Seeing Red [Logan]

[Jesse Fforde]

<Jesse Fforde> The city spread out in front of Jesse, slick and gleaming with rain. He stood on the roof of Gresse’s, the guts of the building a wreck beneath him. He thought that when he returned to the establishment, he might regret what he had done to it. Now that he stood there with his arms crossed over his chest, he knew that regardless of his state of mind, the building would have burned. Not because of the lack of use by the family - one of the reasons for which it was created - but because of its name. So much had been built for a relationship he thought would last, but instead it had crumbled. It had slowly deteriorated. There were things that he’d needed that Grey had been unable to provide - and no doubt there were things she had needed that he had not been able to provide. But the fact remained - when he needed her most, she had walked away from him.

There was no illness anymore. There was no bitterness. As Jesse contemplated the city in front of him, he also contemplated his own state of mind. He took a deep breath in, and he felt refreshed. Renewed. He felt whole again. There had been questions, of course. Had he made the right choices, and taken the right steps?

Overhead, the clouds parted briefly to show a wink of moonlight. Yes, he had made the right choices. Yes, he had taken the right steps. The building below would be rebuilt, refurbished, and it would be given a new name. The new year would bring new things. New beginnings, for all of them.

For months Jesse had dwelled in unhappiness, a sordid grief that he thought would be with him forever. But he had not sired. He had died, and Clover had helped him to return. She had helped him live as long as he had. But he had died, and he had come back without the demons on his back. Laughter came easy. Teasing came easy. Bitterness no longer soured his tongue. The overwhelming urge to sire was non-existent.

But the thirst still remained.

Down below there passed a girl. No… a woman. A female who balanced in between, with porcelain skin and naturally red hair that snuck out from beneath her beanie, whisps of it playing in the cool breeze. In one step, Jesse soundlessly landed on the ground. What would Clover think, him stalking this young woman for the freshness of her blood? Surely, Clover recalled Jesse’s penchant for purity. The notion of later punishment only, strangely, fuelled Jesse’s actions.

With his hands now shoved into his pockets and his hood pulled up over his head, Jesse followed the girl - waiting for the opportune moment to strike.


<Logan> With the cold weather upon Harper Rock, Logan had been looking forward to the snowfall until his wife had excitedly proclaimed it was raining. She preferred the rain, feeling that it cleared up the sins of the streets - something that the man only would give a snort in response to. Together, they had cooked dinner. She had chosen her favorite dish, spaghetti and meatballs that was his mother's recipe before retiring to the couch for the evening to watch Christmas films on television until bed. As he had expected, she’d fallen asleep before the second one had ended.

His ice blue eyes scanned her pretty face, her complexion flawless as her red hair fell around her features. It was when an urge struck him that Logan had slid out from under her, dropped the Afghan over the edge of the couch on her body and went to change.

It had been a while since his last kill. As Logan left a sleeping Mariah in their home, he reached up to grasp his shoulder in memory where that ***** had shot him as the cold weather created a mild ache that would begin to fade after he warmed up in his jacket. Too much attention had been drawn to him after that and because of it, he had to lay low. He couldn’t risk being recognized from the newspaper or from those onlookers that hadn't fled the scene once the shots had been fired, those that had been too preoccupied from morbid curiosity to run for their lives.

The weight of his favorite knife was a familiar comfort underneath the cloth of his long sleeved thermal shirt he wore. It was as if an old friend had been reunited with him as he knew it was only a gesture away, hooked onto the belt that held up a simple pair of black jeans. His boots crunched over melting ice as he switched from the concrete pavement to the frosted grass where the sound of his footsteps were muffled. The man tilted his head forward, a baseball cap pulled low over his unkempt brown hair that was free of gel for the time while he headed south without another thought.

Some time ago, there had been a woman that had caught his attention at a club around there. He wondered if she'd be around again.

After a little while, his phone began to vibrate in his pocket persistently. The steady pulse of it, coupled with a pattern that could only be someone texting him caused Logan to forget what he was doing. When he pulled the device out of his pocket opposite of a burnt building he hadn’t paid mind to in the past, he found Mariah had sent multiple questions of where he had gone. Choosing not to respond as annoyance flowed through him, Logan noticed the woman.

