Disclaimer: I own most of the characters like Katy, Diane, Maria, and Anastasia.
CHAPTER 6-A COOLING OFF PERIOD, STRANGE BEDFELLOWS
Paul ducked underneath the wild swing of the first vampire to reach him and buried his fist in its stomach. Maria meanwhile rolled out of the way and drove the point of her stake through the stomach of one vampire and then pulled it out and dusted the next vampire to greet her. Diane missed the first punch but the second one caught her across the chin, sending her sprawling onto the grass with Shandra soon following suit. One of the vampires was just about to snap Shandra's neck when he burst into flames and dissolved into dust. Shandra started to look around to find her savior but only caught an elbow to the side of her head, instantly knocking her out. By the time that she woke up the fight was over and she found herself lying on a comfortable bed in what looked like a cheap motel.
"You're awake," A bleary eyed and tired looking Maria said with a concerned look on her face as she turned from looking out of the window and stood up.
"Where am I," Shandra asked with a weary and confused look on her face as she slowly sat up, though her head felt like it was going to explode any second.
"You're safe, for now," Maria replied with a tired yawn as she made her way over to the bed and sat down beside Shandra.
"What happened, is everyone okay," Shandra asked with a worried look on her face as she threw the covers off of her and crawled over to the edge of the bed.
"For the most part, thankfully Paul showed up and helped us hold off the vampires until Katy could knock enough sense into Anastasia to get her to back off, unfortunately she'll be back, and not in any mood to talk," Maria answered with a concerned look on her face as she began to absentmindedly softly rub a bruise on her arm, quickly pulling her shirt sleeve down to cover it up after noticing that Shandra had noticed her actions.
"It always like this," Shandra asked with a scared tone to her voice as she slid off of the edge of the bed and stood up, weaving a bit but staying on her feet.
"Pretty much, though Katy and I aren't as good at this as some others we try our best and hope that we don't screw everything up to badly," Maria answered with a slightly embarrassed look on her face as she shrugged her shoulders and made her way towards the door.
"Is everyone alright, Diane," Shandra asked softly with a concerned look on her face before the door opened and a tired but healthy Diane walked in, looking fresh from the shower.
"A little worse for wear but I think I'll be alright, you okay," Diane replied with a tired smile on her face as she glanced briefly at Maria as she walked across the room to steady a wobbly Shandra.
"I think so, though I've got one hell of a migraine," Shandra said back with a pained look on her face as she softly rubbed her temple and did her best to stay on her feet.
"I can help with that, get your mind off the pain if you want me to," Diane asked with an innuendo-laden tone to her voice and look on her face before Maria interrupted.
"You two have fun, I'm going to talk to Katy and then try and get some sleep," Maria interjected with a small sigh before she rubbed her tired eyes and left the room just as Diane led Shandra back to the bed.
"How did you find us," Katy asked with a curious look on her face as she sat up straight in her seat and took a big sip of coffee in hopes of staying awake just a little bit longer.
"It wasn't easy believe me, after that stink you made in Gainesville I thought that you guys would have been to Alabama or Louisiana by now, but then I talked to a bus driver that said that three young women fitting your description had gotten off of his bus this afternoon around here and so I packed up my gear and prayed that I wouldn't be to late," Paul replied with a look of nervous relief on his face as he recounted the tale of how he had come to show up at just the right time.
"You almost were to late, but thanks for coming," Katy said with an appreciative but drowsy smile on her face as she leaned over slightly and gave Paul a one armed hug before lazily laying her head on his shoulder.
"Don't mention it, I'm just glad that no one got hurt, that bitch sure has it bad for you guys, what'd you do to her," Paul replied with a warm smile on his face as he returned the hug.
"Katy played hard to get," Maria said with an amused smirk on her face as she walked up to the table and sat down across from Paul and Katy.
"So then Anastasia not only wants to turn you into a vampire but she also…okay that's just wrong," Paul started to say with a confused and deep in thought look on his face before he came to a conclusion and his expression turned to one of being grossed out.
