AnimeCon Harem 15: Actress and Nurse (Patreon)

   Christine felt their approach not through anything like magic, but with her fledgeling vampire instincts. One moment, she felt the entire hospital as her unrestricted playing field, boxy corridors and chambers like catacombs and she the only spider, the only predator within. The next moment, wariness pressed at her from all directions, because she could all of the sudden intuit the entire building was contested. Other beings of genuine power were here, and unlike the Masters who had arrived before, these were a major threat to her.

   Her phone was in her hand in an instant, but she wasn’t even sure what to do with it. It was three forty-five AM, the others were likely dead asleep, and what would warning them even accomplish? They couldn’t help her in any way. Not against powers like this, powers from which even she didn’t feel safe. Christine instantaneously moved out of Brian’s hospital ward and into brightly-lit hallway outside with a snap of air that sent a gust of wind down the row of doors.

   The image of two young women rounded the corner, as if approaching from the elevators. The illusory depictions were that of RNs dressed in scrubs, like many others Christine had seen throughout the hospital earlier when more hospital workers were on shift. The problem was, these two women weren’t real, and Christine could feel they weren’t real. This time, she sensed it through the silver of her mirror. They were still distant and well out of her immediate field of effect, but Christine could still tell, because the impression they reflected within her wasn’t accurate.

They don’t have the right weight, or something, Christine decided, staring at the illusion of two nurses as they drew closer. They look real. They have all the right colors and definitions and cast all the right shadows. But, the presence isn’t quite right.

The two nurses were in quiet discussion with one another and seemed to be ignoring Christine, despite Christine’s conspicuous position standing in the middle of the hallway. The details of the two were flawless, and as they walked closer—fifteen feet away, ten feet away—the primal sense of intimidation Christine felt as a vampire only grew, and she nearly bolted.

Then, the illusion met the edge of Christine’s area denial effect, and the image melted away.

“Hm, that is a handy trick,” Mrs. Rivera commented with a wry smile, looking about as her illusion failed to appear.

“You’re… Anne Garcia?” Christine blurted out. “Emily’s mom?”

“She’s already jumpy, I’d have really preferred we didn’t test her like that.” The woman standing beside Emily’s mother remarked with a slight scowl.

While the somewhat infamous Anne Garcia with her familiar beautiful features and rather stunning figure was dressed casually, with a polo shirt that was tucked into fitted designer jeans, the blonde woman next to her wore slacks, a dress shirt, and a tie as if she’d stepped out of an office. It wasn’t difficult to see that despite being old enough to be her mother, both of these women were incredibly good-looking.

“Sorry, dear,” Mrs. Rivera gave Christine a grin. “It’s actually Anne Rivera, I took my husband’s name when I left acting behind. And, on that note—if you’re already initiated in all of this silly stage nonsense, you should refer to me by the name Actress. My lovely friend here with the dimples when she smiles is Nurse, which is—”

“Which is ironic, as I’ve attained doctorates in every field of medicine that exists, and several that don’t in this realm,” Nurse finished with a smile, displaying the aforementioned dimples. “Haven’t been just an RN since well before you were born, I’m sure. We’re here to look at your friend. Brian?”

“Um,” Christine mouthed, stepping back to allow them into Brian’s room. “Okay.”

“Chloe, right?” Mrs. Rivera asked, offering Christine a hand. “I do think we’ve met before, once or twice. You’re Brian’s girlfriend?”

“I… was,” Christine admitted, reluctantly stepping forward and shaking hands.

Right before her eyes, Actress and then Nurse disappeared, vanishing like objects that had been edited out of the shot in post-production. There was a flicker of silhouettes, and then the illusion of the two young women in hospital scrubs from before reappeared, swimming into view despite being within Christine’s mirror area.

“Hah, figured it out!” Mrs. Rivera sounded smug. “Yeah. I’ve still got it.”

Her voice was disembodied, appearing to have no connection to the movement of lips of either of the young RNs in the illusion, which continued to ignore Christine and converse with one another in words she couldn’t make out at all.

“Charging you extra if the girl spooks and smears you into a bloodstain on the wall,” Nurse’s voice admonished. “You realize it’s four in the morning, and I had to take time off for this little adventure, right? Four in the fucking morning, Anne. I’ve been on day shifts.”

