...Of Dark Places, (open to all)

[Eleanor Rolf]

Ele had to smile when he threw in a comedic curve ball. It was a small, almost sad looking smile, but she had been entertained regardless. No, she didn’t know everything.

”What’s wrong with not being totally human?” she asked quietly. Never had she been discriminated against for being what she was. Not directly anyway. Every movie or sad attempt at a werewolf book did kind of feel like a slap to the face. She wouldn’t allude anymore to her not being human. She just didn’t feel safe at all. What he said about life was oh so true. Even though she was much older than him she couldn’t help but feel like her days were numbered. Yeah she could live to be nearly two centuries, but any day now… Life was so fragile, even for a woman that could rip a small tree out of the ground.

Her betrayed expression turned to amused yet again when he mentioned the precautions they’d taken to keep vampires out of the establishment. They were better off with guns and alarms… But Ele had to admit that it would definitely screw with the mind of any vampire that wandered in. A confused vampire wouldn’t be as deadly as a confident shop owner with a twitchy trigger finger.

“I’m not a vampire,” she said, a hint of disgust in her voice. Okay, she lied to herself. That was the last time she’d allude to what she really was.

”I don’t want you to get killed either… or worse,” she muttered, with a sigh. Yeah he was putting his life at risk, but he was possibly alerting the coven. The coven loved turning police officers. The ones that didn’t kill themselves, usually joined their ranks. They’d probably love to get their cold silky fingers on the private investigator.

”Because I think you might be making my job a little easier, to be honest with you. And…” she paused with a half smile,”I’m not a zombie.” That would be interesting, and incredibly disgusting.

”I mean… I don’t smell like one do I?” she asked, making a show of pulling the collar of her jacket to her nose and sniffing. It was completely unnecessary. Her nose worked better than any average human’s. She had no need to pull her jacket to smell it properly. Eleanor was virtually scentless, which was uncommon for a woman. It was part of the job. She was the pack scout, and she didn’t need to give any rogue more information than absolutely necessary. She also didn’t need some perfume preventing her from picking up some faint trail.

”This whole thing is really complicated, Isaac,” Ele told him, her voice fumbling with his name. She wasn’t that familiar with him and should’ve just stuck with “Mr. Hazzard.” Well it was too late to rethink that decision now. ”I answer to someone, and there’s a 50/50 chance they’ll bring the hammer down on me if I say anything. Frankly… I don’t give a shit. Pardon my language.”

Butterflies attacked her stomach in a fury. She was going to do it. Holy shit.
”We’ve kind of got the same goal. To eliminate as many monsters this city has to offer. But technically, it’s not vampires that I’m after,” she explained, her voice lowering and her body tensing. She needed to be ready to duck out if the bullets started flying. ”Tonight, I did follow a vampire into that alley. A real nasty one at that… But I tend to look for monsters of the harrier variety.” Her words began to flow more calmly. Okay, so now she was comfortable talking about it… was he?

[Isaac Hazard]

Isaac gulped hard...so there it was. He was speaking with someone who was a lot more then they let on. He had envisioned the woman as a sadistic killing machine, when the truth was she was a just a normal lycanthrope...right that was 'normal'. He shook his head slightly as she spoke. Trying to get his head wrapped around her truth. There were vampires lurking in the back alleys, that he knew for sure, but now there were werewolves...and the revelation made him rethink the existence of witches he'd heard rumors of.

All of this made him feel just a bit overwhelmed. What was he? Just a man with a gun a little training, and a taste for mystery...these things were beyond him weren't they? He suspected they were, but he didn't dwell on suspicions, he wasn't going to change the way he operated because the monsters in the dark were no longer just in his mind.

"I swear on my life that I will never tell a soul, and besides no one will believe a discredited ex-cop with a record of mental instability. Nifty thing about not being credible, makes life a lot more interesting." He said suddenly wishing he was drinking a beer or some other sort of alcohol.

"I'm sorry, but this is the first time I've actually spoken with...well...someone like you at least that I know of." He said thinking of the countless people he'd met who could have been what she was, and him being none the wiser. "You gotta give me a gulp period here." He said taking a long sip of the hot coffee as he tried convince his brain that the impossible was true.

