The Light Who Shines (27 page)

Bluebell Kildare: May 30, 2022, Red Ages

I put my arms on the steering wheel and lean my forehead
onto them as though resting my head will somehow still the reeling thoughts in
my mind. My head still hurts like the dickens, my ribs ache, and my face is
swollen and sore, but my heart—my heart is the worst of all. It feels sliced
and shredded. I can’t believe he looked at my light and felt disgust. Disgust!
No wonder he keeps in control of his emotions around me. No wonder he fought
his attraction to me. My aura disgusts him. My soul disgusts him. I’d cry right
now, but honestly I haven’t anything left. I’m wrung out. There can’t possibly
be any direction but up from here.

In the space of a few hours I’ve had the worst day, the best
day, and the worst day of my entire life again. Except for maybe the day my
parents died, and I don’t remember that. I pummel the dashboard, then grit my
teeth and put the car in drive. With little regard for the speed limits or
yellow lights I drive blindly to Maud’s house in no time.

When she answers the door, she exclaims, “Lord Almighty!
What happened to your face?”

“Unpleasant story,” I say, and Maud lets me in.

“Well,” she says, “an unpleasant story is best told over a
nice, cool mint julep, which is just what I happen to have.”

I kiss her cheek with my fat lip. “You are the best. That is
just what I need.”

When I’m comfortably seated at her kitchen table, I ponder
the garden while Maud fixes us two tall glasses and places a few fresh mint
leaves in them. “Where did you get the mint leaves?” I ask.

Maud smirks and says, “I went into the garden yesterday.”

“Ohh! Really? What brought this on?”

Maud sits down across from me and nods her head toward the
infamous Harry Pickets’ house. Her green eyes, vivid next to her flaming red
hair, sparkle with life. “Harry had a party yesterday, a barbeque.”

“Do tell! Did he invite you?”

“Of course. And of course I told him no. I told him I was
busy shampooing my hair that evening.” Maud fluffs her hair lovingly as she
says this.

I chuckle softly. “The bright red is very becoming, by the
way.”

Not to be distracted, Maud continues with her story, “And
boy am I glad I didn’t go. You would not…
believe
…what he did.” A look of
total affront covers her face. “He played jazz all…night…long. He had speakers in
all four corners of his yard, but the music was so loud over here that I went
to investigate. And what do you think I found?”

“I can’t even begin to imagine…”

Maud leans back in her chair and angles her head toward the
neighbor’s house with narrowed eyes. “Of course you can’t. It is unheard of. The
two speakers that were against my fence were actually pointed at
my
house!”

“You’ve got to be joking!”

Maud shakes her head. “It’s true! I had to listen to jazz until
midnight. I couldn’t sleep a wink!”

“So what are you going to do about this?”

Maud gets up and opens her pantry door. She gestures me
over. I ignore my pain and get out of my chair to see what she has in store for
poor Harry Pickets. A dozen shiny rolls of aluminum foil are stacked neatly on
the bottom shelf.

My curiosity is definitely piqued. “What are you planning to
do with
those
?”

Maud smiles her mischievous smile. “We’re going to foil his
car, of course!”

I laugh hard and deep, and I have to hold my ribs because
they hurt so bad. “So when are we going to do this?”

She responds in a hushed voice as though Harry might have
spies trying to eavesdrop on her plan. “After I see him turn down his lights
for the night.” She purses her lips. “If you’re feeling up for it, of course.”

“I think I am,” I respond with a smile. “But how will he
know for sure that you did it?”

“I made some banana bread today. I’ll wrap it in foil and send
the neighbor boy over with it in the morning.”

I smile at this and sit back down at the table. Maud gets
out some lemon sugar cookies and we snack for a bit. After a few minutes, Maud finally
asks, “So what happened to your face?”

I sigh. “It was a guy from the precinct. He was jealous of
my success and blamed me for his lack thereof.”

Wanting to quickly dispel her pity, I gesture to Varg. “Varg
got him good, though. I’m sure he came out much worse than I did.”

Maud nods firmly. “That’s important. You have to give at
least as good as you get. If you can do that, then you can hold your head
high.”

After giving this sage advice, Maud leads us to the living
room to relax as we await our midnight adventure. As we sit comfortably
together through the evening, I contemplate how lucky I am to have Maud in my
life.

