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breezeshadow) wrote2012-03-31 05:25 pm
breezeshadow) wrote2012-03-31 05:25 pm
Entry tags:
Rogue Vampire Part II
In which Mahli saves a town, and finds the other sentient inhabitant of the private zoo.
He found the town to be eerily quiet, but then he hoped most people were sleeping by that point. He could follow the emotions of those awake, though -- pure fear and horror slammed into his mind, disorienting him for a moment, along with the pulsating excitement, rage, glee coming from the vampire. He wished he had the instinctive ability to shut it all off; instead he had to take a few deep breaths, quiet the clamor entering his mind, and move forward.
With telepathy he sped up his walk, following the fear and the rage. And then finally, through the gloom, he saw someone running. Blood was pouring from a wound on their leg, and it caused them to stumble in their flee, the leg far too stiff and unresponsive.
Right behind the person, he finally saw it, and in an instant teleported the person back behind him, hearing the person moan and collapse from the dizziness. The vampire leapt into air just where his prey had been a moment before.
Mahli's stomach dropped at the sight.
He had known a few vampires before; Nur perhaps had the worst scars that he had seen, half of her face reduced to twisted burnt remnants, the ugly knots trailing down and disappearing under whatever clothes she had thrown on that day. Those scars were nothing compared to the vampire that stared at him, scenting the air. He could count every rib on its frail body, see every ridge of its spine, the shape of its skull under its skin. The tips of its wings had been reduced to knubs, many of them covered in scabs, and the edges of the membrane were torn. Its fingers and toes were missing most of their tips, the bone barely covered by whatever scar tissue remained; it made the vampire's claws look much larger and more gruesome. There was no fur on the last inch or two of its tail, which looked like it had been gnawed at.
And it was covered in blood and tissue. Red had sprayed down the vampire's throat and chest, human skin and clothing still clung to its claws, a few stray pieces of muscle clinging to the thick fur of its tail. It bared his fangs at them; they were slick with blood, still dripping with it.
And its eyes were much too large for its face, and absolutely wild. He knew what he looked like to it -- easy prey, far too easy, but in the way of the better prizes.
Suddenly it pounced; Mahli threw himself at its mind and squeezed at it. The vampire cried out and crashed to the ground, wings twitching madly in an attempt to cover its fall. For a few moments it screamed angrily; and then, with an enraged shove it broke free of the hold, rolling onto its feet, spreading its wings, and lunching at him, fangs bared.
It shouldn't have been able to do that; he could feel how painful it had been to snap free, and yet the vampire did not seem perturbed, did not seem to notice any pain at all. He could almost feel the humanoid's brain throbbing from the effort. He could also sense, however, that the pain was nothing -- just another part of its life, something to push through, something that didn't matter anymore--
He teleported out of the way, letting his attacker hit air; the human who had just started to limp away yelled out in fright, staggering backward and falling. The vampire hissed at him, blood spraying from his lips. Mahli gritted his teeth against the headache and pushed the vampire aside; it snarled in surprise and pain as it tumbled over, but only a few feet, not nearly enough distance to let the man get free. He could feel fear paralyzing the other human's mind, leaving him hyperventilating and whimpering frantically.
A gunshot fired and blew straight through one of the vampire's outstretched wings as it rose; it did not seem to notice and instead launched at its prey. Mahli took a deep breath, pulled forth, and slammed into the vampire's mind, pushing straight into it, trying to get as immersed as he could. He watched as the humanoid dropped like a stone and began to thrash frantically, hissing and spitting, knocking dirt and rocks around, screaming.
And then it fought back. Mahli winced at the tainted mind that scratched back at him, trying to break him free, rip apart the connection, leave him a mindless heap on the floor. It had a strength no vampire he had encountered had, though he had heard about the rumours; supposedly a vampire without a network was near unstoppable, its telepathy outperforming even the strongest humans, able to blow out windows, sometimes entire rooms.
Mahli was the most powerful telepath anyone he had talked to had heard of; usually controlling someone else's mind was just a little prick of the eyes, not something he enjoyed doing but certainly not incredibly difficult. Trying to still the rogue vampire, however, was what he thought wrestling a leopard must feel like. He closed his eyes as his vision began to dance and seemed to spark, grip tightening on his cane.
Then another shot rang out and he cried out at the pain that suddenly slammed into him. Instinctively he started to pull back, then remembered what would happen if he did, and pushed back at the vampire's mind. There was not nearly as much struggle left in it, though; instead it held pain and panic, a lack of concern about him trying to paralyze it anymore. Within a few moments the struggle against him had stopped, and all he felt was a frantic frustration and fear.
