Chapter 11 #2
“No, dear girl, but all the ‘mutants’ in comics are based on people like us. Those a bit more than human, human lineage mixed with other sentient, humanoid beings’. If it’s done through love and without violence, I’ve no objection. Have you?”
“I... guess not?” Sophie threw Jesse a worried glance. “But I’m still human. Like, fully human. I don’t need to drink blood or avoid the sun, or anything like that. I have a shadow and a pulse.”
Mr. Minegold looked at her, nodding gravely. “Would you mind if I looked up a few things?”
“That’s what I’m here for,” she rose when her host did.
“Jesse, we’ll have that excellent cake of your mother’s in a bit. Would you two like to accompany me to the library?”
Sophie’s eyes widened. Every room, even the dining room, had at least one shelf of books. Another entire room just for books made her feel lightheaded. How many books would be in that room?
They followed their host to a room in the back of the house, full of oak paneling and more maps on the walls.
Sophie observed that one wall was full of a map unlike anything she’d ever seen, with only vague outlines of continents on it, but shot full with red, white, black, and blue lines.
Places where the lines intersected were marked with pushpins, mostly small, clear ones.
There were several places where beautiful, decorative pins were stuck into the board.
There was a pin with a giant, sapphire-like jewel stuck into the northeastern United States.
“That’s us. Pine Ridge. Home of three dark Ley Lines,” Jesse murmured, taking her hand.
“Oh. Wow.” Sophie swallowed, nodding in the absence of the right words. “You told me a little bit about what that means. Dark forces like to visit.”
“It’s a good source of energy. Not everything eats the way you and I do,” Mr. Minegold said vaguely, looking at a shelf of thick books with cracking leather spines.
“I think you have vampire parentage, my dear, but you are clearly human and therefore have a human soul. I doubt you are a dhampir, not with your, shall we say, ‘inner glow’?”
“But what could make someone... Who does that? No one we’ve ever seen.” Jesse went over and took the books Mr. Minegold passed down to him, his voice low, even though he knew Sophie could hear him perfectly well.
“First, how. Then, who. But you’re right. No one around here exhibits that particular ability, except for Tess.”
“Tess?” Sophie in turn took a stack of books.
“Powerful witch, innate, not simply learned. But, the light you’ll see in her hands comes from an act of magic, not simply her own being.” Mr. Minegold tapped his chin. “Hot, did you say? Heat?”
“Yes, like my chest is suddenly on fire.”
“We could call Tess. She’s a good friend, helps keep the town safe as we can make it. She reads auras, maybe she could read yours.”
Sophie didn’t expect the rush of anger she felt, but it flooded her suddenly. “My aura? Isn’t that what kind of person I am, good, bad, positive, negative? I’m not a science experiment for you to research.” She put the book down on a glossy round table, the heavy thud satisfying under her palm.
“No one experiments on us. No.” Minegold shook his head firmly, eyes suddenly a deep mulberry, face hostile.
“I was subjected to my fair share of experiments back... long ago, so long it doesn’t need to be mentioned.
” He turned away for a moment, and when he returned, his eyes were their normal hazel once again.
“Jesse? Will you sit at the accursed box?”
Sophie blinked. Cursed boxes? What now?
Jesse merely laughed and powered on a huge, boxy computer in the corner. It was clearly from the early days of home computing.“You’re lucky I got that degree in computer systems. This thing would run like a snail with rheumatism if it weren’t for my upgrades. What do you want me to look up?”
“Fire beings. Spirits. Demons. Beings of the upper and lower realms.”
“Then what are the books for?” Sophie leaned against Jesse’s shoulder as he started typing something into an internet search engine.
“This web doesn’t know everything. Some knowledge is best kept hidden, lest it be abused. Jesse finds us the scraps, but we make the stew, eh?” Mr. Minegold smiled at her and put a pen and paper into her tentative hands.
“SOMETHING RARE. VERY rare.”
Sophie looked at her list. She’d never heard of half of the beings or creatures on it. Some words on her paper were not even in English.
“Not from around here.” Minegold and Jesse were experts in this. They spoke in choppy sentences but seemed to understand each other. They ran from shelf to shelf, muttering and writing, while she sat with her list, eyes blurring as she stared without blinking.
Mother.
The word came to her unbidden, just like the heat in her chest.
It was my mother, my birth mother, who was able to touch the flames, hold them in her hand. My father couldn’t. Vampires burn.
