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Post by Samuel Jacobs on Aug 3, 2009 13:02:29 GMT 1
Scores was a little trickier than the Hogs Head, much so in fact. Thankfully they – they being the vampire coven – already had knowledge of the anti-vampire charms on the club’s threshold so sneaking in the back door was a simple matter of donning the enchanted amulet that would allow him access and walking in. The staff helpfully left the door ajar so on breaks they could get back in, so he did not even have to force the door open.
The next part was a little more difficult. He had to find a hiding place while he listened out for Silas Rosier to leave his office. Samuel had already spent a few nights in the club itself, and Rosier had a habit of coming out to collect alcohol when the mood suited him. The man was inconvenient in that there seemed to be no pattern; it was all on a whim. He was not to confront the man yet, so he was collecting all the information he could. The man’s home address would be the most useful piece of information he was yet to gather, so a foray into his office would hopefully give him some clues.
Unfortunately, his time was short. As soon as Rosier left his office and closed the sound-proofed door behind him as he entered the club, Samuel was at the office door. he instantly hit a flaw in his plan. The door had no means of entry, no knob, no handle, and an experimental shove suggested nothing short of a wrecking ball would get through the charmed door. Huffing, Sam turned to go but the staff access door opened and a woman carrying a folder of papers under one arm and sipping a glass of something laced with artificial fruit flavourings and vodka stepped through.
He had not anticipated this. This woman had not used this door in the last few nights. By his timing, Silas should still be at the bar. She stopped in her tracks, door closing behind her. A frown creased her brow and her pursed lips parted as she drew in a breath to speak. With supernatural swiftness, Sam dashed down the corridor, grabbed the woman and sank fangs into her neck. The potent anaesthetic in his saliva had her limp in his arms before she could make a sound. Alas, no supernatural powers would allow him to hold the woman and catch all her belongings. The paper he held, but the drink fell to the carpet. The fine glass goblet shattered, spilling liquid and token slices of fruit over the dark carpet.
Another man might have cursed, but Sam’s mind was thinking too fast for that. There was no time to do much else other than lay the woman down as if she had fallen (carefully avoiding the glass) and scatter the papers across the hall as if dropped. With the perfectly soundproofed doors, there was no way to tell how much longer he had left before someone else came through. So he left her there and fled for the exit, hoping the only conclusion that was reached was that the only woman not undressing in Scores should be more careful where she put her feet.
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Post by Silas Rosier on Aug 3, 2009 14:55:40 GMT 1
If it wasn’t for the fact that the simple act of stepping into the club for booze provided Silas the occasional break between paperwork, chances were he’d have a much more efficient system of getting it by now. Knowing Silas’s habits, possibly something involving a tap on the side of his desk that poured 19 different types of liquor from his own personal pump room.
When he got to the bar, he was vaguely surprised to find Jac hanging around. Oh well, he was used to finding her in the booths from time to time so it made sense she needed to stop off at the bar for a drink first. Perhaps he should feel grateful that this time she didn’t have Abe lumbering after her. She had the same harried, somewhat wary sort of look to her that she often wore nowadays. In many ways she was starting to remind him of a rat caught in a maze that she didn’t have the courage to try and find the exit to. The thought that he may have had a major hand in constructing said maze didn’t particularly bother him. Eventually he had managed to talk her into accepting a drink to relax a bit, she’d scuttled off, and as far as he was concerned that was that.
In any case, he certainly wasn’t expecting to find anything out of the ordinary when he walked back towards the hallway, one of Abe’s preferred brands of Fire-whiskey in one hand. He’d seen the Professor order it so often he'd had plenty of time to wonder what he found so desireable about it, and now seemed as good a time as any to try something new.
For some reason the hallway door didn’t open properly. There was a dull thud before it met some resistance. What the? Did someone leave a box on the other side or something while going through the storeroom? Fuck, it’s not like ‘don’t leave shit in front of the door’ was a difficult part of common sense. He pushed it harder and it quickly yielded, revealing a partial sight of Jac collapsed on the floor, her legs behind the door.
... Ohh boy. Workplace safety lawsuit here we come.
Before anyone could notice, Silas slipped through the door, shut it, and locked it firmly. Fuck. Shit. Alright. What the hell happened here? He knelt down on one knee near her head, putting the bottle on the floor and glancing down the hallway. By the look of the way everything had fallen she’d taken a rather nasty fall, but on what? The only thing to trip on were her own damn heels. The glass drink he’d paid for was lying broken on the ground near her head in several dangerous looking shards, the liquid was soaking into the carpet. With a wave of his wand the mess vanished.
