![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
booksabaking Isha's right leg throbbed with each step, threatening to buckle under her weight. Her pants were stiff with unhelpfully drying blood. At least it's not mine.
She swallowed against both her heart and bile rising in her throat.
"Where are we going?" Rahul shouted. He had a steady grip on her arm, the two of them hobbling along together. They'd likely need to run soon. Isha considered asking him to let go of her.
"Downstairs, main room!" Jayla shouted back over the piercing shriek coming from the 'music box' that a minute ago had been a man. "We need to have Jesse," she nodded at said wailing box, "down there as soon as possible. Can you run?"
"Doubtful."
The pack's vampire had already taken off, disappearing out the door and down the hall after whispering instructions to Jayla. The other, older vampire writhed among glass shards, hands clamped over her ears. Isha tried to ignore the pool of blood on the floor and how it coated her own hands and clothes.
"What's the range on that?"
Jayla gave a far too wide grin. "I have no idea! I also don't know why we didn't go in with it on in the first place. I'm just following orders at this point. If you two want to take the ladder out, I completely understand."
Isha shook her head before Rahul could be logical and reasonable.
"We're staying." She bit back a groan as her leg protested. "You clearly need to be careful with your music box friend and that means you need someone to watch your back."
Jayla gave her leg a pointed look. Isha ignored this.
"Rahul, can you get the guard snake going again?"
"Sorry, no. Miss Sledge will have to take a look at it when we get back." He hissed a breath of air through gritted teeth. "I'm a bloody useless witch."
"Nah, don't think like that." Jayla had her eyes straight ahead again. She walked carefully, like a first time waiter carrying a bowl of soup. "You're a newbie. Newbies are allowed to be unsure of things. I mean, I'm a newbie werewolf and the rest of the group don't expect me to be able to shift willy-nilly. I think it's awesome that you can do magic at all!"
Rahul gave a nervous but pleased laugh. "Thanks."
Isha had to smile. It had been a long time since Rahul had gotten earnest praise, especially when it came to his gifts. Jayla didn't need to know Rahul was lamenting his lack of non-lethal spells.
"Would have been nice to be able to help out though."
"Then stay ahead of her and stab anything that attacks." Isha pulled her arm free and gave him a shove. "I'll keep watch behind us. Jayla, you keep on not dropping your friend."
Jayla and Rahul, the fools, both stopped to look at her. She bit back a curse. They'd only made it halfway down the hall; halfway to the door that would take them to the walkway they'd need to traverse before they got to the main room. Far too many steps left.
"Yes, I'm sure. Yes, I can walk." Her leg hurt but hadn't given out. "Get a move on you two! We've already used up at least three of our fifteen minutes."
With a final raised eyebrow Rahul turned around and took the lead. Jayla kept her eyes fixed on the screeching music box, walking on trembling legs. Isha did her best to keep pace, which thankfully wasn't too difficult. Before long, they'd stepped out onto the walkway.
And then… Damnation.
I really hope this is part of the plan.
The other nine enemy vampires had ended up in the warehouse's main room. They lay on the ground, covering their ears with arms, hands or clothes, all but foaming at the mouth. The pack was there too, minus Arturo. They stood lined up under the metal walkway, all in human form.
That was not the problem. The problem was the two dozen armed men and women also in the room, weapons cocked and aimed at the pack. They didn't look like witches.
"I was wondering where that infernal noise was coming from," a man at the head of the group shouted, glaring up at Jayla. She instinctively cupped her hands further around Jesse, as if the man's eyes alone could push her off balance and send her friend tumbling to whatever fate awaited a shapeshifter that took damage in inanimate form.
"I see you have hostages."
Having stopped a little bit out on the walkway with her back against the wall, Jayla could see in her periphery how Isha straightened up into parade rest.
"No hostages, sir. We're here of our own free will."
"Is that so. Rahul?"
Rahul too had taken on a soldier-like pose. "Yes, sir."
No way of telling what emotions their words contained other than 'loud' since Jesse's continued screeching almost drowned them out.
"We'll talk later."
What an arrogant asshole! Okay, she'd only heard him speak a handful of words, but damn if the man didn't have Big Asshole Energy.
"Attention on me, please."
Below, Lisa took a step away from the rest of the pack, arms crossed over her chest. It took some guts to stand that straight-backed and unflinching in the face of twenty-plus guns, particularly when wearing zero clothes.
Asshole didn't look impressed, but did as asked. The rest of the people with him split their attention between the pack and the walkway. It didn't feel that great to have loaded weapons aimed at your head. In fact, it felt utterly terrifying. Jayla froze to the spot, which, in a roundabout way, was lucky. Less risk of dropping Jesse if she couldn't move. Every cloud and all that bullshit.
"As I said, I want you to leave this town and never come back." Lisa's voice carried over Jesse's shrieks, even and loud, though she didn't shout. The perfect lecture voice. "The police will be here any minute. You'd better make yourselves scarce, if you know what's good for you."
"Lady, you've got silver-coated bullets heading your way the second I twitch a finger," Asshole said. He might have chuckled too but it was hard to hear. "What in hell's name makes you think you're calling the shots right now?"
"This."
A blur rushed through the room. A shot rang out, followed by two more, almost like an afterthought.
Jayla threw herself against the wall and cradled Jesse to her chest, curling in on herself. She didn't feel hurt, but she hadn't remembered to check if there was truth to that idea that bullet wounds only hurt after a moment. It took her two shallow gasps to dare uncurl her fingers and peek at Jesse.
Not a scratch. She bit back a sob of relief.
"What did you do?"
Looking down through the walkway's grates Jayla could see the hunters - because they had to be hunters - all whirling around in place, aiming their rifles left and right with little rhyme or reason. The smell of blood was fresh in the air and it was coming from them.
"I didn't do anything. My friend here did all the work." Lisa gestured at the figure that had stopped next to her. Despite only seeing the back of the person's head, Jayla knew it had to be Arturo. Everyone else who could move that quickly lay squirming on the floor. "He thought it handy to give you all Blood Marks, pardon the pun."
