This is more background goodness plus some here-and-now madness…More "remembering"…Read on…!

Note: Ruan is pronounced "Rwahn" (well, that is to say, I think it is. Heh.)

By the by, I had a major brain fart when I uploaded Chapter 2 earlier—I—ah—forgot to add the beginning part. I'm so sorry—it hurts—oh, how it hurts…! ::smiles sheepishly:: 

Third special note-express-of-the-day from yours truly: I wrote this while listening to Björk's remix-album Telegram…it was a neat-o experience…try it out, maybe…

~Thistle Galena: Yeah, "putrescent" is an awesome word! I'm glad you like the story thus far…thanks so much for reviewing; I collapse in a comatose heap at your feet…! Read on…!

~galaktis: Please (times eight hundred thousand) keep the comments coming, my friend. I am so glad you like the writing, and I promise to live up to your plot expectations (at least, I'll try really, really, really hard)…Regarding the updating business, I just began revising and uploading the story (which was gathering cobwebs and big spiders) this weekend (during which I had a relatively small amount of homework), so I had a lot of stuff to put up and a lot of time to do it in…I'll try to update every four or five days—maybe more on weekends—I'll try with all my heart and soul. Thanks for reviewing, and I once again plummet to earth in a boneless mess at your toes…! 

~fin: Nice to meet you, buddy…I am delighted that you're enjoying the story so far, and you get to meet Mr. Soulmate-man himself ::does a little dance:: this chapter ::falls down:: though it's mostly background goodness…please read on, and thanks for reviewing—I tumble to the ground in a great jumble at your feet…!

~Aya: I'm glad you like the writing technique business! Sorry about the slowness in the beginning…it should get snappier soon…please do read on my chum, and keep the comments rolling in…thanks for the review, it was delightful, and so I drop to the good earth, prostrate, at your toes…!

~Tamashii: I definitely know you deserve it, my good reviewer. Please keep reading and sending reviews…I like them better than rice pudding (really!)…and I will keep writing…thanks for the review, and now I hit the ground, squirm a little, and then sort of, well, stop—at your feet. : )

Chapter 3: The Marquéd

Ruan thought about the girl, that new one. Impatiently brushing his wine-colored hair out of his eyes, he lay, face a mask of stone, on a plush, plum-colored velvet couch in a gorgeous, spacious apartment located in ritzy northeast Melas. He lay there and remembered.

            New York City, December 13, 1896—the day he, aged nineteen, met the beautiful, impetuous young made vampire, his lovely Myr. But he didn't want to think about that. Before that, he had been the impoverished, disowned son of wealthy banker Julius Ferin, of the influential lamia family, and famed, flamboyant courtesan of the elite, Madam Lela Meurdou (distantly related to the Redfern clan). Not surprisingly, directly following his birth, his vivacious mother left him with a servant at the Ferin townhouse and fled to London to pursue a Masonic circle of barons.

Life with Julius Ferin. After an infancy characterized by chronic hunger—no one could seem to remember him—and a childhood distinguished by furtive, periodic beatings by the servants and abuse of the more psychological genre from Julius, Ruan had evolved into something treacherously close to depravity—by his mid-teens he was quiet, coldblooded, and highly intelligent.

While at the University, he met Myr. He recalled, far too vividly, her sloping cheekbones, slanting, heavily fringed mauve-purple eyes, cool, smooth skin, glossy sand-coloured hair. She was perfect, like him. An equal, he remembered thinking at the time. Myr was someone he could stand, if not exactly love—he couldn't—couldn't love. His father, taking a bizarre, ill-timed interest in his son, hated her, and consequently disowned his son.

            His eyes shuttered into slits, Ruan's lips curved up in a muted smile.

She left him four months later.

And then he was alone for a quarter of a century, giving up University, moving mendicant-like from New York to Paris, to Amsterdam, and finally to Melas, famed "Metropolis of the Western Hemisphere."

