melody duffy

Melodies phone call was cryptic at best, but something felt different about this call than the previous ones. Something that made her agree to go straight to her, meeting her within the hour. “Hey, Mel.” She smiled, hands in her back pockets, a curious, if not slightly unsettled look on her face. “What is it?” She asked, though inside her body felt like it was trying to prepare for something it didn’t want to soak in. “It’s okay… Whatever it is, it’s bad… And it has to do with me?” She added, letting the petite girl know that she could sense it, practically taste the bad news in the back of her throat.

Melody was glad that Mila was in town and how quickly she wanted to meet up. “Hey Mila.” She smiled for a second and then settled herself back on to the topic at hand. “Well, this girl turned up at the Falls... drowned.” It was fair to say if Melody was involved in a case, it wasn’t anything pleasant. “Her necklace must have had some sentimental value to her and she showed up for me. Her name’s Rosemary Jones and she was looking for you. She knew you were a psychic so I was wondering if the name rang any bells for you. If you’d felt anything lately for her searching for you. She doesn’t know who drowned her, they came from behind and she never saw them coming. I don’t think it’s supernatural.”

He gave her a grateful smile, although there was sadness behind his eyes. The world was already a dark place lately, and with the discovery of more dark things, his optimism waned. “Vervain. Okay, sounds easy enough. Any other uh, herbs I should be taking or is that all?” Because she did mention other supernatural creatures.

“Not to drink or that will protect you like that.” She shrugged. “Wolfsbane works to stop werewolves from attacking you. Salt stops demons entering your home but you’d have to put it on every entrance point including windows but thats a bit excessive to be honest.”

“Yeah well, it’s nice to be nice and all that crap.” Astrid chuckled, waving it off to tell her it really wasn’t a big deal. She flagged the waitress and ordered them again. “Yeah, I noticed… You’re entire vibe is stressed… I just wanted to help.” A wolf could sense these things, after all. “You wanna talk about it?”

She’d been blunt with Astrid before about her life and now would be no different. “Well, after all the vampire attacks, work has been crazy with dead bodies piling up to my ears. I got stabbed by some of my old coven wanting revenge for escaping them. I have the deputy breathing down my neck every two minutes because he’s a dick. My closest friend in town just left on top of all that so I can’t even really vent it all out to anyone. Guess you’re stuck with the brunt of it.”

“I’m listening.” Adrian carefully takes in everything that Melody details about her past and the recent attack, his fist clenching and unclenching at his side when she says she guesses she’s not safe. Taking a deep breath, he pinches the bridge of his nose with two fingers and closes his eyes for just a moment. It’s definitely as bumpy of a ride as Melody said, but his main concern is neutralizing the current threat to her - if they need to unpack all of the family trauma, that can be done when she’s safe. And if her ‘boss’ friend has New Orleans handled, that means he can focus his attention on the potential witches here in Mystic Falls trying to murder Melody and do who knows what else to the other residents. God, he needs to remember to add Excedrin to his shopping list if he wants to make it through the rest of the year. Or at the very least, set a better example for the department so that maybe they’ll come to him immediately with these kinds of things. “Right. Well, I wish you’d told me as soon as it happened, but there’s nothing we can do about that now. You’re getting a full-time plainclothes detail until this problem is solved - and that’s an order, not a request. The one who stabbed you, did they get handled or do I need to have you sit down with one of the sketch artists?”

As annoying as it would be to have a detail on her at all times, she couldn’t help but feel like she may need it. “They’re witches. They’re pretty fast at spells that could get rid of anyone though. Just make sure the detail knows that.” She sighed. She couldn’t argue with him because he was doing his best to help. “There was a girl who helped me originally. She was with me when I first had feelings of them tracking me and then when it did happen, she found me and managed to knock her out. The guy in New Orleans said he dealt with her but I don’t know if that means she’s dead or just dealt with, you know? I can get in touch with my sister and see if she’s appeared in the witch realm.” She scratched her wrist nervously. “Sorry to bring all of this to you on top of everything else going on. Just thought you should know.”

“I don’t know, can you?” She grinned, tipping her head towards the bar to egg her on. “Pink gin. If they say no, a lemonade is fine.” 

“If they say no, I’ll make sure they have it.” She smiled. “Sometimes they say no just because they can’t be assed making it. It’s like when someone comes here and asks for a cup of tea. They claim they don’t have milk because they’re a bar not a coffee shop even though it’s on the menu.”

Astrid was only going to say hello, but paused when a moody Melody spoke. She only chuckled in response though and decided to sit down with her, placing her tray of fries and cocktail on the table and pushing them over to her. “I can order another, you look like you need it more than me.” 

