Chapter Four

Guide’s Entry

These recruitments were notoriously more difficult when the subject had parents or guardians that cared. My research into the Garvison family had shown there was no chance Della’s mother would agree to a scenario that carried her daughter away before the end of the school year, let alone met the idea without suspicion, so I was forced to be patient.

I returned to London until I could collect my charge.

Chapter Five

In the weeks before school ended, I had no strange encounters. The British lady hadn’t darkened our doorstep again, either. Started to hope Mom would forget about that ‘summer camp’ and I wouldn’t have to leave home with a stranger.

No such luck.

In early June, I got on a plane with Miss Thornhill.

Once again, she was dressed like she should be in some fancy office. “Can you stop fidgeting, please? These seats are too close together for you to keep wiggling about,” she said.

“I’m sorry. I can’t get comfortable.” Tugging on the hem of my shorts, I switched my crossed legs so my jiggling foot didn’t bump her.

“Why in heavens not?”

“I’m nervous, okay?”

“Della, I promise we have the best intentions. You’re special to us.”

“It’s not that—though I want to be clear I’m here because my mother said so.” A breath, then I admitted my lack of culture with, “I’ve never flown before.”

“Really? At sixteen?”

Sat up straighter and gave her some side-eye. “If you noticed, we’re not exactly rollin’ in dough. Never had the occasion, ‘kay?” The only times I’d been away from home had been for church camps, and I’d known the youth leaders my whole life.

She held up delicate hands. Narrow fingers and a perfect manicure of short pink nails. “No judgment. You know, statistically speaking it is safer to fly in an airplane than be in a car on the highway.”

“Swell.” The car still had the advantage of being on the ground.

But of course I was worried about where I was going, which I had no clue about. The brochure didn’t include an address other than rural New York. Was it a cult?

A child slavery ring?

Something worse?

My fingers rubbed the cross pendant I always wore and I sent up a silent prayer this wouldn’t end in tragedy.

She’d allowed me to bring music, so I passed the hours with Mama’s old Walkman and a few classic tapes I’d heard on the radio all my life. Can’t go wrong with Dolly Parton and the Mandrell Sisters. Or Johnny Cash or The Oak Ridge Boys. Or Kenny Rogers.

Mama loved Country from the ‘80s.

We eventually landed in New York City, then Miss Thornhill escorted me to a car and we drove into the boonies. From the driveway, the property was nothing special—just two long buildings made of red brick and decorated with ivy.

A guard stood inside the gate he’d opened. His cap was pulled low so I only saw the bottom of his clean-shaven face. His uniform was the standard gray-shirt-and-black-pants thing, but instead of a taser on his belt, he was armed with a pistol.

It looked like an old private school. “What is this place?”

“Our US training center.” She parked. There was only one other vehicle visible, a black SUV with no markings. “Come.”

The school vibe continued as I followed her inside, though instead of linoleum, the floor was hardwood. Definitely an old private school. The doors were also wood, not the thick things reinforced with steel in US public schools. These rooms might’ve been offices once as the doors had no windows. The hall was quiet except for the click of Miss Thornhill’s soles.

We paused at the basement entrance.

It led not to a cellar or boiler room, but a huge underground installation. The corridors were wide, walls and floor made of thick concrete. An endless amount of gray.

Industrial lights above, the bulbs framed in a wire cage.

“From now on, you’ll be known as Seven,” Amelia said, showing me to a room.

“My name is Della.”

She paused at the door and handed me a key. “And you’ll forget it if you want to survive. A name isn’t merely a word, it’s an identity, and therefore has power. There are many things in our world that would use that against you.”

“How? Why?”

“Magic and because you are the enemy.”

“But why ‘Seven’?”

“Because you are the seventh active we have at present.”

“Six people? That’s your organization?”

Amelia averted her eyes and tugged on the hem of her jacket. “At the moment, yes. Some of the agents were injured recently. Others were forced to retire from field service.”

“Why?” Probably wanted a big raise.

