Eclectic Zombie's tales from a twisted bookseller

I told him that it wasn't just his heart going into surgery.

2010-01-21T08:40:00.000-08:00

Something you aren’t prepared for is to see someone you love after a major surgery. From the moment you kiss them goodbye and the 8 hours of waiting might seem harsh, but when you get your first glimpse of the body, no color, lifeless. The life support helping them breath, as they are wired to machines. Millions of IVs are along the wall behind him, and tubes like tentacles are dangling from the side of the bed hooked to machines which look like they should be hooked to cars. No one should ever see someone they love like that. I knew it would be bad, but it put me in a state of shock that I was in for the rest of the day. A staring husk, not sure what I had seen not wanting to believe my eyes. 9 hours later and he actually was aware, he squeezed my hand and relief flooded in me, but he still had more to go. There was a pump helping his heart that was removed Sunday, and that evening he wanted to know what day it was, that was when he came aware. But the doctors were still worried about his lungs and did not remove the ventilator tube until yesterday. I have been living in this emotional ball, where my fight of flight kicked in and Sunday evening I wanted to run away. It seemed like so much for me to take, but I had to be here for everything, just had to. And now 5 days in and he is exceeding the all the doctors expectations. Joe promised me he would fight and he is.

Risk and why a movie is better.

2008-10-29T01:28:00.000-07:00

Taking risks on both sides kinda suck. To pause hoping they well come back, to hold you and give you the best kiss you've ever had. You wish they would call you if they can't sleep, or if they have a problem. To want them to want the same thing in sharing a life together. But again would you do it? It leads to why the whole happily ever situation never works. The risk involved now, may be too much. Could that person have the same feelings, or are you just going to go for it, do what you want, and then while it's happening that person is totally grossed out. Or possibly just steps back and is, no, and leaves.

In movies it's all about the risks. The person you love is getting on that plane or train and you'll never see them again, so silly, go after them. You just realized that your best friend might just be the one. Or maybe it was a quick connection with this person who seemed to click in every piece of you like a missing puzzle piece. The risk the character takes at the end pays off and you can sit there all warm and fuzzy knowing that those two will live briefly happily ever after, and then they have to meet each other's family, and all the other obstacles life throws at us when we start a relationship.

We are a selfish bunch, and we want what we want when we want it. Sex, food, money, ect. Of course for most of it we have to work for it. But I think those selfish needs cloud our thoughts on basic things, like love. Oh we've all walked down that road, putting ourselves out there just to have our heart ripped out, smashed, burned and the ashes spread around. That is why we prefer watching a movie then deal with what we have, because afraid or unwilling, we can always watch someone else take that risk, and they get the happily ever after moment. Instead of over thinking or fearing what would really happen if we actually took a step towards that risk and perhaps seeing what will come out of it.

Munched A New Home

2008-07-22T15:44:00.000-07:00

A New Home

The zombies noticed the guys right off, and started moving towards them. Anatha, Envy and Autumn had little time to react. They threw open the glass doors, yelling for the guys. Tune N’s bodyguards did the job they were paid to do. They got in-between the band and the zombies. Something Autumn wouldn’t have done, but, hey, the band got what they paid for. The guys finally noticed the girls screaming at them, and started running over towards the doors as girls shot the zombies that were in the way.

Busting threw the doors, the guys collapsed on the floor out of breath and scared. Autumn locked the doors her back resting against the glass. Anatha glanced at the boy band and then at the remains of their bodyguards she looked away quickly, the guys were a better sight.

“Can this month get any weirder?” Autumn asked herself. A small sound on the glass behind her made her turn her head. Her green eyes met those dead hungry eyes. For a moment she seemed sucked into the abyss of deadness. Where are you? The words caressed her mind lightly. She shook her head, and pulled herself away from the window.

Everyone was either standing or sitting while watching the zombies eat the rest of the bodyguards. Anatha looked over at her cousin who was watching the zombies, and then turned back to the guys. The only thing that came to her mind was, Oh my. Sitting in back of her was her biggest crush. She wanted to pull Envy over to the side and do the whole teeny bopper screechy thing. Envy herself didn’t bother looking out the windows, and the horror that seemed to be finishing up, but her eyes were on the guys.

Autumn turned around. “Anyone hurt?” she asked. Her voice seemed far off, as the events of the day threatened to consume her on the spot. They all shook their heads, and she barely noticed them as they did so. She closed her eyes, leaning against the glass. The glass was cool against her hot skin. She opened them, and in front of her stood the same zombie. Its dried purple lips pressed against the glass as it tried to bite through the window. Snapping at her like a dog would if she had food in her hand, although to it all she was was walking food. She stepped back, not wanting to go back to that abyss.

After half an hour of silence, Autumn decided to put down the security bars. She thought better safe than sorry. She wondered if adding five more people to their living situation would cause any problems as she reached up to press the button that would lower the gate. She held the alarm key in her hand, which was a bit shaky.

“Wait,” Linden said standing up. Linden Stables was the bass of the boy group. He stood about as tall as Autumn, five-eleven, and was six months older then her too. She saw how wide his pretty blue eyes were, his brown hair was trimmed short on his head. Shock, she thought, we all look wide eyed scared. “You can’t lower the bars. We have to leave.”

Anatha looked at him like he was crazy. “Did you not see what just went down outside? Do you not see what is out there?

“You can leave if you want to,” Autumn said cutting of Anatha, “No one’s stopping you.”
“Are you crazy?” Drake said standing up.

Autumn hit the button to stop the gates, and spun around to face him. “Crazy! Sure why the hell not? So far I’ve seen enough to drive any sane person mad in a few days. That,” She turned pointing at the remains of Tune N’s bodyguards, which was nothing but blood marks and bones, “Could be considered the last push of my sanity. So if you want to call me crazy, go ahead. Who knows, by the end we all might be eligible to sit in the same rubber room while we drool all over ourselves.”

She looked at the zombies as they came to the glass. “You guys can leave now if you’d like,” she told them. “Neither me, nor them will stop you, but we can’t help you either.”

The guys looked at her. No one knew what to say. Shocked by her bluntness, they just sat there quietly.
“We’re stuck,” Stefan said to no one in particular.
“Stefan wins the smart award of the day,” Anatha said the harsh irony made Autumn wince, and Envy snort.

“But, our families.” Linden said in a whiny tone, “We can’t stay here.” Autumn had a pretty good tie on her patience, but she knew Anatha didn’t things had to speed up before she burst.

“You have two damn choices,” She held up her fingers making a piece sign. “You either stay with us for five years,” she lowered her point finger showing them her middle finger, “or leave and get-.”

“Munched,” Autumn said cutting off Anatha. She knew exactly what was going to come out of the girl’s mouth.

“Shit,” Drake hissed. Drake Spear was the man behind some of Tune N’s songs. He wrote and helped produce some of the new material on their new album. He had long dark hair. His brown eyes watched the zombies out the windows. Anatha wondered what was going on in Envy’s mind, after all Drake was what she considered a man. She caught herself before making a face. They would always laugh when Envy told them that.

“Munched?” Stefan asked.
“Autumn’s easy way of cutting me off by saying silly shit,” Anatha replied.

“Anyone leaving?” Autumn watched the guys not really interested. The day was almost over, and it was finally catching up with her. She yawned. No one made a move. She pressed the button so the bars continued to close the rest of the way. The sun was going down. It bounced off the parked cars, blinding everyone. It seemed to make the zombies look even creepier. Even more realistic then those really good zombie movies she loved to watch, not anymore. She knew she was going to have nightmares tonight.

Autumn turned to look at the five guys as the gate lowered. They looked helpless, and she did feel bad for them. It’s going to be hard for them being away from those they love, she thought. She turned back around, and watched the gate close slowly. Can’t it speed up, she thought? Five years. The gate closed loudly, echoing through the mall, making them all jump. She felt like crying, she had never really had a life but what she had had wasn’t all that bad.

Reaching in her pocket, she brought out a leaf she had picked earlier that day. The last tree leaf I will touch for five years, she thought bleakly to herself.
They heard another security gate go down on the opposite side. Someone shouted a confirmation. Anatha shouted theirs was down. They all listened for others up above. Autumn shoved the key into the slot and turned it. The small red light came on above it. What now? Was a question they all seemed to ask themselves at that exact moment. Finally she took it on herself to speak to the guys about their new living situation.

“My name is Autumn, that’s Anatha,” she pointed to her cousin, “And Envy. We know who you are. We expect nothing from you. We have tons of food and room.” She hesitated and then added, “No one sleeps on this level.” She continued, “The main entrances are here, you know since you came in this way. Any questions?” Anatha glared at Autumn. Autumn thought she anticipated helping out on the lecture. Oh well, she thought.

She looked briefly at Rowan Reeves, who she had a crush on him and River. It was downright peculiar how destiny creeps up on you, and sinks its yellow color-coded teeth into your flesh when you least expect it. Rowan looked at Autumn, she quickly looked away. She turned so he couldn’t see the blush she knew was spreading out over her cheeks. Her shy? You bet your life.

Rowan had always done everything his way, and didn’t care if someone brought it up. He stood six-one, with black hair, although the color changed weekly, and plain brown eyes. Autumn crushed over him not because of his looks, but more about his personality. He came off as somewhat the bad boy rocker of the group.

Anatha was looking at the guys too, or rather River Osteridge. River was the baby of the band. He stood six-one too, with curly brown hair and dark blue eyes. He had muscles in all the right areas, which was fine by her. He himself seemed busy looking out the window at the drying blood thinking of his mom. What is she doing? Is she okay? Was all that ran through his mind. He looked at his fellow band mates and then at the girls who had saved their lives. Maybe it won’t be that bad, he thought. After all, at least he was getting stuck with girls for five years.

“What now?” Anatha asked.

“We go up, and see if they got someone on the CB,” Autumn started to leave. She turned back seeing no one was following. “Coming?”

The guys slowly got to their feet. Anatha and Envy whispered behind her. Autumn had the urge to cry again, with that far away emptiness threatening to overtake her. She wondered if anyone felt it too. A dark abyss. Sometimes she could feel so alone even surrounded by people who knew her.

“Can you believe it?” Anatha whispered.
“About what?” she asked.
“Them, Tune N’.”
“Oh, yeah. Weird huh?”
Anatha stared at her cousin’s back. “Weird? What’s wrong with you?”
Autumn looked at her over her shoulder. “I feel bad for them, that’s all. Actually I feel bad for us all.”

“Yeah, I understand.” But Autumn really wondered if she really did understand.

They took the stairs instead of the elevator, escalator stairs, so they didn’t have to do much walking. They went up to the fourth floor only to find it almost deserted. Moss sat in a lawn chair watching the little kids run around. He pointed to the roof after Anatha asked where everyone had gone. Autumn knew exactly where the maintenance stairs to the fifth floor were. The generators for the solar panels were up there. They were very noisy, as they walked across the room. The small group found the stairs to the roof. They went up, looking around. Their ears buzzed from the noise below.

“Wow this is huge,” Anatha said. It wasn’t until they saw the roof that they noticed how big the building truly was. She felt so tiny standing there.
“Huge place to play football,” Stefan said. Stefan Mallow was the oldest in the band. Also the shortest, standing five-five, give or take. He had black messy hair, and brown eyes.

Autumn smiled, the first one she had managed all day, a true smile, “Sounds fun, maybe we can get in a couple of games before summer hits.” She liked touch football. It could be very interesting too with some cute guys to play with.
“Sounds good,” he said giving her a small smile.

The group walked over to the other group that was made of Autumn and Anatha’s parents, family, and friends. The crowd of people looked at the group of eight when they walked up, eyeing the strangers. Autumn looked at Hazel, and she looked back giving her a faint smile. The shock was still there, but not as bad. She had forgotten everything, and that seemed good enough for Autumn. When she was ready to relive it all, she would help.

Hazel’s eyes questioned her, as she walked by. “Later,” she mouthed silently.
“Well, what’s this,” Bud asked. He was looking at the five guys.
“We decided that we had a lot of people already, so what can five more hurt? Plus we all witnessed their bodyguards get munched. I think it’s only fair we get to keep them dad, since you know, we found them,” Autumn said.
“Smart ass,” Envy said quietly behind her.

“Funny Autumn. Who did you happen to find?” he asked. He knew nothing of boy bands and pop singers. He had been a rocker since the beginning. He understood his youngest daughter liking the hip hop stuff and the pop stuff, but he didn’t like hearing it around his house.

“Well these two by me are Stefan and River,” She pointed to the two.
“And these three by me are Drake, Rowan and Linden,” Anatha finished.
“Hi,” the guys said in unison.

Lily, Autumn’s baby sister, ran over to them. “Oh my god, your..” She turned red and hid behind her mom. Lily looked just like her mom and Envy. Brown hair, and hazel eyes. Autumn always felt the odd man or lady out when out with them. She looked nothing like any of her parents or siblings. Her mom said she looked like her mother, who had died when Autumn was really little.
“What are you going on about?” Bud asked giving her a questionable look.
She stuck her head out. “It’s Tune N’,” she squeaked.

“So we got famous people in here,” Anatha’s mom, Regan, said. Regan and Anatha looked exactly alike except for the eyes. No one had an excuse for how she came out with brown eyes, that almost looked auburn which reminded you of fall leaves or a fire.
The boys didn’t say anything. “And they are modest too,” Anatha’s dad said.
“Oh dad,” Anatha gave him a what-are-you-doing look.
“Did you get anyone on the CB?” Autumn asked changing the subject.
“Yeah,” Bud said.
“Well?” She wanted to know more.

“The guy is supposed to get back to us,” he said eyeing the guys. They were all about the age of his oldest daughter. He didn’t like that.
Just then a staticy voice came through the CB. “You still there?”
“Yes,” Bud said.
“So how many of you guys are there?” The voice asked.
“One hundred,” someone said.
“Fifty,” someone else said.
“One fifty,” Bud lied. He scowled at the group whispering, “Shut up.”
“That’s a lot. So let me get this right. You guys started your own safe house, and did not report it until now?” the voice asked.

“Yes, we couldn’t make it to a real safe house in time.” Bud looked at the guys, “We were attacked trying to get into the city.” Autumn’s dad had always been a good liar. It didn’t surprise her much that he was doing it now. They didn’t want to get stuck with more people than they had to.

“Well okay you are now considered safe house one-five-five-five. When I contact you that’s what I will ask for. Give me your location so we can map out a way to get supplies to you. Do you have enough water?” The voice was fading in and out.
“Yeah, plenty of water,” he replied, and then gave the man directions.

“Your drop days are every two weeks. You get fresh produce and dairy products,” the voice said. “If there is anything you need such as a doctor or so on contact me."
Everyone looked at Bud. “I’ll ask. Stop looking at me like that,” he told them. “Excuse me I do have one question.”
“Shoot,” The person on the other end said.
“What’s going on around the US?” Everyone crowded in closer. Since the World News wasn’t on, or any other news, people were very anxious for updates.
“Are you sure you want to know?” the voice sounded tired.

Bud looked around the crowd. Everyone was either nodding their heads or whispering yes. “Yes,” He said reluctantly. Everyone had a clue it would be bad, but still wanted to know.

“We lost contact with New York yesterday. We think that the infection overtook the city,” The voice paused, and they heard static. They waited looking around with puzzled eyes listening. “Sorry, the plug fell out.” the guy came back on finally, “We also keep losing contact with Florida, but they confirm it’s their connection.”

Anatha heard the guys of Tune N’ all heave a sigh of relief. That’s good, she thought, at least that should help them sleep a little easier tonight. It’s not likely that anyone will actually get to sleep. Although being away from your family for five years would be damn hard, she couldn’t think about not being around hers, looking at her mom, dad, and stepdad. Now she could live five years without her stepdad, but her mom and real dad. She couldn’t, even if her mom is strange and mean sometimes. She slipped a peek at River. She still couldn’t believe she was stuck with him for five years, it was just. She couldn’t find the right term to finish her thought.

“They are okay,” Rowan put his arm around River. “Come on, your mom is probably worrying more about you. I think she knows you’re okay. Although.” He paused looking around at the girls, “I don’t know what she would think about you staying five years in a mall.” He winked at the Ladies. Rowan was the number one flirt of the band.

Autumn shook her head at him. He might think he’s a big flirt now, but he hasn’t met Envy. She thought as her sister walked over to them. She came over followed closely by her little friend Ivy Lee. She stopped by her.

“What did we miss?” she whispered to her sister. Envy was Autumn’s middle sister. She had short wavy brown hair, and was almost five inches shorter then her. She would probably dye her hair frequently in the mall now that she had all the resources at her fingertips.

Now her friend Ivy Lee is Envy’s twin. There are tons of physical differences, but that's really it. First off they are the same age, that’s not a difference. Ivy Lee has long, down past her butt, blondish-brown hair, and she is four feet five. She also has a baby. It’s hard to except that that big baby came from that small thing.

“What now?” someone asked. Autumn’s dad was off the CB, and everyone stood around staring at each other.
“I say we all go to bed,” Anatha’s mom said.

“Good Idea,” Autumn said and was first to the stairs. She was really tired. They had been busy all day, with messing with zombies, moving into a new home, saving a boy band and now she was downright pooped.
“I can’t sleep,” Anatha said behind her.

Autumn shrugged her shoulders, “So what. I am.” While on her way down to the third floor she thought of all the stuff she had been through that day. She waited for the shock that had been threatening her to finally sink in. She didn’t know or care if it came, and too tired to worry about it. All she wanted to do was sleep.

