the possibility of facing an equally well-armed bad guy and then I realized I had an advantage. I was the one with the crazy abilities, right? I sat down on the floor and thought about what I wanted to do. I knew the layout of the house very well so I should be able to figure out which room this person was in by looking for their emotional energy. I sat down on the floor with the gun next to me, closed my eyes and tried to imagine my house from the outside. I couldn’t do it. I sighed and decided to try another angle. I imagined myself getting up and walking down the hall. My imaginary self started peaking into rooms and she wandered through the house. I didn’t see, feel, or “taste” anything on the second floor. I debated whether to go up or down when I thought I felt the edge of someone’s thoughts downstairs. Mental-me tiptoed down the stairs and peered into the parlor.
To my surprise not only did I taste this person, I saw him, too. Mental-me crouched down at the foot of the stairs. He appeared to be searching the old secretary desk in the corner. I wondered why he’d be sifiting through our bills for a moment before I realized that he didn’t know it was all bills. Duh. I wondered if my parents’ office had been locked before they left. I knew mine wasn’t. I waited to see if I could catch a glimpse of a gun. He seemed to think the house was empty. I sent my mental self closer to him. I couldn’t tell if he was armed or not and I needed to know before I traipsed downstairs. He didn’t seem at all aware that I was near him. Then again, I wasn’t actually there anyway. Mental-me crept up behind him. It looked like he was muttering, but I couldn’t hear anything. I realized that there really was no way he could see me so I started to walk around him to look for a weapon. Suddenly, he stood still. I looked at his face. He was staring through me. I continued to walk around him looking at his waist for a gun. I took a glace up at his face. He seemed to be looking through me again. Oh, crap, I thought. I took one long step to the left. To the right. His gaze followed me. Mental-me squeaked. He thrust out a hand and yelled something unintelligable. Back on the floor in my parent’s bedroom, I let out a yell, then I was staring at the cieling and rubbing my chest. Ye gods, that hurt! Worse, he knew he wasn’t alone. How the heck had he seen me? I wasn’t even really down there. Real enough to get yourself hurt, retorted my inner self. I grimaced. Apparently. I tried to get up and fell back to the ground rather feebly. Double crap.
He could be on his way upstairs right now. I felt around on the floor for my gun. Just as I thought I felt it, the man walked into the room and kicked it away from my hand. He knelt down next to me and reached for my throat. I kicked him and rolled under the bed. I seemed to be hiding under beds a lot lately. He reached for me and grabbed my ankle. I tried kicking him again but it was sort of hard when he was dragging me out from under the bed. The good news is, I found my gun cuddling with the dust bunnies and got one hand on it. I flipped off the safety. As a cleared the bed, I rolled over onto my back, aimed and fired. The man was instantly across the room, clutching his stomach. Unsteadily, I got to my feet, trying to remember the shooting stance my dad had taught me. The only sound in the room was my harsh breathing. The man ripped open his shirt to reveal a wound dead center in his stomach. I felt queasy. “Sorry.”I blinked. That had slipped out past my inner censor. He looked at me and quirked a brow. I frowned. He didn’t seem to be as hurt as I had hoped. I looked at the wound again. It wasn’t bleeding.
“It will heal shortly,” he replied. He sounded much too calm.
“I could shoot you again.”
He looked like he was about to laugh. “I thought you were sorry?”
I looked at his mosquito bite. It had been a gunshot wound about forty-five seconds ago. “Sort of. Why are you here?”
He turned serious. “I was searching for my file.”
“Your file?” I wondered what would be in his file. Caution: crazy healing monster?
He nodded. “I believed that it would be here with the investigators. I didn’t think they would have a guard.”
“A guard.” There seemed to be an echo in the room.
He took a stepped forward. “How did they get someone so young into the business? You don’t seem like a fighter. Why don’t you show me to the office?” His voice sounded very persuasive, but what shocked me was the mental push I felt along with it. I was instantly stubborn. “What’s your name?” he continued, “you could be a great help to me.”
“My name is Destrina Waters and you’re breaking and entering. Get out or I can shoot you full of more holes than you can heal.”
He looked surprised as soon as he heard me name. “You are a relative?”
An ugly thought hit me. “You killed them didn’t you?” I took a step forward, raising the gun. “You killed my parents so you could break in here for your little file, didn’t you?”
He eyed the gun much too calmly. “I did not.”
“You did.” I felt to make sure the safety was still off. I felt a sick rage stirring in the back of my mind, threatening to tear down the floodgates.
His eyes went completely black. He growled at me. He actually growled. “I did not.”
I glared back at him. “Then who did?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t you? How else would you know that this house was supposed to be empty?”
He frowned. His eyes turned green. Cool. “I had heard that the investigators, your parents, had been called out on a mission.”
I lowered my gun. “How did you hear that? Who knew? Who told you that?”
He glanced at me, assessing. “It came out last night.”
I considered that. “At what time?”
He looked surprised. “Around ten. Why?”
