Chapter Three: Stefanie Salvatore

Present day

Atlanta, GA

There were going to be a few surprises when Stef reached her loft apartment in midtown Atlanta with Phoenix and Gabe in tow. Perhaps she would be better off not considering them as surprises, but merely additions to the many clashes she had with Gabe. It's not like it was his apartment she was leasing exactly-it was one of multiple properties owned by the Vampire Council that Gabe managed-but, being a friend of the family, he likely put a little too much trust in her maintenance skills. Or cleaning skills... or tidying skills... in fact, housekeeping of any kind. An unfortunate side effect of compelling witches was that it reduced her own witch powers while they were under her influence. So, with Raid and Adam compelled, she had to be very selective on how she used her remaining powers. Creating daylight rings for the Council? That was essential. Doing housework using magic? That was unfortunately not.

Luckily, she did have a secret trick for getting it done. At least, it was a secret she kept from Gabe.

As they rounded the concrete stairwell on the last flight of stairs to her apartment, Stef stopped, crouched down and nudged at a figure wrapped in a sleeping blanket on the floor, dropping a grocery bag alongside them.

"Bertha, what are you doing out here?" Stef asked.

A gaunt woman who looked twice Stef's age shuffled her arms from the sleeping bag, pushed a sleep mask from her face and held it out to her. "I borrowed this," she croaked groggily, rolling her tongue along the roof of her dry mouth.

"Fine, but why are you out here?" Stef repeated, ignoring the offering. "I said you can use the couch."

"Too noisy," Bertha explained, slipping the sleep mask back on so it rested against her forehead, the band separating her messy bleached curls from her long dark roots. She rolled onto her side as she spotted the familiar grocery bag that Stef regularly picked up for her. She took out the juice, uncapping it. "I need my own space, don't I?"

Stef raised her eyebrows. "The stairwell?"

"It's my own space, isn't it?"

Realising that Bertha was about to start getting defensive, Stef sighed in defeat and reached into her faux-leather satchel. As Bertha gulped back the orange juice, Stef placed a portable charger in front of her and stood up. "It's fully charged. Watching Dark Dead Academy again tonight, I take it?"

Bertha grinned. "I'm still trying to figure out which of the Vaziri cousins you were into."

Stef narrowed her eyes, acutely aware that both Gabe's and Phoenix's were now widening. "The answer," she gritted tensely, "would be neither."

"Aw, come on," Bertha teased. "Growing up with two handsome young men like that? Raid so brash and rugged. Adam so groomed and mysterious-"

"Would you like me to change the Wi-Fi password?"

Bertha chuckled and took another sip of the orange juice, letting her eyes drift over Phoenix and Gabe. They lingered on Gabe, eyebrows raising in fascination. His no-nonsense business attire not quite matching his casual, hands-pocketed stance. His thick dark hair was locked into a primped preppy style, while his light stubble darkened his already-dark complexion. As the juice left her lips, Bertha ventured an observation, jutting the carton in Gabe's direction. "Speaking of 'groomed and mysterious'... dating this one, are you?"

"Absolutely not!" Stef scoffed.

"I'm old enough to be her father," Gabe declared.

Bertha's eyes remained on Gabe, her smile turning flirtatious. "Not old enough to be mine, but I could sure use a daddy."

Stef grabbed the two perturbed men by the arms and spun them around. "Ok-ay, time to go," she announced, pulling them towards her apartment.

Gabe's mouth hung open, waiting for the picker wheel in his head to finally select one of the many questions he had, when he was startled from his thoughts by Bertha's parting call:

"There's four of them in there, waiting for ya."

Stef only caught a brief flash of Gabe frozen in alarm before he disappeared towards Stef's door, ear pressed to the panel, listening intently. When he stepped back, Stef leaned forward and did the same. The sound of screaming and fighting came clearly from within. A body slammed to the floor, closely followed by another. She closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the door, overcome with dread.

Gabe tugged on her arm. "We need to leave."

"No," she sighed heavily. "No, we don't."

"The Coven?" he asked.

"Worse." Stef lifted her head, only for her entire body to instantly slouch at the anticipated exhaustion ahead. "Human teenagers."

