dialogue - thoughts
"dialogue" - speaking
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Chapter 7
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Meryl blinked as if trying to clear her vision. She then proceeded to stare almost incredulously at the person before her.
It was him!
And despite the fact that it was excessively dark where she stood, as there were overhangs from the buildings on either side that blocked out all light- and rain-she could still see him quite clearly.
It was definitely the half-blooded vampire that seemed to be the centre focus of her mind for the past few days.
And he had somehow managed to find her before she had him, too! The petite woman was beginning to wonder if he purposefully showed up at the strangest times possible, or if it was just her combined with unnecessary stress and frustration.
She continued to stare at him as if he was some type of ghost.
Well, that depended on how you looked at him.
Meryl, you aren't mute! Say something! Meryl's mind urged her on, but somehow and for some mysterious reason, she couldn't think of anything to say. Maybe nothing she was thinking and feeling could be expressed in words.
Or maybe she was just and idiot letting her quarry slip away from her.
And either way, she merely continued to gape at him, and he seemed content on staring straight back.
Oh great. Dspite the fact that Meryl looked stumped on the outside, her mind was racing. Since whendid I become speechless in front of vampires??
With her thoughts running madly around her head and scattering before she could get a firm hold on any idea whatsoever, she stayed completely motionless. It was only when a stray drop of rain slipped down from above to splat on her forehead that she snapped out of it and tensed up, a scowl forming on her face. He was a vampire, after all. And you don't just stare dumbly at vampires! You never know what they're going to do next!
So, doing the only thing that came to mind, Meryl pointed an accusatory finger at the man and demanded, "What are you doing here?" as if it was somehow his fault she was freezing to the bone, numb and queasy at the same time.
The blonde blinked in what looked to be confusion as his eyebrows shot up, "Me??"
Well, who else, idiot? "Yes, you!" Meryl didn't even bother being polite to the man. After all, he was only a half-blood and certainly not as threatening as a full-fledged vampire. Hell, she could kill him on the spot, and he probably wouldn't even notice until there was a stake through his chest.
He looked completely stumped at that, and frowned slightly, "I was.just strolling by..." he trailed off and began to edge slowly away from the petite woman, hoping she wouldn't notice in the dimness.
Meryl, however, hardly heard the man. Trying to shake reckless thoughts from her head that were sure to get her killed, she was already too late when she focused her attention back on the vampire.
And before Meryl could get in another word-or any word at all-the blonde suddenly grinned goofily (although eyed her warily at the same time) before announcing in a fake cheery voice she thought she would never hear from a man, no less a vampire, "You know what? I think I'm going to leave you alone, now."
And with that-a simple statement, he slipped away from Meryl (who now had her fists clenched and ready in defence, finally getting her thoughts right and decided he really was a vampire, therefore a force to be reckoned with) and ran blindly toward the exit.
The petite woman looked outraged and stood in stunned silence for a moment before snapping out and yelling indignantly to the man's retreating form, "Hey! Where are you going??"
Her only answer was a hurried wave from over the vampire's shoulder as he ran, and disappeared around the corner and back into the hard sheets of rain. Meryl started after him-with a look quite like that of murder on her face-when a small voice suddenly halted her dead in her tracks.
"Sempai...?"
Now it didn't take a genius to figure out whom the voice belonged to, and Meryl whirled around, quickly forgetting about the escaping culprit and focusing her attention on her "vanished" friend.
"Milly?" the petite woman questioned almost quietly, staring into the darkness and looking for the source.
A shadow shifted by the wall, and Milly was heard again, "Sempai! It is you! I must have dozed off for a moment there.I'd thought for sure the vampires had gotten you, sempai!" the petite woman could hear her smile, "I'm so glad you're all right!"
Meryl quickly darted over to her partner and was by her side in a second, "Milly, are you all right?" she shot back, "Where did you run off to?" she kneeled down beside her seated friend.
Milly smiled again through the darkness, and beamed at her partner, "Sempai, Mr. Vash helped me after you disappeared." She nodded to herself as if to confirm the fact.
Suddenly looking perplexed, Meryl asked hesitantly, "Helped you?" and her voice hardened in an instant before she stood up abruptly, "If he bit you I'll kill him!"
The taller woman's brow furrowed in confusion, "Bite me? Why would Mr. Vash bite me, sempai?" she slowly pulled herself from the ground and cast a quizzical eye at her partner, "Didn't you just meet him a moment ago? Or did he run off before you could meet him? Quite a jumpy man, he was."
Meryl turned to Milly, fear and outrage mixed clearly in her grey eyes, "That was him, Milly!" she exclaimed while pointing toward the end of the alley where he had disappeared.
"Who?" came the reply.
Meryl brought a hand to her head and sighed in distress, "The half-vampire I've been looking for." She answered mournfully, realization that she had lost him once again settling in her mind.
