I hate you, vampire dad.

cruor
Exit, Verna. The lights went out. And nothing, and Nothing, and then this on her tongue, this wanting in her veins, this thirst. Enter, Verna.

The murdered immortal all come back to the world to the same impossibly wonderful taste on their tongue the same impossible need. This is, some would argue who know more than poor Verna Gardner rest in peace (there will be no rest, and likely very little peace), the only point in common vampires have one with the other.

Verna tastes vitae on her tongue, and the air is very cold. And her back is very wet. And someone's hard hand has her by the back of the neck, her hair caught between thumb and palm, and that someone's rings are colder than that someone's hands, and that same someone is holding a bony wrist to her mouth and it is cut and that is where the fucking nectar of the gods is coming from.

The someone is that young man who wanted to walk her to her car, the one who stuck a stick in her heart and killed her. The night didn't go according to his plan. The air is cold, but it is not the outdoors cold of an unvaulted heaven; rather, it is the cold of some cement box, with a smell of the river -- should Verna be able to smell anything that isn't the line of darkness dripping from the man's wrist.

The pair (and it is only a pair, or it would seem so for the moment) are inside what looks like a basement, gutted, something bomb shelter close. The only light is yellowing, tallow yellow, and doesn't fill the 'room.' It comes from a small lamp, something scrounged from a bar, maybe, something that could use a few watts. Or not. Beyond the circle of light, there are shapes, but those shapes are still in the darkness.

Verna Gardner
[Self Control, diff 7!]

Dice: 2 d10 TN7 (1, 7) ( success x 1 )

Verna Gardner
They call it the Embrace, as if to say 'it's not that bad, really'. Perhaps for some, it isn't. Perhaps for some, it was something that they knew of and longed for, and when the night finally came were swept away in the sensations of pleasure and joy and wanting. And when they woke, hungry and dazzled, they understood why.

Verna has not been so lucky.

Through the blinding hunger, her mind restarts to screaming panic, not exactly forgetting the events leading up to this. Hunger wins out, as it claws at her and grips her, forcing her just as much as David is.  She knows that his blood is her fountain, that it pours a trickle of water into the deep, cracked-earth well that is her stomach. Her mouth feels too wide, her teeth too large, like her body's desperately trying to become something more suited to getting this stuff inside as fast as possible.

The dark red is a shocking electric color -- a color she's never seen or noticed before. And getting it inside is comforting -- like someone you trust running their fingers through your hair, telling you it will be okay. But then, they grab your head and shove it where they want it to go. Into the dirt. Her mind is screaming so loud. That's blood. That's blood, Verna. Why does it feel so good? What happened? What happened?

What happened?

Why is she so hungry?

Why is she doing this?

She tries to pull back, shuts her mouth to what is life, and immediately the hunger objects, wants, craves...

Dead muscles twitch back to life, and she struggles. Mouth closed, there's a noise in her throat -- a muffled cry.

Verna Gardner
[Strength/Brawl = escaaape! 7 diff because no brawl.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN7 (7, 9) ( success x 2 )

cruor
[Strength/Brawl. No stay still.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

cruor
His fingers tighten just enough to keep her in a hold, though she struggles to escape. Too late, Verna. Too late. His blood stains her veins now, occupies her unbeating heart. She struggles well; perhaps one night (no more days) that will be a consolation,

He doesn't take his wrist away; she can feel the blood on her lips as he presses his wrist close against them. His hand has a tremor, and his own mouth is stained; his throat is stained; his cheeks are fucking stained, all with the ghost of blood, as if he tried to wash his face but did so imperfectly. He did try to wash his face. He doesn't want to terrorize her.

... Any further.

"I know you're probably scared and pretty pissed, but you've, you've gotta listen to me, you've gotta take more. You're a survivor right you're tenacious so you've gotta take more."

There's a whisper of an accent in the man's voice which wasn't there before, something unfamiliar and slightly thick; the closest to it now-a-days is deep Maritimes accent, but once it was accounted Irish. It's only a whisper, it's only a bastard.

Verna Gardner
[Self Control! Try not to do what the murderer tells you, Verna!]

Dice: 2 d10 TN7 (3, 4) ( fail )

Verna Gardner
She gives it a good effort. She tries to keep her mouth closed, but there's his wrist, there's his blood, and it overwhelms her senses. It pools between her lips, and she can almost taste it right before a muttered "No..." opens her mouth slightly, and...

Oh, it's like the heaven she's never believed in.

As much as she doesn't want to do what this man tells her, suddenly she's straining against him in the opposite direction, tries to wrap her lips around his wrist, and the voice in her throat changes to a groan of pleasure.

cruor
The Beast. That's what they call the force (the drive [the need]) which pushes her forward though she wants to pull back. The Beast can be frightening in and of itself, because it is a loss of control; because it wants terrible things. So Verna drinks, and the blonde who killed her winces and his brow wrinkles as he nods in time to her swallowing, counting his strength. He was nice and full, after all: he'd drained her dry; it's fitting, isn't it, that he give a lot back?

So Verna drinks, and Verna drinks, and the haze begins to fade though the pleasure of the drink does not fade (indeed no; it wants to be her breath, her reason yet for living, her moon and her heartbeat and the marrow of her bones; it wants her, that pleasure), and at some point she is no longer driven to keep drinking

although she is not yet full.

Verna Gardner
Finally, finally, she manages to push away again, to stop doing what should be disgusting. What if he has some sort of disease?

"Stop!" she cries, though his wrist is still in the way, his blood slicking her lips, dripping from her chin. "What are you doing?"

She tries to escape his grasp again, writhing through the grip he has on her. Oh, what next? What can he think to do to her? She doesn't want to find out.

[Strength/Brawl = escaaaape! Diff 7 because no brawl]

Dice: 2 d10 TN7 (6, 8) ( success x 1 )

cruor
[No escape, why don't you like me?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )

cruor
Stop! she cries, and he stops. He stops forcing her to drink of him, pulling his wrist away and putting it to his own while he watches her unblinking over the line of it. His eyes are still rather sorrowful, but the stillness of them takes their expression away from the quite human. He doesn't release the back of her neck, though she struggles and nearly escapes. His grip is not implaccable, just as David does not quite get how to be an implaccable monster. This night would be much easier if he was better at that, but c'est la vie (c'est la mort?).

What is he doing?

What a good question.

He licks his own wrist, and when he is done, there's no wound at all. Just more ghosts of blood, staining his otherwise pale skin. Speaking of wounds, her chest -- it hurt when she woke but now it feels different.

 "There, see?" He holds his wrist up to show her: look, Ma, no wound. "What I'm doing is trying to help you. We've gotta do something about your chest. I'm fucking ... I'm really sorry, okay? I know you're probably not gonna trust me right away, but I really need you to. You really need you to. I'll let you go," a gentle squeeze of the back of her neck, "if you promise to listen."

Verna Gardner
[Perc + Empathy = I'm listening because you have me by the neck... What was that?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 3 )

cruor
He sounds sincere. He looks sincere. Verna thinks he's sincere. She's been fooled before. The skin around his eyes and mouth is taut with stress, with no little fear, and there was a tremor to his hand the one the wrist he held to her mouth something he forces away though his fingers are sure on the back of her neck he really seems to want her to listen ayup.

cruor
And she'll notice that he's not quite looking at her chest, like he can't bring himself to.

Verna Gardner
"I was trying to do something about my..." chest. Which feels strange now. The pain is gone, and that makes her panic, makes her try to touch her breastbone cautious. There's a hole in her sweater, blood everywhere of course -- hers and his wound together in a mess of red soaked into blue yarn.

"My chest. You stabbed me. You stabbed me!"

She's frantic, close to screaming in panic, having been caught by the man who randomly, violently attacked her. It seems as though she doesn't have much control over that listening part. Too much of her is wrapped up in replaying events in her mind, trying to figure out what is going on.

She's terrified of him. A sorry isn't going to fix this, David.

"Somebody help me!" She screams, though not to him. To whoever. To somebody, out there, who won't come. They never come. She still tries.

cruor
My chest. You stabbed

"Yes," he says, trying to speak over her.

me. Somebody help me! He's still speaking, but her scream is loud. He winces.

"I thought you were a -- "

The walls drink up her voice; his fingers have loosened, but he hasn't let her go.

" -- vampire. I see now that I was ... mistaken." Frustration bleeds into his voice and his fingers want to tighten on her throat again, shake her; what is she, that he saw what he saw? Was it an omen? A foretelling?

He can't grow pale.

"Jesus Christ. If you need to scream out, go ahead. I'll wait until you're done."



Verna Gardner
She doesn't have any more breath at the end of that scream, but there is no need in her to draw another. Just fear's need to let itself out the noisy way.

Jesus Christ. If you need to scream out, go ahead. I'll wait until you're done.

Oh, of course. He's dragged her to a place where no-one will hear her. He says to scream it out, even as his fingers grow tight on her throat again, and she just stares, wide-eyed, shaking.

"What are you going to do to me?" she asks, and for once it seems the fight has left her. Her voice shakes as much as she does. She doesn't want to know.

cruor
"That depends on you. I'd like to teach you how to take care of yourself. Teach you how to survive. Teach you how to be a better Ventrue than I am."

The young man (monster) lets her go. He slides back across the floor. The floor is cement. And cold. Everything is cold now; everything will always be cold now, because this is a grave. This takes him out of the direct circle of light, pale butter yellow, and gives his face more shadows; makes him look older, though he'll never look very old, gives him an air of distant introspection.

