Chapter 16

May 2, 2000

Coralis was on her way to visit Victoria. For the past 4 months, whenever she would come to Victoria’s dorm, she got into the habit of landing in a remote alley nearby or behind heavily shaded bushes at night. She hated Victoria’s dorm: too many humans milling around, so she found it too risky to keep entering through her bedroom window. Dorm rooms were somewhat shared and sometimes some students would stay there all day to study or work on their essays.

Victoria wanted to talk to her about the apartment she found for July 1st. Coralis knew that she had class at this time, so after landing, she went to get a coffee, thinking that she had some time before her friend would be back.

As she got in line to order her coffee, Frank, one of Victoria’s friends, came out of the toilets and saw her in line. He was about to leave, but for the past few months, he’d been wanting to talk to her. Every time he saw her around the campus, she was either leaving, or he was the one who had to go to class, so he was never able to really talk to her. As an excuse to talk to her, he decided to get in line to get another coffee.

“Hey stranger!” he said as he got behind her in line.

“Stranger? Well not exactly, but I guess you could say that. Did you manage to get your girl back or is she still after her bad boy?”

“Who said I wanted her back?” said Frank, with a smirk on his face. “I’ve got to say, I think I understand now why you said you weren’t good: you’re like an elusive girlfriend, can’t ever quite catch you.”

“Oh, so you have been trying to catch me?”

It was her turn to walk to the counter. She placed her order then turned to Frank to indicate him to place his, but he stayed silent. She shrugged and paid for her coffee. He placed his order, then went to the side to wait for his coffee next to her.

“Maybe I have! I couldn’t stop wondering what made you think that you weren’t good.”

“I guess that today is your lucky day then.”

“Is it? Or can we argue that it was a matter of time, considering that we have a friend in common?”

“Depends on how good you think I am at being elusive.”

Their beverages were ready for pickup at the same time. They grabbed it and walked toward the exit.

“Are you going to Victoria’s?” said Frank once they got outside, seeing that she was walking toward the dorms.

“Yeah, she said something about signing a lease for a 2-bedrooms apartment and wanted to discuss it.”

“Then I guess it is my lucky day, I’m also going that way.”

Victoria had told her a little bit about the human friends she hung out with. Carlos was in the medical program with her and they both went to the same cegep. Mark and Frank were some of his childhood friends. They were all 1st-year students at the university, but enrolled in entirely different programs. Mark started a bachelor in business management while Frank wanted to major in communication and get into journalism.

“Are you going to come study here next year?” continued Frank.

“No, I work 2 full time jobs. I barely have any time for myself, so let’s not add a school program to it.”

“Two full time jobs? Oh wow. Vic told us you had very irregular work schedule, but didn’t elaborate. I kind of assumed that you worked while going to school. Where do you work?”

“I work in the national defence field.”

“Both works?” said Frank. He was very intrigued and was wondering how she could be working two full times job at her age. “How did you get into that?”

“Yes and no,” answered Coralis. She didn’t know how to explain what she does to a human. She could easily describe her EBEE apprenticeship as working national defence, but flyball had nothing to do with it, although she couldn’t talk about it for national defence reasons. “Hmm my main one is actually more related to extreme sports, but can’t talk about it because it’s considered classified information. My other one was supposed to be an internship with an organization related to national defence, but it’s more like an actual work now.”

She didn’t want to tell him more than that. She didn’t want to lie to Victoria’s friend, but she couldn’t truthfully answer his questions. She liked that he had no idea of who she actually was and not having to worry about whether he had ulterior motives, so she didn’t mind to keep talking to him while on her way to Victoria’s room.

“What about you,” she said to turn the conversation on him, “do you work outside of school?”

“Not at the moment. I have been able to get financial aid, so I could focus on school. I probably will try to get a part time job next semester, just so I can afford to get some equipment, but I’m not sure. I guess it will depend on how much I’ll be able to save up during the summer.”

He was still talking about his program and what he was doing when they got to Victoria’s door. She pretended to search for the key in her spring coat pockets. Because he also lived in that building, he unlocked the main door without her having to buzz Victoria’s code, knowing she wasn’t back home yet. Coralis wasn’t a student, so she didn’t have any keys to the dorm: she would usually just walk in and use magic to unlock the doors. Despite having her eyeglasses on, if she closed her eyes, she was able to direct a tiny amount of energy to her fingertips, enough to will a simple locking mechanism to unlock by pressing her finger on it. She couldn’t explain to a human that she didn’t actually need a key to get into Victoria’s room.

“Want to wait for her at my place?” said Frank. He didn’t know when she would have to leave for work and he wanted to spend more time with her. He was supposed to be working on an essay, but figured that it could wait.