He kept a base hold on the humanoid as he pulled free, head throbbing; with a groan he opened his eyes. The vampire was sprawled on the ground, blood leaking from a shot to the lower shoulder; its screaming had been reduced to frantic whimpering as its eyes darted all over the place, body trembling madly. He looked over to find two guards approaching, one running to assist the injured man, the other frowning at the vampire, gun pointed at it uncertainly.
"I would be cautious about killing it." His voice was hoarse, throat dry; the guard glanced over at him. "Warning from a friend of mine. She said something about diplomacy."
"I don't know even know where this thing came from." He could hear the desperate confusion in the guard's shaky voice, and even the pain; and then he felt that the guard did not want to shoot. "I mean I know it's a vampire, but... There's just... What's wrong with it?"
"I honestly have no idea. Its mind didn't tell me much, and I was pretty deep into it." He rubbed at his forehead, but the headache did not plan on leaving any time soon. "He came from further up town."
"H-H-He leapt out of Mr. Colwyn's house." The injured man could barely talk through his stutter, shaking madly as a second guard gave him a blanket and frowned over his leg. "Just... Just burst through the door and... And..." He couldn't finish, burying his face into the blanket.
"Oh shit." The armed guard looked crestfallen as he glanced at Mahli. "I thought those were fucking rumours."
"Rumours?" A knot formed in Mahli's stomach as he looked at the guards' horrified faces. Is there a vampire nearby?
A very confused one. What the hell is going on? The voice was entirely unfamiliar, clearly worried.
I have a rogue vampire immobilized but need to investigate where it came from. Can you assist in holding it?
The response was the vampire teleporting; she was young, he realized, no older than sixteen, with long, impressively-braided brown fur down her back; the fur on her tail was surprisingly curly. She glanced over at the rogue vampire and bared her fangs, ears going back, free fur bristling. "Oh god."
"Do you know this vampire?" The guard seemed unperturbed by the new vampire; if anything Mahli thought he may be relieved.
"Don't recognize him at all. I mean I could feel him broadcasting but it wasn't something I really wanted to respond to." She chirped and hummed at the rogue and got angry snapping and barking in return. "Yeah, that'd be why."
"Can you subdue him while I go search?" He was itching to release from the rogue's mind and leave; the longer he looked at the vampire and felt its sick, frantic mind, the worse his headache became.
"Not on my own, no, but I bet I can get some help. Enough of us should be able to keep him still." She sat down cross-legged near the rogue; within a few minutes, Mahli felt her mind creeping into the rogue's, then one by one more vampires, until he thought there were at least a dozen. "There that should be good."
He pulled back with relief, wincing at the dull throb that eminated through his skull. "You have a lot of friends."
"I'm a vampire. What'd you expect?" She smiled softly at him. "Go ahead. Just please let me keep the guy with the gun."
"Can I get one too?" Mahli smiled weakly at the guard, who nodded.
"We should have back-up coming out shortly. We're just... IT's a quiet town." He sighed. "I'll send someone up ahead. If you get into a mess, then just teleport one of us there. I requested medical assistance so hopefully we'll have both of these guys stable when you return."
"'Both'?" It slowly clicked in his mind, and he looked at the man with honest surprise. "The vampire too?"
"He's a person." The guard shrugged. "And I kind of feel like whatever he did, it wasn't because he was thinking about it. So long as he doesn't break free and I end up having to shoot to kill, I'm going to try and get him looked at. After this man." He gestured to the injured human, sobbing softly into his blanket.
"Good luck." And with that he turned down the road.
His head throbbed with each step on the road, and he found walking even harder than usual; he tried to use telepathy to ease his steps, but it hurt too much to try, and so he stuck with a painful hobble, using the bare minimum he could to search out the area in front of him for any dangers. He thought he detected two lifeforms ahead -- but he could not identify them from the distance.
The house was at the edge of town, and truly grandeur; it spanned three floors, made of the finest wood, with decorated door and windowframes. It was marred by glass littering the ground from shattered windows, and the front door splintered to pieces lining the stairs leading to the house and the ground. And only a few feet from the door, trailed by blood, was a dead man. His body was frozen in a crawling position, the back of his neck shredded apart, blood pooling beneath him. Mahli knelt down but knew even before he did that the man was not breathing, had long died.
