One of My Kind [Azraeth]

[Kynan (DELETED 5832)]

He had turned eighteen and gotten the hell out of dodge.

It had been a dream of several of his foster siblings, but he had done it for himself. He had gotten himself a squalid apartment out of Cardiff, gotten a job hauling boxes of god knew what. It had been going grand until his old mates had found him. They’d wanted to start back up. Promised him it’d be just like old times minus the arrests.

They were wrong, of course. They went off for a while without a hitch. Kynan had been their enforcer again, they’d made money. He’d been able to afford more than a mattress on the floor. Then the law had caught up to them again.

He’d gotten away by the skin of his teeth and left Wales all together. He’d bounced from England and Scotland and back before deciding to just try his luck off the Isles.

Which was how he found himself at twenty-one years old and in a little hellhole of a town called Harper Rock in Canada.

Kynan was sitting in a bar, slumped over a drink with the heels of his hands pressed to his eyes, and thinking over his situation. He’d have to find an apartment. He’d have to find a job of some sort to pay for an apartment. Did anyone even hire foreign vagabonds without a passport or a visa?

An illegal Welsh immigrant. Wouldn’t that be one for the storybooks if he were caught, deported, and locked up for the outstanding crimes?

The material of his shirt clung to his back as something cold and wet spilled on to him. He jumped from his seat, nearly spilling his own, to whirl to face the offender.

“Oi, what the ****, mate?”

“We don’t want none of your kind here.”

“One of my kind?” Immediately, Kynan thought they were talking about him being Welsh or shabbily dressed. Homeless and Welsh in a bar wasn’t a great image, he supposed, but he’d always heard about Canadian politeness. Or did that only apply to the already Canadian?

The man just sneered at him, so Kynan retaliated with a shove to the man’s shoulders, a snarl working its way on to his face.

“Repeat that, aye? My kind?”

Instead of speaking, not that Kynan had thought he’d get a real response; he was lifted under his arms by a man to his right and dragged out of the bar. He hit the pavement face first, scrapes burning at his cheek and palms then righted himself. Two men faced him now, one with a knife and the other who had pulled his jacket aside to show a gun in his waistband. Well, ****. Here we go again.

[Azraeth]

“Really? Seriously?”

When Azraeth had first returned from the darkness of the Shadow Realm, he’d been dressed in skinny jeans of all things. With. Suspenders! Not that he was adverse to suspenders, but one wore them with proper slacks where he came from. He had fished the wallet of the man whose body he had taken out of a back pocket and gone through the contents until he’d found an address. This had prompted his going to the man’s home so that he could take exactly one step through the door before passing out onto the ground because the sun came up and Az (who hadn’t had a body in a while), had forgotten that the moment that daylight hit, he was out like a light. Thankfully his foot kicked the door shut and the hipster he’d invaded had the sense to darken his home with what looked to be black out curtains.

When he finally roused again a night later, he’d used the man’s computer to send Nikolae a message via CrowNet, and then he’d gone to investigate wardrobe.

The man’s closet was full of ironic t-shirts and some of the most ridiculous clothing he had ever seen in the entirety of his life. With a dark mutter, he slammed the closet shut, his arms folding across his chest, all in a displeased huff. Really. What was with this generation?! Did nobody have his classic sensibilities? Disengaging before he set fire to the wardrobe, he jotted out a letter saying his parents had called him away and he wasn’t going to be returning. Used a bit of tape to plaster the thing to a door and then he was gone before anyone was the wiser.

His first stop was at tailor, and finding one that was open at night was no easy task. He was taller than he had been when he had been a boy last, so none of his old suits would have worked anyway.

It wasn’t the only difference between old and new body. He could grow facial hair, for one. Which. Was. Awesome.

An hour or so later, after he had outfitted himself appropriately, he stopped by the Dragomir Temple so that he could pick up a set of false glasses. He didn’t have impaired vision, but he had designed the lenses specifically a few years before because they minimized the effect of his serpentine gaze, such that he did not draw undue attention to himself whilst in public. They didn’t look nearly so crazy as if he’d attempted to wear sunglasses out during the night.

He checked in briefly on the Necropolis – still a popular place for vampires and blood dolls to meet up. At one point, he had helped to manage there. But that had been years before, when he and Amaranthia had been close. He hadn’t spoken to her in what felt like years though. One of the ancients who had returned with the first wave of first and second generation vampires that came out of the Shadow Realm. It seemed most of them had either disappeared or gone reclusive. Not that he blamed them. They had been responsible for every single one of the vampires that had come into existence in the modern day. It’d been their task to oversee the next generation and that had not…gone the way he supposed any of them thought it would.