It wasn’t her, but she would surely do. With her pout, and her long red hair causing her to resemble Her enough, Logan turned around and began to walk down an alleyway so that he could run across her.


<Jesse Fforde> Once upon a time, Jesse used to play with his food. He used to go into a pub or a club and wait for them to come to him, like flies to sticky honey. He’d dance with them, and seduce them with his silence. To them, his lack of a voice was endearing. Yes, they all thought he was deaf, too - he didn’t like being shouted at, or signed to, when he could hear them perfectly well. But it was all part of the game.

And when he’d got them into a quiet corner or a back alleyway, they would think they were getting lucky. They would think this tattooed man was going to take them home, or vice versa. Or, they’d get a thrill out of doing something they shouldn’t be - a raunchy quickie up against a brick wall. Jesse never let it get that far. He enjoyed the taste of their lips only for so long before his mouth would find the vein at their necks. And when he bit them, they thought it was all part of the foreplay. So gentle was he, that they didn’t know he was draining them dry until the fell limp in his arms. He had enjoyed the taste of lust in their blood, of passion fuelled adrenaline, rather than of terror or fear.

Something had changed along the way, however. Humans started to avoid him. Fear was paramount and he didn’t have to do anything but glance in their direction. He had learned to enjoy that fear. To relish it. He didn’t need passion or lust in his victims - he could go home for that.

This redhead looked as if she would be pure - her blood untainted. When she turned down the darkened side street to take a shortcut, he tsked under his breath. Rookie mistake.

There was no foreplay. There was no playing with his food, this time. He didn’t have the patience for it anymore. He just wanted her blood, and he didn’t care about the look in her eyes as he took it. He waited until they were far enough in; until they were the requisite distance away from the semi-main thoroughfare. She’d been heading toward the slums, and no one really paid much attention around these parts, to what was going on in the darkness.

Before the girl even had a chance to scream, Jesse had whipped the hood from her head so that he could get to her neck; as her deep intake of breath was about to be released in a scream, he covered her pretty pouty lips with a rough hand. His arm snaked around her waist, holding her struggling form tight.The fingers over her mouth gripped tighter, tugging her head to the side and revealing her slender neck to him. She bucked against him, and her nails dug into the flesh of his arm. They drew blood. But they did not shift him.

Sharpened canines sunk into the flesh over the vein; lips closed around the wound to keep any blood from spilling. He got her hair in his mouth, but he didn’t shift. He drank long, and hard, moaning against the taste of it. Ah… dinner.

[Logan (DELETED 7438)]

<Logan> Logan had never understood his desire to kill. It had started as a teenager, there had been no warning signs to his teachers or his parents as a kid. It had been just as if a switch had been made after his ex-girlfriend, Rachel, had cheated on him in his junior year. Perhaps it had been because of the way he had found her tangled up with a bass player, her body in a twisted position, or maybe even it was the way he had found them afterwards, three weeks later, in a car wreck that claimed their lives, that sparked his interest in death.

She had never looked as good as she did with her long hair hanging in her face, a blossom of blood pouring from her chest as she lay on the hood. He remembered how Mariah had screamed her name as they exited her brother’s car that night on the side of the road. He hadn’t been disturbed like she or her brother had. In fact, he had found it beautiful as some of the crimson liquid cascaded from a deep gash in her forehead. When the body had been removed, there had been an outline that remained; just one of the many masterpieces that Logan would begin to observe and study of both accidental and purposeful before he begun to create his own.

As he walked, Logan began to think about this girl; she looked like Mariah, but she reminded him a bit of Rachel in the way she walked. He thought about how he could use her death as an influence - there was an abandoned subway that could he could leave her in. It wouldn't be too difficult to bring her there. He only had to lure her there. Or, perhaps, he could take her to the junkyard - it was hardly busy at this time of night.

Reaching behind him to collect his knife as he turned down an alleyway, Logan began to ready himself to strike. Instead, he found himself staring at a scene he had only witnessed in movies.

