Conflict, Contact and Combat [20% Complete]

[Andrew Vida]

Prompt List

• Introduction
• Obsession
• Wine
• Lie
• Fight
• Sick
• Price
• Siblings
• Masquerade
• Spell

[Andrew Vida]

I N T R O D U C T I O N

[Andrew Vida]

O B S E S S I O N

[Andrew Vida]

W I N E

Anya had a very busy evening, indeed. With Connor in Las Vegas and Capricia working late, she had plenty of time to herself. That meant very important things, like colouring with her aunt, getting chicken nuggets, green beans and tater tots for dinner, watching Fern Gully, and being read to from The Hobbit, which she wasn't too sure about yet, but could never stay awake long enough to contemplate more fully.

Around ten, though, she was awake again. The weather had taken a turn for the worse, and she had risen to the sound of thunder and trees scraping against her window. She went downstairs to get her auntie, who carried her back up to her room, then agreed that yes, the tree was rather frightening, and collected her blankie and Mr. Boo and took them into her parents room. She was going to camp out in mom and dad's room until the storm went away, which she knew meant until the next day. Her auntie even moved her night light into the room for her.

By eleven, she was out like a light - for the night, thankfully, which was what Capri was told when she called to see how things were going. It had been a few weeks since the whole Areli/Andrew information had come about, and she hadn't seen or heard anything from her former friend, so she assumed the worst had passed. She figured that he had moved on, choosing absolutely to ignore the warnings that Ash and Chase had given her, as was her usual fashion, and downplaying whatever they told Connor to the point where if he brought it up, she would just walk out of the room. Fortunately, Chase hadn't seen anything on the radar for a while after the initial shocks, so she took it to mean that he really had fucked off.

Still, Capri didn't just leave her daughter with anyone, and so hunters alone were the sole guardians of her child when she was away. It was her aversion to the supernatural, though, that still prejudiced her judgment, and since Connor was out, he couldn't force her to try and con a vampire into doing it. Shannon may have been human, but then again, so was Capri (the Areli thing was bullshit, she didn't feel magical at fucking all, and the ass beatings she'd taken over the years suggested that, too) and Shannon was rumoured to be scouted by Diamond currently (she was, actually), so Capricia couldn't have felt more confident.

"Nope, come back whenever," Shannon said cheerfully. "I got a few seasons of Supernatural to catch up on, so there's no rush." After she hung up the phone, Shannon walked to the big bay window in the foyer, hands on her hips as she watched the storm. Fucking East Coast weather never ceased to amaze her. There would probably be tree branches all over the road by the time she left. Whatever, she'd stayed the night on a couch once or twice in her time, tonight probably wouldn't be any different.

Capricia had mentioned a bottle of wine in the fridge that would be going bad soon, and there was just enough left for one glass, so Shannon figured, why the fuck not. Sam, Dean, a glass of merlot and an easy night. She had played Tour de Franzia with Capri a few times; it had been pretty brutal. She was quite impressed that the woman had upgraded to bottles, even if it was Barefoot and she was using what appeared to be a kitchen utensil as a stopper.

Shannon sat down on the couch, already a few sips into the wine, when she started to feel strange. Her body began to numb, and then it just... hurt. It hurt everywhere. She couldn't even scream, but her mouth felt wet and tasted of copper. She reached up with one hand, pushing off of the couch with the other, and pulled back blood - blood from her nose, from her mouth...  She stumbled, falling to the floor with a thud and a pained cry. Her limbs felt like they were made of lead, but she managed to flounder around enough to drag herself to the end table where her phone was. Her vision went blurry, clouded in red, and she pushed a hand out with all her might.

It fell onto the tip of a booted foot.

"Hemotoxin," Andrew said, his voice neutral as he informed the hunter what was happening to her. "A friend saw fit to lend me some of her venom. She warned me that it wasn't a pretty way to go, but I think she was wrong." He bent down, crouching over Shannon as she began to seize. "I always thought you looked quite pretty in red."

He stood back up slowly, stepping over her dead body, and shook his head at the wine glass. "Didn't you ever hear any of the urban legends? The babysitter indulges in some immoral act - fucking the boyfriend, sneaking some pot... and then she's eviscerated because she let her guard down." He shook his head. "All you had to do was be responsible, Shannon. Look after my daughter. That's it."

He walked around her, to the bottom of the stairs. "It's okay, Anya. Daddy's here."

[Andrew Vida]

L I E

[Andrew Vida]

F I G H T

When Capricia finally got home, she knew that something was wrong almost immediately. The hunter in her, however, dissuaded the thought that she should call in for help, and she pushed forward, despite feeling like she was walking into a trap. She found Shannon on the floor, blood beneath her. She bit her lip, knowing the effects of venom when she saw it. She'd never been on the receiving end of one of the viper's bites, but she'd seen the results, especially after the Midnight battle, and it had been brutal. To say the least, Shannon hadn't deserved to go out this way. She stepped over the body, knowing that there was nothing that could be done, and tried to steel herself for what she might find beyond.

