CH34

Rick woke up in the middle of the night and found he had to use the bathroom, so he stretched his muscles and started get up when he saw 'it.' He just wasn't sure what he was seeing.

There was this big something that had its clawed feet attached to one of the large open roof beams which meant it was hanging upside down. He forgot about his need to use the bathroom as he circled whatever this was.

Rick had watched Sirene go up to her room alone while Paige and Alexis had gone up to the spare bedroom, leaving himself and Hunt who had refused to use Sirene's bedroom saying he would be fine down here with Richard to protect him. Rick chuckled since he was sure Hunt could break his neck practically by looking at him.

It had feet with claws, legs, and he supposed a body. But the body was hidden away by a pair of large wings that were wrapped around the body. Rick gave it a poke and since it didn't react, he placed a hand on one of the wings.

It was cold like when Kate died in their bed, until the sun went down and she warmed up. Was this Hunt? If it was, where the hell did he get the wings from? Suddenly he remembered why he had gotten up.

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Irene had gone out and found them a mini fridge and bought it but it was too big and heavy for her to manage, so she had called Kate who jumped to her. "Stay here Irene, I'll be right back." Kate jumped away with the mini fridge's box, set it on the kitchen floor and jumped back to Irene. She took hold of Irene's arm and jumped back to their hotel room.

It was simple to open the box, remove the mini fridge, place it on the kitchen counter, and plug it in. While Kate waited for it to cool down on the super cool setting, Irene went downstairs to the front desk find out where the closest market was to buy steaks.

Armed with yet another map, she ended up in an open market that sold all kinds of things. Irene remembered that they had a full kitchen in their room and she could cook something for herself instead of risking Kate going out into the sun with her.

She soon had a number of vegetables and fruit, when she found a place that sold meat and chicken. Irene headed back to the hotel with 4 steaks and 2 chicken breasts already divided and skinned. It all went into their hotel room's refrigerator.

"I thought you were going to get just steaks?" Kate questioned as she watched Irene unload her purchases after using the ATM machine in the building next to the hotel.

"I decided that since I had to cook for you, I could cook for me too. So I bought enough stuff for a couple of meals along with some fruit for snacks. Plus we can use it to see if you can only eat meat or can eat other things."

"So now I'm a guinea pig?" However since Kate was smiling, Irene knew she wasn't upset.

Irene smiled back at Kate. "YUP." Irene finished putting away her purchases and walked back into the living room. "I wonder if there are any good guinea pig recipes on the internet." Irene couldn't keep the grin off her face.

"Oh funny. Ha, ha. Perhaps I should bite you and drink just a pint to tide me over." Kate teased.

However, when Irene replied, it was not what she expected. "If you or the others need a pint of blood that badly you can bite me anytime. I don't want any of you dying if my blood can prevent it." Irene turned her head to look at Kate with a deadly serious expression.

She wrapped her arms around Irene. "You really are perfect for Sirene and it will never come to that. But thanks." Kate kissed the side of Irene's head. "Speaking of blood..." Kate got up and turned on the laptop that Irene had bought while out buying the mini fridge.

"Alexis has found a place that might have what I need. She even sent pictures. That's my girl!"

"Kate, may I ask a question. You don't have to answer if you don't want to," Irene asked softly.

"As much as I owe you for all you have done, answering any question you have will be simple." Kate twisted around in the dining room chair to look at Irene.

"Alexis and Paige were talking about how Alexis was converted into a vampire. Being just a head sounds…gross. But they talked about you removed a piece of your heart and I was wondering… " Irene wasn't sure how to ask this kind of question.

"How I could remove a piece of my own heart and give it to Alexis? And why would I do that to a head that was effectively dead?" Kate guessed and watched Irene nod her head.

"As you may know I was chasing a pair of Lycans and lost them. They were both men, so they weren't Gina or Paula. I got a lead that took me to the morgue of a police precinct. Getting in and down to the morgue was ridiculously easy. I mean it was a police station after all, so I expected it to be at least somewhat difficult."

"Down there I searched the refrigerated drawers that are used to hold dead bodies. It was there that I found a little girl that had been ripped to pieces. It was almost too much to take. I had this little girl's head in my hands as I looked at her cold face."

"Even dead she was cute and had this long mane of orangish hair. It was only later that I noticed tears in my eyes. I slid down the drawers and was sitting on the floor looking at her face when I heard someone coming. I jumped up and slid the drawer into the space, slammed the door closed, and caught just the first word on the drawer before I jumped away with her head in my hands."

"I still had hold of her head hours later. A little before the sun was going to come up I gathered up a few blood bags for later and a knife. I jumped to an isolated location - a small storage building with a dirt floor on a deserted farm. I only knew of one way to turn her into a vampire and give her her life back. I dug us a hole and placed the head into the hole which was actually more like a tunnel, not just a simple hole."

"I knew it was going to hurt like hell, but I swear I could hear her voice asking me for a second chance, and I was tired, so very tired of being alone." Kate wiped away a tear that escaped.

