Her shoulders felt warm and tingly where he was touching her. Her earlier feelings were waking up, and she really didn’t want Shane to still be here when they did. Actually, she DID want him to be there, and that was part of the problem. She wanted him to throw her down on the bed and do unspeakable things to her.
“I . . . Henry said that there were tapes,” she muttered. “Of the bleeding house. Do you still have them?”
He stepped back. “Why?”
“I want . . . I need to see,” she said. Seeing was believing for her. “You want me to fight these people and others for you, then I need to see what it is I’m up against.”
He nodded. “I had them converted to video files several years ago. They’re in a locked folder on the server. Are you sure you want to do this?” One look from her face, and he was convinced. She’d said it, so she’d see it through. He escorted her to his office and sat her down in front of his PC. He found a folder, typed in the password, then left her alone in the dark room. Slowly, she moved the cursor over to the first file and double-clicked.
Thirty minutes later, she emerged from the room, rushed into her bathroom, and discovered that vampires could indeed vomit. She hadn’t eaten much, so it turned into dry heaves fairly quickly, but the effect was the same. Soon, she felt a hand on her shoulder and another keeping her long braid from dipping into the toilet.
“And now you know,” Shane said. He sighed. “Renata was right. I’m asking too much of you too quickly. But somehow, you keep coming through.”
“How . . . how do you deal with it?” Shamira got out in a gasp.
“Everyone in our world deals with the madness in different ways. But you’ve seen some of how those of us in this house deal.”
“The kinky sex thing?”
He smiled. “The kinky sex thing. Some of us need to feel that we have control over something, and others want to forget about their responsibilities for a while and let others make the decisions. It works for us and keeps us sane.” He wiped some of the residue from her upchucking episode from the corners of her mouth with a piece of tissue. “No one judges anyone else here. We state our limits and everyone else abides by them. We take care of each other and our needs, and then we’re able to go out and face the world with clear heads.
Shamira wondered what that might be like not worrying about everything. These were good people, if she could just get used to their ways. Would it be so bad to trust them? Would it be so bad to live a little, even though she was dead? She turned her face back to the bowl and heaved again.
“Poor Shamira,” Shane said. “Whatever will we do with you?”
————— —————
The next afternoon . . .
————— —————
There was a lot on Shamira’s mind, so she decided to unwind in a most convenient manner. She went and played golf. She hadn’t picked up a club in about four years, but she still understood the basics, and muscle memory took care of the rest. It was still unseasonably warm, so she was in a fairly snug pair of shorts and muscle shirt. The hardest part of golf was keeping herself from using her vampire strength. That would be cheating, and she refused to cheat at a game that you can play by yourself.
She had just sliced on a par three, and was clambering back into her cart to enjoy a good cursing of the gods of golf and drink down one of the cokes in the cooler she had brought when she heard the low humming of another cart and the crushing of gravel beneath those solid little tires. Banshee and Shane pulled up, and Shamira actually got a snicker.
Shane was dressed like every stereotypical golfer you’ve ever seen, particularly if you have ever watched “Caddyshack.” Banshee looked mildly disgusted by his apparel as well, and was herself dressed in loose black shorts and a black golf shirt. Shamira had been told that Banshee wearing a color other than black was a sign of the apocalypse.
“Mind if we join you?” Shane said. “Clara said you were out here and thought you might like some company.”
Shamira grinned. “I’ve talked with Clara, and I’m willing to bet that you just want someone you know you can beat handily.”
“That’s what I’ve got her for,” he replied, pointing his thumb at Banshee. She pushed him out of the car and then got out herself and grabbed a 3-wood.
“Sure,” Shamira said, since it looked like they were going to play anyway.
“Normal human strength,” Shane said.
“Already doing that.”
He smiled. “Honorable. I like that. It won’t keep me from utterly destroying you, but I like it.”
She rolled her eyes, then watched Banshee land her ball on the edge of the green. She scowled when Shamira told her it was a good shot.
“I failed to account properly for wind velocity,” she said. “I will not make that mistake again.”
‘Crap,’ Shamira thought. ‘She IS hyper-competitive!’
The next few holes went smoothly, though Shamira came in a solid third place each time. Waiting for Banshee to take a shot could be a bit tiresome, since the little Japanese woman was a perfectionist. It was the final par-5 that she would later wish she could forget. She was working her way through a grove looking for the small little sphere of neon yellow that had inconsiderately landed somewhere other than the fairway. She felt something lightly brush against her face. She turned and saw it was a web, and the owner of said web was a few inches from her face.
Banshee and Shane came running when they heard the scream. They saw Shamira’s clubs lying on the ground, but the girl was nowhere to be seen. Then Shane sensed something and looked up. Shamira had apparently jumped twenty feet straight up and was clinging to a tree.
“What happened?!” he asked, looking around for whatever must have attacked her.
“Spuh . . . spider,” she stuttered, looking around frantically.
Shane and Banshee just stared at her. “Giant evil spider?” Shane asked, trying really hard not to smirk.
“From space?” Banshee asked calmly, defying the rumors that she had no sense of humor. “From hell?” She looked around. Squinting, she was able to see a web nearby with a garden spider attempting to repair one of its anchor lines. “Poor baby!” she cooed as if she were talking to her grandchild. “You scared her!”
“How duh . . . do you know it’s a ‘she’?”
“The size and coloration. I’m something of an amateur arachnologist. I have a small number of habitats set up in my quarters,” Banshee replied. “Fascinating creatures.”
‘I am never, EVER going in her room,’ Shamira thought.
“Would you please come down?” Shane said. His new enforcer was afraid of spiders. He hoped she never encountered a crawler hive. She’d probably die of fright. “You’re away.”
She let go of the branch and fell unceremoniously towards the earth. Although unnecessary, Shane caught her in his arms.
“Tell no one,” she muttered, staring suspiciously at the web. “She doesn’t really have pet spiders does she?”
“Black widow,” Banshee said, overhearing everything, “brown recluse, three species of tarantulas –”
Despite feeling a flight flutter in her proverbial heart being held so closely by a gorgeous man, Shamira recovered her pride and regained her footing. She tossed her ball back on to the fairway, took a penalty, and grabbed her clubs, never ceasing her muttered vocalizations about any creature having more than four legs being the spawn of the devil.
——– ——————–
After the game . . .
——– ——————–
“How long did she hang up there?” Clara said, finally recovering enough from laughing to ask a question. While Shane had promised not to say anything about the spider incident, she had failed to obtain such a promise from Banshee, who had calmly told everyone about the incident over dinner. Shamira had hid her face behind a napkin the entire time. She knew that she wasn’t actually blushing, but she was reacting out of instinct. Everyone was having a good-natured laugh at her expense.
“Was there something particular that made you such an arachnophobe?” Banshee asked, her prim mouth curled at the corners.