2. Disillusioned (S)
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Announcement
Content warning: brief sexual assault

"I've got nothing," I sighed as I stood in front of the little gazebo thing near the middle of the park.

Tara was sitting on the steps of the gazebo with a bored look on her face. She shrugged, "Your nose is ten times better than mine. If you can't find any scents, there's no chance I will."

Before I could comment on her attitude she added, "It'd help if we knew which bench it was."

"Yeah," I agreed. "Well, maybe. It's been almost two days since it happened, and I understand the park gets busy at times? A lot of folks come here during their lunch break or something. You know, people like the little bit of nature in the middle of the concrete jungle."

Tara nodded, but she still had that disinterested look on her face.

I finally moved to sit down next to her. I was close enough that our shoulders were practically touching.

"Hey," I said softly. "Is there anything in particular bothering you today? Or is this just your normal moodiness?"

Tara shrugged, then she leaned into me so she was resting against my arm and shoulder. She sighed, "It's just, I never really imagined I'd wind up having to be a vampire cop, you know?"

I grimaced. I didn't like to think of myself like that. I called myself an enforcer because I enforced the truce. Tara called us peacekeepers because we kept the peace, and she thought it sounded nicer than being an 'enforcer'.

"I know cutie," I finally responded. "I don't like it either, but we all have to do our part and earn our keep right? And the Family didn't need another accountant."

That's what Tara was studying at college before she tried to end it all. But we had three accountants already, and it was a pretty safe stable career so they didn't tend to die so quickly.

One of the many things I didn't know till after I turned her was our progeny tended to inherit our strengths and weaknesses. It's not perfect or guaranteed, but in retrospect it made sense. It explained why I was so good at this, since Isabelle was the best and she was my Dame.

Tara was still young but odds were she'd be good at this too in time. Her biggest liability, apart from her attitude, was her size. I was pretty sure that was my fault too.

I was stupid and cocky and just assumed I knew what I was doing. And in my defence, I was pretty strong for my age. At thirty years dead I was the youngest vamp in our Family who'd ever had a successful turn. But according to Isabelle my cockiness and ignorance resulted in Tara's undead body being what it is, instead of what either of us expected it to be.

Apparently there was a lot of stuff the Elders taught you about how to turn someone when you were old enough, and when they approved who you wanted to turn. Nobody taught me that stuff because I was too young and I never nominated someone for turning. And now I'd probably never get those lessons. Odds were the Family would never let me turn anyone else after breaking the rules for Tara.

I was small and athletic, I sort of had a gymnast's physique. Honestly I didn't turn out how I wanted or hoped either, but eventually I got over it. Or I got used to it. I was a girl, that was the main thing.

Tara had the boobs and hips and butt of a well-developed woman, but she was positively tiny. And she hated it. She tried not to let it show but I knew her size upset her. And I felt like crap because there wasn't a damned thing anyone could do about it now.

She was dysphoric about her height, and she was stuck with that forever. And it was all my fault.

Tara sighed again and asked, "What if I can't cut it? What if I can't do what you do?"

"Then we'll find something else for you," I replied. "Isabelle won't just throw you out. She'll find another job for you in the Family."

Rather than cheering her up, that just made her even more depressed. "She'll put me to work with Cheryl. That's the first thing Isabelle said when she saw me, remember? That I'd fit in perfectly with Cheryl's crew."

"I won't let that happen," I stated. "Don't worry, ok? Maybe something else will come up. Julian's got to be pushing a hundred and twenty, maybe he'll have a little accident. Then you can take his place."

Tara scowled, "I don't want to be an accountant either. Locked away in a little room with Clive and Harold looking at fucking spreadsheets for the next century sounds just as bad as stripping at Cheryl's club."

That actually confused me. I frowned as I asked, "Then why were you taking accounting at school? I figured you liked that stuff, when you told me that's what you were studying."

"My dad's an accountant," she replied. "That's why. His idea, not mine."

"Oh," I said quietly. "Well what did you want to do? If you could do anything at all, what would it be?"

She sighed, "I wanted to get into med school. I'm not sure I'd have been a doctor, but I wanted to work in medicine. My grades weren't good enough though, I just missed the cut."

I slipped my arm around her and gave her a squeeze, "At least you had a dream. I had no idea, no goals or dreams at all really. I never thought about the future and I never had plans. I was so fixated on that one thing that was wrong with my life..."

She quietly leaned against me as I held her.

After another minute or two I gave her another gentle squeeze and said "So we were a couple desperate trans girls who didn't know what they were getting into. Now we're trans vamp girls, but we have a job to do cutie."

"Right," she sighed as she got to her feet.

I stood up too, and we left the park as we headed out onto King Street. The sun was finally set so I slipped off my shades and tucked them in my jacket pocket. Tara did the same, as the two of us headed west.

