The House (8 page)

“I, um … I
guess I kind of … um … want a sort of, date-type outfit. Like …
sexy but not too obvious or anything.” I smiled practically from
ear to ear. I’d realised that romance was brewing, but with Stripes
not actually living in The House any more it was harder to keep
track of things.

“I knew it, I
knew you liked him! Ha!” I said, a little too loudly. Stripes
blushed and shushed me quietly.

“Yes, well …
we’re not together or anything, and he’s hasn’t actually asked me
on a date or anything, but I … I don’t know.” She was putting
herself down, typical stripes.

“Oh come
on
, James is head over heels for you.” I had grabbed her by the
shoulders and was half shaking her before I realised. Why is it
that other people’s romance is so much more interesting than your
own?

Stripes smiled
shyly. She looked so young and so innocent. She’s not but that’s
beside the point; she protects her heart like a mother cat protects
her young. I never have gotten the whole story of her past, but the
parts I did find out were enough to make even me do a double take.
Her life had actually been more screwed up than mine. Not an easy
task.

“Well then,
you don’t need a date outfit you need a … I don’t know what to call
it … pre-date outfit, seduction outfit.” I shrugged and felt
Stripes punch me gently. It had to be gently because if she’d
punched me hard she could have broken my arm. I’d seen shifters
punch clean into someone’s body before; we could shove our hands
into someone’s chest and pull out their heart if we wanted to. I
blocked the visual that came with the thought quickly, but it still
unnerved me.

There were
enough styles of jeans on the rails that if we’d tried them all
we’d have been there all day. Stripes was a very conservative
dresser for a twenty-year-old and I was always desperate to jazz up
her style. Trouble is, she’s so skinny that a lot of clothes make
her look emaciated which she isn’t. She wears knee-length skirts
and florals; jeans just aren’t generally her thing.

“Here, try
these.” I held up a pair of skinny flare jeans in a dark blue with
embroidered details at the hip that spread almost to the knees.

“Trix, they’ll
look ridiculous!” Stripes never whines - not unless I take her
shopping, then she whines at everything I get her to try on.

“Please, trust
me. Just this once and I’ll make you look amazing. He won’t be able
to keep his eyes off you.” I sounded deadly sincere and I was; I
don’t joke about attracting a man. It was something I’d perfected
in a teenage way before I left the Covenant. It just needed a
little bit of adjusting for adulthood. I smiled encouragingly and
Stripes shook her head with a small smile tweaking the corners of
her mouth. “Yes, come on.”

We spent the
next two hours trying on clothes. Nothing takes your mind off
deranged were-lions like a shopping trip. In the end, we each went
with one of the first outfits we’d tried, as per usual. But, I
mean, you’ve got to check that you didn’t miss something better,
right?

The store had
a food court on the top floor so that you could look out the floor-
to-ceiling windows while you ate your whatever they put in the food
nowadays. Most of it seems experimental. I mean, you can get a
burger but since the new food health standards came in you can’t
get a proper burger. Nor can you buy anything fried or dipped in
batter. Shifters just aren’t cut out for salads. Not that I was old
enough to remember when you could buy things like that but Marie
had treated us occasionally.

The best we
could do was bangers and mash, and even that had millions of
vitamins added to it that nobody ever needs. I’m always surprised
when these stupid laws go through, though I suppose I shouldn’t be.
Everyone is too busy trying to get enough money to survive to worry
about the politics. I sighed dramatically as I looked at the mashed
potatoes on my fork. Some bright spark somewhere had decided to dye
them pink.

“What happen
to the organic food movement?” I asked.

“They all died
of starvation after the food prices hit the roof,” Stripes laughed.
I found myself laughing with her. We were both too young to
remember when organic food was big, but I’d grown up with a family
who believed in grow-your-own. We’d had a vegetable patch as well
as several chickens, The House has a vegetable patch but it doesn’t
produce enough to feed all of us and chickens always run away from
Marie. Usually animals like us but, try as she might, Marie could
not get chickens to come anywhere near her. Although the roasts
following her attempts were definitely worth the stress of it.

