“Itsudemo”

 (by K.L. Morgan)

A Story of the Night World

___________Chapter One: Beginnings_______________

She woke up in the hospital.

She was disoriented at first – who wouldn’t be? But the sound of the monitor obediently mimicking the rhythm of her heartbeat, the sight of the thin white curtain surrounding her bed, and the unmistakable smell of sickness and disease all grounded her quickly.

I’m in the hospital.

She turned her head to the side and winced. There was a bruise on the side of her neck, or something – she pulled one hand free of the covers (noticing the IV drip taped to her hand) and touched the spot, gently, only to encounter a thick swathe of bandages. They covered a cold numbness – Some kind of anesthesia -- and beneath that, the distant memory of aching pain.

 Tentatively, she pulled herself up into a sitting position, using the metal braces on the side of her bed. The starchy coverlets crinkled and whispered with the movement. Slowly, aware of her stiff, unused muscles, she reached over to pull at the curtain. It was a small room. Three steps away was another bed, whose sleeping occupant was snoring gently. Rolling back the curtain on its metal rings, she noticed a worn chair positioned at the foot of her own bed. No one was in it, but someone had stashed a purse on the floor next to it, a brown leather bag with double straps that she would have recognized anywhere.

A woman walked into the room. Her clothes were wrinkled, as if she had been sleeping in them, and there were dark circles under her eyes. Her hair was the same tawny blonde as the girl sitting up in the bed.

She stopped in her tracks, the can of soda in her hand falling to the floor with a metallic clunk. Her eyes, fixed on the girl in the bed, grew wide and shining with tears.

The girl licked parched lips, smiling slightly. “Hi, Mom,” she spoke, voice croaking. “You look awful.”

With a muffled sob, the woman launched herself at the girl. Arms snatched at her, pulling her tiny body up almost off the bed, squeezing her so tightly she couldn’t breathe.

---

“Belladonna Tein?”

The girl nodded, and the doctor smiled at her. She looked much better than when she had first arrived, naturally. The blood had been cleaned up, her face washed, and apparently the girl’s mother had clipped back the girl’s masses of hair away from her thin face. She was still too pale and wasted, but loosing immense quantities of blood could do that to anyone.

“Do you have a nickname you prefer?”

“Most people call me Bel,” the girl replied – her voice was soft, with a sweet huskiness.

“Alright.” The doctor smiled again, flipping through the pages of her clipboard. She didn’t need to, but wanted something to do with her hands. “Bel, do you remember what happened to you?”

“No.” The mother squeezed her hand tightly, and Bel smiled at her.

“You probably will, eventually.” And I don’t envy you when you do, the doctor thought. “Your body and mind are just trying to cope with the stress of the attack. Simple repression, not exciting enough to be temporary amnesia. But you’ll let us know if anything comes to you, or if you have any problems, right?”

“Do they know what happened?” That was from the mother, whose death grip on her child’s hands and deep worry lines around her mouth bespoke of terrible strain. Imagine seeing your own kid mauled like that, the doctor thought to herself. I bet she feels betrayed by the entire world. 

“They have a general idea. The report read that you were probably attacked by some kind of wild animal – a dog, perhaps. We don’t know what caused it to go after you, since you tested negative for rabies. Some dogs are deliberately trained to attack, however.” Her eyes flickered to Bel’s face, but she looked puzzled. “Any of this ringing a bell?” The girl shook her head. “Huh – bell, Bel. Right.” The doctor gave herself a little shake, and then continued. “Anyway, the policemen who found you said that a group of young kids were with you at the time. They ran when they saw the car, so either they were trying to pull the animal of you, or they were the ones who set it on you in the first place.”

“Are they having any luck finding those people?” the mother asked.

“You’ll have to talk to the police about that, ma’am.”

“I will.” She finally turned her gaze from her daughter’s face to the doctors, resolved. “May I take her home, now?”

“Well…” The doctor hesitated, reluctant to give way. “I know you’ve already asked some of my colleagues about this. True, she seems to be healing just fine, tested negative for all blood-related diseases –”

“And we live just down the road,” the mother finished, voice pleading. “Please. She needs to be… she needs to be home.”

The doctor sighed. “Alright. I’ll see what I can do.”

