A Bit of a Dry Spell
Who: Katherine, Rhiannon What: Axe Throwing, Rage Rooming, Shit Talking When: Recent Evening Where: Axehole, Las Vegas Warnings: Colorful Language
"Hey, wanna' get Axeholed?"
The kind of question Katherine had no problem asking with an out of the blue telephone call. It was provocative, punchy and begging for clarification. So, clarify, she did.
Axehole, Vegas... Somewhere you could pay for the chance to smash things up or throw anything, from an axe to playing cards. The kind of place where violent extremes could be catered for among friends. And, while Katherine was something of a lone wolf, even for a vampire, Rhiannon could be depended upon to find activities like that as appealing as she did.
It wasn't a bloodied corpse, but throwing the blade and hearing it embed, like that, was satisfying. Dead centre. It was good. Things were good. Unlife was good. This... This was good. Hunter... Vampire... Just labels. Who cared?
"See, this is what you don't get at a bar," Katherine spoke, wrenching the tool out and giving it a casual spin in her hand, walking out of the way to let Rhiannon take her turn. "You get this rush, man. You're a hunter, you get that, right? It's not just a vampire thing?"
“Of course,” Rhiannon said, giving the sharp object in her hand consideration. The venue had a lot that could be used, once the patron proved they could handle more than a two-handed axe throw. A glass display case held spears, ninja stars, tomahawks, and shovels with short handles. Even if not as sharp as she preferred, that was nothing brute force couldn’t overcome. Upon decimating their first wooden target in a cage up front, they’d been gently steered to a fresh one farther back, which was thicker.
“That’s the problem with Vegas,” she said, letting loose a spear that crunched through the wooden stump. “Not enough trees.” Rhiannon snapped her fingers ruminatively and took a sip from a can of cheap beer. She looked up to find a family of four gawking at them. The hunter scowled. “What?”
The mother guided them in the opposite direction.
“Plenty of walls,” her undead companion suggested and went with an upgrade in the shape of the nearest shovel. Something with added weight tended to be slower, but it had greater inertia. “And there’s always the arena…”
Hefting it like a two-handed greatsword above her head, the vampiress threw the gardening implement with enough force to have embedded in the target. Unfortunately, the handle end was what connected and it clattered to the floor, leaving Katherine with a reason to laugh as she went over to retrieve it. “It’s weird, actually. This must be the most violent I’ve got in… A while. Ain’t even killed anyone in, oh…” And she briefly narrowed eyes, trying to run the mental calculations. “Gotta’ be months now.”
Katherine was playing her admission off casually, but it was a big thing for her to say it in front of Rhiannon, who might just as easily mock her for going soft as celebrate it. The way Katherine was rubbing the back of her head and looking at the shovel, avoiding eye contact, was a way to ready herself for some ridicule, just in case.
The way Katherine had framed it, whenever her murderous exploits had come up in conversation, she had inferred her targets of choice tended to be those who provided a challenge. Something which, all things considered, likely meant that most weren’t exactly on the innocent side. At least, if her version of events was to be believed. “It started getting…” She looked up with an expression which read as introspective and puzzled. “Boring? I dunno’... Like bad sex.”
“Blugh.” Rhiannon’s eyelids shut and she gave a shiver. “That’s the worst.” She made the trip to the end of their lane and pried the spear free. It took some bracing of her foot to accomplish it without pulling the pine chunk off the wall, too. Walking back, it was easy to make the mental connection between sex and the spear in her hand, which she gestured with. “Y’know, you’d think hunters would be more like this,” she said, “Than like that.” She pointed at a man eating a soft pretzel stick. “But you’d be wrong. Not to mention the ones with a complete lack of finesse. If you want to drill a hole, go find a powertool.”
The spear clattered on their pile of weapons. It occurred to Rhiannon that she’d wandered wildly off topic from Katherine’s admission. “Anyway, I think I know what you mean. Why do it at all if it’s gonna be shit?” The remainder of her beer disappeared down the brunette’s throat. She thought about the arena; Rhiannon hadn’t fought in Seventh Circle in almost a year. She once worried it gave away too much information about herself and the way she fought, but if she kept her game sharp, it shouldn’t matter.
