FID Demise

Chapter Three: Once is Chance, Two Times Is Coincidence


Reevve didn't like hospitals, not even smaller ones like Wyckoff Heights Medical Center where his Sire worked. They were too bright, and to white, and the air hung over them like a thick choking fog that clogged ones senses. Death walked the halls of hospitals, breathing down everyones necks like a chill wind. Anywhere large groups of dead and dying gathered, there was always the feeling of IT, of death and mortality and fear. For regular humans and immortals alike.

Most humans hated hospitals too, because the same reasons beings like Reevve himself avoided them when they could, they were just less aware of it. Hospitals were empty places, even when bustling with activity. The beeps of machines and crying wives and children only serving to empathizes the silence.

He couldn't understand why his Sire had chosen to get involved in medicine, not really. Sure, Reevve understood the purpose behind it, the Enlightened Medical Watch was an important aspect of the supernatural community. Immortals and Enlightened humans stationed in hospitals to keep eyes out for the occasional supernatural dragged in, or for people clearly injured by the supernatural. Couldn't have regular doctors running across vampire victims or were creatures with hacked off limbs and reporting it to the government. But knowing why, and knowing how Cypuro could stand it, were two different things-Reevve had avoided medical facilities since he was turned into a vampire, only entering them when it was absolutely necessary.

Tonight was one of the rare, necessary, foray's into the cold sterile Medical Center, the first in ten years for Reevve. After calling Cypuro he'd been forced to wait with the quickly dying female while his Sire had the proper EMT's sent out. He'd been given orders to go with the ambulance, and then to wait in his Sire's office while the girl was taken into surgery in the ER. Cypuro would need to talk to him as soon as possible, to clear up the main issues of bringing in a supernatural attack victim.

He'd been waiting for nearly four hours when Cypuro came into the room, looking a bit more haggard then Reevve could recall the hybrid appearing in centuries. Seeing him like that was a small consolation for the long boring wait, stuck in a small room. Not having been forced to wait in the emergency room with whiny humans was also a plus.

Reevve watched as his Sire crossed the room to sit at his desk, running a hand through his unruly brown hair and scowling, Reevve slouching back in his own chair as he waited to be addressed. He was smart enough to know when not to try and test the much older male's patience.

“The girl is holding stable now, but she isn't likely to last long enough to wake up and give any details of her attacker.” Cypuro began after sitting silently for a moment. “I need to know anything you saw and how you found her.”

Reevve scrunched his eyebrows up in a frown. “Could you not get any evidence from the body in surgery?” He asked, mildly surprised. It was usually not to hard to tell with supernatural attacks-vampires left bloodless victims and usually bite marks of some kind, Shifters left claw marks on torn corpses, and fur usually as well. Demons didn't usually leave anything behind, and when they did, they never left living victims.

“It is proper to have all the facts before making conclusions, especially in important situations. Attempted murder is a hefty crime if it's from one of the Mundane Courts.” Not to mention that Cypuro was likely pissed off that whoever had hurt the human, had done it on his territory-one should not mess with an older being lightly, least they get caught. “So, why were you slinking around the neighbors yards, and how did you find the girl?”

Shrugging his shoulders, Reevve relayed the events leading up to finding the injured girl. The odd prescience haunting him most of the time in the bar, the strange shadows around the killing, and the condition of the pink haired singer when he'd found her, even though the EMT's had likely reported that already. He left out the fact that he was pretty sure he had seen the girl before-at Reevve's age, he would often mistake someone for a person he'd known decades or centuries past, and it wasn't really that important anyway. “Seems a bit too deliberate to me, now that I think about it. Anyone in the area would know not to do anything like that in Queens-hell, in the city as a whole-without a cover up of some kind. I'd bet money that the body was left out like that for a reason.” Reevve added at the end in a thoughtful voice.

Cypuro made a small sound, as if agreeing. “Bait or a threat of some sort, yes. Not a smart thing to do, and distastefully...show boatish.” He grumbled moodily. “The human was torn up as if by a large animal, and in an area a vampire is likely to find it-makes it look like a Slider or Shifter attack. Though, if it is a staged event, any physical evidence could be staged as well. A Shadow-Walker could have done this easily enough, and it would explain these 'shadows' you saw.”

