AN: Fairy Tail belongs to Hiro Mashima. (I do not own Cluedo either!)
Hello again! Hope you're enjoying this? :) Did anyone see the random sketch I did for this the other day? It's not the cover pic, don't worry! I try not to choose almost irrelevant sketches for that job ;P I just decided to sketch two characters so that I had a visual of them for later, since we don't actually have anything canon for them like that :P Anyway, hope you enjoy this chapter! :)
Chapter Two
"Where are ya taking me?" He frowned as they walked through a set of previously locked doors into a dark corridor at the back of the library.
"Into the 'classified' section." Levy replied in an almost sing-song tone. "The book is there, but before I let you see it, you'll have to tell me why you want to." She finished, spinning around to look up at him with narrowed hazel eyes as they stopped outside a padlocked door.
He stared back down at her, unsure of what to say. Like Hell he was going to start pouring his heart out to some little kid! Although he did need to tell her something believable. He also needed to make sure she didn't realise he was a fucking Vampire. The second she realised, she'd call her boyfriend back and his life would become a game of Cluedo. Who did he think murdered the Hunter in the back corridor of the library? If it was up to him, the culprit would not be him.
"Well?" She pressed, folding her arms in front of her small chest.
"I need to find out some real shit on Vampires, ok?" He returned, pulling himself up to his full, intimidating height. She didn't even flinch.
"What's your problem with Vampires?" She continued, her cold glare not leaving his. The more he stood under her gaze, the more he was sure she could see through the lenses of his sunglasses.
"I ain't telling ya shit, so just show me the book already." Gajeel growled down at her as he leaned forward slightly to tower over her.
"You're not getting through this door until you tell me why you even know Vampires exist." She hummed, her expression suddenly light and thoughtful. She was mocking him. Some damn girl was mocking him! A six foot tall Vampire!
"Fine." He grunted, narrowing his eyes at her. If she really could see them, maybe she'd regret trying to annoy him. "I took pity on some girl, she turned out to be a Vampire, and she murdered my entire family." He deadpanned, still glaring pointedly at her. He wasn't lying, but she didn't need to know the whole truth.
"Ok." She shrugged and turned her back on him to unlock the door.
He could just kill her and swipe the book, but then he'd be back at square one; on the run from some freakish Hunter. Only the freakish Hunter would have a reason more than just him being a Vampire to want him dead. He couldn't kill this girl, not when he already knew the pain of losing the woman he loved. He wasn't ever going to be like that heartless bitch that took everything from him! He was going to catch up to her eventually and she would pay for what she did to him.
"Are you coming in or not?" The girl's voice cut in.
"Yeah." He mumbled back as he shuffled in through the door.
He blinked. The room was about four meters by four meters and had a single metal bookstand in the middle of it. The walls were made of thick, lifeless, grey concrete and completely bare. There wasn't even a single window. Why the Hell did a library have a room like this? What was so special about this book that it was locked away in such a- He frowned as he felt the air around him. The girl had shut the door behind him, but the room wasn't cold and damp like he expected. He glanced over his shoulder at her where she stood leaning against the heavy metal door. He sucked in a quick breath as he recognised the metal of the door.
Silver.
"That's a lot of silver." He nodded as he stepped towards the book and away from the door.
"Well, it does have to be Vampire-proof." She mused, watching him as he got closer to the book stand. He was literally trapped in here until she let him out.
He studied the cover of the book bound in worn, maroon leather. It was adorned by intricate metalwork that covered almost the entire cover like a curtain of ivy. His legs felt increasingly numb as he stood staring at the book, sure he would be unable to open it. He frowned down at his legs as they began feeling as if they did not belong to him. He glanced over at the blue haired girl standing smiling knowingly at him.
"What did ya do to me?" Gajeel growled, suddenly aware that he was unable to step towards her.
"Tell me why you really want to find out what's in that book and I'll tell you what's wrong with you." She smirked, pushing herself back off of the door.
"I already told ya." He hissed back, catching his breath as his lungs began to burn. "What the fuck did ya do to me?" He snarled, clutching his chest.
