After class had completed Jett left the room in a contemplative mood. She hardly noticed when Daeva, her friend caught up to her and put a hand on her shoulder.
“If you are going to look into blood smuggling I am not about to let you go on your own.” The succubus flashed a smile at her. The two of them had become fast friends when they first arrived at the school… bonding over fashion and the angry looks seemingly every girl in the school threw their way whenever their boyfriends couldn’t keep their eyes off the pair.
As they strode together across the campus, high leather boots and skimpy outfits as they moved several groups of students instinctively parted to let them pass. All except one girl, that watched them… the look in her eyes near screaming the conflicting emotions in her whether to approach or not.
“Are you just going to let her worry herself to death over there, Daeva?” The vampire diverted her path towards the nervous-looking girl.
“Wait! No! Don’t…” Daeva cried out running after her friend, her face turning bright red with shock as she tried to keep up with her friend.
“We’ve all seen you together with her before Daeva… there’s no need to be shy…” Jett stopped with a small hop in front of the redhead girl extending her hand to hr. The girl had taken on the appearance of a deer in the headlights, too shocked to move. “I’m Jett Ravenscar, Daeva’s best friend no matter what she says… and you are?”
“F… Felana… nice… good to meet you…” The girl stammered out, taking her hand as her face flushed to almost matching the color of her hair.
“You like my friend, don’t you?” Jett asked, turning towards Daeva and grabbing Felana by the shoulders, grinning wildly so that even her fangs could be seen.
“Y..y… no! No, of course not!” Felana struggled in Jett’s grip, her arms a flurry of motion as she suddenly fought to escape with the energy of the possessed. “I don’t know what you are accusing me of… you… D… dirty bloodsucker!” Finally freeing herself the redheaded succubus fled, running full speed into the trees in a blind panic.
“Crud.. Jett… I told you not to… now she’s going to be upset… she didn’t mean what she said…” Daeva’s words spilled out of her mouth like she couldn’t stop them. “Dammit, Jett… why couldn’t you just mind your own business!”
Daeva was clearly upset as Jett looked after the escaping form of Felana getting smaller in the distance.
“W… what… I’m sorry, Daeva, I didn’t mean… what just happened there?” Jett was stricken… her eyes wide as she thought she was finally going to meet her bestie’s crush but had everything explode so quickly instead. Daeva was holding her head, obviously fighting to keep her emotions in some sort of control
“You didn’t know Jett. You… you didn’t do anything wrong but you can’t go around accusing succubi of abnormal behavior… you could get someone in deep trouble. Let’s… just get going. We have things we need to get done.”
“No… no, Daeva… abnormal? That can’t be what you think…you know better than to think caring for someone is anything to be ashamed of. Even the humans are starting to accept things like that and once they wise up to anything it’s pretty much a given.”
“It’s different for succubi, Jett… it’s just not done.” Daeva’s tears rolled down her cheek, feeling her heart crack as she said the words. “Succubi can’t love succubi.”
“That’s bullcrap!” Jett grabbed her friend. “I don’t care what your people teach you D… you love who you want and if anyone tells you you can’t just point them out to me.”
“It’s not that simple… we succubi eat arousal… sexual energy is what sustains us… at least that of a man. It’s fine if it’s just sex with another woman but to have feelings…” Daeva looked up at her friend, eyes still wet with emotion. “Sex is all well and good… it can even help feeding but love… loving a woman for a succubus is tantamount to deciding to starve. It’s… it’s to keep us alive when our numbers are already dwindling.”
Jett reached up to Daeva’s face, wiping her tears from her cheeks. “But you do, don’t you? Love her? I’ve known you decades now, you can’t lie to me.”
The succubus nodded slowly. “Yeah, Jett… I do. I think she loves me too but we can’t…”
“Shh..” Jett stopped her friend before she could finish her thought. “No buts, D. We’ll find a way to make this work… I promise…” She held up her hand, pinky extended to her friend, a gesture they had used countless times in their youth as they had grown closer over the years.
“Thanks babe…” Daeva linked her pinky with Jett’s before pulling her into a warm embrace.
They stood there, on the edge of the woods, for several minutes holding on to each other. They had been each other’s rocks before… leaning on each other when so much around them fell apart. They would do so again.
* * *
The two girls made their way through the buildings of the vampire sector of the school. Jett had a few ideas who might be in charge of the vampire’s smuggled blood supply. First on her shortlist was a troublemaker named Erica Montac. She was the heir to a rival vampire clan that Clan Ravenscar had had dealings with in the past, both peaceful and not so much. Since leaving the rich dorms down to the slums, Jett didn’t know which room was his but she had heard a rumor it faced the school walls… another reason she thought he would be a good place to start.
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Jett and Daeva went into the alley behind Tepesh House, between it and the outer wall of the school, and looked up at the dorm rooms visible. Jett scanned the windows, looking carefully from one to the next as she tried to spot her prey. After a few moments, she found what she was searching for… the familiar blonde hair and smarmy grin that she had come to so loathe. With a tap on Daeva’s shoulder, she leaped from the ground, grabbing the rail of the second-story room and easily vaulting over it onto the balcony. She rapped on the glass as Daeva followed her.
Inside, the short-haired girl scowled at the noise before coming to slide the door open. “Oh look… the progidal princess. Finally had enough of slumming it with the rabble and come to beg to come back home. I may consider a cage in the corner of my room for a pet if you ask nice.”
Pushing her way inside, Jett wore a hardly disguised grimace at the arrogant girl’s teasing.
“Not here for any of your lip, blondie… what do you know about the blood supply coming into the campus? I need to get something brought in past security.”