The food,
despite looking awful, did taste pretty good and, as far as I knew,
the same as the normal variety. It disappeared all too quickly for
my liking but since we’d already had the biggest single portions
available it would look rather suspicious to go back for more.
Sometimes I thought that we were over careful, that nobody was
going to notice that we ate just a little bit more, or moved just a
little bit too fluidly, but it wasn’t worth the risk. Normal people
wouldn’t notice but the ones that knew about us would, and humans
who knew about us fell into two categories: those that were related
to us and those that killed as many of us as possible. I gave the
food counter one last longing look anyway before we left.

“We should
probably go back soon,” I sighed. Stripes looked up from her empty
plate with the look of someone woken from a good dream.

“I suppose,”
she replied. “Do you think you can control yourself around the new
lion?” It was a valid question. While I tended to panic when faced
with five well-trained vampyre, I generally had quite a temper.

“I’ll manage, assuming Hercules hasn’t ripped him to shreds
already,” I smiled. The image of Hercules leaping at him was one of
the funniest things I had seen in a long time. “Come on, I’m sure
Marie is going to have something to say about our unwelcoming
attitude to someone obviously troubled and in need of help.” I
rolled my eyes and Stripes laughed; Eddie insults Marie and she
tells
us
off.

Back at the
main entrance our pods were divulged by the automatic retrieval
system after we presented our ID cards to the thin podium.

The journey
back took the same time as the journey there. However, we dawdled
between the garage and The House. Neither of us really wanted to
know what faced us when we went back in. A part of me hoped that
Eddie had shoved off and left but it was a vain hope. He was
standing by the front door and I half expected him to have a
cigarette in his mouth. He didn’t of course; smoking was all but
illegal.

“Hello.” He
was leaning against the outside wall. I hate to admit it but he
looked damn good there. His blond hair was the perfect length to
complement his face and his skin was the perfect tan that
accentuates all of a person’s best features. His stance was
confident but closed, with his arms crossed loosely over his chest.
He managed to attract attention and repel people at the same time.
Quite an achievement.

“You changed,”
he said. I looked down at myself and it took me a moment to realise
that he meant my clothes.

“My breakfast
was down the other one.” My voice was stiff and uncertain; I wasn’t
sure how I was supposed to act.

“Oh, well.
Shaun did react quite …” he paused and licked his lip, thinking, “…
unexpectedly.”

“Not really.”
Stripes came to my rescue. “You think whatever life you’ve had is
hard; you haven’t got a clue about the rest of us. Nobody comes
here because they want stimulating conversation.” She sounded warm
and polite but there was an edge to her voice that I very rarely
heard there anymore. It made me wonder about the parts of her life
that she had never shared with me. Then again, there were large
parts of my life that I had never shared with her either. Some
secrets were better kept that way.

“And you don’t
know anything about my life,” he replied, his voice colder and even
more closed off.

“That’s not
our fault - you want to share we’re all ears - but I was under the
impression that you thought you could get by here without anyone
knowing anything about you.” I was back on the defensive, not a
place I like to be. “You feel like sharing or learning or training
or whatever, come to any of us. Apologise for insulting us and
we’ll help you, no questions asked. But it comes with
responsibility. If someone comes to you because they need to talk,
if you find a shifter in need of help, you bring them back here.
You do your part or the system doesn’t work.”

We left him
stunned silent, still leaning against the wall, but with his hands
braced flush against it. There was an edge of anger there I didn’t
like. He just gave off a dangerous vibe and I wanted to be far away
from it. It didn’t look like I would have much luck though.

“Please don’t
tell me you just scared him off more.” Marie walked through the
hallway door at the same time we walked through the front door. The
foyer looks like a basic hotel reception with a desk off to one
side where we booked in new arrivals. It didn’t look particularly
homey but Marie had done her best. There were rugs that often
caused me to go flying and large paintings hung on the wall. I got
the feeling that several of them were of shifters in their animal
form.

