Trill

Chapter 2-3

“I want to thank you for helping me out this morning,” I said, looking across at Mrs. Bench.

She threw an anxious glance at Bill.

“You know, this morning?” Bill coached. “When the motorcycles were in her driveway?”

“Oh… Oh, that,” she said, making a dismissive wave of her hand. “That was nothing.” Somehow, she didn't sound convincing enough. I understood that perhaps she'd forgotten all about it, but then again, maybe she had no idea what Bill was talking about. Weird.

“The ward will remain on your house,” Bill explained to me. He strongly emphasized the word ward, as if to trigger Mrs. Bench's memory.

“Yes, that's right, dear,” Mrs. Bench said brightly. Perhaps Mrs. Bench was a little forgetful from time to time.

“There's more,” Bill said, taking charge of the conversation. He turned toward her, and we all waited. She seemed reluctant, and at the same time sad. She gave a weepy sigh and threw Bill a look of uncertainty.

“Go on, Emma, you have to tell her.”

“You're right, of course. I've held off long enough,” she sighed, her bony shoulders seemed to bear a greater weight on them than she should have to at her ripe age. I felt a bit of sadness for her and felt a wash of anxiety draw over me again. I knew that whatever she had to say next would probably bowl me over. “I've neglected my duties. I haven't fulfilled my promise to your mother.”

“What do you mean?” Shocked, I put down my cup of hot tea before I spilled it.

“Before your mother disappeared, she told me that she was ill. Very ill.” She paused, looking across the room, not focusing on anything really. “I already knew about it.” Her eyes darted to engage my gaze and dropped back to her crystal ball. “The Spirits told me that she would die and leave you, your brother, and your father alone.”

“I know about my mother,” I said reluctantly. I'd met her, as a vampire, finally, only a few weeks ago.

“But there's more…” she patted her cottony-soft white hair and went on, “I was informed by the spirits that a dark angel would descend over your house. He would change everything. He would change the course of things, but that was her will, not his. Do you understand?” She paused, lifted a cookie to her mouth, and bit into it, ringing her mouth with cookie crumbs.

“He?” Did she mean Vasyl?

“Mmmm, these are good, Sweetie.”

“Thank you. Who are you…?”

“His name is Vasyl. Ring a bell?” she said. “He's the vampire with the wings like a bat. He visits your house nightly. Sits on the roof? I've seen him.” She sipped her tea carefully, lips crimped in a smile, lines around her mouth like several parentheses.

“Ah,” I said, my gaze shifting onto Dante. Dante knew about Vasyl's nightly habits of standing guard outside. Apparently, my neighbor lady knew too. Vasyl had never tried entering. He had never interfered with my life or what I did—although occasionally he has stopped me on a stretch of road to find out where I was going, and once he challenged Nicolas and told him that he was not welcome. Vampires were territorial when it came to humans. I was Vasyl's. His bite on my arm said so.

She nodded. “I'm to contact the spirit world, and…”

Bill cleared his throat abruptly, interrupting her. I was becoming a bit irritated with him, and thought that she should tell him to knock it off, but she didn't.

“I've been told about a ring?” I prompted.

Her eyes widened. “You've seen it then? In a vision?”

“Uh, no. Not really,” I said, glancing over at Dante. I'd told him nearly everything that Vasyl had told me, only omitting the part about my becoming his paramour, but that was implied. For some reason, I couldn't bring myself to tell Mrs. Bench how I actually came to know about the ring.

“The ring signifies you are the sibyl,” she said, sounding exited. “From what I understand, the ring controls demons and vampires.” She made a sudden chuckle. “That would be fun, I think, controlling vampires.”

“How? Or do you know?”

“I only know that it was engraved with something called the mystic pentalpha, like a seal, a magical design, or symbol. It was lost soon after Solomon's death. In witch's circles, we know that the spirits took the ring back for safe keeping, after the last sibyl died.”

“Safe keeping? Is it dangerous?” I wondered.

“The ring?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“No. Mainly what it does is keep a vampire from enthralling you,” Bill's voice permeated the room in that low, deep purr. He looked directly into my eyes, and I noticed he didn't blink—not once as he spoke. Speaking of thralls…

“Vasyl is a rogue master,” Bill went on. I found it difficult to tear my gaze away, I mentally began to tally up things about him that threw red flags all over the place, and the fact he could hold my attention like a vampire was one of them. Finally, with much effort, I tore my gaze from his and looked down. Okay, what the hell is he, if he isn't a vampire?

“How do you know this?” I asked.

He flicked a glance at his grandmother. “I have my sources.”

“I see,” I said, and took up my cup and sipped the hot liquid. Made perfectly, the tea wasn't too bitter and slightly sweet.

