Renewing old acquaintances [OPEN]

[Doc]

Reviewing patient records and updating them, had to be the worst part of this job. The patients were all insane. They were legally and criminally insane. They were never seeing the light of day again. But he had to, by law, review and notate every patient record, every fourteen days. Normally he would have his ‘wife’ do that. She was a licensed therapist. Normally this was her job.

Except.

Cyril ******* fired her. In February! It was November. Doc snarled once more under his breath. The Asylum was out of compliance by sixteen notations, per patient. Oh sure, Mother Superior, who ran the place while he wasn’t there, had notated the records. She was a Registered Nurse. Medically the files were quite well documented. But legally, an RN’s notations were not acceptable, unless the patient had a medical issue. These were ‘mental’ patients. Therefore it needed a Psychologist or a Medical Doctor to do all the notations. And since Cyril fired.. His Psychologist, that mean ‘he’ needed to update all the records.

Except.

No one ******* told him, Cyril had fired his Wife. Cyril assumed, albeit wrongly, that Doc’s wife would tell Doc, and ***** at him to hire her back. Except she didn't. And Doc was therefore, ignorant of the fact that his wife had been fired. Joy. The sarcasm dripped like heavy honey, even in his thoughts.

Yes. The last eight months had been blissfully silent without the Ball and Chain screaming into his head or whining that she got ******* shot again, and needed to be stitched up. The woman was a cop magnet. He had no idea what she did to get on the radar of so many cops.. But she could barely walk down a single block without a cop firing on her. Cops firing on citizens.. In Canada! What the ****!? In the United States? Sure.. everyone carried a ******* gun. But here? Where the worst thing most people did was curse?

Doc couldn’t help but smirk at his own thoughts as his tenth grade instruction scolded him. ‘Golly Gee Charles, you used a right vulgar word there, eh?’ Doc remembered how he had nodded right back that the instructor and said, ‘I ******* did, sir.’. That instructor never called on him in class again.

He brought his thoughts back to the present, closing the last file for the night. Doc would tackle the rest of the files tomorrow evening. He was about to make his way to the basement, and slide out via a portal he had placed there, when he heard the Mother Superior telling someone, “Yes.. the Doctor is in..”

****.

[Raven Talius]

[WEARING]

To say that raven had all but tracked the man down was... An over statement to say in the least. The vampire had read that Doc was running for some kind of office and decided to pay him a visit. After all, it seemed as if everyone had thought that she had gone off and died somewhere. Her phone worked but it seemed like no one had cared enough to even bother to see if she was alive. They were all too busy dealing with the vampires coming to light issue. An issue that Raven had deliberately disappeared amongst. Like seriously, who wanted an unhinged serial killer roaming the streets looking to kill a human nearly every night while talks of peace was going down.

Frankly, if Raven got shot less, she wouldn't have to kill so much. Damn ignorant humans just going around shooting whatever vampire they saw in sight.

However, today she came bearing gifts, at least, a gift that she thought that she could palm off to someone else. Strays had a knack for finding her and begging for scraps. It had gotten a little out of hand. So she decided to do something about it and clutched within her pale hands was an old cardboard box and she carried it down the hallways of the asylum much to the dismay of whatever help that Doc enlisted. For the vampire was more than happy to ignore them and pass them by as she followed the hallways to a door that would eventually be Doc's. That was until she finally gave up and decided to just ask some silly human for Doc.

The doctor? She silently queried before rolling her brown eyes. Mazes bored the woman, so she leaned her left shoulder against the wall and simply called out to the man. "Doc, leave whoever that you are screwing and get your *** out here. I come bearing gifts!" The box shifted slightly within her grasp and she tightened her grip upon it, making sure that the flaps covered up the surprise within. A surprise that came in the form of a kitten. A kitten that had been begging her for food for the past couple of night whenever she visited The Handle bar and loosely tied around its neck was a pink ribbon that she had stolen from some little girl.