Having her magic denial effect subverted turned out to be a deeply unpleasant and personally troubling experience, in part because Christine could immediately tell how it was done. Rather than painting the illusion directly into place like she had before, Emily’s mother stuck the image directly onto her mirror. Like adhering a sticker of what she wanted to be visible, right on the silver surface of Christine’s power—which then projected the illusion into place.

It was extremely uncomfortable.

“Sorry!” Mrs. Rivera sang out in the least apologetic voice Christine had ever heard. “Professional habit. Always have to be the best at what I do—well, you know how it is. Here.”

Something like spectral fingers reached across the surface of Christine’s mind and carefully peeled the false image back off, and the illusion of two young RNs in scrubs melted away again to reveal the smiling Actress and an exasperated Nurse.

Her hunger and absolute need for blood were almost forgotten—Christine was rattled and wanted to get the fuck out of here. Emily’s mother—no, Actress was dangerous. Nurse was dangerous, too, perhaps even moreso. Ever fiber of Christine’s being warned her not to allow that one to make physical contact with her. Her supernatural threat perception told her in certain terms that no bluffs or bluster or posturing would frighten these two women, and no amount of silver smoke or mirrors would save her if they decided to get serious.

“Now, may we?” Nurse asked, gesturing towards Brian’s room.

“Oh, uh—yes,” Christine said. “Please.”

“I’m sure you have questions,” Mrs. Rivera said as they filed into the ward.

“The Masters were here,” Christine said. “Just so you know. An hour or two ago.”

“Hah, wish I could’ve seen that,” Mrs. Rivera wrinkled her nose in a cute way. “I take it they didn’t give you too much trouble? Your talent there doesn’t seem like it’d give them any legs to stand on.”

“Yeah, it, whatever they did, it just reflected back on them,” Christine nodded. “A big muscled one, and then a guy in a suit. The muscly one brain-zapped himself and got left behind, I dragged him downstairs and left him. I don’t know if they have Brian’s name or, or if they’ll be a problem for us. Kelly said I was the only one they couldn’t mind control, so we were uh, we were kind of bluffing with what we were capable of.”

“You’ll be fine,” Mrs. Rivera promised. “We’ll take care of all of that. This one’s on the house, alright? You’re with Emily, and Brian’s a good kid. Always did like him.”

“Hmm. He’s seen better days, though,” Nurse remarked as she stood over Brian’s bed. “We’re not going to have any complications, right?”

“Not according to what I know,” Mrs. Rivera answered sweetly.

“Which is?”

“Whatever grandma Melly used to say.”

“Poke him with your finger,” Nurse instructed.

“You poke him—you’re the doctor!” Mrs. Rivera rolled her eyes. “Quit being such a baby.”

“Anne, it’s four in the morning and you already owe me a huge favor for all of this. Poke him with your goddamn finger. And you with the mirror—back up a bit, please. It’s distracting.”

“Pssh, fine,” Mrs. Rivera scowled. “Here goes nothin.’”

Christine watched on with a blank stare from across the room as Emily’s mother cautiously touched the very tip of her finger to Brian’s cheek, and then quickly yanked it back. Nothing happened.

“Well?”

“Nothing, I think,” Mrs. Rivera shrugged. “That scientific enough for you?”

“Miss Chloe, was it?” Nurse turned to Christine. “You’ve been going through all sorts of changes, I’m sure. If you had to say, what change was the commonality between you and the rest of your group? What characterized you as belonging to the group?”

“Um,” Christine paused. “Hair color. I think. Mine turned silver. Emily’s went blue. The other girl was—”

“Emmie’s hair went blue?!” Mrs. Rivera exclaimed in dismay. “Are you kidding me?!”

“Okay, sure, easy and obvious,” Nurse said. “Come over here Anne, let’s see.”

“I said nothing happened,” Mrs. Rivera grumbled, obediently stepping over to Nurse—who began combing through and carefully examining the dark hair for the appearance of any aberrant colors. “What kind of blue? Is it like, a little blue highlight, or…?”

“Completely blue,” Christine said. “Emily’s hair is all blue.”

“But, her hair was so pretty!” Mrs. Rivera protested.

