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It happens. Y'all have fun, though!
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Username history
- Lightning Fast 11 yrs ago
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Recent Statuses
5 yrs ago
Current
I’m birfday
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5 yrs ago
Discord is down and it is driving me absolutely insane. But at least I've got Dragon Quest XI to keep me entertained :)
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5 yrs ago
It has been so long since I've actually done play-by-post role-play. I'm excited to get back into it. :)
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Bio
I like cake and steak and vidyajames.
Also, does anyone else notice how many other users have a misspelling of the word "videogames" in their biographies?
My steam name is Colonel Canada if you want to play Crusader Kings II or Europa Universalis IV or Team Fortress 2 or something.
Also, does anyone else notice how many other users have a misspelling of the word "videogames" in their biographies?
My steam name is Colonel Canada if you want to play Crusader Kings II or Europa Universalis IV or Team Fortress 2 or something.
Most Recent Posts
Hey, are y'all still accepting applications? I noticed Bug-type is unclaimed, and I think given it's traditionally an underestimated or underappreciated type, there's a lot of potential for comedy and/or character growth.
A collab between Ruby, Lightning Fast, Tanderbolt, and Bloodrose
====
“Get fucked, you psychotic d-dog!” the misled cainite growled, with the defiant fury of a stalwart champion, “you and your m-madhouse pals are a dying sect! You’re fucking d-done for.”
In spite of the hideous wounds that Calantha had beautifully wrought upon her prey, the anarch puppet fought on, gritting her teeth through insidious pain, and burning misery.
Her inner-fire was formidable, and the perfect symmetry of her delicate features was enviable.
If this foolish Toreador hadn’t thrown her lot in with the “unbound” pretenders, she could have made a powerful weapon for the Sword of Caine.
“Silly little morsel,” the Tzimisce let out a sinister titter, an unnaturally-wide smile spreading across her features, revealing rows upon rows of sharpened teeth, her mouth swarming with countless convulsing fangs, like the whirring blades of an electric drill, “you are food for the three-headed dragon.”
Calantha’s hand became liquid, malleable putty, which oozed off of her bone and muscle, and slithered hungrily onto her captive.
The Toreador recoiled with revulsion, thrashing about on the sinewy hooks which bound her to the ceiling.
“F-fuck you!” she snarled, bloody tears dribbling down her dark cheeks.
Bubbling skin seeped into the Toreador’s mouth, and trickled down her throat. She tried to scream, but found her lungs filled with yeasty, mud-like flesh.
“You will serve as a message to your false queen,” Calantha declared, watching with malicious voyeurism, as the helpless cainite was twisted inside out, and remade into an unliving sculpture, “I am coming for her, and no god nor demon will spare her from my furious wrath.”
A pang of cold, mournful pain thrummed inside the Tzimisce’s chest.
“This is for Morgan.”
__________________________________________________________________________
“Tell me again.”
The man looked uneasy, the creases of age in his dark brown skin only seeming to widen as he looked down and to the right, to the mystery woman that seemed as unknowable to him as God. Did she really need him to tell her again, or did she simply want to wear it? Was she even paying full attention?
“The security guard is named Alec Erikkson. He found the scene. He found…well, this.” He didn’t look up again, only gestured. It made little to no sense to him, no matter how many times the mystery woman explained it. That a mystery woman that looked barely old enough to work full time was explaining to him the unexplainable…he was warned about this. All of this.
Somehow that didn’t make it any easier.
Yet she looked like the type. Hollywood beautiful, Hollywood powerful in the white Armani pants suit. Clothes he couldn’t afford, clothes his daughter would have died to wear. Her shoes weren’t dirty, despite the supple and easily stainable white leather heeled boots she wore. Caroline, she called herself, though why a Latina had a name like Caroline…suppose anything was possible in America.
At least Caroline silenced the creature. Gave it some amount of peace. Whatever that was worth.
“I don’t imagine you want us to call anyone.”
Her head stayed tilted up, her eyes casting a thousand mile stare, as if she saw through the sight, instead of simply seeing the sight. Her voice sounded about as distant as her gaze appeared, to him. But, then, he was already deciding to spend half his paycheck to buy the bottle of Scotch that was far too expensive for him. He would need it, after today. Just to sleep. Just to forget. He had what happened when people talked about…the weird stuff.
“…no, George, thank you.” And then there she was; her eyes bright and her gaze sharp, her smile somehow sweet despite the hanging horror, her tone kind. “I apologize you had to see it. It’s a message meant for…the party I represent.”
“God?”
That sharp gaze broke, blinked, and refocused on George in a way that seemed unfathomable to him just moments before: momentary confusion, followed by instant amusement. The smile never left her pretty lips. “Not hot, certainly not cold.”
“Hmm, well…”
“George?”
“…yeah? Oh.” Stop guessing, while you’re ahead. Right. “Yeah, if you need any help or anything just let me know. I’ll be outside the building.”
Caroline nodded, gently, “The team will be here soon. Please see they are fully assisted, whatever they shall need. Thank you, George. We will see that Mr. Erikkson is okay. That will be all.”
Caroline waited until she heard the door close behind George, before she slowly closed her eyes with a deep inhale of air she didn’t need. Of all the Disciplines Eva had taught Yanci Carolina, the one they had spent the most time and effort on was Auspex. She felt lucky to have been sired by a Kindred such as Eva, so open-handed with knowledge, never an ounce of fear in the older Kindred that giving away knowledge may one day endanger her. Luckier still that she was close enough to Caine to use Disciplines as most Kindred could not. As Andre, as Rachel, in their slightly younger Generations of blood, could not.
The Seventh Generation Toreador allowed her mind and her blood to focus on senses of the supernatural. What should have lasted a moment of serene calm ended up a searing pain, as if her mind was shoved through a keyhole so that it could fit, forced to see and experience far beyond what it was prepared or thought able to see and experience.
When it was over, she could feel time had slipped away. The timepiece on her wrist explained an hour had disappeared while she slipped into the uncharted depths of sensation, of time and space, as Auspex took her and dragged her into the shadow. By the time she came back up she knew. Both what had happened, and that Eva wasn’t kidding: the Blood was acting differently. The end really was beginning.
The phone gifted from Mateo and his digital do-gooders was in her hand with supernatural speed, her voice darker and desperate than before. If she had breath to catch, she would have been chasing it. “We have a problem. She’ll want to know…she’ll want to take care of it. Yeah, herself. I’ll send the details.”
__________________________________________________________________________
A sea of old warehouses stretched out beneath the murky blackness of LA’s dark skyline.
Old, fat containers, with dinky metal roofs, curving over squat brick bodies, rose up above little smatterings of trailers, and caravans, once home to the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, now discarded in the sweeping enormity of Warner Bros grimy backyard.
Harry Sims liked eating his lunch amidst the ocean of rusted metal, and chipped plaster.
Most folks would have hated working such late shifts, and with relatively little company, but Harry enjoyed the quiet of his own thoughts, and the opportunity to work without someone leering over his shoulder.
Letting out a happy sigh, Harry plopped himself down on an old bench, tucked away beneath the dome-like roof of one of the old warehouses, and began tucking into his sandwich.
Yummy ham, with just a splodge of mustard. The food of the gods.
The old man took a bite of his “lunch”, and felt a soft buzz of serotonin shimmering away in his brain.
A blotch of mustard spilt out of the sandwich, and landed on his moderately-too-tight work shirt.
Harry had put on more weight than he was comfortable with, since his son had made him quit smoking, but he reasoned that ten or so pounds was better than lung cancer.
Self-improvement was a slow, tiresome journey, but Harry was pleased with the progress he was making.
“You’re doin’ alright, old man,” the security guard murmured to himself, “you’re doin’ alright.”
All of a sudden, Harry heard something rustling in the shadows.
With a groan, the old man rose to his feet, putting his sandwich to one side, and reached for his torch.
“This is private property!” Harry called out, and what he assumed was some nosy teenagers, “scram!”
An impossibly pale figure stepped out of the darkness, fair flesh gleaming amidst the night, as if she was carved from a splinter of luminous moon rock.
“I’m taking this little hut.” The strange newcomer called out, in a cold, cruel.
“You can’t be here, m’am,” Harry replied, trying to make use of his de-escalation training, and keeping his voice level, “you need to leave, or I’ll be forced to raise the alarm.”
A vile cackle oozed out of the woman’s full lips.
“Normally I’d make you weep and grovel,” she sneered, “but I’m in no such mood tonight.”
Before Harry’s mind could make sense of what was happening, something blurry flashed across his vision, and the intruder was standing mere inches infront of him.
A sharp, agonizing pain cracked through his chest, and then he found himself gazing down at his own heart, blood drenching the fingers of the pale figure.
Harry tried to speak, but the air had trickled out of him, and his mouth was flooded with the gush of bubbling sanguine.
The old man’s last thoughts were of his sandwich.
__________________________________________________________________________
It took a surprisingly short amount of time for them to discover the location of the criminal. There was a tip left by an old friend in the form of a dead rat left just outside the back passenger door of the SUV the team used. He left gifts, and Eva had to use Disciplines to read the messages hidden in the gifts. If Lubbock had wanted to scare her, forcing that old friend to suddenly reappear would have been the smartest way.
Luckily for her that wasn’t the case; it was coincidence. In his misguided ways, the old friend was just trying to help. The call came five minutes after Eva kicked at the dead rat and forced it down a nearby storm drain. A motion not missed by the man just arriving to the car behind her.
“…the creeper?”
Eva’s lips gave hints of amusement at the corners of her mouth, but little else, “Mm-hmm.” She turned to look at Andre, and nod, since there was little point talking about it openly…there was no doubt the old friend was nearby, listening, watching, or as Andre so succinctly put it—creeping. “Burbank. Old Warner lot. Call ahead, have them shut down tours and give the normal security team the night off.”
“My people then?”
A nod was Andre’s authorization as she abandoned the idea of the car. “Follow behind, come in force.” The look on Andre’s face was that of irritation. Not because of the order, or the show of force, but because Eva going all ‘Flash ‘n shit’ meant she moved too fast to protect. Or maybe Andre just hated being left so far behind, so fast. He didn’t even see her leave, he just felt the rush of air she left in her wake.
“Nothing I’ve learned in my life, on my way to you, makes this easier.”
Her tight fit black semi-formal slacks and the black silk tank top she wore were covered in blood as was just suddenly there, on the ground of the forgotten Warner warehouse filled with aged equipment and old props, the dead mortal’s upper half cradled in her arms, head resting on her arm. “Rest sweetly, young man, I’ll see yours are looked after.”
Mihail shuddered in disgust.
Eva was delicate as she would be with an ancient scroll threatening to turn to dust at any moment as she gently set the man’s head back down upon the blood-pooled cracked concrete floor, standing and letting her eyes wander the warehouse of rack after rack of metal shelving as high as OSHA safety standards would allow. Eva knew the OSHA standards by heart—it’s the kind of odd knowledge an old Kindred picked up when their life’s work was a city, and all the mortals in it, and the art created within. When her eyes finally hit the other Kindred, rage boiled in her darkened eyes under the surface of a face frozen in unfeeling.