With hesitation, she went to the stairs. She was trying not to react to the fact that her daughter might be dead; it was the hunter in her, the thing that allowed her to separate herself from reality and do what needed to be done. It was the thing she had that others didn't, and it was the thing that commonly got her nearly killed. Or worse.

"Anya?" she called, not even daring to hope that she'd hear a response.

"We're up here," a voice replied.

Andrew. Capri gripped the wooden railing along the stairs so hard she cracked it. Had this been what they warned her about? What Chase tried to tell her? No, her dreams were full of water, of drowning. There was no water anywhere near here - that she knew of. She felt her heart pick up the pace, and tried to breath steadily as she ascended, attempting to ground herself to some stable train of thought. All that came back was kill. It was acceptable.

She arrived at the door and spied Andrew holding Anya gently, standing just on the other side of her crib. "I see you've met," she said slowly, emerging from the shadow that the small nightlight cast across the center of the room. She held her arms out. "I'll put her back down. She gets fussy if she doesn't get back to sleep quickly." Her tone was soft, lacking the command that it usually had. She'd try to reason with him. Then she'd drive a knife through his eye. That would do nicely.

"Oh, we've become fast friends," he said lightly, a smile touching his features. He looked up from the little brown-eyed child and into mirroring eyes. "She should have been ours, Capri. She could have been. She still could be," he added, hopefully. He made no move to hand Anya to her, and so she slowly moved closer to him.

"You know that isn't true, Andrew," she replied, still reaching, fingers now brushing the fabric of Anya's blanket, and of Andrew's shirt. She bypassed the blanket and clasped his sleeve gently, trying not to falter. "It's just not how things turned out. You know that." And with that, she slid her fingers back to the blanket, sliding her hands beneath Anya fully. He didn't resist, thank fucking god, and she took Anya from him, doing as she promised and placing her back in her crib.

"Go to sleep, my angel," she said softly, pressing her lips upon her obviously tired daughter's forehead. "Mommy loves you so much." She was painfully aware that these could be her last words to her daughter, but if she could get Andrew far enough away, she had a fighting chance. He was physically stronger than she was, but she had certain advantages allowed to her simply because she knew he would never kill her. The feeling was not mutual.

"It kills me to see you with him," Andrew said. He followed Capricia outside of the room and back down the stairs, not even noticing that she didn't react to her dead friend on the floor. In his mind, this was going splendidly - she smiled at him, she'd touched him. Maybe he could just convince her that she would be better off, maybe then she'd see. "Where are we going?" he asked, curious when she didn't stop in the kitchen and pushed open the French doors that lead to the back patio.

"Outside. I don't want to wake Anya up again," she said matter-of-factly. "I want to be alone with you."

He sighed of relief, closing the doors gently behind him. "I've been waiting for you to say that, Capricia," he admitted. "I wasn't sure, but I knew, I knew when you looked into my eyes - I knew you loved me. I know that you're trying to be kind to Connor, but he can handle if you leave him. He can live without you," he added. He leaned forward, to kiss her.

Capricia, against every natural instinct in her body, forced herself not to cringe when he spoke, and when he leaned in she tasted bile in her mouth but shoved it aside. She raised a hand to his neck, the repulsion of his lips to hers causing her to shiver. Andrew took it as a sign that she enjoyed it, however, and held her face with one hand, pressing his other into her back, causing her body to rest against his. She broke the kiss, rubbing her lips against his earlobe, then spoke softly. "He can live without me, you're right. But you can't." And with that, the knife she had hidden came out, and buried itself hilt deep into his side.

"But I love you..." he gasped. She narrowed her eyes, twisting the knife as his body slid from her grasp and to the ground. She followed the gesture with him, ensuring that the blade was buried good and deep. She may have missed his heart, but he'd bleed out before anyone found him.

"Go fuck yourself, Andrew," she hissed. "Take your Areli witch bullshit with you and burn in hell." She shoved him back onto the concrete.

She turned her back on him and walked to the door, freezing as she heard him wheezing with laughter. She tensed, glancing over her shoulder, when every instinct in her body told her to run. Andrew was standing upright again, and she watched as he yanked the knife out, throwing it aside with a lazy swing.

"Can't, lover," he hissed, blood still bubbling from his mouth. He coughed, then spit it aside. "You woke it up already. Don't you feel it? Like a fucking fire in your veins?" He used the energy from the kiss to try and raise the magic, enjoying how the look of disgust on her face turned to one of absolute fear. "You should know that you're going to come with me, here, tonight, whether it's by your own accord or whether I make you."

