October 31, 2003 – 00:30
"I think someone is following us, but I'm not sure if it's just someone going in the same direction or someone out for me. In about a minute, you'll see a side road to your right. Turn there, drive about 50m and stop, then turn off all lights."
He nodded and glanced at her. He saw the side road she was talking about and turned left like she told him. He parked and saw a car slowly passing on the main road after he turned all lights off.
"Seems like you were right."
"This area is heavily populated with weresquirrels. I don't want to bring trouble to them," she said as she got out of the car. "Stay here."
He wanted to get out too, but decided against it. He wanted to help her, but if a supernatural was indeed following them, he had to let her handle it and listen to her, even if he didn't like it.
She pulled the hood of her cloak over her head and walked slowly toward the main road, focusing on the energy scent she thought was following them. The scent was still there but it had stopped moving. She glamoured herself invisible and kept walking toward it, hoping that Frank wouldn't think that she was ditching him.
As he saw her disappear from view, he started worrying that she was going to leave him there but decided to ignore those thoughts. It would make no sense for her to leave him like that in the middle of nowhere, where there was barely any phone signal. Not after what happened a few hours earlier.
When she reached the road, she saw a car parked ahead of her. It stank of vampires. She looked in both directions of the road. No one else was driving on that road. She walked toward the car. She saw 4 vampires in it. She wanted to set it on fire, but they were close to human towns, on a main road.
She knocked on the front passenger window as she removed her invisibility glamour.
"Mind to tell me what you're doing here?", said Coralis as she forced the window to roll down.
"We mean no harm, we swear to you," said the dark-skinned vampire who sat in the driver's seat. "We're tourists from Chicago, but we have friends in the area."
"Why were you following me?"
"We often go to The Wooded Tavern. Uh, my name is Logan. We saw you a couple of times at The Bloody Velvet. When we were about to turn in the parking lot, we got a drift of your scent, but we couldn't see you. We decided to follow the scent to ensure you weren't in danger. We could smell humans, and uh… humans want you dead."
"We were about to call Prince Hendrick," said the Asian vampire sitting on the passenger seat, showing her the screen of his phone. "We were there when you helped us against a group of elves. We only wanted to make sure you weren't kidnapped or something."
Coralis pulled her phone out and called Veronica.
"Do you have clan members by the name of Logan and…" she said, looking at the vampire on the passenger seat.
"Yizo. My name is Yizo," he answered.
All four vampires looked at her, thinking they were in trouble.
"Yes, I know them. They sometimes help Hendrick at the club. They're harmless, why?"
"I just caught them following me between St-Jerome and Ste-Agathe. They claimed they were no enemy, wanted to make sure I wasn't kidnapped and were about to call Hendrick. Had to check if their stories had weight."
She could hear Veronica talking to Hendrick in the background and Yizo's phone rang.
"Are they with Jasm and Cruz?" said Veronica as Yizo answered.
"Are you Jasm and Cruz?" said Coralis, looking at the two dark-skinned vampires in the backseat.
"Yes," they said at the same time.
"They're indeed in your area for the week. They wanted to attend some Halloween parties with friends who live up there. They're harmless until provoked. They are no friend of Lucas and such, so I'd say they were probably telling you the truth," said Veronica.
Yizo pressed the speakerphone button of his phone.
"Blue, they're fine. Thank you for checking out their story before killing them. It's hard to find loyal hands these days. They're often in the area. Honestly, if you ever need additional bodyguards, I'll loan them to you, on the house," said Hendrick.
"All right, thanks. I'll go back to my mate before he thinks I ditched him in the middle of nowhere."
"YOUR MATE?" she heard Hendrick and Veronica saying at the same time.
"Yeah, let's just say it's been an eventful evening, I'll tell you later."
"You better," said Veronica.
"I kinda want to take a trip to Montreal now," said Hendrick.
She walked back to Frank's car a few minutes later. He was relieved when he saw her reappearing in his rear-view mirror, without any blood splatters on herself.
"Were we followed?" he said as she fastened her seatbelt.
"Yes, but it's fine now. We were followed by four vampires from Chicago thinking I was being kidnapped by humans. Their stories checked out and now we have Hendrick and Veronica planning on visiting us soon. Thank you for listening and trusting me on this. If they weren't parked on the main road, I probably would have burned their car before asking questions."
"It wouldn't have made sense for you to leave me here after… well after tonight. I meant every word I said on the field. I realized if we were followed by supernatural… I wouldn't stand a chance and you know what to do in these situations. I was worried, yes… but decided to wait a few more minutes before calling Seb or walking out there to check on you."
She stayed silent for a minute, looking ahead in the dark. She felt Frank staring at her.
"Let's get out of here. We'll spend the night near Tremblant, in a Pixie area. I've spent some time there. I trust the innkeeper."
He wanted to unbuckle his seatbelt and take her in the backseat, but if there were indeed a lot of squirrel shifters in the area, it was probably best to go back on the road instead. She was taking him to an inn, so he figured they would have all night to catch up.
So many questions were burning in his mind as he drove while listening to her directions. They might have been followed by concerned allies, but he could tell she was still on edge. She always wears her eyeglasses with him, but she wasn't at that moment, as she was still assessing potential danger toward them. His mind went back to at night, 3 weeks ago. She had been almost captured, but he never knew.
As soon as she closed the door of their room behind them and activated a mute-ball, he couldn't hold it in any longer.
"Why didn't you tell me? Why no one said anything when I kept asking them about you?"