“I tire of Lubbock’s game. Would that I could leave him to the fate of all Kindred his age, but this…this game will force my hand to slay him long before he gets a chance to be gobbled by the Ancients. But you…”
If Calanthia thought she was fast, she was due an education. Eva didn’t just move, she didn’t just blur, she went so fast the very air pressure in the warehouse contorted and spasmed behind her, shockwaving before her, shaking each and every one of those metal racks to the point of rattle, and were they not bottled to the ground, to the point of falling.
Inches before her, just as she had been inches before the mortal just enjoying a sandwich. “I should leave you to them,” Eva whispered, towering at the full height of her five foot ten inches and intensity began to burn through the cold exterior. The rage was coming. The explosion was only a matter of time, now.
No one could save Eva from herself at this point.
What stared back at Eva was cold, beast-like barbarity, without even the faintest spark of life glistening in its gaze.
“You took her from me,” Calantha snarled, “and now I’m going to take away - EVERYTHING - you love.”
With a sickly squelch, jagged tendrils of bone erupted out the Tzimisce’s arm, and shot towards Eva, like pale white vines, with deathly sharp points.
“DIE!” the canaanite roared, fury raging through every single fiber of her being.
The collagen and calcium phosphate armaments from the Kindred's arms struck true, hard and deep with sickening sounds of flesh and muscle being lacerated and crunched under the weight. Eva never did so much as budge herself to dodge, and her face looked more bored than pained. The only true hint of discomfort being a sneer on her otherwise finer features.
"...why is your clan so gross?" Words more sighed in resignation and frustration than yelps of pain and discomfort. Such cries came soon enough with the violent Kindred's follow-up attacks.
The rage of moments before was gone, apathy and grim resentment fell upon the Baron of the Free State as her mind retreated to farther and farther depths, like a victim escaping into their own mind rather than be present for the torment of the moment. By that point the noises coming out of her were closer to a beaten shell of an animal, clothes as tattered as her skin and flesh. She had reached out to Andre, she had reached out to Mihail, more to share a vision of what was and to telepathically touch the cheek of each more than a cry for help.
"...look what he's done to you..."
They were the last words. The last real strength left in Eva, and after they were gone went any sign of life. Her bright brown eyes faded shut, and her blood ran like a river delta in various large streams and smaller forks across the warehouse floor. She didn't even hear the vehicles roaring across the back studio lot towards the warehouse. She never saw the light and the sound of the mages. She never knew what was about to happen, that it wasn't death or allies that would take her.
Her last conscious thought was of good-bye, of the regret that came from never being able to save the ones you loved. The worst of the blood that flowed from her torn and defiled corpse was from no wound, but the stream of blood tears that flowed from closed eyes.
In the darkness behind Eva a figure appeared without moving, like it was suddenly spliced into the scene. It was impossible to tell whether it was man or machine underneath the black-painted armor, fully shutting them off from the outside world. It gripped Eva, holding her weakening body in its sharp angled gauntlets, wrapping around her with both arms. The helmet’s narrow visor burned with bright green light throughout the warehouse, and on the head were with two insignia, one a variation of the familiar NASA logo rendered in black and white, another the abstract starlike shape that belonged to the Void Engineers. It made eye contact with Calantha as it began to flicker and fade out of the mortal realm and into the umbra, carrying Eva along with it.
...
Mihail was still getting used to telepathy, as the messages from Eva were sent buzzing straight into his brain. He severely regretted getting involved, but now it was too late to go back on his word. His boss... ally... friend? No, none of those things. Someone he preferred not-obliterated had just been attacked, and looked to be on death’s door.
He and Andre rushed to Eva’s aid to find her lifeless (well, more lifeless than usual) body strewn across the ground. Things were happening too quickly for Mihail to process, and so acting on instinct, he raised his gun and pointed it at Calantha. It was unlike any weapon he’d seen before, picked right out of some sci-fi movie, and he barely understood how it worked beyond ‘point and shoot’. Hopefully that would be enough. “Stop!” Mihail proclaimed, as though that was actually going to work.
In-spite of the ungodly rage that blazed inside of her, Calantha couldn’t help laughing at the mortal’s brashness.
The Umbral trickery which had unfolded so swiftly would need to be looked into, and the Tzimisce was intent on having her revenge, but she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to delight in a bit of torture first.
“How unexpected,” she chuckled, moving towards Mihail on long, spider-like legs, which were that little bit too pointed to be natural, “and how very bold!”
The bone-tacles that had plunged into Eva seemed to snake through their air, coiling about the basketball-player, like serpents playing with their food.
“You’re out of your depth, baby bat.” Calantha sneered.
Mihail attempted to fire the weapon, but had been ensnared before he had the chance. The hi-tech rifle was of little use against an opponent too swift to shoot, and as the grotesque creature continued to contort herself to trap the hunter, he began to breath heavily, the panic and the gravity of the situation he was currently in beginning to set in. As his anxiety continued to mount, he didn’t notice the rising heat his body was giving off, nor the flames which were beginning to surround his person.
Calantha was so caught up in toying with her prey that she almost didn’t notice the sudden surge of heat, until Mihail was suddenly awash in a plume of crackling flame.
Letting out a petrified hiss, the cannite shot backwards, recoiling away from the hunter, with dread blazing as furiously in her eyes as the fire which erupted out of Mihail.
“ABERRATION!” she snarled, transfixed with horror.
“HYPOCRITE!” Mihail replied in his native Romanian, regaining his bearings and reaching down for the futuristic rifle. His hands were now awash in flames, though, and Mihail feared that trying to pick it up would melt it--or worse, cause it to explode.
For a moment, he stood motionless, trying to summon up some other surge of energy, as if unsure what would happen. As he focused on the arachnoid-inspired creature before him, his bewilderment turned to rage. This was no ordinary vampire--it was a Tzimisce, and apparently one who had a great mastery of their forebears' fleshwarping crafts. This was the same clan that his family had fought for generations, and the one that had killed his father, forcing him to flee his home country. Forgetting about Eva and her coterie for just a moment, he shouted: “Are you here for me too?! DID YOU FOLLOW US HERE TO FINISH US OFF!?” He felt something materialize in his hand, an orange ball of fire, new yet familiar in some way. Without hesitation, he reared back his arm and heaved it at Calantha with all his might... as one might heave a basketball.
Even with preternatural strength to aid her, the icy grasp of terror slowed Calantha down, as she sought desperately to dart out of harm’s way.
The blazing sphere of flame smashed into her side, reducing arachnid-esq appendages to ashen tatters, ensnared in a blanket of hungry fire.
The Tzimisce howled like a wounded pup, feeling the same agonising touch of fire that had haunted her late lover for her entire unlife.
“I WILL DRINK YOU SOUL FOR THIS!” Calantha shrieked, stumbling away from the crispy, pitch-black ruins of her charred limbs.
Before she darted away into the night, Calantha Teohari fixed Mihail with a vicious stare, brimming with all of the bad blood and hatred that their people had wrought over centuries of battle.
“You are marked, hunter,” she growled, baring her fangs,”before these final nights are through, you will beg for the tranquility of mercy, and I - WILL - deny you a quick death.”
And with that, the wounded predator became a shimmering blurr, bolting off into the void of darkness.
====
“Get fucked, you psychotic d-dog!” the misled cainite growled, with the defiant fury of a stalwart champion, “you and your m-madhouse pals are a dying sect! You’re fucking d-done for.”
In spite of the hideous wounds that Calantha had beautifully wrought upon her prey, the anarch puppet fought on, gritting her teeth through insidious pain, and burning misery.
Her inner-fire was formidable, and the perfect symmetry of her delicate features was enviable.
If this foolish Toreador hadn’t thrown her lot in with the “unbound” pretenders, she could have made a powerful weapon for the Sword of Caine.
“Silly little morsel,” the Tzimisce let out a sinister titter, an unnaturally-wide smile spreading across her features, revealing rows upon rows of sharpened teeth, her mouth swarming with countless convulsing fangs, like the whirring blades of an electric drill, “you are food for the three-headed dragon.”
Calantha’s hand became liquid, malleable putty, which oozed off of her bone and muscle, and slithered hungrily onto her captive.
The Toreador recoiled with revulsion, thrashing about on the sinewy hooks which bound her to the ceiling.
“F-fuck you!” she snarled, bloody tears dribbling down her dark cheeks.
Bubbling skin seeped into the Toreador’s mouth, and trickled down her throat. She tried to scream, but found her lungs filled with yeasty, mud-like flesh.
“You will serve as a message to your false queen,” Calantha declared, watching with malicious voyeurism, as the helpless cainite was twisted inside out, and remade into an unliving sculpture, “I am coming for her, and no god nor demon will spare her from my furious wrath.”
A pang of cold, mournful pain thrummed inside the Tzimisce’s chest.
“This is for Morgan.”
__________________________________________________________________________
“Tell me again.”
The man looked uneasy, the creases of age in his dark brown skin only seeming to widen as he looked down and to the right, to the mystery woman that seemed as unknowable to him as God. Did she really need him to tell her again, or did she simply want to wear it? Was she even paying full attention?
“The security guard is named Alec Erikkson. He found the scene. He found…well, this.” He didn’t look up again, only gestured. It made little to no sense to him, no matter how many times the mystery woman explained it. That a mystery woman that looked barely old enough to work full time was explaining to him the unexplainable…he was warned about this. All of this.
Somehow that didn’t make it any easier.
Yet she looked like the type. Hollywood beautiful, Hollywood powerful in the white Armani pants suit. Clothes he couldn’t afford, clothes his daughter would have died to wear. Her shoes weren’t dirty, despite the supple and easily stainable white leather heeled boots she wore. Caroline, she called herself, though why a Latina had a name like Caroline…suppose anything was possible in America.
At least Caroline silenced the creature. Gave it some amount of peace. Whatever that was worth.
“I don’t imagine you want us to call anyone.”
Her head stayed tilted up, her eyes casting a thousand mile stare, as if she saw through the sight, instead of simply seeing the sight. Her voice sounded about as distant as her gaze appeared, to him. But, then, he was already deciding to spend half his paycheck to buy the bottle of Scotch that was far too expensive for him. He would need it, after today. Just to sleep. Just to forget. He had what happened when people talked about…the weird stuff.
“…no, George, thank you.” And then there she was; her eyes bright and her gaze sharp, her smile somehow sweet despite the hanging horror, her tone kind. “I apologize you had to see it. It’s a message meant for…the party I represent.”
“God?”
That sharp gaze broke, blinked, and refocused on George in a way that seemed unfathomable to him just moments before: momentary confusion, followed by instant amusement. The smile never left her pretty lips. “Not hot, certainly not cold.”
“Hmm, well…”
“George?”
“…yeah? Oh.” Stop guessing, while you’re ahead. Right. “Yeah, if you need any help or anything just let me know. I’ll be outside the building.”
Caroline nodded, gently, “The team will be here soon. Please see they are fully assisted, whatever they shall need. Thank you, George. We will see that Mr. Erikkson is okay. That will be all.”
