Chapter 28: The Meeting

  Mabel and I leaned on each other as we held the cell phone in our hands. They had one warm arm wrapped around my waist while I mimicked the gesture. It was difficult to not hear the steady thump of Dinner’s heart, but I did my best to focus on the animated show.

  We watched a pair of episodes before asking if Mabel wanted to watch something else. Their heart picked up its pace as our eyes met. Mabel smiled softly, cocking their head a bit.

  “It's getting late, eh?” Mabel asked.

  “It is.” I nodded as I turned the screen off and set the phone on the coffee table

  Mabel slowly leaned in, placing a hand against my cheek. I thought they were going to kiss me. My eyes widened at the thought, because I assumed we were moving fairly quickly with Mabel mentioning to Glenfield that we were already partners without discussing it between Amelia and us. It was strange. Something I wasn't prepared for just yet. Amelia was still at the forefront of my mind and I wanted to give Mabel my whole attention

  I leaned toward them as I prepared to kiss the lanky half-elf. Only to have their finger press against my lips and halt my momentum, causing me to blink a few times. A giggle left their throat as they leaned back and grinned.

  “No, no. No biting just yet. I see your fangs,” they said playfully and winked.

  I frowned as I looked away from my meal, because I didn't remember letting them slide out. It’s not like me to have them out like that. That's Eva, she liked to show her fangs off at any opportunity. The thought made me question if she was still lurking or not. Eva hadn't made her presence known if she was. Again, I never was devoured by another vampire before, so what i am feeling could be normal. Perhaps it would only take a few weeks to subside and I’ll be normal again.

  “It's okay.” Dinner patted my shoulder. Followed by climbing onto my lap and straddling me, pinning me to the couch so I couldn't escape. “I know how much you've been wanting to drink my blood since we first met. Just… be gentle, okay?” They tilted their head to the left to expose their neck.

  Gentle was easy, but at the same time I wasn't sure if I really wanted to drink from her. Mabel was always there for me, much like Amelia. And if I drank from them then that would leave them vulnerable in the daytime. I couldn't have that, but my stomach said I needed a meal and there was a willing victim near me.

  “Are you sure?”

  They nodded.

  I gently placed a hand on the half-elfs lower back and pulled Mabel closer. They shifted position to make it even easier. As I leaned in to bite their neck, I paused momentarily, eyes shifting to Mabel’s lips.

  “Truthfully,” I began as a grin fell across my face. “I wanted to kiss you on the lips. Biting comes later.”

  Mabel shifted close enough that our breasts squished against each other like soft pillows and pressed their lips against mine. They were warm compared to me, even with my heart pretending to be alive. I ran my hand along their hip as we kissed, focusing my blood where it needed to go to keep myself looking as ‘normal’ as possible. My own slowly beating heart picked up in speed, bringing some color to my skin once more. Hopefully Mabel got the hint as I undid her pants button and slipped my fingers inside between silken fabric and skin.

  Normally, I’d introduce any prospective partners to Amelia and have them talk it over before we all agreed on how best to have the relationship play out. But that time has long since passed. While Amelia didn't seem to mind Mabel's presence, I don't think she would care if we shared a night in celebration of her being regrown. But truthfully, Amelia would probably be annoyed with us that we didn't wait for her.

  I could just imagine her cute pout, but Mabel was right in front of me. Lord, was the half-elf on my mind. They had done so much for me and asked for practically nothing in return. I don't know how I'll ever repay them for what they've done. Especially as they undid my robe and tantalized me with the softest of touches against Eva’s navel piercing.

  *** ***

  The next evening was alive with activity as we got ready to finally meet Amelia. The two druids had managed to get the spell to take hold, so we selected a meeting point somewhere in town that my sire wouldn't go to.

  She wouldn't be caught alive at the arcade, but that was a place I wasn't too thrilled about. The museum was another option she might never go to, but they all came with a risk of the public seeing what we were doing. It had to be somewhere quiet and private. I felt like I was being followed and watched from the shadows, which made a quiet and private place a bad idea if my sire showed up. She’d just use her voice and make me follow her again.

  As far as I was aware, the council headquarters should be neutral ground where use of powers and any hostile actions was forbidden. As was decreed by the ancient vampires before I was embraced. Which meant right under my sire's nose would be our best bet, but that would expose the truth to the world.