Katherine frowned, looking deep in thought at Rhiannon’s drill-themed mental image. She was putting it together with the fleeting memory of guys she had seen during the confrontation they collaborated on. It wasn’t pretty.
The noise brought her back to reality and she blinked, listening to Rhiannon’s agreement. “Mmm,” she said, but was still stuck on the drill and it was wise to throw something to distract herself from it. Forget it, if possible. Decided a pickaxe was necessary for her next. “You ever, like… Thought of going into business for yourself? I mean, I don’t even know what you do for income, but I know some people with problems,” the vampiress offered with a small shrug.
“So, what’s goin’ on in the world of Rhiannon, lately?” Katherine went to throw, realised it would miss and relaxed. Trying again. “Any changes?”
Rhiannon grimaced. ‘Loaded topic.’ She took her time picking through the weapons. She considered a shuriken, then tossed it aside because she didn’t want to deal with pulling it out. “Mm, I am in business for myself.” She picked up an axe again and tested its weight and balance. “I do some training and coaching at a gym. I don’t make a fortune, but it keeps the power on between contract jobs, which is what I’m assuming you meant?” She turned to watch Katherine take aim, the axe doing a slip-slide in her fingers and palm.
Across the room, somebody missed and got their axe wedged in the chain-link fence between stalls. Rhiannon stifled a laugh as their friends hit the concrete floor. It was a nice distraction from what she was about to say. “I’m seeing someone new. Not pretzel dick.” Rhiannon felt it important to clarify that.
So, that’s what hunters did between gigs? This one, at least. Katherine made a noise of surprise, tilting head to one side. “Thought you’d get sponsorship for a sports career or something. Like… Endorsing tennis racquets and shit.” Then flung the pickaxe, hitting dead centre. “Hi, my name’s Rhiannon Lee and I’m a corporate shill!”
With a brightly smiling thumbs up, Katherine made a mental tally of their respective scores and lamented the outcome with a disheartened, “Damn it... You’re in the lead. By one, mind. I had a… Uh… Defective handle.”
She took a handful of throwing stars - and missed. Fuck you, wooden post…
“Irish not cuttin’ it now, huh? I got… I got nothin’, man.” And Katherine squinted, mid-way through extracting the serrated metal out of where they had landed. Trying to cast her mind back. “Last time I was with anyone I…” Didn’t wake up to dead? Even remember the name. “Gave a damn about, it’s… Yeah, it’s been a while. Actually… Nah, it has.”
A realisation which made the vampire suddenly come over a little fidgety, like she was looking for a threat or something to hit. Katherine’s focus had been on other things, but now she had said it like that, it was making her sneer in internal dislike. A few months ago, she had been casually laughing about hedonistic orgies in a bar with a number of vampires, one of whom said he didn’t even kill humans.
And now…
“Fuck,” hissed the militant brunette and made a small kick at the floor in annoyance. “It just hit me how… Aimless I am. You want to rob a bank?”
Rhiannon laughed, a bright outburst within their otherwise alarming display of violent potential. She was still smiling when she took aim. The axe bounced off its knob and spun across the floor. When she picked it up, she blew off the sawdust. “No, but I wouldn’t rule out destruction of property or a police chase. Ask me after another beer.” The hunter flagged down an employee and ordered a round. The way she was feeling lately, doing something as banal as crime held a strangely magnetic appeal.
“There’s nothing wrong with Cian,” she added. “He’s overseas.” She kicked a chunk of broken wood out of the way and searched for a succinct way of putting it. “I need the freedom to make whatever choices I want, as a hunter or just as me. Without worrying what someone’s gonna think of me. I kept giving things up, even when he didn’t ask me to. It just seemed to me like I needed to go that far to make sure it worked.” Rhiannon gratefully accepted her beer.
What she didn’t admit was that she also needed the rudder of familial ties and navigating that while she was with Cian introduced a certain obligatory shame about her roots. Rhiannon loved Cian with every fiber of her being, but there were parts of their interconnected past that ached, not to mention uncertainty in their future because he was a Were and she was a hunter. It made a romantic partnership difficult.
“So yeah, I guess you’d say ‘shrugs their shoulders if I get into a police chase with a vampire’ is a new box on my dating questionnaire.” Rhiannon smiled. “I’m trying to figure out what could possibly be on yours.”
