The Crow and the Falcon. (Ten)
The search was nearing hopeless. Damon, Mike, Cookie and Zia had spent the past two days after school scouring the town for anyone suspicious.
They weren't the only people searching; the police, for one, and Jackson Kent, Tatum's father, was another. He'd hired private investigators, although private was far from what they were being. Damon had feared they could prove a problem for Stefan and himself, but if their current actions were anything to go by, the vampires had nothing to worry about. They weren't being thorough /or/ discreet.
Students from Redditch High were on the prowl, too. Suspicious of anyone who displayed characteristics out of the norm, accusing anyone who was outright odd. The police had been forced to break up several fights that had been the result of false accusations.
Out of all the people searching for the killer, only Damon's group of friends were on the lookout for anything supernatural. The police might have been searching for an occult link, but they weren't looking for anything /real/, didn't realise how serious the reality could be. The small group of friends were all too aware, and that spurred them on. But they were becoming disillusioned.
Friday afternoon, and searching wasn't getting /anyone/ anywhere. The police had found where Bernadette had been killed, but nothing else. All anyone could do was wait for the killer's next move, and hope whoever it was slipped up.
That annoyed Damon. He hated waiting for anyone he didn't choose to. He hated being subject to another's actions, hated the lack of control he had over the situation. His temper was starting to wear thin. Cookie and Mike had long ago resorted to bickering with one another, and the normally calm and sensible Zia was visibly wound up, just as annoyed with the other two as Damon was.
"Stop it!" Zia shrieked at them after what seemed to be the millionth snide remark aimed at each other. She'd actually stamped her foot in frustration. "Just shut up!" Damon winced and his hand flew up to cover the ear nearest to Zia. She'd hit on an irritating pitch.
"Hey, /he/ started it." Cookie snapped, jabbing a finger towards Mike.
"You just can't take a joke." Mike defended himself.
"That was /not/ a joke, that was a spiteful dig at me."
"Yeah, well it's true. Your stupid 'gift' kicks in giving us all this stuff when we don't need it, but just when it would be /really/ handy, you can't do a thing."
"Dammit, I /told/ you that I don't know what I'm looking for. There'd be no point doing it because it won't tell us anything we don't already know. I'd have to be specific." Mike slumped his shoulders, finally defeated.
"What about that pendulum thing. Get it looking for the killer." Damon suggested.
"/It/ won't know who it is. It's /me/ channelling the power to the pendulum. I can't find something I have no idea about." Cookie snapped at him. He clenched his jaw to bite back a retort.
"Ouija board? Talk to Tatum or Bernadette?"
"Michael Webber, you of all people should know better than to suggest that in front of me." Cookie chastised.
"Under normal circumstances, yeah. But this is different."
"No way am I having anything to do with Ouija boards. They are Bad News."
"So we sit here doing nothing, then?"
"We're not doing /nothing/." Zia interjected. "We're doing the best we can."
Damon had had enough. "/You/ might be doing the best you can, but /I'm/ not."
"What can you do in this instance that we can't?" Cookie pointed out.
"I can get into far more places by myself than I can with you around. I can spy on people right under their noses, and I can do things where I don't have to worry about your precious mortal necks being broken." He snapped. "Probably by me. I've had enough of this, and you two," He glared at Cookie and Mike, "Are driving me to distraction. I'm running out of patience. I think it's time I went my own way for a while. You three can keep searching if you like. Although I wouldn't bother if I were you. You won't do any better than we've already done."
"Oh, so where will /you/ be?" Mike glared.
"Searching the town, far more thoroughly than a human could."
"Moving faster? You'll probably miss more."
"Not from where I'll be searching." Damon replied, grinning ferally.
"And that would be?"
"I'm going to get a birds eye view of the situation." He said smugly as his form shimmered and blurred before the startled teenagers. The crow beat it's wings and soared off into the sky, feeling satisfied as the three of them stared up beneath him, mouths open wide with shock.
~*~
Stefan's team hadn't found anything, either. They'd spent hours trailing around looking for /anything/, and were feeling disheartened. Adam and Jess were now pacing the sidewalk impatiently as Stefan sat on the concrete emptying a pebble from his boot.
