Woman King (15 page)

“Are we alone?” he asked, knowing the answer.
“Can I ask again?”

“I’m not sure what to tell you,” I said,
feeling apprehensive. “I have only begun to understand myself. I am
human, but I come from a long line of women with the ability to
read people. I can read their emotions and auras. Sometimes I can
read minds. Actually it’s closer really to reading
their
intentions
, not their actual thoughts. I only recently learned
that I can do all of this.”

“Recently,” he said, sounding surprised.
“Where I come from, this kind of talent was passed from mother to
daughter. Why didn’t your mother tell you?”

Gosh. Was I really going to divulge my family
history to a strange vampire, whom I hardly knew, in the middle of
the park?

“It’s complicated,” I said. “My mom did try
to tell me. She is an artist who can pick up on people’s emotions,
but it overwhelms her. She has a major substance abuse problem. Her
paintings are these mad, amazing landscapes that display the energy
of the land in a way that really captivates people. She is an
amazing hostess who loves to entertain. People adore her and we
used to have parties at our home that would last until dawn. It’s
too much for her, though. She can’t separate out what belongs to
whom. The energy eats her alive. I was raised in Bolinas where she
has a house and a studio. She’s very wealthy, but very fucked up. I
never met my father.”

“Anyway,” I continued. “I had no desire to be
like her. It was scary to watch as a child. She could be so happy,
but then…”

“So what have you been doing all these
years?” he graciously asked, helping to change the subject.

“I’m a consultant for companies, and
sometimes I run political campaigns,” I said. “Lately though, I’ve
had some bad luck and some major changes in my life.”

“Hmm,” William drawled. “Are you getting
married, is it something like that?” he said laughing.

I slapped him on the shoulder, shocked at how
solid he felt to the touch.

“Don’t tease. I am pouring my heart out to a
complete stranger with a Southern accent. The least you can do is
be sympathetic.”

“Darlin, my accent is real,” he purred back.
“I was born and raised in Tennessee.”

“In what year?” I asked, hoping he would tell
me.

“All in good time,” he said. “Eventually,
I’ll answer all of your questions.”

“Are you really a vampire?” I asked, wanting
to firm up the situation.

He turned to look at me and asked, “Are you
really a human who can size people up for what they truly are?”

“I am,” I said, pleased with his explanation
for my gifts.

“I’m glad we got that all sorted out,” he
said. “Now, what do you mean bad luck? In my experience, there is
no such thing as bad luck. There is bad information, bad planning
or bad execution. If you have one of those three, then you usually
have bad luck.”

He did have a point. I suppose when you’ve
been alive for as long as he has, you have the luxury of seeing
things more clearly and separating out your own emotions. I guess
in a way I did have some or all three of those in my basket. I had
failed to use my gifts and missed opportunities in my work.

“I suppose you could say I had a triple
whammy. Thanks to a demon unleashed on me by a competitor, I
managed to get myself fired from a project. Then I tried to compete
for another big campaign. I made a mess of the presentation and
lost the work. At that point I got mad at myself and sort of let
things go.”

William nodded, indicating I should
continue.

“I got angry. Then I grew depressed. Around
that time I began to have dreams with a great black panther in
them.

And she seemed to want to speak to me.”

“Oooooh, now that is spooky,” William said.
“Are you telling ghost stories up here on the mountain top? I feel
like I am back home with my kinfolk.”

I slapped him again on his very solid,
tattooed arm. I was growing to like him and his sense of humor. And
there was no denying that he was incredibly sexy. There were worse
ways to spend my time.

“Actually, I am telling a ghost story,” I
said smiling. “I have a sort of ghost of my own. Her name is Elsa
and ever since she arrived, she has acted as a kind of mentor and
guide. I mentioned this awful night when I broke down. The next
morning she was there, standing in my kitchen. Elsa was the
panther. It scared the shit out of me. I won’t deny it. It’s not
that I didn’t believe in spirits. I really never gave it much
thought. Now, of course, I know that the world is really divided
into parallel worlds, but it was a bit of a shock to see an ancient
time-walker sitting in my home.”