"Sounds messy," responded Katherine, making a face at how complicated Rhiannon's explanation had seemed. "Boundaries... This is why you are my social life." But it was the hunter's own query which was causing that stare-into-eternity look Katherine was giving the liquid in her glass. "Uhh," she began, looking up and seeming lost for words. "What? Like an 'ideal partner' thing?"
Rhiannon had witnessed this woman in many situations, including getting swallowed whole by a cosmic monstrosity and throwing a motorcycle at her on the streets of Las Vegas. Someone more than a century old. Yet, here she was, apparently stumped by the hypothetical prospect of... Dating. "I mean... Stamina? I don't know... When I hitch up with someone, there's not usually a lot of talking involved. Which is probably why they don't last. That and, y'know... Biting..."
“Katherine,” Rhiannon intoned. “Stop eating your partners.” She looked around for an empty surface for her beer... Debated using the floor. No, that was a recipe for disaster. By noisily shuffling a few sharp implements around the table, the hunter created room near what looked like an ice pick. Okay, so they may have supplemented the official offerings. She squared up at the line and took aim, doing a few practice movements before releasing. A slim, metal playing card sliced into the bullseye.
Now was as good a time as any.
“You like a challenge. Did you ever consider seeing someone who could kill you? With, I don’t know,” Rhiannon grasped the rectangle of stainless steel and tugged. “Pyrokinesis?”
"Well... I don't know!" Katherine's protest had been made with arms widely raising to each side in an exaggerated shrug. "I'm pretty drunk if it gets that far. Admittedly, that's... A lot..."
Which, in turn, made her look down at the glass. And put it out of the way... After quickly finishing it, of course. She was getting ready to use a hammer when Rhiannon made the crack about... Yeah, that put her aim off and she deflated with a bemused chuckle. "You said that on purpose," she quipped and, instead of throwing, crossed arms and turned to face the hunter more squarely. "Why would... Just... OK, first? Ew. Second, what made you bring him up?”
Rhiannon pressed her lips together. “Mmm. No reason.” She idly stroked her eyebrow with one fingernail and asked herself if she should take up another weapon. Not for points, but for blocking. The double bit axe seemed like a safe bet, so she casually selected it and cut her eyes in Katherine’s direction.
“But let’s say hypothetically I was attracted to a reformed assassin whose preferred method of killing was fire. There’s a kind of balance to that, right, because we’re both capable of taking one another out, but there’s no built-in rivalry between a hunter and a gifted human, not like there is with a vampire.” Rhiannon gave a big puff of her cheeks. “Yeah, I’m sleeping with Noah.” She started to chug her beer but stopped herself. “Nope. That’s a lie. I’m in a relationship with Noah.”
Katherine's gaze had already started to narrow and she had echoed, "Hypothetically," with growing suspicion. It didn't take a vampire's sense of smell to detect the fragrant odour of bullshit starting to waft in her direction, until... Yeah, there it was.
"Oh." Softly blinking, Katherine started looking randomly over the floor. Quite what for, she couldn't say, but her brow was raised and hearing Rhiannon admit to going horizontal with the same guy who'd chained her up with threats of incineration, was working a number on Katherine's gag reflex.
Just because they'd last parted on something like amicable terms, didn't mean she was going to rejoice over news like this. In fact, Rhiannon being the closest thing she had to a friend around here, made it almost feel like a part of her was... Just no.
"Oh, that's... That's special, yeah," came the surprisingly subdued response. And now Katherine realised her eyes had been searching for something to hit, because she was bouncing the hammer in her grasp. "I need to, um... Yeah, we done here? I need to, uh..."
Katherine didn't even wait, she just put the tool down and marched over in the direction of the section dedicated for smashing things up. The pair of them had specifically requested some more robust items to be brought in for their turn. The provided sledgehammer she grabbed on the way through made short work of an engine block.
Rhiannon drank her beer. Slowly, ever so quietly, she slipped a pair of safety glasses onto her face and took up a sledgehammer. An employee in a plastic viking helmet offered her a set of overalls and a helmet. When she shook her head, it wasn’t pushed; the two brunettes had already signed away their legal rights to sue over severed fingers and slashed arteries. The hunter walked into the smash room and watched Katherine create a fifth cylinder.
