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The hunter moves among the trees swiftly, her gun strapped to her back and her braid whipping behind her. She doesn't have much time, and she must know that, because she moves at a speed that is nearly superhuman, though not quite, because the hunter herself is still only human.
The thing she's chasing isn't, though.
She stops suddenly, then steps to the side just as a shrieking ghoul rushes towards her, its horrible claws drawn, coated in dried blood. In the same motion, she pulls her rifle from her back, lines up a shot, and fires.
Bam. Dead. Right in the heart. The wound is sizzling with what's probably a silver bullet, but her eyes narrow. For good measure, she delivers another shot to the skull. Smart girl. Most monsters struggle to come back from that - even the particularly nasty ones. She lets out a huff, and its only then that she starts to approach it to get a closer look. It's an ugly, nasty thing, but it's undoubtedly responsible for the cattle mutilation from the other day.
It doesn't fully explain all of the strange things happening in this town, though. There's something else.
She looks up into the trees, where you're currently perched in the form of a crow. You take off into the night before she can think to turn her gun against you instead.
---
"Please tell me you did not go back to stalking that hunter again."
Rose has words for you as soon as you land back in the window of the house you share with your kin. You shift back to your regular human form - for some definitions of human, anyways. The red eyes and elongated fangs aren't exactly "human" traits, but if you wear shades and stop yourself from smiling too much, most humans can't really tell the difference anyways.
You bet she would though. She's so fucking good at hunting.
"I did not go back to stalking that hunter again," you say, lying. "You said it yourself. She's bad news. She gets one whiff of the fact that there's vampires here, and she's gonna come and wreck the whole nest."
"Mmm." Rose is staring at you with those shocking violet eyes of hers. You imagine she'd be sipping out of a wine glass all smug if you weren't obligate blood drinkers. Like, you definitely can get blood in a glass and drink it like that, but it's not the kind of thing you just have lying around the place. "Intriguing you think she'd be able to take out the whole nest. Between us, we have millennia of experience, especially if you include our Sire in the mix. While I don't want to invite a fight with somebody armed with stakes and silver bullets, you have to imagine we'd be able to take her out."
"Nah. No way. I don't know where she came from, but she's good, Rose. She took out that ghoul that was haunting the fields like it was nothing. Just bam, bam, shot through the heart, shot through the head."
A smirk crosses Rose's face that's so insufferable that you know you've fucked up. "Ah. She killed the ghoul, did she? How funny; I am quite certain that the creature was alive when you left early tonight. So for you to have seen her kill it..."
"I'm not stalking her! I just- ran into her. Accidentally."
"There's sure been a lot of accidental run ins lately." Dirk and Roxy seem to take that moment to appear - though for all you know, they've been there all along. Roxy learned to melt into shadows a decade ago, and she's still lording it over the rest of you. And Dirk's always just been a sneaky motherfucker. If you had to guess, he was probably even a sneaky motherfucker when he was a human.
"It sounds to me like Dave has a cruuuush," Roxy adds in a playful sing song. She saunters over to you and pinches your cheek like you're three instead of three hundred. It's kind of insulting that everyone treats you like the baby of the family, even though Rose is a couple decades younger than you.
"I don't have a crush." You bat her hand away. "I'm just doing recon."
"I don't recall you being so adamant about running reconnaissance before." Dirk's face is unreadable, but he cocks his head ever so slightly to the side. It's really uncanny how much he resembles your Sire sometimes. "If I didn't know better, I'd think something was special about this hunter."
"Like a crush, perhaps," Rose offers unhelpfully.
Roxy is grinning like a maniac now, showing off her fangs. "You totally have a crush!"
Your cheeks would flush if you still had your own blood. "I don't have a crush!"
"You should talk to her!" Roxy says, nudging her with your elbow. "You never know! Maybe you two will hit it off and find out that you actually have a lot in common."
You roll your eyes. "She's a hunter. I don't think we're gonna have a lot in common. Which is why I don't have a crush on her."
"Correct. You're better off avoiding her," Dirk advises. "She's going to notice a crow hanging around her sooner rather than later, and we don't want a fight."
"Or," Rose adds, "if you are truly so unattached, you could just eat her. It would soundly prove to us that you are not in love with her, and prevent the threat to your own family. It sounds like a simple matter to me."
The thought of eating her makes you feel kind of ill, but you don't let yourself show that in front of them. You know them; they'd pounce at any sign of weakness and continue to poke at you until you spill your guts about whatever you may or may not be feeling for the very attractive hunter who's currently in town.
"I'm just going to keep my distance," you say, brushing Roxy away from you as you retreat back to your room. "You guys are right. She doesn't need more reasons to stick around here, and I'm not planning to give her one. If you need me, I'll be in my room. It's nearly sunrise anyways."
---
You do not keep your distance. You just said that to get them off your case. You tell them that you're gonna be brooding in your chambers the following evening, and then you slip out the window in your crow form.
It doesn't take you too long to find her. You know the motel's she's been staying at, and when you see her old beat up car is still in the parking lot, you know you're good to wait outside for a bit until she comes out.
You didn't really mean for this to become a full on stalking situation. It really did start out as a basic reconnaissance mission. You'd seen her out asking questions of the locals and had started to eavesdrop when they got oddly specific. She didn't tell the townsfolk that she was a hunter, but you knew the signs. Who else went out and asked questions about animal mutilations? Hunters and UFO enthusiasts, and she didn't have enough alien "I Believe" stickers on her back bumper to be someone into UFOs.
