It's MY Redstar.

[Ivy]

Ivy had had enough, being pushed back into every little corner. Forced to hide and fight guerrilla; run out, pick someone off then hide again... And that was just when she was human! She'd imagined being a vampire -what with the inability to stay dead- would have changed the way she had to fight but alas no such luck. If anything, that lone wolf tactic was only a quick simple way into the dirt. A lesson she'd learnt multiple times and eaten her way through a plethora of bodies, then it stopped.

She'd begun to live out of a suitcase, an empty one at that. A storage solution for her weapons in public, or when they came for her head. She had no need for a wardrobe, her outfits changed faster than the weather did but recently she'd begun to notice that her body wasn't changing, her eye wasn't healing, her hair didn't need constant colour dying, albeit slightly alarming she didn't care as much as she should have. Tiamat loved her body and truthfully, so did she. There was one change however she was more afraid of. Her fangs wouldn't hide, no matter how much she tried the quad fangs remained as prominent as ever, probably a torturous reminder of the fact she used them a few times as weapons.. She still didn't know what happened if a vampire bit a zombie, all she knew was they tasted foul, ferals didn't taste much better but they weren't exactly designed to be food!

Ivy would just learn to keep her mouth shut, something her new teacher had told her to do. 'Think first, act later.' Well now later had come and she needed new clothes rather desperately. Especially if she were keeping this body. Naturally the Russian had made a serious effort to stay out of human sight, moving in giant coats, cars with blacked out windows, dealing with the few people she actually trusted with the secrets she kept so tightly locked away.

Closing the laptop with a near slam, she'd given up. Online shopping would have been the opportune method of doing things but she couldn't make full sense of the websites, complicated layouts and an even more complex and annoying language. Of course she could have changed it to Russian but then the kind men who'd taken her in wouldn't be able to use the laptop, rendering it useless to everyone but herself. Taking a few moments to randomly spin in the chair as she contemplated what to do now, risk going outside and face the firing squads? Wait for Jazir to get home and help her on that infernal website? Sod it, if she went outside and died again, maybe her body would change and this entire problem would just fade away again.

"Have gone out.. Spasibo for sharing home with me, maybe back in week, not know yet."

That was it, a small yet decidedly informative note stuck to the inside of the door so they'd see it when they got home.. Whenever that was. She left out plenty of details but kept just enough to let them know she may die. Turning away from the green papered note to grab her coat and credit card from the chair she'd been sleeping on. Teleporting straight out into a back alley near the mall.

Ivy had no intention on making this a prolonged journey; just a few simple things then back home. But of course nothing was ever that easy and the moment she stepped out into the street she was blinded by a passing car's headlights, causing her to back track against the wall and put a hand over her remaining good eye. Taking a few deep breaths to calm herself before once more trying to navigate the city pathways. Brushing past a group of humans without so much as a second glance.

"Was that..?" "No it can't be, she's been gone for weeks dipshit." "But it looked just like her! Oi Natalie! Nat turn round! Natalie!"

The humans were calling for someone, who? Her? No it couldn't be, she made sure to take precautions and kept out of human view. But when then humans in front of her failed to turn round, it became clear it was in fact her they wanted. That was problematic so she shook her head and kept walking, who to call? That was a dilemma, she'd turned on the Pratts, rightly so too. Madison was still cautious of her, the d'Artois maybe? Would they help with humans who got too close to the truth? Doc would probably turn them into puppets or something equally monstrous. Ivy needed time to think so slowed her pace, keeping herself in sight of the humans, making sure they followed her whilst she ran through her phone contacts for someone in particular, one she prayed would still see the Soviet as an asset. She hit the call button and listened to the ringing, once. Twice. Three times... Answer machine.

"Pi... I sorry that did argue and leave but need help.. Follow by humans, are afraid of making mess, help please.. Bullwood area."

[Pi dArtois]

Pi ran through the woods, her paws eating up the wilderness as she made for the cabin, the location of her little known abode perfect for the nights when the wolf needed to stretch its legs. The town with its concrete paths, tall buildings and narrow streets were too closed in for the animal and since Pi had created a Den for the wolf and for their family she too sometimes felt hemmed in by the tall buildings and narrow streets.

