Invervention [Pi and Xian]

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Stryge (DELETED 7204)
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Invervention [Pi and Xian]

Post by Stryge (DELETED 7204) »

(*OOC note: This thread takes place post-turning but prior to Stryge's induction into Canidae d'Artois)


As Stryge walked through the empty offices of what was once some sort of call center, it occurred to him that Harper Rock might be going through a bit of a recession. Some of the cubicles still had this year's calendar, employee of the month awards, even the occasional personal photo still stuck on them with push pins. He was on the top floor of an office building that he had just broken into five minutes earlier. It was the dead of night, and no one else had been in the building other than a security guard on the first floor who had been easy enough to dodge. Stryge imagined he would have had to have made quite the ruckus to tear the fat slob away from his copy of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue. Keep dreaming, fella, thought Stryge, as he slipped around darkened corners and left the guard to his puerile fantasies. Despite the fact that the building was appropriately unpopulated for this hour, it was hard not to notice that every other floor had resembled the one he currently stalked through; the obvious signs of businesses pulling up stakes, and in a hurry. Maybe they've figured out they live in a town full of goddamn vampires.

Stryge had been roaming the city feverishly for most of the night, trying to pump the poison in his mind out through his legs. It hadn't been working. Earlier that evening, he had been sitting in Lancasters Pub, across the table from a vampire named Xian, who had dropped a particularly unpleasant bombshell on him. See, Stryge had a death wish. And Xian had kindly informed him that it was practically impossible for a vampire to die in this godforsaken town. At least not in any way that was permanent or meaningful or resembled the eternal dreamless sleep which Stryge expected death to deliver him. Instead it turned out that upon his death he would be sent to someplace called the Shadow Realm, a kind of purgatory for the undead, and then, like a rabbit out of a hat, pop right back into existence. Right back to Harper Rock. It was one big cosmic joke. How had he gotten to this point? His life had become the movie Groundhog Day.

Unsurprisingly, this information had sat like a cold, hard lump of ice in Stryge's chest. As a human, Stryge had come to Harper Rock with the intention of ending his life. Now he was a vampire, and the irony of it all was driving him insane. The iceberg in his chest wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. He had to do something. Stryge finally decided to get off the streets. He crept into an alley and hopped up onto a loading dock, where he jimmied his way into the service entrance of the office building he was currently making his way through. A plan of action had finally formed, although it was a plan that basically amounted to " **** it."

Stryge found his way out of cubicle land and into a back hallway, where a door labeled Authorized Personnel Only led to some stairs. These stairs would give him access to the roof of the five story building. As he stepped out once more into the night, it seemed the air moved more freely up here. The breeze felt good on his cold skin. He carefully began removing his clothes, untying sneakers, unzipping pants and jacket, pulling his tee-shirt over his head, and folded everything neatly in a stack by the door to the stairwell. The now completely naked man walked to the edge of the roof, feet crunching on the insulation, and looked out over the street. He supposed that he could simply jump, but he was worried that his new found healing powers would undo most of the damage, and that concerned citizens might cart him away to the nearest hospital, or possibly to a mental ward. Instead, he sat down on the edge of the building and waited. It wouldn't be long now.

It took an hour before the sky became that queasy shade of greyish pink that heralded the coming of the sunrise. Stryge stood up and spread his arms. He closed his eyes. He realized he must look pretty ******* ridiculous, but what the hell, it felt like the proper way to do this. Maybe, he hoped, if the sun burned him to enough of a cinder, not even the Shadow Realm could facilitate his resurrection. He felt the air warming around him. He also felt himself getting sleepy. Well ****- he thought, as the stupor took hold, and he collapsed into blackness.

He dreamed of volcanoes. He could smell the smoke coming off the black molten rock. It smelled vaguely of the time his dad had had one too many Jack and Cokes on a Sunday and had let four perfectly good ribeyes blacken into charcoal on their outdoor grill. The smell was making him sick to his stomach. The smell was him. Stryge's eyes flew open. His mind was in a daze, but the pain was real. It was a pain beyond imagining, as he looked down to see his naked body smoking and burning. For a moment he thrashed about like a drowning man, as if there was any way to escape from the sun on this exposed rooftop. Then he saw the stairs. His concentration narrowed to a needle sharp field of vision, as he attempted to crawl towards the still open door to the service stairwell, to crawl away from the inferno that his body had become. He watched pieces of raw bloody flesh peel and flake away onto the gravelly surface of the roof as he pulled himself forward. He could not find the energy to stand up to walk. A journey that should have taken a few seconds took close to a minute. That minute was an eternity of agony. Harper Rock is hell. Harper Rock is hell. Harper Rock is hell. It was the mantra that beat through his boiling brain, the cadence he marched to on his hands and knees.

Stryge reached the shade of the doorway, and with a breathless gasp, pulled himself through. His raw, naked body slipped on the top step and tumbled down the stairs to the landing between floors. Passing out was not quite the right word, because it was nothing like the oblivion that he had hoped for, the same oblivion he also hoped death would bring. Though he could not move, he continued to feel the burning pain across every inch of his charred body. What had he been thinking, that he would disappear in a puff of smoke and ash, no fuss no muss, self-cleaning vampire? What a fool he'd been. His body was a blackened bloody mess oozing on the concrete stairwell. Thankfully, most of the maintenance staff must have been laid off with the rest of the office workers. He lay there undisturbed for two whole days.

