Midnight Mary, [Matteus]

[ANNICA BENTLEY]

Annica adjusted the bag slung over her shoulder as she walked down the side of the very empty road. The trees and streetlights worked together to cast long, jagged shadows that flickered in the soft wind. Most people would shudder and think of childhood monsters. Annica thought of monsters, but not childhood ones and certainly not because of the shadows. She knew better than to be scared of the shadows - they weren't the things that went bump in the night. Something that did go bump-in-the-night, however, was just up the road from her. Or, so the hunter hoped. A ghost with a twist; a witch's ghost who was haunting her gravestone in a very violent matter. It was the violence of the ghost that had her in New Haven at all. Without the mysterious murders that her hunting partner had pegged as the work of something supernatural she probably wouldn't have given this city a second thought.

Annica walked up to entrance, reading the stone engraving to check that she was indeed in the right place. She leaned against one of the short pillars, making sure she had all her energy to concentrate on the hunt ahead of her. She hated walking, but there was often little choice. It wasn't exactly like her lifestyle afforded room for a car and public transport only got you so far. She pushed off of the pillar and stood firm on her own two feet. Automatically she patted herself down, making sure nothing was loose. Her black jacket was the only piece of clothing anyone (or anything) could grab onto, the rest of her clothes clung to her body. She mentally went over the arsenal tucked into the duffel bag over her shoulder - two containers of salt, a container of fuel, an iron crowbar, a torch (batteries included), a sawn-off shotgun (a rare find for her), a few rock salt rounds and two shotgun shells she conveniently forgot to fill with salt. She shuffled the bag around, pulled out her torch and then hesitated before deciding having the crowbar in hand would probably be a good idea and pulled that out too.

With both the torch and the crowbar gripped in one hand, Annica pulled out her phone with her other hand. It was an old battered thing bought from a supermarket and rarely had credit on it but it worked well enough to tell her that is was eleven o'clock, just as she'd planned. Half an hour to find the damned grave and then half an hour for either buffer time or possibly as time to see if the grave really was were the ghost was haunting from. She already felt the frustration just thinking about digging six feet down only to end up salting and burning the wrong bones. The fire would make it worth it, but it was still annoyingly unneeded. With her grip loose around the crowbar, Annica looked around once before stalking into the Evergreen Cemetery.

[MATTEUS CARRINGTON]

if i was a sculptor

but then again, no

OR A MAN WHO MAKES POTIONS IN A TRAVELLING SHOW

It was a first that an urban legend could actually be based on fact, or at least that's what Matteus thought. Of course he'd always been up to date on his urban legends, with his thrusting into the world of the supernatural he'd found that many things he'd thought previously didn't exist now did. Not only that but some things actually had a base in the supernatural which meant that someone might need help in the future or to be protected if said even was violent in nature. Such an event had recently managed to pop up on his supernatural radar, well not that he had one but he'd been informed of one thanks to a curious person. He'd been on his way through Connecticut to begin with, but he'd come across a few articles concerning an extremely popular urban legend known as Midnight Mary. It was said she was the cursed ghost of a witch who was said to kill anyone who waited by her tombstone in the graveyard where she was buried. As far as he knew there hadn't been any recent deaths, his blitzed out hacker friend had managed to send him a few files about old deaths that happened back in the eighties and the sixties. But those had been chocked up to overdosing on drugs, a brain aneurysm, two cases of accidental death. None of which were at all suspicious to Matteus in any case, he'd read the file and saved it before heading to bed the night before.

