- This topic has 6 replies, 2 voices, and was last updated 4 years, 4 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Smoke. It was always smoke. The soft petal like ellipses between the first moments and the kill. The requiem, so sweet and delicate before the crescendo explodes in a cacophony of wanton butchery. Or the last yawn of a lion after devouring his prey. The last gasp of sunlight before drifting from the horizon. It was visible, wafting from the crossroads beneath the street light. It should be flickering, if this story was to be any story of note.. Yet here he stood, beneath the unflinching street light, letting smoke slowly take to the void between what is and what was. This creature, so entranced with the fingers of white nothingness but the remnants of fire, as the moisture of recent blood still lingered. So few went passing, so few came within the bauble of all encompassing evil that was His. Each breath another combustion. It reminded him of home.
It would not be a mistake to assume he was nothing but another denizen of the streets of New York, so many before had. The very way he made his living. The perfectly dressed gentleman, embroidered and adorned with the wretched cloak of the well to do. Americans. What did they know? Royalty. Nobility. A Count from the very circles of Hell. They paid no attention, and they’d know no difference. Out of place, but not out of place, being it was New York afterall. Pale skin, white as the snow laden landscape of Norway. Eyes crimson bursts.
“Do you have the time?”
The intruder looked at him quizzically. What a hostile gesture, to interrupt a sensualist as he indulged in the beauty of destruction.
“Of course I have the time…”
His eyes not parting from the last breeze of smoke. Gone.
“…but still how fleeting.”
The remnants of the cigarette, it was always the struggle. So dirty a thing, like a corpse, or a condom. The joy was done and yet here was what was left. What does anyone want with the carcass? His eyes strayed gently over it. “The butt, they call it. How human.”
“You don’t have to fuck with me.” the intruder flared
And suddenly he looked, suddenly his eyes came to the intruder, as his lips formed into the most devilish smile “Oh, but that is exactly what I must do.”
The last watery remnants of a late October sun bled slowly from the sky, giving way to the only type of night she preferred: dark, so very dark—and quiet. Very, very quiet. There was something about autumn storms, she noticed, that seemed to force people to shelter much more quickly (and much more forcefully) than the playful rains of spring and summer. It was as if they were girding themselves against the inevitable onslaught of something colder, something dreariest, something more dangerous than just a mere downpour. She couldn’t say she blamed them, really…it was on evenings like this (born of storms like this) that creatures like *her* emerged.
Taking her time, savoring the smell of old, wet blacktop and old, wet leaves, she moved slowly beneath the streetlights. If anyone took notice, it didn’t register; she was in no danger, after all. There were few things left on earth more dangerous than she. On several occasions—in this very neighborhood—she’d proven that fact. On several more occasions, in places scattered throughout the city’s fringes, she’d hammered the point home. …No, she wasn’t worried. Not for herself, at least. Tonight she had several pressings things to attend to, and the first was Alan.
She was certain that, to outsiders, her care and concern for an all but nameless bum was strange. But people—humans—like Alan were HER people. At least they had been, centuries before. Now, they weren’t so much her “people” as they were her secret charges, souls to whom her heart was drawn and her power protected. The damaged, the down-and-out, the ones the world had cast away…those were the mortals to which she was drawn. And Alan had, without hesitation (or fear for his own well-being), protected her some ten years before in a moment that had since cemented their friendship.
Rounding the corner, her nostalgia-born smile died. Suddenly. Instead replaced with a snarl of rage that erupted from her chest, she stopped mid-step.
“You don’t have to fuck with me…” Alan’s voice faltered.
He sounded almost apologetic — and scared. The stranger in front of him, the one whose eerie stillness and shadow-cloaked face, forced another, louder, more savage growl from her. There was a power to the creature, palpable and alarming; it forced her to suddenly move before she realized it. Closing the distance between them suddenly, grey eyes flashing dangerously, she made to step between them. To shield Alan as he had shielded her, long ago.
Holding one arm out protectively to keep Alan back, she raked the fingers of the other through her short mess of black hair (now rain-matted) and stared fiercely at the thing threatening her friend.
