| A Needle in a Haystack |
[19 Mar 2007|10:52pm] |
Ha ha. Funny.
You can come out now.
Seriously. I'll stomp my foot and hold my breath until you come out from... under the floorboards or the attic. (Does Fang Noir have an attic?) And given that I don't actually need oxygen, that's a long time.
Dammit missy, I've seen 'Back to the Future' and your stunt isn't original...
Deanna sat in Victoria's office for three days. And waited. And waited. The brunette was not stuck in the past. She wasn't touring Hawaii, as a mortal for fuck's sake, oblivious to the sneak attack curving over the horizon.
Goddamn but '1941' was a turgid film. Not exactly a banner year either.
Mid-evening of Day Four, the redhead accepted the inevitable. As mischievous as her childe was, she would've gotten bored of playing hide-and-seek sooner than this. And hungry.
Victoria called it a time slip. Deanna wondered if it was magic. It was as good a theory as a tear in the sky that tried to eat the world. A hell-spawn dimension just on the other side of a really nasty black cloud. If other worlds existed...
Right. If it was magic then she was out of her league. She needed help.
Help pretended to be oblivious.
The only things acknowledged in the witch’s world were the music throbbing through equipment on an early sound check, the flurry of lights spinning across the empty floor, and the ice cold glass in her hand. Around and around she went, eyes closed but the drink held steady. Star danced because it was her first night back at The Witching Hour, and because it had been a long time since her body did anything other than knot in tension, and because she needed to just relax.
Twenty minutes to opening. Staff went through their final preparations that always were rushed, which she had never noticed before, or perhaps cared about. Their hurry set a butterfly loose in Star’s chest. It was unusual of her to feel anything other than giddy or apathetic or annoyed about a typical night at work-- it depended on her mood swing. But nerves were strangers to her. She felt them now because the act of getting back to routine terrified her. Routine made her expect to see the same faces, and there was at least one she‘d never see again.
Silence erupted between mixes, the disc jockey putting last touches on his set, and Star danced right through the space between.
The space between Deanna's fingers closed as she balled her hand into a fist and pounded on the outer door to The Witching Hour.
Finding Star Tomlin had been an incredible fluke. The vampiress was striding with purpose through the Las Vegas strip, head turning to and fro with each blonde that passed by. A needle in a haystack, but something gave the redhead pause as preternatural ears caught the deep bass reverberating from the club across the street from her. She'd given herself a moment to drink in the atmosphere, before moving on, when she caught the woman's profile through the second floor window.
She slammed her hand against the door again, louder this time.
It opened on a muscled bouncer wearing an annoyed look and a tight t-shirt. There had been general outcry over the uniform when Star took over ownership, but it was not amongst the many changes she made. So what if they looked like gay hairdressers? That little bit of nipple kissing the cold air whenever the door opened and shut? Butter.
“We open in twenty,” he said gruffly. There was a corded piece of equipment running from the bouncer’s ear to mouth.
Upstairs, clueless Star kept spinning across the dance floor. She sipped her drink and watched the light canisters twirl above her.
The redhead sized him up. The bouncer had a good seven or more inches on the redhead (with heels), and probably an extra hundred, hundred and fifty pounds on his frame. His biceps, if he squeezed correctly, could probably crack a walnut. Even his nipples looked like they lifted barbells.
But Deanna had teeth, supernatural strength and speed, a killer smile.
And, metaphorically speaking, big ol' brass balls.
"Good for you," the vampiress offered, patting big, broad and surly on the shoulder. "Good. For. You. Now be a dear and go upstairs and tell Star that Deanna's here, okay?"
The peeved bouncer went nowhere, instead standing tall and broad in front of her with his arms crossed and his feet apart. Actually, he looked like the letter A. He put his earpiece to use and called on the general manager. “Shaun, ask Star if she’s expecting somebody named Deanna.”
Seconds ticked by. A staring contest ensued. The bouncer chewed a piece of gum with a comical degree of stoicism. Eventually a rapping sound joined the thump of bass coming from the dance floor above. Star, tottering in a pair of dangerously high heels, came down the steps in a sideways shuffle. “Hey, where did you come from?”
For all the worry over familiar faces, she looked surprisingly grateful to see one, like a thirsty girl who hadn’t admitted it now laying eyes on a glass of water and gulping for all she was worth. She was a little gaunt, but nothing too drastic. There was make-up to the nth degree, and an outfit that could put a peacock’s colors to shame, but she was Star to anyone who wouldn’t recognize much difference.
"He's cute," the redhead nodded with a warm smile and hook of thumb towards the towering inferno. She took the stairs two at a time to meet the blonde half-way. Those shoes were made for walking, but not a climb down the Mount Everest of stairs. "Can he walk while he chews Dentyne or is that mutually exclusive?"
Deanna noted a slight change from her previous encounter with Star, something she couldn't put her finger on. "So," she continued, and offered the woman a small hug. "Save any damsels from whirlwinds lately?"
The blonde put a hand on the well-worn banister, and another through her hair. “No, but I’ve been out of town, so I don’t blame me.” She caught her breath and, for the first time, wondered why Deanna had come around. True, vampires did time in night clubs, but there were plenty of venues more suited to their appetites than hers. The Witching Hour fed its tills on a mainstream diet of tourists’ cash and the excess wallet weight of young, nouveau riche Vegas socialites.
“What about you? Any close calls with industrial strength Hoovers from Hell?”
It had to be the outfit. Deanna just didn't see Star as comfortable wearing Joseph's Amazing Technicolor Raincoat. Okay that just brought bad images of old men in burlesque theatres. Not fair, brain. Not fair at all.
"Me personally? No, though I did stake out a pretty nifty barbecue. Love slow-roasted pig, yess'm." She was still astonished at how something so large as firebombing a police station in one of America's biggest cities barely got any play. Blow up an airport and it's over the news for months. People chose the oddest things to focus on.
Deanna lightly chewed her bottom lip. "But my girl? Who I never got to introduce you to by the way, and mea culpa, bad vampire. She's gone missing with a mutual friend of ours. Leah."
Star chewed her thumb cuticle and furrowed her eyebrows. “Well what do you mean missing, like...ran off for an impromptu girly love fest or actually... poof?” The onomatopoeia accompanied a flick of her fingers, which then drifted off to one side, still wiggling. She frowned. “I had Leah pegged for a dick chick.”
Maybe if you were a succubus, you’d sling it just about any old direction. And if so, wow, could Star get a permission note like that?
[Thread: Open to Deanna and Star]
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