Strange Angels 5
Lili St. Crow
Dru, Graves and Ash are in a stolen car heading for her Gran’s house in the Appalachian Mountains. Graves is restless because he’s not able to do anything. Dru has him navigate to keep him occupied. She isn’t ready to talk about what has been going on.
They arrive at Gran’s cottage. Graves has noticed that Dru has bloomed and actually seems happy about being there. Everything finally hits her and she cries while Graves tires to calm her down.
Dru and the boys work to get settled into the cottage. She falls asleep on the love-seat and reams about Christophe. Bruce is begging him to stay with the Order, but he is determined to find Dru. Since the Order could not keep her safe, he leaves.
The dream startles Dru away and she shoots up. Graves, who moved his sleeping bag from the bedroom to the floor next to her, wakes up ready to attack anything that might come through the door. She explains it was just a dream and they both calm down. He get angry as they talk and tells Dru that he is going to prove himself to be useful and that he loves her. She explains that she thought he was disgusted with her and her guilt over everything that has happened to him. He says he is happy that Ash bit him and storms out, again swearing he will show her his feelings. Dru is shocked but has to calm Ash down. He eventually follows Graves, leaving Dru to make breakfast.
Later on, Dru asks Graves what Christophe said to him the night he was taken. Christophe had told him he wasn’t good for Dru and Graves said he was better than him. Graves also points out that Dru should not trust him because Sergej had him for so long. Dru gets frustrated with his back and forth feelings and tells him so. He goes outside again and she starts planning their next move.
Dru leaves a note for Graves and gets ready to head to town. Ash makes a big deal and insists on going with her. Dru realizes she can’t really stop him and they take off. THey go through the grocery store and the manager follows them the whole time. Ash grabs a candy bar that Dru doesn’t realize he unknowingly stole. The manger makes a big deal about it after Dru hands him money to pay for it. He grabs her arm and Ash goes crazy. She stops Ash, knocks out the manager, and disables a passing police officer. She orders Ash into the car and they take off while a storm approaches.
Dru freaks out over the afternoon’s events as she drives home in the rain. Ash is scared of the storm and Dru starts to realize it is not natural. They eventually make it back to the cottage to find it on fire and vampires surrounding them. Ash changes into wolf form after jumping out the window while Dru reaches for her malaika.
The vampires draw nearer and Dru can still feel the affects of Anna’s blood. She somehow commands Ash to find Graves. She starts fighting and killing vampires. Christophe arrives and helps her. he goes after the female vampire causing the storm. Graves returns with Ash. The wulf joins the fight while Graves tries to get her out of there. Dru refuses to leave Christophe behind and goes to help. The djamphir knocks her down and tells her to stay while the boys go after the fleeing vampires. Dru realizes she has lost her last tie to the human world and cries as she watches Gran’s cottage burn.
After checking on Dru, Christophe gets everyone into the car and they take off. Luckily, Ash didn’t have trouble turning back into a boy after the fight. Dru apologizes to Christophe, who accepts. He tells her that Graves tired to take all the vampires on himself and the loup-garou becomes furious. Dru tells them to try to get along, but Graves is so mad that he shakes. She tries to calm him down, but he tells her to buckle up so he doesn’t have to worry about her. They make it to a main road.
Christophe gets them settled into a hotel to get cleaned up and some rest. Dru tells him how they escaped Sergej, but leaves out the part about Anna’s blood. He admits to Dru that he doesn’t like Graves and gives her back her diamond earrings, which she puts in. He leaves, promising to be back before sundown. Graves wants to talk, but Dru can’t handle it and takes Ash to clean him up.
When they get back on the road, Dru is relieved that Christophe is taking care of everything. She asks that they stop for food that isn’t fried or fast. Christophe agrees and makes suggestions. Graves says he’ll get pizza with Ash. Dru is pissed off that Graves is being wishy-washy again. He says he needs space and the argument grows. He indicates that Christophe has a secret. Christophe starts to tell her that Graves tired to leave her. She breaks down and the boys start to get along to make her feel better.
Christophe stops at a Four Seasons. Dru gets cleaned up and designer clothes are brought to her. Christophe takes her down the street to an Italian restaurant. She is embarrassed because she can’t stop crying. Christophe asks why Graves is in the running for her love, but she doesn’t explain it to him.
