Juliet Marie Winters (winters_heat) wrote in city_limits, @ 2009-04-20 13:11:00 |
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Entry tags: | juliet winters, lady elfleda, npc, rhiannon lee |
Seeking her touchstone
From here.
By the time Juliet reached her car she was shaking, but managed not to drop the unconscious girl again. Fingers fumbled with her waistband, finally finding the remote and pressing it to open the doors. Fortunately the girl had ID on her, and Juliet slammed the back door after depositing Emily Dansforth on the backseat, quickly getting into the driver's seat herself and closing the door behind her.
Next thing she pulled out was her phone. She punched in the speed dial for Rhiannon on the second attempt, her fingers still a little shaky, and lifted the phone to her ear as she waited for Rhiannon to answer. The clock on the dashboard glowed softly, announcing to all who looked that it was 1:49am. As the phone buzzed softly in her ear she pushed the palm of her free hand against the steering wheel in front of her, stretching her fingers out wide then curling them around the wheel, gripping it as if hanging on for life itself.
"C'mon Rhi, pick up!" she murmured, even the hushed tone of her voice sounding loudly in the sealed compartment of her car. Her eyes darted up to the rear visions mirror, then automatically to both the side mirrors, her fingers fumbling for the button that would turn on the in-built cameras that would feed to the screen in the top of the panel just to the left of the steering wheel. It slowly flickered to life, giving a better picture of what was going on behind the vehicle, not that there was much to show.
The cell phone vibrated the nightstand, jangling loose change and Rhiannon's zippo in a metallic cacophony. Sleepily, she raised her face from the pillow, bare arms and legs stirring sluggishly beneath a sheet as she tried to make sense of her surroundings. An alarm clock lit the room in a blue haze. 1:49am. Brown tangles of hair were combed back as she got on her knees and answered the call.
"Hello?" Rhiannon rubbed her eyes and attempted to clear the fog of dreams. Whatever reprieve was granted to Slayers from requiring full nights of sleep, she no longer had it.
"Rhi? It's Jules. I..." She stopped, realising that Rhiannon actually sounded like she was asleep. At this time. "Did I wake you?" she asked, a little shocked, glancing over her shoulder at Emily. "I'm sorry..."
"Don't worry about it." Freeing her legs from the blue cover, Rhiannon shifted onto the edge of her mattress, feet dangling above the fuzzy carpet. A strap of her tank top slipped from her shoulder and she quickly righted it, making an effort to drag herself into wakefulness. "What happened? You sound freaked."
"Yeah, well your friend the Elf-lady lived up to your words. She showed up down here in Ashgrove Park," Juliet told Rhiannon quickly, her fingers tightening around the steering wheel again as she stared out the windscreen, eyes darting across to check the rear monitor every few seconds. She quickly told Rhiannon of the vamps, and the girl. "She's still unconscious, but I found ID on her - I've got to get her to the hospital." Again she was using distractions to stop herself thinking about, or feeling anything of what she'd gone through in the park.
A spike of cold fury formed in Rhiannon's chest. "God... is she that fucking predictable now?" Fully awake, the brunette got out of bed and began to pace the tiny space between door and window. It seemed inevitable that the Corruptress pay a new Slayer a visit, particularly a capable one who so quickly joined the central group of white hats in Chicago, but the immediacy of it worried Rhiannon. So did her current predicament; physical ability wasn't worth much in terms of defense against Elfleda, but it bred confidence she sorely missed.
"I need to know what she did," Rhiannon said. "Every detail. Can you drive and talk at the same time, or are you too shaken up?" Her own hands felt weak, a symptom of anger and concern for Juliet. She feared little in terms of her personal safety, but a threat to someone she cared about shook Rhiannon to the core.
"I'm fine," Juliet said, obviously not quite so, but keeping on keeping on helped her from losing it as the reality of what had happened started to seep in past the barriers of her self-erected defenses. Her fingers pushed the phone into the hands-free cradle, the car's sound system taking over as she started the motor. The silence from the back seat was deafening and Juliet glanced over again as she started to pull away from the kerb. "What do I do with Emily?" she added, turning to watch where she was going. "She's not woken up yet, so I think she needs blood."
"Take her to Mercy on Michigan Avenue," Rhiannon said, fidgeting a hand at her nape. "Once they see her neck, they won't ask questions." She looked out the window, unsure of what she expected to see, but there was only empty street and parked cars. It took no small measure of willpower not to demand Juliet come over immediately. "While you're driving, back up and tell me what happened with Elfleda."
Juliet nodded, the car now heading in the right direction and Juliet trying to recap what had happened. "The ground, she made it all, spewy, and stinky, and the park bench, it just disintegrated," she told Rhiannon, negotiating the corner in the Mercedes and ignoring the changing light as it went from green to amber. "I had to get the girl or she would've been sucked down too, and she really doesn't need any more bad luck right now, you know?" Again the distraction offered Juliet's brain a momentary respite as it recalled more of what had happened, the sensations that had been running through her, the ones she'd been managing to ignore, trying to get a hold again. "She really does go on with a lot of shit, doesn't she?" Juliet continued, trying to make her laugh sound less freaked and more funny, but knowing she was probably failing miserably.
