Path of the Vampire forum

There was just so much going on all around her as Alexandrea and Zodiac communicated. The mystic gave Alex two thumbs up at the idea of making more clouds if Alex was able to, even as the sounds from the streets below made the allurist shiver. Sirens and shouting and gunfire were everywhere. The odor from the smoke that Zodiac created was more than enough to get Alex's mind off of the outside world and focus again on the task at hand.

She waved her hand in front of her nose with a grimace and watched as the Gypsy signed out a message about having Snow help. With a sigh, Alex nodded but frowned slightly. Trying to get that child to do what you wanted her to do was like trying to get a bull to behave and not break anything in a china shop.

The sounds of a cat in distress stopped her train of thought and Alexandrea called out; "Ginny?" as she turned to see the little girl manhandling the feline. Forgetting she had dropped her cloak and looked like nothing but a walking skeleton with thin transparent skin covering her bones, Alex continued to speak; "Snow! Why are you bothering that cat? We need her help to keep a look out for those who would try to hurt us!"

She shut up right away when Alex caught sight of Zodiac's arm move, and her gaze followed to where the mystic was pointing. The wind was whipping Alexandrea's now bone white hair around her face but the allurist grabbed it in time to see the shaking of the top of the ladder from the fire escape as it shook and then fell backwards.

The noise of the collapse of the fire escape and the cries of the injured that fell made Alex wince before she rushed to the small wall that surrounded the rooftop just a few steps behind Zodiac and along with the mystic, peered over the edge. It was hard not to grin, so Alexandrea didn't bother to try, giving Zodiac a huge smile and a high five.

Then it was back to work for the two. Zodiac went back to do her thing and before Alex joined her, she went to Snow. "We could really use your help. And we need Ginny's too. She is an extra pair of eyes and ears to warn us ahead of time if those that want to hurt us are close."

Belatedly, Alexandrea remember what she looked like now. She held her hair out of her face and spoke gently to the child. "Don't be scared, Snow. Yes, this is really me. Alexandrea. This is what I really look like. I'm still the same woman that I was, though. The one that is your friend. Who gave you a sword and an elephant and who thinks you are special. Looks don't matter. It is what is inside that counts. And I have to get back to help my friend to try to stop those who are trying hurt us." Alex paused and looked over at Odin. "And they want to try to hurt 'your father', too. Please won't you help us try to stop them?

Alexandrea looked over at Odin again, wanting to get his attention but not wanting to use his name to draw it. Confused at what to call him, she considered just saying 'hey, Snow's dad' but didn't. Remembering her remark to him about his looking like a Klingon, she had to grin. They had watched Star Trek together so she was sure he would get the reference.

"Worf?" Alex called out to Odin, "Would you please ask... your daughter to help us and let go of the cat?"

She didn't wait for a reply, and resisting the temptation to touch Snow or the cat, hurried back instead to Zodiac who was already busy making smoke again. And then taking over the task of making the smelly smoke after they exchanged a heartfelt hug for luck.

Alex was so glad she didn't have to breathe, the stink was terrible. She kept at the important work however, and tried to keep watch on their surroundings while she did so she could be ready to fight if she had to.

Odin finally convinced Snow to go sit on a crate and behave, and turned his attention back to the stairwell leading up from the top floor to the rooftop. He kept his back pressed close to the wall and waited. The whispers he heard earlier had stopped but some one or two was coming up the stairs as quietly as they could. Odin caught glimpse of a tattooed man, sans clothing, and didn't stop to ask questions. He swung around and fired off two rounds down the stairwell, effectively putting a bullet into the top of someone's head.

Fires were shot in return, and Odin ducked back against the wall. "Obviously more than one," he growled under his breath. The second Paladin wasn't worried about whispering, but was now shouting out. Odin didn't know if he was alerting others or just seriously pissed off, but didn't want any more company. He swung around again and fired off a few shots. One of the bullets sliced through the Paladin's throat, and he heard the body tumble down the stairs. Unfortunately, he ended up with a bullet lodged in his right leg in the process.

"Son of a *****," he muttered under his breath. "Not my best night."

He glanced across the rooftop and saw the backs of Zodiac and Alexandrea as they looked over the edge of the roof, as the sound of metal crashing down echoed out. Odin was glad they had effectively cut off the other entrance to the roof. He heard more footsteps coming quickly up the stairs. He went to move and winced in pain.

"Enough!" he growled and reached for his duffle bag. He pulled out a shrapnel bomb, pulled the pin and lobbed it down the stairs, then grabbed the bag up, and hurried in the opposite direction as quickly as he could manage, taking a quick glance first to make sure Snow was not anywhere around.