Dru notices that her drink tastes funny. Suddenly, she can’t move. Lavant, one of the Maharaj (believe all vampires and djamphir should be eliminated, but have historically sided with the Order as the lesser of two evils), comes to warn Christophe that his elders have decided to alley themselves with Sergej. He gives Dru the antidote to the poison she ingested before he leaves. Christophe gets Dru out of there and they go back to the hotel.
Dru talks with Graves about when they first met before she falls asleep. When she wakes up from the phone ringing, August is there to take her back to the Schola Prima. Christophe explains that Graves made the call and he approves of the decision with recent developments. Dru tries to fight it, but Graves admits that he is broken.
All hell breaks loose in the hotel room as Christophe goes after Graves. He hits the loup-garou hard enough to knock him out and tries to kill him. August tries to hold back the other djamphir. Dru grabs his shotgun and says she will shot them both if they attempt to hurt Graves. She says she will unbreak him. Eventually, she begs him not to hurt Graves and Christophe calms down. He sends August to get them ready to leave. He asks Dru if she would’ve done the same for him if the situation was reversed. She says she would and he hugs her.
Shanks, Nathalie, and Dibs come into the room. With Dibs carrying Graves (unconscious and restrained), they take the stairs to get out. Before they can reach the ground floor, something starts making its way up to them. The power goes out and Shanks, Ash, and Dibs with Graves are able to get out the first available door. Nathalie leads the way blindly up the stairs and knocks a door off its hinges. Christophe throws a grenade down the stair well and they all dive for cover. Dru sees a complex hex coming at them. Christophe instructs them to go out the window. Nathalie goes automatically, but Dru hesitates. Christophe grabs her and throws them both out after tossing another grenade. They land on another roof and Dru watches the burning building. They make their way to the ground and start running from the oncoming vampires.
Nathalie leads them across town to the extraction point. She tells them they will be taken to the Schola in Huston temporarily. They make it to a roof and see Hiro in a helicopter, but it is suddenly blown up by a missile. Christophe hits Dru and she slides over the ledge. he tires to hang on, but ends up falling to the ground, unhurt. She decides to get herself to Huston, figuring that is where everyone will go. She takes off by herself.
Dru hides in a dumpster for a while as the creatures after her search. She eventually makes it to a residential area and steels a Jeep using its spare key. She drives to one of her dad’s secret caches for supplies, loading up and leaving as quickly as possible. She heads for Huston.
Once Dru is too tired to keep driving, she stops at a Walmart and then a hotel She gets cleaned up and everything prepared before warding the room and going to sleep. She dreams about her dad approaching a door and Christophe trying to stop him.
Dru wakes up as two boys undo the wards and come into her room. She shoots the first on in the knee. The second throws a hex at her. The owl appears to claw at his face, giving Dru a chance to throw the hex back at him. The hex leaves her hand blistered, but she gets her stuff together and gets ready to leave. The one she shot asks she can use the jaadu, but Dru doesn’t answer before she jumps out the window and heads for the Jeep. She makes it to Huston, but things are already bad there.
The Schola is in ruins, looking like a bomb had gone off. Dru drives past it and starts heading out of town. A cop pulls her over, but Dru can’t risk loosing all of her gear. She takes off starting a chase and the owl leads her.
Ditching the Jeep by some warehouses, Dru hides on the roof from the police as long as she can. She can hear suckers screaming in the distance and starts jumping from roof to roof. She is looking for a new car when a hex-dog finds her. She is able to unravel it in time, but more vampires approach. Dru pulls out her malaika and rushes the oncoming horde.
Her attack doesn’t work and Dru is transported in a box, most likely in the cargo hold of a plane. She dreams about Christophe trying to keep her dad from going after Sergej. Dru wakes up in a dark cell. Graves opens the door and Sergej appears. The loup-garou tires to fight off his influence, but isn’t successful. Sergej comes up to Dru, but they seem to be toxic to each other. Dru keeps herself in her own mind by using her chains to rub against her left hand that is still blistered from the hex. Sergej leaves her, promising to drain her so he can walk in the sun.
Graves visits Dru while Sergej sleeps and his hold is weaker. He tells her Christophe is there and in bad shape. Graves asks Dru to trust him and she blindly does. He asks why him, and she tells him how she feels. She tells him that he is her rock. He leaves.
