The Witch From Laramie Valley

What We Know

In the middle of the next week, however, he realized it was far from their last meeting.

He was sitting at his desk in the 3rd Precinct, finishing up some paperwork from the night before, when the desk sergeant came to find him, saying there was someone up front looking for him. It was early morning, and Perry hadn't actually slept in a couple days, so he was more than a little annoyed that he couldn't go home immediately. Hopefully it was just someone coming to report a crime of some kind; he could pass that off to one of the daytime detectives coming on duty and just head home.

As he turned the corner into the lobby, though, he was shocked to find June standing there, her green eyes watching him enter expectantly. She smiled a little when he stumbled at the sight of her, and his usually complacent heart thrummed just a little harder in his chest for some reason.

“Hi,” she murmured as he approached her, and he smiled also at the way she seemed so shy. It was a stark difference from their last interaction.

“Hi,” he answered, his tone slightly questioning. Why are you here? he thought, but couldn't bring himself to say the words aloud. Instead, he just stood closer to her, letting the unspoken question hang in the air between them, and focused on soaking in some of the warmth that seemed to radiate off her skin. It wasn't an abrasive heat, but something much gentler, like the sunshine he'd started basking in ever since that first trip to Ireta almost a full month before.

Her grip tightened on the strap across her chest, and he realized she had a leather saddlebag looped over her head and one shoulder. Frowning, he reached out toward it. “That looks heavy-”

She pulled back, just a little, but it was enough to force Perry back to himself. Why did I do that? he wondered, trying to focus on her, but also beginning to understand that there was something going on with him that he couldn't figure out just yet.

An idea fluttered around in the back of his brain, but he waved it away, scoffing inwardly. Surely not, he told himself as the woman in front of him squared her shoulders to face him.

“I'm sorry to bother you at work,” she admitted, looking sheepish, “but I needed to talk to you.”

Perry's brow raised. “About?”

Finally, she met his eyes, clear green gazing into deep black. “About what you said at my house a month ago.”

Realizing what she meant – and where exactly they were standing right then – Perry ducked his head and came forward to her, his hand hovering at the small of her back but not touching her; he started to guide her through the lobby, to the doors.

“You out of here, Clare?” another officer – Lang, if he wasn't mistaken, he was bad with names – questioned as they passed him, and he just nodded once and stuck an open hand in the air as a sort of wave, never stopping.

An hour later, he and June were entering his lair, as his brother had jokingly called it once – Perry's apartment. His mother and brother rarely came to see him, since they knew how sparsely he lived. They'd never enjoyed seeing him that way, but it came more naturally to him than the splendor they themselves enjoyed so much.

He unlocked the door and pushed it open, stepping inside and about to gesture for June to follow – but the Dryad was already moving past him into the abode, turning on lights and observing everything there was to observe.

The atmosphere in the apartment, Perry knew, was a cold, clinical one. It was a very different vibe from the townhouse, which was rich with noise and warmth. This apartment, which Perry had lived in for a little less than 10 years, looked barely lived in, even to its owner. There were no photos or art adoring the light grey walls, and the entire place was lined with white tile, from the entryway to the bedroom. The cabinets in the open kitchen, just inside the entry and to the left, were dark grey with white marble countertops, a large matching island counter with metal barstools marking the edge of the kitchen as they moved on into the den. There was just a white rug under a small, metal coffee table in the very center of the room, a pristine white couch that looked like it had never been touched set off to one side. There were no doors or windows, each room linked to another by an open archway, even the bathroom right off Perry's bedroom. No one was ever here beside Perry, so he'd never seen any need.

Now though, he stood in the middle of this cold apartment, watching June look around it. But her face wasn't judgmental at all – in fact, she seemed fascinated by everything she found.

Then she turned to Perry, her expression more curious than anything else.

“You like it here?” she asked quietly.

He looked away from her and shrugged in response. “It's a roof.”

When he looked back at her, she was frowning. “Did you bring me here because you don't like it at my house?”

“What? No.” His answer was firm. “I thought- I thought after what happened last time... You might not want me there.”

June's shoulders sagged at his words, and her frown deepened. “I'm sorry about that,” she murmured, eyes on the floor. “I- I was just surprised.”

After a moment, Perry looked over at his rarely used sofa. With a small gesture toward it, he asked, “You said you wanted to talk about it?” At that, she met his eyes again with a small smile, and the apartment seemed to warm up just a tiny bit. She walked over and took a seat, unwrapping herself from her saddlebag and setting it down on the floor beside her to lean against the couch.

“No,” she replied, “not want to. Need to.” Her tone now was serious, and Perry knew they were about to get into something he wasn't all the way prepared for. He sat down beside her, maintaining a certain distance between them, and watched as she opened her bag and started pulling out old, weathered books and piles of papers with strange markings on them and setting them down on the table. “After you left, I couldn't stop thinking about what you'd said.” June was a little breathy now, her voice sounding a little... excited? “When I first realized what you'd said, I was insulted.”

He couldn't help the snort that escaped him at that, but there was no reaction to it besides the slight pinking of her cheeks.

“But then I kept going over and over and over it in my mind, and finally I asked myself – Why? Why did Perry ask me that?” She opened one of the ancient books and started flipping pages. “Is that why everyone told me to hide what I am when I'm away from the covens? So I started researching.” He leaned forward for a better look at the page she'd stopped on – it was written in a language he didn't understand, but there was an illustration that was all too familiar to him in the top right of the page. It was a simple, rough hand drawing in black and white – pencil originally, maybe? - but the subject is what drew him in.

He swallowed, leaning back, as flashes of memory surfaced. A room, the red emergency lights blinking urgently as a sired sounded off not too far away. A tall, lithe, monstrous woman, fingers sharp and extended, dark liquid dripping from them. A wild look in her glowing eyes, one of desperation, and the metallic stench of blood all around them. Her face twisted as she released a high pitched shriek-

“Perry?”

He blinked, and once again he was in his living room, sitting with June. Who was watching his face with more than a little concern.

When he nodded to her, her expression softened. She pointed to the illustration Perry was now actively trying to avoid looking at.

“You've seen one of these before... haven't you?”

After one more glance at the page, he nodded again, sharply this time.

Vampires didn't fear a lot, but this was one creature that had haunted him for a very, very long time.

“That's what we know as witches.”