---

She woke up in her bedroom.

Belladonna sat bolt upright, hair clinging to her sweaty face. She clutched frantically at the coverlet, breath coming in heaving gasps as she tired desperately to shake herself free from the grip of a vivid dream.

It was night. She was walking home, unafraid. But there were people. Someone grabbed her, hard, someone tossed her to the ground. People were kicking at her with their hard boots. People were laughing. She heard someone say, “What a yummy little girl.” More laughter. Sharp teeth, sharper words, strong arms wrestling her up from the gravel. Eyes that gleamed with their own light in the darkness. And then—

She remembered.

---

“How did you hear about Bel and me?” Ms. Tein’s colorful bracelets clacked together with the movement of her arms as she lifted a cup of coffee to her lips. “I was pretty sure I’d exhausted New York’s supply of therapists, and that isn’t easy.”

The woman opposite of her smiled openly, dark hair caught up in a graceful twist. “I heard about you from – a colleague,” she covered smoothly. “I’m sort of a specialist, you see, and I don’t offer my services to just anyone. So you’d have to go through some pretty irregular channels to find my name.”

Ms. Tein frowned. “Miss Pendar, we talked over the phone about this. I can’t afford a great deal of money. And I dislike hiring you without any references.” Her expression softened. “Though I appreciate that you were willing to come to our home. Belladonna’s been… nervous, leaving the apartment. Ever since --” She hesitated.

“I understand completely,” Miss Pendar jumped in. “Believe me, I do. And it’s not that I charge an extraneous amount of money, I just like to reserve my services for those who truly need them.”

Ms. Tein’s mouth quirked with unexpected humor. “That good, are you? You look fairly young to be so established.”

“I am older than I look. Much older.” She smiled cheerfully. “Trust me.”

Ms. Tein sighed and put down her coffee. “I’ll let you talk to Belladonna for a while, and we’ll see how it goes.” She picked herself up off the couch, striding purposefully down the hallway as her pumps sank into the thick carpet. Softly, she knocked on one of the doors. “Bel? Miss Pendar is here.” She sent a smile over her shoulder to her guest, then continued on her way down the hall.

Moments later the door opened, and a girl stepped out. Slowly, as if afraid she might stumble, she walked into the living room. Eyes downcast, she took a seat on the couch. Unlike her mother, who sat straight and confident, Belladonna huddled against the armrest, tucking her legs underneath her as if to minimize the total space she occupied. It was a defensive technique – something Elizabeth Pendar understood.

“My name’s Elizabeth Pendar,” she began, when she realized the girl wouldn’t. “You can call me Elizabeth, or Miss Pendar – whichever you like. And your name is Belladonna.”

The girl nodded. She was pretty – not beautiful, but with sweet, delicate features. She was tiny, too, very tiny for the sixteen years Elizabeth Pendar knew her to be. The only extraordinary thing about her was the masses of tawny golden hair that spilled down her back. Unlike her mother, whose severe cut barely brushed the shoulders of her expensive suit, Belladonna wore her hair long. It waved softly, curling at the tips, streaked with natural, paler highlights. It eclipsed the slight prettiness of her face, and Belladonna let it – shaking her hair over her eyes.

“You have beautiful hair,” Elizabeth Pendar said impulsively. Belladonna smiled, shyly.

“I hate it,” she said wryly, in a soft voice. “It’s so much work to take care of.”

“I bet.” Elizabeth grinned at her, willing her to open up. “Where does “Belladonna” come from?”

“Mom was a hippie way back when. I don’t think she knew the Italian translation until too late. She just thought it was a cool plant name.”

“It’s unusual.”

“It’s better than “Sunshine” or “Echo,” at least. Most people call me Bel.”

“And your father?”

“Mom never married him. Apparently, he was distinctly uncool.”

They smiled at each other, Bel obviously warming to the other woman’s casual attitude. Elizabeth cringed inwardly at what she had to do next, but knew it had to be ventured sometime. “I’m here about the attack, you know.”

Instantly, Bel’s demeanor changed – she became more withdrawn, scared, looking out from under her hair as if expecting to be slapped.

“It was more than two months ago,” Elizabeth continued softly. “But your mother tells me you’re still having problems dealing with it.”

