Before Dusk((lock))

Rachyl smiled, feeling better about her comment, and almost started to giggle, but then Meegan said "Either that or Aron wears a wire, and planted one on me somehow," ... and her mouth got the better of her.

"Hard to plant a wire if you're naked..."

And it was out.

Bright red bloomed on her cheeks and neck. She turned to Aron and requested calmly, "Mr. Swiftwood, if you could kindly ask Mr. Jeeves to bring a crowbar and a gun back with him... The crowbar to pry the leg out of my mouth so that I can reach my head with the gun? I'm going to go shoot myself now."

He raised an eyebrow. He somehow pitied Rachyl, he could easily understand her jealousy.

"Hard to plant a wire naked? I dare say I could think of a few places to hide it....not very practical ones mind you, but still...."

A teasing grin crossed his face as he continued a little louder

"Jeeves! Cancel that last order, Miss Rachyls face is quite red enough without the added blood"

Meegan had to let go of Aron, to clutch her stomach as her laughter nearly doubled her over. She tried desperately to calm herself, but her deep breaths only made her laugh more. She swiped at the tears leaking from the corners of her eyes, and continued to try and stop laughing.

The flush heated Rachyl's cheeks so much she felt like her face was shrinking... then she realized she was smiling. When Meegan started to laugh, she also began laughing.

After a few moments of shared laughter, she wiped away a tear and pursed her lips, trying to straighten her cheeks because they hurt so much from having laughed so hard.

Aron could almost hear the ice breaking in the laughter of the women. His eyes were laughing as hard as any of them, but his mouth remained closed in a smile. It was good to see them like this.

"Well played love, perhaps now Rachyl will be more forthcoming when it comes to dinner requests"

Aron ignored her, he had been a lot lately. He wondered if that was wise.

Meegan managed to straighten up, and continued to take deep steadying breaths, managing to get her laughter down to a chuckle between breaths. Clearing her throat several times she crossed to the chairs by the fire and pushed three of them into a small semi-circle.

"Shall we," A small chuckle escapes her, "have a seat?"

She curled herself into the chair in the middle, both of her feet tucked into the chair with her, her dress resting across the middle of her knees.

Rachyl followed Meegan to the three chairs, and sat to Meegan's right.

She didn't think it was too optimistic of her, really, to always be the designer's Right Hand Man, so to speak - okay, woman - after all, their relationship didn't hinge upon the physicalities.

Besides, it was kind of ironic for Aron to be sitting to her left... since that's the side of her body in which her heart resides.

Then again...

She had a brief urge to get up and sit to Meegan's left... but squelched it and stayed where she originally chose.

Aron followed the two, and sat to Meegans left. Once again he noticed the sort of muted pain radiating from Rachyl. He had been slightly surprised that Meegan hadn't kept Rachyl as her lover, but then again his own relationship with her wasn't overly well defined. They were lovers, certainly, but besides that? Well, time would tell.

The air was suddenly think with tension again and Meegan wished she had never sat down. She wished they could rewind and go back to laughing. She wished that she knew what Rachyl was thinking. 'Well if wishes were horses beggars would ride,' to quote Great-aunt Julia. So instead she decided to keep to the ignore it and it will go away policy. Not that she believed it would, but a girl could wish.

"Well Aron, it seems we conveniently know where Panos is hiding his endangered little body."

Rachyl felt the tension flow back into the room as Meegan brought up Panos.

She fervently wished this wasn't how the now-strange now-trio would remain. That is, she hoped it wouldn't be such a wide range of highs and lows, ups and downs, happiness and tension.

She resolved then that, if their meetings were frought with such extremes of emotion, she would distance herself - though it would pain her immensely - from Meegan. Both to allow her the chance at the happiness that she deserves, and so she herself wouldn't be a constant source of the "downs."

She luh... cared too much for Meegan to cause her continuous pain.

"Well, not so much -him- hiding it..." she commented.

"Really?" Aron was truly surprised, but good news were good news, no matter how surprising they were.

"That's quite an advantage. Gives us a few options besides waiting for him to find us."

He doubted Panos was dumb enough to be caught off guard, but one could always hope. Besides, it opened for the possibility of using a hitman.

"Which reminds me Rachyl, do you have a gun? I haven't been able to convince Meegan to carry one, but I don't want to see you hurt" [Anymore than you already have been]

Rachyl shook her head. "No, I don't have a gun. I'm trained in the martial arts - if out of practice - and have used weapons, but never a gun. Crossbow once for training, bows during my time on an Indian reservation..."

A thought crossed her mind. "I imagine silver bullets won't even be of much help, would they."

