New to this editor so excuse the line breaks, please.
All thanks for this tale goes to Ailisraevyn. I enjoy her work Beautifully Sacred a -lot- and it's a great setting. The Twilight characters obviously belong to Stephanie Meyers but Maurice is a fun and interesting original character to have had the opportunity to speak for. Thanks Little-Bit for the go-ahead for me to write and post this. It was great fun.
This chapter is meant to read while listening to a playlist I put together here: kane[dot]ragwars[dot]net/Music/ (Tried to make that a link but this editor is...silly.)
My personal internet mp3 player. I do own physical copies of all this music and I personally know SG. And I particularly enjoy Evol Intent. Don't know if you read the same speed as I do but starting the first track on the playlist about the time Zeraphim walks into the building cues it quite well to the story for me.
And lastly, a small introduction. Zeraphim is my personal character. Am writing several original short stories and also working on my first novel with an army buddy. Enjoy!
A Different Sort of Concert – Chapter 1: Boundaries
A bright, cold moon glares down on a clearing, soaked from a recent rain shower, in a forest of massive trees. A squat building, wrapped by a modest parking lot minus a paved road out, sits against the edge of a wet glade on an Alaskan mountainside. A few rather expensive looking 4x4s seem to litter the lot, parked as if discarded.
A hooded chap walks out of the tree line.
Dressed in a shade of gray that's black like charcoal, he is virtually invisible in the moonlit night. Two things mark him. Soft, blue-white shimmers peek from the hood as he strides across the clearing. And something at the tips of his fingers glitters erratically with purple twinkles.
He pads silently across the clearing to the right side of the building. Booted feet pass by low windows into the basement of the structure and the weird glittering fingertips drag along the siding. Tiny screeching rasps through the stillness, faintly glowing trails left in the wall by razor-tipped fingers. They fade slowly as the curious and silent stranger makes his way around the corner to the front of the building.
Left of center, a set of double doors is flanked by 2 men in grey suits. The hooded fellow walks out in front of them and stops, just outside of easy arm's reach. The one on the left shoots a dirty look at the newcomer, whose face was obscured by shadow as the hood hung low as if the man was looking at the ground.
A rough voice, one of the guards, breaks the silence, somehow barking in Italian and managing to make a beautiful language sound distasteful.
"Stato tua attività. O essere andato."
The hood rises slowly and the shadow blanketing the man's face seems to slither away. The soft shimmers from before reveal themselves to be brilliantly glowing blue-white eyes, their light setting the whole entryway ablaze. The two burly men in grey squint against the sudden brightness, raising arms to shield their own eyes.
A deafening multitude of whispers explode inside their minds. Millions of voices all speaking in hushed breaths at the same time but never at once assail both the men's ears and synapses. A growling undertone rattles the ground beneath their feet.
"I'm to see your boss. And you couldn't force me to leave if you tried."
A force like that of a giant hand sweeps out of the night air and slaps both men up against the side of the building. The stranger steps forward as the left door swings open. He pauses in the doorway and the voice assaults the men's minds again, less intense this time.
"The force is purely business. Need to establish boundaries early. You are inferior to I. And that is all that need be said about that. Guard your post with the knowledge that a monster meaner than you both protects this place for the next 2 days."
With that, the men stumble as they are released and the door swings shut with a whisper. The stranger had vanished into the building, leaving them wondering. Being the soldati di ventura that they were, they took the word of the stranger at face value and went back to their posts.
XXXXXXXXXX
Zeraphim stopped just inside the doors and slid down the left wall a bit, the shadows in the room chittering at the edges of his hearing. They seemed happy to see him and as such, wrapped him in blissful darkness.
Z draws in a deep breath, enjoying the pleasantly coppery smell of warm human blood permeating the air. He notes the strangely sweet smell of these vampires' venom. In the millions of different shades of reality, he'd found many forms of vampire.
These were the only ones he'd ever found that advertised their power quite so loudly.
Their skin glittered in the sun, as if made of diamond.
Their eyes did curious things dependent upon their diet. Human blood made their eyes a deep, liquid red. He'd run across a few that had orange-yellow eyes; they seemed to have a disdain for taking human life. Other than those two things, they were little different than the vampiric creatures that Z himself had borrowed ideas from when forming his "human" body eons ago.
The astral being peers across the room, looking for the source of the smell, his blue-white eyes shimmering softly behind a veil of living darkness.
Vats of blood, IV bags full of the stuff, glasses of it on the room-length bar.
Z smirks. He was ok with the idea of blood everywhere.
His eyes drift to an attractive dark-haired lady standing behind a set of turntables and a mixer sitting on the backside of a stage. The platform stood about 4 feet off the floor and ran most of the left side of the room, opposite the wall-bar. Between the two is a dance floor and packed into the less crowded areas were tables. Black curtains draped from the ceiling in artfully arranged patterns, giving the room a hushed feel.
Enough errant thoughts had filtered into his head by now that he knew who he was looking for and so he moves off to find the man. Z pushes off the wall with a whispered word to the shadows, who slink off and slither back to their hiding places.
The dark-clothed astral being starts into the crowd on the dance floor. The music had just started a new track. A funky little opening with light cymbals led into a heavy bass thump. Then a deafening multi-layered growl echoes from the speakers.
A man fucked with my father tonight. And I put him in his place…
Z smirked at the lyrics and darted into the press of bodies that were whipping themselves into a frenzy with the stomp-slap beat of Evol Intent's "Dead On Arrival". He sways with the motion of people lost in a beat, bouncing off bodies that would be sweaty if they were still alive and laughing quietly inside his hoodie. Casting his eyes to the stage, the cute lady with black hair on the tables locks gazes with his faintly shimmering blues for a moment as the beat drops for a lyric break.
She gets a fanged and too-perfect grin before the crowd pushes Z out of sight.
Z closes his eyes for a moment as the body-press spins him about, swirling through people like they were water. His ears prick to the music as he hears another track begin quietly in the background; pretty lady on the tables was good. The treble fades from the beat, leaving the thump-pop of the bass and muted glitchy mids.
Z smiles as the operatic opening to Evol Intent's "The Oscine's Lament" begins, the kick of the bass fading to gone, leaving just the muted mids mixing with opening for next track. Just as they fade, cymbals start and a sharp, intricate, and precise beat starts and the song begins. Z flows out of the crowd about the same time and turns back toward the stage.
He locks eyes with a grinning beauty with raven tresses. The astral being winks and grins back.
She answers it with a thumbs-up, setting her headset down and dancing behind the tables.
