TEN
(Come As You May)

Alucard had only warned me that company was on its way; he hadn’t warned me who, though I had a fairly good idea. And now came the problem – did I dress casually, as though their appearance wouldn’t bother me, or did I dress almost professionally, so that they knew I meant business? Looking around my room, I almost felt a bit silly to be worrying about what I would wear; I was never the type of girl to care.

I finally decided my attire for the day – Bermuda shorts and a tee shirt for that “I-don’t-care-who-you-are” look, mind you – and walked back out into the living room. As soon as I went from one room to another, it was as if I hit a solid wall; this wall, naturally, was made of tension. Before I even had time to register who had come into the apartment, Andy was standing in front of me, her eyes boring into mine; I didn’t even hear them come back home.

“Be careful,” She mumbled in my direction. “Don’t say anything or do anything… stupid.”

I pushed her out of my way and walked towards the center of the room, completely set on berating Skirik for just waltzing into my house uninvited, but when I looked for his olive-toned face, I couldn’t find it. In fact, it wasn’t even there to be found; I was looking at three complete strangers, and the only thing I could wonder was how many more strange people would complicate our life here in Flagstaff.

“Who are you?”

I could feel Andy staring daggers into my back for my abruptness, but she of all people would come to understand that it was just my nature. I had never had a good sensor between my brain and my tongue; I had my older sister to thank for that, so she could go… find a sunny meadow to frolic in. Or… something.

The one on the right of the group smiled pleasantly, his eyes crinkling in amusement behind his glasses. His smile threw my guard off; objectively, this new guy was cute. His hair was almost Alucard’s color, but not nearly as long. He seemed to have a naturally pleasant demeanor; I liked pleasant people – so sue me.

“I am Helix Gitano,” He replied, the Spanish accent apparent only when he said his last name.

“Okay,” I shrugged, but I wasn’t through being blunt yet. “What are you doing in my house?”

The second man held up his hands – or the one that wasn’t attached to a little girl’s – and smiled the same disarming smile that Helix had. His, too, reached his eyes – a startling, pale green that brightened in amusement. Maybe they just looked as pale as they did because of the long curtain of brown hair that fell down past his shoulders. I watched him carefully as he made his gesture of peace.

“We came because we know that you’re in need some help,” He replied, as if that explained his presence here – and maybe it did.

I looked over my shoulder to see if anyone else wanted to ask the questions, but everyone was staring at me in stony silence. Andy, Az, and Gia were standing with their arms crossed not too far behind me, and Alucard was sitting with Rache on the far end of the couch; it was if these strangers and I were standing in the middle of an arena, and my family members were the spectators.

I frowned and turned back to the strangers, watching them as they watched me. They didn’t seem threatening, and they seemed at ease enough for being in a strange place. My eyes wandered over to the little girl; her porcelain skin was unmarred by any marks or freckles, and she had the same eyes as the man who was holding her hand. In fact, she looked almost exactly like him, except for her blonde, shoulder-length hair. She smiled at me, and it looked almost strained, as if she were trying not to show her teeth.

“How long has she been dead?”

Both men – and some of my family – looked startled by the question. I pointed to the girl’s neck, where I knew that, if anyone looked, someone would find two tiny, circular scars. The girl stared at me, her eyes startling beautiful in her heart-shaped face. Helix looked from the girl to me and smiled softly.

“Not even a year yet,” He sighed and smiled again. “Our coven ran into a rouge biter, and… Well, now you see it.”

Something in my mind grasped at something embedded in my memory; hadn’t someone blamed the strange things going on in Flagstaff on my sister? I turned to look at Andy, who was staring at the little girl with… adoration. I felt my eyebrows lift towards my hairline, and turned back to the group of three.

“Your coven?” It was more of a statement than a question, and the two men nodded. I gazed at the one with long hair and frowned. “Who are you?”

He laughed whole-heartedly.

“Drake Pradera,” He smiled, but it wasn’t in my direction. “And this,” he added, lifting the girl’s hand, “is Aurora.”

“She looks just like you,” Andy commented softly.

“She should,” He laughed. “She’s my daughter.”

