3. Tradition and Change

Carlisle and Michael-

Carlisle emerged from his office at the hospital. Dark circles around his eyes gave away is incredible thirst and, somehow, his exhaustion. Not that he would ever be graced from this turmoil by blessed sleep. Caius was being even more of a bother than usual. Carlisle was at breaking point. He had worked so hard to control his thirst and build as normal a life as he could. He was even married with a "child". Even though Jasper was nearing his 187th birthday. And now it seemed that everything might all fall apart under Caius' and the Coven's "watchful" eyes.

The pale walls and the fluorescent lighting along with all the extra stress he had to deal with were only adding to his ongoing struggle. Not that he could do much about that. His family was as supportive as always and both Voltura and the Coven were being as annoying as they always had been.

Carlisle's face exposed a smile; a tired, burdened smile.

Nothing ever changes. But why, Carlisle asked himself, did he have to bare the burden of Caius' wrath?

Caius was his sire, but a cruel and manipulative one. Now Caius was in the precarious position of being in the middle of the ongoing war between the other two immortal races. And the only person that Caius could safely take his stress out on was his own kind.

Carlisle personally blamed his own treatment on the Death Dealers and the Lycans.

"Lycans…" He spat. They were cruel beasts and even more manipulative than Caius. Not to mention that they were often filthy and flea-ridden bags of teeth and fur. But the Death Dealers were the worst. Them and their superior "council". They basically discussed the future of all immortals; often times without the "diamond" vampire's opinion. (Carlisle preferred to be referred to as a 2nd generation vampire). And the Lycans would be killed on sight for even approaching the Coven.

Like they should be…Carlisle thought. A mangy excuse for animals was all he thought of that breed of dog.

All Carlisle wanted was to just make up his sins and get on with life. That was it. That's why he was here. As head doctor of the Lindbarrow Hospital, Carlisle was currently out of surgery and for that, he was more than grateful. He had first started working as a doctor during the industrial revolution to atone for the lives he had taken. And right now he was wondering if tonight he would have one more casualty to atone for.

Thoughts of blood started to crowd his mind and the thirst burned even hotter than before. The sounds of people walking in and out of the corridors reminded him that blood was just one helpless human away.

Carlisle sighed, trying to get the human smell out of his system, and walked out of the hospital's main door and slunk over to a park across the street. Thank god it was cloudy; he hated being cooped up in that place whenever it was sunny. Almost happily, Carlisle took a seat on a bench and just watched the bustling activity of the patients and doctors who wanted to get out of the hospital. When he finally felt his stone body relax, he finally took a chance with another gulp of air.

The pain was nearly unbearable as his thirst flared to the level of a thousands suns. Pouring acid or bleach down a human's throat would have a similar effect to the sensation that Carlisle was experiencing right now. Carlisle immediately shoved his head between his legs, he was so hungry. He heard a new set of feet walking towards him from behind, but he thought nothing of it. He was far too hungry to be concerned with such trivial matters.

He cursed this state of his. But he was glad the Coven didn't have this level of hunger. If they did then people would be disappearing at too fast a rate for any immortal to stay in this city without drawing attention to them.

The 2nd generation of vampires had a stronger thirst then those of the original bloodline because when Markus bit Caius, Caius' body did the same thing to the virus that Corvenus had. It changed it; molded it, formed it to his body's preference. And so his skin became impenetrable and the sun could only dance across its surface. But the thirst was amplified to the point where Caius was no longer allowed into meetings with the nobles, he kept eating them. And that was not good publicity.

So that was how Carlisle lived, day after god damned day. Trying to abstain from his hunger to human blood. God knows he'd killed more lives in his existence than any human. But older immortals have killed more, and did it happily. He'd always held some level of guilt in his heart. Now he'd thrust himself into the most rewarding but most taxing occupation for one of his kind and for one with a burdened heart.

Carlisle stood up and was going to find some animal to drain right away, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him. He spun around and nearly dragged the offender the ground and started feeding on them, until he saw a resident's stunned face amid his blood-crazed haze.

Dammit, Carlisle scolded himself, I need to be more careful.

