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“Do you do that with all left/right exercises you perform to failure?” the same girl asked.
“Usually, yes.”
She nodded, no one else said anything, and he smiled at them all, one at a time, his gaze traveling around the group, before he said, “It’s fine to do them against the wall at home, with one foot touching, or maybe just your big toe. Use the wall less and less for balance until you no longer need it. You’re working on strength and balance; it’s okay to focus on the strength aspect while you let the balance sort itself.”
He walked me across the room to Gideon, who stepped away from his pupils and shook first Ryan’s hand, then mine. I understood the handshake was his way of telling the kids he accepted me here. Physical touch with a powerful Strigorii implies trust.
“I’d intended to ask you to give a levitation demo to the room as a whole,” Gideon told me, “but I didn’t expect you’d be in a dress.”
Ryan smiled. “She’s an old one. When given the choice, she’s in a dress. I think she and Ruth are going to have more in common than any of us will be comfortable with.”
“I wanted to kill Mira the first time I met her,” Gideon said. “I trust your judgment, but my inner slayer doesn’t trust so easily. Once I saw Ruth cutting up with Mira and doing her mother-hen thing with her, I could relax and get to know her. I’m good with your vampire right off the bat, but I don’t know if that’s because Ruth accepted her, or whether it’s my own discernment.”
“I can blur myself, so humans can’t focus on me, but I have a feeling Slayer vision will still see me, so it’s probably best I remain on the ground,” I told Gideon. “When we come for the agreed upon classes, I’ll dress appropriately to teach a physical class. I apologize for not understanding you might want more from me today, in this way.”
“No need to apologize. Would you be up to running two laps around our facility and letting us time you?”
“Running, or flying low?”
“Our system requires you stay over the charcoal-colored track. If you can do so while flying, perhaps you could do it both ways?”
“I can certainly do that.”
Marco and I had discussed how much I should show them. It was widely known that, in previous centuries, the slayers had taken Strigorii vampires prisoner rather than killing them, specifically so they could test them and discover their abilities. They likely already knew how fast one of us could do this track, both running and flying. I probably wouldn’t supply information they didn’t already have, but even if I did, it seemed fair, because I expected to learn more about slayers while I was here.
I made my way around the track both ways, running and flying low, and the kids seemed impressed with both times.
I noted every one of them followed me around the room with their gaze. Humans can’t see us running, so Slayer vision can pick up way more frames per second than a normal human, even in children.
“We’ll be downstairs for a while,” Ryan told Gideon once we’d talked about the possibilities of setting up an obstacle course, so students would know how fast they’d have to finish in order to beat a vampire.
Once we were downstairs, Ryan pulled little pieces of black cloth from his pocket, and little sticky dots, and he draped the fabric over a light switch, over a little black dot on the wall I’d have never noticed, and over a table leg. He pointed to a little dot on the ceiling, and handed me a strip with four of the dots on it, and a square black cloth, six inches on each side. “Levitate up and put dots in a square around it and then stick the cloth to it. Try to make the cloth mostly straight, so the cam can’t see around it.”
He pulled a small speaker from his pocket, fiddled with his phone, and music came from the speaker. “The music will keep any audio equipment from picking us up. We’re good.”
The table tennis games went as expected, at first. We’d agreed to play to twenty-one, with the first to win three matches to be declared the winner. Modern-day rules set the games to eleven points, with the best of seven matches, but we both preferred the older rules.
I won the first, but only after a tie. It’s a good thing I’d been practicing, because it seems Ryan is quite skilled at everything he does.
We were tied again during the second match, when Ryan came across the table and towards me, and I had to react or be killed.
Ryan’s face was distorted, as if he was trying to fight his inner beast, so I dove under the table, came up on the other side, ripped part of the table away, and used it to sandwich him between the wood of the table and the wall, frantically considering all the ways I might incapacitate him without killing him. I pressed as hard as I could until he was no longer breathing. Slayers have been known to stay underwater up to ten minutes, so I figured I had at least three or four before I’d need to consider letting him have some air.
Tell me when you’re back in control, I telepathed.
Not yet. Talk to me, please.
We’re good. This is me. You attacked me and I only used defensive tactics to stay alive. No aggression. I’m not your enemy.
Friend. Lover. How do we get beyond this?
Time. Habit. We grow trust and familiarity. We can do this. I know we can.
I’m back in control.
I immediately stepped back and away from him — far enough away I’d have time to react if he came after me again, but I needed to show complete trust, so I didn’t hesitate to move the instant he told me to.
“It seems, in a contest of who has the most control, you win, hands down,” he said.
