Little Opportunities

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter One

I was already five minutes late for my lunch date with Hanz. It did not help that it was rush week on campus, and it was nearly impossible to get through the crowds signing up for clubs and fraternities and sororities, not without going invisible and flying over the entire thing in broad daylight.

I didn’t. Which was why I was late.

But I could have.

Oh. I was so tempted to. The invisible imps that only I could see were shouting for me to just vanish and pull out my wings. No one was looking. Or so they said.

I never trusted what they said. Imps lied. They also told me to give a toothy-smile at certain people from time to time, but if I did that, I knew I would freak those people out. I had fangs, after all. And I looked like a vampire, even in daylight. I was too pale and my hair was darker than dark. Of course, that was because by birth father was a vampire. My real father was a blond-haired blue-eyed sweetheart, who also happened to be a dentist.

Thankfully, or not, I did not listen to the imps. I had long worked out that I had to deal with the aggravations that normal humans dealt with if I was to live a peaceful and non-troublesome life. I had managed to survive my freshman year after a few bumps, and my sophomore year was looking promising. Having a boyfriend who knew exactly what I was and loved me anyway helped. And right now, all I wanted to do was snatch a few minutes with him before he had to return to classes. Hanz Johaansen was no longer pre-med, but fully into medical school—which meant he hardly had a second of free time.

As I squeezed through the crowds in the quad (some who wre signing up for Eco Club, which was next to the table for the Anime and Manga Club), I nearly dropped my backpack. It wasn’t so much bumped as seriously jostled by someone pushing past.

I repressed a cussword. Hanz did not like cusswords. Hanz was a saint, and I wanted to keep him happy.

Usually I avoided such noisy, compressed places as not only were there too many people there, there were also thousands of invisible imps shouting for them to do foolish things, such as steal stuff, touch other people around them inappropriately, or say things they would regret the moment the words escaped their lips. And since I had made a vow to keep out of other people’s business and not be a supernatural Karen, I had to work extra hard to ignore it all. It was difficult. Being born half imp (due to my birthmother) had cursed me with the ability to see and hear them all—and imps were not pleasant or good. They were utterly naughty. And they were such a distraction sometimes. In the classroom, they were a pain to ignore, but here, they just made the noise tenfold.

I managed to get past the Vegan booth, and had struck a path through the Greek Houses when I noticed Dawn, my sister, examining the sorority houses. She was wearing her fluffy blonde hair up in a bun, and she was in one of her dance outfits. She had ditched most of her Goth makeup and clothes, and switched to dancer outfits and styles the middle of our freshman year. It was an improvement as well as a sign that she was happier. I knew she wanted to join a sorority and leave the dorms, but I felt a twinge of loss as I saw her there. She wanted to leave a lot behind, actually—but in a good way.

I would have stopped to talk to her, ask her which one she was interested in, but I was getting closer to six minutes late, and I needed to run.

I was nearly out of the crowds when I bumped into Tabitha Raines, who was Dawn’s current roommate—quite literally crashed into actually.

“Why don’t you look—? Oh. Eve.” Tabitha’s expression changed from angry to flustered, blinking at me. She was one of the few who knew what I was, and had come to peaceful terms with it. “Uh… sorry. In a rush?”

I nodded. “I’m late for a date.”

“Oh…” Tabitha grinned wide, teasing with her eyebrows. “With captain handsome, the god of Thunder?”

I rolled my eyes as I continued on my way.

All my friends compared Hanz to Thor. Admittedly, he was tall, blonde, and technically from Viking heritage—Danish actually. But he looked nothing like Chris Hemsworth. Yes, Hanz had a great smile, but he had the dignified build of a doctor-to-be, not a body builder Aussie actor. No beard. No long hair. Hanz was more like an angel of light. Spiritually minded, kind to others, and patient as the year was long. He just glowed. Which is also why my friends often teased that opposites attracted.

And why not? I was a demon. Born to kill Eight people known as the Holy Seven (ignore the math, it makes sense once you understand); the thirteenth iteration of the Vimp—an impossible cross between a vampire and an imp. I was supposed to be evil.

Supposed to be.