Okay, well, there was one way to find out what had happened, and that was as easy as just asking her straight out. Working one hand underneath her head and resting the tip of his wand on her shoulder, Silas muttered “Rennervate,” under his breath and waited for her eyelids to flutter open, but, surprisingly, the woman didn’t stir. He hesitated. Hang on. That wasn’t right. He put his wand down beside his left foot, lifted her head a little more and felt her neck for her artery. No, there was definitely a pulse there. What in the hell?
The realisation didn’t take long to dawn. Silas face set into a serious expression and he felt her neck again, this time on the other side, and sure enough, he could feel two small bumps of knotted skin underneath his fingers.
Fuck.
Silas snatched his wand and stood up quickly, looking down the hallway again as though half expecting to see the attacker standing there. How the FUCK? The place was supposed to be proofed against that! Unsure what to do with himself Silas crossed the hallway and back, fingers clenched tightly around his wand. He should try and follow, but the creature was most likely gone by now. He glanced at Jac again.
Well... scratch that. The place was protected against ONE type of vampire. But there was at least another type he knew that had a nasty habit of bending the rules that bound all conventional vampires.
Looked like he would be paying Sephora a rather angry visit.
He didn’t get long to dwell on the matter. There was a noise and Jac started to stir again. Silas immediately stepped back beside her, resting one knee on the floor again and bringing his hand back to support her head. It was a long shot, but perhaps she might remember something.
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Post by Jacaranda Mulciber on Aug 3, 2009 15:29:32 GMT 1
The night was like any other. She was horrendously busy, and Silas expected everything done three hours before it would be. So she was rushed off her feet, and to top it off, the bar was late with their figures and she really didn’t have time to waste. She was at the bar harassing that Connery fellow when Silas made one of his frequent visits for alcohol. No doubt that wouldn’t go on the tab.
When Silas offered a drink, she was too haggard to argue so she collected her papers and drink and hurried back to her office. She hoped the drink wasn’t a prelude to something else, she really didn’t have the energy for anything else tonight. Reaching the staff door, the next thing she remembered was waking groggily as if someone had just cut a section out of her memory.
She grumbled and opened her eyes, the lights above her a little too bright. Had she gotten drunk? Has Silas given her more than that one drink? Where was she? She didn’t recognise this place, the ceiling was foreign. Wait, narrow room, dark walls, absolute silence. The staff corridor? What was she doing outside of the offices? Bleary eyes focussed on Silas, and she stiffened, instantly suspicious. What was going on?
That typical frown creased her brow as the rest of her body came to its senses and she realised she was laying in the corridor with Silas kneeling beside her and supporting her head. Considering the last thing she could remember was taking a drink from Silas’s cocktail, and she could still taste it in her mouth, this was starting to make sense. Whatever Silas had given her had been designed to knock her out, and who knew what he planned to do next.
She squirmed, hand going to support herself on the paper-littered carpet, the other pushing against Silas’ chest. “What’s going on Silas? What… what did you do to me?” The obvious conclusion was that he’d gotten bored of her attempts to avoid him and his advances and decided to drug her to get his way. She wondered if he’d planned to do this in the corridor, or she was supposed to have gotten to her office before the potion took effect. Was it supposed to have lasted longer? Should she have woken up in a less compromising position?
She clenched her jaw tight to keep it from shaking. She would not give him the satisfaction of seeing her frightened, beaten. She felt weak, as if all her limbs weighed double what they should. Her moving created a little nausea, and she was forced to steady herself against Silas. She groaned and pushed weakly at his chest. She wanted to get away. She wanted her wand. Where was her wand? Still in her office. With the barest of helpless noises, she glanced up at Silas, confused and more than a little frightened.
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Post by Silas Rosier on Aug 3, 2009 17:48:37 GMT 1
Jac looked remarkably disorientated as she came to. It was a feeling that he was unfortunately familiar with. Vampire bites were a bitch.
“Welcome back,” he said dryly as her dilated pupils started to contract in response to the light and regain focus. It didn’t take her long to try and move and Silas’s couldn’t foresee that going too well. The last thing he needed was for her to throw up on him. It wasn’t like a cleaning spell couldn’t fix the problem in a hurry, but still, it was an experience best not undergone in the first place. Leaving his wand on the floor again, Silas grabbed her arm with his other hand to steady her, ignoring her delicate attempts to get rid of him. He wasn’t going anywhere that easily.
