December 24, 2005
This would be wonderfully perfect if it worked; he had never actually tried to enter a hotel that was being used as a temporary residence. The current owners had sold off their house in Texas; unfortunately for them, their estate in Mystic Falls was still under renovation and this opportunity had been too good to pass up. Hence, it was quite possibly, his lucky day that they were pent up in the penthouse suite of a swanky hotel in Richmond. Tonight would be a particularly pleasant kill for him; ending the Maxwell family, one of the Founding Families of Mystic Falls. Mystic Falls belonged to the vampires, not the walking blood bags.
He swiped the electronic card in the electric lock, a menacing smirk twisting his lips as the indicator turned green. The card compelled from the lobby receptionist worked. Mind control had to be one of his favorite tricks. Personally, he would have preferred kicking the door in and sending it off the handles but that probably would have caused unwanted attention. The whole point of killing them in the penthouse was so he could take his time, enjoy it, leave a nice, big mess and he'd never be suspected. Last rumor he heard, the Council ignorantly believed a vampire couldn't even get into a shady motel room unless checked-in by the actual landlord. In their minds, an occupied room would be practically impossible since the landlord would never rent out a booked room and the occupants had no particular hold on the place due to not owning any part of the room. Of course, this case would be unsolvable and there would always be that nagging suspicion in the back of their minds. Arrogant, paranoid people were so easy to screw with.
He turned the polished silver handle and pushed the door open. Oh, yes. The moment his hand crossed the doorframe he knew there was no barrier. The death of a Founding Family would immediately draw the Council's eye but there was no way they were going to admit, even to each other, the possibility of a vampire being involved. If one belief they held true about the vampires broke, what kept the rest from breaking and the population being sucked dry? Natural suspicion would fall on the receptionist who made the access card and would discover the bodies tomorrow at 6:54PM, when delivering a package. He had compelled the receptionist in the alley behind The Domain and received the keycard there. In scoping the hotel out two weeks before, he discovered there were no cameras at the kitchen service entrance that he used to enter The Domain nor within the stairwell he climbed to reach the Maxwells on the 14th floor.
Shivers of delight ran up his spine as he entered the living room suite; the blood would look beautiful against all the white furniture and carpeting. Spying a vase of of white wooden roses he plucked one and tossed it on the couch. Roses weren't suppose to be white. He'd just have to fix that. He'd paint the rose red just like they did in Alice in Wonderland. He always enjoyed that book.
He eyed the fake Christmas tree with a three foot perimeter of gifts with disgust. Such a pointless holiday. Why waste time being nice to people you don't give a damn for and exert the energy and blow the money on picking out a gift? It was the time of the year people were extra fake and extra bitter. All the sugar from the Christmas cookies and junk actually made their blood more bitter.
The room on the right was slightly ajar. He knew there was a kid. He also knew that master suites were usually located in the back. Kill the kid now or risk waking up the parents in the struggle to tie the kid up and keep the kid alive to kill her in front of Mommy and Daddy? His hands wrapped reflexively around the duct tape and nylon rope in the deep pockets of his leather jacket. He hated having to resort to such crude tools but the Maxwell's were a Founding Family. That meant they knew about vampires and, worse, vervain. He had no idea where they would get any of the herb, especially down in Texas; it was much too hot from his experience, to actually grow it.
He was fast; he could wrap the kid up before it made too much noise, possibly even any. Carefully, the door was nudged open by his steel-toed boot. The bed clothes were rumpled with a stuffed dog laying on one of the pillows. What was problematic was that the bed was empty. Silently, creeping over to the bed he ran his hands over the sheets. Cool to the touch. No one had been in them. At least not for a good while. An hour at least. Perhaps the child was in the parent's room. Just for good measure he slid the closet door open and looked around inside. Perhaps it hid at the sound of someone entering the suite. Nothing but small dark colored t-shirts and a couple of sweatshirts. No kid in the room.
Headed towards the back of apartment the wheels in his head started churning out more ideas of torture. If the kid was with the parents it would just make corralling them that much easier. He could have them take turns watching each other be tortured. It wasn't like he was some sick psychopath who got his rocks off torturing people but he was bored. Plus, he wanted to wipe out a Founding Family. It sounded like fun; leaving Mystic Falls with a cold case on how one of their great legacy families was wiped out, letting them spin wild theories. Not to mention he was interested in seeing how much he could get away with regarding the law without the use of compulsion. It was easy to cover your tracks as a vampire. Mortals had a much harder time. He wouldn't compel the receptionist to forget him or bother worrying about forensics like bloody bootprints. He was using worker's gloves, though; on a bad acid trip he somehow let his fingerprints get in the system for robbing a liquor store. It was a stupid situation; he hadn't even robbed the store. He borrowed a little blood from the cashier but he left enough cash to cover the bourbon. The fingerprints were never marked as his but it was best that the case in Nevada not be linked to the murder in Richmond.
