Feud

Ash and Dust

 A/N

Hello, 

Just a quick note to say that this is only the rough draft of Feud (that might not even be the title in the future) so there will be some rough patches. Also, if anyone who has  been to JFK Airport reads this, can you give me some tips on how to make this chapter more accurate?

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Lucy quickly returned to staring at her platform heels.

"Hello, Miss..." the man started to say.

"Van Helsing," Lucy responded coldly. "The hell do you want, leech?"

Isaac got up from where he was sitting on the other side of the car. "There a problem?" he asked.

The unnamed vampire looked up at Isaac annoyed for a second, but the annoyed look quickly turned to fear. All supernatural beings give off a scent unique to their species that can be recognized by other supernatural beings. Werewolves and vampires had developed a particular sensitivity to each other because of the fact that werewolf bites can kill a vampire.

"N-no, there isn't," the vampire stuttered.

Lucy looked the vampire right dead in the eyes. "If there isn't any trouble, you'll get off at the next stop."

Isaac returned to his seat next to Ellie. The car continued on until the next stop, where the vampire in a business suit calmly got out of his seat and exited the car.

"I still don't understand how you can compel a vampire Lucy," Isaac said when they got off the AirTrain at Terminal 1.

"It's part of my dhampir bag of tricks," Lucy explained for the 100th time. "You know compelling vampires isn't the only cool thing I can do."

"Can you be compelled by vampires, Lucy?" Ellie asked.

"No, and before you ask, Ellie, I can't compel humans," Lucy said.

They entered Terminal 1 and stopped to discuss food options.

"Okay, what does everyone want to do?" Isaac asked.

"We have a food court right in front of us Isaac. We should just get something to eat from there," Ellie stated.

"We still need to check into our flight to Bucharest and get through this security line, so we have to make a decision quickly," Lucy said. "I can see a McDonalds from here."

"Ellie, you okay with that?" Isaac asked his sister.

"Yeah, sure," Ellie agreed.

After the meal, the three adolescents got in the security line that was much longer than the one at Yeager. Lucy dug her wallet out of her skull-patterned backpack. From the wallet, she pulled out a medical waiver card for her eyepatch. Duke managed to get it for her even though nothing was wrong with her eye. At Yeager, the eyepatch wasn't a problem because Officer Dave was also a graduate of Dracula's Academy and a personal friend of the Wrights.

None of the TSA officers at JFK gave Lucy, Ellie, or Isaac any trouble this trip through the line, which Lucy was thankful for. During Lucy and Isaac's first trip to Dracula's Academy, Isaac had been selected for "extra security measures" and ultimately nothing was found. It took Lucy and Duke a while to get Isaac calmed down enough to get on the plane. All members of the Wright household remained convinced it was because of Isaac's skin color.

"How many hours until our next flight leaves?" Ellie asked.

"6 and a half hours," Isaac told his sister.

Lucy pulled out her phone from her back pocket and checked her text messages. "Amalie and Jaques just got into Bucharest," she announced while replying to the message.

"Who are they?" Ellie asked.

"Amalie is a succubus and my roommate. Jaques is her brother," Lucy explained.

"So that makes him an incubus?"

"Right. Which means don't be in a room with him alone."

Isaac butted into the miniature conversation. "He'll have hell to pay from me and Duke if he tries anything like that. Any word on when Tatsuo arriving?"

"No. He never answers texts, so I'm not going to ask him either," Lucy sighed. "He'll show up when he shows up."

"Who's Tatsuo?" Ellie asked. "Another werewolf?

"No," Lucy explained, "He's a fox shape-shifter from Japan."

"Kinda like us," Isaac helped. "But he can turn at will and it doesn't hurt."

Lucy kept her head down while they walked to their flight gate. She and Amalie had been roommates since their freshmen year. Dracula's Academy was a sanctuary for many species of supernatural beings. The vampire king during the early 20th century had established the Academy as a symbol of peace after a bloody war with a faction of European werewolves. The student body had grown from just including vampires and werewolves since then. It was primarily a high school and university, but for some beings that would have a harder than normal time function in the human world, it was their only safe haven. Of course, the school was separated into the unimaginatively named Sun and Moon classes for the wellbeing of the student body. Vampires populated the Moon class and most everyone else was put into the Sun class. Dhampirs like Lucy, however, could choose to be in either class.

Lucy had some beef with the dhampirs in the Moon class. She hated the vampire species as a whole, and with good reason. Their evil nature was the reason Lucy's mom had died and the reason Lucy's uncle kept his distance from her. If it was possible, Lucy would do anything to get rid of her vampiric nature and just be completely human.

Waiting hours for flights had become somewhat of a norm for Lucy and Isaac. Ellie fell asleep on Isaac's shoulder for a couple hours while Isaac played games on his phone. Lucy walked laps around the terminal to exercise and to help clear her mind. The encounter with the random vampire had unsettled her. Normally Lucy didn't like using her vampiric abilities because they reminded her she was a monster, but there were times when it was useful to have them. She worked hard to keep her physical even with a vampire and drank as little human blood as possible to keep her more mystical, like being able to compel a vampire, sharp as well.

During the summer and whenever she was home on a school break, Lucy acted as a bounty/vampire hunter. Her uncle had only contacted her a few times by letter, and in those letters, he explained to her their family tree, what is meant for her, and the easiest ways to kill a vampire. The werewolf Alpha Council, other supernatural monsters, and a few aware humans often reached out to hunters like Lucy and her uncle to take care of a problem vampire and paid them reasonably for the work. Lucy's uncle was one of the most well known and respected hunters, and Lucy was starting to gain a similar reputation, at least in the southern United States.

Lucy enjoyed hunting. It gave her a chance to get back at the monsters who had taken her mother from her before Lucy could even know her. Human mothers of dhampirs always died in childbirth or shortly after, unless the vampire father turned the mother into a vampire. There were no recorded cases of a male human fathering a dhampir or a mother surviving the birth of the child.

Eventually, walking laps got boring and Lucy returned to where Isaac and Ellie were sitting and dug a book out of her backpack. Hopefully, nothing would go wrong on this flight. As much as Lucy teased and annoyed Ellie, she didn't want Ellie to develop a fear of flying.