Funny thing is… I don’t like people telling me what I am supposed to be.

And Hanz is not a genetic determinist.

He explained it all to me once—genetic determinism. It was the belief that a person had no free will, but that you were the sum of your genetic parts. According to some social trends, it was the belief that you were ‘born that way’ and ‘had no choice’. He said it was all bunk. Everyone had free will. Even a demon like me.

I loved him for that.

And there he was, sitting outside a small deli café across the street from campus, where he was waiting for me with meal already in hand. It was good he knew what I liked, otherwise I would have been irked at him for ordering without asking me. And I also knew, he would apologize for it.

I found a place to cross the street, and I jogged up to him, breathless, when I arrived. “Sorry I’m late.”

He rose from his seat, smiling. That smile alone melted me to butter. “But you made it. I bought two sandwiches. I hope it is what you like. If not, I can order another one. I was just worried about time.”

“What’s in it?” I asked coolly, taking the wrapped sandwich and peeling back the paper suspiciously.

“Eve…” Hanz cringed. “I’m sorry. I know you don’t like it when—”

I pulled close to him, hugging him. “No. Don’t worry about it. I shouldn’t tease.”

He blinked at me, his eyes asking if that was teasing.

I pulled at the chair and sat down. “Making you feel bad for doing your best is mean of me.”

He shot me a small look that agreed, but he immediately wiped it off as his imps shouted for him to tease me about being late. He didn’t.

“Have you seen the campus?” He shook his head as he sat down again. “I’m glad you made it through the mob.”

I laughed. It was louder on the inside as it only came out as a chuckle.

“I wonder what it is like for you…” he murmured with a glance that way. “Hearing… it all.” Meaning the imps. He shook his head and bit into sandwich. His eyes flickered to me as he chewed, thinking. I could hear his heart thump a little harder, happy to see me. When he swallowed, he said, “Does all the shouting give you a headache?”

Thinking on it, I nodded. “A… different kind of headache.”

He listened. That was the cool thing about Hanz. He really listened when I talked. His imps were put out about it.

So I explained. “I don’t hear them with my physical ears. So, the sound does not affect them. But their noise still comes into my brain, and sometimes it is too much to process. They like the chaos. And, if I had nothing important to do, sometimes watching them it is entertaining, as well educational.”

“Educational?” He gazed quizzically at me.

I nodded. “Yes. I’ve told you, imps generally can’t and don’t tempt you with things you are not inclined to do. For example, they occasionally bombard you with temptations to nap during church… which you resist. But you are always tired. It is a realistic temptation. Maybe they will suggest you look up certain things on the internet—mostly so you waste your time with things that are unnecessary. Or they tempt you to play video games while you should be studying. They’ll even rationalize it for you. And sometimes you give in.”

He blushed a degree.

“But occasionally they will test the waters and make a random, if not outlandish suggestion to you…” I said. “Especially when they forget that I can hear them.”

Hanz stared at her. “Such as?”

I smiled kindly at him. “Like… uh… going, um, too far… you know. Taking me to a hotel where we can….” I rolled my hand, allowing him to fill in the missing parts. His imps had suggested a couple nights ago when we were coming back from a concert to not get an Uber, but to stop off at a hotel where we could make love. Of course, Hanz had gotten that Uber and politely walked me to my dorm where he made sure I got safely in. The way he acted after that rather lustful suggestion showed me a great deal about his character. It wasn’t that he did not have those feelings. It was that he knew what he wanted out of life, and he knew what it took to get there.

And watching Hanz mentally fill in the missing pieces, he colored. “But I…”

“Didn’t.” I nodded, smiling. “Which is why listening to imps is educational. I see what kind of person people are when faced with temptation.”

He blushed more, yet smothered a smile, averting his eyes.

He was very male. I had heard his imps call out all those things they usually did to normal, hormonal males of his age. The difference had always been how those men reacted to those temptations. Hanz believed in choice, and all his actions proved it.

The campus bells gonged. Both Hanz and I looked up, our time gone.

“Wow,” he murmured. “Time sure flies…”

I sighed, dismayed. “Shame I can’t.”