Autumn looked around at the stores. The idea of sleeping in a bigger store kinda creeped her out. A smaller store would be fine, but which one? Her eyes fell on the pillow store. Shrugging she went in. She created a mound of pillows, and fell quickly to sleep.

1
An hour later Autumn sat straight up, breathing hard. She had just had the mother of all nightmares. She got up looking around. For a moment she felt lost, where was she? Slowly it came back to her, she sat down and cried as the whole ordeal came crashing into her at once. Five years of her life wasted. She sat there on her thrown together bed, and wondered if everyone else was sleeping.

Most of everyone in the mall was either wide awake, or trying to slip off to sleep. Anatha sat on the hard blue-carpeted ground of Mervans thinking. Autumn had been having problems since she walked in on Hazel and her dead family. She frowned to herself. There was no treatment for a zombie bite. If you get bit, you are automatically going to become a zombie. It takes a while. Some people can go eight days, while others turn quickly. She guessed it had to do with the severity of the wound a person received. If you came up against zombies you either hope you can get away without a mark, or have them munch on you until nothing is left.

2
“What are you doing?” Mabon asked.
“I’m nosy,” Aarawn said as he pricked his finger with the tip of his dagger.
“You know what Pyrus said.” He watched as Aarawn made a small smear of his blood on the back of a mirror.

“I know, but you have to admit your curious then me.” They watched the mirror cloud up, and then they could see the inside of the mall. “Show me our sisters.” The mirror showed Autumn. She was sitting there, her eyes puffed and red. “She looks almost like you, little cat,” Aarawn said with a smirk.

Mabon ignored him and stared at his twin with interest. “We don’t have the same eyes,” he said. “Hers are green. But the hair is the same.” He reached out to touch the mirror, but the picture faded showing Anatha.

Aarawn looked at his sister. “Your right, our eyes don’t match, but we have the same hair color. How come Anatha and me get the brown copper and you and Autumn get red streaks? She’s fire, you two are just water and earth.”

He watched his sister walk around the store she had taken over. “I will protect her, for my mothers sake.”
“Your mother?” Mabon asked.
“What of it?” Aarawn turned his light grey eyes to Mabon. They were so light he almost looked blind. They darkened quickly, turning the color of thunderclouds.
“You still have the dreams?”

He looked back at the mirror as it started to cloud over again. “Sometimes, but that’s because I’m more in tuned with those things.” He looked back at Mabon, and his eyes lightened. “So where’s your cat?” He laughed shaking his long brown hair around him.

Mabon shot him a spiteful glance. “He doesn’t like spiders.”
“Sure,” Aarawn said putting the mirror down.

Munched- The Plan

2008-07-17T13:45:00.000-07:00

The Plan

Autumn got her big idea before martial law was proclaimed, and it had something to do with Tune N’. After the concert, they decided they were going to the grand opening of the new mall. As she sat there thinking about it the mall got her attention. It said the mall was the mall of tomorrow. The first one built in California of its type. The News at Five held a small special on it before the zombie situation got too out of hand. Its location was very secluded. A nice drive from any town. Between Los Banos and Merced.

She went online to its website, and found the site very interesting. The mall was the first to be totally self-solar powered, and first in a new wave of malls to help the environment. It had its own water supply too. The website got into technical details on everything it could perform, and also stated it would be good enough for people to live in if ever a disaster struck.

She sat at the computer, rereading the disaster sentence. They were in a perfect disaster. Her family had visited one of the closest safe houses in the area, the closest being Madera or the other choice Stockton. They decided that they needed another plan fast since the zombies were slowly showing up in California. The so called safe houses were a joke. To many people shoved in a bunk area with cots and mattresses on the floor. Autumn could not see herself sharing three bathrooms with all the people in there. Of course it was set up as military outlets, so it was heavily guarded, and they had heavy fencing being put around the grounds itself so they could cultivate food,

The mall would be perfect it would make a safe house for her family and some close friends. It was large enough too. Four stories, starting on the first level, play land, and the rest of the floors livable. She drafted a plan. A plan that would, hopefully, keep her alive. Online, she sat at the computer studying the mall’s floor maps. She studied all the main entrance ways. Once inside she didn’t want to worry about zombies sneaking up on her while she slept and also easy exits if it was necessary. After she saw all main, maintenance, and emergency exits, she printed out the blue prints. Once in the mall maybe they would find the original blue prints that the website didn’t show. There was a huge list of stores and shops too. Printing it out, she thought, better safe than sorry.

This mall had it all, she thought as she looked over the maps. Two major super markets, and all the other necessities they would need. They would probably have to grab some more stuff just in case. After looking back over everything on the website, she closed down the computer, and felt a pang of sadness. Her life, her dreams, were they gone? She shook her head, she had no time to think of it. The first zombie had made its way into their town it had to be just be a matter of days before all hell broke loose.

That night Anatha’s family came over so they could talk about what they were going to do. While everyone else was rushing around to get into a safe house, they were thinking about their own safe house. They knew they could not live in one for five years, let alone five months. Autumn discussed her plan with the family, no one objected the idea. So the next thing to do was get packed and rolling. They really had no time to waste.

1

The first thing they needed, supplies, so they could go straight to the mall. They borrowed a diesel truck, okay, they took it, but no one stopped them from taking it from the yard. Some of the family knew how to use a gun, so they got the job of keeping an eye out for zombies while the others got the stuff they needed.

The zombies were starting to take over California slowly but quickly. It wasn’t like the movies. These zombies were once alive, not dead worm filled corpses that climbed out of their coffins buried six feet under the ground. Autumn counted about four zombies she had shot while the others were getting all their supplies onto the truck. She had never really thought her good aim would actually be used to kill the reanimated dead. They looked so human, it felt almost wrong, until you saw their eyes, their dead eyes, and their emotionless faces. Their skin gave off the look of normal, until you saw the wounds, bite marks on the throat, arms, and legs. Nasty opened sores that had crusted over.

Their supplies were simple, some extra freezers and food. They hit stores that were not hit by other people who thought they too could survive the zombies by locking themselves into their houses. Autumn knew that wouldn’t work, haven’t they watched any of the movies? Soon the power and water would be turned off, same with gas. She didn’t know how that stuff worked and didn’t care to look into it. Maybe after the zombies were all gone, she’d check, but now they had a place with all that.

By the time they had finished, they had enough food to feed more than an army for five years. Hopefully it didn’t all get spoiled sitting in the freezers for all those years. She has stocked up on some basic cookbooks, home reference books, and some others. She didn’t have much medical knowledge though. She then thought of her best friend Hazel, she was going through college to be a RN already a certified nurse.

Holy Shit! Her mind screamed. She hadn't heard from her in a few days. She had to go to Winton and get her, she had too.

2
Bud drove her into the small town where Hazel lived, which was a twenty minute drive out of their way. The place usually alive at night with crack and meth heads was a chaotic scene of people running and looting in the late afternoon. They ran into her dad’s friend Howard at the stop sign at Willow and Winton Way.

“Look. I didn’t get a new kidney to die, Bud,” Howard was saying as Autumn looked around nervously.
“Why not come with us?” Bud said.
“You got something better than those fucked up safe houses? Fuck, no drugs, I might as well just stay here.”
“We got something real good, and it leaves us free to do what we want,” he said as Autumn rolled her eyes. Bud drew a small map and handed it to Howard. “We are leaving as soon as we can.”
Howard looked at it. “I got to get some stuff, but we can be there in a day or so. I have to find my sister.” Bud nodded and after saying goodbye drove to Maple Avenue, while Autumn brooded over the ‘we’ part Howard mentioned. Hazel lived on Oxford Circle, which was right off of Maple.

She heard the gunfire first noticing the zombies second. “Hazel!” Autumn screamed getting out of the truck when her dad stopped. This was not a place for people to live with a zombie outbreak at hand. Half the people in town were seriously messed up, and if they came into contact with a zombie they’d think it was another crackhead.

“Autumn, watch yourself out there,” Bud said as she got to Hazel's front door, she nodded looking around quickly.

A small Mexican man with a neck wound stumbled towards her. She pulled out the small pistol she had on her, and shot it in the head without hesitating. “Hazel!” She knocked on the metal security door, or rather beat on the white metal. “Hazel, you there?” Autumn didn’t hear Hazel’s dogs barking behind the door, or any sound at all.

Her heart sank, but then a small voice replied, “Autumn?”
She slowly opened the security door. Gun out, ready. At that moment she felt like her gun toting book idol, Leslie Miller. A small feeling of hope broke the uneasy feeling she had in the pit of her stomach, as her hand lingered on the old rusty door knob. She stopped as soon as she had the door open enough to see Hazel.
“Autumn?” Hazel walked a couple steps towards her and sat down hard covering her face in her hands as she sobbed. Autumn heard a gunshot. She turned to see that her dad had dropped a zombie that was getting a little too close to the door. Realizing she still held the knob keeping the screen open to anything, she closed it.

Turning back to Hazel, She noticed the blood all over the floor. “Hazel, are you hurt?”

Hazel’s eyes were glazed over when she looked up at her. She could see the first basic signs of shock. She had taken a first aid class two months before. Not because of the zombies either, just to do it. Hazel shook her head. Her long bleached hair flapped against her red tear streaked cheeks. Sitting where she was, she pointed into the direction of the hallway, the direction where the trail of blood got thicker.

Although she didn’t want to go, her feet dragged her towards the hallway, following the trail. She turned the corner slowly, and peered into Hazel’s sister’s room, nothing out of the ordinary in there. She continued following the blood trail, afraid of what she was going to see at the end. It led into Hazel’s room. The door stood ajar, and there were bloody hand prints all over it. Autumn pushed the door open the rest of the way, trying not to touch the blood.

So much blood. At first her mind couldn’t register what she was seeing. There was so much blood. Finally she saw the bodies. Dead, bleeding, a body, actually everything was covered in blood, another body. She then noticed the bloody shotgun laying on the ground. Walking into the room, she saw the bodies were missing heads. It was Paul, her fiancé, and her mom and dad, she noticed them by Paul’s work shirt and her mom’s nurse outfit. The puzzle came together. Hazel’s mom must have gotten bitten at work, she didn't have time to go over and look for a wound.

The president’s scientists reported that a shot to the head was all that was needed to kill them. Turning, she walked out of the room, not bothering to close the door. Hazel was still sitting in the living room sobbing quietly. “Hazel, where is Becky?”
She said nothing, but stared at the back door with her wide glossy hazel eyes.
“Please Hazel you have to tell me. Is she with a friend?” Hazel opened her mouth, and instead of talking she screamed. The scream, long and sharp, hurt Autumn’s ears. Turning to the door, her eyes got wide. Becky was banging on the other metal security door.

“No!” Hazel cried. “Autumn! Kill it!”
She stood there staring at Hazel’s little sister. Becky’s neck wound flowed with ruby red blood, as her pale lips pulled back from her teeth trying to bite at the security door. Holding up her pistol and aiming it, her hand shook just a little as she watched Becky. She couldn’t believe she was doing this. She liked Becky. But it’s not Becky anymore, her mind told her. The thing at the door moaned loudly. She pulled the trigger. Hazel let out a small sob behind her, as the thing that used to be Becky fell to the floor lifeless.

3
Autumn had her stuff packed. There wasn’t much she could take along, but she did fill her trunk and a small suitcase with bits and pieces of her life. Not much clothes, after all they were going to be in a mall. What she did grab was a lot of her collectibles, things she would never be able to replace, which held a meaning to her, memories that had made her the way she was. Even though her parents were going to lock up their house, there could be a chance that people could still break in, or something drastic could happen and it could all be lost.

Autumn's leafy green eyes took one last look at her room, and ran over to grab her feather pillow in her Rainbow Bright pillowcase. She couldn’t forget that, the pillowcase alone was about twenty or so years old. Pausing, Autumn looked at her reflection in her mirror, she saw that her curly red streaked blondish brown hair actually looked pretty good for once. What a shame, she thought. That had just made her feel miserable.

She was going to be stuck in a mall for five years without anyone there. She did have Hazel and her cousins, but she was a grown freaking woman, and well dating had not been one of her specialties, but now it was going to be non-existent. Autumn took one last look at herself in the mirror before leaving the room. Damn curly hair, maybe she’d try a straightener in the mall and see if it works. If it didn’t, no one would say anything anyway.

She pushed back the curls lying against her cheek behind her ear, and walked out not glancing back at her room. She paused making sure she grabbed her teddy bear, breathing a small sigh of relief as she felt it inside the pillowcase. She could not forget Billy bear. She stopped looking at a picture of her when she had been at least ten. She carried a lot of the same features of that ten year old. She still kinda felt like that awkward ten year old. Always the tall girl, always the weird one, thinking weird stuff, never following the crowd, she had always felt different, she shook her head, why had she thought of that at that moment? She had no clue.

4
As everyone got together they took a small convoy of vehicles, and closely followed the diesel. There were a number of car wrecks and zombies along the back streets, which they thought might be safer then the main roads. There were a lot of army trucks and people around the main roads. Autumn knew they had to get indoors soon, because the zombies were going to get out of hand, you could only tell by how many were aimlessly roaming the streets and fields.

At that moment they could take care of the zombies since there weren’t that many, shooting them in the head if they came to close. They didn’t have to stop, and if they did Autumn planned on staying where she was and not going to get bit, would not even vision being in that kind of situation. She would die first, that she was sure of. Being a zombie until she rotted away spooked her more than anything else could freak her out. Anatha told her that she wasn’t going down without a fight. As long as she could, she would take as many of the zombies with her. That livened up the group, giving them all a good laugh, since they knew she really meant it.

That day was supposed to be the actual grand opening of the mall. The plan was to take the mall at whatever means. It was bigger then she had imagined. She looked at the mall, as they got closer, it was huge. It sat all alone, no houses nearby. There were a few cars parked around the enormous parking lot. The designer of the mall wanted a lot of parking space, so many people would come and spend a lot of money. Bad timing since the economy was going through a very slow period, and not many people wanted to spend much money just in case.

Wouldn’t they laugh if they knew people were going to live in there? To the side of the mall stood a three story parking garage, it was almost as tall as the mall itself. The mall would let them hide from each other, avoid each other and still be safe.

They drove up, squashing a zombie in the process. Autumn, Anatha and a few others jumped out of the back of the Chevy truck Autumn’s mom was driving. They looked around. Nothing but zombies littered the parking lot. “Tell dad to move the truck up to the doors,” Autumn said to her mom.

“It’s clean up time!” Moss, Anatha’s younger brother, shouted as he opened fire with the large gun he had been tweaking on within the past few days. It roared angrily spitting out bullets when he hit the trigger not just cut zombies in half but turning them into goo.

“Careful with that thing you little shit,” Anatha said with a growl.
“Killing me some zombies,” He sung to himself as he moved away from the group.
“Let’s clean up so we can get inside,” Autumn said.

Anatha paused. “You think there are zombies inside?”
Autumn thought as she shot a zombie. “Moss, Check inside!” She yelled. A gunshot rang out, and something wet hit her cheek. She looked at the headless zombie crumpled on the ground beside her, and then at Anatha. Her ears rang.
“Warn me before you shoot something that close!” Anatha nodded smiling as she turned away. Autumn felt the dead brain matter slide down her cheek, wet and slimy. She quickly wiped it off with her shirt. “Eww!” She rubbed at her cheek giving herself a mental shake.

Moss stopped in the main entranceway of the mall, he turned saluting them. Autumn gave a slight shake of her head, and fired at a zombie walking up to her.
There were Zombies inside, but not as many, mostly maintenance people and store employees. The shooters separated taking different floors. Autumn and Anatha’s dads were able to help now since the truck was parked outside. After they had dealt with all the zombies, Moss looked around. “So what do we do with the bodies?”
“Bonfire,” his dad told him. He grabbed an arm of the closest corpse and started pulling it towards the main doors.

“We need to get the stuff in,” Autumn said looked at the main clock on the wall by the elevators. “It’s getting late.” Some got to work, while others help with the bodies. Autumn decided she would help with the unloading, she really didn’t want to be close to a fire of dead bodies.

5
When everyone was inside and safe, all the supplies were put away and store, it was finally time to lock up. Anatha, Autumn and Envy were in charge of the front main entrance. They were locking up as a big bus pulled up sort of close to the door, but not close enough. The three stood there staring in surprise.

Who on Earth could it be? Anatha asked herself. They looked at each other.

Who was stupid enough to be here? Autumn asked herself. Autumn noticed the zombies walking over to the bus. They just keep coming, she thought.

“Does somebody else know about our plan?” Anatha asked.

Autumn looked at the bus, “Nope, or at least not that I know of.” She stopped. “Howard and his family are coming, but I don't think that’s them.”
“If that’s not them, then who?” Envy asked.

The doors to the bus opened and the guys from Tune N’ walked out. They stood there looking like scared sheep, as the zombies surrounded them. Why would they be here? They thought at the same time. The other thing they thought of, at any moment they were going to watch their favorite singing group, get munched. Autumn looked at the key in her hand. Looking at each other, they decided on doing something. Even though they didn't get along real well they had always had some sort of telepathic power when they were together. Mostly they never really noticed it much, but today, both were glad they shared it. The thing they did agree on is that they couldn’t sit there and watch as the group got munched on. Not if they could prevent it.

Munched-Infection

2008-07-17T13:42:00.000-07:00

Infection

“So what did I tell you?” Autumn told everyone in the room.

“What the fuck?” Autumn’s dad, Bud, said.

“I was telling the truth. Look, the proof is on the news.” Autumn pointed to the TV.