In animal form life was simpler. There was the earth and the sky, the scent of the night and the wild running through the wooded areas that surrounded the town of Harper Rock. She sloughed off the concerns of the family and gladly embraced the black and white vision of the beast that had made its home inside her.

Since that night with Elliot Pi had a new appreciation for the delicate balance she walked between herself and the wolf. She had worked hard to maintain the balance and now that her wolf accepted Elliot’s dingo it was easier. They fit together, two halves of a whole puzzle, their animals slotting together and merging as one from that night on as if they had never lived apart. It might not have been an easy transition at first but it was that way now. Now when they were in animal form together the wolf and the dingo .. frolicked. They were no longer alone in the night in that form, having found each other Pi was loathe to be wolf without the dingo at her side and when Pi chose to let the wolf roam and the dingo wasn’t also present the wolf pinned, its lonely howl echoing through the dense copse of trees just outside the cabin. It called to its mate and waited, for its mate to respond.

Tonight, the dingo wasn’t present and the run the wolf took was shorter, and the heart of the wolf just wasn’t in it. It was never meant to be a solitary creature, although wolves in search of a pack had been known to be solitary for long stretches of time. But not forever, and now that the wolf had found its one, she wasn’t inclined to be alone more than necessary and Pi was wont to agree.

She too felt a lonely ache when she didn’t see Elliot each night, searching for him if they hadn’t passed each other at least once (or more) through their night. Tonight was no different.

When she reached the cabin door she changed, slipping into the bare cabin and thinking yet again that she needed to do something about decorating the place. It still had no furniture, after all these years and it didn’t look like it was going to get some anytime soon. Other matters took her attention away. The Den and getting that ready, decorating the place that would become d’Artois’ space that this place fell further and further down her list of priorities. It was here, it was functional and for now it was enough.

Pi dressed slowly, pulling on the clothes she had discarded before going wolf. Pants first, long black cargos that fit her close without constraining her movements, black tank that was her uniform day to day and lastly her phone checking it and her eyebrow arching high into her brow as the caller ID showed her who had messaged her.

She hadn’t thought she’d hear from Ivy again. Well, not in a good way. Prior to evicting the woman Pi had expected to hear from her quite a lot and in more ways than one and was surprised when she hadn’t. After months the message took her by surprise and looking down at her phone she still wasn’t sure she wanted to deal with it. This was Elliot’s strength, dealing with people, negotiating the treacherously slippery shoal of intent. Pi didn’t know why Ivy contacted her and she wasn’t sure if she was the best person to deal with it.

Pressing forward on the message she sent it onto Elliot, her addendum short and sweet.

[Text to Elliot with Ivy's message attached] I got this from Ivy. Could you? Please? I’m at the cabin but I’ll tome in if you want to talk, not sure what to do.

And then she pressed send and used the tome to head back to the Den. She wasn’t sure what to do, and wasn’t sure if she wanted to do anything at all. The family had settled into a sort of comfortable peace since Ivy and Robert had both been absent from it and Pi had come to appreciate what it meant not to be embroiled in other people’s constant dramatics. Sure there were a few hiccups of their own, Reilly and this new thing with Asteria but on the Richter Scale of fall out, these were no where as traumatic as what the two Pratt had wrought.

No, she would let Elliot guide her here. Given her own inclination Pi would delete the message and pretend she had never received it. She figured that probably wasn’t the best course of action. Avoidance never really turned out how you expected it to. Ever.

[Lancaster]

Elliot wasn’t doing much of anything. As Pi was out for her run, Elliot—not particularly fond of a regime that included too much exercise—stayed at home. Wherever home was. There were plenty of places in this city now that Elliot considered home, and he could flit between them with all the comfort of a man who belonged everywhere, and nowhere at the same time. The new stock was spread out in front of him. Too much of it. The supplier had sent too many items. Exactly double. His arms were crossed over his chest as he stared at the boxes and the predicament that they supplied. Keep them? He didn’t really have the space for them. He could give them to the charity down the road… but he doubted that they’d much appreciate ten boxes of foreign beer. That’s not the kind of message they were sending.

