Fatale

Chapter Three

Chapter Three


The first few days had been hell. Lesedi had been fearful, flinching away from Leon's touch, ignoring him and whimpering whenever she caught sight of herself in the mirror. She'd screamed, had nightmares, been angry and upset. Leon was exhausted and Kayla had had to call together some members of her coven to put a time spell on the manor so that no matter how much time appeared to pass inside the house, should they leave the grounds: time would resume from the point it had been before. When he'd been forced into telling the girl this, since Christmas Day arrived in the manor, the day had been filled with angry shouting matches and bitter tears. The girl had no idea how to deal with what was happening to her.

Every night she was pulled by her elements of Wind and Water, every night she had nightmares and then woke in the spell of the Winter winds. Sometimes they'd had to curse her, spell her down from the air as she'd tapped into her powers as an immortal. She had continued to deny it. She lived a normal life. She had had no qualms with life. Leon sighed and shivered, watching the limp form in the bed with it’s lax face and tear streaked cheeks. Sometimes when Lesedi was out of control, out in the wind, Leon caught snippets of the girl’s thoughts… as if the power of the wind in her own blood was fighting to leave and return to the night air.

….In her earliest memory she was sitting in the small space between the sofa and the wall, holding an old, matted teddybear as a woman cried into her knees. One arm was about a three-year-old’s shoulders. She was sitting on the sofa whilst Lesedi sat behind her. She didn’t understand her tears. Her five year old fingers stretched out to the radiator, she was so cold and wanted to be warm but she didn’t want to show herself to the woman. Her arm seemed as comforting to the girl as a cobra. She can see it… She has a couple of dark bruises scratching her perfect pale skin and she knows that this place is somewhere she never wants to come again. She knew that somewhere inside, the girl was crying in the safest space known to children, the place inside their hearts, that little room with a door but no windows at all…

As time went on, Leon slowly became accustomed to the way that Lesedi structured her thoughts. Gone was it’s strangeness to him as it was sobbed out into the wind. He could piece things together. He listened… every time knowing that it would be reaching the other Draconians… It may even be reaching the other immortals and that was not necessarily a good thing at all. Sometimes when he found the girl crying the way she sometimes was, silently shaking, he wondered why the reaction? Wasn’t it a blessing to discover one’s immortality? That you were special, a part of a history of power and prestige and had a real role in the world.

Sometimes Lesedi sobbed about the dark flight down. Or the seventh step. It sounded like some ominous dance to him but he’d never heard of it. He sighed and sent out his thoughts for Kayla.

<My Love?> He let the words find the connection buried deep in his blood and smiled as he felt the warmth of her conciousness flood him.

<Yes, dear one?>

<How fares our Lord?>

<He is restless. I feel that he will destroy any chance for himself should the draconite not calm herself.>

<She is sleeping currently. I fear the fact that the second stage has not yet stirred in her.>

<But you know why she does not?>

<She refuses to accept herself and she must but… how can I tell her anything when she recoils from me as if I am a monster?>

<Have you tried to access her mind? I have heard her murmurings on the wind. You too must be beginning to understand her thoughts. Surely->

<I am considering it. I was thinking about it only moments ago but…>

<You’re afraid?>

<It may seriously damage her or at the least her trust in us. Which can be repaired at this point but…>

He felt a burst of gentle heat pulse below his ribs and heard the words which every time made him bless the heavens and thank any god that ever existed. <I love you, Leon.>

<I love you too my fair one.”

Slowly, reluctantly he felt her pull away, their bond parting on the conscious level. He sighed, wondering if Lesedi would ever allow his master to feel similarly. Or if the girl would be the end of Requiem. Requiem deserved more than this. Requiem was a good man who would, destiny or not, love with his whole heart even if it wasn't truly living. His master had been cold for so long, so pitiless and cruel… That’s why the man had been so drawn to Metternich: who had believed himself immune to any pain or danger, who hadn’t feared Requiem the immortal lord. He remembered times when Requiem’s malicious mentality had been as legendary across the green hills of England as Dracula in Transylvania or the Dogheads of Germany.