“Everyone, come here and watch,” Anatha called out. The family came in from the backyard BBQ.

“I’m reporting here from Cameria Texas,” The fake blond news reporter with oversized brown eyes said. “Where the first reported outbreak from South America is showing up here in the United States. To my right, are Tony and his wife Bambie. Tony was injured by one of the infected. So Tony, what happened?”

The man looked awfully sick, and his Barbie shaped bleached blond wife held onto him like a scared twit. “We’s outside enjoyin sum beer with some of m’friends when we see this fella come walkin’ up to us.”

“He wasn’t walkin, more a shamblin,” his wife interrupted.

He nodded. “I thought maybe he’d had some kinda accident, so I walked over to him. Soon as I got myself a good look at the fella, I knew he wasn’t well,” The man’s voice came out unsteady. He started to wobble on his legs. “Top it off, the sick bastard bit me!” Tony touched the wound on his arm. His eyes rolled up into his head as he passed out.

“Sir, you okay?” The reporter asked squatting down by him.

He let out a small moan. “Don’t worry Hon,” Bambie said. “He’s been doing this for three days.” She too squatted by him as the shakes started. “He’ll come out of it right soon.”

Just then, Tony sat straight up looking disorientated. He didn’t look around, just kept his head straight. Eyes unblinking, the cameraman let out a small whistle. Tony’s eyes were back to normal, but there was a far off expression on his face. To Autumn, he looked sort of hungry.

“Come on babe. Let’s go home.” Bambie said trying to pull him to his feet. She was having a hard time since he outweighed her by three hundred pounds.

Screams came from behind the reporter. She stood up turning to look away from Tony. “My god. Those men over there are attacking those children!” Bambie was still trying to help her husband to his feet. The people watching TV would have noticed the slight change in the man. Autumn’s family stared at the TV with wide unbelieving eyes.

Bambie was now looking at the men attacking the children giving up on her husband. “My lil Sylvie's over there! One of you fancy city people have one of those cell phone things right?” She looked around with frightened blue eyes.

No one noticed Tony. Even the cameraman wasn't looking. He suddenly swung around violently, grabbing the reporter. Before she could scream, he sunk his teeth into her neck. The cameraman or one of the crew let out a loud scared scream as the he ripped a chunk of the reporter's neck off. He looked at his wife, chewing what was in his mouth, blood and saliva dripping from his chin. Bambie had placed her hand to her mouth, but the loud shrieking noise she made wasn't muffled by it.

He let go of the reporter. The camera man had dropped it, so you saw the reporter scratch at the messy wound to breath as Tony shambled for his wife.
“Tony?” Bambie said in a small voice before her husband attacked her.

The news went back to Sally behind the desk, her small usually pretty face white as a sheet. She said nothing, speechless, like everyone else who was watching.

Autumn sat there too. She had read it, but now actually seeing it she didn’t want to believe it. Envy ran to the bathroom to get sick. Her dad went into the kitchen to pour himself a drink. He decided on the heavy stuff they had been saving behind the cleaners under the sink. Anatha and the others just sat there dumbstruck.

“So what now?” Anatha asked. She felt numb, as the horror of what they watched slowly sunk in. “What do we do?”

Autumn shook her head flipping off the TV.

1
The bag lady pushed her cart into a rundown abandoned house. A tall man hiding in the darkness walked out into the small amount of light coming from the boarded up windows. The lady stopped dead watching him. His brownish blond hair shown with natural red streaks as he walked into the light, which made it easy to see his crystal blue eyes glitter as the light flashed on them. He looked almost like his father, him and his sister had the same colored hair but the eyes were wild and different.

“Mabon, have you been waiting long?” she asked trying to quiet her little mangy dog from barking.

“Not long, what news do you have?” he asked his voice light and friendly, but she knew how dangerous he could be if he wanted to.

“The time has come for you to take over guardianship of,” she said pausing to look at the birthmark on his power arm, a perfect upside down triangle; it could have been a tattoo, but he had been born with it, the element of water. If the Dark Lord had known that, two were born male he would have been looking for them too. So far, the evil witch only knew of the females.

His eyes followed her. “You know where she is?”

She nodded, “I am the only one who knows.”

“Why wasn’t I told? I have waited so long, almost sure I would never,” he stopped. The pain in his chest was too much. He had lost his mother and father, and now he was going to meet her, finally, after so many years. He had thought of her, of what they would say, of all the stories they would stay up late telling each other. He had yearned to be in her life since he could remember, always feeling alone, being different.

“You still must not come into contact with her, not yet.” She noticed he was going to argue and held up her hand to silence him. “Please, Mabon, you must look after her and the other. I know how long you’ve waited, but she must be protected first. I feel a great evil is going to come to pass, and they need someone who can watch over them.”

“Why will you not do it?” he asked.

“I am old, and I have been their watcher for twenty years.” She sighed. “Plus, I need to keep an eye on Moorgun. I feel she is getting closer to them.”

“Pyrus, when can I meet her?” he asked as his thoughts went to the now grown Autumn.

“When this evil that is stirring is over,” she said looking at her dog.

“Is there anything else you want of me before I leave?” he asked.

“I need you to get Aarawn to help you,” she did not look at him as she said it.

“Why?” he asked a bit aggravated. He and Aarawn never saw eye to eye, and she knew it.

“He too will find this interesting.”

And then an idea came to him, and he almost didn’t ask. “He is the other?”

Pyrus nodded. “Make it clear to him he must not speak to her unless it is really necessary. They must not know anything about us until they are in their full power.”

He gave a quick nod, “I understand. Where must I go?” She gave him the directions before they separated. She went back to the parking lot. If only Moorgun knew how close she is to them, she thought almost sadly.

Munched- The End

2008-07-17T13:40:00.000-07:00

The End

Over in the small third world countries, where poor people drink murky water and bellies grumble every day, a couple of men dressed as doctors entered into small hospitals. They ignored the weeping pleading mothers begging for them to help their sick children. They all entered into small storage rooms, where the meager hospital supplies waited to be used.
In a diminutive town in Chile, three fake doctors looked at each other. “Do you have the time?” One asked the other. Their eyes looked glazed over as if tweaking on some good drug. It could have been said that the look in their eyes was insanity, but only they knew the secret. The secret of a woman with floor length midnight black hair that veiled around her luminescent skin, and what she had done to them. What she had promised. A seductive dream they would kill for, exactly what they were doing.
The taller man looked at his watch, and saw it was two minutes until noon, Pacific Time. “We're on time,” he said in a dreamy voice. The promise of touching the woman again drifted through his mind. Although in hers, she knew she would never see any of the slaves she sent out. Her magic of corruption would soon spread like a California wildfire.
One of the men opened a small box and took out a small liquid bottle. Each grabbed a syringe filling them with the liquid from the black bottle, and inserting the liquid into medicine and IV bags. They were to wait and witness if anything worked, and walked quickly out of the hospital. Only a nurse saw the woman’s slaves in Iraq, but she thought nothing of it.
1
Moorgun waited in front of her altar, while her barely dressed followers sat on their knees before her. It was a little after noon, as the visions started to fill her. Images filtered in her brain like a badly cut film. Her Lord promised to show her what the potion she created would do, as he had shown her how to make it, although, she could no longer remember the full ingredients of the potion, and only remembered grinding the puffer fish. She watched her slaves, waiting in dingy lanes and alleyways. Soon, she knew, something would happen. The potion would attack the sick quick, and from there the sick would infect the living.
Her master could show her this, yet not the two girls who should have been hers years ago. Hers to train, bend in the ways of her. The two who would bring an end to all nice and pure. She smiled watching as a doctor hooked in her poison to a sick man. The Dark Lord promised her this would work, and this would help her find her promised. They would help bring Arawen back to full power on Earth. After so many years of being trapped, he would finally be welcomed upon his new home, and he will take her. Her body ached badly for him as she thought of his dark hair, wild eyes, and muscular body. She will rule with him, and he would make her immortal.
She watched the sick man shake, the nurses ran over and doctors were called. After the shakes, his blood would slow until it stopped altogether, and his organs would fail, but his brain would live. Every liquid in his body will carry the infection, and just a small bite to another human would cause the corruption to spread until it overran the world. And the search for her chosen would finally be at an end. It had been so easy.
She watched as the sick started to rise with a huger they had never felt before. Animal. They only thought of flesh. “Feed, my pets,” she snickered.
Her yellow brittle nails scratched along the oak altar as her Lord entered her. She felt his cold touch in a place only he could touch. As she screamed out in pleasure, her followers bent their heads to the ground. Their Priestess had achieved the goal and was being rewarded. They envied her, longed to be thanked by the Lord, wanted to please her to please him. He touched her one last time, and her scream was heard above the small parking lot they practiced under.
A short bag lady with frizzed out white hair pushing a shopping cart paused. She listened to the scream, and a thought passed through her head.
It begins.

2
“Envy your VCR isn’t working for me,” Anatha was trying to shove in her new blank tape. Her eyes burned with hateful, as she tried to stuff the tape into the VCR.
“If someone had ordered the new cable box with the DVR in it we could just record it on that,” Envy said as they both shot Autumn spiteful looks.
Autumn looked up over The Chronicle, which she was reading. “Don’t beat it Anatha. It won’t work if you keep beating it like that,” she said going back to the article which had been the main reason for her grabbing the paper.
“Autumn, fix it, please,” she pleaded, “Tune N’ is going to be on in a couple minutes.”
Tune N’ was one of the hottest boy bands out at the moment. Autumn hated to admit it, but she liked them as much as Anatha and Envy did. Well not really that much. Anatha was obsessed, and she was mildly obsessed, Envy, was just an ass-kisser, and always went along with Anatha. All the young girls loved Tune N' and the other hot boy band, Boy Toyz, but lately Tune N’ had reached new levels. Their new album had broken all previous records in its first week out. Autumn loved the album. It had to be one of her favorite CDs to listen to.
The girls were a bit old to fit in with the Tune N’ crowd, but no one complained. Autumn was nearly twenty-seven and Anatha and Envy just turned twenty-five. The obsession they shared was actually new to her, since she was a die-hard Melon Pop fan. Anatha had liked Tune N’ since the youngest of the singers looked a lot like her favorite actor, who is now married. But in all that was the only thing the two had in common. Autumn didn't enjoy being around her cousin for too long. She seemed always angry about everything. That and there was just something about her that Autumn just didn't like. Not really nice things to think about your blood cousin, but she could not fight the feeling.
Autumn picked up the universal remote that was lying by her, and pressed the VCR power button. It came to life. “You forgot to turn it on,” she told Anatha without taking her eyes off the article she was reading. “It was a miracle you actually found a new blank tape. I thought they didn’t make those anymore?”
“I had a few put away. I didn’t know my VCR was going to take a shit. Why are you reading that crap?” Anatha came over and sat by Envy who had grabbed the remote.
“She likes all the stupid stories,” Envy said.
“Better then listening to all your drama,” Autumn said to herself.
“Huh?” her sister asked.
“Nothing. I read this for the truth,” Autumn replied self absorbed in the article.
“Whatever,” Anatha said rolling her eyes, “Nothing truthful is ever printed in there. It’s all crap.”
“Sometimes its crap, but even some crap is fun to read. Check out this article,” she said handing her the paper.
Anatha took some time to read the article, and gave it back. “Like I said crap. Can you really believe zombies are taking over South America?” She asked.
“There have been worse things. Plus why can’t it be true?”
Envy shook her head, “You really believe that stuff?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. I find it odd.”
“It’s all odd. That’s why it’s in The Chronicle. They after all print anything and everything odd and strange, it’s their motto.” She turned the channel. “Put it down, Tune N’ is on.”
Autumn put the paper down on the coffee table and sat back. “Speaking of Tune N’, do you know they’ll be here for the grand opening of the new mall.” Anatha stared at her cousin in disbelief. Autumn smiled at her, knowing her cousin would react to that.
“No way,” Anatha finally managed to say.
She nodded. “Yep, it’s in a month. By the way, press record.”
“Wow,” Anatha said reaching over grabbing the remote off Envy's leg and pressing record. They sat back and watched the Tune N’ concert.

I feel that I lost...

2008-06-30T21:09:00.000-07:00

I feel I have lost. Who started the game I never wanted to play? Lost at everything. I can't seem to keep things going. I feel like I'm breaking down little by little. Life, work, family each eating me with their sharp teeth, taking pieces of me so there is nothing left. Sometimes, I want to cry, and sometimes I want to die. Sometimes I want to run away so fast, but I have no place to go. A room, a dirty cluttered room. My bed. I want to run away and not be me. I want to be someone else, something different, someone new. I want to win, and it seems so hard to believe in I can't breath. I am drowning in a scornful world. Trying to break the surface. I feel that I lost.

Opposite Side Chapter 9

2008-05-04T22:21:00.000-07:00

Chapter 9

Friday came on them quickly like most weekends. Weekdays were usually uneventful. But on the weekends that’s when the good stuff went down. But Friday was the full moon. And full moon meant every Opposite went neutral. You broke neutrality and you got an automatic death sentence, no excuses. Everyone usually all took off to some deserted campsite or most went to Yosemite.

The bears liked Yosemite, which was known for seeing bears all the time. The wolves were torn between there and the hills were the other camp areas were. Even on a neutral night they liked being away from Supervisors.

Supervisors had strings everywhere. Up high, down low, in dirty drug alleys to the capital. So on full moons usually Yosemite was closed down to only Opposites. Supervisors patrolled just in case a human got to close. And sometimes it happened from time to time.

Leslie and Colin watched as Patrick tried to get his third ball in the basket. It bounced off the rim. “Well that sucked,” Colin said. “We should go back to the balloon darts.”

Full moon always came with a carnival. Cheap rides and thrills, before the moon made even the most powerful change. A few howls rode the spring winds; some of the wolves in the crowd raised their faces and sniffed. Wolves liked to mate on the full moon, tons of exceptions can be made when you are no longer human.

The three walked along the games, while the carnies shouted for players and more importantly money. Leslie’s hair rose as she felt the call. Her eyes looked at the moon, shining brightly above the valley, and then moved down to the crowd. Nathan walked through the crowd, his second and third standing on each side of him like good enforcers. No matter where you went or what kind of wereanimal you visited all clans were the same. You had your king or queen/ their mate if they had one, their enforcers then the alphas, and then the pets of the group the lessers. But unlike the wolves, which Jonathan was all powerful, Nathan gave the Bears a say to a point. Letting them vote for, what the world sees as a school council. You have the secretary, the treasurer, ect.

He stopped as did his two enforcers. “Hi guys, having fun I see?” Nathan said noticing the stuffed animals Patrick carried.

“Totally all his,” Colin said. “He’s trying to get the big one.”

“Aren’t we all,” Jorge, Nathan’s third said with a warm smile directed at Patrick. Leslie and Colin noticed the exchange of smiles between them and the wink. Leslie saw neither Nathan or Albert hadn’t noticed. Actually Albert seemed to be glaring at her. He leaned in and whispered something to Nathan.

“Now is not the time,” he said in a low voice. He left the two enforcers and walked over to her. “Can we talk for a second?”

“Sure.” She handed her stuffed monkey to Patrick’s ever growing mound and walked off with him.

Nathan had no destination in mind, he just walked. “Don’t mind Albert, he’s just mad about the whole basement thing.”

She snorted. “I’m still mad.”

His hand moved. Her heart started to speed up at the thought of him touching her. Her body yearned for his touch, and oh so much more. It made her skin heat up; just then the call of the moon hit her, making her knees weak. Nathan grabbed her making sure she didn’t fall. The power of it went from her into him. He looked at the moon, his eyes turning that green-gold which she now thought of as his bear eyes.

He closed his eyes, and shivered. “Not yet,” he said to himself and opened his eyes looking at her. “You feel her? You feel the moon.”

“I do, always have. I’ve never told anyone.”

“Blood witches are touched I know, because I heard you guys have more power on the full moon, but not touched like a wereanimal. That is how I feel her. You don’t change?”

She shook her head and stepped away from him. “No, but my skin feels on fire at times.”

The moon touched her once more. And again her knees felt as if they were going to give in. He grabbed her, and guided her behind a group of big redwoods. She pushed him away. “You have to stop touching me.”

He studied her in silence for a while. “It’s been worse since-”

“This is the worst it has ever been.” The moon called her again, and she grabbed onto the tree. Her eyes closed tight pinching out a tear as her spine bowed in pain. And then a calming hand seemed to smother over her. She opened her eyes. Nathan wasn’t touching her, but his hands ran up and down her body. His eyes were focused as his hands moved. The pain left. She let go of the tree only to collapse in his arms.

“I can only stop the pain for so long. You have no beast, but you are going through the change. The symptoms anyway.”

“Oh excuse me,” a man said as he rounded the corner. He was a rather normal looking man. He stood five-eight, with brown hair cut short, he wore slacks and a nice jacket that fit the cold weather of the valley. His head seemed more oval and heavy than normal, giving it an almost ancient look. Cavemany. No wrinkles, but laugh lines, around the moth and eyes. And they all knew that he loved to laugh. His nose seemed almost bulbous in shape, but it was his eyes that made him seem more then what he was. White, no pupils, no nothing. It creeped Opposites and humans out all the same.

“It’s okay Mr. Forever. Leslie is feeling ill.”

“My dear, the moon seems to be affecting you more than normal. I find that very interesting.” He lit a cigarette, and took in a deep drag. “Sorry the girls don’t like me smoking around them, says it’ll kill me.” He laughed.

“You know that I feel the moon?”

