For the Hopeless

Isn't it ironic when a mortician dies? They've spent their lives embalming bodies, planning and leading funerals, comforting those who have lost loved ones, but in the end, someone else has to do that same thing for them and their family. It's almost as if they'd wasted their whole lives dealing with death only to do it all over again.

These were Bailey's thoughts as she gazed down at the pale, formally dressed corpse of her mortician friend, Claire. The woman had been just a week away from her thirtieth birthday, yet here she was, in an ornate little box with her prettiest black dress on. The humans had gotten to her, of course. It was a surprise she'd even gotten a funeral. Then again, the human side of her family had quite a bit of money, so it wasn't hard for them to pay off a few officials and get their sweet little halfbreed a proper burial.

Well, whoever did her did a damn good job, Bailey couldn't help noticing, referring to the mortician who had taken care of the woman's body. The half of her face that had been blown off was perfectly intact now. It was even the same color as the rest of her face, and the make-up was perfect. I'll have to find out who it was sometime.

She sighed, wishing she could lay a hand upon the woman's cheek without upsetting her mother or looking too creepy. You did well, Claire. But you should've let me help you. Perhaps you would've made it to thirty. She stared at the corpse for a moment longer, taking a last look at beautiful blonde tresses and plump red lips, before turning to leave. Lingering for too long would be dangerous, as the authorities would surely make an appearance to attempt to weed out other Novies. No amount of money in the world would make them stay away from a place in which threats to their pitiful race could be gathered.

As she walked toward the exit, she glanced around at the various groups of people that had congregated in different parts of the room. Some of them were very clearly nonhumans, sporting eyes of a deep, almost empty black and poorly hidden fangs, and the woman wondered what had possessed them to leave their homes. They would be very, very lucky if they made it back tonight. But it wasn't her concern. She was a Guardian, yes, one of the greatest this town had even, but she refused to waste her time on the stupid. It would be their own fault if they were captured or killed. Would it be a shame to lose more of their kind? Of course. But it was all survival of the fittest to Bailey, and the fittest had to have more brains than these people if they wanted to successfully reproduce someday.

Without a word to anyone, she rounded a corner and started down the hallway toward the exit. It was dark here, and the rest of the funeral home wasn't much better. She didn't mind it, as the lack of light actually flattered her more, giving less of a glow to the sickly pallor of her skin. Yet a group of human women still gave her a dirty look as she passed, apparently disliking her hollow cheeks and too-loose clothing. The black top and jeans should've been tight-fitting, but the gradual loss of weight she'd been experiencing for the past couple of weeks had left her far too thin to properly fill her own clothing. She looked like a corpse, a walking skeleton, half dead and terribly grotesque. Or perhaps the women had just been jealous of her only healthy feature, beautiful auburn hair that fell to her waist in a straight, silky wave, the reddish-brown color complimenting eyes of a dark brown with the subtlest hints of red.

She laughed softly to herself. If only.

She pulled open the building's heavy front door, an extravagantly carved hunk of mahogany featuring detailed baby angels and delicate lilies. It was a beautiful antique, but rather unnecessary in Bailey's opinion. Why would the crying relatives of a dead person want such a heavy obstacle in their path? She was sure this funeral home saw its fair share of wobbly old ladies, too. A door like this could kill them.

The dirty scent of cold and snow were brought to her sensitive nostrils by a strong wind, the kind that only came with a heavy snow storm. The icy flakes were tossed about by the breeze, forced to fall sideways in a way that was already creating deep drifts against the front wall of the funeral home. The stairs were nearly impassable as they were, creating another hazard for the little old ladies and crying relatives. The door would seem like nothing if they made it up these stairs.

Wrapping her arms around her middle and shivering, Bailey started down the snow-covered stairs. The wind whipped her hair about, blocking her vision and creating a slight stinging in her frozen cheeks wherever the strands hit them. She hurried to the sidewalk and almost started to run for her car. She could barely see it from where she was, even though she was only feet from it. The black Corvette was already covered in a fresh layer of snow, meaning she would be out in the cold of this early December evening for a bit longer than she would've liked, shoving snow from the windshield. She found her path suddenly blocked, however, and a powerful longing for a coat overtook her in spite of her hatred for outerwear and its tendency to be highly restrictive. She was going to be out here for a while.