Lesedi was warm, bright and wonderful in so many ways… It shocked him

In his head Leon could still see the master he had followed since he was a mere one hundred and seventeen years old. He could remember the way that Requiem had reacted to the correspondence between himself and a circle of peers in Rome… He’d attacked them in their summer homes on the coast. He’d killed a whole town in his Rage and… laughed… He could see it so clearly… Night had been laid out like a cruel, sweeping black over the ruined land. Requiem stood on the edge, coat concealing him, a coal camouflage about his lean body. He was tense and his youthful face taught and watching, waiting… Once sparkling orbs of blue had faded to a hollow, malachite grey. Everything about him seemed much older than many would have guessed him in years; the way he stood and the coldness in his gaze was harsh and pitiless.

“I do not forgive…” He muttered and the bitterness in that voice carried over the dented hills and the poisoned waters, blown to the place known as Herculaneum. The billowing green cloud hovering on the horizon as it melted with orange smoke was now the only tell tale sign of the city he had left behind.

Leon had been alert, standing, watching at a distance, studying the tortured form of his Master, they had had to leave. He knew that Requiem understood that. How could he not? But it was as if he hadn’t wanted to leave the bodies of the humans he had slaughtered in his Rage even though he had been the one to call up the fallen angel and demanded that the place be destroyed. Leon had been the one that had dragged them out of the city in the end because to stay… He remembered how he had shuddered at the thoughts crossing his mind, not wanting to think about ‘because’. Yet at that point they had been wasting so much of the precious time between darkness and sun rise.

He trailed one hand absently over the coverlet that was molded around the sleeping face of Lesedi… He could recall the feel of the earth around Herculaneum, left rough and rocky to the touch, just like everything was on the broken earth of their surroundings. Even here, past the boundaries of the town itself, he knew they weren’t out of danger, the Feeling was telling him so... Bitterly he let his thoughts trail back to days with Kayla, running through fields of long green grass… And fairytales told from the memories of his other. Quiet footsteps came to rest by his sitting form.

“Time to go?” He asked, not looking up.

“Yes. Time to push over the ridge.” The voice of his only dominant held no hope in it only an anger and resentment that showed everything the teens had been through, “Come Leon.”

Their boots had bitten deeply into the dead earth, biting rock, champing away at the lifeless nothing that the vampire had created around the area circling the city… It was as if the mountainous Vesuvius split apart two entirely different lands. This land, this haven was gone, devoid of any life yet what lay beyond, somewhere over the ridge of the mountain, somewhere on the far shores the shadow of Requiem’s power hadn’t mauled the earth and Pompeii, that wonderful place his mother had spoken so wonderfully of, the place he had considered taking Kayla for a holiday, lay humming with a vivacity that was undeniable...

Requiem had held himself steady on the rocky face as it began the rise into an incline, knees bent and back hunched over so his nose was grazing the granite surface, the vampire had become more beast than man. The reddened moon was fading in front of them, its barbed aura suggesting a splintered surface as it sank behind an indigo rise.

Leon sighed, a faint smile sliding over his face, it was a red moon tonight as well, the days had left the luna eye to fade into her umber cloak… He had seen hundreds of nights when he had sat with his lover and wife and watched as the red moon faded, falling back to make way for the sun.

But back then… the further they moved away from Herculaneum, the more they saw the stars and the planets that had never been made invisible behind the thick smoggy sky. It was then he saw part of the mountain side move.

“DOWN!” Requiem growled, throwing himself down to the muddy earth thirty foot below. He saw how his master’s knees gave way beneath him allowing him to roll on to his back, letting his momentum absorb into the ground. Leon, however, hit the ground beside him with a cry of pain. He grimaced as he saw blood gushing from a gash across his ankle. But he had no time to think things through as a low rumble shook the ground.

Requiem sneered, “Nice one novice.”

“What’s going on?” Leon had whispered. Face flushed.

And then it roared. A harsh, feral roar ricocheted off the ridge walls, crashing and clanging though their ears. Inhuman, mocking eyes snagged Leon’s...

