A short preface: this is a fanfic story based on the game Vampire: the Masquerade Bloodline and part of the settings of World Of Darkness written by White Wolf, though with a certain degree of adaption and many of the characters and plots are original...So generally I would say this is a complete rewrite of the story of VtMB, but I don't claim to own all of it.
"So tell me, Leona...How would you define death?"
Asks the young man sitting among hundreds of sparkling candle lights on the moldy floor. He looks up, smiles, with hands fiddling with the pages of yellowing manuscripts, trying to comfort the girl in a black dress who's sitting in front of him with those gentle, jade-green eyes of his.
Leona doesn't know—no way could you really define something you never actually experienced. But she knows why he asked this seemingly meaningless question.
He wants to give her a chance to regret...to escape: escape from this dark, cold and ghostly mansion they are in, escape from himself, escape from the path she has chosen.
For the path she takes leads far beyond death...and he knows the price.
"It's OK, Garret." She tries to look brave, "I'll take it...whatever it may come...with death."
Leona is not some suicidal pessimist who thinks their life is totally hopeless—She fought hard not to be. She struggled out of that shadowy orphanage, got in UChicago, studied hard to be worthy of great expectations. And there are good people who gave her a hand and helped her through many things, too...people she don't want to forget.
But all these...are nothing, compared to even the tiniest possibility of that specific reunion.
The reunion she didn't ever dare to dream of.
She will risk everything. And she doesn't care if she has to be a cursed, bloodthirsty monster wearing human skin—a vampire, like Garret.
At least, for now.
"Then there's no reason to sit and wait." Garret sighed, half-relieved and half-commiserative, "Now all you need to do...is to accept the Embrace."
The way he speaks...calm and peaceful, like a priest holding a funeral. He watches Leona lying down slowly on his lap, feels the beat of her panic heart...and the sweet bloodstreams flowing vividly under her skin like a river, tempting.
Garret bows down, whispers to Leona's ear:
"I'm sorry, Leona, I truly am." He sounds sincere about this apology, "But I hope that...however you suffer from this unlife I give you...don't lose the courage you have in you now."
He fingers her black, smooth hair away from her neck softly, while his pale, icy fangs reaching out of his lips.
Leona passes out. And the last thing she feels is the emotionless sickles of the reaper stabbing into her body.
In the mean time, outside Garret's old mansion, a blonde french woman is leaning on the rusty street lamp, humming a lazy elegant chanson-like melody. She wears a resplendent, champagne gold evening dress decorated with silk roses, and the beautiful gloss of her pearl earrings under the moonlight shines out against the depressed curtains of night.
She's waiting, but not for a party.
She's on a mission. A hunter who hunts down the outlaw.
Usually she understands the significance of her job, and she's willing to bear the burden for it. However, what's on tonight is not one of those daily-routine stuff—She's about to take down one of her own: another hunter...a very good one, and what's worse is that she knew it is all a foul play.
But then...did she ever have a choice?
"We all have no choice." She said to herself.
She knows her prey tonight thinks the same. This is the only consolation she has right now.
Right at this moment, she feels something in the air—the weaving of the scarlet strings of curse. That's the unique instinct of her kind: to sense the birth of a new kindred.
It's time to move.
She steps out, flashes like a thunder and kicks down the front door of the house with a swing of her leg, and behind the door, Garret is holding Leona in his arms, looking at this uninvited stranger with no surprise.
"It's out of the etiquette to disturb a young lady when she's asleep," He says, stroking Leona's cheek, "isn't it, Veronica?"
P.S.I'm a half-professional novelist myself and I got my own book to worry about, so I make no guarantee about the update speed. And since English is not my mother language, I apologize first for any possible language promblem. Hope you enjoy and leave your comments. ;p