Chapter Eighteen

It was a couple of minutes before Irina walked back into the gorgeous living room – a couple of minutes filled with Dmitri sulking, I might add – this time carrying two fluffy cream towels over one arm and a fantastic smelling mug in the other hand.

I managed to show some level of self-control and stopped myself from snatching the mug like a child, but I could still tell she noticed the speed at which I gratefully accepted the coffee.

Hmm, even the smell was bliss. Someone should seriously invent a portable espresso maker and kettle that fit into your back pocket.

"Here," Irina offered sweetly, placing one of the far-too-soft-to-be-real towels around my shoulders. I held the cup under my chin and gave a huge sigh, letting the bitter taste linger on my tongue.

"Thanks." Dmitri muttered, accepting his towel and running it over his sodden hair. I shut my eyes and took another swig.

Yum.

You're enjoying that far too much for it to be healthy.

Oh, hello Dmitri. Nice to hear from you again.

What? Dmitri's thought came with a thoroughly confused frown.

I felt like humming a happy little tune. Life was good again.

Seriously, this is just wrong.

"So," Irina's voice broke my daze, causing my eyes to flutter open cheerfully, a warm grin still plastered across my mouth. Irina sat down in the high-backed armchair on the other side of the coffee table and crossed her legs gracefully. She was smiling, but I could see the inspecting curiosity directed at me behind it. "There must be something rather serious happening here to make my father actually bother to visit me in person; I'm assuming it's something to do with what I saw outside."

"Uh, yeah." I answered sheepishly.

She glanced at Dmitri, her eyebrows raised in question, before quickly turning back to me and giving me an understanding nod. "You've lost control."

"Err…"

"She never had control." Dmitri cut in helpfully. Oh, thanks for that. Look, I may not be the most focused person in the world, but I think I have a little bit of control over my life, at least I did before all this crap came up, so I-

"Don't be ridiculous. She can't have lived as a Caller for so long without control."

Oh, they meant weird voodoo control.

It's not voodoo.

Shut up.

"And that, Irina, is why we are here." Dmitri said cryptically. At least that meant it wasn't something to do with me that caused everyone to spontaneously start talking in riddles. Now I knew for sure it was just part of Dmitri's crappy personality.

Irina frowned. I rolled my eyes and chose to butt in before Dmitri confused her anymore with his bloody puzzles.

"I'm not a Caller." I blurted out. "Well, I wasn't last week anyway."

The blonde's frown only deepened. "I'm sorry?"

"I've never had any creepy magnetic powers or anything, I mean, I've got this issue at the moment, you see, there's this beautiful gay pirate choir boy, people were stabbing themselves with breadknives, and then my flatmate used a corkscrew as a weapon, and-"

"It appears Kali is developing Caller powers." Dmitri cut in and summed up nicely for me.

You're welcome.

"Deve… Developing how?" Irina asked surprised.

I scratched my forehead, tucking a damp strand of red behind my ear and out of the way. "No idea."

She paused for a second, this time not even attempting to mask the scrutiny in her eyes, before finally she leant back into her chair and spoke. "Tell me what's happened."

So we did, well, Dmitri did mostly. I only stuck my nose in a couple of times when I felt certain aspects needed reiterating or indeed including – Dmitri didn't even mention my lovely shoes that had been maimed and destroyed, the heartless bastard. I did, however, notice how he was keeping a fairly major part out of the story. Not once, throughout the entire tale, did he mention the word 'Beloved'.

It kind of stung that he was so ashamed of me.

"And so naturally, you came to see me." Irina said, wrapping up the account with a thoughtful expression on her face.

"Yes." Dmitri confirmed. "I thought you might have heard of something like this happening before now."

His daughter shrugged and tapped her dainty fingers against the armrest. "Afraid not."

Oh, pooey. Did that mean we had come all this way for nothing? Were we now going to rush up to Newcastle or somewhere to ask a different Caller who might be able to help? God, I was going to spend the rest of my life darting around the world asking different people the same question over and over again, wasn't I?

"Except…" My eyebrows darted upwards hopefully at Irina's word. Her fingers beat out a steady rhythm as she pondered something for all of five seconds, before decisively and quite suddenly she got to her feet and practically glided over to one of the massive bookshelves dotted around the walls. She returned a moment later, and heavy dog-eared hardback in her hands. She sat and placed it onto the coffee table, opening up the ancient looking cover. She smiled when she noticed my bewildered face. "Over the years I've become something of a Caller historian. It does help, of course, when you're immortal. Ah, here we are!"

Her eyes scanned down the delicate page, examining the spindly blue ink. "Hmm, there was one case in 1352 which tells of a woman being granted the powers of Calling, but she was given them as a curse from a demon lord." Her eyes turned up to me. "You haven't been cursed by Paymon, have you?"

