Rhiannon Lee (rhiannon_lee) wrote in birthrightrpg, @ 2021-02-13 20:56:00 |
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Entry tags: | npc, rhiannon lee |
Two Sides of the Same Coin
Who: Rhiannon Lee, NPC Rob Corrigan (Stargazer)
What: Coming to an Understanding About the Hunters
When: Present, Night
Where: Cal-Nev-Ari, Nevada, population 300
Warnings: Language
According to local legend, Stephen King once ate at the counter of the only restaurant in Cal-Nev-Ari, a town just south of Searchlight on 95. It was one of the last pioneering towns, founded just short of sixty years ago when a husband and wife made an irrigation system and planted barley around an abandoned military airstrip. It was an odd conglomerate of dirt roads, where people parked prop planes outside their mobile homes, taxied to the airstrip, and pumped real nickels into the slot machines ‘downtown’ at the casino. Most of the residents were old timers.
A few travelers stopped to eat at the restaurant; they liked the bargain basement prices or the Lynchian look of the Blue Sky motel across the highway. During the day, things were quaint, but at night, they seemed sleepy and cold and alien. The neon ‘open’ light of the restaurant cast an unearthly glow over its dated pink décor.
Rhiannon plunked into a booth and looked out the window. Her hands stayed in motion: she spun a ring around her finger and flicked dark cherry-colored thumbnails against one another. When the waitress came by to place a paper menu and a glass of warm water beside her, Rhiannon stared. The woman stuck the clean utensils in the glass and walked away. The hunter frowned and shook her head. “O...kay.”
Rob hadn’t been able to get his father on the phone.
The drive from Boulder was long and tense, peppered with him telling the few people he’d brought along some of the How and Why this was happening in between him calling his dad. Why Sean would duck his calls now was the mystery, since his father had never felt the need to do so before, but maybe just this once the older man realized he’d gone too far.
Doubtful, but maybe.
He had been able to reach Rhiannon, sending her a terse text from the road - We should talk. Neutral ground. If she knew him at all, she’d know this was nothing to do with him, but he wasn’t certain of that either. He knew she was probably pissed, and he expected some form of hostility. He was entirely aware of how she saw him, even if she never said it to his face; a younger extension of his father who did what he was told and never had second thoughts. He hadn’t even seen her yet and he was already grinding his teeth in anticipation of her anger.
He looked at the neon sign above the tiny restaurant, tapped a rhythm on the metal doorjamb before stepping inside. The others were crashing at the Blue Sky, though Sarah had asked four or five or maybe it was six times if she could come along. He wanted to face his cousin one on one, though. They weren’t kids anymore, hadn’t been kids for a long time. The bell over the door jingled cheerily, and it only took him a few steps to reach her booth, where he took the seat opposite her without being invited.
“Would you believe me if I said I come in peace?”
Rhiannon said nothing. She pressed her lips together and took in the overall appearance of her cousin. It had only been two years. That accumulation of days seemed longer. It was awful the way you could miss someone that you also wanted to knock upside the head. Juggling between equal urges to hug him and flip the furniture, she sat upright against her seat, palms running along against the sharp edge of the table. “That depends. How many hunters did you bring for back up?”
Her eyebrow arched. “And did you teach them to shoot? Because if so, a stormtrooper has a better chance of hitting me.” The booth was confined. She wanted to take off her leather jacket but that was a no-go.
He gave her a look of sour amusement, glanced around for a No Smoking sign and didn’t see one. He was wearing a heavy camouflage jacket with a lining, and when he dipped one hand into his inner pocket the movement was almost nonchalant. He put the pack of Winstons on the table and let it sit there, his other arm stretching out over the backrest.
“They’re three scared kids who don’t know they’re scared yet, but they’ve never had to think about going up against their own. I got Nina on the radio somewhere on the highway, she said she saw you. I guess she’s still around?”
Rob looked outside, through the plate glass window, as if he expected to see the other hunter, but the parking lot was quiet. Beneath the jacket, his shoulders were tense, the hand resting on the vinyl seat not at ease. She wanted to punch him, he could read it on her like the headline in the morning paper. He wasn’t sure he wouldn’t hit her back if she did.
