Sick Day Who: Neil and Seer When: 1:00am Where: Seer’s House What: Fire elemental rage and bed ridden vampires. Oh my!
The house – check that, the mansion – was one of those classic modern design monsters, snaked over with ivy and placed out in the hills. On the nice side of town but not close enough to the nice side of town to make the warm-blooded residents fret. Not that any of them would fret of course, seeing how it took nine kinds of shanghai to figure out the lovely residence, tucked up and away from the noise of the town, was actually chock full o’ Azrael House vampires. (Neil imagined it wasn’t something they wanted advertised.) When he’d called earlier that night to talk with Seer at Heme, another vampire at the bar told him she’d taken a sick day, jokingly of course as vampires don’t take sick, but the subsequent text message war (in which she’d called him a doucherocket and told him to stay away) aroused his suspicion.
Something had clearly happened to her but she wasn’t talking and neither were her co-workers. Seer told him to bugger off and refused his ultimatum (“Tell me what happened or I’m coming over!”) on the confidence that he was bluffing. Little did she know, however, that Neil had already gotten the address for Seer’s residence in Scarlet Oak from her parents and he knew exactly where she lived. His first thought pulling up in front of the massive well groomed estate was: ‘Holy shit, Seer’s House is hardcore,’ followed by, ‘Abri’s gonna fucking kill me.
The vampire who answered the door looked mildly surprised. “Hi,” said Neil with every air of someone who was expecting to be let in. “I’m looking for Seer. I told her I was on my way.” The woman looked him up and down briefly before leading him up through the house, which was populated primarily, entirely, by other vampires. Each soul he felt had that cool tang of death, some them more ancient than they appeared, like fires that had burned for centuries. He pretended he didn’t feel them looking at him and the other vampire lead him to… “The attic?”
“Seer requested it,” said the vampires with a small, amused smile. “Go ahead.” He moved forward. “Though.” He paused to look at her. “Do not go near unless she asks you. She’s… unstable.”