by brett hicks
Kayla McQueen: Vampire Slayer and Half-Breed
By: Brett W. Hicks
Dedicated to: My Friends on Wattpad. This project started as just another random story and now it is published, thank you all for pushing me and inspiring me to write better!
Prologue:
My life is like something out of the fantasy section, except it is real. Most girls my age are worried about prom, their hair, or if the cute boy is going to ask them out. I would kill for my crazy life to be that simple. Well I technically do kill, very frequently.
I live in New Orleans, a very powerful place for all things supernatural. Being born with my abilities has made me wide eyed to everything in my city. I am aware of all the ghosts that haunt the area all the shifters and all the vampires that stalk the night. Normal girls do not see these things their whole life, or through the glamor and magics, that sups hides behind.
I am not actually sure how human I really am, because I am at least half vampire. My father was turned and came for many loving visits, with my mother, before he feared that he would lose control with her. By the time he finally exposed the truth to my mom, I was already growing inside her. It is not very common for vampires to be able to re-produce, even with humans. They are basically undead, but the younger the vampire, the more likely his boys are still swimming.
My mom explained what I was, when I started puberty, because it came with fangs and occasional cravings for blood. It was hard to comprehend at eleven, that I would stop aging somewhere between eighteen and twenty two. Every witch I knew in the local covens all confirmed that my kind, dyamphyr are immortal, just not always monsters. My blood lust was pretty easy to control, a little pigs blood every morning and once a week, a glass of type A and I am fine.
The first question I asked was, “Am I evil.” I have yet to find a positive answer to that question, because my dad still loved my mom enough to not harm her, when he was turned. I had a lot of moral issues most teenagers never face. I have always went out of my way to avoid conflict with mundanes, I mean normal humans.
Only one of my friends knows what I am, Sally, she is the daughter of the half-moon pack apex alpha. She is probably the only reason I did not go completely nuts so far. Were wolves generally hate vampires, but Sally and her parents seem to have found it in them to like me.
Chapter: 1
I fell back about twelve feet and landed hard on my back. I felt the breath flee my body and I cursed silently. I quickly swung my feet and landed in a crotch. I blocked an incoming kick, with both my forearms. I pushed my attacker’s leg to the far left, breaking their stance and following through with an elbow to the same knee.
I heard a loud yelp and I did a half circuit sweep with my right leg and my attacker was grounded with a heavy thud. I quickly mounted my attacker and pressed the blunted stake to his heart.
“Time” I heard Sally call from the sidelines. I looked and saw hesitant nods of approval from the wolves around her, watching my training season, with their third in line. Dylan was smirking up at me, and I blushed crimson, standing to my feet. He was a very delicious twenty eight year old. Even at my young age of seventeen, I could not help but appreciate his appeal.
He stood up in one graceful motion and he gave me an approving nod. “You are getting too damn fast, even for me little lady.”
I have him a shy smile and nodded and murmured my thanks for the training. I was not usually this chronically shy, but hot older guys had that effect on me. Actually I am a very social little butterfly, for a dyamphyr at least. I cannot really do much at school extracurricular, because I might hurt somebody. So I like to come to the pack after school and rough house with the wolves. They don’t mind using me as a punching bag, and I get to learn how to punch back.
I saw Jean Early, Sally’s father walk forward. I nodded respectfully to him, when on pack land, behave like pack. All the chatter died down and Jean cam to stand right in front of me now.
“Kayla McQueen, well fought, I am going to run out of trainers at this rate of growth child.” He may look like he is in his late thirties, but he is closer to one hundred in reality. I took a moment to lip my light yellow hair from my eyes. It was getting way too long to leave down in a fight now-a-days.
“Thanks Apex, you just have really good teachers here.” He gave me another small nod and walked over to pull his third, Dylan aside. I took one more lustful glance at Dylan’s hind side and walked over to my fiery red head best friend and she-wolf. Sally had a twinkle of amusement in her pale green eyes. She knew the effect hot older guys had on my nervous system and loved watching it.
Sally was like an amazon compared to my five foot three inches. She was five ten and all lean muscle. I was all muscle and bones too, but I still looked very scrawny. I also envied her big boobs, but I would just have to hope, that I might get a little more, before I stopped growing. The only thing that she could envy on me was my nice hips and butt. My mom was half Mexican and I basically received white girl, everything, except my rear.
“Did you already finish sparring Sally, or were you just flaking out?” She gave me a very hurt look and said, “I just finished early, because my dad has been pulling all the ranking wolves into meetings all night. So did your dyamphyr sense of smell pick up the lusty scent Dylan was sending you?”
I cursed like a sailor, at least in my mind, for about five seconds. “Yep, hence the blush and bolt move I pulled at the end there. I really don’t wanna have this conversation again Sally!”
She gave me a sweet southern grin and rolled her eyes at me. “You really should just let him pop your cherry already, it’s not like you’re going to find any better picks, which will not age much.”
I sighed exasperated and shrugged. “I am old school; I want the whole love and fireworks package.”
“There is old school and then there is nineteen fifties hon. You are falling into that nineteen fifties category now!”