Not a bad thing, just different to what he suspected they’d anticipated.

After that, Az found himself on the street once more, gone in search of a bite to eat.

He was drawn by the sounds of what appeared to be the beginnings of a scuffle, and stopped mid-step as he was walking past an alley, only so that he could turn and then lean sidelong to get a good look. There were three people at least there. Maybe more. Well he was feeling a bit peckish. He made certain there were no cameras or other recording devices lying about and then strolled in with a vague and oversized smile.

“Gents! Thank goodness you found my lost knife.” He said as he stepped over towards the one brandishing the short blade. He was given a look of incredulity as he took it right out of the guy’s hand and lifted it to investigate. “Thanks for that. It’s been lost for days and days.” He commented whilst the man with the gun looked on in either revulsion or dumb horror.

attire

[Kynan (DELETED 5832)]

It all became surreal when the man appeared.

The first thing Kynan noticed, naturally, was how attractive he was, his charisma and easy charm even when dealing with armed miscreants. Kynan was an idiot about men. Always had been, always will be. He was being threatened with weapons and he noticed his apparent savior’s attractiveness.

Get a grip.

With a faint shake of his head, he went into what passed as a defensive stance, just in case. I mean, the guy looked nice and all, but didn’t look at all like he could take on two thugs, even with Kynan’s help.

“Oi, mate, you done it now.” He jeered at the one with the gun, to get his attention. It wouldn’t be fair for the guy to take on two at once while he just stood there. That wasn’t being a man about it, and this was his mess. “He may look like a ponce, but he’ll **** you up all the same.”

He bared his teeth in a feral grin at them. The surge of adrenaline going through his veins made him remember why he’d been in a gang in the first place. The thrill of being the ‘hound’ had always been the best high he’d ever gotten. It beat out drugs by a mile. Fighting was just in his blood, maybe.

The thug with the gun looked between Kynan and the strange man for a moment, then towards his mate with the knife, like he was watching some sort of three way tennis match and his brain just couldn’t keep up.

The Welshman shuffled closer, making sure to keep his hands up just in case one were to take a swing at him. He kept the pretty man (that would be his name, he decided, if he survived this and were to see him again) in his periphery so they didn’t bump into each other should it come to blows. Kynan hoped it came to blows.

It wasn’t often he’d had a partner in combat. The boys back home were all too delicate in their sensibilities of being criminals to get themselves bloodied up in a fight. They’d always called Kynan the Hound, a play on his name and the fact that he was the gang’s attack dog. If he were honest, Kynan had always thought his mates were a little afraid of the ferocity he’d gone after people and the smile he wore while he did it.

Regardless, he shifted his weight and sent a punch for the gunman.

What he didn’t count on was the gun the man in question had on his person getting drawn and a few shots being lodged into his gut at close range. Well. That put a damper on the situation.

[Azraeth]

What exactly was a ponce? Az hadn’t the faintest clue, but it certainly didn’t sound all that threatening based on the context. He made a note to himself to ask at another time. He hadn’t really formed much of a plan prior to entering the alleyway, which was a bit of a problem. Things escalated and quickly. While he was still chatting at the two men with the weapons (well, one with a weapon, and one with a dumb look on his face), the young man they had been about to use said weapons on charged at the gunman. Really now?! What kind of sense did that even make? Wasn’t there a saying for that? Something about not bringing a knife to a gun fight? Youthful perception of invincibility? He was going to really have to have a chat with the guy before eating him about not doing silly things.

Whatever the case, Az let his lips thin into a displeased line. Gunfire would draw the attention of police.

“You know that’s just rude.” He said. He had been hungry and just wanted a bit of a quick meal. So tossed the blade. It flipped through the air, catching the light before he caught the hilt and slammed it into a throat, careful to avoid an artery so that he didn’t waste any of that blood. His other hand burned red as he shoved it against the gunman’s face. There was a scream of pain as all four men suddenly appeared at the very edge of the wilderness.

Dinner to go, it seemed.

The man with a knife in his throat dropped to his knees, clutching at his neck which left Azraeth to jerk the man with a burned face closer. He slammed his fangs past flesh, biting through it like a blade through silk. The vampire was rewarded with the taste of blood pouring over his tongue. He drained the man until he was a desiccated husk and then ripped his head off so that the puncture marks would not be evident. Grisly murder was not the same as a vampiric attack, from what he understood. And that left him with two more persons to deal with.