"If you concentrate on your chest healing, it'll get ...better. But you've gotta try You should be able to do it now just by thinking about it. It's like a muscle flexing. It's a strange sensation. I remember it being a strange sensation."

Verna Gardner
As soon as he lets her go, she starts searching in the shadows for the door. Of course she does. Verna is a fighter, and she just doesn't want to do what her murderer says to. Who would?

"You're crazy! Crazy! I've got to get to a hospital!"

Verna Gardner
[Wits + Alertness! Diff 7]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 3, 3, 5, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )

cruor
"You're not going to a hospital," David says, and that's all. "Christ." Now that he seems to have decided to let her flutter around and tire herself out (that's what you're supposed to do, right?), he seems calmer. Had he seemed lacking in calm before? Under strain? Nothing close to the lack of calm of his poor victim. His pants whisperrush against the cement and he hauls himself up one handed.

There isn't a visible door, per se. But there is a doorway, a flight of five stairs and then more darkness, so it's safe to presume the door is in that shadowy recess. David's heading for those stairs. To leave? To lock her in here until she dies (oh, but didn't she already)?

Verna Gardner
She looks down at her chest, at the hole in her, at her bloodied self.

"Why!? I need help! You did this to me, you should take me to a hospital!"

He said to concentrate on her chest healing, as though that would actually work. The man is mad. Twisted. Schizoid maybe. Why does she feel so strange?

This is a tomb. Her tomb, she thinks. Panic threatens to overwhelm again, and she rushes for the stairs, to try to push him out of the way.

Verna Gardner
[Init! + 5]

Dice: 1 d10 TN7 (6) ( fail )

cruor
[+6]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )

Verna Gardner
[Dex + Ath -1 wound penalty!]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (7, 8) ( success x 2 )

cruor
[Dex + Ath, I catch you around the waist. My hair is already turning gray.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 7, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 4 )

cruor
"You don't nee -- " whoosh. Verna rushes past David. Verna is just a little bit quicker, just a little bit sharper, even injured, even confused and hungry and a fledgling immortal, Verna's drive gives her an edge.

Unfortunately for her, David, though slower on the uptake tonight, is uninjured and is no slack when it comes to the physical arts. As she rushes by, just after she rushes by and reaches one of the stairs, he catches her with an arm around her waist. He pushes, too, pushes blood the way he wants her to, though not to heal himself; to make himself stronger, so he is better able to hold her.

"Shh! Stop it! Stop it!"

Verna Gardner
"No! No!"

Again, she's caught, again she cries out. Oh, it's still hard to get enough of a breath to actually make that cry last long, but she tries.

And then, finally, she tries to calm herself, even in the arms of this animal of a man.

"Why should I stop? Explain to me why I should listen to the man who tried to murder me! Why won't you let me get help?"

Tried to. She doesn't think herself dead.

Her voice changes then, from the wild, unrestrained panicky thing, to just barely in control.

"Look. I won't tell anyone. I won't get you in trouble. Just let me... Let me get medical attention. Please. I'm going to die. You don't want me to die, do you?"

cruor
"Of course I don't!" David yells. His voice can fill a room; he has the potential to make it a thunder clap, to make it resonate, to make it a presence. He can, occasionally, summon up a ferocity that has nothing to do with the Beast taking over blotting out who he is leaving him with horror.

He ends with a bitten-off sound, something halfway between a groan and a snarl. "Look," and he's still facing the door, still has her around the waist with his arm, just lifting her like so see. "You want to make deals? Just do what I said. Concentrate on healing your chest. Really do it. Mind over matter, Verna. If you do that, we'll see about the hospital."

Verna Gardner
Verna doesn't believe in mind over matter. She doesn't believe in it so much. But still, her mind has been on that wound, on how the stake had felt going in, how much pain.

Her hand goes to her chest. Why doesn't it hurt? It's just a mass of strange, spongy, wet...

Her mind goes to the image he wants her to think upon, of her chest healing up. It's like telling someone not to think of a purple rhinoceros. But she doesn't actually think it will work.

"Look. I tried. Please? Just, let me go? I'll get there on my own. I swear I won't tell anyone."

Verna Gardner
[Stamina!]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 6) ( success x 1 )

cruor
Verna might not really think it will work, but she's young (new), and her new body works somewhat by instinct. As her mind turns to her broken chest, as she thinks about the pain (oh, it throbs), the throbbing gets more intense. And the bone reknits. And the muscle becomes whole again, unbruised. And the edge to her hunger sharpens up, as if she'd just run it over a whetstone. But her body feels better, and if she goes on touching her chest, she'll feel the flesh become whole again beneath her fingertips; if she touches her chest again after letting her hand fall away, why, it's as if she never was injured. Using blood, purposefully, the way she just did has a certain feel; it is an effort, and she feels the effort, though she may not understand it. Even babies have flop over and try to crawl at some point.

"You really tried?" David sounds disbelieving. "Lemme see the wound."

Verna Gardner
She doesn't even hear what he's saying. She was touching her chest when it healed under her fingers, and that. is. not. possible.

"Oh... what... what?" Her eyes wide, her mouth open, she tries to make some sense of a world that has just gone senseless.

"This isn't possible. I can't. I can't. I... no. No. I have to get out of here. I can't."

Babbling, the last refuge of the brain when it slams into the wall of reality.

cruor
David may or may not be prepared for this, but he can understand it at least. Every new vampire has a moment of mental break, of disbelief unsuspended. He doesn't breathe out in relief at finally being given something in the script he can understand, because he doesn't need to breathe, and it isn't always his instinct. It often is. It isn't always.
He settles himself on the stairs, arms folded ready to block her if she tries to rush for the door again.

"I thought you were supposed to be brilliant," he doesn't repeat the caveat which usually accompanied that assessment, when he was tracking down leads. "A scientist. Are you arrogant enough to think you know what's impossible? You don't need a hospital. You don't need medical attention at all. You need, uh..."

Nervousness makes that last sentence very brisk.

Verna Gardner
He lets her go and sits on the stairs, ready to be her roadblock, and Verna staggers back, prodding at her flesh and disbelieving everything. He stabbed her in the heart. There was so much blood and pain. Now her flesh is knitted and her sweater isn't -- a fact which causes her to start and draw the hole closed. She doesn't want to let her clothes unravel in front of him. Already that ragged place where the stake went through is in a bad location, showing off a pink, bloodstained bow attached to her bra.

Funny how modesty seems to be a requirement now, when the world is falling apart. She'll let her mind go, but not too far. Calm down, Verna. This isn't real.

David insults her again, and there are many many angry responses to that one.

Impossible? Perhaps not. So improbable, it's composed of trillions of individual events that by themselves are unlikely to happen naturally in the course of an age of the universe? Yes. What's more likely here? That somehow she has developed regeneration superpowers, a thermodynamic miracle unexplainable by science, or that she's been slipped LSD? Probably by that fiend?

This is how she puts things to rights again, piecing together a world that makes sense.

She licks her lips, finds some traces of his blood there, so delicious. It's hard to ignore how utterly blood-drenched she is, especially with the hunger within gnawing again.


"A bath," she says, in a small voice.

cruor
The new vampire's sire rubs his forehead with the pads of his index and middle finger, and his expression skitters over to a corner of the basement, beyond (of course) the weak lamp light.

"Oh. There's a shower."

Time to examine the shadows in greater detail.

There is a leather chair, rather nice. A wardrobe box. A pile of magazines and newspapers. A table with a sheet thrown over it, equipment beneath. A chair with a sheet thrown over it. A metal sink. A shelving unit, also metal. Everything is very sterile. There are boxes, not very dusty. There's a small refrigerator, the kind that college students use. An old first generation IBM home computer, an even older arcade game. A number of tables with sheets covering them, to tell the truth.

And in a corner, one of those industrial floor showers, which upon examination would show rust around the drain, a bar of Dove Men, and some hotel samples of shampoo. There's no door. There's just some tiling, the drain, the shower head.


The basement doesn't look lived in.

Verna Gardner
Suddenly, it becomes more obvious where she is. This tomb has furniture and a disgusting shower with no privacy to it, and Verna realizes with horror that she is intended to use it. In front of him? The look she gives him after is full of a different kind of fear. Before, she was worried about dying. Now she's worried about living through whatever it is David plans to do to her in this room.

"Oh," she says, distant, while her eyes trail off of him again, to the shadows of this decrepit 'living' space.

He means to keep her here, doesn't he? To drug her and torture her to drive her crazy, making her think she's dying, making her think she's drinking blood. She looks like she might be ready to cry, if she weren't so focused on not doing that. And she keeps glancing in his direction, looking, pleading...


Waiting for an opening.

cruor
Whether or not the blonde can guess at the fears running through Verna's mind, the denials and the hopes and the horrors, he does not now seem moved (though he winces, once, as she gives him that look with the big eyes).

The time stretches, a thread unsnapped, David by the stairs as if they need to be guarded as implacable as he can make himself, but now that she's not screaming or dying in his arms his mind keeps wandering away.


And then he clears his throat and says, "I have no interest in watching you in the shower. I'm not gonna cut you up or or anything like that. You can shower or not, just like you can scream or not."

Verna Gardner
What an utter peach of a man. And he wondered why she didn't want him to walk her to her car? But what little care he shows her -- the assurances that he isn't going to kill her, that he doesn't want her to die? Those little winces of contrition? She wants to hang on them -- to bottle them up and keep them safe. They're her little glimmer of hope.

