Present Day...
With age comes power.
But Josef knew that Mick wouldn't allow either to stand in his way.
Especially, when it came to rescuing innocence.
But this threat, had to be handled discreetly. No exposure.
"Josef? We are not tossing this kid into the tar pits." Mick said casting him a knowing glance
Josef cracked an impish little boy smile. "You wanted something more dramatic? Besides you said so yourself that this 'kid' is 17 going on 200."
Noting the almost sympathetic expression growing on Mick's face, Josef pushed the elevator door to his sky rise loft at the president's suite. It was still being remodeled a month later after the incident -partially because the designers kept pissing Josef off and 'disappearing' onto the tar pits.
"Yeah and hornier than a cheetah on the discovery channel. Mick you know as well as I do that if a newly turned vampire turns feral and in this case serial killer if the sire flees the scene."
Mick, "I'm amazed he's survived this long."
The elevator shot up.
"Now Mick, I think you're underestimating something." Josef raised a suggestive playful eyebrow to which Mick couldn't help but chuckle at.
The elevator paused at Josef's suite.
"And what's that?" Mick's curiosity never waned in Josef's depravity
"To have what he never did. (tone turning serious) Only he never can. He's gone too far off the reservation to be integrated into vampire society. Its too late." Josef's stress of these last words with such ache perked Mick's lobes with intrigue.
He had never heard the conglomerate well respected 400 year old vampire speak as though he had been gutted.
Whatever it was hit too close to home for Josef. Best to keep his elder with the face of a choir boy on the mission at hand: find the vampire, save the girl.
"He was a victim once too, Josef. Someone did this to him and left him without transitioning him properly. All that's left is the rage." Mick reminded him
Josef turned so abruptly, his dark rum pools boiled with a sharp and fragile state all at once. Mick was slightly taken back by this. Josef was always stalwart in keeping his emotions and vampire hunger in check.
But lately, something was cracking through the seams.
THIS was something different. Josef must have realized this for he forced a believable genuine smile that Mick took he was suppose to accept. He did for Josef.
"A rogue sire must face the consequences of abandoning a freshly turned charge. There are humans out there who hunt us because of this exact negligence. They don't care what their foundling is capable of nor (voice constricts) what their fate will be without the proper intervention.
Woah...Mick had managed to hit another sore spot. A part of him couldn't help it, he was riveted to the spot.
Still he had to make it right before he left Josef tonight to meet Beth.
Noting Mick's shocked expression, embarrassment streaked his eternally boyish cheeks.
"Tar pits starting to look real good, aren't they?" Josef grinned, totally cheshire, he was Josef again.
"Classic." Mick pretended to look tempted "But I think I'll keep my options opened."
The elevator doors opened and the two vampires spilled out in the partially remodeled hallway.
The dry wall was the only reason they hadn't detected that distinctive scent.
Something older than the both of them but not quite ancient. Except this didn't quite smell old and decayed like most, but richly decadent and exquisite.
"Oh My God." Josef breathed hoarsely
Sensing Mick's predatory stance from behind him, Josef felt the vampire seep into his voice.
"Whatever you do, DON'T try anything. You'll be dead before your skull hits the ground."
Hmm...that was interesting. Why did he have to put it that way? That's more of a challenge.
Josef took point and strode formidable yet with a hint of tremor in his sides. Whomever it was, Mick burned with anticipation.
Ironic as they studied the perimeter, they still had yet to make contact with this late night caller.
And yet there it was, this delectable scent that had once been so intertwined and familiar with his own.
"I can smell it. Its not like any vampire I've ever smelled before-its..."
Intoxicating.
A whir too fast to register even almost on their charts, stirred intently at Josef's right lobe. His blood pulsed with a strong under current he had not dared acknowledge centuries ago.
This was different. He didn't feel this before.
A flash of inky black, scarlet, cream and petal pink materialized at the very edge of Josef's window once occupied.
It was as though a Botticelli had come to life and strode off the barren portrait-an elusive treasure that Josef found himself constricted forcibly so to remain as unaffected as possible.