I knew my eyebrows disappeared into my hairline at his comment. He didn’t look old enough to have a daughter as old as she was, but I didn’t press it. His romantic life was none of my business – why he was in my house, now, that was.

“How do you know that we’re in any kind of trouble?”

“Scrying, of course,” Drake responded.

“You were spying on us?” This came from Alucard, who stood up and moved to stand next to me. “I find that unlikely – this particular group of people before you is rarely caught off guard.”

“Not spying,” Helix explained, holding up another hand in a gesture of peace. “Scrying. It’s a method of surveillance that Drake happens to be particularly gifted in.”

“I’ve heard of it,” Gia called out. “It’s commonly used among those who practice Wicca. They use water like a movie screen or something to see what they want to see.”

“So you guys are witches,” I concluded, and they screwed up their faces.

“We prefer the term warlock,” Helix corrected, and I shrugged.

“Whatever you are, you were looking at us through this scrying glass, and I want to know why,” I grumbled, crossing my arms; they were making this difficult.

“As I said,” Drake explained, “we knew there was something going on in Flagstaff, something that needed solving. We were looking for the cause of the problem, and we found a family of three. They kept mentioning a group of your nature, and we started searching for you instead.”

“A family of three?” I looked over my shoulder at Andy and back again. “They must be talking about the Sykes.”

“The Sykes?” Helix and Drake exchanged a confused look this time. “This family shared no last name. In fact, the reason we were lead to you was that he was with the first family we saw.”

He pointed to Alucard, whose face held no emotion. I could see nothing in his eyes, which I knew meant that he was trying to read someone’s mind. I couldn’t feel the abnormal feeling of my brain being pulled on, so I knew it wasn’t mine. When his eyes came back into focus, I could see the heat of anger trying to break through his emotional shield.

“No,” He retorted in a flat tone. “I wasn’t.”

Andy and Gia came up to stand beside us, both looking at Alucard with confusion clear on their faces. Alucard ignored them and turned to Scott, who had been leaning against the breakfast bar in complete silence this entire time.

“You might want to prepare yourselves,” he told the entire group, though he was still looking at Scott. “We’ve got another meeting to go to tonight. And this one won’t be as pleasant.”

Scott nodded and pushed himself away from the bar, walking towards the three not-so-strange strangers in the middle of the living room. He shook both Helix and Drake’s hands, and mumbled something to the both of them. Whatever he had said, they must have agreed to, because they nodded and smiled in our direction.

“Until we meet again, new friends,” Drake smiled, and I couldn’t help but smile back in return.

We all watched them leave, and when the door closed behind them, Alucard rolled his eyes and turned to Andy and Gia.

“Just scream your thoughts a little louder, why don’t you.”

Andy just stared while Gia flushed. They both exchanged glances and without a word walked out onto the balcony. I looked at Scott, who shrugged his shoulders, and sat behind the breakfast bar. Rache and Alucard went to join him, and without much else to do, I turned to join my sister out on the balcony. When I opened the French doors, both women were staring blankly out over the parking lot. They jumped when I moved to stand between them.

“Thinking much?” I raised an eyebrow and lit a cigarette from the pack sitting on the balcony railing.

Andy shrugged. “I’m just wondering why everything is suddenly going… wrong.”

“It’s not wrong,” Gia scolded her lightly, leaning against the railing – cigarette free, mind you. “It’s just… unexpected.”

“Impossible,” Andy scoffed, flicking her ashes. “We’ve been taught to expect the unexpected. Nothing should take us by surprise anymore.”

“We’ve been taught to expect the unexpected,” Gia argued, a frown pulling at the corners of her mouth. “Not to expect the unknown.”

“It’s the same thing,” Andy grumbled.

Gia sighed and threw up her hands, walking back into the apartment. I watched after her until she left the apartment completely, and then turned to Andy with an expectant look on my face. She tried ignoring me until she grew annoyed, and then turned with an exasperated sigh.

“It’s the baby, okay? So don’t even ask.”

I shrugged, and I waited. My sister was like a really good, new book. Once you got her to open herself up, she indulged you with more information than you really needed to know, but enjoyed learning all the same. I had taken two drags from my cigarette before she sighed again.

