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“Good God, Anastasia,” Serafine swore, “how hard did you hit him?”
“Hard enough to knock him down, but no worse than that, I swear!” Anastasia’s brow furrowed as she nudged the unconscious mortal security guard who was sprawled out on the freshly waxed floor of The Egyptian Museum in Cairo. “Maybe he is just drunk.”
“That’s my girl,” Lily laughed hysterically. “You can’t even rob a museum without fucking a man up—“
“Technically it’s not robbing if the things I’m taking belonged to my wife in her mortal life and archaeologists stole them from the ruins of Antirhodos,” she interrupted impatiently. She’d been through this a thousand times whenever Adrian tried to talk her out of getting her Kami’s things back for her; the mortals would never willingly part with them, so she had no other option but to simply take what she wanted. “It’s taking back things that were stolen by over glorified grave robbers and is now being hoarded by so called academics who have no right to them whilst the original owner is still alive.”
Serafine crouched next to the unconscious man, then reeled back, laughing.
“Is he drunk?” she prodded. “Or did I accidentally kill him?”
Serafine stood as she used her abilities to wipe the man’s mind of any memories of seeing them skulking around the museum in the dead of night. “He must have downed an entire bottle of whiskey— a functional alcoholic, no doubt. He’ll be fine but the whack to the head you gave him will certainly leave him with a hangover.”
“In my defence, the creepy bastard snuck up on me and made my eyes turn red. He practically fainted before I even whacked him with Lily’s backpack— Who would have thought I could be so terrifying?” she murmured. “How wonderful.”
Lily stared at her as if she were insane, then muttered, “I’m not even going to question that statement.”
“Now would you please tell us exactly what it is you’ve coerced us into stealing?” Serafine chuckled.
She scoffed and started off down the halls, using her abilities to shut down the security systems as they waltzed around like they owned the place. “I didn’t coerce either of you into anything— and for the hundredth time, it’s not stealing.” She paused. “I literally told you my plans and you both begged to come along whilst Adrian freaked out and then had a full blown panic attack when we told him it was his job to distract Kami.”
“We’re gay,” shrugged Lily. “Be gay, do crime— fucking the system is practically a requirement of being gay.”
She let out a soft laugh at that.
Neither Serafine or Lily had ever had any real respect for the law, which she’d always admired about them. And they’d both picked out a trio of black leather clad, Ocean’s 8 level heist outfits to make sure they looked fantastic whilst breaking it.
Though she wasn’t sure that Lily playing Smooth Criminal on repeat and having them dance as they walked through the museum was what people normally did on heists.
Yet there she was… dancing like some sort of moron to Smooth Criminal whilst breaking the mortal law.
Though she typically only danced when she was at a party or being goofy with Kamilah when they had nothing better to do, it was quite fun dancing though the dead museum like this. Knowing they shouldn’t have been there. Dancing was not so very different from maths or science, which was why she enjoyed it so much. It was all just fancy patterns and sequences. The only difference was that they hung in the air around her instead of being represented on a piece of paper in her hands. Dancing was a grand equation. One side was sound, the other movement. The dancer's only job was to make them equal.
“Tell us what we’re taking,” Serafine laughed. “The anticipation is killing me and patience is not one of my virtues.”
“There are two things I want to take tonight,” she said. “One of them is a dagger that belonged to her Spy Master, Amethu, who died the night she was Turned— even back then she didn’t like many people, but he was a servant of her family her entire life and was a childhood friend of hers, and she always liked him. She liked him enough to give him the dagger when she asked him to be her Spy Master.”
“Wait, she actually liked someone besides you?” snorted Lily. “Seems fake but okay.”
“Shocking,” deadpanned Serafine. “I am shaken to my core.”
She rolled her eyes affectionately. “And the other thing is a sword that her uncle brought her back from a diplomatic trip to Persia when she was twelve. He had it made specially for her and she killed her first enemy soldier with it when she was seventeen— she was the one to save Cleopatra from being assassinated and it was that incident that prompted her cousin to make her a nomarch.” She paused, smiling proudly at the thought of her wife’s heroism. “I mean, she may be neurotypical but her special interest in weapons will never stop amusing my neurodivergent ass. Sustaining a special interest for more than two thousand years is so impressive to me.”
Lily snorted. “When she starts rambling about weapons you get that same look on your face as she gets when you start going off about mad scientist shit, it’s really funny to watch.”
“What look is that?”
“The look that says ‘I may not understand what she’s talking about but I’m going to sit here and pretend to get it, and if anyone so much as looks at her the wrong way whilst she’s this happy I will cut them.’” Serafine laughed, shaking her head in bemusement. “Any time you open your mouth about one of your special interests Kamilah gets it on her face— especially when you start talking about space. It’s equally adorable and threatening.”
“Threatening because homegirl would 100% stab us in the eyes for making a Jimmy Neutron joke or some shit,” Lily smiled, nudging her arm affectionately as they walked. “Do you even know how much material I have stored in my brain? I could literally star on SNL for the rest of my whole immortal life and never get it all out.”
