Chapter One - st petersburg
The snow drifted serenely from the sky, dusting the treetops and the lampposts that ran along the pedestrian walk by the frozen Bolshaya river. Makes everything prettier and all that. But Victor had no time or the peace of mind to enjoy the December snowfall. The 27-year-old faery just wanted to hurry towards his apartment so that he could mull the news over by himself. Or perhaps with Yuri; the young vampire had nothing good to do at the Millennium Lounge anyway except getting intoxicated and doing something stupid.
Tendrils of warm steam wafted up towards the dome of dark night sky above the city with every rushed breath that he took. He watched as it curled and twisted itself towards the heavens, soon disappearing and fading away into nothing above him.
The man brushed his silver hair off of his eyes and turned the usual corner by the run-down dress boutique, where humans don't tend to go because of the flickering street lights and the unusual sounds that would always appear from the small alley between the buildings. He shoved his hands into his pockets to keep his hands warm and continued along the collection of bars along the alley. He has never been bothered by the cold, but the news made a chill spread all over. By now every paranormal in St Petersburg should probably know anyway. Phichit's warnings never slide past easily, as the only seer in Russia.
Most of the bars where he was heading were often disreputable, where only humans with a will to get severely drunk and fool around went to waste their time. No one with a shred of common sense would ever venture there, which was exactly the paranormal society in St Petersburg chose this exact spot for their meeting place and the most popular bar for paranormals - the Millennium Lounge.
The scent of alcohol and blood burned his nose as he pushed open the door to the small dimly-lit pub. The unnaturally hot and slightly sulphuric air inside the bar meant that some sorcerers were lurking around. Drunk werewolves, with their tell-tale smell of musty wood, swayed by the doorway, laughing loudly into their large cups of beer. Victor snorted as one toppled over from the door swinging open and crashed into Mila Babicheva, sending her vodka all over her maroon robes. The scarlet hair flowing to her shoulders flared like a candle catching flame. Smoke erupted from her hands as she neared the werewolf, snarling.
Leaning against the cold stone wall, Victor laughed. "Now, now, Mila. We wouldn't want the Great Fire of St Petersburg to happen now, would we?"
The smoke hissed and sizzled on the sorceress's palms as her face broke into a smile. "Gee, Victor..." she ran a hand through her hair, fluttering her long eyelashes, as if she didn't almost cause the entire bar to burn down. Victor smirked and flashed her a quick wink; Mila had always wanted to hit on him, despite the difference in age of their physical forms. Seelie faeries are known to be very good looking after all.
The small grunt of disdain coming from behind the petite redhead caused a small chuckle to tickle the tall faery's throat as he removed his long beige trench coat. he stretched his large cerulean wings and peered over the sorceress to see the small figure of Yuri Plisetsky.
"You two disgust me." he rolled his eyes in disdain as he received his cup of blood from a passing troll waiter. Closing his eyes, he took a sniff and cringed, dismissing the drink with a single word. "Female."
Victor raised a slender silver eyebrow as the blonde walked closer, the usual dark scowl on his pale face. "Never labelled you as a misogynist, Yuratchka~"
"Shut up." the vampire sneered and quickly darted his tongue within the crimson liquid, cringing. "There, I had some. I just don't want to drain females, alright? Stop judging, you old man."
Victor pouted as he flitted over towards the counter and pressed a golden coin towards the troll taking the order. "One honeysuckle wine, please." He turned to look at Yuri, who had now taken a seat next to him on a bar stool. His slender legs dangled in the air, unable to reach the footrest at the bottom of the stool. "And I am not an old man, Yuri."
Yuri ordered a fresh cup of blood and sniffed it cautiously before dipping his fangs into the large wooden cup. "Your head of gray hair says otherwise, you idiot."
The faery pouted, wings drooping sadly as the cup of honeysuckle wine was pushed in front of him. Gratefully and with a dramatic faraway look in his cerulean eyes as he stared at the lightbulb hanging about his head, he took a long swig of the golden liquid.
"But still, old man, you're hardly ever here. So this better'd be important. You're wasting my time." Yuri took a tentative sip out of his cup, dipping in his fangs again.
"You done?" Victor put a hand to his forehead and eyed the fifteen-year-old vampire beside him. The boy only dipped his fangs in further to aggravate him, glaring with his green eyes.
"No, I'm thirsty."
"You could at least pretend you're happy to see me."
