In Other Words {OPEN!}

[Dawn Phillips]

As luck would have it, right around the same time Darci was headed for cover from the storm, Dawn was skipping out of Bloomingdale's with a bag in her hand. The most ah-dorable dress ever, and it was marked down forty percent. What more could she want? She bought two, one for her and one for Darci. She didn't usually, but the print was nice, and Darci would look amazing in it wearing sandals. Dawn didn't trust her in heels.

A crack of thunder shook the street, and Dawn almost squealed in surprise. It was mere seconds after that when the bottom dropped out of the sky, and she made a move to go back inside, but found that she wasn't getting wet. She looked up. Perfect! She was standing under the awning of the deli next door, and she smiled a little to herself as she watched people scatter like cockroaches as they tried to avoid the downpour, newspapers and purses held over their heads.

"Woohoo!" she cheered. Saved by her luck again. She hailed a taxi and hopped right in, glancing up as she heard someone yelling to hold the cab. Dawn just scooted over. "I don't mind!" she told the cabbie happily. Dawn didn't, really. She enjoyed cab rides with other people. It made life less boring.

[Dimitri Brevic]

Why would a vampire take a cab when he could just teleport where he wanted to go? Well, maybe because he was bored. Dimitri had been out doing more boring menial protection money collections, and he really just wanted to relax a bit. A cab ride would be alright, and perhaps the cabbie or the other passenger might know where he could go to get a decent Vodka. So far none of the bars in the city had anything approaching the quality of what he had enjoyed in Europe before he had to flee.

"Excuse me, I hope you don't mind sharing a ride...this storm is quite unpleasant....but at least its not as cold as the winter storms back home.."

Dimitri was mainly talking to himself at the end of his statement. The bitter cold of Siberia wasn't something he really missed all that much. He looked over at the girl next to him. She was young....for a moment Dimitri missed the freedom of youth, a century and then some of life was quite a long time, and he still had, well forever in front of him.

[Dawn Phillips]

When the man slid in next to her and spoke, Dawn nodded a little with a smile. Wow, that was some accent he had! She wondered where he was from, especially with the mention of 'back home'. "Where is home?" she asked, ignoring the cabbie as he demanded to know her destination.

"Main and Twenty Seventh," she finally said impatiently. She'd only told him six times before Dimitri had dived into the open door.

She looked back at Dimitri now, still smiling. She loved talking with strangers. It was such a social faux-pas, but really, you could learn so much from random encounters. Besides, what was the worst that could happen in a taxi?

[Dimitri Brevic]

Well, this young girl certainly didn't seem to have any fear of the stranger that had practically dove through the back door of the cab. And the fact that she spoke to him was amusing, it was nice to still see innocence in this day and age. But Dimitri reached out with his mind briefly and touched the girl. Under the surface there was a pain, the pain of loss. So the girl had lost her mother...how unfortunate. There was also something familiar...something that felt like him. He probed a bit deeper, trying not to let her notice the fact he was in there, which fortunately was made much easier by his Kendra blood. So the girl was "lucky"..this could get interesting.

"Home? Oh home is in Siberia, and it is a cold and desolate place, I don't really miss it. Aren't you a bit young to be out here? This city can be a dangerous place sometimes...."

Yes it was a dangerous place. As Dimitri looked at the smiling girl he felt his hunger surge. He had not fed yet today. The girls heartbeat suddenly leaped into his ears. He looked away and out the window. Hopefully the girls luck would kick in before the hunger overwhelmed Dimitri.

[Dawn Phillips]

"No, not really," she sang back. She was old enough to know better, and young enough not to care - at least, that's what she'd been told by just about everyone she knew. She smiled more at him, ignoring the creeping sensation she got at the base of her spine. Honestly, the Phillips girls didn't seem to have much in the way of self-preservation sometimes.

"Siberia?" she asked. "Wow, that's pretty far. You say cold and desolate, but... it's one of the only places I know you can see the Aurora Borealis from. I want to go someday - to see them, I mean. I've only seen photos, it looks so pretty." She trailed off. Yes, she wanted to see the Northern Lights.

"I heard you can see them in really northern parts of Canada, but... it's Canada." That sort of explained itself. "How long have you been here in the US? Do you like it? What do you do here? How old are you?"

