| Straight to Hell |
[07 Nov 2006|12:43am] |
At a quarter past midnight, highway 164 was empty. That was no real surprise. The narrow road cut through Searchlight on its way to Cottonwood Cove to the east, and not much other than Joshua trees and piles of dirt to the west. The occasional truck rambled along it, or a rancher driving home from a late night bender, but the only other thing to keep that road company most nights was silence.
Rhiannon pulled her car off about a half-mile past the town limits, and shifted into neutral. Her thumbs tapped a soft beat on the steering wheel. She was antsy, but made no move to get out and walk around. She was looking at the sky.
It was inexcusable that she hadn’t gone back sooner. Witness a thing like flashing lights over the sand, and some sort of spectral anomaly hot on the heels of that, you weren’t supposed to hole up in your apartment with your own problems until you felt like coming out. But that’s what Rhiannon did. Until it suited her to investigate it. Which was pretty self-absorbed.
Bullshit... do I have to do every goddamn thing myself?
“You do when you’re the one that saw it,” she mumbled, a cigarette flapping between her lips. She fiddled with the old lighter in the console until it obeyed.
Typically this was Watcher territory. Slayer sees a weird thing. Watcher looks it up before slayer runs headlong into trouble. But watchers were a scarcity in Nevada, and the only other person she trusted to ask was--
Off limits. Even if he had seen it, too.
Whistler was the last person she needed crawling around her headspace right now. Especially considering his absolute love for poking around uninvited. Rhiannon wasn’t over that yet.
She opened the car door. A quiet ting, ting reminded her that the keys were in the ignition. She cut the engine and got out, started walking along the edge of a road she could feel but couldn’t see.
After my picture fades and darkness has turned to gray
Watching through windows--you're wondering if I'm OK
secrets stolen from deep inside, the drum beats out of time--
Deanna didn't care who knew it, she fucking loved Cyndi Lauper. Sure people wanted to write her off as some anomaly from the twentieth century with a bad hair-cut and dye job, a squeaky voice and of no importance. But the girl knew how to get under your skin with lyrics.
Vampires could learn a thing from her. Oh yes. Like how to move through the decades gracefully.
She steered the wheel with her knees as the redhead fished out her cigarettes from the case and lit one. She'd spent another fruitless two hours searching for Sonya in Searchlight. Grace's desire sparked her own. The Russian was just so damned bitable and fuck it if this vampiress was gonna give up on trying a second time.
She pushed the gas pedal harder, speeding through the desert. Back to Vegas, she figured, a bite to eat and maybe an hour at the blackjack table before calling it a night. She'd promised Lorne a shopping adventure he'd never forget and with Darian's gift still to be played, Deanna wanted to live up to that.
Brakes were applied as the redhead passed by a car just off the road. She'd almost missed the bounce of headlights on the flat dusty surface.
Why not? A dry aperatif before the main course could be just the thing to ease the slight growl in her stomach.
Deanna switched off her high beams and pulled to a slow stop a few hundred meters ahead. She slid out of the car and crept towards whoever was foolish enough to get lost in the desert.
( Just Out of Sight )
( Oh Fuck Off )
After long moments, the ringing in vampiric ears subsided. The light dissipated, replaced with a dull ochre glow overhead. Deanna opened her eyes.
And glimpsed Hell.
Only. The slayer's car was still with them. Deanna didn't know much about the afterlife, but it didn't seem plausible that they'd let you bring your own transportation.
The air was cold. Much worse than late autumn in Nevada. The kind of cold that only happened when the ground hadn’t seen real sky in...
Years.
Rhiannon didn’t notice that she was still gripping onto Deanna. She was too busy smelling the charred air, and looking at the sky full of dark, amber-colored clouds. They were made of ash and poisons breathed into the air by...
Nothing she’d ever laid eyes on.
A shiver rocked her. Back over her shoulder, Rhiannon’s eyes searched for the lights of Searchlight behind them. They were gone. The buildings were there; at least some of them. Hulking, burnt-out shapes sitting empty on the horizon...
“Deann--”
The ground shook. Once. Twice. Footsteps.
The air chilled Deanna’s skin and raised goosebumps. Foul stenches swirled and mixed in the air. This was definitely a moment she was thankful she had no need for breath. How could Rhiannon stand it?
The slayer's word caught the vampire's attention a moment before the Sound. The vibration was heavy. Thunderous.
Jack and the Beanstalk. The slayer and Deanna, and the thing that lumbered towards them from the west. Obsidian, mass changing with each step. Teeth three stories high.
