Before Dusk((lock))

Aron woke up from the disturbance, and silently sat up, watching Meegan. It was early, but he didn't mind. Being awoken to such a sight was not something that bothered him at all. His dreams had been fairly pleasent, though his lack of abillity to find Panos disturbed him slightly. Perhaps Megan would have a new lead soon. He didn't want to think about it right now.

"Welcome back princess"

She smiled as she finished pulling on her second sock. She turned on the bed, bringing her knee up, to face Aron.

"Hi! It's still light out, you should go back to sleep." Her voice was quiet, and gentle. Her brain however filled with the hundreds of questions she still had for him, along with the ones Kyle had given her.

He smiled as her face turned to his, and he could look into her eyes. Once again she made him regret the loss of colours he could see. He would have loved to see the colour of hers. Something told him they had to be green.
He could sense her mind bursting with questions, and he wasn't particularly tired.

"Ohh, I couldn't sleep now.....not when you're so full of question that you might break if I didn't answer them right away. Ask and I shall try to answer"

She tilted her head to look at him. 'That's odd...' "How did you know I have questions?" Her mind flashed to the Studio when she had heard him in her head, but he hadn't spoken, at the time she thought she'd imagined it.

"Wait, don't tell me. You're telepathic." She chuckled softly, that had to be the one thing that wouldn't have scared her. She'd always wanted to be telepathic. 'Can't beat being able to talk with out talking.Oh wait he can hear me.' That made her blush a soft pink across her cheeks.

He laughed, having focused enough to follow her inner monologue.

"Telepathic might be a bit of an exaggeration. I am an empath, though able to catch the occational stray thought if I really focus. I can't go through your mind like a book I'm afraid. Would've been an interresting read though....
Now...about those questions?"

"Alright. We'll start with the most obvious and go from there. I hope you can feel comfortable enough to be completely honest with me." She turned and began to put her running shoes on, giving her nearly naked back to him. She took a moment to focus her thoughts. Taking a deep breath she plunged into the deep.

"I spoke to Kyle Evans today. Did you send him that tape?"

That sounded much more accusatory than she had meant it, but the words were out, no use in apologizing or trying to take them back.

Her question hardly surprised her. The question was whether to tell her the full truth, the whole truth, or nothing but the truth? Technically he hadn't sent the tape anywhere, and he could tell her that. He was fairly certain it wasn't what she ment by honest though. He sighed.

"I had Jeeves send part of the tape to the police and to the Nachton Post, yes. It had to be done, it may make it harder for them"

She tied the laces she had just re-run through the holes, pushing her frustration and the anger that came with it down into her belly. She could run those away in a bit, right now she needed answers, getting emotional was not going to help.

"Why didn't you ask me? Maybe, just maybe I had a reason I didn't want the police to have the real tape or the press to know some psycotic vampire is after me and mine. I was barely able to keep your name from Evans, he's persistant. He'll find out who you are."

She took another deep breath, refocusing her emotion once more. She slid the second shoe onto her foot and began to relace them.

Sometimes he wished he was better at shutting other peoples emotions out. Her frustration felt like a knife in his body.

"Do you think thiss reporter knows what haunts you? Do you think the Nachton police knows?" he said in a soft voice. "All vampires have to keep the fact they exist hidden. By attacking your guards, these two became vulnerable, and quite frankly we cannot let a chance like that go by. The police thinks they're a couple of insane killers, which is close enough to the truth. Depending on how smart they are, it could force them out of the city.
As for the reporter, he will find what I let him, nothing more.
I didn't mean to go behind your back, but sometimes you have to draw your aces from the sleeve rather than the deck"

"I've never drawn from my sleeve before Aron, and I don't like having to start now." She tied the shoe lace and stood from the bed. She moved to the middle of the room and put her legs shoulder width apart. She hoped that Aron didn't take her stretch as her not caring, it was the only way she could keep from exploding at him, and exploding was not the healthy way to deal with this.

She bent forward until she could grab her ankles then pulled herself into her body until her head was even with her hands.

"I guess I'm just going to have to trust you on this one. But I want to know who those people are. I really really do. What Clan are they from? How many Clans are in this city and do the vampires really own the city?" She moved her upper body and her right hand to her left ankle, pressing her forehead to her hands.

"Why would they attack me? What did I ever do to them? It's not like I sought them out. That woman, that woman looked so familiar, but I don't ever remember meeting her. Who is she Aron?"

And thus they came. The ones he couldn't answer. The ones where he could only guess. He hated it.

"I have drawn from my sleeve most of my time in this world, and I have no intention of stopping now."

He got out of the bed and began walking over to her.

