Disclaimer: All ideas, characters, and places belong to their respective owners. Jonnie's mine.
Chapter One
"JONNAY!!! GET OVER HERE. NOW!!!"
Shots rang throughout the decrepit building. On the second floor, asbestos fell from the ceiling. A piece of plaster fell right before the young girl's feet. She began to cough. She looked up through the gaping space overhead.
She checked behind her and headed for the stairwell, running. More shots ran out and the male's voice screamed. She locked her guns, and grinned.
"I'm coming Terrence! I'm coming!"
She rushed up the stairs; dust and plaster particles rose from the ground as she made her way upstairs.
The man who was possessed turned around. His black eyes fixed themselves on the armed girl. He smiled at her, baring his teeth.
The girl did not hesitate to fire, and the demon did not hesitate to move. The man behind the demon ducked, barely missing the shots. He removed his own guns, and began to fire.
His shots were precise, and skinned the demon. Her shots were wily, bringing down pieces of the already broken building. A heavy piece of plaster and brick came lose with one of the wild shots. It landed on the demon.
The man wasted no time. Within seconds a bullet had penetrated the human and killed the demon. The girl quickly spoke the words to ensure the demon's passage to hell. She looked up at her mentor. He frowned at her, fixing his glasses.
"You're getting sloppy Jonquil."
"I'll clean up in the end. It's not like this was"--
"You almost killed me."
She turned her head in shame.
Her voice gained a somber tone. "It won't happen again. I promise."
"I don't want to hear promise. I want to see results."
He handed her his guns. She followed him out of the building.
They dropped their weapons into the back of the old green pick up truck. He handed her some gloves.
"Bring the body down. I'll call the cops. There's a pay phone not too far from here."
She nodded, slipping the gloves onto her hands. The girl headed back up stairs, dreading this part of training, bringing back down the human vessel...if the body was still present. She carefully held the man's corpse from under his arms, pulling him down the stairs as gently as possible. She sat him up against the building, surveying the body for anything that was foreign to him, aside from the bullet. She sighed.
"May God rest your soul."
"Jonnie, let's go," the man spoke from the truck. The car doors unlocked.
The girl jogged up to the truck, knowing sirens would fill the air in due time.
---
Jonquil Salas flipped through various pages of the required reading text. She looked up at her mentor, Alexander Terrence. He was locating another hunt, possibly something moderate enough for Jonquil to handle.
"Do I need to know all this?"
He looked up from his research. "I wouldn't have you doing so otherwise."
She glowered.
"Tell me. . . What were you planning on majoring in next year?"
"Anthropology."
"Now, whatever you decided to do with this major, in the end, wouldn't you need the full knowledge of the subject before becoming a successful anthropologist, or whatever it is you decide to become?"
She glared at him. She hated his patronization.
"Do you plan on becoming a successful hunter?"
"Yes."
"Then you need to know more about what you're dealing with than just shooting and exorcizing demons. This reading I'm having you do is like anthropology. Of demons."
Jonquil sighed. She knew he was right and that he was aware that she was enjoying her reading. Her 'adolescent' attitude was just another ploy for gunplay.
Jonquil's mentor was well aware of his student's trigger happy disposition. And for that reason, she needed to be disciplined. He remembered his own start, two years before Jonquil's start; he was seventeen. And he too had a penchant for firearms. But that was thirty years ago. And now he knew how to hunt. Perhaps he was not the best, and hunting was not his lifelong profession like many other hunters he had met overtime, but he could do the job well. And he could teach the skills for mastery even better.
That was of course how he met his pupil. World Literature, first semester, freshman course. Her paper on reoccurring mythological themes throughout cultures spiked his interest. Over the course of the year, he began to train her, having her read old texts, and certain passages and manuscripts. By the summer, his pupil had made a decision. She was dropping out of college to pursue an education in the darker arts of hunting.
Jonquil's family would, of course, never hear about said abandonment of school.
It surprised her when he did not stop her, or pressure her to return to her scholarly duties. But perhaps that is what the clever teacher wanted all along. To create the greatest hunter, the one he could not be. However, the professor did not expect the storm that was Jonquil, for a student.
This beast would be harder to tame and transform than he had anticipated. But he could wait. Perfection takes time.
Jonquil resumed her reading in silence, and without complaint. She missed doing this type of research; in truth, there were days that she preferred to read about the demons than face them. But what good would all this information be if she could not put it into practice?
She continued to read.
"Terrence...."
"Yes?" Alexander kept his eyes on the laptop screen.
"When can I use a sword?"
The man looked up, glasses sliding down his nose slowly.
"You can't."
"It says here it is useful in defeating"--
"You must first perfect your firearm skills. Then we'll go into archery, then swords and the like. Besides, swords are archaic."
"As are bows and arrows, yet I need to learn those skills...."
He scowled.
"What? It was just a question..."
"Keep reading."
The soft mechanical buzz of the laptop echoed throughout the motel room.
"Connecticut. Vampire."
Jonquil looked up from her reading, a dubious look overwhelming her face.
"I've never ...."
"Well, you can't spend all of your training time on 'level one' demons, as you call them."
"But you said that I'm sloppy."
"And you promised that you would improve."
"And I do not go back on my word...," Jonquil muttered.
"Perhaps in the presence of immediate danger, you'll shape up."
"Well, either that or it's the death of me," Jonquil humored herself.
"We will leave at one in the morning. Sleep now. You'll need your rest."
Jonquil shut her books, and turned off the lamp. A glow of artificial light came from the bed next to hers. She closed her eyes.
The girl had never expected her life to take the turn it had. She always dreamt of adventure when she was little; playing in the park with her brother and sister, fighting dragons, chasing robbers, flying on time ships to defeat aliens from the future and monsters from the past. Never did she imagine that one day she would fight the very monsters she feared slept under her bed.
Alexander Terrence turned off his laptop. He glanced at his sleeping pupil. He hoped that she would recall how to defeat a vampire; properly. The books he made her read were not in vain. But despite her unruliness, she was very diligent in her readings; he had given her exams. The professor laughed silently to himself. He thought his days of making up exams were over. He was mistaken.