Destiny was walking along a forest path, ducking in and out amongst the trees, playing hide-and-seek like she did when she was little. Every now and again, she heard Arts's voice, but she could never quite catch up. High in the canopy, a woodpecker drilled for insects. Rapraprap....Rapraprap..

Her eyes opened with a start and a gasp, the rapping continuing even though she was almost awake. With a groan, she gently untangled herself from her lover, who murmured a faint protest even as her fingers closed on her new dress, tugging it mostly into place as she hobbled to the door, muttering not quote loud enough to be heard.

"All right, hold your infernal horses I'm coming..."

Once she was decent enough to be seen, she ran a hand through her tangled hair, getting the browns waves out of her face. Dusty blue eyes were still half-closed as she cracked the door open, letting in a silver of pre-dawn light, revealing a sight that leaped to the top of Destiny's "Strange things in RhyDin" list, surpassing even the guitar-playing, clove-smoking duck with whom she worked. The men looked vaguely familiar, like she'd seen them in passing, most likely in the Inn, as they would've stood out in the crowd at the club. With as much politeness as one can muster after being rudely awakened in the hours just before dawn, Destiny opened the door slightly wider, enough for her to fully see who was on the other side of it, her voice thick with sleep and annoyance.

"May I help you?"

Jack was the first to speak when both of them, towering and intimidating though they were, leaned back at the wispy woman's appearance beside her beloved.

"Oh, ****.."

Skid leaned back in, and the gravity of it all washed over Artsblood; the scent of her girl, the somber expressions -if covered by apprehension- and the quiet voice of the Nightmare with no play and all work running through it.

"Tina's dead, Artsblood.

"Tina's been murdered.?

The Nightmare stepped up, and with an arm pressed Jack back and away from the Iron implement of death for his kind. Without the same worry, and with no small measure of recklessness, he spoke.

"Had we known her long enough to have any love, I'm sure it would've weighed heavily on us."

A wretched, old insanity swirled deep in the sea of molten blood and gold that was his eye, challenging, almost begging, for that first slash or stab. But the rest of him gave no indication of the twisted mind, no; here was a calculating Nightmare, polite and to the point.

Nobody wants to tangle with Artsblood Schusberg if they can avoid it. Some simply dream about it.

"But her only connection to us was through you. Respect enough to tell you that some Asiatic Earth girl's Wakahisa Puppet killed her with but a word and a gesture, and one fled the Inn with the other as Tina fell.

"I took her myself, with Jack, to a place that is mine. She has been interred there, temporarily, sealed in stasis. The facility lies directly across from the Temple of the Gods. You have but to direct me in any matters concerning her."

With baited breath was a wildly inefficient phrase to describe the way in which he waited for a response.

the blonde leaned her slight weight against the steadying hand.

"Preserve her then," she addressed the Nightmare. "I will explore options and claim the flesh when I've the need."

So saying, she swung the reinforced door closed, with finality if not undue force, suspicion still tainting the unwelcome visitors' favor in her mind, and turned to Destiny with weariness a new gravity tugging at her lean features.

"And so ends our interlude, lover girl. You heard what was said. I needs seek out Abby Valk, who of all I know might be able to guide my next steps. Until then, pray keep my heart for me, as I don't believe myself capable of giving it the proper care."

With a quick kiss, flavored with an unfamiliar sorrow, she reopens the heavy door and flees out into the diminishing night.

While Tina's body rests in stasis, its empty vessel so far still capable of receiving the girl's lost life-essence should Arts and Destiny discover a means of bringing it back, there is still the matter of the doll to deal with.

It cannot be doubted now that Miss Wakahisa is capable of movement on her own, nor that Miho no longer exercises control over whatever the manikin has become (the latter was made clear enough by the girl's confusion after the doll struck Tina down).

Acting on a whim, Arts raised the topic with Izumi one night in the Inn, thinking that the rebellious girl might provide insight into Miho if nothing more. (A silly assumption, as one might say to a New Yorker, 'Hey, my cousin lives there. Do you know her"' But long life and near invulnerability are not, unfortunately, proof against foolishness.)

It was Izumi, nonetheless, who first mentioned the 'onryo," a vengeful spirit said to spring from the hatred of a dying woman and rumored to be capable of inhabiting the inanimate and wreaking its vengeance upon the earthly plane.

The name was, of course, Japanese, but to Arts' mind that was more indicative of Izumi's knowledge base than the doll's origins, and she quickly decided that discovering the identity of the woman who had spawned the spirit would be essential to its defeat.

