Path of the Vampire forum

“OW!”

The young allurist yelped and jumped back from her prey as if he’d been made of fire. One moment it had been all sultry and pleasurable feeding, up against the wall of a dark and hypnotic establishment full of a throbbing beat that almost had her forgetting what she was there to do in the first place. And the next... well. Someone also in attendance apparently didn’t like vampires around here because she could all but taste the extra blood - her blood - in the back of her throat from the bullet that had torn right through her.

And that was about the moment she realized things had gone very, very wrong.

The man she’d been feeding from slumped to the floor and it only took a few seconds, slow-mo though they might have felt, to figure out why. The bullet that had gone straight through her shoulder had lodged somewhere around mid-chest in him.

“Oh ****!” she couldn’t help but exclaim as she clapped a hand over her mouth, not that it mattered. The gunshot had barely been heard, and like the others, she would have thought it part of the beat, too, had she not been the target. “****, ****, ****!” She rapidly scanned the crowd that ebbed and flowed like water to the music but couldn’t figure out where the fire had come from. Likely whatever reckless person had done it had hightailed it out of there already, perhaps never knowing the true damage caused.

Her attention turned once more to the man lying against the wall. She crouched down, leaned in, and rapidly sealed the wound in his throat. All the while, her shoulder wept copious amounts of blood, not that she could really see it or where it might be going while she tried to locate a pulse in his neck or a heartbeat in his chest. She had no idea what to do from there and the panic was rising steadily - any cops or soldiers would have her in trouble again, no doubt, even if she had managed to hide the signs of her illicit meal.

“****!”

Finally, she decided to try and stand him up, one arm wrapped over his shoulders as she pretended to struggle under his weight and try to get him outside. At worst, she hoped and prayed harder than she ever had before, it would look like her date got too wasted to function and no one would be the wiser...

What a life, Kyrie Bastien Dupres. Although born in America, Kyrie had taken a bit less of a legal route of an otherwise usually legal job. Bounty Hunting. Now, naturally, he originally only worked for the cops. He wasn't an assassin, he was little more then a man hunter who almost never pulled the trigger, focusing on mainly just locating the target and then choosing to either alert the authorities or getting an ally to help out taking him down. Sometimes hiring people on the spot even. Usually you could get a cheaper ally from a bar expecting quick cash, then working with them more permanently.

However, he wasn't exactly the most...legal when it came to who he chose to hunt. Kyrie was prone to promoting his targets crimes beyond their true reality, usually when they had committed enough to get on the list, but when he wanted just a bit extra money from it. Just to get another few hundred dollars out of the hunt.

This particular target however, had proven a bit difficult. He seemed to get close to him every week, just a day behind him almost all the time. Then he skipped out to Canada. At this point, Kyrie had gotten frustrated with him, and chased after anyway. And then, lost track when he hit Harper Rock. An incredible phenomena this place was.

Today he'd gone to the bar, to think, and of course, to drink. But then...fading. He wasn't sure what had happened, he just felt...foggy. Like he was incredibly tired, he could feel a person, someone holding on to him, and a strange feeling in his neck. And then...a noise, a powerful noise. And a pain in his shoulder, his eyes vaguely glanced, seeing the blood emerging from his chest and his brow furrowed, "That's not.." he tried to speak quietly before he fell. His lips smacked, that sure tasted like blood didn't it?

Am I dying? He thought to himself in wonder, and in the only amount of groggy terror he could feel in this state. He heard cursing but it was mostly drowned out by the noise of the surroundings. He felt himself being picked up, he turned his head, seeing a woman carrying him, he could barely think still, and only sort of felt the pain, "Oh, pretty, nice lady." was all he managed out at the moment before touching his injury and feeling a choking feeling in his throat as the pain sent awareness through his mind.

Lydia could barely register that the man was speaking, that he was somehow still clinging to... life...

