Risk and Reward

So you are all familiar with the Power Ghouls line, yes? Through weeks of plotting and one stray plot bunny that triggered a little investigation and a lot of interest, this story was born. It was also born as a reward for my reaching 10k posts on my Gory blog. So, without further ado, whether there's art for it or not- I present to you, the Power Ghouls counterparts to Baroness and Destro: The Countess and Devein.
I may or may not continue this. Leave your thoughts below in the doobleedoo.

The stale air circulated through the lungs of the luxurious coffin's sole occupant by habit rather than necessity. Gory Fangtell's glasses were tucked in a protective pocket in the lining, her demure features buried into the pillow beneath her head. Belfry Prep's dorms were quiet during the hours of sparkling sunlight, save for today. There always seemed to be one horrid day in every summer...

The sharp rumble of thunder far above the lid of her coffin sounded to her sensitive ears as it would've to any human's with the thick wood separating her senses from the world. The tender quaking of the coffin's perch made her groan in irritation; she did not want to go listen to the elements, but at this rate, she would never sleep even closed off as she was.

A soft knock on the lid forced her to stir regardless. She reached into the pocket and produced her glasses from their case, slipping them on as she popped her head out from inside. Valentine, hair askew from his own slumber, stared down at her with a raised brow. "Are you decently awake?" he asked.

"Are you decently sane?" she replied. He laughed, lifting her lid and scooping her out much the way toddlers carried babies. Gory squeaked and grabbed tight hold of his shirt, "Val!"

"Rise and shine little sister!" he replied with a laugh. He set her on her feet with a teasing kiss to her temple and continued out into the hall. Straightening herself and stepping out after him, she sighed, "And where, pray tell, might we be going at this hour?"

"Early breakfast." He barely threw her a glance as he headed down the stairs. A bolt of lightning illuminated the world outside their safe haven only for a moment, but it was a moment long enough to see beyond the windowpane the cast of a shadow across the lawn before the door.

"Valentine!" she shouted. He stopped at the bottom stair, turning only slightly. The door cracked off its hinges. He whipped around and immediately went on the defensive. The alarm system blared, rousing the other vampires in the building in time for the slaughter to begin. A pair of werewolves, thickly muscled and tall, leapt at Valentine. Instinct froze her feet to the spot. To go after him would be suicide, but she couldn't leave him to die. Doors opened, a few students emerging to investigate the source of the commotion and immediately rushing back inside to bolt their doors...all but one.

Bram took notice of Valentine's younger sister frozen at the crest of the stairs, slowly stumbling back as if the silver candlesticks would do her any good against something twice her size. It was suicide to run out to get her, but suicide he could live with. Leaving the door ajar, he bolted across the stairwell, grabbed her waist and yanked her into the opposite corridor. She yelped in realization, seeming to awaken from her daze. Her burgundy eyes flicked to him in terror as he pushed her forward, urging her to keep his pace, "Run!"

There was little they could do with the monsters tearing up the stairs after them. This wing of the dorms was reserved for the lower class students, but the belfry was close. He launched her up the ancient stairs and brought his foot down with a sharp crack into the boards. With a push, he heaved them away from the upper door and swung it shut.

There was a moment in which the cold wind pierced the thin boards of the roof. She could nearly feel the rain as it pounded the shingles overhead. There was screaming, snarling and the sound of running footsteps. Their schoolmates were being driven out, either to freedom or to their own demise. He glanced to her for only a moment before snapping one of the limbs off a stored coat rack.

Time moved very slowly in their hidden loft. Each silence carried the prolonged sound of a pair of vampiric heartbeats until finally, there was a smash. His head snapped up as he realized she had uncovered a mirror and pried the silver backing off a rather large and sharp piece of glass. Her fingers had stopped trembling, yet the blood on them shed the tears she did not have the time to shed herself. "I'm sorry," he said as gently as possible.

The silence of her reply was deafening. She continued to remove the silver from the mirror's glass until a pile of shards remained in her hand, her blood oozing from cuts caused by them. Forming a pocket out of the cloth that had covered the mirror, she wrapped it once...twice...and rose. The longest shard she had remained tucked between her fingers. "Your father...he's a businessman," she murmured, "Tell me, what's the most basic rule of business?"

"It's hardly time for a quiz," he replied in a much lower tone.

She heard the steps below them and quirked a brow. The makeshift pocket jingled as she walked, her silent steps in time with the ones below. As they paused, she paused and met his eyes. The confusion and the horror left her eyes, leaving only a solid sight of merciless joy. "Risk and reward," she whispered, breaking into a sinister grin.

Before he could caution her differently, she threw open the door and leapt forward. It was the simple knowledge that there were two of them, larger than her, that made him leap. She drove the shard of silver into whatever flesh and fur she could find. The other ripped into her skin, claws splitting tender white skin like butter. He had never seen a more wild, ruthless look in her eyes before. A stirring at the far corner of the hall drew his gaze momentarily, just long enough to see the rising and progressive limp away of someone on the stairs.

