"If you only do one thing, make sure Amanda and Rose are safe."
Alexander's voice rang through Cody's ears above the Daft Punk pumping out of his earbuds as he guided his black 2010 Yamaha R1 through the streets. Amanda had chosen Alexander and Samantha as surrogate parents for herself, much to Cody's chagrin. Of course he couldn't be the brother and the mother and father, naturally, and so his sister had imprinted herself on the duo like a baby duck. It meant his little sister was growing up, but worse, it meant that she'd also gotten close to Alexander's girlfriend Rose, which meant that she'd gone to stay with Rose as soon as this had started happening. She'd left as soon as the first calls had started coming in, and when he couldn't find her, he'd stopped Samantha and Alexander before they left.
"I can't find Amanda," he confessed. "I think she's with Rose."
The look on Samantha's face plainly said that they had already received orders, but Alexander grabbed him by the sleeve of his jacket as they'd run out to the parking garage.
"Bring them back here," he'd ordered. Technically, though they were both Level 5 hunters, Alexander out-ranked him in some unspoken rule of hierarchy. He avoided Dev on his way out, literally sprinting to his motorcycle and taking off. Onyx's job was to extract family, so that was what he was going to do. Nevermind that it was his own. Amanda was a trainee, though, and Rose was human - shit, they were both human. Amanda could hold her own, but she was still a trainee, and she'd a false sense of security up until this point. He didn't want that bubble broken just yet, and he knew that he couldn't let them down. Any of them.
Where would they be? he wondered. Amanda wouldn't have let Rose go home, so she'd have brought her back to her own apartment. Stupid. Of course that would be the first place Midnight teams would look, and in fact they'd already started taking out homes. He just hoped he had enough time to get them out of there before it was too late.
It was in the dead of the night, and so he did what any red-blooded man would do, and rode his bike straight through the front door of her apartment, parking it in the lobby. He hit the elevator with his gear on, glad that the security shift had apparently taken the night off. He could feel his narrow window of time closing around him.
Amanda had been planning to meet Rose after work, but their dinner plans had been cut short when Rose was called to work late. Amanda had fallen asleep in her room, only to wake up to a loud pounding on her door. She jumped up and flung it open to find Casey dashing away. She opened her mouth to yell something, but she realized that Casey was banging on everyone's door, waking them all up. She shook the haze of a few hours' sleep off of her brain and grabbed her bag. Something was happening.
She grabbed another trainee, Irene, who was booking down the hall. "Hey, what's going on?" she demanded.
Irene half-turned, walking backwards quickly. "Midnight's attacking," she explained. "Your brother's already moving. You need to get with the rest of the trainees and find out what they need you to do." And with that, she turned and ran down the hall.
Amanda stood, stunned in her doorway, and then turned back into her room and grabbed a quick bag. When she emerged, she pinned herself to the wall to avoid the oncoming traffic. She absolutely did not group up with the rest of the trainees, which was going to get her chewed later on, but she called Rose on her way out.
"Hey sweetie, have you talked to Alex? I know what time it is, I'm sorry. Listen, I'm on my way, and I need you to be ready when I get to your apartment, okay? If Alex calls, tell him I have it covered. I'll explain later, I promise. Just do what I'm saying for right now."
She got into the garage and jumped into her car, a dark blue Mustang, and ripped out before someone could stop her. When she got to Rose's apartment, the girl was, thank God, sitting on the couch with a small overnight bag packed.
Rose hadn't gotten off of work until like, midnight. She was pissed that she'd had to miss her dinner date with Amanda, but only because Alex had gotten to see a movie with Samantha. She didn't resent Samantha at all, but it did tick her off a little when her own plans got canceled and she couldn't see her boyfriend because he had a sense of obligation to keep his plans. She had no idea why Isabelle and Justin had needed her at work so late, because as far as she could tell, there hadn't been much to do. Regardless, she'd gone home and gone to bed shortly before one, only to have her phone go off at three.
Amanda was talking so fast Rose had to get her to slow down.
"No, I haven't talked to Alex. Amy, do you know what time it is? Wait, why are you on your way? Alex is probably already asleep - hey, quit cutting me off! Why do I need to pack a bag! Darnit, Amanda!" And she got hung up on. Rose stared at her phone, then scrolled through her calls. No, nothing from Alex. What the fluff?
She ambled to her closet and packed a bag, thinking that this was some stupid joke she was now a part of, and then dragged it out to her couch. Luckily she had done laundry so she had clean clothes for once, and she sat there in jeans and a knit sweater, half-awake and waiting with wild anxiety for Amy.
When her friend finally got there, she practically yanked her out of the apartment. Her brown eyes were wild.
"Listen, we've got to go. I'm taking you to my apartment for a few days. I can't explain it, but we're not safe. You can call Alex on the way."
"Amy, come on and quit screwing around," Rose said. She plopped her bag down and stared at her. "Tell me what's going on or I'm not coming with you at all."
Amanda gave her a strong look that made Rose swallow her threat and pick up her bag. She hurried after her down the hall, wondering why Amanda kept looking around, and then gasped when she pulled out a gun. "What are you doing?" she hissed. "Put that away!"
Amanda relied heavily on that hard stare she had to keep Rose in line until they could get back to her apartment. When Rose started harping on her about the gun, she finally whipped around. "Listen, I will tell you when we get to the apartment, but right now, I need you to trust me." And with that, she grabbed Rose firmly by the hand and dragged her to the car.
On the way, she tried to offer a brief explanation, but she couldn't think of anything to justify this. "Something bad is happening. I just needed to get you with me so that I could watch out for you. I'm not even supposed to be here right now, but you're kind of like my sister so can we just trust that I'm not crazy until this blows over?" she asked.
Rose nodded, and the rest of the ride was in uncomfortably loud silence, punctuated by Amanda's rather booming exhaust. Once they'd gotten to her apartment, they went straight in through a service elevator that had an Out of Order sign on it and down the hall in a flash. She slammed her door and locked it with several locks, then motioned for Rose to help her push the couch in front of it.
Rose finally threw her hands up. "Okay, NOW can you tell me what's going on?"
Cody called Amanda's phone on his sprint down the hall. He could hear their voices inside of the apartment, and when he tried to open the door, he could hear Rose practically yelling while Amanda's annoying ringtone drowned the rest of the music out.
"Open the door!" he hissed from outside, hanging up his phone.
There was a loud scuffing sound and then several metallic ones. Finally, the door opened a crack. Cody reached out and pushed it open, hitting his sister in the face as he did so. She doubled back and held her nose, then punched him in the arm.
"I can't believe you were this stupid," he barked. "Rose, get your things. Amanda, get your things. You're both following me back to Onyx."
"Onyx?" Rose piped, at the same time Amanda parroted with "Stupid?!"
"I don't have time for this. Rose. Bag. Amanda. Bag. Let's go." He turned to Rose, specifically. "Alex will meet us there," he offered, as though it would bring her reassurance.
Behind him, the ding of the elevator was heard.
Amanda froze, while Rose continued to move. With a quick snap, she reached out to still her friend's shuffling, and motioned for Cody to close the door, which he did as quietly as he could - but not before he got a glimpse of a young woman with bright reddish-pink hair stepping out and giving the hall a good lookabout.
