Path of the Vampire forum

She stared at the inbox of her personal e-mail account. Empty, as usual. Not even spam mail. The mouse hovered over the sign-out button for half a second before she finally pushed it and signed in to her school email. The box was full, of course, of school announcements, project information from a few of her class mates, and the various invitations sent out by clubs looking to gain members (spam). Her eyes, slightly magnified by the thickness of her glasses, roved over the screen seeking out the ones that needed her immediate attention. She found only two, and they were simple matters of uploading a few papers and lab results to the group dropbox. She exited and turned to the internet.

"S.J.? Large black coffee and one sugar cookie for S.J." She heard the order through the filter of music playing softly in her earbuds and stood quickly. Her chair scraped the floor a little too loudly in her haste, and she gave an apologetic half-smile to the person sitting across from her before approaching the pick-up bar. The barista, she realized, had been staring at her from the moment she'd stood. She avoided his gaze and took the cup and cookie from the counter. "Thanks." she said mildly before quickly shuffling back to her computer and sitting down. Her shoulders hunched and her red curtain of hair fell over her shoulders to hide her face.

Being 6'2 and female always shocked people and was the main reason she hated doing new things. New things meant new people, new people meant their surprise, and surprise usually meant forced conversation about said surprise. No, I don't play basketball. No, I don't run track either. No, no sports. Just not my thing. Why, yes, I'd love to sit here and listen to you list all the ways my height must benefit me. Mm, yes, your joke was just so funny; The weather IS great up here. Damn near tropical with all that rising heat you know. S.J. rolled her eyes at her internal conversation as she sipped on her coffee and scrolled through an interesting article she'd found on the effects lead poisoning may have had on the Roman Empire.

It had been a long week Mortll had went back into her old habits of burying herself into work. Her green houses were immaculate all the books at every one of her establishments had been thoroughly went over. She had done white glove inspections at all of them and to the Horror of one poor guy she had taken the grill brush out of his hands and started to show him how it was done. She imagined that her employees were growing sick of her being around all the time. It was hard for her not to be so hands on when she had to keep her mind at bay to keep other thoughts in the background.

It had been over 2 weeks of not talking to Doc before she had unexpectedly ran into Doc and Amalea and the impromptu gathering at the Voodoo on Thanksgiving of all nights had been thrown into the works. She had been on shaky terms with the man at best and the events that night had just shown how big the divide between them had grown. If things didn't change Mortll didn't know how many bridges would remain They would simply snap off and they would both just go their separate ways. The thought of loosing such a friend as Doc hurt even though she didn't or would ever admit it It was something she didn't want to face or even admit might be happening. So here she was lugging boxes out of the basement freezer of the Voodoo Cyber café work work work .... too busy to think .

She caught herself scanning the room when she entered. A little hope welling up inside of her that he might just be there before she crushed it like the worm it was. Then she spotted the shock of long red hair ... No it couldn't be. She sat the boxes down and walked up to the veil of red hair sitting in front of the glow of the computer screen "Cytherea?"

In the middle of her article reading one of her classmates had caught her on the school chat. S.J. was very private when it came to herself, and she disliked handing out her phone number when email was perfectly adequate and assigned through the school. She usually ignored the pouting her classmates threw at her when they had to work on a project with her. Apparently they needed to have the ability to face time her at any given moment. No thanks, Betty.

Unfortunately, some of them got good at catching her on the school email and connected chat. Mark wanted her help with his part of the Anthropology final project, and she was having a hard time telling him to politely **** off. Thankfully she had a prof. that understood there was only so much a person could do to make other people take their work seriously without having to do it for them. She would be graded on her part of the project alone. He would just have to figure it out for himself... If only his anxious pleading didn't kick her right in the gut with empathy. She answered his questions as vaguely as she could before signing out and returning to her article again.

Just as she'd sunk into the thing she was interrupted by a person very close behind her. S.J. jumped, her head turning to the right while her body leaned to the left, allowing her a look at whomever it was invading her personal bubble. She frowned when she realized she'd been called something other than her name, and she pulled her earbuds out of her ears. "Uh...sorry, no." She glanced the woman up and down. Nope, not someone she knew even a little.

Mortll could have kicked herself as the woman turned In no way shape or form was this red head a vampire much less Docs Ex Ball and Chain. Mortll took a moment "I uhh I'm sorry I thought you were someone else ... Sorry about interrupting your work." Mortll really didn't feel bad or even care but this woman was a customer so etiquette came forefront. " Whatever you were having is on me ... umm on the house . Or can I get you something else its totally on me ." She put her best smile forward.

