I was dead. Everything hurt so much and some awful smell lingered for what felt like hours. Alright, clearly not dead but I should have been. I remember getting stabbed in the dark and then nothing. But the nothing came after a lot of suffering and more blood. Too much, I couldn’t have survived. The pain and screaming seemed to disagree though. It was hard to think clearly. Someone was holding my hand and stroking my head. Then the convulsions started along with horrible cramps and I blacked out. The smell was worse when I woke to the feeling of pressurized water against bare skin. I still couldn’t see through the bright light and blinding pain. My body flailed like it was possessed, completely outside of my control. The pain built behind my eyes until I could feel nothing else beside it. Then came nausea and I rolled over to empty my stomach. The water came again and the pain receded enough for me to realize something. Urine and feces, that was the smell. I was being hosed off. This time it was the vomit.
They did not hose people off in hospitals. I was screwed. Probably literally if I recovered. Maybe I should bite my own tongue off. That was a thing right? Better than human trafficking. Too drastic, maybe later. The pain behind my eyes came back and I felt like everyone part of me was dying. Thankfully I blacked out again.
I woke up again due to more cramps. The pain was not all consuming this time and a hand was holding mine again. It was nice, warm, soft and smooth. So was the rest of me. If not for the pain that lingered throughout most of my body I would probably have been comfortable.
A woman spoke in a heavy Boston accent “Your alright Kali. Try to relax. The pain will pass in a few more hours and you’ll be just fine.”
“What happened?” I managed to croak out through an extremely dry throat.
“You were stabbed. My boss tried to fix you up but there were some complications. I’ll tell you everything when you’ve recovered but it's best if you just try to relax right now. No need for concern.” She sounded convincing. Calm, collected and about my age if I had to guess. “Why can’t I see anything?” I asked.
“You’ve had migraines, so all the lights are off.”
“Where…are we?”
“My place. I didn’t want to take you home until we figured out who stabbed you. Don’t worry, we have someone looking into it.” I tried to mumble okay but fell asleep instead.
This is taking forever, but it looks like she has passed the worst of it. “Eve! I think she’s going to make it. No, it doesn’t seem like she’s an idiot. How wo-
This time I could see when I opened my eyes. “Bathroom!” I called out in a panic as I lurched off the bed. I didn’t make it very far before the cramps in my stomach exploded like the time I ate bad chicken at an even worse drive through. Everything came out of both ends. I laid for a few minutes in my own filth on the floor with my eyes closed and my breath held. The smell was nauseating and it felt like my stomach lining would come up if I hurled again. I tried not to think of the mess I was making with every stomach spasm but I could feel diarrhea all over my lower half.
“Ah…shit.” I heard after the creak of a door opening. I cracked my eyes open to see a young woman in a NYU sweater outlined by a door and near blinding light. She began to strip and I closed my eyes again, the light was too bright. She picked me up and carried me a short distance then laid me down in what I could only assume was a bathtub. I was still holding my breath with my eyes closed but now the sound was nearly deafening. Feet on tiled floor. Metal sliding along metal and the swish of cloth and plastic. Water running through pipes and the sound of a thunderstorm as the shower pounded down atop my shivering body. My hands left my stomach and slapped over my ears as I screamed, then blackness again.
I woke up again. I was really tired of blacking out and waking up. I was confused for a moment until I realized that I wasn’t in any pain. No, that wasn’t true, I still had cramps but they were so much less painful that it almost felt good. I sighed and my guardian angel said “I think you're beyond the worst of it but…well, none of us are experts. How do you feel?” Her hand rested on my forehead and it was warm, almost hot.
“So much better. My stomach still hurts and your hand feels strange.” I opened my eyes for my first good look at the voice. There was enough light to see by but I wasn’t certain where it was coming from. She was…odd looking. A bit of a mess really. Considering what she must have gone through taking care of me that was no surprise. Unruly brown hair, dark eyes with smudged makeup. Younger looking than I thought at first but something around the eyes made her seem older, like she had been through too much for her age and it left a mark. Not bad stuff necessarily, but a lot.
The room smelled heavily of bleach and the lemons. I was back in bed, covered and warm. Comfortable apart from the pain in my abdomen, which seemed appropriate after a stabbing. I hoped I didn’t tear any stitches in my failed dash for the restroom. “Thank you for taking care of me…”
“Aisha.” She said with a small smile. “And you're welcome.”