You'd considered just calling it then. Going back to the nest, letting the others know that there was a hunter out and about, and encouraging everyone to just stay in for the next week or so while she was in town. But you'd wanted to follow her for just a little bit longer, and that was when you saw her hunt for the first time.
At first, you thought she was going to fucking die and that you'd have to try and clean up the body before it got too much media attention and attracted even more hunters to your city. She pulled out a gun covered in Squiddles stickers of all things, wore a cute little bow to tie back her braid, and the way that she spoke to the townspeople was so friendly and cutesy. Nothing like the usual hunters you'd come across, who were gruff older folks or douchebags too paranoid for the military. You assumed a girl like her couldn't hack it in this profession. A shame, since she was cute, but hey. You didn't tell her to get into monster hunting.
But then you watched as she blew off the head of chupacabra in a single shot without breaking a sweat, and you had to know more.
Since then, you've learned that her name is Jade. She's given a couple of different last names - Harley, English, Crocker - so you have no idea which is her actual last name, or if she even has one. You know she's knowledgeable about various types of monsters, because she's been able to sniff out just about everything that was lurking in the corners of this city. The ghoul's dead, the chupacabra is gone, she took out the banshee, and the succubii left town two days ago, leaving your family with a little courtesy notice of their departure. To your knowledge, there's only two big things left - your family, and Lord English.
Lord English is a demon who runs the underground crime ring in town. You're aware of him because your sire has to deal with him to form something of a peace treaty. As long as he doesn't mess with your nest, you guys don't mess with his crew. So far, that's worked out pretty damn well for all of you. You definitely have no desire to try and get on the bad side of a guy who has command over a crew of demons who wear clown paint for fun, anyways.
Still, you doubt that Jade is going to go and try to take him down. English presents himself and his crew as being pretty human, and even if a hunter could sniff them out, they'd be smart enough to know not to mess with a demon of his strength and power by themselves. Jade is good. She's the best hunter you've laid eyes on in your centuries of life. But even she's not that good.
So when you see her hop into her car and start driving right for his headquarters, you think you're about to lose it. Is she stupid? No, she can't be stupid. Maybe it's just a coincidence. She's headed towards downtown; maybe she just needs to go to the bank or go clothes shopping or something.
But no. Jade parks her car right in front of English's headquarters, loads up her gun, and strolls right in. Oh, what the fuck. She's going to die.
You can hear a voice in your head that tells you that you should just let her die. She's a hunter. She'd kill you, if she ever met you. You're not sure if that voice sounds more like Dirk or Rose, but it's definitely in there. But then there's a part of you that feels like you can't just let her walk to her death. Yeah, she'd kill you, and she'd probably kill your whole damn family if given the chance, but you know she means well. You know why she's doing this. She wants to save people.
You were like her, once.
So you follow her in. You wish more than anything that you had Roxy's ability to melt into shadows, because it'd make it a lot easier to sneak in behind her, but you manage to just slide in the door before it shuts in your crow form, and you hop along behind her. She must be focused on her objective, because she doesn't notice you as she descends into the bowels of English's hideout.
She reaches a sort of antechamber where two demons are standing guard, wearing that ugly ass facepaint. You hate these guys; they've always given you the creeps. You kind of want to just turn around and leave, but Jade pulls out her gun, aims it at the head of the one who looks like his face is all stitched up, and then she fires.
You think he's gonna need more than stitches to fix that up.
Jade doesn't even say anything as she aims her gun at the next one, which is sick as hell, but unfortunately these clown motherfuckers are fast, and he's already moving by the time she fires. Her shot grazes his cheek, causing sickly purple blood to spill and cause his facepaint to run; this only seems to make him more furious. He's up in front of her before she can reload, and he brings one of his heavy clubs down on her shoulder.
Jade swears and loses her grip on her cute rifle with the Squiddles stickers on it. She steps back and pulls a smaller gun out of a holster, but you notice that she's not using her other arm now. That's not good. She fires into the clown demon a few more times, but she must miss the vital parts, because he's still moving, lumbering towards her with that heavy club in his hand. You suddenly feel cold and you realize how this is going to end. She's going to hurt this guy, but he's going to win. You know English and his men; they're not the type to take prisoners.
Jade is going to die. You're going to watch this incredible hunter die here, in this dingy hideout underground, and there's nothing you can-
Yeah, fuck that actually.
The clown demon knocks another one of his clubs into Jade's side, causing her to stagger to the side and fall to her knees, obviously winded. You'd be shocked if she didn't have a broken rib. He raises his club up again to strike, but that's when you make your move. You shift from your bird form and launch yourself at him from out of the shadows, fangs out as you rip into his neck. Demon blood tastes horrible; it's practically poison to vampires, so you do your best not to swallow any of it as you try to take him out. You bite once, twice, then a third time, chewing through muscle and skin each time.
You're already not sure that you're actually going to be able to take this guy out. You have the element of surprise, sure, and you're not exactly a slouch in a fight. You didn't come out on this recon mission heavily armed, though, and in terms of raw bodily power, a demon of his stature has you beat. You can already feel him starting to regain his composure, one of his giant hands reaching back to try and pull you off of him-
But then there's a BANG, a shower of blood, and he slumps backwards, taking you with him. You scramble out from under his heavy-ass body when he falls back on the floor, spitting out vile blood to try and get the taste off of your tongue- and then you turn to see a gun pointed in your direction.
