A Message For The People

[Ephraim Steele]

[against_peace][/against_peace]

It was fortunate that some of the old equipment had remained intact.

He felt like, if he had taken these proofs up to his local Kinko’s that he would be receiving some strange looks. Perhaps it would have fallen into the hands of one of those filthy sympathizers and they would have ruined the entire project. Instead, they had printers aplenty to work with. It was good to see that the good lord was still on their side, placing such a blessing upon them as so much office equipment might represent in this war they fought on more battlefields than just the streets.

Tonight, they waged war on the hearts of the people. Tonight, they would spread the idea of what rule beneath the vampire might actually look like. They would do what they could to dispel the public of their blurred image of what these monsters truly were, and to make them more aware of the sort of vile things that they could be capable of. These things, they would do, with simple imagery. Through graphic campaign and artistic expression.

He had several proofs of the fliers made up, before he had printed dozens of copies of each design, that he would be handing out to each of his team. He’d come to learn that he could trust them with several tasks, and this one seemed low on that list to some, but it was a factor that many of them may not consider as important as it would likely turn out to be.

These people were sheep, following blindly the will of the vampire as they pushed and swayed public opinion this way and that with a frightening ease. They were creatures of immense influence, and they could never be sure exactly how high that influence might reach. They could even have their fingers in the government itself. The only ones that they could trust were one another, and the people needed to know that. They needed to know that what the media might feed them might not all be as true as they would have you believe.

It had to be seen that not everything could be taken at face value. What better way to show the world, than through a bit of artistic satire? Through propaganda, and simple imagery?

It was an idea that each of them had shared, that each of them had considered, and had all agreed would be key in their war on the vampires. As he waited, his backpack heavy with the weight of the fliers, Ephraim checked his watch, pacing lazily on the front steps of the cathedral, the place they had agreed to meet. It was almost time, and with the sun riding low in the sky, the cover of night would soon be upon them.

He sighed, and took a quick breath before pulling out his phone to check that none of them had called off their desire to be involved with plastering the city with their message.

[Sawyer]

+ attire +

[against_peace][/against_peace]

“Miss, are you certain you’re feeling well enough to leave?”

It was the concern in the woman’s voice that had Sawyer lifting her head, blue eyes taking in the weathered lines of the nurse’s features. To some, she might resemble a bulldog – chubby cheeks, low hanging lips, wide, brown eyes – but she thought she simply looked tired. Her shoulders were hunched, the white of her scrubs pulled a little too taut against a large bosom, and there were a few loose threads in the fabric. She was almost positive if the woman moved just slightly in the wrong direction, the entire uniform would unravel, leaving her bare to the horror of the Intensive Care Unit. In the end, though, the hollowness of her eyes and the paleness of her cheek did nothing to dissuade her. Glancing at the clock over a broad shoulder, the paladin lifted her brow as she studied the numbers on the worn face.

The little hand indicates the hours.
The big hand indicates the minutes.
… 15:04 – no.
4:15.

Two hours had passed since she had been informed she could leave, and yet, she still remained in her room, her fingers tucked beneath the metal of her bed. She wanted to leave. She needed to leave, but every time she tried, every second she made it to the door – this woman stopped her. Every other nurse had left her alone, the doctors had handed her the discharge papers, but this beast refused to step aside. Running her tongue along her teeth as she slipped from her bed, the soft thud of her boots against the tile bringing the woman’s attention to her once more, she smiled. “I’ve been ready to go since I got put in this brightly lit hell, and I’m getting real tired of you standing in my way.” The bite in her words had the nurse standing a bit taller, and it was then, when the light hit her harrowed gaze fully, she saw the cruelty within. “Well, I personally think that you are not suited for discharge. You are—“ She never had a chance to finish her tirade.