Sergej comes to get Dru and has Graves chain her to a wheel chair. They take her to a higher level and into a room filled with vampires. Christophe is chained to the wall, spread out with tiny cuts all over him.
When Christophe sees Dru, he starts to struggle so he can rescue her. She tells him to stop and he does. Sergej explains that he will have to transfuse the blood out of Dru so it doesn’t touch air and become more toxic. He plans to make Christophe watch the process slowly kill her over weeks. Sergej’s plan is to use the blood of two great houses to walk in the sun.
Graves wheels Dru over to the table and Sergej orders Dibs to put the needle in her. He refuses, not wanting to hurt her. Dru realizes that Sergej can just get someone else to do it and convinces Dibs that she wants him to. She tells him help is on the way to calm him down, but she knows she is lying and won’t live through this.
Dru talks Dibs through draining her blood until it is too painful and she passes out. She wakes up in a bedroom, but is too weak to move and all her djamphir abilities are gone. She tries to keep Dibs occupied. Graves comes to the door with green eyes, indicating he is himself, but Dibs attacks him before Dru can stop him. The wulfen end up in the hall fighting.
Graves has to knock Dibs out to get to Dru. He brings Dibs and Dru’s belongings into the room. He wants to give her his blood so they can both run. He plans to go far enough away to get out from Sergej’s control and her to go back to the Order. Dru refuses, but Graves makes himself bleed.
Dru sinks her fangs into Graves’ neck. As she drinks, she sees pieces of his life, including the pieces with her. She takes four swallows and wonders why djamphirs only ever take three. She pulls away. Her strength and abilities are back and she can feel Sergej waking up.
Feeling stronger than ever, Dru has to keep herself from drinking Graves completely dry. She tells him to get Dibs out of there while she goes after Christophe. Graves tells her to leave him, but she refuses. She kisses Graves and tells him that she loves him before taking off.
Dru races for Christophe and immediately starts killing vampires. She cuts Christophe’s chains and he joins her in the fight. They kill all the vampires that attack and send two off running for their lives. Christophe tries to convince her to leave. She refuses and tells him to go because she doesn’t want to loose him too. Sergej appears.
Sergej goes after Christophe. Dru sends the owl to crack his head. Sergej comes back for her after crushing his son. He chokes her, now immune to her because he ingested her blood. Christophe stabs him from behind. Dru goes to kill him, but Christophe knocks her aside and sinks his teeth into his father’s neck. Dru yanks his head back to stop him.
It takes a few tires and pleading to get Christophe to stop. Dru takes her malaika and cuts off Sergej’s head. Christophe holds and thanks her while she shakes. They hear gun fire in the distance.
Christophe wants Dru to tell him what to do to make her choose him. He knows Graves bled for her and he points out that he did as well. She points out that they need to leave and he drops the subject reluctantly. They start to make their way out, prepared for anything, when the Order busts their way in to retrieve them.
Dru watches her friends take care of her while they treat her for shock from blood loss. Christophe offers all of his blood to save her. Bruce and Hiro disagree on whether or not he should. Dru hears her mom telling her to go back. Graves whispers, begging her not to go. She goes back and Christophe slumps to the floor.
When Dru finally wakes up, she is greeted by Nathalie. She apologizes to her for how she acted when she left the Schola and asks about everyone else. When Nathalie tells her that Graves is leaving, Dru runs to the exit just in time to catch him. He explains that he has always been broken and needs help to become stronger. He promises to come back and be worth her.
The Council (down to Bruce, Hiro, and August) beg Dru to meet with the Maharaj. They think she is related because of what she can do with hexes. Since they have laws about hurting females of their kind, they want to make it up to her. The Council wants her to broker an alliance against the vampires. When Dru is reluctant, Hiro points out that there will always be more vampires. Dru agrees to help.
Dru accepts the formal apology of the Maharaj and the Order starts to work out an alliance with them. Dru goes to see Christophe. She gathers her nerve and tells him she’s not ready to be with anyone yet. he says he can wait for her to make up her mind one way or the other.
Dru talks with Nathalie about getting back into a normal routine. Dru decides to put it off for a day and act like a normal girl with Nathalie while she can.