Night Light (Exalted vs World of Darkness)
- Thread starter Kinotics
- Start date
- Crossover Fantasy Modern
Truly, there is nothing quite like a Sidereal to make sure the plot is on the right track while engaging in minor to major reality/narrative warping in the process. Certainly will not be abused in the future.
Scene 18 - Rural Escapades
"Is that a vampire?" Elio says, tapping on the car window slowly. Outside is a cow laying in the grass of its pasture.
There is a deep sigh from the driver's seat. "No. It is not." Ashley says through clenched teeth. She rapidly drums her fingers on the wheel. "If it is broad daylight and you see something it is NOT a vampire."
"I dunno. That cow looks kinda blood thirsty to me." Elio continues to look out the window while idly flipping a pen around his fingers.
Ashley turns the radio up, blaring a rock song from ages ago. "You're the worst to take on road trips, you know that?" She says with a raised voice as she pulls up to the campground. The black car once belonging to Victor kicks up a cloud of dust behind it as it goes onto the gravel and dirt path.
Elio gazes out as they drive past the multitude of empty campsites. "Shouldn't there be more people here? It's like peak camping season."
"Better for us. Less eyes looking our way." She pulls the now dirt-crusted car up to a campsite near the water of a small creek flowing nearby. "Plus any vampires that come looking for us in Galena will miss us since we're down here."
Stepping out of the car, Elio stretches. The air is pleasant here and the gentle trickle of the stream nearby could even be considered relaxing. Surrounded by a copse of trees in the dry summer. An old and well used fire pit is in the middle of the campsite. Latrines just down the trail. "Looks like paradise." He opens the back of the car to look at their supplies. A rifle, a pair of pistols, a spear, some kevlar armor that doesn't fit either of them, the small tent, some blankets, and boxes of ammunition. "So, uh, what are we eating, Ash? I can't help but notice that you didn't do the supply shopping you said you were going to do."
She steps out from the car and investigates the fire pit, complete with a charred metal grill that is meant to be lowered over the top of it. "I figured I could do some hunting. Plenty of small game for us to eat."
The tent bag hits the ground and Elio stares at it. "How long are we going to be out here you think?" He leans down and starts ruffling through it, an increasingly frantic and befuddled look on his face as he holds the poles in hand.
"Area this size?" Ashley sniffs the wind and frowns. "Could be weeks. Months even. Depends on how hungry this one is. Or if they catch us first."
Tent pole in hand, Elio looks up at Ashley. "Months? Ashley, you said we only had about a month or so until Victor came around. Not to mention I am not living in a tent with you for more than a few days, tops."
She snatches the mis-aligned pole from his hands. "Then we better work fast, sunny. And hope this blood sucker is sloppy." Frowning, she pushes Elio aside and fastens the tent to the pole. "And what the hell is this? Never been camping before?"
"We were more RV campers growing up and I skipped boy scouts." Elio mutters, stepping back and towards the picnic table.
They spend some time setting up their three-man tent. Okay, Ashley sets up the tent, and Elio unfolds a paper map of the area on the picnic table. A couple of disagreements on search patterns later, they begin their hunt for a blood predator. The days begin to wind away at that campsite under the summer sun.
"So that's all that you have to say?" Elio asks flatly. He's found himself in one of the local general stores of a town called Prosper. In front of him is a man weaning overalls and thick work boots, curly hair hanging in front of his eyes. He nods. "You think you saw someone creeping around one of your barns and when you came out they were gone? Did you get any sort of look at them?"
"Can't say I did." He puts a hand on his chin and leans against the checkout counter as the clerk rings up several bags of dog food. "Kinda short? I think? It was dark."
Elio sighs. "Thanks for your time. Would you mind if I took a look around that barn?"
The man shakes his head. "Sorry, can't say I do."
"Great. Wait. Was that a yes?" The guy grunts and picks up his dog food before heading out without looking at Elio. "Guess that's a no."
From behind the counter, the clerk eyes Elio. "You know, most folk don't take kindly to people asking about things happening at night 'round here."
"I gathered." Elio looks over to the clerk. "Okay, what about you? Anything weird going on?"
He laughs. "Sorry. Can't say there is. Besides you, I think. Why do you wanna know about weird things here in Prosper of all places?"
"I'm looking for a friend of mine. She's... well..." He falters a moment, a well-rehearsed line at this point. "She isn't quite right in the head and last we saw her she was running around the farms and woods out here. So we're hoping someone's seen her."
Sucking in a breath, the clerk leans forward across the counter. "You didn't hear this from me. But if your friend was out after dark? Well let's just say I'd call off the search, you know?"
Elio leans forward onto the counter as well and measures the man in front of him. About the same height as himself. Nervously tapping a foot against the hardwood floor. If his hunches were worth anything there was a shotgun under this counter. "Right. And why would you say something as awful as that? This is a good friend of mine we're talking about."
"Got a picture or something?" The clerk grunts. Elio flips out his phone, opening the gallery to a picture of Ashley grimacing at the camera.
"It's been a few months, but she's probably still wearing that camo."
"Right, right. Look, I haven't seen her and I don't think anyone else here has either. There's a lot of coyotes out and about here, so if she's on her own at night? They probably found her." The clerk looks up as a woman enters the store. "Now I got some customers, so why don't you get moving then."
Straightening and pocketing his phone, Elio smiles. "Thanks for your time." He exits the store and rubs his face. Another person, another dead end. Moving to the car, he stops as he watches a man outside of the general store pinning a flier to the bulletin board. A missing person poster. Stepping back from the car, Elio makes his way over. Looking at the poster, there is a young looking boy on it. "How long has he been missing?" He asks towards the back of the man.
"Coupla weeks now." Turning to face Elio is a tired looking man, rings under his eyes. "Someone keeps pulling my posters down though."
Elio sticks his hand out. "I'm Harry. Private Investigator. Mind if I ask you some questions?"
He reaches out and takes Elio's hand. "Are you working with Nigel? He already asked me a bunch of questions about my kid, Chuck."
Frowning, Elio traces through his memories. Nope. No Nigels. "Can't say I've had the pleasure. Do you have his number?" Terrance nods, pushing a business card into Elio's hands. "Guess I'll give him a call. You gonna be here a minute? Just in case I have some other questions?" Terrance nods.
Whipping out his phone, Elio dials the number on the slightly crumpled card. Talon investigations, not an outfit that Elio is familiar with. Eventually it goes to voicemail. Declining to leave a message, Elio turns back around to face Terrance again. "Couldn't get to him right now, mind if I..." Terrance was gone. Glancing around, there was no car nor any sounds of footsteps. Pocketing his phone again, Elio steps into the car. "Spooky." He mutters as he drives back to the campsite.
Once night falls, Ashley roams the plains and pastures running among the predators and prey of the area. Carefully watching the shadows of night for unusual activity along the hunting paths that dot the region and eventually sighting her prey. A dirty woman wearing furs, with eyes like a great cat that bulge from their sockets, lopes through the fields. Horrible black claws extend out from her hands. She isn't alone. Joined by a pack of coyotes, there's no doubt in Ashley's mind that she has been able to control a territory of this size with a network of spies and thugs wearing their own fur and bringing their own fangs.
Before the sun rises, the wild looking woman retreats back to her haven in the basement of a farmhouse. A long rectangular home, likely split level from what Ashley can see. Caught between two ends of the surrounding woods, seemingly carved from a piece of the forest itself. A large porch at the top story with scattered plastic and wooden chairs with a weather worn wooden table is the centerpiece of the backyard. Our vampire friend steps into one of the doors at the back that leads to the bottom floor. Blackout curtains can be seen pressed up against the windows from the inside and a few tears show plywood reinforcing it. A pair of mangy coyotes follow her inside, while the rest of the pack of six scatters into the woods. Likely they call the area home themselves. From the boughs of a nearby tree, Ashley looks over the house. At this hour of night, there should be no activity in the house, yet there is a light on upstairs and she can just barely hear someone walking on the creaky wood floor boards within. She bends and twists until she is but a small pigeon and flies back to the campsite with her findings.
During the evenings before going to bed, Elio has been slowly working on getting the bullet proof Kevlar adjusted to his size. Which is where Ashley finds him tonight, frowning over the picnic table as he looks down at the pieces of cloth and needle and thread in front of him. "I found her." Elio looks up from his project. "She stays in the basement of some small-time farmer's house." Ashley sits on the opposite side of the table. "This one's got some backup, a pack of coyotes. I saw a pair of them go in with her to the basement and the rest went on their way and we can't rule out that the resident farmer is also one of her ghouls."
"Coyotes? Can vampires control animals too?"
Ashley shrugs. "I guess. I never really thought about it, but you could feed an animal some blood. Elizabeth never did anything like that though."
Elio stretches and rubs his eyes, stifling a yawn. "So what's the plan?"
"We rest until mid-day. Then with the sun high in the sky, we break in and drag her screaming to meet God." Ashley looks up to the moon, a small grin on her face.
"Couldn't we at least try to get some information out of her? I know you know some about them, but there is still a lot we don't understand." The embers of the remaining camp fire crackle, and Elio looks over to them. "Also, I've been getting some weird vibes from the people I've talked to. Missing people, awkward conversations, slightly veiled threats."
A branch snaps as Ashley breaks off a sizable piece of wood from one of the overhanging trees and starts to whittle it down into a stake with her fingernails. "Fine. We'll stake her, kill her followers, and get some information out of her. Then we'll ash her."
The morning comes with both of them awakening in the muggy tent. Thus far, they've managed to colonize equal sides of the sleeping space, but a line of duct tape now separates the middle of the tent between the two piles of blankets they have been using. It's late morning and there is no sense in waiting any more. From the back of the car they procure their weapons of choice, Elio taking a .45 revolver into hand and giving its cylinder a satisfying spin and Ashley picking up the rifle. She frowns as she runs her hands along the length of it and checks the sights, but shrugs and slings it behind her back. She watches for a minute as Elio struggles to get the Kevlar armor on. "You've been trying to get that resized for, what, like three days now?" Elio sighs and tugs on another strap fruitlessly.
"I've never had to mess with these things before." He mumbles. "And this thing is clearly a woman's size."
Ashley rolls her eyes and yanks the ill-fitting armor off of Elio. "I'll take a look at it later. But no armor is better than something that won't fit you."
"Fine." Elio shrugs on his well worn jacket. "This'll do then." The sun shines down on them both as they look at one another. Neither of them are looking their best, ruffled and dirty clothes, slightly stiff backs from sleeping in a tent for more than a few nights at this point, and other than the snacks that Elio procured for himself they've been living off of whatever small mammals that Ashley could bring home. But both have that grim spark in their eyes and long confident strides as they stalk off the campsite. Ashley shifts into a deer and bobs her head at Elio and they set off at a brisk pace down the country roads in between waving fields of grain and corn.
It's noon when they get within a half mile of their destination. Ashley, in the form of a deer, stops suddenly and stares off into the woods on either side of the road they walk on. The dull brown coat of a coyote can be seen sniffing the air nearby. Feeling the wind blow, Elio crouches down and slowly traces the slowly shifting downwind path of the coyotes. Ashley vanishes into the underbrush. Elio can occasionally catch a glimpse of her, easily shifting between her forms from deer, to pigeon, to rabbit, and constantly throwing the coyotes off her scent by changing the scent itself.
Coming up to the house from the woods, the sound of far off farming equipment running can be heard. A large workshop shed in the back has its door open and a conspicuously open space where a tractor may live normally. Elio leans against the trunk of a larger tree, the dappled shade dancing across him and rendering him nigh invisible as he seems to sway naturally with the wind in the branches of the tree as he observes the house. He looks up to the sky and notices a cloud moving across. With a smile, he traces the slight shadow it causes on the lawn and moves with it silently moving up the staircase of the back porch to peer through the back sliding glass window. Inside, there is a slight woman reading a book in a comfy looking cloth armchair. It's otherwise a fairly normal home with a modern kitchen, a fireplace, and a dining table with a wine cooler next to it against the wall. He frowns as he sees the shotgun leaning against the couch arm though.
He slinks back to the tree he had been standing under and glances around, looking for any sign of Ashley.
Out in the small wheat field that abuts the back of this house, the small shape of Ashley's gray rabbit form jumps through the stalks. She is watching the source of the rumbling in the area, a nice, well running tractor pulling a baler behind it. Manning the machine is a blonde and gray haired man wearing a frayed straw hat. His dirty overalls have various farming implements sticking out from its pockets as well as some work gloves that he is mostly sitting on. The man wipes his brow and continues along. As he turns his head he catches sight of the small rabbit in his field. He frowns and squints at Ashley as she turns and darts away. Returning to the edge of the forest beside the house, she finds Elio staring up at the house.
She quietly shifts back to her human form and stands beside Elio. "The guy's out in the fields and we slipped past her dog friends. I think we're golden to just bust down the door and get this over with."
"Probably. There is a woman upstairs reading a book. Got a shotgun next to her, but not anything else upstairs really worth mentioning. Don't have any way to see into the basement, unfortunately."
"Daylight's burning." Ashley cracks her knuckles and steps across the lawn towards the house. Elio bounces on his toes for a moment and takes a deep breath before following behind her. From his jacket he pulls out his revolver and checks the cylinders to make sure they are full and in the other pocket he feels the reassuring weight of his knife.
Coming up to the downstairs wooden door flanked by boarded up windows, Ashley unslings the rifle from her back and holds it in one hand. Once Elio nods, Ashley steps back before charging forward and plants her foot into the hinge side of the door, her clothes tightening as her muscles swell underneath.
The door splinters but does not give. A bark followed by a low growl emanates from inside. Ashley leans back and kicks again, the door shuddering from the force of the follow up blow but still held in place as splinters and dust fly out from the frame. Elio turns towards the porch, hearing the sliding glass door open. He levels his gun at the woman looking down at them in surprise. Her shotgun is in both hands and her knuckles are white.
"Hey! What the hell do you two think you're doing on my property?!" She shouts down at the pair, heedless of the gun aimed at her. There is a pause as both sides size up the other.
Elio glances over to Ashley who looks about ready to kick the door for the last time, judging by the massive crack spreading along its hinge side. From his pocket he pulls out a police badge he stole off the desk of sheriff Hunter during his escape from the station and shows it to the woman while carefully measuring the sun so the glare off the badge jumps into her eyes. "Ma'am we're with the Galena Police Force. We've tracked a dangerous criminal to this basement. Please return inside and allow us to deal with them."
She squints and puts up her hand as the glare hits her eyes. "I...I won't let you hurt her!" A loud click echoes down the lawn as she pulls the pump of the shotgun mixing together with the crack of the door shattering under Ashley's foot. A pair of coyotes leap forward, already frothing at the mouths as they scrabble forward at Ashley.
Blood-red eyes attached to muscular four legged frames lunge out from the dark, racing to get in front of the other as they scrabble through the splinters of the door. They bite and snap at Ashley, trying to latch onto her limbs.
Ashley grabs the first by the throat as it leaps at her arm, carrying its momentum behind her and throwing it out onto the lawn with a surprised yelp. The other one bares its fangs and barks loudly before trying to rend Ashley's gut with its claws. She moves like a reaving wind stepping to the side and planting her foot into its side, sending it far off course and into the door frame.
From the top of the stairs, the woman steps to the side so that the wooden banister at the edges of the patio blocks the bottom half of her body from sight and aims down at Elio. The trigger clicks and a deafening explosion rings out as the shotgun fires.
Sparks fly as the pellets soar all around Elio and he catches just the ones that he needs to with his knife to create a path through the metal haze. Puffs of dirt and dust appear around him as the pieces of lead impact the dry earth. Before the last pellet has time to hit the ground and stop, Elio has already pulled the trigger on his revolver in response.
The heavy .45 round from the pistol pierces through the railing that she was hiding behind and punches through her throat as well. Splinters from the damaged wood lodge into her exposed skin and she falls back, spluttering as blood begins to weep from the wound, falling between planks and dripping to the underdeck area. It glitters in the noonday sun, mirroring the tears that start to flow as life leaves her eyes.
Ashley steps forward and stomps on the coyote nearest to her as it attempts to right itself. She wears a grin and her eyes are hidden under the shadows of her bangs. There is a crunch as Ashley's hiking boots break multiple ribs under its crushing weight. The Coyote yelps and stands, but starts to pant heavily. Its tongue is dyed red as the blood starts to flow.
Whirling to the left, another crack of thunder sounds as another bullet from Elio's revolver sails across the lawn to the coyote that is about to charge forward from behind them, its feet thudding against the ground. The bullet catches it just below the neck and punches through into the chest cavity. The coyote's momentum carries forward as its legs fail to continue moving it as it collapses into a panting and whining heap in the grass feet away from Elio. He holds the revolver up and scans the area, seeing the overall sporting farmer running in from the fields with a pitchfork in his hands.
Ashley leans down over the injured coyote at her feet and pulls a hunting knife with sigils not unlike the silver tattoos that occasionally appear on her skin engraved into its bone handle from a sheath on her hip. "Fun's over I guess." There is no tremble or hesitation in her hands as she plunges the knife into the coyote's neck as the animal shudders and then goes still. Ignoring the world around her, she begins to cut open the animal's chest. Her expression remains neutral as she works with voracious energy. Steam rises from the gore contained within as she reaches a hand inside the ribs.
There is a sudden taste of vomit in Elio's mouth as he watches for a moment. His breath catches in his throat and he turns away, choosing to not focus on... whatever Ashley was doing and to focus on the man. He clears his throat and fires another round into the other coyote, ending its suffering. Denim squeaking, he sprints forward across the lawn, mouth wide and teeth showing in a wordless war cry that echoes down across his farmland.
Elio sighs as he faces down the charging farmer. "Come on man, don't do this. Is this thing in your basement really worth throwing your life away like this?"
A sickening squish and the sound of cutting flesh continues behind him. "Don't bother, Elio. Look at him." Even as Elio spoke to him, the man has not slowed and is closing to fifty feet. His eyes are wide, face is red, and is still screaming. But the words that form are not of concern for his wife or family, not pleading for reasons as to why, nor even concern for himself.
"You can't have her! She's ours! She protects us!" His words come tumbling out in a torrent of screams.
The sounds of dissection cease for a moment from behind Elio. "Just another blood crazed idiot. Put him out of his misery." Ashley mutters as she turns her attention back to her task.
Elio's shoulders slump a little and he looks up to the sky, almost directly at the sun. He mouths a prayer and takes aim at the man charging him. The ringing clap of the gunshot deafens Elio for a moment.
He keeps running for a moment. Suddenly finding breath hard to come by, he struggles forward as the blood runs down his overalls. He starts to use his pitchfork as a staff to support himself as his momentum fades away. Elio watches from afar, stock still, with his gun still aimed at the man. A few steps more, an eternity for the farmer, and his foot catches on the uneven earth and he falls. His straw hat tumbles off his head as he shudders and tries to pull himself forward but finds no strength. He lays still as he manages to flip himself onto his back, his last thoughts with the beast in his basement.
Elio walks up the stairs of the patio to where the body of the woman lays, still wide-eyed with shock in her eyes as she stares sightlessly back towards her house. With a grunt he picks her up and brings her back down the lawn. Some of her blood runs down the back of his leather coat with a splatter. Ashley, arms stained in dark red blood up to her forearms, is holding what appears to be a lump of flesh and on a moment of closer inspection is a heart. She looks up at him with a carefully neutral expression. He puts her body down next to presumably her husband and closes their eyes. He says a quiet prayer over their bodies, then opens the cylinder of his gun and stares at it for a moment. Two bullets left. He unloads the brass in a graceful swing and catches them before they hit the ground. Soft clicks emit as new bullets are slid into place in the well oiled device.
He wipes his nose and turns to Ashley. His eyes go wide as he sees her bite into the coyote's heart, warm blood drips down her chin as she tears the tough muscle aggressively. "What the fuck, Ashley."
Loud chewing is heard and she clears her throat after swallowing. "What? Just doing what comes naturally."
"Eating a raw animal heart is what comes naturally?" Elio's a little green around the gills as he shuffles his feet a little on his way back.
She nods, flinging blood a little ways away off her face with the motion. "Yeah. It's a bit gruesome I guess, but now I can do this." The now familiar sound of flesh reshaping like water emits out as Ashley turns into a carbon copy of the coyote whose heart she just ate, a spear of silver hair at the top of its head.
Elio just sighs and walks up to the coyote-Ashley. "Do you have to do that for every animal you want to be?" The coyote nods and pants while using its front paw to wipe the blood... its blood from its snout. "Right..." He steps past Ashley and into the door frame of the now shattered back door.
The smell of rot and coyote piss immediately hits his nose. He recoils and pulls his shirt up above his nose, eyes watering. With a step back, he groans. From what he can see from the light cast through the door, it is a finished bar with a few torn up couches that likely have been turned into coyote beds and chew toys. It's pitch black further in and flicking a light switch, no lights turn on. Some broken dark bottles of liquor glitter in the light that is filtering in.
His trusty pen light lights his way, light in one hand and revolver at the ready in the other. In its small dot of light cast in the darkness he presses into the den. Ashley lopes behind him, returning to her human form and casually tossing her stake end over end and catching it as they go further in. The two bedrooms and bathroom down here are ruined, their walls stained with blood, furniture smashed to pieces, and innumerable small bone charms hang from the ceiling, clattering quietly in a draft. There is a staircase leading up to the upper floor, but it is securely locked. A bit more poking around and shoving boxes out of the way reveals a small crawl space underneath the stairs through the back of a small closet. Inside is a curled up form easily mistaken for a corpse.
Ashley smiles as she pulls the woman out from under the stairs and slams the stake into her heart. No blood splatters out, only a deep red heartblood already oozing out from the wound. As soon as it does, her eyes fly open in surprise before half closing back into a coma like sleep. In the light of the small flashlight, the body is wearing a coyote skin cloak, her eyes slitted like a great cats that burn orange in the darkness, her skin was perhaps dark at one point, but now is a ghastly pallor and she has enormous rending claws with clotted blood under the nails.
"So the stake doesn't kill them?" Elio asks, prodding the body with his foot.
Ashley shakes her head. "No. Just paralyzes them and makes it so they can't use their powers."
Elio looks around at the ruined basement, his nose having finally adjusted to its awful lingering scent that he swears has already soaked into his clothes by just proximity. "And what do we do with this place?"
"If we are wanting to get information out of this one we're probably going to want to stay here for at least the night." She kicks a gnawed bone, suspiciously human, and it clatters across the ruined carpet. "Upstairs, though."
There is a deep sigh from the driver's seat. "No. It is not." Ashley says through clenched teeth. She rapidly drums her fingers on the wheel. "If it is broad daylight and you see something it is NOT a vampire."
"I dunno. That cow looks kinda blood thirsty to me." Elio continues to look out the window while idly flipping a pen around his fingers.
Ashley turns the radio up, blaring a rock song from ages ago. "You're the worst to take on road trips, you know that?" She says with a raised voice as she pulls up to the campground. The black car once belonging to Victor kicks up a cloud of dust behind it as it goes onto the gravel and dirt path.
Elio gazes out as they drive past the multitude of empty campsites. "Shouldn't there be more people here? It's like peak camping season."
"Better for us. Less eyes looking our way." She pulls the now dirt-crusted car up to a campsite near the water of a small creek flowing nearby. "Plus any vampires that come looking for us in Galena will miss us since we're down here."
Stepping out of the car, Elio stretches. The air is pleasant here and the gentle trickle of the stream nearby could even be considered relaxing. Surrounded by a copse of trees in the dry summer. An old and well used fire pit is in the middle of the campsite. Latrines just down the trail. "Looks like paradise." He opens the back of the car to look at their supplies. A rifle, a pair of pistols, a spear, some kevlar armor that doesn't fit either of them, the small tent, some blankets, and boxes of ammunition. "So, uh, what are we eating, Ash? I can't help but notice that you didn't do the supply shopping you said you were going to do."
She steps out from the car and investigates the fire pit, complete with a charred metal grill that is meant to be lowered over the top of it. "I figured I could do some hunting. Plenty of small game for us to eat."
The tent bag hits the ground and Elio stares at it. "How long are we going to be out here you think?" He leans down and starts ruffling through it, an increasingly frantic and befuddled look on his face as he holds the poles in hand.
"Area this size?" Ashley sniffs the wind and frowns. "Could be weeks. Months even. Depends on how hungry this one is. Or if they catch us first."
Tent pole in hand, Elio looks up at Ashley. "Months? Ashley, you said we only had about a month or so until Victor came around. Not to mention I am not living in a tent with you for more than a few days, tops."
She snatches the mis-aligned pole from his hands. "Then we better work fast, sunny. And hope this blood sucker is sloppy." Frowning, she pushes Elio aside and fastens the tent to the pole. "And what the hell is this? Never been camping before?"
"We were more RV campers growing up and I skipped boy scouts." Elio mutters, stepping back and towards the picnic table.
They spend some time setting up their three-man tent. Okay, Ashley sets up the tent, and Elio unfolds a paper map of the area on the picnic table. A couple of disagreements on search patterns later, they begin their hunt for a blood predator. The days begin to wind away at that campsite under the summer sun.
"So that's all that you have to say?" Elio asks flatly. He's found himself in one of the local general stores of a town called Prosper. In front of him is a man weaning overalls and thick work boots, curly hair hanging in front of his eyes. He nods. "You think you saw someone creeping around one of your barns and when you came out they were gone? Did you get any sort of look at them?"
"Can't say I did." He puts a hand on his chin and leans against the checkout counter as the clerk rings up several bags of dog food. "Kinda short? I think? It was dark."
Elio sighs. "Thanks for your time. Would you mind if I took a look around that barn?"
The man shakes his head. "Sorry, can't say I do."
"Great. Wait. Was that a yes?" The guy grunts and picks up his dog food before heading out without looking at Elio. "Guess that's a no."
From behind the counter, the clerk eyes Elio. "You know, most folk don't take kindly to people asking about things happening at night 'round here."
"I gathered." Elio looks over to the clerk. "Okay, what about you? Anything weird going on?"
He laughs. "Sorry. Can't say there is. Besides you, I think. Why do you wanna know about weird things here in Prosper of all places?"
"I'm looking for a friend of mine. She's... well..." He falters a moment, a well-rehearsed line at this point. "She isn't quite right in the head and last we saw her she was running around the farms and woods out here. So we're hoping someone's seen her."
Sucking in a breath, the clerk leans forward across the counter. "You didn't hear this from me. But if your friend was out after dark? Well let's just say I'd call off the search, you know?"
Elio leans forward onto the counter as well and measures the man in front of him. About the same height as himself. Nervously tapping a foot against the hardwood floor. If his hunches were worth anything there was a shotgun under this counter. "Right. And why would you say something as awful as that? This is a good friend of mine we're talking about."
"Got a picture or something?" The clerk grunts. Elio flips out his phone, opening the gallery to a picture of Ashley grimacing at the camera.
"It's been a few months, but she's probably still wearing that camo."
"Right, right. Look, I haven't seen her and I don't think anyone else here has either. There's a lot of coyotes out and about here, so if she's on her own at night? They probably found her." The clerk looks up as a woman enters the store. "Now I got some customers, so why don't you get moving then."
Straightening and pocketing his phone, Elio smiles. "Thanks for your time." He exits the store and rubs his face. Another person, another dead end. Moving to the car, he stops as he watches a man outside of the general store pinning a flier to the bulletin board. A missing person poster. Stepping back from the car, Elio makes his way over. Looking at the poster, there is a young looking boy on it. "How long has he been missing?" He asks towards the back of the man.
"Coupla weeks now." Turning to face Elio is a tired looking man, rings under his eyes. "Someone keeps pulling my posters down though."
Elio sticks his hand out. "I'm Harry. Private Investigator. Mind if I ask you some questions?"
He reaches out and takes Elio's hand. "Are you working with Nigel? He already asked me a bunch of questions about my kid, Chuck."
Frowning, Elio traces through his memories. Nope. No Nigels. "Can't say I've had the pleasure. Do you have his number?" Terrance nods, pushing a business card into Elio's hands. "Guess I'll give him a call. You gonna be here a minute? Just in case I have some other questions?" Terrance nods.
Whipping out his phone, Elio dials the number on the slightly crumpled card. Talon investigations, not an outfit that Elio is familiar with. Eventually it goes to voicemail. Declining to leave a message, Elio turns back around to face Terrance again. "Couldn't get to him right now, mind if I..." Terrance was gone. Glancing around, there was no car nor any sounds of footsteps. Pocketing his phone again, Elio steps into the car. "Spooky." He mutters as he drives back to the campsite.
Once night falls, Ashley roams the plains and pastures running among the predators and prey of the area. Carefully watching the shadows of night for unusual activity along the hunting paths that dot the region and eventually sighting her prey. A dirty woman wearing furs, with eyes like a great cat that bulge from their sockets, lopes through the fields. Horrible black claws extend out from her hands. She isn't alone. Joined by a pack of coyotes, there's no doubt in Ashley's mind that she has been able to control a territory of this size with a network of spies and thugs wearing their own fur and bringing their own fangs.
Before the sun rises, the wild looking woman retreats back to her haven in the basement of a farmhouse. A long rectangular home, likely split level from what Ashley can see. Caught between two ends of the surrounding woods, seemingly carved from a piece of the forest itself. A large porch at the top story with scattered plastic and wooden chairs with a weather worn wooden table is the centerpiece of the backyard. Our vampire friend steps into one of the doors at the back that leads to the bottom floor. Blackout curtains can be seen pressed up against the windows from the inside and a few tears show plywood reinforcing it. A pair of mangy coyotes follow her inside, while the rest of the pack of six scatters into the woods. Likely they call the area home themselves. From the boughs of a nearby tree, Ashley looks over the house. At this hour of night, there should be no activity in the house, yet there is a light on upstairs and she can just barely hear someone walking on the creaky wood floor boards within. She bends and twists until she is but a small pigeon and flies back to the campsite with her findings.
During the evenings before going to bed, Elio has been slowly working on getting the bullet proof Kevlar adjusted to his size. Which is where Ashley finds him tonight, frowning over the picnic table as he looks down at the pieces of cloth and needle and thread in front of him. "I found her." Elio looks up from his project. "She stays in the basement of some small-time farmer's house." Ashley sits on the opposite side of the table. "This one's got some backup, a pack of coyotes. I saw a pair of them go in with her to the basement and the rest went on their way and we can't rule out that the resident farmer is also one of her ghouls."
"Coyotes? Can vampires control animals too?"
Ashley shrugs. "I guess. I never really thought about it, but you could feed an animal some blood. Elizabeth never did anything like that though."
Elio stretches and rubs his eyes, stifling a yawn. "So what's the plan?"
"We rest until mid-day. Then with the sun high in the sky, we break in and drag her screaming to meet God." Ashley looks up to the moon, a small grin on her face.
"Couldn't we at least try to get some information out of her? I know you know some about them, but there is still a lot we don't understand." The embers of the remaining camp fire crackle, and Elio looks over to them. "Also, I've been getting some weird vibes from the people I've talked to. Missing people, awkward conversations, slightly veiled threats."
A branch snaps as Ashley breaks off a sizable piece of wood from one of the overhanging trees and starts to whittle it down into a stake with her fingernails. "Fine. We'll stake her, kill her followers, and get some information out of her. Then we'll ash her."
The morning comes with both of them awakening in the muggy tent. Thus far, they've managed to colonize equal sides of the sleeping space, but a line of duct tape now separates the middle of the tent between the two piles of blankets they have been using. It's late morning and there is no sense in waiting any more. From the back of the car they procure their weapons of choice, Elio taking a .45 revolver into hand and giving its cylinder a satisfying spin and Ashley picking up the rifle. She frowns as she runs her hands along the length of it and checks the sights, but shrugs and slings it behind her back. She watches for a minute as Elio struggles to get the Kevlar armor on. "You've been trying to get that resized for, what, like three days now?" Elio sighs and tugs on another strap fruitlessly.
"I've never had to mess with these things before." He mumbles. "And this thing is clearly a woman's size."
Ashley rolls her eyes and yanks the ill-fitting armor off of Elio. "I'll take a look at it later. But no armor is better than something that won't fit you."
"Fine." Elio shrugs on his well worn jacket. "This'll do then." The sun shines down on them both as they look at one another. Neither of them are looking their best, ruffled and dirty clothes, slightly stiff backs from sleeping in a tent for more than a few nights at this point, and other than the snacks that Elio procured for himself they've been living off of whatever small mammals that Ashley could bring home. But both have that grim spark in their eyes and long confident strides as they stalk off the campsite. Ashley shifts into a deer and bobs her head at Elio and they set off at a brisk pace down the country roads in between waving fields of grain and corn.
It's noon when they get within a half mile of their destination. Ashley, in the form of a deer, stops suddenly and stares off into the woods on either side of the road they walk on. The dull brown coat of a coyote can be seen sniffing the air nearby. Feeling the wind blow, Elio crouches down and slowly traces the slowly shifting downwind path of the coyotes. Ashley vanishes into the underbrush. Elio can occasionally catch a glimpse of her, easily shifting between her forms from deer, to pigeon, to rabbit, and constantly throwing the coyotes off her scent by changing the scent itself.
Coming up to the house from the woods, the sound of far off farming equipment running can be heard. A large workshop shed in the back has its door open and a conspicuously open space where a tractor may live normally. Elio leans against the trunk of a larger tree, the dappled shade dancing across him and rendering him nigh invisible as he seems to sway naturally with the wind in the branches of the tree as he observes the house. He looks up to the sky and notices a cloud moving across. With a smile, he traces the slight shadow it causes on the lawn and moves with it silently moving up the staircase of the back porch to peer through the back sliding glass window. Inside, there is a slight woman reading a book in a comfy looking cloth armchair. It's otherwise a fairly normal home with a modern kitchen, a fireplace, and a dining table with a wine cooler next to it against the wall. He frowns as he sees the shotgun leaning against the couch arm though.
He slinks back to the tree he had been standing under and glances around, looking for any sign of Ashley.
Out in the small wheat field that abuts the back of this house, the small shape of Ashley's gray rabbit form jumps through the stalks. She is watching the source of the rumbling in the area, a nice, well running tractor pulling a baler behind it. Manning the machine is a blonde and gray haired man wearing a frayed straw hat. His dirty overalls have various farming implements sticking out from its pockets as well as some work gloves that he is mostly sitting on. The man wipes his brow and continues along. As he turns his head he catches sight of the small rabbit in his field. He frowns and squints at Ashley as she turns and darts away. Returning to the edge of the forest beside the house, she finds Elio staring up at the house.
She quietly shifts back to her human form and stands beside Elio. "The guy's out in the fields and we slipped past her dog friends. I think we're golden to just bust down the door and get this over with."
"Probably. There is a woman upstairs reading a book. Got a shotgun next to her, but not anything else upstairs really worth mentioning. Don't have any way to see into the basement, unfortunately."
"Daylight's burning." Ashley cracks her knuckles and steps across the lawn towards the house. Elio bounces on his toes for a moment and takes a deep breath before following behind her. From his jacket he pulls out his revolver and checks the cylinders to make sure they are full and in the other pocket he feels the reassuring weight of his knife.
Coming up to the downstairs wooden door flanked by boarded up windows, Ashley unslings the rifle from her back and holds it in one hand. Once Elio nods, Ashley steps back before charging forward and plants her foot into the hinge side of the door, her clothes tightening as her muscles swell underneath.
The door splinters but does not give. A bark followed by a low growl emanates from inside. Ashley leans back and kicks again, the door shuddering from the force of the follow up blow but still held in place as splinters and dust fly out from the frame. Elio turns towards the porch, hearing the sliding glass door open. He levels his gun at the woman looking down at them in surprise. Her shotgun is in both hands and her knuckles are white.
"Hey! What the hell do you two think you're doing on my property?!" She shouts down at the pair, heedless of the gun aimed at her. There is a pause as both sides size up the other.
Elio glances over to Ashley who looks about ready to kick the door for the last time, judging by the massive crack spreading along its hinge side. From his pocket he pulls out a police badge he stole off the desk of sheriff Hunter during his escape from the station and shows it to the woman while carefully measuring the sun so the glare off the badge jumps into her eyes. "Ma'am we're with the Galena Police Force. We've tracked a dangerous criminal to this basement. Please return inside and allow us to deal with them."
She squints and puts up her hand as the glare hits her eyes. "I...I won't let you hurt her!" A loud click echoes down the lawn as she pulls the pump of the shotgun mixing together with the crack of the door shattering under Ashley's foot. A pair of coyotes leap forward, already frothing at the mouths as they scrabble forward at Ashley.
Blood-red eyes attached to muscular four legged frames lunge out from the dark, racing to get in front of the other as they scrabble through the splinters of the door. They bite and snap at Ashley, trying to latch onto her limbs.
Ashley grabs the first by the throat as it leaps at her arm, carrying its momentum behind her and throwing it out onto the lawn with a surprised yelp. The other one bares its fangs and barks loudly before trying to rend Ashley's gut with its claws. She moves like a reaving wind stepping to the side and planting her foot into its side, sending it far off course and into the door frame.
From the top of the stairs, the woman steps to the side so that the wooden banister at the edges of the patio blocks the bottom half of her body from sight and aims down at Elio. The trigger clicks and a deafening explosion rings out as the shotgun fires.
Sparks fly as the pellets soar all around Elio and he catches just the ones that he needs to with his knife to create a path through the metal haze. Puffs of dirt and dust appear around him as the pieces of lead impact the dry earth. Before the last pellet has time to hit the ground and stop, Elio has already pulled the trigger on his revolver in response.
The heavy .45 round from the pistol pierces through the railing that she was hiding behind and punches through her throat as well. Splinters from the damaged wood lodge into her exposed skin and she falls back, spluttering as blood begins to weep from the wound, falling between planks and dripping to the underdeck area. It glitters in the noonday sun, mirroring the tears that start to flow as life leaves her eyes.
Ashley steps forward and stomps on the coyote nearest to her as it attempts to right itself. She wears a grin and her eyes are hidden under the shadows of her bangs. There is a crunch as Ashley's hiking boots break multiple ribs under its crushing weight. The Coyote yelps and stands, but starts to pant heavily. Its tongue is dyed red as the blood starts to flow.
Whirling to the left, another crack of thunder sounds as another bullet from Elio's revolver sails across the lawn to the coyote that is about to charge forward from behind them, its feet thudding against the ground. The bullet catches it just below the neck and punches through into the chest cavity. The coyote's momentum carries forward as its legs fail to continue moving it as it collapses into a panting and whining heap in the grass feet away from Elio. He holds the revolver up and scans the area, seeing the overall sporting farmer running in from the fields with a pitchfork in his hands.
Ashley leans down over the injured coyote at her feet and pulls a hunting knife with sigils not unlike the silver tattoos that occasionally appear on her skin engraved into its bone handle from a sheath on her hip. "Fun's over I guess." There is no tremble or hesitation in her hands as she plunges the knife into the coyote's neck as the animal shudders and then goes still. Ignoring the world around her, she begins to cut open the animal's chest. Her expression remains neutral as she works with voracious energy. Steam rises from the gore contained within as she reaches a hand inside the ribs.
There is a sudden taste of vomit in Elio's mouth as he watches for a moment. His breath catches in his throat and he turns away, choosing to not focus on... whatever Ashley was doing and to focus on the man. He clears his throat and fires another round into the other coyote, ending its suffering. Denim squeaking, he sprints forward across the lawn, mouth wide and teeth showing in a wordless war cry that echoes down across his farmland.
Elio sighs as he faces down the charging farmer. "Come on man, don't do this. Is this thing in your basement really worth throwing your life away like this?"
A sickening squish and the sound of cutting flesh continues behind him. "Don't bother, Elio. Look at him." Even as Elio spoke to him, the man has not slowed and is closing to fifty feet. His eyes are wide, face is red, and is still screaming. But the words that form are not of concern for his wife or family, not pleading for reasons as to why, nor even concern for himself.
"You can't have her! She's ours! She protects us!" His words come tumbling out in a torrent of screams.
The sounds of dissection cease for a moment from behind Elio. "Just another blood crazed idiot. Put him out of his misery." Ashley mutters as she turns her attention back to her task.
Elio's shoulders slump a little and he looks up to the sky, almost directly at the sun. He mouths a prayer and takes aim at the man charging him. The ringing clap of the gunshot deafens Elio for a moment.
He keeps running for a moment. Suddenly finding breath hard to come by, he struggles forward as the blood runs down his overalls. He starts to use his pitchfork as a staff to support himself as his momentum fades away. Elio watches from afar, stock still, with his gun still aimed at the man. A few steps more, an eternity for the farmer, and his foot catches on the uneven earth and he falls. His straw hat tumbles off his head as he shudders and tries to pull himself forward but finds no strength. He lays still as he manages to flip himself onto his back, his last thoughts with the beast in his basement.
Elio walks up the stairs of the patio to where the body of the woman lays, still wide-eyed with shock in her eyes as she stares sightlessly back towards her house. With a grunt he picks her up and brings her back down the lawn. Some of her blood runs down the back of his leather coat with a splatter. Ashley, arms stained in dark red blood up to her forearms, is holding what appears to be a lump of flesh and on a moment of closer inspection is a heart. She looks up at him with a carefully neutral expression. He puts her body down next to presumably her husband and closes their eyes. He says a quiet prayer over their bodies, then opens the cylinder of his gun and stares at it for a moment. Two bullets left. He unloads the brass in a graceful swing and catches them before they hit the ground. Soft clicks emit as new bullets are slid into place in the well oiled device.
He wipes his nose and turns to Ashley. His eyes go wide as he sees her bite into the coyote's heart, warm blood drips down her chin as she tears the tough muscle aggressively. "What the fuck, Ashley."
Loud chewing is heard and she clears her throat after swallowing. "What? Just doing what comes naturally."
"Eating a raw animal heart is what comes naturally?" Elio's a little green around the gills as he shuffles his feet a little on his way back.
She nods, flinging blood a little ways away off her face with the motion. "Yeah. It's a bit gruesome I guess, but now I can do this." The now familiar sound of flesh reshaping like water emits out as Ashley turns into a carbon copy of the coyote whose heart she just ate, a spear of silver hair at the top of its head.
Elio just sighs and walks up to the coyote-Ashley. "Do you have to do that for every animal you want to be?" The coyote nods and pants while using its front paw to wipe the blood... its blood from its snout. "Right..." He steps past Ashley and into the door frame of the now shattered back door.
The smell of rot and coyote piss immediately hits his nose. He recoils and pulls his shirt up above his nose, eyes watering. With a step back, he groans. From what he can see from the light cast through the door, it is a finished bar with a few torn up couches that likely have been turned into coyote beds and chew toys. It's pitch black further in and flicking a light switch, no lights turn on. Some broken dark bottles of liquor glitter in the light that is filtering in.
His trusty pen light lights his way, light in one hand and revolver at the ready in the other. In its small dot of light cast in the darkness he presses into the den. Ashley lopes behind him, returning to her human form and casually tossing her stake end over end and catching it as they go further in. The two bedrooms and bathroom down here are ruined, their walls stained with blood, furniture smashed to pieces, and innumerable small bone charms hang from the ceiling, clattering quietly in a draft. There is a staircase leading up to the upper floor, but it is securely locked. A bit more poking around and shoving boxes out of the way reveals a small crawl space underneath the stairs through the back of a small closet. Inside is a curled up form easily mistaken for a corpse.
Ashley smiles as she pulls the woman out from under the stairs and slams the stake into her heart. No blood splatters out, only a deep red heartblood already oozing out from the wound. As soon as it does, her eyes fly open in surprise before half closing back into a coma like sleep. In the light of the small flashlight, the body is wearing a coyote skin cloak, her eyes slitted like a great cats that burn orange in the darkness, her skin was perhaps dark at one point, but now is a ghastly pallor and she has enormous rending claws with clotted blood under the nails.
"So the stake doesn't kill them?" Elio asks, prodding the body with his foot.
Ashley shakes her head. "No. Just paralyzes them and makes it so they can't use their powers."
Elio looks around at the ruined basement, his nose having finally adjusted to its awful lingering scent that he swears has already soaked into his clothes by just proximity. "And what do we do with this place?"
"If we are wanting to get information out of this one we're probably going to want to stay here for at least the night." She kicks a gnawed bone, suspiciously human, and it clatters across the ruined carpet. "Upstairs, though."
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Ah, so it would seem. I think those were the names I had in my initiative roster while running it and they must've slipped into the narrative ahead of their time. I'll make an edit for that part. Thanks for reading!
Scene 19 - Settling In
Elio clicks open the door lock to the upstairs and the warm, tidy upstairs is open to them. He sniffs as he sits at the dining room table, a little of the stench from below already starting to waft upwards. Ashley leans on the still dressed for lunch wooden table, it creaks a bit under the added weight. There is a long moment of silence before she wanders over to the kitchen and cracks open the fridge. "You okay over there, Elio?" She says while rummaging around, the sound of clinking glass and plastic can be heard.
"Yeah." He says slowly, his gaze moving to the sliding glass window. The bodies are still on the lawn. "There ought to be a shovel here somewhere. I'm going to go bury the bodies."
"Fine, fine. Just don't let the neighbors see you." Ashley does not turn away from the fridge. The chair Elio was sitting on screeches as it moves back and he moves towards the sliding glass door.
He pauses with the sliding door half open. "This doesn't bother you even a little bit? We just broke into a farmhouse and killed the family living here."
She grabs some lunch meat from a drawer and gives it a sniff. "Not really. In a single sentence from the bitch in the basement, they would've killed their own children or each other, let alone strangers like us." There is a plop as she drops the plastic container on the counter and starts looking through cabinets. "You didn't seem too bothered when you killed Tim and Jim back at the church. Or any of Megan's crew either. What makes these two ghouls different?"
The floor squeaks as Elio turns to face Ashley, who is in the midst of making a sandwich. "Those ones were at least doing something, I don't know, criminal. Drug trafficking, attacking people or kidnapping. These ones were just living here."
"They were protecting a monster." Ashley says firmly, pointing a mayonnaise-covered bread knife at Elio. "And once we get to interrogate said monster, I'm sure you'll have a change of heart. We need to find out just how much she's spread through this fun little farming community."
Elio frowns and turns back to the opening outside, where the warm sun and grave digging awaits him. "I'll dig the graves. Why don't you go deal with the rest of the coyotes we saw on the way in?"
Ashley bites into her sandwich with gusto. "Fine."
Stepping down the solid wooden stairs of the porch and onto the lawn, Elio heads over to the open shed and rummages around until he finds a shovel. He trudges over to where the forest meets the lawn and begins to dig. It takes an hour to get a couple shallow graves dug and as he works he can hear the occasional yip and scream from the coyotes in the surrounding woods as Ashley does her part.
After placing the bodies into their shallow graves, Elio stretches and glances around the property. He watches the wind blow through the wheat field in the back and feels the sun on the back of his neck. With a stretch he steps back up the porch steps and looks out at the field. He leans onto the railing with a tired smile and dusts his hands on his pants as he looks out at the waving wheat. He narrows his eyes as he watches it move. It looks like there is a spot that doesn't have any wheat out there...
"Hey!" Ashley shouts from down below and Elio glances down and finds her carrying several carcasses on her shoulder. "Coyotes are gone." She slams them down onto the ground with a wet crash. "I'm going to get the car and move it over here."
"Might want to uh," Elio gestures broadly to Ashley who is covered in blood, "wash up maybe. You'll attract less attention that way." She looks down at herself and jumps up the stairs of the porch and walks inside. As the sliding glass door closes, Elio turns back to the field and looks for the small gap again. Frowning, he steps down from the porch and walks into the tall stalks.
With his hands in front of him pushing the smooth feeling stems out of his way, Elio goes forward, curiosity piqued. Near the center of the field, there is a clearing. The smell of charcoal can barely be detected, getting slightly stronger as he moves forward towards it. Through the wheat, there is some sort of dull gray small structure. Parting the last of the golden veil, Elio stumbles upon a strange altar made of bones in the middle of a field of char that sits directly in the center of this field. Four small pillars support a much larger skull, some sort of canine skull perhaps. Crouching down near this, Elio begins a quick investigation.
Grabbing a few of the bones settled into the ground surrounding the strange altar, it's fairly easy to tell that they are from small vermin animals. Rats, hares, mice, and moles mostly. The larger skull supported on pillars of these small animal bones is indeed a coyote skull. The vermin bones are not cared for like the coyote one is, which is pristine and ivory white instead of the weathered gray of the lesser bones. A few smaller altars of similar designs are at the edges, two with avian skulls at their top and the last with a small snake skull. There are dozens of footprints around here, with Elio being able to count more than thirty unique individuals. Small bowl shaped rocks hold the charred bones of vermin while others are empty, probably offerings of some sort that are collected. He stands from his crouch and looks at the two small trails that lead this far and also notices that the hay directly surrounding this clearing has not been cut for some time, having grown wild and tangled except for the small trails. Rubbing his forehead, he comes to the most likely conclusion. There is a cult in the area with quite a few participants, likely centered around the vampire they just killed. Perhaps keeping rats and other pests away from local farmsteads was the 'service' they provided. The presence of three other altars around the edges that are built like smaller versions of the central altar is not a good sign though. There may be more of an infestation of vampires here than was originally thought.
He dusts off his pants and looks out to the horizon where dark clouds rumble and gather in the distance. The sun begins to set as late afternoon leaks away into twilight. Elio gazes up at the stars and counts a few of the more familiar constellations. An unfamiliar red dot is in the sky, shining forth with a strange malice. Shadow dances across Elio's eyes as the wind momentarily sounds like scattered whispers and screams.
"Hey!" Ashley is shaking Elio by the shoulder. He suddenly starts to shiver as the cold of nighttime sets into his bones. Pulling his coat closer around him he glances around. Gone is the low light of the early twilight, replaced by the bare light of stars and the moon. "Are you okay?" She releases his shoulder and steps back, eyes wary. "You've been out here for a few hours now. Are you really this shaken up about the ghouls?"
"No... I..." He looks back up to the thing hanging high above the night sky. Even as the stars slowly turn with the earth, it remains static in its place in the heavens. "Have you seen that star before?" Elio slowly raises his hand and points.
She raises her head and looks out at it with a squint. "I haven't. Is... that a planet?"
"Like Mars or something?" Elio says.
"Sure." Ashley says, unable to look away. "Maybe we should get a book on the stars?"
A shiver goes through Elio and he finally looks away from the oddity, the whispers and screams on the wind finally receding. "Maybe later. Right now," He gestures to the site around him, "I think we have a cult problem."
A bone clatters as Ashley kicks at it. "No shit." She says slowly. "But it's night now, do you wanna see what our vampire friend has to say about this?"
"Why don't you go do that." Elio is looking at the surrounding wheat and finds a good blind to hide behind that gives a good view to the rest of the clearing and crouches down into the soft soil, becoming almost invisible in the black of night. "I'm going to see if our culty friends make an appearance tonight."
"You sure? You're going to miss all the fun." Ashley says with a wide grin that glitters in the moonlight.
"Just get what she knows about Victor and this cult." Ashley begins to walk away back towards the house. "And be careful. There may be a couple more of them out here somewhere."
She grunts, "Noted." and continues on her way back to the house with a bounce in her step as she hums to herself.
Stopping by the open shed her smile continues to grin as she sees the chains hanging from the walls. The rattling of metal links joins her quiet footsteps back to the house. It is perfectly silent once Ashley enters and though the basement of rotten meat and animal urine reeks, that isn't enough to sour Ashley's mood as she reaches under the stairs and grabs the pallid, cold ankle of the staked vampire and drags her out into the main bar room. Her body slams into the corners of doors and bounces over debris with wet slops and thuds until coming to rest in a broken heap. Wrapping the body in chains and securing it with an open rusty master lock without a key, she more closely resembles a rusty iron mummy with a wood stake sticking out of it than a vampire. Only her head and feet stick out from her new bindings. Ashley leans back in a wooden chair that is barely held together as she admires her handiwork. Elio doesn't know what he's missing.
Looking down at the motionless vampire, Ashley's eyes are half closed. "We're just keeping him for the Prince." Somewhere back from an old warehouse, Elizabeth's voice comes into mind unbidden. "Foolish hare," Elizabeth once chided, "we have to let the blood drain first before removing the stake. They are Kindred still and not to be underestimated while full of blood. Let them rest for ten days first. Then we will see if they will listen to the Prince's words."
She fully closes her eyes and runs a hand through her hair, leaving it messy as her bangs flop back into place. Opening her eyes, she rolls the mass of chains and vampire into the downstairs bathroom and closes the door. On the door she marks a single tally mark. Ten days. No sense in giving her prey even the thought of hope if patience was all it would take.
Out in the field, Elio eventually moves to a sitting position. A couple hours pass in the quiet, with the only sound the waving wheat and melancholy cries of forest animals. It feels like something is watching him, hidden away in the wheat. But every time he looks to see if someone has come to the site, all he can see is that red dot in the sky staring back at him. Once the whispers and screams begin again, Elio shivers and returns to the house. He picks up the pace as he walks and casts weary glances back up towards the star as it looms over him, not able to feel comfortable in the night until inside and out of sight.
He jumps slightly as he opens the door and sees Ashley upstairs messing with the Kevlar vest at the kitchen table. "Oh, done already?" Elio asks as he recovers from his moment of fright.
"Kinda. I'm waiting a few days until she's weakened, then we can interrogate her without her pulling a fast one on us." She pulls a strap and stares at some thick corded thread.
"That's surprisingly patient of you." Elio takes a seat across from her. "I figured she'd be dead and buried by the time I got back in."
"I'm not so blinded by hate that I'll mess up a good opportunity when it's presented." Ashley huffs. "How about you? Any weirdos in the backyard?"
He shakes his head. "No, not tonight at least." Through the sliding glass door he swears he can see that red glow. "I really feel like something is wrong though, you know? That red star is kind of messing with my head a little I think."