“Changes to eye colors too, I assume?” Nurse asked, flicking a glance over in Christine’s direction. “I’m sure you’ve noticed yours are red.”

“Um, no,” Christine shook her head. “The others all have their same normal eyes, I think. Only mine are different. They said I’m on the different track of magic from them.”

“Okay,” Nurse said, finishing her inspection of Mrs. Rivera’s hair. “I don’t see any complications.”

“Do you have any pictures?” Mrs. Rivera asked. “Of Emily’s new look. I can’t even imagine it. Blue? Like a blueberry?!”

“We refer to it as a Focus effect, but back in the day we just called ours ‘rings’,” Nurse explained, holding out her hand for Christine to see. “Ours manifested as tattoos, right where a wedding band would be. They used to light up in the dark, even, it was something. Yours seems—no offense—to be quite a bit more… obvious.”

“Okay,” Christine said, staring at the intricate pink swirls in the shape of a ring around Nurse’s finger. “And, the complications…?”

“From what I understand, Brian here used the same Focus we did, way back when. Little wooden charm?” Nurse smiled, showing off her dimples again. “There was a teeny tiny bit of fear that we’d get pulled into your group, because of that. The chance was small, though. We’ve grown in magic substantially more than what your group could support, I think.”

“Emily’s father, Jack, he was our Brian, basically,” Mrs. Rivera said. “The same little wooden charm was our Focus. We thought, well, I thought Emily would inherit it directly, but… this is also good. Maybe even better, if I’m being completely honest. She’s still a part of it! I love her to pieces, but she’s… well, she’s Emily. You know Emily.”

“I do remember the harem charm,” Christine said slowly. “So, it’s a focus, and—”

“It’s a Focus,” Mrs. Rivera corrected.

“—It’s a Focus, and that unlocks magical powers somehow?” Christine felt flummoxed. “Just by randomly touching it?”

It sounded stupid and unbelievable, but at the same time circumstances made it difficult to refute. Great. This is just my life now, I guess.

“No, not technically, but in practice this time, maybe yes,” Nurse explained, finally putting her hands on Brian’s forehead.

“For now, you can take it as such,” Emily’s mother said. “That’s like a grade-school oversimplification of what’s actually a six year course study for graduates, but diving into all of that right now would only confuse you. Traditionally, ordinarily, one is only ever able to make their own Focus. That’s what the Masters do. The charm you have is a legacy Focus that’s inherited from generation to generation, and it bends or outright breaks a lot of the rules you would normally apply to how a Focus even works.”

“That’s not true,” Nurse muttered under her breath.

“It’s true enough for what she understands, which I’m assuming before just now was almost nothing,” Mrs. Rivera snarked. “A legacy Focus will have prerequisites, as well as certain unwritten laws that get passed down, or carried over, or however you want to think of it, from the previous people who held it. Awful ones, just absolutely terrible restrictions, like treating each other with care and compassion. Like equals; human beings instead of slaves or thralls.”

“So, lot more oomph to start off with, lot more limitations, or like a more narrow, specialized field of what it can do. Your charm probably won’t be compatible with all that many girls, and after a certain point you won’t be able to support new members without releasing some of the old useless ones, which—yeah, good fucking luck with that.”

“Uh… okay,” Christine blinked. So, they can just release me. Maybe. Brian’s group of whatever the fuck this is. I don’t really belong with them to begin with.

“Don’t listen to her,” Nurse smirked. “Anne was the evil twin. She was just our first villain-of-the-week, and we went soft on her on account of Rachel.”

“Pfft, as if,” Mrs. Rivera scoffed loudly. “Now, probably already obvious to you, Chloe, but for each of you to even draw power from the Focus, you’ve got to—”

“Hold on, hold on, we’ll be here all night if get into that,” Nurse interrupted, rolling her eyes. “They’ll figure it out, and they’ll need to grow into all of that on their own. Right now? It’s decision time.”

“Decision time, what decision time?” Mrs. Rivera scowled. “Just set him up for—”

“It’s not your decision to make, it’s hers,” Nurse turned from Brian to face Christine. “Healing all this mess up is like just about everything else in life; you can get it done fast, you can get it done cheap, or you can get it done right.”

“Um,” Christine blanched.

