Disclaimer: Cirque du Freak and its characters are Darren Shan's property. Not mine. I don't make from either of them. yada-yada-ya.
Info: This takes place seven years after the events of Bonds:Separation Anxiety. Not really any potential spoilers for the books, except for characters from later books will be used, abused, and, generally, toyed around with. But it's all for you so...I'm sure I can get away with it. XD
Warnings: Sex; gore; murder; careless disregard for human life; implications of mass murder
P.S. Remember o tell me about any spelling mistakes or grammar usage if you come across them. Please!
Anyway: Let The Story Begin!
Steve was feeding off of a baby in a dark room with no windows. He was naked from the waist up with a pair of dirty white sweatpants hanging from his hips. His feet were bare. Keeping his lips sealed tightly shut, Steve dropped the infant's still body to the ground with neither gentleness nor care. It lay there in a crumpled mess along with two other broken infantile bodies. Two minute holes punctured each of the infants' necks, the only wounds apparent on their tiny corpses. Steve quickly turned away from the dead babies and moved over to the only other still body in the room: Darren. The brunet was lying silent and corpse-like on the floor. His skin was pallid and his dark hair was limp and withered looking. Darren was naked from the waist up and was barefoot. He had on a pair of dark blue boxers on that contrasted greatly with his light skin. There were several bullet holes that pocked and marred his deathly pale skin. With a deep sadness in his eyes, Steve bent over Darren's still form and, gently prying the brunet's lips open, covered them with his own. When all the crimson fluid had transferred from Steve's mouth into Darren's, the blond forced Darren's dead body to gulp as much of it down as it could. Thin trails of red liquid spilled out from their conjoined mouths and down the sides of Darren's mouth. Steve waited with a resigned expression on his face. He fully believed that Darren would never wake up and that he would be doing these same futile motions for the rest of his immortal unlife. After nearly twelve minutes of silence, Darren's eyes fluttered open, revealing rose red irises and a savage hunger. The now awakened Darren attacked Steve, leaping at the blond kneeling over him. Steve fell back with the brunet, landing with Darren ontop of him. Steve's face was joyous and full of love, even as Darren clamped his mouth onto the area around Steve's nipple, penetrating the hard flesh there with his bone-white fangs.
"Aaah!" Steve let out a low groan as his nipple grew erect and his cock became hard. Darren ignored Steve's moans as he continued to suck blood from just below the blond's hard nipple. His left leg between Steve's legs pressed roughly against the Steve's hard cock. "Aah." Steve let out another low groan as Darren's own cock grew hard from sucking the blond's blood. He could easily feel its hardness pressing against his own. Darren started bucking his hips against Steve who gripped Darren's ass with his right hand and the back of his head with his left, pushing the brunet's fangs in even deeper. As Steve thrusted up into him and Darren 's body started to erratically convulse as he neared his limit, Steve regrettably recalled what happened on that day and how he couldn't protect what was his and his alone.
~FLASHBACK START~
A shrill, eardrum-piercing alarm blared throughout Steve's room and the halls beyond. What's going on? Steve wondered calmly to himself as he let the now lifeless naked body slump to the floor under him. It was only his twenty-first one of the day. He wanted to watch Darren while he slept, but even away from the sun's light, he could still feel its deadly power weighing heavily on here like an anvil. He needed to constantly feed in order to stay awake and alert enough to fully enjoy watching his Darren.
Wiping his lips free of the blood and the small pieces of flesh that clung to them, Steve stood up, his now soft cock sliding out of the dead toy's hole. Steve, completely naked, opened up the door to his room and looked outside. Everything was in a panic. There were a few humans running around in terror, but there were also vampires flitting away, presumably, to safety. Circular lights, dotting the ceiling all the down the hall and back, continuously blinked a bright red in accordance to the shrill alarm. Grabbing a human at random, Steve dragged the poor man back into his room, shutting the door to decrease the alarm's intensity.
"Toy, what's happening? Be quick or I'll kill you and ask another one," Steve was no-nonsense in his approach, fueled by the obvious panic of even the vampiric residents. Not needing to be threatened twice, the toy answered Steve's question as quick as humanly possible.
