All of Them People

Gaia was sitting at the kitchen table with her laptop open, one exclusively borrowed from the school's computer lab, browsing through a couple different websites. In one tab she had local news, keeping an eye out for potential problems, missing persons etc and in the other she was scrolling through social media looking at her students profiles. Logan called it stalking but she was just looking out for her students, and if one of them was a hunter all the better to know what they were up to. The room was quiet, except for the tapping of keys on the laptop and Logan's occasional mutter as he tried to navigate his phone.

"So apparently Adrien, you know the hunter kid, has a girlfriend." She said to Logan, glancing at him from behind her screen. On Adrien's profile page she had found a relationship status, marking that they'd been in a relationship for a few years and she quirked her eyebrows.

Logan's brow furrowed slightly, although if it was at something on his phone, or at what she'd said, it was hard to tell. "That's just great," he said in a low voice.

"Yeah" She continued, looking away from him to click on the profile of young girl named Tawny Mazara. She read through the posts, and made a small hum, "and she was also the host of the party Cian went to when he got bitten. And where Minhoe was killed."

"Ha," Logan smiled, his black eyes not giving away whether or not he looked up from his phone, "Sounds like a set up."

"It may very well be..." She trailed off clicking through her photo album. "Or maybe he's just using her." There were numerous pictures of Tawny, shoulder-length blonde hair and smiling faces, and there were a lot of her and presumably her friends. A couple photos showed her and Minhoe smiling together, and plenty had her and a boy with straight brown hair longer than his ears. In the pictures he and Tawny looked close, closer than regular friends arms slung around each others shoulders and Tawny kissing Steve's cheek. As she scrolled she realized there was not a single picture of Adrien on her profile. Confused, she went back to his profile and still there were none, at least none of his face. She frowned at the screen, 'must be a hunter thing,' she thought.

"Well, wouldn't be surprised. Humans are stupider than they used to be. Evolution must have grown their fat heads and shrunk their brains. They just get dumber and dumber...." he trailed off, glaring down at the phone. "Uhg! y'know what? I'm done! Screw technology and this stupid phone!" He threw the cell phone against the wall, and just as it hit, the door burst open and Cian dashed in, slamming the door behind him and turning with his back against the wall. He slid down to the floor, with his hands shaking and smeared with blood. His chest rose with short and shallow breaths as he fought to settle himself and calm down.

"Is everything alright?" Gaia rose out of her chair startled at Cian's sudden and grotty appearance. Then she noticed the blood on his hands and then she rushed to his side. Grabbing his hands with one of her own and the other she used to inspect his face. "Who's blood is this?" she demanded, creasing her brow in worry.

"I-uh," Cian turned his head away from Gaia's hand. "It's not anyone's- It's just uh... mine." He exhaled in relief. "I'm.... Not- alright." There was a slap as a red plastic bag hit the concrete floor in front of Cian's feet. And he didn't waste a second to take it and tear into it with his teeth, finally satisfying this terrible blood-lust.

"Your welcome," Logan said from beside him, then proceeded to pick up his cell phone and marvel at the minimum damage that was done. Gaia hesitated a moment, watching Cian guzzle the blood before she got up ruffling his hair reassuringly while she did.

"It's a good thing we still have a few extra blood bags, I forgot how much new vampires need to eat." She walked back to the table where her laptop was still open, and shut it. Then she turned to Logan. "We better show him the black market. Just in case."

Logan nodded his head, face down to the cell phone again.

"That's it?" Cian said, agitated. "I could have killed someone and 'oh we'd better show him the black market.'" He shook his head and worked on sucking the last of the blood out of the bag. Gaia whipped around to glare at him. Suddenly seemed a lot more menacing than just a counsellor and more like an ancient vampire.

"Listen here you little..." Gaia trailed off, cursing in a foreign language. Waving her arms in front of her in frustration as she stepped closer to him with loud steps. "You could've killed someone. Big deal. I've killed many people and not all of them have been for blood. Hunters kill our kind and many others everyday. They are merciless killers! Be glad that you haven't had to bloody your hands yet! Because you will." she paused to sigh angrily, running her hands through her long wavy hair.