“I know a lot of things.” Mr. Forever is and has always been known by that name. It’s rumored that he had been around since the earth was created. Some whisper he is God, others say an angel, banned from heaven. No one knows much, other than if you need a question answered you can go to Mr. Forever, but some time the price can be much pricier.

“I’ve got bear in me don’t I?” Leslie asked.

He gave a raspy chuckle that turned into a big belly laugh. He finally calmed down. “That is what I like about you Leslie. You just come right out and ask questions. Never once asking about the price. You also don’t seem scared or weirded out by me.”

“You weird me out Mr. Forever. I just don’t have time to play around.”

“Good answer. I like that. From what I remember your great uncle was a bear, he had no children, but from what I remember, which is hard for a man my age,” he said with a small smirk. “your line goes on for some time of bear and blood witch.”

“I can’t be both,” she said.

“No. But you can have the bear tendencies. You are like a mix-breed. Your body fought the blood, and made you a blood witch instead of a bear. Rare, I do say since the bear blood I thought would be more dominate, since you do come from a very long line of very powerful witches. Each taught to suppress the power, and for a while the werebear only came out. But now it seems your blood wanted to be a were-blood-witch. You should bring the boys over one night, and we will talk more about this. For now, experiment, maybe you will get more powers, maybe you have already started to see them, maybe there is more of a change waiting for you.”

“I don’t think I need any more power.”

He tsked her. “My dear, we both know deep down that everyone wants more. Next week, I will be looking forward to it.”

They watched as Mr. Forever disappeared into the darkness. “I think Mr. Forever might like you.”

She shivered at the thought. It wasn’t a very nice thought, having the oldest being in the world like you. “Are you jealous?” she teased.

He gave her a thoughtful look. “Perhaps.”

She knew she couldn’t hide the flush that she felt. But before she could say anything. Carlotta and Rich walked by. Leslie reached out and grabbed Nathan pulling him close, so they wouldn’t be seen. “Is the strength new?” he whispered.

She shrugged. “I guess.” She watched them disappear around some bushes. “Come on.”

“Leslie, this is all neutral.”

“I know but still, come on.”

They followed behind them at a good enough distance not to be detected. They finally found themselves hiding in some thick brush. In front of them were a bunch of werewolves. Jonathan sat alone on a fallen tree trunk. He seemed to be shaking as if cold. Carlotta, hitched over with age and smelling of herbs, stopped close by their hiding spot. She leaned heavily on her cane as Rich talked.

“I can’t keep making this. I am running out of supplies, soon I’ll be all out,” she said.

“I’ll help. We can do it together. We have already passed it along, and it’s going to make you a lot of money.”

“I like money, and if you help then maybe we can get a lot more done. Here,” she pulled a small bottle of liquid from her pocket. “Jonathan looks like he needs it. But unless I can get new supplies there isn’t going to be more.” She turned and left.

Rich went over to Jonathan. He took out an insulin syringe from his coat pocket. He stuck it in the bottle, and checked by the light of the moon to make sure he had it right. Jonathan struggled out of his shirt. Wereanimals only needed jackets to look cool and fit in with the regulars. Rich took the syringe stabbing it into Jonathan’s arm. Jonathan shoved him away hard, and threw back his head, and howled.

“I smell bear,” he said as he looked around. His eyes swept by them twice.

“We are in bear country,” James said.

“I think someone saw what happened. Go check.”

This time it was Nathan who pulled Leslie along. She ran with him, not quite as fast, but enough to keep from falling on her face. He pressed her up against a tree, and pressed his lips hard against hers. From the corner of her eye, she saw a wolf briefly stop to watch. She kissed him back with just as much ferocity. She closed her eyes, hoping the wolf had left, and actually wanted to enjoy the kiss. But Nathan pulled away. His eyes were now more of a goldish green, they were large and bright.

“It’s time,” he said in a whisper. “Get back to Colin. You don’t want to see this.”

“Don’t think I can handle it?”

He shook his head. “I don’t want you to see me do this, the change is hard.”

She gave him a small smile. “It’s in my blood remember. You change, I can take it.”

He shook his head, and before she could blink an eye his t-shirt hit her in the face. She grabbed it, as he unbuttoned his jeans. She turned around then, face beat red. “You can take it huh?”

“I’m giving you privacy.” She heard him move behind her. He let out a small groan. And a small groan escaped her lips, as the moon call hit her again, hard. Nathan used his power and took the call for her. Then there was the sick wet sound, and the sound of breaking bones. She turned around to face the huge bear looking at her with those lovely gold eyes. She had never seen him or Patrick in bear form. He was huge like all bears, the size of a pony.

He turned his head, as if wondering if she was scared. She moved to him hand out. His large tongue licked it. She ran her hands through his unbelievably soft brown fur, that electricity still there traveling up through her arms.

“I bet you have to get to your clan,” she said. He gave a small roar.

“Have fun, I’ll see you later,” she said and watch him bound off into the trees.

Sound behind her startled her just a bit; she turned but not quick enough as pain exploded in her head, she didn’t see stars or birds. But as the darkness ate her, she felt another pain, which didn’t belong to her. She knew who it belonged too. She passed out before she could call out to him.

The Opposite Side Chapter 8

2008-05-04T22:19:00.000-07:00

Chapter 8

The Wolves housed themselves in the Toga Hotel, one of the oldest buildings in town. It stood eight stories tall towards the end of Main Street. The place had recently been repainted, a nice off white with green trimming, to match some of the businesses it housed along the bottom. Usually all the scum hung out around the Toga. The Wolves made money by dealing drugs, pimping out their females and regular females, and other illegal things.

Patrick stopped the car on M Street. They all looked over at the old hotel. “You sure you want to do this?”

“If Rich locked me up, he was doing it for Jonathan. And I want to know what’s going on,” Leslie said as she got out of the car. Patrick and Colin got out as well. As she walked up to the hotel, the smell of barbeque filled the air as they passed by the Toga Café, and walked into the court yard. A blind old black man, sat by the door.

“Leslie, he’s busy,” the man said as she walked by.

“Oh well,” she said passing him buy.

“We don’t like bears in our place,” he said as Patrick passed.

He ignored the man and followed behind Leslie. They walked into the hotel. The inside was a mess of red and old furniture. There were wolves sitting around playing cards, dice, drinking, flirting. They all went quiet when the three entered.

Leslie, wearing her usual, jeans, t-shirt and hoody, didn’t even pause. She made her way to the elevator, and hit the button.

“I really don’t like this,” Colin said as the elevator opened.

“Calm it down,” she said as they walked in.

The wolves were still watching them as the elevator doors closed. The small old box made its way up to the eighth floor. “Do you even have a plan?” Patrick asked.

“I don’t know the usual.”

Patrick laughed. “This is how we get in trouble,” Colin said.

The elevator beeped open and they walked out and followed Leslie down the hall. James, Jonathan’s third stood at the door. He might have been one of the smallest of the wolves, standing five-seven, but he was mean as hell. Every part of him looked as if he had injected himself with steroids. He had no neck just huge shoulders; he was just one solid wall of rock. His brown eyes got wide as he saw Leslie walk up. She stopped in front of him, hands on hips, and just stared at him.

“Jonathan is busy,” he said.

“Not my problem,” Leslie said in a bored tone. “Now move or I might just get angry.”

Back about a year ago, there had been an incident, in which Jonathan and Leslie had fought over something, and in the end, she had destroyed the building they were standing in. Jonathan has been hurt pretty bad, but Leslie had no mark on her. No one knew exactly what the two were fighting over, neither ever talked about the incident, but Leslie could use it to scare some of the wolves.

“You don’t scare me,” James said crossing his arms over his huge chest.

She turned to the guys, back to James. Colin and Patrick watched as she rolled her eyes with a small frown. Then she got a small smile, and shrugged.

“Les-,” Patrick stopped Colin from saying more by placing his hand on his shoulder.

She turned. “You will let me in.”

“Your Jedi mind tricks don’t work on me,” he said with a small shake of his head.

“He has a girl in there doesn’t he?” she looked around him at the door.

“Leslie you should leave. Call Jonathan for an appointment or something.”

“Fuck that,” she said and raised her hand which was clinched in a fist; she opened it, so the palm was pointing at the door. It blew open with a loud crack as it smacked into the wall inside.

Women on the inside screamed loudly at the sound. Fredrico was at the door ready for a fight, his chestnut eyes turning a wolfy almost amber. He zoned in on Leslie who had both hands palms facing at James.

“Nina, you know how to make an entrance,” he said.

She reached into her pocket, and pulled out her Supervisor’s badge. “I’m here to talk to Jonathan. This is business.”

“James step down, and let the Supervisors through. You should know better,” he said to the shorter wolf, and his voice held a threat. “Come in, Nina, Jonathan will not be very happy to see you.”

“He never is,” Patrick said.

James moved letting them into the two bedroom apartment. Jonathan liked things simple and easy. He had a large couch in the living room facing a giant flat screen TV. The sound system and DVDS were the only other items in the room. He never used the kitchen, she knew he didn’t cook. They followed Fredrico to the second bedroom.

Leslie stopped at the door, hands on hips looking over the room. It had been set up very elaborate for Jonathan. A large velvet round bed took up most of the room. The small night stand had a large bottle of lube, fuzzy pink hand cuffs, and a large vibrator. A naked girl was chained to the left wall, looking horrified. Another girl huddled beside her, a whip at her feet. On the other wall were items of torture and sex, two big wolfy turn ons. Rich stood beside the camera.

“Well you don’t see this every day,” Colin said peeking over her shoulder. She elbowed him in the gut.

Jonathan stood up from the seat he sat in, in the corner. Jonathan, he stood an inch taller than her. Brown eyes, honey colored skin, wild dark brown hair, lips that naturally pouted. He looked like a biker, all leathers and jeans. And he could wear a pair of jeans better than almost anyone. The other man able to fill out a pair of jeans was Nathan. He was neither huge nor small; he had muscles, but not crazy buff like James, or lanky regular like Fredrico. He also held an air of power, Kingship.

“I should have known.”

“Porn now?”

He shrugged. “You know me.”

“I do. That’s why I’m here. It seems I was held against my wishes in a basement with some heavy duty wards on the door, and-” she stopped.

“And?” he asked.

Her brows furrowed. She didn’t like this one bit. If she mentioned the cub, he could spin it on Nathan. And why would he do something like that? It made no sense. She sighed. “There are only four people who can ward here. Me, Frank, Carlotta and Rich,” she said glaring at the rodent.

He pushed his glasses up on his nose at the mention of his name. “Or perhaps there is some new player in the game,” Jonathan said. He turned to the women at that wall. “Okay now that you two have calmed down. Warm the fuck back up. I have a movie to finish. I ain’t paying you bitches to sit there like scared cats.”

“Cats?” she asked looking at the naked ladies. Thin and delicate with dark hair and eyes. She then felt the buzz of power.

“Two of Randy’s ladies. So why is it that when something bad happens to you, you come straight to me? I applaud who ever locked you in the damn basement, but right now as you see,” he motioned to the camera, “I’m sort of busy. Why the fuck would I mess with you, I’m on a deadline.”

“Actually I came to talk to Rich. Since his WARDS are probably the best.”

“Well thank you,” Rich said still standing by the camera.

“Shut up,” Jonathan said. “Here, I know the drill. You will have to get a warrant to arrest him. He has been by my side since he went to the morgue to see about old Chester. Good old man, sad to see him dead. Anyway. I have an apartment of wolves who can verify, and other hookers who have been in and out of here working on this movie. Now Fredrico, please show the Supervisors to the door, and Leslie I will see you Friday. You should wear a dress once in a while, you look boring in jeans, and I know you have some nice legs.” With that he slammed the door in her face.

“Sorry, the jefe, he is not mismo,” he said then shook his head. “Himself. I’m sorry I forget myself. My last clan, spoke Spanish, I have to remember not everyone does.”

“It’s okay we pretty much understand most of it,” Patrick said. “Once you run into a clan of Spanish speaking chubacabras its kind of good we know Spanish to a point.”

“Interesting. I myself have never met one, but it is rumored that the lycanthrope virus comes from them,” he said stopping at the door. “Do they still live in town? I would very much like to meet them.”

“They went into hiding after we executed one of three of their only females. She had gotten blood lust and ate a camp full of people,” Colin said.

He sighed. “I shall then see you all on Friday then,” he said opening the door for them.

Leslie followed by Patrick and Colin left the room. And were quiet until they got to the car. Inside, they all looked at the Toga. “I know they had something to do with shoving me in that basement. Why? I have no freaking clue.”

“I was actually on a porno set,” Colin said.

Patrick and Leslie looked at each other. “Boys,” they both said.

Opposite Side Chapter 7

2008-05-04T22:17:00.000-07:00

Chapter 7

She had gotten home. Her anger still riding high in the winds. She had come into her power late and unexpected and Rich and his master Jonathan had been there to show her what she was. They showed her a side she had never seen. Something exotic, different, tainted. At the time she had enjoyed it, deep down she knew it had been wrong. But her body loved the pleasure that they gave her. Rich had been her “soul mate” both blood witches in the same town, it had to mean something. Jonathan had been her lover. Human bodies weren’t meant to mate with wereanimals, even in human form they were rough. However, she was not a normal human, and she enjoyed the pain. Then there came the bloodletting, and the darker magic.

She grabbed Persuasion by Jane Austen off the bedside table, and after bunching her pillows around her, she started reading. Lately her only comfort was Miss. Austen. Persuasion was her favorite above Pride & Prejudice. Before her new life had started, she felt her life was exactly like Anne Elliot. She was no beauty and her family cared little for her. Except to help pay bills, they really had no use for her. She had always been the odd one out. So when Rich had introduced her to the Opposite Side she thought she had stepped into a fairy tale.

She was getting to the part when Anne finally left to Bath to be with her father and older sister when her phone rang.

Irritated she looked at the number, and noticed it didn’t have an ID. “Hello?”

“Leslie,” said a small-frightened voice. “Here in Snelling, is rogue werebear. Hurry, help.”

It sounded like a troll. “Where are you?” She jotted down the area.

She didn’t like to drive much, she liked being in the passenger seat, but driving made her nervous. The whole reason she learned is that she could stop relying on people to take her places. And right at the moment she was angry with Colin and Patrick. She arrived in Snelling forty-five minutes later, as the sun started to rise. She drove down the quiet main street passing the main store and the Freezie. And her GPS told her to take a right, and so she did. When she finally stopped she pulled up to the river. Frowning, she checked her gun before getting out of the car. Magic is good, but sometimes it still doesn’t stop certain things. Taking a deep breath, she got out of the car and started walking to the edge.

She looked around for a bit and finally found a trail down to the river. The trail seemed sort of rough, and sharp. She gave out a small prayer to the goddess and started down. Her feet slid out under her once, but she end up catching herself. The fact that she made it to the bottom alive seemed a huge miracle for her. She paused looking at the slow moving water. The river was high, but not as high as it would be in a month when the snow really started to melt.

She closed her eyes, and sniffed the air. She smelt, human sweat, river water, dead leaves, new growth, mud, a decomposing animal, and blood. She turned towards the smell, and started walking. She finally came to a small dilapidated shack after about half a mile. The brush and undergrowth seemed heavier here, and she had to cut through it quietly knowing she was probably doing a bad job at it. Rustling to her left made her pull her gun out. It got closer and she undid the safety. She smelt and felt power, and then those lively greenish gold eyes blinked at her over the muzzle of her gun.

“Nathan, what the hell are you doing here?” she whispered clicking on the safety and holstering the gun.

“I got a call that there was a rogue bear out here.”

“Funny that. I got a call that a rogue bear was out here too.”

“The shack reeks of decomposed animal and blood.”

“I know,” she said and put her hands out in front of her aiming them at the shack. She closed her eyes, and let out some energy. She opened her eyes, and looked at Nathan. “Nothing in there is alive.”

“Well let’s take a peek,” he said walking past her to the door. He pushed it open and walked in. She didn’t like this, something seemed off, but she followed after Nathan. Hand close to her gun. The old house wasn’t much of a shack; it had been a very nice two bedroom house once upon a time. Now the windows were missing glass, and boarded up, and the walls had last seen paint at least twenty years ago it seemed.

Nathan had a door open, as he waited for her. “It’s a sort of basement.”

“That’s what happened to the house. The river took it over,” she said finally noticing the water rot. She stopped next to him looking down in the darkness.

“I’ll go if you want to stay up here,” he said almost in a whisper.

She gave him a small frown. Sure she could think of better things to do then go into a stinky probably water filled basement, but this was part of her job as well. And she couldn’t let the Wolf King go down there by himself. She pulled out her mini flashlight, and flipped it on.

“I see, prepared for anything huh?” he asked his voice held an edge of tease.

“We work in the dark, flashlights are musts,” she said and started down the steps.

“What else do you have in your Batman pack?” he asked very close to her.

“The usual,” she said and made a small noise as she stepped down into water. She stopped.

“What?”

“Water.” She took two more steps before hitting the mushy ground. She stood knee deep. “You know for once I would really like to not get wet, covered in blood or dirty. Really is that too much to ask?” she said to herself mostly.

Nathan grabbed her arm, the one with the flashlight, and shown it around the very dark room. His touch startled her just a little, but what really startled her more was the person at the top of the stairs. They threw something in the water, and slammed the door. A thick gas started to rise from the water, a heavy fog.

Coughing, Leslie, grabbed her cell phone, and wrapped it in the plastic baggy she usually carried. Nathan didn’t let go of her arm, and dragged her up the stairs, he banged his shoulder into the door but it wouldn’t budge. The fog slowly filled the room; coughing Leslie had to sit down.

