Sucking in San Francisco Read online

When my parents died, before I became vampire, they left me a nice little nest egg. I have had to dip into it here and there but I mostly live off the interest and what I make from working. Unfortunately, I have expensive taste in clothes and shoes, so I never seem to have any extra money at the end of the month. I can live comfortably. Maybe not like Julian, Helena and Sebastian, but I’m not out on the streets. Of course I don’t have much of a grocery bill, just coffee and wine and I rarely use the lights since I see just fine in the dark. I do blast the heater, though. Still, I consider Sebastian’s offer to go over my portfolio with me and I think I should let him. He’s a whiz with investments.

  My checkbook balanced and my solvency maintained, I go down the well maintained elevator and into the street. I slide into my little Prius and drive over to the manse. I’ve already had one cup of coffee, but I can’t make it as well as Andrew, a fact he constantly holds over my head.

  I don’t bother knocking because I practically live here. Helena comes down the stairs wearing a Vera Wang silk dress, with a cute empire waist and scoop neck.

  “What were you up to while I was sleeping the sleep of the dead?”

  She rolls her eyes at my predictable and admittedly feeble joke.

  “A little reconnaissance on a coven of witches Sebastian is worried about. I’m starting to worry too,” she says as she fluffs back her hair. “They are definitely up to no good. At first they used malicious pranks, like turning all the parking meters to red and giving lots of people tickets and making all the traffic lights blink causing huge traffic jams among other things. But that power outage could have been lethal. I think they’re moving into something darker. I’m going to meet with one of my Wiccan friends today and see what she knows of them,” she says, taking my hand. “They’ve popped up out of nowhere. They must have a history. I’m going to find out what it is.”

  “Do you mind if I go with you?”

  “Not at all, it will be nice to have you along.”

  Julian is pouring over antique Egyptian texts, looking for references to jinni, as we come into the library. He balances a book on his knee with a magnifying glass in one hand and waves to us with the other. I ring the bell for Andrew, who keeps almost the same hours I do. He not only knows about our little secret, he desperately wants us to turn him. He begs at least once a week. We explained to Andrew that our family believes it’s immoral to sentence someone to a lifetime of blood hunting and sleepless nights. He says we are shortsighted as well as selfish and that he would be a better butler if he didn’t have to sleep. Andrew thinks it’s all glamour and excitement. He has never met a rogue vamp. I haven’t either, actually, but I’ve heard what they can do. Instead of finding their own territory, they wait and prey on someone else’s. They systematically take out whole nests, patiently waiting to get each one alone so they can gang up on them. They are vicious. They start wars and decimate areas for blood.

  Hannah, a beloved friend who lives in Berkeley, was lucky to stay alive during the last war. She stayed with me while Sebastian and Julian helped fight the rogues until they were all dead or gone. It was horrible.

  Andrew already had the coffee ready and brings it in with Sebastian on his heels. Sebastian bends down to kiss the top of my head and Helena raises an eyebrow. I shrug at her. What’s he up too?

  I suspect that this is going to be one of those days that Andrew is going to “make the pledge.” He sniffs and snuffles as he sets out the service. I have to ask, though I know what’s coming.

  “Is something wrong, Andrew?”

  “Yes, it’s so kind of you to inquire, Miss Lily. I’m dying.”

  “What?!” Sebastian shouts, turning to give Andrew his full attention.

  Though I’m almost positive this is his latest ploy, I keep my eyes on his, you never know with Andrew.

  “Yes,” Andrew says, “I’m dying and I wanted to appeal to your better natures. If you turn me, you will save me from a terrible death.”

  “Well, maybe we should reconsider our decision, in light of the situation,” Julian says. He puts down his book and looks at Andrew seriously.

  “Oh, Andrew, my darling, this is terrible. Sit down.” Helena rushes to his side and guides him to a chair. My suspicions move towards certainty as he barely conceals his satisfaction.

  “Wait a minute,” I say. “Just what are you dying from, Andrew?”

