Spice Girls

...

Kelly was training Wesen and Julie was working in Rosalee's spice shop near Alice's place in Vermont. She was living and working under the official HW "Melissa Scott" identity - "James's" wife. Monroe, Rosalee, Alice, and Kelly's men only ever knew her as "Melissa", Kelly's "wife." They had figured out it had something to do with his "Secret squirrel" work. They decided that they probably weren't really married and that "Melissa" wasn't really her name. It was fairly obvious to everybody that she wasn't a Hooters girl.

They didn't know that Julie had named the ancient witch "Melissa" as an insult. The ancient witch had gone along with it because "Melissa" was fun and everybody liked her better than Julie.

Unlike trying to teach Julie about being comfortable in her powers - she was completely 100% in her element doing spells, potions, and Hexenbiest medical work. Her mother had started her off when she was young and she had done it professionally ever since. She had paid her way through her Chemistry degree at Brown in a Wesen spice shop in Providence.

Rosalee was glad for the help. The business had really taken off - there was nothing of it's kind anywhere near there and the Internet business had really picked up.

The business tripled when her customers found out that there was an *actual* skilled Hexenbiest making medical remedies there. While everybody knew Rosalee was one of the best in the business - there was just something extra-official about having a real Hexenbiest cooking up potions. On top of that - all the Hexenbiests from 5-states around found out and they all started doing business with the spice shop. Rosalee was thankful for having her around to deal with them. They were good customers but were always difficult with Wesen like her.

Rosalee saw that she was an expert at getting potions and concoctions made up and she worked extremely quickly. Even better, her potions worked instantly without any lags, pain, or strange side effects. Even better she was extremely good with customers. Rosalee thought back to watching Adalind and Eve try to make potions and how they always took a long time and had strange side effects. She usually just made all their potions for them because their potions were a mess.

Rosalee had employed quite a few Hexenbiests over the years and most weren't particularly good with either potions or customers. Strangely while Julie could be abrasive and blunt outside work, she was completely different inside the spice shop. She was the opposite of regular Hexenbiests in this regard who were usually well behaved outside of work but a nightmare to work potions with and the Wesen customers all loved her. Rosalee found she really liked having Julie around.

Julie told Rosalee that her mother had spent a tremendous amount of time training her potions including how to test and adjust for the potency of the ingredients and tune specific remedies for specific patients. For example - Maushertz and Reinagan needed different mixtures of "the same" potions for things to work right. Or say a Bludbad needed a specific potion boosted because of a condition he had or adjusted for an allergy - she just took care of it without going to the books or asking questions. That's how her mother had taught her.

She told Rosalee that her mother had started her collecting herbs and "cooking" remedies when she was 3 and had trained her "professionally" till she want to College. Hexenbiests did all the doctor work in Amazonian Peru where she was from. Her mother and her had done all the medical work for over 2-dozen villages down there till she was 15 when they moved back to the US. It was important work down there and it was nothing for them to doctor on people and Wesen late into the night 7-days a week.

Julie now found herself making "Housecalls" for older Hexenbiests who were no longer physically able to travel or make up the potions. These women's daughters had no interest in "the old ways". These women loved her and worked with her to sharpen up her skills even further.

The most common thing these old witches were called for was undoing or fixing spells and potions. This was complicated, dangerous, and difficult because of course nobody would ever come to an old witch unless it had gone so completely wrong that there was no hope of recovery. This took a tremendous amount of experience because it was *never* in the book. "You know honey, we always get blamed for everything that goes wrong. Everyone distrusts and hates us. You can see it in their faces. But guess who they call to fix all their worst problems. You had better learn how to fix everybody else's mistakes and sort out the most horrible messes!"

Julie also spent a lot of time patching up Kelly's men on training exercises. She had learned these skills from a very young age and had no trouble fixing up even severe wounds including healing broken bones with her powers. His men nicknamed her "Doc" because she was exceptionally good at it.

Rosalee wanted to help Julie and see how it worked and today was the day. One of Kelly's men had gotten injured in training in the middle of the night and had a large tree branch stuck through his chest. They got the man over to the Spice Shop and went to work. Julie had Rosalee and Alice start boiling water and getting several specific potions ready. They couldn't find a good sharp knife so Julie pulled out the man's boot knife and stropped it on his leather belt.

Now Julie warned the women "He will die if I don't do this as quickly as possible. I need to transform and work in Hexenbiest mode. Will you be OK with that?" Of course they said yes but she could see the worry on their faces. They had never seen a Hexenbiest preparing to operate like this and she was getting ready to cut the man's chest wide open to fish the branch out.

First she witched him to calm him, and then the witch breathed a mist into his face and he went unconscious.

Alice said she would go prepare potions while Rosalee stayed to help. She gave Alice specific instructions for a half dozen different potions she would need. Rosalee would hold the man's chest open and assist while The Hexenbiest had both hands inside him working to cut out the dead flesh, remove the branch and wood bits, clean everything out, reconnect all the tissue, and finally close him back up.

She was amazed how fast and expertly Julie worked inside the man's chest. Julie was soon working on reconnecting tissue with her powers. Rosalee watched her regrow new blood vessels and flesh as she move her fingers around. Finally she installed a simple abdominal drain to catch any blood or fluid and closed him up with her powers. Start to finish the entire operation took about one hour.

Julie put some IV potions into him to replace lost blood and prevent infection. Finally she told them he would need a special diet over the next few weeks to speed up the healing. The man was up on his feet the next day and was back out training with the team in two weeks.

Then Rosalee and Alice were curious - when had she started doing this? Julie answered that she had started doing operations with her mother at six and had done them by herself since she was thirteen. "You really have a nice spice shop here! we have everything we need. It saves a lot of time over going out into the forest to dig plants and collect ingredients to make up potions."

Rosalee had to laugh thinking back to all the adventures when Adalind and everyone else were the squeamish ones dumping all the nasty work into her lap - and here was Julie zooming right through the whole thing, blood, guts, and all. She was amazed at how fast the girl worked and that it was completely instinctive. She had the impression that the girl was completely used to moving as fast as her powers would permit.

Rosalee had a conversation with Kelly wondering how in the world she ended up with HW instead of going to medical school. He wasn't sure.

She eventually asked Julie - and it turned out it was simply the money. HW had paid for her post-graduate work in Chemistry. She couldn't afford to go to medical school.

Rosalee smiled. This was definitely not the girl in the facebook page full of bikini and beer pictures. She already knew it wasn't Kelly either - the speedo pix didn't have any scars on Kelly. The huge bite marks and claw marks all over him were pretty distinctive.