The Chosen

Surreptitiously, Layla went over and shut the closet door so the zebra print wouldn’t show—and then she tried to smile as if she didn’t know what she did, hadn’t heard what she had. “They have done so well. I kept them to schedule, of course. Let me just gather our trash and we’ll head back down.”

She went over to the duffel she’d stashed the used diapers in and slung the thing up on her shoulder. Then she approached the bed.

“I’m sure Qhuinn will be excited to see them. I know I was when I … anyway, I’m glad you came to help with the transport again. Thank you.”

Cormia’s eyes were sad, but her voice steady and deliberately cheerful. “Of course! Which one would you like to take?”

“Rhamp, as I had Lyric on the way up.” Shuffling the duffel so it hung behind her, she addressed her son. “Have to split my time. Fair is fair, after all.”

She glanced over as Cormia picked up Lyric. She couldn’t help it. It wasn’t that she didn’t think the Chosen knew what she was doing … but it was a mahmen thing.

A mom thing, as Beth would have termed it. “Did anything exciting happen?” Cormia asked as she took Lyric into her arms. “Hmm? Any news flashes of note?”

“No,” Layla murmured. “Not at all.”

“I got the job, I goooot the joooooob …”

Therese continued to talk to herself in the mirror as she threw on a little eye makeup and hit her hair with the straightener. She was going to pull the stuff back so it was out of her face and looked tidy, but if she didn’t calm things down a little first, she always felt like she had a tutu shooting out the back of her head.

Funny, she’d always assumed she got all those waves from her mom. Turned out that was a big, fat nope.

Unplugging the wand, she double-checked she hadn’t overdone it with the foundation and blusher. Then nodded at herself. “You got this.”

Just as she went to turn off the light, a cockroach scurried by in front of the stained tub, and she had to catch herself so she didn’t stomp it flat—she didn’t have shoes on yet. That woulda been hella nasty.

“I cannot wait to get out of this dump.”

Walking into the bedroom/living room/kitchen area, which sounded so much better than the dingy reality of it all, she grabbed her coat, her cell phone, and her purse, and on impulse, a scarf. At the door, she took a moment to lower her head and say a prayer to the Scribe Virgin for protection.

Which wasn’t about the job or traveling to the job. It was about getting down the stairwell to the front door and out onto the street in one piece.

Pretty sad to know you were safer in the dark in a bad part of town than in your own building.

But at least she had a best practices plan: In the week and a half since she’d moved in with her suitcase, her backpack, and her seven hundred dollars in cash, she’d created a procedure for departure. First? Ear to the door.

Closing her eyes, she concentrated on what was doing out in the hall. Nothing unusual it seemed. Just your normal everyday shouting, loud music, and muffled slamming.

“Great! Now let’s go on to step two.”

She shifted the safety chain free, unlatched the bar lock that ran vertically across from jamb to jamb, and threw back the deadbolt. Then she flashed out and shut things up quick. It was a toss-up whether she was in greater danger walking in the corridor or getting forced back into her room. Sure, as a female vampire, she was far stronger than most human males. But the thing she always worried about was what would happen if one of them came at her with a gun. A knife she could probably handle by overpowering them, but a bullet was—

Perfect. Frickin’. Timing.

As if he had been waiting for her, the creep across the way came out just as she did. Compared to her, he was a lot more blasé about his exit, taking his time because, for one, he was probably high as a kite, and for two, she had the sense, in her limited interaction with him, that he kind of was in charge of the place.

He’d certainly always looked at her like she was a meal to be consumed.

Creep.

Bracing herself for the kind of smarm he’d been throwing at her, she—

“Oh, fuck!” he muttered as he saw her.

Then he whipped back around and started fumbling with his doorknob. Like he was trying to get back into his apartment.

Therese looked up and down the corridor. Nobody else was around. Maybe he was having a paranoid delusion or something? Whatever, she sure as hell wasn’t going to ask him if he was okay—or argue with the fact that he suddenly seemed to want to avoid her.

Hurrying off, she took to the stairs, flying down them. She knew she should probably just dematerialize, but all of the windows in the whole building were covered with chicken wire made of steel and none of them opened. And although it was a fair guess that the concrete or the brick or whatever the heck the walls were made of probably wasn’t fortified with anything, she couldn’t run that risk. She’d heard the horror stories of what happened when vampires guessed wrong on what they tried to ghost through.

As she was out in the world all alone, it was yet another risk she couldn’t afford to take.

Therese was halfway down the stairs and making a turn, when two men who were coming up hit the landing at the same time she did.

Recognizing them from the lobby, she dropped her eyes and shoved her hands into her coat to bring her purse closer to her body—

Both of them jumped back and knocked into each other, before flattening against the stairwell wall so she could go by them.

When something similar happened as she was leaving the main exit, another human she had seen around the building pointedly getting out of her path, she decided that maybe she had a communicable disease that only that other species could sense?

Then again … shoot, maybe they had all found out she was a vampire? She had no idea what she might have done to give it away, but why else would these guys be treating her like she was a lit stick of dynamite?

’Cuz, come on, sure, they were all on drugs, but a common psychosis against women with dark hair was unlikely.

Still, why argue with it if it kept her safe? Unless, of course, it was about her species identity, in which case she could be in real trouble. Then again, what kind of credibility could people like that have? Drug addicts frequently had delusions, right?

Outside, she had to pause for a moment.

Okay, wow. Snow. Everywhere … snow. There had to have been at least three feet of it dropped all over the place, and the wind that had kept her up late during the day had pushed the stuff around into drifts.

As she headed off, she was not surprised that the front walkway, such as it was, had not been cleared. What she was bummed about was the fact that her Merrells, which were waterproof and comfortable, only came up to her ankles. Wet socks were going to be in fashion tonight, she feared.

When she got out to the sidewalk, she found that, of course, the concrete had likewise not been shoveled. Looking left and right, she debated on whether to just f’-it and dematerialize in plain view, but no. The sun was down, but it was only dark-ish, the ambient glow of the city reflecting and being magnified thanks to all the white powder.

She was bound to be noticed, so she needed to find a more hidden spot.

Going down two blocks, she hunkered into her coat and really didn’t enjoy the feeling of her ears burning from cold. At least her neck was warm and her hands toasty in the deep, padded pockets. Hanging a left, she entered an alley that was far dimmer than the street beyond, and closing her eyes, she …

… dematerialized to the back of Sal’s Restaurant.

As she re-formed, she saw a couple of cars coming in and parking by the service entrance. A human man and then two human women got out of their vehicles, not really saying much as they rushed to the staff door as if they were either late or cold. Maybe both.

Therese followed their example, catching the heavy panel before it closed fully and then stamping her snowy shoes on the textured rubber mat inside.

“Hey.”

When she looked up, it was into the stare of a surprisingly attractive human male. He had dark blond hair, eyes that were blue as a Magic Marker, and a jaw that was pretty darned square.

“Are you the new hire?” he asked. “Yes, I am.”