CHAPTER 18

~ Complications Arise ~

 

Gin strides through the front door of the clubhouse on Friday night with fire in her eyes.  Anyone who knows the female knows she’s peeved, well and truly.  And anyone, with the glaring exception of Tara, would be wise enough to leave Virginia Jones be until she cools off. 

“Wassup, my girl?” Tara taunts affectionately as she leans against her bar to greet her friend.

“Some idiot driving a Hummer has taken up the last two parking spots out back,” Gin says in a huff as she plops onto a stool and asks for a coke without ice.

Tara chuckles and pours the soda, all the while shaking her head.  “Why you trying to park in employee parking?  I thought your honey convinced you to stop slinging drinks here at the MC?”

Gin snorts and takes a hefty pull on her drink.  “Yeah,” she almost sounds dejected when she says this.  Tara’s expression is momentarily sympathetic because she knows Virginia truly enjoyed working as a waitress on weekends, and only stopped because of the excessive demands on her time because of “other” responsibilities.  “I forgot.”  Gin drags her hands down her face and exhales slowly.  “It’s been a crappy day.  Honestly, I think I was operating on auto-pilot or something.  I was just trying to do something normal and completely forgot that I am no longer waitressing here on weekends.”

Tara can feel the raw pain coming from her friend and reaches across the bar to cover her hands with her own.  “What happened, Virginia?”

“One of my clients disappeared.”

“Well,” Tara ventures cautiously.  “Surely, that is not that uncommon of an occurrence?”

Gin looks around the growing crowd of mundanes and says; “This is not the place to discuss this.”

Tara gets the hint and struts over to the doorway of the stockroom directly behind the bar.  After cutting loose with an eardrum shattering whistle, she barks out; “New girls! Get your fine asses out here and tend the bar.  I got business to deal with.”

Gin can’t help but chuckle when a pair of young women who could easily pass for Joan Jett clones – circa early 80’s, stroll out of the store room looking irritated with their new boss.  “What the hell, Tara?  You said do the inventory…” the first one out begins.

“Yeah, and you will damn well finish it when I get back,” Tara snaps.  The tiny blond vamp sounds pissed off, but Gin can see the playful twinkle in her eyes and knows the hard-nosed enforcer is just messing with the new girls.  When Tara turns and winks at Gin, the tall raven-haired, blue-eyed beauty nearly cracks up at the tiny blond vamp’s frisky side.  “Hey, Gin.  Have you met the new girls?”  Gin simply shakes her head, with a friendly smile on her lips as she lifts her glass for another sip.  Tara chuckles and informs; “Meet my new bartenders… Delta and Delilah.”

Gin damn near sprays the bar and the three women behind it with her mouthful of soda.  “What?”  Her suppressed chuckle turns into a snort, causing Gin to cover her mouth and blush profusely.  By this time, the twins are becoming truly irritated.

“Do you mind telling us what is so funny about our names?” Delta demands tersely.

Tara raises her hands and backs away with a smirk on her pretty face.  “Not my story to tell.”  She tosses her head towards Gin and says; “Ask the Amazon over there.  But I’d suggest you do it nicely because she’s Wrath’s old lady, and she’s pretty bad-ass in her own right.”

  Delilah gives Gin a rather dismissive once over and snorts.  “Her?  Bad-ass?  She looks like a school teacher or a social worker.”

“Ding, ding, ding,” Gin pipes up as she taps the side of her nose with her finger.  “You got it, Delilah.  I’m a social worker,” Gin says with a wide grin.  She’s still chuckling when she takes another sip of her soda.  “… and a fully patched in member of the Twin Ravens.”

Delta elbows her sister and whispers; “See?  I told you, these people are weird. W.E.I.R.D.  Weird.”

“Weirder than you know,” Gin concedes with a chuckle before sobering and asking if Blood is around.

“Yep, upstairs in the meeting room with the VP and your honey.”  She looks at her two new hires, obviously choosing her next words carefully.  “Things have been heating up.”

Gin nods at her fellow enforcer’s vague comment about the increased vampire and ghoul activity.  “Yeah, and it’s probably gonna get hotter,” she warns before telling the two Joan Jett clones it was nice to meet them, and turning to walk away.

“Seriously?” Delta yells.  “What’s so damn funny about our names?”

Gin stops, turns around and smirks at the two bartenders.  She quickly peels out of her tasteful collarless suit jacket to reveal a snug, white silk, fitted blouse.  The slimming effect of the jacket did a wonderful job disguising Gin’s impressive rack.   She tosses the black jacket over the back of an empty booth and uses both hands to cup her very large breasts and push them upwards as though in greeting.  “Meet the Double-D Twins…”

“Delta and Delilah,” Gin, Tara, and the new bartenders all say in unison.