"What?"
The hunters froze in unison, all eyes fixed on Lisa and Arturo. Some of them brushed their hands across their shoulders and backs, patting themselves down. A few gasped. Jayla suspected their fingers had come away bloody.
"Allying with vampires is always risky." You could hear the patronizing smile in Lisa's voice. "They might turn on you, given the right incentive. Would you like to stick around and see what happens when I ask my friend upstairs to turn off the music?"
None of the hunters moved. Asshole and two others at the center of their group exchanged angry looks.
"If it's any consolation, you'll help me win a bet if you stay!" Vivian crowed, all but jumping in place. "I promise to split my winnings with anyone who survives."
Only the continued wailing of the music box followed her words.
Arturo stopped next to Lisa, left hand still smeared with his own blood, and did his best to keep his expression under control. He couldn't flinch. He couldn't show any emotion, absolutely couldn't look up at Jayla and the hunters on the walkway.
Look smug. He didn't feel the least bit smug, only worn thin and close to trembling.
Keeping up with the conversation was a challenge. The earplugs helped filter out the higher frequencies that would have sent him to the floor, but knowing the screeching came from a person trapped in the shape of a box sent him reeling all on its own. The hunger his Maker had stoked in him had been terrible, yet it had nothing on the knowledge that Jayla could drop Jesse or a stray bullet could graze the music box and that would be it.
Arturo tried not to picture that aftermath. Tried not to think of how many pieces their original music box had ended up in, and how that would translate to a human body. It was about as easy as not thinking about polar bears once you'd mentioned them a hundred times and then thrown in a discussion about the effects of global warming on North Pole fauna for good measure.
He had to distract himself. This led him to dwell on how many ways their plan could go wrong outside of the music box issue. These weren't fresh-faced hunters; only a handful of them looked to be younger than their forties. If as much as one of them had interrogated a vampire for their secrets, this plan would blow up in their faces.
Literally. In the form of silver bullets.
"What's it going to be?" Lisa had taken on the bearings of a queen, utterly calm and detached despite the number of guns aimed at her face. "The music will play itself out and you'll all be in quite the predicament. Will you retreat?"
Muffled cursing broke out among the hunters. Arturo shifted his gaze from one to the other, tried to look hungry. Thankfully that took little effort. Or maybe not thankfully. Jesse's bared throat and calm words haunted him, how welcoming the man had been in defiance of the circumstances. The image had only gotten clearer and more alluring as he ran through the warehouse, smearing blood on two dozen hunters. His stomach twisted itself into knots.
Not the time. It's never the time for those kind of thoughts, you sick fuck. At least that horrible urge helped him keep a leer on his face. It was rather satisfying to see the hunters flinch. He made sure to open his mouth slightly, baring fangs as he eyed their jugulars, but stopped at licking his lips. There were lines of ridiculous drama he couldn't make himself cross.
"Fine," the hunt leader said at last, spitting the words at Lisa's feet like a glob of chewing tobacco. "You win this round, bitch."
Hearing that word used as an actual insult had an odd ring to it. Arturo fixated on that rather than the rest of the words, because otherwise he'd tumble off the edge of his self-control and rip the hunter's guts out.
"Woxell, you can't-!"
"You want a swarm of thirsty vampires to turn on us?" the hunt leader asked the woman who'd spoken, void of all emotion.
"We've handled worse odds," a man on the leader's other side said, kicking a floored vampire as if to demonstrate his own idiocy.
That boded well, actually.
"With a pack of werewolves ready to pick us off while the blood-suckers go for our throats?"
More muttering. More cursing. The hunters edged in on themselves, forming a tighter circle in the middle of the room. Three of them trained their rifles on the vampires.
"What's stopping us from taking out the vampires right now and dealing with you after?" the woman said, addressing Lisa directly. "You've served them up neatly for us."
Arturo's heart skipped a traitorous beat.
Lisa huffed a laugh, more seen than heard in the chaos of music box competing with groaning and crying vampires. "Then why haven't you shot them yet?"
None of the hunters answered. Arturo made himself smirk, trusting Lisa to carry this home.
"I think you could get a few of them if you tried." Lisa looked over at Vivian, who cocked her head to the side with an exaggerated frown and a finger tapping against her chin. "Maybe even half. But that leaves the other half alive, and you don't have eyes on all ten of them. Twenty-two humans facing down half a dozen blood-crazed vampires and a pack of werewolves? In close quarters?"
Lisa paused with a cold and sophisticated smile. Even the shriek of the music box seemed to fade for a second.
"Don't make me laugh. Silver-bullets won't save you." If she'd had her glasses she'd have pulled them down to look over the rim, to underline how much trouble the hunters were in. That's what she did whenever their adventuring party got themselves in a bad spot during game night.
"Again, give up now, leave town, and we'll keep the music box playing until you're out of harm's way. Return to your camp, wash your clothes, then go back to wherever you came from. There is no room for negotiation."
The hunters closest to the main door began backing toward it, rifles held high. They could still cover their escape with a hail of bullets. Arturo prayed they'd worry too much about the music box and the Blood Marks to dare risk it.
"Kids, you coming or not?"
Arturo didn't look up. Looking meant caring.
Five more minutes. Five more minutes and the gig was up. Those two better not go turncoat on us.
Arturo forced himself to stare straight ahead, to ignore the way all hunters' eyes turned up toward the walkway. Did his best to not count down the seconds.
He failed terribly.
288 seconds until they call our bluff. 285…284…
Isha had never experienced a panic attack. Not a true one. Magic-induced mimicries, yes, for practice against curses, but not the real deal. Until now.
She couldn't breathe.
"Kid?" Woxell, flanked by Emma and Jamerson, had his eyes trained on her. "I don't know what hold these creatures have over you, but you can come home. Fight them."
He knew Isha was the traitor. Knew she'd been the one to convince Rahul to join her in this. If she played her assigned role in this offered theater and then confessed, to all of it, they would take Rahul back. Keep him safe. Not leave him here with a group of people who'd either gotten around a truth spell or expertly faked one. Better the devil you know.
