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Hannah/Camille: <Hannah and Camille walk into the cemetery, Hannah smiles hearing Glen and Aaron, takes Camille’s hand and heads over to them> Hey.

Glen/Aaron: <Aaron looks at Glen, blinks, turns his attention to Hannah and Camille when Glen does, Glen smiles> Hey.

Hannah/Camille: <Camille looks between Aaron and Glen> Hey. How’s things?

Glen/Aaron: Same old shit. How’s it hangin’, Camille?

Hannah/Camille: <Camille shakes her head> It’s fine… but I think my sister here might need Gravesend.

Glen/Aaron: You should be careful makin’ claims like that around here. What makes you think that?

Hannah/Camille: <Camille looks at Glen> Well for starters she thinks she’s a… vampire and can extend my life.
Hannah/Camille: <Hannah looks at Glen> I sorta took your advice.

Glen/Aaron: <Glen looks at Hannah> What happened to “she’s too nice”?

Hannah/Camille: <Hannah shrugs> She *is*. But I figured she’s still the best option.

Glen/Aaron: <Glen nods, looks at Camille> So, you don’t believe in vampires, huh?

Hannah/Camille: <Camille looks at Glen> Really? No. They are stories made up to keep little children inside after dark.

Glen/Aaron: <Glen smiles> Really?
Glen/Aaron: <Aaron smirks, takes a drag of his cigarette>

Hannah/Camille: <Hannah watches Glen and Camille, Camille nods> Yeah.

Glen/Aaron: <Glen looks at Aaron> What do you think, Aaron? You agree with that?
Glen/Aaron: Of course, I don’t. But.. I’m a nutjob, so what do I know?

Hannah/Camille: <Camille looks at Aaron> You know I never thought of you that way.

Glen/Aaron: Never take shit for granted, Cammie. That’s lesson number one. Including bed time stories.

Hannah/Camille: <Camille shakes her head> Oh I believe there are people out there that *think* they’re vampires, and do the blood fetish thing… but as far as Dracula and the whole “I von to suck your blood” bit. not so much. <shrugs> I also don’t believe in Santa and the Easter bunny either.

Glen/Aaron: <Glen arches a brow> Now.. that’s just insulting. Lumping vampires in with Santa and the Easter Bunny like that. <reaches down between his legs, touching the shadow on the tombstone he’s perched on with his first two fingers, pulls his fingers away like he’s drawing in the air, the shadow following the trail of his fingers like water> Very insulting.

Hannah/Camille: <Camille watches Glen, blinks, Hannah smiles> Cam, you shouldn’t do that you know.
Hannah/Camille: <Camille looks at Hannah> Do what? <Hannah smiles> Insult vampires, especially vampires you don’t know. They’re liable to <shrugs> Eat you.

Glen/Aaron: <Glen nods, moving his fingers into a heart shape that he fills with shadow> I call this “Heart of Darkness”. <looks at Hannah> Nice, huh?

Hannah/Camille: Yeah… How’d you do that?

Glen/Aaron: <Glen looks at Camille> Do what?

Hannah/Camille: <Camille looks at the heart> That.

Glen/Aaron: <Aaron looks over> You forgot the crown of thorns. <reaches over, dips his fingers into the shadows and pulls bits and pieces around to make the heart look like it’s surrounded by a thorny vine>
Glen/Aaron: <Glen shrugs> It’s easy. But you gotta be special.

Hannah/Camille: <Camille looks at Hannah> Can you do that too? <Hannah shrugs> I’ve never tried. <Camille looks at Glen> Does she do that too?

Glen/Aaron: <Glen shrugs> Dunno. <moves his hand through the heart, dispelling it, wills the shadows back to where they belong, takes another drag of his cigarette> Everyone’s got shadows, Cam. Just some of us have darker shadows than others. And not all of us are in touch with them.

Hannah/Camille: <Camille frowns> What does it have to do with Vampires?