“Demon.” Requiem spoke the word with a grin on his lips and no trace of remorse. Leon remembered his vision blurring, the demon was fire... As Requiem’s smile split into a ghastly mimicry of joy, he launched himself to his feet and dashed ahead of the draconian. Hastily he had shaken his head, grabbed at the traces of his healing magic before running. He had whimpered, limped behind him as he tried to move faster than he could heal.

“Leon-"

Requiem was stood above, still with his eyes burning silver, admiring something that he could see until-

Leon stopped, become feral and launched straight into the mind of a guard. Fire spluttered from the earth, plumes of red and yellow and black as smoke and molten rock leapt from the trembling ground. He had pushed Requiem onwards, “Run!” He staggered and nearly fell again, “Master, run!” He was bellowing the order, he knew he would be punished for the command but he was serious. He hadn’t looked himself for a while and he could see things that no one else could… But Leon was just as powerful in many ways.

Leon, in his memory, sank into a low, defensive stance. He knew he could never challenge a full demon, not one like this, without calling on his magic… He felt his mouth curl in distaste for the human word. How pathetic they were to create such a simple term for such a complex energy. Even back then, with no hindsight, he had known he was going to regret the actions he was about to take. Summoning all the energy he could risk, he pulled together a web from tendrils of air, pulling the threads close, making them burn with all the power he could find around him, seizing as much strength as he was able to contain. Staring directly into the luminescent eyes of the stone, gargoyle-like monster as it rose to the surface of the mountain, he cast his construction with all his might, feeling the energy drain from him, leaving him faint. The monster screeched, the curdling yelp in its throat making his head spin faster.

“Leon!” Someone was calling him…

Lost in his mind, he lurched around to stumble after the voice, he could hear the magic being broken through, the crackling crescendo as the artificially combined elements were shattered.

He could see his master before him, his dark clothes hanging limply off the slim body beneath. Why wasn’t he running?

“RUN!” He roared, forcing his own voice to rise with difficulty. But he stayed where he was. So he pressed himself further, letting adrenaline take over as he felt his energy fading more and more. Where could they go? They needed to hide. Where could they go? “Run!”

“There’s a cave of sorts down-” Requiem was pointing somewhere beyond his vision.

“Go! Just get out of here!”

The magical web caved. The wail of power as it tried to force itself back into the rest of the area spat itself through Requiem’s mind. His eyes were burning quicksilver as he finally allowed his vision to blur into a very different personality. Leon trembled as he came up beside him. His master was waning… he was losing control. The pain shooting up his leg was increasing as he seized his wrist, hauling him behind in his wake. He had no choice as he pulled him towards the engraved mouth of the cave. He could see the demon now, its rocky body shaking the ground beneath its feet.

“Leon!?”

Suddenly darkness swallowed him and they were inside the cavern and then Requiem was gone, his hand torn from his protective hand as agony spliced his leg and he fell.

“LEON!”

Lesedi sat before him, bolt upright and eyes wide with a fear that strangely felt different to the fear that he had seen before. Her slender, delicate wrist was clutched tightly in Leon’s fist. That was when Leon realised the terrible snarl in his chest, the pounding of his heart and the elongated nails on his fingers, blackened talons… Recoiling from the child, he stiffened and tried to control his breathing.
“My god I’m sorry…”

Lesedi said nothing for a moment, her arm snatched back, hand coming up to hide the bruises on her wrist instinctively, “Did you realise you were speaking aloud?”

Leon flinched back again. Eyes wide and body quaking, ashamed at himself at the same time as realising that Lesedi now knew much more about him and Requiem then she probably should at this point.

“Is he really that cruel?”

But Lesedi’s eyes were not scared or set in their now more commonplace glare. In fact, they were sad… as if gentled by candles with the face of a church effigy… and Leon felt himself nodding, “My master, my friend is cold. When you’ve lived as long as he has and lost everyone you’ve ever loved…”

“I think I understand.”

The change in the girl was sudden. It was as if the revelation had struck some kind of switch in her.

“May I talk to him?”

“To Requiem?”

“Yes.”

“I… I’m sure that would be ok with him.”

