Path of the Vampire forum

Meka: Meka was a female who were many things depending on necessity. She wasn't intentionally chameleon so much as she adjusted depending on what was going on. The search for Shauna Bishop was put on hold as she was asked to undertake something for Ty and she did so... happily. She had her phone in her hand even as she summon spirits with the other, summoning them, eating them and dialing the number in her phone. It was Doc, because she was going to spell him when he was tapped out. The phone was ringing in her ear as she summoned and ate the spirits she needed to do what had been asked of her.

Doc:‎ Doc's phone rang, he glanced at the time before answering it. He didn't want to get sidetracked too long, and miss the next hour change. However the clock showed he had thirty minutes, no one he talked to regularly, kept him on the phone that long, so he answered, even though he didn't really recognize the number. One day he was going to have to have Cat show him how to put names to numbers in the damn thing. "Yea?"

Meka: "Hey Doc, it's Meka. I'm going to be spelling you when you run out of juice. How much more have you got in you before I'm tagged in?" It was oddly very un-Meka like. She wasn't one for getting straight to the point when the point could be circumnavigated through a circuitous route of good natured teasing, except, Meka really didn't like Nix. The woman was the mother of all assholes, AND she'd managed to get Meka shot just because Meka called h er exactly what she was. So no, no laughing, not right now. Meka, was very happy, to just.. .curse the ***** for the next six hours and couldn't wait to get started.

Doc:‎ Doc heard the voice and the very succinct opening introduction and follow up question. He pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at the number. This had to be Nix ******* with him. Blackula never got to the point of anything that quick. There was always a "Girlll.. this ****.. and Dayum.. that ****.. ". This was subterfuge by Nix, trying to find out how much longer before he was out. Because last he heard it was Jesse who was going to relieve him. Right. He figured he would see how far he could push Nix, "Blackula.. Baby.. I just told you ten minutes ago.. what the **** you got vampire Alzheimer’s or some ****?"

Meka: Pulling the phone away from her ear Meka stared at it before replacing it and speaking down the phone. She's summoned the last spirit and sat on the chair inside the Eyrie shop, spinning in place. Look who was talking about having Alzheimer’s, dude had lost his left marble. "Have you finally lost your ever loving mind Doc? Whoever you been talking to weren't me.. that's for damn sure. Micah told me to get in touch with you. Was gonna be Jesse to take over from you cursing Nix but it'll be me..."

Doc:‎ Doc let out a relieved sigh, yea that was the Blackula he knew and hated. Then he huffed in disgust that he was actually relieved it was her. Damn her. "Look woman, I had to be ******* sure it was you. You and I both know you are never that direct. OF course I suspected you. Next two are mine.. you can take over from there.. but double check with Vel. She set plan, I am not about to alter it until I hear from her.. she's the boss. You're just the poor black child she took pity on..." There was a playfully insulting tone to his words.

Meka: Meka laughed, because he was so tragically a dick it was sexy in that bad boy you didn't wanna take home to your parents, unless you hated them and wanted your new guy to **** all over them Meka had never hated her parents and never acted out ever like that, but she could appreciate the type. "**** you. I got it in two.. then you're tagged out. Ohh that's right... " she added, because she was going to hang up but realised that she wanted to ask Doc something... biological. "So, if you wanted to get rid of a vampire body, you know, one that doesn't poof or turn to dust... what's the best way to ... get rid of it?"

Doc:‎ Doc smirked into the phone as she insulted him, if she hadn't he would have suspected her again. He could use the relief to be honest, but he wasn't telling her that, she would never let him live it the **** down. But when she asked the question, he went into science mode. Lack of body, could.. mean that's why there were so many wraiths that came back to the city, but could not be corporeal. "I have never had that situation arise, but I would think, based on the science, if there is no body to return to, the spirit, becomes a wraith. Thus it stands to reason that anything that can harm a vampire, would be one way to go, i.e. fire." he paused, "A caveat, that since I do not have first hand knowledge, I would suggest, severing the head from the body and burning them in two separate location

