Page 92 of By the Pint

I let out my breath.You don’t have to hang around here. When Killian comes up. You don’t have to stay and listen to our conversation. I could meet him in the bar?

No, he said.I … need to know.He was quiet for the longest time.You’d better get dressed.

So I did. I pulled on fresh underwear and a clean pair of jeans and a plain white t-shirt, and for the remainder of the fifteen minutes, I paced the suite, and tried not to think about Dima, or immortality, or love, or how hungry I suddenly was, or this pain in my chest that was almost certainly heartbreak, or how even though I had just peed, I needed to pee again.

There was a knock at the door. Killian’s signature, bordering whimsical,knock, knock-knock, knock.

My insides felt like I’d swallowed molten lava. I took a deep breath, straightened my posture, and opened it.

Why was I so nervous?

“Bestie!” Killian said, upon seeing me. His red eyes swept from the top of my head down to my toes, a grin overtook his entire face. He cupped my cheeks between his hands. I madean extra effort to strengthen my mind-barriers. “You look ill, Casey.” He couldn’t have seemed happier about that fact. “Looks like you haven’t been … resting properly.” He gave a theatrical wink.

“You may enter,” I said, almost automatically, letting the invisible vampire barrier to my room drop.

Killian practically skipped into the suite. He wore his usual sprayed-on, black leather jeans, black mid-calf leather stomping boots which afforded him an extra three inches of height, an open-to-his-sternum tight-fitting leather t-shirt, and a calf-length leather coat. His waist-length hair was down, and bounced as he moved, and around his neck he wore leather cords where various columns of ruby-coloured stones hung. The only possible way for him to look any more vampire would be blood dribbled down his chin.

“Where is he?” Killian asked. He opened the closet doors and closed them again, crossed over to the immaculately made bed and lifted the sheets up, dropping them in a heap. “Why is the bed so neat? Where’s Dima? Where’s your Belle de Jour?”

I narrowed my eyes at Killian. Was this why he came? Not to see me, or bring me home to the City of the Undead, but to settle some long-standing beef with Dima? Or have it out a little more? Did he come for a fight?

Is he there?Dima asked.

Yes, he’s looking for you,I replied.Wait, can’t you hear his thoughts?

A pause.No.

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit. That had to mean something. Something big.

Dima could hear my thoughts, but not Killian’s, his blood-brother’s. Even though Killian was making no attempt to hide them.

“Wait just one second!” Killian said, straightening up from peering under the mattress. He jogged over to me and took my face in his hands again. “You … I … hang about! You’re blocking your thoughts from me. Didheteach you that?” He brandished a hand towards the bed, as though suddenly expecting to find Dima there.

“Why have you come?” I asked, ignoring his almost manic need to discover Dima concealed behind the curtains.

He shot another glance around the suite. To the open bathroom door, clearly not hiding a vampire. “I know he’s here. The receptionist called him Mr Black.” He snorted and rolled his eyes up, like someone had just told a terrible Winter Fest cracker joke. “Mr Black.”

“Killian!” I snapped my fingers in front of his face, as I had done so often before when he found it difficult to concentrate.

“It’s time, Casey. We have a date for your turning. I got the letter two nights ago, but you weren’t answering my scrying calls.”

“I was … busy.” I thought about everything that had happened over the past few days. Everything Dima and I did.

What’s he saying?Dima asked.Does he still look like a caricature of a vampire?To which I laughed.

It was Killian’s turn to narrow his eyes. “You’re talking to him inside your head, aren’t you? Where is he?”

“Nope. I’m not,” I said.

“Damn that bloody vampire! Now I can’t tell if you’re lying.” Killian eyed the ceiling as though he might find Dima braced between two non-existent beams. “Here!” He thrust a piece of paper into my hands. A letter. Addressed to me.

For the attn. of Mr C. Freckleman. I skim read.

Further to your application made on …yada yada. … We’re pleased to open the following appointment slot of 28th February at 12:15 AM for the commencement of your Turning.

“That’s in five days,” I said pointlessly, and continued reading.

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