She’d never imagined that anyone would ever be as protective and accepting of her and all her differences as Kamilah was. Her wife didn’t see the way her mind worked as a flaw or a deficit, the way many people did when they found out their partner was neurodivergent. And even though they’d been together for thirty-eight years now it could still knock the wind right out of her when she thought about just how supportive of her Kamilah really was.
It seemed like such a little thing, to support one’s life partner unconditionally. But it was the little things mattered far more than big ones. A person remembered them longer. Nobody, no matter who they were, could control all of the big things. If a person thought about what had happened in their pasts, it was always the small moments that came to the forefront of their mind, not the big transitions that everybody went through from time to time. The big things were just history. The small moments with her wife were the dearest to Anastasia’s heart.
“Yo, while we’re here, can I steal that gold chariot?” Lily asked, pointing to a solid gold chariot that had once belonged to Tutankhamun. “I’d look fly as fuck on it.”
“No,” she and Serafine said at once.
“But—“
“You don’t even own any horses,” Serafine pointed out as she raked her hand through her hair. “How do you suggest you make it move?”
“Y’all can use your abilities to make it fly until we break into The Bronx Zoo to steal their zebras— like, imagine me cruising down Fifth Avenue on this bad boy. A bottle of champagne in one hand, a joint in the other, my pet zebras pulling me along. It’s the definition of the good life.”
“I’m sure that was what Tutankhamun had in mind when he had it made,” she laughed as she scanned the cavernous room filled with ancient artefacts. The Egyptian Museum was one of those dark, sultry places with enough shiny surfaces to convince almost anyone that blood hadn’t stained them.
“So why are you surprising Kamilah with these weapons?” Serafine prodded. “It’s not her birthday and your anniversary was last month. To be going to the trouble of breaking into a museum and taking back what is hers in the dead of night, mere hours before she’s due to meet with a panel of Egyptologists to discuss the inaccuracies they believe about her family’s empire, there must be some grand occasion.”
“There isn’t one.” She stopped in front of the glass case where Amethu’s dagger and Kamilah’s sword were displayed side by side. “She gets so excited when she gets even the smallest thing from her mortal life back and when I tracked these to this museum I— I like making her smile, that’s all.” She smiled and cast a glance towards Serafine. She knew that all that her wife ever wanted in the world was what she thought she could not have, and what she had already lost. “Her finally agreeing to talk to the mortals about her mortal life is a big deal — even if she just wants to put them in their places by publicly calling out the ridiculousness of some of their beliefs — she’s been telling them to go fuck themselves for decades. I just want her to feel as special and supported as possible going into it.”
“Y’all really make me hate being single every time I’m with you,” Lily chuckled. “Is it too much to ask for a girl or a Harry Styles lookalike with a hot accent who will rob a museum to make me feel special?!”
“It’s not robbing,” she huffed as she put her hands up to the cold glass. That odd and familiar tingling sensation raced through her body as she accessed her abilities. Her ears began to hum and her head felt strange and heavy. Beneath her touch, the glass seemed to soften and her fingers made small indentions in the surface until her hands began to pass through the solid surface entirely as the particles bent to her will.
She closed her eyes and thought of her Kami. Her abilities relied on a mentally relaxed state of near-total-detachment. A flower didn’t bloom through being pried open by force; likewise, psychic receptivity could not be achieved through strain. Psychic receptivity came with a state of mental passivity while simultaneously staying focused and open. She opened herself up through relaxation, by thinking of how it felt when the woman she loved was so happy that her big dark eyes actually sparkled.
“It’s not not robbing,” Lily snorted.
“Keep watch. I want to get these and get out before Adrian blows our cover and Kami starts worrying—“ She cut herself off as her phone started to ring. “Ah, shit.”
“He lasted a whole twenty-five minutes,” nodded Serafine as she reached into her pocket to get her phone for her. “I have to hand it to him, that’s a whole twenty-four minutes longer than I anticipated.”
“Answer it or she’ll literally have your bodyguards searching every building in Cairo to find you,” Lily laughed. “That is if she hasn’t already stabbed them for losing you on the job… again. The poor bastards barely survived the time Gaius kidnapped you when you were mortal. Can you imagine how she’ll be now she’s your damn wife? Their severed heads will literally be on spikes in the hotel lobby when we get back.”
Serafine answered the call and held the phone up to her ear for her as she slowly continued manipulating the glass display case. “Hi, love,” she said as casually as she could manage. “I’m, um, I decided to go shopping with Lily and Serafine while you were on that last Zoom meeting—“
“Annie.”
She snorted. “Kami.”
“You’re a terrible liar,” Kamilah said. “Your voice changes when you lie, you wonderful little fool.”
“Actually, I’m an excellent liar— and I’m not little, for the record.” She pulled Amethu’s dagger through the glass first, being infinitely careful with its Turquoise and Garnet studded hilt as she slipped it securely through the back of her belt. “But what I’m really good at is appearing appropriately sheepish and adorable after I’m caught.”
Kamilah let out an exasperated huff and muttered something under her breath.