“Saw me. That’s cute.” Rhiannon’s dark eyes ticked from Rob to the cigarettes. She sighed and pulled out her own pack, recently recovered from the glove box of her car. Goddamnit. As she picked at the plastic foil with her nails, she said, “Nina... rolled up in her Blazer at six in the morning and blew the horn. She dumped a vampire at the end of my driveway and asked if I wanted to ride shotgun while she dragged him around town.” She flipped the paper lid and pulled out a cigarette. It bounced between her lips. “She’s been a pain in the ass since Red Lake.”
After a moment, the silver lighter skidded towards him.
In a veil of smoke, she pictured herself eight years ago, holding a young hunter’s body in the back of Nina’s Blazer. There was blood, saliva, and fur all over Mikah. The argument in the front seat raged: drive faster and try to save him or let him die. It was Nina versus Rob, with Rhiannon silently screaming to herself. Mikah smelled like sweat and animal.
“She brought Tweedledee and Tweedledumb into a bar the other day and tried to kill a very nice guy in plain sight.” Rhiannon ashed into the cup of water and silverware.
“And that’s what you’re worried about here, isn’t it? Them.”
He said it through a mouthful of smoke, forcing himself to remain sitting back instead of leaning forward. He would not have disagreed that Nina was a pain in the ass, but in the moment of it he’d have set himself on fire before agreeing with Rhiannon about what time it was. He remembered the argument vividly; screaming at her to drive faster, faster, Goddamn it, and Nina screaming back that she was driving as fast as she could. The vehicle bumping over the badly rutted road while a barely-conscious Mikah bled and groaned in the backseat. The boy’s blood all over his hands, staining them crimson.
Him knowing that it was already too late, but they had to try. Knowing that if (when) Mikah turned, it would be better to kill him quickly. Because none of the group would ever look at him the same again, and he wouldn’t be allowed to come back home. Not after he changed.
Knowing that it was his fault, that he’d gotten Mikah killed. Not even Sean had said it, but Rob knew. Some things never had to be uttered to be the truth.
He smoked for another minute, then said, “For once, Dad’s got nothing to say for himself. He either turned his phone off or he’s just ignoring me. If Nina’s already here, he’s probably on his way.”
“Of course he’s coming. Fuck him.” Rhiannon shook her head and stared at the old-fashioned font on the menu. It wasn’t the first time she said it; they used to say it together, but that was when she and Rob were young. The reasons had changed and the divide between them had grown. Rhiannon held her cigarette to the side, her thumb circling its filter while her frustration mounted. She angled herself over the table, her voice low. “I’m worried about everyone. But you can’t really believe that every were deserves to die. Or that every vampire drinks human blood. In fact, I know you don’t, because those used to be our informants before Sean went all hardcore. So, are you gonna tell me what he’s doing, or do I need to draw my own conclusions?”
The waitress came back to set down mugs for coffee and a second menu for Rob. “Can I get you anything?” She drew a pencil from her hair.
“Just coffee, thanks.”
Rob gave the waitress a perfunctory smile, angling the cigarette away from her to keep the smoke to himself. There was a plastic container of sugar packets at the far end of the table, and he looked at it until he and Rhiannon were alone again, trying to push down how tired he was. Most hunters ran on caffeine and cigarettes, fast food thrown in for good measure, but this new situation was doing his head in.
“She said something about a power source,” he told his cousin. “Some kind of mystical energy. I couldn’t get her to elaborate. She was pissed because you didn’t want to play reindeer games with her and wouldn’t focus, but it’s not just them. It’s the place Dad was talking about, the town itself.”
Rob scrubbed a hand over his face, gave her a look. They used to understand each other, could communicate almost without words. Three years ago, they wouldn’t have been half-glaring at each other because his father had issued what amounted to a declaration of war. Even before she’d left, they’d tried to have each other’s backs.
“I’m in the middle here, Rhiannon,” he said wearily. “Just like I’ve always been in the middle, whether you understand that or not. I know you think I’m some ass-kisser who goes along just to keep the peace, but Dad has big shoes. Big shoes, and it’s hard to think about filling them the day he won’t be there anymore. And I don’t want those damn kids I brought along to end up like Mikah because I didn’t check thoroughly enough. My soul weighs a fuckin’ ton as it is.”
Oh, for the love of martyrdom… “You are not the only one who suffered,” Rhiannon said. “Do you think I don’t have blood on my hands? Do you think I didn’t want to live up to his expectations, or be, to you, what my mother was to him? If I don’t look dog-tired to you, it’s because I don’t have him dragging me down anymore. If that's the weight you want to bear, you can, for as long as he’s alive, but you don’t have to fill his shoes alone and you never did.”