Caroline waited until she heard the door close behind George, before she slowly closed her eyes with a deep inhale of air she didn’t need. Of all the Disciplines Eva had taught Yanci Carolina, the one they had spent the most time and effort on was Auspex. She felt lucky to have been sired by a Kindred such as Eva, so open-handed with knowledge, never an ounce of fear in the older Kindred that giving away knowledge may one day endanger her. Luckier still that she was close enough to Caine to use Disciplines as most Kindred could not. As Andre, as Rachel, in their slightly younger Generations of blood, could not.
The Seventh Generation Toreador allowed her mind and her blood to focus on senses of the supernatural. What should have lasted a moment of serene calm ended up a searing pain, as if her mind was shoved through a keyhole so that it could fit, forced to see and experience far beyond what it was prepared or thought able to see and experience.
When it was over, she could feel time had slipped away. The timepiece on her wrist explained an hour had disappeared while she slipped into the uncharted depths of sensation, of time and space, as Auspex took her and dragged her into the shadow. By the time she came back up she knew. Both what had happened, and that Eva wasn’t kidding: the Blood was acting differently. The end really was beginning.
The phone gifted from Mateo and his digital do-gooders was in her hand with supernatural speed, her voice darker and desperate than before. If she had breath to catch, she would have been chasing it. “We have a problem. She’ll want to know…she’ll want to take care of it. Yeah, herself. I’ll send the details.”
__________________________________________________________________________
A sea of old warehouses stretched out beneath the murky blackness of LA’s dark skyline.
Old, fat containers, with dinky metal roofs, curving over squat brick bodies, rose up above little smatterings of trailers, and caravans, once home to the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, now discarded in the sweeping enormity of Warner Bros grimy backyard.
Harry Sims liked eating his lunch amidst the ocean of rusted metal, and chipped plaster.
Most folks would have hated working such late shifts, and with relatively little company, but Harry enjoyed the quiet of his own thoughts, and the opportunity to work without someone leering over his shoulder.
Letting out a happy sigh, Harry plopped himself down on an old bench, tucked away beneath the dome-like roof of one of the old warehouses, and began tucking into his sandwich.
Yummy ham, with just a splodge of mustard. The food of the gods.
The old man took a bite of his “lunch”, and felt a soft buzz of serotonin shimmering away in his brain.
A blotch of mustard spilt out of the sandwich, and landed on his moderately-too-tight work shirt.
Harry had put on more weight than he was comfortable with, since his son had made him quit smoking, but he reasoned that ten or so pounds was better than lung cancer.
Self-improvement was a slow, tiresome journey, but Harry was pleased with the progress he was making.
“You’re doin’ alright, old man,” the security guard murmured to himself, “you’re doin’ alright.”
All of a sudden, Harry heard something rustling in the shadows.
With a groan, the old man rose to his feet, putting his sandwich to one side, and reached for his torch.
“This is private property!” Harry called out, and what he assumed was some nosy teenagers, “scram!”
An impossibly pale figure stepped out of the darkness, fair flesh gleaming amidst the night, as if she was carved from a splinter of luminous moon rock.
“I’m taking this little hut.” The strange newcomer called out, in a cold, cruel.
“You can’t be here, m’am,” Harry replied, trying to make use of his de-escalation training, and keeping his voice level, “you need to leave, or I’ll be forced to raise the alarm.”
A vile cackle oozed out of the woman’s full lips.
“Normally I’d make you weep and grovel,” she sneered, “but I’m in no such mood tonight.”
Before Harry’s mind could make sense of what was happening, something blurry flashed across his vision, and the intruder was standing mere inches infront of him.
A sharp, agonizing pain cracked through his chest, and then he found himself gazing down at his own heart, blood drenching the fingers of the pale figure.
Harry tried to speak, but the air had trickled out of him, and his mouth was flooded with the gush of bubbling sanguine.
The old man’s last thoughts were of his sandwich.
__________________________________________________________________________
It took a surprisingly short amount of time for them to discover the location of the criminal. There was a tip left by an old friend in the form of a dead rat left just outside the back passenger door of the SUV the team used. He left gifts, and Eva had to use Disciplines to read the messages hidden in the gifts. If Lubbock had wanted to scare her, forcing that old friend to suddenly reappear would have been the smartest way.
Luckily for her that wasn’t the case; it was coincidence. In his misguided ways, the old friend was just trying to help. The call came five minutes after Eva kicked at the dead rat and forced it down a nearby storm drain. A motion not missed by the man just arriving to the car behind her.
“…the creeper?”
Eva’s lips gave hints of amusement at the corners of her mouth, but little else, “Mm-hmm.” She turned to look at Andre, and nod, since there was little point talking about it openly…there was no doubt the old friend was nearby, listening, watching, or as Andre so succinctly put it—creeping. “Burbank. Old Warner lot. Call ahead, have them shut down tours and give the normal security team the night off.”
“My people then?”
A nod was Andre’s authorization as she abandoned the idea of the car. “Follow behind, come in force.” The look on Andre’s face was that of irritation. Not because of the order, or the show of force, but because Eva going all ‘Flash ‘n shit’ meant she moved too fast to protect. Or maybe Andre just hated being left so far behind, so fast. He didn’t even see her leave, he just felt the rush of air she left in her wake.
“Nothing I’ve learned in my life, on my way to you, makes this easier.”
Her tight fit black semi-formal slacks and the black silk tank top she wore were covered in blood as was just suddenly there, on the ground of the forgotten Warner warehouse filled with aged equipment and old props, the dead mortal’s upper half cradled in her arms, head resting on her arm. “Rest sweetly, young man, I’ll see yours are looked after.”
Mihail shuddered in disgust.
Eva was delicate as she would be with an ancient scroll threatening to turn to dust at any moment as she gently set the man’s head back down upon the blood-pooled cracked concrete floor, standing and letting her eyes wander the warehouse of rack after rack of metal shelving as high as OSHA safety standards would allow. Eva knew the OSHA standards by heart—it’s the kind of odd knowledge an old Kindred picked up when their life’s work was a city, and all the mortals in it, and the art created within. When her eyes finally hit the other Kindred, rage boiled in her darkened eyes under the surface of a face frozen in unfeeling.
“I tire of Lubbock’s game. Would that I could leave him to the fate of all Kindred his age, but this…this game will force my hand to slay him long before he gets a chance to be gobbled by the Ancients. But you…”
If Calanthia thought she was fast, she was due an education. Eva didn’t just move, she didn’t just blur, she went so fast the very air pressure in the warehouse contorted and spasmed behind her, shockwaving before her, shaking each and every one of those metal racks to the point of rattle, and were they not bottled to the ground, to the point of falling.
Inches before her, just as she had been inches before the mortal just enjoying a sandwich. “I should leave you to them,” Eva whispered, towering at the full height of her five foot ten inches and intensity began to burn through the cold exterior. The rage was coming. The explosion was only a matter of time, now.
No one could save Eva from herself at this point.
What stared back at Eva was cold, beast-like barbarity, without even the faintest spark of life glistening in its gaze.
“You took her from me,” Calantha snarled, “and now I’m going to take away - EVERYTHING - you love.”
With a sickly squelch, jagged tendrils of bone erupted out the Tzimisce’s arm, and shot towards Eva, like pale white vines, with deathly sharp points.
“DIE!” the canaanite roared, fury raging through every single fiber of her being.
The collagen and calcium phosphate armaments from the Kindred's arms struck true, hard and deep with sickening sounds of flesh and muscle being lacerated and crunched under the weight. Eva never did so much as budge herself to dodge, and her face looked more bored than pained. The only true hint of discomfort being a sneer on her otherwise finer features.
"...why is your clan so gross?" Words more sighed in resignation and frustration than yelps of pain and discomfort. Such cries came soon enough with the violent Kindred's follow-up attacks.
The rage of moments before was gone, apathy and grim resentment fell upon the Baron of the Free State as her mind retreated to farther and farther depths, like a victim escaping into their own mind rather than be present for the torment of the moment. By that point the noises coming out of her were closer to a beaten shell of an animal, clothes as tattered as her skin and flesh. She had reached out to Andre, she had reached out to Mihail, more to share a vision of what was and to telepathically touch the cheek of each more than a cry for help.
"...look what he's done to you..."
They were the last words. The last real strength left in Eva, and after they were gone went any sign of life. Her bright brown eyes faded shut, and her blood ran like a river delta in various large streams and smaller forks across the warehouse floor. She didn't even hear the vehicles roaring across the back studio lot towards the warehouse. She never saw the light and the sound of the mages. She never knew what was about to happen, that it wasn't death or allies that would take her.
Her last conscious thought was of good-bye, of the regret that came from never being able to save the ones you loved. The worst of the blood that flowed from her torn and defiled corpse was from no wound, but the stream of blood tears that flowed from closed eyes.
In the darkness behind Eva a figure appeared without moving, like it was suddenly spliced into the scene. It was impossible to tell whether it was man or machine underneath the black-painted armor, fully shutting them off from the outside world. It gripped Eva, holding her weakening body in its sharp angled gauntlets, wrapping around her with both arms. The helmet’s narrow visor burned with bright green light throughout the warehouse, and on the head were with two insignia, one a variation of the familiar NASA logo rendered in black and white, another the abstract starlike shape that belonged to the Void Engineers. It made eye contact with Calantha as it began to flicker and fade out of the mortal realm and into the umbra, carrying Eva along with it.
...
Mihail was still getting used to telepathy, as the messages from Eva were sent buzzing straight into his brain. He severely regretted getting involved, but now it was too late to go back on his word. His boss... ally... friend? No, none of those things. Someone he preferred not-obliterated had just been attacked, and looked to be on death’s door.
He and Andre rushed to Eva’s aid to find her lifeless (well, more lifeless than usual) body strewn across the ground. Things were happening too quickly for Mihail to process, and so acting on instinct, he raised his gun and pointed it at Calantha. It was unlike any weapon he’d seen before, picked right out of some sci-fi movie, and he barely understood how it worked beyond ‘point and shoot’. Hopefully that would be enough. “Stop!” Mihail proclaimed, as though that was actually going to work.
In-spite of the ungodly rage that blazed inside of her, Calantha couldn’t help laughing at the mortal’s brashness.
The Umbral trickery which had unfolded so swiftly would need to be looked into, and the Tzimisce was intent on having her revenge, but she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to delight in a bit of torture first.
“How unexpected,” she chuckled, moving towards Mihail on long, spider-like legs, which were that little bit too pointed to be natural, “and how very bold!”
The bone-tacles that had plunged into Eva seemed to snake through their air, coiling about the basketball-player, like serpents playing with their food.
“You’re out of your depth, baby bat.” Calantha sneered.
Mihail attempted to fire the weapon, but had been ensnared before he had the chance. The hi-tech rifle was of little use against an opponent too swift to shoot, and as the grotesque creature continued to contort herself to trap the hunter, he began to breath heavily, the panic and the gravity of the situation he was currently in beginning to set in. As his anxiety continued to mount, he didn’t notice the rising heat his body was giving off, nor the flames which were beginning to surround his person.
Calantha was so caught up in toying with her prey that she almost didn’t notice the sudden surge of heat, until Mihail was suddenly awash in a plume of crackling flame.
