Blood Ties First Blood
Okay, back to the fanfiction!
Synopsis; Asteroth is back but trapped within a human host the only thing standing between him and freedom is Vicky Nelson. She'll need all her friends for this last battle but will they answer her call? Or will Vicky find out how deep the dark really can be?
Words of Warning and Disclaimer; I do not own the Blood Ties universe, characters etc. they are the work of the very talented Tanya Huff, and brought into 3d living colour by the ingenious creative mind of Peter Mohan. That said, my fanfiction is based solely on the television show, Blood Ties and any inconsistencies with the Blood Books is therefore to be expected.
Secondly, some readers may be familiar with my other fanfiction about Blood Ties, entitled Blood Bond. I'm not shamelessly plugging it, but I wanted to be clear that this is the direct sequel to that other work and as such readers that have not read Blood Bond may encounter characters or plot twists out of reference. Be prepared for old friends (or foes) and unfinished details to be brought back again! You can read First Blood alone, but do so at your own risk of missing details.
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Blood Ties First Blood Ch. 1
"Come with me…"
Vicky's eyes slipped shut, a sound escaping her lips even while she bit them closed to keep silent. It was nearly impossible, though and even as she thought it another cry escaped, sounding soft into the darkness.
He only laughed at her and continued…the sound all she could hear in the total darkness that defined her world above her ragged breathing and the increasing pounding beat of her heart.
She was scared, afraid of what would happen and so she clung to sanity, her eyes squeezing shut, her brain refusing to believe what was happening as if that would save her.
"let go…"he whispered, his voice seeming to come from the darkness itself, from everywhere. "It's been so long…just let go Vicky…trust me."
At the first touch of his fingertips, she felt a shiver run through her to settle as a rush of wings in her stomach. His hands were fine boned and long, smooth but with odd calluses on the palms, a rough contrast that scraped across her skin at the edges of her clothing…teasing her with his power over her.
She could feel him above her, eyes still closed in the darkness she didn't know how she knew but he was there. It was a presence, large and overpowering but he didn't touch her…only the fingertips slowly drifting over her stomach as if coaxing the butterflies in her stomach to take flight.
Fingertips moved…tracing up slowly…ever so slowly, followed by hands and palms as he stroked up, brushing his hands over her ribs and up, taking her shirt with it, the soft fall of silk sliding over her shoulders and exposing her skin to the air.
She shivered again as if the darkness had brought cold and ice into the room as its paramours, but then heat and adrenalin rushed through her as she heard his voice, next to her ear, soft strands of hair tickling her cheek.
"Vicky…" he breathed and she felt the warmth on her neck. "You can't know how long I've waited for you, wanted you….there is no one else, please…just let go."
Vicky was still for a moment, undecided as the beat of her heart warred with that little voice in her head that told her to run.
"You don't have to run anymore Vicky…I'll always be here with you."
She sighed, tired of fighting this, of fighting him…fighting herself, and gave into the surety of his voice, arching her body up against his in consent.
The touch of his skin against hers broke down the last barriers she'd put up against him, and even if she'd wanted to….and she didn't want to…she was lost now…as hands became more insistent and demanding in their touch… and lips kissed and teased and grazed her throat…moving lower and leaving a trail of fire in their wake….
"Henry!"
Vicky sat bolt upright in bed, sheets falling around her in a swirl of red silk, heart pounding and breath coming in gasps.
It had been that dream…again…dream or nightmare she could never really decide. Either way she hadn't gotten a full nights sleep since…in nearly two months. She sighed, trying to even her breathing and slow her runaway heart by taking deep breaths as she lay back down…
"Vicky…it's too dangers for you…it's too dangerous for me…come with me…"
Henry's voice ran through her mind though, haunting her, forcing her to leave the sanctuary of the bedroom. But that didn't help, he was everywhere.
Which was to be expected of course, this was his apartment.
There was basically no where she could look without seeing him; lounging on the coffee table sketching her while she talked about a case; poised over the desk, pen and ink staining his fingers while she peered over his shoulder; sitting in the chair, her glasses perched on his nose while he riffled through the contents of her purse when she'd first met him…
He was always here.
But that was the problem too, because even though she could still see him whenever she closed her eyes, did see him in her dreams almost every night, he wasn't here.
She remembered the shock of showing up to his apartment that first day after Asteroth's return. She'd banged on his door for nearly five minutes straight, demanding that he answer her and not run away from this…from her. But he hadn't, and so her anger growing she grabbed the doorknob and pushed.
She'd never expected it to open.
Everything looked so normal, like he'd just stepped out and would be back at any moment. Furniture was still there, paintings on the walls, even the flowers in the vase by the door…but even at first glance it was a 'normal' that put her on edge, made her teeth unconsciously clench in her jaw.