“I think it would be best if you stepped off…”
It was his favorite part, that moment when the quickling came to the realization that there were other things in this universe than the paltry mundane beings whose hearts beat. That monsters were real, and sure the pure golden sunshine existed too.. but who really ever wants to doubt that? The smile began to form, so many weaving narratives to contemplate in those few moments. Again, how fleeting. The words came through, almost brushing his perfect lips, “Oh, but that is exactly what I must do.”
When the story, he had danced through so many times before, was cut short. Another intruder, much ruder than the first, and with such indignation. It was as if he was the one interrupting her night.
Firmly, with purpose, he stepped one foot back. Another. It took such effort, but he had to make a point. His hands came up to his face, his lips weaved from a grin into a smile and into laughter. His eyes almost beating, he scanned the scene before him as a playwright with a cast member who decided to adlib their lines. What to do next?
Another cigarette, another combustion, inhalation. Letting out a small sigh, never losing his smile.
“There were always rules. I followed them. For thousands of years.”
He was finding his footing, he began to slowly pace around them, his leather shoes splashing through the small puddles that had formed.
“One day, the big light above went out. And do you know what happens to lava when it gets far enough away from the heat that had produced it?”
Dragging out the words, between the soft pull of the fire and smoke. His being seemed to lose itself and repair, tentacles of darkness pulling at the foundations of his material form, at times he didn’t seem to have legs at all. The sound of the splash – gone.
“Well, Lucifer turned to stone.” A pause, as if he half expected that giant hand to push through the surface and expunge him “Everyone down there?” He pointed at the black top full of potholes and divots. “They are all fighting for control. No one is watching. No one has been in quite some time.”
He stopped abruptly, the hand holding the cigarette made its way to his chin. His eyes suddenly looking past them. “So I ask myself, when the dance begins. Why bother? Give you an offer, you accept – every human has a price, you have your fun, and then I tear you to pieces.” His eyes jutting towards them. Flames almost overtaking what corporeal form his eyes still exist in. Oh how he enjoyed that part. When it was his turn to take.
Then the smile. Reforming into material right before them. “Why not just skip the steps?” The cigarette butt dropped from his fingers. “Feed you to my thralls and end the dance?”
She was still standing in front of Alan when the thing began to circle—a move that forced her to circle, too. Seeking to protect her friend, she matched the demon’s movements (and by now, she was certain…this was no fellow vampire. This was no corrupted fae. It was something wholly worse). As if taking part in some perverse version of a dance, or a courtship ritual, she mirrored his pacing. The thing’s voice was silky, almost distressingly so, and she found it hard to concentrate when it spoke. Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, she scowled.
“Look, I don’t believe in God, let alone the fucking devil. Those are dusty mortal constructs. And I don’t know from what pit (she spat the word bitterly) you ascended, but you’re on the wrong block, now. This city is teeming with people desperate to make a deal. He—“ She jerked her thumb towards Alan, “—is mine. Not yours.”
Watching the way the shadows writhed and coiled around him, she suppressed a shudder. But she held steady. Her upper lip curled as he (and she was sure, now, that “it” was a “he”) continued the unbidden soliloquy. She’d begun to gently push Alan back, towards the safety of a building and the light it afforded, when the stranger suddenly materialized in front of them.
She gave her human charge a pointed look and wordlessly gave direction (“goddammit, Alan. Go! I’ll be fine”). Pulling tight her worn leather jacket and planting her feet, she looked straight into the twin flames that served as the demon’s eyes.
“Skip the steps? Utterly improper. What is it that you want? And don’t you dare say him…” she motioned with her head to the now-distant figure of Alan.
He stood. Stood and looked at her. She was undead, so perfectly undead. A Vampire, no less. He always wondered what it must be like, these creatures who dance between the mortal realm and the divine. – The utter gall, the utter gall, to interrupt his game. It was his game, his dance, his play. His fingers pulled at his lower lip as he pondered it, pondered this situation, pondered the predicament he was in. It was his duty to seek out the weak and give them momentary heaven for an eternity of damnation, and it was this damned creature who stopped it. They weren’t meant to. A vampire with a heart? He wondered how it would taste. The lifeless and cold heart, alive but not, sitting within her chest. Focus.