Z turns away and walks toward the bar, hands jammed in his pockets. Bartenders trundle back and forth, pouring glasses of blood and other random drinks of a myriad colors and smells. Z waves to one pouring a glass of blood and nods at the bar. The barman strides over to him and looks a question at Z. Who grins and replies in a warm baritone, loud enough to be heard over the thump of the music but not strained at all.
"Put it on his tab."
With that, he points a bladeless fingertip that glows a faint purple-blue across to the back of the room at a sandy haired man with kind eyes. The barman arches a brow as he sets the drink down, flowing faster-than-human along behind the marble countertop to the end of the bar. He waves to the man who turns from a conversation with two shirtless vampires near a curtained off doorway at the back of the room.
The man narrows bloody-red eyes at the barkeep and strides to the bar for a hushed conversation in Italian. Z smirks and takes a sip of the warm blood while he waits. Listens to the guy tell his boss that something strange just ordered a drink and put it on his tab. Chuckles inwardly as they discuss briefly the meaning of 'something strange'. The conversation goes silent in Z's mind as both men travel back up the bar to him, blurring with their vampiric speed.
Red eyes lock with Z's shimmering blues as the astral being turns to face the flowing-forward form of the man from the end of the bar. A fanged grin greets the newcomer. The baritone from before lilts over the drone of a random techno track.
"Maurice, isn't it?"
The man lifts a glass of blood from the marble bartop and looks at Z with an arched eyebrow.
"How is it you know my name? And why, dear fellow, are you putting drinks on my tab?" This is said with an offered toast from ringed fingers.
Glasses clink, blood swirls, and both drink.
"I know a great many things that would surprise and amaze even you, old man. But there isn't enough time for all that. Would you indulge a new business associate a walk to a quieter location?"
Maurice narrows his eyes at Z sharply, "Business associate?"
Z just grins again and quaffs the rest of the blood in a gulp. The glass thumps on the marble top as the astral being pushes away, starting toward the other side of the room. The vampire follows with his eyes the strange but blatantly powerful creature walking across his bar. The sheer presence of the stranger that had just ordered a drink, apparently on the house, felt like a physical weight on him. It was almost like he was being pulled on.
Curious to no end about the "business associate" comment from this enigmatic monster, Maurice sets the glass of blood down and follows Z to the inconspicuous fire door on the other side of the room, off center from the stage.
Z pushes out the fire door and into the quiet, cool night. Before it closes, he whispers a word to the shadows in the lee of the building.
An eerie screeching echoes through the night and Z is tossed straight upward.
The astral being throws his feet upward as he's lifted violently. Turning heels-to-the-sky, razor-tipped fingers lance out and catch the lip of the roof behind. His feet snatch over, a back flip into a silent crouch.
The door below opens and Maurice turns, looking about. Turns his face up and back almost immediately.
That's where he'd have gone to intimidate someone.
He wasn't wrong; Z sat on the lip of the roof, shadowed by the moonlight, waving fingers capped with inch-long blades glittering purple-blue, like oxidized steel. The only reason the vampire could tell Z was grinning a dangerously bladed grin was because his eyes were glowing a much brighter blue-white now.
Z stands and walks out of sight.
Maurice took a few steps forward from the door and turned to face the wall. Looking up and hiking up the legs of his rather expensive trousers, the vampire tenses faintly and springs upward, blurring faintly as he hops to the low rooftop easily. He lands lightly and stops, straightening his vest and pants a bit.
Light metallic clinking, like clapping, drifts across the roof to Maurice's ears.
He looks over at Z. Who was grinning impishly and tapping the ends of razortips together like he was applauding the vampire's landing. Maurice arches a brow and flows across the rooftop to Z. They both turn and pad silently toward the rear edge of the building. Stopping there, they can almost see down the mountain in the bright moonlit night.
Maurice starts to comment on that but is interrupted by a multitude of whispers slithering quietly across his synapses.
"I can see down the mountain."
The vampire arches a brow at the cryptic comment. He starts to ask what Z means but finds himself cut off again.
"I see the world in a much different manner than you. I see all of reality in the sky. Well…all of this pocket of reality anyway."
Maurice finally breaks in, "So what then do you want of me and my bar?"
Z turns to face him and narrows those strange glowing eyes.
"You have a couple of bands playing a show here tomorrow night, yes?"
"Beautifully Sacred and Virulent Disease. Why?"
"I'd like to do an opening set for them."
"An opening set?" The vampire laughs lightly, "You don't strike me as the type to do anything small. Why aren't you asking for the headlining spot?"
Z laughs and turns back out toward the Alaskan darkness.
"You're observant. And I don't want the headlining spot. The show I'll do will be quite memorable regardless of where it is placed in the concert."
The vampire matches the laugh, "You seem quite sure of that."
This is answered by silence as Z pads over to the edge of the roof. A chuckle breaks the stillness and Z casts a grin over his shoulder, "Oh, I'm going to put on a show in your bar the likes of which this planet has never seen."
Maurice flows up beside Zeraphim and peers out into the darkness, wondering what this creature sees in the sky that he doesn't. Tucking sand-colored locks behind his ears, he peers at the profile of the being next to him. Trying to sense the being's core was infuriating; it was like a blank void.
Yet you could look at the man and see power.
Maurice turns to face Z and crosses his arms over his chest.
"So…I'm guessing money isn't a concern of yours?"
Z turns to face him and drops his hood for the first time, revealing a silvery white mane pulled into a tight pony-tail. His skin is bone-white in the moonbeams, the brilliant white-blue glow of his eyes setting it almost alight. The bladed grin comes again.
"No. Doing the show for the fun of it. But charge whatever you wish."
Maurice laughs and turns back out to the open blackness.
"Do you actually need anything from me, other than my stage space?"
Z laughs and looks thoughtful a moment, "Perhaps an introduction to that pretty lady you had on the turntables. And…I wouldn't mind a trip to your basement."
The vampire casts a sharp look at Z, "The basement? Looking for some more aggressive entertainment?" At that, he steps back from Z and faces the stranger. Maurice studies him with a very critical eye.
"Take your shirt off."
Z arches a brow and shrugs his shoulders. The hoodie vanishes in a crackling shower of blue sparks. Left behind is a man 6 and a half feet tall, built like a powerlifter who quit the weights and swam 10 miles a day for 10 years. Not huge but toned to the point of appearing cut from stone. The whiteness of his skin only adds to the effect.
Maurice studies the man before him like a seasoned trainer and can't help but feel like the entire effect is crafted to appear perfect. So perfect it was almost painful to look at, actually.
Z's whispering growl dances along the wind.
