Roleplay City
Infusco => INFUSCO: Enter The Shadows => Tantric => Topic started by: Ehcorn on March 21, 2020, 05:50:32 PM
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For the entirety of the ride, William kept his promise: he sat rigidly, his hands clasped over the lap band of his seat belt, and didn’t say a single word to Mick. He let the human marinate in his worry and concern and disappeared within himself, his expression taking on the same cadaver-like blankness it had when Mick had come home and found him unresponsive on the couch. William hung suspended in the blank space between thoughts, not stirring until the GPS announced that they’d reached their destination and Mick found a spot to pull over.
Replacing the steady whir of tires rolling on asphalt and the hum of the engine was a pulsing bass-filled beat that thrummed through him, setting his teeth on edge. He hated clubs, especially ones designed to keep his kind from entering. Even from their spot across the street, he could feel the protection runes pushing at him, repelling him both body and mind. There was no point in trying to push back. He’d attempted it before. The wards were too strong.
William looked at Mick, but encountered yet another deterrent. Neon lights that flashed in sync with too-loud music were painfully bright to his sensitive eyes and he was forced to look away.
"Go inside and collect someone that won’t be missed," he said, wincing. He spread his fingers on the tops of his thighs and when he spoke next, it was as he stared out his window at a brick wall that was kind enough not to flash at him. "I’ll wait in the van."
-
Mick wasn't dressed up for clubbing, but his jeans and tee were presentable and his leather jacket and boots gave his outfit a finishing touch that would hopefully get him inside. He wasn't in the right headspace for clubbing or enticing someone to leave with him so it was a surprise that William had instructed him to drive to one.
Why was he here instead of at the vampire club? Why did he have to pick up instead of William? Wouldn't he find some of the groupies more compliant? It made no sense.
He glanced over at William, at the state of his clothing, and figured that must've been why he hadn't gone to the other club and why he wasn't going into this one. He didn't realise that many of Venture's mortal visitors were protected with a tattooed sigil upon their wrist, or the security cameras that would identify which vampire had taken someone out of the club who'd then gone missing over the next few days. Even in his ignorance of these two things, Mick sighed and didn't argue but he shot William a look of resignation before jumping out of the van and shutting the door after himself.
"Will you be waiting in the back?" Mick asked, wondering if the snatch-and-grab needed him to cajole his prize into the back with promises of hot and heavy, or if he could just get them close to the vehicle and then William could do the rest with his fancy mind fuckery.
Once armed with his answer, he swept a hand through his hair and crossed the road towards the club that had an impressive blue neon pulsing effect around its doors and blackened windows. He could feel the beat in every step of his boots as he got closer. Instead of lining up, he flashed his best smile at the bouncers. One of them thumbed in the direction to the back of the queue but the other one questioned Mick on what he rode. After naming the model bike he had and making light conversation about different models of bikes, he was let inside after some innuendo about riding other big things (standard fare) and he disappeared into the dark, following the glow of neon runes into the dance area proper.
It was a typical nightclub, where a beat was felt in the chest as well as in the ears. There were a lot of sweaty, gyrating bodies on the dancefloor and sweaty, pushy bodies at the bar, four deep by the look. With no tables to stand at or chairs to sit on, Mick put his shoulder to a support column to lean and watch, making sure he was a short distance from the entry/exit and checking out the place for loners. A lot of the folks here were in groups so he would need to find someone on their own. More often than not, going to a club on your own meant you didn't want to leave on your own.
Through the haze of the smoke machine he found it really hard to see. He noticed there was a girl at a table checking him out but she was with a quartet of women who were chugging drinks and shrieking laughter. He wouldn't be able to separate her from them. Breaking eye contact, he made eye contact with a burly guy staring at him from near the bar. Mick looked away hurriedly. He didn't want to pick up a guy who, if suspicious, could snap him in two. He scanned the club for more possibilities.
-
It was difficult to stand out in a crowd as big as the one that’d gathered at Tantric, but Felicia did alright for herself. Half of the looks she caught were because of her hair, though. The long, curling strands transitioned from bright red at the roots to a lighter though no less fiery hued orange at the tips. For a fire nymph, it wasn’t an unusual shade, but most her kin dyed their hair more neutral human colors. Her mother had lost her mind when she’d found out Felicia had stopped. But it’d been weeks — months, even — since she’d heard anything about nymph attacks.
The danger had passed. Why not reap the full benefits of her fae heritage?
No one ignored her when she started through the throng surrounding the bar. She danced with and shimmied her way past them until she hit the counter and leaned over it to wave a hand filled with a wad of cash at the bartender. Felicia left with two drinks and a grin that stretched across her heavily made-up face. Dark lipstick drew attention to her shapely mouth, thick winged eyeliner and fake lashes to her amber eyes, and it was all tied together by the vivid streaks of blush that highlighted her cheekbones. Her simple red lace cami and tight black jeans had been chosen in much the same way, meant to compliment and draw attention to a petite frame made lithe from long hours spent at a dance studio.
She paused at the edge of the dance floor and sipped at her drink as she searched the surrounding area for the friend she’d left there. In the short amount of time she’d been gone, Lilly had wormed her way onto a prized sofa and was busy sucking some guy’s face off. Felicia giggled into her cup. If there was one way to forget a bad breakup, it was that. Good for her.
And good for her. She had two drinks, now. She could either drink it or share with the hottie in a leather jacket off by himself looking all lost and alone. Felicia made eye contact and lifted the cup his direction, smiling encouragement.
"You want?" she called out, though she wouldn’t be surprised if her words were swallowed by the music before they reached him.
-
Mick scanned the open room until he caught sight of the flame-haired hottie gesturing at him. He didn't hear her, the music was too loud for that, but the lift of the second glass in her hand towards him was obvious enough. Instead of doing what he would ordinarily do in that situation (tip his head for her to come to him), he moved away from his standing spot and went to her.
Don't be so eager, he thought, but the advice he gave himself was lost in the nervousness of his earlier experience that night.
