Itchy & Scratchy

by totallynotabrony

Chapter 1

Octavia sat on a barstool, legs crossed under her white dress and arms crossed across her chest. She was waiting for someone, though there was no way to know whether he would be there that night. She hoped he would. Then she could kill him and move on.

There were one hundred twenty two people in the place that night, well within the one hundred forty mandated by London’s fire code. Ninety one were on the dance floor. None of them were named Packing Tape, and therefore Octavia ignored them with flat eyes, even if she had counted them. Extroverts. Most of them were under the influence of alcohol, some under the influence of other things. Octavia’s jaw tightened. If she could somehow close her ears, she’d block out the awful music. It had a beat, but few other redeeming qualities.

Her eyes kept moving in the dim light, comparing faces to the picture she’d memorized. Her back was to the bar, though she was careful to keep from pinching her straight dark hair. There was a pink and fruity liquid in the glass cradled in her hands. Someone had bought it for her, and she’d only taken one sip. She barely noticed the chill of the ice on her skin.

She’d been there for about half an hour when a man came through the door. He wore sunglasses that looked expensive, and not at all subtle. Even still, he fit the physical description: a former office assistant recently acquainted with nightlife and spending money. He was scrawny, balding, and tacky. Octavia stared for a second, deciding that he was who she was looking for. She got up, straightened her dress, and set her glass on the bar.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw someone approach. She didn’t take the time to look at him. He started edging in front of her to get her attention. “Hey, can I buy you a drink?”

“Out of my way.” She pushed past him, not sparing a glance.

“Bitch.”

Sticks and stones, Octavia thought. By tomorrow, he probably wouldn’t remember her, but if she went back there and made a big deal out of it, he surely would.

Packing Tape had taken a seat at a table near the back. There were several women hanging around as if they knew him well; apparently his reputation had built that quickly, or he was unwise enough to keep coming back to the same place. Though perhaps he was smarter than he appeared by sitting near the fire door, the exit sign above glowing along with the dance floor lights.

Octavia saw an opening at the table. She was apparently the only one who noticed the smell hanging around Packing Tape. Grimacing internally, for more than one reason, she slid into the seat beside him, shoving aside one of his female companions. He looked up in surprise. She forced a smile. “Hi there.”

“Hello.” He smiled back, eyes seeming glazed. “What’s your name, sweetie?”

“Honey Pot. What’s yours?”

If he found anything strange about the name she used, he didn’t show it. “I’m Pack.”

“I like that.” She watched him put his hand on her knee. The fingernails were a little ragged and the skin was room temperature.

“Are you here with anyone tonight?” His hand started to slide up.

“Just a friend of mine.” She felt something shift as his fingers touched the gun hidden under the hem of her dress.

Before Octavia realized she was made, he’d already knocked her off her chair and upended the table on top of her. Drinks and girls scattered everywhere. People screamed. Someone tripped over Octavia, a high heel dragging over her forehead.

Octavia threw the table off with one arm and got up, tasting blood. She realized she was also bleeding from a scratch near her hairline.

Packing Tape was not in sight as she got up, but the fire door was open. People had scattered away, and Octavia took the opportunity to dash out the exit. As it turned out, it opened into a dark alley.

The door slammed behind her on its automatic closer. A car a short distance away suddenly shot out of its parking space and barrelled away. Octavia realized that it had the same numberplate she’d memorized.

Her slender fingers grabbed for the gun, a slick little Kahr semiautomatic. She raised it, even though a snap shot at night through the back window of a fleeing car with blood dripping into her eyes was not exactly a sure thing.

As the gun came level, she hesitated an extra half second, counting the meters of distance and subtly adjusting to make sure her aim was true before squeezing the trigger. The pop of the pistol and the distant shatter of glass preceded the driver slumping in his seat and the car grinding to a halt against the wall of the alley.

Octavia ran forward on her high heels, gun held low but ready. She was afraid that the hollow point bullets might have been mangled by the glass window, but Packing Tape was clearly deceased with a bullet in his brain, so she decided it didn’t matter.

Putting the gun away, Octavia straightened her dress and tried to brush her dark bangs down over the blood on her face. Hopefully the club music was loud enough to conceal the noise of the shot. Either way, she didn’t plan to be around when the body was discovered.

She took stock of herself as she left the scene, feeling the scrape her teeth had made on the inside of her lips. In the heat of the moment, she hadn’t been able to keep a cool head and control herself. Getting crushed under a table didn’t help.

At the corner, a blue Volkswagen Scirocco pulled up. Octavia smoothly got into the passenger seat and it moved away again.

The driver was a woman a few inches shorter than Octavia. From her blue hair to her Chuck Taylors, plus the leather skirt, white t-shirt and sunglasses with pink plastic frames in between, she was pretty much Octavia’s polar opposite.

She glanced at Octavia as the car pulled away. “What happened to your head?” Her voice was decidedly not British, and even then somewhat lacking in anything resembling enunciation.

Octavia finished buckling her seatbelt and touched the rapidly scabbing injury. The blood was already dry, though the car did have a set of aftermarket seat covers as insurance if that hadn’t happened to be the case. “When he knocked the table over, someone wearing high heels stepped on me.”

“It’s probably nothing.”

“Vinyl, I don’t think my blood is nothing!”

“Well, what do you want to do? Call up the boss and say, ‘Hey, it’s Itchy and Scratchy-’”

“Itchy?” Octavia stared at her.