"That's the point."
Maurice arches a brow at how readily the stranger reads his thoughts yet is completely blank in return. Finally smirking with a chuckle, he matches the other's grin.
"Try not to kill too many of them, eh?"
Z laughs and spreads bladed hands out, "I'll keep it under 20."
With that, he vanishes from the roof with POOF.
Floating in the air where he stood is a fading after-image of an ornate gothic cross outlined in electric blue. Written across the crossbar in flowing script is a name: Zeraphim.
Maurice smirks again, "Guess that's one way to tell me your name."
With that, he turns and hops off the building, heading inside to find his DJ.
XXXXXXXXXX
Two faintly shimmering blue eyes blink open in the shadow of the stairwell leading into the basement of the building. Zeraphim steps silently away from the wall, shirtless and barefoot. Twitching a pair of baggy black cargo pants on his hips, he scampers the last two steps into a wide space.
A wide space filled with a great many vampires.
Z glances about and tallies the number in at close to a hundred. Most were gathered watching. In the circles they faced into was what they watched.
Two vampires, fighting to the death.
There were at least 5 of these little death circles. Z grins a lethal grin and chuckles quietly, retracting the blades at his fingertips for a 'clean' fight.
Hehe clean...clean, indeed…
Scampering on bare feet into the crowd, he starts pushing and shoving through the press of bodies. It was kind of like making one's way through the mosh pit of a heavy metal concert. You hit everyone at once and find the most open space to pass through.
A fist swings toward his face.
Z ducks his head under it and lashes backward with an elbow as he passes. Bone cracks bone, a vampire falls, skull annihilated, into his friends' arms. Ducking away from the altercation, Z reaches toward the shoulders of the two in front of him at the edge of the first circle.
As he grabs the shoulders of two young vampires, he leaps forward and pulls. The force of the pull does two things. It throws him into the circle toward one of the fighters very quickly and lifts the two stunned vamps off their feet, tossing them into the press behind.
Z sails through a graceful but quick arc into the center. The vamp he jumped at heard his approach and spins out of the way of a lazy swipe of Z's left fist. He slaps into the ground and slides, jerking to a stop and spinning to face both fighters.
The bladed grin flashes and Z's whispering multitudes explode in the minds of everyone in the room.
"Who's first? I got a 20 kill limit."
The other circles in the room dissolve almost instantly, the crowd tightening around Z's pit. The one he swung at steps up, eyes low and narrow; kill on his face.
The vampire flows forward and his right fist rockets toward Z's head. Z responds by lifting from his low attack stance and just standing up, into the strike. It hits with all the effectiveness of a human half-heartedly punching a brick wall.
The vampire shakes his hand out and arches a brow at Z.
The whispering again, "Have to swing harder than that."
The youngster takes a few steps back and roars as he lunges forward. The right fist rockets out again, a cross this time. All the force of the guy's centerline shoved into making his fist hit something as hard as absolutely possible.
Crack
The kid hits Z's jaw hard enough to pop it out of place and break it. His hand shatters into a mass of broken bones and dripping venom as a result. Grit on the floor lifts from the concussion of the strike and rushes away from Z. The youth stumbles back, clutching his destroyed hand.
Z straightens his jaw, the bone crackling as it re-stitches itself, and pops it back into place, eyes shimmering.
"My turn?"
Z springs to attack, throwing his right side forward. His right fist sails forward like a spear launched. It collides with the side of the kid's face, cracking it and punching it inward. Snatching his hand back, Z twists over the just-slumping body and strikes the floor at a sprint toward the other vampire.
The body of the first one hits the floor, skull completely crushed, about the same time as Z foot-blocks a blurry kick from the 2nd youngster. The kid darts around, moving way faster-than-human, throwing a myriad blows at the astral being.
Who just starts blocking and parrying attacks lazily. Not even moving all that fast, his movements weren't blurred at all. A grin crosses his face as he starts walking forward while being attacked. The vampire grows frustrated and arcs both fists at Z's face from over his right shoulder.
His whole left side was so open, it was silly.
Z's right hand lances out and smacks the kid across the face. Not enough to damage him. Just stun. The boy blurs to a halt and shakes his head out.
Probably a bad idea with Z standing in front of you.
The astral being doesn't muss about this time.
Purple-blue tracers shear the air as razor-tipped fingers whistle through it. Z's right hand hacks the vampire off at the hips. Spinning through the attack, a backhand left swipes the head off. The streaks of angry light slice down at shoulder-width, arms spinning off to flop on the concrete.
Z stops and steps forward, shoving the still-falling torso to the floor.
He stops. Spins. Stares at the 4 lining up in front of him.
"7? So soon?"
The vampires snarl at his taunting and launch forward, two leaping to land behind and to his sides. The two in front attack in unison; one toward his face and the other toward his legs, trying to remove his kneecaps.
Z leaps forward, twisting into an angle carrying him between the two attacks. Razor tracers rip through the air and maim two vampires.
One loses a hand, the other the arm from the shoulder.
The astral being finishes the spin and tiny blades trill the air, his hands swinging toward his opponents as he turns to face them. The one only missing a hand feints with that arm and swings the other up and under, towards Z's stomach. This doesn't go the way he planned.
Z steps into the feint, the venom-slick stump striking his face weakly. His right fist hammers into the sternum of the undead fighter. It shatters inward and the body flows backward.
Purple-blue streaks take the face of the vampire as he sails away.
The one missing his whole arm was displaying his young age; he was in a very human form of shock. He was trying to put his arm back on, hoping that his undead body would accept the limb back.
This was a very unfortunate mistake.
Mistakes pay large dividends of "Oh fuck, I'm dead." when it comes to fighting Z.
The astral being had already leapt straight upward. Twisting in midair and ignoring completely things like the laws of physics, Z strikes the ceiling like he landed on the floor. Darting forward on all fours, Z jams his claws into the roof above the vampire's head.
Swinging his legs down, he drops behind the newborn. Both hands come down, held together like praying and purple-blue razortips slice death in the air. They shear through the vamp's center, halving him from head to groin.
Springing forward between the 2 halves, Z snatches them in each hand and flings them at the two vampires jumping at him. The astral being scampers along behind the thrown pieces. The vampires both blast chunks of body away and land awkward, looking at a razor-handed death machine crouched and waiting between them.
Blurry-fast, they flow forward to attack.
Z steps backward slowly, dancing between the patterns of attacks. He blocks a kick with one foot to flow with it under a punch, leaning back to watch it sail over his face. Catching another punch from behind with a solid grip to push into the center of the other attacker as he kicks where Z was.