In the midst of it, Sawyer had gathered her bag and slung the worn leather strap over her shoulder, before pulling her hair free from the ancient and frayed tie that they had supplied her with. “You’re also not my doctor, and I really don’t have time for your ****. I’ll deal with you later, though, don’t you worry. We can hash out your abandonment issues over tea.” Waving her hand towards the nurse, she fought her grin at the way her chapped lips parted and closed, the words she wanted to say coming out as nothing more than garbled hisses. Once she was free of her overzealous guard dog, it didn’t take her long at all to make her way from the brightly lit hospital and into the chilled streets of Harper Rock, nor did it take her more than a few minute to track down her leader.

“We really need to look into Nurse Lopez. She is starting to get under my skin,” she muttered by way of greeting as she held her hand out, waiting for him to hand over her sword.

[Storyteller]

==========AUTOMATED RANDOM EVENTS SYSTEM==========

[A new Sawyer enters the thread. If possible, find another Sawyer to join in before continuing.]

[Gideon Barnes (DELETED 8781)]

[against_peace][/against_peace]

Gideon finished washing the bottles, and set them in the drying rack, before he dried his hands. The babies, no longer infants, had been asleep for about an hour now. He did a quick sweep of the living room, picked up a giraffe shaped rattle and a pacifier that wasn't far from a coffee table. Once that was done, he crept past the rooms of the sleeping babies, and popped his head into the bedroom. He watched Mona for a minute before moving into the bedroom and wrapped his arms behind her as she put something in the closest. "Going to run an errand or two with...Esli, Lass and the others." His hands moved upwards for a quick grope of the two best sets of breasts he had laid his hands on and then smirked. "Won't be too late. I'll come warm you up later."

He inched away, slapped Mona on her ***, then headed out of the room to grab his coat, small pistol and sword. Who knew what sort of trouble they would get into tonight, so it was better to be prepared for the worst case scenario in his mind. After a silent prayer that ran through his head, Gideon left the small house, got in his car and headed to the meeting place.

Christmas music was playing on the radio, on almost every channel. Gideon didn't mind it any, but it wasn't even December. He opted for silence seconds before cutting the radio off and when he had to sit at a railroad crossing for a train that was unloading sand, he grabbed his phone and texted his brother.

To: Esli
From: Gideon

Message: Need a ride, brother? Is Lass coming tonight? The more the merrier.

He hit send, tossed the phone to the passenger seat and waited for a response. Esli would reply one way or another, this wasn't something he was going to miss. Gideon knew that with every fiber of his being.

[Tierney]

[against_peace][/against_peace]

"You are going out again."

Her mother had tried to form it as a question, but Tierney hadn't missed the downward pitch at the end, the way that it ended as a statement. She knew her father wouldn't be pleased that she was skipping out on target practice, but there were more important things to do than shooting at a stationary object. The meeting place had been decided upon and she knew it wouldn't do to be late. "I am. Father will have to extend my session tomorrow. I'm meeting up with Sawyer." It wasn't a lie. At the name of Tierney's old friend, she could see the expression that her mother's features hold soften. "Is she in the hospital again?"

There was a shake of her head. Truthfully, the ginger didn't know, but it wouldn't surprise her. Her friend had the tendency to get herself into physical trouble where Tierney did best to avoid it for now. There was a time and place where she would be needed, but she was busy working on strengthing her tendency to hack. Security systems were difficult to bypass without her scripts - Tierney suspected her father had something to do with their disappearance. He'd never been fond of computers and felt she should focus more on her botany than some silly hobby.

As she stood up, Tierney felt the end up her braid tap against her mid-back and she frowned, reaching down to twist it into a messy bun at the top of her head. It wouldn't stay there long, the elastic tie too thin to contain the weight of it. "I'll text you before I get ready to leave. Shouldn't be too long from the house after I do." Worst case scenario, she knew she could end up in the hospital, but the best case scenario that everything would go the way they wanted it. She reached for her leather jacket, her fingertips pushing the blade that she'd tucked away into the sleeve of her shirt further into it's hiding place.

