FROM A LATE NIGHT TRAIN
She loved the world at night. The different sights and sounds. Her kind's world, their time. She loved being on a train at night, looking in all the lit windows, the humans living their lives. So brief in the scheme of things, candles that burnt out so fast. That orange, sepia tint from the electric street lamps. The chill that bit through you, the tingle that made you feel alive. She was always restless, never stopping because if she stopped, she remembered, and if she remembered, the feelings came back. The fear, the pain, the horror, the boredom. And she didn't want to feel.
The service had been so slow. "They really wouldn't miss this waiter would they? I mean it's not like he's any good anyway. We would be doing them a favour if we just…" the malicious grin said it all. And he'll let her have her way of course. It is their anniversary after all. How many years since he had taken her into the darkness now? She'd already been there, just visiting, mind. He hadn't even had to push her that far, she'd been ready to walk to the ends of the earth with him. A perfect match. That didn't happen often, not with their kind.
The pure thrill of the kill. The piercing shock of the blood. That first time that you never forgot. The opal-white fear in the eyes, the 'hush now' as you trick them into believing it's nothing. Nothing at all. Just your life leaving you so I can survive. Just a cheap thrill to me. An end to your hopes, your dreams. Your family…
No she didn't want to remember. What did she look like, I can't remember her eyes. What does she look like now; did she have her eyes, her…his eyes? She'd had them when she was younger, a stranger even then. She had cried so much as a child. Has she cried for the rest of her life too? Her mother forgotten, the way she forgot her…daughter. Keep moving. Keep running. The sights, the sounds.
The beautiful sunsets. The howls in the dark. The walks on the beaches. The footsteps on the bones. So many bones. Drawn to the bloodiest sites in the world. The most beautiful places too, in their own way. The dark could pull you back even a thousand miles away. The hunger, the anger. She was always so angry. Against who or what she didn't know. No idea. The fire that burnt in her veins knew, but she didn't. Not during the day. The night was a different thing altogether. Too many memories, and she didn't want them…
The world turned around them. They went on. Remember. Remember what? Why? She was dead to the world anyway. Dead to…Remember, remember the Fifth of November, gunpowder, treason and plot. Remember, remember the 'Princess Charlotte', never a mother no more. He was her life, her past, her present, her future. Keep on, keeping on. Not stopping. If you stopped…
Nothing mattered except him. Him and the blood. Never aging, never ending. Skirts growing shorter, suits getting sharper. Teeth getting sharper too. Belonging. Belonging to each other, no one else. No one else needed, no one else loved…Had she loved her? She'd never really known her. A stranger then, a stranger still. Better off without you…you were in the wrong place…No. Was I? Blood and death forever linked. She had tried to end it, erase her at last. The werewolf had stopped her. Why? She was…is…my daughter…I don't want to feel…It's not my fault. It's…not her fault.
He'd made her feel again, why? A quick bang in the bushes. He'd said those things about Ivan, but he was her's, she was his, her 'collection' didn't matter, they were fleeting moments. Ivan and she were forever, two dark souls together. Mitchell... was Mitchell. Quick fling, very nice fling, but not him. Forever going back and forth, denying what he was that he could be anything but one of them. His dark heart…Living with a werewolf, a very lithe, limber werewolf, but their supposed enemy all the same. A killer of kings but... not a true one. How he had killed Herrick, that vicious hater of humanity. To think he'd challenged the Old Ones, Hetty's darkest protégé, ended by a werewolf. The indignity! Wherever they went when it all ended, when the world stopped turning, the other lost vampires laughing at him for his arrogance. It all came down to the blood. In the end. Remember. Just remember. Remember her in the darkness, in the light. The last person to need me…
"Happy 69th Anniversary Pooh Bear! Here's to the next 69 and the rest!"
"Love you Piglet!"
Dancing 'til dawn, never mind the bodies in the kitchen…par for the course for our kind…
"Where to next Ivan?" Slouched against the sink, washing the blood out of the jacket, elegant as ever.
"Oh I think we'll stay in Bristol just a little longer, I want to see how Mitchell's little quirk turns out. Keeping Nanna off the blood? A few hobnobs won't work for her!"
That kiss that still drew her in after all these years…two dark souls together, forever.
"To the future, Piglet."
"The future."