Don't Rhine on My Parade

  Chapter Eight

  “Hey! Good job, Piper!” Cecily remarked. “You didn’t leave any pieces in there!”

  “You sound surprised,” I said flatly.

  She grinned, “Well, I was assuming that this was your first time.”

  I glared at her. “It was.”

  She jumped lightly to her feet. “That’s why I said you did a good job. Man, if you leave a piece in there, no matter how small, it’s a pain in the butt to get out.”

  “I can imagine.”

  She looked at me and frowned. “You’re taking this awfully well.”

  “You said, if I helped, you would explain what was going on.”

  Her mouth twitched humorously. “I don’t think I said that. What I believe I said was that if you helped me I wouldn’t leave stains on the rug. Talk about hard to get out!”

  I glared some more. “I need some explaining, and I need it now.”

  She tried to pat me on the shoulder but I jerked back out of reach.

  “Let me go change into some fresh clothes,” she looked me over, “get you a clean shirt, get a drink, and then we’ll talk.”

  “Cecily,” I put out a hand to stop her as she headed down the hallway. “What are you?”

  She looked back at me, “Your friend.”

  “No. Really. What are you?”

  She bit her lip and looked at the ground for a moment as if coming to an important decision. Then she looked me straight in the eyes. “A vampire.”

  I laughed nervously, “Like ‘I vhant to suck your blood’?” I used my very best Transylvania accent.

  She cocked one eyebrow at me, “Actually, yes. You smell rather good right now, especially since I have lost a lot of blood; which is why I am going to go get cleaned up and get something to drink before we talk.”

  That shut me up but good. I went to the kitchen and focused on scrubbing all the blood off my fingers and out from beneath my nails. I was going over them for the third time when a clean t-shirt was waved in my face. I dried my hands off fiercely, snatched the shirt and stalked off to the hall bathroom to change.

  When I came back, Cecily was curled up on a chair in the living room, sipping a glass of dark liquid. I blinked.

  Okay. I didn’t want to know.

  I asked anyways, “Is that blood?”

  She looked at me over the rim of her glass. “Yes.”

  “Do you kill people?”

  “No.”

  Well, glad we got all of that out of the way, because things would just be too awkward otherwise.

  I am not known for my ability to let things go. “Where did you get the blood from? Oh dear God! You work in the ER! Do you drain helpless patients?”

  Cecily rolled her eyes. “No, silly. And I don’t work in the ER.”

  “You don’t?”

  “I work in the morgue.”

  “Oh.” That made sense. About the only thing in this crazy experience that did make sense. Of course a vampire would work in the morgue. They probably felt right at home. I felt a giggle coming on. I tried to stuff it down.

  “You still didn’t answer where you get your blood from.” I couldn’t believe I was actually having this conversation. If I hadn’t seen her bullet holes heal up by themselves there would be no way I would believe this.

  “Blood banks,” she said succinctly.

  “Blood banks?”

  “Blood banks. Are you going to repeat and question everything I say or just the really mundane and unimportant things? Because, if you are, this is going to take all night and your husband is going to start wondering where you are.”

  “Mark!” I jumped to my feet.

  “Relax. Your mother-in-law’s car is still in the front drive. You have a little longer to hang out if you want some answers.”

  I sat slowly back down. I did want answers. I just didn’t know where to start. Harvey jumped up in my lap scaring the living daylights out of me. I had totally forgotten about him. He gave my face a lick and then collapsed bonelessly into sleep.

  I decided to start with why someone would want to kill me. I still wasn’t sure about the vampire thing, but I could go with the flow on that one for a while.

  “What was going on out there tonight?” I asked.

  Cecily sighed and rubbed her eyes. “Whew. That’s going to be a little complicated to explain. Not to mention hard to believe.”

  “Try me,” I growled. Harvey opened one eye to peer at me before sinking down even further.

  “Ookay. I don’t know for certain, but it’s pretty safe to assume that it was a Guardian hit.”

  “Guardian?”

  “The muscle enforcers of the SS. You made a rather noticeable scene tonight in a very public place. By the way, really stupid. And since you’re on parole until the hearings, it was within their rights to try and take you out.”