Jade is staring at you, taking heavy, painful-sounding breaths as she lines up a shot. She's aiming for your heart - she's smart. She knows that's the weak point of most monsters, including vampires. Back when you were first turned, you had to watch out for hunters wielding stakes, but a silver bullet will take you out just as easy.
You have time to run. She's not firing yet, and her gaze is somewhat unfocused. But something keeps you rooted to the spot, even though you know that if she pulls that trigger, you're going to die.
Jade's eyelids droop, then her head droops, and then she slumps back onto the ground, unconscious. Her rifle goes off when it hits the ground, but its not aimed at anybody now, and it doesn't seem to rouse her either. Carefully, you approach.
You can immediately tell that she's still alive. It's a perk of being a vampire; your ears are attuned to the sound of blood flowing through veins, so you can tell right away that her heart is still beating. She's just unconscious.
Your family would tell you to leave her here. They would have told you not to come in here at all, but they'd tell you that this was at least your last chance to do something smart and just leave the hunter to her fate. She got to go out doing what she love or something.
But there's something you can't shake, and it's probably the same thing that always has them acting like you're their younger brother. Some last vestige of humanity that you can't really get rid of that doesn't like to see a good person gone in the prime of their life.
Carefully, you walk over, scoop Jade into your arms, and you carry her out of the headquarters of the most notorious demon in the state, bridal style.
---
Predictably, your family aren't happy with you when you make it back to the nest. You manage to ignore Roxy's shout of surprise, Rose's lecture, and Dirk's unbearable silence as he just watches you carrying her back into your room. You slam the door behind you and lock it before you settle Jade down on the bed. You stare at her for a bit, unconscious and helpless. There's a part of you that wants nothing more than to bite down on a bit of neck that's exposed to you. She'd probably taste pretty good- but you don't know that she's healthy enough to handle extra blood loss right now, and it'd be stupid to go through all the trouble of saving her just so that you could kill her by draining her.
Instead, you check her person for hidden weapons. It feels sort of weird and invasive, but you're trying not to be creepy about it - you don't linger in any spot on her body unless you feel the hard edge of a knife or a pistol or something. You hiss a little as you have to pull some silver off of her, but you're eventually satisfied that she's not going to be able to wake up and immediately go postal on your family. You may be acting dumb right now, but you're not that dumb. You know she's fully capable of killing all of you if she gets the drop on you, so you're not going to let her. Easy.
You put all of her spare weapons in a bag and carry them out of the room, hiding them under a couch cushion. When you look up, you've got three vampires staring at you in disbelief.
Rose is the first to speak. "Dave, have you lost your mind? I know we were poking fun at you perhaps having a crush on the hunter girl, but I didn't think you would actually deign to bring her here. Into the home of five vampires, which she would probably happily kill if given the chance?"
Roxy steps in next. "Yeah, I mean- I totally get it, Dave! Sometimes humans are really cute and you want to take them home, but there are some humans who are a little too dangerous for that kind of casual hookup!"
"I didn't bring her here to hook up with her," you insist, frustrated. "I brought her here because she was going to die otherwise. And yeah, I know that she's dangerous, but I just disarmed her from all of her hidden weapons, and she's pretty badly hurt, so what do you think is gonna happen? You guys don't think you can handle an unarmed, injured mortal?"
You're pretty sure that gets to them. If there's one thing your family has in spades, its pride. You stare each of them down, one at a time, practically challenging them to say something to that.
Dirk is the one to break the silence, a few moments later. "He's not going to like this."
It doesn't need to be said who "he" is. You all know. You try not to wince, but you're sure it still reads on your face. "He... doesn't have to know."
Rose smells weakness and raises an eyebrow at you. "Really? You don't think our thousand-year-old sire is going to notice that a human has been kept in his nest? Even if she's out by the time he returns home, he'll know she was here."
Rose is right. Your sire is perceptive as hell; he's prone to noticing even small things, like if a piece of furniture got pushed aside by an inch to look for something underneath, or if an extra dish is set out. You don't know how he'd figure out that Jade was here, only that he would. A stray strand of hair, maybe, or possibly his scent is so good that he'd be able to sniff her out just from that alone, even if she hadn't been there in a few days by the time he comes home.
Still.
"She's hurt. You know how hunters are - no hospitals."
"It's why they are normally so easy to take out," Rose remarks dryly. You level her with a glare.
"Not the time. But I can't just put her back out there. She's hurt, and she's-" You realize that you probably shouldn't spill the beans on just what hurt her. If your siblings know that she pissed off Lord English, there's no way they'd let you keep her here. It's not that you have any allegiance to the guy, but you also really don't want to get on his bad side.
Normally, you don't worry about getting on his bad side, since you're unlikely to have conflicting goals. You're both supernatural creatures who need to integrate with people, but also want to keep a low profile. Normally, you're both in agreement about staying out of each other's way, so there's no reason to be on his bad side that isn't also detrimental to you. But normally, you didn't just bust into his headquarters, help to kill one of his men, and then break out with the woman who landed the final blow on both of them. Really, you're as much of a liability as Jade is.
