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wl_fanfiction2009-07-03 03:16 pm
pdglyph.livejournal.com) wrote in wl_fanfiction2009-07-03 03:16 pm
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Private I Vampyre: Ch 14/ 24
Chapter 14
I was angry and I think that everyone walking past me knew it. I was most definitely broadcasting the ‘leave me be’ vibration. On all damn frequencies. Even the evils of the streets stronger than the regular muggers and such, the succubi trawling disguised as hookers, shrank away from me as I passed.
I sneered at them in my head, my eyes fixed firmly ahead of me, trying to walk off this sudden and passionate hatred of everything and anything that moved, breathed, or simply existed. I couldn’t do a single thing right, and now even my demonic lover was worried about me! Worried! Couldn’t I just have a simple relationship with anyone?
“Mochrie!” I heard my name and whirled about, searching for the intruder. It was Delilah, sitting in a little café, a small book in front of her.
I frowned, wondering how on earth a café still survived when I looked around and noticed I was in the rich district where people could still afford to spend money. Very polite policemen forcibly ejected any bums. “Delilah?” I asked, coming over to the small, fancy wrought-iron fence that separated the café’s out of doors area from the rest of the sidewalk. “What are you doing here?”
She smiled that smile with just her eyes. “Enjoying the night life. Come. Sit with one and enjoy some coffee.” She motioned to the chair across from her with a doe-skin glove dyed to match her fur-lined leather coat, all in soft browns, complimenting her earthy tones to perfection.
I shook my head, looking away. “I can’t I have… uh, stuff…” She only raised an eyebrow, and I shrugged and hopped the railing in as dignified a manner as I could and sat in the chair opposite her. Reluctantly.
“So, dear Mr. Mochrie, will you tell one what’s wrong, or must one ask in a straightforward and very rude manner?” She sipped her steaming cup of expensive coffee, watching me over the rim with those large, liquid eyes.
I snorted ruefully, shaking my head as a waiter hurried forward with a menu. “What makes you say something’s wrong? Other than the facts you already know?”
She set her cup down and moved my hand so it was palm up, removing a glove and touching a fingertip to my index fingertip. “You’re empty… in your heart. Empty of joy but filled with lust and anger. A great deal of anger…”
I blinked at her. “You’re psychic?”
“One has only small gifts,” she said dismissively, continuing to peruse my palm. “Hold your other one out please.”
I did, feeling vaguely silly as she continued only that small amount of contact. She cocked her head. “You think he hates you?”
I didn’t even ask who ‘he’ was. “I know he does…” I said tightly.
She nodded. “Yes… His eyes… But he doesn’t hate you. He doesn’t understand, Colin…” she looked up at me. I blinked. “You must help him understand what you are. Soon. Now if at all possible, because if you continue as you are you will loose everything you’ve ever loved or will love very, very quickly.”
I swallowed hard. “And just how the hell am I supposed to do that?” She gave me a stern look that made me duck my head sheepishly. “Sorry.”
She sighed, leaning back and removing her hand. “One cannot say…”
I sighed. Of course she couldn’t. I rested my chin on my palm, watching the ebb and flow of people as they moved about their lives. I suppose to them, none of it mattered anymore. They were so fixated on surviving now they’d forgotten what it was like to live. I watched men and women, once walking, chatting, laughing gaily about nothing in particular. Now everything was gray. It lacked color and life.
And here I was, doing the same thing… except I didn’t give a damn about surviving. I didn’t give a damn about anything and it was hell. I felt like I was slowly rotting to death and I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do a thing to stop it. Apparently, though… I could. I glanced at Delilah, calmly sipping her coffee, watching the people with me.
I rose suddenly. “Delilah…”
She nodded, eyes smiling up at me from behind the steaming coffee. “Do you wish for company?”
“No…” I shook my head, clapping my hat back on my head and leaning down to kiss her gloved hand. “Thank you very much…”
“One is happy to serve.”
