awakening

Was this Aurora’s brother’s way of getting rid of her boyfriend for good? Work him to death? Aurora had apparently put her brother onto Cory’s trail to stop him from finding out who his sister had really fallen in love with. At worst it was just going to be a temporary reprieve from an angry vampire trying to destroy him – probably in some manic Wile E. Coyote way, trying 50 different methods because, thankfully, he had no more idea how to kill a reaper than the coyote did Roadrunner. Their parents had bought a television because the neighbours had, never expecting that the only thing he and Sonny would ever want to watch on it were the cartoons. There hadn’t seemed a single thing educational about them at the time, but Damien wondered if they’d all just been preparation for the chaos of his life now.

Sonny had called, another cryptic little message offering up a location, but no explanation as to what he was walking into. Damien held up a finger at the soul he’d just deposited into some odd little heaven that looked an awful lot his parents’ basement. Boxes stacked almost up to the low ceiling. Maybe the guy had been a hoarder in his previous life? It’d been hard to tell from the lonely stretch of blacktop just outside of town he’d picked him up from. There’d been no car in sight, just the crumpled body, its limbs bent at angles that definitely weren’t natural.

”Hey pal, just make yourself at home, okay?” The man huffed about it, one meaty hand reaching out for him, but before it had a chance of grabbing him and stopping him. He wasn’t about to drag the guy back out with him by mistake, especially not for a meeting with his big brother.

Tile clicked under the heels of his boots as he turned, studying the dimly lit space. Counters lined the back wall, their glass partitions a giveaway. ”You wanna get any more on the nose about this?” he asked, calling out into the space that looked empty. Sonny hadn’t ever really been Mr Punctual, but over the years he’d always beaten him to these little meetings.

Shadows at the back shifted, his brother separating from them as he stepped forward with that now familiar smirk pulling at his lips and those all black eyes gleaming in a way that still left him a little sick. ”Felt appropriate. ‘specially since I might be goin’ away for a while.”

”Why?” Tension ratcheted through his system. Damien started towards the counter, disappearing for a moment so he wouldn’t have to crawl over the damn thing.

”You know why, it’s gettin’ too hot here. Somethin’s gonna get fried in the end and I’m makin’ sure it ain’t me. Look, soon as it cools off I’ll be back.”

Damien gritted his teeth and shook his head. ”That’s not meant to be our deal.” What kind of a fool made a deal with a demon anyway? Even as he was questioning his sanity for it, he felt that tug in his gut. Gritting his teeth, he tried to annoy it, but this was stronger than the usual pull, like Death was either gonna get him to go, or he was gonna tear his guts out for refusing. ”Do me a favour, wait a couple of days, if there’s something I can do to … just wait!” The last word snapped out as the tug came again and he vanished, not entirely out of his own choice.

If the last death scene had been grim, then this was the absolute opposite – other than the scent of blood in the air, of course. The apartment was plush, opulent, the rug the girl was laying on had probably cost as much as his parents’ house had done. Now it was stained with her blood, the knife sticking up out of her back still.

Hector. Again. Maybe that had been why the tug was so violent. This was repeat business. He’d been twice, if the it was the same for the others then Hector had probably reduced the local population by a tenth already. Instead of scooping and going, Damien appeared, his lips pressed together in a thin line. ”No thanks. I don’t think you need any more either,” he muttered dryly, his gaze cutting to the bottles. Hector was usually buttoned up tighter than a straight jacket, but this was sloppy.

He watched as Hector squatted, dragging the knife out of the girl’s back. Vampires weren’t always fastidious about the way they fed, but most had some sense at least. Licking the murder weapon – their version of licking their knife clean of gravy or butter, he guessed – was anything but. Damien grimaced, his gaze cutting past the soul. The girl was sat on the edge of the sofa, curled in around herself, her eyes squarely on the toes of her shoes instead of her own body. ”Why? So you can bring the next one over without having to worry about witnesses? You know it’d probably be easier if you just did it now, call it two birds with one stone. All this back and forth is tiring.” His frown cut deeper, his chin rising as he gestured to the body. ”I thought you were meant to be careful sort. Not bringing heat on yourself with piles of bodies. What kinda shit is this?” Maybe there’d be another tug in a minute, but someone else could pick up the damn slack. He was tired of this now, of having to continually dance in and out of murder central here.

Tagged: HECTOR DACRE * Word Count: 679

There were plenty of repeat customers in this town – the club probably being the worst of them – but for individuals, Hector probably had everybody else beat for now. The trouble at the club had never been solely his, although Damien suspected some scientist might’ve been able to match Hector’s fingerprints or fang marks to some of them. Every body he’d scooped up here had been though. It wasn’t like he’d been turning up here to find some party in progress – not one made up of live guests at least. It seemed to have been a steady rise, one he might not have noticed if it had been anybody else standing there over the bodies. How assholes got their kicks in their spare time was none of his business, but now that Hector’s bloody new habit was stopping him dealing with his own problems? This was an issue.

What was slowly pooling in the girl’s veins hadn’t been what he’d meant when he’d told Hector he didn’t need any more either, the asshole knew it too. Damien huffed out a breath, his lip curling before he glanced away. ”I thought you guys liked your dinner alive – or at least with a pulse.” Blood still seemed to be oozing from the woman on the floor, but the fact that he was here meant that it was too late for Hector to have someone fresh for dinner.

Pale eyes slid along the blade of the knife, following Hector’s fingertips. It felt almost like he was gonna be finger painting the walls next, creating some sort of bloody masterpiece. This whole thing was far more than just killing simply to feed, if it had been that, it would’ve been Hector’s fangs that had killed her, not the blade, and Hector probably wouldn’t have been half as hopped up about it as he seemed now, his gaze skittering around like he’d been using the booze to chase down uppers. The kid might’ve been a little more freaked out of if she had seen Hector go full vamp, but for now she was sitting there practically catatonic.

The laugh rolled wearily out of him as Damien looked back at Hector. He was usually quick when it came to figuring things out – he had been in the Strix after all – but now he seemed to be playing dumb, shrugging off the thought of how many people he’d killed lately. ”Don’t play dumb, it doesn’t suit you,” he drawled. Adjusting his glasses, Damien took a slow step towards Hector. ”Every time you kill a human one of us has to come for the soul. She’s not the first.” Hector probably had some sort of count going in his head, like notches on his bed post. Dark brows rose above the black plastic frames, humour tugging at his mouth. ”When I’m playing maid? Yeah, I’m keeping tabs.” It was a surprise Death wasn’t, although why things had never bothered him as much as the deaths being part of the natural order.

”Bullshit,” Damien said with a snort. He watched Hector instead of the blade, knowing which of the two was more dangerous. ”You don’t think I haven’t spent enough time around vampires to know you’re talking out of your ass. That’s not you. If it was you’d probably be dead by now.” They got away with all sorts of shit in Emerald City, but if Hector had always been like this, someone would’ve noticed by now and there were as many hunters in this town as there were vampires. ”Making it look like someone stabbed her’s careful? Right, because that’s gonna get less attention when she’s found than some sort of an animal attack. What the fuck’s wrong with you? Is this all because Tristan’s crawling up your ass?” Maybe he could see that. Irritation making him snap, although Hector had always seemed to float above that sort of show of emotion like he was walking on water.

Tagged: HECTOR DACRE * Word Count: 659