A/N: Forgive my lateness once more... I am a disappointing bard, a withering teller of tales... I've been in that slump again but I return with a vengeance! Watch as my writing skills dazzle and amaze you! *BLinks* Oh, yeah, and tell me whatchoo tink?

-----------

"They are my children," Darius whispered in Amanda's ear. She jumped, turning to glare at him.

"I wish you'd stop doing that, you know."

"Ooh... Sorry," Darius drawled lazily as he sprawled out along the couch. They were waiting for Raziel to emerge from the chamber he was borrowing while he changed out of his clothes. Meanwhile, Manu and Mosi sat on the carpet face-to-face, playing with string - cat's cradle and such. An innocent game that they performed with complicated string patterns, alternating as they manipulated the string to their imaginations.

Manu was the eldest looking in mortal age, but as she couldn't guess vampire age just by looking at anyone, she knew from her study of the Egyptian language that it meant second born son. And Mosi was the first; Mosi appeared to be younger, however. They both shared similar traits, straw blonde hair and almost entirely black eyes. Loose gray shirts, black pants and sneakers on Manu. Simple soft, muted colors for Mosi.

"How does that come about?" Amanda mumbled, leaning on her elbows, chin in her hands. "I've read a lot of ways."

"Do you want to find out which one?"

He was, no pun intended, dead serious. She shook her head no, and shifted a foot or two away from him. "Thanks, but I kinda like casting spells rather than suckin' somebody's veins out."

The vampire laughed, drawing a look from the twins and a little grin from Kafele as he spoke again. "You undermine the act itself as if it were awful!"

Amanda blanched.

"C'mon... I'm joking," he continued as the door opened and Raziel entered. "Ah... much better, don't you think?"

Amanda's throat lurched into her mouth for a minute. She gawked, closing her mouth, before blurting, "What a piece of yum!"

A choker around his throat was clasped with a small pale jewel. A form-fitting shirt around his chest and torso, that fell partway over his claws, which were covered with studded gauntlets. Substantial leather pants which shifted and stretched over his firm thighs and well-shaped calves swept downwards to dip into the tops of his mid-calf length boots. The boots buckled over with brass, studded around the toes and creased at every joint for mobility.

He held a jacket over his left arm, his hair combed back. Amanda's eyes constantly fell toward his belt, and constantly she forced them back to his face. Then he regarded her with amusement, as though knowing every moment where she looked and what she thought.

"I'm glad two of you are pleased. I've never quite worn boots before, except when I was human and then fledgeling." And oddly enough, I find them... quite comfortable.

"I thought you'd like them. Manu and Mosi crafted the boots for you... those clothes were just ones I happened to have left over from my 'rebel' period."

Raziel brushed his hands down over the fabric, the accuracy of the sizes. No, he thought. I think these were literally made for me. He looked up, meeting Darius's contemplative gaze. "What did you mean," he asked, "when you said you were my brother here?"

Darius brushed his thumb over his chin, over his lips thoughtfully in a maniacal, brooding fashion as he spoke in an easy, understandable drone. "That we should trust each other. Being brothers means we come from the same Sire... and all vampires share the common First Sire, Cain."

"Kain!?" Raziel hisses, clenching his claws. "He was my father, yes... and a madman... he damned my corpse wrought by... fate and then damned my vampiric soul into hell. I hold no allegiance to anyone, or anything."

"Ahh... some vigilante out on his vengeful errands?"

"I was..." Raziel started, but trailed off only to sigh, drooping his shoulders. He felt the hunger again. The Soul Reaver was awakening, and with a dawning horror and a feeling of dread he now realized the Reaver was growing more accustomed to the finely written music of the spiritual world, beating its mad heart to the rhythem of the spectral atmosphere.

"You need to... ah...?" Darius stood up almost at once, motioning toward the exit, smiling. "What am I talking about? We have much to share here for our guests..."

"You don't have what I need unless you're giving it all."

Darius said nothing.

Amanda watched all with great interest and apprehension. She recognized the signs, with mute fascination, as her eyes detected faint lines of energy, bands of potent imbalanced spiritual essence, arcing around his body. She leaned forward, sprawling over the arm of the couch, chin in her hands in a child-like fashion.

"I won't be a moment," Raziel promised... and promptly left, vanishing the next instant on the other side of the large wrought-iron door.

His throat closed tightly as his clothes tingled, molding to his incorporeal essence and projection of self. The Soul Reaver once again expressed curiousity and interest in the new outerwear, hissing and whispering around the fabric before turning its attention to the wandering spirits. Once again they regarded him blankly before moving on. So close to the vampire's lair, the spirits lingered restlessly and so did the Reaver.

