Natural Consequences(5)
An inset photo beside the youth’s face provided a blow-up of the fangs, with markings to denote their likely legitimacy.
“His name is Jason Cohen.”
Chapter One: And It’s Only Tuesday
“This picture’s all over the place,” Alex teased. He held his phone in one hand, both his elbows on the restaurant table. “I mean, you’ve got fangs in your hand, posing like you’re about to bust out some terrible nerdcore rap, but all this lens flare makes it look like you’ve just joined Starfleet… I don’t know if I’m supposed to think you got these fangs from vampire Klingons or vampire Tupac, y’know?”
“Oh, like you’re the guy to critique anyone’s photography,” retorted Jason. Baskets of half-finished gyros and Greek fries sat between the pair. “Didn’t you burn down a church the last time you busted out your camera?”
Alex cringed. “I’ve taken pictures since then,” he said, his voice dropping. He wore a blue dress shirt and black slacks, having come over for lunch from work. “And it was just a funeral chapel. Anyway, you know we didn’t take out all the bad guys that night. Why would you want to ask for more trouble?”
“Dude, nobody’s listening to us. It ain’t like any of ‘em are gonna eavesdrop on us at this hour,” Jason said, jerking his thumb toward the window. Though Seattle’s skies were as overcast and its streets as wet as any other October, it wasn’t exactly dark. “Lorelei said those guys are like supernatural bottom feeders, right? So what’s the big deal?”
“They aren’t a big deal to her or to Rachel,” Alex corrected, “or to Molly and Onyx. But I—“
“Yeah, have you called them lately?” interrupted Jason.
Alex winced. “No.”
“Why not? They seem awesome.”
“They are, I’m just… can we stay on topic? Look, there are more of those guys out there. They knew my name and how to find me, so they must know how to use computers. I deleted all my social media shit, but we both know all that stuff stays out there anyway. How hard do you think it’d be for them to figure out who my friends are?”
Jason gave a bit of a scowl. “You’re that freaked out about it?”
“We are, yeah,” Alex nodded. “Jason, I’d be dead right now if it wasn’t for you. Twice, at least. And I don’t want to think about what would’ve happened to Lorelei. She almost pulled out of her thing with the conservatory board today to come talk to you about this. I don’t think you know how much you mean to her, man.”
Sighing, Jason pulled out his phone. His fingers tapped through his password and called up the web page out of muscle memory. Jason barely had to look. “I was just fucking around anyway,” he muttered. “Not like I thought anyone other than you two and the guys would get what’s in that picture.”
“Yeah, that’s what I figured at first. Lorelei convinced me otherwise. She’s dealt with these assholes before. She says they’re hard-core about their secrecy stuff and so it stands to reason that they pay people to cruise the Internet and check for anything that might be about them. Even dorky bathroom cell phone pics.”
Jason rolled his eyes. “It’s gone, okay? Already off my profile pic. I’m deleting it from my pictures, see?” He tilted his phone to show the webpage. “Wasn’t even up all that long.”
“Thank you,” Alex said. “Although that brings up the other question—where in the hell did you get those, anyway? Those were real fangs?”
“Yeah, they’re real,” Jason said. “I picked ‘em up just after the fight. They were just sitting there in the piles of ashes. I guess not all of them crumble up all the way. We wanted to pick up all the incriminating evidence, right?”
“So you could post it on your profile page?” asked Alex.
“Hey, it’s gone, alright? It’s gone.”
“Thank you,” Alex sighed. “And you won’t show those to anyone, right?”
Jason sighed back, more dramatically than before. “No,” he grumbled. “Nobody’d know what they really were, anyway.”
“Hopefully.”
“Unless Lorelei knows any demon girls who are single,” he added. “If that sort of stuff impresses them.”
“I kinda doubt it. What about Britney and Brittany? How’s that going?”
“Uh. Well, that wasn’t ever gonna work out anyway,” Jason said, scratching the back of his neck. “I mean, I don’t think I’m ready to settle down yet, y’know?”