Damion took the handkerchief from my outstretched hand and dabbed the blood from the corners of his mouth.
The sight before me wasn't an unfamiliar one; blood splattered across the walls, the ceiling, the door, limbs dismembered and scattered down the hallway.
"You are so lucky mine is the only apartment up here, and that I don't get many visitors." I snatched the bloodied handkerchief from his outreached hand. "You could have at least brought her in and shut the door."
I shoved the hankie back into my pocket and went to collect the body parts.
Damion straightened his now blood-soaked white, button up shirt, and came to help.
Looking at the destruction he had caused, made me forget that the man he was, had once been a child, who had cried when his brother had pulled the wings off of a fly. Now, he was a man, tearing a young woman to shreds.
"I suppose vampirism and pacifism don't go hand in hand." My voice dripped with sarcasm, and from the glare I received, it was not appreciated.
"My siblings made me the man I am. I was a kind child; polite and generous. I never wanted to stop aging, never wanted to be what I was born. I envied the human race; sometimes I still do.
"I stopped aging at 21, and that's when my living Hell began..."
Nicolae has always been the cruellest; bending other's will to suit his own needs. As a child, Damion had had an immunity to his brother's manipulative abilities, which had followed him into adulthood and vampirism.
Their sisters, on the other hand, had not only been susceptible to Nicolae's influence, but needed no encouragement to torment their youngest sibling. While they were willing participants, Nicolae merely had to suggest a new method of torment, and the girls jumped on the idea.
Celeste was almost as bad as Nicolae, though rather than being manipulative, she was a narcissist. She merely had to look at someone and they worshipped the ground she walked on.
Between the two of them, Nicolae and celeste had once convinced the younger three girls to pretend Damion was invisible. They'd played that twisted game for a year.
The youngest three sisters, Tatiana, Anastasia, and Elouise, each had their own gifts.
Every True-Born vampire had a specific gift, a power of sorts. Nicolae's was the manipulation of other's free will, Celeste's was allure, making those around her follow her out of unwarranted love.
Tatiana could read people's thoughts, and then change them; memories as well. She could take memories of those you cared about most, replacing them with someone else, or awful opposites of the truth.
Anastasia had been able to manipulate the senses. If she wanted you to hear the cries of the damned souls of hell, you heard them, if she wanted you to feel the cold breath of the Grim Reaper on your cheek, you felt it. She could even take your senses from you if she wanted.
Elouise, the youngest, was something else entirely. Half vampire, half siren, she had been an affair baby, born six months before Damion, to another woman, who didn't survive the birth.
She had inherited one thing from her mother; her voice. She could lure in anyone with a simple tune, which pulled their brain to pieces within their skull.
"What about you Damion? What's your power?" My voice was quiet as I watched him cradling the young woman's head in his hands.
"I can make people feel whatever emotion I want them to. For example." He went silent and looked me dead in the eye. Suddenly I found myself laughing, unable to stop myself.