“I don’t see why we always end up talking about my lack of sex life Sally! Do you like my hair?”
“Yeah I love the blue highlights you added to those yellow locks! But you are not going to get me off your ass about this! You are even more immortal than we are! You should try to live like it!”
“I don’t wanna end up carrying every STD on the planet in a few years hun!”
She laughed hysterically now and said, “Oh I am sure Dylan would love to hear how little you think of him.”
“I did not mean Dylan specifically!” She just kept laughing and then motioned for me to follow her. We walked into her home on the pack territory in the swamp land outside the city limits. The pack owned about fifty houses in this swampland. They had built a nifty wooden barrier around the outer parameter.
The houses ranged from a mix of shotgun style homes, to very large versions of log cabins. The pack had been adding on as needed, since most of their people lived on the pack grounds. Some lived in or around the French quarter area too. Sally’s home was like a log mansion. Three stories of log constructed home and fully modernized, about ten years ago.
We walked in and went up to the second floor and took turns taking showers. Thankfully I always kept clean clothes at her house. I had a long sleeve tee that read ‘I am not daddy’s little girl.’ It had a skull and cross bones behind the text. I thought it was snarky and ironic. Sally told me I bordered on modern Goth wear, and chalked it up to my vampire genetics. I put on a comfy pair of snug fit jeans, which still had room for full range of motion in them.
I buckled on my wrist sheaths, for my five inch daggers on each arm. They were silver forged, with cold iron. It was a magical blade, which was deadly to most immorta
ls. Vampires generally you just destroy the heart and burn the body and their dead. I was taught to take the head and the heart, since I started training at eleven.
We each have our own ways of coping with our issues, mine was training to kill the undead, with my were wolf best friend. I learned about Sally’s secret shortly after I learned about my own. It was not exactly a shock to my system, because she ate a lot more than a pre-teen girl should and she was moody on full moons. She does not have to shift on the moon, which is a myth; she just gets more emotional, like a second PMS for wolves.
I was just putting my black and white sneakers, when Sally came out of the bath room finally. She was a natural beauty, but she still primped in front of a mirror a lot! I guess I was not very girly, more of a tomboy. I did not wear makeup, just some chap stick to keep my lips moist. Never know when your never been kissed streak might actually end, right?
Chapter: 2
It was Friday night and that meant girl’s night on the French Quarter! Sally and I were meeting two of our best friends from school at Mama Georgia’s, for the best damn gumbo this side of the city.
I was enjoying the autumn air; it was less humid this time of year in the city of the dead. I had to ignore the regular ghosts floating nearby. Sally was always creeping out if I stared at something she could not see. I had learned that I was closer to the dead, because of the necromancy involved in vampire DNA. I was not living dead, but it still made me sensitive to all things dead or undead.
The French Quarter was ripe of the scents of booze and smoke. I could smell the musk of sex in the air and the many lusty hormones littering the surrounding streets. I loved my very sinful city, even its many sorted smells.
The streets were crowded on this fine September night. School was starting on Monday and I was looking forward to senior year. I had no idea what I wanted to study in college, but I had managed to get a fifteen hundred on my SAT’s. I was applying to schools around home, but I also applied to Columbia and NYU. I was tempted to go into law enforcement, because I seemed to be a modern version of Nancy Drew. I was just worried that my unique blood work might be flagged, so far I had never had a problem, but you never know. I was stuck between law enforcement and English lit, because I loved writing.
My mom had naturally encouraged me to go for the lit studies, but I was not yet sure that I could not ender law enforcement. I might be able to learn to shape glamor to appear as though I aged a little. Honestly all options would end one day, if people noticed I was not getting any older. The only work I seemed to be destined to do for the rest of my life was the ending of vampire lives.
At seventeen, nearly eighteen, I had already killed over twenty vampires. I killed my first vampire when I was twelve and a half, because he wanted to rape and kill me. Most vampires seem to lose all sense of decency and morality. They just become nocturnal death and hunger. Thus the question of whether or not I was evil.
I do not have the daylight allergy of the full vampires. They actually do refer to the half breeds as “day walkers,” if they are old school. I can only be killed, by beheading or destruction of my heart. I cannot die any other way to my knowledge. Besides my cravings for blood, I get off pretty lightly, all the perks and very few of the weaknesses. Thankfully I am not allergic to silver either. Wolves and vamps hate the stuff. Witches and most other magical practitioners are allergic to cold iron, hence why my weapons are all forged with a fifty, fifty mix of those two items.
We walked into the dimly lit restraint and one of our class mates, Leia directed us to an open table. Her grandma owns the restraint. Leia was a true child of the buoy. She had the dark tan completion and dark brown hair, which told of the many mixed heritages, which make up any true Cajun girl. Her brown eyes were like chocolate and she had beautiful thick pink lips. She was only a few inches taller than me, but she had much larger breasts. Not that I had a breast complex or anything!
I smiled politely to Leia and thanked her, before ordering the house gumbo and a pitcher of sweet tea. No one does sweet tea like we do here in New Orleans. It is basically a sugar concoction, with some trace amounts of strong tea mixed in.
