I've decided to go a little crazy and post a picture of Loki WITH clothes. I know I know. Call the asylum. No half naked Lokis. This is unheard of. 

::CHAPTER 12::

Waking up in Bvendini was always a little disorienting. It was supposed to be dark right now like the rest of the Italian immortal population, but the sun was shining as bright as ever. Worse yet, the initial reaction for sunlight was ingrained into my mind. I spotted the brightness and pulled away before I was able to remind myself that this sunlight was not real. It would not burn. It was nowhere near bright enough to hurt my eyes but damn it, it was still brighter than I was used to.

It was an extra shock to see sunlight this morning on the heels of the dream I’d just gotten out of where everything was hued much darker.

I’ve always thought that humans were some of the dullest creatures on God’s green earth as far as being interesting went. It was a bit odd to see that the human version of me was just as much an enigma as the immortal version.

Without a doubt I had to tell Samuel about this. As soon as I’d taken a shower and dressed I set out to find him. It took some hunting and asking around to find that he was not in the house. Well that was a waste. I gave a huff and crossed my arms as I leaned on the kitchen counter. Where would he possibly go? I didn’t send him on any errands and it isn’t as though he knows anyone here.

“You only just got up,” Loki strolled up behind me, “and you’re missing your better half already?” I wasn’t startled. I’d heard him coming long before he spoke up.

“I don’t see where he could have gone.”

“He has a life away from you. You do know that right?”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning he has family and friends here in Bvendini. He doesn’t only go when you say go.”

“Family?” I frowned, “He never mentioned any family here.”

“I wouldn’t mention my family either if they were human. I’d be afraid that you would kill them off.”

“You’re one to talk about killing off families.”

He was not caught off guard by the quip. As usual he neither denied it nor owned up to it. He simply smiled at me. That knowing yet evasive little smile. One that said ‘you might be wrong…or you might be right’ though we both knew the truth.

“So human, eh?” I said when it became clear that he wasn’t going to say much else.

“Talk to him about it. He’s your advisor.”

“Why talk to him when I can talk to you, little brother? You’re here and he isn’t. Besides, it’s been so long since we’ve last had a heart to heart.”

“More like heart to empty, gaping hole,” was the response.

“You always seek to wound me,” I sighed.

“You don’t have the emotional capacity to be wounded,” he said and sat at the island, “Speaking of wounded…were you serious last night? About you and your date killing two people while feeding.”

“No of course not. We had dinner in a respectable place where all meals lived to see another day,” I responded already bored with his train of thought, “Now about Samuel’s family. How many of them are there?”

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t make jokes like that again,” he acted like I hadn’t added anything, “Humans are an important part of this city.”

“Are you done or do you need to sing an ode to mortals first?”

“How is it possible that you were on a date last night?”

“Stop changing the topic. Tell me about Samuel’s family. Why am I now hearing of them?”

“I don’t know. Ask Samuel when he gets home. This is none of my business. And for that matter neither is it any of yours. If he wants to tell you, he will,” Loki said before leaving.

There was finality in that tone. It was obvious that he wasn’t going to be more helpful than that. Not that he was all that helpful at all. I did learn one new thing about Samuel though. I wanted to meet these people. These so-called friends and family. These supposed loved ones that Samuel had been hiding from me. Judging by Loki’s reaction, I guessed it would be a tad bit difficult to get an introduction. I had to talk with Sam when he came home.

The clinking of a plate bouncing against glass caught my attention. I’d been subconsciously aware of people in the kitchen before but they hadn’t demanded my attention until now. I turned and spotted two red heads. Both were creeping around the kitchen in search of food but trying their hardest not to make any noise behind me. Unfortunately for them, they were horrible at stealth.

Ana threw a glance up at me and froze with the bread in hand. The other girl hadn’t noticed that they’d caught my attention and continued rummaging in the cupboards. My mind ran on the dream. More so the false emotions I’d used in it. It was far easier to mimic when remembering me using them as opposed to mimicking actors in a movie. I softened my gaze before flashing Ana a smile. She hesitated a second before returning it.