Once he was close enough to take the drink, he looked at the glass in her hand as he accepted it. Then he lifted his gaze to her face, taking in her prettiness and the confidence that came with it. There was a strange sensation roiling in his gut as he stared at her, but he pushed a smile through it and then swallowed the drink in one go. Lowering it, he lifted his other hand to wipe his lips with the back of his wrist.
"Thanks," he said to her, then looked at the group of four girls out to his left. The girl eyeing him before gave him a death glare and turned back to her friends. Lost that one. His stare shifted to the bulky guy in the corner. Nope, haven't lost that one yet.
He looked back at the redhead. "You have pretty hair."
You have pretty hair? The fuck? He inspected the empty glass in his hand, wishing he had more to drink.
-
Felicia flashed a smile and twined a finger around an orangish-red curl. She was tempted to give her usual response of, ‘I made it myself,’ but she wasn’t sure how well the joke would go over with nervous Nellie. Her luck and it’d only make him run. He was too nice to look at to want anywhere except right in front of her.
"You're sweet," she said instead, accepting the compliment with a flutter of her eyelashes.
He hadn’t approached with the most graceful of come-ons, but she’d take sweetly awkward over lewd grabbiness any day. Holding her mostly full cup out to her side so it wouldn’t slosh all over them, she stepped forward and pressed onto her toes to bring herself closer to hearing range. She slid the tips of her fingers to his chest, using the excuse of needing additional stability to make first contact with him.
"I'm Felicia." Her voice was still raised above what it would've been if they'd met somewhere meant for conversation. "What's your name?"
-
He watched her twirl her hair and accept the compliment. Thank fuck the interest she had in him was high enough to carry his shitty starter. He normally didn't have trouble with picking up, playing it cool often worked for him, but then again he didn't keep track of his rejections because he only counted the nights themselves rather than the amount of strike-outs he got before someone came home with him. Girls were a lot easier than guys and were more of his preference anyway. If he went with a guy they were either very pretty and more than a touch feminine, or intensely brutish and the kind that scared him a little.
When she told him her name and asked for his, Mick's eyes flicked to the thug in the corner again and this time he thought he caught a smirk. Damnit. He had to stop looking that way. Mick readjusted his focus and gave... Fuschia(?)... a smouldering smile he knew usually went over well when picking up.
"Mick," he said. He stared at her for way too long as he struggled for something to say. His brain began barking orders at him to 'ask her a question any question damnit' but then it refused to come up with a single thing. So he just stared at her without any of his previous smoulder and the roiling in his gut strengthened, making him wish he'd had a water instead of alcohol.
-
The look he gave her was filled with the sort of heat that would melt glaciers. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. Good God, he was stupidly sexy. If she walked out of the club and his face was plastered to some advertisement for watches or cologne or whatever models peddled, she wouldn’t be the tiniest bit surprised. Maybe it was why he could look at her that way but when it came to talking, he looked as nervous as Robbie Gibson when he’d asked her to a middle school dance — seconds before he’d puked all over her.
That was not an experience she wanted to repeat.
Felicia’s eyebrows, only a shade darker than her vivid red hair, dipped and transformed her bitten lip from an expression of interest to one of apprehension. She settled onto her heels, retracting her fingers from Mick’s chest to wrap both her hands around her sweaty cup as she took a step back.
Normally, this would be when she disengaged and found someone easier, but Mr. Model’s cheekbones and jaw and perfect nose had earned him a second chance.
"It’s okay. We don’t have to talk." She grinned and reached for his hand. "Come dance with me instead. You do dance, don’t you?"
-
Mick, who had a model for a brother, didn't have the temperament for standing around or sitting still, making small adjustments and shifts for perfectionist photographers. But he did have similar looks, and he was more filled out than the delicate frame Ben possessed because he'd both aged beyond his teen years and tended towards jobs that required heavy lifting.
It was enough that he didn't have to work too hard to glean interest from someone, but now with the order ringing in his ears that he had to bring someone out to his new boss, it upped the stakes. He read her shift in expression correctly and it only served to make him more frustrated and desperate to keep her on hook. So as soon as she mentioned dancing, he was nodding his response.
"Yeah, let's do that." He held her hand firmly in his own and turned to the dance floor. Now that he had a task to fulfill, he pulled her along with confidence. His empty glass was dumped onto a table they passed, and he ignored the glares he got from the group sitting there.
They reached the edge of the dance floor but he continued farther in, pushing his way into the throng and pulling Fifi(?) after himself. Once they were somewhere near the middle he turned and faced her and began moving fluidly to the beat, staring at her intensely, willing her to be enchanted enough with him that they could leave together.
-
When Mick dragged Felicia across the floor at warp speed, it tore a surprised laugh from her throat and had her increasing her pace to a jog to keep up with his long stride. Some of her drink sloshed onto her hand and dripped down her forearm. She was quick to prevent more accidents by slurping at the fruity concoction between steps, draining at least half before they hit the dance floor.
If she’d known he’d take off like a spaceship on a mission to Mars, she would’ve gotten rid of it first, but there wasn’t much she could about it now. Leaving would mean any one of the many girls eying him could insert themselves in her place, so she incorporated the drink into her dance, matching Mick’s rhythm while ensuring she didn’t dump the rest on either of them.
All her doubts about him disappeared as she discovered he was much better at dancing than he had been at talking.
They started out separately, but as they continued dancing, they’d draw near and pull away, exchanging a brush here, a touch there, and then he captured her hips in his hands and she didn’t dance away again. Felicia smiled and hung her arms loosely over his broad shoulders, bringing herself close enough she could feel his breath hot on her cheek and heat radiating between them. Lost in the moment, she forgot the drink in her hand until it slipped from her fingers. Her eyes grew wide. Even with the music beating fast and loud, the sound of glass shattering was unmistakable.
Felicia thunked her head against Mick’s chest, hiding her face and the color she could feel rising in her cheeks.
"Oh God," she groaned laughingly. "I dropped my drink. Careful where you step."