Because everything was the same and yet it wasn't. His artwork wasn't scattered across the desk, works in progress posted on the wall, but neatly packaged in plastic envelopes to protect them from dust and air and boxed away from the light. His clothes were missing from the closet, and keepsakes like the painting of his father, the shining sword mounted on the wall were gone.
She found a note, by the door. And his keys.
At least it hadn't started with "Dear Vicky" that might have been too ironic for her to stand.
You need to choose your battles in this world Vicky ~ you've chosen yours and I've chosen mine. The condo is yours if you want it, sell it if you don't.
H.
At first she hadn't ever wanted to set foot in his home ever again. He'd deserted her, abandoned her just when things got rough and she needed him the most. It was unforgivable and in her pride she'd tossed the note and his keys in the trash before storming out.
If she were honest with herself though, she didn't actually believe that he was gone. He'd change his mind, come back and say that he could never leave her to face this alone…but the weeks went by and he didn't call…didn't stop by when she was working late and casually prop his feet on her desk…
And so as days turned into weeks and weeks slowly into months, she learned not to think about him. Not to wonder what he was doing, or who he might be with, in some far off country out of the reaches of Asteroth.
Apparently no matter how hard she tried to forget him it didn't stop the dreams though. They started when she'd first moved in. And came every night since then, leaving her gasping and wanting…unsatisfied.
It was Asteroth that finally broke her pride and forced her to come back to Henry's. It wasn't all that much changed for her weeks of absence…a little more dust, the flowers were dried and rotting in the vase. But it was still unquestionably filled with an overwhelming sense of him…
She'd stopped taking on new cases almost immediately, quickly wrapping up what she couldn't pass off to others and focused all her energy on finding Asteroth and sending him to hell. Literally. The search wasn't hard actually, he wasn't exactly hiding; no matter where he went there was a trail a mile long behind him of evil and just general mayhem and havoc. Homicide cases were already nearly double what they were in the entirety of last year, and it was only January. Suicide, abuse, robbery, it was as if all the crimes in the city were spiking, tempers flaring out of proportion, unless you knew the reason why. Cops were baffled, and exhausted. Everyone working double or triple shifts just to patrol a city that seemed to have gone mad overnight.
But Vicky knew why. More then that she was responsible for that why. She'd had a chance to send him back to hell, to save everyone from the evil that she'd unleashed onto the city and had chosen not to. She didn't regret her choice, and would do it again, but that didn't make her any less responsible. So this time she drove herself harder then she ever had--- to stop him, to try in any way that she could to mitigate some of the damage that he'd caused. She was, in a word, obsessed.
But the superhero gig didn't pay the bills, which must be why they always had day jobs as reporters or self made millionaires, and her landlord didn't seem to understand that saving the world would mean that her rent would be late this month…and the next…and the next. It was ironic because she'd never been working so hard in her life and was barely making enough to cover the business expenses. She and Coreen sought out every victim of Asteroth's evil, and tried to help where they could and find a lead where they couldn't. It was a sort of personal penance to her, and she made herself look at them, see the bruises and the eyes that had given up hope…faith…and remember their names.
But she couldn't make a difference living on the street, working from a box without electricity and internet and phone. And so, when the bills began to pile up and it became a choice between giving up the fight or her pride, she'd chosen her pride. Left her home, sold her belongings and moved in to Henry's condo.
Vicky leaned against the doorway to the kitchen, sipping hot tea laced with milk but knowing that she wouldn't be able to sleep again tonight. Never could after the dream. So she sighed, stretching and walked back into the bedroom to get dressed and head into work. If she couldn't sleep, and she couldn't stay here without thinking of things that she'd forbidden herself to think of then she could at the very least get some work done. Coreen would berate her again for coming in early, Vicky could almost recite the lecture by heart after all this time, but she couldn't help it.
She'd chosen her battle and she wasn't going to give up until Asteroth was back in hell where he belonged.
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Henry crouched low, hands scooping up a measure of the red earth and letting it roll between his fingers, staining his palms before slowly falling back to the ground. The savannah stretched out in front of him, the landscape dotted with twisted yellow fever trees that seemed to glow in the darkness and the stars that lit up the sky.
He could see why she'd come here. It was so bright it was almost like having thousands of mini suns all shining in the night. It was almost like she hadn't lost the day.
Despite the darkness when leopards prowled in the long grass and monkeys howled from the treetops it was eerily silent as he walked. The large predators of Africa recognized a greater danger then themselves tonight and stayed quietly hidden in the shadows.
As fun as it had once been to marvel in his youth and power and challenge the great jungle cats, he was after bigger prey tonight. Someone who had escaped him time and time again and now he'd followed her from Toronto and left everything behind him. Everyone behind him.
