Van Helsing

Jinx looked back at Lexie and then at the road in front of them. "Hm... who knows. She's a horse, we can't know what she thinks."

 

"True," Van Helsing smiled. "Though you can ask Beatrice... Edward's thoughts told me," he added in explanation.

 

"Ah, I see. That is true, she can know." Jinx nodded. Then she frowned. "I hope hearing animal's thoughts doesn't make it hard for her to hunt..." she thought outloud.

 

Van Helsing nodded. "Maybe it's someting where she can just hear the animals she knows... or chooses to focus on." He shrugged.

 

"I hope so." Jinx sighed. "And anyway, I guess you don't really focus on anything but hunting when you're hunting. Other thoughts sort of drift away, so maybe her ability would as well." she shook her head. Why am I worrying like i'm her mother? she thought, almost amused.

 

Lestat tensed, his hands twitching like a breeze through the night. Help her? he thought to himself, almost incredulously. No... but her mind can tell me if she's telling the truth or not...

He reached out, shutting his eyes, taking little memories out of the girl's head, painlessly, so she would not notice as she eyed the man's gun with fear. He could see her in his mind's eye now: working, serving tables, helping people to rented rooms, cleaning floors, closing shop, all talking to no one most of the time...

"Please," the girl pleaded now. "I'm telling you the truth. Let me be."

She is, Lestat sighed in his head. Stupid humans...

The man wasn't convinced, and Lestat could see him step toward the girl now, and she backed against the alley's wall, her eyes full of fear.

"Just listen-" the girl began in desperation now, but the man lifted the gun and shot above his head, the sound echoing off the nearest walls and cutting off her sentence. The man pushed the hot muzzle of the gun against the girl's cheek and she screamed in pain as it burnt her skin.

Enough, Lestat decided, and whipped behind the man, a whisp of wind. He drove his forearm hard into the side of the man's head, sending him off balance. Lestat grabbed his arm now, twisting his wrist till he heard a sickening snap, breaking the bone and causing the gun to fall to the floor. The girl was frozen in fear against the wall, not able to see who was attacking the man in front of her.

The man wheeled around, trying to see Lestat. The vampire chuckled, his eyes fading black. "This isn't your night, is it?" he whispered aloud, and the man took a swing at him with his good fist, hitting air. Lestat chuckled. "Can't manage to find anyone your size, can you? A poor girl and an opponent you can't even see... no middle ground for you."

Lestat grabbed the man's hair, dragging him by it to the other side of the alley, slamming him hard against it. He let himself materialize out of the shadow now, and laughed at the man's gasp of fear. Lestat yanked his head up, exposing his throat at an extreme angle.

"You don't deserve to live," Lestat snapped, nicking his fangs along the man's neck painfully. "But you don't really deserve to die, either."

Before the man could cry out again, Lestat sunk his teeth deep into the neck, drawing as painfully as he could on the hot, rush of blood that hit the roof of his mouth and coursed sweetly down his throat.

He let the man go a moment later, letting him slide down the dirty floor, his broken wrist, bruised face, and torn neck hardly visible in the dark. Lestat knelt by him, grinning with his sharp, stunning teeth.

"I've drained you to the point of death," he whispered sharply, his eyes on fire with delight. "If I leave you here, you will die... and that is what I intend to do, because it will take a while. And just make sure you don't crawl away or scream again..."

He pulled a spare handkerchief out of his vest pocket and tied it around the man's head, gagging him silently. Then he stood, smiling, and stamped hard on the man's ankles, breaking them both under one of his boots. The sound made him flinch, and the man's howl of pain was barely audible through his weak, almost dead state and gag.

Lestat turned to the girl now, whose hands were gripping the wall behind her in shock, as if it were holding her up and conscious.

"Don't be afraid," he said politely. "You can go, mon cherie. I let the honest ones live. Oh, and," he added as she nodded mechanically and stepped toward the lighter side of the alley. "If anyone asks, you were robbed. Tell your family an angel saved you and let you live."

With that, he turned back the way he came, drifting into the nearest shadow once more and speeding faster than usual off in the direction the carriages had taken. Oh, John, he sighed to himself. If only you could see me now... and now that's about the tenth of the damage I could actually do... He laughed.

 

"I guess so," Van Helsing replied. "You can always ask her and find out."

 

"Yeah, I'm not sure if she's gotten a chance to find out how it works yet, though. I think she's only talked to Sorin, last time I talked to her. Maybe we'll see next time she hunts..." Jinx said.

OOC: oh yeah... THAT BIG POST WAS HECKA EPIC!!!!!!!!

 

Van Helsing nodded. "Yes," he spoke. "That may be a good idea."

 

Speaking of hunting... I'd better remember to with them this time. "Yeah. Vampire gifts are always interesting to see as the progress." Jinx tapped her fingers on the seat.

 

"Interesting is one way to phrase it, yes," Van Helsing said. "I feel sorry for her."

 

"Of course." Jinx agreed, quickly. "I hate that she has to go through it... I just meant different gifts in general."

 

"I know," Van Helsing replied. "But at least she has you and Hannah."

 

"Yes, that's true. She's got much better support than most newborns." Jinx nodded.

 

"What am I forgetting?" Hannah asked and looked at Edward.

Beatrice listened to Jinx and Van Helsing. She had never thought that she'd be able to interact with other animals the way she did with Sorin. She let Coco and Sapphire follow after Van Helsing's carriage on their own as she drifted into thought.

 

"Which I'm glad for," Van Helsing replied after a moment. "Though..." but he faded off.

 

"I can read your mind," Edward explained with a small smile. "I can tell when you're lying or hiding something from me."

 

"Right," Hannah looked back the floor of the carriage and sighed. "Edward... I do the stupid things that I do because I don't want the ones I care about to be hurt. I bit that hunter because he hurt Beatrice. I was thristy," She made a face at the word. "too, but it was mainly seeing Beatrice hurt that drove me to that decision. And..." She paused. "I don't want to see you hurt if you fight John again...."

 

Edward sighed. "You know that the next time I fight him I will have the knowledge of how to kill him," he pointed out. "I didn't have that before... granted, yes, what I have to do will hurt me, but it's for the best cause and reason I can think of: you."

 

Lestat was still hungry. He chuckled to himself, amazed that so little blood satisfied him now. It's all in my head, he thought. I could go for months without eating if I liked... and I'd feel no fatigue whatsoever. But the thrill of killing is just too good to pass up.

John, he muttered at the man suddenly, wanting something to do as he drifted out of the town, not bothering to pay for his rented room. What's become of that hunter? I can't tell where he is.

yay for 3800! TEEHEE.