Path of the Vampire forum

The homeless man was bleeding and Grayson leaned more deeply against his childe’s back, his chest touching against the curve of a spine so that he could reach a hand and gently touch the two puncture wounds on a neck. Though the man who had just been sleeping tried to scrape his way to freedom by way of writhing and flailing - the loss of blood was doing bad things to his strength and stamina. The human had paled an entire shade. “It’s instinct. It’s automatic. It’s magic.” His voice grew lower, and right before them, the two puncture holes closed up, leaving behind not even a mark. The mess was unfortunate as it indicated an attack. With time though, Kinder would be a little more tidy in his feeding.

He pulled back then. “Let him fall back to sleep. He won’t remember this encounter. I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s like when you bite them, some things automatically happen. I don’t know if it’s science or supernatural or what, but everything will be foggy for them. He might remember a few vague impressions of what happened, but nothing concrete. Normally when I feed, I get willing donors. There are all sorts of ways to get those, by the way. There are blood packs, clubs, blood bars, blood banks. You will find here in Harper Rock there are plenty of ways to get what you want without violence...unless violence is what you want, I mean.” He shrugged then, a grin forming as he offered his hand over to the other man.

“Let’s go. We need to get you back to the Crypt and get you cleaned up so you can meet Adders and the fambam.”

The graveyard in which Grayson lived was on the very edge of town, in the older district - the part of Harper Rock which had been settled before the rest, back when the city had been little more than a patch of land on the river. A trade spot really. The Oldtown Graveyard reflected its age in its size and density of tombs, yet the land was well maintained, and the crypts themselves tended to be well taken care of as opposed to crumbling. Once there, they were essentially in the clear, but the issue was getting from point A to point B without being stopped either by cops or by soldiers.

“Nah.” He answered the question about feeding on children. The idea hadn’t even occurred to him, honestly. In truth, he didn’t like to feed from people who didn’t consent in some way, unless he absolutely had no choice. As far as he was concerned, children didn’t have the ability to understand what they were agreeing to when it came to being food for vampires, which made them entirely off-limits. The occasion when Gray was starving and absolutely needed blood, and didn’t have the time or energy to put into some form of seduction had yet to happen - though the Allurist suspected with the high population density of criminals in Harper Rock, he wouldn’t have trouble finding someone deserving of having their blood stolen.

“This way. Stick to the shadows as much as possible. My car is in a parking lot a few blocks down.” He commented. He was thankful he hadn’t used the public transit system, otherwise they probably would have been totally fucked. They were both covered in blood and zombie goo. Allurists especially seemed to be able to draw the eye of those around them, which was why he double and quadruple checked to make sure absolutely nobody was out on the street before slipping towards the next alleyway. “Tell me a bit more about yourself.” He finally murmured, mainly because he had only just met the other man. Part of him wanted to know he had made the right choice in offering Kinder immortality.

Grayson had been fortunate in his life. He had not only been gifted with a number of opportunities that most people would have clamored for in a heartbeat, but his parents themselves were largely kind and loving individuals. When he’d been cut off from the family fortune, it had been his own doing, because he’d made mistakes that he needed to pay for - which was why he couldn’t blame them. Thus, as he listened to Kinder, he couldn’t help but feel for the man. Dropping out of school because the teachers didn’t care? That was ******* terrible. Having parents that didn’t care about their own child enough to ensure he had food and was being taken care of? To Grayson, that sounded like something right out of a drama film. He wanted to pause, so he could pull his childer into another hug. He wanted to promise the man that he would never have to worry about not having family again.


However, they were trying to get back to safety, and that meant he couldn’t. Instead, he let his hand slip behind him so that he could briefly squeeze over Kinder’s wrist. His grip wasn’t tight, but it was reassuring, soft. “I worked as a bartend for a while. Back when I was taking every odd job that I could manage, just to try and make ends meet. I won’t lie, it was one of my favorite jobs. But I was always getting drunk and I’d spend days hungover.” He shrugged then, and then it was time to move again, his form streaking across the night.

It didn’t take very long at all to get to his car, which he admittedly needed to upgrade. The thing was beat up and old, under total disrepair. The good thing about it was that it looked so cheap that nobody ever tried to steal it. Plus the gas gauge occasionally worked...sometimes...with a proper beating. “The door should be open. You may need to jiggle it some. Let’s get out of here. You can tell me more on the way.” He offered as he slipped into the driver’s side, thankful at the very least they hadn’t been stopped along the way.

“Only child? That’s no fun. I had two sisters growing up, and I always loved hanging out with them.” He spoke about his sisters in the past tense, but the truth was that Grayson, at any point, could have picked up a phone and called them. The reasons he didn’t were complicated. For one, there was the vampire thing. He didn’t know if he wanted to tell his family, if it was something they should have been aware of. Then there was history. He hadn’t exactly left things on good terms with his mother and father.

“Yeah, I can see you being strong. You nearly took care of those zombies all on your own. If there hadn’t been so many, you would have been fine.” He noted with a bit of a grin, his gaze moving over to Kinder for a moment before he finally pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road. He drove the way he lived - on instinct. He didn’t go too fast or too slow, but he looked remarkably relaxed while he was behind the wheel, as if he knew the streets and everything on them with a sort of ease that spoke either to confidence or familiarity.

“Just anything. I want to know all about you. Favorite color. Favorite song. Music is so important. Tell me everything you love. Are you into cars? Hot girls? Hot guys? Both? Do you do karaoke?” Of course, there was also the matter of drinking. Most vampires weren’t able to ingest any food or drink. Allurists could, but it was a skill they had to develop over time. Usually starting with small quantities and increasing over time. The street lights were flashing all around them, as they drew closer and closer to the city limits.

Grayson listened carefully, though it was not obvious given that he had to shift his gaze from the road to mirrors and back. His gaze only briefly settled on Kinder, though when it did, there was always something of a grin on his face. And he tucked the different facts away. Each of them represented something different, and told him just a little bit more about his new childer. "Well you are going to have no shortage of hot ladies where we're going. My sire has excellent taste when it comes to people, and I have quite a few girl-sibs in the fambam." He said. In fact, as far as he knew, Mari, Craven and Lakenna were essentially some of the most beautiful women he'd ever met.

Maybe it was just something about the bloodline.

"Yeah, you're going to need to take eating anything other than blood slowly for a little bit, just to make sure you don't make yourself sick. But feeding is the most sublime experience. It's not just the taste, it's everything about it. You'll learn to like it even more as you get better at hunting." He explained, making a turn onto a new road. They were making good time because that time of night, there just weren't tons of people on the street. Thankfully though, the graveyard wasn't actually outside of town, as all roads had checkpoints at the border. And wouldn't they have made quite the sight?

"What about me? Do you have any questions burning away in your head?