“You can ask them yourself when we go to London,” she snapped. She walked away, shoulders stiff and dress flats clacking on the concrete floor.

I had the feeling I’d just offended her in some way.

Hard to tell with this chick—cool as ice.

Left with a key and a door, I entered a bedroom.

My room was cozier than I expected. The walls were papered in textured light blue and I had white wooden furniture, except for the armchair in the corner. A print of the Serenity prayer hung above the lone bed. I missed having a window, but figured I wouldn’t be in here much except to sleep. A lamp on the nightstand and another on the dresser gave enough light to hide the fact we were underground.

With my clothes put away in the drawers, I followed the map Amelia gave me to the dining hall above.

My first meal away from home.

Picking up a tray from the stack in the corner, I walked to the buffet station. They had to be kidding—plain chicken breast and steamed vegetables? I glanced at the tables in the center. Not a single salt shaker in sight.

My stomach growled, complaining about the lack of breading, gravy, or pie.

A single bowl of apples and oranges sat at the end of the cart.

“Ah, there you are,” Amelia said. She was followed into the room by three young people: two boys maybe in college and a girl just a hair over five-foot tall.

“For the love o’ Pete, Thornhill, you brought us a redhead?” That came from the guy on her left. He was shorter than the other, with a stocky build.

“It won’t show when she’s in uniform,” she said. “Seven, these two gentlemen are your trainers.”

“Hi.” I groaned internally. Dealing with the opposite gender that wasn’t family had never gone terribly well for me before.

She placed her hand on the girl’s shoulder. “This is Kaede.”

The Asian girl remained silent, standing with her arms crossed. Her body was still shaped like a kid’s, but hard to tell whether it was because of age or petiteness.

“I thought names weren’t allowed here?”

“She hasn’t been tested, yet,” Amelia replied.

Ah. No wonder the girl looked like this was the last place she wanted to be.

I’d had to relive dusting a monster in my dreams every night for the past month to have it sink in as real. Or, as real as anyone could trust a memory to be. People who hallucinated usually thought their visions were real, too, didn’t they?

The young men walked through a swinging door to the side. I caught a glimpse of the kitchen. Might there be real food hidden away in there? Amelia nudged Kaede up next to me and handed her a plate. The girl slapped food on it and stomped to the table farthest from us.

“How did you get her here?” I asked quietly.

“Her brother came to us a couple years ago.”

“Oh. You’re hopin’ whatever this is runs in the family.”

Amelia pushed her black-frame glasses up on the bridge of her nose. “It’s not unheard of. Fill up your plate. Suppertime is limited.”

I chose a chicken breast and stuck to carrots, since they were the only veggie offered I could swallow without seasoning. And an orange. I could use the juice for flavor. Stocky Guy came back first, carrying a pitcher of milk. He set it down at Kaede’s table.

“I can’t drink that,” she said loudly.

“Why not?”

“I’m lactose intolerant, duh.”

He placed his hands on the table and glared at her. “That’s ‘sir’, little girl.”

“I don’t call white boys ‘sir’, meat-head.”

Wow. If Mama heard something like that, I would have gotten my mouth washed out with soap.

Stocky Guy pulled Kaede out of her chair by her arm. “Twenty push-ups. Now.”

“Go to hell,” she spat.

“Forty. Now.”

Her chin went up. “You can’t touch me,” she said. “My father donates too much money to your stupid organization.”

Stocky Guy shrugged, bent to toss her over his shoulder, and left the room with her upside-down like that, kicking and screaming.

“What’s he gonna do with her?” I asked Amelia.

She didn’t look shocked by the drama. “Confine her to her room. Part of the reason her parents agreed to send her is this, her attitude.”

“You’re not a reform school, though.” Right? Institution for the mentally altered, I could believe.

She sighed, and sat down with her own plate. “No…but sometimes a favor is worth the cost. Doing what we do isn’t cheap.”

“Oh.” Made sense, I guess. “May I ask somethin’?”

“Yes.”

“Will all the food be this bland?”

