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Encanto Bay, Christmas Eve
Darci clicked through the channels on her TV. Her small apartment, not decorated for the season, did not feel festive or even homey. She sat with a cup of lukewarm tea, trying to watch some old holiday movie and not be miserable.
She’d been in Encanto Bay for a month training for her new desk job, and the holidays were an unwelcome interruption. Sitting around her tiny apartment all alone for four days was boring and she tried hard not to think about the way Christmas used to be, with Mom and her sister Candi, the presents, the big dinner, the decorations. Next year she’d have a bigger apartment and she’d get Mom’s Christmas decorations out of storage. With her new job, she’d be able to get a nice place or even save up and buy a small house of her own. A home.
The job was a godsend. The last three years living with her dad and stepmother in LA had been humiliating, and the poverty of her disability check had been depressing. She’d been injured badly in the Incident that took River away. Mom had been gone for more than a year when that happened, but she had been all right, with her tiny apartment just down the street from River’s tiny apartment. Candi her younger sister had been in the dorms, enjoying college life. And Dad and Doris were mixing another martini, as always, but at least Candi had a place to go on school breaks. Then the Incident, the injury, the surgeries, the rehab, the loss of River. The loss of her job as a deputy sheriff. She’d move into Dad’s basement.
Her new job was fascinating and important, though it triggered lots of memories, accompanied by emotions. Not happy emotions ,because the memories of that night were terrifying.
Darci had been in law enforcement for a couple years, but that had been her first experience with the supernatural. This new job was pulling the two parts of her life back together—Life Before and Life After. Deep inside, Darci knew she needed this bridge between the two segments of her life to be whole again.
For a long time she had just wanted to be alone, alone with her shattered life and leg and back, but things had changed. She had changed. She’d fought her way back to mobility, though she would never again be the athlete she once was, before the Incident. She could have a life better than the guest bedroom at Dad’s. She could have independence, friends and interesting employment.
It was a text from River, the second in the three years since the Incident, that had alerted her to the job in Encanto Bay. ‘Paranormal-Human Task Force hiring. You should apply.’ And the link. That was all. She’d followed the link to The Encanto Bay Combined Othernaturals and Human Task Force. EBCOH.
She was hired as a dispatcher and records department clerk. Phone, files and computers, work that didn’t require physical prowess. The surgeries had left scar tissue that was painful and debilitating. Some people just scarred more than others. It was sometimes so hard not to feel sorry for herself and her crappy genes.
Darci clicked through a few more channels. Nothing interesting. She could have spent the holidays in LA with her Dad and Doris but the constant heavy drinking put her off. And Candi wouldn’t be there. Her sister, who went to grad school in Northern California, had been invited to Christmas at her boyfriend’s home, followed by a ski vacation Vail, and Darci had insisted she go.
“I’ve been invited to Christmas with members of the task force,” she lied to Candi. “It’ll be fun. River’s back and we plan to catch up, too.”
“Oh, that’s so cool! I was just thinking about him the other day. Give him my love and Merry Christmas!”
“I will.” Darci breathed a sigh of relief when she put down the phone. Candi was perceptive, unnaturally so, and she might guess Darci was lying. River hadn’t been in Europe, he’d been somewhere in Montana in a vampire clan compound, maturing from a dangerous new vampire to full maturity.
She’d seen him, briefly, two days ago. In her training for the task force she’d learned that Vampirism was like a human upgrade, more muscle, more speed, keener senses, faster healing. But that knowledge hadn’t prepared for the change in her long time pal.
RIver had walked into the office, her desk was in the back but faced the door. A tall man with wide square shoulders and long silky blond hair came through the door. Somehow he looked familiar, but she couldn't place him. She was so new in the office, she didn't know all the officers, especially the plain clothed ones, like this man must be. Then he'd looked at her, with shining sapphire eyes. Vampire! One way to tell them from the general hman population was thier intense eye color. Then he had smiled right at her, with that deep dimple on the left side, and recognition flooded her. Ir t was good she'd been sitting, though she did drop her pen. River Smith. Vampire River.The lanky computer nerd had turned into into a square shouldered man with a strong athletic build, dishwater hair now gold, muddy blue eyes now like sapphires.
Funny how their roles were now reversed—she’d been the athletic, golden girl in school and he’d been the asthmatic nerd. Now he was the muscled Greek God and she was the limping skinny one at the computer.
Except he was still doing the computer tech work the EPCOH needed. So he would once again be part of her life.
Her cell rang. She hit the volume on the remote and recognized one of her new co-workers.“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s Juana. A bunch of us single types from the Othernaturals are meeting tonight for dinner and drinks at the Encanto Bay Café. You want to come?”
“The Encanto Bay Café?” This establishment had been all over the training materials she’d studied. Some version of it had been around since the Spaniards had moved into Southern California, and it had always been a magnet for Othernaturals. Before a Café had been built, ancient people had considered the bay sacred, so the experts surmised even in prehistory, it had been a vortex for Others. She’d been planning to get down the coast highway for a meal there sometime. She’d heard the food was fabulous.
Why not go? Juana was friendly. She’d been invited to apply for EPCOH because her family had a long line of brujas, including her grandmother, aunt, and younger sister.
“What are you going to wear?” She asked Juana. Her new job required office wear, she’d been struggling by with a couple pairs of non-jeans and old tops, but they had just gotten paid. She planned to hit the after Christmas sales, and felt a flicker of her old girly self come to life.
“I bought a nice pair of pants I can wear to work and this silky red shirt. And Christmas earrings,” Juana said. “Rudolphs.”
“I don’t have anything festive.”
“Head to the mall! There are sales everywhere. We’re not meeting until seven for dinner, so you have plenty of time.”
“I’ll do that.”