“Or to save?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. She raised hers in mild surprise, then smiled, eyes to the floor. Her version of a demure blush.
“Go…” she said quietly, dismissing me by turning back to her book. I hopped the railing with a tight grin and hurried out for a taxi. My grin slipped off as we made our way through traffic, but I was filled with determination. I needed Ryan… I needed him bad, and for once in my life I was going to fight for what I needed instead of what others needed of me.
I tried to feel a little selfish, because it sounded selfish to me, but I couldn’t. Not if it meant proving to him that it was him I needed beyond all others.
I hoped he’d appreciate that. I prayed he’d forgive me.
And I prayed that God was listening to me.
Ryan’s bar was dark, with no light showing round the wood over the glass. But upstairs, that was a different matter. There were lights shining, and I saw several figures moving about inside. I sighed, rubbing my neck and gathering my courage. I wished I could still get drunk.
I rang the buzzer for his upstairs and heard the upstairs window open. “Who is it?” It sounded like Karen, but younger, the accent thicker. I stepped away from the door to peer up. It was that girl from the shop all those years ago, Karen’s little sister. She was 16 now, I suppose, or near enough to it. She hadn’t been afraid of me back then, and she didn’t look it now. In fact she was grinning down at me.
She turned back and shouted something behind her before jerking her head towards the back door. “Come in, White Ghost.”
I frowned as she pulled her head back in. Odd bird, that one. And why the hell was she here? I shrugged and went in through the back door, trying to settle my clothes, which suddenly didn’t fit quite right, especially around my neck…
I made my way up the stairs, hearing the familiar creaks, smelling the familiar scents. I felt my eyes sting but pushed it away immediately. I had to say my piece first before I left, was thrown out, or burst into tears, whichever came first. The upstairs landing door opened and two faces beamed down at me. Karen and her younger sister, smiling down at me with wicked little smiles. “Hi Karen,” I tried to smile, but it slipped off to join my sheepish gaze at the floor. “May I come in, I got to, um… I gotta talk to him…”
Their grins slipped a few notches and Karen’s gaze saddened. They stepped back, letting me into the hallway to Ryan’s apartments. “He’s a wreck, pretty much. He tries not to let it show when he’s around us or Chip, but you can always tell. And he spends more and more time in bed…” Karen sighed. I nodded, then glanced from her sister to her. “You remember Emily, don’t you?”
I smiled my fake charming smile, more out of reflex than anything else, and offered my hand. She shook it heartily. “Of course I do. She wasn’t afraid of me.”
Emily’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped. “How did you know I wasn’t afraid?” she asked.
I gave a weak blush. “I just did…”
“Wow…” Her adoration was making me nervous, so I shifted the topic as quickly as I could.
“Why’re you both here? I’d have thought you’d both move back home to help your family.”
They both looked a little uneasy, but where Karen looked at the floor, embarrassed, Emily’s gaze hardened minutely as she stared defiantly back at me. “Our family was slowly starving, they didn’t have enough food to support all of us. Girls aren’t as valuable as sons in our culture.”
Karen hissed at her before stepping in to smooth out the faux pas her sister had just placed on her family’s name. “My family decided that Emily was old enough to go out on her own, so I came and got her so we could both work for Ryan. I mean, Mr. Stiles.” She chewed her lip, darting a glance towards Ryan’s door. “Wake him up Colin. He’s in a nightmare, and you have got to wake him up…” she said softly, but urgently.
I crushed my hat in my hand a little, then slapped it against my thigh, unable to meet her desperate stare. “It’s my fault he’s like this in the first place, Karen…”
“I know,” she said, her voice hard, but she then sighed. “Just fix it.”
I nodded, standing up tall, squaring my shoulders and releasing the breath I didn’t know I was holding and faced the door.
