Echo Alpha Delta Who: Echo/Derek What: You Seeing This? Where: Searchlight, M&M Coffee Shop When: A few days post "Bones of the Earth" Ratings/Warnings: Low-ish, references to past violent stuff
Everything was the same.
The vampire stood outside and across the street from the M&M coffee shop. People sat inside, easy to see from the darkened street, drinking coffee and talking. Derek didn’t expect the road to still be strewn with animal parts and blood. He didn’t expect a plaque or anything commemorating the occasion. But it still felt bizarre.
He watched a familiar man leaving the coffee shop with a limp as he conversed with a friend. Derek lifted a hand to wave. There was the briefest second of eye contact, before he went back to his conversation, seemingly ignoring the vampire.
Echo stepped out into the approaching night, breathed in the smells as she finished her coffee and put the cup in the trash receptacle next to the door. The stitches in her arm had begun to itch, and she was mindful not to scratch. She’d inspected the healing wound in the bathroom mirror back in her room before finally going back to bed, where she slept for a solid ten hours.
She’d spent most of the day wandering Searchlight, not that it had taken the entire day. There were still dark patches in the sand here and there, likely where some of those things had returned to the earth that had coughed them up to begin with. Gravel had been tossed over the spot close to the Coke machine, probably by the motel manager. She’d pressed a few of the small pieces further into the dirt, as if testing to make sure it had worked.
Life, it seemed, would return to normal. Whatever that was.
A scent on the air caught Derek’s attention. It was a welcome contrast to the last time he had been there, the night filled with the stench of decay and rot from the mutant bison-dog. Instead, this reminded him of Nesryn and Brian, but it was also markedly distinct. He realized it was coming from a woman with brown hair, the one who had just tossed out her cup.
The vampire jogged casually across the street. Once he was within speaking distance of the girl, though, words left his brain. Hey, you smell familiar… was kind of a non-starter, conversationally.
“Hey,” Derek called out instead. “Were you, uh, around this place the other night?”
“Got the scar to prove it.”
Not that it would be much of a scar, and she’d hurt herself worse falling out of a tree. Still, she’d been keeping an eye on the stitches to make sure the healing wound didn’t turn into something she’d need to deal with.. Echo squinted at her watch in the light coming through the coffee shop window.
“Guess you were here for it too? You must not have gotten tangled up with anything?”
Derek’s hands had been resting in the pockets of his hoodie as he glanced at the coffee shop. “I was here that night,” he explained. “But I heal fast.” Underneath his sleeve, the skin where the creature had sank its many teeth was mostly back to normal, but there were still imprints. He lifted up the fabric to show her his forearm.
“It was a rabid dog. Or, maybe a runaway circus.” The vampire shrugged, then gestured to the man up ahead that was walking in the opposite direction of them. “I helped that guy not get gored to death, and I might as well not exist. Maybe because I remind him of what actually happened. I’m just tired of the bullshit explanations.”
Try being born this way.
It was an uncharacteristically sour thought, but it had been a very long night before. Echo shook it off by saying, “You live here or up in the city? I just got in last night, trying to decide between staying and going where there’s more people. But if this is the kind of thing that happens a lot, Vegas might be safer. I thought I’d seen some stuff, but…”
Derek shook his head. “I live in Vegas, but I have friends here. Trust me, it’s not any better. There are just...more places to hide there.” He looked her up and down appraisingly. That scent was even stronger up close.
“My name is Derek, by the way,” he said, “and I’m curious what kind of stuff you’ve seen, because I might have seen similar…stuff.” The vampire quirked an eyebrow.
The Were’s nostrils flared subtly when he got closer, and her own eyebrows went up. She had no particular feelings for or against vampires, though Unca said they were to be avoided out of simple caution. Young guy, too, not much older than she was, at least on the surface. She couldn’t imagine being in her twenties forever.
“It used to be just what looks at me in the mirror every morning.”