You know your family will protect you, though. So if you protect Jade, then everyone has their backs covered. Easy.
"She's not going to be able to fend for herself," you say eventually. "She's probably got enemies who'll sniff out weakness and take her out, but they're not gonna think to look for her here. Look, it's not gonna be any big thing. I'll take all the blame. You guys can pretend you didn't even know that she was here."
They all look uncomfortable with this offer. You can't blame them. It's impossible to lie to your sire sometimes. It's like he always knows when you're bullshitting him. Still, Dirk shrugs.
"Your funeral."
Rose nods. "I doubt that this is going to end well, but I can't deny that I am curious to know how it will end."
Roxy actually manages a little smile. "I hope we get to see her at some point. I mean, she must be pretty if you're this smitten with her."
"I'm not- I'm not smitten-" you stammer out. "She's just. A good person. She doesn't deserve to die."
"Nor do many people," Rose intones. "That hasn't stopped you before."
---
It takes Jade time to wake up, and for a while, you're starting to worry that she simply won't. Maybe you missed that one of the clubs hit her on the head or something and she's got a brain bleed. Mortals can be so fucking squishy sometimes; you're always surprised by how little it takes to kill them.
But after a few hours of sitting around and waiting, with time stretching into the mid-morning when you'd normally like to be asleep, Jade comes to. It's slow, with a groan as she first hides her head further into the pillow, clutching it a little closer to her face. It's cute. You've never seen her look so defenseless before.
But after a moment, her brow furrows, and she starts to come to. The blankets get kicked aside as she suddenly sits up and looks around the room with wild eyes- before those eyes land on you.
"You-" she gasps out, grabbing blindly under the pillow for... probably some weapon that she normally keeps on there. Given that she's staying at a motel, you wonder if she has to remember to place a knife or something under her pillow each night before she goes to sleep. Like, shower, brush teeth, knife under pillow, good night. You'd probably ask her about it if she weren't glaring metaphorical knives into you right now.
"You," she hisses out a second time, though she winces as she says it. Broken ribs, probably. It must hurt like a bitch; you don't miss healing like a mortal. "The crow. You- you've been following me-"
Shit. She noticed. You probably should have known that she would. She's too good not to notice that there's been a little birdie stalking her on all of her most recent hunts. That's part of why you're so fascinated with her.
You consider denying it, but then decide against it. What's the point? She clearly already knows you're not human, and you have the sense that being truthful with her make it a lot less likely for her to try and break off a bit of the window frame to try and use it as a stake against you.
"Yeah." You shrug a little, and you reach out your hand a little to show the feathers starting to prickle off of your skin. You don't go through the whole transformation, but you're sure that will be enough to prove to her that she knows who you are.
"Why?" she asks. "To try and corner me? I'm onto what your boss is and what he's doing, and-" Jade winces as she leans forward and hurts her rib.
"Woah, woah." You hold up your hands. "My boss? I don't have a boss."
"Lord English?" she asks. "That's not you?"
You snort in laughter at that. "Oh fuck no. I don't work for English. That's a totally different scene. I don't fuck with demons."
She squints at you, apparently sizing you up. You guess that from her perspective, she doesn't have a great sense of what you are, beyond something that can shapeshift into a crow. Plenty of things can do that, demons included. It probably is the most reasonable assumption to make, even though it's wrong.
She catches something as she's looking at you, though, which you're willing to bet is the bite mark on your neck. You actually tilt your head a little to give her a better look. Maybe you shouldn't, because knowing what you are also makes it easier for her to kill you, but you feel pretty confident that you can take her in her current state. And hopefully while she's injured, you can convince her not to kill you.
"A vampire," she says, voice a little soft. "I didn't know there were vampires here. And- shapeshifting like that means that you've got at least a century of life behind you." She looks very uneasy with the idea of how old and powerful you must be. You figure now may not be the time to tell her that the rest of your family is just as old, if not older than you.
"Something like that," you say, like it might make her feel better.
"Then- it makes even less sense why you brought me here." A deep frown is forming on her face as she tries to puzzle out what your angle is here. It's kind of cute, though you're smart enough not to voice it out loud. "Are you... I mean, is there some kind of turf war going on between you and the demons? I didn't think vampires and demons usually got into it like that."
"Yeah, we don't," you confirm. "I just... I dunno. Didn't want you to get hurt."
Jade looks as though you might as well have grown a second head. "I don't- that doesn't make any sense! You know who I am, right? I'm not just some lost little girl! I know how to kill monsters like you with all of the tricks in the book! I would kill you if I could!"
"Yeah," you say, kind of dreamily if you're being real with yourself. "I know. That's why I kept my distance for a bit. You know, thought I was just gonna keep an eye on you at first, make sure you didn't get too close to finding us, but after a while... look, I've been alive for a while. After a while, you start to form an appreciation for whenever someone's really good at what they do. You know, artists, musicians, writers. It's one of the cool things about getting to live forever. But you make hunting look like a goddamn art form. Kinda can't help watching you, and it felt like it'd be a shame to see all of that go to waste just because you single-handedly tried to take on a den full of clown demons. Like, yeah, I guess that's your own hubris getting the better of you, so it'd be a fitting end or whatever, but clown demons? That just feels fucking insulting. Like, damn, here lies the coolest hunter that the planet has ever had, but a couple of clowns honked at her too much and now she's a puddle of mush on the ground. Couldn't have that. That'd be a goddamn tragedy."
