The Dandy Highwaymen (Myk)

[Aaron Hunter]

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[Myk]

It was inescapably dark. Eyes could not distinguish shapes against the black. Ears caught only the whisper of wind. Skin held onto fabric and air and insecurity. It was as though the world was held under a blanket. There was the knowing of being, and nothing else beyond the dark, soundless dry heat pressuring from all sides. He shifted – a caterpillar crawl onto his senses. There was more sound, more heat, more friction under hands and forearms, chest and hips and legs and feet. He felt his stomach drag across something sharp and winced; he stopped, and heard a voice.

“It is funny, no? When you are a teenager, you see everything in black and white. It is all so clear and everything you experience is an extreme. Everything is one way or the other, as though there is no middle path, or perhaps when you are younger, you simply lack the ability to see it. Maybe you are too stupid, too blind, too arrogant or simply too lazy to see where the eternal poles of black and white, good and evil, Heaven and Hell, meet in the middle.”

The sound echoed in his eardrums. Charcoal notes of Deamon whispers pressed straight into the body like a rough kiss. And then nothing again, as if that blanket was drawn taut, smothering eyes and ears and nose and throat. A moment of breathless panic encouraged enough movement to let the Fallen Angel know its prey was still alive – a deer struggling in brambles. That voice spoke again, the volume of owl wings brushed against the night.

“When you are young, you feel secure and insecure. You offer yourself a price way below your own worth, you are vulnerable to everything said and done, and even those things which are not said at all, and are merely hinted at. You retreat into your own little shell when things go bad, muse about the meaning of the situation, try to find yourself, try to find the meaning of the world… of life. And then, just a couple of minutes later, your attitude retreats to the vast opposite.”

It was only when the voice stopped that he could perceive the world again. The ever-present heat held like a weight, pressing him down into fabric. It rubbed like woollen sheets, scraped like netted skirts and metal corsets, slipped like… nylon tights. The details were sharper, but still a blur, like hours soaked in Pinot Noir. He could even detect the over-ripe berries and silky tannins.

“Suddenly you think you are the biggest, the baddest and… every other fancy superlative you can imagine to describe your gravitation, for the Universe doth surely revolve around you. You take all the advice you have ever read, ever heard, and make it yours. You are a special Human being. You are good. You are worth it. The whole world’s gates are opened to you. You are a unique and beautiful snowflake and nobody can ever compare.”

Swish… Swish…

There was something different when the voice grew silent this time. Something new, similar to the pull of curtains, but he couldn’t make it out.

“And then… it is gone. A minor slip, and suddenly, all too suddenly, the lights go out and the sun’s warm rays shine on you no longer. You disappear into the sea, plunge into the abyssal depths. You forget everyone who ever put a smile on your face and label them insignificant to your self-loathing. The whole world is against you now. It does not care whether you live or die because you are but a speck of meat. You are all alone. You are sinking. The silt at the bottom of the ocean licks your feet. You take a razor blade and slice your wrists.”

Swish… Swish…

The pitch was higher now that he focused. Was that the sound of sharpening blades or just his imagination growing lonely in the dark?

“They can call it whatever it is they want to in the end: a cry for help, an act of cowardice, self-servitude and a ploy for attention. It will never matter to you what they think. You are the master of your own destiny. You are the sun and the moon and the stars. You pick yourself up because you survived and tell yourself you are stronger. You are stronger than you were before.”

That unidentified sound hadn’t returned when the voice paused again. He felt the loss in his heart, as if another portion of the world had been tugged away. He was left alone in the dark and the quiet with only this voice for company, but it wasn’t comforting. Those words were poison; no matter how sweet they seemed – the berry wine couldn’t hide the nightshade.

“You grow. You age. You have become an adult now, and those teenage struggles have deserted you. You have responsibilities, you have people who depend on you, this is no longer a battle of playground wits. You have categorised the people in your life to fit into neat boxes of endearment. Your inner circle makes you feel secure, but it also binds you. You have spent your entire youth wishing time away and now you will spend the rest of your days wanting those minutes back.”

It was evidenced that when that voice was thrumming, when those sultry tones were singing, the world paused to listen. It bore down on him, made him listen too, but his strength was growing. By now he had enough to lift his head from the bedding, and while the blanket over the world tugged back, he fought harder.

“It is funny… or do you not think it is funny? You should laugh or you might cry. Cry out. Call the world to save you and be at its mercy thereafter. Or you can choose death. But will death choose you? It ignored you before... when the water turned red with your shame. It ignored you the time after that as well. It might not come at all. Not when you are—”

“Shut. Up.”

A smile – wicked and delirious with sinful delight. He couldn’t see it, but he heard it, felt it, like talons against his throat as the sentence closed: “Not when you are already dead.”

The world was still again – formless and void. Then the Deamon said, “Let there be light”. At first it was caliginous, twilight upon misty moors that painted objects navy against an indigo blur. Over time, pewter eyes adjusted to the murk. He saw the outline of a dining table within four walls; chairs abandoned in a desert of newspapers and plastic bags; the spilled contents of one man’s suit bag dumped by the narrow entrance; no doors and no windows to let the light in or seal in the dark. One chair lay upon its side like a toppled tree, the worn wood and curled shavings suggested that nothing but rats had eaten here in a long time. From his limited line of sight, he knew he was low to the ground, with only a thin mattress and bed sheets to separate him from a concrete floor. His body was deathly cold and it creaked and groaned as he moved; even scant crawls across the mattress caused his paper-white skin to ripple, for lean muscles to yawn and growl under the effort. He fought the temptation to close his eyes again, to drift away and find a dream that would take him far from this. Instead, he gathered his knees under his chin, sitting on his backside like a maid protecting her innocence – well, he was wearing a dress after all.