She pushed her glasses up her nose again, attempting to hide a twitch of amusement. So, she wasn’t pure British stiff-upper-lip. “The menu is part of our lessons on discipline, Seven. Pure body. Pure mind. Pure heart.”

“Yay…”

The chicken felt dry in my mouth, leading me to drink more milk with the meal than I’d done at age five. Tall Guy entered, drying his hands with a dish towel.

“Seven, this is Thirteen.”

Thirteen offered me a handshake. His hand felt hot compared to my nervous cold one. “I thought there were only six,” I said

“There were recently fifteen,” he said.

Were… “Oh. I’m sorry.” And gulp. Past tense meant people died. “So, I’m takin’ someone else’s number.”

He had a kind, friendly face. Looked like a California surfer—blonde and tan and hot. “We all do. The Agency has been sending out soldiers for over three hundred years. Don’t worry—no one’s sending you out unprepared.”

I liked him a lot better than the other one.

Better than Amelia, too.

She smiled when I cleaned my plate. She’d been watching, studying, since we left Oklahoma, mentally cataloguing everything I did.

I’m not that fascinating.

Thirteen asked me to put on running shoes when I was done and meet him outside. I was already wearing what I had, basic tennies.

He led me to a track.

“You’re gonna ask me to run after eating?”

“You never know when you’ll have to run,” he said. “Stretch your legs then do a lap as fast as you can.”

I’d rather do the push-ups. Mama didn’t raise no whiner, though, so I did what he said and warmed up. He nodded at me to go, holding a stop watch, and I ran.

The stitch in my side that always came in PE didn’t appear.

It felt good.

I felt fast.

The dusk air was cool on my cheeks, but I wasn’t sweating.

Lap complete, I skidded to a stop in front of Thirteen.

“Not bad,” he said.

“Not bad? I was flying.” Running had never been like that for me before.

A shrug of one wide shoulder. “It was alright for your first day.”

I pouted. “You’re gonna be the ‘I never give out A’s’ teacher, huh?”

He smiled at my assessment. “We don’t assign letter grades.”

“Whatever. So, what do you really do?”

“You don’t believe Amelia.”

I stuck my hands in the pockets of my hoodie. “I don’t know, but come on…vampires and magic and crap? It’s fiction.”

“Is faith fiction?”

Hey.

“What makes you think I have any?”

He pointed at my collarbone. “Saw the cross you’re wearing.”

Stay cool. “Could be a fashion statement.”

“If you had one of those frilly types. That one is plain silver, small and modest.” He smirked, looking absolutely confident he was right.

He was. I’d worn the cross every day since my twelfth birthday, even showering with it on. It was the year my faith became somethin’ more personal to me, more than stories in Sunday school. “Fine, but believin’ in God is different than sayin’ old horror movies are based on fact.”

Thirteen grinned. “In our world, not so much. You’ll see for yourself soon enough.” He poked my abs. “In the meantime, let’s get you in shape to beat a human.”

“What’s wrong with my shape?” I was not fat.

“You’re soft, kid.” He pointed to the other building. “To the gym.”

Though this building was the same two-story height as the other, it was an open space indoors. The side we entered on had various weight-lifting and work-out machines. The center was taken up by a large blue mat. On the far side, a couple gymnastic bars at various heights.

“Learn to love it, Seven. This will be your home for the next month, if you’re lucky.”

“Lucky?”

“Could take longer.” He walked to the weight bench. “Ever lifted weights before?”

“I’ve carried heavy things.” Restocking the diner every week could be back-breaking work during busy season.

“Not what I asked.”

“Then no. I haven’t used any gym equipment before.”

He sighed and muttered something about schools falling down on the job.

For the next hour, he explained what everything did and showed me how to do proper form with them so I didn’t kill myself. It was harder than it looked.

“How long…have you…been doin’ this?” I asked while he made me run on the treadmill.

“Five years.”

“Does your family know?”

He increased the speed of the machine a notch. “They’re dead. Gang of bloodsuckers interrupted their date night.”

Foot in mouth—check. I was running too fast to reply, but I hoped he could see sympathy in my eyes.