*

Lesedi had been told that she had to find her own way to Requiem. She wasn’t sure why but she had been secretly glad… Leon had scared her with his mumbled ramblings. Reminding her of the wind, of the stories of the many battles and terrors that immortals had let it gust over the world. It was no wonder that she was so happy to leave the company of the Draconian; that was what he’d called himself right? That was what he’d called Lesedi too… She crossed the staircase landing and entered the corridor that she remembered being told not to enter the first time she’d been there. For that corridor it seemed light was completely excluded. And it had an airless smell that was darkly oppressive. A fire could be smelt, perhaps put out recently since she could see the empty grate of a huge gaping chimney at the end of the passage. But she supposed in this place it was more disposed to go out than to stay alight anyway. If she squinted, she could see the remains of reluctant smoke still lingering like threads of spider webs. If it was possible, the place felt colder than the clearer air of the rest of the house, lifeless like marsh mist. Lesedi couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to turn the beautiful house she’d entered last time, turn into this. It was as if candles became wintry branches… Some of them began to light up as she passed, sending long shadows to curl around her. Shivering, she hurried more swiftly to the chamber she recalled as Requiem’s.

The old doors creaked open. Once again she didn’t bother to knock. Kayla looked up at her in slight surprise as she entered but Requiem himself was still sat in the same position that he had been in before when she’d last seen him. His back to her, facing a piano and a mirror which was so enshrined in darkness that she couldn’t see the face of the man whose house she had been staying in. It was still as dark and musty as ever. The small candles that had been placed in the entrance faintly troubled the darkness but no enough to alleviate it. She noticed again the room’s spaciousness, its faded beauty, the way that every discernible thing seemed to be covered in a layer of dust or covered over with off-white sheets… Books now were strewn across the floor, some so old they looked like they might drop to pieces. The only real change was a table… Before it had been covered, now it sat polished on four ornately cut claws, pictures and historical pieces pulled out from the dark and placed, as if in a fit of curiosity, on the table’s dark wooden surface. It seemed that every century was represented there and… Lesedi supposed it was…

An epergne or centrepiece of some kind was in the middle of it. But it remained the only unpolished thing on the table. So overhung with cobwebs was it that she couldn’t tell what it was. Still neither girl nor immortal had spoken… Only Kayla had moved to leave. But now she moved towards the ornament, noticed speckle-legged spiders scurrying home towards it, their blotchy bodies bobbing as they moved.

“I wouldn’t go too close… That’s a death jar from Egypt. I’ve forgotten how to remove the curse runes.” The soft, lulling melody of the elder man’s voice made a warm shiver run own her spine, as if the words were a caress that she had long desired, “If you listen… you can hear the soul inside.”

Lesedi let silence descend, she held her breath so she could listen. She could hear mice rattling behind the panels as if there was something desperately important going on in their world. Black beetles that circled the disguised death jar seemed agitated by her presence, clicking their forelegs together.

“I can’t hear anything.”

“Shhhh… It’s like a whisper, a small babe’s whisper…” Requiem’s voice was something she hadn’t ever realised that she’d missed.

She listened some more, trying to feel for the whisper… There was still nothing.

“I guess my hearing isn’t that good.”

Requiem sighed, low and melancholy, “I’m guessing that you’re still not accepting the dragon in you.”

Lesedi tensed and felt a strange urge to growl, though she refused to, “I suppose not.”

There was another sigh and the guilt that she felt at causing it was surprising, “Why have you come here?”

“I hear things… About you… On the wind… I don’t understand how the painting they give of you is the man that I see here.”

The laugh that crept from the unseen lips on the unseen face made the girl step closer, wanting to catch all of that sound and keep it, “So the wind still talks of me. I really am the stuff of legend.”

“The stars do too sometimes.”

“Well destiny always did have fun toying with me.” There was a sardonic note to that statement, “Your wings are beautiful.”

Lesedi flinched. She was just beginning to accept that she had wings, that there had to be some truth in what was going on… It wasn’t just a bad dream any more. She had never asked for this, for these wings, for this difference in her life. She was happy with life. Or so she said… But for this man to say it…

“Are you really a vampire?”

*

“Are you really a vampire?”

