Prologue - Jaylene Harris

[Shrike7]

Re: Prologue - Jaylene Harris

"Jaylene, you have to focus. You're dying. I can save you, but you need to make a choice. If I save you, you'll end up like him, you understand?" He says quickly, trying to keep her awake by tapping her cheek.

 

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Re: Prologue - Jaylene Harris

"Hh, mm?" She blinked blearily again, looking up at him. Was she drunk? She felt kind of like she was really, really drunk. Who was this guy again? The tapping of her cheek seemed to help, some, but she wasn't really processing what he'd said. What guy? Oh, right, that one with the face metal. "Don think I'd looktogood bald," she grinned, though even that felt hard. "Mm just gonna rest forabit..." or, wait, something about dying? Had this guy said something about dying? That made sense, kind of, though she couldn't summon the energy to care too much. It was more like a passing concern.

"Helmeout," she suggested, weakly reaching over to squeeze the hand on her neck. Oh man, that was too much effort. She felt beat.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: Prologue - Jaylene Harris

Charles looked torn by some internal struggle, almost panicked at the short time frame he had. Finally, he made up his mind, removing his hand from her neck wound and placing his own face there. She felt the same sensation as before, and the darkness encroached faster. She made out his face once more, his lips bright red as he brought his wrist to them, then down to her own lips. The liquid that flowed in felt heavy, but refreshing and powerful, and tasted metallic. It spread a warmth through her that was almost painful in the contrast to the cold she was feeling, and she felt her body shudder, as if from far away. At long last, she slipped into unconsciousness...

The world came back to her slowly, as if she was walking out of a tunnel. She felt indescribably hungry, and had to do something about it... Now.

 

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Re: Prologue - Jaylene Harris

The intensity of the sensation washed any prior thoughts out of her mind as Jaylene's eyes snapped open. She felt sick with it, as if she'd never been this hungry in her life. Groaning, she struggled awake, senses roving for something to eat right now.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: Prologue - Jaylene Harris

Jaylene felt that what she needed was close, was right near her. Her vision was clouded in red, but her body moved on it's own, crawling its way a few feet over and grabbing what she was hungry for. She sank her teeth into it, and was rewarded with the taste of food, sweet and rich, pouring down her throat. She gulped it down eagerly, and as her hunger was sated, her mind slowly became aware of voices, though she only heard, she didn't understand...

"...know the laws."
"Fuck that! She was dying!"
"She was a Kine, a single life doesn't matter."
"I could have just told you that bastard who attacked us did it, you wouldn't have known!"

 

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Re: Prologue - Jaylene Harris

As she felt herself slowly coming around -- oh God, that sensation had been just awful -- she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, turning to the voices as she scanned the area... where was she? And for that matter, what had happened? She recognized one of those voices, at least...

"Charles?" she interrupted weakly, pushing herself awkwardly to her feet. She felt different, some how. It still wasn't entirely kicking in that she'd just drunk blood of all things... she was feeling just a little disoriented.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: Prologue - Jaylene Harris

Jaylene looked around weakly. The first thing she noticed was the biker's body laying not a foot from her, arm across her lap, puncture marks in the wrist. Looking further, she noticed a new car in the lot, a silver Mitsubishi, presumably belonging to the man arguing with Charles. He was fairly tall and well-set, with a thick-looking face and a Russian accent. Neither of them seemed to have heard her, they were too into their own argument.

"You could have, but you didn't, and as Scourge, I have a responsibility to bring you to justice."
"Fuck that! I'm passing through, some Sabbat asshole you can't manage tries to kick my ass, and all this is my fault?"
"I'll give you one last chance, if you don-"
"Fuck that! I'm leaving, and I'm taking her with-"

Charles was interrupted mid-sentence as he simply burst into flame, as if by magic. Something primal inside Jaylene screamed, and tried to force her to run. It was deathly afraid of the flames, and it wanted to leave.

 

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Re: Prologue - Jaylene Harris

She had just shoved the arm off of her lap, bemused and not as horrified as she probably should have been, listening to the argument, when she saw Charles burst into flame. A part of her flinched, and she rose to her feet with that same screaming urge... but to run away, instead of to feed.

But she was definitely on Charles' side here; throughout this short and messy debacle he'd been the only one watching her back, and she wasn't going to run off. She owed him one, though what she could do... Jaylene looked around frantically, then down at the body laying near her lap. A heavy leather jacket was probably the closest thing she had to a fire blanket; God knew there wasn't much out in a parking lot in the middle of Red Deer to put out a fire anyways. By the time she ran inside to grab an extinguisher, it would probably be too late.

