Lenneth (dustedasches) wrote in pastarillius, @ 2008-05-22 20:08:00 |
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Entry tags: | josh, lenneth, the wave |
Who: Lenneth Anarci, Josh Delany, and Little Sarah
Where: The streets of Serith
When: Right after the wave PT3
What: The final portion of the journey.
“Don’t know about you doll, but I’m all for finding a place that isn’t about to crumble around me as I search through it for a packet of cigarettes, because unless you got a whole lot more packets hidden on you,” which prompted him to give her the once over, a slightly teasing grin, tilting at the corners of his lips, “which lets face it, in that get up, is just a hell no, if the end of the world is about to crash on in, then I want to make sure I’m going out in style.” He was thinking, fighting back the damn pain and aching in his head, attempting to quench that which was being awoken, “my favourite watering hole, just don’t exist any more.” That much had registered with him, he wasn’t too sure if any of the apartment buildings would even be safe to enter and even if they were, what the hell would be waiting inside of them? Nope, he was figuring on heading up to the hills, up where Jade’s parents lived and up to the place that he, Jade and Bruno had raided a month or so ago. Place had been vampire free, may not be now, but as it was empty and had remained so, he couldn’t see why they’d all of a sudden find it all too interesting. The houses up there tended to be made of stronger materials than those in the more built up parts of the city, and he also figured if Bruno was alive, then at some point he was going to make his way there too.
Stocked up bar, being the holy shinning beacon that would probably get Bruno heading there, pretty much as it was what was getting Delany to decide that was the place to go. As far as he could remember there was a good few crates of cigarettes, and as he’d only taken a few boxes sporadically and no one else had seemed to have gone in the place, well as of last week, when he grabbed the last box, he was guessing they should still be there.
“I’m heading to Snob Hill, figuring the folk that lived there are going to be pretty much vampire bait, but I got a place up there that no one goes.”
"So basically you wanna find a place with a decent structure, get completely and totally lit, and wait to see if the sun comes up tomorrow?" That was what she got out of him, letting herself smile along with him. He was a sweetheart, if one didn't mind little candies full of cyanide humor which was more his speed than little sweet things. Then again, when you were a woman with a rumored kiss full of arsenic, what's a little cyanide?
Rubbing her shoulder, which had finally completely straightened, she shrugged. "Okay, I'm with you. Let's find some wheels."
There was a car or two, that looked like it might still be in servicable condition, but she passed them up before finding something that she liked better. It was a nice car, barely managed to miss getting what looked like part of a building dropped on it. An old school mustang, decent body, though she really didn't much like the paint job. Instead of going in through the front driver side, she went in through the back, popping the back side window out. With that, she just let herself into the front and proceedd to pulled the steering column apart so that she could start it.
Rather rewarding to her the damn thing start up.
"Well, you wanna drive or should I?"
As he had a clear idea of where he actually wanted to go, it would have made sense that he drove, but as his head was thumping like hell wanted to break out from it, he wasn’t so male ego bound to decide he was the better driver. “You better get the wheel, head feels like its about to explode,” which got a quick groan, but not a lot more. Though the car starting up, pretty much kicked the whole electrical magnetic pulse theory he’d had winding its way through his head out, also gave him cause to lift his arm and peer at his watch in the hope it was working once more. It wasn’t, so next thing to test out was, his cell phone, still dead and because that pissed him off it got itself tossed on the ground.
“Guess all that’s going to work is damn cars,” which was muttered out in a grumbling kind of way, but he opened up the door and slid himself inside, realizing that he needed to at least try to keep himself from passing the hell out, because seriously what the hell kind of impression did that give? Also though, he had to wonder why the fuck he actually cared, considering he’d not actually tried or bothered about one previously.
