Goddess Reborn

Vampire Hunters and the Ice Cream Man

After a few hours and the guys not having yet returned I decide to leave the Cafe. Before I leave I give Pari my number and tell her she should call sometime, we would love to have her over. Since Mags visit she does seem a bit more cautious, but she lights up at the idea. Walking back through the park, where the shadows had been lingering, I cannot help but notice the smell is different. What should smell like fresh air and nature, instead has an underlying stench of rot, or death. There is something unnatural about the smell, and I am trying to remember where I smelled it before.

I'm so distracted by trying to place that smell and the whole situation that I do not immediately notice the person walking down the stairs toward me. When I look up, realizing I have almost walked right into the woman walking down the stairs, I am face to face with the woman that had been with Marcus at the club. She seems to be just as distracted as me, speaking on the phone to someone else. Giving me a dirty look she looks me up and down before rolling her eyes and moving around me. As she passes I continue to watch her, not understanding the language she is speaking, but captivated at how she moves. She seems to be moving so effortlessly that it barely even seems she is walking. Perhaps sensing my eyes on her she turns and watches me briefly before ending her call.

"While you are a beautiful girl, you are not my type little cat. Perhaps you should move along before I make a snack of you." She says, practically singing, as her voice is like a song. She does not miss the opportunity to flash her fangs as me at the mention of a snack. As the words register with me she smirks, beginning to turn away from me. We hear the door to the building open below us, which draws me from the spell I feel under. "Perhaps next time I see you we won't be interrupted, let me taste you." With that she walks away, in the direction of the voices that came in the building.

The whole interaction made me feel uncomfortable, I am not used to being looked at as prey. Instead of continuing to contemplate what had just happened I decided it would be best to get the the apartment and relax, maybe start some dinner for the guys before they returned.

As I climb the stairs I start to curse the fact that I did not take the elevator, but by the time I am at the door all I am thinking about is what to make for dinner. I'm feeling like curry, or butter chicken, and I know that we have what we need for it.

Once in the apartment I put my things down, start dinner and lose myself in the task. At some point while I'm cooking I find myself feeling a bit lost in the task, but suddenly feel faint. I feel like something is draining me of my energy and just so tired. I have the urge to sit down and close my eyes briefly, just for a moment before the guys get home. As I move to the couch, an image flashes as I close my eyes. For a moment I am no longer in the apartment, but still down on the stairs of the building. Shaking my head I try and bring myself back but then I hear yelling. I try to focus on it, but I am still so tired and still have so much to finish before the guys get back.

I try to get back to my feet but the sound in my ears is growing, it sounds like Deacon yelling at me to wake up. I can hear fighting in the background, and the smells are new. The space around me starts to smell metallic, like blood, and waffles. I have no idea what is happening but know I need to focus, when my eyes are open I am trying to get up to cook, when I close my eyes Deacon is trying to shake me awake. I can feel myself reach out to his face, telling him I need to go check on dinner. He is still telling me to wake up, and when I open my eyes again dinner is gone. I am back to when I first walked in, which makes no sense. Closing my eyes again I feel more panicked this time and try to focus more on Deacon's voice.

Hearing him apologize before he picks me up and throws me over his shoulder makes me giggle. He is carrying me up the stairs like a sack of potatoes while I giggle and talk about butter chicken and waffles. I can see Roman beside us, he keeps looking at me with a pained look on his face. Both guys are shouting to someone else, but I do not recognize the name, Quinn. When we reach the apartment everyone enters and the door is locked. Deacon puts me down on the couch, but I feel the need to get up and check the dinner. Both guys tell me I never started dinner, I never made it passed the girl in the hallway. The only reason I realize this is because when I look at the man they call Quinn he has that girl slung over his shoulder as well, but she has what looks like a muzzle on her face.

This wakes me up pretty quick, looking around all I want to know is what has happened. Immediately I lunge at the girl in the muzzle, who is shooting daggers at us all, only to be stopped by Deacon. "What did you do to me?" I snap at her. Even through the mask covering her face I can hear her laughter. "I'll rip your throat out, let me go Deac."

"Easy love," Deacon starts, without taking his arms away from my waist. "Quinn, get your sister in line before I put her down myself." Which earns a snapping of teeth from the big man in front of me, standing between us and the girl I now know is his sister. "Isla, look at me. You need to calm down, she has fed from yoh and it's causing your emotions to run higher than usual."

"Fed from me? What do you mean?" I stop looking between the men in the room. Suddenly, I remember someone mentioned that the girl with Marcus was strong. I also feel like someone had mentioned a vampire. "She's a vampire? What the hell?" I ask reaching for my neck. When I pull my hand away looking at it, still clean, I hear a scoff from Quin.

"You must still be running on human ideas if you seriously just checked for blood. Yeah, she's a Vamp, so am I. But we feed on something more powerful than blood. We feed on your soul, and let's face it; the soul of an immortal is always better than a humans." He spits at me, his words cut me down, but I refuse to back down to his bravado. "My sister has been missing, she isn't acting like herself. There is something very wrong."

