"Why didn't you kill it?" Pam walked around the sad excuse for a vampire.

On her knees on the a thin carpet for show more than comfort their guests black hair fell in her face. Her eyes were wild and she jerked up like she was constantly startled. Handcuffs made of silver held her, but she didn't look like much of a threat for vampires thousands of years old. On display for Godric's clan in a small hall Eric shared his find. While not impressive, she still was a mystery he thought deserved to be solved.

"Where did you find her?" Godric stood up from his throne to take a closer look at the troubled vampire.

Eric stood back in an unnecessary, but reverent move to give his maker more room. "Chained with silver feeding on corpses," he answered. "An interesting way to torture someone," Godric eyed him curiously then he added, "And cruel."

The stranger jerked again frowning speaking unintelligibly fast and low.

Godric returned his gaze to their guest. Trapped in the body of a young man, he was wise beyond the years his appearance implied. His perspective on life evolved since his second life. He wasn't as cruel as others in his species. He hoped to impart his wisdom to his family, but they were younger and weren't as world weary as their father. Blond hair and fair skin identical to the pallor of his clan, Godric knelt down to the dark skinned woman his progeny rescued. Her clothes were filthy and the stench of death hung on her as fiercely as it did her clothes. He grabbed her chin. She looked at him with wild unfocused eyes. The effects of feeding on the dead made her feral. Her fangs came out, but she didn't attack.

"Have you fed her?" Godric asked needlessly. He could tell Eric was too concerned about showing off his new stray, to properly care for her.

Pam and Eric purposefully stepped forward. Pam didn't like the idea of her brother bringing home strange newcomers. But, they were all entitled to their pets.

"Kill me," the stranger pleaded.

Godric let go of her chin. He kept his voice level inches away from the dark vampire. "What will you do with her Eric?"

The tall former Viking tilted his head in consternation. "I'm not sure." He had brought her specifically for Godric. He knew his maker's propensity for puzzles. He wasn't particularly interested in taking another pet, and he held no attachment for the stranger.

"I think you should kill it," Pam unimpressed refused to describe her as anything other than 'it'. Their small family was made up of attractive eccentrics and Pam claimed the title of bitch proudly. Often perceived as unfeeling, she accepted it because only her family would know how devote and warm she could be. They had earned the glimpse. This pathetic excuse for a vampire was stupid enough to get caught, be imprisoned for who knows how long in a morgue, and now she was talking to herself. What was the point of Eric letting her out if she was a prisoner in her head?

Godric didn't see either one of them giving this vampire the time and energy she needed to heal. Life was a precious thing and Godric was fond of puzzles. He was attracted to nuances and at his age they were rare. The amusement might be short, but he could stand a companion. He wondered how old she was.

"I will take her," he stated watching her lips move. Tilting his head he let it go. She retracted her fangs and let her head fall again. He nodded to Eric, "release her."

Hesitant about releasing the feral vampire, he knelt behind her using his leather gloves to unlock the silver cuffs. Pam crossed her arms rolling her eyes. She was thankful that Godric hadn't asked her to care for it. "Are we done?" she asked impatiently.

"You don't think it's interesting?" Eric closed the gap between him and his sister as they watched Godric help the stranger to her feet.

"What's it matter when daddy does," Pam answered dismissively.

Pam shrugged.

"At least he has something to play with," Eric stated. He was worried for his maker. He disappeared for months at a time in his private wing of the estate. But, most times he left the grounds without a word, silently expecting his progenies to handle the responsibilities for the master of the house. Eric didn't mind it he welcomed it more than his sister, who took pleasure in pursuing personal gain. It didn't mean she couldn't be relied on when it came to her family, so just knew Eric, as Godric's first progeny, loved to show his undying loyalty. When Godric trusted him to care after the estate he was pleased. But, now he thought better of it. Too long in solitude wasn't healthy. His maker rarely discussed philosophy with him anymore or challenged his views on current events in the political world of vampires. He missed his maker and hoped that he would at least find himself again with this new pet.

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An erotic mosaic hung over the large marble tub. Its size was large enough to fit over ten bodies. One of their houseguests, a Russian vampire, bathed in the warm blood of young children. Needless to say the room stank for months. Pam the most offended of all by the smell threw the vampire, and his entourage out hours before the sun would rise. Her legendary temper was boasted and even in exaggeration it still wouldn't do her justice. Godric thought fondly of the hot tempered of his family. He found her on the altar to be slaughtered by a polytheistic cult he and Eric happened upon.