Her eyes changed hue momentarily, just enough light from the shop and the sign in the parking lot for it to be visible, and she rubbed the spot on her arm as the Wolf receded. “Hi, Derek. I’m Echo.”
Derek wasn’t sure if he had imagined the subtle change, or if it was a glint of reflected light from the bright cafe shining out into the dark. He decided not to comment on it, saying instead, “Echo is a cool name. Very Call of Duty.” The vampire held out a friendly hand.
“So, I’m going to be direct here. I know some weres in the area, and you kinda...smell like them. Why beat around the bush, right?”
“That’s pretty common. Some stories say all Weres are descended from one pack a long long time ago, then broke up into different bloodlines. No tellin’ if it’s true or not.”
Echo took the hand for a shake, found it cool but not cold. Wondered how he fed, since if he was introducing himself to people he was probably not the best hunter. Filed that away for further study.
“And you’re not a warm-blood,” she said, curiosity threading the statement. “You always this social?”
He thought about it for a second, then nodded with a grin. “Yeah, I am this social,” he answered honestly. “And yes, I am a…” Derek glanced at the coffee shop again and took a few steps away from the door, lowering his voice. “A vampire. But don’t worry. I’m not after a meal. I promised an angel that I wouldn’t do that anymore,” he added, as if that settled the matter clearly and concisely.
“Are you new around here, Echo?”
“Just got off the bus.”
She waved in the general direction of the El Rey, added, “Not much for work around here. I saw a few ‘help wanted’ signs, but I don’t know how long I’ll be staying and I wouldn’t want to leave anybody hanging if they need long-term help. Got any suggestions for somebody who just got off the bus?”
Fresh off the bus. Derek considered that. He flashed back to his own arrival in Searchlight. Tossed out of a car by his maker, meeting Ronnie. He wasn’t exactly in the same position to offer Echo that kind of support. “I don’t know about short-term work around here,” the vampire said. “But there’s a place called Terrible’s Roadhouse, my friends Ronnie and Nesryn work there. They would know more than me.”
The Were’s hand flapped in a good-natured brushing-off gesture, and she said, “Eh, don’t worry about it. I figure somethin’ll come along. We make our own luck, yeah?”
He seemed trustworthy, she decided, if only because he called Nesryn his friend. Shifters could generally tell the good ones from the bad ones, lack of a heartbeat notwithstanding, and Derek seemed too...she wanted to call him innocent, almost. That was probably not entirely accurate, though.
“Were you going in there, or…? I think the place got cleaned up, so it’s fit for customers again.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Derek replied, shuffling a little awkwardly as he glanced at the coffee shop. “I don’t know if I can handle everyone pretending like everything is normal, that they didn’t see me and Br -- “ He broke off, not sure if the other werewolf wanted his name thrown around like that.
“Plus, not that big into the caffeine buzz,” the vampire grinned. “I’m more into...green stuff.”
“You get used to them not being able to get used to it,” Echo said sagely. “My momma says no one would ever leave the house if they knew half of what really goes on, so they go on pretending that the day-world is all there is. Sometimes I can’t blame ‘em.”
Green stuff. Hmm. Echo passed Derek on his left, said, I’m over at the El Rey for a few more nights, at least until I decide if I’m staying or going. I stocked up on sodas before the grocery store closed for the night, if you’d prefer that to coffee.”
“Your mom sounds wise,” Derek nodded. “Mine just tells me, don’t do anything that you wouldn’t want to see in print. But I might have ignored that advice more than once.” He jammed his hands back into his hoodie pockets, raising an eyebrow at what seemed like an invite.
“The good old El Rey,” the vampire commented. “And yeah, I like a good Dr. Pepper, if you have it.”
While Echo did not immediately cleave to anyone outside her pack, the vampire was a subject of curiosity to her. Unca told her more than once that blood-drinkers were unpredictable, but Derek seemed like half the guys she’d gone to high school with. Naive, that was the word for it, or maybe hapless. Even if he’d been turned on purpose, he’d probably been in over his head before he knew it.
