Path of the Vampire forum

Raven’s booted footsteps echoed as she followed her prey down an alley, one too stupid and too drunk to notice that she was being followed at all. The vampire had chosen such a target for two reasons. One, she was pretty and Raven had been killing a few pretties to gain some attention to the fact they went missing. Of course she dumped the bodies and had even buried remains after she had burned the bodies, but people noticed when pretty women disappeared and she wanted the attention of someone very specific. Two, she was stalking the drunk, because she had sharpened nails and Raven hoped that she was looking to use them. If the drunk didn't use them, then it was just another boring night unfulfilled. Every day that she went without pain, was a night that she felt unsatisfied. It was just like her hunger, insatiable and irritation coloured every one of her steps.

Ever since she had her spat with Jesse, she had kept her distance from everyone and strayed further away from her emotions. Why? Because it hurt. Jesse’s words hurt. He had spoken of a broken promise and he had thrown it into her face that it would remain broken. Her expectations that Clover would fulfil her promises, had been shattered just like glass. It had been fragile, but it had been there. Now there was just a hole inside of her that she just couldn’t fill and so she had embraced her vampiric nature. She had also drawn upon her loner side, one that was used to doing everything herself and here she was creating. Creating a perfect scenario if she had done her work properly. Raven wanted a paladin to hurt her. Whether that ended in death or not would be the question. How desperate did she want to be in pain?

She was desperate. Desperation had almost led to her dying once, only to be turned. What would happen if she died as a vampire? Pain would also distract her from hurt of a broken promise, it would also fill the hole that she felt within. Her drug was pain and pain was her only friend. One that soothed hurts, that soothed broken promises. The blaze at the back of her throat told her that she should feed, that she should rip the head off of the drunk woman and drink deeply from the sea of red. Fangs dropped down and she felt the tips pierce her bottom lip drawing blood that looked black. It was odd when she had drunk Clover’s black blood, but as her tongue dash out to gather up the precious drops, she realized that her soul was just as black. There was no light in Raven, just a wall of darkness.

Her brown hues noted when the blonde paused for a moment and Raven took it upon herself to run forwards. As she reached the blonde, her hand lashed out and grasped the woman’s throat. She slammed the stranger against the brick wall and flashed her fangs and she smirked to the stranger. ”This is your unlucky night. Raven’s free hand grasped a fistful of the stranger’s hair and yanked her head to the side. The hand around the throat moved to grasp the shoulder as she sank her fangs into the throat non too gently. Blood, glorious blood flowed freely and she drank, lapping it up to soothe her blazing throat. Lost in the drinking of blood, she didn’t notice when someone had crept up behind, nor the whistle of the tell-tale sign of a weapon flying through the air towards her. A hunter with a crossbow had tracked her down... Finally.

Pain, glorious pain shot through her as an arrow buried itself into her left hand, the hand that had a grip on the woman’s hair. The hand pulled away from blonde hair as she ripped her fangs from the stranger’s neck to gasp in pure bliss. Her eyes rolled back into her head as she reveled in the pain that coursed through her body. The hunter spoke words, but she couldn’t, wouldn’t focus upon them, because she couldn’t care any less about them. They were just words as far as she was concerned. Raven released her remaining grip upon the human and let her stagger free, not that the human would remember a thing about the whole attack. Slowly, she turned so then her brown hues could focus upon the rather handsome man and flashed her fangs in a smirk. She would be happy to snack on him too, if only she hadn’t already revealed herself as a vampire. The woman would have been happy to find out just what kinky things he was into.

”Tell me, do you always sneak up behind people and interrupt their meal? It’s so rude.” Raven mocked as she lifted her free arm to pull the arrow from her hand with another groan of pleasure. ”I’m glad that you finally put all the pieces together though, I was beginning to worry that I wasn’t as obvious as I should have made it.” A chuckle followed her words as she threw the arrow to the side and watched her own black blood well and disperse, even the wound had become translucent. The perks of what she was, a shadow. Her gaze returned to the male and it flickered over his facial features, noting the green eyes that shined like emeralds. He also had brown locks that she could only describe as chocolate that brushed the bottom of his ear lobes. Her tongue slid over her lips, gathering the drops of blood still visible. ”I would track down more prey to eat seeing as I’m still hungry, but why would I do that when you’re here?” A snicker followed those words.

