First Lives Wasted

Posted on Tue Aug 19th, 2025 @ 3:29am by Dominique LaFramboise & Nathaniel Cunningham & Gideon Asher & Andrea Carter & Frederick Matthews III & Roy Harper

Mission: Wasted
Location: Alive Hospice Nashville Residence
Timeline: August 19, 2024 : 0600 hrs

Since Gideon was of a vampire line that was not as vulnerable to sunlight as some others, as well as old enough to be able to resist even direct sunlight (though that was very uncomfortable), he responded to the early morning call from a Blood Ranger Surrogate. It was a cloudy, gray, rainy day. The sunlight would be minimal and Gideon dressed appropriately, wearing dark glasses, gloves, and a long hooded rain slicker over his regular clothing.

Blood Ranger Surrogates acted for the Blood Rangers during daylight hours, and sometimes assisted at night. Even the vampires who wouldn’t burst into flame or melt in sunlight weren’t at their best when the sun was up. Blood Ranger Surrogates solved this problem. Levi, a Were-Snake of the Northern Black Racer Clan, had gotten a call from his girlfriend, Sarah, a Were-Racoon, who worked as a nurse at Alive Hospice Nashville Residence. The hospice was a 30-bed facility. The facility had been full earlier in the month, but had been losing patients at an increasingly alarming rate since then. She called Levi and Levi called Gideon.

Gideon informed Dominique and asked her to bring whoever the witches wanted to send and whoever else she felt needed to be there.

A dark sedan pulled up to the curb right outside the front door of the facility and sat there for a long moment, the passenger in the backseat anxiously peeking through the tinted windows. Mustering up what courage could be found, the figure opened the door then raced through the rain to the front door, escaping inside, seemingly away from the pouring rain. Once within the waiting area, the figure hunched over, as though catching their breath, or perhaps on the verge of losing their lunch. With a softly muttered "Bloody 6am! Why did he think this was a good idea?!" the figure finally stood straight and removed their hood to reveal red curls. With a glance back to the front door, Andy shuddered, then went off in search of someone who could lead her to Gideon.

"Missss Carter?" Levi the Were-Snake of the Northern Black Racer Clan half hissed as he slithered, in his were snake form, silently up next to Andy. He matched her pace so easily and quietly that it would creep out even other 'things that went bump in the night', especially a young vampire. "The bossss isss up on Ward 2. I'll take you there. Follow me. Oh, and I warn you now. It's pretty gruesssome. And that'sss coming from a were that worksss for vampires."

"Mother fu-" Andy blurted out, nearly jumping out of her skin when the snake-man broke the silence; bastard had to have done it on purpose. "You need to wear a bell, my man! I mean, fuck, don't you have old timers here with heart conditions?!" She was not having a good day and if Gideon wasn't careful she was going to take it out on him.

Levi hissed in what amounted to a chuckle. "My girlfriend worksss here," he said. "I visssit a lot. It'sss like pet therapy, but with a giant man-sssssnake inssstead!"

“Oh, are we like, supposed to be in animal form?” asked a very pretty blond who had just entered. “The Manager didn’t, like, say.” She snapped her gum. “But, like, I could change, if I’m supposed to. Oh!” she exclaimed, holding out a hand. “Sorry. I’m Brittany, wererat. The Manager couldn’t make it, so he sent me and junk. I’m his assistant!” she declared proudly.

"Hiya, Brittany," Levi said. "You're looking good. Ssssomething new with your hair? Sssorry to compliment and sssslither, but the Major issss waiting for ussss upssstairsss. We should get up there forthwith." Levi had considered saying 'swiftly', but even he got tired of his own hissing sssometimesss... er... sometimes.

Andy stared at the two of them for a moment before sighing and simply walking on; sneaky snake-men and a valley rat-girl, yup, it was official, the universe had it out for her today. "Gideon seriously owes me one for this," Andy muttered under her breath.

Brittany didn’t seem perturbed by Andy, though. Instead, she simply turned to Levi and began spewing information. “So I wake up to a call from the Manager today,” she started without preamble. “And I’m thinking, like, why is the Manager calling? It’s like 5 in the morning! So of course, I totally answered. And he says ‘you gotta get to Alive Hospice! I’m stuck at work until 8!’ So here I am!” she finished. “Weird, huh? Anyway, we should probably head up.”

