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Dark Travesty	By : bardnightstar Category: A through F > Dark Series Views: 2303 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Dark series, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Dark Travesty: Chapter One

Disclaimer: I am not Christine Feehan. I do not own Christine Feehan or her works. I do not own the rights to her work, nor do I want to, for I can’t write “serious” romance. Hence this little story. This is meant to be humor, okay? Short version: what’s mine is mine, what is not is not. The characters are from my twisted mind, the basic concepts are not, for instance. Oh, and feel free to flame—it makes me giggle.

Chapter One

Ryan Banagher usually left her shop open at odd hours. After all, she essentially lived in the back room, rather than with her parents. She still had her room back home, of course, but preferred the quiet anonymity of being on her own. Her shop, at least, broke even and paid the rent and her meager food needs—chicken was a very cheap meat, after all. The worst weeks reminded her that she could pay ten cents for a package of generic ramen. After all, an herbal shop was hardly commonplace in the modern era, and not many required her services these days. Still, it was her vocation and she was very stubborn and set in her ways.

So, even though it was past seven and time for a late dinner (she’d been busy sorting through her new shipment earlier), the door to the shop was unlocked. The door between the two rooms stood open, so she would hear the bell above the door if some late customer were to come in.

For dinner this evening, Ryan opted for some of the leftovers she’d picked up at her parent’s house two nights ago. It was a good, thick beef stew, that would reheat perfectly well in the microwave, rather than causing her to pull out the hotplate or propane camping stove that served for the rest of her kitchen. At least this room had a sink, and an attached small bathroom, probably designed to be for employees rather than someone who actually lived back here. Still, it had a small shower stall, toilet, and sink and sufficed. She still had to go home to do laundry, though, or else use a Laundromat, which always seemed unnecessarily expensive to her. A dollar twenty-five to wash and seventy-five cents to dry seemed absurd, especially if she had to add fifty cents to the dryer when the clothes wouldn’t dry in time.

As for the rest of her meager living quarters, she had a minifridge about four feet tall and more than enough to serve her solitary needs, a twin-sized mattress and boxspring set in one corner on the floor, a dresser for her clothing, and a small cardtable that served multipurpose as dinner table and desk. Even now, her outdated laptop computer sat on it, a cord running from the machine to the printer on the floor, for lack of a better place to put it. Two folding chairs were at the table now, and two more, folded, rested against the wall.

She looked around the well-lit room as she waited for the microwave to finish (it was on the short counter, beside a sink), and decided it was definitely Spartan, but enough for her. There were two drawers built into the counter, one holding a couple of plates, bowls, cups, and silver, and the other holding her cooking utensils. True, the room had no windows, but it did have a doorway into the alley, where the dumpster waited weekly for the roaring garbage truck.

For some reason, it made Ryan laugh. This wasn’t exactly a fairy tale situation, and she’d never cared much for the prissy little princesses anyway. So what if she found humor in the stark reality? While she had an imagination, at least she was a realist, not a moping drama queen waiting around for Prince Charming to come rescue her.

“I’ll rescue my own damn self,” she muttered under her breath, dark eyes falling on the athletic bag in the corner, which held her fencing equipment.

The microwave beeped cheerily, and she opened the door, grabbing a potholder to take it to the table. She’d broken more than one bowl by underestimating how hot it was after being microwaved. Just then, of course, the jingle bells above her storefront door rang. She at least managed not to voice the curse that came to mind.

“Just a moment, please!” she called, hurrying to deposit the bowl in front of her seat. She didn’t bother attending to her appearance, since it had been a long day already, and her shoulder-length brown curls preferred to friz out in whatever way they chose. Since they were down rather than in her habitual ponytail, there was no dealing with them. She did, however, remember to drop the potholder down next to the bowl before rushing out to deal with the customer.

He had his back to her, with immaculate shoulder length hair above dark clothing, contrasting with the red-brown of his hair. Still, his careful appearance told her one thing as plain as day—vain. This was bound to be such an enjoyable experience, she mused with a mental eye-roll.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

He turned from where he was browsing the books on herbalism, and spoke with a faint but noticeable Irish accent. “I would like to speak to the proprietor, please.”

“Yeah, that would be me,” she replied.

He looked down at a slip of paper in his hand, a rather puzzled expression on his face. “I apologize, miss, but I was told a Ryan Banagher owned this shop.”

“Yes,” she said, arms crossed in front of her chest. “That would be me.” She resisted adding, And tell me what you want or get out of my shop. There was something about him she definitely did not trust, and it wasn’t just the “holier than thou” attitude he was giving off, either, though it seemed clear he’d rather talk to anyone other than her, and preferably a male.

“But—you’re a woman?”

“Thank you, I’d noticed,” she said in a low voice—she didn’t need customers this badly! “Can I help you?”

“I am not sure, I have this list—”

“Good,” she cut in, crossing the shop to snatch the paper out of his hand. Brown eyes, beneath the thin glasses that made it easier to see, read the list quickly as she walked to the counter. “I have three of these in stock, but I’ll have to order the other two.” She pulled out a notebook, neatly penning down the other two herbs. “If you write down your name and phone number, I’ll call you when I get them in.”

He was staring openly at her, as though she’d slapped him. Which, despite being tempting, she hadn’t gotten around to doing yet. She held out the pen to him patiently, still waiting.

“How long would they take to get in?” he asked, actually sounding meeker now.

“Two weeks at most,” she replied, reigning in her frustration. It was a reasonably short length of time, for she had a good reputation with her suppliers.

He came toward the counter, then stopped, looking at the pen. “That pen is blue.”

“Yes, it is,” she replied, doing an excellent job of not clenching her teeth. Who exactly did she piss off up there?