On the evening of the second day, Stryge crept gingerly up the stairs, retrieved his clothes, and disappeared once again into the night.
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Re: Invervention [Pi and Xian]

Post by Xian »

Since the night he had met the tormented vampire Stryge at Lancaster's, the vampire who called himself Xian had felt restless. He had tried to convince himself that it was just increased agitation from his lack of awareness of the other Xian's activities; after all, since their change and his creation, he had always been able to hear the (sometimes annoying) voice of his sibling of the mind. But by the time he had awakened two nights later, he had finally realized that it was a sense of foreboding, perhaps tinged with a dreadful premonition.

Had he been more like his other side, he would have contemplated the nature of premonitions, and how mortals claimed to have them all the time. But he would also observe that most mortals did so after the fact, which would lead people to reasonably believe that it was more a play on memories or an illogical emphasis on an emotion that was only remotely involved in actual events.

After all, he would think, wasn't it a common human emotion to worry? To be afraid of the future? To believe that things might go bad? Common enough that even vampires would keep the same habits despite their transformation into things that could not die.

Once he had gone through this, he would concede that vampires, especially vampires like him, who were more attuned to the vampiric ether, to the Vathia, could have premonitions. After all, countering his previous arguments, doesn't he himself have bursts of premonitions, especially if he was in danger? It had saved his neck more than once, allowing him to move quickly out of the way of a hunter's blade, or a volley of vampire-killer bullets.

He would then allow the possibility that he was, indeed, having a premonition. And then, he would consider what the premonition meant. This would involve thinking of and then crossing out the different possibilities until there would be a one left, or at least a rational few.

This was how the other Xian, the one who had been missing from their shared mind the past two months, would have handled the dark feelings and fleeting images he was experiencing. He lived on logic, reason, which was not to say that he was emotionless, but that he approached everything carefully.

The Other Xian, who believed himself to have been created as a protector of his other side, thrived on instinct, and rarely considered his actions or motivations. Time was rarely on his side, and he usually only had moments to decide and act. Inaction or hesitation could mean disaster, and he acknowledged this as simple fact.

If he did spare a few moments for self-discovery and contemplation, it was usually to acknowledge a truth he admitted to himself, to put into words something that he already considered true. A practice he did not often do because, what use were the words if he already understood and acted upon the truth behind them?

He did sometimes analyze situations, but often only to determine risk or threat. And while he would sometimes hesitate, he was still significantly quicker to action that his other side. He would deal. Whatever the situation was that he found himself, he believed he could handle it, that he would survive it. That was his purpose, or so he believed.

So when he awoke on the second night after he had met the vampire he knew as Stryge, he trusted his instincts when it told him that he had to find that tormented fool of a vampire. He didn't understand why he had to, but that didn't often stop him; he could figure it out - or not - later. He just knew what he had to do, so he didn't question it.

Perhaps there had been a sort of bond, his other self would have mused, that helped to create this premonition. Perhaps a sliver of a connection with the thought-ether and through the shared blood-curse the vampires shared.

But Xian's Other simply ran a hand through his red-tinged hair, took two of the pistols Stryge's own sire had crafted, and pulled over a large black jacket to hide them both. And before he could even consider where he was going exactly, he was out in the dark night, a great sense of urgency carrying him, to where, he did not know.
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Pi dArtois
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Re: Invervention [Pi and Xian]

Post by Pi dArtois »

“Stuart. Where are you?”

Pi stood overlooking the city. Night had barely fallen, her eyes squinting against the gloamof the fading autumn day. Pink still tinged the horizon and for a moment she could almost feel the dying rays against her face, dream once more of how it used to feel to walk in the sun, her legs bare, warmth seeping into her skin to warm her bones. Her very cold, bones.

It had been four long years since she’d walked in the sun without full body covering, from head, to toes.
And she would be the first to admit she missed it. Like tonight, as she watched those pink rays fade to murky grey, until all colour was leached from the sky and fell victim to deepening night.

Stuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuart… Pi called again, her mind reaching out to his, in a sing-song, knowing he was too young to know how to respond but trying anyway. I’m at Lancaster’s waiting for you… come back to me.” she finished, knowing her words drifted into his mind.

He’d been gone all night. Pi wasn’t the sire she had been before. She didn’t automatically assume vampires newly turned needed her every second of every night of their early transition but one whole night away concerned her. It was only the second night and a dangerous time.

There would be denial, following closely on its heels by disbelief and anger. And he would have cause to be angrier than most. His entrance into this life hadn’t been a choice he’d made, but one she’d taken for him. He had chosen death and she would wonder if it had ever been her right to take that choice away from him.

Had it been sensible to turn someone into an endless immortal who had ultimately chosen death. It seems an irony, an awful life sentence for a man who had no will to live. Gnawing on her lower lip, Pi used her tome to leave her place on the penthouse balcony, walking quickly through the portal room to Lancaster’s.

“Come on Stuart.” She muttered as she slung herself out of the office door, looking around the pub in the hopes of seeing her wayward childe. He wasn’t there.

“Dammit.” She swore, spinning on her heel to head back into the privacy of the small room behind the bar.

Carding her hair with an open palm Pi swept the mass of her forehead, sitting herself on the edge of the desk, mirroring the position she took when she’d first talked to him about buying a gun. She should feel responsible for making the weapon he’d used to kill himself. It was an irrational emotional response. The maker of a butter knife didn’t feel guilty if someone took that butter knife and used it to carve holes in another person. So why did she feel an overwhelming sense of responsibility for the actions of a man who had used one of the weapons she’d made to kill… himself.

