The Zombies of the Past (open)

[Jack Diddly]

The ghostly gal seemed to be pouting, seemed rather flustered. Jack, for the life of him, could not figure out why. May usually wasn’t one to hold her tongue either. She had no problem screaming into his head, even when her soft, singsong voice had the quality of nails on a chalkboard. These days that was more often than not. She always had some cryptic remark or reminiscence. Right now, though, it was like she was a rigid marionette, her normally fluid movements, limited and her chatterbox zipped up tight. Another odd occurrence was that the spector seemed to be slipping slightly into and out of existence right before the vampire’s eyes. She’d never truly been solid, but her presence was more fleeting than usual. In some moments she was a hazy blur, but in others she would skip back to a vivid projection. Overall it was as if they had a bad signal, like the antenna that linked their souls had been busted.

Katalina, a fitting name for the graceful vampiress with the exotic, otherworldly eyes. Her surname even more fitting to the peculiar nature of her preternatural state. At first Jack had thought he’d been imagining things. That what we saw could be credited to the delirium of massive blood loss. The vampiress’ own blood, her own wounds, seemed to vanish into the shadows, as if they had never existed at all. For a vampire, a disappearing wound was pretty standard, but it usually left a bloodstain, the residual reminder than you done got yourself messed up. On Katalina though, there was not a trace of it. And Jack swore that he could almost see the manifestation darkness inside of her threading together, no swirling skin into existence. Staring up at it was like looking into the abyss. Was this what May had been trying to show him? He began to reach up to touch the waves of black whirling within wound on her shoulder. The young vampire was so mystified by the her healing process that he just couldn’t help himself. His reach fell short however, as it appeared that Jack hadn’t been subtle enough and Katalina caught onto the looks he was shooting his fading phantom paramore. The look that followed from the vampiress illustrated that she must have thought him crazy. Perhaps reaching out to touch her shoulder had been too forward. He felt like a fool.
“Apologies, I was just…” he began gently, but Katalina quickly put him in his place with a stern ‘No!’ Yeah, he’d really done messed up.

On top of it all, Jack had the funny feeling that he was forgetting something. It nagged at the pit of his gut, where the hole was taking its sweet ole time weaving itself back together. The stabbing tickles of so many pins and needles were tracing intricate patterns every which way, like some kind of mad artist painting a masterpiece throughout his insides. His body rejected another alien object that had been jammed through the back of his thigh. It slipped out, rolled down under his kneecap and was caught there, stuck between skin and denim. He just needed a bit longer to rest it off, but with the look of utter horror that graced the vampiress’ fair features, Jack wondered if, after his transgression, she’d allow him the remaining respite he needed.

Truthfully he wanted to reach up and wipe away the tears that streaked down Katalina’s pale cheeks, but he’d done enough damage already. A sad smile rested across his lips, as she reached down towards him. He recoiled a bit, expecting the worse, but she simply wrapped him into an embrace, holding onto him as if he were about to get up and run away. A silly notion at the moment, the humor was lost on him though overtaken by the pain in his gut that her grasp caused. It was as she repeated a series of ‘No’s’ that Jack realized the vampiress hadn’t taken affront to his actions. There was something else that was causing the the terrible fright that burned through her eyes. So Jack did the only thing that seemed sensible and appropriate, he returned her embrace, wrapping his arms around her back. He kept it loose and gentle, trying to comfort rather than constrict. “All’s well, now, nothing in the shadows but you and I,” the drawl in his voice was even pervasive in his whisper.

He was wrong of course, very wrong. The animalistic groan and sick flopping sound from just below them confirmed that all too well. Out of the corner of his eye he caught May shaking her head in a sort of quiet disbelief. And Jack, within the trembling vampiress’ embrace, suddenly remembered what it was he had forgotten.