The inside of Ryan’s apartment had changed since I’d last seen it. The shelves he’d put up in an effort to make it look more homey had been torn down, only to be righted once more, a little damaged so that they sagged a bit to the right. Unable to take anything heavy on them, Ryan’s books and his treasured knick-knacks were arranged in piles here and there on the floor. The Japanese miniature screen I’d bought him was in a bin holding broken things, its delicate, painted paper torn, the dancing dragons bloodlessly eviscerated.
I picked it up, pricking my finger on a bit of glass. I sucked the cut until it sealed, studying the little screen. A small smudge in the ink made me frown, and as I looked closer I could tell it was a tearstain. I felt my eyes sting again, my vision blurring, when movements behind me made me freeze. I scented the air. “Ryan…” I sighed, continuing to study the sad little trinket in my hands.
“Why are you here, Mochrie?”
I flinched a little at the harsh quality of his voice. So tired and angry and sad and none of it directed, leaving it to run wild and take him over. I cleared my throat. “I came… to, um… to talk…” I set the little screen down after bending the wood more or less back into place. I turned and faced him, a little taken aback at how old he looked. I hadn’t been away that long, had I? No… I’d seen him just the night before, but it looked like years… His hair was uncut, he had a rough growth on his chin, and there were dark circles beneath his eyes.
He snorted softly, crossing his arms over his unwashed shirts. He smelled of sorrow and sickness.
The dark thing in me coiled in pleasure and disgust for him, but I squashed it, locking it so deeply and so tightly away inside of me I was almost convinced it would never surface again. A pretty thought. I blinked to see that he was looking at me with almost concern. I noticed I was leaning heavily against the table and I straightened up, blushing faintly, looking anywhere but at him. “I… I need you Ryan.” I said, and felt my face flame at the words, but I plowed on gamely. “I made the worst mistake in my life, and… and I don’t know why, there’s no excuse I can give that will ever be good enough, but I need you…” It had come out in a rush, my throat tightening as I went along and my eyes stinging once again with those damn tears.
He just stared at me, his face like stone.
“I’m loosing my mind… fighting… this thing inside of me. I’m loosing the battle because the only thing in my life worth fighting for… is you.” There, I said it. I finally looked at him steadily, eyes wide to keep the tears held back.
“Jeff came over…” Ryan said softly. The change in topic was a little too fast for me and I frowned, my confusion overriding my sadness just a little. “Not too long ago. I think right after I saw you… kill those… things.” His eyes darted at me but skittered quickly away. He continued to move, giving me wide berth as he neared the door. “He told me what you are… what you’re fighting… what you’re going through… but I still can’t see you as anything else but a monster, Col,” he sounded like he was pleading.
I blinked, looking down at my hands.
“You are a monster… and I don’t think a human like me could do anything for you… I think it’d be stupid to even try, because… you can’t control what you are,” he sighed raggedly, his throat closing. I smelled his tears, even as my own spilled down my cheeks as I squeezed my eyes tightly shut. “I forgive you for… Greg. But I can’t forgive you for being a monster… I just can’t…” He sounded so helpless.
I sighed, looking behind me and picking up the little screen I’d almost fixed. I crushed it and tossed it back into the bin.
He hugged himself tightly, eyes red-rimmed and shining. “I’m sorry Col…”
I picked up my hat, whacking it on my leg, an old habit of mine. I looked at him, felt my face twist a little, but I stamped that, too. “You don’t get to call me that anymore, Mr. Stiles…” and I left.
What else could I do?
“Please don’t-” Ryan began, coming after me as I made my way downstairs.
I turned back to him, and it must’ve startled him because he backed into the door with a pained yelp as the doorknob made contact with his back. “‘Please don’t’ nothing! You think I chose to be like this? You think I decided I wanted to be something that my most trusted friend… my… the one I loved most… You think I wanted to be something that not even you can forgive me for?” He looked away, lips pressed tightly together. I scowled. “He loves me… Greg? He loves me. I know because I tasted him while I was pining for you.” Ryan glared down at me, finally angry. Fuck him, I didn’t care.
“He doesn’t see you as a monster because he’s one, too,” Ryan spat.
