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Another workday, another sundown. Jolene was up before dusk, which was safe to do with Ramsey's monthly sun-obscuring mist spell freshly cast and blotting out pretty much all daylight.
Jolene's usual pre-workday routine involved sipping down half a 470 medical bag of blood while reading a chapter out of a book, and then showering and dressing for work. Checking her watch, before donning tight-weave fiber solar protection and her polarized face shield, Jolene saw that it was sundown.
Yet, the moment Jolene opened the front door, while she called for Terry to hurry up, she noticed the thermal glare from the dog laying at the threshold. She was going to drive Terry over to his friend's house for a sleepover before going to work, when she saw the glow.
The dog's bodyheat, visible to vampires like Jolene, was irregular and a little weaker than for humans, her son included. That along with the dog's shivering told Jolene just how rough a night the dog had gone through.
"Huh," Ramney said from behind. "That's odd."
"You're tellin' me?" Jolene replied, also not having an immediate emotional reaction to the dog's plight.
"Is that a dog?" Terry asked from further back in the hall.
"Yes," Jolene said to her ten year old son. "But I don't know where it came from."
"It's cold, mom," Terry prodded, "We gotta let it in."
Ramsey raised a suggestive brow to Jolene, "You did say you were looking for a dog to have around the house."
"Yeah, a guard dog," Jolene answered, and looked away with a smirk. "And I don't think this qualifies. We'll just end up finding who it belongs to and calling them to pick it up. Or...," Jolene caught herself after a though, "Dropping it off in burning noon for them."
"She doesn't have any tags, mom," Terry said, now hunched down at the door with the bulldog, and laughed with a sputter from the dog's licking his face, "Sure is friendly, though."
"How do you know it's a she?" Jolene asked.
"Jeez, mom," Terry said with a toned down child's exasperation. "'Cause I checked? You know, we really should have 'that' talk, mom."
Ramsey burst out laughing, as Jolene turned to Terry with mild surprise. Perhaps, Jolene thought, if she had a normal mother's disposition she'd have been truly shocked. "Well, let's get a lost pet notification out before we get carried away. Maybe she really does belong to somebody and they want her back."
"Can I do it?" Terry enthusiastically asked.
Jolene thought she'd have to make Terry do it as a condition of keeping the dog around until reclaimed, so she nodded readily, "Yes, and I mean really try to find out who's looking for her."
Jolene waited for Terry to bring the dog into a part of the house that she figured was safe to have it confined, and then left with Terry. While driving, Jolene imagined the future few days of having to clean up after a dog not housebroken and mulled over what it might like to chew on with those jaws. Jolene's own bite was potentially more formidable but never used.
During her work at the clinic Jolene put it all out of her mind. By the time her weekend rolled around, Jolene decided to check in on Terry's progress in locating the dog's owners. He not only had posted on local news channel's websites, but even printed off fliers to post around Silverton. He just hadn't checked with local shelters because, well, he couldn't drive.
Again covered from the searing wrath of daylight, Jolene drove Terry to animal shelters taking the dog with them. Surprising to Jolene, shelters had beefed up their tracking processes for strays after Alter Idem. Jolene and Terry searched through dog photos, page by page, with a shelter staffer. Not one matched the dog they brought.
That pattern repeated itself with other shelters. After a month of waiting for replies, Jolene relented and allowed Terry to keep the dog. After all, Petunia, as Terry called her, was following him around everywhere. She even whined and barked when Terry went off to school, forcing Jolene to let Petunia ride to school with Terry to give goodbye licks before he got out.
A few days after that Jolene and the other five vampires living in the mortuary-turn-communal-home noticed other things. Being empathically challenged, Jolene didn't grasp why people's pets would seem to know when their owners were coming home. However, they were people who lived with those animals for a long time, so Jolene quietly rationalized in her head that the animals established a general pattern.
However, Petunia knew Terry's habits instantly. The dog even knew the days she could sleep in with Terry, because he didn't have school, and still that wasn't the strangest. Jolene found that out one morning when she came home on a Sunday.
"Mom, mom," Terry called out as he rushed to the sound of her opening the front door. "You won't believe it!"
"Believe what?" Jolene asked, not seeing the wide-eyed look on Terry's face since that night a werewolf broke into his room.
Terry held out a quarter in his palm and put other hand over it, "Okay, so this isn't going to work the first time."
Concentrating hard, Terry focused on the coin as his hand shook for what appeared to be a magic act. Jolene shrugged. "Okay."
"And now I'll bring Petunia in," Terry declared before running to the back door and throwing it open. "C'mon Petunia!"
Most dogs had to be called more than once, but not Petunia. She took to her name instantly, and Jolene wondered what possessed Terry to come up with that.
"Okay, so now watch," Terry said, and looked up, "Are you watching?"
"Yes, I'm watching," Jolene replied.
Just after Terry repeated the intense stare and hand over hand gesture the quarter floated barely an inch off his upturned palm. "Isn't that the coolest ever?"
"Is this the newest magic spell thing kids at school are doing?" asked an unphased Jolene.
Magic was common, but by no means ubiquitous, and there remained a large swath of society that couldn't master even the simplest of spells, Jolene among them. Until now, she'd never seen Terry doing magic either, but now he could.
"I think Petunia is, like a familiar," Terry declared, "You know, like a witch's familiar."
"Aren't they supposed to have cats?" Jolene doubted.
"Not according to what people are saying online," Terry answered, "Owls, rats, one lady says she's got a horse that's a familiar. There's all kinds of animal familiars."
"Which website is this?" Jolene asked, now worried Terry was net surfing where he shouldn't.
"I'll bring it up," Terry replied, as he dashed off to his room.
The lack of hesitation on Terry's part assured Jolene that Terry felt he had nothing to hide, and so she followed after him. She entered his room and waited for him to bring up the social media page where magic talk was the prevailing theme.
One section of threads was named Flaunt Your Familiar. She asked Terry to open that up and looked at all the people with their familiars or photos of just the animals. Below many of them were users who testified to how their magical powers were stronger in the presence of their familiars.
"There's this club or something that meets on Saturdays to trade spells and coach people on it," Terry said, and then grew meek, "Aaand, I was kinda hoping you'd let me go."
Jolene stood fully upright, but resisted folding her arms as if to scold. "We'll see after your grades are posted."
Expecting protest from Terry, Jolene was instead surprised by his spreading grin as he accepted. "All-right!"
Karen came downstairs in a bathroom drying her hair. "What's going on?"
Jolene opened her mouth, but turned around and back again before she could form the words. "I think Terry just told me his a witch."
"Warlock isn't it," Ramsey called from another room, and added his smart-assed addendum, "Or are we not doing gender specificity anymore?"
"Whichever," Jolene called out as she rolled her eyes, but couldn't help smile.
"Ah, so-- witch then," Ramsey offered back, "Got it!"
"Don't you have a court docket to read?" Karen chided back.
"Don't mind me," Ramsey replied.
Karen traded amused glances with Jolene, before Karen reminded, "Well, it's not like he hasn't grown up with magic around the house."
"Yeah, but," Jolene paused, looking distant. "I just don't know enough about all this familiar stuff. What's with animals like this that they're able to do that. Are they just animals, or is there something else about them?"
"I guess you're going to find out," Karen replied, and headed back upstairs. "Besides, there're worse things a kid Terry's age could be getting into."