<Crion>
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<Crion> Well. That was quite a night.
<Crion> But there were more changelings in it than vampires, really...how much information did Stewart actually get for the wiki? And when does he usually sign off for the night when he streams? Because unless it's absurd, the vampires should all still be up.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart got some good stuff on the political situation, but not much on the nature or capabilities of vampires. The most interesting fact he learned was actually about his kind. Stewart wonders if there are vampire hippies who love tripping balls on changeling blood. Anyway, he usually stops streaming at about 2am unless it's the start of a fresh league, where he'll routinely pull 14, 16
<VoxPVoxD> hour days.
<Crion> Jesus.
<Crion> Well, then he can start hunting again whenever he likes after 2 AM. There are a couple different ways to approach this -- try to get in touch with The Mainer again, who didn't leave a calling card but did inform you he maintains an office at the law firm, or try something else.
<Crion> Though the Mainer might not take kindly for being asked to babysit on an undergrad project.
<VoxPVoxD> Yeah, Stewart would prefer not to trouble the Mainer with this. But to do that he also needs to avoid causing any inadvertent diplomatic mishaps, unlike he did last night. The question, then, what other angle to take... Stewart clicks around. Jumping rapidly from stimulus to stimulus probably isn't great for his concentration, but it's a reflex habit. He pokes into the chat channel - has
<VoxPVoxD> Lauren been dark for a second day in a row?
<Crion> Nah, dolor_sit_amet is online, though beyond a greeting when he logged on she hasn't been very talktative.
<Crion> *talkative.
<VoxPVoxD> Hmm. Stewart doesn't want to bother her this late (that's a lie, he super does. he won't though). What leads does he have... he knows the Prince of the city plays Destiny, maybe he can use that as a point of investigation. Though, if he's trying to avoid diplomatic complications, that's probably not the best angle.
<Crion> Well, if you're not going to try to break into the Prince's private Destiny 2 clan -- probably a good idea? -- then there's limited stuff you can do. An idea that does occur to Stewart: EMT records. Figure out where the most calls are for people with "fatigue," or DOAs from being...well, torn apart or whatever. Plot them, find epicenters.
<Crion> Difficult to do without filing an Maryland Public Information Act request, sadly, as he'll find out from the Baltimore City Fire Department's website...
<Crion> ...but then, he works for a law firm, doesn't he?
<VoxPVoxD> That's true! He does, technically. He's spent very little time actually in the office but it's right there on his taxes. Kind of hard to set up this time of night, though...
<Crion> QUOTH is online. QUOTH is always online.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart always loved that poem as a kid. <Do you know how I can get EMT records for the city?>
<Crion> QUOTH, immediately: <'STEWART READER,' KNOWN OTHERWISE AS 'CRITICALMASS:'>
<Crion> <YOU MUST>
<Crion> <FILE>
<VoxPVoxD> <How can I file?>
<Crion> <A MARYLAND PUBLIC INFORMATION ACT REQUEST FOR STATE OR CITY AGENCIES. SELECT YOUR TARGET.>
<VoxPVoxD> <BCFD>
<Crion> <SELECT YOUR DATE RANGE>
<VoxPVoxD> <1/1/2019 to present>
<Crion> <THEN IT SHALL BE FILED. CHECK BACK IN EIGHT TO TWENTY-THREE MONTHS>
<Crion> <UNLESS YOU WISH TO EXPEDITE."
<Crion> *>
<VoxPVoxD> ... <I wish to expedite>
<Crion> <EXPEDITING.>
<Crion> <EXPEDITING...>
<Crion> <EXPEDITING...........>
<Crion> <DOWNLOADING ALL DIGITIZED EMT REPORTS FROM REQUESTED RANGES. COLLATING.>
<Crion> <STEWART READER: COLLATION SUITE IS ACTIVATED. DO YOU REQUIRE DATA COLLATION.>
<VoxPVoxD> <Yes>
<Crion> <INPUT PARAMETERS>
<VoxPVoxD> First, he isolates incidents caused or plausibly causable by significant but hidden blood loss. Then he gets Ravens to show him points on a map. Anything stand out?
