A Guiding Hand [Paige]

[Axel Rosen]

The males is stationed in the chair that at the moment is still situated at the apartment that he has given to his childer and Catherine's childe. At the moment though the apartment is empty he assumes that this is one of the points where Renee is off trading the files that she's hacked for money, Ursa has gotten her own place somewhere and probably spending time with someone that is too cowardly to meet with him. It's just a personal thought, but one that is getting to him at the point. Even Axel is man enough to have met with and talked to Doc before courting his childe. The progeny that is on his mind as of late is Paige, too many times has he used the power to look through the eyes of another he looks and finds her killing without caution. She has left too many bodies out in the open and it has come time to teach her how o be safer. Her recklessness worries him, so at the moment he is waiting for her to come home. He uses the power that he has picked up recently to speak to her at a great distance without a phone. Closing his eyes he reaches out with his mind to hers: Paige, hurry home as soon as you can. Forgo feeding until you meet with me.”

He is certain, though he knows that she cannot answer back without opening a phone, that the command that he has given is more than understandable. Still he sits there at the table, hands on his lap are crossed over one another. The black eyes occasionally look to the door, and it has been at least a half an hour since he has walked through the door. The marble floor that he had placed down himself when he started have been thence untouched. His hands slither from his lap over to the coffee table to lift a novel from there. He opens the pages to a bookmark and then he starts to glean through the pages. Each word is a piece of a possible reality that could be hidden to the world around him. Since becoming a vampire his mind is open to a berth of possibilities of the 'actual' world. As there are so many things that humans can only dream of knowing and that vampires could possibly learn. He uses his power again curious as to where she is.

As he uses the power he can see that Paige is practicing moves with two sticks in what appears to be a parking lot. It doesn't appear immediately that she is making any effort to make her way to the Veil Towers. Shaking his head he reaches out to her mind again, a little impatient tone in his voice this time. ”Is there a reason that you are not on your way here?” His voice in her head is this time, using his effort a bit loud and booming. Finally he turns the chair around completely to face the door.

[Paige]

Though the freezing conditions were not ideal, Paige found herself performing the same ritual she did every night. After cleansing herself and saying her prayers, she set out for the derelict mall. It once heralded the return of the holiday season, but now it was a haven for gangsters and few shops would do business there. The place was so badly kept that it couldn't even afford a security patrol, so as she practiced her dagger and tumble routine nobody was there to bother her, and her feet danced through each move, almost a prayer in of itself. The daggers cut invisible opponents into pieces, and she began to get lost in the moment. She was back at home, practicing with her sister, smirking and besting her, always besting her even though she was the youngest. The fight required more than rote skill, it demanded cunning, and Paige always knew where to land a blow, until that fateful night...

Her sire's voice interrupted her practice, and she dropped to a kneeling position. But he was not present. Paige assumed that it was her imagination. She stood and, finding as firm a stance as she could on the ice, began to slash and dance again. Snow fell on her raven hair, and her borrowed clothes barely kept out the draft, but she kept at it. She wanted to be lost in the peace that the routine brought her, and to see her sister's face again. They had been orphans together, and life was tough, but they had made it together through the education of the paladin order. Only to have it snatched away by-

His voice boomed in her head again, and this time she was sure it was not her imagination. "I am coming," she whispered, unsure if he heard, and dashed through the snowfall and slush. She arrived some ten minutes later, finding him at his favorite chair. Was one of Sakura's bones a part of that grisly throne? Growling, trying to shake the guilt of being a vampire, Paige knelt before Axel and kept her eyes down. She offered no explanation for her delay, only waited for him to speak.

[Axel Rosen]

The portal of the apartment opens and the pale shape of his childer walks into the living room, if one could call it that. The marble floor has a couch and a table in it, but really they just cover over the ritual circle on the floor that he had intentions of eventually learning to use, but his focuses have since shifted in another direction. He’s been thinking of getting into hacking once he gets done training with firearms. He believes that he has mastered his favored form of martial arts, but that’s a personal belief may or may not be right. He hears her growl and he gives her a sort of unamused look at the sound that leaves her lips. As she moves to the chair he looks down at her dipped head and tilts his to the side. His hand moves to bring the watch up to his field of vision before shaking his head. It has been quite a bit of time before he sent the last missive to her mind. The hand moves down to her head, almost as if petting her like a pet. His mouth stays shut for a good few minutes before finally speaking.