Jade is looking at you like maybe you've grown a third head now. "This... has to be some kind of trick!"
"Think what you want," you say with a shrug, like you aren't offended that she doesn't believe you. You can't really blame her. Your siblings have been on your ass about it too. "But I promise I'm not gonna hurt you. I went through a hell of a lot of effort to make sure that you didn't get hurt, so I'm sure as hell not gonna make it so that all of that was for nothing. You're safe here."
Jade swallows, looking down at her fists, curled into the blankets at her side. "Prove it, then," she says. You raise an eyebrow.
"Prove it?"
"Blood oath." Her lips thin after she says it, like she feels the need to steady herself after saying the words. "It's particularly powerful with vampires, right? Swear that you won't hurt me and swear that you'll protect me, and maybe then I'll trust you."
You cock your head and consider the offer. It would be a horrendously bad idea to make a blood oath. Blood oaths have meaning for a lot of other beings, but they actually hold power over vampires, given your need to drink blood. One little deviation, and you'd shrivel and starve right then and there for daring to forsake the thing that gave you your undead life in the first place.
Jade lets out a huff. "Yeah- see! That's what I thought! You're planning something else, or else you'd-"
"Yeah," you tell her. "I'll do it. Blood oath me up."
The shock in her eyes is kind of gratifying, at least, and also pretty funny. Who knew that such a talented hunter could end up looking so shocked just by you saying "yes" to the thing that she'd offered? She opens her mouth to say something, then closes it, then opens it again.
"Um- okay! You have a knife?"
"Yeah. Well, more like a sword. My sire's really into them, so we got a lot hanging around." You pop out the door for a second to grab one off of the wall from the hallway - you weren't dumb enough to leave one in reach of her. You walk back in with it in hand, and you can see the way her eyes flash towards it. "Woah, woah. First off, this thing doesn't have a drop of silver in it, so it's not gonna kill me. Second off, even if you did somehow kill me, you'd be faced with a bunch of really angry vampires. Don't even think about it."
"I wasn't thinking about it!"
"No, you totally were. I could see it in your eyes. You were gonna go all Kill Bill on me, wield this thing like a fucking samurai and obliterate me even though you're probably still concussed from fighting the demon clowns. You were gonna single-handedly try to jailbreak yourself using nothing but this sick-ass katana. It would have been so cool 'til one of my siblings got you."
"I wasn't!" Jade insists, though you think you see her lips quirked like she's holding back a smile. "Anyways, just cut your palm and then hand it over!"
"You promise you're not gonna go anime protagonist on me?"
"I promise!"
You use the blade of the sword to slice into your palm, letting the blood ooze out of you, before you pass it on to Jade. She still looks at it like she might be formulating an escape plan, but then she matches your motion, cutting into her palm with a wince. She sets the sword aside and holds out her hand for a shake.
"So just to be clear - I'm promising not to hurt you and to protect you?" you ask.
"Right! And no funny business where you try to sneak loopholes in there."
"Nah. That's demon shit. Pretty well established that isn't my jam." You reach out and clasp her hand in yours, feeling the blood smear between your palms. You can feel a pulse of energy arc through you like a shock to the heart, but you stay stony faced. "I, Dave Strider, swear an oath on this blood that I will protect you and that I will not harm you."
Another pulse of energy rushes through you, enough to make both you and Jade wince a little bit. She pulls her palm back, painted a muddy red with the mix of your blood together. You take a look at your palm as well - a bit of your blood and hers mixed together. You can't really stop yourself from leaning in to lap some of it up.
"Gross!"
"Hey, if you had your hand covered with like. Chocolate. You'd lick it up too. I can't help what I gotta eat."
Jade's nose still scrunches up a little, but she doesn't try to argue with you. You take that as a victory.
"Anyways. I'm gonna order some food for you. What do you like to eat? I can offer you anything we can DoorDash here."
Jade narrows her eyes. "The delivery driver will be okay, right?"
You snort. "Yeah. Obviously. They keep records of where drivers are headed. Kill one of them and the whole house gets investigated. It's a whole mess. They'll be fine."
Jade purses her lips, considering this... then finally says, "Taco Bell."
---
The next day passes by without incident. You get Jade her Taco Bell, followed by some Dunkin before the sun rises and you have to sleep. You lock her into your room and crash on one of the couches, just in case she decides to use the advantage of daylight to come and wipe out your whole family while you're asleep - but once the sun sets and you open the door to your room again, she's passed out on the bed, snoring a little. It's cute.
It's a little less cute when she suddenly wakes up, sits up right out of bed, and then winces as she aggravates her injuries, but at least she isn't instinctively looking for a weapon to kill you with.
"Sleep well?" you ask. "Kinda expected you to be up already, on account of not being nocturnal and all."
"I am kind of nocturnal. I can't get too sleepy when I'm on a hunt!"
You stick your hands in your pockets, mostly so you have something to do with your hands. "Guess that makes sense. Can't be yawning up a storm while you're chasing down a chimera or whatever. I mean, imagine it, you open your mouth to yawn and then bam, acid spit, right in your mouth. I know some people are into the whole spitting in the mouth thing, but..."