"Sir, some police have just forced their way into this building and is heading up this way. All the vampires are trying to leave, but all the ways to the escape routes in the basement are closed off by the armed police blocking all the exits from the first floor down. The police are moving up and soon-" Steve cracked the human's neck, not needing him to finish. So all us vampires are in danger, but these filthy humans are basically safe? Disgusting! Anyway, I need to get out of here soon, I refuse to die now after Darren is finally mine! With that thought, Steve ran over to where Darren's body lay, the marks on his neck and body already healed. The blood that trailed onto his legs from when they had sex had been washed off and now there was no trace that Steve had ever touched Darren except for his deathly pale skin and lack of breathing. The transformation from human to vampire was underway. Steve was about to grab his Child(1) when he realized that if he left now, his Darren's nakedness would be available for the whole world to see and that sent furious chills down his spines. Flicking his eyes back and forth, Steve saw some blue boxers on the ground and scooped them up, putting them on Darren in the next second. "Now then, here we go, Darren," Steve spoke outloud as he gently lifted up Darren's cold, dead-looking body and headed toward the door. The same door that was pulled outward and off its hinges by a burly vampire surpassing middling height. He had muscles ontop of muscles. There were two fat scars on his right cheek and one of his left. He wore a formfitting dark brown tank top, matching his beard and mustache combo. His blue jeans led down to where they were stuffed into leather hiking boots. His full head of hair trailed down to the back of his scalp, curling slightly at his ears. Steve reflexively jumped back and crouched to the ground, which was kind of hard to do with the 100+ pounds of dead flesh in his arms.
"What are you still doing here, you idiot? Have you not heard the alarm?" The burly vamp pratically shouted as he threw the door in his hands down the now empty hall to his right.
"Of course, I did! I'm not some deaf, old human!" Steve shouted back. "Just because Malachi told you to watch after me, doesn't mean you can be a prick, Bolduric!" He stood up from his crouch and moved toward the door and toward Bolduric.
"Forget it. We don't have time for this. We need to get to safety before those human police-" A sharp shout from down the hall to the right interrupted what Bolduric was saying. "Damn! We need to hurry! Follow me!" With that terse command, the burly vamp headed off down the hall to his left, looking back when he opened the door leading to the stairway. "Hurry up!" Despite the irritation he felt at being ordered around, Steve quickly followed the other, taller vampire with Darren in his arms.
Bolduric, Steve, and the transforming Darren in the latter's arms entered into a large room. There were floor-to-ceiling crimson satin curtains covering the back wall even though there were no windows. "Steve, we need to get to that curtain and-" Bolduric was interrupted again as a crowd of police officers, each with a bulletproof vest, a jacket with the words "SWAT" in big bold letters, and a handheld gun, charged into the room. The door was flattened against the wall as the two dozen cops moved in and professionally surrounded the two vampires and Darren. Not one of these police officers had either a buzz cut or a mustache. All of their guns were pointed at the trio.
"Al right, guys. No one has to get hurt here. You're surrounded and all your buddies were rounded up and are being brought outside. There's nowhere and no one for to escape to." Said one policewoman with short auburn hair in a calm, collected voice. She didn't pay attention to the fact that Steve was buck naked. "Now drop the corpse and we can-" Steve's eyes instantly went red and his feral hiss went unfettered as he glared at her, Darren held close to his body. Bolduric sighed and prepared for the fight he knew had to be coming. His eyes became red also, but instead of hissing he crouched, preparing to pounce.
