Scary Dead Things - 02 (20 page)

Gan smiled as she answered, “Because I have chosen you as my mate.”

“WHAT!?” Sally and I simultaneously blurted out.

“I have decided you are to be my mate,” Gan replied evenly. “I shall be your queen, and you shall be my consort.”

I turned back towards Sally and saw that her face had gone red again (
really have no idea how she was doing that
); however, this time it wasn't anger. She looked like her head was about to explode. She quickly excused herself. The door had just barely closed behind her before I heard an eruption of laughter from outside. Good to see she had my back here.

“I'm not sure I understand, Gan,” I said, ignoring the guffaws still coming from outside of the closed door.

“For centuries, my father has treated me like a child; however, I am no child. I am a woman, old enough to make choices. And I have chosen you, Freewill, to be mine forever.”

“
Why
exactly?”

“We are an excellent pairing. I am royalty. One day, I shall ascend to the First Coven to sit as an equal with my father. You are the Freewill that our legends speak of. Together, we would make a formidable team. Besides, you also make me smile.” She grinned up at me with those big green eyes of hers.

Oh boy. This was starting to look messy. “And your father agrees with this?”

“No. He is too set in his ways. He told me that he forbids it. But I am a woman. I do as my heart commands.”

A thought entered my head, and with it I could feel the threat of a migraine coming on. “Your father didn't let you come here, did he?”

“I need ask no permission. I am a woman. I go where I please. It pleased me to come here after you.”

Oh shit! No wonder James had wanted me to leave. He had been listening in on their argument back at my dinner/trial. I guess he figured out of sight, out of mind. He figured wrong.

“Gan, listen to me. This is important. Does the Khan know where you are now?”

“I would imagine so. I left father a letter stating my intentions as a woman.”

Oh shit, oh shit! I tried to hide the fact that I could feel pinpricks of sweat breaking out on my forehead. I asked with a forced cheerfulness that I wasn’t feeling, “Just one more little question, Gan. What do you think your father will do once he reads your letter?”

“Father is set in his ways,” she replied in the bored tone of someone who has seen this sort of thing happen many times before. “He will no doubt send his assassins to retrieve me and most likely kill you and your followers (
oh, of course!
). But do not worry. Together, we will defeat them and send their heads back to him. Then we shall be together forever.”

* * *

I left Gan sitting where she was and stepped out. I found Sally still wiping tears from her eyes. “Glad you find this amusing,” I snarled at her.

“Oh, you have no idea,” she chuckled back at me. “I haven't laughed that hard in decades.”

“Good, because I hope you can keep your sense of humor when you learn how fucked we are.”

I filled her in on what Gan had just told me, making a point to emphasize the assassins coming to kill me
and
my followers.

“How bad are we talking here?” she asked, having quickly sobered up.

“If it's what I think, then we’re probably talking three vamps with about a millennium of experience amongst them.”

“That's not good.”

“Ya think?” I snapped back at her.

“Don't get all testy at me. You're the one that the ten-year-old she-demon finds irresistible.”

“Twelve.”

“What?”

“She's twelve...sorta,” I replied.

“I'm pretty sure that wouldn't matter much to a jury.”

“It's not the judge or the jury I'm worried about,” I said. “It's the
executioners
.”

“I swear, trouble just swarms to you like flies to shit.”

“Maybe next time you'll just let me take my vacation in peace,” I offered. “As usual, the caveat being that there
is
a next time.”

“That’s one of the things I admire about you, Bill, your always upbeat attitude.”

“What can I say? The world needs more eternal optimists like me,” I joked.

“All jokes aside,” Sally said, getting back to the subject at hand. “What are we gonna do about this?”

“Not sure. From what I learned while I was there, apparently these people put some pretty big stock in my being a Freewill. You should have heard the shit they were spouting.”

“Let me guess, the words
chosen one
were spoken?” Sally ventured.

“Not quite, but pretty close.”

She sighed. “The world needs some new clichés.”

“Tell me about it,” I agreed. “But anyway, I know at least one of the guys the Khan will be sending, a dude named Nergui...”

“Nerd Gay?”

“Watch it! The juvenile humor is supposed to be my thing,” I warned.

“Sorry. You must be rubbing off on me.”