Versace would be spinning in her unfairly-vacant grave had she known that one of her show dresses had been worn to such a squalid affair. Layers of frilly black lace, feathers, beads and chainmail bunched around his hips then trailed out behind him, coveting the look of Tim Burton’s dream wedding gown. In a similar state of macabre-eccentricity was the man’s hair; tresses the colour of bone gushed around fine features, over shoulders and half-way down an elegant back. Vanity made a hand reach for his cheeks, his eyes, his lips; examining their condition. There was little pain in the area – as a matter of fact, his whole body seemed numb besides a faint tingling in his nerve endings – but he had to check. A patch of something sticky clothed the bottom half of his face; evidence of a battle or messy feeding. It crumbled like coffee grounds under his fingertips, leaving him to assume that it was blood, and that it was most likely his own even if he couldn’t feel or remember an injury. Fingers explored further north, brushing over the bridge of his nose until it met a fleshy trench just below the brow. Several layers of skin had been parted in a clean slice, and he was certain he felt the hard graze of bone where long, square finger nails had trailed too far. He followed the length of the wound, sweeping over the height of his cheek bone and twisting suddenly south in a sharp angle down his chin where it ended. Once he found the tail, he went back to find the head – a thick sheering of a groove that looked like an attempt to pop the left eye from its socket. Whatever hand had caused the damage had done so with contemptible experience.

How long had he even been here? There was no way to definitively discern the answer, and he lacked a concept of time in the real sense of things; a problem that only seemed to get worse with age. He thought he recalled the night before – where a passing fancy had lured him into a nest of vipers – but in actual fact, it had been days since he’d last opened those pewter eyes. So much could have transpired in those moments, those thousands of moments, but his consciousness had barely even lurched forward. The man lived along a different time stream, one that jittered now and again like the needle of a seismometer whenever the gravity of somebody else tugged at his existence, only to then gradually pull back into its banal condition when they departed. Time afforded the living the ability to heal whether they were aware of its passing or not, but sometimes, it only allowed the undead to heal if they could let it. Though the bleeding had become sluggish, that ugly scar remained to blight him – refusing to stitch back together as though the distance was too far to travel. By now his vision had greatly improved, as he could decipher the body of a cockroach scuttling through the debris of rat droppings, discarded needles and bullet casings, but the owner of that voice was still a mystery. He couldn’t tell if he was alone or safe, so he couldn’t stay where he was even if he didn’t know where to go.

Standing proved to be a struggle, where angular legs warred against the command to carry his minor weight. Four times he attempted to lift up from the calf muscles and find his footing, and four times those legs collapsed beneath him. The figure-hugging dress and exaggerated net skirt only made the task more difficult. On his fifth attempt to stand, he heard a tear; one bare foot had caught the tail of the dress and anchored it in place as he pushed upward. The result was not pretty, leaving a gaping hole in the rear of the skirt. That would need repairing and if he could find a needle and thread, he could stitch it back together. Pewter eyes may have been a bit lost as he considered his options, but they were as sharp as arrowheads when he heard a sound of movement nearby. The first sensation he could place, as the dregs of a dreamless sleep crept away from him, was the tug on his ears pulling him to the sound of footsteps. The metal in his eyes dripped across the short stretch of concrete toward the door, zeroing in on the source of those confident strides. He couldn’t get up, but he didn’t have to. Why chase the rabbit down its hole when you can lure it right to you?

[Aaron Hunter]

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[Myk]

Unrest, pain and sorrow are the shadows of life. There is no heart in all of the world that has not felt the sting of pain. There is no mind that has not been tossed upon the dark waters of trouble. There is no eye that has not wept the hot, blinding tears of unspeakable anguish. There is no territory where the Four Horseman have not roamed, and no house that was not invaded by disease and death, severing heart from heart, and casting over all the dark wall of sorrow. In the strong and apparently indestructible meshes of evil, all are more or less caught fast. For pain, unhappiness, and misfortune wait upon mankind.

With the object of escaping, or in some way mitigating this overshadowing gloom, men and women rush blindly into innumerable devices – pathways by which they fondly hope to enter into a happiness that will never pass away. Such are the drunkard and the harlot, who revel in sensual excitements. Such is the exclusive aesthete, who shuts out the sorrows of the world and surrounds himself with enervating luxuries. Such is she who thirsts for wealth or fame, and subordinates all things to the achievement of that object. And such are they who seek consolation in the performance of religious rites.

To all the happiness sought, it seems to come. For a time, the soul is lulled into a sweet security. An intoxicating forgetfulness of the existence of evil washes over them, but the day of disease, the reality of some great sorrow, temptation, or misfortune, breaks in on the unfortified soul without regard for invitation. The fabric of fancied happiness is torn to shreds and it becomes a question of wills. For it is easy to stare into the maw of misery, and to retreat. Fortune favours the brave, the bold, and those who rush against the tides of torment. For while evil is ever-present, it is not ever-lasting. We can choose to accept the darkness that waits upon us, or we can challenge it and light up the night.