“Yeah, you know, Itchy and Scratchy from The Simpsons?”

“I understand the reference, I was actually born in this recent century. Just why would I be called Itchy? You’re the one that turns into a furry animal, if anything it would be you.”

“It doesn’t have to be specific, it’s just the name of us collectively,” said Vinyl. “We can be like Hall and Oates, Simon and Garfunkel, or Beethoven and Mozart.”

“I’m fairly sure no one ever referred to Beethoven and Mozart collectively.”

“How do you know? You never met them.”

“Neither did you!”

“So? Anyway, we call him up and say, ‘Hey, it’s Itchy and Scratchy, we think some girl might have gotten a little vampire blood on the bottom of her shoe. If she licks it or something it might turn her into a ghoul, but would anyone really notice in a shitty club neighborhood like Brixton?’”

“I don’t see how you can be so cavalier about this,” Octavia grumbled.

“If I worried about things, I would’ve worried myself to death already.”

Octavia crossed her arms and smoldered in the passenger seat.

Vinyl turned her head. “Have you been drinking?”

“You know I don’t.”

“Yeah, I would notice.” Vinyl sniffed the air. “There’s still something. Did someone hand you a drink? Like maybe a Cosmopolitan?”

“Yes, actually.”

Vinyl nodded and smiled, turning back to the road.

“We’re switching, by the way. You’re bait next time,” Octavia told her.

“Oh really?” Vinyl’s eyebrows raised over the top of her pink sunglasses. “I thought you wanted to do it.”

“Perhaps, if Mr. Fancypants actually gives us something related to what I wanted to do.”

Vinyl tipped a hand up. “They’re all dirtbags.”

“But why did we go after a zombie drug dealer tonight? What does that have to do with me?”

Vinyl shrugged expressively, unhindered by a seatbelt. “We’re getting paid either way.”

“It’s not about the money!” Octavia protested. “You’re missing my point!”

“If I worried about things, I would’ve worried myself to death already.”

Octavia collapsed back into her seat. Vinyl ignored her, tapping the steering wheel lightly as she drove.

They turned onto a quiet street of terraced houses, the walls of each touching the neighbors. Their car was the only one not parked and dark at the curb. Vinyl pulled up at a stoop indistinguishable from any other. Octavia got out and closed the door without a parting word.

The car was gone by the time she had the front door unlocked. Octavia stepped inside, relocked the door, and turned off her cell phone.
Her flat was small, however she lived alone. She didn’t turn on the light as she came in. Remarkable the things that saved her electricity these days.

A dusty cello stood against the wall. It was one of the few things actually in the place. Otherwise, she had a bed and that was about it.

Octavia hadn’t thought much about what she would do after her current employment. Lately, she’d tried not thinking very far in the future.

She took the gun out of its thin leg holster and transferred it to her purse. After taking her shoes off, she brushed her hair back off her forehead and delicately washed off the caked blood by feel in the kitchen sink. She briefly wondered what effect it would have on the downstream ecosystem of the sewer, but brushed it off. It was dried and dead, anyway.

She didn’t think about what that said about the rest of her body, either.

The skin under where the blood had been was unblemished as if never injured. Octavia straightened up, letting her wet hair fall limply. She could have just showered, but somehow that didn’t seem the proper place for blood. Strange how picky she was about it.

She opened a drawer and took out a dental-quality file. She opened her mouth and, by feel, began grinding down her canine teeth.

Getting hit in the face with a table had temporarily shattered her self-control. She’d instinctively gone defensive. Unconsciously, her teeth had grown back to a publicly unacceptable size.

She was done filing them down minutes later. It wasn’t the first time she’d had to do it, and probably wouldn’t be the last.

Octavia headed for the bathroom, removing her dress. She was just working on the undergarments when tires screeched outside and a horn blared.

She was at the front window in an instant, clutching the dress to her chest and peering around the curtain. Outside, Vinyl hopped out of her car and cupped her hand to her mouth. “Tavi! Come on, we got a job!”

So soon? Now? Octavia hesitated, but then turned for her closet. If nothing else, she would go to keep the neighbors from complaining about noise at all hours of the night.

Octavia grabbed the first slacks, shoes, and blouse she saw (khaki, trainers, and blue, respectively) and headed for the door again with her purse. Vinyl saw her come out and got back in the car.

Resuming her place in the passenger seat, Octavia said, “What is it?”

“It’s big,” said Vinyl. She grinned.

“Yes, but what is it?” Octavia asked grumpily, putting on her seatbelt as the car zoomed away.

“You’re going to love it.”

“Vinyl, I am not in the mood for suspense.”

Vinyl grinned, her pink sunglasses glinting in the streetlights. “We found the overly-sensitive vampire gardener.”

Octavia gaped at her for a moment before turning to face the road ahead. “Take me there, right now.”

Comments

[Dustchu]

A pretty cool start to this, nicely written TNaB

[Laluzi]

Ooh, this looks very interesting. You have my attention.

[VampDash]

..... vampire and werewolf assassins........ YES. I WANT MOAR.

[Dream Dusk]

Hmmmm... this story is great and hoping for more. I cant get rid of that feeling that there is something familliar... maybe some protagonist with shadow/light powers who deals with warewolves, vamps and zombies.

[Sylica telca]

I'm very intrigued to read more