Old Habits Die Hard.

Chapter Eleven.

Kathryn was dressed in a Victorian gown of deep reds and purples and of black laces and bare shoulders. Many had scowled at her wardrobe and it's usual taste for clothes which looked made for brothels for elegant callgirls.

By the evening was out, She had read her fair share of tales of Vampires. As much information as Gabriel had absorbed from the stories.

She was sitting on the far end of the dining table opposite him, with a spoon in her hand that dipped into the seemingly abandoned soup, and the other pale hand slid a finger gracefully across the fine lines of a book about European vampires.

Gabriel sat opposite her cutting into a breast of chicken. He was dressed in a tailored grey suit with a deep red cravat wrapped around his neck. It was Kathryn who had taken the obligation of wrapping the neckband around his neck, the same shade as the red in her dress. A book sat infront of him, thick and dusty and on more tales of creatures of the night that she had set down on him to study upon. She wanted as much information on Vampires fact or fiction as she could gather, to study Christian Wythers-Holt's insidious nature. And Kathryn herself, remained just as indifferent to the entire ordeal as if she were studing about dog breeding.

They were heading to a celebration that evening, a celebration of The British Empire assuming control of India from the East India Comany. It was all just an excuse to gather with wine, ale and female company.

"They say that they fear the sun." Kathryns voice caught Gabriel's ears from the gloom of the dark. The only light was from the candles in the middle of the long stretched table. The dining room was removed of furniture, as Gabriels parents were importing new posessions from India. Her voice echoed across the walls like the ripple of the tide of water hitting the sand on the beach. The night had set in, and the room was shining empty like the moon peeking through the windows. It set curtains of purple from the long arched windows beside them.

"Mmm?" Gabriel made a noise, as he pulled his concious from thought, remembering language an remembering how to chew.

"Yes. They fear the sun and they fear a stake through the heart." Kathryn continued as she read from the book. "They say you also might want to cut their heads off. That will be the difficult part..."

Yes, Gabriel thought. The only difficult part rather than coaxing a Vampire into the sun, or staking it through the heart whilst it was faster than the flick of a page, was cutting it's head off. He didn't voice his opinions, to avoid those cat like green eyes catching him in a glare from his cut of her confidence. Her long red hair tickled against her bare pale arms as deep as the long pours of red wine.

"Do they?" Gabriel asked, nonchantely as he staked his chicken with a bread knife as if in practice. If she had picked up his reluctant thoughts that they'd be successful in killing a vampire; something already dead, she hadn't made note of it from her continuing of speech.

"Yes. stake them through the heart. Cut their heads off. Burn them if we must. They also say they have some control from their eyes. An ability to influence you like seduction." He heard her shoulder shrug as she spoke. "But Christian was always capable of that."

Gabriel raised in eyebrows in agreement as he slid the plate away from him. His appetite gone from him, as the impending fear slid in that Christian Wythers-Holt would come for them, bounding across the moors in the dead of night like a shadow. He pictured the unfortunate man riding along the rural roads in his lantern lit carrage whom Christian might stumble upon and fill his belly with. He tried desperately to think of something else in fear he might vomit from horrible terror.

"I wonder if we could spike his blood." Kathryn called again from the gloom. He couldn't help smiling at how she spoke about Christian as if he was some animal, like a lion and it's patterns, rather than a supernatural creature. "Fill his next victim with poison before he drinks from them."

"That would be poetic." He replied to her.

"Although, it would be hard to calculate whom his next victim would be before he attacks." She slid her plate away from her and pulled the candle beside her face. It eluminated it from the dark like a mascurade mask from her prominant cheek bones and wide cat-like eyes. "But we know how creative and inventive Holt was when he was alive, it must be doubled now without any straints now that hes an undead. We could only assume..."

There eyes caught each other in an agreement before the words were out. In an understanding and a realisation and rememberance of what kind of man Christian was.

"Someone we know." Gabriel answered for her.