Jade's nose is scrunching up a little, but you can also see a smile crossing her face, and you feel your long-dead heart trying to flip over in your chest. Holy shit.
Unfortunately, you realize you've made a mistake. A huge mistake. An unthinkable mistake.
You left the door open.
"Oh, Dave! Can we finally meet this hunter you're losing your mind over?"
Roxy appears right next to you, right out of the shadows, and you jump. The smile is off of Jade's face as she starts to instinctively scramble for where she'd normally wear her hidden weapons, if you hadn't stripped them off of her when you brought her in. You swiftly move to stand between the two.
"Wooooah, woah. Roxy. Calm your tits. Like those tits need to be chilled on ice. And Jade." You look over your shoulder. "You're fine. I gotta protect you, remember? I'm not gonna let Roxy hurt you. Not that she wants to anyways, right?"
You turn back to Roxy with a distinctive raise of your eyebrows, hoping that she'll get the message. The grin that crosses her face isn't as comforting as she probably thinks it is.
"Of course not! I just wanted to say hi! Dave's been telling us aaalll about you."
"No I haven't!" Thank god you don't have normal blood flow anymore, or you'd be blushing up a storm. You look back to Jade, who looks a little less scared now, but significantly more confused. "Just the basic stuff," you clarify, "back when I was tracking you to make sure you weren't about to burst into the house and kill us. Anyways. Jade, this is Roxy. She's one of my sisters."
Jade purses her lips. "Sister because you share a sire?"
"Yeah. She's got a couple of centuries on me. I think our human moms were a few too many generations apart to even be close to being biological siblings."
Jade's eyes widen a little. She thought that you were pretty old, so that probably means that she's upset to learn that she's in a building with vampires who are even older than you.
"Oh, are we getting to meet Dave's new human girlfriend now?"
You try not to visibly cringe as Rose pokes her head in, eternally too nosy for her own good. "She's not my girlfriend!"
"And yet here she is, in your bed." Rose steps forward, clearly intending to walk up to the bed. You step in front of her, and she raises an eyebrow.
"I swore to protect her," you mumble.
That causes Rose's eyes to narrow at you. "You swore? She's just a hunter, Dave. You aren't some knight sworn to their liege lord."
You're not even surprised when Dirk appears, leaning against the door frame. "He made a blood oath," he explains, with no preamble. You can feel the way his eyes seem to be piercing right into you. He's always had a sixth sense for this kind of stuff, which really doesn't bode well, because that means there's no way that your sire won't know the second he lays eyes on you.
Rose hisses under her breath, lips drawn back to expose her fangs. "Oh, you idiot. This is how you get yourself killed. What did you promise?"
"That I wouldn't help her and that I would protect her. So it'd be pretty fucking great if you guys could keep your hands off of her, 'cause if you don't, I'm gonna have to fight you. And I don't want to fight you."
"Well, we don't wanna fight you either!" Roxy says, smiling at you with her hands clasped together in front of her. "So we promise we won't try to hurt your new girlfriend."
"She's not my girlfriend!"
You can hear some giggling from behind you, and you turn to see Jade hiding her mouth behind her hand as she watches all of this unfold. When she sees you looking at her, she waves her hand dismissively at you.
"Sorry, sorry! It's just- I know that vampires call each other brother and sister. But I didn't think that you'd actually act like siblings."
Something about that seems to break the tension in the room. Roxy laughs, Rose smirks, and you think even Dirk has a little quirk in his lips that implies that he's had the passing thought of smiling.
After shooing your siblings away, you help Jade get out of bed. She's walking okay, even if she's in some pain, and when you order her more Taco Bell for the evening, you also get some pain killers for her. You sit her down in the living room while you wait for the delivery. You notice her make a face as she sits down on exactly the cushion that you hid her weapons under, and for a moment you think that you might be fucked - but then she shakes her head.
"You guys really need a new couch! Do vampires just not care about sitting down on comfortable spots? You guys still have butts!"
You're pleasantly surprised by how curious Jade becomes once she's settled in a little and is no longer worried that you or your family are about to kill her. She asks how you guys acquire your food, and is relieved to know that you usually avoid killing people if you can help it. It probably gives her the wrong impression about your family, since it makes it seem like you are trying to be moral, when its really just a matter of convenience for you. If a bunch of exsanguinated corpses start showing up around town, that's like grabbing a megaphone and begging hunters to come and get your asses. Still, if it means that she feels more comfortable around you, you're sure as hell not going to correct her.
You do have to stop yourself from grimacing when she inevitably asks about him, though.
"So- you all share the same sire, right? Is he still around?"
You end up looking to your siblings for help. It's not that it's a hard question to answer; it's more that you're really trying to avoid having Jade and your sire in the same thought, as though that might just summon him to come and take her out.
Dirk answers, thankfully. "He's still alive, if that's what you're asking. He just likes to fuck off for long stretches of time without telling us. Sometimes it's so he can make contact with other vampire nests. Sometimes I think it's just to keep us on our toes."
"So I'm guessing that he's out right now? How long as he been gone?"
Roxy takes that one. "Uh... couple weeks, I think? He's been out since you came to town, at least!"
"What's he like?" Jade asks. "If he's anything like the four of you, he must be pretty interesting."
You think you might be sick. Vampires don't even get sick like that, but you're sure that your vampire anatomy is gonna find a way to pull it off anyways.
