Blood of The Rose

Chapter 16: Fledglings

Santa Monica

Main Street

Ruby stood in front of Mercurio's apartment building uncertainly. She sent a guilty glance over towards the far more ramshackle building that housed her Haven where Weiss was currently waiting for her.

I have time for this, just a quick stop, maybe a half hour till sunrise still, right? Don't want to cut it too close, though, since I'm still so new to this… I can do this, yeah. I won't even get distracted by Mercurio… Oh, I hope he's doing alright, I wonder if… No, focus, Ruby, focus! Quick recon and info gathering, mission parameters are set, let's go go go!

Giggling to herself softly, she hopped up the steps and eased the front door open. Whistling the theme song from Mission Impossible (the movies, of course, she could never get into the old shows like her dad did), she strolled nonchalantly over towards the door directly across from Mercurio's. With an eager grin, she slipped her lockpick tools out of her pocket, crouched down, and got to work on the challenging lock.

Christ on a crutch, I got a lotta stuff on my plate now… This, an actual freaking haunted house, blowing up a warehouse, then I still wanna help E find his Lily… Always been a sucker for romances. And the vampire kind is even better! Well, the non-sparkly-vampire kind, anyways. Be nice to earn some actual income too, I mean, granted I don't have to buy food anymore but I can't just live off of Weiss and the Camarilla… Geez, this dickass lock is really… giving me… Wait a second.

As she was suddenly struck by a thought, the fledgling sighed heavily, put her tools away, and leaned her head against the door as she pulled out the key that Kilpatrick had given her. "Worst. Vampire. Ever."

The brunette slipped inside the room, closing the door firmly behind her, to be confronted by yet another elegant apartment. It was so very far above her own in class with marble walls, nice lacy curtains, and a silver-and-tan Persian rug. A fancy couch with delicate-looking endtables faced a glass coffee table with a laptop on it and what looked to be a cassette recorder, though Ruby had never actually laid eyes on one before. Also littering the table surface were a few empty bottles of expensive alcohol and a shot glass. The last item of note was an older-model TV in the corner facing the couch, incongruous with the more upscale furnishings.

Huh, wonder if maybe he's renting the place?

She quietly crept across the apartment, peeking through the doors leading to first an equally fancy bedroom with a king-sized bed but plain white sheets and then a small kitchenette. It was pretty much the same layout as Mercurio's apartment if reversed.

How can he afford this on a bounty hunter's salary? Yeah, must be a rental, but still… pricey. And definitely deserted, so time to get to work!

As she made to sit on the couch, the fledgling vampire noticed a picture of a brunette model in a red dress that was taped messily to the wall behind her. It had the name Imaliaemblazoned across the top and it was autographed as well. As with the TV, it seemed to be a little out of place.

She flipped on the recorder first, rewinding the tape before hitting play. A voice came on as she looked the laptop over.

"Check, check. Is this thing recording?"

Ruby rolled her eyes irritably. No, dumbass, you're just talking to yourself.

"God, I hate these things." The man, evidently Carson, cleared his throat awkwardly. "Anyway… The, uh, McGee case is getting weirder all the time. I found where he was hiding, and I found some really creepy stuff down there."

With a snicker, the brunette rolled her eyes once more. No shit, creepy stuff? Gosh, haven't seen anything like that lately…

"There was, uh, no sign of McGee."

Finally opening the lid of the laptop, Ruby watched as it powered on and promptly asked for a password. She sat back and tapped her chin thoughtfully.

"I'm gonna follow up on another lead I got, too. I updated the files on the computer."

How very helpful of you. Now, what would you use for a password…? Oh, no, it couldn't be that easy, could it?

With a grin, the fledgling typed in "Imalia", which was accepted as the password, causing her to blow out an irritable huff. I suppose I should be thankful everyone is so computer-stupid around here, she mused.

"Uh, this is Carson, signing off. Man, that sounds stupid!"

"Why yes, yes it does," she giggled softly as the tape came to a halt. On the laptop, the default email program showed some simple stuff, conversations with his mom and with Kilpatrick, though there was no outgoing email for the last few days. Then she spotted a shortcut on the desktop, buried in between bookmarks for sites ranging from "American Bounty Hunter" to "Cheap Escorts", that was labeled "McGee". She smirked widely as she opened the Word doc.

"Oh. My. Freaking. Kittens." The wondrous exclamation was uttered after a good ten minutes of tortuous reading. The document was a long, rambling mess, reading like a really bad detective novel and one which obviously featured Carson as the hero. He had an unfortunate tendency to overuse the word awesome. What she could glean from the tail end of the obtuse tale, however, was that McGee had been hiding out in the tattoo parlor right across the street, at least as of a few days ago. And that he'd also obtained an actual key to the place, currently resting on top of the TV.

Ruby glanced over and spotted the key, immediately hopping up off the couch to snatch it up. Staring thoughtfully at it in the palm of her hand, she pondered her next course of action. I doubt anything would change over the course of one day, and I'm out of time really anyways.

