((Throwaway character.))

It's been a hectic day for Jim Burlington. The office has been crazy, people running all over the place, papers (and stories) flying. nothing really big happened-- just a lot of small things.

Just one of those days.

Finally he'd just had to get out of there, his nicotein craving adding to his antsiness, and so he'd grabbed a pack and a lighter and left before anyone could toss more paper at him. Or stories.

Here he is, out back of the Herald building, leaning against the brick with his eyes half closed, his cigarette dangling from his lips. Ahhh. Relief.

It's quieter out here, he considers, his hands loosely hanging from the pockets of his slacks. Sure, there's traffic noise, but all that's on the other side of the building. Right here, right now... it's just a relief, a breath of fresh (or not so fresh, considering the cigarette) air.

He allows his eyes to droop fully closed.

He had already created a mutiny.

Perhaps it was because Jim was on the opposite side of the building he didn't hear the screaming, the shouting, and the pleading from the people Glim literally slammed through. He hadn't killed yet, though. Merely knocked a couple people out, bowled some others over, you know, the usual.

It didn't stop people from thinking he was psycho.

Which he was.

When he smelled the cigarette smoke wafting through the air from one of the poorly insulated doors, another wave of fury washed over him. Never again would he be able to enjoy a cigarette. Never again would he be able to enjoy a clove, or weed, or anything.

He broke the door off its hinges and stormed up to the guy. Furiously, he shoved the cigarette into Jim's mouth and picked him up by his neck.

There was something different about Glimmerman right then. His eyes, those unending black eyes seemed to be shining, and his skin was, well, glimmering.

He squeezed.

Well, it had been nice and silent, until some psycho comes storming out of the building.

Jim had been determined to ignore him, until suddenly his inner cheek is burning and he tastes ash and some fuck is holding him up by his neck and god he's strong--

The reporter thrashes violently, kicking out with his feet, his mouth shaping the words what the fuck but, with his air supply cut off, he can't get them out.

He's spent all day with his tie choking him. He doesn't need this.

He released the man with one hand, still holding him up by the other. It was worse that way, in order to keep the man from sliding down, he had to push harder. Perhaps he cracked the man's neck. Perhaps he crushed his airway.

What he did do was punch Jim in the solar plexus with enough strength to crack the wall behind the man he was currently killing. Perhaps enough strength to collapse his lungs.

"I am really," Glim started, his voice coming out in a low growl, "really not having a good day."

He pressed harder.

All thoughts of profanity leave Jim's mind as he's overwhelmed by pain that flashes like desert sunlight through his neck, though his solar plexis, through his chest and back and--

he goes limp and--

There is an energy in death. Like splitting the atom, the slicing of a living thing from that life creates energy, something that can be used in magic-- something some magic users, such as what Glimmerman has become, feed on. That energy is release right about--

everything falls into red-tinted darkness.

Now.

He let out a strangled gasp of surpise at the feeling of sheer power enveloping him, constricting him, shocking him. This energy, this energy that people are born with and that people die with and that bursts into life in one desperate explosion at the time of the human's death consumed Glimmerman, ripped him apart from inside and out and put him back together. He gasped again (it seemed like the proper thing to do) but couldn't bring himself to let go of the man.

This was his new cigarette.

He pushed harder, wanting another burst of energy, dreading one that might come, riding the one that did come, unsure whether or not to be horrifed or disgusted or gleeful.

The body of what used to be Jim Burlington crumbles, already dead.

For a moment, it's silent in the back lot of the Herald. Inside the doors, people are recovering-- Jim hadn't been able to yell, so they still don't know what happened.

Glimmerman drew his hands back, dropping wide eyes down to trembling fingers. He took a step back, then another. There was a rush coiled somewhere in the middle of his stomach, screaming for more.

He looked to his left.

There was no one there.

He looked to his right.

A garbage can lay toppled, had he knocked it over in his

(bloodlust)

need to get out of there?

It was silent and dreary

(once upon a midnight)

and the commotion behind him had ended. He wanted more. He craved more. But his mind was clearing, the angry fog was lifting, the realization of the fact that he had not just murdered someone, he had crushed them filling his mind, killing his joy, killing his appetite.

