Shade of Human

Thirteen - SoH

Thirteen:

Nadia Patterson was the name the detective gave when she answered her cell. I found it strange that the name that eluded me before was so freely offered merely upon answering a call today. She made private reservations for us in the backroom of one of the most delicious seafood restaurants in the greater area.

I had never been given a chance to eat at the backroom of the fancier establishments before. What I discovered, as I entered the lusher side, was that it was mainly just extra glitz and opulence, but the food appeared to be unchanged. I was never one to turn down a chance to eat lobster, and the detective—Nadia—had already put the bill on her credit card.

She arrived about the time her food came. I was almost certain it was not by chance. She struck me as the woman who made the most of her time and did not like to waste it, even if it might gain her something useful.

There was no illusion that she was treating us to this nice lobster and other tasty shellfish dinners out of the kindness of her heart and bank account. She was fishing, and not for the stuff on our plates.

My eyes were drawn like magnets to the sashay of her hips as she entered the back room. She was wearing a runway-worthy mid-thigh-length dress with a sheath fit that accentuated the bell curves of her body perfectly. Her blue eyes were glowing faintly as if she had just expressed something. I suspected she had because I could still feel power roiling through her like a volcano about to burst its top violently.

She smelled more deeply than other human women, which was potentially explained by her claims of being over a thousand years old. After the last few months, I was through denying anything merely based on how probable it was to the myopic view of a normal human. My world was now limitless. That world also potentially had an entire universe of alternative possibilities for me to explore over a much longer life cycle than I had originally imagined possible.

The grace with which she moved spoke of something I could not fathom in a woman merely in her twenties, as she appeared to look. She moved fluid, as though she had spent all the ages of the world perfecting her cunning and prowess of seduction. Her eyes were deeply veiled with mysteries held close to her vest. My musings and observations about her only made me question the reason she spelled out the term used for the ability casting she performed and the few nuggets about immortality and other species. I could only begin to posset an assumption. She will drop these to me as a gentle nudge towards the facts of my existence, either out of pity or merely to sit back and see where it led me. I was not ruling anything out. However, I would not trust any sketchy cop with my best friend’s wellbeing.

We needed answers. I needed to understand how to handle whatever was chasing after me. Something was potentially sending these creatures to me or for me. It did not seem random how they kept showing up so far. I needed to learn how to harness energy. I needed to learn more about this expression, thing.

If I could, I would also free Clarke from this nightmare we seemed to be stuck inside. I would not risk his safety. Not after what that thing did to Ariel! Clarke and my parents were all the family I had in this world. I would endanger none of them any more than I was forced.

Even if it meant sundering twain, my soul, I would shatter the bonds that left Clarke captive to me. Less than a week on the streets like this beacon for trouble that I had become and Clarke was already attacked twice. Add to that the horror show that was Ariel’s death, and you had my perfect storm. Turbulence appeared to be all that was ahead of me. He deserved a fighting chance. The problem now was convincing him of this. Clarke was not like most humans. He did not have it inside himself to betray those he cared about. His loyalty was the most fatal problem presented.

“Pleasure to see you both under less suspicious circumstances.”

Nadia stated, and it was gentle, I almost believed her—even though she warned me not to trust her. Maybe that is part of the allure to her? She is the seeming bad girl. I am an inexperienced teen novice. Aren’t these basic clichés?

“Detective Patterson, nice to actually see you this time.”

Clarke stated in a friendly tone. Anyone who was not his best friend would have assumed he meant every word he said. I could hear the minor strain in his cheer. Which told me he did not trust Nadia any further than I should. He was alerted, ready to jump into action. The way he presented a broad target in front of me only doubled down on the misery and dread I was experiencing. Clarke had very old-school masculine senses of duty and defense of females coded into his blood. While I usually felt safer for his protective sphere around me, now I merely felt naked and vulnerable in every place his flesh defended as a shield would. I was hyper-aware of his constant threat of harm. I squirmed to the side, so I could fling him out of the way should Nadia turn on us.

Her smile was coy and cunning as she noted my predatory action. She had not missed the way I circled free of the cocoon of protection and prepared myself. I saw the silver in her veins flash to life and ripple along her skin. It took all my strength to hold myself in the chair and try to merely observe her.