She stands up and holds the kevlar vest up to Elio for comparison and smiles at her work, tossing it to Elio who catches it in both hands. "Don't worry about it. You probably just spent too much time surrounded by death these last few weeks, or maybe the stress is getting to you. Maybe just take a day or two to just, I dunno, do whatever you do in your free time." Ashley stops, a ponderous look on her face. "What do you do in your free time?"
Elio drops the kevlar vest into his lap. "I drink coffee and people watch." He says simply.
She rolls her eyes. "Okay stalker. That's not really a hobby, you wanna try again?"
"Okay. I used to play cards and drink with my buddies. And read books." He turns with half squinted eyes, "What about you, huh?"
"Hunting and camping." Ashley crosses her arms and smiles triumphantly.
"Go figure." Elio says with mock surprise. "Well. I bet if we dug around we could find a cribbage board and a deck of cards here."
"Let me wash the blood out from under my nails." Sniffing them she frowns. "Still some stuck under there. Then we'll see about cards." Ashley heads off towards one of the bathrooms.
Standing and pushing his chair back, Elio rummages through the house. Fifteen minutes later, he's triumphant, finding a barely used cribbage board and a deck of worn cards. Ashley pops out of the bathroom, her hands scrubbed red but clean of clotted blood. He points to the seat across from him at the dining room table, illuminated by a warm yellow hanging light above it.
A round goes by without much fanfare aside from reminding Ashley of the rules. At the start of the next round while Elio shuffles, he says, "Do you think Briana is doing alright? She took off pretty suddenly with her mom."
Tapping the table with her finger, Ashley frowns. "Who?"
Elio snorts and starts to deal. "Come on, Briana? That... you know..." His brow creases. "Girl that we had with us?"
"When was this?" Ashley picks up her cards, already smiling to herself as she reads them.
He racks his brain. Slowly he picks up his cards. "She was, uh, something to do with her sister I think? Damn." He frowns down into his hand. "I think she helped us out somehow. Or was involved with the vampires."
"I think you need some sleep, man. I'll take the first watch tonight." The round plays out in relative silence except for the tallying of cribs.
Afterwards, Elio stands up and moves to the couch where a few well thumbed romance novels sit at its feet. He nods to himself, considering them. Plopping down onto the couch and leaning down, he picks up the one on the top and reclines onto his back while Ashley mindlessly shuffles the deck of cards and looks out the sliding glass door. Halfway through the first chapter of the book, even Briana's name expunges itself from his mind, confused for the name of the main character of the novel.
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Days before, a yellow Ford truck drives forward towards where Elio and Ashley would soon be camping. "Hmm..." Hooking the truck to the left, Grim leans forward to really drink in the scene from behind the windshield before settling on a camping site a few down from where the celestial duo will be settling in. "This place'll do." Cracking open the driver's door, he lands in the dust below. "Help me get the tent ready, darlin'." He shouts into the cab to his ward.
There is a drawn out sigh from Briana, but she acquiesces to the demand. "Why couldn't I get stuck with someone who wanted to stay at at least a Best Western or something." She grumbles, heading around to the back of the truck.
"Do I look like I'm made of money?" Grim retorts as he begins to pace the campsite, looking at the ground. "We're close to where you need to go. In fact, I'd wager that the people I need to get you to will be here in only a day or two."
Carrying a duffel about half her size, Briana drops it in a heap near the center of the camp. "They'll be here? Why would anyone come here?" She gestures to the woods. "We're in the middle of farmsville."
Moving to the duffel, Grim unpacks a fairly spacious looking tent and begins assembling it. "Gotta trust destiny on this one. You'll get it soon enough. Plus if they stay at the site over there, we can keep an eye on 'em. Not like they'll notice us. And I ain't letting you loose until I know you at least have some sort of grip on what you got. And if you get really sore of my company, I guess you could just wander over and say hi to them. If they remember you."
She frowns and looks over to the site he's pointing at. "Won't they just see us if we stay here though? I mean, you have a jacked up yellow pick up, and no one else is here! Elio always seemed to be noticing things he has no right being able to." Her frown deepens and she scowls.
"First lesson, kid." Grim holds up a finger. "Whatever power that saw fit to bless us has given us the power of some sort of..." He wiggles his hands while thinking of words, "I dunno, being hard to notice. Sit quietly and don't draw attention and people just won't even give us a second of a thought, even if they really oughta."
"Right." Briana rubs her arms through a thin pullover sweatshirt and glances around through the twilight illuminated woods. "So what is this, like a karate kid situation? You gonna teach me kung-fu or something, old man?"
"I'm honestly just surprised you know what that movie is."
She folds her arms and smirks. "I mean, it came out when I was really young. But I like movies."
Grim deflates a little. "Right." He clears his throat. "I ain't gonna teach you karate. I don't know karate. But I am gonna teach you how to defend yourself, in a way."
"Psh." Briana scoffs. "My mom put me in self-defense classes when I turned ten. That's, like, five years of practice. I already know what I need to."
Clicking his tongue, Grim stands up from his squat. "Little lady. I don't care how many self defense classes you took. The things you're gonna be seeing? The things you're probably gonna need to fight? They make a grown man look like a chipmunk in terms of strength and feel like punching a brick wall." He points to her. "You weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet. You think that a punch or kick from you is gonna even slow something like that down?"
"Yeah, well that's why I learned how to do this." Running forward she attempts to kick Grim square in the nuts. Unfortunately the ground is a little more slippery than she anticipated. A rock under foot slides out, throwing her stance completely off balance as she teeters off to her left and flails her hand out to find her balance. In that moment, Grim catches that arm, pulling her roughly towards him and stops her short of his fist, now inches from her nose.
"Patience, grasshopper." He smirks. Releasing her arm, she stumbles back, rubbing her wrist. "You really oughta learn to let me finish speaking. I was gonna say, if you can't beat em in raw strength, you gotta get creative with it." Pointing down to her feet, he gestures to the rock. "Do you think you tumbling was an accident on your part?"
She sourly looks at the spot where her fall is documented in the dust. "I mean, yeah?"
Leaning down he picks up the rock and weighs it in his hand, giving it a toss and catching it. "Fate or destiny or whatever you want to call it ain't fair. Fortunately for us, it ain't fair in our favor. A little nudge is all it takes for someone to slip on a rock while trying to destroy their foes' family jewels. I ain't teaching you karate, I'm trying to teach you to listen to fate and give it a twist when you need it."
"Are you going to talk this much the whole time you're trying to 'teach me'?" Briana says with an eye roll.
Tilting his head side to side a moment, Grim has a contemplative look on his face. "You know, I heard that people up here enjoyed a good yarn from time to time. Figured I'd not be too outta place. Guess a southern boy can be wrong though."
"You definitely are wrong." Briana scoffs.
He just sighs and opens the tent flap. "Yeah, yeah. Sure. This isn't exactly going to be sunshine and rainbows for me either, looks like." From inside, he turns around and looks over to Briana. "So what are you feeling? Right now."
She starts walking back towards the truck slowly. "I don't know. It's hard to explain." Fidgeting slightly, she rubs her hands together. "I mean, I feel good. But I also keep feeling like I forgot to do my homework or something. It wasn't so bad a couple days ago, but it keeps getting worse. It's upsetting my stomach."
Nodding, Grim returns to unpack further inside the tent. "Not a bad way to put it. Urgency is what I feel and it's sitting in my gut like a stone. So we'll need to hit the ground running tomorrow cuz those idiots you were talking about on the way here are gonna need a nudge or two in the right direction."
"Yeah." He says slowly, his gaze moving to the sliding glass window. The bodies are still on the lawn. "There ought to be a shovel here somewhere. I'm going to go bury the bodies."
"Fine, fine. Just don't let the neighbors see you." Ashley does not turn away from the fridge. The chair Elio was sitting on screeches as it moves back and he moves towards the sliding glass door.
He pauses with the sliding door half open. "This doesn't bother you even a little bit? We just broke into a farmhouse and killed the family living here."
She grabs some lunch meat from a drawer and gives it a sniff. "Not really. In a single sentence from the bitch in the basement, they would've killed their own children or each other, let alone strangers like us." There is a plop as she drops the plastic container on the counter and starts looking through cabinets. "You didn't seem too bothered when you killed Tim and Jim back at the church. Or any of Megan's crew either. What makes these two ghouls different?"
The floor squeaks as Elio turns to face Ashley, who is in the midst of making a sandwich. "Those ones were at least doing something, I don't know, criminal. Drug trafficking, attacking people or kidnapping. These ones were just living here."
"They were protecting a monster." Ashley says firmly, pointing a mayonnaise-covered bread knife at Elio. "And once we get to interrogate said monster, I'm sure you'll have a change of heart. We need to find out just how much she's spread through this fun little farming community."
Elio frowns and turns back to the opening outside, where the warm sun and grave digging awaits him. "I'll dig the graves. Why don't you go deal with the rest of the coyotes we saw on the way in?"
Ashley bites into her sandwich with gusto. "Fine."
Stepping down the solid wooden stairs of the porch and onto the lawn, Elio heads over to the open shed and rummages around until he finds a shovel. He trudges over to where the forest meets the lawn and begins to dig. It takes an hour to get a couple shallow graves dug and as he works he can hear the occasional yip and scream from the coyotes in the surrounding woods as Ashley does her part.
After placing the bodies into their shallow graves, Elio stretches and glances around the property. He watches the wind blow through the wheat field in the back and feels the sun on the back of his neck. With a stretch he steps back up the porch steps and looks out at the field. He leans onto the railing with a tired smile and dusts his hands on his pants as he looks out at the waving wheat. He narrows his eyes as he watches it move. It looks like there is a spot that doesn't have any wheat out there...
"Hey!" Ashley shouts from down below and Elio glances down and finds her carrying several carcasses on her shoulder. "Coyotes are gone." She slams them down onto the ground with a wet crash. "I'm going to get the car and move it over here."
"Might want to uh," Elio gestures broadly to Ashley who is covered in blood, "wash up maybe. You'll attract less attention that way." She looks down at herself and jumps up the stairs of the porch and walks inside. As the sliding glass door closes, Elio turns back to the field and looks for the small gap again. Frowning, he steps down from the porch and walks into the tall stalks.
With his hands in front of him pushing the smooth feeling stems out of his way, Elio goes forward, curiosity piqued. Near the center of the field, there is a clearing. The smell of charcoal can barely be detected, getting slightly stronger as he moves forward towards it. Through the wheat, there is some sort of dull gray small structure. Parting the last of the golden veil, Elio stumbles upon a strange altar made of bones in the middle of a field of char that sits directly in the center of this field. Four small pillars support a much larger skull, some sort of canine skull perhaps. Crouching down near this, Elio begins a quick investigation.
Grabbing a few of the bones settled into the ground surrounding the strange altar, it's fairly easy to tell that they are from small vermin animals. Rats, hares, mice, and moles mostly. The larger skull supported on pillars of these small animal bones is indeed a coyote skull. The vermin bones are not cared for like the coyote one is, which is pristine and ivory white instead of the weathered gray of the lesser bones. A few smaller altars of similar designs are at the edges, two with avian skulls at their top and the last with a small snake skull. There are dozens of footprints around here, with Elio being able to count more than thirty unique individuals. Small bowl shaped rocks hold the charred bones of vermin while others are empty, probably offerings of some sort that are collected. He stands from his crouch and looks at the two small trails that lead this far and also notices that the hay directly surrounding this clearing has not been cut for some time, having grown wild and tangled except for the small trails. Rubbing his forehead, he comes to the most likely conclusion. There is a cult in the area with quite a few participants, likely centered around the vampire they just killed. Perhaps keeping rats and other pests away from local farmsteads was the 'service' they provided. The presence of three other altars around the edges that are built like smaller versions of the central altar is not a good sign though. There may be more of an infestation of vampires here than was originally thought.
He dusts off his pants and looks out to the horizon where dark clouds rumble and gather in the distance. The sun begins to set as late afternoon leaks away into twilight. Elio gazes up at the stars and counts a few of the more familiar constellations. An unfamiliar red dot is in the sky, shining forth with a strange malice. Shadow dances across Elio's eyes as the wind momentarily sounds like scattered whispers and screams.
"Hey!" Ashley is shaking Elio by the shoulder. He suddenly starts to shiver as the cold of nighttime sets into his bones. Pulling his coat closer around him he glances around. Gone is the low light of the early twilight, replaced by the bare light of stars and the moon. "Are you okay?" She releases his shoulder and steps back, eyes wary. "You've been out here for a few hours now. Are you really this shaken up about the ghouls?"
"No... I..." He looks back up to the thing hanging high above the night sky. Even as the stars slowly turn with the earth, it remains static in its place in the heavens. "Have you seen that star before?" Elio slowly raises his hand and points.
She raises her head and looks out at it with a squint. "I haven't. Is... that a planet?"
"Like Mars or something?" Elio says.
"Sure." Ashley says, unable to look away. "Maybe we should get a book on the stars?"
A shiver goes through Elio and he finally looks away from the oddity, the whispers and screams on the wind finally receding. "Maybe later. Right now," He gestures to the site around him, "I think we have a cult problem."
A bone clatters as Ashley kicks at it. "No shit." She says slowly. "But it's night now, do you wanna see what our vampire friend has to say about this?"
"Why don't you go do that." Elio is looking at the surrounding wheat and finds a good blind to hide behind that gives a good view to the rest of the clearing and crouches down into the soft soil, becoming almost invisible in the black of night. "I'm going to see if our culty friends make an appearance tonight."
"You sure? You're going to miss all the fun." Ashley says with a wide grin that glitters in the moonlight.
"Just get what she knows about Victor and this cult." Ashley begins to walk away back towards the house. "And be careful. There may be a couple more of them out here somewhere."
She grunts, "Noted." and continues on her way back to the house with a bounce in her step as she hums to herself.
Stopping by the open shed her smile continues to grin as she sees the chains hanging from the walls. The rattling of metal links joins her quiet footsteps back to the house. It is perfectly silent once Ashley enters and though the basement of rotten meat and animal urine reeks, that isn't enough to sour Ashley's mood as she reaches under the stairs and grabs the pallid, cold ankle of the staked vampire and drags her out into the main bar room. Her body slams into the corners of doors and bounces over debris with wet slops and thuds until coming to rest in a broken heap. Wrapping the body in chains and securing it with an open rusty master lock without a key, she more closely resembles a rusty iron mummy with a wood stake sticking out of it than a vampire. Only her head and feet stick out from her new bindings. Ashley leans back in a wooden chair that is barely held together as she admires her handiwork. Elio doesn't know what he's missing.
Looking down at the motionless vampire, Ashley's eyes are half closed. "We're just keeping him for the Prince." Somewhere back from an old warehouse, Elizabeth's voice comes into mind unbidden. "Foolish hare," Elizabeth once chided, "we have to let the blood drain first before removing the stake. They are Kindred still and not to be underestimated while full of blood. Let them rest for ten days first. Then we will see if they will listen to the Prince's words."
She fully closes her eyes and runs a hand through her hair, leaving it messy as her bangs flop back into place. Opening her eyes, she rolls the mass of chains and vampire into the downstairs bathroom and closes the door. On the door she marks a single tally mark. Ten days. No sense in giving her prey even the thought of hope if patience was all it would take.
Out in the field, Elio eventually moves to a sitting position. A couple hours pass in the quiet, with the only sound the waving wheat and melancholy cries of forest animals. It feels like something is watching him, hidden away in the wheat. But every time he looks to see if someone has come to the site, all he can see is that red dot in the sky staring back at him. Once the whispers and screams begin again, Elio shivers and returns to the house. He picks up the pace as he walks and casts weary glances back up towards the star as it looms over him, not able to feel comfortable in the night until inside and out of sight.
He jumps slightly as he opens the door and sees Ashley upstairs messing with the Kevlar vest at the kitchen table. "Oh, done already?" Elio asks as he recovers from his moment of fright.
"Kinda. I'm waiting a few days until she's weakened, then we can interrogate her without her pulling a fast one on us." She pulls a strap and stares at some thick corded thread.
"That's surprisingly patient of you." Elio takes a seat across from her. "I figured she'd be dead and buried by the time I got back in."
"I'm not so blinded by hate that I'll mess up a good opportunity when it's presented." Ashley huffs. "How about you? Any weirdos in the backyard?"
He shakes his head. "No, not tonight at least." Through the sliding glass door he swears he can see that red glow. "I really feel like something is wrong though, you know? That red star is kind of messing with my head a little I think."
She stands up and holds the kevlar vest up to Elio for comparison and smiles at her work, tossing it to Elio who catches it in both hands. "Don't worry about it. You probably just spent too much time surrounded by death these last few weeks, or maybe the stress is getting to you. Maybe just take a day or two to just, I dunno, do whatever you do in your free time." Ashley stops, a ponderous look on her face. "What do you do in your free time?"
Elio drops the kevlar vest into his lap. "I drink coffee and people watch." He says simply.
She rolls her eyes. "Okay stalker. That's not really a hobby, you wanna try again?"
"Okay. I used to play cards and drink with my buddies. And read books." He turns with half squinted eyes, "What about you, huh?"
"Hunting and camping." Ashley crosses her arms and smiles triumphantly.
"Go figure." Elio says with mock surprise. "Well. I bet if we dug around we could find a cribbage board and a deck of cards here."
"Let me wash the blood out from under my nails." Sniffing them she frowns. "Still some stuck under there. Then we'll see about cards." Ashley heads off towards one of the bathrooms.
Standing and pushing his chair back, Elio rummages through the house. Fifteen minutes later, he's triumphant, finding a barely used cribbage board and a deck of worn cards. Ashley pops out of the bathroom, her hands scrubbed red but clean of clotted blood. He points to the seat across from him at the dining room table, illuminated by a warm yellow hanging light above it.
A round goes by without much fanfare aside from reminding Ashley of the rules. At the start of the next round while Elio shuffles, he says, "Do you think Briana is doing alright? She took off pretty suddenly with her mom."
Tapping the table with her finger, Ashley frowns. "Who?"
Elio snorts and starts to deal. "Come on, Briana? That... you know..." His brow creases. "Girl that we had with us?"
"When was this?" Ashley picks up her cards, already smiling to herself as she reads them.
He racks his brain. Slowly he picks up his cards. "She was, uh, something to do with her sister I think? Damn." He frowns down into his hand. "I think she helped us out somehow. Or was involved with the vampires."
"I think you need some sleep, man. I'll take the first watch tonight." The round plays out in relative silence except for the tallying of cribs.
Afterwards, Elio stands up and moves to the couch where a few well thumbed romance novels sit at its feet. He nods to himself, considering them. Plopping down onto the couch and leaning down, he picks up the one on the top and reclines onto his back while Ashley mindlessly shuffles the deck of cards and looks out the sliding glass door. Halfway through the first chapter of the book, even Briana's name expunges itself from his mind, confused for the name of the main character of the novel.
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Days before, a yellow Ford truck drives forward towards where Elio and Ashley would soon be camping. "Hmm..." Hooking the truck to the left, Grim leans forward to really drink in the scene from behind the windshield before settling on a camping site a few down from where the celestial duo will be settling in. "This place'll do." Cracking open the driver's door, he lands in the dust below. "Help me get the tent ready, darlin'." He shouts into the cab to his ward.
There is a drawn out sigh from Briana, but she acquiesces to the demand. "Why couldn't I get stuck with someone who wanted to stay at at least a Best Western or something." She grumbles, heading around to the back of the truck.
"Do I look like I'm made of money?" Grim retorts as he begins to pace the campsite, looking at the ground. "We're close to where you need to go. In fact, I'd wager that the people I need to get you to will be here in only a day or two."
Carrying a duffel about half her size, Briana drops it in a heap near the center of the camp. "They'll be here? Why would anyone come here?" She gestures to the woods. "We're in the middle of farmsville."
Moving to the duffel, Grim unpacks a fairly spacious looking tent and begins assembling it. "Gotta trust destiny on this one. You'll get it soon enough. Plus if they stay at the site over there, we can keep an eye on 'em. Not like they'll notice us. And I ain't letting you loose until I know you at least have some sort of grip on what you got. And if you get really sore of my company, I guess you could just wander over and say hi to them. If they remember you."
She frowns and looks over to the site he's pointing at. "Won't they just see us if we stay here though? I mean, you have a jacked up yellow pick up, and no one else is here! Elio always seemed to be noticing things he has no right being able to." Her frown deepens and she scowls.
"First lesson, kid." Grim holds up a finger. "Whatever power that saw fit to bless us has given us the power of some sort of..." He wiggles his hands while thinking of words, "I dunno, being hard to notice. Sit quietly and don't draw attention and people just won't even give us a second of a thought, even if they really oughta."
"Right." Briana rubs her arms through a thin pullover sweatshirt and glances around through the twilight illuminated woods. "So what is this, like a karate kid situation? You gonna teach me kung-fu or something, old man?"
"I'm honestly just surprised you know what that movie is."
She folds her arms and smirks. "I mean, it came out when I was really young. But I like movies."
Grim deflates a little. "Right." He clears his throat. "I ain't gonna teach you karate. I don't know karate. But I am gonna teach you how to defend yourself, in a way."
"Psh." Briana scoffs. "My mom put me in self-defense classes when I turned ten. That's, like, five years of practice. I already know what I need to."
Clicking his tongue, Grim stands up from his squat. "Little lady. I don't care how many self defense classes you took. The things you're gonna be seeing? The things you're probably gonna need to fight? They make a grown man look like a chipmunk in terms of strength and feel like punching a brick wall." He points to her. "You weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet. You think that a punch or kick from you is gonna even slow something like that down?"
"Yeah, well that's why I learned how to do this." Running forward she attempts to kick Grim square in the nuts. Unfortunately the ground is a little more slippery than she anticipated. A rock under foot slides out, throwing her stance completely off balance as she teeters off to her left and flails her hand out to find her balance. In that moment, Grim catches that arm, pulling her roughly towards him and stops her short of his fist, now inches from her nose.
"Patience, grasshopper." He smirks. Releasing her arm, she stumbles back, rubbing her wrist. "You really oughta learn to let me finish speaking. I was gonna say, if you can't beat em in raw strength, you gotta get creative with it." Pointing down to her feet, he gestures to the rock. "Do you think you tumbling was an accident on your part?"
She sourly looks at the spot where her fall is documented in the dust. "I mean, yeah?"
Leaning down he picks up the rock and weighs it in his hand, giving it a toss and catching it. "Fate or destiny or whatever you want to call it ain't fair. Fortunately for us, it ain't fair in our favor. A little nudge is all it takes for someone to slip on a rock while trying to destroy their foes' family jewels. I ain't teaching you karate, I'm trying to teach you to listen to fate and give it a twist when you need it."
"Are you going to talk this much the whole time you're trying to 'teach me'?" Briana says with an eye roll.
Tilting his head side to side a moment, Grim has a contemplative look on his face. "You know, I heard that people up here enjoyed a good yarn from time to time. Figured I'd not be too outta place. Guess a southern boy can be wrong though."
"You definitely are wrong." Briana scoffs.
He just sighs and opens the tent flap. "Yeah, yeah. Sure. This isn't exactly going to be sunshine and rainbows for me either, looks like." From inside, he turns around and looks over to Briana. "So what are you feeling? Right now."
She starts walking back towards the truck slowly. "I don't know. It's hard to explain." Fidgeting slightly, she rubs her hands together. "I mean, I feel good. But I also keep feeling like I forgot to do my homework or something. It wasn't so bad a couple days ago, but it keeps getting worse. It's upsetting my stomach."
Nodding, Grim returns to unpack further inside the tent. "Not a bad way to put it. Urgency is what I feel and it's sitting in my gut like a stone. So we'll need to hit the ground running tomorrow cuz those idiots you were talking about on the way here are gonna need a nudge or two in the right direction."
WeylandSmith
Loose Cultivator
- Location
- [Global State]
It's interesting that Elio is being effected in some way by the Red Star while Ashley isn't. I'm curious to see if this is just him being more sensitive, or if there's some other cause.
Grim and Briana's reappearance was surprising, I was thinking they'd be out of the picture for longer than this. I'm guessing that Briana will be a new party member, and that Grim will head off once she has a bit of training? But I suppose it could go otherwise with ease.
Grim and Briana's reappearance was surprising, I was thinking they'd be out of the picture for longer than this. I'm guessing that Briana will be a new party member, and that Grim will head off once she has a bit of training? But I suppose it could go otherwise with ease.
I figure checking in with Briana every 2 - 3 chapters will be a good pace to make sure she doesn't write herself out of the plot like she kinda did in my rough draft. Kind of a B plot that occasionally kicks into the main line sorta deal until her training arc reaches some sort of conclusion. Plus gives her some space to actually be a character with Grim to bounce off of, I hope.
Scene 20 - Digging Holes
Once morning finally arrives, a brief raiding of the pantry occurs. A simple breakfast of toast and bacon is what's dug up by Elio and Ashley. "So, we're waiting a few days before actually getting any info from the vampire downstairs?" Elio eventually says, mid bite of bacon.
"Yes. For the third time." Ashley answers. "At least ten days."
Stuffing the rest of the bacon in his mouth, Elio persists. "Alright. Well, in the meantime," He flips out the business card for Talon Investigations from his pocket. "I'll try and follow up with this guy who's apparently also investigating some disappearances in the area."
"Sounds like a plan. I have to stay here to make sure no ghouls come to try and rescue their master." Ashley says, pushing her plate back and standing up.
Stepping away from the table, both Elio and Ashley leave their dishes on the table. Neither one says anything, but clearly they both expect the other to clean up. Elio steps out onto the back porch though the sliding door and ignores the blood splatter near the stairs and dials in the number on the card once more. It rings and after three rings a man picks up.
"Talon Investigations, this is Nigel." The voice is gruff and the sound of a car can be heard in the background.
Elio smiles. "Hey Nigel, this is Elio, Galena Private Eye. Just had a few questions, professional to professional."
There's a long pause before Nigel answers. "Aren't you the guy on the news? You know, assaulting officers and everything?"
"That's a long story." Elio pushes on. "I was out near Prosper and got your card from someone who said you were investigating their kid's disappearance, guy named Terrance. Since I'm around, I was wondering if you would want to have another set of eyes on the case."
"Terrance?" Nigel sounds confused. "I don't remember talking to anyone named that." The car sounds slow and stop a moment later. Paper rustling can be heard. "Nope. No one I interviewed by that name."
"Really." Leaning against the railing of the porch, Elio sniffs. "As a tangent, how weird is this investigation you're on?"
Nigel chuckles. "Only as weird as they normally are, I guess. You know what it's like."
"No, like really weird." Elio presses. "I'm in the area looking for a client's daughter who may be off her meds and whenever I asked about her to people I got cagey answers and veiled threats that if she was out after dark that it wasn't worth looking for her."
He sigh into the phone. "Look, I'm on my way to check out a spot someone was last seen at. Why don't you just come over and we can compare notes."
"Sounds like a plan. What's the address?" Nigel quickly gives Elio an address back in Prosper. "Great. I'll be there in thirty." Elio closes the call and returns inside. Ashley is pretending to not see the dishes on the table still.
"So who's the guy on the phone?" She asks as Elio snags the car keys off the table.
"Guy named Nigel. Investigator for a firm called Talon Investigations. I'll have to look them up on the way over. Gonna meet up with him to see what he knows about the area, hopefully a little more helpful than the locals."
Ashley stretches out on the couch. "Well, have fun. I'll hold down the fort. Maybe clean that rifle, do some target practice."
Elio jumps down the stairs and pauses with his hand on the front door. "Hold off on the target practice. We already shot a few times yesterday; we'll be lucky if no one comes by to check on the people that are supposed to live here. Maybe look around the house, see if you can't figure out some stuff about them in case you need it."
"Yeah, yeah." Ashley says dismissively.
With a shrug, Elio leaves the house, stepping into the SUV and driving the ten minutes to Prosper.
Ashley remains on the couch, staring up at the ceiling. "Bastard didn't clean up the dishes." She mutters. Eventually she stands and starts poking around the house. First order of business is finding comfortable clothes. She stalks into the master bedroom and rips through the dressers, eventually finding flannel pajamas with cows on them that are roughly her size. Returning to the main room now more comfortable, she stops at the hutch near the front door is a pile of mail. Leafing through them, she finds pieces of mail addressed to Jackie and Jack Portersen, as well as a piece of the mail from the state to a Jacob Portersen. Satisfied that she has found the names of the previous residents, Ashley heads upstairs, pausing to glance into the bathroom where she cleaned up yesterday. It's a bloody mess of towels and poorly washed away clots of fur and blood. "I'll clean that later."
She sits down at the table and drags over the rifle from Mary's stash. While she didn't use it yesterday, it would still be good to clean it again, if only for something to do.
Moving through the motions of checking the components of the rifle, Ashley pauses when she hears someone step onto the gravel on the way to the front door. There is a knock on the door a moment later.
"Jackie? Are you alright? Me and Mitch heard gunshots yesterday and we wanted to come check on you." A woman's muffled voice comes through the door. The handle jiggles and rattles as the woman tries to open it. "Jackie! I know you're in there!" There is a note of worry in her voice, "If you don't open up I'm gonna get Mitch here to break down the door! You better not be dead!"
"Fucking of course." Ashley mutters. Thinking quickly, she rushes to the kitchen sink and wets her hair and grabs one of the last clean towels from the bathroom to wrap her hair in. It'll have to do. She heads down to the front door and shouts, "Coming!" Cracking the door open just enough to look out at the woman outside, Ashley says quietly, "Are you one of the neighbors? Sorry, I was in the shower and couldn't get to the door very quick."
Blinking the woman squints at Ashley through the crack. "Who are you?"
"I'm…" Think dammit. "Julie. Jacob's wife." She puts trepidation in her voice. "We're house sitting for his parents right now."
The woman smiles, but it doesn't reach her eyes. "Oh! I haven't heard from Jacob since he went off to college. I didn't realize he'd got himself a wife already. And your name starts with J, go figure." She chuckles mirthlessly." Ashley opens the door a bit more. "I'm Melissa," the woman continues, "Jack and Jackie's neighbor. They didn't tell me they were going anywhere and I would've been happy to do that for them." There is an awkward pause. "Can I come in?"
Ashley shrinks back, closing the door slightly again, "I'm sorry." Her voice is just the right amount of nervous. The way she's acting begins to dig up feelings from the past, but she viciously shoves that feeling back where it came from before it can make itself known. "I don't really like talking to strangers when I'm home alone. Can you wait until Jacob gets back from town."
"Oh, you don't need to worry about me dear." Melissa gives a reassuring half wave. "I just wanted to make sure everything was okay." She takes a half step towards the door and puts a hand on it but finds it impossible to budge even an inch. Stopped fully by the solidness behind the door, she frowns. "What were those gunshots I heard yesterday, by the way?" She steps back again.
"You know, Jacob loves his guns." Ashley says with a forced chuckle while moving from foot to foot. "Couldn't wait to try out his old man's shotgun a few times, even though I told him he probably shouldn't."
Melissa nods and smiles. "Boys and their guns, right?" She laughs. "Do you know when Jack and Jackie are going to be back? We have a community meeting next week and I want to know if they'll be back in time for it."
"By next week?" Ashley tilts her head and puts a finger on her chin, a move barely visible through the slim opening in the door. "They said they'd be back by sometime next week, yeah."
"Great, that's great to hear." Melissa says brightly. "You and Jacob should come by for dinner tonight. We'd love to catch up with him and get to know you a little better too."
"We'll give it some thought." Ashley says. "It was very nice to meet you."
There still isn't much of a smile on Melissa's face as she starts to step back before stopping. "Actually, would you mind if I used your bathroom? It's a bit of a jog back to my home."
"Uh, no." Ashley shuts the door. Turning towards the stairs, she breathes out heavily. "Smooth moves."
Out in Prosper, Elio pulls up to middling sized church where the address took him. Outside is someone wearing sunglasses with his face framed by blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail. A graphic tee with some obscure looking band on the front of it pulls the style together. Stepping out from the car, Elio takes him in as he does the same to Elio. "Nigel?" Elio calls out. He raises a hand and waves before stepping forward to Elio.
"In the flesh." He holds a hand to shake Elio's, who accepts it. Strong grip. "So. The infamous Elio Aiello. Last I heard, you were either arrested by Galena PD or had skipped town. The last think I expected was to see you still in the game so close to home."
Elio pulls his hand back and puts it in his pocket, next to his knife. "What can I say? I lead an interesting life." He turns towards the church. "So what's it like working for one of the bigger outfits? Talon takes cases all across the Midwest, right?"
Taking off his sunglasses and cleaning them on his shirt, Nigel smiles. "Keeps business running smoothly, at least. Lots of people needing lots of services. Anyway, I got a tip that one of the missing kids was last seen here about a week ago at Sunday school. Figure we take a look around, talk to the pastor see what he knows."
"Sounds like a plan." Elio steps up to the front doors of the wooden walled church. "I'm assuming parents don't know anything?"
"I'm not suspicious of foul play on their side." He follows behind Elio. "But there have been more than a few disappearances over the last few months. No specific demographic. Kids, adults, men, women. Something is definitely going down here."
Opening the doors, the church is empty aside from the pastor who is wiping down a few of the pews. An older man wearing the white robes of a Catholic priest, a glittering metal cross prominently hung from his neck. "My sons, come on in." He has a warm smile and gestures to one of the pews. "Have a seat. Something I can help you with? Or are you here to confess?"
"No, not here to confess." Nigel says, taking a seat on the pew. Elio glances around. Confessional booths are empty and he can't hear anyone moving around in the backrooms. He remains standing. "We had some questions about some people that have gone missing in your community."
"Ah." The priest smiles sadly. "Yes, some members of our flock do tend to wander from time to time. We pray that they will return to the fold soon enough."
Elio pipes up, "Some of these members of your flock are kids, father. I don't think that they will tend to wander far."
Folding his arms, Nigel continues. "We're looking for Gregory, Brandon Coolidge's kid. He was last seen in your Sunday school last week. Any ideas where he could have gone?"
The priest shakes his head. "I'm afraid not. Last that I saw, young Gregory was leaving the service with his family, like everyone else."
"You see," Nigel leans forward with a toothy smile. "that is exactly the opposite of what his parents told me. They said that they couldn't find him and assumed one of his friend's parents must have taken him with them for the day. They only started worrying when he didn't call or come back that evening. So who did you see Gregory leaving with if not his parents?"
"As I said. I saw Gregory leaving with his parents. Perhaps they have strayed further from God's ideals than I imagined and are trying to throw you off the trail?" The priest's tone is still light and easy, but Elio can see him squirm a little bit under the questioning.
Nigel nods. "I suppose that is a possibility." He clears his throat. "I don't suppose you'd mind if we had a look around the area?"
Sighing, the priest nods. "Please, be my guest."
Elio quickly steps past the duo and heads towards the backrooms, Nigel not far behind him. "Thank you, father." Nigel adds before standing.
Stepping into the back, they find a neat supply room as well as a cot and rest room. "So what do you make of that?" Elio asks quietly as he pulls open a drawer.
"I don't know." Nigel says, running a hand through his hair. "When I talked to all of Gregory's friend's parents they all said they saw him leaving with his parents too. His parent's are the only odd ones out."
Closing the drawer and moving towards the priest's desk, Elio goes through a couple papers, finding little of note. "Maybe you misread the kids parents." He stops as he hears the priest whispering something and the minute vibrations of a phone screen being tapped.
"Unfortunately, the Coolidge's aren't doing so well. Would you please go check on them for me? Thank you." A phone call ends with an almost silent beep.
Nigel grabs one of the papers and reads through it before setting it down. "I guess. But they didn't have any reason to hurt their kid. No signs of abuse at home, no substance abuse by the parents. And they were the ones who hired me. Why would they hire an investigator if they did it? Guess they could just be psychos." He sighs. "Guess I'll do another sweep of their farm. Could've hid a body out there somewhere."
"I think you should stake out their house." Elio has been stock still while he listened to the distant conversation. "At night. Do you have any partners? I wouldn't do it alone."
Narrowing his eyes, Nigel turns to Elio. "What, you think they might try and move the body?"
Elio moves to exit the back room. "I'll tell you outside." He steps out into the church and smiles at the father. "Thanks for your time. We'll be on our way."
They step out and move towards where their cars are parked in the small lot nearby. "What did you see in there?"
"I think I heard the priest talking about the Coolidge's on the phone. There's two options here. One is that they are really the killers or kidnappers or what have you. The other is that this community is closing ranks with the Coolidge's on the outside. If its the latter, there is a bigger problem than just one serial killer. Prove the latter and the former becomes way less likely. So stake out their house, see if someone comes by to drop some incriminating evidence on their property." Elio steps into his car and rolls the window down.
Stepping up to the drivers side door, Nigel takes his sunglasses off and looks at Elio with an appraising look. "Alright. I'll trust you on this one I guess. Though I don't know how you could've possibly heard the priest from that far away if he was whispering."
Elio taps his ears. "Good ears. Always had sharp hearing. Helps a lot in this line of work."
"Anything I can do to help you with your investigation? Since you scratched my back."
Starting the car, Elio says, "Just let me know if you see anything on your nightly stake out. And keep your wits about you. Nighttime is dangerous around here." Nigel nods as Elio rolls up the window and drives off the mostly empty streets.
Pulling back into the driveway of the farmhouse, Elio steps out of the car and into the house. A couple hours have passed since his departure. Inside, he glances down the hallway towards the master bedroom, seeing Ashley's back as she evaluates several outfits she's laid down on the bed. "What's with the wardrobe, Ash?" He asks. She whips around to face him, eyes wide.
She growls, "God, could you just make a little bit of sound when you move?" Her shoulders fall back into neutral position and turns back to the clothes. Looking over them, they look more suburban housewife than the rugged hunter or survivalist that Ashley's normal attire evokes. "I may have made a slight boo-boo."
"Well, let's hear it." Elio moves out of the room and towards the kitchen. "I may have got us a step closer to finding another vampire. The church in town is mighty suspicious."
"Uh, one of the neighbors came by today." Ashley says, not following behind Elio. "She heard the gunshots yesterday. And, well, I did my best."
Opening the fridge, Elio grabs a jar of pickles and takes the lid off. "Did you find out the names of the people living here? Just said we were family friends and house sitting right? Probably just said that the gunshots weren't from our property."
"Well…" Ashley trails off.
"I mean, anything else would be hard to keep up." The rattling from the kitchen stops as Elio stops moving.
Poking her head around the corner, Ashley smiles, "I may have told them I was the wife of their son Jacob. And that he was trying out his dad's shotguns."
Elio returns to fishing a pickle out of the jar. "Not the worst. Probably worked."
"And here's the funny part. I think Jacob is dead." She holds out the letter from the state that she found on the hutch, having opened it to reveal a death certificate.
Snatching the form, Elio looks it over with a small chuckle. "Weird. Well, seems like the neighbor may not have known that. Lucky break, I guess."
"And they invited us over for dinner tonight and we're going to go." Ashley says as quickly as she can.
"No." Elio laughs. "Absolutely not. Are you kidding me?"
"Yes we are." Ashley steps out from around the corner. "We need information on the people here to find out more about that weird cult stuff. Plus they talked about a community meeting next week. That I said that Jack and Jackie, the people that lived here, would be back for."
Elio blinks and steps back. "Why did you say that?"
"I was panicking! Also if we don't go, they might talk about us to the rest of the community. Small town gossip light these people's kid not going to dinner might be talk of the town tomorrow if we don't and you know the vampires will hear about that."
He sighs. "And they'd be able to figure out which house it was pretty easily if one of their own were in it."
Stepping away from the kitchen, Ashley returns to the bedroom. "The issue is that if we both go to dinner who is going to keep an eye on the vampire downstairs in case someone comes to try and see them?"
"I'll see if Ezio's available." Elio says, wiping his hands on his pants and pulling out his phone. "He'll get a kick outta this, plus having him closer to us makes him easier to protect anyway."
Ashley gives Elio a weird look down the hall. "You think calling your brother to an active vampire territory is a good idea? He wasn't exactly feeling the best last time we saw him. It might not be a good idea to push him too hard."
With a smile, Elio waves off Ashley. "Come on, he's an Aiello. He's made of some tough stuff." He calls his brother and gets sent to voice mail. Frowning, Elio sends a text. 'Hey, come to this address when you area available. Need your help with something.'
"What name did you give this woman your supposed to be, Ash?" Elio calls down the hall, waiting for a response from his phone.
"Julia. Said we were married." She responds.
"Right. Rings then." Elio mutters. His phone vibrates as a call from Ezio comes in. "Ezio! Good to hear from you."
"What is this about me needing to come out to the middle of nowhere for something, Elio." He asks, more brusquely than usual. Around the corner, Ashley holds out a red plaid shirt and points to Elio and back to the shirt.
"Long story. We have an unfriendly neighbor in the basement of this house and to keep up appearances we need to attend a dinner at the neighbors tonight. We can't leave it unattended, so we need you come by for a couple hours while we're out." Elio gives a thumbs up to the shirt.
A haggard sigh comes through the receiver. "Elio, I can't keep doing this. It was exciting in the beginning, what with all the weird supernatural stuff, but I've been kidnapped, drugged, and beaten all within the span of a week. I'm out."
"Oh God, Sarah got to you, hasn't she?"
"This isn't Sarah, Elio." Ezio forcefully says. "It was fun when our adventures would be going bar hopping sometimes getting in a few scraps with the Smith boys over who saw a girl first. But I have a job that I haven't attended in a week, a wife who was worried sick while I was gone, and a body that is killing me. I'm. Out."
"Ezio…" Elio begins but the line goes dead. "Fuck." He mutters. "Ezio's out."
"He's out?" Ashley pops around the corner, wearing a nice burgundy dress and small heels. "Makes sense. He didn't ask for all this." She tosses the red plaid to Elio. He stops and thinks for a moment.
"Not really. Family is supposed to stick with you, through thick and thin." Elio eventually replies.
Ashley admires herself in the attached bathroom's mirror. "Come on, you pushed him as far as he could go, probably even further. When have you had his back recently?"
"I'm doing this for him. Having him closer to me means I can protect him better." Elio rubs his face and starts to change clothes.
"Well, I guess the house is going to have to be fine on its own." Ashley says.
Stepping past her and into the bathroom, Elio takes a look at the make up supplies that Jackie left behind. If he was going to be pretending to be Jacob he was going to need to take a few years off his face. Grabbing a photo off of the fireplace mantle in the family room, he compares his face to Jacobs in it. At least they were of similar stature. Setting to work, he spends twenty minutes tweaking the cosmetics until a reasonable effect of youthfulness is achieved.
"You are surprisingly good with a make up kit, Elio." Ashley remarks from the threshold of the bathroom. "Any chance to find some rings?" She asks.
"I can think of where two are." Elio says slowly, stepping away from the mirror with a satisfied smile. He looked at least ten years younger, with lines hidden and cheekbones accentuated. "They're buried in the back."
Twisting her mouth, Ashley turns away. "I'm in a dress. I'm not digging up dead bodies."
"Damn it." Elio mutters. "I'll grab the shovel."
"Yes. For the third time." Ashley answers. "At least ten days."
Stuffing the rest of the bacon in his mouth, Elio persists. "Alright. Well, in the meantime," He flips out the business card for Talon Investigations from his pocket. "I'll try and follow up with this guy who's apparently also investigating some disappearances in the area."
"Sounds like a plan. I have to stay here to make sure no ghouls come to try and rescue their master." Ashley says, pushing her plate back and standing up.
Stepping away from the table, both Elio and Ashley leave their dishes on the table. Neither one says anything, but clearly they both expect the other to clean up. Elio steps out onto the back porch though the sliding door and ignores the blood splatter near the stairs and dials in the number on the card once more. It rings and after three rings a man picks up.
"Talon Investigations, this is Nigel." The voice is gruff and the sound of a car can be heard in the background.
Elio smiles. "Hey Nigel, this is Elio, Galena Private Eye. Just had a few questions, professional to professional."
There's a long pause before Nigel answers. "Aren't you the guy on the news? You know, assaulting officers and everything?"
"That's a long story." Elio pushes on. "I was out near Prosper and got your card from someone who said you were investigating their kid's disappearance, guy named Terrance. Since I'm around, I was wondering if you would want to have another set of eyes on the case."
"Terrance?" Nigel sounds confused. "I don't remember talking to anyone named that." The car sounds slow and stop a moment later. Paper rustling can be heard. "Nope. No one I interviewed by that name."
"Really." Leaning against the railing of the porch, Elio sniffs. "As a tangent, how weird is this investigation you're on?"
Nigel chuckles. "Only as weird as they normally are, I guess. You know what it's like."
"No, like really weird." Elio presses. "I'm in the area looking for a client's daughter who may be off her meds and whenever I asked about her to people I got cagey answers and veiled threats that if she was out after dark that it wasn't worth looking for her."
He sigh into the phone. "Look, I'm on my way to check out a spot someone was last seen at. Why don't you just come over and we can compare notes."
"Sounds like a plan. What's the address?" Nigel quickly gives Elio an address back in Prosper. "Great. I'll be there in thirty." Elio closes the call and returns inside. Ashley is pretending to not see the dishes on the table still.
"So who's the guy on the phone?" She asks as Elio snags the car keys off the table.
"Guy named Nigel. Investigator for a firm called Talon Investigations. I'll have to look them up on the way over. Gonna meet up with him to see what he knows about the area, hopefully a little more helpful than the locals."
Ashley stretches out on the couch. "Well, have fun. I'll hold down the fort. Maybe clean that rifle, do some target practice."
Elio jumps down the stairs and pauses with his hand on the front door. "Hold off on the target practice. We already shot a few times yesterday; we'll be lucky if no one comes by to check on the people that are supposed to live here. Maybe look around the house, see if you can't figure out some stuff about them in case you need it."
"Yeah, yeah." Ashley says dismissively.
With a shrug, Elio leaves the house, stepping into the SUV and driving the ten minutes to Prosper.
Ashley remains on the couch, staring up at the ceiling. "Bastard didn't clean up the dishes." She mutters. Eventually she stands and starts poking around the house. First order of business is finding comfortable clothes. She stalks into the master bedroom and rips through the dressers, eventually finding flannel pajamas with cows on them that are roughly her size. Returning to the main room now more comfortable, she stops at the hutch near the front door is a pile of mail. Leafing through them, she finds pieces of mail addressed to Jackie and Jack Portersen, as well as a piece of the mail from the state to a Jacob Portersen. Satisfied that she has found the names of the previous residents, Ashley heads upstairs, pausing to glance into the bathroom where she cleaned up yesterday. It's a bloody mess of towels and poorly washed away clots of fur and blood. "I'll clean that later."
She sits down at the table and drags over the rifle from Mary's stash. While she didn't use it yesterday, it would still be good to clean it again, if only for something to do.
Moving through the motions of checking the components of the rifle, Ashley pauses when she hears someone step onto the gravel on the way to the front door. There is a knock on the door a moment later.
"Jackie? Are you alright? Me and Mitch heard gunshots yesterday and we wanted to come check on you." A woman's muffled voice comes through the door. The handle jiggles and rattles as the woman tries to open it. "Jackie! I know you're in there!" There is a note of worry in her voice, "If you don't open up I'm gonna get Mitch here to break down the door! You better not be dead!"
"Fucking of course." Ashley mutters. Thinking quickly, she rushes to the kitchen sink and wets her hair and grabs one of the last clean towels from the bathroom to wrap her hair in. It'll have to do. She heads down to the front door and shouts, "Coming!" Cracking the door open just enough to look out at the woman outside, Ashley says quietly, "Are you one of the neighbors? Sorry, I was in the shower and couldn't get to the door very quick."
Blinking the woman squints at Ashley through the crack. "Who are you?"
"I'm…" Think dammit. "Julie. Jacob's wife." She puts trepidation in her voice. "We're house sitting for his parents right now."
The woman smiles, but it doesn't reach her eyes. "Oh! I haven't heard from Jacob since he went off to college. I didn't realize he'd got himself a wife already. And your name starts with J, go figure." She chuckles mirthlessly." Ashley opens the door a bit more. "I'm Melissa," the woman continues, "Jack and Jackie's neighbor. They didn't tell me they were going anywhere and I would've been happy to do that for them." There is an awkward pause. "Can I come in?"
Ashley shrinks back, closing the door slightly again, "I'm sorry." Her voice is just the right amount of nervous. The way she's acting begins to dig up feelings from the past, but she viciously shoves that feeling back where it came from before it can make itself known. "I don't really like talking to strangers when I'm home alone. Can you wait until Jacob gets back from town."
"Oh, you don't need to worry about me dear." Melissa gives a reassuring half wave. "I just wanted to make sure everything was okay." She takes a half step towards the door and puts a hand on it but finds it impossible to budge even an inch. Stopped fully by the solidness behind the door, she frowns. "What were those gunshots I heard yesterday, by the way?" She steps back again.
"You know, Jacob loves his guns." Ashley says with a forced chuckle while moving from foot to foot. "Couldn't wait to try out his old man's shotgun a few times, even though I told him he probably shouldn't."
Melissa nods and smiles. "Boys and their guns, right?" She laughs. "Do you know when Jack and Jackie are going to be back? We have a community meeting next week and I want to know if they'll be back in time for it."
"By next week?" Ashley tilts her head and puts a finger on her chin, a move barely visible through the slim opening in the door. "They said they'd be back by sometime next week, yeah."
"Great, that's great to hear." Melissa says brightly. "You and Jacob should come by for dinner tonight. We'd love to catch up with him and get to know you a little better too."
"We'll give it some thought." Ashley says. "It was very nice to meet you."
There still isn't much of a smile on Melissa's face as she starts to step back before stopping. "Actually, would you mind if I used your bathroom? It's a bit of a jog back to my home."
"Uh, no." Ashley shuts the door. Turning towards the stairs, she breathes out heavily. "Smooth moves."
Out in Prosper, Elio pulls up to middling sized church where the address took him. Outside is someone wearing sunglasses with his face framed by blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail. A graphic tee with some obscure looking band on the front of it pulls the style together. Stepping out from the car, Elio takes him in as he does the same to Elio. "Nigel?" Elio calls out. He raises a hand and waves before stepping forward to Elio.
"In the flesh." He holds a hand to shake Elio's, who accepts it. Strong grip. "So. The infamous Elio Aiello. Last I heard, you were either arrested by Galena PD or had skipped town. The last think I expected was to see you still in the game so close to home."
Elio pulls his hand back and puts it in his pocket, next to his knife. "What can I say? I lead an interesting life." He turns towards the church. "So what's it like working for one of the bigger outfits? Talon takes cases all across the Midwest, right?"
Taking off his sunglasses and cleaning them on his shirt, Nigel smiles. "Keeps business running smoothly, at least. Lots of people needing lots of services. Anyway, I got a tip that one of the missing kids was last seen here about a week ago at Sunday school. Figure we take a look around, talk to the pastor see what he knows."
"Sounds like a plan." Elio steps up to the front doors of the wooden walled church. "I'm assuming parents don't know anything?"
"I'm not suspicious of foul play on their side." He follows behind Elio. "But there have been more than a few disappearances over the last few months. No specific demographic. Kids, adults, men, women. Something is definitely going down here."
Opening the doors, the church is empty aside from the pastor who is wiping down a few of the pews. An older man wearing the white robes of a Catholic priest, a glittering metal cross prominently hung from his neck. "My sons, come on in." He has a warm smile and gestures to one of the pews. "Have a seat. Something I can help you with? Or are you here to confess?"
"No, not here to confess." Nigel says, taking a seat on the pew. Elio glances around. Confessional booths are empty and he can't hear anyone moving around in the backrooms. He remains standing. "We had some questions about some people that have gone missing in your community."
"Ah." The priest smiles sadly. "Yes, some members of our flock do tend to wander from time to time. We pray that they will return to the fold soon enough."
Elio pipes up, "Some of these members of your flock are kids, father. I don't think that they will tend to wander far."
Folding his arms, Nigel continues. "We're looking for Gregory, Brandon Coolidge's kid. He was last seen in your Sunday school last week. Any ideas where he could have gone?"
The priest shakes his head. "I'm afraid not. Last that I saw, young Gregory was leaving the service with his family, like everyone else."
"You see," Nigel leans forward with a toothy smile. "that is exactly the opposite of what his parents told me. They said that they couldn't find him and assumed one of his friend's parents must have taken him with them for the day. They only started worrying when he didn't call or come back that evening. So who did you see Gregory leaving with if not his parents?"
"As I said. I saw Gregory leaving with his parents. Perhaps they have strayed further from God's ideals than I imagined and are trying to throw you off the trail?" The priest's tone is still light and easy, but Elio can see him squirm a little bit under the questioning.
Nigel nods. "I suppose that is a possibility." He clears his throat. "I don't suppose you'd mind if we had a look around the area?"
Sighing, the priest nods. "Please, be my guest."
Elio quickly steps past the duo and heads towards the backrooms, Nigel not far behind him. "Thank you, father." Nigel adds before standing.
Stepping into the back, they find a neat supply room as well as a cot and rest room. "So what do you make of that?" Elio asks quietly as he pulls open a drawer.
"I don't know." Nigel says, running a hand through his hair. "When I talked to all of Gregory's friend's parents they all said they saw him leaving with his parents too. His parent's are the only odd ones out."
Closing the drawer and moving towards the priest's desk, Elio goes through a couple papers, finding little of note. "Maybe you misread the kids parents." He stops as he hears the priest whispering something and the minute vibrations of a phone screen being tapped.
"Unfortunately, the Coolidge's aren't doing so well. Would you please go check on them for me? Thank you." A phone call ends with an almost silent beep.
Nigel grabs one of the papers and reads through it before setting it down. "I guess. But they didn't have any reason to hurt their kid. No signs of abuse at home, no substance abuse by the parents. And they were the ones who hired me. Why would they hire an investigator if they did it? Guess they could just be psychos." He sighs. "Guess I'll do another sweep of their farm. Could've hid a body out there somewhere."
