|
|
Fated Series - Through a Glass Darkly -- by Kismet
Rating: PG-13
Description: The Scooby Gang get an unexpected visitor, who gives Giles some insight onto the nature of vampires.
Disclaimer: This is a work of amateur fiction. All characters etc. are the property of their respective creators and no copyright infringement is intended. The author reserves rights over her work and storyline. Feel free to read and enjoy, though ! (Song lyrics by David Bowie for the movie soundtrack 'The Labyrinth')
"Why didn't you say who you were in the first place ?" Doyle said in exasperation.
Slitted eyes glared at him from across the room. "Why didn't you tell me that Angel was missing in the first place ?"
"I didn't know who you were, and I didn't think to trust you, which I still don't now !"
"Precisely." She smiled at him, baring her teeth so it resembled a tiger's snarl more than an expression of mirth.
"Hello ?" said Buffy. "You may all be one cosy little club, but there are people in the room who don't know what's going on ? Tell me again why we aren't staking this person here and how she knows Angel ? I seem to have missed the first handout in class."
"Smart-mouthed, isn't she ?" purred the girl. "Let me ask you question in return, princess. Why didn't you stake Angel instead of falling in love with him ?"
Buffy's mouth formed an 'o' of surprise. Angel had told her ?!
"And before you tell me about his being the 'Dark Avenger on the night-time streets', think about this." Taking a chair from the pair at the desk, she straddled it easily like a man, folding her hands on its back and resting her chin on it. "Unlike most of us, Angelus didn't kill to feed, he killed for fun. He had decades of 'fun' and tore his way through the world of his time like an open-mouthed scissors tears through newspaper, then he turns around, acquires a soul, and starts killing his kind for their killing to sate their hunger ?" Her throaty chuckle was cunning. "Angel is like a huntsman who, having had his fill of big-game trophies, turns around and starts shooting the hyenas and jackals for hunting for meat."
Channeling Joan Collins here, Buffy thought. Her hand itched to drive the stake through the vampiress' heart. "Come off it," she spat, eyes narrowing. "Blood bags do just as well. You like to kill and you don't regret it, unlike Angel."
Miaow ! thought Doyle.
"And why should I ?" The girl cocked her head, hair spilling over the back of the chair. The thick black paint around her eyes made her unsettlingly predatory. "I was made to cull the flock. Humans think that they're godlike enough that their deaths are an affront to Nature; well, I say no. Death is natural, and the blood must come from somewhere. Why the death of a pig and not Man, my natural prey ?"
"You'd compare a pig to a man ?" Willow choked out, shocked enough to put herself forward. "Man is more than a pig, that's why Man eats Pig !"
The black eyes flicked to her in amusement. "And in the same vein, pardon the pun, I am more than a Man."
Good one, thought Doyle in surprise. Then, wait, what the heck are you thinking, man ?
Willow's brows drew together as she tried to come up with an answer. "But...." was all she could say.
Giles had been standing enthralled all this time, and finally shook himself enough to say, "Tha..that's an extremely interesting viewpoint, Maya, was it ? But if that is all to your life philosophy I must...."
"We are not talking philosophy," Buffy said in a dire voice. "Philosophy is a course they offer at college." She glared at Maya. "Just who are you ?"
"One of the Last Children of the Millenium." That amused light flared in the black eyes, to be replaced by something akin to pride. "William the Bloody is my Sire. I am going to get him back even if it kills me, and it looks like you will be wanting to get Angel back as well."
"Oh. God." Xander closed his eyes. Otherwise, the silence was absolute as every eye focused on Buffy.
"When ?" Buffy asked in a strangled voice, turning to Doyle.
He looked around, at a loss. It was evident that no help was forthcoming.
"About half a year ago."
Buffy closed her eyes as her fingers clenched into fists at her sides. "I can't believe him !!!!!!!!!"The stake whizzed dangerously close to Giles and hit the door-panel, gouging a flake out of the polished wood before clattering to the ground. Without another word, the petite Slayer marched to the door and strode out, slamming it behind her.
"Buffy !" said Willow, running after her friend and dragging Cordelia with her, much to the brunette's consternation.
The vampiress looked around at the three men left in the room with a smile curving her lips. "I clearly upset someone. Not that it was unpleasant, quite the fucking contrary, but would someone tell me why ? Just so I can do it again."
The three men looked at each other.
"Not me," Xander said, putting his hands up. "I'm going to the john."
"Hey !" said Doyle.