A woman was being slammed against the Corvette's passenger door by a burly police officer, both of them wearing several layers of clothing to protect them from the cold. A young boy no older than six or seven stood nearby, watching with wide, frightened brown eyes. One look at the child told Bailey why this woman was being handcuffed: a pair small brown cat ears. A hat lay on the ground at the boy's feet, clearly his own due to the small size, but the woman still wore hers, and she continued to do so until the officer had her cuffed. He spun her around at that point, slamming her back into the car door before tearing her hat from her head. Amidst frizzy brown hair stood a pair of matching brown cat ears, each tipped with white, just like the boy's.

"Please, let me go," the woman sobbed, tears filling her human-looking brown eyes. There must have been quite a bit of human blood in her family if it was enough to dilute the eye color. Most half cats possessed either the green or gold of their domestic relatives, though some did develop blue eyes. With this color came the deafness that is also common with blue-eyed house cats. That alone was rare, but to have brown eyes... "Please. I have a son to take care of, a family. They need me!"

"Don't worry, miss. They'll be taken care of," the officer said with a cruel smile, and the woman wept harder. He held on to her arm as he stooped to grab her purse, then straightened. It took him only a moment to find what he was looking for. "Mrs. Corritas, is it?" he said, gripping the driver's license tightly to keep the wind from catching hold of it. "Sounds foreign."

By this time, Bailey had had enough of the stupid human. He was too cocky and too cruel, and she really didn't like that. Especially since there was a child involved in his wickedness.

"Sir?" she said as she stepped closer to the man, having to raise her voice to be heard over the wind. "Sir?" He turned to her only when she was standing beside him, even having the audacity to give her an annoyed look.

"What?" he snapped. "I'm a bit busy, if you couldn't tell." Bailey had been completely prepared to handle this in a mature, adult way. She was just going to talk to the man and see if that got them anywhere. But with that tone...She knocked him out with one punch, watching as his body crumpled to the cold, snowy sidewalk below. The ID fell from his fingers, and Bailey hurried to grab it before it could blow away. And while she was down there, she figured she'd might as well grab that handcuff key, too.

The feline woman watched over her shoulder in shocked silence as Bailey unlocked the cuffs, allowing them to fall to the snow next to the officer's motionless body. She continued to stare while Bailey picked up her purse, putting her license back inside so she wouldn't have to hang on to it anymore. When she held the purse out to the woman, all she could do was stare some more, clearly stunned.

"Mama!" came the cry of her child. She was finally snapped out of her trance when the boy's arms wrapped around her, pulling her close to his shivering body. She laid a hand upon his now hat-hidden head and smiled at Bailey. Tears still fell, but they were of joy now, not terror.

"Thank you," she said over the wind, taking her purse in her free hand. "I...I didn't know what to do...and..."

Bailey nodded, offering the woman a small, genuine smile. "Go home," she told the woman. "Stay inside for a while. I'll take care of him. No one will know your name or that you were even approached by the authorities."

The woman's face became puzzled. "How?"

Bailey's smile remained normal, but she had to fight to keep it that way. Her wicked side was kicking in. "Don't worry about it. Just get your child to a safer place." The woman nodded and said nothing more, simply taking her child by the hand and vanishing into the blizzard-like snowfall.

Bailey waited for a moment, scouring the area carefully for any witnesses. She couldn't risk getting caught. After a full minute, she decided that no one else was in the area. She opened the door of her car, picked up the unconscious officer, and tossed him inside. She then rushed around to her own door and got in. Knowing she didn't have much time before the man woke up, she flicked her windshield wipers on to push the snow out of her way and sped off down the street.

