Bethany Richards (hard_edge) wrote in low_tide, @ 2010-01-03 23:32:00 |
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Current mood: | working |
Dark Alleys
Body disposal was nothing short of dirty work, from the moving of the body to the dispatching of certain parts of the anatomy that would hasten an identification.
The fortunate thing about Bethany Richards was her willingness to get her hands dirty, to finish the brutality she’d started, so she didn’t flinch when she did what needed to be done. It was truly amazing what one could do with a pair of wire cutters, pliers and knife, if you truly put your mind to it and had the ferocity that the ill deed required.
The neighbourhood was by far the roughest that this new city had to offer, which was perfect for this. Nobody asked questions and nobody stopped to inquire as to what an attractive blonde was doing in the dark alley with a set of tools usually seen on tool belts or kitchens.
Long hair had been swept back into a highly efficient plait that was then curled around on itself, forming a low bun, keeping wayward strands from escaping and ruining her vision.
The body of her now dead friend was laid to waste, teeth removed and fingertips sliced clean off. Bethany was nothing if not a perfectionist when it came to this, knowing the importance now more than ever of not leaving any evidence that could lead back to her.
She hadn’t survived London, Vegas, France and Chicago only to be lost to the throes of this new universe. She’d been smart before and that wasn’t about to change now.
Bethany gathered up the removed pieces of anatomy and stowed them, ready for disposal in another location, far away from this one. “Really nothing personal,” she muttered to the still open eyes of the young woman who had at one time everything she wanted and now nothing at all. “You just happened to cross the wrong woman.”
"I'd say that's apparent."
The smell of blood had drawn John into the alley. An evening of walking about the island had turned up nothing of interest, other than snatches of conversation he heard through open kitchen windows, listening in for no reason other than morbid curiosity. Well, also, there was the slight chance one of the people inside would come out to feed a family dog dinner scraps, and then become his dinner (or was it breakfast?). When it didn't happen, he kept going, looking for an evening's entertainment that didn't begin in a bar. One could get tired of those, after a while.
This was certainly entertaining.
John stood a few yards off from the blonde, looking from the waste of a woman to the one who stood above her, holding a bag of... well, parts, for lack of better description. He kept his hands to himself, in the pockets of khaki pants. A black shirt with long sleeves and buttons capped off a casual look he had adopted since coming there. His shirt tail was out of his trousers.
"Let me guess. Taking leftovers for later?" John lowered his chin, but his eyes climbed to his hairline.
Bethany’s immediate reaction to the sudden appearance of a stranger was to straighten her back and level dark eyes on the intruder, an intruder that a moment later she clocked as being… vampiric in nature. There were some advantages to being a Slayer and having spent a greater part of one’s life surrounded by demons of all sorts and types.
Her long fingers curled around the bag in question, feeling it give beneath the grip of her hand, ignoring the wet sound it made. “I’d offer them to you, but I suspect you would have rather the blood in her veins.” A parting glance was given to the dead body before Bethany stepped over it, feeling the lack of heels more keenly than ever; the sooner she got heels the better.
“I doubt it’s warm anymore,” Bethany mused as she tilted her head and took in the vampire stood before her. He had sharp features, strange eyes and carried himself with a confidence that Bethany had only seen in creatures of age or of a certain standing.
"Oh, I think I can do better than a girl without teeth, thank you very much!" he said, reaching up to stroke his jaw. He seemed to reconsider the statement after it hung between them for several seconds. "There have been times, I'll grant you, when I considered eating someone from the senior set, but it's not the party you'd imagine."
He had noticed her accent, which was a bit like his, though regional dialects had altered theirs in different ways, John having spend the better part of two decades in New York after leaving Europe. He had no clue where she'd been, but she carried herself with arrogance, all right. If she raised her chin any higher, she'd be looking at the sky instead of him. It was odd, considering the dirty alley in which she stood, and the fact that she was chopping up the remains of a girl.
"Jilting lover?" he said, taking another stab at the situation, for lack of anything better to do.
“You know what they say about a girl without teeth,” Bethany threw out with a flirtatious smile and a suggestive lift of her shoulders, coming out of the shadows that little bit more.
She shook her head a little and placed her hand on a hip that sat exposed beneath a low riding pair of jeans, fingertips gracing the curve. “Nothing of the sort.” Not that the thought of being with a woman had been far from her mind at times, before Darian. Bethany swallowed a little, not entirely ready for the emotion that flooded her entire being at the thought of her lover, now so very distant from her.
