Path of the Vampire forum

“It’s quite alright,” the Telepath said, directly into her mind once more. “You can ask me anything you want to know. I shall do my best to answer…”

Despite the smile radiating perfect happiness and sincerity, the Telepath had to pause to consider her questions. It could be said that Myk was too honest at times, willingly providing ammunition to potential enemies. Rutherford, the Telepath’s burden and Wraith, was quick to remind Myk who was trustworthy and who was not. Rutherford suggested on many occasion that Myk’s friendship with a certain other Killer was to the Telepath’s detriment. Rutherford didn’t much like Simone either, said nothing too polite about Robert, and certainly wasn’t too fond of Myk’s own family. The Telepath couldn’t be certain what the crazy Wraith’s problem was, but the message was clear: don’t trust anyone with your heart.

Myk sighed promptly and once again, ignored the advice.

“I can read your mind if I want to. I can read your surface memories – anything that isn’t too deeply buried in your subconscious. I can look you over and know what you are and what you’re capable of. I know that you’re… what they call a Killer… that you have hidden strengths and devastating abilities. But we are not limited to the Path on which we were set, you see.”

Myk paused once more, not that he couldn’t multi-task, but because he needed to give her time to absorb the information once again. Also, she might have some further questions that he would answer immediately after he took just another sip of that drink…

His voice was a subtle hum within her head. Cori could not understand how this all worked...how one could get into another's mind and just read the surface. Cori would want to go as deep as she could..she would want everything inside. Cori pushed her chair back and uncrossed her legs. Making as if the two were just having some uncomfortable silence… she knew that others watched..they always did. To continue the facade, Cori spoke..”I am almost done my shift Myk and I would love to continue this conversation. Do you know of a place that is a bit more, well...private?”

Cori then looked at the white haired telepath and thought, “ It is just that being here and doing this is making me uncomfortable. I do not know how long we can pull off the silence without being noticed.”

Cori was well aware that any possible show of powers from a vampire would be construed as a violation, if witnessed by a human and even a vampire with a grudge. She simply could not go through another week of hell, as she did before… the destruction that was done to her body was devastating. Even with her ability to zombify her wounds, they still remained present and a reminder during the time when she wore them.

Cori sat for a moment and tried her best to figure Myk out… she was good at being able to read people..not by using any power, merely by intuition. He seemed to be helpful and he surely was kind. She did not understand why such a powerful vampire would, well, dress as he did. It maybe was that Cori was use to Trahir, how he dressed and carried himself. He was always so serious, so stoic… Myk was the opposite, the total opposite.

Cori looked at Myk, smiled and thought,”I have many questions but before we continue, I want you to stop referring to me as a killer. It may be my path..not even sure why it was chosen or if I chose it. What I do know is that there are many sides to me and that is but a small part.” Cori sat back and sighed… she hoped that Myk did not take her as a heartless killer, who would slice anything that moved her way. It was certainly not the truth, well...not the absolute truth.

“I do,” he said simply, settling the glass down onto the table once more. There was little more than a drop left and only now was he starting to feel that swimming feeling invading his extremities. “What time do you get off work?”

While that question hung in the air, Myk heard the woman’s thoughts whispering to him like the wind. It was so subtle – because he was barely paying attention – that the Telepath almost mistook the Killer’s thoughts for random chatter and background noise. Pewter eyes stared vacantly at the blonde before him as her voice entered his consciousness, but her lips were very still. It was only then that the Telepath realised that he was drifting, not paying attention, and he laughed to himself.

“That sounded truly awful,” he said smirking, disguising her lack of answer so that it did not seem strange to onlookers. “I promise, I am not hitting on you.”

With a wink and a grin, Myk added one more telepathic thought into her head before dropping their psychic link.

“You’re right. We should continue this discussion some place more private. I will close our telepathic communications and you can retain your guard.”

It was right to inform her of that. Myk did not want her to be invaded by any other Telepaths in the area – if that were possible to avoid. Also, he did not want to be invaded by her thoughts without intention. Myk heard many whispers in his ears, in the centre of his mind, that it was difficult to know if he was just crazy or that his psychic abilities were too progressive…

