The Crimson Tide
Chapter 3 – Blood Festival and Waves
By Black Widow and Sayori
The news was focused on another mysterious murder the night before. Shido didn't even bother to pick up a newspaper that night. He didn't want to see it. He was ashamed to look at the faces of the people he had said he would protect, especially when he glowed with the health and warmth of a fresh feeding. It was like telling a cow you'd keep it safe then butchering its cousin for ribs.
Guni had noticed when he had returned the previous night, and congratulated him on finding his backbone. He had shut her up in the closet for a few hours after that annoyed and not willing to listen to her mouth off. Normally he would never have done such a thing, but blood always took off his pleasant edge, made him more forceful, less humane. He had let her out, and she had avoided aggravating him since.
He would be spending the evening in his office, locked away from everyone. It would do no good to be out-of-doors where the risk of running into Cyric or his children, all eight of them here, was high. Scowling at his decision for self-containment, Shido played chess against himself before his fireplace. The fire crackled nicely in the darkness. Its soft glow giving him all the light he needed. Guni slept on top of his desk, her green batwings curled protectively about herself.
A soft purr pierced the silence, winding around the noise of the fire. "Move your Queen here, she will be in control of the board."
Shido froze looking around quickly. As if he didn't know whom it was... "She'll be prone to an attack by the bishop, left bishop, if I do that."
"Then attack him at the same time." There was a chuckle. "Only in games do you follow the rules."
"This is just a game. How did you get here...?" He wanted to know how the other vampire knew where he was, but it was a useless question. He looked over at Guni, but she slumbered on, thankfully. He'd hate to hear what she'd have to say. It would get them both in a lot of trouble.
"Here...I am nowhere near you..." A tendril of curiosity brushed across his mind. "Have you forgotten the talents of a vampyre so quickly, lovely?"
His eyebrow twitched. "I've suppressed them, Cyric. I do not know them anymore. They are foreign to me." He moved his queen, preparing her for a path of destruction through the board. The rook was the only thing able to get near her, but a pawn was in the way. The bishop he had removed but a move ago with the very same pawn.
Exercising his mental powers, he disguised the pieces with illusions of real people. The white queen became Shido himself; the black queen was Cyric. Shido's white army became the mortals he wanted to protect, and the black army became Cyric's vampyres. "What will you do now, ragazzo?"
"Why do you keep calling me that...?" Shido muttered, eyeing the pieces. This wasn't playing by the rules.
"Because I can, koi." Came the purred answer. In Shido's eyes only, the female vampyre moved, taking out one of the mortals.
Shido moved a mortal out of the way, to behind him. It was a cliche move, but one he would stand behind. "What does it mean?"
"It's a masculine Italian endearment, my darling." Cyric moved across the board, standing behind another mortal pawn though not destroying it.
The mortal was shoved none too ceremoniously out of the way. Shido was behind that one, only a black space from Cyric now. "You don't seem to be Italian."
"A brave move, my love." The rest of the black army moved at once, breaking every chess rule alive, bringing down the other army as blood filled the chessboard. "I'm not Italian, but I spent two centuries there."
Shido cringed, shutting his bright eyes and turning his head away to the fire. He watched the orange flames leap in their grate, and sighed. " Where do you come from, if not from Italy or Japan? I would have seen you in Transylvannia, or at least heard of you from Cain." Cain, ever the dramatic one, resided in Transylvannia and had since Shido could remember.
The Cyric decapitated the Shido piece and every thing returned to normal on the board. "Are you so curious? Think about it, Youngling. Your stupid and naive but not dumb."
Cupping his chin in his hand, Shido stared harder at the flames, thinking. What did that mean? How could he know where the other was from? "I don't understand," the violet-haired youngster admitted, gritting his teeth against the scathing remark against his intelligence he knew was coming.
"Think about it, ragazzo. You'll burn for joy when you figure it out."
"Burn?" An odd choice of words... His eyes were facing the fire, reflecting the light, but they weren't focused anymore. He was casting about in his memory for anything that was related to burning. A sliver of the vision form earlier, the hot sun and baking skin flashed across his vision. He started from his chair. "You're ... the sun. A desert? Where were you from, Egypt? The Middle East?"
There was no response; the presence was gone with only the lightest caress, reminiscent of a lover's kiss.
