Night's Omen

That first comment of hers was ominous enough, but he had no idea that she was ripping through his mind, or even that she COULD do that.  He'd have been pretty smug if he'd realized how much trouble she was having in finding something to mess with him about, considering how little really bothered him.  He'd seen and done enough that there wasn't much more someone could throw at him to really hurt him.  Of course, she would manage, but she wasn't going to use anything in his own mind to break him down.

Or maybe she was.

What she didn't realize was that he was already pretty damn sure she was right, even without her using her voice powers.  Or maybe she did, and she was just making it worse.  Either way, that blow got a pained sort of yell from him, but he caught himself and had to just sit there for a moment to get his wits about him again while she spoke.  And he'd thought Angela hit like a dude.  He was running into a lot of those women lately.  "You think I didn't already know that?  That's been my life since I was old enough to remember.  The world never needed me, but it got me, so we both had to make it work," he told her, shaking his head some, his whole jaw still stinging.  That hurt like a bitch.

It wasn't like he had much of an opportunity to do or say anything else, though.  Suddenly, she was speaking again, and then grabbing him by the throat.  He didn't even consider that a woman would try to choke him, so he hadn't even made the attempt to stop her, but he grabbed her wrist and hand with his own rather quickly when he realized that she didn't just hit like a guy.  She was slowly cutting off his air, and talking about things he didn't understand.  It sounded like she was going to kill him, but he didn't know what she meant about the people who would have mourned him locking their doors and protecting themselves with....relics?  Wasn't that like, crosses?  What the hell?  Her world?  What the hell was she talking about?!

Then, there was no air, and he gasped, trying to get anything he could as he fought against her grip with his own hands.  How could a woman her size be so strong?!  He couldn't break her grip, and he couldn't breathe at all.  One could say that he had a spike of fear in him, even without her voice tricks.

Yeah, he was afraid, and that had to be visible to her in his wide, dark eyes.  He didn't scare easily, but he'd never flirted with the idea of death.  He was a fighter, and he didn't want to die, especially here and now.

Purezza ignored the rest of his mewing, and jerked him forward only enough to bite him. She didn't even bother to try and put his mind somewhere else, she made it just as painful as she pleased. Fear, pain, sadness - these were the only things she understood, or was allowed to understand. Hysteria, misery. She took a little pleasure in ruining his life more thoroughly than his twenty some odd years as a social fuck-up could have, though, and that was something.

When she'd drained him just to the point of death, she dropped him, and snatched his cell phone from him. She scrolled through his call list until she found Angela's number, cleverly marked Angela. She pressed send. What happened next perplexed her; had the girl really been cheating? When a male voice answered, and Angela could be heard in the background, however, she knew that her message would get across all the same.

"Tell the Witch that her pet is no longer amusing to me," she said, voice clear and sing-song. She hung up the phone, and dropped it by Jared's body. Now was the part she had seen done many times but never done on her own. Time to create a fledgeling.

Purezza cut her wrist skillfully with one of her nails, and held it just over Jared's mouth, letting the blood drip down onto his lips. He wouldn't go for this one willingly, she knew.

"Drink it."

He had NO idea what the hell was going to happen when she jerked him towards her like that, but getting bitten into by the bitch was the LAST thing he expected.  It hurt.  It hurt like nothing else he'd ever felt, worse than the cigarette burn and the way she'd hit him and even the way she'd been choking.  It felt like fire in his veins, and it took him a moment to register through the sheer agony of it that she was drinking his blood.

Drinking.  His blood. 

Through his throat, like a goddamned.....vampire.  A vampire.  Sure, he didn't think it was true, or that he believed it, but how could he really refuse to believe it when she was sucking the blood out of his body through his throat?  Okay, so he believed, but it was a little late. 