It could not be difficult. After all, how many women did she know who had died with hatred screaming in their minds even as life fled"

Unfortunately, it turned out to be oh, so very many.

Orchid absolutely hated to owe people favors. She didn't know how things functioned on other worlds, but on Earth - her Earth- a grim reaper indebted to someone was a recipe for bad juju. And to a vampire no less! Those f**ks that danced the line between breather and stiff.

Those fiends with no respect for her craft.

By the time the girl and her yellow Vespa arrived in front of the defunct hotel, both were spewing great phantoms of smoke. The rider rolled her cracked blue eyes as the broken sign, advertising The Outpost, bathed all but the U and both T's with brittle yellow light.

"Seriously?" Ugh. Vampires, man.

She slowly unmounted her metal steed, paused only to snatched the cigarette butt from between her lips and flick it into the shadows. Then, making her way to the door, Orchid slipped an envelope from the pocket of her weeaboo blue plaid pants. After she had tucked it beneath the door, she all but sprinted back to her scooter. Even the machine, which sputtered and spat to something at least resembling life, seemed a bit too overeager to leave the crapsack little burg behind. The letter, if found (Orchid hoped it would blow away long before too slender fingers could touch it) read:

Dear Miss Shusberg,

My name is Orchid and I'm writing to you to fulfill my part of an old favor to one Miss Abby Dekker. While I am in the profession of ferrying souls into the next life, I do not have the power to bring them back. We're not blessed with such duality. However, on my Earth there is an item which can do what you seek with minimal trauma to your daughter. The problem is that it is stupid hella hard to get at. If you are interested, please meet me in the Glen tomorrow at midnight. I'll be the chick with the sh*tty Vespa.

- Orchid Jones

Destiny had been pacing around the room, worrying her lower lip with her teeth as she did when nerves struck her. She had changed from her customary gown into a comfortable pink cotton nightshirt with a stylized purple cartoon unicorn on the front, her hair was a curly mess, and her feet were bare on the chilly floor. Hearing the locks rattle and clank stopped her pacing, seeing Arts caused a small tornado when Destiny caught her and quite nearly squeezed what little stuffing Arts had out of her.

Once assured of her lover's safety, Destiny took the note and read it over, resuming her pacing and worrying. Arts's experience, combined with the encounter Destiny herself had had, which still haunted the singer's dreams, was sending her mind into overdrive, trying to figure out how to solve the crisis with as little damage to body, mind, and soul as possible. The bad blood between the two was evident, extending even into the half-undead state Alma was now in. The more Destiny read, and thought, and mulled, and considered, the more she realized that no only were she and Arts trying to assemble a puzzle without a box lid to help, they were trying to assemble two puzzles dumped together and juggled by toddlers. Getting answers would take some time, and luck.

But for now, Destiny could offer her support and her love to Arts. And so she did, until the dawn's light found them both asleep.

Arts wouldn't have to go to Orchid. Dear little Mona has an idea, however impulsive and soul rottingly wrong.

Destiny is off at work, probably a blessing, as there are some things Arts cannot expect her lover to see and not be damaged. The room is cool, as always, and the chill accentuated by windows open behind heavy curtains (once red but gone gray with dust and time). Tina is arranged on the bed, and the pale woman stares at the corpse that Skid delivered, noting again how plain the girl appears to be in this inanimation, as if she was less of a living (") creature than the doll animated by Alma Stuart. There are no tears in the huge eyes though, they are focused inward, onto a landscape of guilt and regret.

Mona has forgotten about all of the pretty clothes hanging in her closet, her form instead filling a too large black tee, a pair of faded blue jeans and battered old clodhoppers. There's a purpose to her movements, the dangers of WestEnd nothing more than a place setting in the dark feast of her mind. Her jaw is set too tightly and her teeth begin to ache, the hidden set along with those so often put on display. She arrives at the motel's door on time, though she doesn't gaze too long at her surroundings. Not yet. She wants to remember as little as possible about this place. She lifts the hand not burdened with the faded plastic strap of an old car battery, curls her lovely little fingers into a fist, and knocks.

Artsblood has been waiting for the knock, though not exactly anticipating it. What has been proposed here is a failure of sorts, and it clings to her like wet clothing. Still, she throws wide the door and, wordless, indicates the girl-who-is-no-more on the unmade mess of bed, still redolent of recent lovemakings. Mona is greeted with a nod, and like a soldier daring a minefield, Arts moves aside in careful steps, almost mincing.