There was a similar shadow lingering over the Telepath as his hypnotism proceeded. Yet, Myk was not aware of its presence, so it didn’t impact on his decisions or actions. Irises the colour of dull lead peeled back around a blot of ink as Myk concentrated, not on the world around him, but a single thundering heart some metres away. Myk’s concentration climbed up the branches of those throbbing veins, following the pulse to the sack of grey matter where he crept in as gentle as a knife and cut-out the gangster’s willpower. The young man stopped his patrol of the hallway, standing as still and tall as an oak tree – his limbs swaying gently at his sides. A blank look crossed his features in parallel to his wooden movements, but then, very slowly he proceeded to walk. Each step was sluggish and drawn-out as though he was trudging through a swamp. In just a few minutes, he’d appeared in the doorway of the Telepath’s room and kept on coming.

The puppeteer smiled as the creature dropped to its knees on a silent command and crawled across the mattress toward him. There was something vaguely thrilling about it, about having a man as intimidating as the tattooed and grisly criminal crawling on his hands and knees, submitting to the demands of the fragile beauty that was Myk. Was this a glimpse of what having power felt like? Whatever the case, Myk couldn’t help but remark on the dishonesty of his actions. It was an illusion of power because true sway came from the ability to make people believe they had chosen their fate, when in reality, they were puppets. Myk failed to charm people with such devious success, though that was predominantly because he had no purpose to. There was no reason for him to build a false church and call in the lambs for slaughter. The only drive would be to prove that he could, but, who did he have that would judge him for doing so? A better question, why would he care for what people thought?

The motive behind the maleficence in this situation stemmed from Myk’s need to feed. He couldn’t get up, he couldn’t hunt, so he brought the prey to him. The young male, who couldn’t have been but a year away from stripping the label of teenager from his body, had settled down beneath the Telepath, curled on his side and bared his throat. Pewter eyes admired how that bony chin was angled toward the ground, like he was hiding his face, hiding himself away from what was about to happen. Myk took a moment to blink his unblinking face, snapping the cord of hypnosis that had bound the puppet to him, had forced him to wander into his web and wrap himself around Myk’s desires. Myk allowed for a moment of clarity to strike the mortal, allowed him to lift his head from the mattress and study his surroundings with a look of malignant confusion. Pewter eyes swallowed up the vision of blue orbs and grey skin paling with shock, and watched how those average features became ugly with accusation and rage. Questions tumbled out of the young man’s jaw like water falling from a pitcher, and a scarlet grin formed on Myk’s face at the purity of Human behaviour.

Questions like ‘who are you?’ and ‘how did I get here?’ and ‘what the **** is happening?’ were silenced when a pale digit was brought to those flapping lips. Though, of course, the action merely encouraged the mortal to shove Myk’s hand away and try to escape. It turned out that the mortal was neither quick enough nor strong enough to bully his way out of the room. The sound that came from the back of Myk’s throat was not human as he pinned him to the floor with one hand. Pewter eyes leered with the sharpness of diamonds at the man who kicked and flailed beneath his powerful grasp. Instinct forced those large, hot hands to wind around those of the Vampire’s, but it solved nothing. Myk felt the tugging heat, the bite of fingernails leaving red crescent marks and flaring lines on his hand, and he began to chuckle. The pain dulled under the amusement and the immediate need to choke the fight out of the mortal, to squeeze the bulging trachea beneath the pads of his thumbs, to squash the Adam’s apple into a pulp, to push and push until blood vessels burst and skin tore...

The savagery and the wanton disregard for consequences over the thrill of a squirming victim pulsating under his grip was as captivating as a high. That maddening scent of fear permeated the mortal’s clothing like cigar smoke and curled around them both in lush, tickling tendrils as Myk pressured further. The Vampire revelled in the sounds the man made too, this choking, gasping, wheezing gurgle of fight that broke out of him in peaks and troths. Pewter eyes stared at the small pink mouth opening for each morsel-breath, at the muscle that struck out at the air, eager for the taste of life. Myk dared to indulge it, weakening his grip to allow oxygen to swell into the man’s lungs, and as the mortal focused simply on breathing for a moment, Myk lunged. He stabbed at that vulnerable throat with his thumb, the nail puncturing a deep chasm in the fleshy spot right above the man’s collarbones. Instead of withdrawing his thumb right away, however, he dragged it across like a ragged blade, leaving a trench deeper than the one marring his own perfect complexion.

Vengeful delight scuttled up Myk’s spine, settling in his eyes and on his longing tongue as he sat back and watched the hot blood begin to pump out around his thumb. He’d left it in there, feeling muscle and sinew squeak away from the pressure he applied as his thumb wriggled, thrashing out more and more liquid. He pressed in deeper, submerging a finger into the socket he’d made until he met the resistance of bone; his eyes lit up when the nubs of vertebrae bulged under his fingertips. He looked to those blue orbs and that open mouth gurgling on spit and terror and the remnants of life. The Telepath could have remained seated in a growing puddle of blood, watching the life flicker out of those eyes as the liquids cooled around him. It was a terrible waste though, and he was starving, so he submerged the rest of his hand under the man’s skin, grabbed him by the bone and rigid tubing, and dragged the man to his mouth.

It was a messy feeding, but at least by now the man’s heart was so lethargic that the blood no longer squirted out in ruby geysers. A turgid stream gushed from the gaping wound Myk had made, filling his jaws as equally as it painted them. It stained where it touched, coating the porcelain skin of Myk’s throat and his chest, soaking into the fabric of his dress and clinging to the chainmail bodice. Slick, rich and benign, the salty taste of copper danced lucidly across his tongue. Each gape brought back a fond taste of life, the want, the need for blood fuelled his will in tandem with his corporeal demand for oxygen. Myk breathed deeply, he fed eagerly with extensive craving, but as time became fluid and that too was swallowed down, all actions, all procrastinations soon showed their weight in gold, soon proved to be for naught. As swiftly as that zeal had filled him, it had departed on a chilled, stagnant breath. The mortal’s warmth retracted, the taste of his blood becoming harsh and over-ripe, forcing Myk to withdraw sharply.