Whether Doc realised that it was Raven or not, was the next question. Did he even remember her anymore? Or was she a ghostly memory like it seemed she was for a great deal of people.

[Doc]

Having heard the comment about screwing someone, Doc lifted an eyebrow. That comment alone, meant the person knew him. He narrowed his eyes. It wasn’t the ex-wife. He hadn’t heard from her. And the voice, though feminine, was far too husky for the ex-Ball and Chain. Pushing himself away from the desk, he stood and moved to the door of his office. He paused. It wasn’t the ex. But he recognized the voice. ‘Bearing gifts’ she said. He mentally ticked off the various females that wanted to shoot him. A bullet could be, construed as a gift to the mentally deranged, and he was in an Asylum. One thing he knew. It was not the ex-wfie. Lia? Maybe? No, it wasn't her. Not Mortll. Not Ariadne.

Narrowing his eyes, someone working on behalf of one of them? To **** up his campaign? Or to **** him up generally? **** it.. He wouldn't find out by staying in his office. If whoever she was, shot him, well he could spin it to work for him, for the campaign.. Hopefully. As he headed to the reception area, he glanced down and idly thought, ‘At least I’m not wearing the Italian suit.’

Turning the corner to enter the reception area, he got his first look at his visitor. He smirked. “Raven. I thought you were lost to the fade.” He glanced at the box she held, his smirk becoming more of a wary query. From the scrabbling noises emanating from it, he knew it was an animal. Was it hurt? He wasn’t a animal doctor. But most people presumed.. A doctor is a doctor.

Stepping closer, but still not taking the box, “If it’s hurt, it needs a vet. I cut on people .. not animals.” He then canted his head to the side and gave her a good thorough up and down look. “You look good .. where have you been?”

[Raven Talius]

Brown eyes slowly drifted over Doc's form and perked a brow at his comment. "As much as I love the fade, Clover would probably do something stupid if she knew that I was there." A roll of her eyes was given before she shook her head. Oh she had thought about it, just sitting there in limbo, drifting through the dark shadows as they twisted and twine around her form. However, the last time that she had been there, it was consistently being disturbed. People trying to pull her out when all she wanted to do was stay. The call was there, but whether people realised it or not, she did things for others.

"It's not hurt. It just needs to stop pestering me. Strays just somehow seem to find me even after all this time." The vampire remarked as she yawned and permanent fangs glinted under the glaring light. "As for where I've been. Well it seems no one really cared until now. There really isn't any point to having a mobile phone even if it is a two way street..." Raven said as the kitten softly meowed, followed by more scratches at the box.

She chuckled then as she lifted a hand to pat Doc on the shoulder, "But you've been busy I see, being a people's man. I don't envy you that position. Although some humans who are missing a few brain cells could be sectioned off in some derelict part of the town so then I could have a snack." In Raven terms, snack was more or less kill. Feeding without killing was difficult. It always had been. For she had this urge to kill, one that had been growing steadily for days now. An urge that she would probably have to scratch eventually, but she needed the right target. One that wouldn't be missed.

Suddenly the vampire snapped her fingers then, "Now that I think about it, you had a similar itch. Tell me, how do you get by? Especially when you're in the spotlight?"

[Doc]

Doc was about to reply to Raven’s comment about her sire, when he heard the plaintive mew, and he knew immediately it was a kitten. He then took the box. Raven was speaking as he opened the box to see a possibly ten week old kitten trying to scale the cardboard box to get out. He retrieved the kitten and cradled it. He started rubbing it under it’s chin. The kitten’s motor turned on, and it’s whole body seemed to vibrate from the force. The action caused Doc to grin openly.

At Raven’s comment about the mentally disabled and her need for a feed, he nodded, “Just don’t get caught.” His voice was absent, as he rubbed the kitten’s ears, and checked it over for issues. “Use the same patient, every time. That way it is a whole lot easier to write it off as a paranoid delusion located to one inmate, than to a facility that has been targeted by the vampire population.”