“Hi,” she toyed with the bread bag.

“Hi,” I mirrored her shyness, “How have you been?”

“Oh…pretty good.”

The second redhead sidled up beside her with a tub of peanut butter and a jar of jelly in her hands. She placed them on the counter and met my eyes with open curiosity. It lasted for one sparse moment. She turned her attention to her lunch soon after.

People never looked away from me so suddenly unless it was out of fear or intimidation. Otherwise they stared in awe and – most times – wariness. Most people were captivated by me at the first meeting. What is wrong with this girl? She went from curious to uninterested in about three seconds flat.

Ana’s eyes went from me to the second girl and decided to make the introductions. “Mr. Veracci, this is my sister Ria,” she signed, “Ria this is Master Loki’s brother, Mr. Alejo Veracci.” Ria looked up at me for a second time with a nod of acknowledgement that was neither respectful nor disrespectful. She was difficult to read unlike Ana. In fact the only similarities the siblings appeared to share were their complexions and striking red hair.

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Veracci,” she said.

“Likewise…”

She didn’t seem very pleased. The tone was so emotionless that I was convinced that she was masking some stronger feeling. It was odd for a human to be so without emotion. I think she didn’t like me much. I couldn’t comment on it though because there was nothing that truly proved that. It was more of a gut feeling.

“May I speak, Mr. Veracci?” Ria asked spreading a generous amount of jelly on a slice.

“Of course,” I said. She had manners. Manners and a working knowledge of proper protocol. That was something at least.

“Are you and my sister friends?”

The answer – ‘yes’ – was on the tip of my tongue but I paused when she fixed me with a stare. There was something almost challenging and protective about it. Perhaps she didn’t trust me. That would be reason enough to dislike me. She thinks I will hurt her sister.

“No. Not yet. But we’ll get there,” I replied after the pause and flashed another, more doting smile at Ana.

“Do you have many human friends?”

“I don’t have many friends in general. Only my advisor.”

“Convenient,” was her cool response before she returned to making her sandwich. She had effectively dismissed herself from the conversation but in a way that was not overtly rude.

I was still trying to decide whether she meant convenient-that-I-only-had-one-friend or convenient-way-to-dodge-the-truth-with-a-completely-unrelated-response. I suspected the latter though she probably would never admit it with so many words. She was too clever for that. In the five minutes that I’d known Ana’s sister, I could tell that much. Subtle as it was, she spoke more with body language. Another family trait.

Ria grabbed her plate and glass and disappeared from the kitchen after giving me a parting nod. “Charming girl,” I commented to Ana. She reddened a little but didn’t respond. Instead she began picking at her food.

“Is she always this enchanting?” I asked.

“She’s really sweet most of the time,” she signed, “I think she feels threatened by you. Your status I mean.”

“That’s understandable.”

She was lying. I suspected that it went deeper than that. Her sister had probably heard rumors about me that most people tended to cast off as false. It didn’t matter though. She was irrelevant. It was Ana that I needed. Kind, shy, easy to read Ana. Loki’s Ana. She would tell me what I needed to know.

“Are you doing anything now, sir?” she asked.

“Not at the moment.”

“I have that painting that you said you would sign for me. I don’t know if you remember or—.”

“No no. I remember. Take me to it.”

She didn’t need to be told twice. At once she grabbed her lunch and led the way. I was shocked when we began climbing stairs. I’d expected the human help to be rooming in a basement-type room. It would be much larger and able to hold much more people. Having them upstairs would definitely cut back on space. It was illogical to put their luxury above the amount of help and stored food he could have.

When she led me to one of the rooms, my shock grew tenfold. It was not particularly big, but it was far larger than any room I’d ever seen any human help sleeping in. Even more surprising, it didn’t appear as though she shared this room with anyone else judging by the neat little bed near the window. He gives them so much freedom. This is ridiculous.