“Is there a reason why you took so long?” His eyes pan down to her, though it’s hard to see where he is looking due to the fact that he hasn’t fed this evening. The two orbs are like oil, the eyes of a spider being pure black. The hunger that he has felt since waking up is still there because he wanted to wait for his childe so that he could teach her through some things and make sure that she understands how to kill her prey with a bit more discreteness. At least if she gets caught for masquerade violations after this, no one can say that he didn’t teach her how to clean up after herself. If she learns that after she kills people she can’t just leave them laying around, then it will be best for her. As he waits for her to respond, he stands and starts to outfit himself. The sword and Dorf carbine on the table are apart of that. The first thing is a knife in his boot. This is followed by two more daggers inside of his leather jacket. Finally a glock is put in the small of his back. Then the Dorf is strapped to the custom made holster at his thigh, followed by the sword at his back.

He turns to face her and then sits on the table at the center of the floor. He is quiet, silently watching her from his perch. The scarf behind him, solid grey, is what he will use to cover the hilt of his sword. The Dorf will remain the only weapon that isn’t covered by anything else, but then again, the two of them will be walking the back streets of the sketchiest places of Harpers Rock. Showing that he is packing some sort of weapon may be better for the two of them so they only garner the attention of the very brave of gangsters.

[Paige]

While her sire is quietly stroking her soft raven hair, Paige takes the opportunity of silence to glance at the ritual circle. When she had first saw it, she thought it was a tacky ornamental piece of vampire devil worship. The man who owned it, on the other hand, does not seem to believe in the devil or really in much of anything beyond gaining and asserting his power. Now she is somewhat curious about what the circle can do. Unknown to her, she is a natural at rituals, and would make a good ritualist if she can only find the motivation. Ever since her turning, all she has felt motivated to do is follow her routine, and she becomes very agitated if something, for example her sire's voice from the heavens, interrupts it. It means that she has to focus, and focus brings pain.

Her sire's concerns about her feeding habits are understandable. The adolescent has been leaving mutilated corpses in their homes after using Uninvited Guest to enter. The lacerations, burns and bone fractures tend to show that she does not just kill for feeding, but also for pleasure. When she was a paladin, she had served humanity and studied how to protect them from the vampire menace. Now her eyes are open, and she understands that humans never wanted her. All of this time, her enemies have been of the mortal variety, whether they abandoned her at birth, bullied her at the orphanage, punished her in the order... Humans may preach a good deal about goodness and peace, but they are all rotten, good for nothing other than feeding her enjoyment. When her sire speaks to her, she tenses and snaps out of her thoughts.

"Forgive me. I thought that your voice was my imagination." Like a monster hiding under her bed, sometimes Axel's voice surprises her when he is not really present, but at times it really is her imagination. At least, she hopes that it is. Paige whispers, "When I heard you the second time, I came as soon as I could." Her orange eyes follow his movements warily. At first she thinks that she is about to be reprimanded, but it seems that Axel is suiting up for other purposes. He must be planning some kind of outing, which will bite into her routine. The vampire attempts to swallow her irritation at being interrupted. She looks into his glassy black eyes when he sits down, anxious to get on with this.

[Axel Rosen]

A plea for him to forgive her and an excuse that she thought that his voice was nothing more than her imagination. His first question would be why his voice is part of her thoughts on a regular basis to begin with. Is it that she mocks him when he’s not around, mimicking him as best as she can when he turns his back. His eyes slightly glare at her, though she couldn’t tell due to the fact that his eyes are black and pupiless. She then goes on that when she had heard his voice the second time that she had run to see him. This is acceptable he assumes. The fact that she is here, though late, is what he really wanted. The time that she gets here doesn’t really matter to him. He won’t ask for any more excuses, just that he wants to punish her for it. He can do that later. The pair of black eyes look over to the door before he starts to make his own way there. As his hand reaches out, he turns back to her. “We’re going to teach you proper feeding and body disposal practice.” The door opens and he makes a movement for her to exit first.