She could hear Nathan slamming his body into the door. “Nathan,” she said but the world went black. She woke up cold, wet, and in the dark. By the smell, she was sure she was in the same place. She opened her magic, and found the door they came through was heavily warded, and they were now not alone. Her magic found Nathan, to her right. Someone had come in after they were unconscious and moved them off the stairs.

“Nathan,” she whispered.

“Wha-,” he said. “Shit. Leslie don’t move.”

“There is a werebear in here with us isn’t there?” she asked.

He moved in the water towards her. She could feel him, and it gave her some comfort but not much. “It’s a cub, he’s going to change. The full moon is in a few days and there is fresh blood.”

She touched the cut on her cheek. “Uh-oh, um, that blood is me.”

“How bad?”

“It doesn’t hurt, so it had to have been a very nice sharp silver blade.”

A flood light came alive above them, probably on a timer, blinding them all briefly. They looked around, and saw the boy in the corner naked and scared. He seemed to be fighting off the change. But he would lose, they all do. Once the moon calls, the change happens, there is no fighting.

Nathan pulled off his shirt. He found a clean spot and wetting it he cleaned her cut. “It’s going to bleed for a while.”

“I think that’s the point.”

The boy let out a moan, and his body shuttered.

“Oh crap,” Leslie said and grabbed onto the Nathan’s arms.

That electricity zapped through them. They both sucked in air at the same time. But she did not let go. And he did something that should have unnerved her, but weirdly it didn’t. He leaned in as if he was going to kiss her, but then she felt his tongue moist and warm lick her cut. He looked at with those strange green eyes which were filled with curiosity.

The boy screamed behind them, the scream turned into a roar. Nathan crawled over to the boy, and using his own magic tried to sooth the cub. He couldn’t stop him from changing, but he could control it enough so that it could take longer.

Leslie got up and went to the door. She placed her hand against it and pushed some power into the ward. The ward didn’t like that at all; it shot back the power and some more. It hit at her in the chest pretty hard. She didn’t remember falling down the stairs, but she lay there in the cold water trying to breathe as Nathan talked above her.

She sat up. “Ouch,” she finally managed.

“Just an ouch. Leslie it looked like you got electrocuted, and whatever it was threw you down the stairs.”

“I’m going to find whoever did that ward and kick their ass?” She blinked at him. “Is that better?”

He gave her half a smile and turned back to the cub. The jolt had singed through the hoody, so she took it off, and it also singed some of her t-shirt. But she wasn’t about to go around shirtless. She was a tall Amazonian, as the guys liked to call her. And she might have been plain in most things, but she had been blessed with a double d cup size, so walking around shirtless was not a good thing. She really didn’t like to flaunt them.

The cub screamed and Leslie could see that his body was changing. “This is going to get dirty,” she said.

“Don’t panic.”

“Too late,” she said trying to calm her heart.

He came to her, and held her face in his big hands. The electricity flared. Her magic started to break through which happens even when she was scared. “Breath,” he said.

“I know what happens to the newly changed. They are hungry.”

He nodded, and leaned his forehead to hers. “I can’t stop it. This is going to be ugly just close your eyes.”

She did, but she could hear everything. All his bones were breaking, and reknitting themselves the sound sounded in-between a dog drinking water, and a messy eater eating something very gross. His screams turned to roars. Finally after all the bones we reknitted, it gave a roar that shook the small room they were trapped in. Nathan turned, keeping his back pressed to her, blocking her view. She did what she believed was the stupidest moves ever, but couldn’t help herself; she wrapped her arms around him. The flare of the electricity that entered her body, made her weak, and she leaned her head against the back of his neck.

The more skin that she pressed against him seemed to send more of the electrical feeling through them. But then something else happened. Her magic opened, but it didn’t go all scary. Instead it touched Nathan’s beast. His power flowed from him, mingling with hers. For a second they were nothing but magic. And then as one they looked at the cub, angry and hungry it slowly advanced on them. As one they willed it to sleep. And it did just that. It lay down and went to sleep, the bear body slowly turning back to human.

Nathan turned in her arms, and moved his face in close to hers. She thought he would like her cut again, but instead he pressed his lips against hers kissing her hard. Her arms moved up to circle around his broad neck, as she kissed him back with feverish wanting. Her hands had tangled themselves in his hair when he finally broke the kiss.

“What the hell was that?”

“A kiss,” she murmured.

“I know what that was, I mean that,” he said motioning to the boy.

“Magic,” she said.

“I’ve never fought the moon. But we did it. Your blood tastes bear and magic.”

The door above them exploded in, shaking the roof above them dangerously. “Never fear,” Colin said, “The Calvary is here.”

“Was that explosives?” Leslie said loudly barely able to hear over the loud ringing the explosion made.

“Sure was, hell with your magic. Give me enough boom, and I can get through anything,” Colin said. He turned. “Found your brother too.”

Nathan helped her up the stairs. She felt sad when he finally let go of her when he went back to get the cub. Outside the sun had set once again. She was sure they hadn’t been in there more than a day. But she couldn’t be sure by that gas that knocked them out. She grabbed a light and went back to the door. She wanted to see if there was enough wood left to see the ruins marked into the frame. She could maybe trace them back to whoever set the ward. As she looked she saw there was nothing left.

“Sorry,” Colin finally said as he watched her give up looking.

“It’s okay, at least you got us out. Very Rambo of you.”

“I was thinking more Die Hard.”

Patrick handed her a blanket. “I bet you can use some food, a shower and bed.”

She nodded, but looked at Nathan. He looked at her. She wondered if he felt the same, the need, want to touch. Her skin vibrated with this need. She finally looked at Patrick who seemed to be lecturing them about calling back up and letting people know where they were going. Lucky for her, they found out where her car was because the GPS.

“And mom had to call your work and say you were out sick. Your mother had to call in for you. So I hope you are ready to be teased at work.”

“Thank you Patrick,” he said. “This boy was turned against his will. So maybe you should be helping him.”

Colin and Patrick grabbed the boy and went and shoved him in Leslie’s car. Patrick would take him to HQ, Colin said he’d take Leslie home.

She had opened the passenger side door. Nathan stopped her before she could get in. “We have to talk about this.”

She nodded. “Drive safe.”

“I’ll be behind you all the way.” He started to turn away and stopped. “Do you still feel it?”

She rested her head against the glass. “I do.”

“Leslie, I found your phone. And I think it’s okay.”

“Hey, that’s always a plus.”

Nathan ran his fingers over her hand before leaving to his own car. She sat down, and laid her head back. “You going to tell me everything that happened down there?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Something happened between you two. I can see it by how you two look at each other.”

“I think I need to talk to Mr. Forever.”

“I am all up for a visit to the strip club.”

“I was thinking of waiting until full moon. He should be there, enjoying the festivities, like everyone.”

“Who warded the door?”

“There are only four people who can; me, Fred, Carlotta and Rich. The ruins were destroyed, but I’m sure its Rich. His wards are pretty damn tough. I am so going to kick his ass.”

Opposite Side Chapter 6

2008-05-04T19:32:00.000-07:00

Chapter 6

They sat in the conference room with the files and papers spread out before them, as the air around them smelled of burger grease, ketchup and mayonnaise. They studied the reports on the deaths, and the forensic findings, which weren’t much since as they destroyed the body parts they had destroyed the evidence with it.

“What I don’t get is the first kill, the two bodies?” Colin said.

“Could have been their first kill,” Patrick said.

“Or it could have been what started their bloodlust,” Leslie said with french-fry in hand.

They looked at her. “Huh?” Colin managed with a mouthful of burger.

“They were hungry, slipped, killing two people, and they liked the bloodlust it gave them. One possibility.”

Patrick said, “I just don’t see that.”

Carlos busted into the room with a few files. Carlos, one of the youngest lab rats in the lab, and he was exactly that, a wererat. He stood about five-four and weighted at least 90 pounds. Small for a wererat, even in his rat form he was a runt. The Rat Pack didn’t like runts, so he either stayed with a pack down in San Diego and got the shit beat out of him as the punch bag, or became a Supervisor. He had gone through to get his forensic degree, and became a Supervisor lab rat. Of course, he had to leave Southern California, and moved up north, because the local Rata Rey, Rat King, labeled Carlos a Narc. And the Rat Pack decided they didn’t want him around.

“Hi, Carlos,” Colin said before taking another bite of his ultimate double steak and cheeseburger.

“Who let you out of the cage?” Patrick said. Wereanimals only got along so much.

Carlos ignored him, and slid the files over to Leslie. “Hi Leslie,” he said running his nervous shaking hand through his short black hair.

“Thanks Carlos,” she said as she grabbed up the files. “Usually we just come and get the files from you. You must have found something interesting to bring us the files.”

“I sure did. So, before, we couldn’t make out much of the bite marks, but we got a full print. And we ran it through the database. And it came up as a bear tooth.”

“Shit. I need to tell Nathan,” Patrick said.

“Not yet, we have to be really sure about this. Or else if it gets leaked out the wolves will use the info to start this stupid war that they so want to happen,” Leslie said. She looked at Carlos. “You have more I take it by the excited look in your eyes.”

“I do, we found the drugs in the blood. A form of X, but it has vampire and lycanthrope blood in it.”

“Impossible!” Colin said, “The two bloods can’t live together unless it found a livable donor. Like me, a half-breed.”

“Well the test says what it is.”

“What kind of lycanthrope are we talking about?”

“Undetermined. Maybe it’s mutated in the drug with the vampire blood. When we do tests, it brings us to wolf and bear. This again can’t happen since the different strains of lycanthrope can’t live together.” He was true. There have only been half-breeds who were wereanimal and vampire. However, never has there been a case of a half-breed who were two different weres.

“That’s why I picked up the smell in the blood. I smelled the vampire and lycanthrope,” Leslie said mostly to herself.

“Only wereanimals have smell that good,” Carlos said.

The guys sort of just shrugged it off, even though they both knew it bothered her. How did a blood witch start coming down with wereanimal abilities? It just never happened. Of course, the blood witches have been very few and most very secretive in their power. So not much had been studied.

“Anything else?” Colin asked the lab rat.

“Not as of yet,” he said.

“Okay well let us know if you do have anymore.”

Carlos left them alone with the new evidence. “If we have rogue bears out there, Nathan should know. He could set up a line and see if we could hunt them down. The full moon is coming, and this could cause a lot of crap,” Patrick said.

“We need to think this through. If we tell, it could get out to the wolves that there are rogue bears. Of course they will use it against your brother, and show he isn’t fit, and Kings do not step down from a challenge. But this would be challenge not in ranks, but to blood. And then we have to step in, and you know what will happen if the bears are brought up on charges. The wolves will want blood, for stupid shit, and there goes the civil war we have been trying to prevent. Both your clans are equally match, it will spill over to the normal world, and then think of all the trouble we are going to have,” Leslie said.

“Damn, everything is so fucking complicated,” Patrick said as he looked over the closest file.

“What if this has something to do with the wolves?” Colin said. “Maybe this is something they have planned.”

“I dunno,” Leslie said. “You really think Jonathan could come up with something so crazy as rogue bears? And where would he get the blood.”

“Not just that, but bear lycanthrope is harder to catch then wolf lycanthrope, it’s much easier to be born with it then catch it. So they would have to pump someone with a lot of bear blood to actually get them to change.”

“I’m just throwing out suggestions,” Colin said.

“And right now that’s all we have. However, we have to think of it this way. If this did get out the wolves have a lot to benefit from this. So maybe they do have ties to it. But I doubt Jonathan would dirty his hands too much. He might want to rule the Northern Central Valley, but he also knows if he gets caught it will turn around and bite him on his fury ass,” Patrick said.

“You know Jonathan to a point Les. What do you think his ties would be to this?” Colin asked.

Anger. Her mind clouded in with white noise. “You know I don’t know him THAT well. Fuck,” she said getting to her feet quickly toppling her chair. “Everyone assumes I seem to know him so well. Bite me.” She walked out the door.

“Ouch,” Patrick said and Colin nodded.

Opposite Side Chapter 5

2008-05-04T19:26:00.000-07:00

Chapter 5

The Supervisors HQ was now firmly located at the old base. Before it was any old building away from other people, and that wouldn’t get unnoticed by the outside world. But seeing how much room was actually out there at the base, only a few other companies were there, the biggest being the AT&T Call center, they decided to settle down. The space was perfect, and the place blended in with the other buildings out there. No one to question the amount of vehicles, it was just another corporation.

The three walked into the small main office. It housed Angelina the night Secretary. She sat at her nice uncluttered desk, playing World of Warcraft. The four seats in the waiting area were empty, as usual. The room’s walls were a nice off white, with small murals here and there, a fake plant sat in a corner, EMO music played lightly through the room. It had to have been Angelina’s. Her job was just for show, just in case a regular human happened to walk in. Most people would be surprised, how curious people can be. She nodded to them never really taking her eyes off the monitor.

They went through the main door into the main office. There they entered into the very quiet room, all eyes half human to other watching them. They stood there not sure if they were in some sort of trouble or what by the awkward silence. Usually the place was alive with voices of the dispatchers, who mostly occupied the main area. They too were staring at the three young supervisors. Faces blank.

The room itself was a huge square, most of it taken up with nice desks set with computers and phone headsets. The dispatchers had their run of the area taking all the calls, and placing the right Supervisors were they were needed. They ranged from weres, banshees, fey of different types, a troll or two, and other breeds of Opposites. Around them were half breeds to humans who had seen too much. They were the dispatcher’s secretaries. They kept all the paperwork together, and were the go to guys or gals if called for something.

There you entered halls, and in the halls housed the Supervisor’s offices. The first rooms were labs and special designed rooms for experiments. Underneath the building which had once been a storage room, and quite possibly a bomb shelter, were now their holding cells. Magically warded and sealed, just in case.

Colin handed the biobag to a Tech. Who would do a few tests on the vamp and then incinerate the head. The three looked around uneasy, even the lab techs and other supervisors where out watching them. Some who weren’t even on shift yet.

“Okay what did we do now?” Patrick finally asked.

“They are waiting in your office,” Cheryl the main dispatcher said. Her short auburn hair was spiked; her ebony orbed eyes seemed to stare into their souls. Leslie fought the shiver that wanted to overcome her; she hated being stared at by the banshees. It had been creepy enough to see what happens when someone gets killed, there wailing, but they seemed to see more.

They walked down the right hall. Faces peeked out at them from the half open doors. “Is this freaking anyone else out?” Colin asked.

Leslie nodded. She was the closest to Patrick’s door, and they could feel the crowd behind them. She opened the door, and at first, the shock at who they saw in the room made them all pause. And then as their brains sprang into action they all had their guns out.

Two of the three visitors looked amused; the third had a very hostile look on her face. The man sitting smiled at them. “We have papers,” he said his voice held a thick Spanish accent.

The three exchanged a puzzled look as the seated man motioned to the man standing to his left. He stood about five-six, and as he walked a few steps forward, all three were thinking how quick it would be to drop him with one shot. He held out a folder. Patrick grabbed it from him quickly and read over the papers. He handed them to Leslie, his face blank. Leslie eyed the papers and then handed them over to Colin.

She put up her gun, since it would be considered cold blooded murder to kill them, so the papers said. “Well this is different.”

“No one else would talk to us, they asked us to wait here for you three. I take it you three must be the rookies?”

“Well why are you here exactly?” Patrick asked. They were rooted to their spot by the door.

“We were told that we had to come talk to the Supervisors in the area we decided to settle in. And so here we are. I am Raphael; I am Sheppard to my flock.” He stood and walked towards them, making all three take a step back.

He stopped face cold, showing no emotion, but his eyes watched them curiously. “I forget this is new to all of us. I am sorry. My flock is small; we are about half a dozen.”

“That isn’t very small,” Colin said.

His dead black eyes stared at him. “You carry our blood.”

Colin nodded. “I carry the disease.”

“We understand that this concept will be rather new to those here in the Supervisors. And the idea is new to us as well, but we hope to live in harmony with the other Opposites. We do not think like the others.”

“Leslie,” she said nodding and pointed to Colin. “Colin and Patrick.” The men all nodded when she said their names.

Seeing that the three weren’t going to harm them Leslie walked over to the other side of the desk. She looked them over. The vampires looked like all other vampires. Their skin was white as snow, which meant all three were a few decades old. Newer vamps usually had a tint of humanity left to their skin.

“I guess we should ask you a few questions. Colin,” she said taking a seat. He came over and slid in front of the computer. Patrick came to stand behind her. “Since this is new I guess we should first ask about residence.”

“We have found a place. A nice house. It is a two bedroom house on Elm Ave off of Mackee road. I do not understand the numbers, but Jennifer here can fill you in on that. It has a big yard, and the neighbors are not very close.”

“Okay as soon as we get the information down, which one of the secretaries in the main office will get. We will be putting you on probation,” Leslie said.

“What?” Colin said looking at her. She nodded. “We have to be sure about this, and we can’t just be sure you aren’t going to take some humans into your house and slaughter them.”

“I think it is very fair,” Raphael said.

“We’ve never really did this before, so say sixty days?” she asked looking at the others. They shrugged.

“That sounds roughly fair. I hear jobs do that as well.” He stood and they walked to the door. “So then who will be checking on us?”

She looked at him, “We are since it seems no one else is up to it.”

