Misty Rose: Nature
Chapter 42
So, that’s really almost it for this journal thing. The last night was Halloween and… well, me and Kaitlyn decided not to go anywhere. I didn’t need to hunt, and it was her day off, so we just stayed home. Actually, when I woke up at sunset, Kaitlyn was still sleeping on me like at dawn. Which meant either she’d gotten up and come back, or she’d slept like that on what was basically my corpse all day. Which was kind of strange, but… I don’t know, maybe I didn’t need to judge her for that. Kaitlyn didn’t really think of me as dead, even when I was asleep for the day, so I guess it was mostly me having that hang up. Didn’t seem to bother her anyway. She actually woke up just a bit after I did.
“Hey,” I said, when I saw her eyes open. “Evenin’.”
“Mph,” Kaitlyn said, then made a face. “You’re not very comfortable. My neck hurts.”
“Don’t spend the day sleepin’ on me then, silly.”
Kaitlyn put her face down on my chest for a moment, then groaned and sat up.
“Bathroom,” she said, getting out of bed.
“Not my problem anymore,” I told her, grinning. Usually it’d been her messing with me because I wasn’t a morning person for as long as I’d known her, so the vampire going from asleep to awake meant I got to mess with her, if she was just waking up too.
Kaitlyn grunted at me and wandered towards the bathroom. “Gonna shower too,” she told me. Then I guess she woke up at little, because she said, “No peeking.”
“I’m not gonna peek at you,” I told her. “Perv.”
Kaitlyn just stuck her tongue out at me and went into the bathroom. I laid in bed a bit, just sort of… feeling the warmth she’d left before it faded. Which was nice, but yeah, it did eventually go away. So I sat up and grabbed my phone because I was bored. And I remembered something the others had said about what the Satanic vampires had been up to and wanted to check. But my phone was dead. Guess I’d forgotten to put it on the charger last night, probably because of everything else that happened. I didn’t really feel like getting up to do that, though. Right about then, I heard the shower start up, so I thought I’d just borrow Kaitlyn’s phone. It wasn’t like she kept it locked, really. Figured I should probably still tell her I was going to do it, though.
“KAITLYN!” I yelled at the bathroom. “I’M GONNA BORROW YOUR PHONE! MINE’S DEAD!” I didn’t hear anything back right away, so I picked up her phone and brought up the screen.
“WHAT?” Kaitlyn yelled.
“I SAID I’M GONNA BORROW YOUR PHONE!” I yelled back.
Right at that moment, I heard the shower door crash open, then the bathroom door, then a third crash, which was Kaitlyn running out of the bathroom and slipping on the turn and smacking into one of our bar stools and falling over. I jumped out of bed and ran over to her.
“Jesus! Are you okay?” I asked, kneeling down to help.
“Fine!” Kaitlyn said. “I’m fine. Don’t look at my phone.”
“Yeah, but you crashed into…” I started.
“I’m okay.”
“Don’t come runnin’ out of the shower like that. And put on a towel or somethin’.”
“I will, I will,” Kaitlyn said. “Just don’t look at my phone!”
“What? Why?”
“Just don’t!”
So, it’s kind of one of those things that if someone tells someone not to look, they do. And that’s exactly what I did, because I still had her phone in my hand and the screen was up. “What’s the problem with…” I started. Then I saw it. Right on her home screen was a shortcut to some web page or something. No idea what, but it probably didn’t matter right then because the shortcut was named “IF I’M DEAD READ THIS!” And honestly, who was going to see it except me? So despite everything Kaitlyn said about not being worried about me, she still had something she wanted me to go look at if she ended up dead. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t feel betrayed or anything. It… made sense, you know? Not that it was a will, or… actually, I didn’t know what it was. Just what the shortcut was named. But I couldn’t blame her for having something like that, given everything. Still wanted to know what it was, though.
“Kaitlyn?” I said, looking up at her. “What’s this?”
“Umm…” Kaitlyn said, trying to look innocent. “What’s what?”
“The shortcut on your phone,” I said.
“What shortcut?” Still trying to look like she didn’t know what I was talking about.
“This one,” I said, pointing to it.