Shocked, Milly cried, "Why didn't you go after him, sempai?!"
Shaking her head, Meryl's shoulders sagged, "Never mind." She mumbled, not bothering to speak the truth. It would only raise more unneeded questions, "Let's make sure everything is clear and then we can leave to my house. I've had enough of this for one day."
"But sempai, we can still find him if we try!" Milly protested, but her complaints were lost on Meryl.
The petite woman took hold of her soggy cloak and pulled at it, "Look at us, Milly! There are swarms of vampire's wandering around London, out for our blood. It's raining, freezing cold and we are both soaked to the skin, if you haven't already noticed!"
Milly stayed silent, carefully digesting the words.
Sighing in defeat, the petite woman added, "Besides, I'm tired. I can't run around the city searching for a vampire who only seems to show up when I'm not looking for him." Meryl began to make her way towards the exit where rain was still running rivers down the street.
Milly joined her and they stared out at the sheets of water pounding the cobblestones and houses. Rain recoiled violently from any surfaces and bounced back up in the air before coming to a final rest on the ground. Both women shuddered simultaneously, the cold finally managing to catch up with them.
"Sempai.?" Milly crossed her arms as her teeth began to chatter, "You don't happen to have that umbrella with you still, do you?"
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A loud sneeze sounded throughout the room, disturbing the brief silence, and Meryl brought a kerchief to her nose before another sneeze came on.
Milly sniffed and pulled the blankets tighter around her body before positioning herself more comfortably on her partner's ling room couch, "Sempai, what do we do now?" the woman asked, and sniffled again, her nose a rosy red colour.
Meryl groaned slightly and leaned back in her chair, resting her head on her pillow and gathering the warm quilts around her, "We sit and hope our colds go away sometime soon," declared the shorter woman in an almost nasal sound, her voice muffled with her cold.
Milly sniffled again, bringing her handkerchief her nose, "But sempai, Mr. Vash might leave London before we get outside again!" a violent fit of sneezes interrupted her cut off any more protests that she had planned to say.
"Right now," stated the petite woman pathetically, "I don't care if I never see him again."
Holding a kerchief over her nose, Milly shook her head, "But sempai, what about the mark on the back of your neck? Do you still think Mr. Vash has something to do with it?" her eyes began to water as yet another sneeze came on.
"Yes," Meryl admitted grudgingly, watching as Milly shook under the blankets, "Today only proved that, I think."
Sniffling, Milly blinked at her partner, "What do you mean, sempai?"
Meryl opened her mouth to reply, but was cut off as Milly was reduced into anther fit of sneezes. She waited patiently until her friend was done before muttering, "Bless you," and trying to recall what she was going to say.
"Sempai?"
Meryl sniffed, "Oh...um." she trailed off as her eyes began to sparkle with tears, a sign another bout of sneezes was coming on.
They did, and as Meryl finished, she growled in frustration before heading onto what she had been trying to say, "I mean, that idiot was following us! He must have seen the whole thing with that pack of bloodsuckers, how else would he have shown up at the perfect time to 'rescue' us??"
"Oh." Milly nodded before she was bowled over with another fit of sneezes.
Over Milly's sneezing and her own temporary lack of hearing, Meryl somehow managed to catch the quick knock on her door before recognizing it immediately. Standing up-but wobbling slightly-she made her way out of the room with a quilt clutched tightly to her chest. Reaching the entrance just as her visitor began to rap on the wood again, she grumbled a choice curse and reached to unlock the door.
A vicious bout of sneezes overwhelmed her as she pulled the door open to admit the person outside, and she whipped out her kerchief before she was forced to use her sweater as a makeshift tissue.
Meryl wiped her eyes grudgingly and began to make her way to her chair, "We're in the living room, Nick." She called-her voice slightly muffled-over her shoulder.
The priest regarded the retreating woman with a slightly raised eyebrow before shrugging and shutting the door firmly behind him. Proceeding to remove his overcoat, he listened as the faint sound of talking reached his ears. The rainstorm had finally receded to plague some other part of England, and he hung his dry coat on a spare hook and removed his clean-for once-boots. Then, he made his way silently to Meryl's living room, where the sight before his caused a dry smirk to appear on is rather scruffy face.
Meryl was curled up on her big chair, nearly buried under a massive pile of quilts and pillows with a handkerchief positioned permanently at her nose while Milly lay shrouded in blankets with several pillows propping up her head. Both women look slightly pale; both women were sneezing simultaneously and both women looked thoroughly ill.
Wolfwood grinned at Meryl, "Wasn't one of you smart enough to bring an umbrella?"
Meryl snorted, her smoky-grey eyes narrowing, "We did bring an umbrella." She glanced at Milly, "It's lying somewhere downtown witha thousandholes in it and a broken handle." She coughed slightly after finishing the sentence.
