Брайан Макклеллан - Blood Tally

I could hear Nadine’s fingers flying over her keyboard. She didn’t miss a beat. “Understood. What are you going to do?”

“I have a Vampire Lord hunting for me. I’m going to hide.”

“Good luck, kiddo.”

“Thanks, Nadine.”

It took me several minutes to realize that Olivia hadn’t stopped staring at me since getting off the phone with Jacques. I glanced sidelong at her. I cleared my throat, thought about what I could say, and came up with nothing. Mags?

What? Came her peevish response.

You have any thoughts on this whole situation?

I do, but none of them are helpful.

Gotcha.

I looked back at Olivia again. She’d finally turned away and was lying against the passenger-side door, leaning out the open window, her hair streaming in the wind. It would have been a pleasant sight if not for the circumstance. “Sorry for bringing you into this.”

She pulled herself away from the window. “I kind of expected you to do your best to defuse the situation. Not, you know, declare war on a Vampire Lord. I’m not sure whether to be horrified, impressed, or a little turned on.”

It was obviously a joke. I managed to choke out a laugh. “You should probably be horrified.”

“Yeah, I think that’s the direction I’m going.” She let out a sigh. “I guess I’m in it now. Are you going to tell me what’s so important about those contracts you were talking about?” I didn’t see why not. So I gave her the short version. She nodded along with the explanation. I finished up and she continued to nod. “Okay, well. I see why you’re doing this.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Look, you and I are the generation who has to deal with global warming. I think we have a better concept of the consequences of predictable long-term disaster models than the rest of the world.”

I couldn’t disagree with that. “My boss would call you a goddamn hippie.”

“And she’d make my point. Speaking of which … is your boss on board?”

“That was her I left a message for earlier. I’m not sure I have a job anymore,” I lied. I couldn’t quit, of course, and I don’t think Ada would fire me, even for this. But my employment was almost certainly going to be terminated after a vampire murdered me.

Olivia winced. “Sorry to hear that.”

“As you said: oh well.” I toyed with my options, half hoping that Maggie would pop into my head with some brilliant idea that could help me solve all of this. Instead, I got the very existential impression that she was packing her things and trying to figure out what to do once I’d been eaten by a brood of vampires. Not that she could do anything. She was at the mercy of whoever took the ring off my dead body.

“I have a weird request,” I suddenly said.

“Yeah?”

I waved my hand at Olivia. “If you survive this whole thing and I don’t? Take my ring.”

What the fuck are you doing? Maggie suddenly demanded.

Making contingency plans.

Don’t you dare. I’m not going to move in with a witch.

She’s better than a Vampire Lord, isn’t she?

Maggie didn’t seem equipped to argue the point, falling into a sullen silence. Olivia gazed at the ring for a few minutes. I could have sworn she muttered something under her breath and made a few discrete gestures, but Maggie didn’t warn me about any magic taking place, so I didn’t make a point of it. Finally, Olivia gave a nod. “I don’t think it’ll fit me, but sure. What do you want me to do with it?”

“Just … keep it safe. Thanks.” An idea was finally coming together in the back of my head. It wasn’t a very good one, but it was the best I had, so at the next stop sign I picked up my phone and dialed a number, praying that the call would be answered.

“Hey, bud,” Justin answered, “you know, my boss is pretty pissed about the Nick the Necromancer stuff. You might not want to call the office for a few weeks.”

“This is more important,” I said.

Justin must have heard something in my voice, because his tone immediately became concerned. “What’s going on?”

“Lord Ruthven might try to kill you.”

“Excuse me?”

I launched into an explanation, giving Justin a much longer and more thorough briefing than I’d given to Olivia. She was still sitting beside me, listening intently, but I didn’t see any reason to hold back. Unfortunately, the longer I talked the more insane I sounded – at least to myself. I began to wonder if maybe I was overreacting. If maybe there wasn’t nearly as much danger in this whole thing as I’d thought. I got to the end and realized I’d been repeating myself, and finally fell silent. I was answered with silence on the other end of the line. “You still there?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Justin said. He did not sound happy.

“Look, I didn’t mean to put you in danger. I …”

He cut me off, “Alek, I know you’re a reaper agent. I know you’re a professional and you get into dangerous situations a lot more often than I do. But Lord Ruthven certainly isn’t going to get involved in this whole thing himself, and I’ve had more dangerous things try to kill me than a dhampir. So don’t worry about me. Look, I’ll have to call you back. Keep your phone on you.” And he hung up.

Getting that warning off to Justin took a little of the burden off of my shoulders, and I went through a list in my head wondering if there was anyone else whose safety I was worried about. I had lied to Jacques, of course. I didn’t have family, but I did have friends, and I didn’t want anything to happen to any of them. Besides, Justin was OtherOps. If there was any organization who could put a stop to this insanity, it was going to be them. But that required Justin’s boss to believe that the threat I was screeching about was real.

We soon arrived at the little servant’s house in Gates Mills that I called home. I was half expecting Jacques himself to be waiting for us, but Maggie gave me the go-ahead and I parked in the driveway and headed inside. I’d done my best to take care of my friends and coworkers. Now it was time for me to stay alive and come up with a real plan. I ran inside, grabbed a duffel bag from beneath my bed, and began to pack.

I’d left the door open behind me and heard Olivia wander in. “Hey,” she said, “we have the same duffel. And you have a cat! Hey, sweetie, what’s your name?”

“Can it, lady. Alek, did you bring me tuna?”

“I … uh, Alek! Your cat is talking to me.”

“Not now, Eddie,” I shouted over my shoulder at him as I rummaged through my drawers, wishing I’d done laundry in the last week. “We have to go. Get in the truck.”

“I am not a cat,” the conversation went on. “I am the last Prince of the Nile, the Herald of Sekhmet! This is my temple. You may make offerings of tuna or scritches. If you touch my belly, I will kill you.”

I finished grabbing clothes and began to gather weaponry; brass knuckles, ammunition of a dozen different varieties, a nightstick with a silver bulb at one end, a couple extra stepping mirrors. I found Olivia in my living room, scratching Eddie behind the ears. She shot me a curious look.

“He’s a sphinx,” I explained. “His name is Eddie, and he seems to have adopted me recently. Eddie, we have to go.”

“I don’t want to leave my temple,” Eddie purred at me.

“Your temple is no longer safe, buddy.” I tossed my bag of weapons into the bed of my truck and came back in through the open door and scooped up Eddie with two hands. He gave an indignant little meow and shifted in my arms, revealing his wings. Olivia gasped.

Eddie said, “If my temple is no longer safe, I must be here to guard it.”