The next morning, Will woke to the bright sun in his eyes and a light rumble in his stomach. The convertible’s top was down, letting the moist dawn air dampen his clothes and hair. The car was parked at a McDonald’s in a city he didn’t recognize and Mercy was walking out holding a small bag.
Jumping up to an unnatural height and landing with elegance next to him in the backseat, she handed him the bag of warm, tempting scents.
“Vampires shop at McDonald’s?” She just smiled and nodded, saying,
“We do eat food, Will. But dead people need blood to be not dead people. It mostly just keeps up from crumbling into itty bitty pieces. Speaking of, I wanted to have some extra strength for the ‘regaining of Daniel’s honor’, so I’m going to go grab some, er…”
“Fast food?” Will offered. Mercy smiled, thanked him and, jumping out of the car with still surprising height, ran out of sight. Will saw a map with written directions in the passenger seat and silently thanked Mercy. Then, jumping into the driver’s seat, he started the car, and just as he was pulling out of the parking lot and taking the first bite of his sandwich, he saw a huge black bird soaring overhead. Then he noticed who it really was, and tried not to think too much on what that ‘bird’ would be doing to a poor civilian in the coming hours.
***
Cindy stopped for a snack on the second day of her flying, popping her ear buds out and walking up behind the ‘gangster’, smiling lightly to herself. She put her iPod in her pocket and gently tapped the man on the shoulder. He spun around with impressive speed, for a human, that is, and had a gun pointed at her head.
She faked fear, gasping, and he removed the firearm with apology. He began looking her up and down, his primal, untrained eyes roaming from her black shoes, designer skinny jeans, up to her tight cherry-red top and black leather jacket, then abruptly stopping to stare, terrified, into her blood red predator’s eyes. Here she extended her wings, for drama mostly, and grinned.
He had a total of three seconds to see her short blonde hair and smiling, fang-filled mouth before he was lying on the ground, having the blood drained from his body.
After the blood was gone, she ate most of the skin, a few muscles, and one eye, so as not to let people guess his identity.
Pumped with adrenaline, she dropped the mutilated body, and turned to find the rest of the ‘gang’ standing there, staring. Cussing to herself for not making sure there were no onlookers, she snarled. A few ran when she did, a few stood frozen, and one came forward, brandishing a shiny silver gun. Cindy, who was no longer Cindy, but an animal on the hunt, crouched into a fighting stance. Bullets wouldn’t hurt her.
The small, civilized part, deep inside of her soul breathed in relief that she was too much covered in blood and other assorted body parts that none of the fleeing men could give a description to the police. Cops wouldn’t believe it anyway. The animal just smiled and snatched the fighter up, flying away and feeding on him vigorously.
***
Will followed Mercy’s directions exactly until they brought him to the entrance of a campground. He double-checked the directions, and, satisfied, drove in. following them further led him down a road, and to a nearly invisible road that he had driven past multiple times without noticing. The road wound in unpredictable ways, forking, and splitting in too many places to count. He found himself constantly checking and rechecking the directions Mercy had written, and idly wondered who and when had these barely visible roads been made, and how in the world would he ever find a way out.
Then something fell into the passenger seat, crumpling the directions and screaming “I’m sorry! I’m so so so so sorry! Please don’t eat me, please!” the shape curled into a ball and shook with sobs as Mercy dropped into the backseat.
“Hey Will, guess what I found! A little snoop following us from the air! Wanna guess what the little snoop’s name is, Will? Wanna know that she says she told you where to find me? Want to know that she was trying to kill me? Want. To?” Mercy’s voice was thick with anger, slightly distorted, with the slightest twinge of hysteria. Will had slammed on the brakes and was staring at the shape with awe.
“Cornelia?” he asked, though the answer was obvious already. The girl in the seat next to him sat up, but it wasn’t Cornelia. It was a girl who couldn’t be seventeen yet. She was slim and well dressed, tight yet not revealing clothes clinging to her. She had a shiny black bob and bright, tear-filled eyes. Her lips were full and pouting as she said, “I am so sorry I lied, Will, really. I was never married; I made that up because of my brother, Greg. I did want to see a vampire though, and I’d been tracking this one for weeks. I needed you to come to the shop. My brother bet me that I couldn’t get a man to come to the shop with me before Friday and it was Thursday and I’m so sorry.” She looked pleadingly at him. He stared at her for a while before turning to Mercy.
“Um. I don’t really know who this is, Mercy. I’ve never seen her before. And I have no idea whatsoever what she is talking about.” He placed his hand over his heart in the sign for honesty. She snarled.
“Change back, bitch. He’s clueless.” This, Will guessed, was aimed at the girl in the passenger seat. He looked at her and ‘holy shit’ fell from his lips as he saw Cornelia, the one from before, sitting in the seat, though only the tears on her cheeks showed any resemblance to the teen from before. This one had big blue eyes, long, straight red hair, and was almost the exact opposite of the younger girl.
“This, William, is why we don’t trust shape-changers.” Mercy snarled. Cornelia huffed.
“Shifter. Shape shifter. Do I look like a runt to you? No. ‘Shape-changer’, pfft.” Cornelia was muttering.
Will stared at the girl next to him, then at Mercy. Then he noticed her features had changed. Her eyes were blood red, no pupils, and huge black wings were spread behind her, sunlight glistening off the slick feathers. Her teeth had elongated, probable cause for the speech distortion, and she looked, overall, scary. This was the monster from last night, not the girl he’d eaten Italian with months before.
He stared at her for a while then said, “I’m guessing you didn’t, um, feed yet, did you?” she looked confused, and then slowly, her teeth retracted and pupils appeared in her eyes.
“I… don’t usually lose control. Sorry.” Then took off as fast as she’d come. He turned back to Cornelia.
“I lost my place.” He sighed. When she looked puzzled, he sighed. “I have no idea where we are.” She then pulled the crumpled directions out from underneath her and shyly handed them to Will.
“I didn’t think she’d get so mad at me. My brother bet me that I couldn’t kill a vampire by Tuesday. I bet him he couldn’t get one before me. Now he’s gonna since I am now in captivity. Woe is me. Woe… is… me.” She said and suddenly threw her face in her hands, sobbing violently. Will stared at her, eyebrows nearly touching his hairline. He reached out and gently touched her shoulder.
“Cornelia? You did try to, um, kill her. It kind of entitles her to be angry. Um, it is kind of awkward driving with you like that. Um, could you… calm… down, maybe?” he briefly noticed everything he had ever learned about human nature and being a psychiatrist was being thrown out the window and blowing away with every word he said. He comforted himself with the fact that this woman was not, in fact, quite human.
She looked up at him slowly, and pouted her lips even further. “You aren’t very compassionate, are you? Thought you helped people who were unstable. Fine, if it makes you feel better, I’ll be all tough girl and stuff so you can drive. Because you are the only person in the world that matters, right? I knew once she told you what I was that you would get all racist on me. And it’s my birthday, too. Big old man picking on a poor, lonely, nineteen year old shifter.” She continued to mutter like this as she suddenly became a kitten and jumped in the back seat. Her mutters became quiet whines and yowlings.
When Will looked back at her, he frowned, picked her up, and then gently set her on his lap, she huffed a sigh. He whispered a quick ‘sorry’ down at the cute orange fluff ball in his lap then picked up the directions.
“My life is so upside down right now.” He told the kitten. “I have a shape shifter in my lap, I am waiting for a vampire to come back from eating someone, and to top it all off, I’m actually driving a red convertible.” He sighed. Kitten-Cornelia snorted at him and settled into a more comfortable position.
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