The vampires realize their quarry toys with them and throw more into their attacks.
Z speeds up his defensive dance of blocking and parrying, weaving and pushing away. Without any warning at all, his parries and pushes become strikes. Arms and legs break as they attack, undead bones healing fast.
As he twists himself into being attacked on both sides, his voice explodes throughout the entire room.
"Die."
Both hands slam outward and Z stomps the floor, BOOM , cracking the concrete beneath his feet. Palms blast his opponents in the chest. His eyes flare to brilliance and a barely visible wave of blue energy warps out from his open hands, catching the flying-away undead.
Both vampires are incinerated.
Z springs backward, a much older and larger vampire slamming into the cracked floor where he was just standing. The already broken cement shatters further, dust rising as the newcomer stands. He turns slowly to face the astral being. Zeraphim feels waves of negative energy crashing against him and smirks inwardly at the empath's try.
Couldn't blame him.
The new attacker flows forward, even moving as fast as he was. The vampire slams into Z with a blindingly fast and precise pattern of strikes. As soon as Z threw up his first block, the vamp grabs his arm and yanks on his center.
The sudden change in the attack perks Z's attention.
He rocks forward with the pull and snatches his grabbed arm back, yanking the vamp's arm forward. Stepping under it and slamming his back into the other's chest, Z grabs the stunned-limp arm and whips it down.
The undead warrior slams into the concrete with a crack of stone and bone.
Z hovers a bit at the top of his little hop , the force of his throw pushing him upward in the air faintly. Dropping, his right foot comes down like a hammer. The on-assed vamp catches Z's ankle and twists as hard as he can from his weak position.
He fixed said weakness quickly though.
Shrugging his shoulders and throwing the movement into his hips, his feet swing upward. Pushing with his hands next to his head, the vamp back-flips into a kick aimed at the spiraling-in-air form of Z.
Zeraphim flips himself over as he twists, bending physics again.
One foot lances out and kicks at the leg swinging up at him. They strike with a crack as the vamp's leg snaps and he's thrown back to the floor. Z pushes off the hit and dives-to-roll. Twisting to his feet, Z turns in time to see the vampire launching off his good leg.
Z darts forward, sliding low under the undead leap. Just as the creature sails over the astral being, Z explodes upward. Slams the vampire into ceiling hard, rattling drinks on the bartop one floor up.
The impact crushes the body of the vampire beyond repair.
Jamming his claws into the roof/floor again, he flings the almost corpse to the floor as he swings his feet up to the ceiling. Springing down from his inverted perch, Z slams razortips into the concrete…through the vampire's neck.
All goes silent.
Z holds himself inverted on one arm, claws buried in concrete and really dead vampire. Dropping to his feet, the astral being turns and looks at the quiet press of undead bodies.
The inner ring of vampires holding Z's pit as a circle all step forward. All of them elder vampires, expensively clad and draped in long coats. Apparently, the commotion caught the attention of some folks upstairs. None of them appear angry or even slightly perturbed. But then…they figured 10 of them, 1 of him. They were figuring they could handle the business the pups plainly couldn't.
This happens when vanity turns deadly.
Z just smirks at them, his voice deafening the room again.
"18? Seems like a good number."
None of the elders deign to answer. Not with words anyway. Shedding their jackets, they all draw swords. Rapiers, mostly. But a big guy in the back had a heavy short-sword, like a gladius. Z glances about, an eyebrow arching and an impish grin on his face.
A black duffel bag hits the floor about 2 feet in front of the astral beingg. The elders pause and glance at each other.
Which was the intended effect.
Z dives forward, rolling over the bag to his feet. A zipper rasps and a 3 foot long double edged straight sword with a strangely glittering black blade is snatched out the bag.
The first attack comes in, lightning fast, an overhead toward the astral being's face.
The black sword flashes upward, knocking the blow away.
Its edges are honed to such sharpness to make the blade whistle faintly as it shears the air. Z darts underneath the deflected strike and lashes out with his blade as he passes. The elder spins and dances away to the right, another swinging at Z from his left.
Z's left hand, full of black bag, swings up at the attacker's face. The bag flies out.
The elder stumbles a bit, the bag vanishing as it hits his face. The instant of confusion was his first and only mistake.
The razor-sword slashes a seam in the ceiling as it arcs downward. Z steps in and hacks off the vamp's left arm, his sword-arm curling back to overhead slash again with the back of the blade. The vamp's right arm goes. The flow of the blade never ceases as it swings up Z's right side, his arm twisting to bring the blade up behind his own head.
Stepping his left foot back, his ducks his neck and the sword trills the air as it slashes out.
An armless vampire is decapitated.
Z doesn't get a reprieve though. As he sweep the elder's head from his neck, the first new attacker running-leapt at him, rapier thrusting down at Z's chest. Z was off-balance to parry the attack.
So he just fell.
The elder sails over Z as he rolls to his back. The black blade slices out parallel to the floor about a foot off the ground. Right through the just-landed vampire's knees. The elder finally makes a noise, crying out faintly as he's hacked off.
He didn't have to worry about it for long though.
Zeraphim, getting away from incoming attacks by 3 of the other elders at once, finishes his roll/attack and bounces to his feet, facing his new opponents. The paraplegic vampire jams his sword into the floor, pulling himself up onto twin stumps with it.
3 elders all blur forward, aiming to skewer Z with their rapiers.
The astral being spins, scoops up, and tosses the legless vampire at the incoming blades. The elder coughs up a mouthful of venom as he's run through by 3 swords simultaneously. Before the attackers react, Z skips forward and snatches the elder's rapier from the floor and flings it at its owner, skewering him a 4th time and binding the blades already in him.
Z leaps up and over them, turning a lazy front-flip, his blade singing out at the skulls of the 3 elders.
Only they aren't there anymore.
Steel screeches and the impaled vampire is ripped to pieces as his brethren blur away, moving anywhere to get out of the way of Z's killing strike.
Z strikes the ground with a thump and is set upon immediately. A maddeningly quick flurry of attacks start in from 3 directions at once, their owners barely visible they move so fast. The black razor-sword goes to work.
Imagine fighting 3 tornadoes at once in a swordfight.
The astral being spins, twists, steps over, hops, rolls, leans away, ducks under, leans into, sways, flows around, and flips occasionally. All the while, his curious whistling blade sings about, catching light in weird ways, crackling as it sends rapiers flying away.
The Blade Storm.
Fine shavings of steel rain to the floor, trampled under barely seen feet, scattering in the wake of the fight.
