Rebirth of the Seer (26 page)

“Actually, I’m going to sit this one out,” she said. When he furrowed his brow, she rolled her eyes. “Flynn pointed out that I should rest tonight if I’m going to be channeling spells again sometime soon. I’m still recovering from our last brush with a crowd of vampires.”

“I also need to retrieve my weapons,” I said, attempting to put the matter to rest, “So we need to stop at the apartment regardless.”

“Very true.
” Wesley hesitated, but
nodded,
closing commentary
on the
discussion
. Our conversation shifted to the more practical concern of how to facilitate travel from Wesley’s house to our temporary lodging. It was decided that we would travel in Wesley’s car and once Jesse appeared again with their equipment, the trio took hold of their respective bags and led the procession outside. Monica took hold of my arm and I flashed a disarming smile at her, patting her hand as she tugged me along with the others.

Wesley, Jesse, and Mark remained in the car as Monica and I padded up to the apartment and I retrieved my blades. As she handed me my sword, she surprised me with a kiss and I relished it for as long as I could without subjecting myself to further temptation. She smiled as our lips parted. “Be careful out there. I want you back here in one piece, do you understand.”

“I can vouch for my safety,” I said
, indulging a fanged grin. “But n
ot for your friends
, I am afraid
.”

“Oh stop that,” she said, but smirk she flashed me in return was anything but annoyed. Monica turned for the bedr
oom and disappeared inside.
I tightened my hold on the katana, waiting for the door to shut. Once it did, though, a queer notion overtook me, directing my attention to the sword in my hands.

A foreign voice whispered in my ears, telling me something about it had changed – a sentiment without any empirical evidence to lend it any credence. I brushed my coat to the side as though to strap the weapon around my waist, but the peculiar feeling would not dissipate. Lifting the weapon, I gave it a slight tug, separating the blade from its sheath.

Raising the sword, I examined it and saw… nothing. Absolutely nothing more than the same folded steel and the same red and black braiding which had adorned the hilt since I first took it. Shaking my head, I slid the sword back into place and walked to the door, feeling like a man who had taken leave of all his senses. One human emotion had slid through the cracks, but brought insanity in its wake. “Flynn, you possessed creature,” I said, “You have become downright certifiable.”

I reached the bottom of the stairs and exited the building, sliding into the back seat beside Mark while still clutching the weapon in my hands. Wesley raised an eyebrow as he pivoted from his position in the driver’s seat, lining me in his sight. “Wow, she really did just walk in and go to bed?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said with a nod, glancing from Mark’s curious stare to Wesley’s and flashing a subdued grin. “Granted, she was
bemoaning it the entire time
, but I did tell her it was for the best.”

“Oh give it a rest, Wes,” Jesse chimed from the passenger seat. “Let the lady rest let’s be on our way, I’d like some sleep before the sodding sun rises myself.”

“Whatever, Jess.” The way Wesley eyed me rang reminiscent of how Mark had studied me prior to our departure. While the latter’s mind remained secure – undoubtedly fenced in using the powers he retained – Wesley’s was a tumult with no clear question emerging from the chaos. I was able to detect the same itch within him I struggled with; that notion of something barely eluding one’s notice while still visible somewhere out of view.

Of all the times for a mortal to have cause to scrutinize me, it had to be now.

“They’re a bloody flock of peacocks, aren’t they?”

I glanced away from the street and turned my head to regard Jesse, perking an eyebrow at the both the man and the expression. A Styrofoam cup in hand, he lifted its steaming contents to his mouth and blew on it before imbibing a healthy swallow of coffee
. I watched the entire action,
though his eyes never left the si
ght of the spectacle before us.

Wesley sighed. “I swear
every one of them acts like a stuck up aristocrat
,” he said, shifting in position
in an attempt
to find a comfortable spot on the ground. After locating the former hotel, we
had
scouted for an inconspicuous place where we could conduct our surveillance and staked out territory in a park caddy corner to the grounds. The trio each held binoculars and while Mark had offered me his, I was able to avoid the chore of acting by pleading my eye infirmity. It afforded me the chance to observe as only a vampire could.

The park itself was a rundown vestige of a bygone era. On the far side, a group of transients huddled around a fire, hunkered in dirty coats near a collection of stolen shopping carts containing all their earthly possessions. While
the immortal in me applauded Ian’s
pragmati
c decision to purchase
a ready-made cattle pen, the humanity bleeding from my psyche frowned. The populace was an unwitting food source with predators in their backyard.

It made the hotel itself stick out much like a sore thumb.

