Thirst Ch. 02

That night, when the troughs were opened to the Common Bloods...

Monroe had never enjoyed beer. Or wine, or spirits for that matter. She'd always viewed it as something of a lubricant, a tool to make things go her way but the danger had always been in the imbibing and loss of her own judgment. While Monroe was street-smart and clever when sober, inebriation brought out the very worst parts of her impulsive personality.

She lifted the curved glass, flared near the top and slender at the base, to her mouth, musing how its shape reminded her of some cartoonish version of a buff man. Smacking her lips at the bitter, watery flavor of pilsner, Monroe Carter found herself disliking booze as much in death as in life. Fortunately for her, the Requiem's stipulations meant her body didn't process it, and it was only with an investment of her precious, dwindling vitae that she could mimic the Blush of Life and burn it away within her. Same with food, should she choose to, but the curse was that it all turned to ash upon the tip of her tongue.

Not that she cared, particularly...the boundary between the murky, Bestial part of her mind and her own conscious Ego became blurry at times like these, when she was hungry. For her to appear as something more than an animated corpse with leering, golden eyes she had to utilize what the Overseers had left with her, since they'd all demanded a blood tithe to even consider entertaining her proposition.

"Would you fuckin' throw already?" she heard vaguely from nearby, before a subdued -thnk- as someone tossed a dart into the circular board, hanging a few feet from her on the wall. Her eyes followed its path through the air backwards to the one who threw it...appraising him and finding him wanting, same with his drinking buddies. She was running on red fumes, but not so low that she'd throw herself at someone whose blood would make her wretch. These poor people, their bodies overworked and injured, poisoned by unclean food and metal-contaminated drinking water, were low-rate fare that left her feeling vaguely ill after feeding.

Like eating Arby's or McDonalds to do away with a hangover, both the feeding itself and the digestion afterwards left her belly roiling at the thought, but still...she curled forward in pain as a starvation pang shot through her. Monroe's teeth itched, her tongue felt like it was covered with some sort of flavorless icing that could only be washed away by the thick, syrupy warmth of a living being's vitality.

There had been a point to what she'd been through, however - she hadn't allowed Isidoro, Shira, Baalthasar and the others to dig their ivory-cold, aged fangs into her wrists, throat, her bared thighs just so she could drink behind the alleys of dive bars...one night stands with truckers and factory workers who thought they were getting lucky, a twenty slipped to a prostitute for a sip at her throat...

An eternity of this wasn't tolerable, but neither was starvation and the consequences of letting the Beast rise to the surface. Monroe was already entertaining the possibility of quitting the place altogether, taking her hunt behind one of the big factories where shipwrights smoked, ate their lunch, or sought comfort with working girls on their breaks or after the third shift. Humiliating...maybe she was too proud for this existence.

Seated alone at a small wooden table tucked in a corner booth at Radcliffe's Tavern, the amber-eyed Brujah was already digging around for her wallet when she noticed activity - the lights were dimming a bit, and eyes were turning toward the makeshift stage near the back. Senses tuned for night brought everything into bright relief. Radcliffe's sometimes had live music playing, usually one of the regulars who was sober enough to scrape together enough tips to dash said sobriety against the bartop after they were done strumming whatever bit they'd picked up.

This was different. A short, broad fellow with somewhat overlong arms was setting up a drum set on stage, his hair styled in a short, spiky blonde mohawk. It made him look like an honest-faced, slightly doughty dinosaur, a leather vest worn over a band T-shirt whose sigil she didn't recognize; a swirling firestorm centered around a wolf's skull, biting through chains.

Vaguely intrigued, Monroe decided she'd at least stay to listen, since Radcliffe himself had dragged his ponderous, limping bulk onstage to introduce them. "Alright alright, everyone keep your knickers on...so these guys're from outta town, don't remember where, don't care."

"Chicago, asshole," she heard from somewhere off stage, and couldn't help but chuckle, even as starvation clawed at her insides.

"Yeah yeah like I said, don't care. I didn't pay for 'em, so put your hands together - or don't - for..." he squinted at the notecard in his hand. "What kinda name is this...? Instrument - "

"You have to say it in capital letters," spike-mohawk admonished him from behind his snare drums.