Meka: "Ew." she said, happy with everything he'd said until the end with the whole cut her head of thing. She'd asked cause Doc seemed like the right sort of crazy ******** to know **** like that but she wasn't really all that keen at the idea that she might need to cut her old College buddy's head clean off, in fact the thought of it make her stomach turn. "Ohh okay then, so decapitation and then... burning and scattering. That **** is real aint it? " she commented before shaking her head. "Okay, so okay... I'll ... I'll take over when you're done. I gotta.. I think I gotta go throw up." She answered and then hung up, pretty sure she wasn't quite bad *** enough to cut Shauna's head off

Doc:‎ Doc was going to expound further on why he thought decapitation would be the way to go, just to be sure, but she quickly hung up. He frowned, he hadn't insulted her, or degraded her, or said anything remotely rude, and yet, she quickly hung up. Could it be, that Blackula the bold, Blackula the fearless, Blackula the mouth that wouldn't shut up was ... squeamish? He couldn’t help but grin. By god, he found her Achilles heel. **** yes!

Talking to other vampires wasn’t helping none. No matter where she turned or who she talked to the same story seemed to ring true. Shauna Bishop was heading off a damn like those crazy white bitches Thelma and Louise. The woman was heading for melt down city and she was driving the car herself with a ‘past the guard rail, over the edge into a large body of water with sharp edges rocks’ ending.

Meka was trying to stop it, but the more people she talked to the less she was convinced there was anything she could do to change a damn thing. It was galling and annoying and as much as she tried to skate around the issue the more she realised how hard a task trying to save Shauna’s life was going to be.

It plagued her. She cursed Nix as she was instructed and spent hours in the Tytonidae meeting to discuss that woman but in the back of her mind Meka couldn’t shake the fact that she was a fake and what she was trying to do for Shauna went in direct contravention of what her faction would do. She sat in that meeting wondering if she shouldn’t just consign Shauna to the fate she seemed so hell bent on racing towards.

She had to find her, she had to find her and get her to listen to reason. She had to give her old friend a chance to be different, to act different before someone pulled a knot in her tail and took what little liberty she thought she had and flushed it down the damn toilet.

Meka had to try and she had to try sooner rather than later.

Meka: "So, yeah, I need to find Shauna Bishop and I was hoping you could help me?" Meka had no good way of saying that she wanted to find her because she was a great big masquerade breaker because she wasn't quite ready yet to admit that Shauna required the death sentence. Of course that thought was delusional considering the woman had just blown up a cafe but Meka was a well of optimism and she... well, she just hoped she could save the woman.

Micah: "Find who?" Micah was pretty sure that he'd never even heard the name before and doubted that he'd even be able to recognize this Shauna if shown a picture. He wasn't a tracker and he couldn't do half that fancy **** that Vel could so he didn't know how he could help Meka. And that she was even asking him after their volatile past surprised him. "I could try?"

Meka: "Great! What you need cause.. I'm not sure how to help you get your juju going and all I got is a name and maybe a mug shot type photo." It wasn't that she couldn't get photos from College but that would mean going to her parents house, sneaking in and stealing her Momma's albums and she weren't doing that for no one. "You tell me what you need and I'll see if I can get it?"

Micah: "Well I can't do any of that fancy stuff. I can't track and the best i could do is send Bunny around with a picture of her." That was the best he could offer her and he wished he could do more, but he just wasn't equipped to do so.

Meka: "Bummer... so... okay, who in the family does all the fancy stuff? Do you think I could ask them to help me?" she asked, hoping like hell soneone could use their juju stuffs to help her find this womann.

Micah: "Vel can. Eve can, Lia can. Any one of them have the ability to track someone down."

Meka: "Hrmmm kk... umm I'll look them up then. Ohh like, Nix stuff.. is there anything I can do there?" she offered, thinking maybe a quid pro quo was in order considering, well, considering the woman was being a pain in the *** and it was probablly Meka's job to lend a helping hand. It was the least she could do if she was going to try and tap other Ty to help her find her missing College buddy come Unibomber.

Micah: He thought about that. "Depends on what you mean by what you can do." Given the current situation more people who could do what Vel needed to be done would be nice. "Can you curse spirits?"

Meka: "Umm" she prevaricated, cause she wasn't really sure. She could do so much **** now she wasn't really sure what end was up no more. "Yeah, maybe? Is that the one where you summon the spirit and then you eat it? Cause yeah, Nyla was with me when I discovered that one."