"Fire escape," he ordered.
They went.
Elevator music made NO SENSE. Seriously, you were already trapped in a little box, usually with other humans who were disgusting or at least unpleasant, and then you had to listen to that? Were they trying to lull humans into a calm state? Perhaps for the purposes of slaughtering them like cattle, or to make them docile and easy to manipulate. Those would be interesting purposes, but she'd never seen anyone accomplish that, and she most certainly wasn't going to let it work on her. All the elevator music did was make her more restless, bouncing on the toes of her heeled boots as she waited impatiently for her floor.
The doors opened with a cheery DING! and she exited, peeking down the hall to both sides in search of the young hunters she was sent to play with. She caught the brief glimpse of an open door and a face glancing out, smirked, and sent off a message to Jeremiah to keep him on the same page.
It's the apartment we thought, I have the internal exit covered.
That left Jeremiah to take care of the outside, and Scarlet was just fine with that. She sauntered up in the direction of the door, knocking lightly on it and then jerking out of the way, just in case bullets came through the door immediately after. Hey, caution could save lives!
"Little pigs, little pigs, let me come in!" she called happily, though she wouldn't be blowing their house in. She'd blow it up if she got frustrated, but there was a difference. Actually, roasting a few little pigs in their house sounded like a good solution to the problem. Why hadn't the wolf thought of that? He'd have had his dinner and it would already have been cooked!
Seriously! Sometimes, she wondered what kind of idiots wrote those stories. Obviously, not the kind of idiots who knew anything about hunting down little pigs. Fun, tasty little pigs.
Cody didn't really expect for the door to do much good, honestly. It was all he had, though. He'd try to act as a buffer between the girls and whatever was coming through the other side for as long as he could stand it. He'd give them a fighting chance, at least. He backed away from it and turned to watch Amanda slipping through the window and onto the fire escape, her willowy figure a flurry of motion as she took both she and Rose's bags down with her.
Rose was at the window still, watching her as she climbed down. Amanda was going to have to act as a landing pad for Rose, it seemed. She was more resistant to injury and better at dropping from heights, so for her own benefit she'd know how not to break her ankle when she dropped the remaining fifteen feet the fire escape left to be desired. Rose, however - Rose would have to just drop to Amanda and hope she caught her. Which she would, of course. Not gracefully, but she could manage.
He watched as Rose's face contorted into shock, and her hands flung up in warning. Then, of course, Amanda screamed bloody murder. Cody ran to the window just in time to see Amanda flailing against a vampire who had her by her neck, dangling off of the side of the escape. He jerked his head up and smiled a grim smile at Rose and Cody.
"Coming up, plus one," was all he said with a pleasant tone.
Behind Cody, the door began to not be a door anymore. She couldn't push it open because of the shit in front of it, but that didn't mean that she wouldn't rip it down and kick the couch out of the way in a matter of seconds.
"Fuck," he hissed. He grabbed Rose and pulled her away from the window, planting his extra gun in her hands.
"She comes through that door, you shoot," he instructed.
From the fire escape, Jeremiah's voice warned, "If you shoot my friend, I'll drop your sister."
Dilemma.
Cody grabbed his phone, dialed Alex's number, and put it on speaker.
"I think we have a problem," he said, as soon as he heard Alex pick up. In the background, Amanda could be heard screaming as Jeremiah dragged her back through the window, still by her throat. He ignored Cody fully as he threw her down, through a chair which splintered.
"I'll be taking that, thanks," Jeremiah said, and yanked the gun out of Rose's hand. He discharged the round, released the magazine, and then threw both items out of the window, leaving the bullet to roll away on the floor. "Oh, are we having a three-way chat with someone?"
The little pigs didn't listen and let her in, which she wasn't surprised about, but they also didn't return with the appropriate line! Really!! What was wrong with them? When there were no bullets, either (the pigs weren't supposed to have guns), she hit the top of the door with one fist in her own version of the 'cop knock'. The difference was that when she knocked, the door splintered, and she didn't stop at a single knock. If they weren't going to let her in, she was going to prove exactly what kind of wolf she was -- the kind that was going to rip the fuck door down to get at them.
She'd torn the top of the door apart in time to hear the male hunter kid tell someone else to shot if 'she' came through the door, and that was enough to make her duck her head to the side (bright hair = bright target) until she heard Jeremiah inform the boy that if they shot his friend, he'd drop the sister. His friend! How nice!
"Love you, too, Mistah Jay!" she called back, deliberately using a horrific New Yorker kind of accent before cackling and slipping her hand in the broken half of the door to unlock it. It was cake from there, since pushing the door also pushed the couch in front of it out of the way once it was unlocked. It was a nice try, but she probably could have done it even being shot at, if she'd had to. Since she didn't, she was much happier.
Because there was no way the hunter kid was going to risk his little sister just to take a shot at Scarlet. That would be stupid.
"Who's on the phone?" she asked, having heard Cody tell someone that he thought they had a problem, which was the understatement of the year, and she'd definitely heard Jeremiah say something about a three-way chat. "If there's more company on the way, it better be someone with a sense of humor. Everyone's in such bitchy moods tonight. HEAR THAT? DON'T COME IF YOU'RE GONNA BE A SOURPUSS!"
She laughed again at the end, dropping the petulant, annoyed tone just as quickly as she'd picked it up. She had dust from the door all over her, which didn't make her particularly happy, but other than brushing some of it off and then making a snatch for Rose when the girl tried to get some distance, she didn't comment on it. "Hey there, pretty lady! What's your name?" she asked, twining her hands through the girl's long, dark hair.
Rose was in a total state of shock. She didn't know what to do, and she felt utterly useless because of it. Cody had told her to make for the fire escape, and when she'd gone to climb out she saw Amanda get snatched up by the throat via a vampire who had just shown up out of nowhere. When she looked back, another one was making her way in and Cody was handing her a gun.
And then Amanda got thrown across the room, and there was one less chair - and Rose didn't have the gun anymore. "Alex, Alex please - "
That was about all she got before Scarlet was yanking her hair. She didn't know if she was really supposed to answer the woman with the hair the colour of tropical punch or not, so she just sort of said nothing and looked frantically at Cody for direction. Cody was useless for the moment - he knew if he did anything, Scarlet would snap Rose's neck. There was no doubt in his head, actually, and he could tell the bitch was unstable enough that she'd snap it like a twig without thinking twice.
"Amanda," he hissed, trying to see his sister from across the room. She was crumbled in a mess half under the kitchen table and half not, and she wasn't moving. He looked at Jeremiah, his entire body shaking from rage.
"Hey, Alex, how important are these people to you?" Jeremiah asked casually. He was pulling something out of the black bag he'd been carrying, and - GOOD GOD, how many pairs of handcuffs did he have? These weren't firestone, which was probably for the better considering he'd been handling that entirely too much lately, but he knew none of the humans could break through them.
"I think we're going to play a game," Jeremiah said, looking up at Scarlet. "You had your turn. I think I want mine. Would you be my lovely assistant?" And he smiled darkly, and it was kind of fucking scary.
