Steel Magnolias

Steel Magnolias

Caroline Thibideaux’s home
Late night August 3rd

She's refused to answer the phone or texts. There's been no explanation from Caroline about the matter, Zadie's calls are just shunted straight to voice mail (which is converted to text for her anyway). But there is silence from the author. Halfway through the second night, all the lights in Caroline's house are still on, blazing away in the darkness.

Almost as if inviting the nightwalkers to knock.

Zadie had gone to work, trying to make life (or unlife) feel normal. But it wasn't. She and Gramma had just kinda tacitly refused to talk about “it”, both of them ensconced in worry and the day to day of running a business. That and Zadie had tried to work hard on the paper that the Professor had demanded. She wasn't gonna give him anything less than her best work.

But as she drove home from the Magnolia Grill, she found herself taking a detour to Caroline's home. It was time to talk. If she was awake. She was pleasantly surprised to see that the lights were all on. A moment later as she was pulling in the drive, she realized that it might be because the poor girl was too terrified to sleep. She hesitated before turning off the car, taking a moment to gather her resolve before exiting and going to ring the doorbell.

The doorbell chimed through the house as it ought -- though that wasn't exactly useful to the current occupant. It takes some time for Caroline to answer the door, though Zadie can hear Maggie, the golden retriever companion that Caroline keeps, running about. Probably warning Caroline herself. When the front door finally opens, Caro looks... damn near exhausted. She's wearing a smock smeared with paint and a pair of sweatpants peeps out from beneath it, also dotted with spatters. Her hair's caught back in a loose braid. And those eyes are dark with wariness. "Zadie," she greets in a cool tone. And for the first time ever, she doesn't step back and invite the younger woman in.

"If the mountain won't come to Mohammed. . ." Zadie stated with a shrug. She made no move to come in, accepting the body in the doorway as firm a wall as one made of stone. "So, you wanna talk or do you plan to never sleep again? No pressure. Just askin'." She held up a bottle of wine and a bottle of beer she had taken from the bar. "Ice cold still, sorta. Might help."

Her eyes narrow and Caroline seems to debate the matter. Finally she steps back and opens the door wider. "Nothing helps," she informs Zadie. "I have nightmares about Gramma Willie flashing fang at me and then attacking helpless kids. And of that scary, horrible man who smacked my derriere looking like that vampire guy on Lost Boys with his tongue sticking out and being all stupid scary while at the same time truly turning my blood to ice water. So no. Nothing helps."

She couldn't help but mentally categorize at least two herbal teas at the house and six other concoctions that would help and that Grandma could make in a jiffy outta the kitchen, but kept her tongue. Stepping into the narrowish, less-than-inviting space left by Caroline, she quickly went inside and waited to be shown somewhere to sit. Strange that she felt powerless against a puny human girl. She was rapidly gettin' tired of that feeling. As a mortal, she had been pretty certain that she take on the world. As the undead, she really didn't feel that way anymore.

Caroline waved her through to the kitchen, so she must not be too angry or anything. Getting glasses, she joins Zadie at the breakfast bar. And she looks at the younger girl. "I understand the rules of the Masquerade. What I don't understand is how so many live in this town without.... really being suspected."

Zadie shook her head. "Dunno. Part people don't want to believe it so they don't see it. Part is that we try to blend in and most of us can make mortals see what we want them to see. Those that know either die or become ghouls. Or Hunters." She waved to the bottles. "You pick. I can't drink. I was allergic to alcohol as a mortal and I can't drink from drunks even now."

Caroline takes the wine and pours herself a drink. Taking a long swallow, she says quietly, "She killed them, Zadie."

"I know." There wasn't no making excuses.

"How do you live with that?" Caroline demands. Her eyes are on the other girl intently. "How do you.... reconcile becoming a monster?" Because.... isn't that what Caroline did too?

Zadie keeps her gaze. "I killed that woman, Caroline. And in doing so, I'm responsible for indirectly causing the death of her whole family. There ain't no reconciling that. We tried to save the kids. But it wasn't to be done. Gramma did what had to be done. The game is hard, harder than I realized." She sighed, aware that it was from old habit, and shook her head again. "Gramma and I are the newest and weakest of the Masquerade. We've been trying to be good, Caroline. We get most of our blood indirectly without hunting through magic. I tend to drink from my old boyfriends, men willing to neck a little as it were, just whenever I crave something fresh. But usually, it's through the magic, a little from everybody one drop at a time. The Court was a shock to me. One I wasn't ready for. I'm sorry that I couldn't warn you. But I didn't know."