Micah: He shook his head. "No this one saps them of energy leaving them tired."

Meka: Gnawing on her lip she tries to think about what she can do, most of it found out accidentally as she got each new one. "Ohh okay, that is one... yes, no, I'm sure I have that! I do... cause I tried it on thingy-dude and he was like .. Gaaaah and we looked at each other and figured probably not a good one that... So yeah, i can do that one. You guys using that one on Nix? I can totally help." It was a bit self serving, being so eager to help out. Sure there was some reciprocity going on, but there was also the fact Meka thought Nix was the mother of all ****-bags so was more than happy to put her 2c in.

Micah: He grinned then. "Yeah? That would be awesome." Part of him was sad but not for the reasons one would think. It was because Nix had stooped to such a low level without a single care for anyone else but herself. The other part of him felt that she deserved everything that she was getting. "Doc's been doing it but I imagine he'd getting tired by now."

Meka: "Okay, I'll call him and tag him out when he's all in... who will take over when I'm done? Cause I can let them know how long I can go before I need someone else to take over." Meka offered and was glad she could help and figured, since she could summon spirits and fill her tank up, she could keep going like an everready battery

Micah: "I think Jesse can? " Micah was pretty sure that Jesse had the ability to do so but he wasn't certain. he knew Vel could, and Doc could but as to what the others could do he didn't know.

Meka: "Okay! I'll let him know. Thanks for your help!" she finished, being all nice and ... nice to him. They hadn't had a good history but she did promise Vel she would try. Some people just drove each other up the damn wall and her and Micah might be one of them. Sorta like her and Doc and her and Zo and her and... yeah, she was seeing a trend here and maybe Vel was right about that too. "I'll talk to Doc now and Jesse later... bye!"

Micah: "Alright meka take care." That hadn't gone so bad. Maybe he'd even let her in his hot tub for being willing to help out.

It could all be okay. It could all work out and Shauna could come to her senses and she might even come to like being a vampire and what it could bring. Meka kept assuring herself of it but she wasn’t entirely convinced herself.

She wasn’t sure she wasn’t one more zombie away from putting a gun in her own mouth and pulling the damn trigger. She’d been using sex as a way to avoid coming to terms with how much her life had changed. As if feeling all of that was what she needed to feel nothing at all. Or would shrinks call it an affirmation of life in a situation where life was a trade-able commodity. Hell if she knew. All Meka understood about her current situation was the fact she didn’t know what the hell she was doing. She was making it up as she went.

She wanted to save Shauna. She wanted to make the woman she went to school with understand that it wasn’t so bad, not after a while. And zombies and creatures you thought weren’t real, were, but it wasn’t an ending but a beginning. A weird and wonderful beginning.

But how do you convince a person of something you don’t really believe yourself? How do you try to get someone to buy into a life you hadn’t really bought into in your own right. She felt like a fraud and the feeling only grew the more people she talked to.

Meka was lonely. Not for sex, because even she wasn’t stupid enough to think any of it meant anything to any of the partners she’d paraded through her bedroom. She missed her Momma and she missed her Daddy and she missed her life and she wished she could turn back time and dial back to that moment and she’d have run out of that exam room and not run back in to see that petite goth chick put a bullet through the brain of the woman with the fadebaby. Living forever didn’t seem quite enough payment for losing the life you thought you were going to live. It didn’t feel like a trade up. And Meka, felt like she’d lost too much and becoming so much more.

She was Shauna, but she was a Shauna who had chosen not to fight, not to claw back the life she had, or rail against the unfairness of having her life ripped away from her. Meka had accepted her lot as a vampire and given up her family, the very heart of her without a murmur. It made her feel guilty and sad. She’d betrayed her family and her guilt ate at her.

It was that guilt that drove her now, to find her friend, to try to save her and help her see. She just had to, somehow.