It wasn't so much a question as of a statement that needed confirmation. She wondered briefly if the cross-training she'd received with swords and bladed weapons would even help, especially if these... opponents were as fast as legend described.

It thrilled her, in one respect, to know that, like shamanic and druidic magic, vampires were real.

And on the other, it scared the living hell out of her. Especially now that she and Meegan were prey to at least one.

"Silver bullets?" Aron couldn't help but chuckle. "I think you're confusing us with werewolves Miss Rachyl. If you must, I would suggest pure lead or gold, but quite frankly a good hollowpoint would give somewhat better results. A close range shotgun wound isn't something we find overly pleasant either."

He looked Rachyl in the eyes, as if reading her mind.

"I'm going to trust you with some very dangerous knowledge. Dangerous to me that is. How to slay one of us is not knowledge we wish for the whole world to share, but the fact of the matter is, that as long as there's a drop of blood left in us, you could have staked us ten times through the heart and we would still come back. Of course, we have the rather severe disadvantage that our blood is highly flammable..... and not overly fond of sunlight either."

He sighed.

"I can't recommend trying to pick a fight with any of us though.... Guns have made it a little more dangerous for the children of Kaine, but with less effective weapons... Well, let's just say that even the weakest of us would be a fair fight against the best martial artists there are"

Rachyl nodded as she absorbed his statements.

As her eyes flicked over to look at Meegan, she couldn't help but recognize the fact that, the only way Aron would find the information he'd just shared "dangerous" in Rachyl's hands would be if he hurt Meegan or accosted Rachyl herself in some unwanted way.

She knew they loved each other. She didn't even need to see them looking at each other; she knew if she closed her eyes and just felt them near each other it would resonate from them like the hum of a high powered speaker. And she was ecstatic for both of them. But a religious girl and a creature of the night... Seemed to her to be an even more opposing match than Baby and Johnny in Dirty Dancing.

Not that a girl from Hickville New Jersey is any less of an opposite to the high society designer...

"I have no illusions that I'd be able to take on one of our opponents in a face-to-face fight. I know I won't. But knowing what I know would be enough to allow me to surprise him... her... it... them, yeah, and get away."

Meegan listened for a moment. This wasn't news to her, as she'd already burst all of her bubbles concerning vampire lore. No what bothered her was that Rachyl would willingly carry a gun, but that too was not her choice. She decided that this too would have to go on the ignore list. It occurred to her that perhaps her ignorance of days ago would be much more preferable than the knowledge she has now. Ignorance may not be truly blissful, but it was a damn sight better than knowing you had to torch your enemy to kill him. She sighed softly, this was getting her nowhere.

"I'm tempted to carry a flame-thrower and a sun lamp."

"Sun lamp... Sun lamp..."

A thoughtful look crossed Rachyl's face. "Aron, what is it about sunlight? Is it a certain part of the light spectrum emitted by it? Or other electromagnetic waves? Or is it something mystical, as in, something that is so important to life, is anathema to unlife (so to speak)?"

She tapped her chin. "Because you can get hand-held ultraviolet lamps pretty cheap in the mall."

Then her eyes widened and she slumped in her chair. "Of course now I remember that there isn't a Spencer's in the mall, or any other party place that would -carry- UV lights. Conspiracy I tell you!" She chuckled.

"Well...I believe it's the UV rays.... Causes skin cancer as well, but it's hardly something that concerns us a a lot. So technically yes, you could go out and buy a handheld UV-lamp. Ofcourse the three car batteries you'd need to power one to make it a useful weapon might be an inconvenience"

It was an exaggeration of course. A lesser lamp would certainly hurt quite a bit. But not against the vampire that was currently their main problem. The image of a child trying to kill a tiger with a magnifying glass came to mind.

"Besides....a gun serves two purposes... If you're lucky, it will slow him down, and if you're luckier it will attract a lot of human attention. There's always a limit to just how many we can handle at once"

"speaking of slowing him down..." Meegan took a deep breath. It still creeped her out to no end to know he was there but to say it was going to make it very very real. She sighed softly.

"He's in my condo."

"NOW? This very moment?!"

He was shocked, how the bloody heck hat they gotten that piece of information? He liked to plan and scheme, and then solve all problems with one swift stroke, but if there was a chance to catch Panos off guard, then it should be taken.

"Uh, yeah." Meegan turned her head to Rachyl, and lifted an eyebrow. Her heart was thudding loudly against her chest and the lovely chinese food was threatening to make a reappearance. She wasn't sure just how much she could get out and remain calm on the outside.

"Would you like to tell him how we know that?"