“It’s nothing,” Kaitlyn said, not looking at me.
“Uh huh. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Not even bruised.”
“I mean the shortcut. There somethin’ you want to talk to me about?”
“No.”
I looked at Kaitlyn for a moment or two. Her response was to put on a stubborn face. “Well… okay,” I said. “If you say so. But if you want to talk…”
“Just drop it,” Kaitlyn said, glaring at me now. “And don’t go taking my phone, either.”
“I’ll leave it alone,” I said. “Promise. But I still think we need to talk about this.”
“Not now,” Kaitlyn said, folding her arms. So whatever it was, it was something important that she didn’t want to talk about. Not right then, probably not ever if I didn’t poke her about it.
“Sure, fine, later,” I said and shrugged. “Besides, you’re not gonna die.”
“How do you know?” Kaitlyn said, still glaring at me.
“’Cause I won’t let you,” I got back up and went back to the bed. “I still owe you money.”
“Why does that matter?”
“If you die, I can’t pay you back, and I’ll owe you forever and ever.”
“So?”
“So I’m not gonna let you die, dummy,” I said, laying back down on the bed. “Now, go finish your shower or whatever, ’cause you’re drippin’ all over the carpet and I’m not cleanin’ it up.”
“Your fault for messing with my phone,” Kaitlyn told me.
“Just do it,” I said. “I need to look somethin’ up and you’re distractin’. Scoot.”
Kaitlyn made a frustrated noise, but she went back into the bathroom. Then I remembered about my phone, so I got up and plugged it in. I also picked up the stool Kaitlyn ran into and sat on it instead of laying back down. Can’t lay around all night, right?
As for what I wanted to look up, according to the local news, there’d been less than half the expected number of fires during Devil’s Night this year. The others had said the vampires in that old warehouse had been stockpiling stuff to start fires. You wouldn’t think vampires and fire since it scared the shit out of us, but I guess crazy is crazy. Besides, I couldn’t say how much’d been because the others had taken them out, but… seeing that there were definitely less fires sort of… made me feel like maybe they could sort of be the good guys after all. I said they because, honestly, I was just the driver. And I got to be honest, I kind of preferred it that way. I had a lot of my own shit to deal with before I started trying to fix anything else, and… I wasn’t a fighter, you know? The others knew what they were doing and if the most I had to do was drive, fine by me. Even better if I didn’t have to do that again, actually, because I couldn’t be sure I wouldn’t have to deal with something worse than just some stupid human street thug if I got mixed up with more serious things. Maybe I was a coward, but despite what Kaitlyn seemed to think, I felt more like an innocent bystander than a hero. Well… as innocent as a vampire can be, anyway, which wasn’t all that innocent to begin with.
After a little while, Kaitlyn came out of the bathroom wearing her robe. First thing she did, of course, was take her phone out of my hands. Then she looked at what I’d been reading. “Why you looking up Devil’s Night?” she asked me.
“Scroll up,” I told her. “Less fires this year. A lot less.”
“Huh. Think it’s because what you guys did?”
“What they did, not me. And maybe. Can’t be sure it was all them.”
“Whatever. They get back to you about all that?”
“Not yet,” I said. “But…” I got up and went over to where I’d plugged in my phone. Yep, it’d actually shut off when it ran out of charge, so I turned it back on, and right away it told me I had a text message from Ferret. Must have come while the phone was still off. “Text from Ferret,” I said. “Wants to know if I’m busy tonight.”
“Are you?” Kaitlyn said, flopping down on the bed.
“Well, we’re not goin’ to a party. So prob’ly not.” I took a few moments to text Ferret back. “Told him no, and that he missed you runnin’ around naked and bouncin’ off things.”
Kaitlyn rolled her eyes and put her head down on the bed. “Great.”
“Want to know what he said?” I asked her.
“I’m almost afraid to ask.”
“Ferret said what we do in our private time is our business.”
Kaitlyn raised her head and looked at me. “Is he shipping us?” she asked.
I rolled my eyes. “Him and Pops both,” I said. “I told ’em we’re not an item.”
“Pops? Really?”
“Yeah. It’ll be Father Riggs next.”
