Jack looked at the clerk with his mouth agape. "That's three times my rent!"
"It's the cheapest we've got in."
He was in a showroom, long and low and dim, with windows for walls and a polished floor. It smelled of leather, and glossy metal. The floor was full of motorcycles of all shapes and sizes, from decaying scooters to shiny superbikes, but even the cheapest was beyond his reach.
"But it's second-hand," said Jack, his stomach meeting his feet for drinks. "You don't have anything cheaper?" The processed music playing over the speakers was ticking against his patience.
The salesman made a face which may have been a smile, but it was too greasy to tell. He was a portly man, stooped and servile, with wispy brown hair and teeth glowing brighter than the sun. He wore a suit he'd probably owned for his entire life.
"Well," he said, rubbing his hands together with a shark's grin, "we do have some other merchandise in the back, if you don't mind something more unorthodox, that is."
Jack quirked an eyebrow. "Unorthodox how?"
The salesman chuckled. "It's best if I show you." He gestured to the back wall, the only one not transparent, and made a beeline for the door at its left edge. Jack followed, stepping through into an office.
"Wait here," said the salesman, disappearing through metal double doors in the right wall. The office was small, with a cluttered desk on the back wall, and pictures of bikes plastered everywhere. It smelled strangely of straw and animals, as though someone had developed an air freshener called 'Eau de Stable'.
With the screech of metal on wood, the doors sagged open, and the salesman returned with a creature alongside him. It was a blue, anthropomorphic hedgehog, bouncing on its feet with a frenzied expression.
"The first product, bred on the Seelie star ship Exitprise," said the salesman, his grin threatening to eclipse his ears. Ever since the delegation had thrown their failed experiments at him, he had cursed the Fae back to their home planet. How was he supposed to sell beasts of burden, made for planetary exploration, when their creators had decided they weren't good enough? Even the average idiot wasn't that stupid.
But now his luck had turned.
Now he was faced by a desperate idiot.
Jack gave him a dead stare. "Oi, I thought this was a bike dealership, not a rescue home for abused video game animals."
"I did tell you it was unorthodox..."
Jack narrowed his eyes at the hedgehog. It was half his size at best, and couldn't seem to stop moving. "How am I supposed to ride that thing?"
The salesman's eyes lit up. Now was his chance. "Observe, my friend." He jumped onto the hedgehog's back, and they blinked out of existence.
Jack's head snapped around cyclically, his expression loose. After a second, they returned, the salesman staggering off the creature's back.
"Bought a Cornetto," he said, brandishing half of a cracked cone in his hand. He stumbled to the desk, picking up a handkerchief and wiping the creamy white from his face.
"Are you for real? I'll die if I get on that thing," said Jack.
The hedgehog looked at its feet with quivering eyes. Sighing, the salesman led it back into the other room, returning with a sleek brown mare.
Jack furrowed his brow. "That looks more like a regular horse than some Fae bullshit."
"For now. Please, observe." He led the horse forward, and it suddenly disappeared.
After a quick gymnastic display from his brain, Jack said, "oi, what use is an invisible horse? How am I supposed to find it?"
The salesman felt his heart rise. Time for the final hook. "That's not entirely accurate, it's a safety feature. The horse will always find its way to the nearest roof."
Jack glared at the salesman, the acid in his stomach bubbling. "I'm pretty sure a certain Wizarder would need that one more. Next."
The salesman grit his teeth as he moved to fetch the final product. It was make or break time, and he needed rid of at least one of those foul creatures.
He returned with his last hope: a giant turtle, slightly wider than a Land Rover, with a chimney on its head and a disc on its back. On closer inspection, the disc was held in place by four elephant dolls.
Jack screwed his eyes shut, and inhaled through his teeth. "What the hell is wrong with this place? You don't need to flagrantly advertise that the author never had an original idea in his life, it's already obvious! And why is it a turtrain?"
The salesman looked around shiftily. "Ah, well, you see..."
Jack stared at him. "Out with it, Sammy Snake Oil."
He scratched his head, grimacing. "Okay, well, we actually had another product, and, well, he tried starting a fight with the turtle. The chimney's all that's left." That was it, it was over. He couldn't even pay the customer to take them.
Jack stared into the turtle's eyes, mesmerised by the age they seemed to hold. He crouched down, considering the chimney being worn as a trophy, but from the salesman's words, that had been self-defence.
It clearly wasn't a bad turtle.
As they regarded each other, something unspoken seemed to pass between them, as though they understood through gaze alone. The turtle's stare told him of his future, riding the wind upon his best friend, his spiritual guardian.
"I shall name you..." He reached out and patted the turtle's head. "Choo-chooin!"
The turtle seemed to nod, fixing Jack with eyes full of wisdom.
Then it clamped its jaw around his wrist.
