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Chapter 15
Donatello stood in the doorway of Katherine's empty room. The presence was gone, but so too was Katherine. "No!" He shouted as he banged his fist against the doorframe. He slid to the ground. She was gone, something had taken her He had failed in his duty to protect her.
He could still smell the scent of the intruder in the air..
His brothers looked at Katherine's bedroom and empty bed in shock. "Where is she!" Raphael growled.
"He's taken her." He managed to whisper through the pain.
"Who's taken her Donny?" Leonardo questioned his voice thick with worry.
"I thought this place was locked up tighter than Fort Knocks. There is no way anyone got in here!" Raphael protested.
"Who Donny?" Leonardo asked again.
Donatello shook his head. "I don't know." He whispered, "But he's male." Donatello stood up, determination replacing his distress. "There would most likely be only a few who would be able to get in here. I can smell that there were two other men in the house as well."
Leonardo looked at him. "Samael and Gabriel."
Donatello nodded. Samael would be the one who smelled of sulphur, which meant that Gabriel was the one that smelled like the air in springtime. He frowned. The scent in the bedroom was familiar, but he couldn't place it.
He thought furiously. There had to be a way to find her. Donatello wondered then. Nightmare and Darkness were the same person, which meant that they thought the same way, a few deaths removed, which meant he should be able to figure this out. It hit him then. If Darkness had Magi, it stood to reason that Katherine had something as well. He ran down the stairs his brother's trailing after him.
"Donny, are you okay?" Michelangelo asked him.
He grunted an answer as he ran into the library. It looked the same as he remembered. And sitting in the middle of the dark carved wooden desk, was an inconspicuous laptop. Katherine was not good with technology, but she appreciated it.
He strode over to the desk, sat down in Katherine's chair and opened the laptop. There was a password prompt. "Come on Donatello think. You talked to her for four years." He said to himself.
"It's Kitten." Michelangelo said softly.
Donatello looked up in shock at him. "Mikey she..." He stopped. No she wouldn't have remembered who she was, but this didn't mean that Katherine wouldn't still have thought like Katherine. He typed in Kitten and the screen flashed to the Desktop.
He looked at his baby brother impressed.
"Donny, are you okay?" Leonardo asked him.
Donatello was still starving. His stomach was still trying to devour itself, but the pain had lessened to the point where finding food was not in his every thought. He stopped. The pain had stopped when Katherine had been taken. Which meant...He closed his eyes as he tried to feel her. He knew there was a silver cord that joined their souls and golden chains binding them together. He should be able to sense her, but he couldn't. He could feel the chains, so he knew she was okay, but reaching out felt as if he were reaching out into the dark and not being able to see or grasp at anything.
But why would his hunger lessen unless...? "She's starving." Donatello whispered.
"What's that Donny?" Raphael asked.
"She's starving. I'm starving too, but what I was feeling, that wasn't all me, that was her as well." He whispered.
He needed to find her. It struck him then. "Why are April and Casey sleeping?" He asked in a worried voice.
His brother's looked at him at first in confusion and then with the realization that he had been awake but he wasn't exactly at home when the demon had rode him.
His brothers explained what had happened. Donatello was lucky that he was sitting because he would have fallen.
He looked at the laptop blankly. "Do we even know where April is?" Donatello asked softly. She was his friend, and he hadn't even been there for her, he didn't even remember anything that had happened.
"We think they are in the room that they stayed in before. It would make the most sense." Leonardo said softly. Donatello nodded numbly.
"Nightmare is hungry?" Michelangelo asked.
Donatello focused on the present. "If I was feeling a fraction of what she was feeling then she is starving, and in a great deal of pain." He said softly.
He looked back at the laptop's screen. He blinked at the as they icons began to move. "I need to find something I can eat." He said with a shake of his head.
"Are those supposed to do that?" Michelangelo asked him.
Donatello managed to click on an icon. It began streaming information. He had worked with Magi when it was in computer mode. It had been incredibly complicated, but the knowledge of Magi's operating system would help him with this operating system. He just wasn't sure how long it would take him to figure out the operating system. And then if Katherin's computer had a scrying mode, he wasn't even sure if he could operate it, let alone understand it.
