Ramona couldn't sit still as she looked around. Her mind was a chaotic mess of emotions. She felt betrayed by Mathias, sadness that the relationship was over, angry at how she had been used by him and terrified at what he and his monsters actually were. Despite the heartbreak and near-death experience, she also couldn't remember ever feeling as good as she felt right now.
Her mother had come in and kicked up a fuss over her earlier. She was worried about her illness and went on and on to her doctors about her health. The only problem was Ramona didn't feel sick anymore.
It was as if she had spent her entire life in a deep sleep, and only now had she woken up to a world she didn't quite recognize. She didn't merely feel okay or even good. It was as if she went to sleep in her old body and woke up in a new one in perfect health. She had been sitting in her hospital bed for over an hour, completely unable to go to sleep as she felt like the lighting was pumping through her veins. Even her bandaged shoulder didn't even hurt anymore.
After rolling around in her bed for a few more minutes, she finally rose from her bed and placed her bare feet on the cold tiled floor. Rising to her feet, she walked out of her room and down the hall. Even the monotonous grey of the hospital felt bright and vibrant.
She walked around the hospital, simply enjoying her surroundings as she roamed the building. She stopped as she spied on a hospital bed. Before today she wouldn't have been able to lift it, hells she wouldn't have been able to lift a large stack of ceramic plates. But today, she wanted to try. Reaching underneath the massive contraption, she pushed up with her knees as she tried to lift the mechanical bed. To her surprise, there was no resistance when she picked it up, it was plenty awkward to hold up in the air, but to her, the bed weighed no more than a laptop.
"Whoa," she gasped as excitement bubbled up inside her as she stared at what she was doing in awe.
She dropped the bed back on the ground, forgetting that the bed weighed a full one hundred and sixty pounds. The bed hit the bed with a deafening crash.
"Oh shit," Romana jumped at the sound, clutching her mouth and looking around.
A giggle escaped her mouth as she retreated from the scene, then she started to laugh as she ran down the hospital halls with the exhilaration of a little kid who just broke a window.
She didn't know how long she spent running around the hallways, but she ended up in the hospital's cafeteria. She went over to the fridge, opened it up, and pulled out one of the basic sandwiches. Tearing off the wrapping, she bit into the meal with a savagery she hadn't expected from herself. The moment she took a bite, the flavours exploded in her mouth like never before. If she had to try and explain it, it was as if she had been eating flavourless slop until now. She quickly began to pull out the leftovers in the fridge. She had gone from feeling fine to becoming ravenously starving. On top of that, it felt as if she was eating exotic food and not the plain unflavored cafeteria food.
In the end, she ate four whole sandwiches, eight slices of pies, one salad, seven bowls of jello, two bowls of chicken soup and three containers of chocolate milk before she slowed down.
As she was starting to wind down, having consumed most of the food on the table, a stouthearted man walked into the cafeteria. She recognized him from outside the graveyard. She was pretty sure he had introduced himself as Julius.
He was tall and skinny with a head of mess of brown hair atop his head and a five o'clock shadow covering his face. He wore a well-made coat, perfectly black, lined with fur and decorated with silver and gold. Under that was a stylish waistcoat and a white shirt with a tie.
Despite his youth, his eyes were old and tired, as if he were an old man with too many memories, and his clothes, despite their fine make, were well worn with use, the joints starting to discolour from use.
Immediately Romana was on edge as Julius sat down across from her.
"Hello, I'm Julius Flamel. We met informally early tonight. I apologize that I wasn't able to escort you back to the hospital, but I had to go after my partner. I'm happy to see you still have your appetite," Julius said.
"I was hungry," Ramona said defensively.
Julius sat down across from her. "I'm not here to judge you. I was just wondering if we could talk about what happened tonight?"
"Am I under arrest?" she asked.
Julius gave her a disarming smile. "No, you are not under arrest, Ramona. You have done nothing wrong."
"Where is Mathias?"
Julius grimaced at her question before answering her. "He attacked me and my partner before escaping the premises. As such, police have been notified that he is armed and dangerous."
"You mean he's still out there?!" Ramona asked. A spike of fear erupted within her.
"Yes, but don't worry, we've placed officers around the hospital and your home. You have nothing to fear." Julius said.
Ramona nodded, the spike of fear shrinking. But then a thought occurred to her. Maybe she could manhandle Mathias the same way she picked up the hospital bed. Maybe she didn't need protection anymore.
"Mathias … he … what was he?" Ramona didn't know how to ask her question without sounding crazy because Mathias couldn't actually be a vampire. Could he? No, that would be crazy.
"A Vampire, yes." Julius nodded.
Ramona felt her mind come to a crashing halt at his words. It had been so unexpected she wasn't sure it had just happened.
"I'm sorry, can you say that again? I don't think I heard you right I could have sworn You said Mathias was a vampire. Da-doy," she said, trying to laugh off commit as pure delusion.
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"Your boyfriend, Mathias, is a Vampire."
Ramona felt her face go pale. "Oh"
She considered calling Julius crazy or demanding to speak to another officer, but she couldn't get Mathias's face knitting itself back together, the fangs in his mouth, or all of those little monsters that he had sent chasing after her. It was pretty hard to deny.
Then a thought suddenly occurred to Ramona.
"Mathias bit me," Ramona said, rubbing her shoulder. "Does that mean … Am I a vampire now?" Ramona asked. Even just saying it made her feel incredibly stupid, but her new super strength and how healthy she was feeling?