  “I’m on parole? SS? Scene? What are you talking about?” I had a sneaking feeling that I knew what she meant by “scene.” There was only one that sprung instantly to mind.

  “Like I said, this is going to be hard to assimilate at first. You’ve had your head buried in the norm for a long time. You’re not going to be able to pretend any more. Not if you want to live.”

  My mind was whirling. “Why don’t you start at the beginning? What do you think you know about me?”

  Cecily took a slow sip of wine. Uh, blood. Yuck.

  “I know a lot about you,” she said. “I’ve been assigned to watch you for the last four years.”

  “Watch me! Why?”

  “Look, just shut up for five minutes and I’ll try to catch you up.” We glared at each other for a second but I kept my mouth shut. “You are a Rhine Maiden,” she said. “A Nixe, Siren, what have you.”

  “A what?” I’d been quiet for at least five seconds.

  “If you would stop interrupting I could explain.” She paused and waited for me to interject again. I made a motion of zipping my lips shut.

  “You have the power of persuasion. When you speak to people they have to obey. Am I telling you anything you don’t already know?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “I call it the Voice,” I told her.

  She nodded. “There are many mythological tales about creatures like you, but as far as I can figure out, you trace your ancestry back on both sides to the Rhine Maidens.”

  I raised my hand, “Question.”

  “Yes?”

  “Who were the Rhine Maidens?” It sounded like a Jeopardy question. Perhaps if I could stay calm and clinical I wouldn’t turn into a gibbering pile of blubber on the floor.

  Cecily sat up straighter, like a student getting ready to recite some poetry. She cleared her throat, “The Rhine Maidens were a group of sirens who lived, obviously, in the Rhine. Forget everything Wagner said, he had it all wrong.”

  I must have looked confused, because she stopped and asked, “Wagner? The Ring Cycle?” I still looked confused. “Are you really this stupid?” she said in exasperation.

  “No. Yes. Sometimes,” I defended myself with eloquence. “Just go on. I don’t know what Whosit said, so just tell me the real story.”

  “Okay, where was I? The Rhine Maidens were a species of siren,” she stopped, “Do you know what a siren is?”

  “Yes,” I said proudly. “They were the mermaid-like creatures who sang from the rocks and sailors would be so overcome with their beautiful voices that they would throw themselves into the sea and drown or crash their ships on the rocks. Odysseus defeated them by stuffing his men’s ears with wax.”

  Cecily looked marginally impressed. “Right. The Rhine Maidens were the same kind of creature. Some call them sirens, others call them Nix and Nixes. They have the power to change shape from mermaid or merman to human. Now, one of the most famous of the Rhine Maidens was a Nixe named Lorelei. She would sit on a rock by the Rhine and distract sailors with her voice so they would crash and drown.”

  “Nice girl.”

  “Nixes are
not known for their human empathy.”

  “Great. And you’re saying that I am one of these things?”

  “Not completely. As far as I can figure out, and believe me, it took a long time and lots of research to discover even this much, one of the Nix, the male sirens, had um,” she paused and looked embarrassed, “relations with a human female.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Sex. He had sex with a girl.”

  “This generation of humans is so crude,” she muttered under her breath. “Fine. He had sex with a human and she had a child. Meanwhile, Lorelei had also seduced a human male and gave birth to a child. Not being the mothering type, she abandoned the baby, which was rescued and raised by a human couple. After tons of hours spent tracing genealogies, you can thank me later, I found that the great, great, great, etc. descendents of Lorelei and the male Nix married.”

  “So what does that have to do with me?”

  “Quite a lot, since they are your parents.”

  “My parents?’

  “Yes. I haven’t done the math but you are mostly human with some Nixe blood. Basically, you are part Rhine Maiden. Somehow the power of persuasive voice was passed down to you.” Cecily drew a breath. “As a quick aside, I do not, for the death of me, understand why you haven’t researched any of this for yourself.”

  I looked down at my lap, “I guess I just thought I was a monster and if I ignored it maybe it would all go away.” I thought of something, “Hey, if I get it from my parents, why don’t any of my siblings have powers?”

  “I don’t know the answer to that. Your sisters and brother have been checked out by the Guardians and all cleared. You’re it.”