"I think you should stake out their house." Elio has been stock still while he listened to the distant conversation. "At night. Do you have any partners? I wouldn't do it alone."
Narrowing his eyes, Nigel turns to Elio. "What, you think they might try and move the body?"
Elio moves to exit the back room. "I'll tell you outside." He steps out into the church and smiles at the father. "Thanks for your time. We'll be on our way."
They step out and move towards where their cars are parked in the small lot nearby. "What did you see in there?"
"I think I heard the priest talking about the Coolidge's on the phone. There's two options here. One is that they are really the killers or kidnappers or what have you. The other is that this community is closing ranks with the Coolidge's on the outside. If its the latter, there is a bigger problem than just one serial killer. Prove the latter and the former becomes way less likely. So stake out their house, see if someone comes by to drop some incriminating evidence on their property." Elio steps into his car and rolls the window down.
Stepping up to the drivers side door, Nigel takes his sunglasses off and looks at Elio with an appraising look. "Alright. I'll trust you on this one I guess. Though I don't know how you could've possibly heard the priest from that far away if he was whispering."
Elio taps his ears. "Good ears. Always had sharp hearing. Helps a lot in this line of work."
"Anything I can do to help you with your investigation? Since you scratched my back."
Starting the car, Elio says, "Just let me know if you see anything on your nightly stake out. And keep your wits about you. Nighttime is dangerous around here." Nigel nods as Elio rolls up the window and drives off the mostly empty streets.
Pulling back into the driveway of the farmhouse, Elio steps out of the car and into the house. A couple hours have passed since his departure. Inside, he glances down the hallway towards the master bedroom, seeing Ashley's back as she evaluates several outfits she's laid down on the bed. "What's with the wardrobe, Ash?" He asks. She whips around to face him, eyes wide.
She growls, "God, could you just make a little bit of sound when you move?" Her shoulders fall back into neutral position and turns back to the clothes. Looking over them, they look more suburban housewife than the rugged hunter or survivalist that Ashley's normal attire evokes. "I may have made a slight boo-boo."
"Well, let's hear it." Elio moves out of the room and towards the kitchen. "I may have got us a step closer to finding another vampire. The church in town is mighty suspicious."
"Uh, one of the neighbors came by today." Ashley says, not following behind Elio. "She heard the gunshots yesterday. And, well, I did my best."
Opening the fridge, Elio grabs a jar of pickles and takes the lid off. "Did you find out the names of the people living here? Just said we were family friends and house sitting right? Probably just said that the gunshots weren't from our property."
"Well…" Ashley trails off.
"I mean, anything else would be hard to keep up." The rattling from the kitchen stops as Elio stops moving.
Poking her head around the corner, Ashley smiles, "I may have told them I was the wife of their son Jacob. And that he was trying out his dad's shotguns."
Elio returns to fishing a pickle out of the jar. "Not the worst. Probably worked."
"And here's the funny part. I think Jacob is dead." She holds out the letter from the state that she found on the hutch, having opened it to reveal a death certificate.
Snatching the form, Elio looks it over with a small chuckle. "Weird. Well, seems like the neighbor may not have known that. Lucky break, I guess."
"And they invited us over for dinner tonight and we're going to go." Ashley says as quickly as she can.
"No." Elio laughs. "Absolutely not. Are you kidding me?"
"Yes we are." Ashley steps out from around the corner. "We need information on the people here to find out more about that weird cult stuff. Plus they talked about a community meeting next week. That I said that Jack and Jackie, the people that lived here, would be back for."
Elio blinks and steps back. "Why did you say that?"
"I was panicking! Also if we don't go, they might talk about us to the rest of the community. Small town gossip light these people's kid not going to dinner might be talk of the town tomorrow if we don't and you know the vampires will hear about that."
He sighs. "And they'd be able to figure out which house it was pretty easily if one of their own were in it."
Stepping away from the kitchen, Ashley returns to the bedroom. "The issue is that if we both go to dinner who is going to keep an eye on the vampire downstairs in case someone comes to try and see them?"
"I'll see if Ezio's available." Elio says, wiping his hands on his pants and pulling out his phone. "He'll get a kick outta this, plus having him closer to us makes him easier to protect anyway."
Ashley gives Elio a weird look down the hall. "You think calling your brother to an active vampire territory is a good idea? He wasn't exactly feeling the best last time we saw him. It might not be a good idea to push him too hard."
With a smile, Elio waves off Ashley. "Come on, he's an Aiello. He's made of some tough stuff." He calls his brother and gets sent to voice mail. Frowning, Elio sends a text. 'Hey, come to this address when you area available. Need your help with something.'
"What name did you give this woman your supposed to be, Ash?" Elio calls down the hall, waiting for a response from his phone.
"Julia. Said we were married." She responds.
"Right. Rings then." Elio mutters. His phone vibrates as a call from Ezio comes in. "Ezio! Good to hear from you."
"What is this about me needing to come out to the middle of nowhere for something, Elio." He asks, more brusquely than usual. Around the corner, Ashley holds out a red plaid shirt and points to Elio and back to the shirt.
"Long story. We have an unfriendly neighbor in the basement of this house and to keep up appearances we need to attend a dinner at the neighbors tonight. We can't leave it unattended, so we need you come by for a couple hours while we're out." Elio gives a thumbs up to the shirt.
A haggard sigh comes through the receiver. "Elio, I can't keep doing this. It was exciting in the beginning, what with all the weird supernatural stuff, but I've been kidnapped, drugged, and beaten all within the span of a week. I'm out."
"Oh God, Sarah got to you, hasn't she?"
"This isn't Sarah, Elio." Ezio forcefully says. "It was fun when our adventures would be going bar hopping sometimes getting in a few scraps with the Smith boys over who saw a girl first. But I have a job that I haven't attended in a week, a wife who was worried sick while I was gone, and a body that is killing me. I'm. Out."
"Ezio…" Elio begins but the line goes dead. "Fuck." He mutters. "Ezio's out."
"He's out?" Ashley pops around the corner, wearing a nice burgundy dress and small heels. "Makes sense. He didn't ask for all this." She tosses the red plaid to Elio. He stops and thinks for a moment.
"Not really. Family is supposed to stick with you, through thick and thin." Elio eventually replies.
Ashley admires herself in the attached bathroom's mirror. "Come on, you pushed him as far as he could go, probably even further. When have you had his back recently?"
"I'm doing this for him. Having him closer to me means I can protect him better." Elio rubs his face and starts to change clothes.
"Well, I guess the house is going to have to be fine on its own." Ashley says.
Stepping past her and into the bathroom, Elio takes a look at the make up supplies that Jackie left behind. If he was going to be pretending to be Jacob he was going to need to take a few years off his face. Grabbing a photo off of the fireplace mantle in the family room, he compares his face to Jacobs in it. At least they were of similar stature. Setting to work, he spends twenty minutes tweaking the cosmetics until a reasonable effect of youthfulness is achieved.
"You are surprisingly good with a make up kit, Elio." Ashley remarks from the threshold of the bathroom. "Any chance to find some rings?" She asks.
"I can think of where two are." Elio says slowly, stepping away from the mirror with a satisfied smile. He looked at least ten years younger, with lines hidden and cheekbones accentuated. "They're buried in the back."
Twisting her mouth, Ashley turns away. "I'm in a dress. I'm not digging up dead bodies."
"Damn it." Elio mutters. "I'll grab the shovel."
Scene 21 - Dinner Plans
It's a quarter mile walk taken at a leisurely pace as the pair go over their story in the last warm rays of the early evening. Sunlight catches on the hastily cleaned rings now adorning Elio and Ashley's left hands. "So we've been married three months, still definitely in that honeymoon stage. Where did we meet Ashley?" Elio points to Ashley.
She groans. "We were doing a group project in... psychology?"
He kicks a rock off the road as a car passes by and waves at them. "No," he waves back, "Group project in econ."
"And I just couldn't resist your perfect eyes." Ashley flutters her eyelids and swoons with a hand on her forehead before taking a couple quick steps to catch up with Elio as they stroll down the empty country road.
"Ash, if they start to get suspicious they are going to try and break our story, you could at least pretend to take this seriously." He looks up as they continue walking, appearing in thought. "If they ask what you like about me or what I like about you, it's best to probably just be honest about what we think about each other rather than come up with a wholesale false person."
There is a splat on the pavement as Ashley spits. "And what if I can't come up with anything about you?" She asks with a smile.
"Don't do that." He points to the spit on the pavement behind them. "It's not going to work well with the image we want to cultivate. And come on. I don't want to prime you on my good traits."
"What image is that? Dainty little college girl?"
"Kinda, yeah. It'll be the easiest..." he looks at Ashley who is now staring flatly at him, "okay probably what they expect. Not necessarily the easiest for you."
The house comes into view before Ashley can continue. A nice two story home with garden decorations dotting a full front lawn garden, meticulously kept. The lights inside are on, illuminating some nice white drapes. Behind the home is an expansive farmland full of corn stalks.
Both Ashley and Elio pause as they look at the house, just as it's coming into view. Instincts more than anything kicking in, they pause behind a tree just down the road and stand behind its cover to prevent Melissa, who is standing at the corner of one of the front windows and very obviously on the lookout for them, from noticing the pair.
There is an awkward moment as Ashley and Elio look at each other. "Why are we stopping? There isn't anything to be afraid of." She chuckles.
"Well, I stopped because you stopped." Elio says, leaning against the tree. "Might be a good idea to go check it out first. This could be a trap, right? What if they're ghouls or something."
"I guess, yeah." Ashley steps back behind the tree. "So you go poke your head in for a second and see what's up. I'll meet you at the front door." She starts to shrink as limbs pull back and fur appears on her skin until in her rabbit form she lopes off slowly towards the house.
Elio nods as he seems to fade away into the tree bark and fading light of the afternoon, becoming lost to sight. He bounds towards the house, across the concrete of the street and through the garden. The shadows of the early evening bend to him and he makes it to a window behind the house and finds it open to allow the cooler air into the home. He glances at the warm interior but finds it quiet. There is a nice dinner currently being prepared in the kitchen by Melissa, but there is another woman who is younger, early twenties Elio would guess pacing back and forth in the small dining area. The father, Mitch, if Ashley's memory is to be trusted, is at a writing desk in the corner of the comfy living room cleaning his rifle.
He tilts his head as he takes in the scene. The young woman is a rogue variable he didn't expect. Maybe a childhood friend? She seems a little nervous. Probably hasn't seen Jacob in a while. Excited maybe? Anxious? Couldn't tell you. His attention turns to the man. Cleaning a rifle is interesting. Perhaps he's nervous as well and cleaning the gun is a calming ritual for him. Ashley does that all the time, so it can't be that weird for gun nuts to do.
Doesn't really look like a trap, just looks like a family that's getting ready to host guests they maybe haven't seen in a long time or know very well. He steps away from the window and creeps to the front door, taking the time to dust off the plaid as Ashley steps out from a bush and pulls a twig out of her hair. "Well, does it look like a trap?" She whispers.
He shakes his head. "They look nervous, but just could be about bringing a stranger into the house. I don't think they are going to be any trouble." Elio holds out a hand to Ashley, "Shall we?"
For a moment Ashley seems lost in time as she looks at his hand, before taking it. "Yeah. Let's get this over with."
Elio clears his throat and hits the doorbell. A dog starts to bark, sounds like a bigger breed. Quickly glancing through the side window, Ashley catches sight of a German shepherd coming towards the door with Melissa behind it. She grabs the dog by the collar and yanks it back as she opens the door. "Oh, hello Jacob!"
"Melissa! It's been so long, how are you doing?" He rocks on his feet, putting off airs of being awkward. "And this is Julia, she's my wife." The chuckle he does following this is enough to make Ashley almost visibly cringe.
"Lovely lovely lovely." Melissa says, opening the door further, "Come in, food will be done in fifteen or so." Elio releases Ashley's hand as he steps through the front door first before her. Entering in, he takes his coat and shoes off at the front, steps into the living room with the wafting smell of tomato sauce and garlic from the kitchen beyond and freezes. Ashley stumbles into the back of Elio as he stops.
"Fuck, what's the deal?" Ashley mutters as she tilts her head to look past his shoulder. The man has stopped cleaning his gun and giving a death glare to Elio and the young woman has visibly turned red and balled her fists up at her sides while giving a look of disdain at Ashley.
Elio recovers quickly, stepping forward onto the carpet and sliding into a comfortable and well-worn green armchair. "Mitch, how are you this evening? Keeping that old rifle in good condition?" He nods towards the gun on the desk, now mostly assembled.
"Yeah. I am, boy." His voice is gravely, and he hasn't broken eye contact yet.
Ashley recovers next, giving a look of confusion at Elio before continuing to make eye contact with the young woman. "Uh, hi. I'm Julia, what's your name?" She says, trying her best to deflect the awful feeling she has building up in her stomach.
"Oh, the bitch doesn't even know my name?" She scoffs and the lady's head whips to the side, her hair flipping like whips as she stares at 'Jacob'. Elio blinks a few times, heart beginning to beat faster as he is forced to make eye contact with her.
He laughs nervously, glancing over towards the kitchen, where Melissa has a hand on the dog's leash, trying to entice him into the room but finding it difficult. Ashley chuckles somewhere behind him as she looks at the poor dog and terrifies it with her mere presence. "Well, I thought it would just be awkward..." Elio starts to say.
"You thought it would be awkward?!" She steps towards Elio and opens a hand, holding it up threateningly. "But bringing your fucking wife here after you ghosted me for six months isn't awkward enough for you?!" Tears start to well up in her eyes.
Ashley steps forward, "What?" She puts a hand on her chest as though offended as she wheels on Elio. "Jacob! You said I was your one and only! Who is this harlot?"
"Harlot?!" The lady turns somewhat redder as she wheels back towards Ashley.
He stands and moves towards the kitchen, "Okay, this is getting out of hand, why don't we just take a step back, wait for dinner and collect ourselves?"
The rifle receiver is pulled back as Mitch places a cartridge into place. "Boy, if you think you can wiggle out of this one," he checks the sights quickly, "you're dead wrong. No one treats my daughter like she's last week's trash to be tossed out."
Elio looks at Melissa, who has given up on wrangling the whining pooch and is now looking with a smug smile on her face at 'Jacob'. "Why did you even invite us out to your house if you were just going to shout at us?"
"Oh, I don't think there is an us, Jacob." Ashley snorts. "Can I get some wine?" She asks Melissa.
Melissa's smile slips for a moment into confusion, "What? No." She turns back to 'Jacob'. "You refused to talk to my daughter for six months and then popped up here with a wife? I figured this was the best chance to actually get you to explain yourself to her. You owe Mary-Ann an explanation."
"No waiting for the main course?" He says weakly.
"No." Melissa says firmly.
The room falls into a hot silence except for the small whines of the dog in another room and the slow rotation of a ceiling fan. Ashley gives Elio a pat on the shoulder and moves to the kitchen, "Come on, I can see a bottle of wine right there. I'm grieving my relationship; can't you help a girl out?"
"For the last time, no!" Melissa firmly stands in Ashley's way. "You're… a homewrecker! Now step back."
Elio clears his throat. "Okay, let's talk Mary-Ann." There is a rumble that comes from her.
"Did... you just call me Mary-Ann?" She says without turning towards Elio. The tight chords of anger have left, replaced with a tremble of anguish.
"Yes?" He squeaks, bracing for impact.
"You..." She shakes for a moment balling her fists up beside her head before screaming, "I hope you fucking die! Burn in hell you fucking... motherfucker!" And sprinting out of the room as the first sob comes. A door slams upstairs somewhere.
Ashley whistles as she watches Mary-Ann go. "You have such a way with women, babe." She says with a nod towards Elio. He leans back, laying the back of his head on the headrest.
"I didn't even get a chance to explain myself." He says quietly to no one in particular. Even in the midst of this emotionally jarring scene he's managed to keep in character.
Mitch shakes his head sadly. "Did you really have to call her by her full name? I haven't ever heard any of her friends call her by her full name. What's fucking wrong with you boy? Did she mean that little to you?"
The floor creaks as Melissa moves towards the stairs, stopping at the bottom and looking back at Elio. "What happened to the lovely young man I knew you were?" She continues up the stairs, "Mary-Ann? I'm coming up!"
Ashley and Elio find themselves alone in the room with Mitch, still with his rifle in hand. "So. What's your explanation then? I'll listen to it. If I don't like it, we'll deal with you." Mitch says, moving the rifle barrel degrees closer towards Elio.
There is the clink of a bottle as Ashley nabs the wine bottle and uncorks the partially exposed cork with her teeth. She raises her eyebrows as Elio looks at her. "What? I'd love to hear it too. And I definitely need some wine for this." Mitch glares at Ashley. "What? I'll pour you a glass if you want one." She tilts the bottle towards Mitch.
The muzzle flash from the rifle lights the room like a bolt from the blue. Elio instinctively covers his ears, but still his ears ring. Tinted shards of glass spray across the room behind Ashley, with a few finding exposed skin on her arms and legs. Ashley frowns and holds up the remains of the bottle, just the neck really, and licks some of the remaining drops of wine from it. Mitch pulls the action back and a still smoking brass casing rings as it hits the floorboards. "I will not be treated like a joke in my own home."
Ashley tilts her head to the side a little, a smile curving her lips as a dangerous glint appears in her eyes. "How cute, he thinks he's in charge." She pulls one of the larger shards from her bicep as a scant amount of blood leaks out onto her outfit. "And here I was thinking that the gun was just for show." The shard lands point first into the hardwood as she throws it down.
"Mitch, you could have seriously hurt Julia!" Elio stands quickly, putting on his best outraged face.
Mitch opens and closes his mouth once and a sheen of sweat starts to appear on his brow. "Just tell me why and no one needs to get hurt." He says simply with a swallow.
"Mitch." Elio grabs the arm of the chair he had been sitting in and easily moves it closer to the man and sits. "I regret to tell you that, yes, I did stop talking to your daughter around six months ago. Around that time I was given a greater understanding of the world." He gestures to Ashley, "Julia here helped to show me that the world is not what it seems, helped me understand how best to understand myself. Tonight, you stand before the Coyote Queen."
Mitch goes from a few beads of sweat to it beginning to plaster it to his head. "No. The Coyote Queen has never revealed herself to her subjects before. Prove you're the Coyote Queen!" He actively levels the rifle squarely at Ashley, who has continued to smile with eyes that glint in the lamp light.
Elio nods sagely while closing his eyes and folding his arms. "Unfortunately, it's true. My true calling is to be the true love and champion of our queen. I simply have no more room in my heart for Ann anymore." He opens his eyes and looks at Mitch once more. "I can see you question the true form of our queen. To prove it, mistress, would you take the form of your most beloved symbol?"
She rolls her eyes. "Must I? This already shows a grave lack of respect for me." Ashley continues to pick at the glass shards idly, removing them one by one and dropping them. She heaves a heavy and dramatic sigh as she licks some of the blood from her arm. "Very well."
Watching Ashley transform has become a familiar sight to Elio over these last few weeks, however Mitch is not prepared for the steady shrinking, the popping of bones and tendon into new shape, and fur erupting out of skin. He falls backwards out of his writing chair with a shriek as his eyes bulge. By the time he scrambles up to his knees, Ashley is a coyote grooming herself of the small patches of blood in her coat.
Elio bows towards coyote-Ashley. "Thank you, milady." He turns back towards Mitch. "Has your faith been restored in our Queen now, Mitch?"
He begins to blubber and stammer when Melissa comes back downstairs. "Is everything okay, Mitch?" She screams as she sees the coyote in her living room. "What's that coyote doing in here!" Mitch scrambles across the room to his wife, quickly grabbing her hand.
"Melissa, be quiet! That's... she's... the Coyote Queen!" He hisses to her. "Forgive her, she was just surprised by your shape, that's all!"
"I was hoping to reveal this to you over a nice dinner, but that has gone wrong." Elio moves to stand behind Ashley. "We will overlook this incident tonight as clearly your emotions got the better of you all, understandably. Please join us at our home tomorrow night for dinner and we will discuss our matters with you." Ashley trots past the pair and heads to the front door and Elio follows. A series of growls that could almost be a chuckle come from Ashley as she sits by the door. "Oh. And please ensure that you keep tonight a secret from the other members of the church. We don't want to appear as though we are playing favorites, hm?"
Mitch and Melissa stare at each other. "Of course. And we look forward to sharing dinner with you." Melissa eventually manages to say.
"Good." Elio puts his coat on, "Please apologize to Ann for me. I knew that this was going to be an awkward reunion, but I never imagined such an outburst from her." Ashley chirps at the door. "Of course, milady." He opens the door and she walks out. "Until tomorrow." Elio follows out into the brisk night air.
They start to walk into the night back towards the house they've claimed. Ashley returns to her human form and stares at Elio for a moment as they walk. "What the hell was all that?"
"I don't know." He mutters. "What are the odds that the girl was dating Jason when he died? Thanks a lot, by the way, for basically feeding me to the wolves in there."
"Come on, what else was I supposed to do? There wasn't exactly a good path through that swamp. Plus I knew you'd be able to handle it." She ponders for a moment. "How did you know that the vampire went by the Coyote Queen? We haven't got a chance to interrogate her yet."
"Lucky guess. The coyote part seemed easy enough, plus with the ritual site in the backyard being so close to her home she probably is quite important to the cult. Then choose a symbol, the coyote, and an aggrandizing title. Queen just happened to be the right one. Could've been barking up the wrong tree, but I got lucky." He smiles. "And by mentioning the church, it gives a little circumstantial evidence for us that it may be involved. They didn't seem too confused by that."
Ashley sighs and shakes her head. "You certainly are lucky, yeah. But we still haven't had dinner yet. Never got to the pasta. Not to mention we have to plan for tomorrow now."
"We'll have the advantage tomorrow. They may have surprised us with the relationship drama, but we've managed to get ahead. We will be able to get whatever information we want from them if we play our cards right."
"This doesn't sound like it's getting us closer to dinner tonight."
Elio walks a little faster as he feels the gaze of that damned red thing in the sky above him once more. "We'll see what's left in the cupboards. We're probably getting close to dry at the rate that we eat though."
Before Ashley can continue with her banter she stops and sniffs at the wind as it turns, her eyes widening and pupils dilating in the darkness as she looks out into the cornfield. Elio similarly turns his gaze, but up to the horizon as he catches the sound of dozens of wings flapping. "Somethings wrong. I smell a bear." Ashley whispers.
The small sound of steel against fabric comes from Elio as he draws his knife. "Yeah. And I'm hearing a flock of birds. Terrible night to have left my gun back home." Something crunches through the corn, pushing the stalks over in a wide path ahead of it. A pair of eyes glint through the greenery as the hulking form of a black bear emerges. Flanking it are a pair of raccoons skittering and grumbling to each other. Lastly the cacophony of cawing crows falls upon Ashley, already trying to rip and tear at her flesh.
Even though they heard them coming, neither Ashley nor Elio is ready for the appearance of the massive specimen of a black bear as it charges forward with a roar. Getting up into Ashley's face, it shoves through the crows surrounding her and attempts to push her over and pin her to the ground. Ashley meets the paws of the bear with her own. The concrete cracking slightly under her feet as she responds to the bear's crushing weight with her overwhelming strength, catching the bear as it attempts to fall and pushing the weighty creature back several feet with a grunt. "I've always wondered what bear tastes like." A manic grin starts to spread on Ashley's face.
The pair of raccoons scurry forward, their stripes blurring as they move with unexpected quickness to Elio. With needle-like teeth they both take a leg and attempt to hamstring Elio with their bites. As the raccoons bear down onto Elio, he seems to flicker from their view, becoming one with the evening. They lunge forward towards where they last saw him, each one shrieking as all they find is the cold steel of the knife as it wards each of them off with a series of slashes, their blood splattering onto the pavement. Before the raccoon on Elio's right can wonder where the stab wound on its side came from, another is lined up as Elio rushes forward with his knife in both hands as he tries to impale the critter down into the concrete. The rising moonlight catches on the knife, giving the raccoon just a brief window in which to see through its hiding in the shadows. Tilting to the side, the point of the knife misses center mass as the raccoon only feels the side of the knife against its flesh as it shaves a good portion of the hair off one side of its body. Elio clicks his tongue with frustration as it chitters and dances back.
Ashley dashes forward towards the bear and screams as she throws a haymaker up towards the beasts head, ducking under another swipe as she gets into position. Her fist slams into the bear's head, but it does little more than rattle the beast as it roars at her, spittle splattering onto her forehead. As the roar spreads around Ashley, the crows close in. A living swarm of iron beaks and cruel eyes try to rend and tear at Ashley. Each bird is met with a fist or foot as Ashley flips and tumbles through the swarm, delivering painful blows to each bird that tries its luck. "You wanna play rough, I'll show you rough." Ashley growls from within the flock as her body starts to contort and grow. The bear pauses as it views Ashley grow taller and broader than itself. She screams into the night as the transformation completes and the crows scatter back from her, revealing the extent of her new form in the moonlight. If it weren't for the rippling muscles and out of place claws and canine teeth, the floppy ears reaching down to her shoulders would almost be comical. Subsumed in moonlight, tattoos evoking the forests of the world appear on her skin, glowing with the same argent light that surrounds her.
Elio nearby takes advantage of the raccoons shivering and staring at the new threat only half seen through the swarming crows around it. The knife flickers from its downward strike, aimed at the raccoon once again and coming at it from the blind spot left open as it is distracted. The predatory form of Ashley howling in the night is the last thing that the raccoon sees before the knife plunges into its neck from the side. With a choked squeak, the animal begins to quickly bleed out as Elio immediately pulls the blade back out. Without even taking time to glance at Ashley, Elio is already turning and getting ready to respond as the other raccoon leaps up to where it last saw him, claws rapidly trying to find him and grab onto his chest.
As it jumps forward, Elio slides to the right, shoes kicking some stones to the side as he leaps out of the way with a parting slash at the striped critter before it can hit the ground. The knife doesn't find purchase in it, however, hitting a denser patch of the beast's fur and only cutting a tuft free.
The bear roars its challenge and advances towards the swarm of crows which parts to create a hole for it. Raising to its hind legs it swipes at Ashley, throwing its arm with claws out towards the hulking torso of the war-form in front of it. Its arm is met with a powerful kick as Ashley flips to face her back to the beast and immediately lashes out with a hind leg mule kick that reaches to the bear's arm level, throwing its attack far off course and staggering it again. The crows continue to attempt to peck and stab, making diving runs as they seek soft targets for their beaks. And the whirlwind of movement and transformation in the midst of the black forms continues its array of dizzying and obscuring attacks, darting to and fro and batting each avian form away as it gets too close.
The raccoon lands from its attempt to grab Elio and a dust cloud appears at its feet. Before it has time to spread up to its head, it's already darted forward, legs blurring as it scurries with uncanny speed back to Elio with teeth bared. This time, Elio isn't quite fast enough to strike at the raccoon. Its teeth sink into his leg, cutting through the denim of his jeans and allowing a bit of blood to flow down to soak his sock. Whipping his leg, the raccoon nimbly lands a foot away from the force of the shake.
Ashley charges forward, eyes dark as the night itself, but glimmering in the light of her aura. A clawed hand darts forward in a testing jab at the bear's head, much easier now that she stands taller than it. A pained roar echoes down the country road as the bear receives a deep slash across its face. Its eyes were spared but a bloody cut marks its flesh from the top of its forehead down to the end of its snout.
Elio presses his attack, stepping just out of the raccoon reach and into the edge of his own rather short attacking distance as he attempts a wide slash at the trash monster before it has a chance to try and retreat into the cornfield. For a moment, it doesn't look like anything happens as Elio moves away from the raccoon to try and get some of the crows off Ashley. The raccoon just sits there. A moment later it bisects along a horizontal plane, cutting with an immaculate and clean edge through bone, organ, and muscle. Needless to say, the raccoon does not survive the procedure as its two halves splatter onto the concrete.
The bear attempts to wrap Ashley into a bear hug, its teeth gnashing as it anticipates a deep bite into her flesh. In response, Ashley grabs hold of both of the bear's arms, clenching tighter and tighter as she emits a low growl and stares into the bear's eyes. The reflection in the eyes is marred by the caws of the crows as they interrupt the light from the moon outside in their next attack on Ashley but her movements are erratic, her body formless and fluid. The birds cannot find anything solid to get a grip into as Ashley moves almost imperceptibly. With an iron-like grip, Ashley continues to crush the bear's paws. After a moment, she releases the bear before jumping and whipping both feet forward in a double kick to the gut.
There is an enormous snapping sound as bones break from the force of the blow. Based on how still the bear goes, Elio guesses that perhaps it's spine broke. It crumbles unceremoniously to the ground with a low gurgle. As the bear falls into the roadside ditch, Elio steps forward and stabs at the crows. He manages to nail one with a knife through the chest before they take off into the sky, leaving just as suddenly as they had appeared.
Before the blood has time to settle and dry onto the warm concrete, Ashley has grabbed hold of one of the bear's hind legs and began to pull, one monstrous hand on a calf and the other up on the hip, ripping tendon and flesh until it is free from the rest of the body. "We... should get going Ashley." Elio says, looking away from the sight and back down the road towards the house. "I bet they'll be waiting for us."
A low growl is all that is said in return. Slowly she shrinks back to a human shape, blood now covering the shoulder of her short-sleeved dress as she holds the leg that that's about three quarters her height. "How'd they know we were here?" She glances back towards Melissa's house just down the road from them.
"Bad timing? Who knows. All I know is that we need to make sure our house is secured. It's night time and the other vampires might be out and about. One of the other bloodsuckers must have made a house call while we were out." Specks of blood splatter to the pavement as Elio whips his knife out to the side and blood falls off the steel. "Let's go."
Without anything more than a slight limp that recovers after a few minutes of walking, Elio and Ashley continue down the still warm evening road in silence as they prepare for what may be waiting for them back at the house.
She groans. "We were doing a group project in... psychology?"
He kicks a rock off the road as a car passes by and waves at them. "No," he waves back, "Group project in econ."
"And I just couldn't resist your perfect eyes." Ashley flutters her eyelids and swoons with a hand on her forehead before taking a couple quick steps to catch up with Elio as they stroll down the empty country road.
"Ash, if they start to get suspicious they are going to try and break our story, you could at least pretend to take this seriously." He looks up as they continue walking, appearing in thought. "If they ask what you like about me or what I like about you, it's best to probably just be honest about what we think about each other rather than come up with a wholesale false person."
There is a splat on the pavement as Ashley spits. "And what if I can't come up with anything about you?" She asks with a smile.
"Don't do that." He points to the spit on the pavement behind them. "It's not going to work well with the image we want to cultivate. And come on. I don't want to prime you on my good traits."
"What image is that? Dainty little college girl?"
"Kinda, yeah. It'll be the easiest..." he looks at Ashley who is now staring flatly at him, "okay probably what they expect. Not necessarily the easiest for you."
The house comes into view before Ashley can continue. A nice two story home with garden decorations dotting a full front lawn garden, meticulously kept. The lights inside are on, illuminating some nice white drapes. Behind the home is an expansive farmland full of corn stalks.
Both Ashley and Elio pause as they look at the house, just as it's coming into view. Instincts more than anything kicking in, they pause behind a tree just down the road and stand behind its cover to prevent Melissa, who is standing at the corner of one of the front windows and very obviously on the lookout for them, from noticing the pair.
There is an awkward moment as Ashley and Elio look at each other. "Why are we stopping? There isn't anything to be afraid of." She chuckles.
"Well, I stopped because you stopped." Elio says, leaning against the tree. "Might be a good idea to go check it out first. This could be a trap, right? What if they're ghouls or something."
"I guess, yeah." Ashley steps back behind the tree. "So you go poke your head in for a second and see what's up. I'll meet you at the front door." She starts to shrink as limbs pull back and fur appears on her skin until in her rabbit form she lopes off slowly towards the house.
Elio nods as he seems to fade away into the tree bark and fading light of the afternoon, becoming lost to sight. He bounds towards the house, across the concrete of the street and through the garden. The shadows of the early evening bend to him and he makes it to a window behind the house and finds it open to allow the cooler air into the home. He glances at the warm interior but finds it quiet. There is a nice dinner currently being prepared in the kitchen by Melissa, but there is another woman who is younger, early twenties Elio would guess pacing back and forth in the small dining area. The father, Mitch, if Ashley's memory is to be trusted, is at a writing desk in the corner of the comfy living room cleaning his rifle.
He tilts his head as he takes in the scene. The young woman is a rogue variable he didn't expect. Maybe a childhood friend? She seems a little nervous. Probably hasn't seen Jacob in a while. Excited maybe? Anxious? Couldn't tell you. His attention turns to the man. Cleaning a rifle is interesting. Perhaps he's nervous as well and cleaning the gun is a calming ritual for him. Ashley does that all the time, so it can't be that weird for gun nuts to do.
Doesn't really look like a trap, just looks like a family that's getting ready to host guests they maybe haven't seen in a long time or know very well. He steps away from the window and creeps to the front door, taking the time to dust off the plaid as Ashley steps out from a bush and pulls a twig out of her hair. "Well, does it look like a trap?" She whispers.
He shakes his head. "They look nervous, but just could be about bringing a stranger into the house. I don't think they are going to be any trouble." Elio holds out a hand to Ashley, "Shall we?"
For a moment Ashley seems lost in time as she looks at his hand, before taking it. "Yeah. Let's get this over with."
Elio clears his throat and hits the doorbell. A dog starts to bark, sounds like a bigger breed. Quickly glancing through the side window, Ashley catches sight of a German shepherd coming towards the door with Melissa behind it. She grabs the dog by the collar and yanks it back as she opens the door. "Oh, hello Jacob!"
"Melissa! It's been so long, how are you doing?" He rocks on his feet, putting off airs of being awkward. "And this is Julia, she's my wife." The chuckle he does following this is enough to make Ashley almost visibly cringe.
"Lovely lovely lovely." Melissa says, opening the door further, "Come in, food will be done in fifteen or so." Elio releases Ashley's hand as he steps through the front door first before her. Entering in, he takes his coat and shoes off at the front, steps into the living room with the wafting smell of tomato sauce and garlic from the kitchen beyond and freezes. Ashley stumbles into the back of Elio as he stops.
"Fuck, what's the deal?" Ashley mutters as she tilts her head to look past his shoulder. The man has stopped cleaning his gun and giving a death glare to Elio and the young woman has visibly turned red and balled her fists up at her sides while giving a look of disdain at Ashley.
Elio recovers quickly, stepping forward onto the carpet and sliding into a comfortable and well-worn green armchair. "Mitch, how are you this evening? Keeping that old rifle in good condition?" He nods towards the gun on the desk, now mostly assembled.
"Yeah. I am, boy." His voice is gravely, and he hasn't broken eye contact yet.
Ashley recovers next, giving a look of confusion at Elio before continuing to make eye contact with the young woman. "Uh, hi. I'm Julia, what's your name?" She says, trying her best to deflect the awful feeling she has building up in her stomach.
"Oh, the bitch doesn't even know my name?" She scoffs and the lady's head whips to the side, her hair flipping like whips as she stares at 'Jacob'. Elio blinks a few times, heart beginning to beat faster as he is forced to make eye contact with her.
He laughs nervously, glancing over towards the kitchen, where Melissa has a hand on the dog's leash, trying to entice him into the room but finding it difficult. Ashley chuckles somewhere behind him as she looks at the poor dog and terrifies it with her mere presence. "Well, I thought it would just be awkward..." Elio starts to say.
"You thought it would be awkward?!" She steps towards Elio and opens a hand, holding it up threateningly. "But bringing your fucking wife here after you ghosted me for six months isn't awkward enough for you?!" Tears start to well up in her eyes.
Ashley steps forward, "What?" She puts a hand on her chest as though offended as she wheels on Elio. "Jacob! You said I was your one and only! Who is this harlot?"
"Harlot?!" The lady turns somewhat redder as she wheels back towards Ashley.
He stands and moves towards the kitchen, "Okay, this is getting out of hand, why don't we just take a step back, wait for dinner and collect ourselves?"
The rifle receiver is pulled back as Mitch places a cartridge into place. "Boy, if you think you can wiggle out of this one," he checks the sights quickly, "you're dead wrong. No one treats my daughter like she's last week's trash to be tossed out."
Elio looks at Melissa, who has given up on wrangling the whining pooch and is now looking with a smug smile on her face at 'Jacob'. "Why did you even invite us out to your house if you were just going to shout at us?"
"Oh, I don't think there is an us, Jacob." Ashley snorts. "Can I get some wine?" She asks Melissa.
Melissa's smile slips for a moment into confusion, "What? No." She turns back to 'Jacob'. "You refused to talk to my daughter for six months and then popped up here with a wife? I figured this was the best chance to actually get you to explain yourself to her. You owe Mary-Ann an explanation."
"No waiting for the main course?" He says weakly.
"No." Melissa says firmly.
The room falls into a hot silence except for the small whines of the dog in another room and the slow rotation of a ceiling fan. Ashley gives Elio a pat on the shoulder and moves to the kitchen, "Come on, I can see a bottle of wine right there. I'm grieving my relationship; can't you help a girl out?"
"For the last time, no!" Melissa firmly stands in Ashley's way. "You're… a homewrecker! Now step back."
Elio clears his throat. "Okay, let's talk Mary-Ann." There is a rumble that comes from her.
"Did... you just call me Mary-Ann?" She says without turning towards Elio. The tight chords of anger have left, replaced with a tremble of anguish.
"Yes?" He squeaks, bracing for impact.
"You..." She shakes for a moment balling her fists up beside her head before screaming, "I hope you fucking die! Burn in hell you fucking... motherfucker!" And sprinting out of the room as the first sob comes. A door slams upstairs somewhere.
Ashley whistles as she watches Mary-Ann go. "You have such a way with women, babe." She says with a nod towards Elio. He leans back, laying the back of his head on the headrest.
"I didn't even get a chance to explain myself." He says quietly to no one in particular. Even in the midst of this emotionally jarring scene he's managed to keep in character.
Mitch shakes his head sadly. "Did you really have to call her by her full name? I haven't ever heard any of her friends call her by her full name. What's fucking wrong with you boy? Did she mean that little to you?"
The floor creaks as Melissa moves towards the stairs, stopping at the bottom and looking back at Elio. "What happened to the lovely young man I knew you were?" She continues up the stairs, "Mary-Ann? I'm coming up!"
Ashley and Elio find themselves alone in the room with Mitch, still with his rifle in hand. "So. What's your explanation then? I'll listen to it. If I don't like it, we'll deal with you." Mitch says, moving the rifle barrel degrees closer towards Elio.
There is the clink of a bottle as Ashley nabs the wine bottle and uncorks the partially exposed cork with her teeth. She raises her eyebrows as Elio looks at her. "What? I'd love to hear it too. And I definitely need some wine for this." Mitch glares at Ashley. "What? I'll pour you a glass if you want one." She tilts the bottle towards Mitch.
The muzzle flash from the rifle lights the room like a bolt from the blue. Elio instinctively covers his ears, but still his ears ring. Tinted shards of glass spray across the room behind Ashley, with a few finding exposed skin on her arms and legs. Ashley frowns and holds up the remains of the bottle, just the neck really, and licks some of the remaining drops of wine from it. Mitch pulls the action back and a still smoking brass casing rings as it hits the floorboards. "I will not be treated like a joke in my own home."
Ashley tilts her head to the side a little, a smile curving her lips as a dangerous glint appears in her eyes. "How cute, he thinks he's in charge." She pulls one of the larger shards from her bicep as a scant amount of blood leaks out onto her outfit. "And here I was thinking that the gun was just for show." The shard lands point first into the hardwood as she throws it down.
"Mitch, you could have seriously hurt Julia!" Elio stands quickly, putting on his best outraged face.
Mitch opens and closes his mouth once and a sheen of sweat starts to appear on his brow. "Just tell me why and no one needs to get hurt." He says simply with a swallow.
"Mitch." Elio grabs the arm of the chair he had been sitting in and easily moves it closer to the man and sits. "I regret to tell you that, yes, I did stop talking to your daughter around six months ago. Around that time I was given a greater understanding of the world." He gestures to Ashley, "Julia here helped to show me that the world is not what it seems, helped me understand how best to understand myself. Tonight, you stand before the Coyote Queen."
Mitch goes from a few beads of sweat to it beginning to plaster it to his head. "No. The Coyote Queen has never revealed herself to her subjects before. Prove you're the Coyote Queen!" He actively levels the rifle squarely at Ashley, who has continued to smile with eyes that glint in the lamp light.
Elio nods sagely while closing his eyes and folding his arms. "Unfortunately, it's true. My true calling is to be the true love and champion of our queen. I simply have no more room in my heart for Ann anymore." He opens his eyes and looks at Mitch once more. "I can see you question the true form of our queen. To prove it, mistress, would you take the form of your most beloved symbol?"
She rolls her eyes. "Must I? This already shows a grave lack of respect for me." Ashley continues to pick at the glass shards idly, removing them one by one and dropping them. She heaves a heavy and dramatic sigh as she licks some of the blood from her arm. "Very well."
Watching Ashley transform has become a familiar sight to Elio over these last few weeks, however Mitch is not prepared for the steady shrinking, the popping of bones and tendon into new shape, and fur erupting out of skin. He falls backwards out of his writing chair with a shriek as his eyes bulge. By the time he scrambles up to his knees, Ashley is a coyote grooming herself of the small patches of blood in her coat.
Elio bows towards coyote-Ashley. "Thank you, milady." He turns back towards Mitch. "Has your faith been restored in our Queen now, Mitch?"
He begins to blubber and stammer when Melissa comes back downstairs. "Is everything okay, Mitch?" She screams as she sees the coyote in her living room. "What's that coyote doing in here!" Mitch scrambles across the room to his wife, quickly grabbing her hand.
"Melissa, be quiet! That's... she's... the Coyote Queen!" He hisses to her. "Forgive her, she was just surprised by your shape, that's all!"
"I was hoping to reveal this to you over a nice dinner, but that has gone wrong." Elio moves to stand behind Ashley. "We will overlook this incident tonight as clearly your emotions got the better of you all, understandably. Please join us at our home tomorrow night for dinner and we will discuss our matters with you." Ashley trots past the pair and heads to the front door and Elio follows. A series of growls that could almost be a chuckle come from Ashley as she sits by the door. "Oh. And please ensure that you keep tonight a secret from the other members of the church. We don't want to appear as though we are playing favorites, hm?"
Mitch and Melissa stare at each other. "Of course. And we look forward to sharing dinner with you." Melissa eventually manages to say.
"Good." Elio puts his coat on, "Please apologize to Ann for me. I knew that this was going to be an awkward reunion, but I never imagined such an outburst from her." Ashley chirps at the door. "Of course, milady." He opens the door and she walks out. "Until tomorrow." Elio follows out into the brisk night air.
They start to walk into the night back towards the house they've claimed. Ashley returns to her human form and stares at Elio for a moment as they walk. "What the hell was all that?"
"I don't know." He mutters. "What are the odds that the girl was dating Jason when he died? Thanks a lot, by the way, for basically feeding me to the wolves in there."
"Come on, what else was I supposed to do? There wasn't exactly a good path through that swamp. Plus I knew you'd be able to handle it." She ponders for a moment. "How did you know that the vampire went by the Coyote Queen? We haven't got a chance to interrogate her yet."
"Lucky guess. The coyote part seemed easy enough, plus with the ritual site in the backyard being so close to her home she probably is quite important to the cult. Then choose a symbol, the coyote, and an aggrandizing title. Queen just happened to be the right one. Could've been barking up the wrong tree, but I got lucky." He smiles. "And by mentioning the church, it gives a little circumstantial evidence for us that it may be involved. They didn't seem too confused by that."
Ashley sighs and shakes her head. "You certainly are lucky, yeah. But we still haven't had dinner yet. Never got to the pasta. Not to mention we have to plan for tomorrow now."
"We'll have the advantage tomorrow. They may have surprised us with the relationship drama, but we've managed to get ahead. We will be able to get whatever information we want from them if we play our cards right."
"This doesn't sound like it's getting us closer to dinner tonight."
Elio walks a little faster as he feels the gaze of that damned red thing in the sky above him once more. "We'll see what's left in the cupboards. We're probably getting close to dry at the rate that we eat though."
Before Ashley can continue with her banter she stops and sniffs at the wind as it turns, her eyes widening and pupils dilating in the darkness as she looks out into the cornfield. Elio similarly turns his gaze, but up to the horizon as he catches the sound of dozens of wings flapping. "Somethings wrong. I smell a bear." Ashley whispers.
The small sound of steel against fabric comes from Elio as he draws his knife. "Yeah. And I'm hearing a flock of birds. Terrible night to have left my gun back home." Something crunches through the corn, pushing the stalks over in a wide path ahead of it. A pair of eyes glint through the greenery as the hulking form of a black bear emerges. Flanking it are a pair of raccoons skittering and grumbling to each other. Lastly the cacophony of cawing crows falls upon Ashley, already trying to rip and tear at her flesh.
Even though they heard them coming, neither Ashley nor Elio is ready for the appearance of the massive specimen of a black bear as it charges forward with a roar. Getting up into Ashley's face, it shoves through the crows surrounding her and attempts to push her over and pin her to the ground. Ashley meets the paws of the bear with her own. The concrete cracking slightly under her feet as she responds to the bear's crushing weight with her overwhelming strength, catching the bear as it attempts to fall and pushing the weighty creature back several feet with a grunt. "I've always wondered what bear tastes like." A manic grin starts to spread on Ashley's face.
The pair of raccoons scurry forward, their stripes blurring as they move with unexpected quickness to Elio. With needle-like teeth they both take a leg and attempt to hamstring Elio with their bites. As the raccoons bear down onto Elio, he seems to flicker from their view, becoming one with the evening. They lunge forward towards where they last saw him, each one shrieking as all they find is the cold steel of the knife as it wards each of them off with a series of slashes, their blood splattering onto the pavement. Before the raccoon on Elio's right can wonder where the stab wound on its side came from, another is lined up as Elio rushes forward with his knife in both hands as he tries to impale the critter down into the concrete. The rising moonlight catches on the knife, giving the raccoon just a brief window in which to see through its hiding in the shadows. Tilting to the side, the point of the knife misses center mass as the raccoon only feels the side of the knife against its flesh as it shaves a good portion of the hair off one side of its body. Elio clicks his tongue with frustration as it chitters and dances back.
Ashley dashes forward towards the bear and screams as she throws a haymaker up towards the beasts head, ducking under another swipe as she gets into position. Her fist slams into the bear's head, but it does little more than rattle the beast as it roars at her, spittle splattering onto her forehead. As the roar spreads around Ashley, the crows close in. A living swarm of iron beaks and cruel eyes try to rend and tear at Ashley. Each bird is met with a fist or foot as Ashley flips and tumbles through the swarm, delivering painful blows to each bird that tries its luck. "You wanna play rough, I'll show you rough." Ashley growls from within the flock as her body starts to contort and grow. The bear pauses as it views Ashley grow taller and broader than itself. She screams into the night as the transformation completes and the crows scatter back from her, revealing the extent of her new form in the moonlight. If it weren't for the rippling muscles and out of place claws and canine teeth, the floppy ears reaching down to her shoulders would almost be comical. Subsumed in moonlight, tattoos evoking the forests of the world appear on her skin, glowing with the same argent light that surrounds her.
Elio nearby takes advantage of the raccoons shivering and staring at the new threat only half seen through the swarming crows around it. The knife flickers from its downward strike, aimed at the raccoon once again and coming at it from the blind spot left open as it is distracted. The predatory form of Ashley howling in the night is the last thing that the raccoon sees before the knife plunges into its neck from the side. With a choked squeak, the animal begins to quickly bleed out as Elio immediately pulls the blade back out. Without even taking time to glance at Ashley, Elio is already turning and getting ready to respond as the other raccoon leaps up to where it last saw him, claws rapidly trying to find him and grab onto his chest.
As it jumps forward, Elio slides to the right, shoes kicking some stones to the side as he leaps out of the way with a parting slash at the striped critter before it can hit the ground. The knife doesn't find purchase in it, however, hitting a denser patch of the beast's fur and only cutting a tuft free.
The bear roars its challenge and advances towards the swarm of crows which parts to create a hole for it. Raising to its hind legs it swipes at Ashley, throwing its arm with claws out towards the hulking torso of the war-form in front of it. Its arm is met with a powerful kick as Ashley flips to face her back to the beast and immediately lashes out with a hind leg mule kick that reaches to the bear's arm level, throwing its attack far off course and staggering it again. The crows continue to attempt to peck and stab, making diving runs as they seek soft targets for their beaks. And the whirlwind of movement and transformation in the midst of the black forms continues its array of dizzying and obscuring attacks, darting to and fro and batting each avian form away as it gets too close.
The raccoon lands from its attempt to grab Elio and a dust cloud appears at its feet. Before it has time to spread up to its head, it's already darted forward, legs blurring as it scurries with uncanny speed back to Elio with teeth bared. This time, Elio isn't quite fast enough to strike at the raccoon. Its teeth sink into his leg, cutting through the denim of his jeans and allowing a bit of blood to flow down to soak his sock. Whipping his leg, the raccoon nimbly lands a foot away from the force of the shake.
Ashley charges forward, eyes dark as the night itself, but glimmering in the light of her aura. A clawed hand darts forward in a testing jab at the bear's head, much easier now that she stands taller than it. A pained roar echoes down the country road as the bear receives a deep slash across its face. Its eyes were spared but a bloody cut marks its flesh from the top of its forehead down to the end of its snout.
Elio presses his attack, stepping just out of the raccoon reach and into the edge of his own rather short attacking distance as he attempts a wide slash at the trash monster before it has a chance to try and retreat into the cornfield. For a moment, it doesn't look like anything happens as Elio moves away from the raccoon to try and get some of the crows off Ashley. The raccoon just sits there. A moment later it bisects along a horizontal plane, cutting with an immaculate and clean edge through bone, organ, and muscle. Needless to say, the raccoon does not survive the procedure as its two halves splatter onto the concrete.
The bear attempts to wrap Ashley into a bear hug, its teeth gnashing as it anticipates a deep bite into her flesh. In response, Ashley grabs hold of both of the bear's arms, clenching tighter and tighter as she emits a low growl and stares into the bear's eyes. The reflection in the eyes is marred by the caws of the crows as they interrupt the light from the moon outside in their next attack on Ashley but her movements are erratic, her body formless and fluid. The birds cannot find anything solid to get a grip into as Ashley moves almost imperceptibly. With an iron-like grip, Ashley continues to crush the bear's paws. After a moment, she releases the bear before jumping and whipping both feet forward in a double kick to the gut.
There is an enormous snapping sound as bones break from the force of the blow. Based on how still the bear goes, Elio guesses that perhaps it's spine broke. It crumbles unceremoniously to the ground with a low gurgle. As the bear falls into the roadside ditch, Elio steps forward and stabs at the crows. He manages to nail one with a knife through the chest before they take off into the sky, leaving just as suddenly as they had appeared.
Before the blood has time to settle and dry onto the warm concrete, Ashley has grabbed hold of one of the bear's hind legs and began to pull, one monstrous hand on a calf and the other up on the hip, ripping tendon and flesh until it is free from the rest of the body. "We... should get going Ashley." Elio says, looking away from the sight and back down the road towards the house. "I bet they'll be waiting for us."
A low growl is all that is said in return. Slowly she shrinks back to a human shape, blood now covering the shoulder of her short-sleeved dress as she holds the leg that that's about three quarters her height. "How'd they know we were here?" She glances back towards Melissa's house just down the road from them.
"Bad timing? Who knows. All I know is that we need to make sure our house is secured. It's night time and the other vampires might be out and about. One of the other bloodsuckers must have made a house call while we were out." Specks of blood splatter to the pavement as Elio whips his knife out to the side and blood falls off the steel. "Let's go."
Without anything more than a slight limp that recovers after a few minutes of walking, Elio and Ashley continue down the still warm evening road in silence as they prepare for what may be waiting for them back at the house.
Scene 22 - A Monster In the Night
Ahead of them, after the wound on Elio's leg has had time to more fully close and Ashley's ambient glow and tattoos have faded back into the depths of night, they see a couple of trucks crashed in the middle of the road. Smoke floats up from their engine blocks and the local church is off to the right right. It's filled with people despite the evening hour, all celebrating. It sounds like a speech is being given, with only the idea of it floating through the open pair of doors. Around the trucks are a half dozen youngish men wearing their finest plaids and jeans discussing the predicament that the two drunkards that crashed their cars are in. Bottles of booze, mostly beer but with a few harder empty fifths floating in there somewhere, litter the road and still full bottles occupy many of the men's hands.
Looking to the sides, the only easy way to avoid them would be to duck into the fields off to the sides. "Come on." Elio says, nudging Ashley who is still dragging the massive leg behind her. "Ducking off into the fields for a sec should keep them from seeing us."
"No." She says simply, continuing to walk forward. "It'll be faster to just go through them. They're so drunk that they probably won't see us." An even gaze at the wobbling and staggering forms of the men seems to confirm this to her.
Elio nods. "Okay." He keeps walking forward as he seems to become one with the night and shadows, leaving Ashley feeling alone on the walk forward.
She tries to hide the severed leg behind her to the best of her ability and spares a glance at her clothes. Tattered from the crows, bloody at the shoulder from the bear, and her hair's a mess from the exertion of combat. It looks like she walked through a blender, but it's what she has to work with. Walking forward she tries her best to avoid making eye contact with the men as she enters into their small circle of light from one of the few street lights in the area outside the hall.
"Hey!" One of the men nudges his friend next to him and points to Ashley with the hand still holding a bottle. "Ya losht, sweetie?" He yowls drunkenly at Ashley once she enters into shouting range. Ashley can feel her eye twitch involuntarily.
