Ky quickly headed down to the quieter and lonelier part of town. Others without her mindset would call it the seedier part of town, and Ky knew her sister hated it. Which was exactly the reason she loved it. She worked as an exotic dancer in one of the strip clubs. Most people shied away from such work, but Ky adored it. It gave her the rush of exotic pleasure and sinful delight that she longed for. She did keep some morals, though. She was most definitely not a hooker. She was a creature to look at and not touch.
She quickly went around one of the buildings, named "Sinful Succubus," and headed in the back way. She didn't need to change just yet, and her shift for the night was a waitress. They usually had enough dancers on Saturday night they didn't need her, and the boss liked to keep Ky's performances to a minimum, as she was the most exotic of his pets and men flocked from three or four nearby cities on her nights. That bothered her; she didn't like the fame. She just found it fun to tease men.
Upon walking into the club, she knew something wasn't right. She headed into the main room to see all seven of the strippers were focusing on two men, and the rest of the male patrons were staring off into the distance, a happy smile on their faces. Ky moved around to see the two men and noticed they reminded her of the boys she had seen at the mall, but they looked different. Both were clothed in normal black, form fitting denim jeans and typical polyester shirts that stretched tight across both men's chests. They both had long black hair that was let free, and several of the girls were running their hands through it. One of the girls glanced up and spotted Ky's scowl, and hastily alerted the others. They quickly moved away and returned to attending the other customers, and both men shook their heads as if coming back to their senses.
"Look what you've done, Zephon!" the elder one shouted.
"Me? You're the one who agreed."
"Now," he turned furiously, "we'll never find— Ah!" He stopped mid-sentence, seeing Ky standing behind him. She looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
"Find what?" she inquired curiously.
"Ah, my brothers," Turel stuttered out.
"Mm-hmm," she responded, smiling knowingly. "You boys look like you're from out of town."
"Oh, we are," the one called Zephon piped up helpfully. The eldest looked at him sharply, then extended a hand to Ky.
"Turel. This is my younger brother, Zephon."
"Kyviana," she replied with a smile. "Now, what the heck are you two doing in a bar?"
"Actually, we were looking for our brothers, but we . . ." Turel fell silent, looking for the right word.
"Got distracted?" Ky supplied, smirking.
"If you'd like," he responded, nodding simply. "Not only that, but a few of our brothers went out looking for someplace to stay."
"Hm." Ky fell silent for a while, thinking. "Well, lemme finish my shift, and we'll see what I can help you with, all right?"
She quickly darted off and went through her normal shift, and when she wasn't actually doing anything, she sat at the table Turel and Zephon were at and spoke with them. She managed to wheedle out of them that they were the second oldest and second youngest of six brothers, and their father was out in the night with them. After about an hour and a half, the boss came out and dismissed her.
"There just really aren't that many people tonight," he stated simply with an apologetic shrug. "So you might as well go home. I'll see you in a couple of nights."
"All right."
She went into the back and changed, then came back out and grabbed a chair next to the two brothers.
"Well, tell you what. Our house is big enough to fit seven men in it, so why don't you come home with me? You can find the rest of your family and bring them back with you and stay there for at least a little bit."
The two exchanged a triumphant look and Zephon turned back to her, stating, "That would be wonderful."
"All right." Ky nodded. "Then come with me. It's a slight walk back to my house, but nothing major."
Both men stood and followed their pseudo hostess out into the night and down the noisy streets. The continued walking a good twenty minutes or so, but finally came to a quieter part of town and headed up to a large house that looked more like a mansion than anything. She stopped at the door and turned to Turel and Zephon.
"Okay, the only house rules: clean up any mess you make, otherwise you get pounced on by my sister, and stay out of the third floor. That's our floor. There are a total of twelve guest bedrooms on the first and second floor, so take your pick."
She opened the door and headed in, looking around for Tansy. Both men followed her quietly as she moved through the dinning room, then the family room, and finally went into the den to see her pink-haired sister dusting furiously, singing softly to T.A.T.U.'s "Stars." Ky tapped her lightly on the shoulder and Tansy let out a little shriek of surprise, flipped around, and bonked Ky across the head with the feather duster. Ky pulled back, rubbing her head.
"Hey, hey, hey! It's only me!"
