Seeking Eternity Ch. 07

"Everything's fine," she responded, slightly squeezing Theodore's arm. "I'm just thinking of how nice the night is."

Theodore chuckled. "That's what happens when we stop slaying even for just a day. We begin to appreciate what we overlook when we are after our preys. It feels refreshing, doesn't it?"

"It does," Miranda concurred. The two of them began walking toward the parking lot where Theodore left his car. "Imagine how life would be like if we never knew of the existence of vampires and wolves."

"It would be boring," Theodore said, not even pausing to consider the possibility. "The magic of a simple night like this would be lost to us, as it would just be a night like any other."

Miranda looked at him curiously. "You enjoy this life, then?"

Theodore laughed. "Ah, Miranda. Of course, I do. Don't you? I've seen you at work, hunting vampires since we're in our teens." He paused and flashed a grin. "I've never quite seen another slayer killing vampires without remorse the way that you do."

"Is there anything I should be remorseful about?" she asked, strangely miffed. His words should not have bothered her -- after all, he did not mean it as an insult -- but the thought that Theodore might also think of her that way was upsetting.

"Probably not," he answered. They had reached his car, and Theodore opened the passenger door for her. "Those in our line of work don't have the luxury of feeling any remorse."

Miranda almost blurted out that it was not as though she did not feel any remorse at all; it was just that she chose to have faith in the information that they were given. She chose to believe that all their prey had been renegades, because to think otherwise would be too much for her to handle. After all, without vampires, she might have already been killed before she even became a teenager.

Unbidden, memories of one particular rainy night more than two decades ago came rushing back to her. She had been running away from two drunken men who were looking at her the way she imagined two wolves might eye a sheep. The sidewalk had been slippery but she struggled to get as far away from the men as possible, getting up every time she feel, teeth chattering not from the cold but from fear -- fear of the sounds that the men were making as they followed her, laughing and hooting, making lewd promises of what her capture would mean.

They caught her when she made a wrong turn toward a dark alleyway closed off by a high wall. Kicking and screaming, she attempted to fight even when they dragged her to the cold hard ground. One of the men got on top of her, and, grabbing both her wrists in one hand, he delivered a slap that caused blood to flow out of her nose. She made a whimpering sound as she felt him reaching down to unbuckle his belt while his friend continued to make vulgar remarks a foot or two away.

She was not even ten.

Until now, Miranda shivered at the thought of what would have happened if no one came to her rescue at that moment. Too afraid to even let her tears out, she had braced herself for the worse when, without preamble, the man was dragged away from her. She crawled to the corner of the alleyway, sat with her back against the wall and hugged her knees close to her chest. Trembling madly, she watched as another man beat the crap out of the two drunks, until, finally, there was the sickening sound of two heads being smashed against concrete, and the two men fell limply to the ground, no doubt lifeless.

The man approached Miranda afterwards -- she who, by then, had become immobilized by fear, certain that he would kill her next. However, the man merely wrapped his coat around her shivering shoulders and picked her up. He carried her away from that alleyway, and when the shock started to wear off, Miranda was reduced to a bawling mess in his arms. She did not know how long he walked with her weeping on his shoulder, but after Miranda had finished shedding all the tears that were left in her little body, she looked up to his face and was rendered speechless. His eyes were blood-red and fangs appeared in lieu of teeth when he smiled.

He looked like the stuff of nightmares. Wide-eyed with both fear and fascination, Miranda could only stare with an open mouth. Then the monster laughed, the sound of his voice deep and comforting and all-too-human. When his laughter died down, he set her down on her feet and knelt before her, his face transforming to that of a handsome man with a gentle smile on his lips. He would take her home, he said. Miranda found her voice. After telling him that she had no home, the monster -- the man -- asked if she would like to lease his house.

I'll take friendship and lots of smile as payment, he had said with a wink, finally coaxing a smile out of Miranda. He introduced himself as Jared Whithorpe, "shrewd businessman by day and ruthless vampire by night." Then and there, Miranda decided whose side she was on, and, taking his hand, she started on the path that eventually led her to a lot of hard physical training and a spying mission within the slayer society.