Glen/Aaron: <Glen smiles> Well.. that’s where the “special” part comes in.

Hannah/Camille: <Hannah looks at Camille> For the love of satan.. What has to happen? Do you have to get bitten to believe? <Camille blinks> Uh… no.

Glen/Aaron: <Glen looks at Aaron> Care to enlighten her?
Glen/Aaron: <Aaron nods, pulls his reading glasses out of his coat pocket and puts them on, begins pacing> Vampires. Aka, the undead. Aka, the walking dead. Aka, leeches. Aka, parasites. Aka, things our parents told us to scare us. Vampires origins are as varied as the beliefs surrounding them. Common themes, however, are that they are soulless, demonic or have sold their souls. They also have certain abilities and their blood has mystical properties to keep them animated and from decaying as a normal corpse should. While all vampires have certain powers in common, as well as certain weaknesses, vampires also have abilities that are unique to them based on their traits and natural abilities before being turned.
Glen/Aaron: Consider these their.. signature.. powers. Like serial killers often have unique rituals that identify their work.

Hannah/Camille: <Camille looks at Aaron, leans against a head stone while Hannah goes to stands beside Glen>
Hannah/Camille: <Camille> Okay.. still..

Glen/Aaron: <Aaron looks at Camille> Still, what?

Hannah/Camille: <Camille> You’re spouting off information that can probably be found anywhere on vampire mythology.

Glen/Aaron: I’m “spouting off” information that happens to be very accurate and comes from very reliable sources.
Glen/Aaron: <Aaron shrugs> You asked if Hannah could do it, too. I am *trying* to explain to you that the ability to manipulate shadows is Glen’s unique signature power.

Hannah/Camille: <Camille frowns> But you did it.

Glen/Aaron: <Aaron rolls his eyes> Of course, I did. Because I’m his ghoul.

Hannah/Camille: Which is what I want you to be for me.

Glen/Aaron: <Aaron starts pacing again> Ghouls. The “human” servants of vampires. Created by drinking the vampire’s blood. Ghouls must drink the vampire’s blood at least once a month. While the blood is in their system, the aging process slows significantly, causing us to age at a rate of one year per every 25 human years. We are also super humanly strong and resistant to disease and infection. We heal at a supernatural rate making it nearly impossible to kill ourselves using the usual methods.
Glen/Aaron: Oh.. and we also have certain vampiric abilities but to a lesser degree.

Hannah/Camille: <Camille looks at Aaron then Hannah and back to Aaron> Why? <looks at Glen, then to Hannah> Why do you want me to become a…. ghoul?

Glen/Aaron: Isn’t it obvious? They can’t move around during the day. They’re essentially dead and helpless. They need someone to be their eyes and ears. Their hands. They need someone to watch over them and keep them safe when they are at their most vulnerable.

Hannah/Camille: <Hannah looks at Camille> You’re the person I trust the most.
Hannah/Camille: <Camille blinks> But I’m not… I don’t think I could do it. <looks at Glen>

Glen/Aaron: You’d get to go to all the vampire parties. And you’d be in good company. Eden has Edward. Lucien and Viktor have Damien and Mikhail. Morose has Anguish. Genja has Constantine. Are you seeing the theme here?

Hannah/Camille: <Camille nods> Glen has you.

Glen/Aaron: <Aaron shrugs> I’m the anomaly. As usual.

Hannah/Camille: I didn’t mean it like that… I meant… it doesn’t have to be family.
Hannah/Camille: <Camille blinks> Wait all those people…*Eden* is a vampire? <shakes her head> I mean..if I believed..
Hannah/Camille: <Hannah looks at Glen> Yes… and I bet none of them had to go through this shit to get their brothers to help them.

Glen/Aaron: If we’re lying, we’re either ridiculously asshole-ish, we’re *all* drinkin’ the Kool Aid or we all belong in Gravesend. You decide which.
Glen/Aaron: <Glen hops off his perch, walks over to Camille, takes her hand and places it to his chest, looks at her> What do you feel?