Letting out a petrified hiss, the cannite shot backwards, recoiling away from the hunter, with dread blazing as furiously in her eyes as the fire which erupted out of Mihail.
“ABERRATION!” she snarled, transfixed with horror.
“HYPOCRITE!” Mihail replied in his native Romanian, regaining his bearings and reaching down for the futuristic rifle. His hands were now awash in flames, though, and Mihail feared that trying to pick it up would melt it--or worse, cause it to explode.
For a moment, he stood motionless, trying to summon up some other surge of energy, as if unsure what would happen. As he focused on the arachnoid-inspired creature before him, his bewilderment turned to rage. This was no ordinary vampire--it was a Tzimisce, and apparently one who had a great mastery of their forebears' fleshwarping crafts. This was the same clan that his family had fought for generations, and the one that had killed his father, forcing him to flee his home country. Forgetting about Eva and her coterie for just a moment, he shouted: “Are you here for me too?! DID YOU FOLLOW US HERE TO FINISH US OFF!?” He felt something materialize in his hand, an orange ball of fire, new yet familiar in some way. Without hesitation, he reared back his arm and heaved it at Calantha with all his might... as one might heave a basketball.
Even with preternatural strength to aid her, the icy grasp of terror slowed Calantha down, as she sought desperately to dart out of harm’s way.
The blazing sphere of flame smashed into her side, reducing arachnid-esq appendages to ashen tatters, ensnared in a blanket of hungry fire.
The Tzimisce howled like a wounded pup, feeling the same agonising touch of fire that had haunted her late lover for her entire unlife.
“I WILL DRINK YOU SOUL FOR THIS!” Calantha shrieked, stumbling away from the crispy, pitch-black ruins of her charred limbs.
Before she darted away into the night, Calantha Teohari fixed Mihail with a vicious stare, brimming with all of the bad blood and hatred that their people had wrought over centuries of battle.
“You are marked, hunter,” she growled, baring her fangs,”before these final nights are through, you will beg for the tranquility of mercy, and I - WILL - deny you a quick death.”
And with that, the wounded predator became a shimmering blurr, bolting off into the void of darkness.
A collab with @Ruby
=====
The doors of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel opened at nine o’clock at night, although there were next to no one present besides hotel staff and organizers and the DJ at the turn tables until around ten o’clock, ten-thirty. There were some try-hards and some wide-eyed star-chasers, but they had given themselves away. Security would check which of them even belonged, and even scrutinize just what name was linked to their entry on the guest list. If they were irritating, inappropriate, or violated some other Hollywood faux pas it may not matter who had them added to the guest list.
For those present, there was no mistaking when the party really started. After midnight, there was suddenly very little room to maneuver outside the pool. Although the pool itself wasn’t that crowded, she thought, from her perch near the middle of the pool, straddling a purple pool float, splashing about with perfectly straight hair coming down to her shoulders, the plunge-style black bikini top from her shoulders to just under her 36C sized bust, the thin-strings keeping the bikini bottom tied to her frame clung tight to her hips jiggling about as she splashed.
Despite the late time of year, the event coordinator from the hotel assured them all the pool would be fully heated, with gas heat lamps strewn about the rooftop. Eva wasn’t cold, but she wouldn’t be, anyway. No one else seemed cold, not that there were many other people in the pool. Some Instagram models, some girlfriends, some fucktoys. The normal Hollywood pool mix.
Past the pool she could see the dance floor mixed in with the chairs and tables along the back wall, the other side of the wall a small courtyard with benches and chairs swrapped around wide palm trees wrapped in sparkling white lights. Up from the lobby, to the elevators, to the pool roof level, a quick walk from the hall to the door outside. Eva had lingered down in one of the ballrooms before she arrived at the pool level around 10.
The Hollywood Roosevelt was the birthplace of one of her favorite creations: The Academy Awards. Memories of ghosts and golden age Hollywood glamor danced in front of her in the dark, empty, ballroom before she slipped away and made her way towards the back staff elevator. She came out from behind the bar, not a soul looking in her direction.
Around 10:15 she was at her day bed next to the pool, taking the bottom hem of the sand silk sundress, lifting the dress up and over her shoulders, off her body, a little squirm of her hips and some corrections of the bikini top, and the dress was on the daybed. There was no purse, there was no need. She slipped into the pool, the first one of the night, even if no one looked in her direction. Even the second and third people in the pool, an influencer and their Instagram model fan, stepped into the pool giggling about being those crazy people that were the first in the pool.
No one saw Eva. No one saw so much as a ripple in the pool from her splash. She didn’t exist, to any of them, even as the Los Angeles Wildfire Relief Fundraiser kicked into high gear at midnight. He arrived shortly before midnight, an interesting time to show. He wasn’t the only athlete, a few Dodgers, a few other Lakers, a few Clippers, with the odd Charger or Ram. Most of the crowd was Hollywood, agents, actors, musicians, writers, directors, publishers, and a fair mix of corporate executives that spent all day in budget meetings.
It wasn’t until nearly one o’clock in the morning that she found him on a daybed that didn’t belong to him. Maybe it was his size that kept hotel staff from coming up to him and telling him the daybed was reserved. Maybe it was Eva’s supernatural presence keeping everyone blind to every little bit of her presence from notice. But he noticed the chair, and then, he noticed the woman rise from the water, big brown eyes absolutely locked on his as her palms hit the edge of the pool, and pushed her body up, chest pushed up and out until her waist was high enough, her body twisting, sitting on the edge of the pool with her legs still in the water, back now turned to the daybed, and the Hunter on it as the DJ went about mixing electronica and Ariana Grande’s sweet voice, and sinful lyrics.
“Finally, he notices me.” The tone was light, playful; the smile on her lips obvious despite her back turned to the man. Her right hand straightened and combed out her wet, heavy, dark hair to behind her shoulder as she turned her hips to look back in his direction for a moment, the smile having become a silly little chuckle. “No one can hear us, Mihail. Don’t worry about it. No one but you can even see me. I’m making myself so insignificant in their eyes, they don’t even notice me. Not a thing about me, not even my splish-splash good time in the pool. Same process I use to appear human, or like a lowly young vampire.”
She offered nothing in terms of what the opposite end of the process was. Better for him to ask, if he wanted that kind of information. When she looked back one more time, her lips spread again into the start of small grin. Amusement thick in the amber of her voice. “Relax. You have a better chance of fucking one of the Instagram models in the pool than fighting me, I’m just here to chat.”
Although one of the hotel staff, a Jessica Cruz, was a working actress. Blonde, athletic, and with acting talent to spare. Eva noticed her the moment she walked through the bar to the poolside. Not ripping her clothes off and leaving her a mess of sweat and orgasmic joy before draining enough blood for a good night cap, leaving her in a hotel bed to heal and try to remember what happened, had been more of a struggle than Eva wanted to admit, even to herself.
The Gehenna struggle was real.
Mihail was rather groggy by this point. Perhaps the undead were accustomed to running around in the wee hours of the night, as were his teammates, but Mihail kept an early-morning schedule. In truth, the colossal man had started to fall asleep about twenty minutes ago, dozing off as he had waited for some sign of the Anarch, perhaps falsely assuming that his colossal figure would’ve been easily-noticeable for her.
Parties like this were not Mihail’s favourite. Sure, he enjoyed EDM as much as any other Eastern European, but the sheer volume of beautiful models (and handsome athletes, though he denied it to himself) had him flustered. It certainly didn’t help that the vampire who now beckoned to him was eager to emphasize every single sultry sight at the party. The Anarch herself was absolutely beautiful, and her reputation as a smooth-talking seductress preceded her. Although Mihail’s newfound powers inoculated him against charms and domination, he nonetheless felt the supernatural pull of the mysterious kindred.
“How long were you waiting to contact me? You know I cannot see through all your Toreador tricks. Yet.” Mihail seemed a bit frustrated at the cavalier attitude of this mysterious stranger. Given the severity of the situation, he had thought she would try to get his attention right away. Mihail stood up to his full height, tried (and failed) to be inconspicuous about adjusting his swim trunks, and removed his undershirt to reveal a volume of body hair and muscle which was common among professional sports and near mythical everywhere else. He entered the pool and stood a few feet from Eva, getting a closer look at her entire body. He muttered something under his breath in Romanian: “Tatăl meu m-a avertizat că diavolul va fi frumos.”
Despite standing waist-deep in the pool, he still had to arch his neck down to look Eva in the eyes, trying to prevent his gaze from wandering further south. Her stupid, evil, beautiful brown eyes... goddamnit, FOCUS Mihail. “I could not fight you even if I wanted to. The greatest hunters in my family's history have killed vampires like you, but I am not one of them. And if you wanted me dead, you would have gotten your goons to do it for you.” He paused. “Speaking of which, was sending them after me truly necessary? A phone call would have been fine.” His combative demeanor betrayed a deep fear of the events soon to come.
“There are no vampires like me, Mihail, there is only me.”
Somehow, someway, the tone of her voice never once even bordered on arrogant. It was more of a matter of fact; if there were others like Eva, the Free State wouldn’t be a one-off. If there were others like Eva…maybe they could deal with Gehenna, instead of her. But there weren’t. In all the world, there was her, and her disciples.
“Goons?” Her lips grinned suddenly, wide, “I think you mean my coterie? My family, yes? The supernatural beings trying to save this world for humans alongside me? Let’s put a little bit of respect on their names, shall we.” Playful as the grin was, her dark brown eyes stayed on his eyes for a moment, the seriousness behind her words evident. “As for why…maybe you weren’t shit.”
She shrugged her bare shoulders, casually, as she was nearly eye-to-eye with him, her perched and seated on the edge of the pool, him in the pool. “Maybe you were. One of those ‘goons’ runs Hollywood, the other runs one of the largest money laundering enterprises in the world. These are experts in their field, very good at judging the strengths and weaknesses of individuals. To put it a way you’d understand more easily? They had to scout you, before I, the GM, could make a decision on whether to help you, or ignore you. Why did I wait?”
The grin came back, then, as she found herself lightly shrugging again. “No idea. I guess I wanted to watch you, I wanted to take the measure of you, myself. Not something easily done over a telephone. Do remember you’re talking to someone over three hundred years old, Mihail. I’m a little old school.”
Her body slipped back into the water so smoothly barely a ripple was made until she resurfaced, feet from him, her hands up at her hair, pulling it back behind her ears and shoulders. There was a sound of a giggle as she enjoyed bouncing about around him, a splash here and there. A playful, cheerful, 300 year old vampire, afterall.
Mihail sighed, his expression softening significantly. Everything he had been warned about was true; at least in the way she spoke and acted, the anarch was at least somewhat human, and Mihail couldn’t muster any hate or fear towards her. It was far easier to revile someone in the abstract--significantly more difficult when they were right in front of you, being perfectly civil. Even more-so when they were being playful, cheerful, and at least a bit bit sultry. “Coterie. I am sorry. It’s been a rough week.”