A breath inhaled through her nose calmed her enough for the time being, meaning she could maintain composure, which was vitally important at the moment. “I never did take kindly to being betrayed.” Like that explained everything.
John's hand went from jaw to ear, pulling on his lobe a bit, a fidget brought on by far too much imagery for polite conversation. "Yes. They do say that," he admitted, thinking of the oral implications of what she inferred. "But I like a bit of teeth. I would, wouldn't I?"
He let go and dropped his arm. The bag dangled at her side. The scent of blood kept tickling his nostrils whenever he breathed in to talk. His fangs tried to come out in response, reminding him again how much they behaved like sex organs. Unfortunately, they were much more difficult to hide. He consoled himself with the thought that, if they did come out, she wasn't likely to scream her head off, since she knew what he was. Another interesting thing.
"What did she do to you to deserve being cut into all those pieces?" he asked. John looked past her, trying to determine the original cause of death. It might give him insight into the woman standing before him, though he knew from the smell of her that she wasn't a demon.
Polite conversation had never been Bethany’s strong point. She preferred blurring lines and bringing the topics to something more exciting than what the weather was like or the traditional how do you do’s.
Bethany was all too aware of the effect the scent of blood was having on the man in front of her; she’d had a lot of vampiric friends and associates throughout her life and she understood the thirst and the lust for it. It helped that she herself had a certain bloodlust, more for the violence that ensued, but did that really matter?
“Lied, cheated and took something that was mine. All the things a good friend shouldn’t do.” Bethany’s shoulders lifted as did her lips, curling into a cold smile devoid of any and all emotion. “I think she misjudged me, thought I was weak enough to let it slide. Maybe I was, but no longer.” Not since she’d downloaded into this body and found this pitiful life to be hers; it was to change, sooner rather than later.
Bethany circled the vampire and then paused in front of him, eyes searching his features. “I was beginning to wonder where all the vampires were in this city.”
He held still as she walked around him, sensing no particular reason to do otherwise, though she reminded him of a shark at the moment. "Oh, we're out there, I assure you," he said, thinking of the one who'd broken into his apartment with a rock. Katherine, her name was. "Though I've only just gotten here. About two months ago, I think it was." He looked her in the eyes and had a strange thought: that his, which belonged to a corpse, were the older of the pairs, and had therefore seen far more evil than hers, simply because of amassed years, still held more life than the blonde's.
What a strange woman. He wondered if God had forgotten to stuff a soul in her body before she exited the assembly line.
Because he was a bit of a masochist when it came to women, he found himself staring at her mouth. I bet you have teeth, don't you? A fairly vicious set of them. John's lazy eyes were slow to climb back. "Why aren't you put off?" he asked, head cocking to the side. "You ought to recoil, knowing what I am and what I do. Instead, you seem disappointed."
Bethany was all too aware of where his eyes were and simply allowed her lips to curl, refraining from revealing her teeth. There was something to be said for holding something of yourself back. “I’ve known plenty of vampires and demons in my time, some more intimately than others.”
She’d been wondering where the darkness was in this city and now that she’d found it, she intended on learning as much about it as possible. It was after all where she was the most comfortable. “Disappointed?” Bethany echoed. “Not by you, more by the distinct lack of anything in this place. All I see are people, going about their lives in fear of nothing. What’s a world without fear?”
It sounded psychotic, she knew that, but Bethany believed that all dark things should have their day and should make their presence known. She’d never gone about trying to end the world, but she’d wreaked havoc and sown pain, all the things she enjoyed and more.
"I think your little murder may help," he said, pointing past her. Referring to the crime as 'little' wasn't a means of condescension. John was just given to understatement, and while he was confident, he was by no means intentionally instigating an argument with a crazy person, human or not. He'd rather talk to her. His whole reason for not stepping out on a bright morning and ending it all, out of sheer apathy, was the curiosities of the world. Of people, in particular. "Wait til that hits the papers." They'd either suspect a serial killer on the loose, or at the very least an avid viewer of CSI.
John jingled the loose change in his pockets.
"Most of the people here are too drunk to be afraid," he said. "Plus, they're on holiday. At least it's easy to take them unawares. No one expects dismemberment in a small town, or being sucked on by anything other than a corner prostitute." He looked at her again. "Sorry, that was a bit off color, wasn't it?" His eyebrows pinched together, as if he was genuinely apologetic for the slip.
Bethany was many things, but she was far from crazy, even though her words and actions said otherwise. Call it a delayed reaction to having been ripped from one world and shoved into another where her alternative self was poor, stepped all over and genuinely used and abused. As far from the other life as she could get.