"What did you say?" she asked, immediately raising her hands to the display case to get the sword.
"Nothing,” snorted Kamilah.
"You said something."
She didn’t have to see her face to know the sort of impatient look she was being drawn. "If I'd meant for you to hear it, I would have said it out loud."
She sucked in her breath. "Then you shouldn't have said it at all."
"Some things, my love," Kamilah muttered, "are simply impossible for one to keep inside."
"What did you say, you massive dork?" she laughed. “Don’t make me read your mind.”
"Annie—"
"Did you insult me?"
Kamilah snorted. “Do you really want to know?"
"Mhm.”
"I don't recall my exact words," Kamilah said, and she just knew she was smirking, "but I believe I may have uttered the words ‘woman’ and ‘lack of good sense’ in the same breath.”
“Wow. Rude,” she deadpanned, a smile forming on her lips. “And here I’m doing something extremely nice for you.”
“Oh, you are, are you?” laughed Kamilah. “I found your security retinue wandering the halls of the hotel searching for you with no memory of anything that happened after you went swimming with Adrian earlier— who, coincidentally, started sweating and laughing so hysterically that several mortals relaxing by the pool asked if he was alright the moment I asked him where you were.”
“And what did he tell you?”
“He dove to the bottom of the pool whilst fully clothed and is still stubbornly sitting on the bottom like some sort of imbecile because he knows I won’t dive in after him in a brand new suit.” She sighed. “He’s been holding his breath for quite some time. The mortals are beginning to get concerned.”
She started laughing. “Sounds like you’re having quite the evening.”
Kamilah hummed and then sucked in a tight breath. “You’ve only ever snuck away once before,” she said after a long moment, “and it was to go after the man who ended your mortal life without backup. I— I’m trying to be calm about this because I know I’m not your keeper and you’re free to do whatever you wish but I— you know how I worry about you.”
“Baby—“
“Just tell me you’re alright,” Kamilah said quickly. “That you’re not doing anything so reckless that you’re in danger of being hurt or—“
“There are mortals coming and they have big ass guns and scary looking dogs!,” Lily shrieked as she ran back from the exit she was guarding. “I thought you fucked with the security systems?”
“I did. All the cameras in the building are off. There must be heat sensors we didn’t know about—“
“Hurry the fuck up,” Lily hissed. “Just break the damn glass and let’s go.”
“I’ll use my abilities to stall them,” Serafine said, raising one brow into a perfectly debonair arch, “you need to hurry up though, Anastasia. I’m not as strong as you are— I can take their weapons but that’s all. I can barely control more than one mind at a time. I know you’re trying to be respectful in not breaking the glass but I suggest that we flee the scene immediately.”
“Annie!?” Kamilah yelped. “Adrian, get out of the pool at once! Annie is in danger!” She heard her rasped breathing as she barked orders at her security guards and Adrian’s muffled yelling in the background. “Where are you?! I’m coming! I— Adrian, would you hurry up! My Annie needs me— Baby, where are you?!”
“Kami, it’s fine, love,” she soothed as she pulled her bounty through the glass and immediately slipped the sword securely through her belt. “I promise you everything is fine— I have everything under control. Go back up to the penthouse and we’ll be back in fifteen minutes tops—“
“Annie,” Kamilah whimpered.
“She’s at The Egyptian Museum!,” Adrian called.
“I’m coming!” Kamilah said.
Lily screamed and dropped to the floor as a mortal fired a bullet over their heads and she quickly yelped, “I have to go!” before hanging up the phone and shoving it back in her pocket.
“If these mortals kill us all, I’m going to get my ex-lover’s ghost to teach my ghost how to play the flute just so that I can annoy the hell out of your ghost,” Serafine hissed as she used her abilities to whip the guns out of the police officers’ hands, throwing them against the far wall hard enough that they all broke apart on impact.
“I’ll just hire Jax’s ghost to kick your ghost’s ass,” she smirked at her as she short circuited the body-cams and stopped the police dogs in their tracks with a single wave of her hand.
“My ghost won’t associate with either of y’all’s ghosts,” Lily growled. “If I die here, imma haunt you both forever.”
“So dramatic,” she sighed wistfully as she stepped forwards to face the mortals.
“It’s Anastasia Sayeed,” one of them whispered in Egyptian Arabic.
“What’s she doing?” asked another. “Is she stealing? She can’t be the one stealing— she’s stopping the thieves.”
“Orders,” one hissed to a man in front of him. “Boss, what are our orders?”
“She’s going to tell us what to do,” another man murmured.
She swallowed thickly at their faith in her. People all over the world saw only what they expected to see when they looked at her. It was one of the basic truisms of life. That, and a great mind like hers was always somewhat feared by lesser minds, respected and trusted, but feared deep down… and she saw that fear shining in the mortals’ eyes as they stared at her, either unwilling or unable to make the first move.