He stared down at what used to be Jim Burlington.

((Throwaway two. Yay for blood lust.))

Moments pass.

A fair-haired head peeks cautiously out the doors. From her expression, she obviously isn't expecting to see anything real-- only her natural curiosity provoked her to take a look outside when surely the rude man who had pushed his way through the halls was long gone. He'd given her the chills-- it wasn't so easy to brush that half-formed impresion off.

The expression changes rather dramatically when her eyes take in the dark-haired man and-- she can't help it, a noise escapes-- the rather dead body of co-worker Jim Burlington.

Glim looked up at the small sound, his face completely devoid of any expression. In truth, his mind was racing—had he really just killed someone?—but the look on his face would probably cause someone to think he was ruthless.

Glim wasn't ruthless.

At the moment, Glim was rather scared. He wasn't a killer. He was just a normal guy who worked at a tattoo parlor.

He wasn't a killer.

With a burst of speed, he rushed to the girl and grabbed her by her head, yanking her out of the doorframe.

"Sorry, sweetcheeks." His voice was muffled. His ears were roaring and squealing. He couldn't tell he was talking. "But I don't like being spied on."

He put a hand over her lips and pressed so hard he could have shattered her teeth, then a hand on the back of her head and he twisted her.

Let's look at Glim from the outside for a moment.

He's tall, he's pale-- he looks like a God, or a ghost, or a vampire to someone whose imagination is the only supplier of such mythological images. He's just killed a man-- a fine patina of splattered blood coats the area, so light as to be almost not noticeable-- and then here she is, Anita, really not ready to make peace with her god of choice.

She opens her mouth to scream (hell, it's worked before) but he's already on her, the taste of pennies and rain filling her mouth as he crushes her lips into her teeth and crushes her teeth too, and then--

snap.

Release.

Well, that was quick.

Talk about instant gratification.

The explosion of energy ripped through Glimmerman's body for the second time, and there was nothing he could do to prepare for it. He could almost compare it to really good sex—the rush, the heat, the inability to move after a rocking orgasm, the general feeling of satisfaction while at the same time every nerve in your body is alive and screaming.

He dropped her body in disgust.

How could killing be like sex?

Was he really that fucked up?

He staggered back a couple of steps, horrified.

The air's a bit chill.

Two dead.

In fact, more than a bit.

Two people, dead.

Papery, plasticy, indescribable-- a sound few have heard but many can imagine, in the recesses of their mind-- frost forming so fast it makes a noise.

Dead.

And then there's Azrael, back in his white suit, wrists and neck and ears a mass of silver jewellery. He's kneeling over Burlington's body, his fingers overing lightly above the man's ruined chest. His eyes are closed. His lips are curved into a small, soft smile. He is not paying attention to Glimmerman, at the moment.

Glimmerman stared at him, unable to speak. He was afraid that if he opened his mouth, what would come out would be horrible, horrible screaming. And if he started screaming, there would be no way he would be able to stop.

So he watched in silence.

Dead.

Lightly, gently, softly, like a parent with a newborn child, Death touches his cold fingers to the ruined chest, then, suddenly moving forwards, pushes through-- as though Burlington were no more substantial than Glimmerman's soul had been.

Down. Through. And up again.

He reaches out of the torso holding something pale and glowing. Neither it nor he are touched with blood-- it's as though all this is taking place a long ways away, visible only through some trick of the atmosphere.

The glowing thing is tucked away quickly, and Azrael stands, aknowledging Glim's presence for the first time with a slow and not particularly worried nod.

Still smiling.

Glimmerman closed his eyes, trying to banish the sight from his mind—out of sight, out of mind. He took a shuddering breath.

"I killed them."

He knew Death knew.

"I killed them and I didn't feel a damn thing."

He wasn't remorseful. He wasn't guilty. He was disgusted, and he was disgusted because he wasn't remorseful or guilty. He was horrified that the feeling of death was the best fucking thing he had ever felt in his life. He was insane at the idea that that would be how he had to live—through death. And Death.