Humans and their traditions, he understood the need for comfort when life was so short. And with so many things to do to feel accomplished so many things to explain, why not sum it all up with to an omniscient being or two.

His nose drew in the scent of jasmine. He chose it specifically because it reminded him of his time in Egypt. Surrounded by exotic dark skinned women, proud of their color he admired them as openly as they openly wished admiration. The white of the suds contrasted with her chocolate skin. He thought what a striking picture she would make.

"What is your name?" Godric asked certain she wouldn't know it. Her diet ruined her mind. Though, it didn't hurt to broach conversation with a question.

The stranger sat in the bath the water stained by the dirt and blood his human scrubbed off. He watched crossing his arms eying her every interaction with his maid and with a lazy quality. It would take him less than seconds to reach the stranger if she behaved out of line. The stranger didn't respond to anything except the voices in her head that continued to plague her, from how often and violently she jerked. The vampire watched the human hungrily, but she made no move to bite her. Godric considered this odd. He chose this human specifically. Lorelei didn't mind being roughly handled. She welcomed it. She was a favorite of Pam's and Eric's when they were drunk in a cruel stupor.

The stranger shifted in the water. Her body moved from side to side trained on the pulse point. Though, the nameless vampire still made no move to drink her, it was extremely odd considering how hungry she must be. Corpses were as bitter as they were unhealthy. Her mind obviously altered wouldn't be well until she drank from a living well.

The girl on her knees damp turned to Godric unsure of what to do next now that she was finished. She was use to vampires taking what they wanted. She found it odd that this vampire, Godric had warned her beforehand of the presumed ferocity of her appetite, wouldn't want to taste her. Many including the master of the house, when he indulged in blood found her delicious.

Godric nodded his head in encouragement.

The helper tilted her head pulling her hair to the side. The troubled vampire sniffed. Her eyes remained unfocused until the smell of blood gave her clarity its denial robbed her of. She leaned forward, but stopped. She was at war with her hunger.

"It is clear you are hungry," Godric pointed out her struggle not understanding it. He sensed she was young. A few years shy of being a hundred. But, surely she hadn't lived as long as he sensed denying her most primal urge to eat.

She looked at him for the first time. Not looking through him or around him, but seeing him as one of her kind.

"Eat," he stood ready to force her if need be.

She turned her head in the other direction. Her mumblings became louder and more erratic. Godric stepped forward collecting the anxious human. He guided her out.

"I want to be left alone. Leave me alone," the dark skinned woman rocked. She chewed her cheek until her mouth filled with her own blood.

Assuming she meant him he went outside. He charged the helper to find and relay a message for Pam. He trusted her with the task of finding her clothing. With a cursory look the blond knew size and weight and this contribution involved what she loved, shopping. He sat on the chair by a fire. He felt the heat, but he didn't need it. The fire danced over the thing logs unmoving and resigned to their purpose to burn.

"What demons torment you?" he asked no one in particular.

Sitting in white suds and clear bubbles the stranger looked at the door. Human ears wouldn't have heard Godric's question. The stranger's perked. They thought she was unaware, but she heard things. She heard everything—even ghosts.

"I ain't no fucking demon," she heard her ghost.

"Leave me alone. Leave me the fuck alone."

"Believe me bitch if I could I would."

"You're dead stay dead and leave me alone!" she hissed her movement the white foam hung on her chin.

Lafayette looked over his cousin with weary eyes. There was only so much he could do to keep her sane. Rotten blood didn't help her vulnerable psyche. For a while, with his help, she controlled her appetite locked away in the morgue. But she was getting hungry—too hungry to hear him to go along with his reason when it was so much easier to submit to a ravenous haze. She drank all thirty seven bodies dry. And when they were gone thirty seven more took their place. It was sick. He watched her lose herself becoming crazier feeding and arguing with him. After three months she forgot his name. After six more months she'd convinced herself he was a demon. Two years trapped in a morgue fed dead bodies by faceless underlings, enabling a torture they knew nothing about.

"Tara baby," he crouched bringing his hand to her head.

She shivered from fear.