"I fucking saw you this morning in the subway, Vitya." Yuri rolled his bright red eyes, a sign that he was thirsty. He covered his nose as he turned to face the faery, who crossed his ankles in response, blissfully unaware as he placed a large and slender hand on his companion's shoulder. Yuri flinched, but eventually relaxed under the touch of his long-time friend. Victor knew that Yuri only put up that hard front to protect himself and get attention that he hardly ever got at home, with the 50 other vampires in his coven. He protected himself by dressing up in black and cat print and using harsh words. Victor looked down at the small boy.
"There was something that I heard from Phichit, the resident seer," Victor scratched his head as Yuri perked up slightly. Phichit's prophecies always have been accurate; they have been the past 3000 years the seer had been alive, or so the histories. But he has a tendency to meddle. "Concerning the girl."
"Yeah, no shit." Yuri scoffed and took a swig out of the cup, now half drained and the wood stained with red. "And a dragon host as well. As if we need that kind of clusterfuck in St Petersburg."
Mila, her arm now linked with Georgi's, took a seat with a fresh cup of vodka in hand. "Talking about dragon girl, aren't you?"
"Stay out of this, hag." Yuri sneered as he emptied the cup, tilting his head back and throwing the contents into his mouth.
Mila rolled her eyes and touched the surface of her vodka with her plump pink lips. "I heard from Guang-Hong that she was from New Zealand, apparently. Somewhere around Auckland. He said he sensed disturbances in the water when he was visiting his family there a few days ago."
"I thought that was where the mermaids were most concentrated in, not dragons." Georgi shrugged and fiddled with the buttons on his shirt. Georgi Popovich, a gentle alchemist, rarely talked and was generally shy around others, human or not. Even so, he was known to be a rather handsome heartthrob, especially around sirens for some unknown reason. Maybe they thought him to be endearing when he was shy. Sirens tended to like that kind of thing. But with his recent breakup with the siren Anya, he had not taken a liking to anyone in particular anymore, still believing that Anya was his one and only.
"Yeah, well, nothing is really normal now, is it, Georgi?" Yuri scoffed. "Besides, St Petersburg isn't like Auckland, so why would she travel this far here?"
Victor furrowed his eyebrows and drained the cup of honeysuckle wine. he needed to talk to Yuri in private. Mila was one of the biggest gossip queen out there and Georgi always found it hard to keep secrets; Yuri was the only one that he could trust with the things that they want to discuss. They have been close confidantes for centuries and the young vampire would never sell anyone out, despite his unpleasant nature.
"I think that's enough alcohol for me tonight. Yuri and I will be heading back." Victor said, forcing a heart-shaped smile on his face and stepping lightly on Yuri's small foot. With a nod, they both stood up and exited swiftly out of the Millennium Lounge, tipping their waiter as they left.
"I'm feeling thirsty again." Yuri groaned, his pupils dilating as they walked out, engulfed by a million human scents. "Ice rink by city center?"
"Fine," Victor shrugged. He was used to the vampire's feeding habits and the hunts that he would accompany the small boy to every other night. It didn't make him squeamish anymore and he understood that it was simply within Yuri's nature as a parasite, even though taking the life of another creature was against the faery's morals. "I'll grab myself some free nightmares tonight on the way."
"Tch, keep it to yourself."
Yuri had always had a preference for the green line on the subway map, taking them to the ice rink in city center. He said it reminded him of the green colors that he could see on the walks that he and his grandfather went on when they were still human a couple of centuries ago. Now the old man rarely exited the grounds of the coven's manor; he never seemed to gain the self-control that his grandson was so good at. Probably the old age of his physical form then.
They waited patiently, Yuri's bright red eyes hidden underneath his large black hoodie and Victor's wings folded underneath his large beige trench coat. The last human straggler came out of the compartment. Yuri held his breath and stepped inside. The train stank of too much perfume, cigarettes and the sour-smelling bleach that the cleaners always use. A young man crashed into Yuri as the train jolted and started along the tunnel.
"I'm sorry, so sorry." the Japanese male excused himself and pushed up his blue half-rimmed glasses. Victor stared.
"You should be, pig." Yuri snarled. Victor could see Yuri's eyes glinting and the aura of bloodlust pouring off of him in heady waves. With a gentle shove, Yuri was pushed towards the wall as Victor smiled apologetically at the attractive spectacled man in front of him.
"Apologies about my friend." he smiled at the man in front of him innocently. "Yuri has always had a bad temper."
"T-that's fine, really, I understand." he stuttered, blushing slightly and pushing up his glasses.
"I'm Victor Nikiforov," Victor smiled. "What's your name?"
"Yu-Yuuri Katsuki..."
The doors whistled open, bodies pouring in from the station. Yuri was shaking with barely controlled thirst, pressed against the wall. Victor needed to get him out before a massacre starts and the council gets alerted.
