Ties

[The Cedar Witch]

"Wait," Storm paled, watching the phone seem to appear in Damien\'s hand. "What are you doing? Didn\'t you hear what I just said?" She stood suddenly, feeling helpless to prevent the dialing of whatever number the vampire planned on calling in a speed too fast for her to see.

"He\'s going to bring him here if he knows that I told you." There was desperation leaking into her voice, as if the weight of the situation had suddenly settled on her. No way was she going to be captured by him. Not again. But Storm made no move to separate the cell phone from its owner, instead watching helplessly from afar.

[Saiketsu]

Hard eyes glared at her while the ringing lapped against his ears, too slowly for his liking. "I know," was his response, deliberate and impatient.



He was much better at singing (or screaming, depending upon how you listened to music) than Pierre could have ever hoped to be. In fact, it had always amused Poerre how musically inclined a person, but especially Nikolai, could be. His voice could reach notes that he never imagined existed within any guys\'s vocal range. And scream just like they did on the mixed tape. So when Nikolai took the stage, Pierre knew enough to get off.

"Why do you always fucking stop?"

"Stop what?" He threw a glance over at the younger vampire, who still had his feet up on Camille\'s polished dashboards.

"Don\'t fuck with me, you dick." Nikolai was smiling with a row of perfectly straight and sharp teeth, giving Pierre a confonded glare. "You always stop singing as soon as I start. It drives me nuts." There was that faint faggy lisp that few cold hear, less pronounced than Pierre\'s own accent; Pierre almost didn\'t notice it anymore.

With his eyes still on the road, his hands upon Camille\'s wheels, the two vampires sped through the inner city streets at fifty-five, Camille\'s engine purring under Pierre\'s talented hands. The vampire shifted that stick and Camille moaned for them. "I don\'t know. Maybe I just don\'t want to look like an idiot."

"Because you won\'t sing?" Nikolai scoffed at the notion of insulting him. "C\'mon Pierre."

"Whatever, man." They were both smiling now.

"What? You think I\'d show you up or something?" There was that cocky smirk on his face which was so easily picked up around this young vampire. It was hard for Pierre to be a gentleman with Nikolai around. He was rude, crass, obbnoxious, and probably the best friend to go out and have some fun with.

"Yeah, something like that."

"Fuck you, dude." The younger one pushed Pierre\'s arm which had no effect on the car.

The streets were brighter than usual tonight, twilight having faded merely an hour or so ago. The city was teaming with human life simply begging to be shared, and put plainly, Pierre was ecstatic that Damien didn\'t need him yet. He and Nikolai were going out for Drinks, maybe to get lucky on a game of pool or with the ladies, and a night out with his close friend was precisely how he wanted to spend the night off.

"So you remember that girl I was telling you about?"
"Yeah, that red Justine?"
"Yeah, that\'s the one." Pierre smirked in memory. The girl was a fox, a human with an immortal body. And rode better than Camille. "Turns out she\'s got AIDS."
"No kidding?"
"Nah, but she\'s a junky. And lemme tell you: that shit\'s strong. Got a crazy bite to it. Oof." Pierre shivered at the memory of her blood in his throat. It almost kicked the shit out of him.
"No, I know it. Mad money on the street, though, and excellent for a nice toke."
"Yeah, well, she took it pretty rough. Asked me to change her. Practically begged me."
"And what ch\'you say?"
"Fuck that, man," Pierre said with a thoughtfully doubtful expression. "She\'s a local kid. I don\'t wanna get mixed up with the Oligarchy. They\'d come straight up after me. Not to mention that Ace would have my head and I tend to like it just where it is, thanks."
"So what are you you going to do?" The younger\'s voice shifted somewhat. Pierre couldn\'t put his finger on it so he simply went on.
"Well I\'m thinking about redirecting her to someone else if she\'s so interested in dying. I\'ll tell you one thing though: she\'ll never be my fledgling. She\'s a walking fucking disaster. She\'d prolly kill three on her first night and ruin everything. Fuck it, I\'m not taking that on me."
There was a pause between the two vampires before Nikolai broke it with a sly comment. "Bet you wish you could though, huh? Just for a little fun." That smirk.
"You have no idea, Nick." They both shared a laugh.

