Russian Roulette [Eska Morreau]

[Verin Truska (DELETED 7956)]

Verin knew that many rogue vampires loved to linger underground, where the cops didn’t go. It was safer and only the bravest of hunters would dare to go down into the sewers. One could describe the sewers as dank, dark and foul smelling, but that was simply because of the occasional rotting corpse that one could find if they bothered to even look closely enough. The man had been attempting to track a rogue vampire down in the sewers, but he wasn’t very good at tracking and his adoptive father had figured that the only skills that Verin needed, were the skills to fight. Tracking was something that he was going to have to develop upon his own, through the good old fashion, trial and error. Perhaps, he could track wolves, or just simply keep beating his head against the wall while he tracked vampires. Who knew? The man did know, that where ever his adoptive father was, he had to be laying down low, way down low; as not even Verin could get a hold of him.

However, now was not the time to even be thinking about tracking nor of his father, as he had a current problem to deal with standing before him. Standing in the form of a rogue. He spun the Glock within his fingers, while his other hand held a hunting knife. While it wasn’t a sword, it could still cut and was effective, it was a weapon that he found easy to use and easy to conceal. His blue eyes followed the Rogue’s movements and flipped the hunting dagger, so then the back of the knife was faced towards his fore arm. Black hair and snarls was heard as he made small movements to adjust to the Rogue’s ever shifting position. This wasn’t the Rogue that he had been attempting to track for the past few days, as the one he chased seemed to be rather intelligent. No, this one, was more animalistic rather than the one he had been tracking for many days. As the one he attempted to track, seemed to be somewhat intelligent.

The man saw playing with such beings as something like Russian Roulette. You have one in six chances of that bullet being the one that was going to blow your own brains out. This was the exact same odds, especially if he didn’t play his cards right. The more animal a rogue vampire was, meant that they were going to act unpredictable half the time. So, he waited, waited for the vampire to make his move, to make his next move, as Verin watched the limp that accompanied his movements. The paladin had already put a bullet into its right leg to slow its movements, which meant that he still had five left in the clip. If need be, he could switch to the other weapon that he had tucked into the shoulder holster so then he didn’t have to change an empty clip into a full one. However, he felt confident enough that he had enough bullets and trusted the hunting knife in his hand to put this one down.

He braced his form then as the rogue vampire lunged at him, his left foot slid to the side and he twisted his body to follow suit in the motion that he had created. Essentially his body slid to the right side of the vampire where the Rogue was weakest and simply let him past. Verin spun upon his heel as the Rogue rushed past his body, aimed his gun and fired a double tap to the back in the general location where the heart was normally kept. His blue eyes watched as the body jerked with the impact and slowly, the body turned towards him, the snarl still firmly in place. The paladin fired another round into the vampire’s head and for good measure, emptied the last two bullets into the chest of the vampire as he slowly began to approach the rogue whose body had fallen to the ground.

It hadn’t disintegrated and he was beginning to thinking that it wasn’t exactly dead, especially considering that he couldn’t see the eyes as his prey had landed face first into the hard bricks underneath their feet. Slowly, his steps edged around the vampire’s still form before he came up behind the Rogue and planted a booted foot into the small of its back. Tucking the Glock back into its holster, he then reached forward with his free hand and grasped oily locks so then he could pull the head back to bare the throat. Suddenly, the vampire weakly thrashed underneath him and he grunted as he only just maintained his balance and grip upon the Rogue. The Paladin wasn’t about to let him go, not when the two rotting corpses that was tucked away to the side had clearly been its human prey.

”If it’s meant to be, it will be,” He softly mumbled as he brought his hunting dagger around and pressed the sharp end to the Rogue’s neck and applied pressure. Another grunt was issued as he began to make slow work of slicing the blade through skin, flesh, muscle, windpipe and sinew. It was slow work especially when he was simply a human. However, being a paladin gave him extra advantages against a normal human, especially when it came to strength and speed of movement. However, vampires were hardy beings, even rogues, as they were still a vampire regardless. Blood, spurted forth upon the hard bricks and he felt the blood seep through his fingers which made the grip upon the blade that he carried harder to hold. A pause and shift of grip happened before he continued upon his task. The blood that spilled, turned to ash after a time and he gritted his teeth against the struggling vampire that now gurgled upon its own blood. Finally, it’s struggles died down as he made a reasonable wound within the other male’s neck.

A pause was given, before he placed the knife upon the bricks and both hands gripped the head as he braced himself. The muscles within his arms tensed up as he suddenly snapped the head to the side to break the spinal cord. As the crack was heard, the body underneath him suddenly crumbled and ash fell through his fingers. ”I should have simply tied him up and carted him out of Harper Rock,” Verin mumbled to himself as he shifted to picked up the discarded hunting knife.