Wait, what?! No pulse, no way, no... maybe she’d missed something in the panic. Maybe she was an idiot with no clue. Maybe, he...

Nope. She didn’t have time to think about it.

All she had time to think about was that she’d gotten someone innocent severely maimed or killed and beyond that, she didn’t know what to do.

They finally arrived outside, with her violet gaze darting all about for anyone who might still be hunting her, for anyone who might be a witness. She wasn’t thrilled with the idea of doing more harm, but she couldn’t risk being seen, not again. With no sire and little guidance, it was only a matter of time before she truly messed up, but for now, she could cover most mistakes pretty easily.

Except something like this. She had no idea what to do about this.

A pit opened in her stomach when she realized blood had been welling and falling out of the wound in her shoulder and was sprinkling everywhere, including all over the should-be corpse still weighing her down. A flashback hurtled through her brain of her turning.

Oh ****.

Hadn’t it been almost exactly something like this?

No, no, no. It didn’t bear thinking about.

She laid the man down, propped against the exterior wall, and tried to find a pulse again.

What the hell was she going to do?

Smell, blood. Taste, blood. And some...lack of something. He felt...not hot. But he wasn't cold either. Just...there. His teeth, they seemed. Sharper. Pointed. His eyes opened a bit. Someone was checking his pulse, against a wall, the lady carrying him around, he didn't even realize he wasn't breathing either. But she seemed to be quite concerned. It still hadn't occurred to him, what had just happened.

"Am I dead?" the question was asked out of absolute ignorance, and the vague sense of awareness that was coming back to him as the vampire he was now began being able to withstand the wound that he could not as a human. He furrowed his brow looking at the wound, feeling it in his side, then his eyes glanced to her, she was hurt to, bleeding still. He looked at her as some sense of intelligence began returning, though he was still very weak and a bit vague minded, "You...what happened? What's going on?"

He had too much mind about him, this didn't make sense. This wasn't what death was supposed to be like right? You were supposed to like...go somewhere, or nowhere. Nope, he was just alive still. He didn't feel alive. He felt dead. This didn't make any sense. He still tasted blood in his mouth and he smacked it.

What in the world was going on here?!

“Mon dieu,” the blonde vampire gasped out. Reality felt quite a lot like a big old 18-wheeler smacking into you without so much as a pause, and maybe it was better that way. Maybe it was better to be slapped right in the face with it, so one could process it better and easier and move forward. Onward and upward. Or whatever her father, in his fake American accent, used to say to send her and her many siblings into giggles.

She drew in a shaky breath, unneeded though it may be, and pressed herself back against the wall. The searing pain in her shoulder barely registered as she stared at the man beside her, violet gaze wide and filled with uncertainty. Nothing in her existence had prepared her for this moment, and no one in her existence had, either, for that matter. Not that there were that many, anyway.

Finally, she realized he was talking already. Asking questions. She winced, uncertain still over how best to respond.

Directly, she finally decided.

“In a sense,” she replied, at last, to the first one. A barely-suppressed grimace tried to twist her features before she drew another shaking breath. “Um… well…” Oh Lord. What was she supposed to say, anyway? She wasn’t a Sire – she could barely keep herself alive and well, and she hadn’t exactly been a vampire, herself, for all that long, either. The next breath came out on a soft sob, guilt filling her as suddenly as the shock had. “I’m… I’m really sorry, I…”

She cleared her throat, willing the bloody tears back from her eyes as hard as she could. “I… I accidentally turned you… in… into a… v-vampire…” Her hands flew to her eyes, scrubbing hard over her face before she continued. “And… and I… well. I’m newish to all of this, too, and I’ve never turned anyone before and oh my god… I’m so sorry! I didn’t know… “

His mind still foggy, and more in shock as his body refused to feel the way it was supposed to feel. It wasn't numbness. It wasn't that, because he could still feel the air. He could still feel the pain of the injury in his chest. There was blood, but it wasn't flowing. It was just, there. If his heart could stop a second time, it would have. It...hurt less. It was there, but it wasn't...killing him.