<Crion> Not much as the data begins to populate -- starting with the oldest points first. A fairly normal distribution across populated, more upscale areas. Then around midsummer, something starts to change. Around Union Memorial Hospital, up near the Johns Hopkins undergraduate campus, a three-by-three block zone begins to report...hmmm.
<Crion> They're being admitted the same way as the others, but they're drained almost dry. Many die.
<Crion> None of this is in the papers.
<VoxPVoxD> Jesus.
<Crion> <ISOLATE AND COLLATE BY FREQUENCY?>
<VoxPVoxD> <Yes>
<Crion> <PROCESSING.>
<Crion> <PROCESSING...>
<Crion> A graph pops up, isolating the attacks near Johns Hopkins and providing interval data: how long between attacks. The math isn't perfect -- there's a margin of error of around 24 hours here -- but it looks like...there's another attack due tonight.
<VoxPVoxD> Uhhh fuck. Does he like - does he call someone? It's not really Gerald's job to fuck with vampires. Does he go himself? No, that's insane-
<VoxPVoxD> This seems like something that girl should be doing, right? She's their "Sheriff". Maybe it's time to call the Mainer... but then, who's to say they don't know? After all, someone's suppressing it.
<VoxPVoxD> But he can't just-- you can't do *nothing*. You can't possibly do nothing.
<VoxPVoxD> Fuck it. He'll go up there himself. If someone's covering it up then there'll be someone he can talk to. And he has a sense, maybe irrational, of immunity. There's comity, here, between the freehold and the court.
<VoxPVoxD> This is... not one to tell other people about, though.
<Crion> Hey, that's what he did last time. And it turned out fine.
<Crion> People keep saying they respect a go-getter.
<Crion> Parking up there is easy to find on the street; this is student housing, mostly, in these townhouses and comfy little two-family upstairs/downstairs affairs, and these are rich kids who have no reason to have cars. There will be somewhere to slide in. Pretty, too, in the early part of fall, and crisp.
<VoxPVoxD> Nice night. God, his mother would kill him if she knew he was wandering the streets of Baltimore at 2am looking for a violent crime.
<VoxPVoxD> Haha, wow. Thanks, brain.
<Crion> JHU campus cops are patrolling about. Uselessly, obviously, given the trendline here. But they're around.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart doesn't look super out of place here, so as long as he's not lurking like a huge obvious creep no one should give him trouble.
<Crion> Which is kind of funny because this is, ah, well off-campus. But this is a 'normal' funny thing, not a weird one -- JHU's cops roaming into public land is an ongoing fight.
<VoxPVoxD> Time to go for a bit of a walk.
<Crion> This is the neighborhood of Charle's Village.
<Crion> It's nice and clean and, ah, young and white.
<VoxPVoxD> Epic, epic same.
<Crion> It's bounded by JHU on the west, Guilford Avenue on the east, Union Memorial Hospital on the north, and 25th Street on the south.
<Crion> He parks near a church around the middle of this. St. John's Methodist.
<Crion> It's been chained up for the night...
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart doesn't know a ton about vampires, but surely they hate and fear the sun. He's going to look for structures that block the sun: shutters, uncharacteristically boarded-up windows, signs of buildings being modified, however cheaply or slightly, to let less sunlight in.
<Crion> The good news is that there aren't a lot of boarded-up homes like there are elsewhere in the city -- that'd be a lot of work combing through. However, the way these blocks are set up is: you've got a row of houses facing the street running north-south on each side of the block, and then a north-south alley running behind and between both rows -- and on the end of each of those rows is a squat
<Crion> garage structure, for maybe 1 or 2 cars, owned by someone on the block.
<Crion> They could be in there...
<Crion> But those seem like high-traffic areas.
<Crion> Obviously, they're in use, right?
<Crion> Same with the JHU campus.
<Crion> Really, what it kind of comes back to is that church.
<Crion> Right?
<VoxPVoxD> Ah, shit.
<VoxPVoxD> ...Stewart wonders if there's an organ in there.
<Crion> Methodists.
<Crion> Now, if it was Lutherans, maybe.
<VoxPVoxD> There is no more culturally bankrupt institution than American protestantism. You say the church is chained up; is it totally inaccessible?
<Crion> It's an old, old building. And it's got big chains across big gates. Thankfully, they seem to be wrought iron.
<Crion> There is, however, a semi-open area sort of up the block from the main entrance.