His lewd remark brought about a lift of Bethany’s eyebrow and inspired a slow smile followed by a shrug of her shoulders. “I think you’ve more than made up for my comment about the wonders of a toothless woman.”
This world in all its colour was nowhere near as dark enough as it needed to be for Bethany to feel at home, be at ease. She needed to be surrounded by it, the way she had all her life. The only way of doing just that was by seeking it out or creating it all on her lonesome, if she had to.
She wet her painted lips and offered a hand. “Name’s Bethany, Bethany Richards.”
"John." He took her hand and gripped it in a proper handshake, nothing designed to squeeze the bones in her hand. "Abbott," he added. "Though it's certainly devoid of any religious connotations... How long have you been in the States? Have you only just gotten here?" He asked because she was unfamiliar with the island and still seemed surprised by all the brightly painted buildings, the happy smiles. What more did one expect out of a tropical paradise? If she wanted fear and depression, she ought to have stopped off in New Orleans. For a bit of snow and poverty, there was always Detroit.
Bethany returned his handshake with a firm one of hers, slender hand stronger than it looked. “I’ve been in the states for years, but I’ve only just got here. I was in Chicago before Key West.” God, she missed it. “I guess you could say I’m a new arrival.” Not through choice.
She dropped her hand to her side and her thumbs ventured into belt loops, settling there before fingers once again closed around her hips. “How about yourself? How long have you been in the states?”
John looked up, doing quick math in his head. "Twenty-two years, nearly," he said. "After 135 in Europe. I don't care where you're born in the world, it's dull as a stone after a century. Plus, you've seen all the interesting parts of it." The vampire smiled, reaching up to his curly hair and scrubbing at it. "What I miss most about being alive was all the urgency. That sense of time wasting away." He flipped his hand about. Even as a man who reached a respected position of professorship, John had been talented at wasting things. Time, money, talent. He was like a child growing bored of his toys. Many times when he was introspective, John thought he was meant for the kind of life that was both feverishly fast-paced and brief. It just hadn't been his lot.
"After all, you never know when you might piss someone off and they'll lop off your fingertips." He reached across to touch his knuckles to her shoulder like they were old friends. "And yank out all your teeth. I might not have minded such a death, if women like you had been around at the time."
Whilst John had all the time in the world to reflect on what was, could have been, should have been, Bethany had one life and one life alone unless she decided to cross the line, let something special bite her and turn her one life into many lives.
She turned her head at his fleeting touch, taking in everything about the hand and wrist, following the length of the arm to his neck, wondering where he’d been bitten to turn him into what he was now. “Women like me,” she repeated, lips curling into a smirk. “I’m inclined to take that as a compliment, John.”
Bethany lifted her gaze and regarded the vampire from beneath her lashes. “I always believed in living every day like it was your last.”
"Do you know, I think that's a marvellous idea? Simply because it's true. Any day could be the last." John rubbed the bridge of his nose off-handedly. His eyes, which were a strange shade of hazel, looked over the walls around them and the sky, searching his physical world without truly noticing anything, in a pattern oddly reflective of his bouncing thoughts. "The trouble is, while I'm not terribly cautious, I'm afraid I'm not reckless, either. I believe in pleasure and intrigue, but I haven't always gone after it, if I knew pain was a possibility... Excepting, of course, when women were involved, because those are almost always the same thing."
Inconveniences, he inwardly corrected. He avoided inconveniences. Things which could tie him down and keep John from looking to the next thing. It was odd, though, because as much as he yearned for greater things, better experiences, he lacked the drive to make anything long-term come of them.
“Sounds limiting,” Bethany remarked with a shrug of her shoulders. “Something to be said for a little danger now and then, keeps things interesting.” For a blonde, Bethany had dark eyes, very dark eyes, depths of which reflected a personality that could swing between alternating emotions quickly.
She leaned down to correct the way in which the denim fell over the boots, tilting her head until a stray light seemed to cut her face in half, leaving one in light and the other in dark. “How many dangerous women have you known in your time?
“And pain isn’t always a bad thing.” Bethany mused. “Sometimes it can be quite fun.” She’d always straddled a line for as long as she could remember.
"How many--" John's words were cut off with a smile, and then a laugh. He put his hands in his pockets and rocked on his shoes. "Oh, now there's a question. A dozen times a dozen, at least, some of them absolutely vicious. But not all in the way that you mean. Any beautiful woman with half a brain is dangerous."
