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Suzanna has known about vampires since the second grade, when Leo her very best friend in the whole wide world told her in confidence that his daddy was a werewolf and his mommy was a vampire. And then they went home from school and Leo's parents showed up at her parents' house and said they were just here to bring Leo over for a playdate ha ha ha, and his mom Nessie had brought Leo into the living room to play with her and had crouched down and told her all about the vampire world. And then she smiled and patted her fondly on the head and whispered, "If you tell anyone, then your bones will never be found." And she slid off into the dining room in that liquid way she had and told Mrs. Richardson she was awfully sorry, she'd totally forgotten that Leo had a doctor's appointment, and she'd try to bring him back some other time.
Suzanna was afraid of Mrs. Verona after that, but she wasn't afraid of vampires. She loved vampires. She wanted to turn the second she turned eighteen and could get away from her stupid parents and this stupid town and not get attention from the stupid cops. She waited with bated breath for her eighteenth birthday. Leo waited with her, though she knew he was afraid that when she was a vampire and he smelled like wet dog all the time she'd drop him like a used tissue. She told him she'd never do that because if she hurt him then his mother would hound her to the ends of the earth with a wolfpack by her side. He acknowledged the point.
And then, the month before her eighteenth birthday, the fierce urge to turn in her still-beating heart and a plane ticket to Italy in her purse, Tessa showed up and it all went to hell.
Tessa took her out for coffee and told her she'd just been passing through, but when she noticed how utterly beautiful Suzanna was she couldn't look away. She told Suzanna that she was dangerous, that she should stay away, but that she could never resist. Suzanna licked it up with a spoon. Then she made a mistake.
She said, "Yeah, you're a vampire, right? My friend's mom is a vampire. I'm turning next month, I'm taking a trip to Italy to see the Volturi and do the whole "hey Aro how's it going here's my memories" thing. Which is, like, mandatory? I think?"
How exactly was she supposed to know that Tessa was under the impression she was Aro's archenemy? How was she supposed to know that Tessa was super paranoid and thought him seeing her in Suzanna's memories would make him scour the continent on some crazy womanhunt? And how the Hell was she supposed to know that she had fucking mind control powers?
Okay, it wasn't actually mind control. Just sort of, "this lady is crazy hot and you should totally do what she says" hypnotic thing. But it was still freaky as shit. And it made something inside her say hell fucking no and her brain pulled some kind of trigger and BAM, Tessa was minus one head. And while she was lurching around like some crazy-ass zombie looking for the pieces and the coffee shop was losing its collective shit, Suzanna was puking and having the worst migraine of her fucking life and stumbling out into the street looking for Leo.
He was near enough she could find him, and she found him and said, "We have to go right fucking now."
And he said "where do we have to go?"
And she said "away."
And now they're away and Tessa's looking for them and it's a week to her birthday and she is not having fun.
Zanna and Addy
girls-just-wanna
think-me-not-cruel
"So you do have my power. But that wasn't an attack." She exhales, presumably for effect. "Please do not touch me without asking first. I have had over two thousand years to get very good at dismantling people."
taste_tester
"Sure. I'll keep it till I touch another witch, is how it works, if you wanted to know. It doesn't feel, mm, very malleable, no surprise if you're two thousand, so I probably won't even want it again after."
think-me-not-cruel
"I've had some time to practice. I was quite experimentally minded with it in the early days, at first I could only paralyze someone. And often not even that. My prospective mate, there's one with potential. She blew my head off by reflex while under the full effect of my glamor."
She sighs. "It was magnificent."
She sighs. "It was magnificent."
taste_tester
"Ooh. And she's still human, those are almost always the best at growing. I would love to help your tracker find your mate but I want to boop her nose and give her lessons when it's done."
think-me-not-cruel
"Hm. She's not going to like you if you're a package deal with me. She came off with the impression I was... "paranoid, egotistical, and reeking of batshit." In her words. I don't think she'll want to touch me with a ten-foot pole until her heart stops beating."
taste_tester
"Oh, so much the simpler. Tracker and I find her, I go say hello without mentioning you at all and play with her magic, then I bite her and deliver her to you. Yes?"
think-me-not-cruel
"She has an accomplice of some kind, so it might not be so much simpler. He smells terrible, like wet dog and hate, and he moves fast. I think he might be as fast as a vampire. He's clearly not, but he could be a threat."
taste_tester
"Huh. Also a witch, or...? Well, I'll see what I can do, at any rate. If I get what I want I have no problem delivering what you want, so you might as well let me help."
think-me-not-cruel
"I've got no idea, but he barely smells human. Not a Child of the Moon either, not that I'd believe any of them escaped Caius' clutches; they had no scent at all, except for the blood they were always covered in. And I'm glad of your help, as long as she eventually gets to me."
taste_tester
"I'll do my best. Tell me everything you know about her, give me your phone number, and point me at your tracker."