Part of that is the blood talking. Everything about him is important, for all its unsavoriness. After all, at this particular point in time, he owns her.

He says he's not going to cut her up, and she just stares at him.

It's then that she realizes that she hasn't been breathing. It's the first time they've spent in silence since she drank from his wrist, and with no need to talk, she just forgot. There's the hiss of an inhale that doesn't seem to do anything, no relief of pressure or need. Still, she starts consciously breathing again, looking rather concerned at the floor.

Still, she asks him no questions. What would be the point in asking about a hallucination?


Eventually, she moves -- walks slowly toward the corner with the shower in it. She's not going to undress in front of the man, but at least she might be able to wash her face and hands.

cruor
One shower knob is coated in green rubber, the other in red, and they require a small effort past the sticking point to work, but the water when it comes will come harsh and fast and needle-sharp and cold for about a second before hot water comes -- if it comes.

David doesn't interfere with Verna at this moment in time. He stays by the door and watches her walk toward the shower, then he drops his head and puts both hands up in the air, from the air to his spiky hair, then from his hair down across his face, from his face into his back pocket.


Verna's phone is gone, but he has one, and he glances at Verna to see what she's doing, taking a step up the stairs before he dares open it.

Verna Gardner
She tries the green knob, wrenching it when it doesn't budge at first. The water should hurt, shouldn't it? This cold and sharp? But she carefully rolls her sleeves up and washes her hands in it, trying to remove the worst of the caked-on dried blood. Is that even blood? Or is she actually washing bare skin? She doesn't know or care at the moment. She just wants to feel clean.

She grabs the soap off its little rack and starts scrubbing, and then goes after her fingernails, all meticulous. It's hard to see how much of the stuff she's getting off in the dark, and that just prompts her to keep at it until she's sure. And then it's time for the face. Even her hair is caked at the ends, though. It's going to take more than a bar of soap to really do the job, and she's not keen on stepping into the stream fully clothed. So she tries to lean carefully into the water and scrub with the soap. No towel. And her sweater's so stained, she'd probably make it worse if she tried to wipe her face with her sleeve. So dirty. She's not satisfied. But then, she won't be, until she can get a proper shower and a change of clothes, and, oh yes -- away from this place.

David might notice how she keeps an eye on him, always looking at him with blank, wide eyes, never speaking. He goes to make a phone call, and that is noted. That's him getting distracted. For now, she tries to act docile. Just resigned to her fate over here -- washing up like a good girl. Definitely not planning on bolting again, no sir.

When she walks back into the light, you can see now how pale her face is, how bloodless. She looks as sick and exhausted as she feels.


And again, there's a sharp intake of breath as she remembers how important breathing should be.

cruor
David doesn't know exactly how much of herself Verna put into fighting for her life, but he doesn't find it questionable (or even objectionable) that she should be too wrung out to keep fighting and fighting and fighting. Even the worthless rabble believe in the power of someone's will, that a will is as good if not better than a soul if there's even any difference between.

He makes a phonecall. Maybe Verna tries to hear some of what he says. It's not impossible, though the water is loud and it blocks some of his words. His voice breaks once, on the word done it now. Handle it. She hears her name and then he lowers his voice, cupping his hand around the receiver.

He even puts a hand to the back of his head, turning once on the step; quickly, like he doesn't want her at his back, not as if he's afraid per se but worried -- yes; worried, concerned. When she leaves the shower corner, he looks more deliberately in her direction. He'd avoided it while he was on the phone and the water was running. When he sees that she's dressed, etc., he says, "Gonna sit?"

And Verna can hear the low sound of somebody's raised voice on the other line.

Verna
She shakes her head, eyes the phone, eyes the stairs and the door. Whoever he's talking to, he's told her name. So maybe they know what happened and don't care? Instead of having a seat, she goes over to wander near the wall.

Thing is, David, she's not too keen on doing anything you say. Has she ever been?

In this silent treatment, she runs over the visions she's had so far this night, and tries to pinpoint where it all went lopsided and terrible.

cruor
Verna doesn't want to do what David says. This is going to make their relationship going forward rather awkward, especially once the fuzz gets wind of her existence. He can't say he blames her. He doesn't interrupt her wandering, around and around the basement, poking toward this wall and toward that. Maybe she thinks this is what the next ten years of her life is going to be like. There are many stories about women who are kidnapped and kept for years, only to escape by sheer chance.

David takes a step up another stair and plops down, spreading his legs wide planting the boots firmly on the ground one hand on his knee taking up all that room, and Verna can hear him finish his conversation, but he keeps it to a harsh and harried whisper now.

An hour passes like this. At some point, David takes the battery out of his cell, and puts that in one pocket, puts his cell in the other pocket, folds his arms across his chest and watches Verna pace.

It's a meditative experience, in some respects. He can't believe he killed her. He can't believe he fucking Embraced her. He scrubs at his face a few times.

Another hour passes like this, and dawn's not so distant any longer.

They've still got time to kill. He clears his throat and says, "So. How's the chest feeling? Better?"

Verna
"Who were you talking to?" comes her answer, only it is not an answer to his question. She doesn't want to talk about her chest. That didn't happen. Obviously not. Or she'd be dead right now.

She's busy investigating his ancient computer. Maybe this is where he stores the things he doesn't use anymore? And this thing hold some kind of sentimental value? She wonders how long she'll be stored here...

In a place with no books, and an old video game to keep her company. And her kidnapper.

She looks to him, noting how he doesn't move off of the steps he's occupied since the last time she tried to bolt for them. Surely there's an easier way to keep her here than his being a watchdog.

cruor
"Somebody with the power to keep us both alive, I hope," David replies.

The ancient computer is a functional one. Verna could plug it in and turn it on, if she's interested in museum pieces. Sentimental value might be the right word for the junk he has here.

Verna
"What do you mean?" Verna says, confused. Up until now, she considered David to be pretty much her only threat. What is he going on about now?

Just breathe, Verna. Literally -- remember to breathe. And remember that this man lies. Remember that he's insane. Remember that no matter what he says, it might be a hallucination anyway.

cruor
David bites the inside of his lip and puffs out his cheeks. It's a not very flattering thinking pose, and he pushes his jaw askew too. Then he lets his breath out in a puff.

"You're not freaking out about drinking blood or healing your chest any longer, so going forward I'm going to assume you're in shock or denial or something. I don't know, maybe you're biding your time. Maybe you think you're dreaming. That's just fine, keep thinking you're dreaming. I'm going to explain some shit to you anyway because it's got to be done."

"You're a vampire now.

"You died. I'm sorry, it was a mistake. You're a Ventrue. Ventrue is the name of your clan, of our clan. It's the strongest, most noble. I'm what you'd call a black sheep. Not fucking literally, but I'm not exactly the stereotype. I turned you because I didn't mean to kill you. Unfortunately, uh, that's not exactly the way things work, so there's the possibility that we'll both get in trouble."

Euphemisms for children. Childer.

"I'm your Sire. I'm responsible for teaching you how not to murder people on the street when you get too hungry and for keeping you from going around shouting oh em gee I am totally a vampire look if you cut me I will bleed but not that much and then I'll heal."

"The person I was talking to can help with all that. I'll owe them. So will you, once you're fit for society again. I don't remember how long it took me to adjust. I didn't have any warning either, but uh... It was different."

What a liar liar liar.

Verna
Verna blinks at him. Stays silent.

You're a vampire now. You died.

Oh, my. He's worse than she thought. There's one thing -- he called somebody. And hopefully that somebody isn't as crazy as he is. Hopefully they realize what really happened and are coming to free her from this lunatic.

"Is that why you came at me with a stake? This... vampire thing?"

Vampire thing. And note how she is no longer saying she was stabbed. She does think she's dreaming, David.

cruor
"Sort of. I thought you were already a vampire. A bad one, like that woman with the shadows; do you remember the woman with the shadows, and her friend?"

David starts chewing on his thumbnail, so his voice is a touch muffled. He briefly examines his cuticles, a nervous flicker flash of gaze, anxious and dolorous and that's just going to be Verna's memory of David's face if in the future she ever tries to recall it. Anxious, dolorous.

Verna
Verna shakes her head. "You saw them too?"

No. No, don't go there. Don't start believing him.

She recovers quickly. "So. You came to the conclusion, after talking to me for a few minutes, that I was a bad vampire and needed to die. So you stalked me with a stake and kidnapped me," Verna says, speaking slowly and carefully, like she's talking to a rabid dog.

"Do you realize how... I'm not saying you're insane. It just.... doesn't sound good. Don't you think that... perhaps.. it might be a good idea to stop doing things that sound... that bad?"

"I mean... hah. You're now holding a young woman prisoner in your basement. See? It sounds like a mistake, doesn't it?"

cruor
"Verna." David makes a gesture with his left hand, as if he'd reach out to her, though he doesn't get up from his spot on the stairs. He sounds gentle: "No."

"A mistake was made. You weren't a vampire. I don't know why I misread what I saw so badly, but if what I'd seen in your aura was true staking you was the only honorable option. Then they came, the woman with the shadows and her packmate, and I lost control, and I drained you.

"I drained you, and I'm sorry, god I'm sorry," his voice cracks again and he covers his mouth with his palm, turning his head slightly to the side. Regains his composure, "So I carried your body away from that place, and I didn't want you to die, so I turned you here where I could deal with your fear and panic and doubt without endangering anybody else."