No. He’d have to just deal with the double boxes until the next night. He picked the cordless phone from the wall and dialled the number on the invoice; he’d send the extra boxes back. He was an honest man, and always would be an honest man. Of course, at this time of night, no one was working at the suppliers. The phone rang, and rang, until it went to a message bank. Elliot left his details—name of the establishment, his name, and the account number. He expressed a firm desire for the extra boxes to be picked up by the courier the next day. He hung up the phone, only to discover his mobile phone vibrating in his pocket. A message.

He pulled the phone out and swiped the screen to read the message. From Ivy, via Pi. Elliot rolled his eyes. He hadn’t had much to do with Ivy. Why he was the one who ought to go help her, he did not know. Why she would want help from someone she didn’t know… there had to be some reason why she contacted Pi, specifically.

But he also knew how Pi could be sometimes. And, given the grief that Ivy had caused them all, he understood why she might be hesitant. Closing the door to the stock room behind him—locking himself inside—he pulled the tome from his pocket. He missed the days when he could just step through the fade portal in the office to get to the portal room. But he understood now, why it was safer that that particular door be only one way. Besides—the tome was just as easy.

Wind swept around him in some invisible, odd kind of hurricane that dropped him, gently and carefully, into the portal room. Across the way he could see Pi, who looked as if she’d just done the exact same thing. Elliot gave the woman a wry kind of smile—an expression that said I’ll do this thing for you because I love you. His long legs strode toward her, fingers slipping up behind her neck and tangling in her hair so that he could give her one quick kiss, before letting her go again. Without a word, he nodded his goodbye, loping toward the door that would take him to Bullwood station.

He would seem to appear, like Harry Potter, out of the middle of nowhere. But no one noticed. Head bowed, sheepish expression upon his haggard features, he pushed long fingers through his hair. He then, once more, retrieved the phone from his pocket. Bullwood area, she had said. Where, exactly? He found Ivy’s number, and hit dial. He lifted the phone to his ear and waited for an answer, meandering aimlessly, pacing in a small semi-circle on the platform as he did so.

[Ivy]

"Go on, freak out. They won't leave you alone, they know you stole their friend, who are you calling? There's no one left! No one will come to your aid, you're alone and you know why."

The laughing echoed round her troubled mind, what happened to her other ghost? The nice polite one.. The one that left her and never came back despite how many times she called, all she got now was this twisted guilt trip of a wraith that seemed hell bent on driving the Russian insane. She certainly looked the part as she waved round her head like swatting particularly annoying flies. It had a point though, there was no response, Pi had been her last resort and it appeared that ship had sailed, she truly had sided with the wrong person and it was costing her dearly, friends.. Family, bridges burnt to ashes. All because of what?! One man and his insane dream of saving everything. Well she knew the truth, she knew that in reality... Nothing could be saved, only prolonged.

With chances of a rescue looking slimmer by the second, she fell back on her training. Deliberately walking through crowds, stopping behind bins and doorways to wait and see if her stalkers would keep walking on. Two of trio did, bar that one persistent bugger. The one who assumed it'd seen its friend walk past, the one who initially called out. She spent her entire vampiric life trying to burn the masquerade to the ground, yet here she was stuck trying to keep it alive. How to kill the human? An accident perhaps, or a mugging gone wrong? Or a psychopaths massacre, she could even try to frame Pratt for it! Or she could just make it a plain old murder, dump the body in the sewer or the river and let it wash away. It was during this quandary that her phone rang out, shrill like a banshee's scream in the night air. But it wasn't Pi calling it was someone altogether different, Elliot. Was he calling to confirm that Pi had denied help to the Soviet? Maybe it was a 'stay away' call.. She picked up hesitantly and started walking again.

"Da? Is Ivy.. Tell are here help.. Not leave me, please need help.. Human did notice body, think I it's friend!"

Her voice was hushed, trying to keep her volume down yet it portrayed her fear, an edge her voice hadn't held in many a month, she was shaken and abandoned, the stories of abandoned pires turning into those feral beasties had her running scared, she was already halfway there! She prayed that Elliot would help, even if only this once.

