Dragon Kin 2

22

Carmen

"Vlad, I can't leave," I said to him, "Alexis needs to be looked after. This could be serious, for him and for the rest of you."

He frowned, "It's already serious. How soon could you possibly leave? Can anyone do the remainder of the treatment for you?"

Of course someone could, if I taught them for an hour. "This trip is that urgent? What happened to relaxing for a couple of days?"

"It marched south," he said, and the rye tone told me he meant to be cryptic.

"Fine," I said, "I need two hours and someone needs to find Ivan for me. He's the most familiar with the injury. When are we coming back?"

He looked behind him, and said, "I'll find Ivan for you." Then he strode off with those long legs of his, his back a bit straighter than before.

Two hours turned to three, but we were finally on our way. Alicja decided that walking would be better since flying put us in Canada, twice. We crossed with no issues, but the local time was 11:43 pm. I thought we should wait until morning before knocking on an old woman's door, but Vlad insisted that we go there.

A middle-aged woman with beautiful green eyes and blond hair opened the door for us.

"How's ya mamma and them?" the woman said making the common greeting in this city.

"Good and you?" I said reflexively, as I stepped through the door. Oma Lavinia had been sitting in the living-room before her computer screen, which was larger than most TVs I had seen. Its size seemed to say 'You measure your screen in inches? How cute.'

"But then you don't have a mamma, or them others do you?" Oma Lavinia said, turning to stand and face me.

"I do," said Alicja from behind me. "Hope you brought us here for more than that Oma."

"You just keep your temper in my house missy," Oma said with a stern eyebrow and then blossomed into a expression of pure joy as she embraced my travel companion. I looked behind me, but didn't see Vlad. I was about to go out to look for him when Alicja caught my arm.

"He's gone to prepare. There are hard times ahead. We'll be leaving by morning. How you feeling?"

"Good, I guess. You sound like you are being more than polite."

"He's going to cross back over if he gets far enough away from us and still feels comfortable."

"Back over? To go home?" I asked.

"Yes, but you may not want to follow, not right away," she said, as she studied my expression.

"Why would that be?" I asked starting to feel a bit nervous about what she was saying but more about what she wasn't saying. "What's going on?"

"Just before we left, we found out that Lycan has marched ten-thousand out to make war on us."

"Ten-thousand..."

"It's alright, you can say it. Ten-thousand werewolves — each of which are a sight more dangerous than your average SEAL team member."

"But why did Vlad come at all?"

Alicja shrugged, "Couldn't be sure you could cross and not injure or kill the both of you."

Like most of the homes in the Bourbon Street area of NoLo, Oma Lavinia's home was a Shotgun Shack, in design. Our house – well, Grandfather's house – was laid out nearly the same measure by measure.