Once she steps out of the building, though it appears that he’s ruining something for her. He’s sure that in some way he is messing up the way in which she goes about killing people and botching the way that they are disposed of. This is the exact reason that the two of them are going out to go remedy. She must understand that she cannot go on killing people in this way or she will end up on the list. That’s the last thing that he needs is to be known for siring vampires that can’t keep their faces off the list of vampires to be hunted. For the extent of the matter though, he is unsure if he would be joyed or upset by the fact that he would have to kill her. Paige had for a long time been nothing more than a punching bag for him in the days before her turning. Now; however, she is family or as close as she can get to it until she earns her wings and more freedom by proving that she is more than just a beast. The beastial nature of her vampirism, while okay in his eyes, needs to be refined so that she can better blend among her prey. He turns his head to her and then leads her toward the elevator.

The doors of the elevator open as the two of them step forward. A human comes out of it. Axel smiles at the man, who looks back at the two vampires and grimaces. To humans, Axel looks like worse than a monster. He looks, most times, like a human that wears black contacts, leather jackets with studs, shirts with images of gore on them. These things are more taboo at times for humans than his actual secrets. Stepping inside, his arm moves out and grabs Paige and pulls her inside. The doors then close behind him and he leans against one of the walls. “Body disposal is probably the most important for you…”

[Paige]

She has just gotten home, and is as comfortable as she can be under the intensity of her sire's scrutiny, but it would be foolish to refuse to stand and go with him just because she is sick of running around. When he beckons, she rises from her kneeling position and fetches her long coat, which is black faux leather covered in buckles and straps. The cheap metal does not clink when Paige walks to him. Oddly enough, it seems that her feet aren't even touching the ground to produce such a noise. They hover a few millimeters above the marble floor of the apartment her sire had provided for her and her siblings. The Shadow exits in front of her sire and successfully attempts to stifle a rising growl when she feels him near, then behind her. It can't be helped. He wants to teach her.

She cannot resist growling under her breath at the human as he exits the elevator, though he probably cannot hear her. Her orange eyes glance after him quietly and she turns her head slightly, as if she is checking out his *** and not contemplating carnage. Her sire's hand suddenly directs her somewhat roughly inside the elevator, and her fangs click closed audibly. The doors close, the brief descent makes her stomach churn a bit, and reminds her that it is empty. She watches Axel with a carefully neutral expression and listens to him speak. Body disposal. In the recent weeks, Paige has been shredding bodies, mangling them, mutilating their genitals, and leaving them in poses within their homes. There are several telltale signs that a serial killer is at work, and if she continues on this path she will be caught.

Paige does not realize this. Or, rather she does realize it, but does not seem to care. Her reckless lack of self preservation has always been her undoing. When she was a human, she had charged at Axel with the intent to die and at least cause him discomfort for killing Sakura, but here is where it has gotten her. The gangly adolescent gives a shrug, as if she is a teenager sulking at one of her father's rules. The hunger yawns within her flat stomach, making her irritable. If only he hadn't called her here, she would be eating already. But Axel will be supervising this time. It will be difficult for her to indulge in her rituals. She is not ashamed of them, but merely protective of her privacy. What little shreds of it she thinks she has.

The elevator comes to a stop and the Shadow hurries out. She thinks she will feel less watched outside in public, but it is not the case. She feels as though Axel is in her head, and behind her at the same time. She will not run, because she is no coward. The girl stretches, arching toward the moon, then turns to stare at her sire expectantly.

[Axel Rosen]

The black coat seems to fit her style of doing things as it covers most of her keep blood from getting on her. It seems a bit over down, like those people in the Matrix movies but who is he to tell her how to dress or not. In reality he’d likely let it go unless it started to draw unwanted attention to the two of them, and where they’re going, he’s sure that it won’t. This is because the places they’re going are already so full of crime, filth, and drugs that two people dressing a bit off won’t really get noticed by those that matter. It may get the two of them noticed by someone trying to be big and bad on a street corner somewhere but he’s not overly worried about that either. He’s already tested his skills against gangsters and they stand no chance against his skill with a blade. This is the perfect place that he has in mind for his childe to out and learn the tools of the trade that will keep her from being hunted by hunters and paladins. The two of which he’s just now starting to be able to take on, so he can’t really expect her as a fledgling to hold her on.