He glanced at me, puzzled at first. But then he added it up. Thinking on it, he tilted his head and said, “Why not go inside the bathroom, go invisible there then fly home. No one would see you.”

I nearly laughed as the imps smirked back at me. But I shook my head. “I am trying for normal. If you have to walk, I have to walk.”

He sighed and brushed his fingers along my cheek. “I know. But…”

I shrugged. “It’s part of normal life. I gotta stick to it.”

Closing his eyes, he nodded. “Alright. But you know, I kind of miss your orange eyes. Those brown contacts don’t suit you.”

I smiled at him, gathering up the rest of my sandwich. Then I kissed him. His lips were soft, and I could hear the blood race hotly under his skin as I gently pulled away. “You are of a singular opinion. Everyone else is calmed by the brown.”

He shrugged, maintaining his composure, though his heart was pounding. “How about when we marry, you ditch them?”

A rippled of energy whipped through me, and I pulled back. “Marry?”

He smiled at me like a little boy, but his heart was still booming. “Too soon?”

I swayed there. The campus gongs were ending, the last of it resonating over the buildings.

Hanz leaned in and kissed me with a little more pressure. When we pulled apart, he said, “Think about it.” And pulled me by the hand to follow him back to campus.

I did, but I was in a daze. Yes, I knew Hanz believed in marriage. And I liked the general idea of it… especially being married to him. Always being with him. Sharing his bed. But… I was a demon. I would live three hundred years, long past his lifetime. And I would never be able to have children.

My mind fixed on that fact.

The condition of being a vimp was a sorry one. Though I was female, and a number of previous vimps were male, we were not a species. Only one was ever born at a time, and I was the thirteenth iteration. We were the result of a curse—an ancient witches’ spell. We had gender, but we were not fertile. Sired by vampires, driven to impregnate imp females, we (their offspring) were death and mischief incarnate. And though I matured into a woman, I never shared the complete female experience of menstruation, which was a sign of life continuing. And I knew Hanz wanted to be a father.

Looking ahead at him, feeling his warm fingers around my cold wrist, I knew had to tell him. It had never come up, so he did not know.

But now, crossing a busy street to the University to go back to class, was not the time. He looked so happy as he pulled me to campus by my wrist. I could tell he was floating with elation and relief that he had finally told me that he wanted to marry me. But to break to tell him the depressing truth… in public? In the rush? It was not the time to break all his hopes.

After another affectionate peck to my cheek, we parted on the walk before the quad. He took a route around it. I had to go another way. I watched him. It had been such a great year… me with him. Being in love. Being loved. But here was reality, stomping back onto me again.

My mind was heavy as I walked slowly back toward the dorms, my next class not starting for another hour. The ruckus around me was just noise now. Even the imps.

Hanz wanted to marry me.

What could I tell him?

“Hey! Wanna join a club?” One guy held out a flier on blue paper. I vaguely looked at it as he stuck it into my hand. “What are you into? Activism? Student government? Music? Parties? Geeky stuff? Name an interest, and I can direct you.”

“Surfing,” I murmured. “But I don’t need a—”

“Ah! Beach Bums Unanimous! Over here.” He nudged me by the small of my back, while his imps shouted for him to stroke my butt. He didn’t.

I was still in a daze when I found myself facing a table where there were two guys in sleeveless shirts and tans chatting with a couple blondes about surfing competitions and beach volleyball. Their eyes set on me, and I recognized them. I blinked, coming to a bit. We shared the beach and the surf many mornings. They stiffened.

I halted, turning to face the flier guy. “I don’t need a club to go surfing.”

The guys behind the table breathed a little easier. Their imps were shouting at me to go away. I would spoil their fun. It occurred to me that these two guys just wanted to get laid—especially indicative at whom they were talking to. Thus the club.

“This is for socializing,” perky blue flier guy replied, not fazed an iota.

Ending up at the table, I gave the two guys behind the table a polite smile, and to satisfy Mr. Flier Guy, I signed up for info. When I put down my email address, the duo peeked at it.

One braved, “We see you at the beach a lot. Mornings. I’m Kyle.”

