A Day in a Peculiar Life Part 3
Title: A Day in a Peculiar Life Part 3
Author: mage_apprentice
Fandom: Twilight series
Rating: PG-13 (for one in-character F-bomb)
Inspiration: Rabid plot bunnies, lack of characterization in Meyer’s minor characters, and the folks of the Twilight Sucks forums for The Spark.
Word Count: 2383
Summary: During Jessica’s birthday party, Lauren makes a discovery and Mark gains a new guest he isn’t particularly happy about.
“Thanks for the ride, Angie. I can’t wait until my car gets out of shop.”
“No problem.”
Jessica glances out the window into the young night. “After I drop off my stuff, it’s off to Lauren’s!”
Angela smiles. “The party’s ready, birthday girl!”
“Please don’t call me birthday girl ever again.”
Angela chuckles to herself as she pulls in to Jessica’s home. When she parks the car, Jessica gets out and frowns at her home. Silhouettes on the windows busy themselves with some sort of chore. Jessica walks to the front door as she comments, “Funny. No one is supposed to be home.”
Angela whips out her phone and rapidly sends a text through. However, Jessica makes it inside right when Angela presses the send button. Jessica stops right when she sees the sight inside her home. Everyone inside from Mark to Lauren and all her closest friends stare back at her in stun, birthday decorations in their hands waiting to be put in place. Lauren’s phone rings as it receives Angela’s warning text.
Mark, putting up a banner, glances between the unfinished decorating and his niece and finally says, “Surprise?”
Mike crawls out from behind the television. “What’s going on?” He then spots Jessica and goes back to fiddling with the cords, hiding behind the TV.
Tyler glances around and asks, “Lauren, weren’t you supposed to be the look-out?”
“What? No! I’m here arranging the food! In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a lot! I thought Mike was the look-out!”
“I’m plugging in the GameCube and the PlayStation! It was your phone that rang!”
Mark finishes pinning the banner up and steps down to Jessica. “Either way, Happy Birthday, Jess!” A chorus of “Happy Birthday” follows that. Mark asks, “What do you want to do first? It’s your day.”
As Angela gets inside, Jessica says to her uncle, “All this time, you planned for the party to be here instead of Lauren’s?”
“I could manage the house this year so I decided it was finally time to have house guests.”
Jessica glances at all her friends before whispering, “What about the . . . live things?”
Mark informs, “I have everything under control, Jessica.” The doorknob to the coat closet slowly turns on its own before Mark swiftly grabs it to keep it from opening.
Jessica smiles wide and rushes to her friends. “Who wants to watch Super Troopers?”
With chaos going everywhere, and Mark always standing next to the closet, the teenagers entertain themselves with various games and conversations as crude as they dare with a supervising adult. They compete against each other with games as mild as Mario Kart to Mortal Kombat as they select characters based on how violent the fatality moves are. Eventually, Tyler pulls out his laptop and pulls up the Internet. As soon as Lauren sees the computer out, she drops out of Mortal Kombat and calls Jessica and Angela over. She then turns to Tyler and asks, “Mind if I borrow that? I’ve got a webpage to show them.”
“Sure.” Tyler hands over his laptop and Lauren enters a web address while Jessica, Angela, and Tyler watch. Lauren pulls up a webpage and turns the laptop around for them to see.
“I made this after I finished that web design tutorial during summer break,” Lauren says. “It’s a vampire encyclopedia.”
Tyler frowns at the site as he looks over it. “’Vampires A to Z’? You serious? It looks like you’re screaming ‘I know HTML.’”
“It’s gets better. Look at the entries.”
Angela browses through random entries as she reads through them. “. . . Danag, Dhampir . . . Wait, what’s a Varacolaci?”
“It’s actually supposed to be a varcolac, a dry-skinned wolf demon thing connected to eclipses.”
“You wrote here that they’re beautiful, pale-skinned vampires.”
“I know,” Lauren says with a slight smirk. “Take a look at Stregoni benefici.”