“We shall give our address and information then to a secretary. We do wish to be a part of this world, we want nothing more than to be treated almost human again.” A sad look went over his face. “For some of us we did not choose to be this way. So then we will expect to hear more about our probation. Our terms and whatnot.”

“As soon as we figure that out we will contact you.”

“Thank you, and good evening,” he said and was gone.

Patrick sunk into a chair beside Leslie. The three stared at the door. “What the hell just happened?”

“We have vampires who are legal citizens of the Opposite Side,” Colin said.

“As if we don’t have enough to worry about,” Leslie said.

“Maybe now is not the time to bring up the Fresno case.”

Leslie looked down at her hands on the desk. “A group of rogues, who kill for fun.”

“Yes, but the forensics say that it’s just not vampires its wereanimals too. The teeth marks are proof.”

“Crap,” Patrick said. “Well let’s get something to eat. I’m hungry. Then we can talk more about this.”

get bitten

2008-04-30T23:24:00.000-07:00

have a myspace click on the link.

Smutty end of the wold no tile story prt. 1

2008-04-28T21:19:00.000-07:00

The days were getting warmer, as Kate sat out in front of the bookstore with her back leaning against the cement pillar of the store, her forgotten book lay on her lap. Her eyes looked out over the parking lot scattered with cars twinkling in the sun. A light breeze picked up gently blowing at her auburn hair. She blinked large brown eyes, once then twice, coming out of the small trance.

She had always wanted quiet, never one for human interaction, funny, since she always held a retail job. And she had been damn good too, even though she hated each transaction. A cat darted behind her. She moved only a fraction, positioning herself more comfortably against the pillar enjoying the spring sun.

“The animals run the place now,” she said to herself. She had found herself talking more and more to herself out in the open.

“It doesn’t matter, no one is around to here,” she said and looked down at the book. She decided that she no longer wanted to read. She got to her feet, and stopped, head tilted, ears listening, she thought she heard-

“Silly, you are being silly again. You know there is no one alive.”

The human race had caught a cold. A very bad cold. A cold you never got better from, and in the end you were dead. She had caught the cold, just like everyone else. She had sneezed so hard, she swore her brain would hemorrhage and her bloody noses would never end. She had coughed so hard her chest still hurt when she thought of it. But unlike everyone else, who withered away, she got better. And she watched as everyone died, the world ended.

She made it to the door of the bookstore, and paused. “I am all alone,” she said. And she wanted it this way. But even she got lonely. She found herself sitting in the way to quite places, and wanted to hear some kind of activity. She missed having another person to bullshit with once in a while; there was something amiss with her telling jokes, and not really finding herself very funny.

Inside the store she threw the book on the counter, and looked around. She didn’t want to read, she didn’t feel hungry, and she had nothing personal to take care of.

She looked out the windows. “It’s been what three years? Sounds right. Three years. I know I am alone in town, and in the county, but who knows there could be someone still alive in the state. You know how come I survived and no one else did?”

“When are you going to stop asking yourself that question? You survived, get over it.” She had created a friend, his name was Jay. Jay usually seemed to be the sensible side of her. Always telling her to shut up, and get over the dumb questions she kept asking herself.

She walked along the bookshelves, fingers touching the books. They were real. She was real. Or was she? At first being alone was great, it was just like that episode of the Twilight Zone, the one with the book nerd who survives the end of the world, and has all the time in the world to read. But then his glasses get broken, and he can’t read. So far nothing bad had really happened to her. Some scrapes and bruises.

Jay walked beside her. “You should go out. Get more air. It sure is dusty in here.”

Right on queue she sneezed. “And do what?”

“How about visit the graves?”

She shook her head. “We did that yesterday.”

“Why not do it again. It would be good exercise. Or we could go home and put up the pool.”

She stopped to look at her friend. His black hair was cut short, he had sky blue eyes, his chin was a bit sharp, and his ears stuck out a little more than normal. “Or maybe I can just go home.”

His eyes widened. “We haven’t been there in a while.”

She nodded. “I wonder if the cats still stop by.”

She had rounded the corner and started on her journey home. Home had been where she had raised her sister and brother. Had fought to get some money to buy food for them from her crackhead mom. She had done real good raising the kids mostly on her own, and then they got sick. The kids were hit hard, it hurt to think of her babies in so much pain, so she ended it for them. She never thought of herself as a murderer, because she had stopped their pain, they were dead anyway. But she had lived.

She passed by Jay who just stood there on the sidewalk staring at her almost in surprise. “And you are staring at what.”

“You,” he said his voice just a little deeper than normal.

“Come along, it’s getting dark.”

She heard him behind her, had she ever heard him walking before? “You know I think my delusion just got more detailed.”

“Who are you?” Jay asked behind her.

“That’s my question, and you are supposed to say you know who you are.”

“No really who are you?”

Knowing it was all in her head, at least she could distinguish that, she decided to go along with him. “Fine, I am Kate. I am supreme ruler of this shithole town. The last person alive.”

“You are real.”

“Of course I am real,” she said turning onto G Street. “I am as real as I can get.”

“Kate?”

“Hmm. You know what I can go for right now? Ice cream.”

“How long have you been here?”

“I’ve lived here all my life you know that.”

“Why didn’t you die?”

“You are asking my questions again,” she sighed as she turned on Bear Creek.

“But why?”

“I don’t know,” she said almost in a whisper.

A hand touched her shoulder. “Holy crap, Jay that almost felt real. You know maybe I’m getting crazier.”

The hand tightened on her shoulder. “Will you stop, please.”

“What-“ she turned and looked at her imaginary friend. And then she noticed the changes. His hair was longer, scraggly, his ears weren’t actually as big as they had been, and his chin was rounder, less sharp. But his eyes were the same, no they weren’t, there was real life in his eyes.

“Hi,” he said. “I don’t know who Jay is but I am Jeff.”

“Uh-“ Her mind shrieked, she think she stopped breathing. And then everything went black.

She woke up sometime later. She sat up quickly. “Don’t do that,” Jay, no Jeff, said.

“Where do you come from?” she asked.

“Texas,” he said originally. “Been driving around since the Big Death.”

“Big Death,” she repeated, “Sounds about right.”

Jay finally showed up behind him, and looking she could see all kinds of differences. “What do you think he wants?” he asked. She opened her mouth and he put his finger to his lips then pointed to his head.

I don’t think he wants anything. I mean he looked as surprised as I was afterwards.

“You okay?” Jeff asked.

She watched Jay cross his arms over his chest, looking at Jeff with very unfriendly eyes. “Yeah. Sorry.”

Jeff looked out the window. He had taken her into a house right there on Bear Creek. “I started a fire,” he said.

“There is no need. It actually is getting warmer. I think I need to start on my garden again. Its time.”

“So you haven’t seen anyone around here?”

“We were one of the early towns hit, and they cleaned us up pretty well. I bet the bigger cities had stunk. I buried the rest who were left. Had too, I know what would have happened if the bodies stayed. I would have survived the Big Death to die of something else. Jane Watson, on M street was the last to die,” she paused, “Or she was just the last body I found.”

“Was it hard, looking for the bodies?”

She got off the bed, which smelt of dusty mothballs, and walked over to the window. “The army had marked the empty houses with an x. And so I checked the others out.”

“He asks way too many questions,” Jay said beside her.

“How long has it been since you actually talked to another human?” she asked.

“Three years.”

“I remember those days, the last few people stuck in their homes dying scared. I wondered around flipping off lights and stuff.”

“I fled my city. I had to stuff was getting out of hand.”

“He fled,” Jay said. “This means he doesn’t want the responsibility.”

“I would have fled,” she whispered.

“Excuse me,” Jeff said.

“I would have fled too. But I had to take care of my sister and brother.”

“Sorry,” he said.

“No need. It’s all over with now.”

The next few weeks went rather smoothly, the two got together really well. Helping with a vegetable garden, finding supplies, and even getting some electricity up to watch some movies. Weeks meshed into months, and soon the heat of the valley summer had finally started to vanish, bringing in a nice mild fall. With Jeff around Kate didn’t need Jay, but he still managed to show up from time to time. Making her question her sanity.

“Is this typical weather even for October?” Jeff asked standing out on the porch.

“Yes. It’ll get cold soon enough.”

“Does it snow here.”

“Maybe once every so many years, we get hail, and sometimes we flood when it rains too much.”

“So tell me,” he said coming back to the couch were she sat reading a book. “Do you want to search for others?”

She blinked her brown eyes at him. “Do you?”

He turned his head. His jaw set, which meant something was wrong. She wanted to reach out and touch him. Sooth away that aggravation. But even though they were now friends, they had never crossed that line.

“I don’t really. Look I wasn’t much of a people person, but being alone for three years was driving me crazy. I had hoped to see someone, even just to see. But lucky me I ran into someone. Although I am curious that if we survived, there has to be others right?”

“I think there is.”

“I think your friend Jeff isn’t real,” Jay said standing opposite of her.

Shut up. He is real.

“You’ve lost your mind. And right now you are just lying in some dust filled room dreaming this all up while your body is trying to die.”

“Shut up,” she said glaring at him,

“I’m sorry,” Jeff said.

“No. Sorry was thinking out loud at myself I am sorry.” She looked back at the spot and Jay was gone.

She had learned to pickle and jar stuff, so she could have food over the winter. Regression is hard, when all your life you grew up with technology doing most of the work for you. You wanted milk you went to the grocery store, you wanted some tacos you went to Taco Bell, oh how she missed Taco Bell, you needed something you went to the proper store and got it. Now you had to save, hunt, learn to do it by hand.

“He’s not coming back you know,” Jay said beside her at the sink.

“Why don’t you leave me alone? He just went out to hunt.”

“Or he decided to go look for other people and leave you here alone.”

“You’d like that wouldn’t you. Slowly making myself crazy. Leave me alone!” She said tossing the knife into the sink.

“Prove to me he’s real. You are the only woman, he’s been alone for almost 4 years, if you get my drift. He has made no move. No move. He is fake, just a better version of me. Jeff/Jay. Come on Kate. Look at it.”

She closed her eyes and shook her head. “He is real.”

“Who is real?” Jeff said.

She turned to the sink and quickly wiped the tears in her eyes away. “Nothing. How did hunting go?”

“It didn’t really go I could have killed a cow, but really what a waste if we don’t eat it all within the next few days. That is a lot of meat. I was thinking of maybe going up a little higher in the mountains maybe starting early tomorrow.”

Jay was standing behind him. “He isn’t real. He brought you no meat.”

And Jay didn’t let up. Most of the evening he would continue to pop up to say over and over again that Jeff wasn’t real. That night as they both were getting ready for bed, Jeff was staring in the bathroom.

“Maybe I can rig up a shower.”

She came out of her room looking at his bare muscular back. “A running shower would be nice.”

“Look your half naked. You are wearing a tank-top and some short shorts, and does he make a move no. He just smiles at you.”

Fine you want proof he’s real.

She stepped close to Jeff, smelling him. He smelt manly, or rather that was the only way she could think of it. Sweat, earth, Jeff.

“Kate-“ but before he could finish she placed her lips hard against his, encircling his neck with her arms. He made a small noise as her body pressed up against his.

He opened to the kiss, eating her up. His large hands gripped her hips and pressed her against the wall. He broke the kiss and ran his lips down her jaw, to her neck. Her skin vibrated with such a need that made her mind go numb. He kissed her again, as one of his hands moved to her breast. He grabbed it gently, yet hard and firm, pinching at her nipple bring a moan from her lips.

She had no memory of how he got her to his bed. She sat on the edge of his bed, watching him kick off the pajama pants he wore around her at night. Naked and hard he stood before her, her heart felt as if it would explode. He got to his knees and slid her top over her head. He leaned her back and kissed one hard nipple then the other. She moaned as he took the nipple into his mouth and sucked. He didn’t stop there, he gave perfect attention to each breast, playing, teasing. Her body tensing with each pull.

He finally came back to look at her, his face so close. “Do you really want this?” he asked.

She couldn’t speak. She nodded, or would have made a nonhuman sound. He kissed her again, and in one fluid movement he pushed himself in her. The movement, the pressure, made her come quickly. She cried out raking her nails on his back, not fazing him. He moved above her, gently, with rhythm. She locked her legs around him, moaning with each thrust. The pleasure building up as he moved faster. Building like waves, until she exploded again. He made her come once more before he did.

He finally lay beside her, holding her to him. She could feel his heart beat. He is real, she thought before falling asleep in his arms.

Opposite Side Chapter 4

2008-04-28T12:11:00.000-07:00

Chapter 4

“I’m glad you and Nathan are getting along. I know he wasn’t very happy about me working or living with a blood witch. You guys are the equivalent to the bogeyman to the werechildren.” He swiveled towards her in the chair.

“Sheesh, thanks for sharing. I already feel bad about what I am, but I get reminded daily on what a monster I am. So I get a bit wild once in a while, it’s not like I go all furry once a month and have a craving for fresh meat.” She sat in her own swivel chair, arms crossed, pouting. Earlier they had raced around the room with the wheeled chairs. Now they were just bored.

“Les, you know I don’t mean anything by it. I was just telling you.”

“Sure,” she said making a paper airplane. She finished and let it glide. It dropped by the door, crashing hard onto the floor. The mortuary assistant walked in followed by two men, they all looked at each other startled. Leslie felt her chest lurch as her eyes fell on the shortest of the men.

“I’m sorry I must have gotten the rooms mixed up,” the assistant said to the two men.

“Leslie,” Rich said trying not to sound as surprised as his brown eyes were letting on. She noticed his dark brown hair not only had some grey, but he was also going bald. He pushed his glasses up on his nose, a sign of slight nervousness, his weakness.

She said nothing as the assistant led them away. The door closed. “Well that was awkward,” Patrick said as Leslie got to her feet and went to the body.

“Patrick, why hasn’t the vampire risen yet?” she grabbed the sheet covering the body and pulled it off.

Patrick came to stand beside her and they looked over the body. “It’s rather old to be vampire bate don’t you think?” Patrick said.

“Where is the vampire bites?” She said moving the head looking at the neck. She then pulled the sheet fully off the body, and looked lower for bite.

Their eyes went to the door when a scream erupted in the hall. They pulled out their guns as they ran from the room. They had gotten to the next room where all the commotion was coming from. The assistant, Rich and the other man where all standing at the door. The assistant was screaming loud and girly, and Leslie wondered how a big man like him could scream such a horror queen scream.

They looked in the room. A body lay torn to shreds on the floor, not much blood. New vampires were very hungry, and usually killed anything in sight for the first night.

“We are underground, so Le-” Before he could finish. A ward sprang around the building. He looked at her, and she motioned to Rich with a small twitch of her head. And mouthed show off.

“Need any help?” Rich asked as they came out of the room.

“No, this is our job,” Patrick said.

“I have a plan,” Leslie said.

“What?” he asked and saw her pull out a small knife. “No.” Knowing what was on her mind, and after the night before he didn’t want to risk her going all scary again.

“It's okay, and it might save the rest of the people in here.”

Colin ran down the hall gun in hand. “I almost didn’t make it through as the ward came crashing around. What the fuck is going on?”

“The assistant got the rooms mixed up,” Patrick said as Leslie placed the blade against the palm of her hand. She moved it down, her lips locked as the silver blade slid easily into her flesh. The blood came fast. She rubbed the blade on her jeans, before putting it away, and walked to the middle of the hall, hand out in front of her bleeding. She made a loose fist, and watched as the blood made a small puddle.

She reached for her magic. And closing her eyes she chanted. “Blood calls to those who want it.” Usually magic had very impressive sayings and words, but she thought it was over kill, she just went for what she thought sounded well for her. And it worked easier than some of those sayings and words that Rich had tried to teach her.

She could feel it, as it came towards her. Its pure animal need. It busted through the door at the end of the hall. The creature stopped, naked, its skin still had a human shade to it like most of the new dead. They had no problem knowing it was a female. One perfect breast hung from its chest, the other, had been eaten half away. Probably by the vampire who had attacked her.

Colin and Patrick stood against each wall guns out. The vampire watched as another drop of Leslie’s blood fell in the small pool at her feet. It growled something very inhuman, from a once pretty woman. It sat in a crouching position and sprang into an ape run, using its arms. Leslie had no fear; she had two of her best men watching her. Before the creature could spring at her, two shots echoed through the room. One bullet ripped through the thing’s heart, the other hit the head.

Colin went over to the body with his long silver blade. “Oh let me,” a thick Spanish voice said. It came from the tall man who had been with Rich.

“This is Fredrico, Jonathan’s new second.”

“We didn’t hear about a change in the wolves,” Patrick said.

Rich gave a curt smile. “It probably got lost in all that paperwork that you guys have in your office.”

“We will be letting the office know about this.”

“Well, Freddy, you’re from Mexico?” Leslie watched as the new wolf carved through the vampire’s neck easily as if he had done it before.

He stood easily, gracefully, his hand holding out what was left of the decapitated head. “Fredrico, please. No I come from San Diego.” He stood about six-feet towering over poor Rich who stood at five-five, her and Colin both stood at five-ten so it didn’t feel much like he was towering to them. He was slender, with long arms and legs. His black hair was cut short in a very professional way; his chestnut eyes watched her every move studying her.

“Here,” Colin said opening the biobag he pulled from his pocket.

“Such a pity he lost you,” Fredrico said as he released the hair, dropping the head in the bag, and walked close to her, Pausing. “Nina, your power sings to me. Hasta luego and I will be seeing you later.”

They all watched Rich and him leave. “Dude he was so coming on to you,” Patrick said.

“Wolves are all the same,” Colin said, “Bunch of dogs.”