"You can back out of this," Mona growls. "You can still give your girl a proper funeral." But even as she says this, she goes about removing a small box from a hole riddled pocket. A few alligator clips, attached to red and black wires, are jostled loose and hang limply against a denim clad thigh. Mona then turns her dull eyes on the oddly lovely Artsblood; doesn't even have to look at her face- with its lack of clues, to know what she's feeling. It hangs in the air like a snare trapped bird, doomed but lovely not for its desperation, but for its hopeless hope. A small capacitor, one jury rigged from a car's cigarette lighter and who knows what else is placed at Tina's feet. Then the Toreador unwinds a length of thin wire from one of the corroded terminals and goes about hooking up the strange little contraption. Once Mona is finished, she fishes around in her pocket once again, pulls out a pair of small jumper cables, and that's when she turns to fully face Artsblood. "You'll have to make the cut. We have to get her heart going."

When Artsblood does speak, her voice is more ragged and breathy than usual. "There are two things I must say, missy dear. First, be quick. I know you have not attempted this before, and if it fails I must get the corpse (she chokes on the word, but soldiers on) back in stasis immediately. Second, you must understand that she was never as we are. She was the result of a living birth that made her as she was. The gift you offer may not, even if it proves successful, be received with appropriate thanks."

But Artsblood has still listened despite her words, and opens buttons on the knit tennis top, tugs down the sports bra to reveal one small but shapely breast. There is a knife by the bed (why wouldn't there be, after all) and without any attempt to sterilize it, she cuts expertly into the flesh (not tanned here, oh no) which opens like set silicone. Gently, using the edge of the blade to sift ever deeper into the bloodless flesh, she reaches the ribcage and, with a barely suppressed whimper, cracks one back; the still, quiet, human heart lies there, as pitiful as a dead puppy.

Mona grumbles, "it hardly is ever received with thanks." Every syllable is void of humor, because deep inside she's steeling herself, preparing for some inevitable blow with little more than a shiver that works its way down from her shoulders. Amber eyes watch the tableau in front of her with the stony stare of a doctor with a penchant for burying bodies beneath his rose bushes. Arts' whimper, the effect belated, draws the corner of her lovely little mouth into a silent snarl, and then she steps forward to connect the vicious little clamps to the battery. It's only when she leans next to Artsblood and begins the same process on Tina's heart that she realizes, with some horror, that her own hands are shaking.

"I hope this works, whatever the outcome." And she does. Mona really does. Perhaps it's the realization that Tina is a thin blood that has her trembling, but in the end it's a lot of things. "Flip the switch," she finally orders, peering into Tina's face- dead dead, and she motions to the little box at the body's feet and the switch on the side

Despite it all Arts doesn't hesitate. This thing is, after all, not her Tina, but a machine of pumps and tubes so crude that a decent mechanic would be shamed by its invention. "There are those who covet it," she mutters, "those who count it a great gift. I have been begged for it, as I'm sure you have. But this is not one of those times." She throws the switch, there is a crackle of spark and a brief scent of ozone as current closes its gaps.

"Those people are idiotas," Mona barks. "I would be very much ashamed if your daughter was not angry." Her hands fall behind her back, her fingers crossing there. She's incredibly alert now, her fear and her nerves rattling the chains that hold her Beast. Her terrible gaze darts from the body, to the experiment's mother, and slowly, hesitantly, she reaches out to place a hand on Artsblood's shoulder.

Arts almost flinches away from the touch, but does not. Instead, she lifts her own freakish hands to cover her mouth, unwittingly assuming the attitude shared through time immemorial among mothers beside what would, in the minutes ahead, be determined to be a deathbed or not. Mona closes her eyes, cold flesh against her cold palm, and a soft thumping, barely audible, flits beneath the electrical buzzing that feels the room.

"Tu so muestro Dyo, Tu sos muestro Senyor..." She doesn't sing it, doesn't feel she has the right anymore, and Mona's hand slips from Artsblood's shoulder. Quickly she approaches Tina's side, observing the barely beating heart in the girl's open chest with something, finally, like sadness. As carefully as if the poor girl was made from paper, she lifts her head and presses her mouth to the still chilled flesh. Like dry clay. Another shiver follows in the wake of her fangs' escape, unbidden but ultimately wanted, and she sinks those razor edged teeth deep into Tina's neck. The knife is plucked up then, even as the electricity that chases the dank blood into her mouth sizzles against her tongue, and with one graceful swipe she opens a vein. Not so careful now, not so reserved, not with the Beast feeling so cheated still, Mona smashes her slashed wrist against Tina's too pale lips.