“What… what did you do to me?” she asked feebly, her voice weak, and Silas was too busy being grumpy about the implications of another vampire attack to be amused that she thought he was likely to do such a thing.
“I didn’t do anything, but there’s going to be hell to pay when I find out who did,” Silas promised icily. It wasn’t the fact that a vampire had gotten to Jac that earned that reaction; it was the fact that he might have misjudged Sephora’s trustworthiness. Being wrong was not something Silas took kindly to. And even if she wasn’t the guilty one, he was possibly dealing with yet another vampire problem, one that could apparently could get past his security and that was not a thought that appealed to Silas in the least.
The questions pegged at the moment were ‘Who?’ and ‘Why?’
Feeding? He had left the bar soon after Jac, so the vampire couldn’t have had much time to have a proper meal. A small mercy as far as Jac was concerned. Unless the vampire was stupid enough to try it in such a location, Silas had a hard time seeing that as the end goal. It wasn’t like the club wasn’t full of enough people to satisfy the pickiest eater on the planet.
What he could easily imagine was a vampire trying to stage an ambush for him. Jac might have simply walked into whatever they were doing and the bite was an attempt to cover their tracks, although what the flying fuck a vampire would be doing in the staff hallway if not that was beyond him. The implications there were less than stellar.
Or, as it was fairly well known he hung around Jac quite a bit, if someone had mistaken the nature of their relationship it might have been an attempt at a message. If that was the case she had gotten off lucky. He was under the impression when vampires wanted to send a message involving people the recipient was close to, it included a lot more blood. Amusing as the thought may be that Sephora might have become infatuated with him enough to try to ‘get rid of the competition’ so to speak, he doubted it.
“Sit still for a second so I can find out what happened,” he ordered, grabbing one of her arms to check her pulse again and ignoring any protests she might be making. She didn’t have the strength to overpower him on a regular day, let alone after a bite. Her pulse was languid, as he expected, and he released her arm again. At least it was also steady.
“Look at me.” He cupped her chin to turn her face towards him. Her features were paler than usual, but she could be worse. He couldn’t be sure but her pupils still looked more dilated than they should be. He picked up his wand by the tip to show her the handle. “Focus on this,” he instructed, moving it from side to side. That one was better. He flipped the wand around, muttered a “Lumos” and shone it into her eyes. “Don’t look away.” Pupil reaction time was slow. “Nox.”
Again, she’d gotten off lucky. He’d looked a lot worse after his own attack. More evidence to only a quick bite, so feeding was definitely out. It was a pity the scars on his own neck had faded since Sephora had attacked him or he’d of been able to compare the distance between the two teeth marks to help rule the half-vampire either in or out.
“What do you feel? Nausea? Light-headedness? Muscle weakness? Fatigue? Think back for a second. Do you remember anyone making eye contact with you before you came in? Was there anyone in the hallway when you got here? This is important.”
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Post by Jacaranda Mulciber on Aug 3, 2009 18:39:11 GMT 1
It was as if waking from a dream, an unpleasant dream, and she was stuck in the half-waking state of confusion before consciousness fully returned. Silas handled her confidently, defeating any of her meagre attempts to get away. She made a noise of protest, but those first gruff words were a small mercy. Silas was always direct, she had never known him to lie to a large extent so when he denied hurting her, she was inclined to believe him.
But that left her even more confused, and that fear roiling in her stomach refused to dissipate. If Silas hadn’t done this, and from they way he was acting, it wasn’t just an accident, then someone unknown had done this and that scared her more. She swatted at Silas to begin with as he carefully checked her over, but complied grudgingly when he took her arm. She was still to hazy to really understand what he was doing, but she was accustomed to doing exactly what Silas wanted so it was habit to just let him direct her with dominant hands and firm voice.
She looked at him when instructed, and was somewhat comforted by the concern he showed. Silas could be overly domineering and sometimes intimidating but she could not fault his protective streak even if it veered a little close to obsessive. It was a task to follow the movement of his wand but as least she could focus now, the fog was clearing. The sudden light of his wand had her cursing him under her breath, but she only blinked when he looked away, apparently finished with the eye exercises. Whatever his diagnosis, she was fairly sure she wouldn’t like the sound of it by the stern look on his face.
The sudden barrage of questions had her floundering, and she closed her eyes for a moment, trying to clear the last of the fog keeping her from thinking at the speed she was accustomed to. “Uh, all of those. What is this about, Silas? What do you know? What aren’t you telling me?” Her eyes closed again and her tips tightened as she fought to recall. “I… I don’t know. I left the bar… I opened the door, then… Then…” She was apparently frustrated. She should be able to remember! “I don’t know, I don’t remember. Maybe there was someone…” Her mind conjured scenarios, none of which helpful. The figure was dark, blurry, and too fast. As if someone had taken the picture and cut out the person. She could remember the hall, but nothing else.