"Well, Yuuri, this is my stop. I'll see you soon, hopefully~" Casting a flirtatious wink behind his shoulder at the blushing Japanese, he grabbed Yuri's tiger jacket sleeve and pushed him out of the train.
As usual in the cold Russian winter, the city center was covered in silvery blankets of snow, illuminated by the golden lights and the moon above. Only a few cars travelled the streets at this unearthly hour, but there should be enough teenage drug addicts and drunkards loitering around at this time for Yuri to satiate his hunger. The fifteen-year-old stated that their blood tasted interesting from all the bizarre things they smoked, injected, ate, and sniffed. Yuri's nostrils flared as they turned towards the ice rink, now closed and all the lights turned off inside. Slowly, only leaving small imprints in the snow, Yuri stalked towards the back of the imposing building of the rink and disappeared around the corner.
Victor knew not to venture around the corner; he would never be able to stand the sight of a life taken in such a gruesome way, but out of curiosity, he turned the corner and saw Yuri pressed up against a taller man, his fangs embedded in the human's neck. A hissing and sucking came from the two.
To passersby, this scene would have been seen as two reckless young men, conducting a drunken and illegal affair, but the heavy and iron-like scent of blood lingering in the air was obvious something much more sinister was happening. With a dart of his tongue over the two puncture wounds, the venom sealed up the red and puffy skin of the man's neck. Yuri lifted his head of blonde hair and wiped his mouth across his sleeve.
"Done." he claimed proudly and walked towards Victor. "My eyes back to normal yet?"
Victor placed a hand underneath the boy's chin and looked into the vampire's eyes. The bright red had faded into the natural green eyes that Yuri was born with. The fangs that had protruded from his lipos had also shortened into regular length canines, to Victor's relief. The teenager wouldn't be attacking him anytime soon.
"Mm, they're back." Victor nodded and let go of the younger boy. "Roof?"
The two had established a meeting place on the roof of the skating rink over the centuries that they knew each other for. They had decided meeting in the Plisetsky coven's manor would be too dangerous for Victor, as some of his coven mates have developed a taste for faery blood. So the rink had become a meeting place for them since it was built around 60 years ago. With a nod, Yuri started to scale the side of the building, climbing with the agility of a cat. Victor allowed his wings to carry him towards the top of the building and settled down comfortably on the concrete roof.
"What do you want to discuss, old man?" Yuri sat down beside the faery, looking out at the golden beads of streetlights scattered over the city and glistening water of the three rivers of St Petersburg.
"What do you think we should do with the dragon girl?" Victor asked.
"She's the council's problem. I just hope that we will never get the misfortune of meeting her in the first place."
Dragons had wrecked havoc over the world a few hundred years ago, enslaving entire cities or even countries to do their bidding, killing thousands of humans and paranormals alike. But that was before the councils around the world finally took action.
The Battle of the 12 Dragons in 1376 had left the world, both the human and the paranormal, in chaos. Victor and Yuri had both been unfortunate enough to alive during that time. Yuri's parents had been killed during the fighting while Victor's died the same way, leaving them both rather bitter about dragons after the incident. It was just Victor was generally more likely to forget and more optimistic that Yuri in the first place. Victor could remember the twelve dragons, all ferocious and snarling, chained to the ground with chains and magical bindings. Their wings were torn and bleeding, their human hosts bloodied and dead. He could remember the blood, collecting in multi-colored lakes and running down the hillsides. He could still taste the ash and burning flesh on his tongue and sense the chaos and destruction in the air.
"But, we should just take a few drinks and forget that she ever existed in the first place." Yuri scoffed and ran a tongue over his blood-stained teeth, grimacing. "Maybe it's just a bad dream come back to haunt us."
"Yeah, and wake up with a huge hangover and the nightmare still a reality?"
"Never labelled you as a pessimist, Vitya~"
The sun slowly started to taint the sky a deep pink color. Yuri tensed, his skin paling even more, shunning the sun, while Victor's wings stretched out further to welcome the rising of the sun. He was a creature of nature and sunlight after all.
"We should head back, before my skin gets fried." Yuri said, sliding on pair of leather gloves and pulling his hood over his face.
Victor glanced at the sun, rising higher and higher in the sky. More cars and pedestrian appeared as well; the dead man on the pavement below would be discovered very soon. At least Yuri sealed the wound. Knowing the young vampire, the teenager wouldn't be bothered to clean up after himself. Leaving something to excite the police wouldn't be that bad. He pulled himself and the blonde boy up to their feet.
"Come on Yuri." he smiled fleetingly at the vampire. "Let's get out of here."