She was right, it wasn't going to be easy getting into any bars but we didn't really have to get past the bouncers or whatever. Just getting in the door for a minute or two should be enough to pick up any undead scent in the building.

There were only three places we needed to check out, according to Isabelle. If they were all a wash then we'd just patrol the streets in the area. We could sort of expand out in a circle from the park, but honestly after two days it was pretty hopeless thinking we'd find that trail. It was more a question of finding any unfamiliar undead scent at all.

On the other hand if there was something at the bars, we'd have to take a closer look. Maybe whoever it was would still be around. Or maybe they'd be back. There were a lot of maybes, but it was important. We had to defend the Covenant and keep the peace.

The first place was a bust. No surprise but we didn't get past the doorman. It was a posh cocktail bar, but I could tell from the air inside nothing undead had been through those doors in years.

Not surprising, since alcohol didn't do any more for us than food did. Less even, at least food could taste good. But we couldn't get drunk, and in my limited experience most liquors tasted like crap. So if you couldn't get a buzz off it, why even bother?

The second place was another ritzy spot. One of those bars that only serves posh French wine or whatever, with the real piano in the corner.

They didn't have a bouncer or doorman, the place probably thought they were too upscale to need one. So nobody tried to stop me and Tara from wandering inside. We only made it as far as the bar though before some guy in a suit intercepted us and asked us to leave.

He was probably the manager or something. It didn't matter, I'd already figured out our undead quarry hadn't been in there either.

Me and Tara turned around and let the guy walk us back out to the door, then we cut across the street to head for the last place on Isabelle's list. It was a half block down the street, and neither of us said anything as we made our way there.

I figured Tara was still feeling moody about how her unlife turned out. I understood, it wasn't that different for me. I was sure she'd get over it eventually, same as I did. I just hoped it wouldn't take too much longer. I probably wasn't helping by being so soft on her, but I couldn't help it. I couldn't bring myself to be as tough on her as Isabelle was on me.

The last spot was a tavern instead of anything posh. They had a restaurant side and a bar side, so me and Tara weren't stopped when we stepped in the front door. It was hard to smell anything beyond the stale beer odour from the tavern and the stench of fried food emanating from the dining room, so I decided we'd have to do a walk-through before I could be sure the place was clear.

I told the hostess we were here to meet friends and she waved us through to the restaurant side.

Tara followed behind me and we headed to the right and took a tour around the dining room. On top of the various unpleasant scents was the constant din of a dozen televisions showing different sports broadcasts, the background beat of modern pop music, and the nonstop chatter of all the patrons.

We walked past the kitchen and the hall that led to the restrooms then moved into the tavern side from back there.

That was just as bad but in different ways. There was less chatter but it was louder. Boisterous laughter and enthusiastic shouts at whatever sports team was winning or losing on one of the multiple screens, combined with the smell of booze and sweat.

We were about halfway through and there was no trace of undead scent here either. I was fixed on simply making our escape out to the relatively clean and quiet evening air when I heard Tara let out a squeal behind me.

Vampires are a lot stronger than humans, and a lot faster. Our reflexes are much better. But Tara was only three years dead, she was a relative baby. And she still acted like she didn't know how to look after herself. Part of that was my fault. I spoiled and indulged her too much, I wasn't as strict with her training.

She'd been grabbed from behind by some guy, sitting with his friends at a table. He'd pulled her onto his lap and had an arm around her. His left hand was on her chest and his right hand on her thigh, and I could pick his voice out of the din as he talked dirty to her. Meanwhile the three other guys at his table were just laughing and enjoying the show. They looked like another gang of college kids, all in their early twenties.

I really hated guys like them. They didn't keep their hands to themselves, they thought any attractive woman was fair game, and someone like Tara looked like a very easy target. She was a vampire though, and baby or not I knew she was strong enough to pull free.

Instead she seemed frozen. The look on her face was pure shock. It was like she'd completely seized up or something.

The creep and his friends didn't even notice me till I grabbed the guy's wrist and snapped it like a twig. As soon as his hand was off my girl I pulled her free and the two of us left without a word, while the creep was cursing up a storm and holding his injured arm against his chest.

She still had that stunned look on her face as we walked out past the hostess and emerged onto King Street. I led her a few dozen meters away then stopped and turned so we were facing each other.

"Tara what happened?" I asked. "Are you ok? Why'd you freeze up?"

Her eyes slowly focused on me, but she still looked completely shocked. She was a lot quieter than normal as she replied in a dull voice, "I know him. The guy who grabbed me? I know him. That was Ben."

"Ok," I asked calmly. "And who is Ben?"

Tara gulped, then half-whispered "My little brother."

"Fuck," I sighed.

Anything to do with our living family was tough. Probably one of the toughest things we had to deal with.

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