“Hmm sure, why not. I just need to stop by the payphone to send Vic a ping, so she knows that I’m around.”

Frank pulled his mobile phone from his back pocket and handed it to her.

“Or just use this. I still got plenty of minutes.”

Coralis looked at him, unsure. Then shrugged and took the phone off his hand. She dialed Victoria’s pager number, typed in a code after the tone and hung up.

“Thanks!” she said while handing the phone back to him.

“No problem,” he said and they started walking back to the elevator. “I can’t help but wondering, where are you actually staying? I understood that you’re going to share an apartment with Vic in July, and sometimes have to crash here, but where are you staying at in the meantime? I take that you don’t have an apartment despite working 2 jobs?”

“My apartment is in London, in the UK. I stay there with some friends from high school, Vic knows them. One of the organizations I work for is based in the Montreal metropolitan area, but the other one is based in London and I travel a lot for work. When I’m in town, I usually stay in hotels or other type of inns, but I don’t always have the time to search for where there’s vacancy or go through check in and check out, so sometimes it’s just easier to crash at Vic’s for the night.”

“In London? Oh wow, I never been there. Where else have you been?”

“Let me think instead of where I haven’t been yet, but it will be quicker to ask you instead where you have traveled to?”

They got to his dorm and he continued talking about the few summers he spent in the United States with his mother and siblings. He offered her a beer and continued talking about his family, telling her about his younger sister Stephanie, and his older brother Raymond.

They drank all the beers and Frank was getting hungry. He looked at the time and saw that it was 18:05.

“Are you hungry? We’re out of beer, but I think Mark got a couple wine bottles that he forgot he had because we always buy beers.”

“I am getting hungry yes. You sure he won’t mind if we drink his wine? I don’t mind going out to get more beers if you want to.”

Coralis enjoyed talking to him, even if she couldn’t talk about herself, so she didn’t mind spending her free time with him. She had a flyball practice that morning, so she was free for the rest of the day. She was supposed to travel back to London the next day after the game and was hoping that the EBEE wouldn’t call for an emergency. She didn’t fully understand why the EBEE would take on cases here that the CMMA could handle, but because she was only an apprentice, she couldn’t question where she was sent.

Frank opened a bottle of wine and went to the kitchen to figure out what he would be making for dinner. He hadn’t planned for it, but was happy to have her at his place. Even if he barely knew Coralis, he wanted to impress her. He enjoyed cooking and was able to make a decent meal out of basic ingredients, so he hoped that she was going to like what he would make.

“Need help with something?” said Coralis, curious about what he was going to make. She wanted to be helpful, he didn’t have to cook. “I can also order us something if you prefer.”

“Nope, just sit down and enjoy your drink. I actually like cooking, so it’s no trouble.”

Coralis’ pager pinged while he was busy adding mushrooms into a frying pan. Victoria was back.

“Mind if I borrow your phone for a minute? Victoria just got back. I need to call her quickly to let her know that I’ll be up a bit later. I’m not too sure how that works, but I can buy you another phone card before I leave, or pay for your minutes.”

“Sure, and don’t worry about it,” he said, while pulling up his phone from his back pocket and handed it to her. With a smirk on his face, “I will instead feel flattered that you decided to stay and eat with me instead of running out of here as soon as Victoria got back.”

She took the phone from his hand and dialed Victoria’s number. Neither of them had a mobile phone, but Victoria had a landline phone service in her dorm room.

“What makes you think that I would have run out of here as soon as she paged me?” she started asking, but Victoria picked up the phone before she could add anything else. “Hey Vic!”

“You do know that I have caller ID, right?” said Victoria from the other end of the line. “Mind to tell me from whose phone you’re calling me from Caller ID doesn’t give me name when the call comes from a cellphone… but it shows differently when it comes from a payphone. That’s human technology for you.”

“I don’t know about any of that, you’re talking a foreign language to me, but if you must know, I was actually calling you to let you know about where I was. I am with your friend Frank and well, he’s currently making dinner, so I’ll come up after that. You’ll be home for the evening?”

“Oh, I see! Yeah, I’ll be home, just come whenever and don’t forget to tell me everything.”

Coralis hung up, gave the phone back to Frank and looked at him.

“So, now tell me, what made you think that I would have run out on you as soon as Vic paged me?” she was perplexed about that and wasn’t sure if he was joking or not. The guy had already prepared the food and was taking the time to cook for two, she didn’t feel like it would be fair for him to leave just like that.

“Remember the conversation you walked into when we first met? You did say that you weren’t good, and working two full time jobs doesn’t actually qualify as bad in my opinion.”

