Awakening (13 page)

“He… he… he….” She managed to sputter, her wide eyes rolling up to see Kim
kneeling beside her. If she weren’t so scared, she would be laughing at the expression on her friend’s face; the mounting concern. After all, it’s not like she was dying; just not human.

“He who?”
Kim asked, pressing the back of her hand to Celeste’s face, her cheeks, noting the coolness of Celeste’s skin which indicated that there wasn’t a fever. Pressing two fingers against the girl’s throat, she noted that Celeste’s pulse was a little fast, though that wasn’t really cause for concern, at least not yet.

“
A…A…A….”

“
Adam?” Kim supplied the name, arching an eyebrow. Celeste had specifically said she did not want to talk about him for a little while and Kim respected that. But now, Celeste was bringing it up and it had only been four days. And her friend did not look so well.

Celeste nodded, relieved that Kim spoke the name and wishing her tongue would work. “P…P…P….”

“Paris?”

Celeste frowned and shook her head. “P…P….”

“Problem?” Kim asked, frustrated with the strangle hold on Celeste’s tongue. She hated guessing games.

Celeste frowned and started to shake her head no, but then began to shake her head yes. Kim offered,
“There’s a problem with Adam?”

Celeste made a face and Kim wasn’t sure if it was a confirmation of that statement or a rebuttal. “
Adam is the problem?”

Celeste actually growled, doing a strange head shaking no and yes at the same time. “
A p…A p…A p….”

“Penis?”
Kim volunteered, desperate to snap Celeste out of her brain-freeze. “Adam is a penis?”

Celeste finally thawed out enough and laughed desperately. “No,
he is an
Apocritum
.”

“Ah!” Kim smiled,
then frowned. “An
Apocritum
?”

“Yes,” Celeste managed, still unable to complete more than
short sentences. “Adam.”

“
Adam is an
Apocritum
?” Kim asked with disbelief. If that were true…. “That makes no sense; he bit you, you should be a
Calix
.”

Celeste stared wild-eyed at her friend, gnawing on her lower lip
and she realized that fangs would have totally sucked. Somehow, she found her voice in the hopes that Kim might have an explanation. Slowly, she shook her head no. “I never… fed off of him.”

Kim’s eyes widened in alarm as she stared at Celeste, “But that would mean….”

Kim's hand flew back to Celeste’s forehead, nearly knocking Celeste over as it slammed against her brow, insanely checking for a temperature, or the opposite of a temperature. Pushing her friend’s hands away, Celeste asked, “What are you doing?’

“Checking for a
lack of a pulse or cool, clammy skin,” Kim answered frantically, her hands quicker than Celeste’s. “Whatever it is that
Thraell
s develop.”

Luckily,
Celeste began to make quick progress after the initial brain freeze thawed out. She pulled away from Kim’s touch with a half-smile, half-smirk. “I’m not a
Thraell
, Kim.”

“I knew that,” she said guiltily, glancing down a moment to collect her thoughts. “Of course you’re not a
Thraell
.”

Celeste managed to smile, realizing that dealing with Kim’s alarm made dealing with her own so much easier. Taking a deep breath, she said, “
Adam’s not the one who is different, Kim. I think I am.”

“No, that’s not true; that can’t be true
; you're just as human as I am.” Kim frowned, obviously unable to accept the fact that her friend was a freak. “I don’t think there is anything wrong except for nerves; you’re probably just anxious about starting your new job today, Celeste. It has to be a little overwhelming to be working in the research department of BioGenesis, with all of those… Others. That’s why you’re freaking out; there’s no other reason.”

“I’m not nervous,” Celeste
denied, shaking her head. “Besides, your mom told me only top level researchers deal with the supernatural element. As a mere research assistant, I doubt I will even meet a lesser demon.”

“But there’s always a
chan….”

“Kim, what if I’m
Other?” Celeste asked in a hushed whisper, putting into words what she feared to be true. No matter what Kim said, Celeste knew something was wrong.

A bubble of nervous laughter burst out of Kim, “Of course you’re not
Other, you’re just a really lucky human. I mean, what would make you even think such a thing?”

“Must you really ask?” Celeste asked with an arched brow, pulling the neck of her shirt down to give Kim a clear view of one set of fading bite marks. 

“But Adam….” Kim began, ending with a frown.

“I knew he was a
n
Apocritum
the first moment I saw him; I had to talk myself out of what I knew was true,” Celeste murmured, seeing the image perfectly in her mind. “You know me, Kim, you know my behavior was… odd.”

Kim laughed at that extreme understatement, finally sitting on the floor next to Celeste. “
It was odd; you disappeared for two days, Cel; I am still angry at how you for disappearing like that.”

“
I’m so sorry,” Celeste apologized for the thousandth time, knowing that she would never be able to make it up to Kim. “but it was almost as if I had been waiting my whole life for him; all the rules flew out the window the moment I laid eyes on him. It’s as if I was made for him.”

“That’s crazy talk, Cel,” Kim
grumbled.

“I know!” Celeste
cried, her eyes wide as she looked at her best friend since infancy. “Do you think I should have stayed with him? Figured it out together?”