Z kept his sword impossibly sharp for a reason: the blade had a black diamond core with a titanium wrapping that was banded with diorite. He'd made it of 3 the strongest materials in all of Existence. It was rather heavy, but that really didn't bother Z much. Enough chops, it eventually cuts through anything.
Steel? Ha.
Breaking the blurring, hard to see flow of the fight, Z finally attacks. The black razor shears through an overhead rapier slash. The already-thin shaved-down sword snaps with a CRACK and sails across the room.
That's one sword.
The astonished elder's eyes are still going wide when the black razor continues its path through the top half of his face. Most of his brain sails across the room to land near the other part of his sword. Zeraphim pivots on his swing, his off-hand whipping out and slamming the falling elder with half a skull AWAY.
The body, spraying venom, sails into the screaming mass of bodies outside the pit and vanishes.
Z's spin carries his blade out to his side in a wicked whistling curve. Snatching it sharply cross-body, the astral being hacks another rapier in two as he drops his stance. Springing forward, the black razor-sword spins into Z's left hand.
He twirls on his toes, his right razor hand lancing out and sweeping the broken-weapon elder's head off. The off-handed sword glints in the light as it spins a tight circle out to Z's left.
The wickedly fast and bladed dance of the dervish.
The singing razor curve shivs cleanly through the last undead master of the 3's sword, coming down toward where Z's back had been just a second ago, and the broken blade sails across the room. The tinkling echoes of it snapping are music to the astral being's ears as he finishes his spin.
He releases the last of its energy by blasting the last of the trio in the chest with his empty right fist.
The hand lodges in the undead creature's torso.
BOOM.
The vampire explodes. A few small bits sail into the crowd. Most of it is vaporized though. Left standing there unperturbed is Z, a little ball of white energy roiling around in his palm. His eyes flash brightly and he snaps his fingers shut, swinging the razor-sword up.
It points death at the remaining 5 elders, staring back down the blade at Z with death in their bloody red eyes.
The big guy with the gladius roars, throws his heavy sword up, and points right back. The last 4 rapiers explode into blurry, distorted-light motion.
Zeraphim flashes a fanged grin at the apparent leader. And vanishes.
He didn't actually vanish. He was simply moving at the speed of light. If they wanted to play hardball, he'd just have to show them that they were still a long way from the major leagues.
One of the interesting effects of light's speed as it crosses time and space is that it's just that: speedy. One hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second. If you limit something moving at that speed into a space the size of, say a, parking lot? It would literally appear to be everywhere at once.
But that's only when it slows down enough for you to actually see it.
Stuff that speed into a space as small as Z's little death pit?
Hm.
4 single swordfights simultaneously? Sounds like a good time.
Z meets the first elder while he was still in the air, leaping toward the astral being. The glittering razor-sword flashes, white wispy tracers in the wake of the blade as it shears the air at relativistic speeds.
Slowing faintly, almost visible, he sends alternating cross-body slashes at the vampire, which are desperately parried. The rapier shivers and cracks under the intense velocity. The astral being spins away, breaking light again, darting to the second undead.
Who was still running at the left over image of where Z, less than an instant ago, stood.
The astral being out and out kills this one, the black razor slamming down through the elder's shoulder. Diagonally down across the torso, exiting the opposite hip.
Before the body even starts to slide in half, Z slams into the third elder, also still running at Z's still-standing-there image.
Amazingly, the vampire actually managed a defense of sorts; the ancient undead's senses, honed over hundreds of years of training, allows him to just know he needed to throw himself to the side and lay his blade along his arm.
The glittering black razor shaves about half the width of the thin rapier away.
Zeraphim slows just enough to let the third vampire see his impish and lethal grin.
Light shatters as Z relativistic speed-leaps toward the ceiling and the fourth elder undead, left razor-hand hacking at the third vamp's damaged rapier and shattering it as an afterthought.
The vampire loses part of his arm in the agreement.
He slams the 4th undead monster into the ceiling with enough velocity that his elder body is crushed. The massive energy, generated by immense speed stopping instantly, radiates out through the vampire's body and shatters it in totality. The sweet smelling stench of venom starts dripping out of the cracks of dead undead skin.
The lull in Z's lack of speed opens him to the remaining two elders on attack.
Dropping from the ceiling, adhering to gravity's pull, Z swings the destroyed vampire toward the leaping, attacking forms blurring toward him. Both of them had leapt at him, trying to attack in unison.
They made the same mistake their young friends had.
Blasting into light speed again, Z arcs around the two. His speed relative to their speed rendered them almost completely still. Frozen in the act of hacking the venom-slimed body of their dead brother apart to blast through to an image of Zeraphim still falling after throwing their friend.
Z's flight at light's pace draws a black razor blade of glittering murder through the necks of two moving way too slow vampires.
Two heads would be swept free of their owners if Z wasn't still moving so fast. The astral being stops stone-still, facing the already-dead bodies of the last 2 elders. His empty, bladed left hand jumps up; electric blue energy dances and crackles along the tips of his claws.
A star-burst of blinding white-blue light blasts outward and reduces the vampires to ash in the blink of an eye.
Z spins with a grin and throws his sword up, pointing razor-edged death at the gladius-wielding beast of a vampire standing, furious, a few yards away.
The massive elder explodes forward, cracking the floor with his launch. Z matches, rocketing forward with a boom. Heavy steel screams as Z's black razor blasts downward against the gladius. The vampire is slammed to the floor as Z bounces off the blow, flipping overhead with the momentum. The astral being spirals through the flip to face the elder as he lands.
The huge vampire didn't fall to the ground though; he twists to land in a crouch and was already screaming toward Z, the gladius shearing a sparking, screeching gash in the concrete as he sprints across the room.
Z darts forward, not quite touching the floor, a plume of dust spraying out behind. The razor-sword trills through the air out to his right.
Steel sparks against a massively strong, impossibly sharp blade.
A true sword battle begins.
Z twirls to his right, wicked fast, the sword spearing out toward the elder's head. The gladius twirls up and bats the jab away, sparks flying off the parry. The elder flicks his wrist back, the gladius reversing its direction and whipping back at Z's face. The astral's blade twirls off to the right, Z flowing into a spin off the rebounded attack. A wispy white tracer cuts a wicked curve around Z as he ducks a slice and attacks at the same time.
CLANG
The flat of Z's blade slaps the heavy short-sword on its flat, just above the hilt.
The blade sails across the pit, jarred from the elder's iron grip with immense force. Z flows the razor-sword backward off the impact with the gladius. Its glittering edges shear the air as it whips in a circle back toward the elder, trying for a cut at his neck.