"Right now, you are a danger to everybody you love and everybody you dislike. Right now, you could kill someone so much more easily than I killed you. You have no control. You don't even believe you're hungry! I can see it god."

The accent has thickened, too; so at the end it's more difficult to understand him if one doesn't have an ear for accents, the old Irish coming out.

"You're not a young woman any more. You're a Ventrue. If anything happens to me, remember you're a Ventrue," he sounds like he has qualms, along those lines. "Anything's better than being a Caitiff."

Verna
"I am... hungry. I'm very hungry. I didn't have any dinner tonight, I was working," she says, careful again.

"A mistake was made," she nods. Slowly. "But you don't have to keep making them."

She sighs, walks over to one of the not-so-good chairs and sits. She doesn't want to get blood all over the nice chair.

"Look. I just want to go home, get something to eat, take a shower, change out of these dirty clothes. I'm not going to hurt anybody."

Denial is strong in Verna, isn't it?

cruor
He nods with fervor when she tells him he doesn't have to keep making mistakes. He doesn't have to. He can't. Oh god, he can't. He can't go pale but the sentiment is there, has been there, will continue to be there, the shadow marks of strain around his eyes.

"Do you live alone? What's your favourite color? There's..." He hesitates; then swallows. "There's the refrigerator. You can have whatever you want from the refrigerator."

Verna
Do you live alone? "Yes. I do. And my favorite color is blue."

If David knew that her favorite color is blue because it reminds her of a Tremere Ancilla's eyes who she once loved because he forced it on her? What would he think? Perhaps: how much worse could it get?

She smiles a little nervous twitch when he says she can have anything she wants out of the fridge. Normally, eating strange things out of a stranger's beer cooler would be about on the bottom of her list of things that are cool to do. But she wasn't lying when she said she was very hungry. So she stands, and walks over to it -- pulls open the door. What's inside?

cruor
The refrigerator isn't very full, it is true. There's a jar of jelly, for some reason, and then a few bottles of dark red liquid, and some string cheese.

If Verna looks in the freezer, she'll find an ice cube tray with little homemade popsicles. They're also a dark red, the color of blood, frozen cherry.

"I'll get you some clothes," David promises. "And some privacy. You won't be down here forever."

Verna
"Ohh," Verna says, and smiles. "I'm glad. I hope, hah, that I won't be down here forever, no. That would be... a mistake, right?"

A part of her really wants that dark red liquid. It must be what he drugged her with. Is she addicted now? It felt so good. But she's not going to fall for that easily again. She goes for the string cheese, breaks off one of the logs from the package, and peels it.

She gives David a nod. "Thanks."

She remembers what string cheese is supposed to taste like. But when she bites into the apparently good cheese, it tastes rotten -- like she'd expect this suspect this stuff to be full of worms rotten. It's disgusting. She spits it out into her hand and makes a noise of revulsion.

"I'm terribly sorry. I think your cheese has gone bad."

cruor
He watches her with something like apprehension, just kept in check; apprehension or fascination, and then she chokes on the string cheese, and he rubs his knee and stares at his knuckles before he flicks his unblinking gaze back at her.

Her stomach is upset now, Verna, wants to roil up; she must be thankful that she didn't swallow anything as it settles.

"Sorry," he says. "I keep that for the ghouls. You might try the popsicle."

Sure, David. 'Popsicle.'

Verna
For the ghouls. Right.

With her back to him, and her head back in the fridge, Verna winces. How long has that cheese been in here? He doesn't eat it. She doesn't even want to check the expiration date, because she stuck that in her mouth.

She lays the cheese on top of the refrigerator, and pulls open the freezer door to find his homemade popsicles. They're red. She's apprehensive of that bit. They're not wrapped. They could be made of anything.

"They're not... drugged are they? We were talking about not making more mistakes."

cruor
"They're not drugged," David says. "I don't know how, er, nutritious they are, but you can try them."

Verna is new. Verna is so new. New, and Ventrue, blueblooded Camarilla aristocracy, and Ventrue have very refined tastes.

It's a mystical quality, and while she can fill herself on David's blood without problem, David's taste was not necessarily passed down. They have a small grace period for 'experimentation,' before their blood-weakness manifests itself.

When that window shuts, it's a shame.

Verna
Okay. Just some popsicles. From a vampire-obsessed crazy-man's basement beer cooler. Verna sighs. Is she really this hungry? This desperate?

She takes one of them by the stick and wiggles it free. Apparently, yes. She does stare at it for a while first, though. It looks... like cherry. That's what it is. Cherry. Not drugged. He said so. She closes the door to the fridge, with her potentially tainted treat in hand.

He lies, Verna. He's not a nice man, and he's crazy.

But, in the end, her stomach decides its had enough, and she goes for it. When she bites into the thing, her mouth feels wrong, and her sense of taste says it's all right. She takes the whole thing at once, and tries to swallow it before it's fully melted even. And once she's done consuming the thing that does not taste like cherries at all, her hand goes up to her lip, her tongue feels for her teeth -- they're...

She starts again, at the sensation of her fangs.

"You... you lied."

cruor

"What?" David's voice is taut.

He'd watched her consume the popsicle without comment. He didn't have much access to blood-on-tap, but like his own sire always used to say, better to have something on ice than find you're coming up short. The other clans may mock the Ventrue for their civility, their rigid adherence to law, may call them soft; but it's harder for Ventrue. Fuck those other clans. Ventrue are the truest hunters: instead of being satisfied with hitting the target, they go for a bull's eye. He runs his fingers across the knuckles of his other hand idly, forehead creasing.

"Oh. I did not," firmly. "Your body has gone through changes. Your fangs are coming in. They retract, but they'll help you make a cut to suck from when you're ready for that kind of responsibility."


He's not ready for this kind of responsibility. His face is about as long as somebody's face who looks so much like an elf or goblin could get.

Verna

She'd just managed to get some semblance of control back, and now this. He's doing his vampire thing again, and her mind is playing tricks with the suggestions he plants.

"There's something addictive in those things," she says, and in the absence of a trash can (or at least, one she can see) puts the stick of the bloodsicle on top of the fridge to join the half-chewed string cheese, shaky-handed. "I could tashte it."

Her fangs -- she's not used to talking with her mouth full of teeth. She closes her eyes and wishes them gone -- wants her normal teeth back. They scare her. They're just more evidence that she's losing her mind. And so, they retract as David says.

She could get angry again, try to rush the stairs, ask him why -- why would he keep doing these horrible things. But it wouldn't help. And he'll just keep sticking to his ridiculous story. He lies, oh he lies. And she tries to convince herself that she'd rather starve than take any more of what he gives her. She is hungry, and it gnaws, but -- would that vampire-obsessed freak actually feed her blood? She remembers drinking from his wrist, how good it felt. It was impossible. It could not have actually happened, could it?


Her face is stuck in a fear-pose, wide-eyes and mouth slack. It's the default that she goes to whenever she's not pretending at civility. And all the while, clutching at her chest like someone might clutch at pearls, but no -- she grasps the blood-drenched bull's eye of her death blow. Yeah, David -- you certainly hit a target. She's staring at him like that all the way away from the fridge, to go join the shadows at the opposite side of the room. Silent.

cruor

And so the night will go.

The blonde with tattoos ghosting under his shirt will stick to his story. He'll stick to his story and he'll stick to his stoop his patch by the stairs and he's a self-professed black sheep a gangster a thug a Ventrue sure but she doesn't yet know how much he sticks out and maybe she'll never know.

He sticks to his story. He evidences guilt and remorse, but he sticks to his story like it's glue and he's a fly.

I'm sorry. You're a vampire, kindred as we say. There's nothing addictive in those popsicles. Nothing addictive in that refrigerator. You're probably going to have to get a new identity, maybe we'll have to leave Denver. Ha.

He laughs at that. He laughs the kind of laughter that means something's so unfunny it's transformed. Transfigured. He wipes his eyes like they tear up.

I'm sorry, he says. And then he talks about the Masquerade. He talks about the mystery of the thing. He talks about a friend, who'll help him make it okay. He says he's sorry. I'm sorry, he says.

And there's a lot of blank space, when he doesn't talk and she doesn't talk. He offers her books. He doesn't have very many. Most of his books are on his kindle, tyvm, which he does not have down in this lair, so Verna has her choice of a Ulysses a la James Joyce, the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, or a book on Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution by Deborah Harkness.


He takes a pen from a pocket and makes notes in a moleskine journal, keeping a wary eye on her. Questions she might ask, he tries to answer. Toward dawn, he says, "You should get comfortable. The sun's going to come up and it's going to make you awfully drowsy. You're going to fall asleep. Me too."

Verna

He still sticks to his story, and she still sticks to hers -- at least, inside. There might come a night soon where she accepts what's happened, but that's not quite yet. Let the shock wear off. Let her meet others besides this single man whom she does not trust. Maybe then. Maybe after she performs experiments on herself (Try not to breathe. Cut your hair. Take your temperature again and again and again) it will be easier to believe. And then? Well, that's a breakdown for another time.

For now, she keeps her old world cobbled together out of the need to hold on to reason and keep herself sane. She needs to survive. She needs to escape this. Looking closely at the truth won't help with that right now. David is not her kind of person. That makes it easier to blame him for everything from drugging her to kidnapping her -- everything but killing her.