There she went.

[Dimitri Brevic]

Dimitri was glad she bombarded him with a ton of questions. It helped push back his thoughts of hunger. He looked at her, and she was still smiling, so apparently he wasn't really projecting a creepy "Imma gonna eat you" vibe yet.  He reached into his pocket and pulled out his sunglasses, and slid them on.  He was pretty hungry and keeping his eyes from being black was a waste of energy.

"Yes, it is far away. I have seen the lights, they are in fact very beautiful, especially when they are reflecting on the snow. I have not been to Canada...but I have heard that you can see the lights in Alaska as well, that is only a short way from Russia as well.

I have been in the US about 6 months...I uhhh, work for a shipping company, taking care of money collection. This country is very different than Russia, and Europe, but so far yes I do like it here, though I am really too busy to take in much of the city. My age? I am 35, but sometimes...I feel much older."

35? Yes, close to 100 years ago. He wasn't lying about the shipping company though. That was the official cover for their organization in the city. They controlled most of the black market goods coming through the docks. He glanced back out the window,talking was good, talking was keeping his mind off his hunger as they meandered slowly through the New York traffic.

[Dawn Phillips]

"I've never been to Alaska, either. I kind of want to go there, too, but I saw that Thirty Days of Night movie and I don't think I'm entirely sold on the idea of it, even if Josh Hartnett is a little more than attractive," she said with a laugh. "I guess the Lights aren't as much of an event when you can see them every day. Does it get dark there for long periods of time, too?" she inquired. Dawn was interested, naturally, in everything he had to say, because he wasn't someone she talked to before.

"I've heard it's different. I want to travel outside the US. I'm going to apply for my passport when I turn 18. I'm saving up the money for it, heh. It's a little pricey, but I think our high school is going to be doing a trip to Spain or something, and I want to go and take billions of pictures like every other tourist."

She paused. "Why do you feel older? My sister says that sometimes, but I know why she does. She's such bad luck," she laughed - and her laughter was innocent and girlish, like bells. "But I'm good luck, so we work."

[Dimitri Brevic]

30 Days of Night? Dimitri had seen the comic book lying on a train and picked it up. The vampires in it amused him, because they were so undignified and animal like. He had never acted like that, even at the height of his blood lust. And besides, the sun didn't make him catch on fire. He had made it this far without anyone knowing what he was, because the reality of vampires was drastically different from the legends.

"I don't believe in those kind of movies...they are too far fetched. And besides, I always thought of vampires as being very dignified creatures. Yes, it gets dark for long periods of time in the far north. Europe is a nice place to travel, and Spain is a lovely country. I think I feel older because I have traveled so far, my road from Siberia to Moscow to most of Europe and then to America was not an easy one. Good luck you say? Sometimes that can be a great gift....If I think of a number, do you think you will be lucky enough to guess it?"

Dimitri hardly ever talked this much to strangers, but the familiar feeling of this girls "lucK" put him at ease. Talking also distracted him from his hunger, and kept him from feeding on her. Hopefully her luck wouldn't run out.

[Dawn Phillips]

"I dunno," she said. "I never tried before. Uh.. forty-two?" she asked, taking a stab in the dark. She always said forty-two when she didn't know the answer, thanks to the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy. She also had a small bath towel in her car, in the trunk. Just in case. Dawn was weird.

"Maybe they are. I never really thought about it. I kind of like the books I've read, but in every 'verse, they're different. I guess if I had to pick, I could go with the Twilight stuff. Although the whole glittery vampire thing is kind of lame... but whatever. As long as it isn't Anne Rice." That woman wrote polished turds, and a polished turd was still a turd.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

[Dimitri Brevic]

Dimitri blinked behind his sunglasses. He had been thinking of 42. That was odd indeed. This girl seemed to have the same gift he did. Except, since becoming a vampire his had become stronger, but more random, and he couldn't really "call" on it.  He was a bit in shock, since in all his travels he hadn't really met someone with that same power. When she turned the subject back to vampires though, his attention returned.

"42? That is actually correct, you are very lucky indeed. Maybe you should play the lottery..get rich quick. I haven't read many vampire novels, but I do agree with you on one thing...Anne Rice is terrible. I don't really think vampires would be that....homo erotic? I believe that is the correct term in English. I am headed to yet another meeting about collecting money owed to my employers. Someone always owes us money."