Her energy rippled with the appearance of the silver veins. I could posset that whenever she used her energy or spooled it up in preparation to fight, her veins changed colors. It was as beautiful as it was alien and distracting. It kept me reeling on the defensive constantly. Somehow, they were also nostalgic to me. There was a twin throb of connection and resonance to her powers. Like they cried out to me as a desperate prayer in the night. The vibrations from her body were as if she had opened a window to the soul for me. I could taste the ancient font of power buried inside her. It was intoxicating and pure—undiluted.

She was like fire and wine to the metaphysical tongue. Her exotic and snowy princess look was like a frozen moment in the historical Britannia of old—before the Romans. A purer version, unfiltered by Roman and Saxion overlapping attributes. Without an explanation of why I knew she was the unfiltered Celtic Warrior as depicted in a long-extinct era. Her blonde hair made this even more shocking since that would have been a rare surprise in her people before the Vikings and Saxons. Most of the ancient Celtics were black of hair according to history.

“Pleasure to be seen. I am glad you’re on the mend. You gave your partner in crime a terrible fright.”

Nadia stated peacefully. I could hear her strange turn-of-phrase give her ancient status away in an instant. She spoke like several bygone eras combined. The more she spoke, the more it felt like she still channeled the industrial revolution era in her speech, even if most of it was masked and hidden with a veneer of modern sound. The teen inside me assumed that meant she only occasionally bothered to truly stop and immerse herself in what would be the “modern” culture of her time. That also bespoke how withdrawn she was from society.

“Well, you know how it is. Get your face sucked in a bad way, and you gonna drop like a chump.”

Clarke joked dismissively, downplaying his injured state the night before. I was just shy of an eye roll at that statement, but I would not present her with an open Segway to divide us.

“It was your ambient energy that they were draining. It is something all beings possess, we call it aither. It is the only uniform energy across time, space, and dimension.”

She explained as a platter of steamy lobster and noodles arrived for her. Nadia was polite to the waiter. She even handed him a crisp ten like this was the olden days where the flashy git would tip the staff as they went along.

“Is that what you are using when you call up that power of yours? Is that aither I feel turning your veins silver?”

I asked, unable to help myself. Nadia seemed perplexed that I said it, or possibly that I saw her veins.

“Very keen eyesight you have there. I don’t recall violet eyes being all too common in any people I have met in my travels through the dimensions. I have been searching, but I still cannot discover your origin. I find that vexing.”

She said I could tell that vexing her was in my best interest right now. I licked my lips and shrugged slightly.

“Sadly, you cannot ask the one who would have been able to tell you the most. Although, I believe she was just human, and you seem to think I am not.”

I stated, testing my theory. She conceded with a tip of her invisible hat.

“You are half-human, and no more. Of that I am certain. The rest of your DNA literally conceals itself from me when I attempted to test it.”

She delivered a lot of information, considering she might view me as a potential threat. Was she using this to gain trust or merely access to me?

“It’s a little creepy to know some chick was studying me in a lab somewhere without my consent.”

I was visibly calm, but that aither energy inside me rushed through me, and through the table like a minor earthquake. Nadia’s eyes widened. She looked me over once more through silver-veined eyes.

“Forgive me then, for I have known little in the way of restraint in my days.”

She said with a “devil may care” sort of smug smile on her lips. I could both punch them and kiss them, they were so lush and ripe. She was inviting, tantalizing, and intoxicating. Her energy was hot, and her body seemed to be drawn to mine like a magnet.

“This is good, you should try the crab cakes while you’re at it.”

Clarke said, breaking up the thickening dialog before our conversation went off the rails in one of two disastrous directions. Nadia contained her cross bend and smiled politely to him as if she were a hostess.

“I’ll be sure to, it is rare I indulge myself on whims of culinary brilliance. I just remembered the local food is delicious around here.”

Something told me she was not referring to her last stop in a four-star restaurant.

“Seems like you have a very long memory.”

I observed aloud. She nodded to me in concession.

“Aye, you don’t know the half of it.”

Just for a moment, I heard the musical lilt of the Scots play in her accent, but it was gone before I could do more than record the change in pitch in my mind.

“How about we get to it, yeah?”

She turned her palm over in a gesture that we drop the pleasantries. I felt my nerves rise once again as I began the first defining conversation of my entire existence.