Books are a uniquely portable magic. - Stephen King (Axel)

[Liese (DELETED 5411)]

<------The following transcript was a live chat role-play------->

<Axel Rosen> Though he hasn’t been the the bookstore in some time, there is something that draws him there at least once a season. With summer just around the corner, he feels that he should probably go and check out what books have been released that are the advertised ones at the front of the store. Having not fed, his eyes are like two pool of oil that have been poured into either eye socket and solidified in his head. So he reaches from his bed and grabs a pair of sunglasses, tinted as if they were going to be used to weld. The lenses are so dark it’s nearly impossible to see his eyes, not to mention his hues match the tent. The maggots beneath his skin, ever restless creatures - eating, moving, squirming, are just as in motion to day as they were yesterday. This is the reason that he wears long sleeves and jackets, it’s just more obvious as the temperature rises as to how odd that it is. The leather jacket is good enough, pulling it over a shirt that has a half-rotten body on it. Long pants and boots are just what he throws on afterwards.

The short trek from the apartment to the motorcycle is just a transition from his apartment to the vessel that will grant him voyage to the store he intends to foray. The engine moans as he revs it up and begins to drive in the direction of the local book store. The dismount is smooth, seamless and fluid as he makes his way to the door, helmet under his arm. Walking through the set of double doors, he looks around. The advertised books are things that teenage girls would read. Nothing for an educated mind, just some self help books, ‘do it yourself’ books. There are some various books with the words ‘for dummies’ at the end of title. How those books became so popular is beyond him. He ignores all these titles, because he doesn’t need help, doesn’t want to build anything, isn’t dumb, and isn’t a fourteen year old girl that reads Vampire Academy.

Instead of stopping at those books, he makes a line for the corner of the suspense horror. Marketing is a wondrous thing, as it must have told the people in charge of organization that putting the occult books next to occult horror and suspense horror was a great idea.Axel wouldn’t disagree. He had dabbled with rituals once upon a time, but when he became a vampire he realized that what mortals call magic is just a mockery of what true rituals are. He has long since forgone the idea of summoning spirits. There are a few books with his name on the side, being that he’s a published writer, albeit not an extremely popular one. Before he died, Axel had written several short stories that are culminated into one small book now. Taking a moment, to be the egotistical person that he is, Axel pulls a copy of his work from one of the shelves and sits near the occult section. The book he pulled leaves a hole between two spines in the ‘occult horror’ section.

Thumbing through the pages he’s not sure if he can remember the last time that he actually sat down and wrote a story or a poem. Sure there was the impromptu poem that he recited and still recites when working with swords and things, but other than that he hasn’t put pen to paper in a while. Every so often, Axel peeks up, looking briefly from behind his sunglasses to the ‘do it yourself’ section, not sure if he should just go over there and start reading up on more metal working. Perhaps it would give him a better understanding of the skill as a whole. Maybe even read up on the history of smithing items from scratch so that he can shape iron into steel and them make blades from nothing rather than melting down old blades to make new ones.

Platinum blond is the only way to describe the view that keeps getting stuck into his field of vision though. Looking across the occult section, she sits reading a book about spirits. That’s what it looks like at least, a book about contacting the dead. He cannot see her face. He could use his powers to see through her eyes and read what she’s reading but not only is that an invasion of privacy of someone that isn’t on his **** list, but it’s also kind of a petty way to get an ice breaker. Though, he’s a pretty decent looking guy, he thinks, perhaps she’ll just come over here. It hasn’t been the first time that he’s been approached. Axel rather prefers being the ‘black’ pieces in the flirting chess game. He likes for others to go first so that he can assess them, then make a move based upon that analysis. He keeps eye contact on her for a little while before going back to reading the stories he has written.

