The Reluctant Goddess (The Montgomery Chronicles Book 2) Page 14

  I gave him the address and off we went, so silently that we might still be parked. I put my hand on the seat and couldn’t feel any vibrations from the road. I felt like Cinderella in a magical carriage. Hey, who knows? Maybe it was a Pinto with a spell on it.

  “About the appointment,” I began, wondering how to put it. “I don’t want you coming inside.”

  His left eyebrow went up marginally. He was being a stone statue again. I wonder if the Rangers taught him how to mask his expression. Reveal nothing, soldier. You are inscrutable. You are a Sphinx among men.

  Well, he certainly had that down.

  “Why not?”

  “I’d prefer going alone.”

  “Do you think that’s safe?”

  I hadn’t thought of safety until he asked the question, but it was something I needed to consider. Mr. Brown had recommended Madame X and look what happened when I’d gone to see him.

  Still, I’d developed the ability to zap people with a single thought.

  “I’ll be fine,” I said, managing to sound confident and certain.

  Attitude is everything.

  Mike parked the car in front of Fortunes Told and Past Lives Discovered, a small shop located in a strip mall off Austin Highway. Across the four lane street was a place selling mobile homes. Next door was a knitting shop and on the other side a used book store.

  The front of Madame X’s place of business was darkened. Nothing showed other than white lettering promising to discover past associations and solve present troubles. No voodoo signs or skull and crossbones.

  I pasted on my confident smile and left the Rolls, striding to the door with what I considered my businesslike attitude. We have a problem. Let’s solve the problem to our mutual satisfaction. Let’s do business.

  I wished I had my briefcase, a beautiful white leather thing with my initials in gold near the handle. I’d rewarded myself with it after my last promotion. After awhile, it had become more than an accessory; it was almost an appendage.

  People don’t give you guff when you carry a briefcase.

  I pulled open the door and a small bell on the inside handle tinkled merrily. The room instantly reminded me of every fortune teller scene I’d ever seen on TV or in the movies.

  Something oriental, reminding me of Cinnabar perfume, scented the air. Maybe it was the dried flower arrangement in the corner. I was grateful that I didn’t feel the prickling in my nose that warned me eucalyptus was nearby.

  The walls were draped in a dark paisley fabric that also covered the large round table in the middle of the room. Two straight back chairs sat on either side of the table, each seat cushioned with a dark colored pillow. I was guessing at colors, because the atmosphere was, let’s say, murky.

  The only illumination was furnished by two white pillar candles on a table next to another door. I suspected they were battery operated because I couldn’t smell wax burning. The insurance adjuster in me hoped they were fake because it was dangerous to leave burning candles unattended in a room like this. It screamed: fire coming! Claim to follow!

  “Hello?”

  No one answered.

  I sat at the table, staring at the large round glass ball in the center of it. Candlelight was reflected deep inside the core of the ball.

  I pulled out my phone and checked the time. Ten o’clock on the dot.

  Where was Madame X?

  I decided that I’d wait five more minutes, then leave. Three minutes in, a voice came from a speaker system I couldn’t see.

  “Identify yourself.”

  “Marcie Montgomery,” I said. “Your ten o’clock appointment. Mr. Brown gave me your card.”

  The door beside the table abruptly opened. A figure swathed in a caftan of indeterminate colors stood silhouetted in the doorway.

  Madame X, if that’s who had appeared, was a tall, Amazon-like woman. The turban on her head only maximized her height.

  When she entered the room, closing the door behind her, I was instantly assaulted by a perfume that always made me slightly ill. I always hated getting on an elevator with a woman wearing that perfume. Once, I even had to get off before my floor because I was afraid I was going to get sick. My luck it was so popular.

  “I am Madame X,” she said, her voice deep and throaty. “You are the one who wants to know about the Dirugu.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  Madame X sat opposite me. I don’t know if she punched a secret button somewhere, but the glass ball lightened a little as if it were glowing inside.