“We also know that you work for the vampires in Chicago. For Bjorn Tremayne.”

So much for keeping that a secret. Apparently, Mrs. Bench's spirits were bigmouths.

“You know who Tremayne is?” I said.

“Yes. Any vampire within a thousand miles knows who Tremayne is,” he said.

“But you're not a vampire,” I said with a bit of a challenge in my voice.

His smile broadened, and I noticed he had dimples in his cheeks when he smiled like that. He also had one in his strong chin. Eyes going half-lidded, he said, “How do you know I'm not?” he challenged back.

“Vampires don't eat cookies and drink tea with little old ladies,” I said, earning a snicker from Dante as well as Mrs. Bench.

“She's got you there, dear,” she said with a chuckle.

With a quick sigh, he said, “You are correct. Put it this way—I'm well versed on them.”

“I understand Bjorn has a brother?” Mrs. Bench ventured.

“Did. He's dead.” I flicked my glance to the both of them. “I saw it happen.”

“Yes, yes,” she said quickly. “It was there in the crystal a while back. I'd wondered… that must have been why… oh, Bill, I'm so forgetful!”

“It's alright, Emma,” Bill said.

“What?” I asked, my gaze going from one to the other and back again.

“Nothing. I simply forget things, that's all.”

“She's referring to something she must have seen in the crystal. Isn't that right, Emma?” Bill said, looking back at her.

“Yes, of course.” Mrs. Bench looked distracted as she sipped her tea. “These are real good cookies, by the way, dear.” She munched on another one.

“Thank you,” I said—again.

Silenced, we all took sips from our tea and ate our cookies. Obviously, Mrs. Bench was a powerful medium. She had her ear to the spirit world, that was for sure, but, unfortunately, she could sometimes forget what she'd heard.

“I'd like to thank you, Mrs. Bench and, Bill.” I engaged both of them with my gaze. “I don't know how to thank you both for watching out for me. Do I—” I broke off, and darting an unsure glance toward Dante, went on, “Do I owe you anything? Money? Something?”

“No. And Bill will call you when the spirits are ready to break open a door into the nether world so that you'll be given the ring.” Nether world?

Bill nodded. “Yes. I'll make sure and call you if something develops.”

“Alright.” Sensing that our conversation was over, I stood along with Dante.

Bill stood, stepped over, and pumped Dante's hand. “I'll see you around.”

“Oh, for sure,” Dante said with a smile, and then Bill's gaze slid to me, and again I had to avert my glance. I could hardly wait to compare notes with Dante.

“Oh! Before you leave, Sabrina, let me give you the other dose,” Mrs. Bench exclaimed, holding up another of those small vials filled with brownish liquid. “I worked long and hard on it. You take it tomorrow night, as soon as the moon rises.”

“I will. Thank you.”

“FYI,” Bill interrupted soberly, “that ward—the protection spell—is strong. It bars anyone uninvited from coming within twenty feet of the house. Anyone else, a friend or relative, can get through it, and any vampire you have invited can enter. Keep that in mind, always.” His warning went through me and made me shiver a little bit. In other words, Nicolas could still come in.

“Got it,” I said with a nod.

As Dante and I angled down the steps of Mrs. Bench's porch, I moved a little closer to him, wanting to steal his warmth.

“Wow,” I gasped.

“Yeah.” We stopped at the end of Mrs. Bench's drive and looked back.

“You read his mind, I take it?” We moved a few steps away from the house, and stopped again, taking glances back at the house as though the secrets within would be revealed to us. Amber wedges glowed from the windows giving the impression it was like any other house. Only it wasn't.

“Tried,” he said. Being Native American, he believed that sometimes the less said the better. This irked the hell out of me—his silence—but I'd gotten used to it. I had to know what he'd picked up from their brains, since I knew he couldn't help tapping into them.

“Tried? What's that mean?” I asked, stopping in the middle of the gravel road. The night was chilly, the sky was pristine and filled with blazing stars.

“It means I got zip.”

“Really? How can that be? He's not a vampire.” The only vampire mind Dante could read was Tremayne's. That was because he was his scion.

“No. You know how when you try to bring in a radio station and it's all static, and maybe you get garbled stuff from two or three stations?”

“Yeah.”

“That's sort of what I got.” He shook his head and looked up into the sky. “That guy isn't merely human.”

“Really?”

“Yeah—really. I don't know what he is. But, he's something else.”

I frowned at him. “You mean he's supernatural?”

“Something like that.”

“What about Mrs. Bench?”

“A witch, human, and apprehensive about something she has to do soon.”

“Apprehensive? Why?”

“She's afraid it might kill her.”

My mouth dropped open, and I gazed back at the house. “Do you think whoever, or whatever, Bill is that he's forcing this on her?”