<Crion> Through some arches.
<Crion> Into darkest shadow.
<Crion> There's something on the wind as he approaches...Stewart's smelled this before...
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart pauses.
<Crion> ...Is that a Grape Juul?
<Crion> Two hard red points flash out of the darkness, meeting Stewart's own.
<Crion> Eyes.
<VoxPVoxD> Oh fuck.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart doesn't blink.
<Crion> From the darkness: "Come here."
<Crion> There's a man in the shadows there, in jeans and a dirty black shirt with a Catholic priest collar, and hair that's unkempt, and a hilariously out-of-place vape that he takes another pull off of. It's not actually a grape Juul, but it's close.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart drifts forward, almost sleepwalking into the darkness.
<Crion> Father Jesse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAHL9AfY4Yk Dear God -- I can't believe in, I don't believe in, I won't believe in heaven and hell; no saints, no sinners, no devil as well.
<Crion> "Stop."
<VoxPVoxD> He stops promptly.
<Crion> "Let's get a look at--"
<Crion> "Ahh!" The 'priest' jumps back a bit.
<Crion> "Oh for fuck's sake."
<Crion> He waves his hand, the compulsion is lifted.
<Crion> "You know, I thought I had something here. I thought: maybe he's using runners. Not-quite-ghouls. Proxies."
<Crion> "Fuckin' nope. It's one of you lot."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart blinks. Does he have any kind of accent? "I'm sorry?"
<Crion> He sounds vaguely southern. "You're sorry. I'm sorry. I can't even properly smoke anymore."
<Crion> He looks down at his vape in disgust. "You know if the battery on this fucks up, it could just set me on fire at any time?"
<Crion> "Walking down the street, and then hiss -- boom -- no more me."
<Crion> "...You back with me yet?"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart's a bit dazed, but he's coming around slowly. "...yeah, sorry, hi. I was- I was looking for something."
<Crion> The priest(?) sighs. "Wasn't a church tour, I'm guessing."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart, fully recovered, sizes the man up. "It's not you, is it."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart, fully recovered, sizes the man up. "It's not you, is it."
<Crion> He sucks on the vape again. "It is not me."
<Crion> "But you know, I'm glad we had the same idea."
<Crion> "This church is the right amount of spooky."
<VoxPVoxD> "Right? How long has this been going on?"
<Crion> "June 15th." He steps forward and glances down the street. "You're Kingsley's fresh new face?"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart's feeling pretty vindicated right now, getting hypnotized aside. "Yeah. Stewart Reader."
<Crion> "Father Jesse."
<Crion> "So. You've worked out the pattern. This is...you understand our territorial claims?"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Not really. I'm doing research, actually, so anything you can tell me--"
<Crion> He waves a hand again and frowns. Steps out. Shakes his head and steps back in. "Alright. So. We divvy up the city. Places you're allowed to eat. You become responsible for them, too. Kind of like fishing, and the Court is the Fish and Wildlife service. They give you your license, and if you start fucking up -- if you don't throw enough fish back, let's say -- they come looking for you."
<Crion> "Sounds brutal, maybe it is. Get the feeling you know from brutal already though. I usually don't have to do the morality lectures with you all."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "So you work with the Sheriff?"
<Crion> "I do. She thinks you all understand us better because of your trauma." He sucks on his Juul again. "I just think it's because you're used to listening to violent assholes justify themselves to themselves."
<Crion> "Anyway."
<Crion> "Charles Village. Two territories."
<VoxPVoxD> Kind of a lot to take in there, but okay. Stewart concentrates.
<Crion> "JHU belongs to the Doctor of Sciences. All campuses in Baltimore do. We were worried for a bit because we though this was him and well, there's a lot of reasons that'd be real bad news. Might need the Prince. And he's too busy gaming with...what's her fuckin' name. Lauren."
<Crion> "The rest belongs to Gabriel Menendez. And she's not fuckin' happy, man."
<VoxPVoxD> Wait what.
<Crion> "Menendez is cuddly. No kills. Court doesn't even get complaints. So here we are, looking at a body every five nights from a teddy-bear bleeding-heart, or...well, the Doctor of Sciences."
<Crion> He shrugs. "But it's not him."
<Crion> "And we've gone through the Court very thoroughly -- it's not anyone else."