  If I was to survive the year or beyond then I should stay hidden. It was an annoying conundrum that could be called a ‘tight spot’ by a vampire I once met.

  Mabel mentioned my sire attempted to influence the half-elf the night after they first met, but it failed because Mabel was prepared. And that preparation was the dumbest thing I’d heard in two hundred years: Mirrored nightglasses.

  As long as Mabel wore them they were immune to my voice. Sure, they could hear me telling them what to do, but I failed to make direct eye contact with them and the demonstration was an exercise in frustration. They had worn the glasses when I climbed out of the trunk inside their shuttle. I hadn't made the connection until now.

  It was awkward to hold the small mirrors in my hand and see my own terrible reflection. Nightglasses were common knowledge I didn't possess. I looked it up online for myself and saw that it had been so prevalent in the early years when brands marketed specific nighttime glasses with no shading for the wearer. Which is what Mabel owned; a pair of chrome night glasses meant to keep a vampire’s mind games at bay.

  I still didn't see how they worked beyond just being a mirror on one side. There were no spells or enchantments on it.

  The half-elf got dressed in a skirt short enough I’d never wear it and a fishnet shirt overtop a tank top, followed by a cute jacket. We then drove to the mall where we were meeting Amelia in an hour. There, I found it to be an awkwardly loud enclosed building filled with far, far too many people walking between different stores and talking all at once. Even more so than the large balls I remembered going to. I didn't know why the noises were hurting my ears now when they previously didn't. Perhaps it had something to do with being in Eva’s body.

  As I wandered through the mall holding Mabel’s hand, I couldn't help but pick up snippets of conversations as we passed by different groups of people. It was enough to make my pointed ears ache. I don't know how Mabel was able to ignore all of the noise in the mall. Let alone in the club where we met.

  Because music echoed from speakers in the mall's ceiling and the stench of so many mortals in one place was almost too much. It was more than a ball with hundreds, if not a thousand mortals and vampires shoved in one massive place. I kept my head down and eyes focused on the ground, trying to blend in as we made our way to the glasses boutique.

  It wasn't so much out of fear as it was to stop them from noticing how pale my skin looked in the artificial lighting. Even with focusing on circulating my blood to look ‘normal’. Most people were too absorbed in holding their phones anyway, but the mall guards might notice. I’d like to think my old facial appearance was pretty known considering there were articles and textbooks with my old portrait in it. And if a guard looked in my direction too long that would alert them.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Oh sure, I had the deputy badge in a pocket, but that would involve Carlisle and the man was insufferable with his following me around. He probably still was.

  I could just leave Encinar by ship and be done with everything. The option was there! All I had to do was tell Mabel ‘let’s fly’ and they’ll take me and Amelia to their ship. Most ships were either tall ships or enclosed to protect vampires.

  So when I passed by an advertisement for the latest ‘cruise ship’, I came to a stop and just stared at what appeared to be a town flying through the stars. It looked less like a ship and more like a few cathedrals bolted together in a way that vaguely made sense. Complete with an open pool deck and smaller shuttles for transportation to and from the planet.

  I cocked my head at the display. They made churches into ships…

  Yes, yes they did.

  What an odd thing to do.

  I could barely hear the reply in my own head over the crowd.

  Dinner gently nudged my side, pulling my attention from the advertisement as they asked, “Everything alright?”

  “Yes,” I said, my voice drowned out by the people around us. I frowned and raised it. “Yes! I've never seen a flying church.”

  Mabel shrugged. “They're okay. Kinda preachy.”

  I rolled my eyes, slowly shaking my head from side to side.

  They took my hand once more and led me to an eyecare store where they sold regular glasses, sun and night glasses, and cybernetics eyes. Of course, I went over to the replacement eyes and just stared at them.

  The cybernetic eyes were, well, expensive. Sixty thousand credits an eyeball without insurance, which I didn't have. At least that was the starting price. I saw one golden eye that was almost half a million credits for one.

  “What does having robotic eyes do?” I asked no one in particular.

  But Mabel was softly squeezing my hand and just waiting for me to speak. They giggled softly. “Well, humans can't see in the dark and need that ability.”

  “I can already.”