"For fuck's sakes...INSTRUMENT OF AGGRESSION, fuck you," he crumpled the notecard up and hauled himself offstage. A pair of folks who definitely didn't come from around here got up from where they were sitting near the stage and climbed up, bringing their instruments with them, and Monroe was immediately more interested by what she saw...so much so that the bloodthirsty thing in her heart stopped its pacing, its atavist eyes looking the same way as hers.

The bass guitarist was a beanpole of a woman, taller than Monroe by a few inches...mixed-race, maybe a white parent. Where Monroe had styled her tightly curled hair carefully into colorfully dyed braids, this girl had let them solidify into dreadlocks that dangled down her back. She wore the same kind of T-shirt as Mohawk-boy, torn at the midriff to reveal the flatness of her belly, bluejeans a few sizes too large hanging from her hips...not shy about revealing she was going commando either...she looked very high, eyes bloodshot and red. Monroe both admired and disdained her bravery.

The lead guitar and singer, however, hooked her attention like nobody else in this hole. Her lips parted slightly, and she felt her fangs prick the tip of her tongue in anticipation. Putting her glass to her mouth, sharp teeth clinking on the edge, she examined him with a practiced, careful eye. He was also tall, just a bit more than his bassist, bristly black hair worn short and styled in loose spikes...he was swarthy, but looked like his ancestry was...what, Persian? Indian? The aquiline hook of his nose, the almond shape of his eyes and that expressive, thin-lipped mouth reminded her of some roguish prince from a desert land, filled with onion-dome towers, flying carpets, ensorceled animals. She chided herself for her overactive imagination.

He shucked a stud-shouldered leather jacket, revealing the same T-shirt as the others wore, the sleeves torn off. Guitar-boy definitely lifted. Her eyes traced along the shape of his biceps, his deltoids, the shape of his forearms underneath a pair of leather bracers. "Fuuuck," she muttered, immediately attracted, which she attributed to her hungry state. Monroe resisted the urge to let her gaze travel downward from his studded belt, holding up a pair of fitted black jeans, to his bulge...she looked anyway, pursing her lips as she admired the convex shape of his fly.

Monroe's chin rested in her hand. That cocky grin on his face just screamed 'I'm a bastard, live with it', and she simultaneously despised and liked it. "Ladies and gentlemen, if you're rockin' a pacemaker, or using hearing aids I suggest you put in some ear plugs or turn the volume down cuz it's about to get loud ." His voice was a deep baritone, velvety smooth in some places but bearing the telltale scarring of cigarette smoke and a lot of screaming in others...that was definitely not a Dixie accent either, meant he wasn't from around here. Monroe's tongue ran furtively, like a shy, pink thing, under her top lip.

"One, two, THREE!"

She doubted anybody in this place expected, much less appreciated, his brand of rock, but if anything was more mesmerizing than his voice and body, it was the way he played. She'd seen raw skill developed over decades, centuries among her own kind that eclipsed his, but she found herself taken away by how into it he got...and he wasn't the only one. His aura seemed to scream LOOK AT ME, the stomp of his boot on an amplifier causing her dead heart to give a kick of excitement. Thrash metal, power metal, whatever metal he was bringing wasn't normally her thing at all but god DAMN if it wasn't hard to get into with him.

Mohawk on the drums and that skinny, stoned looking chick on the bass were good...good enough to keep up with him, but really he was the one stealing the show. His voice made her body tingle, and in the depths of her bloodthirst she couldn't recall exactly what he'd sung about other than it had something to do with everything burning down, swallowed by waves that smash the earth.

She wanted him.

Three songs in and she'd moved closer to the bar. She'd found a second wind, prowling at the edges of his firelight like a hungry hyena or jackal, waiting for the moment when he'd step down so that she could work her magic. When that moment came, she made sure to have a strategically emptied beer glass at hand, resting an elbow on the counter, wearing her midriff jacket off her shoulders. She didn't show much with that dark green tanktop, but just enough to make sure he could see the curve of her strong body and the shape of an eight-pack underneath. When they made eye-contact...

