Chapter Six

Bargain

Cassandra was ignorant to the fact that what he was talking about was her mother. She thought it was a reaction to the mortal that she’d pretended to show him. Even if she hadn’t realised her trick had worked on some level.

Without Alessandra’s gift of empathy, it was tough for Cassandra to understand the relationships between vampires. Although, she and her sister had undergone the same education on vampirics, Cassandra didn’t want to believe that someone could feed from her mother or lust after her blood so much. She’d seen the scars - everyone had – but, as a little girl, she had always pretended they were from some battle with a ferocious monster. She knew the truth and always had, but it unsettled her, made her restless and disturbed her.

“It’s exciting stuff, that’s for sure. Some of the boys and I are placing bets on what will happen to him. Most people think he’ll wind up dead before anything can actually be done. I have my own secret thoughts that he’ll be kept somewhere very secret. Alice has her own opinion but doesn’t like to place bets. She thinks mom might sire him, so she has “someone”, whatever that means. I personally hope she doesn’t, though, because I’m afraid it’d be like having another sibling or something.”

Warren disturbed his silence with a light chuckle and slowly reopened his eyes. He found both the girls’ ignorance of the way of vampires, in light of their shared fascination, amusing.

“If she does sire him, he’ll be nothing like a brother to you, I can assure you. I find it bewildering how little you both know about my kind and our ‘culture’.” Warren took another obvious sniff of the air as if he was now evaluating the mortal rather than enjoying Karou. “I’d hoped she’d sire sooner but at least find someone a little more worthy of her. But, I suppose he’ll suffice as a tap to drink from.”

“Who knows,” Cassandra answered, shrugging distractedly. She smirked over her shoulder at him before she leaned forward out the window, drew breath, opened her lips and…

Warren saw red.

Focused on Cassandra, he watched her near the window and insinuate she was about to call down to Karou and the others. Time slowed. His black eyes grew wide. Fangs bare. Instinctually, he reached a hand toward the window. Involuntarily, in his panic, a gust accelerated towards it at such a pace that it swung wide opened so abruptly, straining against its hinges that the glass within the frame shattered and rained down onto the ground below.

The dramatic breaking of the window pane became a mere distraction from Warren’s painful exit from his chair, which he did at vamperic speed. Perching himself against one of the short foot posts of the bed, out the way of the window and any onlookers, he gauged Cassandra’s reaction. However cautious he might’ve been, his hands balled into fists, at his side, in mild annoyance.

Cassandra flinched like she was ready to duck and take over. She hadn’t known about his gift; the fact that he wielded air so readily and potentially violently spooked her.

Below a yelp came from Callida, followed by Karou shouting up to the window.

“Cassandra, What Are You Doing?” she yelled in the same familiar soprano she’d always had. Still, she hadn’t been entirely able to lose the New England accent, and it was especially prominent when she was caught unawares.

Quickly, she thought up some lie. “Just a little argument about ‘room service’…” She rolled her eyes to express that the tiff was trivial, edging on ridiculous and definitely no big deal. “Don’t worry. I’ve got it under control!” She added, just to make sure her mother didn’t overreact.

The mortal boy was staring up at the window with bright blue and curious eyes. Cassandra waved at him, hoping he’d stop gawping and go about his business; he did. Shyly, he looked away from the pretty girl and back to Callida, only to find the woman was also glaring at Cassandra. She’d scoffed loudly, annoyed at the disturbance and probably thinking how typical it was that it was down to the troublesome younger sibling.

Cassandra spun and faced Warren before Karou could say anything else. “The hell was all that about? You couldn’t have just said something?” Cass spat, gesturing flippantly to the remains of the window.

“What would you have liked me to say?” Warren asked. “Besides, speaking... would have been too loud.” He glanced over his hand, speculating about his ‘gift’. He’d long tamed it, but these days he mostly used it idly but sometimes in such instances when his instincts moved him. Of course, he didn’t entirely understand his conviction due to his condition. “I didn’t realise I’d break it.”

“Fine, fine. It’s not like we can’t have it fixed. But still, use your words next time.”

“Next time? I thought you didn’t want her to know I’m here?” Dropping his hand, he folded his arms over his chest. “Or-…” A moment of enlightenment “-you and your sister have figured out that you don’t have anything to try me for, but you’d like me out of the way regardless? Sending me away or letting me leave isn’t really fixing the issue. I might show up by accident again. So, you want to dispose of me in a final manner?” Warren was merely musing. He looked over Cassandra; his brow rose quizzically. “Something like that?”