Clutching the edge of the desk with slim fingers she stopped herself from trying to reach him through telepathy again. She knew he’d get what she sent, but stalking the man in his brain when he couldn’t respond wasn’t helpful… to anyone.

Standing Pi paced, two steps, turn and then another two. Her hand rubbed along her lips and jaw, to her neck and back again. She had options, she could wait for him to come back, or not come at all as the case may be. Or she could try the other way. The way she hadn’t tried since Robert Pratt and that unbearable betrayal of her role as his sire. She hadn’t used the power since. She had not invaded the privacy of any other her made in the way she had invaded that of her Blood Thief childe. And she didn’t want to do it now. Except.

Except she didn’t know where Stuart was. She didn’t know if he was alright, where in the city he was. Where he spent the night. If he needed help or was sitting stewing in his own misery somewhere. None of the options were good ones and as she ran through the worsening scenarios she seriously considered using the power that would tell her exactly where her wayward latest childe was.

For the first time in nearly three years, Pi seriously considered using Call to Blood.
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Re: Invervention [Pi and Xian]

Post by Stryge (DELETED 7204) »

In his new unlife, Stryge was realizing several things. The first and foremost was that he was a coward. He had been more than ready to end his life when he knew that a simple gunshot would stop the pain and guilt and the voices in a split second at most. A just a little ICBM to the heart, a nuclear strike in miniature. Pop goes the weasel. But now he was a vampire, and he was finding it exponentially harder to kill himself. And as such, he also found his commitment to his mission wavering. Exposing himself to the sun had been a complete fiasco. He had ended up saving himself anyway, driven on by pure animal instinct, his lizard brain taking hold and dragging his smoking body away from the source of the burning pain. Even now the memory of the agony he had endured that morning made him shudder. When he had finally regained some semblance of consciousness, he had considered simply not feeding. But again, his new found survival instincts were too strong, were overwhelming his will to die. His body needed blood to help recover from the trauma it had suffered from the sunlight the previous day. Moreover he was in no condition to try feed off a human. More than likely in his current condition that would simply result in discovery and...then what? He wished to die, but he had no desire to be slowly dissected in some secret government lab.

And so had staggered from the site of his epic sunburn and had continued west through darkened city streets until he found himself following a road on the outskirts of town. The fence with the words Private Property. No Poaching that separated a large wooded area from the road gave him hope. He was from Texas after all, and could recognize someone's private hunting grounds when he saw it. If a rabbit or deer ran screaming into the woods with a bloody neck because he bungled his kill, it would draw considerably less attention than some coed or businessman on a city street. He pulled his hood down further, leaving his face lost in shadows, and hopped the fence.

Despite the weakness from the sun-induced trauma, Stryge recognized the speed and strength that his vampirism had granted him. Though it took more concentration in his weakened state, he could practice moving silently through the woods woods at night, looking for a furry blood bag that he could suck dry. Under the darkened trees at night, he was all but invisible. He knew his odds were good. But he could still feel himself getting progressivly weaker. And then he spotted the rabbit. It was a chestnut brown, barely visible in the dark, but he caught the glint of moonlight filtering through the trees as it reflected off its eyes. And he could smell it. And hear its heartbeat. The hunger was heightening all of his senses to a maddening degree. Stryge crept closer to the small creature, as a refrain from long ago rang through his head; a cartoon he hadn't seen since childhood. Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd doing a parody of Wagnerian opera. Kill the rabbit, kill the rabbit, kill the rabbit...

Without a sound, Stryge lunged, his fingers sinking into soft fur. Success! But he realized too late that he had overshot his mark, and that the rabbit had actually been resting on the edge of a ravine. "Oof!" was all Stryge managed to say as he landed on the rocks twenty feet below. There was a chunk of granite digging deep into his side that he was pretty sure had broken a rib, and he appeared to have ended on the sandy shores of a creek in which his feet were now soaking. But he still had the rabbit, clutched in a deathgrip. The pain was momentarily forgotten as he sat up, fangs extended, and began to feast. As the warm blood filled his mouth and ran down his throat, Stryge heard a low snort, the sound of heavy breathing, coming from behind him. Again he flashed back to Texas, thinking it must be a javelina, and that he was in imminent danger of being gored. The truth, it turned out, was far worse.

With a deafening roar and a swipe of its massive paw, the grizzly bear sent Stryge head over heels into the water. This creature obviously had no patience for vampires intruding on its territory. From his new vantage point, Stryge could see that his tumble over the cliff had landed him right at the mouth of a cave, more than likely the shaggy brown beast's den. He was dizzy from the force of the blow, and he knew he had not gotten nearly enough blood from the rabbit. As Stryge watched the grizzly prepare to charge, he wondered if this was how it was supposed to end. And then suddenly at that moment, the bear changed tactics, and chose instead to rear up on its hind legs. Perhaps sensing the vampire was more predator than prey, perhaps attempting to avoid a full-scale confrontation by scaring him away. It was the moment Stryge needed. Once again his instincts were fully upon him. Moving without thinking, Stryge sprung from the water like an animal, leaping at the bear, and grabbing it around the neck. The giant beast roared again, but before it could rake Stryge with its claws or shake him off, Stryge's fangs were deep in its flesh, seeking out its blood, drinking and draining it in great gulps.