[Katalina Black (DELETED 9968)]

Even without sight, the bones under Katalina's grasp felt as if they were growing. No. The skin was folding in and the tissue deteriorating. We are nothing more than skin and bone. He would be nothing but one of those monsters from beyond the grave. A reminder of where we will all end up eventually. Not even Vampirism could stop that. It were as if the Darkness heard this thought and forced her to see even behind shut eyes. The blackness swam into her mind, picking apart his skeleton. Tendons being ripped away by an undefined, unstoppable mass; blood pouring from the lungs and organs peeking though raw flesh soon to be consumed by the Darkness.

She felt as if she were falling, or maybe, she was not there at all. The nightmare was all too real. It would soon come after her, to eat her, to end her immortality seeing as it cheated Death. But, first it would make her withe in agony as it had Jack, although he had never screamed, never cried as she did. His form was gone and the void turned on her, slithering abound her forearms, around her waist. She tried to scream, but her voice was cut off by the gurgle of tears. It was all over. She turned her head to view a white, silver light. It glowed brighter to her now than a thousand Suns. Staring at it, something felt wrong. The inside pan of light was elapsed in an outline of twisted, sickly green and... it was human. A woman. The woman she had killed. Not back then. The aura of the dead was fresh. The woman she had sentenced to die. The light started to go out, slowly, like a fizzling flame. It's orbs like daggers into her soul. It was leaving this realm and going back, but this darkness had corrupted it's being as she watched it turn into something demented, something wrong. Suddenly, Katalina heard something. A voice, familiar, yet also strange as if she had heard it a lifetime ago. "Nothing in the shadows but you and I..." Jack. But, he's dead. Something clicked. "So are we all, little sister."

Something had a weight on her and in reaction, she yanked herself to sitting upright. The lurid state of the world around her was almost too much to bare. Everything was a shiny hue of itself, even in this absence of light. Bright blue circles heated by the unnatural coloration were the first thing to hit her, besides glowing yellows and browns. No, those were eyes. A humanoid figure hidden behind a pale, shinning skin. Not a groan, but a growl struck out from behind her, and Katalina shifted. Bad idea. Dizzy spots filled what was left of her vision as the half of her that was on the sofa fell to the floor. A hand blurry reached out and dug into Katalina's calf with sharp nails. The blinded vampire gave a sharp hiss and struck at whatever had a hold on her. Another growl erupted and Katalina swirled around on all fours (a nauseating experience), and leapt on the creature. She instinctively bit down, only to find a thin, grimy taste fill her mouth. No pulse. Katalina spit the infected blood back on the inhuman thing. It went into the woman's face, but Katalina couldn't see anything but shades of light as another hand clawed her face, leaving gashes from her forehead to her chin, narrowly taking out an eye. Katalina shoved the arm back, ripping at the woman's dress, going for its intestines. The feral creature bucked, trying to overpower the vampiress, but Katalina dipped down to hang on. Fangs pierced the upper part of Katalina's neck, between the jaw and the throat. She let out a roar, her fingers digging through flesh, into the woman's stomach.

[Jack Diddly]

They never did come out quite right, not that the vampire intended for them to come out at all. They were always feral, animalistic, demented, crazed. Irrational and uncontrollable, even with Jack’s allurist gifts, the monsters he inadvertently sired, could not be brought to heel. And the notion of curtailing the free will of another vampire on a somewhat permanent basis was something that Jack found abhorrent in and of itself. He already had one good man locked in a mental prison. A choice that made that rotting face that stared back at the mirror from him a true hypocrite. In life he’d never been one to abide by the old adage of ‘the ends justify the means.’

It was something in his bite, his deadly kiss, that brought about the transformation. It wasn’t every poor soul that Jack happened to feed upon, of course, though they did seem to degenerate more often than not. Sometimes it meant stalking his former meals all evening looking for signs of the change to take hold. Sometimes it was simply draining them to the point of death and burning the rest. It always equalled guilt though. It made him a murderer, not only of men, but of his own people, his very own blood really. The pangs of conscience ripped him apart when he had to do his deed, dispose of his potential sired. It left him feeling empty and alone.

Perhaps his toxic kiss was his main driver, the very cornerstone that motivated him to undertake his current course. There was nothing pleasant about feeling another vampire fade into the oblivion. It filled Jack with a preternatural sickness, even when said vampire was destroyed by his own hand. That sickness fed the flames of an ever growing fury burning deep inside of him. Most nights it remained benign, but it fueled him nonetheless.

