Birthrights (6 page)

By the time Caislyn got herself some food, and was
completely ready to go, it was just a bit before nine. She walked
the couple streets over to the building she had seen in her vision.
In the town's heyday, this building had been renovated to become
the theater and arts center it was always destined to become. When
the dark times came and all the monsters crept, not so quietly out
of their closets, the humans began to hightail it out of city
areas. That included Caislyn's little home town as well. The more
well-to-do humans left their history behind to rot with the
monsters. At least they had hoped the monsters would rot as they
went to live their lives in the country bumpkin style seclusion
that they chose for themselves. Either way, they left this
magnificent building abandoned despite all the renovations they had
done to it so recently. Echoes of its former glory were still
visible, and Caislyn hurt deep down inside knowing that the price
of the other than humans coming out was the destruction of so much
more. She walked up to the main entrance and realized that there
was no one there. At least, no one that she could see at the
moment. That was probably because she didn't have a ticket.

“Come on, I have the card. I just didn't get to the
ticket master in time.” Caislyn tried to sound convincing to no
one. 'Damn, I hope I was right about the building,' she thought to
herself since she hadn't seen anyone else trying to get in the
building from this point of entry. “Look, I know you're
there.
　
Just show
yourself and let’s have us a chat about it. What do you say?”

There was no answer, but she could sense the laughter
coming from beyond the veil of invisibility. Caislyn closed her
eyes and waived her hand over them, chanting under her breath an
incantation she had learned years earlier to see the truth. It was
simple, easy, and worked well. When Caislyn opened her eyes again,
he was standing there plain as day.

“Gregore! Unbelievable! I can't believe you just
stood there laughing at me. Seriously? You can't still be mad at
me. I mean, I didn't just drop off the face of the Earth as you
accused, I was looking for... I'm still looking for my parents.
Stop holding it against me, you would do the same." Gregore's
family hailed from somewhere in Russia. They had come to the states
looking for better treatment than they would have received in their
homeland. If anyone ever thought the Romani gypsies had it bad
throughout history, one should see what the Europeans and some
Asian countries were still doing to non-humans. It made the
Americans look like saints, even in these hard times.

Besides, Gregore just so happened to be the idiot
that placed the no-time charm on the last rave Caislyn attended.
“Gregore, you got me in serious trouble last time man! You owe me.
We were partying for like three days before I realized and my
family nearly had a fit.”

While he at least chuckled at Caislyn's reference to
his brilliant charm, he still didn't even acknowledge her. Gregore
had a soft stoic appeal to him, though he was anything but
soft-bodied. He looked as if he spent most of his days in the gym
with a physique to die for, hard in all the right places with the
face of a God. While he was hard-bodied and intimidating, he was
also soft spoken, when he wasn't trying to ignore you because you
didn't have a ticket, that is. He continued to ignore Caislyn, even
though the grin on his face told her he heard every word of what
she was saying, however; he then acknowledge the girl who had
walked up behind her during her little pleading session.

She seemed familiar, yet Caislyn hadn't met her
before. She looked to Gregore one more time with pleading eyes.
“Come on, Gregore, you've known me since we were kids!” She let him
see her pain for one brief moment. “I need this. I have to go in
there.” He looked almost sympathetic for a brief moment before he
spoke.

“Move aside, Caislyn. I have patrons waiting who
actually bothered to find the ticket master.” Gregore had barely a
clip to his voice; he had been working on not having a Russian
accent since his family came to this country. He was very good at
the American accents, so long as you didn't piss him off, otherwise
he would slip right back into the patterns of speech most
comfortable for him. A part of Caislyn ached as she looked into
Gregore’s ocean blue eyes. He had been in her life since she was a
little girl and the thought that she had managed to push him away
always hurt her. She followed those eyes behind her where she
finally acknowledged the other girl who had walked up behind
her.