<Crion> "So it's a freelancer."
<Crion> He steps out into the street again, steps back, and sighs once more. "Fuck it, let's walk."
<Crion> "We're not accomplishing anything standing around here."
<Crion> "And I'd rather not get to another sophomore right as they're dying."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart walks. "Does that happen a lot? Unaffiliated vampires? I sort of got the impression Baltimore was a, like a union shop."
<Crion> Father Jesse grins. "Your impression's right. It is absolutely not supposed to happen. Even if this guy hadn't dropped almost two-dozen bodies, the penalty for what he's doing starts at exile from Maryland and ends at exile from this particular world."
<Crion> You walk a couple blocks up St. Paul, heading towards the hospital. They watch their surroundings. The street corners. Eventually, Father Jesse takes another tug on the vape: "You're seeing that, right?" Stewart is: the JHU cops are only on the corners. They refuse to get out from under the lights, away from the intersections, or even pretend to patrol towards the middle of any block. They
<Crion> don't...overtly look scared. But something's up. Which is odd: in this spate of murders, not a single officer has been attacked.
<VoxPVoxD> "They know."
<Crion> "Mmmmmmm."
<Crion> "Do they?"
<Crion> Father Jesse immediately just, walks up to one of them. "Good evening officer! I am looking for directions to the Charles Village Pub. I'm Catholic, and Iiii need a drink--"
<VoxPVoxD> "Do you th--" Oh shit.
<Crion> The cop...sort of stutters, and doesn't really respond, and when he does, he seems kind of confused...?
<Crion> Eventually Father Jesse thanks him for his service and walks back over to Stewart, chuckling without much mirth.
<VoxPVoxD> "They have to stay in the light."
<VoxPVoxD> "They were told to."
<Crion> "Yep."
<Crion> "Yep, yep, yep."
<VoxPVoxD> "Can you all do that?"
<Crion> Father Jesse: "I can, but I didn't. But I'm starting to perceive why I was chosen for this job."
<VoxPVoxD> "You think your bosses know who it is?"
<Crion> "I try not to think about what they think. Let's head back to the church."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart nods.
<Crion> "If you're going to walk into a fire, you'll at least do it wearing a suit."
<Crion> It turns out he's, ah, opened that side door he was standing near.
<Crion> The church is silent and cold at night.
<Crion> There's still some exposed brick, and a balcony overlooking the altar. Father Jesse pulls out an old-school metal, gas lighter and tosses it to Stewart. "Could you light some of these candles?"
<Crion> He indicates an actual lamplighter's pole over in the corner. "I can't do the fire, but I love the light."
<VoxPVoxD> "Sure." Stewart will go around lighting the candles.
<Crion> He pulls a bag out from under the altar, and from the bag, he pulls something that looks like a hideous corkscrew.
<Crion> It's got a bracing mechanism on it.
<Crion> "This is going to sound stupid and dangerous," he says, "but if anything even touches your head it means I failed, and we stop." He gestures with the giant corkscrew. "I need you to sit down here on the steps."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart hesitates, but only briefly.
<Crion> The father secures the brace on Stewart's head, lines up the corkscrew, and begins turning -- four inches out. And the screw never reaches Stewart's hair, let alone head.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart's torn between thinking about how scary this is and how silly it must look from the outside.
<Crion> Instead, when Father Jesse steps back, the brace falls away, and he's holding nothing but the corkscrew's handle. And Stewart feels clearer-headed than he has in awhile.
<Crion> "Seems like I've still got it," he says, pulling out his vape and taking another pull.
<Crion> "Ready to go hunting?"
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart stands. "...yeah."
<Crion> He pauses. "Realized I forgot to ask. Are you comfortable killing a serial killer?"
<Crion> "If it comes to that."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "A serial killer's probably worse than a cop, right?"
<Crion> Another mirthless smile. "Who says he isn't?"
<Crion> "A cop, I mean."
<Crion> "How would you mesmerize all those fools?"
<Crion> Another pull on the vape. "No, I think we're hunting an officer who walks between the lampposts. Even if they're not actually an officer."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart's kind of floating away from himself again, buoyed by the thought of violence. It doesn't really feel better than worrying about it, but worrying about it feels so *stupid*. "Huh."