Hannah/Camille: <Hannah smiles, Camille looks up at him> N…nothing.

Glen/Aaron: <Glen smiles> Nothing. Nurse Camille feels nothing. Think I could fake that?

Hannah/Camille: <Camille shakes her head> No.. you shouldn’t … <blinks and looks at Hannah, who nods> Yep.. same for me… I’m dead too.

Glen/Aaron: And I could stand here and completely vamp out for you, but.. honestly, I just don’t feel like it. It’s the more subtle shit that gets under your skin, that you can’t dismiss. And even if you *can* reason it away, it sticks with you, makes you keep comin’ back to it.
Glen/Aaron: <Aaron nods, quietly> That’s the shit you dream about.

Hannah/Camille: <Hannah nods> You could bite her. <smiles> Maybe a little pain..or pleasure…might jump start her.

Glen/Aaron: I could eat somethin’.
(more…)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Glen sat perched on a tombstone in the graveyard behind the church watching Aaron who sat on a crypt, twisting the ring around his left ring finger. They were silent for the most part, each lost in their own thoughts. Aaron was thinking about Eden’s turning while Glen was thinking about much, much more. Not the least of which was Aaron himself. Glen nodded towards Aaron’s hands as he took a drag off his cigarette; a habit held over from his breathing days. “Why do you still wear that, man? What’s the point? It’s been years,” he asked. Aaron looked down at the ring, realizing he was fiddling with it for the first time and stood, shoving his hands in his pockets as he shrugged. “I wore it so long, I feel weird without it,” he replied. Glen raised his eyes to Aaron’s face. “So.. what is it, then? Like a talisman or something?” he asked with genuine curiousity. Aaron shook his head. “No,” he said. “It’s a reminder.” Glen nodded, knowing what Aaron meant. It was a reminder that Aaron had once been human, had once had a family, a life. Something more than this. Something they both knew was beyond his reach now. But while this wasn’t much, it was better than nothing. Glen looked off into the distance. “When I first got turned,” he began, “I tried holding on to my old life. Kept goin’ to work, pouring people drinks, smiling. All that crap. I listened to the people tellin’ me how shitty their lives were. They lost their job, their girlfriend was cheating on them or had left. They were broke. Same story every time. And I started realizing, gradually, that I’d heard all the same shit before. And usually from the same people.”

Glen took another drag from his cigarette and exhaled into the darkness, watching the grey smoke dance through the weak light of the street lamps. “The same people who couldn’t pay their bills cuz they’d lost their jobs always seemed to have just enough cash to down a bottle or two, spend on the strippers, whatever. And it always seemed to be the same girlfriends cheating on the same guys who didn’t kick them to the curb or who were tellin’ me their story while I was makin’ the drink they bought for the girl at the end of the bar.” Aaron looked over, listening to Glen as he talked, unwilling to ruin one of Glen’s few moments of self revelation. Glen shook his head. “And after a couple of weeks of that, I started thinkin’… fuck you. I started thinkin’ how stupid and petty their problems were. I started thinkin’ that half of ‘em didn’t have the first clue what *real* pain and tragedy were like. I thought about my family, how they were all taken out in that accident on the highway cuz some half asleep truck driver hit an ice patch and took off the top of their minivan with his trailer, and how I got up night after night and forced myself to smile for these people, to make them feel a little better about their shit lives. I thought about how I couldn’t keep a girlfriend cuz there was always some asshole that had more free time on his hands and was better at bein’ a dick than I was. About how I busted my ass at two jobs to keep a roof over my head because I wasn’t any better at keepin’ a roommate. And all the sympathy I used to have started fading. The more I thought about it, the more pissed off I got about it. At them.” Glen hit his cigarette again. “So, one night, when I’d had enough and was listening to yet another douchebag whine about his girlfriend fuckin’ around on him, I slammed the bottle down on the bar, looked him in the eye and said, ‘yanno what? I really don’t give a shit. Go home and cry to your mother or your sister or daddy, cuz at least you have one. Go call one of your fuckin’ friends, cuz you actually have time for a social life you jobless fuck. And quit bitchin’ to me about how broke you are cuz you won’t get off your ass and get *one* job while I’m standin’ here serving *your* sorry ass at *both* my jobs.’ And I walked out. Just like that, in the middle of the shift, I walked my fuckin’ ass right out of the bar.”

