Story numero trois!
after the angst-ville of marls last story, my sister demanded 'bring back teh funny!' which, essentially, meant bring back her butt-kicking self. this however, made the main character easier to write, since their conversations are essentially my sister and my conversations. i'm going to try and make this story more action-y than the others, but no promises. i'm trying which is what counts, right?
"It's just an ear infection," Dr. Chavez said, taking the cold thingy out of my ear.
"Bud I can'd hear oud of id!" I protested, trying to sniff and failing horribly, my nose was so blocked.
"It should clear up in a couple of days," he said, typing at his computer.
"A couple of days?" I exclaimed. "I can't go through life half deaf!"
Dr. Chavez, quite used to my overreactions after five years of me going to him, just smiled. "I'll write you up a prescription for some antibiotics. That should help."
I pouted. "Fine." I hopped off the bed, the paper crinkling as I left it.
"Anything else?" he asked, handing me a sheet after signing it.
I folded it and put it in my oversized tote. "No, I think that's it. Is this for me or Lassie?"
Lassie was my pretend pooch. Being half loup garou that I was, occasionally I had to take more canine oriented medication than the normal person.
Dr. Chavez smiled. "You. See me again if it doesn't get better."
"Right-o."
Dr. Chavez was the resident doctor for us non-sapiens, being both an MD doctor and a veterinarian. It was a good thing he was a vamp, because getting simply one doctorate took a long time, not to mention two.
I once asked him why if he was a vamp, he didn't just heal people. (I think I had whooping cough at the time, and was quite put out that he wouldn't heal it for me.) He replied that he didn't think that the vampire way of healing people was necessarily the best way, as it doesn't allow people's systems to build up a resistance to pathogens or something like that. I think he was just worried about being out of a job.
I walked back into the waiting room where my friend Jessica was flipping through a three month old issue of People.
"You done?" she asked, looking up.
"Yeah," I said. "We need to go to the pharmacy."
She gave me an exasperated look as she stood. "You know I love you, June, but good grief, you have the worst immune system ever."
I nodded morosely. "I know. It's true."
I blamed it on my heritage. Simply put, I was a hybrid. My father was a vampire, but his soulmate, my mother, was a loup garou, more commonly known as a werewolf. Dr. Chavez says that my genes tend to almost battle each other, and thus I have a little less than impeccable health. Luckily, it was nothing major, mostly just allergies and a tendency to catch every cold that came around, but sometimes it felt as though I was never going to breathe out of my nose (which is a real pain when you're a wolf.)
We pulled up our hoods against the downpour and made a mad dash to the car.
I slid into the passenger seat, dropping my bag at my feet and pushing back my hood.
"This weather is wreaking havoc on my hair," I said, pushing at the frizzy mass of red hair that evaded every attempt to be confined by an elastic.
"Mine too," Jess said, staring in the rear view mirror and trying to fluff her roots. "Can I borrow some of your volume?"
"Only if you take some of the frizz with it," I said with a laugh, shaking the rain out of my hair and letting it return to its natural colour, a greyish brown tipped in black. That was another thing. Because my genes fought with each other, they tended to push their attributes out in my natural state. Luckily, the vamp genes seemed to predominate a little more, so I looked relatively human with wolfish hair, ears, and nails, as opposed to a wolf with a face. I could, however, change my appearance between wolf, vamp, and human, although I had a tendency to lose my concentration when I sneezed and revert back to hybrid.
Along with that, I had the vampiric trait of being able to change form into any animal I wanted, but it took loads of concentration and I could only do it for a short time. Still, it was handy as long as I didn't mind being naked when I returned to normal.
"At least your hair has life," Jess said, giving up on her hair and starting the car. "The only way my hair would have life is with three bottles of hairspray and a defibrillator."
I rolled my eyes, giggling. "Maybe that's how – "
"Wait," Jessica interrupted, holding up her hand. "I think something's going on over there."
I shut up instantly, having known Jess long enough to trust her instincts.
Jess squealed her little four door couple into the street, ignoring the angry honks that it resulted it. Changing lanes like a mad woman, she finally turned into a strip mall that was closed for the night. We drove around the back and parked, as she killed the lights.
"Here we go," I said, mostly to myself, pulling up my hood.
Jess did the same, and grabbed her crossbow and a black bag that rivalled the size of mine from the back seat.
We exited the car. Jess placed a stake into the crossbow, brought it up to her shoulder, and fired. There was an audible 'thunk' even through the rain, followed by the angry shouts of several men.
We walked towards the mall where four vamps stood around two young women who were on the ground, dazed, several small holes in their necks. Another vamp was slumped against the brick wall, a stake protruding from his chest.