Her gun remained in her purse, concealed with her permit inside her wallet.

Without another word to her mother, the sorceress left the three bedroom house quietly and moved to unplug her car, ignoring the freezing temperature of the canadian winter as she pulled on her gloves.

[Esli Barnes]

[against_peace][/against_peace]

The chill of the impending winter followed him in as he skipped the first two steps climbing up into the R.V.  It was inevitable that the weather would change into what it currently was but that didn’t make it any easier to accept. Generally it took a good month to acclimate and a couple more months to appreciate. Following that was yet another month more to finally adapt and appreciate it all for the challenges it presented. By then it was known to melt away into the most beautiful display of springtime wilderness that proved beyond any reasonable doubt that God’s hands at work were impossible to deny.

Despite all of that his fingers stretched slower than they would have if had they not been exposed to the elements outside. The fuel pump had been changed and the winterizing accomplished where it would be needed. Esli was confident that their massive relic that catered to both long distance travel and habitation would serve it’s purpose into the new year. Which was a good thing since that was pretty much all that they could afford for the time being.

“I think we are set, Lass.” The wrench in his hand found support in the counter beneath it when the warm fingers released its length in passing. “I think it will be a white Christmas after all.” He pulled open the compact fridge door and found the fresh orange juice in the tall glass waiting for him as expected. Taking it in hand he withdrew the liquid source of vitamin C he counted on and closed the door. “Imagine that.” His eyes fixed on the frosted framed window closest to him as he brought the rim of the glass and the sweetness to his lips. A few swallows and the glass was predictably empty. “If you are hungry I can fix something.”

The sound of the cell phone chirping for attention from the driver's seat succeeded in summoning him to retrieve it. Allowing the healthy pink tip of his thumb to complete the task of swiping at the screen to pull up the text message he multi tasked with governing his feet to carry him and the glass back to the small sink to rinse out the remaining pulp. A little water inside and he swirled it around to rinse the inside then tipped his head back to consume what he couldn’t see a point in wasting. Once that was completed and the glass was surrendered to the basin of the otherwise empty sink he glanced down at the message.

“Scratch that. Maybe we can pick something up while we are out?” He fired off an acceptance of the ride and tucked the device in his cool pocket. Warmth was discovered as his hand encouraged it to sink deeper towards the top of his thigh between the layers of denim and his bare skin. “Gideon is swinging by to pick us up.” He glanced down to his heavy winter boots and then to the narrow hall where she likely could be discovered if he made his way back. He decided against seeking her out in favor of keeping the flooring beneath him as spotless as it was known to be. “Bundle up.”

[Samson Krahn]

[against_peace][/against_peace]

Samson was no poet.

His education on the homestead had been fairly limited, but he could read and he could make numbers work together, and he could certainly string his sentences together just fine. For the past half hour, he had been writing, scratching out, and rewriting a note to Plato, telling the Vet that he was going out and there was a sliver of a chance he might get his *** kicked again. He had only been out of the hospital for a very short time, but it had already been made very clear to him that if he ever threw himself into a fight again without letting the other man know, he was well and truly going to be in the dog house. There was just no two ways about it. So he found himself glancing down at the page at the most recent iteration of the message he was trying to leave.

Though ye may be the light of my day, I have a great and powerful need to shine that brightness on the darkness of the world…

And it went on and on like that.

He grunted and scrunched the paper up into a ball, only to give it a toss into the trash. This just wasn’t going to do. He needed to actually tell Plato, and he knew that leaving a note was the coward’s way. Mr. Krahn was many things, but yellow was not one of them. So he pulled out his phone. The screen was already cracked in one place, because he had this terrible tendency to forget the device. He didn’t take very many calls or texts, and there were times when he forgot to charge it for weeks at a time. He looked at the device with a shrewd sort of confusion. The sort of expression a man might have given a feminine product upon seeing it for the first time. Sure...he had no real clue how it worked, but he could take some guesses. But did he really want to?