If she admitted her guilt, Rahul wouldn't be in the line of fire when the blood-drinking started.
"You okay?" Jayla asked.
Isha didn't take her eyes off Woxell.
"I get that this is a tense moment, but we've got like, five minutes tops before we run out of anti-vampire noise." Jayla's voice barely carried over the shriek of the music box. "Your mind has to be all over the place right now - I know mine is - but I don't think Lisa will let anyone get messed up. I haven't known her long so I can't guarantee anything, but please don't let Mister Asshole guilt you into going back to that cult down there. Alright?"
Woxell's blank gaze burned. He wore the expression he put on when waiting for people to disappoint him. It was far too familiar.
"Sis?" Even quieter in her other ear, barely audible. "Emma is trying to make us come with them. I don't know how long I can hold her off. Don't think I could've if Miss Sledge hadn't given me a focus to work with. Just…just so you know."
Isha tore her attention away from Woxell. She didn't look at Rahul, or Jayla, or the hunters who were making their way out of the warehouse. No, she focused on Emma and the frown she had trained on Rahul. The faint, telltale glow to her silhouette lit a match inside of Isha.
Those hypocrites!
Rahul still hesitated. Waiting for her to decide.
No time like the present.
"We're not going with you!" The words tore out of Isha in a scream, an earthquake wrecking through her whole frame, shaking off the magically imposed panic. "Leave!"
Her shout would have echoed through the warehouse if it hadn't been fighting the music box for air space.
Emma spat on the ground. Jamerson looked sad. Woxell remained blank.
The ever-present cacophony of the music box highlighted each second that passed them by. How long did they have left on this once-humanoid device? Two minutes? One? Three?
No panicking. No showing fear. Even breaths.
Emma was the first to leave. She shouldered her rifle and walked out, head held high. Jamerson followed right behind her, rubbing at his eyes with the back of his hand as if he actually had tears to shed over this. Maybe he did.
Woxell gave a nod. It wasn't the nod you gave a comrade or a respected enemy. It was the nod you gave yourself when coming to terms with a minor setback. He looked right through her as he lowered his gaze and turned around. He was the last of the hunters to go.
A minute passed in nail-biting tension. No hunters returned.
The pack's vampire darted out of the warehouse, a blur that vanished and returned in a heartbeat.
"They're on the run," he said. "Out of hearing range and not in position to set traps around the warehouse. We're clear."
"Thank fuck!" The curse escaped Jayla like a prayer. Isha watched her get up from her curled position against the wall, gently cupping the music-box-that-was-a-person in her hands while steadying herself with one shoulder against the concrete.
"Quick, we need to get down to the others!"
Isha followed on autopilot. If her flash of rage hadn't left her so numb, she'd have suspected the werewolves of the mind control Emma had attempted.
Mind control. Hunters with mind control. How were they any different from vampires, truly?
The werewolves, minus Jayla, embraced and gave victory shouts. Isha leaned on Rahul, her leg aching with a vengeance, as if to make up for her lack of emotions.
"I can't believe that worked," Vivian whisper-laughed, giddy as a child. "Lisa, you were amazing!"
Lisa held on to her queenly expression. "Wish I could have brought my glasses. Seeing their faces would have been a treat."
In the distance, police sirens. Was that the witches or had actual police been called?
"That's our cue to get to Melissa and Dorothy." Isha found herself pinned by eyes that didn't quite focus on her; Lisa apparently truly needed glasses. "Didn't expect you two to come this way. Did you get the hostages out?"
Isha nodded. Every bone in her body had doubled in weight. Rahul didn't waver in keeping her upright, but his attention strayed to the writhing and groaning vampires.
Jayla had stayed at the bottom of the staircase, holding the music box as far away from the pack's vampire as space would allow.
"What happens now?"
Vivian shrugged. "Nothing. We leave the music box here and it eventually runs out of battery. Ava and her friends will be here any minute to deal with the vampire cult. All we need to do is skedaddle."
"Except we can't do that."
All attention turned to Jayla.
"Why not?"
"Because the vampire's creepy cult leader broke the real music box." Jayla held up the tiny wooden object, screeching away like there was no tomorrow. "This is Jesse."
Isha found her eyes drawn back to the thing in Jayla's hands. Strange how she could accept people turning into wolves yet the knowledge that people also could turn into things sent her mind reeling.
"Are you serious?"
"Yup." Jayla grinned in terror. "He said about fifteen minutes ago that he could keep this shape for fifteen minute. We're running out of time."
"You do know what happens if you drop him?"
"He gave me a fairly good idea of how bad it would be, but no details, and I'd like to keep that level of ignorance. No real life demonstrations needed." She swallowed audibly. "Shouldn't we be running?"
"Calmly now." Lisa, taking the lead again. "Our friends here on the floor won't be fit-for-fight right away. Move slowly and stay together until we have Jesse back with us. We can alert Ava to the slight change in plans once we're all safe."
They began making their way toward the main door in tense silence, eyes darting between the music box in Jayla's hands and the vampires littering the floor. The shrieking had slowed a tad, ending up off-beat. That didn't improve the 'music'.
"Won't the vampires go after…" Isha couldn't pick a fitting term. "Won't they follow the people you've marked?"
"Doesn't work like that," Vivian said. She was keeping to the back of the group, walking backward with her eyes on the incapacitated vampires. "Blood Marks are only a thing between new vampires and the vampire that made them. We totally bullshitted that whole thing."
It took a second for the penny to drop. It dove right into Isha's chest and left her breathless.
The music box ground to a clicking, broken halt. They'd made it halfway across the parking lot outside the warehouse.
"Everybody run!"
Sprained ankle or no, adrenaline sent Isha shambling as fast as she could for the hole in the fence. Rahul had her by one arm, but there was no way they'd outrun a swarm of vampires, addled or no. We're going to die!
"Hop on!"