“I'm not telling you what to do,” she said gently, using her abilities to worm her way into each and every one of their minds. Mortals were so easy to control, their minds unformed and so delicate that a lesser psychic ran a real chance of driving them to madness if they pushed too hard. “I'm just telling you what you're going to do. There's a difference— and it’s technically not stealing if I’m only taking back what already belongs to my wife.”
“There’s a difference,” all twelve men said in unison.
She stared at them, feeling the electricity of their thinking, the blood moving throughout their veins, and the history held neatly within the fabric of every organ of their anatomy, as if their bodies were a storage unit of ancestral memory. Within seconds she had absorbed every nuance of them; she knew their life stories, their parents life stories, all the way back to their ancestors that had lived in Egypt when Kamilah was a child and far, far earlier than that.
Paradox lay at the heart of the mystery of her abilities. Paradox was what allowed the conditions for her to exert her will over the world around her. By creating a paradox, she essentially overloaded the processing of reality by breaking all the rules mortals had lived by since the dawn of time. In a way, she was jamming the system like throwing a wrench into the cogs, where she could then enter in her own codes and when she was done and the system and its processes of reality resumed like nothing had ever happened.
“Good.” She carefully pulled Lily to her feet and gestured for Serafine to follow her as she slowly walked towards them. “You’re going to tell your colleagues outside that it was a false alarm, a drunken security guard left his post and mistakenly triggered the heat sensors.” She watched as the man in charge took his radio in his hand and repeated the order. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
“There’s nothing to worry about,” the men said.
“Good.” She swallowed thickly, the guilt she didn’t want to feel already squeezing her heart. “You’re going to go back to your desks and go about your duties, and when the missing artefacts are reported in the morning you will remember them securely in their case when you left. You have everything logged in your notes as being present when you left; no glass was broken, no cases were unlocked. You’ll remember the security cameras being on, so you’ll be surprised when you find out that they weren’t and that there is no recorded footage of the incident.” She paused and waved her hand at the broken guns, mending them and floating them back to their holsters strapped to the men’s thighs. “And you won’t remember seeing me or my sisters here tonight. The building was empty, save for the night guard.”
“Your fingerprints,” Serafine whispered, her dark gaze steady and impassive in the dim light. “You touched the glass.”
“I can manipulate the energy around my hands so I don’t leave fingerprints,” she said calmly, never breaking eye contact with the police captain in front of her. “They won’t find any because I never actually touched the glass in its solid form, I simply manipulated the particles to suit my needs.”
Serafine’s brows shot up. “Really?”
She nodded only once and murmured, “Go.” Her eyes never left the men as they walked away from them, dazed but alright.
Though she stood by taking what was rightfully Kamilah’s, she hated having to use her abilities on people without their consent. But as The Bloodkeeper she lived in a state of enchantment, seeing all things as magical and understanding that the universe was composed of endless possibilities and potential. She always saw an open door where others saw a wall.
“I bet Kamilah loves it when you do the mad energy shit with your hands,” Lily blurted out, breaking the tension that had fallen over the room the moment the gun had gone off. “And, I have a serious question, when you were on the phone did you really call Sugar Mama Sayeed ‘baby’? And more importantly, did she let you call her ‘baby’?”
Serafine snorted. “She calls you ‘baby’ but that is the first I’ve ever heard the tables turned. You’re not topping on a regular basis now, are you?”
Her entire body relaxed and she began ushering Lily and Serafine towards the side exit whilst texting Kamilah a proof of life selfie and a note to go back to the penthouse suite they were all staying in. “Have you met Kami?” She laughed, mentally slapping herself in the face for using the private pet name in public. “Of course I’m not topping on a regular basis— I do top occasionally but she’s the domme in this relationship and we are both 100% happy with that. But that doesn’t mean I can’t use pet names for her. She may be my domme but she’s also my baby so, of course, I called her ‘baby’… and she loves everything I do with my hands. It’s like a vibrator… minus the toy.”
“You’ve got a stabby ass baby then,” snorted Lily.
“If either of you tease her about this I’ll literally put hair removal cream in your shampoo. She's my wife. Mine to torture and mine to protect.”
Lily smirked. “I wouldn’t dream of getting myself stabbed in the eyes by your baby after being fucking shot at by the cops. Even I have my limits.”
Serafine’s eyes widened. “Will you teach me the hand thing at our next training session? Purely for… educational purposes… you understand.”
She snorted. “Of course.”
“There are mummies in there,” Lily whispered as they passed through a hall filled with glass display cases filled with ornately decorated sarcophagi.
She swallowed thickly and paused to look at the coffins, knowing exactly how Kamilah felt about them being tourist attractions.
Just that morning she’d seen a documentary filmed at the museum, in which the curator had stated that the souls of the dead royals from various dynasties appeared to her in her dreams. The mortal had seemed very moved by the whole thing, and she’d said that every night she was overjoyed at the sight of the apparitions — that she tried to throw her arms around the ghosts of her charges, and every time she did they vanished.
The dead appeared to people in dreams because that was the only way they could really make the living see them; and what they saw was only a projection, beamed from a great distance, light shining at them from a dead star.
“Are any of Kamilah’s family members here?” Serafine whispered.