He ended up tapping away at the screen, and managed to get a text out.

To Ephraim Steele : Going to be there real soon.

And then he went to go and find the Vet, who was probably actually just in the kitchen to explain that he was going out for the evening, that he didn’t think things were going to go south the way they had before. But that if they did, he planned to have his phone on him the whole time, and would make it a priority to call.

Because he wasn’t a lone wolf anymore, and he needed to remember that. He couldn’t just up and do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted.

It was only after a little conversation and a kiss that he departed from the farm in the wilderness into the urban jungle of Harper Rock. It was time to do the good work. In a way, they were missionaries preaching the truth to the godless. The battle was similar in that most people didn't seem to understand just how dangerous vampires were. What a threat they posed. It seemed like common sense to Samson. If you are a monster seemingly made to feed off of humanity and take human life...

Well. That was the bottom line wasn't it? Romantic ******** aside, the undead were dangerous. Public opinion was finally beginning to turn against them. It just needed a little help. A nudge in the right direction.

That was what Samson was thinking about when he finally approached Eph at the previously approved meet location.

[Lasair Barnes (DELETED 9516)]

[against_peace][/against_peace]

WEARING

They said that time heals all wounds and, though Lasair was sure that the wound she’d suffered would never heal, time certainly had helped her to accept it. The pain was nestled at her core, the constant fuel for their war against the undead. The Irishwoman had slowly remembered who she was and who still stood by her side; she had family, here. She had Esli, and she had Gideon. She had Mona and the kids, and new friends. Though she did not know the other paladins as well as she wanted to, there was still time. Their cause was of such importance that she was certain, in all her faith and optimism, that they would all become family soon enough.

Her nest of grief had been cleared up, Lasair returning to her previous ways. The RV wasn’t a house, it wasn’t an apartment, it wasn’t permanent, but it was still home. And she would treat it as such. Their limited space required them to be clever with storage, and it took a little more effort to make sure everything was put back in its proper place.

Lasair was aware that there were plans this evening and was already dressed in boots, jeans, and a thermal t-shirt. When Esli came inside she was picking through one of her drawers to find the scarf that she wanted. Despite everything that they had been through, despite the seriousness of the climate of the city and their mission within it, Lasair still loved Christmas. A subtle ‘whoop’ could be heard as Lasair recovered the lost scarf; it was green, and thick, and one of the warmest things she owned. She wrapped it around her neck and shoulders. It was big enough to cover her head if needed, too, if it should get as cold as expected.

”I’m ready,” she said. In her hands she also carried a pair of gloves. She was already wearing some; the ones she carried were for Esli. ”Your hands get cold, Elsi. Your gloves,” she said, passing them over. ”... can we have pudding for dinner? When we’re finished?” she asked. This was how she survived, now. Her focus was split; she was serious about their mission. But she also tried to find the silver linings -- everything else that was good in life, the good things that they were fighting to protect.

[Ephraim Steele]

[against_peace][/against_peace]

The first to arrive, as he had expected, was his long-time partner in this holy war. She stood in front of him, fist pressed to a cocked hip as she held out her hand for her weapon, ready as ever, even fresh out of the hospital after her most recent visit, an occurrence that was beginning to become much more frequent than Ephraim liked. Though, he would have preferred she never saw the inside of one of those pristine, clinical sort of hells, he was proud of her for the work that had put her there. Even if she had gone about the thing all wrong, she had the right intentions, facing down evil.

With a quiet sigh, he shook his head and gave her a once over with his steely glare, appraising the jacket she wore, and, again, wishing she would care just a little more about herself; about her own health. He lifted his hand, the one free of the hefty pack filled with heavy sheaves of paper, and pulled her blade from where it was draped across the opposite shoulder of his pack with his own silver sword. He lifted the scabbard, deftly unlooping the baldric from his shoulder and untangling it from his own, before he lifted it to her hand. “Nurse Lopez? I hardly doubt she can keep a healthy young woman such as yourself from getting out of bed, though her persistence is beginning to become troublesome.”

