Throwing on an opaque cloak and pulling on leather gloves, I opened the door.
"Little sister, I'm so glad to see you!" I said, opening my arms wide and plastering the widest smile I could on my face. It took me a second to realize that my fangs were showing. I'd done it without thinking. But fortunately, Percy didn't notice, and ignoring my impulse, she walked past me into the apartment and then into the kitchen. Noticing a chair pulled up to the round table, she sat down wearily.
My sister was wearing her signature red and blue leotard hidden under a light green cloak. Apparently, she'd decided not to change completely, thankfully she'd at least removed her mask. As for her appearance, her hair was slightly lighter than mine and reached her shoulders. Her eyes, unlike mine, were brown. Her figure was simply a sex bomb; even with her cloak wrapped around her, her firm B-cup breasts were visible.
Fuck, my mouth is about to start watering. I need to distract myself with something, damn, I'm so tired of fucking my own sister, I have to have something sacred, right? Said the vampire, I'm definitely sick.
"How long have you known?" she asked guiltily, looking at the table in front of her without looking up, which definitely saved me from revealing my sexuality, since I was staring at her. Revealing my straight sexuality is fraught with, at the very least, scandal, and at the most, doubts about my true identity. Basically, she'll doubt that I'm her brother.
"I know what, Percy?" I answered in Hebrew.
"Don't play dumb, Jimmy, okay?" the spider-woman irritably interrupted my tactic.
"I never thought so," I said without batting an eye, but the game seemed to drag on, and I still hadn't waited for a normal emotional reaction. "Well, from the very beginning, when we were still living in your uncle's house, you weren't particularly worried that someone would see you climbing out of the window in your tights, well, figure out the rest yourself."
"Goddess! I need a drink, do you have anything?" she asked, standing up and heading towards the refrigerator, obviously intending to find and empty my non-existent supply of booze.
"I have tea! And water too!" he said, desperately trying to avert disaster. "By the way, I do have tea, even with sugar, I keep it for guests. Admittedly, almost no one comes to see me except hunters, whiner."
- Come on, at least you have beer, you always have, - but the sword of Damocles fell, meaning the sister opened the refrigerator.
"Oops," I said resignedly.
"Jimmy, what is this!?" the nurse said, enunciating each word as she took the bag of blood in her right hand and showed it to me.
"It's a blood bag, Percy," I replied, trying to keep a straight face.
"I can fucking see it's a blood bag, Jimmy! What's it doing in your fridge!?" the sister exclaimed furiously.
"You see, for a young and growing organism…," I started to spin the yarn, without much hope of success, but it was worth a try.
"How long have you been a vampire, and when were you planning on telling me!?" He apparently only now noticed my paleness and the general darkness of the room.
"About a year, and probably never, just like you told me about your alter ego," I answered indignantly, trying to take the place of the offended party.
"Don't shift the blame! It's not the same thing!" the girl flared up.
"It's true that I had reasons to hide my nature from my family, but you didn't," I pressed.
- What do you know! I was trying to protect you!
"And how did it happen?" I asked, putting my hands behind my head.
- Don't try to change the subject! You killed people?
"I don't want to hear you lecture me on this, little sister! Far more people die in super showdowns than all the vampires in the world kill. And to answer your question, I don't kill for food, but I've killed before." After delivering this tirade, I pulled a cigarette from the pack in my breast pocket and lit it with a lighter. Whoever said vampires don't smoke, well, they do, at least I do. It doesn't help much, but it does have some effect.
"If you don't kill for food, then where does the blood come from? And don't tell me you kill for pleasure!" the sister said, ignoring the jab at their deadly masquerade.
"Okay, I won't, but my blood is from couriers. I think they get it from donor centers, but I didn't check. Quietly, quietly, I can't even joke anymore!" I was forced to retreat from the table; it seemed Percy wasn't taking humor well at the moment.
"Don't piss me off, Jimmy! How many have you killed and for what?" my sister growled.