I'm trying to remember what I can't remember. Katherine had said to him. The smell, was of someone he had smelled before. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the scent. Dark and earthy but dry. His eyes flashed open. "I know who took her." He said softly.
Nightmare opened her eyes and looked at the bed she was laying on. It was a black, four pollster, king sized bed with black satin sheets with silver accents. The sheer black curtains that hung around the bed blew in a breeze that did not actually exist, hiding the figure of the man who had taken her. But she didn't need her sight to know who it was, she had her nose and her ears.
Pain lashed through her. She needed to feed. Everything inside her that was animal that was Hunger wanted to be fed. One way or another.
"I had always wondered why, when the angels and demons killed me, the one or the other didn't just keep my soul. I wondered why they had to keep tracking it over and over throughout time I suppose I now have my answer. But the question then becomes, why?" She asked the figure that was revealed as a curtain swayed out of the way only to flutter back.
He looked much different than the last time she had seen him. He of course remained silent. "So why help me?" She asked him as she struggled to sit up, and found the effort was too great. She slumped back on the pillows.
He stared at her, black eyes intense within his pale face.
"Why do you interest me?" He asked himself, his voice rough, as if he had never used the human throat he now had.
He knelt down, his grey wings brushing the floor. His shoulder length straight black hair fell partially over his black eyes. This raven wing brows arched gracefully over his eyes, giving him something of a sinister air. His pale face had well defined cheekbones that slid into a square jaw. Full lips remained impassive as he looked at her.
"Your light was always so bright, and for as many times as I claimed your soul, you never once feared me, why?" He asked her.
She looked at him steadily. "Why fear something so beautiful and comforting?" She asked.
"I do not understand." He said to her.
"You were always there to catch me in the end. I suppose in a way, you are like an old friend." She said to him. "Although this is a new form." She said to him.
He looked down at himself. He was naked as far as she could see. Not that this seemed to bother him at all. He looked back at her. "I wanted to appear to you in a more...familiar form."
"Why?" She asked.
"I do not know." He said studying her."You remember now. You remember everything."
"Yes, I remember everything." She said softly.
"You are older than even I am." He observed.
"Yes." She said to him. "I am older than even you, Death."
He nodded to her. But did not speak again. It was then that she got the impression that Death was confused. He seemed to want something from her, but even he did not know what it was.
"Why am I here?" She asked him. "And where is here?"
Death looked around him. "I built this place for you." He said. "It exists within my realm. It is separate from the 13th Hour, the time where there is no Time. But here, here it is all times." He said to her.
She nodded looking around the sparsely furnished room. She knew that Death existed within his own time, but she hadn't known what it was called, or that he had a realm all to himself. "Why did you build this for me?" She asked.
"To make you more comfortable." He said to her.
"Yes, but why?" She insisted.
"I do not know." He said as he looked at her intently.
She huffed out a breath. She wanted to sleep, but she needed to eat before her Hungers overrode her ability to think.
She studied the face of Death again. He was in a human form, which meant he was flesh and blood. All of her senses perked up at this thought.
"I hurt." She said to him.
He frowned but nodded. "I know hurt. I take hurt away." He said with a nod. "Although sometimes...I believe, I give hurt." He said in confusion.
"Yes, I believe you inspire any number of emotions." Nightmare said with a quirk of her lips. She slowly sat up. She could see the glow of her skin reflected upon the softly fluttering curtains. "I am hungry. I need to feed." She said to him.
"I do not understand." He said to her.
"Do you wish to know what pain is?" She asked him.
"Nothing can harm me. I am Death." He said to her.
"Yes, but in that form I can hurt you." She told him.
"Do you wish to hurt me?" He asked her uncertainly.
"No I don't want to hurt you." She said to him as she crawled to the edge of the bed. She slid her legs over so that she was sitting on the edge of the bed with Death kneeling on the floor between her legs. She pulled him up easily. He looked at her with puzzlement.
"I'm sorry, but I need to feed and you are my only source of blood." She said as she leaned into his neck. He smelled of the night and of earth.