"No, You're clean. Your immune system managed to fight off the infection without help, and we put you on a drug regimen just in case we missed something. You should be able to resume your life just fine." Julius placated her fears, but Ramona was still left wondering about her new superpowers.
"So when did the FBI turn into hunting vampires?" she asked, trying to change the subject away from her.
Julius gave her a disarming smile and pulled out a badge laying it on the table. The badge itself was gold with a pentagram in the middle surrounded by symbols along the edge. Underneath the badge were the words. Bureau of Paranormal Activity.
"I am not part of the FBI, miss Vasquez. I am part of the BPA. Our charter is to police the paranormal and keep it a secret for everyone's safety. We handle most of the issues with Paranormal citizens, or just Para's for short. While most are law-abiding citizens that can be handled by local law enforcement, there are a few like Mathias are not, requiring the BPA to step in."
"Why are you telling me all this?" Ramona asked, confused at his statements. "You aren't going to mind wiping me or something, right?!"
Julius gave a quiet smile. "No, we aren't the men in black. We don't intend to mind wipe you."
Ramona felt relief wash through her.
"Then why --"
"Why tell you any of this? Ramona, you have just gone through a traumatic event, you deserve to know what happened to you, and you deserve to have access to resources such as therapy and compensation so that you can get on with your life. Pretending that what you experienced never happened would be unnecessarily cruel." he spoke kindly but in an all most singsong way that suggested he had said these words many times before.
Nonetheless, Ramona felt some of her stress and worry fall away at the fact she would have to deal with these issues on her own. Julius pulled out a card and handed it over to her.
"This is a number in case you need to talk with a therapist going forward. She knows about the paranormal and can help you move on with your life."
Ramona nodded her head as she took the card.
"Ramona, I'm sorry to do this after all you've been through, but can we swing back to Mathias? I understand this is difficult, but I need your help catching him before he does anything else." Julius said.
Ramona nodded her assent, and Julius began questioning her about Mathias, her relationship with him and everything she saw that night. Then Julius started to get into specifics. Where did Mathias live? How old was he? What did he do for a living? Who did he hang out with? Ramona found herself becoming increasingly frustrated as she discovered she didn't know the answer to any of his questions. How could she have thought they were close when she knew so little about him?
"Thank you for your time, Ramona. I hope you can put this entire incident out of your mind and get back to your life soon."
Julius got up to leave, but Ramona stopped him. She wanted to ask one more question.
"Where is your partner?" was the first thing that popped into her head to ask.
Julius paused and looked up at her, a confused expression on his face as if he wanted to say something but thought better of it.
"Thanks for your help, Ramona. I'll contact you if I need anything else."
Julius got up from his chair and left her there. Ramona looked down at her half-finished soup and pondered what she wanted to do next.
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Julius walked out of the hospital and relaxed. Being that polite was always draining. There were only so many times he could say the same thing over and over again before it all started to just blend together.
He pulled out a cigarette just as a familiar face stepped out of the darkness. The elderly gentleman wore a fine black suit that might have looked strapping on a younger man but, on him, looked more sinister.
"Well, Nathaniel, I know you were watching. What did you think?" Julius asked tersely as he lit his cigarette and started to smoke.
"I think you're going to die of lung cancer one day," Nathaniel stated
"You've been saying that since 1973." Julius shot back.
Nathaniel Mandrake, head of one of the oldest wizard councils on the planet, smiled through his long white beard. The wizard councils were communities of human magic users living on earth in secret. While the magic counsels weren't part of the BPA, they were just as invested in keeping the paranormal under wraps as the BPA was.
"She was oddly calm during her interrogation." Nathaniel noted, "Most of the people exposed to the paranormal tend to deny it more strenuously. I wonder if she's had previous exposure?"
"I really hope she isn't a Twilight fan. I know the BPA influences pop culture, so people don't have a heart attack when they encounter a werewolf, but that book was just wrong." Julius shook his head in disgust.
In truth, Julius knew the real reason the BPA was pushing the supernatural on the public was to soften the eventual blow when the secret of the supernatural could no longer be a secret.
Julius put the thought out of his head as he turned back to Nathanial. "Also, don't spy on me with divination magic. It's bad enough Remi does it. I don't need my life turned into a soap opera for the para community."
"I make no promises. Especially as you don't seem to have any problems exposing the paranormal to the young lady in there."
"What's she going to do? Go online and claim her boyfriend was a vampire who tried to eat her?" Julius scoffed. "She might get a book deal, so what?"
"It's more than that, Julius. Paranormal attacks are on the rise, and some of our seers think it's a sign of something worse yet to come." Nathanial said.
"You worried about getting exposed?" Julius asked.
"Shouldn't you? We are both old enough to know what would happen if magic and the paranormal were ever exposed to the wider world, my people would be persecuted, and magic would be openly abused." Nathanial warned.
"As opposed to magicians secretly abusing the mundanes?" Julius shot back.
Nathanial flinched at his words but didn't respond.
"Where are you going now?" Nathanial asked, changing the topic as they got to Julius' car. The car itself was a black Triumph 1800 Roadster.
"I'm going to ask around, find the local Para bars and see if anyone knows anything. It was nice catching up with you, Nathanial. We should have dinner next time I'm in New York, my treat.
For the first time that night, Nathanial smiled.
"That sounds nice. I know a little bistro down the road, fantastic Boeuf Bourguignon. Just remember you are still invited to the conclave in Romania. More than a few people want to meet the infamous wizard Julius’ Flamel."
"I'm an alchemist, not a wizard. Why do people keep calling me a wizard?" he said, his face twisting in disgust as he started his car and sped off into the night.