Unbeknownst to Pierre, his cell phone had been ringing for a solid two minutes straight, drowned by the bumping bass and the blaring music. It was only when he happened to glance down at the dashboard did he see the screen light up. Damien\'s number was flashing there. Pierre strayed from Camille for a moment to flip open the phone and turn down the music (getting resistance from Nikolai, of course).

"Ahlo?"



There had been no change, of course, and part of him had already accepted that fact. Sure, he wanted to be able to fuck whomever without worrying about some prick looking in on his thrusts, but he wasn\'t expecting such consideration. He was still waiting for some kind of magic to happen in one way or another.

But, for the most part, Nikolai was content. The betrayal didn\'t weigh on his mind yet; he was refusing to think of it. It was only Pierre and him tonight, out on the town and even though he didn\'t want to get just anyone for his bed, he wasn\'t about to complain about being in Pierre\'s company.

Until his phone rang.

Damien, of course. And then it began to hit him, the gravity of what was done. A heavy, sinking feeling that the leeches had been waiting for all this time. Nikolai felt himself grow slightly angry, nausea rising in pathetically small waves. Of course he made no outward notion of his discomfort. Self-preservation, Judas breathed in his ear. Something smiled behind the leeches, cynical and evil.

Nikolai pushed the thoughts away, even as a chain of Old French filtered through the earpiece. What could he do anyway? He wasn\'t Damien\'s kid, so he couldn\'t be killed by Damien or anyone in his army, and besides that, he didn\'t know exactly what was being discussed. The two vampires conversed in versions of French all the time and none of it had ever bothered Nikolai.

So he sat there, letting the leeches eat his thoughts and emotions. Manson made his grotesque appearance on the radio three times before Pierre flipped his phone shut.

For the first time in his after life, Nikolai felt the fear of a vampire\'s face. He didn\'t even look over at Pierre as he ended the conversation. Through the edges of vision, he saw his love with that frigid expression of rigidity. Camille pushed up to eighty, straight-shot. Nikolai didn\'t have to ask. But he did.

"What did he say?"

It was only when Nikolai\'s head hit the dashboard did he realize that Pierre was stopping the car. Against the forces of gravity, Nikolai sat back up straight and watched as Camille swerved all across the road with a piercing screech. By the time she stopped, Pierre still hadn\'t moved.

"What the fuck was that for?"

Pierre\'s expression didn\'t change as he turned his head towards Nikolai. "Get the fuck out. Now, you fuck."

"What?" Shock overtook him and his dead heart filled his throat.

While Pierre was known for being one of the slowest vampires in Damien\'s army, he was more well known for his strength, which could easily taken off a man\'s head with one sweep of a fist. So even though Nikolai saw the fist coming and connecting to his lower mandible, he couldn\'t avoid it. His head shattered the glass of the passenger side window.

[The Cedar Witch]

Storm stood completely at a loss for words. "And what, that\'s it?" She watched as he turned from her, waiting for Pierre (at least, she assumed it was Pierre) to pick up the phone. Pierre was with Nikolai. And wherever Nikolai was, he was watching through his eyes, no doubt listening too. And the instant either of them realizes what exactly Storm confessed to, as soon as his \'prey\' was on the move, he would move in to strike.

"Do you even care?" fear etched its way deeply into the girl\'s voice. She found the last word caught in her throat, making her accusation sound pathetically weak to say the least. But her intense eyes, flickering an array of hues, followed the vampire as he paced the floor. Back and fourth. Although he did not speak, Storm could feel the anger radiating from him like heat from the sun. None of this deterred her.

"Are you even listening to me?" She was approaching hysterics, though only minuet amounts leaked into her voice. Everything inside of her screamed Get Out While You Still Have The Time, but the Akari was frozen in place. After an agonizing, dozen or so rings, Pierre still did not pick up. Thousands of scenarios ran through her mind, most involving him intercepting the two on their drive to god-knew-where, and some fight ensuing.