"Sorry, when you gotta go, you gotta go."
"I think a headache is looming," began Giles, turning. "An aspirin would be...."
"Oh no you're not !" Doyle grabbed Giles by his sleeve. "You know more about Buffy's side of the story than I do, man, so sit down and face it !"
"Tell me what ?" Maya paused in the middle of lighting the cigarette.
"First, no breaking any furniture, or you're buyin' it back.."
"I can't believe him !" Buffy raged, walking at a fast clip. All the fury in her had to go somewhere !
"Would you, like, slow down ?" Cordelia complained. "These heels weren't made for running ! Anyway I don't see why you're acting all 'ugh'. After all, you both agreed it wouldn't work out, so what was he supposed to do, hang around pining for you the way Ang...oh." She stopped.
"He could at least have pined for a year," huffed Buffy. "Not too much when you're going to live forever and I'm going to cock up my toes in a few years, if I'm lucky. And I didn't go out looking for a new man..."
"What about Angel, and Parker, and Riley ?" Willow put in.
Buffy's glare could have sliced through a car.
"Spike's a pig," Willow said immediately. "He should be barbecued. Made into ham. Fried like...like bacon."
"And he couldn't have chosen some dumb bimbo like Harmony," Buffy seethed. "No, he had to go and choose someone so disgustingly wise-ass and tough-chick and...and....Did you see what she was wearing ? Who does she think she is ? All that leather and eyeliner and...."
"You know something ?" Cordelia said. "She reminds me of you, Buffy, which is so totally weird. I mean, who in their right mind would want two Buffys around ?"
"You know, I think Cordy's right !" said Willow excitedly. "Your hunk of salty goodness picked a Buffy-clone is what he did ! He must miss you," she concluded happily, linking arms with Buffy and Cordelia. "Right, Cordy ?"
"He did ? I mean, he did, yes, Willow's right."
Buffy scowled. "She's not like me ! For one thing she's really tall, huge, and she's got black hair. And she acts so much older......which Spike is," she finished glumly.
"How old do you think she is ?" Willow wanted to know.
Giles cleared his throat. "If you don't mind my asking, how old are you ?"
The leather-clad figure sitting hunkered over on the stairs shifted, cigarette smoke rising in disturbed swirls. Then she gave a half-laugh. "Is that how you try to start a conversation with a woman ? Fucking wonder your nose isn't broken." She did not sound angry, though, merely rather dispirited.
"Well," Giles hesitated before coming down the stairs. "The whole thing is rather unsettling, as is the frequent usage of expletives." He paused again when she laughed. "I...I was merely curious; I have never met any young person who was able to have thoughts and opinions on such a subject, much less elaborate on them so well."
"I had time to do a lot of thinking." She took a drag on the cigarette, moving over so he could sit beside her on the step. Giles did so gingerly, wondering what on earth he was doing sitting in the gloom with a vampire. Her exhaled breath was marked by a cloud of smoke. "I'm what my kind calls a cub; merely 23 human years, half a paltry year vampire years."
"I thought they called the fledglings minions."
"Those are the ones made for a lark." She bent over lithely, resting her elbows on her knees, long fingers dangling with the cigarette pinched between two fingers. "Fruits of one night stands, or made just to swell the ranks of a pack. Lucky for me, I was what you would call a favourite. If the pack-leader knows your name, you're a cub, which means you're a few levels above expendable."
"One night stands ?" Giles was fascinated despite himself. "You mean the act of siring is sexual ?"
She turned her head and regarded him with dry humour. "Look, for vampires, nearly everything is sexual." She put the cigarette to her lips again. "You're blushing. I can feel it."
"Well, er..."
"They don't have this kind of stuff in the Watcher journals, do they ? Let me explain." She inhaled the last dregs of the cigarette then pinched out the ember deliberately, not even flinching.
"First, you have to understand that we're lonely predators. We're above humans since the Change, and demons consider us of the lowest rank because we're too human for their taste, even though an average vampire can easily kick demon butt. And there is always that shell of aloneness, that sense of being a whole, cut off being which is re-enforced every time we feed. There is nothing more private than that act, that sole communion with the blood and only the blood. Forget all that Anne Rice shit you read, we don't swallow souls and memories. It's just one big fucking orgasm."
"Sexually, you feel this sensation ? Physically ?"