Since it had happened, he had barely been able to leave this damned bar; more matter-of-factly, this booth, which was quickly becoming a second home to him. Daylight now burned him, and spending time in the room he rented upstairs was like languishing in a prison cell. And so he had allowed the booth to swallow him into it's shadows like a grave. One evening he had half-unconsciously reached up and unscrewed the bulb from the hanging light. "Hello darkness, my old friend," he had thought morosely as he sank further into obscurity. But he did find the lack of light suited a new-found nature: he needed shadows. "Lived" for them even (oh the irony of that). At night he would usually give up the safety of the booth to whatever biker or hipster or yuppie couple desired a spot to comfortably drink their beer and listen to the live music that usually played at Lancasters, and go find other shadows around the city, ones that allowed him to surreptitiously sink his teeth into the neck of a stranger; to ingest blood.
But during the day, Stuart Ryan Giger would retreat to the safety of the bar, to sit and brood in his booth, the black hood of his jacket pulled low over his eyes. He was truly a lost soul, a rudderless ****, with an albatross around his neck. Mixing cliches like the bartender, that elfin goddess with the heart of a demon, mixed drinks. He had come to Harper Rock based on the long-ago recommendation of a friend who was no longer a friend, a dimwit who had called the town "quaint." He had not been prepared for what he would find here. For what this quaint little city would do to him. For what she had done to him.
And so now he sat, and glowered at her from across the bar. "I am lacking in purpose," he thought. "I came here to escape, but now my blood boils. I need something to do..." And as he watched her mix the drinks, and chat comfortably with normal people, as if she didn't have knives for teeth, a name kept pounding in his head...
stryge...stryge...STRYGE...STRYGE...STRYGE...

Lancaster's. Until the night Xian had purchased his first beautiful handgun from the gunsmith-bartender Pi, the place had been just some other bar. Oh, he'd heard about it from the others of his bloodline as he listened from the shadows, specifically that it was vampire-owned. But he'd never until then had reason to enter the place himself.

He almost did, one night when the Other was free and walking, as the mind of Xian wandered the web, dancing the telepaths' dance. Xian's Other had found a couple of young women interesting enough to follow from a distance, and they had wandered the streets until they ended up at Lancasters. They went in, and, after some thought, Xian's Other walked elsewhere.

Now it was three handguns later, and Xian's Other found himself walking into the now-familiar bar at least two nights a week. It helped that his "real" self was out doing nobody knows what, and he'd been in charge for the longest time since his/their change. Xian would probably never have made Lancaster's a second home.

But his Other, well, it was now one of his refuges from the night streets.

He wasn't really sure what drew him back again and again. Perhaps it was the fact that it was owned by a vampire, which seemed to attract other vampires here as well. Perhaps he found some silent comfort in the company of the other walking dead. Other times, he would almost admit that he liked watching the gunsmith-bartender as she served patrons. Maybe it was all of that and none of that. He didn't really know, and he wasn't the sort to really think about things too much. At least, he didn't think he was.

Whatever the reason was, if there was a reason, he'd once more found himself seated in a shadowed booth, a cold drink slowly warming on his table, untouched, as usual. When he'd first started coming regularly, he'd tried to sip a few times from the drinks he'd order. But while some vampires could drink, and possibly even enjoy doing so, he found that he simply had no taste for it anymore.

So the drinks became one of the games he would play while at Lancaster's: find someone who'd ordered the same, and find some way to swap his drink, for the empty or near-empty one. Stealth, distraction, and, one time, outright just replacing the drink of a surprised patron. It passed the time.

For the most part, however, he watched. He watched the vampires who would walk in, and he'd watch the gunsmith without admitting it to himself, and he watched the patrons as they drank, laughed, paired off, or even sulked alone, the burdens of the world on their shoulders.

Much like the one he'd found himself watching tonight.

There was no doubt that he was a vampire, this silent, brooding figure in the shadows of a darkened booth. Xian's Other had noticed how this vampire stared at the gunsmith-bartender that he himself had been pretending not to watch. That stare was enough to attract his attention, and keep it.

Drink forgotten, his game set aside for another night, Xian's Other wondered why the brooding vampire would look with such... was it animosity? towards the vampiress in whose presence Xian had once trembled in obvious fear.

There was something about being a stalker that made one more keenly aware of when they were the stalkee. Nestled deep in his booth and his darkness, Stuart Giger could feel the eyes on him. As a shadow, one to whom hiding was a second nature, it made him deeply uncomfortable. By this very nature, Stuart now thrived on being inconspicuous, though he admittedly found it quite hard to be that way when Pi was around.

From inside the black hood of his jacket Stuart's eyes shifted to his observer. An Asian man dressed in black, combat boots, crazy hair. And what the hell are you supposed to be, fella? The Asian man and he locked eyes for a moment, and Stuart smiled at him, that disarming smile that had been his gift since as long as he could remember.