<Liese> A mass of platinum blonde hair had taken over the crown of her head, bundled up and secured with a black elastic. She hadn’t yet found a place to stay in Harper Rock, and Liese had taken to showering at the local Boys and Girls Club facilities in order to stay clean. Unfortunately, that left little opportunity for primping, straightening, or otherwise styling her hair. The blonde, with tendrils frizzed and ruined from years of bleach assault, had her nose in a book, with thick, black-framed glasses perched delicately on the tip of said nose. She was reading to herself, as she often did, mumbling aloud the arcane theories and suggestions of the ritual book she’d picked out. It might have been better if she’d been a library that was thousands of years old and had books from the origin of magick, but in lieu of that this bookstore was her home. She arrived every day, just after breakfast, and left late in the evening. She was lucky, really, that the bookstores stayed open so late. There was too much information to devour, too much theory, the requirement to study and understand incantations, ingredients, and itemized lists. Speaking the words aloud gave Liese a better chance to memorize the information, because she was rapidly running out of money and space in her backpack with which to store her books.

She shifted, the delicate fibres on the back of her neck prickling, and she lifted her head, licking her lips and looking around the store through the lenses of her reading glasses. Occasionally, she would get these feelings, this intuition that all in Harper Rock was not as it seemed. With a small shiver, she robbed a hand over her shoulder and arm, as if to protect herself against the goosebumps that found their way over her skin. Though she only wore a thin pair of black leggings, and a loose, flowing tank top, she’d not felt cold until just a moment ago. Liese clicked her tongue against her teeth and gave the bookstore another suspicious stare, her brows knit and arched low over her own blue and bespectacled eyes. It was really weird. Shaking off the strange emotion, she reached over to take a sip of her frozen coffee drink and burrow further between the books she’d stacked and strewn around her, as if a minefield of information might protect her in such a foreign place.

Having been reading for well over twelve hours now, her eyes swam and blurred and she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose as she flipped the book shut, her thumb holding her place as she considered calling it quits. But she had the insane impression she was onto something, the books claiming there were ritual ingredients in the wilderness surrounding Harper Rock that were native to the area and could channel the town’s rumoured realm shift. If she could just get a list going, and find them, and finally pin down the damn occult specialist at the university… she grumbled to herself, and a puff of air tossed her bangs up toward the sky. She’d tried for weeks now to make an appointment during his office hours, to discuss the possibility for a successful seance. It was impossible. He was always traveling, giving lectures, or hired on private jobs for spirit cleansings and demon reports. That Liese felt her own personal mission trumped each of these was no surprise. She was dogged in her determination to find her lover, and without the mentorship of the occult specialist, these books, and this bookstore, was all she had.

Pushing up off of the floor, she drained the rest of her blended mocha and brushed carpet lint off of her ***, the leggings having clung tight to the curve of her rump. She had a love-hate relationship with her ***, really. It took up far too much of her bodily mass, but it was nicely toned and pretty sexy for a white girl. She stretched, arching her back and throwing her arms up over her head, and strode barefoot for the recycling bin, having shed her shoes about eight hours ago when she was sure the bookstore staff had forgotten her presence.

The tingling at the back of her neck returned as she approached the bin, and she turned, staring over her shoulder. Her gun was in her backpack, all the way back by her books, and they’d never let her return to research if she shot up the place. But if self defense was required, Liese would do what she had to. She was scrappy, having done cheerleading in high school, flexible and acrobatic, and despite the fact that her manicure was dull and chipped, she was certain she could gouge an eye out if the occasion required it. She tossed her empty cup in the bin and folded her arms across her chest, stock-still, listening, before she convinced herself that she was being irrationally sensitive and shrugged. The bookstore was nearly quiet, anyway. Most people had already purchased their novels and gone home. What was there really to worry about?

<Axel Rosen> The woman wanders about, her movement is what catches his eyes this time. He’s reading into the words that he’s written as if they were a map to the things that he has in his dream scape. The very things that he could control at some point if he could just find the key to controlling them. He looks her over again. This time he pays special attention to her body and face. Her belongings aren’t really heeded any mind in the way they just linger on the other side of the room. Usually he’d go over to her, introduce himself at this point but he watches a bit more carefully. An idea occurs to him as she turns around to come back toward her stuff, that he could start a conversation without actually having to speak to her vocally. He looks over to her, grinning at the thought, then dumps his face back into the book.