As soon as the phone rang, he knew that he'd made a huge fucking mistake. HUGE. MISTAKE. He should have gone to get Rose and Amanda himself, because if Cody was calling him, especially this soon, something bad had to have happened. Sure enough, when he answered, Cody immediately told him that they had a situation, and Amanda screaming in the background was obvious to Alexander's ears. He didn't hear Rose, but that might have been a good thing -- it might have meant that she wasn't hurt, yet.
Of course, it wasn't long at all before he heard a male voice, one that he didn't recognize, followed by a female who may have actually been familiar, though she sounded like she was cracked. Then Rose, begging him for help and the male voice again, calling him by name because Rose had.
"I'll be there," he snapped, and though that wasn't a direct response about how important these people were to him, it was enough. He was going there, they knew he was, and he really didn't have a choice. He couldn't risk Cody and Amanda by not showing up, and he couldn't STAND the idea that Rose might be hurt. "Don't harm them, I'll be there for your game."
It was stupid, he knew it, to just show up and hope that he could talk these psychopaths into letting the other three go, but he didn't think that he could just bust in there and save them without putting one of them into serious danger. That meant he'd have to try something else, and he hung up the phone suddenly so that he could address Samantha. He had no doubt that she'd gathered what was going on, but he still had to give her a quick run-down.
"Two vampires, at least, and they have Cody, Amanda and Rose. I'm going, I suggest you don't or that you keep your distance. I'm going to try to get the three of them out if you can provide them with an exit?" he asked, glancing her way briefly before returning his eyes to the road as he took a turn towards Amanda's apartment. He already didn't think this was going to go well, which was why he didn't want Samantha going in. That would just be one more person he cared for in the line of fire, and the whole point right then was to get them OUT of danger.
Samantha didn't really have a choice. She drew her knees up to her chest as much as she was able to, which wasn't much considering she was so goddamn tall. She could hear what was going on through the phone, but even if she wasn't able to, she could tell by the tension in Alexander's voice and the way his face was scrunching up.
"Do we know who's with them yet?" she asked finally. "I might be able to provide an exit, but I want to know what I'm walking into," she added. She shifted to the left and looked at Alex, a brow lofted. "Can you give me anything to go on?"
She had a particular Therreyan who owed her a favour, and this would be worth calling it in on, but she couldn't call her blind.
"Sounds like they're important," Scarlet chirped, twisting Rose's head around just a little more and grinning as 'Alex' swore that he was going to be there for the game. Fantastic! The more the merrier, of that she was certain, and Jeremiah only made that more clear when he said that he wanted to play his own game, pulling out another pair of handcuffs. God, that black bag of his was amazing. She had to wonder what else he had in there, which meant that she might have to raid it sometime, just to see. That was, if she didn't get to see during his game.
His lovely assistant? She giggled, dragging poor Rose behind her as she approached the other vampire, making it a point to give his dark, scary smile a coy look. "You sure do know how to charm a lady, sir. Of course I will."
She turned her attention back to Rose for an instant, a bit disappointed that she hadn't gotten an answer when she'd asked for a name. She invaded the girl's mind, looking for the information and trying to determine if it was Jeremiah's fault that she hadn't answered, but it wasn't.
Rose Quick, this Alex fellow was her boyfriend, and she worked for...oh shit.
"We have a situation, Jeremiah," she said, voice suddenly shockingly serious for her, and she pursed her lips together. This was NOT fun. This one? She works for Justinian and Iloquil. Didn't they put out a no touchie rule on their people?
Yes, they had. Damn it.
We could just tie her up and let her watch. Think that'll do the trick?
It better, because she did NOT want to tangle with Justinian again. That had NOT worked in her favor, if she remembered correctly, and though she didn't, she remembered THAT part. She was pretty sure that he'd break her in half if she fucked something up and pissed him off again, and though she wasn't prone to being afraid of other vampires, she wasn't interested in being broken in half.
He wished he had more information to give Samantha on this one, but his helpfulness seemed to have failed on this one. Of course, because he CARED about this one. Damn it!
"I don't know the male vampire, his voice wasn't at all familiar," he started, and he didn't know why he'd know the female, either, but she DID seem familiar. He got the impression of RED where she was concerned, but he didn't know why. Red like blood? Yes, that too, like he'd seen her hurt before, but was that so surprising? He must have been a hunter or something before he'd lost his memory, because he'd already been trained when he went to Dev. She was a vampire, perhaps he'd run into her before. That wasn't it, though. Red. Why red?
Red hair?
It sounded right, somehow, but 'red' wasn't quite the color, was it? Not crimson, either. Scarlet. Scarlet!
"I think the female goes by 'Scarlet', I think," he told Samantha, features scrunched a little just from trying to work it out in his mind. It was strange how some things came so easily, without him even trying. It was like the harder he tried to uncover something, the faster the sand rushed back over it all, obscuring it from his view. Frustrating, much? "I don't think she was this crazy last time, though. I don't really remember."
Seriously, he wanted to hit something. Why couldn't he just remember?! Samantha and Rose, Cody and Amanda, they were all at risk, and if he could just remember a few things, he could up the chances that they'd all survive, but could he? Not a chance.
Jeremiah grabbed Cody and planted him down in one of the chairs that was still standing, then hand-cuffed him to it. He looked up at Scarlet with a half-smirk still on his face, and slipped something across his hand. He then whipped around and hit Cody in the face - once, twice, three times. Vampires hit like full-sized SUVs, too, and Jeremiah wasn't exactly going easy on him. And then, of course, there were the fucking brass knuckles he'd put on to aid him in his quest of facial deconstruction.
By the time he was done, Cody was bleeding pretty badly.
"That ought to keep him quiet for a little while we get set up," he said. As he dragged Amanda by the feet across the floor, where she was still not conscious (which was really bad, since humans were in serious shit if they were out for longer than five minutes, contrary to what bullshit movies projected). He'd just lifted her up into a chair when Scarlet started beaming into his brain.
"Oh," was all he said. He paused in mid-click of Amanda's handcuffs, and then grinned. "We're not going to hurt Rose. We're not even going to touch her. She's the star of this entire operation." And then he smiled up at Rose, and it was that demon-face again - which would cause Scarlet to laugh, but caused Rose great fear, so much so that she tried to turn and bury her face into Scarlet's shoulder to avoid looking at him. Yeah, she'd run to whoever would beat her less severely, and right now that was Scarlet. Dumbass.
Jeremiah knelt down and began pulling other shit from his bag. Long, thick needles - they were between knitting needles and fucking railroad spikes judging from their diameter, actually - and then came other odds and ends. Mostly, wires. Lots of wires. He went to Amanda, and then began the ultimate creep ritual. With two of the needles securely clenched in one fist, he knelt on one knee, half-standing but not quite, and placed his other hand gently on her cheek.
"Hey, are you okay?" he asked, his brows fixed in a position of worry. "Amanda, can you hear me?" His tone was convincing.
Amanda was lulled back to consciousness by someone gently shaking her. She was - she didn't know. She'd been doing something important, and she got the impression she had fallen into something after that - and now she wasn't quite sure. "Mmmnnh," she moaned, eyes still closed but squinted in pain. Her fucking head, it felt like she'd been hit with a bat.
"Can you hear me?"