As much as he'd told Vicky that it was the threat of Asteroth that had forced him to leave, and it had; that much power concentrated in the city and someone was sure to notice his… less then human nature and come after him believing him a demon, but…there was more to it as well. He had, in truth, been thinking about leaving even before Asteroth returned. It all went back to one night in the beginning of winter, when the first frost just touched the grass and he'd killed two women in his apartment at night. The sun had taken one of them that morning and he'd vowed that if he could prevent it he wouldn't give the other over to the day as well.
But it was more then even that if he were honest with himself…and at night with nothing but the far off horizon and sloping hills to stare at it was hard to keep this particular truth from invading his consciousness.
He couldn't stay and watch her continue to fight a hopeless battle…he couldn't wait and watch her lose and watch himself lose her. Better to leave and make a clean cut then have the wound festering for months with close and prolonged contact.
Because she couldn't win. No one could. Asteroth was here, in this plane and the best that anyone could hope to do was to keep him contained within his human bonds, unable to fully cross over because as long as he was prevented that, then humanity was safe from true evil. Oh, he could draw out and play upon people's darkest desires, make them commit horrible crimes, but he was only using something that was already there. Corrupting people to their base natures. But that was all, his real evil was still held at bay by flesh and blood and bone in hell.
But Vicky, god save her for he could not, was going to try to fight him. He knew her strengths, her fierce determination and the core of honor that made her one of the greatest people he had ever met. But despite all that, it would be those very qualities that he loved about her that would spell her doom. No one could stand against Asteroth, and it was suicide to even try, even if she was still alive now it was only because he
permitted it. Demons liked their games, and after so many centuries spent contained and constrained from acting directly in the world, even this small leeway would seem like freedom to finally play in the world of man. The only way to survive was to stay out of Asteroth's way.
Henry sighed, pushing thoughts of Vicky out of his mind like he did every night and brought his mind back to the task at hand. His task. His penance and sin wrapped up in the person of a girl with swirling dark hair, who for all outward appearances looked young, until you looked her in the eye and you saw darkness within to match the darkness that he'd condemned her to.
He'd gotten close only two weeks ago, been in time to stop her once she finally overcame the urge for self protection and tried to meet the dawn. She was close now…it was almost as if he could feel the path her feet had taken across the land and it drew him, a bond as strong as blood between them, connecting them.
"Where are you?" he whispered, a wind pushing at him drawing the last of the earth from his hand and blowing it in a trail leading to the east….towards the sun.
"I won't give up," Henry vowed to the night, to whoever might be listening or might turn a sympathetic ear to the promise of soul that had lived far longer then was anyone's right.
No matter how many other fights he walked away from this was one battle that he wasn't prepared to lose.
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Mike stretched back, hearing both the chair and his back crack from too long spent with him hunched over his desk. Sometimes he felt as old as this chair, worn smooth from years of long service with nicks and scars carved deep into the wood from where badges, handcuffs and odd buttons and belts had caught at the soft wood and left their mark.
Also like this chair lately it seemed like he never left the office. And if that meant that he was overworked, under valued and underpaid at least it was an excuse for his diminishing and almost non existent social life. No one jibbed him about what happened to late nights out with…former colleagues…or why he was always the last one to leave and the first one in the office come morning.
He was lucky to still have a job, or at least that's what he told himself days like today where he'd been sitting in this chair doing report after report for nearly 27 hours straight. Maybe today would be the day that the captain finally pulled him off desk duty and let him get back in the action. God knew they needed some help out there….things were literally going to hell and here he was, possibly one of only four people in the world who knew the real reason why and he was chained to a desk until the indeterminate and unknown future.
Ironically, while he wanted more then anything to see Asteroth back in hell where he belonged, the fact that he wasn't there was also probably the reason that he hadn't been fired outright. It was only the drastic rise in serious crimes in the city that had made the review board hearing go as well as it did…which was only something short of a firing squad without even a last cigarette.
He remembered the Crowley sitting all prim and proper, every button done up and every hair pulled tightly back into a French twist, at the other end of the table. She was flanked by the district supervisor, technically her boss, and a couple of guys from Internal Affairs.
"Detective Celluci, you do know the reason we're all here correct?" her voice had the ring of a squad leader…'ready?....set?....'
"Yes, Captain." He answered…possibly, just possibly if he towed the line he might get off with a warning, a letter in his file and some serious pay cuts.
"And would you be so kind as to refresh our memories?"
…or possibly not. He'd be lucky to escape with his head on his shoulders, Dragon Crowley was going to blow fire and incinerate him.
"I left a task force meeting to pursue a lead, which led to the successful recovery of a kidnapped child, and the arrest of various members of one of the city's largest Chinatowns gangs." He nearly stopped there but his conscience wouldn't let him off the hook that easily…if nothing else the current situation in the city made those slight heroics seem less thing nothing in comparison.