In the blank spaces, in between his apologies and his explanations, Verna will stare at him from the shadows of the opposite wall. In these times, she thinks of nothing other than escape, lost cause as that might seem. Some time now, he'll get up, he'll get distracted, she'll charge the door. But he never does.

She declines a book. "Do you honestly believe I want to read right now? I've just been kidnapped. I've got... blood all over me, and you want me to read a book? I'd get it dirty." She's been killed. Kidnapped. Buried. Embraced. Reading just isn't as high on the list right now as it might otherwise be.

He says the sun is about to rise, and she will fall asleep. She doesn't believe that either.

"I doubt that very much. I doubt I'll sleep for days," she says, even though she feels it. Like the adrenaline is finally crashing, she thinks, in calming rationality as the earth rotates and the sun creeps towards the horizon.


Verna doubts, but she sleeps eventually. She tries to keep standing, but the drowsiness kicks in and she slides down the wall to hug her knees. Then, she slumps over -- decidedly uncomfortable, but at this point it doesn't matter much. One thing, though? She keeps her arms crossed over the hole in her sweater. The memory of that hallucinatory event won't go away for anything.

cruor

Every vampire can feel the ebb and flow of dawn's approach, if they think about it. Verna doesn't know, and perhaps will never know, how unusual these current nights are, when it doesn't matter how far from humanity one has sunk, everybody sleeps at the same time: when red smudges the horizon, when the sun first appears. Not before.

And then there is nothing but silence. As she struggles to stay awake (and her limbs won't obey her, and her eyelids are so heavy), she can see David going through the same struggle, but even David becomes a fixed wax effigy, and...


Hello, darkness. Until she rises again.

Embraced

Verna Gardner
Verna's on her way out of the physics and astronomy building looking like the champion that she really isn't. She plays the role of person-who-is-not-being-hunted rather well, though. Always looks crisp and sharp, even if her eyes are tired and she looks a little pale from not getting enough sun this winter. Tonight's outfit is a complicated blue sweater with lacy arms and cables everywhere, like someone was attempting every stitch in the knitting vocabulary in one sweater, and a pair of slacks. A white lab coat, carefully folded, rests over her arm, and she carries her books away with her using a rolling briefcase. Boots complete the ensemble, because heels are not lab-wear according to the university, and besides -- Jon Marc might be out there.

There's wariness about her, as if she expects her enemies to jump out of the bushes every time she leaves the 'safety' of a place with locks on the doors. She does expect that. It lends caution to her. Makes her check the shadows.

It's okay. It's been okay ever since she started back to school. It's just another walk to the parking lot, right? Right? She takes a deep breath, and continues on.

Verna Gardner
[Perception + Alertness = wary Verna]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )

Verna Gardner
[Intelligence!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 7, 7) ( success x 2 )

David
The moon wanes. Ganymede trails darkness across the face of Jupiter. Mars and Venus drift apart. The heavens are dark, but not as dark as a university campus parking lot. Verna is not lowest on the totem pole, but neither is she important enough to have a shot at a decent parking space. Cars that shouldn't be parked in the visitor's spaces are regularly towed, and Verna has perhaps overheard security guards (or at least some of her students, classmates) discussing a racket the guards have going, where they get a cut of the tow money if they report it. Consequently, the cars of legitimate visitors are as safe as any car ever is with the watchful eye of campus security there as often as it can turn toward. Verna may have also heard that over the last year security has been bolstered, although the reason for that is much-speculated on. A serial rapist. A frat boy? Worse.

But groups of students going to night classes tend to move in little clumps, so even if she finds herself caught in a momentary bubble of solitude (more and more likely when she lets herself get out so late), she is unlikely to be entirely on her own. Last night the temperature was just a degree above zero but tonight is almost balmly in comparison, with the temperature approaching the mid-fifties.

She has a ways to walk to get to her car, and Jon Marc (nor his friend, Mister Clean) seems to be lurking in the shadows.

But a young man is approaching her. Verna does not yet know that the young man's name is David, and she may never know. He looks like one of the older students, short blonde hair wanting to wave but cropped too short for that, a natural furrow between straight dark eyebrows and a trimmed beard. He has a backpack. Verna recognizes him from the Physics and Astronomy building; he was talking to one of the astronomy professors, and through the pale gray of his rather thin shirt there was the ghost of a tattoo on his bicept.

He seems to be making right for her, though his pace isn't rapid. A steady stroll, with just a touch of catch-up-to-you speed.

David
ooc: ahem, and Jon Marc DOES NOT seem to be lurking in the shadows. Yeesh, Jon Marc, wait your turn.

Verna Gardner
She's just down the steps to the building when she notices him. Notices, and then appraises him with a question to her body language. What do you want? Looking for me?

There are students out this late. There are always students on campus during semesters, at all hours of the night. All night cram sessions are a thing, and the student lounges and restaurants and labs have hours to suit. Sure, it isn't the mass of human bodies that resembles a river that tends to occur during the day, but the flow never stops entirely. It just slows to trickles. Here and there you can see them, shadows illuminated by bluish LED lamps, trudging down the sidewalks or flying by on bikes (now freed of having to deal with pedestrians, the wheeled vehicles reign supreme).

But right now, Verna's alone. Alone and aware of that fact.

So she gives the approaching man her best impression of a woman who has her bearings about her. A woman who will fight if pressed.

David
The young man clears his throat when he is within hailing distance. His shoulders are bowed, as if he's carried too many heavy books for too long.

"Are you Verna Gardner? Gaiman's TA?"



Verna Gardner
"Yes? May I help you?"

She replies, but she doesn't bother with a smile. It's late, she's tired, and lately her life has been so frustrating, so pulling-out-hair exasperating, that her Rate My Professor comments have ranged from 'sucj a biotch' to 'Should not be allowed to procreate, nonetheless teach.'

Someone stole her research, and Dr. Andrássy's idea. Stole it and didn't credit them. As if she didn't have other things to worry about. Life isn't fair, they say? Perhaps not. Perhaps it just gives to some and takes from others, and Verna keeps giving and giving and giving...

David
"I'd like to ask you a few questions about the lab, and anything strange you might have experienced."

He has the kind of eyes that always seem to be squinting hard at something just beyond the horizon, not because he is nearsighted, but because in another life he might've been a ship's captain; might have looked intently at a problem laid out on an examination table, forgotten the passage of time, just like that.

There is a little piece of nut or rodent bone on a chord around his neck and he isn't wearing a jacket and he has rings on all four of his left fingers.

A little wind comes skirling, plucks at Verna's hair and whirls and whirls. Somewhere near but not near a girl's laughter rises high and transforms into a shriek; the shriek just melts into laughter, dissolves into the shadow she and her lover throw against a nearby building's brickwork.

Verna Gardner
Uhh, aside from strange guys approaching her at night with tattoos and rings and bones around their neck?

"Strange things? Nothing strange, no. If you'll excuse me, I have to be going home now."

Curt and to the point, that. There's nothing exactly strange about people with doctorates stealing the work of grad students now is there? That's ridiculously common.

David
"That was the prelude," David replies. He doesn't seem pleased at coming up against the glass wall of curt and to the point, but he doesn't seem taken aback or as if he has been made wrongfooted by it either.

If Verna is brushing past, he lengthens his stride to reach her side and get her attention, only going so far as to hold his hands up and step in front of her if she doesn't look at him. "You may not have realized what you were seeing was worth notice at the time. On your way to your car? Let me walk you, and we can discuss this further."

It isn't cold enough for the lack of visible breath in the air to be something anybody would notice, even if they didn't look for it. But he isn't breathing, and this is where the young man who is not a man tries to mesmerize Verna.

He doesn't want to take all night.

[Dominate 2. Leadership + Manipulation. Diff: Verna's WP.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 4) ( fail )

Verna Gardner
Verna's rather nonplussed, and she glares at him. "Honestly, you don't look like a cop. Who are you and why do you want to know about this nebulous 'strangeness'?"

Then, she sighs, looks down the sidewalk -- lovely sidewalk that will take her to the lovely parking lot that holds her lovely car, so she can get away from creeps.

"And no, thank you, I don't need a walk to the car."

Not from you...

David
He looks rather nonplussed, as well, and his gaze skims across her face, across her collar, down to her shoes and back. David doesn't exactly rock back on his heels, but he does tip his head back as though he'd just received a blow. Hands are still up when he sketches a shrug.

"And you look like a nice girl, but here we are. It will just take a few moments, Verna, and then I'll leave you alone."

[Why didn't that work? Auspex 2. Perc + Emp, Diff 8.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (1, 1, 1, 4, 5, 6) ( botch x 3 )

Verna Gardner
[Awareness!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 4, 5) ( fail )

Verna Gardner
"'And you look like a nice girl?' What's that supposed to mean?" Oh, he has thoroughly stepped on all her nerves, hasn't he? She gives him the nastiest look. Definitely not looking like a nice girl now.

"If that's the way you ask people for things, I'm afraid you'll never have a career in politics. Or anything that involves using your words. Good night."

With that, she turns to stomp off. Of all the wretched random people to try following her? He's so rude.

David
His eyes grow wide and he hisses on a sudden inhale, those old remnants of humanity one never quite gets rid of unless one tries. He can't go pale, but if ever anybody looked like the other shoe just dropped, it's David; David, who flinches when Verna turns to stomp off.

Back to the building, or simply around to take one of the meandering paths which will let her approach the parking lot from another angle?

