"Money up front," she had said with a delectable smile. She was new at this whole game. She was still beautiful, touched by only three dirty men within two nights, the tender age of seventeen. Heeled open-toed shoes with pretty purple polished toes, mini skirt and v-neck tank; it made what blood he had left in his veins pulse wildly. This girl, Rachelle, with her faux blonde hair and fragile face was perfect for the time being.
And it was all too unfortunate for her, because now she was pressed against the scummy, brick wall of an apartment building with a strength she had never known in her entire life. The strength of a vampire, of Nikolai pressing her, breaking the delicate bones of her shoulders against the wall with his own hands. She was crying, of course, shaking with terror and anger while those thin limbs scratched at his skin and clothing. And he was letting her too, making her death look less suspicious. He hated giving them painful deaths when he wasn\'t in the mood to watch them struggle or he wanted the blood badly enough. But Nikolai knew that it was needed to maintain a facade, so he let her while the Thirst raged inside him.
He hadn\'t given her death much thought, really. And as her defensiveness was failing, her arms becomming more and more numb and the sense of hopelessness eating her alive, Nikolai began to think of how this corpse could be hidden. The strength in his arms released the mortal girl and poor Rachelle slid down the wall, slumped and still crying.
Down the street was the nightclub, Risk. He had heard about it through a very distant friend, one on the farthest reaches of the Ring. This guy, Damien, was very old, everyone knew that. And while Nikolai didn\'t like him much, him and his ideas of a vampire army and some bitch that was his dead lover reawakened, Nikolai understood that Damien knew what he was talking about when it came to such matters of disposing the evidence of a kill.
Nikolai hadn\'t thought this through well enough. He had broken this girl\'s arms and couldn\'t leave her body in the open. The wound in his throat and the mindblowing headache forced him to act on impulse, picking up a prostitute instead of waiting the fifteen minutes to get to the club where victims were willing and could be disposed of easily enough. It was that Akari that got him into this mess and now what could he do?
"Get up," he commanded softly to her, forcing her to draw away. The vampire reached down and picked her up by her arm and she let out a scream of agony. He held her close though she wriggled against him and bit into the soft flesh of her neck. She quivered and wriggled while her blood flowed into him, filling him with warmth. But he pulled away and looked at her, his wound becomming less noticable, his lips tainted. Rachelle looked dizzy, needed help standing. Nikolai gripped her waist and helped her stand, beginning to walk. "Play along and I won\'t kill you," he lied.
They appeared at the doors to Risk within minutes, a shorter walk than Nikolai was expecting. He grinned fakely at the bouncer, showing his teeth and she smiled nervously. In they went, the smells of human sweat permeating the air and driving him insane. He went to the first available nook he saw, right next to the mortal bathrooms, pushed her against the wall gently. "Good work." He locked onto her throat with a force that broke her neck and drained her of her life. Nikolai let the body fall to the ground and walked away. Poor Rachelle.
The vampire walked out, looking towards the dancefloor, Marilyn Manson reverberating off the walls.
Digging your smile apart
With my spade-tounge.
The hole is where the heart is.
We built this tomb together,
And I won\'t fill it alone.
Beyond the pale
Everything is black,
No turning back.
It all made him smile. But he wanted more, more blood, more mayhem. The flashing lights and the pressing crowd. Nikolai breathed deep all that was Risk, his throat a sharp glimmering pain and the headache barely touched.
But that body. Poor, poor Rachelle. She had done her job well and he couldn\'t simply leave her there to rot, right? But who to tell?[/COLOR]
As he turned, a mix of Nine Inch Nails\' classic "Closer" faded, to be replaced with the exuberant bass of Tommie Sunshine\'s remix of "Wine Red" by The Hush sound.
Who shot that arrow in your throat?
Who missed the crimson apple?
It hung heavy on the tree above your head
This chaos, this calamity
This garden once was perfect
Give your immortality to me
I\'ll set you up against the stars
[/I]
"Morgaine," she told him over the piano-laden track, feeling generous. It wouldn\'t do to lose him so early; he was dead fascinating. Plus, she was a sucker for a guy with tattoos and eyeliner, undead or not.
The money they lost on her in drinks was more than made up for by the revenue her band brought in. She was the only one who came in here with any regularity outside of shows. Still, the comment made her giggle, "Aw, they love me here," She said, "Well, the groupies hate me with a passion, but what else is new?" As if to prove her point, the young women at the other end of the bar – the ones the barkeep had been sweet talking just a few minutes before – were glaring daggers at her behind Nick\'s back. Morgaine cheerfully showed them her middle finger.
They loved her because she was so unpredictable. Which is to say, one never knew when she might get bored and decide to take her shirt off and start dancing on the bar; when Morgaine was around, it was always a party.
Speaking to her unpredictable nature, she switched topics on a dime, bringing up the topic the liquor had made her brave enough to broach, "What happened to your neck?" she asked, "I thought you fuckers were supposed to heal with a quickness."
She signaled the barkeep for another drink, but shook her head when he started to pour another shot. He looked singularly disappointed as he slid a chilled beer down the bar into her waiting hand.