As the group made it up the stairs, they ran into Frederick Matthews, who was looking decidedly uncomfortable as he watched a young man who had wandered off to chat with several residents. He had not wanted to come at all, much less bring Roy Harper with him. He would have refused outright if it weren't for the fact that Cunningham had suggested it was a perfect opportunity to shunt him off sideways and out of pursuing the pack. Noticing the women and weresnake he turned to them. "Ah," he said, trying to remember the name of the snake and wererat but failing. "Miss Carter, lovely to see you again," he said with blatantly false sincerity. "I think we are still waiting for Miss LaFramboise and the necromancers to arrive, but Major Asher has gone on ahead if you would prefer to get to the grisly quickly."

“We’re here!” came a voice from the hallway, and in short order appeared Jackson Williams with Nicki right on his heals. “I saw the Chairman pull in as we came inside. Not sure if any other Lycans can make it.”

Gideon was suddenly there, having gone unnoticed as was his way.

"This will do," he said. "Levi here is one of our Blood Ranger surrogates. While some of us can function during the day in the daylight, others can't and so having agents such as Levi is very useful." Gideon gestured to a female were-raccoon in her human form. "This is Sarah, Levi's girlfriend. She works for Alive Hospice as a nurse at this and other locations. She has a story to tell us. Sarah? If you would be so kind. Just tell it as you told it to me. There's nothing to be nervous about."

"Um... okay," Sarah said. "Well, like I said, I work for Alive at multiple locations. This is our in-patient residence, but we also work with patients at other hospitals, long-term care centers, and even in their homes. Obviously, all of out patients are on their way to their final rest, but I've noticed a lot of them passing sooner than we thought they would. Like I said, we're, you know, in the business of paliative care. Patients die. But when you work here, you learn to get a pretty good idea of how close someone is. Sure, there's some who go hang on and some who go earlier than we thought they would. That's to be expected, of course. But lately we've had more of the latter than the former. I thought it was strange, but I wasn't sure it meant anything. I'm covering nights this week, and towards the end of my shift, six patients crashed, one right after the other! There's coincidences, and there's dangerously weird and this was dangerously weird! I know Levi works for the Blood Rangers, so I called him right away!"

"Thank you, Sarah," Gideon said. "Would please excuse us?" Gideon nodded at Levi, who slithered over and escorted Sarah to the cafeteria, where she could pick through the garbage for something tasty. "The waster is escalating," he said. "And getting careless. You should all see this, but I warn you, it's not pretty."

The Chairman of the Committee of Vultures, Om Bitra, having arrived just in time to hear the last half of Sarah’s story, simply nodded. He hadn’t been at the meeting where the Necromancers had told everyone about the Waster, but he’d heard about it from the Eagle Chancelor. He was ready to see what new development there had been.

“Oh, no,” said Brittany, wringing her hands. “Oh, is it dead bodies? I can’t handle dead bodies.”

Seeing a panic attack in the making, Nicki quickly took hold of the girl’s hands. Though they had never met before, Lycans could usually tell to which Pack they all belonged and this girl had rat written all over her. “Sweetie,” she said softly. “Take a deep breath. Good, and let it out. What’s your name?”

“Brittany,” answered Brittany, her breathing still erratic.

“Brittany,” repeated Nicki. “I’m Nicki. You’re the Assistant Manager?” Brittany nodded and Nicki echoed the nod. “The Manager chose you for a reason. He knew you were up for the job. You just have to compartmentalize. Put yourself aside so that only the Assistant Manager remains. Okay? You’re not Brittany right now. You’re the Assistant Manager.”

“Right,” said Brittany. “Right. I’m the Assistant Manager.” She took another deep breath. “I can do this.”

“Do you want to hold my hand?” offered Nicki.

“No,” replied Brittany. “Yes. No. Just stay next to me.”

Nicki nodded and released the girl’s hands. “I think we’re ready,” she told Gideon.

Gideon led them in to one of the rooms, one shared by two people. The bodies were not just dead, they devastated. Skin stretched tight across their bones, in an advanced state of decomposition, turning to fluid, dripping onto the floor. The smell, especially to those with enhanced senses, was enough to make a ghoul retch.

"There are two more rooms like this one," Gideon said. "The patients are all DNR, and there is limited biomedical monitoring. A little glamour and the waster was able to do this to six people before they fled. They were careful before. Killing without raising suspicion. But they've been getting more and more careless. Now this."

Fred nodded along. While even he had enough sensitivity not to say it, that made perfect sense. Extensive monitoring would be a waste of money on people who were there to die. The vampire was also right that this was an escalation. A major one. He was less sure about the 'careless' bit since everything he had been able to locate, or more accurately have the plebeian wolves locate, indicated that wasters were disturbingly difficult to deal with. "I think we should consider the possibility this was intentional," he voiced. "Either as a warning or a challenge."