He pulled the knife out of the one guy’s neck and blood pumped out. Az was careful not t get any of it on his suit as he grasped hair and tugged upwards. He drank from it like a fountain. He normally would not have resorted to such graphic violence, but the world would not miss a couple of thugs, and he wasn’t about to go pick a fight with any and all persons that enforced the Masquerade.

Soon he had another corpse that he was dropping to the ground, and that was when his gaze settled on the youngest of the trio. Az smoothed over his suit with a toothy smile. The effect was ruined by red stained teeth. “You seem to be shot. Unfortunately, my eyes were bigger than my stomach and I’m already full. “ The youth had already seen too much. Az was going to have to be sure he died, but the gut wound would likely do that. He just had to wait and confirm. He made his way over so he could begin to go through the other’s clothing. Had to be sure there was no cell phone on him. Wouldn’t have wanted the cops or an ambulance to show up all untimely like that. “Why don’t you tell me what those guys had against you. Seemed pretty serious.”

[Kynan (DELETED 5832)]

Kynan had never been shot before.

He’d had blades slice him and stab him. He’d had his bones broken and broken again. He’d had muscles tear and ligaments stretch. If it happened at close range without a firearm, it had happened to him at some point or another. But he had never been shot.

He knew he was in shock because there was no pain. He simply staggered back after the gun went off in rapid succession, hand pressing against his abdomen in surprise. A sticky wetness seeped into his shirt and coated his hand. His green eyes grew wide when he looked down to see it red. It was so red. Had his blood always been that red?

His ears were ringing and the world felt like it was muted with cotton stuffed around him, fuzzy and grey like some muffs around his ears. His eardrums had been damaged by the closeness of the sound.

It had to be some kind of trance or a dream in his haze. He couldn’t be seeing what he was seeing. The man had easily flipped the knife and stuck it precisely in one thug’s neck in the time it took for him to blink, then his hand…his hand glowed like hot embers.

The gunman screamed as it was pressed to his skin. Kynan could smell the burning flesh and hair even as the world tilted and suddenly they weren’t in the alley anymore. They were in a field.

And then he screamed again as the pretty one, the ponce, bit into his throat and drained him dry. His head didn’t even drip a single drop of crimson as it thudded to the ground like an afterthought. If he had been in any normal state of mind, he would have gagged. Never before had he been privy to such violence, and he’d been in a gang most of his teenage years.

Somehow he’d fallen to his knees during the ruckus. He fell back farther into the grass as the man, the man with teeth far too large and red red red like a monster, approached him, started touching his clothes.

“That’s mine.” Why was it so hard to talk now? But honestly, with the obvious pointed out, Kynan couldn’t help a weak snark. “Nice to see you’ve got eyes, Holmes.”

He held his hand up, the one stained with his blood. “You roasted that **** like Sunday dinner, ponce. Brilliant, that’s what it was.”

It took him a moment to realize he’d been asked a question. He blinked slowly, torturously.

“They said they didn’t want none of my kind here. Is it ‘cos I’m Welsh? Or is it ‘cos I’m a…what do you lot over here call it? A fag?” He laughed, a bit of blood flecking his saliva. “Which d’you think, pretty man?”

[Azraeth]

There was a hissing sound from somewhere under the man’s vestments, and then a rustling at the sleeve that was largely ignored.

The other man’s brief, but hard played snark earned him something of a smile from Azraeth. When he had been younger, that had been his defense against people. When someone pushed him just a little bit too much, or too hard, he would lash out with his anger and intellect. Those days were long past, and he most often treated people with the same respect he anticipated being shown. That was a mistake that a lot of people from his generation made. They thought (or seemed to think) that if you were nice, that meant you were a doormat. Even as a neutral part to many of the dangers of Harper Rock, Az was far from that. Kind, courteous, and more than capable of making someone realize they were being silly without having to twist their words

But the moment of snarkiness was well meant, at least that’s how the vampire saw it. Which either meant that the human was in shock, or taking the whole dying thing very well.

And Az did favor the feisty over the complacent and boring.

“Well I’m not sure I can answer that. I mean did they hear you speak? You obviously have a foreign accent, so maybe they just disliked anyone not natively Canadian to begin with. I’m not sure how they would have guessed at your sexuality. Were you wearing a sticker or something with it? Or perhaps you hit on someone where they could see it? It seems odd they’d be skulking around a gay bar…I don’t think that’s where we were at least.” The question posed to him was met with careful consideration. It occurred to Az that the man laying only a short distance from him was dying and probably a little on the delirious side. Blood loss could do that to you.