A thrill ran through her. She almost forgot herself, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips but the edge of an expected feeding-frenzy pulled her firmly into hunting-mode. So instead she let his black eyes linger on hers, glancing casually at his chest and then back into his pupils. Enfolding his warm, vibrant mind in the grip of her Majesty was as easy as a whisper, sinking little, soft barbed hooks into his brain to make sure he didn't look away before she did. The Blood did its work subtly, surely.

When she was sure he was staring, she allowed her full, dark-painted lips to push forward, eyes hooding slightly with feigned boredom. Almost a challenge before she let her gaze pass dismissively elsewhere, reeling him in on the line of her attitude. As expected, she heard the rhythm of his combat boots on the beer-and-puke stained wooden floor, barstool creaking as he took the seat next to her. Repressing another smile, she raised an eyebrow and looked his way again.

Monroe was taken aback by the warmth of his expression. The set of his wrist on his knee made him seem terribly cocky. Arrogant, almost, like he was the one playing the game here. Poor, stupid boy...you're the one tugging the strings more often than not, aren't you? "Your first time hearing us play?" he purred easily, like he was hot shit and he knew it.

She shrugged noncommittally and looked forward cooly at the rows of rail-line booze, catching his reflection watching her in the distorting curve of a handle of Gordon's. "Dunno. If I heard ya'll before, it ain't ringin' a bell."

"That's a yes, I saw the way you were watching us, and you liked what you heard." She inferred from his tone that he knew she'd been checking him out, which was only slightly infuriating. Before she could respond with something appropriately sharp-tongued he gestured vaguely at the bartender when she came by. "Get my friend a Sally's Red, she looks like she could use something with a bit of chutzpah."

"Oh we friends already is we," she challenged him further, finally turning herself toward him fully and crossing a long, BDU-clad leg over the other, a spare motion of her head more like a cobra than a girl showing she was hard. He was leaning his elbow on the countertop such that his deltoid stood out, and admittedly she wanted to reach out and touch it...but it was too soon for that. "Hope you don't assume I go makin' friends with any dude that thinks he's something just cuz he's buying me drinks."

"I'm Mizrah. You're Monroe Carter - no no, don't go looking at me like I'm a creepo, relax. I saw you leading that March Against Corruption last winter, you're not exactly some anon." He pushed her drink toward her, which she took with a clink of her nails against the glass. She was actually flattered that he recognized her...was he involved in that type of thing? She hadn't seen him around here, or at the protests downtown, but Radcliffe had mentioned they were from out of town. "Now we got each other's names at least." He raised his own beer, and finding herself warming to him more than she'd expected, she clinked her glass against his and rewarded him with a smile.

"Yeah, a'right. We got that far at least. Cheers...Mizrah." She sipped it and let her gaze linger on his, glancing at the shape of his collarbone under his shirt. Monroe allowed the glass to hover near her lips, waiting to see what he'd say before she grew tired of the game and laid her net over him.

"So, professional shit-stirrer and rabble rouser Monroe Carter lives out here with the proles who voted for 'tough-on-crime' Tannser...and she's hanging out with them no less. Not where I would have expected to find you." He was poking at her, teasing but also...there was a challenge, answering her own.

"Yeah well professional rabble-rousing doesn't exactly pay good so I rent where it's affordable is all, and y'know. Radcliffe's?" She casually glanced around her at the ill-lit, stinking bar and shrugged. "Kinda got that shithole-in-the-wall charm to it I think. 'Sides you just some out-of-townie, the hell you know about The City?"

Despite her hunger, even though the Beast was hissing that she'd bandied enough pointless words it didn't understand and that the time to feed was ripe, Monroe found herself actually enjoying his presence. Mizrah wasn't just some meathead guitarist and singer, not after she peered a bit beneath the surface. Here was someone who knew more than just revolutionary slogans or memorized Ramones lyrics to get in her pants, and she found herself rather enjoying the argument she was having with him.

