Misery
Blood Sisters.
I don’t have a sister, I was an orphan. I don’t believe in Vampires, they are myths that make interesting movies.
Say this three times and three women find out that what they had believed in all their lives was wrong, they had sisters and there were Vampires.
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Misery
Copyright © 2013
M. Garnet
ISBN: 978-1-77111-504-9
Cover art by Carmen Waters
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
Published by eXtasy Books
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Misery
Blood Sisters 3
By
M. Garnet
Dedicated to three special gal friends, so it only seems natural that I write three stories about three women and their loves, no matter how strange love might be.
Since I started these stories some time ago, I had dedicated them to three friends, since there are three sisters in these stories. But we have lost one of our friends, so hopefully she is still enjoying my follies, as she watches over my shoulder
Prologue
Funny how you somehow know if someone is staring at you, even if you turn around to find that no one is there. There is a natural built in receptor that warns a person when they are being followed by eyes. You know
—
that crawly feeling you get on the hair on your arms. You kind of straighten your shoulders, maybe put your hand to your face to pull that wild strand back in place. You never know who is looking. Maybe you will get lucky. Maybe it is someone important, or that someone special you want to meet in the bar. No, wait, could it be that creepy person that you saw at the bank, the one that didn’t want dirty dollar bills, only new ones? Enough with the imagination. You have a feeling you are being watched, but you don’t really see anyone.
Sometimes you look around quickly. It is the world that is watching, eyes looking everywhere to see what is growing, what is changing, who is in love, who has heartbreak...what is new, where people can be so that they sit and look at each other. Traffic ties up, allowing those on the sidewalks see the people in the vehicles. Usually the cars go by so fast you never see the faces, but let one light malfunction and you can see the faces frowning, the kids looking out, the people in panic because they are going to be late.
Sometimes it is your own eyes, looking inward, making you see things you didn’t want to see about yourself, seeing the truths that are hard to admit. Then the looking gets dark
—
damp walls with slime, hidden ugly eyes that you really don’t want to acknowledge or look into, buried deep in shadows that are meant to stay hidden, below the morass of lies and half-truths we have used to cover what is hidden in these places so that we don’t have to see…so that we don’t really have to take them out and look at them in daylight. We will hate those who force us to bring into clean sun the hidden horrors of these cellars.
But you always know when it is real if someone is watching you. You feel eyes that you cannot see. You turn around fast to catch whoever is there, but no, just a shadow, a figure walking away.
Chapter One
She loaded up her two toolboxes to follow her partner into the back door of the office building. They had parked their work van in the back of the large building, in the proper area marked for deliveries, temporary help, etc. A guard was just inside. He looked at their work order and their ID’s. He even asked to see their driver’s licenses.
Usually the checks weren’t this intense. This repair must be on some type of really top secret electronic equipment. She didn’t look at the paperwork to see where they were going, or who the company was. She left that to her partner. She was interested in the electronics, the computers, and the hardware. She had looked at the initial workup paperwork to make sure she was familiar with the equipment. She was looking forward to seeing the network.
The guard looked at his computer. He looked from her partner to her. “Mis Chamberlain? What is your first name, please?” He was looking at her ID, then looking at the name stitched on her work uniform. Of course it only said M. Chamberlain. She went through this a lot. People mistook Mis for Ms.
Tony, her partner and the senior on this assignment, looked perturbed. He chose to answer for her. In defense of her, he chose to be a smart ass
—apparently
he’d already decided the guard was stupid. “Her first name is Mis, that is spelled just like you are looking at M-I-Z. So the whole title would be Ms. Mis Chamberlain, that is if you were being modern. Or it could be Miss Mis Chamberlain, or it might even be Mrs. Mis Chamberlain. Now would you please quit messing around with our names and let us get upstairs so we can fix your IT problem?”
The guard didn’t take it very lightly to be made fun of, especially in front of a woman. He held them up some more while he made a phone call. Finally they were released and given a printed sheet from the computer printer behind the guard’s desk that gave them directions to the Computer Tech room.
She and Tony were used to working together. They were efficient. Not a lot of talking, just getting into the mainframes, following the rack-mounted systems, connections, and handing each other the right tools. Tony pulled a couple of fried boards and replaced them. They looked at the real problem and he asked Mis to call the office.