The lifeforms he detected were in the house. Taking a deep breath -- the smell of blood did nothing to help his headache -- he staggered up the stairs, wincing at the stiff pain in his leg, and stepped through the doorway.
Inside it was shrouded in darkness; he found a gaslamp and turned it on. Then, he saw the bloody footprints of the vampire, coming from down the hall and through the door. He retraced them to the kitchen, and then was forced to freeze.
The first body blocked the kitchen entrance; it was of a man, his face and throat torn apart, unrecognizable. His arms looked wrong and bent in the wrong ways, one of his legs lifted from when he had perhaps been trying to kick the vampire off. A few feet beside him was a gun. Up ahead, he could see an older woman's body, her face and throat in similar condition, her arms frozen in mid-air from where she had been trying to scratch at athe vampire and throw it off; the paralysis toxin had not worn off. And he thought he could see a third body off in the distance.
And standing beside that body, eyes glittering from the torchlight, was a demon.
It was a female no doubt judging by the size, and as far as he could see she had not eaten the bodies; her muzzle was free of blood except for a tiny tip on her nose, perhaps where she had been sniffing at them. Upon seeing him, however, the thick fur around her neck began to bristle and she curled her lip, crouching low to the ground. He paused, trying to gauge her mood.
"I mean no harm." He said it cautiously, clearing his throat when it came out rough. "Can you understand me?"
She slunk past the first two bodies; her claws seemed far too short for a demon, crude and jagged, and her muscles were much too weak. She would not stand a chance if she got back underground, he thought; surely a tougher female would kill her within a few minutes.
The demon paused on the other side of the man's body, looking at Mahli cautiously from a decent distance. He could read no aggression from her posture or even her mind; there was not quite fear either, despite her low posture and careful walk. Her mind felt eerily blank, and she looked tense -- ready to react to whatever he did, no doubt. He could only hope she would not attack first; in his state, he was not sure he could fight her off.
And then a roar exploded from the room on the other side of the kitchen, making him jump. The demon, unfazed, turned around and screamed back. Mahli stared at her as she looked back at him; nothing entered the kitchen.
"What is in there? It sounded like a cat." He felt an odd sense of relief when the demon clearly nodded, though slowly. "Well thank you for the warning. Did the vampire come through here?" She answered affirmative. "And what are you planning to do?"
Not sure my feelings about the demon's current reactions. Or the prose. Or anything.
He found the town to be eerily quiet, but then he hoped most people were sleeping by that point. He could follow the emotions of those awake, though -- pure fear and horror slammed into his mind, disorienting him for a moment, along with the pulsating excitement, rage, glee coming from the vampire. He wished he had the instinctive ability to shut it all off; instead he had to take a few deep breaths, quiet the clamor entering his mind, and move forward.
With telepathy he sped up his walk, following the fear and the rage. And then finally, through the gloom, he saw someone running. Blood was pouring from a wound on their leg, and it caused them to stumble in their flee, the leg far too stiff and unresponsive.
Right behind the person, he finally saw it, and in an instant teleported the person back behind him, hearing the person moan and collapse from the dizziness. The vampire leapt into air just where his prey had been a moment before.
Mahli's stomach dropped at the sight.
He had known a few vampires before; Nur perhaps had the worst scars that he had seen, half of her face reduced to twisted burnt remnants, the ugly knots trailing down and disappearing under whatever clothes she had thrown on that day. Those scars were nothing compared to the vampire that stared at him, scenting the air. He could count every rib on its frail body, see every ridge of its spine, the shape of its skull under its skin. The tips of its wings had been reduced to knubs, many of them covered in scabs, and the edges of the membrane were torn. Its fingers and toes were missing most of their tips, the bone barely covered by whatever scar tissue remained; it made the vampire's claws look much larger and more gruesome. There was no fur on the last inch or two of its tail, which looked like it had been gnawed at.
And it was covered in blood and tissue. Red had sprayed down the vampire's throat and chest, human skin and clothing still clung to its claws, a few stray pieces of muscle clinging to the thick fur of its tail. It bared his fangs at them; they were slick with blood, still dripping with it.
And its eyes were much too large for its face, and absolutely wild. He knew what he looked like to it -- easy prey, far too easy, but in the way of the better prizes.
Suddenly it pounced; Mahli threw himself at its mind and squeezed at it. The vampire cried out and crashed to the ground, wings twitching madly in an attempt to cover its fall. For a few moments it screamed angrily; and then, with an enraged shove it broke free of the hold, rolling onto its feet, spreading its wings, and lunching at him, fangs bared.