"You gonna look at me like that, I figure you out to buy a fella drink first!" Stu called across the room. "Only problem being, I don't drink most of what they serve here." That was a stupid thing to say. Once again, Pi's presence was making him feel reckless. And yet ever since the turning, ever since she had found him with that bloody hole in his chest, he had felt a compulsion to be near her, to be in her presence. Even though the sight of her these days filled him with a sick loathing.

Stu waited for the Asian man's reaction to his comments. He strongly suspected, though he had no way of knowing for sure, that this man was a vampire like himself. Regardless of the possibility of the man's vampiric nature, or possibly even more so because of it, Stuart kind hoped things would go south here in Lancasters tonight. Deep inside, Stuart Giger...Stryge...could feel himself spoiling for a fight.

He didn't even realize it, but the Other raised an eyebrow ever so slightly as he realized that the other vampire in the darkened booth had finally noticed him. He had been considering what he was going to do, whether it was his curiosity or his self-preservation that won out. Not that he believed that this vampire could be a threat; he recognized exactly one major threat in the bar, and she was busy serving drinks. He was almost decided on his course of action, when he felt the vampire he was watching direct his attention on him.

Their eyes locked for a brief moment, and the Other slowly tilted his head to the right, while the other vampire smiled. In passing, he considered the smile beautiful, almost perfect in its imperfection, and his eyebrow raised further.

Stryge wrote: "You gonna look at me like that, I figure you out to buy a fella drink first!" Stu called across the room. "Only problem being, I don't drink most of what they serve here."

Caught, and somewhat embarrassed, the Other shook his head as he lowered his eyes, and allowed himself a grin. He hadn't quite expected that at all. At most, he expected a hostile gaze which he could have walked away or ignored just as easily. This situation wasn't ideal either; if this vampire was up for trouble, there were many mortals in the way. Witnesses.

Then again, most situations were rarely ideal. You'd just have to roll with it, and see what happens.

There were some people who picked up fragments of that exchange, but for the most part, the din of the bar seemed to have covered up what the other vampire had called out. At least, that's what the Other hoped. Some looked from one to the other, with some curious disinterest, but most returned to the conversations on their respective tables.

The Other raised his drink in silent salute, and stood up with great care, and left his table and the untouched drink. He patted his slightly wet hands on his pants leg, and walked slowly towards the other booth. He looked at the people he passed with what seemed like disinterest, but his mind peeked into them quickly, and where needed, added a distracting thought to keep their attentions from him.

When he was only a few steps to the table of the other vampire, he met the vampire's gaze, and sat down quickly opposite him. He nodded in greeting, and allowed himself to visibly relax, though inside he still felt wary. He was always wary around other vampires, especially those he didn't know, and seemed to have pissed off.

"My apologies," he whispered just loud enough to be barely audible. "I didn't mean to offend." This was true, though the Other also recognized that any other night he would have simply walked out of the bar and disappeared for a few days instead of apologize. He tended to avoid confrontation unless completely necessary. Or at least when he wasn't in the mood for them.

He wasn't in the mood now, but he was curious. Something about this vampire had caught his eye, but not something that you could see. It was like the Other recognized something in this vampire, though he wasn't entirely sure just what that was. And, with nothing pressing to do, he allowed himself his curiosity.

"My name is -" he almost paused here, the barest, tiniest moment. Quicker than a real thought, quicker than half a breath, he wondered if it was right to use the name. "- Xian," he said. And he felt that it was right.

My name is -- Xian.

Well this ought to be interesting, he thought. A hand extended from out of the shadows. From the under the hood, the smile shone brightly and two dark eyes glistened, like polished rocks at the bottom of a river.

"Call me Stryge." After all, that was his name. In that moment the final nail was being driven into the coffin of Stuart Ryan Geiger. That son of a ***** killed himself. Now if only I could do the same. The will it had taken, the sheer iron will for him to reach that moment, to push the muzzle of the gun against his heart, to pull the trigger. And she had taken it all away from him. Was he supposed to be happy now?

"I feel you have joined me under false pretenses. A man who doesn't care enough to take care of his own drink doesn't seem to likely to buy one for someone else." He had noticed that the man had left a perfectly good alcoholic beverage on the table. He had noticed because diving to the bottom of a sea of ethanol had been a professional past time since the accident, and now, though his new body no longer needed it, his mind still did. Psychological addiction he believed they called it. He had tried drinking whiskey since the change, and had spit it all up like a freshman pledging her first sorority. And so he was hyper-aware of the drinks people were ordering and carrying with them through Lancasters each night. It had almost become a game he played, from the depths of his booth. Like counting cars with out of state plates.