Within a matter of seconds the animal had become woozy and fell to the ground with a grunt, its breathing turning into a rasping whisper. Stryge reeled back, his face and mouth thick with gore. He felt the strength flowing back into him. The blood was like a drug. He had just fought a bear. A ******* bear! He had never felt so alive.

Stuart. Where are you?

Blood flew from his lips in a thick spray as Stryge whirled about, scanning the darkness for the source of the voice. He recognized it in an instant. It was Pi's.

Stuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuart…

She wasn't really there. This wasn't so much a vibration in his eardrums as an echo in his head. A psychic impression. He felt like he was having some sort of flashback. The blood in his system was reviving and reinvigorating him. It was rebooting his systems. And though he had been in a state of shock for two nights after being flambéed, these signals which had been received by his brain, and had laid dormant, were now flashing in his memory banks like bright neon.

I’m at Lancaster’s waiting for you… come back to me.

"Leave me the **** alone!" he screamed into the night, knowing it was useless, knowing she wasn't really there, and that even her voice projected across the ether was just a faded memory. He turned back to the comatose bear and began dragging it back into its den. Together they would wait for the sunrise. By that time, the bear would be dead, drained of blood, and Stryge would be able to rest as he began planning his next move.
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Re: Invervention [Pi and Xian]

Post by Xian »

Each step the Other took brought him closer to his destination, but his consciousness remained unaware of where his feet were taking him. It was almost a casual decision on his part to remain ignorant of it, though the path he took, each step and each pause, was taken with purpose and urgency. He allowed only his instincts, his subconscious, to guide his way.

For a moment, he remembered that he had once guided Xian, the other Xian, the "real" Xian, much in this way. And he wondered, just for that moment, if there was another guiding his steps, who was fully aware of where he had to go, and what he had to do. But the moment passed, and he pressed on.

Though he was unaware of where he was going, he didn't allow his ignorance to distract him, and he remained fully aware of the world around him. Alert and wary as usual, it had become part of his nature, part of his purpose, to not let his guard down. He had learned the hard way that the city could be unkind, especially to those like him.

He did consider these streets he walked on this night to ba safer than other places in the city. It was early evening, and people, those who were living and far more unaware than he, still walked in the open. Heading home, or to dinner, or to drinks, or to a hundred different other things the living did. Some of their thoughts bled into his own, but he blocked them out, background noise from those ignorant of the shadows that walked around and among them.

"Ignorance is bliss," the Other whispered, barely noticing he had said anything at all.

When he had started walking, he had avoided thinking about why he was going. He rarely practiced contemplation of any sort, at least those that questioned his motivations and actions. At best, his struggle to put things into words only happened to make clear a choice he had already made, and only after the fact. But, with little else to occupy his mind, he finally gave in.

Neither he nor Xian, had ever had the urge to sire. He believed that they never would, though he did leave the tiniest chance that it could happen. Xian had questioned why vampires would ever sire more, questioned the paranormal psychology and biology that compelled others of his kind to create others of his kind. And he found none of those motivations in him, none of the desires that he saw around him.

His other had come to the same conclusion to never sire, thinking in terms of advantage and gain. He was not a selfish vampire by any means, but he did recognize that having a childe required that one teaches them about their new life, something that took time and effort. And while he did have an affection for the others in his bloodline, he did admit to a certain selfishness when it came to his time.

And yet, here he was, racing through the streets for a young vampire that was neither of his blood, nor someone that he had known for long. Perhaps if it had been one of the others, the progeny of Keara, or even of Enver, he would not question his haste or his determination. They were kin, and he believed that one helped their kin.

But Stryge? What had drawn him to cross the sea of people to join him in his shadowed table. Yes, Stryge had acted unusually, especially when he had called the Other out for watching him. Was it amusement, or boredom, that had brought him to that shared table? Or perhaps it was a form of kinship that he had recognized by instinct, even when his conscious self was unaware of it?

Was it only because they had shared the same kind of death? Or because neither had chosen this state they were now in? Or was it, as he had told himself then. simple curiosity?

After all, curiosity had made him do many things in the past months. Curiosity about his limits, about his city, about the many creatures living and otherwise. As true as this answer was, something nagged at him that told him that this answer as incomplete. A half-truth to sate his thirst for an answer. So as his feet pressed on, so did his mind.

Did he feel sorry for this young vampire, new to his blood and to his need for it? Did he see, in that fiery look that he gave his own sire, something that evoked pity? No, not pity, the word was wrong. Empathy? Was it empathy? He tried the word on, and as unusual as it seemed, it fit loosely, but seemed true.

Disturbed by his own thoughts, he shook them off and realized he was starting to have a dim awareness of where he was heading. He recognized the path as one he had taken many times before. And when he finally was forced to pause at a street corner as a car raced past, he realized where he was going.

Really? He thought to himself. And he shrugged.

It made some sense, and again he wondered if there was another hand working, one that resided in his own mind. He almost didn't take the step off the curb to cross the street, almost hesitated. But he trusted himself, and took the next step, and all the ones after it.

He shelved the thoughts about his own empathy, and turned instead to considering a plan. But what to plan for? A plan recognized a goal, identified the desired end. Without it, one couldn't possibly create the steps that could even remotely be considered a plan. It would be a staircase to emptiness, or, worse, a staircase that zigged and zagged this way and that. A pointless waste of effort.