Cassandra snickered at just how wrong he was.

“Alice and I have very differing opinions about what our mom should and shouldn’t be aware of. I don’t think it’s very ethical to simply not inform her that you’re here. I don’t think she’d know what to do with you, so she’d be advised just to let you go. Wouldn’t you rather leave sooner than later? The Court is meeting to discuss you this evening, but nobody knows whether to put on on trial yet or not. You should know for sure what’s happening by tomorrow morning. Relatively painless process unless you actually are going to be taking the stands...”

“What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her...” Warren agreed with Alessandra on that much, at least.

As far as whether he was going on trial or not, he cared less either way. Closing his eyes, he rubbed over his heavy lids; his thirst had begun to make him feel fatigued.

Cassandra slipped her hand into her back pocket and pulled out a small leather-bound book – it looked a lot like the old journals Karou kept. She thumbed through it mindlessly as she spoke, leafing through pages and feeling ghosts of memories that came from their words. “Look, my mom’s been alone for a long time, and she doesn’t have anyone. She has my sister and me, but that’s about it and as shit as it was to realise, we aren’t always enough, y’know? It might be nice for her to sire that boy…”

On reopening his eyes, Warren noted Cassandra flicking through a journal. He recognised instantly, and without really thinking, he turned his hand to his briefcase, which lay open on the bed just behind him, and closed the lid with a click of the clips that locked it, concealing its contents from sight.

She heard the click and looked up from her mom’s journal. What’re you hiding, huh?

“I’ll make you a deal. Let me look at your things, and I’ll get you some blood. I’ve got a friend who can get it to you by tonight, but only if you cooperate.”

With a throaty grunt, Warren’s eyes rolled. He supposed she was here to ‘carry out her own work’, as Alice had put it. “Fine. Please, don’t bring a person; I don’t want a host. A glass or four will do; I don’t care about the temperature at this point either, as long as it isn’t laced.”

“You’re being awfully picky for someone in your position, don’t you think?” Cassandra tipped her head. There was Karou, once again; it was impossible for him not to notice.

Turning back toward his briefcase, he rubbed his fingers over the four golden cogs – the pad of this thumb rolled over the numbered intervals, entering the four-digit code. Once unlocked, he flicked open the clasps and spun the case in Cassandra’s direction. “I know what the contents of my briefcase it worth.”

“No need to be so cocky.”

“Do we have a deal or not?” Warren held out his hand to shake on it.

“Yes. Deal.” Cassandra reached and sealed the deal. “I’ll have Alice bring it to you when she comes by tonight for her follow-up.”

His hands are freezing. Cass thought, flinching.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t know about vamperic body temperature?” Since having ceased clinging to his humanity, Warren was much more accepting of his physical being and didn’t bother trying to conceal any aspects of his vampirism.

“Mom’s not cold…” Cassandra noted.

“Your mother’s a hybrid.”

“So, do you feel cold to her too then?” Cassandra asked as she undertook her ‘own work’. Before touching anything inside, Cassandra touched the briefcase’s exterior. The case itself was covered in brown leather, the inside lined with patterned beige satin.

For the most part, everything was laid out neatly. How meticulously tidy he was reminded Cassandra of her sister. It was amusing to her because her mom had always said that Alice reminded her of him.

Still leaning against the bed’s foot post, Warren’s eyes moved focus between what her hands were doing and Cassandra’s face as they chatted. “It’s been a long time since I touched her…”

“So, d’you like not remember?” The girl's brows pinched. Was her mom that forgettable?

“I try not to.” Karou was undeniably unforgettable, though he didn’t mention it. The pleasure brought by remembering Karou’s loving hands was fleeting compared to the crippling misery that such nostalgia resulted in.

Regimentally, his three fountain pens had their place in their cuffs. His gold and bone five-inch dagger of a letter opener had its place in the lid too. “These are nice,” she commented absentmindedly, though her fingertips barely grazed their surface; she doubted the memories they held would be of any interest. Alongside them, a sleeve held a pocket-sized black address book. His cell phone was set to one side and switched off.