"Wh-what the?" The woman's voice cracked as she took in Bolduric's and Steve's glowing red eyes and long canines. Shaking herself out of her terrified stupor, she almost managed to shout, "Shoot them!" but all that came out was "Shoo-" before Bolduric pounced on her and ripped out her throat with his teeth. The great, burly vamp whipped out both of his arms, affectively slashing the throats of the two police next to him. Steve, reacting a second after Bolduric, threw a policeman into another with his left arm, his right still clamped protectively around Darren. Both policeman crumpled to the ground, one on top of the other. Before they could get up and rejoin the fight, Steve jumped on both of their necks, crushing them upon impact. The two men were still forever more. Several more humans fell in equally gruesome and gory ways before a single bullet found is target. The bullet ripped through Steve's chest, only inches away from his heart. Steve growled in fury and lunged at the one who shot him, momentarily forgetting the burden he was carrying. That moment was enough. Miscalculating Darren's weight, Steve missed the officer's throat and was awarded with another shot to his torso, this one tearing through his right lung. The force of the impact sent him crashing backward, straight into the wall with Darren still cradled in his right arm and at his side. Before the blond could recover, five more shots were fired into him, freeing chunks of flesh and blood from his body. Several more shots hit Darren's body by accident. No blood flowed from his wounds. While Bolduric was deftly dodging the bullets of four police officers who had backed the burly vamp into a corner, both Steve and Darren were shot again. With a monstrous roar, Bolduric stampeded over the two men in front of him. They died as his feet crushed their heads into gooey mush.
Ignoring the bullets that tore through his body, Bolduric rammed into the five of so officers that were sending a steady stream of bullets into Steve and Darren's already battered frames. All of them- the police and Bolduric -fell onto the floor and into the remains of a dead officer. The other five men didn't have to worry about how disgusting it was to get a mouthful of ichor and viscera. Bolduric had killed them all almost seconds after they collided with the corpse. Rising to his feet andn wiping someone's bloody guts off of his hands and spitting out a bloody eyeball, the burly vamp was easily able to dodge the bullets that the two remaining police officesrs -both women- shot at him. He appeared behind them a second later. All it took was for his hands to slash in a downward slice and both jerked forward and crumpled to the bloodstained floor. They didn't fire anymore bullets after that. All of his wounds already completely healed, Bolduric flitted over to where Steve and Darren lied up against the wall. "Are you alright?" After a brief silence, Steve groggily rose to his feet, letting Darren stay where he was on the floor. Steve's chest, although very bloody, had no more holes through it. There were only purplish bruises marking the places where he was shot. Darren on the other hand still had every single hole that was fired through him. Bolduric knew that wasn't good, but couldn't care less. He was only obligated to watch after Steve, not anyone else.
"We need to get out of here before more of those people," Bolduric said, his voice slightly huskier and his fangs still out thanks to the excitement of the fight and the generous helping of fresh blood coating the floor and walls. "Grab up the boy and follow me." Steve quickly complied, he was too worried about Darren's porous and bloody state to be indignant about being bossed around again. Bolduric stopped when he came to the red curtain against the wall directly opposite of the door. It was free of any and all stains, old and fresh. Bolduric quickly pulled back the red curtain, revealing a blank, wall of white plaster, matching the other walls in the room. Before Steve could ask why they had just stopped in front of what seemed like an ordinary wall, Bolduric pressed a part of the wall that looked like any other with a single finger. Almost instantaneously, the whole wall that was behind the curtain slid to the right, revealing an empty elevator chute that went all the way down to the bowels of the building. "Malachi had this built in case he would one day have to escape, but it would be too sunny outside to just go out the normal way," Bolduric explained. "You go first. Then, move out the way and holler up so I'll know it's okay to jump down." For a very long moment, Steve was -he would never say "scared"- very apprehensive about jumping down an elevator chute into its shadowy depths with a badly wounded Darren with him. "Don't tell me that you're scared?" The burly vamp said sarcastically, his eyes widening in mock disbelief.
"Of course not!" Steve gritted his teeth and, pulling Darren tighter against his naked, bloody chest, jumped. And fell. And fell. And fell into the dirt floor. The landing jarred his body so badly that several crucial bones in his legs shattered upon impact. His cries of pain could be heard all the way up to where Bolduric stood on the edge of the chute. It took a long while, but eventually Steve's legs were healed enough that he was able to pull himself up and limp away. Darren was a bit dirty from the fall, but he looked as good as he did before. That is full of bullet holes and with deathly pale, cold skin. Biting through the agony of his half-healed legs, Steve yelled, "Come on!" His voice angry and strained due to the pain. Bolduric immediately balanced himself on the edge. He quickly pulled the curtain behind him and stepped off into the abyss. He landed with the grace of a cat without a single fracture or yelp of pain.