There, on a hunt for a meal, he met Lif, a vampire older than the Renaissance, who dared to create a secret, though influential, underworld within the already established Night World elite, made up of the crème of vampire society, to take control of Melas, and subsequently much of the western world, and to ensure protection for what Lif considered the most deserving and peerless species on the planet: vampirae. Witches, shapeshifters, and whatnot—they were nonsense, Lif declared, nonsense, diluted, ephemeral, and fundamentally *less*. The organization he called simply the Marquéd, for, according to Lif, vampirae was the only species that could really be considered marked, or elite.

Everything else was, quite literally,*food*.

And Ruan agreed unreservedly. They were all less—less. 

            Lif, with the assistance of Ruan, had gone on to change many facets of Melas. The Marquéd were in control now, eighty years later—more powerful than any Night World council, or circle—at least in Melas. The Marquéd were more selective, stronger, sharper, and more ruthless than any other Night World council could ever hope, aspire, *wish* be! The Marquéd were, as a result, in control of the Night World. Ruan was in control. And though he might be censured by outsiders—and insiders, for that matter—for being aloof…How could he not be? He was cruel, merciless, serpentine…naturally. It was no trial—it took no effort. It just was.  

            He stayed alone—he was pristine in his solitude. The others could not impress upon him their taint—their ingrained, imperfection.

            During meetings with the Marquéd, Ruan kept to himself. His best—and only—friend was Lif. And they were hardly friends. Leaders of the Marquéd, yes. Admired by each other? Certainly. Respected? Without a doubt. And yet, in spite of all this, they could not be friends, not really. Because Ruan knew that Lif could never quite trust him, which, Ruan judged, was shrewd on Lif's part—Ruan was entirely certain that he could very easily get rid of Lif—and Lif knew it.

            And now, that girl was in the way. He felt vaguely disturbed by that girl. That…Winnen.

His lips twisted with distaste as he recalled the unpleasant electric…stuff…that had flared up when he touched her skin. Sighing, his shoulders slumped.

~Now I have to get rid of it—her…~He contemplated that thought. ~But at what risk? Of my—ah—sanity?~

            Features settling back into a comfortable flintiness, he recalled that—experience.

He and a youngling, Fred, he remembered, were out for a walkt. Fred was not quite right in the head, overwrought because of a human girl, Lilith, whom he had inadvertently killed while attempting to change her. Drained her dry. Since then, Fred had been degenerating further and further into madness; Lif, worried about his "lovely" had asked Ruan to "take the poor thing out for a walk…the fresh air might clear his head a little." Interested in what the Fred-boy would do, Ruan had dragged him out to the forest clustered about northern Melas.

            They had walked without talking, Fred staring listlessly at the sun-dappled trees, Ruan breathing in the redolence of soil and mulch.

Without warning, Fred's eyes flashed and he took off towards the left in a blur. Ruan, frowning, irked, followed him a little more slowly.

Fred was crouched over the already-limp body of a black-haired girl, her pale, delicate fingers loosely clawed, as Fred proceeded to drain her. As Ruan watched, stoic, though mildly disgusted at the sticky, gurgling sounds the youngling made, Fred shuddered violently and wrenched his mouth from the girl, and cried in a choked voice, enraged, "You are not Lilith! Not my Lilith!" He sped away, gasping.

            By now highly amused, Ruan stared down at the girl for a moment, who lay in a heap on the ground, leaves ensnared in her coal-dark ringlets. She looked very small, very frail, lying there, bundled up in a large greyish-green coat, a rip bisecting the left sleeve, her jeans shabby. Her face, pale even in sunlight, was turned up towards him; her skin was translucent, bluish; her lips were pale from loss of blood; her facial structure delicate. Ruan made to turn around and follow Fred, when a flicker of light caught something glistening at the corner of her right eye; Ruan turned back and watched a single, mute tear slide down her cheek and onto her earlobe, where it lay, glimmering in the filtered sunlight. Ruan cocked his head to the side, contemplating this human-creature.

            ~She's weak. That much is clear…~Ruan smiled gently, his bright eyes elfish and cold. ~But wouldn't it be—nice—to have someone to play with?  It would be nice.~

Without further meditation on the matter, Ruan knelt beside the girl and breathed in the coppery scent of the thick red liquid matting the hair that lay against her neck. Pulling away the hair, he lowered his mouth to the ragged wound and bit into the bruised flesh—and was promptly electrocuted.