“Don’t get me wrong, Em,” She sighed and rubbed her temples. “Having a baby around will be great. Having a baby with Gia is going to be… the most wonderful thing I could ever hope for. But now… everyone who wants something to use against us is going to have something. Our lifestyle isn’t safe for a baby.”

I placed a hand on her shoulder and smiled softly.

“You heard Colleena,” I smiled in an attempt to comfort her. “He’s going to have the genetic makeup of both you and Gia. I don’t think anyone who tries to mess with the baby is going to realize exactly how much ass his parents have kicked.”

Andy laughed, and she wrapped me in her arms, nuzzling my neck. Just this once, I let her do it without complaining about how cold her skin was against mine. She kissed my forehead and threw her cigarette over the balcony, and smiled widely at me.

“Thank you for everything, Em.”

Andy squeezed my hand, and headed back inside.

--

I couldn’t tell you where we were headed; in fact, I wasn’t even sure we were in Flagstaff anymore, period. We had piled into Alucard’s military jeep once the sun had finally started to set, and we drove. It seemed like we had driven forever before Alucard had pulled over on the side of the road.

“This is as far as the car is going to take us,” He shrugged, and jumped down, holding out a hand to help me down. “From here, we walk.”

There was only the five of us there – Scott, Andy, Gia, Luke and I; and I say only because of the other four people we could have brought with us. We seemed to fall in some sort of unspoken but assumed formation; I was in the middle, with Gia and Luke on either side. Andy stood beside her girlfriend, and Scott beside Luke, and it was then that I realized that they were protecting me.

This is obviously much worse than they had originally let on, I frowned, but continued walking into the woods along the side of the road anyway.

We hadn’t gone far – I suppose about fifty yards or so - before Andy and Gia both stopped dead in their tracks. Scott looked over and seemed a bit confused, but stopped without any complaints. Alucard turned from my sister until he was facing the direction we had been heading in, and eyes emptied of any sort of expression whatsoever. His eyes locked on a point ahead of us, and I think that if he had had the time, he would have warned us.

I followed Alucard’s line of sight until I saw… Alucard. I blinked, and turned to face the man next to me, and then the same man in front of me. It took me a minute to realize that the man in front of us had his hair tied back, and it was longer than even Az’s was. The double vision thing, however, was still making my head spin.

“You never told me that there was another you,” Andy mumbled across the line, and Alucard shrugged.

“I never thought that I’d have to.” Alucard lifted his head and watched as his double approached. “David.”

I screwed up my face; how on earth did you have two boys, name one a simple name like David, and the other an outrageous one like Dracula spelled backwards? But then I remembered that the Order had been the cause of Alucard’s new name. I realized then that I had never known him as anything other than Alucard.

“My dear brother,” the man called out, holding his arms out.

As he grew closer, I could tell that something about him was abnormal. Wracking my brain, I knew that Alucard’s sister was nearly his age (for he, like the rest of the Order, didn’t age – I had yet to figure out why). I also knew that Alucard had been his age for the past ten years, if not longer. Looking at the man in front of us, I realized that he looked exactly like Alucard; this man, David, was his twin, and hadn’t aged anymore than his brother had.

“You lost the right of having any relation to me,” Alucard growled in the man’s direction. “What do you want?”

David laughed; it was a deep, comforting laugh that I had come to realize meant nothing good coming from the bad guys. I glanced at Alucard, who seemed to be struggling to keep his composure.

“It isn’t me that wants anything,” He smiled widely, and I made a note that he had no abnormally sharp teeth. “I’ve come with friends to pay a visit.”

As if they had had this synchronized, two men stepped behind David, flanking him on either side. There was suddenly tension building up on my skin, and I looked to see both Andy and Gia staring at the men with some emotion I couldn’t quite name. There was disgust, maybe even a bit of fear. I recognized one of the men vaguely, as if I had seen him in a dream when I was younger – I couldn’t for the life of me think of why I thought I knew him, though.

“You.”