Twenty minutes at that pace, and my legs felt like cooked noodles. Wheezing, I slid off the treadmill. Thirteen made notes in a little book, then offered me water.

“Do you…still…remember…your name?”

He laughed and joined me on the floor. “That’s been bugging you all day, hasn’t it?”

“Well…yeah.” I was Della Garvison, just like my great-grandmother.

“I still remember.”

“What is it?”

He shook his finger at me. “Uh-uh…can’t say.”

“I’m trustworthy.”

He leaned in, staring at my eyes with his crystal blue ones. “Would you keep that secret if you were tortured? Could you hold your tongue under a spell or compulsion? None of us can take that risk, Seven. And none of us will.”

My first reaction was to be offended, but then I thought about it. This guy didn’t know me. He also believed in the dangers he mentioned; I could tell by the conviction in his voice. Crazy or not, if these people thought their identities had to be secret, I needed to respect that.

There was no harm in calling him a number—it was just awkward.

Bedtime was at ten.

My first night outside Oklahoma.

The room was too quiet. At home, I’d hear bugs and birds outside my window, especially in summer. The hum of the AC.

These sheets were coarser and the pillow a different height.

Despite the workout, I didn’t sleep well. Then Amelia had me up with the sun.

My first full day started the routine of the coming weeks. Ten minutes to shower and dress, then a half hour for breakfast. She ate with me, answering some of my questions and delaying others for my lessons. Then I was sent to the gym.

From eight to ten, she taught me about the monsters I would face.

“Vampire 101—Kill them with a wooden stake to the heart or by cutting off their heads. UV light burns and younger vampires go up in flames from sunlight.”

“Only the young ones?” I wrote on a notepad.

“There are reports the ancient can walk around on a cloudy day, or make short burst runs through sunny spaces, but no one has seen the old ones for many years. We can’t confirm they still exist.”

“Are they all like that guy that attacked me? A walking corpse?” His red eyes and rotten smell still haunted my dreams.

She took a photo album off the shelf and placed it on the desk in front of me. “We’ve catalogued several specimens since photography was invented. You will be taught how to observe without being noticed or caught. Know what you are facing before you attack.”

I started flipping through the pages. The vampires were former people from all walks of life, which surprised me. I figured the most vulnerable would be the unfortunate, those who didn’t have a safe home or transportation at night.

“Can they walk into my house?”

She shook her head. “A vampire needs an invitation to enter a home. There is a distinction between a house and a home, by the way. The dwelling needs to be in the occupant’s name, either on deed or lease, and they need to live there often enough to—”

“Believe me, I understand home. Is there any other way they die?”

“Sanctified items also burn the undead, though one would need to subject them to prolonged exposure to dust them. Fire works, of course…not many creatures natural or supernatural can resist that. The vampire is not truly immortal, Seven, but you must always remember they possess a powerful innate skill set. They are faster and stronger than you and hand-to-hand combat is greatly discouraged.”

“So I’m s’posed to shoot one if I see it?”

“Thirteen will cover that.”

“But you want me to avoid them.”

She got huffy. “You’re not a vampire slayer. The supernatural world is huge and they are merely a small part of it. Most of your work will consist of containment, and retrieval of dangerous artifacts.”

“Containment?”

“Early interference. Cutting problems off at the pass. People naively mess with things they shouldn’t. We handle that.”

A cagey answer, but she seemed the type to not dole out info all at once.

“Oh. So, are all vampires the same?”

“No…aside from individual personalities based on the people they used to be, there are four families. The vampire’s visage changes when their true nature is revealed. Aside from the fangs, their irises shift color.”

“The red-eyed man that attacked me.”

She nodded. “Yes. They display as red, gold, green, or bluish-white.”

More notes. “And that’s the only difference, the eye color?”

“No, each family has innate traits.” She wrote the colors on the chalkboard and began listing traits below them. “The Reds are what you know as the classic vampire. The Golds are not affected by holy items and we don’t know why. They’re the only species to have a reflection. The Greens are reclusive and rarely seen, so we know little about them, but at least they keep to themselves. And the Blues are thought to be extinct.”