The bottom and deepest part of the case held a number of items. Two newspapers folded to display half-finished crosswords. Two planners; one navy leather, the other brown - one, he used as a diary of appointments, the other a place to make personal and financial notes. Numerous letters were still tucked in their opened envelopes. A broken watch strap. A silver zippo lighter. A few matchbooks. His wallet. Passport and a pouch of travel documents. A wallet holding a couple of sets of keys.

Her eyes honed in on a ledger with REDford embossed in crimson text in the top left corner. For a moment, her fingers twitched over it, fighting the urge to run them along its spine and see its secrets. Her curious nature didn’t win; she knew full well that anything related to REDford would need to be handled by one of the Justices and their lawyers. What residual memories she picked up would only create a bias toward the case. Instead, she informed him, “They may want to take this from you. It has information in it that might help the Court decide if they should take you to trial or not. Before I leave, I’ll make a phone call and ask them what they think.”

“My business isn’t really the concern of Enoch. Neither was the Davikov involved in it. Other than how most vampires are - they’re buyers.” Warren held his hand out for the ledger to show her something.

When she looked back into his briefcase, Cassandra didn’t seem interested in the REDford ledger anymore. Her eyes came to rest on the item that had been concealed beneath it.

At the very bottom sat one of Karou’s old journals – her sketches poked out the edges as though they’d messily and hurriedly been tucked away. Cassandra instantly recognised it because of how closely it matched the one she had. Her fingertips were inches away from running over its cover, and she could feel her mother’s stream of consciousness radiating from it. With a confused expression on her face, she looked at Warren.

“What?” Warren asked, looking over his shoulder at Cassandra as she examined his things. That was when he saw that she’d hesitated to pick up the journal. He knew she wanted to look through it and that to Cassandra it was worth making a deal for.

The journal, she knew, would tell her so much. It might even bring her a new understanding of the way her mother had been acting recently. She wanted to come up with a reason to take it but was fully aware that doing so wasn’t professional in the least bit. “Where did you get this?” she asked very softly.

“Why ask if you already know?” Warren shook his head with an idle smirk. Unfolding his arms, he ran a hand throw his now dry hair. Then, lifting a shoulder casually in a half shrug, sighed and explained, “I lifted it from her room one night. She never retrieved it from me before she was taken away.”

Limping his way up from the bedpost, he sauntered in a slightly handicapped manner toward the window. He lingered at a measured distance where he could see out, but no one might have seen him should they have been down in the gardens. “Look, I know you’re both curious, but maybe she’s kept you so sheltered for a reason. If you delve into her past, maybe you won’t like what you find? And, of course, it isn’t really your place as her daughters...”

“I don’t know what Alice has told you, but my mom has been acting differently, and I want to know why. Especially if you have anything to do with it... Knowing anything would help.” Cassandra said, straight to the point.

Turning away from the window to face Cassandra, he retired to rest his back against the wall. “I couldn’t tell you why she’s acting differently, and I doubt I would have anything to do with an existing mood change. I haven’t seen her in fifty years. At most, I could offer some incite if you described how her behaviour has altered from her usual self, but there is always the chance that she’s a totally different person nowadays.”

A heavy sigh left Cassandra. Now, she perched at the foot of the bed instead of Warren and picked at her chipped black nail polish. It was another mannerism Karou shared - something she did when she was anxious. “She’s always talked to herself, ever since I can remember. Alice had caught her a couple of times having arguments with herself.”

“That’s hardly something to be concerned about…” Maybe she picked that up from me. “I talk to myself a lot.” A smirk pulled at the left corner of his lips. His stomach twitched as if he were silently laughing at whatever he found amusing.

“Lonely people do…” Cassandra gave him a knowing look from under her lashes.

Am I lonely? He wondered. For sure, he was always alone, but he’d never considered his stagnant mood, loneliness. Cassandra and Alessandra, both with their empathic abilities, had an affinity for feeling; he envied that.

Looking back down at her flaky fingernails, Cass took a moment to consider her mom again. “Aunt Cam complains that she never changes. They bicker, but they argue about that a lot when they think nobody’s around to listen. So the changes we’ve started to notice are exacerbated. My mom.... She keeps a pack of cigarettes in her desk drawer, but she doesn’t smoke. She spaces out and has visions that only she understands. Lately, she’s drawing all the time - every time we go up to her room, she’s scribbling something, but we never get to see her sketches anymore. Before, when someone startled her, she’d touch the bite scars on her neck, but now she sits and strokes them for no reason. She walks around late at night when the rest of the Palace is asleep. It’s like she doesn’t want to sleep anymore in case she sees something. But mostly, she whispers to herself. More recently than ever, she says your name. Do you see why we think this is about you, now?”

