Not What She Seems

chapter 25



Mason had classes early the next morning, followed by business meeting in the afternoon, so once again Sylvia found herself alone in the brownstone until the evening. Luckily she woke up late enough that it wasn’t too far away, since it was already past 1:00. As she was drinking her coffee, leafing through the daily paper, a picture caught her eye. She frowned when she realized she was looking at a picture of herself, taken by some unknown photographer. It was taken on Sunday afternoon, when Mason picked her up outside of the hospital, and it showed her climbing into his SUV. Millionaire’s mystery woman has health issues? the caption read. A short blurb went on to insinuate she must have been at Mass General for treatment for some kind of horrible health condition. She was less irritated about the paper’s gossipy statements and more worried about stealthy photographers possibly leading the Hunter to her. If he could tie her to Mason, he could find her again.

Lilith called her and she answered immediately in hopes there was good news about Keith.

“Can you come in this afternoon?” she asked. “I need you here at 4:00, if you can make it here discretely.”

“What’s going on? Is Keith okay?”

“Keith is unchanged, I called to inquire this morning, but I do have some big news.”

“Is it about the Hunter? Or Elora?”

Lilith sighed. “Just come into the office please, I’ll tell you when you arrive.”

“Fine, I guess I’ll have to, if you won’t tell me over the phone,” Sylvia sulked.

“4:00, then.” The line went dead in her hand.

She fretted away most of the afternoon, wondering if Elora had announced her success with her Innocent, or if there was a new development about the Hunter. She was inclined to believe it was good news about the Hunter as Lilith wanted to tell her the news in person. If he were still out there it seemed unlikely Lilith would ask her to leave the brownstone.

Mason’s offer that his driver was at her disposal crossed her mind, but she preferred to keep this trip to the office quiet and she didn’t know if he’d discuss her activities with Mason or not. Taking the subway was out of the question until she confirmed the Hunter was no longer a threat, so she opted to arrange for a cab to pick her up. After her shower she threw on some of the new clothes Mason had purchased for her and stepped out into the waiting cab.

Her anxiety levels grew as she walked into Enchanted Escorts. Deborah wasn’t at her desk, so Sylvia marched right into Lilith’s office. Her whole body tensed when she saw Elora was there, already seated and speaking with Lilith. She looked up with a malevolent grin.

“Well, there she is!” she chirped nastily. “Come on in, Sunshine, I’ve got some big news to share with you.”

Sylvia took a deep breath as she braced herself for the news she most feared. Lilith caught her eye and gave her the slightest nod, confirming it.

“It’s true,” she told her solemnly. “I checked him out myself after Elora reported it. He’s no longer an Innocent.”

Sylvia stared at her as she fought to keep her emotions from showing. She wanted to burst into tears and pound her fists on the desk, or better yet, wipe the triumphant grin off Elora’s face but she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of causing a scene.

“So, I’d ask for the keys to your place, but I think we can all agree I don’t want that now, so you can keep your apartment. But you can’t hunt around there anymore. It’s mine now,” she gloated.

“Thank you, Elora. That will be all.” Lilith stood with her hands on her desk, leaning slightly forward, and watching Elora expectantly. Elora was too busy basking in Sylvia’s pain to take the hint. “You can go now, Elora,” Lilith told her firmly. It was enough to snap Elora back to attention and she finally heard Lilith’s request.

“Don’t worry, Sylvia, I’m sure Lilith will find you somewhere decent for your new territory. Best hope it’s not too good, because one never knows when I’ll be in the market for a new territory again,” she called over her shoulder as she walked out.

Sylvia grasped the armrests of her chair to boost herself out of her seat as she started to go after Elora. She had plans to silence her, violently, scene be damned.

“Sit down!” Lilith boomed, raising her voice. She obeyed, but still struggled to keep from crying.

“I’m sorry,” Lilith told her quietly, “This is not how I preferred for it to end, either. But what’s done is done, and Elora is now the rightful owner of that territory. But it’s not all bad. Now that the Challenge has ended and you have to find a new territory I think it’s time to move you out of Boston, away from the Hunter. So where would you like to go? Just name the state or city, I’ll find you something, something nice.”

“But Boston is my home.”