“Her favourite Aunt,” she sighed, gesturing towards a golden sarcophagus to their right. It sickened her to see her there — in an exhibit in a glass case that gleamed in the dim light and lit their faces ghoulishly from below as they stood around it — having heard so many stories of what she was like when she was alive that she felt like she knew her. “Amenirdis— she was her mother’s younger sister who died in childbirth, her baby cousin died too. The cord was around his neck and he was gone before he’d even had the chance to take his first breath.” She paused. “Kami saw her aunt die. She was in the room with her mother… it was the first death she ever witnessed.”
“How old was she?” asked Serafine.
“Eight.”
Lily’s eyes widened. “And the rest of her family? Her brother? Parents? Cleopatra? Her cousin, Arsinoë?”
“They’re all so well hidden that no one — mortal or vampire — will ever be able to find them. I’ve made sure of that.”
“You’re using your abilities to shield them?” Serafine whispered.
She nodded tightly. “The mortals have come close to finding them numerous times since they started excavating Egyptian soil centuries ago, so I decided to take matters into my own hands by both buying the plot of land and then using my mind to create a sort of blind spot— it’s difficult to explain in much detail and the less you know about exactly what it is I’m doing or how I’m doing it, the better.”
Serafine and Lily both nodded, knowing that there were things about her abilities they couldn’t know for their own safety. She wielded so much power and was such a mystery to both mortals and vampires alike that the people around her needed plausible deniability.
She sighed, her eyes drifting back to the sarcophagus in front of her as she desperately tried to think of a way to remove Amenirdis’ sarcophagus without it being obvious who’d taken it. Whilst she could control the minds of many mortals, she couldn’t brainwash everyone in the world into believing she hadn’t anything to do with a missing mummy that was known to be a relative of her wife… many people already suspected she was hiding Cleopatra’s tomb and taking Amenirdis would be as good as confirming that she was.
“I’ll get her out of here one day for her and she’ll be entombed with her family,” she swore, resting her hand against the glass. A big part of her wanted to smash it, grab the sarcophagus, and run… but she knew she couldn’t. There was literally nothing she could do right at that moment. “I’ll get them all out of here— out of every museum in the world and into a tomb somewhere no one will ever disturb them again.”
“Are you all right, ma petite?" asked Serafine, squeezing her shoulder.
"Just fighting over old battles in my mind," she smiled as they began to walk again. The others knew displays like the one in front of them made Kamilah angry to the point she just shut down, but they didn’t know that they actually reduced her to tears when she thought of all her family members who’d been taken from their tombs. "It's the problem with age. I may still look twenty-two but I now have all these rusty thoughts, these grand ideas, and well trodden arguments, and no quarrel to use them in. My brain is a museum of other people’s memories and I'm the only visitor… but even I am not terribly interested in all the displays."
Serafine laughed, but there was affection in it. "I would love nothing better than to visit there. But I'm afraid I'd be tempted to loot the place, and carry it all away with me.”
‘I’d give it all away if I could’, she thought, history passing before her very eyes and changing every moment as she guided her sisters from the museum. ‘Knowing all that I do isn’t the gift that you think it is,’ she wanted to say. ‘My mind makes me a sword, but no one understands that I am a sword made of glass, and I often feel myself beginning to shatter under the weight of my responsibilities,’ she wished she could tell her. But she couldn’t say anything that would make Serafine understand, because that would just pique her interest even further, and some things were better left unsaid. So instead they walked together as they always did, thinking about the same thing but never speaking of it, both of them wondering which of them hurt more beneath the burden of their abilities on a daily basis.
She always kept her shit together, she never broke down with the pressure that came with being what she was in front of anyone but her Kami. She was the fucking foam on the latte that rose above all of it and projected an air of fluffy perfection to the world. Her friends had been there for her whenever she needed them, always. And she in turn hadn’t ever let her friends down. But at this moment, she resented the hell out of every one of them for their naivety.
Whilst Serafine and Lily could leave the dead behind, Anastasia knew that she never could. They haunted her every moment; people she’d never met from a thousand different times and places, all dancing through her memory. Their screams and their laughter ringing in her ears.
Constantly shining lights from a far off galaxy filled with dead stars.
~~~~
“Don’t ever do that again!” Kamilah shrieked the moment Lily opened the hotel room. Anastasia barely had time to register anything other than her wife frantically shoving Adrian over the back of the couch and pushing Lily and Serafine onto the armchairs by the fireplace before she barrelled into her at full speed and wrapped her up in the circle of her strong arms. “What were you— You could’ve died! You could’ve been killed! You scared me half to death! I worried you’d been kidnapped or— I cannot live without you… and in fact, I absolutely refuse to do so. So the next time you want to go on some ill-advised mission to do whatever it was you were doing, at least take your bodyguards with you! Because if anything happened to you…” Her voice broke, but Kamilah didn’t seem like she cared. “If anything happened to you, it would kill me. And I’d like to think you love me too much to let that happen and—“
She pressed her lips against hers to calm her down before any more of her intrusive thoughts could force their way out of her mouth. “Shhhhh. Shhhhhh. I’m okay, baby,” she whispered against her lips, her thumb gently stroking her cheek. “I’m right here. I’m fine. I promise I’m fine.”