He actually lost track of time while she drained him.  It could have been seconds or hours, it was all the same to him, all just pain sweeping over him like a wave of hurt, molten lead in his veins that hardened as she released him and took his phone.  He wanted to get up, to fight her or escape, but he couldn't do anything.  He felt so tired, so heavy and useless.  He TRIED to move, but his muscles didn't want to be up to the task.  He could barely keep his eyes open, but he refused to pass out.  That was for weaker humans, and he wasn't going to be weak if this was his last night.

Not that being unable to move while she talked to Angela wasn't weak. 

Really, he thought he was dead when she finished with the phone, but she actually surprised him again.  She cut her own wrist, letting it drip over his mouth, and it occurred to him about a second later that he didn't want that in his mouth.  He forced his lips shut and tried to keep anything more than that first drop from getting past, but there wasn't a whole lot he could do about it, especially with her telling him to drink it.  He was weak, he hurt, and his will was starting to crack under the constant abuse.  He resisted just because it was in his character to do so, but his lips inevitably parted to take in the blood.

What a taxing even this was. She didn't even want to hang around and give her little creation any information, either. Come to think of it, knowing how Witches had responded in the past to her little escapades, she supposed she shouldn't be hanging around at all.

She shook her hand free of Jared after a few moments, the cut sealing up as she ran her tongue along it. Her own blood was tasteless to her, and that was just fine. She leaned on the car to regain her composure, and stared down at his body as his life crept out of him.

"Just so you know, you tasted horrible," she said. And with that, she was gone.

He hadn't known what her blood would do, having never been the sort to read all those stupid books about vampires, but he wasn't so sure if he expected to feel the way he did.  It was like it only sped up the painful, heavy feeling of...dying.  He was dying, he realized rather suddenly, and there was nothing he could do about it as she pulled herself away from him.  That parting comment of hers deserved a response, even if he didn't think he could talk.  His throat still felt like it was on fire, and his breathing was growing more shallow.

He fought to shift just one hand enough to give her the finger, though.  One last parting shot, and how else could he die but being a total asshole and fighting the whole way?  He inevitably went lax and lost consciousness, though.  He didn't see Purezza leave.

When Angela wanted to get somewhere in a hurry, she sure could. If it had been anyone else besides Reilly in the passenger seat, she'd be inspecting for shit stains. As it was, she pegged him for a more road raging driver than she was. The car slid around the corner, which shouldn't have happened at all thanks to the all-wheel drive system, but Angela made sure to hammer it just in case she hadn't gotten her point across that she was in a panic. Might not have been the best choice to let her drive, actually.

When she finally stopped the death ride of doom, she jumped out, leaving her door open. She didn't try to hassle Reilly to move faster, because she figured he'd be damned good back-up if the vampire was hanging around. She ignored the fact that he was probably happy about this.

"Jared!" she shouted, running towards the driveway. She actually nearly tripped over his body, and caught herself side-first into the side of his car with a loud WHUMP. She jumped up in pain, and spun around a few times, clutching her arm. When she looked down, she froze. She wanted to scream, but she just couldn't make the sound come out. She was too refined, too trained, too.. Oh to hell with it.

"FUCK!" she yelled. "FUCK! FUCK!" She dropped to her knees, trying to asess the situation from where she could. "Oh fuck, Reilly, I think he's dead!" she called back to her cousin. "Fuck! Fuck, Jared, I'm sorry! I'm sorry I didn't tell you where I was! Fuck, I'M SORRY!" she screamed.  She hit his lifeless body in the chest, trying to... she didn't know. She just didn't know.

Reilly expected this sort of reaction no matter how he had acted.  He didn't expect Angela to blow the whole thing off, and the way she was driving only proved his point.  She cared a lot.  Her complete and utter disregard for the rules of the road was nice though--at least he wasn't alone in psycho driving habits.

When Angela boogied out of the car, he forced himself up and slammed his door.  Then, for good measure, he slammed hers as well.  Unlike Angela, he didn't go flying at Jared.  Instead he looked around, trying to locate the vampire responsible.  When nothing jumped out at him, he trudged along to meet his cousin and her dead boyfriend.  Her reaction to it made him inwardly cringe.