Stefan heard footsteps, and looked up from tying his boot lace to see Cookie, Mike and Zia approaching them, eyes a little wide. *What's wrong with them?* He wondered.
"What are you guys doing here?" Jess asked, confused. "And where's Damon?"
"We weren't having much luck." Zia told them dumbly.
"And Damon went off by himself." Mike supplied. Stefan pursed his lips. Mike noticed. "To search." He defended the missing vampire.
"So why are you acting so weird?" Adam's brow creased in confusion. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
"He went to get a 'birds eye view', he said."
"He didn't?" Stefan asked, groaning.
"Didn't what?" Jess frowned.
"He turned into this crow, right in front of our eyes." Cookie and Zia nodded to confirm what Mike was saying. "Man, I never thought anything could do that."
"I'll kill him." Stefan growled. "Did anyone else see?"
Cookie looked at him dryly. "He might be irresponsible, but he's not /that/ stupid. He has lasted five centuries after all."
"Sometimes I wonder how." Stefan muttered.
"You know how." Cookie muttered.
Stefan shot her a quizzical look. "Yeah, I guess I do." He shook his head and changed the subject. "So I guess we team up and search together."
Zia shrugged. "We could. But Damon's probably had a good idea. Maybe we...humans should search together, and you go and do what Damon's doing too."
Stefan shifted uncomfortably. *Why am I uncomfortable?* He wondered, puzzled. "I can't." He admitted after a moment.
"What?" Zia blinked. "But Damon can, and you're the same age..."
"My Powers aren't normally strong enough. His are." Stefan muttered.
"Why's that."
"Because I don't drink human blood. We can live off animal blood, but it's human blood that has Power." He said wretchedly, staring at the ground and feeling a little embarrassed. *Since when have /you/ been bothered about Power?* He asked himself.
"And Damon drinks..." Adam trailed off, absently massaging his neck and looking uncomfortable.
"Yeah." Stefan nodded, finishing the sentence. "He drinks human blood."
They were all silent, unsure what to say.
"So why don't you?" Jess asked, staring at him questioningly.
"He won't use humans." Cookie put in. Stefan's head flew up to meet Cookie's eyes. "Damon 'told' me." She explained.
Stefan shrugged. "That's the reason. I won't use humans. I won't treat them...you as cattle."
"So, call me dumb, but if vampires are supposed to drink human blood to get Power, why did you become one?" Jess asked.
"Love." Stefan sighed. "And an immensely stupid fight with Damon. I might tell you one day. Just not now." He shot a warning glance at Cookie. He had a feeling she knew about that. Damon hadn't told him exactly what Cookie had been doing in his head, but he had an idea now. He started moving down the street. "Come on. We might as well keep on searching."
Jess slipped next to him. "So, /can/ you change your shape?" She asked.
He stared at her a moment. "I could. I could probably do it right now, but the amount of Power it would take would leave me pretty weak and immensely hungry." He told her. "So it's better that I don't do it unless I absolutely have to."
"Wouldn't it just be easier to drink human blood?"
"Probably." He replied. "But I won't use humans as a food source."
"What if they /wanted/ to give it you?" Jess pointed out. Stefan opened his mouth to say no, but then shut it again, frowning. Bonnie, Matt and Meredith had offered it once, offered him blood. He'd refused, said he wouldn't fight evil with evil. But would he have been? He was what he was, and someone offering it would be offering because they care, out of friendship, perhaps out of love. *How can something offered with friendship be evil?* He puzzled. Then he grimaced. *I've been around Damon too long. I can't believe I'm even thinking about this. I will /not/ touch human blood.* He told himself fiercely. But deep inside, doubt began gnawing at his stomach. */Nothing given in love can be evil. Love /conquers/ evil/* it whispered to him. He slammed down on it and refused to listen. He couldn't listen, not at the moment.
~*~
As much as Damon hated admitting it to himself, the birds eye perspective on things was beginning to look like a waste of time. He'd been circling around the town for more than an hour, and even passed over Stefan and the others twice. The second time he'd felt a twinge of annoyance when they'd slumped their way into Debbie's Diner. *Slackers.* He thought, heading in the direction of the woods. They'd reminded him he was hungry, and the hot burning sensation in his veins pushed itself to the forefront of his mind, telling him to feed.