"Are you asking about people or in general?" I don't know what came over me, but I just couldn't stop trolling her; I guess the lack of communication was taking its toll.
- JAMES RICHARD PARKER! - Percy lost her temper.
"Why are you calling me by my middle name? I didn't think superheroines were so rude, and I even yelled at my own brother. Ugh! Maybe JJJ is right about you!" I continued to tease.
"You could have said that even louder, and I'll hold it against you for Jamison! Stop clowning around, brother, and answer the damn question!" she demanded.
"Okay, little sister, don't get worked up, I killed two vampires and four hunters out of the conditionally intelligent ones, all in self-defense, if you're interested," I decided not to tease her for now.
"You didn't have to kill those hunters if you had called me. I'm sure you could have resolved the situation peacefully. I know Blade," my sister scolded me.
"Maybe I could have, but the situation wasn't conducive. But in the end, we came to an agreement with the hunters. Thank you for the offer of help, but it was a bit late. By the way, it's funny that you don't care whether I could have made peace with the other vampires; your racism is charming. A superhero is a racist, but that happens? I see that it does, Percy. You've shattered my mold; how am I supposed to live in a world of racist supers now?" I lamented.
"I'm not a racist!" the spider flared.
"Really!? Admit your prejudices and you'll feel better. I'm a bloodthirsty monster to you, unworthy of life. If I weren't your brother, you would have attacked me already," I said, speaking the truth.
- Don't say that, I would never...
"Come on, as soon as I stop torturing myself by restricting my diet and go thin the herd, so to speak, you'll immediately disown me and lead a hunt for my person with the goal of killing me," I accused.
"So we're cattle to you, and you're talking to me about racism!" the heroine said, furious.
"No, you're not cattle to me, I'm just a predator who feeds on people. It's Percy's fucking nature, I'm higher on the food chain. And don't try to identify yourself with ordinary people; you haven't been one of them for a long time!" I snapped angrily.
"Okay, let's drop the racism topic?" the sister suggested.
"Go ahead," I agreed.
- You say you killed four hunters, how did you do it?
"The area may not be the most fashionable, but it's not a slum either. The girls couldn't use their heavy weapons to smoke me out, and I knew they'd come, well, after the first time they sent some real greenhorns, so I was prepared. You see, our parents clearly did something to our genes, so I'm stronger than the average newborn vampire. My opponents didn't know this, so I smelled the silver on them and ambushed them in my mist form.
"Well, let's say you were lucky once, maybe twice, but sooner or later they should have sent some seasoned she-wolf for you, and Blade himself could have taken an interest in you," my sister didn't believe me.
"I can see how well you know Blade, sister. He's very busy in Europe right now, and has been for a couple of years now. I can't share the details, but the fact remains. As for the other hunters, maybe I can show you America, Percy, but there aren't a ton of them in Newark, and even fewer experienced ones. They could, of course, ask the New Yorkers for help, but the Jerseyites hate them. Some old story about someone using someone else as bait and a bunch of hunters dying. Anyway, since I didn't resort to violence, they weren't so desperate as to ask their neighbors for help, disregarding their pride. So they decided to come to an agreement, after my goodwill gesture, when I returned the last of them to them, relatively intact.
"Let's say, how did you get rid of the vampires?" she said doubtfully.
"They sent two stooges from the Krieger sect after me, and they're in no better shape after the uprising against Zarusa, so, missing a couple of starving weaklings, they decided to give up, well, I guess, they haven't been around since then," I explained.
"What rebellion?" the twin asked in surprise.
"I see you're completely out of the loop, huh? The short version is that Dracula's daughter wasn't liked by some of the clans and sects as a ruler, and then there was a small civil war within our inner circle, the rebels lost—that's the end." The information was fairly obvious, frankly speaking. Only those who weren't interested hadn't heard of such an epochal event, but all the vampires knew about it. I was on my own, but not to that extent.