Raising one eyebrow as he lost the touch, he regarded his normal chess pieces. Somehow the game didn't seem quite as fun right then. Guni stirred on the desk, rubbing her eyes and yawning widely.
"Shido?" She piped up, her little voice carrying to him easily.
He was tempted to go out, to, for once, hunt something other than his own kind. Hunger gnawed at him incessantly. "I'm here Guni," he replied, standing from his armchair. He stretched, his long and slender form outlined against the fire for a moment.
The urban faerie sat on the edge of his desk, watching him carefully, trying to judge his mood. For no particular reason this amused him, and he grinned, fangs showing as his eyes melted into gold. Something stronger than guilt was brewing steadily inside him.
~~*~~
Dear Cain
I wish to inform you that your Youngling is coming along well. He is the most fun to break and I am enjoying this immensely. There is one thing that troubles me. I do not work for free. What will be you be giving in return for your Child?
Cyric
Cyric
I am delighted to hear my little one is coming along nicely. And of course I would never expect you to work for free. Choose your price and I shall pay it. Shido's return means more to me than I can put into words.
Cain
Cain,
I shall write later with my price, though I should daresay that it is a high price. More news will come when progress had been made.
Cyric
Cain was admittedly worried about exactly what price he would have to pay. If it indeed was too costly, he would be extracting it from Shido's hide. His little one had many years of obstinate disregard to make up for, and Cain was enjoying the thought of it.
~~*~~
Shido, on the other hand, was determined as ever to stay away from his master. The thought of returning never crossed his mind without extreme hatred. He missed somethings but Cain would try to control his every motion again and he wasn't about to stand for that.
As the Torigoe O-harai-shiki approached Tokyo, the number of murders climbed higher though the human police couldn't catch the murderer(s). Soon, evidence started trickling in, a carved name, always on the chest of the latest victims. They were marred kanji's of the name Shido Tatsuhiko. Now the police were after this elusive personage, and the public feared him.
"Oh hell," Shido hissed, teeth bared in annoyance at the paper. This was going too far. He was going to have to relocate with the way things were going, and he liked Tokyo. "This is all His fault. I know it is." Shido tossed the paper in the wastebasket across the room, glaring at it until it landed. He missed. Guni was hiding in his bedroom, away from him as he sulked at his desk. She knew not to mess with him recently. He had grown into a foul disposition since his name had stated to appear. Once he had read about it he had holed himself up in his office. That was quite a few days ago. He hadn't left, at all, not even to feed, and he was showing the signs of self-induced depravation again. His floorboards were worn from his pacing in front of the fireplace, and the chess pieces were still in the middle of his latest game.
The Elder, however, was pleased with his Children's work. Things were going exactly the way he wanted them to. How did it feel that the people he wanted to protect wanted him dead or behind bars? And if they did catch him and find out what he truly was, the Scientists would want him to take apart. A low chuckle permeated the room at the thought. Betrayed by those you protected and then diced for the sake of science and their insatiable curiosity.
Shido was getting to know exactly how the big cats behind bars in the zoo felt, He paced endlessly, for hour after hour until he was exhausted. He would sleep then, and get up and do the same thing. It was an endless circle, but he couldn't leave his office. Something or someone would recognize him, and god knows what would happen.
Every now and then he got fed up with human beings in general. He worked tirelessly to protect their weak little lives, and they couldn't even see past the trick Cyric was playing. They would want him dead, or close to it. Observations, studies, tests and labs. Or just plain old-fashioned death. His loyalty was not deserved, he often thought, and upon that he would pace twice as fast, angered and annoyed. They had no right to want him dead, after all he did to protect them!
Other times he didn't think at all, but moved by habit alone.
Torigoe O-harai-shiki hit Tokyo in a flurry, the city in a busy clutter. The prayers for safety went up urgently, the kiosks selling charms that would ward off the murderer. Cyric found this obviously funny, hearing about these wards. So they would keep away a vampyre? He had his Children hunt twice as much just to prove they didn't work. The public quelled and stopped the festivities, staying inside.
Cyric also worked through the net, sending false messages to the terminals of Japan, telling them to forbid anyone that fit Shido's description to board any boat or plane that left the country. He backed them up with generous amounts of money that he knew would turn their heads.
The festival came, and left Shido annoyed and hungry. The last night of the festivities he was so close to passing out, it felt that he gave in and took down easy prey. A young girl, who wanted nothing more than to help him "find his dog".