What he /wanted/ was to find a nice young girl, seduce her a little, then take his fill in a secluded area. What he had to make do with was far from his wish. *Rabbit.* He scowled inwardly. *Fox. Chicken. What an appetising menu /that/ is.* He thought sarcastically, and tried not to dwell on it. He had no choice. To drink human blood now was too dangerous. The chances of finding anyone alone at the moment were as near to impossible as made any difference, and even if he did, the uproar it would cause if the blood donor remembered what happened was bound to mean the end for Stefan and himself. Killing was out of the option. It would only risk implicating himself in the entirely stupid murder situation. *Better sticking to animal blood.* He thought resignedly. He hadn't survived five hundred years not knowing when and where it was safe to feed, and the town of Redditch was neither the time nor the place at the moment.
The leafy canopy of Redditch's woodland area was beginning to turn golden with the first signs of Fall. Damon circled above for a few moments, then glided down into the thick of the woods, landing on the branch of large beech tree. His senses picked up out the mind of a fox, and he launched himself off the branch, preparing to change back to his human form and pursue the animal. Then he heard a sound a little into the trees from his left. Human sounds, sounds of pain. Then the scream. It was a scream of raw terror that grabbed at Damon, and the Power that followed it caused him to change direction in mid flight, heading urgently towards the sound. Then the scream stopped abruptly.
Damon landed cautiously on a branch outside a small clearing. Power still thrummed throughout the place, and the scent of fresh blood washed over him. He pushed back the burning of his veins, and concentrated on the scene before him. A male and female, both blonde, both looking about Jess and Cookie's age. Eighteen, maybe. The boy that lay on the ground between them was quite obviously dead, and quite obviously the third victim if his wounds were anything to judge by. Damon's only thought for the boy was his foolishness for getting into this situation. His attention turned to the killers as they began arguing.
"Oh, wonderful choice, brother dearest." The girls spat. "I /said/ we should have kept with the girls."
"How was /I/ to know he'd be a problem? I just don't understand why he screamed. The others didn't."
"You dumb idiot, haven't you worked it out?" She sighed in exasperation as the boy stared at her blankly. "Men are physically stronger. It was easy for the two of us to subdue the girls, but when it came to this guy, we expended more energy than the last two times. We were tired. We weren't /concentrating/ properly."
"So he wasn't entirely under our power." The boy nodded.
"Exactly."
"We were lucky he came out here alone, then." The boy's voice shook a little. "If he'd screamed like that any closer to the town, people would know about it. We're safe."
"This time." The girl snapped. *Don't bet on it, sweetheart.* Damon thought savagely. */I/ know who you are now.*
"We stick to the girls from now on, then." The boy sighed. They were silent for a few seconds, and a brief hum of Power surged from them. Damon shielded himself, wary of the source of the Power. *What the hell was /that/?* He wondered, becoming even more baffled when the boy spoke next.
"I notice you don't participate in choosing victims." He snapped. "If we'd have known this to start with, we wouldn't have had a problem." The silence lasted longer this time as the pair began to pick up their belongings, removing all trace that they were ever there.
Part of Damon was tempted to take them out then and there, but he resisted it. They'd end up being considered two more victims of the killer, and the town would never rest easy, always wondering when and if the killer would strike next. That aside, he was unsure about the Power he'd felt. It probably wouldn't be much of a threat, but a nagging in his mind told him it wasn't a good idea to face it if he didn't have to, and Damon trusted his instincts more than anything else.
"That crow is giving me the creeps." The girl said suddenly. Damon blinked in surprise. He hadn't realised he'd been seen. *Time to leave.* He told himself, and spread his wings to take off.
"It won't be for much longer." The boy said viciously from behind him. There was only a small amount of moment, and then the rock impacted with Damon in mid flight.
It had slammed full force into his wing, and he plummeted to the ground a little way back into the trees. He changed quickly, rolling to his feet as he landed, cradling his arm gently with his body, protecting it from the fall. He cursed vehemently, and ran as far and as fast as possible from the scene. He didn't want to face them, not then. He stopped a few minutes later to examine his arm, and swore again. Broken. It made him angry. He rarely got hurt, and to get injured as badly as this from a stupid stone made him furious. A stone thrown by a stupid human. That made it worse. *Stupid.* He thought. *You should have gotten out of there sooner. No normal crow would have stayed there for that long.* He growled at himself, and started the walk back to town, concentrating on healing his arm as he went.