The monolith at the center of well-groomed grounds loomed imposingly above the city block. The hour had long-since eclipsed midnight, and yet the activity thrumming through the building bore just as much vitality as it must have an hour past sunset. A car pulled into the long, circular driveway and
idl
ed by a set of large glass doors. Two guards protecting the entrance stepped closer
before nodding
their approval at whoever must have been seated in the car’s interior. The gilded framework adorning an edifice of marble and stucco at least bore testimony that, regardless of the neighborhood’s aesthetics, Ian still bore expensive tastes. For once, I was apt to grant Wesley his point.

“It does seem endemic in their nature,” I said, pulling out my cigarettes and lighting the tip of one. I exhaled a cloud of smoke prior to continuing. “Immortality brings out one’s vices and makes their
indulgences
all the more a pressing concern. It is simply the manner in which it expresses itself I find fascinating.”

“What do you mean?” Wesley asked.

I shifted from my crouched position, extending my legs to sit properly on the ground. My gaze remained fixed on the car parked in front of the hotel, tracking a pair of vampires who emerged from the back seat. Something about the action struck me as odd, almost orchestrated. If Ian informed his coven of our meeting, they were already exhibiting the signs of putting on a show for us. “I have seen vampires who favored fancier clothing, and ones who adorned themselves in t
he finest jewelry. Some
prefer
the arts
, but everything they do, it tends to be in excess.”

“The more dangerous are the ones who come armed,” Mark said.

Perking an eyebrow, I shot him a quick glance, noting the smirk curling the corners of his mouth again before peering back in the other direction. Mercifully, I was spared
replying
as Jesse snickered and imbibed another swallow of his coffee. “You ever encounter a few of those, Flynn?” he asked.

“More than a few, I am afraid. And Mark is correct in that t
hey are
lethal.”

I saw Jesse turn his head to regard Mark in my periphery. “Mark here’s got a few stories like that. He was the only one of us out on the fie
ld before getting kicked out of
the Order.”

His comment stood unacknowledged for a few lingering moments. Reflexively, I frowned. Part of me wished to keep the vampire coven as my point of focus, because
of what it inspired the longer we watched –
gnawing seeds of doubt which had started to germinate. Each time I watched a vampire leave
or
one arrive, something stuck out about the entire action
bearing
a hint of being wrong. I could not
yet
put my
finger on what
. It might have been the vampires themselves, or something else. My gaze did depart from the vampire coven, not shift
to
toward the amateur vampire hunters. It drifted to my fingers, then to the ground below as my hand found the hilt of my sword.

Another part of me listened to the tense silence and recognized it for what it was. Wesley, Jesse, and Mark had developed a rapport throughout their exploits and now, I stood as the interloper while I was apt to eye them in the same manner. Of anything stated since we left Monica at the apartment, though, Jesse’s comment was the first which bore the sense of being an olive branch extended in my direction.

Sighing quietly, I cursed my watcher for forcing me into this position.

“What were your duties when you assisted the Order?” I asked, looking at Mark again. Bringing my cigarette to my mouth, I drew from it again and waited.

He did not respond right away. His binoculars rested by
his side, his attention rapt on
the goings on before us as well. Just as I thought I had missed the opportunity, he cleared his throat and turned his
head to regard me. “Mostly i
nformation gathering and research. Sometimes, I would be asked to read through books for historical background, and other times I would have to track down a specific spell. When the watchers and the seers were too busy to scout out their missions, I accompanied a few other sorcerers in field assignments.”

“Which required you to perform reconnaissance?”

“Yes.” This time, when he grinned, it was in a much more genuine manner. “Well, sometimes it wasn’t so quiet. I
was
given an assignment once to accompany a watcher and her seer and take notes for the Council. We were ambushed by a vampire patrol who found us despite the cloaking spells we cast. The dark magician turned out to be more powerful than we thought. He saw through our defenses. Fortunately, the seer was able to fight through the attack and got us all to safety, but I pulled away a valuable lesson.”

My interest was piqued despite myself. “Which lesson was this?”

His smile broadened. “Never go out unarmed.”

Wesley snorted, interrupting the exchange and drawing the collective gaze toward him. “You keep trying to teach us how to use those damn sai and I can never get the hang of it.”

“You’re too impatient.” Mark winked at Wesley.

“Yeah, well, he ain’t the only bloody one,” Jesse said, shifting the way he leaned his weight on the ground. He sighed. “Not a fucking thing going on across the street but the Vampire Academy Awards.”

“I’m noticing that,” Wesley murmured.

Mark caught my gaze, directing my attention toward him. “What do you sense from them, if anything?”