Angela clicks on the link and then reads aloud, “’Stregoni benefici: An Italian vampire, said to be on the side of goodness, and a mortal enemy of all evil vampires.’ Where did you get that one?”
“No where. I made it up.” Then Lauren turns the computer around and checks on the website’s stats. “. . . It looks like I got some traffic recently from this area. I wonder if someone from Mrs. Yarboro’s class decided to skip on actual research on Dracula and be lazy. Hope they use me as a source.”
Tyler remarks, “I’d call you a troll but this is a little too subtle to call this a trolling attempt.”
Lauren’s phone suddenly rings as it screams out a single quote from Austin Powers. Lauren quickly answers it before anyone comments and steps aside. After a moment, she hangs up and says to Jessica, “Jess, sorry, but I just got called in for work. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”
Jessica just smiles and says, “It’s okay. You have things to do. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Tyler asks, “What kind of job do you have that can just call you in like this?”
Lauren ponders over her answer before replying, “I really crappy one. I’ll see you later.” With that, Lauren leaves the house. On the way to her car, she mutters, “It’d better be really good, Caludar. I’m missing out on marble cake with buttercream chocolate icing and kicking Mike’s ass in Mortal Kombat.”
Lauren pulls out of the driveway and starts down the street. Suddenly, a dark shadow darts across the street and forces Lauren to slam on the brakes. She looks over to Jessica’s front yard where the shadow darted to and finds a black cat glaring back at her. It hisses at her before trotting off towards the house. Lauren huffs at the thing, “Damn cat. Stay out of my way next time.”
As the car disappears into the night, the cat stops at the door. It makes no sound as it sits there with a mildly irked stare at the closed door. Inside, Mark feels a sudden chill. He looks over at the front door and, after a moment, glances about the room before calling out, “Angela! Could you do me a favor?”
Angela moves away from Tyler and his computer and replies, “What is it?”
“Watch this door and make sure it doesn’t open. I will be back in a moment.”
“Sure.”
Mark smiles at her before going up to the front door. He takes a bracing breath and opens the door to find the cat before him. He glances back at the teenagers before stepping outside and closing the door behind him. With that, the warlock bows low to the cat. “This is unexpected. What manner of business brings you to my home?”
The cat bows its head shallowly before picking up a small olive branch from its feet. Mark frowns at the olive branch before saying, “. . . Very well. I accept you into my home, but our relationship shall be that of a host and a guest; I retain every right to banish you from my home if I desire.”
This time, the cat bows low to the ground. It trots inside when Mark opens the front door and leaves the olive branch on the doormat. Mark gently picks up the olive branch and studies it before returning to guard duty at the closet. Still, Mark retains a wary scowl just as he keeps hold of the olive branch.
Lauren pulls into a parking lot close to the Clallam County Courthouse and, after parking, walks over to the courthouse. She stops on the wide spread of green grass and continuously scans the area. When she finally spots a tall figure heading towards her, Lauren huffs and marches over to the man. “This better be good. I drove all the way from Forks in the dead of night for this.”
Dressed in a nice black overcoat with matching gloves and shoes, Caludar casually walks over to Lauren with a friendly smile. He tells her, “I assure you that you will not regret coming here. Come take a look at this.”
Lauren follows the man until they stop at the corner of the street. As they walk under different streetlights, Lauren grimaces as her features and Caludar’s become clear to anyone who may be watching. Sensing her unease, Caludar chuckles at her, “Relax. No one we should be cautious of is around to see us.”
“If you didn’t bring me here to see a target, then what did you want me to see?”
“Something that wants good publicity. Being seen is not an issue.”
Lauren glances about for other people as she mutters, “So says you . . .”
Caludar finally stops her down far from the courthouse with the building’s back entrance barely visible from their range of sight. He points towards a specific spot and says, “See that figure right there?”
Lauren squints her eyes as she tries to make out the shape. “What is he doing?”
“Carving a rune. I watched him loiter about here and he seems to be stalking an employee from the courthouse that made a habit of walking down that exact sidewalk for work. That wizard holds a lot of hatred inside of him.”