~*~
He trudged into the diner half an hour later, arm healed, and a sour expression on his face. He was even hungrier now, and the odour of the humans in the place wasn't helping. Spying Stefan in a corner booth, he walked over and slid into the space Zia made the group shuffled round to make room.
"What's wrong with you?" She asked.
"I'm tired, I'm hungry, and some bastard just broke my arm." He growled. "Not that kind of hungry." He sighed when Zia pushed her burger in front of him.
"You broke your arm?" Jess asked surprised. "How? It looks pretty healthy to me."
"I healed it. It's still very sore." Damon replied shortly. "And I had a rock thrown at my wing. The guy's aim was too good."
"Is the guy still alive?" Stefan asked, arching a brow.
Damon glared at him. "Yes. Unfortunately. Although you might wish I /had/ killed him."
"Oh? Care to enlighten us?"
"He's the killer." Damon reached over for a fry. "Or one of them, anyway."
A chorus of shocked voices followed. "What?!"
"How do you know?"
"You've found the killer?"
"Who?"
"We gotta take this to the police."
"Keep your damned voices down." Damon hissed. "We can't take it to the police. It's a little more complicated than that."
"How?" Cookie demanded.
"How? For one, how do I explain the fact I was out alone in the woods alone? It won't look good. 'Excuse me Mr Police-Officer, but I saw two people I don't know killing some poor kid in the woods. What was I doing there? Oh, well, I was out hunting. You see, I'm a blood sucking vampire. Oh yes, that's a good reason for slitting someone's throat, to hide the bite marks. No, I'm not crazy. No, it wasn't me that killed any of those people. Honest.' You see, as far as the police are concerned, I could be making this all up to cover my own ass. I have no reason to have been out in the woods by myself that isn't in the slightest suspicious. So, I'm not going to the police, because I don't want to be implicated. But that's not the only reason." He said, inspecting what drinks everyone had. He settled for Jess's orange juice, then raised an eyebrow at her plate. "Salad?"
"I'm on a special diet." She muttered. "So what other reasons are there?"
"Power." He told them.
"Yeah, well we assumed that anyway." Adam said. "They want Power. That's why they're killing people."
"Yes, but there's an unusual source of Power /with/ them. It could be dangerous, and the police aren't going to take any notice of that danger. Letting the police at them would be like putting a grenade in the hands of a child. They'll pull the damn pin."
"Then what?"
"Who knows. Whatever it is, it won't be good."
"How do you know it isn't them?" Cookie asked.
Damon sighed. "I just do. It wasn't exactly there when I first came across them. Then after they'd killed ..."
"Oh shit." Zia moaned as the facts hit her. "That's another kid dead. Who?"
"How should I know?" Damon scowled at the interruption. "May I continue? Good. As I was saying, they had an argument after they'd killed the guy. It was just them. Then there was a surge of Power, and the boy started talking to someone who wasn't there. So, either he's schizophrenic, or he was talking to someone, or /something/, that wasn't there."
"Oh." Cookie said mutely. "So what do we do?"
"Go somewhere more private." Damon suggested. "This isn't exactly the safest of places to talk. And the last thing we need is someone picking up on what these guys look like. The town will turn into a lynch mob after anyone who even vaguely looks like those two. Now, is there anywhere we can go without parents in the way? I'd suggest our place, except the neighbours are having a party this evening, so it won't be quiet."
"We can go to my place." Zia offered. "My parents took my grandmother out for the afternoon. They're having a meal out, so they won't be back till later this evening."
"Perfect." Damon smiled grimly, and stood up.
"Hey, don't we get to finish our meals first?" Mike protested.
"Fine. Finish your food. Just wait here for me." Damon sighed impatiently.
"Where are you going?"
"If I don't feed soon, I'll end up ripping the throat out of the next healthy person who passes. After Cookie's stunt on Tuesday I've not been a hundred percent healthy, and healing my arm has drained my resources. So I'm off to hunt." He told them and headed for the door.
((And don't bother worrying about the young ladies of Redditch.)) He told his brother. ((I'll stick to the woodland creatures. Until this whole fiasco is over, at any rate.))