"Sirene," Irene said, knowing the story about the two of them. Kate nodded. "Sirene. …I wanted someone in my life even if it wasn't a lover. I was so weary being alone. Oh, I had my house by then along with about 20 people that I had converted just before they died. Don't let the prestige of being a Mistress and the head of a house fool you. It's a lot of work and the worry about what might happen to you and them wears you down. While they were splitting up into pairs, I was in my big bed and big bedroom all alone."

"It was because of that loneliness that I cut my chest open with the knife that I had brought. And yes, it hurt like hell, and yes, I screamed in pain. And I screamed yet again when I carved off a tiny section of my heart knowing that my heart would mend as would my chest. If you know where to look you can just make out barely the scar that has long since healed."

"I crawled down into my hole and cut my wrist open and filled the head with my blood and then kicked and pounded on the roof forcing it to collapse, burying us underground for the day and following night, bursting out just before sunrise, forcing me to jump us home before dying when the sun came up."

"I love Alexis and would do anything for her and she literally does have a piece of my heart. I gave her my memories of when I was little until I was 18 years old. If I didn't she wouldn't have any. It's an easy thing to do when buried with who you are turning."

"And she doesn't remember Castle at all?" Irene asked, and watched Kate shake her head.

"She was literally brain dead. Who Alexis was as a 5 year old girl is gone. I simply stole the body and gave it life as a vampire. As Frankenstien-like as that sounds… Alexis looks and sounds like she would have had she made it to 19 years old."

"From five to nineteen in a day?"

"That has to do with my 19 year old heart at the time. Doing so cost me half of my 19 years so now I'm 26 plus or minus another 600 years."

Irene couldn't think up any more questions. "I had a thought. Our new home is in the middle of downtown Budapest. I was wondering if we should buy something a lot further out someplace to rally to if something went wrong. And I know Sirene would love to have her work shop back. She says she finds working on pieces therapeutic and it gave her something to concentrate on all those years."

"Actually we had a number of buildings other than the main house. One was a warehouse that we used to have silver deliveries sent to. Another was used to make the Lycan killer rounds, while another two were safe houses, like the one we were at."

"Perhaps we could buy that giant building that you liked? The one that used to be an old trolley station. If we clear out the basement we could turn it into a work shop for Sirene and maybe other things. Make those bullets you mentioned. Have your silver delivered to it and store it in the basement. Buy the necessary tools and rip the basement down to its bare bones. Vampires are strong, right?" Irene looked at Kate.

"You and Castle can handle the sun for a little while, you could do things that the vampires can't during the day. So what if it takes years to fix it up? You and the others are going to live for a really long time. Even if 600 years already sounds like a long time."

"Are you calling me old?" Kate teased.

"Is it time for you to go get your blood?" Irene changed the subject, not that Kate didn't give her an evil eye.

"Fine, I'll be right back. Don't let anyone in and call the real estate agent and put in an offer for the old trolley station." Irene smiled as Kate jumped.

Alexis had found a place where ambulances were taken for maintenance or upgrades. It should be closed really late at night. If the blood wasn't still in the ambulances themselves it should be in a refrigerator somewhere inside the building.

Kate jumped to a spot outside, looked in through a window, and jumped inside. It turned out that there were 5 ambulances in the building. One was being stripped for parts and was barely a hulk of metal and plastic. One looked like it just got there so she jumped inside it first and found the mini cooler empty, though all of the other first-aid equipment was still here, which gave her an idea.

She jumped back outside and started looking around till she found two good sized athletic bags. After emptying them she jumped back inside the ambulance and stripped the interior bare and stuffed everything into the two duffle bags.

She jumped back out of the ambulance and went looking for a refrigerator. The first one she found turned out to have left over food and other things inside it, along with a mountain of penicillin. The other refrigerator was a jack pot. Kate looked around for something to put several of the blood bags into.

Satisfied, she picked everything up and jumped for the hotel room and dropped everything to jump right back. She jumped back into the ambulance, freed the oxygen tank along with the tubes and mask, and jumped back to the hotel room only to jump right back again.

Kate jumped into another ambulance, freed the oxygen tank from its bracket, and grabbed other equipment, EEG machine, defibrillator, nebulizers, glucose meters, cold packs and blankets, and jumped back to the hotel room.

Irene was just getting off the phone. "What's all this stuff?" She saw a lot more stuff than just blood.

"This stuff is for you, since you're the only human for the moment and I don't want anything to happen to you. Plus you and Paige are studying to be nurses, are you not?

Irene couldn't help but smile. For years she had been insulted and beaten down and now she was surrounded by vampires who wanted her and one who loved her. Irene wiped her tears away. "Thank you so much for thinking of me. …What do we say when the maid service comes in to clean our room?"

"We work in medical supplies and these are some of our samples?"

Irene knew what it all was so she guessed that would work. "What do we do with it when we leave?"

Kate had to think about that one. "Leave it all at the trolley station? Speaking of which, what did she say?"

"I got the feeling she thinks we are nuts but I told her to offer full price for the building and start looking up names of contractors that could help us renovate."

"I guess we wait till tomorrow and offer our floor plan changes. Speaking of which, have you heard anything from home about what they think?"

Irene shook her head.