Now it appeared that he would have to do it again. He was prepared to, of course, just as he would have been any night that he fed. Well, mentally at least. Physically, he hadn’t expected a hole in his stomach. It was closing, but not quickly enough.

Katalina, broke free of his grasp and sat upright, almost as if she sensed the fledgling monster in the darkness. It happened just as soon as Jack’s realization kicked in. The action physically knocked him back down onto the couch at the same moment that reality knocked the sense back into him. It was like being slapped in the face and kneed in the stomach in one swift motion. Jack let out a soft automatic groan as the pain creeped up his back and chest. Katalina seemed to lose her balance all at once and spill to the floor. She toppled on Jack’s rising progeny as she fell and the allurist wondered if she hadn’t been pulled down by the creature. He could hear the scuffle taking place below him. It was a series of reptilian hisses, mammalian growls, and otherworldly sounds that had not yet been classified by modern science. The smell of dead blood, not just his own, mingled with the scents of dank rot that pervaded the old structure. It was a bitter, coopery scent with hints of a poison deadly than the kind that dripped from his own fangs.

Ripping flesh, it sound a bit like heavy drapes being torn...heavy, wet drapes. It hit his ears, not quite like nails on a chalkboard, but enough to really send him into action. The wound in his gut was still gaping, larger than it should have been for anything to be alive. The blood and pus it leaked was squishing and squirting as he rifled through his coat. Gun, where the hell was the gun! He could feel it’s weight, but couldn’t grab hold of the golden firearm. He pulled out the second flask, the one containing the gasoline instead. He tossed it aside in frustration. It bounced off of someone below him, then hit the carpet with a soft thud.

Finally Jack was able to dislodge his firearm from his leather jacket. The jacket went flying off of his chest and into the darkness below as he yanked the gun out from within, but at least he had what he needed. It took all of his willpower to push himself upright. The pain of the position was like a million nails grinding into his intestines, but he grinned through it. Well bit down on his lip through it really. On the floor below him the two immortals looked like a pair of entwined shadows, wrestling to take some definitive form. He was able to distinguish Katalina though, once his eyes adjusted. She was most certainly the more lovely of the vampiresses struggling on the carpet. By contrast his progeny was a wretched little thing, most certainly feral, with distorted, bloody features and a deep, dark lust in her eyes. Jack gripped the weapon, took careful aim, and fired a series of three, no six successive shots into his progeny’s skull just as the monster’s fangs pierced Katalina’s neck.

It probably had been an ill-timed moment. Jack fell back before he could catch the consequences of his shots. They’d certainly made their mark, but the indistinguishable cry that followed from the carpet, as his back slammed into the couch, left him guessing which vampiress he’d done the most damage to. With his progeny’s teeth clasped around Katalina’s neck as the bullets collided with it’s skull...well Jack didn’t want to think about it. He knew that a few bullet wounds wouldn’t keep her down for long though, even if they were point blanks to the skull. “Hey, the Flask!” he cried out quickly remembering that it had fallen to the carpet, “get the flask!” It was the only surefire way. Jack just hoped Katalina was still there to respond.

[Storyteller]

==========AUTOMATED RANDOM EVENTS SYSTEM==========

The group hears singing coming from nearby.

[Katalina Black (DELETED 9968)]