He allowed her to scream and hit Jared.  She had to let it all out and nothing he had to say would fix that.  He just remained alert, watching for any predators that thought now would be an amazing time to reappear.  Yeah right.

Somehow, he had a terrible feeling about this whole thing.

Really, of all the shit he'd been through that night, waking up because someone had absolutely POUNDED on his chest wasn't at the top of his list of favorite things.  It wasn't the worst by far, but he could have had a nicer wake up call.  The blow to his chest actually hurt worse than he thought it should have, and that was enough to jolt his consciousness back to the surface.  He had other concerns as well, like just how HORRIBLE he felt.  His head felt like it'd been split open, his whole body ached, and now his chest felt like he'd just been hit by a car or something.

He actually had the strength to move again, which might have struck him as odd if he'd had the chance to consider it, but he didn't move to do anything other than sort of double over on the ground, obviously in pain.  He hadn't even bothered opening his eyes yet, and wasn't sure if he wanted to. 

"S-stop," he gasped out, completely unaware of the fact that he hadn't been breathing right up until he sucked in air to speak. 

Angela screamed in surprise like a little girl and sprang backwards. She laughed immediately afterwards, a nervous, flighty sort of laugh. He wasn't dead, right? He'd just been knocked unconscious, that was all. She was shaking so bad that when she tried to pull her hair into a pony tail, it took her a few tries. She rolled up to her knees and put a hand down on the ground to steady herself.

"Sorry! I'm sorry, baby, I was so worr..."

She trailed off as she saw the dried blood on his neck. The vampire aura was still so fresh that it blended in with those around them from the bash inside, and she hadn't... she hadn't caught it right away. She reached out to his wrist, to try and pick up a pulse.

"Oh shit, Reilly," she said. She didn't have to say anything else.

The moment Jared moved, Reilly's complete attention shot to him.  Angela was laughing; she hadn't realized yet.  She even began to apologize, but Jared wasn't breathing.  He wasn't alive.  They were too late in more ways than one.

He knew it.  The way that they had found him--everything was so set up.  The vampire had called.  She wanted Angela to come and find him this way.  That had been the intention.  It all seemed so obvious then.

Angela figured it out.  She regarded him, shocked with the turn of events.

"Wonderful," he sighed out.  He didn't know what else to say.  "Just fucking wonderful."

Any guilt that he had felt left him.  Well, Jared thought he was immortal before, and now he was.  He had wanted to be a badass, strong and powerful, and now he could be.  The universe hated him.  The world was better off with Jared as a self-important human.

He had half a mind to tell Angela to get away from him so that they could put him out of his misery, but he didn't.  Jared wouldn't hurt her.  He cared about her when it came right down to it.  Just because he was a vampire, it wouldn't change that.  They weren't unfeeling creatures, as much as Reilly would loathe to admit that.  Still, killing him now before he became a problem seemed logical.

Jared actually made something akin to a hiss when she grabbed his wrist in search of a pulse, but it was really just the result of him breathing in rather sharply because just her touch hurt.  It was almost like touching metal in the middle of winter, when it was so cold it burned.  Not quite, but he knew her skin wasn't that hot, so it was a similar feeling.  Either way, he tried to jerk his hand away from her, just to make it stop. 

"What the fuck is going on?" he finally asked, his voice lower and strained, betraying the pain he was in.  Even not touching Angela, which he hadn't really determined was the cause of it all, his head hurt like someone was playing the drums on his brain, and his wrist was burning still.  He didn't know it, but the blow to his chest was nearly non-existent because he'd had clothing to protect him from most of the damage.  His wrist hadn't been so fortunate. 

Reilly may have been right about killing him before he could become a problem, but it was almost sad the position Jared was in.  He didn't know what was going on, what laid before him, or even what the rules of his new existence were.  An instruction manual would have been awesome at this point.