This… This was the exemplar of being stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Tell Katherine they were witnessing a ‘kinder, gentler Noah Restic’ and he would look vulnerable. Let her think he was the same sadistic guy and Rhiannon looked like an asshole. Maybe she was an asshole. She personally knew at least two people Noah had terrorized. Katherine terrorized people, too, yet here they were, a hunter and a vampire, playing darts on steroids. Was it really that surprising Rhiannon gave him a pass, too?
The hunter whispered, “Shit.” This wasn’t about Katherine hating Noah for being ruthless. It was about loyalty. She let the head of the sledgehammer rest next to her boot. “Free punch?” The human pointed to her own face. “Just remember my teeth don’t regenerate.”
Katherine looked up, exhaling loud enough to almost sound like the beginnings of a growl, but not quite. She had paused, mid-retrieval and, after a few seconds more, hauled the tool back over one shoulder.
The last time she remembered clapping eyes on him, they had briefly... Teamed up? Sort of. It was when Katherine had unleashed one of the patchwork animal creatures on Las Vegas, encountered the guy by coincidence and they had literally escaped on a batmobile. No longer enemies, though not really the tightest of friends, either. It had been a temporary using of one another to make some carnage.
"Look, I'm not your mother," Katherine eventually replied, waving off the offer. "I got no right telling you who you can..." Not finishing, the vampiress looked away, squinting eyes with an introspective look of disdain, then loudly sighed and met Rhiannon's gaze, again. "Wish you hadn't, but I got no right. He just... I've got a thing about getting chained up and threatened like he did. I'd be a hypocrite if I said I've never done it, but I don't like it happening to me."
She hefted what was over her shoulder in a downwards motion, colliding with the engine, once again. Pieces of metal sprang off in a satisfying manner. It was cathartic.
"It's part of why I got turned. It's how I got saved from that, Rhi. That's why I'm not a mopey bitch getting my Anne Rice on and writin' poetry... And it's why I'm always gonna' feel skeevy around him. But if this guy is what does it for you?" Another few hits were made and the thing had pretty much crumpled into the ground. This place was right... It was therapeutic. And Katherine looked back up, once it was done.
"Well, good for you, Rhi. I'll go chew wasps if I have to see the two of you swappin' tongues, but that don't mean I can't wish you the best with it," she resolved and extended an unoccupied hand in an effort to shake on it. "But if he whips out the bondage, take a raincheck, OK?"
“Got it…” Rhiannon’s mouth quirked. “No licking one another in front of you. It’s a good thing you said something, since that’s a long-standing habit of mine.” She shook Katherine’s hand, making it quick, because neither one of them was too comfortable with emotional gestures towards one another and definitely not in public. “And if anyone whips out the bondage, I’ll make sure it’s me.” Her eyes cast downward and she took up her own massive mallet. “Just, um…”
Rhiannon studied the nearest object left there for destruction, an old, beige appliance from the eighties. That would work. “Roll that back a sec for me? What did you mean when you said it’s part of why you got turned and how you got saved from it? What’s the it?” Her sledgehammer crumpled the side of the refrigerator.
Rhiannon was right about the shaking of hands. Katherine had been trying to make a gesture out of it, but it was typically an unnatural move for her. The caustic deadpanning was something they both shared, but Rhiannon had a serious point mixed in with it.
"Said a while back you looked up some old picture of me in a dress," the more undead of the two brunettes reminded, landing a swing at the same. A regular pair of urban lumberjacks. "I'm guessing it didn't come with a story."
Which, truthfully, wasn't surprising. There weren't many who had an interest and fewer, still, who were informed. Rhiannon Lee? Katherine didn't trust easy, but the hunter was a known quantity and it was as good a talking point as any. "Well... Cast your mind back to wagon wheels and horseshoes. Mom had passed on and my father wanted a fresh start for us. Bittersweet, y'know? So, cut a long story short, we're shipping across country and, uh..."