Glen looked over at Aaron. “I started walkin’. I wasn’t goin’ anywhere in particular, I just didn’t wanna go back to an empty apartment. And when I stopped walkin’, I looked up and found myself here. In front of the church my family used to drag me to every Sunday when I was growin’ up. The church my mother cried over when they abandoned it for the newer building over by the residential area.” Glen turned his attention to the church, his thoughts going back to that night, his voice distant as he lost himself to the memories. “I walked in and it was *so* dark. I walked up to the dais and looked up at the giant crucifix that hung from the ceiling. And I started chewing Christ a new one. At one point, I threw up my arms and yelled, ‘why have you forsaken me?’. And at that moment, the moment when I threw my arms up, these.. tendrils.. of black.. shot up from the darkness around my feet, grabbed a hold of the crucifex and tore it from the ceiling. And they held it there, while more tendrils wrapped around the figure of Christ, ripped him from the cross and threw him to the ground, shattering him against the stone.” Glen smiled but there was no joy in it. “And suddenly, the shadows around me, around the inside of the church, started moving, wrapping around me like a blanket. And it felt… amazing.” Glen looked at Aaron. “That was the first hint I had that I could manipulate them. So, I packed my shit up and moved out of the loft without sayin’ shit to Hannah and Camille and moved in here. I started working with the shadows obsessively, honing my skill. And the better I got, the less I cared about the world outside and the people in it. The more detached I became. Until one night, Hannah came banging on the door demanding an explanation, demanding to know what the fuck was goin’ on with me. So.. knowing she was stubborn as fuck and would *never* go away, I brought her in and I showed her. And then I turned her.” Glen shook his head. “Not just to give her incentive to keep the secret, but because she’s an ambitious little bitch, but she’s not stupid about it. She’s not the kind of girl who will stake you in the heart and keep all the power for herself. She’s the kind of girl that understands there’s safety in numbers and power taken is better held with an army than with nothing.”

Aaron nodded as he listened. Glen looked at Aaron again. “That was goin’ on while you and Ciara were fallin’ apart. I used to watch her come into Tramps and the Confessional after she left you. I used to watch her smiling and having a good time, hooking up with one guy or another, moving on with her life while you were holed up in that cabin in the preserve. And after I turned Hannah, we started goin’ out to the same places as everyone else and I’d watch Ciara doin’ the same old shit and everyone else. I watched them through your isolation. I watched them smile and move on with only the briefest of pauses when Tara’s body was found butched in that alley. The world just kept turning. And it reminded me of my life. How my life had all but stopped, swallowed up by the job and all the meaningless shit while everyone else’s kept on keepin’ on. I started realizing that neither one of us had any family left. That we’d both been through some similar shit. And that’s when I decided to find you.” Glen smiled and shook his head. “I remember when I found your Grizzly Adams lookin’ ass in that cabin. Hair halfway to your waist, beard that wasn’t much shorter. I remember watching you talkin’ to the shadows… to the things in them. You didn’t even realize I was there at first. And when you did, you thought I was one of them. I remember dragging your ass out of there and bringing you here.” Glen looked at Aaron. “It might not be much, but it’s better than nothin’. I couldn’t give you back your life, but I could give you a purpose.”

Aaron nodded again. “Nice speech,” he said non-comittally. “Now.. tell me the punch line.” Glen smiled again. “The punch line is… we’re takin’ out Alexander.”