“I
think you did the right thing in coming home,” Kim murmured thoughtfully. “If he really was an
Apocritum
then it is better to be as far away from him as possible.”

“Kim,” Celeste protested half-heartedly.

“It’s true.” Kim’s voice grew more secure with her conviction. “If you had stayed you would have been taken to the
Adytum
and disappeared forever. He could have made you his blood slave or shared you with the other
Apocritae
and there would have been nothing you could have done about it. You’re in the best possible place, Cel; you’ll be able to use the resources at BioGenesis to figure out why you didn't change. But you are human.”

“I guess
,” Celeste reluctantly agreed. Kim’s words made a lot of sense and her fears receded some; she was human, of course she was.

After a drawn out silence,
Kim abruptly smiled and pulled Celeste to her feet. “Let’s just forget all of this stuff for now. We’ll get through this week and on Friday we can go to the club; we haven’t been there in ages.”

“We’ve been in Europe,
Kim,” Celeste reminded her with an amused smile. It was a good idea; it would be smart to get her mind off of Adam and what she left behind; she didn’t want to spend too much time thinking about any of that. “But, yeah, I think we should go.”

“I’ll get a hold of some of the girls,” Kim grinned, excited by the idea. “It’ll be like old times.”

“Great,” Celeste offered, forcing excitement into her voice when she was still reeling inside.

“Now
, get ready,” Kim said cheerfully. “You don’t want to be late for the first day of your new job.”

*****

Later that morning, Celeste stood in the middle of the large library, completely surrounded by thousands of books. Several computer terminals were spread out through the massive library, all connected to the main frame where vaults of information were stored on the hard drives. It was, quite frankly, overwhelming and not a little bit intimidating. Her supervisor kept laughing at the dazed expression she wore as she walked through the maze of shelves housing hundreds of years of information. Hundreds? It could well be thousands.

There were even scrolls, but those were in a special
preservation room. Even though everything had been entered into the computer, and redundancies were in place, the originals had to be maintained at all costs. Often, the material the words had been printed on contained hints on how to interpret the archaic verses. With a wealth of information, one would think that it would be nearly impossible to find anything; but it was a surprisingly straight forward system. Of course it was going to take many, many weeks to learn all of the nuances but she was excited to learn everything.

On the plus side, i
t was going to prove most effective in keeping her thoughts from straying to Adam too often. Well, more than once or twice a minute. Once she felt capable of thinking about him, she might start being able to deal with her… uniqueness.  And once that happened, she should be well-enough versed in the intricacies of this library to start searching for information relevant to her situation.

“Do you have any questions?” Mrs. Barnes asked as they ended the tour where they had begun it in the break room. They grabbed a couple of drinks and sat down.

“Only about a billion,” Celeste answered honestly. “It’s just that I can’t seem to get a lucid thought together right now to think of a single one.”

“It’s all right,” Mrs. Barnes said with a soft chuckle. “
It’s all so overwhelming at first but you’ll grow to love it.”

“
I already do,” Celeste heartily agreed. Bibliophiles, technophiles and mythophiles alike would kill to work in such a prestigious company and competition proved fierce for the few spots that opened up over the years. Celeste was lucky because her father worked for BioGenesis as did Kim’s parents so she was sort of grandfathered in. The Supernatural world liked to keep their secrets limited as much as possible and if they could keep their employees within the same family all the better.

For the first time since
forsaking Adam, she felt almost good about returning home.

Celeste looped her arm through Kim’s as they walked down the sidewalk in Minneapolis, on their way to
The Chalice
to meet their friends and hear the band. It was a bar that was reported to be owned and operated by supernatural creatures. There were rules in place to keep humans safe as they flirted with the dark side and they hosted the most amazing bands.

Kim decided to go with a black leather mini skirt and a silver halter top that showed her flat abs and belly button ring. Cele
ste’s outfit was a little tamer but still considerably more daring than outfits she once wore: tight black jeans and a sheer black top over her black satin and lace bra. Since Paris she discovered a new level of confidence in herself and it was making itself at home in her skin. It was a good feeling.

She wore her hair pinned up, a few tendrils hanging down around her face, and minimal makeup – just mascara and some lip gloss. Kim told her that she had a sexy
librarian look going for her that should attract some attention. Celeste didn’t care; she just wanted to dance and hang out with the girls and try not to dwell on Adam; just a night of normalcy.

The music was spilling over into the streets and the line that snaked around the building was bobbing in rhythm to the beat. Kim sighed, her body throwing itself against the air in a pout, “Damn, look at the line.”

“At least it’s a nice night,” Celeste smiled, tilting her head back and imagining the stars that were hidden by the city lights.

Kim stood on her tip toes and peered over the crowd
at the bouncer who was accepting the entrance fee. She really didn’t want to walk half way down the block only to walk slowly back. Besides, the entrance was a mere ten feet away, and the end of the line was much further. The guy gestured for a few people to go in and Kim’s lips spread into a winning smile. “Hey! He’s waving people in!” Grabbing Celeste’s hand, she began pulling her straight towards the man, not bothering to get in line, “Come on.”