***
Jess and Lydia were sitting on a wooden bench in a park. Dusk was falling, tinting the grass orange, a light breeze caressing their skin. They could hear the cries of children by the swings, and smell the pungent herbs of the teenagers in the bushes.
"When I die," said Jess, her head resting on Lydia's shoulder, "how would you like to be haunted?"
"I'd prefer a poltergeist with a penchant for pouring wine." Lydia had her arm around her sister's shoulder.
Looking up at Lydia, Jess pouted. "Aren't you supposed to tell me not to think like that?"
She gasped, her nostrils flaring. "Oh, so now I have to tell you how to think? What do you think I am, the BBBC?"
Jess sputtered. "It seems more like you're trying to be a politician!"
Lydia smirked. "Your straight manning needs some work."
"There's only so much I can do with inferior material."
She squeezed her shoulder, smiling. "Keep that up, and it won't be the illness that gets you."
The air settled to comfortable silence, their hearts beating in synchronicity. As orange faded to black, and the streetlamps flickered on, Lydia sighed.
"We should probably go soon," she said.
Jess scowled. "Do we have to?"
"Unfortunately." Lydia rubbed her forehead. "I'm already in enough trouble, you want her to banish me to the desert, like dad?"
She pulled herself from Lydia, rising with a pout. "You know mum doesn't own us, right?"
Lydia huffed, her nose twitching as she made to leave. "Tell that to the elders."
The moment her back was turned, muffled shouts and scuffling pressed onto her hearing. She whipped around, seeing five men in black tracksuits fanned out before her. The middle one, tall and stocky with a gnarled face, had Jess in his grip.
She was the colour of chalk, her eyes bulging as she struggled and squirmed.
The guy to Gnarly's right nodded at her, his afro rustling. "Tell your old lady that the New Bloods send their regards."
Her heart gripped her uvula. The who? "What's with the cliché? You can tell her yourself, after I take you back in a bucket." She looked across their line. It took inhuman stealth to be able to fool her senses. So, what were they?
Afro gulped. "You can see that there's five of us, right?"
She absorbed the surrounding quintessence, extending her senses to find the right energy.
And with a crack, the man on Afro's right was launched out of sight quicker than they could blink.
"You were saying?"
The two on the left closed in, both short but still towering over her. One had skin like leather, the other a face full of piercings. They were quick, and quiet, but they had given her time to work. She raised a hand, palm-up.
In it formed a pulsing orange ball, flaming tendrils licking at her, but not burning. The thugs all blanched, shielding their faces. With a thought, she directed a tendril at Leatherface. It shot through his chest, a hole burning through his middle as he gasped and crumpled.
The other guy swung a hand at her, his nails almost sharpened to a point. She sneered, ignoring the sweat pouring down her back. Magic wasn't a tool to break the laws of physics, but one to bend them, so even the simplest working needed energy.
Even if it was taken from outside, the human body could only stand so much.
Disregarding her screaming nerves, she smiled, and thrust her hand at his chest. The sun sank into him. He gave a whimper, before exploding into flames and falling to ash. She looked for Leatherface's body; it was also incinerated.
She turned back to the others with a sick grin. A Fusion Ball could burn anyone to death, but that level of incineration wasn't normal. And they had shied away. "You're vampires, right?"
Afro stepped back, dragging Gnarly with him. His jaw was clenched. "No-one else has to get hurt, now. Including your little sister, here."
Jess's mouth was covered, and she was still and tense. Her eyes were wide, begging Lydia as they bore into her own.
She simmered, heat spreading from her chest to her limbs. "Sorry, but no. You want to live like it's law of the jungle, then that's fine." She thrust her hand to the sky, gathering all the hydrogen and helium she could. "You just can't complain when someone stronger stomps on you.
"You lost your right to talk about not getting hurt when you laid your hands on my sister." Even protected from her own magic, she could feel it. The bench combusted, the grass around them singed and black.
The vampires' skin began searing and peeling back, Afro letting loose a scream as he fell to his knees. The light grew, enough to mistake it for daytime, and Afro convulsed as his muscles exposed themselves.
Gnarly was grunting, and struggling to keep his feet, but kept Jess in his grip. She twisted, and battled, driving her elbow into his gut and leaping free.
"Lydia!"
Lydia stepped forward, and noted Gnarly's expression in her periphery. His eyes were steel. She didn't have a chance to react before his skin glowed, twinkling like stars, and erupted with light.
It was brighter than her sun, and pierced through her eyes.
All she could see was white.
The stake driving through her skull made her lose focus, and she cried out. Stumbling and flailing, she tried to tune herself back to her spell. The acidic taste of panic rose in her throat. "Jess!"
Her vision began to clear, and her head whipped back and forth. The grass around her for a hundred feet was gone, the bench reduced to a pile of ashes.
There were no vampires.
And there was no Jess.
She screamed, falling to her knees. She had had them. Right where she wanted them, but she had been beaten by her own ignorance.
Who the hell were the New Bloods?