After a few pages of ‘reading’, Axel reaches out to the woman with his mind, making sure that he does it as subtly as possible - ”What are you reading”, the words would appear to come from very close to her, but no one is over there. She’d have to assume that he asked the question but how did he do it would be the better question. If she’s in the occult section though, perhaps she’s like Ursula who studies the same kinds of things. It’s the reason that Axel had to turn that childe. She was poking her nose in places that it shouldn’t have been. It’s funny how each of his childer were turned. The first was an accident, a happy one though. She caught him feeding and he panicked. The second was poking her nose about in crypts where vampires lived, and he couldn’t have that. He tried to warn her several times, but finally had to kill her. She asked to be turned as an alternative to death. Paige, being his fine-cast apprentice, was molded from Paladin steel. She was melted down and reshaped to believe that vampires truly are the most powerful force in the world. She, in the end, begged to be turned despite her teachings to hate them. All rather different to how Axel was turned.

His shadow is getting antsy, moving a few paces off of his person and laying near a far shelf. It’s not reading, damn thing can’t really pick anything up. It doesn’t harm anyone like Jesse’s has. It’s more of a trickster. Axel looks at it, giving it a glare from behind his book. The vampire knows now that it’s a curse Jesse, his childer, and himself have picked up from Nix. He’s not sure if they can pass it on anymore, like it seems they have between one another. It doesn’t move, or acknowledge him, obvious it’s bored of this place. Axel’s eyes are pulled however to the girl again. He tilts his head to the side. She can’t be any older than twenty-two. The platinum blond hair looks eerily familiar to him. He can’t seem to place it though, because he knows that he’s never sent anyone that looks like her to the realm out of the eleven people he’s killed. He might get caught staring now, trying to figure out why she looks familiar to him.

<Liese> Having convinced herself that nothing was wrong, she sprawled out on her stomach and reached for the book she’d been holding earlier, kicking her legs up. She let her bare feet kick back and forth, which probably gave the rest of the bookstore a great view of her ***, but considering most of the patrons had left already she felt comfortable enough to stretch out and get comfortable. She stuck her face back in the book, reading to herself for a moment before a voice chimed out from behind her, asking what she was reading. Without looking up, Liese spoke aloud, her eyes still trained on the book. “Three Books of Occult Philosophy, Agrippa.” She reached behind her and scratched over the back of her leg, then her scalp, then turned the page of her book. It wasn’t that she wasn’t interested in making conversation with strangers, but she wasn’t interested in doing anything that took away from her mission to find her former boyfriend.

The question had come from an aisle over, but a few moments of silence had her under the impression that the individual had grown bored of her and walked away to buy his book in peace. Content with this, she pushed her glasses further up her nose and began to read again, following through the theory with her voice hushed and low.

[Axel Rosen]

--The following transcript was a live chat roleplay--

<Axel Rosen> It’s starting to become apparent that in order to get a real conversation out of this woman that he would have to actually approach her rather than her him. The means that he goes to these days to get a bite to eat. Shaking his head, he takes a moment to look himself over. The clothes on his skin have to cover almost every inch, lest a stray maggot crawl it’s way from the surface and wiggle to some odd freckle. Pulling the sleeves on his arms down, he stands and makes his way over to her. Sitting against a bookshelf in front of her, eyes glancing to her ***. Luckily his sunglasses protect his eyes from being noticed. The filmed over black that used to be blue before he slept. It’s the darkness of hunger and desire for blood. Once he’s seated though, he looks at her, reads the title on the book. She had said it, but he’s never exactly heard of it. Probably some more crack-pot ******** that he used to believe in. “What’s it say in there.” He turns a page of his own book, not sure if she’ll answer, but maybe he could guide her in some direction. Even if it’s the wrong one.

Another page is turned in his book and he looks her over again. The haunting familiarity of her is coming back again. A memory nestled between adolescence and crimson-stained monster. A memory has long since been hidden and he can’t place it at the moment. His neck turns to the side, popping down his shoulders. He looks over the tinted glass before his eyes to peer over her body again. Strangely, each and every curve seems familiar.

<Liese> Again, she failed to look up to acknowledge him, instead carrying along the conversation with her nose stuffed in the book. “It talks about the three types of ritual magic and their relationship with religion. Elemental, Celestial, and Intellectual magic. It talks about scrying, alchemy, ceremonies, summoning the dead…” she prattled on for a moment, then, content with her answer, fell silent. She liked conversation well enough, but determined as she was to gather the information she needed to summon her fallen lover, she couldn’t very well waste the time on small talk.