There had been nothing specific in his premonition, except that he needed to find Stryge. There was an element of a threat, but didn't identify what that threat was. He would have to remain attentive and observant, he decided. Having no real plan wasn't new to him, but it didn't mean he shouldn't figure out what he had to do to begin with.

Another sigh escaped his lips as he realized he may have to do more talking before the night was through. And he realized, that's what may have started this whole thing anyway. What had caused him to tell a suicidal vampire that he may never die? That he would return, and return, over and over?

Not one of his best decisions, though it was something he had done more out of instinct.

Lancaster's. Having finally arrived, he again mused at how much time he had been spending there these past few months. He stepped inside, prepared to look for the tormented vampire he had seen just two nights past.

It was early, and the bar wasn't as full as it would be later on in the night, but there were still already quite a few people. Some, he recognized as regulars, mortals that enjoyed the ambiance of the place, likely unknowing that the things that went bump in the night stayed here as well. For a moment, he wondered, and not for the first time, what these living would do if they found out if they often shared tables and drinks with the not-dead?

He turned back to his task, and looked quickly from table to table, to the bar stools, and even to the shadowed corners where one of his kind might make himself remain unobserved. But the vampire he was looking for was not here. But, he realized, he wasn't really expecting him to be.

He sighed again, finally realizing what he was here for. Rather, who he was here for.

He had found out that night that she was the sire of the pained soul that called himself Stryge. It had even made it clearer why he had been looking at her with venom for most of the night. So, it made sense that, barring finding the vampire himself, it would be good to find his sire.

Still, she wasn't at the bar, where she normally played at mixing drinks. He considered reaching out with his mind to her, then wondered why not reach out to Stryge. No, something told him, and he listened to his instincts. It would have to be her.

He hesitated for a moment, and became annoyed at himself for it. It was something he did not do often, and yet he had caught himself many times just this night. He had never avoided speaking with her, though the few times they had spoken it had been about business, with little idle talk. So he was unsure if he could consider them friends; a professional relationship, definitely.

Well, there was a chance that she knew where her childe was, and a better chance that she knew about any possible threats to his person. As his sire, she would be concerned about his well-being, unless she was among those who didn't. But she had never come across as someone quite like that.

Ah well, he said. She would need to be told. He'd told a suicidal vampire that he could never die. He'd have to pay for that, may as well get over it.

He reached out with his mind to the lady of the house. Pi, are you here? I've something to tell you. He followed this with the best image of Stryge he could send.
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Pi dArtois
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Re: Invervention [Pi and Xian]

Post by Pi dArtois »

Pi paced inside her office then stopped, standing still and staring at the wall opposite. There was a painting hanging there, a left over remnant of a yard sale. It was hung crooked, as if the noise from the opposite wall where bottles clinked along the heavily laden shelves had knocked it off its wonky axis.

She had made some very bad decisions as a sire. That among many were the reasons she stood frozen in place, her pacing mimicking her prevarication about what to do next. In the past she had made the wrong choices, had pulled the wrong strings only to stand there shocked as the house of cards she’d erected fell around her well-meaning feet.

She hadn’t come into this life knowing everything she needed to know and for the first few years after her change her decisions had been based on self-constructed attempts at trial and error. There were things she understood to be true about herself and about how she knew the city politics flowed and from her knowledge of those things she had attempted to guide those she had turned.
Not all of her choice were… good ones

In some cases, to be fair, most cases, she was completely and utterly wrong about all of it. She had more inactive or dead childer than actively thriving. She could count on one hand the childer she could turn around and call on the telephone. The rest had faded away, their stories left abandoned, their lives an eternity but none of that eternity included her. And for all those loses she felt a keen sense of failure. Like a new parent she hadn’t come into this life knowing exactly how she was meant to act, or inherently know how she was meant to do.

The childer she had turned were as helpless to cope as any other new born. There were new rules, new laws, new laws of physics. But how did you parent adults who had minds of their own? How did you attempt to guide people who sometimes proved older than yourself? In that way, she wasn’t their parent, and they were not her children. They were fully developed rational adult humans, and they too, hadn’t always made the best decisions for herself.

Which was why she was standing in the office at Lancaster’s staring at the wall as if it would grow a mouth and tell her the next step in this mad dance. There was no turning back from the power she held over Stuart. There was no taking back the gift of life she had given a made who was intent on taking it for himself. But she could make the decision to be present and accounted for, to remain an active participant in what he was going through.

And for hells sake, it had only been two damn days. Surely it was well within her scope to worry just a little about the fact he appeared to be missing in action.

Turning on her heel Pi stalked to the door of her office, her hand on the handle, the twist of her wrist already unlatching it from the lock face when she received the mental call. Her eyebrow arched high at the words in her head, tilting to the side as she listened intently.

Telepathy wasn’t like speaking face to face with another person. You didn’t get the emotional cues. There were no facial expressions or eyes you could hold to gauge the depth of their honesty. But much like a voice, the mental mind held a signature. For lack of a better description she figured it was much like a vocal voice, but without the vocal bit, and inside your head. However it worked, Pi knew who was speaking when they spoke. Hell, she knew who it was, even if she had never met them before, as if the act of doing telepathic magic came with a ‘user calling card’.

Xian? Pi answered telepathically.