"I'm sorry, but no," he whispers. Maybe she isn't looking at him by this point; maybe she's already on her way, unstoppable Verna Gardner, who is having a very bad year.

Verna Gardner
Verna is turning and stomping off to her car. She wouldn't go back, wouldn't call campus security or anything. After all, the man has, as yet, only been very rude, and that's not a crime. She's not the kind of person who can snap her fingers and summon authorities to remove such horrid little people from her presence for being a pain in the neck.

She hears him whisper something. Probably consoling himself with vulgarity thrown in her direction. Whatever. It wouldn't be the first time.

She does pick up the pace, hurrying along with the speed of indignation.

Verna Gardner
[Perception + Alertness!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 5, 5, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

David
Verna is stomping off to her car, down this path if she is avoiding David while trying not to let him see where exactly she is going, or down this-a-way if she just turned to stomp around him, stomp, stomp, while her wheely briefcase dances behind her, but she is alert. Perhaps it's because of how frequently she's been a target. The police never did find out who was responsible for breaking all of the glass -- never gave any indication that they were taking seriously her allegations about Jon Marc -- and it's not as if her students like her. So even though she is walking away, putting David behind her, she can hear the rustle of fabric, as if he takes something out of his jacket, and she can hear his own pace quicken behind her. This is what it's like to be hunted, but any woman who goes around alone at night knows what that feels like, knows the extra alertness which sharpens up when somebody might be right behind.

There are people on campus, yes. But just at this moment, nobody is nearby, except for the making out couple, and they've already begun to drift away accompanied by the sweet earthy scent of pot.

Verna's car is quite a walk, certainly, but it's not the furthest walk she's ever had to make in the hunt for parking; she can't see it yet, but if she gets to the grassy knoll a street's width away she'll be able to look down the hill and stairs and see where her car is parked, and anybody else who's intent on going home tonight.

Verna Gardner
The man is following her, catching up to her, and she can hear that little rustle of his jacket. She chances a quick glance behind her, and perhaps David can see the cracking of her facade. She's angry -- but also tired and afraid. Something tells her he's about to threaten her with a gun.

What on earth is so important about his 'strange things' that he feels the need to do this? Was that just a ruse to get her alone?

David
It's not a gun.

The young man is carrying something about the length of a ruler, give or take an inch or so, something that has been polished and worried over and tucked up in his bag or his coat or where ever it is he can tuck something ever since '12. He has used it once before. He thinks he has to use it again. Her façade is cracking, but the glimpse of his face is a mirror; anger and fear, and determination.

He's holding a wooden stake with a very sharp point. He's got it at ready. He's holding it like it's a stabbing weapon. When he sees her looking, as he strides after her, what he says is a nervous "That'srightIknownowyouhaveto Stumble!"

And he tries to put added oomph into the Stumble, though there's a thread of worry in his voice; he doesn't think it will work.

[Attempting Dominate 1: Stumble a bit, Verna. Diff: Verna's WP.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 6, 7, 10) ( success x 4 )

Verna Gardner
[Perception + Awareness!]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 4, 8) ( success x 1 )

David
A trickle of something other than adrenaline, or fear, or whatever it is she feels when she sees what he means to do slips up and down her spine something tickles a hunch an uncanniness she has felt before.

cruor
[Meanwhile, Perception + Awareness #1. Specialty: Hey, Hey, Do I Hunch With My Little Hunch Somebody Using A Discipline?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 7, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 4 ) [Doubling Tens]

cruor
[Perc + Awareness #2. What's that?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

Verna Gardner
Verna goes down. The wheeled briefcase tries to keep on going, momentum and all that, but with her iron grip on the handle, it swings around in a little semicircle and hits the grass. She's not even wearing heels. Something about this, that tingling hair-raise reminds her of how Jon Marc could just command her. Like that. It's enough to drag a terrified, uncontrolled wail out of her. Not again. Not this. Not again.

She pulls her briefcase close, puts it between herself and the absolutely insane person in front of her. She's fishing in a pocket for something. And she hopes that this time, this awful man won't force her to drop it.

"Help!" she screams out. "He's going to stab me!"

Verna Gardner
[Init = 5 +]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )

David
[Init +6]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (1) ( botch x 1 )

cruor
[Nice Lady. +7]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (6) ( success x 1 )

cruor
[You Might Know Me As René Jacobs. +6]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )

Verna Gardner
[Tiebreaker +5!]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (9) ( success x 1 )

David
[-_-. How humiliating can this night get? +6]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (1) ( botch x 1 )

David
[Ask a question, receive an answer.]

cruor
INIT ORDER:

Nice Lady

You Might Know Me As René Jacobs, hereafter known as Jacobs

Verna

David

David
Verna goes down. She looks so fucking human to David right now, but he knows better; doesn't he know better? He's seen into her soul, after all, has seen the colours it paints around her. He has to just get through it. He has to. The briefcase is close and she's fumbling for something, but he's not paying attention; caught as he is on the verge of closing his eyes and a determination not to do so, he is paying attention only to one thing.

His purpose. Bring the stake down through Verna's heart.

1. Stake Verna.

Verna Gardner
Verna goes for the gun she's got stowed away in her briefcase in an attempt to scare him off. Perhaps staring down that barrel will make him stop. And if it doesn't? Well, she did just let everyone in hearing range know that the man was coming for her with a... stabbing implement.

What delusions does this freak suffer that make him think she's Dracula?

She's never killed anyone. She might have set into motion bureaucratic principles that might have eventually led to an untimely demise or two, but nothing this immediate. Cipriano's lessons come back to her. Remember to breathe. Don't be angry. She can't stand right, because she's not standing, but surely he will back off, right?

cruor
Somebody did hear her scream, sweet, sweet poetry in the night makes the evening hum those warm and cozy winters just like sire used to talk about with cattle lowing shrill and panicked hunted, ah! Such a night; somebody did hear her scream. Two somebodies.

Two somebodies who were, by sheer chance, already on their way to investigate something, for whatever reason.

One of them would be familiar to Verna, if she were in a position to see him as he lopes up the grass, closing the distance between the parking lot and the sound with a bit of preternatural swiftness (or that's the idea, anyway). The grumpy Belgian, handsome as a devil but always frowning always fucking belegeured not a nice guy and he disappeared back when Stephen Andrássy disappeared disappeared and there was blood wasn't there and the police have him down as a missing person, case still very active.

The other is a six foot something woman, pale as a vampire and somewhat horrifying because of it; her humanity does not soften her features, does not give her any tie to her living self, and her cheekbones are sharp and her lips are thin and red and red like a wolf's and her hair is white-blonde and she's dressed in leather pants and a tanktop with skulls on the chest and a leather vest and she's fucking wearing sunglasses and she looks not at all like the kind of person Verna would ever want to talk to.

But they are who is coming to help her.

---

Jacobs:

1. Close distance to Verna and David. -1 BP for Celerity to double time this action.

Nice Lady:

1. Ditto, but without Celerity.

Verna Gardner
[Dex+Ath = drawing gun!]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (6, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

David
[Should've been diff 7, so two suxx! Still good. :)]

Verna Gardner
[Charisma! (0 intimidate, so up diff by 1) = I am totally capable of this, I am cool, calm Verna]

Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (4, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

David
[David, willpower not to waver.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

David
[Stake to the heart, diablerist, who is very good at acting like a human for some reason, pfah. Melee + Dex. Diff: 9.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN9 (5, 7, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 1 )

David
[Damage. Strength (2) + 1 (Stake) + 2 (Heart-targeting!)]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 4 )

cruor
The doppelgangar, the René Jacobs who is here, who will answer to that name, who will know who Verna thinks about sometimes when she is sad; he is fast. He is fast. He is in the lead. He wasn't fast enough, and: both Jacobs and the cold larger-than-life biker woman Hell's angels it's a joke see the crucifix at her throat didn't have a chance to stop David from bringing the stake down.

He wavers. Verna looks like she means business: the gun might give her that with some people, but not David. No; it's the expression in her eyes, the intent that he reads there. Verna is terrifying, and he has to control his hand. He knows what she could do to him: He read it on her fucking soul. He still doesn't realize anybody else is coming when he brings the stake down and --

-- the wood pierces skin and bone and finds Verna's heart and it hurts it hurts it hurts more than anything that's ever happened to her, physically, it hurts when the thing goes right through her.

---

Round Summary:

Nice Lady: still coming.

Jacobs: Ready for the next round!

Verna! >.> 4L to the heart. In desperate need of medical attention.

David: Holding a stake in Verna's heart.

Verna Gardner
He advances, and the sight of the gun doesn't stop him, and it all happens so fast. Verna's not used to battle. He's upon her, and the barrier she made with her little briefcase is nothing. He just keeps going. Time slows down, she can see the sharp pointed arc of the stake coming for her, and she's got her finger on the trigger, but it's not quick enough.

Oh, David. Your mistake should now be so obvious. Vampire hearts don't beat like this; they don't cause blood to spurt in furious bright red rhythm. Watery blood, not thick, rich vitae. She is no diablerist, but a scared, young, living thing with a gun to your chest. You could have killed her a lot easier than this.

Her scream is a wild thing, eyes tightly shut with the pain, teeth bared -- but no fangs. It takes all of the air out of her lungs and trails out with a creak at the end, reflex trying to get the pain out -- but there's so much pain and so little air.

The gun goes off by itself, as all the muscles in her flinch and clench and squeeze.