“I don't know.”

“This is scaring the crap out of me.” I hugged myself. Although I had a coat on, a chill ran up my spine.

“I don't think he's threatening her in any physical way,” Dante said, sounding pensive as we stood on the gravel drive. “From the way he takes care of Mrs. Bench, I'd have to say he is a caregiver of some sort on the paranormal end of the spectrum. The guy's immaculate. Did you see the kitchen? Every surface sparkled. Not a speck of dirt, nothing out of place. His pants were ironed to a razor's edge, almost as if he's military.” He sounded almost admiring of him. “Not to mention that he's built like a combat soldier.”

“But he's not military?”

I caught his gray-eyed squint in the amber cast from Mrs. Bench's yard light. “No. Not our military, anyway.”

“Yikes,” I gasped. I could see my breath rise as a cloud. “s**t, it's cold out here. Let's get back where it's warm.”

Hurriedly, we trekked across the gravel road and stepped onto my driveway. Dante stopped, and I turned to find him pulling out his cell phone.

“It's the boss.”

“Which one?” I only asked because, essentially, Nicolas was in charge.

“The one that matters,” he said quickly, opened up his cell phone, and said, “Yes?” I could hear the voice on the other end. Bjorn Tremayne's voice traveled, but I thought that it had more to do with my better hearing these days. “No. She's right here.” Of course, he probably wanted to know if I'd changed. “Okay, here she is,” he said, and handed me the phone.

I answered as I walked toward the house, wanting to get in where it was a pleasant, toasty seventy-five, not a frosty twenty-five.

“Hello?” I said into the phone.

“Sabrina,” he purred my name. “How is it you have not changed? Is it cloudy?” Never a 'How are you?' from Tremayne.

“No. I've a talented witch neighbor who whipped up a potion. I drank it, and I didn't become my altered state.”

“I see. How interesting…” He sounded slightly anxious to me. “Since you are yourself tonight, I'll make arrangements with the doctor to move your appointment to seven this evening.”

“Doctors appointment?”

“Yes, he will run some tests, and take some blood samples. Then we will determine if I am still a threat to you or not.” He made a heavy sigh into the phone. “Being isolated has been—” he broke off, or the cell went out. I don't know which. I jogged up the steps with Dante right behind me. Tremayne's voice came back over the phone then. It wasn't exactly a secret that he was in isolation somewhere—no one knew exactly where. This was on orders from The Council of Watchers and Elders. I hadn't found out when or if he had been to trial. Obviously, he hadn't, or he wouldn't be talking to me over the phone.

“…investigation on-going into Erik's death. His widow is…delays in turning over certain forms, and information.” Static kept on cutting his voice off. “She wants them to release the will so that she can take over his estate—which is massive.”

“Right,” I said haltingly.

“It was in his will that his wife, Ilona, was to take over his half of the North American Vampire Association,” Tremayne added.

“I see. This is bad. Right?”

“Very, very bad,” Tremayne said.

I didn't exactly understand the whole thing with vampire rules and laws. But since Tremayne and his brother, Erik, had been the two most powerful magnates of all of North America, her taking over Erik's position would make her as powerful as Tremayne. I had yet to meet her, and I already hated her. They warned me not to be in the same room with her. She was a psychic vampire who could suck the soul right out of a person if she wanted. Great. I really, seriously hoped she was not in Chicago visiting.

I made one of my noncommittal Uhuh's as we swept inside my house and shut the door. The feeling began coming back in my numbed face and lips, as well as my fingers almost at once.

“I'm also going to have you meet with my own private eye. His name is Zachariah Black,” Tremayne went on. “I think he should be able to fit you in around eight-thirty.”

Oh, goody, more fun for me, I thought miserably. I rolled my eyes at Dante, and, since he could pick from my brain everything anyone told me, he smirked. He'd told me once I was an easy read—I wasn't sure if that was good or bad, and I didn't want to know.

“If you want to make the appointment, I suggest you get an early start. Doctor Gorham is real difficult to get an appointment with, and I've had this set up for weeks. I've allowed for the fact you'd be changing during the full moons, and had it arranged for tomorrow at noon, but since the change didn't happen tonight, I'll see if he can move something around.” I was certain he could get the doctor to move things around to see me.

“Okay, you're the boss,” I said, and I couldn't help if it came out a bit snarly.

“Sabrina,” he said, sounding as though he took exception to my mood.

“Yes?” Master.

“Will you do this for me? Please?”

Wow. Did the vampire king say please?

I made an effort to be accommodating. “Sure,” I said, holding back the sigh of irritation that was floating on the surface. “Since I wasn't busy anyway, why not?”

“By the way, I've been informed that Ilona is flying in on tonight's first flight.”

I curled my lip. Ew, s**t.