He allowed himself the slightest hint of a smile as the immortal splashed about, though it was quickly swallowed by his nerves. “This is a very relaxed place to meet while discussing the End of Days.” Talking to the anarch was surprisingly relaxing. Then again, so was the poison a venomous creature used to paralyze its prey before devouring it. The dissonance was... significant. But whatever trap may or may not have existed, Mihail had already willingly walked into it by meeting her here, and monologuing internally about her supposedly-sinister nature wouldn’t bring either of them any closer to stopping the apocalypse. He waved a hand through the water, returning one of Eva’s splashes back to her before continuing the conversation: an odd but contextually-appropriate way to show his cooperation. “What exactly do you want with me? Am I joining the Los Angeles Slayers as well as the Lakers?”
The reaction was small, delayed by a single beat of his heart. The smile that found her after such a short confusion was endlessly warm, yet small and slight kept to the corners of her high glossed lips in a way that only came with distance. “Given your heart rate and your focus of conversation, I dare say I needn’t recruit you to the overall cause.”
His concern, his anxiety, about what faced them covered her as completely as the water that she bobbed around him in. Did it suffocate him? Did it explain his impatience? “Mihail…” She stopped in front of him, and turned to face up to his eyes. The very rhythm of the dance between tone and pitch of voice hinted in new ways at distance; what she would have said, and what instead she found herself saying: “What I want doesn’t matter. Your path is yours to walk. You clearly believe the danger, you clearly want to do something about that. I have a feeling if I walked away and never had any interaction with you again, you’d find your way into doing something about all of it anyway.”
Dark eyes lit up. her head tilting to the side, as new amusements found her. “Hmm,” the actress began with suddenly furrowed brows, eyes squinting in exaggerated concentration, as if she were but racking her brain on the subject of what she might do with him. “Assuming I get no lip from you? Well…” Her hands retreated to below the water line that rested on her body at upper breast, her eyes wandering back in her head as she drifted away from him at the pace of a stoned sea turtle.
“Fast track your training using magical means. We’ve looked into blood magic that would ‘download’ certain training to minds. It required telepathic follow up from me, in a surgical manner, but it’s possible. Not as possible on a, say, army against the apocalypse scale as we had hoped…but on a more one of one level? Sure. Then I have Andre and his lads do some training at Camp Pendleton with you. Basic fire team, close quarters familiarization. Nothing too crazy, just a foundation.”
Her body disappeared under the water, before popping up again at the pool wall, raising herself out of the pool with a bounce that easily took her body out of the water. The towel draped around the daybed retrieved for drying off, from shoulders down. “Don’t worry, no one gives me what I want without lip. So you find what approach works best for you, and let me know. In the meantime I’ve smelled the roses and had my fun long enough, time I get back to work. Night is young.”
This time, when she smiled with the enthusiasm and warmth along with the playful little brow wiggle, the fangs showed in her perfect smile.
Mihail frowned. The prospect of allowing Eva to mess about with his brain frightened him, and he had most definitely seen this done in a sci-fi movie he’d been told to watch when he immigrated. Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately), Mihail had an excuse: “Blood magic does not work on me the same way it does others. And I think your very powerful magic will have effects you do not intend if it is used on a hunter.” His speech was stilted due to a mixture of inexperience with the language and nervousness. “It is true what I have been told, you are a very... soulful vampire.” The contradiction was not lost on him.
“I know that there is not much time,” Mihail conceded, turning to face Eva, “but I have learned very quickly. Something happened that day, when the neophyte attacked me. Since then, I hear whispers. Sometimes they sound like my father, sometimes my uncles, and sometimes they are a voice all their own. But these voices come to me when I do not expect it, and they teach me things.” Mihail got up out of the pool. Rather than grab a towel, wisps of steam began to rise off of his skin. He took a few steps towards the vampire, each footprint leaving behind burn marks as the heat from his body began to radiate outwards. “I am only human. We live short lives–”
““--we all have the same life expectancy right now of a few months, at most.”
“Why are you all so goddamned cryptic?!” Mihail asked angrily, “I have spent my entire life running from the supernatural, and it has gotten me nowhere! How am I supposed to protect myself against something I do not understand? Something that I cannot even see?!” He gestured to the rest of the party, somehow still unaware of the conversation between the two of them. “And what about everyone else!? They’re even more confused than I am! Are you going to keep up this charade until the 11th hour, and announce the apocalypse just in time for everyone to know they’re dead!?” As he clenched his fists in a confused rage, wisps of flame peaked out from between his knuckles.
The look Eva gave was long and absent of any and all inflection of emotion. Her expression was closer to Vulcan than vampiric, but when he was done, she actually did let her half-smile return in a more faded manner than it had been worn before. The biggest contrast to him came with her perfectly calm, unbothered tone, “Settle down, Zippo. There’s nothing these people can do. No reason to drag them into it. If they find out it’s because the ancient Kindred have risen unchecked and it’s all over. I don’t know if I can stop it, but I do believe I have a chance to change the endgame. Maybe, together, that’s enough. Maybe not.”
The silk dress went back over her body, her right hand brushing her hair free with a soft, near inaudible sigh as she started towards the bar and it’s service elevator, “C’mon. Henry’s gonna fucking love this. Does sex and drugs and partying bother you? If so, I’m about to be highly amused.”
Mihail’s rage gave way to confusion once again, and the flames subsided. He grabbed his gym bag and followed the anarch, haphazardly putting on a white loose-fitting dress shirt, stumbling into the elevator after Eva as he buttoned it up. For someone who moved with such purpose on the court, Mihail’s movements could only be described as ‘lumbering’. “... As long as my blood stays in my veins, where it belongs, and you actually tell me what it is you’re trying to do. I’m tired of half-knowing things.” As he fiddled with his top button, he added: “How formal is this? One button undone or two?” He was wholly sincere.
“The older we get, the more partial to types of people to feed from we get. Breathe easy, you’re not my type.” She tried not to smirk in amusement as the words fell from her lips. It wasn’t until they were in the elevator that she dropped the ‘invisibility’ act, simply shrugging. “Trying to do? At the moment I kind of want a buzz. Most of my people are out fighting werewolves. More directly, I need to see a Sabbat Bishop. That’s bound to get bloody. Speaking of bloody…”
The elevator opened, and there was a man of average height, unusual good looks with short auburn hair and bright blue eyes, dressed in a tan suit with a dark blue shirt, no tie. He looked shocked, and he was smiling. She almost winced.
“Eva, listen, five seconds.”
“Mihail, this is a Hollywood producer. Former agent. We call this one John.” It was an introduction of sorts, a gesture of her hands in his direction, before she moved past him and started through the Hollywood Roosevelt’s back kitchens.
John laughed, forcibly. “Officially you’re a consultant. Unofficially you can make any door in our industry open with a phone call. So, get your phone out, because Leo has signed on, the script will be ready w—”
“Will be? John I don’t care if Leo is in it, he’s not even the best choice for it.”
John stepped in front of her, stopping her. If Mihail knew Eva, he would have almost felt the anger in her. Instead, he would have simply seen her stop, calmly, and stare at the man. “If Leo isn’t right for this, who is?”
“I’m not doing your work for you, John,” moving past him was easy, his hips were slow and uncoordinated, “and my problem is the story pitch was weak, and you can tell me you have the best hook in the world, I’ve seen what bad scripts do to good pitches.”
“I appreciate it,” the man meant it, even if he said it somewhat bitterly, “Thanks for the five seconds.”
Only when they were past the kitchens and out the pedestrian door of hotel kitchen’s truck docks, when it was truly just the two of them, did she follow up. “Now you understand why I kept myself hidden from sight in that party.”
If Eva had been obvious, every person at the party would have wanted something. If Eva was obviously a means to help avoid the end of all things, every person in the world would want a part of her. The thought filled her with uncharacteristic dread as she considered, again, the prospect of the Sabbat Bishop’s meeting request. The black Cadillac SUV awaited, the driver Wyatt awaiting with the car on and parked against the curb next to the truck dock of the hotel.
Before she opened the door, she turned around, and faced him. “If it came to it, could you protect me? Are you capable of protecting me? One of mine? This is it, Mihail. In or out. You come with me, you’re one of us. You’re one of us, you’re family, and we protect each other. If you can’t do that…if you have any doubts about the path ahead…this is where we part, wish me luck.”
She turned, opened the door, and stepped and scooted across the backseat. “This is the part where you decide.” She said it, smiling, knowing there would be times she would have to slap him with the obvious.
Mihail sighed deeply and crouched down to meet Eva’s gaze. “I do not think you are the one needing protection.”
“Every girl wants protection, Mihail. Besides, you’ve clearly never met a Sabbat Bishop…”
“Well,” Mihail responded, somewhat sarcastically, “who am I to deny the Baroness what she wants?” He entered the vehicle, ducking his head as he closed the door behind him and prepared himself mentally for what fresh hell awaited them at the end of the journey. Almost immediately, he regretted doing so. “... oh God, what am I doing?”
“Believe me when I say God is sitting this one out.”
=====
The doors of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel opened at nine o’clock at night, although there were next to no one present besides hotel staff and organizers and the DJ at the turn tables until around ten o’clock, ten-thirty. There were some try-hards and some wide-eyed star-chasers, but they had given themselves away. Security would check which of them even belonged, and even scrutinize just what name was linked to their entry on the guest list. If they were irritating, inappropriate, or violated some other Hollywood faux pas it may not matter who had them added to the guest list.
For those present, there was no mistaking when the party really started. After midnight, there was suddenly very little room to maneuver outside the pool. Although the pool itself wasn’t that crowded, she thought, from her perch near the middle of the pool, straddling a purple pool float, splashing about with perfectly straight hair coming down to her shoulders, the plunge-style black bikini top from her shoulders to just under her 36C sized bust, the thin-strings keeping the bikini bottom tied to her frame clung tight to her hips jiggling about as she splashed.
Despite the late time of year, the event coordinator from the hotel assured them all the pool would be fully heated, with gas heat lamps strewn about the rooftop. Eva wasn’t cold, but she wouldn’t be, anyway. No one else seemed cold, not that there were many other people in the pool. Some Instagram models, some girlfriends, some fucktoys. The normal Hollywood pool mix.
Past the pool she could see the dance floor mixed in with the chairs and tables along the back wall, the other side of the wall a small courtyard with benches and chairs swrapped around wide palm trees wrapped in sparkling white lights. Up from the lobby, to the elevators, to the pool roof level, a quick walk from the hall to the door outside. Eva had lingered down in one of the ballrooms before she arrived at the pool level around 10.
The Hollywood Roosevelt was the birthplace of one of her favorite creations: The Academy Awards. Memories of ghosts and golden age Hollywood glamor danced in front of her in the dark, empty, ballroom before she slipped away and made her way towards the back staff elevator. She came out from behind the bar, not a soul looking in her direction.
Around 10:15 she was at her day bed next to the pool, taking the bottom hem of the sand silk sundress, lifting the dress up and over her shoulders, off her body, a little squirm of her hips and some corrections of the bikini top, and the dress was on the daybed. There was no purse, there was no need. She slipped into the pool, the first one of the night, even if no one looked in her direction. Even the second and third people in the pool, an influencer and their Instagram model fan, stepped into the pool giggling about being those crazy people that were the first in the pool.
