Chapter 8: His Highness

His voice was too low, almost a whisper–other than her wouldn’t have heard it. When in the world did he get so close? She bent forward with the plan to grab the pistol before she remembered the circumstances she was under. She took a few steps back. He followed. 

For human guests, they were none the wiser. Nearly everyone was out of the garden. Vampires, however, were a different case. Several sets of eyes were on them, from the far end of the garden, probably ready to take action against her. Despite the distance, she could guess they were watching her action. A lone hunter vs her natural enemies in their territory.

Slowly, she faced ‘his highness’—she thought sarcastically—who was standing merely a foot away. His skin looked too smooth under the pearlescent light. She had seen many vampires, but no one like him. Wait, that’s not important right now. What’s important was his long slender fingers that were getting closer. What was he trying to do?

Screw it. She was going to put a bullet into his imperious face if he threatened her. The scene unfolded in her mind's eyes like a slow-motion scene. She took the gun out of the hostler above the knees and rose her arm towards his chest.

However, he did not seem to care. As though the gun was non-existent to him, looking relaxed and unbothered, he tilted his head. His emotionless gaze was near his bite mark. Why was he looking at it? That was hidden under her clothes.

With anger, she was nearly pulling at the trigger when he brushed her neck with his cold fingertips, tingling down her spine and numbing her for a second. Quickly, he retracted them back. He showed his hand so that she could see it. 

On the tip of his forefinger was a part of a dried leaf, as small as a fingertip. Blood rushed to her face. If she were someone who blushed visibly, her face would be as red as a tomato right now.

She lowered her gun, embarrassed, and pretended to cough awkwardly. 

His eyes jumped beyond her. She found out they were the color of milk chocolate, several shades lighter than his hair. 

The glance seemed to be issuing something, a command. When she looked back, she saw the bowing vampires, much closer to her than earlier. They straightened up back and left the lawn and the elms, heading to the lights outside. 

Gone were everyone else. She stood alone with him, beneath a lantern, at the side of the pathway. 

“What were you expecting?” He reprimanded her quietly, discarding the leaf.

She was unsure what to answer. The silence spanned. He was waiting for her answer, but what was she supposed to say? Her cover had blown. Was it still salvageable though?

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to. I was feeling…” her voice trailed off unable to finish her lie as his jaw ticked. 

He knew! She swallowed. He fixed her with a disproving stare, wordlessly daring her to continue the made-up story. What he actually said, however, was unexpected.

“You may go.”

“What?” she asked him, disbelieving her own ears.

Instead of repeating, he stood utterly still, staring at her, as though he were memorizing the blueprint of her face. At that moment, she couldn’t help thinking he was… beautiful. Cruelly beautiful. Like an angel, but absent of kindness and compassion. 

She opened her mouth to retort something smart, and closed it back after finding no words.

Danica brushed her fake blonde strands, which felt raw and unnatural in her fingers. Frustrated, she decided she better leave. She almost felt like a brat before him.

Shutting the car door, she wondered if she should have made some peace offering for their false start. Twice at that. 

She checked her phone. The lockscreen was full of missed calls. Marcus was like a gossipy sister she didn’t have. She was pretty sure his calls were of no importance. 

 “What, Marc?” she called him back as she walked up the stairs of her apartment building. The elevator was out of order again. Taking seven flights of stairs was quite an exercise, and people wondered why she was fit. She had answered it was for the boxing, shooting, and wrestling with monsters and such, but no, it was damn stairs truthfully.

Marc was complaining about how the damn vampires at the Night mansion were annoying. He believed she wasn’t there.

“You’re right,” she agreed with him. Where were the keys? It was supposed to be in the purse. 

“How do you know?”

“Umm… I was there.”

“What? Why didn’t—”

“I gotta go,” she ended up the call as she saw something flipped out of her coat pocket while she was fumbling around. A piece of paper swirled downward and landed on the vinyl floor. 

Putting the phone into the purse, her fingers met the cold hard thing which was beneath the pocket knife. She found the keys and more.

‘What in the world?’ she thought to herself. 

She would have remembered putting a piece of paper into her pocket, not to mention these clothes were new. A salesperson could have put something in there such as promotional flyers. But, the paper was smaller than half the size of her palm.

Danica picked it up. It looked blank but she turned it up to find something written. Like fallen under a spell, she stood frozen reading it repeatedly. 

Only one word: “George.”

She stared at the name, unable to understand what that was supposed to mean until she heard small giggles. The single mother with a little girl across the corridor, they were back from somewhere.

 “Hi, Dani.”

“Hi,” Her smile turned out stiff, wheels turning inside her head. 

She closed the door behind her. Her apartment was dark, lights turned off. She muttered to herself, “What does this mean? George is dead.”

That’s it. George was dead! Something rustled in the dark. Immediately, her gun was in her hand. She flipped the safety off. Another rustle and then another and another. On alert, she switched on the lights with her free hand.

The sound stopped. There was nothing but the dusty walls, yellow paint that had turned dull and flaked off, sparse furniture, and the hardwood floor. Her room seemed to be devoid of any life apart from herself.

And yet, somebody else was here. Still here right now. She was not alone. Whatever it was, it was gnawing on something and did nothing to hide from her. In her home, and they showed they couldn’t care less about her presence. 

With caution, she approached the source of the noise which came out around the couch. A studio apartment with little space. There wasn’t much room to hide. The sound got louder before her eyes were on the culprit. It meowed angrily at her for interfering with its dinner, with its big round yellow eyes looking up,

It was a cat. Grey fur, round face, and yellow eyes: a British shorthair. Was it a stray? Between the couch and the wall was a mess of fish bones, which she concluded to have come from the trash. ‘Poor kitty’. She lowered the gun, but it ran to the kitchen.

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” she pleaded.

But it fled out of the window. In alarm, she noticed it was open. She didn’t remember leaving the window open. Every time she left, Danica made sure to shut all the windows except this evening, maybe, because she was so occupied with her disguise. 

George’s name reentered her mind. A dead man’s name was in her pocket. Or was it something else entirely? Because the name was common. Who was she kidding? Things in her life had never been simple since she was born. Somebody wanting her to be dead: it was no news flash.

She cleaned up the mess on the floor. At times, she couldn’t help feeling lonely. She had always been alone since she was born. No mother that she knew of. At the thought of her father though, she chuckled, which came across as dark and wicked.

Finally, the restricting disguise was gone. Her scalp was sweaty. Her tattoo showed on her right arm as she changed into a sleeveless crop top. It was the shape of double circles surrounding a five-pointed star, and in its heart portrayed was a rune similar to the capital letter “M”. She had it on her since she was a child.

She thought about examining the paper again. Perhaps she might find some clue. She had dropped it near the entrance for the noise. And yet, when she searched for it, it was nowhere to be found.