Bayfield Cemetery

The moon and stars clawed their way across the velvet sky as the night grew old. A soft wind was kicking up the top layer of dust from freshly dug graves and the street lights shone just enough lit to cast a thin visibility over the Bayfield Cemetery. Morose Riddle was rather comfortable walking among the dead. Of course he would be. He spent most of his time since the orphanage lurking around in the back allies and cemeteries.

The tall lanky red-head walked at an eerily slow pace across the grounds. He wore a pair of long black pants that fit loose on the legs but fit the waist, a tight red shirt almost like a muscle shirt but not quite, his heavy boots making no real noise in the soft soil. he wore a plain leather strap of a collar to hide his bite marks. His hair is flaming red, short in the back and the top, the bangs hanging straight on either side of his face, long to his chest almost. His makeup was nearly perfect and actually looked proper on a male face. Red eyeshadow over his lids, black heavy liner circling his eyes.

He squinted his blue eyes to keep the grave dust from getting in them and in his spidery fingered hand he carried a fully bloomed, blood red rose. He'd only spent the better part of an hour picking up the perfect one, no little bugs eating away at the petals, no dieing edges. Perfect.

It had to be perfect. He couldn't settle for less. Andrew didn't deserve less.

The thin man's blue gave studied each and every individual headstone. His silent feet would stop at the foot of each grave but to each grave he only lowered his eyes in sorrow and continue on to the next. He could go to the morge book and search the names, but he had no relation to whom he was looking and no proof of friendship and no explination to why he was looking for a grave that he didn't know the date of death. And so, on he went, pauseing at the foot of each grave and sighing every so often, reminding himself that if he wasn't in this one, there were at least a hundred more cemeteries in this large city.

But as always, in the end, it was always the same, he came to the last stone and there was no Andrew and no Zacharey of whom he was looking for. Sighing forlornly, the vampire bent and placed the rose on top of the last headstone and walked the straight path to exit the cemetery through the big iron gates.

Aside from disappointment, Morose was actually more peaceful then he had been in a month, or as peacful as such a sad man could be. He could feel Jex on the edge of his senses, just out of reach, sleeping soundly with drugs. For once, he didn't feel the man in pain.

Viv was skulking. Quietly striding in her work boots and dark blue denim work clothes, her hair in a rigid braid down her back. Weird magic shit was happening, she thought she'd felt Gattie earlier. If he was looking for her to bring her back to that bastard Mac, she'd make him pay in pain brother or not. Then she'd run into wahtever that other wierd energy was....another mage...probing searching for something. Likely her. She was angry the more she thought about it.

Of coarse the fact that the same twisted magic existed in her pissed her off even more. She'd gone walking to try to clear her head and vent. If she'd taken her car she'd likely road rage and demolish the thing when she went after someone who cut her off. She didn't have a lever on her temper right now. She didn't want to, it was dark, and somewhere out here in the darkness was something or someone she could fight with.

That's just how it was when she got stressed, she needed to fight, to feel pain and deliver it.....pain and chaos, then she'd be okay for a little while. It had been two months since she'd had any kind of conflict and so the itch was overwhelming tonight.

She was looking at the ground relying more on her gut to navigate than her eyes, so she knew someone was close, as she approached the cemetary gates, but not how close until she'd bumped into a tall form. Not human. She rasied her arms as she looked up and shoved the other away.

She probed with a trickle of magic. "Watch it bloodsucker!" she snarled. After all what was the worst thing that could happen, she could die while she fought with him....better than from old age....death, adrenaline and risk.....fun.

Morose didn't stumble as someone collided with them but he did instinctivly reach up and take hold of her shoulders so she would not fall back as he would have had he been human still. As she pushed him, however, he didn't release her and she went with him two steps back. He didn't fall or stumble. Just stepped back, unintintionally dragging her with him.

He was releasing her shoulders from his large hands and apologizing as she called him what he was. Or, what he was suposed to be really. He let her go abruptly as though she were the plague and he were still capable of catching such desaises, although as a vampire he was clearly immune to such human weaknesses. He turned his face away from her and began to step away without a word. She must be something, how had she known what it was that he was? He hid it so carfully most didn't see through the mask.

"I'm sorry. Meant no harm. Didn't see you," though, he was sure it had been her fault. His voice was deep and husky, not the sort of voice you'd expect from such a thin body.

Viv took a tumble but no harm. she was surprised the vampire wasn't letting her know she had been at fault. Instead she got an apology.