“Glad to know she was worried about us too,” Lily snorted. “You know, since we coulda died and all. Being gay and doing crime is not as easy as it looks.”
“It’s always good to know she cares,” chuckled Serafine.
Kamilah’s face slid into a puzzled frown. If looks could have killed, both Serafine and Lily would have been bleeding profusely from their foreheads from the way the ancient vampire was studying them. “Why is it when something foolish or drunk happens it is always you three?”
“Because we’re sexy and we know it,” Lily deadpanned.
“What she said,” she nodded.
“Is that much not obvious?” Serafine said as she gave them a sunny smile.
“You’re dangers to civilised society, is what you are,” Kamilah said flatly, gaping at them as if they were some bizarre creature with three heads, twelve fingers, horns, and a tail.
“You two should just be thankful you’re even still breathing,” Adrian quipped as he got up off the floor. “I had to take refuge at the bottom of the swimming pool when she found out the three of you had gone off to do something dangerous and illegal without her. After asking about five hundred times if I was sure Anastasia wasn’t going to get hurt, she started ranting about how the three of you put together couldn’t stab an enemy even half way as good as she could and how rude it was of you to leave her out of an occasion in which a stabbing may have occurred.”
“Aww,” she chuckled as Kamilah hid her suddenly-very-flushed face in the crook of her neck. “Did you have FOMO?”
“It sounds like she did,” laughed Serafine.
Lily nodded. “Sis definitely had FOMO.”
“Most definitely,” nodded Adrian.
“Especially because Anastasia was with us,” Serafine goaded. “She wouldn’t have cared if she had gone uninvited if it’d just been Lily and I but, alas, she is in love. She loves Anastasia so much that she cannot bear the thought of a moment without her. She wants want every bloody person in the world to know that she is hers and whenever they are parted the dreadful FOMO takes hold.”
She could tell Kamilah was barely fighting the urge to cross her arms and Serafine was looking up at them with a bit of a smirk. She liked poking fun at the people she loved; she’d once told her that the best part of knowing someone for centuries was that she could say anything she wanted with impunity.
Anastasia pressed her lips together, trying not to smile. It was really, really lovely to witness this type of sibling teasing and actually understand what was being said. There used to be so much of it when she’d been at boarding school in England as a child, although most of the time — until she’d actually learned English well enough to talk to people and make some friends — she’d been nothing more than a witness to it. Back then she’d been so much smarter than the rest the kids who’d grown up essentially as her surrogate siblings; in all honesty, most of the time they’d probably just decided not to tease her incase she stopped doing their homework for them.
“I do not know what that is,” grumbled the ancient vampire without lifting her head. “But it sounds like a mortal venereal disease that I absolutely did not have and I am offended by the very insinuation— and of course I love my wife so much I would happily spend my every waking moment in her company if I could, you old fool.”
Everyone but her started laughing, which only made the irritated grumbling coming from Kamilah worse. She did her best to learn all the modern terms people used. Really, she did. But she’d only just gotten the hang of sending the occasional ‘lol’ in a text message when she found something funny (and she still refused to use emojis because she believed they’d been designed for mortal toddlers), so she still had a long way to go before she understood that not every word or phrase she didn’t understand was an insult.
“Nobody is saying you have a venereal disease, sweetheart. FOMO means ‘fear of missing out’,” she explained whilst stroking her hair. “Meaning you felt left out thinking we were off stabbing our enemies and causing chaos around Cairo without you.”
Kamilah snorted but still didn’t lift her head. “I might’ve been slightly miffed at the thought of you all possibly stabbing people without me…”
“Well you know you’d usually be the first person I’d invite to anything— and I promise you that no one was stabbed without you. You’re still my favourite person in the whole world,” she said, keeping her voice gentle as she nipped at her ear. “So you don’t have to worry I’ve suddenly found new partners in crime.”
That startled a genuine laugh out of Kamilah. “Well, obviously. I’m told I’m quite brilliant— I highly doubt either of those two could match up.”
“Rude,” huffed Lily.
“Indeed,” pouted Serafine.
“Though it was fun, you guys, my Kami is still my favourite person,” she giggled.
Lily and Serafine both laughed and Adrian rolled his eyes, looking like he was barely holding back a comment about how breaking the law was wrong.
And even without Kamilah looking up, she could feel her smiling presence against the side of her neck. She could sense that quirky, cocky grin only she could put on her face egging her on, and she found herself standing a little straighter, with her chin perched just a little higher than usual. Her wife made her more confident, more daring. She made her more... herself. Or, at least, the version of herself she wished she could be all the time.
“That’s why we just walked into The Egyptian Museum and took a few artefacts for you,” she continued, her mouth right at Kamilah’s ear. “Surprise!”
Kamilah’s head shot up and she started laughing. “You robbed The Egyptian Museum?!”