Pulling on the door she’d already unlatched Pi slung herself out of the office into the bar. Where are….. she spoke telepathically as she moved, letting the door slam closed behind her. Searching the space before her gaze slammed into the man she had known only through the sale of guns.

… you

Stopping abruptly Pi let the last word dribble off in her mind, the sentence ending in a mental sigh as she spotted the slim man. If she hadn’t been so worried about Stryge, Pi would have taken a second or two to wonder at the irony of where this was going. Xian was the first to have bought two of her guns, a connoisseur. Here was a man who had bought two of her weapons and at no time had she needed to clean his blood off floor and sheets because he’d made the damn fool decision to off himself. It seemed fitting he would be the one to contact her about her newly turned.

She didn’t question the coincidence, instead she fell in beside the male, still moving out the door of the club, continuing to speak into his mind because what she had to say was not something that could be heard by twitchy human ears.

”I’ve been trying to … talk to him. I have an idea about how to find him.” Letting this next door close behind them Pi turned to Xian, standing in the annex between the pub proper and the darkened street outside.

”If we can get to a ritual table I can … find him.. With Call to Blood.”

It was amazing how the appearance of another could galvanise. Pi hadn’t made a decision about how she would find Stuart, until she Xian and realised her prevarication about methods could mean the man she’d just turned was left to fend for himself another night on the street. And that was unacceptable. Pulling her coat over her shoulders Pi turned up the collar, wrapping the scarf under her chin before indicating out the door.

“Would you care to join me?” She asked, finally speaking out loud, her tone that of a woman who could be asking someone out for something as mundane as tea.
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Re: Invervention [Pi and Xian]

Post by Stryge (DELETED 7204) »

Night and day had permanently traded places for Stryge. As the sun went down, his day now began. It was amazing how quickly he had adjusted to this change in schedule. There was none of the jet lag from, say, switching to the graveyard shift or pulling an all-nighter. His new body had simply flipped a switch, completely reversing his circadian rhythm. He rose with the moon, and surveyed the grisly scene before him with better than average eyesight. Even in the dim light of the cave, he could see the large carcass of the bear. It looked strangely deflated, or mummified. Not surprising, as every drop of blood had been drained from its body. He had come to the realization upon entering the cave the previous night as to why the bear had been so aggressive in defending its territory. Inside the den, Stryge had found three young cubs. Stryge was just sentimental enough to feel sorry for the cute little things, but the fact was, they would not survive long without their mother. And he still needed to feed.

Despite the fact that the animal blood worked in his system at about half the efficiency of what human blood would have done, he realized quickly that blood was exactly what he had needed to heal from his fourth degree burns. He could already feel the hair growing back on his head, and much of the pain that had plagued him since his day in the sun was finally abating. He walked out into the moonlight and stood at the shore of the creek. Stripping off his jacket and shirt, he washed the dried blood from his face. Looking down at his arms and chest, he saw that almost all evidence of the harsh burns he had suffered were gone. He watched the moonlight reflect off of the rippling water, wishing he could still see his own reflection. He felt that looking himself in the eye right now could be very important.

It was curious how his burn scars were disappearing, and yet on his chest, the dime sized hole left by Pi's Fareye pistol still persisted, with no evidence that it would ever disappear. For that matter, there was still a scar on his hand from when he had dramatically sliced it open while making a point to Xian about his own inhumanity. That had been at Lancasters, only three days ago, and yet it felt like a lifetime now. Why did he retain those scars but not (thankfully) the scars from his hellish suntan? Curiouser and curiouser. Thinking of Lancasters pub at that moment also reminded Stryge of Pi, and of the memory of her voice, calling his name, which had plagued him the night before. So she was looking for him, eh? Was the guilt of what she'd done finally setting in? Or perhaps Xian had spoken with her. He did not even know if the two vampires knew each other, but considering he had left Xian sitting at Pi's establishment, there seemed a good likelihood that they had conversed.

Zipping his jacket up again, he turned to survey the best route back up the embankment over which he had done a header the night before. He saw the ridge level out about one hundred yards down the length of creek. A little out of his way, but once he could get back to higher ground, he was confident in his ability to find his way back to the road. Along with various other abilities and skills, it seemed that his directional sense had greatly improved since becoming a vampire. In fact, as he observed the shore of the creek, even in the dim moonlight, he realized he could read with a good deal of accuracy the comings and goings of various animals, including the now deceased bear. The overall impression he was beginning to get was that being a vampire beat being a human all to ****. He wondered why everyone didn't do it. With dismay he realized that thoughts like this were further eroding the determination he had built up to end his own life. He had clung so hard to that mission, such that watching it slip from him now was like watching a lover leaving, never to return. He felt lost without the desire to die.

It did not take away from the vitriol for his sire that continued to boil in his belly. It was still, after all, her fault that he now found himself in this predicament. The bullet hole in his chest was the proof he would carry with him that the ruthless and efficient plan he had enacted to end his own life would have succeeded if it wasn't for her intervention. If she was looking for him, then maybe he should just let her find him. Perhaps it was finally time to settle this. Stryge emerged from the dark forest, and for the second time hopped the fence that separated the private hunting grounds from the road. As he stepped onto the shoulder of the black top, he saw headlights coming from the south, heading his direction. What the hell, why not? he thought, and stuck out his thumb. He doubted anyone would be dumb enough to pick up a fella looking like him. He even left his hood up, just in case the ravages of the sun had not been totally erased from his features.