“Isn’t that against some kinda Catholic rule?”
“So’s bein’ a vampire,” I said. “Ferret wants to talk. Tonight.”
“Tell him I’m not running around naked for him,” Kaitlyn said. “Only for you.”
I took a moment to text most of that to Ferret. “Told him you wouldn’t be naked,” I said. “He ships us bad enough without adding that last part.”
“Well, it’s true.”
I decided to ignore that. “Ferret says he’s gonna be here soon.”
“How soon?” Kaitlyn asked.
“Soon enough,” I said. “I should get dressed.” I put my phone down and started getting out some clothes. Usual stuff, hoodie and pants because it was cold outside, with a winter jacket over it. Kaitlyn seemed a little disappointed, but too bad for her. I also disappointed her by changing in the bathroom. I heard the doorbell ring as I was finishing up, so I guess I timed it about right. I passed Kaitlyn heading to the bathroom as was the routine for late night visitors as I headed to the door. I opened up the locks, then cracked open the door to see who it was. Ferret. And Pops. Which meant this probably wasn’t a totally social call, you know?
“Just a sec,” I said, shutting the door so I could take off the chain. “KAITLYN, IT’S OKAY!” I yelled towards the bathroom as I opened the door again. Ferret grinned at me, and Pops smiled.
“And how are you tonight?” Pops asked me as Kaitlyn came out of the bathroom.
“Okay, I s’pose,” I said. I looked back at Kaitlyn, giving her a look that I hoped she’d understand. Maybe it was just me, but this didn’t seem like the right time for jokes, so I thought maybe it’d be best if Kaitlyn didn’t… I don’t know, try to make a joke about me going out with two guys at once or something. I don’t know if it worked or not, but Kaitlyn just smiled at Ferret and Pops, then sat down on one of our bar stools and picked up her phone. “Um… I’m goin’ out for a bit,” I told her.
“Mmmkay,” Kaitlyn said, looking down at her phone. “Take your keys.”
“Have ‘em,” I said. “Be back later. Don’t wait up.”
“Mmmhmm,” Kaitlyn said, waving at me.
I stepped outside and shut the door behind me, then used my keys to lock everything up. Ferret and Pops just waited. They seemed friendly enough, but… unless I was feeling worried or something, it did kind of seem like they were more serious than usual. When I was done, we all turned and started off down the street. I suppose we might’ve looked like three friends just going for a walk. You know, if one of us wasn’t a human ferret, and any of us were making clouds with our breathing. Which we weren’t because we were vampires. So I figured either Ferret or Pops was making us all invisible, but I wasn’t going to say anything until they did, so we walked for a bit without talking. All this was… well, I had a lot of questions. Some of them were probably kind of stupid, but I still had to know things. But it didn’t seem like they were going to start, and I wasn’t totally ready. At least at first.
We’d gone about a block before my patience wore out. “We’re invisible, right?”
“Yeah,” Ferret said.
“Okay,” I stepped ahead a little, then turned around and stopped. “So… I got a lotta things I want to know. ‘Bout what happened, mostly. Who you all really are.”
Pops smiled at me. “I can’t imagine you wouldn’t,” he said. “We’ll answer as best we can.”
I’m… not going to go over all the questions I asked. Some of them… well, I didn’t really know how to even ask some of it. Like about the people they fought in the warehouse, or if they were even people. That kind of stuff. Some of it I was also kind of scared to ask about, like why Baron Whatshisname was there, so I sort of… talked around that stuff until I eventually got what I wanted to know. And there was a lot. Or, well… I had to wrap my head around a good amount of it, and that takes time. We ended up walking around sort of randomly for like two or three hours.
The general idea I ended up with was that Pops and Ferret and Father Riggs and Victoria and the army guy were vigilantes. More or less. They didn’t usually leave bad guys for the cops because the cops wouldn’t be able to deal with the bad guys they fought. They also didn’t usually deal with bank robbers or muggers or whatever, because the bad guys they fought… well, vampires were bad enough, and the things they fought were worse. Usually vampires, but not always. I didn’t really want to think about what could be out there that was worse than vampires, and they didn’t really want to give examples, so that worked out. I hoped I wouldn’t have to learn. Sounded pretty nasty, and not only because the stuff they were fighting wanted to murder or enslave humans in general.