“We said what
was needed,” Stripes replied. She gets away with saying stuff like
that to Marie, I don’t. Maybe it’s because Marie’s known me longer,
maybe because she knew me in my terrible teen stage. Marie looked
at her, nodded, then turned around and walked back into the hallway
without a word. She was definitely mad at us.

We followed
her slowly; Eddie’s presence in The House had put her on edge. At
some point I was going to find out why. I don’t like being told off
for things that aren’t my fault. To be honest, I don’t like being
told off when I have done something wrong, but then who does?

“Tell me
Marie’s mad because you sent him packing.” Hercules ambushed us,
sticking his head out of the TV room. I glanced around the door to
find James was also there. They were watching some film where lots
of things get blown up for no apparent reason. He turned towards us
as we entered and flashed Stripes a huge grin, switching the
channel to digital radio. Old-fashioned country music seeped out of
the speakers - Stripes’ favourite. I nudged her, gently, towards
James who was sat on the only decent two-seater in the room.

“Naw, I’m not
that stupid Hercules. Marie would have me out the door if I ever
scared off another shifter. Not that he doesn’t absolutely deserve
it. What did she say to you?” I asked. I sat on the arm of one of
the more solid chairs as Hercules slid into the softest chair in
the room; it looked like it was trying to eat him.

“Extra kitchen
duty. I’m cooking and cleaning all this week. I didn’t even touch
him.” He looked so annoyed that I had to laugh.

“You’re
complaining about kitchen duty but you love the kitchen. It’s a
light punishment for trying to attack him.” I slipped slightly and
fell off the arm but I managed to land in the chair so it sort of
looked purposeful. Hercules just shrugged and leaned even further
back into his chair. At least James and Stripes were too busy with
each other to notice.

“Whatever … I
don’t want him here. He’s trouble.” Whether Hercules wanted the new
lion living with us or not didn’t really matter; it didn’t matter
that none of us wanted him. It only mattered that he was,
apparently, in need and Marie took in anyone. I didn’t remind
Hercules of his state of mind when he first got here, but at least
he’d talked to Marie. Eventually he’d even talked to me. We’d
become somewhat like family; we certainly took every opportunity to
take the mick out of each other.

I kept telling
myself that all we needed with Eddie was time. Everyone who came to
us became part of our little family eventually. Yet, there was
something different, something wrong about him, and I didn’t like
it. I was glad I wasn’t the only one who saw it though. Marie likes
to see the best in people, the potential. I wasn’t really sure
Eddie had much of either.

“Of course
he’s trouble but have you ever met a shifter who isn’t?” I said
calmly. There was no point in voicing my fears aloud when anyone
might just walk past and hear us. And I was more worried Marie
would hear us than Eddie. He could just stick it if he didn’t like
what we had to say but I cared about Marie, so I cared what she
thought of me. It helped me to make halfway sensible decisions
sometimes.

“Marie,”
Hercules replied.

“Marie is the
gentlest person I know, and she’ll take in any strays that find
their way here. But she’s like a mother cat; there’s nothing she
won’t do for her children,” I told him.

“But she
doesn’t have any children,” Hercules said before he’d even had time
to think. I gave him a look and he smiled, finally. “Us … she
thinks of us as her children because she can’t have any of her own.
But … I mean you and Stripes aren’t trouble either.”

I raised my
eyebrows. “You never met Stripes when she first got here and nobody
that powerful can ever not be trouble.” He looked at me. “The same
goes for me; we may not be able to take out five vampyre by
ourselves but, trust me, either of us would trounce you,” I
laughed. Sometimes the boys got a bit too big for their boots. They
were used to being the biggest fish in the pond and most of them
found it hard to accept that a woman could be stronger than
them.

As normal
humans that had basically been true but shifters’ strength depended
more on power than gender. In fact, most female shifters are
stronger. We have to be because the initial changes are so
difficult; both physically and mentally demanding. That, and I was
a true-born shifter. I would be stronger and faster than all but
the very best of the turned without even trying. Hercules just
wasn’t that good. I probably wouldn’t have said the same to James
though. He just radiated confidence and grace in a way that seemed
like it would transfer well to violence. Controlled violence at
that.