No one saw Eva. No one saw so much as a ripple in the pool from her splash. She didn’t exist, to any of them, even as the Los Angeles Wildfire Relief Fundraiser kicked into high gear at midnight. He arrived shortly before midnight, an interesting time to show. He wasn’t the only athlete, a few Dodgers, a few other Lakers, a few Clippers, with the odd Charger or Ram. Most of the crowd was Hollywood, agents, actors, musicians, writers, directors, publishers, and a fair mix of corporate executives that spent all day in budget meetings.
It wasn’t until nearly one o’clock in the morning that she found him on a daybed that didn’t belong to him. Maybe it was his size that kept hotel staff from coming up to him and telling him the daybed was reserved. Maybe it was Eva’s supernatural presence keeping everyone blind to every little bit of her presence from notice. But he noticed the chair, and then, he noticed the woman rise from the water, big brown eyes absolutely locked on his as her palms hit the edge of the pool, and pushed her body up, chest pushed up and out until her waist was high enough, her body twisting, sitting on the edge of the pool with her legs still in the water, back now turned to the daybed, and the Hunter on it as the DJ went about mixing electronica and Ariana Grande’s sweet voice, and sinful lyrics.
“Finally, he notices me.” The tone was light, playful; the smile on her lips obvious despite her back turned to the man. Her right hand straightened and combed out her wet, heavy, dark hair to behind her shoulder as she turned her hips to look back in his direction for a moment, the smile having become a silly little chuckle. “No one can hear us, Mihail. Don’t worry about it. No one but you can even see me. I’m making myself so insignificant in their eyes, they don’t even notice me. Not a thing about me, not even my splish-splash good time in the pool. Same process I use to appear human, or like a lowly young vampire.”
She offered nothing in terms of what the opposite end of the process was. Better for him to ask, if he wanted that kind of information. When she looked back one more time, her lips spread again into the start of small grin. Amusement thick in the amber of her voice. “Relax. You have a better chance of fucking one of the Instagram models in the pool than fighting me, I’m just here to chat.”
Although one of the hotel staff, a Jessica Cruz, was a working actress. Blonde, athletic, and with acting talent to spare. Eva noticed her the moment she walked through the bar to the poolside. Not ripping her clothes off and leaving her a mess of sweat and orgasmic joy before draining enough blood for a good night cap, leaving her in a hotel bed to heal and try to remember what happened, had been more of a struggle than Eva wanted to admit, even to herself.
The Gehenna struggle was real.
Mihail was rather groggy by this point. Perhaps the undead were accustomed to running around in the wee hours of the night, as were his teammates, but Mihail kept an early-morning schedule. In truth, the colossal man had started to fall asleep about twenty minutes ago, dozing off as he had waited for some sign of the Anarch, perhaps falsely assuming that his colossal figure would’ve been easily-noticeable for her.
Parties like this were not Mihail’s favourite. Sure, he enjoyed EDM as much as any other Eastern European, but the sheer volume of beautiful models (and handsome athletes, though he denied it to himself) had him flustered. It certainly didn’t help that the vampire who now beckoned to him was eager to emphasize every single sultry sight at the party. The Anarch herself was absolutely beautiful, and her reputation as a smooth-talking seductress preceded her. Although Mihail’s newfound powers inoculated him against charms and domination, he nonetheless felt the supernatural pull of the mysterious kindred.
“How long were you waiting to contact me? You know I cannot see through all your Toreador tricks. Yet.” Mihail seemed a bit frustrated at the cavalier attitude of this mysterious stranger. Given the severity of the situation, he had thought she would try to get his attention right away. Mihail stood up to his full height, tried (and failed) to be inconspicuous about adjusting his swim trunks, and removed his undershirt to reveal a volume of body hair and muscle which was common among professional sports and near mythical everywhere else. He entered the pool and stood a few feet from Eva, getting a closer look at her entire body. He muttered something under his breath in Romanian: “Tatăl meu m-a avertizat că diavolul va fi frumos.”
Despite standing waist-deep in the pool, he still had to arch his neck down to look Eva in the eyes, trying to prevent his gaze from wandering further south. Her stupid, evil, beautiful brown eyes... goddamnit, FOCUS Mihail. “I could not fight you even if I wanted to. The greatest hunters in my family's history have killed vampires like you, but I am not one of them. And if you wanted me dead, you would have gotten your goons to do it for you.” He paused. “Speaking of which, was sending them after me truly necessary? A phone call would have been fine.” His combative demeanor betrayed a deep fear of the events soon to come.
“There are no vampires like me, Mihail, there is only me.”
Somehow, someway, the tone of her voice never once even bordered on arrogant. It was more of a matter of fact; if there were others like Eva, the Free State wouldn’t be a one-off. If there were others like Eva…maybe they could deal with Gehenna, instead of her. But there weren’t. In all the world, there was her, and her disciples.
“Goons?” Her lips grinned suddenly, wide, “I think you mean my coterie? My family, yes? The supernatural beings trying to save this world for humans alongside me? Let’s put a little bit of respect on their names, shall we.” Playful as the grin was, her dark brown eyes stayed on his eyes for a moment, the seriousness behind her words evident. “As for why…maybe you weren’t shit.”
She shrugged her bare shoulders, casually, as she was nearly eye-to-eye with him, her perched and seated on the edge of the pool, him in the pool. “Maybe you were. One of those ‘goons’ runs Hollywood, the other runs one of the largest money laundering enterprises in the world. These are experts in their field, very good at judging the strengths and weaknesses of individuals. To put it a way you’d understand more easily? They had to scout you, before I, the GM, could make a decision on whether to help you, or ignore you. Why did I wait?”
The grin came back, then, as she found herself lightly shrugging again. “No idea. I guess I wanted to watch you, I wanted to take the measure of you, myself. Not something easily done over a telephone. Do remember you’re talking to someone over three hundred years old, Mihail. I’m a little old school.”
Her body slipped back into the water so smoothly barely a ripple was made until she resurfaced, feet from him, her hands up at her hair, pulling it back behind her ears and shoulders. There was a sound of a giggle as she enjoyed bouncing about around him, a splash here and there. A playful, cheerful, 300 year old vampire, afterall.
Mihail sighed, his expression softening significantly. Everything he had been warned about was true; at least in the way she spoke and acted, the anarch was at least somewhat human, and Mihail couldn’t muster any hate or fear towards her. It was far easier to revile someone in the abstract--significantly more difficult when they were right in front of you, being perfectly civil. Even more-so when they were being playful, cheerful, and at least a bit bit sultry. “Coterie. I am sorry. It’s been a rough week.”
He allowed himself the slightest hint of a smile as the immortal splashed about, though it was quickly swallowed by his nerves. “This is a very relaxed place to meet while discussing the End of Days.” Talking to the anarch was surprisingly relaxing. Then again, so was the poison a venomous creature used to paralyze its prey before devouring it. The dissonance was... significant. But whatever trap may or may not have existed, Mihail had already willingly walked into it by meeting her here, and monologuing internally about her supposedly-sinister nature wouldn’t bring either of them any closer to stopping the apocalypse. He waved a hand through the water, returning one of Eva’s splashes back to her before continuing the conversation: an odd but contextually-appropriate way to show his cooperation. “What exactly do you want with me? Am I joining the Los Angeles Slayers as well as the Lakers?”
The reaction was small, delayed by a single beat of his heart. The smile that found her after such a short confusion was endlessly warm, yet small and slight kept to the corners of her high glossed lips in a way that only came with distance. “Given your heart rate and your focus of conversation, I dare say I needn’t recruit you to the overall cause.”
His concern, his anxiety, about what faced them covered her as completely as the water that she bobbed around him in. Did it suffocate him? Did it explain his impatience? “Mihail…” She stopped in front of him, and turned to face up to his eyes. The very rhythm of the dance between tone and pitch of voice hinted in new ways at distance; what she would have said, and what instead she found herself saying: “What I want doesn’t matter. Your path is yours to walk. You clearly believe the danger, you clearly want to do something about that. I have a feeling if I walked away and never had any interaction with you again, you’d find your way into doing something about all of it anyway.”
Dark eyes lit up. her head tilting to the side, as new amusements found her. “Hmm,” the actress began with suddenly furrowed brows, eyes squinting in exaggerated concentration, as if she were but racking her brain on the subject of what she might do with him. “Assuming I get no lip from you? Well…” Her hands retreated to below the water line that rested on her body at upper breast, her eyes wandering back in her head as she drifted away from him at the pace of a stoned sea turtle.
“Fast track your training using magical means. We’ve looked into blood magic that would ‘download’ certain training to minds. It required telepathic follow up from me, in a surgical manner, but it’s possible. Not as possible on a, say, army against the apocalypse scale as we had hoped…but on a more one of one level? Sure. Then I have Andre and his lads do some training at Camp Pendleton with you. Basic fire team, close quarters familiarization. Nothing too crazy, just a foundation.”
Her body disappeared under the water, before popping up again at the pool wall, raising herself out of the pool with a bounce that easily took her body out of the water. The towel draped around the daybed retrieved for drying off, from shoulders down. “Don’t worry, no one gives me what I want without lip. So you find what approach works best for you, and let me know. In the meantime I’ve smelled the roses and had my fun long enough, time I get back to work. Night is young.”
This time, when she smiled with the enthusiasm and warmth along with the playful little brow wiggle, the fangs showed in her perfect smile.
Mihail frowned. The prospect of allowing Eva to mess about with his brain frightened him, and he had most definitely seen this done in a sci-fi movie he’d been told to watch when he immigrated. Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately), Mihail had an excuse: “Blood magic does not work on me the same way it does others. And I think your very powerful magic will have effects you do not intend if it is used on a hunter.” His speech was stilted due to a mixture of inexperience with the language and nervousness. “It is true what I have been told, you are a very... soulful vampire.” The contradiction was not lost on him.
“I know that there is not much time,” Mihail conceded, turning to face Eva, “but I have learned very quickly. Something happened that day, when the neophyte attacked me. Since then, I hear whispers. Sometimes they sound like my father, sometimes my uncles, and sometimes they are a voice all their own. But these voices come to me when I do not expect it, and they teach me things.” Mihail got up out of the pool. Rather than grab a towel, wisps of steam began to rise off of his skin. He took a few steps towards the vampire, each footprint leaving behind burn marks as the heat from his body began to radiate outwards. “I am only human. We live short lives–”
““--we all have the same life expectancy right now of a few months, at most.”
“Why are you all so goddamned cryptic?!” Mihail asked angrily, “I have spent my entire life running from the supernatural, and it has gotten me nowhere! How am I supposed to protect myself against something I do not understand? Something that I cannot even see?!” He gestured to the rest of the party, somehow still unaware of the conversation between the two of them. “And what about everyone else!? They’re even more confused than I am! Are you going to keep up this charade until the 11th hour, and announce the apocalypse just in time for everyone to know they’re dead!?” As he clenched his fists in a confused rage, wisps of flame peaked out from between his knuckles.