The fast, nearly unbroken, angry stream of French caused her to jump. So Pierre wasn\'t in the midst of a battle. That thought brought her less comfort then she would have liked. The language that she had grown to love, no matter how sparingly it was spoken over the course of the four months she spent in Damien\'s company, now caused her to tremble in anxiety. It frustrated her that she didn\'t know what was being said, and she didn\'t know how to brace her mind for what was to come.

The conversation seemed endless, and the girl\'s mind traced back through unpleasant memories, as if reminding her of what may occur if she didn\'t get the fuck out. Now. The trembling that had begun in her hands crept slowly through her body, something she was hoping Damien wouldn\'t notice because she was feeling weak enough as it is. There was no way in hell she was going back. No fucking way in hell.

[Saiketsu]

The phone flipped shut and Damien tried to relax, cold blood that desperately now needed to be refreshed rushing sluggishly through his veins. He couldn\'t think too much. Damien was getting a headache as all the images of his purpose and life flooded his mind.

Of course he had heard her. Of course he cared. Of course he could feel her fear pulsing in his veins. Or was that his own? "Of course I am," he said finally through his masked anger. The vampire looked up at her with intense, unreadible eyes.

"But I need to ask something. Are you ready to go out now?"



Black flowers bloomed over his vision, but he wasted no time. "Get out!" But he never listened in the first place. Without checking his injuries, the younger vampire threw a a fist around at the blonde, watching as it connected with his cheekbone. In the time it took for Pierre to recover, Nikolai was out of the car in a wild, Judas-inspired rage.

Nausea complicated the situation as Nikolai waited for Pierre to recover, black blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. His scalp felt wet and sticky as Pierre stepped out of the car. The Judas tried to take hold of the reins, but never did he imagine that he\'d be fighting Pierre, his precious Jean-Luc.

But the blonde was on a rampage, filled with utter hatred for him that wasn\'t misplaced. And when he approached the sidewalk on which Nikolai stood, there would be no stopping him. His jaw felt like rubber; if he weren\'t already dead a blow like that would have killed him intantaneously. Nikolai couldn\'t tell if that was a good or a bad thing.

"What have you done!" Pierre\'s expression ran feral as he grabbed Nikolai by the collar without much effort. How could he fight him? Jean-Luc. Self-preservation.

"I did what I had to do," Nikolai spat, struggling to free himself from the elder\'s iron grip. "I don\'t expect you to understand."

"Damn right I don\'t. What the fuck is wrong with you?" The elder released him with a hard shove that left Nikolai degraded and on his ass.

"Me!? What the fuck is wrong with you!? Go ahead Pierre, follow Damien around like a blind fucking dog. That\'s all you\'ll ever be to him anyway." His mouth was on fire: it could speak all the anger he had held back from the blonde and his undying committment to Damien and Damien alone. Still it couldn\'t find the fire to tell him what had happened, or his feelings, or anything at all.

"You little prick." Pierre had grabbed him by the collar and followed it up by picking him off the ground as if he weighed nothing in the first place. A brick wall of the alley that the pair was in found Nikolai\'s back hard enough to make his own personal dent. "How dare you speak of things you have no idea about!" He made sure that Nikolai\'s head cracked against the brick. The white flash that passed through his head at that moment churned the nausea he had in the first place.

Nikolai fought, of course. His leg bent up to knee the frenchman in the chin, knocking himself loose. The vampire slid down the wall roughly, unaccompanied by either Judas or the leeches.

The leeches. They were in his mind, he could feel them there. Could feel them holding back strength and motivation. He heard a laugh and began to understand as Pierre recovered. Laurent was there, alright. He was leaving Nikolai to finally fight his own battles, acting as a spectator from the front row. Smiling.

"You prick," he said outloud. This was what he wanted, wasn\'t it? If it were at all possible, Nikolai\'s heart would have broke as Pierre made that last charge in his direction.

As much as he may have liked being with Pierre, there was no possible way he\'d let himself resist this battle. Pierre would wreck him, wring him out and leaving him to dry in the sun. It was expected and inevitable. He would fight even if it killed him. If his precious Jean-Luc would kill him.