-
Mick relaxed by degrees, almost forgetting why he was here, dancing with her. He began to enjoy himself while focussing on her. She was pretty and obviously into him and smiles seeped out onto his lips as he familiarised himself with her motions.
When the glass broke it shattered the facade he'd built around himself. He pulled away to look down on it, his boots stepping on it. A few other dancers looked down as well. More glass than drink it became an island on the dance floor, reflecting the lights. Someone nearby called out for an employee and Mick thought it would be a good time to leave.
He moved to his prize's ear. "Let's get out of here," he said, clamping a hand on hers and zooming them out just as fast as they'd gone in. Once off the dance floor he was disoriented, unsure which way the exit was. How much time had they spent dancing? He had no idea but there had been a lot of songs. Would William be pissed? Nah, he'd have sent a message to hurry up. He looked at her, at his prize. Would anyone miss her? His gut clenched again.
-
Felicia blinked up at him, confusion etched across her flushed face. With the single-minded way he’d marched her off the dance floor, she thought he was on the hunt for a secluded place to make out, or an even more secluded place for a quick hookup, but he hesitated and stopped and she wasn’t so sure anymore. And why was he looking at her the same way he had when she’d tried — without success — to get him to talk to her? They didn't need to talk. Hadn't he realized that yet? He'd gotten her all hot and bothered without saying a word. Dancing didn't require words. Neither would spending the night together.
She just needed to get the ball rolling that direction.
Biting her lip, she twisted her hand in his and moved around to face him and press herself close. Her other hand was caught between them, splayed against his chest.
"How about," she drawled, tilting her head back to smile at him as she tapped her fingers in mock-thought, "we go back to my place? I live downtown. We can take an Uber."
-
When she turned gracefully and faced him, the sensation of her fingers upon his chest, he received an electric charge from it akin to a sexual impulse. It didn't follow through, even when she offered herself to him on a platter. Fuck, fuck! If this was any other night he would've been ecstatic to have pulled such a prize. But Farrah-whatever-the-fuck-her-old-fashioned-name-was had decided to throw herself at the Bad News Guy. Weren't girls supposed to have good instincts? Nah, obviously not. This was why they were always getting themselves raped and murdered and stuff.
He had a fixed smile on his face until she said 'Uber' and then he twitched, blinking and shaking his head. "No. I have a car. I... I don't want to leave it here."
Lies. He was normally really good at lying but right now the words felt weird coming out of his mouth. Did she think they were weird? He covered them up with more chatter.
"I'll probably get a ticket. I have to move it. I'll drive it to your place. With you, I mean. I'm not going to
(what the fuck was he saying right now?)
follow you
(argh for fuck's sake stop talking!)
in the Uber or nothing."
He gave an odd laugh that didn't sound like himself as though he was saying a joke. He stopped laughing and his cheeks went as pink as they had when he'd been asked if he was propositioning William with his blood.
-
If her suspicions about Mick’s career were right, posing in front of the camera instead of talking to people had done more damage than she’d first thought. He was trying, though, bless him.
"I definitely wouldn’t want you to get a ticket," she said, tapping her fingers two final times on his chest. "I’ll let you drive me."
The slow, suggestive smile that followed infused her statement with innuendo, as did the way she dragged her hand down Mick’s front, deliberately grazing the zipper of his jeans before she smirked and turned on her heel to lead him to the exit.
When they made it outside and past the queue that still snaked around the club, she relinquished her lead but not Mick’s hand. She clung to him as they walked, wrapping herself around his arm to steal some of his warmth. Her thin-strapped cami had been ideal while she danced, but the vast expanse of her skin was coated in a fine sheen of sweat that made the wind far too effective at cooling her off.
She shivered and clamped her teeth tight to keep them from chattering against each other.
On nights the ocean hung damp and cold in the air and the sun was nowhere to be seen, she craved the dry heat of the desert most. It wouldn't be long, though. Another few months and she’d have enough money saved to go back home and heat up properly, with only cacti and sagebrush and the occasional lizard to keep her company.
In the moments she could untangle herself from her family, at least.
"You didn’t park far away, did you?" she asked Mick, another shiver running through her.
-
At first Mick was tense, then relieved - his muscles relaxing when she wasn't disturbed by his idiot conversation. He would wonder what was wrong with him except he knew guilt was messing with him. Normally he didn't feel guilty about anything. Normally he'd dismiss her as a stupid thirsty bitch with no common sense. But he wasn't feeling very normal. He didn't know why he was feeling this way but he did know he didn't like it and he wanted it to stop.
"Cool," he said when she made willing noises and intimate touches. He moved with her through the club and then outside, wrapped his arm around her shoulders like she wanted, moved close to her and held her a little more tightly and awkwardly than perhaps he should've because he didn't want her to run away. She felt warm against him so he was surprised about her behaviour. She wasn't wearing a lot but she was hotter than him against his skin.
"I parked just there," he said, looking at the empty parking space where he'd pulled into. With a frown he looked farther up the street and spied the van in a different spot on the same side of the road, as if William had driven around the block or something. Fuck knew why. He'd parked under a broken street light though, and when they approached, they were approaching from the back. Mick kept his gaze on the side mirror, but he couldn't see his boss' face. "Not long now," he said quietly.
-
With as focused as she was on tucking herself into Mick’s side to maximize his usefulness as a shield against the cold, Felicia didn’t notice the van at first. Only when he said that they were close did she look up, but even then, her brain refused to make a connection between the vehicle they neared and the man holding her. Mick seemed like a classic muscle car kind of guy. As soon as they passed the van, it’d be there in all its shiny chrome glory and it’d purr and rumble all the way to her studio apartment.
She would've kept walking, except Mick’s already firm grip on her shoulders became vice-like and she was forced to a halt. She hissed a breath through her teeth and tried to wrench herself free from his hold, but he didn’t let up.
What the hell?