With a resolute nod, the brunette left the apartment and headed for her Haven. It wasn't long before she was at the door, opening it up a crack and rapping on it quietly. "Weiss, you there? Can I come in?"

"Certainly, Ruby, this is your Haven, after all."

"Well, yeah, but I just didn't want to barge in on you… Oh." Ruby paused in the middle of the room after closing and locking the door behind her, looking around incredulously. "Wow. Um… you cleaned."

"I did, yes," the platinum-haired Ventrue replied primly. Gone were the debris and assorted trash littering the run-down apartment. The kitchen was spotless, if still dingy, the floors swept and the bed made with fresh linen sheets, crisp white in color.

"Wow," she repeated dumbly. From her perch on the chair, Weiss rolled her eyes amusedly. "I mean… um, thanks, really, this is… This is nice."

"Well, if we are to be sharing living space in the near term, I will not be living in squalor." The other fledgling buffed her nails with an air of casualness. "Plus, I know you were busy out tonight while I was simply sitting around and staring at the… filth… As such, it was the least I could do."

Ruby grinned, restraining herself from glomping onto her friend and instead just resting a hand on her shoulder. "Thank you, Weiss."

Weiss cleared her throat, though she had a pleased smile on her face. "You are welcome, Ruby. So, how did your evening go?"

"Ugh, lemme tell ya, it was one thing after another-"

"Stop!"

Ruby had just been about to fling herself onto the bed but froze. It wasn't a use of her Ventrue powers, but more the commanding tone in her voice that brokered no resistance.

"I will not have you dirtying up our new sheets!" Weiss squawked, thrusting the brunette's newly purchased pair of sleeping clothes at her. "Go change first!"

For the first time, Ruby noticed that her roommate was already in a pale blue nightgown that went rather well with her eyes. "Right, gotcha! Sorry!"

She scurried into the bathroom, much cleaner now, fortunately, but then turned, confusion lacing her features. "Um, there's still no door…"

"Oh, just change, you dolt, I won't look."

With a self-conscious chuckle, Ruby turned her back and proceeded to strip out of her evening clothes. "So, yeah, I met up with Therese but ran into somebody else first. Bertram's ghoul."

"Well, that's interesting indeed," Weiss' voice came from around the corner. "I did not know he had one."

"Yeah, his name's Knox. Annoying as hell." Her voice became muffled as she slipped the dark grey tank top over her head. "And I got something that he wants me to do but doesn't seem like I have to do it before I can get him to help, just kinda, y'know… Gaining favors, I think."

"And that is the foundation for most interactions between Kindred." As Ruby walked back into the room, adjusting her white-and-pink polka-dotted sleeping pants with one hand while the other carried her discarded clothing, she spotted Weiss now perched demurely at the head of the bed, legs tucked under her.

"Seems to be that way," the brunette agreed. "Anyways, it seemed kinda like I could check into it at some point, but no rush, right?"

"Very well. So what about Therese?"

"Ugh, Therese…" Ruby dropped her clothes in a pile atop her backpack, ignoring the disdainful sniff from her companion. "Would you be offended if I say anything bad about her?"

"Not at all," Weiss smirked.

"Good." The brunette flopped inelegantly across the foot of the bed, limbs splayed out, and turned her head to regard Weiss solemnly. "She's a stone-cold bitch."

"That seems to match with most of what I've heard about her."

"Seriously, I think if you stuck a lump of coal up her ass she'd shit out a diamond in no time flat."

Weiss let out a surprised snort of laughter, quickly clamping her hand over her mouth while her entire body quivered. As Ruby joined in, though, she abandoned any pretense of propriety and simply let the laughter flow.

"Oh, Ruby," she finally sighed, shaking her head in amusement. "You are incorrigible."

"Yep. Can't argue with that." Ruby gave her friend a cheeky wink. "So you wanna know what hoops we gotta jump through before she'll call off this feud with Bertram?"

"Do tell."

"We gotta go visit a haunted hotel and fetch something that belongs to the spirit so that she can… Well, I don't know exactly. Exorcise it? Control it? Who knows."

"Oh. Well, this will be a first." Weiss cleared her throat, looking at Ruby with… was that hopefulness? "Would you like me to accompany you?"

"Oh, yeah, absolutely!" Ruby's grin widened in relief. "I was really hoping you would, I mean, especially through the sewers."

"Ugh, of course, there would be sewers…" Weiss recoiled slightly, but then paused and gave her a curious look. "Why especially the sewers?"

"Oh, no reason…" she chuckled uncomfortably.

"Er, well, perhaps you could do this on your own, then?"

Oh, no… No no no you do not get to back out on me… Ugh, I feel dirty doing this now, but this calls for all my powers of persuasion!

She sat up and pulled out her tried-and-true puppy dog eyes, gazing at Weiss mournfully past her red-tipped bangs. "Pleeease come with me?"