The man that got nudged manages to tear himself away from the two trucks in ditches to glance over towards Ashley, and he lets out a long whistle. "Woah," he glances excitedly over one of the others, who has also started to notice Ashley, "I'll bet ya I know how to get rid o' that sour expression, little miss" He manages to slur out.
She stops under the center of the street light. Her eyes are narrowed but she still hasn't looked to her right to where the men are. "What are you waiting for? We have to keep going." Elio, little more than a mote of dust in the street light, says in her ear. "Keep walking."
"Why don'tcha come over here and show daddy a good time?" The youngest seeming of the men winks. He's got a full beard and a nicely pressed button up flannel.
The leg grinds and scratches on the ground wetly as Ashley turns to the right. "Do you and your buddies make a habit of hitting on everyone that walks this way? Even people in ragged dresses dragging a fucking bear leg around?" She pulls up her arm to prominently display the furry trophy in her hand.
"Ashley..." Elio starts.
"Shut up." Ashley hisses to her left. "This'll only take a second."
Elio clicks his tongue. "Every second counts here Ash."
The younger man, somewhere in his twenties walks up to Ashley. Close enough to smell the whiskey on his breath and to clearly see him looking her up and down. "Woah, that is a leg." he nods, "But can't say that's the leg I'm interested in." There is a pointed gaze downwards at a prominent rip in the dress leading up to Ashley's upper thigh. The men behind him hoot and holler in support of him as he drags his eyes back up to meet Ashley's.
From the dark, Elio isn't sure what the guy expected. Okay. That's a lie. This guy expected Ashley to be scared. On the back foot. Embarrassed. The man wobbles forward, trying to put a hand on her arm.
She starts to laugh before he can reach her. He stops a foot away from her, his hand close enough for Ashley to feel its warmth on her arm. It starts as a low giggle. Cute, even. The guy even smirks as he thinks his lines worked on her. A rousing round of jeers and encouragement comes from the older men behind him as they see their comrade seemingly succeed. The laugh accelerates from a giggle to a big, loud, belly laugh. It echoes down the street in both directions as the men working on getting the trucks free finally get distracted by it. The man in front of her starts to look slightly uneasy. "Hey, what's so funny babe?" He asks.
Howling. From belly laugh to howling, wretched, and bestial laughter. Loud enough to cover the sound of the wind passing through the crops and to hide the speech being given inside over loudspeaker. The people close enough to the entrance from the inside are starting to notice. Tears fill the bottoms of Ashley's eyes as she manages to stand back up to her full height and look at the guy in front of her. He's stopped and taken a step back, but there is no fear in his eyes. Ashley knows the look of indignation and offense better than most, and he's wearing the narrowed eyes and reddening of the cheeks just fine.
As she recovers from her laughing fit, the silence of night comes back. Just in time to be shattered by the guy. "I asked you a question. What's so funny." He folds his arms, the bottle of beer now tucked into an elbow.
"You." Ashley wipes the tears from her eyes. "Oh my god, you. Was that not clear?"
He seems to relax a little. "Oh. I knew you'd see my good qualities." The guys behind him grumble a little, still a little ill at ease. "But let me tell you, I got a lot more than just good lines. Wanna see?" He steps a little closer, hooking a finger in his belt.
"No, not on your fucking life." Ashley shakes her head with a good natured smile, moving the leg behind her back again, and tilting her head back to look up at the guy.
He knits his brows together in concentration. "What did you say to me?"
The bear leg whips around her body so fast that he can't even see what hits him. He tastes fur and claw as Ashley slams the foot of the large animal into his face. He's knocked on his ass with a resounding thud as the bear limb catches him in the side of the head. The beer bottle in his hand smashes as it hits the ground, flinging amber fluid all around it as well as decorating the pavement with glittering glass. "Holy shit!" The guy scrambles back, immediately sobering up from the pain. He clutches at his jaw as some tears start to flow.
"What's the matter?" Ashley says as the rest of men quickly stand from their positions. She turns to the side, exposing more of her upper thigh through the rip in the dress to the guys. "I thought you wanted some leg?" She narrows her eyes as she seems to look at each one of them at a time. "Or were you guys all talk? Can't get a girl all worked up like that and expect nothing to happen right?"
A round of cracking knuckles and stretching necks occurs as the guys stand up. "Bitch. Can't you just take a compliment?" Ashley counts a half dozen men getting loosened up and ready to put her in the ground. Two of them break their bottles on the ground and hold them menacingly. The guy that was on his ass shuffles away and sprints back to the hall. Elio can vaguely hear him asking for someone named John.
"You don't have long." Elio whispers in her ear. "They're calling in more drunks."
"Let 'em come." Ashley tosses the leg behind her, which lands with a wet slap, and folds her arms in front of her. "If these goddamn hicks think they are a match for me, they're sorely mistaken."
"This is exactly the sort of time waste that I wanted to avoid, Ashley." Elio says emphatically. The first of the men starts to approach, fists up and sleeves rolled up. "We should just get away from here."
Ashley jerks her head up without taking her eyes off the slightly taller man. "I'll give you the first one for free." He scrunches his face up in concentration and steps forward towards her, throwing his punch at the same time. As the punch lands in her gut she doesn't flinch. Doesn't even move. The man opens his eyes to look up at her to find a disappointed look in her eyes. "I really thought you farmers would have a bit more..." She lashes out in a backhand slap at his face and man flies back several feet from the force of the slap, tumbling head over heels with a series of grunts and pained cries, hitting a fence pole and coming to a stop. "I dunno... power?" She resumes a neutral posture. Her gaze becomes expectant as she again looks at all those present. "Come on then, who's next?"
"Ashley." Elio continues to press. "Vampires, remember them?" He hisses. "We need to go get back before they get there."
She turns suddenly to the seemingly empty side of the road behind her, back towards the edge of the light provided by the street lamp. "Shut the hell up Elio! I know what I'm doing!" Ashley shouts to the void back there. From the hall, three men step out from inside.
One of them looks pretty fit. A serious, square face and jaw. He's already rolling up his worn work flannel as he steps out. The second is quite large, clearly enjoys eating when he gets the chance and he's got a baseball cap on for the local baseball league. The third is still wearing overalls and a pair of rubber boots. "Great. Now we've got these clowns to deal with." Elio mutters.
Behind them, a man leans on the threshold as he looks out. Elio narrows his eyes as he looks him over. Clearly he's cut from a different cloth than the rest of the people here. Maybe literally. He's wearing robes. Slipping from the light, Elio flows over to the entrance for a closer look.
Before the other men can close in on Ashley, they glance back at the approaching trio and step aside. One of the group walks up to the younger men. He points over to Ashley, "John!" He puts a hand on square head's shoulder, "She's right there, she's laid out Paul and now she's gone and sent Benjamin to sleep too!"
The first man, John, simply nods and keeps walking forward until he's under the street light with Ashley. "What's this all about?" He says, putting his thumbs into his pockets while maintaining a glare and slight frown. The other two remain out of the light for now, watching carefully.
"These fuckers catcalled me." Ashley says simply. "So I showed them what happens when you don't think."
He spares a quick glance behind him towards the first guy who got slammed, now with a spreading black eye. "Well, these guys are friends of mine. I don't like hitting girls, but I guess we all know where this is going." He pulls his hands out of his pockets and puts up his hands. Ashley mirrors his actions.
"Yeah. I guess we do. I hope you're not as much of a disappointment as those two." The buzzing of the street light is the only sound that fills the night for that moment as the gaggle of men surround the spotlight on the concrete.
Back towards the hall, Elio carefully looks over the father at the threshold. This wasn't the same priest he saw earlier with Nigel. This one is a young, strapping man with thick black hair and immaculately clean white robes. The trappings are all there, the vestments, the cross around the neck, the careful gaze. But something is odd about him. His skin is too pale for living out here in the fields, his smile reveals a tooth too long to be natural, and the small bear pin on his lapel all give a very certain idea of who this may be. Maybe this would be a useful stop after all. Elio draws his knife and looms behind the man for a moment. Back in the hall behind them, a night service is being held with many members of the community is going on while a man contemplates murder hidden behind the curtains at the window.
There isn't much to contemplate.
This knife flashes in the colored lights as it beheads the suspected vampire in a single cut. If anyone had been able to see the master stroke, they would have been awestruck by the sheer grace and brutal power behind it. Perhaps they would have applauded. But by the time the vampire realizes that he's been cut, Elio has already begun his walk back towards Ashley.
Strange. The priest thinks to himself, his gaze falling on Elio's back. I don't recognize that man. Are his final thoughts as his head hits the ground with a dull thud, his body tumbling to the floor just after. A scream erupts as the party notices the faithful notice death in their midst.
Back in the street out front, Ashley and John size each other up for a moment before they both step forward into the center for their fight.
Lunging forward suddenly, Ashley immediately tries to plant a knee into the crotch of the flannel wearing combatant in front of her. The scream from the church momentarily distracts him, more than enough for Ashley's knee to slam into his nuts. He immediately falls to a knee and feels most of the sensation fade for a moment from his lower half then come roaring back with a vengeance. "Hey!" One of his buddies, the bigger one, says. "That wasn't playing fair at all now!" Breathing quickly, John stands and goes for an uppercut at Ashley's chin with the motion.
His fist doesn't even make it to Ashley before she plants a foot onto his chest, pushing him down and against the concrete. Her foot grinds and presses up against his sternum, enough that the pain in his junk starts to fade as a more life threatening sort of pain starts to erupt in the center of his chest. He starts to gasp for breath as Ashley continues to press harder and harder. "Get off him!" His buddy roars, rushing into the light as he starts to hear his heart beat in his ears.
The large man wraps his hands around Ashley's torso, pulling her weight off of John who coughs and sputters, getting up to his feet unsteadily. He pulls his arms together as tight as he can, trying to crush Ashley in the process but finds little success crushing the taut muscles and iron-like bones he's found in his grasp. Cracking his neck, John goes in for a gut punch on Ashley, while she's restrained.
"Hold her tight, Buddy!" As the punch thunders forward like a piston into her stomach, John pales as he feels recoil in his hand as though he just punched a steel slab. Ashley doesn't even look phased. Disappointed really. "Was that it?" She asks.
"No..." He reels back into a left hook at her face.
Stumbling forward, he misses with his fist barely grazing Ashley's face. "Come on now, don't lose speed quite yet. We aren't done." She smirks as she turns her attention back to Buddy. "You think you can hold me?" Muscles begin to tense as she tests the man's strength, reaching around and grabbing his thumbs with her hands and pulling back on them. Buddy grunts as he starts to feel his thumbs ache from the pressure being put on them. He starts to pull harder, feeling Ashley's ribs start to compress as he presses. But her body is unyielding, giving no ground as he struggles to hurt Ashley. "Come on big guy, just let go of me so I can finish beating the hell out of your friend." Her tone becomes annoyed, like one talking to annoying children as she swells with power, a familiar silver glow starts to envelop the scene, overwhelming the street light close to Ashley. She starts to rip at the hands keeping her at bay.
The thumbs pop as they are dislocated, Buddy takes a minute to scream, but does not release his grip yet. Tears start to form in the corner of his eyes. The last of the trio, Bryce, if the name sewn into his coveralls is to be believed, starts to step forward as well. "Holy hell! Someone get a rifle!" John steps back as he sees the glow, but seeing his friend hurting and still in danger, rushes forward shoulder first.
"Let go! Get away from her!" He tries to tackle Ashley back and away from her entanglement.
Ashley releases one of her hands from Buddy's right thumb and catches John's shoulder as he charges and with a firm push throws his far off course.
From the darkness beyond the streetlight illuminating this scene Elio emerges with an annoyed look on his face. He looks over the group of gathered men staring with trepidation at the glowing woman disassembling them. Several of them have phones to record the brawl and got far more than they bargained for. "Have you had enough yet?" Elio asks towards Ashley.
"No. Not really." She growls while continuing to struggle with Buddy.
"Come on, the people that were catcalling you are either sitting with broken bones, bruised egos, or just freaked the fuck out." He points to John and Buddy, "These aren't even the guys that were doing it. Just idiots trying to help their idiot friends."
Buddy takes this moment to try and escape from Ashley, finding no resistance as Ashley's rage has pivoted to Elio. He holds his hands close to his chest and runs back towards the hall. John stands unsteadily with his fists still up in a boxing stance as he recovers from his deflection. From further in the lot, Bryce is urgently gesturing to one of the other men as he digs through the cabin of his red truck in the parking lot in front of the hall. "You know how long I've waited to do something like this?" Ashley gestures out to the group, her silvery aura casting odd shadows beyond the street light and into the surrounding fields. "Literally years. I've always assumed that people who made me feel like this would eventually get what's coming to them. But I realize that I'm what's coming to them now."
Looking warily at the man who's managed to find his rifle in the truck, Elio steps forward and the people give him space as he slides through the light. "We can talk about this later. We're being recorded." He points to the phones in the crowd. "Let's go."
She growls and looks at the people holding phones. "They want something to record?"
"Don't..." Elio starts stepping forward, knowing where this is going.
"Fine." Ashley starts to grow, her tattoos stretching as she does, returning to her war-form. A massive twelve foot rabbit monstrosity screams into the night. Those who weren't scared yet feel the blood drain from their faces and those who were already nervous scream and flee into the night. One of them drops their phone mid recording as he runs, terrified, into the fields. The other two manage to get a second of probably blurry footage before their courage leaves them and they run to their cars, to the church, wherever to get away from Ashley. Even John, Buddy, and Bryce sprint as quickly away as they can. Eventually only the were-beast and Elio are left in the quiet night.
They stare at each other for a moment, a challenge in both of their eyes. "That was so fucking stupid, Ash." Elio says. She only mutters and grunts in response as she starts to stomp down the road back towards the house.
Some way down the road as her glow fades from view and night once again reestablishes itself as dominant aside from the full moon, Ashley returns to her human form. Elio has been hanging back a ways, watching Ashley as she pointedly never looked back at him. He brushes off his shirt of a bit of wayward dried vampire blood that ended up on the sleeve as he speaks up. "You good, Ash?"
She stops, hair floating forward towards her face from the sudden halt. "I'm doing great, Elio." Ashley turns back to Elio as he continues to slowly approach, a genuine smile on her face.
"That's good, I guess." Ashley's smile falters as she looks at Elio. "But any element of surprise that we had is now completely out the window." He shakes his head as he gets within a dozen feet of Ashley.
"Who cares about that? They already found out about us, why not disperse their cult before they have a chance to use them against us?" She shrugs.
Elio glares at her, star light glinting in his eyes. "We both know that you didn't pick a fight with those drunks over that."
"What does that matter? Still sent those cultists running. Now they won't come chasing after us when we get back to the house and deal with those vampires."
"Those were basically normal people." Elio says, folding his arms. "Caught up in a cult, sure. But did you really need to... I dunno," tilts his head up to the heavens, "do all that to them?"
She stills and tries to pierce the darkness with her eyes to find Elio's face, but finds only a formless darkness in its place. "What did you want me to do? I am a god damn were-beast shapeshifter thing that eats animals and turns into them and for the first time ever I could make them feel the way they want me to." The street rumbles as Ashley steps forward towards Elio, her gaze stern.
Lunar
The word echoes in her head as the moonlight seems to catch in the silver streak in her hair. "I'm... a Lunar, Elio. I can catch bullets, break concrete with my bare hands, and stop knives with my skin. I'm not about to be talked down to by a bunch of..." She stalls a moment, trying to find a word.
"Humans." Elio finishes her sentence.
"Yeah. Fuck it. Yeah. Humans. Piss-ants." She says quietly, trailing off at the end and breaking eye contact with where she assumes Elio's eyes are.
"God damn it Ashley." Elio mutters. "We weren't given these gifts to just bully people."
She squirms slightly, shifting from foot to foot. "We weren't given all this for any reason, Elio. It's not like I got an instruction manual."
He steps closer, "Neither did I, but we can assume that God or whatever the fuck doesn't want us just abusing these gifts."
"Abusing?" Ashley scoffs. "All you've done since you got power is do whatever you want. Fuck man, you broke the jaw of your ex-girlfriend's husband and beat the shit out of your dad like twice." She pauses for a moment. "Why are you so dead set on breaking the drug trade in Galena in the first place? You've never told me."
"That's a complicated question." He says simply.
"Bullshit. Why do you even like Galena? Was it just cuz you grew up here?" Ashley aggressively gets into Elio's space, or where she assumes his space is. "I haven't once heard you talk about any reason you like it here. So what, is it just convenient? That doesn't sound very heroic."
Elio doesn't back down, evenly meeting Ashely's gaze with his own. "You're deflecting me away from..."
"Only for a sec. I just want you to know before we dig into my bullshit that you aren't Mr. Clean over here." Ashley retorts.
"Come on, my family lives here, of course I don't want drugs here." Elio's gaze flutters a moment away from Ashley's, but comes back.
"Goddamn bullshit. You should hate your father, you've never mentioned your mother, and you dragged your brother into this..." She wildly gestures out into the night and up towards her forehead where a bright white-silver marking shines forth. "Whatever this is. You don't have kids, least near as you've told me. So it can't be family."
Elio takes a step back, "Okay, it's for revenge then."
She gives a look that is almost pity. "No it's not. You're the one that started this crusade when you stepped into that church. I watched you go in there, you know. You could've just skipped town, walked away. You weren't even being paid any more for the info." Ashley laughs, "You've been a wanted man by your precious Galena for the last month."
"I..." He looks down to the pavement. "I just wanted to do something good finally." With a heavy sigh he plops down onto the ground. "The first half of my life was spent being abused by my father, then being a mob thug. I did some shit that I will never live down or forget for as long as I live, then I was a PI in a city that didn't need one. Spun my wheels for a decade, got paid basically jack shit, and still had to live off my dad." His hands open up in front of him and he looks at them idly. "Then I got power. And a goal right in front of me. Get rid of the drugs, help the city. If I can just do this then maybe I can start making some amends finally."
"What a sad sack you are." Ashley shakes her head.
"I don't really care what you think of me, Ash." Elio says sourly. A moment of silence fills the expanse. "What about you?" He nods to Ashley. "I've said my piece. Your turn. Why were you fighting a bunch of drunk hicks in the middle of the night?"
She sneers down at him. "Because I can Elio."
Elio rolls his eyes and stretches his legs out, laying down with his hands on the back of his head. "Come on. Bullshit, like you said to me. You can hide behind this confidence all you want, but you won't fool me for a second that those guys didn't get to you."
There is a long stare down at Elio from Ashley. If he notices, he does not show it. "I did it because I'm stronger than them, and they disrespected me."
"Double bullshit. You got called a bitch by that girl back at Melissa's house. Called a monster to your face by Mike and you even wore that one like a badge of honor. This isn't about people respecting you."
She glowers down at him before sitting in the opposite lane from him. "I'm not looking for fucking therapy Elio."
"And I'm not giving you therapy. I'm just trying to actually understand you, Ash. We've worked together for a little while now and every now and again, something like this will happen and it shakes my trust in you a little." He sits up. "I've tried to make it as easy as possible for you to trust me, can't you just do the same for me?"
Grabbing a loose piece of concrete, Ashley throws it into the trunk of a lonely tree nearby, embedding it half into the tough bark with a loud crunch. "I hate it when you get all talky talky like this. It's always at night under the stars and moon. We still have vampires to kill back at the house. Probably."
He rises, walking closer and offering his hand. "Then let's walk, or jog, and talk. We're still a quarter of a mile or so away from there."
His hand hovers above her for a moment before Ashley sighs and takes it, a bit of warmth transferring from his to hers. They both start a light jog down the road, Ashley's ripped dress flapping slightly and Elio's footsteps utterly silent as he moves alongside her. "Elizabeth was a Toreador."
"You know I don't know what that is."
"She was a party girl. Just crazy about raging raves, intimate orgies, fight clubs, and trust fund loft parties. As one of her ghouls, I was at all those places. Expected to be prim and proper and of..." she grinds her teeth a moment, "service to her and her clan mates, along with anyone else she said okay to. The Toreador are all about holding on desperately to that last dredge of human experience, loving the strong emotions and novelties. Which explains the sex parties and the literal tons of drugs they'd have their dolls take before they drank them."
"I see..." Elio says awkwardly, and for a minute all that is heard is the gentle breeze and Ashley's jogging footsteps.
"So those assholes back there made me remember when I was just a party ghoul to be used and abused by actual living, unliving, monsters." Ashley continues suddenly, causing Elio's eyes to flicker back over to her. "I got scared." She mumbles. "And I realized that if something makes me scared, I can just kill it. I have that power now."
Elio sighs, "I mean... I get it."
"Do you?" Ashley sounds tired, but not from jogging as she looks to her right where Elio is. "Do you know just how free for the first time in my life I feel? I can do whatever I want. We can do whatever we want. And I don't think there's anything left that could stop us."
"Aren't you a little scared by that? All this power and no one to answer to?"
"I'm not scared. I'm excited. We have all we need to make those blood suckers pay. And when that's done," She picks up her pace a little bit, the violent glimmer coming into her eye as she can almost see her prey ahead of her. "Well, I'll think about that later."
The house looms in the distance, caught between the sides of two small sections of woods. No lights are on and the red spot hangs directly above it. "There will be more time to talk later, I guess." Elio concludes as he rushes forward and fades into the dark of the woods.
Looking to the sides, the only easy way to avoid them would be to duck into the fields off to the sides. "Come on." Elio says, nudging Ashley who is still dragging the massive leg behind her. "Ducking off into the fields for a sec should keep them from seeing us."
"No." She says simply, continuing to walk forward. "It'll be faster to just go through them. They're so drunk that they probably won't see us." An even gaze at the wobbling and staggering forms of the men seems to confirm this to her.
Elio nods. "Okay." He keeps walking forward as he seems to become one with the night and shadows, leaving Ashley feeling alone on the walk forward.
She tries to hide the severed leg behind her to the best of her ability and spares a glance at her clothes. Tattered from the crows, bloody at the shoulder from the bear, and her hair's a mess from the exertion of combat. It looks like she walked through a blender, but it's what she has to work with. Walking forward she tries her best to avoid making eye contact with the men as she enters into their small circle of light from one of the few street lights in the area outside the hall.
"Hey!" One of the men nudges his friend next to him and points to Ashley with the hand still holding a bottle. "Ya losht, sweetie?" He yowls drunkenly at Ashley once she enters into shouting range. Ashley can feel her eye twitch involuntarily.
The man that got nudged manages to tear himself away from the two trucks in ditches to glance over towards Ashley, and he lets out a long whistle. "Woah," he glances excitedly over one of the others, who has also started to notice Ashley, "I'll bet ya I know how to get rid o' that sour expression, little miss" He manages to slur out.
She stops under the center of the street light. Her eyes are narrowed but she still hasn't looked to her right to where the men are. "What are you waiting for? We have to keep going." Elio, little more than a mote of dust in the street light, says in her ear. "Keep walking."
"Why don'tcha come over here and show daddy a good time?" The youngest seeming of the men winks. He's got a full beard and a nicely pressed button up flannel.
The leg grinds and scratches on the ground wetly as Ashley turns to the right. "Do you and your buddies make a habit of hitting on everyone that walks this way? Even people in ragged dresses dragging a fucking bear leg around?" She pulls up her arm to prominently display the furry trophy in her hand.
"Ashley..." Elio starts.
"Shut up." Ashley hisses to her left. "This'll only take a second."
Elio clicks his tongue. "Every second counts here Ash."
The younger man, somewhere in his twenties walks up to Ashley. Close enough to smell the whiskey on his breath and to clearly see him looking her up and down. "Woah, that is a leg." he nods, "But can't say that's the leg I'm interested in." There is a pointed gaze downwards at a prominent rip in the dress leading up to Ashley's upper thigh. The men behind him hoot and holler in support of him as he drags his eyes back up to meet Ashley's.
From the dark, Elio isn't sure what the guy expected. Okay. That's a lie. This guy expected Ashley to be scared. On the back foot. Embarrassed. The man wobbles forward, trying to put a hand on her arm.
She starts to laugh before he can reach her. He stops a foot away from her, his hand close enough for Ashley to feel its warmth on her arm. It starts as a low giggle. Cute, even. The guy even smirks as he thinks his lines worked on her. A rousing round of jeers and encouragement comes from the older men behind him as they see their comrade seemingly succeed. The laugh accelerates from a giggle to a big, loud, belly laugh. It echoes down the street in both directions as the men working on getting the trucks free finally get distracted by it. The man in front of her starts to look slightly uneasy. "Hey, what's so funny babe?" He asks.
Howling. From belly laugh to howling, wretched, and bestial laughter. Loud enough to cover the sound of the wind passing through the crops and to hide the speech being given inside over loudspeaker. The people close enough to the entrance from the inside are starting to notice. Tears fill the bottoms of Ashley's eyes as she manages to stand back up to her full height and look at the guy in front of her. He's stopped and taken a step back, but there is no fear in his eyes. Ashley knows the look of indignation and offense better than most, and he's wearing the narrowed eyes and reddening of the cheeks just fine.
As she recovers from her laughing fit, the silence of night comes back. Just in time to be shattered by the guy. "I asked you a question. What's so funny." He folds his arms, the bottle of beer now tucked into an elbow.
"You." Ashley wipes the tears from her eyes. "Oh my god, you. Was that not clear?"
He seems to relax a little. "Oh. I knew you'd see my good qualities." The guys behind him grumble a little, still a little ill at ease. "But let me tell you, I got a lot more than just good lines. Wanna see?" He steps a little closer, hooking a finger in his belt.
"No, not on your fucking life." Ashley shakes her head with a good natured smile, moving the leg behind her back again, and tilting her head back to look up at the guy.
He knits his brows together in concentration. "What did you say to me?"
The bear leg whips around her body so fast that he can't even see what hits him. He tastes fur and claw as Ashley slams the foot of the large animal into his face. He's knocked on his ass with a resounding thud as the bear limb catches him in the side of the head. The beer bottle in his hand smashes as it hits the ground, flinging amber fluid all around it as well as decorating the pavement with glittering glass. "Holy shit!" The guy scrambles back, immediately sobering up from the pain. He clutches at his jaw as some tears start to flow.
"What's the matter?" Ashley says as the rest of men quickly stand from their positions. She turns to the side, exposing more of her upper thigh through the rip in the dress to the guys. "I thought you wanted some leg?" She narrows her eyes as she seems to look at each one of them at a time. "Or were you guys all talk? Can't get a girl all worked up like that and expect nothing to happen right?"
A round of cracking knuckles and stretching necks occurs as the guys stand up. "Bitch. Can't you just take a compliment?" Ashley counts a half dozen men getting loosened up and ready to put her in the ground. Two of them break their bottles on the ground and hold them menacingly. The guy that was on his ass shuffles away and sprints back to the hall. Elio can vaguely hear him asking for someone named John.
"You don't have long." Elio whispers in her ear. "They're calling in more drunks."
"Let 'em come." Ashley tosses the leg behind her, which lands with a wet slap, and folds her arms in front of her. "If these goddamn hicks think they are a match for me, they're sorely mistaken."
"This is exactly the sort of time waste that I wanted to avoid, Ashley." Elio says emphatically. The first of the men starts to approach, fists up and sleeves rolled up. "We should just get away from here."
Ashley jerks her head up without taking her eyes off the slightly taller man. "I'll give you the first one for free." He scrunches his face up in concentration and steps forward towards her, throwing his punch at the same time. As the punch lands in her gut she doesn't flinch. Doesn't even move. The man opens his eyes to look up at her to find a disappointed look in her eyes. "I really thought you farmers would have a bit more..." She lashes out in a backhand slap at his face and man flies back several feet from the force of the slap, tumbling head over heels with a series of grunts and pained cries, hitting a fence pole and coming to a stop. "I dunno... power?" She resumes a neutral posture. Her gaze becomes expectant as she again looks at all those present. "Come on then, who's next?"
"Ashley." Elio continues to press. "Vampires, remember them?" He hisses. "We need to go get back before they get there."
She turns suddenly to the seemingly empty side of the road behind her, back towards the edge of the light provided by the street lamp. "Shut the hell up Elio! I know what I'm doing!" Ashley shouts to the void back there. From the hall, three men step out from inside.
One of them looks pretty fit. A serious, square face and jaw. He's already rolling up his worn work flannel as he steps out. The second is quite large, clearly enjoys eating when he gets the chance and he's got a baseball cap on for the local baseball league. The third is still wearing overalls and a pair of rubber boots. "Great. Now we've got these clowns to deal with." Elio mutters.
Behind them, a man leans on the threshold as he looks out. Elio narrows his eyes as he looks him over. Clearly he's cut from a different cloth than the rest of the people here. Maybe literally. He's wearing robes. Slipping from the light, Elio flows over to the entrance for a closer look.
Before the other men can close in on Ashley, they glance back at the approaching trio and step aside. One of the group walks up to the younger men. He points over to Ashley, "John!" He puts a hand on square head's shoulder, "She's right there, she's laid out Paul and now she's gone and sent Benjamin to sleep too!"
The first man, John, simply nods and keeps walking forward until he's under the street light with Ashley. "What's this all about?" He says, putting his thumbs into his pockets while maintaining a glare and slight frown. The other two remain out of the light for now, watching carefully.
"These fuckers catcalled me." Ashley says simply. "So I showed them what happens when you don't think."
He spares a quick glance behind him towards the first guy who got slammed, now with a spreading black eye. "Well, these guys are friends of mine. I don't like hitting girls, but I guess we all know where this is going." He pulls his hands out of his pockets and puts up his hands. Ashley mirrors his actions.
"Yeah. I guess we do. I hope you're not as much of a disappointment as those two." The buzzing of the street light is the only sound that fills the night for that moment as the gaggle of men surround the spotlight on the concrete.
Back towards the hall, Elio carefully looks over the father at the threshold. This wasn't the same priest he saw earlier with Nigel. This one is a young, strapping man with thick black hair and immaculately clean white robes. The trappings are all there, the vestments, the cross around the neck, the careful gaze. But something is odd about him. His skin is too pale for living out here in the fields, his smile reveals a tooth too long to be natural, and the small bear pin on his lapel all give a very certain idea of who this may be. Maybe this would be a useful stop after all. Elio draws his knife and looms behind the man for a moment. Back in the hall behind them, a night service is being held with many members of the community is going on while a man contemplates murder hidden behind the curtains at the window.
There isn't much to contemplate.
This knife flashes in the colored lights as it beheads the suspected vampire in a single cut. If anyone had been able to see the master stroke, they would have been awestruck by the sheer grace and brutal power behind it. Perhaps they would have applauded. But by the time the vampire realizes that he's been cut, Elio has already begun his walk back towards Ashley.
Strange. The priest thinks to himself, his gaze falling on Elio's back. I don't recognize that man. Are his final thoughts as his head hits the ground with a dull thud, his body tumbling to the floor just after. A scream erupts as the party notices the faithful notice death in their midst.
Back in the street out front, Ashley and John size each other up for a moment before they both step forward into the center for their fight.
Lunging forward suddenly, Ashley immediately tries to plant a knee into the crotch of the flannel wearing combatant in front of her. The scream from the church momentarily distracts him, more than enough for Ashley's knee to slam into his nuts. He immediately falls to a knee and feels most of the sensation fade for a moment from his lower half then come roaring back with a vengeance. "Hey!" One of his buddies, the bigger one, says. "That wasn't playing fair at all now!" Breathing quickly, John stands and goes for an uppercut at Ashley's chin with the motion.
His fist doesn't even make it to Ashley before she plants a foot onto his chest, pushing him down and against the concrete. Her foot grinds and presses up against his sternum, enough that the pain in his junk starts to fade as a more life threatening sort of pain starts to erupt in the center of his chest. He starts to gasp for breath as Ashley continues to press harder and harder. "Get off him!" His buddy roars, rushing into the light as he starts to hear his heart beat in his ears.
The large man wraps his hands around Ashley's torso, pulling her weight off of John who coughs and sputters, getting up to his feet unsteadily. He pulls his arms together as tight as he can, trying to crush Ashley in the process but finds little success crushing the taut muscles and iron-like bones he's found in his grasp. Cracking his neck, John goes in for a gut punch on Ashley, while she's restrained.
"Hold her tight, Buddy!" As the punch thunders forward like a piston into her stomach, John pales as he feels recoil in his hand as though he just punched a steel slab. Ashley doesn't even look phased. Disappointed really. "Was that it?" She asks.
"No..." He reels back into a left hook at her face.
Stumbling forward, he misses with his fist barely grazing Ashley's face. "Come on now, don't lose speed quite yet. We aren't done." She smirks as she turns her attention back to Buddy. "You think you can hold me?" Muscles begin to tense as she tests the man's strength, reaching around and grabbing his thumbs with her hands and pulling back on them. Buddy grunts as he starts to feel his thumbs ache from the pressure being put on them. He starts to pull harder, feeling Ashley's ribs start to compress as he presses. But her body is unyielding, giving no ground as he struggles to hurt Ashley. "Come on big guy, just let go of me so I can finish beating the hell out of your friend." Her tone becomes annoyed, like one talking to annoying children as she swells with power, a familiar silver glow starts to envelop the scene, overwhelming the street light close to Ashley. She starts to rip at the hands keeping her at bay.
The thumbs pop as they are dislocated, Buddy takes a minute to scream, but does not release his grip yet. Tears start to form in the corner of his eyes. The last of the trio, Bryce, if the name sewn into his coveralls is to be believed, starts to step forward as well. "Holy hell! Someone get a rifle!" John steps back as he sees the glow, but seeing his friend hurting and still in danger, rushes forward shoulder first.
"Let go! Get away from her!" He tries to tackle Ashley back and away from her entanglement.
Ashley releases one of her hands from Buddy's right thumb and catches John's shoulder as he charges and with a firm push throws his far off course.
From the darkness beyond the streetlight illuminating this scene Elio emerges with an annoyed look on his face. He looks over the group of gathered men staring with trepidation at the glowing woman disassembling them. Several of them have phones to record the brawl and got far more than they bargained for. "Have you had enough yet?" Elio asks towards Ashley.
"No. Not really." She growls while continuing to struggle with Buddy.
"Come on, the people that were catcalling you are either sitting with broken bones, bruised egos, or just freaked the fuck out." He points to John and Buddy, "These aren't even the guys that were doing it. Just idiots trying to help their idiot friends."
Buddy takes this moment to try and escape from Ashley, finding no resistance as Ashley's rage has pivoted to Elio. He holds his hands close to his chest and runs back towards the hall. John stands unsteadily with his fists still up in a boxing stance as he recovers from his deflection. From further in the lot, Bryce is urgently gesturing to one of the other men as he digs through the cabin of his red truck in the parking lot in front of the hall. "You know how long I've waited to do something like this?" Ashley gestures out to the group, her silvery aura casting odd shadows beyond the street light and into the surrounding fields. "Literally years. I've always assumed that people who made me feel like this would eventually get what's coming to them. But I realize that I'm what's coming to them now."
Looking warily at the man who's managed to find his rifle in the truck, Elio steps forward and the people give him space as he slides through the light. "We can talk about this later. We're being recorded." He points to the phones in the crowd. "Let's go."
She growls and looks at the people holding phones. "They want something to record?"
"Don't..." Elio starts stepping forward, knowing where this is going.
"Fine." Ashley starts to grow, her tattoos stretching as she does, returning to her war-form. A massive twelve foot rabbit monstrosity screams into the night. Those who weren't scared yet feel the blood drain from their faces and those who were already nervous scream and flee into the night. One of them drops their phone mid recording as he runs, terrified, into the fields. The other two manage to get a second of probably blurry footage before their courage leaves them and they run to their cars, to the church, wherever to get away from Ashley. Even John, Buddy, and Bryce sprint as quickly away as they can. Eventually only the were-beast and Elio are left in the quiet night.
They stare at each other for a moment, a challenge in both of their eyes. "That was so fucking stupid, Ash." Elio says. She only mutters and grunts in response as she starts to stomp down the road back towards the house.
Some way down the road as her glow fades from view and night once again reestablishes itself as dominant aside from the full moon, Ashley returns to her human form. Elio has been hanging back a ways, watching Ashley as she pointedly never looked back at him. He brushes off his shirt of a bit of wayward dried vampire blood that ended up on the sleeve as he speaks up. "You good, Ash?"
She stops, hair floating forward towards her face from the sudden halt. "I'm doing great, Elio." Ashley turns back to Elio as he continues to slowly approach, a genuine smile on her face.
"That's good, I guess." Ashley's smile falters as she looks at Elio. "But any element of surprise that we had is now completely out the window." He shakes his head as he gets within a dozen feet of Ashley.
"Who cares about that? They already found out about us, why not disperse their cult before they have a chance to use them against us?" She shrugs.
Elio glares at her, star light glinting in his eyes. "We both know that you didn't pick a fight with those drunks over that."
"What does that matter? Still sent those cultists running. Now they won't come chasing after us when we get back to the house and deal with those vampires."
"Those were basically normal people." Elio says, folding his arms. "Caught up in a cult, sure. But did you really need to... I dunno," tilts his head up to the heavens, "do all that to them?"
She stills and tries to pierce the darkness with her eyes to find Elio's face, but finds only a formless darkness in its place. "What did you want me to do? I am a god damn were-beast shapeshifter thing that eats animals and turns into them and for the first time ever I could make them feel the way they want me to." The street rumbles as Ashley steps forward towards Elio, her gaze stern.
Lunar
The word echoes in her head as the moonlight seems to catch in the silver streak in her hair. "I'm... a Lunar, Elio. I can catch bullets, break concrete with my bare hands, and stop knives with my skin. I'm not about to be talked down to by a bunch of..." She stalls a moment, trying to find a word.
"Humans." Elio finishes her sentence.
"Yeah. Fuck it. Yeah. Humans. Piss-ants." She says quietly, trailing off at the end and breaking eye contact with where she assumes Elio's eyes are.
"God damn it Ashley." Elio mutters. "We weren't given these gifts to just bully people."
She squirms slightly, shifting from foot to foot. "We weren't given all this for any reason, Elio. It's not like I got an instruction manual."
He steps closer, "Neither did I, but we can assume that God or whatever the fuck doesn't want us just abusing these gifts."
"Abusing?" Ashley scoffs. "All you've done since you got power is do whatever you want. Fuck man, you broke the jaw of your ex-girlfriend's husband and beat the shit out of your dad like twice." She pauses for a moment. "Why are you so dead set on breaking the drug trade in Galena in the first place? You've never told me."
"That's a complicated question." He says simply.
"Bullshit. Why do you even like Galena? Was it just cuz you grew up here?" Ashley aggressively gets into Elio's space, or where she assumes his space is. "I haven't once heard you talk about any reason you like it here. So what, is it just convenient? That doesn't sound very heroic."
Elio doesn't back down, evenly meeting Ashely's gaze with his own. "You're deflecting me away from..."
"Only for a sec. I just want you to know before we dig into my bullshit that you aren't Mr. Clean over here." Ashley retorts.
"Come on, my family lives here, of course I don't want drugs here." Elio's gaze flutters a moment away from Ashley's, but comes back.
"Goddamn bullshit. You should hate your father, you've never mentioned your mother, and you dragged your brother into this..." She wildly gestures out into the night and up towards her forehead where a bright white-silver marking shines forth. "Whatever this is. You don't have kids, least near as you've told me. So it can't be family."
Elio takes a step back, "Okay, it's for revenge then."
She gives a look that is almost pity. "No it's not. You're the one that started this crusade when you stepped into that church. I watched you go in there, you know. You could've just skipped town, walked away. You weren't even being paid any more for the info." Ashley laughs, "You've been a wanted man by your precious Galena for the last month."
"I..." He looks down to the pavement. "I just wanted to do something good finally." With a heavy sigh he plops down onto the ground. "The first half of my life was spent being abused by my father, then being a mob thug. I did some shit that I will never live down or forget for as long as I live, then I was a PI in a city that didn't need one. Spun my wheels for a decade, got paid basically jack shit, and still had to live off my dad." His hands open up in front of him and he looks at them idly. "Then I got power. And a goal right in front of me. Get rid of the drugs, help the city. If I can just do this then maybe I can start making some amends finally."
"What a sad sack you are." Ashley shakes her head.
"I don't really care what you think of me, Ash." Elio says sourly. A moment of silence fills the expanse. "What about you?" He nods to Ashley. "I've said my piece. Your turn. Why were you fighting a bunch of drunk hicks in the middle of the night?"
She sneers down at him. "Because I can Elio."
Elio rolls his eyes and stretches his legs out, laying down with his hands on the back of his head. "Come on. Bullshit, like you said to me. You can hide behind this confidence all you want, but you won't fool me for a second that those guys didn't get to you."
There is a long stare down at Elio from Ashley. If he notices, he does not show it. "I did it because I'm stronger than them, and they disrespected me."
"Double bullshit. You got called a bitch by that girl back at Melissa's house. Called a monster to your face by Mike and you even wore that one like a badge of honor. This isn't about people respecting you."
She glowers down at him before sitting in the opposite lane from him. "I'm not looking for fucking therapy Elio."
"And I'm not giving you therapy. I'm just trying to actually understand you, Ash. We've worked together for a little while now and every now and again, something like this will happen and it shakes my trust in you a little." He sits up. "I've tried to make it as easy as possible for you to trust me, can't you just do the same for me?"
Grabbing a loose piece of concrete, Ashley throws it into the trunk of a lonely tree nearby, embedding it half into the tough bark with a loud crunch. "I hate it when you get all talky talky like this. It's always at night under the stars and moon. We still have vampires to kill back at the house. Probably."
He rises, walking closer and offering his hand. "Then let's walk, or jog, and talk. We're still a quarter of a mile or so away from there."
His hand hovers above her for a moment before Ashley sighs and takes it, a bit of warmth transferring from his to hers. They both start a light jog down the road, Ashley's ripped dress flapping slightly and Elio's footsteps utterly silent as he moves alongside her. "Elizabeth was a Toreador."
"You know I don't know what that is."
"She was a party girl. Just crazy about raging raves, intimate orgies, fight clubs, and trust fund loft parties. As one of her ghouls, I was at all those places. Expected to be prim and proper and of..." she grinds her teeth a moment, "service to her and her clan mates, along with anyone else she said okay to. The Toreador are all about holding on desperately to that last dredge of human experience, loving the strong emotions and novelties. Which explains the sex parties and the literal tons of drugs they'd have their dolls take before they drank them."
"I see..." Elio says awkwardly, and for a minute all that is heard is the gentle breeze and Ashley's jogging footsteps.
"So those assholes back there made me remember when I was just a party ghoul to be used and abused by actual living, unliving, monsters." Ashley continues suddenly, causing Elio's eyes to flicker back over to her. "I got scared." She mumbles. "And I realized that if something makes me scared, I can just kill it. I have that power now."
Elio sighs, "I mean... I get it."
"Do you?" Ashley sounds tired, but not from jogging as she looks to her right where Elio is. "Do you know just how free for the first time in my life I feel? I can do whatever I want. We can do whatever we want. And I don't think there's anything left that could stop us."
"Aren't you a little scared by that? All this power and no one to answer to?"
"I'm not scared. I'm excited. We have all we need to make those blood suckers pay. And when that's done," She picks up her pace a little bit, the violent glimmer coming into her eye as she can almost see her prey ahead of her. "Well, I'll think about that later."
The house looms in the distance, caught between the sides of two small sections of woods. No lights are on and the red spot hangs directly above it. "There will be more time to talk later, I guess." Elio concludes as he rushes forward and fades into the dark of the woods.
Exalts may be many things. The most stable person in the room is rarely on that list.
Scene 23 - A Grim Lesson
A few days prior.
"Try again." Grim says, leaning against one of the wheels of his truck while looking down at his phone. Just enough sunlight falls onto him to keep him warm, but not add glare to his phone. A little ways away, Briana is staring into the creek running through the campsite. Groaning she rubs her head.
"What exactly am I supposed to be seeing here? It's just water." Her voice is tired and hair a little bit frizzy while still wearing the same clothes from a day ago.
Licking his teeth, Grim puts his phone down. "We're trying to find out if someone is investigating in the area besides those two." He thumbs across the way where Elio can be seen sitting at their picnic table trying (and failing) to get his Kevlar armor sized right.
She walks away from the creek and over to Grim, eyes narrowed. "And how am I supposed to find that out? It's not like these investigators are just..." She gesticulates wildly. "Floating down the river."
Putting a hand on the ground and grunting, Grim stands up and dusts himself off. "Stranger things have happened. And okay, if looking in the river isn't gonna cut it, what feels right to do?" He places a hand on Briana's shoulder and holds the other out to the world. "The answers are out there, how d'ya wanna find 'em?"
"What I want to do is check my phone." She says sourly. "But since we're miles from anywhere, I haven't had a chance to charge it. And it's dead."
Grim gestures to the truck. "Then lets go get your phone charged. Oughta be a store or some such that'll let us borrow a socket."
"Really?" Briana seems hesitant, but edges towards the truck. "It's not gonna interfere with 'training'?"
Shaking his head, Grim opens the driver's door and hops in. "From my brief journeys, I've found that the right thing for us to do is whatever we feel is right. So this is part of it."
Sliding into the passenger seat, Briana buckles her seat belt. "And if I told you that it didn't feel right to get trained?"
Chuckling, Grim starts the car. "Well I'd call you a liar. You can play brave all you want, but I know your out of your depth. Not that I ain't outta my depth, mind you, but you're more than me." Together, they ride off towards civilization. As they pass through Prosper, Briana feels a tug.
Not a physical tug, mind you. Just a feeling. "Hey, wait a sec." She waves towards Grim as they pass by a general store. "Can we stop there?"
With a shrug, Grim pulls a sharp turn into the side lot of the store. "They might let you hang out here for a bit, I guess. I was gonna look for a church or a library or something." Ashley hops out as the engine is killed. Taking in the store, she notices a bulletin board with several missing person fliers on it.
"Grim? Don't you think an investigator would be behind one of these?" She asks back towards Grim as he moseys over to her.
"Well probably." He puts a finger on one of the papers as he reads it. "Some of these are pretty old though. Doubt any investigator has hung around for too long when getting no results."
Glancing through them again, Briana grabs one of the older papers. "I'm gonna ask about this one inside the store."
"Be my guest." Grim says with a shrug, settling down onto one of the benches near the entrance. "I'll be keeping an eye out here. Lemme know when you're good to go."
Pushing open the door to the store, Briana enters in. Smelling of some mixture of wood chips and cigarette smoke, it's empty at the moment aside from the store clerk. He gives a look to Briana, blinking when he doesn't recognize her. "Hi. You needing something?" The man says.
"Couple things actually." She puts the flier on the counter. "Do you know if anyone is looking into this?" She starts with.
The man chuckles and looks at the flier. "Fancy yourself a detective? No. I don't know anything about Chuck here. 'sides it being sad." He pulls the flier towards his side of the counter. "Old Terrance left town a while ago, guess no one's looking for Chuck anymore. Now. You ain't one of the local girls. What're you doin' out here?"
"Looking for a place to charge my phone." She switches tracks quickly, pulling out her phone. "Mind if I hang out here for a bit?"
"Are you thinking about buying something?" The man asks with an eye roll. "My outlets are gonna be for paying customers." Briana looks around the store and feels the emptiness of her pockets.
Before she can answer, the door behind her opens and a twenty-something year old woman with curly brown hair and a bounce in her step comes into the store. She smiles at the clerk, "Morning Harry."
He waves, turning his gaze from Briana. "Heya Ann. What d'ya need?"
"The usual. Pa's run out of coffee grounds again." She spares a glance at Briana. "I don't think I've seen you around." She holds out a hand, "I'm Mary-Ann. But you just call me Ann."
Briana blinks and shakes Ann's hand. "Hi, I'm Briana. Sorry, but could I ask you a favor?" She thumbs towards Harry who has folded his arms. "I need to charge my phone and this guy won't let me unless I buy something. Can you help me? I left my wallet back in my tent."
Ann turns to Harry, an incredulous look on her face. "Harry! This young girl needs to charge her phone and you're charging for it?"
"I'm not just running a charity here, Ann." He grumbles. "But fine." Pointing to a bench near one of the windows, "Just set up over there and don't make too much noise."
With a smirk towards Harry and a smile towards Ann, Briana snags the missing person poster off the counter before Harry can stop her and she quickly slides onto the bench, finding a charger already plugged in the wall and waiting for her. "I'm guessing you don't mind if I use your charger too, right?" She asks, plugging in her phone.
"Just don't break it." Harry mutters. After Ann has found the coffee and paid, she sits down across from Briana.
"Forgive me if I'm being nosy." She starts. Briana looks up from her still charging phone, waiting for it to power on. "But I was just wonder if you were, you know, doing alright?"
At first, Briana almost laughs, then remembers she's still wearing her pajamas from when she was pulled out of bed and then on this new wild 'adventure' and she hadn't had a proper shower in a few days. Maybe she should just call the cops on Grim. That'd get him out of her hair. "Oh, yeah. I'm doing great. Just doing some camping nearby and needed to get away from my parents for a while."
"Gotcha." Ann leans back, seemingly satisfied. Looking at the table she notices the poster. "Did you know him?" She points down at the poster.
"Did?" Briana quirks an eyebrow. "You think he's dead, I guess."
Ann squirms in her seat. "Well, yeah. He's been missing like a year now. Even his dad moved away."
"Right. So, did anyone ever try and look for this kid? An investigator or something?" Briana pushes, leaning over the table and closer to Ann.
Ann stands suddenly. "It was nice meeting you, but I gotta be on my way. If you do need help, feel free to swing by our place. Can't miss it, it's got a bit oak tree out front and its just down the road."
"Wait!" Briana says, raising her voice. "I'm sorry, did I offend you or something? Where are you going?"
Now near the front door, Ann pauses. "No no, I just have to go. Gotta get this coffee home. Pop's a' waiting" She holds up the bag of beans and quickly exits. Briana who had stood slightly, sits back down with a frown. Investigating is hard.
Her phone pings back to life with a small chirp. Just in time. Looking down at it, she notices that there are no messages or voice mails waiting for her. At least her internet is still working for now. She frowns at the phone. Well. It was charged. Now what? As she looks at the phone, a small… thing starts crawling across the screen, appearing from the bottom. Squinting, it looks like a green spider displayed on the screen. A text box appears on the screen reading, 'Search destiny for what you require.' The box has an area to put in her own query.
Blinking, Briana looks up to see if someone is watching her, but finds herself on her own. Looking back down, the small spider patiently waits at the bottom of her screen, gazing up at her through the device. 'What am I?' she puts in.
Five seconds pass, then a kind yet firm whispers in her ear. "That information is lost to the ages. Best fit answer. Human." She yelps in surprise as the voice speaks seemingly so close to her, whipping around to find no one there. The box remains on the display of the phone.
"Okay…" She mutters and turns back to the phone, typing in, 'Who is investigating the disappearances in Prosper?" Fighting hard, she barely suppresses the need to yawn.
Five seconds pass. The same voice returns, mysterious yet alluring. Feminine? Perhaps. "Nigel, a private investigator working with Talon Investigations." Suddenly, Briana feels out of breath, having to hold her head in her hands for a moment. Whatever she was doing was taking her breath away, like she'd just run a few miles in the hot sun without water. But it did feel good, somewhat. Like stretching out a cramping muscle.
Standing up after composing herself, she leaves her phone on the table and moves to the front door. "I'm just getting some air. Don't think about touching my phone." She glares at Harry, who just shakes his head and returns to messing with his register. Outside, she glances around. Grim should be right here…
"I'm right here." Grim says from the bench. Briana had glanced right past him. "You get anything? I'm right parched if you would get me a lemonade." He holds out a five dollar bill to her.
"Uh, sure." She snags the bill. "Also, I think I'm, like, a psychic or something."
"How do you figure?"
Folding the bill, she puts it in her pocket. "A spider showed up on my phone and when I asked it questions, it gave me the answers."
"Like what kind of answers?" Grim checks his watch. "The sooner the better, cuz one of your investigators is going to be showing up here soon and I want to be able to give him something of use."
She holds out the poster. "This kid." Points at the name, "Chuck. Been missing a year or so and his dad Terrance moved away. Apparently someone named" She thinks for a moment. "Nigel or something from Talon investigations was looking into it. Was that the sort of stuff you wanted?"
Nodding along, Grim pulls out a blank business card. "Did you get a phone number for this guy?"
"I didn't ask for that." She wipes a bead of sweat from her forehead. "And it wasn't exactly easy. I feel like I'm about to pass out from just asking questions."
"Well come on then, you got one more in you?" Grim pushes, smiling mostly to himself. "See? We're training."
Gritting her teeth, Briana heads back inside. "Lemonade?" She barks to Harry.
"Kids these days have no manners at all." He points to the back. "Cooler in the back. Just look for Little Lady Lemonade."
She snatches her phone and the cold bottle, pays and heads out to Grim, requesting Nigel's phone number from the spider as she does so. Five seconds later, it's whispered in her ear as her vision begins to swim. Stumbling a bit, she flops onto the bench next to Grim, handing him the lemonade. "Here's that number." She mutters as she rests her eyes. Working quickly, he begins to make an impressive fabrication of a business card with only a ballpoint pen, a highlighter, and a sharpie.
"That'll do kid." He smiles as he admires his handiwork. "Now you sit right here and don't attract attention." Patting her on the head, he stands and moves towards the board where he removes most of the missing person notices, putting them in a neat stack under a garbage can. "I'm gonna drop this off to your friend who'll be here in fifteen."
"Yeah, whatever." She says, eyes still closed. "There is no way he doesn't recognize you from the campsite if you talk to him here."
