Redemption is what we strive for; regret is what we achieve

The plush apartment overlooked the raging pedestrian streets of the town below. Men in long dull coloured coats swirled between women wobbling along in high heels and little black bags in twos or threes. The suite of appartments was built opposite the city's cathedral which was an average cathedral with the only exception of having a rabbit warren of tunnels beneath it. Nothing to unusual.

Hellfire leaned back in his chair carefully rubbing his bottom lip with his index finger. The room he was in was intended to be a master bedroom but lacking in some floors (or more accurately too many of them) Hellfire used it as his office. Beneath the building was where he slept for the moment.

"My lord?" The question came from the tall stoned-looking vampire behind the door. Hellfire did not bother looking up but kept his gaze on the floor still running his finger along his lip. "News has just arrived from the MS region of town." Hellfire moved his two fingers in his mouth and brushed the two extended fangs. "It's important, my lord."

Hellfire removed his fingers and placed his unforgiving eyes upon the intruder to his sanctuary. "Dover?" He asked with a flippancy that made the other forget what he was carrying. A satisfactory bang came from behind the door. "Is he in great difficulty by any chance? Suffering from a slight bout of revenge maybe? Tell me how bad our poor little human friend is."

The intruder cocked an eyebrow and begot a serious face. "He's dead milord." Before he turned and shut the door softly and gently. A silence once more descended on the room but it had not the pleasing affects it had had before. These thoughts were no longer ones that could be churned safe in the mind. These ones were ones that had to be acted.

If Dover truly were dead as a doornail then it made everything a little harder for him. New things needed to be taken into account if they were to work, old things must be edited. If he were not halfway through his plans he would redo the whole scheme but as it was he must continue with it and pray for Daybreak co-operation. However they had been so helpful so far they may well continue to be...

"Boy." The door swung open to reveal the shaggy haired peaceful looking distant vampire. "Midday Sun will not waste time. They will bury him tonight. And when they bury him, I wish you two to pay your respects to the dead." The floppy hair in the eyes danced as the boy blinked but said nothing. "Then, if you'd be so kind, I'd like you to pay private respects to the body. Dig him up half an hour after they've gone, if you'd be so good as to but the earth back afterwards too."

The boy nodded, hair falling in his eyes again. Within the sleepy eyes came a glint of almost malice. It almost looked like the boy had listened through his dazed sleep. But in fact the boy looked everything he was not.

-*-

"I don't care"

"You will when you spend millions on a therapist."

"I will not! I'll never have a therapist."

"I did once. Blood type O."

"Ew, I don't want to know! Anyway the only thing that will ever even send me near a therapist is-" A pointed look came before the scream. "What the hell do you think you're doing." She scrambled away onto the closest couch, and pulled her feet off the ground.

"Killing things. According to you its the only thing I'm good at." Carthage snapped the rats neck like it were a twig before he threw it into a basket with another few dead rats.

"You shouldn't read people's private thoughts." Eternity reprimanded. "And anyway what are you going to do with all of them?" She motioned to the rats. Carthage turned around to look at her from where he was kneeling by the open closet door. He was holding a small rat by it's tail. It was squealing horrifically. Eternity fell silent and watched the trembling rat. Carthage broke it's neck quickly and cleanly with a sickening crack.

"Use the catapult I found down there and practise my aiming at Mrs Cole and that wonderful dog of hers." Eternity ran from the room, hand to mouth, her face a shock white. Over the sound of the theme tune to James Bond Carthage heard the sound of human puking. He waited until she came back before continuing. She came back in five minutes later, her face damp with water, her hair sticking up at odd angles. "It has to be done Etty, it's not my fault the batty old witch who was here last bred rats."

Eternity glared at him as he reached into the cupboard to bring out another from the homemade cage. In the basket a rat's body twitched. Eternity felt the bile rise in her throat once more. Calmly she swallowed it and dried her face on her fleeces sleeve. Carthage spoke again, just as Eternity feigned all her attention on the tv. "I suppose everything's back to normal with you and Valerio."

Eternity's body stiffened as her gaze left the snow ridden mountain scene chase. "Yes." No. A sickeningly harsh crack silenced even the gunshots from the tv. Eternity's eyes raised to the ceiling and she counted slowly to ten, not for stress, but for strength to not run out the room.

"You're lying. Valerio's not the same any more. When I took over, he lost his power. Now I have it. And he can't quite get it back can he?" Eternity turned to look at the kneeling vampire who was holding the dead body of the rat he had just killed like a nymph.

"Is that all you care about? Power? Is that all he means to you? A way to get more power? You knew him for Isis knows how long and you don't even care if he's alive or dead!?" Her eyes were set accusingly, her mouth drawn, her head tilted. "If you want power so much why don't you go out there and join Hellfire? He'll give you more power than you ever dreamed of? Go on. Leave us. With him is where you belong."