Shaking her head, Caroline said softly, "I wouldn't have believed." She knows that. "It had to be seen. To be lived. And I'm still not sure even now that I believe."

Zadie rose from her seat to lean against the wall. The table was too intimate, too human. She was still a bit raw and the pain in Caroline's eyes was enough to wound her. At least she still hurt with the mute accusation in Caroline's eyes. She hadn't become so animal yet. One of the Professor's texts winked at her in her mind. . .Control the Beast. She had been able to so far, even with the ghoul attack. Would it be harder now with each inhuman act she was forced to do? "Caroline, what do you want now?"

Caroline is quiet for a long time. "I want to know what it means to be what I am," she finally said. "How much say does that terribly rude man have in my life? Breed it sounds to me like something one says of horses, Zadie." She pauses, sipping from her glass, and then she looks up and pins the younger woman with a steely gaze. "And I want to know what the hell you and Gramma Willie are up to, because I may be deaf but I read lips just fine. And you, my dear, are either stringing along that Professor man that you hate or you're stringin' along everybody else. And that's a mighty dangerous game to be playin' in this town, from all I could gather. Unless, of course, you're goin' to tell me that all the wink-wink-nudge-nudge between you and Gramma Willie was about somethin' other than being a Tremere."

Zadie stared at her for a long time, the need to blink lost with the Embrace. Finally, she pushed off the wall and came back to the table. "I was born here, Caroline. You know that. And I ain't leaving. Both sides of my family have been here forever or livin' on land darn near. Grandpa is buried in the graveyard of the church he was deacon of and his momma and daddy before him and so on." It was ironic that she had once believed that she and Gramma would be buried there some day. But the best laid plans of mice and women. . .were waylaid by the undead.

She leaned back in her chair and frowned. "Gramma and I are trying to survive being the pawns of a power play that has been taking place long before we were aware of it. Are we Tremere? Yeah. The Professor chose Gramma when she went to a natural healing symposium in Oxford and I got brought in by Gramma. He woulda rather I'd been a ghoul, but there ain't no telling Gramma anything. You know that. So vamp I am. She and I have always practiced a little bit of white magic. It runs in our family trees pretty strong, so I could see what the Professor saw in her when she was at Oxford. The Doctor was one of his ventures to try and get a chantry set up here and he failed. Badly. Gramma is the Professor’s next try."

She paused and formed a tight smile. "Cotton will kill us if he knows. Your lady friend knows that and is trying to leverage the Professor with the information. She's trying a power play of her own. I think she's hoping that allying with the Professor will give her an edge. But that don't guarantee that Gramma and I won't die once she gets what she wants."

"Well, now, ain't that just a kick in the damn panties," Caroline swears. She downs the rest of that glass of wine like a sailor'd down a shot and sets the glass out to be refilled. It's funny how many people underestimate a woman like her -- not just for being deaf but for being a sweetheart most of the time. They forget that in the South, steel has always come wrapped in a velvet glove -- for it's very vulgar to let your enemies see you comin'. Oh no. They forget that those Southern ladies are the ones who held the fort against marauders coming down that river. And they'll just as soon stick a blade in your gut with a real sweet smile if you cross them too far.

There's a long silence as Caroline digests what information Zadie has to offer here. And she purses her lips in a most unattractive moue of annoyance. "I'm reasonably certain that I'm not going to be a lot of help in this matter, and bein' as I do not know just what being owned by someone will do, I am guessin' that what I already know could in fact get us both killed. So... if Evangaline is also an enemy, I suggest that for the moment you keep that behind your teeth, Zadie Calhoun. And you tell Gramma Willie that if she needs to manipulate me to bring about a state of affairs that we can live with in Natchez, then do it." Caroline has learned the social games at the knee of Cecilia Hardin, one of the Grand Dames of Natchez. Damned if she's goin' to let a civil war inside the town's limits go on and not help the people she knows to be good ones.

She was still for a moment more, before reaching over the table to hold out a hand. "We ain't gonna lose, Caroline," she stated firmly, her eyes blazing. "Natchez may have been theirs long before we were born, but we ain't gonna be their pawns as easy as they think. We'll toe in now, we're new to the game, but I don't play to lose. The Professor wants a foot into Natchez and I willing to help him to keep everyone I care about safe."