"Could be that like me, you've had a change of heart about the sauce, and decided to swear off it, Could be you're into something else these days? Like me." Stryge let the comment linger in the air and waited for Xian's reaction. It more than likely would turn that this man was just some pathetic human (whom Stryge had already begun to feel contempt for, though it had not been so long since Stryge had been a human himself). If that was the case, then who cared what he thought of Stryge's bizarre statements and behavior? But it could also be the case that he was a vampire, a blood-sucker like Stryge himself. And if that was so, Stryge wanted very much to know more...

The Other realized that this vampire was probably fishing, trying to figure if Xian was a vampire like he was. He contemplated being vague and unclear but wasn't in the mood for that kind of game either. At least, not much anyway.

Call him by his name, he told himself.

Stryge. An unusual name, the Other noted. He ha long ago observed that a number of vampires tended to take on unusual or exotic names after the change if their "real" names weren't quite exotic or unique enough. Xian would have said "possibly to separate themselves from their previous lives." The Other just accepted it as a fact and moved on.

He wasn't against the practice himself, and if he was, he would have been a hypocrite. He had done the same thing, after all. Xian. Shen. Immortal.

The vampire's name did get the better of his curiosity, and he quickly tapped into the bar's wi-fi with the powers his true Path had granted Xian. He didn't often use them, but he could use them well enough. It took barely a second to do some quick searches.

Stryge. Strigos. Striges. Strix. Bird of ill omen.

Curiouser and curiouser, the Other said to himself. Down the rabbit hole, then.

He took a breath and gave a small cough. "False pretenses?" he said, and he paused to quickly think. "Not really. The apology is true enough, for one. As for the drink," He looked over at a passing server, and raised a slim hand.

The server, a small young woman, almost looked at him, but was distracted by another customer. She passed them by as she headed to a nearby table.

Xian's Other feigned surprise. "Heh. Well. Not so easily solved after all," he said.

He shrugged and offered the other vampire - Stryge, he repeated to himself - an apologetic grin. "What can we do, the place is busy tonight." Then he put both hands on the table and leaned forward slightly. "But you're right, I think. We weren't about to drink any of that anyway, were we?"

He locked eyes with Stryge, and whispered the next words straight into his mind: I mean, unless you're that kind of vampire.

For a split second, the smile faltered. Stryge was still learning to navigate this dark new world that he had found himself thrust into, and having his mind invaded by the thoughts of others was one little corner of it that was still completely foreign to him. He knew it was something that Lancaster was capable of doing, but, still knowing so little about vampires since the change, he had, perhaps foolishly, assumed that it was a gift unique to the Australian. The fact was, until today, Stryge had met no other vampires outside of Pi and her burly partner. This Xian was a stranger to him, and though he found himself wanting to resent him along with all of the other vampires, blaming them all in one fell swoop for turning his life inside out and upside down, Stryge was pragmatic enough to not look a gift horse in the mouth. Maybe with his help I can still end this...

The charming grin reappeared from under the hood. He glanced around the bar, and then back at Xian. We've been walking around like dumb cattle this whole time, no idea what was under our very noses. He realized he could sense a difference now between the vampire and the men and women chatting and drinking blithely around them. It was like a kind of intuition, one that he had never had before. One or two other patrons of the bar tonight were giving off an aura similar to Xian's, Pi especially, but for the most part, it was like watching a room full of monochromatic people in a world that was full color. Well what do you know? Stryge mused, We smell our own.

It had taken Xian sitting across from him for 30 seconds to have this major break-through. Stryge found himself desperate to know more, though he kept his veneer calm (much like how Pi's eyes had looked to him the first time that he had met her; like the still surface of a lake under which danger undoubtedly lurked). Should've trusted your instincts there old buddy, but it's not too late to get back on the horse. Now Stryge's instincts were telling him that this man sitting across from him was important; that he would have a major impact on whatever course he took next. It was time to figure out what that course would be.

Stryge didn't understand exactly how Xian's powers worked, but he felt silly thinking his response regardless, so he responded to the vampire's mental query out loud: "Naw buddy, I'm not that kinda vampire, if I take your meaning correctly. I've noticed that I don't quite have the stomach for the hard stuff anymore. Or any kind of food or drink for that matter. Seems blood's all we get. Which don't get me wrong, that **** has quite a kick to it. But a whiskey drinker like myself still has reason to lament. So now that we've established what I ain't, maybe we could talk about what you are. How'd you do that trick with your mind, what'd they call that, telepathy? And how come I can't do it?"