"I have blood?" He asked.
"In this form, you do, and I need it. This will hurt, but only for a moment, and then, I will make it feel good." She whispered as she bit into his pale neck. Her fangs slid easily through his flesh and the blood poured into her mouth. It was rich, coppery and full of power, Death's power.
Death tensed but did not say a word as if the sensation was so new to him he wasn't sure how to react. She then took the pain away and rolled a wave of pleasure through him. She was part vampire, or perhaps a better way to describe what she was, was like Darkness, vampiric. She fed on blood, but her body was not undead, it was alive.
Nightmare wasn't sure why her body became what it was. She supposed the Nightmare godhede had created her body using her human body as a base and added to it the magical creatures in the area who most closely matched Darkness, since to the godhede, Darkness was the epitome of Power.
Lust coursed through her. Being vampiric meant that feeding could be extremely sexual. A vampire's bite and the need for sex went together. A vampire was very much a predator that used sex as a lure. This was not true all of the time, but for her, she had pushed all of her hungers into the blood and sex of being a vampire since she could not eat flesh. Unfortunately the other beasts within her had wanted flesh, so she had changed the hunger for eating flesh into another more sexual hunger for flesh.
Death's breathing was getting heavy and she could feel Death's power flowing through her. She pulled a final thread of pleasure through him and he shuddered letting out a moan of pleasure as she let him fall to the floor.
She licked the blood from her lips. Her eyes became heavy. She was full and still so very tired.
She slid from the bed and attempted to walk but only made it one step before collapsing. Death was beside her then gently lifting her from the ground.
"What did you do to me?" He asked her. If it were even possible, Death sounded frightened.
"I fed off of you." She said to him sleepily. Her eyes felt too heavy.
"Yes, but...it...hurt." He said. "But then it did not hurt, I suppose it was the opposite of hurt. This body reacted to what you did." He said confused.
"That is called pleasure." She said softly. "I didn't want to hurt you, but it hurts a little. I can turn the pain into pleasure." She felt herself being gently placed back on the bed. She knew she had to get home, but she was too tired to move. She closed her eyes. She felt Death slide into the bed next to her pulling her close. She knew she should protest, but she couldn't. Her mouth was no longer obeying her. His cool body was pressed against hers and she felt peaceful.
"This feels nice." He whispered in her ear. He pulled her tightly against him. She fell asleep in the comfort of Death's arms.
Nightmare's eyes snapped open. She had to get home. She pulled herself from Death's embrace. It was too easy, too peaceful here. She felt as if she could lay here for the rest of eternity.
Death opened his eyes and looked at her. She wasn't sure if he had been sleeping or if he had just been laying there with his eyes closed.
"I have to go." She said to him. "You have to take me back."
"Why?" He asked propping his head up on his hand. She looked at him and noticed he was still naked.
"Because there are people I love and I want to see them." She explained to him.
"What is love?" He asked her.
"Love is when you feel..." She moved her hands around looking for the word. How did she explain love to a creature such as Death? She wondered. "There are many different kinds of love. There is love between your family, there is love of a particular object, there is also romantic love." She said to him.
"But what is Love?" He asked.
"Love is a feeling you have for someone other than yourself. A strong affection for that person." She said to him.
He seemed to think about that for a moment. "What is romantic love?" He asked.
She blew out a breath. "I suppose it feels like...you exist solely for that person. Being with that person makes you feel happy and full of joy. You need that person for reasons you can't even explain because they fill a part of you that you may never have even realized was missing. You want to be with them and listen to them and touch them because it brings you happiness and pleasure." She said to him.
"Pleasure?" He asked again as he looked down at himself. He was definitely interested in her at the moment.
"There are different kinds of pleasure, physical and mental. Love is both" She said to them.
"Why do you call me your old friend?" He asked.
"Because, you were always the one constant in my many lives. You gave me...comfort."
"So you love me like a friend?" He asked her.
She blinked. "I...don't know." She said in confusion.
He slid over to her and touched her cheek lightly. She was surprised by the fission of awareness that blazed through her.