Scarlett waves cascaded loose and wild-like a crown of lustrous locks found on angels. Her skin was a feast for the eyes-a disarming cherubic innocence that told Mick she must have been turned at an early age-20 or 21.
Large pools of hazel, that under the right lighting burned quite black, striated with ache. And yet they coarsed with an infectious electric excitement.
Mick caught Josef's dark rum pools sweep with a doting inspection upon a silver locket gracing at the v-neck top.
"Amelia." Josef mouthed hoarsely "How did you find me?"
Amelia cracked a rather endearing crooked Mona Lisa grin but behind this Mick could sense a tension.
A tension he could tell she intended to keep secret.
And just like that, her expression was unreadable. Her hazels glowed a raven black - a rare iris color common to her human family.
"I found you first BEFORE he finds me."
Amelia thought she glimpsed an uncharacteristic flinch of the realization at this.
"Wait-the last you told me is that LANCE thought you were dead. (Mick overheard an edge in Josef's voice-he was worried.)"
Amelia tilted her head at this, it was clear to only Josef that she was surprised at this. He had never shown this kind of raw emotion before towards her.
"He's a sociopath and an ancient. (Josef's lips betrayed him-boyish bastards cracking at her use of separating the distinction) He does love to be melodramatic and crazy enough to make this personal." Amelia stated dismissively
Josef sighed deeply-this was classic Amelia.
"How could he possibly know that you're alive?" Josef persisted
"I'm not here to discuss myself Josef. You should be more concerned about the old ones." Amelia deflected, her tone took on a more serious inflection
"Screw the old ones! (a dangerous edge seeped into his voice, rallying Both their attention) HOW does Lance know?" Josef's eyes darkened
Her features reverted to that uncrackable unreadable and it was a long time before she responded.
"Kill me once-shame on him. Kill me twice..." Amelia said each carefully so as not to arose an interpretation
Mick's eyes widened with shock.
"I warned him back in Hungary."
Something shifted in Josef's eyes-Lance hadn't known then what she would become. The blackest hell he had ever know was what he set free.
Josef believed it was what the blood countess did to her in that room for months. It darkened her. Wishing she had the power and the strength to turn on her maniacal kidnapper.
In a twisted way, Lance freed the very part of her that COULD be a monster. But Lance still took her life and gave her what she never admitted she wanted.
The words, "I warned him." could not have been more prophetic.
She was too wild to be domesticated in her first 200 years. Lance could not contain what he created. The old ones knew what exposure could do.
Lance abandoned her-left her to the jackals without any instruction. Despite what he could not deny...
That is until the day-that's right day-Josef met her. Cared for her, guided her, protected her and turned her into a rather civilized killer. Josef was barely 90 years a vampire at the time.
"The old ones are out for blood if they even think your resurrection means exposure."
"And I'll make rather generous amends. This can all be explained away with a smoke and mirrors campaign by some titans in the press I have at my disposal. The old ones won't give me a second look unlike you who now has a obsessed sociopath who is next in line to being on council hunting you."
Josef gripped the sides of his desk and glanced meaningfully at his once feral protege, older than he and yet no longer willing to be contained.
"Hunting is downright foreplay in Lance's book. Stalking is the more appropriate term. I'M hunting him. I do enjoy the adrenaline rush before the kill." Amelia corrected, winked at Mick, a glint of bloodlust in her eyes
"Mick, I'm going to have to speak to my guest alone, I'll see you later." Josef requested suddenly taking Mick off guard
Josef never used the word 'later'.
Usually tomorrow. Something was up.
Mick sensed a history between the two- even if he could not place what. He nodded and took his leave.
As soon as Mick's scent faded, Josef flit instantly in front of her. He had to SEE her eyes. To know how serious she was. There was always a flicker of an emotion she tried to suppress that seeped through under his mischevious yet intense gaze.
It was not that Josef doubted that she was serious-but this was the only way he could know for sure.
"Amelia, what was the first thing you told me about Lance when we met? Josef asked
Her dark emeralds flashed with surprise at this. "I told you he killed me."
"Tell me why he killed you." Josef pressed
"Lance once told me that I'd make a better predator than prey." Amelia recalled
"Now what was the first thing you did as a vampire?"
