Chameleon | ONC 2020

11: Summoning

Coran found her there, sitting on the rug next to the spots of blood, the blue ribbon twisted around her fingers. She didn't dare imagine what she looked or smelled like to his enhanced senses, but his face was sympathetic regardless. She got up on unsteady legs and ran to him, wrapping her arms around his middle and burying her face in his chest. After a moment, his hand cupped the back of her head and the other wound around her waist.

"Anything?" she said, hiding her face as much to conceal her tears as out of relief to see him.

"Not yet," he replied. "I've got some of the boys on it."

She sighed, and it caught thickly in her throat. "This is my fault."

She didn't expect him to deny it, and he didn't. "Cham, we talked about human friends. They end up being targets. You should know that better than anyone."

She pulled away from him, suddenly revolted. "She's not human."

He blinked. "She's not?" He looked around. "This looks pretty human to me."

"She's got fae blood." Chameleon scowled. "She's less human than me, at any rate. She...she was nice to talk to. We... Coran, it's been so long since I've had friends."

"You have me," he said, an edge to his voice, though she was grateful he didn't try and include any of his murderous posse. They'd known each other too long for that.

"It's not the same," she said, "It's not...enough. I need other people; other people who don't spend half their time thinking about how much they'd like to eat me, and the other half staring at my arse. You don't know any women besides me."

"Cham..."

"No! Coran, please. I've been thinking about this," her voice cracked, "It's not the jobs. It's not the safe-houses, it's not.... I can't live like this. I don't get to have any normality, or this will happen." She pointed at the bloodstains. "I'm not supernatural. I don't fit in anywhere because of it. And I think you forget sometimes that I'm not."

"But you can..."

"The sorrow clouds?" She laughed. "I'm still human. Being able to see when people are miserable hardly makes me a sorcerer. I can't keep up with you, Coran, and I never will be able to. Trying just cuts me off from the rest of the world. And it's killing me."

Coran stared at her for a long time, but it wasn't the same as when Lilac had done it. This was calculating, a look she'd never seen on him before. It was cold.

"You slept with her."

Her heart dropped into her bowels. Coran took a step forward.

"You slept with her. And then you lied about it."

Instead of rushing to apologise, Chameleon found herself firing up in return. "So wha..." She stopped, turning cold, all her anger gone like a blown-out candle. She hadn't given Coran Lilac's address, she realised, but he'd known to come here. "What did you do to her?"

He flinched, sorrow cloud boiling. She was so used to his moods she hadn't even noticed it, but she should have seen how low it hung when he walked in.

"You sent that vampire to scare me," she whispered, "Didn't you?"

"Oh, jeez, Cham, you think I'd stoop that low?" he snapped. "This big job is going to lose that idiot's clan its territory. Of course they targeted you. I can't believe you think I'd do that."

"You know what I never would have believed," she said, keeping her voice low so he couldn't hear it shaking, "is that you'd abduct someone else to punish me."