"Gory!" he shouted. She was attacking without second thought, transitioning between the two and refusing to settle until they were both destroyed. He ripped the pocket of silver from her hold and pitched them up into the air like a baseball, driving it through with the broken piece of wood.

If she heard the first wolf fall, she made no acknowledgement to it. Her heart was pounding in her ears, nearly human speed, the drive and retract of her makeshift blade the thing to set her ragged breathing to. The creature she'd attacked had done as much damage as it could before falling over.

Bram gently grasped her upper arms, giving her a tender squeeze to promise her safety. Her blood mixed with theirs in a pattern of shades of red across her skin and clothes. "It's alright," he said softly, "It's over now. Breathe."

Chest heaving, her eyes darted around the bloodied hall. The tender massaging of his hands up and down from her shoulders to her elbows returned her breathing to normal. She blinked slowly, dispelling the fury from her eyes. Her hand was coated in blood and slipped as it tried to grasp his. "Are you alright?" he said quietly, relenting his soothing to catch her hand and slowly begin to guide her away from the carnage she'd created.

"I'll live," she replied. The worst he could feel was blood seeping from between her fingers from the force of her strikes. Cuts on her palms, healing slashes on her back and sides. She paused by the stairs and waited, looking down at the place where Valentine had been. He thought about telling her, but she could establish for herself what she saw. A sigh heaved from the very depths of her chest.

"They're going to wonder what provoked this," he murmured to her as she returned to her room and ducked into her en suite. Flicking on the water with her wrist, the blood was washed away from her skin in a fountain of white that transitioned to trickles of red. The cold barely made her wince; the pain was bearable as it was. "They're going to blame it on him, you know. If he's not dead yet, they'll make sure he is later."

A small, defiant smile graced her lips, "If. You're joking."

He watched her clean her wounds with a businesslike efficiency, finally budging from his place when she intended to reach into the medicine cabinet with her sterile hands. He removed the bandages for her and twined them gently around her fingers as one would dress a boxer's hands, paying special attention to the gashes between each finger. "Do you ever think we may be useful for more than this?" she murmured conversationally. From the thoughtful look in her eyes, it was almost impossible to imagine that she had experienced great loss and great fury in less than an hour.

"What like?" he replied as his tender dressing of her hands slowed. Her gaze lifted, a single brow quirked and burgundy eyes dancing with wickedness. The mystery of her words alone was enough to snare him into her plot, but it was the way she looked at him that made him smirk in return and silently agree to it.

...

Catastrophe sauntered in to the dimly lit, barely settled little belfry room from her perch on the roof. With a small smirk toward her red-eyed employers, she skittered the collar of chaos across the freshly polished mahogany desk. The sound of it caused both pairs of vibrant eyes to snap to her from the shadows.
She crawled up on the edge of the desk and purred as she tugged her paws free of her gloves with her teeth. "Stolen from the source," she crooned. The near-silent shift of one of them moving made her ears twitch. She waited, rough tongue cleaning the back of her paw, until her employer finally emerged from the shadows. Tight, black leathers hugged the female vampire's curvy hips firmly, a matching vest with a button collar of a red bat distinguishing her pale figure from the shadows. She perched demurely on the opposite edge, lifting the collar of chaos into her palms and twisting it gently around her fingers. Her darker eyes warmed to the werecat, "You're such a good little familiar, Toralei..."

The werecat could hardly resist purring at the vampire's cool touch as it ran through her hair. She arched, tail twitching, and moved a bit closer to welcome the tender massage to her ears. Her tail snaked up around the vampire's knee, "Mmm...the kitty did good?"

"The kitty did so very good," she purred. Her continuing caresses brought the werecat bliss, her purrs becoming mews as all the tender itches were cared for. Curling up in the female's lap, she murmured, "Thank you, Countess."

The collar was plucked from her grasp by her partner. He took up residence in the desk's pristine leather chair and watched as his counterpart caressed their protege's feline ears. "How long do you want to bet before those meddling little power ghouls get themselves involved?"

A warm smile trickled over her very red lips, "Soon enough, my love. You don't think they'll expect a thing, do you?" Her tone, though teasing, sought an answer. He moved closer and dropped the collar on her lap, "Of course not, darling. But they will soon enough."

She released Catastrophe and leaned back on her palms with the collar dangling through her fingers. "And darling...do make sure to keep that annoying web-weaver from finding us, would you?"

The werecat purred and nodded in affirmation before slipping off into the shadow. His eyes glistened as he raised the bejeweled collar, admiring its pale leather against her dark suit. She laughed and plucked it gently from his grasp, "Not now, darling. Not until the Power Ghouls are near."

"That seems like quite the gamble," he replied, "counting on powers the collar may not grant."

"Every risk has its reward." She placed the collar into his palm and crawled forward from the desk. Her arms encircled his neck and her perfectly painted lips brushed his own, "Don't you agree?"

He chuckled in silence and pressed a firm kiss to her lips as if reminding her of his equal participation in their heist. He kissed her until she gave in, and drawing back simply murmured, "I believe in opportunity, something we have quite a bit of with those Power Ghouls."