Stef opened the door to a narrow hallway filled with books, some trailing neatly along like road markings, others forming a small obstacle course underfoot. Gabe and Phoenix couldn't help but become distracted as though they had just wandered into a flea market. Stef stepped ahead, eager to reach the source of the noise, but still needing to keep the guys on route.

Gabe noticed a pile of yellowed, second-hand classics, picking up one from the top. "Lady Chatterley's Lover?"

Stef glanced back at him. "It was in the curriculum."

Phoenix continued down the hallway, picking up another title. "Fifty Shades of Grey?"

"That was... extracurricular." Stef smirked over her shoulder playfully.

Phoenix mocked, "I didn't realise Oxford had a Beta Sucka Alpha society."

Stef scorned, "Don't be crude," then held her head up with dignity. "It was Alpha Eta Vulva actually."

A loud Bang! emanated from the living area, followed by a scream, causing the three of them to run swiftly into the mayhem. A teenage boy was rolling around on the floor, clutching his groin in apparent agony, while the only other boy in the room seemed to be doing a victory dance wearing loose sweatpants that bulged excessively at the crotch and continued bulging down half his pant leg. The two girls in the room were smirking behind their hands, more at the fallen boy's pain than the victorious one's comically-sized genitals.

"I'm not done, I'm not done!" Fallen Boy insisted, despite the tears in his eyes. "I still have one ball left!"

"Well, I still have two balls and an enormous cock!" Victory Boy bellowed down at him, attempting to lower his voice into a growl but only succeeding in sounding like he was a wheezing old man with a lung condition.

While Gabe was shocked into silence and Phoenix displayed a look of intrigue that suggested he might want to join in, Stef looked like she had put up with this shit for the third time this week.

"What the hell is this, Flick?" Stef whined in exasperation at the tall blonde girl in the room.

Flick spoke back as though she was the proud official organiser of the event. "Well, see, they tie two round balloons and one long balloon together, shove them in their pants, and then they kind of, like, try to hit, kick or wrestle each other until the other's balloons all burst. It doesn't really have a name, but since it's immature and immoral with this envious focus on genital size, the boys like to call it 'American Politics'."

Victory Boy bent down, offering a hand to pull Fallen Boy back onto his feet. However, the moment Fallen Boy stood up straight, Victory Boy-still crouched-took one look at Fallen Boy's now eye-level crotch and decided he couldn't resist charging head-first into it, causing them to both tumble back down to the ground. Fallen Boy's final balloon burst and his scream followed.

Victory Boy slid from Fallen Boy straight onto his back on the floor, shooting two clenched fists into the air. "Uh-murican Pol-o-tics!"

A small and sprightly red-headed girl, who looked like she was a year or two younger than the rest, stood up from the couch and skipped to a standstill over Victory Boy. Her fingers were pinched together in her right hand. "Okay, so, Todd, don't panic or anything, but Stefanie is here now and you currently have balls the size of grapefruits, and that isn't nice to look at or anything, so anyway, I kind of found this pin-"

Victory Boy, aka Todd, reacted in terror, his heels slipping across the floor as he tried to stand to make his escape. "Millie, no!" He made a grab for his inflated genitals as she stalked him around the room resembling a Chucky doll wielding the world's tiniest weapon. Finally, cornered against a window, he managed to free the gigantic imitation of the male organ from his pants, swung it erect so it was out of Millie's reach, then shoved it out the window. Luckily it was a windy day, so the big blue phallus of every woman's dreams got to do a floating tour towards downtown Atlanta.

It was safe to assume, given the looks on Gabe's and Phoenix's faces, that despite being extremely fast vampires, they had never experienced so much happen so quickly.

"So," Stef began, "are you all caught up or do you need introductions?"

Phoenix pointed towards Fallen Boy, who had made his way to the couch. "I still don't know that one."

"That's Rio," Stef clarified, flicking her fingers in a cute wave at the Puerto Rican teenager like she was already close to losing her mind. He returned the wave, but not without a confused expression.

Gabe raised his eyebrows. "I think the question is, what are they doing here?"