There was a man already on his prey, but his lips were on her neck. Instinct told him to run the way the woman was positioned, a dull street light above them projecting enough light that Logan could see her nails in the man's skin, but the instinct was shaken off. He wasn’t a coward, he was a fighter.

“Hey, you son of a *****. Go get your rocks off biting another girl.”

Anger. Logan could hear it in his voice even as he removed his knife and flipped it open. He pointed its tip towards the woman. “I’ve been following this one and now you've gone and ruined her with your ******* biting fetish.”


<Jesse Fforde> The seconds moved sluggishly. Time moved regularly; it moved like it always had, but when Jesse fed, it seemed to slow. His senses were both alert, and dimmed. He knew he couldn’t be seen, shouldn’t be seen, but there was a whole new part of him that didn’t care. If he didn’t hear the guest behind him, he felt his presence; that feeling that one was being watched. It almost fed Jesse’s ego. What did he look like, from the outside? Taking the blood from this innocent girl? She was slowly dying. The beat of her heart first fought, and then it started to wane. For all the fiery redness of her hair, death took her far too easily.

It wasn’t that Jesse didn’t care about being seen, so much as he relished the idea of a chase. A hunt, to catch the witness and eradicate the memory from its mind. Death could do that to a person.

The words, however, the blatant accusation - that was something new. This one wasn’t running. Before he turned around, Jesse straightened. The girl was mostly dead, her body held aloft by Jesse’s arm. His bite could turn, that much he knew. And with the way this girl died so easily, there was no way he’d try to save her. There was no urge to give her his blood, to forge that bond. None. She was weak, unworthy. In one swift movement, Jesse snapped her neck and let her body slump to the ground. Only then did he turn, blood smeared over his lips. Not a single drop smeared his chin, his tongue darting over his lips to collect the last remnants.

The fresh blood burned in his gaze, curious and amused. There was a hint of surprise, there, too. Humans generally avoided him. They knew, somehow, that he was dangerous. He was the monster under the bed. Not this one, though. This one was… angry.

“What’s it to you? She your girlfriend? Sorry, man. You might need a new one…” he said with a red, glistening smirk and a slow step forward. And with a knife, nonetheless! This one had spark. Such a rare thing, these days.


<Logan> He didn’t blame people when it came to their own sick habits. He had enough of his own, he supposed, to make a short story and a lifetime in the nuthouse. Occasionally, the sound of breaking bones would send an excited chill down his spine; other times, Logan enjoyed the subtle pop of his blade pushing into the soft flesh at their stomach. Despite, however, what he knew people thought, it had never been sexual. He wasn’t incompetent.

He simply enjoyed the drive to kill.

And he was pissed when someone got in the way.

So, when Logan found the man standing and feeding on his victim, his anger flashed through his and clouded his judgment. Instinct told him to run. He had seen others do this in the city and he wondered if they were touched by those assholes in the Quarantined area. He didn’t intend to get close enough to bother with the guy to know one way or another as he tapped his knife impatiently against his thigh.

That is, until Logan heard the distinctive snapping of bone. And then she sank to the ground, Logan's cold blue eyes following her. “Such ******* waste of beauty.” He thought and glanced over her. Her eyes were growing dull, a disappointing view to the man. He would have kept this one alive until the last moment, he reckoned.

When the other spoke, he looked at him and his upper lifted with a silent snarl. He didn’t move back when the guy stepped forward, instead, he threw his knife forcefully - aiming for the guy's chest. “I’m afraid you're going to have to take her place. Congrats, ******. You’ll be my first male masterpiece.”


<Jesse Fforde> The knife found its mark. Jesse could have swerved, he could have avoided the well-aimed blade, but he chose to stay his course. The gleam of the metal landed, lodged between skin and bone. Where it might have hit his heart, Jesse had surged forward with enough grace to at least catch the blade in a less critical spot. The only hint that he gave as to any kind of pain was the slight twitch of his lips, which soon split apart in a raucous, highly amused laugh.

“I am a masterpiece! Thank you!” he said, the fresh blood having lubricated his throat enough so that his voice was not as husky as it could have been. Reaching up, his fingers curled around the blade of the knife, wrenching it from his chest with only the slightest gasp, followed by a hum. Not a groan of pain. An actual hum of perceived pleasure. The red of his blood was brighter upon the blade as it caught the light, as Jesse twirled it in his fingertips. Thanks for the weapon.