Eventually, Harry’s lights go out. Maud gives me a black
robe to put over my clothes, and she slips on a black dress and a hat to cover her
red hair. When properly outfitted for our nefarious deeds, we sneak over and plaster
his car from top to bottom in aluminum foil, shiny side out. After it’s covered,
we press it down into every crease to show the fine details like any great
piece of art. For an extra bit of fun, Maud ties an aluminum foil bow onto his
antenna. It makes quite the racket and I’m surprised he doesn’t wake up. The prank
is so good that I enjoy myself despite my pain.

Finally, when the car is one bright, shiny, silver,
beautiful mess, I give Maud the thumbs up. She winks back as she appraises the
results. With the prank set, we sneak silently around the block to her house and
reconvene in her living room. As soon as the door is closed we have a good
laugh.

I hug Maud goodnight, and then Varg and I head home. The
incident with Jack still twists in my gut, my ribs still hurt, and my face
still stings, but now I feel like I’ve been comforted by the home nest.

Jack Tanner: May 30, 2022, Red Ages

Hunting brings out the wild predator in me. I feel like a
jungle cat, one who hunts and seeks, then lies in wait with patience and
stealth, exercising infinite control with lethal intention. I know with
absolute certainty I will meet success because I am simply faster, quieter,
more accurate, and more in control than any of my prey.

But that is not how I feel right now. Not on this hunt. If
success is the ability to reach my prey and decimate him, I can absolutely
succeed. If success is my ability to control and restrain myself from killing
in bloodlust and drinking him dry, well, then things may go awry. Never have I
wanted to bring death to someone so badly. Never have I so desired to suck the
life out of someone, to feel their soul slip away. I’m standing outside
Schmidt’s bedroom window, and I can hear him breathing inside. His very breath is
an affront to me. Each inhale and exhale makes me rage anew.

I must remain in control. If I turn into a Dark Vampire,
Blue will have no one to watch over her. Also, Lilith is an evil, soul-sucking
demon, and I refuse to give her my soul. She doesn’t deserve it. As I say this
to myself, I feel my old stubbornness rise up and some small measure of sanity
regained.

I noiselessly move to the opposite side of the house. With
deft fingers I silently break the aluminum window frame off the guest bedroom
and slide the glass out. In one quick movement I’m over the windowsill and
headed for Schmidt’s bedroom door. It’s open, and he lies in bed, breathing
erratically. I stare at him for several minutes from the doorway, measuring my
control and awaiting his recognition. He’s huddled and shaking under the
covers, and the smell of a significant wound, tainted with infection, permeates
the air. My appreciation for Varg rises to a new level. Schmidt doesn’t appear
to have cleaned his wounds or sought medical attention yet. It’s such a shame.

Suddenly he looks up, and I know he can see my eyes glowing
in the dark if nothing else. I see him fully, in the minutest detail, and I
despise every ounce of flesh that makes up his puny, weak body. I want to
annihilate it, destroy it, wipe it out of existence. He starts to move his left
hand under the covers. I wait expectantly. I see a small metal object tear a
hole through the comforter, tracking toward me. Even without my quick movement,
I’d never be hit with that shot, as it is widely off course. Before the bullet
reaches the same plane that I was standing in, I’ve already moved to the side
of his bed.

I cover his lips with one hand and pinch them closed in an
iron grip. At the same time, I grab his other hand through the covers and crush
it with the slight flex of my fingers. The small bones of his hand shatter with
a wonderful crunch, offering a small measure of satisfaction. I release his
hand, and the gun falls to the floor with a thud. Muffled screams come from
behind his pinched lips.

I lean over him and scrape my fully extended fangs over his
neck. His muffled screams turn to whimpers. My fangs ache with the desire to
rip his flesh to shreds and suck the lifeblood from him. I feel the evilness of
Lilith’s mark teasing me and taunting me to go on, to do more. Even as I
tremble with fury, I resist and instead continue my business, whispering
slowly, “Schmidt, right now my fangs are poised over your carotid artery. My
rage for you is so immense that I am on the verge of killing you in bloodlust,
be damned my soul. But that’s too easy a death for you. I want to peel the skin
from your body inch by inch, in strips, and dance in your blood. I want to
delight in the sound of your agonized screams.”