"I care but not for him." Menace was drawn into his voice and a distaste like he'd just drunk something bad filled his face. He stood, still holding the rat in his arms. "Now I suggest you remember your place Eternity Tippert. Because for what you're saying-" He was cut off by the ringing telephone. The pair lay frozen wanting to continue their battle but knowing their selfish want would achieve them nothing but hurt.

Carthage dropped the rat a top the others and stormed out the room slamming the door behind him. Eternity jumped with the force of the door. She stood to leave the room but she realised in doing so she would have to pass the rats. So she sat in the chair and listened as well as she could, putting the tv on mute.

Silence came for a few minutes. But then a slam and a crash and a bang. Carthage was breaking things like he did when he was mad. She huddled on the setae too cowed to unmute the tv, to frightened by the noise of the anger.

The noise stopped after half an hour. The door opened presently. The cold white blue eyes glinted with the icy death he so often delivered. "Holly has been found." He spoke with such control that Eternity cowered. What was worse was he did not look angry. His face looked confidently puzzled and his eyes were fixed upon her. He took a step forward. "Her body. Broken, beaten."

Eternity clamped down on a shiver that ran along her spine, trickling down onto an arms before she could freeze it. She could not freeze it when he took another step forward so he was level with the rats. "Midday Sun. They were the ones who killed her. Led by Dover."

Carthage ran a hand through his shoulder length blonde hair before stepping forward once more. "Not any more. Dover was a good man. He didn't deserve what he got. He knew what he wanted. He wanted the end to the vampires. He wanted an end to Night World. The fuckers don't deserve to live he said."

Eternity's mind struggled to focus on the words. He was so close now his aftershave was affecting her. His aura was intoxicating her mind. But why did he know Dover? No one knew much about Midday Sun... "But his boys killed Holly."

"They thought she was some Night World whorre." She was.... "Yeah she was. But she fought for us. And that made her special." He said the last part with sarcasm and his gaze never left her, never moved, never shifted. "But she was killed. Raped, beaten, killed."

Eternity's body was forced up into a corner of the couch, trying to hard to shrink into nothing. She felt, by just being near him, the weight of his anger. "And do you know what happened next? The FUCKING idiot let them go." He whispered the sentence as he moved the final pace forward to right above her. "Your BOYFRIEND let the love struck VAMPIRE and DOG go at the human. What the hell did he think would happen?!?"

Eternity let out a gasp and bit down on the emotion that rose. "They ripped his skin to pieces, they tore out his heart, Eternity. They used their strength over him."

The door to the living room opened. Neither moved to see who it was. Both were too occupied in each other.

The magic did not last long. "What?" Valerio's soft voice came to Eternity through the misty wall against the world Carthage and she had built up. Valerio.

She shook herself off and ran to him, passing the dead rats without noticing. He hugged her automatically taking in her body as he always had, with a gentle compassion that none even Holly would/had ever received. "What happened?" Valerio asked. She had not noticed in his reception a mood that tempered his normally composed response. He was angry. His voice was cold and his body tired.

"What do you mean what happened?" Carthage answered from where he was standing facing where Eternity had been a second before.

"You're tired. Don't blow your head at Carthage now." Eternity whispered into Valerio's hair. She felt him sigh, hold her tighter and kiss her head. "Is it true about Dover?" She asked louder so Carthage could hear. She heard the crack of a neck as Carthage resumed his occupation. Valerio did not seem disturbed by this behaviour and walked over to the couch and collapsed.

"Yes. He's dead. Starkers and Wellies are up in their rooms thinking about what they've done." Eternity sighed. She didn't blame them. They had loved her passionately with every grace of the silent lover, who can see but not touch. But in their place if she had a chance to get at Hellfire after Valerio's death then she would have ripped his heart out too. And burnt it black, if it were not already that colour.

"His death will not go unavenged." Carthage commented from the neck snapping. His eyes had dulled to their normal. Eternity still shifted away from him. "Midday Sun will take Daybreakers lives. An eye for an eye. An eye for arms. There are more of them in this town than us."

"Carthage I found this on Dover's body, more pacifically his wallet." Valerio held out a card to Carthage. "I thought I'd return it to you. And hope you could explain to me, without giving me the obvious explanation why it was there."

Carthage looked up with dead eyes to Valerio. Valerio looked down with cool eyes to Carthage. And Eternity closed her eyes to the world.

-*-

Review please. Shameless plug again: if you want to join a fantastic RPG the addy is in my profile... but review!!!!!!

Bex Drake: Dover's dead? Darling if I kill someone are they ever really dead?

PM: You will see... It's all going to come out eventually. Next chapter is a real shocker I'll tell you that. Real shocker.

Thade182: Dover's death was a little poetic was it not? Some people count killing people as a good thing.... I mean if someone killed Hellfire would that not be a blessing?

Review cos the sooner you get me to update the sooner I get to drop the bombshell......