Blood Rose Ch. 06

"What's twelve years to someone like you? If I've done my math right, you're 728 now, so twelve years should be just a few blinks of your eyes."

"A few blinks of an eye can feel like an eternity when you're waiting for something, my precious. I began to fear you'd grow old and die before you ever found me. But then your little cohort wanders into my club, one thing leads to another, and now here you stand before me."

Andy grabbed a handful of his knives and held them ready to throw at the bat of an eyelash. "What have you done to Kaeli?" he demanded.

Electra grinned back like a Cheshire cat. "Why, I have done nothing! Your lady friend should be sleeping comfortably inside that house right now. And I'd say she's probably just starting to change now."

A chill shot through Dorian as an image from his past he spent every waking second of his life trying to suppress came flaring back into his mind; an image of Melissa standing over the baby's crib after he came home one evening... nothing out of the ordinary, until she turned around...

Aiming his handheld crossbow at Electra was the only thing that prevented him from collapsing from the trauma of just remembering that moment. "Keith, Andy, go check inside the house," he commanded.

Dorian saw them moving out of the corner of his eye—and then whirled his head in their direction at the sound of a pair of guns cocking. Aimed point blank at both of their faces was a .45, and holding the guns was a brown-haired woman in a black hat and coat, like a modernized cowgirl. Before either Jade or Ethan had a chance to do anything, both of them became entwined in a similar position: Jade had the blade of a sword held to her throat by an Asian woman in a Chinese dress, and Ethan had been grabbed by the arms and neck by a bald, black seven-foot giant in army fatigues who looked strong enough to bench press a school bus.

"I'd like you to meet my Blood Squad," Electra mewled. "Jackie, Shao Li, and Big Chill."

"They definitely look like your kind of crowd," Dorian jibed. When he turned his head back toward the statue, Electra was no longer on top of it. She was standing right in front of him. It shouldn't have surprised him, but he'd having been away from her for so long did tend to make him forget her ways of approaching. He reflexively took a step back and pointed his crossbow right at her heart.

"What are you thinking?" she grinned. "You pull that trigger, I fall over dead and your comrades are saved? Even on the remote chance that that arrow actually did hit me, do you honestly think I wouldn't tell my Blood Squad to turn them all into red splotches if anything happened to me?"

"Don't listen to that bitch!" Ethan growled. The response was a sickening snap and a sharp cry of pain that indicated Big Chill had broken Ethan's arm.

Dorian knew that Electra was right. Even from this range, killing her would not be so easy, or someone would have done it a long time ago. But the hand the held the crossbow aimed at her heart didn't lower. His instincts screamed at him that it was the only thing keeping him even moderately safe right now. Before another thought could enter his mind, there was an ornamental dagger being held to the side of his throat, and a soft, edgy voice commanded, "Drop it, hunter."

Dorian's senses had been on full alert and he had no idea that anyone else was even there. Slowly Dorian turned his eyes to look behind him, getting barely a glimpse of the newcomer out of the corner of his eye; not enough to form a solid image. Hesitantly he began to obey, lowering the crossbow—before ducking and whirling away from the blade, bringing his weapon to bear against his new assailant. In the time it took for him to pull the trigger, the man behind him raised a hand just to shoulder level, and Dorian's hand was grabbed and pushed upward by what looked like a hand made entirely out of shadow, and the bolt flew off into the empty night air.

While the bizarre hand still held him prisoner, and as Dorian took a moment to get over his shock at the mysterious display of power, he now had a chance to get a good look at the newcomer before him. It was a young man, about eighteen or twenty by human standards, with golden eyes like a hungry wolf and black hair tied in a long, flowing ponytail draped over the high collar of his long coat. He moved the dagger in his hand slowly, menacingly around the side of Dorian's face, studying him. "So this is him, Electra?" the young man said. "This is your 'precious Dorian?' Gotta say, I'm not impressed."

"You weren't all that impressive yourself when I first laid eyes on you, Anthony," Electra said. "Didn't I teach you not to judge your enemy by the way he looks?"

"Why don't you stop toying around, Electra," Dorian demanded, not turning his head around, "and just tell me what you want!"

"You haven't changed," Electra purred, gently caressing his face from behind. "You still have no patience for anything less than what really matters. That's what I always loved about you. What I want right now is for you and your team to leave here, and accept the fate of your comrade. But this isn't the end between you and me, my precious. No, I still have plans for you. You can be quite sure of that."

Dorian's blood had run cold and was boiling at the same time. As much as he hated to admit it, all he had to do was look around him to know who had the power here. Electra was sending him the same message now that she tried to send him twelve years ago: there was no defying her. He had no choice. "Were pulling out," he commanded.

"Bullshit!" Jade shouted. Before anyone could do anything to stop her, she was attempting to pull away from Shao Li's sword, grabbing her gun, shouting "I'm gonna fucking kill that bi—"

"JADE, NO!"