Brittany, who had gagged upon first entering the room, had regained her composure and pulled her shirt over to nose to help cover the smell. “A challenge?” she repeated shakily. “You mean, like, they know that we know and they want us to know that they know that we know?”

“Something like that,” said Nicki, who was busy attempting to locate their spirits. Perhaps they remembered something. But, the spirits had already left. “Damn,” she said. “In a couple of weeks, we could call their souls, but that might be too late.”

Andy lingered in the doorway, unable to come closer from the smell. Catching Gideon's eye, she held his gaze for a moment with an ever so slight shake of her head; this wasn't a challenge, she could see the desperation, recognize the hunger from her own plight of managing hunger, not to mention the side effects she had been experiencing from Astaroth's blood. Just thinking about Astaroth's blood again had her hands trembling and so she folded her arms across her chest to hide the reaction, breaking her gaze with Gideon.

I'm here, Daughter in Darkness, Gideon thought, reaching out to Andy with his mind. Stay outside of the room or even leave if you need to. Do whatever you need to do.

Andy gave a slight nod, then backed out of the room, turning to lean against the wall where she could steady herself while remaining near enough to listen in to their continued discussion.

Gideon looked at Nikki. "This place stinks of magic," he said. "Could you use that to track the Waster somehow?"

“Not really,” answered Nicki. “I can use it to pick up a sort of signature that could then be matched to the Waster, but that would require having a suspect. Right now we have nothing to go on.”

"I got nothing either," Andy called out to chime in with her own expertise, her back still pressed against the wall outside the room. Well, she had a few ideas, but none of which were applicable in this particular situation.

"Well," Gideon said. "That's a start. Could you match that signature to other attacks if we could get there quickly enough? What about other deaths we suspect the Waster to be responsible for? Deaths that are a day or more old? A week? That could help us determine a pattern, maybe a killing ground, might even help us narrow down a lair."

“A day or two, sure,” replied Nicki. “A week? Maybe. Any more than that, though, no. Not unless another witch has readings and we can compare.”

"Then may I respectfully suggest that we start looking?" Gideon said. "If that's the best we can do, then we should do it."

Roy had slipped into the room about halfway through the conversation. He looked around and spoke up sheepishly. "Sorry. I know Alpha Matthews told me to observe and be quiet, but I think there's a patient who wants to talk to the... I think she said guardian wolf and demon? I'm sorry, I don't actually speak Japanese and she wasn't very clear in English... But she says she was woken up by the magic that did this, and she seemed to think it might help."

“Guardian wolf and demon?” puzzled Nicki. “Does that mean… Lily-Mae? The demon is gone, though.”

Fred shot a very annoyed look at the human boy but did not say anything. For his part, Roy blushed and sheepishly said, "Actually, I think she means you and the Blood Ranger, ma'am. I had a really hard time understanding her, but she did seem pretty insistent."

"She definitely means me, and almost certainly Nikki," Gideon said with a grin. He'd been a vampire long enough to learn the word for 'Vampire' in a variety of languages and he had a fair... alright, barely fluent, command of Japanese. "Shall we?" Always the gentleman, Gideon gestured for Nikki to go ahead of him.

“Lead the way,” Nicki told the young man.

The, currently human, man looked slightly abashed, and was sure Fred would kill him later, but he turned and began moving. "She's just two doors down."

Gideon and Nicki followed Roy to the room when the room where the Japanese woman resided. "Kon'nichiwa. Watashinonamaeha gideondesu. Dōsureba tasuke rarerudeshou ka?" Gideon said. This was about as close to 'Hello. My name is Gideon. How can we help?' as Gideon could get. He hoped he hadn't insulted her.

An extremely old woman sat propped in a bed. She had turned her head and muttered something when they approached the door. Now she zeroed in slightly better on Gideon, but the gloss on her eyes and the way her stare did not quite make it perfectly to where Gideon was indicated the woman had become quite blind. However, the faint aura that surrounded her suggested she was not quite yet defenceless. "Ohaiyoogozaimasu, Gideon shoosa, Rafuranbowaazu fujin," she said softly. She smiled gently and switched to English, having long ago mastered it far better than she had let on to Roy, whom she had enjoyed winding up, "I know who you are. My time is quickly to be over, but my wits are not yet gone."