“It has been, for a long time now, but don’t you think it’s time to move on? Without your territory there’s nothing holding you here, and you should seize this opportunity to leave the whole mess behind you. I have available territories open here as we’ve lost so many girls to the Hunter recently, but I think it’d be a poor decision for you to stay here.” Her face fell. “Deborah didn’t show up for work today, and she hasn’t answered my calls or texts. I think the Hunter got her. I won’t know for sure until she turns up or the police find her body. He’s still active, and still looking for you, no doubt. So tell me, where would you like to go?”

“Home,” Sylvia answered pitifully.

“You know that’s not possible, you don’t have a home right now. And even if they catch the Hunter tomorrow, do you really want to go back to your old apartment? Could you even stand to, with all that’s happened in the last few weeks? Would you even want to live in someone else’s territory? Because as of today, that’s Elora’s territory.”

She considered it for a moment, then reluctantly shook her head.

“I didn’t think so. You may be stubborn, but you’re generally not a fool. Tell you what- why don’t you sleep on it overnight and call me in the morning? You tell me where you want to go and I’ll get you there, all right?”

Lilith’s uncharacteristic understanding surprised her but she nodded. She didn’t have much of a choice, as she saw it. She took Elora’s thinly veiled threat about coming after her next territory as well seriously. She couldn’t go through all of this again; she wanted her own territory free of Elora’s presence. Really, Lilith was right, there was nothing here for her anymore. Elora had done what she set out to do and destroyed her life, and if she stuck around, she knew she would continue to do so any way she could.

“I have to go, I’ll call you in the morning.” Sylvia needed to get out of there. She was tremendously disappointed, and embarrassed, that she had not won the Challenge. Without waiting to hear Lilith’s reply she rushed out of the office, through the empty waiting area and into the elevator. She wanted to be alone when the tears came. Luckily the building’s lobby was empty as well and she had herself a good cry while she waited for the cab she had called. It arrived a few minutes later and she hastily wiped away her tears before she climbed in.

On the ride back to Mason’s place she lamented all she had lost. Her territory was gone, her apartment was unbearable to live in, and Keith had come and gone in her bed once again. She still had Mason, but there was little point in continuing their relationship now that she had lost the Challenge and had to leave town. She still wanted to sleep with him, but she didn’t have the time required to stick it out and wait for him to be ready. With the Hunter still at large, and her territory gone, it was time to relocate away from the whole mess.

Besides, it was getting too emotionally intimate with Mason. He was falling in love with her, and Sylvia found herself becoming too involved in their relationship as well. It was pointless. She could never have a sincere romantic relationship with a human. Even if there was a way to keep what she was hidden, she aged far more slowly than humans and eventually that would be noticed. She couldn’t keep her need to hunt hidden forever either, and humans tended to frown on their partner sleeping around. Better to move on, start somewhere new, and forget about Boston, and Mason.

It was settled then, she would leave tonight. She could get a hotel room, pick out a place to move to, and Lilith would send her on to her new life tomorrow. Telling Mason wasn’t going to be easy, but she needed to cut him out of her life and it would be better to do it abruptly than to drag it out. Cut all ties and move on.

When the cab arrived back at the brownstone Sylvia paid her fair and frowned when she noticed a car parked out on the front curb. She didn’t remember Mason mentioning any company coming tonight, but she knew he was home as she could see both the SUV and the Audi in the garage. It was poor timing and she wouldn’t embarrass Mason by ending their relationship in front of his company. She would have to pretend everything was normal and fine until his company left, then she would leave. Keeping their breakup private was the least she could do for him.

He greeted her at the door as she slid the key into the lock.

“There she is!” He pulled her into a quick kiss. “I’d wondered where you wandered off to. Listen, my brother stopped by, and he’s staying for dinner. I’m excited for you to meet him, come on.” He took Sylvia’s hand and led her into the living room.

She stared at the man sitting on the couch, drinking a scotch. She struggled to recall where he had seen him before. Ah, the subway. He was the lower grade energy that had been with the upper grade man she had given her phone number to on the T, right before Mason called her for the first time.

“Jeffrey, I’d like you to meet Sylvia, my girlfriend. She’s staying with me for a little while.”

“Nice to meet you, Sylvia.” He rose and shook her hand. “Mason hadn’t mentioned he had such a gorgeous new lady in his life.”