When the slim figure of his mate had entered the room, all silence and purpose, Requiem had wanted to fly to her, to run to her and scoop her into his arms. Surely this meant that she had accepted her immortality and she could begin to learn the ways of the immortals? Surely… but the girl still couldn’t hear the sighs of souls and that had given her away. Lesedi remained on the cusp of immortality and mortality. It would begin to kill her soon unless… And now the question… Was he a vampire?

“Yes. I am.”

“Are you evil?”

“That’s not a very sensible question is it? Would anyone call themselves evil?”

The girl blushed and Requiem vowed to make sure that he did that again. His eyes kept travelling away from Lesedi’s face to the wings… Supposing that she still hadn’t learnt to withdraw them… it was endearing in a strange way.

“But what you did. Do you regret it?”

“Regret it?” Requiem grinned though he knew that Lesedi couldn’t see it. Maybe she could hear it, “What is the point in regretting actions that you cannot take back? Your actions create the person you are and that is inescapable. If you regret what you have done then you are undermining yourself.”

“So you don’t feel any guilt? For killing so many people for no reason? Herculaneum? Pompeii? Austerlitz?”

Requiem felt cold in his blood. He had felt guilt once, but not any more. He couldn’t regret, “No.”

“But so many were innocent!”

“No man is innocent. And if but one of the people who died in Herculaneum had survived then the whole balance of light and dark would have been tilted towards Chaos.”

“You’re going to argue that slaughtering innocents was for the greater good?” The disgust and anger in Lesedi’s voice belied her naivety.

“I have not fought on both sides for over a millennium to have you berate me for trying to maintain the balance that the Demiurge set in place at the beginning of time.”

“Demiurge?”

“The one that created the three realms from the raw chaotic matter of space.”

“That’s Plato.”

“Very good young one.”

“I’m not that young.”

Laughing again, Requiem could see the strange look which fluttered over the fay-like features of the young woman before him, “You are much younger than I am."

"But I thought that this was just one of my lives? The wind... it said that... this was the fourth existance I have been born into..."

Requiem winced. Draconians died if their souls were incomplete. Some how he had to let his girl see this without scaring her away... Somehow he had to... make her realise what she was doing, "On the table there's a book about Draconians... if you want. It might help you accept yourself."

"Will it help me retract these stupid wings?"

"All you have to do is concentrate on them and they'll retract."

"And when you can do that..." He hated to say it, "I want you to go home. You've missed christmas with your family. I want you to go and celebrate it. On the 27th we'll come and find you again, see how you are... I wont keep you prisoner."

Lesedi, he realised then, didn't know what to say. He smiled. Perhaps she wouldn't be blinded by the legacy he'd had before.

*

Lesedi had been home only a few hours and there was no way she could enjoy the familiar atmosphere of Christmas with the thought of Leon and Requiem and their impending visit. Even sitting in Dublin central, in the square of Temple Bar, surrounded with life and popular laughter… She found it hard not to think about the fact that in three days a vampire would be appearing with a draconian at his side, ready to tell her guardians, her only known living relatives, that their niece was a monster. Outside the street shone, softened with the silver of rain on the pavement and just beginning to glow in the iridescent light of late afternoon lighting. It wasn’t snow… But the pavement glistened as a breeze made it shiver and distorted the sun-dusk reflection in crystalline water. Black tar gave way to grey concrete paths which slowly became track and then wove away from the empty pre-rush hour road and across the black plateau of the tarmac road. Heavy with spilt moisture the world spun lethargically on its axis and time had slowed until it crawled like a three legged spider through the shadows.

From the window seat of the Morgan Hotel bar, Lesedi could look out over the open road, across the shady green benches and into the dappled flush of grass and bracken. Well… that was a lie. It was her mind; her desperate desire to return to the grassy moor land outside the city overwhelmed her… Having spent so long in the wild, living with the world no higher than the grass tops, the earth rolling away from her… The only people that were ever around their home were the children, or young mothers with their apparent duty to let their children grow up away from loves in the overgrowing weeds about the school… weeds that, like the maudlin mothers, beat their heads on the ground in the wind. Distractedly she mused on those mothers… she thought they steered their smaller persons towards a doomed path constantly, mouths opening in soundless, silenced commands. Like Labradors or tailless Vanara, the children would dash backwards and forwards from parent to freedom as if contemplating whether or not to disregard their dependency. None of them chose the latter. But never mind it didn’t matter. She was hardly part of that world any more was she?