“No, I didn’t rob anything—“
“She didn’t not rob The Egyptian Museum. It’s kind of a grey area, you know?,” Lily chimed in as she shoved some Pringles into her mouth and draped her legs over the arm of her chair. “We’ve been through this and apparently stealing from a bunch of elitist thieving bastards isn’t actually stealing— oh, and she almost killed a security guard with my backpack instead of just knocking the dude out with her abilities like a normal fucking person and these two assholes wouldn’t help me steal King Tut’s chariot. It was a whole ass thing.”
Kamilah’s eyebrows shot up and her eyes turned red, her attention zeroing in on a small already-healing bruise on the side of her cheek where one of the keychains on the backpack she’d swung had somehow managed to hit her in the face. It was those red eyes as much as anything that had earned her the fearsome reputation as a woman to be reckoned with. When she stared at a person, clear and unwavering, the toughest of men grew uncomfortable. Women positively trembled where they stood.
Whereas she just melted.
For as fearsome as Kamilah was to the rest of the world, she really was a heavily armed teddy bear with fangs as far as she was concerned.
“What happened?” She prodded. “Did he hurt you?” She brushed her hair out of the way to closer inspect the bruise. “I’ll torture him until he begs me for death and then I will kill the fool slowly with my bare hands for daring—“
“Shhh. There’s no need to torture anyone—“
“You are bruised,” Kamilah pointed out. “A rabid mortal clearly got close enough to lay hands on you.”
“I just wasn’t paying attention and he snuck up on me, so I whacked him with the backpack and the little astronaut keychain from Kennedy Space Centre hit me.” It was so hard for her not to laugh at the ‘rabid mortal’ comment. Half of the time Kamilah didn’t even try to be funny… she just was. Then, with a cheeky quirk of her brows, she leaned forward and murmured, “Would it be an inappropriate time for me to admit that I am inordinately flattered by your attention to the details of my face?”
Kamilah snorted out a laugh. “It’s both inappropriate and ludicrous to distract me when I’m getting excited about torturing an enemy.”
“Anyway, it is true that I have never felt quite so colourful,” she said, with a clearly feigned sigh.
“You are a veritable rainbow,” Kamilah agreed, brushing her lips over the bruise. “I see red and… well, no orange and yellow, but certainly green and blue and violet.”
“It feels better already.” She gestured towards the couch, knowing Kamilah hadn’t noticed the artefacts on the back of her belt. “So go sit down so I can give you your presents.”
Kamilah blushed but didn’t bother to hide her excitement as she did as she was asked. With an adorably goofy spring in her step, she made her way across the living room to the couch. She was, quite literally, the only person alive who could tell her what to do without winding up with a dagger in their eyes.
She knew that none of her past lovers had ever brought her gifts with no occasion before, and that she hadn’t known until she’d started to surprise her with things she knew she’d like just how badly she’d always wanted someone to do so.
“Close your eyes,” she smiled.
Kamilah snorted and closed her eyes, her teeth closing around her bottom lip in anticipation. “I’m on the edge of my seat.”
It was impossible not to laugh at her quite clearly peaking to catch a glimpse of her gift. It was nearly impossible to keep anything a secret from Kamilah. She was so determined and sneaky that she could probably singlehandedly have won both world wars in half the time if the mortals in charge of things had only thought to draft her into their espionage services.
Was it possible to fall in love with the same woman over and over again, every single day? She wondered as she watched her wife practically twitching with excitement.
“You’re peeking,” she laughed. “This is exactly like how you still go looking for your Dark Solstice gifts every year.”
Kamilah smiled and screwed her eyes shut tight. “I’m incorrigible.”
“You are— Kami, you’re still peeking.”
“I’m trying to keep my eyes closed, I swear.”
She just looked at her. “You do know that you are insufferable.”
“Of course.” Kamilah cracked an eye wide open with a devilish smile. “But you love me, anyway, admit it.”
She laughed. “Keep your eyes closed, dork, or I’ll have Adrian cover them.”
“Touch me and I’ll throw you down to the pool from your bedroom window, since you so enjoy sitting on the bottom of it,” deadpanned Kamilah.
Adrian snorted. “You’re really scary sometimes, do you know that?”
Kamilah beamed at him and covered her own eyes with her right hand. “I’m aware.”
“Behave yourself,” she giggled as she took both blades out of her belt and sat down beside her, sitting the sword down so it was propped against the side of the couch behind her — out of Kamilah’s line of sight — and gently placed Amethu’s dagger in her left hand.
“It feels like a new weapon!” Kamilah said excitedly, her eyes still shut tight behind her right hand. “I’ll have to find an enemy to stab immediately if it is— in order to test it out, you understand.”
She snorted and rubbed her thigh. “Now you can open them.”
The ancient vampire didn’t hesitate to open her eyes and the moment she did, her mouth fell open, and her big brown eyes grew wide in recognition. “Amethu,” she gasped, running her fingers down the flat part of the blade. “He was still a boy when I gave him this! I haven’t seen it since…” she trailed off.
