LXG
A New Generation
Chapter One: Elaenore prt1 (Henry's POV)
I stare at the small photograph on my table as I ready for bed, mesmerized by the color in it. Color in a photograph is a treasure, and such color… only her green eyes were given their hue, those startling green eyes flecked with gold and shining brightly. Her full lips, still in the grays, black, and white of her photograph, are full and beautiful. Her face is elfin and pale, aristocratic. She is a vision, a goddess. Elaenore Faust…
She first came to the LXG with her sisters, Gabrielle and Danyel, a month ago, along with others who were assigned to the League for a mysterious kidnapping case. Children rumored as gifted had been disappearing everywhere. And, so she'd come, sweeping into my mansion and into the midst of the League like a queen into her court. She was a raven haired beauty who captured everyone's attention, though she was very self conscious. She didn't like to be looked at, I found out later, because of the blood she imagined stained her hands. For Elaenore Faust was a killer, just like her father, Dr. Damien Faust, a cold-blooded killer. Or, maybe, her other half was the killer. Elaenore was a lot like me, in fact.
Her father's dealings with the Devil after her mother's death had changed her and her younger sisters irrevocably, making them like their father. Damien had transformed nightly into a flesh-eating demon, but the girls were different, especially Elaenore. She could transform at will into her demonic self, but did not enjoy doing so. Her demonic half reminded me of Edward. Oh, Edward, who lusted for her like it was going out of style…
Henry!
Be quiet and go away, Edward.
You're thinking about her, you know you are.
Thinking is not a crime, Edward.
You want her, Henry.
Be silent, Edward.
I don't have to come to her as a beast, you know. You could take the other serum, the one that transforms me into the dashing, refined gentleman. You know very well you could.
Silence, Edward.
I had never told any of the other League Members of my third serum, the emerald stuff. The three serums I'd developed were to transform into Hyde the Beast, Hyde the Monster, and then, back into myself. I could go to Elaenore as the second Hyde, the handsome, wily, even more deeply evil Hyde… no, I won't. She'd probably kill me anyway, if she felt like it. She'd ripped Skinner's chest open once when he'd felt her up, her once short, well manicured nails transforming into long talons. It had been an accident, and she'd burst into tears upon seeing Skinner in pain. She was far different from me.
Henry.
Edward, she'll kill you, you know it, now be silent and stop pestering me.
Henry, please, I need her. She calls to me.
That is the beast in both of you, animals in heat. Leave Elaenore alone, Edward. You let that girl alone.
Oh, she's not a girl.
SHUT UP!!
"Henry?" Elaenore called quietly through the door. "Dr. Henry?" Her voice broke, and I sensed she was near tears.
"Yes, Ellie, what is it?" I put on my dressing gown and robe, then opened the door to find myself staring down at a wraith. She was too thin, I noted suddenly, realizing she'd been having trouble eating and sleeping again. Her eyes were huge and bruised looking, set deep in her skull with dark circles around them, glinting eerily with yellow diamond flecks. "Ellie?" She whispered one word, and a barrage of images flashed through my mind at the sound.
"Kilabos."
A naked young woman, black hair wild, eyes huge, golden, cat-like, teeth bared to show demonic fangs smeared with red, claws unsheathed and stained with fresh blood, hissing and shrieking as it crouched in front of two girls, ready to defend to the death.
At least twenty men floating in a pool stained with blood, eyes wide in horror, throats torn open, disemboweled, dismembered, their bloody corpses being eaten by a creature with long black hair and blood stained hands, it's ebony tresses covering its face as it devoured the dead men.
"Ellie." Her memories, or her nightmares? "Here." I gave her an amber something in a phial, a sedative mixed with a heavy animal tranquilizer. Trial and error had helped me figure out what it took to help her sleep at night without screaming her throat raw. She downed the contents, gave me an agonized look. "What's wrong? Something else?"
"I… I keep telling myself, and the girls, that they're not prey, they're not for eating. But I want to… just one more time… but they're not prey, not food."
"What's not food, Ellie?"
"Humans." She took on look at my face and fled from the room. A growl, deep in my mind, began rumbling louder in my skull. I reached for the emerald serum, then grabbed the phial of blue and swallowed it all to the last drop. Pain exploded in my body, and all I could say was, "Be careful with her, Edward." Then memories of the past began to surface.