Dimitri was glad this next guy was a dead or alive kind of collection. All they cared about was getting the money, and if this deadbeat died in the process, then oh well. Dimitri shoved his hunger down. He would feed soon enough. And his curiosity about this girl pushed her off the menu, she really was quite lucky.

[Dawn Phillips]

"Forty-two is only the best number in the world, aside from seven," she said with a smile. "I have played before, but indirectly. I'm not old enough to buy tickets, so my sister or brothers will bring home scratch cards for me. I usually win little stuff - free tickets, ten bucks, stuff like that. Once I won a hundred, but my dad made me split it." She frowned a little. "When I'm eighteen I'm going to buy a whole row of them." She giggled a little - she wouldn't, really. She was afraid if she used it too much, it'd go away.

She snickered to his comment about Anne Rice's vampires. "I dunno. Maybe some are, but definitely they can't all be that way. I think the books were her trying to act out some really weird fantasies. They were utter fail."

Wow, collecting money, huh? "Really? I thought people only did that in movies. Are you going to beat him up?" she asked. She had no idea that he was seriously going to do just that, if not worse. Dawn was mostly joking.

[Dimitri Brevic]

Beat him up? More like drain every ounce out of his body. But Dimitri kept that to himself. He didn't really look like a gangster and a hardened criminal, but he attributed that to his nice business attire. He had long learned how to rough someone up with out messing up his suit. He had even gotten to wear he could usually feed without making a mess on his shirt as well.

"Yes well, when people constantly run up a line a credit with a business, sometimes you must collect on it. And sometimes it gets a little messy, but probably not like in the movies. I will only have to beat him up if he puts up a struggle. I just want his money...I don't really want to hurt him. So, what do you do? Do you have a job, or do you just have school?"

Ok, so that was a lie, Dimitri was going to kill him. But this young girl didn't need to know about that. In fact, he probably shouldn't have told her anything about what he did for a "living". But it was too late now.

[Dawn Phillips]

Dawn laughed at his response. "Well, good luck with that," she said. She didn't really think he was going to beat someone up, which was probably for the better.

"School, yes. College courses and regular high school jibberish. It'll be over in another year, and then I can do something worthwhile, but what exactly I haven't figured out yet. I might try to take some computer classes and get into web design. I figure there's always a demand for it, and I don't mind it so much."

She trailed off a little, watching the rain pitter-patter against the windows of the cab. "Traffic blows," she said to nobody in particular. "Go figure, a wreck. We'll be here for a while," she sighed, and leaned back in her seat, getting comfortable.

Every time it rained, people drove like morons. You'd think none of them had ever seen water before.

[Dimitri Brevic]

School had ended early for Dimitri. Being poor and living in Siberia usually did that to a young boy. But he had learned many, many things under Rasputin's teaching that you could not learn in any school, anywhere. And then there had been the army, and then the mob. He considered his education very well rounded in its own twisted sort of way.

"I had little patience or really chance for school when I was young. I had a decent mentor when I was younger, and I have picked up a great deal over the years. I still have little patience for computers though. They frustrate me. I like to be able to put my hands on things and actually make them do what I want. Philosophy and the supernatural that sort of thing has always interested me though. The concept of a world beyond what is before us has always been able to hold my attention."

When you were a part of that world it was even more interesting. Having his extra sensory gift as a young man had been amazing, but being a vampire was even better. Having both was astounding.

[Dawn Phillips]

"Oh, really?" she asked, looking interested again. "I can't say I ever really got into it much. I mean, I read some books and stuff, but I didn't ever really have the time. There are some philosophy classes over at the Junior College I was considering checking out, because if I don't go computer science I might try to switch to psychology, and I know I have to have stupid -ophys and -ologys to do that, so..." she trailed off.

She was starting to get restless in the cab. She didn't mind the ride, but having to sit for two hours while the traffic cops tried to figure out a way to properly route rush hour around the wreck was going to be a bore. "Hey, you wanna walk?" she asked. She could use the company, considering she really didn't want to get mugged. It was sort of bad that she was entrusting her safety to Dimitri, but as it was, if he'd made the decision not to snack on her, she couldn't get much safer.