What the eyes can’t see
I didn’t pass out this time. Things had just gone dark. Bully for me. I felt my eyes blinking, but I couldn’t see anything. I only heard a muffled scream, smelled something burning, and the scuffling of shoes. Beneath, I felt a body, presumably Lucy’s, struggling against me. Just as I was rolling off of her, hands grabbed me firmly and I was clutched to a very warm, firm chest.
A collective gasp and a whimpering.
“Is everyone ok?” I called out, loudly, over compensating for my impairment.
No one spoke and there was silence for a breath as a thumb and forefinger cupped my chin and gently pulled my head back. My eyes followed the movement although they still saw nothing. I was blinking a lot, my eyes watering. Instead of fighting the position my head had been moved to, I relaxed into it. I felt strangely comforted where I was, on the floor, in this warm embrace. It must have been Nick and I put my hand out to pat his chest in thanks.
Part of my hand slide into a strange depression that was slick with something. My hand didn’t recoil from it, moved up along a throat, thumb reaching up until, Ouch! Something pricked it.
I brought my hand back, was about to put my pricked thumb into my mouth when a vice-like grip grabbed my arm. At the same time, a low, menacing ringing began in my ears.
“Don’t,” I heard Lucy say. Her voice sounded strained and she was panting.
“What’s going on?” I asked, confused. “Someone tell me.”
Then the fog over my eyes started to lift and I was staring up into Jesper’s worried face. His fangs were still exposed; it was what I had pricked my thumb on. At first, it made sense to me that Lucy warn me from putting my pricked thumb in my mouth. Many vampires excrete anti-coagulant and paralyzing agents in their saliva, sometimes in massive doses. But as I took in more of my immediate surroundings, I realized she hadn’t been talking to me.
With his fangs extended (I’m not sure how fully), pushing just over his bottom lip, holding onto me after just pricking my thumb, Lucy had moved over to us, grabbed my hand, and had the kukri in hand, ready to deliver a killing blow to Jesper’s neck.
He ignored her completely, continuing to look at me until my vision cleared and I held his gaze. His eyes were normal again. Hazel, definitely. With green flecks.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
I nodded. Why was he so warm? Those narrow fangs, I’d seen them on two separate occasions with two different lengths. How long were they? They were almost pearlescent in color. Were they hollow? I went to move my hand and realized someone still held me by the wrist.
I turned to look at Lucy. The outer edges of her body and some of her hair were badly scorched. She was shaking from the effort of maintaining her defenses.
“Oh my god, what happened?” I slipped out of Jesper’s hold and gently cradled Lucy’s face. She struggled against me at first. “Oh for heaven’s sake, Jesper won’t hurt me. And he was trying not to hurt you!” I looked back at the kukri nearly against Jesper’s completely immobile body. He didn’t want to provoke her any more now that I was out of his hands.
I slapped her arm away. “Bad girl!”
“Tante!” she complained, lowering the curved blade before letting it clatter to the floor. Her skin had crisped all along the outer edge of her arms, her hair was smoking. Whatever had hit her had only hit an outline of her. She was trying to heal, her skin smoking now, but the effort was turning her skin ashen.
I looked around for Morena to help to find her aiming her Glock just above Lucy’s head, two steps away. I let a breath out in exasperation.
“When are you going to learn, Morena, guns don’t kill vampires.”
She lowered her gun and shrugged.
Turning back to Lucy, “Do you still carry?”
She was trying very hard not to scratch but was rubbing at her burned ears. Her lovely long hair would have to be cut. “Yes, in my backpack. I think it fell over there.” She waved toward the bookcase. She cast a wary eye to Jesper who hadn’t stirred.
“I’ll get it,” Morena said. She turned toward the bookcase. “Shit.”
“What?”
She hurried over to the bookcase and pulled Nick ‘s torso out of the chaos of books and papers by his shoulders. We had all forgotten about him. My breath stuck in my throat until I saw him come around.
“Nick?” I queried. Morena put a hand to his head, with a certain amount of care. There was a story there that I apparently hadn’t heard. Or maybe the same haplessness that endeared him to me was working on her.
He blinked a few times and then spoke. “Huh.” Then he pulled his arm out of the debris and with it, Lucy’s backpack.
Morena couldn’t help a genuinely tickled smile from covering her face, as she gave his hair a tousle. Hapless, maybe to some eyes. But one thing was certain, things only went so wrong for Nick Fujiyami.
“Hey, watch the ‘do! Takes me hours to attain that perfect mix of Pattinson-McAvoy bed hair.”
Morena helped Nick out of the heap while I also stood, carefully standing in between Jesper and Lucy. Jesper mimicked my action and stood as well while Lucy just watched us.
After settling Nick on the settee, Morena brought me the backpack, casting a spurious eye at Lucy who’d become perfectly still. She was starting to go into a healing shock, her body shutting down in order to regenerate. I quickly searched the bag and found one of the foil liquid pouches. Dropping the bag, I snapped the straw off and stabbed it into the foil bag.
Lucy greedily grabbed for the pouch and I felt Jesper take a step forward behind me. He could smell it too. Lucy began sucking at the straw like a thirsty kid at recess, the dark red liquid pulsing through the straw into her mouth. Her fangs slipped out from under her tightened lips, a reflex to the liquid coursing into her.
“What is it?” Jesper asked from behind me, a hint of revulsion in his voice.
“Dude, Capri Sun for Vamps!” Nick filled in.
I smiled. “Exactly.” I think these guys were getting the hang of this.
Vampirony 
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