After the storm

[Vespiris]

Private between cgraven and Vespiris, please.

Christ its getting close to closing. Good, its another one of those weird strmy nights. I used to love the thunder, but since that night...

Pull yourself together girl, smile for the guys and send them home to their work or wives, go out to your car and go home. another hour and a half and you'll be in a hot bathtub with that book you've been trying to finish.

Being a bartender was ending up to be a decent career for Lexi, the tiny redhead. Her bar was upscale enough that she didn't have to deal with too many violent drunks, and small and quiet enough that it was mostly a regular crowd. They had been worried about her after the storm that took out the front part of the roof and trapped her in the back for the night.

The rescue workers had found her in shock and ignored her mumblings about another person there. A remodel and a shrink put the little bar back together and Lexi had dropped back into her routine of life. A little edgy some nights, not as willing to walk by herself, and the scrappy demenor was more a facade than ever, but she smiled and laughed genuinely more often than not and that's all anyone can ask, right?

She scurried over to one of her guys as he got up to leave. Under the pretence of helping him with his coat she swiped his keys, dropping them into her half apron and distracting him with another drink. "Jack, I'm calling you a cab if you want to go home, congrats on the promotion, hot stuff, and this one's on the house." He happily took the drink and kissed her before letting her go back to picking up glasses and ashtrays. She smiled and thought "Well, at least he won't wrap himself around a telephone pole tonight" and she went to call the cab company. She made a mental note to drop his keys back in his pocket on his way to the cab.

Eh...she still had twenty minutes to go before offcial last call, but she wanted to hurry it up tonight.

 

[cgraven]

OOC: Dan McGill 53, professor of the paranormal, athletic balding, 185, lean with piercing hazel eyes, and a fringe of ginger hair.

IC:

The storm was building as I drove down the deserted country road. It was six months after the incident that was nothing more than a footnote in several of the professional journals.

They said her name was Lexie, a bar tender at a small road side tavern. Halloween, a storm, an encounter with a ghost, and of a very personal nature if I was right. I mused to myself, did she realize the danger she was in, and did she realize what she was. Hell how to approach her on the subject. She would think me stark raving mad.

I pulled into the parking lot what a night Friday the 13th. The storm was building, and its origins where not of this world . The collar of my leather flight jacket drawn up around me to shield me from the rain and wind, a black sailor’s cap upon my head. I ran for the front door, as a cab pulled up.

It was a cozy place one that made you feel at home, The perky little red head was behind the bar cleaning up.

“Excuse me Miss is it to late to get a beer?”

 

[Vespiris]

I heard the door open and close, but I thought it was someone leaving.

“Excuse me Miss is it to late to get a beer?”

Deja vu drained like ice water down my spine. Those were the same words he had said...I turned around slowly and looked the stranger over carefully. New face. Good.

"Not really, but I was trying to close up early." I drew him a beer and heard the horn of a cab outside. I dropped the beer in front of him and hurried to get Jack outside, "I'll be back in a second."

I gathered up Jack and his coat, remembering to give his keys back as I helped him outside and into the cab. The first few drops of rain were spattering down, and from the feel of it the storm would not be a gentle one. Shit. I tucked Jack's head into the cab gave the cabbie directions to his house and told him to drive safe.

As I turned to go back in a loud burst of thunder heralded the coming fo the rain in earnest and I was nearly soaked by the time I got inside. The remaining guys in the bar cheered and whistled at my drenched form. "And just for that, I'm cutting you off early! Go home, you louts! I'll see you tomorrow."

Laughing, I started putting chairs up on tables until I noticed the newcomer still watching me.

"Can I get anything else for you? There's still some time before I have to close."

 

[cgraven]

I toyed with my beer more that drank it she came in to the cheers of the locals. I turned to see what had set them off, and I nearly choked. The rain had pilaster Lexie’s shirt to her and was nearly transparent cling to her figure like a second and leaving damn little to the imagination.. She was young vibrant and full of life , no wonder he had sought her out, they would becoming for her soon. They would want her as their gateway. I wondered if the cute little redhead knew of the danger she was in, had any premonition of it.

"And just for that, I'm cutting you off early! Go home, you louts! I'll see you tomorrow."

Lexie’s voice was light air and with a decidedly sensual quality to it. There was the scraping of feet as the regulars left then the sounds of her as she started the procedure of closing up. I was shaken from my thoughts my that sweet voice that moved something deep inside me.

"Can I get anything else for you? There's still some time before I have to close."

“Yes Lexie isn’t it….. Another draft please.”

 

[Vespiris]

"Yea, it is Lexi."

How the hell would he know that? Only if he did some research on me first... and the only facinating thing that had happened in my life was that, so this was going to be a short discussion.

I gave the man his drink, leaned on the bar and locked eyes with him.

"Whatever you've heard or read about me, I don't talk about it, okay? I have to clean up, and when I'm done you are going to get out of my bar."

With that I went back to putting dirty glasses through the dishwasher and cleanones back on the shelves.

 

[cgraven]

Lexie tone was sharp and her mood decidedly hostile.

“Well Pat can have that effect on people I guess. He was a strange fellow in life. II suspect noting has changed sense he died.”

My words visible shocked Lexie, hit her when she was unprepared, and was the last thing she expected to hear.

“Lexie he was not the only one to make it make from that ill fated patrol, actually there where three of us.”

 

[Vespiris]

I backed away reflexively. Three of 'us'? I don't even want to think what that can mean.

"Please leave." I tried to put fire and steel into my voice, but it failed me, whispering out like a child's. I fumbled under the bar for my keys, considering just trying to make it out to my car.If I could get home I'd be safe.

But could I lock this...whatever he is...in my bar? I walked from around the bar hurrying and trying to ignore the man still seated there.

 

[cgraven]

I block Lexie’s way and grab her by both her shoulder’s.

“Listen Lexie I am flesh and blood but there are others and they are coming for you. And there I nothing human about them.”

She struggled in my grip.

“You are in real danger Lexie. Please listen to me. They want you and need your to fufill there purposes”

 

[Vespiris]

That made me shiver. He was stronger than me, so I gave up on struggling and settled on glaring at him.

"So what do I do? And how would you know about it? And what purposes?"

I tried to shrink back against my spine and felt pressed against the bar.

"how can I know I can trust you?" Damnit, there it was again, that little girl voice.

 

[cgraven]

Lexie’s voice was small like a lost frightened child.. The storm the harbinger of the occults return.

“Lexie trust me?..... There is no reason on the face of this earth I can give you to trust me….. All I can tell you is you are seen as a gate to the hell Pat lives in and there are those who will use you to lose that hell on this world..”

my eyes bore into Lexie’s.

“But a reason to trust me or believe in me …No I can give you one other than what I tell you is the truth.”

 

[Vespiris]

Crazy. He's crazy,I'm crazy, everybody's crazy.

Or I'm a hellgate.

I heard thunder again from outside. Seeing he had let go of my shoulders I again moved toward the door.

"I have to lock up, and you need to be outside when I do. I'm going home. I'm not playing this game anymore."

 

[cgraven]

‘As you wish Lexie it’s your funeral.”

As we moved towards the door the storm raged with the fury from hell where it was born and a ghostly green glow hung over everything. The sound of hove beats echoed in the night as the first of four ghostly horseman appeared.

There coming for you Lexie, they are coming to use you to more fully enter this world…..I tried to tell you…to give you a chance…….But now …. I do not know.”