And also there were women who were dangerous because of who their male relatives were. "Sending even a helpless young lady home with teeth marks on her breast and that certain glazed look in her eyes is often a bad idea," he said. "Especially if they have male relatives." Fathers, brothers, husbands -- anyone likely to mount a hunting party and come after John with shotgun or worse. In the old days, that sort of thing had gotten him fired from several tutoring posts, if not run out of town.
John watched the play of light across her face. "I haven't met many murderers, though... Not amongst the living, anyway."
Bethany chuckled quietly. “I can imagine it would be.” Her hands found their way to the back pockets of her jeans and slid into them, leaving only her thumbs loose. “Never mind the fact that the helpless young lady enjoyed every second of it, hm?”
At the mention of being a murderer in human form, Bethany’s lips curled into a slow smile. “No?” She closed the distance between them and reached up to correct a wayward curl of John’s collar, returning the touch of his from earlier. “Doesn’t sound like you’ve been associating with the right people.”
She turned her head to regard her handiwork and lifted a shoulder. “I’ve never been a good person.”
"What is that?" he asked. "In your opinion, a good person?"
John had stood still for her adjustment, wondering if she was a tactile woman or liked to deal in mind-boggling contradictions: the sharp edge of a knife versus the delicate adjustment of a man's collar. While she fiddled with it, he searched for the feature he'd remember her by. With people, there was always something, a mole, long eyelashes, a crooked tooth, a nose. He decided that Bethany's most noteworthy features were her hands, in particular what she chose to do with them.
"I might think a good person is one who puts her own interests at the head of the line, who capitalizes on opportunities to inhabit the top spot on the food chain. She'd make a good survivor, if nothing else." John put his fist to his mouth, rubbed it lightly, and cleared his throat. "Now, do I think that? Honestly, no, it's philosophical rubbish." He made a face. "It's just that being society's 'good' person is almost always the kind of thing that gets you nowhere."
“In my opinion?” Bethany echoed before she took to rocking on her heels, turning the question over in her mind until she could draw a conclusion. “I suppose it’s everything I’m not or everything my parents wanted me to be and I never was. Sweet, caring, innocent and most of all, selfless. All traits I do not nor have I ever possessed.”
She lifted the bag at her side and moved it from hand to hand. “As you can see, I have quite the vindictive streak.” Bethany tipped her head as she heard a conversation between two squabbling lovers two alley widths away, wondering if the woman had been kissing somebody else or the man’s jealous nature had made it so.
“I’ve strayed as far away from my destiny as I can.”
John heard it, too, and looked at the building as if he could see through it. "I'm not sure you can. It's a bit like trying to run away from your shadow." He couldn't help thinking about interrupting the argument, making a meal out of both of them, even though it wasn't his style. He avoided skirmishes when he could, since intentionally getting into them seemed like doing things the hard way for the sake of it. Which, come to think of it, was probably why John got so bored all the time.
He ought to look into it. Kill someone out of revenge, pure and simple. Do what she'd done and see how it settled.
"Then again." John scratched the back of his neck, then turned his shoulders in a circle, as if working a quick kink out of them. "I suppose you never have a shadow if you spend all your time in the dark."
"Say." He searched through his pockets, finding nothing but his wallet, a phone, and quarters. No pen. "The next time you get the urge to do something really, you know, debauched with your night, why don't you call me. How's your memory for numbers?"
“I rarely spend any time worrying about it,” Bethany remarked with a shrug. She had very little regrets and she certainly wouldn’t change a thing about how she’d lived her life, not when she had enjoyed every second of it.
She pulled her lower lip into her mouth and nodded her head. “I’ve got a good memory for numbers, so if you give me your number and the next time I’m,” she trailed off and rested a palm on his chest, right where a heart might have been if he’d been alive. “Feeling the urge for debauchery, I’ll give you a call.”
Bethany’s lips quirked in the corners. “You might enjoy it.”
He looked down. Raised the brows over his hooded eyes. Well, alright then... now we're getting some where, aren't we? John gave her his cell phone number from New York. "It's 212-475-5555." Because her willingness to reach out had given him unspoken permission to do so, he touched the underside of her chin, and thought she was softer there. "I'll be on my way now. I don't want to get in the way of your cover-up."
Bethany took note of the number with a nod of her head, committing the numbers to memory. She didn’t pull away from his touch and simply lifted an eyebrow. “Probably a good idea.” She did have a couple more stops to make before she could call it a night. “I’ve still got a long night ahead of me.”
She inhaled and moved on the exhale, brushing past John. “I’ll be in touch.” Bethany’s strides may have lacked the same impact given that she had no heels to better accentuate her sway, but it was still sexy, confident and arrogant, all the things Bethany was and more.
“Hope you have a good night.”