Someone else took advantage of the contest!
s*t*a*r*s
The dark haired figure sits at the bar and she feels the break of resolve from behind her. Ah, there was one with a broken soul here tonight. Where was she? Her eyes seek out the new aura, the broken and flashing of someone who is about to do something they shouldn’t do.
It is her nature to temp them, to temp them into darkness and she feeds from this pain. She’d been born a succubus and how she hated this eternal life that she was mired in. But, it was her lot and if she ceased feeding, as she’d done before, she didn’t die, it is just pain. Vash spots the girl, young, dark skin, dark hair, a walk of someone who isn’t confident, someone who is hiding. Yes. Was it drugs? Was it sex? Oh, sex was always the best it gave her energy for weeks. Mental anguish was good too, but not as succulent as the sex. Mmmm. She sniffs the air. She was different this girl with the drugs hidden. This bore worthy of investigation.
s*t*a*r*s
Rylee makes her way through the sea of bodies, getting random shoots of images. She is almost drunk on them by the time she gets to Tegan. “Tee, we have to talk!”
Matt steps away from Tegan. “I’m going to get a refreshment, would you care for one?”
“You talk so – yes, I want one – a tall drink of you, please? Rylee, later?”
“No, now,” says Rylee. “Matt meet us in a few minutes in the private room?”
“It will be done, my lady,” he says, bowing.
Tegan watches him with longing as he walks away, almost a head taller than anyone else. “Rylee, I almost had him, god! I’m dying here, it’s been months, Rylee!”
“Come on,” says Rylee. She snatches Tegan’s hand and pulls her towards a quiet corner. “Did you know about Sydney’s odd blood tests?”
Tegan nods. “Overheard one of the ‘rents talking about it the other day, it will be fine, she’s young…”
“Spence cured her.”
Tegan’s face bears the look of surprise. “The who now?”
“That’s a new one,” says Rylee. “Imagine the ramifications?”
“Spencer could rid the world of disease,” says Tegan. “And be a lab rat the rest of her life, oh boy.”
“You got it,” says Rylee. “We need to erase the fact that Syd was ever sick.”
Tegan’s green eyes narrow and her brow knits together. “Complicated.”
“Spence went to talk to Jo.”
“We better find Abby and Sydney.”
“Why?”
“Cuz if they get into it, we are gonna need them to pick up the pieces. It’s going to lead to fireworks.”
s*t*a*r*s
“This is the most disconcerting room I’ve ever been in,” snaps Spencer as she steps through the door of her mother’s office. She swallows hard, pulling down the rise of vomit in her throat.
“Spence?” asks Jo as she walks in from the bedroom. Her hair is wet.
“Is it glass?” asks Spencer mesmerized. She crouches down and places her hand on the floor, which is see through.
“A poly fibrous form of it, oui,” says Jo. “Is everything okay?” asks Jo tentatively. She can see the muscles in Spencer’s jaw working. This is the girl that months, no, weeks ago had told her she missed her more than word could articulate. But this girl was angry.
Spencer takes a deep breath. “I fucked up,” says the teenager. “I messed up like you told me I would and now I need your help to fix it. Sydney got cut a few months ago and I was being the hero and tried to help her. Well, my blood got mixed up with hers and…”
“We know,” says Jo gently. She wants to go and hug Spencer but she can’t do that, she can’t bring herself to cross that line with her daughter. Spencer would only push her away, she couldn’t crowd her.
“Y-you know? How?” asks Spencer taking a step towards her mother, then she says, “Natalie.”
“You don’t trust her and I can easily see why, but you should. I think sometimes I should have left you with her then you’d have had a normal childhood.”
Spencer scoffs. “Then I wouldn’t be able to speak twenty some odd languages. Or be able to use a sword. I wouldn’t be me.”
Jo smiles. “You’d know French, I always spoke to you in French when I was pregnant with you….”
Spencer feels the tears threatening she doesn’t want to like her mother at the moment. “So how do we fix this? With Sydney?”
“Mike, Shelby, and Natalie are going to take care of it. When they are done no one will be able to find records and they won’t be able to remember it either,” says Jo. “Trust in Nat, Lee knows what she’s doing.”
“Lee?” The fine hairs on Spencer’s neck rise and fall. Was Jo talking about Rylee?
“Natalie, I used to call her Lee all the time… why?” asks Jo. She makes her way to the desk and slips onto it. Her feet dangle a few inches from the floor.
“Nothing,” whispers Spencer. “Rylee was named after someone.”
“Nat I think. Ry means something in Japanese or something, I’m sure but Lee is because I used to call Nat that all the time,” says Jo. “You were too.”
“I told you my name,” snorts Spencer. “During graduation so you knew what to name me.”
