Si Waylen (lovelikeblood) wrote in birthrightrpg, @ 2021-09-26 20:04:00 |
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Entry tags: | john abbott, penny norton |
Live Prey
Who: Penny, John
What: Dinner and Drinks
When: Present, Night
Where: Downtown Cocktail Room, Las Vegas
Warnings: Violence, Graphic
Very little in Las Vegas looked like a proper city, unless one were to wander above the strip to the northern area, an older ‘downtown’ with mid-rise buildings, parking garages, and brick storefronts. There had been an effort in recent years to rebrand it; slowly the locals returned, skipping over the tourist trap of the Fremont Street Experience for places like the Downtown Cocktail Room, a chic lounge with little to announce it other than a large martini glass hovering over an awning. However, the interior was both dark and inviting, with leather chairs and drapery partitions, beautiful people serving expensive drinks, and a collection of fine art on the walls. There were thickly painted nudes and alcoves holding brass statues, lush potted plants and red-hued neons.
John had fallen in love with the spot, a fact that had little to do with the bratwursts sold during Halfy Hour, and lots to do with a negligent lighting scheme around the parking deck outside. At present, the dark-haired vampire languished in a chair, a mere two drinks into his evening, wondering when someone interesting would walk through the door.
A pair of ebony Christian LouBoutin heels would bring their owner through the glass door. The click would’ve been overshadowed by conversation. Penny looked down at her feet for a moment, stuck in the threshold for mere seconds to ensure she hadn’t scuffed her favorite shoes, and then her gaze would lift again.
The little black dress she wore clung to her. Between that and the red soles of her shoes anyone with tamer senses would never catch blood if it was there. Nor would she admit to it openly.
Lips painted to match that vital hue would curl into a small smile as she assessed the evening’s options ahead. Was it silly to haunt bars and clubs when you didn’t drink alcohol? She had never acquired the taste for it, even the tinctures blended by expertise couldn’t coax her.
She claimed an empty seat at the bar for herself, set her matching handbag on the pristine counter and smiled at the bartender.
The ambient noise may have dampened the click of those designer heels, but a vampire’s hearing was better than most. John’s drumming fingers stilled on the arm of his chair and he looked up and around to find the owner. There. The golden-haired woman with rosy cheeks and a cleft in her chin. He watched her cruise past him and take an elevated seat where the staff poured drinks. John noticed the small handbag, probably carrying her red lipstick, a phone, and keys. Items that interrupted the silhouette of an outfit if it had pockets.
That was a woman who took great pains with her appearance, he thought. Not because she needed to, but because she wanted to. Perhaps she also wanted people to know she did. From the figure-hugging dress to the spotless shoes, there wasn’t a detail out of place, and it was John’s nature to search for unusual details. Ultimately, that was what made him lean forward in his chair, elbows on his knees: the search for something she missed.
He rubbed at his bottom lip and considered whether to get up and talk to her. It could be that she was meeting someone... A poor deterrent, that was, because only a fool let a date walk into a bar alone. Tossing back the last gulp of his scotch, he stood up and made his way in her direction.
Hands would run through her hair. She fluffed it, shook her head. A single glass of water would be set down in front of her - perhaps she was contemplating her order or maybe the bartender was being considerate.
Penny turned to look around. She spotted a man walking toward her. Her smile tucked into a cheek and her frame straightened. A heel would hook further onto the bar of the stool and her elbow would settle onto the counter. Cheek would press against her palm.
Most men she met wanted to impress her; they would hover around mindlessly like a swarm of wasps eager to land, but this man was no human. He smelled familiar in fact. “Hi.”
“Hi.” Bemused, John folded his arms on the gleaming bar and stood looking at her. John’s was a direct way of watching, the kind that made people widen their own eyes reflexively and wonder if he ever blinked. Over the years, the English accent had loosened and it was a good fit with the natural laziness of his speech patterns and the slight scratch on his vocal chords. “I’m John,” he offered. “I like your shoes. They’re beautiful but they look a bit treacherous, like red velvet ants, strawberry poison-dart frogs, or… coral snakes.” He smiled to himself and raised his eyes as the bartender approached.
John ordered another round for himself and whatever she wanted, then stood up taller as the glass arrived on a dark napkin. There was a scent in the air around her, but he couldn’t put his finger on the source of it. All he knew was that it was pleasant and reminded him of the sea.