"I am sure there are three clans in the town, and what part of the city they do not actually own, they control. I know your attackers were not of my own clan, though which they were off I do not know. A careful guess would be that the man was either Tacharan or perhaps clanless. It would be beneath an anantya to waste so much time on a single human, and obsessive behavior is more of a tacharan trademark in general. Going from what I could find out about his age, I wold say it's most likely he's clanless, but I could be wrong. It would be very unusual for two of a different clan to travel together, so the woman is probably of the same"

He stood behind her, and his hands moved to gently massage her shoulders, with slow soothing motions.

"I don't know who they are yet, but I will soon.... You did nothing to them, and they will pay for doing anything to you. Eventually..."

She had straightened as he crossed the room to her. Meegan leaned into his hands, sighing softly. Revenge was not her cup of tea. She had learned long ago that harboring such things only poisons your heart and eventually leads to you committing an illegal act to repay the one done to you. "I don't want them to pay, Aron. I just want them to leave me alone. I want to be able to out at night with out looking over my shoulder."

She pulled her left arm across her chest to stretch her shoulder. Her mind turning the names of the clans over in her mind. They were not of a language she knew, and that made her even more curious.

"Tacharan, Anantya, and your's. What is your's called? It's frightening to know that there are so many of you as to need three clans."

They ruined her life and she didn't want revenge? It was weak, irrational....and rather charming. He put more force into the massage.

"It's not really a need....it's more of a racial difference. Few cross over, even from my own clan, Evenhet..."

"It still implies a large number of your people, when there is a want for racial seperation. It really is irrelevant to the situation."

She stopped his hands on her shoulders and folded herself to the floor. She pressed the soles of her feet together and pulled her legs in until her heels touched her body. She then bent forward until her forhead touched the floor, she turned her head slightly to speak what was begining to worry her.

"Aron, will you get into trouble for helping me?"

"Irrelevant?" he frowned.

"Hardly, it's very likely to be very relevant"

He looked at the knot of a woman on the floor and his expression eased and turned into a smile.

"I won't get into any kind of trouble for helping you....At least not with my clan that is"

Meegan rolled herself up until her back was straight. She looked up at Aron and smiled. She pushed her right leg out and bent herself over it until her head touched her knee. She wondered if this whole thing would start some kind of clan war. How horrifiying would a war between vampires be? And she had inadvertently put Aron's people in the middle of it, by asking him to rescue her. She hoped that they could stop this man before it came to something so violent.

As she straightened and switched legs she looked up at Aron again.

"I'm glad you won't be in trouble. I think I'm all questioned out for now. I want to run before the sun gets too much lower in the sky. And I want to try and get ahold of Rachyl in a couple of hours. I should have just enough time to run, then bathe, before she's off work." She grinned at him, and folded herself over her left leg.

She was too careless with her own life...far too careless for his personal liking. However, he doubted she would take it well if he asked her to stay.

"Allright...you better get going then...letting the darkness suprise you won't be a good idea. Perhaps you should let Rachyl come with you back...and..perhaps...bring a gun"

'Wait, what was he talking about?' She had planned to run the grounds here, she wasn't leaving again, and she had planned to call Rachyl...She should clear all that up, and the gun thing. She stood in a single graceful motion and pulled her foot to her backside, stretching her thigh. She tilted her head and studied Aron, in her confusion.

"I don't like guns." She switched legs.

"Also, I was going to just call Rachyl after I got back from running the grounds here. It is ok to run here, isn't it? If you want I can have Rach come out here, but she may not since she has to be at work everyday."

Aron wondered how that one had slipped. He rarely got things wrong like this. Well...it could be the stress, one of the few human diseases he was not quite imumne to.

"Ohh, I thought you ment...nevermind. With a little luck he doesn't know Rachyl is your friend, so she should be allright. The grounds are quite safe, from vampires and prying eyes in general"

He paused, the next part would be the one she might dislike.

"I don't like guns either, but the difference is I have weapons you do not...
martial arts or no, a round of hollow point 45's may be the only way you could wound him"

She stood with her hands on her hips, taking deep steadying breaths, she really didn't want to argue with him, but it looked like she had no choice. She was not going to carry a gun. Guns got people killed, and she would not be responsible for more death.


"I'm not carrying a gun, Aron. I'm just not. I don't care how much safer it will make me. I don't care if it may be the only thing that will stop him. I will not have one in my hands. They are unnatural and have no place in my hands, no matter the circumstances. You can carry one if you want to, and I'm pretty sure Jeeves does, but I'll be damned if I'm going to carry one."

She took another deep breath, holding up a hand to stop Aron from speaking, she didn't want to argue, she really didn't.

"If it will help, I have wrist and ankle sheaths for a set of custom made daggers, I know how to use them. I will carry them, but I will not carry a gun. I just want you to know that I like them almost as much as I like guns, but atleast I won't accidentally amputate my foot with them."

She gave a weak smile, knowing her attempt at humor wouldn't even make Rachyl smile.