They also… well, they helped each other stay human. Father Riggs did a lot of that, and even Victoria was… Pops said Victoria was trying to come back. Trying to… remember what being human was like, I guess. Something like that, anyway. Not always the easiest thing to do when you were also fighting nasty shit, but I guess being the good guys helped. Or at least the mostly good guys. They were still vampires, which was why staying human mattered so much. Sounded like fighting stuff worse than vampires helped too, because they were doing good things. Except… I don’t know, it kind of seems like that wouldn’t really keep them human, you know? Good, sure, but that’s… I guess that’s not just a human thing? More sort of a good in general thing. But that’s just me, I could be wrong.
Oh. The army guy’s name was Havoc, if you can believe that. I was pretty sure I’d seen some kind of stupid macho thing online about a military guy calling himself Havoc, but I didn’t want to say anything about it in case I insulted someone. I guess he’s not as much of a hardass as he seems, but I wasn’t going to buy into that until I saw it for myself, and I didn’t think that was going to happen soon.
They asked me some stuff, too. Like what I saw when that guy ran in front of the van.
“I dunno,” I told them. “He just seemed… wrong. Worse, I guess.”
“Worse than?” Pops asked me.
“Well… okay,” I said. “Y’know how I can… sorta tell if someone’s a vampire?”
“Most vampires can,” Pops said.
“Yeah,” I said. “But it’s not just that. I told you how some vampires just seem wrong, yeah?”
“Yes,” Pops said. “Which is interesting in itself. But he seemed worse?”
“Yeah. A lot worse,” I said. “Like… rotten inside somehow. Nothin’ I could really point out, but somethin’ about him seemed rotten. Does that make any sense?”
Pops and Ferret looked at each other for a moment. I don’t know what they were thinking about, but I kind of felt like I was… telling them dumb stories. Like when you meet someone who… talks about auras and healing crystals and psychic powers and whatever, and they start telling you things they think they see about you, but they’re wrong, or they’re saying stuff that they could figure out without all the nonsense. Only… auras were actually a thing because some vampires could see them, and Pops could read minds apparently, so maybe I needed to rethink some stuff. Anyway, I still felt like I was telling them some kind of silly kid thing because I couldn’t explain why the guy seemed rotten.
“It might,” Ferret said. “We’re going to have to think about that.”
That sounded like being nice to me, so I decided to change the subject.
“Okay, so… yeah, maybe you are the good guys,” I said.
“Glad you approve,” Ferret said, grinning at me.
“You I’m not sure about,” I told him. “Pops and Father Riggs I could see.”
“I’ll vouch for this one,” Pops said, nodding at Ferret. “Despite his thieving ways.”
“Gee, thanks,” Ferret said. “I feel so loved here.” But he didn’t seem upset.
“Uh huh,” I said. “Anyway… I had another question. Sorta the last one. For now.”
“Go right ahead,” Pops smiled at me. Ferret nodded.
I thought for a bit first as we kept walking. “Okay,” I said. “This isn’t… one of the more important questions, I guess, but… why me?”
“Not sure I understand,” Pops said.
“Um… there’s all kinds of other vampires in the city,” I said. “Ones that… well, they’d prob’ly be more useful. To what you guys’re doin’ than I am. So… why pick me? I’m no one special.”
Pops and Ferret looked at each other again, and since I was walking between them and they’re both taller than me, it really did go over my head. I didn’t like asking the question. I mean, some people, something like that is fishing for compliments. Or it’s… they don’t think they’re any good at anything. I guess I was one of the second type. Okay, yeah, I was a vampire, but… I didn’t have any useful vampire superpowers, I couldn’t fight, I got scared really easy, and I had a fuckton of issues. There had to be better choices out there than me, you know? I was a college dropout party girl. And from the sound of it, I was probably turned into a vampire because I’d fuck things up.
“To start with,” Pops said. “You are someone special.”
“Yeah, sure,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Everyone’s special, which means no one is.”