Everything she had done from that night onwards was done to repay the debt she owed, and Miranda had no qualms doing the worst that a human could do in order to keep the peace that Jared worked so hard to maintain. If it meant killing mercilessly or breaking her own heart, then so be it.

"Mandy?"

Theodore's voice jolted her back to the present. He glanced at her with worry as he drove down the highway.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yes, I'm okay," Miranda answered, turning her face away from Theodore to look out of the window. She cursed herself silently for letting those memories in. She had worked hard to appear cold and invincible, becoming Gilford's most heartless slayer, but a trip down memory lane was all it took to reduce her to a caring, vulnerable mess.

Well -- that, and Theodore's presence. It only reaffirmed the soundness of her decision to ask Reginald Gilford for a change in partners all those years ago.

Get a grip, she thought with a sigh. Miranda knew that she was not very good at handling emotions, and she promised herself that she would step back and leave Theodore alone, but was it really too much to ask for one night with him? She did not even need a fuck; she only needed his presence tonight to keep her going.

"Do you want to stop over at my place?" Theodore asked. When Miranda threw him a questioning glance, he smirked. "I don't think I've ever seen you as distracted as you are right now. I'm offering you company, but if you'd rather have me stay away..."

Miranda smiled back at him. Just one night to feel like a regular human being who can hang out with her friends, and then I can be whatever I need to be, again. "If you've got coffee somewhere in that messy condo of yours..."

Theodore laughed. "You know that I can't live without coffee, and I now have a cleaning lady, thank you very much."

"Then coffee will be perfect," she said.

A strange expression crossed Theodore's face, but it was so momentary that she was unable to register exactly what was there. Miranda shrugged it off. In truth, she did not want to care. At least, not tonight. Tonight was all hers, and she was determined to make the most of it no matter what the cost.

*****

Theodore closed the car door behind Miranda, wondering what had the woman so distracted in the car. Everything was going well and she seemed to have been enjoying herself, until the moment they stepped out of the restaurant and started discussing about work.

Maybe it was not a good idea to bring up slaying after a date, but what else was there for them to talk about? Like many slayers, they did not have many friends, and chances were that they had no common friends out of the handful they knew outside of work. Besides, he and Miranda had a sort of falling out years ago, and only recently had they started talking to each other again, always sidestepping the issue that broke them apart.

Offering her his arm, Theodore led her to the elevator that would bring them to the floor where his condominium unit was. He made small talk, and Miranda was currently responding, for which Theodore was glad. Earlier, he tried to get her talking, but the woman was so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she seemed to not have heard his question.

That brought him back to wondering what she was thinking about. Miranda had always been the most efficient and focused slayer that he had known, never hesitating to make kills that any other slayer would have found unsettling. She knew what she was doing, she did it well, and she never looked back. But this side of her that he just witnessed -- this troubled, distracted side? It was so out of her character that it made Theodore wonder if he knew the woman at all.

Of course, I don't, he thought. Was it not his lack of knowledge about her that prompted him to ask her out on this date? There were layers and layers of mystery surrounding Miranda, and Theodore was determined to peel those layers inch by inch until he could finally say that he knew Miranda Graves very well.

"By the way, Teddy," Miranda was presently saying in her characteristically light tone, "did you leave our waitress your number?"

Theodore chuckled. Firstly, nobody in the world ever called him 'Teddy' except for Miranda. Secondly... "Why the hell would I do that?"

"Oh, please." Miranda rolled her eyes. The elevator opened with a ping, and both of them stepped inside. "She was flirting with you so hard that I was amazed she did not strip down before you right then and there."

Again, he chuckled. "I'm not really into desperate women."

"That, I know," Miranda agreed.

An awkward silence followed -- one that Theodore did not know how to break. Miranda was the last woman he had been into, and both of them were aware of how that turned out. Mercifully, the elevator opened on the ground floor and two men joined them, making it almost imperative to stop talking.

Unfortunately, the awkwardness inside the elevator continued to thicken as one of the men looked over Miranda from head to foot and back again, practically leering. Theodore controlled the urge to punch the man's face. He did not think that Miranda would appreciate the gesture, however well-meaning it was. After all, she could beat the crap out of the man if she wanted to.