"Yeah too bad I'm not sorry." she sneered. Who else but her could have such luck, what the hell was this a pacifist vampire? "I'm sure you're really harmless fanged freak." Her voice might be pleasant if it were not so hostile that it oozed hostility itself. "Don't be a pussy." she sneered. As she stood and glared at him. "Are you a pussy, hiding out in the graveyard with your victims freak?" She edged closer her movements had a catlike, predatorial quality.

"Yeah too bad I'm not sorry."

"Too bad you aren't," he agreed. A pacifist vampire? The label has possibilities. What he really is is a 'wanna be human'. He ignored her snide comments, turning his back on her and taking two steps before one phrase stole his attintion from walking away. Stole every feeling from him and made him cold all the way through. He stopped.

....hiding out in the graveyard with your victims freak?

He turned halfway to glance over his shoulder at her pretty face. His blue eyes had been filled with such a horrible saddness, they were now bleeding empty, slowly becoming dead. His lower lip quivered slightly. He was so pale, it would be a signal to her, he hasn't fed tonight at least. In truth, he's not fed in nearly a week, all of choice. But it's such a hard craving to control, like drugs. It's like an addiction to it, a need for it. While he can survive without it he badly wants it. No. His body wants it, he finds the concept disgusting. But so pale, and her blood was flowing so lovely beneath her skin. He closed his eyes and turned his back to her once more.

He could not loose control. He would not. The last time, the only reason he'd regained control had been because it had been Jex, he'd heard Jex's voice cry to him. It woke him up. No one else, not this woman, could do that. He could not afford to loose it.

Goading wasn't working very well, thus it was making Viv angry. He wasn't in striking range, and yes Viv is crazy enough to physically lash out at a vampire. Amazing she's not already dead somewhere.

But that magic she hates so much just tends to bubble like a flood of lava beneath thin brittle earth, and once the shaking starts it breaks free. Her rage was making her twitch and shake, yes far beyond her control now, she shouldn't have gone out, but of coarse she had. Out to court pain and flirt with death, because those still felt real, and she wanted them on her terms....so she stalked angrily towards the vampire, and he turned his back on her again.

That was when the fetters on her magic shattered and a bolt of it broke free, attacking his mind. Pain, so much pain in the bolt of magic that had been building for the last seven hours that it would have killed lesser creatures.....would that much pain break his inhibitions...Viv circled and waited to find out.

No. No no no. He stopped moving forward in order to gain concentration. Morose is new to this, very new as far as vampires go. He's only three months old after all. So he can't yet concentrate on pushing her out and walking away in the same moment. Morose stood riged and felt the pain, let the pain wash over him without resistance. He took the pain and curled it around his being, twisted it against his own pain and lashed back outward, sending her pain back first, and then his own following it.

So much pain and hurt, physical and emotional, no parents, no friends, the lonliness, killing a man, almost biting Jex, not being there to protect, so much guilt and pain and hurt. So many thoughts of dieing, one person to live for. It's amazing he's not destroyed himself yet.

As the pain comes to her it has to come to the surface of his mind too and he turns and lashes out at her, the back of his hand connecting with her cheek with enough inhuman strength to knock her to the ground. He retreated his hand, stepped back twice and finally stumbled.

"no. I"m sorry." Morose does not hit women. She's the first. Ever. His eyes had bled blue. The entire eye.

It hurt, it had been a while since she'd felt anything besides the pain she always carried around inside her. He knocked her down, and pain tumbled through her, knocked the wind out of her and she bled from her nose and ears.

When she regined her breath she lay there and laughed at his memories. "Is that the best you can do?" it was pale by comparison to her own pain, pale to know that he'd been made into what he was and regrtted what he'd been made.

Viv hadn't been made by anything into evil, her own choices were just leading her there.....Once she had wanted to be normal, but not now, she knew it wasn't possible. If she loved anything, Mac destroyed it because she loved it....that was all she had to do to destroy something.....love it.....She was circling again, magic and madness whirling in her eyes.

"You can't go back to being normal any more than I can...you'll never get that back, never." Her voice was low, not hostile now, but taunting..."Just give up before you destroy everything anyway...."

"Nothing will be destroyed except myself."

He replied in such a calm, such an unnervingly quiet voice. All her words, all her painful memories, they didn't seem to phase him in the least. They hurt, naturally they hurt. And his hurt, perhapes not as badly as hers had but it was the only way he knew to push back her own pain from his body. There were other ways but he's not learned them yet.

