V-Wars

I stepped inside when she gestured and I kept my mouth shut. I knew Lisa well enough to understand that if she wanted to tell me about what happened between her and some guy, she’d tell me. The apartment was decent sized and it was obvious that at least a couple of people lived there, because it was too big for Lisa alone. There were three doors that were all closed and looking down the hallway I could see the bathroom door was open. Even if one of those rooms was a closet, the other was probably a second bedroom. Also, I could smell the different odors of different people. And I could smell their colognes, their cigarettes and a strong odor of coffee. I wasn’t about to point out that any of that stuff was bad for the baby. Not my life, not my kid.

“So what’s going on with Anna?” Straight to business. Even when we were tight, Lisa never played around with being patient. We sat down and I told her everything I knew, even the part about me being a vampire. That part had her shaking her head. That was fair. I still shook my head about it a lot myself.

“That’s all there is to say.” I shrugged my shoulders. “I’m at a loss here, Lisa. I don’t know what to do. I know I’ve got a lot of people after me, and I know I’ve got to find Anna.” I must have looked as miserable as I felt, because she got up from the chair where she’d settled while I talked and she moved next to me on the couch. A moment later we were hugging. Nothing passionate or anything, just hugging and it was nice to do that. You really can’t be caught hugging on a lot of people when you’re working as an enforcer, if you see my point.

“Anna called here the other day, John.” Lisa’s voice was soft, reluctant.

“What?” I sat up and pulled away from the embrace. She should have told me that earlier.

“She told me she was being hunted. She said she was coming to Chicago and asked if she could stay here. I said yes, but that was the last I heard.” Lisa’s face was open and honest, same as always. Thing about Lisa was, she didn’t like to lie. She might avoid a subject if she didn’t want to hurt someone’s feelings, but she didn’t like to lie.

“Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“I’m telling you now.” She shrugged.

“Lisa, damn it. You know what I mean.”

Lisa looked away from me and stared at the carpet on the floor. It was just a standard apartment shag, not exactly exciting stuff to give a close inspection. “She said she was running from you, John. She said you were the one chasing her.”

“That’s crazy.” It took an effort not to yell. It wasn’t her fault and I knew that. Still, I was stunned. “I’d never chase after Anna. She’s my little sister. She’s my responsibility.” She always had been. When we were growing up, Anna was left in my care as often as not while the folks went to work and made a good living for us. That’s just the way it was, the way it always had been.

“I know. That’s why I’m telling you.” She put her hand on my shoulder and I looked at her. We were close once, and it hurt me a little to think about her, about how much she had changed in just a few years. Christ, she was about to have a kid! “I know you’d never hurt Anna. I told her that, too, but she said you’d changed.”

I felt shame right then. I was blushing and looking away from Lisa and I clenched my teeth and tried not to feel that cold spin of self-loathing, but let’s be honest here, we all do things from time to time that we regret. I always regretted working for the mob, but I could justify it. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe Anna couldn’t. And then there was the vampire thing. Anna was the one who helped me get through it, but that didn’t mean she enjoyed it. I remembered her crying after I killed that damned stray. And the shame bloomed like a floral explosion in my chest.

“She got taken, Lisa.” I looked at my friend and stared hard. “She got grabbed by the damned ogre. I saw the thing. Hell, I got my ass kicked by it just a little while ago.” Why would my sister say such things about me? The shame was back again, and repulsion. Was I really that horrible? The one person I always looked out for was so sickened by me that she lied about me and wanted to run away from home to get away from me?

Lisa shook her head. “I don’t get it, either, John. I haven’t heard from either of you in a long time and now you’re both calling me.” I opened my mouth to say something and she stopped me. “I’m not pointing fingers, I’m just saying I haven’t been around you guys in a long time and I don’t know all of the details.”

We could have maybe gone on like that, with me lost in guilt and self-loathing and Lisa maybe not making things better or worse so much as reminding me of how much my world had changed in the last few months. We might have gone on that way, but then my cell phone rang and when I looked at the caller ID I saw Anna Lei. My sister. I’d tried her cell a dozen times and it always went straight to voice mail. I figured the damn ape-thing had crushed the phone or Anna left it somewhere and the charge died. So the last thing I expected was that call.