A machine, a machine. No more than a machine. The shocked heart stutters and trips on, the spilled blood pools in the dumb mouth. There is a faint reek of cooked meat from the battery cables. And finally a reaction, but not the expected. As if the occupying spirit, still under Stuart's control, is obeying a command from without, the limp body convulses, attempts to spit its mouth free of the thick blood. In the end, however, such a simple machine is immune to magic, and with a wrench that shakes the corpse from head to toe, the body chokes, and gags, and swallows.

Mona drinks only that which is needed, but keeps her bleeding wrist against Tina's mouth, pressing down harder and harder the more Tina writhes. Her stomach- for electricity is electricity is electricity, and dead blood is bad, revolts against her insides and screams its protests to her overclocked brain. She tries to settle her gaze in vain on Artsblood, on something familiar.

The corpse, so longer in stasis, is fit for occupation still. And as the blood is choked down, it begins its own form of biological necromancy, throwing switches long closed, willing a consciousness into reoccupation of that which it was ripped so suddenly from. The great eyes open in something akin to panic, aware of what her mouth is doing but unable to force it to stop. The body drums its heels in frustration, tears thick with stolen blood seeping from the eyes even as awareness seeps into them. The expression on the girl's face is a fine consolidation of disgust and terror.

Mona's own eyes are so wide that their sockets could scream if they had the ability to do so. She places her hand against her stomach, her face- if such a thing is possible, a few shades paler than before. Tearing her eyes from Artsblood, she makes the mistake of looking to Tina. There's too much there, too much, and she lurches forward and paints Artsblood's floor a not unpleasant shade of red.

The skinny woman leaps forward, oblivious to the damage to her floor (it is only housekeeping, after all, and has never been a concern of hers), to pin Tina to the unmade bed with toothpick arms. Already the twisted rib inches back into its socket, the sliced open flesh reaches toward its other half with microscopic hook-and eyes. And slowly the terror leaches from Tina's own eyes, and they focus on the great brown moons above them, and she speaks, voice all mechanical from its efforts to use tongue and lips and mouth long dead. "Oh you stupid b*tch," she whispers, "you didn't. Tell me that you didn't"

And Mona slumps down the wall that had been her crutch, her jeans blood sodden, and turns her scarlet stained face to the mother and daughter reunion. Her wrist bares little more than a scar now, but a black mark now stains her soul, shiny and new. When she smiles, its a freshly fed wolf's smile, if that wolf had downed a bottle of liquid morphine before dinner. "Well. It worked."

Arts could hold Tina down, she has the strength to do it but not the will, and the girl, reborn, redead, undead, struggles to her feet on legs that don't seem to know where their joints are. She spies Mona, and something in the soup of Tina's consciousness tells her that she owes a thing akin to maternity to the creature. This notion only completes her horror; as if one mother weren't enough. She knows enough of the ways of the Kin to not be surprised at the changes that sweep her, as her body rejects every french fry and chocolate shake. The trail of that purging, ignored by the girl and far more disgusting than Mona's upchuck of blood, follows Tina as she flees, limbs akimbo in more of a stagger than a run, bursting through the motel door and into the night.

There's an insert-smartassed-comment blooming on the tip of Mona's tongue, but she swallows it back for now in a display of semi-tact. Her eyes, one pupil horrifyingly larger than the other, stay trained on the door for a long moment, a count of ten and then twenty, and slowly Mona peers over to Artsblood. "Oddly enough, that went better than I expected."

Her own thin face pink-streaked, Arts manages to offer Mona a smile, though thin lipped and as frightening as any leopard snarl. "She was always a contrary girl. I suppose we should follow her, or you if you prefer" I owe you a debt, missy dear, the size of which I fear you have not yet begun to grasp."

"Let her process things," Mona pants, still wide and wild eyed. Things. What a weird word. Things. She can still taste the vile flavor of burnt, deadish blood on her tongue. "I'm going to sleep. Let me sleep here" That will do it?" And she slumps over, an oversized version of Miho's demon doll. Without a word Arts pulls a fragrant sheet from the bed, drapes it (unnecessarily, of course, but there are protocols) over Mona. If Destiny is to find a strange woman in the midst of the biological horror of the room, Arts has faith in her lover's understanding, and the explanation will be far easier than the acts which occasioned it.

(Taken from play with the magnificent Artsblood!)