"I slipped into Erzebeth's tower. I was the thing that took her from this earth. Josef, I know what you are trying to do but I don't have that kind of connection with Lance. He abandoned me when I needed him most. You...(breath steals, steadies herself) you were the only one to take one look at me and try to civilize the savage in me."
That's because she Let him.
Well this was an improvement - Amelia finally realized that it was her nature and not the vampire's that separated them.
Leaning in, his dark rum pools stared a throng of emotions-each cascading into the other unbridled and bare.
"Because he couldn't. Its not in you to let him. You had to punish him first. Like you did Erzebeth. This was the only way that you could restore in some measure what they did to you."
Those eyes of hers-a dark jade of ink and emerald-contracted and her breathing went shallow. "I've had a long time to get over that Josef."
Clasping the sides of her stream line arms, Josef stared her down knowingly.
"Only you never could, Amelia. Killing Lance won't make everything right. The old ones will come for you."
He didn't even bother to say 'if' she could pull this off-knowing is the dark passenger keeping him company with uncomfortable truth.
Her petal pink lips thinned in displeasure at this.
"I can handle myself. (she suddenly looked as though she so badly wanted to tell him something, but quickly fought that impulse)."
A single glance can tell you more than we say out loud. But for Amelia-showing fear-in front of him was highly unprecedented.
Her emotions were like clouds of smoke-like plues of grey that distorted an individual's perception. Tonight, the billowy fog cleared-something he had waited for 310 years for.
"Tell me." Josef pressed, such need seeped into the timber of his voice
Amelia broke into one of those super sexy half-smiles of hers. The kind filled with a centuries' old shattered lie made of just for him. Pitch coal and electric jade bathe at him with a tempest that he could not bring himself to pull away from. Nor did he intend to.
"Ask me just once again...one day." Amelia said, barely above an immortal whisper
Without warning and with very little strength she pulled back and sauntered in a very human fashion towards the elevator. It was her way of saying 'meething adjourned'.
"No." The cut so quick in Josef's voice, it was unsettling.
The next part caught her completely off guard because it was the vampire that answered her.
"NOW." there was a dangerous element to it "You don't just get to walk away after that."
She stopped in her departure and turned to meet those dark rum pools boiling with a crimson river.
"What you're going to do WILL be the end of you." Josef quaked at the mere thought "They will come at you and they won't stop. (his voice rose anger and fear to tread as the very last words weighed heavily in his heart) Don't expect me to mourn you. Don't expect me to care (Josef rasped as these hateful words caught in his throat)...because I won't."
The muscles in her exquisite features tensed considerably at this. Her breathing became uneven as the clarity of these words washed over her, her most internal fears not resonating the tone behind these words. She inhaled deeply.
And that's when he noticed a slight micro-expression that wouldn't normally register on a human's charts: those dark jade opals gleamed with unbearable ache.
Thatpained look was his undoing. She was clearly gutted.
Josef had tortured and killed ALOT of people as a vampire-he had never felt like this before.
Because he hadn't meant a word. There wasn't a shred of truth to it.
"Oh." Amelia said softly when she finally found her voice and broke into a half-hearted broken smile. "Well Josef, tell me how you really feel."
"Amelia." The timber of Josef's voice was of genuine remorse.
He had just hurt one of the few that mattered to him-it cut him deeper than he imagined.
"You should have let me burn that day Josef (the intensity of her tone sharpened like a blade)." Amelia could not even meet his searching gaze
What happened next, and quite suddenly, Josef firmly gripped her right arm locking her in place.
"It was soul destroying to watch..to watch."
His lips crushed her own with a feverish chaos. Heated lips and pearl teeth scraped hungrily at each other. There was an urgency and a tenderness beneath the primal exterior.
"I can'tlose you." Josef whispered in her lobe
Her angelic features appeared to melt at these words.
It had only taken Josef 310 years...
Gently, she reached out and tenderly cradled his face in the palms of her hands-the intensity of his expression searing her whole, his kiss still hot on her lips.
"Show me."
An impish grin formed cheshire at the corners of Josef's mouth.