The explosion echoed out as the bomb did considerable damage to the stairs, not to mention whoever was on them. Odin couldn't help but grin. He stared at the entrance to the roof as if he was expecting someone to still come up. Alexandrea's voice broke him from his trance as he heard her call out, "Worf."

Odin went over to the thin figure, favoring his leg. As he got closer his eyes widened slightly.

"Alexandrea?" he asked before realizing he sounded like an idiot. Whatever was happening had some very diverse changes on the Vampire community. He hadn't seen her face up close until now. After getting over his initial surprise he gave her a smirk and said, "You need to put on a little weight my dear."

At her request, he looked over at Snow. The child had wrestled a cat under her shirt, and it looked like the cat was wrestling back. As he approached, he called out to her. "Let the cat go Snow. Things are going to be happening soon to make everything better and we need your help. The cat needs to be free."

She was teetering on a line now. Everything was working as it should, but she was either out of practice or compromised still. She felt tired, more so than she remembered when doing something like this. Despite the majority of their powers being stripped away, there was still enough vampire within her to make this an effort. Slowly she sank to her knees as she continued.

Smoke was boiling from the brazier now almost non-stop. Alex had found the pace to keep adding to the flames. A black funnel of cloud like smoke was boiling upwards into the night sky. It was the spell and her force of will that was keeping it from drifting away and instead go in a path that continued to feed a large black mass that was slowly gaining size and depth in front of the crimson moon. Only part of it was blocked now. So much more would be needed. She tugged at the two normal clouds as well, trying to pull them along to help with the breakwall she was forming.

She head Odin tell Snow to let go of Ginny. The fact the child was not screaming was proof the cat showed restraint in fighting its captor. From the corner of her eye she saw her familar step close, but not cross the lines of the pentacle she had erected around her, then jump up on the ledgework in front of her. Green eyes met her blue ones and a long wailing note escaped the cat's mouth-almost as if she was encouraging the girl. Giving her strength and power to continue.

Zodiac redoubled her efforts to increase the mass of darkness. Like spreading a mass of frosting over a large cake, she willed the clouds to continue to block more and more of the red light. Was this going to work or not, she didn't have a clue, but considering the evidence she had gathered up till now, it was all she had to work with. Despite feeling weak, she had not turned into the exaggerated things she had watched others turn into and the only difference had been she had not been directly exposed to the light. The bulk of clothing and the costume underneath had done the job-so far.

Mentally she recited the mantra again. She was silence now, yet the pentacle and the eyes of the cat glowed again as she pushed. Ten more minutes, less perhaps, and there would be enough in place to see if this was worth all the effort.

' May we walk upon this earth once again,
Once again beneath the same blue sky.
Then may our lives again intertwine,
And may we remember, you and I...'

A small prayer for the dead slipped around her thoughts. If this was for nothing, it was only a matter of time then.

It was all she could do to keep from fussing over Odin as he limped towards her but she held back, for many reasons. Not the least of which was that now just wasn't the time or place. There was too much going on that was far more important than her worrying about how injured Odin might be. She hoped she would get the chance to try and heal him later, but for now they had to do what they could to put an end to this curse or whatever it was before it was too late for everyone.

His remark about her gaunt thinness did made her grin but there wasn't a funny quip or smart *** remark in return, she just didn't have it in her. Thankfully, Odin was able to deal with Snow and the child had let Ginny go and both the little girl and the cat had joined the circle where Alexandrea and Zodiac still were trying to make the stinky smoke into clouds that would block out the light of the blood red moon.

Quietly, so as to not distract the Gypsy, Alexandrea showed Snow what needed to be done and hoped that the smell of the smoke wouldn't make the child ill. Once she was sure that Snow was feeding the fire steadily, Alexandrea added her will to Zodiac's. Picturing the clouds of smoke swelling up to hide the moon even as she felt the wind picking up and she swayed with it, recalling the times in her youth as a human that she had danced with the thunderstorms and in rare moments, even felt as if she could somehow beckon the winds to dance with her.

If there had ever been a time to get the very air to move to her will, it was now. And if whether did any good or not, Alex would never know but she kept swaying in the breeze as it wrapped about her body like an invisible cloak, finally she actually began to really dance. She was unaware of everything else around her save for the smoke, the wind and the rapidly diminishing light of the red moon.

OOC god modding of Snow approved by her player

She could hear them behind her, but she dared not advert her attentions. The thick, black clouds being produced by the chemicals were beginning to fall into place now. Already the red light was not so prevalent but they needed more. Her will was focused on one of the two natural clouds and was tugging it along slowly to help re-enforce the others. The other cloud had begun to follow. 'That has to be Alex's doing." Zodiac concluded.

