90: Demizen Superiority

Morning comes faster than I want. Afternoon arrives even faster. It isn’t as if I had gotten any sleep. Instead of resting or passing out with exhaustion, I lay in bed, picking at the bite, going over every little detail of last night. Nothing makes sense while other things make too much sense.

I know that vampires have a evilness to them. They do whatever they need to in order to get what they want and they don’t think twice about taking, sometimes taking too much. But the connection I feel to Gabriel, it plays with me. I know he’s a vampire, through and through, but sometimes all I see is the human side.

Am I just smitten with a vampire, delusion by what I want to see instead of what I should be seeing?

It’s well past noon, it could even be considered late afternoon, early evening. Is this a sign of how the days to come are going to be? Finally, crawling out of bed in the late afternoon with a splitting headache, no closer to any answer?

Wanting to put an end to the cycle of misery, I crawl out of bed and get ready to go to the only place that can bring me some comfort...or security.
Just seeing Mystic off in the distance, my anxiety ebbs away. The shop itself may bring comfort but sometimes, depending on the day or the ambitions of those inside, bring on its own trouble.

Of course, this is the day that Monty comes back. I’m overjoyed to see her alive and well, but her eyes are on me the minute I walk in, a devious gleam to them. I’m definitely in trouble.

She corners me into the little corral behind the front counter. “We need to talk. Where have you been?”

“Umm..” There’s an uneasy feeling that settles in my gut. Lying doesn’t feel good, but a part of me knows that I won’t have to do much lying. I play it cool and ignore the end of world scenario that plays in my head. “Did something happen? Are you okay?”

“Yeah-yeah, it’s nothing.” She blows it off so easily, but that doesn’t stop me from blaming myself. “I’ve just been waiting for you to show up.” She quickly huffs.

My eyes gravitate to her arm that broke under the pressure of a wolf’s hands. No marks, no sign that anything ever happened to it. She did rest it off for several days, but still. The strength of his fingers crushing against her flesh should’ve left massive bruises. Gretchen really is a miracle worker.
Monty, oblivious to my inner turmoil, pulls out her deck of cards and a groan of protest slips between my lips, but she quickly shushes me. Mesmerized, I watch her slap the pile on the counter top and with one long fluid swipe, spread them out across the counter.

“Pick one.” She demands.

“I don’t think so.” The last thing I need to see right now are those cards. I’m already tormented, I don’t need their judgement added to the mix.
“We never picked your third card. We need to know what it is.” There’s a desperation to her that I’ve never seen before.

“Do we?” My voice cracks as the two words come out. “I don’t think we do.”

“Yes, we do. Pick the cards, Hazel.” That desperation turns to bitterness.

What is with this sudden need to see my third card. It’s not going to be any better than the other two. It’ll definitely be ten times worse. The third card always is. With a shaky hand, my fingers creep up on the edge of the cards before landing on a corner of one. I slide it out leaving it face down.

Monty quickly flips it over. The King stares back at us. As I stare at it, I begin to question myself. How did I go so long not realizing that Gabriel was depicted on this card?

My fingers slide along the counter top and retrieve the second card. The Evolution. It hasn’t changed and it still makes my chest tighten to a suffocating level.

I meet Monty’s eyes before going to grab the third. Everything in me screams don’t do it. But another part, a very tiny part, says do it. Then there’s a new voice, it gains power over the others. It says that I already know what the card is, what it will say.

Without being aware of it, my fingertips touch a card. It’s halfway out of the fanned arch before my mind starts working again and has me jumping back from the table. I didn’t want to. I didn’t mean to pick a card. It just happened. That one particular card called to me so badly that I didn’t even know my body was reacting.

Monty seems pleased, but I’m sure that won’t last long. That card. That card is bad. I can feel it.

She slowly flips it over, peeling the corner closest to her up first to give herself a sneak peek. That gleam in her eyes fades away. I knew it was bad. Time seems to stand still as she flips it over to reveal the card. The completely black, blank card.

“What is that?” A blank card is one thing, but a black blank card.

“The void.” Monty whispers.

Her shock, her fear seeps into me. Her worry becomes my worry. “What does it mean?”

“This isn’t just about you. The void swallows universes whole.” Her eyes are glued to the card. “Bad things are coming.”

The words are stuck on the tip of my tongue and a stupid, “uh…” comes groaning out.

But before I can come clean, Monty says, “I got the same one. The Void. It’s my third card too.” She starts pacing, “I shuffled and picked and picked not only for myself but several people today. They all have The Void.” She stops, sharp eyes on me. “How can you still have The Evolution when The Void is coming?”

“Uh…” That useless noise rambles from between my lips once again. I’m at a loss for words, but that doesn’t mean I’m clueless. My face scrunches up as I admit things, bad things. “I may have some idea who’s behind it.”

Her left eyebrow raises abnormally high as her skepticism silently screams at me.

“Phillip, King of Vampires, Gabriel’s maker, is planning something, a bad something.”

Monty stares at me dumbfounded for a minute letting my words sink in. “He told you?”

I shake my head, “I saw it. I confronted him.” I pause and thankfully Monty lets me have my moment to gather my words. With my eyes on the floor I continue, “I left here yesterday in a cab to confront Gabriel, but I had no real, logical idea where I was going. I just gave the driver directions as it came to me. But deep down, I knew we were going to Phillip’s.”

My eyes snap up from the floor to stare her in the eye. She no doubt can see my mania simmering within, “I’ve never been to Phillip’s house. Gabriel didn’t tell me where he lived. I’m not a vampire groupie, but I knew where the manor was.” This time there’s an eerie silence in the room. This is more than her giving me a moment. My voice seems so loud in the vacant store when I finally gather the strength to speak. “I knew where Gabriel’s room was in the manor. It was the weirdest deja vu, but...how…”

“How can you have deja vu when you’re positive that you haven’t been there?” Gretchen says as she joins us. I nearly leap with startlement as she approaches us from out of nowhere. “But it was deja vu, because it was a memory.” She steps closer and grabs my hand. “Your cracked, mirrored lines say just that.”

“What?” Monty and I dumbfoundedly say at the same time.

“I spent several hours, days trying to figure it out. But as I was looking for ways to help that cursed wolf from Midnight Hallows, I saw something, something about the effects of meddling with time.”

“But Gabriel can’t do magic.” It seems so simple, the answer. He couldn’t have had anything to do with this. Gretchen has to be wrong.
“But, the woman who cast the curse on that wolf, traded from Phillip to Scarlet River...she can.”

“Brooklynn.” I finally understand why I hate her so much. If what Gretchen is saying is true. Then I’ve spent plenty of time with her and her conniving words. With Phillip and superiority that he shoves down your throat at every chance he can get. And with Gabriel.

Suddenly, the room spins as I put bits and pieces together. The dots are connecting once again and some of them I don’t think I want connected.
Monty’s voice sounds further away than it should. I see her not even two feet in front of me, see her mouth open to form words, but she sounds so far away. Louder, almost screaming at me, she says, “what did you see?” She leans in so close. Her hands jolt out and grab onto me. The pressure of her fingernails pushing into me isn’t painful, but it isn’t painless either. “Hazel, what did you see?”

Vampires ruling the streets, wolves prowling, demons lurking and humans dying. I don’t say it, any of it, because I’m scared to admit it, so I just sum it up. “Demizen superiority.”