Simone looked over her shoulder again for like the hundredth time that day. Lately, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched everywhere she went. Her paranoia had been high ever since Anri was kidnapped, and even worse since Raum left.
Anri had finally broken down and told her what had happened with Angelina before he showed up on her doorstep over a year ago. How that crazy witch he had called a girlfriend had imprisoned him and bled him for nearly two months to summon creatures from other realms. And not even fey, the more commonly summoned creatures. No, fey were too easy for her to summon. She had wanted something more challenging. Demons.
Somehow Anri had escaped from her, and he wasn’t even sure how. Simone listened as he had recounted his time under her torture, and then she understood the dramatic changes in her brother since then. His deep worry and pensiveness, his horrible self esteem, though he reserved plenty of bad self esteem for himself before Angelina. His pre-existing self hatred was maybe a reason he was with the psychotic witch in the first place. But his pensiveness and fear of new people, that was new. All Angelina’s fault.
Meeting Seth had been the best thing to happen to him. Even if Seth hadn’t saved his life twice in one month, he still would have been the best thing to happen to Anri. He had broken down Anri’s well guarded walls and found a place in his heart.
She thought about her brother, who was currently pacing inside her apartment, worrying about Seth. Despite her approval and happiness that Anri loved Seth, she couldn’t handle the near-panic mode he was currently acting out. His pacing had driven her outside to escape, and now she felt eyes on her.
It was cold as she on the swing in the small park, the same park she chased Raum to before his flight. Raum, the demon that Angelina had summoned with Anri’s blood. Raum, the demon that had been chatting with her in over coffee just a week ago. Raum, the same demon she watched morph into a great dane sized crow and fly away.
The sunshine did nothing to cut the cold. Shivering, she pulled her hood up to block it. She sat on a swing but kept her hands inside her pockets, sure the chains were actually composed of ice.
The trees that lined the street were barren of leaves, skeletal fingers rubbing together in the slight breeze. Something caught her eye, something black in the trees. Lots of something black in the trees. She squinted, rubbing her eyes. There must have been fifty crows, stark black against the icy grey branches, perched in the trees lining the street next to her apartment building
And they all seemed to be watching her.
Now she knew her paranoia was getting the best of her. She shook her head, but the feeling of their eyes on her didn’t go away. One of the crows cawed, and she jumped a little as the the sound echoed oddly, making her realize how quiet the morning was. Something changed, though it didn’t seem like anything actually happened to her, but all of the crows went crazy, a cacophony of bird cries filling the quiet playground. She shivered again and pulled out her cellphone.
It wasn’t even ten in the morning. There was no way Maggie was going to be up yet, and she would catch hell if she woke her up. Simone snorted, eyeing the crows uncomfortably. She wasn’t going to be cowed by birds.
She could always just go back to her apartment and kick Anri out. But…she didn’t want him to leave. Not with that…thing…in the kitchen. Anri couldn’t see it. Maybe…maybe it was just shock, like trauma or something, making her jumpy and crazy. At least with Anri around she could relax a little. Power in numbers and all that.
Another cold gust of wind blew through her coat and Simone shivered again. Time to go back inside. Dread coiled in her stomach as she forced herself from the swing and made her way across the street, back to her apartment. As she closed the door behind her and hung her coat up, Anri rushed over to her.
“Hey. He’s driving me crazy. Simone, literally crazy. Something is going that’s making him feel all panicky and stressed and he told me that he would ‘call me later!’ Later!” he fretted, making air quotes with his hands. His hair was a messy, dirty blond halo, and she tucked a strand of it behind his ear.
Then she rolled her eyes at him. “He’s fine, Anni. You would know if not.”
“He woke me up!” Anri said indignantly, running his hands through his hair again, making it worse.
“Yes, oh Prince of Darkness, it is way too early for his royal highness to be awake. So, do us both a favor, stop pacing and go back to bed,” she suggested dryly.
“I can’t,” Anri whined. “Seth is so tense it’s making me jittery. Like four cups of coffee jittery.” Anri bounced with anxiety, wringing his hands. It only served to amplify her own anxiety. At least if she was crazy, she was in good company. Maybe it ran in the family?
“Jesus, Anni,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Either clamp down on your magic connection thing or whatever so you can get some rest, or find some other way to distract yourself. I know you’re both new to this, but if this happens every time he has to take a final exam or gets a speeding ticket, you are going to crawl out of your skin.”