Angela jerked back in surprise. She had a lot of things to explain, and no real time to explain them. "Jared, I am only going to say this once. A lot of things are happening right now that you probably don't understand, and I will explain them to you, but right now, we need to get you somewhere safe. Can you stand up?" she asked. She was still a little shaken at his behaviour, but then again, she'd never been around when someone had just been turned. She didn't really know how she would have reacted if it'd been her, but then again, Angela couldn't really GET put into that position.

She stood up, trying to give him some breathing room, and moved to stand by Reilly. "We need to get him to Single Earth before he attacks someone. I don't think he's going to be able to help himself." She was borderline tears. So much for strict self control. This was way overwhelming.

Reilly listened to Angela and frowned.  She was keeping information hostage.  In order to understand, Jared had to go to Single Earth.  That didn't seem fair, and despite his dislike for Jared, it felt wrong to do to him.

"What's the difference between telling him now and telling him in Single Earth?  If he's gonna go batshit, he's gonna do it in either place."  He sent his gaze to the crumpled vampire, silently wondering why he was in so much pain.  That wasn't how the change was supposed to happen...

Reilly didn't believe in Single Earth vampires anyway.  They were like the tooth fairy.  It was a bunch of vampires parading around pretending to vomit rainbows, just like it was parents masquerading as the pretty little fairy that took children's teeth from them in exchange for some pocket change.

"You're a vampire, Jared, like the kind from the movies.  You suck blood, you don't age, and you live as long as you keep your big mouth away from people who have more power than you do.  For some vampires that's a long time, but for you, I'm doubting that.  Sounds like tons of fun, doesn't it?"  He only said it because he trusted Jared enough not to freak out.  That man was all about being a badass and running on high testosterone.  Badasses didn't freak out.

Well, this would put quite a damper on Jared and Angela's relationship.  How sad.

He almost wanted to get pissed at Reilly for talking about him going batshit, like he was going to.  Of course, he wasn't entirely prepared for what the guy had to say, and ended up staring up at him with an expression that said he wasn't sure if Reilly was insane or if he dared believe him.

That bitch had bit him, and done some other crazy shit, so was it really impossible?  He'd thought 'vampire' as well when it happened, but did he really believe that he was a vampire now, too?  Wasn't that crazy talk?  "Fuck you," he snapped, but looked to Angela.  It made his headache spike up, so he winced and looked away.  Why was that happening?!

"You're insane.  I'm not a fucking vampire, because if I was, wouldn't I be more powerful or something?  All I feel right now is a fucking migraine and like I was dragged through the dirt," he told him, but then stopped.  "Why would you say that?  How would you even know anything about vampires?  What the fuck is going on?"

She could have kicked Reilly in the face for doing that. She wanted to, but she knew better than to direct her anger at her equally-matched cousin. He'd had slightly more training than she had, and that... well, their parents would be getting called, that was certain. She looked from him to Jared, and sighed.

"You wanted to know where I go at night? Well, here it is. I go out to places like this and roast vampires before they can do... exactly what just happened." There. She said it. What a relief. Too bad it was 24 hours too late. "I told you there was a specific reason I didn't want you to know. I didn't want you involved, and now you are."

And it's my fault.

The unsaid words hung in the air like a blade over her head, and it really hurt her to even think it. She choked down on her emotions as best she could, and exhaled before she started to lose her control.

"Now, that being said, we need to get you somewhere to feed before you go spastic and try to take a bite out of one of us." She reached out for his arm, hoping he wouldn't fight her too much. Angela hadn't ever used a gross display of her power against Jared; now would be the time, however inappropriate it was.

She left out the bit about what would happen if he tried to attack one of them. She certainly wouldn't pull Reilly off of him if he drew first blood. That was... there were some rules even she had to abide by, no matter how much she didn't want to. At least, she hoped she'd be able to abide by it. She didn't forsee this ending well for any of them.