Path of the Vampire forum

A quiet morning in the office, Julien busied himself as usual with his paperwork. Three piles assorted, he scrutinized the amount, a mixture of feelings about it. On one end, the business was good, and he enjoyed having work to do. On the other hand, the amount of deaths in the city was a bit off putting. Straightening the pile for 'price adjustments and additions', he then adjusted the picture of his wife, Sybil, as it most likely was bumped when one of his employees set the paperwork on his desk. Taking a seat finally, he moved the chair to the proper height, then put his reading glasses on.

"Alright, my dears, where shall we begin?" he asked, talking to absolutely nobody it seemed, since he was the only being in the office. Pulling four black pens from his top drawer, he set them aside, then began from the left, choosing the top folder. It was a young man, in his early twenties, who seemed to have died in an incident within the Ganglands. There was no chance that it would be an open casket funeral, due to the level of damage the body had taken in the conflict, and he did not wish to expose the family to the gruesome scene their child had been transformed into.

Line by line, Julien began to go through the information, to make sure he had the proper pricing, adjusting a few times. Pulling out a large spiral-bound notebook, he set that beside, it full of the different items he would have to 'sell' to the family. Circling the family's planned budget, he began to look through the notebook, first with caskets, then vault designs, in an attempt to find what worked best together. Writing a few notes in the margins, he then totaled each group out, to make sure he had the pricing handy in case there were questions.

Sybil tightened the belt for her jacket to squeeze in her midsection and scrunch the front enough to lock in a large black button through a threaded loop. A glossed and manicured nail snuck at the right curve where her lips met up together to carve in a defining sharp corner as part her lip line. Then the downward tug of a silver sheet of her hair, thumb working the ends against the sides of her index finger. The appendages try to straighten the hair follicles without the insufferable heat of the flat iron and blow dryer in combination, and they fail. There is no time to fuss over the dip in the silvering hair on either side. When she says a little and angles her head in just the right position, though, the tips slide and glance a tickle along her throat below both jawbones. It would be a minor distraction but one that Sybil was confident could be phased out of her immediate attention.

The phone on her dresser lights up with a reminder of an appointment to make introductions with a family whose funeral procession was less than five days away. The appointment itself wasn't for another three hours but Sybil wanted to leave with enough time to stop by the office. The mother of the man in his late thirties had made a special request to meet with both the husband and the wife, despite Julien's usual manner of how the business is handled. She dials the number for Bones Funeral Parlor, being one of the few numbers - aside from her husband's personal number - that she could draw from stored memory. The buzzing bothers her ears, that pitch that vibrates and runs through her head, that she holds the phone about an inch from the opening to her ear canal and waits to see whether or not Julien would be available to answer the phone.

"Julien, please answer the phone," the lowly rasp hums from past her lips, as one of her hands lands on a bag. She lifts and positions the strap over her shoulder. Her heels click as she begins towards the front door, keys jingling as they are plucked from the open front pocket of the sleek black purse. The door has a decorative display of stained glass, various shades of translucent obsidian cut glass to depict the sinewy, manifestation of the grim reaper. The knob itself was an elegant metal working of a skeletal hand splaying out its fingers to give the user a handshake, thumb positioned for Sybil to click downwards and unlock the slider to allow her to exit the home. The aged woman locks the door behind her and walks towards the black prototype of an upcoming model of a Rolls-Royce called the Phantom, standing outside and fumbling with her keys in her free hand, still listening to that tone.