Stigmata

It had been all Haner could do to keep Vivien from grabbing the nearest human and literally fucking them to death - a vampire on ecstasy for the first time was always rather fun to deal with. At least he was able to roll (after the dancer had reached her own “happy place”), and after a while he had asked Matt to deliver two acoustic guitars, a notebook, pencils, and a few random bottles of alcohol that Vivien had requested with very little rhyme or reason. The pair perched above the windshield of the bus watching the crowd writhe around the ever-growing fire; Vivien had a guitar in her hands and reclined on Brian as if he were her own personal chair.

“What are you playing, Viv?”

“I’m not sure, I’m kinda just making it up.”

“Well, what are you thinking about?”

“That I like warm things, and everyone should like warm things. Because we‘re cold.” The redhead went back to humming a soft tune and strumming along as she had been before - she had a verse, bridge, chorus and refrain, minus the lyrics - while Haner scanned the crowd. It seemed like everyone around the bus’s immediate vicinity thought likewise to Vivien - if they weren’t making out with someone, they were simply cuddling on the dance floor. The guitarist cocked his head to the side for a minute.

“Vivien. Stop playing for just a second?”

“Bit I like to play!” Her Irish lilt was tinged with nearly childish disappointment, but she did so when Brian enticed her with;

“I’ll play with your hair?”

“Deal!” She cried, nearly dropping the guitar down the front of the bus before Brian caught it in a deft hand and placed it beside him. As he rubbed her head as was obligatory to his promise, he observed the crowds around the bus as they writhed in time to the music - however, distinctively more separate than they had been before. He grabbed the guitar and handed it back to her, while mentally jabbing at Jimmy; Get to the bus, ASAP.

“Here, keep playing.”

“But I like you rubbing my head more!” Indeed, the redhead looked like a satisfied kitten, curled up in Brian’s lap with her eyes half-closed. “Fine. But tell me a story.” She sat upright and took the guitar as if it was something she definitely wanted nowhere near her person and halfheartedly strummed it, her eyes boring into Brian’s. Vivien had to wonder exactly what was in the drugs she had taken that were making her so much more dependent on Brian, and also why he was so interested in her playing and not playing guitar at odd intervals. But this was more than her rolling brain could handle so she shoved the thoughts from her mind and focused on Brian’s story.

“- born in 1330 in Nice, France. Of course, we were fighting what I now know was the Little Ice Age, and my family were dirt-poor farmers of winter wheat. Wheat could make a lot of money, but only when the crop survived. Usually, we would have just enough to keep us alive and replant for the next season. Life went on like that until I turned fifteen, when I was put into the service of a Lord, who dwelled at the court of Versailles. As his Squire, I had to live there too.” Brian watched the immediate crowd around the bus as he spoke of his boring childhood in court; they all seemed to either be speaking, or listening intently to one another. At least ten people were mirroring Vivien’s emotions, and in the same vicinity as those who had done the same not two minutes prior. Jimmy…

“… And then the Black Death came through. At least eight hundred people were dying per day. My Lord was stuck ill during what must have been the second year of it, and I fell sick soon after. Of course, the Bishop read me my last rights after he did my Lord, and then I was cast about on the street, to die alone. It sucked, a lot. I had these huge… tumors in the most awkward places, and these huge black spots that ached and itched. I sweated and vomited up my own blood in an alley just outside the city center of Paris; everything was hazy, and my only vivid memory was crying out during the night and clawing my way into the street - where I met Rhys, the name Jimmy went by in that life. He turned me.”

The group of people around Vivien were slack-jawed and staring at one another now - ten goddamned people. Jimmy bounded up the length of the RV, just in the nick of time to catch the end of the story, and the end of Vivien’s song.

“What did I miss?” The lanky drummer pulled three cigarettes out of a soft pack in his pocket and offered the spare pair to Brian and Vivien. Each accepted the cancer sticks - one stuck it in his mouth, the other sat and stared tentatively at the pair of men before her with a cigarette in her fist, wondering just what to do with her life. Finally, unceremoniously, she stuck the unlit cigarette in her mouth and went back to playing.

The toes of her converse tapped on the roof of the RV in time to the song she played, unconscious of the fact that Brian and Jimmy were having a short mental argument about exactly what was going on with the redhead. Truth be told, she was wondering the same thing herself. Everything she had heard about taking ecstasy and “rolling” - which was, apparently, what she was doing now - was being contradicted by the experience she was undergoing. Sure, her senses were even sharper than usual, and her whole body had this wonderful tingling sensation, and it felt like she was on fire from where Brian’s body aligned with hers and the cigarette touched her lips, but otherwise she felt no different. Her brain was still working the same, still asking the same questions, but she was infuriatingly unable to get them to her lips without sounding like a two-year-old.

