Banes (13 page)

Lydia nodded, "Exactly and for you to be on the side of good you will need some help with control."

"So you're really not mad about yesterday?"

Lydia frowned, "Ari I am furious about yesterday but you aren’t alone in the blame. Elsie and I are just as much to blame as you are. We all messed up yesterday. I want you to pack a bag for New York. You'll be there for a few months."

Ari choked on her disgusting cereal making Aimee gag slightly.

"Months?"

Aimee nodded, "I will come and visit as much as they’ll let me. We wont leave you there alone."

Lydia squeezed Ari's arm, "There really is nothing to be afraid of."

Ari didn’t look convinced and Aimee didn’t blame her, she shivered remembering her months at The Roses. She looked at her ring, pride and fear made the ring special to her.

Ari looked sick standing at the front door waiting for Aimee.

"You know Ari since we're winking there you don’t need to wait at the front door."

Ari smiled nervously, "Yeah force of habit."

Aimee flexed her fingers, "Ready?"

Ari shook her head looking around the room, "No."

Aimee smiled and touched Ari. She winked thinking about the lobby to the building in New York. It was a bank on the bottom eight floors and the roses the other twelve floors. The air moved around them flashing colors for only a second and her boots made contact with the ground again.

"I hate that." Ari shivered.

Aimee laughed, "Yeah no one likes it."

Ari looked stunned seeing the modern and fancy lobby. Aimee remembered her first time and smiled, "I get it. You saw where I grew up. We didn’t have fancy buildings like this one."

"Its like something off a TV show."

Aimee laughed, "Well lets go see everyone." She walked up the large glass doors and walked up to the receptionist.

Ari gasped looking at the woman sitting at the desk, Aimee kicked her and made a face.

"Morning Gladys how are you?"

The woman smiled back flashing her bright green eyes, "Aimee how are you?"

"Great, this is Ari. I think Lydia called about her."

"Yes of course, Ari nice to meet you."

Ari stammered, "H-h-hi, uhm nice to m-m-meet you."

Aimee felt her face flush, "Sorry Gladys, first tiger."

Gladys laughed, "I remember everyone's first day."

Aimee dragged Ari to the waiting area and slumped her into a chair, "Dude not cool." She whispered almost silently.

Ari frowned, "Sorry. Her eyes…"

Aimee put a hand to Ari's mouth and whispered softly directly into Ari's ear, "No. Hush. She can hear your heart beat, werecats have incredible hearing. I will explain later." Aimee pulled back and smiled, "So did you say goodbye to everyone?"

Ari frowned, "uhm no. Ben was going to let me play with his wolf but we had to leave and he wasn’t at his room and Lucas was gone."

She smiled at Ari almost laughing, "Don't let Ben con you into playing with his wolf."

Ari frowned, "What? Why?"

Aimee rolled her eyes, "Just focus on finding a way to text Lucas and see if you can't get him to talk to you."

"I don’t have a cell anymore. Street urchin Ari lost hers." She rolled her eyes.

Aimee grimaced, "Okay well they will give you your cell phone pretty much the first day so I will add you and give you my contacts. You can text him if you want to."

Ari smiled, "I haven’t touched a cell phone since I left the desert. It's been really weird. I wondered at first if my friends missed me but then I remembered none of them have met me. Not since I became this. None of them would talk to a girl like me."

Aimee hugged her, "Ari you are the girl you were all along. The scars and the tats are kinda like a reminder of the path you don’t want to take."

"Aimee."

Aimee smiled seeing a tall man walk from behind the second set of glass doors, "Mr. Jacobs, how are you?" She stood hugging him and kissing either side of his face.

"Daniel please." The older man smiled softly. His elderly face, gray hair and genteel English accent were not to be mistaken with nice old man. Aimee learned that the first day. He might have soft blue eyes and enjoy a cup of English Breakfast every morning like her father but inside he was a frightening bloodsucker.

Aimee blushed, "Of course, Daniel this is Ari. Ari this is Mr. Daniel Jacobs, he is in charge of recruits and training."

Ari stood inspecting him, "Nice to meet you." Aimee could tell she was fighting her other self taking over. It was the poor kids defense system.

"Ari we have heard so much about you. Your gifts are so very rare. Please come in." He held a hand up to a scanner on the wall and the glass doors opened.

Aimee walked behind Ari who kept looking back at her. Aimee smiled trying to reassure her.

"This facility was built a long time ago but we've continually modernized based on current designs and trends."

Aimee hated the long shpeel but she listened as Daniel walked them through a bunch of labs and offices.

"We have been in this office for eighteen years and before this we were actually in a building on this very land for two hundred years. When the settlers came to the New World we came along. We started in New England first and then moved our headquarters here when the city really started to boom. Has either Lydia or Aimee told you anything?"

Ari shook her head walking along looking dumbfounded.

He smiled at Aimee, "You left all the explaining to me?"

Aimee smiled, "We didn’t know what she was Daniel."

"Fair enough, Ari lets have seat in here before we get you settled into a room." He pointed to a lounge with blue fluffy couches and steel coffee tables. It was modern but comfortable.

"In the world there is light and dark, good and bad, gods and devils, it doesn’t matter how its spoken there is a fine line between the balance between what is right and wrong. Taking a human life, an innocents life is wrong. Many like us have done it." His eyes flashed toward Aimee who lowered her gaze knowing the innocents she had taken in the beginning.

She looked at Ari seeing the same look on her face and smiled.

Daniel laughed, "Everyone is guilty of it. Especially in the first phases of whatever changes occur. I myself have committed a few atrocities in my time. Here we offer the chance at not only learning to control whatever urges or hungers you face but also in a select group of people like Aimee, we offer the chance at redemption."