"Tell me about it, and on top of that our ace slayer Katy here couldn't even tell that one of her old friends was a vampire, Alice almost had us for lunch before we realized that she was a vampire," Maria said back with an amused and only slightly mocking tone to her voice and smile on her face as she stared straight at Katy, who scowled back and grumbled something under her breath.
"I didn't see you picking her out either, I wasn't the only slayer there remember," Katy shot back with a wholly defeated but still fighting tone to her voice and look on her face as she picked her head up off of Paul's shoulder and glared across the table at Maria.
"Okay ladies let's just calm down, accusing each other isn't going to help anyone, the best thing for the two of you…no all of us, is to get some sleep and leave sometime tonight," Paul interjected with a slightly nervous tone to his voice as he turned to first face Katy and then Maria.
"No can do, the buses don't run that late," Katy mumbled back softly as she laid her head back down onto Paul's shoulder and was half asleep when he replied.
"I already thought of that, I have a converted school bus that can carry all of us, sure it's not the flashiest ride out there but it can keep us under the radar and hold all of us and our supplies, I'll even take the first shift at the wheel," Paul said back with a small yawn of his own as he looked down at Katy's head on his shoulder and did his best to keep from smiling like a fool.
"That sounds good to me, now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go get some sleep before I pass out," Maria said with a large yawn as she stood up and left the table.
Katy awoke hours later to find herself lying on a comfortable mattress in the back of a converted school bus. At first a feeling of panic swept through her, but that subsided when she lifted her head and saw Shandra and Diane sitting together in one of the seats casually flipping through a magazine. Maria sat at a makeshift desk, furiously writing something down while when Katy sat fully up she saw Paul at the wheel and all of their gear stowed on the other side of the back of the bus. She pinched herself to make sure that she was alive and before she went any further she checked herself for a pulse and after being relieved at finding one she stuck her hand out into a direct ray of sunlight, fearful that she would catch on fire. But when nothing happened she let out a small sigh and let out the deep breath that she had been holding in since waking up.
"Where are we," Katy asked softly with a confused and slightly unsure tone to her voice as she shakily got to her feet, using the seats for support.
"You're awake, now don't panic we didn't get kidnapped or anything, do you remember when Paul told us about the converted school bus that he had that he offered to help get us to the next town," Maria asked with a look of relief on her face as she stopped what she was doing and walked over before standing beside Katy.
"A little, I thought that we were going to hit the clubs on the other side of town first though," Katy replied with a still somewhat sleepy tone to her voice as she yawned deeply and then sat down in one of the seats.
"I thought about that and I doubt that any of them would have even considered letting us in there after the fight, the only reason that the cops aren't after us now is because we didn't stick around long enough for anyone to identify us and because the fight happened at closing time," Maria said with an awkward half smile on her face as she sat down in the seat across from Katy.
"Once again we slip out of town after causing a whole boat load of damage, any word on Anastasia or Alice," Katy replied with a sleepy smile on her face as she leaned back in her seat.
"Alice got staked, she's just a pile of dust right now, and Anastasia got out of there just before we left," Maria said with a somewhat nervous and anxious look on her face as she hoped that Katy wouldn't be mad about her former friend being staked.
"Oh…right, sorry I forgot, so where are we headed now," Katy mumbled softly back at first with a sad look on her face before she sobered up and flipped her frown upside down and into a smile.
"New Orleans, there's been a lot of suspicious missing persons cases there in the past few months, several women have disappeared for several days only to show up a week later with pretty flimsy excuses for where they were," Paul interjected with a serious look on his face as he looked up into the rearview mirror and made brief eye contact with Katy, getting her to smile a little bit.
"Sounds like trouble to me," Maria said with a serious frown on her face as she turned her head and looked up towards the front of the bus at Paul.
"Sounds like our next stop alright, any of you guys ever been to New Orleans," Katy said at first with an excited tone to her voice before she thought about it for a second and looked around as she asked her question. Everyone else in the bus looked pensive for a moment before each and every one shook their heads in the negative.
"I hear it's nice though," Shandra added with a scared smile on her face as she turned around and looked back at Katy and Maria.