The other guy lifted his hand, his eyes flickering to mine with puzzlement. “Travis.”

I nodded. “I have a brother named Travis.”

“Really?” This Travis perked up. “Where’s he studying?”

“UCLA,” I said, smiling. “Economics.”

They looked impressed.

I nodded to flier guy so he would go away, and he did. I was ready to move on also when Travis asked, “Don’t you usually have orange eyes? Or is that a trick of the morning light?”

I didn’t want to lie, but I was tired. “I have a rare form of albinism. It’s why I only surf in the mornings and evenings. These are contacts.”

“Oh…” Travis nodded. But it set him at ease.

It also set Kyle at ease, who said, “We’ll let you know when activities and parties happen. You could compete—you know, if they weren’t mid-day.”

I saluted him, giving a closed-lipped smile. It was the best I could do in the circumstances.

As I continued along back to the buildings I noticed a number of other clubs, which, if I had the time, I might have joined. There was a computer club. I recognized a few people behind the signup table. And as computer major, it interested me. I was all about freeing the code—and it was a Freeware Club. Then there was a movie club which just watched oldies and discussed them. And I also noticed a LARP club for medieval stuff, which mostly made me giggle and think of my friends in the Seven. They were LARPers. They used to it mask their real training with swords and other ancient weaponry.

“Have you found a club that you like?” asked a gal holding out another blue flier. Damn. They were everywhere.

“Yes,” I said quickly. “I’m on my way to class right now.”

“Hey! I know you!” she said, smiling at me—two uncommon occurrences as most people did not smile when they said that. “You’re Dawn’s sister! I see you at dance practices sometimes.”

Nodding slowly, I blinked at her, trying to recall this girl. She was ordinary. Pretty makeup. But nothing really eye-catching about her that made her stand out. “Yeah… I, uh, walk her home. We live in the same dorm building. You can never be too careful, you know.”

She nodded meaningfully. “No kidding, with rape culture happening. I keep thinking about joining a self-defense group or something.”

“Good idea,” I murmured, deciding not to argue. I overheard imps all the time, but I had yet to see proof that the society condoned rape. The temptation, of course, existed.

“But I hear she is joining a sorority, so…” She shrugged as if that would distract Dawn from dance. Her imps were shouting that she ought to get at Dawn for abandoning their dance team. I was sure Dawn wasn’t doing anything of the sort.

“Did she say which one?” I asked, turning around to walk backwards, but away.

The flier gal shook her head. “Nope. But you’ll tell us, right?”

“I’m sure she’ll tell you.” I laughed and continued on. That gal was too much of a fussbudget. I hurried back to the dorms. I had to get my books.

Into the foyer and then to the stairwell, I had an hour to kill. As I went up the stairs to our floor, I noticed my roommate, Star, going down. Her real name was Margaret Hanie, but she swapped it for Star as an act of rebellion when she graduated high school. She and her dad butted heads, as he was of the soldier variety and did not so much guide his children as bark orders at them like an army. Currently, her imps were suggesting she skip dinner to lose weight. It puzzled me, as Star wasn’t usually the one obsessing about her weight. It was my other roommate, Lisa, who usually did. Lisa was currently at a group counseling session for recovering anorexics.

“Hi there, got no time,” Star said as she passed me by.

I waved, going up the steps. Star was one of the others who knew what I was. There were a handful of them at school, but none who would spread rumors about it. All was good.

I took two more steps up, then for some reason when I set my foot down it continued to go down as if through the floor. I looked down, but it was not the floor at all but a whorl of darkness that to my eyes seemed almost ringed with reddish purple… and then…

 *

 

“What the flip is that?”

“Uh…” the high, somewhat vapid voice of a girl somewhere in her twenties pulled over the huge book she had on a near stool as I hovered, semi-conscious over the floor where I could see elaborate runes, shapes, and markings akin to Card Captor Sakura, all underneath me on the floor. The markings glowed.

“It’s supposed to be a demon,” protested the slightly shrill voice, which also had a young yet Karen-ish bent to it. She sounded like she was complaining to the supervisor about her restaurant order. “That does not look like a demon.”