‹Tameka Vassey› Meka was standing outside the Eyrie pacing. She hated that she didn't know what to do. If she were human it would be a pretty clear case of going to the authorities and telling them that her crazy *** ex-sorority sister had blown the local coffee place the hell up and let them deal with it. The problem with doing the same thing now that she was a vampire was the fact 'telling the authorities' meant she would be signing Shauna's death warrant. There was a big damn gulf between one and the other and where one seemed like the better evil (letting the authorities deal with it) the current alternative wasn't something Meka could consider. She couldn't send someone she knew to their death. She couldn't let her pay the price she knew the vampires (well, her vampires) would exact. With a thought she summoned someone she thought of as her friend, who was someone she had done more with whose opinion she needed, only and mainly because she knew hers was flawed. Summon Axel she let him get his bearings, hoping this time he wasn't half naked when she did so because, well, she was summoning his *** outside, not into her Hut.

‹Axel Rosen› He is pulled through the world in the blink of an eye. He wonders if this is something like celerity. Now that he has been a vampire for a while he has heard what the powers that vampires can have. When he appears he brushes himself off. Luckily for him he gets dressed before bed because he wakes up in the tattoo parlour. His eyes look down to the ground as he traces the tree house up to the tip through the branches. His eyes look over to her and he gives her and odd look. He's not going to jump to conclusions so he just sort of says, "What's up?"

‹Tameka Vassey› Meka flashed him a grin, turning a cheeky smile his way, which was pretty much all bluff cause she wasn't feeling that cheeky or that flirtatious. And since she was in no hurry to jump into the crapper she avoided it instead. "Hey you sexy beast... got time for a quickie?" She laughed as she teased hoping the ice breaker would help her get past the nervousness of the real reason she'd summoned him.

‹Axel Rosen› "Erm..." He looks at her for a second then thinks about how to say or describe what's going on in his life right now. The main problem is that he's about to tell Meka before he tells his sire about the woman that he's pretty much committed himself to in all ways but being bound by that ritual. His eyes look at her, "No. Actually... We should probably talk about that. I've started seeing someone, you know, not so casual." Her laugh lets him know that it's a tease, but he thinks she should know anyway.

‹Tameka Vassey› Her grin didn't slip instead she nodded. "Ohh I know, she sent me an email letting me know she knew and she didn't hold it against me... I got the hint." she replied slumping against the tree house door, still reluctant to go inside and realising that her avoidance tactic had just been swept aside. "Umm so, really, I was hoping you'd help.. cause, ... well, hypothetically speakin' if you knew someone, maybe someone from when you were a kid or something, who is now a vampire but she don't wanna be a vampire and she's like, CRAZY... and doing **** and getting some insane bounties... if you knew someone like that, hypothetically... what ... what do you think you'd do? What do you think... anyone should do about that?" It was an awful sort of question and so ridiculously transparent she wondered if she should just be honest. The truth was, she suspected what she hoped she could do and what she'd be required to do cause choice would be taken from her, were two different things and she wanted... no needed, the people she talked with to have plausible deniability.

‹Axel Rosen› Her question makes him think that she might be trying to touch some sort of humanity in him, and it's not that he doesn't have any. It's more so the fact that he doesn't have any interest in protecting those who are making it hard for the success and betterment of vampire kind. That is what this person sounds like, just like the woman that Axel has been after for a while. He just sort of looks around and then back to her again. His foot taps the ground beneath his feet an he takes in a breath. "I would find them, kill them, or have them killed by someone else..." He glances to her eyes, glad they can put aside the little fling they had for this obvious more important conversation. "Objectively though, I'm being honest with you. If I knew a vampire like that from my childhood or life before turned. I would kill them. Whether it was my family, my publisher, my editor, my friends.... It doesn't matter." He nods his head up and down.

‹Tameka Vassey› "You write?" she asked, distracted by the fact she didn't know that about him. Not that had done any talking but she figured that was something she should have known. It was a random comment, when the truth was he answered exactly as she expected and exactly what she hoped not to hear. "So, if you knew someone like this... you think it's best she's.... killed?" she finished, knowing the answer but asking again to make really sure.

‹Axel Rosen› "Lets put it this way." He pauses to make sure that he has her attention. "I loved my mother til the day she died. If she were a vampire right now, breaking the masquerade and getting a massive bounty... I would hunt her down." He looks at her for a second and then frowns. "It's not about liking it. It's about preservation. When one draws attention to us they are not just endangering themselves, but all of our kind." He seems has a rather adamant feeling about this, that is after having dated a paladin, seeing what hunters are capable of. He knows that vampires don't need that kind of attention.