"If you won't leave me alone then kill me," uncertain eyes trailed over the dark skinned man. He looked at her with sympathetic eyes, but she knew it was a lie. He wanted her to trust him and then he would hurt her again. He reminded her of something she didn't want to remember. She knew the sensation of worry and rage and other emotions too far for her reach. They filled her whenever she saw his face. Whenever he talked to her calling her by this name Tara, she didn't know why he called her that. She didn't trust it and refused to acknowledge it was her name. The demon wanted her to answer to it, but she didn't. She had no name. She would never have a name as far as she was concerned.

"You want to get rid of me. You eat." He stated.

Interested eyes glared at him with distrust.

"You not strong enough to make me go away. You won't be til you eat."

The prospective of eating better hadn't crossed her mind to rid herself of her demon. Distrust filled her and she was worried that this was a trick. This demon determined to torment her why would he offer advice to get rid of him?

"Fuck you," she croaked. "Sitting on a seat of dead bodies you gave me!"

Lafayette shook his head.

"Fucking fool," his voice darkened. "Sit here and starve there ain't no more dead bodies to eat. Suck a human dry—get fucking better!"

His cousin shook her head. "There's a nail in my head."

Lafayette stepped back. He was pushing too hard, a year watching her lose her mind her sentences became strange when she got angry. Short of opening some one's vein for her and forcing the blood on her lips she wouldn't eat otherwise.

It was a lie, but he could live with it, or rather exist with it. Technically he wasn't living. The uncomplicated term was ghost. Forced into the afterlife by his mother, in her wisdom the witch decided to use his soul to help guide Tara through her eternal life. He remembered the day he found her:

Tara was outside their home. The outside light was busted. When the door opened letting the yellow bulb illuminate their guest she was dirty and bloody and asking for their help. Without a word Lafayette opened the door, but Tara didn't make a move in.

"You gotta invite me bitch," she croaked the words. They were as painful to say and see the reaction on her cousin's face as it folded and bent with confusion, fear, horror, and understanding.

This would have been funny if she wasn't a fucking vampire he remembered hearing her say after they got over the shock.

"What the fuck Tara?" he closed the screen door. Tara startled from the slam stepped back in the shadows, feeling safer there. But, Lafayette's fear she could smell it. His heart pumping and her eyes traced the vein on his neck. He covered the hand self consciously and Tara forced her eyes to the ground.

"I just ate," the words were drenched in shame. Ashamed she'd just been caught eliciting fear and for the actions that had her running to the only family she had left. They would hear it through the grapevine soon enough, "I killed mama."

"I know you just didn't share that fucked up shit to me."

"I was hungry."

"Well shit that ain't getting you up in here."

"I just ate Lafayette," she countered like that was guarantee enough she wouldn't eat him.

"And your ass is notorious for getting up in the middle of the fucking night for a fucking snack. I ain't bragging. But I am too damn tasty not to be on someone's menu. I sure hell don't want it to be yours." He didn't slam the door in her face like he wanted to, like she expected him to. Instead he paced in front of the screen door holding his hand over his mouth in thought.

When her aunt arrived Lafayette warned her, but Tara had already given her wide berth to get in her house safely. She retold the story about eating her mother. Her only excuse was the hunger and her mother's proximity. She hadn't tasted particularly delicious, but when Tara had the blood inside her it wasn't like she could stop. Lafayette's mother had always been more understanding of the supernatural than he was. She was a witch and subscribed to every supernatural expectation. She let Tara in hiding her in the bathroom for the night. In the day she hadn't shared much what she planned on doing. Lafayette barely slept a wink for the rest of the night but when the sun came out he managed to sleep more soundly making sure his bedroom blinds were up filling up the room with plenty of life. It was an awkward way to sleep, but he managed.

She killed for a second and final time when her aunt fed her one of her customers, who had a reputation for keeping company with vampires. The vampire, who turned Tara she hadn't seen before or after her attack. The few that she knew hung around her small town she didn't trust. They were stronger and faster and she was basically on her own. With little experience about these types of things the witch did the only thing that made sense at the time knowing the power of family was a strong bond she exercised the spell bonding them together.

From his mother's point of view he always assumed it saddened his mother to think of her niece damned and alone. And in a morbidly sentimental way Lafayette's mother meant well. Though, he would have preferred to be asked before she knocked him unconscious and bound to Tara. Now he was an aberration for only his cousin to see. For 60 years his mother's magic bound them together. The cousins were stuck with each other. But, Tara didn't remember their history sordid and otherwise. So the lie didn't bother him when the truth would eventually come out. And the truth, for all the good it would do, welcomed more problems than he wanted to entertain. Now he needed to get his cousin to eat. Her memory could come later.