Nikolai let out a hiss as the elder vampire threw a kick into his ribcage, breaking them easily. Pain flared up in his dead organs, somewhat like fire in his body. Another kick. And another, until the younger reached out and grabbed Pierre\'s lega dn toppled him. The two wrestled on the ground, arms swinging and landing with bone-breaking intensity. They were a hissing, searing mess of limbs.

The two separated via visicious shoves on either side, each vampire licking wounds and shooting daggers at the other.

"Do you even know what you\'ve done!? Laurent knows where we are now, all of us! You\'ve put the entire empire in danger, you fuck!" Pierre gasped between thick, weary breaths. "Me, Storm, Damien --"

"Oh fuck Damien for a minute, Pierre and think for yourself!" Nikolai saw the wounded expression, wide-eyed shock of his best friend, his love, his precious Jean-Luc. But that mouth kept running out of pure frustration and hatred from Damien. It hurt to say it, but it just flowed from his mouth. "You might as well let him fuck you, you pussy. He\'s got you so wrapped around that little finger of his that you might as well as be his bitch. You\'re his pussy, Pierre. Fucking think for yourself for the first time in your life!" There. It was out. Nausea swept over him again.

The shock and injury turned to pure rage. His hand shot out and wrapped around Nikolai\'s throat. This is it, he thought, the hand squeezing hard, nails digging holes. "You faggot. Go back to Laurent so he can give you what you\'re so begging for, to get what\'s coming to you. I hope he makes a rag out of you and that ass of yours, you faggot." Pierre shoved him back down on his ass, laying in the dirt. "You\'re lucky I can\'t kill you, you fucking faggot."

Without another word and only a look of disgust given to the vampire on the ground, Pierre stood and got back into Camille, burning out as he left.

Faggot. It was a degradation and that was the only thing he felt as he lay in the earth. Nikolai only watched Camille leave with half-open eyes. The leeches retreated with a cackle that made Nikolai want to heave up all the blood that he had ever consumed.

He was all alone in some muddy alley. No Judas. No fucking Laurent. No Pierre.

I love you, he wanted to say. I\'m sorry, he wanted to say. I never wanted to betray you, he wanted to say. But they don\'t call me Judas for nothing.

[The Cedar Witch]

Helplessness. Total helplessness. She didn\'t feel heard, even if he had claimed that he was indeed listening to her. If he had listened, he wouldn\'t have called, alerting Nikolai, alerting him. The control over the whole predator-prey situation had quietly slipped from her hands, and the game was on a whole new playing field. Short-lived peace. Go out? When he could be waiting outside as they spoke? Waiting to strike at their most vulnerable, when confusion had swept them into a frantic state? And then what?

"I\'m still--"

And then something hit her in the back of the head, nothing hard enough to give her any large amounts of pain, but enough to alert her attention. The girl spun around suddenly, searching wildly for the cause, finding nothing. The Akari\'s eyes flickered with renewed fear, and she turned back to Damien with a puzzled, terrified expression. "What\'s--"

Again, pain came flooding into her abdomen, momentarily paralyzing her lungs. Breathe. Wild panic seized her in that moment of suffocation, tears pooling at the corners of her eyes. Her mind was thrown into a frenzy as the shadows moved to mentally protect themselves from any attack. But there was nothing. Inhale. With her lungs suddenly freed, she gasped, sputtering an exhale before she had any time to savor the air that had been finally taken in. The girl could feel the skin on her abdomen beginning to bruise. Already. And suddenly the thought occurred to her.

"Nikolai was attacked," she managed to sputter, inhaling and exhaling too fast for her to recover from the initial blow. It was all too real now. Everything she had suspected in Nikolai had just been verified. There were strong ties between the three of them, and he had the vampire wrapped around his finger, doing his dirty work. It was already too late for her, Storm was sure of it. Fuck. Dry-heaves nearly overtook her, labored coughs echoing through the apartment.

Shakily she walked over to the couch, trembling with more panic then before she had even felt anything physical as she sat. Never before, not in the beginning, had she ever felt this much fear for the Zalmric. Not when he had taken her that first time into his bed. Not when he commanded her to kill without emotion. Not when she had killed without emotion. Nothing. Nothing but a dull numbness that called for her to preform her duty as his. But it was different now. Now she had punishment to suffer. The consequences of acting outside of strict orders, destroying everything he had invested his time into, and taking off for god-knew-how-long.

