12 Blair

It took a couple of hours between test driving and filling out paperwork but Ruby left the used car dealership as the proud owner of a black 2012 Nissan Sentra. And she still had $762.50 left after doing a bit of haggling. Not bad for a day's work.

Ash watched her with a curious expression the entire time but said nothing aside from "I don't know how to drive; you're going to have to take us to the apothecary and grocery store."

"No problem," she said confidently. "I know exactly where both of those are from here."

Ruby had been to the witches' coven countless times to pick up various supplies over the years. It was the only one in this part of the country so everyone went there at one point or another. She had to change her glamour again. Maybe she should look like a vampire this time since they were going to pick up blood pills.

When they got out of the car in front of the apothecary, she shifted her glamour so her hair was darker and straighter and her features were more angular like Ash's. She needed to look like a vampire disguised as a human now so, once they gave the password, all she had to do was make herself look like a female version of her companion.

The witches here had always given her a hard time about not dropping her glamour in their store, seeing it as a sign of disrespect. But she always gave excellent tips so they let it slide with mere grumbling.

"I think you might be even more paranoid than I am," Ash informed her when he noticed her disguise.

"Thank you."

"…that wasn't a compliment."

"I know."

Ruby didn't care if she looked overly paranoid. Flint and Lily frequented this place too and had probably put up a notice searching for her already. She couldn't let the witches be the reason she got caught.

They walked inside what looked like any other trendy homeopathic medicine store with walls lined with herbs and supplements. The witches had gotten lucky that there was a resurgence of interest in this area over the past decade; before then, they were forced to have their storefront be a tarot reading place to get any human customers.

Following the trends was how the fae survived this long in the human world without them being any the wiser. Witches were especially talented at that.

Vampires…not as much considering Ash didn't even know how to drive. Cars had been around for at least a hundred years already! It was practically a survival skill around here to know how!

But his race wasn't interested in the affairs of anyone outside of their own. There was probably a lot about the outside world that he didn't know anything about.

A blonde woman wearing a green t-shirt advertising the name of the store sat behind the counter and smiled at them when they came in. "Hi there! Can I help you find anything?"

"Not much," Ruby said casually before saying the rather ridiculous code phrase. It made her feel weird every time she said it because it was so dumb. Who came up with it anyway? "The duck howls at the sky."

The woman immediately pointed at the door, switching the sign from OPEN to CLOSED, and let her glamour fall away. Her true appearance involved much fluffier hair that looked like it had recently been electrocuted, orange eyes, and a set of witch's robes with a pointed black hat.

She smiled cheerily at them. "What can I get for you?"

Ash's glamour fell away and Ruby shifted hers so she looked like a vampire too with milk white skin, red eyes, less pointy ears than her real ones, straight black hair, and fangs. The witch looked utterly unsuspicious seeing two vampires together after dark.

"We need more blood pills," he said. "I also wanted to talk to Blair for a few minutes if she's available."

"No problem! How many do you need?"

Ash exchanged a glance with the fake vampire next to him. "How much money do you have exactly?"

"$762.50 but I need to save $150 of that for gro—something else," Ruby finished lamely. Vampires didn't need groceries. She was a vampire right now and couldn't forget that!

"Give me three months' worth of variety packs for two people," he requested. "But leave out the O-positive please."

"Sure thing!" the witch said before scurrying off to the back.

Ruby raised an eyebrow at him. "You don't like O-positive blood? Isn't that the most common type?"

Ash shrugged. "It's blander than the rest. Imagine eating nothing but mashed potatoes all the time."

"…how do you even know what mashed potatoes are?"

"Ah, Blair told me when I complained about O-positive being bland a while ago. She was the one who made that comparison originally. I've never seen any myself. Are they really that tasteless?"

"Not if you season them right. But I wouldn't want to eat them all the time either," Ruby admitted.

She had learned more about vampires in the past 24 hours than she knew the rest of her 156 years in this world. Ash was surprisingly interesting to talk to. At least the next few weeks wouldn't be boring.

Sounds of crashes and explosions came from behind the door marked "employees only" and both of them jumped. The witch who was helping them before seemed to be yelling at someone but Ruby couldn't make out the words.

A minute later, she came back covered in scorch marks and holding up some pill packets that didn't look terribly different than human cold medicine. "Sorry about that…BLAIR! GET OUT HERE RIGHT NOW!" she hollered over her shoulder.

A witch with dark skin, dyed purple curls sticking straight up around her head, and glowing yellow eyes emerged from behind a cloud of smoke. She smiled brightly at them before she realized who was there.

Her eyes widened and she pointed at Ash in horror. "What are you doing here? I thought you were supposed to be dea—"

Ash rushed forward and clapped a hand over her mouth before she could finish speaking, shooting a strained and insincere smile in Ruby's direction. "Why don't you check out for us while Blair and I have a little chat."

"O…kay?"

She wasn't sure what was going on but the vampire all but dragged the witch into the smoky back room with him and slammed the door behind him. Both Ruby and the other witch flinched at the noise.

"Let's just ignore that," the witch offered sweetly. "Blair is always getting herself into trouble. Your total will be $521.63."

Three months' supply for two…that averaged around $8 per pill. Not terrible considering witches' reputations as highway robbers. That was about the cost of a fast food meal.

Ruby was willing to bet Ash was using her as an excuse to stock up because it would look weird to only buy pills for one when there were supposedly two vampires in the store. She glanced at the door he had disappeared through a bit nervously. Was he really okay back there?