"Yes, Corvin?" Michael (Corvin) was wearing his street clothes, even though his shift wasn't up yet.

"Um… Harry gave me the rest of the night off and I just wanted to put it by you."

Uhg, just go, Carlisle pleaded to himself, Leave me alone.

Carlisle so badly needed to go to hunting tonight. Sonja would kill him if he even thought about touching the blood store.

"Yes, Corvin, that'd be fine." He had used up all of the air in his lungs. He wouldn't dare suck in another breath unless he wanted to risk the entire population of the hospital and the surrounding areas.

If the burn wasn't encasing the entirety of his throat, he would have gladly given Michael the rest of the weekend off, he was one of the best residents in Carlisle had ever hired, but he couldn't even force another word from his mouth.

He just nodded at the tired form before him and Michael walked away murmuring a genuine, but exhausted, thank you. Carlisle all but flew to his car and drove to the outskirts of town and then ditched it on a country road. He then finally allowed himself to breathe and he smelled so many things. There were birds in the budding trees; there were gophers and squirrels in the new planted fields. The most potent of scents lied within the wooded areas that littered the landscape. Carlisle ran to a particularly forested area and focused on the rawest and harshest blood of all the scents that entered his nose. Finally he found exactly what he was smelling for.

He ran through the thick underbrush as though it was a clean cut lawn, until the powerful musk was making him almost drool. Carlisle, the predator, not the doctor, flew from the ground and landed on the dog-sized weasel that had just emerged from its burrow.

The shocked animal did nothing as Carlisle buried his teeth through the fur-covered throat. When his marble teeth broke skin the wolverine started hissing and thrashing. But all was for not. Carlisle kept draining the creature. Its adrenaline soaked blood was all the sweeter and calmed the raging torrent in his throat. Finally the thrashing and struggling stopped as the wolverine gave one final grasp at life while Carlisle mercilessly drained it. The aggressive and violent creature tasted wonderful. Carlisle was proud of himself; he had just had a lovely meal and didn't hurt a single human in the process. The pile of fur at his feet was only an animal. Almost less than a Lycan.

Needing to go back to the hospital, Carlisle surveyed the damage to his clothing and nothing was too bad or noticeable. He rushed back to his car and drove back to the hospital. Carlisle was already late for the meeting. He ran up the stairs, dangerously fast, to his office and straightened any nonexistent wrinkle out of his coat and shirt. Deeply sighing, he opened the door with a plastered smile on his face, expecting Sonja. Instead, Tanis had come in her place.

Damn. Carlisle thought. He hated Tanis. Not for any specific reason but the man unnerved him. Like he always knew something he shouldn't. But Carlisle kept the fake smile up to please the strange vampire.

"Welcome, Tanis. Is the Coven in need of some refreshments?" Carlisle was good at acting, sometimes. And one of those times was not now. His smile was slipping.

Tanis put a grimace on his face.

"Yes, we need to increase the order." Carlisle's face almost broke.

"Increase the order? I'm already giving you guys 200 kiloliters every six months! You can hardly expect me to increase the order without getting us ALL exposed. Can you?"

Tanis nodded gravely and went to sit on Carlisle's desk. Carlisle hated that about Tanis too. He always treated everything like it was a chair. His desk, the back of his couch and even his walls could be converted to chairs and Tanis wouldn't notice a thing. If he wasn't so close to the other Elders, Carlisle would have gladly killed him by now. Carlisle didn't feel as bad when he killed the guilty of his kind rather than a defenseless human.

Tanis turned to Carlisle with a puzzled look on his face.

"Do you really want to feel Sonja's wrath?" If Carlisle was in any way human, his blood would have gone cold. Sonja took after her father in using punishment to teach a lesson. Also, she was like a niece to Caius. If Carlisle angered Sonja, he would anger Caius and his head would be off his body so fast he wouldn't know what happened until his head started bouncing. So Carlisle breathed out a defeated,

"No…"

A wicked smile slithered onto Tanis' thin lips.

"Good, now we can discuss what you can get way with WITHOUT exposing us all."

Michael was dutifully on his way home, trying not to fall asleep. But the lull that the city had put on him was making even that increasingly difficult. Dark clouds, coupled with dark streets and even darker looks on people faces made him what the hell he was doing here. Michael was feeling even more depressed now than he was just a minute ago.