It made her an easy target for anyone creeping around the library. Even the gun tucked into her backpack couldn’t be pulled out quickly enough at this point, but her self-confidence alone was a powerful deflector against harm. She carried herself in a way that said, “I honestly don’t give a **** about anything but my book,” and it was the truth. She hummed quietly, her grey-blue eyes skimming the words through the pane of her glasses, aware of his presence and yet deliberately, nonchalantly, ignoring it. The book was large in her hands, despite being an abridged version, and she fumbled a little when turning pages, brows knit and lower lip chewed in determination.

<Axel Rosen> “Wanna know a secret?” He looks at the book then grins a little bit, seeing the writing on the cover. He knows that it’s not even remotely Fae, some made up language of humans. The things like that are meant to sell the book, meant to make it seem ‘real’ for those that read it, but really it’s just a joke. Axel tried his hands at rituals once, and will never do so again. He’s so horrible at it he’s sure that the damn fae broke every bone in his body before he was done. That was the end of that, just one try and done. “Load of ********, that book.” He says it out right, not really caring who hears him. Because, really, who is going to give him a second look without shitting themselves. He glances around at the other mortals, most of them working here and gives one a wink. He does it as if to say, ‘walk on, we’re talking here’.

“Yeah, massive pile of ********, honestly. I tried all that **** when I started to, until I saw true ‘magic’ and washed my hands of both ‘fake’ and ‘true’.” He opens up a little bit. To her he could just be another crazy rambling on and on about magic and it’s facets. Who really cares, so long as he doesn’t exploit his kind to her, or really anything more about himself he should be okay. She seems fairly harmless too. One swift movement and he’s sure that it would be a permanent goodnight to the sweet girl. He hopes it doesn’t come to that, she’s cute, might not even feed from her. Though he’s incredibly hungry, it’s something to ponder as this conversation goes on. Then again, if he feeds from her… he’ll have to kill her. Its’ something he’s picked up from Jesse, he thinks, not being able to effectively daze his prey.

<Liese> “Says you. And who are you, even?” She raised a brow, her eyes finally raising to focus on the man in front of her. He was tall, relatively good looking despite being covered up like an eskimo despite the summer heat. “You do magic? Really? I find that hard to believe.” She shook her head and rolled her eyes, turning back to the book. Agrippa was a classic. It wasn’t new by any means, and she didn’t believe it was a joke. Usually people didn’t write joke books in the 15th century. “You look like a greaser, not an occult specialist.”

She kicked her legs up behind her, infuriatingly young, dogged in her determination to learn what she needed to in order to find her lover. Even still, she was naive, but not stupid. “I’m not interested in going on a date with you, if that’s what you’re trying to do.”

<Axel Rosen> Her retort almost makes him laugh in the way that it sounds a little childish. The disbelief that he could know anything about the world that he is apart of us the funniest part of it all. He’s never had anyone really question if he knows things and it’s actually great. “I did it once, found out what it was really about, and gave it up”, he answers her but doesn’t give his name because there is power in a name. It may not be magical power, it may not be used in some ritual, but there is indeed power in a name. And if he’s not mistaken there is power in the fae translation of a persons name, though he won’t tell her that. Not yet anyway. He wants to see just how much she’s willing to believe of that book. Greaser? He would look at himself in a mirror if he could, luckily for him though there aren’t any around. He keeps his hands and body far enough away from his glasses so that there’s not a possibility of showing his lack of reflection.

“Being that the fifties were a fantastic decade I didn’t take a part of, I’ll accept that, I suppose.” He thinks over the statement for a few moments. Something about occult specialist just bugs him as a term. It’s kind of like saying that one is an ancient astronaut theorist and believes that man is actual descendant of ancient humans from other planets. It’s just more garbage. He looks at her again, thinking about this. “May not be an occult specialist, but I’ve seen my fair share of experiences”, his shadow is still on the other side of the room, and he glares at it from behind his glasses, pointing subtly at his feet, as if commanding the sentient specter. “And I’m not trying to date you, just trying to tell you that you’re going about the supernatural world wrong…” He shrugs and goes back to the book of stories he’s written.

