Hey Pretty {Tag Darren}

[Connor Batten]

Connor was going to kick himself later, when he realized that she hadn't read his mind in the usual sense.  That she COULDN'T read his mind in the usual sense.  She found out about Anya because his baby girl never seemed to be far from his thoughts anymore, and that was a liability. 

He heard her blow connect, and whipped around before she'd even mentioned his name.  She'd just smacked his cousin hard enough that the kid impacted the ground, which wasn't all that surprising.  She HAD wiped him out with a bite right before.  The mention of the baby, though!  That was a veiled threat, and he knew it immediately.  He couldn't help paling, especially when she vanished like that, and he shot towards his cousin with a renewed sense of purpose.  They had to MOVE.

"Darren, I know you hurt, but get up.  Get UP!" he told him, dragging the younger man to his feet with people staring at them strangely.  Purezza's crowd control was obviously gone, and Connor had to MOVE.  "My car isn't far, and we have to move fast."

Darren, for all he was worth, used Connor's proximity to keep himself on his feet, and moved as quickly as he could at the moment.  Naturally, he just about passed out just from relief when he got into the passenger seat of the car, and he missed Connor's frantic phone calls.  Andrew first.

"Andrew, this is Connor.  Get Capri and the baby somewhere safe.  That vampire that was messing with Darren must have caught something about her and Anya from my mind, and she mentioned it.  I'll be in contact," he finished, and he hung up before anything else could be said.  One, Andrew was likely to have hung up at about the same time, and two, he didn't want to know where Capri and Anya were going until he was going there himself.  Purezza recognized him now, and he wasn't going to have her pluck the location out of his skull. 

The next call was to Ash, unsurprisingly.  Unfortunately, he got Dave first, but Ash managed to get to the phone before he got too impatient.  Dave was good about figuring out when it was an emergency, and when it wasn't.  Connor was going to end up demanding Ash's cell number before this was over, though.  Calling the bar was damn inconvenient.  "Leone, I'm bringing Darren to you.  He had another run-in with our recent favorite vamp, and he needs a safe place to sleep, at the very least.  I'll give you a description of her when I get there."

Ash agreed, which was expected, and it was settled.  It didn't take long to get there, and even some hours after Connor had left Darren in Ash's bar to go be protective where Capri and Anya were concerned, the leopard was still sleeping.  He felt he'd earned it, after that bit of abuse.

[Purezza]

Some hours later, after Connor had no doubt scrambled to get his girlfriend and child rounded up and guarded, and Darren had sought refuge at the Hollow (again), Purezza lingered on the empty streets, taking a light meal from a random stranger. Handsome men always did as they were told when she whispered in their ears, and they bared their throats freely for but a glimpse of her beauty. Such was life.

She closed her eyes, reaching out with every sense she could. She could almost feel the mist surrounding her, and yet she kept her form, willing her nose and ears to seek out the cat that she enjoyed so much. It turned out he wasn't far - not downstairs, but up, and facing the alley from what her nose told her. She looked up to a small window cracked, and tilted her head a little. In the blink of an eye, she was gone, and now perched atop the fire escape, casually, languidly.

"Darren.... Darren, kitten, darling... wake up? Won't you come play with me?" she whispered into the window, knowing her words would reach his sleeping mind. Oh, Purezza couldn't go inside without an invitation, and she surely wasn't setting foot in Ash Leone's house, but nothing said she couldn't get Darren outside, did it?

[Darren Liten]

Unlike the handsome man she'd fed from while he was sleeping, Darren wasn't at all willing to 'do as he was told' where Purezza was concerned.  That didn't mean he'd have a choice in the matter when it came down to it, but everyone seemed pretty confident that the vampire wouldn't dare mess with him in Ash's vicinity.  Unfortunately, nighttime hours also seemed to mean that the bar picked up, and this happened to be one of the night's that Ash had his hands full.  It didn't help that Darren had been scheduled to work that night, which meant that Ash HAD to cover for him.  The triste was hoping the vampire knew better than to attack someone he'd chosen to protect in his own home.

Obviously, she didn't, and Darren could hardly be blamed for waking up and thinking he was overheating, which was why he'd opened the window.  He'd only opened it a crack, though!  He'd gone back to sleep, feeling like shit, immediately afterwards, and didn't even think he'd dreamed.  He was just that tired.  Her voice made it through that sleepy haze, however, and he pushed himself to an upright position with a sleepy sort of confusion before slipping out of bed to go to the window. 

It wasn't until he was staring at her through the glass that his bright green eyes seemed to have any semblance of understanding of the situation at hand, and he knew he was in trouble.  He wondered if he could get a yell off before she stopped him, but wasn't even sure if anyone would hear him downstairs with the bar as busy as it was.  Probably?  Oh, he hoped so.

[Purezza]

Purezza seemed hazy at first, as though she were made of mist, and then she solidified again. Drat. She couldn't get into his building unless he invited her. She hissed to herself, and then tossed her hair flirtatiously over her shoulder, smiling pleasantly to him from the other side of the window.

"Come outside, Darren. Let's go have some fun!" she commanded, motioning for him to open the window and climb out. Purezza had her work cut out for her, but you had to hand it to her - an Akka vampire attempting to infiltrate the household of a triste with a Vida probably not far off, guarded by Crimson... she was fucking brave.

[Darren Liten]

Well, he wasn't about to invite her in of his own free will, though her voice tricks might have been able to manage that.  Whether or not she really WANTED to get in was another story, though.  With Ash downstairs and Danielle probably fairly close (she never seemed to be all that far from Ash since he'd gotten back to the Hollow from Midnight, even now that he was seemingly back to normal), Purezza entering the Hollow was a bad idea.  That was without even considering the fact that Crimson might have someone in the building, just in case.  He felt like an idiot for cracking the window, but it couldn't exactly do anything about that right then.  He could just pray that he'd make it long enough to avoid making the same mistake twice.