The look Eva gave was long and absent of any and all inflection of emotion. Her expression was closer to Vulcan than vampiric, but when he was done, she actually did let her half-smile return in a more faded manner than it had been worn before. The biggest contrast to him came with her perfectly calm, unbothered tone, “Settle down, Zippo. There’s nothing these people can do. No reason to drag them into it. If they find out it’s because the ancient Kindred have risen unchecked and it’s all over. I don’t know if I can stop it, but I do believe I have a chance to change the endgame. Maybe, together, that’s enough. Maybe not.”
The silk dress went back over her body, her right hand brushing her hair free with a soft, near inaudible sigh as she started towards the bar and it’s service elevator, “C’mon. Henry’s gonna fucking love this. Does sex and drugs and partying bother you? If so, I’m about to be highly amused.”
Mihail’s rage gave way to confusion once again, and the flames subsided. He grabbed his gym bag and followed the anarch, haphazardly putting on a white loose-fitting dress shirt, stumbling into the elevator after Eva as he buttoned it up. For someone who moved with such purpose on the court, Mihail’s movements could only be described as ‘lumbering’. “... As long as my blood stays in my veins, where it belongs, and you actually tell me what it is you’re trying to do. I’m tired of half-knowing things.” As he fiddled with his top button, he added: “How formal is this? One button undone or two?” He was wholly sincere.
“The older we get, the more partial to types of people to feed from we get. Breathe easy, you’re not my type.” She tried not to smirk in amusement as the words fell from her lips. It wasn’t until they were in the elevator that she dropped the ‘invisibility’ act, simply shrugging. “Trying to do? At the moment I kind of want a buzz. Most of my people are out fighting werewolves. More directly, I need to see a Sabbat Bishop. That’s bound to get bloody. Speaking of bloody…”
The elevator opened, and there was a man of average height, unusual good looks with short auburn hair and bright blue eyes, dressed in a tan suit with a dark blue shirt, no tie. He looked shocked, and he was smiling. She almost winced.
“Eva, listen, five seconds.”
“Mihail, this is a Hollywood producer. Former agent. We call this one John.” It was an introduction of sorts, a gesture of her hands in his direction, before she moved past him and started through the Hollywood Roosevelt’s back kitchens.
John laughed, forcibly. “Officially you’re a consultant. Unofficially you can make any door in our industry open with a phone call. So, get your phone out, because Leo has signed on, the script will be ready w—”
“Will be? John I don’t care if Leo is in it, he’s not even the best choice for it.”
John stepped in front of her, stopping her. If Mihail knew Eva, he would have almost felt the anger in her. Instead, he would have simply seen her stop, calmly, and stare at the man. “If Leo isn’t right for this, who is?”
“I’m not doing your work for you, John,” moving past him was easy, his hips were slow and uncoordinated, “and my problem is the story pitch was weak, and you can tell me you have the best hook in the world, I’ve seen what bad scripts do to good pitches.”
“I appreciate it,” the man meant it, even if he said it somewhat bitterly, “Thanks for the five seconds.”
Only when they were past the kitchens and out the pedestrian door of hotel kitchen’s truck docks, when it was truly just the two of them, did she follow up. “Now you understand why I kept myself hidden from sight in that party.”
If Eva had been obvious, every person at the party would have wanted something. If Eva was obviously a means to help avoid the end of all things, every person in the world would want a part of her. The thought filled her with uncharacteristic dread as she considered, again, the prospect of the Sabbat Bishop’s meeting request. The black Cadillac SUV awaited, the driver Wyatt awaiting with the car on and parked against the curb next to the truck dock of the hotel.
Before she opened the door, she turned around, and faced him. “If it came to it, could you protect me? Are you capable of protecting me? One of mine? This is it, Mihail. In or out. You come with me, you’re one of us. You’re one of us, you’re family, and we protect each other. If you can’t do that…if you have any doubts about the path ahead…this is where we part, wish me luck.”
She turned, opened the door, and stepped and scooted across the backseat. “This is the part where you decide.” She said it, smiling, knowing there would be times she would have to slap him with the obvious.
Mihail sighed deeply and crouched down to meet Eva’s gaze. “I do not think you are the one needing protection.”
“Every girl wants protection, Mihail. Besides, you’ve clearly never met a Sabbat Bishop…”
“Well,” Mihail responded, somewhat sarcastically, “who am I to deny the Baroness what she wants?” He entered the vehicle, ducking his head as he closed the door behind him and prepared himself mentally for what fresh hell awaited them at the end of the journey. Almost immediately, he regretted doing so. “... oh God, what am I doing?”
“Believe me when I say God is sitting this one out.”
A collab with @Bloodrose
A chandelier of glittering light fluttered through the Morris Library’s largest window, filling the room with the warmth of the early morning sun.
Classes didn’t start for another half an hour, and the Wollstonecraft High School Parapsychology Society had the vast, bookcase-filled room to themselves.
“Did Mrs Aschefeld say that she’d be running late?” Dexter LaTierri asked his peers, nervously picking at the flaky cuticles which spread out of his finger nails, like a
thin sheet of ice.
“You’re the one who's always droolin’ afta’ her, LaTierri,” Trix Schechter called over to him, with a smug sneer on her round face, “you’re more likely to know than any of us.”
Trix let out a harsh laugh, whilst Dex felt his cheeks flushing a bright, scorching shade of crimson. She tossed a scrunched up wad of paper across the room, that thudded against Dexter’s head, with an irritating thump.
“Leave off, Trix!” Umar, a trim figure who stood a few inches taller than Dexter, but still a bit shorter than Trix, interjected, glaring daggers at the chunky fullback, from behind his round glasses, “save your spite for the leeches.”
Just then, the Morris Library’s double doors swung open, and Gertrude Aschefeld came striding firmly into the room, on a pair of high heels that clinked and clanked with each determined step.
“Mrs Aschefeld!” Dexter shot up out of his seat, letting out a gasp, “what happened to you?!”
The middle-aged English teacher looked incredibly worse for wear.
An angry purple bruise, rimmed with inky black, bulged out around her left eye, and her lips had been split by a sharp, grisly cut.
“Blank bodies,” Gertrude said, in a low growl, “it was a fierce battle, but the Lord helped me to triumph over Satan’s minions.”
Mrs Aschefeled took a swig from her canteen of coffee, and stepped into the middle of the room, letting out an arduous groan.
“We’ve had some minor success with some of the weaker blanks out there, but the situation in LA is growing worse and worse, with each passing day,” the English teacher announced to her tiny squadron of aspiring hunters, “things are only going to get more dangerous, and the servants of darkness will not hold back.”
Dexter felt a cold shiver going creeping down his spine.
“Bring it on!” Trix whooped, cracking her knuckles, whilst a sharp grin spread across her plump face, “I’m gonna turn ‘em into fuckin’ ash.”
Gertrude Aschefeld frowned, her eyes glistening with bitter anger.
“You can’t beat our adversaries with bravado alone, Miss Schechter,” Mrs Aschefeled snapped, “and I’ll ask you to watch your mouth, whilst on school premises.”
Some of the cavalier hubris on Trix’s likeness faded away, and Dexter heard Umar laugh under his breath.
“The blank bodies have immeasurable resources and unholy power at their command,” Gertrude pressed on, “we aren’t going to beat them if you’re too busy fighting amongst yourselves to focus on our opponent.”
A murmur of unease rippled through the beginner hunters.
“What's our next move, Mrs Aschefeled?” Umar asked, in a somewhat tense manner.
Gertrude adjusted her glasses, and took another swig of coffee before she replied.
“We need numbers, and we need unity,” she explained, “that's why I’ve made contact with an old acquaintance of mine. Her son needs training, and we need soldiers.”
Trix scoffed callously.
“We’re supposed to babysit some kid?” she glowered.
Gertrude shook her head.
“I know that football is your speciality, Miss Schechtner,” Mrs Aschefeled responded, “but what do you know of basketball?”
_________________________________________
Mihail pressed through the doors to the high school, clutching his gym bag under his right arm as he glanced furtively around the lobby. He didn’t exactly feel comfortable coming to a school to learn about the art of killing, but according to his mother, this institution employed one of the most gifted and powerful monster-hunters in Los Angeles. He was wearing a Dodgers cap, dark tracksuit and sunglasses, which he realized in hindsight probably made him look more threatening rather than disguising his identity.
“Aschefeld...” he muttered to himself, “You’re looking for Aschefeld.” He approached the front desk where a disinterested and tired-seeming receptionist sipped some caffeinated beverage while typing away at her keyboard. Mihail waited for twenty-or-so seconds, then cleared his threat to get her attention.
“... Can I help you, stretch?” the receptionist asked groggily, clearly not happy about working the morning shift.
“Yes, hello, I am seeking for--” Mihail paused, trying to correct his grammar, “I am looking for a Mrs... Aschefeld?”
The receptionist raised an eyebrow. “Gonna need to see some identification.”
Mihail fumbled around in his bag for his green card and passed it to the receptionist. She examined it for a few seconds, then looked back up at Mihail’s face. “... This is a fake.”
“What?”
The receptionist shook her head. “You’re not Mihail Dobrescu. He’s a basketball player, number 45 for the Los Angeles Lakers. I’m calling securit--”
Mihail took off his sunglasses and cap. “Please do not.” He opened up his gym bag and took out a spare jersey. “I am here for an extracurricular program. It is supposed to be a surprise for the students.”
The receptionist seemed a bit shocked. Not totally star-struck per say, but clearly she knew who he was. “... Count Blockula?”
Mihail rolled his eyes. “Yes, that is me.” He loathed that nickname.
The receptionist smiled, “Ahh, the nickname, Aschefeld runs that weird paranormal activity club. That makes sense. How do you know her?”
“She is a friend of my mother,” Mihail replied matter-of-factly, oblivious to the humour in the receptionist's statement, “Can you tell me what room she is in?”
The receptionist directed Mihail to the Morris Library, where he happened upon a congregation of students led by a singular female staff member. He had to crouch a bit to get his seven-foot-one frame under a low-hanging Reading is fun! sign.
“... Are you Gertrude Aschefeld?” he asked in a deep, heavily-accented voice.
A wiry woman, with partially greying brown hair, extended one hand to Mihail.
She looked to be somewhere in the nebulous 40 - 50 bracket, depending on how well or poorly she had aged, and wore a pair of round spectacles over a narrow face, that wasn’t exceptionally beautiful nor ugly.
“A pleasure, Mister Dobrescu,” she said by way of greeting, in a voice that betrayed neither joy nor malice, “I’m Gertrude.”
The angular figure firmly gestured to the trio of high school students.
“These are my pupils,” she explained, “and your new peers.”
A burly young woman, with firm, muscular arms and a protruding belly, gave Mihail a reverent look up and down.
“Count - FRICKIN’ - Blockula,” the sturdily-built teenager beamed, “my big bro won a Benny, betting on your last game.”
Mihail was flummoxed by the sudden warm welcome, but managed to force out a response in his just-barely-fluent English, trying his best to respond to the slang with which he was unfamiliar: “I am glad that Benny was able to win this bet. And please call me Mihail.” He managed a nervous smile and held out a hand to shake the powerlifter’s (at least she looked to Mihail like a powerlifter), then turned to the rest of the hunters. He’d expected them to be older, not a bunch of high school students. Was he expected to learn the basics of hunting alongside them? Mihail felt thoroughly embarrassed, but then again, there likely weren’t many options for training on such short notice.