But this morning he'd woken to a posting on his forum, he'd listed the night before he was traveling through Connecticut and someone had asked him to stop by a diner so they could meet in person. There was a small picture and the directions to diner,which he had been able to find quite easily the next morning. It was a nice diner, trying to bring back the early Americana look with light blues and steels, and checkered floors. It made Matty smile just walking in because everyone of the cooks and waitresses looked up and greet him with bright smiles. Finding the woman who'd wanted to meet him was easy enough, she'd been waiting at a booth and hasn't stopped looking at him the second he'd entered the diner, which was both a little odd and unusual. But it had been easy enough to brush off as he'd made his way over to her and sat with her. A sound to his left brought him out of his reverie as he swung his head slowly to the right, his eyes trying to pierce the night. The graveyard had been silent the entire time he'd been there, and he'd been there a while an hour already, he hadn't wanted to take any chances that he'd miss something. So he'd been wrong to begin with in surmising this wasn't anything supernatural. At the most it would have been a paranormal event that was harmless, but he'd learned about more deaths and that wasn't something he was able to ignore.

The first death had been a heart attack, had the guy been over fifty Matty wouldn't have looked twice, but it was a college student with no reports of ever having heart problems nor did they run in his family. The second death was ruled accidental, a couple had apparently decided to have sex in the graveyard but both had tripped over their clothing and bashed their heads in against a gravestone. Normal enough deaths, but the last one was a brain aneurysm, so far the deaths were repeating themselves from the last ones he'd read about and that didn't seem like a coincidence. Repetition usually meant a mind behind it, which meant something alive, or at least alive in a sense enough to commit the acts. He'd made his way to the graveyard where Midnight Mary's grave rested and after locating her grave had realized that what people thought were just words carved into her headstone were in fact words of an incantation used to pull her spirit out of hell or heaven, most likely hell at this point so she could kill who ever called her back for what ever reason. But the incantation only worked at midnight, and so far he was the only one there, the deaths most likely making people weary of the place. Staring from his vantage point at the grave he let his hand drift to his bag, it had salt, holy water, and lighter fluid in it, his pocket had his lighter in it. All he needed was for the ghost witch to rise from the grave, but first someone had to read the incantation and Matty wasn't going to. He was sure it would take a portion of his own energy to do so, which was why it had looked like no one had fought back.

MY GIFT IS MY SONG AND THIS ONE'S FOR YOU

TAGGING: Annica , WORDS: 818 , OUTFIT: This , NOTES: Yay for psots

^{lisey of caution owns my soul. and this template. don't steal it.}

[ANNICA BENTLEY]

Annica walked down the first long stretch and kept her torch light aimed just a few steps ahead. Waving a torch around in front of yourself was usually a brillaint way to get noticed. She walked in silence and skirted the building she found on her way in (reception, or whatever a graveyard's equivilant was, she assumed). With a second thought, she switched off her torch and doubled back to get a good handle on the place. She'd probably have to come back here to get a shovel if everything went to plan. She got back on track and only stopped when she got to the first fork in the road. Annica dropped her pack and began searching, only to surface with a profanity on her lips. No map - she'd forgotten that. If she got caught then she was just exploring or visiting a relative, the gun because a girl had to protect herself at night and the petrol... To be elaborativly explained had she gotten caught. But no map, just memory of where the grave was supposed to be. After turning right at the fork, deciding to follow the paths for now, Annica set her mind on reviewing what she knew.

It wasn't often Ezekiel didn't know something about a myth and in his defense he had narrowed it down to 'vengeful spirit' for her. But that was the thing about venegful spirits - you didn't know quite what you were dealing with until you knew who you where dealing with. Instead of trawling through old folk tales and other urban legends about New Haven they'd gone for the easy route - find a reputable website about supernatural happenings and ask about anyone from the area who had died a violent or otherwise disturbing death. They'd found someone, someone travelling through nearby to boot. It was perfect luck as Annica could charm information out of someone better when they were face-to-face and Ezekiel prefered not to have an electronic trace on their actions. So she'd picked a friendly, comforting diner and had told the contact to come talk.