[Wearing]

[Eska Morreau (DELETED 8550)]

"What did you do?!"
Eska could hear the anger rising in her voice, echoing through out the dank and foul smelling underground that were the sewers. She had been tracking a vampire for the last four hours, a rogue that had killed two people and just when she thought she was closing in on the beast, her quarry had been snatched out from under her nose as if by magic. She stepped through the foul sludge that was emptied down here, her booted feet making hungry, sucking noises as she walked.
A man stood over what was supposed to have been her kill. He was dressed in normal enough clothes but there was ash around his feet and a hunting knife in one hand, a sure sign that the person she was looking at was a paladin. She couldn't see much of him in the weak light so even though he might have been a paladin, he might just as well have been a vampire.
Probably not.
So he's just like me, Eska thought, looking him over cautiously. What exactly was the proper procedure for these kinds of situations? Did she have to say something or just turn back the way she had come as if nothing had happened?
Eska trusted a precious few people and this one seemed no different. He might have been a hunter like she was but she wasn't about to let her guard down with him, call it instinct perhaps.
Instead, she knelt down beside one of the two human corpses, a shrivelled and decomposing....woman? And placed a gentle hand over her wide open eyes. She passed them over the woman's face, closing her eyes and muttering a short prayer before she stood, straightening herself.
Eska faced the man now, gripping the blade on the inside of her jacket tighter. "Well? Are you going to introduce yourself or do I start?"

[Verin Truska (DELETED 7956)]

Verin lifted his gaze as the voice bounced off of the sewer walls and echoed down along the hollow underground. Really, he hadn’t wanted to make too much of a fuss about nothing, but some people just couldn’t reign in their anger at something. Were they the vampire’s lover? A brow perked up as his blue gaze found the woman who appeared angry, walking down along the sewer tunnel. He was tempted to shoot off some smart comment about her having to be faster if she wanted to rescues her vampire lover, but he held back such a comment. Perhaps there was something that he was missing. Slowly, he crouched, only to gather up his hunting knife which he had previously tossed to the side before he had killed the pile of ash that was now at his feet. What was such a woman like she, doing down in the sewers anyway? Did she have a death wish? Or was she looking for something else entirely?

Keeping to his slow movements, he wiped the blade along his jeans so then the ash smeared across his black jeans. All the while, his gaze never left the woman who seemed far too casual to just be a normal human. She had to know about vampires, otherwise she would be screaming at the top of her lungs at the fact that she just saw him kill something which turned into ash. He watched her pass a hand over a corpse’s eyes, closing them while he slipped the blade into the sheath that was tied around his leg. When she muttered a pray for the deceased, he rolled his eyes as he covered up the sheathed blade by his leg with the leg of his jeans. Finally, she stood and a smirk slipped into place upon his lips as she demanded a name from him. Well, he would give her some credit, she did have a fiery spirit.

”Well, Love. One might say that you owe me a name first. After all, I was here first, not to mention that you came after I had already killed this vampire.” A chuckle parted his lips as he angled his head upwards to meet the woman’s gaze. Even though they were surrounded in dim light, he could estimate just as to where her eyes would be located within her silhouette. He remained quiet for a moment as the smirk remained upon his lips. Oh he was getting quite the kick out of this. She was a woman with quite the spirit, a woman who he had yet to figure out just as to why she was down here. She had asked just as to what he had done, not to mention that she didn’t seem particularly squeamish around the corpses that were tucked to the side. Nor did she care about reaching for a phone to report a murder, even though she wouldn’t be able to explain just as to how a man could disintegrate into a pile of ash. The woman would risk sounding crazy.

No, she was level headed. Eerily so. In fact, he couldn’t help but think of Charlie. Would she be steady if she ever found out about vampires? Steady. Yes, she was far too steady for this woman to be normal. Now if he was guessing correctly, she could be a pathed human, or a vampire herself, especially considering that she seemed concern about the fact that he had killed a vampire before her very eyes. ”I tell you what, Love. You tell me your name. I don’t care if it’s an alias or whatever you want to use and then I’ll give you mine.” A shrug was given as he slowly rose from his crouched position. ”That seems rather fair considering that you came after all of the action had passed. If you were after the vampire, then that is your own fault. You should have gotten here quicker. There is no, ‘He is mine, so don’t touch,’ board.” Verin said as he made air quotations around, ‘He is mine, so don’t touch.’ So, she just simply didn’t have the right to get angry at him for eliminating a threat to the city.

[Eska Morreau (DELETED 8550)]

"Don't be so full of yourself," Eska said, stepping up towards the man.

Did he think she owed him a thank you? For snatching her kill? As if.

"I'm Eska. Eska Morreau. Not an alias. I don't need one." She was still a bit pissed about not getting to the vampire first but this stranger had made good work of him. Maybe she had been slightly hasty in her reaction.
He must be thinking how someone like me could be down here.

Eska knew they were circling each other, almost like two new creatures had just been introduced. First impressions were everything and if she were younger, she would have smiled and held out her hand like some absurdly polite schoolgirl. This wasn't the time for formalities however.

If this man was in her side, she wanted to know. Possibly make a friend of him. Better a cocky ally than a timid foe. If however, he wasn't, then she'd take the greatest pleasure in killing him. His pride had made him careless to the point of cockiness and that made him vulnerable. The vain always were.

"Well sweet stranger, I've told you my name. This is the point where we decide if I like you enough to let you live. That is, ofcourse if you aren't a vampire.
The golden word. Enunciated slowly because she wanted him to see the deliberate eyebrow raise, the provocativeness of it.