“... Gertrude, you are injured.” Mihail said, turning to his now-mentor, “... Bloodsuckers?”
The middle-aged woman nodded.
“It was a precarious fight, but I triumphed, and the world is better off for it.” Gertrude assured Mihail.
Whilst she spoke, the English teacher took off her thickset glasses, and lightly polished the lenses.
“Malina was rather explicit about me treating you as I would any of my other apprentices, and everyone else here learnt on the job, so that is how I plan on beginning your education, Mister Dobrescu.”
“Hell yeah!” the chunky young woman chimed in, with an eager smile.
“A remarkably repulsive blank body has taken up residence in the ruins of an old monastery, once belonging to the Society of Leopold,” Gertrude explained, “the demon is sneaky, but not nearly as sneaky as it thinks it is. I was planning on taking my hunters there, to destroy the monster, and I think it will make a fantastic starting point for you, Mister Dobrescu.”
Mihail nodded. “It will not be the first time I have given a vampire their final death, though the first time was very much a... fluke, as they say,” he said hesitantly. He clenched his fist, causing smoke to rise out from between his knuckles. When he realized what was happening, he rapidly fanned his hand back and forth to douse the flames with a nonchalant expression on his face, as though this had happened many times before. Mihail had experimented here and there with his pyromantic powers, but was far from mastering them. “You are aware of the impending... eh, perhaps it would be best if we speak in private about this?”
Gertrude offered a brief, almost imperceptible nod to the basketball player.
“Malina told me,” she explained to Mihail, her voice lowering slightly in volume, “to say I am disturbed is an understatement, but it does explain the alarming increase in activity that we’ve been witnessing.”
“What's up, Mrs A?” one of the students called out.
“Nothing that needs immediate addressing,” the English teacher assured them, “for now, we have an immediate threat to deal with. We’ll talk more later.”
A chandelier of glittering light fluttered through the Morris Library’s largest window, filling the room with the warmth of the early morning sun.
Classes didn’t start for another half an hour, and the Wollstonecraft High School Parapsychology Society had the vast, bookcase-filled room to themselves.
“Did Mrs Aschefeld say that she’d be running late?” Dexter LaTierri asked his peers, nervously picking at the flaky cuticles which spread out of his finger nails, like a
thin sheet of ice.
“You’re the one who's always droolin’ afta’ her, LaTierri,” Trix Schechter called over to him, with a smug sneer on her round face, “you’re more likely to know than any of us.”
Trix let out a harsh laugh, whilst Dex felt his cheeks flushing a bright, scorching shade of crimson. She tossed a scrunched up wad of paper across the room, that thudded against Dexter’s head, with an irritating thump.
“Leave off, Trix!” Umar, a trim figure who stood a few inches taller than Dexter, but still a bit shorter than Trix, interjected, glaring daggers at the chunky fullback, from behind his round glasses, “save your spite for the leeches.”
Just then, the Morris Library’s double doors swung open, and Gertrude Aschefeld came striding firmly into the room, on a pair of high heels that clinked and clanked with each determined step.
“Mrs Aschefeld!” Dexter shot up out of his seat, letting out a gasp, “what happened to you?!”
The middle-aged English teacher looked incredibly worse for wear.
An angry purple bruise, rimmed with inky black, bulged out around her left eye, and her lips had been split by a sharp, grisly cut.
“Blank bodies,” Gertrude said, in a low growl, “it was a fierce battle, but the Lord helped me to triumph over Satan’s minions.”
Mrs Aschefeled took a swig from her canteen of coffee, and stepped into the middle of the room, letting out an arduous groan.
“We’ve had some minor success with some of the weaker blanks out there, but the situation in LA is growing worse and worse, with each passing day,” the English teacher announced to her tiny squadron of aspiring hunters, “things are only going to get more dangerous, and the servants of darkness will not hold back.”
Dexter felt a cold shiver going creeping down his spine.
“Bring it on!” Trix whooped, cracking her knuckles, whilst a sharp grin spread across her plump face, “I’m gonna turn ‘em into fuckin’ ash.”
Gertrude Aschefeld frowned, her eyes glistening with bitter anger.
“You can’t beat our adversaries with bravado alone, Miss Schechter,” Mrs Aschefeled snapped, “and I’ll ask you to watch your mouth, whilst on school premises.”
Some of the cavalier hubris on Trix’s likeness faded away, and Dexter heard Umar laugh under his breath.
“The blank bodies have immeasurable resources and unholy power at their command,” Gertrude pressed on, “we aren’t going to beat them if you’re too busy fighting amongst yourselves to focus on our opponent.”
A murmur of unease rippled through the beginner hunters.
“What's our next move, Mrs Aschefeled?” Umar asked, in a somewhat tense manner.
Gertrude adjusted her glasses, and took another swig of coffee before she replied.
“We need numbers, and we need unity,” she explained, “that's why I’ve made contact with an old acquaintance of mine. Her son needs training, and we need soldiers.”
Trix scoffed callously.
“We’re supposed to babysit some kid?” she glowered.
Gertrude shook her head.
“I know that football is your speciality, Miss Schechtner,” Mrs Aschefeled responded, “but what do you know of basketball?”
_________________________________________
Mihail pressed through the doors to the high school, clutching his gym bag under his right arm as he glanced furtively around the lobby. He didn’t exactly feel comfortable coming to a school to learn about the art of killing, but according to his mother, this institution employed one of the most gifted and powerful monster-hunters in Los Angeles. He was wearing a Dodgers cap, dark tracksuit and sunglasses, which he realized in hindsight probably made him look more threatening rather than disguising his identity.
“Aschefeld...” he muttered to himself, “You’re looking for Aschefeld.” He approached the front desk where a disinterested and tired-seeming receptionist sipped some caffeinated beverage while typing away at her keyboard. Mihail waited for twenty-or-so seconds, then cleared his threat to get her attention.
“... Can I help you, stretch?” the receptionist asked groggily, clearly not happy about working the morning shift.
“Yes, hello, I am seeking for--” Mihail paused, trying to correct his grammar, “I am looking for a Mrs... Aschefeld?”
The receptionist raised an eyebrow. “Gonna need to see some identification.”
Mihail fumbled around in his bag for his green card and passed it to the receptionist. She examined it for a few seconds, then looked back up at Mihail’s face. “... This is a fake.”
“What?”
The receptionist shook her head. “You’re not Mihail Dobrescu. He’s a basketball player, number 45 for the Los Angeles Lakers. I’m calling securit--”
Mihail took off his sunglasses and cap. “Please do not.” He opened up his gym bag and took out a spare jersey. “I am here for an extracurricular program. It is supposed to be a surprise for the students.”
The receptionist seemed a bit shocked. Not totally star-struck per say, but clearly she knew who he was. “... Count Blockula?”
Mihail rolled his eyes. “Yes, that is me.” He loathed that nickname.
The receptionist smiled, “Ahh, the nickname, Aschefeld runs that weird paranormal activity club. That makes sense. How do you know her?”
“She is a friend of my mother,” Mihail replied matter-of-factly, oblivious to the humour in the receptionist's statement, “Can you tell me what room she is in?”
The receptionist directed Mihail to the Morris Library, where he happened upon a congregation of students led by a singular female staff member. He had to crouch a bit to get his seven-foot-one frame under a low-hanging Reading is fun! sign.
“... Are you Gertrude Aschefeld?” he asked in a deep, heavily-accented voice.
A wiry woman, with partially greying brown hair, extended one hand to Mihail.
She looked to be somewhere in the nebulous 40 - 50 bracket, depending on how well or poorly she had aged, and wore a pair of round spectacles over a narrow face, that wasn’t exceptionally beautiful nor ugly.
“A pleasure, Mister Dobrescu,” she said by way of greeting, in a voice that betrayed neither joy nor malice, “I’m Gertrude.”
The angular figure firmly gestured to the trio of high school students.
“These are my pupils,” she explained, “and your new peers.”
A burly young woman, with firm, muscular arms and a protruding belly, gave Mihail a reverent look up and down.
“Count - FRICKIN’ - Blockula,” the sturdily-built teenager beamed, “my big bro won a Benny, betting on your last game.”
Mihail was flummoxed by the sudden warm welcome, but managed to force out a response in his just-barely-fluent English, trying his best to respond to the slang with which he was unfamiliar: “I am glad that Benny was able to win this bet. And please call me Mihail.” He managed a nervous smile and held out a hand to shake the powerlifter’s (at least she looked to Mihail like a powerlifter), then turned to the rest of the hunters. He’d expected them to be older, not a bunch of high school students. Was he expected to learn the basics of hunting alongside them? Mihail felt thoroughly embarrassed, but then again, there likely weren’t many options for training on such short notice.
“... Gertrude, you are injured.” Mihail said, turning to his now-mentor, “... Bloodsuckers?”
The middle-aged woman nodded.
“It was a precarious fight, but I triumphed, and the world is better off for it.” Gertrude assured Mihail.
Whilst she spoke, the English teacher took off her thickset glasses, and lightly polished the lenses.
“Malina was rather explicit about me treating you as I would any of my other apprentices, and everyone else here learnt on the job, so that is how I plan on beginning your education, Mister Dobrescu.”
“Hell yeah!” the chunky young woman chimed in, with an eager smile.
“A remarkably repulsive blank body has taken up residence in the ruins of an old monastery, once belonging to the Society of Leopold,” Gertrude explained, “the demon is sneaky, but not nearly as sneaky as it thinks it is. I was planning on taking my hunters there, to destroy the monster, and I think it will make a fantastic starting point for you, Mister Dobrescu.”
Mihail nodded. “It will not be the first time I have given a vampire their final death, though the first time was very much a... fluke, as they say,” he said hesitantly. He clenched his fist, causing smoke to rise out from between his knuckles. When he realized what was happening, he rapidly fanned his hand back and forth to douse the flames with a nonchalant expression on his face, as though this had happened many times before. Mihail had experimented here and there with his pyromantic powers, but was far from mastering them. “You are aware of the impending... eh, perhaps it would be best if we speak in private about this?”
Gertrude offered a brief, almost imperceptible nod to the basketball player.
“Malina told me,” she explained to Mihail, her voice lowering slightly in volume, “to say I am disturbed is an understatement, but it does explain the alarming increase in activity that we’ve been witnessing.”
“What's up, Mrs A?” one of the students called out.
“Nothing that needs immediate addressing,” the English teacher assured them, “for now, we have an immediate threat to deal with. We’ll talk more later.”
I hope everyone here had an awesome (and sufficiently spooky) Halloween weekend!
Remember: Apricoatl may look cute, but it's all fun and games until she pulls something like this off.
Doing a supervised exploration with all first timer beginners being mentored by all or some of the higher ups could be a thing that is for certain. Lets us all warm up to the game as well, so to speak, without the risk of falling into lava pits bc we don't know what we are doing even when some of our chars very much should.
I love this idea, although the concept of an ultra-powerful bug-knight strolling through a beginner cave is hilarious to me.
Caterpies and Wurmples! Run in fear, or be bisected by Lady Rose!
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