"Are you okay? Can you walk?" The burly vamp asked, more concerned with the second question than the first. Steve nodded, his eyes squinted in pain. "Good, follow me." Bolduric went to a side of the chute and pulled back an inconspicuous hanging wire, thus opening seven feet of wall in front of the trio. A tunnel leading into an inky darkness opened before them. Bolduric entered into the cavernous tunnel with Steve limping behind after him.
Bolduric had led Steve and, therefore, Darren through a sewer system. They frequently ran into rats, scared off said rats, and saw things floating in the sewer water that smelled worse than a dead fish. Luckily for Bolduric, though he was able to completely stop breathing, therefore making the putrid stench completely harmless. Unfortunately for Steve, he still wasn't used enough to the whole "being undead and not needing to breathe thing" so from time to time he accidentally began breathing in again just out of reflex. Bolduric mused that after a few years, Steve would use that reflex altogether, but Steve wasn't paying attention. He was too bothered by the smell to pay attention to almost anything but his own uncomfortableness. But he had to stomach it. There was no way they could go out in the sunlight and they still had many more miles to go until they came to the spot that, once night fell, would be almost exactly in front of where they needed to be.
Several hours later, Steve and Bolduric climbed out of a manhole, Darren passed up to the burly vamp before Steve climbed out. Once he was on solid, not smelly ground again, Steve took in a deep unnecessary breath to clear his sinuses. After that, he took Darren back. Luckily, they were in an area in which cars usually didn't drive to during the night.
Bolduric, after making sure that the lid was back over the manhole, headed an apartment complex that was on the sidewalk in front of the manhole they just climbed out of. The crescent moon shone high in the dark blue sky as Bolduric, Steve, and Darren entered the building. Its fluorescent lights were dimmed, enough for any vamp to see, but not so much for the wayward human. The burly vamp and the blond walked straight to the elevator that was to the left and down of the reception desk. The young woman that sat there looked up once at them before pointing her head back down to read the book that she held in her slender fingers. She obviously didn't care that one of the visitors- Steve-carried what appeared to a dead body. Steve just shrugged off the woman's uncaring attitude as the norm for wherever they were, but he had guessed it had something to do with vampires when he the elevator arrived and a guy walked out, blood staining the front of his white shirt and lower mouth. The man grinned, exposing a bloodstained throat and teeth, at Steve when he noticed that not only was he butt naked, but he also was holding what appeared to be a dead body in his arms. "Can I have fun with that when you're done?" He asked, incorrectly assuming that Steve was one of those vampires who liked fucking their meals after they drained them dry. Steve hissed and his eyes became a dull red. He was too tired and lacking of blood for his eyes to glow a truly frightening scarlet. Even so the guy hightailed it out of there, although it may have had more to do with Bolduric's own red-eyed stare than Steve's. Putting the stranger's comment out of his mind, Steve entered the elevator before Bolduric and, after seeing the scarred vampire hit a button labeled "RV3", waited semi-patiently as the elevator mad the steady ascent upward. He couldn't help, but rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet.
Soon Bolduric, Steve, and the corpse-like Darren exited the elevator and walked down a very short hallway -only three feet. Both Bolduric and Steve stopped in front of the only door on the floor, a forest green one with a silver metal handle. Bolduric, the scars of his face gleaming slightly off the dim lights as he produced a key from his jeans pocket, unlocked and opened the door. He motioned for Steve to wait before he entered. After a half minute of making sure no one and nothing was there, he called for Steve to enter. Steve did, kicking the door shut behind him. The room was roomy, but not to big with curtained windows all on one side and a door leading off to a corridor with more doors, all of them closed. A flat-screen TV resting on a ecru-colored wall and a forest green couch facing aforementioned TV were the only pieces of furniture in that room. There were several splotches of some unknown crimson all over the walls and in the black carpet. The smell coming up from those stains made Steve's eyes glow dully and his fangs poke out a little.