Jo chuckles. “But, sometime in that other time line, I picked Spencer. Then, over and over again, the time line played out and you told me.”
Spencer holds up her hand. “Stop, I know what is happening now…” Spencer stops and her eyes glance around. She walks to the tall windows that encase the office. “What the hell is that?”
Jo slips off the desk, standing next to Spencer, the closest she’s been to her since all of this insanity has began. Jo grumbles internally that Spencer is way too tall and she resembles Dathan and his kin more than her own. “What do you see?”
“By the bar,” whispers Spencer, her voice taking on a dreamy quality to it. Spencer places her hand on the glass as if feeling the power that is coming from the bar area. The taste of the power is sweet, forbidden, sexy and hot. Her hand presses hard to the glass, making it fog from the heat, a slight blue aura shimmers there.
Jo focuses her eyes, shifting from human to vampiric vision. A striking array of colors floods her, it takes just a moment for her to find what, or who, Spencer is looking at.
“Succubus,” growls Jo. “Seen one before in Cairo, nasty lil demons. Where are the other girls?” asks Jo.
“In the JADES room and downstairs dancing,” says Spencer. “Get them?”
“I will meet you there,” says Jo.
Spencer nods and heads to the door. “Doesn’t mean I forgive you,” says Spencer before she disappears.
“That’s good, since I don’t forgive myself either.”
s*t*a*r*s
“Where is Abby?” demands Tegan.
“She was downstairs…,” says Rylee. She darts to where Abby’s sweatshirt is draped on the back of a chair. “Oh no…”
“Oh no?” asks Jo gliding into the room from above them, melting through the ceiling.
“I so want to learn to do that,” says Tegan in awe. “Jo, please teach me how to that?”
Rylee raps her knuckles on the table. “Hello! Abby! Drugs and a succubus!”
Tegan had waylaid Danny and Matt by sending them off on a wild goose chase for some Chinese food. No one picks up on Rylee saying the words drugs, they are to intent on something else that is going on.
“I now understand the exclamation points jokes,” whispers Jo. “Tegan, can you slow time here? Or is it to large of a venue?”
“I can do it, easier if I can see who I’m slowing down though,” answers Tegan. “Talents don’t slow.”
“Can you slow your dad?” asks Jo. She slips her phone from her pocket and texted someone, then looks up at Tegan.
“Yeah, why?” asks Tegan oddly. “My dad has a talent?”
“A nice one at that you must have it too, that’s why you can slow him, but we can chat about that later,” says Jo with a wink. “Sydney, there is a woman out there and once we spot her can you port her and I somewhere?”
“Sure, I don’t even have to be close to the two of you to do it,” says Sydney. “Spot her for me and I’ll send her there, but why you?”
“Who do you think is going to take her out?” asks Jo. “Ah, don’t argue with me, Spencer, you channel energy and that’s what she needs and will sap you dry. Find Abby and see if whatever happened has any permanent damage.”
“Miss the battle again,” grumbles Rylee.
“Fear not, Rylee, you’ll see battle, fights, more than you’ll ever want to remember. Work on peace, trust me, so much more satisfying,” says Jo. She takes out a pen and writes coordinates for Sydney. “Will that work?”
“Yup, where is that?” asks Sydney.
“It’s an island,” says Jo.
“You guys and your islands,” growls Spencer. “How many islands can you go to?”
“God, please don’t growl,” swoons Rylee.
Jo makes an odd face and figures she’ll find out whatever that is about later. “Tegan, Sydney with me. Rylee, please keep Spencer in here, the farther away from that thing she is the better I’ll feel.”
“Sure, Aunt Jo,” says Rylee. They leave the room, Tegan is excited to be seeing some action. “Think I’ll still call her Aunt Jo when we are married?”
Spencer slowly turns to Rylee. “When we what?”
“Opps,” says Rylee taking a step back. “I mean it doesn’t have to happen, in fact, I’ve had visions of you with someone else, but you didn’t marry them….”
“Why would I be with someone else?” ask Spencer crossing the room and Rylee bumps into the wall. Spencer puts a hand on either side of her, caging her. “Rylee, I can’t think of being with anyone else but you. Every day I’m here because I want to be with you. It would be easy to disappear, to go away, run and hide from the world. But you are why I’m here, I adore you. I’ll blow holes in the moon for you and one of these days I’ll have enough control of these damn talents to show you how much I want you.”
Rylee swallows hard. “Why is it that I’m the lesbian and can’t talk like that? Why are you the romantic butch? Mmm?”
“Butch, dyke, lezzie, it’s all labels, can’t we just be Spencer and Rylee?” asks Spencer her fingers running down Rylee’s throat.
“Oh no,” whispers Rylee. “Whatever the succubus did is affecting you.”