Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to The Reformed Vampire Support Group, Catherine Jinks does. I do own the rights to Raquel, however
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"You're becoming a vampire." I felt a shiver run up and down my spine, and apparently so did my comfort, seeing as he continued to smooth down the after math.
"A vampire?" I repeated, my brows knit together.
"It's understandable if you don't believe me," the priest stated, "but the proof is all around you." I wondered what he meant, my confusion increasing. But then something clicked. I gazed at the sickly people before me, my eyes wandering from one person to the next until I had made a complete circle. They couldn't all be…!
"Y-You're saying that everyone here is a… a vampire?" I asked. I must have been shaking, because the hand on my back pressed down a little harder to try and sooth them away. I'm sure if it weren't for it's very lulling touch I would be much more hysterical.
"Not everyone. Father Ramon is a human," the girl beside me said with a sympathetic smile.
"But the majority of you are?" I asked, the hand on my back pressing a bit harder.
"Do you not believe us?" the priest replied. I paused before answering. Was I disbelieving, or was I just in shock? These people were not what I imagined when I thought 'Vampire'. This is what I imagined when I thought 'Plague' or 'Alcoholics Anonymous'. But they looked like I felt, and they looked dead honest… or just dead.
"I… I don't know if I believe you or not…" I admitted.
"We have bigger things to worry about than a vampire who can't make up her mind," one of the members said, sounding impatient. "There is someone out there fanging innocent people and turning them into vampires."
"Horus is right, as important as helping Raquel adjust is, we can't ignore the fact that other humans are in danger," the young man beside me agreed, though still making it sound like the other man was wrong for ignoring me.
"I'm not saying we don't include her, Dave. We need her to tell us what happened so we can figure out who bit her!" the other male said, crossing his arms.
"Yeah, cause she's totally not going to go through PTSD after this," the girl said beside me with thick sarcasm. "Give her time to mourn the loss of her mortality!"
"Christ, Nina! You're acting like she was raped!"
"You don't know that she wasn't. You can't assume she wasn't." I sort of tuned out the rest of the argument, trying to remember what happened earlier that night. It seemed so long ago for some reason. I didn't come out of my thoughts until I realized that the group had gone silent. I opened my eyes to find that everyone was looking at me.
"What?" I asked, wondering what I missed.
"Do you remember what happened?" the priest asked. Something about his exhausted tone triggered my memory.
"Yeah. I was walking home from college, I bumped into someone, I apologized, and the next thing I know the guy has his mouth attached to my neck. He didn't let go 'til I kicked him where it hurt. Then he ran off and I went to go report it to the police," I reported, rubbing my neck at the memory.
"Did you see what he looked like?" another man asked, I recognized his voice as the man the girl was speaking to.
"Vaguely, but it all happened so fast, I don't think what I saw would be much help," I replied, my shakes finally subsiding. Though I mourned the loss of the comforting hand on my back. Before they could ask me another question, I asked one of my own. "Can I know your names? That way I can address you properly instead of calling y'all 'sir' or 'miss'." Everyone seemed startled by my request, as if I had asked something ridiculous.
"Right… pretty rude of us to ask you so much and not tell you our names," the priest said, rubbing the back of his neck.
"Do we have to do the 'my name is such-and-such and I'm proud to be a vampire' bullshit?" the man I was starting to have a strong dislike for asked.
"No, but I'd like your ages if that's not too much trouble," I said before the priest could reply. Everyone seemed to deflate a bit in relief.
"Alright, I'll start," the priest stated, sitting up a bit straighter. "My name is Father Ramon and I am 62." The girl beside me picked up from there.
"I'm Nina Harrison and I'm 51 years old." I was a bit startled by her age, but I figured it was going to get a lot worse.
"I'm Sanford Plackett, I'm 140 years old." I nearly fell out of my chair.
"My name is Gladys Blakers and I am 126 years young." I couldn't help but chuckle a bit.
"I'm George Mumford, I'm 118."
"You may call me Bridgette Doherty, I am exactly 182 years old." I wanted to call her granny.
"I'm Horus Whittaker, and I don't see how my age is your business." "Just tell her!" Nina snapped. "Fine, I'm 122." The circle ended with the young man sitting next to me.
"I'm Dave Gerace and I'm 55 years old," He said with a half smile. It took me a moment to grasp that these people weren't telling me there physical ages, they were telling me their chronological ages, how long they had been alive.
"And what about you? How about you tell us your name and age?" Father Ramon said with a gentle smile. I took a breath before replying.
"My name is Rachelle Stein, but I prefer Raquel and I'm 18 years old," I introduced myself, giving a half smile.
"Do you believe us now?" Nina asked, looking at me. I wasn't sure how I was going to answer. But before I could, Horus decided to redirect the group's attention.
"Whether or not she believes us isn't important right now. There is a rogue vampire out there fanging people. Who knows who else is out there in Raquel's situation." Even if I didn't believe in vampires at the time, though I was starting to, I did agree that whoever bit me needed to be taken care of. I pulled out my phone and pulled up a map of the area. I got to my stomping grounds and showed it to Dave.
"This is where you found me, if he's on foot, he couldn't have gone far," I said to him. Nina was already looking at the image on the phone.
"Can you make it bigger?" Dave asked. I quickly zoomed out to show the streets and surrounding buildings. I heard Nina say something about technology being so advanced now a day when Dave gently slipped the phone out of my hand. He went over to the priest and showed him the phone, probably telling him what I had explained. Soon, everyone had seen the map on my phone and had a general guess of where he could have gone.
"I think we should split up into pairs of two, everyone with a sponsor. We can cover more ground in with four groups and it won't seem to suspicious that way," Nina proposed.
"Sponsor?" I had to ask, very confused.
"Dave'll explain it to you, I don't think he wants you to wander too far with his jacket," the teen said to me. I felt a bit badly and offered Dave his jacket back, but he just shook his head and smiled at me.
"Alright, we'll split off like we always do with the addition of Raquel; Gladys with Bridgette, Sanford with Horus, George with Nina, and Dave with Raquel," Father Ramon said, each pair nodding in understanding.
"What about you, Father?" Nina asked.
"I'll contact the police, see if anyone has reported a mad man tonight," the priest said with a smile. With that, we split up, walking down the path towards where I had been found. As people started fanning out and searching, I revisited my earlier question.
"So, what's this about a sponsor?" I asked as we continued to look around.
"We often split off into pairs of two, each having a sponsor. It's the sponsor's job to make sure that their watch doesn't go fanging someone or get blooded alone," Dave explained.
"Fanging? Blooded?" I wasn't familiar with these terms.
"Sorry, keep forgetting you're new at this. Fanging is when you bite someone and turn them. Blooded is the first experience of human blood after you were bit. You can either resist the urge or you can give into it. If you give in, you can never be by yourself because you will never be able to resist at the sight of blood. If you resist, then you can feel the urge, but you won't loose control." As he broke down the terms for me, I found myself believing more and more of my situation.
"What about me? I've never experienced it before?" I asked, looking around for any sudden movement.
"To be honest, your situation is scarier than dealing with someone who hasn't been blooded. What happens to you rests almost completely on the sponsor's reaction time. If you were to be blooded right now, I would have to be able to hold you back from doing something you'll regret." We were quiet for a moment, keeping our eyes open for anything.
"This is real… isn't it?" I asked, more to myself than Dave.
"I'm afraid so. I'm really sorry you got dragged down into this way of life," I heard him say, his voice filled with empathy. If it weren't for our current situation, I would have asked for a hug, 'cause I sure as hell needed one about then.