Deacon started to pull me down to sit while Quinn sat his sister up beside him. He was trying to give an air of confidence, but his eyes gave away the sorrow he felt. Sitting there watching them together I could not help but feel for them, he wanted his sister back. Although I did not remember her any other way, it was obvious this was not the sister he was hoping to find. " Deac, Roo, why don't we give them a few minutes? I could use some water. Join me?" I ask, wanting to allow the duo a chance to calm down. "Quinn, I want to know you and why you have come, once things are calmer. Take some time with your sister."

When we got to the kitchen I finished a glass of water quickly and refilled it. I was determined to make myself feel normal. Looking at the guys I waited for one of them to start talking, but neither did. After what felt like an eternity I asked them if either planned to fill me in on what is going on. "Last I saw you was at the Cafe, now there are Vampires and I'm being attacked. I need information and now."

With a sigh, Deacon started. "Well, like everything else, humans made a mess of the reality of what they are. Vamps feed on life force, souls, but it rarely involves blood. As long as the body has a heart beat they can feed from it. They feed through touch, but because most Vampires are highly s****l creatures they like to drain you with a kiss, but most forms of touching work as well. Like all of us, there us good with the bad, as you can see out there. Quinn uses his abilities the way many do, to help. Elliott, she has always been troubled." I fight to HD it together at this comment, but it is difficult. Regrouping, I motion for someone to continue, wanting to know why I was seeing things. "What did you see Isla?"

I explained the stairs and our meeting, the fangs and wanting to make dinner, but then how tired I was getting. "You were fighting here almost immediately, which is a good sign, and it seems she targeted your blindspor, us. She could sense your want to please and turned it into your whole being. This is a Vampires method of keeping prey from running, in the flip side it changes the way a soul tastes." Roo explains. "When you two bumped into each other that gave her all she needed to find her way in. What did you see?"

At first I did not understand the question, "see?" I asked. Roman explained that they could project images into the mind, but also see what we wanted or even our past experiences. "So, a method to control their meal from trying to get away. Makes sense, I saw what I had been planning to do, make dinner and wait for you guys. Quickly though, I felt myself getting tired." The guys nodded and explained what she was draining was the last parts of my human memory first, as they were stronger against them.

"With other supernatural creatures that focus on euphoric experiences, Vamps become the drug lords of our world. They give those like us what they can't always get elsewhere." Deacon explains. I notice he looks pained by the admission, making me think he has been part of this world before. I make a point to ask him later, but we are interrupted by Quinn calling to us. Putting a pin in our conversation we head back out to the living room.

Walking into the room first I saw Quinn, sitting back on the couch. Beside him his sister, who I now knew is named Elliott, sat beside him. She seemed to no longer be muzzled, which still made me snicker to think about, but her rigid back made it clear she knew she was not free to do whatever she wanted. As we walked around the couch, Deacon leading me to a chair, Elliott caught my gaze and smirked in my direction. As much as I tried to keep my emotions from surfacing, I was thankful Deacon sat and pulled me down to sit with him. Once Roman was also seated he asked if everyone was calmer, and asked if maybe we could try this conversation again.

"Listen Isla, I'm sorry for what Ellie did to you, she hasn't been herself of late and when the guys came to me saying they were on her trail I agreed to come to try and bring her back alive." Quinn stated, I could understand the idea of wanting to keep your family safe. He had a pained looked while his gaze fell to her before continuing. "Ellie here may not understand yet how much trouble she is in, but she will be answering for what she has been doing. Before I take her back to the shop, did you have any questions?"

"Why? Why were you with Marcus? Why did you attack me?" I blurted out, my emotions getting the best of me. I could not stop myself from being drawn into the moment. When she did not start to answer immediately Quinn nudged her from behind, causing her to hiss back at him. When she turned back I could see she had no interest in speaking still, and all I could do was shake my head. "Nevermind, whatever has happened she doesn't want to tell me, what will happen to her Quinn?" I asked redirecting my focus.

"She will be put on ice until she is willing to speak about what she has done." Whatever this meant caused her head to snap around and look at her brother. She started screaming at him again in a language I did not understand. "Stop. You know the consequences. You attacked our allies, you have to answer for it. You're lucky we have a private freezer instead of being left to the mercy of the Coven, or worse."

At that time Deacon pulled me down so he could explain her family owned an ice cream company, giving them access to a freezer. Because of the way they fed and lived, the freezer would slow then down like reptiles. The image of Quinn in an old fashioned ice cream truck made me laugh. "So you're a soul sucking ice cream man?" I asked, giggling about it.

"You got it, if she gives me any information you'll be who I call first. Before I go though, as a thank you for allowing me to bring her home, I can help you regain your memories if you like." He stated, offering something I was not sure I wanted.

"Maybe later, for now I'm happy with how things are. Thank you though." He nodded in response.

Without any other reason to share the same space Quinn and Elliott left, leaving us to think about what had happened. After a few minutes I remembered what I saw in the Cafe and knew I needed to tell the guys.

"Mags is keeping an eye on Pari, and there is more that happened this afternoon. I think she isn't who we thought she is."