Storm tried to control her breathing with every calming technique known to man, but nothing took the reins from Fear. He was coming for her, she could nearly feel it. The shadows dancing just below her skin devoured her fear, growing stronger, causing disgust to posses her mind alongside of the initial panic.

"He\'s going to find me," the girl whispered, unable to control the tremor in her voice. Above everything she wanted to be rid of the shadows, the memories, and the fear.

[Saiketsu]

He had almost forgotten how warm living flesh could be when fear and panic took over. He was on his knee in front of her as her eyes flickered wild colors of reds, browns, and shades of blacks, and his cold hands were on her shoulders. Her gaze was vacant and here breaths were painful enough for even Damien to feel as he looked upon her. The panic was palpable and partially contagious.

Storm. Nikolai. Laurent. They were all connected now, and Storm was feeling the results of it. The thought made his jaw rigid with anger.

"Nikolai was attacked," she had said. It didn\'t take Damien much time to guess who may have done that. Good, he thought, enjoying the fact that Nikolai wasn\'t getting out of this without some kind of punishment from his end of the stick. That little fuck deserved to have the shit kicked out of him, and there was no one better to do it than Pierre. If Damien had his way, Nikolai would have been burned for his treason against the crown, just like it was supposed to be, but the last thing he needed was the Oligarchy wandering into his own business while the empire was still weakened. Damien\'s own reputation was already murky enough and he didn\'t need some vampire\'s blood on his hands. Nikolai wasn\'t even worth that much to him.

He had lost his researcher, his most clever vampire in losing Nikolai, but he was expendable if Damien grit his teeth. There was nothing, Damien decided as he looked up into Storm\'s face, that could ever redeem Nikolai. God save him once this city is mine.

"No, he\'s not, Storm." His grip was strong and determined, but the girl didn\'t look up at him still. Damien tried to get her attention, but she refused him, he eyes pointed down and out, avoiding anymore connection. He said her name and, without thinking, place his hands on both sides of her face, something he had down several time before to a similar woman centuries ago. Storm yielded to him, allowing that connection through. "No one is going to find you because we\'re not staying here." His voice was calm and even as he looked into her eyes, certain memories filing out of her clouded eyes. There, Laurent smiled through memory, and Storm reacted with a flood of new panic.

"Do you trust me?" It was a problem they had constantly had from the beginning: trust. It was a hard thing to do when all you knew was dishonesty. He had felt it himself ages ago, felt it towards his youngest descendants who had not yet proved loyalty to their Father. But to feel it from Storm... that was.. different.

[The Cedar Witch]

"I\'m trying," Storm softly answered, the tremors running through her body lessening to a degree. His calm and even voice was much comfort to her, though she couldn\'t recognize it at first. It wasn\'t an instant flood of peace, but something she felt as though she could lean on, if only for a moment to regain her footing. Funny, she didn\'t mind his attempts to calm her now when before she would have flinched away from his touch.

It was the trust factor that the Akari was having difficulty with, as always. Their relationship wasn\'t nearly as abrasive as it once had been, four months prior to everything. Whether it was genuine on her part, or simply her habit of falling into a pattern of expectations, she found it easier to deal with Damien. He wasn\'t as frightening or intimidating as he had been back when everything was completely new. She didn\'t dread his company, to say the least.

But trust? That was something a bit more complicated, even with the friendship. Sure, he knew a hell of a lot about what had happened to her, but she never really went into much detail (mostly for her own sake). But would she risk leaving the safety of the apartment (or what safety remained) and venture out in the open, with nothing but Damien to keep her from recapture? Yes.

"I do not want to go back," the girl expressed firmly through her teeth, fingernails digging into the palms of her hands. The colors had settled on flickering from gray to red, and Storm hadn\'t even noticed that she had relaxed enough for this to occur. She looked at him with an expression of hesitation mixed with distant hope. She wanted to leave.

[Saiketsu]

He pulled her into his chest, a motion he was becoming used to while she was panicking. He had done it out at the Lighthouse when she had awaken from a dream months ago. But he held her there, trying to take her worry into his hollowed chest.