Reevve grunted. “It wasn't a Walker, I'd have smelt it if one of them had been around. Nasty flea bags stink to high heavens, and there wasn't any smells of any kind at the scene.” He pointed out, pulling a face at the thought of a Shadow-Walker's distinct smell. One of the natural enemies of vampires, Shadow-Walkers were feline based shape shifters that used black magic to, as their handle suggested, shadow walk. Commonly mistaken for Were-Creatures, they were supposedly more closely related to vampires themselves. They were outcasts of common supernatural society, rivals with vampires and disliked by Sliders for being a different species of shifter.

“No smells just means whoever did it was good at cleaning up, even when leaving behind near corpses.” Cypuro sighed. “This is pointless speculation now. I'll have a look around after work, and hopefully I can get something from the human. If were lucky it was something passing through, or I'll have to call in Enforcers.” The brunette waved at the door. “Get home. Hopefully the dimwit hasn't burnt the house down while you were away.”

“Enforcers? A bit tense or something, Odin? One near death attack or two is normal, and if its not a vampire or slider doing it, then its not worth dragging the Courts and Councils into things.” Reevve nearly laughed at the idea. Hell, Cypuro was usually against getting the Elder's involved in more personal matters-dragging the Courts into things usually blew situations out of proportion faster then anything else could.

Cypuro glared at the younger immortal with his beady brown eyes. “I said, go home Reevve. How I choose to handle things is my own accord, not yours.” He spoke in a hard, cold voice, the one that begged no arguments.

Grumbling about wasting his night-they could have done this over a phone or back home when Cypuro was off work-Reevve stood up from his chair. “Right, whatever you say, your highness.” He bowed mockingly at the other male before turning to stalk out of the room.

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Neo had given up on waiting for Reevve to come home, sometime past dawn. Though, to be perfectly honest, the Fae hadn't truly been waiting up to begin with. Reevve was a big boy, and when Neo ran out of TV shows to watch, he simply went upstairs to bed. Neo liked getting some sleep after a day of running around the city, and wasn't about to wait up like a house wife for the vampire.

He'd only just managed to drift off into sleep when the sound of the bedroom door opening and closing with a bit more force then was strictly needed woke him. Glaring first at the bedside clock proclaiming the time-nine thirty in the morning, meaning he'd been up for 29 hours now-before rolling over to turn his aqua gaze on a disgruntled looking Reevve. His glare turned into a frown, then quickly a disgusted expression, as the stench of bodily fluids and human innards reached his nose.

“For fucks sake, what the hell happened to you?” Neo growled out, covering his face with one hand.

Reevve shot Neo one of his many displeased looks, the ones Neo had labeled and categorized months ago, while stripping off his shirt and jeans. “Why hello Neo, good morning to you too. Did you have a nice night? Really? Me? Oh, it was eventful, that you for asking.”

Neo rolled his eyes at Reevve's sarcastic tirade, wondering not for the first time why he'd taken up staying mostly in Reevve's room instead of his own guest room. “Sorry if I'm not being tactful, but you smell like a corpse-no pun intended.” The fae groused back. “So instead of biting my head off, why don't you tell me why you stink, when you were just going out to a bar?”

The vampires pants made it into the growing pile of clothes, which was then picked up and deposited into a resealable waste basket in the bedroom corner. “I found a girl dying a few houses up, she'd been attacked by something, and, well, you know the drill.” Reevve waved a hand dismissively.

“See, theres the difference between us. I don't do clean up work, especially not messes I didn't make.” Neo smirked a bit to himself. “So, what kind of something was it, and is the lady alright?”

“Believe me, if there is one thing I have learned since you've shown up, it's your lack of cleaning abilities.” Reevve grumbled, and the blond was hard pressed not to turn the statement into an argument-he wasn't a sloth. “And I'm not sure what got her. Was to late to see anything really.” He turned a mildly confused look on Neo. “And why do you care if she's alive or not?”