"But due to the nature of the source and the time constraints I was unable to obtain approval before leaving the task force and am unable to reveal either my source or how I came into the information." Not as if you'd believe me if even if I did tell you…it's not every day that you get information from a demon that a vampire helps you to interpret while you're on the trail of your possessed friend's missing heart. Yeah, that's just a regular Tuesday at the office.
"And your communication of sensitive materials and information on ongoing cases to the public? And your increasing alienation of coworkers, lack of trust and suspicion?" Crowley nearly bit off the syllables.
"Excuse me, but none of that was ever proven Captain. It's all conjecture." Mike looked in surprise over at one of the dour fellows from IA…who ever would have thought that one of them would actually be on his side?
"And Detective Celluci does have an impressive record….he seems to have a knack for closing cases of an unusual nature," Mike stared, trying to keep his mouth from falling open as the other IA officer chimed in with support. He would have been pleased as punch if it hadn't been for the mention of that word….unusual.
Oh, he'd be the first to admit that lately his cases had been a little more then purse snatchers and domestic disturbance calls…unless the purse snatcher turned out to be a zombie and an incubus had gotten into abuse and battery. But that was his old life, when he'd been running after Vicky and she'd pulled him into her twisted world and he hadn't known how to get out. He'd almost lost his job because of 'unusual' after all…he didn't want to get it back that way too.
But sometimes you just don't get what you want.
"But his inability to work with his colleagues and unaccountability are serious character flaws that you can't just ignore,"
"No one's saying that you ignore them Captain," this time it was the district supervisor jumping to his defense. If this became any more surreal Mike was going to have to pinch himself to be sure that he wasn't dreaming it. Here he thought he was facing the firing squad and it turns out that people are just lining up to take a bullet for him.
"But assuredly you have to agree that we can't afford to lose someone of Detective Celluci's experience and track record just because of a few…indiscretions. Especially now."
That last rather cryptic reference wasn't lost on anyone in the room. You had only to look out the window to the bull pen to see that it was bustling and filled to capacity, new rookie cops in their brightly pressed uniforms trailing around after haggard senior officers as the police force took in basically any interested person to try and keep up with the crime on the streets. Even Crowley had dark circles under her eyes and the Internal Affairs officers were no better; their department seemed to be losing men like it was a fire sale as the head honcho's pulled them back to the local offices. It was rumoured that they were even denying retirement to pension aged cops until this unending crime spree finally dwindled down.
What everyone other then Mike believed was that it was going to get better. For them this was the darkness before the dawn, but Mike doubted if there ever would be a dawn again.
"I would recommend a letter of reprimand, coupled with ten hours teambuilding workshops and a review in a month's time."
"Internal Affairs is satisfied with that recommendation," one of the guys chimed in.
Which basically left the Dragon, smoke curling out of her mouth she was so mad at being backed into a corner, but she couldn't do anything but nod.
"Good! So glad that's settled!" The district supervisor packed up and bustled out so quickly Mike almost forgot to shake his hand as he was leaving.
The AI team was gone nearly as fast, a brief pat on the shoulder and a "good to have you back on the team," and they were out the door. It was hard to believe that he'd gotten off so easily…the last review hearing he'd witnessed had taken five full hours and that was before he'd been asked to give his character reference. This had barely been five minutes.
"If you think you're getting off that easily Detective you are sorely mistaken," Crowley said as she rounded the desk looking as dumbfounded as he was at the whole situation but mad as hell.
"You're on desk duty until further notice."
"But Captain, you need me on the streets…every officer is picking up extra shifts and the department's run ragged!"
"The department is my concern Celluci, you're on desk duty until I say otherwise. I want you right where I can see you, and be assured that I will be watching. One hint of misconduct, or unprofessional behaviour or associations and you'll be out on your ass without even the benefit of a hearing!"
Mike knew that she was right, it would be his second strike. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars….your career goes straight to hell without a get out of jail free card.
And so for the last month and a half he'd been good as a boy scout. Check reports, point out mistakes or missing information, sign off, file…a mechanical automaton and it never seemed to make a difference. The reports kept coming, the stacks on his desk never got any smaller, and he never got to get out of this chair.
But the mindless drone of repetition gave him some peace too, he could lose himself in the process of it all and not have to think about the consequences of his actions, of his choices…they weren't people to him, they were photographs to be catalogued, notes to be reviewed and names to be recorded, and here behind this desk, he was removed from the immediacy of it all.
Here he didn't have to fight, he wasn't a soldier in the heat of battle, he could just sit on the sidelines and record the score. But even here, he couldn't fail to notice that their team was losing.