“First off,” Ferret said, like I hadn’t said anything. Which was fine because something like that probably doesn’t really deserve a response. “You can do things no one else can.”
“Like what?” I asked him.
“Telekinesis,” Ferret told me. “I keep telling you I’ve never even heard of vampires who could do that, and neither has anyone else. That’s pretty unique by itself.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But it’s not very useful.”
“A lot of vampire abilities start off weak,” Pops said, smiling at me. “They get stronger with practice, or they let you figure out how to do other things. Don’t give up on it.”
“If you say so,” I said. I still didn’t know how it’d be useful, but whatever.
“Second,” Ferret went on. “You see when vampires are wrong. That’s also unique.”
“Also not useful,” I told him. “’Cept maybe to know which vampires are nasty.”
“Which can be very useful,” Pops said. “To avoid them, if nothing else.”
Okay, he had a point there. Seeing when vampires were wrong gave me some warning at least. Like with Blair and Violet and sword guy and the Baron. It didn’t tell me a lot, but I’d at least know. “You’ve got a point there,” I said. “But neither’s very useful for drivin’ the van.”
Pops smiled at me and patted my shoulder. “It’s less to do with what you can do and more to do with who you are,” he said. “Who you try to be.”
“Um…” I looked at Pops. Wasn’t sure what he was trying to say.
“You try to be human,” Ferret said. “That’s a big deal for vampires.”
“Absolutely,” Pops said, nodding at Ferret. “You don’t give into being a vampire. You keep your eyes on what’s right, and choose to be human instead of choosing what’s convenient.”
“Lots of vampires try to be human,” Ferret said. “Not a lot succeed.”
At that point, I’d stopped walking and was looking back and forth between them. “Sounds like you’re sayin’ that… it’s more important that I try to be good than what I can do.”
Pops smiled at me. “Pretty much,” he said. “Skills can be learned with time.”
“True,” Ferret nodded. “Pops used to call his cell phone a useless contraption. Now he uses it to text me that his laptop isn’t working again. Or to ask me where the ‘any’ key is.”
I looked at both of them. Pops raised an eyebrow and stood looking at Ferret, who was giving Pops the blank face I’d started to recognize was Ferret telling a joke. It wasn’t a great joke. I mean, I remembered my Dad making the “any key” joke because my Mom was the tech person in the family. But I ended up grinning at them anyway. I couldn’t help myself. And yeah, it sort of helped. Somehow, I just… couldn’t think someone as dorky as Ferret would lie to me, you know? Probably not the best way to decide someone was being honest, but Dad jokes just didn’t go with liars in my mind. So I had to accept what Ferret said was true. Or at least that he thought it was true. And that meant Pops probably wasn’t just being nice to me. So… maybe I wasn’t anyone special, but I could be useful. Or something like that. When your self-esteem is as bad as mine, you take what you can get.
“Young whippersnapper,” Pops said to Ferret.
“Old fart,” Ferret said back.
“Feckless youth.”
“Fossil.”
Right then I got the feeling that Pops and Ferret sometimes messed with each other like Kaitlyn and I did. Not as much maybe, but I could see it. And that meant something too. Lot easier to trust someone when they’re like you, you know? Anyway, they went on like that for a little bit.
“Okay, boys,” I said, once they’d both started using words I was going to have to look up.
“Anyway,” Ferret said, grinning at me. “What the dinosaur said is true. Maybe you aren’t so useful if we’re talking vampire superpowers. But you can learn that.”
“We were all young and foolish once,” Pops said. “People learn. People grow.”
“You were young and foolish?” I asked Pops.
“Young, yes,” Pops smiled. “Foolish, no. Not like that one.” He nodded at Ferret.
“Okay, okay,” I said, before Ferret could respond and send both of them down that road again. We didn’t have all night, after all. “I think I get it now.”
“You feel better?” Ferret asked me.
I looked at both of them. “Not gonna lie,” I said. “I still got a lotta shit to work through. But… I think now I at least feel like I’m on the right side, y’know?”
“Glad we could help,” Pops said.