"Like that helps us a lot, I wonder if the clubs are on the internet, maybe if we stop in a big enough town we can find a cyber café and use one of their computers, that way we won't have to drive all over New Orleans looking for the clubs, or worse yet have to ask someone and ask the wrong person," Katy stated with an unhappy frown on her face as she stood up and started to make her way slowly towards the front of the bus.
"I should have a laptop somewhere in here, I used it to find you guys, check in the top drawer of the desk," Paul said loudly back over his shoulder as he switched lanes and sped up just a bit.
"Right…okay, found it, now to see what we can find," Katy said with a tired yawn as she walked over to the desk and opened the first drawer that she came to, instantly finding the computer.
"Look in the entertainment section, who knows maybe we'll get lucky and all of the clubs will be lined up in a neat little row," Diane offered with a helpful look on her face as she slowly climbed over Shandra before walking over to the desk. Paul did his best to keep his eyes on the road and not back into the bus at the four beautiful women near the desk. Though he truly only had his eye on one of them the others still could prove quite distracting if he allowed himself to stare at them to long.
"Somehow I doubt that we'll be that lucky Diane," Katy replied with a deeper than expected yawn before the correct section popped up onto the screen.
"You never know, everyone has to get lucky sometime," Diane shot back with a slightly hurt look on her face as she sat down on one of the seats across from the desk.
"Not us, we only barely made it out of London with our heads still attached and then we fall into this mess, some luck," Katy mumbled back with an unhappy frown on her face as she shook her head and tried to act as if she hadn't been afraid during at all during those dark times.
"Well everyone gets their day in the sun right, besides Anastasia and her goons are still back in Florida, and maybe there won't be as many vampires as you think, maybe we'll get a few days to see the sights," Shandra added with an unhappy smile on her face as she got up out of her seat and walked over to the desk before finally sitting down on Diane's lap.
"As far as we know she's still in Florida, but she could have feelers out all over the country, we might not be able to fly under her radar for very long, and I don't know about you guys but I have a lot to lose if Anastasia goes after our families," Maria replied with a very concerned look on her face and tone to her voice as she let out a deep breath and then turned and looked out of the window to try and compose herself and keep from crying.
"Yeah, sorry but I got nothin, all of my family's back in Russia, and more than likely dead or scattered to God knows where," Katy mumbled back with a sad pout on her face as she lowered her gaze down to the keyboard.
"I don't have anyone," Diane said with a nervous shrug of her shoulders before she wrapped her arms tightly around Shandra.
"Me either, my parents died years ago and I was an only child," Shandra added with a somber look on her face before she interlocked the fingers of her left hand with the fingers of Diane's right hand.
"What about you Paul, got any family," Katy asked with a curious expression on her face as she turned briefly away from the computer screen and looked up towards the front of the bus.
"Nope, my parents died when I was really little, my aunt and uncle raised me, and they're both on an outback safari, I couldn't reach them right now anyway," Paul answered with a nervous smile on his face as he looked back at Katy through the overhead rearview mirror.
"So then we're in the clear, at least as far as our families go, now all that we need to do is find the clubs, see if any of the dancers are vampires, take them out if they are, and then move on," Diane replied with a somewhat relaxed smile on her face as she gave Shandra a squeeze before kissing her bare shoulder.
They pulled up to the first club that they had found on the list, The Blue Hawaiian. All of them had found the name odd but Katy had guessed that it was because they were trying to use a tropical theme. Though when they got inside the place looked more like a cross between a medieval pub and an underground lair. They had to descend about three flights of stairs before getting to the main room. Several women were walking around, all dressed like serving wenches, carrying drinks to various tables. It looked to be the clubs slow time as no women were dancing and the lights on the different stages were down. Scattered around the club there were several smaller circular stages with a pole in the middle and a railing around each women, to keep the dancers and the clients separated.
"This must be one of them secret clubs," Diane said with a curious look on her face as she and Shandra walked hand in hand down the stairs.
"Either that or its new, some of these clubs don't last very long," Paul added with a relaxed smile on his face as he watched the women delivering the drinks.
"Well there's only one way to find out, you guys stay here while I go see if they'll let me dance, if they won't then we'll just have to wait around and see if we can find any vampires," Katy said with an unhappy scowl on her face, as she had been watching Paul closely, before she pulled a smile back onto her face and headed off towards the back.