"Generosity got you nothing" he hissed as she breathed in one last breath, bitter and angered by the ridiculous race he had tried to protect, the very one that now turned against him. A charm to ward him, "the murderer" off, was tied to her bag. He could only find this bitterly ironic. He returned to his office, only to leave it two nights later for the docks. He had to find Cyric.
Cyric was waiting for him under a lamplight, wreathed in black. His red eyes watched the white-capped waves lap against the wooden piers, picking out the trash that littered the tops. As a vampyre he'd come to understand that nature revolved in circles, what affected one part affected the rest. Humans couldn't seem to understand that with their mindless waste and destruction.
Shido's anger rose at the sight of the white vampire, but he subdued it, quelled it. It would do him no good. He approached quietly, preferring the quiet. Cyric would have heard him had he silenced the world, anyway.
The silence stretched between them after Shido's approach. The Elder let the breeze play with his hair and clothes, breathing in the scent of salt water and exhaust. "Before these cities, it was beautiful."
"Nature wasn't scarred by ruins and waste then," Shido acknowledged, speaking softly in the wind. He brushed a long section of his hair that always escaped his ponytail back from his face, but the wind only snatched it and sent it where it pleased.
A small smirk curled his lips. "Nature was scarred by ruins. I remember them." Shifting his weight, he leaned against the pole, the cold metal biting at his skin through his thin silk shirt.
"None like now, I assume. Twisted metal charred plastic. I would think your time was purer. But I am the naive one." His voice remained observant, quiet, through the entire course of the conversation He wasn't here to fight, just to know.
"Egypt was never pure. Hot, burning sands, the rigor social structure of the cities and the dictatorship. They were fools, the whole lot." Where Shido's voice remained quiet and observant, Cyrics' became hard and wistful.
"Why?" There was a story behind the words, and Shido honestly wanted to hear it. He wasn't worried about Cyric's children at the moment, or the fact that he was a wanted man. He was curious, and burned to know.
"Why do you want to know?" He turned to face the Youngling, the hard length of the pole running up against his spine.
Shido shrugged, tilting his head to look at Cyric with his ever-pleasant cerulean eyes. "I am curious."
Cyric smiled a dangerous smile. "Curiosity can kill."
"Obviously," he muttered thinking back to there encounter not so long ago. "Are you trying to kill me?"
"Why would I want to kill you, ragazzo?" The red eyes narrowed. "I only want to break you."
"You achieve both before you know it," Shido sighed, looking away to the ocean. "I still don't understand why you want to 'break me'. Whatever for? I've never met you in my life."
"Your Sire asked me to. He's quite adamant about getting you back." Cyric pushed himself off the lamp pole, coming up behind Shido and wrapping his arms around his waist. "But I have no intentions of sending you to him."
"What? Cain? I won't go!" He had the entire splurge out before Cyric even touched him. He shied away from the touch, but not soon enough. He was tense, and apparently panicked, now. "I won't go back to him. I'll die of starvation first. I swore I wouldn't go back!"
"Did I say I was going to send you back, Shido?"
The implication of the words settled into his panicking brain, and soothed him. He sighed in relief. Cain was the last person on earth he wanted to see. "Why not, if he asked you to?" Shido asked, tilting his head upward to try and look at Cyric. He had yet to struggle from the other's grip.
Red eyes stared into the cerulean of the Younglings, darkening to a blood color. "I have demanded payment for my services and my cost runs high." Leaning down a little, he brushed his lips across the others cheek bones. "You are my payment."
Shido gaped open mouthed. "Wha-?" That was a first. "But," his eyebrows knit together in confusion as he bit his lower lip. "I don't think I understand." He wasn't helping his stupid and naive reputation any there.
"You will belong to me after I send my demand to Cain, whether he likes it or not. I've found that I have grown rather fond of you, Youngling." The arms tightened around his waist rather possessively.
Shido managed to turn himself about in them, so that he could look Cyric in the face and not crane his neck in such an awkward position. "He'll be furious." The thought actually, once Shido considered it, thrilled him. He would love to piss Cain more than anything but through Cyric?
"Of course he would be. Anyone would be furious at loosing their Child." A glint formed in the eyes of the bleached vampyre. He believed that Cain was wise enough to know when to back off, if he tried to fight him. If not...the world could deal with one less Vampyre.