“Do you know how much paperwork comes with taking one of your kind?” Biting his lip now, as he shook his head, so full of hunger and lust for that sweet soul that had just slipped from his grasp “You’re basically part of a union. If I take you I have to deal with the repercussions as your Master passes a complaint onto their Master onto their Master” his fingers played with the numbers, as if trying to justify it in his head” and on and on to their Lord who then meets with the council and then calls in the Dukes who have to go over the protocol.” His fingers rubbing his forehead at this point, as he lets out another chuckle. “Then I would have to go to Rome and meet with the representatives..” he began to trail off. Stop. Focus.
Focus.
“However.” He steps forward, directly forward. “I cannot let this intrusion go unpunished. Whether you believe, or don’t.. And must I say how humorous I find it. Each and every time.” The pacing again, this time encompassing her and only her, slowly inching closer “Each predator thinks that they stand on the top of the food chain. Each predator in disbelief that something could hunt them.” His eyes probing her, his sight clinging to her as a spiders web to a fly. He could feel every muscle tensing in her body. He could feel her uncertainty, but she was lacking fear. The fear he desired. “So…” he stops, standing mere inches from her. Eye to eye “What to do with you, as you let that plump bag of blood and flesh go scampering off after he had so wet my appetite? A deal? No. You have no soul to trade.” So what to do with her? It hadn’t come up before. What to do when one of the magical beings stepped in to save a human? All of these eons…
Why do good if there is no reward? He could feel it. He had saved her. She felt indebted. How glorious.. this would be a new game.
The way he paced while reciting such “rules”—like he was some sort of preternatural office drone—forced a smile from her. And a genuine smile at that, not an expression meant to mask fear or make her appear bolder than she felt. It was funny, really, hearing a demon rattle off points of protocol.
She stiffened a little, though, at the mention of “Master.” It’s not like she’d had a proper one, anyway…and after a particularly…harsh…decade that’d pushed her to the breaking point, she’d not had one at all.
Watching the way he moved, she paused. Why did she feel both disarmed and alarmed? She wasn’t afraid…she was almost never afraid. She’d gone through too much, faced the certainty of death too many times (and had technically died, to be fair), had suffered for too long to be afraid of anything, really. But as his voice wound its way through her ears and around her brain like so much silky smoke, she knew that this—he—might be something worth feeling fear for.
Raking a hand through her hair and chewing momentarily on her bottom lip (with such unconscious ferocity she’d probably need another pair of rings), she furrowed her brow and drew a deep breath.
“That ‘plump bag of blood and flesh’ has a name. Not yours to speak. You forget about him, now. Him and everyone else in this neighborhood. You’ve got a city to hunt. These people are mine.”
She was angry, suddenly. Not amused. No one spoke about Alan in such inconsequential terms. When he drew close, though, her breath hitched in her throat. His eyes were blazing and…Jesus, she wanted to slap herself…she found herself unable to look away.
“No soul to trade?” She hissed, resisting the urge to grab his arm, “what’s a soul worth, anyway? Billions of people on this planet do things terrible enough to prove they’ve no soul to begin with. Maybe you need to adopt another currency, Mister…?”
He watched her, the anger growing inside her. Oh, those seven deadly sins. Which was hers? It wasn’t anger. Anyone could tell she wore it unnaturally, like a prostitute wearing a wedding dress on a street corner. No matter. He would find out soon enough. Was it as enjoyable to bring the undead into sin as much as a mortal? No. Though, he did sometimes revel in it. Mister? Mister. A smile. It was time to offer a deal, whether a soul or not, he would take. He always took. Though, as his lips began to move a strange taste washed over his tongue. Copper. Copper? A cleansing breath. No. There was no soapy input that could clean this momentary calamity. That perfectly sculpted unholy face crinkled up. It was blood. His mortal shell dropped to the ground, lifeless, as a curtain at the beginning of a play. Or, if one was so inclined, this was the end of the prelude. The hero enters.
The red was let away and replaced with black. Another smile. Did every villain smile? So many faces with so many pleasantries hiding so many vile acts. Bonded in tight leather, the vampire Agares stood before her. The small remnants, a hill, of the human possessed by a demon was all that stood between he and Talpa. The side of his blade held out toward her, coated in the residue of the demonic.
“Have you tasted Demon blood?” His green eyes flayed with the corpse like qualities of the undead. “The first time I tried it I was living with the Aghori in the crematory grounds of India. I’ve become quite the addict for it.”
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.