"Who the fuck are you?" a blond man with spiky hair snarled at his, his fangs flashing in the dim streetlight.
"Now that's not nice," Jess said, frowning. "I'm merely here to tell you to leave these women alone, or you might regret it."
He laughed, a harsh sound. "Hear that guys? Buffy wannabe here thinks she's going to stop us." The others laughed. Spiky hair turned to us, and made a menacing gesture. "Get out of here, unless you'd like to end up like these bitches."
"Listen, you parasitic sons of slime," Jess stated. "First, you attack these nice ladies here. Then you make me get out of the car in this downpour, effectively ruining any chance my hair might have had. Now, you're simply pissing me off. So you can either shove off, or you can be eliminated."
"Drama much?" I murmured to Jess. I stood slightly behind her, my arms crossed over my chest. I didn't fight the vamps (that was Jess' job), but I did stick around to make sure she didn't get into too much trouble.
"Shut up," she muttered back.
The four remaining vamps took one look at each other and rushed Jess all at once. They mustn't have been too old as they were rather slow for male vampires. She shot one in the chest, causing him to fly backwards. He didn't poof into dust (myth), but he was down for the count. The other three were too close for her, so she threw her crossbow to me, and dug a stake out of her large black bag, kicking the first vamp in the chest as she did so. She hit spiky blond guy in the face with her bag. It was the third unlucky one who got the stake in the chest.
Contrary to popular belief, a stake to the chest a dead vampire did not make. There was only really two ways to kill a vampire. One: remove something unregeneratable, ie, head or heart. Way number two: cook them out in the sun for a couple of hours. For some reason, vamps can't regenerate sun damage as easily as other damage. Sure, a couple minutes here or there only results in a nasty sunburn that'll clear up in a couple of hours, but any longer than that isn't very healthy at all.
One can, however, keep a vamp in a state of semi-death by stopping the heart, using a stake, bullet, soup spoon, etc. As soon as that object is removed, however, they can be revived as easy as A positive. Same as if you bleed them dry.
"Behind you," I said to Jess calmly. She delivered a pretty strong mule kick to the knee of the vampire sneaking up behind her, before spinning around and punching him in the jaw. She dug another stake out of her black tote and barely looking, staked blond spiky guy in the chest.
The third guy cut his losses and ran. Jess walked over to me as we watched him disappear into the night.
"You going to chase after him?" I asked, hoisting the crossbow to my shoulder.
She snorted and pulled out a cell phone. "Not in this weather."
She typed in Calc's number and held the phone to her ear. "Hey. Yeah, behind Riverside Mall. Three… no four, I forgot one. Yeah. Yeah. Bye."
As she talked, I walked over to the two women, and made sure they were still alive. The one woman was whimpering softly, but they seemed to be none too worse for the wear.
I leaned down, wiping my nose on my sleeve, and looked the whimpering one in the eye, giving her mind a push into falling asleep like I had been taught by my aunt. Her head dropped to her chest and her breathing deepened. I did the same for her friend.
Jess and I stood in the rain, waiting for the reinforcements to arrive.
"This isn't helping my cold any," I complained to my friend, frowning at the rain that was dripping off my nose.
She gave me a condescending look. "You can go sit in the car, princess."
"I'm just saying," I protested, making a face.
"I'm just saying," she repeated mockingly.
"You mock my pain," I said with a pout, again trying to sniff and failing. I'll need Vicks after this.
"Life is pain, princess. Anyone who says differently is selling something."
We grinned at each other, like we always did when we fell into quoting movies.
After a couple minutes, a large black van and a small black car came driving up.
"I should have guessed it was you two," our friend Marguerite said, climbing out of the passenger seat of the van, wearing a trendy yellow and pink polka dotted poncho.
Jess grinned. "You're just jealous cause you weren't here," she said.
Mar snorted. "Yeah, because I love standing around in the pouring rain." Several other witches and a couple vamps began loading the bodies into the van, and making sure no one could tell that there had been a battle here.
"Jessica, Jessica," a familiar smirky voice said, "couldn't you have picked a little nicer night to do this?" Calc sauntered up to us, somehow still looking pristine with his hair plastered to his head. Didn't the man own a raincoat?
"Tell them that," Jess said, pointing a finger at the vamps being loaded into the van. "I'm like the post office; I work rain, snow, or shine."
"And dangerous when cornered," Calc murmured.
Mar and I exchanged glances. Those two were soulmates. Anyone within fifty feet could see it, except for them, of course.
Jess started to blush, making her freckles pop out. "Besides, I'm not a lump of sugar that'll melt in the rain, Calc."
Calc gave her a charming grin and raked an approving look over her.
"I don't know," he drawled. "You look pretty sweet to me."