More checking of the kitten revealed it as a female. “It’s a girl..” Doc grinned at Raven. “What shall we name her?” The question wasn’t pointed, it was a musing type question, before Doc finally turned his full attention back to Raven at her last question. “Loaded question.” Doc nodded and pondered, how much detail did she want? Versus, how much detail did he wish to give?

“We are in a precarious situation here. Vampires are no longer secret. No longer hidden. The genie has left that bottle. ****; the genie smashed that bottle on the way out. Humans outnumber us a hundred thousand to one in this province. Millions to one on a global scale. There is no way we could win in a war. None. We could hide. Spend eternity hoping they forgot about us. To be picked off one by one over time. But we will never have full freedom, until we are recognized by the human’s own laws.” He gave her a look, “The thought, that I and those I care about would be put asunder, made to hide, to be hunted.. Is what helps me cope. I am doing what I can to see to our future. To make a place for us in that future. A future that isn’t one of hiding.”

The kitten finally settled down and was drifting into sleep, as he continued to stroke it. Doc gave Raven a very pointed look, “Vampires are at odds. The Admin..” He wanted to add he didn’t trust him as far as he could push him, “wants Vampires to start a war and obliterate the Sirens.” Doc shook his head. “What would the humans do .. if the sirens and Vampires went to war? They would ******* kill us All. We need peace. We need alliances. We need recognition under human law. Until we have that.. We are just one.. ‘John Wayne Gacy Vampire’ away from annihilation. And I do not want me or mine annihilated. So I suck it the **** up and play nice. And run for office.”

[Raven Talius]

The woman admired how handling the little animal came easy to Doc as much as it did to her and a slow smirk curved her lips as he wondered just as to what to call it. ”I called it Deviant, you’ll understand soon enough.” She chuckled as she listened to the purr of the little animal. Indeed, the thing was a little deviant, it had been consistently stealing her pencils and hiding them as she drew her images to keep the thirst at bay. Not to mention while other cats preferred a lap, Raven had come to realise that the little thing loved to perch itself on her shoulder. Much like her hawk. Quietly, as Doc spoke, the vampire glance over her shoulder at the woman behind her desk and noted the headphones that were in the woman’s ears, so Raven decided to simply walk into Doc’s office and perch herself upon the edge of his desk while brown eyes glanced over some of the loose forms.

”I’m not going to lie, I know absolutely nothing about the sirens. As for the humans, well they needed one less unhinged vampire running around so I left and traveled Canada for a bit. Went sightseeing and what not. So don’t worry, I’m not going to go on a murderous rage twenty-four seven, just occasionally kill someone and dispose of the body in a typical Raven fashion.” The woman simply said as she shifted one of the pages around on Doc’s desk and picked up one of the pages to read the notes on what she assume was one of Doc’s insane patients.

Softly she chuckled and brown eyes continued to read while listening to Doc talk about politics. ”If the sirens are a vampire problem, then the humans should just let us deal with it and keep their little noses out of it. Vampire business is vampire business. However, I will say this though, vampires will probably never be recognised under human law, simply because we can return from the dead. So, they will keep attempting to kill or cure us like sad little individuals. I mean seriously, who would want to be cured when you can disappear amongst shadows? Being human is dull and they can’t accept anything that is far better than they are.” Raven said as a slow smirk curved her lips as she read the patient’s report.

The vampire had to give it to Doc, he had a pretty neat thing here. ”These crazies are just funny. You must get hours of entertainment,” She chuckled as she turned the page over.

[Doc]

Doc cradled the Kitten and gave Raven a skeptical look at her choice of name. “Deviant? Because she is different? Unique? Because she wants attention? I would say she is more of a Maverick, than a Deviant. A personality that stands on it’s own desires, not those pushed on them by others.” He gave Raven a knowing look. One might think he wasn’t talking about the kitten anymore.