If something bounced off her back, she hardly felt it. The madness filled what was left of any feeling of pain. It was an act that many would call bloodlust, only she was not hungry in any sense of the vampiric word. No, this was the numbing of war. Katalina could no longer see, even with her eyes open, sight clearing away the light. She did not need to, regardless if the creature had a hold on her. The wet, formerly warm, insides of the woman's body were now splayed across the lower half and dripping onto the floor. The scene below Jack must've looked like a bloodbath, with no clue where the floor started and the pools of blackened crimson ran.
A series of booms let loose into the air. For Katalina, all around her went very, very silent. Her ears rang so loud that it forced her to go completely still and for so long that she couldn't help but wonder if it had rendered her deaf. Perhaps it was just this that had ironically saved her life. A hot wind stung at her face, the first two rounds nailing the feral beast right in the upper part of the skull near the forehead, but the third had, no doubt, dropped ever so sightly. As the head of the creature hit the floor with a sick, squishy, thump, Katalina felt a metallic object graze her shoulder. The searing heat was barely able to process in her mind before the other two bullets struck her dead in the left shoulder-blade. Her arm responded by going out from underneath her, forcing her to land on top of a woman who was indeed fucked up beyond recognition. Her mind and body was swarming with a nauseating pain. Katalina pulled her head up out of the gore and shook it, trying to concentrate on anything other than how much her arm felt like it was on fire. The ringing had stopped but if not for the reality of agony, everything would have seemed in a haze. A shout came from above her. She hardly bothered to put a face to it before she blindly followed instruction. Using her one good arm, she pushed herself on her feet. The girl before Jack could not be mistaken for the silent huntress that he had met only a short while ago. Caked in blood and stumbling like a newly born fawn, it was difficult for her to tell up from down. There was a silver shining in the little bit of light guiding her forward. Picking it up, it practically slid out of her hand before she managed to get a grip around the lid. She attempted to lift her hand to open it but her arm would not budge beyond her side. She gritted her teeth, fangs and all but that did not hold back the hiss of air passing between her lips.
As if to cut though her attempt, a light humming filled the dense air. It was as cracked and misshapen as the woman it came from, hollowed and slick as a toad. "Hush, child. The darkness will rise from the deep and carry you down into sleep..." The words were so soft and broken that Katalina could only just make them out. The tone dark and twisted. The thing had begun to stir though Katalina was sure that it must have part of it's head literally missing. An alarm coursed through her and she threw the flask next to Jack. Or at least, she hoped she didn't throw it too hard.

[Jack Diddly]

It was much like a game of hot potato, except with a flask and mortal wounds, you know to make things interesting. It began when Katalina seemed to rise from the shadows appearing as if she had just stepped out of a slaughterhouse. Bloodsoaked and rabid were the two adjectives that came to mind as he caught hold of her features. The heavy scent of that blood, dead blood, wafted through the room. Unlike the sweet smelling, life sustaining liquor, it was a putrid odor, stifling in many ways. Jack had barely noticed it when he had incurred his own wounds, but not that they were well on their way to stitching themselves up completely, the vampire’s preternatural senses could focus on other things. Despite all that, the vampiress was a welcome sight, it meant that she had vanquished the his venomous creation. At least so Jack thought.

It was when she had tried to open the flask that Jack knew something was amiss. The vampiress’ arm seemed to hang uselessly at her side, as she fumbled with his flask. He lifted his gaze to the bullet wounds in her shoulder, an inky blackness seemingly poured out of her and into the void. Katalina was definitely out of reach, but the temptation to feel the texture of her blood was ever present. So much so that in took the implications of what said wounds meant a few extra moments to kick into place. It was just as he had feared, he’d shot Katalina in his mad attempt to silence his progeny. The distorted sound that seemed to ring out from below was the last nail in the proverbial coffin.

Psychotic is a word often used to, incorrectly, identify behavior that is often times rash and irrational. Usually psychopaths blend into a crowd much better than your average person ever could. The thing on the floor wasn’t psychotic, but rather otherworldly. A demoness of the most monstrous sort. Jack recognized the type of siren song it had begun to sing almost right away. It was an ability latent in some vampires to lure the mind into a false sense of security, to sow the seeds of manipulation and control into the ears of those who happened to hear it. Jack wasn’t sure if his progeny was truly conscious of what it was doing. Hell, he wasn’t sure if any of them had any real consciousness to them. It was as if dark spirits from the depths of the abyss merged with or completely consumed the personality that had existed before his poisonous kiss. This case was no different. Being that he was practiced in this particular art, her unrefined voice had no effect on him, other than sending chills down his spine. It was a ghastly sound, not like nails on a chalkboard, pain to the ear kind of ghastly, but rather too dark, too sweet, too welcoming, like the boogeyman luring a child into a closet.