Leslie laughed hard enough to echo through the quiet hall. “I love you guys,” she said tears in her eyes. “You guys are like a bunch of girls.”

Their pagers went off. “Dispatch,” Colin said already on his cell phone. They had dubbed him the phone guy. Both Patrick and Leslie weren’t very friendly with dispatch. And dispatch wasn’t very friendly to people who weren’t friendly to them.

He got off the phone and gave them a baffled look. “Dispatch says we have an appointment, and they are waiting in our office.” Which was Patrick’s office, since he was the only one who kept everything clean and organized.

“Did anyone know of an appointment?” Leslie asked. They both shook their heads.

Opposite Side Chapter 3

2008-04-28T10:28:00.000-07:00

Chapter 3

Leslie woke to the smell of bacon, sausage, eggs and a headache. She had no memory of how she got into bed. She was clean, and there was no trace of any blood. Sleepy eyed, and yawning she made her way to the communal kitchen, as they called it. She took a seat at the small table as Patrick placed a plate full of breakfast food in front of her. She looked over at the clock, 2 pm. Sounded about right. They had to be in the office about five or six, as the sun sets it’s when all the Opposites come out to play.

Colin dragged himself to the table. Hitting the coffee cup before the food. “I would have slept in but damn, breakfast smells good,” he said as he eyed the heap load of food on his plate.

Wereanimals had to eat more than their weight in food, since their metabolism was speedier then any DSL, Cable or High Speed internet you could find. Colin had got the most of the wolf side, which included the super duper metabolism. His mom had been camping with some friends, when they were attacked by a rogue; Colleen had been cut up and raped. At the time, the Supervisors had been just starting in the area, and they had no time to deal with the only survivor, who happened to be a werewolf. But his grandmother, half-Indian, and knew of the stories of what could happen. Colleen had died in birth, Grandmother Ines, named the baby Colin after her, and raised the boy. She never once hid the fact what he was. She, Patrick and Leslie had accepted him for what he was even if the other Opposite’s couldn’t.

Colin had natural brown hair he kept dyed black, and pale blue eyes. He stood as tall as Leslie, and even in his all black cloths he looked small, but if you really looked at his arms you would see that they were toned, and so was his chest. Leslie had seen him plenty of times with his shirt off, and she could vouch that he was no scrawny little thing. From his mother’s side he get the superwere metabolism, speed, and wolf sight. From his father’s side he get the vampire disease which taints his blood, and slows his heart, and the fangs without the venom sacks, and every so often the need for blood.

“Lab work should be in when we get in tonight,” Patrick said between mouthfuls of egg and bacon.

“So what do we know?” Leslie asked as she sipped her hot black tea.

“The rogue we found was not the killer, and he had been drawn to the blood. He wasn’t there when Simms and his team checked out the house. I think whatever did it took their time, almost playing with them,” Colin said.

“That would explain why they blocked the windows,” Patrick said.

Leslie shivered thinking of all the blood. “What could make the blood smell the way it did?”

The two men looked at her. “How come you are the only Blood Witch in history who can pick up smells like a wereanimal?” Colin asked. “No one has ever came out and asked you have they?” She shook her head.

“I have a theory,” Patrick said, “I believe she has some wereblood in her family.”

“Well?” She said.

“Drugs, or some kind of disease,” Patrick said.

Her grey eyes got large. “Are you saying that I could have been coated in blood with a STD or something? Eww.”

“Don’t worry; you know we can’t catch human diseases anyway. Now if it was an Opposite disease,” Colin said.

“Let's not talk about this around the food,” Patrick said. His phone chirped, and he answered listening to it.

“Drugs,” Leslie whispered.

Colin nodded, his hair stood out in all directions from sleep. “Most likely.”

Patrick said a quick okay, and hung up they looked at him. “Nathan is going to be over in thirty minutes.”

“Crap,” Leslie said getting to her feet. “I need a shower.”

“So what is up with you and my brother?” he asked then shoveled the rest of his food in his mouth and then grabbed her plate. She could never finish the heap he always put before her.

She paused before going into the hallway. “Nothing,” she said.

“You two should just get it over with,” Colin said and Patrick nodded.

“You two, mind your own business.”

“But you are half our business,” Patrick said taking the empty plates to the dishwasher.

“Or at least one-third our business,” Colin said as she disappeared out of sight.

___________

After the shower and properly dressed Leslie found Colin on the Supervisor’s database. She slid a chair over next to him. He seemed to be looking over the stats of vampire attacks. She expected to see a rise over the year, but it wasn’t the case. Instead, the vampire attacks have been reclining.

“I guess we are doing our job,” she said.

“Could be, or maybe they are moving somewhere else. I heard the bigger cities are being hit like crazy.”

She tensed in her seat. She could feel Nathan before the others; she frowned wondering why she could. Colin slid his eyes to her. “I take it Nathan is here?”

A knock on the door sounded right on time. “Go get it,” he whispered.

“No,” she said.

“I got it,” Patrick said as he came from the hallway out of his room. “Wimp.” He gave her a small smile.

Something on the screen caught her eye. “Look,” she said pointing. “There was a scene like the last two in Fresno over six months ago.”

“Hold on.” Colin brought up the case file. The info on it wasn’t much. He got up, cell phone already in his hand. “I’m calling the Fresno Branch.”

She nodded and slid over into the computer chair reading the rest. Body parts torn apart. In that case, it had been only two bodies. Their first case had been three, but they could identify the body parts unlike last night. They could barely understand what was what.

“Leslie got a bit wild last night,” Patrick said making her turn away from the computer screen.

“Everyone felt it,” Nathan said giving her a small nod hello. She nodded back. “It felt like the pull of the moon, some of the younger ones changed in a rush.”

“Sorry it was the blood. If I had let it do as it wanted you all would have changed.”

He laughed eyes narrowing. “You can’t do that.”

She shrugged. “It wanted death and destruction.” Her eyes went back to the screen as she shivered thinking of the magic. “It wanted mayhem and it knew by changing all the wereanimals it could cause havoc.”

“You can’t really do that?” Nathan asked and looked at his brother. “Can she?”

“We don’t know. She is the most powerful witch in history. She can mostly control it. But we have to carry a tranquilizer with us at all time just in case-”

“Next subject,” she said voice low almost nervous.

“I actually wanted to know if you wanted to come over and help with some yard work.” Nathan asked Patrick. Understandable, his yard was huge. “I would throw in a barbequed steak.”

“I’m in,” he said.

“Me too,” she said giving Patrick a knowing look. He gave her his best shut up look.

“In for what?” Colin asked walking back into the room closing his phone.

“Nathan needs help with his yard, and Patrick said he would. So I thought I would tag along.”

“Patrick doesn’t,” he looked at the two men and shut up.

Patrick shot them all a warning glance. “Am I missing something?” Nathan asked.

“No,” they all said at once.

“I got a hold of someone in Fresno. They won’t let me have the file but said I can look at it. So I will see you guys tonight at the office,” Colin said grabbing his car keys beside the door. “You three be good now.”

___________

A good day’s work of physical labor helped get rid of thoughts of the nasty crime scene. The hazard of being a Supervisor was your job was your life, and sometimes all you could do was think of the bad. They had done a lot in just a few hours. And now sat eating dinner or rather lunch on the ancient porch. The stake was a bit bloodier then Leslie would have liked, but she was used to it since she lived with two men who liked their meat bloody.

“Let me refill your glass,” Nathan said taking her cup and going inside his ancient four bedroom Victorian house. It had been his families when the Werebears had claimed the town, oh back in the mid-1930s. The house was almost a historical landmark, and would be if the family let it. But they were solitary creatures, good thing the house was mostly surrounded by a large chain link fence covered thickly with ivy and some other climbing plants.

Patrick’s phone chirped. “Hello,” he said. He looked at her and mouthed he’d be right back. She nodded, watching him walk away to get some privacy.

“Booty call?” Nathan said surprising her as he slid the cup in front of her taking his seat. She had to try not to stare at him, and his impressive massive chest, although at one time earlier he had taken off his shirt as he mowed. She had thought her heart would have stopped or she would have another stroke. Maybe the guys were right, she thought over her options. She was no prude when it came to sex, but she had only slept with one wereanimal before.

She laughed. “Yeah,” she said but he really had no idea how right he was.

Nathan brushed her arm, and electricity ran through her at the slight touch. Their eyes locked. “Could you really have made us change?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. My magic sure wanted it to happen.”

“How much do you know about what you are?”

She looked away thinking back to her family. She had been sitting beside her great grandmother. “Who is that?” she asked pointing her seven-year-old finger at a man who was standing away from the rest of the family in the group.

“He is my great uncle, on my father’s side. Rupert Grant,” she had said.

“He has dark eyes.” It was a black and white photo, but you could tell the difference from his and everyone else’s.

“My Gran said they were always dark, and he was a very unhappy man.”

The sun had started to make its decent and the air was cooling down. The scent of freshly cut grass almost overwhelmed her. “I think there was someone with something, don’t know for sure, but a great great great uncle who could have been either a blood witch or something more.”

“A bear?” He touched her again this time intentional. The electricity of the touch brought a small gasp from both their lips. It didn’t hurt. No, it felt good. Very good. She laid her hand palm up on the table.

“I dunno. Let’s experiment.”

He placed his large hand on hers. The electricity that hit them ran through them head to toe, raising the hairs along their bodies. She knew her eyes had gone dark, she closed them, focusing on the feeling. It excited her, and scared her all at the same time. She could tell by his breathing it did the same for him. His hand moved over her hand and gently slid up past her wrist until it stopped on the bend of her arm. She could feel the lingering touch where his hand had been. The longer his hand touched her, the more she wanted him to keep it moving, to touch her everywhere. She wanted more, oh so much more.

“Look at me,” he said his voice deeper than normal.

She looked into his living greenish gold eyes, they were now more gold on bigger than normal. “Your monster eyes are peeking out,” she whispered.

“What is it?” he asked.

Before she could say something. Patrick came walking around the corner; Nathan pulled his arm away balling his hand into a giant fist. “Sorry to eat and run-” He stopped looking from one to the other. Both were staring at each other. “Something happen?”

“No,” Leslie said she looked down at her arm on the table. Nathan’s touch lingered, it almost felt like his hand was still there. Her other hand ran up the arm.

“We have to go, the dispatcher called, said there is a body at the morgue that might rise as a vampire.”

“A turnee, we haven’t had one in a while.”

Nathan walked them to the door, gave his brother one of those manly half hugs, and reached out to touch her, but stopped. “We should do this again,” he said rubbing his hands together, mind certainly not on the work they had done.

“Sure, if you are offering to cook, we are here,” Patrick said.

“Be careful.”

“Always,” Leslie and Patrick said at the same time.

Whatevers*

2008-04-24T21:09:00.000-07:00

test

Opposite Side Chapter 2

2008-04-24T20:50:00.000-07:00

Chapter 2

Ever seen something so bad your mind could not comprehend what it was seeing at first? The three stood in the living room of the nice one story three-bedroom house, letting their mind take in the scene. At first they took in the blood, everywhere, but there was other stuff in the blood, and then the blood didn’t look or smell right.

Colin came to his senses first. He clapped his hands in the dead silence around them, making the other two jump. “Okay let’s get this over with,” he said.

Leslie nodded, slightly nauseated. “Where are the bodies?”

“Simms said in the kitchen.”

“How many?” Patrick asked nauseated as well. The blood was giving off a sick smell he could not put his finger on, but it kept his beast calm.

“It was some sort of party, so a good amount. I’m going to check the rooms,” Collin said.

Leslie and Patrick made their ways into the Kitchen, trying not to step on to much of the evidence. One piece of “stuff” was too big, Leslie bent down picking it up, holding it so her and Patrick could eyed the gooey red object.

She then noticed the piercing embedded in it, perhaps a belly button. “Oh,” She said and dropped it back to the ground, “This isn’t just stuff. It’s human, or was.” She closed her eyes and let the nausea settle feeling slightly weak.

Patrick touched her arm. “You okay?”

“I am,” she said opening her eyes. “Sorry, it just took me some time to register what it was I was seeing. I think I knew it was human, it just didn’t look it at first.”

He gave her a small smile. “Let's get this over. We can then turn in the files, get home and watch a nice kiddy movie.”

“Sounds good.” They walked into the kitchen, or actually slipped into the kitchen. Their feet had left the blood saturated carpet, and hit the inch deep blood covered tiles in the kitchen, both wearing shoes with slippery soles, found themselves sitting in the mess.

“Fuck,” Patrick said.

“Fuck, I just changed!” She pulled herself up to her feet slowly trying not to slip again. “Look at this mess.”

“Where are the bodies?” he said already on his feet as he scanned the room with his dark blue eyes.

“Here,” Leslie said as she stood grabbing the table.

“Do you smell the blood Leslie?” he finally decided to ask.

She nodded wrinkling her nose. “It has a sweet scent to it, sickly or something.”

He made his way over to her, and they both tried to see if they could make sense of the heap of body parts. Leslie held up a hand. “This must be the first piece that I can identify.”

“Look,” he said pointing a long gloved finger at the wrist. “The way the skin is torn it looks like it was torn off the body.”

“Yeah,” she said dropping it. It made a wet sound as it fell with the rest of the body parts. Her eyes looked over the heap. It was pretty big which meant there were quite a few people here. Her eyes looked around the room. The walls, which had been painted a lightly but cheery yellow, now was covered in dried blood. She noticed the head smudges, and then the designs, the same as the last scene.

“Look, they missed the window,” Patrick said pointing. “It’s like they covered it.”

“They did, so no one would see anything. It just doesn’t make sense. I mean they took time to block out anyone who might see them, so they could make this mess. Why even worry about it? Did you see the designs? The ones at the last place were ritualistic, to the book.” She walked over to the wall careful not to slip. Her eyes roamed over the blood scribbles.

Patrick was behind her looking as well. “It looks like a child did these. Some are almost ritualistic, but they don’t finish, or they turn into something different.”

She nodded. “We have to make sure the lab gets plenty of pictures of these.”

“They should be here as soon as we finish up with our walk through.”

“ROUGE!” Colin shouted from the back rooms.

Leslie’s eyes darkened to a thick thundercloud color as the power rolled out of her and over. She warded the doors; there was so much blood in the house that it fed her power. It brought a gasp from her, all the hair on her body stood on end as the magic rode through her like lightening. She took in three deep breaths and sucked in the magic. It wouldn’t stay down.

“Go,” she managed to tell Patrick.

“Are you-" she waved him off before he could say another word. She watched him leave, and balled her hands into fists. She had never been in so much human blood, but there was something else in this blood. She took in a deep breath, but her magic would not calm down. She did the only thing she could, she let it ride. Giving into the magic. Three bodies in the house felt it.

Blood. Magic.

Colin’s eyes turned into white orbs, as Patrick’s turned into a sea green, his bear color eyes, and the Rogue licked his lips.

“What is she doing?” Colin asked Patrick.

“I think it’s the blood. She warded the doors so the rogue wouldn’t get out, and she seemed to sort of let out more then she wanted.”

“Fuck,” Colin said. Patrick nodded.

A noise like scratching above them drew their attention. “Five bucks I know where he is going,” Patrick said.

Colin pulled out his 9mm and followed the scratching, with Patrick at his back, holding a large silver knife. He stopped Colin from leaving the carpet, pointing to the blood coating the tiles. They both looked at Leslie. Her hair seemed alive again, her eyes were watching, but she seemed to be not there. The scratching turned into loud bangs. Colin aimed. A huge piece of the roof fell into the blood. It sprang at Leslie. She held her hand out. The vampire twisted in the air as if being strung up like a giant puppet.

“I almost forget how normal they look,” Leslie said in a far off voice. The vampire looked so human, except the paper-thin very white skin, which you could see the small black dead veins under. Its hair long and greasy, matched its dirty and shredded cloths. The eyes, unlike the vampire stories, were quiet normal and plain. It was the mouth you had to stay away from. The two sharp little teeth were sharp like a snakes, and just like a snake, they had little venom bags, their bites could paralyze. So their prey would lie still while they feasted.

“Leslie let’s kill it and get out of here,” Colin said.

“Did you have fun making this mess?” Leslie asked the hissing creature.

“Les.,” Patrick said.

“Talk,” she said in a bland voice ignoring the two. Her hand clenched. The vampire hissed.

“I didn’t kill. I came to the blood, but it dirty. I will not touch the blood. Its sick, tainted.”

“Colin,” she said.

He aimed and took the shot. She let her hand fall to her side; the vampire’s body hit the blood thick tiles make a small splash. The blood hit her skin on her arm, and it burned. She collapsed to her knees as more power rolled from her.

“I’ll get the head and call in clean up, get her out,” Patrick said.

Colin came over to her and grabbed her. Her magic touched him, not liking him, it bit at him. He gave a very inhuman hiss and stepped back. She struggled to her feet. “Don’t touch me,” she said as she slowly walked out of the kitchen.

Colin followed after her. Her power slapped at him if he came to close. Outside she stopped. The cool air felt good on her overheated skin. But she was still coated in blood, and her magic had a mind of its own. She could smell every Opposite out there. And at that moment, she knew what her magic wanted to do, and she could not let herself do it.

“Colin,” she said. “Hit me.”

“Leslie, are you sure?”

Her hands balled into fist. “I can’t control it.”

Before she could blink an eye, the small needle slid into the skin at her arm. She knew she would have a small ugly bruise there in the morning. Already the heavy tranquilizer was kicking in. Her magic had lost, and the world was getting hazy. Colin had caught her before her legs gave out.