It was a man's voice. She didn't recognize it, but it sounded concerned. It wasn't her brother - was it another hunter? She couldn't be sure. She felt her head roll back as she ebbed back into darkness, but he shook her more.
"Amanda, you need to stay awake. You've taken a bad fall. We need to get you to a hospital."
"Okay...." she whispered, her voice pained. She opened her eyes and tried to lean forward, but she fell short and realized she was stuck. She shook her arms, and then it clicked - she was stuck. She was stuck to the fucking chair. In her apartment. And Cody was across from her, also in a chair - and bleeding. And the man talking to her? That had been the asshole that had started all of this.
"Oh, GOD!" she shouted, jerking away from Jeremiah. He laughed, and it was a very full and joyful laugh. She tried to shy away from him as much as possible, so much so that she almost tipped the chair over, but he grabbed it and planted the legs firmly on the ground before she could manage.
"NOT so fast," he warned. "We're going to play a game, you and your brother and I. Tell me, sweetheart, how much do you trust that girl right there?" he asked. He leaned down behind the chair, empty hand on her chin as he forced her to look at Rose, who was utterly terrified. "Do you trust her with your life? With his?"
"I don't understand - " she stammered.
"JUST ANSWER THE FUCKING QUESTION!" he commanded.
"I - yes, yes, I trust her!" she yelled.
"Perfect."
And then he jammed the needles into the top of her thighs, and she screamed. He did the same to Cody, who screamed, but less so - probably because he had been pained in the face previously. It didn't matter. Jeremiah started tracing the wires to a box, and the box to the wall, where he stuck a plug into the outlet. He looked at Rose with a very serious expression.
"I'm going to ask you things, and you're going to answer me," he informed her. There was absolutely no trace of amusement in his face or voice. He looked at Scarlet. "Assistant, if you'd be so kind as to make our contestant comfortable?" Translation: Hold her ass down on the couch so she can't run off.
I think I can break her before Alex gets here, he admitted to Scarlet. If not, I'll get fucking close. And technically, it's not touching.
If she were to be totally and completely honest, Scarlet wasn't really comfortable with 'technically'. There wasn't much that made her uncomfortable, but this was Justinian and Iloquil they were talking about, and Justinian had made it clear just how much he disliked being irritated the last time she'd done it. As much as she liked Jeremiah, she'd throw him under the bus if Justinian got pissed about this, because she'd warned him.
In the meantime? She was going to have a blast NOT harming Rose.
She almost ended up on the floor, she was laughing so hard when Rose turned and tried to hide her face against Scarlet's shoulder and bright hair, but she maintained her feet just so that she could turn the girl back around to watching what Jeremiah was doing. That was a very 'assistant' thing to do, which was good because she was VERY SERIOUS about doing her job right. Yep.
Truly, it was just another game inside of the big game that he was playing and the even bigger game that Niall had started, just another exciting turn of events, and she was digging it. She made Rose watch as Jeremiah pained Cody in the face and eased Amanda awake only to jam needles into both of their legs, and then when he instructed her to make Rose comfortable? Yeah, she was totally on the same brainwave right then, because she planted Rose on the couch that was still by the door, leaning over the girl and temporarily blocking her view of everything EXCEPT her own face.
"Listen to me, chickadee," she said in a singsong kind of tone, smiling for Rose. "If you pick your pretty little butt up off of this couch or try anything funny, I'm going to break your boyfriend into tiny little bite-sized pieces when he shows up here, got it? Good."
With that said, she jumped over the couch to push it closer to the action and further from the door, and the took a lounging position on it so that she only had to turn her head to the right or left to watch Jeremiah or the door. Otherwise, she had a straight-on view of Rose and whatever the girl was doing on the other side of the couch, and just to make it less ideal for Rose to try any fast exits, she swung her boots up and laid them crossed on Rose's lap. Actually, she was pretty comfortable.
"Ready when you are!" she offered up to Jeremiah, obviously excited. She was liking what was coming out of that bag of his already.
"That's enough for me to go on," she said.
She turned her attention from him to her phone, which she used to dial the one person she knew that Midnight wouldn't be fucking with if they traced the call. Midnight tended not to engage Diamond directly if they could help it.
Back at the castle, Nicolette O'Dell sat in her chair with her feet up on the massive walnut desk in the archives. Across from her, Eithne sat up right and proper, sipping a cup of mint tea and flipping through pages, making notes on her laptop as she found things worth mentioning in the updates she was sending to the Diamond hunters who'd been scattered throughout the world.
Then the phone rang, and they both jumped. Nicolette almost fell out of her chair, and then grabbed the phone on the table and answered it with an excited tone. "Archives!" She'd been hoping for a specific call from someone, and it showed - Eithne rolled her eyes across the table.
"I told ya a thousan' times, you aren't his type," she said matter-of-factly. "He can't ever like a human the way you want to be liked, girl. Get it through your skull!"
Nicolette flipped Eithne off as Samantha began to ramble on. "Scarlet? Wow, okay - uh, yeah. I'll call you right back." She looked up at Eithne. "Okay, I need your help for a second. I need everything we know on a vampire who uses the alias Scarlet - as much as possible, as fast as possible."
Eithne looked interested, but only because her brows were raised.
"Well, first off, her name's not even Scarlet. It's - "
"I don't care about that stuff - I need things like age, ability, temperament. I've got two hunters about to walk in on her and they need to know what they're getting into," Nicolette interrupted.
"Uhhhh, okay," Eithne said. She got up, Nicolette behind her, and they went down the stacks into the archives. "Here it is," she said. "She's - Mother Mary, she's as nutty as a Payday." Eithne looked up at Nicolette, and then handed the documentation over. "She's one-hundred thirty nine, changed at nineteen. So, no real ability aside from the usual."
Nicolette nodded, scanning the pages. "Nutty as a Payday? Oh, wow, nevermind, I see it. Some sixty years ago she evidently tweaked Justinian's temper the wrong way and he just dunked her in crazy. Well, that's nice to know." She shut the book with a slam and handed it back to Eithne.
"I gotta go relay this." She ran back up to the phone and called Samantha back. Once she told her what she knew, she paused. "And we're even now," she told her.
"Wait, did it mention anything about anyone she hung out with?" Samantha asked.
Nicolette shook her head despite the fact Samantha couldn't see her. "Nothing. She doesn't hang around people long enough for it to get mentioned in basic archives. I'd have to dig deeper and it'd take longer."
"Right," Samantha said. "Thanks. We're even." She hung up and looked at Alex. "Okay, so, she's under one-hundred and fifty but some vampire named Justinian drove her crazy, so I think we might have our work cut out for us. How would one vampire drive another one batshit?"
He laughed, but it wasn't a nice kind of laugh when she said that Justinian had driven Scarlet crazy, then went on to ask how a vampire could drive another vampire batshit. He may not have been part of the archives at Diamond (though perhaps he should have considered being a Therrayan), but he knew that one without even trying.
"You know how the old, powerful vampires develop different abilities over time? That's Justinian's, he can drive someone completely insane. He did it to Niall when he turned him, and Niall ravaged the countryside for about a century before his insanity calmed enough that he realized who he was and what he was doing. He was completely out of his gourd all that time, and he's still not quite right in the head. It's probably why his abilities lean towards nightmares, because that's the kind of crazy that Justinian's power inspired in him," he explained. Like a lot of the things he knew, he didn't consider how because that would only muddle things up. The harder he tried to remember, the less he could, but when Dev (or Samantha, since she seemed to have either accidentally or intentionally tried Dev's trick out) asked a casual question, Alexander just answered.