"Oh, sorry, Ky!" Tansy pulled the earphones out of her ears and stopped the tape player. "Don't sneak up on me like that!"
"I didn't sneak up on you—" Ky fell silent as Tansy looked behind her at the two men standing quietly in the doorway. Ky waved back at the two.
"Tansy, meet Turel, the eldest of the two, and Zephon."
Tansy turned on Ky, and the taller sister recognized the furious look in her Chicago-nuts sister. Ky took a step backward.
"Ky, you brought home boys?! When we're home alone?!" Tansy screeched. "Oh, you better hope Grandma doesn't call again!"
"Oh, but they're cute, Tansy."
Turel and Zephon exchanged a look in the background, deciding to stay out of the sisters' argument.
"But Ky!! They might turn out to be Jack the Ripper psychos or something!"
Ky sighed. "No, I met a couple of Jack the Ripper psychos this evening, and these are not them."
Tansy glared at her taller sister, then sighed deeply.
"All right, fine! They can stay. But they'd better not deviate from the house rules."
Ky nodded and indicated the room. "I'll let you get back to dusting now."
"Thank you," Tansy sighed as Ky took both men out of the room. After they got out into the family room, Turel turned to Ky.
"If you'll excuse us, but now that we know where you are, we need to go find our family."
"Go all head and take care. Wouldn't do any good for you two to be mugged after finally getting here."
Turel headed for the door and Zephon grinned down at her malevolently as he stated, "I would pity any fool who tried to mug us."
He followed Turel and Ky shivered after they had left the house. She paused for the first time to wonder what exactly she had gotten her sister and herself into.
Turel and Zephon spotted Rahab and Melchiah sitting on a park bench a few blocks away. Both of them looked exceptionally glum.
"What's wrong?" Turel asked, not used to seeing bubbly Rahab look so . . . depressed.
"Kain is going to kill us!" Rahab moaned, looking up at his older brother. Then he clutched his head and refused to look at anyone.
"Why?" Turel inquired.
"We let one of the twins get away," Melchiah groaned. Zephon burst out into laughter.
"I don't see what's so funny!" Rahab snapped.
"I do!" Zephon laughed. "You see, we've met one. And she is letting us stay with them!"
"Oh good, I get to live for another five minutes . . . wait, what did you say?" There was a look of newfound hope in Rahab's eyes.
"We'll tell you while we look for Kain, Dumah, and Raziel . . ." Turel muttered.
The group found Kain and the last two brothers outside the blood bank. Rahab was still wringing his hands in worry.
"Did you find them?" Kain asked Turel upon seeing him.
"We got . . . distracted, my Lord. But we did find them!"
"Distracted? How so?"
"You found them!" Rahab gasped. He was ignored, but he did calm down.
"They were in a strip club, my Lord," Raziel laughed.
"Yes, but the demon-slaying twin is employed there!" Zephon said hurriedly, trying to act as if he knew all along what he was doing.
"Did you know that she worked there?" Kain asked, amused.
"N— er, yes!" Zephon lied.
"We found lodging, too!" Turel said happily. "The demon-slaying twin invited us all to stay at her place!"
"Let's go then!" Dumah stated with a malicious smirk. "I've got a score to settle with her . . ."
Tansy had changed tapes in her Walkman and was now happily singing along with 'Les Miserables'.
"Tans, I'm so sick of hearing that song," Ky complained. Tansy turned around and glared icily at her twin before singing 'Lovely Ladies' even louder.
"Old men, young men, take 'em as they come! Harbor rats and alley cats and ev'ry kinda scum!"
"We're back!" Turel announced as he opened the door. "Um . . . why is your sister singing a song about whores?"
"She's insane! Where's your family?"
"Here." Ky recognized the voice at once and turned sharply around. Dumah stood behind her, smirking. Next to him were Kain and Raziel. Still standing in the doorway were Rahab and Melchiah, who seemed uncertain that they wanted to stay with a crazy girl who sang prostitute songs.
"Oh, Tansy," Ky said, lifting up the earphone on Tansy's right ear, "that guy there with the weird up-do, and the guy with the white hair . . . those are the psycho Jack the Ripper people." Tansy looked from Dumah to Kain, to her sister, shut off her music, and leapt at Dumah with her feather duster.
