Mick looked over at the two young women, eyebrows lifting, "Excuse me? What makes you think there are vampires?"
One of the two returned the gesture of raising her eyebrows, showing green eyes. "Uh, we've seen some feeding. Now, it's not like we're trying to blackmail them, we want... safety."
Mick frowned, "Why do you want safety?"
"Because the 'feeding' we've seen ends up with someone dead, Mr. St. John. They - no, he, saw us," the young woman went on. "We don't want to wake up dead, no pun meant."
"You saw someone," Mick hesitated, and the other girl finished.
"Yeah, we saw someone getting bit in the neck and dying. He saw us, and my sister somehow thinks you can protect us-"
The other woman broke in, "Or you know someone who can." Mick shifted uncomfortably.
"What makes you think that I can help?"
"I don't know." the first girl said, looking down at the floor. "But my intuition... is usually right."
The second girl sighed heavily and looked up at the dark haired man with mild annoyance. "If the vampire we saw knows we saw him, and then he comes hunting us down so we don't reveal his secret, I'd rather have a chance at life then being nommed on by a psychotic master of the night." she tilted her head. "Not saying all vampires are insane, just the ones who, you know, tear open people's throats and drain them."
Mick St. John was at a loss for words. What the hell was he gonna do?! It wasn't like he could just take these two humans to another vampire to be babysat.
Actually...
"Um, ladies, just...give me a minute, okay?" without waiting for a reply, he ducked into his office and shut the door. He grabbed his cell phone and hit the #1 on speeddial, praying like hell the other person picked up.
...
Joesf Kostan was staring at the blueprints for his new penthouse when his phone rang, rudely grabbing his attention away from his work. He stared at the offending object for a few seconds and decided to let it dump into voicemail, but when it rang nearly thirty seconds later, he snatched it up and put it to his ear, exasperated.
"Yes?"
"Josef?"
"Mick, what are you calling me so early for. I was sleeping."
"Don't lie to me, you never sleep this early. I have a problem. We have a problem."
Josef frowned. "What do you mean 'we'?"
Mick glanced at the two girls outside his office and he sighed. "Just come to my office as soon as possible. I mean now, Josef."
"I'm working." the older vampire whined. "I don't want-"
"There are girls here. Two of them."
Josef's frown flipped, turning into a lascivious smirk. "I'll be there in five."
...
"I thought you said there'd be girls." Josef's tone was accusatory and Mick almost laughed at the dissapointed expression on his best friend's face. Josef was the womanizer of the race, as far as the LA branch went, and he loved being around women, especially young ones, and the two girls in front of them were no younger than twenty and no older than 23 or 24.
"There are girls, and they need help."
Josef chuckled without humor. "You, my friend, need help, for your obvious lack of ability to tell what a girl and a girl is." he nodded to the women. "Those are girls. Young, human girls."
"They saw a feeding." Mick explained why the girls had shown up and what they told him. After a few moments, Josef was still as pouty as ever and didn't relent.
"What do they have to do with me?"
Mick didn't say anything.
"No." Josef frowned. "No. Absolutely not, Mick. They are human."
Suddenly one of the girls, the shorter one, stepped up to the two men, chin up, eyes narrowed, and hip tilted slightly, which was universal women-speak for your ass is about to get stomped.
The other gave a soft groan, "Oh no..." she looked at her friend. "Wendi, come on, no need to start anything."
Wendi grinned. "Not startin' anything, Julia. Merely wanna talk." She looked at Mick and crossed her arms. "Look, we know what we saw, and Julia's read enough paranormal books to know what a vampire can and can not do. I, however, am a forensic major in my senior year of college, with a minor in criminal profiling/behavior, ergo, I know exactly how this kind of shit works. We see something we shouldn't, and no matter how hard we try to hide, we end up dead. Now, I have plans for the future, most of which I would love to do, and if I get chomped by some feral little twat, then I'm screwed, savvy? Help us."
Josef burst out laughing. "Oh, I like this one."
Julia gave a sigh, "Well, that's a relief." Her voice took on a sharp tone, "It would have really sucked - literally, perhaps - if we had more than one vampire pissed at us."
Mick nodded. "Do either of you remember what this vampire looked like? Young, old?"
Julia and Wendi exchanged a look, and they were silent for a few seconds. Wendi was frowning severely.
"Was the tattoo on the left hand or right hand?" she asked no one in particular. She looked at Mick and Josef. "A meat tag, rather. Guy had to have been in the Army at one point, because it was the capital A, inside of a scorpion's tail, with the Roman numeral for six above it."
"Sixth division of the Army, that's computer techs and bomb squads." Mick said, thinking back to his WWII and Vietnam days.
Wendi's eyes lit up but Julia shook her head. "This isn't The Hurt Locker, and he wasn't Jeremy Renner."
Wendi scoffed, "Duh. I'd have been all over him if it was." she whisper-yelled to the older woman.
Julia rolled her eyes. "He was big, tall and wide, muscular. Um...I think his head was shaved, or bald, I didn't see any hair."
"Biker jacket!" Wendi suddenly supplied. "It had that fugly ass Lisa Frank-esque dragon on it."
"It was an Ed Hardy jacket," Julia agreed, "They always look like crap. Shoes were... black or dark brown. Army-style. Middle-aged... late-ish thirties to early forties...? No scars that I could see... no, on his left bicep, it went across his arm," she sketched where the healed wound was with her finger. She shivered, "voice..." she closed her eyes to focus on her memory. "Um... deeper than yours, Mike. Gruff, I'd guess he was definitely used to barking out orders, the way he was growling at his victim. Height... I was in my three-inches, so I was... five-ten-ish... He was taller than six-one - he'd be taller than I am anyway."
"Way taller than me." said Wendi. "Even if I was wearing heels." she fingered the sterling silver pendant at her throat, a triangle with a circle in the middle and a bar going down the center. On her ears were bronze lightening bolts, and bronze goggles on her head. She was very Steampunk-ish, with the cropped trenchcoat and corset top, with tight navy pants, studded with large tarnished buttons. Her eyes were a dark brown, with warm slashes of green and gold, and her hair was a dark reddish-purple, twisted into a side ponytail with bouncy ringlets.
Julia was much more comfortable in her light blue t-shirt, emblazoned with a silver dragon, and dark denim jeans with brown suede boots. She wore a clip-on lobe crest earring of vines and a rose, and a black suede choker with hematite and silver swirls. She had short, just slightly below ear length brown hair and forest green eyes. She was way skinnier than Wendi, but she wasn't anorexic or unhealthy looking. Her pulse was strong, steady.
Wendi's heartbeat however, was clipped. It was slightly faster than a normal human's, going two beats at a time, fast, like a bird. Birth defect, from what Mick could tell, just from listening. He wondered if she was the sickly one of the two.
"So, Miss..." he began.
"Pendragon."
"Itrazescue."
He shared a look with Josef. "How exactly can we help you?"