“Does everyone have their own sleeping quarters?” I asked.

“No. Not everyone. I guess I’m one of the lucky ones.”

“I can see that,” I looked around the average sized place, “Nice room.”

It was in fact a nice space in the way that most people would judge it. Light brightened the room with golden shards stretching to each corner and crevice. Fresh flowers sat in water on every flat, table-like surface from little stools to bedside tables to the window sills.

Some aspects reflected the modern décor that Loki was attached to; the white of the walls, the glass and crystal vases that didn’t look much like vases and the artistic-to-the-point-of-uncomfortable chairs sitting here and there.

The rest of the place however spoke of Ana’s highly artistic mind. The corners were littered with both discarded and unused canvases, a palette caked with dried paint sat on a worn but vivid red rug and some of her semi-completed work were propped against the walls. Charcoal pencils cluttered a table near the second window and on the floor lay a basket of freshly laundered clothes.

I would have doubted their cleanliness if it wasn’t for the fresh linen scent coming from them. Almost all of the shirts, jeans and dresses that I saw were splattered in paint, smudged with charcoal or stained with dye. One such shirt had had the bad luck to have been subjected to all three.

I turned around to see her removing a frame from the wall above her bed. It was a startlingly good imitation of one of my paintings. If I wasn’t aware of the monetary worth of that particular piece, I’d have thought that she’d bought the original. Up close I noticed tiny but obvious flaws that separated this one from my work but it was still impressive.

Accepting the pen, I wrote one of those vague notes with my signature at the end. As expected she took the utmost joy in this like fans always did at these notes. She stared at the impersonal note as if it were a declaration of love from a secret admirer. Her excitement was almost tangible in the air. Oh yes. Definitely more readable than her sister.

I walked around the room and took in the work while she nibbled on her sandwich. She wasn’t bad. She was no me, but she wasn’t bad either. Most of her pieces were of peaceful scenes; ocean views, sunsets, silver fishes in a river, swaying palm trees shading children at play. What confused me was that my painting, the polar opposite of those scenes, was the one that was over her bed. I could see that it was prized.

It was such a significant place to put a painting in a room full of artwork. It was also not the sort of scene most people felt comfortable having near them when asleep. It was not meant for a bedroom and yet it fit despite the cheeriness of the room.

The painting depicted anguish and pain in the most violent montage of scenes. And though it was broken into separate scenes while still telling one story, it was abstract and left for interpretation. The dark colors splashed in the background spoke of foul, unknown, things that were best not imagined. The swirling brushstrokes appeared to form living beings in their misshapen curves. Many people insisted that they were real painted people fading into darkness. The black, scarlet, navy blue and browns melded together in a series of splatters that could only be created by someone with a raging, fractured mind. All control had to be surrendered and the emotion splintered to the brink of sheer madness. The soul needed to be shredded to it's naked, metaphorical, skeleton. The very mind and spirit was poured without fear of ridicule onto the canvas.

It was the work of a clinically proclaimed psychopath after submitting to his deviant side.

It was a powerful piece. It was gripping. Compelling. A masterpiece. Because of that, it could never truly be recreated twice. Let alone by two different people.

That Ana seemed to like it so much said that there was something darker in her that met the eye. Or maybe she was just one of those odd kids nowadays that liked things of that nature. Either way I was looking at her a little differently now.

I turned to face her and saw that she sat in one of the oddly shaped chairs. She was picking at the last of her meal but she was staring at me. I could tell that she wanted to tell me something but she was holding back. My eyes fell on a full length mirror. My back was ramrod straight and my posture stiff. It was natural for me but not for most other people. I relaxed my soldier’s muscles into a more laid back curve and softened the icicle coldness in my eyes.

