Jessica Spoon was many things, but an idiot was not one of them.
She recognised that Broof and Lilith were not truly surprised when the house materialised. Nothing about their expressions of disbelief was genuine. It meant one of three things. One, that the house was now visible to everyone – but then why would they pretend not to see it? Two, that she had prepared them well, which was possible. But Jessica was leaning towards option three, that Broof and Lilith had been there before.
Interesting.
Jessica could have called them out on it, but she knew from her brief career as part of the Woodland Borough Police Department that sometimes it was better to sit back and wait for the guilty to trip themselves up. At least, that’s what Ralf had always said, and he had been a great officer.
She was sure that the truth would come to light.
“Well?” Broof asked. “Is Rose here?”
Jessica looked around and shook her head. “Maybe she’s inside.”
The group climbed the stairs and entered the house. Jessica noted how Lilith slightly sidestepped a loose plank on the stairs and her suspicions grew.
Why would the pair have been here before? Unless… they had lived here.
A theory gripped Jessica like a vice as something Rose said echoed in her memory: There are three vampires; the one you’re talking about, and two younger ones, a girl – the doctor, and a guy.
Could these two be the younger girl and guy that Rose had been talking about? She thought back to snippets she had of the scruffy older vampire that had been stalking her. Did he look older than Broof? Not really. Lilith definitely fit the bill of ‘younger’ though. Jessica wasn’t great at guessing ages, but she’d put her at about twenty-one. Bit too young to be a doctor.
Although of course, she could be ancient…
Could Lilith be the vampire girl Rose had been referring to?
As if she’d heard her, Lilith turned and smiled.
Jessica trained her eyes on Lilith’s mouth, but Lilith turned away and looked around the room. “What’s through here?” she asked, wandering on through to the kitchen. “Oh, look, it’s a kitchen!” she said, trying to sound surprised about the house layout in her unconvincing manner. “Ooh, a bar!”
Could she be the younger female vampire? Jessica thought, goosebumps rising.
“No sign of any ghosts?” Morag asked while setting up some of the more expensive equipment in the living room.
“Not yet,” Jessica said quietly, listening hard to the kitchen, where Lilith, Pixie and Yibbo had gone. She heard them setting up more equipment, heard Lilith volunteering to help.
Jessica relaxed a bit. Lilith couldn’t be a vampire, otherwise surely she’d be running from all these gadgets. She was just a woman who’d probably happened upon the house while hiking: she did say that she’d been to Joe’s bar a couple of times and there was nothing else to do in this area except hike. Maybe her reactions were genuine and she was just an awkward woman with wooden responses.
Maybe Jessica was reading into it too much.
“Hey, Jessica,” came a small voice that she recognised.
“Rose! Hello – Rose is here!”
“Hi Rose,” came a chorus of female voices, as one solitary male voice softly said, “Rose?”
“Who’s the dweeb in the waistcoat?” Rose asked, thumbing towards Broof as he entered the room. “Bit too well-dressed to be one of you lot.”
“Rose, meet Broof Hogwash.”
Rose snorted. “What kind of name is that?”
Jessica chose not to relay that, although she was kind of wondering the same thing herself. “Broof is your father. Broof, Rose is standing over here.”
“Um, hello Rose,” Broof said awkwardly to the space Jessica waved at.
The ghost girl’s eyes went huge as she looked between Jessica and Broof, her mouth opening and closing like a fish. “No way,” she whispered eventually. “He’s my dad? You’re having me on.”
“I’m not,” Jessica insisted. “Those tests we did on your remains? They matched you with Broof.” She turned to Broof. “Rose is having a bit of difficulty believing.”
“That makes two of us,” Broof mumbled, eyes fixed on the space Jessica was gesturing to. At that moment, Morag finished setting up her camera. She turned to face it at Rose, who leapt back. “What’s that thing?!”
“It’s just a camera,” Jessica assured her.
“It’s a state-of-the-art super heat-sensitive camera with a built in EVP recorder!” Morag corrected. “It’s a known fact that ghosts are cold; we thought it might be able to see you, Rose.”
“We can turn it off if you’re not comfortable with it,” Jessica assured the girl.
Rose shook her head, looking between Broof and the camera as if she didn’t know which one to address first. Eventually she shuddered and took a step back. “This is all so weird. This guy is my dad? This camera can see me?” she asked, peering into it.
“Can you see Rose on the camera, Morag? She’s right in front of it, peeking in.”
Morag peered into the lens and stood back up. “Hm. There’s maybe a slight cold spot? Hard to tell; the house might just be draughty.”
“So weird,” Rose repeated. She walked right up to Broof and scrutinised his face. “He looks a bit familiar…”
“Broof, Rose says that you look familiar.”
“I do?” Broof reached out his hand towards the empty space before him. “I wish I could see her.”
“I wish he could see me, too.”
Jessica felt the air grow heavy as the two ‘looked’ at each other. Even though he couldn’t see her, even though there was a barrier of existence between them, Jessica could tell there was something there, some sort of connection. She felt like she wanted to leave them to have a private reunion but knew that without her, there was no reunion. It wasn’t so private anyway with the humongous camera taking up half the room.
“Can you describe her to me?” Broof asked into the silence.
“She’s quite tall, slender.”