"Uh," Cursed by a demon lord? Even to my untrained ears that sounded rather serious. I would surely remember something like that. I wasn't a complete nonce. I glanced at Dmitri to make sure. He nodded in response. I took that for a definitive answer. "No. No curses or anything like that."

Irina closed the book and narrowed her eyes at me inquisitively. "And you've never heard of any history of Calling in your family?" I shook my head. "Is there anyone else you could ask? Any relatives that might know?"

I chewed my bottom lip for a second before answering. "No, they're all… No."

You alright?

Fine and dandy, thanks.

Irina sighed. "Then I really don't know what's going on, I'm afraid. Things like this don't happen – they shouldn't happen."

Great. That was helpful. What were we going to do now?

"You guys are welcome to stay here for a few days." Irina added warmly. "That way l can teach Kali here the basics of control so that she doesn't keep getting attacked by butterflies wherever she goes."

I blinked and turned to Dmitri. As much as it pained me to admit it, he was clearly in charge of where we were heading. He frowned. "That might be more difficult than it seems."

"I've told you plenty of times before, Dad, this house is perfectly safe." She said with a roll of her eyes. "It's very well Hidden."

I could practically hear the capital letter there and stuck in before Dmitri said anything else. "Wait, Hidden? We managed to find it fine."

"Well, of course you did." Irina answered before seeing my expression and elaborating. "Hidden is what we call a place or object that has various, well, I suppose you'd call them spells, extremely complicated ones, attached. The physical whereabouts of the item doesn't change in the slightest. It just simply makes it impossible to be found by any enemies."

"So Dayton-"

"Paymon." Dmitri corrected automatically.

"-yeah, him, he's your enemy too?"

Irina laughed her tinkling laugh. "Not explicitly, no. But no demon could ever consider himself my friend. I refuse to have evil in my home."

Well, that was sensible. I don't suppose I'd like evil creatures of the underworld coming around for dinner every Sunday lunch. They'd ruin the crockery.

"Then why can't we stay here?" I asked Dmitri.

"I never said that. All I said was that it might be more difficult to teach you control than it first appears."

"Why?" Irina and I said at the same time.

Dmitri paused. That pause make me think something else was up – something I was sure I wasn't going to like. Dmitri looked as if he was trying to find the words that would do the least amount of damage. I pouted. Spill.

"It's just…" he stopped again, shot me a quick look and turned back to Irina. The next words out of his mouth were a babble of what sounded like French.

Oh, no, he did not just linguistically exclude me from a conversation!

Irina was silent for a moment, before promptly bursting out in a peel of laughter.

"What?" I demanded, feeling my annoyance grow several more notches. I was certain these two were having a nice private joke about me right in front of my face. I did not like that.

Irina wiped one of her eyes with a finger, her laughter slowing to a light chuckle. She addressed her father again. "I'm sure that won't be a problem."

"What? What won't be a problem?" I pressed once more.

"You don't realise what it's like." Dmitri told her meaningfully. God damn all vampires!

"Well-"

"Will someone please tell me what you're talking about?" I yelled, not wanting to put up with this any longer. If they were going to talk about me, they should at least do it in English! Otherwise it's just not fair!

Dmitri sighed. Irina looked like she was still trying to fight back the giggles. I gritted my teeth and put on my best stubborn face.

Finally, Irina got the message that Dmitri wasn't going to spill and did it for him. "Apparently, err, you wouldn't be the most… focused student I've ever had."

I sat there, fuming. What the hell was that supposed to mean?

That you're a easily-distracted trouble maker with the attention span of a three year old.

"I heard that!" I shouted immediately the thought entered my brain. Dmitri groaned. So that was what he was so keen to keep from me he'd resort to a different language! His views on my mental state! "I am not a trouble maker! Just because you think it's alright to rummage around inside my brain when I'm not looking doesn't give you the right to assume what I'd be like as a student! For your information, I was a very sweet schoolgirl and-"

I doubt that.

"Oh my God, you bloody arsehole! You-"

"No."

Irina's word, or more the tone in which she spoke, effectively cut off my rant. Slowly, I turned to look at her, not getting what would have put that amount of shock on her face. She blinked, not moving her gaze away from my face. I twitched, getting more and more anxious as the seconds passed.

Chjort.

What?

"You're…" Irina at last made out, her wide eyes locked on mine. "You're his Beloved?"

Yay! Off haitus (finally). Sorry about that. I know I should probably be updating my Sherlock fic, but I just read In the Company of Vampires and it got me thinking about Kali and Dmitri again. We'll see when the next chapter comes out.

Oh and I've made a music playlist of songs that I think go with this fic. The links on my profile if you're interested.

Review?