<Author's Comments> if you have any questions about the whole being a vamp thing, feel free to comment! Enjoy! -^^-
CHPTR 2
[Kira]
I turned slowly to meet the intruder. Or maybe I was the intruder, considering I was just snooping in a desk I didn't own. Either way, I turned to see a woman about eighteen, standing there with her arms crossed over her obviously fake boobies. She had brown hair with unnatural blonde streaks and dark blue eyes. She stood leaning against the doorway in a way-too-low cut v-neck and ripped skinny jeans. She had bony features and humongo eyes. They were like blimps. She had on a sideways grin as if she enjoyed watching a dog dig for food, or some other lame analogy.
"You DO know that this isn't your house, right, little newbie?" she chuckled menacingly, showing sharp canines.
I stood up straight, trying to look as tall as her long legs. It didn't work. I said, "Well, it isn't yours either." Great comeback, right? I was never good with good comebacks. I put one hand on the desk to lean on and the other on my hip. I'm sure I only looked half as bitchy as this chick in the doorway.
"You know Lloyd wouldn't have liked you peering into his business, right?" she said it as if he were long gone or something, which really ticked me off, "He was so busy with his paperwork. It's a shame he wasn't listening to the footsteps behind him, Kira." She sneered my name, making me want to throw a syringe at her face.
I lost interest in the part about my name and focused on her words before it. My eyes widened and I tried (unsuccessfully) to push by her, "What did you do to him?!" I demanded. I pushed harder and she let go, making me fling into the wall across from the door. I still had the cover on, wrapped under my arms like a towel. I straightened up, tightened the cover and went for the door back to the storage unit thing. I started at a fast walk and went to a full on run to the door. I flung it open to see . . .
Lloyd slumped over his desk. I ran to him yelling, "Lloyd! Oh no! Lloyd!" I covered the distance between us and shook his shoulder roughly.
He lifted his head groggily and grunted a "whut?" he looked at my worried face and said, "Forget which valve is hot water?" I stood there for a second felling like an idiot, then let go and walked away from him, laughing nervously.
"Ha! And I thought you were dead! But nooo, you were just SLEEPING!" I ran my hand through my grimy hair, "I guess I'm just going nuts! Ha!" I aimed my sights for the door to the house part of the building, "I thought I was being haunted by a vamp slut, but it was just my imagination-"
"Was she tall and bony? Huge eyes?" Lloyd said, sounding scared.
I was instantly out of koo-koo land, "Yeah. Brown hair, blonde streaks, fake boobs?" I said, turning back towards him.
"Yep, that's Luciferilla, one of the crazed vampires I talked about before. Where did you see her?" he asked impatiently. I didn't blame him.
"In the doorway to the fifth door in the hallway," I didn't know if he would understand my bad sentence structure, but I was nervous. He flitted around in his desk drawers for a second and pulled out a dagger of some kind of weird tan metal with a thick rubber handle. I guess vamps weren't supposed to touch it.
"What's that made of?" I asked. My curiosity was really getting the better of me that day.
"A rare earth ore that burns to the touch. Only in vamps, of course. Did you know mercury doesn't poison us since we don't have a blood flow?" he quizzed me. It was a cool fact, but not the time. He held the dagger steady and ran for the door, with me on his heels. Like a military sergeant, he stood by each doorway with dagger at the ready, then peeked ahead and moved on to the fifth door. I was right behind him. I tried acting as cool as him, but I ended up singing a theme song and he shushed me. I automatically shushed him for shushing. We finally made it to the door and it was closed. He kicked it open, ready to throw the knife, and the room was empty. There was still a bed and everything, but no trace of crazy slut.
"Watch my back," he whispered, and I instantly put my back to his. I watched for any sign of movement in the hallway, but all I could see was a small leftover spit mark on the wall I had fallen into. He went behind the door and everything, but we found nothing. Once he said we were all clear I showed him the spit mark and he just laughed, "I believe you, but it's still pretty funny." I punched him on the arm and went to the bathroom to shower.