"Did I do something wrong," Paul asked Maria with a confused and slightly nervous look on his face after watching Katy walk away.
"Only if you ever want to have a chance in hell with her," Maria replied with a cheesy grin on her face before Shandra interrupted.
"Maybe Diane and I should go with her and see if perhaps maybe we could do a number together, I've always wanted to do a tandem show," Shandra interjected with a curious eye aimed towards the back where Katy was currently talking to one of the bookers.
"If you think that it'd help us root out the vampires, though I'm not sure if they'd let three new dancers on tonight," Paul said with a concerned look on his face as he sat down at one of the tables.
"You could be right, besides if we're going to dance together then maybe we should practice first, speaking of which…can I borrow the keys to the van for a little while," Diane said with a sly grin on her face as she gave Shandra's hand a squeeze and then turned to Paul.
"Why what…just be done by the time we're ready to leave," Paul started to ask with a confused look on his face before he figured out why Diane wanted the bus and then just handed her the keys.
"Thanks," Diane said with a grateful tone to her voice before she leaned in and kissed Paul on the cheek.
"Don't mention it," Paul mumbled back half-heartedly as he waved briefly at Diane and Shandra as they hurried out of the club before he turned back to Maria.
"This is all to much, when all of this started all that I wanted to do is make it in time for school, and now unless something changes I'll probably miss the entire first semester," Maria groaned with an unhappy frown on her face as she scooted her chair up a little closer to the table.
"Can I get you two something," A soft voice asked with a hint of amusement in it before Maria and Paul looked up to see that one of the serving wenches had approached their table.
"Um," Paul stammered out softly with an embarrassed smile on his face as he tried his best not to stare at the woman. Her height was the first thing that caught his eye, with the second being her dark blue hair and comic book proportions. The serving wench outfit was leaving very little to the imagination and looked to be about a size to small for her.
"We'll just have water thanks," Maria said with an unhappy frown on her face as she tried to elbow Paul in the ribs to stop him from staring.
"Whatever," The woman replied with an almost disappointed look on her face before she turned around and walked back towards the bar.
"What was that," Maria demanded with an upset scowl on her face as she poked Paul in the ribs with her index finger.
"What was what, I didn't do anything," Paul exclaimed with a confused and slightly embarrassed look on his face as he snapped his head back around to look over at Maria.
"You call ogling that waitress nothing, if you hadn't saved us back in Florida I'd kick your sorry but six ways to Sunday right now," Maria snapped back with a confident scowl on her face before she poked Paul again.
"What, I was not ogling her…I've just never seen anyone with blue hair before," Paul said back with a defensive expression on his face as he tried to defuse the situation.
"That's what they all say," Maria shot back with an unconvinced look on her face with a brief glance over to where Katy had disappeared before the waitress arrived back at their table with their waters.
"Here's your water, if there's anything else that you need just ask," The woman said with an unhappy frown on her face as she set the two glasses of water down onto the table while Paul tried his best to not look.
"Thank you…I don't think that we'll be ordering anything, we just stopped in for a quick show and then we'll be moving on," Maria said with a forced smile on her face as she thanked the waitress for the drinks and then started to turn back towards Paul when he spoke up.
"Anything weird happen around here lately, any of the dancers disappear for a few days and then just show up out of the blue acting a little odd," Paul asked with a curious smile on his face as he tried to act casual and not give the waitress the third degree.
"Define odd," The waitress asked back as she stopped a few feet from the table and turned back around.
"Okay, are any of them defensive about people wanting to know where they've been or are there any of them that only show up at night, don't eat the food around here," Paul started to answer with a subtle smile on his face as he sat forward in his chair a bit before the waitress stopped him as she came back to the table.
"No one eats the swill in this place, except for the customer's that are dumb enough to order it, other than that though it's been pretty quite, there's only been a couple of the dancers that went missing for a few days before they showed up on time for their dance, looking fine and saying that they'd just had a family emergency, what's all of the questions for," The waitress replied with a bored expression on her face before she pulled up a chair and sat down next to Paul.