The new girl stood watching what was transpiring
between Caislyn and Gregore with interest. As she handed Gregore
her ticket she finally spoke up, “Gregore, is it? My ticket is plus
one, and it's a good thing I ran into Caislyn here because she
never answers her phone these days.” Caislyn turned and had a good
look at the girl who had stoked a sort of jealousy only moments
ago, as she watched Gregore’s reaction to seeing her. Caislyn knew
that look, she had seen Gregore wear it many times over the years.
It never failed to bother her as she always thought 'this will be
the girl who takes him away from me, my best friend.' Caislyn
decided to update her internal jealous tirade this time, 'sadly,
you were the girl who managed to push him away, all by yourself, no
one else needed.' She managed a meek smile at the mystery girl who
was now offering her an in to the party of the season. The girl was
a bit shorter than Caislyn with skin so pale she could pass as a
vampire, though Caislyn did not get the undead vibe from her. Her
long hair seemed really dark, but that could just be the lack of
lighting where they were standing. The girl gave a sly smile to
Caislyn as she winked and flashed a VIP ticket.

Of course, Caislyn wouldn't look a gift horse in the
mouth, so she took another look behind her and put on the big fake
smile she used to always use in awkward social situations,

“Oh! Hey!” She overemphasized for effect, “I'm so
glad I found you out here, this big buffoon here was playing hard
to get!” Then she looked back at Gregore with an intimate intensity
that he returned in full before he nodded for them to move along
inside the door that had finally appeared.

Gregore cleared his throat before speaking again,
“You know the drill Caislyn, oath first, then enter!” Caislyn
tapped the new girl to get her to hold the ticket up so that they
could read from the oath that had been written on the back, hidden
by glyphs.

“Umm, how am I supposed to read this?”

“Just focus, look again or repeat after me, whichever
works for you,” Caislyn said while eying the new girl
suspiciously.

The short pale, brunette took the card in hand one
more time and looked it over.

“Oh! Wait, that wasn't there a minute ago.”

“You act like you have never seen a glyph of
protection before, Jeesh!” Caislyn looked at her again and then
shrugged to Gregore. “Let's just read it so we can get inside.”

Both girls took the oath and proceeded through the
door that Gregore had opened up for them. The door did not lead
directly inside to the main area of the building as one might
expect. Gregore was the gatekeeper for the side entrance. The girls
found themselves walking up a stairwell to get to the next floor.
The funny thing about magic, it can be used as a dampener when
non-humans decide to throw a party. One will never hear of a
non-human getting busted for disturbing the peace or loud music at
a party. While outside the building, no one would ever have known
that there was a full blown rave going on inside; the building
looked like the old abandoned, dark, and silent place that it
usually appeared to be.

“I didn't get your name outside,” Caislyn said as
they traversed the stairwell.

“Well, that would have defeated the purpose out
there, now wouldn't it?” Jax looked over at Caislyn with a good
natured grin and continued, “Seriously, it's Jax, well Jaxon, but
everyone calls me Jax, so...”

“Well, thanks again for helping me out, Jax.” Caislyn
thought for a moment as they continued to climb the stairs, “I
really needed to get in here tonight.”

“Oh really? I just came because I needed a really
good party and a really good drink!”

Caislyn couldn't help but laugh at that, as she would
have felt the same if she wasn't trying to track down yet another
lead to her missing parents.

As they stepped out of the stairwell, it became a
different world. Darkness was the only thing noticeable when
you first entered the building. The non-human world is used to it,
though. There is something to being other than human that makes you
have an affinity with the night, not just vampires and the whole
'we hate the day because we're allergic to the sun' thing. Witches,
Fey, and lycans celebrated the night too, mostly because the night
had helped to conceal them for centuries.

But it wasn't until you came off the stairwell and
made the right through the doorway, that you truly noticed anything
else. Upon turning into the main room the darkness held its breath
and the treat that is laser lights wound and curled its way through
an ethereal mist that seemed to grab at your limbs as you moved
across the floor. The building had some of the best acoustics in
town, which is probably why they chose this location for the rave.
You could feel the pulsing, vibrating, radiating music flowing out
of the walls, the floor, everywhere. The sounds seemed to assault
you from everywhere and nowhere, all at once. The non-humans were
all very sensual beings which allowed them to credit themselves
with perfecting the art of partying. A rave became a buffet of the
senses for them.

