Here's the second part! Enjoy!
Duo: AM I IN THIS STORY???!!!
Wufei and Trowa: ::tackle Duo again:: Keep your mouth shut, baka!
The Portrait Chronicles
Dawn II
Quatre nearly dropped his candle when he heard the unmistakable ring of his cellular phone. He had almost forgotten that he had it.
He fumbled momentarily, setting the candle onto the stair step and then pulled his cell-phone from his pocket. "Desert, here." He answered, using his given code name.
No answer. "Is anyone there?" Quatre cringed as a loud buzzing noise erupted over the phone line.
Quatre sighed and switched off the cell-phone, placing it back in his jacket pocket.
"I wonder who that coulda been." He mused, leaning over to retrieve his candle.
~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~
Heero dropped his car phone and it clattered to the floor board of his jeep. His left hand instinctively went up to cover his ear.
Moments earlier he had dialed Quatre's cell-phone number hoping to get a hold of the young man to let him know that he would be at the tourist mansion shortly. Someone had picked up, and then the connection had been broken.
Heero's head throbbed with each beat of his heart.
The phone seemed to have exploded, deafening him at first.
Momentarily the pain that had invaded his mind was gone and he could think clearly again.
He had to get to that mansion quckly.
There was something going on. Heero could feel it.
He hated things that he didn't understand.
~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~
Quatre lifted his candle up once again and peered closely at the picture of Demetrius Maxwell.
There was something about the boy in the picture. Something that was too much like Duo.
Quatre's slim fingers traced the outline of Demitrius' slender face.
His eyes rested on a small mark beneath the left eye of the young man. As Quatre leaned closer to the portrait he felt something mentally brush his thoughts.
Something was with him in the deserted, dark top story.
His Uchuu no Kokoru [1] began to ache slightly, revealing what Quatre had been feeling the entire time.
Someone was watching him.
In that same moment a hand reached from behind him and raked its long claw like fingernails across the fragile portrait of Demetrius Maxwell, tearing through the young man's face.
Quatre cried out and took a step backward only to find himself in his attacker's grasp.
Out of instinct he tried to break the hold and turn the tables but the grip was strong.
"Let me go!" Quatre said, struggling to free himself.
"And Why should I?" The man's voice was smooth and even, not even hinting that he was having to struggle to hold the Arabian boy.
Quatre felt the man behind him lower his head to his neck and something sharp began to puncture his neck. Quatre flinched away, trying to bring his elbow back into his attacker's gut, but the man held him easily.
Then he felt the fangs sink into his neck and Quatre cried out in pain and shock.
Oh, Allah. I can't die here.I can't! Quatre thought hazily. Already his eyesight was beginning to blur and the shapes around him began to melt into a hazy apparition.
Why am I so weak.why can't I stop him?
Suddenly the man behind Quatre let out a strangled cry and released his prey. Quatre felt himself suspended as if in mid-air for a moment and then he came crashing down onto the steps. He tumbled headlong down the spiral staircase and came to a crumpled halt at the base.
Quatre slowly opened his eyes for a second, catching a glimpse of an ethereal figure standing atop the steps. His skin was so perfectly white it seemed to glow on its own accord, and then the figure disappeared and Quatre sank gratefully into the dark sea of unconsciousness.
~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~
"Quatre!" A worried voice broke into Quatre's hazy thoughts. "Come on, Quat, wake up."
Quatre didn't want to move. His head was throbbing and his entire body felt as if it had just been slammed mercilessly into a brick wall.
"Uhhnn.." was all Quatre could moan before cringing. It hurt his head to even talk, much less open his eyes or stand up.
"Thank God." Another voice spoke. "Hey, Quatre. You just gonna lay there?"
"You'd better not say a word, Wufei." Quatre weakly growled.
"Good job you did there, falling down the steps. If Trowa hadn't been heading up for you, you might have laid here for a long time." Wufei continued to taunt Quatre.
"Like I didn't?" To Quatre, it felt as if he had been lying at the foot of the fourth story staircase for days.
Trowa put his hands beneath Quatre's arms and gently pulled the smaller man up. "I think you'll be okay. You only hit your head hard enough to knock yourself out. You're not bleeding or anything."
Quatre felt something tighten on his neck, about two inches below his earlobe. He reached his hand up and felt two small wounds on his neck. They had begun to heal up already and the skin was taut.
"Hey, what's that?" Wufei leaned close to Quatre and moved his hand away from his neck. "Did you get bitten by something?"
Quatre wanted to tell him, wanted to explain everything to Wufei. But, it was insane.