  “Yes, what is this terrible malady?” Sebastian asks, catching my cue.

  Andrew sighs, heavily “Old age, I’m turning twenty-seven this month, only Julian is the same age. All the rest of you are younger. You are letting me die a slow and agonizing death. I swear I saw a gray hair. ME with gray hair! Can you imagine?”

  “Oh merde.” Sebastian exhales and rubs a hand over his eyes. I intervene quickly before Sebastian squishes Andrew’s head.

  “Andrew, darling, you are supposed to age. You have a long, natural life ahead of you.” He starts to interrupt me here, so I quickly change tactics. “I promise, in lieu of the extenuating circumstances we will have a meeting and discuss this seriously. Does that meet with your approval?”

  He nods. Sastified, for now.

  “Excellent, now tidy yourself up. What would Phillip say if he saw you like this?”

  “That won’t work, Miss Lilly, you’re trying to distract me.” He sniffs. “He’s on the road with his latest show. All the same I need to clean up. It won’t do if we have company with me looking a mess and acting hysterical. I’m already on death’s door.”

  He gathers himself together and sweeps from the room with dignity. Sebastian mutters something too low for even me to hear.

  I fix myself a mocha and sink back into the sofa, my usual spot. Sebastian sits next to me with his cup of tea and paper, a little closer than normal. Helena raises another eyebrow.

  Sebastian puts his cup down, cracking it in the process. We all stare at the mess.

  “It’s happened again,” he says explaining his lack of control. “Another two of us have been staked. It’s right here in the papers. First Liesl and Dimetri, who were no loss, but now Jennifer and Rachael who were rather enlightened. What is going on?!” Sebastian asks the room at large.

  “Where did it happen, Sebastian?” Julian asks quietly.

  “In Golden Gate Park.”

  “None of the victims lived where they were staked. They had to have been lured. Who is hunting vampires?” Julian asks.

  “I don’t know, but we need to consider this seriously. At this rate, we will be wiped out by New Year’s,” Sebastian says coolly.

  “Do you suspect rogues?” I ask.

  “It’s a possibility,” Sebastian says. “One we need to look into. The last group of rogues decimated the East Bay community. The vampire community are just starting to repopulate.”

  An uneasy silence fills the room. I can feel the tension emanating from Sebastian. He is an action-oriented vamp. He doesn’t like sitting around waiting for things to happen. This has to be driving him crazy.

  “I hadn’t seen Rachael and Jennifer since our Halloween party. They were doing well,” Helena says softly.

  “They were going to perform the commitment ceremony in front of the Queen this Summer Solstice,” Sebastian says through gritted teeth. Sebastian and I had been invited to witness the happy couples’ nuptials. “This predation has to be stopped. We have to get to the bottom of it.”

  “What would you have us do, Sebastian?” Julian asks.

  “We need to be vigilant, for one thing.” He turns toward me. “Lily should not be on her own.”

  “Let’s not start this again.” I sigh. I change the topic.

  “What did you guys do without me this morning?” I ask. Now Sebastian sighs. He knows when he has lost his advantage.

  “I had breakfast with Indio, ma petite.” He leans back into the sofa, sighing, and crosses his legs. “The brunette you met last night. She was her usual self absorbed self, trying to pump me for information as I tried to do the same. She posi
tively reeked of magick and hinted her coven has been trying to acquire something “significant”, but of course she won’t say what. She said they were the ones who knocked the power out the other night.”

  “They knocked the power out for half of the city!” Julian clarifies. “A half a million people were without power for sixteen hours.”

  “Yes, she wouldn’t say what they were after. They were gathering their power and accidently did some damage. She implied that if I were to join their little group I could be privy. It may be an opportunity to do some undercover work.”

  “Oh and that would just kill you,” I tease.

  “It just might if they find out I’m a fraud,” he says seriously.

  That wipes the grin off my face. “You mustn’t do it then.”

  He smiles down at me and says, “We’ll see.”

  “What do you mean ‘we’ll see’? If it’s that dangerous, don’t you go anywhere near them, Bast.”

