I have been doing a lot of thinking since that horrendous night, when the werewolves attacked Normal. A serious deal of thinking. About my place in this world. About all the new things I have learned and discovered. Only a few months ago, I was a completely normal guy. I still am a normal guy, but I've found out about all this weird stuff that's going on. It's freaked me out on more occasions than I can count, but it's also... kind of cool? I kind of like this odd life I have had in Normal, if you ignore the vicious werewolf attack or the crazy witch or the weirdo clown.
Besides all of that, I like spending my time with the supernatural. I may be normal myself, but I like spending my time with vampires, werewolves, fairies, and witches.
I got a phonecall.
“Hello, who's this?” I asked.
“I'm Death,” the voice on the other line said.
“I'll speak louder then,” I said, raising my voice a few decibels.
“Ha ha, very funny. You know who I am. The building is complete. I am inviting you out to see it,” Grim said.
And so, I got into my car, and went off to see this new task force building. How would this building protect us from supernaturals who would use their powers for evil? Well, I was about to find out.
I pulled up to an enormous white mansion in the shape of a crescent. There were two strange giant white spires rising from the ground in front of it. I could see Grim's horse was munching away at a vegetable patch in the front of the yard. Daybreak ran out of his room and started shouting at the horse to stop eating his vegetable patch. It ignored him.
I made my way to the front door, and was instantly greeted by Dawn.
“Hello, Mr Norm. It's good to see you. I don't think I've seen you since... well, the werewolf attack,” Dawn said.
“Yeah, I've been pretty busy with my work since then,” I said, which wasn't really the truth. This past month, I had kind of been avoiding all the supernatural leaders – Ruby, Daybreak, Victor, Dawn, even Grim. But to be fair, they had been ignoring me all month too.
“Well, let me give you a tour of the place,” Dawn said, and then she proceeded to give me a tour of the place.
Entering the main entry-room, the first thing that I noticed was that the architecture was a very art nouveau style. All... twinkly. Look, clearly I'm not the best with descriptions, so just use your imagination to embellish.
We went to the main lounge, which was a pretty basic setup. You had your big comfy couches, big stereo, big TV. Much better than the one at my house. Dang, I kinda wanna live here. But I think that might be against the rules. I mean, the only reason I'm living here in Normal in the first place is because my boss sent me out here to work.
Next to the lounge was a small kitchen and an average dining room, both giving off a good view of the whole general area.
In addition to this, each supernatural leader had their own personal room.
For example, Victor's room had his own personal gym, with barbells, treadmills and bench presses all over the place. He had his own 'juice bar', except it was hooked up to a blood bag. He assured me that he had obtained the blood through ethical means. I didn't press the issue. There was also a big mirror that he liked to flex in front of, which didn't make much sense to me since he's, you know, a vampire and as such had no reflection.
Daybreak's room was like an indoor forest, with green carpeting that looked just like grass, and crawling vine wallpapers. There was a huge bookcase shaped up to look like a tree. The whole room was full of paintings of flowers and daisies. Seemed like it would be paradise for a fairy, but not so much my thing.
Grim had his own personal space, too. It looked a lot like his old place, a sort of sophisticated Gothic feeling all around the place. I'm not even sure yet why Grim and the supernatural leaders all insisted on leaving their original homes yet. I think it has to do with this 'supernatural task-force' Grim has in mind. Still, I can't believe how quickly they just decided to move out of their homes and into this building.
Dawn had a rather spooky Witch den, with a big, black cauldron in the centre of the room. The walls were decorated with various runes and sigils. There was an enormous bookcase that looked straight out of a fairy-tale. But instead of being full of books, it was full of all kinds of weird-looking potions.
Last but certainly not least there was Ruby's room. It looked the most normal of the lot, with lots of cat toys lying around for the cat to play with, as Ruby laid down on the couch watching TV. She turned it off as soon as I walked in, however. She smiled and wagged her tail as I walked up to her.
“Al! It's good to see you again,” Ruby said.
“This is a pretty nice place,” I said.
“You're always welcome here. It gets lonely here at night,” Ruby said.
“I'll come when I have time. My job has been keeping me quite busy lately. So what was the story between you and Chase? You said he saved your life,” I said.
Ruby rose up off the couch so she could better face me.
“It all happened back when we were pups. Our families used to socialize together a lot. I'd play with him out by this big river. One day, I tripped and fell into the water. While everyone else panicked, he dived in and rescued me. I don't know what happened to change him, but it must have been something big. Grim has his own theories on that. You should speak with him later,” Ruby said.
After she had explained all this to me, I began to wonder why Ruby had chosen me as her boyfriend.
After all, she's the leader of the werewolves in this community, and I'm just some normal guy. If she was going to end up with anyone, my money would have been on Chase.
