Chapter Seven
Thankfully I slept through the worst part of the evening, which included a make-shift surgery to try and stitch up the canyon in my side. When I woke up, I could tell it was several hours later by the way the light came through the tightly-pulled curtains. I didn't open my eyes at first; I was savoring being alive, conscious, and in a minimal amount of pain. I think it was actually a few minutes before I noticed the voices. No, not crazy voices, whispering voices--voices of people who were trying not to wake me up. I started to alert them to my awake-ness, but I had learned that often the most advantage came out of these situations by...well, taking advantage of them.
"Who is she?" a woman asked. It sounded like the same woman that had answered the door last night--the one who had more than likely saved my life.
"Do you really not recognize her?" This from a voice I recognized--Chase, the werewolf who had saved my ass last night. Was it just me, or was I needing a lot more saving than usual?
"Am I supposed to?"
Chase sighed. "Really, Morgana, she's only famous. It's Kayla Atrelic."
I could just see the expression on the woman's--Morgana's--face. "She...she's who?"
"You heard me," Chase said. "Kayla Atrelic, vampire slayer extraordinaire. Killer of all of us monsters who victimize the human race." Hmm, I kind of liked the sound of it, if truth be told.
"You know, she's wanted in the state of California," Morgana said. I fought against the urge to give away the fact that I was awake. No, I hadn't known I was wanted in the state of California. Wanted for what, and by whom?
"I am not giving her up to Stavros," Chase said very adamantly. This time it took almost all of my control not to give myself away. Had he said Stavros? As in Stavros, the master vampire of the city of Los Angeles? That was definitely not good. No, not good at all. "She saved me, Morgana. If she hadn't shown up, I would have been food for the vampire. Albeit, there was probably an ulterior motive to her showing up, but--"
"Which vampire?" Morgana interrupted, apparently not concerned with whatever theories Chase had on why I had shown up when I did.
"I didn't recognize her," Chase said. Morgana let out a sigh of relief.
"That's good," Morgana said. "At least it wasn't one of Stavros'. Could you imagine what would happen to you if you helped off one of his vampires?" Chase remained silent, a testament that he knew, and didn't want to be reminded. I chose that moment to let them know I was awake, because I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to know where the conversation was going. I knew now that I shouldn't have, even for a minute, let my guard down. Sure, Chase and this Morgana person had saved my life, but Chase was a werewolf, and Morgana probably wasn't human, either. They were the monsters, the things I had given an oath to protect humanity against. You just don't trust the monsters, no matter how many times they save you.
I groaned and sat up slowly, feeling the stitches in my hip stretch painfully. "Ouch," I whispered, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. When I finally looked up at Chase and Morgana, the looks on their faces told me I hadn't succeeded in fooling them, not for a minute.
"How long have you been awake?" Morgana asked. At least, she had to be Morgana. It was the same voice that I had been hearing for the past few minutes, and she looked like Chase, at least in the face. He had black hair, clipped short but still long enough to be naturally spiky and lightly tanned skin, and she had lighter skin, not pale, but lighter than his, and straight black hair. Their faces were the same--they both had dramatically high cheekbones, sharp edges to their face instead of soft lines. Morgana was also the same height as Chase--it wasn't every day you saw a woman over six feet tall. At first I had been kind of worried that maybe they were married--after all, a married werewolf shouldn't flirt with the first vampire slayer he picks up--but now that I saw them standing together, I knew they had to be related somehow.
"Long enough," I answered her question, watching them both with wary eyes. I let them know with my body language that I didn't trust them, and they shouldn't have trusted me, either. After all, they knew my reputation. Chase had said it himself--I was the scourge of the supernatural world. Of course, both of them just stank with lycanthrope energy--not literally, of course--so I knew that in my current state, they could both wipe the floor with me. They wouldn't even have to gang up on me, they could take turns.
"Don't try to fight us, Kayla," Chase said, looking at me pleadingly. "You'll lose."
I stared back at him, unwavered. "Pretty words for someone who saved my life," I said.
"You can't really think we'd want to hurt you," Morgana said, trying for comforting. Something about her face just didn't make comforting possible for her. Too harsh. "If we had wanted that, we could have let you bleed to death."
"But you didn't know who I was before," I told her. "As soon as he told you my name, you wanted to turn me in to the city's master vamp. And you see, that sets off a whole bunch of little warning bells in my head--most of them are saying that anyone who would turn me in to a master vampire wants to hurt me."
