Gunshots.

Why were there GUNSHOTS?!?

Shay bounded up the stairs, then used the railing to make a gong fu leap up and over a blonde police officer. It wasn’t the most ladylike thing ever-- especially in her uniform skirt, but she was in a hurry.

“Hey! You can’t be here!” the LEO yelled.

Ah. Crap! Shay totally got that! She immediately started to apologize-- “Sorry! Sorry. Really!”

She wasn’t really. It was an emergency!

“Dad!!!”

Since she didn’t see him downstairs, that could only mean--

A haze of shadows was sped past her, fast as the wind.

Top of the stairwell, down the hallway! A bright, pale pink goth girl had tackled Dad to the ground-- asSumedLy for good reason!

There was a girl standing in an open doorway. Red eyes. Fanged mouth. Blood streaming down her chin with zero sense of shame. That wasn’t good.

And instead of hands, she had dark, shadowy claws. Problem-- big problem!! Did she have shadow powers like Raia!?

The vampire lady pointed her hand forward, her wavy blonde hair flowing backward like something was about to happen.

Shay wanted to yell ‘Get down!’ like it was a movie. Unfortunately, her brain didn’t work smart enough to communicate basic concepts to other human beings via a basic verbal command. So, instead, she slipped forward on the stairs and landed on her back. Oh, it hurt so much-- but at the same time, she kicked forward for both legs.

Oh? The blonde police officer blocked her boobs with her arms? Quick thinking! But she still ended up tumbling down the steps.

--and a black, evil-looking spear of darkness obliterated the bottom half of the stairs. But that was better than obliterating a whole human being.

Shay flipped over and pushed up to a crouch to get a better look at the enemy.

She was white-- from one of the taller, naturally big-boned white-people descents. And-- eugh... a claw-finger from her left hand was missing. Wait. Was that what that spear of darkness really was?

As the vampire looked down from the top of the steps, she twisted her face like she smelled something rotten. “Who. the. hell--”

Ooh. Shay kept a straight face, Tyvan-style. Raia’s normally-brown eyes shone a ruby red that cut through the lightless hallway, and she was getting close enough to--

“HaAHHH?!?!”

The vampire shrieked in surprise and made a very wide, very panicked claw swing at Raia. But that slow? She was basically chasing Raia’s after-image.

Chance! Shay sprung forward and went for a knockout kick to the side of the vampire’s stupid, blonde head!

They dodged-- but barely. But then a shadow grabbed hold of the hair on her scalp. Raia’s hand and arm came out of the dark fog, smashing the vampire’s face against the wall.

That was P-erfect! Shay reversed her spinning direction, powering a back kick into the side of the vampire’s skull.

ArGHH! So loud! Shay automatically put her hands to her ears in surprise.

That wasn’t that sound from her kick. There were more gunshots!

There was a second person standing in the doorway. Raia had taken her pistol out of her hoodie pocket-- and the end of it was sMoking!!

She’d just shot that second guy iN tHE fACE!!

Oh, no-- in the room, there was a murder victim pinned to the ceiling.

So there were two vampires and-- and one dead person. Shay needed to check on her dad, but--

“Shay!!” Raia screamed.

Oh, shit.

Shay felt her whole body rock. She lost her breath as her back hit something. The floor? No-- she was against the wall. The lady vampire!

Yep.

Shay found herself staring into burning red eyes.

Couldn’t move. Her arms were pinned down.

The vampire opened her fanged mouth, her breath steaming. Ugh. She was in sore need of an entire box of mints.

Shay grit her teeth. She was going to get bit-- and from all the research she’d done, nothing good would come of it.

The vampire lady hissed-- literally HISSED! And she went for the neck.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

But... then... she made a weird “Guh” noise. It sounded like... something got caught in her throat?

Oh. She let go. Then, she covered her mouth and started to gag.

(And even though she was the enemy, Shay felt really bad because she was in a very similar situation, very recently.)

Dad had gotten up. He looked a bit shaken, but he didn’t seem to be hurt. He grabbed the woman’s wavy, blood-soaked hair, dropped her to the floor and put her in handcuffs.

He kept the perp held down, but he looked up and met Shay’s eyes. His silent stare was a weird mix of “I’m glad you’re okay” and “I cannot even begin to comprehend why you are here in this part of Archangel and experiencing this hyper-specific situation.”