Isha didn't have time to question Vivian. Arguing would have done no good, since the very next second the woman was a wolf and Rahul had thrown her onto said wolf's back.
"Rahul, no!" Grabbing hold of Vivian's ruff with one hand, Isha tried to reach for her brother with the other. That proved unnecessary, because a furred and four-legged Lisa scooped him up and darted off. Isha couldn't tell if Rahul's resulting scream was a noise of terror or delight.
Vivian didn't follow, standing half-turned to look back at the warehouse.
"Ack!"
Isha twisted on Vivian's back, nearly unseating herself. Through the warehouse door she gleaned two of the still curled up vampires. Their arms had fallen to their sides, uncovering their ears.
Jayla too lay on the ground, pinned under the weight of the man who'd been the music box.
"Oh good, you didn't drop me," he said, disturbingly loud now that the shrieking had stopped. Isha's ears rang. "I see we're not out of trouble yet."
"Jesse!" Isha couldn't see Jayla's face but her voice cradled fragile joy. "Time to see if that bench pressing claim of yours is true."
Isha yelped in tandem with the shapeshifter as Vivian chose that moment to take off after Rahul and Lisa.
Isha had been horseback riding exactly once in her life. It had been a tremendous if terrifying experience. She'd on several occasions driven a car too fast, a number of those times fleeing the police.
Riding a werewolf was an experience somewhere in-between those two.
Air rushed against them in a gale as Vivian sped up. Isha had to throw herself forward and wrap her arms around the wolf's neck or be thrown off. Fur obscuring her vision made it difficult to take in her surroundings but she had no trouble hearing the sirens closing in on them. She shut her eyes then, fighting the vertigo that threatened to tear her to the ground.
Their flight did not last long. They skidded to a halt as quickly and suddenly as they'd begun running. Isha dared crack one eye open to check what had stopped them.
A great white wolf stood before her, a head taller than the parked cars around it.
"Dorothy, we need you to cover our escape and let Sledge know the music box is out of commission," the pack vampire said. Isha couldn't see him as the giant white wolf took up all of her attention. "Will you be all right? Is Melissa with the hostages?"
The white wolf bared its fangs in a terrible grin. Answer enough.
Isha tightened her grip on Vivian's neck, almost worried she'd strangle the poor woman, but her bloodied hands losing their hold seemed a likelier scenario. It was all getting a bit too much.
Strange how being aware of several awful things someone had done in no way helped you deal with the fact that you'd stabbed them. Viciously. Repeatedly. The dry blood on her clothes stank. The sense memory of the knife going into flesh had her in a cold sweat. The vampire had been left alive, yes, but not for a lack of trying on her part.
She'd trained to fight against unnaturals. She'd helped dispose of bodies. Ironically, this could be yet another step on the serial killer path Woxell seemed to have planned for her and Rahul, despite them breaking free from him. Though in the grand scheme of things, hadn't she done the right thing this time? She'd helped. They'd helped. All the hostages would be safe and far away from their kidnappers because they had chosen to intervene.
She clung to that knowledge as tightly as to Vivian.
"Are we going straight back to the house?" Jayla asked, in the loud manner of one temporarily deafened.
"The vampires already know where it is, so yes. No point wasting energy on ziggzagging." The pack vampire sounded out of breath. "I'll scout ahead, make sure the hunters aren't planning an ambush. The vampires should be easy for Sledge and hers to deal with, even with the change of plans. Trust me, a music box isn't something you recover from quick."
"I'll take your word for it!"
And they were off again.
The front door slammed shut. The locks slid back into place. There were likely other noises, but with the blood pumping in her ears and her breath coming in harsh gasps, Jayla had a hard time keeping track of anything more.
She did her best not to dump Jesse on the floor.
She failed.
"Ouch," he said, with no bite behind it.
"Sorry," she managed on the third attempt. She needed air. More air. All the air in the whole world.
"I've." She gasped. Tried again. "I've never run that far or that fast in my life. Absolutely." Another gasp. "Absolutely not while carrying anyone."
The faint noise of shifting skin and bone advertised Vivian's return to human shape.
"That was one mean fireman carry!" She held her hand up and Jayla took the offer, though with less force and enthusiasm than a proper high-five deserved.
"Is the house secure?" Lisa called from farther down the hall. She sounded fresh as a daisy. Probably not even sweating. Jayla couldn't straighten up to check. If she didn't stay bent over her lungs would assassinate her.
"Perimeter defenses active! No alarms, no camera alerts. Even with shaky wards, I'm giving us the all clear," Arturo answered from the basement. Werewolf hearing for the win.
"I'm calling Ava to make sure they got both the hostages and the vampires. You all take five and be ready to get back out there if need be."
"Easy for her to say," Melissa groaned from behind the chaise lounge. She'd joined them halfway through the run back and had led the way into the house on shaking legs. "She's got waaaay more stamina than all of us combined. Someone, bring me water! A bathtub full!"
She temporarily got herself into an upright position. Jayla managed to give her a thumbs up.
Jesse, who'd ended up next to the sofa instead of on it, gave a shaky smile. "Seeing as I'm not injured and haven't been running, I should probably make myself useful and get you all something to quench your thirst."
"Hold your horses, mister!" Vivian planted herself in Jesse's path, hands on her hips. Jayla flinched in sync with Jesse. Thankfully, Vivian continued with, "You've been kept prisoner by vampires. You don't need to be serving anyone water. Sit your ass down!"
Jesse didn't cower but his smile shrunk to a mere quirk of his lips.
"If you say so." He stayed in place as Vivian traipsed off toward the kitchen.
Jayla forced herself to form another coherent sentence.
"Hey." Okay, second time's the charm, "Hey, I don't think she meant that as an order."
Jayla's legs, both having been surprisingly cooperative given the circumstances, decided it finally was time to give in to gravity. She slumped down right next to Jesse and on instinct flung an arm over his shoulders. She remembered herself a second too late and froze.
Jesse froze too.
Soft snoring rose from behind the chaise lounge. Vivian was off in the kitchen. Lisa and Arturo were in the basement. Rahul had taken Isha to the nearest bathroom to tend to her ankle. They were, more or less, alone.