He couldn't refuse her, that much had been made obvious over the course of his last few run-ins with her, but she hadn't told him to remain silent.  He opened the window as he'd been told, but he took as much time with it as he could, just to make sure he had time to finish his yelling.

"ASH!  SHE'S HERE!  AAAAASHH!"

That didn't stop him from crawling out the window, though.  Nor would it stop her from getting pissed at him.  He was aware of that, but he didn't regret yelling.  He knew where his chances for survival were, and they definitely didn't sit with letting her do whatever she wanted with him whenever she wanted.  She might get away with it again, but Ash wasn't likely to let this go gently. 

He'd give it to her.  She was DAMN brave.

[Purezza]

"Mother of GOD!" she growl-yelled, grabbing Darren by the arm firmly when he got close enough for her to snatch him. She ripped him through the remainder of the glass in the frame, whether or not he was finished climbing through it. Ignoring the shards of glass, she threw her weight, and as a result, Darren, off of the fire escape and face first into the street below.

"Let's see if a cat always lands on his feet," she snarled as she flung him, eyes alight with rage at his blatant desire to see her life cut incredibly shorter by the Triste. She wasted no time on the escape herself, seeming to implode into a rolling fog, which poured off of the contraption almost instantly and hung low on the gritty, slick streets, looking as inconspicuous as possible.

From within the mist, her voice came - "These people are your enemies, Darren. They're trying to kill you. Don't let them come near you! Kill them first!"

This was going to be bad.

[Darren Liten]

He yowled without even thinking about it as he was ripped through the window, which was hella painful, and thrown off of the fire escape.  That wasn't a short fall, though at least it wasn't 8 stories up, like another cat almost had to deal with recently.  That didn't mean it wasn't going to hurt, however, and his landing was pretty harsh.  Naturally, given the glass shards flying through the air, he landed amongst them.

In bare feet. 

Fortunately, he WAS a cat, so the instant he hit the ground, his body automatically compensated for the distance he'd fallen and his momentum.  His legs bent with his weight and he rolled through the glass, hissing in pain when he caught his feet again.  He was bleeding, and that hurt, not to mention the sharp pain that had shot up the bones in his feet and legs just from impacting.  He was going to be digging glass out of his skin later.

Later.  He didn't have time to deal with glass just yet.  She'd just spoken, and there was no way in hell he was going to be able to just ignore her, though his first thought was to run and avoid having to deal with ANY enemies. 

Too bad Dave chose to come running out the nearest door, having obviously taken a different route than Ash had.  He was the nearest person as Ash stopped at the window to stare down at them, and Darren didn't even think before leaping at the wolf, shifting mid-air.  If he'd been thinking properly, he'd have never shifted in front of her just because of the vampiric obsession with anything 'rare' and his bloodline, but that was all ruined in an split-second of instinctual reaction to the 'enemy' rushing out the door at him.  He knew he was better equipped to find someone in his leopard form, and Dave's eyes went wide in the instant before Darren struck him, claws digging into flesh instantaneously.  They went down and rolled, the werewolf shifting even as they went, and Purezza's thoughts on the matter were absolutely correct.

This was going to be bad.

Fortunately, Darren wasn't exactly experienced enough to kill Dave before the wolf could really put together a proper defense, and the wolf had the experience that the leopard didn't.  Darren was bigger, and had claws that Dave didn't, but they seemed pretty evenly matched for the time being.

They had about fifteen seconds before Ash zapped Darren back into his human form, and rather painfully.

[Purezza]

Purezza had taken form again, and watched in glee as Darren viciously began attacking the werewolf. She was whispering on the mist, cheering him on, and her plans were only cut short when Ash appeared and forced him back into his human form. No doubt he reveled in ruining her fun, she thought, folding her arms angrily from her vantage point back on the fire escape.

Before the situation got worse, Purezza decided to take her leave - again, bats, flying as quickly as she possibly could into the sky. She wasn't interested in sticking around to face the ire of the Triste. She hadn't made it this long by being blatantly stupid.

[Darren Liten]

Darren's agonized yowl went through an interesting change even as his body shifted back to its human form, changing with the manner in which his vocal cords did.  By the end, it was purely human, but it had a few instants there that were rather...unusual.  Ash didn't seem to take notice, instead taking a pot shot at the vampiress before she took off, but his attention was predominantly on Dave and Darren.  In his human form, it was far easier to see where he was hurt, and the glass had done its share of damage.  Dave shifted back a moment after Darren had finished, and he was looking a little rough, as well.

"Let's get him inside before she comes back," he said simply, watching after her.  Bats.  He knew what that meant. 

Darren struggled a bit as they tried to move him, but Ash's mere presence seemed to have a calming effect on him, in much the same way that Elke's did.  It was subtle, something he didn't even take notice of, and he preferred it.  He still hurt, but it was less important.  It was a comforting, good sort of calm, and even Dave didn't seem angry.  In fact, he fixed his leopard friend with a look that was almost scared, though not necessarily of him.  Maybe a little, considering he'd never thought of Darren as a threatening figure (and that cat had managed to toss him around more than he'd like), but mostly because of the vampiress' ability to pit him against friends. 

Not good, but Darren already knew that.  Too bad nobody had thought about the degree of trouble he was in BEFORE. 

Ash had his work cut out for him on this one.  Two bleeding bartenders, and Fax on the floor.  He would have to be fast, and get Dave back out there as soon as he could.