The D.J., who was perched dead center of the old
theater stage, was spinning some Marilyn Manson as Caislyn and
Jaxon walked in. He was not your typical DJ, he appeared to be a
demon of some sort with several arms, which apparently came in
handy for operating the turntables, lights, and smoke all at once.
Caislyn made a note to remember him for the party she planned on
throwing when she found her parents and brought them home.

“I'm not a big fan of wanna-bes, but Marilyn Manson
can sure set a mood with his music,” Caislyn shouted over to
Jax.

Jaxon nodded and smiled, as she spotted a bar off
underneath the balcony. “I'm headed for a drink.”

“Alright, thanks again for getting me in, I gotta go
talk to some people about... umm, stuff. See ya around.” Caislyn
wandered off in the opposite direction as Jax, but something in her
gut told her to keep an eye out for her new friend tonight. There
was a rule in partying at raves, even in the non human community,
never go out alone. Caislyn was confident in her solitude because
she was not there to party, but Jax was definitely there to party
and she seemed a little naive about the whole rave scene.

'Come on Cais, you aren't here to babysit someone you
don't even know. Find your answers and get out of here.' Caislyn
was talking to herself under her breath when a gorgeous vamp
approached her. He sauntered up to Caislyn wearing only black
leather pants, doc martens, and a cat who ate the canary smile. He
was a little on the thin side for Caislyn’s taste, but still very
handsome in a boyishly charming, a little too baby-faced to be
completely sexy way.

“Hey, little witchling, wanna dance, or ...” he left
the invitation open, but Caislyn knew exactly to what he was
referring. That may have had something to do with his very obvious
flash of fangs and the waggle of his eyebrows.
　

“What are you, like 12? At first I thought you were
pretty yummilicious, that was until you opened your mouth!” She
smiled sweetly as she said it, then continued talking as she looked
around the room, “I'm not here to party tonight, I have some
questions about some missing people,” she realized she had lost her
audience when she turned back around to find him gone. “Damn vamps,
at least I didn't have to take forever to convince him that the
answer was no,” she sighed to herself.

“Shit! I have to stop talking to myself in public,”
Caislyn continued to scan the dance floor. She had noticed on each
scan that there was one particular vamp who was checking her out.
He was standing off to the side of the stage watching not only her,
but her new friend Jaxon as well. He stood there in obviously
tailored clothes staring out, intermittently between the two of
them. The tailored clothes, while black, still stood out amongst
the party crowd. She determined that he didn’t really belong in the
midst of the swirling smoke tendrils and laser light beams. There
was something about him that put her on edge. She thought it was
her cue to go talk to him because he might be the person she needed
to question about her family, but first she wanted to warn Jaxon
about his interest in the both of them.

She walked briskly across the dance floor, closer to
the bar where Jax had just purchased her drinks. As she approached
Jaxon she took note of the two drinks Jax was holding. “When you
said you wanted a drink you really meant it, didn't you?”

Jax laughed, “Yeah, well, I tried the first one
and it was really weak. I figured I would grab another to keep from
having to line up again at the meat market they call a bar.” She
gestured over to the same creepy vamp that had just hit on Caislyn
a few minutes ago. “That particular jerk flashed some fangs at me
and told me what he’d like to do to me in the back room.”

“Yea, he hit on me a few minutes ago, too.“ Caislyn
told Jaxon what she had said to the vamp and Jax nearly spilled her
drinks for laughing so hard. Caislyn spun Jax around so she could
see the all too sexy vamp that was way too interested in them and
who was still standing near the stage watching. “Some vamp guy has
been alternating between checking us out,” she nodded toward the
vamp in question.