‹Tameka Vassey› Digging her hands into her pocket Meka pushed herself off the tree, paced away nodding. "Yeah, I know.. I guess I just haven't quite got there yet... and I'm not sure I will." she admitted, finally getting to the sticking point. Looking up from the tip of her shoes where her gaze and fallen she gave him a small sad smile "I appreciate it Axel... it wasn't what I wanted to hear but maybe I needed to hear it... again. And again." Looking back to the Mausoleum she nodded towards the place. "I gotta head back into the raid... you going my way.. we can walk and talk while we do?"

‹Axel Rosen› He looks to her for a second as she walks off and he feels a little bad that he has given her a little bit of bad information. Shaking his head, he kicks the ground a little bit and then looks up. It is what she needs to hear, what needs to be done, but he won't stop her from making whatever choice she makes. It's her life, or unlife rather. Meka asks him if he's going her way and he shakes his head again. "No, actually I'm going to head into the Eyrie, pretty exhausted." He grins at her a little bit, waiting for her to head out before walking in.

‹Tameka Vassey› Lifting a hand she gives him a jaunty wink, trying to dispell the heavy content of what she'd asked and meandered away. Meka, had a lot to think about.

What Axel had told her was several degrees of unhelpful. How in the hell was she meant to take the advice of someone who would kill their own mother? That wasn’t Meka and it sure as hell wouldn’t be the choice she’d make. In fact just him saying the words gave her a serious case of the ick. This man had touched her, made her scream in a very good way and she’d just found out something about him that made her rethink her decision.

But wasn’t that the whole problem to begin with? The fact she’d had to change so much to become what she was. She had thrown herself into this life as if she hadn’t lived one before. She had embraced the moral compass of those around her so readily. Each moment a corrosion to her former self.

Her Momma though? It was a bastion of unassailable virtue she couldn’t fathom sacrificing just so she could live. Live this life.

At this point in her life, if it was a choice between life or death or her Momma’s life or death Meka was pretty sure she’d fall on her own damn sword and damn her immortal soul to hell before she’d put Alice’s life in jeopardy. Her Momma hadn’t done nothing but live a good life and raise a good family and Meka wouldn’t pay her back by giving her a death sentence for nothing more than having a daughter who had stumbled across the mother of all secrets.

She walked slowly back to the Mausoleum, her feet dragging her spirit dragging behind her, a carcass connected like slag to a body that didn’t seem her own.

This thing with Shauna had become an unlikely analogy for her own turning, a mirror image of her own struggle avoided by her need to survive and her instinct to do whatever was necessary to live. Shauna had made the opposite decision and in a small secretive part of herself Meka knew that this was herself, could be herself, if she’d given herself half a chance at being as brave as her ex sorority sister.

Meka: [Text] Hey Every this is Meka
[Text] Micah said to contact you cause you could help me
[Text] You around? I need some help finding someone?
[Text] Just give me a buzz when you're around.

Eve: text: Eve, what am I helping with, I'm around and I can help?

Meka: [Text] I got me a friend Shauna ... that needs finding.
[Text] Micah said you're one of the people who can find people and stuff
[Text] I just need to know where I can get her or.. where she is cause she's gone MIA
[Text] She's in trouble
[Text] Or will be
[Text] Or is, or something

Eve: text: Yeah, I've gone down that bridge. What's her full name and calm it down on the texts, you're making my phone vibrate up a storm woman.

Meka: [Text] Thanks!! You are a life saver.
[Text] For reals
[Text] Umm her name is Shauna Bishop and she's like a black woman, but like high colour and stuff, sorta mocha latte black and she's got wavy hair that

Eve: text: Been called a lot of things, never thought it'd be life saver.

Meka: [Text] goes to about her shoulders
[Text] She's about 5'6" and slim build with a snotty *** attitude and she come from money
[Text] I got a mug shot, if you need it, it's a bit fuzzy
[Text] She's in hiding, well, if she aint she should be.

Eve: text: I'm going to try an eye spy first, it may be a bit better and I'll draw it out, then send you a picture? Or an email, if your phone doesn't like them?

Meka: [Text] That sounds great, I got me a smart phone, you can send it here if you want?

Eve: text: Kay.

