Nothing Compares [Vera]

[Lancaster]

Lancaster grunted, a sign of disappointment that Vera could not see herself in the mirror. It would have made things a lot easier, were she able to. She wouldn’t have always looked so alive, but she would have been the same as Lancaster. She would have been Allurist. Taking the mirror away and putting it face down on the table nearby, Lancaster switched the knife to his right hand.

”Okay. You’re not an Allurist. I can try something else, now, which will either confirm or rule out Shadow,” he said, hesitating with the sharp edge of the knife. He could feel Vera’s confusion – he was getting ahead of himself. Explanations were required.

”See, when we’re turned we start out with a particular set of powers and abilities. Someone, long ago, did a lot of research. There are six paths, and though we don’t know for sure why we land on the paths we do, we conclude that it must have something to do with who we were as humans. We become… super versions of ourselves, everything heightened,” he explained.

”I’m an Allurist. I suppose, because I’m a performer, I’m sociable. It made sense. Allurists are the only Path that can see themselves in the mirror. Shadows… shadows have black blood. If I can just nick your skin, we can see…” he said, flicking the knife’s blade up and waggling it back and forth slightly, non-threateningly.

The woman had been shot. Lancaster needed to be careful about waving weapons around.

[Vera (DELETED 8679)]

Nodding slightly, the woman tried to make sense of it all. It wasn't that it was hard to follow, but rather how surreal the whole situation still felt and the amount of information being thrown her way. Vera was still struggling to process everything as it only felt like a few moments ago she had been walking past the bar and heading home with none of this on her mind. Yet she had been held hostage and shot before...wait. What about the ambulance that had been called? One can't just simply tell them that it had been a false alarm based upon the pool of blood that had been left, not only that but explaining that her life (or what remained of it) was only intact because she had been turned into a vampire?

The past forty-eight hours had been rather mind boggling.

Pushing all that into the back of her mind along with the other question that had arose, she rolled up the bloodied sleeve of her right arm; it stiff due to the substance having dried already. Once her arm was exposed and although flinching slightly as he swung the knife around, the pub's owner would nick the inside just enough to draw blood, what exited the wound wasn't red. Hell, it didn't look like blood at all. It was black, darker even, appearing to suck all the light out of a given area. Not only that but it didn't flow but rather hang in the air momentarily before fading, it making Vera believe she was tripping than anything else. "I'm assuming this is the answer you're looking for?" She asked, her tone a mix of various emotions, impossible to pick out one or the other.

[Lancaster]

Triumphant, Lancaster nodded.

”Yes, that’s what I was looking for,” he said, watching as her blood dispersed. It wasn’t the same path as Lancaster’s, but he’d been around long enough to know enough about it. He knew the basics, at least, which meant that he could be useful to Vera. And anything that he did not know, they would figure out together. He at least had contacts that he could approach – if not real ones, the wraiths were sometimes down for a chat.

”This makes our job a bit easier. You are a Shadow,” he repeated, pieces sliding together in his assessment of his new childe. Paths were sometimes a direct indication of a person’s personality, the very basic building blocks of who they are.

”You’ll be able to command the shadows, eventually. You can use them to blanket yourself from sight, so you won’t be seen unless someone happens to stumble right into you,” he said. For all the things that he hated about being a vampire, he had to admit, sometimes, that there were cool things, too.

”You’ll be able to… walk on water, and slip into people’s houses without having to even touch the door. Your shadow can become a weapon…” he said. Some of these things he was capable of, and others he’d seen Pi use. When Pi came back – he had to tell himself it was when and not if – she’d be a better authority on the Shadow world. For now, he and Vera would just have to take things one step at a time.

[Vera (DELETED 8679)]

As Lancaster told her this, Vera thought it over carefully. These were mind boggling, impossible things that had apparently just become within reach. Although they sounded much to good to be without some sort of cost or drawback. Aside from loosing her humanity and being undead of sorts. "Alright..." she began slowly, similar to a student trying to understand a new concept they learned from their teacher in a classroom. "But....what are the drawbacks to these things? There has to be something aside from the painfully obvious..." The woman trailed off, still tossing and turning the influx of information over in her mind.

[Lancaster]

Oh, there were plenty of drawbacks. But Lancaster had to be careful. He didn’t want to scare Vera, but nor did he want to tell her too little. He didn’t want to be blamed later on if she discovered something that he had been remiss in telling her because he wanted to be liked. There was every chance she was going to be disdainful of his existence anyway. He might not have been the one who shot her, but she might decide that immortality was worse than death.

”It’s different for everyone,” he said, easing into the answer.

”You might find that there are none. You might… like it. But – you can’t go out in the sun. You can’t eat anymore, or drink anything but blood. There might be a natural violence in you, something horrific that you’ll have to temper and control. In the beginning, especially, the bloodlust can be hard to resist…” he said, eyes downcast and barely hopeful. This was the hard part.