I was still freaked out about the crazy slut, but I wasn't about to ask Lloyd to shower with me. Instead, he stayed in his room across the hall with his ore dagger at the ready. I showered peacefully and came out of the bathroom to find clothes folded on the floor. I took them gratefully, glad that I wouldn't have to have a towel or cover around me or anything. Lloyd apparently didn't have any girly panties, so he put boxers with a "sorry I'm not a perv" note in the pile of clothes. When I was done, I had on a dark blue tee with some guy shorts to match. They were a little big, but they didn't fall off my hips or anything. I brushed the rat nest on my head into hair, and was surprised to see that my shoulder length, silky, curly, blonde hair was now not-so-silky and had some milk chocolate invading. My light brown eyes were a lot darker, too. I brushed until I was presentable then checked my legs and armpits. Yep, it was time to shave. Lloyd didn't have a beard, so I figured he had a razor around here somewhere. I found a fancy triple bladed electronic rotating thing next to a normal razor, and I chose the latter. Besides, the other one had way too many buttons. I quickly swiped myself over, washed the razor off, and put it back. I came out of the bathroom feeling for sharp teeth again. No luck.
I knocked on Lloyd's door and said, "I'm done. Can I have some food now?" I felt REALLY thirsty. A glass of milk seemed like the best thing in the world right then.
He laughed and said, "Oh sure, fine. There's a fridge in the kitchen."
Oh. Duh. I strode over to the kitchen and looked in the fridge. I saw fruit, ham, bread, Swiss cheese, tortillas, lettuce, jelly, and leftover beef. No milk. Actually, there were no drinks at all. I opened the freezer side and found a bunch of ice and frozen peas. How boring. I re-opened the fridge and found that behind the beef was some Nutella. Yes! I quickly grabbed the Nutella, bread, and jelly. I searched the drawers for some knives and found a carrot mixed in with the spoons. Weird. I found the knives and plates and started making a Nutella-jelly sandwich. I threw the knives in the sink and took a big fat bite.
I was just swallowing the second bite when I heard a voice from behind me, "Enjoying your meal?" I whirled around to see . . .
Not Lloyd. Again. It was that Luciferilla chick. Again. She was leaning over my shoulder and I could smell her breath. It was a combo of Nutella and rotting meat, but maybe that's because she grabbed my sandwich and took a big ol' honk out of it. I was about to scream for Lloyd when she used her hand to lift my jaw back up, closing my mouth. She put a firm hand on top of my head, too. I swallowed.
"Hush little baby, don't say a word," she sang off tune, "Momma's gonna buy you a mocking bird," I was getting sick of this, "And if that mocking bird don't siing," I started to feel woozy, but snapped back to reality, thinking the most obnoxious teenage thoughts I could think of, and she continued, "Mommas' gonna buy you a diamond ring," I started to feel a weird tug at my chest, and realized she was trying to rip my soul from my body! I pulled away from her and shoved Nutella in her face in one motion, yelling for Lloyd. He came out immediately, throwing a dagger at Luciferilla. She put her hand up, probably to catch it, but it went straight through. She screeched in agony, and looked to where it went. I was looking too, but that's only because Luciferilla's hand slowed it down enough to stab me in the arm. I felt a greater tugging at my chest, and Luciferilla smiled viciously. On instinct, I pulled it out of my arm and chucked it at Luciferilla.
Lloyd screamed, "No!" as the dagger hit her. It was so coated in blood I think the ore didn't get to touch her, but for some reason she just gasped, then chuckled maniacally.
"Fool," she began, "You just mixed our blood! Now your soul is tearing from your body, AND I'm growing stronger from the blood of a new vampire!" she chuckled. Didn't vamps not have blood? Either way, this was not good.
As if answering my question, Lloyd said, "Vampires do have blood in them, it's just not being circulated. And now yours is mixed with hers!" he raised his arms in emphasis. I didn't know how bad that was, but it must've been pretty bad since Lloyd was freaking out so much. Luciferilla cackled again and bolted for the door with the dagger still stuck in her. Even in my weird half-ripped-soul state, I tackled her to the ground before she got out. Or I tried. I ended up just slamming into her Amazon back and being sent sprawling backwards into Lloyd, which didn't help catching her.