She grumbled, starting to feel ridiculous lying on the ground like this, propped up on her employer like some invalid. “I want to sit up.” She said, voice sounding a little more confident. Her hands had stopped shuffling and had come to hold onto Silas, one hand holding the crook of his furthest elbow, the other on the lapel of his jacket. The hold on his arm was firm, but with the slightest tremor to her fingers that suggested she was not quite as confident as she’d like him to believe.
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Post by Silas Rosier on Aug 6, 2009 8:00:16 GMT 1
“I want to sit up.”
Hmm, oh boy. Well, if she thought she was up to it, it was probably worth a shot. He’d have to agree that their current position wasn’t exactly the most comfortable for either of them. “Okay. Slow,” Silas agreed hesitantly, gripping her arm again and helping to steady her as she propped herself up against the wall. “Don’t try and stand for at least another ten to twenty minutes. By then your symptoms should have cleared,” he informed her, picking up his wand and resting his arm on his elevated knee.
Okay. Now for the difficult part: trying to phrase ‘it was a vampire’ in such a way that a) didn’t make it sound like he was lying pathetically through his teeth with the first excuse to come to his head, and b) didn’t make him sound like the bad guy.
“Do you remember last month, when half the dancers started falling ill and I forbade all staff members from using any of the back entrances?” he asked, keeping a watch on her face to make sure she was comprehending. “There was a reason for it. What happened was a string of vampire attacks.” Yeah. Two vampires; same location. Joy. “I tried to protect everyone as best I could without causing a panic, but it seems things aren’t as over as I first thought. What you’re suffering from is a bite,” he explained, again liking the implications less and less the more he had to work his mind over them, “which means they’ve now found a way to get inside the building. If you don’t trust me, feel the right side of your neck. The marks should be there.”
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Post by Jacaranda Mulciber on Aug 6, 2009 11:24:23 GMT 1
Okay, sitting up was not such a good idea as she imagined. Her stomach lurched, and she swallowed bile, hating the burning feeling in her throat. She drew her knees up to her chest, resting her forehead on one knee as she fought to keep the world from spinning. She groaned, fingers trembling where she’d wrapped her arms around her legs and they now rested by her knees.
Her eyes were closed while Silas explained, but as he continued, she looked up in disbelief. “V-vampire?!” Her eyes widened, and when usually an explanation would calm her, quite the opposite was happening. She remembered when she’d visited Abraham before Christmas and one of the students had very nearly died from a vampire attack. Fuck, had she been lucky? Would she have been dead had Silas not interrupted? The idea was more than a little frightening, and she hugged her legs tighter.
She had no reason to disbelieve him, but her hand went to the side of her neck regardless. Sure enough, there were two crusted welts. She held her trembling hand over the bite, looking to Silas. “Why me? Why here?” The vampire had obviously been happy to pick off dancers at the back door, so why come inside where the risk was greater? Leaning, she put her other hand on his shoulder, her panic evident in her wide eyes. For once, Silas was the safest person in the building to be with. After a month of avoiding him, she now didn’t want to let him out of her sight out of fear for her safety.
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Post by Silas Rosier on Aug 7, 2009 10:01:34 GMT 1
“Why me? Why here?”
Yeah, fucking good question that.
“I think they might have figured Scores as an easy target,” Silas replied, leaving out the ‘and I killed one of them so they’re probably pissed’. Although, considering the fact that Dacian was practically a lone wolf, exactly who would give a fuck about avenging him was a fucking good question.
Well, there was the changeling. A visit to Ed was scheduled too, in that case. Although that might be difficult if the bartender had made good on his promise to block him from the Hogs Head with the aid of spellwork.
“Or, more likely, they’re pissed at my attempts to stop them and want to send a message. Not an unusual course of action for them to want to take. There’s a half vampire lurking around too, but don’t worry, I’ll sort it out,” he grumbled more to himself. Another Lumos Solem to the face should do nicely. And if it wasn’t a full vampire, even Sephora would have a hard time shaking off a good blast of Incendio. Not that it wouldn’t be deserved in this case.