In an attempt to make it back to his apartment faster, he turned off the usual sidewalk and into one of the many forested areas around the outskirts of town.

After walking for a good fifteen minutes, Michael could almost see his building ahead of a clearing that was about a five-hundred meters wide swath that he was about to step into. In front of his actual building there was some construction that had been shut down for quite a while now and there was known to be some drug warfare going on over there. But he didn't see anything and right now he was too tired to care, it was shorter than his usual route.

Then a pair of darkly clad figures came into his line of sight. They seemed to be talking to each other but they must have been talking about something very strange because on of the figures started taking off his coat. Before the, now half naked, person could do anything else, the other one whipped out a gun and let two round into the one's chest.

Michael immediately ducked under some sparse foliage, thinking it was a drug deal gone bust, and watched the rest of the confrontation from that position. His mouth dropped when he saw the stricken man stand up and pull the bullets out of him. Then his body started to tremor and convulse. Michael thought that the man was about to have a seizure but remained in his crouch from fear of the horrified other man who had a gun.

But then the convulsions started to physically alter his form. His skin darkened, his face elongated and his chest ballooned. Now Michael was as horrified as the other guy. When the "transformation" was over the thing looked much like a hairless, upright…dog.

"What the hell…" Michael breathed.

The dog-thing slashed the gun right out of the other man's hand and took no time in sinking his canine teeth directly into the other guy's neck. The man with his throat being ripped out was writhing in pain and screaming bloody murder, literally. There was lots of thrashing and grunting that made Michael almost throw up. Until there was no more screaming. The other guy simply fell limp.

When he stopped struggling, the dog-thing also stopped and immediately started convulsing again. Michael thought he would morph fully into something else entirely, but instead he reverted back to his human phase; complete with blood all over his chest and face.

Michael gasped. He had never thought that something that even looked like a human, even if it was part time, would be able to do such a thing. But then the dog-man-thing stared directly at the brush Michael was concealed in. Michael was even more confused; there was no way that any normal human could have heard him. But then he reminded himself that this thing clearly was not a normal human.

"Shit!" exclaimed Michael before he turned around and started tripping over the underbrush in the direction of his building. He was almost to the other side of the clearing and he was feeling pretty good that he might actually get out of this thing alive. But as his foot took one step onto actual pavement impossibly strong hands grabbed him and before he could fight back, he was hit across the face so hard he only felt blood come out of his mouth before there was nothing at all.

Grogginess enveloped every sense that Michael had, plus two. He could hardly hear anything, his eyes were too heavy to open and he didn't even remember what taste and smell were. His face hurt horribly and he was pretty sure his jaw was broken. Testing it out, he tried to move his jaw back and forth but searing pain flooded his lower face. He cried out. Yep, it was broken.

"Did you have to hit him that hard?" A distorted voice rang out through the horrible haze Michael was in.

"I had just killed a Death Dealer who shot me! I was a little more than excited!" Another voice answered the first one. A shudder shot through Michael when he heard how casually these two men were discussing the murder of one man and the assault of another.

Wait, Michael thought, What did he call that one guy?

This was way too weird for Michael to take and he tried moving. But he found that he was handcuffed by both wrists and ankles to a steel chair. That realization shocked Michael out of his semi-coma. He tore open his eyes to see an even darker and damper atmosphere than the one of the city outside. And around him were all sorts of medical equipment, even some instruments that he hadn't even seen before. But the thing that caught the utmost of his attention was the two figures that were looking intently at him.

One man had dark brown hair down past his shoulders with the deepest green eyes he'd ever scene. The other man had auburn skin tone whose hair and eyes were darker than black. They both were wearing some form of leather and looked incredibly pissed off at Michael. Michael leaned as far back in his chair as he could without falling over. The man with black walked towards him.

"Good you're up. Why the fuck were you in those bushes?" Michael could only stare at him for a reply. He was too freaked out to even blink, much less talk. But the guy was insistent.