She went on about how very painful her own memories were and he stood over her, nearly ignoring it all. All of him was concentrated on one thing. No more forgivness needed for hitting her, no more worrying that he'd hurt her. No more care at all.

It smelled - wonderful, inticing. He closed his eyes for a breif moment as the scent washed over him. He could taste it from the air on his tongue. His eyes opened and peered down on her, she was no more then a body holding the blood he needed, keeping his meal warm.

"You should leave now." He sounded distant.

Leave, she wanted more pain and here was a way to get it. She wasn't leaving. She laughed again....it was her father's laugh. A laugh too full of madness to fear, and too full of ruthlessness for the music that laugher noramally holds. It was almost soulless and hollow, but not yet, when it became that, even the pain wouldn't be real anymore only the madness, and what is reality in madness?

Then she laughed more softly and circled again. Blood still trickled from her ears and nose.

He reached out and took a tight grip with one hand on her shoulder. The fingers of his massive hand nearly wrapped around the back of her neck in doing so and he kept that tight hold, huling her to her feet. His blue eyes weren't human anymore, pearly white tips hung from beneath his upper lip, coming to perfect, nearly unused points like small daggers.

"You really should leave."

But he didn't let go of her as he said it. Instead, he began to draw her towards him. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that this was wrong, something was terribly wrong and he was almost powerless to stop it.

There was no fear in Viv's eyes, no remorse, or anger, there was only madness and anticipation.

It was too late to go now, his restraint, which had been impressive was gone. For the moment she offered no resitance. She saved her energy, she'd need it to break free towards the end of this little pain party. She had no desire to live forever, dying might be alright, but she had no desire for unlife. To avoid that fate she'd fight towards the end.

She'd played this game before, though admitedly the individuals did not have half the willpower and restraint this vampire did. This would prove interesting, or fatal.....fun.....

She didn't resist him. It should have been a turn on. Someone who would enjoy his bite. And for that very reason he didn't want to bite her. See, Morose is a virgin in all meaning of the word. He's never kissed another being in any sense of possible love. Ever. And for biting, he is an ammature and nearly a virgin. Not to mention a christian.

He pushed her back, giving his head one shake, bangs falling freely over his eyes. But his fingers don't release her, his eyes don't peal away from her's. He wants her blood, any blood, to drink and savor, to feel it in his veins. But he doesn't want---. His eyes drop to her throat and his lips part slightly and his arm jerks. He's pulled her slightly closer and just a pushed her back again.

"Leave. Now." His voice is more hoarse, barely contained. He needs this, it's hard to send it away. He hasn't released her yet.

She remains, no trace of fear or anything else anymore, she seems peacefully resigned for someone so recently brimming with malice. Her energy is drawn inward coiled like a serpent ready to strike, but not until she calls it.

In this moment there is only hunger, a hunger for pain and, hunger for blood. "It really should be a simple choice," she says," You can hurt me bad enough that I won't go beat the shit out of four or five people just for kicks tonight and have something to eat, or I can unleash the madness on others when you let me walk away. Either way I'll get what I want. Will you? Who would you rather feed on, the sheep or the wolf?"

The sheep. Morose would have never taken a person, not if he could help it, he drank blood from a slaughter house, it was warm, still alive, and the cow was to be killed and used as what he would have eaten as a human anyways. Drinking of a human was a lot different. So this taunt would not have worked except that she'd said she would hurt them if she were well enough.\

Morose released her and moved faster then her eye could have followed, one of the few tricks he's learned so far. Honestly, he hasn't moved faster then she could have. He's used the shadows as play things and distracted her mind with an image of himself still in front of her. He was behinde her now, his arms around her shoulders in a tight, possibly too tight, hold of her and before he's got time to stop or think about what it is he is doing, his fangs are piercing through her skin, cleaner then most bites since his fangs are so sharp.

He begins to suck, tasting her blood. It's not like cow blood, it's not like drinking blood from Enyo, his sire. It taste different from the man's blood. It's mage blood, it holds a sort of power, like an extra kick to the system.

Her eyes tell her one set of information, her instincts another, he's moving.....she remains wary but only to a point. Then he was behind her his arms constricting around her shoulders. She let out a breath and drew one in slow and steady, no reason to tense up before the bite.....she'd courted it after all.

Then it came before she'd finished the second breath, sharp and urgent....painful enough to splinter her concentration at first. Her thoughts all shattered and whirled about in the growing chaos within her, then slowly they reordered themselves falling back into place. As they returned so did her senses mortal and magical. This vampire hadn't eaten lately, she could not tell for sure how long. She could tell he was liking the power her mage blood held. This creature must be particularly young, incredible that he had resisted biting her so long.