Bel shrugged minutely, avoiding the woman’s gaze. “I guess.”

“You’ve been having nightmares. What about?”

Eyes on the carpet, Bel gave her head a quick shake. “Nothing, really.”

“And your mom says you’ve had quite a change in lifestyle. She used to have to tie you down to stay in the house – or so she says – now you won’t leave without her, if then. She says you haven’t been talking with any of your friends from school, either. She’s worried about you.” Bel remained silent, lips pressed firmly together. “That’s quite a reaction for a simple animal attack, even such a violent one.” Still no reaction. Sighing inwardly, she decided to cut to the chase – in a manner of speaking. “Unless it wasn’t an animal attack.”

Bingo.

Bel’s head snapped up, eyes riveted on the older woman’s face. “What?”

“I said, unless it wasn’t an animal attack.” She paused, letting that sink in. “There aren’t any animals in your nightmares, are there, Bel?” The girl stared bleakly at her. “Bel. Would you show me... ah, your wound?”

Wordlessly, Bel rose from the couch, kneeling at the woman’s feet. She bent her head, drawing back her curtain of hair so that the pale flesh was bared in the manner of one offering themselves up for sacrifice.

Elizabeth hissed involuntarily. The bastard had really ripped into her, tearing away at the skin between the neck and shoulder joint. Rivulets of scar tissue dripped over her collarbones, pooled along the skin of her neck. He hadn’t been feeding – he’d been torturing the poor thing.

Elizabeth sank back into the chair as Bel let her hair fall back over the scars. She shut her eyes for a moment, suddenly overwhelmed by a familiar sense of shame. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t been personally involved, the attacker and Elizabeth Pendar inhabited the same world, and part of her felt responsible. “He held you from behind, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” Bel whispered, then hesitated. “There was more than one of them. It was a gang.”

“Damn.” Wearily, Elizabeth opened her eyes. “I know the ones you’re talking about, Bel. But they’re gone, I can promise you that. You don’t have to worry about them any more.”

For a few moments, Bel simply crouched on the floor, arms wrapped tightly around her knees. “But they weren’t they only ones, were they?” she finally spoke. “There are more.”

Elizabeth hesitated. Did the girl really know what had happened to her? Should she tell her? Did she have the right to take away a person’s innocence like that?

“More what, Bel?”

The girl simply looked at her. In those soft brown eyes was a hopelessness that made Elizabeth feel cold inside. In that instant, she realized the girl didn’t have any innocence to save.

“More vampires.”

---

“You missed another meeting last night.”

Bel sighed, pulling on a fresh pair of socks as she cradled the phone against her shoulder. “I know.”

“Don’t give me that. Why the hell weren’t you there?”

“I had homework?”

“BEL!” Bel laughed softly at the sound of her friend’s frustration, but if Ivy noticed, she continued regardless. “This kind of stuff makes you look bad in front of the others.”

“So give me an official demerit,” Bel mumbled. “An asterisk next to my name and a footnote: pathetic excuse for a Daybreaker.” 

She heard Ivy heave a sigh on the other end of the line, the tinny sound echoing in her ear. “You’re not pathetic. You just have to stop missing so many meetings.”

“It’s not just that, and you know it.” Bel fell onto her bed, phone still cradled against her ear. “They think I’m a basket case,” she said softly.

“Aren’t you?” Ivy hesitated. “I mean, no offense, Bel, but… I’ve met lots of victims of vampire attacks. And shapeshifter attacks. But you --”

“I’m the only one who’s still terrified by all things Night World,” Bel finished for her, quietly. “Can you blame me?”

“On one hand, no. On the other… Bel, it’s almost been a year! And you still freak out when a new vampire joins the Circle.” Bel listened distractedly, her head cushioned against the fluffy pillows on her bed. Ivy, she knew, was more worried than angry. She always was.

“Why do I get the sense there’s something you won’t tell us?” Ivy finished finally, knowing where the question would lead, how the conversation – and scores like it – had ended.

“Won’t tell you? About what?”

“About the vampire attack.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” Bel lied, staring up at her ceiling. “Why do you keep asking about it?”

“Because I think you’re hiding something.” Ivy listened to the slow, measured breathing of her friend through the phone’s connection. “Bel?”

“I have to go,” she heard. “My mom’s calling me.”