"That's about right, but its on a different plane. Another kind of sensation. The thing is that sex is intimacy, even if it is only physical intimacy. Physical sensation is intimacy. That's why the act of feeding is sometimes done along with sex, and when a siring occurs unless the vampire is in a hurry sex almost always is a part of the ritual. And violence. That confused me for while, but I think I understand now. We are, after all, demons. The demon assumes the mortal body and mortal habits, but underneath it all it is still a demon's soul that inhabits the body. Between vampires sex is often rough and focused on dominance which is basically what vampire society is all about."
"Like a wolf-pack."
"Right. Even when I was with Spike, he would mostly bite first. It's a sign of dominance, I think. I'll bet that if you examine most vampire relationships you'll find that the elder one always bites first. If feeding is like sex, siring is ten times what sex is for the Sire or Dam." She pulled out another cigarette. "You're blushing again. Virgin, are we ?"
"Not quite." Giles sat up straighter, adjusting his spectacles, a little annoyed.
"Just a guess."
"H...how did you accumulate all this information ? You haven't....sired anyone yet, have you ?"
"Not likely. I left LA incognito so some master wouldn't waylay me, and laid low. I'm not made for a pack." The lighter's dancing flame lit up her features for a moment. Jungle cat, thought Giles. That's what she reminds me of. But she was continuing, "It was a bit of a shock for me. LA vampire society was what I knew, but Outside taught me that LA is a bit...twisted. All the masters here are males still clinging to the values of the centuries in which they were born, and they keep an iron grip on things. Do you know what a Queen is ?"
He had heard of the term before. "It does sound familiar......wait, didn't Spike call Drucilla his Black Queen ?"
"Right again, Watcher." Then why did that spasm pass over her face ? "That's what we call a female who attaches herself to a male pack leader as a consort; which is basically the vampire equivalent of a mistress. The Masters of the City of Angels think that the highest position a female should hold is that of a queen." She hissed, blowing out a plume of smoke. "I didn't fucking get immortal life to be anyone's whore."
She's like Faith, Giles thought. That hard-edged, only without the brittleness. "You didn't answer my question, about siring."
Her smile was widely white in the dark. "I don't have to feel it myself to know that he's enjoying it."
Oddly he felt that her words scorned him, making him shift uncomfortably. "What you said to Buffy upstairs about Angel, what did you mean ?"
"Oh come on, don't tell me you haven't seen it yet, smart man like you ?" She chuckled deep in her throat. "Do you think Angel is out there Slaying because he's G. O. O. D ? Not a chance. He's doing it because he feels guilty, the way he suffers because he wants to wash away that guilt. It makes me wonder; maybe he's the most evil of all with his capacity for suffering. Even though with his soul he knows what suffering is like, the man still likes pain whether he's inflicting it on himself or some other poor bastard, Watcher. Mark that. It's a part of his psyche. And no matter how well he fights it, the demon is in the man."
"You do not approve of his trying to atone for past atrocities ? You think what Spike is doing is better ?"
She shrugged, rocking on her heels. "I don't dish out approval or disapproval, but I see Angel for what he is and not merely as a hero. Sure, he has a heavy load on his shoulders, but don't we all ? Spike knows what he is and he doesn't bother with ethics and morals. What he has is 'complete and utter disregard for social mores', and why shouldn't he ? Those rules don't apply to him any more."
"That doesn't give him the right to hurt and kill and destroy ! There are rules in this reality that apply to all of us, dead or living," Giles said angrily. "In..in my opinion, your views are fatally flawed on account of personal bias. You are cold, do you know that ? More inhumane than either your Sire or your Grandsire because you don't seem to feel at all !"
She laughed maddeningly, which so thoroughly disgusted and repelled Giles that he got up to leave, but she caught him by saying in a broken voice, "Then why do I care ? Why do I care that he loves them and not me ? Why am I so afraid that he might be hurt or worse ? I wish I could blame it on my soul, but I don't have one so it means my demon is grieving, and that frightens me more than anything."
It had to be the trembling in her tone, Giles convinced himself. It was why he found himself on the step, holding her as he would have held Buffy and stroking her hair.
"Why ?" She wept red tears all over his good shirt.
"It's a mystery," he said helplessly.
Angel's game-face snarled as he tried to toss his head and dislodge her but she stuck fast, gripping with iron-hard fingers and teeth sunk deep in his flesh. Drinking his blood, drinking him.
When the teeth withdrew they did so with such keenness that he felt the pain surround the two little wounds as if her canines had been brushed with poison. Her cool lips rested against his neck, her arms wound around him and her body fitted against his. She sighed, eyelashes fluttering lightly against his skin, coming slowly down from the heights his blood could bring her to.