We got a window seat and it looked out on the busy Quarter. You could see artists and fortune teller’s stalls set up across the street from the restaurant. A lot of the local witches had booths or fortune stores in the quarter. There were two very good apothecary goods stores too. I had reason to stock on some herbs and tonics, because of my nocturnal job these days.
There were divisions of homicide committed to super natural crimes. They had declared vampires a public menace over one hundred years ago, so they were officially illegal. Dyamphyrs like me are considered as human. We are not treated like vampires, unless we do not suppress our cravings for blood. Some of my kind has been known to just give in to their vampire side. I think it has more to do with their mental stability as an individual, than any other factor.
Were-creatures are legalized citizens of this country and many others. They are regarded with much less fear, because most are just normal people, who can go furry. They are very long lived being, but they generally reproduce at lower rates. A lot of the were-creatures migrated to the US, because of its tolerance and legal protection over the past fifty years.
Magic is known and even used in every branch of the services. Witches and all other magical beings are regarded as human, with special abilities. Crimes by magical means are punishable by death though. There is zero tolerance for abuse of magic.
My mom is worried that the police will abuse my abilities, if I join up after high school. What I want to do is work in their supernatural crimes division, because it will point me at the nests of vampires.
I heard loud laughs that could never be mistaken for anyone, besides Lacey. She came into view and seated herself and her girlfriend Marla. Lacey was a bottle blonde, with natural chestnut hair. She was nearly as tall as Sally. Marla was a coco-skinned Cajun girl, with long brown-black hair. Her hazel eyes were burning two lusty holes into Lacey, as they got comfortable.
“So what are my two favorite straight girls up to, tonight?” Lacey said with her standard level of gay pride. She might as well dye her hair rainbow colored!
I suppressed an eye roll and said, “How are you guy’s doin? Get lost in the back of your little hatchback on the way here?”
From the look on Marla’s face I was closer to the mark than cared to be. Sometimes I felt like a freak, for smelling the musk of sex on my friends. Sally just found it amusing, because she is a wolf. They love the smell of sex, it just makes them horny. Sally had been having very safe sex, since she was fourteen. I don’t judge, but that is freaking young!
She thinks I am silly to want to wait until I fall in love, because there are not many Dyamphyrs in the world. I do not need to find a Dyamphyr per-say, just a man that I can live with, who is not going to die of old age.
Marla looked very bright and chipper, “So who is ready for senior year?” I raised my tea glass in a mock toast. “I’ll drink to that ladies!”
Leia came back with our gumbo orders a few minutes later and I dug into the southern, cheesy goodness, which is gumbo! I love to eat and I burn through food, about as fast as a shifter.
Lacey said, “I swear you two eat like it is going out of style. I know Sally has an excuse, but Kayla wow!”
Sally gave me a knowing and amused smirk. I rolled my eyes and said, “Still waitin for it to fill my breasts out hun.”
Lacey gave me a full on rake of her eyes and said, “Trust me hun, if you played for my team, I would totally do indescribable things to you.” Marla hit her lightly and Lacey amended, “If I was single and this lovely Cajun angle was not all mine!”
I snorted and laughed at her. Sally just sat back and smiled, she was more the quite type in a group conversation. She just balanced out group out, with her quite happy personality. I was a talker and a very blunt talker, like most girls born and bred in New Orleans.
Chapter: 3
We were just exiting the Quarter, when the scent of fresh blood hit me like an atom bomb to my temple. I quickly dropped my eyes, from sight, because they might have gone silver and pupils slit, like a reptiles. I cursed very lowly and Sally must have picked up on it. She could probably smell the blood now, that she was paying attention.
I heard Sally say, “Common girls, let’s get you to the car. Kayla you better go talk to that hottie, I see you eyeing! Come girls; leave her to get her V card swiped please!”
I will just have to not poke fun at her choice material, to distract our friends, for now. After this is over I plan to get her back three hundred fold!
I massaged my throbbing temples and I slowly walked to the source of the delightful smell, I mean the crime scene. I focused my limited magical talent, on changing my cloths and adding a badge. I opted to go with FBI, because no one would believe I was a local cop, who did not know anyone else here. My glamor coated me like a second skin or a coat really.
I stepped past the uniform cop, who was just finishing, the tape around the crime scene. I saw him take note of me in his mind, but he did not try to stop me. He must not feel like being the one to do the jurisdiction dance with the feds tonight. I have snuck into crime scenes using this glamor before, it is amazing that half the time the cops will leave me be, because they don’t feel like having the pissing match. I watch enough FBI and NYPD dramas and I study for criminal justice next year, so I can make a pretty convincing argument.
I make it into the small shotgun style home and the front room is opened straight into the bedroom. I can see a young woman in her early twenties laying there. I sniff the air subtly and I pick up multiple scents, but they are obscured with magic.
I crouch over her and I look at the bite wounds on her neck, then the ones on her arms. My heightened sense of sight can trace the patterns of the marks, much like a human would with lab equipment. I am sure that she was killed by more than one vampire. The look on her face and the intoxicating scent of fear in the air, tell me that they scared her to death, as much as they drank her to death. I can still feel lingering traces of glamor rolling off of her like heat waves.