To Stryge's surprise, the vehicle actually slowed as it came within view of him, pulling over to the shoulder where he was standing. ******* Canadians, he thought, chuckling to himself and shaking his head. He opened the passenger door of a beat up old pick up truck. "Howdy," he grinned cordially at the driver as he prepared to climb in. The back of the truck was covered with a tarp, but Stryge could smell something; blood. Not human though, an animal of some kind, probably a big one, like a deer. Looks like I wasn't the only one out poaching in these woods tonight, he thought.

Stryge closed the door and turned to face his good samaritan. He was a jovial looking man, probably in his early fifties, with dark curly hair and beard. He smiled at Stryge, but his eyes looked serious, and even a little sad. "It's not real safe to be hitchiking around here, y'know? Some of the animals in these parts can be dangerous." Not as dangerous as me, bucko, thought Stryge. "'I appreciate the advice sir, and the ride. Been staying in town a few days, decided to stretch my legs, and got myself a bit lost. Stuart Giger," Stryge extended a hand to the man.

"Paul Scovel," the man responded, shaking the proferred hand. "Where can I take ya?"

Paul Scovel spoke with that extra layer of vowel on his words that marked him as a local. "Well Paul, I tell ya, I don't mean to make you go out of your way here. If you're heading back to town, you just go where you're going, and wherever you stop, I'll hoof it from there." Scovel retained his smile, but looked a little wary of Stryge's response. He put the truck into gear and started heading down the road. "I'm headed home for the night. I live in the Crown Trailer Park just up the way here. I'll drop you at the entrance, but hopefully you won't mind if I don't drive you right up to my front door step." Paul Scovel glanced at Stryge with an appraising look that said he really didn't give a rat's *** if Stryge minded or not. Stryge nodded his affirmation and smiled, watching the trees go by in the truck's headlights.

Within minutes they were pulling up a gravel drive. Between two iron poles was suspended the rusting sign that pronounced that they had indeed made it to the Crown Trailer Park. Paul Scovel pulled just inside the gate and stopped short. "Well, here we are. Best of lu-" His words were cut short by Stryges fangs in his neck. Guk was the only noise he managed to get out, as the blood drained out of his body and into the vampire's. Dear god, the blood. It felt so good to be drinking human blood again. Stryge felt like his body was supercharged, like it was uncut Colombian being drawn out by his fangs instead of blood. With an act of sheer will, he pulled himself off of the man, who simply stared ahead glassy eyed. Don't want to kill the old poacher. The wound on Paul Scovel's neck had already begun to heal, but apparently the shock was a little much for the older man, and he slumped forward in his seat. That was when Stryge heard the scream.

"Dad!" A young woman with curly blonde hair in a tank top and cut offs was standing in the truck's headlights. Oh you've gotta be shittin' me! Stryge thought with a groan as he jumped from the cab. "M'am," he began, then realized quickly that the story he was preparing was not going be of any use. From the look of hate in her eyes, he could surmise that if Scovel's daughter hadn't seen the whole thing, she had certainly seen enough. She was holding a basket of clothes. Just behind her, kitty corner to the trailer park entrance, was a double wide with a clothes lines out front and a ectangle of light coming from an open front door. Not dropping me at his front step, my ***! Stryge grimaced. He lives at the goddamn front of the trailer park!

In the split second from when he exited the cab of the truck, Stryge put together the pieces and acted. With uncanny speed fueled by fresh blood, Stryge surged towards the girl. "No!" was all she had time to say before his hand was clamped over her mouth and his arms around her chest and neck. He dragged her back into her open trailer, the basket dropping to ground and scattering clothes over the gravel. Somewhere in the back of his mind Stryge knew that vampires couldn't enter private residences without being invited. But somehow he seemed to be able to enter this trailer through sheer force of will. Every light in the place seemed to be glaring brightly as the vampire and his hostage crossed the threshold, but another of Stryge's dark powers kicked in instinctively, and by closing his eyes and concentrating, Stryge seemed to envelope every room of the trailer in thick darkness. He kicked the door closed behind him. "Shhh, now listen to me darlin. I'm not gonna hurt you, but you gotta do exactly as I say if either of us is gonna get out of this in one piece."

It was sheer luck that there did not appear to be a Mrs. Scovel or other children in the trailer to further complicate things. However, that was about the only good thing about the situation. Paul Scovel lay unconscious in the cab of his still-running truck for all the world to see. A trail of clothes would lead anyone with half a brain to the trailer where Stryge was currently standing in the dark with his hand clamped over the mouth of Scovel's daughter, dreading the inevitable scream that would bring holy hell down on his head.

Well Stryge old buddy, you surely have got yourself into it this time...
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Xian
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Re: Invervention [Pi and Xian]

Post by Xian »

If he didn't know himself better, Xian's Other would have thought that he was feeling guilty. It would be the most natural reaction, after all, at least from a human standpoint. He'd been the one to tell an obviously suicidal vampire that he could probably never find the oblivion he sought in death, that their kind always came back, eventually.

At least that's what he might have thought if maybe he was still human. Or if he bothered to consider his motivations this night. While he had allowed himself the luxury of self-contemplation the night before, tonight, he had other things to occupy his mind.

The night before, she had asked him if he was willing to join her, and he had not even needed to think about it. He often had these moments of clarity, and he understood automatically that whatever sense of urgency had brought him to Lancaster's meant for him to aid Pi in whatever way he could. Xian may have wondered if this was the Vathia at work, but his Other merely accepted it without question.