She sighed, tapped her fingers on the table, mentally tried to catch up on the last few lines from the conversation her greying aunt was engaged in with her husband. It was like lines on the white board, happily ignorable, and she chewed her thumb, nibbling on the tip of it as her knee shook up and down beneath the table, caught on the nerve. She tossed dark brown strands of hair from her eyes and then tipped her head so it fell back across them, obscuring them as well as her drifting thoughts. For one reason or another, the world around her meant very little to her at that precise moment in time. She felt both destructive and at peace, wanting to go and muck about somewhere with a can of WD40 and a lighter or to simply go for a walk and suck in the sagging, suffocating air that lingered water full.

"Lesedi, you might know this." Her aunt's voice woke her from the boredom induced reverie, "Why was there that silly dilemma in England blah blah blah… You know… London?"

There was an awkward silence, Lesedi glanced up with pleading eyes at her uncle. The man, though most definitely not always sympathetic, this time must have tapped into his inner human and decided to take pity on her.

"They hate the man for nothing so much as floccinaucinihilipilification of his leadership of London, I’ve already explained." His uncle’s reply was slow as he raised his eyes upwards briefly, "He’s just not as well liked. Not such a sunny fellow as they thought… after his predecessors. Thick as plastic."

There was a pause then the teacher in his uncle continued, whilst Lesedi zoned out, she hoped that her aunt was vowing not to call on her again for a while. She had almost certainly noticed her lack of input, she was a therapist for gods sake... But for some reason long words paired with non-conventional syntax seemed to put off this particularly erudite woman. Then again she wasn’t sure if she would notice any change in her considering her tendency to spend more time outside alone than inside with her… even now when she had been looking after her for so long, she wasn’t sure that she would notice anything at all really. No one had put her there, in her family, in the way that the kids at the school were so maybe she didn’t care as much... She slumped slightly, leant on one hand, started tapping again and gazed out towards the north where the dark branches of a solitary, strange lamp post flickered with flyers fluttering around it in the wind… It was like a tree reaching its bony fingers to the sky, pawing at mizzling clouds.

It was nice to think nature was content with the wintry calls away from school and work and duties unwillingly, otherwise, forgotten. She'd go for a walk straight after this dinner let out. She'd be fine then.

*

It felt as if Requiem could drink the air. Like a clean hazy smog, the atmosphere smelt of uncut greenery and damp shades. It was nearing the witching hour and he had crawled away from Leon’s company long enough to seek out the solace of the outdoors. He hadn’t been outside since he’d awoken. Smiling he set out across the lawns, lighting up what Leon called a ‘Marlborough Light’, the equivalent of pipe tobacco apparently, and proceeded to traipse off the path and into the wilderness of his deserted gardens. For some reason at night it held the overbearing sense of untamed wilds, an unkempt moor land or heath, the tumble brush and fleshy green leaves more healthy for the seasonal rains.

He headed for the silver-skeleton imprint of a tree, the white bower as people had taken to calling it. He had always liked the way the spirals of smoke wafted up through the bony fingers as if dragons were dancing through the branches. He smirked, realising that once again he was falling into poetic paradigms. But as he arrived and reached up to climb into the bower itself, he discarded the thought entirely. This place was strange, a timeless sanctuary for here it seemed city traffic did not exist nor the battering doors or the squealing children. Sound became silent; scents became heavy, intoxicating; taste became aphrodisiacal; sight became an Eden of visions. Even touch seemed softer, like an earthy embrace. He settled in his favourite spot, a place he only frequented on occasion and looked out from the branch like any man might look out from a lighthouse or fortress.

He drew in, holding the smoke in him and then exhaling, relishing the burn in his lungs, the purity of the air afterwards. He loved these moments.