  “Okay. So I know about me now. Why was someone trying to kill me?”

  “Usually a Guardian hits is authorized when someone has been breaking the rules.”

  “The rules?”

  “Yes. The Rules of Magic. It’s the code of law that governs all supernatural creatures. If someone is using their powers openly, it risks exposure for the rest of us.” She fixed me with a glower, “The coffee shop?” she prodded.

  I flushed. It was not one of my finer moments.

  “The Guardians hunt down rogue magic users. A death sentence must have been put on your head tonight. It doesn’t help that you were already on parole.”

  “Parole?” I asked puzzled.

  She frowned, “Your case notes say that you were abusing your powers and a Guardian confronted you and you somehow escaped. From that point on you quit using your Voice and thus disappeared.”

  I was offended by a number of thing. “First off,” I snapped, “I was not abusing anything! I never used my Voice at all! And secondly, that Guardian was going to hurt my friend!” I quickly told Cecily the story of the night outside the club.

  She nodded grimly, “That’s not the story in your file, but it sounds like you embarrassed the vampire.” She showed her teeth in a grin, “And we don’t like being embarrassed. He reported you as a rogue and got a hit put on your head. Fortunately for you, some Guardians are much better at tracking people through magic than with human means. Since he didn’t know your name he couldn’t find you, and when you switched colleges the trail really went cold.”

  I looked skeptical, so she explained. “It’s like . . . umm . . . animals. If a cow is running around talking, you notice it, it stands out. But if it stops talking, and hides in the middle of a whole herd of cows, it’s a lot harder to find. Even if you know did know its name.”

  “A cow,” I said unbelievingly.

  “Humans. Cows. Trust me, it’s a good analogy.”

  “But you said that you have been watching me for years now?”

  Her face took on a smug look, “Others of us have joined the 21st Century. I found you within weeks of being assigned.”

  “But you didn’t kill me,” I pointed out.

  “Nope. You weren’t acting like a rogue. I got permission to put you on parole and settled down to wait for you to slip up.” She glared at me again, “Which you just did, royally.” She sighed, “And I was really enjoying the down time.”

  “Sorry to cast a shadow on your little vacation here,” I said sarcastically, “but what does this mean for now?”

  “Basically you are going to have to come before the USB.”

  “USB?”

  “United Supernatural Beings. It’s kind of like the equivalent of the United Nations. They are the ones who put the hit on you, and they are the only ones that can remove it.”

  “But I haven’t been using my Voice!” I protested. “I haven’t used it at all!”

  “Tell that to the Guardian who reported from Starbucks tonight.”

  “Oh.” I felt a sinking sensation in my gut, “But that was a one-time thing! I promise it won’t happen again. I just want to be normal!”

  “Too late, slurpee.” She flashed her teeth again. “You blew it tonight. The Guardians are after your blood, and now that I’ve told you about all of this I have to bring you in for a hearing. If you want to live, you’ll come with me tomorrow night. If you run,” her canines grew elongated, “I will hunt you down and kill you myself.”

  “Tomorrow?” I asked in a small voice.

  She nodded. “You got lucky on a bunch of stuff. Parole is almost unheard of. I really didn’t think they would authorize it when I requested, but they had some other, more important things to discuss that year. The USB only meets every four years. If this was an off year we’d just go see the local authorities, who would probably just kill you.” She flashed a wicked grin at me, “It’s much cleaner that way. No loose ends. But since this is a meeting year, you can appeal direct. Which means tomorrow night.”

  “Where?” I asked, trying to grasp the gravity of my situation.

  “Orlando,” she shrugged, “The witches wanted to go to Disney World. Go figure. So, you have a chance to get your case heard again and be assigned protected status.”

  I was thinking hard. “So I broke, ‘parole’ or what have you, just tonight?”

  “Yes.”

  “So why did that … guy,” I still couldn’t believe he was a vampire, “try to run my little girl over yesterday?”

  “What?” Cecily looked genuinely surprised.

  “The Guardian I met in college, I swear I saw him behind the wheel of the car that almost hit my daughter.” I was getting steamed again just thinking about it.