When he was done, he discarded the body as carelessly as a spoilt child. It flopped onto the mattress beside him as his hand pulled away from the open pocket of flesh with a wet smacking sound. Pausing, he proceeded to lick each of his fingers with slow, lathering strokes of his tongue as if they were covered in sugar. There was no point being thorough, however, as it would take too long and he would most certainly adopt the finicky nature of a feline and bathe himself in his own saliva. The Telepath wasn’t one for considering the consequences of his actions immediately. He was often the impulsive type, straying into new adventures by accident or whim. Yet, it seemed important to him not to stray in these slums for luxuries. Myk immediately decided to test the strength of his legs again, finding himself falling onto his own hands several times in the effort. On his third, or maybe it was his sixth, attempt, the Telepath found his legs were capable of carrying him even if the ground felt hostile to his naked feet.

“****,” he hissed, realising too late that something had crunched under the sole of his left foot. He felt something sharp break the skin, score through it like scissors sliced paper. Besides the crunching, slicing glass, there was a discernment of cool, hard metal and Myk didn’t have to think twice about what he’d stepped on. He limped onto his right foot, lifting his wounded paw to inspect the damage, but it really wasn’t all that bad. He picked out a tiny shard that had griped a top layer of his skin as though it had wanted to escape this place as badly as he’d wished to. The Telepath wasn’t a genie, not interested in fulfilling the wishes of inanimate objects, so he plucked the glass free of his skin and flicked it away. He continued out of the room then, his weight leaning on his right just noticeably, even while he was padding about on the tips of his toes. Myk’s couru-style jog continued at a slower pace even as he left the small building.

The cold, stagnant air of the Gangland Slums met him like wafts from an open garbage bin, causing his nose to wrinkle, but he pressed on regardless. It was as though he’d walked onto the set of a movie with every stereotype being present and accounted for. It was also a Serengeti of filth, with the ambling drug addicts shuffling from spot to spot, the pitter-patter of platform heels as lone hookers joined and broke away from the herd, the sneaking strides of drug pushers seeking out their next sale, and the thieves who stood on the sidelines awaiting easy pickings. Though, something stood out, as blatant as a shark on the plains of Africa. Myk pitched himself up against the wall of a building a metre from the scene as he watched the shimmering light bounce off the blades the man wore – blades so numerous that they were like the predator’s teeth. The unknown male was approaching his prey unperceived as it was hunched over grazing – a gazelle in white grass.

Morbid fascination, the same instinct that hypnotised Safari goers, kept Myk in place as he questioned the motive of this harbinger of death. There was no doubt in his mind that this stranger had murder on his mind, the Telepath was simply at a loss for the explanation. It seemed like an important distinction to him, an added piece to the puzzle which Myk drooled over. Because it was and wasn’t the same as watching an animal perform in its natural habitat; this was man, an evolved beast with infinite possibilities, sinking to his baser, most primal urges. And even though the stalking man was faced in Myk’s direction, there was no way to identify him right away…

[Aaron Hunter]

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[Myk]

Discipline – a word with many connotations. Sometimes it is about controlling a person’s sense of self; a way to withhold those characteristics, urges and traits that are deemed undesirable. Likewise, discipline can be used as an act to correct behaviours in others – punishment or training to inflict change. Imprisoning that which is unacceptable behind a mask of what is agreeable does not necessarily make the bad go away, however. Neither does it make those unsightly traits any less a part of who someone is. Myk could smile and pretend he was fine, he could bite his tongue on expressing truths, but he couldn’t stop the feeling of being stifled as those raw and aching opinions crushed against his teeth and filled his mouth like so much foam. Myk could not help but feel like he was contorting himself as he twisted words into beautiful lies, the kind that caress the receiver like rose petals as the donor grips a thorny stem. This feeling was enigmatic in nature; it was something silken and something rough, something bitter and something sweet. It was by itself an oxymoron, and it was probably the most apt way in which to describe it. With discipline comes conflict – as is natural – and although Myk could gripe about how difficult it was to be in such a state of push and pull, he couldn’t deny that he thrived on this kind of chaos.

Harmony is dull, after all, inexplicably dull. If everyone were to get along all of the time, then there would be no diversity. There would be no darkness that makes the light sting the eyes with hope, there would be no sadness that makes those moments of joy so precious, and no silence to make the sound of music resonate through the soul. It was variety that gave the world such depth, it was the differences in everyone that made living so much more than being a monotonic blip of aligned atoms in a world of swirling structure. As a matter of fact, judging by Myk’s tenuous grasp on physics and how the universe itself worked, if there was no diversity at all then the universe itself would not exist and he wouldn’t be able to question it. So, a little chaos and a little toing and froing was inevitably a good thing. Even while it was savage and shocking, like beating somebody’s face into a mushy pulp of pink and white and red, conflict was inevitably good. There is an idiom that defines it: necessary evil – an evil that must be allowed for a greater good to result. Or, perhaps we just tell ourselves that in order to feel better about the crimes we commit. Eliminate a murderer to stop him from killing again and somehow your sins are lesser. What separates a serial killer from the police officer that has put many men down under the label of justice? Social acceptance? The thoughts made the white-haired Telepath snicker to himself as he watched the scene unfold before him.