Her actions in the elevator seem off to him. Not yet has he had a childe that is so much like a teenager to him that he almost wants to beat her for the sake of beating her. Just the fact that she gives off this ‘whatever’ attitude makes him almost shake with fury, but he keeps himself calm. This is because getting mad at her will only bring her to massacre more people without disposing their bodies properly and thus bring danger on himself and the others of his small branch of Fforde by being close to her. He almost wants to speak to her that if that happens he will kill her and will make it painful as possible, not to mention slow. He would enjoy that a bit too much. Though she’s family, she’s still just a turned paladin and far from being, in his eyes, a passing member of the vampiric community. She has much to learn and many things to do before she proves herself to him in that manner. This, learning how to dispose of bodies, is one of those acts that will help her achieve a new light in his eyes.

As the elevator comes to a halt she leaves and he looks at her as she heads out in a quickness. He does not move as fast as she does, Axel is at a slow walk, not really looking at others as he moves. It’s a rather quiet stroll through the lobby, as if a lazing juggernaut unworried by the ants beneath his feet. She doesn’t run from him, a sigh of relief now that he doesn’t have to chase her down. “Toward Bullwood.” He states, the casino, club, and abandoned buildings are full of lowly gangsters and homeless loners. His finger points toward the district in which he dictates and he starts moving.

[Paige]

Thankfully, Paige has quite a variety of victims to choose from in this area. So much of a variety, that she has to take her time making a selection. The pair meander past the hospital, full of people who would be missed if something was to happen. She pauses outside the Golden Lion casino, near a group of smokers chattering excitedly, and scents the air with an incline of her head. The people there reek of desperation and poverty. Their delusions of hitting it big are laughable, and Paige smirks and shakes her head. Too many cameras. She must prove that she can do this correctly, or Axel will likely change his mind. Just as he gave her life, she feels that he can take it away. It will be a better pleasure than killing to show him that she can behave in spite of the strange animalistic behaviors she has taken on, and her near-debilitating territorial inclinations.

Paige walks east of the casino and almost passes a dilapidated building, an abandoned warehouse by the look of the outside. But there are sounds of struggle from within, and a hook made of fear that she cannot resist biting. The Shadow levitates to the door and quietly lets herself in. She uses her powers to numb and mute security in the surrounding areas, easing the hearts of those inhabitants within the ramshackle warehouse. She creeps behind an enormous shelving unit and peeks around it. On the far side of the spacious room there are a couple of vagrants fighting over a cheap bottle of hard liquor. One already has a black eye. The other has no teeth, but by the look of him it's drug use and lack of hygiene that have done the deed. Some teenage girls share a joint near the barrel fire that the vagrants have set up for warmth. There are quite a few homeless people here. Paige will have to get one alone somehow. The room is open except for some shelves that are falling apart.

At this point, the adolescent glances at her sire quietly. She has ignored him the whole march here, but suddenly looks to him for guidance. She truly does seem to have that insolent 'whatever' attitude. Perhaps she knows it makes him angry and does not care. It could be that she does not know at all why she is behaving this way, or maybe she craves his punishments. In any case, Paige stares at him and waits for him to tell her what to do, how to strike. Who to catch, and how. The brawling drunks are making a scene, which could be a good distraction if they want to drag one of the weaker vagrants off.