It was too bad he couldn't remember more, because what he DID remember and hadn't mentioned so far just plain didn't make sense. He'd almost gone on to say that Niall had been so out of control that he'd almost gotten involved himself, but they were talking about something that happened over 700 years ago, which meant that he hadn't been ABLE to get involved. So, what the hell?
He didn't know, and perhaps questioning it right before dealing with Scarlet and her friend wasn't a good idea. Since they were pulling up outside already, he really needed to pretend that his brain was entirely under control and deal with the rest later, when he had the time for the questions. Right. This was going to suck.
Samantha hadn't actually attempted to extract information from him the way Dev usually did. She was just confused and questioning the results of her find aloud - that Alex could answer was a little creepy on a normal day, but right now she didn't care. She just wanted to know what the hell they were getting themselves into. Honestly, most of the information could have been gleaned by a thorough look at the Therrayan archives, although Alex would have been more willing to read up than Samantha had. She was thorough, but also lazy when it came to hours of research.
"The crazy ones are the worst," she said to herself, shaking her head.
'Creepy' was a good word for it, and he'd have agreed with her if she'd ever verbalized that. Fortunately, she didn't, and that helped his denial. It was SO MUCH EASIER if he just went along like nothing was wrong, and Samantha was good at that. Parking outside the building and glancing over at her as she shook her head, he nodded, but he was really looking at her. They'd been in bad situations together, gone into places that he was amazed she'd made it out alive, but she had. This time, he hoped that she would listen and not go inside, because she was right -- the crazy ones were the worst, and if Scarlet was as crazy as Samantha's contact had said, she was probably hanging with someone who was also crazy as hell. He didn't want to lose someone tonight, and he was suddenly very worried that he was going to.
"They are," he agreed, pulling his seatbelt off and leaving the keys in the ignition. He was going to have her drive his beloved, brand new car while its occupants bled all over it. He could only hope he was wrong about the bleeding, but he didn't think he was. "I'm going to send the three of them downstairs as soon as I'm able. If it looks like you might be killed or captured, take off, but don't wait for me. As soon as they're here, you get them back to the guildhouse, and I'll meet you there."
It was an old game plan, him laying cover for her after a completed job, then meeting her either at the guildhouse or another rendezvous point, but he never gave her any indication that he died by the time she'd escaped safely. He'd only once laid cover for her and then survived the mess to meet up with her afterwards; every other time, he'd woken up and gone to meet her. The problem with this situation was that there was little room for him to make an escape seem likely, but he'd deal with that after. As long as he could survive long enough to get Cody, Amanda and Rose out of there, he'd be satisfied.
He waited until he had her agreement before he opened the door and slipped out of the car, pushing the door shut as quietly as he could. It meant that Samantha was likely going to try to climb into the driver's seat from where she was, and frankly? He wished he could linger to watch that, because with those long legs of hers, it'd be like watching a baby giraffe try to climb into the car, but other than smiling just a little at the image, he made his way silently into the building. Unlike Scarlet, he took the stairs to ensure that they didn't have any additional warning, and he did so very quickly. He wasn't going to waste any time.
Rose was settled on the couch with Scarlet pinning her down. Her large brown eyes were open wide and terrified, tears frozen on her face. She watched as Amanda and Cody were stuck like baked brownies and hooked up to the wall. How much would it take to kill them? What was she supposed to do? She looked at Scarlet, who was casually examining her own hair for split ends, and then back at Jeremiah.
"I'll start with an easy one," he said. His fingers twitched over the switch. "What's your full name?"
Rose hesitated for a split second, and the switch got flipped. Both Cody and Amanda began screaming, and the lights in the apartment flickered for a few seconds before he stopped.
"I'll ask you again. What. Is. Your. Full. Name?"
"Rose Frederika Quick!" she blurted. She was shaking hardcore and brought her hands up to her face to wipe the tears away, to try and push some sense into herself.
"Frederika?" Jeremiah parroted, his mouth twisted in disgust. "Man, your parents must have hated you." He snorted and then turned to observe his victims. He bent down to scrutinize the Force siblings, trying to get a read off of their vitals. The boy was more worse for wear than the girl, but that was to be expected considering he had bashed his face in for a little while.
"What's her full name?" he inquired, putting his hand on Amanda's shoulder as he turned to look back at Rose.
Rose didn't know - and that was a bad thing. "Please," she sputtered. She tried to get up, but Scarlet just held her pinned down with her legs, shaking a finger no at her. "Please, just let them go, and I'll tell you whatever you want to know!"
Jeremiah shook his head. "Why do hunters pick the stupidest, weakest women for girlfriends?" he demanded. "How many more times are we going to hear that? I didn't even touch you and you're already freaking out. How do you think your friends feel?" He looked back at Amanda and Cody, and then clenched his jaw.
"New game. You're going to tell me which one of these people you don't want to die."
"WHAT?" Rose screamed. "NO!"
"Wroooong answer," Jeremiah said. He looked at Amanda, and then flipped the switch, sending all of the current to Cody. The screams were terrible.
Cody was in such deep shit right now. All angles, it was going to come at him from - and in fact, it was. Getting beat in the face was bad enough, but the brass knuckles? Fuck his life. He was pretty sure he spit a tooth onto the floor, but he couldn't be 100% about that. His whole face felt warm and wet and was in serious pain.
The fucking vampire jammed needles into his legs, and he screamed bloody murder, but it was nothing compared to what Amanda was feeling. She didn't have all of those pain distractions in her face to take her mind off of the sensation of two giant spikes being stuck into her thighs, and she was still a trainee, so she hadn't endured half of what Cody had. He didn't honestly know if she could handle this or if she'd crack, but he would try and direct everything he could back at himself to give her a fighting chance.
"FUCK YOU!" he yelled at the vampire after he zapped them the first time. He was seriously going to rip his face off when he got out of the fucking chair. Jeremiah blew him off and went back to talking to Rose, so Cody tried to get his sister's attention.
"Amanda, are you okay? Amanda? Stay with me, okay? I'm going to get us out of this," he promised.
Then the pain came back, and he was screaming.
Rose had tried to pick herself up off the couch, just like Scarlet had told her not to do, which meant that Scarlet was going to pain Alex whenever he showed up. She had to keep her word, after all, though she'd admit that Rose hadn't actually gotten up, just tried, and so she wouldn't tear Alex to pieces like she said she would. She'd just hurt him, a lot.
Kind of like how Jeremiah was hurting Rose's little friends. It was definitely a fun game, cooking the two of them like Christmas Roast Beast while Rose failed to answer his questions. This was the kind of game show she liked, why hadn't cable television picked it up, yet? With the human obsession with things like Hostel, she wouldn't have put it past the mass populace to really get into a show like this. She was into it, right down to shaking her finger at Rose when she tried to get up and making a pained wince when the girl failed to answer Jeremiah's questions. Yep, wrong answer.
