city_limits A Visit To The Library
Vampires getting themselves jobs... What was the world coming to?

Granted, Katherine had her own form of employment, every now and then, but no way would she ever volunteer for something so mundane as shop assistant.

Eat some, maybe, but not be one.

Looking down from her vantage point of the nearest roof, the first thing which came to mind was that the business owner must be a dyslexic. Or, at the very least, suffer from a really bad speech impediment. 'Thoth's Library'? It just sounded weird and the legitimately historical reasons for it slipped right by the unlearned hedonist.

The second thing was a reminder to Katherine of why she remained so apolitical. The vampiress was too jaded, too experienced in the way humans could be, to ally herself with any one such ideology. To her, politicians were more or less the same, the world over. A scant few exceptions did exist, but the more typical behaviour mostly just provided her with a sense of amusement at just how short a memory civilisation tended to have. The same old shit got sold to the same old people and they never ceased to buy it. The brunette's undead years had stretched from 1902 to the present day and, while 'hope and change' might have become the mantra of 2008's generation, it only caused someone like her to recall Jimmy Carter's TV adverts, rather than look to the future: A sense of bewilderment, not awe and, as for "read my lips", well... That was old, even when Bush Senior campaigned on it.

And so, to her, what existed of the gathered crowd of protesters contained a feel of predictable bemusement to her. Supporters of the Left and Right, alike, brought together under the banner of 'not in my back yard'. When the controversy was over and done with, she had no doubt that the tenuous alliance of prejudice would scatter to the four winds and end up yelling at one another, over some completely different future issue. Not too different from the 'anti-war' protests, always managing to bring together advocates for homosexual rights and supporters of groups who would sooner behead someone for even the slightest suggestion of attraction to someone of the same gender.

No, Katherine's view of politics, Left and Right, equally, was that it was an asylum for the idiotic and that the road to it was littered with as many broken bones as promises.

From her perspective, if the chaotic throng, below, really wanted to make a difference, they would have already burned the place down.

Which was precisely why the militant killer was debating whether or not to return later with a grenade and toss it right into the middle of them, just to see the result...

There was a reason why most vampires did not bother with firearms. The urge to rip, to tear, to bite, was often too strong to resist. But then, that was why not too many of them survived for a huge amount of time. Katherine was well aware that her century-plus longevity was more of an exception than the rule, because, while human politics might be perplexing, vampire politics was always brutal. Too many competing self-interests laid among their kind, to usually put differences aside and work for a common purpose. With the strength which came from a turning, with the connection to some ancient force of darkness, there could often come, too, a thirsting hunger and need to express predatory anger. A need to dominate others.

Every so often, someone did come along, able to shape the undead community into a force to be reckoned with, it was true. They were few and far between, though and, so far, none had stood the test of time. None she was aware of, anyway.

Katherine, however, was one of those who had taken the time to familiarise herself with hunting and killing techniques, beyond just 'slot fang set A into neck B'. It had been necessary, in order to achieve certain goals in her unlife. It also allowed her to take on many more odds than would otherwise be wise to face. She had ways to dispose her fellow undead, too, but none relied on such ridiculous concepts as 'wooden bullets' or holy water pistols, as popularised in certain recent news articles.

And right now, a few hundred pieces of hot, viciously spinning metal could make all the difference, down there. CCTV was unlikely to pick up her throwing it from up there and she was often careful, regardless, to either hide her human face or shift into vampiric likeness, when knowing she was likely to be recorded indulging in something nasty.

But... Maybe this steadily brewing social poison could yet be of some use. Assuming that there even was a vampire showing up for a pay cheque, instead of misplaced paranoia, why not use the development to her advantage? Those who owned the establishment would have their own reasons for quietening the disturbance: Customers were always better being attracted, than turning away, after all.

So, rather than going to the effort of heading elsewhere for something which would, at best, be a fleeting media frenzy, Katherine decided on something dirtier. The corpse she had fed from was less than ten minutes old, but she liked take-away. Grabbing ahold of the cadaver and holding it aloft in both hands, Katherine hurled it down into the street with a small grunt, virtually right in front of the shop. The inevitable screams of horror were not, however, necessarily her goal. No, Katherine wanted to incite some added chaos.

And finding the drained corpse of a teenage girl, obvious slashing bite mark at her throat, suddenly landing in their midst, would both antagonise the undead-protesting crowd, bring in the authorities to collect it and... Well, quite where it went from there, she had no idea, but it would certainly heat matters up and that was all she wanted.

No diabolical plan, no meticulous calculation... Just an interest in stirring things up and letting the cards fall where they may.

Besides which, now she had something better to watch than TV.