Finally, he took the pen from her, writing down information beneath the two herbs in the notebook. As he did, Ryan went around the counter to the wall with her herbs on them, unerringly finding the three in stock. As she did, she felt him staring at her. This was why she kept her staff in this room. She’d started learning both fencing and staff fighting from her surprisingly spry grandmother at the age of seven. At fifteen, she’d started going to other masters in an attempt to perfect her technique. She rarely competed anymore, and never in staff, but there were a good dozen fencing trophies sitting in her room at home—good dust collectors, those. But at least she didn’t have to worry much about unwanted attentions.

Ryan measured out the indicated amount, dumping the herbs into separate plastic bags, before coming back to the counter. She put labels on all three, then dropped them into a paper bag. “Here you go. I’ll call you when the others get in…Mr. Shelfax,” she added, after glancing down at the paper. Alaric Shelfax? Was he actually born with a name like that?

She glared up at him—she was short, she’d learned to live with it—when he didn’t take the sack from her immediately. He was still staring at her, a rather startled light in his muted brown eyes.

“Here,” she said with exaggerated slowness, holding the bag out to him. “The total comes to twelve thirty-four. You’ll get charged for the others when they come in. Okay?” When there was still no response, she did something out of annoyance that she knew she really wasn’t supposed to do. She seized his mind with her own, and made him reach out to take the bag.

That actually managed to startle him into action. “You—how—”

“The money?” she reminded him pointedly.

“Oh, right,” he said absently, reaching into his pocket to produce a wallet, pulling out a twenty. “Keep the change.” Then, he walked out as though in a daze, paper bag crumpled in hand. A man with that strong a build should really know better than to forget his own strength.

Ryan placed the notebook on the shelf beneath the countertop, then went to the door and locked it, turning the sign to “Closed.” She really didn’t want to deal with anymore customers like that one. What was it about nights with full moon? She’d never believed her mother’s fears about the “weirdos” coming out, but now she was thinking about reconsidering that.

Well, hopefully her beef stew wasn’t so cold it needed to be reheated now, she thought as she turned off the lights to the storefront.

* * *

Alaric stared at the herbal store from across the street for a long while after the lights went off. How was it possible? Okay, so he knew intellectually how it was possible, but he was still confused. After all, he was only two and a half centuries old, and it was absurd to think he’d meet his lifemate so early in his existence. He’d heard that some of the other males of his species didn’t lose color and emotion at once, but gradually. That was likely just a late remnant of that sort of thing.

Alaric was a Carpathian male. Technically, anyway. He’d never actually been to the Carpathian Mountains, after all. His older brother had been born there, but Alaric had been born in Ireland. He’d lived there most of his long life, before deciding to take an adventure in crossing the ocean. Those “red-eye” flights were very entertaining for that reason. It had taken some work to find a flight that was entirely at night, but had taken only ten hours for him to fly in the way of humans from Dublin to Albany, New York. He had taken a winter flight, when the nights were longer, and hadn’t had much of a concern for the effects of daylight. Even if there had been a delay, he could easily withstand the early morning light, even at his young age. He’d started traveling around the United States, as his brother was, though Garran tended to remember that he wasn’t human more often.

But what was Alaric doing finding a woman who made him see colors? It was ridiculous! He was scarcely more than a fledgling, and his older brother (older by roughly a century) had yet to find a lifemate.

Alaric? Is something wrong? The voice was clinical, and without emotion, of course. Garran hadn’t felt feelings since Alaric’s youth, after all. Though the two brothers hadn’t been able to feel worry in some time, they still had that instinct to protect each other. They were family, and family was very important.

I’m not sure yet, he replied slowly, using the mental path of their people. Their shared blood made distance no obstacle, for Alaric had no idea exactly where his brother was living these days.

Alaric. It was that warning tone, the one Garran had learned from their mother. The one that always seemed to make Alaric blurt out everything without thinking.

I may have found my lifemate, but that doesn’t make any sense, he admitted. I’m too young! How should I find a lifemate now when it usually takes males of our species centuries of searching?

There was silence for a moment. They say that God watches over fools.

Alaric rolled his eyes. Thanks, Garran. You’re too kind.

He and Garran, he knew, were not typical examples of their species. While they might have lost such emotions as joy and ability to feel the effects of comedy, they hadn’t lost their sense of humor or irony. Perhaps that was because they’d lived so long among the jovial people of Ireland, who at least knew good jokes. Though Alaric had only met a few males of their people, other than his own blood relatives, he knew that this was not the case with most of them.

What are you going to do? Garran asked.

I’m not sure yet, he said. I don’t think I impress her very much. She doesn’t seem to like me.

That is probably a demonstration of good sense on her part, he commented. Be safe, little brother. Is she human, and psychic?

He couldn’t touch her mind, and yet she had forced her own will on him. Definitely.

Then she’ll attract the undead, Garran reminded her. You were never good at hunting, but be prepared to defend her if you must. I am too far from you to be able to aid you quickly.

I will protect her, he said firmly.

Good.

That, for Garran, was a farewell. So, Alaric stared at the shop for a little while longer, wondering if he could find a safe place near here to spend during the day. After all, Garran was right. The information had long since been passed through their people that some women with psychic ability could be changed without them becoming deranged. But vampires, true, soulless creatures, also seemed attracted to the women. While Alaric had to sleep during the day and drink blood (preferably human), he still had a soul, and had not given in to the darkness that always began tempting Carpathian males when they lost color and emotion.

He just really, really hoped he would be able to defend her if a vampire attacked. Until then, though, he’d have to figure out just what he was supposed to do with her.
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Dark Travesty