He looked at the woman, as he tried to piece together what all had just happened. What had happened? Pieces...they were missing. Still lost in memory. He heard her say something, but it was too muffled in his only semi-conscious ears to hear. She seemed to be filled with fear to, and finally answered. She almost sounded like she was saying he was dead. And then came to answer his next question. The one he was really paying attention to. She took another moment, and then began to apologize, he looked at her uncertainly.

A vampire? Did she just say she turned him into a vampire. He almost chuckled at the ridiculousness of such an idea...but. He wasn't bleeding the way he should. He wasn't dead. And everything was different. This whole place was wild everyone always seemed to be on the lookout, and there were soldiers everywhere. But...no that couldn't be possible. It just couldn't be. "Don't be...ridiculous." he managed, "Never-mind...We need to get to a hospital. We're injured." he grunted his hands shuffling for a phone in his pocket, 'Need to call...dang, what's the emergency services here?"

He stared blankly at the device, which was just held in his hand as he tried not to move otherwise.

“Non,” Lydia gasped out, choking back the hysterical laugh that wanted to rise up. Oh but it was as funny as it was terrifying; she had given him the flat truth, plain and unadorned, and he was looking at her as if she was crazy. Maybe she was, but it didn’t change the facts. It didn’t take away her fault or guilt in the matter. And it surely didn’t change that a hospital was the last place they should go, right on par with the police or the soldiers or any of the government official-types.

“No hospitals,” she said, a firm shake of her head all the resolution she could muster at the moment. She took a raspy breath and tried again. “Listen…” She paused a moment and tried her best to gather the most concise sentence, the easiest words to understand. It was no easy feat; her accent was stronger than ever in her panic and she was quite certain she wasn’t the easiest to understand at present. Not even the wound in her shoulder was registering much, which was a change for sure.

“No hospitals, no police, no nothing. I’m not kidding and I’m not being ridiculous, and its not to protect me, it is to protect you.” She drew another quick breath, trying like hell to calm down and keep the smell of blood from driving her mad, to boot. She hadn’t fed near enough and now with her own blood loss, hunger was rearing its horrifying head again. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but please, trust me. If you go to any of those places, they will kill you. Or worse.” She sat down hard beside him with a soft ‘oof,’ scrubbing her hands over her face. An odd pang went through her as she looked upon him again. No matter how, the man was her… responsibility, she supposed. And besides, there was some weird draw there to him. His presence alone had even lessened the emptiness left by Enver’s absence, a strange sense of relief that had been long missing.

“I really am sorry, but things are very different for you now. I am… well, I’m **** at being a vampire, but I’ll help you any way I can. Teach you the little I do know…” Her gaze lifted to the alley, and the street just beyond. It was still mostly quiet, but it wasn’t smart to stay put for long. “We should move somewhere else… I can take you back to my… well, my sire’s… place for now… we can sort all of this out.” She was babbling and throwing information at him too fast, she knew, but she could scarcely keep the words from tumbling out. They had to get moving, soon.

Kyrie looked at her in confusion as she said no hospitals. As she tried again to explain. He swallowed. As every symptom of his current situation began becoming more and more clear. The fact he had no need to breath. The fact the cold didn't seem to matter. The bite. The way his senses seemed to be stronger then they were before even though he thought they should be weaker. All pushed through as she continued to tell him. As she explained.

He still didn't want to believe it. She said to move somewhere else. To her sires place and then to sort it out there. He stared blankly for a few moments, "Yeah...ok." he finally said looking at the ground in thought. If she'd go to get up now then he'd try and follow. Gripping his stomach still even though somehow it was no longer a mortal wound. He still felt weak, he also felt...hungry. But not for any food. For something...else.

"This shouldn't be possible." He muttered "It can't be. Vampires shouldn't even exist. This is...insane. This can't really be happening."