The night she was Turned.
She hadn’t seen it since the night she Turned.
“I know,” she whispered, squeezing her thigh. “He tried to save you with it.”
Kamilah smiled and nodded. “Brave, foolish boy that he was.” She cleared her throat and looked up at her with glazed eyes filled with happiness. “He was my first true friend besides my brother, you know.”
She nodded. “I know. That’s why I thought you’d like to have it— I’m sure he’d rather it be in your keeping than laying behind glass.”
“Annie, I—“
“There’s one more thing,” she said quickly.
Kamilah smiled and then did her best to pout her lips, but she was so happy that she couldn’t really do it properly. “Do I have to close my eyes again?”
“No. I won’t torture you any more.”
The audible gasp that came from Kamilah when she produced the shimmering sword with its bronze and gold hilt encrusted with Amethyst, Emerald, and Turquoise gemstones cut into the shape of scarabs was the most satisfying thing she’d ever heard. And the moment it was place in her hands she broke into a wide, toothy grin as she inspected the sharp double-edged blade.
Even after more than two thousand years she could tell that this sword had been the very first weapon that ever actually felt balanced in her wife’s hands. The sword may have had a long and tragic history that most people would never know, but Kamilah had genuinely loved and treasured this weapon once… and it was clear that she still did.
“How did you— how?!”
“It was only brought out of storage this morning,” she explained. “I’ve been using my abilities to try to find this for you for at least twenty years now and I didn’t think it was even still around until my mind wandered the other night when we were out to dinner and I read the mind of a random man in the restaurant when you went to the bathroom and— anyway, he works at the museum and he was telling his wife about it and I—“
Kamilah cut her off by grabbing her with almost desperate arms, her mouth crashing down on hers with a force that drew a collective gasp from Adrian, Serafine, and Lily.
And then both sets of lips — her’s and Kamilah’s — burst into laughter, even as they remained entwined.
She had to kiss her again. She had to. It was as basic and elemental as her breath, her need to consume blood, her very soul. And when she framed Kamilah’s face in her hands and continued pecking at her giggly smile...
The earth may as well have stopped spinning.
The birds stopped singing.
Everything in the world came to a halt, everything but her wife and her and the feather-light kisses that connected them.
“Annie!” Kamilah said, a watery laugh escaping her. “This is— this is my sword! My sword! The first custom made weapon I ever owned! The first blade that ever took the life of one of my enemies!”
“I know,” she beamed, her heart melting at her excitement. “And the little scarabs that Cleopatra had added to the hilt for you after you saved her life are all still there.” She ran her fingertip over the bejewelled scarabs. “They’ve held up well over the years.”
Kamilah’s cheeks flushed scarlet, her eyes shining with love. “You remembered the story…”
“Of course.” She gave her an affectionate little nudge. “I remember everything you tell me.”
The look that spread across Kamilah’s rose tinted face at that very moment was one she’d have sold a piece of her soul to keep there forever. There was nothing she wouldn’t have done to keep the one woman who had touched her soul so happy. So happy to have a few of her things back. To have been listened to when she spoke so well that she had known exactly what artefacts would mean the most to her.
And when she at last wrapped her wife up in her arms, she rubbed her rosy cheek against her shoulder again and again, her silky dark hair tickling at the side of her face as she nuzzled her.
She held Kamilah there for a long time, one of her hands cupping the back of her head and the other wrapped securely around her back. The scent of lavender and sun-kissed meadows tickled at her nose as she enjoyed the moment of intimacy. And she felt like the best kind of heaven. She wanted to wrap herself around, bury herself within her, and stay there for all of her days. She hadn’t had a drop to drink since the night before, but she was intoxicated now, bubbling with a lightness she’d never thought possible until the moment she’d first locked eyes with her and had still been foolish enough to believe that she was unaffected by the way they bore into her— when in actuality, the first moment she’d seen her she’d been sent into an utter panic because somewhere deep down inside she’d realised that a single glance was all it had taken for her life to be changed forever.
Dark eyes flickered up towards her.
Time stopped.
It simply stopped. It was the most maudlin and clichéd way of describing it, but those few seconds when her eyes were lifted toward hers — as they had been an uncountable number of times — they stretched and pulled, melting into eternity.
She was beautiful. But that didn’t explain it. Anastasia had seen many beautiful women before. She’d looked at her wife’s face day-in-and-day-out for thirty-eight years now. She’d made love to her more times than even she was capable of counting. But this… Kamilah… She…
She was too gay for this.
Even her thoughts were tongue-tied as she gazed at her.
“I love you so much, Annie. Thank you,” Kamilah murmured, without lifting her head from her shoulder as her eyes flickered closed in a moment of pure bliss. “Thank you, more than I can express.”
She kissed her forehead and smiled against her skin. “For what?”
''Everything, really. But mostly for being you.”
She ducked her head down and whispered, “I love you, too,” in her ear.
Just because she wanted to.
Kamilah didn’t look up, but she smiled against the side of her neck.
And Anastasia smiled, too.
~ fin.