"Die!" she screeched, whacking him on the head again and again. Dumah calmly took her by the wrist.
"Calm yourself, woman! I haven't any desire to hurt YOU."
"You're not gonna hurt my sister either!" Tansy spat.
"Dumah, let her go," the white-haired man softly ordered. Dumah did as he was told, sending Kain a look that begged Kain to let him kill her.
Tansy glared around at the assortment of young men in her kitchen.
"All right," she growled. "Line up, all of you. It's house rule lecture time."
"But your sister already told us the rules," Zephon said, "So can we—"
"NO! She . . . uh, forgot a few rules. (A/N: Ky (DragonSeer): Excuse me?! I did not! .) Now line up, all of you!"
"She scares me," Melchiah whimpered to Rahab. Rahab nodded, but said that they'd better listen to her anyway. Tansy didn't start speaking until they had all lined themselves up against the nearest wall. Both sisters got the feeling they did it more to amuse themselves than to comply with Tansy's orders.
"All right, first of all, clean up your messes lest you face my wrath. Nextly, my room is off-limits, as is my body. In fact, don't even let me catch you LOOKING at my chest."
"Well, darn . . ." muttered one of the brothers.
"Who said that!?" When no one admitted that he had said it, Tansy continued on. "Stay off of the third floor. Oh, and no late-night porno movies either!"
Melchiah raised his hand.
"Yes?"
"Um . . . Miss Scary Lady . . . what's a porno movie?"
Ky stared at Melchiah in amazement, and Tansy nearly fainted.
"I'll tell you when you're older," she said after an awkward silence, and then she looked around at them all again. "I work at a dinner theatre," she continued, "so I will be gone from nine o'clock in the morning until ten o'clock in the evening on weekdays to rehearse. Sometimes our director will keep us until midnight or later. Furthermore, on show nights I will be gone for at least five hours that night, depending on which show we're doing. This week we're doing 'Cats' so I'll be gone longer because that make-up is a pain to apply and remove."
"Jeeze Tansy," Ky stated, looking at her sibling, "tell us your whole life story, why don't you?"
"And," Rahab interrupted, aiming his query at Tansy, "why are you telling us this?"
"So you know where I am if you need help with anything."
Ky leaned around Tansy so the boys could see her and her sister couldn't, and waved her finger around her ear in a circular motion before pointing at Tansy. It was the universal 'she's nuts' sign, and Rahab smirked at seeing Ky pointing to her sister.
Abruptly, Dumah stepped forward toward her and the taller girl stepped back slightly as he smiled malevolently down at her.
"Speaking of you, my dear little demon-slayer, we have a score to settle, you and I."
Ky's eyes widened as she stared up at him, and Tansy looked over at her with a 'what have you done now?!' expression. Dumah reached down and swiftly pulled the blade from the scabbard which hung at his side. The muscles under his skin rippled smoothly as his arm moved.
"Nik," Ky let out a strangled noise. Deciding it would not be a good idea to spar next to her perfectionistic sister, Ky turned and raced into the depths of the house. Not missing a beat, Dumah ran after her. Tansy sighed and went back to dusting, and Kain shook his head in amusement before indicating for Turel and Raziel to sit with him at the kitchen table. Turel leaned over and told Melchiah and Rahab where the guestrooms were so they could go make themselves comfortable. That left only Zephon, who was watching Tansy dust. Tansy noticed the vampire out of the corner of her eye and turned on him.
"Well?" she demanded. "If you're going to watch me, the least you could do is make yourself useful."
"What would you have me do?" he inquired sardonically. "Fold laundry?"
"Now that you mention it . . ."
"No!" The vampire lord crossed his arms over his chest. "That's women's work! I will not do it."
"Women's work?" Tansy repeated dangerously quietly. Ten seconds, five whacks on the head with the feather duster, and several "OW!"s later, Zephon was slowly folding laundry, shooting glares at Tansy as she passed by, dusting. Zephon picked out a piece of cloth, which happened to be Tansy's bodyliner for her dance costume, and inquired, "What is this thing, and why does this thing have a thong in the back?"
"PUT THAT DOWN!" Tansy cried at him, smacking his claws once with the feather duster. "And to answer your question, it's to keep my . . . er, chest from bouncing around when I dance."