Her thoughts were begining to drift lazily and she could feel time begining to slow down....ah too much soon.....It was time to begin to break this off. She let the coiled up power within her slowly build up and got ready.

He could feel her power coiling under the surface. That's what brought him back, it's what made the difference between Morose a human and Morose the Vampire. Morals. And the ability to stop. To a vampire, feeding was like...no, better then sex. Morose had never had sex, found the idea messy. And this, he found disgusting.

He removed his lips from her and pushed her to the ground with far more force then was necissary, covering his mouth. What blood had been currently in his mouth started to dribble from the corner of his lips and he spit it out, sparying the crimson over the sidewalks surface.

His blue eyes, still bled over, were wide, horrified, and the vampire grabbed at the black cross that lay on his chest inside his shirt. God help. He glared at her. She'd baited him. She'd sucked him into this. Had she wanted to become what he was? Or did she simply like to be fed from?

"Go find some another freak."

Oh but the bloody dots on her neck looked so appealing.

She stood shakily but she steadied as her own power lapped over her surface she touched her finger tips to he neck tracing the two punctures and closed her eyes while she held her fingers over them. It only took a moment to close over the broken flesh though there were still marks and blood.

Her eyes didn't swirl with madness beneatht the surface now nor was she poised to lash out anymore. The feeding had not been as violent as Viv would have liked but it had been sufficient to ground her in sanity for a time. She had no idea how long. How long would it be till she has to go out and look for pain, agoany, and discord again.....and how many more times could she do it without actually killing anyone? She didn't know.

She stode past him all but brushing against him...."You sure that you really are the freak here?' she asked softly.

As she brushed him his hands caught her arms and he spun, slaming her to the brick wall of the gate around the cemetery. His body nearly pinned her's, though his strong hands kept her up against the wall without his body. Sadly, those large hands could crush an elephant skull, but even before he was turned, they could have crushed the bones in her arms. It's not technically the strength that gives Morose this ungodly power, though vampirism certinally does lend a good deal of strength, but it's the sheer size of his limbs, his hands

She's struck something, made him angry, or maybe it wasn't her but himself. Perhapes the taste of the blood, the feel of skin and blood, not simply blood from a bucket. Whatever it was, Morose's eyes are on her neck, his fangs bared and searching for an untouched place to sink his fangs again on the other side of her throat.

This should prove interesting, she's never been the main coarse and dessert before. Were she a noraml person she would not have recovered anough to stand a second bite, but she was not normal. She should have died at a very young age, but magic had put her back together and so she was not quite as others were, even other mages. Being slammed into the wall hurt, not badly, just enough to keep her lucid witht he sharp jarring of the motion. He was angry.....very angry, she had goaded and taunted him though, no to mention he'd taken in part of her anger with the magic in her blood.....perhaps he was tainted with her madness in a way now as well.

She still allowed her power to build and roil beneath her surface, so she could, if she must, call on it to break off this second feeding.

He struck.

Harder, less cleanly then the first time. The first time he'd sunk his fangs far enough in to make her bleed freely, then pulled them out straight. This time, he sunk in to his regular teeth and bite her neck, leaving a line of teeth marks over her skin, just barely breaking the flech. Then as he pulled his fangs out he tore his head sideways, ripping her flesh, tearing it into a long line rather then two punctures.

Morose sealed his lips over the wound, drinking in the blood, trying to suck at the power she was letting build inside. He pinned her body with his chest, held her wrists pinned to her side.

Some onlookers may think the kids are getting carried away out on the sidewalk and shout something about getting a room.

She shudders at the second bite, better, it hurt better. She closed her eyes feeling him trying to get at the core of power, he'd kill her before he got all of it, it was infused in her, part of restoring her had done that. She wasn't even sure what had been done to her in her childhood....only that it was potent, magical and had left her as she was now, a thing full of magic without choice. Even when she ignored or refused to use her magic, it was still infused in her, unlike other mages.

He had her pinned but she managed to get her hands free with little effort the magic in her blood likely making him a bit giddy as he took more of it on, no doubt he wanted it more this time. It wasn't jagged and chaotic like the first time, it was simply raw and harnessed, her rage was gone. Her hands moved over him while he fed, not to interfere but rather to explore, they finally tangled in his hair and she let him feed on eddies of power as well as her blood. Her power still built within, but now she diverted strands of it to the vampire.