Ten. Two hours before my parents had gotten the call. Someone had set this up. I felt a crack in my mental defenses. “Are you planning to kill me?” I asked bluntly.
He looked genuinely offended. “I don’t kill people. No. I was just here for recovery. When I knew I wasn’t alone, I hoped to get their guard to help me retrieve my file.”
“You sure you don’t want to kill me?” I asked.
He shook his head. “No.”
I put down my gun, safety on and walked to him. I looked up at his face from about six inches away. “Don’t kill me, then. Just get out.” Then I walked down the hallway, dazed. I heard him behind me and assumed he actually planned to leave. Until I heard him following me up the stairs. “Go away.” I turned around to face him.
He stared at me. “You’re crying.”
Horrified, I raised a hand to my face. It came away wet. I looked at him. He looked…confused. “So? What do you care? Get out of my house. Sorry for shooting you.”
I turned and ran up the stairs to my room, ran in and shut the door. For good measure, I locked it. Let him have his file. Let him burn the whole house down. I didn’t care. I sat on my bed and took down the barrier I had erected against my emotions. I hugged myself and started to sob. I was truly alone in the world. My parents were dead, victim of some setup because they couldn’t live in the normal world. They’d left me money, sure, a home, yeah, but it was negated by the fact that they’d left me with their wild conspiracy. I conspiracy that had people breaking into the house. People whose eyes could turn completely black and back to green at a moment’s notice. Who could knock the crap out of my mental projection of myself and heal gunshot wounds in less than a minute.
I heard a faint knock at my door. I sucked in a breath. “Wh-what?”
I heard something brush against the door. “I’m sorry about your parents. Destrina.” He said my name awkwardly. “Can I come in?” I shrugged. Let a potentially dangerous stranger into my room while I blubber because he said he wouldn’t kill me. Sure, why not? It’s not like my life was sane anyway. “Sure.” I got up an unlocked the door. I walked back to my bed as he opened the door, snagging a box of kleenex on the way. I mopped at my face rather ineffectually, given that I was still in tears. He came in and sat down next to me. I had the urge to move over, but I stayed where I was. Let him move. He peered at my face. “Why are you crying, Destrina? You obviously weren’t frightened by me. You shot me. What’s wrong?”
I felt the insane urge to giggle. “You have to ask? My parents are dead. I saw it happen -” his face registered shock, “and I’ve inherited a house, two cars, loads of money and a conspiracy that has people like you breaking into my home.”
“You – saw your parents die?”
I nodded.
“What happened?”
I glared at him. “You said you heard around ten that they’d been called out?”
He nodded, confirming what he’d told me.
“They didn’t get a call until midnight. I – well, I eavesdropped on them.”
“Midnight? But then that means that-”
“They were set up?” I nodded. “That’s what I think happened, too.”
“Destrina, you must tell me. Have you told anyone that you suspect this?” He grabbed my upper arms.
I shook my head. “No, why? Who are you?”
He let go of my arms abrubtly and stood up. “My apologies. I am Barran. You parents were allies of my – family.”
“Family?” I asked. His hesitation made me curious.
“We are vampires.” He stated this simply, without fanfare.
I stared at him. “Shouldn’t you be thirsting after my blood or something?”
He laughed, and I noticed that he had sharlpy pointed canines. Okay, maybe he was. “No, no. I’ve already had my dinner.”
“If they were allies, then why did you break into my house for those files?”
He looked me in the eye, “You parents had the unfortunate habit of recording each of us that they met, including myself. I am supposed to be for my people what your parents are for yours. I investigate matters that could potentially involve my family or others like us. If their file became common knowledge among your people, or mine, then I would be out of a job.”
I nodded. “That seems to make sense. Why not just ask them for the file, though?”
“I hadn’t thought of it.” He seemed genuinely perplexed. “Do you think they would’ve given it to me?”
I shrugged. “How should I know? I had to learn about them from my Uncle Jake and the men he had with him today.”
“Jake Waters?” he asked.
I nodded. “That’s my uncle. He’s my father’s older brother.”
“Jake Waters is a legend, even among my people. He heads up the organization your parents worked for. Actually, all three of them ran it together until, well, up until last night.”
I absorbed that information. “You don’t think my uncle-?”
Barran shook his head. “No. He wouldn’t. He’s a straight shooter. It was definitely someone in his organization though. Very few people could’ve arranged for them to go out into the field. They were primarily investigators and only would’ve been called into the field if there were no available field agents in the area.”
“You seem to know quite a bit.” I pointed out.
He nodded absently.”We’ve teamed up in the past. It’s been beneficial for us both to keep the underground a secret.”
He pulled a cell phone out of his pants pocket. “I’m going to call your uncle. He needs to know about this.”
I held up a hand. “Wait. He’ll want to come straight over here. Let me clean up.”
He looked me over. “Alright, but be quick.”
I reached for the handle of my bedroom door, then turned around. “And we’ll get your file.”
He smiled at me.