“Looks like a vampire…” another feminine voice chimed in.

“Yeah! Exactly!” the shrill Karen yelped. “Are you sure you read the conjuring thing right?”

“You know, Alicia, I did a pretty stinking good conjuring of those other things. You looked at fairies, elves, and stared really really long at that satyr,” the second gal said. “I got it right. This one has to be the demon. It gave me a list of names of ones to call. This one is the one we want for fun and games.”

“But she looks… you know, like an ordinary girl,” someone said.

Thank you, I thought.

“An ordinary vampire you mean,” one of the previous gals said.

They were all girls. Young women. Probably in their twenties. I could hear them, but not really see them. I could see within the emblem where I was suspended. I could see all the light runes around me, like a cage. I could hardly move, nor did I really want to. I felt… sleepy. Tired.

“Look at her shoes. I have those shoes,” a gal said.

“She’s in jeans. Do demons wear jeans?”

“Yeah, Tisha?” snapped the Karen. “Do demons wear jeans?”

“This one does.” And I heard the heavy book close. Funny. I could see the book, just not the girl. “Alrighty… what do we want her to do?”

Huffing, the Karen said, “Fine. We’ll see if she really is the demon of fun and games. What do we call her anyway? Demon?”

The one called Tisha replied, opening the book again, “It has a name. Hold on. Uh… Ooh. Long name. Huh. Maybe we can nickname it…. Lemme see if we can…”

“And if we can’t?” asked another voice—an intelligent one.

“Then we don’t,” Tisha declared cheerily. She seemed a bit of a dingbat to me. But I also heard her the best. She was the one with the power. She was the witch. “Ah… I found it. Um… nope. Nickname is bad. But… I do think we can truncate the name to… hmmm.”

“Hmmm? Hmmm what?” Karen bit out.

“I’m thinking…” Tisha called back in a sing-song voice. “Ah. The last iteration. Or maybe it is a first iteration. Well anyway, let me try. If she obeys me, then I am successful.”

“And if she doesn’t?” Karen and the intelligent one asked together.

“Then I won’t be,” Tisha said matter-of-factly. She then gazed up at me—and I saw her eyes. They were blue. She said in a voice that rippled through me, “Villam-Jaque-Jed-Moira-Gwynnedd-Eoin-Agnog-Pyran-Cymboline-Hapshupset-Horus-Marduk-Abdiel—I will name you… Abby.”

“As in Dear Abby?” One of the girls snickered.

I angled my head, blinking. “My name is not Abby.”

“Nope! Didn’t work!” Tisha said, hardly bothered. She sighed. “Lemee try something else.” She then made a gesture and then said again, “Villam.” She paused, gazing at me for effect. I stared back wondering who Villam was. “Jaque.”

No effect.

“Jed.”

Nope.

“Moira.”

Nada.

“Gwynnedd.”

Pretty name. She said it like Gwenneth, though I knew how it was spelled.

“Eoin.”

Boy’s name. Said like Owen.

“Agnog.”

Sounded like a troll.

“Pyran.”

Someone from Narnia maybe?

“Cymboline.”

Ooh. Sounded Greek.

“Hapshupset.”

Egyptian?

“Horus.”

Same deal.

“Marduk.”

Babylonian?

“Abdiel.”

I stiffened, feeling my body swell over with… I don’t know what. I felt electrified, hearing some distant sound that was familiar, like a call to war.

“Ah. I was right the first time.” Tisha closed her book. “But no to nicknames. Abdiel, come down.”

I was down.

I could feel the cool of the floor under my feet. The girls around me gasped, stepping back.

“This is a test, Abdiel,” she said, her voice the only thing in my mind now. “You will do something for us.”

“I hear you,” I said.

*

I stepped down, and my foot struck the stairs. Déjà vu? I could have sworn I was falling just a few seconds ago. And…

I looked around. The stairwell seemed… darker.

Blinking, I continued up the steps until I was on my floor. But when I stepped in, the quality of light was… wrong. It was at the wrong angle. Like…

I walked the length of the hallway to the

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 24.03.2022
ISBN: 978-3-7554-7899-7

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