“Penny,” she would offer in reply. Instinct and habit had her arm extending in greeting, the subtle shake of meeting a new person was a human trait she had picked up over the years. Some preferred not to be touched, others liked connecting too much. And then her eyes would drop to her feet. An ankle would wiggle.
“They’re my favorite.” She lifted her gaze and sat up straighter, letting her chin move out of her palm and the same limb come to rest upon the flat of the bar. Biting at a bottom lip as the bartender asked for her order, Penny only asked for one thing always. The glass of water would be pushed toward her.
“I don’t drink,” she told John, glancing at him again. “But I like bars.”
“Well,” he said, “There’s a lot to be said for bars, especially this sort.” John gestured about. “Everyone’s wearing their courtship finery, on their best behavior. It’s not so loud that you can’t hold a conversation. Not that I haven’t spent my fair share of time in the other sort, but those aren’t ideal conditions for being the sober person in the room. You need something to dull the senses.”
He took a sip and thought to himself, ‘not bad.’
A thought struck him. “Penny. Where’d you come by your name?”
She liked the cadence of his voice; he wasn’t talking to her like she didn’t understand common words or like she was simply a piece of meat strewn up at the butcher's shop.
“It is a short name, a nickname,” she explained once she remembered the term for it. “Easier for people to remember and not exactly traceable.” If someone were to look for a ‘Penny’ they wouldn’t find her. “My real name is Athena Ophelia, Penny is simpler.”
Penny didn’t give out her real name. But something about John made her want to share and indulge a bit more than usual.
“Greek!” he said, impressed by the quality of them. “Those are strong names, much stronger than John Anthony... All of them, even your nickname. Penny.” John adjusted his wristwatch and stared at the ceiling as he reached into this memory for the Odyssey. “Are you much like Shakespeare's Ophelia, or even Homer’s Penelope? Pestered by a long line of suitors while you wait for your great love to return? Weaving a shroud by day, unraveling it by night? God, I hope not.” John angled his curly head of hair. “Pining has its place, but those particular heroines gave us a master class in masochism.”
He smiled. “I should mention, that’s my favorite kind of class. Very experiential.”
Penny laughed softly. Her grin widened a touch. “Maybe you’ll have to find out what I’m like for yourself.” Her name, while strong, was better suited for someone else but she never asked why it’d been given. “I certainly don’t pine, though.” She wrinkled the end of her nose.
“And your name isn’t bad at all,” she stated, tasting the words on her tongue. John Anthony. It had a ring to it, she liked it.
“Oh yes. The most effusive of compliments: Not bad at all!” If he sounded offended, John’s amiable expression and casual posture gave away that he wasn’t. He took another pull from his drink, noting that she preferred to give a vague answer about her personality rather than offer a window into it. But that was fine with him. He was a stranger in a bar, one who threw out dry literary references rather than talk about whatever men normally did. John supposed it might be sports or politics.
“I couldn’t help but notice you nursing your water,” he said, giving her a brief smile as he buttoned up the sleeves of his shirt. When he did, the distinctive lines and planes of his face became secondary to the green flash of mischief in his eyes. By his count, Penny hadn’t taken a sip. “I take it you aren’t here for that, either. Has this visit got something to do with your untraceable name?”
Observant, he was. Yet she had discovered that most of the non-humans were. If Penny was guessing based on graceful motion she would put John into the box possibly marked vampire. She wondered to herself if John had ever seen anything like her.
“What don’t you miss?” She laughed. A sip from her water would be taken if only to look more casual. Her lipstick didn’t brush off onto the glass the way some might. A glance would be cast around. She surveyed the potential before looking back at John. “I came to see if there was any trouble to be had, but I find more success at the louder places.” The quiet ones were good, once in a while she could catch someone who fit into her rules but then the louder environments tended to make humans feel more emboldened.
“What are you here for?” Possibly the same thing? An easy meal or something else? She didn’t peg him for the easy type but then again nobody turned down the opportunity to take when it presented itself.
“Trouble.” Intriguing. John swiveled around on his stool and gave her a shrewd look. His hands settled loosely in his lap. After a moment passed, he asked, “Do you mind if I smell your perfume? I came out to find someone to have a meal with, but I haven’t decided if you’re my type.” There was a pulse coming from her direction, that much he knew, and she had healthier coloring than any blood-drinking vampire, and yet…
Something.