-

Ten minutes and a second blow to the police officer's head later, Bailey found herself in the safety of her own home. The house was relatively large, a two-story with a basement and an attic. There were beds set up almost everywhere, as the house was often a safe haven for Novies in hiding. The basement was meant for vampires, the first floor for brief stays, and the second floor for longer stays, which sometimes became permanent residents. The second floor was also meant for the people who actually lived in the house, as well as the attic.

The first was Madeleine, a mere nine-year-old who had been abandoned by her adopted human parents at the start of the war. They'd noticed the signs then, when the news had told them what to look for: very slightly pointed ears, sharper-than-average canine teeth, and occasional disappearances. She was a shapeshifter. Not a very good one, but the signs were still there. She'd disappeared to practice, to try to change into more than just the small, golden-furred dog she was accustomed to. The humans had loved her, but, as she'd only been with them for a couple of months, not enough. They'd cast her out of their home and into the waiting hands of authorities without a second thought. But Bailey had been there. She'd saved the girl, killed the police and the animal control man, and her "parents" were none the wiser, convinced that she was still in the hands of scientists to this very day.

The second was Hayden, a seventeen-year-old high school senior with a knack for troublemaking. She was a self-proclaimed "badass," having gotten into more fights in the past school year than Bailey had throughout her entire high school career. And that was saying something. Bailey'd always been one to fight when she thought it was necessary, whether it be to defend someone or make someone shut up. Hayden, on the other hand, just wanted to fight. It didn't help that she was a witch. She made herself an outcast because of this, refusing to mingle with humans or even her own kind. It was incredibly foolish, and everyone hoped she would grow out of it. The sooner, the better.

The third was Talon, an eighteen-year-old sympath with little control over his powers. Sympaths were beings who felt one main emotion, which they could force upon others by merely making eye contact and putting some effort into it. Talon's central emotion was sadness, a suicidal depression that was too strong to tame. Simply being around people was enough to send them into an endless sorrow, an empty void where there was nothing happy, nothing angry, no will even to live. His sorrowful aura was so powerful because he'd witnessed the brutal slaughter of his entire family, nearly facing death himself. Bailey had saved him. But only his life, not his sanity.

The fourth was Tawny, a twenty-year-old member of a rare group infected with a strange virus. She was human, but the disease had changed her into a sinesensus, an individual missing a sense, but strengthened in some other way by the virus. In Tawny's case, she'd lost her hearing, but gained telepathic abilities. She was one of the lucky few who received a skill that actually made up for her newfound weakeness. While she was still unable to hear basic sounds and such on her own, she was able to hear people's thoughts. Whatever someone wanted to say to her, they could just think. Thoughts also warned her of things she couldn't hear, such as cars and animals, because if something happened to be coming her way, someone was sure to think it, allowing her to save herself. It didn't work all the time, but it helped enough to keep her alive. She was also able to hear her own voice as an echo in the thoughts of others, allowing her to speak normally and with confidence.

The fifth and final member of the household was Dameon, a twenty-two-year-old werewolf. He'd been the alpha of a pack at one time, but it had all fallen apart because of a foolish move made by his younger brother, Noah. The younger male and the rest of the pack had been slaughtered, leaving Dameon on his own. The pain was still there, as it always would be, but he'd tried to move on. He was rather good with computers and other types of technology, though nowhere near genius status, and he was no stranger to violence. He was probably the best hand-to-hand fighter in the house, having nothing to rely on but strength and speed, unlike some of the Novies he lived with.

When Bailey entered the house, the unconscious police officer slung over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes, it was Dameon who greeted her. "Another one?" he asked, a bushy brown eyebrow cocked. His hair, short and neatly combed, was the same shade of brown, one that resembled the color of milk chocolate. His eyes, on the other hand, were hazel, blue on the outside with brown near the pupil. They were interesting, and he often caught people staring at them. "You brought one home yesterday, didn't you?"

"So?" she asked, shrugging. "I bring them when I have to. It's not like I'm just out to get them or something. I'm not Hayden." She turned to go, the stairway located conveniently to the left of the front door, but Dameon stopped her.