“Wh-what happened to me?”
“Do you want the full version or the cliff notes?” She asked as she cocked her head, a small smile still tugged at her lips, like she was about to tell a joke that only she would find funny. “Let’s go with the short version for now.”
“Can do. My boss found you in the alley out back of The Crossroads, his restaurant. You were pretty banged up, looked like someone stuck a tire iron in your gut and yanked it around for a bit. Gabe brought you down stairs and the boss tried to fix you up. He failed on account of the nasty curse embedded in the wound. So he put you in stasis, tatted you all up with magic runes and swapped some blood with you. That devoured the curse and healed you all up. Comes with a few changes though. He called me in to be your minder. Get you registered, help you through the changes, teach you all about being a leech, that kind of stuff. Once you’ve worked through all the changes I’ll take you to see him and he can explain some of the details I might be missing.”
I blinked slowly for a few minutes like it would make everything she just said reorient into something that made more sense. While I understood little of what she was saying, one thing seemed to come through as a very strong possibility. “Am I, like, a slave or a prisoner or something?” Strangely, I was angrier than I was scared. She broke eye contact and seemed to be thinking about her answer far too long for it to be a simple ‘no, of course not.’
When she met my eyes again the small smile was back. “I don’t think that you will find that to be the case. It’s more like you're a new student at a school with strange people, like a new culture with slightly different rules. There are a few things you're not allowed to do, which you probably never would have done anyway. A few things you shouldn’t do because it will cause you problems in the long run and a lot of new stuff to learn.”
I closed my eyes and started at the top. “What am I not allowed to do?”
“One of the runes you have is a binding that prevents you from…let’s say harming, yeah, harming the boss or anyone else bound to him, like myself.”
“Why did you say ‘harming’ like that?”
“Because what I really want to say is too hard to explain without a lot of context. For instance you could totally punch me in the face and the binding wouldn’t do anything but if you tried to significantly harm me, the binding would stop you.” She patted my shoulder gently. I guess that wasn’t so bad. “That’s it for the stuff I’m not allowed to do?”
“Basically. It’s a bit more involved and harm can be more than physical harm but yeah, that's it.” I wanted to continue down the list but my mind kept going back to the other stuff she said: curses, magic, swapping blood, leech, tattoos, changes, registration and bound people. It was all too much and I was getting tired again. It was a strange kind of tiredness, like my mind was drifting off all on its own. It came with a feeling of hunger that started low, almost in my groin and spread to my chest then down my arms and legs. How can I have full body hunger pains? While my mind was drifting, not quite in a dream but certainly not awake, the hunger faded and when I did wake again it was nowhere to be found.
“Aisha.” I said in a dry croak. Only seconds later a door opened and I turned my head to see her stride into the room in a too large red sox jersey rubbing her eyes. As soon as I saw her, I quickly said “I think I need to use the bathroom.” She pointed across the room and started shifting nervously. I looked back and forth between it and her a few times before saying “What about the stitches?”
“What stitches?”
“On my side, where I was stabbed?”
“Huh?” That was it. She rubbed her eyes again. I knew I would have to see to believe so I reached down to remove my blankets and froze as I saw my hands for the first time. Tattoos covered both forearms and palms. It was hard to see colors in the dark and I froze again as soon as that thought hit. It was dark, pitch black, yet I could see fine, like I was in a black and white movie but fine nonetheless. I removed the blankets and lifted the white T I was wearing. Another tattoo, a large circle of esoteric runes around my stomach. I saw no wound at all but as I watched the runes moved and I screamed.
“Wicked ain't it.” Aisha said when my screaming stopped. A gentle hand on my shoulder stopped my flailing and I took a few deep breaths to try and calm down. It wasn’t helping. In fact, something about it felt wrong and before I began to spiral Aisha said “Yeah, we didn’t really get a chance to cover everything before you fell asleep this morning. Before we start, bathroom?” I remembered laying on the floor covered in my own filth and the desire to never be in that position again broke through some of the panic and I jumped up and ran to use the facilities. Even that was not normal, I still felt like I had eaten bad meat and the relief a few minutes later was substantial.
“What’s wrong with me?” I asked as I exited the bathroom. Aisha patted the bed beside her and when I was seated she said “It’s the change. You're through the worst of it but your body can no longer process solid foods. It’s trying to get rid of everything in your intestines and colon. It will be a few more days I’m afraid.”
