THE PROTECTORS: The Hunger & The Dance 2.2
I sense Garraty’s automatic functions coming back online before I catch a flicker of his awareness returning. You know, while I’m driving a stolen yacht southwest off the coast of Dublin. For the craic of it, I guess.
Out across the Irish Sea in the middle of the night, headed… somewhere. Shortly after Garraty was just shot to death, on our way out of the fair city.
And don’t get me started on the night we had before that. Me and the guy who murdered me forty years ago, remember? The only other vamp I’ve ever met, and now he’s dead in a lake of his own blood on the floor of the yacht behind me.
This is bullshit.
But whatever invasive, black force it is that controls our kind of immortality, it’s pitiless—unappeasable. It gives Garraty no chance to rest in peace before it’s having its way with his corpse again.
And I could really do without the supernatural connection between our bodies right now. The soul tie, tethering me to this creature’s un-living experiences, too? Yeah, we all know I’m not a fan of feeling things.
Synapses firing and neurons sizzling—I feel Garraty’s central nervous system powering itself back up. Unbeknownst to him, his body starts producing the physical chemistry required for human consciousness and dumps it into his brain, ready or not.
Involuntary muscles and reflexes wake up before he does. Without his consent—without his involvement—inner workings propel him toward another inevitable resurrection.
I get it now: Garraty’s weary despair, over a hundred and forty-one years so far? He just has to keep getting back up and keep taking this shit, one way or another, whether he wants to or not.
I mean, I was ready to end my life before I was immortal, for crying out loud.
And I haven’t died nearly as many times as Garraty has, but it only took me once to never forget how bad resurrection sucks.
Ahh, bloody hell, after all the times I’ve died, you know, I still hate every minute.
Such an ugly, undignified thing. No good way about it.
But as miserable as it is to get through the dyin’? Sometimes, it’s comin’ back that’s worse.
Here so, I’m under no obligation to return quite yet, it seems. Adrift and afloat this far, at least. Aye, as long as I’ve the freedom, I let me soul retreat to a region more fair…
Knowin’ already, it’ll be feckin’ hell to pay in the body, when I can loiter no more before there…
I go to him right away, leaving the yacht idling on the sea, when I feel those first basic stirrings.
There’s not much I can do to help him through this, but I’m nothing if not practical. I want to move him before he can feel it. Before I can hurt him more than I already have.
Garraty’s not a big guy, and I’m not a mortal woman. Dragging a broad smear of the man’s blood across the floor of the boat, I get him to the long settee in the salon area, no problem, before he’s even trying to breathe yet.
Calculating; always calculating. I decide to lay him out facedown, one tattooed hand dangling on the floor, his head over the side of the synthetic fabric cushion. Breathing isn’t going to go well for him at first, I bet, and this way, his body can keep ejecting some of the blood out of his lungs, while he’s working on that.
Meanwhile, there’s something uncomfortably intimate and holy about handling Garraty’s vacant anatomy like this, isn’t there?
Without his awareness, arranging his limbs. Turning his head to one side, his neck feeling boneless in my hands. Taking a moment to close his sightless, dark eyes—
I’m pretty badass, but even I can’t take seeing this beautiful creature’s eyes dulled like that. Even if death is temporary for him, it’s unsettling to see Garraty dead.
Pausing, I let my fingers comb his tangled hair off his brow, studying his still face. Hearing his voice in my head, a cry from his little room at the old Irish inn, back in Dublin.
For the love of God, Reni Jane, what does it mean to ya, then?
It’s not the first time I’ve touched his head like this, over the last few nights and days. Since I found him dead-drunk, laid out in the street, in front of a quaint white church, and interrupted his suicide-by-sunrise plan?
No response from him this time, but even before his heart starts beating again, Garraty’s hot to the touch. The fires of hell burning in his veins, forcing unnatural life…
I could lay hands on him right now and find him, you know. I could press my hands flat on his back, and close my eyes. I could reach into him and track him internally—I could sense my way to where he is.
The spiritual gift of discernment has more uses than one. And the soul tie, the knowing between us, seems to amplify the curse.
It’s tempting. But I’ve seen the haunting in Garraty’s eyes when he’s not dead. And maybe I don’t want to know where he is right now.
Personally, I despise the idea of anyone doing anything with my body without me knowing it. That’s why I usually pack a weapon. All the better to never let anyone get too close, my dear, much less kill me again. Not for the last forty years and still counting, thank you very much.
Considering what this guy did to my body after he killed me? And then he ran away when it got ugly. Ditching me in a dark alley in Minneapolis. Bailing on me, leaving me to come to my senses on my own and figure out this whole vamp life from there, by myself…
Something irritatingly biblical about tending Garraty’s dead body right now, isn’t there? It does seem to come back to the women to clean up the mess after the crucifixion.
Well, here I am, Lord, doing what little I can to prepare Garraty’s corpse for his return trip. It’s an obscenely tender vigil, searing my heart with humility.
But here’s the nice thing about getting shot to death on a boat, I guess: everything’s made of fluid-resistant vinyl and canvas. That makes it easier to clean up the blood.
I have no idea whose yacht this is, or where we’re going, or what kind of timeline we’re on. The owner’s kept the place well stocked with towels, so there’s that. Bath towels, kitchen towels, beach towels — apparently, somebody does a lot of entertaining on this craft. I ruin all of their towels.
And yeah, it’s gross, but it’s a forethought: I look through cupboards in the galley, and I find a glass pitcher. I wring out as much of Garraty’s blood as I can, from the towels I’ve used to mop up the floor of the boat, into that receptacle. I get it half-full, which isn’t bad. Not enough to replace what he’s lost, but it’s worth setting aside.
Garraty’ll be able to use that again soon. Just saying.
Behind me, the first sharp, gasping breath—
Lighting up my instincts. Bringing me to his side in an instant. With a start, that involuntary thrust of air into his lungs—
The first spasm sends blood violently down his airways, and—damn it. Garraty’s body is retching it back out before he’s even conscious to participate.
His back flexes, going rigid. His fingers twitch, grasping briefly…
Nope. He doesn’t have the strength for this yet. Just one attempt at a breath—that single gasp. That wrenching expulsion. Then his poor lean frame collapses again.
I mean, I’ve already sat with the guy through demonic possession, alcohol withdrawal, delirium seizures, ranting Irish hallucinations complete with traditional song. What’s one more humiliating physical indignity for Kelly Garraty, between vamps?
I stay with him a minute, my hands on his back, on either side of the entry wound. His heart is trying. Just a few feeble thumps so far, stuttering and irregular.
I move Garraty’s hair back off his hot brow again. I wince at the steady dribble of blood down the side of the couch, under his parted lips. There’s nothing else I can do for him right now.
So I go and drive the boat for a while, still heading southwest.
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Jean Miller. Doing it wrong. ✌️😎 Personal handler for Two Irish Vamps on Medium. | Area code 605. 153rd Engr Bn. Sober 14+. Micah 6:8. Renegades4Life.
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