"I get that you hate vampires, but why shouldn't people be afraid of 'you too? I mean no offense but the thought of being forced to go through a transformation into whatever it is you turn into...it sounds pretty traumatic. Not to mention the cost in clothing. I mean you weren't born this way right?" Isaac said as he mused the idea of her transforming in his head a few times. He was ignorant...plain and simple. He'd studied the subject, but he was still on the outside looking in at insanity, he needed a new rule book.

[Eleanor Rolf]

He swore on his life. Inwardly Ele shrugged. That was good enough for her. Then she wouldn’t feel guilty about killing him, if he proved to be untrustworthy. Somehow, she felt that it wouldn’t come to that type of end.

“Mmhmm,” she nodded when he requested a “gulp period.” This was such a completely different reaction than what she expected. She expected silence at first of course… but not from being overwhelmed. She imagined it would be from calculating how quickly he could kill her without getting hurt himself.

”Clothes aren’t that much of an issue. We’ve got our little tricks. I can’t really say, how traumatic it is,” she admitted, her voice still low and cautious. ”I was born this way actually, so I wouldn’t have any first hand experience in becoming what I’ve always been. Most of us are born this way… Or atleast a lot of us are. The crazy ones… they’re usually the ones that get bitten. Even then… not everyone that gets bitten survives. So I guess, yeah, it’s pretty traumatic.”

She cleared her throat. She was riding a fine line on a greased up unicycle. He swore not to tell, but at any moment he could hear something that he didn’t like.

”It’s a sad sad world, and a vicious cycle that I’m trying to break,” she looked at him, worried if she was saying too much. Not for her own sake, but his own. She could almost see the gears grinding about in his head. Did he really want to know?

”I guess you have your reasons too…”

Ele figured that any normal person would run. They’d run until they forgot what they were running from. But this man and his gun didn’t run from what they thought they knew about the city.

[Isaac Hazard]

He listened to her confirm his worst and darkest fears, doing his best to remain un-phased by the revelations she brought to so many of his 'stranger' cases as he called them. He placed the coffee cup down, his eyes exploring them deeply for a moment before he responded. Hazard wasn't usually one at a loss for words, but now he was damned close.

"So...you're a werewolf...and you fight vampires at the command of some super secret society of other shape shifters. Right that fits..." He said summing up in a few words so that his mind could get a firm grip on the concepts. This beautiful creature, someone out of his league more then likely, was a terrifying monsters, now casually sipping tea like it was nothing special.

"I just trying to help people. You see when strange things show up, most people get scared, they get lost, they run and hide or they lose themselves. I try to find them, get them back to their families. Occasionally I have to try and fight off what took them. I'm not some sort of superhero, just a normal guy with a gun and a reason to get up every day." He scratched his nose, and placed his hand back around the comforting warmth of the coffee. "I just happen to be the type that doesn't run, at least not when I should. I stand my ground, keep my head." His mind wandered to another time when he was faced with the unimaginable.

"I lost my wife a few years back, she was turned into a...vampire, or vampiress, or succubi, whatever the hell it is you call it. She came for me, and I had to..." He didn't finish the grizzly tale, it was a thing left for an evening with liquor.

"So what happens now, you kill me...turn me? Or is there some sort of Men in Black flasher you people use when the villagers get restless." He said after a momentary pause. He regretted his words immediately.

"I'm sorry, I've spent the last few years of my life chasing the darkness, guess I wasn't ready for it to turn out to be so damned pretty." He said rubbing his temples.

[Eleanor Rolf]

”In laymen’s terms, yes,” she nodded quietly. Hoping his reaction didn’t escalate. She felt her muscles tense, instead of showing sympathy when he told Eleanor about his wife. Inwardly she felt horrified. She couldn’t imagine having to deal with that situation. Mourning your significant other, only to have them come back something horrible and unnatural… Of course there was a sad similarity to her younger years. Her father killed her mother in an attempt to make her the very thing that this Isaac Hazard hunted.