No one would believe that someone was upstairs going around biting people on the neck sucking their life's blood out of them. Or would they?
"Someone bit me." Quatre finally whispered.
Wufei's eyes grew wide suddenly and he stared at Quatre as if he had just sprouted horns. "You're joking, right?" Wufei asked incredulously.
"There is a man upstairs and he bit me. That's why I fell, he was holding me and he let me go." Quatre explained, trying his best not to sound like a crazed lunatic.
Trowa also eyed Quatre strangely, and then he rose to his feet and pulled his gun out of his chest holster hidden beneath his Preventer's jacket.
Wufei pulled Quatre to his feet with little difficulty, seeming as Quatre was 20 pounds lighter than the muscular Chinese boy. Trowa began up the steps, his gun trained upward. There was no movement from anywhere. The house was still and silent. Trowa moved on, letting his pilot's instincts kick in. Even after four years of total peace he still relied heavily on his old habits. They were hard to break.
He disappeared around the bend in the stairs and Quatre and Wufei were left on the third story landing to wait for him.
Merely minutes later Trowa reappeared at the top of the steps. His gun was down by his side and he was peering at something small in his left hand.
"Take a look at this." Trowa tossed the item at Wufei who caught it with east.
Wufei's eyes trailed down to the small object he now held in his free hand.
A crucifix.
A plain, silver crucifix.
"Where did you get this?" Wufei asked. Trowa jerked his thumb back toward the top of the steps. "It was lying on the top step. There's some foot prints in the dust up there too. Someone WAS up there with Quatre."
Wufei turned the crucifix over and over in his hand. "Hn.this looks like Duo's cross." He finally spoke up.
"But, it's not, Duo's has an inscription.right here." Quatre took the necklace from Wufei's grasp and stared at it, pointing to the back of the cross.
His memory drifted back. When he had fallen he had instinctively reached out for something to grab on to. His hand had caught a hold of a chain and it had broken. The chain HAD been around someone else's neck and Quatre had broken it when he fell.
Quatre's thoughts were broken by the sound of someone running up the steps. Wufei turned and Trowa drew his pistol once again.
From below them came a blur of forest green, khaki, and dark brown. A young man stood before them, two steps away from being on the landing.
His hair was dark and tousled, his messy bangs falling over into his eyes. Two crystal clear sapphire blue eyes. "Heero!" Quatre grinned happily at seeing his old friend.
"Didn't think you were coming, Yuy." Wufei teased, reaching out and shaking Heero's hand.
"I got here as fast as I could." Heero said. "I knew I was supposed to meet you earlier, but I got held up in traffic."
"Likely story." Trowa said, his lips starting to curl up in a grin.
Heero rolled his eyes. "So, what did I miss?"
Immediately the three boys' eyes darkened and Heero knew what happened even before they could tell him.
"It looks like we all have a story to tell. Let's get back to the safe-house and talk about it there." Quatre said. He pulled himself out of Wufei's supporting hold and began down the steps. The other three followed suit.
~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~
Daniel stuffed his hands deep into his over coat pockets and walked along the sidewalk amidst tourists and natives of New Orleans.
He would never quite be able to understand mortals. They were so busy all the time, moving from one place to another.
How could they stand such a busy, clearly stressful life?
Of course, Daniel wasn't one to talk. He himself was always on the run, either being chased, or chasing something.
He hated that part of being one of the undead. At least he could go out in daylight, save what most of the undead could not.
His mind kept on going back to the night before when the young man had discovered Daniel feeding.
There was something about that young man that Daniel did not like.
Naturally, Daniel despised humans. They were weak and loud and so stressful. But this certain human reeked of power. Something that Daniel had not seen in a human since he had first become one of the undead.
Humans had long ago lost the ability to even realize that they held powers of either dark or light in them. It was impossible that a human now could gain control of them again.
Daniel didn't like it in the least bit. He must find that young man and dispose of him quickly, before he became a threat to the existence of the undead in New Orleans.
~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~
A slender figure sat on the edge of a neatly made bed. It was a large bed, having four posts that held up a thick velvet drapery identical to the crimson drapery that hung over the large windows that looked down upon a busy street of New Orleans.
The figure shifted slightly, placing a delicate white hand onto the velvet comforter beneath her. She flipped a torrent of curly golden hair over her shoulder and pouted her lower lip out in frustration. Night had just fallen, it was safe to leave the house, but Cassandra did not want to.
There was no need for her to feed. She was not hungry.