"I've seen humans do this, and I have never understood it." Death said as he leaned in and kissed her. She wanted to pull away but she couldn't. She kissed him back. She finally pulled away.
"I have to go home." She whispered.
He looked at her intently but nodded. He slid from the bed pulling her along with him.
"You might want to put some clothes on." She said to him. He looked down at himself as dark black robes swirled around him. He looked at her for approval and she nodded.
"I will take you back." He said to her.
"Thank you." She said with relief.
He studied her intently. He reached out and touched her cheek. "I believe I have this thing you call love."
Nightmare looked at him in surprise. "For what?"
"For you. I want for you to be..." He frowned. "Happy." He said as if this concept was so foreign to him, he didn't really even understand what it meant.
"You think you love me?" She asked in shock.
"From what you have explained, I believe so." He said to her. "Do you believe you could return this thing you call love, to me?" He asked.
She opened her mouth to say no, but found she couldn't. She snapped her mouth shut. "It is possible." She said instead.
He nodded. "I can wait, I have all the time in the world." He said as he swung her up in his arms his wings spread out to their full span and she felt time stop as Death entered the 13th Hour, the time where no time existed.
Donatello's head shot up. A frission of awareness blazed through him. He felt his blood and flesh begin to burn with the need to be close to her.
She was back.
It hadn't been that long since she was gone, a couple hours at most. He stood up and ran from the room his brothers trailing after him.
He took the stairs two at a time and ran into her room. Death stood with Katherine clutched possessively in his arms. He set her down gently and then he was gone. "That was Death?" Raphael said in surprise. "That was not Death. Death is a 6 foot skeleton, he isn't some guy who looks like he is supposed to be on a magazine cover with the words 'World's Hottest' printed under it." Raphael said angrily.
Donatello took a step towards her and stumbled. She caught him before he fell. "You need to feed Donatello." Katherine said softly pulling him close, his head resting on her shoulder. No she was Nightmare. He needed to remind himself to call her and think of her as Nightmare.
"I can't. I'm starving but everything tastes repulsive to me." He said in a strained whisper." But she smelled good. She smelled intoxicatingly good.
"I believe that was me influencing you Donatello. I was too weak to close the connection between us so you were feeling the echo of what I was feeling."
He buried his face in her neck. He could feel his teeth begin to tingle. He opened his mouth and bit hard into her flesh. The blood poured into his mouth and instead of being repulsed at what he had just done and was doing , he felt elated. This is what he had wanted, this is what he needed.
He swallowed gulp after gulp of blood of coppery sweet blood. He could feel the power flow through him, giving him strength. He wanted to continue to drink forever, but he was full.
"Your technique has got to get better Donatello, you are not supposed to maul me." She said to him as he looked at her damaged neck that had already begun to heal.
Embarrassment and horror flowed through him. He looked over his shoulder at his brother's who were looking at him with varying degrees of shock and revulsion.
"Well I guess we know what Donny eats." Raphael growled.
Nightmare shook her head. "Donatello needed my blood because I pulled too much power from him, but he can eat mortal food and should not have to feed from me unless I pull power from and through him again."
Donatello could still feel the blood coursing through him. He felt full and content. His Mistress was back.
Nightmare stood and he stood with her.
Michelangelo looked at Donatello and Nightmare with worry.
"Donny said you were starving." Leonardo said to her.
"She was." Donatello said as he smiled and grabbed Nightmare, pulling her into him. He rubbed his cheek across her cheek.
Michelangelo found himself frowning at his brother. "Are you okay Donny?" Donatello's golden eyes looked at him.
"M'fine." Donatello mumbled.
"He looks drunk." Raphael said bluntly.
Michelangelo shook his head. Donatello looked a little drunk, but it was something else.
"I think possibly a little too much power has got him a little...sated would be a better word." Nightmare said as Donatello rubbed his cheek across hers again.
"He looks like a contented cat." Michelangelo said.
Nightmare nodded. "A good description." She said as she darted a glance at Leonardo. "He's been fed, his Mistress is home, an all is right in his world. He is having some down time." She said with a wince.
"So what, Donny's your pet?" Raphael said with disgust.
