DEMONS

[Reanna]

Oh, Iskra.
You thought to escape me that easily.
How foolish of you, little sister.

The whisper echoed in the silence of her apartment, causing her to feel as though she was running out of air. She had thought she had ridden herself of him, but as the nights turned colder, he had returned. He had waited until she was alone, had bided his time until her guard was down, and he had struck. Like a serpent, he had hidden within the grass, his fangs dripping deadly venom that only she could feel. Even now, she felt him as he crept along her skin, his skin as cold as ice and smooth as granite. When this torture had begun, he had been nothing more than a melodic, haunting tune in her mind. Now, somehow, her nightmare had turned into reality. When she first felt his touch, she was certain she had finally succumbed to the chaotic nature that seemed to surround her husband – but no.

He wasn’t home.

Clenching her jaw, she forced her lashes to lift, the sharp green of her gaze focused on the eerily thin fingers that had curled around her wrist. The skin was almost translucent, and as the paper-thin flesh stretched over decaying bone, she thought she heard him laugh. You can never rid yourself of me, Iskra. Your reluctance to let me in only strengthens me. His voice never rose above that whisper, a breath of air against her ear, bringing with it the scent of rotting flesh and blood. Unable to tear her attention from the way his fingers curled around the thin bone of her wrist, she forced herself to swallow the scream that threatened to rise from her throat, and slowly stood. He wasn’t real. He couldn’t be real. She had watched him die. She had witnessed the light flee from his eyes.

She just had to continue to repeat that mantra, even as his haunting laughter followed her to the door, where she grabbed her jacket – his jacket – and pulled it on. The leather fell heavily over her shoulders and swallowed her emaciated frame, but it still smelled faintly of him. The real him, the one that had reminded her of a forest in spring; masculine and strong. Whatever he had turned into was no longer her brother, and as she recited that over and over in her mind, she slammed her palm against the elevator’s call button, her features calm as she watched the floors light up above the steel doors. While she wore a mask of complete and utter boredom, inside, was pure chaos. Her mind was spinning, attempting to figure out the best route, the best answer to how he was haunting her again.

Keeping her gun against her side, she stepped into the elevator when the doors slid open – and finally, she turned. With her back to the wall, she kept her gaze on the floor, but she couldn’t fight the curiosity. Slowly, she lifted her gaze until she caught sight of his boots, worn and dusty. Following the path the length of his legs, her breath caught in her lungs when she realized he was still in the same pair of fatigues he had worn when he died. The holes were the same, the blood stains in perfect position. As the doors started to close, she continued to lift her gaze, until she finally caught sight of his face. It was then that the scream she had kept bottled inside escaped on a low whimper, because his face was gone.

In its place was a ghoulish mask. Half of his jaw was missing, his hair replaced with dirt and maggots. His left eye was gone, and instead, bits of brain and bone erupted from an otherwise empty socket. When his smiled, showing gum and rows of broken, jagged teeth, she nearly choked on the bile that followed her whimper. You did this to me. Do you not like it, Iskra? With a sharp intake of breath, she slammed her fist against the wall, the steel bending beneath the sudden impact. She didn’t bother to answer him – and the doors never gave her a chance. They slid shut with a finality that had her eyes closing, and as the elevator traveled down the shaft, she bowed her head.

Anger, humiliation, and guilt ate away at her – and only one was an emotion she knew well. She wore her anger like armor, so when the other two started to creep into her heart, she found herself reeling. She hadn’t the slightest clue in how to handle the guilt that gnawed away at her heart, nor could she handle the humiliation that had her bowing her head in shame. It had been years, and he still made her feel as though she were a failure, a child that had been left alone too long. Gritting her teeth, she stepped from the elevator when it finally reached the ground floor, and slamming out the front doors of Barri Towers, she headed straight for the city, her emotions battling a war within her that she couldn’t win. She needed an outlet – she needed freedom, she needed blood.

She needed chaos.

[Kirill]

It had been too long since he had spent real time in the city.

Often, Kirill kept to the quiet solitude of an apartment, some private fortress that he and his wife had built for themselves or another. Or, in the case of the last year and change, they had been walled up in Moscow, and had hardly been the sightseeing type. The same four walls had stared at him day in and day out, things almost never changing as he spent his waking hours sifting through an insane amount of information traffic for the literal bits of information that they had been after. It had been hunting for a slightly shorter needle in a stack of needles. So much of the information flowing in and out of the Russian capital was just fluff. Byte after byte of useless drivel. It had just been the lines of code small enough to print on his finger that he had been after, and he had been able to pick it out of the sea of nonsense.

He had even impressed himself.

Now, they were back to the old haunt, back to the stamping grounds that they had left behind for so long. It felt strange to be back, and at the same time, he was relieved. He liked to know that Iskra was safe, that he wouldn’t have to worry about her just stepping out of bed.

He sighed, shaking his head as he tried to shove away his thoughts. They were clouding his mind, cluttering his thoughts as he tried to manipulate the information that flowed to and from a bank server, his presence sifting through the information there and now, and not months into the past. As he concentrated, he let his one hand slip from his pocket, jamming a thumb drive into the adapter on his iPad, downloading the files that he had found straight onto the drive, rather than onto the tablet’s drive.

When he had finished, he severed his connection with the server and slumped into the metal framework of the satellite antenna he had been using as an access point for the network. From where he stood, he could almost see the entire city beneath him, the furthest reaches of the glimmering jewel beneath him but a tiny twinkling of light in the darkness. This was his world, now, and as much as he was loath to admit it, he liked being close to his sire again; glad to have Iskra close to her sire again, even if they hadn’t been very close for a long time. At least they were able to be near one another, to at least work toward a relationship. He and Eve, however… they had an understanding. They were in tune with one another, and even if it appeared cold and uncaring, sometimes even hostile from the outside, they cared for one another. Even he didn’t understand exactly why he cared, but he did. She had been kind to him, in her own way, after their run in. It was more than he had earned, and it still made him laugh.

No, he was very glad to be back home. To be back where they really belonged. Here, he could be sure that, with all the trouble she kicked up, Reanna would be able to find her way back to the world of the living with infinitely greater ease.

He had been more worried about that than he truly cared to admit. He knew, though, that she knew. She seemed to know everything, as intuitive as she was. It was uncanny, and made his plots all the more difficult to carry out, when she was dead set against them.

For the most part, however, she stayed out of his way when he unleashed some form of mischief or another on the unwitting populace. Chaos was his trade, and he was a master of it. He smirked, then, at the thought of it, and closed his eyes as he leaned against the satellite antenna again, concentrating on connecting with the public civil works server. He would happily do a little finicking with the timing of several of the traffic lights in town. Just for a night or so. Only to see how many accidents they would report on the news in the morning. He nodded to himself, then, and sighed as he stepped away from the antenna and looked down over the edge of the bank building. It was a long way down, though it was a sight to behold, the city street so far beneath him.

It made him feel as if he stood on the top of the world.

He heaved a sigh, then, and turned his back on the ledge, instead using the roof elevator access to traverse the distance to that ground level he had eyed only moments before. He closed his eyes as he rode in the luxurious car, and concentrated on his phone.

Text
To: Iskra
We should take a walk.
I think the streets
will be fun for
watching tonight.