But the elder's neck wasn't there anymore.
The vampire had dropped and twisted into a dive under the whistling razor. Z's horizontal slash trilled harmlessly through the empty air above the undead's diving-away form.
The vampire strikes the ground, rolling forward and springing to his feet, snatching his blade up.
He turns to face a standing Z, who faces him with a grin. The whispering voices blast across the room.
"Well, well…good reflexes."
The elder master explodes up and forward, the gladius shearing into the ceiling with a shower of orange sparks. Z darts forward along the floor, directly beneath the vampire. A bladed left hand reaches up and snatches the undead violently out of his jump, slamming him down and cracking the stone below. The elder springs back to his feet, facing Z.
Or where Z was. The astral being had flipped up and over the undead. Twisting in the air to land facing the elder's back, the black razor sings out in a wispy slash at the vampire's head.
The gladius slams into the strange glittering black blade.
Both beings lock into a bind, leaning forward into a screeching-metal contest of strength. Muscles strain and ripple as both monsters shove against each other. Flaring white-blue eyes lock with the bloody reds of the vampire. One eyebrow creeps up Z's forehead and a little bladed grin ghosts across his face. The vampire bears down and growls.
The titanium wrapped, diorite-banded diamond blade had notched into the heavy steel of the gladius. Z snatches the short sword out of the elder's hands and slams his own into the floor, the vamp's gladius stuck on Z's blade.
The stunned vampire stumbles forward, having been pulled violently off-balance. Z had slammed the sword down with a quick swap to his left hand; the right hand whipped out in a vicious backfist.
SNAP
The elder's jaw snaps and his head almost twists all the way around. The only thing that saved him was spinning and diving away. As the undead twirls through his fall/evasion, he throws a foot at Z's attacking-again face.
Z snaps his head back, catching the foot across the nose. The elder master stands and glares at the astral being as his jaw cracks into place with a painful sound. Z twitches his nose and blinks.
The vampire opens his mouth and finally does something other than growl or roar.
"My sword, sir? Or is this to be the uncivilized fisticuffs of those newborns you've slaughtered so efficiently?"
A smirk crosses Z's face and he snatches the black razor, gladius in tow, out of the concrete. His rich baritone "human" voice ripples across the body-littered death pit.
"Respect returned in kind," he snatches the short sword off the black razor and tosses it across to the elder, "wasn't expecting any of you to hit me."
The undead holds his sword up and inspects the damage, arching a brow at Z. "May I ask a last request, sir?"
"Go for it."
"Might I inquire as to what the fuck you are? And…can I fight the claws instead of the sword? You seem limited by the blade. If it's a being's right to choose their end, then I'd choose to see all the tricks my killer has to throw at me."
Z tilts his head at this and something akin to a smile crosses his face.
"If you had stated that in any other way, I'd probably have refused. But…explaining myself fully would take far more time than we've got right now. To sum it up? If Existence had a will, mind, and physical form…it would be me. In fact…it is me, in fact. And my name is Zeraphim."
He punctuates the statement by off-handedly catching the black bag from before as it falls from nowhere. The zipper rasps and the black razor glitters as Z twirls it in front of his torso, shoving the sword into the open bag.
The bag doesn't shear open. Doesn't deform at all. Z just zips it and tosses the seemingly empty bag over his shoulder where it vanishes. His hands drop to either side and razorblades glitter at the tips of his fingers. A dangerously bladed grin crosses his features and the whispering millions of his voice echo about the room.
"So…let's orchestrate your end then, sir."
The vampire cracks a matching grin and spins his sword back behind his arm.
"I won't pretend to understand the enormity of what you just said. But I get the feeling I'm going to enjoy this, no matter how brutally you kill me, whatever you are."
Z's laugher ripples across the space and he nods.
"Then I shall see to it you aren't disappointed."
The full explosive force of Z's voice crackles through the minds and ears of every being in the room, "GO!"
Zeraphim breaks into a sprint toward the elder. The gladius spirals out and up, drawn up into a defensive posture. The astral being's feet bounce off the floor and Z launches himself into a dive at the vampire who skips forward and drops to his knees, heavy short sword cutting straight up at Z's form.
Bladed fingertips grab the blade and Z flips over the point of the sword.
Z twists in mid-flip and strikes the ground facing his opponent. The elder pops to his feet and spins, lashing out with a cut at Z's midriff. As it passes straight on in front of him, he palms down on the flat of the blade and leaps upward.
One foot strikes the blade and pushes him further upward into a forward-moving back-flip. Z tilts his head back and peers at the vampire beneath him as his claws cut purple-blue tracers in the air, screaming down toward the elder's face. The startled vampire yanks his blade back and lays it across his face, closing his eyes against the sparks from Z's claws slamming into the flat of his sword.
Stumbling back a step from the massive impact, he barely has time to whip the gladius to his right to block another wicked-fast swipe of razor-tipped fingers.
Impossibly fast was the only thing that kept repeating in the elder's mind. They were both moving too fast for the human eye to comprehend. Hell, Z was moving so fast that the vampire's eyes weren't even tracking him properly anymore. Pure instinct and reflex blocks, parries, and twists away from strikes coming seemingly from all directions at once. A downward glance tells him that Z's feet aren't actually even touching the concrete floor anymore.
The monster was floating in the air as he attacked.
The vampire finds himself slowly pacing backward as the blitzkrieg beats him this way and that. He ducks slashes toward his face and neck, sliding under one swipe of razor-handed death to hack at his assailant's back.
Or where his back was.
What he swung at instead was all 10 glittering purple-blue razors. Steel screams as adamantine clawfingers hack pieces of metal off his gladius. The sword suddenly becomes wickedly and jaggedly serrated, notched in uneven patterns along the upper length of the blade. The elder snatches his blade back blurry-fast and swings his arm overhead, trying to come down on Z's head.
The now-barbed and hooked gladius warbles the air as it slashes down through Z. Or his image anyway. The wispy after-effect shatters and swirls away in the wind of the sword's passing. The vampire's eyes go wide and he reflexively throws his sword up behind his head just in time to keep from being split in half.
10 razors shower the elder's back with sparks as the bladed hands scream down the side of his sword.
Rocking forward on his toes, the vampire elder lets his knees buckle and he drops. Twisting in his fall, the blade swings a blurry-fast circle out toward where Z's legs should be. The astral creature just hops over the wicked fast attack and kicks out with a vicious right foot. The elder takes an impossibly powerful kick across the face that lays him flat on his back.
But not for long.