“Seems like a strange to fetch up. Nevada, I mean. All that sun.”
Derek decided on the short version. “When I was 21, I came here from California — that’s where I’m from — with some friends for a sort of lost weekend in Vegas. I met a woman, she invited me to her hotel, and surprise! Fangs. I just ended up staying.” He shrugged.
“Now I have my people and there’s no reason for me to leave,” the vampire concluded. “Where do you hail from?”
“Shreveport, though mostly I lived on the water in a boat. Our family’s been shrimping for years, a lot longer than I’ve been alive. I got my first rig a few years ago, but it’s in dry dock ‘til I get back.”
The street was quiet as Echo and Derek walked, and she added, “You get that tickle on the back of your neck yet? The one like something’s goin’ on, but you can’t quite tell what it is?”
He had to chuckle at that. “I always have that,” he answered readily. Especially here. You stick around long enough, you’ll find out. There’s something magnetic, like you think it’s just this small, sleepy town. But I think it’s so much more. The things I’ve seen here…” Derek trailed off. He didn’t want to scare Echo away, but she also deserved to know the truth.
“Even beyond the weird shit that goes down, there are good people here,” the vampire continued. “Seems like more are coming from faraway places. I spend most of my time in Vegas, but keep getting drawn back to Searchlight.”
“When I was a kid, just starting high school, Momma told me I was meant to do something really important. She believes in star charts and divination, or at least she did for a while. That some of us have a destiny and some don’t. She just didn’t know what it was, what mine is. If I have one.”
If asked, Echo would have said that was why she’d come so far away from home, to look for what felt like a piece of herself. More than blood, more than genes, something that had been stolen from her because the father she’d never really known had wanted a new family and new kids, ones who would perhaps be more compliant with his wishes. She didn’t blame her mother. Caitlyn Bishop was a hard lady, a true Wolf who protected her own, and her brothers were sprung from the same well. Her father’s lack of character or integrity or just plain decency must have been something they’d missed.
But she still felt deprived, cheated of something. Even if it was something she’d never had, it was still hers after a fashion.
The Were realized she’d been quiet for too long when they’d gotten to the street the El Rey occupied, and she broke the silence with, “Do vampires eat? Solid food, I mean.”
“They can, and I do, sometimes,” Derek replied, looking up at the motel sign. He had stayed in this place a decade ago while searching for a more permanent home. It wasn’t bad, but it certainly wasn’t the glamorous places that he had seen while being towed around by Veronica. Part of him appreciated the El Rey even more for that. For the longest time, he had been utterly repulsed by expensive things.
“I have simple tastes. I guess I’m easy to please,” the vampire offered.
Echo nodded, made an ‘mmm’ noise as she dug around in her pocket for the key to the door. No electronic key cards here, though she doubted high rollers frequented the place. There was a new station wagon parked next to her truck, suitcases still attached to the roof rack. Probably a family on the way somewhere else.
“Is the garlic thing true or false? That’s the only one that doesn’t really make sense.”
He stood outside the doorway of the motel room. “Garlic doesn’t bother me, but I do need to be invited in, I think.” Derek smiled apologetically. The vampire reached a hand out and tried to push it past the entryway, but an invisible barrier held him back. He wondered if that fact would make Echo think twice about letting him in. Of course he had no intention to harm her, but he wouldn’t fault her for being concerned.
“Huh.”
She’d stepped inside without thinking, watched the transparent dividing line between indoors and outdoors warp ever so slightly. A thin film, like celluloid. Echo’s head tipped to the left, and she nodded once before taking another step backwards. Then another.
“C’mon in if you want that soda.”
Because him, she didn’t worry about. He might have been the most singularly unthreatening anybody she’d ever met, and that included some of the wolves in her own pack back home. So when she opened the cooler she’d hauled in from the truck, the one she’d filled with bags of ice from the grocery store, she felt no qualms over it.