She didn\'t trust him, and while he understood completely as to why she couldn\'t, it didn\'t make things easier for either of them in this mess of joint existence. It frustrated him, but it wasn\'t anything he wasn\'t unaccustomed to after these past few months. Damien had a heart -- however dead it may have been -- and he could give her the benefit of the doubt here, but he couldn\'t help but wonder how long her mistrust would last.

It was odd to be so close to her. She was warmer than typical, emotion flooding her skin. Her head lay just below his collar bone and he could smell her easily, which didn\'t help his welling Thirst or the need to kill. Nonetheless, he felt oddly comforted by having Storm there, his arms wrapped around her, holding her fast. He tried not to question it, but thoughts flooded his mind about a life once had versus a life that was lived currently. And, as if it were a catalyst of some sort, her emotions mingled with his own and the discomfort or confusion of holding her, of protecting her and securing her and her sanity faded. It was simply an embrace of a friend, of Storm, whose mind was so utterly entranced with chaos this was the only possible help he could offer.

He couldn\'t have said exactly how long he held her, but it became less of a problem the longer he did it, something that would disturb him later. Something hot and wet nearly seared his skin as he continued to hold her; she was crying silently.

Storm never cried, something for which Damien was thankful for. He hated to see a girl cry; it pulled at him somewhere when they did, making him feel guilty about something he did, like claiming them as a child or killing their lover or family. It was something that his sister had instilled in him long ago, back in France. But he had only seen Storm cry once, that night she had awoken from her sleep. Tonight, he said nothing to her and just let her have her time, trying to remain as unmoving as he could. He felt no guilt for this. None.

[The Cedar Witch]

She sighed and relaxed almost immediately with the sudden rush of physical contact. This was the flood Storm subconsciously was waiting for. But in that instant that the damn of tension broke free, she felt as though everything were falling apart. The peace she had become so accustomed to for the past for months, no matter how short that seemed. She had allowed herself to become so comfortable without hardly thinking of him at all, letting her guard down enough to let Damien, just a little bit. It was routine, and the Akari had been so completely fine with it.

But Nikolai had thrown everything off balance for her. From that second meeting, she had suspected that something was going on behind the scenes, but made no indication of her concern. The girl was kicking herself for it now. But it was too late now, there would be no going back in time to make changes. The sanctuary from her years of wandering was actually falling apart, slipping through her fingers.

She was hardly aware of the fact that she was crying, her attention acutely focused on how comfortable she felt in his arms. Even if he wasn\'t living and warm. For a second Storm found herself back at the Lighthouse, back when she had that last encounter with him in her dreams, back when she panicked. It was different this time, the embrace more effective and felt with a completely different attitude. And no, she did not feel like a tool.

No noise escaped her lips, no sobs caused her shoulders to shake. The only movement was her uneven breathing and occasional hiccup of tears. Eventually, when the flow of hot, salty emotion slowed, she found her rhythmic breathing again. She made no initial move to pull away from him, finding his strong presence enough reassurance for her to actually trust him this time. Still she was silent, waiting for him to make a move.

[Saiketsu]

He had hardly noticed her tension ebb as she sat there in his arms. He was enjoying her scent. He was enjoying her mortal flesh and its glorious heat. It almost made him miss being human. So he hardly noticed that his arms were comfortable or that she had stopped crying until the heat withdrew somewhat. A type of simple embarrassment flooded him. It was unlike him to space out so much, to become that openly physical with anyone.

With soft ease, Damien pulled himself away from Storm, keeping the attention of the now-focusing eyes of the girl on his own. "Listen to me," he spoke softly, a rare gentleness in his expression. His hands were on her shoulders again, something which ordinarily would have felt too personal for him. "You\'re safe with me. Nothing is going to happen. You and I are simply going to relocate from now on. We need to go out. You need to go into the woods to do your own thing before you... you know. I\'m going to set something up involving somewhere to stay tomorrow. Just relax." And then a smirk appeared on his face. "I\'ve got a small army of near-indestructible vampires at my fingertips. What makes you think you\'re in danger?"