  “But do you have thermal vision?” Mabel turned to me and tapped their cheek just below the eye, smiling. “Targeting Displays that integrate with the System to track your progress and enemies? How about a chip in your head to make and receive phone calls without touching your cell phone?”

  “They can do all of that?” I asked as I looked away from the half-elf and picked up the cheapest eye with Thermal according to the stickers. If I could just have thermal vision then maybe I could see better in the dark. As it was, my old glasses didn't even have their lenses in them anymore. I was just wearing them for familiarity sake.

  “Yeah! I know one guy who, like, has eyes that show him everything a mech HUD has.”

  I put the eye back and shook my head, keeping my voice quiet. “That's a bit much.”

  “Really? Your eyes have that same look to them.”

  I couldn’t clearly see them in the mirror, so I didn’t know what they were referring to. “Huh?”

  “Yeah. You know? They’re, like, really good, but they've got little tells in them that give them away. I bet they were hella expensive, yeah?”

  “What would it take to rob a bank?” I asked, unsure why. Something deep within me told me to change the subject and I had to listen to it.

  “Why?” Mabel glanced around for a moment.

  I leaned in for a kiss on their cheek and hugged them even though my brain told me people would stare. I whispered softly in Mabel’s ear, “I want to rob Isabella. I don't want to hurt her. I want her to squirm.”

  Mabel smiled as they hugged me back and gently rocked me from side to side in a comforting gesture. At least to keep up appearances. They whispered, “We can't talk about it here; too many people, too many ears.”

  I nodded as I broke the hug and looked for night glasses. They had a few styles I didn't like, such as very thin frames that wouldn't cover your eyes, all the way up to giant round glasses even larger than mine. And some that were sleek and modern with a wraparound style.

  I slid one of the wraparound frames on and turned to face Mabel since I couldn't get a good look of my actual reflection.

  Mabel tapped their chin in thought as their head tilted from side to side. I rotated my head left and right for a moment to give them all the angles to see the glasses from.

  They held up another pair that were similar to my original frames but with a bit of an angle to them. Cat eyes they were called. But even those didn't fit quite right. Mabel and I spent a solid twenty minutes going through as many frames as we could until we found one that fit my new face properly. They were shaped exactly like my old ones, but slightly different in the way they sat on my face. Covering both eyes, the night glasses felt odd to wear because they had a very slight yellow tint that made the whole world turn blue when I took them off.

  The only way to know for sure if they worked was to find a vampire and have them test it, but that was a dumb idea. While I do have dumb ideas, that was one that even I knew was beyond stupid. The last thing I wanted to do was give a vampire full control over me even if temporarily.

  We picked out the frames, bought them, and I inquired on the eyes only to be told, “Vampires can't get cybernetics.”

  I tried to argue that they could according to one expert I talked to. But the clerk was adamant that vampires couldn't. There was no way the enhancements would take hold, because my body would just regenerate whatever was removed and push away the new limb.

  I put my foot down and glared at the woman. “I am telling you, it is possible!”

  “And I’m telling you to leave,” the woman said as she pointed toward the door. “Please, before I call security.”

  Mabel gently tugged on my sleeve and herded me to the door even though I wanted to stay and tell the woman she was wrong. She was wearing the damn glasses and even when I ordered her to tell the truth she still said that it was impossible. I suppose that was a point in favor of the glasses actually working.

  The half-elf led me out of the store and down the walkway toward the center of the mall where the meeting point was. We were a half-hour early, so we had time to kill.

  *** ***

  The meeting point was a pizzeria, since they had a small arcade attached to attract a load of customers. By a load of customers, I mean enough customers to make the place an annoying mess of thought drowning noise. Between voices in conversation, the clinking of plates and drinks, to music and pinball machines screaming about high levels. I couldn't focus on anything.

  The floor was an odd chequered pattern of red and white with a few mismatched tiles thrown in. Smooth and echo inducing. The walls didn't fare much better as they were imitation metal panels with faux windows to ‘space’.

  The one Amelia sat at faced the door so she could see anyone coming in and out of the pizzeria and could quickly glance toward the kitchen if the door opened. That way she had a handle on anything around her. An old habit. She was dressed in a modern outfit provided to her by the druids with Cassandra’s harlequin necklace around her neck. Simple in nature with many pockets on her cargo pants and flannel.