Slowly the petite girl rose to her feet and moved to the window, her movement so graceful that she appeared to be floating instead of walking. Her skirts swirled about her slender ankles.
She pushed the draperies back and stared forlornly out over the darkened New Orleans street. It was just as busy during the night as it was in the day, but now a different breed of people, humans and undead walked the streets.
Life here had changed since Cassandra had originally lived in New Orleans. She would move around, it was too dangerous to live in one place for too long. Humans were smarter than they used to be.
Humans and the undead mingled quite easily. Humans strove to look like them, be like them, even Ibecome/I one of them.
"Fools." Cassandra scoffed, glaring down at the people on the street. They were all fools. Why did they want to be like her? Why did they want to be such a.such a monstrosity?
And the undead, especially the babies of the era were fools as well. They reveled in the humans' wishes to become one of them. They enjoyed mingling with them, and trading ideals and thoughts.
Cassandra couldn't stand that, she couldn't stand the thought of her beloved lifestyle becoming just like that of the humans.
But.hadn't she also been one of them?
Cassandra let out an exasperated sigh and leaned her forehead against the cold, clear glass of the window. Her sparkling green eyes traveled from figure to figure, masterly singling her own kind from that of the others.
Then her eyes rested on a lone figure in the crowd.
A boy.no, a young man.
He had an aura about him that far exceeded the powers set off by the hordes of vampires that walked along the street beneath her.
But, he himself, was not a vampire.
A human? Cassandra was appalled at the thought. No human has the ability to revive the powers that lie within all living and unliving creatures.
Slowly the human turned and looked up toward her window. Their eyes met and Cassandra gasped.
A deep, haunted pair of violet eyes met her emerald green ones. Cassandra knew those eyes..she would know them anywhere. Even after over three centuries she could still recognize his eyes.
~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~
[1] Uchuu no Kokoru : quite literally, Space Heart. Remember in episode (can't remember the number) Heero, Distracted by Defeat. Heero self- detonated and Quatre's heart suddenly began to hurt? Quatre's an empath, and that gives him the ability to sense things, like others pain or fear.
End of Dawn Part II
Heero: I still don't get it.
Wufei and Trowa: ::finish tying Duo up. Wufei stuffs the end of Duo's braid into his mouth and puts duck tape over it::
Quatre: I didn't die, YAYY!!!
Duo: AM I IN THIS STORY???!!!
Wufei and Trowa: ::tackle Duo again:: Keep your mouth shut, baka!
The Portrait Chronicles
Dawn II
Quatre nearly dropped his candle when he heard the unmistakable ring of his cellular phone. He had almost forgotten that he had it.
He fumbled momentarily, setting the candle onto the stair step and then pulled his cell-phone from his pocket. "Desert, here." He answered, using his given code name.
No answer. "Is anyone there?" Quatre cringed as a loud buzzing noise erupted over the phone line.
Quatre sighed and switched off the cell-phone, placing it back in his jacket pocket.
"I wonder who that coulda been." He mused, leaning over to retrieve his candle.
~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~
Heero dropped his car phone and it clattered to the floor board of his jeep. His left hand instinctively went up to cover his ear.
Moments earlier he had dialed Quatre's cell-phone number hoping to get a hold of the young man to let him know that he would be at the tourist mansion shortly. Someone had picked up, and then the connection had been broken.
Heero's head throbbed with each beat of his heart.
The phone seemed to have exploded, deafening him at first.
Momentarily the pain that had invaded his mind was gone and he could think clearly again.
He had to get to that mansion quckly.
There was something going on. Heero could feel it.
He hated things that he didn't understand.
~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~
Quatre lifted his candle up once again and peered closely at the picture of Demetrius Maxwell.
There was something about the boy in the picture. Something that was too much like Duo.
Quatre's slim fingers traced the outline of Demitrius' slender face.
His eyes rested on a small mark beneath the left eye of the young man. As Quatre leaned closer to the portrait he felt something mentally brush his thoughts.
Something was with him in the deserted, dark top story.
His Uchuu no Kokoru [1] began to ache slightly, revealing what Quatre had been feeling the entire time.
Someone was watching him.
In that same moment a hand reached from behind him and raked its long claw like fingernails across the fragile portrait of Demetrius Maxwell, tearing through the young man's face.
Quatre cried out and took a step backward only to find himself in his attacker's grasp.
Out of instinct he tried to break the hold and turn the tables but the grip was strong.
"Let me go!" Quatre said, struggling to free himself.
"And Why should I?" The man's voice was smooth and even, not even hinting that he was having to struggle to hold the Arabian boy.