His arms folded into his lap as he got comfortable, tongue poking out of one corner of his mouth in careful thought, even whilst that rustling in the sleeve of his shirt moved further south, until the head of a white snake came free. The serpent dropped to the ground and slithered its way towards the youth. “Magog.” The vampire said chidingly, though he knew she was going to do whatever she wanted. Extremely venomous, Magog was an albino death adder. She was also Azraeth’s familiar, a creature that immediately recognized him no matter the face he wore. Their bond was a strong one, and she often cast judgment over those he interacted regularly with.

The serpent glanced back to him with eye like blood and then continued. ‘I’ll ask your opinion when it’s wanted’ she seemed to say as she slithered over the humans flesh. She came to settle around his neck and then her attention turned back to Azraeth.

There was meaning behind her gaze.

“You think so?” he asked her in a curious tone. She didn’t answer.

“So. Not to sound like a dating service request, but tell me about yourself in a hundred words or less. You’ve got not a lot of time before you bleed out and I have some things I need to know.”

[Kynan (DELETED 5832)]

Kynan couldn’t help but just stare at the man, his outline going a little fuzzy here and there. Was that a halo around his head or was the blood loss causing him to hallucinate? He wasn’t sure he believed in angels anymore, and regardless of that, he was sure nobody taught him that angels sucked blood and had teeth like the Big Bad Wolf.

“What big teeth you have.” He giggled to himself, mostly, incessantly amused by the image conjured up of the dapper man before him in his granny’s clothing.

A hiss and a rustle knocked him out of that daydream, but he didn’t flinch away. He’d always liked things with scales. Snakes and lizards and such. He’d caught them as a child, tried to smuggle them into his cot at the foster. So he stayed very still for the lovely creature to slither all over him. Heh. Slither.

“You talk too much.” Was another thing that left his mouth. So much talking was making his head hurt and now the ponce wanted him to talk more. Wanted him to talk about himself. Nobody asked about him. Just made snap judgements. Maybe if he was to survive this, he would like him.

“You want my arse, don’t you?” A leer, a weak one of course due to the aforementioned bleeding and dying thing that was going on, but it was there. Kynan couldn’t let a thing like that slide without responding to it. It wasn’t in his nature.

“I’m from Wales. I was fostered as a kid ‘cos my parents did drugs. I got into loads of trouble. I was a gang enforcer till my mates got caught and I came here to escape prison. Life’s fun when you aren’t so pretty, eh?”

[Azraeth]

The other man was some kind of delirious, not that Az really blamed him. His life was being drained away by the pint onto the ground. Like some sort of gory and twisted version of a man watering plants. He was going to fade into nothing in that spot most likely. A bag of bones, that would become fertilizer. His flesh would end up melting away and there would be nothing left but a skeleton picked clean by the beasts in the wild, tangle in grass and vines. Maybe he would never even be discovered.

Az couldn’t help a smile at the accusation. It could easily have just been another rambling response from a mind that was going, but Azraeth visualized it as something else. A defense mechanism. He had seen it used before, the way a person could put up a front in order to look a certain way. It was like a child screaming for their parent not to look at them. But naturally, all it did was draw attention to the very things they wanted most ignored. There was insecurity there, masked by over-confidence, masked by some sort of legitimate swagger. Az saw right through it, and into the very core of the other man. But that was how death was; it made honest men out of everyone. No mean feat there, no magic needed.

He licked over his lips in thought.

Drawing himself from his perch, he moved to stand next to Kynan as he listened and then he crouched down right next to him. His gaze dropped, and he looked into his eyes. A hundred words or less – that was what he had given. Only a few sentences strung together to tell an entire life’s worth of pain and happiness. That had been arrogant of him hadn’t it? Had he fallen so out of touch with the boy he had been before the darkness had claimed him? He reached down on impulse and his hand passed over a chest, laying right against a heart. There were hints of concern there he didn’t bother to mask.

“Your life has been a less than pleasant one. But you are dying now. Soon you will disappear, and I doubt that anyone will even recognize that you’re gone. You are a stranger in a foreign land. You will be dust soon, and you are at a crossroads. Down one path there is me sitting here with my hand in yours. I will let you go, I will free you into the night, and you will know as you pass from this world into the next that one man knows your story, that one man will remember you forever and in his own way love you. I can give that to you. Love at your last moments.”

He paused. There was some kind of emotion evident behind his eyes, though it wasn’t clear just what that was. “Down the other road, we can turn this into your new home. I can grant you deathless death. It will be a life filled with tribulation, and pain, but I will walk with you on that path until the road unwinds and falls into nothing. Make your choice now.”