[Lancaster]

Its friend, Ivy said. As if a human were not a thinking, feeling being but a mere ant to crushed, devoid of sex, devoid of soul, devoid of anything to make her feel any protection over it, or remorse should anything happen to it. Most people do not feel even the slightest twinge of regret when crushing an ant beneath their heal. Some crush ants as a matter of entertainment. Some do so without realising. And Elliot has discovered that vampire-kind feel this way about humanity. As if they are ants, numerous and fragile. What should they care, should they be crushed?

Well, Elliot cared. It was almost enough—Ivy’s use of the word ‘it’ to signify a living, breathing human—to have him walking away again. Elliot wasn’t the kind of person to care or strive to be better or worse than anyone else. But still, there was that sense of obligation, or inherent goodness, that had him pushing away the urge to leave her to her own devices and telling himself that he could be better.

Ivy wanted help, but she still didn’t tell him where she was. He bit back his anger and strode toward the exit.

”I can’t help you if I don’t know where you are, Ivy. I’m leaving Bullwood station now. Tell me where you are, and in the meantime just pretend. You actually don’t know them, it can’t be too hard…” he said. And as he walked, he took heart in the fact that Ivy sounded so desperate. A single human, who recognised her. Maybe the ‘it’ was a slip of the tongue—English was her second language, that much was painfully and obviously clear. She could just kill the human, problem solved. And yet she hadn’t. She was calling not to help clean up a mess, or divert attention from a murder. She was calling because…what? She needed help to escape without drawing attention? Without any problems?

Elliot could have also suggested she bite him. That was a thing, right? Most humans woke up after being bitten by vampires with a languidness akin to a hangover, and no memory how they got there. But Elliot didn’t know Ivy from a bar of soap. He didn’t know what she was capable of—whether she could actually bite without killing. Whether, for some reason or other, she might not be able to make the human forget. Best to just advise her to act normal, until Elliot got there.

What he would do once he did find her, he had no idea. But he’d figure it out on the way.

[Ivy]

Again with wanting to know where she was, it couldnt be that hard to find a woman with glasses and breasts as big as her head. Then again, she wasn't exactly on the main road so she couldn't blame him. But where was she? She didn't actually know, then she saw it in the distance, the church spire out in the wilderness. Paladin territory, the big clock face that towered over the trees, the empty window beneath it where her sniper usually resided.. Safety, common ground, home turf.

Heading straight for the spire, sticking to alleys and back roads until she hit a crossing, no way around it... Ivy had to go into the public view but it was ok now, she knew where she was and could answer the question, better yet she could lead the human straight to Elliot. Down the line she heard the sound of metal on metal, tracks, air brakes. The man was in or around the station, quite literally round the corner from where she was but alas, she knew little of Elliot or his methods of problem solving.

"Are head for abandoned building near river, one near nightclub da? Will lead human... I sorry, not mean get caught, not think would happen.."

That much was true, never before had any of her other bodies been noticed, though never before had any of her others stopped reverting, she had no control over what happened to this body, it was like it'd jammed, stuck to stay this way until she died, or the body burnt out. Ivy slowed her pace to make sure the human stalker could.. In a roundabout way.. Keep up. Leading it straight to its impending end, all the while muttering in Russian, blissfully forgetting the phone was still active as she constantly apologised over and over in her own tongue, like she were being scolded for leaving a witness, or worse, being spotted on a job.

[Lancaster]

Elliot knew exactly which nightclub Ivy was talking about. One that he hadn’t attended himself on many occasions—he was a pub guy, not a club guy—but one that he knew nonetheless. Accustomed to wandering, and finding himself anchored to this one city, Elliot had done a hell of a lot of wandering. He’d walked himself in circles, until he thought he knew every corner of it. Every suburb. Every building, by rote. As soon as his feet hit the pavement outside the train station, he started heading in the direction given to him. He could almost have just followed his nose—there was something about this city, and the way the smell of the river, almost like an echo of the sea, pervaded most of the streets that crowded around either side of it.

Like dead fish. And stale salt water.

”Nothing you could’a done about it, Ivy. Hold tight, I’ll be there soon,” he said. And then he hung up, slipping his phone into his pocket and focusing his long, striding steps upon the path that he needed to take.