Ari lifted her face to Aimee surprise, "Redemption?"

Daniel smiled, "Yes love." He held up his platinum ring with the thin red line running through it, "We are the thin red line that keeps the balance in society. We are the protection between good and evil."

Ari smiled harder, "Like a superhero?"

He laughed, "Yes exactly. Obviously we can't have someone who is mortal running about trying to stop the chaos that sometimes occurs but your DNA has proved to be interesting."

"Like a superhero? Did I get bit by a radioactive spider?" She was still smiling but it was a sarcastic smile.

Aimee laughed, "Ari just keep an open mind." She knew what it was like to have it all explained.

"Well you probably noticed Gladys at the front desk, she is a weretiger. Her eyes always look like a cats eye. She can't help it. She wears contacts in front of regular people but in front of us she lets it be the way it is."

"I don't know what that is. I know Brandon is a shifter but he never stays around long enough to explain it to me and no one else will." Ari looked at Aimee.

"She, like Brandon, turns into a cat. Like a Bengal tiger. They are shifters. They can transform into certain animals. Panthers, wolves, bears, tigers, and oddly enough dogs." Aimee smiled.

Ari frowned, "I don’t understand. What happens to their body?"

Daniel sighed, "Ari it changes, they are still themselves they just shift."

Ari frowned, "Only those animals?"

Daniel nodded, "Yes well we believe the other species have died off, not strong enough. The predators have managed to live because they're strong. Then there are people like me." He smiled letting his fangs drop. His blue eyes turned black filling his entire eye so no whites remained.

Ari screamed jumping off her chair.

Aimee leapt after her catching her, "It's okay Ari."

Daniel frowned, "I'm still me Ari. I just have these." He put his fangs away and the black pulled back into his pupils.

Aimee held her trembling friend. She lifted Ari's face to meet hers, "It's okay. He wont hurt you."

Ari nodded watching Daniel, "So what could I possibly do to you? How could I superhero fight against someone like you who could drink my blood and kill me?" She seemed very panicked.

Ari took a deep breath and pulled away from Aimee sitting back down in the chair still on edge.

"Well for starts your blood would kill me, you're part demon Ari. You're actually very rare, a born demon. They rarely survive and the mother never survives unless she is the demon. You're very lucky."

Aimee watched Ari get lost in it all and the switch occurred, "Yeah well I don’t feel very lucky. One version of me never existed and the other me has lived on the streets my whole life except for the time I've spent in orphanages. I have no family. We obviously have a different idea of what lucky is." She started to shake with anger, "You people are freaks."

"You must be the other Ari that Lydia told me about."

Ari sniffed at him, "You and Lydia can go fuck yourselves. This three ring circus is a joke." She turned to Aimee and scowled, "You want me to stay here with the cat lady and fangs over there? You trying to punish me for something Aimee? I wanna go home."

Aimee met her stare intensifying her own, "Ari I want you to push her down into the darkness. Find your way back up. You're safe here. Do you trust me?"

She could see the switch as Ari's face flushed, "I'm sorry. I didn’t mean to swear at you." She looked at Daniel shocked.

He laughed, "You are very entertaining Ari. That must be some battle going on inside of you. You are a born demon, which means we will have to have you trained by a demon. You must snuff out the other you in there to ensure you're not a danger to people, or yourself."

Ari looked at Aimee, "What happens if I'm a danger?"

Aimee felt her face flinch, "We deal with it."

Ari looked at Daniel, "What do you do?"

He clasped his hands together, "Ari we don’t just let people like us run around killing or amassing armies. We remove them before they break the laws."

"What laws? Where do they go?"

Aimee felt a lump in her throat, "We send them to heaven Ari."

Ari looked frightened, "You'd kill me?"

Daniel straightened, "Ari its very unlikely that you would continue to be a threat once you got rid of the other you. She is out of control, like a caged animal she is not to be trusted. You however had a very normal life before this all happened. You're level headed and really the perfect candidate to become a Rose."

Ari looked distant, Aimee knew it was a hard concept to understand in the beginning. She too had had problems grasping that if she didn’t gain control they would end her life.

Daniel smiled, "Lets not dwell Ari, lets not cross that bridge until we have to. Right now let's focus on the now. The laws are firstly keep the secret. No humans can know we exist. Every time they find out about us huge problems arise. They need ignorance. Secondly Do what ye will but harm none. No human or being like us can be harmed in your efforts to live."

Ari winced, "That man. I sent him to jail for a crime he never committed."

Daniel nodded, "Right exactly but how could you know. You need to learn to discern what's right and wrong. Since we don’t have anyone like you we need a demon to teach you to figure this out."

Aimee stood, "I'm going to let you guys get this all going. I need to get back to work. I'm following a girl who is a huge threat. She hasn’t woken yet so we don’t know anything yet but if she does wake we could be in trouble. Can you let me see her cell you're going to give her so I can add her contacts she'll need for the next few months."

Daniel stood hugging Aimee quickly, "yes of course just ask Gladys, she'll be the one arranging all of that."

Aimee bent and hugged Ari, "Hang in there kid. It is going to get easier every day. Text me as soon as you get some alone time k?"

"Come see me when you can please." Ari's eyes were huge. Aimee kissed the top of her forehead, "Yup."

She walked from the room. She smelled it instantly as she left the room. She turned her head to see Dorian walking into an office next to her. He smiled and blew her a kiss. She felt her hackles come up, "What are you doing here?" She whispered knowing he could hear her perfectly.

"Training the new girl." He smiled stopping in the doorway.

Aimee frowned, "You?"

He shrugged, "Hey I'm a demon."