I pause a second as I smell and hear Schmidt urinating on
himself, which the dark stain spreading over the comforter confirms. I continue
whispering. “I want to drive chisels up your fingernails and peel them off one
by one. I want to cut your eyelids open and tie you to a rock and watch the
ants devour your eyeballs.”

Sweat pours down his face and his heart beats so fast I
think he might have a heart attack. But I’m not done yet.

“I want to slice open your gut and hold a bucket of hungry
rats to you, letting them eat you inside out. But I’m not going to. I’m going
to leave you alive today. I’m only going to do this because Blue asked me to.
But I’m only going to do this if you promise me a few things.”

He starts to nod his head, but when he feels my fangs against
his neck again he stills.

“I’m going to remove my hand from your mouth and let you
open it, only so I can hear if you agree.” I pause a moment to make sure he
understands this next part. I say it with a cool matter-of-factness. “If you
scream, I will kill you. And I really do want to kill you. Blink if you
understand.”

I see the terror in his eyes. He understands quite well, but
I wait for a confirmation. Finally he blinks, and I release his lips.

I continue, “I want you to promise me that you will never
show up for work again. Your days of pretending to be an officer of the law are
over. If you do show up at work, I will sever your spine. Do you agree to
this?”

“Yes,” he whispers.

“If you ever even come close to Blue, within a mile of Blue,
I will torture you the way that I want to, the way I described to you. I will
not sever your spine because that’s too easy. Oh, it would be much too gentle
and much too kind for you. You. Must. Stay. Away. From. Her. Do you agree to
this?”

“Yes,” he whispers again.

“Good,” I say. “We have an understanding.”

I blur out of the room and slip through the window again.
Only the silver moon and the twinkling of stars mark my exit, and I wonder if
anyone will ever know how grand my accomplishment was today. Today I left him
alive.

Bluebell Kildare: May 31, 2022, Red Ages

I open the office door and see the file cabinets emptied on
the floor. With stiff joints and sore muscles, I walk in to the vision of
Rubalia on her knees in her cream and black houndstooth woven suit with her
back to me, slamming scattered papers on top of a pile in front of her.

“What happened?” I ask.

Rubalia stacks some more papers and raises her voice. “This
place is going to the Plane of Fire! That is what’s happening! The office is a
wreckage. Jack apparently hasn’t slept at home for the last three nights. He
keeps showering here.” Rubalia looks up. “And what in the world happened to
your face?”

I remember my bruises and feel my face heat up in
embarrassment. “I had an altercation with someone, and Varg won.”

Rubalia sniffs and says, “Well, maybe that good-for-nothing
is good for something.” Then she looks at Varg with her sharp eyes and says,
“Next time win the altercation faster.”

Varg lowers his head and slinks away. I’ve been on the
receiving end of Rubalia’s stares many a time, so I know how he feels.

I look around and see that the entire office is a disaster.
“So, what really happened here?”

Rubalia keeps slamming papers on the stack as she explains.
“Jack called me at six a.m.—just after dawn, mind you. And he tells me the
place is a mess because it was broken into and searched and asks if I can come
in early. Well, of course I was already up and dressed by then.”

I smile slightly at this. Of course she was up and dressed
by six a.m.

“It is quite a mess now,” Rubalia says, “but you should have
seen it when I arrived. And your office isn’t much better. They got all the
offices.”

“All? Mine, Ernesto’s, Xavier’s, and Jack’s?”

Rubalia nods.

“What in the Great Abyss?” I exclaim. It must be the same
guy who is after the amulet. He must be getting desperate if he’s willing to
search our office. This is not good.

I walk down the hall and peek in on Ernesto. His office is
neat as a pin except for a small pile of papers on his desk. The only other
item out of place is the skewed painting he’s straightening on the wall.

“Rubalia told me all the offices were trashed. How come
yours is hardly touched?”

Ernesto turns and his gaze scans my bruised face and swollen
eyes. “Good morning, señorita,” he says. “I think trees are too grand to waste
on the animals we investigate, so I hardly ever use paper.”

Then Ernesto gestures toward my Glock and looks at me
seriously. “Do you know how to fire that?”

I know he’s suggesting that I obviously didn’t defend myself
well. So I decide to respond to his real question. “I didn’t have the gun with
me at the time. That was my fault. But to answer your question, I could use
some time at the shooting range.”