“And you say that this has all started recently?”

“Some of the things she’s always done, but… it just seems to have gotten more extreme since a couple of months ago. We can’t fathom what happened to trigger it.”

“And when you’ve asked her about it, what did she say?”

“That she’s just tired. Which is what she says when she actually means she’s ‘thirsty’.”

“Perhaps that’s the long and short of it then. Once she’s sunk her fangs into the mortal boy,” Warren pointed his thumb back toward the window, illuding to the fellow from earlier, “she’ll be fine. The simplest explanation is often to correct one.”

“Yeah, maybe you’re right…” Cassandra sighed; she didn’t take any comfort in what he said. Something just didn’t feel right.

“She doesn’t sound like she’s changed that much, from what I remember.” There came a thoughtful pause. “I’ll bet she’s still a messy sleeper - muttering, fidgeting, and nudging with every one of her six limbs. It was a challenge sleeping with someone with wings, especially when she decided to stretch in her sleep. Many times have I had a face full of feathers.” He looked far off, past Cassandra. Reminiscing was painful, but it showed on his face this time; his façade had momentarily vanished. The mood between them was contrite. When he noticed how Cassandra examined him, it made him feel uncomfortably vulnerable. In reaction, he turned and moved right up to the open window. His hands grasped at the sill, knuckles whitening under his tense grip. Above his pensive eyes, his brow furrowed as he continued to think aloud. “I always pushed her away. I was such an irresponsible Sire.” His tone was harsh as he criticized himself, filled with bitterness and self-discipline. “Italy is one of many perfect examples.” To this, Warren shook his head, remembering how he’d driven her out. His paranoia about it not being the right time for them to be together yet had caused him to send her back to Enoch. He had had cold feet about his feelings – feelings that even he’d never fully disclosed to Karou. She still didn’t really know to this day to what extent he loved her.

“Italy? What happened in Italy?” Cass was hoping she’d get the story out of him. She seemed less intrusive now and much more relaxed, genuinely thirsty for information.

So you really haven’t spoken to your sister yet… “I saw her by chance in Florence. I invited your mother and Eamon back to my villa for dinner. I gather that he didn’t much like me, but I didn’t like what I saw either. She was practically starving. It got heated, he left, she stayed the night, and I let her. That was the last time I saw her.” Warren stared at the fountain's long shadows over the garden paths as he mumbled his memories.

“And then two weeks later, Eamon went missing… and then, they found his disembodied arm in one of the fountains, but never the rest of him,” Cassandra explained, confirming that she had a different father and was only Alice’s half-sister. And, of course, the fact he took note of the most - Eamon had been disposed of upon Karou’s return to Enoch.

“Hmm, I can’t deny that he was certainly deserving of his fate.” He glanced over his shoulder at her with a smirk that faded into mild helplessness. “Back then…” He began but stopped himself.

“Back then?” Cassandra pushed…

He sighed; there would have been no point saying what he wanted to Cassandra. It was Karou who needed to hear it. “Nothing, it doesn’t matter. Where is this blood you promised? You’re starting to look as tasty as you smell...” He flashed his fangs at her, expectantly and hoping she’d let the other subject drop.

Cassandra smirked and rose from the bed. “Nah, I don’t think I’d taste so good.” She moved toward the door, watching him from over her shoulder. “Maybe I’ll see you around. Either way, I’ll send up the good stuff with Alice later. Should be an hour or two, yeah?”

“I suppose you’ll need those two hours to organise your gossip.” Warren chuckled, talking almost to himself, quickly turning back towards the window as Cassandra made her exit.