The real fun (as if listening to Cody try to reassure his sister that he was going to get them out of this, which he wasn't) appeared as Cody was screaming, and if the screams hadn't quieted just a little at just the right moment, Scarlet wouldn't have heard the sudden approach of footsteps right before a man shot through the door. She was up in a second, flinging a knife that she'd yanked out of somewhere on her person at the figure and then snatching Rose up in front of her. She made it clear with her hold that Rose's thin neck was going to be snapped if she so much as twitched.
"WOW, you're fast, mister Alex!" she laughed, pretty damn amazed that he'd ducked and avoided that knife embedding itself in his chest. She was glad that he had, really, because that meant they could hurt him more without him dying, but it had been instinct. She had no doubt that this was the Alex they'd been talking about, given his rushed entrance and the gun he had trained on them, not to mention the panicked thoughts in Rose's pretty little head.
Then, she really took him in. Keen eyes, precise movements, hair and clothing perfect, and she laughed even harder. "Alexander," she purred, her grin turning much more predatory. What was this? He was putting off human vibes, she had no idea why, but her attempts at reading his mind failed utterly. She didn't know that it was because that wasn't actually him standing there, but assumed it was because he was a bajillion years old. This either meant they were in serious trouble, or that they were about to have a LOT of fun. "How much do you like these humans, Alexander? Enough to play a game with us?"
We need firestone for this one, but he's worth it. He's just old as dirt. Still wanna play? she asked Jeremiah, not taking her eyes off of Alexander, but the challenge was there. This was where her insanity was most plain, when it was a situation that they both should have backed out of, when she knew for a fact that Justinian would freak the fuck out if anything happened to Alexander, but how could she RESIST? Justinian had scrambled her, he'd tortured her, and she never would have attempted an attack on HIM, that was just suicide, but if she had his treasured friend at her disposal? She was going to take Alexander apart, and if Jeremiah wanted to help, it would just be all the sweeter.
She could see the hesitation on his face when she asked, and that unhinged grin only spread wider on her red lips. He hadn't lowered the firearm, but he didn't look prepared to risk Rose to shoot Scarlet, and probably was facing the same situation where Jeremiah was concerned. Why he didn't try a more direct attack, she didn't know. Perhaps he thought if he zapped her, she'd break Rose's neck? She would, so he was smart not to try.
"How much, Alexander? I don't care if I snap her pretty little neck or let her walk downstairs, I'm sure you know that. None of them matter to us, but they matter to you, don't they?" she taunted, watching his jaw clench. Otherwise, his expression and body language gave nothing away except that he was on guard, which was to be expected. Still, he didn't have to.
"What game? I'll play if you let them go first," he insisted, and she downright cackled, peeking from behind Rose's form. This was going so wonderfully well.
Amanda was definitely coherent, although she wished entirely that she wasn't. If there were any way for her to black out right then, she would relish it, but alas, she could not. She was too programmed to watch the situation - more importantly, Cody - and couldn't pull away no matter how hard she tried. That she was being blasted with electricity did not help.
"Shut up, Cody," she urged, trying to stop him from drawing attention to himself. When Jeremiah blasted him again, she screamed with him, and began jerking furiously around in the chair, trying to break the wood loose to free herself. Even handcuffed, she could still fight. Or, she'd try. "Just shut the fuck up - AUGH!"
Jeremiah flipped her switch quickly, enough to jolt her, and then shut it off.
She resisted calling out to Alexander when he arrived, better off not speaking at all given Jeremiah's penchant for hitting that button. It hadn't even gotten bad yet - she didn't know it, but it hadn't. It was nowhere near close.
Jeremiah glanced to Alex and then Scarlet, and reached into his bag once more. He produced the firestone-laced handcuffs that she suggested and tossed them to her. "Here," he said. "You do the honors. Should I hook him up to the grid or did you have something else in mind?" he asked curiously. He didn't recognize Alexander. He knew who Justinian was, but he didn't know any more than that, so Alex was just some stupid hunter to him. Why they needed firestone, he didn't know, but he didn't care.
"Letting these two go isn't an option," Jeremiah said smoothly. "I'll let her go," he offered, gesturing to Rose, "but not these two - and if you piss me off, I'm not letting any of them go," he added, a warning tone to his voice. His lip curled back a little as he issued that last warning, and he was serious. He'd wipe their senses all out and leave them in the middle of the highway to get mowed down by traffic - or he'd drop them in the ocean, or whatever. He'd make them crawl on their hands and knees through broken glass and into a furnace if he fucking felt like it, and the look on his face pretty much said that.
Rushing up the stairs and through the hall to the sounds of his friends screaming had definitely done something for Alexander's sense of urgency, but entering the room to a knife being flung at him managed the exact opposite. He had to be careful, or he was going to die and not do anyone any good. Scarlet's reaction was unexpected, though. She definitely seemed to know him, which confirmed his own feeling that she was familiar, but she remembered him better than he remembered her. Considering how cracked she obviously was, there had to be something wrong with that. He couldn't rise to her taunts, and wouldn't, because she had Rose in a precarious position, but he wanted to know what she knew. Not that he thought she'd tell him, but it was like a temptation hanging in front of him, that knowing glint in the crazy bitch's eyes, here was someone who could tell him what he was missing.
Too bad she really was insane, and violently so.
From the looks of things, her partner wasn't any better, and he watched the man toss a pair of handcuffs to Scarlet, which she caught expertly and dangled in front of Rose's face. The problem (besides the obvious) was that the man was refusing Alexander's terms.
"Don't you think that's a little unfair, trading a high-level hunter for an untrained civilian? I'm worth at least the two girls, Amanda's only a trainee," he offered, trying to make his tone just a little lighter than he felt, trying to play along with their 'game' and not piss the unstable male vampire off after his threat to keep them all. The man asked if Scarlet wanted to 'hook him up to the grid' or if she was thinking of something else, and it didn't escape him exactly what they were talking about. Cody and Amanda both had metal spikes sticking out of their thighs, and he understood exactly what was happening. He felt bad trying to bargain for Amanda over Cody, but perhaps that was the old Roman in his subconscious, that feeling that the men should bleed before the women, and it didn't hurt that Cody was an official hunter and Amanda only a trainee. She wasn't as prepared for this kind of trouble as Cody was, and even if he would suffer, he wouldn't be satisfied surviving if his sister died. Alexander would have to try to get him out after the girls were safe.
"Oh, let's just see what's most fun once we've got him. I could go for some fried food," she offered, and wasn't THAT an idea? With as powerful as he was, a taste of that would be sure to have a kick to it.
Scarlet really didn't give a damn if they kept any of the humans at this point, not with Alexander bargaining to give himself over to them in return for the stupid humans, but she could understand Jeremiah's point of view. He didn't know the gold they'd just come upon, and he didn't want to give up his playthings. Still, Scarlet was afraid that the ancient bastard would change his mind and decide that he really didn't give a damn about a pile of humans that were going to rot in a blink of his eye.
