Woman King (19 page)

“As for you,” he continued. “You might offer
your blood to me for all of the wrong reasons,” he continued.
“Drinking your blood would bind you to me, and that,
darlin
,
is a permanent thing.”

“But if I offered?” I said, a hint of
pleading slipping into my voice.

“I would have to be certain,” he said. “It’s
a different life, a complicated life. Unless I was convinced you
understood the responsibility, I wouldn’t accept. Vampires don’t
share, Olivia. We don’t compromise, and we’re not very
patient.”

I wasn’t ready to let him drink, but being
stubborn by nature, his lecture was igniting a challenge within
me.

“Then why are we doing all of this?” I
asked.

“I can see I got your back up a bit,” he
said. “Don’t mistake my intentions. I want to be with you, Olivia.
But after 180 years on this earth, I have had my share of
heartbreak.”

He meant it. I felt his sadness, really, his
disappointment. To be alive for almost two hundred years must have
meant a few bad relationships. I nodded, and kissed him gently to
convey I understood.

William quickly dressed and dropped me at my
house. I would have invited him in, but I knew Elsa might be there
and I really needed to get to work, so we said our goodbyes. As I
walked in the door, he sent me a text asking me if I would join him
in two nights for a paddleboat ride at Stow Lake. It was so
old-fashioned and romantic, I accepted right away. Unfortunately,
my exuberance at being in the midst of a full-blown romance ran
straight into a wall of disapproval standing in my kitchen. Elsa
was there, decked out in black leather pants with an actual silver
dagger stuck in one of her boots. Lily was standing next to
her.

“Lily, what are you doing here?” I asked.

“Elsa texted me when you didn’t come home
last night,” she said, looking sheepish. Being a mother hen did not
suit her at all. I turned to face my housemother.

“What’s this all about, Elsa? What did you
think had happened to me?”

Elsa was angry but also relieved. I’m not
sure what she thought had happened to me, but she was experiencing
real relief that I was home safely. I hadn’t told either of them
where I was going. I didn’t want company, and I had not wanted
anyone to try to talk me out of being with William. Looking back,
my secrecy was probably impractical.

Elsa didn’t reply, so I posed another
question. “I suppose you both want to know where I was last night.”
Two heads nodded in unison.

Elsa spoke first, “Why didn’t you leave word
where you were going?” Lily looked pensive, as if she knew bad news
was coming. She was worried about a conflict between the three of
us.

“I should have left a note, or texted one of
you,” I said. “But can I ask why you were so worried? What did you
think happened to me?”

Elsa didn’t want to tell me exactly. Her fury
was dying down a bit, but she continued to restrain herself.
“Olivia, you are the only human agent working at the Council and
you’ve been the target of a demon attack. Gabriel, errr, I mean,
you report directly to the director. Anything could have happened
to you. There are plenty of people who would be interested in your
talents and connections.”

It sounded reasonably plausible. I wasn’t
alone anymore. I was a part of a team. “Look,” I said raising my
palms up in surrender. “I am sorry. I should have checked in. Next
time I will be more considerate.”

Lily was relieved. Fairies didn’t like
conflict. But Elsa wasn’t finished. “Are you going to tell us where
you have been?”

“I was with William,” I said, my chin up
slightly in a defiant pose. Now we were back to two against one.
Lily and Elsa were exchanging glances that spoke of serious
handwringing.

“You spent the night…with a…
vampire?
”
Elsa asked.

“Yes and no,” I said, resenting the tawdry
emphasis. “I slept at his house, as in a pillow and a blanket, not
with, you know,
him
.”

Lily was craning her neck to get a good look
at mine.

“
No
, he did not drink my blood.”

This was met with more raised eyebrows and
sideways glances.

“Really. He did not ask, and I did not
offer.” This caused them both to calm down, but I resented the
image they had painted. “I need to take a shower and jump in my car
to get down to Palo Alto, but I want to tell you both something
before I leave. William isn’t the villain you imagine. I scanned
the newspaper advertisements every Sunday looking for a listing for
his band. I took the taxi, unannounced, to his show. And I am the
one who pushed to have sex…and he turned me down.
I chased
him
.”

