Drug references warning, that is all.

And finally, we arrived. Sure it was a stone's throw away as the saying goes, if I threw the stone. The subway ride there was awkward with the four of us crowding around a floating, origami ram. It drew attention from a nosy kid, but pissed off James and he practically swore at him. Poor kid should never bother a witch in the middle of tracking.

Ramsay led us to a bungalow in the Suburbs. After the origami dropped, James scratched his chin. "This place, this house, it's familiar." He picked up the paper ram and shoved it into a pocket. Ramsay, somehow, returned to whatever inter-dimensional plane it occupied.

"You've dealt drugs to them, haven't you?" Carmen stated, not too surprised.

"I may hae dealt to people in this neighbourhood. That doesnae mean I've dealt it to them," James explained. "Also my drugs are perfectly legal."

"I'm certain what we had last episode you mixed in some weed," Carmen argued.

James was about to say something. You know that facial expression with an open mouth and only a single sound comes out? Yep, that was his face. He closed his mouth and cleared his throat. "Like I said, perfectly legal. They're for medicinal purposes."

Before any of us approached the front door, one of the vampires came out holding a trash bag. He spotted us and immediately Max, Carmen, and I took on defensive positions. Max, for a reason other than it was cool, whooped. James was unfazed though.

"Yo, Jimi, I didn't expect you to come over," the vampire said as he opened a trash bin. Unlike James' ex, he didn't have the hopping step usually found among Eastern Asian vampires. His complexion, however, was pale as if he hadn't been eating. Yet he appeared healthy; not a single wrinkle on him.

"I'm nae here to sell." James pushed up his glasses and continued, "I'm here for something else."

"If this concerns Ariel owing you money, he'll have it by the end of the week." The vampire inserted the bag into the bin then closed it.

"Gerald, I'm nae here to collect either. We're here because at least one of ye attacked a friend of a friend ..." James paused to count then continued, "of a friend."

Gerald examined us individually and stared especially at Carmen and Max. I wasn't sure if he was eyeing them for meals or their odd stances. Max was ready to break out in an industrial dance and Carmen was ready to strike a yoga pose, which left me to protect them.

"I'm not sharing," I hissed.

"I'll make sure to inform the others." Gerald stroked his neck and turned his attention to James. "Anyway, I'll inform them you're here. Come step inside, all of you."

After Gerald led the way, Carmen slapped James hard in the face. "You're a bad liar."

"It's not my fault ye bring these things up." James rubbed the side of his face then waddled to the bungalow. He stopped at the door, turned around, and asked us, "Ye coming in or nae?"

Max was the first to follow him, then me. Carmen entered last as she closed the door behind us. Already present were Gerald and his three housemates. One of them had a half burnt blunt in his hand. Like Gerald they all had that healthy, pale complexion, or at least what counted as pale for them. Two-thirds of Gerald's housemates appeared to be Middle Eastern.

"Sasha, put the blunt out," The brown-haired one said to the blond one. "We got female guests."

"No way, Ariel," Sasha said with a thick, Slavic accent.

"At least pass it to Homayun," The third and shorter, dark-haired housemate said with his hand out. "Homayun hasn't had a hit in five minutes." I can't explain why he spoke in the third person, but how often do you encounter people like him?

"Guys! We have plenty of weed to pass around," Gerald addressed them. "Right now it's serious."

The three housemates stopped bickering and Sasha passed the blunt to Homayun.

James stepped forward. "Which one of ye attacked Dr. Black and Alice Mitzen the other night?"

The housemates exchanged looks with each other. They even looked at Gerald. Sasha pointed at Ariel, Ariel pointed at Gerald, Gerald pointed Homayun and Homayun pointed at Sasha.

"Homayun touched none of them! Homayun took not drugs before heading out."

"Well I didn't take any pills before going out either," Gerald said, arms folded in with hands by his shoulders.

"I saw you peeking at the stash this afternoon, Sasha," Ariel accused, pointing a finger. "You can't stay away, can you?"

"Why are you accusing me of taking it, Ariel? You drank the rest of my blood ration!" Sasha argued back, whacking his arm aside.

"Drank the rest? I don't drink pig's blood! It's not kosher!"

Their arguing got loud that I had to cover my ears though I believe Max suffered more. He was on the floor in a foetal position with his fingers plugging his ears. Loud or not, I didn't need to focus on heartbeats knowing they were covering up something.

Carmen had the right idea, or at least was the brave one to do it. "Everyone shut the fuck up for a minute!"

The arguing stopped, and the room fell silent, except for a hyperventilating Max. I crouched down and whispered, "Hey, it's over now."

Max slowly removed his fingers from his ears but remained seated on the floor.

"I'll admit I have a problem," Carmen began. "I won't say what it is, but it's something that shouldn't be controlling our lives. Regarding the women you attacked, they created the pills you wanted. If they die, you'll be shit out of luck and the stuff. Now you want more of it, don't you?"

The four stoner vampires had guilty looks on their faces. Ariel had his mouth open but backed down.

"Ye got something to say? Then say it." James gave his jacket's inner pocket two taps then said, "I dinnae want to whip out my wand and force ye."

Ariel placed a hand behind his head and confessed. "I thought one of them was a user. I dragged the others into it and Sasha was convinced she had pills that work on, you know, make us a little paler."

"Well," Sasha began his confession, "whatever she took was working so we broke into the lab where we first found it. We weren't convinced it worked at first but the high from it, they, erm—"

"It's quite potent," Gerald added in. "And when we saw her, Alice was it? We thought she was a user and like we always do before hunting, we hit some up. That of course led to our unfortunate situation. We never found her stash, anyway."

Carmen stuck her hands in her hair. "Alice has vitiligo," she growled. "It's why she has pale spots on her skin. It's not the result of failed skin bleaching or taking the fucking diet pill but pigment cells not being able to maintain fucking pigment!"

The four looked at each other again. "Homayun knew about this."

"You knew? Why didn't you say anything?" Gerald hit Homayun in the head.

"Homayun was too high to notice."

Gerald moved to a spot in between his housemates and James. "How about this: we turn ourselves to the police in the morning. We're very sorry about what we've done. Had it been a simple go out and get food trip you guys wouldn't be bothering us, right?"

"Well, something like that," I answered as Max slowly got onto his feet.

"Assaulting a woman is a big no-no," James said, wagging his finger. "I dinnae care from whom or from what ye feed off attacking—"

"They get it, Jimi," Carmen yawned as she stretched. "I can use something right about now."

"We can go to Talia's," Sasha suggested. "Wing night."

"I'm craving wings too," Max added in.

While I didn't smoke any, the contact high triggered my cravings for chicken wings.

"And I could use an elixir," James said as he pulled out his wallet and a couple twenties from it.

So everyone went to Talia's to grab some booze and grub. The moral of this story? Don't do drugs. Okay, I'm not one to say that but if you do drugs, please do it responsibly. Oh great now you're thinking I'm promoting drug use. Just, forget it.

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Friendly reminder that this is a satire and fiction. Things like assault and drugs should be taken seriously. No offense to anyone with vitiligo and nothing negative was intended. Other than that, next episode centres around the familiar and ghosts.

If you like what you've read, you know what to do.

Song featured: "Pass the Dutchie" by Musical Youth

edited 19/04/2018