" - completely wrong, you're just being a traditional, outdated Marxist. Which one of those 19th century guys would have predicted something like mass communications - "

" - just some pie in the sky thinkin' boy, you ain't gonna bring together a society that don't believe in class just by beating them over the head with it, 'specially if they don't wanna see - "

" - have just as much right to fight them as they do us; you think rational, unbroken people are gonna just tolerate an army of thugs in blue jumpsuits armed to the teeth if they know better - "

" - ain't nobody think they that big, you gotta start where the problems are personal and find ways to bring it all together. That's where the work starts, we've been atomized all over - "

Their fingers had drifted closer in the midst of their passionate bickering...the back of his hand was warm, his touch surprisingly gentle. The way his thumb brushed along her brachial artery made her shiver pleasantly, and she could feel her nipples hardening underneath her clothes, excited at his attention. Her belly growled with hunger, and to hide her fangs she lifted her glass, finishing it and watching him with a silent, intense gaze.

Finally she stood up, breaking contact as she slid a pack of Marbs out of her rear right pocket, motioning with a casual jerk of her head toward the back door. "Come on, Mister 'Miz-er-rah'. Spark a bogie with me out back?" She slid one into his hand, tugging lightly on his fingers.

Follow me if you want to kiss me, her eyes told him, and as she placed her hand on the doorknob, she smiled a sharp-toothed little smile when she heard his boots behind her.

Radcliffe's was set between an abandoned shoe factory and an auto shop called Wrigley's. The 'y' and 's' had fallen off so it just read 'Wrigle', which she always found funny but her vision was tinged red with hunger. In the darkness of the night, a gentle sprinkling of spring rain making everything misty and cool, she turned around and looked him in the eyes again as the door closed.

They were black like coal, smoldering around the edges with a bit of amber. Before she made the mistake of getting lost in them, and of being near the unwelcome, if tiny, spark of flame from a lighter, she plucked his cigarette from between his lips. They were alone...perfect.

Monroe's palm started at his heart, curling her fingers slightly and running them up the impression of his pectoral muscle, over his clavicle and to the back of his neck as she pulled his lips toward hers. His own hands found her waist, one sliding around her back and running up the links of her spinal cord pleasantly as he drew her closer.

It was a lot more...electric than she'd expected, and the kiss lasted longer than she'd meant. He was actually a pretty good kisser, and when he bit her bottom lip she found herself liking it more than she ought. The -tk-tak- of a little steel bead through the end of his tongue dredged up some...irrelevant thoughts, since she wasn't planning on taking him into a hotel room. Not planning to anyway, but...Monroe found her heel dragging up the back of his calf as her leg ringed around his. She broke the kiss, eyes closed as she reestablished focus in the face of base lusts that threatened to get away with her.

"You okay?" he whispered against her lips, his hand surprisingly gentle as he tipped her face upward to look at it. She was actually kind of touched by his concern. Monroe responded with a 'tsh', playfully pushing at his face and finding herself smiling at him a little dreamily...without the Blush of Life she knew she'd be leering like a hungry fucking crow, staring at his throat.

"Don't you go worryin' about me big guy," she crooned. Pity, he actually seemed kind of nice...but she was here for one thing and one thing only. She tugged his shirt to bring him closer, kissing the top of his chest. "I'm just enjoyin' myself," she whispered, her breath cold against his clavicle as her canines sharpened and grew; in her head it sounded like icicles forming.

His arms around her were warm and strong, but his fingers through her braids were surprisingly gentle. Rather than give it further thought, or risk falling into the moment, she reached the base of his neck and dug her fangs in. A moment of resistance, then the warm, expected rush -

The world exploded in color and sensation. His moan was quiet but it might as well have been shouted into her ear; colors became incredibly vivid, and even the muted grays and browns became vibrant and rich shades of blue sky and living earth. The taste of his blood was like none other, heady and thick, richer than any she'd fed on - any mortal, any living creature she'd drunk from prior to this experience may as well have been filled with straw and dust.

Strength flooded Monroe's veins as she forgot her name, pinning him roughly up against a wall as she pulled her fangs forth, a wordless, animal's groan upon her lips as her eyes rolled up into the back of her head. Her tongue lashed out across her lips, over his neck as she licked up the ruby torrent. She felt his palm gently stroke her face, and she kissed his fingers, nipping gently at them before she reached his wrist and dug in again. Time lost its meaning as she swallowed him down, crimson mouthful after mouthful...

...and when he began to slump in her arms, she pulled her teeth forth, blinking as consciousness came to the forefront. There was no avalanche, no sense of reality crashing down upon her, just a sudden transition from ravening to satiety, and what she'd done.