Fuck she hated this. She made herself focus on what little Nina said. The town’s energy was not news to her. Her uncle's interest in it was.
“But we need to get some things straight. Nina implied that Sean is calling in a lot of hunters. She took that vampire’s head. We know that’s the kind of thing you do when you’re clearing out a nest and you want to know how many you killed. Or maybe you have a bet going.” One last pull. Smoke drifted from her lips. Lacking an ashtray, Rhiannon put out the cigarette in the water. “He’s right about Clarke County. The supernatural population is high. The difference here is that they all know each other and they’re not going to let you wipe them out without significant losses.”
“Hey.”
Now Rob sat forward, the cigarette in his mouth, and he put an elbow on the table to point at her. “I didn’t come here to ‘wipe anybody out’, so you can shove that. I’m not gonna lie and say I’ve suddenly gotten enlightened, but he’s gone totally off the reservation with this. What he’s doing now is nuts.”
The waitress came back with his coffee and a saucer, and he made himself breathe until she went away again. Why weren’t there any damn ashtrays if they allowed smoking? He doctored the dark liquid in the cup with some sugar, the spoon clacking against earthenware.
“He sent me to Boulder,” he muttered once he’d composed himself a little. “He’s never tried to do an end run before. Or dodged my phone calls. Whatever you think of me, I am not okay with this. Because you’re right, there’s gonna be a lot more casualties than one vampire, and that’s without messing around with whatever mojo Searchlight has.”
“Robby, don’t take this the wrong way, but if you stick your finger in my face again, I’m going to snap it off and shove it up your ass.” She watched him rotate the spoon. In all the sloppiness of the moment, Rhiannon had forgotten to order her own coffee. “Shit.” She slipped out of the booth and took a clean cup off another table. The pot of regular roast sat unsupervised behind the counter and its row of low, wobbling stools. She stretched over to steal it and bring it back to their table.
Rhiannon double-checked her cup for someone else’s lipstick stains and, finding none, filled it up. “Sending one of us away so he can do something weird isn’t what I’d call new. It’s just new to you.” The coffee tasted terrible black. A packet of creamer was added to dull it. Rhiannon took a second sip and kept talking. “He knows you’re not going to like this, and if he’s planning to get into it with me, he wouldn’t want you around for that.”
She reached up to pull her hair into a loose knot behind her head. While Rhiannon’s fingers fumbled with the elastic band on her wrist, she felt something on her person that she’d forgotten to remove. Schooling her features not to react, she said, “So. What are we going to do?”
“I can get in touch with some people from Boulder, maybe from farther north. There’s a guy in Arizona too, his family’s not bloodline, but I’ve seen them work. He’s known Dad longer, but I don’t think he likes him very much.”
He thought about daring her to try doing anything with his finger, then decided against it. Now was not the time to come to blows with Rhiannon, and even if she was joking, he was a few miles past pissed. ‘It’s just new to you.’ He drank more coffee, then added another sugar packet. Tapped some ash into the dirty saucer.
“What’s the hunter situation like around here?” he asked after another minute, and his posture was a single notch looser. “I know you haven’t retired, even if you’ve dropped out back home, are there others around here who could help? Diplomacy’s not gonna work. If it would, he wouldn’t have had Nina drop a late Christmas present in your driveway.”
“There are two of us in Clark County. Me and another bloodline hunter. We’re on good terms.” Rhiannon watched him with the coffee, the bunching set of Rob’s shoulders. He was so defensive around her; she longed for the time when he was like her brother, the only person she wanted at her back in a fight. As soon as she thought it, guilt gnawed at her conscience. She blinked, remembering a younger Siofra’s shoulder against her cheek and the sound of Rob’s creeping footsteps a room away.
She ran her palms up and down the legs of her jeans. “Are you saying you want to pit hunters against each other? From one perspective, taking Sean out seems easier and maybe smarter than bringing even more hunters here. I don’t mean killing him,” she clarified. “He’s still my uncle and he’s blood. I mean taking him off the board for a while. Then again… if we pitted our hunters against his, we wouldn’t have to bring anyone else into it. Some of the weres in this town have been here for generations and the magic users have a lot of fire power.”