“The change.” I said but part of me knew exactly what she was talking about. All the signs were there. As hidden as the world of the supernatural was, it wasn’t a complete unknown. Sure, there was a lot of fiction around it but with modern technology, videos and speculation were rampant. Wait, wait, wait. Don’t get ahead of yourself Kali. I took another useless deep breath and this time I wasn’t so panicked that I didn’t notice the smells. Oily feces, blood, bleach, soap, bile, a hint of tobacco. On reflex I followed the soap to Aisha’s hair and took another deep breath with my head buried in the crook of her neck. She brushed aside her hair and I was left staring at a long slender, pulsing vein. The sound of it crashed into my ears. Her heart beat was so loud I could feel it in my chest, like a bass drum took up residence. A new intoxicating smell was discovered and I licked my lips. I started at the action and froze, slowly looking over towards her face. She was smiling like an angel and nodded her head beatifically.
“It’ll be natural.” She said, accent thicker than normal. “Just go slow and be gentle.” I could feel my teeth grow as I bit down. It was like a water fountain but at one tenth speed. Only when I swallowed did the liquid move like I was expecting and only for a split second. It didn’t taste good, it tasted like blood, but it felt like god himself slid down my throat. Warm, fuzzy, holy liquid of pure happiness. Like all was right with the world and I knew my place in it perfectly. My body shifted of its own accord and I held her like a vice as I drank in great heaving gulps as if I had never had sustenance a day in my life. My whole body felt like pure morphine was flowing through it without the dimness of mind that accompanies drug use. I was never going to stop. This was my life now and I would drink forever.
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Warm hands slowly pried me off like steel hydraulics. A moan escaped my lips, I wanted more so badly but Aisha spoke “Good ain't it?” She said with a chuckle. “You're just dehydrated Kali, water will help.” I looked at her in horror. How could she be so calm? I would have killed her. I looked down and found that I was straddling her and she held each of my wrists and had one knee between us to keep me at bay. Her neck looked fine, no blood, no wound. Her face was a bit paler but the same beatific expression filled it and I got the impression that she was…proud of me. Like a parent who taught an infant to use the toilet.
She slowly, and easily, pushed me the rest of the way off, twisting so that I sprawled on the bed instead of the floor. “I’ll be right back.” She left and I lay there, mind spinning wildly as my body basked in the most glorious afterglow ever. I felt strong and had a certain energy in my legs and arms. Like I could run forever. I hadn’t felt this way since I was a kid. I wanted more. My mind whirled. I wanted to tackle Aisha the moment she came back. I would hide in the corner of the room and jump her from behind. Arms around hers to keep her from prying me off again and legs around her thighs to keep her from running. Yes, this was a perfect idea.
Great, is she going to be one of those bloodthirsty idiots or is this normal for a fledgling? It’s been too long, I don’t remember. Where’s my notebooks? “Gabe, brin-
“Kali, move back to the bed and try to calm down.” A voice said from space beyond the door. It was the girl, she knew I was waiting for her, hunting her. A loud sigh and movement. It didn’t matter, when it came through the door it was mi- Everything was a jumble. I was ripped through something from behind. Pressure on my neck like a vice as I flailed, then blackness.
I awoke…again. Damn, this was getting old. Memories came back to me after a moment and with them came an overwhelming sense of shame. A warm hand touched mine and slowly pulled it away from my face. “Shh, don’t cry dear. It’s perfectly fine. You're okay. I’m okay. Everything is okay.” Aisha said and I realized I was curled up in a ball crying like a child. Her hand released mine and slowly rubbed my back until I calmed down.
“I’m so sorry!’ I blurted.
“You're forgiven. It was expected.”
No. I shook my head. “I almost killed you Aisha, I would have. I just know it.”
She laughed. A deep throaty thing that didn’t sound like it could have come from a human. “No Kali. You can’t do anything to me I don’t allow. The boss would never have assigned you a minder so weak that you could actually endanger them.”
My mind was spinning again. Was she really an angel after all? I rolled over to get a good look at her. She looked fine. No longer pale even. She pointed to the right and I followed her gesture. A hole was ripped right through the wall…where I was hiding to ambush her. My eyes widened and I looked back at her face. Smugness exuded from every bit of it. “Wh-what happened?”
