Keys

[holiday_pirner]

The man at the front desk of the swank hotel wasn't much older than Holly, she surmised, watching him from a bench in the foyer. He checked a few people in, intermittently answering the sleek black telephone. She stood and stubbed out her cigarette in the pillar ash tray, then approached the shining mass of mahogany.

"How can I help you, miss?" He gave her a customer service smile, the ambient lighting catching his brass name tag. Will.

"Hi, Will," she said, placing her hands, palms down, on the counter. "I've come here to visit my aunt, she has a suite here, but she forgot to tell her room number and I think she's out tonight with some colleagues." Holly looked at her suitcase, and he followed her line of sight.

"I just had a terribly long flight and all I want is to drop these things off and have a nice, hot shower." And here, she smiled, her blue eyes meeting his brown ones. He ducked his head, his own smile changing quality. "Her name is Julianna St.Clare. Could you make me a key?"

He nodded, grabbing a plastic key from beneath the desk. She waited patiently, pretending to study some of the adverts for the nearby casinos. The clerk slid a paper envelope across the counter to her. "Will you be needing anything else?"

Holly peeked at the room number written on the envelope. "That'll be fine. Thank you, Will." She gave him a backward glance over her shoulder as she rolled her suitcase toward the elevator.

Comments

[holiday_pirner]

"Someone made to kill you," she replied, her voice chilled. She flipped through the other pages. A letter from someone named Edmund. Holly took note of the address. London.

The human shut the folder and stood, smoothing out the wrinkle she had left in the duvet.

"It isn't fair," she said, looking at Theresa. "She didn't know. And they've locked her up forever, and it was all their fault."

Holly was beyond torn. From feeling sympathy for the former Slayer, to thinking of Daniel being in danger from the very same women, to Julianna's lies, and her father. It was too much.

[tiny_dancer81]

Theresa felt something weird at that, an inner twinge, and she unconsciously placed a hand over the spot where her heart no longer beat. Dane had never told her anything about something called a Slayer. Her existence, the existence of her kind, was common knowledge to someone who could kill her?

She flashed back on Dane's dying screams, the way he'd burned. Had that been a Slayer's doing? She'd thought they were just someone who'd been pissed off by something he'd done, but what if she was wrong? She was very young for one of the undead and hadn't had enough time with her sire for him to teach her everything.

Her reverie was broken when she saw the expression on Holly's face, and cool hands came to rest on the mortal's shoulders. She didn't do the comfort thing, didn't do a lot of touching at all unless it was sexual, but her hands were gentler than they could have been.

"Hey. Hey. Stay with me. I'm your friend." It was an exaggeration, but Theresa didn't feel like splitting hairs. Not when somebody might have killed her sire over something other than a grudge. He'd been kind of a moron, but he'd made her.

"I'm your friend."

[holiday_pirner]

Holly wondered what it was about herself that convinced others she was on the verge of mental collapse. Maybe there was something to this. "What makes you my friend? What do you want from me?"

Then it hit her as she studied Theresa's face. "Don't worry. I'm not going to tell Daniel on you."

She turned and began straightening the room, putting Julianna's belongings back in their perfect places. How could she think what the Council did was right?

[tiny_dancer81]

Theresa made a face, dropping her hands so she could fold her arms across her not-that-impressive chest. She'd been telling the truth, she was jealous of this stranger's bra size. The toe of one shoe drew a line in the carpeting, then moved in the opposite direction, erasing it.

"Four months ago, someone set my sire on fire with gasoline," she said, and you'd have had to really listen to hear the note of confused hurt in her voice, but it was there. "Burned him into a pile of ashes. That's why I'm not in Hollywood anymore, I ran for my fucking life because I thought they wanted to kill me too. I thought he'd made somebody mad. Maybe I was wrong."

She was getting uncomfortable again, feeling too human, and she focused her attention on the folder in Holly's hands. "I didn't want him to kill me, but he did because he took me literally when I said I felt like dying. I learned to cope with it because it was done. If one of these...Slayers did something to him, that kind of pisses me off."

[holiday_pirner]

She stopped, her grip on the folder tightening. Had she actually hurt a vampire's feelings? Her first instinct was to shrug it off, ignore the other brunette. Anything to avoid discomfort.

"Sorry," Holly said. "That must have been...difficult."

Crossing the room, she replaced the documents back on the shelf. "Why don't you kill people? Wouldn't it be easier to just kill them and rob them, rather than sleep with them?"

Holly surfaced from the closet, meeting Theresa's eye. "You're a vampire. You can."

[tiny_dancer81]

"What do you think I was doing other than whoring before I had fangs?"

Theresa's voice was matter-of-fact now, and she made eye contact with Holly because if she wasn't a cautionary tale, no one was. "I had a nose that would outdo a Hoover vacuum cleaner and needed a way to pay for it. It was easier to put out for cash than to try and get clean."

She sniffed at the air, rubbed the spot over her silent heart. "And it's like I said before, murder is pointless and just draws attention to yourself. I don't have to prove how big my metaphorical dick is. I just want to survive."

[holiday_pirner]

"Let's continue this after school special somewhere else, yeah? She might be back at any moment, and our hands are quite red."

Holly took one last survey of the suite. She had tidied everything. She grabbed the black plastic handle of her suitcase.

"Come on."

[tiny_dancer81]

Theresa shut her mouth and went because she was uncomfortable too, and she didn't even pick up the slim wristwatch she saw lying on the bedside table. Those were probably real diamonds. Whoever this chick was, she must have been loaded.

"So what do you wanna do now?" she asked Holly once they'd left the room and closed the door. "I was planning to go back to Daniel's and crash before the sun comes up. I don't know where he goes when he's not at his apartment."

[holiday_pirner]

Holly pressed the elevator's call button. "I have to make a phone call." Once inside, she pressed G. The desk clerk couldn't see her leaving with Theresa and a suitcase. They'd exit through the garage.

'I don't know where he goes when he's not at his apartment.'

She wasn't sure she wanted to know.

[tiny_dancer81]

Theresa wasn't the type to tell Holly it was going to be okay. In her experience, things were seldom okay on either side of the grave. It was all a matter of little moments of happiness and contentment. The elevator started its journey down.

"He wants to take you dancing, to this club I told him about. If you're trying to reel him in, you should totally go for it while he's fresh on the hook."

[holiday_pirner]

"Thanks for the advice," Holly said wryly. She closed her eyes, letting her head rest against the cool wall of the elevator. Each floor dinged on their descent.

She would have to find somewhere to stay, but first, sleep.

[tiny_dancer81]

"You're wired and tired, aren't you?"

The vampire's voice bordered on being kind when she said it, and the elevator was making quick progress because of the lack of foot traffic at that hour. She couldn't wait to sleep herself. And it would be fall soon, which meant the days would start to shorten.

"Hey, Holly? It really is true. What doesn't kill you really does make you stronger."

[holiday_pirner]

Holly opened her eyes when they reached the parking level. She retrieved her car keys, the jingling sound echoed against the concrete.

When she reached her vehicle, she had to stifle a yawn. Just looking at it made her tired.

She turned back to look at Theresa. "You would know, I guess."

[tiny_dancer81]

"Ha. Yeah, I guess that's the definition of irony."

She could get a cab back to Daniel's. She was reasonably flush, and Holly probably wanted some alone time to think. It wasn't the vampire's nature to crowd someone, and she didn't do the touchy-feely thing.

"Sleep for at least twelve hours," she told the human. "If you try to make decisions while you're punchy, you'll make the wrong one."