“He’s human!” I cried, stomping up the steps to yell the words in Ryan’s face. “He knows I could tear him to shreds on a whim, and I frighten him to death sometimes, but he sticks with me! And God how I wish he were you with all the pieces I have left of my heart and soul…” I finished softly. He stared at me, mouth agape. “Because there’s no one on this Earth or in any other plane of existence I’d rather spend my days with… No one but you Ryan…”
“But…” he swallowed hard, “what about Greg?”
“I don’t love him…” I said quietly, feeling abnormally at peace, for the first time in a long time. “I need him… but I don’t love him.” Like I love you. And I was done. I’d said all I could, and Ryan wasn’t saying anything as he looked away, staring at some distant point in space as tears dripped down his weathered cheeks and into his grizzled beard.
I brushed past Karen and Emily, who called after me, Chip by their side. He stared at me with guarded, angry eyes. I couldn’t blame him. If anyone had done this to my cousin, I’d have probably left them a nasty surprise on their doorstep.
Outside, I breathed deeply, trying to catch my breath, hiccupping softly as I sniffed, trying to stop the tears. I blindly walked away from the bar, trying to ignore Emily’s eyes on me as I left. “What do you want?” I asked softly.
Delilah came from by the door way and sighed as I slowed down so she could walk comfortably alongside me. “One had a feeling one would be needed here, despite your decline of the offer to accompany you.” She glanced at me sideways. “One is tardy once again…”
“No… There’s nothing you could’ve done,” I said miserably. I stopped abruptly. “Why doesn’t he love me anymore?” I begged. “Tell me why!”
She looked stricken and cupped my face as I wept openly, dissolving into hysteria. Right now it felt pretty damn good. I was tired of always having to be so in control, of being in charge. I wanted someone to take care of me for once. She held me tightly and I buried my face in the long brown hair left down and free to float about her. It smelled of cardamom and cedar and the slightly dusky smell of cats. “One has no answers for you my love…” she whispered. “No answers from anyone now, because he does love you… He does so much he’s tearing himself apart for love of you…”
“Then… why?” I sniffed.
“One does not know…” she said softly, her warm fingertips running through my fringe of hair, stroking it. Dimly, slowly, I began to realize that she was purring gently, a deep and soothing rumble that I could easily fall into. I held her tightly wishing so much for answers to my questions, wishing that someone would save me from myself and from this god-awful ache of useless love.
Then she stiffened slightly. “What is it?” I whispered.
She nuzzled my neck before whispering back, lips brushing my ear. “We’re being hunted right now…”
“Human?” I returned her nuzzlings, scanning the Zones as best I could, but with my inner eyes half closed, I wasn’t her caliber in anything, so my hunt was meager at best. All thoughts of broken hearts and wasted emotions were driven from my mind as it turned to what it did best, work. Well, that and surviving.
“No… vampire… and a demon.”
“Shit,” I cursed, shifting slightly as she pulled back and smiled with just those eyes again. “What should we do?”
She cocked her head, “Follow me…” and she tugged me towards a darkened alleyway but I tugged back. We couldn’t go there, they’d kill us for sure! She pulled me forward and pressed her full lips to mine. “Trust is essential between allies, Mochrie,” she purred at my mouth.
I raised an eyebrow but kissed her back, fighting the urge to slip my fangs out. She turned us and pressed me against a nearby car, taking the lead with all of her usual grace and elegance while I tried to make us look like a necking couple. I had to admit she was delicious, and I hadn’t enjoyed a woman in quite a while. But after a moment, I heard our hunters, one with a strong stride and the other with an uneven, shuffling gait, and I spun us, pressing her against the car and leaning down to mouth at her neck. “Close…” I whispered.
She moaned softly, and it raised the hairs on the back of my neck, even if she was faking it for our stalker’s benefit. She slipped a hand beneath my coat, clicking off the strap to my gun and pulling it out of the holster slowly as she tilted her head back for me, giving me better access to the graceful, pale cocoa arch of flesh. God she tasted good.