"There are some pictures of you on their wanted list," he stated, though he didn't seem too worried. His eyes were on the laptop upon his lap, his finger sliding down the touchpad to move the page. She tensed, but he went on without noticing. "They're pretty blurry, though. Human taken, probably while they ran from you. The only reason I can even tell it's you is the skin. Not many people are as pale as you are."

"Any way you can get rid of them?" she asked. Even if it was hard to tell who was in the pictures, she wanted them gone. Someone would eventually figure it out.

He shrugged. "I'm not a hacker, but I can try to make people think they're all fake, if you'd like."

"Please," she said with a nod.

He smiled. "I'll do what I can." She nodded once more, then started up the stairs.

She found the upstairs to be rather quiet, with only the sounds of a single television to accompany her light steps toward the attic door. The door was located just a few feet from the stairs, between two bedrooms and directly across from another. As she turned the knob and jerked the stubborn old door open, she decided that the television had been left on Cartoon Network, the voices sounding much like those a cartoon would use. A normal person would have concluded that it was Madeleine's doing, as she was the only child in the house, but Bailey knew better. Even the adults here liked their cartoons on occasion.

The attic stairs creaked loudly as Bailey climbed them, put under the weight of an emaciated girl and a rather husky male. Their combined weight probably neared four hundred pounds. She was vaguely surprised that they weren't falling through the old wood. When she turned into the attic at the top of the stairs, a cold draft hit her, carrying with it the hopelessness of depression. It mixed with her already-existing feelings of sadness, of emptiness, of an irreversible loss and nearly sent her toppling back down the stairs. She stepped toward the hunched figure by the window, however, her vision dimming and her resolve weakening. By the time she was next to the boy, suicide sounded terrific.

"I've brought you another, Talon," she said softly, unable to bring her voice above a raspy whisper. She found it hard to breathe here, and the window looked as though it needed to be opened, her body hurled through to the ground below. "Would you like him?"

"You'll take the body afterward, right?" His voice was worse than hers, just barely there and so...empty. "I don't want it to rot up here. That would smell too bad."

"Of course," she answered with a nod, though her head didn't want to move. Her eyes lingered on the window for a moment longer, then turned back to the boy. "Someone will come to take him."

He brought his head up, his eyes meeting hers. Only a month ago, when Bailey'd found him, they'd been a bright, beautiful blue. But now, they were gray, dull and lifeless, just as he was. His hair had suffered the same fate, only the tips retaining their original golden brown. The rest had become snow white to match the gray tint of his pale skin. His sadness was draining the life out of him, and there was nothing he could do about it.

"Will you stay this time?" he asked. "Will you watch?"

Bailey could stand his gaze for only a moment before she was forced to look away. Looking into his eyes produced a feeling of falling, of hurtling into a bottomless pit of misery and despair, and the feeling was too unpleasant to bear for long. "I...don't think I can." The truth was that she didn't think she could spend too much more time with him. If it didn't kill her, she would have to do it herself, and how could a dead woman be a Guardian?

His gaze drifted back to the window. "Of course."

When he said nothing more, Bailey dropped the police officer to the dusty floor at his feet. "Have fun."

"I always do." The sincerity of those words sent a chill down Bailey's spine, and she left without bothering to say goodbye. But a twisted part of her wanted to go back up there and witness Talon's cruelty. All she'd ever seen were the remains, never the act. She fought the urge and headed for the stairs, descending them quickly in an effort to distance herself from her darker desires.

Just as she shut the door, she heard Dameon calling to her from downstairs. "Bay, is that you?"

"Yeah," she yelled back while making her way to the stairs. "What do you want?"

"We have a bit of a problem."

A bit? She chuckled bitterly to herself. That was bound to be an extreme understatement.

When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she found the werewolf staring out the open front door, his eyes fixed on something lying amidst the snow on the porch. She stepped from the last stair to stand beside him, following his intent gaze to a snow-dusted...something.

A bit? Really?

There was a sobbing woman sprawled on the front porch of their house, clutching a bare arm that leaked blood onto the snow, dragging herself toward them, and he really thought that was just a bit of a problem?

Men are so freaking dumb.