“Oh!” Coralis wasn’t expecting that type of answer, she thought that maybe many girls had done that to him. “Well, it is bad if it makes me leave in the middle of a date. It makes me the asshole if I can’t ever find time to spend time with the guy, I would think that he’d deserve better.”

Frank made the plates and poured more wine into their glasses as they started talking about previous relationships, sitting on the couch to eat. Coralis didn’t get into details and attempted to make her past boyfriends look as if they were humans. The EBEE was discouraging their agents to get involved romantically with anyone, so there wouldn’t be potential leverage against them or distract their focus, but not all of them decided to stay single, so she tried dating. Beside Rowan, she dated a werewolf for a month, until he left her for a girl that he claimed was his true mate. She was happy for him, but 2 weeks later he got killed in a rogue attack. She also dated a vampire from Paris, but he couldn’t accept that she wouldn’t drop her career and work for his clan instead.

They opened a second bottle and lost track of the time. Frank didn’t want to think about his essay. He wasn’t drunk yet, but he knew that he wouldn’t be able to focus on school work even if he wanted to, so he decided to get up earlier in the morning to work on it instead. Spending time with Coralis was more appealing to him.

Coralis metabolized alcohol quickly, so she wasn’t even tipsy yet, but she was having a good time. She liked the feeling of anonymity that she had, being in the company of someone who was clueless to what or who she was. As the evening progressed, they ended up sitting closer on the couch. Frank was sitting to her right and his left arm was stretched behind her, touching her left shoulder at one point and she let him.

Then they kissed.

As they were deepening it, Coralis got back to her senses and jumped back. She looked at the time and saw that it was 22:53.

“Shit, I’m sorry, I almost forgot, I need to go to Vic’s,” she said as she got off the couch.

Frank was still processing what just happened.

“Hmm ok, sure,” he said, searching for his words, still sitting on the couch and watching her walking toward the door, “are you going to be at the semester party at the end of the month?”

“Yeah, I think so. Unless I have to go to work, I’ll come. I’ll see you there,” she told him before closing the door behind her.

She didn’t know what got to her, or to him. She used the stairs to go up to her friend, trying to put her thoughts in order. She had a good time with Frank, but didn’t think it was a good idea to get involved like that with a human.

She knocked at Victoria’s door.

“Finally!” she said as she opened the door. “So, Frank, uh?”

“Well, we got hungry and you still weren’t back. I offered to order something, but he insisted on cooking. I’ve got some manners, you know, I couldn’t just bail on him like that the second you got home.”

“5 hours later?”

“So, you said that you found an apartment?” Coralis didn’t want to tell her friend about what actually happened. She didn’t know what she was going to do with it and she didn’t want to talk about it.

“Yes, but the moving day will be on July 1st, so depending on when I need to be out of here, maybe I’ll stay at my parents for a little bit, I still need to check on that. It’s on the top floor of a triplex in the South-West borough of the city. Quiet area, I think. If for some reason you can’t use the rooftop to land, there a large wooded park nearby.”

“Sounds excellent. I don’t think that I’ll be available to help on July 1st. It’ll be the last week of the flyball season before the playoffs, we’ll be playing in Asia.”

“Don’t worry about it, I think the guys will be able to help. I mean, technically it’s nothing for us to move… but from here to another human area, it would raise suspicions if no one sees a moving truck and boxes, so I’ll think I’ll accept the guys offer to help and pay them with pizza and beers.”

“Do you want me to pay my part of the bills once per month or as you need to pay them?” said Coralis. Her pager beeped and she looked at it. “I can also just give you a large check and you tell me when my balance is over and need to give you another one. Mind if I borrow your phone?”

“I’ll let you know once I have a better idea of the total living cost per month,” said Victoria as she handed her the cordless phone.

Coralis dialed the number of her pager.

“Did I tell you about the werepanther clan I stumbled into?” she said while waiting for the recipient to pick up the phone. After the 3rd ring, a female answered. “Hey Samantha! What’s up?... Ok I’ll be on my way.”

“Werepanthers? Didn’t know there were any in the area,” said Victoria.

“There’s a full clan of them, but they’re quite scattered and their leader is an ass. Samantha, the one who paged me, is only 12 and her mom doesn’t know about her. Think her dad was one too, but he left when she was a young kid.”

“Oh wow, so you need to go to them tonight?”

“Yeah, I don’t know what happened, but their leader tends to pick a fight with their younger members over anything and that doesn’t sit well with me, so I told her to reach out to me if there’s something. Couldn’t guarantee her that I’d be able to show up the same night, but that I’d help them however I could. My panther can communicate with their animal.”

“Well, be safe. You’ll come to the semester party at the end of the month, right?”

“Yeah, most likely,” said Coralis and jumped off the windows. She didn’t want to risk running into Frank when getting out of the building.