A glance to her right and she saw Snow working the brazier, keeping the black smoke rising up. She felt for the girl. The look in the child's eyes was anything but trusting right now, and who could blame her? Herself and Alex both looking like a pair of dark witches garbed in black doing who knows what. Ginny nudged against her thigh as she settled down next to her. The occasional gunshots behind them told her Odin was dealing with his own problems now.

Her only reservation in all this was their operation was not quiet as invisible as she'd hope it could be. Black smoke pouring off a rooftop and going up into the sky like an aimed cannon shot was kinda conspicuous to say the least. Too many of those goons out and about tonight for someone not to notice. In the distance gunfire could still be heard with shouting and cries of pain or rage. She still had no clue what had even caused this, but there was no time to try and find out. She was already winging it with this idea as it was to start second guessing things.

Another patch of darkness drifted into place and joined the rest of the clouds hanging in the night. 'Please, Mater Lacrimarum, let this work.'

She paused in her dancing when her ears caught the sound of the chopper blades. At first, Alexandrea looked right up at where the moon should have been but she saw nothing but the dark clouds. There wasn't time to celebrate however, for not too far off in the distance she spotted the search lights of a helicopter heading their way.

Testing to see if her powers had indeed returned as she suspected, Alex sent to Zodiac and to Odin. *Company on the way*

The bag that Odin had been carrying was still laying near the roof's entrance where he has left it after blowing up the stairway, she hurried over to it and started to rummage through it. She didn't bother to ask him first, he was too busy firing shots down over the small wall that surrounded the roof. There must be more hunters attempting to scale the side of the building.

'Borrowing' several hand grenades and a grenade launcher, Alexandrea hurried back to Zodiac and Snow, raising a shield as soon as she got there. She would have let Odin know so he could use the extra protection as well, but if the sight of Alex's own hand was any indication? Odin would be looking like Odin again, not a Klingon. And although Alex wasn't sure about what was going on between him and Snow, she had a feeling letting the child think Odin was her father was the best way to go at the moment.

The chopper was almost on them, they must have been drawn to their location by the smoke. Alexandrea could see that the door to the helicopter was open, with a rope ladder hanging out that a dark figure was hanging on to. Grenade launcher set up, Alex fired a shot directly into the opening and crossed her fingers that it would explode before it got too close to the roof...

Why was this getting harder, she wondered. She wasn't feeling tired now, in fact it was the opposite. A strange energizing feeling was beginning to sweep through her now but her mental encouragement of the clouds was growing weaker.

Once she head Alexandria's voice in her mind, she knew the answer. The boiling mass of darkness was doing what she had hoped it would, but by blocking them from what was causing them to loose their vampire abilities was causing the ones she used to fix the issue to fade back in inactivity. She was happy for them all, yet part of her was truly heartbroken. This had been the closest she had felt to being 'alive' since the night she was turned. But the mystic was still encouraged. If there was magicks such as this then perhaps there was a way to one day reverse the process totally.

In that, she took some hope.

She turned to face Snow and pulled back her veil to show herself to the girl. "Hello there," she spoke to the child's mind. "Thank you for trying to protect Ginny."

She heard the helicopter and looked in time to see Alex shooting at it. Once her eyes confirmed what she was thinking, she grabbed the girl and pulled her down to the ground, covering over her with her own body just as whatever Alex had used exploded. A fireball of light and shrapnel blossomed in the darkness for a few shining seconds. Some smaller bits of shrapnel rained around them, but none of the larger pieces that could have injured them. Zodiac slowly got up and checked to see if the child was unharmed.

"Try to keep making the clouds as long as you can, and be ready in case the worst happens." She said while standing up. If their location hadn't been made by now, Alexandria's exploding helicopter trick was like a big signal flare for any of the paladins to zero in on. They were going to have major company soon.

She looked out at the town below and took a deep, unneeded breath as she focused her mind. "Calling my fellow vampires," she strained her mind to reach out and around her as far as she could with her thoughts. "Your powers should be returning, but for how long I can't say. Make every moment count!"

She this a couple times, then hoped whoever may have heard her would pass the message onwards. As long as the cloud held its place, they were go to go. The spell was not broken, but it was blocked now. It would have to do.

A quick glance at the ground and the mystic could see figures making their way to the building quickly. "Well, that didn't take long," she thought.

Ishani-Snow wasn't paying to much attention to anything, she just kept fanning, her eyes never once going away from her Auntie Kitty's feline friend. Still her arms were getting tired, and were beginning to feel heavier with every motion but still she kept going on, this was just another test in her mind. A test to prove her loyalty to her father, a test to prove that she was able to go past her limits, that she wasn't weak. Still if it was a test, she would fail it at the first sign that the cat was in trouble.