Which was even more perfect luck, really, as otherwise she would have never found out that it wasn't just a vengeful spirit but a vengeful witch's spirit. Having that sprung on her would've been annoying. Above Annica's head the trees rustled in a sparse wind. She pulled her jacket closer around her then figured it would be easier in the long run just to zip it up. She continued up the path she was on and soon arrive at a roundabout. She twisted around to try and reorientate herself and strode across the circle of grass onto a path oppesite. She walked up the road, sure she was going the right way. A few minutes later she proved herself wrong by turning in a full circle and still not finding the distinct block of pink granite she was looking for. Another profanity was uttered as she backed up against the fence (which jangled noisily in the dead of night) and looked either side of her. She knew it was near the fence so it couldn't be too far away. She scrunched her face up in annoyance and wondered why she didn't just jump the fence in the first place before she remembered that there was no one she had to project being annoyed for. She let the feeling seethe inside as she attempted to recall if it was the more or less foresty part of the graveyard that had the tombstone she was looking for.

It didn't cross her mind to consider paying more attention the next time she was given directions for a hunt nor did it cross her mind that she should've insisted on a map (as if the bottle of gas in her bag wasn't suspicious enough). As far as Annica was concerned she'd done everything perfectly and it was the grave that wasn't in the right spot. It was in a strange and inconvientient spot, as she often said when she was unable to find something. She brought up the landmarks she was looking out for. A tall monument - a fat load of help as there were a few of those in every direction. Under a tree - again, there were trees everywhere so how was that supposed to help? But then she remembered that those two landmarks weren't seperate. A tall monument under a tree and the pink granite tombstone should be nearby and not under a tree. So right it was, in the less tree covered direction. With all the little stops along the way it wasn't too surprising when Annica pulled out her phone and found that it was now about half an hour to midnight. Up ahead she spied the monument under the tree and - though she couldn't yet see it's colour - she also spotted a large tombstone that she thought belonged to the witch spirit. Against it leaned a shadowy shap. She tightened her grip on her crowbar and prowled forward. Perhaps she was in luck - she still had half an hour before the spirit was set to appear and half an hour was pleanty long enough for her to at least knock out a lone human. She hoped they were human, they would be simpler than anything supernatural to attack but more satisfying than any other mundane animal to torture and kill. She smiled as she continued her advance and thought of how perfect a cover it was to have them at the site of Midnight Mary. Should a corpse turn up here it would merely be added to the same investiagation as the heart-attack, head tramua and the other so called accidental deaths that had occurred here.

Though that thought lead to another - it was an awfully convienient spot for a murder. She chalked it up to a dare or something equally trivial but flexed her grip on her crowbar anyway. She was becoming more absorbed in her unexpected prey and didn't pay attention to where she was stepping. The crunch of dead leaves and twigs that her feet occasionally caused was a sound that missed her ears. She kept her eyes trained on the figure and the gravestone.

[MATTEUS CARRINGTON]

if i was a sculptor

but then again, no

OR A MAN WHO MAKES POTIONS IN A TRAVELLING SHOW

Going back to his meeting at the diner it was a little odd finding such a seemingly nice woman asking him about the murders or at least informing him. He hadn't known to start with, well he had but just the old ones, the knew ones he hadn't heard anything about until the woman in the diner had told him. The woman had been curious if he'd heard the legend of Midnight Mary and had told him the story and then told him how people were blaming her for the deaths of the recent people. Or at least the towns people were, those who handled the bodies had their scientific reasons as to why the people were dead. For Matteus it was just getting odder and odder as all the facts were piled up for him in neat tidy little rows. Normally that never happened for Mattues, he always had to make the rows after doing hours of researching either through his books or going online. Having it just handed to him like this was not only amazing and odd, but it was amazingly lucky for him to have caught it like this instead of stumbling onto an online article. There had been a bit of a long conversation, he'd only heard a little of the legend, or so he'd said and needed it explained more in depth to him which the woman did quite eagerly almost. It was strange to describe the entire situation, he'd never been approached like this and to have everything laid out as it was? If he was a seasoned hunter he would have known that it was a gathering of information on both sides and wouldn't have been so forth coming with information. But he wasn't, so he ended up rambling in front of the woman, sharing his thoughts and information with her that he should have most likely kept to himself and not shared.