  The fair woman’s bark brown eyes slowly went from person to person as she waited for me. We thought there was a half-hour to kill, but as per usual, Amelia was far more punctual than I ever was. As is what happens when you rise late in the evening and she is a mortal… dryad.

  She said that she waited for us for some time, reading through a small book about her new body and what was required to sustain it, but we ‘never showed’. She ordered a small drink of water and a personal pizza to eat. Since she wasn't sure what mortals ate. To her, the pizza smelled amazing. Well over two hundred years without food beyond light and decomposing carcasses would do that to anyone.

  Even me if I could actually taste the flavors.

  As for Amelia. Well, the sweet pineapples and ham smelled simply divine. A small smile crossed the woman’s lips as she steadily ate until it was completely gone. And then she took her bottle of water, her satchel and left the pizzeria to go look for me. It was only a few minutes before the meeting time, but she was worried.

  I’d be worried, too, considering my sire had Eva kill me this time around. I thought the mall was the perfect place due to how many people were there, but how wrong I was. Amelia was rusty. She'd been a tree for two centuries and recently received a brand new body with a permanent glamour overtop it to make her look human rather than a walking tree person. Much like the arch druid Anita.

  Amelia carried with her a pair of bracelets made from her own bark and new branches sliced off and strung into the correct shape. They were fairly snug and couldn't be removed without magic. Just as she carried an acorn and wore a root necklace, and had dirt in her pocket as backup. Something about having redundancies for ‘bits of home’.

  As she walked through the mall, she tried to ignore the stares, but too many were noticing her beautiful and wild green hair. So vibrant it was almost neon in color with leaves fully growing along each of the strands. That marked her as not human and made it so a small crowd surrounded the poor dryad.

  Mabel and I had noticed the commotion as we walked by but neither of us paid any attention to the neon haired woman. We couldn't see her clearly, as we were talking to each other about the piercing and tattoo parlor we had been looking at.

  But we arrived at the pizzeria and the two of us took a seat near the same table Amelia had sat at and waited. And we waited. It was still fairly noisy for me. Loud enough that it caused me to close my eyes and rub my forehead while Mabel ordered a can of blood, a carbonated drink, and a small pizza for themself.

  After the food was ordered, I covered my eyes with my hands and took slow, deep breaths much in the way a mortal would. But my ears hurt far more than anything I remembered. Not even after a ship battle did they ring and ache as much as they were. The modern lights stabbed at my eyes each time I opened them, so I left them closed.

  Mabel’s normally light voice was soft, but still too fucking loud as they asked, “Ears bothering you?”

  My eye twitched as I nodded slowly.

  “I’m sorry. I should have said the mall was loud.”

  “It shouldn't be this bad,” I said quietly. Even that was too loud for me.

  “Try these.” Mabel held out a package containing a pair of neon yellow plugs with orange stripes on them.

  As I took the package, I squished them between my fingers and frowned. “What are these?”

  “Ear plugs!” Mabel grinned. “Mike has sensitive ears, too, so I keep a few packages in my purse just in case she needs them.” They had applied a decent amount of makeup to ensure their pale face glowed in the light. Metallic purple lipstick caught the light and drew my eyes anytime they spoke.

  Mabel was truly beautiful. From the way the extreme light glinted off their eyes and black eyeshadow, to their hair curling back behind their half-elven ears. I couldn't stop myself from taking hold of their soft hands and admiring their matte black nails. Including their middle and ring fingernails being shortened more than the rest. It took me a moment to realize the implications and I blushed as memories of last night flooded back to me.

  The ear plugs were easy enough to put in my ears and once they were in, no more did the echoing voices sting. It was perfectly silent. Or as silent as it could get. There was still noise, but far more tolerable than before. I sighed softly as I slumped in my seat and waited for my blood can to arrive.

  And then a familiar voice shouted across the pizzeria, “Sandra!”

  My head snapped in the woman’s direction as my eyes widened. Amelia clutched her satchel close as she ran across the food court. Her neon hair trailed behind her, boots thumping into the tile. If I stayed sitting she'd tackle me. If I got up, she'd tackle me. It was a lose, lose situation.

  I got up to meet the dryad and opened my arms wide. She slammed into me, attracting all the attention as she lifted me off the ground in an extremely tight hug.

  “I am alive, my love!” she exclaimed.