#emeraldhellfire

Unfortunately, loss always came with war. It wasn't easy, it wasn't pretty, and it was always the most innocent of people that tended to be the ones who paid the price. This time was no different than the others. Only that the people they'd lost were truly innocent in the eyes of everyone but the people who saw them as a threat. He couldn't imagine what this was like for Lorna. She was trying to do good, she was trying to keep these people safe and in the end they were the ones that paid the price. And it killed him to think there wasn't much he could do other than offer her some comfort. Steve had grown to care for her but in his moment all he could do was offer her his shoulder. At some point he would figure out how to rectify the situation but until then he would offer whatever he could to help her.

In the back of his mind, though, he wondered which of them had ratted them out. Who decided to sell all of them out and what was the price?

"I know," he told her, pulling her closer to him. They'd done everything right and somehow they still managed to lose more of their kids. Someone had to have sold them out and he would make them pay dearly for that. It was one thing to target them. They could handle it. But children? That went against everything that he stood for and it disgusted him more than anything. "It kills me that someone went after a child, Lorna. We've got some things we need to talk about, but not here. Not yet." They both needed to deal with what had happened before they could figure out where they would go next. They'd also have to figure out their method of relocating mutants so that it couldn't be breached like this time.

A part of him still couldn't believe someone had infiltrated their group. Or someone had decided to flip sides. It was more likely than he liked to think about but he'd seen it far too many times before; they were lured with something they wouldn't ever get all for a small payoff. He figured Lorna was probably thinking of the same thing; that someone was betraying them in the worst possible way. It would hurt but they would be better knowing who the traitor was.

"Of course we can. There's no rush getting back inside." He offered up another smile, knowing that he was grateful to be there, too. If anyone could help it would be him. His work with mutants in his own universe meant he knew that people were afraid of what they didn't understand. And mutants were something they didn't understand. "I'm glad to be here, too. I've tried to help the best I can but I know there are people here who don't like me being around. You wanting me here is all I need to know."

it stung. it certainly wouldn't kill him but the blood loss rapidly enhanced his thirst and the longer he'd be without it - he'd be in no shape to go on defending or defeating. Of course she was far more than enough to hold her own but an immortal partner? The reason she went along with him sticking around but why he had? he's honestly not sure but the very idea that an entire species was being targeting for being different it sat in him heavily. Of course his hands were by no way clean but these wankers needed to be picked off one by one until the world was a little less stained because of it.

he hears her voice like it's in some faraway haze but his senses flare the moment he smells her skin come clsoer. he immediately clasps her arm to tug her wrist to his mouth. he doesn't even think about it, his hunger urging him as his fangs drop and right then sink through her skin.

her blood is sweet as it touches his tongue and his eyes close on the feeling of rejuvenation that crawls through his veins. She tastes somewhat different than an average mortal, far different than the spark of magic from a witch's blood. It's more than enough to usher in healing as her blood slides down his throat. A small noise is made because he tells himself subconsciously to let her go. Too much blood taken would be dangerous, he knows that.

“There’s someone following you,” Harry says as he slides into step beside her.

From the rooftops, Harry watched a rather plain looking man tailing this woman for several blocks. Nothing about his person looked overtly suspicious, but something about his stride instantly set the hairs on the back of his neck on end.

He’d thought about dropping down in his suit and dispatching the man before he could act on whatever was in his head, but without proof that he was up to something, his new alter-ego would be the one in trouble. 

THE MANAGER IN question was a stout, balding gentleman, with a gut that arrived in the room five minutes before he did. He was a man Rattle had only ever met twice and neither time had left a lasting impression; now, thanks to the mental image of Nosferatu superimposed on the somewhat mole-like man, he’s going to have a hard time keeping a straight face should he ever meet him again. Talk about making a rod for your own back, it was bad enough that he practically choked from trying to swallow and snort out a laugh at the same time. He wipes the bottom of his glass on the napkin atop the bar from where the motion has caused the sticky soda to dribble down the side.