The girl was pretty The beautiful red mane and pale skin were a striking contrast with a well formed face. She would be a hard target to miss from most of the leaches around here they would zero on her like bees to honey. Mortll was tempted to slip inside the girls mind and poke into her memories but decided against it. Though she did have her a bit intrigued She hadn't ever seen her around here and with all that had happened New Comers were a dime a dozen ....but it did pay to know who was who in Harper Rock a habit Mortll wasn't soon to break.

Her eyebrows rose high over her glasses, initiating the total look of surprise that came over her face as the woman offered to pay her bill. No, she'd said on the house. Did she own the place? And anyway why was she so flustered over mistaking her for someone else? It's not like it was the crime of the century. S.J. shook her head, smiling softly at the woman.

"No, it's fine. I'd be silly to accept that." Besides, she was trying to limit herself to one cookie a day. She glanced at the half eaten pastry. It had started out the size of half her face. That was an acceptable size, right? S.J. shook her head of distraction. "Do you work here too?" She asked politely. Her nosey side was getting the better of her.

She'd come into this shop because her old shop had started charging five bucks a pop for a single black cup of coffee. If she wanted to spend that much money on coffee she'd just got to the siren conglomerate and pay them for their crappy batch. Besides, who the hell could afford coffee that expensive?! Anyway, this place had looked promising with its interesting name, cozy atmosphere, and late hours. Not to mention the free Wi-Fi. She was running out of silent spots to study that didn't include work and home. She was doing her best to keep her promise to mom that she wouldn't become a hermit.

"Well yeah I do ... but I also own the place ... Nothing good comes if you don't work at that sort of jazz I guess. I'm Mortll." Mortll didn't bother offering her hand she just smiled It was true that she had just came out of the freezer but being a vampire as long as she had been taught her that the cold flesh of vampires was not exactly a nice welcome to strangers . She smiled instead. "You sure about the food I can afford to give out a freebie every now and then . You aren't one of our regulars Mind me asking you what brought you in here to give us a try ?" A little market research while being nosey never hurt .

"Mortll. It's nice to meet you." S.J. smiled and gathered her earbuds up again, twisting on her fingers for something to do with her hands. "I prefere the local cafes that aren't trying to compete with the Siren Conglomerate." Her eyes grew wide as she realised how terribly that may have come across. "I mean, in terms of overpriced coffee... Five dollars should pay for a regular black coffee and a cookie, ya know?"

Mortll raised a eyebrow she found herself repeating the woman's words softly "Siren Conglomerate ?" of course Mortll had heard of the Sirens she killed them on a regular basis but how this human knew of them had totally perked Mortll's interest. The sirens hid what they were from the humans they had been well hidden behind the Hebigumo Foundation for a few years now. They had hidden just as vampires had done but were much more successful at it than the abysmal failure that no vampires had put forth with no real vampire organization or laws could enforce every tom dick and putz had just went out and sired with reckless abandon. Hence the mess now. So how this woman knew about the Sirens was of major interest to Mortll.

Mortll smiled " Well Miss ... We are open 24 /7 and I keep the coffee at a dollar a cup for the most part unless you go to getting the fancy stuff and when the temperatures go to dipping below 30 degrees I give free refills. What is this Siren Conglomerate you are speaking of? I don't think ive heard of them are they some sort of new coffee shop ?"

S.J. blushed, embarrassed that she'd said her nickname for Starbucks out loud. For the most part she tried to keep those locked away in her head, but apparently she'd gotten so used to using the term she let us slip without thinking.

"Oh, sorry." She stammered. "I meant Starbucks. You know...cause their sign is the siren?" She shrugged to indicate how silly she felt and pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose. The medical tape she used to keep the broken frame together was starting to fray a bit and she made the mentle note to replace it when she got home.

Mortll felt a little relief but she still wasn't totally convinced maybe the human was just covering a slip up. Maybe not but it would be better to find out than it would to let something like this go without knowing. Mortll found a chair and sat down. The girl looked a little tattered around the edges not that she looked bad just the type that had well used things ... The type that didn't quite have money. College student more than likely. "Do you go to school around here or something ?" If she did Mortll knew exactly how she could keep a eye on this one and find out what she did or didn't know .