"Uhm," Jayla's brain helpfully supplied, having gone as offline as her legs. Her arm wasn't doing much better. "Sorry, didn't mean to-"
Jesse's hand clasped hers, pulled her closer. Without a word he leaned on her and went lax. Then he began shaking, face buried in her shoulder.
Jayla's first instinct was to draw him into a hug, but she stopped herself. She tried to get a good look at him without moving too much. He had no visible wounds but the smell of dried blood remained a strong presence and she hadn't forgotten Evil Stepaunt's horrifying villain speech.
"It's not that." The words rasped out of Jesse, unsteady and weary.
Jayla flinched. "It's not what?"
"You weren't too late in getting me out. I'm fine." He caught himself, paused, then continued, "Poor choice of words. What I meant to say is that some things are inherently sexual. Others can be sexual but aren't always. Vampires bites, for example."
Avoiding a true hug was no longer an option. Jayla pulled Jesse in tight.
"I still think non-consensual blood drinking is pretty messed up." Understatement of the year. Going the 'not as bad as it could have been' route, huh?
"Like non-consensual face-punching. It, pardon the pun, sucked, but not in the way I think you fear it did." The shaking had grown fainter, more controlled. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I'd pick donating blood to a bunch of vampires over being an inanimate object any day."
"That was scary as all hell," Jayla agreed. "Saved all our asses, so thank you, but let's make a pact to never ever have to do that again."
Jesse's ensuing silence had a disbelieving quality to it.
Jayla had just enough presence of mind left to put two and two together. Her arms cramped, resisting the urge to hug him tighter still. His weren't the bones she wanted to break.
"You didn't think we'd come for you?"
She got a shaky chuckle in reply. "You barely know me. Why would I think you'd storm a vampire nest for me? Especially since I... Well..."
"What? You thought we'd leave you to be a human juice box because you didn't tell us you knew Ava?" A lie of omission that got no one but yourself hurt didn't warrant any outrage in Jayla's book.
"I kinda failed to mention I had vampires chasing me because I stole a magic staff from them," Jesse muttered into her shirt. "People tend to take umbrage with missing out on that kind of information."
Jayla shrugged, careful to keep the hug secure.
"I don't think this lot is the type to hold a grudge," she offered, because she genuinely believed they wouldn't. "As for me, I never got to the grudge stage to begin with. We're okay. If you're okay?"
A moment of hesitation.
"I will be. This isn't my first rodeo. I'll just need a day or two, to put myself back together."
All kinds of ominous that.
"Dude, I know there's likely no therapy for what you just went through," or was there? If preternaturals could be private eyes, mechanics and antiques store owners, why not therapists? Save for later, stay on track! "but you've been through something godawful and you deserve all the recovery time in the world. We'll-, I'll look out for you until you feel up to doing it yourself, okay?"
Jesse made a questioning noise.
"I'm guessing you haven't slept much in the last twenty-four hours, you've lost blood, and you spent fifteen minutes of this morning as a thing." If she'd read him right, he too preferred horrific stuff to be put bluntly. "The second I can stand back up, I'm making this couch into a bed and we're taking a nap. Lisa hasn't come running up from the basement yet so I think we're in the clear to get some well deserved shut-eye."
Jesse's fingers curled around the wrist of the hand she had slung over his shoulders.
"Do you want to talk about things? Get stuff off your chest?" Way to be original there. Though straightforward was what she'd decided to go for, so best stick with it.
"You know what?" Jesse's voice lowered as he cuddled yet closer to her. "I actually do."
"Start whenever you want. My legs aren't working yet."
Vivian appeared in the doorway with a pitcher and a couple of glasses. She didn't stay long, only put the water down where they could reach it and mumbled something about heading down to the basement to see what Lisa had heard from Ava. Melissa continued to snore away in her corner.
"I've been on my own for a long time," Jesse said once they technically were alone again. "There aren't that many of us - what was it Miss Williams called us?"
He paused, thinking or stalling or both. Jayla let him.
"Preternaturals, that's the one. There's not a lot of us about. I guess keeping us a general secret would be tricky otherwise, even with the curse's dubious protection."
Curse? Better ask about that later. No interrupting now!
"But we tend to run into each other no matter where we go. At least in my experience. I'm sure Miss Williams has a theory on why that happens."
Lisa probably did. She'd likely know about that 'curse' thing too. Questions for later.
"I won't start from the beginning or we'll be here all night, but I've met very few pleasant werewolves until now. Or vampires for that matter."
"No previous D&D groups?"
Jayla worried she'd ground his monologue to a halt, but instead he laughed.
"No, no magical D&D groups. But I've always been an optimist at heart. Decent witches aren't exactly rare and they can do far more damage than any werewolf. When I heard word about an international group led by a pack who wouldn't eat me on sight, I got hopeful."
"So Lisa's online group is kinda famous?"
"Sort of." He shook less, as if his nerves were leaving him with his words. "It's bound to happen in a society as small and broken as ours. You hear rumors of magical research, ways to fix werewolves' nasty full moon habits, and you listen. I got myself involved. Tried to help 'the cause' as best I could, when I could."
Jayla let exhaustion quiet her. She would have liked to comment on how rad (yes, she'd have said rad, no shame) it was that he'd been stealing stuff for magical research, secret agenting his way across the country. But she'd already broken his momentum once; wouldn't do to risk that again.
"I've been working for Miss Sledge on and off for going on six years. Not that we've actually met before." Another shudder wracked through him, brief and violent. "You learn to watch your back and be cautious when you're on your own. One thing I didn't lie about was that you should find good people to surround yourself with." He swallowed. "As for the rest... I've done my best to never outright lie to any of you, but I haven't always achieved that ambition. I'm sorry."
Who was she kidding, she sucked at keeping quiet.
"Are you expecting me to blame you for that? Like you've pointed out, several times, we're all faster and stronger than you. I've turned into a super athlete over night and I've never even looked at a gym." She might go to one now, at least one time, just for the-Focus! "Can't blame you for wanting to make sure we're safe people to befriend."