The silver potato bounced off of his chest. Katalina had tossed the flask back to him, opening it had been unsuccessful. He reached down as it fell into the darkness below the couch. The pain wasn’t as intense as it had been before, but the movement still cause him to wince a little. Simultaneously, Jack grabbed the flask from the carpet and his progeny grabbed hold of his wrist. She had a death clutch on the vampire and Jack wasn’t sure if she were trying to pull him down or pull herself up. He could feel their blood in her fingertips and he could smell their scent as she rose from the darkness, looming over his broken figure. True he never knew her, had never even been familiar with her in life, but they most certainly shared a supernatural bond, something that connected them via their blood. There was not much of a face left, an eyeball hung loosely from her right socket, the left side of her face seemed to be an endless gaping gash of torn tissue and broken bone. Her mouth though, seemed to chatter and hum as if it were any old sun shiny day. She didn’t release her vice of a claw from his wrist, but it didn’t matter. With the sheer force of will, fueled by the knowledge of what he needed to do, he yanked her forward with all of his might.

She collapsed on top of him and a new wave of pain shot through his being. It wasn’t just the weight of her, she began to claw into him just as soon as the opportunity arrived. As Jack struggled with his flask, his progeny clawed at his face, digging her nails in deep and raking down strong. All the while she whispered dark profanities into his ear. She’d released his wrist at least and now he was able to focus on getting the thing open. It didn’t take long, but when he felt his progeny’s fangs sink into the sensitive flesh of his earlobe he cried out and almost spilled the fuel all over himself. He needed to get this ***** off of him and quick. Jack pushed and they tumbled onto the carpet, the smell of gasoline mingling with the scent of dead blood.

It spilled everywhere, but Jack had made sure that his progeny was covered in it. Dumping the contents all over her just as he pushed her towards the floor again, she screeched, a shrill, ungodly sound, as if she were being drenched in acid. Jack took the opportunity and didn’t stay down for long. Rolling away from her, the pain had become his world now, a dull ache that existed in the background of all existence, something that was just the reality he had to live in. He knocked into a wall and propped himself up against it. He reached over to his jacket, laying just about a foot away and pulled it towards him. His progeny was crawling towards him rapidly, too quickly to be real. Jack was quicker though, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a matchbook, struck a match, lit the entire book and threw it at her. He could feel the heat of his crazed progeny, alight in the flames of a thousand suns, just as it launched itself on top of him again. What a mess this had become! The vampire tried to push the flaming, screaming husk of his progeny away, but it seemed to cling to him, its flames lapping at his bare chest. Jack wasn’t sure if the flesh that he smelled was his own or his progeny’s. Perhaps it didn’t matter.

[Katalina Black (DELETED 9968)]

At first, she thought it was all over. The flask had ended up right where she had intended. It would be okay. She felt a sense of relief, which was strange. Every warrior knows that the battle is not over until the enemy is slain, yet a calm had overtaken her. It was so gentle and warm, unlike anything she had felt in a long time. Words twisting into sweet nothings, promises of quiet bliss. The tattered voice seemed to have gone, replaced by a floating melody like that of a dark angel. The sound morphed and grew in her ears though she strained to hear it only seconds ago. It was in a voice quite like that of her mother in a younger time. Even though she did not know the words, images of them seemed to pop into her head. "...And you won't understand the cause of your grief..." She found herself echoing. Little did she know, by uttering those words, she had drank poison. Katalina could not move and did not want to, even as they struggled on the sofa. At one time she had fought to protect him, but all would be fine. Her vision swam with bubbles of color. Little spots of brightness whisked her away. It was odd and some part of her knew that. Knew it so well, that everything told her that this was wrong. She had to fight it. Katalina tried to wrench free of the Siren's song, but the creature's willpower tossed her aside like a rag-doll. She couldn’t move. She could only mock what was being forced into her. "But you'll always follow the voices beneath."

