ashes to ashes ➙ simon lewis [1]

i. CAT EYES.

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CHAPTER ONE: CAT EYES. 

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Descending from a mysterious demon was one thing. But vampires actually existing?

That was something Bella Mastrano was unwilling to accept. 

She had been forced to come to grips with a lot of difficult and seemingly unbelievable truths recently. Such as the ever uplifting fact that her father was not her actual father at all; but rather, she was spawned from some unknown, overtly horny demon who had posed as her father to coerce her mother into sleeping with him and producing her, everybody's (least) favorite hell spawn. Apparently the technical term was "warlock," but Bella had always been widely known for dismissing technicalities.

But yeah. Back to the vampire. Under the new normal-but-actually-very-abnormal circumstances, Bella probably would have just filed away the little fact about vampires not being mythological creatures after all in the same mental folder where she kept all the unsettling demon information and newly discovered daddy issues. Except it was a little difficult to repress the whole vampire knowledge when she was staring down an entire clan of them.

Really, she had just been passing through, trying to find some good vibes in this godforsaken hellscape. Which wasn't actually hell. It was just Brooklyn, but that was pretty much the same thing. Especially to a former resident of Danbury, Connecticut.

She had standards. Which generally did not include enormous rats. Or ravenous vampires, for that matter.

But homeless demon-spawn runaways shouldn't be super picky, she supposed.

The title of the location had initially amused her. Hotel Dumort. She knew enough French from her measly high school classes to translate: Hotel of the Dead. She had found it hilarious, as someone who was perpetually dead inside. Now that she had encountered the residents, however, her funny bone was no longer tickled.

Bella cleared her throat. "So I'm guessing you guys probably don't have a sleeping bag to loan me, right?"

The group of pale faces stared unblinkingly. There was one boy standing in the front of the group, clearly the leader, although he had quite the baby face. His hair was dark and his eyes were a startling blackish brown, a sharp contrast to the eerie pallor of his skin. He was dressed in a navy suit that looked like it cost more than the average college student's semester tuition. "Dare I ask what brings you to our humble abode, warlock?"

She flinched. Somehow, she preferred her stepfather's variance of demon spawn over warlock. The formal title made it all so much more real, and she preferred to deny reality as much as possible. "Um. The cold."

Mr. Posh Suit rolled his eyes. She got the impression that he was not amazed by her impeccable wit. How disappointing. "Your wit is nearly as astounding as the perpetually dry humor of the High Warlock of Brooklyn's. Who is as pretentious and self-absorbed as the unnecessarily long title would suggest."