"Real full of herself... " This was murmured, Juliet's concentration being broken as two figures staggered off the kerb, her hand swinging the wheel of the car and the car swerving to avoid them, probably a little too drastically, but managing to keep from hitting them anyway. "Drunken bloody idiots!" she hissed, able to use the adrenaline surge to draw breath and settle again. "Sorry, where was I?" Just knowing Rhiannon was on the other end of the phone was also giving her comfort, not waiting for a response from her mentor before picking up the threads again and continuing.
"Right, full of herself, and spouting on about only trying to help me, and I was a knife that could be blunted or some such crap which I really didn't listen to." She paused as she felt the weight of the body she'd been carrying, as if it was on her shoulders again, and the sensations that had run through her when she'd fallen, telling Rhiannon what had happened, her voice a little less disdainful and a lot tighter. "It was... freaky," she admitted, her foot shifting to the brake as she came up to a set of red lights and no way to get past the car and paper truck already stopped. It was like the stopping of the car was instrumental in stopping her from continuing for a moment and she stared out the windscreen at the advertising on the back of the van in front of her, eyes not even seeing it, but the words reforming into a printed version of some of what Elfleda had whispered into her mind.
"Hey, Jules?" Rhiannon put her back to the cool window and sat on the sill, its wooden fibers creaking slightly beneath her weight. Nervous tension made it hard not to grab an object to break, but in her current predicament, that might wind up in personal injury rather than relief. "You did really well. Just to get out of it unscathed? I can't say the same for myself, the first time around." She extended her legs into the shadows of her bedroom.
"Listen, be straight with me, alright? Are you feeling any different? For instance..." Rhiannon looked up at the bluish-gray tint of the ceiling at night. "Homicidal, or hot for sex with any asshole that has compatible genitals?" Less than pleasant mental pictures popped into her memory. "I won't judge, we've all got dirty ideas running rampant in our subconscious minds. I just need to know so I can put you under lock and key. Trust me, you'd thank me later."
"What? God! NO!" Juliet's voice echoed in the car but even to her own ears the denial was hollow, Rhiannon's suggestions far closer to the truth than even Juliet was prepared to admit. A couple of visions appeared in front of her again, two of the same ones that had appeared in front of her then, and she whimpered as tears welled up in her eyes, the realisation of the truth probably more painful than she was willing to admit out loud.
"Yes..." The admission was a hushed whisper but even at that level carried more volume than the denial which had been shouted momentarily before. Her eyelids squeezed shut, trying to block out the images, her body wracked with a shuddering sob as her head fell forward onto the steering wheel and the tears coursed down her cheeks.
"Help me, please..." she managed to get out in a strangled voice as the tears poured down her cheeks. "Help me, help Emily..."
"Okay, calm down, you're gonna wreck the car!" Rhiannon said hurriedly, putting a hand up as if the younger Slayer could see it. "Breathe! You're alright... Shit..." It hadn't been her intention to unleash a torrent of guilt on her protegee, and the helpless note in her voice had Rhiannon's chest clenching painfully. The memory of that hot shame the morning after, when clarity painted the world and her actions in a harsh light, made her eyes burn.
"You didn't cave, Juliet. You picked up the girl and you walked away, right? So it's okay. Anything you thought up, it's just the messy, fucked up, but normal side effect of being a Slayer. Our power comes from a demon, but we're still good. It's like gum under the table. You're not going to peel it off and chew it, so just ignore it."
She restlessly tapped her finger on the windowsill. "And also crash on my couch tonight. I've got something in my weapons chest that might make you feel better."
It took all the strength she had to lift her head from where it was pressed against the steering wheel. Blinking away the tears her visions cleared enough to show her that she was now stopped in a clear street, the lights having turned green and the vehicles in front gone. As if on autopilot she drove on, her brain directing her body to steer the car toward Michigan Avenue and the medical help for the girl on her back seat.
...it's okay.... just ignore it... you didn't cave...
"But I did," she mumbled. "I wanted it... wanted what she was offering... " she admitted, feeling the tears threaten again and sniffling. "I tried, but I couldn't stop it..." and it felt so good she knew it had to be bad. The lights of Michigan Avenue were only a few blocks away, street sweepers having been through and the surface of the road shiny with wetness.
"Nearly there," she mumbled, her brain again kicking into defense mode and trying to distract her with other, now mundane things, like saving the girl in the back of her car.
"Wanted and did are two completely different animals." Rhiannon got up and stood in the middle of the bedroom, a hand pressing into her lower back. She pivoted to face the weapons chest, which had gone unopened for days, its contents a reminder of lost abilities. "This woman is the Bride of Leviathan... Her entire existence is built around making people want things bad enough to do them. You didn't do. Cut yourself some slack."
