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Wed, July 30
The laptop was still grinding away on the topography matching task I set for it. The vampire.... Fuck this. I called up Raul (the Euthanatos over in Seattle) and implored him to come over today to handle a significant problem I had. Pulled the favor card when he said he had work today. He called in sick and got here before noon. I explained the whole situation with the vampire in the coffin, and then I got a lengthy lecture on how I needed to learn how to kill the things that need to be killed, how me calling Raul up--who I knew would be keen on ending a vampire--is no different from me killing it myself (even though it doesn't quite feel like it). Lastly, Raul talked about baby predators. They're killers, but they're typically shit at killing initially. They typically end up just toying with their prey. Drawing out the death. Torturing and tormenting the rabbit or the fawn or the mouse until, after they've gained experience in killing efficiently, the death becomes more merciful. Then he claimed I had been tormenting my prey, unintentionally toying with it for nearly a week while trying to get someone other than myself to do what needed--HAD--to be done.
Jesus, that hurt. And he's right. I had inadvertently been torturing that vampire. I had bungled.... everything. Made things worse. Refused to fix things myself.
This creature's last week of existence was spent in utter darkness, in a confined box, trapped by an idiotic predator, and slowly starved and driven howling mad.
One vampire or the lives of myself and three other Orphans (and the vampire's future victims). It's a terrible, morbid calculus. Solve for X.
Raul waited, patiently, for me to join him in the ritual. We incinerated it--her--in the afternoon sun, accelerating the process with the aid of Forces to make it as fast as possible.
When it was over, Raul gathered her ashes, made a cross on my forehead with them--a hunter's tradition, he explained--and placed the remaining ashes in a jar on the fireplace's mantle.
I'd expected another lecture. Another prompting that I join the Euthanatos tradition. Instead, Raul gave me a reassuring hand on my shoulder and offered only a "You did the right thing, and the right thing is often not the easiest thing." And then Raul left. Leaving me alone. With ashes in a jar.
I spent the rest of the day in bed, crying.
Oh, God. What have I done? What have I done?
The laptop was still grinding away on the topography matching task I set for it. The vampire.... Fuck this. I called up Raul (the Euthanatos over in Seattle) and implored him to come over today to handle a significant problem I had. Pulled the favor card when he said he had work today. He called in sick and got here before noon. I explained the whole situation with the vampire in the coffin, and then I got a lengthy lecture on how I needed to learn how to kill the things that need to be killed, how me calling Raul up--who I knew would be keen on ending a vampire--is no different from me killing it myself (even though it doesn't quite feel like it). Lastly, Raul talked about baby predators. They're killers, but they're typically shit at killing initially. They typically end up just toying with their prey. Drawing out the death. Torturing and tormenting the rabbit or the fawn or the mouse until, after they've gained experience in killing efficiently, the death becomes more merciful. Then he claimed I had been tormenting my prey, unintentionally toying with it for nearly a week while trying to get someone other than myself to do what needed--HAD--to be done.
Jesus, that hurt. And he's right. I had inadvertently been torturing that vampire. I had bungled.... everything. Made things worse. Refused to fix things myself.
This creature's last week of existence was spent in utter darkness, in a confined box, trapped by an idiotic predator, and slowly starved and driven howling mad.
One vampire or the lives of myself and three other Orphans (and the vampire's future victims). It's a terrible, morbid calculus. Solve for X.
Raul waited, patiently, for me to join him in the ritual. We incinerated it--her--in the afternoon sun, accelerating the process with the aid of Forces to make it as fast as possible.
When it was over, Raul gathered her ashes, made a cross on my forehead with them--a hunter's tradition, he explained--and placed the remaining ashes in a jar on the fireplace's mantle.
I'd expected another lecture. Another prompting that I join the Euthanatos tradition. Instead, Raul gave me a reassuring hand on my shoulder and offered only a "You did the right thing, and the right thing is often not the easiest thing." And then Raul left. Leaving me alone. With ashes in a jar.
I spent the rest of the day in bed, crying.
Oh, God. What have I done? What have I done?