“Stay back vampire,” the man ground back and the smirk solidified upon her lips. ”Oh come now, if we are going to get to know each other through bonding pain, we should know each other's names. Pain is so intimate, or so I’m told. Why not enjoy it together? You can call me Black Wing.” She clicked her fingers together on her non-wounded hand, ”You guessed it! It’s a code name! Now you give me yours.” She mocked as she took a step closer towards the man. This only earned her an arrow to the thigh and another pained gasp was pulled from her lips. Raven fell to a knee, the leg without an arrow, as she played along with the charade. The damned arrows did hurt like a *****, however, she had a high threshold for pain, it came with the territory. Especially when one had chased it nearly every minute of their waking life. “I’ll decapitate you next time,” he warned and her smirk widened. ”I dare you, I’ve always wanted to know what death for a vampire would feel like.”

The steady clicking noises had joined with the sounds of the city, creating a soothing, albeit unnatural, melody. Clover still couldn’t see her wraith, but she knew its presence--or rather, she knew his presence. Despite the fact that her wraith’s sex made absolutely no difference, she took some comfort in assigning the male sex to the spirit creature. Clo had accepted that Junebug wasn’t the ghost of her sister. Knowing Junebug as a man made everything easier. Perhaps her wraith really was once a man. She hadn’t heard any protests; in all the times she’d used male pronouns, her wraith hadn’t objected, and Junebug knew how to object. Junebug mainly communicated through noises, even though he’d slowly begun to pick up on the English language.

“Home.” The word seemed to come from thin air, but she knew better. “Home,” Junebug repeated. The cadence of clicks had drawn to a close, replaced by a silence punctuated with the repetition of a single word. Home. Junebug wanted to go home. The only way for the wraith to get in and out of the family home was through Clover, so he depended on her in the way that she depended on him. They shared eyes and ears. Sometimes, Clover swore they shared thoughts. She wanted to go home too, to some degree.

“Not yet,” she replied. “We didn’t find Okoro or Nona. You know that’s the whole reason why we’re out here. I didn’t think it’d take this long though.” Clo sighed and began toying with the gold zipper on her leather jacket. When the click noises resumed, she paused in her steps and examined the streets around them. She’d gone from River Rock to Newborough, and then she meant to swing up toward Honeymead, but the city had quite a few districts. Okoro and Nona could have been in hundreds, if not thousands, of buildings. Her childer had the entire city at their disposal. There were numerous hiding spots. And yet Clover had begun a mission to find them, a mission she’d already claimed a huge failure. She didn’t think it’d take that long to finally surrender.

The clicks started alternating, and Clover tried to find some message beneath the noises. She had a feeling that Junebug communicated in Morse code, but she didn’t know if he had any idea what he was doing. Perhaps they were on the same page. Clo should have recruited Jesse, or she should have told him about her worries. The brunette could have lifted the weight from her shoulders by admitting that she missed her childer, that she feared they’d left her. They’d abandoned her in the way that everyone eventually abandoned her. They’d killed themselves. They’d disappeared. In her mind, they’d gone to a place she’d never find.

Her hands shoved into the pockets of her navy jacket, she turned and retraced her most recent steps. The clicking faded and transformed into a loud screech, a noise that scared the people around them. Clover thought back to the times when she thought she’d lost her wraith. Losing Junebug would have been losing a part of herself. She’d grown so attached to the strange little thing. “Home!”

Clover caught the toe of her boot on the sidewalk and stumbled forward. Her wraith’s sudden interruption startled her and she wasn’t sure what he meant whenever he said the word out of context. She’d already told him they weren’t going home, and she meant that they weren’t going home. Sometimes he used whatever word he knew to try and communicate. Clover knew it was one of those times. “Home. Use,” Junebug continued, throwing in another word that he knew. “Home.” The word was spoken with such finality. Clover just stared in the general direction of the noise, one brow arched. She waited for something more, but nothing happened. No more words followed.

While looking in the direction of her wraith, Clover caught a flash of red-and-black hair. She knew that hair. She recognized the form. Clo didn’t have to say anything to get her wraith to follow. Even though Raven probably couldn’t see the creature, even if Clo couldn’t see the creature, he followed. Obedient.

“No clicks. No noise. Do you understand?” Clover hurriedly spoke, her quickened words matching the pace of her steps. She went toward the entrance to the alley, but someone cut her off. An arm shot out as if to stop her from continuing. Instead of saying something, she stopped in her tracks and tipped her head to the side. The words were communicated in her bewildered facial expression.

“Unless you want to die tonight, you’ll turn back,” he declared. He stood tall, a crossbow hanging loosely off his right shoulder. She didn’t need to ask him why, but she still opened her mouth to present the question. “It’s a vampire. If you stay here, you’ll only be in danger, and I can’t guarantee your protection.”