"I asked, WHY THE FUCK WERE YOU IN THOSE BUSHES?" He raised his hand up to strike Michael but the other man's hand caught it. Michael was still cowering in his chair with a good sheen of sweat encasing him when he noticed there was no hand crushing his face again. He looked up to see the black-haired man seething at the other guy.

"Apparently, Samuel, you're still a little too excited to handle this like a civilized person." The other man stated.

Like a civilized person? Michael thought, Did you see the way he killed that one man?

Samuel was still incredibly irate but he tore his hand down from the man's grip and smashed to his side, fuming out of the room. Michael jumped at the slamming of the door. The other man had watched him leave the room and finally turned back to Michael.
"Excuse me for his behavior. I should have taught him better etiquette towards our guests." Michael gawked as best he could when he heard such his response.

"Ah, but speaking of etiquette, I should set an example, shouldn't I?" Michael's jaw dropped as far as it dare go. How could such a motley looking man be so articulate?

"I'm Lucien." A curious look came onto this Lucien's face as he tenderly reached for Michael's. Michael instinctively flinched when the man's hand touched his cheek but the pain coming from, everywhere, it seemed exploded. He cried out again.

"And Sam seems to have broken your jaw. Damn, that will set a couple things behind schedule."

What the hell is he talking about? Thought Michael. Lucien walked over the table full of medical instruments and picked up a syringe. Michael's eyes grew twice their normal size and the blood drained from his face. He thanked god that he wasn't gagged because otherwise he would have passed out from the lack of oxygen by now.

Lucien saw this and said,
"Don't worry, this will just help with the healing process."

"Haw de 'ell can it do dat?" Michael tried speaking, rather successfully, considering his current condition. A grimace fledged onto Lucien's weary face.

"By making you one of us." He said while testing the syringe in his hand. The syringe was filled with a dark-red liquid.

Oh, SHIT! Thought Michael.

Michael's eyes widened ten-fold. He started to pull at his chains and get somewhere out of here. But Lucien's strong hands grasped at his arm and he thrust the blood-filled container directly into his vein. The initial pain was bearable but when the actual blood entered his bloodstream his entire body started on fire. It started with just his arm but then it raced through his body, leaving a horrid burning everywhere except the injection site.

What the hell was in that syringe? Michael tried to shout but all he could do was scream unintelligently. He was almost about to tear out of his chains when Lucien grabbed him by the shoulders.

"BE STILL!" His voice was domineering and strong. That exclamation gave Michael enough strength to hold on to some level of decency while his blood burned him inside out.

Michael was wishing that the pain would decrease in some way, shape, or form. But it never did. And Lucien just staying in the back of the room, watching everything Michael was feeling from afar. But Michael was so tired, he didn't even care. All the pain was exhausting and he just wanted to sleep. The burn was still as brutal, he just didn't notice it as much anymore.

Then, miraculously, the pain stopped. There was no gradual waning away but it ended in a very abrupt stop. Like there hadn't even been any burn to begin with. It was like a new body was created for him with his face and he was ready to use it.

Testing out this new-found feeling, he tested his chains. They snapped apart just as easily as if they were tin-foil. Michael pulled off the chains and stood up. He felt…good. He could think of no other words. Michael looked over to Lucien, who was still crouching in the back corner, with an expecting look on his face. Strangely, Michael didn't feel wronged by him at all. He knew Lucien had granted him a new life.

Then Lucien gently walked over to Michael. He looked him over and said,

"In four day's time, the full moon will beckon to the Lycan that is now within you."

Michael just stood staring at him with a disgusted look on his face.

"You mean you turned me into a man-dog-thing?"

Lucien chuckled.

"If that's what you call it."

Michael was livid now. He threw himself at Lucien, trying to kill the fiend that turned him into something evil. He thought that the blood was just a healing anti-body, but it wasn't. It was infectious and something that wasn't entirely natural.

But as Michael charged him, Lucien picked him up and smashed him through one of the dark colored walls. A bolt of adrenaline shot through his system and with then Michael was shocked into a world he had never been to. But it felt so familiar, like a memory.

Back at the wolverine den, a feral call resounded from the darkness. A new-born was mewling for its dead mother. Its call was soft at first, but the urgency was growing.