I want him. If he's willing to give himself up in exchange for the two girls, then let's take it before he changes his mind. He'll be more fun than both of them combined, and I bet he won't beg and cry like them, she told him, but she knew a thing or two about dominance battles, and there was a fine line there. She'd offered the game initially, but Jeremiah had refused the terms. Now, Alexander had offered new terms, and she didn't really disagree with them. He was worth more than all three of the humans combined, but if he would be willing to drop the price just to that of a high-level hunter (which made little sense in itself, what was he even talking about?), then she wasn't going to jack it back up to ancient vampire powerhouse. They were getting a bargain.
"As soon as I tell you, sweetie, you're going to take these handcuffs over to your boyfriend and you're going to cuff his hands behind his back for us," she informed Rose, handcuffs dangling in front of her face, the glint of firestone visible in the metal. "We just have to let the boys finish their negotiations, and don't think you can try anything funny like leaving the cuffs really loose. We're going to check them, and if you leave them loose, I'll just cut off his hands."
She giggled, like it was a great joke, and as far as she was concerned, it was. This was going to be the prime event for their evening.
Jeremiah was becoming irrationally pissed off very quickly, though he didn't betray it at all externally. Internally, it was a lot of fuck this, fuck that, motherfucker, who the fuck, so on and so forth. When Scarlet tried to get Jeremiah to give Rose and Amanda away, his lips curled back and he exposed his teeth in a very vicious sneer.
"No." That was all he said, and he said it out loud and with great force. He raised his hand and put his palm out, facing Alexander. He was just a human, and if Scarlet wanted him that badly than instead of trading his toys for her amusement, he'd just cripple him and let her have whatever fun she wanted. He ripped Alexander's sense of sight from him first, if only because that was always the most terrifying for people. Next went his ability to speak.
"There," was all he snapped. He turned back to Amanda and smiled broadly.
"We can stop anytime you want, sweetheart," he assured her, a dark look in his eyes. "You just need to make it worth my while."
"Don't you fucking touch her!" Cody roared. He tried to lunge at Jeremiah again and caught another jab to the face, complete with Jeremiah reeling his hand back and looking down to examine his knuckles.
"You know, if I keep hitting you in the face, I'm going to bruise," he complained. "Can't you just shut up like a good boy? Oh, wait! You can! I totally forgot I can do that!" And he made a closing motion with his hands as he stole Cody's voice from him. Now there were two men in the apartment without the ability to speak, and that left Jeremiah as the alpha dog once again.
"I'm working up a little bit of an appetite, I'm afraid to say. Hm... who to choose, who to choose," he mused to himself, finger running across his chin in thought.
Meanwhile, Rose held the handcuffs, frozen in fear - mainly because I have no idea what Alexander is or will be doing when he's rendered mute and blind, though I assume Scarlet might have already stapled him to the chair, we'll say Rose does whatever with those cuffs when Scarlet tells her to, and probably makes a great deal of tearful and terrified faces while she does it.
For all the buckets of crazy that Scarlet was, she wasn't stupid, and right at the moment that Jeremiah made to take Alexander's senses from him, she thought that her 'friend' was. He had to be, trying to yoink an ancient badass' senses away, and she was honestly expecting Alexander to take that as just cause for retaliation and break Jeremiah's brain. If she were Alexander's age and power level, she'd have probably done it.
Except, Alexander didn't melt Jeremiah's brain into a gray puddle of goo. Actually, it probably would have been a dull red puddle of goo, since cerebral bleeding would have colored the gray matter (she'd seen it, and though it was a neat effect, it was not a pretty color), but that was beside the point. The actual point was that Alexander didn't put Jeremiah on par with Forrest Gump. As she watched, holding her breath both literally and figuratively while clutching Rose to her just a little tighter in preparation for some kind of attack from the stupid little human girl's massively overpowered sweetheart, Alexander's eyes went unfocused with the loss of his sight and he looked as though he made the attempt to speak before silently clenching his jaw. Unable to read his mind, Scarlet wasn't sure what he'd been trying to say or if he might be faking, but she had this hunch that he wasn't.
Fan-fucking-tastic!
"Slight change of plans, sweetie," she giggled into Rose's ear, the excitement bubbling up inside of her as she saw Alexander tip his head ever so slightly in their direction at the sound, obviously trying to make up for the fact that he wasn't seeing them. That meant the gun his hand had tightened around was utterly useless because he couldn't risk shooting his pretty little miss or his friends. It also meant that if Scarlet shut her damn mouth and moved somewhere else, he wouldn't know where she was, and that was a factor she fully intended to take advantage of if it became necessary.
Nudging Rose toward her boyfriend, she yanked up one of the chairs that had been toppled during their entrance and leaned on the back of it as she watched the two lovebirds. "Take the gun away from him and throw it into the corner over there. It's okay, he won't need it anymore, I promise, just make sure you put the safety on. We wouldn't want any accidents, now would we?" she practically purred, the grin obvious in her voice for Alexander's benefit.
She tapped the back of the chair, gesturing Rose in that direction. "Lead him here, cuff his hands through the chair behind him, and make him comfortable, would you?"
For obvious reasons, Scarlet was going to be supervising the entire cuffing process, but part of her game was the contrast between pain and pleasure. Rose was going to be present during the entire ordeal, because someone like Alexander was sure to be able to tune out the pain after awhile. It wouldn't work so well if he was constantly being pulled back by Rose's attentions. Just the idea made the vampiress want to cackle again, so she did.
Rose watched in horror as Alexander's eyes went all bleary and he just shut his mouth. She made a small noise of fear as Scarlet squeezed her arms, terrified for a moment that he was still going to shoot at them. Then he didn't, and Scarlet shoved her at him. She did as she was told, slowly taking the gun from him.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered to him. She felt like this was her fault. She felt his hand clamp down on top of hers for a moment as she took the gun, and she choked back a sob as she flicked the safety up and slid it on the floor as hard as she could. It wedged itself under the far corner of the entertainment center (she heard it hit the baseboard). She hesitated for a moment then, and she heard Scarlet make an impatient noise, so she lead him to the aforementioned chair and handcuffed him to the back of it as she was told.
"Listen, I don't know what you want, but if you want money or jewelry or a way out of the country, I can get it for you. I work for a really powerful law firm and I - " and with that, Alexander kicked Rose's foot lightly, causing her to stop. She was going to give away too much information and she could potentially endanger more people (or alternately give these morons an actual list of demands) and he didn't want that. She looked at the ground.
"I just don't know what you want," she protested feebly.
So, Alexander's little girl could take orders, just not with any kind of speed and not without running her mouth while she did it. If she didn't have an automatic bye from Justinian and Iloquil, Scarlet would be curing her of those flaws very quickly. Since she couldn't, she'd just take it out on Alexander, which was more than fair, but Jeremiah had made a good point when he said that they weren't going to touch her, but could still traumatize the hell out of her.
New game!
Obviously pleased with her idea, she produced another knife from somewhere and had the sleeves of the jacket and dress shirt over Alexander's right forearm cut open to his elbow so that she could carve a few dashes in a line down his arm. She looked to Rose, grinned, and proceeded to undo the man's belt so that she could pull it free and drape it loosely around his neck.
"Alright, sweetcheeks, we're going to play a game. The word is five letters long, and the only clue I'll give you is that your boyfriend is one of them. Now, guess a letter!" she instructed, already excited by this game. It guaranteed blood, pain for her victim, and tears from the human. What more could she ask for?