"The black market is important to your survival so you'd better not brush it off. Or in a fit of blood lust you will kill anyone you can get your hands on to quench it." her eyebrows raised as if asking him to challenge her but her eyes were colder than usual. "Don't go anywhere ill be right back." She gave him a quick glance before she disappeared into the kitchen. She searched through the cupboards for a bandage roll and in the back of their small pantry to retrieve some pure alcohol.

Cian's feet shifted and he looked to the door. "Don't. Go. Anywhere," Logan repeated Gaia's command to him, his head tilted slightly up from the phone.

"Heh," Cian laughed nervously, "Always so temperamental?"

Logan's teeth ground together but he didn't say anything before Gaia returned holding a bottle and gauze. She knelt beside Cian, setting down her bottle after opening it and unwrapped some of the gauze.

"Give me your your hand" she asked as she held out one of her own. Reluctantly he held out his injured one. "Now this might sting a bit." She spoke softly picking up the bottle of alcohol then poured a bit onto Cian's hand. It stung fiercely and he tried to yank his hand away but her grip was firm. She glanced at the ground looking for something but not finding it.

"Logan, can you get me a cloth please?" She turned to look at him, her mouth a firm line. Logan put the phone away in his pocket and left to go find a cloth.

Cian winced in pain and forced his hand to relax. "So..." Cian ran his brain for something to talk about. "How many people have you killed?"

She quirked her brow at his question, "Enough to be labelled as a serial killer. But most of my... killings are in the past now. That's kind of an odd question to ask though." Logan returned to the room with a cloth in hand and handed it to Gaia. Graciously she took it and dabbed at Cians hand, which was covered in blood and booze. Then she poured a little bit more alcohol onto his hand and wiped it away gently once more. Then she took the gauze and wrapped his hand, stretching it over the injury and past his thumb and bound it up. "That should do it. Be mindful not to have this happen again."

Cian looked his bandaged hand over. "Why'd you have to wrap it up so much? Won't it just heal on it's own?"

She shook her head slowly as she raised herself off the floor, gathering the bottle, cloth, and gauze together. "Self-inflicted injuries or injuries from other vampires in general, take a lot longer to heal than normal." She stated putting her items onto the table where Logan had taken up toying with his phone.

"Get some rest, we'll go to see Spencer's shop tomorrow night."

***

The shop's entrance was down a set of stairs that lead to a lower floor of another building that Cian thought looked like the kind of place that people would go to overdose or maybe jump off the top to end their miserable lives. Cian picked at the bandage around his hand as they entered the shop and looked around at all the strange items on display. It had key chains, shirts, hats, and there was a corner apparently rated for 18 years or older customers. But overall, it was all normal stuff. Cian sighed in minor disappointment and followed Logan and Gaia to the front counter.

There wasn't anyone else here that he could see, so he tried to used his other senses that Logan had stressed was so important to learn and that eventually he would use these sense more than sight anyways. All the other smells in the shop were overwhelming, but he picked up that there were other people here, and he could hear them talking from behind the Staff Only door.

"No, they won't be here for a while, yet," a man's voice said.

"I still think you should have had them come during the day," a woman answered, in a slight Russian accent. "It would be safer for your customers, you know that."

"I would rather you associated with other vampires than hunters, and you know how much I love you talking with vampires," he ended on a sarcastic note.

"Well-"

The woman was cut off as Logan rang the service bell, "wow the service here is fantastic," he said loudly and very sarcastically.

"Hush Logan" Gaia chided him playfully though she peered curiously over at the Staff Only door. ""It does keep getting tackier." She glanced at the merchandise and back to to Logan before the door opened and two people stepped through.

The first, Cian noticed was an older woman with greying blonde hair, braided neatly over her shoulder and as she stepped closer it was obvious that her height rivalled Logan's. The other person was a younger male with a lopsided grin on his face and slicked back black hair.