"He's... exacting," Rose says after a moment. "It's hard to look at him and not feel like you need to uphold his very high standards."
"He's powerful," Dirk adds on. "He's the oldest of us. Likely one of the oldest living vampires. There's a reason for that. He never lets his guard down."
"He's sort of like Dirk," Roxy adds, cupping her chin in her hand as she looks at Dirk. He is a lot like Dirk, though it would probably be more accurate to say that Dirk is a lot like him, because Dirk has been around him for longer than any of the rest of them. You can only imagine what it must have been like for Dirk to be alone with him for the first century or so until they found Roxy. Dirk doesn't talk about those years much.
"With any luck," you say, "you'll be up and outta here before he decides to come back from whatever bullshit trip he's gone on this time. You don't need to meet him. He's kind of a dick."
All of you laugh at that, but there's an uneasy weight that's settled over the room. It almost feels like somehow, somewhere, he might be watching you.
---
As it turns out, your luck is shit. You get about three more days of hanging out with Jade and getting to know her before your sire appears. The only luck you do have is that he's showing up right around sunset, and Jade hasn't woken up yet, so she's still tucked away in your still-locked bedroom. Good. There really needs to be a closed door between her and him at all times. You kind of wish you could communicate to her that she needs to run, but you've already felt the psychic tug that tells you that he wants you all out for a family meeting, so you don't have the chance to warn her. You don't really know how she'd get out anyways. She's on the second story and she's still pretty beat up from the fight with English's goons.
You gather in the living room, and you take the uncomfortable seat over Jade's weapons. It probably won't actually do much, but if it even slightly lowers the odds of him finding out that you're hiding a hunter in your room, then you'll fucking take it. Roxy and Rose sit on either side of you, and Dirk stands next to the couch, on Roxy's side.
Your sire stands in front of you, his expression unreadable as ever. He's still wearing his shades from being out - those fucking stupid cool pointy shades that you think come from anime. He's been into ironic shit like that for ages.
"I'm pleased to see that you're all still alive and unhurt," he starts, crossing his arms over his chest. "I rushed back as soon as I heard the news from Lord English. Apparently there are hunters in town. English said two of his own men got taken out. Didn't see who did it. Left no trace."
You feel a bit of pride, even though you know you shouldn't. You cast your eyes down, in case it keeps him from reading you.
"Said that a few of the other small fry in the area had been killed, and the succubi blew town too. And not in the fun way. I was worried that they might've found the nest, but it seems like you're all in one piece."
All of you stay silent. You try to keep your posture relaxed, and you hope that none of them blab, though you know it's just a matter of time.
"It's funny, though," your sire continues. "English was talking about the injuries he saw on one of his guys. There were the usual gunshot wounds. Typical shit. We know how modern hunters like to roll these days. But he also said there were bite wounds on the neck."
You feel your body lock up. Shit. Shit shit shit.
"And I told him, well shit, that can't be one of mine. They know better than to mess with your guys. Besides, it ain't like demon blood makes a good meal anyways. But it did get me wondering."
He takes a step forward.
"You guys know anything?"
You don't want to look at him. You know you can't look at him. Looking at him means that he'd be able to see through you, and-
You look up.
His shades are off now, and his eyes are boring right through your skull.
"It's funny, Dave. I noticed that there's another car in our parking lot. Old. Kinda beat up. Sorta looks like the shit a hunter would be driving cross-country, you know? What's that about?"
You start to talk. "I couldn't help it. There was this-"
Your throat goes tight, and your blood feels like its starting to boil until you cut yourself off. Shit. Right. You gotta protect her. You can't just rat her out. You're still looking up at your sire, but it's so obvious what he's doing now, trying to tug on the sire bond to make you act. His eyes narrow when he realizes that, for the first time in centuries, it isn't working.
"What the fuck did you make a blood oath for, Dave?"
"Can't tell you."
He turns his gaze to fall on Roxy, whose head jerks up. "What's Dave hiding?" he demands.
To her credit, Roxy looks like she doesn't want to say. She grits her teeth, and her eyes squint a little like she might be trying to look away, but its no good. You don't even blame her when she says, "A hunter. Upstairs."
Your sire looks up, and you already know he's about to sprint to your room, so you stand up and make a mad dash. You kind of have to, because of the blood oath and everything, but you think you'd probably have done it anyways.
You make it about halfway up the stairs before he grabs your ankle and causes you to fall flat on your fucking face as he surges past you. "Jade! Run!" You don't know where you expect her to run to, but you figure she at least deserves a heads up before a thousand year old vampire bursts in on her while she's injured and defenseless.
You hear the door slam open, the sound of something sharp stabbed into flesh. Fuck. The swords on the walls. He loves those fucking things. He must have grabbed one, and-
And then there's footsteps running down the stairs, nimbly dodging around you in a way that isn't like your sire at all. You look up just in time to see Jade looking back at you.
"Dave! Run!" she parrots back at you. You cast a glance up and see a sword sticking right out of your sire's chest. It's the same one that you brought into her room to make the oath with; you must not have ever taken it back out. The wound's not going to kill him, but he looks so stunned by the audacity that it's seemed to buy you a few minutes.
Holy shit. You really might be in love with Jade.
You scramble to your feet and head back down the stairs, following after her. Your siblings are all standing now, and you can see a faraway look in their eyes that you've seen before, but never registered as being what it really is.