“Well, that just sucks,” Delta says grumpily.  “I’m not sure I like being named after some chick’s tits.”

Delilah elbows her twin and whisper yells, “Shut. Up.”

Gin and Tara both look at the new employees strangely but don’t say another word before ascending the stairs.  Once they are on the second floor Gin turns to her friend and says; “What the heck are they?”

Tara shakes her head and admits; “I have no idea.  Neither does the boss man.  And none of us can read them either.  So, I gave them a job in the hopes of figuring out who and what they are, and whether or not they are a threat.”

“I figured it was something like that when you called them to watch the bar instead of one of the four enforcers sitting there,” Gin says confidently.  “The news I have to share isn’t going to make anyone feel any easier, let me tell you.”

“Shit,” Tara grouses.  “I should have grabbed a godsdamn bottle.”

Upon entering the meeting room, Gin moves to greet her mate and settles comfortably on his lap before turning to face Blood, Rage, and Tara.  “My youngest client disappeared today.”  She turns to look at Wrath, “You know the nineteen year old girl I said smelled like a Blood Wraith but is fully human?”  Wrath nods.  “Well, I went by to pick her up for her G.E.D. tutoring this afternoon and her place looked like a war zone.  The furniture was destroyed and there was blood everywhere, and no sign of the girl.”

“So… You think someone killed her and carried off her body?” Rage asks quietly.

“Nope,” Gin says, allowing the “P” sound to pop loudly in the room.  “I think the little mystery girl killed a few ghouls, vamps, and a couple of blood wraiths and then took off like a bat outta Hel.”

“What?” Wrath demands, disbelief evident on his face. 

“An UCI cleanup crew was there hauling off the bodies and getting rid of the evidence.  But I could smell the blood was not human.”  She reaches into her skirt pocket to retrieve her smart phone.  With a few taps on the screen, she opens a video and turns the phone so the others can see the screen.  “We have security on all of the safe houses… this is what the outside cameras captured.”

The group watches in silence as a mixed group of a dozen or so vampires, wraiths, and ghouls crash through the front door.  Since there are no cameras inside of the safe houses, Gin fast forwards to the point where a female Blood Wraith with long reddish-blond hair stumbles out the front door four minutes later.  The female is obviously wounded, but quickly moves out of the range of the home’s surveillance. 

“I didn’t see a female in the bunch that went in,” Wrath says.

“Nope,” Gin agrees.  “That’s Kassandra Tutella.  My young client.”

“Are you sure?” Rage questions skeptically.

Gin purses her lips and nods silently.  She holds the phone out and demands; “Can you see auras on a video?”  When Rage nods, she demands, “Can you see the aura of that blood wraith female?” Rage simply nods again and Gin begins tapping on the screen again.  Once she has found the video she wants, she hands the phone to Rage.  “This footage is from the day I placed my client at the safe house.”  Rage examines the video of Gin and a slender red-headed girl entering the house three days ago.  “Look at her aura.”

“I am.”  Rage says quietly.

“And?”  Everyone can hear the tension in Gin’s voice.

“I think you already know,” Rage replies knowingly.  “But I guess you want me to confirm what you already suspect.”  Gin simply nods.  Rage reaches for the pack of cigarettes in the inner pocket of his leather cut.  Everyone watches impatiently as he lights the smoke to take a deep drag, holding it before exhaling slowly.  “The little red-headed human girl and the blood wraith female have identical auras.”

Gin nods, extends her hands palm up to curl her fingers rapidly in a gimme gesture.  “Annnd?”

“The mystery girl’s aura is an almost perfect match to someone else’s aura…”

“Mine,” Gin says quietly.

“What?!” Blood and Wrath demand in unison.

Gin snuggles into her mate’s chest and murmurs; “When I arrived I smelled something familiar.  It took me a few minutes to place it… probably because that UCI buttinsky was trying to convince me that I didn’t have any jurisdiction at their scene.  But I finally placed the scent in my memory.  It’s the scent that roiled off of me when the spell that hid me for twenty-three years collapsed.” 

Wrath gently cups his mate’s face and whispers; “Who do you think…”

“I think she’s my sister,” Gin whispers, with a catch in her throat as she struggles to keep from crying in her frustration and fear for the wellbeing of the young girl.  “Sister or not, she’s wounded and on the run without any help.”

Wrath holds his mate and whispers words of comfort and assurance in the most ancient of the Norse tongues while Tara, Blood, and Rage look on in confusion.  Before long, Gin is calm enough to speak again.  “When I find her, our sperm and egg donors had better hope she’s alive, or I’m gonna make them wish they were dead for hiding another child without any regard for her wellbeing.”

Morrígan pops into the gathering room and shouts at those gathered there.  “Sorry to interrupt, but Callie has had another vision and collapsed.”