"No!" he screamed and started throwing stuff after her. I was still in front of him so I had to duck in order to stay alive. Man, he could really throw! I dropped to the ground and put my hands over my head. Once Lloyd was finally out of things to throw, he stood there breathing hard, staring after her.
"Lloyd," I rasped, "It's fine. Just let it go. There's nothing we could've done." I looked up at him to see that he was sweating like a dog.
"No, this is NOT fine!" he yelled at me, probably trying not to punch me in the face, "Luciferilla has been haunting me for years, waiting until I slipped up and made a new vamp. Now that she has some of your blood in hers, her power increased tenfold! In all those years of haunting, I've figured out that she plans on turning all the sane vamps crazy and enslaving humans! And she plans on being their queen. Apparently she's gonna go from the US to Canada, to mid-America, to South America, to Africa, Europe, Asia, and Russia. In other words, the whole world. How generic. I mean, I bet even YOU could cook up something more creative!" he teased unfittingly.
"So basically, we gotta stop her?" I asked. I really hoped it wouldn't just be us two geeks battling an insane gang of vamps. Ugh.
"No," he began. Phew! "We have other sane vamps all over the place. They're dominant to the crazy guys, so it can't be too hard to overthrow her. There's a whole network of us scattered around the world. Also, the humans won't really like it when they're forced to be slaves, and they have ammo. Oh by the way, you know you're not a human anymore, right?" he asked unfittingly. Again.
"Uh, yeah. That's kinda obvious with the whole 'having to bind my soul and body' thing," I said sarcastically. Speaking of which . . .
"Crap. We gotta go through the whole ashes thing again. And you'll have to take another shower. And this time we don't have an ore dagger," he started for the garage, and I struggled to stand up. He offered his arm, and I took it gladly. We made it through the door without me doing a faceplant, and I let go of his arm. I automatically lay down on the table, and closed my eyes, waiting for the soothing words of Lloyd. We went through the whole motion again and this time I didn't get splashed with water. My soul felt back in place. It was weird; knowing what condition your soul is in, like a sixth sense. After the whole ashes thing, I showered, and Lloyd was leaning against the bathroom door (on the outside, of course). I tried to drink some of the shower water to quench my thirst, but it tasted nasty, making me spit it out. Duh. Shower water isn't for people. Or vampire people. Ugh. I got out and changed into some different guy clothes and opened the in-swinging door. Lloyd fell all over me in a pile of clipboards and pencils.
"Hey!" I shouted as we fell backwards into the bathroom. Before we hit the floor, he turned around to me and put out one arm to stop the fall, and one grabbed me- around the waist to keep me from hitting the floor. He bent his arm on impact expertly, absorbing the shock in his bones. We stood/sat/lay there for a few seconds, staring at each other, when he brought his legs up and stood us both up at the same time. He reluctantly let go, and left into his room without a word. He closed the door and my heart would have been thumping like crazy if it were thumping at all.
I stood there staring at his bedroom door, swaying with confusion, when I remembered Luciferilla. She could be behind me or in china for all I knew. I walked up to Lloyd's door and knocked softly, "hey, Lloyd? C-Can I come in?" I asked nervously. Part was from Luciferilla, part from the awkward scene with Lloyd.
I was about to knock again when he rasped, "come in." he coughed as I opened the door to his sanctuary, and he said, "Whatchya need?"
I twitted my fingers nervously, "Well, Luciferilla's still somewhere, and well, I . . . I . . ."
". . . Don't want to be alone?" he finished for me, totally calm and himself. I could see he put the awkward behind him, so I tried to do the same.
"Well, yeah. Don't want another ash bath," I chatted nervously. This whole 'letting it go' thing wasn't looking too hot. Changing the subject, I said, "Do you have any drinks around here? Like, a soda or something?"
He chuckled, "No, I'm a vampire, remember?"
Oh. Duh.
"Uhhh, okay. Can I have some kind of blood or something?" I stammered. Vamps had to have blood, right? Otherwise they would be classified as zombies with the whole 'walking dead' thing.
He chuckled again, "What's your blood type?" I looked at him with a "Why do you ask?" kind of look, and he explained, "You have to drink the same blood type as you are, otherwise your blood will attack it like a virus. See, it's kind of like a blood donation, only it's not usually on the host's will. Heck, the hosts don't even know they were taken from!" he exclaimed, "Either way, I have to know your blood type."