"I didn't need to seek you out or 'test' you. I could have kept to myself."
"And us girls should never go to parties, never get drunk, never leave the house, and we'd be oh so safe." Might have laid on the sarcasm a bit thick there. But really!
Jesse snorted. "Point taken."
Jayla drew in her first truly deep breath since they'd left the warehouse. "Before you, or anyone else," she said, for the benefit of any werewolf-y ears that might be eaves-dropping, "go muttering about how you led vampires straight here, I'd like to shine a light on the fact that Lisa had the wand-thing already. Ava gave it to her, you didn't."
"But taking the wand was my idea."
"Was it?" Wish he'd look at me.
Jesse's face remained buried in her shirt.
"Six years is a long time to construct a picture of what someone wants." His words slowed down, took on the distant calm of his usual conversational tone. "The more I learned of the network Miss Sledge worked with, the more I wanted to give being a true part of it a shot. But I don't like to gamble, especially not with my life and freedom. Showing up at the network's base of operations to say 'Hi, I'm here to be recruited' didn't seem a wise plan. I've learned to come bearing gifts."
Jayla could picture it. She'd been in that position before though with much lower stakes. Showing up to parties you weren't quite invited to with weed or good booze usually got you in the door, even if the people inside wouldn't have given you the time of day otherwise.
"Additionally, I needed to make sure it wasn't all a front." More speaking from experience by the sound of it. "That's why I set to work actively seeking out an artifact that'd get Miss Sledge's attention. I needed to know if she'd let me handle things on my own. And she did. Therefore I sweet-talked my way into a vampire coven with an artifact that couldn't have been in worse hands."
He paused. His turn to take a deep breath. "I got too eager, burned a few bridges, and had to get out of dodge far quicker than intended. Angry vampires out for my blood were not part of the plan."
Another shiver. Jayla thought about getting a blanket, but her legs protested at the mere hypothetical of it. She reached for a glass of water instead.
"As I'm sure you've figured out by now, I didn't meet you on accident."
He waited for her to speak. She kept her mouth shut by drinking because how or why they'd met didn't matter. Also, the water was delicious.
"I wasn't targeting you specifically though I'm glad it ended up being you. No offense to the rest of the pack, but I meant it when I said you're the most chill werewolf I've ever gotten to know, and I honestly think you're a neat person over all."
"Thanks," Jayla said, and meant it.
A brief bout of silence followed. Jayla offered Jesse water which he happily downed. Lisa talking on the phone drifted up from the basement but Jayla didn't focus enough to hear what she said. In the close-by bathroom, Rahul and Isha had a loud conversation going, but they weren't yelling. The soft clacking of a computer keyboard signaled Arturo going to work, while Vivian talked at him. Melissa kept snoring.
"I was a fucking idiot about this whole situation."
"A fucking idiot how?"
Jesse put his glass down before he leaned back to look up at her. Whatever he saw in her expression - Jayla honestly couldn't tell what she was feeling right then so her face could have been doing anything - he said:
"I'm terrible at relaxing around people who can't crush my throat with a flick of their wrist. As you can imagine, that makes me beyond cagey when hanging out with fellow preternaturals."
Jesse remained hard to read but Jayla could swear he looked sadder than usual. It was something in his eyes that had changed, lost a bit of that odd mix of theatrical and guarded.
"I've got a bad habit of playing games to get the lay of the land, that sort of thing. Which reminds me, I'm going to need help thinking up a good way to apologize to your resident vampire before I leave."
"Do you want to leave?" Hard to read or not, Jesse didn't sound like a man eager to find the nearest exit.
He didn't answer.
Jayla shifted to keep Jesse in the hug while looking him square in the eye. "Listen. No one is keeping you here, because we're normal people and normal people don't do that."
Her words caught up with her.
"Okay, so we're normal for a given value of normal. Whatever. No one in this house should hold a grudge against you for being careful about who you trust. We already knew about the vampires and the hunters coming for the wand. You weren't exactly keeping vital information secret." Another thing tapped her on the metaphorical shoulder. "Why do you need to apologize to Arturo, specifically? Is it about the blood thing?"
For the first time in their admittedly short acquaintance, Jesse looked visibly embarrassed; both pale and flushed, eyes darting off to stare at the ceiling.
"I still could have told you about my connection to the vampires."
"Had you seen any of them in town before they showed up here and took you?"
"No."
"Then you didn't actually know they'd found you and you didn't know they were mugging for the mansion cameras. You weren't the only one forgetting to share things." Knowing they'd been after Jesse as well as the wand might have changed things, but it would hardly have Solved Everything. No point in what-if-ing this. "Don't think I didn't noticed how you're avoiding my Arturo question."
That got her a tired smile.
"No hiding from you I see." He swayed a little and Jayla allowed him to settle back down into the hug, head resting against her shoulder, leaving her with a view of his green and blue hair and little else. I get it. Some things are easier to talk about without eye contact.
"I couldn't believe my luck when I first saw him," Jesse eventually whispered into the fabric of her t-shirt. "A half-starved vampire in the middle of a werewolf pack? A pack made up of actual decent people? That's a golden opportunity for a guy like me."
It was Jayla's turn to shiver. "Okay, that's supervillain dialogue, just so you know."
"Believe me, I know." Still whispering. "I hate slipping into that mindset. But I was running from people who wanted me either dead or enslaved, and this place more than lived up to the rumors. So I poked and I prodded. I thought…"
Another laugh. A very much not happy one.
"I thought I could make myself indispensable here; a 'safe' option for a vampire starving himself. I wanted to secure that before you found out about the trouble coming for me. It was quite a surprise to be turned down."
"He didn't bite?" The chuckle it got her made the stupid pun worth it.
"Nope, perfect gentleman, though a rightfully pissed off one." Jesse let out shaky sigh. "Which is why I should apologize and leave. It takes two to tango or it's sexual harassment."