"All I did was open the door." The blunette shrugged, smiling coyly back up at him. "You chose to walk into the room and no-one forced you to walk up to a suspicious-looking metal bookstand."
"That's seriously fucking pure silver to make my legs useless just by standing near it." He grumbled, trying not to let the Huntress know he was impressed. "Silver dust in the ventilation system?"
"Uh-huh," she nodded as she began to rock back and forth on her feet, "that's exactly why your lungs are burning. I will admit that I had to shut the door for that to work, so I am partially to blame for your lungs. However, you were the one who decided to lie about being a Vampire."
"If ya knew, why'd ya lie to yer friend?" Gajeel snorted as he attempted to lower himself to the floor without touching the bookstand.
"Oh, he knows you're a Vampire. I was just trying to make sure no-one made a scene in the library." She smiled as she stepped forward to help him down. "It doesn't matter how good a Vampire is at pretending to be human, he can tell. Although, you couldn't have made yourself stand out anymore than you do."
"How come?" He frowned, dragging himself away from the stand with his hands now that he was on the floor. If he could get far enough away from it, his legs would start working again, right?
"You're wearing red-tinted sunglasses inside." She sighed, shaking her head at him. "Even if you had just been trying to hide who you were, you won't have been trying so hard to only let me see your eyes through your glasses. The red tint is just cliché." She continued with an obvious eye roll. "And the stand will still affect you when you're at the edges of the room."
"That explains the size of the room, but I'll start to get feeling back in my legs if I'm further away." He smirked, his face splitting into a grin at the disappointment on the midget's face: he was right.
"You will still have to tell me the truth to get out of here." She chimed, snatching at her own power and dangling it in front of him.
"Where's the 'alive'?" He spat, running his eyes over her for her many weapons.
He wasn't making it out of this room while he was still 'living' – he wasn't an idiot. She would find out what she wanted and slit his throat with a silver knife. She seemed like a throat slitter. She had purposely reduced him to a height so much shorter than hers, just so that she could pull his head back to make him look up into her eyes as she slit his throat. Yip, she was definitely a throat slitter. She likely relied on luring idiots into traps like this, rather than relying on weapons or hand-to-hand combat.
"Vampires are walking corpses." She bit back.
"Yeah, well some of us didn't choose to be!" He snarled, choking as his lungs refilled with another large dose of silver dust.
He pressed his lips together, attempting to slow the rate of scorching to the inside of his lungs. He needed to get out of here soon. He glanced over at the silent Huntress. Her head was bent low, but Gajeel could smell salt in the silver-poisoned air. He didn't seem to sweat since he turned, so it couldn't be his reaction to his 'life or death' situation. It had to be her. Was she crying? She couldn't be! She had captured him and held his life in her hands.
"Why didn't you just kill yourself then?" Her weak mumble echoed across to him.
"Because I wanted revenge. I can't do that if I'm dead." Gajeel mused, watching as she continued to stare down at the floor behind her curtain of blue waves. "I didn't know she was a Vampire when I asked her if she was ok...I invited her into my parents' home. I was putting my little sister to bed when I heard my fiancée scream. I told my sister to hide and not to come out until it was safe. By the time I got downstairs, everyone was dead and the woman was just standing in the middle of the room, covered my family's blood."
"What happened to you and your sister?" Her hoarse whisper asked as she continued to stare at the concrete floor by her feet.
"Ya know what happened to me." He grunted, watching her for some sort of movement. Why wasn't he dead yet? "Shouldn't it be me gettin' teary over this?" He sneered, instantly regretting it.
Her silver blade was a single millimetre from his throat. He could feel it burning his skin, but he dared not move. If this was the end, he'd just have to hope that bitch managed to get the slow, painful ending he wanted for her. He closed his eyes as he waited for the tiny blade to pierce his skin and let his plum coloured blood seep out. This was certainly a shitty way to die, but he could barely move his body, never mind defend himself. The knife moved from his throat as a gentle breeze floated into the room. He opened his eyes to see her looming over him, her knife once again hidden.