She eased up on the hitting, looking across the room in distant recollection. Her mind shifting through the sands of time, deciding on what was most relevant to tell. "Got set upon. Gang. Some real nasties... Yours truly was the only survivor. And if I wasn't too shot up for it, they would've done worse - and believe me, they were tempted," she added, momentarily tightening her grip. "They take off with anything worth a damn and leave me for dead. Somehow, I drag myself out of there, still half-trussed up and ride to the nearest town. Knew I was too far gone, but figured if I could tell someone, get the law to know... Had more venom in my fangs than a rattler and that's what kept me going. Not compassion, not love. Just wanted to fuck 'em over. But it wasn't the town sheriff who found me. And after I woke up... Well, once I'd learned a few things, didn't need a badge to go hunt 'em down."
Rhiannon knew that the last thing Katherine wanted from her was sympathy. Even if that backstory went a long way toward explaining who she was and why she reacted the way she did, it felt gross to receive it. A simple, ‘Right, I think I get it,’ would be better than anyone ‘aww-ing’ and tiptoeing around feelings. But first, Rhiannon wanted to make sure she was drawing a dotted line between the correct points A and B.
The hunter took a casual swing and dented in the coils and back panel of the refrigerator.
“So…” She brought the hammer overhead with both hands and stretched her upper back. “Noah hit a sore spot. You’ve got a thing about being tied up and threatened. Both times, you came out of it ready to rip someone apart -- justifiably -- which is the kind of anger that keeps you alive... so to speak. Not sympathy for the human plight.” Rhiannon lowered the tool and considered how to say what she wanted.
“But that has a price. I mean, only feeling rage, or keeping everyone at arm’s length. Not that it matters, but that’s why I like being with Noah. Once we got past each other’s hard candy shells.” She snorted delicately. “I’m complicated. He’s complicated. There’s nothing vulnerable I can’t say to him, no fucked up part of me I can’t show him, and the weird thing is, I don’t feel weaker for it. When he looks at me, I feel like I’m supposed to be exactly like this, y’know? I don’t feel obligated to make excuses.”
Rhiannon was about to swing again, then stopped upon realizing that Katherine and Noah shared some qualities.
Best not to dig into that epiphany.
Her puzzled expression was shaken away. Rhiannon spun to gain momentum and struck the appliance again. The impact reverberated into her hands and elbows. “Maybe that’s what you need. Besides stamina.” She set down the sledgehammer and took off her safety glasses. “A partner who appreciates a beautiful brunette with the personality of a buzz saw splitting a tree.”
The compliment triggered the kind of chuckle Katherine wasn’t planning on. The sort which interrupted her own attempt at a swing and sent a hand, lazily, to cover her mouth. “I should take offence at that, but you got me,” she spoke in admission and, slowly shaking head, destroyed a stereo in one solid hit.
Rhiannon’s instinct had been correct, of course. Katherine wasn’t giving a sob story and might even have been offended if the hunter had interpreted it as one. The past was the past. She was more framing how it had affected things moving forward - which had included Noah’s introduction.
“I’m not saying I’m eaten up by it. That stuff… It’s dealt with. It’s how I found I got a talent for making folk shit ‘emselves. Might as well get paid for it,” the vampire reasoned, shrugging and landed another slam of hammer into plastic and metal. You didn’t get this kind of therapy at a bar, but you could get it here. “You’re right though. Between that and that and, y’know… What comes with the fangs… It changes you.”
The violence halted when Katherine realised just how much wreckage they were now surrounded by and she arched an eyebrow. “A bit like this,” she added and rested the sledgehammer behind her neck like a pool cue. “Like, all that stuff you just said? That’s…” And she squinted. Like, really squinted. Actual romance felt alien to her, like a wolf trying to picture itself as a domesticated house pet. Even if it would likely cure those pangs of loneliness which had caused her to turn the likes of Wren. “All that… Emotional stuff? I don’t know if I could get that kind of connection with someone now. Sounds like you’re in deep.”
“It’s the Mariana trench,” the hunter murmured, stretching an arm across her chest. Rhiannon stared at the floor and contemplated how much she’d come to care for Noah and how quickly. The pieces had been in place for a long time; it was only when the type of affection changed over the summer that the bottom fell out. Now she was a besotted mess.
“You should watch yourself, Katherine.” The hunter picked up and pretended to swing her sledgehammer at the vampire’s backside, instead giving it a light tap. “The more you say it's impossible, the more you tempt fate to kick your ass.”
She gave the gigantic mallet a twirl and headed for the next adventure.