CitrusArms
Xaltwind
rabidbacon
Remram
ColdAtlas
princess
Damycles
PapaOso
KingofSerpents
Awareness drifted barely within her senses, manifesting as the occasional roll on the bed, hitting the wall with a leg, burrowing a hand underneath the pillow, a vague feeling of drool-caused-dampness beneath her cheek. The mechanical ringing of her phone startled her awake and Kathryn met consciousness with a dizzying crash, though she soon came to her senses with the brief thought of “Oh, this again,” accompanying a wide, hand-covered yawn. She staggered to her tiny bathroom, which had a sink, toilet, shower, and washing machine all crammed into it.
The first order of business was brushing her teeth, because that faint cloying, metallic feeling of old blood in her mouth was just as annoyingly disgusting as the bad morning breath had been when she was still human. When the last swish of water finally left her mouth after the three or so minutes of dental care, Kathryn was much more refreshed. Of course, the face staring back at her from the sink mirror could be mistaken for that of a corpse depressingly easily. With a sigh, Kat shucked off her sleeping clothes – leggings, T-shirt, panties – into the laundry basket, and tied her hair into a messy bun with one of many hair ties she kept there.
After a quick shower, Kathryn finally felt like she rejoined the living, and threw on the clothes she’d already prepared yesterday. It was a semi-casual sort of attire; jeans, gray dress shirt, and a black leather jacket – good enough to go to work with, where she’d change into her uniform in any case. Her living-cum-bedroom was as cluttered as ever, though she strived to tidy it up a bit on a weekly to bi-weekly basis. Well, that was just how it was when she used every spare bit of surface for depositing her various items, whether that be books, notebooks, pens, magazines, loose documents, her electronics, that one yoga mat, hand weights, cleaned blood bags, or the occasional cigarette pack.
Speaking of blood bags, she opened her fridge, took out the snack, popped its cap open, and sucked the blood out as swiftly a child might do with one of those small packets of orange juice, crumpling the plastic to get every last drop out of it. It was simple chicken blood; if she went for the human variety, she preferred an actual restaurant or a bar. She washed the empty container with efficient, practiced movements, then left it out to dry. Kathryn checked the time, then – just to make sure – padded to the small, closed off balcony, and gingerly pulled the curtains aside, and peeked through the shutters which served as another layer of protection from the sunlight. Yep, the sun had indeed set in its entirety, and the sky had darkened enough for her to be able to go out safely. Time for work then. Kathryn briefly put on some make-up, grabbed her handbag, descended the three floors from her flat to the ground floor of the apartment building, and headed outside.
At the back of the building, next to the apartment’s designated parking lot, there were a couple of bicycle racks as well, and that is where her transportation device awaited her as well. Though she had a car license, she frankly wasn’t willing to invest into owning a car, not quite yet. If she really needed to, she could always visit her parents and borrow her mother’s Toyota, not that it was usually worth the hassle to do so. But for commuting to her workplace and back, a bike was just fine. She could have even jogged there – or pretty much wherever she pleased, without getting tired – but people could easily get too freaked out by supernatural behavior like that.
Bitter thoughts aside, Kathryn was at the station within 20 minutes, and after securing her bike, headed inside, waved at the guards she passed (though not all deigned to acknowledge her beyond a bored stare), and changed into her uniform as soon as she arrived at the locker room. As she was fastening on her duty rig, a friendly face showed up, causing Kathryn to break out in a grin.
“Hey, El! Think we’ll be paired up for patrol anytime soon?” the vampire greeted cheerfully.
“What, with Meadows assigning the rotations? Fat chance. Would really help when I have to cover for Victor though,” the female lycan commented. Ellen was a tanned brunette of 5’7 and looked deceptively light, her hair barely long enough to put into a ponytail, rather shapely as well as packing some decent muscles. They’d known each other for almost a decade now, and had hit it off almost immediately upon their first meeting, and their relationship naturally progressed to being very good friends.
“Yeah, she really can be unbelievably petty,” Kathryn retorted with a scoff. That their superior was kind of a bitch went unsaid, but was understood nonetheless. Ellen mock-shushed her, and they shared a smirk. “I’m going ahead,” she departed with a smile, though the short trip to the office part of the building was enough to remind her of the usual drudgery of her work. It wasn’t quite enough to get her to wish for an incident, but, well…she couldn’t say she’d be averse to something to spice her day (or rather, night) with either.
Tonight, Kathryn was assigned to patrol with Jennings, a human male in his late twenties, early thirties, who often took the night shift for the bonus it gave him. Kat found him at his cubicle sipping at a coffee while looking over some documents. He turned to her with a sulky grunt, and the vampire quirked her lips in a half-smile, half-grimace. “Let me drive today,” she said, though it wasn't a request, and Jennings shrugged, obviously not caring either way - either that, or he was just unwilling to bother arguing against something so minor. They both did some perfunctory administrative work until it was finally time to go out. Driving in general was pretty fun, but there was that special thrill of being in a police car and just getting to see how very careful people usually were when aware of their presence. It could be kind of amusing, even. And whenever someone stupid enough to try and hassle – or even attack – a police officer showed up, she got to let loose a bit – but really, just a bit. Only against extremely violent supernatural beings could Kathryn ever employ all of her power, and admittedly, it was rather an addictive feeling that she had to keep tight control over.
Two or so hours of driving around Duncaster later, Moreno and Jennings parked in the center, and took to patrolling on foot. It was a fairly decent preventive, though there were plenty of corners they rarely – if ever – covered, not to mention the myriad of shady locations that took on legitimate covers or were just that unassuming. Oh, and there was also corruption, of course. But Kathryn chose not to concern herself overly much with things that were outside of her sphere of influence. Instead, she enjoyed the night-time stroll and the never-ending thrum of the city’s life, despite the fact that being on the job meant she couldn’t quite relax.