"Mm, I see," she doesn't care that it's clear, but I have no desire to enlighten her about the centuries-old history of vampires, so I'll take that as an answer.
"Okay, enough about me, why did you come? It's not like you're visiting as a family, otherwise you would have come without a suit," I changed the subject.
"I needed your help. Damn, it's starting again!" Percy groaned, as additional limbs began sprouting from her sides and her cloak fell away, presenting the process in all its glory. Her suit seemed to have been torn in the appropriate places even before she came to me.
"Shit, Percy! How long ago did this start!?" I asked, frantically recalling the comic book plot in which her artificial mutation went out of control. I think Connors helped her there, and there's a female version of him here, so why did Percy come to me instead of the professor?
"About a week ago," the girl squeezed out, suppressing another groan.
"Why did you only come now, and why didn't you contact Connors? She's your supervisor, after all?" I peppered her with questions.
"I thought I could handle it myself, but it didn't work out, it only got worse, and the doc is on vacation in Hawaii right now, so that option is unavailable. So what's wrong with me, Jim?"
"You're not a natural mutant, but an artificial one—these are the consequences. Your mutation needs to be stabilized immediately, otherwise it will intensify and things will get much worse," I replied.
"And you came to such a conclusion based on just a minute of observation, without even conducting a simple blood test!?" she didn't believe me.
"Percy, you've grown four extra arms, you're turning into a giant anthropomorphic spider, don't teach me how to talk! Or do you think I'm dumber than you!?" I finished sarcastically.
"Can you fix this?" she asked hopefully.
"Not here, the only equipment I have here is a microscope," I disappointed her. Suppressing her mutation to an acceptable level shouldn't be difficult. Connors managed it in the end, in a short time. I should too, no, no, I'm obligated! But I need a lab, I thought, glancing sideways at my sister, and I need it now!
"How do you conduct your experiments? I can't believe you've abandoned science!" the girl giggled softly.
"There's a research institute here that has a lax attitude towards safety, but we can't go there now; sunbathing is bad for me," I tried to defuse the situation.
"Okay, we'll wait until sunset," the sister agreed.
***
The time until sunset dragged on slowly, mainly due to Percy's fits, the sedatives did not help her, but eventually she forgot herself in a restless sleep.
Unfortunately, I had to wake her up around midnight, although before that I had to fill up with another bag of blood; after all, it's much more difficult to control yourself in close proximity to a warm body with pulsating arteries.
"This is your sister, not dinner, sister, not dinner," I repeated like a mantra while she slept.
But I finally got it done, after a snack. Anyway, around midnight, my sister and I headed to the research center for answers. I had the sinful thought of leaving Percy at my place and taking a blood sample to handle everything myself, but then deciding that two heads are better than one and I couldn't let her out of my sight in such a state, I took her with me anyway.
We spent about four hours in the lab, and, surprisingly, we found a solution. Two heads are better than one, after all. We needed a serum based on vampire enzymes to stabilize Percy's body. Don't ask how it works—it's a murky mess, and I didn't fully understand it myself. I only figured it out because I remembered it in the comics.
The only problem was that regular enzymes, and even my unusual ones, weren't suitable. We needed the enzymes of a living, artificially created vampire. We needed Mikaela Morbius, who had recently become one.
It's worth noting that this is exactly what Percy was trying to figure out before her mutation problems hit her. And now I have to solve the problem.
However, I'm also extremely interested in finding Morbius, as she apparently has a ready-made solution to my problems, if not all, then most of them, or at least she could be the answer to my research direction, assuming she cooperates voluntarily, which is unlikely. But she might not cooperate voluntarily, that's just the way it is. Or maybe I'll manage to charm her and finally get a girlfriend. Damn, my thoughts have taken a wrong turn; I need to save my sister. But then again, one thing doesn't preclude the other, heh-heh-heh.
Ahem, ahem, good thing I know roughly where she's hiding, and that wasn't a malicious laugh, don't get me wrong. Anyway, Long Island is waiting for us!