Warring Logics (Book 1 of The Institute of Fantasiological Studies)
The one where they walk (Chapter 11)

I exit the front door of the Weiß coven feeling apprehensive, but encouraged. It was a productive meeting and Weiß was open to helping me with whatever I needed to complete my work.

The crispness of the early fall wind rustles through the trees as I walk down the sidewalk. This part of the city is so near the university campus I am almost tempted to walk by and see if anyone hanging around the institute even though I know it is closed.

I breathe in the smell of the damp leaves littering the sidewalk and open my purse to fish out my phone. I look up Tobias’s contact details and begin texting. Tobias gave me heck for not responding to him immediately after I got home from von Graf’s party, of course, he still doesn’t know I didn’t make it home on my own…

“What are you doing?”

Ugh, and there is the one who brought me home now.

Albert steps out from a side street to stand next to me. He’s casually dressed today in slim jeans and a button-down and blue V-neck sweater. I was shocked this morning when he picked me up to see a vampire wearing something so casual. But now I’m guessing its true purpose- it’s easier to sneak up on me in casual clothing.

He uses his tall frame to lean over me, peering down at what I am texting which causes me to hold my phone to my chest so he can’t read it.

I nervously glance back at the Weiß coven house. I purposely left Albert at a café on Grüneburgweg a couple of blocks south of here telling him I was meeting a potential interviewee at another café only a block up the street. I didn’t want him to know I was meeting Mr. Weiß. I sigh, well the cat is out of the bag now.

“I’m texting, what does it look like?”

He clicks his tongue, “I meant visiting the Weiß coven.” He looks around “this isn’t good,” he says more to himself than to me.

He places his hand on my back and leads me down the street, away from the coven and towards the city center, not saying a word to me and his eyes searching the surroundings for something.

Its odd behavior and so I keep my mouth shut, my eyes also roam the nearby sidewalk and street for any clue as to what he is looking for.

I hear Albert mumble something about talking to his Primus.

“What?” I ask.

Albert stops dead on the sidewalk beside a row of Wilhelminian residential buildings, the kind that covers the residential areas of the Westend that were not destroyed during the war.

“I need to make a call.” He doesn’t wait for me to answer; he takes his phone out of his pocket and dials, before holding it up to his ear and pacing the sidewalk. He begins saying some mumble-german-jumble into the phone, I hear the word primus several times.

I use this moment to finish my text to Tobias, setting up a meeting with him. I need to tell him about my new shadow vampire.

Albert hangs up the phone “Come on, let’s get you home and you are not to meet with the Weiß coven again”

“I need to go grocery shopping” I start walking down the street.

“Fine” I hear a hint of annoyance in his voice “but let’s do that closer to your apartment” he easily catches up with me using his long legs. Ugh, I hate that I am so much shorter than him.

Picking up on his annoyance, “I don’t need you to come with me”

“My Primus would disagree”

“Well tell your Primus that he is not my father and I can meet whoever I want”

Albert starts laughing hysterically, “I would hope not! You’re funny. Anyways, that was Hans, not the Primus, if I called the Primus he would lock you in a room and throw away the key”

“What?!” I stop dead on the sidewalk.

“Come on” Albert encourages me to keep walking “It’s just a figure of speech” and then I hear him whisper to himself “mostly”

We stop at a street corner waiting for the pedestrian light to turn green and I turn to ask him “remind me again why your Primus cares what I do?”

“He feels responsible for-“

I interrupt what I am sure would be an uninformative repeat of what he told me the other day “Does he feel responsible for every woman he comes across?”

Albert laughs again, “Of course not”

I look at him waiting for further elaboration, but the irritating vampire just watches the light.

Eventually I give in, “so?”

“The light is green Alexis” he places his hand again on my back and pushes me forward so I cross the street while it’s still green.

It’s odd. I’ve been touched more in the past week than I have all year. My family is back in the states and I don’t really know anyone over here well enough that they would touch me and with the coronavirus people stay further away than ever. Yet these vampires had no problem putting their hands on me, I suppose being immune to the virus makes you more handsy.

His silence tells me that the discussion is over and I replace Mr. von Graf’s worry over me weird and overbearing. I’ll need to speak with Tobias about it.

As we finish crossing the Albert decides to speak again “Hans has agreed to be your first interviewee”

“He has?” my mind flashes to the flirty handsome vampire I met at von Graf’s party.

“Well he doesn’t know it yet, but he will” Albert mutters.

“What?” I question what I heard.

“Never mind. Come on, let’s get you cheese or spaghetti or whatever you humans call food these days”

*****

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