The platinum-haired fledgling crossed her arms with a huff, facing away but still watching Ruby out of the corner of her eye. "You can't possibly be scared of a mere spirit, can you?"

"Well, I dunno, maybe, but it's just…" The brunette sighed heavily, staring down at her hands clasped in her lap. "I'm… Weiss, I'm terrified of rats, and the thought of going into a sewer alone is enough to make me wanna take a walk outside in the daylight."

"Oh, don't be so dramatic," she replied with a roll of her pale blue eyes. "Fine, I'll come with you."

Ruby didn't try to even contain herself this time, tackling Weiss into a hug on the bed. "Thank you thank you thank you!" she squealed happily.

Instead of pushing her off, the other petite girl just sighed, patting her awkwardly on the back. "Just… don't start making a habit of this," she grumped.

With a giggle, Ruby sat back up, though she remained sitting cross-legged right next to the other girl. "Okay, so what else did I get done tonight… Oh, so what Knox, he's the obnoxious ghoul, what he wanted was for me to check up on some kinda Asian not-vampire. I got a driver's license that he said was dropped, and it turns out it belongs to some dude in the morgue, so I gotta go there at some point…"

"Wait, stop. Back up." Weiss regarded her levelly. "Did you say an Asian not-vampire?"

"Something like that, yeah… sorta like a vampire, but not really a vampire, I guess?"

"Damn," Weiss muttered under her breath as she looked away, brows furrowed. "What are the Kuei-jin doing in Santa Monica?"

"Wait, you know about these guys? What's a Coo-jean?"

"Kuei-jin are indeed like vampires, save that they feed off of energy instead of blood. They do originate from Asia." Weiss' frown deepened. "They are very, very dangerous, merely spirits inhabiting bodies and can take a tremendous amount of damage, from what I understand. They had been here on the West Coast for some time before the Anarchs fought a bloody, bitter war to drive them out."

"Oh, wow," Ruby breathed. "And now they're back?"

"That could be, yes…" The platinum-haired woman turned to face her fully. "Ruby, please promise me you will not try to hunt down this Kuei-jin by yourself. We are merely fledglings, together we might stand a chance but individually we would surely fall to one of those monsters."

"O- Okay, Weiss," she stammered, taken aback by the fear that laced her friend's words. "Yeah, I won't try to go up against one of these things without help, you got my word."

"Good, thank you. Was there anything more? The sun should be up very soon."

"Oh… No, just some about Lily, I actually got a purse that was hers."

"I noticed that," Weiss grinned. "Didn't exactly go with your outfit."

Ruby stuck her tongue out briefly before continuing. "Anyways, long story short, there's possibly a car in a garage here in Santa Monica that could have more clues. Pretty much all I had time for tonight. Oh, but I did get a job offer from the bail bonds guy, Kilpatrick, just to track someone down, I gotta go visit the tattoo parlor here at some point..."

"Well, you've certainly been busy tonight," her friend responded, eyebrows raised regally.

"Yeah, I guess so," Ruby giggled. "Do you wanna help with any of the other stuff besides the hotel?"

Weiss nodded agreeably. "I don't see why not, it's certainly better than being cooped up in here all evening. We should turn in now, though."

"Right, sounds good…"

They lay side-by-side once more, shoulders touching, but this time under cool sheets and with a luxuriously soft pillow beneath their heads.

"Y'know…" Ruby mused, staring up at the ceiling. "Only person I ever shared a bed with was my sister."

"Oh?"

"Yeah… she used to come to me when I had nightmares, or I'd go to her… especially after mom died… Anyways, I, um…" Ruby cleared her throat, unwilling to let this take a morose turn before daylight claimed them. "Thanks for this, Weiss. I know I keep thanking you for stuff, but I mean it."

"You are very welcome, Ruby," came the whispered reply at her side. "And… thank you, for becoming my friend."

Ruby's grin slid away along with her consciousness as the sun crested the horizon.

A/N: This was admittedly short, and without a whole lot going on really, but this was as much as I had transcribed to date that I could use. Wanted to at least get this out since I missed last week's update. I'm going to get working on more transcription, and maybe do a little more gameplay for more material so we can get the heck outta Santa Monica already. Well, we'll be back every so often, but downtown LA calls to us, as do more characters from the show!

Next chapter, though, begins the long-awaited Haunted Hotel arc! Definitely going to stretch past one chapter, I have almost 30 pages just with the transcript and half of it filled in, sooo… Maybe three chapters worth or so? Depends on where I can find decent places to break it up. We shall see.

Hugs for my fabulous Beta and collaborator, Live to anger the World, and to all of you awesome readers and reviewers! Sharkdude5, carpenter656, SixPerfections, AntonSlavik020, TacoKing23, djjohns94, zerosabers, Martenzo, Crescent Sunrise, welcome to the new readers, and for everyone else, thanks as always for your support!

Stay shiny!