[Dex + Firearms - 2 wound penalty = 1... Diff 4 = point blank. Spending WP because she really doesn't want to die.]

Dice: 1 d10 TN4 (7) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Verna Gardner
[Light pistol = 4 damages + 1 success]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )

David
[David, soak.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 3) ( botch x 1 )

David
[First a Perception + Alertness, to see how up David is on the current situation omfg that is mortal blood. -2 diff for Auspex.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN4 (2, 2, 3, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )

David
[Self Control: WHAT HAVE I DONE? DON'T FLIP OUT.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (3, 7) ( success x 1 )

David
David is hit by the bullet. It hits his shoulder, and although they always laugh off shoulder wounds in moves and television a shoulder wound can be a terror, can be nasty. It hits his shoulder, passes through it, but leaves no lasting mark on flesh which knits up immediately as if it had never been damaged as if there had been no gunfire no bullet. There's a bullet hole in his shirt. There's nothing on his flesh but a dull bruise which will fade before morning comes. If morning comes for him.

That is not by any means certain.

His jaw drops in horror, and it is different from the fear earlier, from the anger when he thought she was a monster; this is personal horror, the kind which will etch itself on a face for an eternity, the kind which kickstarts the old dead heart and makes it yearn to beat so it can express how entirely fucking horrified it is.

She's human.

"Fuck," he says, "Fuck, fuck, wait, don't die," but there are two others to worry about, aren't there? He is no longer holding the stake in Verna's heart. He pulls it out and, kneeling beside her, tries to put compression on the wound; that's what you're supposed to do, right?

And he looks at Jacobs, first, Jacobs who has slowed to take in the scene. And means to deliver a Command.

--

[and now we re-init everybody]

David
[I have no rating in Medicine. Sorry, kid. :(]

Verna Gardner
[+5 Init!]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (7) ( success x 1 )

David
+6

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (6) ( success x 1 )

cruor
[Nice Lady +7]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )

cruor
[Jacobs +6]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (10) ( success x 1 )

Verna Gardner
[re-init, +5!]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (4) ( fail )

David
[+6]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (6) ( success x 1 )

cruor
Init Order is:

Jacobs

David

Verna

Nice Lady

cruor
A gunshot. Jacobs, snorting this soft sound she recognizes as laughter. A delicious dish of blood, blood spilling into the grass. A stake, and the heretic kneeling beside her.

The biker lady throws her head back and laughs; it's a wild sound, as shrill in its way as any shriek, for it is a sound that is defined by how it cares not and yet nothing without passion could laugh so. Contradictions; she opens her sinewy arms wide and calls the darkness.

[1.  Get thee some Obtenebration 3, Arms of the Abyss.]

Verna Gardner
It's hard to concentrate on much of anything anymore. The stake is pulled out, and that just causes the blood to pool in the cavity left behind. Ribs are broken, making it hard to breathe, but she labors at it in order to scream -- softer now that she can't get enough air to do so, but still just as wild with pain.

There are people laughing at her. That much registers. Is that René? Is she hallucinating this?

Her murderer tries to put pressure on her chest, and this confuses -- what is he trying to do?

Don't die, he says. Like he's trying, now, to save her. It's hard to make sense of that. But he's not stabbing her anymore, is he?

Is he? She levels the gun at his chest again, with one arm, to shoot him if that stake hand moves.

Verna Gardner
[Don't stab me again, you freak. Or I'll shoot you again, I swear.]

David
"Go away," David tells Jacobs. "Just go away, and take your friend with you, this doesn't concern you, just go!" And he imbues his voice with that air of Command that he does not yet wield with confidence; when he first locked eyes with the Belgian, darkly handsome but oh so world-weary, no matter the mind behind the eyes the marks of weariness remain, when David first locked eyes with the Belgian (?), he thought that they were humans coming to help, that if only he got them away he could fix what was happening somehow. The woman is laughing like a banshee at a battlefield; maybe they're not so mortal after all.

[David is gonna keep, uh, pressing on Verna's wound annnnnnnd

1. Dominate 2: Mesmerize Jacobs!! Go away and take your friend with you kplzthnx. He will spend WP on this.]

cruor
The creature with René Jacobs' face doesn't intend to let David's voice compel him. He's surprisingly strong beneath his sportscoat, and he's fast besides: he burns more of that speed now. The better to draw a knife he has hidden in his wolf's polished modern man about town coat and slash it across David's throat. Can't order him around if one can't speak, can one? The quicksilver push of blood burnt gives him time to do another pass of knife, this time a casual slice rather than an aim to make the poor Ventrue or Malkavian or whatever the fuck he is smile.

[Declare! -1 BP for Celerity Action.

1A. Draw knife.

1B. SLICE YER THROAT. NO TALKIES. (-2 dice for split.)

Celerity Action:

SLICE YOU FOR FUN, DAVID. LOL. HALPING HUMAN AHAHA.]

cruor
[Melee + Dex + C -1 die for Celerity -2 dice for split. Diff: 4. +2 small target.]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

cruor
[Damage! Strength +1 +2.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 4, 5, 8, 8) ( success x 2 )

David
[David, soak.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (2, 10) ( success x 1 )

David
[David Dominate Power! +wp. Diff, Jacobs' WP +1 because MY THROAT JUST GOT CUT AAH.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (2, 6, 6, 9) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Verna Gardner
[Perception + Awareness]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (7, 7, 7, 10) ( success x 4 )

Verna Gardner
[Self Control]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (4, 6) ( success x 1 )

Verna Gardner
[Dex + Ath -2 Wounds = 1, +1 penalty for changing action = gather her phone! Spending WP because she really does not want to die (2 wp spent)]

Dice: 1 d10 TN7 (5) ( success x 1 ) [WP]

cruor
[Nice Lady: C'MON ABYSS. Manip + Occult.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN7 (4, 8, 8, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )

cruor
[Celerity Round! +1 diff, Change Action. Dex + Athletics. Grab Nice Lady, Drag her away. Can't split it so it's really just a rush and a grab which we'll roll +1 diff.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 3, 5, 5, 6, 9) ( success x 1 )

cruor
[Should have been 8. Just pretend.]

cruor
This is what happens.

René (surely this is a hallucination; surely, René is dead; as dead as Stephen is; as dead as a nail that never jumped with electricity, that never felt the hammer) brings that knife of his in an arc through the air and cuts David's throat, cuts it open a long slim light, and a drop of dark and thick blood (vitae) sprays from the knife's arc and splatters across Verna's face, a drop lands on her mouth and oh, oh, the smell of it. The smell of it, along with all the pain; it smells like something she wants to lick; it smells like something she needs, an difficult to resist itch which works under her skin just stretch out your tongue and -

But she resists. And the air is thick with omen, is potent with strangeness, with hair-on-the-back-of-your neck lifting.

David is saying something over her head when Verna pushes herself, fumbling for her phone, where is it, where - there it is.

And even as Jacobs is wheeling around, about to unwillingly turning on his companion (but not so unwillingly that this is out of his wheelhouse, y'see, c'mon baby let's go far away from here), the darkness comes. Verna might think she knows what darkness is. Might think she's been alone at night before, might remember some trip out to the desert where there aren't any lights. That wasn't darkness.

This is darkness, a long arm of it peeling from her own shadow, lofting high a clotted must-not-be-real strip of shadow ready to strike. This is darkness, another tendril bleeding out of Jacobs' shadow, whipping through the air with a cold dead sound. And two more, trailing up the woman's legs, to dance over her shoulders, held back and at ready, an abyssal collar, a cloak, a throne, a frame.

This next thing that happens is too fast.

Jacobs, flinging himself forward, flinging himself away from David and Verna at the woman who just conjured shadow out of nothing, clinging himself at her an arm around her throat hauling her back come on let's go we need to go away from here.

Verna Gardner
[+5 Init!]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 1 )

David
+6

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (6) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

David
[No WP, obv.]

cruor
Nice Lady. +7

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (9) ( success x 1 )

cruor
Jacobs. +6

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (3) ( fail )

cruor
This round's init order iiiiiis:

Nice Lady

Verna

David

Jacobs.

cruor
Jacobs' mind has fastened on one command, on the one order, that David gave him; he can think of nothing else. His arm can think of nothing else, for he does not balk at the abyssal tendrils snaking high over his ladyfriend's head, he only burns his store of energy further in order to push her, bring her away, tries to speak pleadingly -

Somebody snap the guy out of it.

[1A. Verbal Manip + Leadership, come on, Lasombra Lady, let's leave these crazy kids to it, I know I'm Dominated but it's just so Mesmerizing I can't fucking deal.

1B. Pull Lasombra Lady away.

-1 BP to strength.]

Verna Gardner
Verna's head is swimming with the violence of pain and blood loss. That's how she rationalizes what she's seeing. This shadow is her brain slowly failing, tunneling out into unconsciousness. It's her death coming.

René is here because he is dead. She's seeing the people who have "passed on and wait on the other side", like common hallucinations in the moments before brain death. She knows it isn't real, but why René? Why not her grandma? Why not Dr. Andrássy? Why couldn't his be the last face she sees? Why why why.

She's got her phone in hand, and she's not nearly as out of it yet as she thinks. She'll try to dial 911.

David
David is terrified.

A Lasombra. A Lasombra, here. Why couldn't she be the one he slipped the stake into? He still has the stake. He's still holding it. He swallows; the dark blood on his throat trickles further down toward his collar, draws the start of a wavering question mark. David is terrified, and he turns his eyes onto the Lasombra and tries again the trick that's served him well enough:

"LEAVE!"