Holly sat in the coat closet, squinting through the slanted wooden slats as the man in all dark clothes with tousled hair even darker headed towards her parents' bedroom. She had turned off the flashlight when she heard the soft beep of the lock, indicating it was unlocked. For a fleeting second she thought she was about to be proven wrong and actually see Santa walk through the hotel door. That was ridiculous and impossible, she had instantly reminded herself. The whole reason she had been reading Harry Potter in the closet for two hours was so she could call out her parents when they ate the cookies and milk for Santa, plus the carrot stick for Rudolph.
Holly hated moving out from the house she grew up in. She purely loathed having to spend Christmas in a hotel. It was obvious to her parents so they tried to make it just like Christmas back at her old house. This year it just flat out pissed her off that her parents demand she leave out the snacks and write a short note to Santa asking for what she wanted most. She was 11, not 8; she didn't buy this anymore. Holly's note was bitter, saying all she wanted was to wake up to Christmas back home in her house in Texas.
The death grip around the flashlight slacked as Holly heard a very short but very piercing scream from the back of the suite. It was the loud crashing that caused her to drop the torch with a muted thump against the thick carpet and toss her favorite book against the wall of the closet. Holly pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. She knew she should go check on her parents; that was the right thing to do. Instead, all she could do was curl up in fear.
With her mom slung over his left shoulder like a sack of potatoes, the raven haired man returned to the living, dragging her father's unconscious body behind him. Holly bit her lip to keep from calling out to them. Were they ok? They certainly didn't look ok. They looked… She didn't even want to think about how they looked. He dropped her mother onto the couch and used some thin white cord to tie her wrist together. The charm bracelet she had given to her mother this past Mother's Day glinted in the moonlight, shining through the floor to ceiling windows. Her feet were tied together at the ankles next.
A wave of relief shot through her as her father groaned. Instantly, the man appeared next to her father and his mouth was covered with silver tape, his wrist and ankles tied with the same kind of rope that had been used on his wife. The intruder propped Holly's father up on the couch next to her mother. The dark man stood in front of them, his back towards the hall closet.
He crossed his arms, tapping his foot impatiently.
"Wakey, wakey, Marcus. I heard you groaning," he drawled. All this knocking people unconscious and standing around was boring. He wanted to have fun.
The eyelids of the bound man, Marcus, fluttered. His green eyes were hazed with confusion. Realization coming to him he started to jerk at the bindings on his wrist.
"Now, Marcus, let's not be stupid. You know and I know that that," he nodded his head at Marcus still fighting against the rope, "is completely pointless."
Marcus stopped struggling and glared at the man, his eyes full of questions.
"It seems I didn't get a chance to properly introduce myself before throwing you into the armoire. You were too busy fighting me instead of cooperating." The man rolled his icy blue eyes and lazy shrugged one shoulder, "Really, it's your own fault that you're taped and bound. Your fault I had to knock you unconscious too, come to think of it. I'm the Damon Salvatore and I'm here to kill you." Damon smirked, forcing one of Marcus's balled, bound fists into a handshake.
Marcus's eyes went wide, first at the name Salvatore and then bug-eyed wide when Damon mentioned his intentions.
Damon smirked, clasping his hands behind his back, bouncing on the balls of his feet, "Yes, Damon Salvatore. Glad to see my, oh... namesake's legacy, is still the talk of the Council. You know, traitor and all that jazz. Really, though, he and I are what you could call kindred spirits. One-in-the-same. I was never a member of some secret cult against vampires so I don't exactly get how I'm a traitor. A familial disappointment, I understand, though. We share that, Marcus, don't we? We're disappointments for not being the prodigal son and joining the Council, for wanting different things?
"Just over ten years ago there was that bloody massacre at the Salvatore Stay Boarding house. I still cannot believe the Council convinced the entire city of Mystic Falls that it was carbon dioxide poisoning. Of course, you know what it really was. A vampire. You had to come up for your big brother's funeral. You have my very late and overdue condolences. I know how hard it is to lose family."
A mocking glee glistened in Damon's eyes.
"Naturally," Damon began pacing across the living room, speaking as if he were a professor giving a fascinating history lecture, "the Council begged you to move back to Mystic Falls and take your brother's place. Every Founding Family must have a representative on the Council." Facing Marcus he scrunched up his face and remarked with disgust, "Politics. Public Relations. Such a ridiculous idea on a secret council, I know. One of the many, many reasons I do not join the council."