"Good evening friends" the woman greeted them, with a quaint smile. Then her light eyes landed on Cian and her eyebrows shot up. "You have brought a little friend with you," A faint accent clung to her words as she spoke.

"Oh, yes. This is Cian." Gaia responded placing one of her hands on his shoulder as she introduced him. "Cian this is Svetlana, she runs this shop in the daytime and beside her is Spencer."

Cian furrowed his brow and slightly away from Gaia's hand. This woman's a human, he noted.

"Hey," Spencer greeted Cian before he could comment. "Check this out," he said without pausing and whipped out a lighter from one of the displays behind the counter. "Looks like a normal lighter?" He flicked out a small blade from its side, and then a tiny pair of scissors, and nail clippers. "They just came out with it, it's like a pocket knife inside a lighter!"

"Stop trying to sell him things, Spencer," Logan said, and smiled, "He's broke."

Spencer's smile dropped and he turned back to the woman. "Okay, I'll see you later," his smile lit up again and put his hand around her waist, inching her towards the door. She pouted at his nudging but nonetheless she ended up at the door.

"Stop rushing me, I am on my way," She pecked Spencer on the cheek then she gave a little wave to the trio by the counter "You have a cute kid yeah, take care." Off she went and Spencer reluctantly returned to the counter.

"We'd like to get some blood. And if you don't mind take Cian for a small tour of the place."

"Okay, follow," Spencer wasted no time leading them through the Staff Only door after looking down quickly at his watch. "That room was the junk room full of plastic shit that I sell to human kids your age."

"I'd never buy that shit," Cian murmured, clenching his teeth at being called a kid again.

"That's what they all say," Spencer laughed.

The next room was dimly lit with books and boxes piled onto shelves and all over the floor. "There's nothing very useful to you in here," Spenser explained as he stepped over a box and shoved it out of the path. The back of the room had another doorway, covered by a smaller blanket nailed above it. He held the blanket out of the way for the other three to wander through. The floor space here was small and there was a window close to the ceiling equipped with a lock and looked like it was painted over black, had never been opened. A wooden staircase lead farther down to another door that Spenser unlocked and opened to reveal another room about the size of the first.

"This will peak your interest," he told Cian as he entered.

Cian shrugged and scanned what looked like more junk. "Wow," he said, uninterested. He looked down to a bottle of something and read the label. "Sunscreen. That's very useful to vampires."

Spencer laughed and picked up the bottle. "It is if it gets you in the sunlight again."

"That doesn't work," Cian said in disbelief. "Does it?"

"Not this brand," Spencer took another bottle from a shelf higher up. "But this one is guaranteed to last three hours minimum. Longer, if you want to push your luck. This one charges $98 an hour so you're looking at about 300 for this bottle."

"Wholly fuck, $300 dollars for that? No way."

"Ha, the longer your a vampire, the better that deal will sound, just you wait. Keep looking around, I'll get your guys's fix," Spencer placed the bottle back on the shelf and left Cian to glare angrily at prices. Behind this counter was caged off, and Spencer lifted up some bags filled with blood and set them on the counter. "How much do you want?" He asked to Gaia.

"Can we get double the regular amount? I'd like to avoid being low on blood in case of emergency," Her eyes drifted over to Cian, who was poking around near some glasses and prescription bottles. And then to the blood bags Spencer was taking out of the cage. It was quiet for a moment before Gaia spoke up again. "There aren't any other customers here today. Did something happen?"

At that, Spencer glanced down at his watch and then at a clock on the wall. "Not yet, you have some time. And if you haven't taught him to hunt yet, I might recommend even more than that. Remember, you're dealing with a teenager on top of the whole new vampire thing. And teenagers eat enough as it is..."

"Hey, want to see what werewolves smell like?" Logan asked Cian from a new section of the store.

Cian shuffled closer to a spray can Logan was holding, and he passed it onto him.