That hour or two went by, agonising slowly for Warren. The handful of painkillers he’d been prescribed to tide him over between the pitifully inadequate feeds he’d been given had dwindled to nothing now. Sat, immobile, in the chair by the window, the dry desert air of the late afternoon and the picturesque view of the gardens weren’t enough to distract him from the throbbing ache in his thigh. The muscles in his forearm looked stiff from applying as much pressure as he could muster in his weakened and thirsty state as he stroked rhythmically down his thigh, trying in vain to ease the pain. His fangs were ever-present on his lower lip, but in a spike of one torturous moment that shook his whole body, leaving his panting and quivering in its wake, he bit down into his lower lip to stifle how badly he wanted to scream - the muscle and skin over his thigh had finally opened up, and the heel of his palm had brisked the gaping wound and caused the fabric of his pyjama pants to abrase the flesh beneath; the self-inflicted torment took his breath away.

The faint sound of running footsteps on the stairs grew louder until the door flew open.

Barely a moment had passed, Warren still hadn’t stopped panting through the pain, and his bloody palm hovered over his thigh where he’d lifted it from the fresh hole in his thigh.

Alessandra knelt at the side of the chair. “What happened?” She asked at a loss. Her silver eyes were wide and glowing with compassion as she sought his gaze.

She’d been strolling at a leisurely pace up to his room. Without thinking, she’d reached out her empathy to gauge his mood after Cassandra’s visit, only to be punished. A flash of pain clawed at her thigh and almost took her legs from beneath her. Before she scrambled and rushed to Warren’s aid, it sent her stumbling onto the steps.

Warren’s black eyes skipped over her face altogether and fixated on the wire bottle holder she set on the floor by his feet. Four glistening black bottles held the substance he craved. Silently he reached out his trembling blood-stained hand for them.

Obliging, Alessandra passed him the first and watched how he attempted to unscrew the cap in a frantic commotion; his hands were shaking and fumbling. For the moment, she stopped scanning to keep a cool head and calmly took the bottle off of him to help. At the sound of the whimper he made, she looked back at his face; and found how he eyed her so pitiful. The second she passed the open bottle back to him, he’d taken it to his lips and gulped down the metallic smelling contents desperately. She supposed his life did depend on it, but to watch someone starving feed in such a feral manner was harrowing.

Warren consumed the first two pints in barely a minute. His adam’s apple bobbed up and down his throat as he swallowed great mouthfuls. He hadn’t even taken the time to consider how the batch she’d produced for his meal tasted, or its quality; he just needed to drink it. It may as well have been pig’s blood.

Alessandra watched, awash with guilt over the state she’d allowed the prisoner under her care to decline to.

“I’m so sorry...” She whispered, rubbing over her face regretfully and handed him the third bottle. “I’ve neglected your appetite, haven’t I?”

By now, the edge of his thirst was dissipating. He paused halfway through the fourth and final bottle - feeling full. Perhaps he would save the rest to sip at, he thought. Resting the butt of the bottle onto his right thigh, he rubbed over his healed left one with a gratified exhale. The dried blood on his palm didn’t come off onto his pants, but Alessandra had already noticed that the cotton fabric had supped up the pool of blood the open wound had oozed when it was fresh.

Sensing that his pain had passed, she felt safe enough to open up her empathy again and assess his mood. What she felt from him surprised her. In the aftermath of his feed, he left himself equally as open as she. His usual façade, which he used to guard himself, wasn’t there. Behind it, Alessandra discovered a man she hadn’t expected.

Alessandra forgot herself while she was discovering Warren’s more intimate self and her hand gently settled over the bloodstain on his pyjama pants.

The touch took Warren by surprise and moved his eyes to hers. Another wave swept over her as she glimpsed deeper into his emotional fingerprint. To Alice, it felt like there was a tear in the fabric of his being. Like a piece of the weave that made him had been ripped away. The edges were frayed and prickly - painfully seeking the missing part and lonely without it. In meeting his piercing blue eyes, Alice felt that she knew exactly what had been taken.

“She has no idea that you feel like this…”

“I know.” He smiled weakly and covered her hand with his, patting at it. There was a profound sense of déjà vu, just as Karou had once come to his aid baring blood, now her daughter did. The imitation of Karou that he saw in Alessandra wasn’t enough anymore, but in his pessimism, he wondered if perhaps reliving his past through these odd encounters with Karou’s daughters was all he deserved.

“Please, just look after her. Especially her appetite.” Attempting to poke fun at her forgetfulness, he grinned.

Alice grinned back; the way her cheeks pushed upward forced the tears from her eyes; she hadn’t realised that they’d welled up as she scanned Warren’s feelings. “Warren, there’s only one person who can fix what’s the matter with her.”