He smote them, feeling a terrible sadness as he did so, moving among them and giving them a place to remain within his own self, fueling his consciousness and giving purpose to their dreary unlives. Whatever God they went to, they wouldn't find it but would bask in the tainted light of his soul.

He wanted them to forgive him... felt that somehow they still had consciousness and feared him like any creature would rightfully do. Could they still think? Or feel? Surely they could - as he and the Reaver devoured souls, he could taste in some bewildered sense their personalities, their level of awareness and their fear.

"Trust me," he spoke aloud, listening to his voice echo in the corporeal bizarre forest. "I think I know how you feel..."

He returned quickly, the sense for Amanda very powerful as he rushed back inside, shaking off the moisture from his tattered hair. He flicked his green-glowing yellow eyes to the human girl, who sat flipping through her book again, her eyes passing over the words and then suddenly casting upwards to meet his. She blushed faintly, nodding to see him looking better, and laughed.

"What are you looking at? Girl's gotta keep up with her studies, right?"

Why aren't you afraid of me...? What is it you have to hide? Oh, child, if you only knew how tired I am of secrets. And deciet.

"I'm starting to worry about my mom," the girl said suddenly, and her face grew older with lines of worry and pain. She clutched at her throat, pulling at the thin layer of skin against her neck in a nervous fashion.

"We can't visit her now. Besides, you shouldn't worry," Raziel assured her, sitting down next to her as he watched Manu and Mosi's silent game. "She is safe while she remains ignorant of your doings."

"My doings are what might hurt her," Amanda added cuttingly, before lowering her eyes to the book again. She sighed, glad to be studying. The more she read, the more the spells seemed to stay ingrained in her thoughts. The power from the pages seemed to pour into her as water would pour into a glass, slowly filling her with its liquid ecstacy.

It was easier to deal with emotions by running away from them.

*-*-*-*

Darius moved unhindered in the shadows to the young human bent over her spellbook at the table. She had been studying tirelessly for an age, and now it was day and only now had she succumbed to exhaustion. He watched her sleep, leaning over the back of an adjacent chair, resting his chin in his hands and admiring the smooth white throat. Listened to the pulse of hot, drowsy blood pounding beneath the time-weathered skin.

"You know you're not allowed to," Mosi hissed from the doorway, glaring at Darius with child-like scorn--a very odd expression on an older boy's face, I might add. "He forbids it."

"Yes," Darius whispered, reaching to brush his fingers lightly over a bit of Amanda's hair that poked up from behind her ear. "But his name is not Raziel. And he whose name shall not be spoken here hasn't seen this girl. How should he expect me to resist?"

"You're the oldest," Mosi went on, and finally shut his door again quietly.

"Yes... I should know better... but I'm not going to kill her... just a sip..." Darius leaned closer, sliding toward her so he could press his lips to her cheek softly, like a father to his studious child. Her eyelids stirred for a moment but otherwise she didn't wake.

To his ears, her blood was music and her body was its unbidding instrument, punctuating his thirst threefold as he smelled the vitality in the very skin. He was keenly aware of his hunger, and his inability to hunt due to the new day kept him from hunting otherwise unwarranted prey.

Just as his lips wandered close to her jaw, his fangs aching with irrepressible need, he felt a sudden claw wrench him back by his dark locks and throw him against the bookshelf with enough force to crack one of the shelves itself. Dazed, outraged, the interruption making his hunger turn to anger, he regarded the interceptor Raziel with little remorse. Raziel merely smiled, black eyes shining with that eerie light that gave Darius another one of those weird, fearful feelings.

"Tsk, tsk," Raziel tisked, shaking a claw at Darius and speaking in a condescending, irritating whine. "No, no, no, silly vampire. You're not allowed to exhaust my little sorceress while she sleeps."

"She wouldn't have noticed nor cared," Darius replied hotly. "Why do I need your permission?"

"Because, didn't you say we're like brothers? She is like a sister, under my full protection. If you want, you ask."

Raziel fixed his hard gaze on Darius, who straightened and smiled amiably. "Yes, yes... how foolish of me, I had forgotten."

"Don't test me." Raziel raised his arm, and for the first time allowed the dim outline of the Reaver to manifest itself and slowly let its dark force burn in the atmosphere of this world. Tasting physical air for the first time, the Reaver asserted itself for a fraction of a moment, humming intensely with interest. Long, serpentine bands of will coiled around itself, in tighter and faster circuits until it solidified into the rending, wretched Soul Reaver blade.

"Or I may not be able to stop this parasite from leeching you of your beloved immortal soul."

After Raziel regained control, he sent the Reaver back to the Spectral Plane and turned, seating himself at the table and watching Amanda regain her strength.