It was true, he didn’t think there was anything Ivy could have done about it. Sure, he wasn’t sure he trusted the girl very much, but he doubted that this was an occasion under which his limited trust would be tested. He had problems with his own path, but at least, he knew, it was nothing like hers. At least he knew that were he to die, he’d come back looking the exact same way he always had. From what he’d learned, Ivy didn’t have such leisure. He supposed, if he wanted to find blame for this situation, he could blame whoever had killed Ivy last. But then, he could blame Ivy, for doing something to get herself killed to begin with. Even further back, he could blame the seemingly overriding dependency on violence and slaughter that this city seemed to cling to. He could blame the general social corruptness.

He chose to blame no one at all. Ivy came back in the possession of someone else’s body. That body was recognised. There was nothing that could be done.

Elliot slipped quietly into the dark, quiet confines of the abandoned building. He supposed Ivy had brought him—or them, he and the human—here for its privacy. What did she think he was going to do? And why would he do something that she herself was surely capable of? He hoped it was because she didn’t want to kill this human. That she needed to help to make sure that a different outcome could be wrangled.

He peered into the darkness, feet scuffling against broken brick as he wandered further into the vast space.

[Ivy]

The line went dead and her phone started beeping into her ear, he'd hung up on her? Was that bad? Was he still going to help or was she walking into an ambush? No he said he'd help, this wasn't Russia, failures and mistakes weren't the end all. She took a breath and relaxed, placing her phone into her pocket and adjusted her glasses, the sound of the human not far behind meant she didn't need to slow down much further.

Ivy was so focused on escape that she accidentally marched right past the building she was meant to be in. With a disgruntled sigh she turned in her heel and met the human face to face. Gulping quietly as her mind went into overdrive. Run? But where? The door was a few feet away, behind the human. No she'd have to improvise. Turning back round and darting down the alley between buildings. Looking for a window she could vault through, it took a few minutes but eventually there was one, wasn't very big, but it was already broken so she planted her hand on the ledge, flinching as shards of glass ripped through the soft flesh of her palm. Leaving a trail of blackened blood as she jumped into the abandoned building.

"Elliot are here? Please be here..."

Her words were whispered, aimed more at herself than anything whilst she tried to not freak out. Her hand healing up quickly and she wiped the surface blood off on her jeans, glancing round the empty room in hope to see something, someone. Ivy pulled her phone back out and text the man, letting him know she was inside, though the racket outside as the human follower yanked on the doors should have been more than enough to let anyone inside know she was there.

[Lancaster]

The tall vampire stood out like a store thumb in the abandoned, decrepit warehouse. He wore jeans—they were new, as was his shirt. It was a crisp white, the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, peppered with tiny black dots. A mind over matter thing. He convinced himself that if he bought more white clothing he might go out and get dirty less. But that was the thing about suddenly having money. He realised that he could ruin a dozen outfits in a week—he could just go buy some more. The notion obviously hadn’t worked. Here he was, in this dirty old place.

He could have been worried, but in that single moment after walking into that warehouse he felt nothing but a strange kind of awe. The scuff of his feet against the dirty ground—the grinding of a broken piece of glass into the cement floor—echoed up, up and around him. The sounds of the city outside were strangely muffled, as if he had stepped into a bubble. This place had once been full of noise and life—full of people working themselves to the bone in order to stay afloat, in order to feed their families. This can’t have been work that they enjoyed. It had to have been just a job, a menial task that they repeated over and over again every single day, like robots.

Yeah, that was a kind of life that he would never have let himself live. He closed his eyes as he imagined what kind of life this place might once have held; imagined the cacophonous music of actual machinery as it drowned out the noises of humanity. The imagined string of sound was broken by real and actual sound, however. At first, more feet scuffing against cement. Then a susserance—a whisper of something that he did not understand. Closer to home, the rattling of chains bashing against locked doors. Closer still, the steady and urgent vibration of the phone in his pocket. He frowned down at the message. She was inside.

Elliot pocketed the gadget and focused on the murky darkness ahead. He wandered further into the warehouse, though didn’t go too far. He imagined Ivy—and pushed his voice into her head.

”I’m out near the front entrance.”

He pushed his hands into his pockets and waited for her, head cocked to the side as he followed the noisy movements of the human outside.