Directions were easy to give, thing was, the roads weren’t as they had been, not when they were still in the more built up areas of the city anyway, roads were blocked, places you didn’t want to go while the city was functioning as normal, seemed to be the safer places to head towards. All was mixed up and gone to shit, as far as Josh could figure out, he was tempted to see if the radio worked, or if there were any damn Dean Martin CD’s in the car, but let that rest as he sat back in the chair and actually cradled his head in both his hands.
“If I flip out, carry on driving, I got a feeling that even if I do, the shield’s going to stay in place.” It would, as the seizure he was about to have, was merely due to his brain rewriting itself, powers and abilities were still intact and basically he didn’t need to be conscious to use them as long as he was close to Lenneth, something he somehow knew, but wasn’t about to actually say out loud. It wasn’t really more than five minutes after he’d talked that he went into what would appear to be an epileptic fit.
He flipped out and she kept driving, it was what he had told her to do. She had a pretty good idea where they were going, having been given an address and approximate directions. After watching him shiver for a moment, she pulled out a cigarette out and lit it. He'd be all right. Or at least so she hoped. Worry colored her features, but she didn't stop. There was no reason for her to stop doing what he'd asked her to do.
Just don't let him stop breathing, was her silent prayer for him. Just don't let him stop breathing. Smoking and driving, that she could do without really thinking though every time she had to slow down some, she looked over to see if he was indeed still breathing or moving or whatever.
"Josh, don't you fucking check out on me now," was what actually came out of her mouth. Snob Hill was a long way out of her normal haunting spaces. After all, she didn't deal with the rich unless they came slumming to Lucid. At which point, she served them drinks, took their money, and tried to keep from actually hurting them when they gave her attitude. Whatever energy he was giving off stayed around them and when she stopped, pulling up where he had said they were going, she got out. Reaching out around them herself to see if she could sense anything coming their way. Area appeared at least from her scan to be clean. He probably needed somewhere to sleep. Indoors and out of reach. That would be for the best. Opening the door for him, she reached in and put her arms around him, helping to lever him up out of the seat. "Come on. Gonna put you to bed somewhere, honey. And I promise to let you sleep."
He didn’t seem all too much aware, but the jerking had pretty much came to a stand still, eyes were open, but by the look in them no one was at home at present. A gurgled sort of noise came out of his mouth, nothing really comprehendible, as brain and body functions had to realign one another. His feet, kind of moved but merely in reaction to them being dragged on the ground, he had strength to walk, but not at the moment the ability to actually do so. He wasn’t far off one of her zombies, apart from the fact he was very much alive. By the time Lenneth had got them to the door of the huge house, he’d got some of his senses back, not a whole lot, but he’d managed to pull himself away from her and was walking under is own steam. Even if it were with a funny gait and seemed as if he was going to topple over at any given moment.
His brain was working, thoughts were functioning, only signals being sent out from the brain to various other sources weren’t quite configured correctly, similar to someone who’d had a stroke, as being Delany, he did feel the need to try and talk, and only ended up spilling out a complete stream of complete and utter gibberish. The loud angry grunting noise at the end of it, made it clear he realized he hadn’t said a damn thing that he’d intended too. He did however, have enough hand to eye co-ordination going onto get the door open, speaking, even though it was more than hard for him to do, was going to be forgotten about at the moment.
Staggering into the long hallway, he led the way, in a slow clumsy fashion to the back rooms, cigarettes were what he was aiming to find and sure enough he found them. Whiskey would be next, but he was just relieved to have found the damn room with the cigarettes in it for the time being, collapsing into one of the expensive leather covered arm chairs in the room, he lifted his eyes and looked at Lenneth, there wasn’t any of the normal ‘oh god not you’ type of expression going on in them, instead there seemed to be a sense of relief threading their way through his bright blue eyes. He knew, at least he did at the moment, he knew that history had been masked in lies, he knew that somehow he loved this woman and that somehow they were to be responsible for freeing Elena. He hadn’t quite grasped who the hell Elena was, it came in flashes and quickly receded back into his head.