As for what to do with Jac, well, Silas wasn’t exactly sure. She was scared, that much was obvious. He’d seen it in enough people to spot it the signs, he could vaguely understand the cause of it on an intellectual level, but he never really had the patience to help deal with it. Lots of reassurances tended to work, but that took time which he didn’t really have, especially since she’d eventually get over it on her own sooner or later.
Silas stood up and looked towards the hallway door. “I should go after them. If I’m lucky they can’t have gotten far,” he said, not realising that it just as easily could be an attempt to lure him outside.
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Post by Jacaranda Mulciber on Aug 30, 2009 10:11:16 GMT 1
Right, this was confusing. It was a combination, she’d decided, of having no idea what Silas was talking about and the fact that all this newly assimilated information was spiralling about her brain and making her sea-sick. “What?” She managed, shrill voice on the edge of stammering. Vampires? Half-vampires? She preferred it when Scores had been full of ravaging men; the ravaging beasts were an unwelcome addition. Though one could argue there was no difference between the two.
The accountant shuddered. She liked books and paper and numbers, she was not accustomed to danger. Fear was not an emotion she experienced often, and she could safely say she disliked it immensely. “Silas how could you piss off a vampire? Attempts to stop what? Are you insane?” Go after them? Silas was a good wizard, probably more powerful than most wizards from what she knew, but vampires? That was just too much.
She grabbed his arm and got unsteadily to her feet, shutting her eyes in her attempt to make the world and her stomach stop spinning in opposite directions. “Silas, you can’t go after them!” She held steadfastly onto his arm, trying desperately to focus on his face. “It’s not a disgruntled patron, it’s a vampire. You can’t just leave—” It would betray too much of her already wounded pride to beg for help, for him to keep her safe, “Can’t just leave the club alone, it’s not safe.” There, that was a safe alternative, though it sounded like she cared more for his safety than hers. Well, maybe she should. He did sign her pay-cheques after all. |
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Post by Silas Rosier on Aug 31, 2009 12:10:12 GMT 1
Jac’s first barrages of questions were effectively tuned out as Silas’s concentration shifted focus away from her and onto the warpath. Her confused spluttering may as well have been directed at a cactus. In fact he was fully prepared to just leave her there in the hallway when all of a sudden she latched onto his arm and hauled herself up.
“Silas, you can’t go after them!” Jac exclaimed, not letting go and if anything clutching on tighter. He looked down slowly at the way she was gripping onto the sleeve of his suit, a blank look on his face as though only noticing her existence for the first time. What was she doing that for?
“Why not?” he managed to ask automatically, looking up at her face but making no move to detach her. He clearly seemed to have missed the memo that running after a vampire in the middle of the night was not the brightest idea on the planet. As far as he was concerned tonight’s events had Jac acting a bit irrational. Hunting the bastard down was going to save him a lot of trouble in the future if he just went after it now, so what was wrong with her?
“It’s not a disgruntled patron, it’s a vampire,” Jac tried to explain desperately, and Silas just looked back with the same blank look of not understanding. Well no shit. Was that supposed to make a difference?
“So? I’ve fought worse,” he protested, wondering how many times she was going to try and explain the obvious. Clearly the vampire was no threat and nothing more than a coward: if it had of been Dacian or even Cain they would have stuck around, probably leaving a huge pile of bodies if need be while waiting for him to arrive. This one had gone and fled.
“You can’t just leave—” Jac suddenly cut herself off and Silas frowned slightly. What? “ —Can’t just leave the club alone, it’s not safe.” No. That hadn’t been what she was about to say. Or, at least, he was fairly sure it wasn’t. In any case the implications on either side were enough to keep him from disappearing again. Was she actually worried for his safety? If so why was she doing that all of a sudden? A little bit ridiculous, it wasn’t like he was going to let a mere vampire get the jump on him. Or was she just looking at after herself? If he was in her situation he would certainly be thinking of his own safety first, so it was a fair guess that Jac was doing the same, which meant that, for some twisted reason, she trusted him to protect her.
Goddamnit this was confusing. Why did people have to be so impossible?
Alright. There was opportunity here. The more attached she was to him in whatever way, even if it was just out of fear, would work to his benefit. With any luck he’d be able to keep her happy and still have a shot at going hunting tonight. ‘Hunting’ because, hey, it wasn’t ‘murder’ if they weren’t human.
“You’re probably right,” he appeared to concede, his stiff posture relaxing somewhat. Although the question now was what the fuck to do with her: leaving her here somewhere was out, and sending her home might just make it look too much like he was getting rid of her. He stared at the wall for moment to think of something before looking back at her. “My house is fortified. You might be safer there for an hour or two until I find out what’s going on.”
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