All this in a few heartbeats (or... well... there was something wrong with that analogy now) as Jaylene reached down and began tugging the jacket off the man. She didn't know about torpor or that the massive wooden splinter in his back was probably the only thing keeping him from putting a few more holes in her, so she didn't try to avoid the wood there as she roughly yanked the monster's arms out of their sleeves and pulled the jacket off his back.

If she was able to, she ran to Charles's aid, the heavy jacket out as she yelled for him to drop and roll, in order to more easily smother the flames. She didn't have time to deal with the man who'd done this to him, though the shrieking fear of the fire did lend strength to a growing fury for the cold-blooded bastard...

 

[Shrike7]

Re: Prologue - Jaylene Harris

Jaylene manages to tear the jacket off the biker, but the impromptu stake comes with it, and he wakes up, letting loose a feral scream of rage as he stands back up. This draws the man's attention in that direction finally, and just as the enraged biker turns to pounce at Jaylene, he is lifted into the air by an invisible force.

Jaylene, against every fiber in her body, runs over and starts to help Charles, throwing the jacket over him in an attempt to smother the flames. It works, and Charles is finally put out, though he looks much the worse for wear, laying motionless on the ground, blisters all over his skin, but still alive, as far as the term applies to a vampire.

"Woman." The other man says, drawing Jaylene's attention away. The man is still in the same position, staring at the floating biker with a hand outstretched. "There is a holstered gun on my left hip. Shoot this one, If i stop concentrating, it drops. Do you understand?" He says with his out-of-place accent.

 

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Re: Prologue - Jaylene Harris

Only when she was sure that the fire was out (oh God, please let the fire be out; if it wasn't she didn't know what she was going to do) Jaylene turned her attention back to the one who was holding that biker... somehow. She didn't understand what was happening, but she knew that the both of them were bastards that she didn't particularly want to help all that much.

"What the fuck makes you think I'm gonna help a fucking faggot like you out, huh?" she snarled, "you lit my friend here on fire! Fuck you!" She was certain that he'd do it again if given the chance; as far as she was concerned the two of them could fuck right off while she brought Charles to the hospital.

((XD Oh my god, I hate using certain insults, but I think she's pretty coarse-mouthed when she's mad. Just a random NB to toss in here, I guess!))

 

[Shrike7]

Re: Prologue - Jaylene Harris

((Hehe, and the one you picked has two 'g's, usually ))

"Well, I could just let him down." The man says sarcastically. "I'm sure he's love that. Just shut up and kill the bastard, would you?"

 

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Re: Prologue - Jaylene Harris

((I thought so! Firefox bullied me into changing it with little angry red underscores. XD))

Jaylene contemplated nabbing the gun and taking care of the Russian first... but given that he had, one, set Charles on fire without so much as dousing him in kerosene or dropping a lighter on him, and two, was currently holding the big pointy ape that had so nearly kicked her ass (and killed her, she was remembering now,) Jaylene didn't think that she wanted to know what else he could do. Not first hand, anyways.

"Look... I'll do it if you promise you'll leave Charles and me alone." She wasn't even sure that he was still alive (didn't even know that he wasn't really alive to begin with... was this some kind of nightmare or something?) but she desperately didn't want to wind up in the faux-biker's shoes. "You go lighting us on fire and I'll kick your ass so hard you'll be tasting shit for a week," she knew the threat held little validity, but she was scared enough that she felt the need to posture.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: Prologue - Jaylene Harris

The man said nothing for a minute, still focusing intently on the floating beast, who was flailing around midair in a frenzy. "If you can convince him to actually come to the prince and introduce himself, Then I shouldn't have to. He may still be held accountable for what he did to you, however, so you may only be delaying his Final Death. Is that good enough for you?"

 

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Re: Prologue - Jaylene Harris

Jaylene didn't have a clue about the intricacies of vampire society. She still didn't even know what she was, for cryin' out loud. All that she was certain of was that this douchebag had lit a perfectly nice guy on fire and was, somehow, God knew how, holding the fucked up monster-man that had attacked her (and a perfectly nice guy) in midair, like some kind of crazy fucking circus trick, only she couldn't see any cables or wires, and this all seemed like far too elaborate an act to be staged... didn't it?

Walking warily over to the blondie in the expensive clothes, sort of expecting to get crushed or set alight or frozen or some dumb thing, she reached for his holster from as far away as she could. She assumed that he could overpower her (or, like he'd threatened, drop the monster-man to deal with 'em) even with the sidearm to her advantage, so she didn't even bother to hold him up. Instead she looked the thing over, flicking the safety off if it were on, but not aiming it at the floating man yet, but considering it.