"I suspect I am so old and worn now that the acts of evil here overwhelm whatever brightness is left of my aura, but I was once quite an accomplished practitioner and had aspirations of becoming a priestess. I surmise you are here about what has happened. I was awakened by it this morning. It tried to enter my room. I imagine I appeared somewhat more appetizing than my neighbours, but the protections I placed on this room, such as they are, held, at least against the initial attempt. It could have overwhelmed them, but it was in a desperate hurry and does not seem to have full control over its power. Still, its magic has touched mine, and I believe a small portion of that magic may yet be trapped, if you would like to examine it."

That was better than trying to capture residuals from the room of death, at least in Nicki’s opinion. “That would be great, honestly,” she replied. “If you trust me enough, I’d appreciate it greatly.”

The old woman smiled. "I am 103 years old child. I will not see 104, whether by your hand or the hand of time, it matters little to me anymore. Look above the door. The braided straw is my shimenawa, and the door should be flanked by two ofuda. They have been with me since I came to this country in 1956 and I no longer have the power or sight to replace them. I would ask you to try to avoid damaging them in your search, if only that the possibility remains I might find someone to pass them on to in this life."

“Of course,” replied Nicki. She was only vaguely aware of what they were, but at least understood that they were protections. As a witch, she knew that talismans of that sort grew with power and damaging them could break the power. She had never got around to making any for herself, but at least she knew their significance. She crossed to sit next to the woman’s bed. “Will you show me what you saw?” she asked.

The woman held out a gnarled hand to Nicki in invitation. "I can show you the door," she said as a slight brush of power spilled forth from the woman in a gentle, barely there scent of Osmanthus before revealing the connections of magic in the room. To the sensitive, the relics that had been pointed out formed a barrier against magical intrusion into the room, but also that something was heavily off about the braided straw rope hanging above the door. A dark miasma seemed to cling to it, trapped within it but seemingly trying to draw in its power simultaneously. It would not be immediate, but based on the small trickle moving from old woman to sustain the barrier, it was slowly succeeding. "I dare not take my own magic closer," whispered the woman.

Nicki bit her lips as she studied the talisman from where she stood. Did she trust her own magic to protect her? She was strong, she knew, but would it be enough? Unfortunately, there was only one way to find out. She reached for her power and once she had a firm grip on it, reached out her mind to the power.

Whispers began to come from the corners of the room. Vile words, seemingly gibberish, yet conveying a bone deep understanding. Whatever the words meant, whatever was speaking them was pure evil, just on the edge of being incarnate, barely held in check by the old woman's magic.

Gideon tensed. Whatever this was, while it may have been coming from the shadows of the room, it wasn't Shadow Magic, and certainly not Blood Magic. Both were dark and both he practiced, not without fear, but definitely with confidence. This, whatever this was, more than gave him pause.

Nicki gritted her teeth against the onslaught of magic, forcing it back down. It was strong, but with concentration, she was able to keep it from overwhelming everyone in the room as she examined it. Once she was sure she had learned everything she could from it, she added her own magic to the old woman’s to make sure the dark magic stayed at bay until it dissipated, then she carefully withdrew. “That’s… that was a lot,” she admitted. “But if I ever encounter it again, I’ll know at once.”

On the bed the old woman let out a heavy breath, almost a gasp as Nicki's magic released some of the pressure on her own. She laid back. "Thank you, for helping contain it while it dissipates. I only hope it was helpful," she said as both Matthews and Roy appeared at the door looking alarmed.

"Alpha LaFramboise, Major, is everything alright in here?" asked Fred, momentarily passing as a decent human being. "I felt a strong piece of magic, and Mr. Harper hear claims he heard voices in the shadows."

“It… we’ve kept it at bay,” Nicki replied, stunned at first by the magic, then by Fred’s unexpected concern. Maybe he wasn’t all asshole all the time after all. “For now at least. Until it dissipates.”

The woman coughed on the bed. And pushed herself to speak one last time to her guests. "I hope you are all up for the storm. It seems the spirits have two last things they want me to say." She paused for a moment to take another breath as the faint Osmanthus scent returned once more. "Mr. Harper, you are blessed to already be who you are meant to be. Others will see it in time. Mr. Matthews, I am asked to tell you that the time has come for your second to 'bury the Captain and mask'," she added, before slumping back down, clearly exhausted.

The Captain and mask? Nicki wondered. Perhaps it would mean something to Jim or Fred. She could guess what the Captain is, but mask? She had no idea. But that could be dealt with later. “She needs rest,” she said, tucking the blankets around her. “I’ll stay with her to make sure that doesn’t escape,” she said, nodding towards the barrier and the evil magic behind it, “before it dissipates. The rest of you can finish checking out the rest of the evidence.”