Myk had always been fascinated by Human behaviour and mentality, or as it is better known, Psychology. As a science, Psychology attempts to investigate and understand an enormous range of phenomena; from learning and memory, to sensation and perception, motivation and emotion, thinking and language, personality and social behavior, intelligence, child development, and mental illness – to name but a few. Psychology is concerned with all aspects of behaviour and with the thoughts, feelings and motivations underlying that behaviour. It is both a thriving academic discipline and a vital professional practice. Applied or practising Psychologists use the knowledge gained from this research in a wide range of settings. Applied Psychologists help people with all sorts of problems, working with them to bring about change for the better. They come in many forms, from Clinical to Counselling, Educational, Forensic and many more. Each type of Psychologist will work in a particular field or use their knowledge for different purposes, but they all work to the same end goal: they want to find out what’s wrong with you and fix you so that you better fit in with the society and culture in which you are living.

The history of man teaches valuable lessons about war, and the pursuit of Psychology is just another means to identify anarchy, deviance, and defiance, and learn how to rectify or even remove these behaviours in the first place. Mankind wants to understand the unknown in order to control it – this is the source of science in all its forms. As much as it has always pained him to realise that he’s considered broken and needs fixing, Myk has never blame his father for trying. The man has worked in the field of Clinical Psychology for thirty years, and when they realised their son was on the other side of the spectrum of normal, it made sense to find a way to fix him. It’s natural to want to rectify a wrong, to discover the part of the machine that doesn’t work in the way it should, and try to make it better or replace it. Man pursues perfection because it is his biological urge; nature instils this urge into every living creature – whether they realise it or not. Each species and each individual works toward the same goal: to secure a legacy for itself, and in order to do that, it needs to be bigger, faster, stronger, smarter, or whatever else it takes, to defeat the opposition. Nature is about conflict and conquering, winning and losing, and nobody ever wants to accept second place.

So it felt completely natural for Vampires to exist as they were – alive, and yet not; bound, and yet free. They were slaves to their natural urges and yet had the consciousness to deny those urges too. Well, most of them could at any rate and for a lot of the time; after all, even the good apples can go sour... Myk wondered if that was the case here, if one good apple had rolled momentarily into the darkness, beginning to rot. There was still time to roll out though, because even a gunshot could be the start of something as much as it could be the end of something. The Telepath had flinched when the shot fired – a reaction to the sound and nothing more than that because if he were afraid, he wouldn’t have inched toward the scene. He should have run away screaming perhaps, snagged a cell phone and called the police like the retreating hookers around him, but he didn’t. Using the wall as support, Myk hobbled forward until his toes met a growing pool of the dead pusher’s blood. Pewter eyes marvelled over how dark and vaguely warm the blood was, curling over his toes like air-warmed ink. It held his attention for little over ten seconds before Myk looked up to the predator that preyed on lesser predators.

“Feel better?” he asked, projecting the words into the other’s mind. “These sins committed against the sinner…” A pause then as his eyes swiped over the dead man just in front of him, and the coked-out man rolling on his back like a dog in the mud. Only the mud in this instance was crimson and grey matter. “Did they make you feel better? Will they make the world a better place?”

Myk’s questions were pretty rhetorical in the grand sense of things and yet he felt the need to share them, to direct them at the man – telepathically at least, and in a tone that was neutral as a cloud. Having tested his jaws earlier with a rather spontaneous howling curse, the white-haired Vampire had realised how utterly painful it was to speak. Not only did his bones ache with the movement as though the joints had calcified, but each tug of flesh caused the wound on his face to scream and bleed. At least for the time being then, Myk would resort to communicating with telepathy, even if he had learned through much experience that doing so invariably flipped that switch in a Vampire’s brain converting them into hostile cunts. A crude comparison, but true nevertheless. And seeing as how this situation was already volatile, Myk no doubt expected his communication – that being the message and the vehicle – would incite further bloodshed.

Pewter eyes fixed to those chocolate browns, resolved to analyse intent, but found themselves drawn to a hardened brow, soft cheek bones and a strong jaw. Myk pondered over that distinguished arrangement of facial features as though he was looking at a cousin– one he hadn’t seen in a number of years and had changed with the cruel passing of time. Only, Myk didn’t think for one second that they were actually, biologically related. The only discernable connection they had was the supernatural forces that bound their souls to flesh. Or… in layman’s terms: they were both Vampires. The Killer that towered over the demure Telepath held more than a few physical reasons why they weren’t the same even so. And then, it hit him like a piano falling from a skyscraper...

“I know your face…” Myk said, perfectly encapsulating the character of a withering King Theoden. “But… it’s not your usual face. Not the face of joy, smiles and easy jokes. So… why not?”

Perhaps it was ironic to stand there questioning why things were different with Aaron when, obviously, things were very different with Myk. Up until now, the pair had met infrequently in perfectly neutral territories and under perfectly neutral circumstances – and Myk had not been wearing a dress in those moments. Aaron had made several comments on the way Myk styled his bone-white tresses like the 80s glam rock band, and Myk had made a number of appraisals on the peach-like contours of Aaron’s backside. So, suffice it to say, their exchanges were pleasant and vague and meaningless. Myk had stuck the first foot forward in offering the Vampire aid in terms of simple enchantments, and Aaron had always been very receptive to these – appreciative even. The Telepath was happy with their arrangement and while he didn’t consider them friends or even allies, it was nice to know that they were not enemies either. Yes, they were indeed strangers, but Myk had always assumed Aaron to have a warm soul. Perhaps it was simply because the Telepath was fooled by those charming smiles and kind brown eyes, or maybe it was because he neglected the fact that even puppies could be killers.