think-me-not-cruel
Tessa lists off a phone number, obviously memorized only by virtue of vampiric recall. She gives Steven's rough location (he hangs around a certain national park, usually.) Then she sighs, looking crestfallen. "Her name's Suzanna Richardson, her hair and eyes are brown, fair but unhealthy skin, she failed her calculus final, she has a plane ticket to Italy in her purse unless she got rid of it. There, you now know as much about my mate as I do."
taste_tester
"Unless you want to experiment with being on the receiving end of your own power for kicks, I'll get going."
think-me-not-cruel
"Not particularly, and it's barely effective on mated vampires anyway. Feel free to leave."
think-me-not-cruel
The tracker is roughly where Tessa said he would be. When the situation is explained to him, he readily agrees; it seems he's quite addicted to loving Tessa, and she flashes him with a bit of the power every time she visits. If he was more useful, she would do it even more!
Tessa, like many vampires, is unapologetically willing to ruin the lives of others in pursuit of even the pettiest of goals. It's what Suzanna would find so endearing about her, were she not so busy being horrified.
Tessa, like many vampires, is unapologetically willing to ruin the lives of others in pursuit of even the pettiest of goals. It's what Suzanna would find so endearing about her, were she not so busy being horrified.
taste_tester
Addy doesn't hit him with Tessa's power herself (she's played with it a little on her way, there's no point confusing the man, and she is more effective at helping people when she has their witchcraft). She noseboops him. She invites him to try determining the target's location in terms of historical Native American territories. Out of pure curiosity she investigates his ability to locate people whom she strongly expects to be in international waters, the international space station, less international locations in space, embassies, disputed Middle Eastern territory, rapidly flickering between various political units via teleportation witchcraft, Vatican City, and the Principality of Sealand. With sufficient poking and prodding and wheedling and experimentation and staring at outdated or reimagined maps, she has him down to the level of the greater municipal area for adequately well-incorporated and densely populated cities.
She goes to Portland.
She goes to Portland.
girls-just-wanna
Should she care to dine in Portland, there is a man over there ranting about how he saw a teenage girl riding a wolf the size of a car in the woods, he swears to God, he's not crazy.
He doesn't look like the typical ranting vagrants; more beseeching, like someone who saw something impossible and just can't let go of it. It's likely that Addy has seen that face on mortals before.
He doesn't look like the typical ranting vagrants; more beseeching, like someone who saw something impossible and just can't let go of it. It's likely that Addy has seen that face on mortals before.
taste_tester
It is a very tasty sort of face. Addy goes up to him and makes it clear that she believes him and says she has a cousin in the government who can handle this kind of thing will he please show her where in the woods. Then she eats him. Then she follows the wet dog smell.
girls-just-wanna
Fortunately, the source of said wet dog smell is upwind of Addy. This doesn't keep him from smelling her when she gets close (vampires have a very strong scent), but it keeps him from scooping up his companion and running straight to Albuquerque. Addy will eventually approach a clearing containing one (1) human girl with a resolute expression and witchcraft humming in the air around her, and one (1) boy who smells of wet dog, looking coiled and ready to strike, as if he could do anything to a vampire.
"Hello," says the girl cautiously. "I'm a witch, and I could kill you. I feel like getting that out of the way."
"Hello," says the girl cautiously. "I'm a witch, and I could kill you. I feel like getting that out of the way."
taste_tester
"Please don't kill me," says Addy. "I don't want to kill you. There was somebody who couldn't keep his mouth shut raving about having seen you; do you need help lying low?"
girls-just-wanna
"I don't want to kill you," the girl sighs. "I'm just aware that you're a vampire and I'm potentially a tasty snack. And help with lying low would be lovely; I tried to shut that guy up but I missed and killed a tree instead. What's your angle? Vampires aren't usually very altruistic."
taste_tester
"Oh, I ate him, don't worry about him, or yourself, I'm not hungry now," says Addy. "I'm not altruistic. I'm a magic nerd. I can copy witch powers! And often improve them, too, with a simultaneously insider and outsider perspective on how they work. Do you want references? I have given lessons to and then left totally unharmed lots of human witches. Off the top of my head there's one with a phone and a pack-a-day habit that makes her very definitively not a vampire from sound alone, if that helps."
that-bloody-blackened-name
"Anyone with human contacts they haven't killed is safer than most of the greater vampire community," mutters the boy, slowly relaxing out of his crouch. "And it helps that you're not pretending to be nice. We'll want that phone number, though. And maybe another one for safety's sake."
taste_tester
"Cigarette lady's only four time zones away since her study abroad ended, do you want me to call her now? Before this I was in Asia for a while, Europe before that. They'll be asleep and don't speak English, and people I met before that have likely changed phone numbers or died of old age already. Do either of you know Czech? I know a nocturnal Czech."