4.
"That's far enough!" Raven waved her arm and a black aura encased the airborne girl.
"Put me down!"
"Not only a vampire, but a comedian too? I put you down and you'll do something horrible, so no sale. Now what are you doing in Jump City?"
"My...father brought me. Now let me go! Please!" There was a kind of agonized desperation in her voice. Raven could see she was shaking with what must have been fear. This was the reaction of someone who'd been enslaved before, Raven thought.
"I'll let you go when you stop killing cats...girl!"
"My name is Cerise, and I cannot stop drinking their blood, its how I live. Please, I beg, let me go!"
"Well, let's start by calming down. I'll let you go if you promise not to do anything rash, or run away."
"Please put me down!" Raven could see tears standing in the corners of her eyes, which had returned to their previous, brilliant blue.
"You have to promise me, Cerise. No running and no attacking."
"Ok, I promise. Please let me go!" Raven waved her hand and the girl floated softly down to the ground. When she landed, she was laying on the cold ground. Raven walked over and offered the girl her hand, which was accepted. The girls touch was like a feather, her skin was cold and pale.
"Now, what's going on? Where is this father of yours?"
"Is he here, don't let him find me!" She suddenly grabbed onto Raven's side, making fists of Raven's cloak. Her touch went from feather light to something resembling a vice.
"No, he's not here, calm down." Raven said, trying to pry the girl off, but having no luck at all.
"Please don't let my father find me, he keeps me in a cage, he starves me, he makes me do horrible things!" That put a knot right in the pit of Raven's stomach, and she stopped trying to force the girl away. A vampire with an abusive father, somehow, she could relate.
"It's ok, he's nowhere close. Please, just calm down." Raven let her hang off of her cloak. After a minute, the girls shaking stopped, but she still clung to Raven. It was then that raven made a decision; take the girl back to Titan's Tower, at least then she was safe from whoever this father of hers was. She calmly extricated herself from the girls grip, and looked down at her.
"I'm going to take you back to my home, if that's ok." Raven pointed to Titan's Tower, which loomed in the distance on its very own island.
"You live there?" There was wonder in her voice. Raven nodded slowly.
"Your father will never look for you there." The beginnings of a smile started on Cerise's face, then quickly disappeared. She turned her head, and her cheeks turned red.
"I need...to feed, before the sun comes up." Damn...that thing. Well, Raven couldn't just offer up another cat, it was absolutely inhuman to even think it, but she had to find something...some way to feed this kid. Admittedly, the dietary needs of a vampire was not something that had kept Raven laying awake at night very often, but it would keep her awake this one if she couldn't find anything. Ok, first she had to confirm the weird little fact that was already far too obvious.
"Ok...you are a vampire right? You need blood to survive?" Cerise's skin turned even more red, turning her cheeks into two ripe cherries.
"...Yes."
"Then we'll make a small stop on the way, I think I know a good place."
"Will I have to kill anything?" She sounded scared by the very idea.
"No, I won't allow it," Raven replied.
"...ok." Cerise said. There wasn't an ounce of joy in her voice, but there was compliance. Raven stood, and pulled out her yellow communicator and turned it on.
"What's that?" Cerise asked, in a child's inquisitive tone. Even though she was a vampire, those two words proved she was still a young girl.
"It's a communicator. I have to tell my friends that I've found you." Cerise returned to her scared, somewhat embarrassed look, and began to look at the ground.
"Robin, it's Raven." She waited, somewhat impatiently for a reply.
"This is Robin, what's up? You find out who's been killing all those cats?" Raven threw a brief glance towards the girl, who didn't look up, but she blushed a furious red.
"Yes, and you wouldn't believe me if I told you, so don't ask."
"Ummm...ok?"
"I'll be bringing her back to the Tower, you can see for yourself."
"Her?" Raven looked down and was struck with a wave of sympathy, though she couldn't pin down exactly where it came from, it hit her very hard. Still looking at the girl, she raised the communicator to her mouth.
"Robin?"
"Yes?"
"Bye." She turned off the communicator and put back inside her cloak.