"You’re hurting me!" she exclaimed, thinking that he sucked at picking up on body language the same way he sucked at talking, but telling him didn’t work either. Why wasn’t he listening? If the van was his, why hadn’t he taken her to the passenger side? Or let her go so she could walk there herself?
Why wasn’t he saying anything?
The van's engine started and the back door popped open as if by magic. Mick hadn't released her to do it, and the other man couldn't have, either, because he was all the way up in the driver's seat. Oh, God. There was someone else. He turned and his eyes locked on hers. Fear clawed its way up her throat, demanding to be released in the form of a scream, but a single command reverberated in her mind.
Silence.
And her voice withered and died. No matter how big of a breath she took or how hard she tried to force words out, she couldn't speak. She couldn't even get her mouth open.
She planted her feet on the asphalt, pushed and pulled in a series of desperate attempts to free herself. She needed to run. To get away. Back to the club. Anywhere. To someone — anyone — who could help her.
Another command.
Be still.
And the rest of her body stopped obeying her. She couldn’t say anything, couldn’t escape. All she could do was stand stock-still, eyes widened like a cornered animal's.
"Get her in. Hurry, before anyone sees," said the man. His voice was the same as the one that'd appeared in her head. She looked at Mick as well as she could without turning her head, pleading silently for him to do anything except what the man had told him to do.
-
He couldn't let up. He knew he didn't have to hold her as tightly as he was but he couldn't release the tension of his grip. When she started pulling away from him he tightened even more and he could feel her bones in her wrist grinding. It made him feel sick but he yanked on her anyway. She stopped fighting and that made it better.
He stared at her, into her frightened eyes. He'd seen a look like this on the face of the guy who'd upset the boss, but that look hadn't been directed at him. The stare hadn't affected him in any way but it was having an impact on him now; it made him angry. The verbal instruction inspired him into action and he crouched down to pick her up over his shoulder in a fireman's hold. She was dumped into the back like a sack of potatoes. He climbed into the back after her and moved her feet out of the way. A shoe fell off and onto the pavement. He watched it go before jumping down after it and picking it up. No sense leaving clues behind.
Once the doors were shut and locked, Mick sat down in the dark well of the van's cargo area beside their hostage, a hand on her hip and his other hand holding her shoe. Cinderella was being driven away in her pumpkin.
-
Whatever they'd done to her made it impossible to brace herself. Her shoulder took the brunt of the impact, but it didn’t prevent her head from smacking against the van's floorboard. She saw splotchy flashes of light, like moments after a camera flash, and when she could focus again, it was on the short, bristly carpet scratching her cheek and Mick’s hand gripping her hip.
In the club, she’d enjoyed how firmly he’d held her and had delighted in wondering what it’d feel like to have his hands on the rest of her, but it’d gone all wrong. He’d led her to the back of a van and thrown her in. What happened now? Tears pricked her eyes as she cycled through the possibilities. Most ended with her mom having to fly all the way out to the city morgue to identify what was left of her body. Felicia whimpered lowly — the first sound she’d managed to make since she’d had her voice stolen — when she realized she might never see her mom or the rest of her family again.
No. She couldn’t think like that. Screw saving money. She’d get out of this, sell every last thing in her stupid dingy apartment, buy plane tickets, and she would get back to them. She pushed against her invisible bonds, focusing on moving her arm and fingers so she could get her—
"There’s a lighter in her side pocket. Remove it."
Her breath caught in her throat. How had he known what she was after? She couldn’t make fire. She could only manipulate it.
Without her lighter, she was powerless.
"Yes, I'm quite familiar with fire nymphs," the man said dryly. The van decelerated and the clicking of a signal indicator filled the cabin. "I'm surprised you found one, Mick. Pleased, but surprised nonetheless. They usually prefer places that are warmer than this."
The blood drained from Felicia’s face. She hadn’t said anything out loud. She couldn’t. Had he read her thoughts? How? Dread grew heavy in her gut. His voice had been in her head before, commanding her not to speak or move, and then he responded to her thoughts as if he could hear them, and he knew what she was, and... he'd been really, really pale, hadn't he?
Shit. Shit. Shit.
This was way worse than any of the other scenarios she'd come up with.
Vampire worse.
-
Mick could feel himself shutting down, going into his unconscious-action phase. He didn't think about what he'd done or what he might end up doing. He didn't consider the feelings of the woman squirming beneath his hand or what would happen to her because of him. His focus was placed in maintaining his balance while the van swayed one way or the other around turns, holding onto her so she wouldn't move around and keeping her shoe in hand.
William broke through his emotionless wall with instructions for Mick to follow. With a deadened expression he fingered her pockets and removed the lighter as well as anything else she had on her. Phone, wallet... something small landed on the floor of the van and he set down her shoe to sweep a hand across the carpet. His fingers found a metallic object and he lifted it in front of his face. A key. He slid it into one of the wallet compartments - a cute, thin leather folder of a colour he couldn't make out in the back of the van - and pocketed it along with her lighter. It made a bulge but he didn't care. His gaze shifted off her face when William praised him for finding the prize that was the fire nymph, then he looked back at her.
"Is that why your hair's that colour?" he asked dully.
-
Felicia stared disbelievingly at Mick. Was he for real? He’d just taken every last thing she had that might’ve helped her escape and he thought she’d want to chat with him about her hair? Of course being a fire nymph made her hair all the same shades of fire. He wouldn’t have been able to comment on how pretty it was otherwise. Her eyes widened when she realized she'd given him his line. A terrible, no-effort line that she’d accepted because he was hot and she’d wanted to have some fun. Christ almighty, she might as well have thrown herself into the back of the van for him.
"I made it so she cannot speak," the probably-a-vampire said. "Trust me, she has nothing of value to say."
She huffed out hard through her nose and looked askance at the carpet. If she’d had the ability to speak, she wouldn’t have wasted it on talking — she would’ve been screaming to the top of her lungs, hoping to hell someone heard her and reported it to the cops. But he'd made it so she couldn’t control her voice any more than she could hold herself steady as the clicking stopped and the van accelerated.