Neo snorted crossly. “So I'm dirty and a woman hater now?” He asked, miffed and Reevve's insinuation. He'd be the first to admit he could be dismissive, rude, and a bit piggish towards the 'fairer sex'-but that didn't mean he wanted dead women lying around. “Next time I won't bother asking.” Tossing off the sheets, the blond climbed out of bed and padded towards the bedroom door.

“I suggest you take a shower and burn your clothing. I am going to go sleep somewhere that doesn't smell like a morgue.” He left the bedroom to muffled grumbling and curses form Reevve, heading down the hall towards the room that was technically his. He'd just opened the door in time to hear the phone ringing on his dresser-almost every room in the house had a phone in it. Heaven forbid someone be more then six feet from one of the devices, and have to leave a room to answer it.

Gritting his teeth, the fae made a low sound of announce that had the glass of the bedroom window vibrating, before stalking across the room to pick up the telephone. Normally he'd left it to someone else to answer, but Reevve was hopefully getting ready for a shower, and Neo wouldn't get to sleep anytime soon if he left the phone ringing.

“Who is it, and what can I do to make you go away fastest?” He spoke into the receiver, careful to keep his phone on the more mellow side. He had bad luck with phones when angry, and had blown out two house phones and five cell phones in the past year alone, just by using the wrong voice when talking.

“Hello, Niseollen.” A shock of confusion ran through the fae's mind for a brief moment, not recognizing the voice on the other end of the line. Not many people used or knew his full first name, and those that did rarely used it. “I do hope I'm around when you answer the phone like that for our Lord.” The taint of bitterness on the last word, and a familiar lilting to the voice finally connected in Neo's mind.

“Sparta, always an annoyance to talk to you. Please tell me this is a social call so I can skip the false pleasantries and hang up on you.” Neo sat on the edge of his bed while he talked, drumming the fingers of his left hand on the dresser beside the phone cradle.

“No it's not a social call. Like I'd just decided to phone you up out of the blue-had enough of cleaning up after Velk's toys, thanks.” Despite the complaining, Neo was able to pick up a disconcerting hint of something like worry or fear in the speakers voice. Or maybe due to the whining-Sparta Chalisin was not a whiner, and never really got spooked by anything.

Not to mention, why would the older Fae be calling him if in trouble, when he lived a handful of miles away from their mutual Fae Lord, Velk? Velk kept a close eye on Sparta, last time Neo had checked, and always liked having something to hold over his followers heads.

“What's going on, Sparta? I've had a long day, and your not making it better.” Neo sighed around the words.

There was the sound of shuffling on the other end of the phone, followed by the nervous sound of someone clearing their throat. “Nothings going on, per-say....but have you seen or talked to Velk in the past day or so?”

Neo found himself frowning at his bedroom wall. “Not really, no. Had a Text from him two nights ago, list of duties for the week. Nothing since. We don't actually have conversations, especially not since he got that Sansque child to play with a few months ago.”

There was soft cursing, a language Neo recognized instinctively as Fae, but could actually understand. One of the benefits of no longer being around Velk and his gaggle of followers, was that Neo no longer felt like a deaf kid in a school with no signers. “Look, if you get a call from the idiot, give me a call-half the court are looking for him. He seems to have disappeared from his bedroom yesterday morning-probably just gone to go bother someone not paying their debts on time, but some of the Troopers are getting twitchy.”

Neo scowled harder at his wall, barely managing to get out an affirmative answer before the line went dead. Velk was missing? It wasn't to odd from him to leave unannounced, but he always called someone right away, or left some kind of note. And for Sparta to get worried, when the younger fae was so obsessed with being self sufficient?

Then there was Reevve coming home after presumably saving a girl form an unknown attacker, just hours after Neo himself had been worrying about odd behavior of the Mundanes. Neo never thought of himself as paranoid, but if something was going on, and there was a chance Velk was involved....No, Velk was in Canada, not NYC, and bad things happened in big cities all the time, especially ones with such a high number and variety of supernaturals in it. It was all more then likely some paranoid coincidence.

Getting off his bed, Neo started to rummage through his drawers for new clothes. It never hurt to be to careful, and Neo always felt better when he'd taken care of his problems. If there was something bumping around, he'd rather it be beheaded and gone, thank you very much.

It looked like he'd not be getting any sleep after all.