Then… “What the fuck is this?” I heard his voice, high and angry, and I heard our hunters freeze, assessing this new problem. I groaned.
“Ryan…” I sighed, turning to see him striding towards us angrily, his face positively thunderous.
“You come to me, talking about love and shit like that, then you turn around and two-time me right off the fucking bat? With a fucking woman?”
“Ryan, please!” I hissed, trying to stop him, “Go back-” I heard the scuffle of feet running fast towards us, and Ryan used the distraction to get the better of me.
“You fucking asshole,” he growled, jerking me away from Delilah, revealing her hand holding the gun. He had a moment to frown when the vampire and demon screamed into view, launching themselves at us. Ryan ducked out of the way with some help from myself as Delilah fired point blank into the demon’s face.
Well… I think it was a face. The thing looked like it’d been cobbled together from bits of homeless people and the cobbler didn’t know how to preserve the bits. Hopefully my all-purpose bullets would work on him.
He crumpled, slamming into the car and putting a good sized dent in it with a small hole in his face and the back half of his head missing. I smelled and heard the sound of cooking flesh, and gagged as it writhed and tried to shriek through a ruined face.
Then the vampire hit me. We were sent tumbling over the hood of the car, and I heard the gun fire two more times to polish off the demon before a line of fire went down my cheek and a hot wet line trickled down my face. I snarled, backhanding the guy as I sat up on his legs. “Hold him Mochrie,” Delilah said softly.
She deliberately shot off both of his knees and then, when his screaming had dropped to a soft mewl, peered down at him from around my shoulders. “Who sent you?”
He only whimpered, gurgling unhappily.
“You’re going to die. The bullets were filled with silver shavings, holy water and…” she sniffed. “Garlic?” This last was aimed at me. I shrugged. “Your limbs will slowly and agonizingly rot, but you won’t die until it reaches your heart, though that will take some time, too.” I blinked at her, surprised by this sudden, serene malevolence radiating from her. “Now tell me who hired you and I’ll end it quickly…” she whispered softly, caressing the side of his face.
He whimpered again, jerking away from her soft touch. “I can’t… can’t…” He let out a scream and nearly bucked me off.
“Who hired you to kill Mochrie?” she demanded quietly.
His wide glassy eyes blinked at her, utterly terrified. “Had to take him out…” he screamed suddenly, and I got off his legs, for some odd reason not wanting to hurt him anymore. It looked like sheer agony. “To get to the demon… get rid of the demon…” He whispered before crying out.
“Who hired you?!” she yelled, bringing her heel down on the remnants of one of his knees. He screamed hoarsely, trying to buck away from her, which only brought her heel down harder on him. It was like watching a cat bat a mouse around for fun before it bit its head off.
“Won’t… he’ll punish me…”
“You’re already dead, dear boy,” she snarled, twisting her heel.
“Stop!” I pushed her foot off of him. “Stop it, just stop…” I suddenly felt like I’d vomit and I reached out to brush his hair from his sweating, clammy face. “Obviously whoever hired him is a fate worse than death, and that narrows it down. If they can hurt him even after he’s dead, then it must be someone on one of the other planes.”
“Which narrows it down by nothing,” she snapped. “There are still too many players in this game and he knows who is behind this hit, and possibly who’s behind the war.”
“The war…” I blinked, confused. “But that’s a human thing…”
“Those human beasts knew where we nested, knew exactly where to look. This war is not human in origin. Someone is not playing by the rules anymore. If torturing him helps me get a step closer to avenging my beloved daughter then by the Gods I will keep him alive for an eternity!” she screamed. Her eyes had bled yellow and her face had begun to push out, her nails sharpening and lengthening to talons. She reeked of rage and grief and I realized I didn’t know this woman at all.
