Okay guys, here's something that will convince everyone to jump whenever I ask for a beta reader <g> This is for Ren (who likes Vachon) and Shana (who likes Nick) for going over 'Tis the Season for me. It also addresses one of my fears, that the characters I don't write kindly (or at all) in my stories are going to kick my butt <g>

Usual Disclaimers, DPs archive it if you want to, others ask.

"Cousin Mary Must Die!" (1/1)

By: Cousin Mary (Jenkins)

Vachon sat silently brooding. He stared unseeingly at the long tapered candles as they tried futilely to vanquish the darkness in the forsaken church. The amber light flickered upon him, making shadows dance across his pale skin and dark as night hair.

A printout lay spread before him, others lay scattered across the floor. All were stories by the same author. An author Vachon was really starting to despise.

"Cousin Mary," He drew out her name in a long hissed breath. For the most part the fiction that came his way had always been favorable, he always saved the day, reached the brass ring, or made sweet love to Tracy, or Nat, or some other beautiful woman, but in -this- author's…

Vachon's upper lip curled up into a sneer. This woman wrote about Tracy, but rarely about him. And if he did make an appearance, well, it was never a good thing.

Her latest Tracy/Lacroix story lay before him. Slowly he traced his fingers across the well-worded lines and grammatically correct sentences. He'd give her one point: she had excellent beta readers. The syntax was exquisite. It was the story he hated.

His fist closed around the paper, crushing the offensive prose into a tight ball.

"Never again!" He whispered, rising from the couch and pulling on his jacket, "Tonight…Cousin Mary Must Die!"

>>>>>>>>

A few hours later:

"There!" Mary grinned in triumph as the tiny gif. of a cha-chaing Tracy and Lacroix leapt to life, "Perfect!"

Mary was just adding the finishing touches to her CERK Perk page, when suddenly her front door burst open and an irate vampire came barging in.

"Ack!" Mary dove behind her sofa.

"Are you Cousin Mary?!" Vachon bellowed, eyes yellow, fangs down.

Mary peeped her head up, "Ye-yessir…"

Vachon looked at the terrible fiend that had composed such horrible fic and…blinked, his features returning to normal. Mary was a slender blonde in her early twenties, with big blue eyes staring at him with undisguised shock. Actually, she looked a lot like Tracy. He blinked again, "Oh, why'd you have to be a blonde?!"

Mary stood up slowly, "North German ancestry?" She cracked wryly.

Vachon glared, now he remembered why 'Cousin Mary Must Die!' "You're the one who wrote all that Tracy fiction?"

Mary smiled and nodded, "Yeah, I'm a Dark Perk, gotta love Tracy!"

Vachon continued to glare, "All that…Tracy and Lacroix fiction?"

Mary's eyes went wide, she was beginning to realize she just might be in trouble here, "Um, well, I, er…"

Vachon took a step towards Mary and ran his hand up her bare arm, resting it under her chin and cupping her cheek, "Don’t you know all the blondes are mine?"

Mary swallowed audibly, "Even Nick?" Even faced with certain death, Mary never lost her sense of sarcasm. Never too bright that Mary.

Vachon growled, drawing his hand away and racking it through his hair, "The women! The blonde -women- are mine!"

"Oh."

Vachon scowled at her and began pacing her living room restlessly, keeping an eye on Mary to make sure she didn't try and make a run for it, "Why do you write about Tracy and-and…him?"

Mary's mind raced a mile a minute, she rushed over to the filing cabinet next to her desk, "I don't only write about them!" She protested, digging through her fic. "I write about you and her too!"

Vachon came to stand behind her as she knelt at her task.

Mary searched frantically, "Lacroix, Lacroix, Lacroix," She mumbled under her breath as she went through the stories, "Come on, I have to have one."

Vachon growled behind her, he was growing a bit impatient.

Mary was beginning to shake, oh why couldn't she write Smurf fic? No one was ever killed by a Smurf! At last she found some fic without Lacroix as the hero, "Oh here's-"

Vachon snatched the story up, his eyes scanning the pages.

Mary watched in horror as his eyes turned a bloody red.

"This is," Vachon threw the papers violently down, "A Screed and Tracy story!"

Just then, Mary's -back- door crashed open! And this time it was Nick!

Mary was just about to let out shout of joy at her rescuer when Nick bellowed, "Cousin Mary Must Die!"

"Ack!" Mary jumped up and ran for the door, but tripped over her DP issue Duffel Bag o' Doom and crashed back to the floor.

"Oh no you don't!" Vachon growled at the interloper, "She's mine!"

Nick waved a piece of Mary's Valentine fic under Vachon's nose, "Not until I get a good sized chuck of her!"

Vachon and Nick's eyes met then, "We'll kill her together!" They chorused.

"No!" Mary cried and scurried under her coffee table. Hey, that's what they tell you to do in California in the case of an emergency!

All of a sudden, a car came crashing though Mary's front window! It was Shana and Ren, Mary's beta readers! They were tired of Mary always begging for their advice then ignoring it! They'd spent the night at the Raven letting Miklos and the Inca buy them drinks and now they planned to kick their friend's *ss around the block a few times!