“If you wanted me to report a rogue wizard to the Mage Council, you should have just told me to report him instead of dragging me out here. I conveniently live in the same town as a warlock.”
“The wizard isn’t the issue. Just keep watching.”
The wizard continues to lightly carve into the sidewalk. The night continues on with no one stopping the wizard, causing Lauren to tense up more and more. Eventually, Caludar places his hand on Lauren’s shoulder with a gentle but firm grip. The temptation to stab his hand and go after the wizard before he completes the rune nags at Lauren.
In a flash, a figure dressed in reds and oranges zips right at the wizard and pulls him up at the top of a streetlight. As the wizard vainly cries out and struggles against his attacker, the figure ties a rope to his foot and drops him to dangle off the streetlight. The figure remains there to examine the handiwork long enough for Lauren to catch a few details: clearly female with a tight costume of reds and oranges shaped as flames that accents her curves as well as covers every inch of her body, the caped vigilante wears a white mask that completely covers her face but leaves her light brown hair exposed. Then, just as suddenly as she appeared, the costumed woman disappears into the night.
Lauren gawks at the streetlight where the person just was before exclaiming, “Was that a-a caped crusader? Some sort of super hero?”
Caludar can only smile in amusement as he confirms, “Port Angeles’ very own costumed vigilante. She’s been running around stopping criminals of both the supernatural and common kind. While I am grateful that she has stopped so many people from making a mess of things, we don’t need someone like her screwing with our system. Superheroes need to stay in the comics where they belong. For right now, all we need to do is wait for the Mage Council to pick this prick up.”
Lauren sighs, “She might end up ruining some of my jobs and put me and potential vampire victims in danger . . . !”
“Anonymous competition is hard to deal with, isn’t it?” Then Caludar mentions, “By the way, we got another job for you. It’s local this time. Charlie Swan called in yesterday and mentioned that he feels as though there is an intruder around his house at night. He needs a specialist to investigate it.”
“Another late night.” Lauren comments, “But I’ll be happy to help Chief Swan out. We need to get his daughter out of the area while I investigate.”
“His daughter?”
Lauren thinks over the matter for a second before going, “Well, I guess I could have her go with a couple friends on a shopping trip to Port Angeles’ shopping district while I take a look around her house. They’re not going to be happy, but I don’t have much of a choice.” She pulls out her cell phone and starts calling Jessica’s house. In the meantime, Caludar makes his way towards the rogue wizard. “What are you doing?” she asks.
“I want information. Watch my back.”
Lauren follows Caludar up to the streetlight where the wizard hangs and turns her back to Caludar to keep a look out. When Jessica answers her phone, Lauren says, “Hey, something came up and I need you to do me a huge favor. Could you invite Bella Swan to go with you for dress shopping in my place? I need her away from her house while I do investigations for Chief Swan.”
As Lauren continues with the call, the wizard smirks bitterly at Caludar and spats, “What happened to your face? You must be the whitest person I have ever seen.”
Caludar apathetically retorts, “Fuck off. It’s vitiligo. Tell me about the person who put you up there.”
“That freak? I know nothing about her!”
Lauren’s call interrupts as she goes, “I know you don’t really like her attitude, but something’s hanging around her house. I need to figure out what it is before someone gets hurt. Please, Jess, you only have to put up with her for a few hours.”
Caludar grabs hold of the wizard and forces the man to look right into Caludar’s eyes. “Is that so? You really know nothing about her?”
The wizard stares with wide eyes until he says, “I-I really don’t know much about her! I heard that she calls herself The Spark but that’s it!”
“Thank you.” Caludar releases the wizard in such a manner that the man swings back and smacks his head against the streetlight. He returns to Lauren’s side as she wraps up her call.
“Uh-huh. Thanks a lot, I mean it. I’ll tell you what happens after I’m done taking a look around. Bye.” Lauren hangs up and turns back to Caludar. “The Spark, huh?”
Caludar nods. “We have a lot of work to do if we want to get a hold of her.”
“Wonderful. More sleepless nights.”