The tinkering of metal falling to wood barely made its way to her. Her shoulder unstiffened. The void blood slowly sealed away leaving white scars pitted from the gunshots. They wouldn’t be permanent, but they would remain until she fed. Too many wounds can leave nasty reminders. Not that she was thinking about this. Her mind was a thick, soupy fog circling in from a swamp that glistened with bright shades of pink and slime green. Then, something made a noise. It was a distant muddled squeal that only grew louder. And louder. The world before her blurred like lines of a television screen, and then snapped out like a light.

The first thing she came back to was the screaming. A high pitch skrill and the heat burst to life which sent Katalina running backwards with a animalistic hiss. What happened? The last thing she saw, Jack was on the couch- Jack! He was pinned with the woman up against him, both set ablaze. Katalina shuttered. She knew what she had to do, her whole body telling her to leave them behind. She closed her eyes and threw herself into the flames. The heat charred her skin and Katalina let out a blood curdling scream. All three undead tumbled to the ground. Flame ridden claws dug into her back. She opened her eyes alarmed with pain. Jack had been flung. She could barely him out due to the tears that stung in her eyes. She had to get to him. Jerking away only made them latch deep like barbs. Every movement felt like another laceration with a heated cattle prod, but she had to get away. She was...heavy. Pinned down under a mass of heat. She was screaming. Her throat turned sore with smoke. The fire grabbed hold on her clothes, making the light grow brighter. Under the pain, she emerged. Her face had twisted into an expression from hell. All fangs and glowing orbs, she shoved the lit corpse off of her side using a sharp jab, and putting her shoulder and elbow into it. She could smell her hair burning and skin rotting in fire. She stood. She tried to pull off her top only to find it adhered to her skin. She learched to the floor and rolled trying to stop the spread. Only, the floor was wood and while her skin may be saved, everything would soon be up in smoke.

[Jack Diddly]

It would all be over soon? But how exactly long was soon? Seconds, minutes? Surely not hours. Though there were times were seconds could be measured like hours and moments lasted longer than lifetimes. She was crumbling beneath him, crumbling into a the conflagration of smoke and ashy flakes of flesh. His skin had ignited as well, he could feel the same torture of the fire licking away at his shoulders and biting at his face. Though smoke in his lungs was nothing new, inhaling the remains of dead, charred flesh felt a bit like drowning, despite not having to breathe. There was no question that his progeny had succumbed to the menace of the flames. All that remained to be seen was who’d burn quickest.

It happened in the blink of an eye. At least that was how it seemed, at any rate. As Jack tried to dislodge himself from the flaming corpse that had entangled itself atop of him, he felt them fly sideways, the cool air smacked into him as he was seperated from his progeny once again. The vampire tumbled sideways, smashing, headfirst, into the adjacent wall with a rather loud thump. The feel of flames danced over the ghostly, bare skin of his shoulders and chest turning the tone to a bitter pink and charred black. Particles of Jack disintegrated into a dark, dust falling around him into nothingness, like the shadows of snowflakes. All the while stars were swimming around in his head, a sign that he hadn’t completely ignited. He was sure that there had been a scream. It was a primal kind of sound, yet filled with a agonized devastation.

After dreadful, eternity like moments, the vampire was able to bring his focus towards the commotion. He caught the very moment that Katalina elbowed his mad progeny into oblivion. A great storm of soot and smoke seemed to pour forth from the creature as it collapsed in on itself. The last embers burning away all remaining traces of the wretched soul. Jack’s attention wasn’t so much focused on that though, as it was on Katalina, who had dropped to the floor in an attempt to roll out the flames that had taken hold of her being. Jack stood, rocky, but steady. He mad a dash for his jacket. Scooping it up off the floor he scuttled towards the vampiress. Not quite standing, he balanced himself on his legs and focusing on her head,Jack began to beat out the flames that were attempting to consume her. With each and every whack, a new round of daggers shot up his spine and snaked along his arms. The vampire wanted to double over, wanted to fall on the flames with her and just sleep into the abyss, but he was no quitter, never had been.