Sylvia laughed. “Well, it’s all happened pretty quickly, I guess. Nice to meet you too.” She was pleased to see Jeffrey was keeping himself in check in front of his brother and keeping the lustful looks under control.

“So, I just started a roast chicken for dinner, we’ll eat in another hour or so,” Mason informed them. “Sylvia, would you like a glass of wine or something?”

“That’d be great. Red, if you have it.” He left to get her a glass of wine, leaving her alone with Jeffrey. She took a seat in the leather recliner next to the couch.

“I remember you,” he told her. “You gave your number to my friend Steven.”

“That was before I began seeing your brother,” she answered stiffly. The night was going to be hard enough when she left him. She didn’t need Jeffrey to bring that up in front of him beforehand.

“Don’t sweat it, I’m not going to say anything in front of him, you’re just an easy girl to remember.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Mason bustled back in with her wine and a scotch for himself and settled down next to Jeffrey on the couch.

“So Jeffrey here’s only been back in town a few months. He was overseas for work for a while.”

“Yes, baby brother here was kind enough to give me a job in one his overseas operations,” Jeffrey added bitterly, taking another swallow of his scotch.

“Come on, let’s not bore Sylvia with our family disputes,” Mason admonished him, looking nervously at her.

“Ah, she’s part of the family now, isn’t she?” Jeffrey’s tone was dark.

“Enough, Jeff, really. I’m glad to see you, even if your visit’s a surprise, but you can’t come in here and start with that stuff right now, okay?”

“All right, you’re right. Keep the family skeletons in the closet, right?” He winked at Sylvia. He was rapidly making her very uncomfortable and she couldn’t figure out why he had dropped by when he clearly had so much animosity towards Mason.

“So what’d you do today?” Mason asked her, closing the uncomfortable conversation that had been developing with Jeffrey.

“I, uh, had to run to the office to take care of a few things.”

“What do you do?” Jeffrey asked her with interest.

“I work for a PR firm.”

“I thought you were going to say modeling or acting or something. You’re beautiful enough to do that kind of stuff.”

“Isn’t she?” Mason cut in, oblivious to his brother’s under-minded passes at Sylvia. “I’m a lucky guy.”

Sylvia cringed. Breaking it off with him later, once Jeffrey had gone, was going to be tough. He was a wonderful man and she hated to hurt him like that, but it would be for the best, for both of them.

“You sure are. It’s good to see you’re dating again. Will you excuse me?” Jeffrey rose to use the bathroom.

“Sorry,” Mason told her quietly. “He’s… difficult at times, and I came home to find him sitting on my front steps. We’re not exactly close, so I’m not sure why he’s here, but we’ll have dinner with him and then he’ll wander off, I’m sure.”

“Don’t worry about, he’s your brother, it’s not a problem,” she assured him. Privately she was irritated that Jeffrey had shown up. He was holding up her grand plans of leaving Mason.

Their chatter was more relaxed when Jeffrey came back, and they spoke of trivial things to make polite conversation. Suddenly Mason’s cell phone rang and before he had a chance to answer it the home phone began ringing as well.

Sylvia and Jeffrey could hear his end of the conversation as he answered the home phone in the kitchen. “Yes, this is he… What?... Are they on their way?... I ’ll be right down.”

He came back into the living room, his handsome face taught with stress. “That was the security company. There’s a huge fire at the office, I have to go down there. Will you two be all right here, without me?”

“I’ll go with you,” Sylvia offered as she jumped up.

“No, I want you to stay here. I’ll go alone, there’s nothing you can do at the scene anyway.”

“Is it serious?” Jeffrey asked anxiously.

“Sounds like it. The firefighters are on their way, the security company called them as soon the alarms went off. They’re linked to their monitoring system, so they were quickly alerted about the fire. They called me afterwards, right away, but they had confirmed with the fire department that citizens have been calling them in droves, reporting visible flames and smoke. I’ve got to go! Just eat dinner when it’s done. I have no idea how long this will take, so you guys stay here.” He dashed out the door after giving Sylvia a quick kiss.

“Be careful!” she called after him.

He must not have heard her, because he didn’t reply and a minute later the front door slammed shut. She stood there for a moment as she realized it was just her and Jeffrey alone in the brownstone now, indefinitely, until Mason returned. Somehow she had just ended up babysitting Mason’s salacious brother.