She relaxed visibly. “I have an art class tomorrow,” she signed and paused to gauge my reaction. I was stuck in the middle of telling her that I didn’t care and asking why she thought I would care. Instead I opted for looking confused. “You said that you would visit a class,” she explained, “I thought you’d want to know when the next one was.” Right, I did say that. What possessed me to promise something so stupid? I plastered a smile onto my face instead of voicing my thoughts. I doubted that they would sit well with her.

“Oh yes. I remember that too,” I said, “I’d love to meet your classmates while I’m still in Bvendini.”

“Great. The class is at eight.”

“In the morning?” I forced my voice not to sound incredulous.

“Yes of course. It’s a two hour class but you don’t have to stay for all of it if you don’t want to.”

“I wish I could,” I lied, “But unfortunately I have a video conference meeting to attend that morning. I can stay for a half an hour but that’s as much as I can spare.”

“Oh man.”

“Yes, yes.”

“It’s a shame you can’t—.”

“Yes, a crying shame,” I said, “If there was anything I could do to change the meeting I would. But unfortunately, I was the one to initiate it.”

“I understand,” she looked sympathetic, “I suppose we can travel together and you can come early with me.”

“Early? As in before eight?” a reasonable person would see the insanity of being awake at such a heathen’s hour.

“Yes. We can get an early start and get there maybe fifteen minutes early.”

She does know that I am not human, right? We sleep when the sun comes up. Just because I do not need a lot of sleep does not mean that I do not enjoy the luxury of it.

“I can hardly wait,” I said.

“Me too,” she beamed.

At the near silent click of the door handle twisting I turned just as it opened. Ana, her sense of hearing far weaker than my own, turned only when her sister strode into the room happily babbling her girl gossip and plopping onto the sleek, white bench at the vanity table.

“So I just got a message from Adreon who got a message from Erika who just started dating Shaun’s best friend’s cousin, Elle. And she told him to tell her to tell him to tell me to tell you that they’re having a party tomorrow in their dorm and Enrique Torres is going to be there. Actually he had the idea for the party in the first pla—.” Ria froze as her eyes met mine in the mirror. She’d been brushing her hair all the while with her back toward us but now she was aware of the strange man in her sister’s room.

Her eyes registered shock quickly followed by confusion and then annoyance before it settled into cool indifference. It was that same expression from earlier. After seeing this considerably animated and bubbly side of her, I wasn’t going to fall for this mask she liked to wear around me.

“Hello, Ria,” I smiled. It was genuine. I found her sudden startled silence highly entertaining considering her tirade before.

“Hello, Master Alejo,” her tone was aloof but not obviously so, “You have certainly successfully adapted to modern times.”

I heard the bite to her words even through the faux compliment. Her lips pressed together in a disapproving line.

“Why would you say that?” I said instead of thank you. I would play along only to a point.

“I assumed that men of your – uh – era,” she said with calculated hesitation, “didn’t subscribe to entering an unmarried woman’s bedroom alone.”

“We were only talking,” Ana signed and I saw a warning in her gaze.

“Of course you were only talking. Master Alejo is a gentleman…of sorts,” she said by way of another clever jab, “I would never suggest that his motives are dishonorable.”

The change in her was drastic. I almost wondered if this was the same girl who had burst into the room only two minutes ago engrossed in the most idle, trivial conversation while working on her already smooth hair. It was hard to believe. When did she swallow a verbal combat book?

“I appreciate your faith in me. And your bravery. Most people hold their tongues around me for fear of sounding like an insolent teenager with opinions of no merit, unworthy to be in my presence with no true value in the grander scheme of things,” I smiled through my own faux compliment, “But I welcome your own – uh – brand of courage.”

“…Thank you.”

I saw it in her face. The urge to say something back. She seemed to think better of it considering my position, as I said before, in the grander scheme of things. I was not someone who was known for mercy and my kills were all unproven. Even if she didn’t know for sure how many lives had bloodied my hands, there was no mistaking me for a lenient man. I would tolerate her disrespect for only so long. Luckily she knew when to concede.