How fast could he heal himself? She pushed past him, shoving him back at the ground when he caught her arm. Not fast enough if she could throw him down like that, she wagered. She broke into a dead sprint, cursing herself for not having her gun on her. A bullet to the head would solve all her fucking problems right now. She wound through the woods behind her house, finally coming to a fence that her neighbors had put up a few months ago. She'd go over, get inside, and call Connor. Like a cat, she scaled the eight foot tall privacy fence, then slipped at the top as she heard Andrew calling her name somewhere in the woods. She fell into a heap in some mulch on the other side, and dazed, sat up to dancing blue lights. Police?

No.

Her neighbors had put the fence up after they'd built their gorgeous, top-of-the-line

pool.

"No," she whispered.

She felt herself being snatched off the ground by her arm, and frantically swung around, coming face to face with Andrew - who, though a little worse for wear, had certainly been healing faster than she'd anticipated. "No!" she shouted. He grabbed her with his other hand, forming a tight circle around her neck, and began choking her, shaking her.

"You will LOVE me, Capricia, you HAVE TO. You are the ONLY ONE LEFT!" he screamed. His eyes were so empty, and as much as she fought against him, he wouldn't let go. Darkness danced in her vision and she continued slapping at his hands, until suddenly, abruptly, he dropped her. She hit the ground with a dull thud, gasping for air. His eyes were teary when he looked at her, and he rubbed at his face fiercely, shaking his head like he was trying to shake his thoughts away from himself.

"You're the only one left," he whispered again, kneeling down to her. He reached for her again, this time with only one hand.

"No, Andrew, please," she begged. "Please, I love you, I do, please," the last words she managed before he wrapped his fingers around her throat. She felt him dragging her backwards, the hand tightly on her neck with the other firmly gripping her hair. The world went black again, and the last thing she felt was water surrounding her.

He held her under the water until she stopped thrashing, then for a while longer after that. He had to be sure. When he finally let her go, she floated away gently - she looked like an angel. So peaceful, so serene.  After a few seconds, reality began to set in, and he felt his heart seize. What had he done? He waded into the water, grabbing her by the cold, dead hand, trying to drag her back to the edge of the pool. He yanked her body out of the water, ignoring how heavy and waterlogged it was, and placed her on her back, desperately trying to resuscitate her using mouth to mouth. He kept pushing Areli magic into her lifeless body, trying to force it to resurrect her.

She lay still, and cold, and dead.

"No, Capricia, no, please, no, wake up, I love you," he begged, his words echoing her own last. He stayed like that for what seemed like hours, and then slowly got up, and pulled out his phone, turning his back to her body.

"Ramsey? Ramsey, it's Andrew Vida. I - I killed her. I killed - I killed my twin," he choked. Ramsey instructed him to make like a tree and get the fuck out of there, intending to meet him close by and get the body as fast as possible, and Andrew did what he was told - not before placing one last kiss on the dead body's mouth. One last try, one last spark.

Nothing.

There was only nothing.

When Ramsey and Andrew came back to retrieve the body, they also found nothing - because sometime between when Andrew had left and when they came back, the "spark" worked. Arelis were stubborn, and the magic was stubborn, and they were hard to kill - which was why when the Vidas had found out how, they killed them en masse. But the magic had adapted over the years, it had learned.

"We have a problem on our hands," Ramsey said into his phone, talking to some unknown source on the other end while Andrew went into a panic in the background.

And now Capricia was fully awakened. And she was on the fucking loose.

[Andrew Vida]

S I C K

[Andrew Vida]

P R I C E

[Andrew Vida]

S I B L I N G S

[Andrew Vida]

M A S Q U E R A D E

[Andrew Vida]

S P E L L

The room was uncomfortably quiet. The Vida Witch felt his lips curl in a fashion only to be described as disgust. He couldn't believe he was here, now, doing this. He shifted in the chair, brushing a strand of hair that wasn't there off of his black button-down shirt. He could hear a mortar and pestle working diligently in the next room over, softly crushing the right amount of herbs and spices together for the potion he required.

The door swung open suddenly and the sitting room of the old house was filled with light. A girl barely out of her teens bounced into the room, tossing a large black purse at the sofa that had a nice brown velveteen throw across the top of it, and brushed her hands through her long brown hair while simultaneously bending down to grab a handful of M&Ms from an overly-ornate crystal dish on the antique walnut coffee table. She stopped in mid-motion as she realized that there was a man sitting in the Queen Anne wing chair.

"Oh," she said stupidly. She straightened up, then put the M&M's in her mouth as though she'd decided she didn't care after all. "Hello," she said through chewing. "Who are you?"