I could see this story had actually shocked
William, because he was now looking at me with a new appreciation
for my situation.

“Where is she now?” William asked, sounding a
little worried. “What happened to the demon?”

“The demon,” I repeated, realizing I didn’t
know. “I don’t know exactly what happened. When Elsa appeared,
everything bad that was happening stopped. Then she gave me this
peyote drink and I ran through the woods and saw colors.” I was
babbling a mile a minute, the same way a child would quickly try to
tell a story. “Why do you care? Are you worried she won’t like me
talking to you?”

William nodded emphatically. “She is here to
help you accomplish something important, Olivia. Few humans in the
world manage to catch the attention of a time-walker. You have what
my dear departed mother would have called a powerful spirit.”

I laughed. “I don’t think Elsa will care.
She…” I was about to say she works with vampires, but I wasn’t so
sure I should tell William about the Council.

“Did you tell her you were going to go for a
walk alone in the woods with a vampire?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t know myself,” I
said, hoping this wasn’t the end of my evening.

“It’s none of her business,” I added,
suddenly worried I would never see William again.

William shook his head to disagree. “This is
powerful magic that should not be interrupted.”

“I don’t want to interrupt,” I said, raising
my voice, “I am happy to learn what Elsa wants to teach me, but I
don’t like being told who I can be friends with.”

William bent his head down and began to laugh
softly. “My dear, sweet Olivia, you have a lot to learn about the
world you’ve entered. Vampires don’t
make friends
,” he said.
“They take lovers.”

And then he leaned in and kissed me. Kissed
me until my lips felt like they would blister from the heat. I had
no idea how powerful sexual energy could feel until that moment
when I opened myself up to it. It was easy to understand now what
someone meant by being lost in a kiss. In fact, I was so lost in
thought that it took me a few moments to realize I was actually no
longer kissing him. At some point he’d disappeared—like he had that
day in the tunnel. Once again, I was alone in the dusk light. This
was the second time he had managed to disappear on me. I vowed
there would not be a third as I grabbed my things and headed for
home.

****

My sleep had been restless, but this time I
had the vampire to thank for my insomnia. His kiss had seared my
soul, and I’d spent the evening tossing and turning, yearning for
him in a way I had never wanted a man before.

The timing of our meeting, I realized, firing
up my espresso machine, was horrendous. I was running a
multi-million dollar campaign and assuming a new role as a
consultant. My window for romance was slim at best, assuming I
could even find William Ferrell again.

I must have been daydreaming because I did
not hear Elsa come into the kitchen. “How was the concert?” she
asked.

“Good, fun,” I said. “I met a vampire. His
name is William.”

“You met a vampire, as in he came up and
introduced himself?”

“Yes. Sort of…what I mean is I had been
staring at him, err watching him perform. He’s in a band,” I
managed to stutter out, sounding like a teenager.

“And, what happened?” she asked, sounding
like my mother, which got my defenses up.

“I am over thirty years old,” I said,
sounding more like a teenager. “I can take care of myself.”

Elsa was shaking her head in a way that oddly
reminded me of William. Once again I was going to be lectured on
all the things I didn’t know. I held my hands out in front of me to
indicate I wasn’t in the mood.

“Listen, he already told me I didn’t know
what I was getting into,” I said. “And he told me you would not
approve at all.”

“He was right,” she said. “Vampires are
serious creatures, Olivia. They do not make friends with
humans.”

“So I’ve been told,” I said. “Listen. I will
probably never see him again, so let’s drop it.”

Elsa nodded, and I went back to making myself
a cappuccino. Once that was out of the way, we discussed how to
contact Nadia, the witch versed in old magic who would transfer the
map of the portals onto my skin. It would not be hard to locate
her, Elsa said; she could be found most days feeding the ducks and
geese at Stow Lake. All we had to do is walk over and look for
her.