Come to think of it, the weirdest thing of all so far was the fact that an ordinary human like me was still alive while surrounded by all this supernatural weirdness. What was so special about me?
I spent a little time snuggling with Ruby, her warm fur rubbing up against my skin. After a while, though, I left to have a talk with Grim. I wanted to understand exactly how this 'task force' thing was going to work out.
I found him sitting in the lounge, reading some musty old tome. I sat down next to him.
“What are you reading?” I asked.
“A book,” he replied.
“Those werewolves attacking the supermarket last month. Did you know that was going to happen?” I asked.
“No, I did not. I had a strong feeling that a lot of people were going
to die somehow that day. That was why I warned all the supernatural leaders that something was about to happen. Obviously, that failed. I have been here for 100 years and I have never seen a supernatural attack on this scale happen. Not just in Normal, but anywhere.
At worst, you'd have random travelers disappearing down long, winding roads. Lone wolf attacks. But these werewolves attacked a busy town street. It makes me think that there may be some larger force guiding these events. Until we can find out what that force is, we have a general plan in mind.
Those two white spires you saw out front were enchanted by Dawn. They're kind of like weather predictors, except for the supernatural.
It will predict when a strong negative supernatural event is about to happen, and where it will take place, hours before it happens. It will send a message to the computers of each supernatural leader. That way we will be able to better mobilize ourselves,” Grim said.
“I'm impressed with how you've managed to get all the supernatural leaders to live under one roof to protect Normal. But what if it's a false alarm? What if it's just some bored witch blowing up rotten pumpkins in their backyard or something?” I asked.
“Better for it to be a false alarm than to have a big pile of bodies for me to clean up,” Grim said, as he turned a page.
Well, I couldn't argue with that. Still...
“Those were actual people, not just a pile of bodies. I know you're Death and everything, but us humans care about our dead,” I said.
“You could have fooled me,” Grim said, slamming his book shut and leaving the room. And that was that.
The days have been getting colder, and the ground has been getting snowier. This particular day there must have been five inches of snow. And yet it was still snowing. Snow, snow, snow and then more snow.
In this kind of weather, you'd think that it would be impossible to find a way to party. A normal person would prefer to spend their time huddled up inside, perhaps with a roaring fire, a hot drink, a good book, and the person they care most about in the world cuddled up beside them.
But Vlad isn't your normal person. And I'm not just saying that because he's a vampire.
See, most vampires around in Normal just drink the blood of animals, and while that may do for a series of small snacks, it doesn't replace the vampiric bloodlust. Vlad told me it's kind of like an addiction. An urge. And if that addiction can't be fed through fresh, human blood, then some other substitute must be found. For Vlad, that addiction was exercise. He was obsessed with it.
Pumping iron, getting swole, making himself as muscular as possible... all that was in alternative to grabbing random humans to suck their blood.
Vlad had told me all this when I'd finally gathered up the guts to ask him where the freakin' heck he was getting all those blood packs to suck on. He told me not to worry, they were mostly just animal blood packs taken from his part-time job as a vet.
But still, that wasn't enough to fight what Vlad called 'the urge'. So, he controlled his urges by going to the gym. But also through going to parties.
He had already thrown quite a few parties at this point, so I saw no reason not to go to this one. He said there might be more vampires there than I'm used to.
Well, I've been around here in Normal for this long, and I still haven't gotten killed. So I'm not too worried about your vampire friends.
So, most naturally, I came along to the party. It was being held at this bar on the edge of town. It looked like any other bar, except this bar was this this bar and not any other bar. The most that could be said for this bar was that it was a bar.
All the other supernatural leaders were busy with other stuff that night, so I spent most of my time hanging around with Vlad. His boyfriend was there too. What was his name again? Chuck.
To be honest, I was bored for a good deal of the time. I was more at home in front of a computer, writing up office work. I'm not the kind of guy who likes to party every single weekend. Vlad and Chuck were having a blast, though, as they tore up the dance floor.
We just have two different personality types. Doesn't mean we can't hang out with each other. Maybe I'll think of some activity we can both enjoy some time.
But that was for later. For now, I was noticing what looked like a few troublemakers hanging near the front doors.
They were vampires, I could tell that surely enough. Over the months I'd gained a sense for who was a vampire and who was not. Certain things tended to give them away, such as abnormally sharp teeth, extremely pale skin, and no reflections.
Why did I think they were troublemakers? Much of my deduction had to do with how they were dressed. They were all wearing black trenchcoats, and wore heavy black make-up that obscured their facial features. Around their necks were gas masks. And in their hands were large glass orbs, filled with some kind of white liquid.
Outside the window, I could see two spires far out in the distance.
They were beginning to glow. Uh-oh.
At that very moment, Victor got a notification on his phone.
Whatever the message was, he looked quite concerned, something he did not do very often.