Rose held her hand up to stop Scarlet, but when the woman glared at her she just put it over her mouth, trying to hold back more crying or screaming - and even vomit, when she started carving into Alex's arms. All she could think of was that they weren't going to get out of this alive. She closed her eyes, trying to steady herself. Stealing a glance to the other side of the room, which had gone scary quiet, she realized that Jeremiah had taken both Amanda's and Cody's voices and was... torturing them in horrible ways. Right then he was digging his fingers into the hollow below Amanda's collarbone so hard she could see blood through her shirt. Rose turned back quickly to Scarlet.
Five letters. He's one of them? She didn't know. "R?" she asked, left eye squinting a little bit. The most common used letters in the English language were R S T L N E; she knew THAT from watching Wheel of Fortune. That they happened to almost spell popular children/teenage author R. L. Stine's name was sheer coincidence, of course.
She silently prayed.
It was really a shame that she couldn't read Alexander's thoughts, especially since Jeremiah had taken his voice, but she wasn't sad enough to ask him to give it back; Alexander was dangerous, and she had him in a good spot just the way he was. Still, when she really started carving into him, it would be less satisfying not to hear him scream. Of course, with someone like him, she wasn't even sure if he WOULD scream, so maybe it was better to drink in the little details, like the way the muscles in his jaw tightened as he understood exactly what was happening. Scarlet would bet that he knew the answer to the puzzle, and that was another good reason for him to be without his voice. No hints.
Rose's correct first answer made her narrow her eyes at the silent man beside her, but he'd tilted his head at the girl's voice and Rose seemed too uncertain about her answer to have been tipped off. That was the vampire's guess, anyway, and she'd be watching for cheating. It would not be dealt with lightly.
"We do have an R, chickadee," she informed the girl, leaning slightly over Alexander's arm to slowly and carefully carve the capital letter onto one of the dash marks.
R _ _ _ _
Believe it or not, Scarlet did NOT know Wheel of Fortune, so she didn't know what Rose was doing when she started spitting out letters seemingly without much thought, but the S? WRONG ANSWER! Scarlet almost cackled, she was so pleased with the idea, and she beckoned the girl closer.
"Poor dear, there isn't an S, and in this game, that means a consequence. Here, take the knife," she instructed, offering it to the girl with the kind of gleam in her eye that made it clear that she was going to snap Alexander's neck with the first sign of aggression out of his little girlfriend. She'd tightened her grip on the belt, pulling it taut against his windpipe without actually choking him. Yet. "Here's how the 'bad stuff' is going to work. You're going to pick a spot and then use that sharp little knife I gave you to cut away whatever suit is in the way, don't worry, he doesn't have any choice in the matter, and then you're going to pretend you're peeling yourself a nice, juicy apple. Anywhere you want, go ahead."
She grinned, more than pleased with Rose's look of horror and near-pukage. See? This was fun!
"Oh, and I'm going to start tightening this belt very soon, so you have about ten seconds to pick a spot and start cutting. If you're not done by the time I choke him out, his windpipe will eventually be crushed and he'll die. Just saying," she offered gleefully, watching like it was some movie and she was on the edge of her seat. THIS was entertainment.
Jeremiah had eclipsed the event horizon finally, after a near-steady hour of torture between the Force siblings. He took a rather dull knife from the kitchen, and, slapping Amanda across the face, waved it in front of her. "Ever seen someone scream as loud as they can with no sound? You're about to."
He'd fed on her briefly, glad he'd made the choice to do so. She tasted wonderful, like a spicy Bloody Mary. He definitely felt she would be a keeper after he did away with her annoying brother, who kept trying to tell her everything would be alright with his meaningful stares - even if he was blind. Jeremiah gave him his sight back, if only because he wanted the boy to see exactly what was happening to him when it happened. With a final grin, he plunged the knife into Cody's chest, intending to cut his heart out with it. It did take a lot of effort, too - the knife was really dull.
Cody's expression transformed into one of total agony. He was actually crying now - legit crying, not tears of pain - and perfectly justified, knowing that everyone in the room was about to die and he couldn't stop it. The last thing he saw was Amanda start to seize in the chair, and then everything around him faded out.
Amanda began to convulse uncontrollably, so much so that Rose, in the middle of being ordered by Scarlet to start carving on Alexander, couldn't help but look up to the commotion. That was right before she began to vomit, of course, because she couldn't handle what Scarlet was telling her to do.
Jeremiah left the knife sticking out of Cody's chest, his job far from finished (the boy had passed out, that was all), and hit the girl with a backhand so hard that he knocked the chair over with her in it. When she didn't stop convulsing, he thought for a split second that she might have been epileptic. Funny, he didn't think they took retarded hunters. He bent down as he heard the sound of something snapping, and let out a surprised choking noise when one of her hands shot up from the chair, a broken-linked cuff still attached to her wrist. She grabbed him by the throat, standing, despite all of the blood and bruises (and broken fingers which she wrapped around his throat now as best she could).
"Scar - GURK" he managed. She was holding him dangerously close to her face, and for a moment her eyes clouded over completely, turning as black as his own eyes were naturally and then some.
"Remove him from your hold," she commanded.
Suddenly, Jeremiah felt compelled to do anything and everything that she had to say. He nodded, and with a feeble wave of his hand, Cody's voice returned to him - but he was still unconscious, and bleeding out, so it didn't help much. With a cry, Amanda threw him across the room, sending him crashing into the entertainment center with a horrible noise. She knelt down before Cody, hands held over the wound, inches from actually touching him as though she could not figure out what she needed to do. She turned to look at where the vampire had gone, and crossed the room at once, as though the others were not even there.
She picked him up again like a ragdoll. "Kill your friend, and then take us to the hospital. NOW."
"Yes, mistress. Absolutely."
Jeremiah turned towards Scarlet.
Scarlet reeled back with indignation, then snatched the knife from Rose. "Fuck you, Jim Henson!" she shouted to Amanda. "Let the hospital fix this too, while you're at it." And with a sweeping gesture, she slit Alexander's throat so thoroughly that blood sprayed out and coated the wall in a thick, viscous fluid.
"Annnnnd scene!" she said, bowing her head. And like that, she was gone.
Rose was screaming. Cody was bleeding. Alex was dead. Amanda was radiating with rage and some creepy power. Jeremiah was on his hands and knees, begging her for forgiveness.
And then Samantha kicked the door in with one big cup of "WHAT THE FUCK!" with her gun drawn. She saw Alexander and steeled her nerves, though inwardly she wanted to just... die. She stepped into the room and snatched Rose up by the arm. "Get up," she commanded. "You can cry later; we need to leave."
"Grab him," Amanda ordered, pointing to Cody. Jeremiah got up so fast he tripped, crawling on his hands and knees through the wreckage of the apartment to where Cody was. He stood up finally and grabbed him like a baby, looking back to Amanda for guidance. She reached out and took his arm firmly. "Hospital."
And they vanished.
Samantha looked at Rose incredulously. "You know she could do that?" she asked, then proceeded to drag her towards the elevator.
"I don't know anything," Rose said, collapsing to her knees as the metal box descended.
"Yeah," Samantha said bitterly. "Right now, neither do I. I do know one thing, though. We're getting the fuck out of here."