“You are most welcomed,” I gave a polite bow of my head, “I look forward to our time together tomorrow. We’ll make quite the trio.”

“Excuse me?” her eyes turned on her sister who cringed under the limelight.

“Dear Ana here invited me to travel to school with you two. She’s going to introduce me to her Art class.”

Before she could hide it I saw fire, brimstone, hell and Armageddon flash in her widening eyes, the flaring her nostrils and the pursing her lips. Fury was an understatement. I respected her ability to bury that level of emotion so quickly after a bare second. Her mask was up again. “Hun, can I have you for a minute?” she asked in a voice too calm for the reaction she had moments before. The very endearment was a sheathed blade waiting to be drawn the minute they were out of sight.

“What for?” Ana asked sure that Ria wouldn’t reveal the real reason in front of me.

“The party of course,” Ria responded and began walking out of the room, “You have to help me choose an outfit.”

Ana excused herself and followed her sister before closing the door behind her. I couldn’t see what Ana signed but I heard Ria’s sharp, “No.” I heard their footfalls moving away. They left to go upstairs on the second floor so that my heightened hearing would not pick up on their conversation. Smart.

I left the room and almost collided with Loki. His eyes narrowed at me before shifting to the door of the room and then back to me.

“What are you doing in Ana’s room?” he asked.

“She invited me.”

“Why?” he folded his arms. As Master of this house and the owner, in essence, of Ana he was entitled to an answer.

“I promised to sign a painting for her.”

“Is she still in there?”

“No. She and her sister left to take care of something. Ria doesn’t like me much.”

“She doesn’t seem to like me too much either,” Loki admitted, “She just stays quiet or leaves when I’m around.”

“If that’s what you call dislike then she must loathe me.”

“A lot of people do, brother.”

I went downstairs to the ground floor when I saw Samuel walk into the house. Crooking a finger I detoured into the living room. He walked in a second later and closed the sound proof door behind him. I sat in the first seat I came to and crossed my legs. “Sit down,” I ordered and he sat without thought or pause.

I took a moment to assess him before saying anything more. There was color in his cheeks. More than was usual for him. The sparkle in his very aura spoke volumes. He was happy. Happier than he’d been in a while. That joy was being drained from his face the longer I stared him down. He was worried. The challenge in my eyes demanded he explain but the situation was one where I was not supposed to know what I knew. His humans were a secret. He would not give up that secret until he was sure that that was what this was about.

My eyes narrowed and I saw him flinch under the focus of my frost blue gaze. Goosebumps rose on his arms but he didn’t dare rub at them. “Speak.” He opened his mouth at the sharpness of the command but it was reflexive. He had no idea what to say to me. Turning my head slightly, the light flowed through the blinds and paled my eyes further. Watching the dust float along a shard of light, I waited for him to say something.

“What would you have me speak of, sir?” he asked.

“Do we have secrets, Father Samuel?” I asked and fixed my gaze on him again. He cringed at the use of his more pious title.

“I don’t know what you mean, sir.”

“We would have lies too, Father?”

“My apologies.”

“Did you enjoy your excursion? Did you have fun?”

“Yes.”

“Did you already feed or did you play with your food?” I asked. From the stiffening of his shoulders I could tell that he was now sure that I knew.

“There is no way to answer that.”

“It is a simple question with few possible answers.”

Samuel let out a long, exhausted breath. If he wasn’t a man of the cloth, he probably would have also let out a dirty, four letter word. “I figured that you would find out sooner or later. I sort of hoped it would happen after the next decade,” he said massaging his eyes, “Loki? Of course it was Loki. Who else would it be?”

My advisor and I had always been closer than me and any other person. I wasn’t hurt by his secrets. I couldn’t be. But it annoyed me that he managed to keep this from me for so long.

“You’re angry,” he guessed.

“No not angry. Irritated.”

“Oh.” He relaxed. Irritation he could handle.

