Chapter 10: Grim Realities
Sunset was at 6:02 PM. Twilight would end approximately twenty-six minutes later.
Blair hopped from rooftop to rooftop in the waning light, watching the two hedgehogs as they trudged through the snow in complete silence. The pink one bounced and skipped along next to her dark companion, who seemed unconscious to the world in general. Regardless, the pair seemed perfectly content, walking along in each other's presence.
He hated it.
The youngish cat strutted along a guard rail, forty stories in the air, and only paused when his quill-covered entertainment stopped far below him, at the base of the very building he had chosen to perch atop. Shadow and Amy split up, and for a moment, Blair contemplated jumping down and landing on the bubbly girl, crushing her into the pavement and not even bothering to drink her blood. After all, why should the hedgehog get to have any kind of living company?
"Eh~" He groaned, shaking the thought out of his head. He wasn't going to turn into his sister- he refused the notion. He wasn't a bad person!
... He wasn't too bad a person...
... Relatively speaking.
"Stupid Lenore," he mumbled, hoping his twin somehow heard him. The feline stepped off of the rail, free-falling down the face of the tall apartment building with an airless sigh. The drag seemed to whisk away most of his form, until the tiny body of a black crow was all that remained of him. His wings caught the winds of his own descent, and the vampiric avian leveled out, just above a curbside snowbank.
He loved doing that.
The bird quickly covered the short distance Shadow had created since departing from Amy, and he made a smooth landing atop the black hero's head.
"Who's the girl?" He chirred, flapping wildly as his perch tossed his head back in a luckless evasive maneuver. "She's cute."
"Also, not a vampire," warned Shadow, stooping slightly from the sudden weight on his head and continuing down the empty street. Most of the city's population had indeed resolved to stay indoors at night, and few citizens had yet chosen to step outside in lieu of the task force's apparent victory over the vampires. He wouldn't have let a crow stand on his head, otherwise.
"Eh? Who else isn't a vampire?"
"You have no kind of memory, do you? Does the name 'Rouge' ring a bell?" the hedgehog looked upwards toward Blair, who had fallen silent and cocked his little feathered head. "What?"
After another few moments of thought, Blair again crowed.
"Oh; that's why you didn't want her to know you were a vampire," he mused, spreading his wings as if to emphasize his own epiphany. Shadow simply shook his head and rolled his eyes, finally unseating his feathered friend. Blair didn't seem to mind as much; he simply landed on the pavement, returning to a more furry form.
"Let us get something to eat!" He proclaimed obliviously, actively forgetting his most recent observation. The cat goose-stepped down the empty sidewalk, turning on a dime and continuing his march into the first alley he came across. Shadow shook his head and followed; the teen was less focused and mature than children half his age.
The rooftops were more than a few hundred feet above their heads. As the two undead allies scaled a commercial building, the large, gray, weathered form of Scholomage perched on a windowsill between them. The hare-gone-raven simply cast idle glances at his two acquaintances, who had stopped to stare in his sudden appearance.
"Hungry?" Blair guessed, flicking his tail back and forth.
"Dreadfully," the faded bird cackled, alighting from the ledge. "I almost didn't wait for anyone, and that's not my style at all. Come, someone's doing graffiti."
---
It didn't take long for the trio to find the nocturnal street artist. He was halfway through his project, a spray can in hand, when the vampires fell upon him, and he was down before any of his paint had finished drying. They left him in the back lot and found a tall roof to enjoy the rest of the night. The chilled air didn't seem to bother any of the vampires, who were just happy to again see their usually-absent, foggy breaths in the crisp weather.
A plume of smoke rose into the air somewhere near the edge of the city. Blair and Shadow focused idly on the dark column, while Scholomage looked away and shook his head, shoving a hand into a pocket of his overcoat.
"Two-hundred and ten," he counted gravely. "No, two-hundred and nine."
Shadow had come to know Scholomage quite well over the course of two months. Whomever had bitten the old hare had been personally bitten and subsequently killed by the young leader, herself, and in the centuries of occupying Station Square, he had become fairly powerful having several lieges under him. It was apparent that he'd just "watched" two of his own bites that had just gone up in flames.
"Lenore said to go out early, but that's not working, either," Blair grumbled, his ears folding in annoyance. "I bet even she didn't count on this many dying."
"I bet she doesn't know what the Hell she's doing anymore," Shadow stated haughtily, his eyes traveling up the smoke pillar. "She's about as tactical as Robotnik."
"I don't trust or believe her if I can't see her," the hare stated, his voice nothing more than an audible sneer. "That girl is just a demon of demons."
Scholomage watched as Blair bobbed obliviously to whatever tune had caught in his mind. The gray furry shook his head, pulling the corners of his mouth back in a crooked smirk.
"I can't believe she used to be like her brother, and even he's got a monster in him, too." He muttered the last half of his statement quietly and resentfully as he rummaged though one coat pocket, pulling out a small white box and a lighter. In a moment's time, he pulled a drag through his newly lit cigarette. "He's a good kid most of the time, but sometimes he's just a disturbed little child. Those two have been dead for far too long."