"You should be safe here for as long as you want to stay. I'll make sure to get you something to eat before I go, but after that, I'm gone." Bolduric threw the key to Steve who just let it fall by his feet, looking at Bolduric with a bemused expression on his features. "My promise to Malachi only extended to watching over and protecting you while we nested in County Twelve's Central House. The helping you escape with your boy toy, bringing you here, and giving you this room were all extra. A favor to Malachi. Now you're on your own and I can finally go back to him." The scared vampire resolutely ignored the shocked, lost look that was now resting heavily in Steve's eyes. What am i going to do now? I have no idea how to contact Mal without this bozo! What do I do if I need help? He can't just leave me here like this! Isn't this child abandonment or something? Steve's panicked thoughts raced through his skull. It was when Bolduric was almost out the door that the blond realized that not only was Darren still riddled with holes, but also he was not a vampire. During Steve's own transformation from inferior human to superior vampire, he was more or less completely dead during the day, but once the sun went down he woke up as a vampire. It had to have been at least ten minutes or so since nightfall and Darren was still as dead as the night Steve had killed him if not more.
"Wait, Bolduric!" The burly vamp turned when he heard Steve utter his name.
"Listen, I know you're new, but I'm not going to waste my time babysitting you anymore than I have to. Bye," He turned right back around and was out of the door. Steve, Darren still gripped tightly in his arms, raced out into the three feet hall.
"It's not that! It's Darren! He's still all pre-vampire-y and dead! Why isn't he awake and undead yet?" Steve's tone was a little more panicky and worried than he meant it to be, but his verbal slip was the key. Bolduric's previously uncaring eyes became softer and he stopped moving, turning so that his back was to the elevator and he was facing a very distressed Steve.
"I almost forgot about his predicament," The older vampire said with a tinge of pity.
"What 'predicament'? Isn't he going to become a vampire like us? What's there to be sad about?" Steve shouted, he didn't like the pity he heard in Bolduric's voice, especially since he didn't know why it was there.
"During the fight, I didn't pay to what was happening to your boy toy since he wasn't my charge and I thought you only wanted a permanent 'toy' you could fuck and eat without killing," Bolduric said, sounding slightly ashamed of how he neglected Darren's safety. "But people don't become all out of sorts over mere sex toys, do they? They only become nervous wrecks when someone they love gets hurt, isn't that true?" He said it as if he knew the answer already and it pained him to recall it. His voice became hoarser than usual, evidence of some great emotion taking hold of him. Closing and opening his eyes seemed to be enough to calm him down. "Your toy bo-Darren is what is called a Necrolythe: The Flexible Death. He is in a very delicate state in which one of two things can happen. One, He can awaken and become a vampire. Two, he can stay this way forever, stuck between being a human and a vampire. The latter is the most common. Most Necrolythes remain this way until their bodies are completely disintergrated into dust and their remains separated forever." Steve's eyes were bulging out of their sockets in horror and his mouth hung open in disbelief.
"How d-did th-this happen?" Steve yelled, his voice echoing sorrowfully in the short corridor. "Is there anyway to save him?"
"When one, still in the transition between being human and becoming vampire, suffers a wound that would have been fatal o a human, that one becomes a Necrolythe. During the fight, Darren was shot several times, any of which could easily have spelled the end to a human," the burly vamp said. "As far as I know, no Necrolythe has ever awakened as a vampire." Steve looked completely crushed.
"But-but there may be a way to help him, okay?" Bolduric said, more for Steve's benefit than based off of any factual info. "The blood of virgins can work wonders of vampires who have suffered from grievous injury, such as sunburns and holy water scars. I'm sure if you gave Darren's body-" Steve's gradual rise in spirits dropped at Bolduric's wording. "-I mean, if you gave Darren fresh virgin blood, I'm sure he would wake up in no time! In fact, the blood of babies would work even better!" Bolduric tried to sound as enthusiastic as possible in an effort to increase Steve's withering spirits. Of course, everything he suggested were only guesses and probably wouldn't help at all, but there was something about Steve. Something that reminded the scarred, burly vampire about how he was with- That's in the past! I need to concentrate on helping this Newling(2) as soon as possible so I can get back to help Mal. Bolduric's thoughts scolded him away from his memories of earlier centuries. During Bolduric's self-admonishing thoughts, Steve's eyes lost its hopeless gleam, a glimmer of hope replacing it.