It shouldn't have been able to do that; he could feel how painful it had been to snap free, and yet the vampire did not seem perturbed, did not seem to notice any pain at all. He could almost feel the humanoid's brain throbbing from the effort. He could also sense, however, that the pain was nothing -- just another part of its life, something to push through, something that didn't matter anymore--
He teleported out of the way, letting his attacker hit air; the human who had just started to limp away yelled out in fright, staggering backward and falling. The vampire hissed at him, blood spraying from his lips. Mahli gritted his teeth against the headache and pushed the vampire aside; it snarled in surprise and pain as it tumbled over, but only a few feet, not nearly enough distance to let the man get free. He could feel fear paralyzing the other human's mind, leaving him hyperventilating and whimpering frantically.
A gunshot fired and blew straight through one of the vampire's outstretched wings as it rose; it did not seem to notice and instead launched at its prey. Mahli took a deep breath, pulled forth, and slammed into the vampire's mind, pushing straight into it, trying to get as immersed as he could. He watched as the humanoid dropped like a stone and began to thrash frantically, hissing and spitting, knocking dirt and rocks around, screaming.
And then it fought back. Mahli winced at the tainted mind that scratched back at him, trying to break him free, rip apart the connection, leave him a mindless heap on the floor. It had a strength no vampire he had encountered had, though he had heard about the rumours; supposedly a vampire without a network was near unstoppable, its telepathy outperforming even the strongest humans, able to blow out windows, sometimes entire rooms.
Mahli was the most powerful telepath anyone he had talked to had heard of; usually controlling someone else's mind was just a little prick of the eyes, not something he enjoyed doing but certainly not incredibly difficult. Trying to still the rogue vampire, however, was what he thought wrestling a leopard must feel like. He closed his eyes as his vision began to dance and seemed to spark, grip tightening on his cane.
Then another shot rang out and he cried out at the pain that suddenly slammed into him. Instinctively he started to pull back, then remembered what would happen if he did, and pushed back at the vampire's mind. There was not nearly as much struggle left in it, though; instead it held pain and panic, a lack of concern about him trying to paralyze it anymore. Within a few moments the struggle against him had stopped, and all he felt was a frantic frustration and fear.
He kept a base hold on the humanoid as he pulled free, head throbbing; with a groan he opened his eyes. The vampire was sprawled on the ground, blood leaking from a shot to the lower shoulder; its screaming had been reduced to frantic whimpering as its eyes darted all over the place, body trembling madly. He looked over to find two guards approaching, one running to assist the injured man, the other frowning at the vampire, gun pointed at it uncertainly.
"I would be cautious about killing it." His voice was hoarse, throat dry; the guard glanced over at him. "Warning from a friend of mine. She said something about diplomacy."
"I don't know even know where this thing came from." He could hear the desperate confusion in the guard's shaky voice, and even the pain; and then he felt that the guard did not want to shoot. "I mean I know it's a vampire, but... There's just... What's wrong with it?"
"I honestly have no idea. Its mind didn't tell me much, and I was pretty deep into it." He rubbed at his forehead, but the headache did not plan on leaving any time soon. "He came from further up town."
"H-H-He leapt out of Mr. Colwyn's house." The injured man could barely talk through his stutter, shaking madly as a second guard gave him a blanket and frowned over his leg. "Just... Just burst through the door and... And..." He couldn't finish, burying his face into the blanket.
"Oh shit." The armed guard looked crestfallen as he glanced at Mahli. "I thought those were fucking rumours."
"Rumours?" A knot formed in Mahli's stomach as he looked at the guards' horrified faces. Is there a vampire nearby?
A very confused one. What the hell is going on? The voice was entirely unfamiliar, clearly worried.
I have a rogue vampire immobilized but need to investigate where it came from. Can you assist in holding it?
The response was the vampire teleporting; she was young, he realized, no older than sixteen, with long, impressively-braided brown fur down her back; the fur on her tail was surprisingly curly. She glanced over at the rogue vampire and bared her fangs, ears going back, free fur bristling. "Oh god."
"Do you know this vampire?" The guard seemed unperturbed by the new vampire; if anything Mahli thought he may be relieved.
"Don't recognize him at all. I mean I could feel him broadcasting but it wasn't something I really wanted to respond to." She chirped and hummed at the rogue and got angry snapping and barking in return. "Yeah, that'd be why."
"Can you subdue him while I go search?" He was itching to release from the rogue's mind and leave; the longer he looked at the vampire and felt its sick, frantic mind, the worse his headache became.
