Disclaimer: Do you own something if the people who originally owned it throw it out? Just curious. Anyways, I do not own Moonlight.
A/N: sorry for the delay in updates, but thanks for sticking with me!
"This sucks!" I muttered for the thousandth time.
"Cool it!" Josef hissed. We were on our way to see Lord Gavinsham. He'd heard about the problem and wanted to talk to us about what we thought should be done. I personally thought that I should hightail it back to LA before I failed algebra, but since when does anything I say matter? Mick and Beth had gone sightseeing, and, despite David's protests, Josef insisted that this was a family matter. Like a guy isn't a member of your family when you're the same undead species. Brothers.
"Why do we have to go see him?" I whined. Josef sighed.
"Just when you think a girl's gotten over all of her immaturity issues, she throws a curveball at you," he commented.
"Oh shut up!" I snapped irritably. "This whole thing sucks big time!"
"I'm not the one who got myself contracted into some stupid teen reality show!" Josef shot back. I stuck out my tongue at him and he rolled his eyes. The elevator we were in "dinged" annoyingly as we reached the appropriate floor. Sighing, I followed my brother into a large office. Lord Gavinsham was sitting at a large desk that was covered with papers.
"Sit," he said, not looking up at us. I rolled my eyes and Josef glared at me as we sat down. After a few moments, Gavinsham looked up. "Miss Konstantine," he said with a nod to me. I smiled and he nodded to my brother, who didn't smile, looking grim. "I've been reviewing your past actions in Los Angeles and I've made a decision." My fingers dug into my jeans like talons. Had he called us up here to tell us that we couldn't go home? That we'd be stuck in England for the rest of our unnatural lives? I could think of few things that were worse fates. I opened my mouth to say "And?" but Josef shot me a warning look and we both waited in annoying, dreadful, silence. Gavinsham looked up from his papers and looked both of us in the eyes before speaking. "I commend you." The whoosh of my breath being released was so loud I think Beth heard it from her motel room. "You've done an amazing job of keeping things clean. Your establishment of the Cleaners was a brilliant move."
"Then why are we here?" I blurted out; too busy breathing to notice the glare Josef was sending me. Gavinsham smiled at me.
"Miss Konstantine, you are under house arrest for the day," he announced.
"WHAT?!" I shrieked, leaping from my chair. "But you just said--!"
"I know you've had successful accomplishments in dealing with……..other species, but the threat of a werewolf is too great for someone who is such an advantage to have in LA!" Gavinsham said firmly. I opened my mouth to tell him exactly how far off his rocker he was, but then I remembered who I was talking to. So, instead of spending an hour in a screaming match with the leader of my kind, I satisfied myself with a typical teenage response: I clenched my teeth, breathed heavily, said "Fine," in that I'm-just-going-along-because-you-could-ground-me voice, turned on my heel and stomped out.
--
When Mick, Josef, Beth and David found me three hours later, I was in the kitchen, cooking up a storm. Most vampires never cook once they get turned. Unless they want to please a human so that the human will later return the favor. But other than that, vampires never cook. Not unless they're weird. Or angry. Or have a taste for cooking. All three of those apply to me. I first found out that I had a talent for cooking in 1978, when our school was having a bake sale and we got extra credit for bringing in goodies. I'd whipped up a batch of cookies from some recipe that we'd found when we moved in and taken them in. The next thing I knew, the school was saying that my cookies had raised more money than the rest of the sale. I'd tried a cookie, hadn't tasted a thing, and then made more for the school. So yeah, I'm the vampire who could make a killing in the bakery business.
"You cook?" Beth asked, startled. I nodded as I shoved my seventh cookie sheet into the oven. She picked up a fresh cookie and sampled it. "Wow. This tastes incredible. Try…" she began, turning to Mick, Josef and David, who stared at her blankly. "Oh. Sorry."
"I cook when I'm bored or mad." I explained, putting some brownies on a dish.
"Both apply at the moment," Josef commented.
"Not so much 'mad' as 'bored'," I replied, looking at him. "The madness wore off about three batches ago."
"Batches of what?" Beth asked with her mouth full of brownie. I scratched my head, looking at the overflowing island countertop.
"Either cupcakes or muffins," I answered. "I forget which."
"What do you usually do with all the baked goods?"
"Take them to orphanages, homeless shelters, soup kitchens, places like that. If the mayoral vote relied on poor people, I'd be elected mayor in no time! I thought we could send a batch down to the studio as an 'I'm sorry'," I said, picking up a plate and moving it to the other counter.
"If this is some trick to get back in the race, forget it," Josef warned. "If Gavinsham doesn't kill you, I will."
"I called Ronaldson to tell him that I wouldn't be there," I said, moving two more plates to the counter. "He said they're not shooting today anyways. Jackie's getting her braces off." The timer on the oven dinged and I went to get batch number nine of brownies out.
"For a movie studio, they sure do a lot of 'postponing'," Beth commented.
"That's not the half of it," David said, holding up some videotapes. "I did some checking into the company's background. They've done several other reality shows other than this one. All had low ratings, almost no viewers, and when they got taken to DVD, no one bought it."
"Drug ring, maybe?" Beth suggested. David shook his head.
"One thing that was consistent in all the shows is that the losers mysteriously disappeared after they were voted off. And there's one family who's starred in every show." He said, handing me the tapes. I flipped through them, scanning the names of the competitors. Then I looked up.
"Davidson. Thomas' family has been involved from the beginning."
"That's not all." David said, folding his arms. "Guess who was signed on to participate in this season?"
"Is it someone who recently lived in LA and is currently buried on the hillside near the big 'Hollywood' sign?" I asked. David nodded grimly and I groaned.
"Erik. That's what he meant when he said that Occisor was his!" I exclaimed. I pulled out the cookie sheet and began putting the cookies on a new plate.
"You're done after the next batch," Josef ordered, eyeing the flood of baked goods.
"Fine," I said. "I want to check something out."
True to my word, after the last timer had dinged, I'd shut down all the ovens and put up my apron. We still weren't sure what to do with all the baked food, but Gavinsham assured me that it wouldn't be wasted. I got out my laptop and did some research. It was about one am when I finished and called the others into my room. Beth looked like she wanted to collapse right then and there, whereas the others looked wide awake.
"What'd you find out?" Josef asked.
"I looked on the internet to see if there's an international slayers webpage," I said, looking at him. "And there are actually a lot of them."
"I blame Buffy," Beth said with a yawn. I laughed.
"Yeah, most of them are just fansites for Buffy and Angel. Knowing the Occisor family helped." I said, turning the screen to face them. "It's sort of like a Facebook for slayers. They can chat, post fight results, share info, that sort of thing. I compared all the competitors from previous seasons with the lists of 'deceased' slayers. They matched. Then, just to be safe, I looked up all the competitors from this season on the site."
"And…?" Josef asked, sensing where I was going.
"And it matched." I said, looking up at them. "It looks like the Davidsons found this webpage and then began suggesting slayers to Roger as competitors. Then, using their superspeed and superstrength, they'd win the competitions. Then they'd celebrate by getting rid of all the losers."
"So they're using a reality TV show to eliminate slayers!" Beth gasped.
"Yep," I said.
"This is bad," Josef said grimly.
"Why?" Beth asked.
"Slayers are one of the big reasons why werewolves don't attack vampires more often," Mick explained. "Without the slayers, the werewolves will turn on us."
"We've got to stop it." I said firmly, staring at the photos of my fellow competitors.
Dun dun! What do you think? I hope you all like this chapter as much as you liked the last one! Cheers!