Love however was an alien emotion, a thing that he’d never wanted to feel for anyone, and which he felt somewhat chagrined rather than relieved at feeling. Not that he was going to knock that he had damn good taste, but seriously pain was not his thing, so why her? She had good legs? Yeah, he knew it was nothing quite as shallow as that, pity though, because if it were, it would simply go the hell away when someone with nicer legs came along.
Time to try talking once more though, “Dwin, Elena …” and so a long list of names began to came out of his mouth, not what he wanted to say and not what he was thinking about, though all the children were mentioned in succession, those of the first born, some of which Lenneth may have heard of and some of which she surely would not have, those that had been plucked from her families history by the ones that believed they were doing right by the mother. If he hadn’t shut up, he would have continued on and on until the lines were mentioned, each and every name, until it reached those she would be more familiar with. Josh decided that smoking, when he could stand up, was the only thing, other than drinking a whole lot of booze his mouth was going to be doing for a good long while.
Lenneth was trying so hard not to be amused by the childish gibberish he was spouting. Most of it made no sense to her, though there was a word or two that she did catch, understand, and know was used completely out of context. A noun in a place where a verb should be. Yet she let him go on, as long as it didn't look like he was going to face plant onto the hardwood floor, he could go where he pleased and she would just kinda follow along. It was a good thing to her that he was moving on his own, she had worried that he was going to die on her. Yet it appeared that he was on his way to being okay. That made her feel better, though she still felt the need to touch him and make sure that things were all right.
He collapsed into a chair and she just looked around the room, taking in the place that she had been brought to by the man who was apparently her lover whether she was willing to admit to it or not. It was strange to consider that she had a lover, someone who she kept coming back to for more than just the feeling of their body against hers. Emotional support was not something she looked for or even wanted to admit to needing. Armond had supported her when she was crazy by his own choice and she had thanked him for that, though she had never asked him for any help at all. Granted, he had felt guilty for helping her to get that way. So it was basically pay back for her going after him when he needed someone.
Now there was Josh and she wasn't quite sure what to make of everything. He looked up at her and she caught him looking, curious as to what was in his face and eyes now. Not sure what to make of things like this. He was important to her. Too important for her to simply leave him alone in the street, no matter what happened.
Dwin and Elena she had heard before, even if the names meant nothing to her. Lira, however, was a name that she knew quite well.
"Lira," she repeated it with a curiosity in her tone. "The First Mother, what do you know of the Aschers?" There was another something to surprise her. Few if any knew the Ascher history anymore. Even those born to the family were ill-educated. Jorja mostly. Lenneth knew that history that had been written exactly as it had been written, unaware that the very root of it was a lie created to hide several things that were not bad things in the larger scheme of things. Then she seemed to reconsider her question. "I said I'd let you sleep, so I'll leave you be." She moved away from him, looking for whatever liquor there might be in the house. After all, she needed a drink and probably to sleep as well. All that fighting had taken a lot out of her, though she hadn't realized that yet. She had to sit down and let the tiredness catch up with her first. Which she was in no mood to do. So she was looking around in the room, suppressing the urge to question.
Sleep, it sounded good, but he knew with the way his mind was working, he wasn’t about to get a minute of it, not that he could actually recall all too much of what she’d said prior to him becoming more alert at the door. He could hazard a guess as to what she was looking for, and if he trusted his damn legs he’d have got up and shown her, but as he didn’t, much like he didn’t trust his mouth at the moment, he wasn’t about to attempt such. The cigarettes were out on the centre of the large coffee table, with a conscious effort, he made his body move forward and then realized he needed to concentrate on forcing his arm to lift and reach out, something that you tended to take for granted on any normal occasion. Not good. If it kept up he was going to end up garbling off more nonsense, simply because he was starting to become frustrated with himself and then hell knew what would be said. Finally after a lot of hit and miss attempts his hand grabbed one of the boxes, tugged it back and let it drop onto his lap. Mission accomplished. Now it was opening the fucker, getting a packet out and then figuring out how to open that, whilst trying to remember if he’d kept his lighter or if he’d tossed that too.