"Watch and learn then." Grim says with some smug satisfaction. He ruffles his coat, dishevels his hair, and slumps his shoulders a bit. When Briana opens her eyes, she can't find Grim. Instead there is a sad looking father holding a missing person sign, obviously which must be his child. Rubbing her face, she looks again, harder this time. Yes, that is Grim. But also he's definitely a father with a missing child. How does she know he's a father?
Sitting forward on the bench, she sniffs. "Okay, what the fuck? My brain is really doing its best to tell me you're a sad dad."
He slowly moves towards her, each plodding step accentuating the deep grief held within his mind. "I'm just borrowing a stereotype. Stepping into a role, if you will. I borrow the fate of a 'sad dad' as you called it, and boom. Here I am." With a smirk, he shows the photo of the kid. "Even though this kid is white, you still think I'm his dad. You probably just assume I adopted him or something like that." He moves back to the board. "So I'm just gonna wait here, when the time is right, I'll let your investigator notice me and then we'll drop off this card. Get the teams working together, hopefully."
"Can I do that? The stealing fate thing?" Briana asks.
"Probably. Just give it some practice later. You said this kid's dad's name was Terrance, right?" Down the road, Elio can be seen driving up in the black SUV. "For now though, just stand around the corner and watch me work."
After the business card has been placed into Elio's hands, Grim quickly trots over to Briana who has, true to Grim's word, remained unnoticed by Elio even if she really should have been noticed. Grabbing her by the arm, he quickly pulls her up and around the corner. As Elio tries to call and reaches the voicemail box of Nigel. "Couldn't get to him right now, mind if I..." Elio looks up to find Grim gone, having vanished from the front of the store. Pocketing his phone, he gives one more glance around before walking towards his car. "Spooky." He mutters, opening the door to the car and starting the engine.
Briana shimmies out of Grim's grip. "Alright, so what? Now he's going to talk to this Nigel guy? What good is that going to do?"
Shrugging, Grim puts his hands in his pockets and moves towards his truck. "I dunno. Just felt like it needed to be done, right?"
"I guess so." Briana mimics Grim's shrug. She can't help but try to conceal a small smile though. Climbing into the truck she sighs and leans against the window as the engine comes to life.
"Something on your mind?" Grim asks, putting the truck into gear and looking out the back window.
"I just…" Briana starts. "I'm just not getting it, I guess. Clearly something is up with Elio and Ashley, and us I guess, but what is it? What are we now, like, superheroes or something? You know, like Spiderman?"
"Kid, I dunno." Pulling out onto the road, Grim surveys the area while driving slowly on the empty road. "Let's not get too ahead of ourselves by calling ourselves superheroes."
"But you mentioned fighting things. Something about someone my size 'not being able to hurt them'. Last I checked, that sounds exactly like the thing superheroes would fight." Briana continues.
Turning his head to the right, Grim gives an even stare at Briana. "You do your job right and you won't ever have to. And trust me, you really don't want to. We may be a bit faster and stronger than the average man and a long stretch luckier to boot, but we are far from immortal." He turns back towards the road. "Leave the fighting part to ones that shine like the Sun and Moon. It's better that way."
The church comes into view as the truck slowly rolls forward. Briana rolls her eyes and folds her arms, squeaking against the seat as she shifts. "Come on, I shot that rubber band at like, mach five. I think I can handle a little bit of weirdo fighting."
"What would you know about fighting, Briana?" Grim asks, stopping the car outside the church.
Briana is silent for a moment. "I mean, enough?"
"Yeah, thought so." Grim grunts, frowning over towards Briana. "I'm saying this for your benefit. Don't go picking fights with stuff. People, vampires, whatever. You are not a superhero."
"Don't tell me what to do, Grim." Briana leans over towards him. "I can take care of myself. Wait, vampires?"
Gritting his teeth, Grim leans closer. "This is why I don't like kids. Always gotta be right. If you can take care of yourself, what was gonna be your plan when your parents forgot you were in the car with them? No food, no money, all alone in the world. Not a lick of sense. I'm doing you a favor, kid."
"A favor? You consider this a favor?" Seething, eyes narrowed, Briana turns towards the window with the church in view. "I can do this…" Flickering across the parking lot, shapes shimmer just at the edges of her sight. "On my own." She opens the door and steps out.
"Where are you going!?" Grim shouts from the cabin.
"Following my gut." Briana replies. Stepping out from the truck, she makes her way to the large parking area. Something is going to happen here, but what? Grim follows, parking into the lot behind her.
The driver's side window rolls down. "A'ight. What are you seeing?" He says, leaning out.
"I'm not sure." Briana says. "It feels like, I dunno, a fight is supposed to happen here. Does that make sense?"
Grim pinches the bridge of his nose and exhales loudly. "Tell you what. Figure this thing out and I'll find you good enough to turn loose. Not like I don't have places I need to be, after all."
Pacing the perimeter of the lot, Briana breathes. The wind across her face, the shadow the church casts, a beer bottle in the ditch beside her. It had been a whisper the last few days, but it was beginning to speak up. Fate. "So… there is a fight that needs to happen here. But I don't think it's gonna happen if we don't do something." Evil awaits at the threshold, curious, waiting. The crack in the paint over the door of the church whispers to her. "Something bad will be here, but it'll be far away." Delay the moon, expose the evil. The bottles in the gutter whisper as the wind whistles across their open tops. "Something about the moon." Briana mutters. "How can you delay the moon?"
"Likely fate's talking about one of your friends. Least that'd be my guess." Grim says. "Do you hear when?" Briana shakes her head. "Well, final exam will have to be once we've staked it out then."
"We're… going to stake out a church?" Briana says, eye brows raised.
"With a prophesy like that?" Grim whistles, "Yeah. We are. Why, what's wrong with that?"
"Nothing. Just deja vu, I guess." Ashley mumbles.
Grim hops back into the truck. "Let's go break camp and then we can set up in the corner of the lot."
Returning to the campsite, they quickly pack up the tent and other amenities that have been brought out and haul them into the bed of the truck. Ashley appears to be at the campsite at the moment, working on cooking a rabbit over the fire pit. She doesn't pay them mind even as the big yellow truck comes down the road just past her.
Pulling into the church lot, they park in the corner. "And you really think no one is going to notice us here?" Briana nervously glances at the surrounding houses.
"Probably not. Probably will just assume the pastor got a new truck and leave it alone." Grim leans back in his seat, pulling a wide brimmed hat down over his eyes. "I'm just gonna nap for a bit. Let me know if you figure anything out, oh great superhero Briana."
"Shut up." Briana snorts. She stares out the window at the lot, daring it to speak to her again.
And speak it does not. No matter how she looks at it, how long she stares, or how much she pleads, fate does not reveal its hand. "Any luck there?" Grim says as night begins to fall.
"No." Briana says, a bit of venom in her voice.
Grim rolls over, now facing away from Briana. "Can't force these things. I'd just be thankful fate talked to you at all."
"I'm going to find out when, Grim." Turning back to the infernal church lot, Briana looks up at the road and watches one of the local trucks go by. "That… guy." Her eyes track the vehicle as it moves. "Is a big alcoholic. And I don't think his family knows yet." She states firmly, a flicker of green dancing across her pupils.
"Kinda rude." Grim mutters. "And an irrelevant use of your powers, probably."
A smile spreads across Briana's face. "Grim. I think I know how to delay them." She points to the church. "They probably have a night service or something. Can we, I don't know, curse people?" She says, voice a little shaky with uncertainty.
Scratching his stubble, Grim looks at the truck as it passes by. "I mean, in real particular ways, yeah. Least, I know how to a little bit as far as him going places is related."
"What if we, I dunno, curse that guy and his truck to crash or something? Block the road? Shouldn't be hard, a little drinking and driving wouldn't be hard to, you know, weave in?" Briana turns back towards Grim away from the road. "That's gotta delay them."
"I ain't much of a fate weaver. Just a fate watcher mostly. And this is assuming they are at the right place at the right time." Grim says.
"Isn't that kinda our shtick apparently? Being at the right place at the right time?" Briana counters. She sits fully into her seat, a wide grin on her face. "Take us to that general store, Grim. We need to buy some alcohol. Probably, uh, whiskey."
With a chuckle, Grim puts the key in the ignition. "Aye aye."
Whiskey in hand, the pair patrol around Prosper until the offending truck of the alcoholic is found outside a small homestead. "So we have the booze." Grim shakes the bottle of cheap whiskey, "and the place." He points to the truck. "What's the plan, great leader?"
"So you curse that truck and I'm gonna sneak this whiskey into the truck so he's tempted to drink it." Briana says smugly.
"You really think this is gonna work?" Grim's eyebrows are raised.
Briana steps out to of the truck and crouches down, Grim handing her the bottle across the console with a long stretch. "I mean it feels right. Kinda like, if all the pieces are there it'll just work out." She shrugs.
Shaking his head, Grim leans back into the driver's seat. "What would your parents think of you now? Stashing booze in an alcoholic's truck."
Pursing her lips, Briana does not answer as she sneaks over towards the parked vehicle. Watching the windows of the house, she doesn't hear anyone outside or see anyone looking out at the yard and drive. Making her way to the truck, she tries the handle, finding it unlocked. Quickly stashing the whiskey in the door pocket, she begins to trot away with a song in her step.
Which is when she hears the growling.
Turning her head, she sees a pair of large dogs. German Shepherds by the look of them. For all her newly found foresight, she had failed to notice the beware of dog signs posted on the fence at the edge of the property.
Back in the truck, Grim leans forward onto the steering wheel. "Well. Let's see how this plays out."
Wide eyed, Briana slowly begins to pace back and away from the snarling pair of dogs. From the edge of her vision, she sees the curtains move as well, as what looks like a young boy looks out at what's happening with the dogs. "Nice doggies." Briana says with a nervous smile. Reaching into her pockets, she manages to find some lint, which she begins rolling into a ball. A bit harder to imagine this as an arrow, but it'll have to do.
Barking loudly, one of the dogs tries its luck, rushing forward across the dusty, dirt driveway. A bit of slobber falls to the ground as it lunges at Briana. Feeling her heart beat faster than it maybe ever has, Briana pulls out the lint ball and tries to throw it at the dog. The image of the arrow is a bit unsure in her mind and refuses to affix itself to the lint. It goes maybe a foot before hitting the ground without a sound. The dog has no such issue with its weapons, however. Snapping forward, its jaws wrap around Briana's leg. Searing pain immediately rushes through the limb as teeth puncture the skin. If the homeowner wasn't already coming out when the dogs were barking, he sure was when Briana's scream echoed across the fields.
With a yank of the dog's neck, Briana hits the ground as her foot it pulled off the ground. Vision shaking, stunned, and in pain as the other dog approaching quickly to join the other in the ripping and tearing. Much as it did with Grim, fate offers two courses to Briana.
Death. Ripped limb from limb by a pair of mangy mutts in a backwater farming town, remembered by no one. The owner will not get out in time to call them off before fatal damage against you is achieved. Grim does not help you.
Life. You were never here. You chickened out in the cab of the truck, asking and convincing Grim to do this in your stead. While your pride may be wounded, your body will only bear a single bite mark on the upper thigh.
Clutching her leg, Briana does everything she can to hold back tears. A green mark appears on her brow as her eyes swirl with starlight. The blood runs down her leg and into the floor mat of the truck. Grim sits in the driver's seat, blinking as he realizes Briana has always been here. Turning the key in the ignition, the truck quickly reverses and charges onto the main road. "Neat trick, huh?" He says with a grin. On the drive in front of them, two very confused dogs get reined in by the owner who squints and stares at the yellow truck as it retreats.
"Ahhhhhh!" Briana screams, still holding her leg.
Grim groans and pulls over, quickly getting out and snagging a first aid kit from the bed of the truck. Pulling open the passenger door he slaps Briana. "Quit your screaming. This won't kill ya." Tearing off the leg of pants that cover the injured leg, he quickly sets to applying gauze, with Briana biting her arm to try and keep herself from screaming. The gauze and pressure quickly does the job, with bleeding stopping on its own a few moments later. "There you go." Grim says with a smile, heading back to the driver's seat. "Right as rain."
"No!" Briana yells. "Not right as rain! I got bit by a fucking dog! I'm going to get, like, rabies or something!"
"You're still worried about that?"
"It just happened!"
"You just broke causality and logic and the thing you're most worried about is the bite?" Grim says, eye brows raised. "Cuz in my mind, you both never left the truck and still somehow put that bottle out there. Both those things can't be true and you got the bite to prove it."
She rides in silence for a bit as the pair heads back to the church lot. "Why didn't you help me?" Briana eventually asks.
"You had it handled." Grim replies.
"That didn't seem handled! I thought you were supposed to be my teacher or something." She complains.
"You, kid, needed a wake up call. If you can't even hold your own against a couple of farm dogs you certainly have no place in a life and death fight with a vampire or worse."
Briana scowls. "Okay, you've mentioned vampires twice now. What are you talking about?"
"Hang around for a couple more nights and I'll show you once the shit hits the fan around here." He glances out at the road as evening sets in. "Given what we just set in motion, we should be able to see 'em in action. Least based on the read I got from that truck."
A pregnant silence holds in the cabin as Briana waits to see if Grim is going to explain further. "That's it? That's all you'll give me?"
"For now, yeah. It'll be easier if you see for yourself."
For a few nights, they stay at the church parking lot. People of the town, pastors, none pay them mind. The wound on Briana's leg closes almost the same night, still aching but the flesh knits cleanly as though it was never harmed. Her clothes have become even rattier, basically just the same pajamas she was wearing when she was yanked out of bed by her mother almost a week ago. And since dunking her head in the creek a few days ago, she hasn't seen a proper shower in some time. Grim somehow does not appear to be worse for wear, his hair not getting greasy nor skin oily from the lack of a proper shower and clothes remaining well pressed despite constant use.
"I'm just saying, if there is a power that I can learn to not need a shower to look put together all the time, why can't you teach me that?" Briana interrogates Grim.
"Anything I can do, you can learn to do. Probably." Grim says, sipping from a canister of coffee. "You just gotta put in the effort to learn to do it."
At the church, a night mass has been starting up. A large group of locals getting together to celebrate their faith at this nightly hour. Among their number is the alcoholic man with whiskey planted in his cab and a cursed truck. Briana is distracted by the truck as it wobbles on the road to the church, eventually colliding with another truck at the front of the church, blocking the road.
"It worked!" Briana exclaims, bouncing in her seat. She starts to look around as some people step out from the church to look and see what happened. "Where are Ashley and Elio?"
"Give it some time." Grim leans forward to watch.
An hour or so later, Briana catches a glimpse of Ashley walking down the road. Carrying a bear leg and with a tattered dress. The ensuing battle between her and hicks goes off as the pair in the yellow truck watch on. Eventually the pastor is killed, but Briana isn't sure how that even happened until Elio steps out from the shadows behind Ashley as the fight with the farmers and drunks continues to escalate. Then she turns into a monster, glowing with the silver light of the moon enveloping her form.
"Holy shit." Grim says, paling slightly. Briana's eyes go wide, watching the people scatter in fear away from Ashley in her towering new form. Eventually only Elio and Ashley remain as they continue down the road.
"Try again." Grim says, leaning against one of the wheels of his truck while looking down at his phone. Just enough sunlight falls onto him to keep him warm, but not add glare to his phone. A little ways away, Briana is staring into the creek running through the campsite. Groaning she rubs her head.
"What exactly am I supposed to be seeing here? It's just water." Her voice is tired and hair a little bit frizzy while still wearing the same clothes from a day ago.
Licking his teeth, Grim puts his phone down. "We're trying to find out if someone is investigating in the area besides those two." He thumbs across the way where Elio can be seen sitting at their picnic table trying (and failing) to get his Kevlar armor sized right.
She walks away from the creek and over to Grim, eyes narrowed. "And how am I supposed to find that out? It's not like these investigators are just..." She gesticulates wildly. "Floating down the river."
Putting a hand on the ground and grunting, Grim stands up and dusts himself off. "Stranger things have happened. And okay, if looking in the river isn't gonna cut it, what feels right to do?" He places a hand on Briana's shoulder and holds the other out to the world. "The answers are out there, how d'ya wanna find 'em?"
"What I want to do is check my phone." She says sourly. "But since we're miles from anywhere, I haven't had a chance to charge it. And it's dead."
Grim gestures to the truck. "Then lets go get your phone charged. Oughta be a store or some such that'll let us borrow a socket."
"Really?" Briana seems hesitant, but edges towards the truck. "It's not gonna interfere with 'training'?"
Shaking his head, Grim opens the driver's door and hops in. "From my brief journeys, I've found that the right thing for us to do is whatever we feel is right. So this is part of it."
Sliding into the passenger seat, Briana buckles her seat belt. "And if I told you that it didn't feel right to get trained?"
Chuckling, Grim starts the car. "Well I'd call you a liar. You can play brave all you want, but I know your out of your depth. Not that I ain't outta my depth, mind you, but you're more than me." Together, they ride off towards civilization. As they pass through Prosper, Briana feels a tug.
Not a physical tug, mind you. Just a feeling. "Hey, wait a sec." She waves towards Grim as they pass by a general store. "Can we stop there?"
With a shrug, Grim pulls a sharp turn into the side lot of the store. "They might let you hang out here for a bit, I guess. I was gonna look for a church or a library or something." Ashley hops out as the engine is killed. Taking in the store, she notices a bulletin board with several missing person fliers on it.
"Grim? Don't you think an investigator would be behind one of these?" She asks back towards Grim as he moseys over to her.
"Well probably." He puts a finger on one of the papers as he reads it. "Some of these are pretty old though. Doubt any investigator has hung around for too long when getting no results."
Glancing through them again, Briana grabs one of the older papers. "I'm gonna ask about this one inside the store."
"Be my guest." Grim says with a shrug, settling down onto one of the benches near the entrance. "I'll be keeping an eye out here. Lemme know when you're good to go."
Pushing open the door to the store, Briana enters in. Smelling of some mixture of wood chips and cigarette smoke, it's empty at the moment aside from the store clerk. He gives a look to Briana, blinking when he doesn't recognize her. "Hi. You needing something?" The man says.
"Couple things actually." She puts the flier on the counter. "Do you know if anyone is looking into this?" She starts with.
The man chuckles and looks at the flier. "Fancy yourself a detective? No. I don't know anything about Chuck here. 'sides it being sad." He pulls the flier towards his side of the counter. "Old Terrance left town a while ago, guess no one's looking for Chuck anymore. Now. You ain't one of the local girls. What're you doin' out here?"
"Looking for a place to charge my phone." She switches tracks quickly, pulling out her phone. "Mind if I hang out here for a bit?"
"Are you thinking about buying something?" The man asks with an eye roll. "My outlets are gonna be for paying customers." Briana looks around the store and feels the emptiness of her pockets.
Before she can answer, the door behind her opens and a twenty-something year old woman with curly brown hair and a bounce in her step comes into the store. She smiles at the clerk, "Morning Harry."
He waves, turning his gaze from Briana. "Heya Ann. What d'ya need?"
"The usual. Pa's run out of coffee grounds again." She spares a glance at Briana. "I don't think I've seen you around." She holds out a hand, "I'm Mary-Ann. But you just call me Ann."
Briana blinks and shakes Ann's hand. "Hi, I'm Briana. Sorry, but could I ask you a favor?" She thumbs towards Harry who has folded his arms. "I need to charge my phone and this guy won't let me unless I buy something. Can you help me? I left my wallet back in my tent."
Ann turns to Harry, an incredulous look on her face. "Harry! This young girl needs to charge her phone and you're charging for it?"
"I'm not just running a charity here, Ann." He grumbles. "But fine." Pointing to a bench near one of the windows, "Just set up over there and don't make too much noise."
With a smirk towards Harry and a smile towards Ann, Briana snags the missing person poster off the counter before Harry can stop her and she quickly slides onto the bench, finding a charger already plugged in the wall and waiting for her. "I'm guessing you don't mind if I use your charger too, right?" She asks, plugging in her phone.
"Just don't break it." Harry mutters. After Ann has found the coffee and paid, she sits down across from Briana.
"Forgive me if I'm being nosy." She starts. Briana looks up from her still charging phone, waiting for it to power on. "But I was just wonder if you were, you know, doing alright?"
At first, Briana almost laughs, then remembers she's still wearing her pajamas from when she was pulled out of bed and then on this new wild 'adventure' and she hadn't had a proper shower in a few days. Maybe she should just call the cops on Grim. That'd get him out of her hair. "Oh, yeah. I'm doing great. Just doing some camping nearby and needed to get away from my parents for a while."
"Gotcha." Ann leans back, seemingly satisfied. Looking at the table she notices the poster. "Did you know him?" She points down at the poster.
"Did?" Briana quirks an eyebrow. "You think he's dead, I guess."
Ann squirms in her seat. "Well, yeah. He's been missing like a year now. Even his dad moved away."
"Right. So, did anyone ever try and look for this kid? An investigator or something?" Briana pushes, leaning over the table and closer to Ann.
Ann stands suddenly. "It was nice meeting you, but I gotta be on my way. If you do need help, feel free to swing by our place. Can't miss it, it's got a bit oak tree out front and its just down the road."
"Wait!" Briana says, raising her voice. "I'm sorry, did I offend you or something? Where are you going?"
Now near the front door, Ann pauses. "No no, I just have to go. Gotta get this coffee home. Pop's a' waiting" She holds up the bag of beans and quickly exits. Briana who had stood slightly, sits back down with a frown. Investigating is hard.
Her phone pings back to life with a small chirp. Just in time. Looking down at it, she notices that there are no messages or voice mails waiting for her. At least her internet is still working for now. She frowns at the phone. Well. It was charged. Now what? As she looks at the phone, a small… thing starts crawling across the screen, appearing from the bottom. Squinting, it looks like a green spider displayed on the screen. A text box appears on the screen reading, 'Search destiny for what you require.' The box has an area to put in her own query.
Blinking, Briana looks up to see if someone is watching her, but finds herself on her own. Looking back down, the small spider patiently waits at the bottom of her screen, gazing up at her through the device. 'What am I?' she puts in.
Five seconds pass, then a kind yet firm whispers in her ear. "That information is lost to the ages. Best fit answer. Human." She yelps in surprise as the voice speaks seemingly so close to her, whipping around to find no one there. The box remains on the display of the phone.
"Okay…" She mutters and turns back to the phone, typing in, 'Who is investigating the disappearances in Prosper?" Fighting hard, she barely suppresses the need to yawn.
Five seconds pass. The same voice returns, mysterious yet alluring. Feminine? Perhaps. "Nigel, a private investigator working with Talon Investigations." Suddenly, Briana feels out of breath, having to hold her head in her hands for a moment. Whatever she was doing was taking her breath away, like she'd just run a few miles in the hot sun without water. But it did feel good, somewhat. Like stretching out a cramping muscle.
Standing up after composing herself, she leaves her phone on the table and moves to the front door. "I'm just getting some air. Don't think about touching my phone." She glares at Harry, who just shakes his head and returns to messing with his register. Outside, she glances around. Grim should be right here…
"I'm right here." Grim says from the bench. Briana had glanced right past him. "You get anything? I'm right parched if you would get me a lemonade." He holds out a five dollar bill to her.
"Uh, sure." She snags the bill. "Also, I think I'm, like, a psychic or something."
"How do you figure?"
Folding the bill, she puts it in her pocket. "A spider showed up on my phone and when I asked it questions, it gave me the answers."
"Like what kind of answers?" Grim checks his watch. "The sooner the better, cuz one of your investigators is going to be showing up here soon and I want to be able to give him something of use."
She holds out the poster. "This kid." Points at the name, "Chuck. Been missing a year or so and his dad Terrance moved away. Apparently someone named" She thinks for a moment. "Nigel or something from Talon investigations was looking into it. Was that the sort of stuff you wanted?"
Nodding along, Grim pulls out a blank business card. "Did you get a phone number for this guy?"
"I didn't ask for that." She wipes a bead of sweat from her forehead. "And it wasn't exactly easy. I feel like I'm about to pass out from just asking questions."
"Well come on then, you got one more in you?" Grim pushes, smiling mostly to himself. "See? We're training."
Gritting her teeth, Briana heads back inside. "Lemonade?" She barks to Harry.
"Kids these days have no manners at all." He points to the back. "Cooler in the back. Just look for Little Lady Lemonade."
She snatches her phone and the cold bottle, pays and heads out to Grim, requesting Nigel's phone number from the spider as she does so. Five seconds later, it's whispered in her ear as her vision begins to swim. Stumbling a bit, she flops onto the bench next to Grim, handing him the lemonade. "Here's that number." She mutters as she rests her eyes. Working quickly, he begins to make an impressive fabrication of a business card with only a ballpoint pen, a highlighter, and a sharpie.
"That'll do kid." He smiles as he admires his handiwork. "Now you sit right here and don't attract attention." Patting her on the head, he stands and moves towards the board where he removes most of the missing person notices, putting them in a neat stack under a garbage can. "I'm gonna drop this off to your friend who'll be here in fifteen."
"Yeah, whatever." She says, eyes still closed. "There is no way he doesn't recognize you from the campsite if you talk to him here."
"Watch and learn then." Grim says with some smug satisfaction. He ruffles his coat, dishevels his hair, and slumps his shoulders a bit. When Briana opens her eyes, she can't find Grim. Instead there is a sad looking father holding a missing person sign, obviously which must be his child. Rubbing her face, she looks again, harder this time. Yes, that is Grim. But also he's definitely a father with a missing child. How does she know he's a father?
Sitting forward on the bench, she sniffs. "Okay, what the fuck? My brain is really doing its best to tell me you're a sad dad."
He slowly moves towards her, each plodding step accentuating the deep grief held within his mind. "I'm just borrowing a stereotype. Stepping into a role, if you will. I borrow the fate of a 'sad dad' as you called it, and boom. Here I am." With a smirk, he shows the photo of the kid. "Even though this kid is white, you still think I'm his dad. You probably just assume I adopted him or something like that." He moves back to the board. "So I'm just gonna wait here, when the time is right, I'll let your investigator notice me and then we'll drop off this card. Get the teams working together, hopefully."
"Can I do that? The stealing fate thing?" Briana asks.
"Probably. Just give it some practice later. You said this kid's dad's name was Terrance, right?" Down the road, Elio can be seen driving up in the black SUV. "For now though, just stand around the corner and watch me work."
After the business card has been placed into Elio's hands, Grim quickly trots over to Briana who has, true to Grim's word, remained unnoticed by Elio even if she really should have been noticed. Grabbing her by the arm, he quickly pulls her up and around the corner. As Elio tries to call and reaches the voicemail box of Nigel. "Couldn't get to him right now, mind if I..." Elio looks up to find Grim gone, having vanished from the front of the store. Pocketing his phone, he gives one more glance around before walking towards his car. "Spooky." He mutters, opening the door to the car and starting the engine.
Briana shimmies out of Grim's grip. "Alright, so what? Now he's going to talk to this Nigel guy? What good is that going to do?"
Shrugging, Grim puts his hands in his pockets and moves towards his truck. "I dunno. Just felt like it needed to be done, right?"
"I guess so." Briana mimics Grim's shrug. She can't help but try to conceal a small smile though. Climbing into the truck she sighs and leans against the window as the engine comes to life.
"Something on your mind?" Grim asks, putting the truck into gear and looking out the back window.
"I just…" Briana starts. "I'm just not getting it, I guess. Clearly something is up with Elio and Ashley, and us I guess, but what is it? What are we now, like, superheroes or something? You know, like Spiderman?"
"Kid, I dunno." Pulling out onto the road, Grim surveys the area while driving slowly on the empty road. "Let's not get too ahead of ourselves by calling ourselves superheroes."
"But you mentioned fighting things. Something about someone my size 'not being able to hurt them'. Last I checked, that sounds exactly like the thing superheroes would fight." Briana continues.
Turning his head to the right, Grim gives an even stare at Briana. "You do your job right and you won't ever have to. And trust me, you really don't want to. We may be a bit faster and stronger than the average man and a long stretch luckier to boot, but we are far from immortal." He turns back towards the road. "Leave the fighting part to ones that shine like the Sun and Moon. It's better that way."
The church comes into view as the truck slowly rolls forward. Briana rolls her eyes and folds her arms, squeaking against the seat as she shifts. "Come on, I shot that rubber band at like, mach five. I think I can handle a little bit of weirdo fighting."
"What would you know about fighting, Briana?" Grim asks, stopping the car outside the church.
Briana is silent for a moment. "I mean, enough?"
"Yeah, thought so." Grim grunts, frowning over towards Briana. "I'm saying this for your benefit. Don't go picking fights with stuff. People, vampires, whatever. You are not a superhero."
"Don't tell me what to do, Grim." Briana leans over towards him. "I can take care of myself. Wait, vampires?"
Gritting his teeth, Grim leans closer. "This is why I don't like kids. Always gotta be right. If you can take care of yourself, what was gonna be your plan when your parents forgot you were in the car with them? No food, no money, all alone in the world. Not a lick of sense. I'm doing you a favor, kid."
"A favor? You consider this a favor?" Seething, eyes narrowed, Briana turns towards the window with the church in view. "I can do this…" Flickering across the parking lot, shapes shimmer just at the edges of her sight. "On my own." She opens the door and steps out.
"Where are you going!?" Grim shouts from the cabin.
"Following my gut." Briana replies. Stepping out from the truck, she makes her way to the large parking area. Something is going to happen here, but what? Grim follows, parking into the lot behind her.
The driver's side window rolls down. "A'ight. What are you seeing?" He says, leaning out.
"I'm not sure." Briana says. "It feels like, I dunno, a fight is supposed to happen here. Does that make sense?"
Grim pinches the bridge of his nose and exhales loudly. "Tell you what. Figure this thing out and I'll find you good enough to turn loose. Not like I don't have places I need to be, after all."
Pacing the perimeter of the lot, Briana breathes. The wind across her face, the shadow the church casts, a beer bottle in the ditch beside her. It had been a whisper the last few days, but it was beginning to speak up. Fate. "So… there is a fight that needs to happen here. But I don't think it's gonna happen if we don't do something." Evil awaits at the threshold, curious, waiting. The crack in the paint over the door of the church whispers to her. "Something bad will be here, but it'll be far away." Delay the moon, expose the evil. The bottles in the gutter whisper as the wind whistles across their open tops. "Something about the moon." Briana mutters. "How can you delay the moon?"
"Likely fate's talking about one of your friends. Least that'd be my guess." Grim says. "Do you hear when?" Briana shakes her head. "Well, final exam will have to be once we've staked it out then."
"We're… going to stake out a church?" Briana says, eye brows raised.
"With a prophesy like that?" Grim whistles, "Yeah. We are. Why, what's wrong with that?"
"Nothing. Just deja vu, I guess." Ashley mumbles.
Grim hops back into the truck. "Let's go break camp and then we can set up in the corner of the lot."
Returning to the campsite, they quickly pack up the tent and other amenities that have been brought out and haul them into the bed of the truck. Ashley appears to be at the campsite at the moment, working on cooking a rabbit over the fire pit. She doesn't pay them mind even as the big yellow truck comes down the road just past her.
Pulling into the church lot, they park in the corner. "And you really think no one is going to notice us here?" Briana nervously glances at the surrounding houses.
"Probably not. Probably will just assume the pastor got a new truck and leave it alone." Grim leans back in his seat, pulling a wide brimmed hat down over his eyes. "I'm just gonna nap for a bit. Let me know if you figure anything out, oh great superhero Briana."
"Shut up." Briana snorts. She stares out the window at the lot, daring it to speak to her again.
And speak it does not. No matter how she looks at it, how long she stares, or how much she pleads, fate does not reveal its hand. "Any luck there?" Grim says as night begins to fall.
"No." Briana says, a bit of venom in her voice.
Grim rolls over, now facing away from Briana. "Can't force these things. I'd just be thankful fate talked to you at all."
"I'm going to find out when, Grim." Turning back to the infernal church lot, Briana looks up at the road and watches one of the local trucks go by. "That… guy." Her eyes track the vehicle as it moves. "Is a big alcoholic. And I don't think his family knows yet." She states firmly, a flicker of green dancing across her pupils.
"Kinda rude." Grim mutters. "And an irrelevant use of your powers, probably."
A smile spreads across Briana's face. "Grim. I think I know how to delay them." She points to the church. "They probably have a night service or something. Can we, I don't know, curse people?" She says, voice a little shaky with uncertainty.
Scratching his stubble, Grim looks at the truck as it passes by. "I mean, in real particular ways, yeah. Least, I know how to a little bit as far as him going places is related."
"What if we, I dunno, curse that guy and his truck to crash or something? Block the road? Shouldn't be hard, a little drinking and driving wouldn't be hard to, you know, weave in?" Briana turns back towards Grim away from the road. "That's gotta delay them."
"I ain't much of a fate weaver. Just a fate watcher mostly. And this is assuming they are at the right place at the right time." Grim says.
"Isn't that kinda our shtick apparently? Being at the right place at the right time?" Briana counters. She sits fully into her seat, a wide grin on her face. "Take us to that general store, Grim. We need to buy some alcohol. Probably, uh, whiskey."
With a chuckle, Grim puts the key in the ignition. "Aye aye."
Whiskey in hand, the pair patrol around Prosper until the offending truck of the alcoholic is found outside a small homestead. "So we have the booze." Grim shakes the bottle of cheap whiskey, "and the place." He points to the truck. "What's the plan, great leader?"
"So you curse that truck and I'm gonna sneak this whiskey into the truck so he's tempted to drink it." Briana says smugly.
"You really think this is gonna work?" Grim's eyebrows are raised.
Briana steps out to of the truck and crouches down, Grim handing her the bottle across the console with a long stretch. "I mean it feels right. Kinda like, if all the pieces are there it'll just work out." She shrugs.
Shaking his head, Grim leans back into the driver's seat. "What would your parents think of you now? Stashing booze in an alcoholic's truck."
Pursing her lips, Briana does not answer as she sneaks over towards the parked vehicle. Watching the windows of the house, she doesn't hear anyone outside or see anyone looking out at the yard and drive. Making her way to the truck, she tries the handle, finding it unlocked. Quickly stashing the whiskey in the door pocket, she begins to trot away with a song in her step.
Which is when she hears the growling.
Turning her head, she sees a pair of large dogs. German Shepherds by the look of them. For all her newly found foresight, she had failed to notice the beware of dog signs posted on the fence at the edge of the property.
Back in the truck, Grim leans forward onto the steering wheel. "Well. Let's see how this plays out."
Wide eyed, Briana slowly begins to pace back and away from the snarling pair of dogs. From the edge of her vision, she sees the curtains move as well, as what looks like a young boy looks out at what's happening with the dogs. "Nice doggies." Briana says with a nervous smile. Reaching into her pockets, she manages to find some lint, which she begins rolling into a ball. A bit harder to imagine this as an arrow, but it'll have to do.
Barking loudly, one of the dogs tries its luck, rushing forward across the dusty, dirt driveway. A bit of slobber falls to the ground as it lunges at Briana. Feeling her heart beat faster than it maybe ever has, Briana pulls out the lint ball and tries to throw it at the dog. The image of the arrow is a bit unsure in her mind and refuses to affix itself to the lint. It goes maybe a foot before hitting the ground without a sound. The dog has no such issue with its weapons, however. Snapping forward, its jaws wrap around Briana's leg. Searing pain immediately rushes through the limb as teeth puncture the skin. If the homeowner wasn't already coming out when the dogs were barking, he sure was when Briana's scream echoed across the fields.
With a yank of the dog's neck, Briana hits the ground as her foot it pulled off the ground. Vision shaking, stunned, and in pain as the other dog approaching quickly to join the other in the ripping and tearing. Much as it did with Grim, fate offers two courses to Briana.
Death. Ripped limb from limb by a pair of mangy mutts in a backwater farming town, remembered by no one. The owner will not get out in time to call them off before fatal damage against you is achieved. Grim does not help you.
Life. You were never here. You chickened out in the cab of the truck, asking and convincing Grim to do this in your stead. While your pride may be wounded, your body will only bear a single bite mark on the upper thigh.
Clutching her leg, Briana does everything she can to hold back tears. A green mark appears on her brow as her eyes swirl with starlight. The blood runs down her leg and into the floor mat of the truck. Grim sits in the driver's seat, blinking as he realizes Briana has always been here. Turning the key in the ignition, the truck quickly reverses and charges onto the main road. "Neat trick, huh?" He says with a grin. On the drive in front of them, two very confused dogs get reined in by the owner who squints and stares at the yellow truck as it retreats.
"Ahhhhhh!" Briana screams, still holding her leg.
Grim groans and pulls over, quickly getting out and snagging a first aid kit from the bed of the truck. Pulling open the passenger door he slaps Briana. "Quit your screaming. This won't kill ya." Tearing off the leg of pants that cover the injured leg, he quickly sets to applying gauze, with Briana biting her arm to try and keep herself from screaming. The gauze and pressure quickly does the job, with bleeding stopping on its own a few moments later. "There you go." Grim says with a smile, heading back to the driver's seat. "Right as rain."
"No!" Briana yells. "Not right as rain! I got bit by a fucking dog! I'm going to get, like, rabies or something!"
"You're still worried about that?"
"It just happened!"
"You just broke causality and logic and the thing you're most worried about is the bite?" Grim says, eye brows raised. "Cuz in my mind, you both never left the truck and still somehow put that bottle out there. Both those things can't be true and you got the bite to prove it."
She rides in silence for a bit as the pair heads back to the church lot. "Why didn't you help me?" Briana eventually asks.
"You had it handled." Grim replies.
"That didn't seem handled! I thought you were supposed to be my teacher or something." She complains.
"You, kid, needed a wake up call. If you can't even hold your own against a couple of farm dogs you certainly have no place in a life and death fight with a vampire or worse."
Briana scowls. "Okay, you've mentioned vampires twice now. What are you talking about?"
"Hang around for a couple more nights and I'll show you once the shit hits the fan around here." He glances out at the road as evening sets in. "Given what we just set in motion, we should be able to see 'em in action. Least based on the read I got from that truck."
A pregnant silence holds in the cabin as Briana waits to see if Grim is going to explain further. "That's it? That's all you'll give me?"
"For now, yeah. It'll be easier if you see for yourself."
For a few nights, they stay at the church parking lot. People of the town, pastors, none pay them mind. The wound on Briana's leg closes almost the same night, still aching but the flesh knits cleanly as though it was never harmed. Her clothes have become even rattier, basically just the same pajamas she was wearing when she was yanked out of bed by her mother almost a week ago. And since dunking her head in the creek a few days ago, she hasn't seen a proper shower in some time. Grim somehow does not appear to be worse for wear, his hair not getting greasy nor skin oily from the lack of a proper shower and clothes remaining well pressed despite constant use.
"I'm just saying, if there is a power that I can learn to not need a shower to look put together all the time, why can't you teach me that?" Briana interrogates Grim.
"Anything I can do, you can learn to do. Probably." Grim says, sipping from a canister of coffee. "You just gotta put in the effort to learn to do it."
At the church, a night mass has been starting up. A large group of locals getting together to celebrate their faith at this nightly hour. Among their number is the alcoholic man with whiskey planted in his cab and a cursed truck. Briana is distracted by the truck as it wobbles on the road to the church, eventually colliding with another truck at the front of the church, blocking the road.
"It worked!" Briana exclaims, bouncing in her seat. She starts to look around as some people step out from the church to look and see what happened. "Where are Ashley and Elio?"
"Give it some time." Grim leans forward to watch.
An hour or so later, Briana catches a glimpse of Ashley walking down the road. Carrying a bear leg and with a tattered dress. The ensuing battle between her and hicks goes off as the pair in the yellow truck watch on. Eventually the pastor is killed, but Briana isn't sure how that even happened until Elio steps out from the shadows behind Ashley as the fight with the farmers and drunks continues to escalate. Then she turns into a monster, glowing with the silver light of the moon enveloping her form.
"Holy shit." Grim says, paling slightly. Briana's eyes go wide, watching the people scatter in fear away from Ashley in her towering new form. Eventually only Elio and Ashley remain as they continue down the road.
Scene 24 - Dead of Night
Approaching the house, Elio moves with the shadows of the clouds overhead, using the deep almost pitch-black shadows to cross the distance to the lair invisibly. As he does so, Ashley confidently walks up the front path. Strutting in her ruined dress, she sneers up at the windows.
Glittering eyes attached to striped bodies scuttle out from the bushes near the house. Four raccoons in total begin to hiss and growl at Ashley as she heedlessly continues forward. "More pets? How fun." She cracks her knuckles. "Too much of a coward to face me so you'll throw your precious babes to the meat grinder. I hope you can live with yourself." Her voice carries up to the house, and a form steps out from behind the chimney on the roof. Brutish and wide, the creature has a stoop in his back. His eyes are hard to make out in the dark, but they are ringed in black and seem to be pits of night.
"So you're the one who killed my pets." He growls as he walks to the edge, crouching down and glaring at Ashley. "I don't know who sent you or what clan your fucking disgusting blood comes from, but you won't be leaving here without meeting your final death."
Elio sees his opportunity and grips a low hanging branch of one of the nearby trees. Swinging with unearthly grace, he flips and tumbles through the air the twenty feet or so it takes to grab a gutter. He starts to haul himself up with one hand while pulling his knife free from its sheath with the other.
Crows begin to gather overhead, circling in a flapping and cawing cacophony. "You are an idiot. The only ones meeting their final deaths are you and your siblings." Ashley steps forward to meet the raccoons. The ground trembles underfoot, but not from Ashley's steps. A smirk appears on the man's face.
"Stupid neonate. You're done." The ground under Ashley erupts as the Coyote Queen, no longer confined to her chain cocoon, bursts forth with an unearthly scream, grabbing at Ashley's ankles. Her eyes widen in surprise before she has time to react. The Coyote Queen latches onto Ashley's upper thighs, horrible claws trying to rend through flesh but finding it iron like under her talons. Not even her brutish strength is enough to dent Ashley's skin.
Elio appears like a tearing wind behind the wide man on the roof as he prepares to leap down to assist his sire. A moment later, he has vanished. A dozen, no, a thousand strokes of Elio's knife has completely scrubbed the vampire from existence. Only a fine mist of ash and decayed flesh remains.
Down below Ashley, the enraged form continues to crawl forth from the ground. Her muscles swell ever larger, filling with blood as she continues to try and rip at Ashley, her sharp claws finally find purchase as they draw blood on both legs in a bloody gouge that starts at the hips. Ashley grunts and her eyes go wide for a moment as she feels her blood run down her legs. From the house a crack of gunfire shatters one of the front windows as Ashley's rifle in the hands of another assailant lances out at her. Even with a vampire clinging to her lower half and tearing at her skin, Ashley twists as the bullet passes by her and ricochets off of one of the walkway stones. The four raccoons sprint forward, each one trying to bite and cling to Ashley as they cover her like a fuzzy murderous coat.
"Get off me you fucking trash monsters!" She swirls her arms around like sledgehammers, each wild haymaker throwing a raccoon back and into the bushes. One manages to get its fangs into her upper arm but finds it to be like chewing on oak bark for all the damage it did before being thrown away. Howling, Ashley grows taller as she changes to her war form, glaring murderously down at the vampire below her feet as Ashley starts to glow. The powerful hind legs of the demon-rabbit start to rain down with thunderous strength. Each one lands on the head, shoulders, and arms of the Coyote Queen and several bony cracks can be heard as she is forcibly re-inserted into the hard earth.
As soon as the rifle shot went off, Elio was already forming the mental image of where the attacker is based on the angle of the shot. Sliding down the back half of the roof while grabbing the cold aluminum edge of the gutter to swing down to the back porch, he opens the glass door and finds another vampire taking cover next to the front window while operating the bolt action of the rifle. Like a shadow made of sharp edges, glass, and steel blades, Elio leaps forward at the target, ready to strike another decisive blow before things get too far out of hand.
His knife catches the vampire sniper in the right shoulder, fetid stale blood splattering onto the rifle and floor as she spins to face her attacker. Elio's knife is pulled back and ready to strike again as the vampire looks around confused at the empty room while clutching at her new injury. "Meredith! I think they have someone who knows obfuscate!" She shouts out to the Coyote Queen. The vampire whistles and the crows up above descend on the house. Pouring through the still open back door and broken front window, they engulf the sitting room and shred anything that is not their master. They swarm around the room, but their confusion at the sudden entry and the sheer number of their flock end up getting in their way and prevent them from finding the hidden attacker in their midst. Elio does not wait for them to find him, however. He darts forward, easily finding the path through the flying menace back to the panicked looking vampire as their eyes dart too and fro trying to find the space Elio would leave behind when he moves forward and yet not finding it.
Before the vampire has time to try to heal themselves, they notice the glint of bloodied steel among the birds. Swinging the rifle like a bat, they try to keep Elio away, they just need a bit of time to heal after all. Elio is far too fast for that though. He flows like water under the super humanly fast swing of the rifle butt and thrusts the knife into the gut and pulls up to her rib cage. With a cough, the vampire falls onto her back and starts to mutter as she tries to ignore her pain and reconstitute herself.
Back in the front path, Ashley roars as she continues to stomp on the vampire under her feet. Ashley will not be the one to back down from this contest of strength. More earth shaking stomps rain down on the Coyote Queen. Her vision is starting to swim as she can feel several of her fingers no longer obeying her body's commands. Pain is something that the Queen is used to, however, and she pulls herself out from the ground. Now with all four limbs available, she screams a war cry into the night and continues ripping at Ashley. It's for naught though. Ashley's dense fur and cord-like muscles are simply too tough for even the jagged claws of the undead to pierce. The vampire's eyes widen, showing off their slitted pupils and blood red coloration.
"No more." The Coyote Queen slurs through broken teeth. "We yield. What is it you want? Our territory? It's yours if you desire. Or our disciplines? We will teach you." The tension leaves her body as she bows her head, an awkward movement while within the claws of the monster in front of her, "Just... no more."
The only response that the Coyote Queen gets is Ashley crouching down over the vampire, her foot firmly planted on her chest and pinning her to the ground. "Die." Her breath steams in the night air as it pushes up against the vampire's face. A guttural and clearly difficult task to be made understood with vocal cords made to scream and roar. Her fists and claws begin to pummel down on the already broken form underneath her. As The Coyote Queen screams, the raccoons attempt to leap atop Ashley and are again scattered by the air rending blows from Ashley and flee into the night with terrified grumbles and hisses. Hammer blows land one after another, blurring together into a kinetic death machine as bone and blood fly forth until there is nothing but a broken corpse where a vampire once was.
Inside the house, the crows swell and swarm, trying to find any trace of Elio to attack. With the room filled with enemies, Elio finally finds his back against the wall. Putting his hands up in front of his face he avoids any crippling injuries, but he gains several new wounds in his torso from the talons and beaks of the birds as they rip apart whatever they can latch onto. Looking to his right, he sees the discarded shotgun that Jackie had used to try and kill him. Elio pushes through the crows and takes up the shotgun, not bothering to check if it's still loaded. He knows that it is. With unerring aim, he waits between heartbeats and fires the bird shot out into the swarm when the largest body of birds is in front of him, about to strike at him again. The house fills with shrapnel, feathers, bone, and blood as several blasts from the shotgun in Elio's hands kill the flock dead. A single crow manages to escape, even then it has a shot in its wing and its flight is haggard. Inside, the bodies of birds lay on every surface. Each piece of shot seemed to have been perfectly aimed to kill a bird for every pellet sprayed. Blood soaks into the carpet, squishing underfoot as Elio easily hefts the smoldering barrel of the shotgun up to his shoulder.
By the time Ashley has finished pummeling what used to be a vampire into the gravel, her clawed fists are raw and bloody. She looks down at them "Hey, you got them all down there?" Elio shouts out from the broken upper window while picking feathers out of his torn flannel and applying pressure to his stomach.
Ashley licks her sharp teeth, spits onto the ground, and nods with satisfaction as she grabs a broken arm of the corpse and hoists it up, broken and destroyed to be seen. She sniffs and looks towards the road for a moment. Her eyes narrow as she looks into the underbrush. Dropping the body she bolts forward where she can see someone hiding. There is a yelp as she easily grabs a man's arm and pulls him out into her anima light. "Wait! Wait!" He shrieks, "I'm not with them!" Nigel is pulled effortlessly from the bushes and onto the front lawn.
Elio looks down at the vampire inside, still mumbling to herself as she holds her wounds. He can see flesh starting to knit under her fingers, but it looks like she has a ways to go before she's going anywhere. Leaning down, he grabs Ashley's rifle out of the vampire's hands. "Ashley, wait. That's Nigel. Drag him over here and I'll open the door." Ashley grunts and starts to pull the man over. He puts up a little bit of a fight but not enough to stop Ashley.
They end up in the ruined remains of a living room shredded by shotgun blasts and crow bodies. It smells like fresh blood and gunpowder. Sitting at the table, the three exchange looks. Ashley has returned to her human form and is glaring suspiciously at the new guy while Elio casually puts his feet up on the table and holds the shotgun.
"So." Elio starts, nodding to the guy. "How are you, Nigel?"
He looks at the wounds of the two people in front of him. Ashley's legs are soaked in her own blood and angry red jagged wounds are easily visible through the now barely existing lower half of her dress. Elio has blood soaking the front of his chest where birds tried to dig out his organs, easily visible through the shirt that bore the brunt of the birds. "I'm good. But what about you two? Shouldn't you at least dress those cuts?
Ashley shrugs and grabs a nice napkin to staunch her bleeding from a nearby cabinet. It's even embroidered. "I've had worse."
"I'm guessing you found something at that house you staked out?" Elio continues, unbothered by the wounds.
"You could say that. Found a couple of locals driving out there and they dumped a kid's body out in the field. Followed them until I heard what sounded like roaring and came out here where I found you two tangling with the blood suckers."
"So you're a hunter!" Ashley slams her palms on the table enthusiastically.
Nigel raises an eyebrow. "Yeah. Well. That's the most excited response to learning I'm a hunter I've ever gotten from a Lupine."
"Well, you did a shitty job out here." Ashley huffs. "This place was full of vampires and cultists. Guess we did your job, huh?" Her anima still glows, reflecting in the dripping light fixture above them. "Since we did it for you, what are you going to do for us?" She smirks as she knots up one of the napkins over the injuries on her legs.
"Thank you, I guess. Don't have a lot to offer you, besides maybe being a contact." He looks them both up and down. "Or maybe a position at Talon investigations for our friend Elio here. We all know he's been in hot water with the authorities. We could help smooth that over."
Elio lowers the shotgun, turning the barrel towards the living room where the wounded vampire lays motionless. "Maybe I'll give it some thought. I want to finish up in Galena first before I take you up on that."
Nigel nods, rips a piece of paper off a notepad on the pad in the kitchen and scrawls a phone number down, sliding it to Elio. "Give it some more thought then. This is a hornet's nest you're kicking here and we can offer some protection to those you care about."
"And what about for me?" Ashley asks, cocking her head and folding her arms.
He eyes her warily. "I really don't think that my partners would go for giving out assistance to Lupines. Even helpful ones. Sorry."
"But I'm not a Lupine!" Ashley protests. She points up to her forehead, where the full silver circle continues to glow. "Ever seen one with a freaky silver glow?" She turns into a rabbit, then a deer, and back to a human in the span of a few seconds, "Or one that can turn into all this shit?"
Rubbing his eyes, Nigel puts his elbows on the table while supporting his head. "Look. I don't know. I don't make a habit of talking to your kind much. More of a 'kill or be killed' relationship."
A rustle comes from the other side of the living room as the wounded vampire manages to get her legs under her. She attempts to flee out the window, but Elio is ready with a blast of the shotgun, enough to sever a leg with the sudden blast. A picture falls off the wall from the vibrations with a crash. Nigel flinches as the woman screams and falls short of the window. "Jesus! You didn't stake her yet?" He says towards Elio.
He shakes his head before standing and breaking a chair leg off the seat he just came up off of. "Kinda thought she was dead." He casually advances as the vampire stutters.
"Leave me alone! I'll kill you kine!" She bares her fangs and tries to look as intimidating as possible as she gets halfway to propping herself up before being slammed back down to the floor by the stake.
Elio stays crouched down next to the motionless corpse for a moment. "Didn't know they could heal that fast."
"Yeah..." Nigel slowly says, relaxing back again. "So, uh, are you both." He gestures widely to both of them. "Lupines?"
"No. Neither of us are werewolves, Nigel. If that is your real name." Ashley says.
"You're sure?" He squints at Ashley.
Elio grunts as he plops down into another chair. "Look. I'm a Solar and she's a Lunar." Ashley casts a nasty look to Elio. The empty golden circle lights his brow, a golden mirror to Ashley's. "We've got bones to pick with the local vamps and we settle scores fast. Now that this place is cleared out, we'll be taking our leave tomorrow to get back to business in Galena."
"What about the rest of the cult?" Nigel asks.
"With the vampires gone I bet it'll just run its course and peter out." Elio shrugs tiredly.
Nigel raises his eyebrows. "You don't know much about cults, do you? You just created a big power vacuum. One of these idiots is going to try and take the 'Coyote Queen's' place."
"Is that person going to be a human or a vampire? If it's just a human, I don't really care." Ashley says while checking her fingernails.
"Wait, really?" He cocks his head. "You really just did this to kill the vampires, huh?"
Elio puts the shotgun down on the table. "Well, she did it just to kill the vampires." Ashley nods with a smile. "And I did it because otherwise she'd never shut up about the vampires down here. And because she could've gotten in over her head if I didn't help out." He mutters.
The table shakes as Ashley rises to her feet. "I told you I didn't need your help! I would've been just fine."
Elio rolls his eyes. "I killed two, no, three vampires and a flock of birds. They were all going to jump you in your strut to the front door if I didn't put 'em down."
"You are such an ass, you know that?" Ashley seethes as she sits back down.
"You two killed a group of vampires that me and my fellow hunters have been investigating for months to find the locations of and identities of. In a single evening." Nigel shakes his head. "How did you do that?"
