An Informed Moral Crisis (By Invite Only)

[Alistair Crowsly]

Alistair had never choked up before. He had sat on a cheap bed; a cheap, heart-shaped bed; in a cheap motel. His shirt had been completely off and strewn across the floor. His slim physique had been infinitely less impressive than the actual power it had housed. His arms had been around her; touching her; making her writhe in his arms. His mouth had kissed lazily along her neck. His tongue had found that sensitive spot. His fangs had distended.

Then the scene had changed. As vivid a change as ever; as if someone had stood there and cast an illusion over him. Suddenly it was not the peroxide blonde of a hooker that fell about the girls had but a rainbow of colours. Her neck was pale and soft. Her ribcage melted away to be replaced by healthy fat. She was Rae. The human he had met; the woman; the hunter; his fake girlfriend.

Alistair had jumped suddenly from the bed accidentally pushing her on the floor as he had done so. She wasn’t Rae anymore. She was a crack-addled hooker; the easiest of prey; but he couldn’t look at her. He couldn’t bring himself to. What had he been about to do? Destroy someone’s life! This girl was some poor man’s daughter; some poor woman’s daughter. How could he destroy a family like that? How had it felt for his parents? When it had happened to them? He was doing the same thing!!!

Alistair had grabbed his shirt flinging a roll of notes, with cash in it in excess of a thousand pounds, at her. She had shouted something but he was no longer listening. He took off into the hall pulling his white shirt back on. He had run down the stairs and, without second thought, plunged into the dark rain of after midnight London in just his trousers and shirt.

So here he was a half hour later his invulnerability the only thing keeping his feet from infection walking down a nameless street with only the light of the street lamps to guide him. Frankly he was a lot angrier at himself than he’d ever been before. What had he been thinking? He needed blood to survive. He wasn’t going to go on any hokey animal blood diet. Those things were a myth. He’d left it too long already. After Rae he just hadn’t had the stomach. Maybe his problem was that he only went after woman; young-ish woman; woman about her age.

Was he going to die? Die because he couldn’t bring himself to drink from some silly girl’s neck. Some human with half a brain whose only function in life would be to serve the rich. Hell he was rich. This was like a service. Did that make him right?

Of course it didn’t. How could it? That logic was childish. For a man of a hundred and eighty that just wasn’t excusable. Then again what other logic did he have?

[Matuschkin]

London. This city had such rich, violent, amazing and tragic history. It was definitely one of the reaper's favorite cities to visit when in Europe. While the city wasn't a cesspool surrounded by death and human suffering anymore, there were still a lot of interesting people around. Not to mention that people still died all the time in London, just not in as interesting manners as they had a few hundred years ago when the city was literally the capital of the civilized world. Plague and bad hygiene were the least interesting manners of death back then, when violence was still a legitimate way to get what you wanted in life. Of course, there were also characters like Jack the Ripper that spiced things up.

All that was a long time ago, when the manner of people's death still interested the reaper. By now he had seen so much death that it took quite a bit to intrigue him when it came to cause of death. There were more interesting things to spend his time on now. Like figuring out the people who killed other human beings even in our modern society. Yes, humans were definitely the most interesting of species still walking the face of the Earth. They were so varied.. That said, it wasn't like he didn't take interest in the other species that he came across. Just as humans had changed their way of life over time, so had the others.

Now then.. Casually strolling down the alley where the dead underground punk-rocker had only moments earlier drawn his last breath before overdosing, the reaper wrote the name of the deceased in his old leather-bound book and tucked it inside his garments. Quite an interesting character, but a bit too stereotypical. Next one on the list was supposed to be a hooker dying at the hands of a vampyre. Supposed to.. For whatever reason, when the reaper appeared at the scene, he found the hooker alive and well, if a bit hysterical after she'd caught sight of him appearing out of thin air. Hm. Now this was something out of the ordinary. For someone to alter their time of death.. Sure, it happened every now and then, but it usually required some extraordinary display of will to survive.. and honestly, the reaper severely doubted that she had that much fight in her. No, something was definitely wrong here. A small but intriguing dent in the order of things.