He stopped walking and looked Marcus in the eye, "But you said 'fuck them' because we're free thinkers, you and I. You had a wife and a baby down in Texas. You didn't give a fuck about the secret Council and Founding Families back in Mystic Falls. You didn't even care that the vampire who had slaughtered your brother, killed your childhood friends, was roaming free. You didn't care as long as your new family was safe. They were safe down in Texas; why would you move them to a town that just had a vampire induced massacre? You were smart to stay away."
"You see," Damon stalled, his voice raising as if he were about to break bad news, "here's where you made a mistake that I don't understand: you decided to move back and you didn't care about that vampire that killed your brother. Personally, I liked the dwindling size of the Founding Families. With you down in Texas, I, and basically everyone in Mystic Falls, considered the Maxwells obsolete. I can see you're confused. Are you really that dim-witted? Haven't you figured it out by now? I mean, what normal person could fling a man across a room?"
Dark, black veins radiated out under Damon's now red eyes. He pulled his lips back in a snarl, fangs showing. Marcus gulped hard, his body tensing as he pushed himself further into the white leather couch. Human instinct told him to get as far away as possible, even if he knew it was pointless. He was going to die. His wife was going to die. He bet that the monster had already killed his daughter. He could see the door to her room wide open.
"I'm glad to see you understand," snorted Damon. "Yes, I am the Damon Salvatore from 1864. It's your honor to make my acquaintance. You see why I want to kill you. I'm interested in the ending of the Maxwell line. One less Founding Family informed and stoking the fires of the super secret Council. Had you stayed down in Texas all of this," Damon waved his hands around, suggesting Marcus take in his surroundings, "could have been avoided. Like I said, the Maxwells were written off with your big bro dead and you gone for nearly 20 years. The town belongs to the vampires, who, incidentally, were not burned in 1864. Not the Founding Families.
"Why do I care about all this? Why am I telling you all of this? Truth is that I plan on starting a turf war: vampire versus the good citizens of Mystic Falls. I don't care about who wins, really. I'm just bored and it should make for some fun games. If I don't care why, oh, why do I have to kill your family?" Damon mocked, his voice taking on a pleading quality.
He casually shrugged, "I don't have to kill you. I could let you go and give the upstanding Council a headstart since I don't care about who wins. The problem is I'm bored right now and it's going to take a little while for me to… procure my 1864 comrades. That's bad news for you because I'm a man who likes instant gratification. I want the fun and games now. Plus, the unsolvable slaughter of the Maxwell family will leave all the Founding Families with an upset stomach. That's just an entertaining idea .
"So, we've covered the "why I don't care" and the "why I'm going to kill you" so that just leaves the "why don't I just kill you already?" I happen to know that I have a mesmerizing voice. I love hearing myself talk. You know a part of you is fascinated by it as well," Damon smirked, dropping his voice seductively. "Besides, the longer I wait, the more fear you feel, all the better your blood will be. Being moments away from death the epinephrine and oxytocin pumping through your veins makes it almost like crystal meth. They say don't play with your food but it just is so much better when you do."
Damon had almost forgotten about the woman on the couch until she started issuing soft moans of pain. He flashed over to her, clamping his hand over her mouth. The last thing he needed was her screaming and setting off the intruder alarm. It took about a minute for her to come to. Damon's lips puckered and eyes rolled as she expectedly tried to scream against his hand. Her head thrashed side to side as she attempted to dislodge the hand muffling her cries for help. Another hand on the back of her bleach blonde head prevented her from doing so. He let her struggle for a minute or two before he was bored of watching. Damon locked his arms, preventing the woman's head from moving; her strength was no match to his. She then tried biting his hand, only to catch the rough material of the glove. Note for future encounters, if hand gets bitten blood enters system. Then he'd have to compel his dinner away unless he wanted to play with a new vampire. Great thing he wore gloves, he couldn't just compel this victim. He wanted to slaughter the family tonight.
He looked into her honey colored eyes and spoke, "You are not going to make a sound."
He removed his hands from her head and went to squatting in front of her, bouncing on the balls of his feet, arms crossed. She was silent but that didn't satisfy him. She could just be responding to fear.
"Well, you can respond to the questions I ask you," he decided, "but other than that your vocal cords don't work. So, my dear Linda, one of this perfect little family is missing. Where is your daughter?"
"Her bed," responded the woman, her voice strained and weak. Damon could literally smell the fear she was secreting into her bloodstream.
"Nope," the vampire chided, popping the "puh" sound while bouncing to a standing position. "I checked there. I'm smart like that. Sheets are cold. She hasn't been in that bed for hours." Grasping the Linda's chin between his index finger and thumb he forced her to look him in the eye, "Now, where is she?"