“I don’t hear – Bel!” A click, and the dial tone rang in her ears. Ivy looked blankly at the purple plastic phone in her hands. “Damn!”

---

Ivy stabbed furiously at the apartment buzzer with her finger, frowning intently. Irritated, she shoved her hands deep into her jeans pockets, tossing riotous curls out of her eyes. She waited for about two seconds, then whipped out her hand again and leaned her whole weight on the buzzer, thumb pressed deeply into the socket. Its angry whine filled the air, and the intercom clicked on.

“Yes?” a woman’s voice answered, sounding slightly harried. “Who is it?”

“It’s Ivy, Ms. Tein,” the girl replied, voice falsely bright. “Can I come up?”

“Of course, dear.”

The door clicked softly, and Ivy pushed through it. She didn’t even bother waiting for the elevator, instead bounding up the steps two and three at a time with a speed that would have made any human gawk in amazement. She slowed after reaching her intended floor, smoothing the tangled cloud of ringlets that was her hair and knocking politely on a door.

“It’s open!” she heard, and so Ivy pushed through. There was Ms. Tein, making homemade popcorn over the stove. Bel was perched on a kitchen stool, watching Ivy with wide, solemn eyes.

“It’s so nice to see you, Ivy,” Ms. Tein called, her manicured hands occupied with potholders. “I suppose Bel invited you over to watch the movie with us?” She turned her head slightly in her daughter’s direction. “You know, honey, as much as I adore Ivy’s company, can you remember to ask my permission?”

“Sure, Mom,” Bel replied, not missing a beat. “I won’t forget next time.”

“Wonderful. I’ll go set up the VCR, would you girls watch the popcorn?” Without waiting for an answer, she strode out of the kitchen.

The two girls watched each other for a few minutes, Ivy’s breathing a bit labored. Finally, Bel stood to go stand watch over the popcorn.

“Fifteen city blocks in two minutes,” she said softly as she passed her friend. “And here I thought you guys were trying to blend.” 

“Yeah, well,” Ivy replied carelessly. “I was pissed off. Months of listening to your sad excuse for evasive tactics can do that to someone.”

“You think your little display of vampire skill will go unnoticed?”

Ivy Redfern shrugged. “People see what they want to see,” she replied, plopping down on the stool Bel had vacated.

“Why,” Bel replied dryly, “do I suspect not everyone will adopt your cavalier attitude?”

“It’s your attitude we’re discussing, here,” Ivy responded harshly. “Bel, you’re a great friend, but what the hell is wrong with you? You cut off – damn, I hate it when you go all silent and small. It’s like you shrink.” Ivy crossed her arms huffily. “And the way you treat new vampires at the meetings. It’s not like you hate vampires, or think they’re all incredibly evil,” she said, distractedly running a hand through her dark curls. “That might even be easier, though we wouldn’t be such good friends…”

“So you’d prefer me as an ignorant bigot?”

“NO!” Ivy exploded. “It’s just… damn, Bel,” she said wearily. “These are my friends. And you treat them like boogeymen.”

Bel clicked off the electric stove pensively, not looking up. “I know.”

“You keep saying that. But it never changes, and… why won’t you tell me what happened to you that’s made you so scared?” she cried. “Maybe then I could help!”

“Even if I told you,” Bel replied evenly, taking bowls out from the cupboard, “you couldn’t help.”

“So something did happen,” Ivy perused doggedly. “It wasn’t a normal attack.”

Bel laughed bitterly. “A gang of vampires terrorizing one human – you call that normal?”

“You know what I mean. What did they do to you?”

Bel closed her eyes. Laughter. Eyes gleaming with their own light. Laughter inside her head. “They didn’t do anything to me,” she replied shortly. “It was just – I just --”

“Yeah?” Ivy ventured.

“How’re Quinn and Rashel?”

Ivy sighed deeply. “They’re fine. Stop changing the subject.”

Bel grinned, throwing a sly glance at her friend through a cloud of deep gold hair. “How else can I maintain my aura of mystique?”

Ivy growled, then settled back comfortably on her stool. “They’re great. They took down another nest last night – as usual. Their track record is scary.”

“And impressive,” Bel added. “Don’t forget impressive.”