"Are you serious?" Jayla shook her head to clear it. It wasn't as if she'd heard everything going on between Jesse and Arturo. "Not about sexual harassment being a thing, because it definitely is, but you think you've-"
"I've come on crazy strong. He's not been thrilled. I should have realized that sooner and backed off, but I couldn't think of another way to be useful to the pack. Thus I kept blinding myself to the very clear 'no' he was implying, until he had to say it out loud."
"If being 'useful' was a requirement for joining this group, I wouldn't be here."
"You're plenty useful." Jesse straightened up further, facing the couch and resting his chin on her shoulder. He was all but in her lap and it felt… Nice. Comfortable. It had been ages since she'd had a friend who'd cuddle with her without it turning into a sex thing.
"By which I mean you're a good friend, Jayla, as well as a woman of many talents. You wouldn't have needed an automatic in here. I, on the other hand-"
Jayla grabbed him gently by the back of the neck and maneuvered him to look her in the eye again. He didn't resist. He'd plastered on a good poker face, but it held nothing of his customary smirk-y 'I know a thing you don't'-air.
"Jesse," she said, making sure she could be heard all throughout the house by anyone paying attention, "do you want to leave?"
No answer this time either. He began to shiver again, soft tremors rushing through his arms and legs, down the back of his neck.
"Because if you want to, or if the others make you, I'm coming with."
Impulse control? Who needed impulse control?
Jesse's eyes widened to a comical degree. Jayla knew her smile had to look triumphant. On the right track!
"I mean it," she said because all she saw in Jesse's eyes was disbelief. "I know what it's like to have to look out for number one all the time. It sucks. I'm not going to ask you for details, but from what you've hinted at, it sounds like you've been on the run for a long ass time. That's not good for anyone."
"Jayla."
She cut him off. "I'm pretty good at telling when someone's being a fake friend. Learned that the hard way, but we're talking junior high hard, not getting kidnapped hard. The point is that I think you're a great friend. Harassing Arturo? Shitty, yes, but you didn't do it for fun. Wanting to survive isn't evil. Plus, answer me this: why did you go out into the backyard in the first place?"
"I…" He trailed off, eyes flickering to look toward the back garden.
Heading for that level 10 friendship limit.
"All right, all right, we can talk about that later." She suspected she knew, but she wouldn't push. "But, you literally tried to bargain yourself to a group of vampires to get them out of our hair. We've got that on tape. You told me and Arturo to leave you and run when trapped in a vampire lair. You stuck around to give me pep talks and help me find a job when I clearly wasn't officially part of the pack. You turned into a fucking music box to save the day! It's my turn to stick around for you."
"I did encourage you to go back to the pack."
"Because I was living in a dump and pining for company." He was grasping at straws and Jayla didn't plan on letting him get any. "You'd already seen Arturo by then, and Lisa. You know she'd love to have you around to ask research questions. If you'd wanted, you could have shown up on their doorstep all casual and talked your way in without me. But you didn't."
She pulled him back in for a tighter hug.
"You're a good person and you're super magical. You did say I should surround myself with good magical people. I'm sticking to your advice. You're not getting rid of me that easily, okay?"
"Oh fuck." He sounded like he'd been punched in the gut. "I'm a grown man. You don't get to make me cry."
"Crying is good for you." She already had tears of her own going.
Silence fell in the living room after that, the only noise being soft snoring from Melissa and sniffling and stifled sobs from Jesse.
Then the front door clicked open. Jayla held her breath until Dorothy, wearing only a coat, popped her head into the living room.
"Is everyone all right in here?"
Jayla did her best to smile without making it look fake. She'd never learned the 'let's take a picture, look happy' smile most people seemed to have perfected as teenagers.
"Yeah, I think we're good. Unless you're here to throw someone out the door?"
"I have no such plans," Dorothy said, all smiles. "Our guests, former hunters or no, are welcome to stay as long as they please."
Jesse relaxed ever so faintly. If he hadn't been in her lap, Jayla doubted she'd have noticed.
"Good. Great." What else do you say in a situation like this? Maybe she'd have come up with something better if she'd been less tired. Then again, probably not. "Are we-, oh hey buddy!"
Ginger jumped up onto the couch arm nearest to her face, eyes half-closed in a smile. He gave a happy meow and began making biscuits when she reached up to pet him.
"Where have you been hiding out?"
"Cats have a talent for hide-and-go-seek," Dorothy said, joining them in the living room. She made a beeline for Melissa and picked her up which set Jayla blinking. Watching a giant white wolf muscle people around was one thing; when a little lady in an ill-fitting trench coat lifted full-grown humans off the floor like they were dolls, your brain had to go 'wait a minute' and then reboot.
With this metaphorical reset, exhaustion caught up with her. Jesse would be allowed to stay, as would Rahul and Isha. No one would be left at the mercy of vampires or hunters. That's all that mattered.
Jayla finally stopped ignoring her heavy limbs. Things began to blur together.
Dorothy transformed the couch and the armchair into beds luxurious enough to fit ten sleepers between them and dug out a treasure trove of pillows and blankets from the chaise lounge. All without dropping Melissa. Lisa and Vivian came in to help, and Rahul and Isha left the bathroom to assist in hand out more water. Melissa woke up long enough to gulp down a gallon before passing back out, huddled in a pile of blankets.
Jayla nudged Jesse to curl up with Ginger, who purred and happily took over cuddling duty. Her legs were killing her now, muscle fever taking over from numbness. She'd need to unwind and drink more water before sleep could be an option.
"How's your leg?" Jayla asked Isha after five painful stretches and four glasses of pure bliss.
Isha at first made a noncommittal grunt, but when Jayla kept looking a her she continued with, "It's fine. Rahul knows his way around a first aid kit. Then he tried his hands at a healing spell. I'm lucky I'm not a frog."
"Ha ha, very funny." Rahul had taken a seat by the D&D set-up, eyeing the dungeon with great interest. "Is there a regular game happening here?"
Vivian perked up from where she'd begun amassing a decent pillow fort. "You play?"