[after a bit of time.]

Eve: text: Incoming image, black couch, red decal. It kind of looks like something that Vel's decorated but I'm not too sure.

Meka: [Text] Woah, for reals? Okay, thanks Every, so much!

Eve: text: Eve, Meka, Eve.
text: And you're welcome.

Meka: [Text] *smiley face* Okay, Eve!

Meka had missed Shauna that night even after rushing back to Vel’s and busting through the door and plunging into the apartment in a mad rush. She was ready to spill her guts to her university friend. To tell her that she had to get the hell out of the city. Meka was even going to try and help, although she felt real guilty about it knowing how adamant everyone had been about helping people who broke the masquerade. And damn if blowing up the café like Shauna had done weren’t breaking the vampire masquerade wide open.

But how could anyone live with themselves knowing they’d been the cause of someone’s death. Shed had no problem with killing off other vampires as if their anonymity had immured her from caring but knowing that she’d been called on to kill someone she’d known when she was real, she just couldn’t do it.

What if they’d asked her to kill her Momma like Axel said or dayam, asked her to hunt her own brother. Day was a vampire and she couldn’t, she just could not change that much, this soon. She just didn’t have it in her. Tameka Grace Vassey had found her limit and she couldn’t push beyond it.

Except Shauna had already cut out and left before Meka had got there and in between stalking the place waiting for Shauna to come back she was called into a Ty meeting.

Meka had left that Tytonidae meeting and hadn’t looked back. Unlike Micah she wasn’t angry or ready to kill a ho. Hell, the irony was that Micah was ready to kill her but **** if he’d get up the balls to think the same for Nix. That man had issues. She didn’t know what they were but she suspected it had a lot to do with not having his hypocrisy shoved into his face. But damn she was so disappointed. They'd let her down. What had she been fighting for with Shauna? Why had she been wracking herself with guilt about this one moment and it seemed to her they'd discarded all of it in a moment against this one vampire.

He would shoot Meka for nothing more than calling him a prude and yet he was ineffectual when it came to the crunch of it, bowing under the pressure of what Meka could only see as someone giving him a hard time. She was depressed and confused about what she was meant to do with these mixed messages.

And then there was Vel, her sire. Well, Meka liked her well enough, suspected that it was more than that, like had developed into a healthy respect and a good dose of affection but last night Meka was shown a side of her sire she wasn’t sure she liked. But maybe Meka’s world was still too black and white, maybe she didn’t see the other subtle colours of grey that filtered through people’s words and actions.

She used the raid to distract her killing this with an automation, kill move on, kill move on until she saw Dulce there too and spoke to her, sitting with her in the raid for a spell their words short and brief.

Dulce Periculum says: "You spoke your mind. Nothing wrong with that."

And Meka could only nod, a frown on her face as she moved away massaging the space between her eyes.


Hours later

Velveteen: *texts* Your attitude tonight was really ******* unnecessary and completely uncalled for. You were way out of line Meka.
Last message received on 12/10 at 6:49 p.m.

Meka [Text] No, what Micah showed me is that he's a hypocrite. I came to both of you about a masquerade violator and the first thing you told me is kill it. Kill it dead. But you won't do the same to someone like Nix. I'm sorry I listened to either of you. You lied to me. Both of you did.

Meka threw her phone across Velveteen’s apartment, watching dispassionately as the screen smashed and she stalked out the door of the Alpha Towers apartment she’d been haunting hoping the Rogue Vampire she’d once known as Shauna Bishop would come back.

She wanted to believe Vel. She wanted to believe her so bad she'd been struggling with the idea of killing her college friend and now she just felt let down. Vel was going to make this all her fault and Micah already thought it was all her fault and she just didn't wanna hear it no more.

How it all just seemed to be her fault.

The night was quiet and she felt small and silent. Meka rarely felt small or quiet. She rarely stopped in her mad dash to live life to consider what it was or wasn’t her place in this mess of a world. Tonight she was both of those things and it didn’t sit right.

Shauna was MIA but now Meka had a clue, she had to find patience and to wait the woman out. Shauna had snuck into the Alpha Towers apartment to take a shower and Meka figured someday soon, she’d be sneaking right back again to take another one. Soon. Cause she ought to be smelling pretty damn ripe about now and if Meka knew anything about her ex-sorority sister then keeping herself from smelling like dog **** was high on her ‘must do’ list. She only needed to be patient and wait.