I had gone to the doctors not long ago for a check-up, and they said my blood type was AB-. I had looked to a chart on the wall to see that it was really rare in all races. Swell. "I'm AB-. Isn't that really rare?" I made sure I remembered right.
"Uh, yeah. It's gonna take awhile to find another AB-. It's the rarest type with AB antigens. I mean there's always 'Bombay blood' with subtype h-h, but that was found in a total of three people ever. I guess you're gonna have to make a list of EVERYONE you know, and we might just get lucky and find someone. Start writing." He shoved a piece of paper and a pen into my hands.
I sat down on the bed and started to write. I ended up stabbing my legs through the paper. I asked for a clipboard, and Lloyd threw one at my arm. That reminded me of when I got stabbed, and I looked to see that it was just a pink upraised line now. Lloyd must have done some magic during the ashes ceremony. I put that out of my mind and started on the list:
1)Alex (my almost boyfriend when I was human)
2)Mel (my best friend in the world ever)
3)Emily (my friend)
I put the rest of my friends down and hoped that one might have AB-:
4)Mia
5)Anthony
6)Sophie
7)Chloe
Et cetera. It turned out to be thirty six people in all. Some people I didn't know much more than their names and faces, but they still might have been AB-. I finished the list and put it on top of Lloyd's desk, which he was leaning over intently.
"What are you always writing on those papers?" I asked. There were stacks of paper all over the desk.
"Oh, anything and everything," he answered vaguely. I hate vague people and their vagueness. "Just kidding. It's a bunch of paperwork for my job."
Job?! He was a vampire! I looked at him curiously, sizing him up. He was a doctor vamp who could steal all he wanted, but he just sat here and did paperwork?
"I'm an accountant for PCAOB, The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. I do boring accounting stuff. I have to earn a living somehow! It's not like all this stuff - and this house - just fell out of the sky." He gestured towards the room around him and settled his eyes on mine. The hairs on the back of my neck went up. Geez, he was pretty! His eyes were like chocolate and his hair was the same. I started to sway a bit. Stupid hormones! "It's a good thing for you, too. If I didn't have all the equipment I do, then the transformation would have been a lot more painful." He rubbed his eyes out of exhaustion and went back to work.
"What time is it?" I asked again. We were both beat, so it was probably pretty late. Or early. Ugh.
He glanced at his silver wristwatch and mumbled, "Six o' clock. You should probably go to bed now. The last door in the hall is your room." He swept his hair back with one hand and continued to write and type on the moose laptop. He wrote a few more seconds, and I stood a few more seconds, until he stopped mid-letter and said, "You don't want to be alone," he said it like a statement rather than a question.
"Yeah," I said as blankly as he did. "Who knows if Luciferilla is in this house or across the US? She might strangle me in my sleep or something." I stated. It's probably something she would do for fun.
He sighed and said, "You can sleep in my bed. I'll just get an extra cover from the linen closet and sleep on the ground." A million thoughts ran through my head at that, but the main one was 'what a gentleman!' Geez, I hate hormones. He looked up at me and said "well, go ahead. It's not poisonous!" I proceeded to walk over to the bed and sit again. It was pretty comfy.
I started to lay down awkwardly when Lloyd shouted, "No!" I stood up quickly, ready for trouble (kinda). "You stupid computer!" he shouted at the moose, "All of my files, oh no! No, no, no . . ." he slammed his head on the keyboard and mumbled to himself, covering his head with his arms. He stayed there for a second, then lifted his head with a groan, "sorry, my computer just crashed," he looked up at me; "Apparently it was infected with a virus, but didn't show anything until now. I doubt it'll restart." He forced a little smile and shook his head, gathering up a small stack of papers, "Anyway, you should get some sleep. You've had a rough day." Yeah, no kidding. I just got turned into a vampire and haunted by a crazy slut and stabbed in the arm and gave that crazy slut power and got dirt dumped on my head twice.
Oh, and I met Lloyd.
Today hasn't really evened out very well. Or maybe it's tonight didn't even out very well.
Ugh.