"I've always wanted to give it a try." Rahul shrugged. "Haven't been many opportunities on the road."
He was pulled into the pillow fort and lost to Vivian's enthusiasm for tabletop roleplaying. Jayla wished him good luck.
"Will I ever see my brother again?"
Jayla did a double take. "Isha, my stoic hunter, was that sarcasm?"
Isha actually stuck her tongue out, then giggled. "Yes and I can't even blame it on painkillers. Joking with werewolves, how the mighty have fallen." She sighed, but it was a sigh of contentment. "Though seriously, is she going to make out with my brother? Because if so I don't want to be in the room when it happens."
"Vivian, are you making out with Rahul?"
"We're matching backstories, you pervs!"
"Did you start the orgy without me?"
Jayla's spit-take missed the dungeon map by an inch.
Lisa stood in the doorway to the living room, arms gently crossed. "Careful with that. We don't want you drowning the party, at least not before you can join up."
Vivian poked her head out of the pillow fort. "Lisa, you know we only have orgies on Thursdays."
A choked yelp from Rahul followed.
"Man, relax, we're obviously joking."
"Please remember we have guests before you start with your off-color jokes." Dorothy gave a last fluff of a pillow and sent a lightly chastising smile Lisa's way. "I'll go look in on Arturo. You all have a good nap."
Lisa moved to let Dorothy pass. "Let me know if he needs anything?"
Dorothy nodded, her smile wilting a little.
Over on the former-couch-now-bed, Jesse had scooched up in a corner with Ginger in his lap. He kept his eyes locked on the cat and he'd lost his semi-relaxed posture.
Better deal with this now or no one's getting any sleep. Jayla grabbed Isha by the hand, again not quite thinking things through but hey, it had worked this far so why change tactic? Isha didn't seem perturbed by this and followed along over to the couch-bed without protest.
"Nap time!" Jayla proclaimed and dumped herself and Isha on the couch-bed, taking care to put herself between Jesse and the rest of the group. "I'm beat to within and inch of my life. Never make me exercise that much again."
She sent a glare and a grin Jesse's way. He returned her glare with a smirk that made him look more like himself.
"As a fellow despiser of exercise, I solemnly swear."
"Good." They'd all need to talk things out soon but with most of them close to unconsciousness now wasn't the time. "Nap first, big deep discussion on loyalty and openness later, okay? Or are we about to get swarmed by vampires?"
"Not likely." Lisa had paced over to the nearest bookshelf and placed her glasses next to a trilogy of romance novels. "Ava and her friends are on it."
"Those friends are other witches?" Isha asked. She'd at first sat ramrod straight on the couch-bed, but had begun to sink into a less military posture.
"Correct. All witches within range who were willing to come to her assistance," Lisa said before collapsing into bed and laying claim to far too many pillows. "Merrihollow has quite an impressive witch population."
"Is that so?"
"You better believe it," Vivian said from her pillow fort. "Trying to figure out why is the reason Lisa moved to Merrihollow in the first place. Right, Lisa?"
"A strategic choice of base."
"Not at all motivated by the local hot PI."
Vivian dodged a pillow Lisa threw her way, pulling back into her fort like a gruntled turtle.
Heh. Gruntled. That is such a neat word. Jayla closed her eyes, allowed herself to start drifting. Adrenaline kept circling her blood stream though and she couldn't tune out the others talking.
Rahul was next to speak, voice less muffled than before. He must have left the pillow fort for greener pastures.
"What exactly is a 'defanging'?"
"It's a sadly not permanent thing we can do to vampires who decide to murder or kidnap people. And by we, I mean Ava." Lisa sounded fuzzy and slow, close to sleep. "I don't know the details other than that the spell takes a while to set up, that it's draining, and that it can't be mixed with other magic. It's why we had to keep the vampires in the building without the initial use of a music box and why she needed the assistance of other magic users."
That explained a thing or two. Jayla forced her mouth to say, "We weren't waiting for backup. We were the backup. Were we?"
"Sort of." Lisa mumbled, pleased.
As if on cue, Vivian took over the explanation. "The spell takes away a vampire's ability to glamour and makes them feel like shit every time they try to bite someone who isn't consenting to sharing blood. We're talking nausea, guilt, the whole nine yards. It lasts for two years, tops, but it let's Ava track them and encourages giving the whole 'not being awful'-thing a try. A better solution than trying to throw them in jail because yikes that would go to hell in a hand basket immediately."
'Blood bath' was likely only the first part of that potential nightmare.
"Those receptive to it will of course also receive counseling. Even murderous cult members are rarely pure villains and do deserve a chance at deprogramming."
"Huh." A long pause followed from Isha. Jayla held her breath. What came next was, "A decent way to deal with them."
"Glad you approve," Lisa mumbled.
People drifted off one by one. Jayla managed to grab a blanket during the sluggish tug-of-war that ensued and pillowed her head on one of Jesse's thighs. She cracked one eye open to check on him. He didn't look ready for sleep but neither did he look ready to bolt, so she settled in and enjoyed the soothing noise of Ginger's purring.
As is typical of any sleepover, one participant didn't know when to stop talking and let people go to sleep.
"How old is the oldest vampire you've ever met?" Rahul asked. This earned a frustrated groan from his sister.
"Two hundred." Lisa again, words slurred with almost-sleep. "Years, that is. Not that many ancient preternaturals around. We don't age, but we can be killed, as you're aware."
Rahul made a noise of protest, but Lisa continued as if they were discussing the weather.
"The oldest I've heard reported is just shy of four centuries, though that's not confirmed. Sadly I don't think we have any immortals lounging around who saw the stone age first hand."
A yawn preceded Jesse's, "Obviously, seeing as witches didn't create us until the war of the 1600s."
Sudden, heavy silence.
"What." Lisa. Very flat.
"I," Jesse paused, then continued, "I thought that was common knowledge?"
"…"
"Lisa, get back in bed! You can take notes later!"
(Chapter 9) - (Chapter 11)
