Fade Into Black - Shadows of the Night 5

Prologue Part 2

Hi,

An early update this time. I think this is what many of you have been asking and waiting for. I wanted to do this for a long time, but it just didn't feel right at that point in time. Now it does.

So here it is. Let me know if you like it :-)

Lara

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Prologue Part 2

Calm and peaceful the night creeps into the city, embracing its walls and streets like a lover. Sweet and dark. Stealthy and patient. Eternal.

Like us. It belongs to us like a parent. We are the night's children. Years and years pass in what is little more than a blink of the eye for one of us. Autumn. Winter. Spring. Summer. The passage of seasons dance like a drunken teetotum to songs most humans have long forgotten. The inevitable becomes the daily grind one learns to accept. And yet. We change.

Motion in the streets underneath. Laughter and blinding lights.

Humans.

They think we are old-fashioned, cling to customs and feats that belong to centuries past. In truth we are the ones that must adapt the most. So why, after so many years, do I still seem surprised by the change I have seen within these city walls?

I place my hand on the balcony. A city that lives and breathes like a human. My city.

Somewhere in these streets. She is...

My fingers tighten. Cold steel groans and creeks under my palms.

It has been a month. One month. A mere heartbeat in the existence of someone like me. I am restless. Turn my attention to the passage of time like a human. Counting days. Hours.

The trouble she has put me through. That I would even go as far as I did, it irks me in unspeakable ways. I have searched, torn the city apart – even after what she did. I have killed humans for less.

Why do I go to such great lengths for a witch, not more than a child in inhuman years? The answer is as elusive as catastrophic to me.

I am in control. Always.

I remember the last time we met. Oh yes, I do.

The memory stirs a heady cocktail of motion inside of me.

They saw her leave with the Raven. Of her own free will. Her betrayal jolts something in my core, a serene, calm place that has not been touched for centuries. Anger stirs somewhere deep within. Emotion both familiar and yet new in odd ways. Anger I am well familiar with. But there is more.

Motion. I do wonder.

Walk away from me? Friend or foe, no one simply walks away from me. So how could she? There are hundreds in this city – men and women alike –ready to die for what she turned her back on.

My blood boils. My lungs rattle with motion and sound.

I stare at the skyline of New York, that ancient city that is mine and will always be mine, and grow calm again. Minute by minute. Hour by hour. My breathing evens out until it fades away, morphs into complete motionlessness.

She believes she is ahead of the game, that she possesses an edge over me. She is wrong.

I have watched empires rise and burn to ashes. I will bide my time, wait my turn.

I will get my hands on her. And when I do, she will learn that no one walks away from the head vampire of New York.