“I can have him up and on his feet and feeling fine in sixty seconds,” Nurse said. “That’s the fast and cheap way, and what the Masters would’ve done. If you’re not concerned about paying for it later in big ways, we can go with that. He will have serious cancer in all affected areas, guaranteed, and that’ll be a real bitch to deal with, but it can be addressed later.”

“We’re not doing that!” Mrs. Rivera shook her head in adamant refusal.

“It’s not always an option to heal otherwise when you’re in the thick of things, so it’s important to understand now the consequences of quick healing,” Nurse continued. “Our other options are expensive, or slow.  Expensive is a cost in power. I can have him up and about within a week or so, if I sit here with him the whole time. Right by his side, working on channeling everything correctly to where it needs to go. For you, I could set aside my other obligations and take care of that for, say…”

“Sophie…” Mrs. Rivera warned.

“Let’s say, six hundred thousand dollars,” Nurse proposed. “That’s more than fair.”

“Which I can pay, if I have to,” Mrs. Rivera stuck out her tongue. “But, your group would owe me one, then. They have a girl who sees little bits of the future, you know. It’s not like they couldn’t pay me back.”

“Oh—two point five million, then,” Nurse arched a blonde eyebrow. “Or, should I go higher? Whatever number keeps me from having to waste time sitting here all week. Anne, I do have my own hospital to run.”

“I… don’t want to impose,” Christine tried not to wince. “What was the last option?”

“The slow route, assisted healing rather than brute-forcing it,” Nurse shrugged. “Two or three months for full recovery, maybe less. I put him into a deep, deep sleep, set up spell framework around the injuries, then you girls can put your own power into the framework here and there whenever it’s convenient for you to do so, to spur things along.”

“Kissing usually does it,” Mrs. Rivera added.

“Usually,” Nurse agreed. “However—while I would normally say ‘you girls,’ I think this time I mean ‘any of the other girls but you.’ Since your talent seems to specifically interfere with magic. I have no idea what you’d do to standard spell frames. But, I’ll play it safe and assume nothing good, so, you would need to keep a safe distance away from him for that entire time.”

“That… makes sense,” Christine said. “I can do that.”

“I know two or three months seems slow, but it’s really not that bad,” Mrs. Rivera assured her. “I think we calculated doing it the slow way was usually, what, like one third of the normal recovery time? Somewhere in that area. Much much faster than having him recover on his own.”

“We should go with that, then,” Christine decided. “Emily and Kelly will be there with him, I think. Rebecca, too.”

“Oooh, Rebecca!” Mrs. Rivera clapped her hands and did a little hop. “I love Rebecca! Always wanted her to be one of my daughters! She actually works in nursing, I think—Sophie, you’d love her. She’s an aide, at an assisted living place.”

“That works out, sure,” Nurse said. “He’ll be in a deep sleep, not in total stasis. Having an actual caregiver there to deal with all the little details—keep him properly hydrated, keep him clean, keep him from getting bed sores—puts that much less burden on the spell frames. I’m going to get started, then. Hopefully, I can be done and out of here by sunrise.”

“Oh! Yeah, well, that means…” Mrs. Rivera gave Christine a sheepish smile. “You’ll have to leave. She can’t exactly set up spell frames with you repelling everything! Why don’t you come with me while I pull Brian’s paperwork?”

“Before that, I wanted to ask,” Christine spoke up, feeling her throat go dry all over again. “Can you—either of you—fix me? Kelly warned me not to, uh, not to take in any blood, to feed at all, and I’m. It’s getting bad. I’m not going to be able to. To stand it. Much longer. I don’t know what to do.”

At that Mrs. Rivera’s expression fell, and in the split-second before Nurse looked away, Christine could tell the woman was hiding a grimace.

They… can’t help me, Christine realized, feeling silver slivers of despair prickle across her all over again. Maybe no one can help me. Maybe I’m—maybe I’m just completely and totally fucked?

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/// Alright, taking an actual day off tomorrow, and after that I'm working on RE:TT for the next few bits. 82F degrees today and tomorrow! My old window AC got stored in the back room where water damage from the pipes bursting started mold growing everywhere, and I think the whole unit's a loss due to black mold. It was a $90 cheapo eco AC unit from either last year or the year before, so not a huge loss, but still don't really have confidence attempting to disassemble and clean it out safely.