It was just a breath, and exhale passing between Gia’s lips; then there was silence, and a snarl. Gia crouched, and she might have leaped, too, if Andy hand grabbed her by her arm. I could see my sister’s knuckles turning white, and I was just grateful that Gia’s bones were stronger than most.

“That’s what he wants you to do,” Andy breathed to Gia. Then she focused on the men ahead of us and recomposed herself. “I’m not sure what you want, but you won’t find it here – any of you.”

The man on David’s left smiled almost sadistically; he wasn’t that tall, but he wasn’t that short, either. His beady brown eyes held some sort of expression, and all I knew is that the look in his eyes chilled me to the bone. He wasn’t overweight, but he was big, and that matched with the look in his eyes was enough to warn me to stay away from him.

“We’ve already gotten what we wanted from you,” He smirked. “That’s why we left – or had you forgotten?”

My sister’s face fell, and I could see a glimmer of pain before anger took over. She let go of Gia’s arm, and the latter girl disappeared. I heard a sickening thump, and when I saw Gia next, she had tackled the man who had yet to say anything. He was tall, with long blonde hair that made his ice cold blue eyes stand out.

“Was that really the smartest thing to do?” Scott hissed to my sister.

Andy nodded once and crossed her arms.

“Better the wereleopard get to them than the vampire,” She mumbled. “She may actually let them live.”

It would have been funny except for the fact that I knew she was absolutely serious. I stepped closer to my sister and pulled on her hand – her skin was abnormally warm, and her face even seemed a little flushed.

“Who are they?”

Her eyes flicked over to meet my face, and then she was staring at the three men in front of us.

“Cowards,” She spat, uncrossing her arms. “The lowest excuses for human beings I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

“So you know them?”

Andy sighed and looked at me from the corner of her eyes again. Scott came up behind me and pulled me to the side, his eyes watching Andy the entire time; I suppose he wasn’t concerned about whether or not Gia let the men live, either.

“The man in the middle, David,” Scott glanced at the three men. “Is Alucard’s twin brother. Just before you were taken by Deidra, Alucard’s younger sister was taken as well. The man you see in front of you is the reason she was taken in the first place.”

I frowned. “The reason?”

Scott nodded. “When the family found out about Alucard’s gifts, most were ecstatic – David was not. He was insanely jealous; his negative feelings towards his kin attracted Deidra to him; she offered him his own powers, if he offered her something in return.”

“Their sister.”

Scott nodded again. “Alucard always felt more strongly about his sister than he had his own twin. By giving her to Deidra, he was hurting Alucard and gaining power at the same time – two birds with one stone, I suppose.”

“Alright,” I nodded, because the tension between the two brothers made sense now. “But why doesn’t he look older than Alucard now?”

“People don’t age when they’ve crossed to the Other Side,” Scott mumbled. “David liked being the most powerful being in one plane; so he stayed, until Deidra – and, by default, the Other Side – was destroyed.”

I nodded again, because this, too, made sense. As I looked over my shoulder, though, I could see Gia struggling to snap at the man she had pummeled; her hands, feet, and face were the only parts of her body that had taken the form of a leopard. The man underneath of her held his forearm to her throat, choking her and pushing her away; Gia didn’t even seem to notice.

“The other two men -” Scott pointed first to the man on the ground and then the vaguely familiar one with the freaky eyes “ – are Jonathon Cavern and Matthew Asino.”

The way he spoke made it seem like he expected the mention of their names to bring a sudden realization upon me. When I continued to stare at him, just as lost as before, his eyebrows rose, and he looked past me to Andy.

“You never told her?”

Andy shot an annoyed look in our direction and shook her head.

Scott turned back to me and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“A few years ago – five or six, maybe – Andy and Gia took a trip back to Maryland, to check in on things. While they were there, they met two cousins.” He pointed again to the two strange men. “An open relationship, if you’ll call it that. Your sister and Gia decided to stay in Maryland for a little while, to see where things would go. Well, things lasted two years between each couple; your sister was even engaged.”

I felt my eyebrows disappear into my hairline, and I glanced at my sister.

“No,” I grumbled. “She declined to mention that.”

