Blood Lines

35. Heirloom

Solstice approached much quicker than Lena would have liked. She managed to get four days off of work for her trip inland. She had landed a gig at a local bar as a bartender for the night shift. It was a fairly quiet job, mostly tending to a collection of old local drunks who graced the stools nearly every night and a smattering of tourists on holiday looking for a night on the town. Most nights she pulled in good tips, especially on the weekends. The bar stayed open late, but of course she didn't mind. Her boss, who was perhaps a bit too flirty at times, seemed thrilled with his luck to land a female for the night shift who was reliable, never was tired and could hold her own with a little roughness. Little did it cross most human's minds that vampires lived and walked among them on a day to day basis, few though they were.

She occasionally had a vampire as a customer. Typically two vampires would recognize each other fairly quickly. Lena, being a pureblood, could tell almost instantly. Of course some redbloods with fairly small percentages of vampire heritage might not be very obvious. Mostly her vampire clients were a polite sort, casual and merely curious about the vampire population in the small town. But one night there had been a real flirter, a guy in his thirties who seemed intent on displaying his success and prowess to her. He had already been a bit sloshed when he had come in and gotten more and more pushy as the night went on. By the time she was closing, it was clear he was hoping to get lucky. He started to follow her home. She had clearly warned him off. She could tell he was just a redblood, maybe half and half, and that he was used to intimidating less capable lamia. So when he decided to get physical and grab her arm to try and stop her from leaving his vicinity, she had given him a good sharp reminder that he was nothing special.

Focusing her mind in the moment, she had swelled her powers. She had described them to Clae as hypnosis, because that was what most purebloods used them for. But Lena knew better. They could be used for far more than just to make humans or weaker vampires submissive. She sent a surge of energy towards the guy who stopped dead in his tracks and cried out in shock and pain. He crumpled to the ground as if he had received an electric shock. And in effect, this is what she had done, essentially tasering the fellow. She might have overdone it a bit, she reasoned in retrospect because the guy was now sobbing in pain. But she didn't care. She leaned over him and lifted his face up to meet hers. "Be respectful next time. You'll get a lot more positive attention if you do. And if I hear you harass anyone else around this town, I'll find you, mark my words."

He had nodded, whimpering and she had left. So far that had been the only negative experience to date. But things were about to get a lot more interesting. She was leaving later that day for the city, having booked a ticket for the morning train. Clae had been trying to call her all night. That girl was sure persistent. It had helped that they both had jobs. Clae was working at a movie theater during the days, so they had very little crossover time to chat, which suited Lena fine. But she could tell it didn't suit Clae at all.

At long last, she picked up the phone, going to the back room of the bar for a little privacy. It was almost closing time anyways.

"Hey, sorry to call you at work," Clae apologized, not sounding too sorry at all.

"It's fine, I'm almost off. What's up?"

"Well, you're coming today, right?"

"Yeah, I'm leaving in like two hours. I'll be there around 3 pm. But listen I've got family stuff all night. How about we meet up on the 22nd?"

"Works for me," Clae said. She sounded relieved. Maybe she had been afraid that Lena was going to blow her off. She had been torn about their meeting. On the one side, she wanted to see Clae with a burning urgency. Just thinking about biting her was driving her slightly up the wall. On the other side, she felt guilty, knowing she wasn't being honest with her about her current situation.