But it looked as if it were not to last. A blonde headed figure loped towards him and this place, slowly tracing a path through the grass and vaguely he remembered seeing this stranger from a distance once before. Perhaps there was purpose in the intrusion, the wind was murmuring gleefully, as if the fates were designing something…. The girl tracing a dark, dried line in the dewy grasses. His hairs on the back of his neck rose. She was an immortal too. But he didn’t know her.

The wind whispered the real entity of the war...

What war? As she came closer he began to tick off what he could gather from the oddity's appearance. People reading had become a hobby with Requiem, something he had let the old man inside of him indulge in and often did. Sometimes others saw and Leon, if he caught him, often joined him in his watchings. He lowered himself from the tree and perched on the back of the bench below, deciding it might seem off putting if he remained above the person by staying in the tree itself but not exactly knowing why he even cared why a stranger, no immortal he recognised, was coming this way...

The walk seemed stiff, not a lope at all but a slightly staggering as if it ached to move… Smaller than he was, though he'd guess not by too much and a slighter build though broader in the shoulders than he would have thought of the average woman… The white hair made him cock his head to one side as he drew another breath of smoke, keeping it in his throat and mouth as the girl approached. Stained blue and black and purple, immortality or illness had bruised the skin of this woman a dark, hurting colour, the red eyes themselves seemed to be staring straight back at him, though he couldn't really tell from so far away still. The shirt was sleeveless. That made him want to shiver, pulling his black cloak closer as he thought of the cold. He liked the cold, yes, but not to freeze. In a blouse and strap shoes he could only think of the cold of this woman's body.

She came to a halt at his feet.

"Blue hm?" He murmured, raking his eyes over the woman whose gift he found it impossible to discern.

*

Her skin. Why was it always the skin that was noticed first, she wondered with a rueful smile, "Yesss. Got a problem with that?" The stub of his cigarette was all but smoulders. He gashed it open, all red and hot against the bench. She leant toward the little light and was reminded of the water flowers she had left behind at home.

There was a haze to the vampire’s look, as if part of his mind was elsewhere, not with her in the garden, "The wind never mentioned you and I never imagined being visited so soon after my waking."

“My visionssss bring me here.” She intoned, trying to make her voice as human as possible. It was hard coming back into the middle realm.

Visions? She could see the word becoming fixed in his mind as he rolled it over again and again in his head. He had no idea what she was.

“Visions…”

She smiled, lips pulling themselves backward to reveal black gums and sharp silver teeth. It seemed he didn't even realise he'd spoken aloud. Until now she had just been a stranger, now he was really beginning to wonder about the world again. Fixing him with a liquid crimson gaze, she let the irises swim with the sights she had seen, knowing his reaction for she had seen it already. It would make such indelible cold spread down his spine, as if a spectre had attempted to give him a massage. A cigarrete was being proffered then taken away and replaced with his inquisitive brand which she had instinctually been reaching for. And then the vampire said her name.

“Manasa… We have not met before?"

"Never." She smiled, “Would you mind if I lost my luckless legs?”

She did not wait for his reply, letting her lower body return to its natural snake tail before she licked her lips, revealing her long, inhuman tongue. He clearly knew nothing of her. She could hear his thoughts.

"Then... why?" He phrased the question carefully, unsure of the situation now that this man had proven himself to be quite strange.

"Today isss a nice day for a walk, right?"

"You didn't answer my question." Requiem was beginning to show a more defensive face, though she doubted he was scared, just defensive since it was uncommon for any Nagas to seek out an immortal. They were some of the few which had allied themselves solely with one country, that of India. But she smiled, she liked it when people knew things about her.

"Oh, I forgot, you're not the easssy-going type. I can't tell you very mucchhh now. Only thing I can sssay to you isss that your dessstiny will ssooon be thrown to the windsss. Your mate will be in danger should you ignore my wordsss. You mussst tell her of yourssselffff"

"Is that so? And why would I do that?" She could see anger in his eyes, perhaps covering up for the fact that despite his calling he was still loathe to face his past.

"You'll be heading back home. Battered and bleeding, the girl will be dessstroyed. Angelsss are demonsss in disssguissse with no life beyond their lying eyesss, a dead man back to swipe at you. Light and dark fighting. But if on your way home you take the darkened path you'll witness an explosion... we ssseee things that you will never sssseee little vampire. We are azs old as the earth itzself, we lisssten to your wind but we underzstand the dying light better than any of you. The girl will define who isss victorious in the New Era."