"Not on my own, no, but I bet I can get some help. Enough of us should be able to keep him still." She sat down cross-legged near the rogue; within a few minutes, Mahli felt her mind creeping into the rogue's, then one by one more vampires, until he thought there were at least a dozen. "There that should be good."
He pulled back with relief, wincing at the dull throb that eminated through his skull. "You have a lot of friends."
"I'm a vampire. What'd you expect?" She smiled softly at him. "Go ahead. Just please let me keep the guy with the gun."
"Can I get one too?" Mahli smiled weakly at the guard, who nodded.
"We should have back-up coming out shortly. We're just... IT's a quiet town." He sighed. "I'll send someone up ahead. If you get into a mess, then just teleport one of us there. I requested medical assistance so hopefully we'll have both of these guys stable when you return."
"'Both'?" It slowly clicked in his mind, and he looked at the man with honest surprise. "The vampire too?"
"He's a person." The guard shrugged. "And I kind of feel like whatever he did, it wasn't because he was thinking about it. So long as he doesn't break free and I end up having to shoot to kill, I'm going to try and get him looked at. After this man." He gestured to the injured human, sobbing softly into his blanket.
"Good luck." And with that he turned down the road.
His head throbbed with each step on the road, and he found walking even harder than usual; he tried to use telepathy to ease his steps, but it hurt too much to try, and so he stuck with a painful hobble, using the bare minimum he could to search out the area in front of him for any dangers. He thought he detected two lifeforms ahead -- but he could not identify them from the distance.
The house was at the edge of town, and truly grandeur; it spanned three floors, made of the finest wood, with decorated door and windowframes. It was marred by glass littering the ground from shattered windows, and the front door splintered to pieces lining the stairs leading to the house and the ground. And only a few feet from the door, trailed by blood, was a dead man. His body was frozen in a crawling position, the back of his neck shredded apart, blood pooling beneath him. Mahli knelt down but knew even before he did that the man was not breathing, had long died.
The lifeforms he detected were in the house. Taking a deep breath -- the smell of blood did nothing to help his headache -- he staggered up the stairs, wincing at the stiff pain in his leg, and stepped through the doorway.
Inside it was shrouded in darkness; he found a gaslamp and turned it on. Then, he saw the bloody footprints of the vampire, coming from down the hall and through the door. He retraced them to the kitchen, and then was forced to freeze.
The first body blocked the kitchen entrance; it was of a man, his face and throat torn apart, unrecognizable. His arms looked wrong and bent in the wrong ways, one of his legs lifted from when he had perhaps been trying to kick the vampire off. A few feet beside him was a gun. Up ahead, he could see an older woman's body, her face and throat in similar condition, her arms frozen in mid-air from where she had been trying to scratch at athe vampire and throw it off; the paralysis toxin had not worn off. And he thought he could see a third body off in the distance.
And standing beside that body, eyes glittering from the torchlight, was a demon.
It was a female no doubt judging by the size, and as far as he could see she had not eaten the bodies; her muzzle was free of blood except for a tiny tip on her nose, perhaps where she had been sniffing at them. Upon seeing him, however, the thick fur around her neck began to bristle and she curled her lip, crouching low to the ground. He paused, trying to gauge her mood.
"I mean no harm." He said it cautiously, clearing his throat when it came out rough. "Can you understand me?"
She slunk past the first two bodies; her claws seemed far too short for a demon, crude and jagged, and her muscles were much too weak. She would not stand a chance if she got back underground, he thought; surely a tougher female would kill her within a few minutes.
The demon paused on the other side of the man's body, looking at Mahli cautiously from a decent distance. He could read no aggression from her posture or even her mind; there was not quite fear either, despite her low posture and careful walk. Her mind felt eerily blank, and she looked tense -- ready to react to whatever he did, no doubt. He could only hope she would not attack first; in his state, he was not sure he could fight her off.
And then a roar exploded from the room on the other side of the kitchen, making him jump. The demon, unfazed, turned around and screamed back. Mahli stared at her as she looked back at him; nothing entered the kitchen.
"What is in there? It sounded like a cat." He felt an odd sense of relief when the demon clearly nodded, though slowly. "Well thank you for the warning. Did the vampire come through here?" She answered affirmative. "And what are you planning to do?"
Not sure my feelings about the demon's current reactions. Or the prose. Or anything.
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One comment: Up top you use "flee" as a noun; should be "flight". Likewise, "grandeur" is used as an adjective, but it's a noun.