Stef clasped her hands together; a story about to erupt. "Oh, you see, while I was in England, Felicity, or 'Flick' as she prefers to be called, just sort of broke in and has been living here ever since. The rest are her friends."

"Where's her parents?"

"Probably on drugs. She's a runaway, it's not a good story," Stef explained. "But she's seventeen, almost an adult, and she keeps the place clean-"

"This is clean?" Gabe questioned sceptically, gesturing around the room. Aside from the burst balloon remnants, there were couch cushions on the floor, scattered pencils and papers that denoted a great deal of Pictionary, and Halloween costumes abandoned to the floor and the backs of chairs which were inexplicable for July.

"I said 'clean' not 'tidy'," Stef specified.

"Miss Stefanie?" Millie interrupted, suddenly appearing in her personal space. "Are you going to turn these men into vampires?"

Gabe grabbed Stef's arm, the frustration in him at boiling point. "You told her about vampires?!"

Why can't she get one question at a time? Stef turned to Gabe first. "Yes, because I'm a risk to these kids, and if anything threatens them because of me, I want them to be able to point those threats immediately in my direction. I will not have their memories wiped so they can be held hostage over me." Then she turned to Millie. "No, Millie, I won't be turning these men into vampires because others, who ended up cursing my life with them, already did so."

"Will you turn me into a vampire?" Millie asked hopefully, with a psychotic glimmer in her eye.

"No, I won't, Millie."

"Why not?"

"Because you're fifteen... and you'd definitely kill everyone."

"What if I promised to only kill my brother?"

Stef looked towards Todd, who was sharpening a pencil over Rio's head, purposely causing shavings to drop down into his hair. She wondered how long it would be until Rio noticed and they were fighting again. "Tempting, but still not selling it to me."

"You never did pick up your dad's murderous streak, did you Stef?" Phoenix observed.

"No, but you know what I did pick up from him? Hanging around teenagers and a pretty solid drinking habit." She watched Rio throw a punch towards Todd and then rolled her head slackly towards Phoenix. "Tell me there isn't a correlation."

Gabe threw his hands up in the air. "We don't have time for this. Stefanie, talk to Felicity. I'm going to pack some of your things." Gabe marched into her bedroom.

"Everything I need is in the nightstand!" she called after him.

Gabe believed her. Moments later the drawer was being slammed shut and he was screaming, "Stefanie, what the hell did I just see?!"

Stef smirked in satisfied amusement. "You can either have the freedom to go through my belongings, or the ability to look my dad in the eye, Gabe, you can't have both."

Gabe strode out of her bedroom, now having also lost the ability to look Stef in the eye. "Take over, Phoenix. I'm waiting outside."

As Phoenix did as instructed, Flick looked between Stef and the bedroom in confusion. "Stef, what's going on?"

Stef took Flick by the shoulders. "Flick, I'm going to be away for a while. I'm going to leave you some cash and the address of where I'll be staying, and-for crying out loud, Phoenix, put it down!" The buzzing coming from the bedroom stopped and Stef resumed her focus back on Flick. "If anyone comes here looking for me, you give them that address, okay? You don't know me. You have nothing to do with me. All you have is that address, okay? I don't care how dangerous they look, you send them my way. I'll be back as soon as I can. In the meantime, I'll get Zara to check in on you. She's twenty, Iraqi, has amber-blue eyes and wears a hijab. If she calls on you, I'll tell her to refer to me as 'Fanny'. If she can't say that with a straight face, then you'll know it's her."

Stef waited for a reaction from Flick. It wasn't like she hadn't been alone in the apartment before, but this time there were dangers involved. Stef was trying to do everything she could to mitigate that, but she didn't want her to be alone and scared.

"So, what you're saying is, I get the place to myself?"

Instant relief. "You get the place to yourself," Stef confirmed.

Phoenix strolled out of the bedroom carrying an overstuffed duffel bag. "I think I've got everything you need. I threw in a few bits from your nightstand, just in case."

"Great!" Stef turned and headed towards the door, Phoenix following closely behind.

"Where are we heading now anyway?"

"The shopping mall."