Her next smile was easier, less cold and tense than the one before as she continued after a pause. "At least you get to have a little baby. All I can hope for is that Mama gets pregnant by one of those Hollywood stars that visit the Playboy mansion and send it home for me and Gramma to raise. My cousins are the last of the line otherwise. I kinda miss having the chance now that I don't have it." Her eyebrow rose. "But your mama is going to go batshit crazy if you get pregnant. No question about it."

Caroline just facepalms and then headdesks on the table (gently). "Oh God, Zadie. And it just gets worse and worse cuz didn't Mason go all kinda romantic and sweet and as much as declare his intentions th' other night!!" She groans.

"You'll make Cotton proud," Zadie commented wryly. "You're a catch, Caroline. Now who's Mason again?"

Caroline hears none of that, perhaps to Zadie's good fortune. By the time she looks up, that's already been said. "And damned if I wasn't interested in seein' where it could take us. We got... a little hot and heavy that last time we were together. We been off and on for years. But I didn't want serious then and ran like a coward. I was supposed to come home and talk to him about it after the trip to Europe, but you know how that turned out." She grimaces. "Lord... what'm I gonna do? I can't drag him into this kind of mess. And I won't be bred like an animal, damn it."

The vampire tilted her head but made certain that Caroline could see her mouth. "You will if they demand it," she answered solemnly. "You will and won't remember if you kick up too much fuss. Neither will he." She blinked, aware that she hadn't done so in a while. "Evangiline can't let you not do that. You're hers and she needs to show that she has control of you. If Cotton sez breed, then breed you will. Ain't gonna be no mortal that will stand in the way of that."

She burnt a bit of blood, sliding out of her chair with the blink of an eye to move to stand beside Caroline. Taking her face in hands all too cool, she forced the woman to look up at her. "Caroline, I'm new and I can do things like this. I still like to believe that I'm human. But I ain't. I ignore that I have the Beast inside, pretend to still be normal, and yet, I snapped the neck of that woman with very little thought because I felt like I had no other choice. I walked away from Gramma knowing what she was going to do and as much as condoned it by my choice to leave. If I were overly hungry, I'd be all that I could do not to sink my fangs into this neck of yours and drink 'til I felt better. Depending on the moment, I might not be able to stop drinking until you were dead." Her grip on Caroline's face tightened slightly, enough that she knew that it hurt the woman a just a little.

"I am your friend," she stated darkly. "I am a baby vampire. They aren't your friend and they are a hell of a lot older than I. Think about that." A dark bloody tear slipped out of her eye, tracing a scarlet line down her cheek as she released her friend. "I'm sorry. I don't think you have any more of a choice than Gramma and I did with that ghoul and her poor family."

Caroline blinked and Zadie had moved. And then her friend's hands were around her face. Painfully. Caroline gasped and looked ... afraid. For the first time, she was afraid of Zadie. Her heart started beating hard and fast in her chest, instincts kicking in. She doesn't struggle, some small amount of faith in the younger woman still remaining, but her blue eyes are wide and dilated. "What do I do, Zadie?" Tears welled up in her eyes. "Did I.... do this to myself? Did I do something to draw it to me?"

There was no answer for that. She and Gramma had prayed, wondered if her Embrace was the punishment for generations of dabbling in white magic. God hadn't answered, nor had he reversed what had happened. But although church was uncomfortable, God hadn't caused them to burst into flames inside the sanctuary. She and Gramma Willie had decided that although it was unlikely that God was happy about the state of affairs, He wasn't gonna reject them completely and though going to church was just gonna be near impossible, He hadn't altogether given up on them yet.

Zadie sank to her knees beside Caroline and put her arms around her waist, leaning her head against the girl's side. After a moment, she looked up again, aware that Caroline needed to see her mouth. "God don't give you nothin’ that you can't handle. And you didn't do nothin' girl. You play along with these monsters," she paused with a twist of her mouth, "us monsters, and when you get the chance, you show 'em what it means to mess with a Southern girl. They just don't know what they awakened." Winking, she smiled. "Come on, cheer up. You'll git to have sex with a handsome guy. Don't even know if he'll do the job the first time. Might have to do it quite a few times to get it right."

It makes Caroline laugh through her tears. What the heck else can she do? She wraps her arms around Zadie and whispers softly, "I'm scared." And there's not a thing Zadie can say to make that better. But they're in it together, God help them all. She simply buries her face in Zadie's shoulder and stays that way for a long time. Maybe sleep will come for her tonight. Maybe.

It would make her a bit more hungry later, but Zadie made the effort to warm her skin as she began to stroke Caroline's hair with gentle fingers. "Me too," she admitted softly. "Me too."

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