"My Angelus," she sang softly in his ear, fingers sliding down his chest, unimpeded by the shreds she had made of his shirt. He stiffened in protest when her hand slid lower and she laughed in satisfaction as she caressed the bulge in his leather pants. "He wants me, he wants me not. He wants me, yes he does."
He clenched his teeth over his groan of shame as her fingers played. She was an expert in all the finer points of torture, both mental and physical as the crosses and knives on the table could attest to. She should be, she had learned from him.
He wanted to break her neck and stifle that mad, liltingly pretty voice forever, but he hardened and lengthened for her as she laughed her tinkling laugh.
"Look, if you know who took them you had better tell before I get really mad." Buffy crossed her arms over her chest to keep herself from reaching for the holy water. Maya drove her up the wall, more so than Xander on his worst day had ever done.
"Oooh, I'm terrified ! Watch me shake," said the girl perched on the desk, chain-smoking cigarettes. Buffy was beginning to find the smoke intolerable. "Stake me already."
Buffy's hands balled into fists. "There's nothing I would rather do, believe me."
Maya laughed around her cigarette. "Now I see why Spike liked playing with you. You're so tight-assed it's fun."
The Slayer's hazel eyes narrowed, just moments before she launched herself at the vampire.
"Buffy !" Xander caught hold of her, only to be cracked in the nose with a back-fist.
"Buffy !"screeched Cordelia, dropping her coffee mug. Buffy turned in horror, "Oh my God, Xander...."
"How many fingers am I holding up ?" Cordelia waved one digit in front of Xander's eyes from where he lay prone on the floor.
He blinked, shaking his head. "Three ?"
Maya burst out laughing, clutching her stomach.
"I'm going to..." Buffy growled.
"Help, Giles !" Maya called out. "She's going to scold me."
Giles put down his teaspoon and pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes. "Why is this beginning to feel familiar ?"
"Like Sire like Child ?" Willow suggested, looking up from her book. "Why won't she just tell Buffy ? The sun's almost down anyway."
"Maya !" Giles called warningly from the kitchen.
The vampiress heaved a dramatic sigh. "Headmaster calling." She stubbed out her cigarette and fished around in the pocket of her jacket for a while before tossing something to Buffy.
The Slayer caught it expertly between her fingers, glaring at Maya before turning the object around. It was a small business card, black and gold. 'Passionflower' was all it said on the front in curling script. In fine print on the back was an address and a telephone number.
"Her name's Elizabet de Bouvais." Maya's suddenly serious tone made Xander raise his head, clutching Cordelia's handkerchief to his nose. "She leads a pack." The vampiress glanced up as Giles entered the room soundlessly, with a cup of tea in his hand and Willow on his heels. Her slanting half-smile held no meaning for anyone other than the Watcher.
"Are you going to tell us the answer to the question 'why' ?" Giles said after a moment's silence.
Black eyes held his. "Mea culpa."
"Darling, how nice to see you." Spike's words dripped with sarcasm.
The light caught in Elizabet's hair as she moved towards the table with the mug of warmed blood. She stared at him in silence with those maddening grey eyes.
"Let me go, pet. I'll play your game if that's what it takes." Play it easy, mate. Not too much honey, just the right amount of bite. He raised one black eyebrow at her.
"What made you change your mind ?" She crossed her arms across her chest, damn her suspicious eyes !
He ground his teeth for a moment. "It gets pretty bloody boring staring at a basement wall all the time, not to mention standing in this position. Not that I'm complaining."
"And you would run with me ?" She walked around the table slowly, trailing her fingers over its surface. "Give up your freedom ? Be mine ?"
Sod off. "Better to give it a try than to spend the rest of eternity in here, innit ? But you'll have to agree to one thing, pet."
"And what would that be, cherie ?"
I'm a spineless wanker. A bloody pansy. "Angel goes free." And the ungrateful sod had better bring in the rescue corps or I'll try doing a bloody curse myself.
She laughed, dipping a finger in the blood and tracing it over her lips. The demon in him growled in hunger. It was not nearly enough. "What makes you think I am obligated in any way to do that ? What if I just staked the both of you here ?"
"Oh, you wouldn't do that, now would you, pet ?" This time his smile was real. "Do you want to know why ?" All dripping Brit charm, the charm that only rogues and true villains have.
"Tell me why." She came closer, her very tone sensual. The tang of the blood on her lips made his nostrils flare.