It was Shadow's turn to glance at his feline friend, who seemed to have receded into his own world, now bobbing and watching a sixteen-wheeler traverse an otherwise empty road. The commissioner's statement suddenly rolled to the forefront of his mind: vampires exhibited an overall degradation of character. He didn't doubt the fact, having seen and heard of Lenore's true disposition, but Blair seemed perfectly normal. He didn't seem like the type to rend bodies apart...
"I don't get the trust part," the hedgehog half-chuckled, breaking from his thoughts. "She seems ridiculously blunt whenever I ask her anything. She's not afraid to admit anything- she can get away with everything, anyway-"
"There's a lie behind every truth that girl speaks. She's nothing but a manipulative whore, at best," He blew out a smoke ring, thoroughly enjoying his vacation from the dead. "She keeps no promises or alliances. She's not your friend. She won't protect you. She'll make you kill your own mother, then off you as compensation. This hell-spawn killing spree she's pulling right now? Just wait; she's not doing it to control any population. We've peaked well over five hundred in our prime."
"Five hundred?"
"Oh, yes. She killed most of them a few years ago."
"Why hasn't anyone killed her?"
"Everyone is afraid," he replied, his matter-of-fact tone making Shadow's fur rise. The hare knocked some ash from his cigarette before placing it back between his lips. "Lenore is a smart girl; she weeds the ranks so efficiently that most vamps are lucky to have even a few bites under them. Her death would cause hundreds of new, small families to form, and families are mortal enemies. We'd decimate each other until there was only one branch left. Everyone is afraid of that, and so they are afraid of her death. We hate her, and have to protect her to protect ourselves."
A moment of silence fell between them. Eventually, Shadow turned his head and smiled at nothing in particular.
"She's good."
"Dreadfully."
The two chuckled, fully realizing just what kind of unfair world they were living in. As much as he was growing to hate his "leader," Shadow couldn't help but hold a slight bit of admiration for the old girl. She had spun an elegant web: one that caught her prey and wrapped them in its tarnished threads, all on its own. She could turn her back on two hundred enemies and not sweat with anxiety or fear of death. Kings of old must have wished for such power. Shadow couldn't help but wonder, now, why the girl had let him turn and join the ranks. At one time, pride had whispered the faint idea that she needed his power and skill; now, humbleness admitted that she must have found very little to be impressed over in his identity. But, if she was so powerful, and so cunning, and so manipulative, why- why, did she need him? What plan had she concocted that afternoon, when he was writhing on the floor, dying and reviving all at once? What was on her mind when she bothered telling him of the one way for him to escape hell on Earth-...
"Scholomage," the dark hero muttered, the listless smile on his face suddenly dropping. The rabbit flicked the cigarette butt behind him, then glanced at his caller while reaching in his pocket for another smoke. "Those eyes of hers- Lenore's, I mean: they see everything, right? Wouldn't she know who bit me?"
The repetitive clicking of the hare's lighter marked the seconds that spanned between Shadow's question and Scholomage's reply. Eventually, a flame fluttered into life in the old vampire's palm, and smoke puffed from the corners of his pursed lips.
"You, my friend, are her current source of entertainment," he muttered. His hand shot out, clutching the sleeve of his audience's thick coat, and slammed the escaping hedgehog back into his seat on the parapet. Shadow didn't have time to finish calculating the quickest route to the safe house. "Don't bother; she won't tell you."
"I already know who it is! I'm just going to rip-"
"Then it's useless to go. Save yourself the trouble, because you'll only humor her more. Play her little game, Shadow."
"Stop being so complacent!"
"You don't understand just how useless you are to her. If you fuss too much, she'll simply destroy you. Believe this old hare when I say that it's not worth it. Even now, she's either laughing at you, or deciding whether or not to kill me for admitting what I have."
Shadow jumped back onto his feet, wrenching his coat from the hare and almost instantly feeling a tug at his collar and cold cement at his tail. For a geezer, Scholomage was pretty strong.
"Death's not fair, Shadow," he warned. "Lenore's not fair. You shouldn't bother with her tonight; she's in an especially excited mood. If you confront her now, she will not be so welcoming; your petty grievances will only compound matters."
The hedgehog snarled, blood boiling. He was beyond tired of Lenore's games! He didn't want to be her spiny dalliance, even more so than he didn't want to be a vampire! He'd easily trade his own murderer's life for the young girl's, even if it meant a hundred-way war with every blood-gulping monster in the city!
He had suddenly found a reason to live for- a reason to focus! Two months of idle ambling were coming to an end; he'd find Roderick and kill him, and when that was over and done with, he'd saw cute little Lenore's head off! Yes, kill Roderick, kill Lenore, start a war, and kill whoever was left; he'd destroy two-hundred-and-eleven birds with one blood-soaked stone, and he'd do it with a smile on his face!
"God, wait until I find that damn third lizard!"
Shadow's Notes:
The powers of counts include the "count's eye," which allows the leader to stalk or immobilize his or her underlings. Through this eye, counts are made aware of the birth of new lieges and the deaths of others. The accompanying glow in his or her eyes symbolizes their status.
Counts can also change their animal form and, subsequently, those of their lieges by biting a different animal. This also allows them to mildly control members of their chosen species that live within the roost.