The problem with contemplation was she had to think. And think a lot. And if she were completely honest she didn’t always come out on top of her own mental meanderings. She was so damn disappointed with Vel and Micah she wondered now, in this uniquely unusual personal moment of quiet, if she hadn’t needed to use a bit of this quiet then, and just listened. A little. Or something.

Damn a bunch of dang thinking no how. Meka sighed deeply, wearing nothing more than a pair of fluffy pyjamas and booted up Vel’s laptop and sending the message to Jesse before she could stop herself from reaching out.

She needed perspective. She needed someone to either agree or tell her she as bat **** crazy. And maybe Jesse was just that person.



To: Jesse
From: Meka
RE: Phoenix and Rogue Vampires

I don’t have anyone else to really talk to about this and I know you’re dealing with it yourself so I thought I’d send an email. I’m a talker I know I am and I’d probably do this better face to face but… well, I don’t know how else to talk to you expect through this and text.

The last time I talked to Micah and Velveteen about a vampire I think has gone rogue they told me right away that I should make sure it’s dead, kill it right away. This weekend we had another meeting about your Sire and how she won’t quit and I swear she is like the most rogue vampire out there right now and despite what they told me about her they want to let her back into Ty, to give her exactly what she wants.

I need someone else to tell me what’s going on and why does that feel so wrong. How can that be right. I know you have your thing with your sire so I thought maybe you could tell me what I’m not seeing here? Why save that ***** who sired you after all she’s done but tell me to kill one rogue vampire who really aint done much at all compared to her?

I need your help. I need someone to tell me where I’m getting this wrong cause it don’t fee right.


Meka,

One: You can talk to me by talking to me ordinarily. I’m not a ******* retard.

Two: I want Phoenix as much as the next person, but for different reasons as others might. I think Micah and Velveteen had a plan, as far as Phoenix was concerned. She won’t ******* shut up. She won’t go away. The only way to make her go away is on her own terms – bring her back in, prove to her that no one likes her. She’s is the scum beneath our feet. Sure, I’d prefer we just kill her. We’ve killed people for much less. But I put my trust in Velveteen and Micah – especially after what they’ve done for me this weekend.

Three: Phoenix isn’t a rogue, not in the same way as the others. She hasn’t broken the masquerade – she’s only pissed off other vampires. If she should give those maps to the Paladins like she threatens? Yeah, then maybe. A rogue is bringing human attention to us. For that, they must die.

Thusly: Kill the ******* rogue, if you know who it is and where it is. If they’re savvy, they’ll come back shamed for their mistakes. Yeah?
Jesse.

To: Jesse
From: Meka
RE: Re: Phoenix and Rogue Vampires

One: I talk too damn fast. I can’t help it, I just.. go like the clappers and if you aint gonna stop me I’ll just talk and talk and talk. My brother’s always said I had that way about me and well, this is good too. I didn’t think you were a retard, I figured you’d probably like this better so I’d stop for air.

I guess, and I guess I don’t trust them like you do. Seems to me it’s only convenient for them to be one way and then when it’s all too hard they say something else.

So you’re okay with Nix coming back in the faction? For real?

What they do for you this weekend?

Meka


Meka,
Of course I don’t want Phoenix back into the faction. If it’ll make her go away when she realises everyone hates her guts, then so be it. Let her back on the bridge. See if she’ll prove herself in all the ways we can think of. I might just shoot her in the head in the process. If she got back in for good, I don’t know what I’d do. But I’d feel like there was a terrorist, an evil ******* demon in my home. But I can’t see it happening. Too many people feel the same way.

To prove it – this weekend, Micah performed the disenthrallment ritual on me. I am no longer Altaire. I no longer consider myself in any way affiliated with that cold-hearted ******* harpy. And Velveteen gave me an expensive hood, to help me with rituals. The things they’ve done for me, I’m willing to forgive them their point of view on this. Cut them some slack, consider yourself ******* lucky you don’t have to consider disenthrallment. Consider yourself lucky you don’t have that monstrous inhuman ******* red-head as a sire.

Jesse.



