Urban Nordica
Late Night Lamb
Turkish food. There was something about Loki and Turkish food that just clicked together like, well, like hummus and pita bread. He lvoed the stuff and, more than that, Miriah thought an offering of food was probably exactly what the god needed right now. Not that he'd be grateful for it, of course, but at least she would have tried.
She was out of the penthouse and halfway down the block before she realise that not only did she have no money, but neither did she know where, exactly, she was going to get a kebab at 2am in Pandemonium City. Undoubtedly there would be somewhere, her only problem being that she didn't know where. It was, she thought, representative of pretty much every trouble she'd had since arriving in this accursed place, and she sighed in frustration.
"Well, bollocks."
She'd almost turned to go when she heard the scream; faint and indistinct but oh-so familliar and it sent her heart pounding in her ears and her hand twitching for a revolver that, of course, was no longer there. Loki didn't approve of guns, hand only laughed at her when she'd suggested a replacement might be in order. "Oh please," he'd told her. "What are you trying to do? Get arrested? That phony cop shit won't fly here, or anywhere else sane, for that matter." He'd had a point, she supposed; she was a non-entity here, a real bona fide Jane Doe. Getting arrested for carrying an unliscenced concealed weapon was probably about the stupidest thing she could've done.
But it didn't change the fact a woman was sreaming down a dark alley.
Her feet were moving before she could stop them, leaping into a familiar run. When she heard the roar, she redoubled her efforts. It felt so good to be out on the chase again.
There was a broken pool cue lying in the alley, and she grabbed it without thinking. It wasn't her revolvers, but it would do, and she'd fought with less before.
"Hey, fangboy! Hands off!"
She'd arrived just in time; of course she had. The vampires in this place looked a little different from the ones she was used to -- a little less lumpy, a little more Lestat -- but the inch-long fangs and eyes that flashed red in the darkness sort of gave it away. At her arrival, the startled vamp dropped the woman he'd caught enough for her to slide limply to the floor of the alley; unharmed, but terrorized. Miriah slide easily into a fighting stance.
"Eh?" The vamp seemed startled at her appearance, and Miriah just grinned.
"Less chat, more stabby," she told it, lunging sharply with the broken end of the cue. The vampire, surpised as it was, dodged easily but it wouldn't really have mattered either way, and Miriah found herself face-first on the floor of the alley when her leg caught on something. She landed badly, failing to catch herself on the place where her hand used to be and jarring the stump painfully against the ground. The shock bought tears to her eyes, but she rolled to the side quickly, bringing the cue up again in expectation of the vampire's inevitable counter-attack.
It never came. Instad, she found herself looking into the furious blue eyes of the woman.
"What," the woman demanded, "the hell do you think you're doing?"
"Uh... saving you?" The woman scowled with such fierce scorn that Miriah found herself going beet red. "From the, uh, vampire?" she hesitated. A quick glance and, yes, it still definatley was a vampire; too pale and still and it's eyes were still glowing slightly.
"What are you? A fucking retard? 'Saving me', what the shit is this?" The woman was so obviously furious Miriah found she really could do very little except gape in shock.
"I heard you scream!" she tried. "For help. I'm helping!"
Gently, and somewhat unexpectedly, the vampire put one pale, thin hand on the angry woman's shoulder. "I think," he -- Miriah thought it was a he, though honestly it was sort of hard to tell -- said, "that she's the 'new girl'." He said it with very obvious quotes.
Realisation seemed to dawn on the woman's face, and she laughed what Miriah thought was probably the epitome of scornful laughs. "Oh. My. God. This is classic. Just wait 'til everyone hears about this." She trailed off into laughter.
Miriah's mouth seemed to open and shut with her actually directing it to. "Who are you?" she eventually asked, still on her ass in a strange alley. "What the hell is going on here?" The anger was coming back again, but she pushed it down.
"Oh dear, you really are new, aren't you?" said the vampire. "I'm the Vampire," it added, somewhat redundantly in Miriah's opinion.
"And I'm the Victim," the woman put in.
"The... victim?"
"Capital letters, please girl. It's my name." She pulled a cigarette out of an expensive-looking leather purse, lighting it from a cute pink lighter. She offered one to the vampire -- the Vampire, Miriah reminded herself -- who declined with a slight wince. "We're Archetypes," she added, blowing a long plume of smoke into the air.
"'Archetypes'?" Miriah suddenly felt somewhat lost. Moreso than usual, at any rate.
"Cliches," the Vampire elaborated, and it was the Victim's turn to wince. "You know the one; where the woman walks alone down a dark alley and is attacked? Everyone knows it, and if everyone knows it..."
"Then you get us," the Victim finished. "I walk down an alley, get bitten, die. Rinse, repeat." She shrugged.
"I... see," said Miriah, though she thought she probably didn't really. "So you're like... gods?"
Both Archetypes laughed; the Victim her horsey sorority-girl howl, the Vampire a delicate velvet chickle. "Oh heavens no," it said. "Nothing nearly so powerful. We're simply... walking cliches. We only go where we're invoked."
"Invoked?" Miriah realised she really wasn't attributing much to the conversation. She couldn't really think of any way to change this.
The Victim gestured up at the side of a nearby building. "Some nerds are playing that Vampire game up there."
"That's why there's only the two of us tonight," the Vampire explained. "The Hunter and The One That Got Away get the night off."
"They're probably fucking on my bed as we speak," snapped the Victim. "Horny bastards. I've told them a thousand times not to. The only reason they do it is to piss me off." The Vampire had the tact to look sympathetic.
For her own part, Miriah picked herself carefully off the floor of the alley. Before she realised what she was doing, she'd accepted the Vampire's help on the way. It's hand was cool and marble-smooth, delicate and strong. It was wearing a weird mix of velvet and PVC, half period half fetish. She still couldn't tell what sex it was, exactly. As far as androginity went, it left Loki looking like a poster-boy for testosterone.
Eventually she asked, "Are all the vampires here like you?"
It just blinked at her. "I beg your pardon?" it said politley.
Miriah found herself at pains to explain, but fortunatley the Victim seemed to understand. "You mean where are the vampires that run around sucking people's blood?" she said, and it wasn't really a question. "You mean where are the nasty murdering vampires you can stake? Man, you really are fucking clueless."
"Only because no-one around here ever bothers to explain anything to me!" The anger snapped out of her before she could stop it, but it turned out to be short-lived when a whip-crack of laughter rang out in the alley.
"Seriously, luv, that excuse gets so old so fast."
The eyes of both the Vampire and the Victim went wide like moons, and they both vanished into low bows.
"My Lord," said the Vamprie. "Forgive us, we were--"
Miriah turned and was somehow not surprised to see Loki emerge from the improbable dark places further down the alley, moonlight glinting ethereally off his bright-white fur coat. He waved a hand dismissivley. "She's cool," he told the Archetypes. "Like you said, not your fault she's a bit fucking slow."
"Hey--!"
"Shut up." Miriah was startled by the venom in the Victim's voice. "You would dare--"
But Loki cut her off with another wave of his hand. "It doesn't work," he said. "Believe me, I've tried. C'mon, luv, let's take you home before you can do any more damage." He gently put a hand on Miriah's elbow and started to lead her out of the alley.
"I was only trying to help," Miriah said. She seemed to be saying that a lot lately, and she winced with the petulance of it.
"Perhaps," said the Victim, "you should learn what that means first."
Loki just chuckled. "Believe me," he said, "I've tried that too."
In the end, they ate kebabs.