This seemed to catch Lily by surprise.
“Olivia, honey,” she said gently. “Are you sure you want to go for
something so complicated for your first serious boyfriend?”

Ouch. Leave it to my best friend to state the
obvious. Of course, I hadn’t planned on having a boyfriend. I
hadn’t planned on a century-old vampire catching my heart.

“William is different,” I said, sounding like
a cliché. “He’s not like anyone I’ve ever known. He is intelligent
and funny…”

“He’s dead,” Elsa said, interrupting me. “He
drinks human blood. Can I ask where you see this thing going? Did
you tell him about the Council, about your work?” It was clear Elsa
didn’t like vampires. She didn’t seem to trust them. It was a
deep-set feeling that I didn’t think I could change at the moment.
So I didn’t try.

“I’m not sure where it’s going,” I said. “He
doesn’t know about the Council. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off
to a campaign meeting.”

****

Once I was in my car, I phoned Levi and
Gabriel. Despite being thrown off my regular routine, I managed to
check in with them by phone at a time that was still within my
normal schedule. It was thrilling to have the first part of my day
occupied by a make-out session with my boyfriend, rather than
campaign duties. I hoped I wasn’t overstating things too much by
calling him my boyfriend. Maybe a human man would have said we were
dating, but I’d been the first woman to sleep at William’s home. I
didn’t believe a vampire would compromise his privacy for a date,
especially one that hadn’t involved the removal of clothes.

I quickly put all of my giddiness behind me
as I set out on Highway 101. My calls to both men were brief, but
important. We were opening a new campaign office in Palo Alto, a
wealthy quasi-suburban community that also is home to Stanford
University. We were going to open the office with a kick-off party
that evening where volunteers could come after work and celebrate
with a glass of wine before picking up their supplies. Gabriel and
Levi would be arriving at 5:30. The party began at 6 pm

I hung up with both men just as my office
called and patched me through to Patrick Wright, the day-to-day
manager of the campaign.

“The first shipment of door hangers has
arrived,” he said.

“What about window signs?” I asked in
response, hoping they too had been delivered.

“Yep, they’re here,” Patrick said. “All
2,000. Now all we need is an army of volunteers to deliver
them.”

“Amen,” I said. “I hear you. I’ll be there in
thirty minutes and we can go over the rest of this.”

As promised, thirty minutes later, I pulled
into a parking spot on University Avenue and walked toward the
headquarters, which had already been decorated with “Levi Barnes
for Congress” and “Barnes for Seat 15” campaign signs. As I got
closer, I noticed a man peering in the window, his hands cupped
around his eyes to shield out the glare.

“Can I help you?” I asked as I approached the
front door. A set of brown eyes focused on me with suspicion. He
was human, I detected very quickly, and very curious.

“Is this Levi Barnes’s campaign office?” he
asked.

I nodded, glancing at the dozen posters in
the window. “It is but we don’t officially open until tonight,” I
said. “Can I help you?”

“I’m JP Ellington,” he said, grasping my hand
tightly. “I’m a reporter with the Silicon Valley News. I’ll be
covering this race.”

I responded in kind. “I’m Olivia Shepherd,” I
said. “I’ll be managing the campaign.” I’d had this kind of
conversation dozens of times before, but never when I could read a
reporter’s emotions. JP was surprised, about what I wasn’t sure,
but I had a few ideas.

“You seem surprised,” I said, deciding to see
what would happen.

“I am,” he said, showing no hesitation. “I
guess I expected to see someone I know.

“You mean a man?”

“Yes, ah, I mean you’re not from the Valley,”
he said, sounding a little sheepish.

I ran through my resume and let him know I
had been part of Levi’s staff previously. He seemed satisfied, or
at least a little less skeptical.

“Can you come back at 6:15 tonight?” I asked.
“I will make sure to introduce you to Levi right away.” I was
trying to sound casual, but the truth was that I wanted to begin on
a positive note with a reporter who would be covering the campaign.
“We’re not open yet,” I said smiling. “I need a few more hours with
my staff to get ready.”