Meanwhile, Jimmy and Brian were having an interesting back-and-forth of their own. The brown-eyed guitarist had informed Jimmy of the phenomenon of Vivien’s guitar playing, and the ancient drummer pensively watched the crowd as the small redhead strummed; they seemed to part and gather in time to her music, the beat of her acoustic guitar’s song was what fueled their dancing and not the frantic beat of someone’s speakers.

“Viv, what’re you thinking about?” Brian asked quietly as he offered the dancer a light of her still-unlit cigarette. She puffed on the white cylinder for a moment before she shifted it to the side of her mouth so she could speak without ceasing to play.

“That this is a weird trip, and I‘d like it to be over soon.”

“Yes, but how are you feeling?” Jimmy sat with his lanky legs crossed and his elbows on his knees.

“Like you guys are still trying to figure this talent thing out and all I want to do is cuddle with someone and play the guitar.” The little redhead murmured through her cigarette, her fingers moving fluidly over the neck of the guitar as she practiced one of Brian’s solos. “So, annoyed, I think.” She finally concluded, striking a sour chord on the strings which resonated on her face as she continued playing.

“I want you to try something, Vivien. The crowd behind you, think of something you’d like to see them do.” Jimmy asked, with a hitch in his eyebrow he watched the crowd over Vivien and Brian’s shoulders. After a few moments of utter disbelief, he asked; “What are you thinking of?”

“You all are so… insistent this morning.” Vivien stopped playing, folding her arms over the guitar as she leaned into Brian’s chest. “I wanted them to do the chicken dance, thought it’d be funny.” Her Irish lilt was out in full force as Haner began absently stroking her hair as he stared at Jimmy.

Well, what do you think it is? As he flicked the ash off his cigarette, Haner’s eyes bore into Jimmy’s. There was something entirely wrong with how the lanky man was regarding the small dancer, and it was making Brian uncomfortable. If she was about to spontaneously combust in some crazy vampiric rage and tear everyone’s face off, Haner would rather have been crouching under the bus for cover rather than stroking the long red hair of the crazed demon vampire chick.

She’s got the compulsion, Jimmy answered, still looking concerned. Brian’s forehead scrunched; Jimmy made it sound as if she as about to die of tuberculosis or something. What was worse, crazy demon vampire Vivien, or dying of the plague Vivien?

Wait, what?

“Vivien can make people do her bidding - apparently though music, though she might be able to get rid of that dependency eventually.” Jimmy’s bright eyes fell on Vivien, who seemed to have fallen asleep on Brian’s side. “Just look at the crowd, Haner.”

“Why are you looking at her like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like she might go postal and spontaneously ‘compulse’ us all to kill ourselves.” The little redhead asleep so peacefully in the crook of his arm looked as if she could do no such thing - Haner wondered how the hell she had managed to fall asleep while rolling on E, but those were all questions for later.

“Accidentally, she could. Because she doesn’t know how to control it yet. I don’t think she can compulse other vampires - yet - but… Well, it’s going to be difficult to train her in this. I’ve only seen one other vampire in my lifetime with the skill.” Jimmy lit another cigarette off the butt of the first, something Haner had only seen him do when extremely stressed - such as the last time the ‘coven’ had visited the Elders.

“But can’t Matt and Johnny do basically the same thing?”

“Have you ever seen Matt or Johnny make everyone within twenty feet do the chicken dance? Right. She’s going to have other talents, too, I think - the Crone said she was part witch. She is already strange.”

“I’ll take her making everyone within twenty feet do the chicken dance rather than her try to suck the blood of everyone within twenty feet any day.” Haner shrugged, and stroked the girl’s long red hair, carefully pulling apart the tangles at the ends of the strands as if he were looking for something more peaceful to concentrate on.

“And when she gets angry and compulses everyone within twenty feet to stab each other with whatever they’re holding?” An angry tone entered Jimmy’s voice as he took a long draught directly from a bottle of Jack Daniels, looked at it for a moment, and grabbed for a bottle of Captain Morgan as if he realized his mistake - everyone on the bus had grown tired of whiskey.

“I think that could be interesting, given what they’re holding.” Suddenly, Brian had a vision of the crowd at the front of the stage all attempting to stab one another with pieces of solo cups, t-shirts, and the ever-dangerous Sharpie marker. Oh, he hated Sharpie markers.

“Fuck it, Haner, this is serious.” The now-empty bottle of Captain launched past Brian’s head and into the crowd; the drummer winced at the dull thunk of bottle meeting body and a shriek met his ears. “We should probably get down from here.”

Haner nodded, and picked Vivien up in a fireman’s carry, Jimmy seized the guitar and each took an alcohol bottle a piece. The pair scrambled down the ladder like two kids who had thrown a baseball through the neighbor’s window and were afraid to get caught.