"It's not me for me you want, love. It's power, innit ? You get a kick out of holding two master vampires in the palm of your hand, you want to own us." He saw the light flare in her eyes and knew that he was right. "It makes you feel..." he deepened his voice, bringing it down low as she came nearer still, their eyes holding each other. "Feel like you have the power, doesn't it ? You are at the top and no one can stop you, not us, not any one. It's like drinking blood from another vampire, pet. Like draining Alistair Arren dry in the Ring." He stepped forward as far as the chains would let him, trying to incite her forward. It worked. "All that rushing power."
"I could drain you dry, right now, cherie." Her eyes had darkened, and she reached out and drew one finger down his chest, exerting pressure. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back as if in pleasure. And in truth, he knew this game. He had played it all the way to its delicious end with Drucilla. With the bitch who had betrayed him and torn out his heart.
He heard her unneccesary intake of breath as the nail gave way to the palm, then her hands were sliding up to his neck and he knew if he opened his eyes he would be looking down into hers.
"You won't, love. You want a willing surrender. You want to know you win on all levels. It's just the both of us now, pet. Our little fight and we'll see who ends up on top." He opened his eyes, and bent his head.
Grey eyes looked up at him for a moment as their lips touched. Then her eyelids fluttered closed as he deepened the kiss, tasting the blood. Now if only she would get him loose, then he would show her how the Fight was meant to be fought. He would paint the walls with her blood.
"I'm here to see Elizabet," the girl said to the bartender.
"I'm sorry, mademoiselle, but Elizabet is otherwise occupied tonight. If you would be so kind..."
Her hand shot out in a blur of motion, and before the man knew what was happening she had him bent painfully over the counter, its edge digging into his ribs as her hand twisted his bow tie in a choke-hold around his neck. He gagged as she spoke low in his ear. "I'm not kind."
His heel scrabbled desperately against the tiles as he fought in vain to right himself. Her companions had ringed themselves around her, blocking the view of the other patrons and he fought down panic.
"Oh, poor baby. Are you scared ?" she mocked. "If you can't get Elizabet then get one of her friends. You know who I'm talking about."
He coughed when the air rushed in again, and all but ran off.
"I didn't like doing that," Buffy muttered to Giles in the dim gloom of the club. "It's against the Handbook rules, isn't it ? Terrifying innocent citizens."
"Desperate times call for desperate measures."
"For a Watcher, you're funny."
"Thank you. I try."
"You do realise we're doing this to save two vampires ? One of which doesn't even have a soul ?"
A pause.
"Y..yes. Both of whom you have loved or whom you love. Would you rather we don't save them ?"
Another pause.
"You realise it's going to be hard to get Spike to drink only chateau le swine ?"
"I think he already considered that. And unlike the picture his overactive imagination painted, its not going to be chained in a bathtub drinking out of a novelty mug."
"Too bad. I kind of liked that scene. Kinky."
The man reappeared with a tall, rangy woman with a thick braid of tightly curling sandy hair. Vampire, Slayer senses screamed.
"Yes ?" Julietta's wary edge bled through even her flowing French-tinged voice. "What do you want ?" she asked Giles belligerently, unable to see Buffy who was behind him.
In answer, Giles moved silently aside.
Julietta's breath hissed between her teeth. "Slayer !" Her face shifted immediately, but the crossbow was already aimed at her heart.
"It so nice to see that I'm shooting up on the popularity scale," Buffy said. "One false move and I'll shoot. My trigger finger's been kind of itchy all week because it's been too long between slayings. You might move fast enough, but I don't think you want that kind of trouble in Elizabet's club, do you ? Especially since you have no where else to hide out in with prisoners and all."
The vampiress wavered visibly, hissing, fingers flexing at her sides. "You will not leave alive !"
"How much would you like to bet on it ?" Buffy tapped her finger against the trigger, making Julietta flinch. "I could kill you if I wanted to, but I'm not here for that. I have an offer for Elizabet."
"And that would be ?"
"Giles," Buffy motioned with a nod of her head.
Giles left through the front door, and moments later Doyle and Xander marched in, followed by Willow and Cordelia, surrounding a figure whose face was obscured by the updrawn hood of a bomber jacket.
Stepping aside, never taking the crossbow off Julietta, Buffy reached up and tore off the hood.
Maya snarled wildly at Julietta, struggling until Doyle held up a cross. She lapsed then, but her golden eyes burned as she spat, "I'll never go to her ! Do you hear me ? Never !"