Quatre felt the man behind him lower his head to his neck and something sharp began to puncture his neck. Quatre flinched away, trying to bring his elbow back into his attacker's gut, but the man held him easily.
Then he felt the fangs sink into his neck and Quatre cried out in pain and shock.
Oh, Allah. I can't die here.I can't! Quatre thought hazily. Already his eyesight was beginning to blur and the shapes around him began to melt into a hazy apparition.
Why am I so weak.why can't I stop him?
Suddenly the man behind Quatre let out a strangled cry and released his prey. Quatre felt himself suspended as if in mid-air for a moment and then he came crashing down onto the steps. He tumbled headlong down the spiral staircase and came to a crumpled halt at the base.
Quatre slowly opened his eyes for a second, catching a glimpse of an ethereal figure standing atop the steps. His skin was so perfectly white it seemed to glow on its own accord, and then the figure disappeared and Quatre sank gratefully into the dark sea of unconsciousness.
~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~
"Quatre!" A worried voice broke into Quatre's hazy thoughts. "Come on, Quat, wake up."
Quatre didn't want to move. His head was throbbing and his entire body felt as if it had just been slammed mercilessly into a brick wall.
"Uhhnn.." was all Quatre could moan before cringing. It hurt his head to even talk, much less open his eyes or stand up.
"Thank God." Another voice spoke. "Hey, Quatre. You just gonna lay there?"
"You'd better not say a word, Wufei." Quatre weakly growled.
"Good job you did there, falling down the steps. If Trowa hadn't been heading up for you, you might have laid here for a long time." Wufei continued to taunt Quatre.
"Like I didn't?" To Quatre, it felt as if he had been lying at the foot of the fourth story staircase for days.
Trowa put his hands beneath Quatre's arms and gently pulled the smaller man up. "I think you'll be okay. You only hit your head hard enough to knock yourself out. You're not bleeding or anything."
Quatre felt something tighten on his neck, about two inches below his earlobe. He reached his hand up and felt two small wounds on his neck. They had begun to heal up already and the skin was taut.
"Hey, what's that?" Wufei leaned close to Quatre and moved his hand away from his neck. "Did you get bitten by something?"
Quatre wanted to tell him, wanted to explain everything to Wufei. But, it was insane.
No one would believe that someone was upstairs going around biting people on the neck sucking their life's blood out of them. Or would they?
"Someone bit me." Quatre finally whispered.
Wufei's eyes grew wide suddenly and he stared at Quatre as if he had just sprouted horns. "You're joking, right?" Wufei asked incredulously.
"There is a man upstairs and he bit me. That's why I fell, he was holding me and he let me go." Quatre explained, trying his best not to sound like a crazed lunatic.
Trowa also eyed Quatre strangely, and then he rose to his feet and pulled his gun out of his chest holster hidden beneath his Preventer's jacket.
Wufei pulled Quatre to his feet with little difficulty, seeming as Quatre was 20 pounds lighter than the muscular Chinese boy. Trowa began up the steps, his gun trained upward. There was no movement from anywhere. The house was still and silent. Trowa moved on, letting his pilot's instincts kick in. Even after four years of total peace he still relied heavily on his old habits. They were hard to break.
He disappeared around the bend in the stairs and Quatre and Wufei were left on the third story landing to wait for him.
Merely minutes later Trowa reappeared at the top of the steps. His gun was down by his side and he was peering at something small in his left hand.
"Take a look at this." Trowa tossed the item at Wufei who caught it with east.
Wufei's eyes trailed down to the small object he now held in his free hand.
A crucifix.
A plain, silver crucifix.
"Where did you get this?" Wufei asked. Trowa jerked his thumb back toward the top of the steps. "It was lying on the top step. There's some foot prints in the dust up there too. Someone WAS up there with Quatre."
Wufei turned the crucifix over and over in his hand. "Hn.this looks like Duo's cross." He finally spoke up.
"But, it's not, Duo's has an inscription.right here." Quatre took the necklace from Wufei's grasp and stared at it, pointing to the back of the cross.
His memory drifted back. When he had fallen he had instinctively reached out for something to grab on to. His hand had caught a hold of a chain and it had broken. The chain HAD been around someone else's neck and Quatre had broken it when he fell.
Quatre's thoughts were broken by the sound of someone running up the steps. Wufei turned and Trowa drew his pistol once again.
From below them came a blur of forest green, khaki, and dark brown. A young man stood before them, two steps away from being on the landing.
