Stalking the Darkness
by Aislynn
See Part one (Prologue) for disclaimers and warnings!
Additional warning: SLASH (D / M), don't read it if you don't like it!
Chapter 4: Issues of Morality
Slowly, Duncan lifted his glass in a silent salute to the stranger.
"Excuse me, Monsieur de la Mare," he began carefully, "if I sounded suspicious. We owe you a lot."
He took a sip of his whiskey, then he added deliberately: "It was a really fortunate coincidence that you happened to be around in the area." He leaned back at the pantry beside his lover, unobtrusively touching him, thigh to thigh. "I seem to remember you were at the party earlier this night?"
The stranger gave a noncommittal smile and inclined his head. "Yes, I was. I left early. It was really most fortunate," he answered easily.
Duncan glowered. Methos decided to change the subject.
Time to handle that particular issue later. He remembered only too well the spark of jealousy first on his, then on Duncan's side which had started the whole mess of this evening.
"I was astonished, Monsieur de la Mare, at the way you killed the guy attacking me," he stated. "Not that I'm not grateful, mind! A gun I would have expected. But why do you use knifes?"
Hybert shrugged. Highly amused. he decided to play along.
"I could never bring myself to get really comfortable with swords," he clipped nonchalantly. He smiled at the two Daywalkers. "I learned to use them, of course, mind..."
"You did?" MacLeod asked, highly confused.
What was the man talking about? He was not an Immortal! At least, there was no sign of presence, although something in the man made him uneasy in a way he could not pin down. It was something about his behavior, about his body language...
"Of course," the stranger answered. "It was common to learn handle them when I was young. Not that I was expected to have much use of it, but they seemed to think I should at least know how to defend myself before they decided I would make a great monk. Oh, I had other ideas, but then..."
MacLeod threw a look at Methos in utter confusion. At a complete loss, he asked:
"Just how old are you, anyway?"
He'd nearly added "how old do you think you are," but caught himself at the last moment. If this was some kind of a madman, better not upset him by insisting on reality before they had decided how to handle this.
The stranger gave him a half smile, enjoying his confusion.
"Let me think..." he drawled. "That would be... oh, about 800 years?" he shrugged. "Plus or minus a few. They keep changing calendars, and the way to count time when I was young was highly different from now."
MacLeod turned around and gave Methos a questioning frown. Then he turned back to the other man. "Excuse me?" he sputtered.
Methos ignored him. "And the knifes?" he repeated his question.
The blond stranger turned back to him, enjoying the game.
"They are quiet, they cover more distance, and you can wear them completely discrete, unnoticed by anyone else," he said nonchalantly.
Methos shrugged. "So are guns with silencers," he pointed out.
The vampire mirrored his gesture. "They were not common when I was alive," he stated. "Why are you guys using swords?"
"When you were alive?!" MacLeod threw in, now completely lost. "What exactly are you?!"
Again, he stopped himself from phrasing the question as "what do you think you are". Something in this whole mess was very wrong, and Methos seemed to take the guy seriously...
The stranger and Methos shared a look. When MacLeod turned back to him, too, Methos gave an exasperated sigh. He was not up to this, now!
"You tell him!" he snapped at the vampire. "I need a shower!"
And with that, he turned and disappeared into the bathroom, leaving his lover and the stranger staring at each other in complete puzzlement.
MacLeod swallowed, then found back his voice.
"Please excuse my friend," he stammered finally, "he is not always this bad-wired. It's just..."
"Yes, I noticed," the stranger said. "He's quite exhausted. It is a side effect of the fights, I suppose? Don't worry, I'm not offended."
Duncan was torn between the impulse to follow Methos into the bathroom and take care of his immediate needs and his distrust of the stranger. Behind the man, he heard the shower getting started. He bit down his irritation and decided to take care of he business at hand.
Later! he promised himself. He would take care of Methos later! Hopefully soon...
"What do you mean, when you were alive?" he got back to the conversation. "What, exactly, are you?"
