Path of the Vampire forum

It had been some time since she had visited the Fforde page, she wasn't big into chatting online before, now she just didn't feel it as much. That being said, the raven haired walking plague had noticed a call to action that had been posted by a member of the family she did not recognize. It was a something she wouldn't mind doing, though only Jesse new that she agreed with him about the rift, the wider, the better. Still, it would be difficult to live if the army decided that the city was a lost cause and blew it to kingdom come because of the zombies and other creatures that couldn't be controlled.

She got off her motorcycle and pulled her helmet off. Her long black hair shimmered in the moonlight and the red highlights showed under the streetlights. Clad in her usual red leather jacket and her black leather pants, she set the helmet on her bike and started into the business that Jesse had started. The place seemed to have grown since she had been in there last. The pain of the tattoos he gave her still made her skin tingle. Licking red rose colored lips, she took a breath once she stepped inside.

The scent soothed her pained soul and she knew one day she would need Jesse to mark her again. Her icy gaze took in the people as she stepped further in, her red leather pumps making minimal sound on the hard wood floor. That is when she caught the last bit of one woman's comment. "I actually don't mind the blood, the zombies are annoying though."

“YOU MOTHER ******, YOU ARE GOING TO MAKE ME LATE FOR WORK!”

Renard was enraged. Just your average Tuesday, right? The Killer belonged to that class of people who drove way too fast, who liked to cut in and out of traffic, use medians and road shoulders as if they were part of the road, and who cursed like a sailor whenever someone slowed him down. Like now. When he was on a one way street through a narrow space between two sky high buildings. He couldn’t get around the car in front of him, and it was taking forever to turn out onto a proper road. Even with numerous chances to do so. Renard did not look impressed. The whole thing started with a spark of displeasure and ended with his features twisting into a not very subtle scowl. Beside him, in the passenger seat of his tar black 1970 Chevy Cheville was his boyfriend. It was Take your Boyfriend to Work day. Which was just a made up way of saying that he much preferred for Beck to hang out around Serpentine while he was helping tattoo than leaving his lover to his own devices.

Something about being needy or possessive or some **** like that.

He shoved the door open, and grabbed his faithful bat from the backseat - the one which had been wrapped in razor wire. “Okay, you son of a ****.” He hissed as he slid around the front of his muscle car. He glanced back towards the cherry red leather interior, where Beck sat, so he could mouth an ‘I love you’ to the man before he gripped his bat in both hands and swang it hard enough that it crashed into a tail light, shattering it immediately. That seemed to wake the man in the 2015 luxury car right up, and he peeled away before Renard could get the other light.

That’s right, *****. He then made his way back to his car, tossing his bat back into place. Seconds later, his engine roared to life like a lion, and tore off towards Serpentine. With. Of course. Beck telling him he was being a ******* asshole. It was already shaping up to be a beautiful night.
“Yeah, we have a special going on right now. For every proof of a zombie kill you bring in, we’ll give you a small, free tattoo or scar to mark the occasion.” Of course, Ren wasn’t certified to do scarification, so if that was what the client wanted, he was going to have to refer them to someone else. But. He was working on fixing that. It just required a specialized licence.

“Sweet. Let me take a look at some options and get back to you.”

Renard handed off a small booklet with suitably simple and small designs which would look good if they were stacked one on top of the other, like diamonds, stars, tears, and the letter ‘x’. Really a person could request whatever they wanted as long as long as it wasn’t too extravagant, if only because the service was totally free and too much expended in supplies could be bad for business. However, the promotion was doing a pretty spectacular job of attracting repeat customers and even fresh blood - people who came in with their friends and got ensnared by one of the designs they saw.

Serpentine was huge, so Ren didn’t immediately see Marisol when she entered. As the client slipped off to take a seat and flip through things, Ren husked after him “Give me a poke when you’re done, and we’ll get you all set up.” He was trying to be sociable. Nice even. It did not come natural to him, but he took his job very seriously. And it was at that he could hear the woman’s familiar voice. He listened in as he drew closer to the bar, where he could make out some new patrons who were relaxing.

If the idea was to pull together a team that wasn’t trigger happy, he probably didn’t have a place in the crew. His own feelings about the zombies were pretty straight forward. Free target practice. Sure, they were a bit of a hindrance on local businesses, but that only mattered if people let it. Ingenuity. Promotions. Protecting turf. Innovation. If people wanted to be successful, they needed to figure their **** out instead of either running away screaming or expecting the government to fix it. At least that was his (not so humbly stated) opinion.

There were deeper implications of course. The spread of the rift. And when it came to that, his feelings were equally clear. Good. He didn’t care if it made humanity more frightened of his kind. What good was being a vampire if your only motivation was to devalue yourself to the point where you were like everyone else? Life was a rat race for everyone except those who were at the very top. And the way to ensure you didn’t end up at the bottom? **** the system. **** the system so hard it knew who was boss.

“Hola, chica.” He said to Arauchia as she entered. That was all he said for the moment. Better to listen to what other people were going to say before chiming in with his views on the matter. Sometimes it paid to not have his opinions out in the open all of the time. Then he nodded to Marisol, as a greeting. There was a new face he felt like he should have known (by instinct) but which he did not recognize. And he found himself looking for Jesse to clarify who she was. Or Beck, who was nicer than he was. More apt to make a good first impression.