“You were high as a kite and beyond reason. Fledgling leeches get like that the first few times. You're a lot more durable now. Can’t just knock you out so I had to break your neck. Only took a few minutes to heal since you were well fed but you slept for the rest of the night and all day.” I gulped reflexively. She misunderstood and handed me a large water bottle. “You need to drink a lot of water. Not very often, maybe a gallon a week, but it's been nearly that long since you were attacked.”
“That long?” I said between mouthfuls of water.
“Yep. You’ve been cooped up here for ages and we have the whole brownstone to ourselves. Wanna go downstairs and watch TV or something?”
“Oh my god yes. Something normal would be amazing.” I said, bringing the water with me as I popped to my feet. We were on the fifth floor, which had two large bedrooms with a shared bath between them. The hole in the was just at the top of the stairs which lead down to a single large media room. I could see a clear night sky through three large bay windows and a terrace beyond that. “Can we go outside?” I asked and pointed to the sliding glass door between the windows just as Aisha began to tug my hand towards the couches.
She smiled a huge smile full of brilliant white teeth and said “Hell yeah, the weathers been perfect all week.” Then changed directions and threw open the door like she was introducing me to the world. The smells and sounds of the city hit me as I walked into the crisp night air. I’m not sure how long I stood there taking them but it could have been hours. It was a struggle to sort through it all and most of the smells were either new or just so much more than before that they seemed new.
“This is going to take some getting used to.” I muttered and she threw an arm around my shoulders and squeezed, laughing. “Yep. Took me a few months when I first got here to adapt. It all felt so overwhelming at first.”
“Are...are you a vampire as well?” I asked tentatively, trying out the new noun. She nearly doubled over laughing, squeezing me all the harder, but not uncomfortably so. “No-” She wiped at her eyes with her free hand then continued “Nope. I’m no leech. The boss is the only one in the family…well, apart from you now, I suppose.”
“Why…was that funny?” I asked, a bit confused.
She chuckled a bit more and then answered “The boss is not a big fan of vamps. He will go on for hours about how horribly they are if you let him. It’s so funny to watch but hard to keep a straight face.”
Really, I’ll show you funny, you stupid demon! “Gabe, bring me my cane! I’m going to shove it ri-
“So, are you…like an angel or something?” I stammered then rushed to add “I mean, you tasted like it and you're so nice and so strong and so…” I trailed off as she howled in laughter, rolling around on the terrace. Some jackass yelled at us to shut up, but with about a hundred expletives. I watched the clearly grown woman behave exactly like I imagined an angel would not behave for a full minute before I kicked her. She stopped, rolling onto her back and staring up at the sky with a shit eating grin on her face. “I’m lots of things.” She said “A TA at NYU. Got a master of studies in law, business and English lit. Working on a masters of sociology. I used to be a dretch, when the boss summoned me almost two decades ago, but I evolved into a lesser demon of intellect about five years ago. No Kali, I’m no angel.”
She never lost her smile. In fact she seemed awfully proud of herself by the end of the speech. She held up a hand I reached down to pull her to her feet. “You're really a demon?” I asked, “You don’t seem very demony.” She just shrugged. “What’s that like? What do you do?”
“School mostly. I spend my free weekends at The Crossroads, the bosses restaurant, bitching about school.”
Huh. “That sounds exactly like a normal college student.”
She shrugged again. “I’m more of a professional student than anything else.”
“You don’t…like, do demon things?”
“Sure I do. I feed off intelligence. Like you feed off blood. Sitting through a lecture with a room full of students is a very demonic thing to do.”
“But, you eat food. I smell tacos on your breath.”
“Yeah, but that's just to maintain the body. It doesn't give me any Significance.”
“Significance?”
“Yeah, like…power, or magic, or qi. But softer, less…defined. More…universal, I guess. Not really my field of study. The boss knows way more about it.
“What’s he like?”
“The boss? He's…complicated. Like, he sees himself as this noble, aloof, totalitarian warlock of doom.”
“And he's not?”
She snorted and said “Yeah, if you took that concept and made a cartoon plushie out of it, that's the boss.”
What did she just say? Surely she hasn’t forgotten about the mental monitoring. The insolence!
“I don’t really understand.” I admitted and she mimed stabbing someone with a sword while saying “He’s always stabbing at people with his fancy cane like at any moment he's going to blast them from existence.” she stopped miming and started pacing as she explained “And he curses a lot and yells at people, talking about how much he hates this and that. He is going to hate you so much by the way. He hates women, and vampires, and apprentices, I’m sure he hates warlocks, and fledglings, and humans, and vampires who were recently human and redheads and brunettes and stupid blonds…” She went on and on for sometime, everything just kind of bleeding together and getting more and more specific.