The sun was already high as we climbed to the
top of the stairway at the foot of Stow Lake. The trees were lush
and green and our surroundings seemed brighter against the
brilliant October sky. There were turtles sunning themselves on
logs, and ducks resting on the grass as Elsa scanned the perimeter
of the lake, looking for Nadia.

“There she is.”

‘She’ turned out to be an elderly woman, who
despite the heat, was dressed in multiple layers of clothing:
tights, floral dress and a large cardigan sweater. And for good
measure she had a floral scarf tied around her head and knotted at
her chin. Next to her was a worn red wagon stuffed full of bags of
bread pieces and birdseed. Nadia, it seemed, was well stocked for
her work.

“That is Nadia?”

Elsa nodded. “You were expecting a pointy hat
and a magic wand?”

“When you said old magic, I guess I got an
image in my head of someone more scary looking,” I said, cringing
at how stupid I sounded.

“I said
o-l-d
magic, not black magic,”
Elsa said with a laugh. “But don’t be fooled. Nadia can be very
scary when she needs to be.”

Nadia looked up and acknowledged us as we
approached. She and Elsa began conversing in a language that
sounded vaguely like Russian. The two chatted for a few minutes,
each one periodically looking over at me. Finally, Nadia turned to
face me completely. “This is going to hurt,” she said, sizing me
up. “But it will be over quickly.”

I glanced around the lake, taking in our
surroundings. There were a few other walkers strolling nearby, but
for the most part it was empty. I wasn’t sure how this old magic
was supposed to work, but I was pretty sure we didn’t want any
witnesses. Nadia picked up on my thoughts and shook her head.

“I will come to you, to your home, in a few
days,” she said. “In the meantime, I need something of yours, a
hair or a fingernail.”

I looked over at Elsa at a loss, never having
been a party to this kind of request before. In response, she
yanked a hair off my head and handed it to Nadia. The elderly witch
immediately reached into the pocket of her cardigan and took out a
white handkerchief. Carefully, she put the hair inside the cloth
and folded it closed. Then she returned the material to her
pocket.

“How will I know when to expect you?” I
asked, once again exposing my ignorance. But the old woman smiled
and patted my arm.

“Don’t worry, I will find you.”

I wasn’t worried. I had read Nadia’s
intentions while we were standing together and I was certain she
meant me no harm. It was hard to tell her age, but she was well
over 200 years old, judging by the color of her aura. I was getting
good at reading tones and hues, and hers were not the stuff of the
modern world. After a few more moments of pleasantries, we said
goodbye and parted.

A few days later, I was working on my laptop
at home when there was a knock on the door. Lily was over, sitting
on the couch reading a book. Elsa was in the living room doing
yoga. “It’s Nadia,” Elsa said from the other room, rising from her
mat to open the door.

It seemed rude to stay seated, so Lily and I
both got up and walked to the door to greet her. In the dusk light,
Nadia looked much younger. She arrived with another colorful
headscarf covering her hair, but up close her skin was moist and
pale, almost flawless. She caught me scrutinizing her. “Thanks to
the old ways, I age more slowly than one might think,” she said,
looking at me directly.

Before I could ask what her secret was, she
urged us to move in to the kitchen. The four of us walked in, and I
took a seat at the peninsula. Nadia stood at the counter, unpacking
a small bundle she had removed from her sweater pocket. Slowly, she
unrolled the cloth to reveal a small brown glass jar filled with a
clear liquid, and a paintbrush. The brush was made of a dark wood
and was ornately decorated with symbols I could not decipher. The
hairs of the brush were stark white and shaped into a point.

“Are you left-handed or right-handed, “ Nadia
asked, grabbing my attention away from her supplies.

“Right,” I said as she placed the jar and
brush on the counter.

“OK then. We’ll do your left hand because it
will be sore for a day or two.”

This conversation made me a little uneasy. I
had a vision of my left arm blackened and hanging limply from my
side. Lily came up behind me and placed her hand on my shoulder.
“Don’t be scared,” she said quietly. “I’ve seen this kind of old
magic before many times. It will feel a little like getting a
tattoo. A short sting, and then the next day your skin will feel as
if it has been burned.”