God, I'm so sorry. But I can't stop thinking about Delphine as Buffy. I really had to write this. Written in like an hour so please be nice. Reviews are forever appreciated, friends!
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I was in a cemetery the first time I met her, which really shouldn't be a surprise. It was 11pm and I was hiding behind a particularly large and elaborate tomb. The bottle of holy water I'd pilfered from a local church clutched firmly in my nervous hands. She was leaning on a grave stone, with one foot pressed back against it, holding a cigarette between perfectly manicured nails, and completely nonchalant. I was taken aback. I was terrified to be here, and she didn't seem to care at all.
She dropped the cigarette on the ground, and stomped it out with a boot clad foot. I then realised she was wearing heels. In a cemetery. At night.
It wasn't just the heels either, let me tell you. The rest of her outfit didn't seem entirely practical either. She wore dark brown, or maybe black, it was dark so I couldn't really tell, boots which finished an inch beneath her knee, a ridiculously tight and short skirt I would never dream of wearing! Worst of all, she wasn't even wearing a jacket, just some tight tank top. It was freezing and she wasn't wearing a jacket! I felt like my mother, worrying about her temperature, but I couldn't stop myself.
I considered stepping out and offering her my own, like a boy in a cheesy teen movie, but come hell or high water, there was no way I was leaving my safe little hiding spot. So I stayed crouched, clutching my bottle, and refusing to let my eyes drift from her.
In hindsight, this was a terrible idea.
"I can see you, you know" She said, her voice was soft and dreamy, it sounded like marshmallows, don't ask me how, and she had an accent I couldn't quite place. "And so can he."
He?
I turned around and saw the man behind me. His face looked deformed, as though he had fallen face first in a vat of acid, or one of my particularly potent science experiments had blown up in his face. He looked like a mutant. I jumped up, as fast as I could, and ran to stand beside the girl. I didn't know why but I felt as though she would protect me.
The girl stepped forward, and raised a finger accusingly.
"I don't know what you're playing at Mr, but I think it's about time you go home!" She said. She sounded sure and strong. She sounded like an amazon. She looked like an amazon..
The man didn't seem to care. He laughed at her. I didn't think it possible, but his face only became more twisty as he approached us. It was contorted and his eyes were the strangest colour I've ever seen. All orange and yellow and mean.
The girl puffed out her chest and reached to grab something in pocket. The man didn't take any notice of this, and continued to approach us. I cowered, and tried to slink further behind the girl. My hands shook and tried as hard as I could not to drop the bottle of holy water I was clutching. I wanted to wave it in the mans face. I wanted to scream I am armed, buddy! I wanted to be tough. I wanted to impress this girl. But I couldn't.
The mans mouth opened, and I noticed his shiny, horrible, pointed, teeth. He was so close to us, and I wanted to turn and run. I wanted to drag this girl off with me. But my legs felt frozen, like someone had turned them to stone. So I stood there, dumb and still, too scared to even blink.
"Well, well" The man said, and I could swear I heard him snarling like an animal "looks like we're gonna have a menage a trois."
I wished I did not know what this man, this creature, wanted to do to me, to her, but I did. I knew this man was a vampire, and I knew he wanted to suck every last drip of blood out of my body and make me as cold as him.
As soon as we'd moved to this tiny town in Minnesota, I knew something was up. It was so weird. Like three kids at my school had gone missing within the six months my family had lived here. The murder rate was ridiculously high. There were way too many funeral homes. Seriously. How could a town this size justify seven? And so I'd started to research.
I went to the library, as any true geek would, and I turned to newspapers. There were at least four murders or missing persons cases each week, and so many of them mentioned neck wounds. Neck wounds. I had no idea what that meant then. Did someone like, give people crazy bad hickies so bad they died? That didn't sound very realistic. But neither did the alternative.
Vampires, friends, vampires.
I'd seen Twilight. Vampires were silly. Vampires weren't real. They couldn't possibly be real. I wasn't some fourteen year old longing for a boyfriend. I didn't need to believe in magical sparkly boys who wanted to kiss, or bite away my problems.
I thought I was crazy. I thought I'd eaten too much cheese before bed. But slowly the pieces of the puzzle came together, and that's the version as to how I ended up in the cemetery at 11pm on a school night, crouched behind a tomb wearing my dad's old military jacket and feeling like this was a terrible idea.
The girl pulled her hand out of her pocket, and clutched something strange in her hand. It looked like an oversized tooth pick.
She spun it around in her hands. She was showing off, I think. She waved it in the man's face, the vampire's face, and he backed off a little.
"How dare you bastardise my language!" She said. Her voice was strong and assertive, and she sounded incredibly pissed off.
She stepped forward, sinking back slightly as her heels made contact with the damp grass, but she didn't fall over. She waved the tooth pick thing in his face again and puffed her chest out.
"It is just incredibly rude... to come here... after dark... and prey on innocent girls... do you know.. we could be doing better things! I could be dancing right now?.. do you know how much.. you.. are inconveniencing me?" She was yelling this at him, between punches.
Don't ask me how, but the bumpy faced vampire guy looked confused. She shoved him again, and bought the tooth pick up to his chest.
I didn't really pay attention after that, but the man, the vampire, went poof. And where he had been standing, leering at us, there was a puff of smoke, or ash, or something and he was gone.
I was so shocked, my legs finally unfroze and turned immediately to jelly. I fell straight over. I landed on the damp grass, right on my butt, with a dull thud. If it hurt, I was too shocked to feel it.
I think the girl had forgotten I was there because when she turned around she looked surprised.
"You really shouldn't be here after dark you know" She said.
I agreed. This was possibly the worst idea I'd ever had.
She lent down, and offered me a hand, which I accepted graciously. Her hands were soft and dreamy. I stood up and I brushed the dirt of my butt. I'm sure my face turned beet red. She looked right at me, and raised an eyebrow, amused.
"I'm Delphine" She said "Delphine, the Vampire Slayer."
"Vampires? Vampires are real?" I said. I don't know why I said it. I had thought they were, and now I knew. I had proven my hypothesis.
I said it so quietly, I don't know if she even heard me. But if she did, she blatantly ignored me. She grabbed my hand and dragged me out of the cemetery with far too much speed for someone wearing heels.