Andrew narrowed his grey-green eyes a little. Wolf, he noted, along with harmless.

"Andrew," he responded. "I'm waiting for Raven to finish up with something. I'm assuming you're her sister's friend?" he said, standing from the chair and approaching her. He held his hand out to shake hers, noticing that she hesitated a split second, glancing around as though to 'check' his story out by giving her senses a reach around the house to ensure the Boswell women weren't cut up into tiny pieces in the kitchen.

His form was larger than hers, but not in the same way that Nathaniel's was; even though he seemed to mean well, Claire could sense power off of him. She shook his hand because she was polite, but she didn't let her fingers linger on his own as she often did with a cute man. "Yeah, I'm Rook's friend. Claire. Nice to meet you."

"Raven's in the kitchen," he said. "Don't know where Rook went. Speaking of... Raven, are you almost done?" he asked, stepping away from Claire and poking his head into the kitchen doorway. Raven was positioned over a counter full of various sundries, some rather nefarious by the looks of it. Rook was seated at the rustic-looking kitchen table, flipping through a decrepit-looking book and calling out random ingredients to Raven.

The elder gypsy glanced behind her and grinned. "Almost. You know, I really can't believe you of all people are asking for this. You realize how much I normally charge for a 'Forever and Always' spell? You better be glad I like you," she teased. From the table, the younger snorted. Andrew became dimly aware that the wolf had entered the kitchen, and she squeezed around him to get to the table, where she sat down next to Rook.

"What are you making?" she asked curiously, turning the book so she could see it.

"What do people ever ask my sister to make?" Rook said with a 'duh' look on her face. "Seems like the business of love is more profitable than curses, these days. I can't believe that last girl actually paid you six grand for this junk," she said, shutting the book under Claire's inquisitive nose with a thud. Her action sent dust up into the air, causing Claire to sneeze repeatedly.

"For the love of a lifetime?" Raven said to Rook as she poured the ingredients into a boiling pot of water on the stove. "Honey, you can't put a price on that. I mean - anyone can hurt another person, but love? Love isn't something you can just do."

"Well, evidently it's something you can," Rook countered darkly. "Come on, Claire. I'm bored. Let's go to the bar and torture Coop." And with that, the two younger girls exited the room.

"Something the matter with her?" Andrew said, leaning against the counter.

Raven waved her hand absently before picking up a spoon and stirring the pot, turning the burner off. "Nope. She's always that sarcastic, especially when she's helping me make money," she said, turning around to poke Andrew in the nose with her forefinger. "Speaking of which, what have you got for me?" she said, biting her lip through her smile. It was easy to see why she was the "love" doctor; her scratchy, feminine voice and pretty features made it hard not to be attracted to her. Thankfully, Andrew had known her for a while, and he was immune to her wiles.

He reached into his back pocket and handed her a plain white envelope that was thick with hundred dollar bills. "It seems odd to put a price to this," he said, echoing the sentiment she'd earlier brought up.

"Hey, it is what it is. I really just can't believe you, of all people, are the one coming to me for this. I mean - Andrew, you're - well," she said, ending with a flat tone. It didn't need to be said, really. He was a Vida. He wasn't the type of man to require the love of another, and certainly not the type to seek mystical means by which to achieve it. "Who is the unlucky girl cursed by your affections, and why doesn't she return them?" she asked. She phrased it in a way that could have been misinterpreted as comedic, but there was no joke to Raven's words. The life of a Vida was a hard one. That Danielle and Ash had made it so long was simply because he was a Triste; otherwise, one of them would be dead because of the actions of the other.

"It's complicated," Andrew said.

"So, I know her," she responded. Raven said no more on the matter, and began straining the hot liquid in the pot to a small vial by way of a funnel. She paused, and then her brows perked up high on her forehead. "Oh," she said suddenly, corking the vial. She turned to face Andrew, who was uncomfortably close to her right then (she hadn't noticed him moving in, but there he was). "Andrew, I can't give this to you," she told him.

She moved it away from him before he could snatch it off of the counter, holding it close to her chest with her other hand clamped around it. "No, forget it!" she cried. "You know how much shit this could get me into? Serious conflict of interest, man!"

Andrew held his hand out, a firm line set to his mouth. His eyes were cold and steely, like the water in the arctic. "Don't worry about it. I'll handle everything. Raven...." he coaxed, slowly prying her fingers apart. "Give me the bottle." His tone was calm, but there was an edge to it that was - well, she never doubted he was a Vida before, but she certainly wouldn't ever forget it now.

"If anyone asks, you bought this from someone else," she commanded him, her voice a hiss.

"Of course," he said matter-of-factly. His phone rang at that exact moment and he smiled to her, turning away. "Hello?" he asked, his tone bright. "Oh, Capri, hey. No, I was just thinking about you..."