And kept accelerating.
Bumpy, jarring surface roads transitioned into buttery smooth freeway and her thoughts grew frantic.
Were they driving out of city now? Heading somewhere it'd be easier to get rid of her when they were finished... doing whatever they were going to do? Despair clogged her throat, but she swallowed it back and listened intently when the man up front spoke again.
"Do you still have the vial?" he asked, and Felicia’s attention returned to Mick.
-
Mick had blanked out fully by the time William asked about the vial. He answered straight away but the question had a hold on his emotions and were dragging some of them to the surface.
"Yes." He frowned next, his feelings flickering behind his eyes as switches in his brain began to be thrown on. "Did you want to turn her into a werewolf?" he asked dubiously. He was conscious enough of the idea to disapprove though he doubted William would do such a thing to a fire nymph. Would werewolf blood even turn someone into a werewolf or would it just make them sick? Was he going to experiment and find out?
"I don't want to turn her into a werewolf," he said, remembering the animal in the cage that he'd gotten close enough to draw blood from earlier tonight. The memory made him shudder.
-
Felicia was in wholehearted agreement. Lycanthropy was an untreatable magical STD that landed you in a cage once a month. Who in their right mind wanted to be a werewolf? Not that she had much of a say in the matter when she couldn’t open her mouth.
She eyed Mick, waiting to hear if he’d have to produce the vial and force her to drink it while her heartbeat pounded furiously in her ears. She almost missed the answer: No, he didn’t want to turn her into a werewolf. Felicia closed her eyes and released a grateful sigh, but her eyes shot open again when he explained his reasoning.
“Her blood will be tainted if she’s turned. No one will buy tainted blood, even from a fire nymph. It tastes terrible. She’s worth more as she is.”
Definitely-a-vampire went on to complain about a book Mick should’ve read, but she didn’t catch anything he said after that. She was too busy freaking the fuck out. The attacks hadn’t stopped. They were going to drain her. There was a flash. A memory. Telling her mom she’d got a job in the city. Having articles thrust at her. It’s not safe, baby. Look what happened to them. But it wouldn’t happen to her. Her mom was being paranoid. She was young, invincible. Stupid. So, so stupid.
Tears slipped freely down her cheeks, but it did nothing to relieve the growing ache in her chest. She’d messed up. Coming to the city, going out every night she wasn’t working, not dyeing her hair like her mom wanted — it was a series of mistakes leading her to an ending she’d never imagined for herself. She was alone. Powerless. She sniffled and thought of home, wishing she could warp herself back to Texas, rush into the living room where her mom would be up late reading, curl up on the couch with her, and never ever leave again.
As she settled into the imagined scenario, she could make out the silvery notes of a song meant to remind her that she wasn’t alone. Not really. They’d made her think she was powerless, but she wasn’t. The moon was there. She always was. She'd lend Felicia strength.
Reach, the moon sang. Just a little farther. Reach.
She reached, and when she sensed it, she gasped.
Her lighter wasn’t the only source of fire available to her after all.
-
Mick silently objected to the nagging about the fucking book again, glaring at Fire Fairy instead because it was safer than talking back to William. He couldn't see a lot of her expression but enough to know she was spacing out. He was surprised she would give up so easily.
Then there was an almighty bang; so loud that Mick's ears felt like they were withdrawing into his head. He was momentarily stunned and then lost balance. No, wait, it was more than that, he could feel that movement had changed from going forward to flipping upward. And it was a flip, not just driving up a steep ramp, because his stomach was flipping along with it. He was blind to the momentum of the vehicle, catapulted and then smacking against multiple walls or the roof or the door or every damnable surface while the van rolled end to end and slowly coming to a stop with one final crash.
He could smell something burning... oil? That wasn't good. Mick could hear a woman screaming faintly in the distance but when his eyes found the shadowy figure of the Fire Fairy her mouth was open and the sound was coming from her... but was it? It was so muffled that it made no sense. It took him longer than it should've to realise that her screams were likely super loud and he had been partially deafened by an explosion.
What the fuck had happened? It had sounded a little like an engine blowing (which Mick had experience with, thanks to some donuts performed in a carpark some years ago, where his car overheated and blown a giant hole in the middle of the bonnet). But when that happened his car had just come to a tired stop - it hadn't flipped anywhere. This was like a bomb went off inside the van.
Fuck; she'd managed it somehow. After the first asshole almost crushing him to death and this bitch almost blowing him up, he was done with fucking nymphs. Snarling, he leapt on her injured form in the corner of the van where she'd ended up. Her arm was positioned at a weird angle, likely broken. He didn't give a shit about it. He grabbed her by her throat and started cutting off her air supply. Fucking. Bitch.
-
For William, the world hadn’t just rolled over on its axis until it came to a jarring stop: it had caught fire.
The entire front half of the van was engulfed by a roaring monster of red and orange that rushed and devoured him before he could even undo his seatbelt. If humans were saplings, green in the middle and difficult to burn, then vampires were brittle dry kindling. In a matter of seconds, his exposed skin — his face, neck, and hands — went from pale white to red and raw, then blackened and charred, splitting and oozing blood thicker than a human’s. He bellowed, but only the once. When he inhaled again, superheated air seared his mouth, throat, and lungs, rendering him mute.
His conscious mind shut down. Time was irrelevant. He reached a cusp, a point where he might be absorbed by the darkness, but his instincts and sense of self-preservation took over. The moment he next became aware, he was on the ground outside of the van, rolling, trying to snuff the fire — except this fire had been whipped into a frenzy by a fearful, moon-fueled fire nymph. No matter how much he rolled, it didn’t go out. The only thing that could stop it was distracting the nymph, which Mick handled beautifully as he wrapped his fingers around Felicia’s neck, crushing her windpipe with brutal pressure that threatened to snap her spine and caused the flames to retreat back to the van.