”Hmm?” she asked, her brows now knitting in confusion. He was practically speaking gibberish now. She already said she didn’t want to kill him, and turning him would be too risky. The whole Men in Black thing sounded very silly; of course she hadn’t seen the movie.

Then she let out an awkward laugh. What hid in Aldenville’s dark corners was anything but pretty. Maybe he was talking about her? She could tell that she wasn’t the image that popped into people’s minds when they thought about werewolves. Regardless, she wasn’t sure how to react.

”You haven’t given me any reason to kill you,” Ele assured him. ”But you’ve given me a reason to want to keep you alive… I can’t stay in the city and knowing that there’s yet another pair of competent eyes and ears here, fighting the good fight, is a bit relaxing.”

Seeing his reaction progress she couldn’t help but feel guilty. Maybe she should’ve kept her mouth shut, and attempted to head off whatever waited for either of them on the rooftops. Then she ran the risk of being confronted by the business end of his gun yet again. She could only imagine that he wouldn’t be as willing to not pull the trigger again. Fool me once, shame on you…

”…are you alright?” she asked, the guilt obvious on her face now. Here she was, shaking this man’s reality, because it would be easier on her.

[Isaac Hazard]

"Sure...trust me, I'll deal...it's sort of what I do." He said casually finally finishing the coffee. For a while, they sat quietly. The owner dropped by and Hazard gave him a tip. The man thanked them profusely. For a while, Hazard was content with what he knew so far, afraid to find out more but his curiosity was just too much.

He tapped his fingers on the table as he looked back to his 'date'. "So are you stronger, faster, then a normal human? Wait are you immortal?" He asked thinking about the new possibilities the woman opened his mind too. Then he snapped shut the door.

"No...don't answer me. I don't want to know right now. Let me get used to you being 'you' first. The less I know right now the better." He said realizing that the more he knew the harder it would be to process. He wanted to know her...not what she was. He rose to his feet slowly.

"I have a client in the suburbs I need to check in with. Woman thinks her soon ate the family pet." He said shaking his head he was about to smile, but now a simple case took on more meaning, "You don't eat...nevermind." He stopped himself realizing how horrible the question sounded.

"Well, you have my number, if you need help, get hurt, or something happens where you don't feel safe calling the cops...call me. I'll be there fast, I may not have fangs or super strength, but I like to think I can bring the heat when needed. Besides you never know when your 'talents' might let you down, never hurts to have a little back up." He said as they exited the small cofee shop and the dark night slowly changed into early early morning. He started the car with a rumble. "So do you need a ride home?" He asked non-chalantly.

[Eleanor Rolf]

Just when Ele though he was on his way home to permanently erase the information from his mind, he calmed. He reassured her that he was fine. Quite unexpectedly he came back with several more questions. To Eleanor’s relief he quickly refused an answer. Then he claimed the he was better off knowing as little as possible.

The situation with the mother suspecting her son was a bit saddening for Ele. Kids were scared to tell their parents they were gay. Imagine this kid fessing up to being a werewolf and not being able to stop himself from eating their pet. Or getting killed before he’d have the chance to... Since it was so much closer to home Eleanor considered doing a little suburban scouting too.

”I’ll keep that in mind,” she nodded to his offer for help. She kept her smile as small as possible, not want to seem cocky. Ele was indeed cocky, though. She would need his help? The odds were low, but it never hurt. It was cute and comical, but Ele tried to push that from her mind. There was no need to be patronizing. The man had spared her life. But the rising sun let her now that her scouting window was coming to a close. She’d have to be home soon to check her email, criticize her pack mates, and turn her bitch switch back on.

”I’m sure I’ve drained your hospitality enough for one night. Don’t feel obligated to be a gentleman,” Eleanor said, a laughing tone in her voice, when he offered her a ride. It’d be a long run back, and she couldn’t do it as inconspicuously in the dark anymore. The sun would be up and shining by the time she got there. This Isaac Hazard had definitely put her in a position. ”You just don’t go off getting trigger happy and getting yourself killed,” she warned.

She’d give him her number, just in case, but she had neither a card nor a pen. She was also unsure how he’d respond to her offering her assistance.