“Give her a break, Emily,” Scott hissed, and it startled me. “She was lonely – she had just moved away from her family, her lover was supposedly dead, and she was lonely. Besides,” He growled. “She probably thought that what happened was better left… for dead.”

I stared at him. “Well, what happened?”

Scott looked at his feet, and I could see a flush creeping across his cheeks. When he looked up at me again, his eyes were burning with a hatred that I had never seen in anyone’s eyes. It was cold, unbridled rage.

“After your sister and Matthew got engaged, he brought up the idea of having group sex with Gia and Jonathon.” Scott was glaring, and it seemed like he was staring at nothing in particular. “Apparently, Jonathon had brought up the same idea with Gia. Both women declined, but it didn’t matter much to their… lovers.”

I felt my face flush. “You don’t mean…”

Scott nodded. “They tied them up facing each other. Your sister and Gia came back immediately, and the rest of us made it painstakingly clear that if they were to ever try to so much as find out where the girls were, they’d feel a wrath much worse than death or rape.”

I felt all the blood rush out of my face, and then from my entire body. Now it all made sense; I wasn’t sure why Alucard’s life and my sister’s had mingled by way of assholes, but they were here, and all of the hate finally made its way underneath of my skin. Some inhumane sound came pouring out of my mouth, and the ground fell away from my feet; when I came to my senses, I, like Gia, had tackled one of the men on to the ground.

“Emily, you idiot!”

My sister’s scolding fell on deaf ears; my hands were already curled into fists, and it seemed like they had made up their own mind that they were going to attack Matthew’s shoulders. He didn’t try to deflect the blows, but simply stared up at me while I beat on him.

“She’s feisty,” He called out, to my sister, I assume. “I’d have a lot of fun if you let me take her home.”

“Just you try,” I growled, and it wasn’t a human sound at all. “Just you fucking try. I dare you! Let’s see how strong you are without your ropes and your fucking partner in crime!”

I was still cursing and flailing my limbs, but he was falling away from me. The more I paid attention to it, the more I came to realize that someone was pulling me off of him. I barely noticed that Jonathon was standing again before I heard a growl in my ear; Gia had abandoned attacking him to pull me off of Matthew. Suddenly I was the one to be afraid of.

“Calm down!” Gia pulled my arms until they crossed in front of my chest, and she hugged them there. “Would you act like a human, please?”

“You’re one to talk,” I hissed, and it was as if the sensor between my brain and tongue was permanently turned off.

There was nothing but the sound of our ragged breathing for a minute, and then Scott came and took me from Gia. I hid my face in his chest, and he ran a hand over my hair, over and over, until I no longer felt like I could eat somebody’s throat out of their neck. I exhaled one last shaky breath, and turned to face away from him; I kept his hand firmly in mine, though – just in case.

“What do you want?” I asked the same question Alucard had earlier. “Haven’t you tormented everyone enough?”

The three men exchanged glances, and David pulled something out of his jacket; I hadn’t noticed that he had kept one hand tucked underneath of the fabric. He tossed something, and when I looked down, there was a book sitting at our feet. I had never seen it before, but the symbol was familiar enough.

“You’ve had it all this time?” Alucard looked up and faced himself. “For ten years, you’ve had this book, and you’re just now figuring out what to do with it?”

Andy snatched it off of the ground and flipped it open. A horrible noise, like a woman screeching, filled the woods, and I cringed until Andy shut the book.

“No,” Scott answered for the group. “They’re just now figuring out where we are.”

David smiled brilliantly.

“We just don’t think it’s very fair that a large group pretending to be human move into an innocent town like Flagstaff and captivate everyone in your spell.” David smiled wickedly. “But you should know that there are those who know what you really are we’ve made sure of that.”

“That’s how Sykes knows something’s wrong,” Alucard mumbled to us, his eyes unfocused. “They’ve told the Sykes family.”

There was a soft rumble of laughter, and then it seemed as though the three men had disappeared. I felt an uncontrollable feeling of helplessness and rage – all rolled into one – playing pinball with my insides.

“Great,” I sighed, turning and moving towards the jeep. “More freaks to worry about.”