“Yeah. It’s amazing what soulmates can accomplish.” Bel stiffened, almost imperceptivity, but Ivy’s vampire eyes caught the movement. “I forgot,” she added. “You still don’t believe in the soulmate principle, right?”

“I never said that,” Bel said softly, shaking the popcorn into three huge bowls. “I said it sounded a little too good to be true.” She paused. “But I respect Rashel and Quinn. They’ve… really worked out their differences.”

Ivy watched her closely. “Y’know,” she said offhandedly, “they’re the only ones you really talk to besides me. You like them, don’t you?”

Bel smiled to herself. “Who doesn’t? But I don’t talk to them a lot. They’ve got much more important stuff to do.”

“Quinn doesn’t frighten you?”

Bel thought about it for a moment. “It’s hard to be frightened of someone that much in love,” she finally concluded.

“Bel?” Ivy craned her neck, trying to spot her friend’s face underneath all that hair. “Do you regret letting Elizabeth Pendar introduce you to us? I mean, when we heard about the attack in the newspapers, we just… wanted to make sure you were okay. We never thought she’d bring you into the circle, but she seemed to think it necessary.”

Bel shook her head slowly. “Never. I would have gone crazy, anyway, brooding over whether or not what I thought had happened had… really happened. Besides,” with a tiny smile, “it’s not easy to refuse a shapeshifter, even when she’s not in panther form.”

“Aha.” Ivy grinned knowingly. “But you only knew about that after she brought you into the Circle.”

“True enough,” Bel smiled as her mother walked into the room. She smiled forcefully at the two girls, hands reaching for a bowl of popcorn as she spoke.

“Oh, good,” she said in a relieved voice. “I suppose you’ve told Ivy all about the transfer?”

Ivy blinked. “What?”

“Bel,” Ms. Tein spoke wearily, “I thought you expressly invited her over here to tell her. What have you been talking about?”

“There’s nothing to tell her, Mom,” Bel said, anger seeping into her husky voice. “Nothing’s really been settled.”

“Everything but the measurements of your uniform have been settled,” her mother retorted. “Stop fighting this, Bel. It’s for your own good.” And then strode purposefully out into the living room.

Ivy blinked again. “What’s she talking about?”

Bel handed her a bowl. “She’s transferring me to another school.”

“But you just finished first semester of junior year!”

“She knows that.”

“Well, of course, but – where?”

“Some prep school upstate. My uncle’s on the board. They interviewed me about a month ago, and said they could make an exception for me – letting me in halfway through the year, and all.”

“Oh, Goddess,” Ivy said softly. “Bel, I’m so sorry. I can’t believe she’d uproot you like that.”

“She thinks I should get out of the city. She says a change of scene will help.”

Ivy sighed, suddenly not hungry for her popcorn. “What are you going to do?”

“What can I do?” Bel asked bitterly. “I’m not an all-powerful lamia. I’m just a human girl, and I need to do what my Mom wants me to.”

“But what about --”

“Forget it,” Bel cut her off. “It’s not worth fighting about.”

Ivy stared, aghast, at her friend. She could see that Bel was fighting back tears. Hugging the popcorn bowl to her chest, she knew she’d miss this silent, withdrawn girl.

“Well,” she spoke up, “Look on the bright side. Upstate New York -- boondocks, right?”

“Right.”

“I guarantee you; no one from the Night World will come near the place.”

Author’s Notes:

This is a story rife with clichés. I know it. You know it. But it’s delicious to write, and I need the mental equivalent of lime sorbet right now, and this is it. But I promise that, should I stagger through it, I will try to be less and less predictable. S’okay? S’alright. People who’ve read my Labyrinth fanfiction might have noticed the writing style is a bit different. I’m trying something new, and it might get rough in patches. Please forgive me the learning process. (P.S. on that – I SWEAR I will get back to WDMC. This is not keeping me from it. Don’t kill me, I write your fanfiction.)

I am nice. I do not bite. I love all kinds of feedback. And I only talk like a robot when it’s 2 AM. I’ll try not to do it again. ^_-

Also – updates will be sporadic as all get-out. I’ll try to keep it coming, but the Labyrinth crowd currently owns my neck. Besides, there are more of them. And a couple actually do know where I live. Sorry! ^_^;