“I was coming to tell you something that no one is yet to know while you snuck off to keep something from me. You are my advisor. There is supposed to be trust between us.”

“Is an advisor without secrets? Without privacy?” he avoided my last comment.

“I see.” That calm statement above all seemed to put him on edge, “You skirt around the idea of trust between us. It is becoming apparent to me that you do not value that aspect of our relationship.”

“It’s not that. But you can’t fault me for wanting to protect my mortal family from a…”

“Sociopath?” my lips curved when he came up at a loss for words.

He looked embarrassed. Clearly I had gauged his train of thought better than he had. Unlike mortals who had my anti-social disorder, I was aware of what I was and I acknowledged it as a very real part of me. I didn’t shy away from it. Not that it was in my nature to shy away from anything. I accepted my sociopathic traits as others accepted their own personality traits. I had no desire to change the way I was. Sam had no reason to be embarrassed.

“You know what’s fascinating?” I sat back and narrowed my eyes at him, “If you’d told me of your mortals, I wouldn’t care. I am a sociopath as you failed to articulate. It’s not normal for me to care about those who matter to you. I may have pretended to be but I truly wouldn’t have given a damn. Now that you’ve kept them a secret, I’m curious about them. You’ve made them matter to me. You’ve forced me to care. Ironic…that’s what it is.”

“What happens now?”

“Now we see if I’m willing to be good.”

“You’re never good.”

“Am I?”

I saw his thoughts turning. He said that I was never good and while that was often true, most times I was either bad or very very bad. He would do well to keep on my bad side. I could be vicious but merciful when bad, yet vile and without mercy in handing out judgment when very bad.

“In a manner of speaking,” he responded, “What were you going to tell me when you found me gone?”

“That I remembered. In a dream. A few memories came to me last night.”

“This is monumental. And you haven’t told anyone else?” he leaned toward me.

“I’m not in the habit of divulging my childhood homicides to strangers before consulting my paradoxically untrustworthy advisor.” He tensed under the verbal slap.

“You murdered in your human childhood?” he asked.

“Animals but it was still killing. Excellent kills too. It was a natural talent. I always knew that I had a flair for it but this was different. I was thirteen – a babe compared to my current years – but I had such drive, such passion and determination and ambition. And I was so clever too. So intelligent and unbound by every day, childish emotion. I was the perfect human.”

“You’re proud. You’re actually proud. Thirteen is not an age where the soul should be so tainted with blood,” Sam seemed shaken by the idea.

“Thirteen was simply the age where I was admitted into the mental hospital, but I suspect that I’d been doing that from earlier years. You don’t understand how clean the kills were. So much patience and focus in each cut. So much study went into it all. Don’t you see how talented and dedicated a child would have to be, how fearless? Surely you’re not blind to that.”

“You need to talk to your psychiatrist. Make an appointment tomorrow. This…this is wrong.”

“Like lying to your employer and advisee?” I raised a brow, “If there were no wrongs in the world, we would have no real concept of what is right. Can you imagine a world with no sense of rightness? If we look at the entire picture, I should be thanked for being so ‘wrong’.”

“Your arrogance is astounding.”

“Like so many other things about me. But I agree that it is one of my better qualities.”

Sam stared at me for a moment before pulling out a phone and calling the doctor’s office and setting up an appointment. I had decided to go meet the doctor after leaving the college class tomorrow. It was far too early to question Ana on Loki’s ‘projects’ but I could build a friendship until that time when I could wring every drop of information out of her.

I was patient. I could wait. Even in the hail of pointless trips to meet classmates and friends. An offer I was never going to make a second time. Some carrots were only meant to be dangled once. There was no way I was going to endure tomorrow twice. It was bound to be pretty interesting though.

*********************************** 

Waiting patiently to get to start writing the romance part of the plot. Sigh. Character/Background building is so long. But I guess without it the relationship won't mean nearly as much to you. Blehh. In time. Until then Vote, Comment, Fan, Like