He jerked his face away, breathing harshly.

~Shit. Shit, shit, shit. What is this—nonsense?~ He sighed. ~You know exactly what this nonsense is. Soulmate principle? Precisely. Ah.~ Ruan moved to grip her head—break her neck. With a twist, twist, twist. ~What are you doing? Getting rid of it. Rid? Why? You can still play with her, can't you? Still play? Yes…it'll be a little more challenging, that's all. That's all.~

Ruan smiled softly, joyously. ~We can play together~, he thought.      

 Placated, Ruan lowered his face back to her flesh—this time he didn't jerk away—and drew a little more blood out—he had to take some of hers into himself to change her. He then, very methodically, sliced his wrist open, opened her mouth and let the purplish blood drip into it. She swallowed reflexively, and when he was quite sure that her dwindling blood supply had been replenished with his own cold, brackish hoard, he picked up her now "dead" body. Dismissing the idea that Fred might be lost—he kind of hoped he was—Ruan picked the girl up—her name, he knew, was Winnen—and jogged back to Melas, holding the girl's slight form tightly.      

~She's light~, he thought vaguely.

Soon he was entering a bad area of Melas—the southeast—headed towards a meat factory. A few times, in emergencies, he'd stopped there to feed out of the gore left over from a day's slaughter. If the girl had any sense, whatsoever, she would do the same. He'd look for her later and introduce her to the Marquéd. My youngling. His body tingled with anticipation; he was excited, for the first time since—well, since meeting Lif in the twenties.

Ruan grimaced as he ran through the squalid streets, garbage lining curbs, rats and whatnot scampering in and out of gutters. No one would find her here, that he was considerably sure of, and even if they did, it didn't look like anyone would really care; not in this neighborhood, not for a girl whose clothing and weight marked her as indigent.

There it was. A filthy-looking, ponderous building that smelled of feces and urine and blood. Quickly scanning the edifice, he spied an alley running behind it and ran over; he placed her in a deeply shadowed corner where the alley ended in a six-foot wall. Even to his sharp eyes she was almost completely hidden.

He'd be back later.

* * *

            By the next morning he had been quietly quivering with rage at himself and the girl. Pacing around his sumptuous, yet sparely, decorated apartment, clenching and unclenching his fists, glowering at his grey and white and crimson furniture, Ruan wanted to scream with rage. She was a—a weak, sickly-looking, whey-faced, subhuman *reject*! Ruan knew what he must do to redeem himself. No one must know what he had done—that he, a leader of the Marquéd—the Marquéd!, had created an insult to the vampirae.

            He would kill her.

            ~Kill her kill her kill her…~

            She wouldn't have risen yet; he could go back to the meat factory today and dispose of her. Ruan's eyes gleamed, a little uncertainly, he thought, peering into a tall, ebony-framed mirror. When he looked up again, his face was gentle, the azure eyes gleaming with something empty—the face he knew.

            He would go now.

* * *

            But when he had reached the alley she was gone. She couldn't possibly have risen yet, he thought. Couldn't possibly. Only the strongest vampires rose so soon and she was weak, he knew she was. She must be. He glanced around the area again and once again found no trace of the girl.

For the next few days, whenever he went out, he kept his senses wide open, searching for any signs of the girl; he detected nothing. It was as though she had vanished. Maybe she was murdered somehow, he had thought, relieved.

Two weeks later she showed up at the meeting. Recalling this, Ruan hissed aloud. He'd been using the doorway as a sort of focal point—so he wouldn't have to look at any of the other Marquéd—when, out of his peripheral vision, he caught a glimpse of a decrepit young woman framed by the doorway. Her shabbiness was what caught his attention—no one in the room would ever wear anything quite that ragged (unless burlap sacks and polyester muumuus were in season). Sharply, drawing in his breath as he recognized the coat, the unruly hair—though he couldn't quite make out the face, hidden behind rich, dark locks as it was—Ruan followed her with his eyes full of quiet, cold rage as she unobtrusively slid into a seat just a few rows ahead of him. He didn't understand how she could be at this meeting; only the most powerful vampires and most promising younglings were allowed even to attend. And was she not weak? Of course she was. He had watched as she warily, as though out of long habit, skimmed the room, glancing over her shoulder and over the faces behind her; he caught her eyes as they slid over his face. Black, he thought, they were very, very black. Like midnight water. She froze, and he saw her whole face tighten with fear and confusion—she didn't recognize him, of course, but she was strangely disturbed. He was glad she was disturbed. Remembering, Ruan's lips curved up, in a very unfriendly smile. She turned quickly away and hunched down into her chair, hair scattered over her face.