"I don't know," a new type of fear laced her voice. Damon could sense the change in her tone. It was true that she didn't know where her daughter was but that didn't necessarily mean she was just trying to convince him she was compelled.
"I wonder, Marcus," pondered Damon, turning towards the husband, "how much your wife knows about the true Mystic Falls. If she knows about what really goes bump in the night. I'm guessing not. You met her down in Austin. The big bad vampires were up in Virginia. My bets are that you thought it was safe down in Texas so you never bothered with vervain. Of course, I would be stupid to automatically assume I'm right. Even though I'm always right."
Damon jerked Linda's bound wrists towards him with his left hand while his right fished out a switchblade from his jacket. The woman's shoulders twisted into an awkward, painful position as the vampire angled the inside of one of her arms towards him. She didn't cry out. Nor did she cry out as Damon placed the blade above her delicate, spray-tanned skin. Linda didn't cry out when the sharp edge was pushed deep into her skin and dragged down the length of her arm.
Damon watched the blood flow over the blade as he cut the woman's arm. The warm, wet liquid succumbbed to the forces of gravity and formed rivulets of blood with a waterfall ending on the white leather couch. The pools of blood forming on the couch were tantalizing to the vampire. Reaching the end of her arm, he turned his focus to the blood coating the blade. He could smell the epinephrine and oxytocin calling to him. His natural, predatory instincts kicked in causing his fangs to extend and face to distort. He dropped Linda's wrists and pinched his thumb and index finger on either side of the blade. He drew his finger up to the point, gathering all the blood off the blade and on to his fingers.
Good. No vervain. He would have felt a burning sensation had there been. It would have made what he planned to be an extremely bloody and messy night a lot less fun.
"Wonderful. You haven't been lacing her morning cup of joe with vervain," Damon confirmed to himself. He knew he was right. He wanted to sample the blood but he knew it could turn into more than a sample. Ultimately, he was going to kill them but he didn't want the night to end quickly. They would bleed to death, slow and painful. Slurpee-ing them to a quick death would be delicious but boring. He might allow himself a taste at the end of the night but for now he just transferred the blood from his fingers to his black jeans.
As he was watching the crimson liquid flow, he spotted a silver bracelet with dangling charms on Linda's wrist. One trinket was a treasure chest. Damon could tell with his enhanced eyesight that the tiny clasp on the chest looked like it could be opened. He didn't think Marcus Maxwell was that cautious but it wouldn't be the first time someone hid vervain in jewelry. Yanking her wrist again, with a sharp tug the blood covered bracelet snapped. Not interested, Damon flung the silver over his shoulder, the piece making a loud clank and rippling sound as it hit the coat closet door, tumbling down the wooden slats. It was the first specks of blood out of litres that would paint the white walls that night.
Holly had sat with her forehead on her knees, her eyes squeezed tight. She tried to block out what was going on in the livingroom. There had to be clues in each and every Harry Potter book as to whether Severus Snape was good or bad. That's why she had been rereading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince again while waiting to catch her parents being Santa. Holly just had to comb through all the events and every detail in each book in order for clues and she wouldn't hear what the dark man was saying. He was talking about vampires and Mystic Falls. He was crazy. Vampires only existed in Harry Potter and there was only one ever mentioned. That was the limit on the existence of vampires. She didn't want to hear a thing about Mystic Falls. That town wasn't Austin. It wasn't home. It was ruining her life. Because of Mystic Falls she lost her home, her friends, and now her parents were going to be killed. Her only option, besides watching her parents die and listening to the rants of a raving lunatic was to figure out if Severus Snape was a good guy or a bad guy. Maybe he was being brave when he killed Dumbledore, not a coward, like Harry said. No, Holly was the coward. She was the one who couldn't move from the closet floor to save her parents.
The slap of something hitting the closet door made her jump, knocking her knees into her eyes with a searing pain. After lights of pain stopped blurring her vision she could see what had hit the door. At the gap at the foot of the closest door lay the charm braclet she had gotten for her mother. She glanced between the slats to see if the dark man, Damon, was watching her. His back was still towards her. It required more force and courage than anything she had ever faced to uncurl her fingers from digging into her calf and to sneak out two fingers to pull the bracelet towards her.
"Let's have some fun," Damon grinned wickedly. Holly clutched the object in her hand, the warmth of her mother's blood contrasting with the cold silver. The livingroom was like a horrible car wreck she just couldn't look away from.
A/N: Hi! This is my first TVD fanfic. Kind of nervous playing around in the Vampires Diaries universe. Reviews, even flamers, are always welcomed.
Also, I own nothing.