Jesse made to circle the guy - watching his every move like a hawk following its prey. Except Jesse had had his fill, and more blood was not an immediate need. The girl’s blood still clung to the back of his throat, the thirst abated as much as it could be. Later, he might want more - but he’d boost himself, or find a pack from the fridge. If Jesse were allowed to have his fill, the city would be bereft of any human, beating heart.

“I really, really would like to see you try,” Jesse said. He wasn’t normally inclined to play with his food, but he was in a good mood. And this guy? This guy was intriguing. This guy piqued Jesse’s interest. Jesse wanted to know more.

“I’m a bit of an artist myself. Tell me, what kind of masterpiece would you turn me into? Tell me your process…” he said. He never normally talked so much, either. But it was the only way he’d get the answers that he required.

[Logan (DELETED 7438)]

To see the knife catch its mark, Logan was pleased. That is, at least when the guy didn't seem to change in pace or seemed to be bothered by the fact there was now a knife in his body. "****." He didn't have another knife, a realization that came to light that in any other case, he would have smacked his forehead mentally. The guy's laugh irritated him. "That wasn't a compliment." Yet. A few broken bones later, perhaps crushed under the flesh. Logan could think about what he was going to do later.

But first, he needed to figure out what to do later.

Blue eyes flashed with annoyance, hiding the fear that bubbled beneath the surface as he watched as the knife was pulled free. It wasn't something that he'd seen before and he knew that any puncture wound in the chest could be considered severe, wasn't it? His brain raced with information, but nothing stuck out. Nothing answered his question.

He didn't take his eyes off the male as he brushed his foot against the ground in search of something. Women were easier targets. They fought back, but they were smaller, more fragile. Easier to manipulate. His shoe scraped against something, a quick glance down letting him register that it was a beer bottle before he returned his attention to the other. "It could work."

A few more wounds could help Logan, but... he wasn't a fool to notice that there was something different. "I think I'll start with your arms." He answered, humoring the male, "Sever the joints between your elbow and twist them into what are meant to be vines." He turned so that he wouldn't end up with his back to the other.

His pocket jingled and he reached in, curling his fingertips around his keys before slipping them between his fingers easily. It wouldn't do much, but it could help. "I haven't thought past that yet."

[Jesse Fforde]

Looking at him, one might not have thought that the other male was a twisted serial killer. He wanted to turn Jesse into some kind of humanoid tree. It was like something straight out of Hannibal and Jesse was impressed. Had this pretty boy pulled off some kind of Dorian Grey-esque hoodoo to not look like a creepy and sadistic serial killer. What would drive such a person to even thing such things?

Jesse himself had his excuses, his reasons for being like he was. Disappointments in life can often lead to darker thoughts, though Jesse’s mode of killing wasn’t exactly artistic. He killed only because he had a goal in mind, a need that he had to sate. The frenzy for blood often took control. There was no ulterior motive, and though he had his habits (he liked to burn his prey, for example) he had no other markers. Though, really, it said something about the authorities in Harper Rock that he hadn’t been tracked down yet. It goes to show that these crime series really aren’t true to life. If they were, there’d be no bad guys in the world. They’d all be in jail.

”Don’t bother trying to think too much. You’re not going to get that far,” Jesse murmured, considering. The weight of his phone was felt in his pocket; beyond that, the urge not to call Clover, but to summon her to him. A grain of an idea was forming in the back of Jesse’s mind, but he wanted advice. He wanted someone beside him to say yes or no. And Clover would be the one he would listen to. Holding that thought at bay, he moved only to try to trap this guy in a corner, a way to keep him from running. The menacing aura billowed from Jesse in invisible waves, his eyes gleaming even in the darkness.

”Though I am curious what you might try to achieve if you were given more power. Strength, agility. Who knows what. If you were granted more ways to evade and to lure, what would you do with it?” he asked. His throat was itching, and the need for Clover was severe. Not yet, though. Not just yet.