"You're an idiot." She sighed, turning her back on him to walk out of the small room. "21 Trawler Court, 10pm; don't be late."
He stared dumbstruck at the open door.
Gajeel casually turned left round the corner of a block of flats into the dark backstreets of Magnolia, escaping the moonlight and electric lamps lighting the larger streets of the town. Back here, the darkness had become impenetrable as the buildings had grown over the centuries and the lamps repeatedly smashed by those of the night. The expected graffiti was almost completely absent, except for the occasional tag from the younger Vampires trying to make the place seem a little less suspicious to Hunters. It did draw a police officer every now and then.
He checked his watch and frowned at the time, wondering if the two youths could really get him what he wanted before he had to meet with the Huntress. He had two hours to get his stuff and grab a train to Hargeon. He wasn't sure why it had been an address in Hargeon, but then again, why the Hell had a Huntress told him to meet her somewhere anyway? She could have just killed him where he sat helpless against the fucking wall! Maybe it was for ease of body disposal? It wasn't as if the bursting into dust was true.
"Name?"
Gajeel glared at the blonde youth suddenly directly in front of him. He hadn't bothered coming to this place in the last three hundred years but he was pretty damn sure that every Vampire in Fiore knew him by reputation. The blue-eyed blonde continued his challenging stare and Gajeel clenched his fist, ready to plant it in the brat's smug pale face. Gajeel frowned, tilting his head slightly as he realised what he was seeing. The brat's round pupils suddenly became slits as his canines grew.
"The contacts work then?" Gajeel grunted, refusing to show the fact that he was impressed.
"Don't make me ask again." The blonde returned, now openly threatening Gajeel who stood at least a head taller.
"He's Kurogane." A voice answered for him and Gajeel nodded to the black haired youth forming in the shadows. "His human name is 'Gajeel Redfox'."
"So this is 'Kurogane'." The blonde smirked, looking him up and down. "Thought he'd be a little more intimidating."
"Want me to put my fist through yer face?" Gajeel snorted. The brat really thought he could take him? His size made walking around humans almost impossible to do without standing out, but it certainly played to his advantage against other Vampires.
"Why are you here?" The black-haired youth questioned, his blood red, contactless eyes glaring up at him.
"For the things the blonde brat has – need some contacts." Gajeel explained, ignoring the unspoken challenge. "Now."
"How you planning to pay?" The blonde demanded, his lean, muscular arms folding across his chest.
"Blood of a Vampress good?" Gajeel smirked down at the blonde.
"Where you gonna get that then?" The blonde sneered, showing his overly white fangs. "I haven't seen one of those things in years!"
"Only years? Ya ain't been changed long, have ya?" Gajeel grinned sadistically, running his tongue over his much longer fangs. "I'm going after the bitch that got me and I've even managed to drag in a little Huntress-help to get her."
"Huntress? They don't exist, 'Kurogane'. If they did, we'd know." The blonde returned, his tone drenched in mocking.
"I think you'll find they do." An irritatingly familiar voice stated. "I know two and a particularly dangerous Vampress too."
"Salamander, ya're back in town?" Gajeel sighed, turning towards the younger Vampire and his goofy smile. "It's not ya screwing things up, is it?"
"Nope, just back from Hargeon with some girl who wants to be a Huntress. I let her think I thought she was crazy, but not sure how well she'll do as a Huntress when she's asking a Vampire for directions to the secret Hunter Academy." He mused, stretching his arms. "Do I look like a Hunter?"
"A Vampire who looks like a Hunter? You're crazier than him!" The blonde jeered.
Gajeel sneered as the blonde suddenly found himself pinned flat on the tarmac, the pink-haired new comer's hand around his throat as perfectly sharp claws threatened to break the skin. Gajeel raised a studded eyebrow at the black haired youth, silently asking him if he wanted the same treatment. The boy just looked away, a bitter glint in his blood-thirsty eyes. Gajeel crouched down next to the blonde where he was pinned and grinned down at the shocked boy.
"As I was saying, I need contacts and ya two brats are too fresh to put up a real fight." He smirked, tilting the blonde's chin upwards with the sharp claw of his index finger.