Nightmare winced again. "He could be." She mumbled. "But it is the demon within him at the moment, not actually Donatello who is making him act this way."
"Wait, so the blood thirsty killer wants his tummy rubbed after a long day of protecting you?" Raphael bit out.
"Apparently." Nightmare grumbled. "Okay Donatello, you are letting your demon ride you, so cut it out." Nightmare said with irritation. "I want you to learn to control your demon. I don't want you to be controlled by it."
"Yes Mistress." Donatello said as he stopped rubbing his cheek against hers.
"And don't call me Mistress. I feel like I should be dressed in black leather, holding a whip and asking you if you've been a bad boy."
"Yes..." Donatello seemed stumped at what to call her.
Nightmare sighed. "Until you get your demon set straight you can call me Mistress." She said with a shrug. "I have way too much to do." She groaned and rubbed her temples. "I'm going back to bed." She grumbled. "I'm still tired."
Raphael reached out a hand and stopped her. "What was up with Death?" He asked softly.
Nightmare pulled out of his grasp and walked over to the bed throwing herself down onto the bed. "Death's in love with me." She grumbled. She yawned ss Donatello followed Nightmare to the bed and crawled into the bed curling himself around her and closing his eyes.
Nightmare sighed and patted Donatello's shoulder. "You'll shake him eventually. Maybe when you get some rest." She said to him softly.
"What do you mean Death's in love with you!" Raphael growled.
"I love you Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello, Leoanrdo. Don't ever forget that." She said softly, Raphael's question remaining unanswered. Nightmare had fallen asleep, so too had thier brother.
Raphael growled in frustration, but Leonardo put a restraining hand on his brother's shoulder.
"Come on Raph." Leonardo said as he pulled Raphael out of the room.
Michelangelo took one last look at Nightmare curled up in the bed with his brother and gently closed the door behind him.
"We should go check on April." He said softly.
Leonardo's eyes widened slightly but gave a curt nod of acknowledgement.
They checked on Casey and April who they found to be sleeping soundly in the room they had used when they had last stayed.
They walked down to the kitchen where they all sat in silence for a few minutes, each buried in their own thoughts.
He looked at Leonardo in concern. His brother looked as if he was deep in thought, a frown on his face. "Why us Mikey?" Leonardo asked looking at him.
He frowned at his brother in confusion. "Why us what Leo?" He asked.
"Why did she love us? Why does she love us?" He asked quietly. "I get why she loved Raph and Donny, but why us?" There was almost a desperate edge to his voice.
Raphael watched him as if he too was curious if he had some deep insight into Katherine's mind. "I don't know Leo." He said with a shake of his head. "I get why she loves Raph and Donny, but I don't know why she loved us, still loves us." He said softly. "Darkness said her world influenced this one, so maybe it's because of her." He said with a shrug.
"Yes, but that still doesn't explain the why?" He insisted. Michelangelo looked at his brother and understood then. Katherine's love was something that was too great, too awe inspiring to ever be able to turn away from or move past. He knew his brother was in love with Miriam, but it was obvious that whatever their relationship was, comparing it to the love he had for Katherine was too great a pull for him to stay with Miriam, if that had even been an option.
"I don't know Leo." He said softly. And for him he didn't really care why, just that she did. He knew that she loved himself and Leonardo as much as she loved Raphael and Donatello, even though she was bound to them.
"Darkness said it was because Katherine's soul is that of a star. She is infinite in her ability to love because she doesn't possess the restrictions of a mortal soul. Her soul is just too old." He said softly.
"Yeah and she loves Gabriel and Sam too." Raphael said softly. 'How do we compete with that, with them?" Raphael asked anger leaking into his voice.
Michelangelo frowned in thought. Something was bothering him. Something he knew he was missing. "We don't Raph." Michelangelo said softly. He pondered Nightmare's relationship with the Fallen and whatever it was the Gabriel was. He supposed Gabriel was like Samael from Darkness' world. He was her minion of sorts. He frowned again. What was he missing? Why would they forget that she loved them? He wondered. A feeling of trepidation flowed through him.