Her eyes widen as she began to see her Auntie Kitty in the woman who had been in charge of the whole ritual, so much to the point she took two steps back, then one step forward, then another back as if it might be some sort of trick but the words in her head told her she was not wrong. She knew they could change faces, but as far as she knew they couldn't change their voice inside of one's head. “Auntie Kitty!” she wanted to hug the woman but she was told to keep fanning for as long as she could. She nodded her head up and down and began to fan, not to fast but still faster than she had before.

Now she began to watch and pay attention, the other woman was Alexandrea for sure, did that mean that her Daddy also had a different face in this world? She wanted to turn around and look behind her but she also knew she had to keep fanning. Even as the helicopter appeared, she kept to her task, she wouldn't stop. Not even as Alexandrea shot at it.

No, she didn't stop until she was under her Auntie Kitty, her eyes frantic for a moment as everything blew up. She didn't want to scream but she did, she didn't want them to know she was scared but she was. She clung to the woman, trying her hardest not to cry even as she could feel tears threatening to come up. Daddy's heir wasn't allowed to cry, she kept telling herself, like she always did when she was scared, or hurt. Still she could never fully stop the tears from falling even at those times. Everything was fire, in the sky and she buried her face in her Auntie's chest so she wouldn't see the flames that she knew she should feel welcome and joy about, but they were the flames of hell, they were dangerous pieces of metal and they would hurt her.

Only once her auntie picked her up and checked her over did she allow herself rub her face, and pretend that she hadn't been scared. She stuck up her chin, narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms. “They better not have hurt Mean Kitty!” and she went to check the cat, from a safe distance to make sure it too was alright. Her eyes turned slowly back towards her Auntie and Alexandrea, as she knelt in front of the cat, “Do I go back to fanning now?”

She dove for cover under the shield she had just raised and covered her head with her arms as soon as the chopper blossomed in the sky overhead like a bomb in mid air. Alexandrea liked blowing things up but she usually preferred to be able to retreat to a safe distance first. Not to mention the fact that Alex would never wish to risk injuring anyone she cared about. If she had been smarter or stronger or faster? Maybe she would have come up with a better plan that would have been less dangerous and drew less attention. But what was done was done and as far as Alexandrea knew, no one had the ability to change time. For a moment she closed her eyes and wished when she opened them that she would see a blue English Police Box.

But when she opened them again, there was no traveling Time Lord to be seen, just Zodiac holding a very distraught Snow. The sound of the little girls' scream hadn't been lost on Alex and seeing the child with a tear stained face broke Alexandrea's heart. She felt like crap. It was just as well she would never be able to have a child of her own, she would have been crap at being a parent. Thinking about children subconsciously made Alex look around for Odin. She spotted him unharmed at the other side of the roof, still busy defending them all. Relief flooded through her and she turned back to where Zodiac and Snow stood, also unharmed.

Giving a silent prayer of thanks to Nox, Alex went over to the little girl and grabbed her in a quick hug but let go almost immediately.

"I am SO sorry, Snow. So very very sorry. That was stupid and reckless of me and I should have been more careful to not do anything that might endanger you or Zodiac. Are you both okay?"

Alexandrea looked the two over and then joined Snow in checking out Ginny. It did seem as if all were unscathed and Alex was glad she had raised that shield before firing off that hand grenade. At least she got one thing right tonight.

Snow's question about tending the fire was one that Alexandrea couldn't answer. Part of her thought even if it was no longer a job that needed to be done, it would be a good idea to let the child have a break. While another part of Alex figured it wasn't over yet and still needed to be done plus keeping Snow busy may be for the best.

Alex looked questioningly at the Mystic even as Zodiac spoke, explaining that the clouds needed to kept being made for as long as possible.

Thinking she would relieve the little girl of the job, Alex was about to offer when she heard the Gypsy's voice in her head. It seemed to be a 'mass' sending to all vampires everywhere, although Alexandrea hadn't known such a sending was possible. She was about to ask about that but then she saw that Zodiac's attention was focused elsewhere. Looking in the same direction the other vampire was staring at towards the ground, Alex groaned to see several dark figures heading their way.

Her first impulse was to drop more hand grenades on all on the heads on the hunters that were coming for them but after her screw up with the helicopter that had drawn so much attention, she stopped herself before even taking one step in the direction of the weapons. Instead, she did her best to direct her attention at the one that seemed to be in the lead and about to start scaling the wall of West Towers to get to them on the roof. She hadn't ever used Mob Rule against a human before but she was going to try. Maybe if they were too busy fighting each other, it would at least buy the vampires some more time.

One more quick prayer to Nox, and Alexandrea focused all her will and energy to invoke her ability of mob rule and sent the power down at the humans. She grinned as at first one and then another, and then several more of the dark forms below them started to attack each other in the street.