There was also an odd sensation, that if he slept all the things that seemed to becoming all so clear in his head, were going to vanish and he’d forget they were even in there, as other stuff would cement itself in place and priorities at the moment seemed to be settled and coordinated, he simply couldn’t talk to bring them out and into a focused conversation that had any meaning.
A long agitated sigh wound its way out of his mouth, at least he hadn’t yet another black out, the spaz attack, was more than enough for one day as far as he was concerned. Only cigarettes and the need to smoke one became all too pressing, fingers slowly began to function without him having a need to try and make them, still, he wasn’t about to attempt talking again, until he’d smoked three or four cigarettes one after the other. First got placed in his mouth, lighter was luckily found and as it wasn’t an electronic number, it worked. A deep lungful of smoke was sucked back, and only allowed to escape slowly. It felt good, a touch of normality in all the less than such happening. First cigarette didn’t take all too long to be smoked, the second was being lit from the end of the first. The stub of the first got tossed on the floor, stamped out on the expensive Persian probably hand made, more than a years salary worth of carpet.
Head was feeling less heavy, he tested out himself, by blinking with one eye, then the other, and grinned, time to try standing up. Did that, didn’t sway around too much, and then wandered over to the heavy wooden panelled walls and pressed against one, which got a panel drawing back and an inbuilt bar revealed. Oh to have the money to waste on such crap, only he wasn’t truly thinking about that, as he reached out, grabbed a green bottle and began to remove the lid.
After plucking the cigarette out of his mouth, and swigging back from the bottle, he swallowed a good bit down, before attempting to speak once more.
“Sleep, sorry delayed reaction, sounds good, but I’m more for figuring out what the hell is going on, Lira, oldest born daughter of the Mother. Aschers, were the children of the goddess and the elf, and that is all I’m saying before you tell me why you care?” If he’d taken sometime before saying that, her lineage would have became all too clear, a map of the family was not exactly all that far from his grasp, again, at least for now, after he’d slept it was doubtful anything would be as clear as it was now.
She had been looking for liquor, then she'd stopped to watch him, wondering if he was indeed going to manage to light a cigarette without setting himself on fire, which would be painful and unfortunate, but maybe then he would just ask for help rather than putting himself through this madness that he seemed intent upon. Yet she didn't go to him, didn't say anything about it. Just let it be. He smoked, she wandered without leaving the room, content whether she found something or not to let it be. After all, they were together and that was the paramount thing. Or so some part of her irrational mind was telling her. It felt entirely too weird.
That he knew anything at all about the line of witches from which she was descended just made her wonder what exactly was going on. Well, it would make sense wouldn't it, fated to be together, know something about one another. It made some sense, it really did.
A real bar, well that was something that should have been expected in a place like this, but truthfully, she hadn't been thinking about it too much. "The Aschers were supposed to have been wiped out three hundred years ago, but Lyrcos ran away with Gennivieve. Who married a man she met in the mortal realm and raised a family with him. And so the Aschers survived. Now we're broken down in the Anarcis, my parents and I, and the Drakes, my cousin Jorja and her parents." It came out as most things did, seemingly without inflection. What would he do with that information. "And the books make mention of a goddess, but we're forbidden from breeding with non-humans so where the hell did the elf come from?" She still wasn't moving to actually get that drink, this actually seemed like a conversation where she might want to forgo the alcohol.