Morgana and Chase exchanged looks. I don't like it when people exchange looks like that in front of me--usually means there's something going on that they don't want me to know about. I looked at both of them. Chase was wearing a pair of jeans--button undone--and nothing else. I must admit, it was distracting, but I tried to look past the muscle to the man. He didn't look overly dangerous, but I, of course, had seen him shift to a half-wolf half-man form, and that had looked very dangerous. He could probably break me in half like a brittle twig without missing a beat. That alone should have made me wary, but then we had to add Morgana into the equation. A very tall, well-built woman who just stank with lycanthrope energy. She was older, and more powerful than Chase, which meant she could probably just look at me and break me in half like a brittle twig.
I would have felt a whole hell of a lot better if I'd had my guns.
"I'm not taking you to Stavros," Chase told me.
"So you're just going to harbor a criminal?" Morgana asked, turning to him.
"Whoa!" I said, causing them both to look back at me. "Criminal?"
"In the preternatural community," Morgana began, and she almost managed to pull off looking apologetic, "you're considered to be the bogeyman." This I knew, but hearing someone actually tell me that was just a little different than simply knowing it. I also knew that those prices on my head probably had not gone away--if anything, they were probably growing. I was sure every master vampire or alpha lycanthrope would like to get their hands on me, to either woo me to their side or, if that didn't work, kill me. And there was Chase and Morgana--talking about turning me in to one of those master vamps.
"Is there some kind of reward?" I asked. "For anyone who finds me, I mean."
Chase and Morgana exchanged another look. Finally, Chase spoke: "There is a contract out in this territory, but we only collect if we kill you." The look on Morgana's face said she didn't think that was an entirely bad idea. Had these people saved my life just to kill me again later? This day was starting to suck. Chase looked at Morgana, and saw the look on her face. He obviously knew what that look meant, because he assured me, "I am not going to kill you."
"Why?" I asked. It probably wasn't a good idea to sit on their couch and talk about them wanting to kill me, but it wasn't like I had any alternative. I didn't have any weapons, I was in no shape to physically fight, and they were too powerful for me. If it came down to physical combat, I'd probably die anyway.
"The same reason I didn't let you die last night," he said.
"You think I'm cute?"
He just smirked at me.
Suddenly Morgana paused, and sniffed the air. "Chase, watch her," she ordered. "The tea's boiling." As she walked off, I couldn't help but think that her simple little statement of "the tea's boiling" had to be the weirdest thing I had heard since waking up. For some reason I just didn't picture Morgana as someone who brewed tea. Ever.
Chase took a step towards the couch, as if he was going to make a move to sit beside me. I gave him a cold glare. "Don't you dare come any closer," I said.
"Don't you trust me, just a little?" he questioned. "I've already said I'm not going to kill you, or turn you over to Stavros."
"Sorry," I said coldly. "I make it a point not to trust monsters."
Something went dark in his eyes--that little spark of humor that always seemed to be present went out, leaving his expression cold and dark, like mine probably was. "You seemed pretty trusting last night, when I was saving your life."
"I was choosing the lesser of two evils," I said.
"Are you always this cold?" he snapped.
"All the damn time," I answered. I did have the grace to feel just a little bad for him. Maybe I shouldn't have been so cold towards him; he had saved my life. I just made it a point not to trust things that weren't human. Even if he had been human, I would have been cold towards him, because I had developed this complex where I didn't get close to anyone. I had gotten close to people in the past, and look what had happened. One had died, the other had dumped me because I dealt with things he didn't want to believe in. I figured that gave me license to be just as cold as I wanted to be.
Morgana came back not a moment later with a tray of three steaming cups of tea. I guess she really did brew tea. She sat the tray on the coffee table in front of me and took two of the cups, handing one to Chase and taking a sip of the other one. That left one still on the tray for me. I stared at it. I so did not want to drink it. One, I felt like if I drank or ate anything I would get sick, and two, it was probably drugged or poisoned. Morgana saw me eyeing the tea warily, and she smirked, but it wasn't an amused, flirtatious smirk like Chase's was. Hers was malicious; dare I say evil? "What's the matter, Kayla?" she asked. "Don't trust me?"
"I just had this conversation with him," I said, throwing a glare in Chase's direction. Morgana laughed.
"Unlike my brother," she said, "I don't care if you trust me or not. In fact, I wouldn't trust me if I were you." Hmm, I'd keep that in mind for later reference.
"I kill people I don't trust," I told her.
She smiled. "Then this should be exciting."
With that, I picked up the tea. I picked it up even though I knew it was poisoned, or at least drugged. I picked it up because I wanted to show Morgana that she had won this round. With lycanthropes it was always a power struggle--who was weaker, who was more powerful. I picked up the tea because I wanted Morgana to know that she had won this round, but the next time she butted heads, she would lose.
Then I took a sip, I saw Chase mouth the words, "I'm sorry," and everything faded to black.