What an unusual request. Penny shook her head at him, she didn’t mind. She lifted an arm, elbow bent slightly to extend the limb out if he chose to take it. While she didn’t have the strength of most supernatural kind, she could tear the limb off of a human in a second like the wing from a fly.
With a perked eyebrow she waited to see what it was John was after. Perhaps they looked strange, perhaps no one else cared. “Tell me if you’re familiar with this scent.”
John took hold of her wrist and lowered his nose. This close to her, he picked out the different notes in her scent, both artificially applied and natural. Penny did remind him of the ocean at high tide, but as he ran his nose closer to her upturned palm, he picked up on another, much more familiar fragrance: blood. In the interest of not looking too strange in public, John held on loosely to her hand and brought it to his mouth for a kiss, but he kept inhaling long and deep. Her fingertips smelled like it, too.
He gave Penny’s hand a tender squeeze.
“‘No sailing home for him,
No wife rising to meet him,
No happy children beaming up at their father’s face.
The high, thrilling song of the Sirens will transfix him,
Lolling there in their meadow, round them heaps of corpses,
Rotting away…
Rags of skin shriveling on their bones.’”
John laughed at himself for not having picked up on it sooner. “Homer, twice in one conversation,” he said. “I didn’t have that on tonight’s schedule.”
She let him take his time. To anyone else it might have seemed like ages; she perched like a marble statue to let him discover the aromas there. The subsequent squeeze of her fingers with the lyrics uttered made her lips twist into a smile.
“I think we met for a reason,” she would offer. Her hand stayed in his for another moment. “You mentioned having someone to have a meal with?” Penny’s eyebrows would lift.
With the mythology she knew, she was more of a Ceto. Not an Athena or an Ophelia really.
Now he was hooked. With a brief but predatory flash in his eyes, John released her hand and leaned forward so they could speak unencumbered. “Did you feel that? I think this city might have shuddered at the thought.” He waited for the bartender to finish shoveling ice into a drink and wander off before continuing. “Let me ask you a question. Is it true what they say about a siren’s voice? And if it is,” he went on, tapping his knuckles on the lip of the bar, “how exactly does that work?”
This probably wasn’t the place for a demonstration but she relented. He was charming. She had a soft spot for vampires. One leg would cross over the other in a ladylike fashion and Penny quirked a brow. “I could show you,” she replied softly. A soft echo of a sound would resonate through the place though she wasn’t sure if John could hear the pitch.
Any human in their vicinity would turn with mild intrigue but the hypnotic murmur didn’t last longer than a few seconds. Everyone would go back to their conversations. “But this isn’t the place to really get dirty.” It was too public.
“That’s quite a trick,” he said, looking at her mouth and neck with great interest, searching for the source of a sound that seemed to be all around them. “Put it together with the rest of you and it’s not fair at all.” Like shooting fish in a barrel, he thought as he finished his drink and signaled the bartender to close out their tabs, but refrained from making the comparison out loud. Aquatic references were a bit on the nose.
“I have one, too,” he continued, dropping the pen in the tray and tucking his wallet into a pocket. “But it’s better at close range. I think… if you capture someone’s attention with that voice of yours, I could hold it long enough for us to get that meal I mentioned.”
John looked at the patrons of the cocktail room, and then at the glass door that led onto the street. “How do you feel about live prey?” he asked.
Curious to see his trick, Penny nodded at him. “I would like that.” Her fingers wound around the little clutch of a handbag she had brought and she slipped it into her lap for the moment, waiting until John was ready. “Live is preferable, though I don’t mind it the other way either.”
Then she did slip down from her perch. An arm would wind around one of John’s and she moved with him toward the glass doors.
He held the door for her as they exited onto the street. Although this portion of Fremont Street was cramped and neglected by infrastructure, the moon was a waning gibbous in a cloudless sky, a lunar stage bright enough to make a sharp edge between what was lit and shrouded in shadow. John maneuvered Penny to the inside of the sidewalk and they began to walk. Something about his mood and the street reminded him of home. In the distance, a few humans were on a dangerous heading towards these two well-dressed figures who liked to bite. John could be picky when it came to whom he drained completely, but since this particular person would be eaten, as well, it was better if he took a back seat and let Penny’s siren call determine who drew the short straw.
“I’ve just realized I know nothing about you,” he mused, looking at his companion. “I guess our appetites got the better of us. Do you prefer it that way?” He’d talk her ear off if she liked that sort of thing, but maybe she felt it safer not to disclose much.
