Endless

Vincent | Ryan

The force of my inner monster's release was enough to make the apartment's circuitry fizzle. The rush I felt was like nothing else. The city's life force pressed against my awareness. As individuals, mortals' lives were mostly too small to pick up. But together, it felt like the ebbs and flows of an ocean.

My senses grew keener, flooding me with noise, light, sensations and smells. It took me a moment to adjust, to focus only on what was important and let everything else fade to the back of my mind. If I wanted, my ears could pick up conversations from miles away. My eyes could see things too small or too fast for mortals to notice. My skin could feel the air around me. Down to the tiniest change. My sense of smell beat a bloodhound's. I had the strength to punch through bricks. I could fly. I had the speed to almost be invisible to the people around me. But all this sensory input could handicap me if I didn't control what I focused on.

Mmm...it felt good to be back. When I opened my eyes again, I found Nick watching me. I felt his awe, his trepidation, and his short battle to shake free of the morphine's effect.

We left the mortal way, conserving our energy as much as possible. When we fought and used too much power, we really started craving to the point where there wasn't any control left. That wouldn't be safe for Ali either, and we would need to stay away until we recovered.

"You know," Nick said, hitting the button to the ground floor. "Every player and his mother is going to come to New York now."

I shrugged. "Good. Saves me the travel expenses to clean up."

Nick chuckled. "True." His smile faded away. "For what it's worth, I'll help."

"Really?" I stared at him, searching for a clue that he wasn't serious. Nick had left the Firm more than a century ago, burning every single one of his bridges behind him. I never thought he'd even consider doing the Firm a service beyond delivering its message to me. "I thought you were done."

"So did I, but those idiots rebelling against the Firm are dangerous. We need to shut it down or the mortals will find out about us, and we'll have an even bigger mess."

True. Mortals didn't grasp the punishment it was to be immortal. They wanted it, and if I could have, I would have gladly handed it over. But humans could only gain a form of immortality by drinking our blood. The few who had succeeded at sedating us for long enough to get a sip had turned into abominations. Monstrosities. Arch Vampires. They'd been inflicting their brand of immortality on innocent bystanders ever since.

Our first job wasn't to kill each other and other creatures. It was to protect, help, and guide humans.

Somehow, the Firm had managed to do that, despite quite a few fuck-ups on our part. Like our life force addiction. If the rebels revealed our existence, our ability to do our main duty would be destroyed. I felt the same way as Nick, even if most of my motivation was to protect Ali.

"Thanks," I said, glancing his way. So many things went unsaid. Stuff we'd said and done to each other all those years ago. It had ruined our relationship beyond repair. But still, it felt good to know Nick had my back again. Hopefully he felt the same way about me.

We walked about three blocks down when we got our first sense of something approaching. Not a griffon; we would have felt it. Not a phoenix. Not a protector, since we couldn't sense them at all if they were in stealth mode. I frowned and took a breath, inhaling the faint scent of death usually hanging about a vampire.

He came out of an alley, safe enough in the skyscrapers' shade. Strangely enough, he was much less twitchy than I was used to seeing in vampires. He was well-dressed in a black coat and scarf. His straight black hair was styled. There was no sign of a vampire's greed and hunger in his face, which would have made him look quite pleasant if not for the fury burning in his glare.

"What's up with him?" I asked, and Nick glanced over.

The vamp narrowed his eyes, stalked straight over to Nick, and punched him. Nick went down with a grunt. I grabbed the vamp, trying to figure out what was wrong with him. Most of the time, vamps stayed the hell away from us. We killed their clan heads on sight. So for one to walk up and deck Nick was weird as...a griffon kissing a protector rather than killing her.

"You asshole!" the vamp shouted, straining against my grasp. "I've been protecting him for years and you set a pack of griffs on his trail!"

Nick stayed on the ground, gaping up at the vamp. "What are you talking about?"

"Romano!" the vamp shouted, kicking at him.

Nick managed to dodge, but his eyes widened.

"Romano?" I pulled the vamp a bit further away from Nick. "What the hell would griffs want to do with him?"

"Alick's being an asshole," Nick grumbled, rubbing his jaw. "Probably checking to see if I told him anything."

"Did you?" the vamp demanded.

"Do I look stupid?"

The vamp snarled and I wrenched him farther away. "The world is going to hell in a hand basket," I muttered.

"What do you have to do with Romano?" Nick jumped back onto his feet and dusted himself off.

The vamp went limp. "None of your damned business. But your little friend Alick sent griffs after him to try and find the mysterious and powerful Ryan, and I don't fucking like that."

"Neither do I." Nick squinted at him, then recognition came. "You're Vincent Minnelli."

"Right."

"From where?" I asked.

"New York City."

"What turned you?" I released him.

He didn't go for Nick again. Instead, he smirked at me. "9/11. I was a cop. Got trapped in one of the collapses."

Trust the vamps to dig through the wreckage for easy prey.

Nick's face contorted in pure disgust. "Vince used to be Romano's partner before he got killed and Romano left the NYPD."

"Right. Boy went on the path of vengeance. I made sure to keep him out of trouble."

"Why?" I pressed.

"What the hell else am I supposed to do? My job was to serve and protect."

"But...you're a vamp."

He sent me a nasty glare. "And you're a fucking menace to society, but you don't hear me throwing that around lightly, do you?"

Nick chuckled. "I like him."

"Of course you do." I answered. "He's as much of a wise-ass as you. Look. No worries about Romano, okay? I'm drawing the griffs to me, so they'll leave him alone now. See, I'm the great and mysterious Ryan everyone's looking for."

In the meantime, there wasn't enough distance between me and the apartment. I went on walking. Nick caught up a few seconds later, followed by the vamp. I frowned at Vincent. "You better clear out. We don't know what sort we'll be attracting."

"I can help with the baby griffs."

"You're a baby vamp."

"With razor reflexes, a hair trigger gun, and a killer aim."

"True," Nick said. "Romano always said Vince was the best shot he knew."

"But it's day," I pointed out. "He'll be blinded."

Vince rolled his eyes. "When was the last time you met a vamp? We have polarized sunglasses now." He slipped them out of his pocket and slid them on. Then he walked straight into the sunlight.

Thanks for reading! Please do share your first impressions of Vince. And as always, please vote if you enjoyed this section. ^_^