Her blush deepened, and I could tell she didn't have a suitable retort by the way she clenched her jaw and her blue eyes blazed.
He gave a glance back towards his blue car where the two women were being loaded into the backseat.
"Seems I'm making a trip to the hospital," Calc noted. He paused, throwing the seething Jessica a charming grin. "You have my number. Call me when you want to have some real fun." He turned and sauntered back towards the car.
Jess made a face at his back before stooping to the ground and grabbing a sizable pebble, lobbing it at him. It hit him square on the back of his head, and he whipped around to glare at her. Her face immediately adopted that so-innocent-it-was-guilty look, her eyes shining with laughter.
He shook his head, and got into his car.
Mar snorted again. I would have too, if I could breathe through my nose.
"You two are children," she said.
"He started it!" Jess protested.
"Children, I say."
"I think the night calls for cheesecake," I announced, heading back towards the car.
"Hy's?" Mar asked.
"You know it," Jess replied.
"You guys going to be okay?" Mar yelled out to the others.
"Yeah," one of the witches replied. "We're pretty much done."
We climbed into Jess' car and drove to the restaurant. Hy's used to be a regular place for us, but after Mar's marriage, it became a rarer event. Still, when her husband Ryan was working late at the precinct, we liked to take to the town.
I made sure to turn my hair back to red before pushing back my hood.
"Ladies," came a voice that immediately caused a blush to start up my neck. "How are we doing tonight?" It was James, the blond hunk of a waiter who I had had a crush on since we first ever set foot in the restaurant a couple of years ago.
"We're a little wet," Mar laughed, pulling off her poncho and straightening her brown hair. "Other than that, we've been having a great night."
"That's great. We have a table set up for you." He gave us a megawatt smile, and I felt my stomach bunch up a little. I tried to smile, but it felt shaky, so I tried to look mildly interested instead.
"Perfect," Jess said.
We followed him to a table up at the back.
"The usual tonight, girls?" he asked, holding menus under his arm just in case we refused.
"You know it," Jess said with a nod.
"Be right back, lovelies," he said with a wink that caused me to duck my head.
"He was totally checking you out," Mar said, leaning forward conspiratorially.
"Was not," I scoffed, wishing I had a menu just so I could have something to occupy my hands. As it was, they were twisting themselves into a deathknot like they always did when I was uncomfortable.
Mar and Jess gave me a look. I knew they weren't so stupid as to not know that I had a huge crush on him, but every time they asked me, I vehemently denied it. It was just way too embarrassing.
"Here we are," James announced, sailing up to us with a tray of drinks. "An appletini for the vampire hunter, a Mai-Tai for the newly wed, and a gin and tonic for the lovely June." I accepted my drink with a blush and a smile.
"And the piece de resistance," he said in a bad French accent, "a piece of New York cheesecake, cranraspberry sauce on the side." He gave us another wink. "I cut it extra big, just for you ladies."
"Oh, James," Mar laughed, pick up her fork in anticipation, "think of our hips!"
I know that it was just because I was on the outside, but James was gave me a flirty lookover. "You all look way too good to be worrying about that."
If I blushed any harder, I'm sure I would have lit my hair on fire, but managed to speak through my embarrassment and say, "You're just saying that because if we think we're too fat, we won't come back here for more cheesecake and you'll lose some of your best tippers."
James laughed and held up his one hand. "Scouts honour. Enjoy the cheesecake, ladies."
"He was totally flirting with you," Mar said as soon as James disappeared to wait on some other customers.
"He was totally not," I denied, before taking a sip of my drink. The bitterness of the alcohol exploded on my tongue, leaving a tingly aftertaste that I loved. "He was just being nice. Because that's how you get tips."
"He gave you a lookover," Jessica said, digging into the cake with relish. "Don't tell me that's not flirting."
"You should ask him out," Mar said, dipping her piece of cheesecake in the sauce before putting it in her mouth.
"Maybe," I wavered. Was he really flirting with me? It was almost unbelievable. Men did not flirt with Juniper Lefebvre. Sometimes they were set up on blind dates with her, but eventually got frustrated when she did nothing but look down and blush into her dinner. Unless of course, they mentioned art or work or movies, when she would jump in with useless trivia and bore them to death.
Of course, that didn't happen with Peter, but that was a whole different lying, cheating, backstabbing, weasel-penis faced kettle of fish.
"Everything alright ladies?" James said, smiling, his eyes connecting with mine.
Mar gave me a sharp kick to the shin.
"Um…" I stammered, beet red, "could you… I mean… um… can I… would you… get me a glass of water?"
"Sure thing," he chirped. "Be back in a jiff."
I dug into the cheesecake again, ignoring the heavy sighs from my table partners. I'll be brave later.