“FfffffuckiNg B-b-b-bitttttCH!!”

Huh? That was another guy’s voice. (Definitely not Dad’s.) But since getting to the second floor had become a problem, the only other guy was... the one that got shot in the head?

(Also, it sounded like he got shot in a language-controlling part of his brain.)

“This dumb, stupid idiot doesn’t know how to die,” Raia said. There wasn’t panic in her voice, but there was a different, very powerful emotion that Shay hadn’t seen from her before.

“Get back you two,” Dad said. “I’ll hold him off.”

“Better idea!” Shay said. She dug into her bag and tossed her anti-vampire measure over.

It was meant for Raia, but Dad caught it. He had gong fu training, too.

“...Garlic powder?” He said.

Raia snatched it away. “I’ll take care of this, Detective.”

She tore off the cap and the little white preservation seal. Then, she started dumping it all over shot-in-the-head guy’s eyes and mouth.

Oh, he screamed. And he started convulsing. It wasn’t pretty... but judging by what he and his friend did, he probably deserved worse.

----------------------------------------

The crisis was averted.

The three other LEO’s came upstairs after that. The blonde officer-- her name was Lockhart, she escorted Shay outside to sit on the sidewalk.

Shay apologized profusely. For everything. And Officer Lockhart sat with her and... listened to all of it.

Meanwhile, Raia was having a conversation with Dad. Dad was shouting-- but it seemed to be more directed at the other LEO’s rather than Raia.

After what seemed like forever, Dad finished up and started walking toward her. Shay had reached her limit, though, so she apologized to Officer Lockhart before running up to her dad and hugging him as hard as she could.

She tried not to cry.

She failed that mission immediately and miserably.

There were gunshots! Why did she run toward the gunshots instead of away?! How sTuPID was she!!?

--but if she didn’t.

Then, Dad--

He--

He almost...

ArrrRRghhh......

Dad didn’t have much to say. He didn’t say anything, actually. But... he hugged her back, just as tight. That meant so much more than words could.

“Dad,” she said, “maybe... you should take a few days off.”

He didn’t look too happy to hear that, the workaholic he was. But... the way his eyes shook, he might have actually been considering it.

“...So you work for the Arkham Enquirer,” he said. “I hope you had your fill of aliens for the day.”

Shay took a deep breath. That wasn’t quite right. Raia was the one who worked for the Enquirer. But that was probably the best excuse to keep the questions to a minimum.

“You shouldn’t have come,” Dad said, “And you shouldn’t have barged through the police tape, even with a Press Pass.”

“I thought my dad was in trouble,” she argued. “And I know what I did was wrong, but--”

“That’s enough. Lots of things happened tonight-- and some of those things... might be hard to process right now. But it’s getting late...”

He sighed, holding her shoulders and looking into her eyes... “You don’t do this all the time, right?”

“N-no,” Shay lied.

Dad closed his eyes... “I’m gonna need to have a talk with that boss of yours-- and sometime soon.”

A familiar sense of nervousness crawled into Shay’s belly. Tyvan was always open to listening to her... but he-- he definitely did not like it when she did anything dangerous.

She wanted to ask her dad... to not talk to Tyvan? But that’d only make Dad want to talk to him harder.

Why did Tyvan baby her so much, anyway? She knew how to fight just fine!

Before she signed her employment contract, she proved-- without a doubt, that she had a basic mastery of gong fu. And it WASN’T LIKE she was hired to fill a combat position! She was a Junior Analyst, not a-- whatever... a fighting-person’s title was.

So she wasn’t supposed to be fighting all the time! Just... whenever necessary.

--which should really... not happen as often as it felt like it’d been happening.

Mehhhhh...

Tyvan... didn’t make sense...

If he wanted her to fight, then he should have been willing to teach her how to use magic.

Sure, she was learning martial arts from Grandpa Wei. And... that really should have been enough. If Grandpa could kick with lightning, punch with Hadou Fists, and maybe eventually learn Special Beam Cannon, then she’d inherit all those skills, too!

But even Grandpa was trying to push her toward learning... pill creation.

--as if there was a point to making low-level pills to aid indigestion or whatever.

Wait-- was that what Tyvan and Grandpa had talked about in private? Were they conspiring against her? Were they in cahoots?

And WASN’T it a good thing that her crush was so close to one of the two most important guys in her life?????

Because it didn’t FEEL like a good thing!!!