Rob put the coffee cup down, looked at the cigarette in his other hand before putting it out in the patch of coffee in the saucer. He’d add extra as a gratuity when he left to make up for it. “I would rather not make this into a fight at all,” he admitted. “But if he’s called for war, there’s no tellin’ how many people he’s bringing. A lot of the older hunters still look to him for orders, and it’s only in the past few years that I’ve started to get a foothold as far as being in charge. One of the hassles of having no set community is that it’s all factions, no one person running things.”
His eyebrows drew together as a particular memory struck him; the first time he and Rhiannon fought, a sparring match when they were still teenagers. Those much simpler days seemed very far away, and though he wouldn’t have said it out loud, it broke his heart that they were probably gone for good.
“I don’t want to kill him either,” he said, something like a smile ghosting over his mouth before it disappeared again. “He’s wrong, and I’m not just here because….well, you know. We’re both trying to save lives, you and me. Maybe in his own way that’s what he’s doing, but…”
Rob shook his head. “This ain’t the way. Do you want to put hunters against each other?”
“No. The world doesn’t get any better with us dead.” She bit the soft flesh of her lip and looked outside. It was dark, the desert beyond the road pitch black and full of strange things, ones she couldn’t even tell him about.
“If Sean was gone, whether he died or just wasn’t in charge anymore, I’d come back, if you and me could get to a place where we agreed on things. All I want is to draw the line at only hunting what deserves it. To stop and look twice. I’m not trying to start a debate, I just want you to know where I stand before it gets muddy.” In her lap, beneath the table, Rhiannon’s fingers twisted around a very important ring. There was no future for her with the Corrigans as long as they would take a shot at Cian, or someone like him.
“This is about our family. I know there’s other hunters here, but this is our dirt. If you want to bring in a few people you trust, you can, and I’ll do the same. But then we take it straight to Sean.” Rhiannon took a deep breath. “He’s gonna hate you for this.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Rob’s voice was very quiet, barely above a murmur, and he looked down at his hands, which he had spread out on the gray table top. He was not afraid of his father, though he was often in awe of him. How tough Sean was, his bravery in wading into a nest of vampires with no thought for anything but wiping them out, that he could lead people into fights that might cost them their lives, and they went willingly because they admired him too. As a little kid, he’d thought his dad was better than Superman, and he’d spent years trying to emulate that. Fill those shoes.
“I told you I’m not going to lie to you. Being a hunter is bred into my DNA, and that means I’ve never even thought about finding one of them trustworthy or someone who could have my back in a fight. If they hide themselves out of self-preservation, they also do it because it makes it easier to pick off their dinner.”
His right shoulder went up and down inside his heavy jacket, the lining making noise. “I also told you that I hoped we could understand each other better one day. When I realized he was ignoring me, that he knew I wouldn’t go along with this, I saw him a little more the way you do. A little more. And I know what this is gonna cost me, what it means to stand with you and against him. But between that and this? I choose this.”
Rhiannon wanted to disagree with him about the meals, but she bit her tongue. Maybe it was enough that Rob was at the table with her and there might soon be daylight between him and Sean’s ways of thinking and doing. Maybe what mattered was that Rob knew this whole thing was wrong. “Being a hunter is in my DNA, too,” she said gently. “Ciara dying didn’t make me less a Corrigan, or less a hunter, and neither does how I view the world.” She took out her wallet and counted out cash to stick under the napkin dispenser. “Anyway. We’re both the culmination of what we’ve seen. Somewhere in the past, you and I just saw different things.” Rhiannon felt the truth trying to make its way out. She didn’t want there to be a surprise down the line if he ran into Cian, but she also didn’t want to break the fragile peace they had right now. “Let me know when you’re ready to move.”
He coughed through the urge to tell her he loved her, his hand forming a loose fist against his mouth, but almost all of the tension had leaked out of his shoulders. Too much had happened, was about to happen, for the two of them to just go back to how it had been, though maybe he saw a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.
“I’ll be in touch in a day or so. Stay safe, or at least watch out for Nina. I know that girl, she’s not done yet.”
Rob hovered just beyond the booth seat, having gotten to his feet, and his hand brushed his cousin’s shoulder fleetingly before he headed towards the door, having left behind money for the coffee and four extra dollars for a tip. The bell jingled again, and he was outside. Pulling in his first deep breath since he’d left the house in Boulder.