While she had to agree that most of the mortals of the city shied away from anything bloody, that didn't change Ursula's thoughts on not minding blood. Granted, blood now had a strange affect on her, driving her hunger that she had never paid much attention to before she left to something that couldn't be ignored now. She leaned against the counter, looking at the women she didn't know, and so many others that joined in as well. No one from the family she left seemed to be awake. Other than Jesse.

Speak of the devil and he should appear... or rather... think of him. Her eyes, back to their clear blue, locked on the male she saw more as her sire than the creature that created her. She took a relaxing breath and watched him for a moment later before her attention was once more drawn to the women. One seemed intent on making a contest of the killing of the zombies, and that reminded her of something that happened in the past, but she didn't remember the exactness of it all. She missed her sisters.

Her eyes wandered to Jesse again and then back to the women, her eyes flowing the one's over to the soldiers. She had a point. They aren't nearly inept enough to really take care of the zombie problem. Licking her red lips, she shifted her eyes back to the women and looked as if she wanted to say something but these new people, they put her off talking. Her eyes shifted back to Jesse. He was the only one she would speak for now.

She wasn't normally a wallflower, but he was her only connection to the past now. Her sisters were gods knows where, and these other people, they were all Jesse's as she was, but really. She no longer felt part of the family.

Renard caught sight of Beckett wandering back through the doors of Serpentine, and his gaze immediately narrowed, like a hawk who had just picked up on the location of prey. In fact, his instincts themselves were telling him to dive down, and sink his talons in. Which was to say that he was about a half step away from doing something really stupid. Which probably honestly wouldn’t have surprised anyone, because Ren and Beck bickered about as much as any high-functioning yet dysfunctional relationship reasonably could. Anger was a flame in his crown that made his short hair feel hot, and made one of the veins in his temple bulge. Before he knew exactly what he was doing, he was making his way closer, his lips parted so that he could say something. Naturally, right as he was about to speak, a mouth was stuffed against his and he looked a little like he was trying to eat his boyfriend. His lips slid shut in response.

Alright. Fair play. He could tell when Beck was trying to distract him, and he was more than happy to be distracted. So rather than berate or question, he instead fell silent. He’d pulled his leather jacket off shortly after getting through the front door, so he leaned a bare arm right into Beck’s body. Pale fingertips crept with the dexterity of spider legs across a lower back before his digits curled over a hip so he could yank the other man against his side while Beck...did his thing. The thing where he was nice to people, and they all chatted and such. Renard never had been very good at all of that stuff.

They were soon joined by Jesse, who was more of a presence than a voice. There had been a while after Ren had taken the job at Serpentine when he’d been pretty sure the head of their bloodline was some sort of mute. Eventually, almost by surprise, Jesse had spoken properly to him one day, and Renard had very nearly lost his mind in confusion. Later, it had occurred to the Killer that Jesse was just pulling his leg. ******* with him.

He had yet to construct a counter-prank. But he would one day, and it would be EPIC.

He offered little nods of greeting to those who recognized him, and a spare one for Jesse when the man got close enough. He noticed, while Arauchia and Marisol were talking, that the one who hadn’t introduced herself stayed pretty quiet. Reserved. Maybe she also wasn’t much of a talker.

Too bad for her Ren had the tact of a rampaging bull.

Well. The first step was to contribute, he figured. So he peeled away from Beck, and pointed to one of the soldiers who presumably worked with the Militia. “Hey, you.”

The man gave him a deer in the headlights look, and pointed to himself in question.

“Yeah. Why don’t you get off your *** and tell one of these beautiful ladies all about your job? You’re a man in UNIFORM. You are meant to be hitting on any pretty thing with a skirt and a nice set of…” He glanced towards Marisol and Arauchia, thinking better of continuing that line of thought, though he discreetly (not at all discreetly) emphasized his chest with his hands.

Black brows rose as if to say ‘You get me?’ “You know. Impress them with talk of how many monsters you’ve taken out. Put on the charm. I swear, not a ******* ounce of charisma.” Rather than end strong, he just rambled on in what might have been real or faux-annoyance, gesturing for the soldier to do SOMETHING. Hopefully that would help with the whole competition or contest thing. Renard suspected there was no way to stop the zombies. After all. As long as people were dying, the undead would just continue to rise - that had become clear pretty early on. However, keeping the undead away from Serpentine was reasonably worthwhile (assuming Jesse even cared about that), and Ren himself wasn’t about to turn down a chance to crack some skulls and set some **** on fire.

Yeah! Fire!

He was already in a more pleasant mood thinking of it.

Which brought him around to the quiet lady. At first he stared at Ursula, which was probably more creepy than intended. He was just trying to think of what to say, and his brain hadn’t quite caught up to his stride. Much the way his head seemed to never catch up to his mouth. “And you.” He said, by way of greeting. “I can’t help but get the feeling I’ve seen you around before.” He extended a hand between them. “I’m Renard Sutton.” He half twisted to point with his other hand. “That asshole over there is Beckett Sutton. I’d say he’s my property, but he doesn’t like it when I do that, so we’ll suffice to say I love him deeply.” Something about that greeting didn’t seem quite right. “Nice to meet you.” There. He’d Beckeffied it