Thus, Theodore painstakingly ignored the man, focusing his attention on Miranda instead. It was not as if he could not commiserate with the stranger: wearing a skin-tight dress that hugged every curve of her exquisite figure, Miranda was bound to attract attention. It was no wonder that the man moved to get closer to her when the elevator door opened on the third floor and what seemed like a whole family of eight people entered.

Without thinking, Theodore reached for Miranda's waist and pulled her to him, pressing her back against his chest. He told himself that he was doing it, first and foremost, to make room for the family. If the move caused the leering stranger to realize that Miranda was with him, it was just a fortunately unavoidable consequence.

Thankfully, Miranda did not voice any objection. If ever, she made herself more comfortable by leaning against him -- which, Theodore suddenly realized, was quite distracting. The perfume that she was wearing assailed his senses, and the heady scent of summer blossoms caused a wild stirring in his loins. To make matters worse, the press of Miranda's backside against his thigh was conjuring up images that caused his member to wake. It got so bad that, by the time the two of them stepped out of the lift on the sixteenth floor, Theodore was certain there was an apparent tent in his pants, which he tried to conceal from the other people in the elevator.

Gods, this is a nightmare, he thought. Miranda grabbed his hand and slowly led him down the corridor towards his unit. She glanced at him, and the little coy smile on her lips told Theodore that she had felt the effects that her proximity caused.

Theodore almost laughed. This was not how he planned things to happen tonight. The way things were unfolding, he would have the worst case of blue balls the world had ever known.

Staring at the keypad lock on the door of his unit, Miranda asked, "Do you trust me enough to let me know the code?"

"I never changed it," he responded.

Miranda gave him a strange look before starting to key in the six-digit numbers that the two of them chose years and years back. Theodore almost flinched when she pressed the last number. Miranda had turned the knob and was about to push the door open when he made up his mind, pulled the door close again and turned her around. There was a surprised look on Miranda's face when he tilted her chin up for a kiss.

It was meant to be brief, but he should have known that Miranda would take things into her own hands. Her lips parted beneath his, and her tongue slipped out to prod his lips apart. Before he knew it, the kiss had turned so passionate that his lower region started aching for much, much more. His hands started roaming over her body, tracing her curves as she pressed her body closer to his.

The kiss might have lasted for several minutes, but Theodore knew it had been building for what seemed like a lifetime. Suddenly, memories of the nights that they spent together came rushing back -- the feel of her naked skin against his, the sweet and salty taste of her sex, the tightness of her body as they made slow passionate love night after night after night. It was supposed to have been casual sex between slaying partners, but somewhere down the road their emotions got mixed into the mess until Miranda decided that it was time to pull away.

Just as she did now. Breathless, Theodore rested his forehead against hers and gave her lips another brief kiss. Then, staring into her eyes, he traced her lower lip with his thumb. She had always been so sweet, so accommodating -- at least when it came to him. Where did things go so wrong?

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," he whispered with all sincerity.

A confused look came into her eyes, and before she voiced out her question, Theodore punched in the code and opened the door. He guided her inside the unit that had practically been Miranda's home when they were still partners.

"You're sorry for what?" Miranda asked, looking at him, when Theodore had closed the door behind him.

"For me, I assume," came the response from farther into the unit.

Theodore watched as the look on Miranda's face hardened. Her posture stiffened, and he knew that his time with the sweet Mandy of his younger days was over: in her place stood the cold and fearless slayer that Reginald Gilford trained. He followed as she headed toward the living room, where his guest was sitting comfortably on the love seat, holding a cup of tea. The woman smiled gently at Miranda.

"Good evening, Miss Graves," Rebecca Lee intoned. "We need to talk."

~~~~~~~~~~~~

AUTHOR'S NOTE: It's been more than a year since the last installment, and I'm extremely sorry to the readers who had been following the story from the beginning.

I started writing this because the characters in my head would not leave me in peace, but as I fleshed out the narrative, I realized that each character was alive, and trying to lay out their motivations, fears, hopes and back story was intense work. So, I took a break to digest every little detail that gave the characters "flesh and bone and blood", only continuing to write when I had every single one of them figured out.

That said, I know that it must have been frustrating for you all. Again, I could only give my most heartfelt apologies. I would also like to offer my sincerest gratitude for still being there. You inspire me to keep on writing, slow though it may be. Much love, SF."