Hybert tilted his head and looked at the Daywalker, amused. Skeptical, nervous, and quite a bit jealous; not too happy about his company... oh well. No need to postpone the inevitable.
He allowed himself a slight smile, not yet showing his canines.
"I am a Nightwalker," he said. "Banned from the sunlight and dependent on blood, but immortal like you, although we are not really alive any longer. Not like you are."
He regarded the dumbfounded look on the face of his host and added dryly: "I believe the term most familiar to you would be 'Vampire'".
Duncan stared at him.
"Right," he said and decided that the man had to be a nutcase. He could not really believe he would be able to sell them this story. On the other hand...
The thing that had disturbed him in the other mans body language... he realized suddenly with a start that it was the absence of all the odd little muscular movements common in every person and as involuntarily as breath. Speaking of... the other man was breathing far too low. If it had not been for him forming words, one could nearly believe he wasn't taking in some air at all.
It was disturbing. Of course, then, there were no such things as Vampires.
This man had to be either a brilliant actor, or a proven hunter, used to control his own body language down to the last little bit. Or he had to be a psychopath who really believed what he was saying and had immersed himself so deeply into his role, that he nearly confirmed the image. The thought made Duncan extremely uncomfortable.
Well, whatever it was, he was not ready to go along with it.
Skeptically he went on: "Like in Dracula? Turning into a bat, drinking blood, running from crucifixes?"
The stranger blinked. He raised his brows and quirked his lips for a moment.
"Actually," he mused, "if I had to chose an image of modern literature, I would prefer Sheridan LeFanu's 'Carmilla', or maybe Ann Rice. Bram Stoker had a few rather peculiar ideas on the matter."
He shrugged.
"As for the crucifixes... that depends on the beliefs of the vampire. If you are convinced touching them will burn you, they will - much as they would with humans."
He shrugged again. "But if you wish - yes, in parts the picture would apply."
MacLeod seized him with an unbelieving look. The man seemed to be too much in control of himself to really be a nutcase. But then, what did he want?
"You really believe this, don't you?" he asked. "Being a vampire, I mean."
Hybert regarded his host with a mixture of amusement and exasperation. These Daywalkers seemed interesting enough, but this one was particularly slow with the uptake in his determined disbelief and his conviction that nothing as odd and mythical as real vampires existed. You would think that living a few centuries would open somebody's mind up to the possibilities of all things supernatural, especially given the fact that the guy was not too average himself with his neat trick of coming back from the dead at convenience.
Oh well, maybe this one was young.
He decided to give the man a few more pieces to the puzzle.
He smiled again, this time allowing his upper lip to slip up enough to reveal his fangs. "As it is," he said, "I have reason to do so. Do you have a mirror?"
Duncan shrugged. "Over there," he pointed.
His guest stepped slightly to the side so that the corner where he was standing was reflected in the appointed glass. Duncan looked, paused, the looked again. Then he whirled around and stared, disbelieving, at the man he could clearly see with his own two eyes. He turned again to the mirror.
The picture didn't change.
No reflection.
Incredulously, Duncan changed places until he was standing directly at the side of his strange guest. Then he turned to the mirror again.
The picture did not change. He could still see the corner where he was standing, himself, everything in this part of the barge, all of it reflected in the mirror.
Save the stranger who was standing just beside him. In fact, he could see the ornament at the wall right behind the place where the other man stood being reflected in the mirror. But not the man who bodily filled the space right at his side and caused a visibly shadow falling on said ornament.
A shadow, as he registered now, that Duncan could see, but that wasn't reflected in the mirror either.
In a sudden feeling of terror, Duncan stepped back.
'How do you do this,' was the first thing that came to his mind, and 'That's not possible,' but then cold believe and terror grabbed his soul, and a sudden, chilling certainty.
"It is true, then?" he asked instead. "You really are a - Vampire?"
The stranger shrugged. "Obviously," he said with a nonchalant air.
