Disclaimer: I don't own Blade or any of its characters. I do Max, Xavier, Rev, and Cam, so no stealing!
Chapter 25: Talking with Death
Drake sat before Zoë, who was sitting quietly in Max's lap. The older woman had her arms wrapped safely around the little girl she was slowly growing to love as her own daughter with each passing minute that they were in Phoenix Towers. Now they were shackled to the floor of Drake's quarters. He sat before them, face blank and calm, his right arm encased in one of the armored gauntlets from his burial armor while the rest of the armor had been propped up on a stand nearby.
"Do you know who I am?" he asked Zoë calmly, staring straight at her.
"You're the Gnome King," she replied, remembering what her mother had read from the Oz book about the Nome King, who had never done any good. Drake was the same way. He actually seemed amused by her choice and smiled at her.
"Ah, "The Gnome King"," he repeated. "How sweet," he told her. His smile quickly faded though as he leaned closer to her. "Tell me, child. Do you want to die?"
"Shut up," Max ordered, tightening her hold on Zoë, who remained defiant.
"I'm not afraid," she replied. "I'll go to Heaven."
"There is no Heaven. No God. No angels. No happy ending for good little girls," he told her simply. "The only thing in your future is nothingness. But what if you could change that? What if you could remain a child forever?"
"Leave her alone, you sick fuck," Max demanded through gritted teeth, but Drake ignored her and reached out to Zoë, running a sharp fingernail over her cheek.
"Wouldn't you like that?" he asked the child. "Wouldn't you accept that gift?" Max reached up to push his hand out of the way, but Zoë reached out first and calmly touched Drake's icy cheek.
"My friends are coming to kill you," she told him, and Max smiled as Drake dropped his hand from her with a smile.
"Good girl," Max muttered into Zoë's ear, kissing the top of her head.
"And you?" Drake questioned, moving his eyes away from Zoë's and up to Max's.
Max tried to look away, but his pupils seemed to widen until the darkness nearly occluded the whites of his eyes. Zoë stared at him, unaffected by his eyes, but Max couldn't tear her gaze away. His eyes were hypnotic, and she felt as though she was being pulled into him. No other vampire had done this to her, or made her feel that way before. It had to be that hypnotic stare that Bramstoker wrote about Mina being drawn in by.
Perfect, just fucking perfect.
"And me, what?" she replied a bit shakily, trying to maintain a strong tone.
"You used to be a vampire. I can smell it on you," he stated.
"And I can smell Danica's fucking hairspray and piss perfume all over you," she retorted tonelessly, still trying to break the gaze. Drake smiled as she replied, since her voice wasn't as strong as it was while he was talking to Zoë.
"You gave up immortality once. And for what, the humans? For mortality, pain, death?"
Max frowned, her hold on Zoë loosening a bit. Drake wasn't wrong. Since she'd been human, all she had was death at every turn. It was then that some lackey vampire of Danica's entered the room. At Drake's nod, the vampire unlocked Zoë's chains and picked her up. The little girl called for Max, but she was already too far gone in Drake's hypnotic stare.
"What if you could keep this doll-like face of yours until the sun itself cooled to a cold, hard rock?" he asked, reaching forward and running the back of his fingers over her cheek until he grasped her chin.
"I prefer having a pulse," she replied. "Do you even care what happens to them, to your children?" she asked pointedly.
"They think through me they can become Daywalkers," he replied simply.
"Is that even true?"
"Why do you want to know?"
"Just see if my night life is going to bleed into my day time."
"Tell about yourself, about your relationship with Blade and the human hunters," he demanded.
"I can tell you two things," she began firmly, still unblinking and voice shaking. "One, touch me or Zoë again, and Blade won't get a chance to kill you. Two, you are so going to die and all your fucked up children with you." Drake simply chuckled.
"We'll see," he replied, slowly moving his hand on her skin and down her throat. It took all of Max's strength not to shiver in disgust. "We'll see."
P.S.: Three pages total.