Title: "Contagion" 3/6
Author: monimala
Fandom: "General Hospital"
Rating/Classification: R, AU, various pairings, language, violence, sexual situations.
Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own these characters.
Summary: A little revisionist history and some cross-over inspiration make for a very different Port Charles. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Jax likes to say she got her license out of a Crackerjack box, and that's not entirely off the mark. It was a correspondence course. Like those old t.v. ads with the redheaded spokeslady. "Paralegal, dental assistent, private detective, vampire hunter."
After she took the test, a guy from the National Bureau of Like We Really Give a Fuck came down and interviewed her and added his little stamp to her plastic i.d. card. The countless number of beasties she killed without the license remain that officially...countless. And everything she's done since...well, that's countless, too. And thankless.
The wolf that almost ate her son...? The nanny.
"She couldn't adapt." Jax likes to say that, too. Of course, he can adapt to anything...and he has a Pack. What's left of the two richest families in town. It's only fitting that they got bitten, turned into the real thing. He refuses to live with them, saying that she needs somebody feeding her on a daily basis and it's better for business if they stick together.
She's not entirely sure who is protecting who.
She lets him believe she needs him ... and she chains him in the basement once a month, running a hand through his lengthening hair and whispering, "You'll be okay."
He can adapt to anything. Like her.
The sky is piss-yellow outside the barred windows and she closes her eyes and remembers when it used to be blue and bright and sunny. She can get dressed blind. Most of her wardrobe is interchangeable. Black leather, black vinyl, some grey. No white...it's impossible to get the bloodstains out of. And leather and vinyl are harder to cut through than denim.
Plus, dressing like them... dressing like them keeps them happy. Keeps the so-called peace. If it had just been Caleb and his motley band...with its infusion of low-life mobsters like Rosco and his wife, it would've fallen apart years ago. But, no... Caleb was just the first wave, the prep crew. The Master, as he likes to call himself, thrives on the illusion of proper behavior.
Funny how it doesn't extend to the creeps that lurk in the hospital or the old police station.
So funny she can't even laugh... so she just straps on her knife, her gun, slides the tiny gold cross beneath the high collar of her shirt, and steps out into her life.
***
Pure arrogance is what leads a man to dub himself 'Master' of others, to
exert his dominion over the weak. Pure evil is what drives a vampire to do it.
They are mirror images of one another...which is fortunate since neither
of them have seen their reflections in quite some time. But the Master's
glass is cracked. Beyond repair. Seven decades of bad luck.
A shadow swathed in black brushes past him as he winds through the halls of the mansion and only the twitching of his nose tells him which of the
bevy of petite brunettes that haunt this place has just given him the cut direct. Lavender, mint, and baby powder. His niece Sage, the least petulant and most tolerable of the three. Caleb's Olivia and his brother's Brenda are tiresome banshees who constantly make eyes at his crotch. He has never given in to the their curiosity about whether or not he is like his darling brother in *every* physical respect.
He's a gentleman. And he prefers blondes.
Carly knew only a portion of his family history when they shared bottles
of wine and orders of cheese fries over videos on Friday nights. She told him, once, in no uncertain terms, that if she had known it all... there would have been nothing. Arms dealers are acceptable...bloodsucking fiends are not. As idiosyncracies go, it's her least endearing one.
But he still loves her just the same.
Something Luis had been hoping would drain from him along with his
life force. But the very same curse that hangs in his bones is also his blessing. The Alcazar family, long steeped in the traditions of the night, gave their slightly younger son an immunity...just a splash of humanity. He was a modern medical miracle. Truly alive, in need of food and water to survive. Impervious to sunlight. Yet, still infused with all the requisite powers of the undead. Shapeshifting, hypnotism, increased strength and speed.
He is no miracle now.
And neither is his brother his Master.
"You summoned me?" he wonders, the sarcasm resonant even from across the grand ballroom.
"You came, didn't you, Enzito?"
Luis is always one for the obvious. A throne. Red velvet curtains. And
his consort perched, nude, at his feet. If she were human, he would ask if
she was cold, feeling the draft that always seems to exist at Wyndemere. Brenda would probably simper and tell him she's always hot in the presence of the Master. If *he* were human, he would likely vomit.
"I had nothing else on my social calendar." He steps around the corpse
lying in his path. Puncture wounds dot the wrists, the throat, and someone
drew flowery designs on her belly. He sends up a silent prayer for someone's sister, someone's daughter, someone's mother.
His own died shortly after he was born.
"Caleb told me you still held a grudge." Luis shakes his head, that tiny smirk a perfect match for the one he so often wears himself.
"Caleb is irrelevant." A pouting rock star with a penchant for theatrics, his brother's lieutenant is a buzzing fly on the rotting landfill that Port Charles has become. "But he's correct...I still hold a grudge," he assures, dryly.
"That's a shame, mi hermano." Luis's eyes... they are unholy. Perhaps his own are, too. "Then you won't join us in killing the hunter?"
Every few months, they try. They fail.
Carly is tenacious. And she has a seemingly never-ending supply of ammuntion.
"You actually think you'll succeed this time?" He cannot hide his amusement, so he laughs, staring down at Brenda's unimpressive breasts. Only slightly less interesting than her vapid model's face. "Will you kill Saint Nicholas, too? And the Easter Bunny?"
His brother is not the least bit surprised. Or disappointed. "Perhaps. And the Tooth Fairy, too."
Then, he is dismissed...as formally as he was summoned.
He gives the dead woman a wide berth on his way out the door.
She was blond.
He doesn't doubt that she was tenacious, too.
***
Chapter Four
"Contagion" Home