Facing reality made the Telepath sigh despondently and glance around himself, almost as if he was looking for the door that led out of this place. Pewter eyes searched the short space between the brickwork, analysed puddles that had gathered on the floor and wondered how likely it was that the contents were merely water. This wasn’t exactly a great neighbourhood full of inspiring youths who were looking forward to making their way through University and jumping on the career ladder; this was Harper Rock after all, and more specifically, the aptly named Gangland Slums. There were piles of trash clinging to walls and floors – needles, plastic bags, nappies, beer cans, bottles and cardboard that were now more sludge than paper. Myk wondered if there had ever been a trash can here in the first place or had the city completed abandoned this place to the wild. It certainly was worth a documentary or two and Myk imagined a voice like David Attenborough’s narrating the scenes: And here we see a rare, white-crested moron who is about to be gunned down for sticking his nose in to where it doesn’t belong…

[Aaron Hunter]

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[Myk]

All in all, a shrugged shoulder wasn’t the most helpful of replies when it came to situations like these. Aaron had a great deal to say about a great deal of things and the Telepath’s response was to lift one pale, elegant shoulder and then drop it just as evenly. The science of body language may suggest that Myk didn’t know any of the answers to Aaron’s questions or had any opinions on his comments, though, that wasn’t entirely the case. Mostly, Myk felt detached from the situation and his only way to communicate besides the use of telepathy was to use gestures. Myk didn’t entirely understand the blatant hostility that his mind speaking abilities would elicit at almost every turn, but perhaps that was because he had grown accustomed to the voices in his head. After all, hearing thoughts and speech that don’t belong to you can be disconcerting – one’s mind is the only place where one has true privacy, apparently. The white-haired man honestly couldn’t remember what it was like to have a head filled with his own thoughts and nothing more as it had been such a long adventure with them. So he supposed that for relatively sane people, hearing such things could be terrifying. Still, Myk ultimately presumed that their animosity stemmed entirely out of ignorance. Just because you can hear a Telepath’s voice in your mind does not mean the Telepath can necessarily hear your mind, yet that always seemed to be the assumption judging by the response.

Those who did not belong to the path of the Telepath, and knew nothing of their abilities, always came to the same conclusions. Aaron had indicated the theory quite neatly, and for the non-Star Trek fans out there (whoever you foolish people are), it basically indicated that Telepaths had the ability to steal your thoughts, look into your soul, and probe your deep dark secrets. The Vulcan mind meld was, in actual fact, a deeply personal thing, part of the private lives of Vulcans, and was generally not used on those outside of their species on account of their ethics and morals. It was rare indeed then that they performed the mind meld on unwilling participants, and although the ability is referred to as a non-invasive use of telepathy – especially when compared to Rajiin’s abilities – Myk understood from Aaron’s tone that he wasn’t painting a particularly warm picture of what it felt like to have the Telepath’s words in his head. Still, it wasn’t the worst response Myk had experienced in his lifetime and while Myk might be able to make a case for how he wasn’t, as some referred to him as, a mind rapist, he decided that he ultimately couldn’t be bothered. Technically he had the ability to read sub-surface thoughts, to reach into dreams, to manipulate feelings and memories, but that didn’t mean he necessarily would. Just as Aaron wouldn’t justify his need to do as Killers do, Myk decided that he wouldn’t justify what his path did either.

When Aaron indicated that they weren’t alone any longer, a look of confusion swept over the white-haired man’s features like a cloud. Slowly, Myk turned his head to the direction, his ears piqued to the sound of thin metal heels carrying an eight stone body toward them. Judging merely by the character of the steps – and not just because she was wearing stilettos – Myk assumed that it was a female approaching even before his pewter eyes caught sight of her. Experience had taught him that the only women walking the streets of the Gangland Slums at this time of night were hookers, druggies, or Vampires – and sometimes a mixture of all three. Though, he had seen a young reporter here once. He’d followed her from the safety of the shadows because that’s just the type of thing you do on safari. She looked as out of place as Aaron had originally, though she was certainly more of a clownfish than a shark. The only weapon she’d carried was a can of pepper spray and it hadn’t exactly helped her when those three men had grouped around her, overcoming her like fog falls upon a forest. Myk could remember the tenor of her scream and how it echoed into a choir as it hit the walls and bounced into silence under the jeers of her three attackers. Unfortunately, Myk couldn’t remember much more than that about the circumstances that followed...

When pewter eyes met the green orbs of the young, grubby prostitute, something like anxiety began to wriggle in Myk’s stomach. There was fear in those eyes, but also purpose, convincing him that she was walking toward her doom. She was approaching with a hand behind her back and Myk could only fathom two possible explanations – either she was relaying all of this to the authorities having called 911, or she was about to threaten them with a weapon. Either way, Myk understood vengeance from those eyes and he was quick to follow Aaron’s lead in loosing a despondent sigh. It whistled out of his nostrils, of course, because Myk’s jaws remained wired shut by the menacing pain hovering over his face. It wasn’t worth the effort to scream at her or try to talk her out of her suicidal march, but then again, he needn’t bother with such methods. Because no good sci-fi reference can ever exist on its own, Myk decided to turn his body to the woman fully, bring his hand up and perform the Jedi mind trick gesture as the telepathy invaded her skull. The woman stopped, this look of confusion aging her dramatically when stern creases in her brow appeared. Obviously she was more concerned with the message itself rather than where it had actually come from because she was quick to shout an answer back.