It didn't take the reaper long to find the vampyre that was supposed to have ended the hooker's miserable existence and done them both a favor. Appearing right beside him in the same casual stroll as before, he simply matched the pace of the vampyre while looking straight ahead down the street. The clicking sound of bone against asphalt was the only thing to be heard from the reaper as he produced an old smoking pipe from within his garments. The pipe was already lit, and the smell of tobacco thickened quite rapidly as he took a deep drag and blew smoke into the air around him. "What seems to be troubling you, nightkin?" a raspy voice calmly inquired. Blue vortexes slowly swirled within the hood of the dark robe that covered the figure's skeletal appearance.

[Alistair Crowsly]

“What seems to be troubling you, nightkin?”

Alistair stopped dead on and turned. He had smelled tobacco. He had considered that someone else was smoking it. Someone further away. Then again he wasn’t on his a-game tonight.

Alistair looked the robed creature up and down. It seemed to have materialised right next to him. He’d heard of such magics before. The guy’s wore a robe and a scythe; no points for guessing what kind of creature he was.

Alistair sighed and kept walking. No doubt this Reaper was waiting about for him to kill someone. He’d known them to be a tad sneakier about it though. It was just another reminder that he hadn’t; probably wouldn’t; kill tonight.

“No dead here, Reaper.” He answered dismissively. “Maybe if you wait a week I’ll be dead but I’m probably soulless so you can just go away.”

Alistair’s feet really were cold. If only he’d remembered to put his shoes on. He didn’t get infections, did he? He didn’t know if lack of blood turned you steadily more mortal or if lack of blood was just the same as dehydration. He hadn’t asked. So many questions he hadn’t asked his Sire. The Vampyre who had killed him; the Vampyre who had dragged him away from his home; the Vampyre who’d been like a second father to him; the Vampyre he wasn’t even sure if he liked anymore or not. He’d liked him before. Everything had been easier pretending he wasn’t human. Pretending they were just cattle. Pretending he wasn’t just one who’d had an unlucky break.

[Matuschkin]

It took longer than expected before the vampyre noticed that he had appeared right next to him. Something was clearly bothering the vampyre if his senses had been dulled to such a degree. The reaper's suspicions were confirmed just a moment later as the vampyre spoke. Odd, he thought, for a vampyre to be saying things like that when he could have fed minutes earlier. "Well, yes, that is why I approached you. You had the opportunity to feed, but you did not. This is very uncharacteristic for a vampyre. Clearly there is something bothering you." The vampyres that the reaper had come across before in his travels had all taken great pleasure in feeding. Some directly from humans, others by more humane means such as bags of blood from donors, but they enjoyed it greatly all the same.

Taking another drag of his pipe, the reaper turned his gaze towards the vampyre, cold, blue whirls fixing upon his face. "You look pale, even for a vampyre. Are you by any chance afflicted with disease?" Now, the reaper knew full well that vampyres were immune to a lot of things, but it couldn't hurt to ask. One of the reaper's flaws when it came to interacting with others was that he tended to be a bit.. well, inquisitive. The need to know what bothered people, what drove people, often got the better of him. This often meant that he came across as insensitive or even plain rude. Rest assured though, the reaper wasn't being rude on purpose, he just happened to get carried away quite easily.

Normally the reaper would be a bit more careful walking around town in the open like this, but as it was night and they were in a rather rough part of town, he reckoned he could stroll about for a bit longer without any trouble. If people from this area reported seeing the Grim Reaper walking a man down the street, they would be told to go to sleep and sober the hell up. Besides, if things went south he could just.. disappear. Like he always did, eventually.

"I am sorry to bother you like this, but.. It's just that something like this does not happen very often. You see, I felt that the lady you were with was about to lose her life. Her time was up. Yet she lives. You were about to kill her, but you did not. What made you go against the most primal of urges of vampyres?" the reaper kept firing questions at the worn vampyre without even stopping to wait for an answer until he realized that he hadn't given him a chance to respond. For someone who's got all the time in the world, the reaper sure seemed eager to know what was wrong with this vampyre.