Before they can even think about lunging for Jade, you tackle them, knocking Dirk right back into Rose, and sliding your leg out to kick at Roxy. Dirk is quick to push you off, and Rose hisses as she steps forward to start swiping at you with the claws she's grown on her hands. You easily sidestep, though - they're usually better at fighting than this. You wonder if that means that they're trying to fight back against your sire's influence, but there's no time to ponder on that. You definitely don't want to bank on it if it's true.
You turn to see what Jade's up to, expecting to see her rushing for the front door- but instead, she's fishing out her weapons from under the couch cushion.
"What the hell are you doing?" you demand, pushing Rose to the side and moving to intercept Roxy as she tries to go for Jade, fangs out. You get bit in the hand for your efforts, but it'll heal.
"Getting my weapons back!" Jade pulls out a pistol and aims it, firing a bullet that whizzes just past your ear. At first you think that maybe she was trying to hit you, but then you hear the grunt behind you and whip your head around to see your sire with a bullet lodged in his shoulder. Jade really is that good. "Besides, you put my car keys in here too, you dolt! How else are we gonna get out?"
You kick Roxy in the stomach, which launches her back into Dirk, who easily catches her and steadies her again.
"What do you mean we?" you demand.
"Well, I'm not leaving you here with him!" Jade nods back at your sire, then fires another shot. This one hits Rose, but it's in the thigh - far from a lethal shot. You know Jade could have killed her right then and there if she wanted to, and it warms your undead heart that she made the effort. "And you made an oath to protect me!" She slings a bag over her shoulder and then turns for the door. "Come on! Go!"
"I can go faster," you say, and you rush forward, scooping her into your arms in a bridal carry. "I run, you shoot?"
She grins at you, and it's the most beautiful thing you think you've ever seen. "Sounds perfect."
Jade fires a couple more shots from her pistol over your shoulder as you rush out the door and into the driveway, where her car is still parked from when you drove it here after her attempt at storming Lord English's place. You don't pause to look to see who she's firing at, because you don't want to know. Best if you just focus on being fast.
When you make it to the car, you set her down by the driver's side, and she hands you the gun. "Can you shoot?"
"Not as good as you," you say. "But I can probably manage while you get us out of here. Just roll a window down for me, okay?"
Jade raises an eyebrow at you, but she doesn't question it as she gets in the car, and you have the gun trained on the front door. Your sire bursts out of one of the windows instead, littered with bullets and mad as hell. His eyes are glowing, and even from here you can feel him try to get control over you. Too bad for him; you don't think you can be doing more protection than you are right now. You're following that blood oath right to the letter.
You fire the gun and hit him square between the eyes. It won't kill him. You're not even sure a silver bullet to the heart would kill him at this point. It does slow him down enough for Jade to get the engine started, though.
"Dave! Get in!"
"Start driving," you tell her.
"I'm not leaving you here!"
"You're not. Drive, okay? You gotta get some distance."
She doesn't stop to ask any more questions - she pulls out of the driveway. You can see your sire turning to follow her, but another shot to his shoulder is enough to get him looking back at you.
"What the hell are you doing?" he spits at you, clearly torn between following Jade and punishing you. Good. You just need to slow him down. "You're defending a hunter? You know she'd kill you, if she got the chance."
"Yeah. She could. But she didn't." You know that now. Jade knew where her weapons were the whole time; she had that sword hidden away too. She could have gotten out, grabbed her weapons, killed all of you, and then ran. She's good enough to pull that off, but she didn't. "Right now I think you're more likely to kill me than she is."
He spits out some blood. "Ungrateful. Always thought I shouldn't have bothered turning you."
"Yeah, well. You never asked."
He starts to charge at you. You fire the gun one more time; he keeps running, even as it strikes through his chest. Invincible motherfucker. Before he can actually reach you, though, you jump, shift, and you start flying more frantically than you ever have in your whole un-life. You don't even go in a particular direction other than away. You can hear him shrieking; if you hadn't already seen Jade kill that banshee, you might have confused his cry for that instead.
It takes you several minutes to find Jade's car, but when you do, you're relieved to see that she did as you asked. She left the window down. It takes some careful flight calculations to swoop in smoothly- and you get the math wrong, crashing into her passenger's seat in your bird form. Jade jumps, her hands tightening on the steering wheel, but she keeps her eyes on the road.
"Dave? Is that you? Are you okay?"
You right yourself and shift back into your human form, closing the window. You let out a huff. "Yeah. Little bit bruised, but I'm fine. You just keep driving. Get to a highway. My sire's fast, but he's not eighty miles an hour fast."
Jade nods. "You think they'll find us?"
"Maybe."
She nods and just focuses on driving, following the signs to the nearest high way. You let the adrenaline fade as she drives, still glancing out the window to make sure that you aren't being followed. So far, so good. No obvious signs of murderous vampires coming your way.
"So what're you thinking from here?" you ask Jade, leaning against the passenger's side window as she peels onto the highway. "You gonna keep hunting? Use me as your guard dog? Uh, no, I guess that'd work better if I were a werewolf. Guard bird?"
"For now? I'm going to keep driving." Jade can't look at you for long, since she has her eyes on the road like any other responsible person, but you still see her cast a glance over her shoulder. You think you might even see her smile a little. "After that? I guess we'll just have to find out!"