“What?” she barked. “What droids?”

Although it hurt dreadfully, Myk couldn’t stop the grin from forming. It pulled across his face from ear to ear, much like the scarlet fissure he was wearing. Incidentally, the wound tore with that much movement and the blood came seeping out as slow as dew from a rose. Myk ignored the hot slither of fluid dripping over his skin and the itching fire squirming up his nerves the best he could, because he was determined to concentrate on the task at hand. He didn’t want to kill her, he didn’t want Aaron to kill her either, and so she would have to be neutralised by other means. Being in such a riled up and hostile state made her mind a difficult nut to crack. Myk found that mortal minds could bend easier than the supernatural, but with her rage and determination came some substantial resilience. Add to the fact that the Telepath himself was weakened too, and the resulting competition would be fierce. Interestingly enough, when it came to mental and emotional manipulation, Allurists and Mystics had as much firepower as any Telepath. It just so happened that this Telepath in particular sought to learn all the powers he could muster, and Somnambulism was one of his favourite abilities when it came to dealing with Humans.

The hypnosis technique made Humans highly suggestible, and often Vampires would employ the power as a way to bring willing mortals under their fangs. Being a little more creative and a lot more childish than your average bloodsucker, Myk had been known to use the power for a variety of different tasks. He’d once convinced a posturing adolescent that there was a devil clown stalking him – the young man almost pissed his pants and so did Myk on account of it being so freaking hilarious. There had also been a time when, on a train journey, Myk had made a loud, obnoxious female believe that her phone had inexplicably stopped working. Despite the fact that it hadn’t stopped her from yelling down the receiver, it had made Myk bitterly happy to see the elephant-sized woman flap like a chicken. For all its trolling benefits though, Somnambulism had the flaw of a time limit. The power could probably trick a mortal for a couple of minutes tops before they snapped free of the suggestion. It was a little bit like being Derren Brown, Myk presumed, except the Telepath technically had actual psychic and magical abilities. A few minutes of convincing the prostitute that she had to go home and turn off the stove was all Myk needed to alleviate the problem here. It was a fairly harmless suggestion too, especially if it got her far enough away from the scene that Myk and Aaron could disappear.

Since the hypnosis occurred without Myk having to utter a single word, it might have been an interesting sight when – seemingly without warning – all the animation drained out of her features and body. Her arms dropped fully to her side, palms unclenching, and she immediately dropped the knife she’d been holding. It clattered like thunder when it hit the ground, but the prostitute was programmed so much like a doll that she didn’t react to the external stimulus. She turned sharply, stiffly, and then proceeded to walk away from them in a controlled gait. Myk had kept his eyes on her the entire time, his focus and will feeding through his gaze, but once she was a few feet away from them, he let the suggestion itself do the rest of the work. Myk blinked several times to clear the stinging in his eyes, shook his head to detach the creeping fatigue, and then turned back to Aaron. Myk didn’t know what to expect from the Killer, how the male would respond to Myk’s blatant refusal to smarten upbecause in actual fact, he’d done the opposite and looked more dishevelled. There was fresh blood seeping from the wound on his face and Myk’s bright metallic eyes were now more reminiscent of scuffed ball bearings. The exasperated look on his face didn’t help matters either and once again Myk sighed from his nostrils, wondering what the hell he was supposed to do if he couldn’t communicate.

[Aaron Hunter]

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[Myk]

And just like that, the atmosphere between them shifted. Myk lifted his head, the despondency clearing from his eyes like withdrawing thunderclouds to make those metallic marbles bright again as he gawked at the poor Killer in front of him. It wasn’t immediately apparent why, but Myk felt relieved when Aaron understood the Star Wars reference, and not just that, now seemed to be tolerating the strange little white-haired Telepath. Myk nodded his head to the man’s proposal to teach him the tricks of the trade one day, repressing a very enamoured grin for the sake of his face. Even if he didn’t know if teaching his skills to others was possible, or how he would go about doing such a thing, it would be nice to agree just to feel somewhat accepted, welcomed, and appreciated. It would be a pleasure too for Myk to spend further time in Aaron’s company. The man just so happened to have a grisly, powerful bearing –a square jaw, a muscular physique, height, stubble and so much hair to run his fingers through –Myk found it all extremely attractive. And yet, Aaron was such a nice guy; warm and comical, as gentle as the summer rain. If one skipped over the fact that Aaron had just, only a few moments ago, brutally murdered the man in the shell suit, he was still a very nice guy. Myk was plenty capable of skipping over such details. Interestingly enough, Myk was also plenty capable of skipping over the fact that the druggie on the ground had finally started to acknowledge their existence in the worst way possible.