Staring at the granite slab he'd been waiting a while now, he wasn't exactly sure if things were going to happen. He hadn't read the spell on the grave marker so there was a chance that Midnight Mary wouldn't show up. But that was assuming she only showed up when the spell was said aloud. He'd taken this fact off from the witnesses who had stayed with their friends up till the time when they left. The ones who had died had been the ones to read the spell out loud and that had to be the key to being a victim of Midnight Mary, though how the spell acted was a little beyond Matteus. As far as he knew, there had to be a link of some kind, between Midnight Mary and the spell, otherwise it wouldn't work at it. It was completely possible that she had cast a spell upon her bones, or at least her body at the time or actually had laid a curse upon the town and then it acted out through the spell. It was entirely possible, but at the same time it also didn't make sense for Midnight Mary to be able to pull herself away from where ever she was in her death to kill someone. There had to be something he was missing, some little thing that he hadn't noticed yet, because he was pretty sure that escaping what ever heaven or hell one was in wasn't allowed. In fact he was pretty sure it was against the rules, if there were any rules for this kind of thing to begin with. It also made him wonder how powerful this witch had been before her death if she could affect her spirit even after death or more to the point have a spell that works like a fish line that snags her from what ever hell or heaven she was in just to kill someone.

Going back to the diner meeting again, he was still struck a little oddly by the woman he'd spoken to. She'd seemed far to interested in everything he told her now that he had time to think back and run through the meeting at a slower rate. She was to careful, always giving him the right amount of a smile or even a bit of information or just sitting she was all about getting the information from him. Then again she could have been an innocent woman looking for answers to something that was obviously troubling her and the town she lived in since she claimed to be from the area. It wasn't that Matteus was turning into a suspicious person it was just that now that he was apart of the supernatural world he was starting to find that it was incredibly hard to be as trusting as he was. Even a random stranger smiling at him could be a demon waiting to kill him once he walked into a dark alley or something. The fact that he was being affected by the supernatural world as it was, was proof enough that he just needed to be more careful and nod be as judgmental. He was pretty sure that this was how some of the hunters that were harsher in their hunts came to be what they were, not to mention horrible things in their pasts. Matty had his ghosts but that didn't mean he had to let them affect how he hunted, in his mind nothing could be inherently evil, nothing was bad until he saw it he just couldn't assume anything. It wasn't fair and it wasn't right, which was probably why he wasn't going to be the best of hunters, but he still thought it would be good for him.

Sounds were catching his attention, and there had been a light earlier he'd seen it off to the side and back in the distance. He hadn't been too worried about it, it was most likely someone coming to visit the head stone of Midnight Mary, he could easily say he was doing the same thing and was just waiting for midnight. The darkness already hid his dark bow and the quiver on his back not to mention his supplies in his laptop bag filled with holy water and salt. It was always a good idea to have a backup stashed near in case something happened the weapon one intended to use. His arrows were all iron tipped and all had been soaked in Holy water, not that it did much but still it was an extra thing he always did. Hearing a sound to his left he slowly slid his hand to his bow, an arrow came into existence in his other hand as it reached to his quiver on his back. He felt eyes on him, training for a while as a hunter allowed him to develop the sense of knowing when he was being watched. Or at least he liked to think his paranoid feelings were actually Hunter senses that he was training himself to have. A sudden snap behind him had him knocking his arrow and drawing it tight before turning around and aiming at a dark mass a few feet from him, "I suggest you either drop what's in your hands or get an arrow through your forehead. I don't like being snuck up on, and I don't care to be attacked from...behind?" Even in the very dark of the night that was around them Matty was about to make out the face of the woman from the Diner, holding a crowbar. He didn't let up on his arrow, he held it, he should have trusted his gut and kept himself quiet and not shared all that information with her.