William was left sprawled on the asphalt, an overcooked steak crackling and smoking on the grill. It would’ve been easiest to let her go the way of the earth nymph, but William rocked onto his side and pushed himself to his feet with a grimace. They’d have to get another one if she died and at this rate, he wasn’t sure he’d survive another nymph.
He shuffled step by torturous step to the rear of the van, saving his strength for the moment he ripped the door off its hinges and reached in, taking Mick by the collar of his leather jacket like a pup by the scruff of his neck so he could lift him off the girl. The human had a surprisingly good grip on her, though, and she came with him. William growled and dragged them close enough to pry Mick’s fingers off her, then took her by the broken arm — coming to an abrupt halt and hissing through his fangs when her pain mingled with his, becoming a white flash of impossibly hot fire.
Like the majority of his body, his mind had been burnt and left raw. He could no more block her than he could command her to be silent when he resumed dragging them out of the van and over to the safety of the shoulder.
Cars came to a stop around them. More were slowing. Humans were calling out, asking if they needed help. A primal need for blood that he hadn’t experienced since he’d first been fledged overcame him and with his last reserves of power, he shoved both Mick and Felicia away from him and focused on a pot-bellied man nearby with a phone in his hand
He’d called 911, he said. Police were on the way.
Don't kill her, William said mentally to Mick as he forced himself to move again. He did his best to ignore the constant pain. One foot. Then the other. When he reached the stranger, William didn't wait for him to finish voicing his concern for all of his burns. He grabbed a handful of brown hair, jerked his head back, and began to feed with the greedy neediness of a vampire a fraction of his age.
-
Mick only managed to force his gaze from the horrific sight of William feeding on his victim when he heard someone else commenting on it. Not everybody was around this side of the van, the flames keeping most looky-loos away, but there was one guy. He was the same age as Mick, by the look, but not as beefed up. More the tall and lanky type with skinny jeans and a groomed beard. This particular brand of hipster had pulled out his phone and was filming the burnt monster sucking the life out of Beer-Belly. This was the opposite of good. This was the definition of not-fucking-good-at-all.
Mick ran at him. He'd never been much of a footballer in high school, preferring baseball to anything else, but his tackle as he threw his shoulder into the soft waist of Hipster-Dude would please any college talent scout. They landed hard on asphalt and Mick could feel the flames nearby still licking at the vehicle that Hipster-Dude had rounded to catch footage of the burnt husk that was William. He heard the profanity filled warbling coming off Hipster-Dude as he crawled off him. The prize of his phone was close to them on the ground. Mick grabbed it and looked around for a place to get rid of it.
As Hipster-Dude slowly got to his feet, Mick threw his phone into the blaze of the engine. It was nothing like the fireball that had turned William into the blackened beast he was, but it still had a hold of the van and belched great billowy clouds of ash and oil into the night sky.
He could engines slowing down and then speeding up when they passed, the toots of irritated, impatient drivers and the choked sobbing of the Fire Fairy bitch at his back as she nursed her broken arm and tried to suck in air.
But above all that, in the distance, he could hear sirens. "We gotta move!" he yelled, hoping William's snack had car keys on him.
-
With every frantic beat of the big man’s heart, blood poured into William’s mouth; it was hot and metallic and not enough. Growling, he tore through skin and a thick layer of fat, seeking more veins, more arteries, more blood. He dimly registered the wail of sirens but would've dismissed them as too far away to matter if it hadn’t been for Mick’s warning. He was right. They needed to leave before the police showed up. His desire for blood was far from satiated, but even if he drained the human straining weakly against him, he was certain his clawing, gnawing hunger wouldn’t fade. They had to get home, where he could nurse his wounds and feed as much and for as long as he needed until he healed.
Fortunately, after a quick scan, he determined his snack did have his keys. Unfortunately, it required fishing in his pocket for them.
William gritted his teeth and shoved his fingers in, stifling curses when his charred skin peeled back, sending waves of pain surging through his hand and into his arm. Somehow, he still managed to hook one of his fingers in a metal ring and pulled the keys out, though he wasn't able to hang onto them much longer than that. They slipped from his bloodied fingers and clattered to the ground next to his feet. Mick would have to come to him to get them.
Keys. Black truck, William sent Mick’s way, his mental voice as strained as his physical one would’ve been had he been able to pry his teeth loose to speak. Then he showed Mick an image of a shiny Chevrolet with an extended cab and bed: Their new ride.
Before he could talk himself out of it, William jammed his skinless hand into his own pocket to pull out his wad of knock-off Wizard String. It wasn’t as effective as what Wardens carried around — which the earth nymph had demonstrated when he’d started a fucking earthquake in William’s house — but it’d have to do.
The girl, he said, dropping the string next to the keys. He sent another image, this one of Felicia, who’d come to her feet and started to limp her way back to the freeway, croaking out plaintive requests for help. William left Mick to deal with her and began to drag his semi-conscious friend towards the truck, intending on bringing him along with them.
He would finish eating on the road.
-
* * *
Mick pulled their new truck into the garage after some fussing. There was no more garage remote - it had blown up with the van. The only thing that had been salvaged was their lives (and William's only barely, from the ruined mess that had been him on the side of the highway), the blood phial in Mick's pocket (still intact by some small mercy), Fire Bitch (thrown into the back of the cab where she'd been warned to be quiet or she would be drained next, and thankfully all that had sounded were sniffles) and William with his Snack-Man.
Mick had looked at William far too much during the drive. Every few seconds his gaze would find the charred vampire in the rear-view mirror as a sense of unreality poured over him. Fire Bitch was likely uneasy sitting beside William listening to him slurp up Snack Man and he felt vindicated by it. The stupid slut had almost killed him and had made everything ten times harder than it needed to be. He hated her for the trouble she'd caused.
In the darkness of the garage he felt relief but it was short lived. They had to start putting their shit away. Mick had put the phial of werewolf blood into the glovebox and that was where he left it for the moment; it was out of harm's way. He didn't want it breaking after they'd managed to get it home. He hopped out of the cab and opened the door on the side where Snack-Man was but he wasn't prepared for the weight of the man as he fell out.
