A/N: I return! 1000 apologies for the long absence. My muse left me when finals rolled around last quarter, and school was working me into a vegetative state. Broccoli, to be specific. But here I am, and here's a new chapter for you all. Hopefully the next gap between chapters won't be quite so long. Enjoy!
And because it's been a while, Disclaimer time: I don't own The Lost Boys, nor do I own any of the characters or actors associated with it. I do not own the system of game play created by White Wolf, though I do thoroughly enjoy it. So far I've only invented two characters that I can call my own, but neither of them are based on anyone I know. So for those of you against Mary-Sue fics, this isn't one. Max just needed some help running the store.
David blearily opened an eye. He hadn't slept so well since that pair of foster parents bought him a down comforter about eight years ago. That was such a perfect setup. His mind swam in the happy thoughts of a loving family as a waft of hot chocolate drifted by in his olfactory memories. Yeah, perfect. Until he caught Mr. Anderson beating the living shit out of Mrs. Anderson. When he returned to the orphanage he asked the housemother why she would send him to such a home.
He opened his eyes a bit wider and the sound of surprise escaped his throat. He was hanging upside down, about 15 feet off the ground. Before he could react, or even think really, he was landing on his back on the hard dirt floor. The pain of the impact shot up his left side, but quickly dissipated. He looked back up at the ceiling and saw the pipes sticking out of the walls. "What the…" he mumbled and looked back down to where he was now sitting. In the darkness of the cave he could still see quite clearly, and saw something move slightly by his feet. He drew them closer and noticed that it was actually feet that were moving. Morphing… He watched with wide eyes as his feet changed from a strange, clawed form back into bare human feet, with slightly longer nails. His fingernails were longer, too. And sharper. He looked around and found his shoes, which he never remembered taking off.
As he put his shoes back on, he wondered if Max had planned this from the beginning. He obviously knew what was going on. He knew what he was doing when he fed David the wine. That strange wine… Was that wine? It tasted like- Oh God. David's mind made the connection like someone had just toggled a knife switch into place. It tasted like the man I killed last night. Like his blood. I drank Max's blood. I killed someone.
I couldn't help it, he thought. I couldn't stop myself. Why couldn't I stop myself? He needed to know what was going on. He needed to talk to Max. He clambered up through the small tunnel into the main chamber of the cavern. The waves were crashing against the rock outside. He needed to figure out how to get out of this place. Sure he'd flown before, but it was a complete accident. How do you start flying without falling off a cliff first?
The waves crashed over the rocks again and sprayed David with a dense, cool mist. David didn't want to hit those rocks. They looked very uncomfortable. He looked out on the horizon, seeing the last few rays of pink following the sunset. Catch the sunset, he thought, and ran toward the end of the ledge. Just as he reached the edge, his eyes snapped shut and he drew a deep intake of air, expecting to feel the chill of ocean water rather than the wind whip under his feat. He launched himself off the ledge, wheeling his arms forward and throwing back his feet.
"STOP!" He found his thoughts escaping through his voice, and opened his eyes to see the waves crashing underneath him without coming any closer. He let out a laugh of relief and soared upwards, making his way to the top of the cliff. Reaching the edge, he decided to ignore it completely and see just how high he could go. He kept going, and going… and it got colder and harder to breathe. Before long he reached high enough and realized why he left the cage in the first place. "Max," he said, and dove back down toward the lights of Santa Carla. He needed to know everything.
He found the bookstore easily. He was high up enough that he could have landed on the Ferris wheel if he wanted, but he stayed away from the brighter lights. All he needed now was for someone to see him flying like a bat. He might as well make squeaking, flapping noises if that were the case.
Still trying to stay out of sight from passersby, he landed quickly in the alley by the store. He looked down as his feet touched the ground and saw dried blood caked on the pavement. A flash of the previous night passed through his mind, and he looked away quickly. That memory was still too fresh. He walked around the corner and into the front door of the bookstore. Jonathan was organizing the stacks and looked out as David walked in. A look of quiet surprise passed over his face and he quickly disappeared back into the piles of books. David looked down and noticed that dried blood was covering his shirt coat, and a few splotches still stained his hands. He dumbly shoved his hands in his pockets and walked to the back of the store.
Max was doing paperwork in the usual back room, and David wasted no time in jumping in, head first. He would later relate the feeling to taking the leap over the ocean. "What the fuck is going on?" He shouted. Perhaps a bit too loud, as he heard Jonathan pause his cleaning out front. Max calmly turned in his chair to look at David, but said nothing. He just stared through his rimmed spectacles and placed his pen on the table. David began to feel nervous, though he couldn't explain why if asked. "What was that last night?" he continued. "What… what did you do to me?"
Max took off his spectacles and pulled a small cloth out of his pocket to clean them. After a long, silent pause, he responded: "You are now what I am. Not as strong, but indeed you are privileged. You can consider yourself my child now."
"Some fucking adoption," Max spat. "I tried that too many times before I learned my lesson. No way will I act as your kid." He was breathing hard. He didn't expect to hear anything like this. What did he expect?
"No, silly boy. Not in that sense. I mean… The term we use is 'embrace.' I have embraced you as one of my own. You drank my blood, and the blood of a victim. That ritual, so to speak, has sealed a bond and given you new life. You will never die, David. I have given you the greatest of gifts. But with that gift comes a curse. You must take the life of others in order to maintain your own life."
"I didn't ask for this!" David exclaimed. His anxiety was quickly becoming anger. "I don't want to kill. I… I-"
"-Will live forever," Max finished.
"What good is eternal life if it makes me a KILLER!" David was raging now. He felt his face contort and his vision colored.
Max replaced the spectacles in front of his eyes. "You're going to need to learn how to control that," he said, and pointed to David's face. "You don't want people to know what you are." David was still breathing hard.
"What do you mean?" asked David. He began to calm down, though it was taking a lot of self-control. His face returned to normal, and he was no longer seeing red. "What do you mean?" he repeated.
"Have you ever seen anyone with a face like that? Besides myself of course." David shook his head. Max continued, "That is because we hide in the shadows. We act like normal human beings unless we need to feed. If we were openly ourselves, we would be hunted and killed. And as powerful as we are, no one is a match when outnumbered five hundred to one, our odds are not that fortunate. David, you and I are the only two of our kind in Santa Carla."
David's breathing slowed to normal and his face contorted once more, though he knew that this time it was caused by pure confusion, rather than rage. "When the earthquake hit a few months ago, many of our kind were killed. We must avoid natural sunlight at all costs. If you haven't experienced it already, it is quite deadly. The warmth and light of the sun will burn our skin and turn us into ash." David remembered where he found himself that evening, and felt very fortunate that instincts seemed to have kicked in.
"The earthquake," Max went on, "unearthed many of the daytime homes that otherwise protected our kind from the sun. Or they were cracked open, demolished, and so on. The Prince of the city – he is the one in charge of the vampire population – deemed Santa Carla unsafe for our kind to continue inhabiting it. My sire, the one who embraced me, was one of the fallen. I was lucky enough to be covered by rubble. I wished to stay here, and try to rebuild the population of the city. He thought I was crazy, but he allowed me to stay. The rest, the Prince included, spread to the wind. Some went to Hollywood, some to San Francisco… most of them remained in California. I was dubbed Prince of Santa Carla. And now, here I am. I am restarting the city, and you are my firstborn child."
"So that's it," David said, although he was still highly confused. "You are after power. And I am part of that now?" Max nodded.
"And you have much to learn," he replied. "We will begin your lessons tomorrow."