There was a small sprits sound as the bottle was sprayed and then: "AHH WHAT THE FUCK! UGGH that's fucked up!" Cian backed away with his hands clasped over his nose and mouth, and then he held them as far from himself as he could. "Motherfucker! It's on my hands!"

Logan burst out laughing and Spencer hid a smile and pointed to another door a few metres away. "There's the bathroom, go try an' wash it off."

"How do they even live smelling like that!?" Cian complained, finding his way to the bathroom.

Logan put the can back where he found it and came up to the counter again, stifling laughter. Gaia put her hands on her hips huffing trying to hide a small smirk, because of how innocent Cian was.

"Its been a long time since I was either of those things. Though I swear Logan hasn't matured in the least bit." Said person was now strolling through another section of the store weaving behind some racks full of bottles with strange liquid inside. On the counter Spencer had piled almost 40 bags of blood. "Do you remember how much they eat? Of blood that is."

But before Spencer could reply there was the ding dong of the upstairs door opening and the loud footsteps of people coming inside. Through the floorboards some of their grumbles could be heard.

"I can't believe we've got to come here and give our technology to a monster," One said with a gravelly voice.

"Don't be like that. He's useful. We've off'd a lot of others because of information." Another said.

"Oi Vampire are you here?" A third spoke loudly.

"Shit, they're early," Spencer checked the time again. "It's Hunters. Just stay down here, and be very quiet," he said calmly.

Cian re-entered the room, cautiously sniffing his hands. "Quiet," Spencer said, pointing to him.

Cian opened his mouth to say something but Spencer cut him off with a "Sssshhh," and left the room. The door closed and there was the sound of a key locking the door. Cian's eyes followed where it sounded like Spencer was moving on the floor above them. He moved much faster than when he lead them down here.

"That goes for you too Logan." Gaia whispered harshly at him.

"Shh," Logan responded to her, holding back a smile. He wasn't worried about a few Hunters, they'd gotten out of much worse situations. She rolled her eyes at him in return.

"Ah my favourite goons," they could hear Spencer greet them cheerfully. "You're early," he added in a darker tone.

"That's not how you greet your business partners." Said the stocky brown haired hunter. "It shouldn't be a problem that we're here early since no one 's here, right?" His tone was serious and one of the guys behind him, a shorter individual grimaced.

"Let's just drop the stuff and go." He urged standing fairly close to the door. The third hunter who held a box roughly the size of a box of bananas, came up to the counter but he didn't let go of it.

The stocky hunter spoke again. "Be sure to set these up properly, else it'll just be a waste." Then he nodded at the hunter holding the box, who dropped it on the counter.

"I may be dead but I'm not brain dead," Spencer crossed his arms. "I have had one of these before."

He glared at Spencer as if daring him to step out of line once more and tension filled the air. Then he grunted and turned around. "Lets go. Its not worth it. Tonight." The hunter by the door looked relieved and almost sprinted out but the other two walked slower. The stocky one made distasteful glances at everything he looked at the he disappeared through the front door.

There were footsteps, slower again, as Spencer came back to the locked door and unlocked it, stepping back into the room. "Okay, pay time," Spencer said, heading back behind the counter.

"So... What was with that?" Cian asked.

"Just business, kid. P.S number one rule here, don't tell me anything. Not your full name, not where you live, not what you're doing, not anything. Because it's no secret that I will sell you out without a second thought." He smiled and watched as Gaia counted out her money, then collected it and stashed it somewhere behind the counter.

"Psht, why would I tell you anyways?"

"That's the spirit!" Spencer gestured towards the door.

"Thank you Spencer, until next time." She took the bags of blood and put them into a large basket she was carrying and left. Logan and Cian followed behind her to the beat up old truck they had driven there. Gaia stashed the basket in the back covering it with a blanket and then got into the drivers seat. Logan forced Cian into the middle seat and took the window seat for himself.

"Well, that's Spencer's shop. You better remember where it is because you'll be there often."