  Cecily frowned, “He shouldn’t be anywhere near you. You were my assignment and he should know better than to poach on my turf.” Her eyes glinted with anger. “You must have really ticked him off and, since everyone is in town for the conference, he saw a chance to do something about it. But if nothing happened there’s nothing I can really do about it. Especially now that you broke parole.”

  “He could have killed my daughter!”

  “But he didn’t. Even in the USB we don’t punish people for things that might have happened,” she made a wry face, “unless, of course, it might expose magic to the world. Then we whack ‘em first and ask questions later.” She laughed like that was funny. Freaky.

  “Look, Piper, if it makes you feel better, I’ll send the message to his Guardian team that you’re my territory and going to petition the USB. They’ll have to back off until after your hearing. If they don’t respect that it becomes personal.” She looked liked she relished the idea of a fight.

  I was having a hard time taking this all in. I glanced at the wall clock. It was already 11:45, Mark would be getting worried. I stood up, dropping Harvey onto the ground where he stretched and yawned, “I really need to get home. I need a chance to think about all of this.”

  “Sure thing.” Cecily stood up and stretched also. “Just be ready to go tomorrow night at dusk. Stay in your house tomorrow, or if you must go out, stay in a public place with lots of people. The Guardians won’t kill you in the open, too much risk of exposure.”

  “I thought you were going to tell them to leave me alone?”

  She nodded, “I
will. It’s just easier to play it safe. Once you’re dead there’s not a lot I can do other than file a complaint.”

  I rubbed my aching eyes. “Okay. Fun. Great.”

  Cecily was suddenly right in my face, “This is not a game, Piper. I like you, enough to stand up to a sanctioned hit,” she grinned like it was a big game to her. “I want to see you make it. I’m going to do everything in my power to get you to a hearing, but you have to be smart. There are beings out there that will kill you without a second of remorse. Don’t give them a chance.”

  I nodded, since that was all I felt like I had the energy to do, and headed for the door. Cecily made a low sound of aggravation in her throat. “Not the front door, slurpee. You really are dumb.” She opened the porch door. “Go through the backyard. It should be safe.”

  I was halfway across her back patio when I heard her whisper, “See you tomorrow night.”

  I slipped through the gate and onto my back porch and peered through the sliding glass door. Carolyn had already left. It was safe to go in.

  Mark was sitting on the edge on the couch, both feet on the floor, bent forward in concentration. He was playing Xbox. His fingers moving quickly over the controller and his whole body shifted and jerked with the movement on the screen.

  “Hi, babe,” he said without looking over at me.

  “Hey,” I waved weakly.

  “Good walk?” Something exploded on the screen with a crash. “Yes!” he pumped his hand in the air before quickly resuming the classic pose.

  “Yup.” I watched him for a moment, grateful that he was totally engrossed in his game. “I’m going to bed, hon.”

  He grunted in response.

  “I said, I’m going to bed,” I repeated louder.

  “Okay. Let me . . .” he trailed off, deep in some complicated maneuver that required leaping in the air, assassinating another player with an energy sword before switching quickly to a rocket launcher and blasting some flying contraption. “. . . just finish this game,” he completed his sentence several long seconds later.

  I kissed the top of his head. “Take your time.”

  He reached up and patted my hand quickly.

  “I love you,” I said softly and started out of the room.

  “Hey, Piper!” he called.

  “Yeah?”

  “Your sister called.”

  “Sarah?” I asked hopefully.

  “No, Karen.”

  “Okay. I’ll call her tomorrow.” I turned to go.

  “Piper?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I love you.” He still hadn’t turned around to look at me, eyes glued on the screen.

  I smiled. “I love you too, Mark. ‘night.”

  I lay there in the dark and tossed and flopped around the bed. I still had so many questions. Cecily was right. I should have figured some of this out a long time ago. Before I dragged my husband and my children into it. Too late now for regrets. I only hoped I could keep them safe.

  I tried my fall-back mode of disbelief. Vampires! Come on. Get real.

  It didn’t work. My gut accepted without a doubt that Cecily was telling the truth. The last conscious thought I had was to worry about what else might be out there, transported straight from a horror movie to the real world.