  She and I stared at each other for what felt like an eternity, but was probably only a minute.

  The woman was near my mother’s age. She’d probably never been conventionally pretty, but she was arresting. Her nose sailed before her face like the prow of a ship. A broad and tall forehead was counterbalanced by a long and nearly pointed chin. Her eyes were a curious shade of brown, like light shining through a glass of Coke, making the color almost amber. Her large mouth was expertly lined in a dark red shade of lipstick, the crimson making her teeth appear large and white, not unlike a shark.

  “Why?” she asked again.

  I straightened my shoulders, banished my unease, and wrangled with the idea of telling her the truth.

  “I’m a vampire,” I said.

  That should be enough. If the woman consulted her watch, she’d know something was off. I was a vampire awake at ten o’clock in the morning.

  She only stared at me.

  “Evidently, my father was a vampire, too. My grandmother is a witch.”

  There, enough genetic information.

  She abruptly stood.

  “Come,” she said. “You do not need your fortune told. You need to learn the past, instead.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Vampires can’t be choosers

  Madame X walked to the other side of the room, opened the door she’d just come through and disappeared from sight.

  “Miss Montgomery!”

  That was my clue to follow her, evidently.

  If the fortune teller room had been dim, this place was the opposite. High overhead windows bathed the space in white light. It took a few seconds for me to register what I was seeing. I might have been transported through a magic door to the New York City Public Library. I’d only visited it once, but I’d been amazed by the sheer number of volumes on display.

  Here there were no tables for readers or softly glowing lamps. Only a number of books to rival that library, stacked on shelves stretching to the sill of the high windows. I couldn’t see how deep the shelves were, but they seemed to go on forever.

  Just how big was this strip mall?

  She followed a long corridor, passing at least six closed doors before leading me into a small office furnished with a desk overflowing with paper, two visitor chairs and a desk chair on which there was a long blue heating pad.

  That heating pad made me think Madame X was all human, a thought making me breathe a little easier.

  She moved behind the desk and whipped off the turban, revealing a cascade of bright red curls falling to her shoulders.

  “My name is Mary Dougherty,” she said. “I’m the Librarian.”

  What a curious way to put it. Not a librarian as much as the librarian.

  She waved me into one of the visitor chairs and I sat, staring up at her with eyes that were probably as wide as an owl’s. I had a feeling that I’d finally found someone who could give me the information I’d been seeking ever since waking up in the VRC. No, not then, but two weeks later when it was evident I wasn’t like the rest of the fledglings. I craved tacos, not blood. I didn’t have a yen to bite a neck, but a Big Mac. Give me anything fried and I was your slave. Just hold the Type O, please.

  Her brown eyes seemed to catch the light and reflect it back. A quick impression gone in a second. I wondered if I was wrong and she wasn’t a hundred percent human after all. Should I settle in or run like hell?

  I stuck my hand in my
pocket where my phone was, just in case I needed to speed dial Dan in a hurry.

  "Don't be afraid," she said.

  I was most emphatically not afraid. I was cautious, however, and that seemed to me to be a good thing. In a world peopled by Brethren, you really couldn’t be too careful.

  “You wanted to know about a Dirugu,” she said, grabbing a large manilla envelope on the desk and holding it out to me.

  It could have had a bomb in it, but I didn’t care at the moment. I took it anyway.

  “Would you like some coffee?”

  My life was about to change and she was being hospitable? I found myself nodding anyway and answering a question as to how I took it.

  Instead of ringing someone, she left me alone in the office with the manilla envelope.

  I placed it on the chair next to me, folded my hands like a good little girl on my lap, and tried to slam down my sudden terror. Someone actually knew what a Dirugu was. Someone who hadn’t looked at me as if I were a loon. However, that someone had morphed from being a fortune teller to a librarian, too.

  The envelope was beckoning me.