"Right place, right people, right time. Bit of bad luck." Elio says with a smirk. "We got their attention by staking the Coyote Queen in the basement here a couple days ago, then they by chance discovered her in the basement. They must have had a meeting of some sort already established to take place when we happened to step out to dinner at a neighbors house to collect information and establish our covers there." He stands and begins to pace while carefully stepping around each bird on the ground. "Finding her staked, she must have used her knowledge of who we were to whip her fellow vampires into a frenzy and sic them and their animal followers on us. We killed a bear and a few raccoons on the way home, which was no coincidence to slow us down." The pacing increases in speed. "One of them was sent to raise the alarm in the cult, but I caught them before they could and killed them. The others waited for us in ambush, but some careful observation revealed them and we ended up getting the drop on them and ultimately ending it." He nods with some self-satisfaction. "It wasn't as quiet as I wanted it to be, and it only worked because they vastly underestimated us, but they sped their way to an early grave and saved me some time at least."
Nigel goes slightly pale and swallows. "So they caught you off guard on your way back from a dinner at the neighbors and you fought a bear unarmed? Then still had enough in you to kill four vampires when they knew you'd be coming? At night?"
"Like I said. It could've been better. That's the bad luck I was talking about." Elio sighs.
Ashley stands quickly. "Crap! I forgot about the bear leg. I'll be back in a bit." She jumps down the main stairs and sprints out the front door and back down the road.
Nigel has his mouth open as he tries to formulate a question. "It's a whole thing." Elio answers quickly as he sees the gears in Nigel's mind start to rotate. "Best not to ask."
"This has been... enlightening." Nigel stands from his seat and dusts off his jacket, briefly revealing a bulletproof vest underneath it. "I'm not going to pretend to fully grasp all that you've told me, but if you guys need info on what we know about the local kindred or just need some friendly faces to talk to, give us a holler. We aren't the biggest in the game, but we aren't the smallest either. Could really use a couple of badasses or monsters that are on our side, you know?" With that he nods briefly at Elio and starts to walk away.
"I'll... keep it in mind. Hey, do you guys know anything about a vampire named Victor that runs up in Galena?"
He stops at the top of the stairs. "Yeah, I know about him. Real nasty piece of work, that one. What? You have some trouble with him?"
"I almost killed him but he got away. His ghouls took him away to God knows where and I'm thinking he's going to be back soon. Doing something with the mines up in Galena. Ended up buying them from the city itself."
Nigel chuckles to himself. "Sounds like you already know more than me, eh? If you see him again, put a torch up his ass for me. And I'd skip town if he's not dead and you hurt him. Probably went crying to the bigwig vampires of Chicago who's gonna call his cronies on you and monster girl there. You might be a badass, but a dozen vamps all ready to drink you dry are not good odds."
"Yeah, I figure not. We'll make it work though." Elio says resolutely.
"You are one crazy motherfucker, Elio. Give us a call. I'm sure we have something to offer you." He holds up his hand in farewell and descends the stairs, leaving into the night.
A few minutes later, Ashley returns with her prize in hand looking unreasonably proud of herself. Quickly darting into the bedroom, she returns a few moments later with a pair of slightly too large jeans on under the ruined dress. She glances around, "So Nigel's gone?"
"He took off. If you ever want some vampire hunter drinking buddies I'm sure they'd love to talk to you." He glances at the phone number on the paper.
Ashley is already rummaging around the cabinets, pulling out a cutting board, spices, and a cast iron pan. "Sure, sure." She grumbles as she slams the leg on the counter and starts working the hide off with a knife. "You think a haunch of bear would be good if I seasoned it like a steak?"
"I have no fucking clue. It's meat, probably would be fine with just salt and pepper." Elio pulls up a stool to the opposite side of the counter as Ashley works. "If you're actually gonna cook this one, could you make me a steak?"
"Fine. Sure. Plenty of meat on this leg." With a wet rip, the hide is removed, exposing the bloody muscle underneath. She sets to work carving meat from the bone and onto the cutting board.
Glancing around at the ruined room and the staked vampire near the windows, Elio sighs. "We probably shouldn't stay here, should we?"
"Why not?" Ashley hungrily eyes the steak as she sprinkles salt and pepper onto its surface. "Sweep out the birds and board up a window or two and it'll be just like new. We even still have a vampire to interrogate."
"What should we do after we're done with that one?" Elio asks, leaning down onto the counter.
Ashley shrugs. "Whatever we want, I guess. Go clear your name and start your business again. I plan on just killing as many of the vampires as I can get my claws into." She stops for a moment after flipping the stove on. "Which I wouldn't be opposed to you coming along for that if you want to."
"It's only a matter of time until Victor comes back to Galena. If you hang around there with me they'll come to you." Elio notes. "Plus whatever he wants down in the mines I probably can't get at until they actually start digging."
"You still want to stop the drug thing in Galena?" Ashley asks, waiting for the pan to heat.
There is a long pause as Elio thinks about that. "I'm not sure what the best plan to help Galena is. The drugs are a problem, but maybe I should keep my ear to the ground for other things I can help with as well. And as long as Victor has his fingers in the police department and mayor's office, there's no way that my name will be cleared. Even if it was, my reputation is shot. Doubt I'll be a successful investigator there again."
A sizzle erupts as Ashley drops the bear steak onto the hot pan. "Sounds like you have an easy start at least. Deal with Victor's unchecked ghouls and go on from there."
"I would have to somehow convince them to work with me or kill them for that though. I could find all sorts of dirt on them but my credibility is weak enough that no one will take me seriously. And killing them involves some serious social repercussions that I would not be able to handle on my own. Likely as not, another one of Victor's friends will just take their places."
Ashley sighs. "You're making this way too complicated."
"I really don't think I am, Ash. It's a delicate balance and messing with it means people suffer."
She turns back to face Elio, squinting her eyes at him. "Then burn it down or something. I dunno." She waves her hands near her face, "Build it back from the ashes, better, stronger. Just do something. Don't just stand there thinking while people abuse the system. Not while you're as strong as you are."
Elio stands from his stool and moves towards the bedroom, glancing down at his ruined shirt. "There's more to being just strong you know."
"If there is, I don't see it." Ashley turns back to watch her steak cook. "I'll let you know when it's done."
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In Chicago, there is a ruined hospital that has been long condemned by the city. A demolition project that has somehow been put on the back burner by the mayor and city council for years now, largely ignored by most passerby. Down in its twisting basement tunnels, in the once full morgue now only lived in by monsters, dozens of computer monitors glow. The harsh blue-white light illuminates the creatures that call it home. Eyes that face away from each other, skin like oil, and fangs too large to reasonably be supported by the jaws they call home; it clacks away at the keyboard with undivided attention. This abomination sniffs and quickly adjusts a stained over-sized hoodie as it crawls through social media. It's eyes narrow at some blurry video footage. Eyes flicking to the description, it begins to read the panicked description of someone who saw something they shouldn't have. The footage plays. It's blurry, but it can be cleaned.
The creature wastes no time downloading the video, while simultaneously sending its link to unknown contact. 'Flag for removal.' is the simple message annotating the link. Moments later a thumbs up emoji is received.
A few runs through some post processing and cutting edge AI tools brings the quality up over the course of a few hours. Humans always make the best toys. Once complete, it reviews the footage again and its eyes widen. It recognizes the person. Pushing back in its office chair reveals legs too long to be human. "Jessie." It growls.
From the background a groan can be heard. "Jessie look at this." It taps the monitor as another creature, equally hideous as the first with bug eyes and greasy black hair in cords around its shoulders rolls over in a wheeled chair, removing her attention from a wide screen television with a video game playing on it.
"What?! I can't pause Call of Duty, Greg. We've had this discussion." Jessie pulls off her headset.
"Isn't that Elizabeth's ghoul?" Greg says, pointing to Ashley's face, now restored on the screen.
Jessie squints and gets close to the screen. "Yeah. Least I think so." Reaching to the keyboard, an archive of millions of photos is pulled up and sorted through with impressive speed. Stopping, a street photo of Ashley from a year ago is pulled up. "Pretty similar, I'd say."
"Well, get a load of this." Pushing Jessie away from the keys, Greg allows the video to play as Ashley transforms into her war form.
"Holy shit." Jessie mutters. "She's a fucking Lupine."
Glittering eyes attached to striped bodies scuttle out from the bushes near the house. Four raccoons in total begin to hiss and growl at Ashley as she heedlessly continues forward. "More pets? How fun." She cracks her knuckles. "Too much of a coward to face me so you'll throw your precious babes to the meat grinder. I hope you can live with yourself." Her voice carries up to the house, and a form steps out from behind the chimney on the roof. Brutish and wide, the creature has a stoop in his back. His eyes are hard to make out in the dark, but they are ringed in black and seem to be pits of night.
"So you're the one who killed my pets." He growls as he walks to the edge, crouching down and glaring at Ashley. "I don't know who sent you or what clan your fucking disgusting blood comes from, but you won't be leaving here without meeting your final death."
Elio sees his opportunity and grips a low hanging branch of one of the nearby trees. Swinging with unearthly grace, he flips and tumbles through the air the twenty feet or so it takes to grab a gutter. He starts to haul himself up with one hand while pulling his knife free from its sheath with the other.
Crows begin to gather overhead, circling in a flapping and cawing cacophony. "You are an idiot. The only ones meeting their final deaths are you and your siblings." Ashley steps forward to meet the raccoons. The ground trembles underfoot, but not from Ashley's steps. A smirk appears on the man's face.
"Stupid neonate. You're done." The ground under Ashley erupts as the Coyote Queen, no longer confined to her chain cocoon, bursts forth with an unearthly scream, grabbing at Ashley's ankles. Her eyes widen in surprise before she has time to react. The Coyote Queen latches onto Ashley's upper thighs, horrible claws trying to rend through flesh but finding it iron like under her talons. Not even her brutish strength is enough to dent Ashley's skin.
Elio appears like a tearing wind behind the wide man on the roof as he prepares to leap down to assist his sire. A moment later, he has vanished. A dozen, no, a thousand strokes of Elio's knife has completely scrubbed the vampire from existence. Only a fine mist of ash and decayed flesh remains.
Down below Ashley, the enraged form continues to crawl forth from the ground. Her muscles swell ever larger, filling with blood as she continues to try and rip at Ashley, her sharp claws finally find purchase as they draw blood on both legs in a bloody gouge that starts at the hips. Ashley grunts and her eyes go wide for a moment as she feels her blood run down her legs. From the house a crack of gunfire shatters one of the front windows as Ashley's rifle in the hands of another assailant lances out at her. Even with a vampire clinging to her lower half and tearing at her skin, Ashley twists as the bullet passes by her and ricochets off of one of the walkway stones. The four raccoons sprint forward, each one trying to bite and cling to Ashley as they cover her like a fuzzy murderous coat.
"Get off me you fucking trash monsters!" She swirls her arms around like sledgehammers, each wild haymaker throwing a raccoon back and into the bushes. One manages to get its fangs into her upper arm but finds it to be like chewing on oak bark for all the damage it did before being thrown away. Howling, Ashley grows taller as she changes to her war form, glaring murderously down at the vampire below her feet as Ashley starts to glow. The powerful hind legs of the demon-rabbit start to rain down with thunderous strength. Each one lands on the head, shoulders, and arms of the Coyote Queen and several bony cracks can be heard as she is forcibly re-inserted into the hard earth.
As soon as the rifle shot went off, Elio was already forming the mental image of where the attacker is based on the angle of the shot. Sliding down the back half of the roof while grabbing the cold aluminum edge of the gutter to swing down to the back porch, he opens the glass door and finds another vampire taking cover next to the front window while operating the bolt action of the rifle. Like a shadow made of sharp edges, glass, and steel blades, Elio leaps forward at the target, ready to strike another decisive blow before things get too far out of hand.
His knife catches the vampire sniper in the right shoulder, fetid stale blood splattering onto the rifle and floor as she spins to face her attacker. Elio's knife is pulled back and ready to strike again as the vampire looks around confused at the empty room while clutching at her new injury. "Meredith! I think they have someone who knows obfuscate!" She shouts out to the Coyote Queen. The vampire whistles and the crows up above descend on the house. Pouring through the still open back door and broken front window, they engulf the sitting room and shred anything that is not their master. They swarm around the room, but their confusion at the sudden entry and the sheer number of their flock end up getting in their way and prevent them from finding the hidden attacker in their midst. Elio does not wait for them to find him, however. He darts forward, easily finding the path through the flying menace back to the panicked looking vampire as their eyes dart too and fro trying to find the space Elio would leave behind when he moves forward and yet not finding it.
Before the vampire has time to try to heal themselves, they notice the glint of bloodied steel among the birds. Swinging the rifle like a bat, they try to keep Elio away, they just need a bit of time to heal after all. Elio is far too fast for that though. He flows like water under the super humanly fast swing of the rifle butt and thrusts the knife into the gut and pulls up to her rib cage. With a cough, the vampire falls onto her back and starts to mutter as she tries to ignore her pain and reconstitute herself.
Back in the front path, Ashley roars as she continues to stomp on the vampire under her feet. Ashley will not be the one to back down from this contest of strength. More earth shaking stomps rain down on the Coyote Queen. Her vision is starting to swim as she can feel several of her fingers no longer obeying her body's commands. Pain is something that the Queen is used to, however, and she pulls herself out from the ground. Now with all four limbs available, she screams a war cry into the night and continues ripping at Ashley. It's for naught though. Ashley's dense fur and cord-like muscles are simply too tough for even the jagged claws of the undead to pierce. The vampire's eyes widen, showing off their slitted pupils and blood red coloration.
"No more." The Coyote Queen slurs through broken teeth. "We yield. What is it you want? Our territory? It's yours if you desire. Or our disciplines? We will teach you." The tension leaves her body as she bows her head, an awkward movement while within the claws of the monster in front of her, "Just... no more."
The only response that the Coyote Queen gets is Ashley crouching down over the vampire, her foot firmly planted on her chest and pinning her to the ground. "Die." Her breath steams in the night air as it pushes up against the vampire's face. A guttural and clearly difficult task to be made understood with vocal cords made to scream and roar. Her fists and claws begin to pummel down on the already broken form underneath her. As The Coyote Queen screams, the raccoons attempt to leap atop Ashley and are again scattered by the air rending blows from Ashley and flee into the night with terrified grumbles and hisses. Hammer blows land one after another, blurring together into a kinetic death machine as bone and blood fly forth until there is nothing but a broken corpse where a vampire once was.
Inside the house, the crows swell and swarm, trying to find any trace of Elio to attack. With the room filled with enemies, Elio finally finds his back against the wall. Putting his hands up in front of his face he avoids any crippling injuries, but he gains several new wounds in his torso from the talons and beaks of the birds as they rip apart whatever they can latch onto. Looking to his right, he sees the discarded shotgun that Jackie had used to try and kill him. Elio pushes through the crows and takes up the shotgun, not bothering to check if it's still loaded. He knows that it is. With unerring aim, he waits between heartbeats and fires the bird shot out into the swarm when the largest body of birds is in front of him, about to strike at him again. The house fills with shrapnel, feathers, bone, and blood as several blasts from the shotgun in Elio's hands kill the flock dead. A single crow manages to escape, even then it has a shot in its wing and its flight is haggard. Inside, the bodies of birds lay on every surface. Each piece of shot seemed to have been perfectly aimed to kill a bird for every pellet sprayed. Blood soaks into the carpet, squishing underfoot as Elio easily hefts the smoldering barrel of the shotgun up to his shoulder.
By the time Ashley has finished pummeling what used to be a vampire into the gravel, her clawed fists are raw and bloody. She looks down at them "Hey, you got them all down there?" Elio shouts out from the broken upper window while picking feathers out of his torn flannel and applying pressure to his stomach.
Ashley licks her sharp teeth, spits onto the ground, and nods with satisfaction as she grabs a broken arm of the corpse and hoists it up, broken and destroyed to be seen. She sniffs and looks towards the road for a moment. Her eyes narrow as she looks into the underbrush. Dropping the body she bolts forward where she can see someone hiding. There is a yelp as she easily grabs a man's arm and pulls him out into her anima light. "Wait! Wait!" He shrieks, "I'm not with them!" Nigel is pulled effortlessly from the bushes and onto the front lawn.
Elio looks down at the vampire inside, still mumbling to herself as she holds her wounds. He can see flesh starting to knit under her fingers, but it looks like she has a ways to go before she's going anywhere. Leaning down, he grabs Ashley's rifle out of the vampire's hands. "Ashley, wait. That's Nigel. Drag him over here and I'll open the door." Ashley grunts and starts to pull the man over. He puts up a little bit of a fight but not enough to stop Ashley.
They end up in the ruined remains of a living room shredded by shotgun blasts and crow bodies. It smells like fresh blood and gunpowder. Sitting at the table, the three exchange looks. Ashley has returned to her human form and is glaring suspiciously at the new guy while Elio casually puts his feet up on the table and holds the shotgun.
"So." Elio starts, nodding to the guy. "How are you, Nigel?"
He looks at the wounds of the two people in front of him. Ashley's legs are soaked in her own blood and angry red jagged wounds are easily visible through the now barely existing lower half of her dress. Elio has blood soaking the front of his chest where birds tried to dig out his organs, easily visible through the shirt that bore the brunt of the birds. "I'm good. But what about you two? Shouldn't you at least dress those cuts?
Ashley shrugs and grabs a nice napkin to staunch her bleeding from a nearby cabinet. It's even embroidered. "I've had worse."
"I'm guessing you found something at that house you staked out?" Elio continues, unbothered by the wounds.
"You could say that. Found a couple of locals driving out there and they dumped a kid's body out in the field. Followed them until I heard what sounded like roaring and came out here where I found you two tangling with the blood suckers."
"So you're a hunter!" Ashley slams her palms on the table enthusiastically.
Nigel raises an eyebrow. "Yeah. Well. That's the most excited response to learning I'm a hunter I've ever gotten from a Lupine."
"Well, you did a shitty job out here." Ashley huffs. "This place was full of vampires and cultists. Guess we did your job, huh?" Her anima still glows, reflecting in the dripping light fixture above them. "Since we did it for you, what are you going to do for us?" She smirks as she knots up one of the napkins over the injuries on her legs.
"Thank you, I guess. Don't have a lot to offer you, besides maybe being a contact." He looks them both up and down. "Or maybe a position at Talon investigations for our friend Elio here. We all know he's been in hot water with the authorities. We could help smooth that over."
Elio lowers the shotgun, turning the barrel towards the living room where the wounded vampire lays motionless. "Maybe I'll give it some thought. I want to finish up in Galena first before I take you up on that."
Nigel nods, rips a piece of paper off a notepad on the pad in the kitchen and scrawls a phone number down, sliding it to Elio. "Give it some more thought then. This is a hornet's nest you're kicking here and we can offer some protection to those you care about."
"And what about for me?" Ashley asks, cocking her head and folding her arms.
He eyes her warily. "I really don't think that my partners would go for giving out assistance to Lupines. Even helpful ones. Sorry."
"But I'm not a Lupine!" Ashley protests. She points up to her forehead, where the full silver circle continues to glow. "Ever seen one with a freaky silver glow?" She turns into a rabbit, then a deer, and back to a human in the span of a few seconds, "Or one that can turn into all this shit?"
Rubbing his eyes, Nigel puts his elbows on the table while supporting his head. "Look. I don't know. I don't make a habit of talking to your kind much. More of a 'kill or be killed' relationship."
A rustle comes from the other side of the living room as the wounded vampire manages to get her legs under her. She attempts to flee out the window, but Elio is ready with a blast of the shotgun, enough to sever a leg with the sudden blast. A picture falls off the wall from the vibrations with a crash. Nigel flinches as the woman screams and falls short of the window. "Jesus! You didn't stake her yet?" He says towards Elio.
He shakes his head before standing and breaking a chair leg off the seat he just came up off of. "Kinda thought she was dead." He casually advances as the vampire stutters.
"Leave me alone! I'll kill you kine!" She bares her fangs and tries to look as intimidating as possible as she gets halfway to propping herself up before being slammed back down to the floor by the stake.
Elio stays crouched down next to the motionless corpse for a moment. "Didn't know they could heal that fast."
"Yeah..." Nigel slowly says, relaxing back again. "So, uh, are you both." He gestures widely to both of them. "Lupines?"
"No. Neither of us are werewolves, Nigel. If that is your real name." Ashley says.
"You're sure?" He squints at Ashley.
Elio grunts as he plops down into another chair. "Look. I'm a Solar and she's a Lunar." Ashley casts a nasty look to Elio. The empty golden circle lights his brow, a golden mirror to Ashley's. "We've got bones to pick with the local vamps and we settle scores fast. Now that this place is cleared out, we'll be taking our leave tomorrow to get back to business in Galena."
"What about the rest of the cult?" Nigel asks.
"With the vampires gone I bet it'll just run its course and peter out." Elio shrugs tiredly.
Nigel raises his eyebrows. "You don't know much about cults, do you? You just created a big power vacuum. One of these idiots is going to try and take the 'Coyote Queen's' place."
"Is that person going to be a human or a vampire? If it's just a human, I don't really care." Ashley says while checking her fingernails.
"Wait, really?" He cocks his head. "You really just did this to kill the vampires, huh?"
Elio puts the shotgun down on the table. "Well, she did it just to kill the vampires." Ashley nods with a smile. "And I did it because otherwise she'd never shut up about the vampires down here. And because she could've gotten in over her head if I didn't help out." He mutters.
The table shakes as Ashley rises to her feet. "I told you I didn't need your help! I would've been just fine."
Elio rolls his eyes. "I killed two, no, three vampires and a flock of birds. They were all going to jump you in your strut to the front door if I didn't put 'em down."
"You are such an ass, you know that?" Ashley seethes as she sits back down.
"You two killed a group of vampires that me and my fellow hunters have been investigating for months to find the locations of and identities of. In a single evening." Nigel shakes his head. "How did you do that?"
"Right place, right people, right time. Bit of bad luck." Elio says with a smirk. "We got their attention by staking the Coyote Queen in the basement here a couple days ago, then they by chance discovered her in the basement. They must have had a meeting of some sort already established to take place when we happened to step out to dinner at a neighbors house to collect information and establish our covers there." He stands and begins to pace while carefully stepping around each bird on the ground. "Finding her staked, she must have used her knowledge of who we were to whip her fellow vampires into a frenzy and sic them and their animal followers on us. We killed a bear and a few raccoons on the way home, which was no coincidence to slow us down." The pacing increases in speed. "One of them was sent to raise the alarm in the cult, but I caught them before they could and killed them. The others waited for us in ambush, but some careful observation revealed them and we ended up getting the drop on them and ultimately ending it." He nods with some self-satisfaction. "It wasn't as quiet as I wanted it to be, and it only worked because they vastly underestimated us, but they sped their way to an early grave and saved me some time at least."
Nigel goes slightly pale and swallows. "So they caught you off guard on your way back from a dinner at the neighbors and you fought a bear unarmed? Then still had enough in you to kill four vampires when they knew you'd be coming? At night?"
"Like I said. It could've been better. That's the bad luck I was talking about." Elio sighs.
Ashley stands quickly. "Crap! I forgot about the bear leg. I'll be back in a bit." She jumps down the main stairs and sprints out the front door and back down the road.
Nigel has his mouth open as he tries to formulate a question. "It's a whole thing." Elio answers quickly as he sees the gears in Nigel's mind start to rotate. "Best not to ask."
"This has been... enlightening." Nigel stands from his seat and dusts off his jacket, briefly revealing a bulletproof vest underneath it. "I'm not going to pretend to fully grasp all that you've told me, but if you guys need info on what we know about the local kindred or just need some friendly faces to talk to, give us a holler. We aren't the biggest in the game, but we aren't the smallest either. Could really use a couple of badasses or monsters that are on our side, you know?" With that he nods briefly at Elio and starts to walk away.
"I'll... keep it in mind. Hey, do you guys know anything about a vampire named Victor that runs up in Galena?"
He stops at the top of the stairs. "Yeah, I know about him. Real nasty piece of work, that one. What? You have some trouble with him?"
"I almost killed him but he got away. His ghouls took him away to God knows where and I'm thinking he's going to be back soon. Doing something with the mines up in Galena. Ended up buying them from the city itself."
Nigel chuckles to himself. "Sounds like you already know more than me, eh? If you see him again, put a torch up his ass for me. And I'd skip town if he's not dead and you hurt him. Probably went crying to the bigwig vampires of Chicago who's gonna call his cronies on you and monster girl there. You might be a badass, but a dozen vamps all ready to drink you dry are not good odds."
"Yeah, I figure not. We'll make it work though." Elio says resolutely.
"You are one crazy motherfucker, Elio. Give us a call. I'm sure we have something to offer you." He holds up his hand in farewell and descends the stairs, leaving into the night.
A few minutes later, Ashley returns with her prize in hand looking unreasonably proud of herself. Quickly darting into the bedroom, she returns a few moments later with a pair of slightly too large jeans on under the ruined dress. She glances around, "So Nigel's gone?"
"He took off. If you ever want some vampire hunter drinking buddies I'm sure they'd love to talk to you." He glances at the phone number on the paper.
Ashley is already rummaging around the cabinets, pulling out a cutting board, spices, and a cast iron pan. "Sure, sure." She grumbles as she slams the leg on the counter and starts working the hide off with a knife. "You think a haunch of bear would be good if I seasoned it like a steak?"
"I have no fucking clue. It's meat, probably would be fine with just salt and pepper." Elio pulls up a stool to the opposite side of the counter as Ashley works. "If you're actually gonna cook this one, could you make me a steak?"
"Fine. Sure. Plenty of meat on this leg." With a wet rip, the hide is removed, exposing the bloody muscle underneath. She sets to work carving meat from the bone and onto the cutting board.
Glancing around at the ruined room and the staked vampire near the windows, Elio sighs. "We probably shouldn't stay here, should we?"
"Why not?" Ashley hungrily eyes the steak as she sprinkles salt and pepper onto its surface. "Sweep out the birds and board up a window or two and it'll be just like new. We even still have a vampire to interrogate."
"What should we do after we're done with that one?" Elio asks, leaning down onto the counter.
Ashley shrugs. "Whatever we want, I guess. Go clear your name and start your business again. I plan on just killing as many of the vampires as I can get my claws into." She stops for a moment after flipping the stove on. "Which I wouldn't be opposed to you coming along for that if you want to."
"It's only a matter of time until Victor comes back to Galena. If you hang around there with me they'll come to you." Elio notes. "Plus whatever he wants down in the mines I probably can't get at until they actually start digging."
"You still want to stop the drug thing in Galena?" Ashley asks, waiting for the pan to heat.
There is a long pause as Elio thinks about that. "I'm not sure what the best plan to help Galena is. The drugs are a problem, but maybe I should keep my ear to the ground for other things I can help with as well. And as long as Victor has his fingers in the police department and mayor's office, there's no way that my name will be cleared. Even if it was, my reputation is shot. Doubt I'll be a successful investigator there again."
A sizzle erupts as Ashley drops the bear steak onto the hot pan. "Sounds like you have an easy start at least. Deal with Victor's unchecked ghouls and go on from there."
"I would have to somehow convince them to work with me or kill them for that though. I could find all sorts of dirt on them but my credibility is weak enough that no one will take me seriously. And killing them involves some serious social repercussions that I would not be able to handle on my own. Likely as not, another one of Victor's friends will just take their places."
Ashley sighs. "You're making this way too complicated."
"I really don't think I am, Ash. It's a delicate balance and messing with it means people suffer."
She turns back to face Elio, squinting her eyes at him. "Then burn it down or something. I dunno." She waves her hands near her face, "Build it back from the ashes, better, stronger. Just do something. Don't just stand there thinking while people abuse the system. Not while you're as strong as you are."
Elio stands from his stool and moves towards the bedroom, glancing down at his ruined shirt. "There's more to being just strong you know."
"If there is, I don't see it." Ashley turns back to watch her steak cook. "I'll let you know when it's done."
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In Chicago, there is a ruined hospital that has been long condemned by the city. A demolition project that has somehow been put on the back burner by the mayor and city council for years now, largely ignored by most passerby. Down in its twisting basement tunnels, in the once full morgue now only lived in by monsters, dozens of computer monitors glow. The harsh blue-white light illuminates the creatures that call it home. Eyes that face away from each other, skin like oil, and fangs too large to reasonably be supported by the jaws they call home; it clacks away at the keyboard with undivided attention. This abomination sniffs and quickly adjusts a stained over-sized hoodie as it crawls through social media. It's eyes narrow at some blurry video footage. Eyes flicking to the description, it begins to read the panicked description of someone who saw something they shouldn't have. The footage plays. It's blurry, but it can be cleaned.
The creature wastes no time downloading the video, while simultaneously sending its link to unknown contact. 'Flag for removal.' is the simple message annotating the link. Moments later a thumbs up emoji is received.
A few runs through some post processing and cutting edge AI tools brings the quality up over the course of a few hours. Humans always make the best toys. Once complete, it reviews the footage again and its eyes widen. It recognizes the person. Pushing back in its office chair reveals legs too long to be human. "Jessie." It growls.
From the background a groan can be heard. "Jessie look at this." It taps the monitor as another creature, equally hideous as the first with bug eyes and greasy black hair in cords around its shoulders rolls over in a wheeled chair, removing her attention from a wide screen television with a video game playing on it.
"What?! I can't pause Call of Duty, Greg. We've had this discussion." Jessie pulls off her headset.
"Isn't that Elizabeth's ghoul?" Greg says, pointing to Ashley's face, now restored on the screen.
Jessie squints and gets close to the screen. "Yeah. Least I think so." Reaching to the keyboard, an archive of millions of photos is pulled up and sorted through with impressive speed. Stopping, a street photo of Ashley from a year ago is pulled up. "Pretty similar, I'd say."
"Well, get a load of this." Pushing Jessie away from the keys, Greg allows the video to play as Ashley transforms into her war form.
"Holy shit." Jessie mutters. "She's a fucking Lupine."
Scene 25 - Flown the Coop
By morning, Ashley has dragged the staked vampire into the blackness of the downstairs. The bar room is barely lit by flickering fluorescent lights and the lady vampire has been chained into place on a load bearing central pillar. She has stringy rust colored hair, darker skin, and a cloak that looks hand made to have crow feathers sewn into its exterior. A long chair leg sticks out from her chest where Elio left it and Ashley steps forward, reaching out. The leg falls into her grasp and she pulls with a sickening squelch.
The vampire starts to cough and struggle against her bindings before stopping and staring at Ashley wide eyed. "What do you want, you furry asshole?" She manages to spit out.
"I want to know what you know, leech." Ashley steps forward and grabs hold of the vampire's hair, pulling her up and forcing her to look Ashley in the eyes. "Let's start with your name."
"And if I don't tell the flea bag?" She breaks eye contact.
"Then I'll break open the planks keeping the sun at bay and let it have you. No real loss to me."
The vampire snaps her head back, a small bloody smirk on her face. "You won't get anything from me if you kill me."
"Well!" Ashley stands and moves towards the planks, easily yanking one free, causing a ray of light to hit the front of the room. "Guess I'll just have to live with that."
"Ah!" She screams as the light appears; enough lands on her hair that it starts to smolder, filling the room with the scent of burning skin and oil, "Okay! Please, just put the plank back." She slumps back down, hair catching on some of the wood above her. "I'm... I'm Celina."
Ashley smirks and puts the plank back up. "Glad to hear we understand each other a bit better." Striding back to the center of the room, she looms over Celina. "Now, you're the only one of your sire's kids left, if I had to guess. The rest, Coyote Queen included, are all dust on the wind by now. Tell me what you were all doing out here."
"Fucking animals!" Celina rages against her bindings, but lacks the blood and strength needed to free herself. "What'd we ever do to you?!"
"Existed. Thought you were better than us. Drank our blood. Killed us when you lost control." Ashley says lightly, without even looking at Celina. "Sounds like karma came calling and we were it's weapon of choice. Now answer my question."
"What do you fucking think? We banded the neighbors together with our ghouls, hunted down the vermin of the area and drank the people's blood. Is that what you want to hear? These were our hunting grounds! We earned them! Now you just fucking show up and tear it down?"
"Did you used to live here? Before you were, well... you know." Ashley gestures to Celine generally.
Celina tilts her head and narrows her eyes. "...yeah. I used to live a few miles from here. Just a normal farm girl till the Coyote Queen showed me how much more there was to the world."
There is a clicking noise as Ashley starts to clean under her nails with a loose nail she removed from the plank. "Do they still live there, your family?"
"I..." Celina squirms a little, "don't want to talk about them."
"Oh, is the mighty Gangrel Celina too far above humans to think about things like family." Ashley stares at Celina, a bit of fury beginning to smolder. "This might be the last time you get to indulge that human side, beast. You really want to burn it away?"
"Look, they haven't done anything wrong!" She stumbles over her words, trying to get them out fast enough. "Don't hurt them, they aren't even a part of this cult thing. Please."
Ashley smiles widely, "That's what I like to hear." She moves closer to her captive. "You tell me what I want to know or I'll drag them all the way here just to kill in front of you. We seeing eye to eye, Celina?"
"Goddamn it. Fine. What is it you want to know?" Celina says quietly, no longer looking at Ashley.
Ashley wastes no time, continuing to loom over Celena. "Who has hunting grounds neighboring you? Who are they and what clan do they belong to?"
Celina quickly wracks her mind, "Victor's over in Galena with his dumbass childe Peter. A couple of Ventrue, I think. Otherwise the next closest bunch of Kindred would be in Dubuque, but I don't really know much about any of them there."
"A childe? In Galena?" Ashley starts to pace. "What do you know about Peter?"
"Not a lot. He never wanted to speak with us lowly Gangrel out in the fields. I just know that he's in Galena somewhere. Not as much of a bigwig as Victor is, but he has a way bigger stick up his ass." Celina sighs. "You're not letting me go, are you?"
"Of course not." She chuckles. Grabbing Celine's hair, Ashley pulls the vampire's head up. "I'll just leave you here for a while. Hope that hunger of yours was well slaked before now, because you aren't getting a drop for a long time, monster."
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Heading back to Galena in the car stolen from Victor's manor, Elio drums his fingers on the leather bound wheel. Passing through town, he heads to where his brother's house is situated. A well kept two story home for him and Sarah, it lacks a significant front lawn but has a pool in the fenced backyard and is in a good neighborhood. Pulling up, Elio notices a familiar looking more than slightly dented red Ferrari parked about a block away.
Elio eyes the car for a moment before carrying on around the block and parking further away. Stepping out from the car, he begins his short trek towards the house. No one comes to greet him as he approaches and he sees that Sarah's car isn't in the driveway either. Stepping up the front steps of the porch, he takes a deep breath and pushes the doorbell.
A minute passes without a sound from the house. Tapping a foot, Elio presses the doorbell again and knocks a fist on the door. Another minute goes by. Walking over to the front window, Elio glances inside. Empty with the lights off. Closing his eyes he listens. No footsteps on carpet or wood, just the hum of electrical devices on standby and water in the pipes.
Grumbling to himself, he tries the handle, It's locked, so he starts to walk around to the back of the house to see if maybe he'll have some luck getting back in there. He stops in the side yard as he hears footsteps coming up to the front door from the front lawn. Backtracking he peeks around the corner of the house to see a man with a green beanie, loose fitting sweatpants, and a thick rain jacket despite the summer warmth. The dealer from the bakery. Watching him carefully, Elio sees him repeat most of the same actions that he had just done. Narrowing his eyes, Elio steps around the side of the house, hand on the grip of his pistol in his pocket. "Hey. What are you doing here?" He loudly says to the guy. The Dealer jumps back a few feet and his right hand jumps towards his pocket, stopping once he sees Elio flashing his own weapon. Slowly putting his hands up, the Dealer grins unconvincingly.
"Hey man. You, uh, looking for Ezio?" He says with a small smile.
Advancing forward in a single bound, Elio is in the guys face. The smell of tobacco is strong this close up. "I am. I'll give you two sentences to explain why you're here."
A bit of sweat appears on the man's brow. "They said you were crazy, but you don't… you don't fuck around."
"That was one."
"Uh, well," The Dealer breaks eye contact, "you've got a rep 'round here now and my boss wanted to get to know you, you know? So they had me stake out your brother's place cuz they knew you'd show up here eventually, get it?"
Frowning, Elio steps back. "Stake out?" There wasn't any sign of a struggle on the first floor at least. "You know typically when you're staking out, you don't go in the flashiest, most memorable car you got, right? Eugh. If you've been staking out the place, where is my brother?"
Breathing a bit easier, the Dealer puts his hands back into his pockets. "I Dunno. He took off maybe a few days ago. Got a guy who followed him, actually."
"Then tell me where, else you and I are going to have a little more personal conversation."
"Easy, private dick. You hear me out and my guy will be more than happy to tell you what you want to know." From his pocket, he pulls out a business card for a local bistro, Harry's Kitchen. "Go there, ask for Phoebe. She'll get you in the loop." Elio snatches the card and pulls out his phone, dialing Ezio's number.
The line goes to voicemail without a ring. Gritting his teeth, he dials Sarah's number. Again, the line goes straight to voicemail. Pointing to the dealer, Elio glares at him. "I'm not going to forget you. I'd suggest you skip town after I'm done with my personal errands."
"Right, right." The Dealer starts to walk off the front porch, but stops on the lawn. "Hey, uh, were you the guy that Sly got caught up with?"
"No." Elio steps around to the side yard of the house and vanishes into the day.
The Dealer steps into his far too fancy and far too dented ride. Looking up and down the block, he finds no trace of Elio. Pulling out his phone, he dials a number. "Yeah, yeah I know he's out right now. Just leaving a message. I don't think that this is a good idea. This Elio guy is, like, well there's something just off with him."
There is a man's voice on the other side. "You know as well as I do that this isn't our show, Ryan. Just shut up and do your part. If you found him, you gave him the card, right?"
"Yeah, you know it. Dude just showed up outta the blue at his brother's place."
There is a sigh. "I'll make sure she's ready. Your finder's fee will be at the usual place if he shows up."
Ryan takes a moment to adjust his rear view mirror and freezes. Elio was facing away from him, just sitting on the back of his car. "Fuck. Fuck!" He puts the key into the ignition.
"What is it? What's happening?" The man asks.
"He's... he snuck up on me! He's just fucking sitting on the back of my car!" Forcefully turning the key, the Ferrari comes to life. Just as the tires start to squeal and peel out, Elio stands up from the back of the car as it begins to speed away. Turning, he waves at Ryan with a smug smile, puts his hands into his pockets and walks down the block.
Back with Elio, he steps into his own car and takes out a notebook and pen. He jots down the Dealer's name and a couple other notes about the encounter before pulling out the business card.
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Releasing her grasp from the vampire's hair, Ashley stalks backwards to the broken bar and plops down on one of the stools. Idly, she watches Celine's wounds begin to stitch themselves together, a rage building in her yellow eyes. "You sure you want to be wasting your blood on stitching that flesh back together? I'm just gonna do this." Standing back up, Ashley grabs one of Celines ankles and pulls the leg taut before stepping on it with a gruesome snap.
Celine does not scream, looking more annoyed at the frailty of her flesh and the regeneration halts. "Can't blame a girl for trying." She mutters.
Stepping back again to the stool, Ashley folds her arms. "Victor. What kind of relationship did you guys have with him? He sent some sort of missive to your sire."
Rolling her eyes, Celine shuffles in her chains. "Some sort of digging or excavation or something. Diane knew more about it. Said that when the time was right we'd be helping him find some key or something."
"Key. Got it. Like, to a master lock or something?" Ashley snorts.
"He didn't give any details. Not that I know about." Celine eyes her captor warily. The time for escape would come not when she was around, that was for sure.
Reaching down to the floor, Ashley grabs the still bloody stake. "This has been fun. But gotta run." Before Celine can offer resistance or argument, the length replaces where Celine's heart should be and once more, she goes limp. Ashley stands, dusting her hand and wiping her face of a few errant drops of blood. Picking her path out of the ruined room, she ascends while pulling out her phone dialing Elio's number.
A few rings later, Elio picks up. "You get anything out of that one?" He starts.
"Yeah. Victor has a childe. Someone named Peter who's still in Galena somewhere. Also apparently Victor's been digging around for a key to something. Probably why he bought those land rights."
"Right." Elio sounds distracted over the phone. "Ezio's missing. Drove off somewhere, if that idiot dealer isn't lying. He's turned off his phone and so has Sarah, or they're out of service somewhere."
Grabbing a lock of hair, Ashley tucks it behind an ear as she thinks. "How much of Victor's blood did Ezio have again? Two doses is what I remember."
"That's right."
"Best guess? He's taken off into Chicago to try and find Victor." Ashley concludes.
Elio scoffs. "Why would he ever do that? Ezio's smarter than that."
"Unless enough time has passed without seeing his master or, of course, Victor has died, even two doses of blood is enough to get someone really attached to you. The third may seal the deal, but at two you need someone to stop you from trying to just get more blood."
"And you didn't think to tell me this until now?!" Elio moves his face away from the phone, the business card tumbling from his hands. He takes a moment to breathe. "Okay. Chicago is too big to just search for one guy, who, judging by his phone being off, does not want to be found. Guess I'll have to take my lead." He grumbles.
"I'll be headed back into Galena. Keep your eyes up, there's still a vamp out there somewhere." Ashley disconnects the call and pockets her phone. Looking down the stairs to where the vampire is kept, she considers the space. Without a car, moving Celine would be quite difficult. So maybe it's better to just let her burn, what more could she know? With a spring in her step, Ashley descends the stairs. A few minutes later a deer could be seen dashing alongside the road back towards Galena.
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Driving towards Galena, Elio pulls into the halfway filled parking lot of Harry's Kitchen. Stepping out from the car, he clearly doesn't match their normal clientele. Though it isn't a full dress kind of place, it is a far sight from dirty jeans and hoodie, which is what Elio finds himself in. Regardless, Elio presses forward, pushing open the front door as he catches a sideways glance from a woman on her way out. Frowning, a sticker in one of the front windows with Divers, Diners, and Drives on it catches Elio's attention. Apparently this had been the place they came to see and with it having been the center of attention for the show, its crimson and violet accents and outdoor patio are full to the brim with patrons for an early dinner. Fortunately, looking past the hostess at the front podium Elio spies some open seats at the bar.
He pauses in front of the hostess. "I'm looking for Phoebe, a mutual friend said she could help me out." Elio says loud enough to be heard but just quiet enough to be blocked by the various conversations happening around them.
She gives him a sour look, eyes momentarily snapping up to his unkempt hair and wild beard. "I'll go tell her someone is here for her. Why don't you have a seat at the bar and have a glass of the house red on us?"
Elio rubs his face. "Sure, that sounds fine. How long until I can see her, do you think?"
The hostess walks with him towards the well furnished bar, all velvets, smooth jazz, and warm cherry woods. "If she's busy it may be, like, half an hour? If not, she will be down with you shortly." As Elio sits, she quickly informs the bartender of the situation and trots off down a back hallway. A few seconds later, a tall glass of red wine is placed in front of Elio just as he is taking a seat on the cushioned bar stool.
"Courtesy of the house." The young man says brightly.
The smell is a bit acidic, prickling his nose slightly. "Thanks." Elio takes a small sip at first. Yup. That's wine. "How's business been?" He begins conversationally, a bit of awkwardness setting in as he sits at the bar largely alone with the bartender.
He leans on the counter for a moment. "Good, good. Had that show come through and that really helped get people in here, you know?"
"What, were you not doing alright before that?" Elio asks as he sips more at his wine.
"Well, we were doing fine. But could always do better, right? Plus tourism has been real slow this year, so having this to help bring more people helps out." He prattles on conversationally while wiping his hand on an apron.
"Right, right." Elio sets the glass down for a moment and the stool squeaks under him as he adjusts. "How long have you been working here?"
The man pauses and scratches his short red beard. "A year and some change, I think."
"You like it here?" Elio continues.
"Well enough at least. Probably one of the nicer restaurants in the area and my coworkers aren't awful and neither is my manager."
Leaning into his hand and idly swirling the wine, Elio presses on, "Is Phoebe one of your coworkers?"
The bartender frowns. "Do you know Phoebe? I don't really like to make a habit of talking about my coworkers with strangers."
Elio waves his hand and looks away for a moment. "Friend of a friend sort of situation." He gestures to his clothes and appearance, "I've had a rough couple days recently and a friend of mine put in a good word with Phoebe apparently to help me out."
"Oh." The bartender straightens up a bit, appears a bit more relaxed, "Sorry to hear that. Phoebe is the manager here and like I said she does a good job, a wizard with the calendar. Been manager for..." he scratches his chin again, "fifteen years? Or something like that. Though she doesn't look a day past thirty. Don't know her super well outside of work though."
"Gotcha. Well, she doesn't sound like a psycho murderer at least." Elio chuckles and takes another drink. "That's a joke, by the way." He says looking back at the bartender. "She sounds just fine."
The guy chuckles. "Right. Well if I don't see you again after this, maybe she is a murderer or something."
Footsteps from behind him cause Elio to turn his head to see the hostess returning. "Phoebe's not busy right now, her office is just down the hall, just follow me." She says.
In one large gulp, Elio finishes his wine and stands on the carpeted floor. "Alright, sounds good to me."
"Could've just brought it with you..." The bartender remarks as he grabs the glass from the counter.
Elio follows behind the hostess. She leads him into a well used business office with a single large desk and a window. Calendars and fliers dot the walls. Behind the desk is a tanned woman with dark hair, wearing slacks, a button up shirt and a nice looking golden chain necklace. "Thanks Mackenzie." She smiles as Mackenzie steps out of the office. "Have a seat. Elio, right?" Phoebe turns her attention to Elio.
He sits in the office chair facing the desk. "In the flesh." The door back into the hallway clicks closed. A little bit of the smooth jazz from the restaurant is seeping in still from somewhere. "What's this all about?" Elio leans forward, putting his elbows onto his knees.
"Well," Phoebe begins, pushing a bang out of her eyes, "you could call me a scout of some sort. A talent scout."
"I thought you were a restaurant manager." Elio interrupts. "Is this your day job?"
She moves her head back and forth, weighing the thoughts within. "I guess you could say that. I keep an eye out for talented people coming through, people that could be useful to one of my clients."
"Look, you can save the pitch if this is a mob thing. Not interested in joining you or your client. I want to know where my brother is and your guy Ryan said you all had someone tailing him for some reason."
Phoebe leans on her desk. "Right to the point then." She clears her throat. "My client is a rival of Victor's, yes that Victor, and based on what we've managed to hear, you are at the heart of his sudden vacation. While we might not know when he is going to get back, we can be sure that when he does he's going to do everything in his power to rain hell down on you and your family." Elio frowns and puts a foot up on the opposing knee while folding his arms.
"My client has an offer for you. Help them get rid of Victor and his associates and your name will be cleared. While we may not be able to fully undo the social ramifications of your actions we certainly can make sure you don't have a warrant for your arrest anymore."
"Is that something your client can actually do? I'm going to want some proof that's possible before I agree to anything."
She smiles pleasantly. "Of course." Opening the drawer of the desk, she removes a small thumb drive. "What I have here is an entire drive's worth of black mail on sheriff Hunter. His rise to being sheriff wasn't a clean one, and we've got the documents to prove it. Help us, and we use this to clear your record." The red thumb drive clicks as it slots into the computer. "I'll show you a couple just so you know it's legit." Elio leans forward as a document reader opens up on the monitor. A series of photos and links to scanned documents appears linking a Mr. Richard Hunter to a number of events that don't look well on any leader. The last sheriff had died in a drug raid that Hunter had set up, with a scrubbed report saying he was shot in the back. Photo evidence of extramarital affairs. Financial documents showing embezzlement of police and city funds.
"Where the hell did you get all this?" Elio leans back, eyebrows knit together. "This is way more than a PI could get. Legally, I mean. Access to police documents, city financial sheets..." He mumbles as he looks closer and then the monitor shuts off.
"Turns out you aren't the only investigator in town. Or at least in the area. Lots of professionals are willing to travel." She pauses a moment as she takes the thumb drive back and puts it back into the drawer. "For the right price."
"Alright. So you probably could strong arm Richard into getting a warrant off the record and finding the right fall guy. What would you want from me?"
Folding her hands on the desk, Phoebe smirks. "We want Megan. Everything that Victor has gotten up to here in town is all thanks to her. Getting what she knows and getting her on our side is going to be a big win for us."
"Do you think I'm just some thug for hire or something?" Elio asks. "How do you plan on getting Megan to flip for you anyway?"
"Come on, Elio." Phoebe chuckles. "Everyone wants something. Even you. Your brother brought you here to me, didn't he?"
"And for those people that don't want something? Or that would rather die than betray their..." he searches for a word. "Masters?"
Phoebe stands and moves to the door, opening it for Elio. "Let us worry about that. You just need to get Megan and bring her to the back of the kitchen here at night. After that, consider yourself a free man and we will share what we know about your brother's whereabouts. If there is more that you want, there is always more that you could do for us as well. Scratch our back and we'll scratch yours, right?"
Elio stands and steps out. "How long do I have?" He asks quietly as he reaches the threshold.
"Call it a week." Phoebe responds. "And Elio? Alive, please. She's no good to us dead."
"Who do you think I am?" Elio replies with a snort.
"Hopefully not a liability." Phoebe smirks and blinks. Then blinks again. Her office is empty, the space that Elio had been standing moments before now empty. She slowly moves to her desk and opens the drawer, finding the drive still safely within.
A voice carries on the wind, barely a murmur among the lyrics of the jazz playing outside the office. "You're lucky that I need to find my brother. Otherwise that drive wouldn't have cut it."
A film of sweat beads up on Phoebe's brow and she licks her lips, her eyes darting around the small office. She can feel the small hairs on the back of her neck telling her someone or something is here with her, watching her, but her eyes aren't finding anyone. It takes an hour for her to stop looking over her shoulder and into the dark shadows, long after Elio has taken his leave.
The vampire starts to cough and struggle against her bindings before stopping and staring at Ashley wide eyed. "What do you want, you furry asshole?" She manages to spit out.
"I want to know what you know, leech." Ashley steps forward and grabs hold of the vampire's hair, pulling her up and forcing her to look Ashley in the eyes. "Let's start with your name."
"And if I don't tell the flea bag?" She breaks eye contact.
"Then I'll break open the planks keeping the sun at bay and let it have you. No real loss to me."
The vampire snaps her head back, a small bloody smirk on her face. "You won't get anything from me if you kill me."
"Well!" Ashley stands and moves towards the planks, easily yanking one free, causing a ray of light to hit the front of the room. "Guess I'll just have to live with that."
"Ah!" She screams as the light appears; enough lands on her hair that it starts to smolder, filling the room with the scent of burning skin and oil, "Okay! Please, just put the plank back." She slumps back down, hair catching on some of the wood above her. "I'm... I'm Celina."
Ashley smirks and puts the plank back up. "Glad to hear we understand each other a bit better." Striding back to the center of the room, she looms over Celina. "Now, you're the only one of your sire's kids left, if I had to guess. The rest, Coyote Queen included, are all dust on the wind by now. Tell me what you were all doing out here."
"Fucking animals!" Celina rages against her bindings, but lacks the blood and strength needed to free herself. "What'd we ever do to you?!"
"Existed. Thought you were better than us. Drank our blood. Killed us when you lost control." Ashley says lightly, without even looking at Celina. "Sounds like karma came calling and we were it's weapon of choice. Now answer my question."
"What do you fucking think? We banded the neighbors together with our ghouls, hunted down the vermin of the area and drank the people's blood. Is that what you want to hear? These were our hunting grounds! We earned them! Now you just fucking show up and tear it down?"
"Did you used to live here? Before you were, well... you know." Ashley gestures to Celine generally.
Celina tilts her head and narrows her eyes. "...yeah. I used to live a few miles from here. Just a normal farm girl till the Coyote Queen showed me how much more there was to the world."
There is a clicking noise as Ashley starts to clean under her nails with a loose nail she removed from the plank. "Do they still live there, your family?"
"I..." Celina squirms a little, "don't want to talk about them."
"Oh, is the mighty Gangrel Celina too far above humans to think about things like family." Ashley stares at Celina, a bit of fury beginning to smolder. "This might be the last time you get to indulge that human side, beast. You really want to burn it away?"
"Look, they haven't done anything wrong!" She stumbles over her words, trying to get them out fast enough. "Don't hurt them, they aren't even a part of this cult thing. Please."
Ashley smiles widely, "That's what I like to hear." She moves closer to her captive. "You tell me what I want to know or I'll drag them all the way here just to kill in front of you. We seeing eye to eye, Celina?"
"Goddamn it. Fine. What is it you want to know?" Celina says quietly, no longer looking at Ashley.
Ashley wastes no time, continuing to loom over Celena. "Who has hunting grounds neighboring you? Who are they and what clan do they belong to?"
Celina quickly wracks her mind, "Victor's over in Galena with his dumbass childe Peter. A couple of Ventrue, I think. Otherwise the next closest bunch of Kindred would be in Dubuque, but I don't really know much about any of them there."
"A childe? In Galena?" Ashley starts to pace. "What do you know about Peter?"
"Not a lot. He never wanted to speak with us lowly Gangrel out in the fields. I just know that he's in Galena somewhere. Not as much of a bigwig as Victor is, but he has a way bigger stick up his ass." Celina sighs. "You're not letting me go, are you?"
"Of course not." She chuckles. Grabbing Celine's hair, Ashley pulls the vampire's head up. "I'll just leave you here for a while. Hope that hunger of yours was well slaked before now, because you aren't getting a drop for a long time, monster."