<Liese> “Fine. So who do I talk to in this town about rituals? Bringing back the dead and the like?” She finally folded the book and set it down in front of her, but it was clear she would be going back to her reading as soon as she finished this conversation and got him out of her messy, knotted hair. There was no question that she didn’t believe him. “I want to call a spirit. I want to talk to them, and communicate effectively. So how do I do that? If you’re so much smarter than Agrippa.”

She pursed her lips and stared at him, and, since she was no longer reading, pulled her glasses off of her face. Now she was all pale skin and light blue eyes, and white-blonde hair. She looked like a ghost herself, let alone a girl who was trying to call for one. She stayed on her stomach, on the floor, looking up at him. “You’re wearing a lot of clothes for summer.” It wasn’t a question, just an observation.

<Axel Rosen> She asks who to talk to and as she asks it becomes apparent to him that he can’t give her any of the names that he knows. They’re all vampires, and giving that information, even their locations, would be a breach of security. He pauses for a second and then shakes his head a little bit. “Magic is still a pretty secretive thing. Today’s age may seem accepting, but they’re still the same bible toting, stake burning witch hunters they were before. Time changes nothing, we just tend to forget that”, for a moment he thinks that he sounds a bit older than he actually is. As if he’s channeling some ancient vampire that isn’t him. Even then he’s still pulling all of this out of his ***. He looks at her, pulling out a pen and note pad. He jots down directions to the old abandoned mansion north of the city. Tons of odd things happen there, and there’s a ritual altar.

“Go there, moving inside and look for an altar. Once at the altar, try and match the symbols on it with anything you’ve read in any of these books. I promise you that you can’t.” He feels pretty proud of his answers with this bout of the conversation. A small grin comes over his lips, “Don’t worry, I won’t follow you or be there, just something you should see before you go discrediting my knowledge.” It’s honest, truly and he doubts she’ll be able to find any hint of subterfuge on his face.

He looks down at himself when it comes to her next statement. He is dressed funny, but he has a reason for it. A fake reason, but a reason none-the-less. “I ride a motorcycle, ad the coat I’m wearing has plates in it for my protection.” It’s a lie, sure, but it’s a believable one. The helmet is on the couch near them, sitting there, looking back at them with a skull on the face of it.

<Liese> “You’re creepy, you know that?” She bit back a curse word, but pulled a pen out of her bag, spilling its contents in the process. She scrawled her own notes in the directions he’d written for her, directions, cross-streets, information about matching the symbols to the book. She’d have to steal the book tonight, but she’d do it. “The motorcycle is a nice touch, though.”

She continued to stare down at the notepad and scribble notes to herself, considering this her first real lead to any sort of ritual that might actually successfully summon her loved on. It would be incredibly helpful, even if he was right and the book held no realistic theory and suggestion for practical magic. “I’m Eliese. Thanks.” She began scooping her belongings into her bag, as well as (after looking over both shoulders) Agrippa’s book, preparing to leave and check out this abandoned mansion under the cover of night.

<Axel Rosen> Creepy doesn’t even begin to describe what it is that he is. The primal nature of the predator already programed into his brain. He’s decided, though she doesn’t know it, that he’s not going to feed from her, not going to attack her, not going to burn her alive in a metal coffin. No, none of these things would befall her this evening. It’s a relatively small city, it’s only a matter of time before he’ll see her again. The motorcycle thing hardly reaches his ears as he’s too busy thinking about where, exactly his meal for the night would come from. Assuming that he’s not too late he could get into a contraband shop and just pick up a pint.

She stands up to leave and he notes that she’s not leaving the book she hasn’t paid for. He doesn’t care, stealing is really just a law of the living. It’s not something that he really goes about defending the justice of corporations and small businesses. None of his business and not his problem. He’ll track her down later and see exactly what she’s up to. He will like to know, later, what progress she’s made on understanding the rituals she’s after. He breathes out and stands up. Moving to the couch, he picks up his helmet and then leaves, walking toward his bike.

<Liese> She followed him into the parking lot, her bag slung over her shoulder and eyes scanning the darkness for potential threats. He seemed friendly enough, so he wasn’t likely to hurt her, and she didn’t classify the mystery man as a predator. Instead, she clutched the directions in her palm and headed out into the night, on foot, with her gun in her hand, toward the abandoned mansion north of the city.