The wood below them had begun to burn. He could smell the cheap pine just under the charred flesh and the burnt hair. It was quite apparent that they were in a bit of trouble. “Come on, kid, we gotta get a move on…” the drawl in his melodious voice was as noticeable as the urgency that pleaded for a break. He shoved the vampiress away from where the floor had taken to flame, shimming over to her, and whacking out a few of the remaining embers with his jacket. It wasn’t just the threat of being eaten alive by the burning ruins of the abandoned house, but also the type of additional attention it might draw to them this evening. They had to disappear and fast.

[Katalina Black (DELETED 9968)]

Everything was happening too fast; her head spun with shadows. The fire was suddenly behind her but the pain dug deep into the marrow. She heard him. It didn't stop her body and mind from wanting to seize up. To just stop. The pounding of the fabric like a heartbeat was the only thing that she could feel aside from agony. Even then, it felt like a feather compared to the sweltering heat that was her skin. The predator within her told her told her she had to move, but that voice had suddenly turned small. She may have only turned her head but the movement itself felt fractured. She was gasping for air as if she could taste it. As if that could keep her alive- it certainly didn't last time. She cast her eyes up at a wavering Jack, and then two of him. She tried to mouth something to him. Not that he could understand with how bad her mouth was trembling. She felt tears fall down her cheeks, coolness on charred flesh. One word. Just one. 'Run!' She mentally shook her head. She couldn't get up...couldn't....

All went black.
Yet, Katalina's body remained. Her head fell to the floor, eyes closed. Her limbs, lifeless. No dreams came. Not even the heat would bring her back now. Either Death called his summons, or hibernation had taken her.

(Willpower - Failed)

[Jack Diddly]

The old pine cried out with a crackling cackle that was reminiscent of an old witch and the heat that rushed around them was so much like the putrid breath of an old hag. The young vampire couldn’t help, but wonder, if only for a moment, if that was all this house, perhaps this whole city, truly was. Just a powerful, old sorceress who had enthralled and mesmerized the masses of Harper Rock. Now, like every night, she was performing a great ritual sacrifice, only this evening he and the vampiress had become the offering. A shrill pop and the crash that followed from behind, jolted him back into reality.

Small streams of dark tears streaked through the shadowy scars that seared Katalina’s once ghostly features. There was no more time to think, Jack wrapped his jacket around her battered body. Despite his own hopeless weariness, the daggers of pain that seemed to twist back and forth throughout the whole of his back and the hive of yellow jackets that swam within his belly, trying to sting their way out, he hoisted the vampiress up onto his shoulder. He stumbled a bit as he did so, dizziness almost throwing them into a wall of flame. Katalina was dead weight, an irony, even at this juncture, that was not lost on Jack.

Smoke danced around them like ghostly tendrils, trying to ensnare them, pull them back into the witch’s flaming lips. It was May that led them out of the dragon’s mouth and out into the darkness. At first Jack hadn’t been sure that he was really seeing her. She was more vibrant than he had yet experienced her. His ghostly gal had been simply radiant in those crucial moments, the glow that she emitted was stronger than that of the flames. Hell, he could even smell the oil she had always wore. The fire bowed to her angelic glory as she led Jack out, limping with the vampiress over his shoulder. He crashed into some cool overgrowth, dropping Katalina with a loud thump as May vanished completely and a loud shattering crash behind them signaled that the old place had collapsed in on itself, the conflagration eating itself alive. Jack would later think of how close they had come to being part of that meal, that witch’s sacrifice.

His jacket was still wrapped around the vampiress. He was laying next to her in the brush of thorny weeds and old leaves, the sweet smell of dirt dancing through through the heavy aroma of smoke and charred, black death. Wanting to sleep, but knowing that he couldn’t, not here, not like this, he studied Katalina. It was silent around them, save for the dying shrieks and groans of the flames that continued to dance only a yard away and the nighttime wind that brought ashes down upon them like a light, black snow. Jack reached out and gently pushed the filth away from her closed eyes, his fingers caressing her raw, singed skin. Blood, he needed to find blood.