But that's not all he does. He's kneeling beside Verna? He tries to lift her now. He knows it might and must injure her more, but not enough to kill her, right? And it is worse to leave her here, with them, where no help will come. Maybe oh maybe they'll leave and he can just --

[1A. Lift Verna.

1B. Dominate Lady.

-1 BP to Strength.]

cruor
No. The tall tall tall woman is cold as cold can be and though she may yet be forced back a step or two no slim and imperial in her tatty fuck off anarchist gear she reaches for Jacobs' arms and the two tendrils of darkness (Azrail, Azrail) bobbing over her shoulders like hooded cobras ah yes at ready they dart, seeking to coil around Jacobs' and separate him from her.

Of the other two tendrils, one seeks to trip David; send him sprawling with his charge. Oh yes, the lady lets him lift her up; she'll laugh harder to see him flat on his face, the mortal yet more wounded. What is he doing? The stupid Camarillan fool.

She does not think he'll be able to command her.

Look at him. Pathetic.

[Lady is Obtenebrationing all over here.

1A. Tentacles: DO YOUR THINGS.]

cruor
Tentacle #1. Get Jacobs. Flat Dex rating of 3.

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )

cruor
Tentacle #2. Get Jacobs. They're all Dex 3.

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (6, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

Verna Gardner
[dex + ath - 2 wounds = call 911! Spending WP because dying, ohnoes.]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (5) ( success x 1 ) [WP]

David
[>.> Strength + Athletics. LIFTING VERNA. +1 die from BP strength. -3 die for split. Saving WP for Dominate.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 7) ( success x 1 )

cruor
[Tentacle TRIP!]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 10) ( success x 1 )

David
[Reflexive Dodge, 'coz omfg. +1 diff, carrying Verna, +1 more diff, totally distracted.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7) ( success x 4 )

David
[Fail!]

cruor
[David has lost his chance to try to Dominate.

Jacobs' reflexive break outta this damned tentacle hold which I shoulda done before #1. Strength + Brawl.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

cruor
[#2.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 5, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )

cruor
[1]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (7, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

cruor
[2]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (7) ( success x 1 )

cruor
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 2) ( botch x 1 )

cruor
[A'ight. NOW Leadership + Manip.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 3, 8, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

cruor
[Lady: WP to be all nyet.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 4, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )

cruor
[Ground Damage Verna.]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (8) ( success x 1 )

Verna Gardner
[Soak!]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 9) ( success x 1 )

cruor
Her last moments aren't silent moments.

They're painful moments. They're strange moments. The pale woman's pet shadows pour over her shoulders and seep around Jacobs' torso one after the other and they wrench him from his task: pull the pale woman away, away; drag him from her. He struggles free slips one of the shadows from him easily, easily, though the other still holds him fast holds him tight not tight enough not as tight as it could be, but

Jacobs is speaking. His voice is unaccented. Does Verna remember René's voice? He's not pleading, but he's giving his own brand of command -- let's go, he says, let us go, let's leave this fucking pup to his own mess, we can come back and rub his nose in it later stupid thing won't it be funny to watch what happens come on let's go this isn't one of Them this is what we're looking for.

Verna may not be listening closely to whatever René is saying. He is a poor psychopomp for her, if that is what he is; he is barely paying her mind at all. Verna may not be listening closely because right now her world is her body and her body is breaking:

First, David lifts her; then that impossible oil slick tenebrous arm whips across the ground and sends David falling, and he has no breath to rush from his lungs, but he makes a sound regardless, cannot keep hold of her quite; she hits him hard and oh, oh, oh, it hurts; her poor heart. They all fall down.

But she managed to dial 911. The operator is answering; she can hear the tinny voice which sounds recorded, though of course it isn't, it's a real person - she can hear it from the ground where she has once again fallen.

The pale woman, laughing, with her shadows; her laughter has begun to trickle away, because whatever Jacobs has said is sinking into her head isn't it just and though she wants to stay though she wants to keep on playing with

"Fuck. Yeah. Maybe you're right. We'll leave and come back. You're not fucking in your right mind right now, but that sounds pretty fucking good. D'you hear that, little Tower boy? Little dying girl? D'you hear?"

Verna Gardner
Her murderer lifts her up, she can sense the rising. It hurts, causes her to take a breath that hurts even more. And then he drops her to the ground, which forces that breath out in a screaming panic of more pain.

What is he trying to do? Torture her? Was the stake in her chest not enough? Did he try to save her life because he wanted to extend her agony? How does such cruelty exist?

The dream of René says something he would never say. These things are supposed to be comforting. Just her luck?

The 911 operator -- that's real. She has to believe in that reality. After the scream, she turns her head toward her phone.

"DU," she says, her voice thick with pain. "Between Nelson Hall and High Street."

She takes a bubbling, hard breath.

"Stabbed. Chest."

Another horrible-sounding breath. If David doesn't try to stop her by this point, she'll continue.

"He's killing me."

Verna Gardner
[Dex + Ath -2 Wounds = MY PHONE! NOT YOURS! MURDERER!]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (10) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

David
[Dex + Ath. GIVE ME THAT OMFG.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6, 6, 9) ( success x 3 )

David
[Don't freak out, David. So the Sabbat are probs gonna come right back. And you've got a Masquerade breach right here. And you stabbed a poor human girl, even if she was mean! It's fine. Self control.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (1, 5) ( botch x 1 )

Verna Gardner
[Init +5!]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (2) ( fail )

David
[+6]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (7) ( success x 1 )

Verna Gardner
He took her phone away. That's to be expected, once he figured out what she was doing. Even the insane know how to protect themselves, usually.

So she takes a deep, painful breath, with her broken ribs prodding her lungs, and yells as best she can: "DU. Between Nelson Hall and High Street!"

This, while going for her gun again.

Let it not be said that Verna is a quitter. She holds on to her life like it is a very dear thing, for all that it has been emptied. She has lost her dreams and her research, a friend and a love. If they are coming for the last precious thing she has, they will pay. She will make them. All of them.

David
He might, at another time, admire her. He might admire her gumption and he might admire her will and he might admire her will to live. He does admire that, in a way, but so distantly he's not even conscious of it.

He's conscious of the breach. He's conscious of the phone, which he reaches out lightning quick to steal. Even with a hole in her heart, ribs cracked, body broke, pain a constant though adrenaline slicks through her she can't even feel herself shaking see, even with that Verna is almost faster than he is.

But he gets the phone, and she yells the address, she hunts for the phone, and the magnitude of what he's done hits him.

Exit, David. Enter, David's Beast, to make everything all right, to eliminate the problem, to blot it out, blot it out -- he loses his name and his ability to reason to try to be rational to fix anything. He loses it all; and he snarls. The fangs are out; they're sharp, and even here on the grass so recently visited by shadows darker than shadow they gleam.

He bites her. He doesn't fucking care where. He's just going for the blood. He wants it. He wants it all. It'll make it better.

[David bites Verna. It is a Kiss attack. Dex + Brawl.]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 6, 8, 10, 10) ( success x 5 )

David
David is precise in his madness, is neat, goes for the jugular, gets it, sheaths his fangs in her throat and opens her vein then makes his mouth a vacuum on the wound and sucks and Verna loses something of herself as well because it feels better than anything she has ever felt or dreamed of feeling. They call it the Kiss: but no Kiss was ever this good outside of childhood dreams. This is euphoria and ecstasy; this is addictive, would make rational men and women return and beg: please. He drinks from her and drinks from her and drinks and drinks and, oh, he drinks, and he will not cease drinking, no.

Verna Gardner
The moment his fangs penetrate her skin, the euphoria sets in, drug-like, as if any drug could duplicate this feeling. It infects every branching nerve until her entire body is involved. Orgasm is a pale pastel compared to this deep red that blocks her from reacting to the fear and pain in any way other than to gasp. He's pressing on her mutilated chest, and she doesn't care about what would have caused a scream before. Blood, warmth, and life races out of her, into him, and soon her pierced heart races in increasing, frantic strength, trying to keep her brain fed at the expense of all else. It only serves to hasten the process, even as it keeps her conscious for a while -- aware in some dim, distant fashion that her feet are cold, and that someone is violently killing her.

Soon, she's grasping at the air, trying hard to hold on to the ecstasy of dying as her consciousness slips away into hazy fog. Her mind ceases trying to make sense of any stimuli as neurons begin slipping away one by one in a cascade of starvation. The pleasure only stops because there is no longer a Verna left to feel it.

David
[Roll la la la.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN8 (1, 2, 3, 5) ( botch x 1 )

David
[Roll #2 la la la.]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 5, 7, 7, 7, 9) ( success x 4 )

David
[Roll la la.]

Dice: 1 d10 TN8 (5) ( fail )

David
Nobody comes to save Verna in the end.

A gunshot, the screams, they weren't enough to summon anything but monsters who were already on their way, and the 911 call is cut short too quickly, and the night does not light up with the sound of sirens, and the strip of grass Verna and her murderer are tangled upon is not entirely in shadow, but from a distance they do not look like anything more than a pair of desperate students, seeking physical comfort, connection, proof that they are alive.

Verna is not alive.

Verna dies.









And then she is aware, again, of Hunger, and the taste of something sweet on her tongue, something rich and familiar and oh, addictive, addicting, impossibly good, something she might sate herself on, and the air is cold and her back is wet and she is very

very hungry.