<Crion> Another patrol, and this time with the full, ah, clarity of the situation upon both of them. And this time, the results are different.
<Crion> Specifically, now that both of you know where the cops are standing, you know where the cop cars are supposed to be -- nearby, parked illegally -- and so when you see one on St Paul and 30th near the middle of the block, under a completely blacked-out street light...
<Crion> Well.
<Crion> "Fuck," says Father Jesse. "Well. It's probably good. If it was too late, it wouldn't still be here. Right?"
<VoxPVoxD> "Makes sense."
<Crion> It's parked right in front of an alley. "You want the car or...that dark place someone might be waiting to ambush us?"
<VoxPVoxD> When you put it like that... "...I'll take the car."
<Crion> The priest nods. "Don't worry about opening the locks the way you all do. God absolves you for your sins. By not being real."
<Crion> Then he steels himself and slowly begins walking down that alley.
<VoxPVoxD> Right on.
<Crion> The cop car opens easily for Stewart, allowing him to rifle through everything in it quite quickly -- this is car 54-87, and it seems pretty well-kept. Except for the fact that it seems there was supposed to be a laptop computer mounted in here for the officers to use, and it's not here anymore. And some of the passenger's side seating underneath the seat -- down near the seat adjustment
<Crion> handles -- is badly-shredded.
<VoxPVoxD> That's odd.
<Crion> So Stewart pops the trunk and heads on back. And what he sees when he opens it is startling, certainly -- the bloody, torn remains of a police shirt, along with a badge numbered 1637 -- but he's seen dead bodies before. But just as he's trying to process that...
<Crion> ...Something tugs on the leg of his jeans.
<VoxPVoxD> !!
<Crion> What does he do?
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart hops away, or tries to, by reflex.
<Crion> The grasping hideous arms from beneath the cop car try to grab both of Stewart's legs--
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart's up and over them before he even looks down and realizes what just happened.
<VoxPVoxD> "Under the car!"
<Crion> Father Jesse surges out of the darkness, a terrible and cruel expression on his face as the creature stands. It's human, and shirtless, and wearing a Los Angeles Dodgers cap. "You will face me," the priest says, eyes flashing.
<Crion> The Thirsty Man -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YkkWsLWUu8 Let's kill tonight.
<Crion> The shirtless man screams and attempts to strike the priest, and he steps into it, slapping the blow aside and grabbing the creature's head.
<Crion> "And you--"
<Crion> Father Jesse slams his head into the creature's, their eyes almost touching.
<Crion> "--will belong--"
<Crion> Suddenly the priest collapses...and the killer straightens. From his mouth: "To me."
<Crion> "Whoops, let's not let me hit my head," the shirtless, Dodger-cap wearing vampire says, hauling up Father Jesse's body.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "God damn."
<Crion> He looks over at Stewart. Still hard to see in the dark, but the creature's eyes have the same red glint Jesse's did. "Yeah. Can you open the passenger side door? We kind of need to take me with us."
<Crion> "You drive, right?"
<Crion> "I don't trust a new body."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "Yeah."
<Crion> "Cool, great. God, this sucks. I hate doing this. We need to get back to St. Johns."
<Crion> 'The Thirsty Man' will put, uh, his body in the passenger's seat, then slide into the back.
<VoxPVoxD> Soon Stewart is... driving a police car back to the church where a vampire hypnotized him.
<Crion> It's weird hearing his drawl come out of the mouth of a creature whose voicebox has been half-destroyed. "Not how I pictured this night ending. Good thinking on your feet."
<Crion> "Heh."
<Crion> When they're there, 'The Thirsty Man' will haul Jesse's limp body in through the side door, expecting Stewart to open it for him, then deposit him in a front pew.
<Crion> "Okay. So what I need you to do right now is..." He places Jesse's bag on the altar in front of Stewart. "Take the manacles out of this, and chain me to the floor."
<Crion> "..."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart obliges. Starting to wonder if he fell asleep and has been dreaming this entire night.
<Crion> "Chain this body to the floor."
<Crion> "I'll be fine."
<Crion> "Shape of a cross works best here. Yeah. Like that."
<VoxPVoxD> ...it feels good to be helpful.