Suddenly, Ky's laughter rang out from the depths of the house as she called out, "You tell them not to look at your chest, and yet you keep saying things that practically beg them to!"
Tansy glared at the back of the house as silence fell, which was broken by Ky after a moment more, sounding much closer as she said, "Oh, I forgot! You're saving yourself for you precious Israfel!"
Tansy abruptly dropped her feather duster and stormed toward the back of the house. Ky's voice rang out.
"Hey, what are— I was only kidding—"
A female voice let out a scream, and Dumah returned with an amused smirk on his face, as the sounds of a fight rang out in the back of the house. After a few minutes, the sounds stopped and both Ky and Tansy returned, Tansy limping and Ky rubbing her shoulder. A bruise was rapidly appearing on the pale skin.
"Man, everyone is picking on this shoulder tonight," she groaned, looking at it. It was the same shoulder Dumah had sliced open earlier that night.
"Serves you right," Tansy shot back.
"It's not my fault you have a thing for the angel of music!" Ky protested.
"It's not my fault that he's gorgeous with a nice baritone voice to boot!"
"Ah, you love him for his songs and his wings only," Ky retorted as she sat down on the couch in the den next to Zephon.
"Well, okay, he's awfully sweet too . . ."
Kyviana blinked at her sister in incredulity. "Next thing you know, you'll be telling me you want to get married to him and live in a nice little house in heaven with a white picket fence."
"Hm, that's a good idea. Do ya think God'll let me live up there with him?"
Ky abruptly slammed face first into the carpet in a face-fault, then stared up at her sister with dead shock on her face. "You actually want to live in that light-y tidy, goody-two-shoes place?! Come on, Tans, you're more evil than I am! Do you really think they'll let you live up there?"
"Well, sure, I haven't been TRULY horrible . . ."
Ky blinked at Tansy and reclaimed her seat next to the second youngest. "Oh, not TRULY. There was just that last summer, and the winter before that where you decided you want to see if certain . . . things could fly—"
"I was curious!" Tansy interrupted. "And stoned!"
"SEE?! Good girls don't get stoned! Even I don't!" Ky paused. "And you were so not stoned."
"Nope, I was . . . BAKED!"
Ky gave her sister a steely glare. "You weren't baked, either. At the time you weren't high in the slightest . . . Oh, wait. Was that the day that we went to the concert where we saw those guys play for the first time?"
"Yup!"
"Oh . . . Yeah, you were stoned that day. I forgot."
Tansy smiled at her sister in a smug 'I-told-ya-so' kind of way. Zephon, who still clutched the bodyliner, tugged on the pink-haired girl's sleeve. "You still haven't told me what the thong part's for."
"That's because it's none of your business."
"Oh, please, please tell me!" pleaded Zephon.
"No!"
"Fine," Zephon muttered. "But I'll ask you every day for the rest of your life if you don't tell me now."
Tansy narrowed one eye at the vampire and scowled.
"I mean it!" Zephon said, narrowing both of his eyes.
"It's . . . an undergarment."
"Ah, thank you, Ms. Obvious," Zephon chuckled. "But why does it have a thong?"
Tansy, realizing that it was pointless arguing with the young man, grabbed him by the shirt collar, put her face quite close to his, and spoke to him in a low, threatening voice. "Because when I dance," she growled, "my costume is a skintight bodysuit . . . and it's quite unattractive when your normal underwear bunches up and you get a wedgie! NOW LEAVE ME ALONE!"
Ky began to laugh. "Well, Tans, you asked for it when you didn't tell him to begin with!"
"You're cute when you're pissed off, did you know?" Zephon complimented, smirking.
"You had so better be talking about my sister. If you are, I completely endorse the comment." Ky sent an evil smirk Tansy's way. Tansy looked absolutely livid.
"Ky! Knock-it-off!"
"'Sides," Ky stage-whispered to Zephon, "maybe if she got a good lay she wouldn't be so uptight all the time . . ."
Tansy reached for a broom that leaned against the wall and swung it at Ky.
"You see? You see what I have to put up with?" Ky called, dodging the broom. Tansy simply shrieked, walked back to the kitchen, and began sweeping the floor.
"Are you just going to take that?" Dumah asked casually.
"Of course! As obnoxious as she is, she is my sister."