by Jessica French (Midnite363@aol.com)
Summer 1963 - America
Damon Salvatore sat in his apartment sipping a glass of red wine that did nothing for him. He had long ago lost all taste for food and drink alike. What he wanted was a nice sip of some smooth skinned neck, preferably a woman, but at this point he was to thirsty to care where he got it from, male or female.
The sun was covered by a grey, formless wash of clouds. It was almost two in the afternoon, and the air coming in the open window was damp and warm. It smelt like rain, but Damon knew better. It wouldn't rain if he did not want it to, and he was not in the mood for rain just yet.
The large, ever growing city of New York was booming with life. Women in calf skin skirts and long braids clicked their heels down the pavement on the way to a late lunch or to pick up their children from school. Men with long hair pulled back in leather ties, sometimes watched those women walk down the pavement. Hunger flashing in their eyes. Other people... college students in jeans and long ironed hair and strings of multi-colored beads and ribbons tied to their clothes walked down the street, oblivious and care-free.
Damon sat in his apartment, modestly dressed in Italian black slacks and a black t-shirt, had never understood the way the world's trends changed. Forty years ago women had just begun to break the dress code of America. Skirts had begun to crawl to the knee, arms were sometimes exposed, everything had still been very modest, and Damon had sat through that era favoring loose white shirts and brown overalls over the fancy suits men favored.
The past made him smile. In the 1920s he had been in America, but in California. In a town more famous for it's history of gold than of it's cosmopolitan crowd. Something about that era had made Damon want to stay behind the scenes, not draw attention to himself. And he hadn't. He hadn't made any attention for himself until he crossed the black Atlantic Ocean, back to Europe.... into Germany again.
Damon frowned. Germany was destined to leave him with bad memories. He had been in Germany for the Second World War, another one of the human's stupid excuses to bicker and fight about the problems of the world. The only problem was, he hadn't expected the horrors of Germany. Once a beautiful country, it had been infested by corruption, cruelty and hate. And most of all death.....
Damon blinked, then shook his head. He had fallen asleep, it was now four o'clock. Time for dinner he supposed and stood, running a hand through his dark, feathery hair. It brushed the top of his collar and fell into his eyes. He pulled his leather coat on and decided against the keys to his car. He'd walk, get some fresh air. He felt restless anyway, a walk would ease his twitching muscles.
When he stepped outside the air went still and hung over his head like a heavy cloud. He wanted to stretch his arms over his head, but he settled for linking his hands together and cracking his knuckles. His fingers ran automatically over his heavy silver ring, seeking out it's small engravings and over the dark blue jewel, which almost hummed with stored power.
He wondered, briefly, where Stefan was at the moment, and on a whim sent out a quiet probe that slithered across the city. Damon knew Stefan was no where in America, Stefan prefered to hang on to the past and reside in Italy, or Germany. As Damon slowly pulled the probe back inside himself he felt a flicker of response in the corner of his mind. He whirled to the south, where the flicker had come from and started walking.
I thought he was in Italy, he thought furiously more angered at himself for being easily deceived by Stefan, than by the fact that Stefan was in the area.
Another probe went out, this one not his, and touched his mind gently, then retreated, leaving a clear female scent behind.
It wasn't Stefan. Who was it? Katherine! His stomach jerked, and he wanted to curse. Not Katherine. Only one other female could it be, and it made his heart leap this time. He wouldn't let himself believe that, it was impossible and he was still so bitter towards her. He wanted to kill her himself, he wanted to tear her heart from her chest and crush it, and make her feel it so that maybe she would know what he had gome through, how he had mourned for her, how he still mourned for her..... in his mind, if not his heart anymore. He refused, and had refused, to let himself feel that way toward anyone again. Thrice, mother, Katherine.... and her, and he would not say her name, she would hear it. He knew somehow that she would know.
He turned north, away from that mind of the past and he walked the other way. Not today, he would deal with it tomorrow. he was like stone, his face smoothing over like cool marble, his eyes hardening like ancient obsidian, his lips curving into a cruel smile. Many years had gone by, too many to count, and too many to remember how loving her had been.
He did not love her now. Now all he wanted was to avenge his heart, repair the damage it had taken when she supposedly died, and quench his thirst for the sweet nectar that was her blood in his memory. This time she would die, he would see to that as he drained her and filled himself with the blood of her veins.
He had to smile at that, and he opened up the sky with that smile.
Spreading his arms to the sky, tipping back his head, eyes closed, he let the cool water fall down his face, soaking his clothes and plastering his hair to his scalp. If revenge was sweet...
He smiled up at the sky. Revenge would be very sweet.