She took her shoes off and walked over to the couch, flopping down unceremoniously with a small throw blanket, draping it over herself. It had a picture of a big puppy cuddling with a kitten, a present from their younger sister, though she had no idea why it was chosen for her. She wasn’t really a dog or a cat person. Actually, she wasn’t much of a pet person in general, with the exception of the fish that Seth’s spider-cat creature already ate.
“You’re right. Why are you always right? It’s enough to make people hate you, you know? People like me,” Anri said testily, sighing for the millionth time this morning.
“Yes, yes, a gift and a curse. You’re gonna break your own personal heavy sigh record soon. And, and you hate everyone, so it doesn’t make me feel special at all. Anni, you’ve gotta relax a little. You’re going to go gray.” Simone’s nostrils flared. “You made coffee. Would you get me a cup? You’d be my favorite brother,” She asked sweetly.
He looked at her then sighed. “I’m your only brother,” he said over his shoulder as he headed for the kitchen.
“Doesn’t make you any less my favorite brother!” she called after him. “Especially when you have coffee!”
He came back in with a mug of steaming liquid heaven and handed it to her. She inhaled the soothing aroma before taking a tentative sip. “Anni,” she asked. “Did you see anything, ah, odd in the kitchen?”
“Odd?” Anri asked, blowing across the top of his own steaming mug. “Like what? Did I break something?”
Simone bit her bottom lip. He really couldn’t see it. She could ignore it. She could. It obviously wasn’t real. But… “Do there seem to be more crows than normal around lately? Outside, I mean? I can’t help but think…well…there were a bunch this morning, like more than I’ve seen around here before, you know?”
“Crows?” Anri asked. “Hmm, I guess? I haven’t noticed, but now that you say something, maybe there are.”
He scratched his head thoughtfully and sat down on the deep cushioned mauve couch across from her. He had finally stopped pacing. She knew she had to keep him distracted. If he was distracted, so was she. She wouldn’t think about the thing in the kitchen. The thing that wasn’t in the kitchen, obviously, because she wasn’t crazy, right?
“This is going to sound kind of crazy, but it feels like they’re watching me. I’m worried I’m going to go outside and it’s going to be all like that movie with the birds, the horror movie. You know the one I mean?” She waved her hand around her head as if to ward off the fictional birds.
“Ah…you mean the movie The Birds?” Anri teased.
“Yes, that one, Dark Prince,” she shot back with a smirk. Shaking her head, she dismissed it, returning to her original point. “It’s weird, I know, but it feels like they are watching me.”
“Well,” Anri said carefully, “Some weird things have been happening lately. Weirder than normal. You know, since I met Seth, things have been crazy.” His head tipped slightly to the side and Simone could almost see his brain working.
“What?” She demanded. She took a sip of the slightly too hot coffee and didn’t care that it burnt her mouth just a little.
He cringed at the demand in her voice. “You think this has something to do with the demon? The birds? With Raum?” The way he said Raum’s name made it seem like a bad word.
“Why? Do you think it might?” Simone inquired.
“I didn’t say that. I was just asking. But, you know, I do think it has something to do with him. It just feels really unfinished, all the stuff with Raum. And, well, he does turn into a crow. I don’t really know a lot about demons, but maybe he has an affinity with them or something? Or maybe they’re looking for him? I dunno,” Anri shrugged. “It’s just conjecture.”
Simone nodded. “You might be right. Do you… you think he’ll come back?”
She didn’t know how she felt about Raum coming back. He was like movie star handsome, that was for sure, tall with broad shoulders, dark hair and almost native American features. Apparently she had jumped him and drank him after being stabbed by Angelina’s henchman, but she didn’t remember any of it. She had been deep in the grips of bloodlust, and the next thing she actually remembered was waking up in her car to Raum and Anri arguing.
She didn’t remember any of it, but she had pieced together the story between what Seth and Anri remembered from that night. She believed them, though, since when she woke up she there had been a raised pink line on her abdomen just below her last rib. That, and how much her abdomen had hurt for the next two days. She didn’t even have a scar from the stab wound now, which was not normal. Even with accelerated healing, she should probably have had at least a small line. She never had healed as well as Anri did.
