Mythfits

14- Steve

I stare in shock out the window, not believing who stood outside my door. Wow, I think, Christine really is persuasive. Well, either that, or Ella is more willing to trust me than I originally thought. I take another look outside, where Ella stands, her arms crossed, glaring at my front door. No, I decide, it was probably Christine's influence. While she may not have intentionally swayed Ella, Christine was persuasive all on her own.

Shaking myself out of my frozen position, I open the door, "Hey, Ella." I smile, "I didn't expect you to take me up on my offer."

"Well?" she asks, "What information do you have?" Crap. I had total overlooked this minor detail; Clara hadn't emailed me back yet.

"Oh," I laugh awkwardly, "So I have a contact who may be able to help, but she hasn't responded yet." I glance at Ella sideways, trying to gauge her reaction.

She lifts her eyebrows, "You mean that you, and Christine, went out of your way to say that you had pertinent information, only for me to show up here and you have nothing?"

"Yes. I mean no." I blurt hastily, " I do have some information on some of the sketches in the book."

Ella blows a strand of hair off her face, "Well why didn't say that in the first place?" she watches me with a cool, detached expression, which I suppose is better than angry, but still disconcerting, as I have no good way of reading how she really feels. Normally, reading people comes easily to me, not as natural as it is to Christine, but I'm usually pretty good at guessing people's moods. But with Ella, it's like a blank wall. "Well?" She asks "Do you have the information or not?"

"Yes, yes I do." I walk over to the desk in the kitchen, where I had set the photocopies of the pages. Spreading them out of the table, I point to each in turn, explaining what I had learned.

"This one," I point to the drawing of the lizard with three sets of legs and impressively colored frill, "Is probably a basilisk. I've never seen one in person, but there supposedly used to be one living in the forests around here. Basilisks are a cross between a dragon and a chicken, and can turn things to stone by looking at them."

"A dragon and a chicken?" Ella asks, disbelieving.

"Yeah. I'm not sure how that works, but this one," I point to another, "Is a kitsune. Probably an old and powerful one, judging by the fact that it has seven tails."

"Seven tails?"

"Yeah, the more powerful a kitsune is, the more tails they get. Once they get nine tails, their fur turns from red-orange to silver of gold. Number of tails are kind of like the kitsune's version of the social order of the high school. Minus the fact that the social order at our high school is a whole lot more complicated than how many tails a fox has." I explain, thinking that the analogy makes more sense.

Ella stares at me, obviously not impressed, " You know, I was just thinking that you were actually smart, then you went and ruined it." She studies the image, "What's that?" she points to a small ball of what looks like fire, floating by the kitsune's head.

"I have no idea." I admit, my wealth of knowledge dried up for the time being, "We'll have to ask Christine, she knows way more about other Kinds than I do."

"Wait a moment," Ella leans forward, "What we? I came here because you said you had information pertaining to my sister. Instead, all you have are some photocopied drawings and scraps of information that I could easily learn elsewhere."

Frustrated, I throw up my hands, "Look, sorry, but I can't tell you much. I don't know a lot about other Kinds besides the basics, my family always believed in staying within our own Kind."

"Uh huh." Ella nods, "So then why are so very," she gestures at me vaguely, "Un-vampirish?"

I have to admit, that a newbie werewolf like Ella was able to see that I don't fit in, even among my own kind, stings. A lot. "My father is an Azeman, a Kind of South American vampire. What with that, and the fact that I was just born weird, beans that I'm a flying fox, not a vampire bat."

"What about blood? Aren't vampires supposed to need blood or else they die or something? And isn't sunlight supposed to turn you to dust?"

I flush, embarrassed, "I'm a vegetarian. I feed off of residual energy that people leave behind. And vampires don't burn up in the sun, they just sunburn really easily."

Ella raises her eyebrows, noting my considerable tan from a summer of soccer practice.

"Again, I don't. I tan in the sun just like everyone else."

"You're a vegetarian? That's why you smell like mangoes?" Ella asks, her head tilted

"Hey!" I protest, "Wait, I smell like mangoes?" I ask, never asked a werewolf what I smell like before.

"Yeah." Ella looks at me sideways, "Why is that important?"
"It's not." I shrug, "Just interesting."

Ella gets out of her chair and stands up, "I have to be home before my dad does." She pauses just before she gets to the door, "Thanks, I guess." I raise my eyebrow, surprised at her praise. But then she continues, "Next time, try to actually have the information you promised."

And with that, she's gone.