"You drink blood, you live on the blood of humans, every night?"
Hybert started to ask himself where this was going, but still he nodded. "I believe that's in the job description," he stated wryly. "As well as sleeping by day, fearing the sun, don't age, don't breathe, no reflection in mirrors, has to be invited into homes, can be killed by sharp, pointy, wooden objects."
He shrugged.
"At least that is the official mythology. A lot of it is actually quite accurate."
Duncan MacLeod meanwhile felt his ire rise by the unbelievable nonchalance with which this --creature was talking about killing. Killing humans. Mortals. Just as if they were something to... eat?
"Why did you really follow Adam after the party this night?" he asked, dangerously quiet. Mentally, he assured himself of the place where he had left his Katana.
At the right, behind him, near the armchair. Within easy reach.
Hybert felt himself starting to get annoyed. What did this man expected to hear?
He shrugged. "Honestly?" he asked. "Well, to be honest, at first I followed him with he idea to feed off him."
Duncan gave him a hard stare.
"Feed?"
The vampire gave it back calmly.
"Feed. Drink his blood. You know: go at him, knock him down, bite his neck, drink him dry. Usually the victim ends up dead."
He shrugged again. "In this case, however, I might have been in for a surprise."
MacLeod looked at him, dumbfounded.
Then his whole composure changed to anger. "You would have killed him?!"
The vampire gave him a short, seizing look, and shrugged again.
"Of course! As I told you, my kind needs blood to sustain ourselves. Human blood. Usually, as it is, the blood of mortal humans."
He cocked his head.
"In this case, however, technically it would not have ended as a kill, because the victim would not have stayed dead. But of course, I did not know that."
Duncan MacLeod grew very cold. Carefully he edged closer to his Katana. "So, what changed your mind?" he questioned coldly.
The vampire shrugged once again. He eyed him calmly.
"As I said, I was intrigued by the feeling I got of his mind. His psychic 'weight', if you want to call it that. He did not feel like a normal human. I never met someone like him before. Or like you."
Duncan quickly made the connection. He found his sword leaning by the chair and grabbed the handle, bringing it up in one motion. He saw the vampire taking a step back, then admiringly watching the sword with knowing eyes. He did not, however, seem too disturbed by it.
Duncan did not wait for him to comment. Icily, he grated out: "But if he had been a normal mortal human, he'd be dead by now? just so you could feed?"
The vampire eyed him suspiciously.
"If he had been a normal mortal human, I might not have followed him in the first place," he corrected calmly. "But then again, I might have. And yes, in this case, he would be dead by now. Probably," he allowed. Then he added: "What do you plan to do with that sword, attack me?"
MacLeod eyed him with hatred. He did not answer to the creature's question. Instead he hissed:
"What do you do, kill a human every night? Just to slake your thirst? It is that easy to you, to kill? Just like that?"
The vampire didn't move. He eyed him coldly. In his eyes gleamed steel.
"Of course I kill! What do you expect me to do? Mortals are prey. I live on human blood," he said. "My whole kind does."
MacLeod took a step at the creature, threateningly raising his sword.
"Get out!" he said, very coldly. "Never come around this place again. Better leave Paris!"
He paused, and then added very deliberately: "If I come across you ever again, I will find a way to kill you."
The vampire cocked his head again and gave him a last, long, measuring look, then he nodded his head curtly, as in a courtly greeting, and turned to leave.
"Give my regards to Adam," he said, then he calmly left the barge.
A moment later, he was gone as if he had never been there.
It was only then that the shower stopped in the bathroom.
o o O o o
TBC
All right, That's it for now. What do you think?
The Vampires in here, by the way, are of my own concept, not from the Buffyverse nor from Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles nor from White wolf RPG either (though a few influences of the last two might be found).
Next chapter will probably be rated R for darker elements of horror, since it deals with "Feeding Habits." Also, there will be a bit more about the slash relationship side...
Aislynn