When Lif called the new younglings up, the girl amongst them, Ruan had had to work to keep the rage from showing on his face. Lif almost never bothered to introduce the younglings so—he'd done so maybe two, or three times since Ruan had known him, and only to introduce those whom he believed showed rare promise. This girl, this vagrant, introduced to the Marquéd as though she were premier debutante at her first ball—impossible. And yet it was done. How Lif could have decided this so quickly was beyond him—but Lif had a feel for this sort of thing…another one of his talents, Ruan supposed.

During the meeting he blocked them all out.

After the meeting, remembering the girl, Ruan stood quickly and followed her as she trudged furtively towards the doorway. She turned around for a final appraisal of the crowd and caught him staring coldly at her. Flinching just a bit, she flushed delicately and hurried out into the sunlight. Ruan stared frostily after her and quietly followed. 

* * *

            He had followed her for several blocks into west Melas, one of the shabbier areas in the city. The houses grew gradually dingier as they traveled further into the neighborhood. Finally, she stopped in front if an unhandsome stucco building, its pale yellow paint chipping at the corners, and went in.

            ~So this is where she lives~, he had thought, not surprised. Quietly slipping away from the corner of a building across from hers, he strolled back to the meetinghouse, and drove home.

* * *

(…and we are out of that blast to the past…)

            Winn lay back on her cot and stared at the cracked ceiling. Sighing, she wondered about what Lif had said this afternoon, about there being "outcast vampires" out there somewhere, in Melas, just waiting for their moment, building strength. Were they just as beautiful as the Marquéd, she wondered? *Why* were they outcasts? Gathering what she knew about Lif, his obvious pride in his "lovelies", his willingness to use complete ruthlessness towards his own kind, his deep aversion to these outcasts, whose violations, other than rebellion, he made no attempt to discuss and clarify, she figured they were probably deformed or simply opposed Lif's conduct towards the city, or something. She wondered what they had done.

            And then there was that bad-blooded one; the one who stared at her with murder veiled in softness in his eyes. She must stay away from him.

            "Ugh." As she rolled over and stood, a dizzying flash of heat weakened her. She needed to feed. She hated doing this; she refused to feed off of other creatures, and when she drank older, cold blood, as she'd done for the past couple weeks, she felt she'd ralph. Either way, she was stuck. Grumbling under her breath, she opened the tiny refrigerator sitting on the scuffed hardwood floor and pulled out a plastic container of murky red liquid.

            "Questionable," she mumbled to herself. She held her nose and swallowed quickly, retching a little. She'd better get used to this. Fast.

* * *

The next few days passed uneventfully, as usual, for Winn. She worked at the shop, hung around home, and forced sustenance on herself.

The next meeting, a couple days later, was uninteresting as well. After the meeting, however, Winn had just begun walking towards the door when she felt a hand clamp onto her shoulder. She froze.

"Winnen-little, do not be frightened," a deep, husky voice intoned behind her.

Winn held back a shudder. "Hello—sir," she whispered huskily.

Lif smiled slightly, his odd, greeny-grey eyes twinkling. "I know we haven't had much time to discuss your new—situation. But I have something for you to do."

Surprise, surprise. The only time she'd talked to him in person was the night she'd woken up in that horrid alley. Turned out that the scouts she had…met…were none other than Lif himself and fire-haired Danna. Two of the Marquéd—not only that, but one of them was the most prominent member of the Marquéd. She still couldn't fathom what Lif could possibly have seen in her to prompt him to invite her—no, it wasn't really an invite; it was more of a veiled order—to their esteemed meetings. Whim, maybe? Hunch, mayhap? She really couldn't say—other than the blood, the sharp senses and whatnot, she still felt pretty…human.