Giddy, not quite. Addicted, quite possibly.

Her hands over his body almost made him aware again, almost. He stopped sucking and the blood welled in his mouth, filled it until he had to swallow it or let it spill out. He swallowed it, and that brought the vampire back to the tast at hand. He planted his hands flat to the wall, continued to pin her with his body and feed.

Her hands tangled in his short hair on top, the long bangs were spread over his face now, messy rather then straight and fine curtians of red. He could feel the power treding into his body, filling something else up, something that the blood wasn't satisfying. Something he hadn't known wanted satisfied.

He bite her again, just slightly lower the first wound, broke more skin.

Another bite, more tearing pain....she gritted her teeth. She was clear headed now, all the turmoil was gone. This helped her bring things into focus. She was almost positive she had felt her brother's magic in the city earlier, and two other people's.....one with him and then that other probing she had felt. She also knew now it hadn't been searching for her. Had Gattie? That she didn't know and wasn't ready to find out.

Now that that series of events was no longer upsetting her her attention returnd to the matter at hand. Which would be her. This point was emphasized more, when he made a third jagged bite. She backed off the flow of magic to a trickle. "If you kill me, we can't do this again sometime." she said in a cautious tone while she swept his bangs aside to open her eyes and look into his.

That brought him back. For very different reasons then she may expect. For a moment he refused to detatch from her throat, rehooking his fangs into the wound. Finally, he drew his head back from her and looked into her eyes. That made him less a vampire even further. Saddness, anger, hate rushed into his eyes. He stepped back, his hands still on the wall but his body no longer holding her there. He'd been holding her up at his level, her feet off the ground, so that he needn't have bent his neck to her.

He spit over his shoulder, spraying the sidewalk with more blood. He spit a third time and removed one hand from the wall to wipes his lips, look at the red, blaring at him from his pale wrist. His eyes turned, disgusted, to her. Had she baited him again? Or had he lost it? Like before.

He felt warm, flushed even, he felt his heart beating for the first time in three weeks, felt, could even hear it like a drum, the blood flowing through his veins. His lip trembled and he stepped back and away from her, spit again.

"Never," his voice, still deep and rasping, wasn't much more then a secret. "I can't. Not again."

"I tell myself that a lot too, then I'm in an alley standing over someone with a baseball bat....." She didn't finsih, he'd been made into a vampire after all, and she was just going crazy. Her hand went to her throat again tracing the damage and healing it, it took longer this time.

She smiled then, "Good luck avoiding me now, You have an aweful lot of my magic in you, makes it very easy to track you. As you may have noticed, I don't always have enough sense to leave a thing alone. The idea may disgust you but you might want to consider an arangement with me." she spoke while healing the damage to her throat. It wasn't complete healing, but the traces of damage to an onlooker would be so mininimal as to atttract no notice.

One hand still held her in place nothing else. "You can put me down now." she told him.

He actually snarled at her when she compared himself to her. He let go and she fell, no gently lowering her. He did it maliciously. His fingers curled around the cross around his throat and he stepped away from her further. He could still taste the blood on his tongue. He wanted it gone. He rubbed his eyes so hard the skin around them became irritated.

"Just leave me alone." He sounded closer to what he had before he'd bitten her. More sad then angry. His eyes were still bled blue but even through this, saddness devoured his eyes. "Just don't." Don't be part of my life. I don't need another thing going wrong.

"If it were that simple, I wouldn't warn you....You think in my lucid moments I would look for you?" She laughed, but it was a bitter laugh.....how long would this measure of sanity hold? At best she might be able to push it past a month.

"You may feel it tug at you too.....I don't know." she got up from where she'd been dropped, gracefully, she was hurt but she would never show weakness, and the pain reminded her she was real.

She let the magic curl outward in eddies, it was no longer all coiled up inside her. She began moving down the side walk. This had actually made her tired enough to sleep, an unusual occurance. She kept track of him with her magic as she moved away rather than watching him. She had no idea if he would simply stand around and brood full of self loathing or if he would continue speaking. Neither would trouble her.

Morose shook his head at her back, his eyes full of so many things, and bled so blue it would be impossible to sift through them. He spit again, looked into the cemetery, watched her back and closed his eyes. He swallowed hard, then turned and took long, less carfuly and less quiet strides then before with his long legs.

Almost immediatly those quick strides turned to a run and Morose was running in the opposit direction as she was walking. Tears burned at his eyes, but he couldn't cry. But nevertheless, they bruned there, stung. At least this one walked away right? The man he'd killed.