Sally, the receptionist, inventory specialist, and coffee maker extraordinaire who kept track of everyone in the field, answered in her usual unflappable manner.
“Sally, need to check on four T66485 full plates. They really fried some here. We also need to put in a manual surge suppressor somewhere on the intake lines. This is going to be a two day job. We really need to send the boss around and sell these guys on a Constellation.2. We don’t know what they are storing here, but they have pushed this to the limit. “
Sally promised to look up everything for tomorrow, so the two person team was switched over to talk to the boss. The boss always appreciated a tip for a possible sale. They ate lunch in the freezing IT room and worked through the afternoon.
At three thirty they gathered everything, again with few words, then headed down to the guard’s desk. They signed out and went to their van to put everything away. They took a moment to clean up their cases, re-stock, and make some notes on their electronic notebooks.
Mis unzipped her uniform and pushed it down. She sat on the back of the van. She wore a simple sleeveless tee tucked into tight jeans that let the one piece orange loose uniform fit over her clothes comfortably. She pulled off her work shoes and kicked off the uniform. She took the time to fold it up, then sat it in the van with her work shoes beside it. She pulled out a pair of loafers and slid her feet in them.
In the meantime, Tony was repeating the same process. The one bonus of working with Tony was he never hit on her. He was really, really married. The little bit he talked to her was always about his wife or his kids. He had taken her home a couple of times to a good meal.
Suddenly Mis had a shiver as if, in this hot alley between the large buildings, a cold wind had drifted down for just a moment. She looked around, expecting to see paper blowing, expecting to see people walking down the alley. She thought some guys in some type of sporty car were ripping by, blowing a tailwind. There was nothing
—
wait, there was a man, a dark shadow just stepping away. He turned the corner out of the alley and was gone. So was the cold feeling.
“Hey bud, you okay?” Tony pushed his uniform into the van and closed up the door, but he looked at her with concern.
“Sure, thanks, just had one of those feelings that someone was staring at me. Crazy, because no one was there.” She hit him on the shoulder and walked around to the passenger door. But before getting in she looked one more time in the direction of the corner. No one was there.
“Where do you want me to drop you off?” They had logged out on their ENs
—
electronic notebooks
—
and Tony could take the van to the warehouse, which really was a group of garages in a rental strip. He would leave it inside the secure area so he could drive his car home. So the boss didn’t mind if Tony dropped her off somewhere within reason.
“Well, the QuickMart on Seventh would be great. I need a couple of things. It’ll be a nice walk home after being in that freezing room all day.
It was easy for her to get out and inside the QuickMart. It was attached to several open markets, so she could pick up some fresh fruit and vegetables along with the essentials she needed. She had a computer bag hooked over her chest. She had a small Apple MacBook, her EN, and in the outside pocket her ID, makeup and other personal items.
She carried her bag from the QuickMart in her hand as she was looking at the fruit in a stand next door. She had a second plastic bag, so she was choosing a couple of apples when she picked the wrong one. The stack slid down, dumping apples onto the floor. She knelt down and started grabbing at apples rolling around. She had most of them when she reached for one that had stopped against a pair of black polished boots.
She picked it up, then stood to look up at the very large man standing there holding out another apple.
“Thank you, sorry, my bad.” She reached for the apple with a silly smile but saw that she wasn’t getting a smile in return. What she saw in the face that was at least a foot above her head was hard dark eyes below drawn eyebrows that met in a deep frown. Dark rich hair fell over the forehead, curled in front of the ears, but did nothing to soften the look of the face.
With a softer look, the face would have been very handsome
—
strong jaw, full lower lip that was almost sensual, straight sharp nose. There was a scar that ran across one eyebrow that added a touch of menace. This large man might be handsome in some ways, but in most ways he looked a hundred percent dangerous. She took a deep breath and realized they were almost touching. It didn’t look like he was going to let go of the apple. She was uncomfortable because they were too close, so she took a step back.
He put the apple on the table and walked away.
Wow, what was that?
The thought ran through her mind that she had seen him before but she couldn’t think where. It was obvious that she would remember someone of his size, especially someone who looked like him.
Okay, buy some fruit, then go on home
. She needed to get inside, eat something sensible, turn the TV on to something that didn’t require any thought. Just curl up on the couch.