Slapping the floor with inhuman strength, the elder back-flips upward and to his feet and lunges forward with a feint toward Z's face. Zeraphim, true to form, steps into the feint and his left hand hacks a few more notches into the gladius.
The elder had planned for that though and yanked the blade back as soon as the monster's claws struck. Blurring into vampiric speed, he throws his lead leg forward and kicks at Z's chest. The astral being takes the kick full in the chest , a crack echoing in the space as his sternum shatters with the force of an ancient and powerful vampire's attack.
Doesn't slow Z for even an instant though.
Bones in the astral being's chest crackle loud enough to be heard as they re-stitch themselves. His hands wrap the elder's still-striking ankle and yank backward with the force of the blow. Zeraphim rolls backward and flings the elder overhead in something similar to the tomoa-nage throw of the Earth art, Judo. The wide-eyed elder goes sailing face-first through the death-pit, trying to twist over and get his feet beneath him.
Not this time.
Z had blinked out before the vampire's foot had left his hands. Blinked back in above the vampire, crouching inverted on the ceiling. As the sailing-by undead passes under him, he explodes downward and slams the elder into the floor. Undead bones crunch as the astral creature bounces off the vampire's back, springing backward to land in a crouch facing his opponent.
The elder pushes himself to his feet, groaning faintly and leaking sweet-smelling venom from a multitude of cracks in his stone-hard skin. He turns slowly, his notched and jagged blade hanging limply at his side. The vampire raises a wary eye to Z and arches an eyebrow.
"So we're coming to the end of this, I expect. " Sickly sweet venom drips from the corner of the vampire's mouth as he speaks.
Z nods faintly, "We are. You have fought exceptionally well, sir. I hold your skills in the utmost regard by now. As such, I offer you a choice."
The elder inclines his head and arches a brow, "And that is?"
"I can dismember you and decapitate you much like this…filth," a dismissive gesture to the bodies and ashes strewn about the room, "or…I can see to it that your death is painless and instant. The choice though…I leave to you, sir. You've earned the right to a respectful death."
The elder laughs and bows faintly, the pain of his healing body ghosting a grimace across his features. The smile he flashes at Z is real enough though.
"Zeraphim, it has been a pleasure. That you gave me a choice in the first place is enough reason to let you do me in as you see most fitting. Oh, and please pardon my rudeness. You've been rather respectful yourself and I've not properly introduced myself. My name is Adrian von Deniker. I've been alive for close to a thousand years. I've seen nearly everything this world has to offer. And it will be a pleasure to go out to a monster so powerful as you. I don't think a warrior could ask for anything better."
Deniker swings his shattered gladius up to point at his assailant and a devilish grin crosses his face, "Let's finish this."
No verbal response was needed.
Zeraphim exploded into absolute motion, the barrier of light's speed left behind like an afterthought. The entire building rattles with the THUMP when the astral being moves to attack. Deniker closes his weary blood red eyes and lets instinct guide him through the oncoming onslaught. A twitch tells him to block right.
SLAM
Instinct was right. Z slammed into him and almost knocked him flat.
Flowing with the stumble, Deniker rolls into the immediate attack from the left, bracing his blade against his arm to take the next 10 pointed impact. Snatching his shattered blade upward, the elder vampire drops his stance to deflect screaming razorblades from hacking him in two.
CRACK. The sword shivers closer to breaking and the vampire's legs shatter.
Standing back up was hard. The concrete had spider-webbed beneath Deniker when Z struck.
Opening his eyes, the undead throws his blade into a spin around his sides. Trails of seared light burn blue in Z's passage as he spirals around the elder at relativistic speeds, purple-blue tracers of the monster's claws shredding more steel from Deniker's gladius. Twisting off one of the strikes, Deniker works the spin around his back and stops an attack that would have turned his head into something unrecognizable.
Rocking backward off the deflection, Deniker blinks. An image of Z hung there in front of him. But all his senses were screaming at him that Z was behind him. His eyes go wide and he leaps forward, twisting and swinging his shredded, warbling blade up between him and the attack that had to be coming.
Razorhanded death slams into his blade and blows him across the pit. The gladius's core finally shatters.
Z slows to visible coming out of a back-flip off the impact, landing lightly about the same time Deniker strikes the floor and tumbles head-over-heels a few times. The elder lances a hand out and balances his fall, twisting to land on his feet.
Both monsters lock eyes and explode forward in the same instant.
Deniker skips forward and sweeps the destroyed gladius out at Z's legs. Z acts a breath faster and dives over the attack. Instead of shearing into the elder's face with his razortips, the astral being passes into the vampire and vanishes.
Deniker stops and stands. Something like realization crosses his face, as if suddenly a lot of things suddenly made a lot more sense, and he smirks. As if to himself, he mutters "Ha, always wondered about that…"
BOOM
The entire room goes white and a thunderous roar rumbles throughout the entire building. The vampires in the crowd surrounding Z's little death pit were saved from being on-assed simply because of how many of them there were. Straining forward, they wait as the smoke clears from where Deniker stood.
Floating in the elder's spot is an energy being. A white-blue core of roiling, living light hovers above the shattered and spider-webbed concrete floor. Gossamer fine white wing-strands reach out to everything in the room, brushing all.
Staring out from a smaller core atop the larger are two pinpricks of black unlight.
They seem to lock eyes with every creature in the now-silent basement. Z's voice, amplified a thousand fold and barely tolerable in intensity even to the vampires, crackles throughout the basement.
"Anyone else? I've still got time for 2 more."
The crowd draws slowly away from the rapidly solidifying "human" form of Zeraphim as the spiderweb-cracks throughout the floor seal themselves, crackling blue-white energy racing in from the edge of the circle towards Z. The glowing gossamer wing-strands pull in close to the astral being and drop clothes on his rebuilt body before they suck up underneath a black hoodie Z stretches his new arms into.
Slipping the hood up over his white mane, Z glances about and smirks at the lack of aggression.
"Guess that sets boundaries."
With that, he vanishes with a SNAP, a fading image of his cross floating on the settling air.
XXXXXXXXXX
Maurice sat alone in a corner booth, a glass of blood in ringed fingers. The expression on his face belied his soft features; he looked rather pissed. He knew how many vampires had just died exceptionally violent deaths.
He really didn't give a rat's ass. The sounds rumbling from below the floor moments ago bespoke of massive force being used.
The vampire was irked about property damage.
"Hello again."
Maurice rocks backward in his seat, physically taken aback by the sudden HOLY SHIT, he's there of Z just blinking into reality across the table from him. A lazy smirk and a glass of blood held in bladeless fingers with glowing tips.