He lifted his hand, scratching at his chin as he thought, before shaking his head and taking another breath of the cool Northern air. “We will certainly have to look into it, though she could simply be overly concerned with her patients’ health. The last thing we want is a poor relationship with the hospital staff.” He rolled his shoulder, easing the ache from hefting the fliers across town. He cleared his throat, kicking a heel against the stone steps of the cathedral as he pulled his phone from his pocket when he heard the alert. He glanced over the message, relieved that it wasn’t anyone backing out, and he tapped out his response in short order, before locking the phone and shoving it back into his pocket.

TEXT
To: Samson Krahn
Good. Sawyer and I
are waiting outside.

He turned his gaze to the woman at his side, then, and placed a hand on her arm, feeling the strength in her slender musculature as he gave her a small, satisfied smirk. “It is good to see you up again, Sawyer. I was starting to wonder if you were going to start getting your mail forwarded to that hospital.” He gave her a sly wink, as he let his hand drift to his pocket. He didn’t want to miss anyone else’s messages, and out here on the street, one couldn’t count on the sound of an alert alone. The sounds of the city were fickle, and, at times, even the most dependable of them could be lost in a chorus of unexpected eruptions.

[Sawyer]

[against_peace][/against_peace]

The moment the blade touched her skin, her fingers wrapped around it and she pulled it towards her as if she had been pained without it. The weapon he had crafted for her had become another part of her, one that she couldn’t stand to be away from. Oh, she might pretend to treat it as if it were nothing more than a toy just to get underneath her man’s skin, but she loved the damned thing. The weight was barely felt as she gave the sword a spin before sliding it into the scabbard across her back. The entire time, of course, she was watching him as he swept his gaze over her. There was no heat, no hunger, no want or desire in that sharp glare that studied her from head to foot. No, that would mean that he had another thought on his mind, something other than the mission at hand – and her well-being.

When he was finally finished with his clinical analysis, she arched a brow and held her arms out at her sides, the leather of her jacket making only the faintest of sounds. “Well, do I pass inspection, boss?” There was a bite to her words as she took a step around him to lean against the building they stood before, her fingers pressing through her unkempt hair with ease. She tried not to let it get to her, ****, did she try – but she was only a girl tossed in a fucked up world of the dead. There was only so much she could swallow. Shaking her head, she quickly dipped her hand into the pocket of her coat, fingers finding the last remaining pain-killer. Palming the rather large pill, she tipped her head back and placed it on her tongue, the bitterness causing her to nearly gag before she managed to swallow it down. “There’s something more there, and trust me, it wasn’t concern for my safety that kept her guarding my door like a rabid pit-bull. That ***** was up to something.”

How she managed to speak around the foul film that coated her tongue, she wasn’t sure. It never used to be like this. Before him, she could swallow the most disgusting of substances with ease. She never tasted it, never felt it get lodged her throat until she managed to swallow it down. Then he walked into her life and fucked it all up, spouting off random bible verses and words of care and protection. He offered her what, in all honesty, she had never realized she’d wanted – someone to be there for her. Shaking her head, she reached out and jerked a flier from the bag, her fingers smoothing across the paper as she tried to ignore the strange mix of emotions that warmed her chest when he spoke.

“You act like you missed me or something,” she hummed, even as she tapped at the flier she held. “These aren’t bad. I know a good place where I can hang some. It might not get some rich fucks attention, but it will get noticed. It’s one of my old stomping grounds. A little on the illegal side, but it also gets a lot of foot-traffic from spoiled brats and business-men trying to forget how fucked up their life has really become. I can hit it up on my own, if you’re afraid of getting your shoes dirty.” Her smile was devious as she folded the flier up and slid it into her back pocket, blue gaze searching the shadows around them. Soon, their group would be gathered.

Soon, their work would be heard.