“How delicious… it’s even better than I thought. You need a favor.” Erica dropped into a swiveling chair, turning towards the invaders to her space and crossing her long legs. “Let’s negotiate terms.”
“Not going to happen.” Daeva stood next to Jett, providing a wall of strength alongside her. “If you know who we need to talk to then speak up.”
“See? This is what happens when you associate with the lower classes, dearie… no tact. They simply do not know how to conduct themselves among their betters. You should be careful, Jett, lest you pick up the bad habits of your friend here.”
Jett lifted her hand to keep Daeva from attacking the blonde vampire… her other hand clenching and unclenching a fist as she set her jaw. “What do you want for the information Erica?”
“That’s better.” Erica grinned, she had the upper hand and she knew it. “What can you offer me that would even be worth it? We all know how your dear papa has spent your fortune down to the point of your clan being paupers so it cannot be financial compensation… frankly, you can’t afford me.”
Rage simmered just below the surface as Jett reminded herself she was doing this for Mr. Wilde… for the whole school if their suspicions proved correct. She kept her eyes downcast, trying to appear humble at this moment when all she wanted to do was tear that little blonde head off her shoulders.
“What do you want, then, Emily… you wouldn’t be acting like this if you didn’t already have some idea.”
‘You always were the smart one, Jett… your sister got the brains in the family but you were no slouch either… I’ll tell you what you need, but you are going to take care of all my papers for the rest of the year.” Emily swirled her hair around one long finger. “I’m taking extra classes this term and the workload is simply impinging on my social life.”
“Fine… tell me the subjects and I will make sure to type up whatever you need. Now, can you please tell us who we need to talk to so we can get something brought in without too many prying eyes?” Daeva put her hand on Jett’s shoulder, she knew her friend well enough to recognize she was approaching her boiling point.
“Oh, that is simplicity itself, darling… you talk to me… and if you think the information was expensive you have no idea how bad this favor is going to cost you.” Emily spun around in the chair again, her look happily glowing with pride at having gotten one over on the pair.
“Clever… even I have to admit Erica…” Jett began begrudgingly. “We need a vial of Aaragoth’s Fire… the sooner the better.”
“Dangerous stuff, that, Princess… hope you aren’t planning on scorching anyone I know.” Emily leaned forward, her chin on her hands, for all the very picture of innocence.
“It’s a spell component… no scorching.” Daeva interrupted, “Enough with the posturing, can you help get us what we want or no?”
“Of course I can. There is a reason why if anyone wants anything in this school they have to go through me… but for something so nasty I am going to need something extra spicy to make it worth my while. For that, I think I will need the princess to spoil me rotten… serve me hand and foot for the rest of the semester.”
With a sudden glare, Jett brought her gaze up to meet Emily’s… fire burning behind her eyes as she stared at the uppity vamp.
“I don’t blame you, Emily…” Jett’s voice was icy, even, and monotone. You know well that my family has had a hard time with things these past centuries and hope to capitalize… there was a time when perhaps I might have done the same.”
“Jett… you don’t need to do this…” Daeva reached out to her friend, only to be met with an angry look that had her step back in shock.
“Clan Ravenscar is deep in its coffers with spending… papa has overextended things to such an extent that Mama has begun taking a hand in things… but there is one very important thing that you and not taking into account…”
In a blur Jett moved to Emily, grabbing the girl by the throat off her chair and slamming her against the far wall… holding her aloft…. Her eyes glowing red as tightened her grip. With a flick of her wrist, a foot-long black rod shook free from in her sleeve, falling into her hand. The rod quickly grew to a full-length staff, the sickly blade extending from the tip.
“You forget how my family garnered its riches in the first place.” Jett, flipped the schtye over in her hand, placing the long black blade against Emily’s neck. “We made business deals with other clans… bound in blood and lasting for eternity… those that would not deal with us we scoured from the face of the earth so completely that those families’ names only exist in my family’s history books.”
Emily swallowed visibly against the wall, looking desperately to Daeva for any kind of help she might offer but she could offer none.
“I’m giving you two options… one, you take the offer we have given you and once Clan Ravenscar returns to its former glory your family might even get a seat at the table… or I disappear you… I will bury any mention of you so far down that your own sire will not recall your face… I will take over your petty smuggling operation and dismantle it from the inside out. That will take time, however, and as I said we are in a hurry.”
“I can have the vial for you by the end of the week…” Emily choked out, her hands moving to Jett’s grip on her throat. “And don’t worry about the papers… but Clan Montac will happily take your extended hand moving into the future.”
Releasing the vampire to let her drop to the floor once again.
“Agreed…” Jett withdrew her scythe, stowing it back in her sleeve so quickly as to almost wonder if it had been there in the first place. “You will be compensated well in the future for this aid. Clan Ravenscar thanks you.”
She stepped over the blonde woman where she had landed on the floor and made her way past her to the door. She opened it and exited out into the dorm’s hallway, a stunned Daeva in tow.
“Are you okay, babe?” She asked, she had never seen Jett act like this in the entire time
“I’m fine, D. The other clans sensing blood in the water at my family’s weakness is to be expected. But we are taught almost before we can walk the value of making allies and destroying our enemies… and more importantly, how to tell the difference.” She looked over her shoulder with a wry smile. “Emily wasn’t going to give us what we want through talking… I am a little surprised she even accepted when threatened.”
“Were you really going to kill her?”
“The fact that even you don’t know the answer to that means I am still playing my cards right. Let’s go tell Mr Wilde the good news that we will have what he needs sooner than we even expected.” Jett smiled and winked at her friend. “I think we can leverage this for at least a little extra credit… or some extra attention after class.”
Daeva rolled her eyes as they made their way out of the dorm.