The most she'd ever shot before had been gophers and the occasional crow... well, not counting the neighbor's crazy fucking horse that they'd needed to tranquilize... still, she had doubts about just shooting to kill some dickhead molester like a fish in a barrel. "You're not gonna kill us, I don't care if we have to talk to the fucking tooth fairy," she told him. Truth was, she didn't really plan on sticking around too long to do whatever the man wanted. She was still planning on getting Charles to the hospital and then getting him out of here, then going on as if tonight had been one messed up nightmare. Just so long as this batshit sorcerer-fella gave her enough leeway, things would be fine, right?

Jaylene looked the monster man over with some strange mixture of remorse and anger. "You dumb fuck, I told you to fuck off when you had the chance, now look at what shit you've gotten everyone into, huh?" She wished she'd had a chance to actually speak to the police. It'd have been comforting knowing that they were on their way to deal with this so that she didn't have to. Because of that, she lingered longer than she had to, but eventually she lined the weapon up with the center of his body mass and shot the brute, unhappy with what she was doing. This was all a bad dream, she just needed to get through this part.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: Prologue - Jaylene Harris

The thing screamed in rage as she shot it, she had to pull the trigger four times total till it finally stopped moving. The man let it drop, then lit it on fire as well, the same spontaneous way he had done it to Charles. The dead thing burned for barely ten second before it simply discorporated into ash, completely consumed. The man then turned to Jaylene, hand held out to get his gun back.

"Take his car, load him up, and go to the old courthouse downtown. Knock on the back door, and-" The man was interrupted by his cell phone, ringing in his pocket. He looked vaguely annoyed as he pulled it out and answered it.

"Hello?... Yes, I've noticed, there's one already ashed at my feet... Alright, I'm on my way, tell Jack he will have some fresh Kindred appearing at his door soon."

 

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Re: Prologue - Jaylene Harris

The young woman cringed as the monster-man lit on fire as if out of nowhere. She took a step back as he put his hand out to her, her heart (or whatever vampiric equivalent) leaping in her throat as she expected to be next on the list of toasted people.

When the fire didn't come, she eventually handed over the weapon... but only very carefully. She wasn't convinced that he'd actually saved her much of anything, and she wasn't willing to trust him, let alone follow his orders.

Jaylene backed off from the man, returning to Charles's side to tend to the man. "What's your name?" she asked the stranger once he was off his phone, not feeling so confrontational now that she knew his full ire could be directed her way at any moment.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: Prologue - Jaylene Harris

The man dropped the clip in the gun and refilled it from a box of ammo in his pocket before slipping it back into the gun and replacing it in the holster. "Vincent." He replied casually. "He'll be fine in less than a week, we heal faster than humans do. If the two of you don't show up at the courthouse tonight however, you had best be planning to leave town."

 

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Re: Prologue - Jaylene Harris

Wasn't that what Charles'd said -- getting out of town? What the hell was going on here? Jaylene frowned, wondering aloud, "and who are you to tell me where to go, Vincent? You're not a cop, besides, I don't even think that's legal."

Stubborn as she was, she wasn't planning on just traipsing anywhere that a freaking magician-psychopath told her to go. Herding Jaylene was a lot like trying to herd cats, in that sense. Then a thought hit her, very belatedly. 'Wait, we heal faster? Does that mean that Charles is like Vincent or that monster guy, too?' She was getting the inkling that she wasn't falling into the 'normal' category right now either, though she was uncertain what was different. Nothing felt wrong for her, though something didn't add up... but she wasn't going to ask Vincent about that -- she was wary that he was going to mislead her or simply send her alight and be done with it.

 

[Shrike7]

Re: Prologue - Jaylene Harris

"I am the one that ends Kindred who don't follow our laws." Vincent says calmly, kicking the pile of ash around to scatter it, before walking towards his car. "I suggest that you stop thinking like a Kine, their laws are beneath you now." He climbs into his car and takes off, heading northwards further into the city.

 

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Re: Prologue - Jaylene Harris

Jaylene stood for a full minute after the man had pulled out of the parking lot, wondering about that. She ran her tongue over her teeth, uneasy about the change she felt there. 'Kindred' and 'Kine' were new terms to her; but she gleaned their meaning well enough. 'Us' and 'them', pretty much. Whatever 'us' meant...

She returned to Charles, kneeling by him (and tugging her skirt down -- first thing that she wanted to do was to change out of her server clothing right now... most days she liked to dress up, but right at this moment, she felt a little gaudy and exposed for it) and checking on his condition. "I'm really sorry," she told him, regardless of whether he was conscious or not. "I think I got us into some really deep shit, huh? So much for stargazing..."