Fee fi fo fum...
If anything, the redhead held her nemesis tighter. Not to create pain. But needing comfort.
"Holy shit..." Deanna looked at Rhiannon. Then to the car. "Tell me you have a full tank of gas."
Rhiannon nodded. For once, they were on the same page.
“Get in.”
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| The Mongoose and the Cobra |
[07 Nov 2006|11:52am] |
| [ |
mood |
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 determined |
] |
Pack your stuff. Take only what's necessary, travelling light is the order of the day. Pack your stuff and get gone. Its time to burrow.
Burrow...and then strike first.
In general a mongoose will avoid a cobra, or at least co-exist uneasily with them. Yeah, they're carnivores, and yeah, they can kill snakes pretty handily, but they don't kill them to eat them and if they don't move fast enough a lucky bite will put their lights out. But they're also notorious for being a threat to all manner of native lifeforms, to the point where its actually illegal to import them into the States because they're such destructive little bastards. So it isn't that they won't stand and fight, its more a case of self-preservation until a lot of provoking has taken place.
The provoking has officially gotten to be too much.
Guns. Knives. Straight razor. All weapons present and accounted for, Ma'am. Between those and a fair knowledge of homemade explosives, things seem good to go. Where she's going isn't as nice as where she is right now, but there's a bed, a shower, and two industrial sinks for chemistry experiments. She can unlive high on the hog later, when this is done. She's got lots of experience with spartan environments, just not so much recently. Time to remember what that's like, apparently.
The first fire will be an accident. Probably the second one too. Careless kids playing with illegal fireworks, desperate junkies cooking up a fix to get them through the night, nothing set directly at the doorstep of who she was trying to kill. Not that the bitch wouldn't know where it came from, most likely, but she wanted as little police involvement as possible. If the cops knew there was a blood feud between two supernatural serial killers, they'd call in the National Guard and the army. That would be something to avoid.
One final check before she's gone, the place where she'll go to ground already set up. It was time to go be a mongoose.
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| Second Connection |
[07 Nov 2006|08:01pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
 pleased |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
Melissa Etheridge - Similar Features |
] |
Jo picked up the phone and dialed the number of the hotel she'd seen Purity going into at one point. She had no idea if the witch actually lived there, but it was worth a shot.
Just as the clerk picked up with a pleasant greeting and asked how her call could be directed, the Slayer realized she did not know the other woman's last name. Hm.
After a second of hesitation, she stammered a little, "T-this is going to sound a little weird, but I'm looking for a woman I met on Halloween, her name is Purity.. do you know her?"
The blonde made a face and gave a quiet laugh at how utterly ridiculous she sounded, but it wasn't like she and the witch and the vampire had all traded numbers after their little tryst.
( Awkward Opener )
( Coming Clean, A Whisper For Help )
( Get To Know You? )
( See You Then )
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| Welcome |
[07 Nov 2006|11:52pm] |
Chloe had not been able to sleep a wink the rest of the night. By early morning, she'd already had a couple cups of coffee and had lifted the receiver of the phone half a dozen times to call Levi. Then she'd realize how stupid that would be, and promptly dropped the phone back onto its home on the kitchen counter.
Finally, in almost a mood of desperation, Chloe grabbed the keys and hurried off in her Mustang and into Searchlight. She knew there was a...unique bookstore there. Maybe they'd have something on vampires that wasn't an Anne Rice novel, she mused.
The Halloween rush had yet to die down. That morning, a small gaggle of teenagers had flocked in and Emmy, not in the best spirits, had spent most of the time chasing them away from the more delicate objects on display. She’d even had to go as far as to use the linked chain rope and hand-lettered “Employees Only” sign across the short stairway that led to the raised platform of more obviously magickal texts.
She had never wanted to be that store, shutting inquiring minds away from the pursuit of magick. But that morning, she had just lost her patience. And now, there was a mess to deal with.
“Liam!” she called. “Did you finish re-stocking the anise?” Gus ran in from the back room, circling her feet and yipping happily; just what Emmy needed, a hyperactive poodle running circles about her.
Chloe parked the car and almost gingerly made her way to the store. She entered it and quickly looked around. The place was a bookstore, and more. It was filled to the brim with shelving full of books, candles, cards, gifts, and anything and more that she could ever imagine.
She smiled when she saw the poodle. "What a cute little dog."
( Nerves )
( What's Real )
( Welcome Package )
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