“Wars, got to hate them right,” he muttered out as Lenneth replied to him, swallowed down some more of the Irish whiskey before he trundled back to the chair he’d been occupying previously. “Elena, the goddess, Dwin, the elf,” though he was sure he was missing something there, not just an elf, but it wasn’t too clear and he didn’t want to push that, and then lose focus on other matters. “First born Lira, but not the chosen. Youngest child a son, Elijah, and he’s pretty much how I come into the picture, funny ass old world huh? You think you meet someone and then bam, you’re their long lost something or other from a time before humans could even make shoes.” It was said with a good amount of amusement too it, but he was holding back. How much of the old hatred was still going on, was he about to talk himself into a damn fight, because he was talking ‘blasphemy’ and needed to be annihilated and more to the point, would the actual magic allow either one of them to die, until they’d actually passed on their genes. He knew he was the last of Elijah’s line, the last one left alive, well there was only one left alive at any given time, made you wonder how the fuck they’d survived. He probably should have been more shocked by all these revelations, but quite simply his mind was prepared to accept, it was created to do such and when the knowledge was open and freely flowing, it was merely that knowledge that he would not question.
“We’re going to have to find you’re cousin,” he stated, but wasn’t in any hurry to move. As the voices weren’t jumping around in his head, he guessed that the girl, wherever she maybe, was more than safe for the time being, or otherwise there’d be multicolour fireworks leaping around as his abilities attempted to seek her out.
He rested the bottle of whiskey on his lap, put the cigarette back into his mouth and ran a hand through his spiky blonde hair, before glancing over at her, “sometimes history is written by the ones that have the most to hide, but the history that is real, that can’t be denied, even if lost to those that need it, never really dies.” Sighing, because he was talking like an ass hat, as far as he was concerned, and it wasn’t truly his words that had just decided to go tripping out of his mouth. “Elena, is the dame you’ve been dreaming of with the chains. Somewhere along the line, we fucked up, we fucked up real bad and she’s the one that pays the penalty, and as far as I’m getting its up to me and you to undo the wrongs.” And if he suddenly had some huge ass weird leaping feeling that she was his sister, he swore to himself he was going to vomit. All the strange emotions linked to particular names, was unsettling to say the least, the knowledge was one thing, but the emotions? Hello, no thank you, he’d rather keep the limited ones he already possessed.
"Okay, now I'm thoroughly confused." Elijah wasn't mentioned in the books at all. Neither was Dayon. Nor Dwin. Elena was mentioned, but she was not mentioned by her name, only as the goddess from which the first mother received her power. The dream of chains had been a new thing for her. Something unexpected and unpleasant honestly. "Lira is considered the mother of our line. The rest of these people you're talking about don't ring any bells for me really." Though the name Elena felt familiar, as did Dwin. Elijah was not really a part of her in that sense for her to feel anything toward him really. "I mean, why the fuck would someone write their own family out of their history?"
It made no sense. No matter how much she hated Jorja some days, she would never remove her from existence by denying she ever was. That was just not the kind of thing that Lenneth could ever see herself actually doing. Jorja was a part of her family, part of her family that needed to be loved and respected even if they didn't see eye to eye. "Jorja's in Serith, most likely she's fine, or I'd have felt something by now." The two of them were linked enough to where it would have been really obvious if something was happening to Jorja that was too much for the other girl to handle. Besides, she had Keats who would die to defend her, something that Lenneth was all the more often thankful for in recent days.
Reaching up, she rubbed her face with her hands. "Let me see if I can piece this together the way it's explained." It was probably going to come out wrong. "Dwin and Elena gave birth to Lira, who wasn't supposed to be in charge but is, and Elijah who is your ancestor somewhere down the fucking line. Dwin's an elf and Elena's a goddess, like real honest to god capable of miracles goddess." That was where she stopped. "And she's pissed at how things turned out. She strangled me to death." Her hands went to her neck and the way that the chains had wrapped so tight, cutting off her breath and crushing body.
“Yeah, like honest to god, capable of performing miracles, and what we all do? Go crap on her, pretty much as we’ve crapped on all the others.” Though he had the love, the real love that Dwin had felt for Elena inside of him, had the real emotions that Elena had felt for the elf, had the real emotions that they’d both felt for all their damn children, so getting over that and sorting out how to feel about everything that was not merely things he could pass on verbally was new and something he needed to come to terms with. “Where’d you think the ability to conjure up the dead came from, like really conjuring them up, not the cheap tricks that your normal regular fake necromancer tends to do?
“She’s not pissed. She loves us. Its like in those dumb ass movies when they go on about the angry dead making themselves known in less than positive ways,” well actually they weren’t so dumb, Delany had found out for himself, if you ignored them when they whispered too you, they got real nasty, but now was not the time to think about that. “She’s been trying real hard for years and years to get someone to listen to her, us meeting, made her link to this realm that little bit stronger.” Or so he could figure out, but the lines didn’t want to go towards the present, they wanted to linger in the past, they wanted him to act like some kind of glorified history teacher, who’d found himself a student that had been taught modern history by a neo-Nazi and therefore knew no real facts.
“I don’t know what’s happened to me, but I do have a huge feeling, that the moment I actually get me some sleep all of this is going to be locked up and waiting to be found,” he’d been given the knowledge to perform the mind share, how long it would last, and how successful it would be, depended on if she trusted him. He saw all, knew all that Dwin had ever taught Elijah, knew that which Elena had been attempting to tell them all for centuries, but it would not last, now was the time to try and make a link, it seemed strange yet also like the most natural thing on earth. He had Elena’s emotions where Lenneth was concerned, he had his own, he had trace emotions going of who Dwin would feel, and paternal affection was not something he strictly wanted going on, much like the whole damn sister thing.
“You think you can trust me for five minutes,” he asked, his blue eyes searching hers, he knew he trusted her, but he didn’t need to tell her it was so, he also realized if he managed to actually do what he was going to suggest, she’d know everything that he felt anyway, so why say it anyway? “I’ve been shown how to join minds, it’ll show you what I know, some of it anyway, explain things, and maybe when I get to forgetting you’ll still remember the important bits and pieces.”
"And so the goddess fashioned the Aschers and the Mehrites, but she saw that there was an inequality there between them. So though she did place the Aschers at the feet of her demons, it was to them that she bequeathed the knowledge and truths of the body and soul that they might make better servants unto their masters." It was one of the three dozen ways that beginning story was told throughout the books of the Ascher histories. It helped to explain why they could do things with such ease that other types of magicians couldn't do without great sacrifices or couldn't do at all. She could recite it after all these years without missing a word. And it was in that recitation that it became obvious to others that she was off her bloody rocker like all hell. Jorja didn't believe any of that, had never believed it. Yet she also hadn't been brought up with the book, hadn't be brought up with recitations of the Word as a part of her life. Lenneth was insane because she had been indoctrinated. "Our servitude was ordained."
Now it was again becoming one of those conversations where two people were talking to each other about two different subjects without really being aware that they weren't talking about the same thing. However, there was a wide difference in what they knew to be the truth. Lira had written the family history that Lenneth had spent 20 years learning, and Josh was essentially saying that history was bullshit.
It was a lot to wrap her head around in 20 minutes. But he could show her what he knew, show her what there was to see, it was something she wasn't sure she was ready for. "I've trusted you this far, too late to back out now." Which was quite literally how she felt. Maybe she was misunderstanding him and this would make it clear. It was hard to consider, but damn it if she wasn't going to try. Never one to turn down a challenge.
Ouch, she wasn’t going to like what she was going to learn, Delany didn’t know the story that Lenneth had just recited, he didn’t know it, because it wasn’t the truth. It was a fabrication, made to the belittlement of the family, by those too frightened to unite and stand against the demons. “Servitude, is a fancy name for slavery.” He muttered out, but wasn’t going to say any more, it be far more easy to show her, as he was being shown. So it look like some kind of grand epic movie playing out in her mind, but he figured, if they shared some of this, well however much either of them were capable of doing, the truth in the end was going to find its way. Of course he had no idea just how deeply ingrained that pile of bull crap was in Lenneth’s mind, nor how the indoctrination was going to fight that which would be shown to her. Only keeping it to himself was not something he wanted to do, it probably end up zapping the pair of them, sending them both to sleep.
The cigarette got removed from his mouth, “you’re going to have to come on over here,” and he realized that he was going to sound as if he was attempting to get into her pants, with his next statement, “be easier if you sit or squat over my lap, I need to put my hands on either side of your forehead.” The contact would be made, and as far as he could figure out the magic took care of the rest. Completely unlike Josh to just go with the flow so easily, but he just knew this had to be done now, before too much whiskey, and too much of a need for sleep over came him.
"One can choose service. One is born a slave." Though it was fairly routine for any Ascher who decided they did not wish to remain in service to be killed outright. Most made no such choice though as they were indoctrinated from birth to believe in the truths that they had been given. The truths which amounted to a pile of horse shit when compared against the real truth which was that the family had magic from both sides, they weren't fashioned by a goddess, but rather born from one. Descendents from the body of something holy.
Considering their previous track record, he should have known that him trying to get into her pants wasn't really all that difficult. Just being in the same room with him made her want him. Like the man himself was some kind of whacky aphrodisiac for her. A feeling that didn't decrease due to the gravity of the situation.
Yet she did move over to him and essentially straddled his lap, her knees on either side of his legs facing him. "All I'm asking is that you not turn me into a gibbering idiot." Saying something helped her to resist the urge to lean across what little distance there was left and kiss him, which would probably cause this whole thing to get put off a little while longer.
What she was saying now, sure as hell didn’t mesh too well, with what she’d said previously, it still sounded much like slavery to him, and as he had the inner knowledge that Lenneth did not, it sounded all the more like such, for they were never meant to serve any. A family made to be free, given a chance to become that which both their parents envisioned them to be, which instead had became the complete opposite. No longer free, no longer what they had born to be. One line, namely his own, so lost they didn’t even realize they were part of something larger, and the other, happily accepting a role of lesser beings, the one role that neither the goddess who bore the first nor the elf had ever envisioned for their offspring.
Josh was all too aware of the kind of physical chemistry that jumped into action the moment he was near her, he’d been caught up in it, pretty much since she appeared and had been doing his damnedest to try and ignore such. Not that he was all too used to ever feeling the need to suppress such activities, but now, just didn’t seem like the right time, even if his body was telling him now was the perfect time. It was just going to be something it have to damn well put up with.
“Can’t promise,” he said with a grin to her words as she straddled his lap, both his hands lifting, fingers placing themselves lightly on either side of her temples. A rare moment of tenderness coming when he leant his head forward and lightly and rested his forehead against hers, whispering lightly, “ready?” Well if she was or wasn’t didn’t really matter, as it was already beginning to work, minds joining stories being shared, but the truth, the undeniable truth, acting itself out before both of their eyes. The Goddess, being seen through the eyes of the elf, the love that he felt, all of it as if they were feeling it themselves, something which had been uncomfortable for Josh, but was going to be more than such for Lenneth.
He asked if she was ready and she took a moment to take a breath. It was a good thing too, because what she felt next stole her breath. Everywhere around her was the sounds of battle, the ringing sound of steel. She had heard such before, but it was different now. Then that sight was gone, gone so completely that the afterimage stayed before her closed eyes for just a second. There was the feeling of an arm closing around her waist, helping to hold up her body. Breath ghosted across her neck and then there was the warmth of lips pressing against her pulse point.
Was it all more disturbing to look into the eyes of someone whom she was considering her parent and also feel a strange need to touch them in a way that had nothing whatsoever to do with a parent/child relationship. The intimate feeling of their fingers in her hair made her close her eyes again, reveling in the feeling. There was so much confusion in her every motion. The sensation of a small child laying on her chest, fast asleep and utterly comfortable. There was something so very familiar about all of these scenes as though she were having a sense of deja vu.
Someone laid down next to her and she turned to look at who they were, certain that the face meant nothing to her and yet it was one that she knew by touch in the dark. Breath that had a distinct scent to it she couldn't mistake. "I love you," it was unnecessary for her to say it, but she said it anyway. Then with a slam that felt like a boom of lightning that ran down her bones and deafened her, everything went utterly dark.
Her mind was less ready to be assualted by so many things at one time. As a result, when that feeling ran down her body, she started to collapse to one side.
As Josh had never attempted this before, he wasn’t quite prepared when Lenneth began to shut down, he could feel the connection being broken, but there was very little he could really do, other than gather her in his arms. He waited a while before moving her all too much, when he was more than sure she wasn’t suddenly going to waken fully, and begin to get more than verbal, he pulled himself up from where he’d been sitting, pulling her up with him. He knew the place pretty well, had came and gone from their often enough, in the last few months, and whilst all the bedrooms were upstairs, and she wasn’t exactly King Kong, as far as weight was concerned, but hell knew if what had struck the city had truly finished. Nope, he figured staying down where they were, was going to be the safer beat, and as their was a room, positioned more towards the centre of the building and placed beneath the stairs, well, he decided that one would probably be a good place to use as a safe room.
He carried her down the hallway, got to the room and opened it up, empty, he knew it was, but was half hoping that Bruno had made his way there, that when he opened the door, the smell of those nasty cheap cigars he smoked would be hitting his senses. Ah well, there was still plenty of time for the middle aged Italian to find his way there, the room wasn’t quite so grand as the one they’d left, but it was comfortable, he placed Lenneth down on the cream coloured coach and grabbed a throw from one of the arm chairs to cover her. When that was done, he left the room and went about to make sure everything was secure. He, Jade and Bruno had already gone around putting magical locks on the place, but they needed to be checked and then double checked. Holy water needed to be placed around the main entrances so it worked as seals, along with salt. As the legal owner of the place was now a dead pile of nothing, and as he’d never really existed as a human in the first place the three of them had been using the building as a place to store various bits and pieces. Just as Josh had finished up his final check on the perimeters, he caught the slight feel of a life force heading towards the building, moving slow, on foot, at a press he’d say human, could however be a lycan, which meant, he needed to make sure the bullets in his gun were made of silver.
They were, and he had three left still, he stood to the side of the main door, watched out the window, out of view, and then felt a sense of relief as the form that came into view was all too recognizable, but still, he wasn’t going to do jack shit to let him know that he was there. Bruno had made it so far, he’d even thought he was going to arrive at the house, get in there and find someway of cooking something, thing was, he’d got so far, and it wasn’t the demons, nor the vampires that got him in the end. It was a small frightened werewolf, it must have been around fifteen, may have been younger, but not any older. It had jumped out on him and had merely wanted to grab hold of someone or something, yet its fangs had punctured his skin, and he had killed it. Too late though, the virus or whatever the fuck they carried was already circulating around his system. Bruno was banking on Delany being there, he couldn’t bring himself to shoot himself, but he sure didn’t want to spend whatever time he had being wary of the full moon either.
He stopped when he got to the door, placed his hands on it and said clearly, “I know you’re in there, don’t piss me about Delany, I’ve been bitten by a hairball and I’m expecting you to do the right thing.”
Do the right thing, this was the man that had taught him the ropes, taken him around the city when he’d graduated law school and joined the police force, and now he wanted him to do the right thing? What the fuck was Bruno’s idea of the right thing? A silver bullet between his eyes? Yeah Delany knew that was exactly what Bruno was figuring on, only Delany wasn’t the same person he had been a few hours ago, and instead he just opened the door up, and looked squarely in Bruno’s face, “yeah? Tough shit, yer not dying, and there’s too much to do to waste bullets on you.”
The two of them talked, Bruno deliberately trying to goad and anger Delany, but it was to no avail, the fact that they both knew that for the most part the werewolves were the least of their worries, seemed to make Bruno at least as far as Delany was concerned, agree with him. That was until he got up to leave him and head back to the room where he’d left Lenneth and Bruno, well he’d learnt how to pick pocket and used one of the three remaining bullets on himself.