“’Thought to be.’”

“The vampire is a wily creature, so we cannot be one-hundred-percent sure, but yes. We are quite certain they were killed off.”

“By what?”

She shrugged. “Does it matter? The only good vampire or demon or any other monster is a dead one.”

Well, that’s harsh. “But how does a human become a vampire in the first place? Is it like in the movies?”

“The exchange of blood, yes. They drink from a human up to the point of death, then make the victim drink vampire blood. Moving on, let’s talk about werewolves.”

“Wait, why does that make a vampire? Can you cure it?”

She frowned at my incessant questions.

“No. Seven, vampires are not your problem. We don’t want you anywhere near them. Now, the werewolf affliction is spread by a virus in the beast’s saliva…”

From ten to noon, Stocky Guy kicked my butt with torture he called plyometrics.

I got a half-hour lunch, then another two-hour lecture on the history of killing demons.

At least, what these people called demons.

Amelia let me have a half hour in my room to do what I wished, then Thirteen took over at three with weapons training.

He started with the Bo staff.

“I’m not hittin’ you with that.”

He twirled the staff around his fingers, all fancy like. “You can’t damage me any more than I’ve had in the field. Besides, it’s padded.”

“Yours isn’t.”

He smirked. “I know what I’m doing.” Jerk. “Attack already.”

My arms already felt like jelly from the workout earlier. Couldn’t they alternate days?

I dropped the staff. “I’m not a violent person.”

He barely contained the eye-roll. “This isn’t about violence. It’s about protection. Every martial art is about disabling your opponent quickly so you can get away alive. You have the talent, Seven. Learn to use it.”

“Talent? Talent? All I know is a man with red eyes disappeared after I pushed on his face. It was weird and it was scary and it was dark. I only came because my mother insisted on me going to ‘summer camp’ for a scholarship.” I turned to leave.

Got as far as two steps when my legs were swept out from under me and I landed on my butt.

Thirteen stood over me with the end of his staff pressed into my chest. “I did not give you permission to go.” He jabbed the staff at my face.

I caught it before it struck my nose. What the hell?

“See? The instincts are there, Seven.”

“Let me up.” He backed off. I reached for the padded staff, setting my hands slightly wider than shoulder width. “I’ll try this once.”

He grinned and bounced on his toes. “Sure…”

I started circling him so at least I was moving.

Thirteen moved with me—step, crossover-step, step. He kept grinning at me, making part of me want to knock that smile off his face. “Gonna swing that thing, or what?”

“I’m thinkin’ about it.”

Sighing, he dropped the staff tip to the floor. “Maybe we should start you with Aikido and add weapons later.”

I jabbed his chest with my staff, like staking a vampire. “But then I couldn’t do that.”

Thirteen was instantly at the ready again. “Oh, is that how we’re playing it.” He swung for my head.

Turning my head so he didn’t hit my nose, I narrowly dodged the strike. “Hey, that was close.”

“Be even closer when you’re fighting for your life.” He went low to sweep my legs again. This time, I saw it and hopped over the staff. “Good. Faster.” He had me on the defensive, trying to block his moves from hitting my body and driving me backward.

My foot slid off the mat and I fell, landing on my back.

“What should you have done there?”

“Not fall down?”

He shook his head. “Don’t get forced into retreat. Either retake control, or run. If I was something that wanted you dead right now, you would be. Don’t react. Think.”

I held my hand out for a hand up. He backed off to the center of the mat, leaving me to get up on my own. My back hurt from hitting the tile.

He stood poised to attack. “Again.”

That night, I lay on my bed bruised and sore, and homesick.

This place was so empty.

Cold.

I missed the chatter of the diner, the sounds of sizzling burger patties and bubbling oil. Missed Mama’s contagious laugh and buttermilk biscuits. Rolling over, I faced the wall, and wrapped around Muffy, my stuffed bear.

Could I take years of being away?

That’s what they wanted.

No. Summer would be long enough.