(Pov Julie)
Crack!!!
The sound of gunfire broke the quiet and filled the shooting range. The acrid smell of gunfire tickled her nose. The smell brought her back to her days in basic and her training days in general; As well as the firefights she had been in overseas. While the first set of memories was fond, though she wouldn't stretch herself as far as calling them pleasant. The second set was neither. A cold shiver ran up her spine; the memory of bullets and shrapnel whizzing through the air briefly flashed in her mind.
Jasmine stood up next to her, stretching before she said. “That's five. Should we go have a look?” Looking down, Julie saw that she had opened the bolt and removed the magazine.
“Yeah, let's have a look.”
They walked in silence for the minute, or so it took them to cover the hundred yards to the target. Julie had to take a second to look at the target in astonishment. She had been to a lot of shooting ranges, far more than most, even for those in the military. And she had never, never seen results like this.
“I think you might be off to the left by… A lot. Grouping looks nice. From the three of them, I can see. But you know you're supposed to hit the target, right?” She raised an eyebrow and looked over at her employer, roommate, and… friend. Holy shit, I am friends with my boss.
Jasmine gave her a cheapish smile, wincing slightly as she turned back to the target. “I did tell you my marksmanship was atrocious.” She looked over the target once more, her face falling slightly. “But I didn't expect it to be THIS bad. Man, I have gotten rusty since last time.”
“Are you sure you have done this before, at all?”
Jasmine chuckled slightly. “I did think that. Now I am thinking I might have a hyperactive imagination.”
“I would give you the benefit of the doubt and say it might be the sight. But we already tested that.” Julie hesitated for a moment. “Ok, we can leave the target since it's clearly reusable. Then you can try a few more shots, and I can check for any flaws in your posture. Sound good?”
Jasmine nodded. “Sounds great.”
Jasmine's shooting improved, if only marginally, over the next hour. How anyone could remain that atrocious of a shot, and have no flaws she could easily see in their posture or weapons handling, she had no idea.
Julie winced as she reached up to detach the target, pain stabbing her in the side of her chest. As she walked back over Jasmine, she moved her arm and paid close attention to the soreness in her side.
“I think you might have bruised my ribs. Was it really necessary to go that hard on me?”
Jasmine looked at her, scoffing. “You literally asked for it. I wasn't the one complaining that their opponent didn't take the match seriously. You wanted me not to hold back, so I mostly didn't." She hesitated for a moment. “For what it's worth, I am sorry.”
Julie waved her off. “It's fine, you said you had done this shit before, and I underestimated what that actually meant. Though the last time I saw someone fight like that was my melee combat trainer back in training, or swordplay specifically. The bitch had a mean streak, training-wise, but melee was mostly anti-magic training, so that's fair enough.” Julie hesitated for a moment. “She always seemed to go easier on the guys, though. She was also red, had small horns, and had a tail. Not often you see that.”
“Sounds like a succubus. Was she Scandinavian?” Jasmine said, still packing up her things.
Julie was taken aback slightly. “Yeah, she was. How did you know?”
A low whizzling sound came from Jasmine's direction. “Well, she's a succubus, and like most homunculi, they haven't left Scandinavia in any great number. The second was going easier on the guys. Men aren't that common over there; she wouldn't want to be seen going too hard on the fairer sex, so to speak. And any homunculus is easily three times stronger than a man on average, so there's that. The girls, however, are women as far as she was concerned; you just needed to suck it up.”
Julie scoffed. “Men as the fairer sex, now that's funny… You know, Jasmine, if I didn't know any better, I would suspect you were one yourself. A homunculus that is. You are way stronger than you look.”
Jasmine seemed to stop for a few seconds before looking back at her, her expression oddly blank. “ I kinda am. Or rather, my mom's an elf. Homunculi ancestry tends to make girls inherit some of the durability and strength. I am probably about as much stronger than the average guy as they are to most women.”
Julie hesitated for a second; she had always thought herself a good reader of people, and that extended to her friend. There was a strange tension in Jasmine's face and shoulders; it was subtle, but there was no denying it was there.