"So how many babies do you think he needs per night? One? Three? Seven? Thirteen?" Steve didn't seem the least bit unnerved about killing an untold number of innocent, vulnerable newborns. He just cared about saving his Darren and ensuring him to be his forever. Being careless of human life himself, Bolduric didn't even register how wrong Steve's question was.
"Three per night should be enough. There's a hospital several blocks away. I'll grab some babies and a guy or two for you and be back as soon as possible." And just like that, Bolduric summoned the elevator, disappeared behind its sliding doors, and went back down to the lobby floor. While the vampire was gone, Steve slowly re-entered the apartment and, after placing Darren gently on the forest green couch, he picked up the key that was still laying on the carpeted floor. He fondled the key in his hand as he sat next to Darren, putting the brunet's cold head in his lap. He waited like that for the approximate thirty minutes it took Bolduric to return. He made sure to feed Darren first, He drunk from the crying babies, transferring each of their blood to Darren via a kiss one by one. When he was done with the babes and their now exsanguinated bodies littered the floor, Steve was quite eager to sink his teeth into the two humans that Bolduric hypnotized into following him up here. Their deaths were messy and bloody, but with out pain since they were already hypnotized into feeling nothing. Neither pain, sadness, nor joy. Just nothing. Licking his lips clean of the crimson, addictive fluid, Steve looked expectantly at Darren's body. Expecting any moment for him to jump up awake, vampiric and his forever. Darren stayed where he was and how he was. Steve's fist clenched tightly on the key that was still in his palm.
"Just continue to feed him. If you do, I'm sure he'll wake up one of these days," Bolduric said once he witnessed the devastation that resided in the blond's eyes. Steve noted the obvious pity in Bolduric's voice, but he had more things to worry about than his wounded pride, like the fact that Darren may forever be out of his grasp. "I'm leaving now. There's a windowless room back there in the last door to the right." He jerked his head to the hall inside the apartment. "Use it to sleep in and there's another room -the first one on the left- that has a set of cutting knives that are great for chopping up flesh when you want a more solid meal." And on those helpful notes, Bolduric left the room and the apartment, closing the door behind him. It locked automatically with a low click.
~FLASHBACK END~
As his reverie came to an end, Steve himself came, staining the front of his sweatpants as Darren's leg thrust against his erupting dick. Steve cried out in pure ecstasy as he came. Darren came soon after, his spasmodic thrusting stopping once he came. The brunet's fangs slid out of Steve's chest almost lazily as they both recovered from their orgasms -the first ones in years. Steve was overjoyed that Darren was finally a vampire and a horny one at that. He could just hope that Darren would remain as horny and as rough when the bloodlust wore off and his old personality resurfaced. But as he felt Darren's fangs penetrate his body a second time and both of their above average arousals grow rock hard again, he knew, with a ravenous, sharp-toothed smile, that Darren was far from coming back to his - although lovable - usually whiny, annoying self.
(1)Child: What a vampire is called in reference to the vampire that Raised them.
(2)Newling: What a "new" (anywhere from 0 years to fifty years old) vampire is called by older vamps and, rarely, by fellow Newlings.
Okay, I know this is mostly flashback, but it needed to be written, plus there was some sex at the beginning and end. So please forgive me!
If you've forgiven me, I'm sure you'd be happy to know that I'm going to write that prequel series about how Malachi and Steve first met and how everyone's favorite redhead became one of the hotdead!
So, reviews, critiques, flames? I'll take them all, but please remember to at least give me something to help me improve my stories if you decided to flame.
P.S. The next chapter should be up in August! But maybe earlier, though, I wouldn't hold my breath if I was you.
Love you all!
07/15/2010