Dead weight.
Mick struggled beneath him before he was forced to drop him onto the cement floor. Meaty flesh fell onto the ground with a slap that had Mick pulling a face. He looked away from the fresh corpse so he could look at William. It was still dark in the garage but his eyes had adjusted to the dim light and he could swear that the vampire didn't look anywhere near as bad anymore - but he wasn't great.
-
Although Mick had cleared a path for him to exit the truck, William remained in his seat with his eyes closed and his raw hands hovering above his lap. He’d woven tendrils of his awareness through the tapestry of Mick’s mind and followed a thread to the section that processed visual information — he was looking through the human’s eyes, seeing himself as Mick saw him.
He remembered a time witches had been revered and were sought out by kings for their advice and blessings, but he also remembered when the world had turned against them. He looked like what happened when a person was tied to a stake, a fire was set beneath their feet, and they were left to cook for a couple of hours. Where his pale skin hadn’t turned to glossy black charcoal, it’d fissured and peeled away to reveal angry red tissue beneath, but Mick was right: he had healed some since he’d fed. He’d stopped oozing blood, and countless nerve endings had repaired themselves and were busy screaming at him because they were afraid he wasn't aware he’d been burnt to a fucking crisp by a fire nymph.
Without opening his eyes, William turned his face towards Mick, the taut skin on his neck popping and crackling and flaring pain as it split. As his body continued to heal, the pain would fade, but his humiliation wouldn’t.
His hair — from the top of his head to his eyebrows and down to his beard — was gone, and it wouldn’t grow back.
No, not great, he said, his peevishness transferring perfectly well through his mental voice. Then he faced forward again. He didn’t budge after that, not even when the nymph disrupted the stillness of the moment by throwing open the door closest to her and launching herself out of the truck. There was a clatter and a series of crashes as she kicked her remaining heel off and knocked over a shelf lined with various tools on her way into the house.
He didn’t have to read her mind to know that she intended to find out if she could escape through one of the doors she'd find there.
Tie her up this time, William said. Or break her fucking legs, I don't care. Just keep it from happening again.
-
Grimly, Mick nodded, his mind answering in the affirmative without conscious awareness and he turned to follow their pet Fire Fairy into the house. She was disoriented, in pain and afraid for her life which made her easy to catch up with but he could still feel a tendril of fear curling in his gut and making him want to piss his pants. It just made him angrier, that she could make him feel this way. The only time he'd ever experienced such terror had been when an assault rifle had been pointed at his head by a dumb thug that hadn't recognised him as a friendly. Lucky the boss had been there and come out to see who was disturbing the peace. The fucker had laughed and cleared Mick as one of theirs. Later, Mick had followed that thug outside and smacked him in the back of the head with a piece of two-by-four. Cowardly but effective. The bastard had come to and not remembered any of that particular day, including pointing his gun at Mick.
He didn't have to punch Fire Fairy in the back of the head to knock her out. He'd trapped her in the corridor as she'd struggled to turn the knob with a palm filled with blood and sweat. She'd screamed when he'd caught up with her and it was cut short when his fist connected with her face. Even while unconscious, as he picked her up fireman-style, he was afraid of her, and he hated her for that even more.
He took her downstairs to the same cell the other nymph had been in, switching on lights as he went because the darkness was too complete. Harsh white light burnt into his retinas. The holding room was clean now; well, cleanish, there were obvious stains on the floor that hadn't fully come out and the cracks were still running up the walls. Let it serve as a reminder how dangerous these fairies were.
Mick all but threw her down onto the chair and stared at her for a long moment, unreality sinking in of how this whole night had gone. She'd let him pick her up for a one night stand. No doubt she didn't feel vulnerable like a lot of other women did; she could set her would-be rapists on fire. Well, he intended on her experiencing that vulnerability. Fucking bitch. With rage so heavily in his chest that he felt like he was suffocating, and a matching beat in his temples, he undressed her down to her underwear. He threw her clothes outside of the room into the corridor and then returned to strap her down. He took no care with her broken arm and she whimpered even in her lack of consciousness... or she was coming to. He didn't know. Backing up and looking at his handiwork, seeing her cute body dressed in pretty matching underthings, made him feel ashamed in a way he hadn't expected.
He ran out the door and shut it behind him, drawing the heavy bolt across that would lock her in. His heart pounded with his fear and tears fell down his cheeks. He wiped them off his face with harsh pushes from his palms and cleared his throat a few times before gathering up her clothes. He held them in a tight bundle and went upstairs to find William, to see if he could help him in any way.
-
Another grisly scene had played out upstairs in the kitchen.
Shredded blood bags were scattered over the counters, with smears of dark red painted across the marble tops like one of William's modern abstracts. Cabinets had been flung wide open and cotton puffs, gauze, and everything he hadn’t needed from the first aid kit he’d ripped apart had been thrown aside.
William stood at the epicenter with his head down, fumbling with a pair of tweezers. The feeling hadn’t returned to his blackened fingertips yet. And it didn't help that when he tried to squeeze the pointy metal tips over a piece of cloth that’d fused to his chest, his fingers shook violently enough that the tweezers flew from his hand. They pinged off the tiled floor, resulting in a low growl of frustration that was cut short by a string of hacking coughs that had him reaching for the counter and hanging on so he didn't hit the ground too.
As the coughs faded, he realized Mick had found him. He didn’t want the human to see him hunched over like a decrepit old man, but there was no helping it. His coughing fit had set every cell on fire. For now, moving was out of the question. All he could do was clench his jaw and stare hard at the human with pain-glossed blue eyes, daring him to make some asinine comment about his appearance or inability to stand up straight.
-
It was like looking at an entirely different creature. The alien in the kitchen still kind of looked like William, like some kind of lava monster bursting out of the vampire's skin. Those eyes, though, when they connected with his own the intensity was eerily familiar.
He could feel an apology forming on his lips - an unwanted one, an unwarranted one. But still it tried to form. It itched in his head like saying sorry would be the scratch that cured it, but he fought it anyway. William wouldn't care about nor desire his sorries.