  My first days as an insurance adjuster had left me feeling uncertain and stupid. My degree had been in business. I'd struggled through accounting, deciding there and then that I would be better served by concentrating on the more personal aspects of business like human resources. Being an insurance adjuster meant you needed to know a lot about people. Gradually, I’d acquired a certain competency and with it assurance.

  Where had that confidence gone?

  When Mary/Madame X returned, bearing a tray and wonderfully aromatic coffee, I asked her a question that had been bothering me for a while.

  "Where do vampires come from?"

  I’d gotten a slanted view of vampires from Orientation, from witches, and another opinion from a master vampire. I had Dan's take on the species and what I knew from popular culture. I wasn’t sure any of it was correct.

  She smiled as she placed the tray on the desk.

  "It’s my belief that they’ve been with us since the very beginning. There was Cro-Magnon man and Neanderthal man and a creature who survived despite all the odds."

  "Vampire Man?" I asked.

  Perhaps, when we crawled out of the primordial ooze, one lizard became human and the other developed fangs. Perhaps a third grew hairy around the full moon.

  She tilted her head. "If you wish. They have just been more successful than a great many extinct creatures in hiding themselves. However, it was just a matter of time until mankind realized they were among us."

  “How many are there?"

  She shrugged, a delicate lifting of both shoulders.

  I took the cup from her, took a sip and nearly moaned. I love good coffee. I was in the presence of great coffee.

  "My supposition only,” she said, “and not backed by any research or documentation, is that there are a great many more than we think there are. They have a tendency to blend among humans. Not that many of them declare themselves. Until recently, it has not been safe to do so. But society is more accepting today than it has been in the past.”

  She moved the heating pad aside and sat.

  "In the beginning of recorded time, in Mesopotamia, there was a book called the Angelus Chronicles. The book was held as sacred and revered among all the texts and scrolls by scholars and learned men. It was carried with great reverence to Alexandria, there to reside in Egypt's great library."

  "Is that the one that burned to the ground?"

  "Yes."

  “The Angel Chronicles? Are you saying that vampires are angels?”

  “No. They are part of the triad, soon to come together as one.”

  "What do you mean, triad?" I asked.

  "Man as human. Man as beast. Man as spirit."

  “Aren’t we getting a little metaphysical?"

  She shook her head gently, causing her curls to bounce.

  "Humans, beasts, spirits. They all exist in the world. Human beings, the Brethren, witches.”

  “You’re saying witches represent the spirit? And vampires are part of the Brethren?”

  Brethren was a word to encompass all sorts of paranormal creatures, anything other than witches. Maddock, especially, would be annoyed. Kindred was the word Maddock had used to signify the vampire population. Or the Frater Cruentus, which was just too precious a term to use.

  Seriously, people needed to limit their labels. I could barely keep up with the ones I knew.

  “Soon to come together as one,” I continued. “What does that mean?”

  I didn't like the feeling I was getting. My grandmother was a witch. My father was a vampire. My mother, human. I couldn't be the only person, creature, entity to have that bloodline.

  When I said as much to Mary/Madame X, she only smiled.

  "Therein lies the prophecy."

  “I don’t understand.” That was an understatement if there ever was one.

  She turned her head, sunlight dancing on her red hair and bringing out the gold. Her skin was perfect, almost porcelain in the bright light.

  “Is that what a Dirugu is?”

  She smiled enigmatically. Really, I didn’t need the Mona Lisa moment. I needed information.

  “You wouldn't have told me about the Angelus Chronicles unless something had survived," I said.

  Her smile turned bright, almost mischievous.

  "Yes, some information did survive. Oral history, if you will, subject to interpretation and to, if you'll pardon the word, bastardization. The tale is only as good as its teller.”

  “And you’re the teller?”

  She inclined her head again. “When necessary. I find the written word so much more dependable, however.” She glanced down at the envelope on the chair. “Read that first. Then, I’ll answer any questions you have.”