Pewter eyes brazenly and unashamedly narrowed on the face of his companion. There could have been a hurricane rampaging toward them to rip him from the Earth and suck him into space, a surging fissure that could swallow him whole and embed him in the foundations of the planet, and the Telepath wouldn’t have noticed, much less cared. There was one problem, however, one that made the Vampire senselessly angry and jealous when it rose. The source of his sudden obsession had turned away from him, withdrawing that delightful view which had made Myk forget his pain and feel included. When Aaron’s focus was stolen to the drug addict – whom Myk could now hear in full agonising clarity – it was as if his face had been brutalised all over again. That slow, untethering scream of rending flesh, and the yawn of blood that came with it – it was horrifying real; a memory made present. Myk felt his head grow unexplainably light too, experienced his bones transmogrify into a gel-like substance, and all the warmth in his body flee. A hand came to his forehead, the heel of his palm pressing against the ridge of his brow as both pewter eyes rolled in their confines, sending the world spinning around him. It was like being on a merry-go-round, and for once, the aspiring clown wanted to get off. Myk watched the dull colours of their surroundings burn and bleach and spin until the lids of his eyes came down, drowning him in a light, albeit peaceful and muffled darkness.

The darkness soon became a sensuous black smoke, wrapping around him, pulling him away from reality and into a place merely a hair’s breadth away. There was still the concrete under his bare feet and the curdled blood around his toes, there was still the slum buildings around them and the city beyond that, but the barrier that kept it all away was paper-thin. The Telepath stood there like a malformed statue; hunched slightly forward and to the right as if he was about to fall, but gravity defied him the pleasure. His right arm remained in its earlier position, palm pressed to his brow as if he could physically push through the pain. His left arm held to his side, bending around his trim frame, where a shapely forearm clenched into a knot of fabric, feathers, and finger nails. Myk was unmoving but for the soft rise and fall of his chest – a habit he had yet to break, which made the lifeless, broken pose he stood in appear no less disturbing. The chainmail of the bodice rose and fell with each ebbing breath, producing a barely audible crunching sound as each metallic ring pressed up against another and then relaxed. With his head tilted down, Myk’s white hair had engulfed him like the veil of a murdered bride.

Only seconds had actually passed between the time that Myk had closed his eyes and the mortal had been hollering. He’d heard it all, felt it, tasted it, sniffed it – affronting his senses in all the ways they could be affronted. The reek, the texture, the flavour of sweat and piss and desperation – it disgusted him. Detached as the Telepath had been, he was still present, still functioning. Stiffly, Myk’s pose altered; his joints creaking as he pulled himself into a neutral state. Standing upright again, his chin was hanging just above his chest, his arms were at his side, and even though he felt Aaron return to him, heard him speak advice that felt as warm as the sun’s rays used to, the Telepath failed to respond. The druggie kept talking over them – howling warnings of impending vengeance, that harrowing judgement which would befall them for slaying The Athlete. Myk’s eyes snapped open when the accusations started, this distant look in his pewter orbs when he caught the man’s trembling gaze on him. There was a finger too, it was pointing at him, and Myk’s head canted as though he couldn’t understand the situation. A new, child-like expression swept into the Telepath’s features, the kind that came to all young boys when they were backed into a corner by a stronger, hungrier force. There was angst, confusion, but also fear – what would happen next, what would they do to him if he didn’t fight back?

The Telepath didn’t register the moment his body answered, nor the instant his right arm jolted forward to snare the mortal by the throat. In Vampire terms, the white-haired Telepath was most definitely not a force to be reckoned with, but as far as Humans went… Oh, they were deliciously more brittle and fragile. Pound for pound, a Human’s bones are meant to be stronger than steel, and yet Myk felt the vertebrae in the man’s neck squeak together as he pressed his hand closed. The part of Myk’s consciousness that was aware of what he was doing urged him to tug the junkie closer, to take this moment of unrestrained callousness and make it personal, intimate. Yet, there was something else at work here, something external which had reserved itself, confined itself to Myk’s shadow like black lace. When the inky apparition parted with its disguise, it lifted one of its long, translucent arms and made contact with the Telepath’s wrist. The chill that raced through that marble-hued skin quickly leaked into his nerves, dripped through into his bones, and found a place in Myk’s still-beating heart. The Telepath, overcome with the icy pain, winced and instantly released the junkie. The mortal fell to the ground like a sack full of garbage, choking and gasping and screaming at the same time, but Myk had lost his taste for cruelty. He weakly gripped his arm, this grimace he was wearing making his injury bleed again, and yet the fire of his blood beading down his cheeks seemed like a blessing. Pewter eyes addressed the Killer again, warming slowly - ignorant of the shadowy apparition at his side.

“You’re right,” Myk seethed, letting his ragged voice mingle with the inhospitable air. “We… should… go.”

Walking hadn’t proven to be too difficult a task tonight, but Myk paused on a turn as if he had forgotten what it was to put one foot in front of the other. He staggered slightly, arms thrown to the wind as if he could latch onto a cloud to keep himself steady. The sole of his left foot opposed the weight being applied, but, not as vehemently as Myk was making out. Really, with a bit of effort and a swallowing of the pain, he could skip down the streets and maybe even rely on a little bit of magic to have him damn well teleport to where he needed to go. But, there was a reason for his pretence. Myk sighed despairingly, throwing his eyes over his shoulder at the tall, dark Killer. He was trying for pretty, but, he was clearly unaware of his appearance – or rather – how much his look had deteriorated since he had last had the chance to check. Of course he knew his dress was gory and torn, that his skin was stained burgundy from many a man’s blood, but he had forgotten the wound on his face despite all its throbbing. The fleshy trench was raw and bleeding – hot pink and crimson against the white of his flesh and the deep charcoal surroundings of his eyes. Myk might have been trying for pretty, but it was certainly anything but.

“You… er,” the Telepath whispered. “Could... you perhaps be a gentleman and... carry a lady?” Myk glanced back at their junkie friend before pleading. "It would be... quicker."