Derek crossed the boundary. Looking around, it was exactly how he remembered it, except the television was flatter. “Cool,” he remarked. He figured her invitation meant to help himself, and he reached into the cooler for a can of soda.
Water from the ice dripped off it and he wiped it against his hoodie before popping the metal tab. “I don’t think I asked what brought you to Searchlight,” the vampire commented.
“I’m looking for my sister.”
A pause, and Echo amended that to, “Half-sister. Long story, and one I’m too tired to get into right now. But if somebody ever tells you that wolves mate for life?”
She smiled a little, her stern and occasionally sour mouth turning up at the corners, a sardonic smile. “Sometimes they’re exaggerating.”
“Oh.” Then his eyes widened in understanding. “Oh. I see. Yeah, that’s…” Derek shook his head. In his limited, somewhat sheltered life as a human, his parents had been pretty ordinary and dull. His dad definitely wasn’t the type to go out fathering unknown siblings. Despite his lack of experience, he felt bad for Echo. It must have been an uneasy feeling, having this unknown piece of yourself floating out there, existing completely unawares.
So the vampire did what he always did, faced with a lack of other means of comfort. “You want some smoke?”
“Maybe next time. The smell gets into everything and I’d rather have a place to wash clothes so the manager doesn’t have a problem. I appreciate the offer, though.”
Echo rummaged around in the clutter on the table next to the curtained window until she found her cell phone, said, “I’ll probably be around for a couple of weeks, at least until I figure out what to do next. Want to give me your number if I get up to the city?”
“Yeah, sure.” He took out his own phone in its colorful tie-dyed case. Derek unlocked it and opened the contacts list, handing it to Echo so she could punch her number in and he would do the same.
“What do you know about this half-sister? If she’s in Searchlight, I might have run into her.”
“Not much, not even what she looks like. I’ve seen pictures of my...of him, but never met him in person. Unca said I kind of look like him, but that was years ago. Even shifters age, just slower.’
Echo finished tapping her number into Derek’s phone, handed it back to him. “I don’t know if she knows about me, or if she does if he’s the one who told her. Probably not, though. Guy like that, he’d never talk about something that makes him look so shitty.”
“That sucks. I hope you find something.” He paused, something clicking into place in his head. “But she would be a were, right?” Derek wasn’t entirely sure how it all worked, not having asked Nesryn a lot of questions about it. The vampire looked down at his phone distractedly.
“Yeah, probably on both sides,” Echo said with a nod, then added, “Sometimes we choose humans, but not always. Not even usually. We don’t live forever, but the bite’s nothing to give just anybody. From what I know, he would only choose another Wolf.”
Derek nodded, taking that information in. “Well, I can keep an ear out for you, if you wanted. I’m here pretty frequently.” His old pattern, the urge to be helpful and useful, reared up again. The vampire had to wonder if it wasn’t entirely altruistic, but rather the desire for inserting himself into another potentially dangerous situation.
He shook his head as if clearing water from his ears. No use going down that path right then. “And, you know, be careful. I know a wolf can handle themselves, but it’s strange times out there,” he offered, like a hypocrite.
“Getting stranger all the time, too.”
The Were lifted her half-full can of soda in Derek’s direction in a toast, “And I appreciate your offer. I have the feeling it’s gonna be like a needle in a haystack until I get some more information.”
Derek offered a smile. “At least the haystack isn’t all that big. 500 something people, last time the sign was updated. Unless they’re in Vegas, which…” The vampire trailed off. “Never mind, that’s not encouraging.” He lifted the sweating can of soda. “Salud!”
Echo decided that Derek was okay, even if he was hapless. And maybe he’d find something out that was helpful. If the number of other Weres in the area could be judged by Brian and Nesryn being mostly out in the open, there was always the chance that there were others. It was better to think positively.