The kitten’s purrs died off as it settled into a deeper sleep. “I am glad you have been keeping out of trouble. Glad you have found a way to fight your demons without bringing attention to us.” He leaned against the desk and watched her leaf through the files. “The sirens are, supposedly’ behind a big corporation here in Harper Rock. They have their appendages in all aspects of the city. More so than we Vampires.” Doc sighed, “So if things go south, we are a fighting a war on two fronts, not just one. One front has the masses.. Humans. The other front has the Sirens.. With powers, influence and the ability to direct things behind the scenes. When you go to war, the key is knowing your enemy. We don’t that much about the Sirens. We need to learn and learn fast. You can learn about your enemy a lot easier and faster, if you keep them close.”

At Raven’s comment about the ‘crazies’, he smirked. “Trust me.. It loses it’s appeal pretty ******* fast. Some of the loonies are just out there. Way out there. There is no rhyme or reason for the things they do.. But they repeat them. Even though they know, the consequences are going to cost them and they hate the consequences.” Doc shook his head, “They still do it.. And as soon as it hits the fan, they are cowering and begging for mercy. They have impulse control issues. They want to do something .. they do it. Something drives them to do it. Something that they cannot control.”

Doc looked at Raven, “That is the line.. People like you and I walk. We give in.. we are just like the loonies..”

[Raven Talius]

Raven perked a brow at Doc’s remark when he began to mention a personality that stood on its own desires and the female simply shook her head and returned to leafing through the pages once more. Some of the things that the crazies came up with was rather… Interesting. In fact, she wondered just as to whether some of these patients had seen something that a vampire had done; before the whole world knew that vampires actually existed and got locked up simply for telling people about it. The woman shuffled the papers for a second as she listened to Doc and his words, occasionally she nodded before she shook her head.

”Humans need to also take into account that the sirens may also be an issue for them. If humans and sirens were able to waged war on us and managed to wipe us out, then the sirens would probably set their sights on wiping out the humans next. If we vampires, who have abilities that are above a human’s own capability, don’t know much about the sirens, then that should also be a concern for the humans. If we are gone, then that would be a very big problem for humans. For who is to stand in between them and the sirens afterwards? Nothing.” Ignorant. Humans were ignorant for the most part, as vampires had managed to live amongst them for years because of it. Now, it would probably be their ignorance that would probably have them potentially ignoring the unknown entity which were the sirens.

A shuffle of papers happen before she slowly placed them back as they were before, remembering each page that she picked up in its exact order. ”From what I’ve learned from the animal kingdom, is that nature has a way of balancing things out. Take me for example. When I was turned and tasted human blood for the first time, I began to think of humans as nothing more than... Well, nothing more than cattle. Now. Sometimes when I drink from a human, a memory of their humanity taints their blood and carries to me. It curdles my appetite for the most part and reminds me that I was once human as well.”

Yes. A human that no one really cared about, much like some of her victims. However, instead of being victim to the situation she channeled it into fighting and learned to stand on her own feet. Where as others, got addicted to drugs, alcohol and finding comfort within someone else’s arms. She learned to trust no one and had the reminder tattooed upon her own skin, upon her hands. Something that had kept her safe for the most part and reminded her to never turn her back to certain people, especially a desperate man.

”The way I see it…” Raven started as she finally placed the last piece of paper back just as she had found it and turned to look at Doc. ”Is that if humans don’t work with us when it comes to the sirens, then they have more to lose than we do. Because the humans have more numbers than we do. Not to mention their humanity that we vampires have mostly lost.”

[Doc]

“Or..” Doc smiled enigmatically. “We work with the Sirens, while playing nice with the humans. Rumor has it.. And I cannot verify this ‘rumor’, that the Sirens want to close the rift. No rift, not vampires that can get coming back. A win for Sirens.. And Humans. But also.. A win for us. For Vampires.”