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Heading back to Galena in the car stolen from Victor's manor, Elio drums his fingers on the leather bound wheel. Passing through town, he heads to where his brother's house is situated. A well kept two story home for him and Sarah, it lacks a significant front lawn but has a pool in the fenced backyard and is in a good neighborhood. Pulling up, Elio notices a familiar looking more than slightly dented red Ferrari parked about a block away.
Elio eyes the car for a moment before carrying on around the block and parking further away. Stepping out from the car, he begins his short trek towards the house. No one comes to greet him as he approaches and he sees that Sarah's car isn't in the driveway either. Stepping up the front steps of the porch, he takes a deep breath and pushes the doorbell.
A minute passes without a sound from the house. Tapping a foot, Elio presses the doorbell again and knocks a fist on the door. Another minute goes by. Walking over to the front window, Elio glances inside. Empty with the lights off. Closing his eyes he listens. No footsteps on carpet or wood, just the hum of electrical devices on standby and water in the pipes.
Grumbling to himself, he tries the handle, It's locked, so he starts to walk around to the back of the house to see if maybe he'll have some luck getting back in there. He stops in the side yard as he hears footsteps coming up to the front door from the front lawn. Backtracking he peeks around the corner of the house to see a man with a green beanie, loose fitting sweatpants, and a thick rain jacket despite the summer warmth. The dealer from the bakery. Watching him carefully, Elio sees him repeat most of the same actions that he had just done. Narrowing his eyes, Elio steps around the side of the house, hand on the grip of his pistol in his pocket. "Hey. What are you doing here?" He loudly says to the guy. The Dealer jumps back a few feet and his right hand jumps towards his pocket, stopping once he sees Elio flashing his own weapon. Slowly putting his hands up, the Dealer grins unconvincingly.
"Hey man. You, uh, looking for Ezio?" He says with a small smile.
Advancing forward in a single bound, Elio is in the guys face. The smell of tobacco is strong this close up. "I am. I'll give you two sentences to explain why you're here."
A bit of sweat appears on the man's brow. "They said you were crazy, but you don't… you don't fuck around."
"That was one."
"Uh, well," The Dealer breaks eye contact, "you've got a rep 'round here now and my boss wanted to get to know you, you know? So they had me stake out your brother's place cuz they knew you'd show up here eventually, get it?"
Frowning, Elio steps back. "Stake out?" There wasn't any sign of a struggle on the first floor at least. "You know typically when you're staking out, you don't go in the flashiest, most memorable car you got, right? Eugh. If you've been staking out the place, where is my brother?"
Breathing a bit easier, the Dealer puts his hands back into his pockets. "I Dunno. He took off maybe a few days ago. Got a guy who followed him, actually."
"Then tell me where, else you and I are going to have a little more personal conversation."
"Easy, private dick. You hear me out and my guy will be more than happy to tell you what you want to know." From his pocket, he pulls out a business card for a local bistro, Harry's Kitchen. "Go there, ask for Phoebe. She'll get you in the loop." Elio snatches the card and pulls out his phone, dialing Ezio's number.
The line goes to voicemail without a ring. Gritting his teeth, he dials Sarah's number. Again, the line goes straight to voicemail. Pointing to the dealer, Elio glares at him. "I'm not going to forget you. I'd suggest you skip town after I'm done with my personal errands."
"Right, right." The Dealer starts to walk off the front porch, but stops on the lawn. "Hey, uh, were you the guy that Sly got caught up with?"
"No." Elio steps around to the side yard of the house and vanishes into the day.
The Dealer steps into his far too fancy and far too dented ride. Looking up and down the block, he finds no trace of Elio. Pulling out his phone, he dials a number. "Yeah, yeah I know he's out right now. Just leaving a message. I don't think that this is a good idea. This Elio guy is, like, well there's something just off with him."
There is a man's voice on the other side. "You know as well as I do that this isn't our show, Ryan. Just shut up and do your part. If you found him, you gave him the card, right?"
"Yeah, you know it. Dude just showed up outta the blue at his brother's place."
There is a sigh. "I'll make sure she's ready. Your finder's fee will be at the usual place if he shows up."
Ryan takes a moment to adjust his rear view mirror and freezes. Elio was facing away from him, just sitting on the back of his car. "Fuck. Fuck!" He puts the key into the ignition.
"What is it? What's happening?" The man asks.
"He's... he snuck up on me! He's just fucking sitting on the back of my car!" Forcefully turning the key, the Ferrari comes to life. Just as the tires start to squeal and peel out, Elio stands up from the back of the car as it begins to speed away. Turning, he waves at Ryan with a smug smile, puts his hands into his pockets and walks down the block.
Back with Elio, he steps into his own car and takes out a notebook and pen. He jots down the Dealer's name and a couple other notes about the encounter before pulling out the business card.
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Releasing her grasp from the vampire's hair, Ashley stalks backwards to the broken bar and plops down on one of the stools. Idly, she watches Celine's wounds begin to stitch themselves together, a rage building in her yellow eyes. "You sure you want to be wasting your blood on stitching that flesh back together? I'm just gonna do this." Standing back up, Ashley grabs one of Celines ankles and pulls the leg taut before stepping on it with a gruesome snap.
Celine does not scream, looking more annoyed at the frailty of her flesh and the regeneration halts. "Can't blame a girl for trying." She mutters.
Stepping back again to the stool, Ashley folds her arms. "Victor. What kind of relationship did you guys have with him? He sent some sort of missive to your sire."
Rolling her eyes, Celine shuffles in her chains. "Some sort of digging or excavation or something. Diane knew more about it. Said that when the time was right we'd be helping him find some key or something."
"Key. Got it. Like, to a master lock or something?" Ashley snorts.
"He didn't give any details. Not that I know about." Celine eyes her captor warily. The time for escape would come not when she was around, that was for sure.
Reaching down to the floor, Ashley grabs the still bloody stake. "This has been fun. But gotta run." Before Celine can offer resistance or argument, the length replaces where Celine's heart should be and once more, she goes limp. Ashley stands, dusting her hand and wiping her face of a few errant drops of blood. Picking her path out of the ruined room, she ascends while pulling out her phone dialing Elio's number.
A few rings later, Elio picks up. "You get anything out of that one?" He starts.
"Yeah. Victor has a childe. Someone named Peter who's still in Galena somewhere. Also apparently Victor's been digging around for a key to something. Probably why he bought those land rights."
"Right." Elio sounds distracted over the phone. "Ezio's missing. Drove off somewhere, if that idiot dealer isn't lying. He's turned off his phone and so has Sarah, or they're out of service somewhere."
Grabbing a lock of hair, Ashley tucks it behind an ear as she thinks. "How much of Victor's blood did Ezio have again? Two doses is what I remember."
"That's right."
"Best guess? He's taken off into Chicago to try and find Victor." Ashley concludes.
Elio scoffs. "Why would he ever do that? Ezio's smarter than that."
"Unless enough time has passed without seeing his master or, of course, Victor has died, even two doses of blood is enough to get someone really attached to you. The third may seal the deal, but at two you need someone to stop you from trying to just get more blood."
"And you didn't think to tell me this until now?!" Elio moves his face away from the phone, the business card tumbling from his hands. He takes a moment to breathe. "Okay. Chicago is too big to just search for one guy, who, judging by his phone being off, does not want to be found. Guess I'll have to take my lead." He grumbles.
"I'll be headed back into Galena. Keep your eyes up, there's still a vamp out there somewhere." Ashley disconnects the call and pockets her phone. Looking down the stairs to where the vampire is kept, she considers the space. Without a car, moving Celine would be quite difficult. So maybe it's better to just let her burn, what more could she know? With a spring in her step, Ashley descends the stairs. A few minutes later a deer could be seen dashing alongside the road back towards Galena.
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Driving towards Galena, Elio pulls into the halfway filled parking lot of Harry's Kitchen. Stepping out from the car, he clearly doesn't match their normal clientele. Though it isn't a full dress kind of place, it is a far sight from dirty jeans and hoodie, which is what Elio finds himself in. Regardless, Elio presses forward, pushing open the front door as he catches a sideways glance from a woman on her way out. Frowning, a sticker in one of the front windows with Divers, Diners, and Drives on it catches Elio's attention. Apparently this had been the place they came to see and with it having been the center of attention for the show, its crimson and violet accents and outdoor patio are full to the brim with patrons for an early dinner. Fortunately, looking past the hostess at the front podium Elio spies some open seats at the bar.
He pauses in front of the hostess. "I'm looking for Phoebe, a mutual friend said she could help me out." Elio says loud enough to be heard but just quiet enough to be blocked by the various conversations happening around them.
She gives him a sour look, eyes momentarily snapping up to his unkempt hair and wild beard. "I'll go tell her someone is here for her. Why don't you have a seat at the bar and have a glass of the house red on us?"
Elio rubs his face. "Sure, that sounds fine. How long until I can see her, do you think?"
The hostess walks with him towards the well furnished bar, all velvets, smooth jazz, and warm cherry woods. "If she's busy it may be, like, half an hour? If not, she will be down with you shortly." As Elio sits, she quickly informs the bartender of the situation and trots off down a back hallway. A few seconds later, a tall glass of red wine is placed in front of Elio just as he is taking a seat on the cushioned bar stool.
"Courtesy of the house." The young man says brightly.
The smell is a bit acidic, prickling his nose slightly. "Thanks." Elio takes a small sip at first. Yup. That's wine. "How's business been?" He begins conversationally, a bit of awkwardness setting in as he sits at the bar largely alone with the bartender.
He leans on the counter for a moment. "Good, good. Had that show come through and that really helped get people in here, you know?"
"What, were you not doing alright before that?" Elio asks as he sips more at his wine.
"Well, we were doing fine. But could always do better, right? Plus tourism has been real slow this year, so having this to help bring more people helps out." He prattles on conversationally while wiping his hand on an apron.
"Right, right." Elio sets the glass down for a moment and the stool squeaks under him as he adjusts. "How long have you been working here?"
The man pauses and scratches his short red beard. "A year and some change, I think."
"You like it here?" Elio continues.
"Well enough at least. Probably one of the nicer restaurants in the area and my coworkers aren't awful and neither is my manager."
Leaning into his hand and idly swirling the wine, Elio presses on, "Is Phoebe one of your coworkers?"
The bartender frowns. "Do you know Phoebe? I don't really like to make a habit of talking about my coworkers with strangers."
Elio waves his hand and looks away for a moment. "Friend of a friend sort of situation." He gestures to his clothes and appearance, "I've had a rough couple days recently and a friend of mine put in a good word with Phoebe apparently to help me out."
"Oh." The bartender straightens up a bit, appears a bit more relaxed, "Sorry to hear that. Phoebe is the manager here and like I said she does a good job, a wizard with the calendar. Been manager for..." he scratches his chin again, "fifteen years? Or something like that. Though she doesn't look a day past thirty. Don't know her super well outside of work though."
"Gotcha. Well, she doesn't sound like a psycho murderer at least." Elio chuckles and takes another drink. "That's a joke, by the way." He says looking back at the bartender. "She sounds just fine."
The guy chuckles. "Right. Well if I don't see you again after this, maybe she is a murderer or something."
Footsteps from behind him cause Elio to turn his head to see the hostess returning. "Phoebe's not busy right now, her office is just down the hall, just follow me." She says.
In one large gulp, Elio finishes his wine and stands on the carpeted floor. "Alright, sounds good to me."
"Could've just brought it with you..." The bartender remarks as he grabs the glass from the counter.
Elio follows behind the hostess. She leads him into a well used business office with a single large desk and a window. Calendars and fliers dot the walls. Behind the desk is a tanned woman with dark hair, wearing slacks, a button up shirt and a nice looking golden chain necklace. "Thanks Mackenzie." She smiles as Mackenzie steps out of the office. "Have a seat. Elio, right?" Phoebe turns her attention to Elio.
He sits in the office chair facing the desk. "In the flesh." The door back into the hallway clicks closed. A little bit of the smooth jazz from the restaurant is seeping in still from somewhere. "What's this all about?" Elio leans forward, putting his elbows onto his knees.
"Well," Phoebe begins, pushing a bang out of her eyes, "you could call me a scout of some sort. A talent scout."
"I thought you were a restaurant manager." Elio interrupts. "Is this your day job?"
She moves her head back and forth, weighing the thoughts within. "I guess you could say that. I keep an eye out for talented people coming through, people that could be useful to one of my clients."
"Look, you can save the pitch if this is a mob thing. Not interested in joining you or your client. I want to know where my brother is and your guy Ryan said you all had someone tailing him for some reason."
Phoebe leans on her desk. "Right to the point then." She clears her throat. "My client is a rival of Victor's, yes that Victor, and based on what we've managed to hear, you are at the heart of his sudden vacation. While we might not know when he is going to get back, we can be sure that when he does he's going to do everything in his power to rain hell down on you and your family." Elio frowns and puts a foot up on the opposing knee while folding his arms.
"My client has an offer for you. Help them get rid of Victor and his associates and your name will be cleared. While we may not be able to fully undo the social ramifications of your actions we certainly can make sure you don't have a warrant for your arrest anymore."
"Is that something your client can actually do? I'm going to want some proof that's possible before I agree to anything."
She smiles pleasantly. "Of course." Opening the drawer of the desk, she removes a small thumb drive. "What I have here is an entire drive's worth of black mail on sheriff Hunter. His rise to being sheriff wasn't a clean one, and we've got the documents to prove it. Help us, and we use this to clear your record." The red thumb drive clicks as it slots into the computer. "I'll show you a couple just so you know it's legit." Elio leans forward as a document reader opens up on the monitor. A series of photos and links to scanned documents appears linking a Mr. Richard Hunter to a number of events that don't look well on any leader. The last sheriff had died in a drug raid that Hunter had set up, with a scrubbed report saying he was shot in the back. Photo evidence of extramarital affairs. Financial documents showing embezzlement of police and city funds.
"Where the hell did you get all this?" Elio leans back, eyebrows knit together. "This is way more than a PI could get. Legally, I mean. Access to police documents, city financial sheets..." He mumbles as he looks closer and then the monitor shuts off.
"Turns out you aren't the only investigator in town. Or at least in the area. Lots of professionals are willing to travel." She pauses a moment as she takes the thumb drive back and puts it back into the drawer. "For the right price."
"Alright. So you probably could strong arm Richard into getting a warrant off the record and finding the right fall guy. What would you want from me?"
Folding her hands on the desk, Phoebe smirks. "We want Megan. Everything that Victor has gotten up to here in town is all thanks to her. Getting what she knows and getting her on our side is going to be a big win for us."
"Do you think I'm just some thug for hire or something?" Elio asks. "How do you plan on getting Megan to flip for you anyway?"
"Come on, Elio." Phoebe chuckles. "Everyone wants something. Even you. Your brother brought you here to me, didn't he?"
"And for those people that don't want something? Or that would rather die than betray their..." he searches for a word. "Masters?"
Phoebe stands and moves to the door, opening it for Elio. "Let us worry about that. You just need to get Megan and bring her to the back of the kitchen here at night. After that, consider yourself a free man and we will share what we know about your brother's whereabouts. If there is more that you want, there is always more that you could do for us as well. Scratch our back and we'll scratch yours, right?"
Elio stands and steps out. "How long do I have?" He asks quietly as he reaches the threshold.
"Call it a week." Phoebe responds. "And Elio? Alive, please. She's no good to us dead."
"Who do you think I am?" Elio replies with a snort.
"Hopefully not a liability." Phoebe smirks and blinks. Then blinks again. Her office is empty, the space that Elio had been standing moments before now empty. She slowly moves to her desk and opens the drawer, finding the drive still safely within.
A voice carries on the wind, barely a murmur among the lyrics of the jazz playing outside the office. "You're lucky that I need to find my brother. Otherwise that drive wouldn't have cut it."
A film of sweat beads up on Phoebe's brow and she licks her lips, her eyes darting around the small office. She can feel the small hairs on the back of her neck telling her someone or something is here with her, watching her, but her eyes aren't finding anyone. It takes an hour for her to stop looking over her shoulder and into the dark shadows, long after Elio has taken his leave.
- Location
- Alberta
- Pronouns
- He/Him
This is so good. Keep up the good work. Are you retelling one of the exalted vs wod campaign or something?
Glad you're enjoying the story!
This is some sort of version of a solo game I ran while getting a handle on Exalted vs World of Darkness with the help of a DM emulator thing. Stripped out the rolls, difficulty, and mechanics talk, edited the narrative to flow better (read: be readable) and created an actual outline for the rest of the story past where I played to. Which coincidently is like 1 or 2 scenes past the one posted last, so hopefully the style doesn't change too much haha.
Scene 26 - Diablerist
Snaking its way through the outskirts of Chicago is a caravan of armored cars. In the front car, behind heavily tinted windows is an unlikely pair.
One, a man wearing a thick leather cloak with a dark gas mask covering his features, no sounds of breath coming through its filters; the other, sitting across from him in the limousine's cabin is a pale woman wearing several thick furs. Beside her is a servant wearing a suit, carrying several urns on the seats.
"Have you ever been to one of Kevin's safe houses, Yasir?" Her voice is velvety and her blood red lips part as she speaks to reveal her fangs. The hooded figure, Yasir, shakes his head. She chuckles. "Well, it will be a treat. Though as to the nature of the visit..." She lets the sentence hang, looking at Yasir expectantly.
Turning to his left, Yasir looks out the window. "I assume you've been kept appraised of the thin-blooded situation?" His voice is raspy, barely able to be heard if it were not for his conversation partners particularly sharp ears.
"I would think not." She says. "Surely, Scourge, a few thin-blood weaklings wouldn't be too much for you?"
Yasir sits silently as the last mile to Kevin's safe house comes to a close, built at the edge of Lake Michigan. "I'm sure Kevin will be giving us more information when we arrive."
The convoy makes a sharp turn to a nondescript house a little ways back from the water line. It would only appear to be a single floor vacation home that has gone unused but not untended. Pulling into the driveway, the first car unloads its occupants, Yasir and the woman with her servant. As the car pulls away another limo drops off a pair. Ghouls flank the entrances of the house, making themselves known as the esteemed guests arrive. Yasir spends no time looking at them, making his way to the front door, the woman following behind.
Entering into the house Yasir heads through a foyer towards a large conference room. Only the numerous trigger happy guards seemed to show the importance of the building. As Yasir sweeps through the hall he hears introductions, hellos, and veiled threats that one would expect from the gathered Primogen and whatever other elders responded to the Prince's summons.
"Thalia!" Comes a booming man's voice. The woman who arrived with Yasir turns and smiles at the towering, bald, tattooed man barely fitting into his suit approaching with arms outstretched. With some gusto she meets him halfway and hugs him.
"Brendan, it's been months!" She says. "I've invited you to several parties! Even got a blood doll groomed with just your preferences." Thalia pouts, putting her hands on her hips. "You didn't even give me a RSVP that you wouldn't be there. Has clan Toreador offended you somehow?"
He laughs, loudly enough to make the ghouls guarding the house nervously check their weapons and surroundings. "Please, being in charge of a bunch of Brujah maniacs keeps me plenty busy. But let's not keep Kevin waiting, hm?" Wrapping an over sized arm around Thalia's shoulders, he walks them both towards the conference room.
Thalia and Brendan settle into seats next to each other at the over sized table, Yasir finding his spot across from them. Half a dozen others of various shapes and sizes make their way inside. All have the tense feeling of a dozen tigers being locked into a small room, with only the promise of Elysium- of communal disarmament keeping the blood from flowing.
Once everyone has been seated, a dark skinned man wearing shades and flanked by two ghouls armed with swords in their sheathes arrives. Kevin. The room goes quiet as they watch him move to his padded leather chair at the head of the table. On the wall behind him, a large television screen bearing the insignia of clan Ventrue, a princely staff, oversees all below it. "Friends and kindred, I thank you for answering my summons on such short notice." He carefully interlocks his fingers in front of his mouth, taking a moment to let his words fall. Leaning forwards he starts again, "A matter of some import has arisen, which will likely require the cooperation of each of the heads of clan to manage." Nodding to Yasir he continues, "Scourge Yasir. Share your knowledge with them."
Yasir stands, pulling his mask off to be better heard. Most of the Kindred avert their eyes, as underneath Yasir is little more than a skull with flesh covering it, a perpetual reminder of their monstrous nature. His eyes bulge and swerve, always appearing to be seeking something. "The amount of thin-blooded has continued to rise. My ghouls and associate Kindred have been unable to keep up with the numbers; at least the ones we can find. Worse," he reaches into a pocket and retrieves a bit of paper, which he unfolds and reads from, "a coterie of Kindred contracted by me to assist with this problem have been put to Final Death. You may remember the coterie that resided in the basement of the electrical substation near Quarry Lake?"
There is a rumbling among the Elders, with Brendan speaking up. "All of them? One of my childe was part of that group." His tone is calm, but he's folded his arms with his talons digging into his skin.
Nodding, Yasir continues. "Yes. It is not a secret that this particular group was not a group of whelps. No." He walks slowly down the row of seats. "These were ancilla who didn't take unnecessary risks. Survivors of the war. I've worked with them many times over the years to accomplish the responsibilities of Scourge." He puts his hands down on the table. "The thin-blooded are organized, creating hunting parties." Several members of the table scoff and shake their heads. "Laugh now and we will all suffer the consequences later." He points to the offending members. "Have you not seen yet the crimson star that hangs above us all?"
Kevin reasserts himself, "I am able to corroborate the Scourge's claims. You may notice that our sheriff, Kayla, is not present at this meeting." He holds up his hands, indicating the empty chair at his left. "While investigating some of her missing hounds in Naperville, she was brought into torpor by what I believe to be thin-blooded militants." This does more to catch the rooms attention.
Standing up from her seat, Thalia snarls, "How is that possible?! This must be the Sabbat! Simple thin-blooded could not do such things, especially not to Kayla."
"Until she awakens, we will not know more. Also," Kevin's tone, which has been even and authoritative thus far takes on a far more suspicious tone. "whoever has hired or dominated an assassin to hunt me, I have found the efforts thoroughly unfunny."
"Is that why we're having this meeting out here in the boonies instead of the nice loft you renovated to host these parties?" Thalia sits and leans back in her chair, rocking slightly.
Running a hand over his face, Kevin grabs a remote and turns the large wall mounted television behind him. Security video begins to play of a sky rise apartment at midnight. "After the attempted theft of one of my devices a few years ago I finally bit the bullet and set up these… recording cameras." While sitting at the desk, the window behind him cracks suddenly, not breaking, but Kevin can be seen flinching and standing quickly to see what happened. "This," he pulls a pancaked bullet in a plastic bag from his pocket. "is a 9 millimeter round fired from a handgun." It sets onto the table with a small clunk. "The assailant was standing on a building a mile away."
"Woah woah woah," A very pale man with a blonde shock of hair that looks like it was electrified pipes up. "not to, uh, step on your authority Princy, but you can't make that kind of shot with a pistol."
Kevin whirls around, allowing his Presence of displeasure to speak for itself as none in the room are willing to meet his eyes, lest they feel his mastery over Domination. "You think I don't know that, Wes? And yet," He lets the video continue behind him, "When I looked out and saw him, that is what he was holding." Another crack appears in the window, in the same place and another baggie is pulled from Kevin's pocket. "This is the second bullet. The curious among you will note that the first bullet is completely flattened, as the second bullet hit impacted the window in precisely the same place."
The illustrious red-headed woman in a dress of ever shifting colors smiles. "So, you think some form of thaumaturgy may be at play?" Flicking a finger, the baggie slides across the table unbidden and into her hand. She focuses her entire being onto it, ignoring several members of the table as they grumble and sigh.
"Not everything is about that damn blood magic, witch." Brendan says.
Her blood red eyes flicker up to meet Brendan. "Thaumaturgy is a subtle art, interwoven into most things. You shouldn't ever look past the…"
Thalia laughs. "We've heard this a thousand times, Red. It doesn't change the fact that you thought an 'enemy magician' was onto your little chantry house and you didn't even think that it could've been a raccoon digging around in your trash."
Red's eyes narrow, now taking in Thalia as Red drops the bullet. "The whore clan of Toreador taking whatever digs it can at Tremere. I get it. Maybe I'll just make your blood boil then." She sneers.
"Off topic." Kevin's voice immediately puts the bickering on the back burner. "Red, I want you and your clan mates that are available to use these bullets to trace back to whoever shot them."
With a large smile, Red bows her head. "We shall do our best, Prince."
"Scourge?" Yasir nods. "You are to continue your efforts to cull the thin blooded. None of your agents or yourself are to cull without partners and ghouls nearby. Any meaningful resistance is to be reported directly to me for coordination. If it is truly urgent, you may request the assistance of any Kindred within my authority on my name."
Yasir frowns, but puts his mask back on. "Yes, Prince Kevin."
"Xander?" Kevin points to the fiend standing in the back of the room. Bony horns have grown where his eyes used to be and his flesh looks more like stone than skin. "Has your information network turned up any useful information on this new crisis?"
The Nosferatu nods, pulling a laptop out from his bag. Operating without sight, he moves through the sign in and accesses the device. "A pair of my agents have reported to me that Lupine activity may be on the rise out near Galena. I attempted to reach out to Victor but haven't received any word back yet. Also, Cherish, who I believe to be a Josian hunting Gehenna cults in the area reached out to me. Apparently," He turns the computer around and a thin, dark skinned man wearing robes is on the screen, "This man, a ghoul in a Diablerie cult within Chicago…" Xander is interrupted.
"That's the man." Kevin blinks. "The assassin."
Cocking his head, Xander continues. "During one of their rituals, he was Embraced as a thin-blood. A thin-blood of abnormal power and aura.
The cult may have been dispersed, but Cherish was heavily damaged by this man and spoke of his aura being unlike that of any Kindred she has ever encountered."
Red clicks her tongue. "Thin blood of abnormal power. Red star in the sky." She pantomimes taking a deep breath. "These are odd times."
"Xander, focus all efforts of your informants on uncovering everything about this man. The Lupines can wait for now. I shall send an agent to check on Victor's domain to ensure that he hasn't become the prey of the damn dogs." Xander nods and closes his computer.
Frowning, Red forces blood to her ears and brain. Something sounds like… A gunshot rings out from outside and the gathered creatures of the night pause, each one eyeing the others. One of the ghoul guardians pushes open the door. "I apologize for the interruption, sir." He begins. "Two of our men on the lake side of the house have been shot."
Pushing back their chairs, the vampires flow like rushing water from the conference room. Blood pulses into skin, muscle, and sinew as each prepares themselves for what may be outside. Once outside, however, all they find is the two dead guards, each with a neat small bullet hole in their head, threaded through the only small gaps in their head and neck protections. Thalia pauses at one of the windows, bulletproof of course. Two small cracks are in it, with two bullets on top of one another. She points to it for Kevin. "Your friend must have found us."
Focusing further and further, ignoring the darkness of night, Red gazes out at the massive lake in front of them. Someone is standing on the waves and seems to be looking back at her. A faded black hoodie hides his face, but his aura… Blinking she focuses again, she must have been seeing things. It's void black, with the jagged black lightning normally found in a Diablerist's aura running through it, barely visible against the true dark of the aura. A moment later, he's dashed away over the water itself, faster than even the Kindred could run. "We… may have a problem." Red turns her gaze to the bullets. "I think that being… No I think I need to do some research." She mutters returning to the house.
Kevin folds his arms behind him. "I call a blood hunt on that being. Kindred, Lupine, human, or whatever it is. It needs to die." He turns to the collected Kindred on the cold night, blood red star hanging in the sky above them, "Any who shelter or aid it will be treated to the same treatment." Turning back to he lake, he furrows his brow, focusing on the cracked window. Clearly this thing was sending a message to him. I can find you and hurt you wherever you go.
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"I don't-" Sarah looks down at her phone, set to a GPS map app, "This isn't the way to your mom's place, Ezio."
The empty vial of Elizabeth's blood sits in Ezio's pocket like a lead weight. It hadn't done anything for him, just reminded him of that missing part of himself. Something was wrong with him. That rational part of his brain had been desperately holding on, fighting off impulses from something deeper and darker on the fringes. But when did the fringe become the core? 'Wipe your brow, you're sweating like a pig.' His dad's voice echoes in his head. No. Can't use the arm, need that to drive. Was Sarah talking?
From the passenger seat of the bright blue car, Sarah watches her husband drive. His head twists and turns at every street corner, taking in every face he can see as they walk past through Chicago. "Ezio…" She puts a hand on his arm and he flinches, for a moment brought back into the reality before him. "Are you okay? You're, well... you're acting really weird."
Does she know? What does she know?! "I'm okay, Sarah." Ezio wipes his brow with his sweater that he picked despite the summer warmth.
"Just…" he smacks his lips, his mouth dry. What could he tell her? She knows this isn't the way to his mom's home. 'Just keep talking.' Elio's voice echoes now, reassuring and steady. 'You'll come up with something.' "taking in the sights, you know?" Ezio laughs.
Screwing up her face with a frown, Sarah turns to face forward again. "We've been to Chicago a lot. What do you mean?" She gestures to the mundane street, full of cars and people going about their lives. "There aren't exactly any landmarks right here. Can't even see the lake."
Lights. There's lights ahead of them now. Police and barricades. Why is the pull taking him that way? He starts to turn onto the clearly closed road.
Sarah squawks as they approach the barricade. "Hey! The police have a… Ezio!" She grabs onto the brace bar above the door as Ezio barrels the car forward, a couple of officers diving out of the way as he pushes the rear end of the cruiser out of the way and carries forward, the engine whining under the metallic shriek of car-on-car violence. "Ezio, pull over." Sarah's voice is demanding, cutting through the fog. Can't stop, getting close. He puts the foot down on the gas. People are getting out of the way, but they look different from normal people.
Eyes widening, Sarah takes in the neighborhood they've found themselves in. Naperville had undergone some changes in the last few weeks, or so it would seem. Odd people wearing deep cloaks that cover their full forms, little more than shades on the street stalk the avenues. Slogans have been spray painted onto the faces of all flat surfaces that can be easily reached, 'We will be heard.', 'Drink the old', 'The Night Prince watches over us' that one showing a particularly menacing pair of eyes behind it. Sarah shrinks down in the seat as the car careens forward.
"Ezio, please. I don't know what's going on, but you don't need to do this."
She was talking again. But that pull in his head was so tantalizingly close now. Wait. Her phone is out. Ezio's head twists to his right as his wife desperately attempts to call Elio, the police, anyone.
"No." Ezio snarls. A sound that is unfamiliar to him. So strange in fact that it stuns Sarah, just long enough that he snatches her phone, tossing it out of his window. "I will not have you ruin this."
Pushing herself up against the passenger door, Sarah takes in Ezio. The fury in his eyes, the angle as he leans forward over the wheel, every single neuron in her brain was screaming at her to get away from him; at least until Ezio was off whatever mental break was happening to him. Rallying her courage, she wipes her eyes and snarls back to Ezio. "Pull over. You're letting me out. Now." She punctuates this with a shove into Ezio's shoulder, causing the car to wobble as the wheel moves with him, narrowly avoiding an open manhole.
The brakes are deployed with such suddenness that both Ezio and Sarah slam forward into the wheel and dashboard, respectively. As soon as the stars fade from her vision, Sarah throws open the car door and steps out into Naperville. A small collection of pedestrians watch idly as she does. The moment she steps out, not even waiting for the door to close, Ezio is peeling out, determined to get wherever he needs to be.
Glancing at the surrounding people, Sarah frowns. "What are you all looking at? Come on, move on." She waves as she walks back to retrieve her phone a city block back. Once she gets it, she sighs. It's been run over. Starting a light jog, she heads back towards the police barricade to get some answers.
Careening onward, Ezio eventually pushes past the urban center of Naperville and into one of the suburbs. The strange people only seem to become more plentiful the further he pushes on, but that never mattered to him. He has places to be. Eventually, as the sun has finally set, he parks outside of a construction yard. He opens the door and steps out of the car, staring slack-jawed at the bones of a behemoth building only in its infancy. Bodies hang from most of the scaffolding, ashes sitting underneath a few of the older chains near the entrance. The chain fence opens as he shuffles forward, cloaked figures with pale fingers interwoven with the metal links as they pull and close the gate behind him. One of them roughly shoves forward and reaches into Ezio's pockets.
Pushing the figure off of him, he blinks as he sees his phone in her hands, working quickly to remove the battery. Lit by electric lamplight, the center of the yard is dominated by a camouflage hued tent. People are arming themselves with the weapons of war, fully automatic rifles, axes, pikes, and any other sharp or deadly implements as people divide themselves into units by the dozens. Stairs lead down into a basement area, more complete than the rest.
Ezio stumbles down the stairs, the odd people making way for him. In the basement sits a man atop a throne of bone and ash. Slender, his face obscured by a deep hood, wearing a hoodie adorned with horns and pentagrams. At his side, head caught in this grand beings palm, is Victor. He looks wan, sucked dry aside from the blood needed to barely operate. The being's hood lifts as Ezio enters, enough to reveal a pitch black circle on the man's brow. "See what we can accomplish together, Victor?" He releases Victor's head who slumps to the ground. Holding his hands up, the figure gestures to the figures in the room, who begin to applaud with absolute fervor. The pull in Ezio's mind stops as Victor tumbles down the steps of the throne. "You must be one of Victor's ghouls. Please," The figure bows. "Make yourself at home. All who are under the thrall of the elders are friends of the Night Prince."
With a chuckle, nervous almost certainly, Ezio takes in the area. It looks like it may have been a sort of safe house at one point. Basic amenities are around to supply a mortal workforce, with a coffin in the corner of the room. "I don't understand." Ezio begins. "I'm not one of his... 'ghouls.'" He says, pointing to Victor.
Shrugging, the Night Prince pulls back his hood, revealing a startlingly attractive man underneath the deep shadows. His hair is braided with sinew and bone, his eyes a pale almost-gray, with a lithe stature that reveals itself as he raises from his throne of death. "Why then were you pulled when I helped him to call you?"
"I… maybe because he force fed me some of his blood?" Ezio says.
Stepping down the steps to come to Ezio's level, the Night Prince folds his arms behind his back. "So, you are one of his ghouls. That's how it works, you know. Willing or not."
Ezio takes a step back as the Night Prince approaches. The figures close rank around the exit behind him the moment he makes any motion towards it. "What is this about?" Ezio tries to keep any shakiness out of his voice. "What do you want from me?"
The Night Prince's gaze becomes absolutely piercing, like he no longer looked at Ezio but through him. Every secret laid he had bare before his eyes to appraise. To Ezio it feels like a cold knife to the heart. Gasping for breath as the Night Prince breathes deeply, Ezio panics. What is that look in his eyes? Pity? "You are the child of one of his other ghouls. He did not see the upsides of working with me. Perhaps his son will be wiser." He continues his leisurely pace forward towards Ezio.
Instinctively as this threat approaches, Ezio puts up his fists. If this was it, he was going to go down fighting at least. The Night Prince's approach is unaffected by his display of threat. Ready to face his fears, Ezio follows through, stepping forward to slug this guy in the face.
Every motion feels like molasses when in proximity to the Night Prince. It's as though even being in eye sight of him is enough to unnerve you to the point that you can't help but hesitate before you act. To act slowly is death in a fight. Ezio's fist is pushed aside as the Night Prince continues with his pace unmolested. Sliding his hand along Ezio's arm, the Night Prince grasps Ezio's neck in a single, perfect, maneuver. "I'm offering you a chance to join with the right side of history, Ezio. Plus," he nods his head towards Victor, "I can feel your desire. You want that drink more than anything right now." Pulling Ezio behind him by the throat, the Night Prince throws him roughly at Victor's motionless body. "If you want to drink then drink."
This close to Victor the desire for a third drink is overpowering. Ezio can hear Victor murmur quietly. He speaks about someone named Evelyn, of being afraid, even wishing for his final death. Victor's wrists have already been cut open, blood welling up in the deep tracks. All Ezio can see is the deep crimson flickering in the harsh white lights of the safe house. And he falters. Days had gone by while he daydreamed of this moment. Reaching forward he grabs Victor's arm. The ambrosial taste of this monster's blood tainted everything else he had eaten. The cut is put to his lips. Sarah wouldn't have to know. Elio wouldn't have to know. He sups at the crimson fluid. Coughing, he slurps and sucks at the cut.
The Night Prince stands above Ezio, a smile crossing his face. "Yes. You'll do nicely." Shoving Ezio out of the way, he grabs Victors chestnut hair and looks him in the eye. "Embrace this one."
"No…" Victor slurs. "I don't want to."
If the Night Prince's presence before had been suffocating to everything near him it becomes overpowering. His cultists closest to him drop to their knees in prayer as the lights flicker and darkness envelops the Night Prince entirely, which he wears like a murder of crows. Even the Kindred are unable to resist such a request, powered by such vile Essence. "Do. It." Two simple words feel like titanic punches to the mind.
"Yes…" Crawling forward, Victor grabs onto Ezio, held in place by the ecstasy of Vitae and the Night Prince's sight. "For what it is worth kine," Victor whispers as he approaches Ezio's neck, "I am sorry."
Ezio's blood is pulled from his body, leaving only enough of Victor's vitae behind to create a new vampire. Hours would pass, and Ezio would revive, ravenous. When demanding to be fed, only one body was offered to him. Victor.
The feast didn't last long. If Victor was a delicacy to Ezio prior to his new life, he was dessert beyond compare now. Not a drop remained as even Victor's soul would now be claimed by Ezio.
One, a man wearing a thick leather cloak with a dark gas mask covering his features, no sounds of breath coming through its filters; the other, sitting across from him in the limousine's cabin is a pale woman wearing several thick furs. Beside her is a servant wearing a suit, carrying several urns on the seats.
"Have you ever been to one of Kevin's safe houses, Yasir?" Her voice is velvety and her blood red lips part as she speaks to reveal her fangs. The hooded figure, Yasir, shakes his head. She chuckles. "Well, it will be a treat. Though as to the nature of the visit..." She lets the sentence hang, looking at Yasir expectantly.
Turning to his left, Yasir looks out the window. "I assume you've been kept appraised of the thin-blooded situation?" His voice is raspy, barely able to be heard if it were not for his conversation partners particularly sharp ears.
"I would think not." She says. "Surely, Scourge, a few thin-blood weaklings wouldn't be too much for you?"
Yasir sits silently as the last mile to Kevin's safe house comes to a close, built at the edge of Lake Michigan. "I'm sure Kevin will be giving us more information when we arrive."
The convoy makes a sharp turn to a nondescript house a little ways back from the water line. It would only appear to be a single floor vacation home that has gone unused but not untended. Pulling into the driveway, the first car unloads its occupants, Yasir and the woman with her servant. As the car pulls away another limo drops off a pair. Ghouls flank the entrances of the house, making themselves known as the esteemed guests arrive. Yasir spends no time looking at them, making his way to the front door, the woman following behind.
Entering into the house Yasir heads through a foyer towards a large conference room. Only the numerous trigger happy guards seemed to show the importance of the building. As Yasir sweeps through the hall he hears introductions, hellos, and veiled threats that one would expect from the gathered Primogen and whatever other elders responded to the Prince's summons.
"Thalia!" Comes a booming man's voice. The woman who arrived with Yasir turns and smiles at the towering, bald, tattooed man barely fitting into his suit approaching with arms outstretched. With some gusto she meets him halfway and hugs him.
"Brendan, it's been months!" She says. "I've invited you to several parties! Even got a blood doll groomed with just your preferences." Thalia pouts, putting her hands on her hips. "You didn't even give me a RSVP that you wouldn't be there. Has clan Toreador offended you somehow?"
He laughs, loudly enough to make the ghouls guarding the house nervously check their weapons and surroundings. "Please, being in charge of a bunch of Brujah maniacs keeps me plenty busy. But let's not keep Kevin waiting, hm?" Wrapping an over sized arm around Thalia's shoulders, he walks them both towards the conference room.
Thalia and Brendan settle into seats next to each other at the over sized table, Yasir finding his spot across from them. Half a dozen others of various shapes and sizes make their way inside. All have the tense feeling of a dozen tigers being locked into a small room, with only the promise of Elysium- of communal disarmament keeping the blood from flowing.
Once everyone has been seated, a dark skinned man wearing shades and flanked by two ghouls armed with swords in their sheathes arrives. Kevin. The room goes quiet as they watch him move to his padded leather chair at the head of the table. On the wall behind him, a large television screen bearing the insignia of clan Ventrue, a princely staff, oversees all below it. "Friends and kindred, I thank you for answering my summons on such short notice." He carefully interlocks his fingers in front of his mouth, taking a moment to let his words fall. Leaning forwards he starts again, "A matter of some import has arisen, which will likely require the cooperation of each of the heads of clan to manage." Nodding to Yasir he continues, "Scourge Yasir. Share your knowledge with them."
Yasir stands, pulling his mask off to be better heard. Most of the Kindred avert their eyes, as underneath Yasir is little more than a skull with flesh covering it, a perpetual reminder of their monstrous nature. His eyes bulge and swerve, always appearing to be seeking something. "The amount of thin-blooded has continued to rise. My ghouls and associate Kindred have been unable to keep up with the numbers; at least the ones we can find. Worse," he reaches into a pocket and retrieves a bit of paper, which he unfolds and reads from, "a coterie of Kindred contracted by me to assist with this problem have been put to Final Death. You may remember the coterie that resided in the basement of the electrical substation near Quarry Lake?"
There is a rumbling among the Elders, with Brendan speaking up. "All of them? One of my childe was part of that group." His tone is calm, but he's folded his arms with his talons digging into his skin.
Nodding, Yasir continues. "Yes. It is not a secret that this particular group was not a group of whelps. No." He walks slowly down the row of seats. "These were ancilla who didn't take unnecessary risks. Survivors of the war. I've worked with them many times over the years to accomplish the responsibilities of Scourge." He puts his hands down on the table. "The thin-blooded are organized, creating hunting parties." Several members of the table scoff and shake their heads. "Laugh now and we will all suffer the consequences later." He points to the offending members. "Have you not seen yet the crimson star that hangs above us all?"
Kevin reasserts himself, "I am able to corroborate the Scourge's claims. You may notice that our sheriff, Kayla, is not present at this meeting." He holds up his hands, indicating the empty chair at his left. "While investigating some of her missing hounds in Naperville, she was brought into torpor by what I believe to be thin-blooded militants." This does more to catch the rooms attention.
Standing up from her seat, Thalia snarls, "How is that possible?! This must be the Sabbat! Simple thin-blooded could not do such things, especially not to Kayla."
"Until she awakens, we will not know more. Also," Kevin's tone, which has been even and authoritative thus far takes on a far more suspicious tone. "whoever has hired or dominated an assassin to hunt me, I have found the efforts thoroughly unfunny."
"Is that why we're having this meeting out here in the boonies instead of the nice loft you renovated to host these parties?" Thalia sits and leans back in her chair, rocking slightly.
Running a hand over his face, Kevin grabs a remote and turns the large wall mounted television behind him. Security video begins to play of a sky rise apartment at midnight. "After the attempted theft of one of my devices a few years ago I finally bit the bullet and set up these… recording cameras." While sitting at the desk, the window behind him cracks suddenly, not breaking, but Kevin can be seen flinching and standing quickly to see what happened. "This," he pulls a pancaked bullet in a plastic bag from his pocket. "is a 9 millimeter round fired from a handgun." It sets onto the table with a small clunk. "The assailant was standing on a building a mile away."
"Woah woah woah," A very pale man with a blonde shock of hair that looks like it was electrified pipes up. "not to, uh, step on your authority Princy, but you can't make that kind of shot with a pistol."
Kevin whirls around, allowing his Presence of displeasure to speak for itself as none in the room are willing to meet his eyes, lest they feel his mastery over Domination. "You think I don't know that, Wes? And yet," He lets the video continue behind him, "When I looked out and saw him, that is what he was holding." Another crack appears in the window, in the same place and another baggie is pulled from Kevin's pocket. "This is the second bullet. The curious among you will note that the first bullet is completely flattened, as the second bullet hit impacted the window in precisely the same place."
The illustrious red-headed woman in a dress of ever shifting colors smiles. "So, you think some form of thaumaturgy may be at play?" Flicking a finger, the baggie slides across the table unbidden and into her hand. She focuses her entire being onto it, ignoring several members of the table as they grumble and sigh.
"Not everything is about that damn blood magic, witch." Brendan says.
Her blood red eyes flicker up to meet Brendan. "Thaumaturgy is a subtle art, interwoven into most things. You shouldn't ever look past the…"
Thalia laughs. "We've heard this a thousand times, Red. It doesn't change the fact that you thought an 'enemy magician' was onto your little chantry house and you didn't even think that it could've been a raccoon digging around in your trash."
Red's eyes narrow, now taking in Thalia as Red drops the bullet. "The whore clan of Toreador taking whatever digs it can at Tremere. I get it. Maybe I'll just make your blood boil then." She sneers.
"Off topic." Kevin's voice immediately puts the bickering on the back burner. "Red, I want you and your clan mates that are available to use these bullets to trace back to whoever shot them."
With a large smile, Red bows her head. "We shall do our best, Prince."
"Scourge?" Yasir nods. "You are to continue your efforts to cull the thin blooded. None of your agents or yourself are to cull without partners and ghouls nearby. Any meaningful resistance is to be reported directly to me for coordination. If it is truly urgent, you may request the assistance of any Kindred within my authority on my name."
Yasir frowns, but puts his mask back on. "Yes, Prince Kevin."
"Xander?" Kevin points to the fiend standing in the back of the room. Bony horns have grown where his eyes used to be and his flesh looks more like stone than skin. "Has your information network turned up any useful information on this new crisis?"
The Nosferatu nods, pulling a laptop out from his bag. Operating without sight, he moves through the sign in and accesses the device. "A pair of my agents have reported to me that Lupine activity may be on the rise out near Galena. I attempted to reach out to Victor but haven't received any word back yet. Also, Cherish, who I believe to be a Josian hunting Gehenna cults in the area reached out to me. Apparently," He turns the computer around and a thin, dark skinned man wearing robes is on the screen, "This man, a ghoul in a Diablerie cult within Chicago…" Xander is interrupted.
"That's the man." Kevin blinks. "The assassin."
Cocking his head, Xander continues. "During one of their rituals, he was Embraced as a thin-blood. A thin-blood of abnormal power and aura.
The cult may have been dispersed, but Cherish was heavily damaged by this man and spoke of his aura being unlike that of any Kindred she has ever encountered."
Red clicks her tongue. "Thin blood of abnormal power. Red star in the sky." She pantomimes taking a deep breath. "These are odd times."
"Xander, focus all efforts of your informants on uncovering everything about this man. The Lupines can wait for now. I shall send an agent to check on Victor's domain to ensure that he hasn't become the prey of the damn dogs." Xander nods and closes his computer.
Frowning, Red forces blood to her ears and brain. Something sounds like… A gunshot rings out from outside and the gathered creatures of the night pause, each one eyeing the others. One of the ghoul guardians pushes open the door. "I apologize for the interruption, sir." He begins. "Two of our men on the lake side of the house have been shot."
Pushing back their chairs, the vampires flow like rushing water from the conference room. Blood pulses into skin, muscle, and sinew as each prepares themselves for what may be outside. Once outside, however, all they find is the two dead guards, each with a neat small bullet hole in their head, threaded through the only small gaps in their head and neck protections. Thalia pauses at one of the windows, bulletproof of course. Two small cracks are in it, with two bullets on top of one another. She points to it for Kevin. "Your friend must have found us."
Focusing further and further, ignoring the darkness of night, Red gazes out at the massive lake in front of them. Someone is standing on the waves and seems to be looking back at her. A faded black hoodie hides his face, but his aura… Blinking she focuses again, she must have been seeing things. It's void black, with the jagged black lightning normally found in a Diablerist's aura running through it, barely visible against the true dark of the aura. A moment later, he's dashed away over the water itself, faster than even the Kindred could run. "We… may have a problem." Red turns her gaze to the bullets. "I think that being… No I think I need to do some research." She mutters returning to the house.
Kevin folds his arms behind him. "I call a blood hunt on that being. Kindred, Lupine, human, or whatever it is. It needs to die." He turns to the collected Kindred on the cold night, blood red star hanging in the sky above them, "Any who shelter or aid it will be treated to the same treatment." Turning back to he lake, he furrows his brow, focusing on the cracked window. Clearly this thing was sending a message to him. I can find you and hurt you wherever you go.
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"I don't-" Sarah looks down at her phone, set to a GPS map app, "This isn't the way to your mom's place, Ezio."
The empty vial of Elizabeth's blood sits in Ezio's pocket like a lead weight. It hadn't done anything for him, just reminded him of that missing part of himself. Something was wrong with him. That rational part of his brain had been desperately holding on, fighting off impulses from something deeper and darker on the fringes. But when did the fringe become the core? 'Wipe your brow, you're sweating like a pig.' His dad's voice echoes in his head. No. Can't use the arm, need that to drive. Was Sarah talking?
From the passenger seat of the bright blue car, Sarah watches her husband drive. His head twists and turns at every street corner, taking in every face he can see as they walk past through Chicago. "Ezio…" She puts a hand on his arm and he flinches, for a moment brought back into the reality before him. "Are you okay? You're, well... you're acting really weird."
Does she know? What does she know?! "I'm okay, Sarah." Ezio wipes his brow with his sweater that he picked despite the summer warmth.
"Just…" he smacks his lips, his mouth dry. What could he tell her? She knows this isn't the way to his mom's home. 'Just keep talking.' Elio's voice echoes now, reassuring and steady. 'You'll come up with something.' "taking in the sights, you know?" Ezio laughs.
Screwing up her face with a frown, Sarah turns to face forward again. "We've been to Chicago a lot. What do you mean?" She gestures to the mundane street, full of cars and people going about their lives. "There aren't exactly any landmarks right here. Can't even see the lake."
Lights. There's lights ahead of them now. Police and barricades. Why is the pull taking him that way? He starts to turn onto the clearly closed road.
Sarah squawks as they approach the barricade. "Hey! The police have a… Ezio!" She grabs onto the brace bar above the door as Ezio barrels the car forward, a couple of officers diving out of the way as he pushes the rear end of the cruiser out of the way and carries forward, the engine whining under the metallic shriek of car-on-car violence. "Ezio, pull over." Sarah's voice is demanding, cutting through the fog. Can't stop, getting close. He puts the foot down on the gas. People are getting out of the way, but they look different from normal people.
Eyes widening, Sarah takes in the neighborhood they've found themselves in. Naperville had undergone some changes in the last few weeks, or so it would seem. Odd people wearing deep cloaks that cover their full forms, little more than shades on the street stalk the avenues. Slogans have been spray painted onto the faces of all flat surfaces that can be easily reached, 'We will be heard.', 'Drink the old', 'The Night Prince watches over us' that one showing a particularly menacing pair of eyes behind it. Sarah shrinks down in the seat as the car careens forward.
"Ezio, please. I don't know what's going on, but you don't need to do this."
She was talking again. But that pull in his head was so tantalizingly close now. Wait. Her phone is out. Ezio's head twists to his right as his wife desperately attempts to call Elio, the police, anyone.
"No." Ezio snarls. A sound that is unfamiliar to him. So strange in fact that it stuns Sarah, just long enough that he snatches her phone, tossing it out of his window. "I will not have you ruin this."
Pushing herself up against the passenger door, Sarah takes in Ezio. The fury in his eyes, the angle as he leans forward over the wheel, every single neuron in her brain was screaming at her to get away from him; at least until Ezio was off whatever mental break was happening to him. Rallying her courage, she wipes her eyes and snarls back to Ezio. "Pull over. You're letting me out. Now." She punctuates this with a shove into Ezio's shoulder, causing the car to wobble as the wheel moves with him, narrowly avoiding an open manhole.
The brakes are deployed with such suddenness that both Ezio and Sarah slam forward into the wheel and dashboard, respectively. As soon as the stars fade from her vision, Sarah throws open the car door and steps out into Naperville. A small collection of pedestrians watch idly as she does. The moment she steps out, not even waiting for the door to close, Ezio is peeling out, determined to get wherever he needs to be.
Glancing at the surrounding people, Sarah frowns. "What are you all looking at? Come on, move on." She waves as she walks back to retrieve her phone a city block back. Once she gets it, she sighs. It's been run over. Starting a light jog, she heads back towards the police barricade to get some answers.
Careening onward, Ezio eventually pushes past the urban center of Naperville and into one of the suburbs. The strange people only seem to become more plentiful the further he pushes on, but that never mattered to him. He has places to be. Eventually, as the sun has finally set, he parks outside of a construction yard. He opens the door and steps out of the car, staring slack-jawed at the bones of a behemoth building only in its infancy. Bodies hang from most of the scaffolding, ashes sitting underneath a few of the older chains near the entrance. The chain fence opens as he shuffles forward, cloaked figures with pale fingers interwoven with the metal links as they pull and close the gate behind him. One of them roughly shoves forward and reaches into Ezio's pockets.
Pushing the figure off of him, he blinks as he sees his phone in her hands, working quickly to remove the battery. Lit by electric lamplight, the center of the yard is dominated by a camouflage hued tent. People are arming themselves with the weapons of war, fully automatic rifles, axes, pikes, and any other sharp or deadly implements as people divide themselves into units by the dozens. Stairs lead down into a basement area, more complete than the rest.
Ezio stumbles down the stairs, the odd people making way for him. In the basement sits a man atop a throne of bone and ash. Slender, his face obscured by a deep hood, wearing a hoodie adorned with horns and pentagrams. At his side, head caught in this grand beings palm, is Victor. He looks wan, sucked dry aside from the blood needed to barely operate. The being's hood lifts as Ezio enters, enough to reveal a pitch black circle on the man's brow. "See what we can accomplish together, Victor?" He releases Victor's head who slumps to the ground. Holding his hands up, the figure gestures to the figures in the room, who begin to applaud with absolute fervor. The pull in Ezio's mind stops as Victor tumbles down the steps of the throne. "You must be one of Victor's ghouls. Please," The figure bows. "Make yourself at home. All who are under the thrall of the elders are friends of the Night Prince."