He looked down at the thing that had caught William's attention before he had. It took him a quick scan to find it; the tweezers that required a dextrous touch. Mick moved to them and plucked them off the floor. He blew imaginary dirt off them and wondered vaguely if he should bleach them or something before he dismissed the concern as the last of William's problems.
Mick closed the gap between Lava Monster and himself, slower in his approach than he had the tweezers. Halfway in the kitchen and closer to the blood bags he could now smell them as well as see them, the metallic quality of the splattered plastic. The fear he'd experienced with the Fire Fairy returned again as he considered maybe William had run out of blood but still needed more, and now here he was, approaching the Lava Monster with a body full of what he needed to get better.
He faltered but got moving again. Tweezers in hand, he meant to ask; what do you need me to do?, but what came out was a little closer to his thoughts.
"What do you need from me?"
-
The response Mick gave wasn’t what he’d expected, but perhaps he should’ve. His new assistant had proven himself to be a good little soldier: doing what he was told, acting in the best interest of William and his business. There’d been some hiccups — like the instance Mick had flung himself against the bars of the werewolf's cage and begged to be let out — but in the end, he’d done what had needed to be done. They had their sample. Because of Mick, his trials could begin as soon as he was able to use his hands again.
As Mick drew closer, his attention shifted to his jumping pulse point and a primal urge to consume fresh blood broiled to the surface. If he only fed a little, then perhaps… But no. They'd left evidence of his failure to stop in the garage.
His gaze shifted downwards to the tweezers in Mick’s hand. I need you to remove these pieces of shirt, he said. He began to push himself upright, clenching his jaw tightly enough he was surprised his molars didn’t crack. The skin can’t heal until they're out.
-
Mick licked his lips with unconsciousness compassion for how dry William looked. He stared at the cavity that should've been William's chest and at the fibres he could see melded into flesh, now that he was closer and studying more intently. Bile threatened to rise but he pushed it down and forced himself to enter his mental state of doing without thinking.
His 'deal with it' mentality allowed him to carefully extract each strand that didn't belong in William's flesh, with a gentle touch and a steady hand that didn't wish to take more skin than required. It looked like he was sewing except he was undoing rather than creating; but they were both mending.
It took him over an hour to get it all and at the end he inspected William's charred body without any thoughts, even though he pulled himself out of it once the task was done. William would want him alert and thinking, but during that time where he'd been up close and personal with the burnt vampire, he'd become familiar with his new visage. It was still monstrous but it didn't bother him as it had before; until he looked at William's terrifyingly recogniseable eyes.
-
I won’t look like this for long, William said, though he couldn’t be certain. Any vampire he’d known that’d been touched by the sun’s rays or licked by open flame hadn’t survived. Thanks to the nymph and Mick, he'd begun a venture into the unknown. When he regained the use of his fingers, he might write a book about his experiences and give it out to his kindred. The chapter detailing his healing process would be easy to title. He'd call it: Things That Will Make You Wish You’d Died Instead.
If he’d been able to rise above the pain, perhaps it wouldn’t have been as bad, but more and more nerve endings were coming back online. He couldn’t ignore it. Just like he couldn’t ignore the hunger clawing at him, demanding that he rip Mick’s throat open and feast on him until his heart had nothing left to pump. What remained of his lips parted and revealed the tips of his fangs as he inhaled, catching Mick’s sweet scent over that of his own burnt flesh.
He regretted it when his lungs made it clear they didn’t appreciate being inflated.
Coughing, however, was a good way to distract oneself from eating their daytime protector. William turned to grab onto the counter and wheezed and hacked until he spat up a congealed mass of ash and God knew what into the sink. Probably a piece of his lung. He squeezed his fingers, crunching one of the blood bags he’d thrown aside once he’d emptied it. He would’ve snarled at it if his lips had cooperated.
I need fresh blood. He swiped the bag onto the floor. Not this shit.
He pushed himself as far upright as he could manage and looked down the charred mass that had once been — in his opinion — a rather dignified looking nose.
And not from you. I need you.
His eyes narrowed.
Make sure it isn’t a nymph.
-
Mick's breath hitched when William spoke about feeding. It wasn't so much the thought of death and dying though he really should have been bothered by it, but the knowledge that he turned horny as fuck when a vampire sucked on his neck. The idea of writhing and begging William to do things to him would be intensely humiliating and likely mortifying for the vampire in question as well.
William clarified with words that caught Mick's breath for an entirely different reason. I need you. A shiver raced up his spine and caused him to tense and vibrate his entire torso, gooseflesh prickling his arms and his ears doing that weird hollow thing that they did whenever he yawned. The harsh and wholly unnecessary command tagged on the end lost the potency of his earlier words and Mick nodded dutifully before turning away and fishing out his mobile.
He thumbed through his contacts until he got to one that was promising. A guy he'd worked a few jobs with and was currently a floater. He was a little older, hitting thirty, maybe a bit over. Mick was pretty sure he wasn't a druggie - one of only a handful in the business who kept themselves sober - but that was the only risk when it came to him. No hidden nymph powers or Mick would've seen them ages ago when they'd got into trouble a few times.
He dialled the number and listened to it ring. Just when he thought it wouldn't pick up, it did. "Hey, Stan, how you doing? It's Mick." A pause. "Mick from downtown. We did that job with the Russian, remember?" Another pause and then a sigh. "Mickey Mouse." The guffaws were so loud at the other end that Mick had to hold it away from his ear before putting it back. At least now he was remembered. "I got a job. It pays a thousand." A brief pause. "Body disposal and some cleanup. It's at this important dude's house, he wants it kept quiet, yeah?" After listening for a moment, Mick recited the address and asked "how long?" before he hung up.
Facing William, Mick said: "I hope you can wait half an hour." The question wasn't rhetorical because Mick was seriously hoping it. His stare made contact with William's haunting gaze and he couldn't look away.