Chapter 143 - Out On The Open

"Uhhh…" Well, here went my coven membership, I supposed. "Where do you still have the energy to be so aggressive, Captain?" I murmured.

I was contemplating over how to calm down the man, who certainly was on the last nerve he got today (entirely unsurprising, considering the circumstances), when moved. Captain's focus immediately shifted towards the more dangerous target. I kept my attention on the man—for me, the witcher was the danger. But I didn't have to look at Captain with my eyes to do that, so I looked at JJ as well.

He moved unhurriedly, ignoring our presence further as he leaned down to pull the sword out of Christina's chest. He didn't sheathe it—he didn't have a sheath on him at all—but instead simply put it nearby and then finally lifted his eyes away from Christina's body and towards us.

"Monsieur, I can assure you that I have no intentions of doing you harm. You don't have to be so… tense." JJ's lip curled into a smile, but it was a half-hearted one at most.

My heart ached for him. I imagined he didn't plan for dealing with trigger-happy witches after an emotional encounter like that. Well, I didn't plan on being attacked by Christina after an exhausting evening like I had, and I still did. Life often sucked.

I still had no idea what JJ was doing here now. Well, a vague idea, maybe…

"So you say it was all just an accident, huh, vampire, and not a targeted attack? Do you think I'm blind?" Captain snarled. He had a hand in his pocket now, and I wished I could make some feelers and check out what was hiding under his well.

'If he so much as twitches wrong,' I decided, 'I am tackling him. At least it will be a distraction.'

"Of course not." JJ snorted and strolled towards us.

With each progressive step Captain tensed more and more, but he didn't act, and I knew then that the opportunity for it was lost when JJ reached comfortable talking distance. Then he shattered it by stepping right into my personal space and leaning over me.

"You look exhausted, ma chèrie, but I don't smell much blood." He lifted a hand to my wrist and carefully touched a scrape I didn't remember getting. "Good. Good."

"I'm so confused right now. I'm often confused, but this is more than my usual confusion. This doesn't feel like I just forgot something important," Ghost spoke, coming up to us. His eyes shone with a curious gleam. "Who are you? How you are related to my new pupil?"

"Pupil?"

"Oh yes, meet my new magic teacher, Ghost," I gestured at the white-haired man, who smiled and waved in reaction. "And this is Jean-Jacques. He…" I wondered for a fraction of a second what to call him, and then sleep-deprivation kicked in and made my next words leave my mouth. "He works for me." I grinned as I said that.

JJ opened his mouth, then paused, contemplating. I was happy to see that my piss-poor attempt at humour distracted him from the sadder things on his mind.

"Nice to meet you, Jean-Jacques." Ghost beamed at me with pride. "It turns out my pupil is already great enough to rope vampires into working under her! I can't wait to see what she will be up to when she learns more."

"This isn't a time to joke," Captain barked. His eyes flickered between me and JJ. I could see the other kind of suspicion written in them, a kind of suspicion that comes at seeing a man and a woman keeping too close to each other than it was entirely appropriate for business partners.

I narrowed my eyes at him. My imagination eagerly showed me what would his—and his soldiers, the men who stood a few cautious steps away, wary and somewhat lost—reaction be. Not nice, that's for sure. In the end, I might as well get kicked out of Nightingale Coven, but…

I glanced at Ghost and the absurd (and misguided, frankly) pride in his eyes, and then decided that Nightingale Coven could go screw themselves if they wanted to screw with me. As far as my goals went, I got mine—I found myself a teacher.

It would be inconvenient to learn from him if I got exiled, but that was another thing to manage and not the one I planned to bother with at this time.

Damn it, I already was leading a double life with magic stuff versus normal stuff! Making it a triple life was just one life too much.

"No, he really works for me," I said. "In my antiquities shop. And we are also dating. Though, that doesn't answer what you were doing here, JJ," I added to him, raising my brow questioningly.

"I followed you, of course, ma chèrie."

I glanced around the empty street. Not a single person, not a single moving car—or even a parked one, not on that street. "On foot?"

"How else?"

"Right." How else, indeed. Well, that's vampire speed for you, I supposed. "So, Captain," I gave him a wary look from under my eyelashes, "do you still want me to come to the headquarters or should I just go back home? Either way, if I don't crash on some bed, somewhere, I will just crash."

For a moment, Captain looked visibly torn. Then his military part must've taken over, because he straightened up and wiped out any emotions besides grim toughness from his face. "This is for Elder Elena to decide."

He pulled up his phone, and I just took a moment to marvel at this small miracle of modern technology. A miracle that could so many things, such as… "Can you ask for a ride, too, while you at it?"

The annoyed look Captain gave me was a look of a person who was already doing the thing you just asked him to. I smiled. We had something in common, after all.