The vampire leans across the table and starts to open his mouth to yell. Z's face drops faintly and the strange glowing blue-white eyes narrow at him. Maurice stops. Pauses and remembers that this being was the source of the thunder beneath his feet earlier.
Z just smiles pleasantly at him. Well, pleasant but for the vicious-looking k9s in his mouth. The smooth, warm baritone from before glides across the space, easily audible over the breakstep dance music thumping the dance floor.
"Thank you. For the energetic entertainment downstairs and also for being a good sport. And don't fret; I left the room exactly as it was when I entered. Just…minus a few vampires. 18 to be exact."
Maurice blinks at the blatant mind-read and nods, trying to wipe the dirty look off his face. When he speaks, it's done after a deep calming breath, "Then…you're welcome. I'm glad my establishment suited your fancy."
As he finishes, the vampire lifts his glass in a toast.
Z grins and clinks.
"About my earlier request?"
Maurice nods to the stage across the room at the turntables. The raven-haired beauty from before was still behind the decks. "Go get her. I let her know you were looking for her. We've got a couple other decent DJs in the room, ready to take over when she drops the headphones."
Z listens with one ear and peers at her with a faintly impish grin, "Appreciate it."
"No problem, friend."
The astral being quaffs the rest of the blood and slides the glass across the table as he stands, flowing away and into the crowd.
Zeraphim rocks into the press of vampire bodies…again. His attention was focused completely on her though. She was still running a breakstep track. The astral being narrows his glowing eyes at her and she finally looks up from the mixer, finding his gaze immediately.
They match each other for a grin and she drops into the song, working the EQ and the fader.
Z listens close, wondering what song she has in mind.
The vampire lady starts twisting sound with her EQ knobs and working the right-hand deck to match a beat in her headset. She dances along in time with the end of the breakstep track and Z's ears prick to the sound of Evol Intent's glitchy mids fading into the bottom layers of the music. Grinning like a devil, the lady DJ dances back and forth between the fader and the EQ, pulling the old song out and giving the couples in the room a reason to pair off with "Maybe We'll Dance Tomorrow".
Z's grin widens and he stops as the crowd spaces out around him. He liked her style.
The pretty lady DJ slaps the fader all the way over and snatches the headset off. It's handed off to another vampire that blurs forward ready to rock out and the raven haired beauty glides around the decks, flowing across and leaping off the stage. Blurring forward, she stops in front of Z and peers up, blood red eyes peeking above the tops of a pair of blue lens shades she wasn't wearing a moment ago.
They pause for the barest instant, eyes locked, the music building them into their own private blue-lit world.
Both stepping in time with the glitch drums, they prowl around one another as if both hunting. As the tweaked-out guitar line begins, they both flow forward with the rhythm. She checks him out with a grin.
Z's eyes take in the slender form of the vampire girl, garbed in a similar black hoodie but wearing tight black jeans and sneakers. Raven colored curls cascade out of the hood, framing a strong jaw and high cheekbones with bright, intense eyes. Full lips under a pert nose, blue lenses resting low. He winks at her grin as the guitar fades.
The music explodes them both into blurred motion.
Both of them twist forward and spiral around one another, so much like the fighting Z did before but with such a different intent. The lights over the stage strobe along with the drums, the ultra-bright flashes blue-shifting around the two beings defying the speed at which light reaches the eye.
They brush close, contacting the first time. She locks eyes with him with a faint gasp.
His touch was like lightning had just arced through her.
The world around the two spirals into a blur as they dive toward one another again, blurring with the twisting glitching mid-line, brushing lightly at each pass. Z smiles to himself at how much she enjoys contact with his rather energetic form. Traces of each touch stream out in their wake as small arcs of electricity curling around the two.
The music drops tempo abruptly. Z winks at her and skips backward as the vampire girl rocks forward to press herself against him.
Hopping up, the astral being alights on the edge of the stage and crouches, grinning at her.
She arches a brow at him and leaps atop the stage beside him. He stands and they twist forward around one another again, much closer, dominating the stage. Her hands reach to his face and he leans in, her fingers curling around his neck and pushing the hood off. Her eyes widen the tiniest fraction when the shocking brightness of his hair is struck by the light.
The astral being laces his hands around the vampire lady's waist and starts something like a slow dance. One blurred and twisted by how fast the two move. The girl's desire radiates through Z as a pleasant warmth from her otherwise cold skin.
She lifts to get closer to his face. Another playful wink and he's suddenly across the stage from her, wagging a finger as her as if to say Come and get it.
The undead darts forward only to have him spring off the stage. Up and along the sidewall to the fire door. Z pauses there and grins at her, wagging his finger at her again before ducking out the door behind. The girl rockets forward and catches door before it closes, slipping out behind him.
Bursting outside, she casts about the wet Alaskan night.
"Hi."
The word growls across her synapses and she twists backward, dashing back a step as she looks up. A shirtless Zeraphim was already in mid-leap from the roof down at her. She leapt up at him and twisted, turning him beneath her to try to pin him.
As they strike the ground, her astride him, he bucks beneath her and throws her over his head. As she rolls flat to her back, Z turns a lazy flip before landing atop her.
"Oh, you like to play games too?"
The words crawl across her mind as whispers. His lips never move except to lean forward and give her the kiss she kept trying for earlier. She moans against his lips and arches her back, pressing against him and reveling in the sensation of his energy dancing through her venom-filled veins.
The kiss is broken and suddenly he's standing above her, grinning down impishly.
"I like games. It's time to play one. That was tag. And you're it."
Z rockets across the clearing toward the treeline. The girl springs to her feet and takes off after him. It wasn't very often a man made her hunt for him.
She couldn't help but wonder who the prey would be at the end of this night.
All thanks again to the amazing and brilliant Ailisraevyn. Everyone has terrible and dark moments in their lives. Having someone like her in my life for so long has been an enriching experience I could never explain with words.
So I'll endeavor to let my enigmatic monster's tales be my voice.
I appreciate reviews. I love critiques. I do actually pay attention to trends of dislikes about my writing as I refine my style and try to work suggestions in. So feel free to speak up. LOVE answering questions about Z. Explaining his complex ass is a challenge for me -every time- and it helps me expand his abilities and make them as scientifically feasible as possible in this forum. So if ya got god character ideas, hit me up! :D
Tweet me #z3raphim, I don't bite.
Pardon the issues with the links and also with a few extra words as well as a not –quite- enough in certain places. I'll be editing this and cleaning it up further as well as working on the end of chapter 2 of this piece. I just lost my job so my original stories have become a priority for me.
Lastly, but most certainly not least…enjoy Travelers.