Ernesto nods and says, “We should go together. Also you need
to practice with the crossbow and be wary after dark. Dark Vampire activity has
been picking up.”

“Jack told me about that. Did you find the perpetrator for
the killing outside the Heifer grocery store?”

Ernesto says, “Yes. We let him be judged by the sun. Now I’m
working on a case of a Daylight Vampire killing in Collins Gardens. I suspect
the Dilectus Deo may be involved, but I lack evidence.”

“Good luck with that.”

I wearily walk down the hall and check in on Xavier. When I
stand in his doorway I see files open and strewn all over the floor. Office
equipment has been thrown around. Even the picture frame has been taken apart.
Xavier uses tons of paper, and his office was a mess to begin with, but this is
ridiculous. I’m afraid to see my office now. Xavier is talking on the phone and
absently straightening a few things around him. He seems at home in the mess.
He points to my face and points to his eye, obviously referring to my black
eye, and then he frowns.

I mouth, “I’m okay.”

He nods and smiles at that.

I head to my own office and take a look around. It is not as
bad as Xavier’s, but it is worse than I’d hoped. My files are dumped all over
the floor just like his, but fortunately I have fewer. The entire contents of
my desk drawers have been tossed around the room. My chair is upside down. My
plant has been dumped out, and dirt is scattered all over the floor. I look at
it lying on its side like a dead corpse. Everything else I can deal with, but I
love my fern! I slam the door behind me, wincing as the movement hurts my stomach.

I take a deep breath, then stoop to the floor, grunting in
pain from my ribs on the way down. I sit on my butt and start shoveling dirt
back in the pot. Varg comes over to sniff in interest then lies down in his
usual spot by the window, unconcerned with the mess. I scowl at him. Of course
he’s unconcerned. He doesn’t have to clean it up!

Once I’ve scooped as much loose dirt as I can, dumping it
into the pot, I place my fern back in. After patting the dirt around the plant,
I sit back to look at it. It’s a little limp, but it’s still standing erect,
which makes me feel much better. I dust my hands off and scoot over on my butt
to the papers on the floor and start gathering them into piles. To avoid the
pain in my ribs, I keep scooting around the floor and slowly manage to pile up
most of the papers.

Jack walks in. I tilt the skewed chair up so it’s sitting on
four legs again and stack the pile of papers on top of it. Then I hoist myself
up by using the arm of the chair so I don’t have to use my stomach muscles. But
the blasted chair tips precariously, and the files start sliding off the edge.
I scramble to straighten it just in time and catch the files as they slide off.
I stack them on my desk and sit down in my chair in an exhausted huff.

All the while, Jack is standing there watching me with his
lips twitching.

“What do you want?” I grumble.

Jack closes the door behind him and sits down in the
offending chair. He says, “I didn’t expect you to be in today, Blue. You can
take the day off if you need to.”

I wave my hand. “I’m fine. Just sore and bruised. Besides
that, I’m a new woman.”

Jack frowns at that.

Then I say, “Plus, I have a case to solve. They certainly
are making the rounds looking for the amulet.”

Jack shrugs and says, “Hopefully now that they have searched
both places, they will be done. But to be sure, I’m sending the ward specialist
over to everyone’s houses today.”

“I think that’s an excellent idea. Are you having him come
here to do this office?”

“It’s already done.” Jack nods as though satisfied with the
arrangement.

Then his eyes soften as he looks gently at me. “Blue, do you
want to press charges…”

I raise my hand to cut him off. “No. I’m not ready to think
about that yet.”

Jack nods then gets up to leave.

I have one more thing to say. “Jack.”

Jack turns around.

“I should probably get some self defense training,
hand-to-hand combat, and more skill with weaponry.”

Jack looks closely at me. “That’s a smart decision,” he
says. “I’ll think about it and see if I can come up with a good recommendation.”

“Thanks, Jack. And by the way, I didn’t tell you yesterday,
but I had shut Varg in the apartment while I showed the ward specialist how to
get to Alexis’ herbal shop. If Varg had been with me, this,” I gesture to my
face, “never would have happened. He had to break out to get to me.”

Jack looks at Varg and says, “He’s a good guard for you, and
you should always keep him with you, but you need to learn how to depend on
yourself as well.”

I nod. “That’s what I think, too.” Then I look down at my
papers and start sorting through them. Jack leaves and softly closes the door.