So she rose, blood-maddened, into the sky once again. Her fangs gleamed, and her scales glistened as silver under the full moon. She fought, bled and suffered in the night until she forgot why the battle began in the first place.
In time, her prowess became a legend. She grew until her shadow occluded great boulders. Her breath ignited forests. In time, it seemed as though no one dared stand before her fury.
~*~
"Zoe? You're needed in the war room."
I didn't move. I didn't even bother looking up.
The boy behind me shifted nervously. The sound of cloth rubbing against cloth grated on my eardrums— he must have folded his arms, an instinctive gesture of nervousness. How very human of him.
I had forgotten his name. Rashid? Rasheel? An exotic name on a pale boy. Once I would have laughed at the pretension, but nowadays it took more than a name to make me smile. Come to think of it, I hadn't smiled in a very long time indeed.
"Zoe! If you take any longer, Gareth'll get pissed. He needs your report on the hostile fortifications at the old facto—"
I got bored halfway through his sentence; without warning I stood and turned on my heel. The boy bit back a surprised curse. I surveyed him for a moment, still and unblinking.
He was still pale, inhumanly so by now and growing paler still as he shifted uncomfortably under my gaze. Another human mannerism— when Gareth and the other elders grew fearful or angry, they turned as still as mountains on the Moon, their eyes gleaming with calculated hunger. I had begun to do the same, even if I couldn't understand why; surely I hated Gareth, hated all of them for reasons buried deep in my soul. Reasons that used to drive my actions with a fiery passion, now left ashy and cold, their origins uncertain in my memory.
I fought for them only because I hated their foes for past wrongs that were even more heinous. That I knew for certain.
I wondered what they were.
I moved forward with a jerky, alien speed. The pale boy flinched away, but my target wasn't him— I opened the window of my tiny, dark room just a shade slower than was necessary to break the fragile glass. The night air sighed through the new opening, and the scent of rot and gasoline filled my nostrils.
"Hey! What the hell do you think you're doing? We have a war meeting!" The boy's voice was indignant even through his fear. Oh-so-righteous authority, devotion to the Higher Good of the clan pervaded his every syllable.
My gaze twitched over to him once again. He stood in the doorway, and his bored expression contrasted sharply with his nervous, darting eyes. "If Gareth wanted a being that jumped and rolled over when he said its name, he should have gotten a golden retriever. I'm going out. Are you going to stop me?"
He didn't move from his place on the threshold of my room. At least he had that much sense. I had acquired a certain reputation in the past several years concerning Clan members who irritated me. I wasn't sure why; none of the injuries had been permanent— well, except for one, and all the damaged furniture had been replaced without incident.
I decided to mollify him with a smile. He flinched, and fled back down the hall.
I tensed, and an instant later flung myself out the window and into the city night.
Four seconds later I landed hard on the concrete, three stories below. The impact of my foot against the durable material cracked it— the sound rang out with terrific volume. I vaguely wondered if the neighbors would report a gunshot to the police. Dismissing the thought as quickly as it came, I sprinted out into the streets.
As I flew, the buildings blurring past in a kaleidoscopic swirl, I considered my own actions in a meditative musing. Though not precisely out of character, my own reaction to a fairly reasonable request was somewhat surprising. Normally I only behaved with that sort of childish pique when I was hungry; all but threatening the boy Rasheen (Rasheen! That was it!) was the mark of a particularly foul mood.
Was I hungry? I considered stopping and breaking into a nearby building for a quick bite, but after brief consideration dismissed the plan. Though the ever present bloodthirst murmured insistently against my senses, I was no thirstier than normal.
No, it had to be something else. Something else pulled me from my place in a makeshift grotto in the old house in the slum.
A scent drifted across my nose— vampiric, and not one I recognized from the clan. And if they weren't from the clan...
I changed course, leaping over a six-foot-high fence and blasting down an alley. My hand flickered out and almost absently ripped a metal bar from a fire escape with a brief scream of tearing metal. Two dark figures at the far end of the gloomy corridor were struggling; one made strangled little squeaks as the other's hand covered its mouth, choking off cries for help with superhuman ease.
At the sound of my approach, both froze. The strangler glanced towards me as I approached, and I hurled the bar with all my strength.
With a distasteful crunch-swish, my improvised projectile impacted the enemy vampires head and passed through. The remnants twitched for a second with reflexive surprise. Then, it folded over gracefully, releasing its former victim.
One enemy fallen. Perhaps the night would be somewhat productive after all.
The human was stammering out thanks, its voice male, high, and shaken. I inspected it casually. It had been Bitten— enough of its would be predator's saliva had entered to wound to turn it, should the blood be drained entirely. Gareth had told me once that if the Bitten managed to escape alive, the body would eventually be able to fight off the curse and remain mortal and alive.
It was offering to pay me for my troubles, I realized. It thought I was its savior.
It was already standing there. As my mother once said, waste not, want not.
Once upon a time, I think that would have been troubled by draining him dry.
Once upon a time, I was human.
Isn't it a pity all my once upon a times perished long ago?