"Ok, stay close to me," Raven said, and started to walk. At first the girl didn't follow, but after Raven got a few steps Cerise caught up to her and slipped her hand into Raven's. Raven looked down, at first with a look of subdued shock (At being touched by a stranger, she hated that), but quickly returned to the emotionless expression she'd become so good at. She figured that the girl deserved a hand to hold.
Raven was instantly regretting the responsibility she'd just volunteered herself for. She didn't want to look after this child, wouldn't that require some sort of emotional attachment? Emotions were not something she was good at. But there was that father of hers, the reason why they were headed to Titans Tower, why Raven had to hold the girls hand to get her to move. There was him. The mention of him and what he did, for some reason reminded Raven of her own father and all that he represented; hate, rage, anger, and above all, evil. How odd that Raven would meet a girl who's father tortured her and locked her in a cage, Raven felt that her own father had been doing those same things to her for a long time now. If she could help this little vampire be free of that, then she would. That was her mission.
But before all that, they had to make a small stop, and Raven started wonder how that conversation was going to work...
5.
"Well, I'll admit it's an odd request, but I just can't refuse a Titan. You know you guys saved this whole neighbourhood once? Huge robot almost destroyed the whole area."
"Really, well I guess that helps..."
Raven had taken Cerise (who was now sitting rather impatiently in a waiting area) to the Jump City Blood Donor Clinic, and yes, she knew that the Titans had saved this very clinic from imminent destruction. She was counting on the people who worked there remembering it, too.
"So, will this be enough?" The doctor...or nurse...or whatever you called a person who worked at a Blood Donor Clinic, handed Raven a metallic briefcase filled with little bags of blood. The thought was rather horrific, but the reality was that this was food for a nine (Raven had asked Cerise her age) year old girl.
"I have no idea...guess it'll stop our cat problem, though. Thank you, doctor."
"My pleasure...just don't mention it to anyone, ok?" Raven figured that this would have to be done under the table.
"I don't think that's going to be a problem." She shook the doctor's hand (again, nearly recoiling from the touch of a stranger) and left to get Cerise.
"Did you get it?" Cerise asked. Raven hadn't told her what, exactly, she was going to be doing, but it hadn't taken Cerise long to guess what she would be asking for. Smart as a whip, that Cerise.
"Yes. Don't know how long it'll last, but when we get to the Tower, at least you'll have something to...eat. Just don't do it in front of anyone, ok?"
"...ok." Cerise looked absolutely ashamed all of a sudden. "...Sorry." She was looking at the floor again, cheeks burning red.
"Sorry? For what?" Raven bent over again. That wave of sympathy washed over her again, putting a hot cramp deep inside her.
"Sorry for being what I am...I'm sorry about the cats, about the bad stuff I did...I'm sorry." Cerise blinked and a tear ran down her cheek.
"You shouldn't be ashamed of who you are, Cerise." Raven said, with probably less emotion than was required. At least the words had meaning... "There's nothing you can do about who you are, all you can do is learn to deal with it." Raven spoke from pure experience on that one.
"But, I have to kill things to survive...I don't like it..."
"Everyone has to kill to survive. People kill cows and pigs and all sorts of things, and eat them, don't they?" Now Raven inserted just a little emotion into her voice. She realized if she didn't she would begin to sound insensitive. "Even vegetarians kill plants. They sometimes think they're better than everyone else because they don't kill animals, but they're no better or worse than you are. They kill, he kills" she pointed to a passing man in a cheap looking suit, "even I have to kill to survive. It's...natural." Cerise still had her head down.
"But I can feel the life leave the things I kill...it's such a horrible feeling..." Before Raven could think of an appropriate response, she noted how sophisticated, how grown up Cerise sounded. 'Horrible' is quite a mouthful for your average nine year old, but Cerise used it perfectly.
"Well," Raven lifted the small briefcase she held, "this should keep you going for a little while, and all the people it came from are still alive. So don't worry, ok?" Raven layed a sympathetic hand on Cerise's shoulder. She was fairly sure that if she had to look at those huge, watery, blue eyes any longer she would lose the tenuous grasp she had on her emotions.
"Now, let's get out of here. I guess you have to get inside before the sun comes up." Cerise then looked up, with a confused look, but took the proffered hand without saying anything.
Titan Tower lay east, where Raven knew she had a butt load of explaining to do.