  “Ahhh, you do care.” His mouth turns up slightly at the corner.

  I gnash my teeth. He tousles my hair. He never takes me seriously.

  “Perhaps we should try to place you closer to them, Sebastian,” Julian says. “I don’t want you in danger either, but it would be advantageous to have someone inside their circle. I don’t suppose they would trust you for awhile though.”

  “No. Neither do I. I think I made my interest clear to Indio last night and this morning. However, she is aware of my reputation to play the field so to speak.”

  Helena and I exchange looks, even Julian chuckles. It’s my turn to tease Sebastian and I poke him in the ribs. He bends over and groans, as if.

  “Helena can you observe them, without them being aware?” Julian asks Helena.

  “I can do some scrying. That is all I can do to watch them, at present. I’ve been searching for other methods of tracking them but haven’t found anything yet.”

  “Helena, you will put the usual protection wards on the house?” Julian asks.

  “Of course, darling, I have already done so.”

  Helena had become a formidable practitioner of magick over the years. But never call her a witch! She is vampire first and foremost.

  “I think that is all we can do for the time being. I have a bad feeling about them. Perhaps it’s just this business with the stakings, and then they pop onto the radar. A coincidence perhaps, but you know how I distrust the convenience of a coincidence,” Julian says.

  We didn’t need to respond, we all knew Julian’s opinions of serendipitous events. I thought of another coincidental event no one else mentioned. How many times does a djinn pop onto anyone’s radar? Then again, in deference to Freud and Mae West, sometimes a pickle really is a pickle.

  9 . LILITH

  “Lily, are you ready to go with me? I have an appointment to meet with my Wiccan friend,” Helena asks me.

  “Yes, I can go now. Let me grab my purse. Do you want me to drive?”

  “That would be great. I can navigate for you.” She smiles. It’s a running joke between us. Helena and I have been known to get lost many a time with this scenario. Sebastian has threatened to install a GPS in my car on a number of occasions.

  We gather our things and get into my car and Helena gives me directions as we head toward the Haight, near where I work. For once I think we can manage not to get lost. The Haight is famous for the 1960s hippie movement. Young people swarmed San Francisco in the years before the “Summer of Love.” The Haight’s quaint neighborhood offered relatively cheap housing, unique stores and experiences. Over the next forty years, the area has become gentrified and is now a tourist attraction.

  “It’s just up ahead, Lily, that Victorian there.”

  We pull up to an elegantly restored Victorian with wildflowers planted in every square inch of lawn. Feeders and bird baths are artfully arranged for wrens, bushtits and buzzing iridescent hummingbirds which dart through the air, to use the stone baths. The house pulses with magick but it is violet magick. A simple sign hangs near the door that reads ‘Starbright.’

  “Starbright?! The Starbright! You know Starbright?”

  “I’m her Goddess mother,” Helena nonchalantly says. “I was there when she came into the world, glowing with magick even then.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “The gift is very strong in some of us. She was born with it. Her mother is Wiccan too. Starbright has a lovely soul and has made it her life’s work educating others. I’m truly proud of her. But even I need to make an appointment,” Helena says with a bit of irritation. I hide a smile.

  We pull a cord and the pleasant tinkle of bells fills the air. Soon a beautiful woman with deep laugh lines around her eyes answers the door, takes one look at Helena and throws her arms around her.

  “Helena, it’s been too long. Peace sister. Please come in.” She gathers me up in her embrace as well. “You must be Lily?”

  “Yes, I am. It’s a great honor to meet you.”

  “Oh pshaw. I serve the Goddess like anyone else. It’s great to meet you after all these years of hearing about you. Please come in, let’s go to the kitchen and have some tea.”

  She leads us through her home, full of books, with an altar in one corner. I would love to look around. I try not to stare. She leads us to a large, sunny kitchen at the back of the house. It’s more modern than the rest of the house. Very modern with an island cook top that I know she must use for brewing remedies. Herbs hang from overhead racks. The room has an earthy, pleasant smell to it. She nimbly grabs a few pinches from several bunches and takes them to an artfully thrown, pottery teapot on the counter. She turns on an electric tea kettle and motions for us to sit down.