“As long as I can trust you, I would be happy to get to know you. The last vampire I knew broke my heart.” She wanted to be forthcoming with that so John knew that even though she was a predator she had feelings too. It was a long story, one she thought about often.
Her eyes swept the street, the people. “That one.” Penny motioned to a man further up the street. He was hulking around a group of young women who were trying to have a good time.
Then she looked up at John to assess his thoughts on the person she had chosen.
“Ah.” John inclined his head to speak closer to Penny's ear. “I’ve had mine broken by a vampire, too. One who cared for money more than love. Everyone who’s broken it since had the audacity to be human.” He gave her a rueful look. When she pointed, he followed along and found the likely target of Penny’s ill intent. There wasn’t enough to distinguish any of the women as worthy of eating, whether because they were beautiful or insufferable. The man, however, didn’t seem capable of taking a hint and had begun a belligerent rant.
John thought he knew what Penny found repulsive in him. “I see. Are you an avenger of harangued women? If you are, I can’t fault you for it. I might drink people’s blood but I try not to lurk.” He checked the street behind them and the parking garage levels above, then nodded his agreement.
Penny shook her head. She paused, using her hand to grasp gently at John’s shirt to turn him toward her. Leaning in, she smiled. “I don’t protect humans, I eat them. But I try to only consume the ones who deserve to be eaten. The bad ones. They’re less likely to be looked for or tracked down.” She didn’t want her prey being traced back to her. “And I’m sorry that many have been so foolish with your heart.”
Her fingers would brush a spot on John as if he had something there - which he didn’t - and then she resumed pace with her arm around his. “I’ll follow your lead.”
John watched the situation unfold over Penny’s head. The women had turned in the opposite direction and begun walking away, probably searching for a convenient door to a restaurant they might duck inside and at least have the benefit of an audience to the man’s behavior. “Go there,” he gestured with his head, “Into the alley between the bar and the office building. In the dark. Do you see the ram spray painted on the bricks? If you draw him there with your voice, I’ll intercept. You have my word he’ll never lay a hand on you.”
“I see it. I’ll meet you.” Penny broke from John and clicked her way down the street. Her eyes would meet those of their prey, her song echoed. With a twist he would break from the girls he’d been haunting and would follow after her. Lured.
With pleasure she turned down the strip of darkness and brick, touching gently at the solid form of the porous structure.
A sashay of her hips and the man followed after willingly. She made for a shadow.
The man, who was muscular in the way of gym rats but not overly tall, didn’t notice John as he trailed after Penny on the sidewalk. In his late twenties, John would guess, the man carried the odor of a drinker whose habit loosened his tongue and stoked the hot coals of his temper. He probably got into shouting matches when jostled in a crowd.
John double-checked that the sidewalk was clear before turning into the claustrophobic alley after him. The anticipation of a meal was enough to make his fangs strain and break his gums. The vampire felt as if a thin wire that threaded through his shoulders and down his spine now snapped and surged with electric current. Some feedings were driven by thirst, others by seduction, sadism, or even boredom. Between venturing into the cocktail room and meeting the siren, John’s reason had shifted to curiosity.
Not about the man, but about her.
“Hello?” Disoriented, the man slowed as his eyes adjusted to the lack of street lights in the alley. The woman in the black dress seemed to have disappeared. He squinted. Had she gone into the unmarked door near the Sip ‘n Tip sign? He stopped, framed by street art of a butterfly with a pair of human eyes in its wings.
“Sorry… Are you looking for the girl?” John spoke up, but he kept a respectful distance. “The blonde? She came through just a moment ago.”
“Yeah.” The man scrubbed the back of his neck. It probably tingled with that mild sense of danger humans often got and ignored. “You see which way she went?” A thick fog seemed to have rolled into his head and he couldn’t get a grasp of his surroundings.
Casually, as to a friend, John said, “Just through here,” and closed the gap between them. He made eye contact with the man, and whatever question flitted through his mind paused in its trajectory, as if the vampire had reached into his skull and pressed a pause button. He was there, and yet not. John raised his hand and placed it above the man’s hairline, his thumb nearly touching the forehead, but not making contact. “There you are,” he murmured.
The man stared.
“Penny.” John didn’t look away. “Would you like to go first?”
From the depths of the shadowed corridor the siren watched the two men interact. There wasn’t need to interject; she respected her boundaries and also his while the collective mindset shifted toward nourishment.