But I believed what she said about the kid I was comforting, the one who’d been sent to kill me. I looked down at him and he believed her, too. “I never learned his name…” he choked out. “He never told… us… just sent me out… with one of his brothers… ‘Kill the White Ghost, then kill the old demon’… Said to give Mochrie a little present from an old pal,” he grunted, reaching into his pocket with shaking hands.
He gave it to me, and just as I got a good look at it, I heard Delilah softly say, “Thank you,” and my gun went off once more, turning the guy’s face into red jelly.
“Delilah, what have you done?” I yelled, scrambling away from the body as it shuddered its last.
“What I promised to do,” she reasoned. “If I hadn’t he would have rotted, alive, until it claimed either his head or his heart. Not a pleasant way to die, Mochrie.” She handed me back my gun, and I had it holstered before I realized that Ryan was still with us.
“Ry?” I asked softly. He was crumpled by the wall. Shit. I hurried over, patting his cheek. He was still alive, thank god, and he was coming around. “You okay?”
“Y’shoved me into the wall y’bastard,” he mumbled, wincing at his pounding head.
“You gonna be okay?” I asked, sighing with relief.
“Once the bleeding in my brain stops,” he grumped. I grinned before frowning. I helped him to his feet and let him acclimate as I watched Delilah shove the bodies into the alleyway. Well, she kind of kicked at the demon, whose body had started coming apart at the seams now that the magic holding it together had gone back to where it’d come from.
She glanced over at me and sighed. “What?”
“You never told me…”
She pressed her lips thinly together before looking up at me, once more composed, strong and as she’d been before I’d seen her carefully crafted mask slip just a bit. “It’s not something one enjoys discussing.”
I nodded, turning to the thing in my hand. It was a little box, black lacquered and lovely. I frowned, opening it cautiously. Inside was what looked like a finger bone. I picked it up, letting it roll around on my palm. It wasn’t fresh, but finely polished, with little symbols burnt into it. It also felt heavier than it should have. “Delilah, do you know what this thing is?” I asked, turning to show it to her. “Feels heavier than it should…” She glanced, then snarled, moving in a blur of speed, swatting it from my hand. I heard a soft metallic click, and heard her curse in pain.
I blinked to find her clutching her hand, face twisted in pain. The bone had been hiding a silver spike in it. That’s why it’d been so heavy. The spike had been fired, and would’ve gone directly into my heart had she not swatted it from me.
She dropped to her knees, moaning in pain, and Ryan stumbled over to us, his questions mimicking my own as a rising sense of panic flooded my brain. “What is it, what’s wrong?”
“Come on Delilah, it’s just in your hand, pull it out!” I said, reaching out to do it for her.
A soft fragrance, heavy and thick became to emanate from her hand. It began to smell like rotting things… burnt, rotting meat. She showed me her hand. “Enchanted silver… melting… kills faster…” her lovely hand was rotting from the inside out.
I paled and Ryan nearly fell over as his hand slipped off the car hood next to us. I swallowed my fear and grit my teeth. “What do you need?”
She growled, baring her teeth and hissing as sweat began to bead from her face. “Safe place… to change…”
“Change?” Ryan asked.
I paled again. Twice in one night, whattaya know. “Ryan, we need to use your bar.”
The only thing about this night that was good was that even if someone nearby had heard the gunshots and cared about them, they wouldn’t call the cops. Sometimes, living in a depression made life easier.
Ahhhhhhhhhh!
AND (final bit I promise) does it show that Colin's fighting the demon part of him cos if he wasn't then when she was torturing the vampire then he would've joined in (and prob do worse) instead of getting Delilah to stop. Hmmm..................
Must read more (hint hint :P)
Re: Ahhhhhhhhhh!
Hint taken, no worried :D
Ditto Ahhhhhhhhhh!
In other words.... nice story.
Re: Ditto Ahhhhhhhhhh!
Did you decide to eat the Grandeloquent Dictionary instead of your Wheaties today? PD, Giver of Bandaids. I think that's healthy :D
Cheers