The brunette knelt before the trunk and unlatched it. She hefted up the lid and her eyes roved over the contents, which she knew well enough to sort through it in the dark. Rhiannon began to do so, lifting away a wooden layer of stakes and knives to access another compartment underneath. "Little confession? Even if you did do something, I'd forgive you. And so would anybody else smart enough to realize they live in a glass house." Tucked away in a bottom corner, there were a few velvet pouches of items purchased from Unseen Insight. She untied the bindings of one and emptied the contents into her palm.
A necklace made of rose quartz fell out. The mineral was known for its purity and healing abilities. Once upon a time, Rhiannon kept a chunk of it in her pocket to keep Elfleda at bay. It wasn't until she dropped it that she ran headlong into disaster sequence number two. This was a smaller piece, but worn close to the body, it might give Juliet two important things: a tiny ounce of protection, and piece of mind.
Juliet didn't argue, Rhiannon's words giving her some semblance of comfort, something she didn't think she'd feel again for a very long time, especially when she kept remembering what she'd been shown, what she'd felt. "Thanks," she murmured, turning into Michigan Avenue and accelerating toward the block where Mercy Hospital's Emergency entrance stood. She could heard what sounded like Rhiannon rummaging through something and wondered for a moment what the older Slayer was doing.
A car pulled out of the driveway of the emergency entrance, followed by an ambulance, leaving the entrance door fortuitously clear. "I'm here, at the hospital, hang on," she said, pulling the car to a stop and climbing out. Hauling Emily out of the back seat she draped the unconscious girl's arm over her shoulder and half carried, half dragged her over to the glass sliding doors and pushed the large emergency button on the wall. A strangely detached corner of her brain made the observation that at least she wasn't going to have to have blood cleaned out of her upholstery again, like she had with Hayden on New Year's Eve. Which of course was a good thing for her, but not so much for Emily. Emergency staff sparked to life when they saw her standing there, her 5' 2" frame a little dwarfed by the 5' 6" unconscious body she was holding up. Doors slid open, a gurney appearing quickly and Juliet deposited the limp body onto it. "Found her like," she told them, "down Ashgrove Park," she added and shook her head when asked if she was injuried. "No, I'm fine," she told them, backing away. "Just take care of her, please," she said, the orderly already pushing the bed inside, Juliet taking the opportunity to head back around to the still open driver's door and climbing back in, shaking her head as they asked her to come in and fill out the paperwork. "Sorry, got to go!" she told them, pulling the door shut and accelerating out of the driveway. She knew the security cameras would pick up her car's plate but it didn't bother her. Emily was where she needed to be now, and there was nothing else she could do for her, so she let out a slow breath.
"Right, she's done," she finally said, her phone still sitting in the handsfree cradle and the call still connected. "I'm on my way," she added pointlessly, but needing to just say something to keep her mind going, to stop it from having a chance to go back to what she didn't want to think about, didn't want to give life to.
"Good," Rhiannon said, dropping the necklace back in its sack and laying it aside for Juliet. When she put the heavy shelf full of weapons back into the trunk, her fingers lingered on the hilt of her most prized possession -- a tailor-made katar -- before she turned away and closed the lid. "Drive slowly and don't make any pit stops," she suggested, pushing on her knees in order to stand. "When you get here, you can take a shower and crash, and if you need to, we can talk about it in the morning, once you realize you're not the Antichrist."
Narrowly missing her hipbone on the doorjamb, she walked the necklace into the living room and laid it on the coffee table. A clock ticked over the television, a reminder that it was 2a.m. Rhiannon collapsed sideways in the arm chair, pale legs dangling over the side.
"Right, yeah, cuz that's her," Juliet muttered, trying to make some sort of joke. "Not sure she'd be too impressed with someone, even me, taking her crown now, huh?" She drove down Michigan, turning toward Rhiannon's place, slowing for a paper truck that lumbered out of a side street in front of her. "You got any butterscotch schnapps and Baileys?" she asked, suddenly really craving the sweet concoction she had been introduced to at a friend's 18th birthday celebration a few months earlier. She gave a dry laugh, figuring this was probably a side effect of dealing with a devil woman from hell. "I really feel like a CockSucking Cowboy!" she laughed, just the idea of her wanting a drink both freaking her out and making her feel strange.
Rhiannon placed a hand over her eyes. "I did not just hear that." Ah, but fuck, there was a mental picture anyway. She allowed her head to fall back on the arm rest and rubbed at her eyes. "There's probably some Bailey's left over from the party, but I'm thinking no on the schnapps." An afghan rested on the back of the chair. She tugged it over her legs to shield them from a draft and stifled a yawn. "We're vodka people. And beer." God, had it been a battle not to get drunk every day for the past week, but her new, unimproved tolerance made for hangovers and Rhiannon was not a fan.
She flipped sideways in the chair, which put her neck at an odd angle. "Okay, I'm gonna drift until you bang on the door," she said. "Don't make fun. I am in every sense of the word a lightweight right now."
Juliet nodded, her fingers easing their grip on the wheel as the car's tyres closed the distance between her and her mentor. Things were going to be OK she told herself silently. The line remained open as she drove through the darkened streets, taking comfort from just knowing that Rhiannon was on the other end of the line, even asleep. "Be there soon," she said and concentrated on achieving just that.