Leaning back with his feet propped against the edge of his desk, Jack March rifled through the case folder spread across his lap. For the last few hours, he'd been experiencing a feeling of foreboding, and he wasn't one to ignore such things. Rather, his very nature as a barghest meant he'd have to be beyond stupid to do so.
He'd referred the investigation component of this case to a PI friend as it hadn't seemed particularly dangerous, so there should have been no problems. It wasn't as if Eliza couldn't take care of herself, and the target was human, so...
Jack stared at the photo in his hand.
Something about the mundane security footage still seemed a little off.
"Shit!" His feet slammed to the floor and he snatched up his phone, jabbing a finger at the number 4 speed dial with more force than necessary. "Human my ass! That's a tanuki!"
Ring...
His leg bounced with anxiety.
Ring...
Most tanuki were relatively law-abiding, aside from the usual mischief and juvenile pranks, and everyone in the community knew exactly what would happen to you if you went on an unsanctioned killing spree. Hell, he even had a couple of friends in the branch that dealt with such cases.
Ring...
"C'mon, c'mon, pick up!"
Kachack.
"You are really lucky I had this on vibrate," Eliza grumbled. "What's up?"
"That guy's more dangerous than I thought. Listen, get as far a-"
He was interrupted by the sound of glass breaking, followed by a startled what the fuck?! from Eliza, a thud, and the sound of something distinctly human doing a hell of a job fighting off something distinctly not, all quickly fading into the distance.
He stared at his now-silent cellphone, fingers tightening around its casing.
"Shitshitshit!"
The human-guise manticore at the corner desk let out a low whistle as a monstrous beast proceeded to plow through the door in a streak of red eyes and black fur.
She glanced over at the wreckage of Jack's workstation before turning to her siren deskmate. "...think we should break out the duct tape before Madder comes by later?"
The siren just shrugged, too engrossed in her cellphone game to care.
"Good point. It's way more fun to watch the boss chew him out." The manticore grinned, already looking forward to the show.
****
Louis Santaine was woken at two in the morning by shouting and the repeated BANGs of what he sincerely, and futilely, hoped wasn't someone trying to kick his door in. He considered pretending to be out, but ultimately figured there was little chance he'd be getting back to sleep anytime soon unless he answered the door.
With a sigh, he climbed out of bed. Fiddling with the lock, he swung the door open - and all remnants of sleep promptly left his system.
"Before you say anything," began his friend of nearly 80 years, dark hair plastered to his forehead, "this wasn't my doing." 'This' being the bloody mess in his arms that Louis realized was actually a young woman who seemed on the verge of losing consciousness. A young human woman, no less.
He lifted an eyebrow, but stepped aside with a sweep of his arm regardless - a silent well, come on in, then.
With the door closed and locked behind them, the woman was laid on the surgical cot in Louis' side room. Deep gouges had been clawed out of her side and lacerations lined her arms and legs. One had even been sliced down to the bone. Her breathing was shallow and labored, and her dark brown hair made the blood matting it difficult to distinguish. He could clearly see why she'd been brought here, instead of to a human hospital. No doctor would ever believe these injuries had been caused by a normal animal.
"Hellhound?" Louis asked, snipping away the fabric of her shirt to get a more unobstructed view of the worst of her wounds.
"Tanuki." Jack scrubbed a wet towel over his face, leaving red streaks across the fabric. He plucked a piece of meat out of his hair and wrinkled his nose in disgust. "I took care of him."
"Honestly, she's lost quite a lot of blood already. I'm surprised her body didn't go into hemorrhagic shock sooner."
Jack clenched the towel in his hand, knuckles white.
Louis regarded him silently. "There's a potential solution, but she's not even conscious, and it's, well..."
Drastic. Life-changing. Not for the faint of heart.
And definitely not something to force on someone you want to retain a friendly relationship with.
"Can't you just do that mind meld thing to-"
Louis held up a hand to interrupt. "...mind meld thing?"
"Yeah, you know." Jack demonstrated by squinting his eyes, raising his hand near his face and pointing stiffened, spread fingers outward. All while making some sort of odd humming-buzzing sound through his teeth.
Louis wasn't sure what to comment on first, and was thus left speechless. Jack was evidently either a really big sci-fi fan or a really horrible one.
After a moment, he coughed lightly, returning his attention to the matter at hand.
"I really don't like doing this, but given the circumstances..." Louis let out a deep sigh, and, after a moment, his eyes seemed to glaze over.
****
Eliza Deacon was floating in a blank void. At least, that was her best understanding of the situation, given that she currently lacked anything capable of floating, like, for instance, a body.
She wondered if this was what having an existential crisis felt like.
[That's not a bad analogy, actually.]
Then she wondered if hearing voices was par for the course during existential crises. And if said voices all sounded vaguely French.
[...Right. Well. Apologies for intruding on your subconscious like this, but your body is in rather bad shape at the moment. How much do you remember?]
She distinctly (and disgruntedly) recalled having gotten her ass kicked by a trash panda.
[T...trash... panda...]
The voice was clearly struggling not to laugh.
At least some of her irritation was alleviated by internally badmouthing her dumpster-diving hamburglar of an attacker.
[Ha-hamb...!]
Now that she'd gotten that out of her nonexistent system, she realized the voice had mentioned something about her apparently un-voided body being in bad shape.
Come to think of it, she'd been in an awful lot of pain before. Then was this one of those 'don't go into the light' scenarios?
...She really hoped she hadn't been killed by a goddamn raccoon. That would be embarrassing. Even if it was comically huge, and had equally-comically huge-
[Ahem.]
Apparently the void-voice was a prude.
[Alright, let me just get straight to the point, so as not to waste any more time. You, miss, are essentially at death's door. There IS a way to save you, but afterward, you'll no longer be human.]
Just as long as she didn't end up as some mutant were-raccoon. That was not a grudge she'd be letting go of anytime soon.
[You'd be a vampire. And before you make any snarky commentary, I am being perfectly serious.]
She thought about it. And then wondered if the tight, skimpy, dominatrix getup was a mandatory uniform. Because if so, she'd have to pass. It looked uncomfortable and wedgie-prone.
[....]
She'd successfully stunned the void-voice into speechlessness! Ten points!
[...No, there's no mandatory uniform, skimpy or otherwise.]
Then sure. It beat dying in a void.
[In a moment, you may feel a slight pinch, like a shot at the doctor. After that, well... I'm told it can get unpleasant.]
Wait, how unpleasant were they talking, here?
...She had a sneaking suspicion this was going to hurt like a bitch.
And then there was pain.
It was like ice - like liquid nitrogen screaming through her nonexistent veins.
As the void swallowed her whole, all she could think about was violently educating that voice on the difference between 'unpleasant' and 'torturous.'
****
The gasp of air that suddenly entered Eliza's lungs felt like the dead of winter.
She was lying on a surgical cot beneath an unfamiliar ceiling, and she could hear a car alarm going off half a mile away. How exactly she knew that was something she'd think about later.
"Ow, fuck." Her voice was hoarse and what remained of her clothes was drenched in blood.
"Welcome back," said a voice she'd last heard tensely speaking through her cellphone. She turned her head, taking in Jack's ragged appearance. "So, long story short, creatures from myth and folklore are real, they live alongside humanity with mostly no problems, I can turn into a giant dog, and now you're a vampire." He produced what looked like a Capri Sun juice pouch and held it out to her. "Blood pack?"