"The umbrella was no match for the rain, Mr. Priest," Milly piped in, "It wasn't much help against all those vampires, either." Her face took on a thoughtful look, and she missed the shocked expression that passed over Wolfwood's face.
The priest turned swiftly to Meryl, a scowl firmly in place, "What's this??" he asked, outrage evident in his voice.
Meryl met his gaze levelly and wrinkled her red nose in distaste, "Do something useful if you're here instead of making a fuss." She stated firmly, although the effect was reduced by the muffling of her voice, "Go make us a pot of tea if you want to know the story."
Wolfwood's outrage was immediately replaced with dismay, and he looked to Milly for help, but she seemed to be lost in her own thoughts. Turning back to Meryl, he met a satisfied smirk. Sighing slightly in defeat, the priest trudged off to the kitchen and set about brewing a pot of tea.
Like he had stated before, he had never liked the stuff.
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Smokey-grey eyes stared dully through the darkness, taking in the faintly lit street below from the safety of the inside.
It had not rained since earlier that day, when Milly and herself had been out searching for the half-blood, Vash. For that she was thankful.The dampwould not aid her recuperation much, and she needed to be rid of the spring cold quickly if she ever wanted to find the underlying cause of this mark on her neck. Not to mention that annoying half-blood that didn't want to co- operate.
She had some suspicions, those including the mysterious man with the blue eyes.
Those eyes had been haunting her ever since she had seen that carriage.
It was him, she knew, but she didn't know what he wanted.
In fact, she didn't want to know what he wanted, even though her curiosity seemed to be slowly eating away at her mind. It was driving her insane, and she couldn't help it.
She didn't want to know why her dreams were nothing but nightmares repeating over and over, running her into fear and darkness, or why this stranger with icy blue eyes had assaulted her with a group of vampires.
He was one himself, she knew. He was definitely a bloodsucker, there was no mistaking that.
And why had she almost mistaken him for the half-blood-Vash? The half-blood that had saved her and Milly, with no reason to.
She had stabbed the man, for god's sakes! He should hate her, he should have killed her.
But Wolfwood had assumed he was a half-blood who refused his true vampire heritage, the kind that refused blood and avoided any of their kind. His actions earlier had only further confirmed the priest's assumption.
Meryl stood up from her bed and stepped up to the window to peer along the boulevard that her old house was positioned on-crammed between two more housed and facing a packed street block. She focused on the street below (the corner that led to an intersection, around the shoe shop across from her house) and was surprised when the lamps bordering the road suddenly sputtered feebly before flickering and dying out.
They had been doing that more than usual lately, but that had been because of the rain.
Now, it was not raining.
Blinking rapidly, Meryl pulled her blanket off the bed and quickly covered herself with it. She gazed down to the cobblestone street and watched the road cautiously.
Something moved within the inky blackness, with slinking progress.
Breath hitching sharply, Meryl stumbled back slightly, but kept her eyes locked on the dark form below.
And as it moved again, she saw-somewhat to her dismay, but very much to her relief-that it was only a cat. A black cat.
The small form slithered off into the night, and Meryl lost sight of it in the darkness.
Sighing in relief, the petite woman backed up, away from the window and sat down heavily on her bed. Sniffling slightly, she stretched out on the bed.
Her throat was scratchy and sore, but her sneezing had calmed down somewhat.
Suddenly, her room was illuminated slightly, and Meryl shot up so abruptly it made her head spin. Her head snapping towards the window, she saw a flickering light brightening the building facing hers.
The petite woman stumbled out from her bed and ran toward the window. And surely enough, the lamplights were glowing merrily once again, and there was no sight of the person who relit them.
How had the found out so quickly that the street lamps were out?? Usually they would be off half the night before being relit sometime in the morning, and by then they would be of no use.
Meryl clutched the sill of the window tightly and watched-frozen to the spot as a shadow moved into the light. It swayed slightly and approached the nearest lamp, the one directly across from her house. It was so familiar she nearly yelled out in alarm, but managed to keep quite with the crazy thought that if she made a so much as a peep, he would somehow see her.
Meryl watched, frozen as it turned it's hidden face up to her window, and she was sure she saw it smile-a cruel, cold smile.
She tumbled back from the window as though just looking at it had burnt her and fell to the floor with a loud thump that seemed to reverberate throughout her whole bedroom
Gulping down air, she attempted to calm herself. A fit of coughs then overtook her, and she fought for air.
It didn't work, and she pulled her discarded blanket from her bed and wrapped it firmly around herself. Meryl shivered and wheezed slightly, fighting back the sneeze forcing it's way up and blinked back her tears.
This was too much.
Tomorrow, she thought steely, I don't care if all the damned vampires in all of England are after me. I'm going to get to the bottom of this, and all hell will freeze over before I don't!
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A/N: That was fairly, long, so I hope you're happy with it!
--Cayenne Pepper Powder