[Axel Rosen]

The male looks over to the smokers that are standing outside the casino, no doubt they are talking about money that they have won this evening. His hand moves to his pockets and then cracks his neck a little bit. That group is not what he would choose as his victim, really. They are not the top of human potential. They reek, smell disgusting, the cheap smell of tobacco coming off their clothes. His eyes look up to the cameras that are looking at the people standing there. If this is her choice of where to hunt her prey, he won’t tell her what to do he’ll just watch her at work while she does her thing. Still the thought of hunting here kind of bugs him because these people aren’t really worth his time. They’re not anything of worth really. They’re just a bunch of chain-smoking gamblers, not a one of them appears to have had any training in anything much more world-beneficial than brick-laying. Not that brick-laying isn’t a ‘profitable’ job, just means that it’s not someone he would hunt. The ignorant masses are what he tries to blend into, which is even still just as hard. Paige moves away from them, Axel follows with interest.

Moving to the east of the building he looks as she comes across a ruinous building and hears the sounds. She levitates and he watches, it’s rather odd to him that she can do that. There isn’t much that he can do about it but wait until he sees where exactly she is heading to. He uses his vision to see the struggle within and sees the heat imprints of people fighting over something, but he can’t tell what it is. His eyes watch but soon he will have to enter in after Paige, to make sure that she is doing things alright. He thinks that he sees her do something, the air around him seems quieter, and the area just seems a bit less secure. As he enters he sees the rest of the room and notices the heat that he saw earlier (the heat imprints making things hard to see) was more people. He should have noticed. He looks at the group of people, though it appears that he fits in here. He leans against the wall next to the door, but doesn’t give away the position of his childe. Her mission, he will not interfere.

She looks to him and he looks to her. She’s looking for guidance, he can tell and he feels that he should probably help her at this point. Speaking into her mind, he gives her some guidance without being heard. His eyes glance over the people again. The fight between the two in the room should be a good distraction at some point. ”When the fight between the two homeless people gets more heated, louder, silently make your way to one of the girls smoking pot.” He pauses for a moment then looks to the teen girls. ”Go after the one standing to the side, as the rest of the group isn’t paying attention to her.” Not to mention that the girls are probably smoking something laced with a harder drug.

[Paige]

Paige did not really mind which of the vagrants she destroyed. Her preferences typically came without specific bias. At its core, a human was just a blood cow, and they all screamed the same when you mangled them. Whether they had potential or whether they had wasted their lives, they all ended up the same in the end. The heart of her ritual would be arranging this girl in a suitable pose after completely ruining her. It was what gave Paige true gratification, to turn someone into her puppet, to kill them and arrange them like a doll and leave them for the flies to find later. A family around the dinner table, a mother holding her child, a man at his computer, she had filed away mental photographs of each of her victims and it gave her peace to think about them, cold lifeless and complete.

Her sire's encouragement made her focus, and she walked to the edge of the circle. Everyone was paying attention to the fighting. The joint was poised unmoving in someone's hand as they forgot to pass it, or the recipient forgot to take it. Things were getting heated and someone was probably going to end up in the hospital. Paige clapped a hand over the woman's mouth and dragged her back to Axel. The human's eyes were wide with confusion but also distracted and dazed from the drug. Paige wondered to herself how long it would take to get her to scream properly. She wasn't focused on Axel anymore. She was hungry.

Still holding her close to her chest, Paige kept the human's mouth covered with one hand, and picked up a broken bottle in the other. Her orange eyes studied the human coldly, then she crushed the glass bottle in her fist. Ignoring the black blood that seeped out, Paige began to forcefeed the girl every shard of glass, until blood was coming out of her nose and she was whimpering in discomfort. She coughed blood and cried pitifully, but her screams were muffled by Paige's palm. Paige could still hear them, they were getting weaker and weaker as the human lost her strength and the glass cut her on the way down.

Paige held the girl for a long time, like a spider waiting in a web. Her fangs grazed the girl's nape and she reached down the human's pants. The more the panicked human squirmed, the more she hurt herself internally. Paige slipped her hand out with a cracking tearing noise, then licked up some blood. She growled happily, then began to forcefeed her more broken glass. The broken human was swallowing the glass with little fight. She was bleeding from her nose and mouth more. It wouldn't be long.

Just before she died, Paige kissed the other girl and drank the blood that had pooled in her throat and mouth. Finished, instead of letting the human slump to the ground she lay her against a shelf and put a bottle in her hand, propping her up, letting rigor mortis take place. Only when she was finished arranging the body did she turn to her sire.