“We can talk about you rubbing me off another time,” I said, quickly jumping out of slapping range. “For now, though, let's focus. Nergui speaks English. Maybe we can talk him down. Hopefully, he'll be willing to listen to our side of the story.”

She considered this for a moment. “A lot depends on the Khan here. If he gave a solid order...or worse yet, gave Nergui a
compulsion
to kill you, then all the flowery words in the world won't save us here.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I kind of figured that was the more likely scenario.”

“I'll put the coven on alert.”

“Good idea. What’s the drill?” I asked. I was ostensibly in charge of the coven, but even I had to admit Sally had way more experience in vampire goings-on than I did. She also kept an eye on things during the week while I was off earning my sheckles as a code monkey. Thus, there was no shame in deferring to her now.

“I have a couple of ideas.”

“Lay them on me.”

“OK,” she started. “For now, I say we assign guards to the main coven nests. Here, the loft, maybe the warehouse. Encourage the rest of the coven to stay in those places and not go anywhere except in a group. That part shouldn't be hard.”

I nodded in agreement. Jeff had run the coven much like a frat house, and a good deal of that mentality still remained. I was half-surprised whenever I saw any of our membership get up to use the bathroom without three others in tow.

“I’ll also tell them to make it a point to notify us immediately in case anyone goes missing,” she finished.

“I almost hate to suggest this, but what about arming the coven?” I asked.

“Stakes?”

“Guns,” I corrected. Vampires are much stronger and more durable than humans, and we heal in a fraction of the time; however, from personal experience, I can attest that our nerve endings work just fine. A gun shot wouldn't do much in the way of killing a vampire, but it would hurt like hell and give the attacker an advantage. Now that I was thinking of it, maybe something like a bayonet would be ideal. Shoot ‘em, then stake ‘em!

“Tricky,” she said, shaking her head. “You know how we have some deals in place with the human authorities?”

“To keep our messes under the rug?”

“Exactly. Well, part of those agreements include that we're not really supposed to arm ourselves with anything other than basic melee crap. I mean, haven't you wondered why you haven't seen any of us packing heat before?”

Actually, I hadn't. Now that I thought of it, the whole fracas with Samuel's group had immediately turned into a street brawl...not a single shot fired by either side. Hell, not a single gun brandished. Damn, I really needed to start paying attention better. I shrugged and replied, “I guess I just thought you were all a bunch of luddites.”

“What?”

“Basically, I figured you guys just didn't like technology because it was some kind of vampire thing. You know, maybe you all thought you were too cool for guns.”

She rolled her eyes and started to open her mouth, but before she could do so the door to her office opened.

“I grow weary of your whore's sitting room,” said Gan, standing there with a pouty look on her face. She might have the mind of a three-hundred-year-old vampire, but there were still some decidedly kid-like things about her.

Before Sally could say anything that would cause the rest of us to start betting on who would win in a fight (
my money was on Gan
), I stepped between them and addressed the little tyke. “Can you give us just a few more minutes? We're almost done here. Please...for me?” I said in my friendliest tone.

Gan mimicked Sally's eye roll and did as I asked. After she had closed the door behind her, I turned back to my partner and said, “Awww! Isn't that cute? She's already learning something from her auntie Sally.”

“Good, Bill. Because if you had called me
auntie whore
, I'd have killed you myself.” From the look on Sally's face, I didn't care to dispute that. “Although little Ms. Pain-In-The-Ass there has reminded me...what exactly are you going to do about her?”

“Me?”

“Yes,
you
. She obviously
wuvs
you,” Sally mocked. “Unless, that is, you'd prefer to just let her, a poor helpless child, loose in the city.”

I thought about that for a second before replying, “Do you think the city would stand a chance?”

“It'd be burnt to the ground inside of twelve hours,” she stated.

“Maybe the coven could...ya know...watch her?” I asked hopefully.

“Can you really think of anyone in our group who you would trust to babysit?”

I thought for a moment, and then looked up. Sally had no doubt read my mind because we both said simultaneously, “Starlight!”

“I guess that could work,” Sally admitted.

“Cool.”

“Just one problem. I sent Starlight up to Boston. She won't be back until tomorrow night at the earliest.”