*

What was she talking about? Had she really come to deliver prophecies to his door? Was this creature MAD? But even as he thought it, Requiem knew he was going to have a lot to think about on the way home. He needed to see what was going on. His waking, he realised now, was deliberate. There was a purpose. A balance that needed to be re-established. But which way?

"What if I don't go?"

"It doesn't really matter if you do it or not. But it would be so much different. So much more interesting than most other nights, right?" He was breathing with no reason to breathe, a nervous habit perhaps... He imagined that he was looking strangely like a child playing with a father’s false pretentsions rather than a centuries old vampire with a strange disposition and torpedo love affairs.

He rose, not taking his eyes from the white haired Nagas and took a few steps, leaving the silence, the comforting haven of the garden, then turned back imprinting the face of this stranger in his mind before he shoved his hands in his pocked, confusion dangling inside his mind and slowly walking back along the path, no longer enticed by the brush...

“Oh and the girl diess tonight unlesssss you sssave her.”

*

Lesedi stood alone on the corner of the road, tucked into the doorframe of a shop, lighting up her phone repeatedly in so little a moment that it flickered like a white candle on her cheek. Checking the time, checking the street for any sign of her aunt and uncle… They had said they’d go and pick up the car whilst he visited Phoenix Park, the last place she and her dad had ever gone together. A Mercedes sat across the other side of the road, empty and dark eyed with the tinted windows. It sat, a metallic monster, shimmering in the rain. Everything felt threatening, she didn't know why. She felt cold. She had been there a while, by the statue of Oscar Wilde, one of her heroes (if not for his writing then for the fact that they shared a surname). Eight minutes and thirty-seven seconds had ticked by since she had expected her family to arrive and take her home. What had possessed her to come here today, she wasn’t sure. Maybe the fact that it was her father’s death which had apparently triggered this change. The car bothered her still somewhat, it seemed strange that a car like that be left here with no one apparently coming to claim it. She wasn't used to intrigue. The only person who had ever inspired her was the other Draconian, Leon, but she wasn’t so sure she liked inspiration if it ended up like this. And Requiem. What was she to make of the vampire? Genius was often fascinating, she supposed, and the ancient immortal was a polymath in the purest sense of the word.

Seconds flashed passed on her watch. Then a shrill, mechanical scream pierced the air and the world fragmented before her. The noise was deafening, an upward roar from Hell as flames burst skyward and the air singed brown with smoke and twisted metal, like broken limbs, flew passed in a fiery frenzy and cries flew around from a woman who was walking with her parents, an elderly man who had thrown his arms up to protect his grey haired wife. Instinctively she went to drop to the floor when another explosion cracked behind her. She screamed as pain lanced through her right side. Then something large barrelled into her. It took her a moment to realise she wasn’t dead but in the arms of a panting stranger, pressed down to the pavement’s dirtied floor , the other’s body above him, protecting her? She raised a hand to her head and felt blood.

She tried to look back and imagined that the block was missing and that the park was visible. Flames still licked the sky, embers fluttering down around them. Who was holding her? It smelt familiar, the body above her.

“Are you alright?” A smooth, musical voice murmured as the stranger shifted so that they were less awkwardly positioned.

“Requiem

Was this a joke? Had this been planned? Half of her wanted to run, to flee and tell her relatives everything, another part told her to go to the police… and a tiny part of her murmured that all the answers lay with the dark haired, antique vampire whose face she had yet to see and yet whose very presence transfixed her...

“You’re not meant to be here.”

“I couldn’t let you be hurt.”

But how had he known?

A silence had fallen, unnatural. Embers licked about melted tires, a blackened metal carcass with a singed number plate that flamed with unspent energy. It crackled. But even that seemed a silent. Sobbing was quietened in the aftermath, the old man had dropped unconscious but the woman was holding him as if a babe.

"We are part of a war. And you, the newest Draconian, seem to be at the crux of it."

Matt Dragoon Master