Puzzled and nearly shaking with trepidation, Winn followed him to another dimly lit room, this one furnished with stately crème-satin-upholstered chairs and sofa, a tall rose-wood bookcase, which Winn studied curiously, scarlet/ultramarine/russet-colored Tiffany lamps, and various antique curios.

"Winnen, dear, I'll be back directly," Lif called, and stepped out.

Winn sighed with admiration as she studied the lovely furniture.

Moments later, hearing the slight scuff of shoes on wood, Winn spun around. To see the bad-blooded, red-haired one step into the room, followed by a beaming Lif. The gorgeousness of the room was suddenly lost on her.

The thin skin around Ruan's eyes went almost imperceptibly tight when he spotted her. ~What is she doing here what what why…~

Winn frowned—something was tugging, tugging at her mind—

"Lif, what is this?" he asked quietly.

Lif grinned back at him, "*Who* is this, you mean. This is Winnen, of course, Winnen Fallou, one of the new younglings—you remember, from last week—"

"I remember."

"Yes. Winnen is to be your novice."

"Novice."

"Quite right."

            Winn gaped at them from behind her hair and tried to melt into the bookcase jutting into her spine. She must get away from the bad-blooded one.

            "My novice, Lif?" Ruan's eyes flashed, in his deceptively mild face, dangerously.

            "I've hatched a plan, lovely, a brilliant plan! And you and Winnen here are to be the stars." Lif's eyes narrowed fractionally and all at once Winn glimpsed something—rotten— "You see Ruan, dear, Winnen needs to be, ah—initiated. You agree, don't you? And you, one of the Marquéd's oldest, yes, and most celebrated leaders shall serve as her mentor-partner."

            "I see." Ruan asked coolly, "And what, if I may, is…our…assignment?"

            Lif's eyes flared. "Simply to infiltrate the imposters' headquarters and bring back crucial information. How you will do this is up to you—I'm sure you'll think of something." Lif grinned, eyes narrowed, "And you must be quick my hearts, so that we may proceed with all due speed."

            Winn stared at the two young Adonis look-alikes, planning, planning. Winn frowned from behind her hair. ~I'm not quite sure I want to be one of the Marquéd~, she protested silently. She certainly did not want to be the bad-blooded one's *novice*; she must stay away from him, the bad one. ~But then, if I refuse, Lif will brand me a rebel, won't he, won't he?~ Maybe kill her. And then what? Her short life/death/life would have amounted to nothing. She didn't want to be a 'nothing'. Winn thrust her hair fiercely out of her eyes, behind her ears. She would do this, she would be one of the Marquéd, and she would do something with her as yet pathetic life/death/life. Wrapping her arms around herself, Winn whispered hoarsely, "It's Winn." Both young men turned to stare at her.

            "What was that, Winnen, dear?" Lif inquired.

            Clearing her throat, she answered huskily, "My name. Not Winnen—it's Winn." She glanced at the bad-blooded one, his face shuttered and expressionless. Ruan, she thought, his name is Ruan. Bad-blooded Ruan, not the bad-blooded one. She must remember that.

            Ruan stared back at her, once again boring ice picks into her skull. Maybe he has something against females? she thought. Huh.

            "Ah. That's very nice." Lif smiled vaguely at Winn, and turned back to Ruan. "And one more thing, Ruan. Clear out one of those extra bedrooms of yours for—Winn. If we're to have this done quickly, I want both of you as close as possible. And we can't have our burgeoning youngling here living in that dump."

            Lif's eyes glimmered. Winn flushed and hid behind her hair again. Must he say it like that? she thought hotly. And—how does he know where I live? From behind a curtain of hair, Winn narrowed her eyes and shot a glance up at Lif. His eyes…his eyes were not the same—they'd changed, somehow. They were—cold. Reptilian. She shook herself inwardly. And she must stay away from the bad—no, bad-blooded Ruan.

            Ruan seethed.