"Well we're…writing a book actually, and…," Maria started to say with a slightly cheesy smile on her face and nervous tone to her voice before the waitress interrupted her.
"No you're not, I can always tell when someone's lying to me, you're looking for vampires aren't you, well I can tell you that there aren't any here, there was one in her last week though, but I took care of her, dusted her without even getting my outfit dirty, though I had to take a twirl up on stage though to pay for the damages to the women's bathroom," The waitress interjected with a skeptical look on her face at first before that changed into one of pride as she recounted her activities to an astonished Paul and Maria.
"But…how, vampires are stronger than humans, faster to," Maria stammered out in surprise as she looked back and forth between Paul and the waitress.
"Don't know and really don't care, guess I was just fast enough, though she must have been a weak vampire because she didn't seem that strong to me, she tried to strangle me at first but I was able to fight her off," The waitress added with a slightly cocky grin on her face before she smoothed out the cuffs of her outfit.
"You think she might be one," Paul asked Maria softly with an unsure and nervous look on his face as he leaned in a bit closer to her and tried to not let the waitress hear what he was saying.
"Who knows, it's not like there's a simple test for it or something, we should probably tell Katy though," Maria replied softly with a concerned and serious look on her face before Katy walked back out of the back room and spotted the three talking at the table.
"So who's your new friend," Katy asked very pointedly with an angry glare in Paul's direction as she crossed her arms and stayed across the table from him.
"Well she…she's our," Paul stammered out with a nervous and scared expression on his face as he tried to find the right words before the waitress spoke up.
"I'm their waitress and we started talking and…where did you get that necklace," The waitress started to interrupt with a somewhat combative tone to her voice before she squinted as she leaned forward a bit and stared at the necklace around Katy's neck.
"None of your business," Katy snapped back with a defensive scowl on her face as she covered up the necklace with one hand while keeping the other one where it was.
"It looks just like one that I gave to my cousin ten years ago when I was visiting her in Russia, it was in two pieces and shaped like," The waitress started to explain with a nervous look on her face before Katy stepped in.
"The north star," Katy stammered out with a confused look of disbelief on her face as she took her hand away from the necklace and looked down at it, which was indeed half of a star.
"Exactly, I gave her the bigger half of it because she whined all weekend and," The waitress started to say with a slightly nervous smile on her face as she pulled a necklace out of one of her pockets and let the charm dangle freely.
"I did not whine, you tried to take the bigger half and get me in trouble with your mother," Katy started to snap back, but more in a sibling rivalry tone of voice than actual anger before she couldn't help but laugh.
"No I didn't, you're the one that tried to jump off of the roof into the snow bank, I just told my mother what you were doing and she decided to stop you, I had nothing to do with that, besides why would I care if my cousin was stupid enough to jump off of a roof into a snow bank," The waitress said back with a daring smile on her face as she slid off of the front of her chair and stood up, with Paul noticing that the waitress was just a bit taller than Katy, which was no small task as Katy came in at just about six foot tall.
"You haven't changed a bit have you Gina, still always having to be right," Katy shot back with a slightly more combative tone of voice, though both Maria and Paul could see the beginnings of a smile peeking through, before she and Gina started to laugh like fools for a few seconds and then hugged each other tightly.
"Okay…this is…unexpected," Paul stammered out with a confused look on his face as he looked back and forth between Katy and Gina and Maria.
"Who knew," Maria softly whispered back with an astonished and surprised look on her face as she looked first over at Paul and then on to Katy and Gina.
"Hey guys I want you to meet someone, this is my cousin Gina, Gina this is Maria and Paul, Diane and Shandra were in here earlier but they seem to have vanished," Katy exclaimed with an excited smile on her face as she broke the hug and introduced Maria and Paul to Gina.
"They uh…decided to pass the time in a more productive way, they're out in the bus," Paul replied with a sheepish smirk on his face before he couldn't help but blush and look down at his glass of water.
"Say no more Paul, I can introduce them later anyway, now first…," Katy started to say with a cheesy smile on her face before she rebounded and started off into one story after another about the old days with her cousin.
END OF CHAPTER 6