“Hey,” Anri said gently. “Even if he does come back, it’s on your terms. I didn’t really talk to him at all, so I don’t know, but you spent a day or two with him. You two seemed to get along, although he really rubs me the wrong way. I mean, he’s a demon. I don’t even know where to begin with that, you know? I only know stories and stuff I’ve read on the internet. I have no idea what real demons are supposed to be like.”
“Everyone rubs you the wrong way, Anni. You’re like a perpetually wet cat,” she teased. “I don’t know. He didn’t say anything when he left. It was weird. We were chatting about nothing, then he looked over like he was surprised. He whispered something, then ran out of the apartment. Next thing I know, he’s a bird and then he’s gone.”
She took another sip of her coffee. Neither of them said anything. She wasn’t going to admit that something more spectral than just that had happened, because then she would have to admit she believed in ghosts. Which…was kind of seeming a little less absurd now, all things considered. Anri didn’t correct her, either, about her redaction about the ghost from her original story, which was not a ghost. Because they didn’t exist, and definitely not in her kitchen.
Simone stared out the window. A large black crow sat in a gray branch just beyond her window, staring inside the apartment. Startled, she nearly spilled coffee on her blanket. Anri looked over at her, concerned.
“Look, Anni,” she said quietly. She tried not to let on to the bird she knew it was watching her. She totally wasn’t being paranoid, not at all. “Do you see that crow out the window?”
Anri looked over. “No! Don’t let it know you know it’s watching. Be more casual about it,” she hissed.
The look Anri gave her let her know exactly how crazy she sounded. “I do see it, Simone. I don’t think it’ll think anything of me looking at it.” He got up and walked across the room to the kitchen window. He looked at the bird and Simone watched as it looked right back at him. She could have sworn the bird nodded to him.
“Anni, it’s watching you. It nodded to you,” Simone whispered nervously.
Anri pulled the blinds down quickly. “Stop making me freak out. Weren’t you the one who told me to calm down? It is definitely watching. You’re right. It nodded. Now I’m seriously freaked out. Maybe that’s a thing birds do? I could ask Seth. Maybe it’s totally normal and not seriously fucked up.”
Anri walked to the other window in the room, peeking out of it pensively before he pulled the blinds. Simone wiggled deeper into the couch and pulled the blanket up a little more.
“What do you think it wants?” she asked.
“I don’t know, Simone. Maybe we are freaking out for no reason, like it’s in our heads. It’s been a really stressful week. Could this be something like PTSD?”
“Is it gone?”
I dunno, Simone,” Anri snapped. “I’m not looking again. How many crows does it take to make a murder?”
She shivered. “Shut up, Anni! Why are you trying to make it worse!”
“No, I mean,” he back pedalled, “a group of crows is called a murder. Seth told me. I wasn’t trying, i mean, I was trying to be funny. Sorry…”
Simone didn’t say anything. Anri fidgeted uncomfortably across from her. They both jumped when his phone buzzed.
Anri picked it up and looked at the display. Simone watched him carefully.
“It’s Seth. He says that I need to cool it or he’s going to close our connection a little. I think he thinks I’m still worried about him,” Anri pouted. Simone chided herself for thinking his pouty face over Seth was cute.
“Why are you worried about him again?” Simone asked, glad to have something to distract her current line of thoughts, which revolved around the thing that was not in the kitchen, the birds that were not watching her, and Raum. There was something about him that just tickled the inside of her mind. There was something so close to the front of her memory. Something that flowed like sand from her as she tried to catch it.
“He was freaking out this morning. Told me his friend Lance was back in town. Wouldn’t say much more, but that Lance knew about us. Me and Seth, and that I’m vampire. I got the feeling that Lance didn’t like that, and it wasn’t going exactly how Seth had hoped. Do you think Seth told him about me? I didn’t tell Seth to keep the vamp thing a secret, but I didn’t think he’d broadcast it all over town, either.” Anri frowned. It made him look younger. She reminded herself that she was not enjoying his pouty face.
Seth told someone about Anri? That didn’t seem likely, even if she didn’t really know him. He just didn’t seem like a gossip to her. “It seems strange that he would tell him that right off the bat,” Simone said thoughtfully.
“Well, somehow Lance knows,” Anri said, worried.
“Stop, Anni. Don’t worry over it. Seth’s a grown-ass man. Seth is your Wren and he is totally in l-o-v-e with you,” she teased, spelling out the word. “He is super into you. I don’t think he would do anything to put you in harm’s way.”