…
…
…
This is why I hate demons, no respect.
“I’m assuming there is a but coming, others I’m running very far away.” I said when she tapered off.
“Yeah, he’s like, super patient. I’ve never seen, or hell, even heard of him actually hurting someone in the family. If someone needs something they get twice what they need so he doesn’t have to be bothered again, because he hates being bothered.”
I was having trouble believing this. “So a vampire and his minions are just one big happy family where everyone gets everything they want? Sunshine and rainbows all around I suppose.” She stopped pacing and turned to face me, a serious look on her face for the first time tonight. She shook her head. “His wife, and don’t ever say that in front of him, is the most terrible demon I have ever seen. She will fuck up anything and anyone that dares to even look at him wrong. No one, not even us, are exempt from her wrath.” She shivered and ran a hand through her hair nervously.
“The jealous type?” I asked, a bit worried.
“No, no, no. She’s actually pretty great. I’ve never had a problem with her and she doesn’t have a jealous bone in her body. If someone was flirting with the boss it would probably just turn her on. No it’s more like…” She trailed off. Clearly not able to properly vocalize what she was thinking. “Look, it’s a context thing. You still have the mind and morals of a human. The rest of the family are demons apart from the boss. It’s a different, well, everything.”
I walked back inside and she followed, closing the door behind us. After I was settled on the couch and had a few minutes to think over everything I had heard I started up the conversation again. “So what, she doesn’t tolerate disrespect in any way? Cause I have to tell you, I am not great with authority figures.”
She laughed “Nope, all wrong again. Doesn’t care about respect at all. I’ve seen leeches come into the restaurant and curse out the boss right to his face with Eve laughing the whole time. That's the mistress’ name by the way, Eve. Five minutes later the boss had forgotten about the encounter completely and Eve never did a thing to them.”
“I don’t get it.” I admitted.
“It’s the Significance. Most have so little that the boss sees them as children. He expects them to be stupid and loud. He doesn’t like it but you don’t strangle someone else's child for crying, you just ignore them. A lot of the older leeches are like that.” I found myself relaxing muscles that I didn’t realize I had clenched. I guess I was not in danger of being killed for an off handed remark when I couldn’t control my stupid mouth. I took a few deep breaths and the scent of Aisha was beginning to distract me. However, I had an epiphany as to why my breathing was weird.
“I don’t need to breathe anymore. It’s not doing anything for me physically apart from smelling the air, is it?”
“Nope. I can tell you're getting turned on though. Just hungry or are you horny as well?”
I spluttered for a few seconds before I was able to get out “Hungry, and I’m not attracted to women.”
“Huh? Could have fooled me. Anyway, that's for the best. The boss said we shouldn’t-” she held up her hands to do air quotes and continued “ fornicate, until you were all settled in.” Then she pulled her hoody off, revealing her bare chest. She was lounging back in the corner of the big couch only a few feet away. I waved towards the terrace and said “Shouldn’t I, you know, learn how to hunt or something.” Even as I scooted towards her. That angelic smile was back on her face as she stared at me. All the more…significant, now that I knew she was a demon and not my guardian angel. She shook her head gently. “No. That’s one of the rules you should follow. I’m your minder and you should never drink from anyone but me unless the boss or Eve tells you too. It will dilute your blood purity and give you less Significance over time.”
There was a lot to unpack in that but I was getting hungry and tired of explanations I didn’t really understand. “It doesn’t hurt you? Or bother you?” I asked as I shifted onto her lap. She was quite a bit taller than me and I fit easily enough. She laughed “It bothers me that you don’t go down on me after you're done eating, but I can get sex pretty much any time I want so it’s only a small annoyance. The blood-loss just means I have to eat more and I love to eat. Lots of pedialyte as well.” I blushed hard as I bit down on her neck but I really did feel no attraction towards women. Not that I couldn’t tell that she was attractive enough, just not for me.
That thought was less concrete as I finished my meal and if she pushed I would probably have done anything she asked during the afterglow. Maybe that was why ‘the boss’ said that we shouldn’t be sleeping together. That didn’t stop me from falling asleep right there on top of her as the night ended, her arms wrapped around me. I think she was wrong, she was my guardian angel, had to be.