"Eat!"

"I ain't hungry,"

Her rocking became harder as water spilled onto the floor.

"The most stubborn ass—"

"Seat of dead bodies. Fireflies in the winter don't fly that high."

"You hungry and you gonna eat. I'll make you," he crouched a few feet away from her where Godric had sat.

Tara shook her head violently, knowing she wouldn't be able to withstand the pull of this demon. Sometimes he took her over. Sometimes he made her do things she didn't want to do. He wanted her to eat the living. She knew it would taste good from a memory, but good things weren't as they seemed, she wasn't sure if it was the same memory. Whatever memory it was that warned her she learned about good things the hard way. This demon wanted to ruin her—ruin her like winter ruins fireflies in flight.

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Pam waltzed in the spare room her maker designated for the guest she referred to as 'it'. The wardrobe she'd chosen hung over her forearm. On the other side of the room Godric looked into the fire with a lost expression. Eric's warning rang in her ears as she studied his posture. Still and unmoving like a statue, a living statue. When they met he owned the quiet reserve he was infamous for now. It was too stale for her tastes, but her maker pulled it off. After thousands of years he had become bored with his power. He didn't like the games Eric and she played and he was no longer amused to watch them as they played them.

He angled his head toward the open door of the bathroom. She followed his gaze. Nude and uncaring the young vampire stepped out wet her still in her face. Pam quirked her eyebrows, for a moment she considered calling It by another name of pure compliment, but she disregarded the thought. Considering her maker's low attention span of late, this amusement would be a temporary addition in their home.

"Well well It just got more interesting," she smiled at the view.

Godric stood.

"I'm hungry," the dark skinned woman offered.

"Pam would you be so kind," he held his hand out for the clothing. The blond hesitated before relieving herself of her textile cargo.

"Pity," she murmured to herself before she went to find something tasty for It to eat.

"Do you have a name?"

"You're names Tara," Lafayette offered from behind her.

She lowered her head, "that's not my name," she growled.

Godric's disinterested gaze fell as she continued to talk with an entity she could only see.

"What the fuck is so bad about your name?"

"It's not my fucking name!" she raised her voice. "Stop calling me that."

"What would you like to be called?" Godric asked handing her the clothes Pam left.

Unfocused eyes trailed over him. Then she grabbed the clothes throwing them on in jerky motions. She ignored his question speeding toward the woman who bathed her earlier. Bending her neck she sank her teeth in and drank. She tasted as delicious as she smelled. This was the first time in a very long time she had a hint of something sweet. It was intoxicating—too intoxicating to stop.

Godric walked as if he were taking a sedate stroll monitoring how fast and how much she drank. He didn't want his maid drained. She was loyal and that was hard to come by. He wondered what to call this stranger who talked to herself, and then he smelled the jasmine replacing the stench of that she came to his estate with. It came to him his time an Egypt a beautiful colorful culture with equally beautiful and colorful people.

"Bast," she stroked her hair as it came up. She let the human fall. There was much to teach her, but first she needed to learn her new name if she couldn't remember her old one. "Bast," he repeated.

Wild eyes turned to him. She drank sloppily with blood splattered around her mouth reaching as far as her cheek.

"That is what I will call you, Bast. It's a good name. It belonged to an Egyptian this world now considers a goddess. She was a protector like you. You may not know it now, but you will." His years and his studies gave him the ability to focus on the character of a stranger or someone he knew. In its rawest form human's called this intuition, but it was just a precursor to an art Godric happened upon and perfected. He sensed Bast was a protector. He would do well to keep her close and there still was the mystery of her origins.

Lafayette in Tara's body could feel her fighting him. But, they were apart of each other so there was little she could do when he took over. He didn't like robbing her of her free will, but she was obstinate and unconcerned about her health. Lafayette nodded his head acknowledging the name Godric gave to his cousin. It was a peculiar name; it sounded old which made it fitting that an old vampire would give think of it. The sooner she got better, the sooner she could remember and they could leave the den of strange vampire's he didn't all together trust.

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The real world calls so I won't be updating as frequently as I use to. I'll try to make the story decent enough so your patience will not be in vain.