Anri sighed and raked his hands through his hair. “Yeah, I know. Something weird happened to our connection earlier. It felt like it was pulled tight and, I don’t know, contaminated or something for like a minute. It felt spiky and dirty. I think it had something to do with Lance. It made my skin crawl. Seth said that Lance could see our bloodbond. He said that Lance touched it. Have you ever heard of anything like that? I can’t seem to relax now. I just…I just want to see him so bad. I’m pathetic.”
“Shut up, Anni. Not pathetic. You said it already. There are some weird things happening lately. And…Seth’s friend touched your bond?” She asked, a little flummoxed. “I didn’t think that was possible.”
“I know, right?” Anri replied quickly. “It made me want to puke. It must have been even worse with how close it happened to Seth. How could his friend have touched it? Seen it? Even Seth and I can’t see it normally.”
“TMI, Anni. I fully support the two of you, but I would like to refrain from knowing the intimate details.” She scrunched up her face in mock disdain.
Anri laughed. “Shut up. You know I wasn’t talking about, um…”
The blush that spread over his face was worth the goading. Simone laughed.
“Be careful what you wish for, because one day you’re gonna go too far and I’ll give you all the gorey details,” Anri teased her.
“You would die from shame first,” Simone replied confidently.
“Probably true. Plus, none of your goddamn business,” he declared with a nod. “Let’s do something completely different now. Wanna watch some Archer with me?”
—-
Nothing else dramatic happened for the rest of the morning more than Anri falling asleep on the couch while they were watching TV. The creepiness she had felt that morning seemed silly now. Even the grouping of birds were gone, only a few stray birds flying here and there. Maybe they were migrating? Did crows do that?
Anri was getting ready to leave for work, texting and walking and not paying attention in general. She was sitting on the floor, working with some silver coil, wrapping it around a small hoop she was fashioning into an earring. She looked up at him when Anri snorted.
“What?” She said distractedly, turning her attention back to her coiling.
“Hmm?” Anri said, also distracted. “Oh, just reading stupid crap on the internet.”
Simone rolled her eyes at him. “You leaving for work?” she asked as she moved her needle nose pliers carefully around the hoop.
“Yup,” He said shortly while typing on his phone.
“Seth okay now?” Simone inquired.
“Hmm? How’d you know I was texting with Seth?” Anri asked distractedly.
“Oh, that stupid look on your face tells all, dear brother.”
“Oh…” he blushed. “Yeah. He’s fine. He’s gonna come by the bar tonight,” Anri said, a big goofy grin on his face. He looked up from his phone. “You gonna be okay tonight?” He looked concerned.
She sighed. “It feels like I was just overreacting this morning. But…I…I don’t want to be alone. It’s fine when you’re here. I dunno. I’ll be fine.”
“Why don’t you go to Maggie’s house?” Anri asked.
“I can’t, her parents are visiting, leaving tonight. She said she just wants some ‘me time’,” Simone made air quotes around her words. She was not pouting about it. Nope, not at all.
“What about one of your other friends?” Anri asked gently.
“Anri, I’ll be alright. I’m just being paranoid,” she sighed. She hoped it was just paranoia. She worried that it wasn’t. If she told Anri, then he would worry, too, and he already worried enough for both of them.
“I could ask Seth to stop over. He doesn’t start school until tomorrow, so he might be free tonight. And maybe you could meet Lance,” Anri sneered.
“You haven’t even met the guy and you already hate him. It’s good to have you back,” she said sweetly. “Seriously, I’ll be fine. Maybe I’ll come by later, once I get this order finished. It’s fine. Have a nice night at work. Tell Red I said hi.”
He frowned at her. “Simone, call me or call Seth if you need to. I’ll let him know.”
“You worry too much. I’m sorry I’m jumpy today, it’s just that lots of stuff has happened, you know? I’m fine. Later, bro,” Simone said, pushing Anri out the door. “Have a nice night at work.”
“Simone,” he said, looking back at her as she shoved him into the hallway. His face crinkled up in worry.
“What?” Simone’s hands went to her hips.
He paused, then turned around. “Nothing.” Anri put his fist up in the air and Simone reflexively fist bumped him. “See ya tonight.”
Simone shut the door behind him. She waited until she heard the outer door shut behind him before bolted hers for good measure.
She definitely wasn’t going to tell Anri about the little ghost girl in the kitchen that hadn’t left since Raum did.
Dreadfully Erotic 