Of course I answered it. What the hell else was I going to do?

“Anna?”

“John! You have to get out of here. It’s coming for you. It wants you dead, you hear me?” My heart soared hearing her voice. I wasn’t even aware of how much of me was sure she was already dead until I heard her speak. I could have cried, even with the words she was saying.

“Where are you? Tell me. I’ll come get you.”

“Run, John! Just run!” She sounded so worried, so desperate.

“Where are you?” I was screaming now, and there wasn’t much choice. My head was aching with my pulse and all I could think about was getting Anna safely away from that thing. And as it yelled for me to tell me where she was I heard the sounds of a struggle come through the phone. A second later the call ended and I was left staring at the screen on my phone that told me the connection had been lost.

Know what the problem with being an over-protective big brother is? You go a little crazy when something happens to your little sister. I started pacing and I clutched my phone so hard I heard the case crack a bit. I was smart enough to put it back in my pocket after that. Lisa watched me for several seconds without saying anything. When she finally asked me about the call, I told her word for word what Anna had said.

And when I was done and I’d calmed down a little, Lisa shook her head and sighed. She got up and walked as best she could to the kitchen. She took her time in there and I knew that was a sign that she was thinking of what she had to say to me. When she came back a minute later, it was with a glass of beer for me and a bottle of water for her. After I’d taken a couple of gulps from the beer she shook her head and said what was on her mind. “You should listen to her, John.”

“What? Leave her with that thing?”

“Yeah.” She was looking me in the eyes and I knew she was completely serious, but it was hard for me to accept that idea. “John, I don’t think you’re seeing the whole picture here. You’re too close to it.”

“What do you mean?” Lisa was direct enough, but I guess I was feeling particularly thick. In my defense, it had been a hard day.

“First, she’s still got her phone. That means she’s been carrying the phone the entire time she’s been gone. Second, she only just called you after you had a run in with the green thing. Unless the green thing is telling her what’s going on and what to say, she has no reason to suddenly call you. Maybe it makes sense to you, but it doesn’t make sense to me.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Why would she wait over a week to tell you to run unless she had a good reason?”

“Maybe it told her what to say.”

“Maybe it did.” She kept staring at me, and I started to understand what she was trying not to say.

“You think that Anna is working with this thing?”

“I don’t think anything. But it’s a little strange that your sister calls you after you have a run in with that monster and after it leaves you alive to take the fall for what it’s been doing. Seems to me like the thing doesn’t want to kill you but wants you out of the way. You said you change shape when you’re fighting. Maybe it does the same thing. Maybe it can hide in plain sight, same as you can.”

“I have to work at it.”

She gave me that look that told me I was being stupid. She was really, really good at giving me that look. Maybe that was one of the other reasons we never got too serious. The truth can be unpleasant to face. “So you have to dye your hair and shave. Maybe it has to do the same thing. Maybe it doesn’t even have to do that much. No one knows, because you’re both different. I mean, have you really paid attention to the V-Virus stuff, John? There’s some weird ass shit going on and you aren’t even close to the top of that list. Seriously.”

Honestly? I hadn’t much paid attention. I never had the time for the news. Even when I found out what was going on with me, I was too busy doing other things. What can I say? I hate studying.

“You think maybe she’s working with this other vampire?”

Lisa shrugged again and shook her head. “I don’t know. I just know that something weird is going on. Maybe she made a deal with it. Maybe she’s trying to protect you by leaving with it. Maybe she’s dating the damn thing. Who knows?”

“Okay, there’s no way my sister is dating that thing.”

“Why?”

“It’s a green gorilla!”

“You’re a big white cat with bad joints. What’s your point?” Again with the you’re-being-stupid look. “For all you know the damn thing is Brad Pitt when it’s not a green monkey.”

Outside a police car went screaming by with sirens wailing and lights flashing and I froze for a moment. It was easy to relax around Lisa, but I wasn’t about to forget that I was in a serious situation here. I wasn’t really guilty of anything, but the police were on the lookout for my monster-faced self and it was possible that someone working with Maggie Ruiz might make the connection and report me. I didn’t know if there were others like me or not. I wasn’t exactly in the loop when it came to vampire statistics.