There was no time for her to hear Dorian's warning. Shao Li twirled around, there was a flash of steel, and most of Jade dropped to the ground in a heap. A round shape of spiky green hair and the last look on Jade's face came flying through the air, tumbling to rest at Dorian's feet.

Everyone stood frozen in silence. "If I were you," Anthony said at last, "I'd do what the lady says now. All of you!"

"We're pulling out," Dorian said again.

"Let them go now," Electra commanded. Jackie took a step back, still keeping her guns at the ready, and Big Chill released Ethan, who instantly took hold of his broken arm. The team immediately headed for the gate back to the van. Dorian stayed put a second longer, staring right at Electra. There was no need to guess what each other was thinking; both of them fully understood each other. Just as he was before, even now he was still hers to do with as she pleased. He could fight all he wanted, but in the end every encounter they had ended her way. He knew that, and she knew he knew that.

"If it means anything to you," she said, "I really did miss you."

"It doesn't." And then he left.

***

In the time that Tyler had spent lying in his bed he had pretty much memorized the patterns of plaster on his ceiling. His eyes had yet to close tonight for more than two minutes. He tried thinking about things like the project he was supposed to be working on for class, or how much better things had been going since Drago stopped harassing him... but ultimately it always came back to Elizabeth. Every time he closed his eyes he saw her face: her sparkling golden eyes... her black silken hair flowing behind her...

The room was starting to feel a little stuffy. Actually it had been feeling a little stuffy for at least the last hour, but he hadn't really cared. He ultimately decided he should go open the window before something happened to his health. He finally pulled the covers off of himself and went to the window, sliding it up and breathing in the night air. He leaned on the edge, wistfully letting his mind wander again. That night under the bridge kept playing itself over and over in his head. Elizabeth had returned none of his calls since, nor had he seen her. He just wanted more than anything for her to show up right now... to see her sitting there, on the edge of the roof, looking out into the trees...

At first he thought he was just drifting into a waking dream, but when he blinked a few times and that image didn't disappear, he realized that she actually was sitting there in front of him, her legs dangling over the edge of the roof, her back and her waterfall of black hair to him. "Elizabeth?"

She turned her head around. And she smiled. "Hi Tyler."

"How'd you find me? I don't think I gave you my address..."

She shrugged. "Magic."

He couldn't suppress a smile. "Yeah, I think I'm getting that. But why are you here?"

Her smile started to fade, and her head drooped. "I just wanted to see you."

"For another five minutes?" Tyler muttered. "I suppose you're just going to disappear again, because apparently this thing with me is 'not right' or something."

"That's true, it's not right," she said, sounding dangerously close to tears. "I can't afford to have a relationship with you."

"Then why do you keep coming back? You always run away suddenly, but then you always show up again just so you can pull away again. Why do you do this? Are you just playing with me? Am I just a toy to you or something, or maybe you enjoy—"

"It's because I'm in love with you."

Tyler instantly fell silent, convinced he hadn't heard her correctly. After a second, she looked up at him, her eyes wide with tear streaks beneath them. "Oh god," she said, "I just said that out loud, didn't I?"

"Did you mean it?"

She looked at him for a moment, and then gave him her wordless answer. She crawled across the roof tiles to his window and put a hand on his face. He put a hand on hers, and another on her shoulder, and they came together for a deep, long kiss. For the first time, Tyler felt like Elizabeth was really all here, and he dreaded the inevitable moment when she would pull away again. He just wanted to hold onto her and never let her go.

The kiss ended not suddenly this time, but slowly and naturally, and they remained for several minutes only staring into each other's eyes. Finally she said, "I really can't stay tonight, my parents are expecting me at home."

That felt a lot less cryptic than many of the things she'd said to him until now, which gave him hope to ask another very important question: "When will I see you again?"

She smiled widely, gripping the back of his hand and interlocking their fingers. "I'll be back tomorrow night."

He smiled back, and nodded. She released his hand and climbed down, hopping onto the branch of a tree and descending out of sight. Tyler got back into bed, and in two minutes he was asleep.

***

The girls who didn't live at the mansion had gone home by now. Annabelle decided to check on her new guest. She pushed the door open a crack and peeked inside. Kaeli was still tossing and turning in her sleep, and moaning a lot. She should be just starting to get into the change by now.

The real irony was that she thought the change wasn't happening. She thought she was such a clever little hunter, trying to infiltrate Annabelle's world by pretending she wanted to become one of them. The girl wasn't as good an actor as she thought. Nor was she especially careful, leaving her purse with her antidote where Annabelle could get her hands on it while the other girls entertained her. Now she was in there, having injected herself with a vial of tap water that she thought was antidote, oblivious to the fact that her human life was over.

Annabelle shut the door with a smile, and wandered off to her own bedroom. Things would be interesting when that girl woke up.

To Be Continued...