BODY-SWAP

Chapter 8

Just Cherry

Raziel, Nosgoth, Janos and the like belonging to Eidos and their minions.

*snatches up her plushies and waves to Chalcedony Blue* Hiya! Welcome back! and big hellos and thankies to all you lovely reviewers out there. I promise, I'm taking my medication and this story will be finished soon. Honest. ^_^ Just give me a few more hours to get my body back...

Janos Audron regards us both with heavy, age-dark eyes, and says: " An interesting little problem. Cake?"

We glance at each other and then shake our heads, dumbly. The cake, like a lot of the decor in Janos's impressive castle, is red. Blood red. I'm really kind of hoping that the little dark red globules baked into it are candied cherries. In fact, I'm starting to wonder if this winged vampire might not have a bit of an obsession going on here with the good old type AB positive - more than your average vamp, shall we say? I'm having a really hard time forgetting my little nightly adventures trying to navigate what Raziel scathingly refers to as "Janos's Scab Bridges". The endless running up and down...the stench of the blood lying fallow in its golden cups...I shudder involuntarily.

"Tea too cold, Raziel...I mean, Miss Angel?"

Janos looks at me and smiles, encouragingly, gesturing with the teapot. I shake my head. This is all far too civilised for me. I already share my flat with a vampire, I didn't envisage having afternoon tea and cakes with one. Raziel, in my body, seems slightly in awe of Janos, and sits sipping his tea in silence. I glower at him, but he says nothing. I recognise the look on my human face. He's sulking.

"Can you help us, Janos?" I ask, eventually, trying to break the uncomfortable silence that is beginning to build between the three of us. "It's not that I don't want to be a vampire, don't get me wrong, I love vampires -"

Raziel abruptly snorts loudly and puts down his tea. He mutters something, rebelliously, too quietly even for his own sharp vampire ears to pick up on for me.

"I'm sure she doesn't think that," says Janos, smoothly, cutting himself a thin sliver of cake (one of the "cherries" starts to leak a thick, ugly maroon colour into the sponge. Oh. My. God. Blecccccchhh.) "I'm sure she thinks very highly of you, Raziel. But the wings are beautiful, aren't they?" he adds, turning to me. "I've always been proud of them. "

Mutter, mutter.

"Really, Raziel," says Janos, reproachfully, wiping cake crumbs from his lips with a slight pout, "such slurs on a fine lady's character. You should be ashamed, using her mouth to say such things."

"Yeah," I say, perhaps more smugly than I should have (I can't help it. Raziel's voice is just so darn good at smug) "stop saying...whatever it is you just said. Yeah."

Raziel flickers one of my eyebrows in a that-was-lame expression, and says: "Janos, please. You have to get me out of her body. It's terrible to be alive. I'd forgotten. Live bodies make strange noises and you can feel the blood pounding in your head when you run -"

"Please," says Janos with an odd cat-like grin - the tips of his fangs poke over his lower lip as his mouth widens in a smile, "don't talk about blood. It's bad enough you just sitting there smelling virginal and human - are you all right, Miss Angel?"

"Fine," I say, trying not to choke on the musty cowl that covers my half-face. "Absolutely fine. Virginal. That's me."

Raziel shakes my head sharply. "Do you think it is the time-streamer, Moebius?" he asks. "We do seem to have been travelling through time a lot more than I would like. Is it possible he's controlling us in some way?"

Janos growls softly under his breath. "Controlling the innocent is a terrible evil," he says. "I will help you if I can, but there is little I can do. You have a destiny, Raziel, a dark and terrible path which you must walk -"

"Trust me," says Raziel, cutting Janos off before he can get properly started on the whole destiny rant, "I know about my destiny, and having breasts is not part of it."

There is a sudden explosion somewhere out in the corridors of Janos' fortress, and the cute little table-lamps under their natural linen shades are swiftly extinguished. "Drat," says Janos, rising imperiously to his feet and flaring his black wings in annoyance, "the fuses must've gone again..."

But Raziel's body knows better: it is already tensing, and in the dimness the wraith-blade shines like a brand. Danger is closing fast. "Janos," I say, quietly, "just how secure is this fortress of yours? Not to be rude or anything, but if the Sarafan could get in here -"

The Reaver abruptly lunges forward, almost ripping Raziel's arm from its socket. I gasp in pain. "Uh-huh," says my voice from the left, sarcastically, "you have to watch that thing. It's a little bugger."

"It's you, you ungrateful jawless wonder," I snap, trying to wrestle the arm back under control. Janos's eyes shine in the dark as he makes his way unerringly to the door - but he is too late.

The door crashes inwards in a blaze of light and fire, and a powerful, pale-haired shape bounds towards me, shoving Janos aside (the old vampire snarls like a tiger in a cage).

Oh, and here was me thinking this couldn't get any worse.

Young vampire Kain strides up to me and grabs me by the cowl. "Give-me-my-bloody-sword-back," he spits out, all in one breath, practically shoving his face into Raziel's.

So I do the only thing I can think of. I nut him, forehead to forehead, and am still marvelling at the odd, bony thunking sound that this makes when my own voice says, "Hey, blondie."

Raziel taps Young Kain on the shoulder with my newly-polished nails. Slightly dazed from my assault on his delicately cheekboned face, Kain turns to look at the human girl who has dared approach him. He sniffs, as if scenting the blood in my veins, as if preparing to summon that blood from my body, then -  "Give us a Glasgow kiss, baby," says my voice, with all Raziel's venom behind it, and to my horror he follows suit and head-butts the tall vampire with all my meagre strength.