Clover’s bewildered expression disappeared, replaced by one of mild irritation. If she were a regular human, she would have accused him of being insane. If she were already aware of vampires, she would have been insulted. Instead, she just closed her mouth and continued eyeing him, waiting for him to say something equally as foolish. He reached out, as if he were going to guide her away, but she took a step away from him. “You don’t touch me. Do not ******* touch me. Go be Van Helsing.”

She encouraged the hunter to go after her childe, and she stayed behind for a few minutes. It was only after she heard the sound of the arrow penetrating flesh that she began to walk down the alley. “Do you have any ounce of self-preservation in your body?” Clover shook her head, but she smiled at her childe. “And you,” she began, addressing the hunter, “won’t be decapitating anyone.”

Raven’s smirk wavered as she heard Clover’s voice before her gaze flickered back to the hunter that stood before her. As her brown hues flickered over the man’s face, she recognized the look of recognition. He must have run into Clover at some earlier point in the evening, otherwise he probably would have been dead if she knew Clover at all. Witnesses were a problem; vampire hunters were an even bigger problem. The fledgling held a hand towards Clover, ”Meet my sire, she is the one that turned me. Clover, meet the vampire hunter that I have worked to draw out for a few days now. However, from his look, you guys met earlier.” Once she finished talking, the hand that she had held out, moved to grasp the shaft of the arrow and pulled. A pained cry parted her lips and she angled her head back, closing her eyes as the arrow came free. Her form shudder, but not with disgust. It may have been painful, but to this vampire, it was pleasurable.

After a moment’s pause, she slowly moved to rise, taking note of the arrow that she held within her fingers. ”Arrows, while effective from a distance, is not very effective in close quarters. Slow to reload you see.” Her gaze then moved to Clover and she wondered just as to why she was here. “Arrows are not my only weapon. ”Yeah, yeah. Be quite little hunter. You brag too much. Clover, you know me, I’ve never been one for self-preservation, especially when it comes to seeking out pain. Besides, what brings you out and about? Shouldn’t you be with Jesse or something?” Raven had basically spat Jesse’s name out, because she didn’t like the man, not one bit. His words still swarmed inside of her mind and she flashed her fangs at the hunter. That brought his attention back to her and another smile graced her lips. ”Now that’s a good boy, Jesse wouldn’t be happy if I got my sire injured.”

“Stay. Back!” He groused out and Raven angled her head to the right while another smirk caressed her lips. That was, until she lurched forwards with a snarl upon her lips. The woman had caught him off guard and the third arrow loosed but only the tip grazed her left shoulder as her hand came up to grasp the man by the throat. ”You chose the wrong vampire to shoot though. You see, while I love being shot, because of the pain I’ve been craving for days, I don’t like people. I don’t care about death either, just my sire.” The crossbow clattered to the ground and another smirk crossed her lips, that was until she recognized that he wasn’t looking at her, but rather, over her shoulder. A frown deceased upon her brow until she heard another whistle and felt yet another arrow lodge itself into her shoulder. Pain seared through her form and she leaned forwards to press her face into the hunter’s shoulder. The vampire drew in his scent and her craving for blood blazed forth once again. He smelled so good and she was oh so hungry.

It was then that she realized that she still held an arrow in her right hand, ”Here, have your arrow back,” She smirked and leaned back only to bring her right hand up to bury the arrow into the man’s shoulder. His cry fueled her movements to step to the side and push him away from her. She watched him stumble a few paces away from her, but her gaze snapped away from him to look back down the opposite end of the alley, the end that Clover didn’t come from. The alley had been a trap and it explained just as to why the man had originally confronted her with a crossbow in the first place. ”Huh, so that explains why you hadn’t aimed to decapitate me right off the bat, you have company.” The man held his injured shoulder and smirked back at her while her gaze slid away from him to the newest member.

The shadowy figure edged in and her gaze slid over the older man’s form. A scar had been cut over the left side of his face, covering his cheek and his own brown eyes stared at her in silence. “If you hadn’t stopped for a snack, my mentor here would have gutted you like a stuffed pig.” The first one crowed and a roll of her eyes was given. ”Well that’s the first time that my hunger has saved me.” Raven noted that the man who had shot her was still silent and she wondered if he was a seasoned hunter. ”Clover, we really need to stop running into each other like this. You know, when I’m chasing trouble and you happening to run into me just when trouble finds me.” Raven angled her head to the side as she smirked towards Clover, ”Feel up to kicking some *** tonight?”