A/N: I am so sorry it's been so long, but I've have projects and exams coming out my ass lately and just haven't had the time. Plus, I've had a bad case of Writer's Block concerning this story, so this chapter'll be a little short. And, for vets of "Government Funding", the same thing goes for that too. I'll do my best for now and have a brace of new chapters over Spring Break, hopefully.
Paranoia
I didn't know what to make of Damien's words. I couldn't imagine myself destroying the world. While I'd often thought about it in fits of rage, I wouldn't actually do it…would I? I didn't think so. While I could see myself making vampires the rulers of the Earth, I didn't think I'd do that either. But now I was worried. Damien might be right. How was I to know?
"Let's go somewhere," I said quietly. "Somewhere…else. Out of here. Away. Into the night." Damien nodded and took my hand. We left the castle, swift and silent as secrets. Neither of us needed to feed, so we just went to look for a place far from…well, wherever we were. Even once we were out in the crisp night air, I had no idea where Vladimir had taken us. We were in a mountainous area, leaving me to wonder if he had taken us to the actual Castle Dracula in Transylvania. If so, I was getting back to my roots. And my mother was probably more than half-frantic with worry. Well, I'd go back and explain it all to her soon enough. I hoped…
Damien and I soon found a cozy little cemetery where we could make ourselves comfortable. I lit atop one of the headstones, and Damien hopped lightly up on the one next to it. We talked for a long while, mentally and physically, for we found we could communicate telepathically now. The night was beautiful, cool with a warm, gentle breeze and a velvet sky full of stars. The full moon illuminated it all for us (not that we needed it), gently lighting the soft hills of the cemetery where we sat. It was so peaceful and lovely, broken only by my continuous biting of my lips and tongue with my new fangs.
"Just be more careful how you talk," said Damien with a laugh. "I did the same thing at first."
"Yeah, yeah, you're not that much older than me, smarty," I grumbled, but I couldn't keep from smiling.
"What in the name of God are you doing!"
Damien and I looked up, startled. We had been so absorbed in each other that we hadn't paid attention to the world around us and consequently hadn't noticed the two women who had come up the hill towards us. Damien and I both blinked in surprise.
"Uhh…" Damien said cleverly.
"Sitting together, enjoying a nice evening?" I tried.
"On our grandparents' graves!" cried one of the women.
"I…sorry," I said, sliding to the ground. Damien quickly followed suit. "We've just been having a rough time of things lately, and we wanted to be somewhere quiet together."
"You were sitting on graves!" cried the second woman. I refrained from rolling my eyes with great difficulty.
"Yes, we've established that," I said. "And I apologized. Can we move past that now?"
"How could you!" asked Woman #1. "How could you commit such a sacrilege!"
"Look lady, I said I was sorry," I said, now growing angry. Great. Born-Agains. Just what I needed after all that I had been through that night. "I said I was sorry, and now I'm going to leave and probably forget about all of this by tomorrow because it's just not worth hanging onto!"
"You speak blasphemy!" cried Woman #2.
I gave her a cold, twisted mockery of a smile. "Fluently." Damien laughed softly.
"I wish you a week in Hell for desecrating our family's graves!" declared Woman #1.
"Hey, hey!" I shouted angrily. "He's your god, they're your rules, you burn in Hell!" Damien laughed outright this time. I gave an animalistic snarl. I couldn't help it.
"Ebony, be careful!" Damien cautioned me. A moment too late, because the women had already seen my fangs and the unnatural way my eyes glowed in fury. I snapped at them, literally, and they both jumped back with cries of fear.
"What in the holy name of God are you!" they cried.
"God's busy at the moment," I said sarcastically. With an agitated growl, I turned and started walking away. Damien followed me. I could still hear the women talking about me quite clearly, but I didn't care. This was, after all, the land where the vampire legend was supposedly born (although vampire tales really began much earlier in Asia). By tomorrow they'd probably just figure they had seen some rebel teens wearing plastic fangs and looking for trouble in the night. It didn't matter.
I was in a bad mood for some reason after that and I wanted to feed. I was able to scan people's minds, I found, and I soon found a man who was out prowling the streets looking for a victim to rape. I let him see me walk into a dark alley and listened as he followed me.
"Excuse me, miss," he said with false politeness. "Are you lost? Are you looking for someone?"
"Actually, yes," I replied. I turned very slowly and let him see my eyes glow with bloodlust. "You." I grinned, revealing my fangs. The man turned to run, but I was in front of him in an instant. I seized him by his coat lapels and hoisted him off the asphalt. Wanting to test my new strength (and take out displaced aggression on this scumbag) I threw him as far as I could. He landed on the other end of the alley in a pile of trash bags. I was on him in an instant, viciously driving my fangs into his jugular and drinking the hot, adrenaline-pumped elixir that pumped forth. I stopped before he died – not because I was afraid I would die too if I took all his blood or something – and shoved him to one side so he fell over a storm drain. With my mind I called to two junkyard dogs nearby and told them to attack the man. They did as I said, tearing out his throat with their sharp teeth, clawing and biting him until he died. There was blood everywhere, despite all that I had drunk. The police would assume that that had washed down the storm drain. I smiled sinisterly, remembering all the episodes of "C.S.I" that I had watched with my mother. I was reeling in ecstasy; I wanted to kill and kill again, purge the streets of filth like the bastard I had just slaughtered. I wanted to tear a burly man apart with my bare hands while I fed on him until he died, writhing in my arms, never knowing what the hell happened. I threw back my head and laughed, deep, dark laughter that shook forth from a place in me I never knew was there. God, I felt so powerful. And I found that I liked it. It was like a drug, an addiction, but this would have no repercussions. I wanted more of this feeling, more of this power. I wanted to find another victim and break him like a twig over my knee. I turned to Damien to make this suggestion…and then I saw the look in his eyes. He was horrified at my brutality. I looked at him, confused suddenly. I looked back at the remains lying in the gutter (god, was that really once a man?) and then back at Damien. I frowned nervously. I remembered what he had said about his dream, and suddenly I saw it too: there I stood, wearing a long gown of ink-black that pooled on the ground around my feet, the straps made of rhinestones, crisscrossing in a spiderweb pattern across my bare back, my hair in a knot at the back of my head, my wrists, fingers, ears, and throat all bedecked with glittering diamonds. I stood beside Vladimir, who sat on the guardrail beside me, and we watched, smiling darkly, as hoards of the undead marched through the streets. And I started to laugh, a horrible laugh that rang with echoes of other's pain and suffering.
"Ebony!"
"Ah!" I shook my head as Damien brought me back to my senses. I looked up at him, stunned. "I saw it. I saw it just like you said it."
"The dream," said Damien softly. We just stood for a moment, until Damien slipped his arms around me and held me close to him. "It's going to be all right. I'm going to take care of you. I won't let him use you for this. I won't let it happen." I hugged him tightly.
"I love you," I whispered. "Always remember that there is no power strong enough to change that. Make sure that I remember." I looked up at him and managed a smile. "C'mon. Let's see what's playing at the theatre tonight." Arm in arm, we left the grisly scene.
A/N: I'm starting on a new PhanPhiction and I want to post it, but I still have so much work on this and "Government Funding", and I feel really bad about making you all wait for chapters, but tell me what you think I should do, I listen to you guys.