But then, that was before they had known Nick and Vachon were there.

Ren stepped out of the passenger's side of Shana's dark pink Taurus, "Vachon? Nick? What are you doing here?"

Vachon's eyes locked with the pretty blonde's eyes and he forgot for a moment, then he blinked and remembered, "Cousin Mary Must Die!"

Shana hauled her cookies out from behind the wheel and, ignoring the glass crunching under her feet, walked straight over to Nick. Poking him square in the chest with her index finger, she asked, "That's what you’re here for too? Killing Mary?"

"She's got to die!" Nick told her, "Have you seen the kind of stuff she writes?"

Shana nodded, her long brunette locks swinging in a way that was really kind of distracting to Nick.

"Well," Vachon exclaimed, "That's why 'Cousin Mary Must Die!'"

Ren and Shana exchanged a look, they had to come up with a plan to save their friend from these undead stud-muffins. No matter Mary's many ego-trips, she didn't deserve to die!

Meanwhile, for her part Mary was still under the coffee table, trying to come up with a way to save her neck. She wasn't doing too well though, most of her plans hinged on an immediate alien abduction or Elvis sighting.

Suddenly grins spread across Shana and Ren's faces, they exchanged another look and then each approached a vampire.

Ren slid up to Vachon and pressed herself against him, "You don't really need to kill Mary do you?" She asked in a husky voice.

"Well, I-" Vachon blinked, swallowed a couple times, "I, she writes about Tracy you see, but not me, and I, er, Gee, is it getting hot in here?"

Ren batted her eye lashes, "I don't think so, but you know, I could write you some fic, something with you as the hero," Ren's smile took on a devilish edge, "Something where you spend most of the story without a shirt for no particular reason."

Vachon blinked, then smiled, "Okay, forget Mary! Come with me!" And with that, he scooped Ren into his arms and carried her off into the night.

Meanwhile, Shana pressed Nick against a wall and proceeded to trail her fingers up and down his chest, "Now, why does a great big guy like you need to kill and insignificant, lousy, hack of a writer like Mary for, hmm?"

"Hey!" Mary's offended voice came out from her hiding spot.

Shana ignored her, "I mean, not many people read her Valentine stories anyway," Shana leaned in and rested her head against Nick's chest, "And oh so many have visited the N&N, IB and UF sites."

Nick was now completely lost in the scent of Shana's hair and the feel of her lithe body pressed against his, he just nodded.

"So…" Shana drew her head back and smiled at him, "There's no reason to kill her."

"Guess not," Nick sighed.

"Maybe you can give me a ride?" Shana grinned, "I seem to have had a mishap with my car, did you bring the Caddy?"

"Yeah, I can give you a ride," Nick nodded, "Where do you want me to take you?"
Shana smiled, "Your place is fine."

Nick grinned and gallantly led the brunette out through the broken window and to his car.

A minute later Mary crawled out from under her table and surveyed the damage. Both her front and back doors hung off their hinges, there was broken glass everywhere, and the front end of a 1996 Taurus was parked in her living room.

Mary sank onto her sofa and buried her head in her hands.

"Thare, thare me sweet!" Came a voice from her left, "No need ta be all boo-hooey!"

Mary's head snapped up, "Screed!"

The carouche grinned at her and sat beside her, throwing his arm around her shoulders, "Don't ya be worrin' none, I'm not 'ere ta off yas er nuthin', I likes yer stories I does, especial-licky tha ones wit' Baby Jane an' ol' Screed!"

Mary just stared at him in shock, "Go away Screed, I don't like you, I only write about you because I have a brain tumor, or I was dropped on my head as a baby or something."

"'Ey, tha's no way ta be!" Screed protested.

"Carly's home addresses is on the desk," Mary sighed, burying her head in her hands again.

Like a shot Screed was off her sofa, to the desk and out of there before Mary could even draw her next breath.

Mary closed her eyes, she felt a headache coming on.

Suddenly she heard the crunch, crunch of glass under boots.

"I thought I told you to leave!" Mary snapped, looking up to try and glare Screed away.

But instead of the carouche, she saw the General!

"Lacroix!" Mary gasped, then her eyes grew troubled, "You're not here to kill me too are you?"

He merely chuckled and came to sit beside her, "No my dear."

"You want Laura's home address?" Was her next question.

"I have it," He smiled, "But tonight I am here to see you."

"Oh," Mary's mouth made a perfect 'O.'

His eyes swept over the war zone that had once been her perfectly kept living room, "Seems you need a vacation."

"Yeah, really," Mary's eyes lit up, "With you?"

Lacroix chuckled, drawing her into his arms and standing up, "Yes with me, darling girl."

Mary sighed happily and cuddled into his chest, "Even if I stop writing about you?"

For a moment Lacroix stilled, then he continued walking her out of the demolished room as if he hadn't heard her question, but under his breath Mary thought she heard him whisper, "You'd -better- not."

>>>>>>>>>