The trench-coat vampires were coming closer. It was then that I noticed a pungent odour coming from the glass orbs. It was the smell of garlic. The other vampires in the bar began to notice it too, standing up to attention like meerkats. Some of them looked disgusted and offended. Most of them looked scared.
What kind of vampires bring huge orbs of garlic juice to a vampire bar? I didn't want to wait to find out. I didn't want to see a repeat of that werewolf attack.
I walked straight up to this group of vampires, before I could even think about what it was I was doing.
“Good day, ladies and gentlemen. What brings you here this evening?” I asked. Inwardly I groaned. I sounded like some kind of clichéd bus-boy or something, not the tough bouncer I had set up in my mind.
“We're just here to join in on the fun,” one of the trench-coat vampires said.
“You do know it's against the rules to bring any garlic into this bar,” I said in what I hoped was a tough-sounding voice.
The vampires laughed and pushed me to the ground. They walked over to Victor. One of the trench-coat vampires began cradling his balls right in front of Victor. Wait, that came out wrong. He pulled out his garlic orb and softly fondled it in a way that gave Victor a good view. Victor had turned serious all of a sudden, something I was not at all used to.
“If you're trying to threaten me, you should know that I am the leader of the vampires in this town. An attack on me will be considered an attack on all Normal-dwelling vampires,” Victor said.
Chuck, who was nearby, looked ready to throw down fists.
“That's just what we're hoping,” one of the trench-coat vampires said. In unison, the trench-coat vampires began smiling, showing off their pearly whites.
“My friends are going to be here very shortly. I suggest you leave before something bad happens,” Victor said. The trench-coat vampires roared with laughter.
One of the trench-coat vampires grabbed one of the garlic orbs and held it above his head. Victor cowered in fear. But then, out in the distance, came the lone howl of a werewolf. Within seconds, Ruby had burst through the doors, looking absolutely ferocious. She was shortly born by the other supernatural leaders, Daybreak and Dawn.
The trench-coat vampires looked like they weren't expecting this level of resistance.
“Put the garlic down!” Ruby shouted. Still, one of the trench-coat vampires tried to stay cocky.
“Are these your defences? A mangy she-mutt, a nerdy witch and a sissy fairy?” The very, very stupid trench-coat vampire asked.
“Sissy?!?” Daybreak repeated, looking outraged. He floated over to the vampires, looking like a giant dainty butterfly, which only seemed to confirm to the trench-coat vampires what a sissy he was.
They laughed and hollered, right until Daybreak sprayed their faces with magical red fairy dust.
Then they were all rolling on the floor, screaming in agony. But only for a moment, then they weakly rose to their feet. They looked exhausted, but they also looked like they hadn't come this far to throw in the towel just yet. The trench-coat vampires grabbed their garlic orbs and began holding them up above their heads.
“Hold on there, sport. You don't want us to do anything dangerous, do you?” One of them asked.
“You guys are vampires too. If you're not careful, you're gonna end up killing yourselves,” Ruby said. Just then, one of the vampires tossed a glass orb, and it hit Ruby in the stomach, covering her with garlic juice. Of course, because she wasn't a vampire, it didn't hurt her. In fact, her resilient werewolf skin absorbed most of the blow.
“Alright, that's it, you're leaving this bar in a body bag,” Ruby said. She looked absolutely ferocious, baring her sharp teeth. She growled, and took slow steps towards them.
“What the hell did you doev that for?” One of the trench-coat vampires asked of their comrade. To which their comrade replied, “I thought she was one of us!”
“She's quite clearly a werewolf,” another one of the trench-coat vampires said. Ruby was getting closer.
In a final act of desperation, the trench-coat vampires began to toss each and every garlic orb they had across the room. The results of this were not pretty.
Next to none of the garlic orbs struck their intended targets. Instead of hitting vampires, they struck the walls, the windows, television sets and so on.
Dawn and I managed to catch a few with our bare hands, just by moving into the right place at the right time.
One of the garlic orbs struck one of the trench-coat vampires, sending him reeling backwards in agony.
Vlad jumped in the place of one of his vampire friends, and the garlic orb hit him in the leg, toppling him over. His boyfriend, Chuck, went over quickly to comfort him.
Now that the trench-coat vampires were all out of their garlic orbs, Ruby and Daybreak were able to overcome them quite easily. The trench-coat vampires were held safely away from others until the cops arrived.
And that was that for that little adventure. The official story was that they were just some hoodlums looking to break stuff. Vlad ended up being okay, just had to stay in bed for a few weeks. We did offer to take him to the hospital, but he said he didn't trust himself in a place with so many blood packs just ripe for the taking.
But still, this was a good result. A group of supernaturals had tried to bring trouble to Normal, and the task-force had stopped them. We'd succeeded in what we'd set out to do. We'd stopped what could have been a massacre. Though that still didn't explain why all these supernatural attacks kept happening. Or if there would be any more...