Melody was more surprised that it actually worked. “I mean, I wanted a drink and food but I didn’t actually expect...” She paused and looked at the drink and food. “Er, thanks.” She picked up a fry and ate it. “It’s just been a bit of a stressful week and all that. You’re really kind.”

Levi was getting more and more angry, and annoyed, but he was trying very hard not to let it show on his face. Luckily, he was good at acting like things didn’t get to him. He just kept his calm expression, before clasping his hands together, “If only if my list of duties just depended on you.” He finally looked back towards the door, deciding that this was enough time wasted. It wasn’t him surrendering. It was him deciding that she wasn’t worth it. “Have a great day,” is all he said in a monotone voice, before leaving the room.

“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, deputy.” She picked up the files and threw them in the bin anyway and threw the tools in the sink for later. 

“There’s more than one. Okay,” he kept nodding, “Cool, cool. That’s fine. As long as they aren’t hungry, I guess.” he kept nodding, unable to stop as he processed all of the information. “So, I could get eaten. Anywhere. That’s—thought the only thing that could me was a bear. Or a shark. Not Edward Cullen.”

“Well, there’s a way to stop them controlling you and make your blood taste like shit.” She went to her bag and grabbed her notepad making a note of a store name for him. “If you drink vervain every morning in your coffee or whatever, This shop on the outskirts has it and you can get them to deliver it every month for you.”

Theo nodded, swallowing the lump that had made its home in the back of his throat. “Uh, is there more than one around?” His eyes darted to who exactly was passing by as he asked the question, paranoia quickly becoming his chief emotion as it sunk in what the safety situation could be in this town.

To be honest, it did make her wonder how he had stayed alive this long. “Yeah there are more than one vampire around. Not all vampires are bad though. Some drink animal blood or just drink blood bags. That’s not to say there aren’t the ones who would harm you and others in town.”

“He’s not all bad. A little rough around the edges, sure, but he does mean well.” Adrian rationalizes. Despite the fact that most people wouldn’t be so close with their former opponent, Adrian really does believe that he and Levi - and everyone at the station - want the same things. “’Course,” he says, closing the door behind them. “Is this okay, or should we go to my office?” He asks, clearly concerned. It’s not often Melody requests privacy, or brings the personal into the workplace, so naturally he worries when this gets brought up.

“He means well to who? You know what, never mind.” She didn’t care to know the answer because it was so much easier to see him as a total asshole. “No this is fine.” She sucked in a breath. She hadn’t thought this through, she had no idea what or how she was going to say any of it. “So this is kinda a bumpy ride...” She leaned her back against the wall. “I’m the way I am because there’s a coven in Massachusetts that does unethical things. I was made by human parents but when myself and my twin were in the womb, they used a blood moon as sacrificial magic to try and create witch babies from human blood. They only semi-failed. I can see dead but no magic and my twin could do fire magic but nothing extreme.” She began to explain. “We were raised believing they were our family until I saw our dead mum as a ghost and she told us everything. We escaped with our lives but they hunted us. My sister died from overheating which led to a heart attack on our 21st birthday.” She gently touched her necklace but not summoning her sister for this. “I had to continue so I kept moving around and got my degree and ended up here.” She moved her hand to the back of her neck and scratched nervously. “What I didn’t know was that the coven have been trying to spread their ideals to other covens around the states and in particular, the witches in New Orleans. This week, one of the witches found me and stabbed me in my side. I would have died if it wasn’t for my friend flagging it up to his boss that runs New Orleans. His boss saved my life with vampire blood but I was lucky. They’ve gone back to New Orleans to try and stop the witches from rising up I guess but what I’m saying is...” She paused to think. “I don’t know. I guess I’m not safe? And I wanted you to be aware that there may be witches in town that may not have the best ideals for humans and supernatural alike.” 

“Sad,” he said with a completely straight face, before hearing her comment and turning around, pushing some paperwork off of her table, along with some of her tools, “Oops,” he commented, wide eyed in mock innocence, “Guess you’ll have to stay overtime to clean that shit up.”

Melody’s face remained unchanging because those files were already ready to get deposed of so the most inconvenience they posed was picking them up along with the few tools that would need washing but she could play along. “Oh no, guess you’ll have to spend more of your overtime waiting for those files to be redrawn up so you can continue on with your job.” She stepped away from the body she was carving up and walking to the nearest table which was closer to him but not too close.  “What a shame.”

“Well, I’d hope med school taught you that,” he joked, before shaking his head, “No, I’m fine, a friend of mine was nearby and she patched me up. But I guess I’ll have to look into this…the vampire stuff.”

“Sometimes.” She smiled. “Well if you need any help or just some information, I have a fuck ton. You’re more than welcome to ask me some questions.” She’d dealt with enough supernaturals in her life time to know a good amount of stuff.