She looked at him with a lopsided smile. “Your monster eyes are showing,” she said before passing out.

“Seriously, was that needed?” Patrick asked coming up beside him as he tried to shove her in the back seat of the SUV.

“She said she had lost control, and you know the rules. At least she knew she needed it,” He said looking down at her as she slept. “She’s different then the other three. Even Fred has this dark side I can’t place.”

“I don’t like him. He feels like the other two,” Patrick said.

“But Leslie seems to understand. She seems scared of the dark side. But if this is just a taste of her being out of control, I’m really scared at the thought of what she could really do if given the chance.”

“You know let’s get out of here. Clean up is coming.” He held up a biobag. “I have the head. Our job is sort of done for the night.”

”You heard the rogue, it didn’t do this. This means we have something else out there, that will likely kill again.”

“We can talk it over when we all get cleaned up, and,” Patrick paused looking down at Leslie, “get some sleep.”

Opposite Side Chapter 1

2008-04-24T19:33:00.000-07:00

Chapter 1

Something bad had happened in the house to have provoked her. A blood witch didn’t just let her magic go, as Leslie seemed to be doing in the smallish three bedroom house. One thing you try not to do is anger a witch, their power could make a god quiver when let loose. Wild and free, and they could bend that energy to do anything they pleased with it. The house stank of old blood which any Opposite could smell just passing by. They were passed the anonymous call. They got all the nut cases, and they took them. They fixed the problem and went on to the next case. They had a good/bad reputation with solving cases quickly, even though their means were not by the books.

Colin and Patrick leaned against the black SUV as the sun started to go down. The tan prefab house in front of them shook and shivered with enough magic to make even the normal humans look around uneasy. The early spring weather seemed cold yet not as bad as the cold winter they had had. And they both remarked on how the rain from the previous night had made everything look a little greener and healthier, avoiding what could really be happening in the house. The house seemed to groan with the pressure of the magic.

Colin, his unruly dyed black hair falling in his sky blue eyes, looked over at Patrick. "Should we help her?"

Patrick let the sun bath him, as he shook his head. "She might flay us alive or something."

Colin leaned against the SUV once more, light blue eyes watching the house. He did not want to be flayed alive. A bee flew up to Patrick, he shooed it away with a quick flick of his large hand, and then ran it over his military cut blondish brown hair. The door to the house swung open with a loud bang, and two short and very scared men came running out. They fell to the ground before the SUV, pleading in their own language and slobbering on each other.

Patrick watched as some of the troll dribble fell on his black steel-toed boots. It made a small hissing sound. "Calm it down boys," he said. He heaved himself away from the SVU and pulled warded handcuffs from his pocket. They were normal, except for the runes marked in the stainless steel.

Before he and Colin could handcuff the two crying trolls, Leslie came out of the house. Her essence rode the air, magic, both dark and light and tasted like blood. Anger did not go well with a blood witch, the darkness radiated from her. The unseen magic made her short wavy brown hair seem alive, as it moved in an unfeelable wind. Her eyes were nothing but thundercloud bluish grey, no white could be seen. Her jeans and black hoody were coated in blood, and it wasn't human, both men could tell by the smell.

"I need a shower," she said as she glared down at the small trolls. To her they were just trolls. Odd shaped heads with a few strands of coarse dirt brown hairs. Two small beady brown eyes sat on top of a long twisted nose. They had no lips, so their mouths looked like slits just drawn on at the last minute. However, to humans, and less Opposites they looked like midgets. It depended on how powerful they were, on how human they came out.

"I bet that shit is burning," Colin said.

She nodded. "I've had some troll blood on me, but not drenched like this." She looked down at herself. "Can you two slap the handcuffs on them so we can get a move on. I really need a shower?"

They did as she said and shoved them in the back. "You gonna ride in the back with them?" Colin asked her.

The trolls started hissing and making a fuss at the thought of it. She glared at them again, and her magic started to peek once more. "Not wise," Patrick said. "Get in the back, Colin."

As he drove them to the station, he sniffed and made a face. "So where did all the troll blood come from?"

"Booby trap," she said. "They either killed some of the others or they've been saving up. By how fresh the blood is I'm thinking they killed some of the others."

"Taboo," Colin said. "You two are going to get eaten alive."

"Literally," Patrick muttered.

They pulled into the station, and dragged the trolls inside. All the other Supervisors stared at Leslie as she made her way to her office. She could feel the welts the blood had caused her sensitive skin. Troll blood stunk worse as it dried, and it made her nauseous since see had uncommonly better smell then any blood witch. She slammed the door shut, and went into the bathroom. The men could share showers, but since she was the only woman Supervisor working in the Merced County area she was privileged with her own shower in her office, since their job could get a bit dirty. She peeled her sticky cloths off as she started the water. Naked, she stepped in the steaming hot spray. It burned her skin where the blood had been. But the pain went away, and the heat felt good as she scrubbed the gunk from her hair and body.

When she was sure she had gotten all the blood off, she stepped out of the shower, drying off with a towel. She dressed in her usual jeans and black t-shirt, which either was a band t-shirt or had a goofy saying, this one did about sanity. She combed out her hair and added some frizz relaxer. Her shoes were ruined, as she looked down at them. Making a face, she pushed the bathroom door open and nearly jumped back inside seeing Fred sitting at her desk.

"Don't do that!" she said calming her racing heart. "Damn it."

He held out some salve. She had yet to master the herbalism some blood witches just know. She had been a late bloomer, and her specialties were more with knowing myth and folklore other than herbalism. Although she came into power late, she is one of the most powerful witches in California. Well there were only four blood witches in the state as far as the Supervisors knew. And the Supervisors knew everything. She and Fred worked as Supervisors. Rich, evil bastard ex boyfriend, worked for the King Wolf in the county. Then there is Carlotta, who had accepted the darkness a very long time ago. She had to have been pushing ninety years, and even though she looked it, she didn’t act old. She acted as if she was still in her thirties, especially by the horror stories her lovers had released before they died in some mysterious horrible way. The Supervisors were always monitoring the other two, but so far, they have been doing all their badness hidden from view.

The Supervisors, themselves, are the police who keep an eye on the Opposites. There is the normal human world, and then there is the Opposite Side, the creatures of myth and legend that live amongst the humans. The first Supervisors stated that the Opposites had to keep the two worlds separate, because humans scared easy, and formed a treaty years ago. It's true, when Leslie discovered what she was after staking a rogue vampire on the day she came into power, she had been pretty freaked. Who wouldn’t freak, to know things they have read about and watched in movies were real? There were creatures that really did go bump in the night, and had a hunger for real blood.

That had been three years ago, now she helped supervise the world she had once known from the creatures. Protect the innocent that was their job. Secretly, she had wished this burden had not been shoved on her, but then again, she had always known she was different. She had a sort of power that clung to her, that made others uneasy when they looked into her grey eyes. Human yet not so. She sat down as Fred started to add some of the salve, which had a pungent smell of rosemary, on her face.

"I don't know what the three of you are going to do when I leave on vacation," he said finishing up.

"We’ll be fine," she said wincing.

He looked at her with his own grey eyes. All blood witches had grey eyes. They changed with their mood, so most of the other Supervisors didn't want Fred or Leslie to wear sunglasses. Just in case. "I don't believe you."

"So I went a little wild today," she said looking at the salve on her hands. "But they drenched me in blood. You would have gone a little bit wild today too."

He shook his head trying not to smile. "You three are the youngest Supervisors, and to leave you guys unsupervised is not a good idea. You guys get the job done, but you push it. Even you Leslie, I thought you would be the head of the group, you use your magic a little too much. It makes the others uneasy. But none of the veteran officers want the responsibility of watching over you guys when I leave."

"And why shouldn’t I use my power. It was given to me, so I might as well use it to help others right?"

“Like I said you are making some of the other Supervisors uneasy. You know there is a line, and once you cross it there is no coming back, Leslie. I don’t want to see you lose yourself to that darkness. And I certainly don’t want to be the man who has to get the death order.” Fred was a nice guy, one of the nicest in the squad, but he would follow the rules if he had too. “Just be careful.”

His eyes went to the door, as Colin and Patrick came into view. “He is lecturing you again I take it,” Colin said arms crossed over his chest. He looked behind him, but Patrick didn't seem to move or say something. Werebears were cool like that. Actually, he just didn't like Fred, so he tried to stay out of the old man’s way as much as possible.

"What do you two ease droppers want?" Fred asked.

"We bring in the bad people, and keep people safe. Our cases get closed faster than most of the veterans. We will be safe, and try not to step on toes. Is that all you wanted to hear us say?"

"We have business," Patrick said finally speaking up.

Fred scratched his balding grey head. "What are you three getting yourselves into now?" He stood up, Fred, like the other three blood witches were short. They stood five foot to five-five. Leslie, again, being different, stood five-ten. She was sure there was something in her blood that might have been more then blood witch, which would account for the excellent gift of smell she had.

Leslie looked at the time. "Damn, nothing. It's the Bear council tonight. Remember? The tensions between them and the wolves are getting crazy and Nathan called a meeting. He asked for us personally."

Fred shook his head. "Will you three PROMISE me that when I'm gone you'll try not to get yourselves killed?"

"Sure," Leslie said grabbing a clean black hoody from the chair she was sitting on. "We promise."

As they left the building, Patrick looked down at Leslie's socked feet. "Where are your shoes?"

"Ruined. I need a new pair."

"I have a pair in the back," Colin said.

"Gross. Have you not seen your feet lately?" she asked.

"We have enough time to stop by the house," Patrick said as he beeped another black SUV open. Since the one they had had needed to be cleaned and possibly new interior.

After stopping by the house to get shoes, they drove over to the meeting hall. It was your typical meeting hall for weddings, birthdays and other such big events. Leslie mused over the thought that the owners had no clue that tonight they were housing a bunch of werebears. The three got out of the black SUV and just stood there, feeling the energy riding the air. Leslie could feel the nervousness and anger that spewed from the plain brownish building.

The Bears usually held their meetings at the lake, at Scout Island, but lately there have been some problems with keeping certain meetings a secret. The sneaky wolves were always sneaking around where they weren’t welcome. She thought Jonathan had actually planned that one out pretty well; send a lesser wolf that wouldn’t be noticed.

The sun had finally set leaving just a slight fire in the western sky. The moon was new, so tonight would be a very dark night, and most creepy Opposites would be out stalking the night. Leslie shivered rubbing her arms, and the goose bumps. She looked at her two close friends. They were coworkers, roommates, they shared everything. At first she wasn’t sure she would have been able to live with two men, one being a werebear, the other a half-breed. But they worked out fine, each being easy to live with. She wouldn’t trade them for anything as she looked over them, feeling actually sort of protective like a big sister.

“Well let’s get this over with,” Colin said.

“Yeah, Nathan doesn’t like us late,” Patrick said.

The energy had seemed to surround her. Her eyes had gone a dark grey almost black. The two men each stepped back when they noticed. Her skin vibrated with the energy coming from the hall. And then calm came over them, a new power, Nathan’s power. Like a fatherly hand smoothing all his bears anxiety and fears. And it touched her like a sensual hand sliding over naked skin. She shivered, and closed her eyes. She didn’t know why she seemed so in tune with the bears, or why Nathan had such an impact on her.

“Leslie?” Patrick asked.

She breathed in and out controlling herself and finally opened her eyes. “I’m okay,” she finally said.

“You sure?”

“You looked a little scary there for a moment,” Colin said.

“I bet,” she said and let out a shaky laugh. “Let’s get in there.”

Patrick took lead, since he was the bear, Leslie followed with Colin at her back. He never fit in. He was half wolf, not part bear. And so the bears hated that, but they fully didn’t understand he hated both sides. He hated his vampire and wolf side as much as they hated that he was half wolf.

All the Bears had stopped talking as the three Supervisors walked in, and the anger in the air almost choked Leslie.

“I knew this was going to happen,” Colin whispered into her ear.

“Me too,” she whispered back.

“It’s not just you two,” Patrick said as he eyed the crowed. “They’ve been angry since I decided to work for the Supervisors.”

Leslie heard them murmuring, she heard witch, wolves, and witch, repeat through the crowd. Nathan walked over, and Leslie had to avert her eyes. He stood six-two, and did construction for a living, so his shoulders, arms and back made him look like a wrestler. But not in that gross muscle bulging way, in that wide evenly proportioned way that made her heart skip beats. She had seen him with his shirt off once and nearly had a stroke. Patrick’s twin brother but only in looks. Nathan let his brownish blond hair grown out so that it touched his shoulders when he did not have it in a ponytail. She liked the slight curl it had too. She used this time to wrap her aura around her. Every person in the building had good scent, and she didn’t want them all to know that she seemed to go into heat when she got close to him.

“Sorry about the hostility, Leslie,” he said making her look at him with a puzzled look. “Richard was seen talking to Carlotta.”

Patrick and Colin both made a small noise. Leslie grimaced. “Why are they angry with me then? I don’t work for the wolves or have nothing to do with Carlotta.”

“If the wolves are recruiting blood witches they will tip the power scale, and it will be war.”

“I’m a supervisor. I’m trying to prevent any wars from breaking out.”

“But you weren’t always a supervisor,” he said his green eyes watching her. And they weren’t your normal green eyes, no; the green seemed to be a mixture of a leaf, living green, with a goldish tinge.

She was always reminded of how stupid she had been when she came to her powers. But no one was there to teach her what she was, and when Rich had showed up telling her what was going on and explain to her about the Opposite side of the normal world, she had clung to him until he had tried to use her.

“I was naïve,” she said always being the response she fell on.

“You still are,” their eyes met and his green eyes burned into hers.

“Nathan, please don’t,” Patrick said seeing Leslie’s eyes go dark. “She’s already been through enough.”

He nodded. “The burns?”

She sighed, nodding, hoping the red had faded enough, it didn’t hurt after the salve Fred had applied on her skin had sunk in and dried. “Troll blood.”

He shook his head. “Messy, I take it?”

“You have no idea,” Colin said.

“Can you ward the doors,” Nathan said looking at his watch. “We gotta get this started.”

She went to the door they had walked into and placed her hand on it saying something under her breath. The power hit the door with a small creak, and the ward stuck like glue. She had noticed the Bears had all fallen quiet, as she had worked on the side door, watching her. She only used a small amount of power, but they had felt it. It called to them, blood. Her eyes went to Nathan who had stopped on the stairs to the stage to look at her. His eyes burned with curiosity, she wondered if she looked the same way when she felt his power. She turned away before he could see her face flush.

She motioned to Patrick; he shook his head frowning, and nodded to his brother. Colin followed her to the back. They went into the back room, which was the unused kitchen. This meeting was for Bears only, and if they wanted her and Colin to take part, they would have asked.

Leslie hopped on to the counter, her feet swinging lightly, heels banging against the bottom cupboards. Colin slid himself next to her. “I don’t think I would enjoy being with a bear, especially in bed. Too macho I heard.”

“Who told you that?”

“Patrick.”

Leslie laughed. “Well duh, he prefers men silly.”

“I think the women would be the same, look at Patrick’s mom,” he said.

“Well she’s used to being a leader, since she married a leader.” Of course, she didn’t know one of her sons was gay. Leslie assumed it was something she wouldn’t understand, and be deeply ashamed of. Were’s had one goal, family, you were raised to have your own family so you could keep the bloodline going. So Patrick’s secret was only shared with a few people, which pretty much included her and Colin. Nathan didn’t even know, and Patrick liked to keep it that way.

“What about you, care for a Bear?” He eyed her as he asked. He and Patrick noticed how she acted around Nathan. But they never really said anything out loud.

She shook her head. “It’s his power. It seems to call to me, its enticing. I don’t know what it is. But it’s got something to do with my own magic. It’s different then the other’s blood magic. They have all death, but I have some kind of life. And for some reason it’s very attracted to the bear’s power. But truthfully what I think I need is just a normal human. I think some normalcy would be nice although my luck with guys sucks.”

He stared at her with his light blue eyes. “You can’t date a Regular.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “And why not?”

“How would you explain your job?”

“Night security,” she said easily.

“And all the bumps and bruises?”

“Crackheads?”

“Is that what you tell your parents?”

“Yes, to a point. I can’t just tell them I’m a special police officer. Too many questions. They are still wondering why I gave up on the job at the college, and why I insisted on moving out. Of course, they don’t believe that for one fact that I decided to move out because it seemed time. Then of course shaking up with two guys doesn’t help. My mom seems to be taking it harder. When I call, she thinks it’s the call that will have me ask to move back in.”

Their pagers went off. Before they checked the number, they knew it was a nine-one-one. Patrick was already walking in the room as Colin called headquarters. They watched him as he closed his cell phone.

“Remember that murder we had that looked sort of ritualistic last week?”

Leslie’s stomach knotted thinking of the scene. “That was bad.”

“Well it looks like we have another. Simms and his team noticed it looked like ours, and so we get the privilege of working it.”

“Joy, the meeting is boring as hell, so I have no problem leaving,” Patrick said as they headed for the back door.

“Did he just say joy?” Colin asked.

“Is Nathan going to be mad?” she said.

“Na, business is business. He is doing what he can to save the family his way being leader, and I’m doing the best I can do for the family by being a Supervisor. They will get over it one day, anyway what is wrong with me saying joy?”

“It’s something so unmanly and more something Leslie would say.”

She just shrugged as Patrick beeped open the locks, and they all got in. “I’m very manly,” Patrick said.

“Colin, stop or he’s going to be pouting all night,” Leslie said with a smile.