Haunted Roads

Who: Nox and Serena
When: Tuesday evening
Where: Starting at the Towers and heading to the Sonics game

Nox jogged into the bathroom for a quick shower. He'd spent the last hour tidying up the apartment, and he didn't much care to smell like Pinesol when Serena arrived. Women wore the strangest variety of scents, some that Nox really couldn't stand, but he was quite sure Pinesol wouldn't appeal to her nose. The apartment had been messier than normal, and it really needed a scrubbing. The last few days had been busy and stressful for Nox, so he was grateful to be spending some time away from work tonight with someone who could hold a conversation that didn't include phrases like "rate of decay", or "revenge killing", or "mutilated corpse". Real downers. They came with the job, and Nox did live his job, but it was nice to break away sometimes.

He scrubbed off his stress, along with the smell of household cleaning products, and hopped out of the shower, quickly dressing. A basketball game called for casual comfort, so he threw on jeans and a long sleeve, black, cotton shirt. When he emerged from his bedroom and checked his watch, he realized he needed to sprint down to the lobby. Serena would be arriving any second.

Not wasting a moment, Nox took the stairs. He was fast, and he found he often made it to the ground floor on foot faster than he would in the elevator. Running from the stairwell and into the lobby, he looked down at his watch again and started walking around the lobby to see if she'd snuck in early. His phone hadn't rang, but maybe she was just waiting politely.

Who: Jade and Tony
When: late evening
Where: Old Town Towers, D-11
Rating: there's absolutely no telling...

Jade was off from work tonight, and she'd been taking advantage of that by wandering farther from the areas where she usually fed. The day had been cloudy, and now that night had fallen, a chill had invaded the air, making the leather coat she wore over faded jeans and low-cut silk shirt completely reasonable. She did not feel the cold as she once had, finding that she was able to tolerate it very well now; formerly, she'd been the sort who complained every time the temperature dropped below fifty. She'd grown up in the dry heat of Arizona, and strangely she missed it even now. Still, that was the past and she knew that she'd likely never live permanently in Sedona again.

The heels of her battered brown boots clicked on the sidewalk as she walked briskly away from her latest victim, her stride fast yet somehow still nonchalant. She wore a thin silver wire necklace threaded with chunky amber and topaz-colored stones, and it thunked against her chest as she walked. It matched the dangling earrings she wore; she'd made the set herself before she'd been turned, when she'd been home for Christmas. Jade cast one last quick glance at the man she'd left on the bench, seeing that he was still sitting as she'd left him, hands folded loosely in his lap and his head lowered as if he might've dozed off while waiting for the bus. He wasn't dead, but he'd probably wish he was once he woke up. She was learning the fine art of how much blood she could take and leave a person reasonably coherent, but she didn't think she'd applied it in this case. She'd been too hungry.

Once out of sight, she licked at the end of one finger and dabbed at her lips, particularly in the corners of her mouth, wanting to make sure she hadn't left any blood on her face. As she walked along, she pulled a silver tube of lipstick from her jacket pocket and applied some more, blotting her lips with no need for a mirror. It was a trick she'd always been good at since the days when she'd first started wearing the stuff. Jade turned her head and glanced in the window of the shop she was passing, pleased to see that she looked the same as she had when she'd first left the Grand. Normal. If it weren't for the fangs that were ever-present in her mouth, she might think that she was normal.

( dark water )