To: Jesse
From: Meka
RE: Re: RE: Phoenix and Rogue Vampires

I guess you’re right. I do have Velveteen and that means something. She does tell me it’s mostly my fault Micah wants to rip my throat out so maybe I should try a bit harder.

And your sire, or your ex-sire or whatever the hell else you want to call her is a rabid, foam at the mouth ***** but I guess you know that and I’m happy you got yourself away from being anywhere near related to her or anything. That was nice of them and I’m glad you got someone.

Thanks Jesse, you gave me good things to think about I guess.

Take care,
Meka


Meka,

You guess? Is there something about this rogue you're attached to, making you not want to kill it? If not, just do it. It'll be practice. And Velveteen and Micah will love you for it. I don't know what you did to piss Micah off but he seems like a pretty cool guy to me. I doubt he wants Phoenix back in. I doubt he has any love for the woman. Just give him a break.

Jesse.

Meka stared at the screen and turned it off her gaze shadowed with thoughts she couldn’t quite piece together.

She knew Velveteen wasn’t done with her and it was a noose hanging over Meka’s head. Rubbing thoughtful fingers across her lips she raised her head as she heard the lock in the door click and blinked as she watched the petite figure of the familiar black woman slide through the open door.

With eyes growing wide with surprise she fell immobile in the desk chair, her voice as shocked as her expression.

“**** me Shauna Bishop… why in the HELL did you blow up a café? Girlfriend have you lost your ever loving black mind… I’m gonna yank a knot in your tail!” Meka was standing on the last words, her finger out and pointing at the general direction of Shauna’s chest.

Shauna was not doing so **** hot.

Her hair looked like all black women’s hair looked if it aint been looked after. Like a big old mess. There was a reason women of a certain colour didn’t go no where near water and it wasn’t cause they couldn’t swim (although, avoidance of any water tended to create just that scenario too). It had a lot to do with what a woman’s hair did anywhere near water that negated water sport as a viable recreational activity.

Black woman hair and mowgli’s (You know the fluffy cute little things in Gremlins) were first cousins. You add water to either and both hair and mowgli turned into something hella crazy. And there was a lot of crazy going down on top of Shauna Bishop’s head. It was like cats had got up in there and had a scrap or she’d been hit by lightning and was zapped so hard her hair done stood up on end. And sideways and stuff.
Meka winced at her old friend, trying very hard not to stare and knowing she didn’t succeed at all. The woman was an A-Grade mess.

“Dayam Shauna, you gotta get yourself some relaxer or something… go wash that head of yours.”

The words were light but Meka’s eyes weren’t and neither was the corresponding emotion in the other woman’s expression. They sized one another up. Gone where the friends who knew eachother superficially through university. Their perception of one another had altered completely and irrevocably. They were enemies as surely as they had once been allies and in the few short days between one meeting and the next a certainty had risen betweenn them both. That they were to be the end of eachother.

Meka saw in Shauna everything she hadn’t been brave enough to become. Someone who denied what it meant to be a vampire and fought against the pull of vampire law but in the same breathe she saw the errosion of the human spirit to its very nth degree and nothing Meka remembered of her old College friend remained. What stood in front of her was a husk of a woman, barely sustaining even a patina of normalcy.

For Shauna’s part she just hated and she no longer differentiated the whos and whys of her feelings. She didn’t want to be a vampire and she didn’t want to live forever and she hated every little thing about every damn thing and she couldn’t turn back the clock and take it back. And she’d be damned if she’d live this way. She couldn’t see past the present to see a shining future. All she saw was what she had to give up and she hated everyone, everything and she wanted it all to burn. All of this glittered in razor sharp shards, cutting and slicing through the air in a glare which could bleed a person.

And then she attacked, claws and teeth and grotesquely pungent lot of her ramming into the unsuspecting Meka like a battering ram. Meka sprawled on her ***, skidding across the black carpet with a rug burning thump, her arm getting all tangled up underneath her as she went *** over head and slumped in a heap on her stomach a tiny black woman crawling over her and proceeding to bash her head into the floor.

“I hate you!! I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you.” Was all Meka heard as she scrambled on all fours trying to shake the little she devil off her back.

“God Dammit to hell Shauna… get the hell offa me!”