Shrugging, I fought the urge to echo Jesse’s comment and looked at the front entrance again. While I saw nothing more than the same guards and the same architecture, I could not help but to experience the n
otion that there should be more;
that I possessed the capability to see beyond what my eyes beheld. Not
merely thoughts and intentions.
Monica had taught me as such even when I was her antagonist and the concept had not been difficult to grasp. This was another layer and it alluded me as of yet.

My thoughts returned to Monica.

The memory of our first caress blossomed into the entire experience of making love to her. There had been a sickness racing through me ever since
I suspected
might mean the death of me. It would have been easier to surrender every vampire impulse within me, though, than to disavow the humanity thrumming through my veins. Did the mortal man I once was lay buried beneath the debris of five blood-spattered years? It might have made me a fool to become so enamored and blind, but I wished to hear her say it again.

Peter. Peter. Peter.

“Flynn?”

The sound of Wesley’s voice broke me from my trance. I sighed and finally shook my head. “I am afraid I do not sense anything other than the obvious,” I said, resignation heavy in my tone of voice. My eyes strayed heavenward. “And the hour grows late. I would assume we have a few embers remaining, but they shall be seeking shelter soon enough from the dawn.”

“
Well then, gents, l
et’
s get comfortable again
,” Jesse said, polishing off the rest of his coffee. “The night shift is almost over.”

***

It did not make any sense to me, no matter how
many times I turned the thought around in my he
ad. I heard Wesley’s car depart, feeling
no concern for
the incidents which had transpired
, and not merely because the last few hours had proven more amiable than I anticipated. I was troubled to the pit of my being, and had come no closer to determining from where the premonition came.

Trudging up the stairs, I walked with pensive slowness while patting the pockets of my coat.
As I approached the apartment door
, I withdrew the keys while staring at the obstruction in front of me. My eyes settled on the
bolt
, the idle thought occurring that I
might have been tempted to
experiment with telekinetic lock picking, if
only
my mind was not so lost in exhaustion. The metallic object slid in seamlessly, the door swinging open when I twisted the knob. Inside, the stillness was deafening, a silent scream assaulting my ears.

I drew near to the bedroom, pushing the door ajar and pausing
when I caught sight of Monica.
Her face was pressed against the pillow, her hand positioned near her mouth with a blissful expression on her face. Walking closer to where she laid, I reached out and brushed a strand of her hair away from her cheek.
The corner of my mouth curled upward, in defiance of my unsettled spirit. Here it was before me, the emotions both of us had needed to express out in the open. It coiled around me as though to choke me all the more inside its grip.

Freeing a blanket from a heap at the foot of the bed, I draped it across her body.
As I turned away, I
lifted
a
hand to rub my face and adjusted my glasses
when they became displaced. The pull toward rest had become
overwhelming, but my
mind
was not ready to be quieted just yet. Instead, I walked from window to window, ensuring the drapes were shut tight enough for me to linger in the room.

I unstrapped
my
sword and sat on the edge of the bed when this task was completed. My skin prickled as I held it, once again left with the impression that something had changed without know
ing what. Laying the sword
atop my lap, I tugged it from its sheath. The metal still gleamed in much the same manner. It had been recently cleaned, but an
invisible aura radiated from the surface
, telling me the answer to the riddle would be more metaphysical than visual. Its
unblemished
sheen
and pristine features
gave further testimony to that fact.
It was not
the sword
which was different.
I was. Something about me had changed. But what?

Slowly, I slid the blade back into its cover and sighed. “What the devil is happening to me?” I asked, not expecting an answer.

One presented itself to me anyway. “What’s wrong?” the sleepy voice of my watcher asked. The covers rustled and I felt the weight
on the mattress
shift until she settled behind me in a seated position. Her head rested on my shoulder and hands settled on my upper arms. “I didn’t hear you come in,” she said.

“I know.”
I sank into the comfort of her embrace
. “You we
re asleep
.”

“I hope
that means you were going to
stick around
.”

“I do not think I could have stayed away.”

Her head lifted, lips touching my cheek before her chin came to rest on my shoulder again. “Thank you.” Both of us fell silent. I continued examining my sword in the same manner as I had the door’s lock, seeing before me a riddle I was too tired to solve. I did not have to look at her to know when Monica frowned. “What happened out there? I’m trying to read your thoughts, but you either have them extremely scrambled, or that’s really what it’s like inside your head. What’s this about a lock?”

“More about the puzzle than the lock itself.” I sighed, finally lowering the weapon onto the ground. My movements forced her to break her hold, but enabled me to turn and face
her once my hands were freed.
Monica placed a hand on my shoulder, soothing me with her touch. I closed my eyes. “
I am not keeping you from my thoughts. They are truly that discordant.
It is as though a madman is runn
ing loose in my mind.
Nothing is clear.”