Back In Time

Chapter 7: In Which I Bust My Ass

"Why whatever do you mean?" I asked innocently, batting my lashes and placing my hand over my heart.

"What I mean is, you apparently have the power to manipulate time and earlier this evening, you were speaking my thoughts. I know you're something more than what you claim, but I don't know exactly what that is," he responded. I could barely resist rolling my eyes.

"I know, I was just kidding. I'll tell you everything I know but I think it would be best if I told you and Godric together, don't you?" I reasoned. He nodded curtly.

"That is likely the best idea," he agreed. "We must get back to our lair, the night is drawing to a close," he looked surreptitiously up at the sky. I glanced up as well, startled by the clarity of the moon and the stars. I noticed that the velvety darkness was beginning to recede as well, and wondered where their 'lair' was. I also thought it was pretty effin' funny that he referred to it as a 'lair' but I decided to let it slide. Until I was able to school him in appreciating the fine art of sarcasm, it wasn't going to be fun to use it against him.

He walked back into the ballroom and nodded to Godric, who was standing near Anne and Henry. He nodded back and apparently said his goodbyes because he started walking through the crowd a moment later. We met him just outside of the room, in the large hall. Luckily, we didn't get caught in any conversation as we made our way out of the castle. I was starting to feel the tug of sleep now that I had realized the night was ending. It wasn't like I was a narcoleptic or anything, but forcing myself to stay awake would result in the bleeds and the bleeds were fuck-awful. I had only gotten them once, when I stubbornly tried to prove to Eric that he wasn't any better than me and I could stay awake as long as I wanted. Turned out that he actually was a little better than me and all I ended up with was blood everywhere, a nasty headache, and a gloating Viking. None of which I'd been very fond of.

I tried to pay attention to where we were going once we left the castle but I have to say, most of the streets looked alike. I was able to differentiate a bit more as we started reaching the outskirts of the city. The streets were a little less crowded and the filth was greatly reduced. We made our way to the edge of the forest again and I realized dimly that they must live in the woods. That would explain why they'd been there in the first place. I hoped like hell they had an actual house, or lair, because they were sadly mistaken if they thought I was gonna crawl my happy ass back in the dirt again tonight. Luckily, I noticed a cottage after a bit more walking through the woods and realized this must be their place. I was slightly confused when we walked past it but realized soon enough why.

They had a little tunnel dug about 10 yards behind the structure. It was covered with a random stone, totally hidden from the casual eye. Eric moved it to the side with the toe of his boot and looked up at me, grinning.

"Don't worry, we have living quarters. Godric had this commissioned some years back. The tunnel leads to our lair. He feels safer knowing that humans are physically incapable of exposing us during the day," he explained. I nodded slowly, trying to figure out what he meant by 'physically incapable'. I wasn't too keen on tight spaces and was starting to get a little uncomfortable, wondering exactly what was down there.

"Don't you?" Godric asked me seriously. I thought for a moment. In my time, I lived with Eric in a gated community that was heavily secured. The house we shared was also secure and guarded with alarms and a state of the art light tight system. Most humans wouldn't be able to figure out how to expose us before nightfall and even if they could, they wouldn't make it into the house in the first place. Now, however, I could understand and appreciate Godric's precautions.

"Of course," I agreed, deciding I would just trust Godric's judgement on basically everything I could. You didn't get to be old as dirt by being careless and I quickly calculated that he was somewhere around 1,500 years old at this time. He nodded at me, pleased with my acquiesce.