She could help but keep the self satisfaction out of her tone. “I knew it, no regular person is that strong, that probably explains the reaction time too. luck my ass.”
Jasmine remained tense, though she seemed to play along. “You got me, but still if you could not advertise it."
“So I am guessing you want that kept secret?” Julie lifted an eyebrow.
Jasmine gave her a small smile. “Preferably, Yeah.”
“Well, at least it explains how you talk about pretty boy.”
“Pretty boy?” Jasmine stood back up and picked up a large chunk of their stuff.
“What's his name again, Jason? I think it was. The waiter.”
Jasmine nodded slightly to that. “Right, yeah, it probably does. Though, should I mishandle him too badly, Mom would probably disown me. Like if I let him pay for anything on a date.”
The sun was setting as Julie walked out into the front yard and turned to walk towards the stairs down to the cellar. Why the cellar required a person to go out of the house to begin with, she had no idea; it wasn't even a storm cellar, it was just not accessible from inside for some reason.
The mid april air was crisp as she pulled open the cellar door. It couldn't make a clearer contrast with the stuffy air down in the cellar. The air tasted, smelled, and felt like it hadn't moved in years. Layers of dust covered the unused shelves and the parts of the floor. New and old things, boxes and chests, were stacked under shelves and alongside the walls.
Some of the stuff down here was hers. Things she didn't need every day, but things she had never been able to bring herself to sell. To her left were some of Sam's first baby clothes. She had gotten them as a gift from her cousin when he was born, but even as things got worse, she had never been able to sell them. The box with her own medals was on top of the clothes, or at least on top of the box that held the vacuum-packed clothes.
“Let's see, where is it?” She murmured to herself. Sam's kindergarten would be having a small trip next week into the woods. Not far, it was never far with kids that small. No, it was nothing more than a day trip for them to go into the woods and grill some hot dogs and then come back. Still, the woman running the kindergarten practically out of her house had asked the parents to help with any gear, like camping skewers for the hot dogs, so they could avoid having to make too many of them.
“There we go.” Julie pulled a green-tinted plastic box from the middle shelf. It was one of Jasmine's, filled with camping gear. She had let Sam borrow her skewers for his trip, though she had reassured her that if they got lost, it was fine. Julie had hesitated slightly at accepting the offer, but had rather quickly managed to reason herself into it. She could get her friend's replacements after all.
As she was about to leave, she saw something in a blackish, metallic color, partially covered by cloth, on some smaller boxes on the other side of the room. Right next to it were some beer-bottle-sized ceramic wax-sealed bottles, about a dozen or so.
She couldn't stop herself, curiosity taking hold and moving her over to have a closer look at the metal pieces. Moving aside the cloth, she held her breath for nearly five seconds before letting it out slowly. Her eyes slowly scanned the curved surfaces, taking in every carved detail.
“Ohhh, you are, stunning.”
The metal piece was a breast plate, only the front part, so a rather literal breast plate, painted in a light black and gray paint. Carved into it were what looked like the symbols she had seen on the few pieces of enchanted armor she had seen back during training. The piece was obviously made to look like enchanted plate armor.
Just above it, also covered in cloth, was what had to be the helmet, and as she reached out to pick it up, her elbow hit one of the ceramic bottles. The bottle fell, shattering against the floor. A red liquid spread across the floor, covering the shattered pieces of ceramic. “Shit.” It was impossible to see what the liquid was, but as she bent down to pick up the pieces, she stopped when she felt the liquid on her fingers. She knew that texture; the last time she had felt it was hot. Slowly moving her hand up, she noticed the smell. It smelled metallic. Sticking out her tongue and gently touching it. Iron, it tasted like iron. She knew that taste.
“...blood?” she murmured into the dimly lit room.
Her boss was keeping bottles of blood in her basement. She had mentioned there were some drinks stored downstairs she needed to move, and that she was gonna do it later today. This couldn't be it, could it?
Standing back up, she thought for a second. No, it couldn't be, could it? Red eyes, wiredly fast reaction times, superhuman strength, and drinks blood. As she put the facts together, she couldn't help but flash back to her training.