"An exchange," said Buffy. "We know what Elizabet wants. We brought her, so give us Spike and Angel."
"Enough." Ayesha stood in the doorway, eyeing the scene before her. "The hour is up."
Drucilla bared her fangs with a proprietorial growl, her face and dress smeared with drying blood. The smell of it and the smell of singed flesh filled the room.
"He's mine !"
Disgust shivered down the statuesque woman's spine as she looked at the man who hung limply from his chains. The random cuts inflicted by the knives had already healed over, leaving faint white scars of varying clarity according to the depth of the cut, but the burns from holy water spread down one side of his torso, and lividly angry, the reddened, blistered imprint of a cross was emblazoned in the center of his upper chest.
He raised his head slowly and looked at her, and this time the shiver was not of disgust. His face was set, beaded with sweat, but there was such violence in the brown eyes that she could feel it reaching out to crush her.
"You can spend as much time as you want with him if you did not like to indulge in sick games," Ayesha strode into the room, "But Elizabet's orders are you can only have an hour with him if you do."
Drucilla's eyes shifted back to their black. "Is she going to stop us, Miss Edith, do you think ?" Her voice was childlike again, sweet. "We could kill her easily, couldn't we ?"
Ayesha did not think so. In age they would be almost the same. Even if the strange bloodline stemming from this Angelus gave the madwoman more strength, Ayesha would give her a good fight. Mark her for life, or cripple her. She had learnt that in the heat of the plantation towns of Martinique, where she had been born both to human and vampire life. Immortal or not, if Drucilla lost her looks, she would have to live with that for a long, long time.
She let her game face flicker forth as she stepped between Angel and Drucilla. "You're welcome to try me, cher. You think you know the laws of the wild ? I was born in a cane-field in Martinique, I fought with knives in the back-alleys and killed my first man at fifteen. And this was before I was turned. I've been into the depths of the swamps in Cajun country where the mud can suck you down if the gators and other things lurkin' in the dark don't get you first. Wild Creole blood, my Sire told me. Try me, cher. Do. I be spoiling for a good fight." She took a step forward as Drucilla took a hesitant step back, still insecure from the memories of her weakened years after Prague. "And even if you do kill me, cher, be sure the pack won't let you live for long. Blood ties, family ties the way you wouldn't understand."
Drucilla twined a dark lock around her finger. She began to hum out of tune as she picked up Miss Edith with a light laugh and turned a circle tiptoe, making her dress flare out around her. "Hush hush hush, my sweeting. Hush, we'll sleep now. But we'll be back. We'll be back to play again. Hush hush hush." She slipped out of the door, singing a lullaby to the doll she rocked in her arms as lovingly as if it was a child.
Ayesha's hackles didn't go down till the last of her crazy song melted away. Then she turned to eye the paraphernalia on the table. With a shudder of distaste, she used a cloth to pick up the cross and toss it into the coarse sack.
"Why did you stop her ?" Angel said raggedly.
"My orders said the one hour visitin' time was up." Without looking at him, she began gathering up the rest of the items. "Looks like you didn't get any of that, did you ?" she gestured to the mug full of congealing blood.
His laugh turned to a cough. "She bled me."
Dark brown eyes flashed over him. "Took rather a lot, if you ask me." She threw the last knife into the sack and put her hands on her hips, considering him. "I could get that warmed up if you want."
Angel looked at her in disbelief. "Why would you bother ? I'm your prisoner."
She shrugged. "I have nothing against you, and unlike some, I don't find carving up others fun."
The way I used to find it fun, he thought. The red blood, the screams, the pretty patterns I could make on skin as they begged... "Yet you kill humans, don't you ? That's human blood in that mug."
"Don't you be lecturing me on morals." She turned to him with a scornful smile. "Not from where you're hanging. At least I know my own mind, which you don't. Fighting crime to ease your pain, aren't you ? You kill your own and demons because you like to kill and they're the only kind your conscience will let you kill. I know what I am. I don't kill fellow vampires if I don't need to, the same reason I'm going to take that mug, fill it with something warm and feed you, cher. You're my kind, it's got to count for something."
Once, her words would have caused him an agony of doubt, but he wasn't fighting because of guilt. He was fighting because he was as much under orders as she was, as a soldier of Light under the command of the Powers-That-Be. But sometimes a higher calling didn't help with the grey areas, like her kindness.
He let his head drop, the weakness washing over him as the pain rippled up and down his chest. "Thank you."
Tell the author what you think: