WHO: Judas Iscariot and YOU! That’s right, you. With the hair. (OPEN.) WHAT: Arrival. Acquiring a snazzy coat, because it is truly the most important thing in life. WHERE: The mall. Because it amuses me. WHEN: Post-dated to late evening, likely not too long before the mall closes, because DRACULA DOES NOT LIKE BURNINATION. STATUS: Incomplete Ratings: I…don’t know? Probably PG-13, to be on the safe side.
Judas blinked awake, surprised at the sudden rush of awareness. He had not been entirely unconscious after the burning – double edged sword, that – but he had possessed only a cursory awareness. He had barely been able to nudge the minds of the medical examiners. His body had been ruined, burnt so badly as to be barely recognizable as humanoid. Nudging the examiners had left him depleted, and he had expected it would take several days before he could marshal enough strength to nudge one of them toward the kind of carelessness that would cause them to prick their fingers or cut themselves over his body. Now, suddenly, he was standing upright in a small room, his regeneration already complete. He was still weaker than he would like, and his skin was still a shade or two too pale, but he was whole and unburnt. His clothes had been repaired as well, much as they always were after regeneration. They were not quite as healthy as they once were, and they showed signs of wear and tatters, but they were still wearable enough as to go unquestioned. His coat hadn’t regenerated with him, though. That was unfortunate, he’d quite enjoyed that coat.
He took a moment to get his bearings, glancing around at his surroundings. His lip curled in an ironic smile as he realized he was in a fitting room. Apparently, he would be acquiring a new coat much sooner than he had anticipated a moment ago. He had no money, but when one could make someone think the coat had already been paid for, it did not matter. He could tell it was night in the way that most vampires typically could, and he was thankful for it. While he was whole, and not as weak as he had been as a ruined corpse on a slab in a New Orleans morgue, he was still much too weak to summon even a light drizzle. Daylight movement would have been impossible, and even he could not influence every single person in this clothing store at once, even at full power. Someone would eventually have called security to report the strange, too-pale man hanging around for no discernable purpose, and as he had no idea where he was or how he had been mysteriously healed and transported from one place to another, he did not believe now was the appropriate time to draw attention to himself. He had his theories about what had happened – certain powerful infernals or celestials could have pulled this off, though he could not think why either would – but until he had more than mere supposition, he intended to keep a relatively low profile.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to go steal himself a coat. Some things were simply necessary, and a proper coat was simply one of those things.
He stepped out of the fitting room, applying just a hair of his magnetism to dissuade people from considering his too-pale, veiny appearance abnormal. It was a men’s store, not that gender mattered much to his powers. He himself preferred women, but he had been around for a little over two thousand years and active for nineteen hundred of them, of course he had sampled from both genders. Still, with only using a tiny sliver of his power, there was nothing sexual about it. In this case, the tiny sliver merely counteracted the natural human reaction to find a too-pale, veiny man unsettling or memorable. If questioned, anyone in the store would likely not be able to recall anything abnormal or memorable about him, and many, in fact, would simply not recall him at all. Judas explored a bit and discovered that it was a moderately sized men’s store in a mall. The store had several parking lot exits, and also opened into a food court in the mall itself. He had no watch, which was an important item to have right now, when he was unaware of much of his current circumstances. He would have to visit a jewelry store before leaving the mall, he supposed. While he would usually have selected a ring he liked, he was playing things cautious, and decided that for the moment all he would take was a watch. Still, first thing was first. He needed a coat. So back into the men’s clothing store he went.
He spent a bit of time browsing the various racks of clothing. He found a few items in certain sections that fit his taste well enough, and once he had his bearings and a haven wherever it was he’d been transported, he would very likely return to claim them. Unfortunately, it took him nearly two hours to locate a coat he liked. Long, black, and voluminous, nearly a cloak or a cape was not a quality one found often in modern fashion. Still, he did finally locate what he sought on a forlorn rack of bargain items. Chuckling at the irony, he took the coat, folded it over one forearm, and then moved up to the register to speak with the clerk. It would give the shoppers the illusion of a transaction occurring, though in fact it was not. What was actually occurring was a mental suggestion, delivered and then enforced for several minutes. The clerk believed a transaction had occurred, and even offered Judas a bag. Smiling far too pleasantly, Judas graciously declined and instead donned the coat straightaway. It fell about him well, and he was not disappointed in his choice. As an ironic joke toward the dreadful cape Lugosi wore in the inaccurate black-and-white classic, Judas popped the collar on the coat, which actually didn’t look all that bad. He located and removed the tag, asking the clerk if he could throw it away in the trash can behind the register, which the clerk did. Then he leaned back against the counter, explained to the clerk that he was new in town, and needed to replace his watch. He even showed the man his bare wrist and shrugged, as if talking to an old friend. The clerk gave him directions to a small store in the mall that sold watches, and Judas thanked him and exited into the food court. He glanced around, once again attempting to get his bearings, and proceeded in the direction of the jewelry store.