Letters from Home (one shot tease)

[Zodiac]

She sat and slowly went through the mail that had come while she had slept. The usual fare greeted her eyes part way through the stack until a familiar style of addressed envelope caught her eye. Zodiac laid it aside and continued checking the rest. She had been getting letters like this for awhile now. Not regular, but enough.

Her address must have leaked out to others, for not all of the letters were painful to read. A few of her former 'family' did not believe the words being spewed out of the mouth of her mother and had separated from the tribe after the incidents near Harper Rock. They had no desire to be part of the new ways of things.

Some, but not all.

She knew the handwriting on the envelope well and she dreaded the thought of opening it, but did not dare ignore it either. Eventually she finished her mail sorting and picked up the set aside letter and cut it open. The first had arrived just after her former family had visited the area and they continued now. She remembered the night she read the first and learned of her childhood friend's death at family hands because of her. An innocent nip of his lip as the childhood pair finally kissed. Nothing to turn him into a thrall or a future vampire, but the old ways was ridged and lacking in details. Thralls were considered a danger and had to be eliminated.

In her rage at the news, she changed the life of an innocent in the process as her pain and hatred sought someone to lash out at. 'Don't kill the messenger' the old axiom went. She had done worse to Neville in the process. Another burden on her spirit, or what was left of it.

She told no one she got these letters. Not even Temperance. She read them all.

She endured them.

Greetings, Angela. If that is what you still call yourself.

Mother. Amanda Francezci. It was her who got the camp into such a panic that night and fueled the fire to remind all how such things were dealt with in the old days when their kind were primarily in Europe. Her Nanna's grimore's told the story of the days hundreds of years ago when the supplicants threw off the shackles of their vampire masters and dared and learned to fight back. Such knowledge (however childish it sounded to the modern logicals among them) was passed down regardless. It served her ancestors then and now.

So do you still exist, vampire slut? It has been so long since I have heard from you.

In the beginning, She had sent a couple blistering replies to one of the PO Boxes she knew they frequented in their travels offering her own curses in response, but as of late she had stopped.

Has someone managed to send your soul to hell yet? Staked you out and let the sun burn you to dust? Would serve you right. You probably asked for this curse the same way you asked for everything else that ever happened to you.

She quit replying because of the Masq. She had no desire to draw any attention back to Harper Rock or to others like Temperance and yes, even Allison. She could endure the pains but the thought of others being hurt over this she could not accept. She would be better off just pitching the letters into the fireplace and ignoring them totally. Well, almost ignoring them.

She dropped it on her desk of the small office within her shop and looked at the post mark and the date on the envelope. On a map of North America was a numbered series of pins all linked together by colored thread. She looped a new length around the last pin and stretched it to the newest one that sat in Boone, North Carolina. They were doing the customary Eastern sweep first as always in the spring since breaking camp in Texas from sitting out the winter. Amanda had either forgotten, or was counting on the fact, that her daughter-Angela-had traveled those routes for 18 years of her life as well. She could guess where they were going next within a state or two now, and the urge to pay her real life mother a personal visit was growing within her. Part of her wondered if that was Amanda's wish. To entice her out of Harper Rock and put an end to the abomination she had always considered her child.

But then again, the 'abomination' came armed in ways her mother might not consider either. She could not dismiss the fact that the letters was to help her come out of where she was afforded some protection. Why was a reason only mother knew and Zo wondered how insane the woman had finally become, but in a way it made sense as well. Just because she was a child of Lillith now, the terrors of childhood still lurked somewhere within her. What scared one as a child could still rear its head in the darkness of dreams and cause one to awaken in fright no matter what they had become.

And Angela did fear her mother when she was alive and with them all.

She was patient-despite the anger slowly growing larger within her. She knew the spots she would choose to confront her at. This would not be Amanda's game, but hers. Once the clues suggested they were heading in that direction she would begin to prepare for a road trip of her own and pay a visit to old family and friends. Just for old times sake.

Maybe she would bring some of her new family along and make a real party of it all.

She pulled a pen and paper from her desk and began to reply.

Well, mother at least my curse left me somewhat intact, unlike the 'gifts' your paying customers deposit between your legs nightly. Keep eating the green bread, it might help some with all that…

Angela, known to most in Harper Rock as Zodiac, wrote carefully and calmly. She had to toss out the occasional barb so the letters would keep coming, for without them the pattern would be lost on the map.

And she had so much to thank her mother for still. For Nanna, for Neville, for herself and the condition that was part of her now.

And for Randy. Always, for Randy.

((ooc. For those who recall the story 'Home is where the Hate is' it was left with the idea of a future face off between Zodiac and her real mother, Amanda. Just a teaser of what is to come. I will be talking to a few out there in the next month or so.))