My Pleasure, Darling

10: The Chase

Felix pulls out of the gas station and we're out on the road again. It's a few moments before he dares speak again. "Did you notice her scarf?"

She had a scarf? All I noticed was the crazy in her eyes. "No, why?"

He doesn't want to say. His eyes flit – not anywhere she could see, but I know he's thinking of Andrea. "Pyke's colours."

I don't know how to respond to that.

During the great age of recovery, when vampires first taught humans how to save the Earth from total ecological destruction and became royalty of many a country, one family rose to prominence. The Emeraldine House was chiefest among all the vampire families. The rumour was that they were capable of greater feats than other vampires; they could completely disguise themselves as humans, without needing blood or Bablets to survive, they could command the elements, read minds, control people's bodies. Myths, of course, but hey, if you're the head royal family of all the royal families, you get to have a little myth, right?

That is of course, until some twenty-one years ago, when they were all mercilessly slaughtered by Commander E. Pyke. He just walked in with a gun and forty men, shouted out long live humanity and started shooting. He was killed by security soon after, so nobody ever found out why he did it, but by then it was too late for those royal vampires. Aldiraz – once a fabulously wealthy country in its own right – was absorbed into Lamyra a few years later as an 'autonomous region'. He's a common martyr for HURS groups.

Pyke's colours were white, yellow and purple. He was wearing all three during the attack, and had his face painted those colours, too. Pictures of his body are in every history text book. An odd combination on any day.

"Maybe it was an accident," I say, but the words taste strange on my tongue. "Maybe it was just a coincidence."

"Yeah. Maybe." He isn't convinced. I don't blame him, but I can't imagine anybody walking around wearing Pyke's colours so brazenly. Then again, it's hard to imagine vampires holed up in rooms scared to open the curtains, or thugs with baseball bats bashing up motel rooms. I guess we're a lawless country, now.

It's a quiet road. I glance back at Andrea a few times, just to make sure she's alright. I wish I had something like a book to read to her, or a game for her to play, a movie, anything. Anything to keep her mind busy so she doesn't have to replay the horrors of the last few days of her life over and over.

It takes me too long to notice. His knuckles are white, his jaw is set. I'm already searching in the bags in front of me for a bottle of water and a Bablet. "You okay?"

"Mm."

"You're thirsty, I-"

"It's not that."

Okay, well, that's a lie. I stop my search and look up.

"The woman. She's been following us."

This makes me jerk right back up. My head whips back, but I look at Andrea. Then I turn back to the front, and instead, adjust the side mirror ever so slightly.

"The red one."

Two cars behind us is a sleek red car. "I mean, we are on a freeway here. We're all going the same direction. It's hard not to follow us. She'll take an exit soon."

This doesn't really comfort him. I feel like he's overreacting, but maybe that's not fair. The last few days haven't exactly been paradise for him, either. He's not had a lot of time to process, and just this morning, he had to run for his life so he wasn't attacked by racist terrorists.