  Like what I was?

  I stood, thanked her for the information and the coffee, said goodbye and left.

  Therein lies the prophecy.

  What the hell did that mean?

  “How did things go?” Dan asked when I got back into the car.

  “Peachy, just peachy.” I held the envelope close to my chest. I needed to open it and read what was inside. Just as soon as I was alone.

  I thought about the other two tasks I needed to do. I wasn’t all that keen about going to the doctor with Dan and Mike in tow, but what choice did I have?

  I made the phone call and I have to confess, I wasn’t honest. I didn’t lie to the nurse, but I did compel her. After all, it isn’t easy to get a same-day appointment with an Ob/Gyn. Maybe my doctor would’ve seen me anyway, knowing my history, but I doubted it. I wasn’t pregnant and I wasn’t in danger of miscarrying again.

  So, with a little bit of vampire wizardry, I had an appointment for thirty minutes from now.

  This compelling stuff could come in handy.

  I knew what I needed to do, the only permanent solution to my dilemma. Any reluctance I felt about it was natural and to be expected. I was only in my early thirties. Certain parts of me, either mind or heart or soul had not completely accepted becoming a vampire. Perhaps I thought there would be a way that I could return to normalcy one day. That walking in the sun, taking breaths, having a child might mean that I could be completely human again.

  That thought was lunacy. Even worse, it was dangerous.

  As we drove, my thoughts were on the decision I’d made and how best to communicate it to my doctor. She wasn’t going to be happy, but then Dr. Stallings always thought positively. Even in my darkest hour, she had something good to say about the situation.

  To the best of my ability to discern anything of the sort, she didn’t have a drop of paranormal blood in her. Of course, I’d thought the same thing about myself only to discover I was nearly radioactive.

  I wasn’t going to use my insurance. I would pay for this visit and the operation in cash. When you became a vampire, you became a Council member and were given Council Health Insurance.
The policy was great, paying everything. There wasn’t even a copayment. Plus, you never saw a bill since it went straight to the Council.

  I think they received some sort of government subsidy per vampire. We weren’t eligible for food stamps or any kind of assistance. If we were in trouble we had to go to the Council which acted, in effect, like Washington for us. I couldn’t help but wonder if there were lobbyists who made a point of entertaining Council members, offering them human snacks and whatever else old vampires deemed a treat.

  We pulled up to the one-story sandstone building. You could probably buy all of the cars in the parking lot for what the Rolls cost. I hadn’t thought of Dan as the ostentatious type, so maybe he inherited the car along with the castle.

  He got out and opened the door for me.

  “You’re not coming with me,” I said.

  “I am,” he replied pleasantly, a hint of a smile on his face.

  “It’s my gynecologist’s office.”

  He didn’t respond to that.

  “There’s nothing but pregnant women in the waiting room.”

  “Pregnant women don’t scare me.”

  “You’ll be bored.”

  “I’m guarding you, Marcie.”

  I shook my head, shut up, and tried to ignore him as I walked into the reception area.

  Dorothy was the receptionist and I’d known her for six years. She smiled at me in greeting and glanced behind me, her smile growing in wattage.

  Dan had that effect on women.

  I almost rolled my eyes but stopped myself at the last moment. Still, I wanted to explain that he was a friend, that I wasn’t here because of him.

  I didn’t.

  “I’m here for my appointment.”

  “You’re so lucky,” Dorothy said. “Normally appointments don’t come open like that.”

  I pushed back the spurt of guilt I felt for my vampire compulsion and smiled, one of those goofy expressions that takes the place of words.

  I couldn’t compel my grandmother, but I could summon Maddock. I couldn’t compel Dan or Mike, but I could ease a taxi driver’s fears and make a retail clerk feel better about her day. I could also get an appointment when no appointments were to be had. All in all, this compelling business was about thirty percent effective. Maybe I just needed to do it better.