MY GIFT IS MY SONG AND THIS ONE'S FOR YOU

TAGGING: Annica , WORDS: 1290 , OUTFIT: This , NOTES: Sorry it took so long

^{lisey of caution owns my soul. and this template. don't steal it.}

[ANNICA BENTLEY]

Annica had been rather proud of her conduct at the diner. That wasn't saying much since she was generally proud of anything she did that didn't end in glaring failure, but the frequency of her pride made it no less present. Before organising the diner meeting they had one exchange of information - not that her internet contact had known that since it was conducted under another username. She had gleaned a concise list of local legends from him. A search later via Ezekiel (too long by her standards, fairly short by his) and they had decided that the Midnight Mary legend sounded the most likely. By then Annica had already made her cover story and organised the meeting.
The boy she'd met was, for starters, a boy younger than she was used to when information gathering for a hunt. He was also annoyingly ignorant about the legend. But once Annica had explained the tale and given the connection to the latest deaths, the boy had become a goldmine of information. The information exchange she had felt had been in her favour; she'd given little and gotten a lot. So all in all she was rather proud of how she had managed the diner meeting. The hunter had internally gloated over how well she'd played the stupid civilian. This was probably why her usually impeccable mask of humanity had broken when she'd been found out.

Annica managed to stalk the shadowy tombstone figure long enough to get four or five strides from them. At that distance she must've misstepped, as the figure swiftly turned to face her and simultaneously knocked and arrow in his bow.

Wow. An honest-to-god bow. I don't think I've ever seen someone use a bow before. Why would you choose a bow over a gun?

This curious train of thought was interrupted by the person she'd been trying to stalk threatening her to surrender. She discarded the order even before the sentence was finished which meant she was part way through deciding how to avoid getting shot in the head when a soft breeze shifted the nearby trees. The branches rearranged themselves and let a little more moonlight through - just enough moonlight to illuminate the figure's face. The boy's face. The boy from the diner's face. Matteus. It was now that she wasted precious seconds loosing her facade.

"What are you doing here?" she asked in a royally pissed tone, accompanied by a stomp of her foot and a frustrated flick of the hand holding the crowbar. The chance that the boy had given her the information and then decided to destroy the ghost before she could was enough to make her snap. The very idea that he was stealing this hunt from her was infuriating.

But the words were barely out of her mouth before Annica remembered herself. She was meant to be nice and friendly and understanding thus lashing out at the boy was rather counterproductive to her image. The second she'd stopped speaking her face - warped with prime annoyance - smoothed out into her 'typical' inviting demure and her voice softened to its friendly tone. She wiped away all trace of the annoyance with one stroke, as if it had never been there at all.

"Hey, its good to see you again Matteus. Wow, I didn't know you where a hunter. Of course you're here hunting Mary too? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sneak up on you but I suppose you know how it is," she shared her laugh, "One can never be too careful in this line of work. You don't mind if I keep a hold of this," she gestured with her crowbar, "Do you? I always feel a bit safer with some iron in my hands."

While her mouth spouted pretty lines, Annica fumed inside. She couldn't believe it, some wet-behind-the-ears hunter coming after her prey. She kept her eyes on him but utilised her peripherals to scope out the area. She could roll behind a tombstone, use it for cover and proceed from there but she wasn't sure she could do it before he shot her. If she dropped straight down without warning she might be able to, so that was one possibility. What she really wanted to do was somehow get right up close to him and wrap her hands around his neck. She knew how to squeeze a throat so that the victim (provided that they were human) only lost conciousness. Once she had Matteus unconscious she'd beat him to a pulp; starting at the legs, savouring the crack of one or both of them, then sticking the pointed end into his stomach a few times before exposing his entrails with the curved end. She'd finish by beating in his skull until his head was a mess of bone, blood and brain. Annica kept a straight face while she imagined destroying the boy in front of her.