"Should you?" Death asks, and his voice isn't cold, isn't wrong anymore-- not like it had been-- not like it still is to the majority of people. It's a taste of the energy Glim lives with.

He brushes past his servant and kneels down by Anita's body, running his hands through the air over her for a moment.

"I'm supposed to," Glim said quietly. "I'm supposed to feel remorse. And guilt. I'm not...I'm not an insane killer. I'm not...I don't..."

Fuck.

"I'm not supposed to fucking get off on killing!" He slammed his fist against the building, and cement crumbled against his hand. "I'm not supposed to be disgusting!"

Pocketing the small glowing sphere he's lifte from Anita, Azrael turns and raises his eyebrow as he stands. It's an insteresting gesture, looking almost as though he were pulled up and around by a string, eyebrow first.

"I told you you would draw power from death. It's one of the more powerful energy sources, anyhow, and you're attuned to that, now."

He says this matter-of-factly, brushing Glim's human angst aside.

He shoved the angst to the back of his brain—he could mull about it later. Sighing, he pressed his fingers across his eyes, the angst gone but the surprise headache there. Or maybe he was imagining that he had a headache. Sometimes, your imagination can be more real than reality itself.

"I'm guessing I won't need to worry about fingerprints or anything." It was a statement, not a question.

Azrael shakes his head.

"I've taken care of it. It's within your power to do so, but you're new to your abilities." You don't know how to handle them.

The unspoken comment was entirely true. He didn't know how to handle his powers, he had not adapted to them at all.

"Did you make it so I would have to follow everyone's orders? That when anyone says a command, I would have to do it?"

It was in his way of explaining why he killed everyone. It was in his defense. It was like he was saying, "I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't been spurred to do so".

Not a very good excuse, but he didn't have anything else.

At all.

Azrael lifts his bleach-white eyebrows, looking amused.

"No. Only my orders. You have to do what I tell you, but not what any random person does,"

He smiles.

"Couldn't have my servant serving others, now could I?"

"Then why did I have to do what this stranger told me to? You used him before, is that why? I was forced to obey Jon." He spat out the name as if it tasted bad in his mouth. "Every little fucking order he said, I had to do. He said shut up, my mouth glued itself closed. He said sit down, I sat down."

He was pacing (it kept him from looking at his victims).

An intrigued look crosses the God's face.

"Really?" he says-- not questioning Glimmerman, though, as the servant can't lie to the master.

"You met Jon, then. Yes. It's because I used him."

"Remind me to never go within two feet of him again, then." He was scratching at his knuckle, a nervous habit he had ever since he was younger, something that he could continue doing to the point where he would peel off a layer of his skin. It was a distraction.

"Is there anyone else I should be wary of?"

Death considers.

"Wary? I'm not sure. Anyone with a large enough piece of my in them may be able to order you. The lower your power levels are, the easier it will be for them."

His teeth glint in a grin.

"I, of course, can oder you even if you're full to bursting with magic."

"I wouldn't want it any other way."

In truth, he didn't. He had been expecting that it would only be Death that could order him around so easily, and when he suddenly had to obey some idiotic stranger, it was like a metaphorical kick to the nuts. He didn't like having to obey unless he knew he was going to have to.

He didn't know he was going to have to with Jon.

"Are you saying my magic's going to grow?" It was a curious thought—he could be more powerful than he was now?

Azrael nods.

"As you learn things, as you age. Yes. For this first while you will likely find yourself using magic at an instinctive level. Eventually you will come to understand it, and your limits."

He doesn't say how long this will take. Could be any length of time.

"And how long will I live?" It was a simple question that almost sounded innocent.

Glim was frightened. Glim wasn't used to being frightened.

"For as long as I say."

His white irises stay focused on Glim's black ones.

"For as long as you last."

Glim nods, and kept nodding a couple moments after his words. He was digesting everything—his eyes looked rather vacant as he tuned into his brain and filed away this information.

He wondered if he could go a little mad.

"Think you'll last?"

Yes, sure that's an innocent question.

Yeah, I'll fuckin' last," Glimmerman murmured. "No biggie."

He was sure he could.

He just didn't know what the consequences would be for lasting.

((Next.))