TITLE:  The Crow: Restless Souls 4/?
AUTHOR: Wesley
FEEDBACK: Sure.
DISTRIBUTION: Just drop me a line letting me know where it has been placed.
DISCLAIMER: I know nada and own even less.


A murder.

The word is defined as 'The unlawful killing of one human being by another, especially with premeditated malice'. It's a word mortals use. The concept of murder is far to immature for hunters of the night such as myself. If you were to ask a lion why he murdered a gazelle he would more than likely give you a blank expression, just before crushing your skull in his fierce jaws. By mortal standards though, I suppose I have committed many murders.

A murder is also the name given to a gathering of crows.

What relevance does that have right now?

Because I, Alex Lucard, am starring into the face of both.

They are starring back at me now from a thousand and one sets of eyes. Eerie iridescent orbs peering out me from the darkness as the ghost's echoes die in the stale air. The drumming of their wings sound through the building like a hurricane and fills this vampire's dead heart with something... unknown. Fear... it's found a virgin and is delighting in the corruption.

I feel myself take two shaky steps back, against my will, as I stare at the pale faced monster in front of me. He looks like a clown from Satan's circus. I really hate clowns.

"What are they?" My voice is barely above a chocked cry.

"Why, they are souls Dracs. Like me. Lights of the people you drowned in your darkness."

The fear in my chest erupts as burning magma from my throat. "I am Alexander Lucard!" I scream out. The compulsion to affirm myself spits the words from my mouth. "Childe of Vladimir Dracula, Master of the Darkness! LORD OF ALL EVIL!! NO ONE CHALLENGES ME AND LIVES!!"

"Oh, like we haven't all heard THAT one before." he taunts.

He taunts? This poser dares to taunt me. ME?!! I am right, I AM the Childe of Dracula, and I shall not tolerate such insult any longer. Fear is for the weak, and I am sitting at the top of the fucking food chain.

"Oh, for fuck's sake will you please kill him already, Tak!" I demand.

I feel a malicious smile pulling across my face as my trump card sends a bit of lead death from the shadows. Unlike my... former self, I am always prepared. I lick my cold lips with glee when I see the pinhole above his heart. Its like a single tear, the drip of blood that flows down his pale chest.

His charcoal eyes burn as if on fire, burning right through my own. His voice whispers out a one word death gasp. "Murderer."

"I've been called worse." I say shrugging. I smile and let my human guise take my face and a slight chuckle echoing in my throat.

Tak, is a nice and nasty bounty demon I, swayed, to my line of thinking. At least that's what I call him, his proper nomenclature is rather unpronounceable with a human tongue. They aren't very strong, or smart, and they smell pretty bad, but they are known for their deadly accuracy.

I had Tak set up in the rafters on the far side of the warehouse with a Barret M82A1 sniper rifle. Should something unseemly happen, such as the Slayer getting the upper hand, he was to pull the trigger and put her down. I want the Slayer for my own, but I am no fool of pride to allow her to kill me in the process.

"My god..." The blonde crumpled form says from the floor.

"Yes... I am." I sneer at her. "You see Buffy, I have total control over your world. I decide the fate of all you hold dear Slayer. I have destroyed everything, and now I get to make you mine." The sheer joy from the broken look on her face rivals anything I have experienced thus far.

"Murderer." 

The accusation from behind me comes so soft I believe it a fancy of the imagination. But then the crows resound together and toss out their horrible screeching caws. The sound slices through my bones, I feel ice in my dead veins and fire in my unbeating heart. Then it comes again, louder this time.

"My oh my, the lead fire didn't send the birdie back to hell. Death in in the air lovely Lucard. Oh and it doesn't sup of blood, it wants only to wreak vengeance and dance in piles of dust." My little clairvoyant whines.

"Murderer!"

The cawing of the crows fills the air again, but this time they are accompanied by a rhythmic pounding. I look down and see the fist of a twice dead man slamming into the floor. This thing's punches are shattering the concrete like thin slivers of glass. The beats resonate with the birds demented calls, growing louder and stronger.

"MURDERER!!!"

The mingled sounds blow through my undead army like a shock wave. The force throws my fellows back on their asses, leaving them to lie like the corpses they are. I barely hear Tak falling from the rafters as his screeching throbs in my ears. The unearthly sound crescendos to a fevered pitch, and then silence.

I wipe a small drip of blood from my nose and turn to my fallen men. They lay there, writhing in agony, their ears and eyes bleeding out. All of them are weak, but me and my Drusilla are strong. We will handle the miscreant and then cleanse this city.

I turn my attention back to the hellacious clown with my best weary expression. "Be sure to... fire, Tak for his sloppiness Drusilla."

"He didn't miss." A silent voice says.

I watch him as he stands. He just took a high powered sniper round through the chest and should be sputtering up blood, gasping for breath, and dyeing. Painfully. Yet, he isn't even breathing heavy. Instead his movements are so graceful and fluid they would make a Russian ballet dancer envious.

He moves his arms out once again and he pouts at me in mock crucifixion. Starring at me from behind those slash stained eyes, I see only vague impression of the Xander I can remember. The creature calls himself the boy my demon devoured. Murdered. But all I can see in this, thing, standing there is hatred, pain, and the need for vengeance.

The garish smile etched on his features widens insanely but his stare burrows into my skull. I snarl at him of course, but can't help but look at what should be a torrent of blood flowing down his chest. It's something I shouldn't have done. Through all the things I have seen on the Hellmouth, in this incarnation or the last, I don't think I have ever experienced something so terror inducing.

What should have been a mark of death and waterfall of blood was a backwards running river of rubies and flesh melting into wholeness. The sanguine stream returned to its embodiment and the pinhole of light passing through his body grew together in dizzying horror. But I snarled none the less.

"MURDERED. ALL OF THEM. ERASED FROM EXISTENCE, BY THE HANDS OF A DEMON HOSTING MONSTROSITY!!" My reflection crowed. He spreads his arms wide and a consortium of the black birds gather on his arms. He looks like a a crucified scarecrow on crack. "They're souls Alex. Each one of them a victim of your malice. Anya, Faith, Willow, Jonathan, Megan Myers, Rachel Wilson, China Li, William Marksberry, and hundreds more."

"They have brought me back..." His voice is low and sinister, I must say he has it down pat, "...they are hungry for the debt paid in their blood you son of a bitch. And I am here to collect."

Then he leaps at me.