“Lanky, Jessica, I’m just lanky. Never did get the curves they said I’d get during puberty or pregnancy.”
Jessica smiled. “Correction: she says she’s lanky. She has short dark hair and dark eyes.”
“My eyes were exactly the same colour as his,” Rose said. “And my skin – our skin – is the same colour. I always looked like I had a suntan.”
“She thinks that she looks like you.”
“Does she?” Broof whispered sorrowfully. “People always used to say that she was the spitting image of her mother.”
Jessica latched on to this anomaly immediately. “I thought you didn’t know who her mother was?”
She watched the man swallow hard and he began to backtrack, just as Lilith walked into the room.
Rose took one look at Lilith and screamed. “What’s she doing here?”
“Who, Lilith?”
“Who, me?”
“That’s the vampire!” Rose shouted. “That’s Dr. Lilith Vatore! The one who lives here!”
Jessica forgot to filter her messages and squeaked, “Lilith’s a vampire?”
Lilith looked up, then back at the kitchen, then back at Jessica like she didn’t know what to do. She smiled sweetly. “A vampire? Me? Haha, funny.”
“Morag, turn that camera around,” Jessica hissed and Morag complied, her mouth immediately dropping wide open.
“Oh my gosh,” Morag whispered. She peered around the camera then back through it, her voice shaking, “It can’t see her.”
Jessica watched the other GliTS who were approaching Lilith cautiously with their beeping and buzzing equipment – equipment that began going haywire.
Lilith sighed heavily. She had visualised this moment but, now that it was here, she didn’t feel quite as self-assured as she’d thought she would.
This was very different to the other times in her unlife where she’d disclosed her vampirism. For starters, she was surrounded by flashing lights, beeping and squealing, whereas all the other times she’d been in a quiet space, with one other calm person. Well, they were calm until she’d admitted that blood is her main source of sustenance, at least. She’d not been outed like this, so brazenly and so noisily. It reminded her of the days of old, the vampire hunts that ended in beheadings. Although Lilith was sure that she could overpower the GliTS, if it came to that, she was still nervous that they’d turn on her with pitchforks.
“You’re a vampire,” Jessica stated, not a question. “Rose knows who you are.”
“Yes, I am,” she said softly to a chorus of shouts and screams, “But I’m not going to hurt you! I swear it.”
“How can we be so sure!” Pixie cried, brandishing her wiggly sticks like a sword, while Yibbo cowered behind her.
“Because if I wanted you dead, you’d be visible only to Jessica by now.”
More scared whimpers. Lilith hated how much she liked them.
“Well, you might not kill us, but would you drink from us?” Morag asked, not as terrified-sounding as Lilith would have expected that question to sound.
“I won’t. I only drink from Broof here. Apart from the other night when I drank from Wyatt. All totally consensual.”
Broof, who had been annoyingly silent while Lilith was being interrogated, finally piped up with his stellar defence of her character. “You drank from Wyatt? I didn’t know this.”
Lilith rolled her eyes, remembering to call him out later, but her defence came from an unexpected place.
“I believe her,” Jessica said. “Rose says that Lilith tried to help her and that she’s seen Lilith help other people. She says she’s only ever seen Lilith attack… uh… the other vampires… um…”
“Other vampires?”
“There are a few of us,” Lilith explained, deliberately withholding the exact number. “I fell out with the others because they’re asshats who don’t share my appreciation for humans or human decency. Honestly, I don’t attack people.”
“You just make others attack people,” Broof said under his breath then seemed to realise the weight of his words. Thankfully, no one seemed to have heard the mutterings of the bumbling fool.
“You really won’t hurt us?” Yibbo asked, peering over Pixie’s shoulder.
“I really won’t,” Lilith assured her. “If you don’t try to hurt me.”
“We won’t hurt you,” Pixie promised.
“What about you?” Morag asked of Broof. “Are you a vampire too?”
The GliTS turned their equipment on the bearded man and the beeps and boops faded out.
“I guess not,” Pixie said sadly, lowering her wiggly sticks. “Just a normal man.”
“A normal man with a very high fever,” Morag said. “You’re a good ten degrees hotter than everyone else in the room.” She eyed him suspiciously. “So what are you? An alien?”
“A werewolf?” Pixie guessed.
“A witch?” Yibbo put in.
“Bingo,” Lilith said and then quickly slapped her hand over her mouth as Broof sighed, exasperated.
Silence fell around the room, followed quickly by a lot of loud screeching.
“No way!” Morag squealed, abandoning her camera. “A real-life witch?! Can you cast spells?”
“Can you fly on a broomstick?”
“Do you have a familiar?”
“No to all the above,” Lilith laughed and then pouted. “Hey, how come you’re all terrified of me but all excited about meeting a witch?”
“Yes, you know I’m quite formidable too, right? I have an affinity with fire.”
“It’s true. If he tries hard enough he can just about light a candle. Scary stuff.”
“We’re excited about you both!” Pixie enthused, wiggly sticks discarded. “A vampire, a ghost and a witch! In one room!”
“It’s a dream come true!” Yibbo sobbed.
“We’re finally meeting real life Supernaturals! I have so many questions!”
Backed into a small space by the bookcase by the giddy trio, Lilith felt Broof lace his fingers with her own and heard him willing her his thoughts.
I hope we don’t live to regret this.
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Almost Eternal 