Shido looked down from Cyric's blood colored eyes, considering the full meaning of everything that was being said. "Your children..." They wouldn't take to this well at all. Shido remembered what that jealousy was like, when your sire picked another over you. It had been on of the strongest pains he had felt in his extended lifetime... But why did he have to belong to anyone at all? He had left Cain to get out of that position, belonging solely to a vampire stronger than he.
"My Children have learned to share. As well, you will find me a rather lax Sire; I only demand a few things. When I visit you do not turn me away, you will call me Sire or Master, and you will hunt with me."
"But, why do I belong to you, now. You didn't make me...." Shido asked plainly, looking up again.
"Would you rather go back to Cain? By belonging to me, he is kept away and if he does not keep away, you will not be the one dealing with him."
He didn't want to belong to anybody, but his sole desire for over a hundred years had been to keep away from Cain, to stay away from him.
"How often do you visit...?" Shido asked quietly, agreeing in his own way.
"It depends...maybe once a week, maybe once a century." The other fluidly shrugged then smiled secretly.
"Are you serious?" Shido sounded extremely young with that sentence and inside he winced, but it was an honest question.
"I am never anything but serious, lovely." He pulled away from the violet-haired vampyre, arms falling to his sides. "Go home, sleep and eat. I have a letter to write." Spinning on his heel, he headed for the business district of Tokyo, choosing not to fade into the shadows this time.
"And if anybody spots me going home I'm toast," he sighed, wrapping his arms abut himself to replace the steady feeling of Cyric's. However, that would be the last thing he would admit. They had just struck a bargain, a business deal, not sworn to love each other eternally. Shido was convinced vampires were incapable of such an emotion. He hurried back to his office, choosing to travel by rooftops once he neared residential areas. He couldn't afford to be spotted.
~~*~~
Cain,
I have finally decided upon the payment as tonight I have broken your Child. It would be wise for you to remind yourself just how powerful I am before you read on. I take as my payment 1 Shido Tatsuhiko. The Youngling belongs to me from this day forward, marked on July 15, 2003. If you wish to repute me, then you are welcome to come and try.
Cyric
~~*~~
No return letter ever arrived. Cain, apparently, could not even bring himself to write one. World news carried a tale of a devastating number of murders in Transylvannia, beginning in the small towns and spreading. One vampire was mourning by killing, apparently. Just the thing to drive Shido insane, but Shido wasn't reading world news lately. He had his eye on the local paper, waiting till it was safe to return to his normal station in society. He did not want to be captured and dissected.
Cyric did as good a job cleaning up the mess as he did creating it. One of his Children were caught on purpose and arrested. Shortly after arrest the Child 'died' of a heart attack and was buried on Tokyo property. Little did the police know that they had been tricked.
The first night Shido could safely leave his apartment, he felt like he could dance down the street. It felt wonderful to be out of his office. He had always liked it, but those walls got dull after weeks and weeks. Teenagers had taken over the cafe he had been at nearly a month ago, and they had music out with them. He laughed lightly, and once in the alley around the corner, let himself move to it. It was a very happy sounding pop song, something new and resh. It helped his mood tremendously. He was able to spin to it, and modify a waltz with a few more springing steps.
He was too happy about being outside.
Cyric and his Children reverted to the blood they had stocked during the murder spree till it all settled down. Most of his Children separated and returned to their own hunting grounds, the three Yearlings staying behind to learn the ropes from their Sire before striking out on their own. Cyric watched Shido closely on the first few days of his new freedom, just to make sure the public didn't suspect his name. The bans on the ships and planes were lifted but the money was sent anyway as a thank you.
Shido was infinitely relieved when his first week passed without an arrest, or a recognition. Perhaps the entire thing would blow over after all. He relaxed a little, not feeling any particular need but freedom. At the end of that week he found himself missing his office, and instead of running out at night to do nothing but walk the streets observing the people who would have hung him from he gallows had they been given the chance, he played chess with himself. Guni was asleep in his desk again; otherwise he would have asked her to play. They had patched things up after his return from the docks. Everything was quite calm. And dull. Life continued on with only one drastic change, he wasn't allowed t hunt down other vampires anymore. This left him with a lot more free time, and nothing to fill it with. He needed a hobby.