As they had walked through the city away from the bar, it took only moments for him to admit his fault, and for her to tell him her plan: she would use a ritual to bring her missing childe to her side, wherever he was. He had wondered briefly at this ritual, and whether it would be similar in effect to the fade portals he had become very familiar with. Or maybe Stryge would be compelled against his will to come to her?

He had left his questions unanswered, his curiosity set aside. He knew that he would find out soon enough.

He didn't understand much about rituals; Xian, the "real" Xian, had once considered studying the mysteries that bound fae to vampire in these complicated magics, but he had never found the time. Even had he not been missing, he would have been no real help this night.

On the other hand, the Other had simply considered it beyond what he needed to learn. He only knew that rituals needed altars, and often a host of other ingredients as well. And that somehow it made the fae compliant to a vampire's specific needs.

Complicated, he had once admitted to nobody but the air. Though useful, he added to himself.

It was those ingredients that would be his part in the Call to Blood ritual Pi would perform. He wasn't exactly sure why Pi had asked him, but suspected it was some form of penance for his role. Perhaps she had other preparations to make that he didn't understand as well. Again, he didn't bother to ask.

Their steps had taken them to the altar that she planned to use, a hidden place known only to their kind. Then she had told him that he had the rest of the night to find what she needed, and that the ritual would be performed the next night. So he had simply nodded and left without another word.

Given a task to do, he had set himself fully to accomplishing it.

The first item on the list was easy enought; he had stumbled upon a small cache of chemicals during one of his nightly wanderings. For some reason lost to him, he had kept them hidden securely, instead of selling them off to the black market dealer his mind registered as "Bob;" more than likely not his real name. He made sure they were still safe, took them to his rented apartment, and continued on.

The second and third items had required more skill and a little bit of luck as well. He had raced through the sewer system and emerged in the middle of the Quarantine Zone. He found his prey there, hidden among the mobs of walking dead.

He had faced a feral vampire before, back in the early months of his change. Xian had been wandering the quarantine zone then, but he had been at the back of his mind, watching, waiting, knowing his role, and suspecting he would play it soon. So when the feral attacked, he was there to take Xian's place and keep them safe.

It happened much in the same way: the feral had charged him with little thought, but he was ready. He secured it without killing it, limbs maimed, but body more or less intact. Outright killing it would have meant losing the items he needed from it. It had taken longer than he thought it would, but he finally managed to take some blood and a fang, before he lost fingers to the enraged almost mindless vampire.

The fourth would have been tricky, but he managed to find one among his small network of contacts who promised to find him one before the night was over. They scheduled a meet before sunrise, and he moved on to the final item on the list.

He had been thinking about searching for one in one of the pawnshops in the city, though he was concerned that few would carry such a mundane item. There was too little value in it, after all, and most would not bother to pawn it. And yet, as he emerged from the sewers that had taken him away from the Quarantine Zone, he was already planning his path towards the nearest pawnshop.

That was when he had spied the muted flash of silver on what he had first thought was a pile of rags. The ring was a lucky find, but it was in the hands, or, rather, the finger, of one of the city's homeless.

As he had looked down on the sleeping, snoring form, he thought first to simply take it and be done. And yet, some hint of compassion made him reach into his pockets for some bills, and then a second time for good measure. The Other had then pressed them into the man's hand, as he took the dirty silver ring from his finger with great care.

As he held his prize up to the street lights, he'd wondered if this was some keepsake, if it had some value that was beyond what it cost in dollars and cents. Had it been given by a loved one, a reminder of days past, of glories never again to see? Or was it stolen from another, and kept as the last precious hope of a hopeless man?

He never thought long on such things, however, and he had finally just shrugged. His compassion had its limits, and his need outweighed the man's possible sentimentality. Besides, the bills in his hand were more than enough to take him off the streets, at least for a while.

He had met his man briefly an hour before sunset, the dirt and grime of the sewers and even some of the feral's blood still on him. This was not new to his contact, who ignored it, and took the money for the lion's hide he had procured. The Other hadn't bothered to ask where it came from, and they both disappeared into the night.

His day-sleep had been restless, and he awoke stiffer than usual when the sun came down. It didn't bother him, but he did acknowledge that it might slow him down just a fraction if things ended up pear-shaped. He kept that knowledge in the back of his mind and packed what he had collected into an old large duffel bag.

He looked at his hands, the sludge and grime of the sewers still on them, and he frowned. He had been too lazy the night before, especially with the sun about to rise, but he grudgingly allowed himself a quick shower, and a change of clothes. Cleaner, if only by degrees, he took only his pistol Aqi, and a jacket to hide her in, as he left the rented apartment that passed for his lair.

His steps were quick and sure, and he reached the designated altar to find Pi already there and waiting. He sighed. It was the fourth night since he had first spoken with Stryge, and the Other wondered where the suicidal childe of Pi's was at that moment. It was a passing thought, and barely a question, but a tiny voice inside him, one he didn't quite hear, but one that had been there from the start, whispered, "Vegas!"

The tiny voice laughed at its own mischief, but the Other thought nothing of it. Background noise, he reasoned, an echo of his telepathy. The voice vanished once more into the void in his mind, waiting, as it always did.

"I'm here," he said, and placed the duffel carefully near the altar.
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