Men like the one she had chosen fit into her character profile. People that wouldn’t be missed, humans that no one wanted to bother to look for. That was what she tried her best to stick to. “Why don’t you begin, John? I’ll take care of the leftovers.”
She moved out of the shadow toward where the pair stood, barefoot. No use getting blood on her favorite shoes. Where perfect white teeth once had been now were those jagged rows of fangs. The lower half of her skull mimicked a slashed wound rather than a real mouth.
John cranked the man’s head back. He opened his bite and tore into the flesh that covered the carotid artery and trachea. Blood poured into his mouth at high pressure. He latched on quickly to gulp before it ran down the sides of his face. Even if mesmerism faltered, it would be hard for a victim to put up much fight given the shock of it. John backed the man into the bricks and groaned. Blood and saliva bubbled from the corner of his mouth. It became difficult to think through the haze of his thirst; he was lost to each beat of the man’s heart, which could be counted by the gush of red fluid into his throat, and to the pungent odor of the man’s stress sweat.
While John fed, the scent of blood filled Penny’s senses. She felt her body light up in a way that only essence could, and slowly she approached the scene laid out before her. The siren would reach out and grasp one of the man’s arms.
Her teeth would sink into the flesh and bone, stripping the muscle and sinew away as if one peeled a sticker from its adhesive. A soft slurp, remnants of the once pristine skin would slide past her teeth like spaghetti. Ah the power of life force.
In moments the grasped limb would be naught but bone from the elbow to the wrist.
The alley reeked of blood, tissue, and — faintly — piss once the man’s bladder muscles released. Holding the man up by his armpit, John drank until the flow slowed and his stomach was full, and then he carefully detached and leaned aside so the artery didn’t squirt his shirt. He felt bright red blood soaking his collar but there was no need to have it splattered across the front of him, too. While Penny ate, he maneuvered the man’s wallet and phone out of his pockets. No need to leave those in the goopy pile of whatever Penny didn’t eat.
Keeping his hold on the stranger who had disappeared into unconsciousness, John watched her rend tissue from bone. He wouldn’t dream of making this siren in the beautiful dress kneel on the ground. Skin ruptured. Ligaments snapped. There was an odd elegance to it. It was animal and macabre, yet flawless in its design. He wondered how much she ate at once. Did she always start with the limbs? Was there a favorite or least favorite part? Did she eat the organs, too?
Penny’s hair was in danger of getting sticky. He reached over and held it back.
This was better than the Casino buffet. Penny waited for John to finish respectfully, chewing a finger she had gnawed off of the hand. She watched the human hang there. Her head tilted to admire their work, and then she reached over for the other limb to eat that too.
She had been trained to make short work of the victim. Topside there wasn’t saving much for later if she wasn’t close to home. No bloody doggy bags. Flesh, sinew, eventually the cavity with organs. She ate what she could and when she had her fill she drew back. Licking lips that were now back, Penny turned to John with her usual smile.
Tonight had been so promising. She hoped John would want to have a meal together again.
“I couldn’t eat another bite.” She put on one shoe and then the other, slipping her small purse onto her wrist. Only a partial corpse would be left though there were no identifiable tracing points left.
“I’m glad to hear you got enough,” he said, amused. He had never seen anyone clean a bone like that. John dragged the remains of the man’s body behind an electrical box and studied his hands as he returned to Penny’s side. He turned off the man’s phone. Out of curiosity, he opened the wallet and looked for ID. There was a driver’s license for Adam Schaeffer, Fresno, California and an employee ID for Done Right Handyman Services. John pocketed the wallet until he could dispose of it.
He pulled a clean handkerchief from his pocket, offered it to Penny, and then wiped the mess off his chin. “Do you need a ride? I could call someone for you. Otherwise I’ll offer my number in case you’d like to do this again.”
She accepted the handkerchief. A brush across her hands and face would rid any stray droplets. The cloth would be offered back to John.
“I can drive myself but I would love to have your number. And I’ll give you mine.” She found that spark of hopefulness that he would reach out if he came to hunt and needed someone to help.
“Wonderful.” John looked around and gently took Penny’s arm. “But I think we ought to do that part somewhere else. I’d hate to be caught texting next to a corpse.” He smiled and guided them out of the alley and onto Fremont Street. Behind them, the city’s next crime scene awaited discovery.