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It was dusk again and my senses were at their prime. It didn’t take long for my eyes to adjust to the gloom, and it took less time still for me to recognize someone else was in the room with me. He was sitting in the plush armchair next to my bedroom door.
My pulse leaped a little, which made me feel stupid because once I recognized who it was I knew he’d heard the change in my heart rate.
Though neither of us needed the light to see, I turned on the lamp next to my bed and propped myself up on a pillow.
“You’re out awfully early, aren’t you?”
Holden frowned, which was not all that unusual since he rarely smiled. “As you must have anticipated, the Tribunal would like to have a word with you. ”
“Oh, Holden. I think you and I both know they will have a lot more than a word for me. ”
I noticed he wasn’t looking directly at me, and when I looked down I understood why. During my fitful sleep I had stripped off all my clothing, and the only thing covering me was a thin floral sheet.
“Oh. ” With the sheet still pulled close, I grabbed my silk robe from the foot of my bed and slipped it on, cinching it around the waist. “Better?”
The wolf part of me wasn’t shy about nudity. But I respected that Holden came from another time. An era in which having a conversation with a lady who was naked would be unheard of.
I also knew well enough that he wasn’t always this shy when it came to being up close and personal with women. It made me wonder if me putting on the robe protected his sensibilities or subdued his desires.
“Thank you. ” He turned to face me.
I wanted to point out that while he’d been watching me sleep the sheet hadn’t been pulled up at all, but I let him have the illusion of his modesty.
“They want to see me right away?” The clock on my nightstand told me it was seven thirty. The growl in my belly told me I needed to eat before I went.
He must have heard it because he gave me a slight nod.
“They requested I bring you at nightfall. Do you have food or will I need to take you to the Oracle?”
I looked at the clock. I had enough food in my fridge, but given the events of the last twenty-four hours I wouldn’t mind a visit with Calliope.
Calliope, better known among the paranormal community as the Oracle, was the fourth and final person who knew what I was. She owned a large mansion in the middle of the city, which existed on a plain outside human reality. Only those of the supernatural persuasion walking into the Starbucks on West 52nd and 8th in genuine need of help would find their way into Calliope’s home. She insisted the location was arbitrary, but I knew she had a sweet tooth for caramel macchiatos.
And the blood of male virgins.
Calliope was a true immortal. Vampires used the phrase immortal because they could not be killed by age, disease or random accidents the way humans could. But a stake to the heart, exposure to sunlight or, as I often demonstrated, a bullet to the brain could all kill them beyond revival.
Not Calliope. She was the daughter of a fairy queen and a god.
I had laughed in her face when she’d told me that the first time. She had politely reminded me most people would scoff at my parentage as well. Gods, she’d explained, at least in the Greek, Roman and Norse tradition, were not as divine as they’d have mortals believe.
There was a level of truth to most of the popular myths that came out of the polytheist religions. She told me that in the ancient years of Earth’s history, true immortals were not as publicity shy as they became in later centuries. They used their power and influence to achieve a godlike status and began to believe they truly were as divine as humans believed them to be. This delusion of divinity led true immortals to use the word god to describe themselves long after polytheistic religions fell out of popularity.
Fairies, on the other hand, prized their privacy. They existed in a separate reality, only deigning to cross over when something caught their curiosity or they found babies or women to steal.
Fairies never stole men.
Calliope’s mansion was a border station between human reality and the realms of fairies and immortals. It was a fascinating and terrifying place to visit. Calliope herself was part of the appeal. She had once lived among the mortals, using her particular gift for being the center of attention to its full advantage.
She had taken over the life of a small-town girl who had died without anyone’s notice, and reinvented herself as the ultimate blonde-bombshell glamour icon. When she’d had her fill, she left the body without further explanation. It remains one of the greatest mysterious Hollywood deaths.
To see Calliope now, she looked exactly like the icon once painted by Andy Warhol, only her hair was no longer short and blonde but restored to a long, smoky black. Her figure was bodacious, her pout still as alluring. I did a double take whenever I saw her.
Looking the way she did it was strange to hear her tell me what my future held. True to her title, Calliope was an oracle and could see the future of those around her. Her visions were often vague, but she was always right.
She also dealt in blood. Food for vampires without fangs or those still too young to hunt without being dangerous. The council sent all sanctioned newborns to live in Calliope’s care until they could be trained to behave.
I went to her because although I had fangs, I could not bring myself to feed off humans, willing or otherwise. It would cross too many lines for me. I could eat human food and enjoyed coffee and the occasional alcoholic beverage, but they did nothing for me nutritionally. I liked caffeine and booze because the acceleration of my metabolism meant I felt their effects almost instantly, and they burned off too fast for any lingering unpleasantness afterward. The downside was, going on a bender after a bad week was pretty much impossible because I was never drunk longer than an hour, and I couldn’t blame my bad judgment on impaired sensibilities. And while I could eat, I still needed blood. In a pinch I could eat blue-rare steak, or even raw meat, as they appeased the hunger of my wolf. But both monsters craved blood, so that was the only thing that really satisfied me.
