Chapter 155 - An Era Of Change

"Which I will tell you one day when we are out of his earshot," I finished with a grin in JJ's direction. "Unless someone mentions it before, in which case, it was fate's fault and not mine."

JJ shook his head in exaggerated exasperation. "I'm bound to curse eternally the day I told you, ma chèrie, aren't I?"

"If you are going to start making out, I'm going out of here," Panda said. She walked up to the door, turned to me. "Since this is bound to be my only chance to stay in a place like that, I'd like to explore it. Will you have grief if I do, Diana?"

"Should be fine." I shrugged to her and sent a slanted look to JJ. "And we weren't going to make out HERE. I have my own room."

My own room, where we could—with some luck—finish what we started earlier this morning. My stomach fluttered and my nether regions tingled from a mere thought.

"I shall escort you there." JJ offered me his elbow to hook for with a casual elegance that I couldn't reach if I tried, and a sparkle in his eyes. "Have a good time, Sveta."

We didn't walk far away from Panda's room before JJ paused, and since our elbows were still hooked together, made me stop on the spot, too. He inclined his head, as if listening to something, but I couldn't hear a thing beyond a background noise of the people going on with their business somewhere on the other side of the soundproofed walls.

"Is something wrong, JJ?"

"A heated argument is in progress out there… I'd like to take a closer look at it." He resumed walking down the hallway, but faster than before. Good thing that I had legs long enough to keep walking at his side without too much effort. Now that I had JJ's elbow, I was very reluctant about letting go of it, especially because of something so small as the difference in our stride.

"An argument? A public one, I hope? What's it about?"

"It's not a habit of mine to listen on private conversations consciously, ma chèrie." JJ chuckled. "It's hard to hear from here, though, but it seems to be related to vampires somehow. I didn't hear my name thrown, so I can only assume the vampires as a whole and not me specifically."

"I will hope so," I muttered grimly.

⠀⠀

The argument wasn't just heated by the time we got there—it was boiling and threatening to blow the lid off the pot. At least two dozen people were involved, all witches and witchers, and the cafeteria built to accommodate trice more than that was bursting with noise and accusations thrown around. Food stood forgotten at the tables, and even the service staff who were supposed to prevent events like these from happening (or at least call someone who was, I supposed), took part in shouting.

There were two sides, both obvious. Every small arguing group was separated in two, like it was some major fight that separated into a bunch of individual duels. In many of these battles, personal insults by now were used more than any sort of actual arguments. This didn't make it easier for me to understand what it was all about, but I tried to catch something out of the air.

"Nobody is going to listen to what's spilling out of your toad's mouth, hag! Do you think if you'll suck some dead cock, they will give you privileges when they take over?"

"Taking over? What's else, do you think aliens gonna come and kidnap you to stick their probes down your ass? I imagine you'd like that, since this is the only chance you have of getting laid. Vamps are doing the right thing there, and if someone got harmed in the process, they probably deserved it the same way you do!"

"I can't get laid?! You know, Misha wouldn't agree with you."

"Misha? You didn't—"

"I sooo did—"

"Bitch!"

And so on and so on. When a witch raised her manicured hand—for a slap or a scratch, it was hard to tell—I tensed, preparing to interfere.

JJ moved faster before I could even finish formulating the thought. In a blink of an eye, he was away from my side and between the two women who were ready to start a catfight.

"Calm down, ladies! No reason for you two to risk such beautiful faces, don't you agree?" JJ gave them a smile that made even the most choosy clients open their wallets and buy stuff from my shop (and then often try to slip him their phone numbers).

The women stopped, but they weren't the only ones who noticed the intervention. "Dragonslayer!" someone exclaimed.

"And Diana," another person added as I joined them. "You have to tell them that this is just a pile of old shit!"

"Before I do, I'd like to know what exactly is a pile of old shit," I said, raising my voice so it would carry over the quietened, but still not entirely silent, crowd. "What this is all about? I'm sure Elder would be just ecstatic to see you being one step from starting a food fight."

A witcher, thin, tall and dry as a stick and polished as someone who had no business joining food fights in progress, huffed with an air of nobility. "What was happening, is older, more experienced members of our coven stopping the younger and more empty-headed ones from doing things that would end up in them forfeiting their lives."

"We won't be forfeiting our lives if we create a united front! The vamps can't kill all of us! Hey, some vamps wouldn't even want to! Not all of them are as rigid in their ways as you are." A witch who looked like she just got from her prom, dress and all, pointed a finger at Stick. "Some actually understand that we are living in the twenty-first century. This is an era of change!"