Fuck
FUCK, No, no, no.
“Fuuuuck.” she muttered under her breath.
Her heart was in her throat as she walked back up the stairs and into the house. Looking around the kitchen and finally the living room, she finally found Sam. The tension in her shoulders eased.
“Hi, sweetie. Listen, I need you to go to your room for a bit, ok?” She tried to keep her voice soft, but she was certain he could notice the stress. Her son only nodded.
She knew running wasn't an option, nor did she really want to. She wanted to trust Jasmine; she had earned that. Life was good here, Sam was finally making friends. Could she take that away from him if she could avoid it? One of the things her drill instructors had drilled into them on the topic of magic-using humans or human adjacent beings was that they were all, in many ways, fundamentally human. Humans could be desperate, and cruel, but she had no reason to think Jasmine was cruel, she just needed to avoid her getting desperate.
She could do that, and she could trust that even if she couldn't nothing would happen to Sam, at least nothing worse. Doubly so with the boy in his room, he wouldn't see anything. Still, she could feel her heart hammering in her chest and sweat accumulating on her palms. She would fight if given no other option, but she didn't have the tools, and she knew how a fight with Jasmine would end.
Noctians being in the US would be the kind of thing the government couldn't keep secret and certainly would use if they knew about it. The only two options Jasmine was what seemed like a free agent would be if she was either the only one or the feds didn't know. She didn't know which was worse, but either way such a secret probably had to be kept. That blood had to come from somewhere. For a brief instant her panic flared. Stop it, there haven't been any signs of blood being drawn from either you or Sam.
Walking up to her friend's study, she drew a steadying breath and knocked on the door. It took a few seconds before.
“Come in.”
As she opened the door, Jasmine was still buried in paperwork. Her voice was distracted. “Did you find the skewers?”
Julie opened her mouth to answer, but closed it again as no sound came. Her friend and roommate looked up at her, seemingly wondering what the delay was about. And as she became aware of Julie's stress, Jasmine's eyebrows drew together. Concern.
“What happened? Are you ok? Did something happen to Sam?” her friend's voice was careful, calm, but laced with concern.
Julie drew a breath and tried to center herself. “No… He's fine, I am fine. It's just.” She drew another breath. “When I was down… in the cellar. I kinda saw some metal which seemed weird, and I walked over to look at it, like you do. Beautiful armor by the way.” Jasmine now looked almost more confused than concerned at this point, though it was still an odd mixture that in no way eased the ball of tension in Julie's chest. “Anyways, one thing led to another, and I kinda broke one of the bottles next to it… the ceramic ones. Will that be a problem?” her voice shrinking and tapering off.
The change in Jasmine's posture was subtle but noticeable to anyone who had spent years fighting insurgents. She looked tense, like a spring pushed compact. It reminded her of a viper about to strike. Her face was stranger, the signs of concern were gone, now it looked more like… resignation.
“I don't know, Julie, will it?” Jasmine would have made a great orator; she had never met anyone who could put that much steel and sharpness into a voice at that low a volume.
Julie shuffled slightly, her feet feeling stuck to the floor, as if a small amount of tar had been placed under her feet. FUCK, Don't Panic.
Swallowing, she met Jasmine's gaze. “No, I don't see a reason we should.”
It was quiet for several seconds as Jasmine's eyes flickered across her face, seemingly searching for something. Having been satisfied, the woman seemed to puncture, deflating like a balloon while letting out a sigh. “Ohh, thank god. And thank you, Julie, for not making this something I need to… handle.” She rubbed her eyes before gesturing towards the couches. “We should talk, please sit. Do you want a glass of brandy, wine, scotch?”
“Brandy, please.” Julie slowly started walking towards the couch, more in shock at not having shat herself and at the drastic change in atmosphere than out of true caution. The glass was placed in front of her, filled with a brown liquid. She put the small knife she had picked up in the kitchen down on the table. Jasmine chuckled slightly before sitting down opposite her, giving her a small smile.
“So what do you wanna know?”