The kitten was asleep, but he was loath to gesture for fear it was wake up. He picked up one of it’s legs and and dropped it. The kitten never woke. Carefully he laid the kitten on his desk, as he continued. “Bet you’re wondering how the disappearance of the Shadow Realm works for us? Well..it goes like this.. Once the rift is closed, vampires have to stand up and take the consequences of their actions on the chin.. Or risk permanent exile from this world. How many **** for brains vampires out there will find themselves, ******* up and getting put down? Quite a few I would think. But do we really want those ****-for-brains vampires, procreating? ******* up the world? I don’t.

“So the shitheads get culled. It becomes, survival of the fittest once more. Once the weakest links are gone, we form a peaceful co-existence with the humans and the Sirens. Vampires as a whole realize, that nothing holds them to Harper Rock anymore. We start to spread out. Moving to other cities. Making connections. Becoming key figures throughout the world. It will take time. We live for a long time. A few generations go by, and Vampires will be accepted. All the while, we have been making inroads into every corner of the world. Another holocaust would be harder to happen.”

He looked at Raven, “Or we play it the way the Administrator wants it. We go in guns blazing and we start a war with the Sirens. An enemy we really do not know that much about. With the recent fiasco about the cure, this would be another perfect example why ‘vampires cannot be trusted!’, ‘Vampires are violent’, ‘Vampires are the cause for all the crime in Harper Rock.. they need to be put down!’’

Doc gave her an appraising look. “Currently most of the vampires are here.. Clustered in Harper Rock. Not spread out all over the world. Here in one convenient targeted location.” He gave her a level look, “Now if you were a strategist.. When would it be the best time to attack vampires? When they are all located in one convenient location? Or when they are spread all over the ******* world?”

He didn’t wait for her to answer. “But the lure of that rift.. Holds us here. Keeps us from spreading out. Because deep down.. We all fear death. And without the shadow realm.. We can die. So we all stay here.. In a convenient targetable location.” He narrowed his eyes. “You’ve travelled. You know it can be done. You’re proof. Vampires do not need to rift. But they are tied to it non-the-same, because of fear. But if that fear.. Of losing the rift and the shadow realm became real.. What would happen? We would all spread out. Making it much harder to target us all.”

[Raven Talius]

Quietly, she took in the man’s facial expression as he spoke about teaming up with the Sirens, about how they wanted to close the rift and she simply blinked for a moment. Slowly, the vampire rose from her perched position on the edge of his desk and glanced out the door to note the woman still listening to music and Raven gently closed the door to Doc’s office. ”Doc, I might as well be the poster head for the human’s campaign against us. You know this. I’ve killed and would probably be classed as a serial killer to most. I am also violent.”

Her slow steps walked around the man’s office, while brown eyes took note of whatever hung on the wall if there was anything. ”I left Harper Rock so then things would go smoothly here for all of you, because I am a shithead. However, if I left for a simple reason as that, many other vampires would have also left Harper Rock. Even if the bulk of vampires are here in Harper Rock, you can guarantee that one or two are travelling even as we speak. So even if Harper Rock was to go up in flames, other vampires would still be able to turn more of our kind if they so chose to.”

Raven’s steps turned and made her way around Doc’s desk and slowly drew a finger along its surface, before she stopped in front of Doc and brown eyes stared into his own. ”I doubt that the humans could truly get rid of vampires. If a war ever broke out, there will be those that will be able to retreat within the shadows and live there until we were nothing more than a myth again. However, while I don’t agree with closing the rft, I do agree that some vampires need to be… Destroyed permanently and we all know how that is possible.” Why they weren’t taken out of town and then killed was a mystery, but perhaps some people didn’t realise this yet?

”Personally, I don’t believe that closing the rift will make too much of a difference. However, I’m mostly saying out of all of this politics and stuff, because I won't be much help with my… Proclivities closely lurking at the surface.” The vampire said softly and gently stroked the sleeping little kitten. It was a little piece of untouched innocence really, something that Raven was more than happy to keep whole. "However, I have been questioning my reasoning for coming back to Harper Rock, so if you do want someone killed, I'd be more than happy to help if it's well within my capabilities."