"Maybe it will come in tonight after it gets dark there. Think you're up for selecting finishes tomorrow too?"

Irene shrugged her shoulders. "I suppose." She had never done that before.

"Don't worry about it, you'll do fine. Hopefully you'll stop me from trying to combine two colors that should never be combined." Kate wasn't worried. She was more concerned that her style wasn't everyone else's.

Kate sat and watched TV while Irene made herself some dinner. "You want one of your steaks tonight? I've got four of them for you," Irene called.

She got up and went into the kitchen. "Irene?" God this was embarrassing. "I have a pain or something right about here that won't go away. I've never had this pain before that I can remember and since I'm not a vampire anymore…" She didn't know what she was trying to explain.

"You are a vampire, Kate, or you wouldn't still be able to jump. You just happen to be a Hybrid now instead of 100% vampire. As for your pain, I have an idea about that. Follow me." Irene left the kitchen, took Kate into the bathroom, and made sure the seat was down.

"Take your pants and panties down and sit here. Once you do that, try and relax your muscles in that area. Something should come out so don't panic. When you think you are done you use this paper here to clean up that area and drop it into the toilet. Once you are clean you can pull your panties and pants back up and press this handle down like this." Irene flushed the toilet for a demonstration. "Welcome to the life of a Hybrid." Irene smiled and went back to her cooking.

Irene stuck her head back in just as Kate was working on her pants. "Do you want that steak or not?"

"I don't feel like I need one, but sure." Kate liked the taste of steak. "Thank you," she called to the retreating form of Irene.

She didn't know what she was doing and it felt really weird and yet familiar. It had a similarity to when Castle would fuck her ass with that big black dildo, which was also gone now, except something was coming out.

She was sure she was done and used some of the paper to clean up with, several times. She looked at it while pulling up her panties and her pants followed by flushing the toilet and watched all of it go down the drain.

Kate strode into the kitchen. "Was it supposed to look like that?" She was worried that something inside her, something she needed had come out.

Irene opened her mouth and then closed it just as fast and moaned internally. "Was it watery and was there pain? I don't mean discomfort but real pain?"

"No and no."

"Was there any blood in the bowl?"

"No."

"Then yes, it was supposed to look like that. What you saw was the part of the two steaks you ate that your body didn't need so it discharged it. It's all perfectly normal. Eventually you'll need to pass a liquid that will come out from a different area down there. So long as you don't see anything weird, you're fine."

"I thought what I just did was weird!"

"Your steak is ready." Irene placed it on a plate and handed it over. "The silverware is in that drawer. I don't think we have a steak knife so you'll have to use a normal knife."

"There's a difference?"

"You'll see."

Irene soon showed up with her dinner which looked different to Kate. And her knife wasn't doing as well as the knives back at Sirene's home after Irene and Sirene came home with plates and other things. "I'm seeing your point." Kate tried to cut her steak.

"We can stop and get a set tomorrow after we see the real estate agent," Irene said.

"It really is delicious though."

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Kate and Irene were headed out of the hotel to attend their meeting with their real estate agent. They had found the guys' thoughts on the floor plan in the morning. For Kate, sleeping at night wasn't easy. She should be awake at night and asleep during the day. But if she was going to help Irene with this house and the other one she needed to do the opposite.

She yawned all the way to the agent's office. "You didn't sleep?" Irene asked.

"It's hard. I should be sleeping during the day not doing this. Plus I'm outside under the sun and not turning into ash in seconds. It's just hard."

"We need to get you someplace for the full moon soon too. It's coming up. Though you can jump anywhere now, can't you. Jump straight from here to Sirene's home and take me with you." Irene was suddenly happy. If Kate would take her home she could see Sirene whom Irene was missing badly.

"I can, can't I. I'm so stupid." Kate hung her head. "We're leaving here right after this whether it is dark there or not." Kate wanted to be in Castle's arms. It had been too long since they had sex.

It took some doing to convince contractor they wanted the kitchen smaller and to put in what would be a secondary kitchen that would only have refrigerators. The emergency generator would need to be located on the roof and would only have enough gas to last 24 hours until they filled it again. That amount of time increased when he found out that only the receptacles in that room would only be connected to the emergency generator. He didn't understand any of it but he would do it for the crazy Americans.

Next they went over all of the finishes starting with what he was planning on putting in. All of Kate's and Irene's choices were easy enough to substitute. Next came selecting the kitchen appliances. What these two wanted was not what he expected. Their choices would limit the amount of cabinets by a lot, but he relented. He had more than enough time to order the huge double door refrigerators that they asked for along with the large number of them.

Next came the interior decorator to design the interior rooms, starting with each bedroom. Irene handled hers and Sirene's room knowing just what Sirene liked. Kate did hers and Castle's, while the two of them combined did all of the other rooms using their decorator's suggestions as a place to start.

Their real estate agent invited them to a late lunch but they declined saying that they had someplace else to be.

They had to be back in two days to make final payment and hopefully finalize and purchase the other property at the same time. She promised to put together a list of contractors they could contact that might help them with the property.

Irene all but dragged Kate back to their hotel room. "Jump us Kate." She wrapped her arms around Kate.