With a chuckle, nervous almost certainly, Ezio takes in the area. It looks like it may have been a sort of safe house at one point. Basic amenities are around to supply a mortal workforce, with a coffin in the corner of the room. "I don't understand." Ezio begins. "I'm not one of his... 'ghouls.'" He says, pointing to Victor.
Shrugging, the Night Prince pulls back his hood, revealing a startlingly attractive man underneath the deep shadows. His hair is braided with sinew and bone, his eyes a pale almost-gray, with a lithe stature that reveals itself as he raises from his throne of death. "Why then were you pulled when I helped him to call you?"
"I… maybe because he force fed me some of his blood?" Ezio says.
Stepping down the steps to come to Ezio's level, the Night Prince folds his arms behind his back. "So, you are one of his ghouls. That's how it works, you know. Willing or not."
Ezio takes a step back as the Night Prince approaches. The figures close rank around the exit behind him the moment he makes any motion towards it. "What is this about?" Ezio tries to keep any shakiness out of his voice. "What do you want from me?"
The Night Prince's gaze becomes absolutely piercing, like he no longer looked at Ezio but through him. Every secret laid he had bare before his eyes to appraise. To Ezio it feels like a cold knife to the heart. Gasping for breath as the Night Prince breathes deeply, Ezio panics. What is that look in his eyes? Pity? "You are the child of one of his other ghouls. He did not see the upsides of working with me. Perhaps his son will be wiser." He continues his leisurely pace forward towards Ezio.
Instinctively as this threat approaches, Ezio puts up his fists. If this was it, he was going to go down fighting at least. The Night Prince's approach is unaffected by his display of threat. Ready to face his fears, Ezio follows through, stepping forward to slug this guy in the face.
Every motion feels like molasses when in proximity to the Night Prince. It's as though even being in eye sight of him is enough to unnerve you to the point that you can't help but hesitate before you act. To act slowly is death in a fight. Ezio's fist is pushed aside as the Night Prince continues with his pace unmolested. Sliding his hand along Ezio's arm, the Night Prince grasps Ezio's neck in a single, perfect, maneuver. "I'm offering you a chance to join with the right side of history, Ezio. Plus," he nods his head towards Victor, "I can feel your desire. You want that drink more than anything right now." Pulling Ezio behind him by the throat, the Night Prince throws him roughly at Victor's motionless body. "If you want to drink then drink."
This close to Victor the desire for a third drink is overpowering. Ezio can hear Victor murmur quietly. He speaks about someone named Evelyn, of being afraid, even wishing for his final death. Victor's wrists have already been cut open, blood welling up in the deep tracks. All Ezio can see is the deep crimson flickering in the harsh white lights of the safe house. And he falters. Days had gone by while he daydreamed of this moment. Reaching forward he grabs Victor's arm. The ambrosial taste of this monster's blood tainted everything else he had eaten. The cut is put to his lips. Sarah wouldn't have to know. Elio wouldn't have to know. He sups at the crimson fluid. Coughing, he slurps and sucks at the cut.
The Night Prince stands above Ezio, a smile crossing his face. "Yes. You'll do nicely." Shoving Ezio out of the way, he grabs Victors chestnut hair and looks him in the eye. "Embrace this one."
"No…" Victor slurs. "I don't want to."
If the Night Prince's presence before had been suffocating to everything near him it becomes overpowering. His cultists closest to him drop to their knees in prayer as the lights flicker and darkness envelops the Night Prince entirely, which he wears like a murder of crows. Even the Kindred are unable to resist such a request, powered by such vile Essence. "Do. It." Two simple words feel like titanic punches to the mind.
"Yes…" Crawling forward, Victor grabs onto Ezio, held in place by the ecstasy of Vitae and the Night Prince's sight. "For what it is worth kine," Victor whispers as he approaches Ezio's neck, "I am sorry."
Ezio's blood is pulled from his body, leaving only enough of Victor's vitae behind to create a new vampire. Hours would pass, and Ezio would revive, ravenous. When demanding to be fed, only one body was offered to him. Victor.
The feast didn't last long. If Victor was a delicacy to Ezio prior to his new life, he was dessert beyond compare now. Not a drop remained as even Victor's soul would now be claimed by Ezio.
- Location
- Alberta
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Ooh, the plot thickens.
if you put exalted vs wod, it will create a lot more attention and you would get a bigger following.
if you put exalted vs wod, it will create a lot more attention and you would get a bigger following.
Ahhh, just like in the title after the, uh, title? Or throw it in the tags? I'm a little ignorant to posting stuff, I'll admit haha.
Edit: I think I figured it out??
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Scene 27 - Into Thin Air
"Stop calling this number!" Mary says through the phone. "I already told you that I don't have a daughter!" Before Briana can beg her to stay on the line, the call ends. From the driver's seat, Grim averts his eyes as Briana sniffles slightly.
The truck rolls into the Green Dot, it's lot still largely empty aside from beat up and mostly forgotten cars and people. Grim sighs, giving Briana another moment to collect herself as she slowly slides her phone back into a pocket. "I know this isn't easy to hear…" he starts.
"What, that my entire life has fallen apart?" She says.
Grim rubs his face as he parks the truck. "Well, yeah." He looks out the window for a moment. "But it's sorta a blessing in disguise. The other ones won't have it cut off so cleanly."
"Getting disowned by my family is a blessing, huh?" There might have been venom in that a while ago, but Briana is simply resigned at this point, slumping lower into the seat.
While the engine spins down, Grim pulls out a small business card and starts jotting his phone number down on it. "Well, you told me about Elio's brother. You saw what happened to him, what happens to normal people caught up in all this. At least you won't need to worry about your parents getting kidnapped by vampires or whatever just 'cause they know you."
She shrugs morosely. "I guess." Rubbing her hands on her legs, she looks up at the peeling paint and flickering neon sign of the Green Dot. "So this is my stop, huh?"
"You think you're ready for this?" Grim says, turning to face Briana in the seat. "I don't know where your path goes from here, hon."
Holding her hands in front of her, she briefly lets the tides of destiny roll over them. Gently grasping one of them and pulling, like a piece of string eternity long, her eyes glimmer green. Nearby, a greasy looking man in sunglasses and a robe walking towards a vending machine stops as a free soda happens to fall out. Smirking, he grabs the can and cracks it and it immediately fizzes over, spilling down his arm on onto his robe. "Ah, son of a bitch!" Can be mutely heard in the cabin of the truck.
Grim rolls his eyes, but before he can say anything, Briana speaks. "I don't know, Grim." There is perhaps a bit too much truth betrayed in her tone. Her leg was still aching from where she was bit, even though her flesh had long healed now. "I don't know what I'm doing or even why I need to help those two."
Her frame shifts as Grim puts a heavy hand on her shoulder. "Briana, I don't know what I'm doing either." His smile is wide, self-assured even. It's clearly for her benefit. Briana can tell he's keeping something from her, the way his eyes quiver for just a moment, perhaps even in the slight tinge of an aura she can make out around him. She sighs, closing her eyes for a moment and he continues. "But it just… it's just the way it is, you know?"
"Right." She says. His arm falls off her shoulder and back onto the steering wheel. "Least I don't have to go to school anymore, right?" There's a chuckle she adds, but it's hollow.
A barking laugh comes from Grim. "Yeah, I guess not. Though you should probably at least know how to use algebra. Maybe some physics too. Might come in handy." Silence returns to the cab. Reaching into his pocket, Grim pulls out a clip of money. "Here's half of what I got. Don't spend it on whatever dumb shit you kids are buying these days." Briana naps the clip, holding more money in her hands than she has ever physically held up to this point; a full five hundred dollars. Then he hands her the card that's been sitting in his hand. "And this is my number. Learn it, don't put it in your phone."
She groans. "My phone remembers numbers for me, man."
"Well, make an exception. Ya ever need a hand and I'll be here as soon as I can. I might be a ways away though, so don't count on it if you need help quick like." The paper slips from his fingers as Briana pockets the money and now the slip.
An awkward silence now fills the cabin. Both of the chosen of fate can feel the time for parting is now, but choose to linger a moment longer. Briana lunges across the console and hugs Grim. The older man puts a hand on Briana's back with a small smile on his face before pushing her back after a moment. "Take care of yourself, Briana."
"I'll try, Grim." She opens the door and into the warm late summer afternoon. Walking towards the hotel room she knows that Ashley will arrive at soon, she chances a look behind her back to Grim but finds the yellow truck gone. Settling down on a run down bench with a full ashtray next to it, Briana waits for the whims of fate to come knocking.
Fortunately, fate is punctual for its chosen. The deer from Prosper leaps through the nearby shrubbery, startling Briana. It dashes behind the building and a moment later Ashley rounds the corner with a spring in her step, still wearing what appears to be loose fitting jeans and striped top from the collection of the farm house wife's wardrobe. Ashley pauses as her eyes fall on Briana who has stood up near the door that Ashley was clearly angling towards. The smile falls off of Ashley's face slightly and she huffs and walks straight up to Briana. "Move, kid." She says gruffly, an edge in her eyes.
A mental picture of this lithe woman turning into a monster plays momentarily in Briana's mind. "Uh…" Briana stumbles her intro. "I'm Briana. You know me." She eventually gets out after swallowing away the mental imagery of a rabbit demon.
"Huh?" Ashley smirks. "This some sort of scam or something? Come on, don't waste my time." She attempts to push past the teen and into the room.
"Great." Briana mutters. "Who's this freak?" She says, hoping she remembered right.
Stopping, Ashley glares at Briana. "Watch your mouth, brat." she snarls. Honest to God snarls, baring teeth and everything. "Where'd you pick up this…" Looking behind her for Elio for some reason, the sentence trails off, "...stray." She puts a hand on her head and frowns as her head is awash in deja vu. Licking her teeth, Ashley stoops down slightly, only a few inches taller than Briana. "Alright, kid. I don't appreciate people messing with my head."
Feeling Ashley's breath pushing against her hair slightly, Briana takes a step back. Focusing on her forehead, a green sigil appears on it. "I said, you know me, Ashley. Can we talk in the room, maybe? If, you know, you don't want that creep by the vending machine to check you out anymore." To their left is the man with a cola-soaked robe, unable to see Briana's forehead but only because he continues to leer at Ashley.
"Fucking Dale." Ashley mutters, not taking her eyes off Briana. "Get in the room." She pulls the key from a pocket and hands it to Briana. As Briana opens the door, Ashley turns to Dale. "You're still here, you absolute fucknut? Don't you have a fucking high school locker room or something to creep on?" She flips him off and stalks into the room. The door closes behind her. "I'm gonna slit that asshole's throat." With a grunt she falls onto the bed, taking in Briana. "So. I know you, huh?"
Briana nods. "It's hard to explain. But I know you can turn into a big, uh, 'fuck off' monster too."
Growling, Ashley pinches her nose. "So. What do you want." She says flatly.
"I just want to help you. And Elio." Briana says, putting her hands on her hips.
"Look Briana. You're just some kid. I don't think you're gonna be helping us with anything." She blinks. How'd she know Elio's name? How'd she know her name? How did Ashley know her name? Putting her head into her hands as questions swirl around, she fails to see the smug smile on Briana's face. Probably for the best.
"See? So you do know me. And I can help you because I know things." Briana says without further explanation.
Ashley rolls her eyes. "You know things." Briana nods. "What kind of things?"
"That you guys are fighting vampires. Uh." Briana thinks for a moment. Come on, something actually impressive? "And you're about to get a call from Elio. About…" Focus. It's on the tip of your tongue. "A job? Including, uh, Megan. I think."
Before Ashley can laugh, her phone rings. Narrowing her eyes, she looks at the ID, seeing Elio's number. She picks up. "What is it?"
"I might need a hand with something. Remember Megan? I have a deal that if we bring her somewhere I'll get my name cleared and also a lead on Ezio. Where are you so I can get you the details?" Elio says.
"Green Dot. Gotta go." Ashley glances at Briana, still with her smug ass smile. "Got some weird shit going on. Get over here." She ends the call. Clicking her tongue, Ashley leans back on the bed with a loud creak. "Let's wait for Elio. Then we'll figure this out."
It's only a supremely awkward fifteen minutes stuck in silence in this terribly tacky, and frankly slightly rank hotel room. Eventually, mercifully, Elio arrives in the black SUV. The handle jiggles as he keys in, with both Ashley and Briana finally switching from actively ignoring the other to looking towards Elio as he enters. "What is this 'weird shit' you got going on, Ashley?" He says, entering as his eyes flick to the only other person in the room, Briana. "Kid." He mutters. "Ashley why is there a kid in the room?"
"Remember when we were talking a few nights ago? About that kid I couldn't remember?" Ashley starts, scooting down the floral print comforter of the bed with a strange squeak. "Well this is the kid. I don't fucking know man."
He frowns, closing the door. He remembered the conversation, at least vaguely. "Briana?" Elio says after a moments thought. "Or is it Alysha?" He tilts his head.
"Briana. It's Briana." She says firmly.
Elio turns to Ashley. "This is some weird shit, you're right." Turns back to Briana. "Didn't you ride off with your parents or something?"
A few minutes are spent catching up, of trying to describe her time with Grim and how she totally made Elio and Ashley's vampire hunt easier. At the end, she flares her green marking once more, with Elio and Ashley similarly revealing their own gold and silver respectively.
"Great." Ashley mutters. "There's more of us."
Elio sighs. "Yup. Well kid, you wanna help me kidnap a ghoul tonight? If this fate thing you keep talking about really works then I imagine you'd actually be helpful."
Briana smiles, but Ashley interrupts before she can talk. "You're gonna have some teenager help you out? You can't be serious."
"She's got the same thing we got going on, Ash." He points up to their collective foreheads. "If she's even half as good as us, then I think she'll do fine."
A spring loudly breaks inside the bed frame under Ashley, who looks down cautiously at the mattress. "Yeah, Ashley. I got this. Plus, I'm like, way subtler than you."
Ashley folds her arms. "I can be subtle." She mutters. "I am a fucking rabbit. How much more subtle does it get?"
"First things first though. We need to figure out where Megan lives." Elio starts.
Pulling out her phone, small green spider icon already skittering onto the screen, Briana holds it out. "I bet I can find it. What's her name again? But full name. Asking for just the first name isn't gonna be specific enough for this to work.
Sucking in air, Elio thinks for a moment. "Clark. Megan Clark. Works for the mayor's office."
Briana rapidly keys in the information to the spider who skitters away from the phone. Five seconds pass and the voice of fate speaks into her ear. 'Megan Clark lives in apartment 12 of Dandy Rise apartments in Galena, Illinois.' Briana blinks as a bit of fatigue sets into her bones and mind. "Dandy Rise, apartment 12." She says matter-of-factly.
The older pair sitting across the room now from Briana exchange a glance. Ashley trying desperately to communicate with her eyes that there is no way that this is going to work. Elio simply stands and moves towards the door. "Well. Let's go check it out. It's not too far from here and we can stop by city hall on the way back if it turns out to be nothing."
They load into the SUV, Briana glad to finally have more room than old Grim's truck. On the road towards Dandy Rise, a police cruiser approaches with lights on from the opposite direction. It's charging down the road at quite a pace, twice as fast as the speed limit. Elio slowly pulls over as he watches the car with some intensity. Briana is the first to speak up though as she presses her face up to the rear seat window. "Hey, isn't that the guy you were following from the police station?" She asks towards Elio.
"Yeah." In the driver's seat of the cruiser is sheriff Hunter on his own. A wild look is in his eyes and his grip on the wheel is white knuckled. Moments later, the cruiser has surged past them and continued on its way to God knows where. "Weird." Pulling the car back onto the road, they continue towards Megan's residence.
Dandy Rise is a pair of squat, two story apartment buildings in a decent neighborhood. In stark contrast from the Green Dot, the buildings are well tended, have working visible exterior cameras, and even a fresh coat of light blue paint. The well-to-do appearance of the area makes the goons waiting, bored, at the smoking station across the street from the complex stand out even more. Sylvester and his buddies from the Lead Bellies are on their phones and smoking there. Elio parks in the lot and eyes the gang. "What are these assholes doing here?" He mutters. This was getting more complicated by the second.
Ashley leans forward, looking at Sly. "Never actually thought I'd see his face again." Shrugging, She turns to Elio. "So what's the plan? You scope the place out then we bust in there for a snatch and grab?"
"God, you sound like my old mob acquaintances." Elio sighs. "Yeah, I'm gonna scope it out. You two stay here." Soundlessly, the driver's door opens and Elio steps out. The glances of the Lead Bellies fall off of him like oil on water and he walks up to unit 12. It's unadorned from the outside with a simple deadbolt, but there is a neat ashtray and pair of stools just far enough away from the building to be legal. Stopping, Elio listens at the door for a moment as slight air currents betray what is inside.
A pair of footsteps are approaching the door, light, both women most likely. He steps aside as they pause on the other side to put on shoes or slippers. The door opens, revealing first a brown haired woman wearing an oversized sweatshirt with a confidant swagger in her step. Following her is Megan, wearing a pair of sweatpants and a tank top as well as a pair of fuzzy navy blue slippers to complete the look. Both move to the ashtray and light up a couple of cigarettes, filling the air with their acrid smoke. Elio stands still near the door resting against it's frame, failing again to be noticed not twenty yards from the women.
The unrecognized woman takes a drag from her cigarette and gives a wary glance to the Lead Bellies across the street, Sly looking back at both of them. "So, I know you're worried about Elio and everything… but is hiring a bunch of guys from a gang really a good idea?"
Megan pulls out her phone. "Yeah, it's fine. As long as you keep them paid, they'll stay on their leash. If they know what's good for them."
"It's kinda creepy though." She looks away from Sly. "That one just stares at us whenever we are out here."
Their banter continues as Elio slides into the apartment though the barely open door, its position somehow not even moving despite not being open wide enough to allow even the smallest child to shimmy through. Tacky wall ornaments dot the entry hallway and the smell of some sort of floral potpourri fills his nose. Looking back at the front door, the deadbolt appears to have been installed recently judging by how shiny the aluminum and stainless steel is. Pacing into the living room, the television is playing a slideshow of cat photos, showing the same cat that stopped short as it entered into the living room.
The fat calico cat saunters into the living room with a yawn and pauses as it sniffs the air. While it seemed for a moment the cat had noticed him, as it paused in the way that cats do and stared up at him for a long moment, it hops up into a nearby cat tree to begin grooming itself. With a sigh, Elio moves into a corner of the dining nook with a small stool on it and settles onto it, breathing in the atmosphere of the small apartment as he seems to sink further and further into the background until he's just another piece of furniture or wall art.
About ten minutes later, Megan and her friend return to the apartment. Whatever conversation they were having from outside comes to a stop as they open the door. "Courtney, I thought you said you were sure you locked the door." Megan hisses to her friend behind her, currently taking off her shoes.
Courtney looks confused. "Megan, you came out after me. Why would I be the one to lock the door?"
Megan turns her attention to the rest of her apartment, eyes darting around the relatively neat space. "What if someone got in while we were smoking?"
"How? We could see the door the entire time from where we were, like twenty feet away?" Seeing Megan's look, she sighs. "We can search the place again, if you want." Megan quickly nods and sets off down the hallway towards presumably the bedrooms and a bathroom. Watching her move, she still has a brace on her right ankle but does not move with a limp. Their search is thorough for the small space, practiced even. Clearing each room as a pair, it would have been difficult to avoid them relying on normal hiding places. "Ugh, Megan you really need to clean this room of yours." From Elio's vantage point he cannot see what room is being talked about.
"Who are you, my mom?" Megan grumbles as she steps into the room in question. A rustling sound of laundry and various wrappers and containers can be heard as she does.
Courtney sighs. "No I am not, but I can still be a bit, you know, concerned? Right?"
"I'll clean it once I'm feeling better." Megan says, a bit muffled through the walls and down the hall. A minute later she comes back out. "Yeah, I don't see anyone here. Just the nerves I guess. Sorry." She mumbles her apology.
Elio quietly sighs to himself, taking care to shift his weight from one side of his hip to the other as he continues to sit. He was no stranger to placing a few cameras in someone's home to observe them, but being here personally feels a bit too voyeuristic.
"It's okay." Courtney says while plopping down onto a well cleaned green couch. The door down the hall closes firmly as Megan returns to the living space. "But... how much longer are you gonna keep living like this? There's no way that the asshole who attacked you is even in town now. Plus my work keeps asking me when I'm going to be coming back."
A sudden stiffness comes over Megan's stance. "I mean, I'm paying you to be here with me, your best friend. That seems like a sweet deal, why do you even need to go back to work?"
Courtney folds her arms. "That's another thing. I know you get paid well by the mayor's office, but how are you able to pay me this much and still not go to work? Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the extra money, but this all seems... a little weird."
"Just one more week. Please?" Megan almost begs. "I just get really anxious when I'm alone."
"Fine. Just one more week. And maybe not having a bunch of fucking toughs hanging around would help with that anxiety." Courtney jabs a bit at her friend.
Shifting in order to pull out his phone, Elio texts Ashley. 'This is the place. She has a friend with her. The gang outside is with her too.'
Back in the car, Ashley has been drumming her fingers on her thigh and sighing, waiting for something to do. At least Briana can distract herself on her phone easily. Ashley's phone vibrates and she snags it to read Elio's message. 'Cool. You take care of Megan and I'll take care of Sly. I have an idea for the friend, at least for a moment.' Ashley turns to face Briana. "Okay kid. I'm going to go take care of those idiots out there. How good is your girl scout impression?"
Thinking for a moment, Briana takes herself in. Ratty looking flannel pajamas after a week of roughing it with Grim, tired look in her eyes. No sash of badges or funny hat. No cookies in a wagon. No parent. She more closely resembles the victim of some sort of trafficking, a far cry from her mental image of what a superhero should look like, let along a girl scout. "Are you serious?" She blinks at Ashley. "I look like I crawled out of a shipping container." What was that thing Grim talked about? Borrowing a fate? "Ugh. Tell you what." She claps. "I'll find something that looks like a sash and I'll try." Leaning over the back seat of the SUV, she looks into the trunk space. "Oh my god, how many weapons do you have back here?" It's a sea of ill gotten gains from Mary's stash, a rifle, several handguns, a short sword and a spear.
"Don't touch that stuff." Ashley says, sounding bored. "You'll shoot your eye out, or whatever."
Grumbling, Briana grabs one of the sheathed short swords and pulls it out. Ashley is now watching her carefully as Brianna uses the sword to cut one of the seat belts and wraps it around herself like a sash. "It'll do, I hope." Focusing on the idea of a girl scout she tries to pull it over her own destiny like a mask. Ashley's eyes flicker back to the Lead Bellies and back to Briana but finds an odd girl scout in her back seat.
She blinks and rubs her eyes. This kid was for sure just someone wearing a seat belt as a sash. Right? Maybe girl scout uniforms changed recently. "Go…" Ashley says slowly, narrowing her eyes. "Knock on Megan's door. I'll let Elio know a distraction is coming. Do… you have thin mints?"
"No. Not today." Briana jumps out of the car and starts a jaunt to Megan's apartment.
Ashley cracks her knuckles and sends one more text to Elio. 'Just deployed a girl scout.'
Inside, Elio frowns at his phone, mouth slightly open as he tries, desperately, to figure out what the hell the sentence means. Then the knock at the door. Megan and Courtney, who were about to put something on the TV to watch, stop and look at each other. Eventually, Courtney stands up and moves to the door. Looking out the peephole, she sees a girl scout. "Is it girl scout cookie season?" She asks.
"What? No I… didn't think it's time for those yet..." A small smile appears on Megan's face. "Well, I mean, get that door open!"
The door cracks open and Briana puts her best, winning smile on. "Hi, miss. Would you like to help me earn my trip this year by buying some cookies?" Her chipper tone is just about right and fate smooths over the worst of her lapses and slight cringing.
"Sure." Courtney looks around. "Where's your mom? -Er… Dad?"
"Uh." Briana looks off to the side, "She- My mom is helping my sister right now, but she'll be here in a second."
Across the street, Ashley saunters up to the four guys who look up from their phones as she walks up. Sly frowns as he recognizes her. "Ashley, right? I though Elizabeth was done and gone. What are you doing here?"
"Just in the area, thought I'd come say hi." She plops down next to Joe, still wearing his cargo shorts but with a tight t-shirt on. "Bum a smoke?" Extending her hand to Joe, he sniffs loudly, but pulls out his pack and hands one over. Holding it up, she leans forward towards Sly. "And… how about a light?"
"How about you tell me what you're doing here." Sly folds his arms. "Cuz I assumed you went up in smoke just like Elizabeth, now you're here acting like nothing happened. You still dealing?"
Still leaning forward, Ashley waves her hand around a bit, waiting on a light. "Nah, I've got a different gig going on now."
Back in the house, Elio takes what is likely to be the best opportunity he's going to get. Sweeping up behind Megan, he puts a hand over her mouth and his gun to the back of her head. "Scream and Courtney's in the splash zone." He whispers. "Get up." Standing slowly, he starts to walk her back towards the ground floor patio door. He reaches back to open the sliding glass door, pulling the gun away from Megan to do so, seeing her opportunity she kicks back suddenly, her foot slamming into the side of Elio's knee with a bit of blood to strengthen the impact. Elio starts swaying with the attack to diminish the force and he places his gun back against her head instantly. Pulling her towards the patio, Megan's entire center of balance is thrown off as she stumbles back through the now open door.
At the sound of the door opening behind her, Courtney starts to turn to look. "Oh my god!" Briana shouts, reaching up and grabbing Courtney's arm enough to jerk her back towards Briana, trying to pull her attention across the street. "Those people are fighting over there!"
"Sorry, but, you know, not really." Ashley says. From her forward leaning position, she lunges towards Sly, slamming her forehead into his nose which cracks as Sly's eyes immediately begin to water from the pain, recoiling with a yelp. His boys are on her as soon as the first blow lands and a whirlwind of swings and misses, blocking bats and pipes with simple flesh, and bone shaking body blows begins.
Blinking, Courtney pulls out her phone and begins to dial the police. Briana pulls out a rubber band from her pocket and wraps it around her finger. Finding the arrow in her mind, she substitutes the rubber bands meager destiny in her mind with the more lethal arrow and aims at the phone. Courtney's hand moves just slowly enough and the wind sighs at just the right moment that the arrow-band finds its home in the side Courtney's phone but just narrowly misses its owner's fingertips. The phone impales into the side of the wall with a loud thud and snap. Courtney screams and slams the door shut in front of her. Followed by another scream from the apartment when she sees Megan simply vanished.
Back behind the building, Elio pushes through shrubbery and over a fence, dragging Megan behind him. A few neighbors have begun to peer out at the commotion out front, but no one is checking the back windows and they miss Megan's abduction. Not that they had much of a chance to catch Elio in the act in the first place, living shadow that he is. Moments later, he's pushed Megan into the back seat of the SUV and hops into the driver's seat, ready to wait for Briana and Ashley to disengage.
Briana takes off towards the SUV and slides into the backseat across from Megan who seems to be checking her pockets for her phone only to find them empty. "Looking for this?" Elio holds up Megan's phone, battery already removed. "Just sit still, else I'll be taking you unconscious."
In the heat of the brawl, Ashley has managed to lay out two of the four gang members. A couple bruises line her arms from getting in the way of Joe and his bat, but she is clearly coming out on top of this. Sly has pulled out a knife and is stabbing at her but finding her just a little too fast to catch. She lashes out with a jab to the throat, which is slick from blood running down from Sly's broken nose. He falls to his knees as Ashley dances back and towards the SUV, joining up with Elio and Briana.
The passenger side door slams shut and the SUV peels out. As it passes by the groaning men, Sly looks up at the driver, fury in his eyes as he recognizes him. "Fucking… Sammy Liner!" He croaks out as loudly as he can.
Ashley can't help but laugh. "Was that the fucking name you gave him?"
"I was short on creativity and time, okay?" Elio mutters. "Since when are you a girl scout, Briana?" He turns, only to find the girl scout persona has been dropped as Briana pulls off her 'sash'.
"Fortunately for you, I was not short of creativity." Briana says sweetly.
Megan finally interrupts as the SUV pulls around and into the Green Dot to await night fall. "What the hell do you want?" She asks, voice much firmer than one would expect for someone who was just kidnapped.
"Just business, Megan." Elio says. "Something about loose ends, if I had to guess."
Sighing, Megan slumps down in the seat and closes her eyes. "Fine. Just do whatever, I guess."
Binding Megan's hands with the severed seat belt, time passes until the neon sign at the Green Dot flips on for the evening. "God, can we go now?" Briana moans. "I've watched the same episode of Law and Order like four times now." She clicks off the cracked screen of the small television in the room.
Elio, sitting near the front window, stands up now that night has fallen. Reaching down, he grabs Megan's arm. "Let's go for a drive, Megan." He pulls her up to her feet and marches her out to the car. Looking back to Ashley and Briana, he smirks. "I'll be back in a bit."
The truck rolls into the Green Dot, it's lot still largely empty aside from beat up and mostly forgotten cars and people. Grim sighs, giving Briana another moment to collect herself as she slowly slides her phone back into a pocket. "I know this isn't easy to hear…" he starts.
"What, that my entire life has fallen apart?" She says.
Grim rubs his face as he parks the truck. "Well, yeah." He looks out the window for a moment. "But it's sorta a blessing in disguise. The other ones won't have it cut off so cleanly."
"Getting disowned by my family is a blessing, huh?" There might have been venom in that a while ago, but Briana is simply resigned at this point, slumping lower into the seat.
While the engine spins down, Grim pulls out a small business card and starts jotting his phone number down on it. "Well, you told me about Elio's brother. You saw what happened to him, what happens to normal people caught up in all this. At least you won't need to worry about your parents getting kidnapped by vampires or whatever just 'cause they know you."
She shrugs morosely. "I guess." Rubbing her hands on her legs, she looks up at the peeling paint and flickering neon sign of the Green Dot. "So this is my stop, huh?"
"You think you're ready for this?" Grim says, turning to face Briana in the seat. "I don't know where your path goes from here, hon."
Holding her hands in front of her, she briefly lets the tides of destiny roll over them. Gently grasping one of them and pulling, like a piece of string eternity long, her eyes glimmer green. Nearby, a greasy looking man in sunglasses and a robe walking towards a vending machine stops as a free soda happens to fall out. Smirking, he grabs the can and cracks it and it immediately fizzes over, spilling down his arm on onto his robe. "Ah, son of a bitch!" Can be mutely heard in the cabin of the truck.
Grim rolls his eyes, but before he can say anything, Briana speaks. "I don't know, Grim." There is perhaps a bit too much truth betrayed in her tone. Her leg was still aching from where she was bit, even though her flesh had long healed now. "I don't know what I'm doing or even why I need to help those two."
Her frame shifts as Grim puts a heavy hand on her shoulder. "Briana, I don't know what I'm doing either." His smile is wide, self-assured even. It's clearly for her benefit. Briana can tell he's keeping something from her, the way his eyes quiver for just a moment, perhaps even in the slight tinge of an aura she can make out around him. She sighs, closing her eyes for a moment and he continues. "But it just… it's just the way it is, you know?"
"Right." She says. His arm falls off her shoulder and back onto the steering wheel. "Least I don't have to go to school anymore, right?" There's a chuckle she adds, but it's hollow.
A barking laugh comes from Grim. "Yeah, I guess not. Though you should probably at least know how to use algebra. Maybe some physics too. Might come in handy." Silence returns to the cab. Reaching into his pocket, Grim pulls out a clip of money. "Here's half of what I got. Don't spend it on whatever dumb shit you kids are buying these days." Briana naps the clip, holding more money in her hands than she has ever physically held up to this point; a full five hundred dollars. Then he hands her the card that's been sitting in his hand. "And this is my number. Learn it, don't put it in your phone."
She groans. "My phone remembers numbers for me, man."
"Well, make an exception. Ya ever need a hand and I'll be here as soon as I can. I might be a ways away though, so don't count on it if you need help quick like." The paper slips from his fingers as Briana pockets the money and now the slip.
An awkward silence now fills the cabin. Both of the chosen of fate can feel the time for parting is now, but choose to linger a moment longer. Briana lunges across the console and hugs Grim. The older man puts a hand on Briana's back with a small smile on his face before pushing her back after a moment. "Take care of yourself, Briana."
"I'll try, Grim." She opens the door and into the warm late summer afternoon. Walking towards the hotel room she knows that Ashley will arrive at soon, she chances a look behind her back to Grim but finds the yellow truck gone. Settling down on a run down bench with a full ashtray next to it, Briana waits for the whims of fate to come knocking.
Fortunately, fate is punctual for its chosen. The deer from Prosper leaps through the nearby shrubbery, startling Briana. It dashes behind the building and a moment later Ashley rounds the corner with a spring in her step, still wearing what appears to be loose fitting jeans and striped top from the collection of the farm house wife's wardrobe. Ashley pauses as her eyes fall on Briana who has stood up near the door that Ashley was clearly angling towards. The smile falls off of Ashley's face slightly and she huffs and walks straight up to Briana. "Move, kid." She says gruffly, an edge in her eyes.
A mental picture of this lithe woman turning into a monster plays momentarily in Briana's mind. "Uh…" Briana stumbles her intro. "I'm Briana. You know me." She eventually gets out after swallowing away the mental imagery of a rabbit demon.
"Huh?" Ashley smirks. "This some sort of scam or something? Come on, don't waste my time." She attempts to push past the teen and into the room.
"Great." Briana mutters. "Who's this freak?" She says, hoping she remembered right.
Stopping, Ashley glares at Briana. "Watch your mouth, brat." she snarls. Honest to God snarls, baring teeth and everything. "Where'd you pick up this…" Looking behind her for Elio for some reason, the sentence trails off, "...stray." She puts a hand on her head and frowns as her head is awash in deja vu. Licking her teeth, Ashley stoops down slightly, only a few inches taller than Briana. "Alright, kid. I don't appreciate people messing with my head."
Feeling Ashley's breath pushing against her hair slightly, Briana takes a step back. Focusing on her forehead, a green sigil appears on it. "I said, you know me, Ashley. Can we talk in the room, maybe? If, you know, you don't want that creep by the vending machine to check you out anymore." To their left is the man with a cola-soaked robe, unable to see Briana's forehead but only because he continues to leer at Ashley.
"Fucking Dale." Ashley mutters, not taking her eyes off Briana. "Get in the room." She pulls the key from a pocket and hands it to Briana. As Briana opens the door, Ashley turns to Dale. "You're still here, you absolute fucknut? Don't you have a fucking high school locker room or something to creep on?" She flips him off and stalks into the room. The door closes behind her. "I'm gonna slit that asshole's throat." With a grunt she falls onto the bed, taking in Briana. "So. I know you, huh?"
Briana nods. "It's hard to explain. But I know you can turn into a big, uh, 'fuck off' monster too."
Growling, Ashley pinches her nose. "So. What do you want." She says flatly.
"I just want to help you. And Elio." Briana says, putting her hands on her hips.
"Look Briana. You're just some kid. I don't think you're gonna be helping us with anything." She blinks. How'd she know Elio's name? How'd she know her name? How did Ashley know her name? Putting her head into her hands as questions swirl around, she fails to see the smug smile on Briana's face. Probably for the best.
"See? So you do know me. And I can help you because I know things." Briana says without further explanation.
Ashley rolls her eyes. "You know things." Briana nods. "What kind of things?"
"That you guys are fighting vampires. Uh." Briana thinks for a moment. Come on, something actually impressive? "And you're about to get a call from Elio. About…" Focus. It's on the tip of your tongue. "A job? Including, uh, Megan. I think."
Before Ashley can laugh, her phone rings. Narrowing her eyes, she looks at the ID, seeing Elio's number. She picks up. "What is it?"
"I might need a hand with something. Remember Megan? I have a deal that if we bring her somewhere I'll get my name cleared and also a lead on Ezio. Where are you so I can get you the details?" Elio says.
"Green Dot. Gotta go." Ashley glances at Briana, still with her smug ass smile. "Got some weird shit going on. Get over here." She ends the call. Clicking her tongue, Ashley leans back on the bed with a loud creak. "Let's wait for Elio. Then we'll figure this out."
It's only a supremely awkward fifteen minutes stuck in silence in this terribly tacky, and frankly slightly rank hotel room. Eventually, mercifully, Elio arrives in the black SUV. The handle jiggles as he keys in, with both Ashley and Briana finally switching from actively ignoring the other to looking towards Elio as he enters. "What is this 'weird shit' you got going on, Ashley?" He says, entering as his eyes flick to the only other person in the room, Briana. "Kid." He mutters. "Ashley why is there a kid in the room?"
"Remember when we were talking a few nights ago? About that kid I couldn't remember?" Ashley starts, scooting down the floral print comforter of the bed with a strange squeak. "Well this is the kid. I don't fucking know man."
He frowns, closing the door. He remembered the conversation, at least vaguely. "Briana?" Elio says after a moments thought. "Or is it Alysha?" He tilts his head.
"Briana. It's Briana." She says firmly.
Elio turns to Ashley. "This is some weird shit, you're right." Turns back to Briana. "Didn't you ride off with your parents or something?"
A few minutes are spent catching up, of trying to describe her time with Grim and how she totally made Elio and Ashley's vampire hunt easier. At the end, she flares her green marking once more, with Elio and Ashley similarly revealing their own gold and silver respectively.
"Great." Ashley mutters. "There's more of us."
Elio sighs. "Yup. Well kid, you wanna help me kidnap a ghoul tonight? If this fate thing you keep talking about really works then I imagine you'd actually be helpful."
Briana smiles, but Ashley interrupts before she can talk. "You're gonna have some teenager help you out? You can't be serious."
"She's got the same thing we got going on, Ash." He points up to their collective foreheads. "If she's even half as good as us, then I think she'll do fine."
A spring loudly breaks inside the bed frame under Ashley, who looks down cautiously at the mattress. "Yeah, Ashley. I got this. Plus, I'm like, way subtler than you."
Ashley folds her arms. "I can be subtle." She mutters. "I am a fucking rabbit. How much more subtle does it get?"
"First things first though. We need to figure out where Megan lives." Elio starts.
Pulling out her phone, small green spider icon already skittering onto the screen, Briana holds it out. "I bet I can find it. What's her name again? But full name. Asking for just the first name isn't gonna be specific enough for this to work.
Sucking in air, Elio thinks for a moment. "Clark. Megan Clark. Works for the mayor's office."
Briana rapidly keys in the information to the spider who skitters away from the phone. Five seconds pass and the voice of fate speaks into her ear. 'Megan Clark lives in apartment 12 of Dandy Rise apartments in Galena, Illinois.' Briana blinks as a bit of fatigue sets into her bones and mind. "Dandy Rise, apartment 12." She says matter-of-factly.
The older pair sitting across the room now from Briana exchange a glance. Ashley trying desperately to communicate with her eyes that there is no way that this is going to work. Elio simply stands and moves towards the door. "Well. Let's go check it out. It's not too far from here and we can stop by city hall on the way back if it turns out to be nothing."
They load into the SUV, Briana glad to finally have more room than old Grim's truck. On the road towards Dandy Rise, a police cruiser approaches with lights on from the opposite direction. It's charging down the road at quite a pace, twice as fast as the speed limit. Elio slowly pulls over as he watches the car with some intensity. Briana is the first to speak up though as she presses her face up to the rear seat window. "Hey, isn't that the guy you were following from the police station?" She asks towards Elio.
"Yeah." In the driver's seat of the cruiser is sheriff Hunter on his own. A wild look is in his eyes and his grip on the wheel is white knuckled. Moments later, the cruiser has surged past them and continued on its way to God knows where. "Weird." Pulling the car back onto the road, they continue towards Megan's residence.
Dandy Rise is a pair of squat, two story apartment buildings in a decent neighborhood. In stark contrast from the Green Dot, the buildings are well tended, have working visible exterior cameras, and even a fresh coat of light blue paint. The well-to-do appearance of the area makes the goons waiting, bored, at the smoking station across the street from the complex stand out even more. Sylvester and his buddies from the Lead Bellies are on their phones and smoking there. Elio parks in the lot and eyes the gang. "What are these assholes doing here?" He mutters. This was getting more complicated by the second.
Ashley leans forward, looking at Sly. "Never actually thought I'd see his face again." Shrugging, She turns to Elio. "So what's the plan? You scope the place out then we bust in there for a snatch and grab?"
"God, you sound like my old mob acquaintances." Elio sighs. "Yeah, I'm gonna scope it out. You two stay here." Soundlessly, the driver's door opens and Elio steps out. The glances of the Lead Bellies fall off of him like oil on water and he walks up to unit 12. It's unadorned from the outside with a simple deadbolt, but there is a neat ashtray and pair of stools just far enough away from the building to be legal. Stopping, Elio listens at the door for a moment as slight air currents betray what is inside.
A pair of footsteps are approaching the door, light, both women most likely. He steps aside as they pause on the other side to put on shoes or slippers. The door opens, revealing first a brown haired woman wearing an oversized sweatshirt with a confidant swagger in her step. Following her is Megan, wearing a pair of sweatpants and a tank top as well as a pair of fuzzy navy blue slippers to complete the look. Both move to the ashtray and light up a couple of cigarettes, filling the air with their acrid smoke. Elio stands still near the door resting against it's frame, failing again to be noticed not twenty yards from the women.
The unrecognized woman takes a drag from her cigarette and gives a wary glance to the Lead Bellies across the street, Sly looking back at both of them. "So, I know you're worried about Elio and everything… but is hiring a bunch of guys from a gang really a good idea?"
Megan pulls out her phone. "Yeah, it's fine. As long as you keep them paid, they'll stay on their leash. If they know what's good for them."
"It's kinda creepy though." She looks away from Sly. "That one just stares at us whenever we are out here."
Their banter continues as Elio slides into the apartment though the barely open door, its position somehow not even moving despite not being open wide enough to allow even the smallest child to shimmy through. Tacky wall ornaments dot the entry hallway and the smell of some sort of floral potpourri fills his nose. Looking back at the front door, the deadbolt appears to have been installed recently judging by how shiny the aluminum and stainless steel is. Pacing into the living room, the television is playing a slideshow of cat photos, showing the same cat that stopped short as it entered into the living room.
The fat calico cat saunters into the living room with a yawn and pauses as it sniffs the air. While it seemed for a moment the cat had noticed him, as it paused in the way that cats do and stared up at him for a long moment, it hops up into a nearby cat tree to begin grooming itself. With a sigh, Elio moves into a corner of the dining nook with a small stool on it and settles onto it, breathing in the atmosphere of the small apartment as he seems to sink further and further into the background until he's just another piece of furniture or wall art.
About ten minutes later, Megan and her friend return to the apartment. Whatever conversation they were having from outside comes to a stop as they open the door. "Courtney, I thought you said you were sure you locked the door." Megan hisses to her friend behind her, currently taking off her shoes.
Courtney looks confused. "Megan, you came out after me. Why would I be the one to lock the door?"
Megan turns her attention to the rest of her apartment, eyes darting around the relatively neat space. "What if someone got in while we were smoking?"
"How? We could see the door the entire time from where we were, like twenty feet away?" Seeing Megan's look, she sighs. "We can search the place again, if you want." Megan quickly nods and sets off down the hallway towards presumably the bedrooms and a bathroom. Watching her move, she still has a brace on her right ankle but does not move with a limp. Their search is thorough for the small space, practiced even. Clearing each room as a pair, it would have been difficult to avoid them relying on normal hiding places. "Ugh, Megan you really need to clean this room of yours." From Elio's vantage point he cannot see what room is being talked about.
"Who are you, my mom?" Megan grumbles as she steps into the room in question. A rustling sound of laundry and various wrappers and containers can be heard as she does.
Courtney sighs. "No I am not, but I can still be a bit, you know, concerned? Right?"
"I'll clean it once I'm feeling better." Megan says, a bit muffled through the walls and down the hall. A minute later she comes back out. "Yeah, I don't see anyone here. Just the nerves I guess. Sorry." She mumbles her apology.
Elio quietly sighs to himself, taking care to shift his weight from one side of his hip to the other as he continues to sit. He was no stranger to placing a few cameras in someone's home to observe them, but being here personally feels a bit too voyeuristic.
"It's okay." Courtney says while plopping down onto a well cleaned green couch. The door down the hall closes firmly as Megan returns to the living space. "But... how much longer are you gonna keep living like this? There's no way that the asshole who attacked you is even in town now. Plus my work keeps asking me when I'm going to be coming back."
A sudden stiffness comes over Megan's stance. "I mean, I'm paying you to be here with me, your best friend. That seems like a sweet deal, why do you even need to go back to work?"
Courtney folds her arms. "That's another thing. I know you get paid well by the mayor's office, but how are you able to pay me this much and still not go to work? Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the extra money, but this all seems... a little weird."
"Just one more week. Please?" Megan almost begs. "I just get really anxious when I'm alone."
"Fine. Just one more week. And maybe not having a bunch of fucking toughs hanging around would help with that anxiety." Courtney jabs a bit at her friend.
Shifting in order to pull out his phone, Elio texts Ashley. 'This is the place. She has a friend with her. The gang outside is with her too.'
Back in the car, Ashley has been drumming her fingers on her thigh and sighing, waiting for something to do. At least Briana can distract herself on her phone easily. Ashley's phone vibrates and she snags it to read Elio's message. 'Cool. You take care of Megan and I'll take care of Sly. I have an idea for the friend, at least for a moment.' Ashley turns to face Briana. "Okay kid. I'm going to go take care of those idiots out there. How good is your girl scout impression?"
Thinking for a moment, Briana takes herself in. Ratty looking flannel pajamas after a week of roughing it with Grim, tired look in her eyes. No sash of badges or funny hat. No cookies in a wagon. No parent. She more closely resembles the victim of some sort of trafficking, a far cry from her mental image of what a superhero should look like, let along a girl scout. "Are you serious?" She blinks at Ashley. "I look like I crawled out of a shipping container." What was that thing Grim talked about? Borrowing a fate? "Ugh. Tell you what." She claps. "I'll find something that looks like a sash and I'll try." Leaning over the back seat of the SUV, she looks into the trunk space. "Oh my god, how many weapons do you have back here?" It's a sea of ill gotten gains from Mary's stash, a rifle, several handguns, a short sword and a spear.
"Don't touch that stuff." Ashley says, sounding bored. "You'll shoot your eye out, or whatever."
Grumbling, Briana grabs one of the sheathed short swords and pulls it out. Ashley is now watching her carefully as Brianna uses the sword to cut one of the seat belts and wraps it around herself like a sash. "It'll do, I hope." Focusing on the idea of a girl scout she tries to pull it over her own destiny like a mask. Ashley's eyes flicker back to the Lead Bellies and back to Briana but finds an odd girl scout in her back seat.
She blinks and rubs her eyes. This kid was for sure just someone wearing a seat belt as a sash. Right? Maybe girl scout uniforms changed recently. "Go…" Ashley says slowly, narrowing her eyes. "Knock on Megan's door. I'll let Elio know a distraction is coming. Do… you have thin mints?"
"No. Not today." Briana jumps out of the car and starts a jaunt to Megan's apartment.
Ashley cracks her knuckles and sends one more text to Elio. 'Just deployed a girl scout.'
Inside, Elio frowns at his phone, mouth slightly open as he tries, desperately, to figure out what the hell the sentence means. Then the knock at the door. Megan and Courtney, who were about to put something on the TV to watch, stop and look at each other. Eventually, Courtney stands up and moves to the door. Looking out the peephole, she sees a girl scout. "Is it girl scout cookie season?" She asks.
"What? No I… didn't think it's time for those yet..." A small smile appears on Megan's face. "Well, I mean, get that door open!"
The door cracks open and Briana puts her best, winning smile on. "Hi, miss. Would you like to help me earn my trip this year by buying some cookies?" Her chipper tone is just about right and fate smooths over the worst of her lapses and slight cringing.
"Sure." Courtney looks around. "Where's your mom? -Er… Dad?"
"Uh." Briana looks off to the side, "She- My mom is helping my sister right now, but she'll be here in a second."
Across the street, Ashley saunters up to the four guys who look up from their phones as she walks up. Sly frowns as he recognizes her. "Ashley, right? I though Elizabeth was done and gone. What are you doing here?"
"Just in the area, thought I'd come say hi." She plops down next to Joe, still wearing his cargo shorts but with a tight t-shirt on. "Bum a smoke?" Extending her hand to Joe, he sniffs loudly, but pulls out his pack and hands one over. Holding it up, she leans forward towards Sly. "And… how about a light?"
"How about you tell me what you're doing here." Sly folds his arms. "Cuz I assumed you went up in smoke just like Elizabeth, now you're here acting like nothing happened. You still dealing?"
Still leaning forward, Ashley waves her hand around a bit, waiting on a light. "Nah, I've got a different gig going on now."
Back in the house, Elio takes what is likely to be the best opportunity he's going to get. Sweeping up behind Megan, he puts a hand over her mouth and his gun to the back of her head. "Scream and Courtney's in the splash zone." He whispers. "Get up." Standing slowly, he starts to walk her back towards the ground floor patio door. He reaches back to open the sliding glass door, pulling the gun away from Megan to do so, seeing her opportunity she kicks back suddenly, her foot slamming into the side of Elio's knee with a bit of blood to strengthen the impact. Elio starts swaying with the attack to diminish the force and he places his gun back against her head instantly. Pulling her towards the patio, Megan's entire center of balance is thrown off as she stumbles back through the now open door.
At the sound of the door opening behind her, Courtney starts to turn to look. "Oh my god!" Briana shouts, reaching up and grabbing Courtney's arm enough to jerk her back towards Briana, trying to pull her attention across the street. "Those people are fighting over there!"
"Sorry, but, you know, not really." Ashley says. From her forward leaning position, she lunges towards Sly, slamming her forehead into his nose which cracks as Sly's eyes immediately begin to water from the pain, recoiling with a yelp. His boys are on her as soon as the first blow lands and a whirlwind of swings and misses, blocking bats and pipes with simple flesh, and bone shaking body blows begins.
Blinking, Courtney pulls out her phone and begins to dial the police. Briana pulls out a rubber band from her pocket and wraps it around her finger. Finding the arrow in her mind, she substitutes the rubber bands meager destiny in her mind with the more lethal arrow and aims at the phone. Courtney's hand moves just slowly enough and the wind sighs at just the right moment that the arrow-band finds its home in the side Courtney's phone but just narrowly misses its owner's fingertips. The phone impales into the side of the wall with a loud thud and snap. Courtney screams and slams the door shut in front of her. Followed by another scream from the apartment when she sees Megan simply vanished.
Back behind the building, Elio pushes through shrubbery and over a fence, dragging Megan behind him. A few neighbors have begun to peer out at the commotion out front, but no one is checking the back windows and they miss Megan's abduction. Not that they had much of a chance to catch Elio in the act in the first place, living shadow that he is. Moments later, he's pushed Megan into the back seat of the SUV and hops into the driver's seat, ready to wait for Briana and Ashley to disengage.
Briana takes off towards the SUV and slides into the backseat across from Megan who seems to be checking her pockets for her phone only to find them empty. "Looking for this?" Elio holds up Megan's phone, battery already removed. "Just sit still, else I'll be taking you unconscious."
In the heat of the brawl, Ashley has managed to lay out two of the four gang members. A couple bruises line her arms from getting in the way of Joe and his bat, but she is clearly coming out on top of this. Sly has pulled out a knife and is stabbing at her but finding her just a little too fast to catch. She lashes out with a jab to the throat, which is slick from blood running down from Sly's broken nose. He falls to his knees as Ashley dances back and towards the SUV, joining up with Elio and Briana.
The passenger side door slams shut and the SUV peels out. As it passes by the groaning men, Sly looks up at the driver, fury in his eyes as he recognizes him. "Fucking… Sammy Liner!" He croaks out as loudly as he can.
Ashley can't help but laugh. "Was that the fucking name you gave him?"
"I was short on creativity and time, okay?" Elio mutters. "Since when are you a girl scout, Briana?" He turns, only to find the girl scout persona has been dropped as Briana pulls off her 'sash'.
"Fortunately for you, I was not short of creativity." Briana says sweetly.
Megan finally interrupts as the SUV pulls around and into the Green Dot to await night fall. "What the hell do you want?" She asks, voice much firmer than one would expect for someone who was just kidnapped.
"Just business, Megan." Elio says. "Something about loose ends, if I had to guess."
Sighing, Megan slumps down in the seat and closes her eyes. "Fine. Just do whatever, I guess."
Binding Megan's hands with the severed seat belt, time passes until the neon sign at the Green Dot flips on for the evening. "God, can we go now?" Briana moans. "I've watched the same episode of Law and Order like four times now." She clicks off the cracked screen of the small television in the room.
Elio, sitting near the front window, stands up now that night has fallen. Reaching down, he grabs Megan's arm. "Let's go for a drive, Megan." He pulls her up to her feet and marches her out to the car. Looking back to Ashley and Briana, he smirks. "I'll be back in a bit."
Heya, just wanted to take a moment to post an update and also thank everyone for reading thus far!
Up to this point I've been able to post twice a week because of having a backlog that only needed to be cleaned up and shifted around. Now I'm doing the writing from whole cloth, so my pace is gonna slow to a more "normal" once a week, likely posting on the weekend. Though if I have a particularly unbusy or very creative week you may still see a mid week post in the future.
So keep your eyes peeled and, again, thanks for reading
Up to this point I've been able to post twice a week because of having a backlog that only needed to be cleaned up and shifted around. Now I'm doing the writing from whole cloth, so my pace is gonna slow to a more "normal" once a week, likely posting on the weekend. Though if I have a particularly unbusy or very creative week you may still see a mid week post in the future.
So keep your eyes peeled and, again, thanks for reading