  We sit around a large oak table that holds her laptop and some notebooks.

  “I’m working on some notes for a conference I’m going to in Italy later this month. Sorry for the mess.”

  “Nonsense, dear heart. Thank you for taking the time to see us,” Helena says, squeezing Starbright’s hand.

  “How can I help you, Helena?” She gets up to pour the water over the diffuser full of herbs in the teapot, and brings it over with mugs on a painted tray.

  “We’re having problems with a small coven in our neighborhood. The leader’s name is Iris and her sister’s name is Indio. We’re not sure who else is in the coven. Not many from what we’ve observed. They have been practicing some darker arts and we’re keeping an eye on them. Do you know about them? Where they came from?”

  Starbright nods as she pours the tea. “Iris and Indio Caine. They are a nasty pair. We’ve been watching them, too. We’ve shunned them from our rituals. They didn’t care. We’ve been actively recruiting any witch they come in contact with and have successfully pulled out three of them. From what we know they have four more followers or a more accurate word for them would be minions. They haven’t been able to reach a full coven yet. Wiccans share and love one another, the earth and the Goddess. These two use their magick for money, harm and chaos. We think they have gone over.”

  “Oh no,” Helena whispers. “This is worse than I thought.”

  “It’s as bad as it gets. They have a cousin, Alexander, a warlock. He’s as evil as they come and extremely powerful. He lives in L.A. That’s where the sisters come from. They inherited a house here a year ago from an old aunt who died under mysterious circumstances.” Starbright and Helena share a pointed look. “They’ve caused nothing but trouble since moving here. The frightening thing is that they were fledgling a year ago, but now their power is building. I believe Alexander is behind it,” Starbright tells us and then takes a sip of her tea.

  We drink our tea in silence as we mull over what she has told us. Suddenly last night isn’t so amusing.

  “I won’t mince words, Helena. We are very worried about them. Many of us are putting extra spells of protection around ourselves. Our more advanced sisters and brothers are trying to put containment spells on the sisters. There’s talk about trying to strip them of their po
wers outright. I believe Alexander has put protective spells on the sisters himself because nothing is working so far.”

  “We will be watching for them. They seem to have taken an interest in Sebastian,” Helena says.

  “I would proceed with extreme caution. Put the usual spells in place and pull out every one you know – put them in place too. I will look for others, too, and let you know what I find.”

  “Thank you, child. You’ve been helpful and as always your tea is wonderful. You have a true gift with herbs,” Helena says, as she smiles at Starbright and rubs her hand.

  “Thank you, Mother. How are Julian and Sebastian? I know Sebastian has opened a new night club. News travels fast in the paranormal community.”

  “It must,” I say. “I only found out about it yesterday.”

  “That’s because he was keeping it a secret from you, dearest. He has much affection for you. It is in his aura when he talks about you,” Starbright says. “I blessed his club for him and he told me how it was inspired by you.”

  I blush on the inside. Helena smiles at me. I start to twist my napkin in my lap. I change the subject to the herb garden in her back yard, requesting a tour before we leave.

  Back in the car Helena says, “You know you can deny it all you want, but I think you know something is happening with Sebastian.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about and I don’t want to discuss it anymore. I have no time for a relationship. I am committed to my work. Nor do I want one. Especially with Sebastian. Too much baggage.”

  She just laughs at me.

  10 . LILITH

  I drive us back to the manse, Sebastian is still home. We make our way inside, and I flop down on the couch for a minute. I squirm around, unable to settle.

  “Well, I’m going to get a smoothie and do some errands before work tonight. If no one needs anything while I’m out, I’ll see you later,” I say.

  “Maybe someone should go with you. I would escort you but I need to stop by the club and see to some things. If you can wait for an hour or two, I can go with you,” Sebastian says.