“Well now I’m not gonna be able to picture him as anythin’ but a bad Lugosi cosplayer, cos Brad Pitt he ain’t. Closer to Danny de Vito’s Penguin in that one Batman movie.” Not exactly a vampire and perhaps more of an insult than he intended, but Rattle’s no movie buff and he’s lacking in references. “Anyway, he’s less ‘I want to suck your blood’ --” he knows it’s meant to be Romanian, but the closest he can come is the thick Russian of his mother but he does a decent enough job at sinking his teeth into the ‘W’s and over-pronouncing the harder sounds, “-- and closer to ‘I wish to drain your bank account dry’.”

( ✉ → sms | ???) I think you’ve got the wrong number. ( ✉ → sms | ???) But for what it’s worth, Luis sounds like an asshole. ( ✉ → sms | ???) Go you for putting your foot down. ( ✉ → sms | ???) You don’t have to take that crap. Be your own person! ( ✉ → sms | ???) Tell that jerk you’re worth more than that, and then make him take you out for steak before you dump him.

@emeraldhellfire

It wasn’t as though David ever really got very tired, but. Long night.

Actually, an amendment. He never really got physically tired, at least not without some serious spellwork going on, but he really could get tired of people. There had been a time when this country was nothing but glorious space. Geography. You could hear yourself think.

David tried not to use a lot of compulsion, especially in the hospital. They were saving lives, here, and needed to be able to think, improvise. Compelled people tended to be kinda stupid. However, there were a few exceptions, and the blood bank employees were among them.

It was only a simple compulsion, obviously. Nothing that interfered with their work. Just, when he arrived, they gave him a bag of whatever was plentiful at the time, and he, in return, encouraged healthy family members to donate blood. Keeping himself sated was the only way to avoid little slips on nights when the ER was awash with blood.

Not those kinds of accidents, for fuck’s sake. He wasn’t a child. But if someone looked up at the wrong time, and saw the hint of a curved fang descend from behind his upper lip, or saw the veins across his face ripple darkly, he could have a mess to clean up. And that would take time away from the considerably more pressing work of keeping people alive.

“Thanks, Jessica,” he said, as he wiped the last drip from the corner of his lip, and transferred the bag to the medical waste bin.

“You’re welcome, Dr Carter,” she said, already beginning to forget why, and returning to inventorying supplies.

And back upstairs, feeling considerably better, just in time to be grabbed by a paramedic wheeling a kid of about ten into the ER.

“GCS of 7 when we picked him up, dropped to 4 in the ambulance,” she was saying. “There’s a lot of blood but I don’t think much of it is his.”

“Parents?” David opened the little boy’s eyes and shone light into them. His pupils dilated, and for a moment, David thought he saw something very aware looking back at him. Not something he immediately recognized. He pressed his fingers against the boy’s wrist. Rapid, and shallow, unlike his breathing, which wouldn’t have been shit without the oxygen mask on his face.

The paramedic shook her head in a way that suggested the little boy had probably just seen something no kid should have to. For a second, David again cursed the limits of his abilities. Nothing he could do for trauma. Nothing that would save a moment’s time, anyway.

“Trauma 2,” he said, before grabbing a nurse.

The paramedic, who was the very efficient, sensible type that David preferred, was already gone. Unfortunately, the nurse was blessed with an overabundance of empathy, and an under-abundance of being able to keep it to herself, already fretting over what she’d heard.

“On the off-chance he can hear you, I’m going to go ahead and ask you to be a lot more positive,” he said, as they cut the little boy’s shirt off him, carefully. “We’re gonna fix you up, little guy,” he added.

Maybe a couple of broken ribs, some cuts and contusions. They rolled him carefully onto his side, and David saw what looked like scratches on his back. Bad ones. “Some kind of wild animal,” he said, although when he traced his finger along the edge, trying to get a feel, he knew it wasn’t a natural animal. Not a werewolf. Something he hadn’t seen before.

Shit.

“Need to get him up to X-ray. And get an MRI,” he said.

“X-ray is backed up. MRI is down, it’s being fixed as we speak.”

David swore under his breath as he cut down the side of the boy’s sweatpants. “Well, get him in the queues, anyway, and get me a johnny.”

“Yes, doctor,” the nurse said, leaving just as a woman arrived, her face a lot sterner than seemed to match her green hair.