<Crion> Once that's done: "Okay. So if you look behind the altar they've got three crosses. One's way too big for anything useful. The two flanking it, the ones for the thieves, they're juuuuust right. Get both of them down from there."
<Crion> He's not lying; the big middle cross is like, four feet tall, but the ones on the sides are perfectly wieldable in multiple contexts.
<Crion> "Okay, now take that first one, lever it against the ground, and stomp on it til it breaks. We need a sharp edge."
<Crion> "A stake."
<VoxPVoxD> Never been hypnotized. Never witnessed a possession. Never stolen a police car. Never chained a man to the floor. Never desecrated a church...
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart's not strong, but he can jump pretty high and the momentum sees him through.
<Crion> "Excellent. Put that next to my body and clear out."
<VoxPVoxD> "You're... all set?"
<Crion> "I don't want to be in this body even one second longer."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart lays the stake beside the priest.
<Crion> There's a slight pause--and then the creature on the floor begins thrashing and screeching, as Father Jesse stands up from the pew, picking up the ersatz stake.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart stands well away.
<Crion> Father Jesse walks up and drives the pointy end of the cross into the creature's heart, then stands up and stomps down on the crossbeam, pushing it all the way through.
<Crion> "You've got that other cross for me?" he asks without looking away from the corpse.
<Crion> Well. It's a corpse either way.
<Crion> But at least now it's quiet.
<VoxPVoxD> "Yeah."
<Crion> He holds out a hand behind him for it.
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart hands it over.
<Crion> He tosses the crucifix down on the vampire's body, and begins...chanting, in Latin?
<Crion> This goes on for some time.
<Crion> Then the crucifix...melts into the body...
<Crion> ...the staked creature stirs...
<Crion> ...and nothing happens.
<Crion> Father Jesse stands.
<Crion> "Really."
<Crion> "Really???"
<Crion> "Fine."
<Crion> He turns to...the big cross.
<Crion> "You're a son of a bitch, you know that?"
<Crion> "I kept telling myself--"
<Crion> He climbs up on the mantlepiece.
<Crion> "For almost a hundred years, I kept telling myself, you have to wait it out."
<Crion> "There's more to it."
<Crion> "There is--"
<Crion> He grabs the great cross.
<Crion> "--in Him--"
<Crion> He pulls.
<Crion> "--a mystery."
<Crion> Father Jesse bears it down from its station and walks it over to the chained vampire, pointedly refusing to carry it on his back. "I spent so much time listening. Waiting to hear You say something."
<Crion> He drops the cross entirely over the vampire's body.
<Crion> "But all You ever did is talk to Yourself. Es stultior asino--"
<Crion> The great cross melts into the vampire's body, and blood explodes out from his hands and feet. And it keeps exploding.
<Crion> Father Jesse watches with contempt, but it's not for the dead man who is dying again.
<Crion> "I'll clean up here."
<Crion> "But this isn't the end of it."
<VoxPVoxD> Fuck, man. "Is there anything else I can do to help?"
<Crion> He nods. "You know when I went into his head tonight? This sorry motherfucker's."
<Crion> "Something else went out."
<VoxPVoxD> "Where did it go?"
<Crion> Father Jesse laughs. "That is the question, isn't it, Stewart Reader? If I knew, I'd be burning this church to the ground and heading over THERE right now. But I do know it wasn't panicking."
<Crion> "It felt empty and large."
<Crion> "Vampires, we're mostly creatures of passion."
<Crion> He blows another vape plume into the blood. "So what you can do to help, I think, is make a full and accurate report."
<Crion> "Just in case I'm right."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart draws in a big breath. "I will."
<Crion> He sits down on the altar, watching the last of the blood pour from the other vampire and its frame begin to wither. "My apologies for intruding in your head tonight. We're not good with boundaries, my people."
<Crion> Father Jesse looks over and grins. "Then again, neither are yours."
<Crion> "Now get the hell out of here."
<Crion> "And goodnight."
<VoxPVoxD> Stewart: "...good night."
<VoxPVoxD> It's a slow walk back to the car.
<VoxPVoxD> It's almost 4 when he gets home. The thought of settling into his chair and falling asleep talking to Lauren appeals to him, but he decides to go straight to bed. He'll ask her if she's played Destiny 2 with the Prince of Baltimore tomorrow.
<Crion> --Fin.