His hair was dark and tousled, his messy bangs falling over into his eyes. Two crystal clear sapphire blue eyes. "Heero!" Quatre grinned happily at seeing his old friend.
"Didn't think you were coming, Yuy." Wufei teased, reaching out and shaking Heero's hand.
"I got here as fast as I could." Heero said. "I knew I was supposed to meet you earlier, but I got held up in traffic."
"Likely story." Trowa said, his lips starting to curl up in a grin.
Heero rolled his eyes. "So, what did I miss?"
Immediately the three boys' eyes darkened and Heero knew what happened even before they could tell him.
"It looks like we all have a story to tell. Let's get back to the safe-house and talk about it there." Quatre said. He pulled himself out of Wufei's supporting hold and began down the steps. The other three followed suit.
~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~
Daniel stuffed his hands deep into his over coat pockets and walked along the sidewalk amidst tourists and natives of New Orleans.
He would never quite be able to understand mortals. They were so busy all the time, moving from one place to another.
How could they stand such a busy, clearly stressful life?
Of course, Daniel wasn't one to talk. He himself was always on the run, either being chased, or chasing something.
He hated that part of being one of the undead. At least he could go out in daylight, save what most of the undead could not.
His mind kept on going back to the night before when the young man had discovered Daniel feeding.
There was something about that young man that Daniel did not like.
Naturally, Daniel despised humans. They were weak and loud and so stressful. But this certain human reeked of power. Something that Daniel had not seen in a human since he had first become one of the undead.
Humans had long ago lost the ability to even realize that they held powers of either dark or light in them. It was impossible that a human now could gain control of them again.
Daniel didn't like it in the least bit. He must find that young man and dispose of him quickly, before he became a threat to the existence of the undead in New Orleans.
~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~
A slender figure sat on the edge of a neatly made bed. It was a large bed, having four posts that held up a thick velvet drapery identical to the crimson drapery that hung over the large windows that looked down upon a busy street of New Orleans.
The figure shifted slightly, placing a delicate white hand onto the velvet comforter beneath her. She flipped a torrent of curly golden hair over her shoulder and pouted her lower lip out in frustration. Night had just fallen, it was safe to leave the house, but Cassandra did not want to.
There was no need for her to feed. She was not hungry.
Slowly the petite girl rose to her feet and moved to the window, her movement so graceful that she appeared to be floating instead of walking. Her skirts swirled about her slender ankles.
She pushed the draperies back and stared forlornly out over the darkened New Orleans street. It was just as busy during the night as it was in the day, but now a different breed of people, humans and undead walked the streets.
Life here had changed since Cassandra had originally lived in New Orleans. She would move around, it was too dangerous to live in one place for too long. Humans were smarter than they used to be.
Humans and the undead mingled quite easily. Humans strove to look like them, be like them, even Ibecome/I one of them.
"Fools." Cassandra scoffed, glaring down at the people on the street. They were all fools. Why did they want to be like her? Why did they want to be such a.such a monstrosity?
And the undead, especially the babies of the era were fools as well. They reveled in the humans' wishes to become one of them. They enjoyed mingling with them, and trading ideals and thoughts.
Cassandra couldn't stand that, she couldn't stand the thought of her beloved lifestyle becoming just like that of the humans.
But.hadn't she also been one of them?
Cassandra let out an exasperated sigh and leaned her forehead against the cold, clear glass of the window. Her sparkling green eyes traveled from figure to figure, masterly singling her own kind from that of the others.
Then her eyes rested on a lone figure in the crowd.
A boy.no, a young man.
He had an aura about him that far exceeded the powers set off by the hordes of vampires that walked along the street beneath her.
But, he himself, was not a vampire.
A human? Cassandra was appalled at the thought. No human has the ability to revive the powers that lie within all living and unliving creatures.
Slowly the human turned and looked up toward her window. Their eyes met and Cassandra gasped.
A deep, haunted pair of violet eyes met her emerald green ones. Cassandra knew those eyes..she would know them anywhere. Even after over three centuries she could still recognize his eyes.
~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~
[1] Uchuu no Kokoru : quite literally, Space Heart. Remember in episode (can't remember the number) Heero, Distracted by Defeat. Heero self- detonated and Quatre's heart suddenly began to hurt? Quatre's an empath, and that gives him the ability to sense things, like others pain or fear.
End of Dawn Part II
Heero: I still don't get it.
Wufei and Trowa: ::finish tying Duo up. Wufei stuffs the end of Duo's braid into his mouth and puts duck tape over it::
Quatre: I didn't die, YAYY!!!