How then? How could they be together, if one would ignite the other?
“She couldn’t be on fire or too hot all the time.
Vampires don’t handle flames and sunlight.
It had to come and go, she could control it.
So they could be together long enough to make me.
” Sophie rolled the pen over the page. “Definitely female. Are any of these demons strictly male?” She held out her list.
Mr. Minegold looked over it. He and Jesse had been the ones telling her what to write, but now he appeared to slow down and study it. “Hmm. Hm.” He took a pen from behind his ear and made a half dozen sharp slashes. “You are very good at this. We narrowed it down quite a bit.”
“And- and you said it was something rare and uncommon, at least something that isn’t around here?” Sophie turned her eyes back to the map-lined wall. “Cross out anything common, anything local.” Another slash or two.
“Those are common, although not around here. Fire spirits or demons are not usually in this part of the world. Demons who like this region,” Mr. Minegold circled his hand over the jeweled pin in the map, “like darkness, cold, or water. Werewolves, vampires, succubi, witches, and certain fae.”
“Fairies are real?” Sophie’s butt hit the chair as her knees decided that was one too many impossible things for the day.
“Not like you picture them,” Jesse rubbed her back. “We don’t know that Sophie’s parents were from this part of the world.”
“But she was found here with her father— a vampire, one assumes, shortly after her birth.” Mr. Minegold’s lips twitched suddenly. “Perhaps she couldn’t survive for long here. Some of the fiery ones cannot.”
“Then why have me? Why risk it? She did die, at least that’s what my parents were told.
” I want Mom and Daddy right now. I was always their wonderful miracle, their little princess.
I don’t want to be the thing that killed my parents, that made them choose life for me or death for her.
She hastily wiped at her eyes. “Dust,” she lied thickly.
“Babe. It may not have been anything like you’re imagining,” Jesse knelt in front of her, taking both of her hands and looking up at her.
“I’m imagining my mother died having me because she couldn’t live where she needed to be. Why would she do that?”
“Love.” Minegold’s voice was a whisper. His head was bent over something on the roll top desk in the corner.
“Perhaps your father would not survive in her world. Perhaps she feared or could tell that you wouldn’t, either.
To ensure the safety of your little ones, you will.
.. you will willingly go to the grave in their place.
” His hand gently closed the lid and whatever he had been gazing at was concealed.
“Don’t think of her as anything more than a hero, dear girl. ”
“I’ll try,” Sophie whispered.
“Pardon me, my dears. A fresh pot of tea. There is too much dust, as you said.” Mr. Minegold coughed and rubbed at his eyes as he hurriedly retreated from the room.
As he left, Jesse rose and pulled Sophie to her feet, leaning against him. “You told me once that you never wanted to find your birth parents. You had the best family.”
“I do! This isn’t about finding them. It’s about finding parts of me.” Sophie smiled tremulously at her boyfriend.
He didn’t smile back. His handsome face regarded her steadily, one hand coming up to cup her chin. “Can I be part of you?”
“What?” Sophie giggled in spite of the seriousness.
“I mean it. Parts are the things that make you whole. I want the job. If there’s a Jesse-sized hole someplace—and no, I’m not being dirty this time.” He winked with a faint smile.
“You’re already a part of me. You deserve someone who won’t leave you wondering.” Her arms slowly slid around his neck.
“Oh, I’m pretty sure I’ll always look at you with wonder.
Wondering things like, “How did I get so lucky? Why doesn’t she get that people are staring because she’s like something out of a fairytale?
’ Only the insecure jerks would stare for other reasons.
” He placed a soft kiss on her lips, then her cheek, losing himself and moving against her throat.
“Wondering why you and I ended up in the same place, same time, both of us in the middle of nowhere...”
“Jesse, stop. No fair distracting me that way,” Sophie gasped as he made her body respond, begging for more kisses, more touches.
With a muffled groan, he pulled away, nodding. “More tonight? It’s choir practice,” he smirked.
“I’m looking forward to it,” Sophie twirled out of his grasp and bumped into a teetering stack of books on the nearest table. “Oops!” she exclaimed, frantically trying to catch the cascade.
Jesse saved most of them. A narrow volume that was wedged between two larger books skidded free and landed on Sophie’s toe.
“The Vampire.” Sophie held out the book as she read its title. “I believe this belongs to you,” she teased.