[wearing]
Blaize could feel the itch.
It was an unpleasantness that curdled at the base of his soul. An illness, dark and sticky, that regenerated and spread, grew until it was not able to be ignored. He knew what it was, now. Kind of. He knew that it went away when he sired -- like a weight lifting from his shoulders, like a ball of stress suddenly de-knotted and swept from his system. It was like detoxification, as if taking someone else’s blood into his system and then feeding his own back was a replenishment, a replacement. As if he were giving away the darkness. When they took his blood, they took the illness, too.
They all liked to kill, too. Most of them. They had no qualms with feeding. Perhaps they took his darkness and it manifested in them in a different way. Whatever the case, and despite Aleksandra’s reassurances, Blaize didn’t want to sire again. He couldn’t. How could he, knowing he could be unleashing another murderer onto the city? Anxiety lay flush against his mind, a constant and suffocating blanket that threatened to upend his momentum and sweep the mat out from under his feet.
Blaize could feel the itch. The depression. The need to sire. And he didn’t know what to do.
He slipped from the Sangue Bank like a thief in the night, restless and hopeless and dressed for the studio where he’d go try dance away his blues. The business was doing well, though now and again he had to chase off the picketers who decided to set up shop out front -- mostly religious groups, calling the service immoral and all vampires devil’s advocates. On this particular night, Blaize wasn’t entirely in the mood to be harassed, but harassed he was.
”YOU’RE A DISGRACE. YOU ARE A DEMON AND DESERVE TO BE BANISHED!” The words were shouted directly in his ear by one such picketer -- an older man. Spittle flecked on Blaize’s neck, his ear. A low growl crawled in his throat.
”You have NO idea what you’re talking about!” he shouted back, turning upon his attacker with clenched fists and features contorted with rage. The old man took a step back. For days he’d been trying to get a rise out of the young owner of the blood bank, but nothing had happened. He’d thought he was safe.
”This place was created for your safety. You don’t ******* understand that?!” Blaize asked, but he didn’t expect a reasonable answer. Rage boiled in his gut. It shuddered through his body. It triggered a literal fight or flight response, that power he had yet to learn full control of. The wings, black and glossy with their white underfeathers, broke free. They stretched and spiked, like a cat’s fur will hackle when they are under threat, so too did Blaize’s feathers. They tore his shirt until it was just hanging from him in tatters, barely there at all. Beneath the stark, colourful tattoos spilling from his shoulder and down one whole arm, his skin was porcelain white and flawless.
Gasps and light screams came from the gathered crowd. There was hush, before there was an explosion of activity. Some people backed away, others pushed forward. There were whispers of ‘angel’ and of ‘lucifer’. Phones were pulled from pockets. Blaize rolled his shoulders and stared them all down, as if challenging each and every one of them.
