Chapter 2 – Best Served Cold.
Cold wet fingers ran down his smooth, pink cheeks. The boy began to stir; his eyes twitching to life, his small button nose scrunching up, his body slowly relaxing from the heat of the fire warming his frozen bones. Little fat, wrinkled fingers press lightly against his small delicate curves sending an instant shiver throughout all his muscles, tightening his small frame, his breaths become deeper and faster. The cold fingers continue to trail down, and down; pushing the rough cloth-spun trousers over the smooth skin as he reached the peak of a curve.
Eyes snap open, burning red with devilish hunger, pupils only pin drops begin to widen frantically searching for anything with a pulse. Only one.
"Talos save' me!" His breath almost failing him; every limb feeling weak and unsteady as a yellow stream escapes between his legs "We found'ya outside, I was just getting you out'a do'se wet clo'ze!. Please, don't I'm sorry!." The lieutenant stumbled down a step hitting the ground with a thud, eyes like new glass, glazed and shimmering, his hands and feet unable to find grip, slipping on the wet stones as he scrambled for the door.
"... I'm sorry" Careful to walk around the yellow puddle the boy approached the man who was now crying and bubbling for his life, begging to any god he could remember. To no avail. Within a blink of an eye piercing fangs dug deep into wrinkly flesh; a final scream trailed out slowly as the last drops of blood were drained leaving only the dried meat for the rats.
He had listened to the story's but this was nothing like what he heard , instinct had taken over giving him no choice but to feed, his body tingled from toe to ears, an ecstatic feeling almost paralysing, stealing his breath and state of mind forcing him to his knees, darkness threatened in the corners of his eyes, it took everything he had just to stay awake. Only minutes passed but it felt as if he was on that cobbled ground for hours.
… … …
"Your first taste of blood?" A strange voice broke the eery silence.
Like a startled cat he lept away from the strange voice, his bare back slamming against the wall. He didn't know his own strength
That must have entertained the stranger because a girlish chuckle echoed from the shadows
"There's no need to be scared." A young girl stepped from the shadows leading down to the jails.
"Who? ..., what do you want?" His cautious eyes narrowed and fixed on the girl unsure of what to make of her, she looked like any other Breton girl he'd seen before, long light brown hair and eyes to match, a little paler but nothing out of the ordinary; she wore a thin unimpressive red blouses with blue arms and a long white skirt with the faintest trace of blood at the bottom, this caught his attention as none of this made sense.
She must have noticed him staring at something because she pulled her skirt up slightly to investigate the spot that had his attention.
"Ah yes. Please mind my tattines, things didn't go quite as planned and I didn't bring a change of clothes" Her air of calm perplexed him only adding questions, who was she, had she seen the corpse lying on the ground between them, what was she doing here ...
The room was still and dead as they both stood eyeing each other up, finally, the silence was broken.
"Guess I'll introduce myself first then. My name's Babette. It's very nice to meet you ..." she trailed off and gestured for him to answer. His head was still spinning but he wasn't going to get anywhere just staring at her, after all, he couldn't forget that he was in the middle of an imperial fort and he had just killed an officer, time was a luxury.
"Sten.. Stenar, that's my name" His guarded body language slowly began to relax, as long as they maintained a distance.
"Hello Stenar, although I prefer Sten if I may?" she asked with a pleasant cold smile.
That had been his nickname before ... he supposed it couldn't hurt to keep something from the past seeing as his world had been changed overnight.
"If you prefer, Sten will be fine"
" Thank you" That smile still unchanged.
"Was he your first?. I couldn't help but watch and remember my first, such an exhilarating feeling"
"What do you mean 'your first' ?" Another question; What was she.
"I'm the same as you, afflicted with Sanguinare Vampiris. Well, I prefer gifted with but it may take you a few decades to see it like I do" That same girlish laughter followed, clearly as practised and perfected as that smile she wore, and just as fake.
"You're a vampire like me ?" His mind still fuzzy he needed to be plain if he was going to make any sense of his current situation.
"Yes, much older but the gift that now runs through your veins has run through mine for many years." She stated very plainly. Then almost as if she lost interest she changed the subject.
"Did you know that this man had five wife's, and eight children, ten if you count the two lost before birth" She walked over to him inspecting the body.
"Well ... no, I didn't, but I didn't have any control he was going to ..." He couldn't bring himself to say it.
"I needed to feed" He was almost a little angry, surely she should know that need, a need so deep it takes over your whole body and leaves you no choice but to drain every last drop.
She must have sensed his annoyance at her comment.
"You misunderstand, I wasn't trying to make you feel guilty." She said apologetically.
"He had five wives's because they all divorced him, either by will or by taking advantage of his new placement in a far away land to run away, babes in arm. And only three of those children were born with the wife's consent, 'A Husbands right' he called it." She paused to examine his reaction.
"Those lost in the womb where not of natural causes, he enjoyed a drink as you might be able to tell from his breath, one after another and another. On occasion, he enjoyed one too many as his wife's would find out when he finally stumbled home-"
Sten was glad to have taken such a monster out of this world but he couldn't handle the idea of what those poor women ... and the children must have been through before today.
"OK!. But what has any of that got to do with anything?" He just wanted answers.
"Everything, It has everything to do with why he now lies dead on the ground, because luckily for the yes-to-be-named wife number six, wife number five was a rich Nord woman born to a successful merchant lord in Solitude. The army would take no action but she has many resources at her disposal including daddy's big purse; no man was going to hit her without meeting an early grave." She couldn't help but grin at that, a more sinister and real grin than any before.
"And so you see that is why I am here and why he lies on the floor without a drop of blood left in his body ... OK, you did that but if not you then I would have." She stood silent and watched Stenar fill in the remaining pieces of the story.
"You're an assassin?!. You're with the dark brotherhood aren't you?" it was a shock to his system, his life had been as plain as a farming life could be before now and within a night he became a vampire and now stands in a room with an assassin of the dark brotherhood who's contract he had drained of life only minutes earlier.
"Yes" That same face smile on her face.
"Babette, Professional contract killer at your service" With the same laugh to accompany it.
"And I killed your contract ... wait ... are you going to kill me?" Everyone had heard of the Dark Brotherhood but depending who you spoke to they either went extinct in the oblivion Era or they are dadric servants of this prince or that one. It was impossible to wade through the rumours to be certain of anything other than the simple fact that they kill for gold.
"No, it doesn't quite work like that, more along the lines of you have to repay us for the contract gold we lost because of you, and this was a big one, she was very angry ..." Her happy go lucky attitude helped lighten the fear that she was just playing with him before she took her revenge for stealing her kill and potential dinner.
"But- but he's dead, can't you just complete the contract and take your payment from the wife?" Stenar was just coming to grasp with being a Vampire, being forced to work as an assassin was not high on his list of priority.
"Now that's not very honourable is it?. We were paid to kill this man unless he died by our directly interference then we can't in good conscious say we held up our end of the contract. We're assassins, not thief's, although anything on the body is fair game." She spoke slow and happily as if to a child she was giving a lesson.
Suddenly her tone changed, demanding, without question and with complete certainty. "Now I could send you, or through your blade send another. Either way a soul will join sithis in the void. It's time to decide."