“Thanks,” I told him. Then I grabbed both of them in a hug at the same time. Kind of surprised them, I think, but they should’ve known I was a hugger by that point. We stood there for a bit, just hugging each other. Though I think they were each mostly hugging me. You know how guys can be. After a bit, I stepped back and pulled out my phone. Then I made a face and sighed.
“Something wrong?” Pops asked me.
“No, it’s not…” I sighed again. “Maybe. It’s gettin’ late and Kaitlyn’s prob’ly still awake.”
“She do that a lot?” Ferret asked me.
“Yeah,” I said. Then I glanced up at Ferret’s face, which had “I’m shipping you” all over it. “Stop that. Whatever you’re thinkin’, stop it. We’re not like that.”
Ferret looked at me, then gave Pops a suspicious look. “Have you been teaching that poor girl how to read minds?” he asked Pops.
“No,” Pops said. “Sometimes your face is an open book.”
“With large print and lotsa pictures,” I added. Ferret grinned at me, and I grinned back. “Anyway, thanks, both of you. I prob’ly got more to ask, but… not tonight.”
“We’ll make time for you,” Pops said. “When we can.”
“Yep,” Ferret said. “Text me whenever.”
“I will,” I smiled at them both.
“Want us to walk you back?” Ferret asked me.
I looked around. We’d been walking in circles mostly, so I wasn’t actually that far away from home. “Nah,” I said. “I’m fine. I gotta figure out what to tell Kaitlyn, anyway.”
“Can’t be that bad,” Pops said.
“Not like that,” I told him. “She’s already got this thing about me bein’ a vigilante. I gotta figure out how to tell her about you guys without settin’ that off all over again.”
“Ah,” Pops nodded. “Perhaps you might want to wait. Until you have a good way.”
“Might not be one,” I grinned at him. Then I hugged them both again quickly. “Okay. I’ll seeya round, okay? Thanks again.” They both hugged back, and I turned and started walking home again. I glanced back before I went around a corner, and they were gone, so… I don’t know, maybe they left. Or maybe they were just invisible. Either way. Honestly, I felt… pretty good. I mean, still kind of worried, but… like I told them, at least I felt like I was on the right side.
I got home again pretty quick and let myself in. Kaitlyn was still awake. Well, she was pretending to be asleep, so I just let her pretend and went to get changed. Then I crawled into bed and laid on my back, looking up at the ceiling. Still a few hours to dawn, but… I didn’t have to go out and do vampire things if I didn’t want to, right? I could just stay home, lay around and whatever. At least for a little while. I’d have to deal with it eventually, but not right then.
I guess Kaitlyn got tired of pretending to sleep, because after a little bit, she rolled over and cuddled up to me like she’d been the night before. Head on my chest, arms around me, that kind of stuff. I put my arms around her as well and squeezed her. “I knew you were awake,” I told her.
Kaitlyn just sort of shrugged and didn’t say anything for a while. “So… are you the good guys?” she eventually asked me. I figured she might, so I’d been thinking about what to say.
“They are,” I said. “More or less. I just drive the van.”
“That’s good enough for me,” Kaitlyn said, squeezing me again.
“That mean you’re not afraid of me?” I asked her. I tried to keep it… I don’t know, quiet. Not like I was demanding anything or confronting her or whatever.
“Not as much,” Kaitlyn said after a little bit. “But I’m still gonna make jokes.”
“If you didn’t, I’d think somethin’ was wrong,” I told her.
“Good,” Kaitlyn said and squeezed me.
I squeezed her back. Neither of us said anything else, really, and about an hour before dawn, Kaitlyn fell asleep for real. I knew that wasn’t going to be it. For the vampire thing, or for what I might have to do because I hung around with Ferret and Pops and them. Maybe vampires couldn’t be the good guys, not really. Not without being… all angsty and dark and shit. But we could still joke around. We could still have friends. We could still care about each other. Right then, even with everything else, just being there quietly was nice. Maybe things were shitty outside, and maybe I’d have to deal with all kinds of bad vampire stuff, but right then and there, I felt good. Almost human. Like I really had someone who cared about me, because they did. More than one someone. So staying there until dawn came and I went to sleep just felt… natural. And that was good enough.