JP agreed to return in a few hours. We
exchanged business cards and I wrote my cell on the back of mine.
We shook hands to seal the deal, but as I turned to leave, he held
on to my fingers a second longer than I expected, causing me to
look up into his brown eyes. His face was framed by dark, curly
brown hair that had been cropped short. He was wearing a blue-green
plaid shirt with a navy sweater vest and Levi’s.

“OK, so I will see you in a few hours then,”
I said, pulling my hand away.

JP smiled. “You’ll definitely be seeing me
again.”

True to his word, JP returned and stayed for
most of the party, interviewing guests and, of course, Levi. I kept
a close eye on him, but could not detect anything but professional
intentions when it came to the candidate. Levi, having already been
a congressman, needed very little help with the media.

The kick-off party had been a success, the
festivities lasting longer than any of us had expected. As I was
cleaning up later that evening, I thought for a moment about how
things had gone. More than 100 supporters dropped by to celebrate
and take home a campaign sign. It may seem odd, the fixation with
campaign signs. But for a candidate they’re important. To drive or
walk through an area or a specific street and see a sign in every
window is a powerful visual. It’s street-level advertising and it
can be quite successful. It also can be intimidating to your
opposition, although we didn’t know quite yet who that would
be.

Pleased, I went to sleep that night happy
that things had begun so smoothly.

The success of the evening was one of the
topics I was prepared to review with Gabriel and the rest of the
team when we held our de-briefing meeting later in the day. Thanks
to the end of daylight savings, darkness arrived much earlier,
which meant we could begin our meeting sooner.

At the moment, it was early morning and I was
stretching in my bedroom, preparing to go for a run in the park. I
pulled on my running shoes and slipped a spare front door key into
a small pocket in my running tights. By the time I made it out the
door, the pink light of dawn was peeking over the edges of the sky
from the east, but racing to beat it was a cold, wet fog. I could
hear the horns blowing off the coast as I set off on my run, and by
the time I made it to the music concourse near the de Young Museum,
the fog had made it all the way into the city. I was curious to
know if today’s wet mess was the result of nature or something
else. I wasn’t aware of anything special going on, but it was
likely I didn’t know everything that went on with the Council. I
was only a human consultant for them, after all, and not a
full-fledged member. I quickly passed the museum and headed down a
side path that cut behind the building and onto another road. By
the time I turned the corner to head west and go deeper into the
park, the mist was so thick I could not see more than a few steps
ahead.

The low pitch of the foghorns could be heard
every few seconds now, no doubt warning large cargo ships away from
danger out on the bay. I was so distracted listening to the
repeating rhythm that it took me a moment to register that there
was a man standing on the sidewalk in front of me. I stopped myself
abruptly mid-run and waited. Thanks to the fog, he seemed to have
appeared out of nowhere. That would have been startling enough, but
what was more shocking was his appearance.

Approaching me was a tall man with tight,
curly black hair. He wore a garish suit consisting of a bright red
velvet blazer, a red shirt and black trousers tucked into cowboy
boots. A straw cowboy hat sat perched on his head. He was
overdressed for any occasion, but in this situation, his clothing
appeared even more absurd. The combination of his attire and
physical build gave him the look of a menacing rodeo clown.

But I knew instinctively that there was
nothing silly or good-natured about him and I also knew our meeting
was probably not a coincidence. The figure in front of me was a
demon. I could feel him trying to trip me, to flood my mind with
despair. Maybe if he’d dressed like another runner in the park I
would have been caught off guard. But his gaudy costume had alerted
me immediately. I stopped directly in front of him, prepared for
anything.

“Olivia,” the thing purred. “We share a
common connection. Stoner Halbert sends his regards.” Ah, so this
was Stoner’s demon, I thought privately, wondering how he managed
to stay anonymous with such outlandish taste in fashion.

“I’m not sure you can call it sharing,” I
said. “But I know Stoner. What does he want?”