The image is from the movie the Purge, something I highly recommend!
"These are creepy. Like Jason meets Freddy Kruger Creepy." I look at the mask, holding the bat across my shoulders as we walked down the sidewalk of New Orleans.
"I can't believe you haven't seen The Purge." Ashley goes on. I roll my icy eyes, glancing at Onoskelis who shared the same look of irritation and confusion I did. For once, I could read her emotions like she said them out loud.
"Once I start wasting my time divulging myself into the cinematic theatre of modern America, I'll become the one thing I've never been." I say, my sing-song voice seeming to make a humming sound with the brilliant Scottish accent.
"Really?" Ashley asks, rolling her brown eyes, probably thinking I'm theatrical for someone who doesn't watch movies. Well, not movies like 'The Purge' at least. "What's that?"
"Ordinary. Ashley." I answer. "And I couldn't think of anything more tragic than being ordinary." I pause. "Except maybe death. I'd like not to die." As we pass another group of loud teens dressed in all kinds of vulgar ways for Halloween, Onoskelis looks ahead, and I spot the woman as she does.
"Isn't that your friend?" The demon asks.
"No." I watch Camille enter the bar, and know it was her shift. "I don't have friends. A perfect excuse to get a drink." I look at the mask in my hands, then smile. "It's Halloween, after all." And then I snap the elastic band around my head, fix my curls, and lead the way.
Rousseau's was filled with tourists. Busy people in and out. Everyone on the streets today were in costumes. One way or another. Even if they just wore a mask, or a tail. Or maybe just made their makeup into a zombie. Either way, the living and the dead dressed like the unnatural. The strange. The real and the fake. Because this was their way of celebrating a holiday that was intended to scare demons away.
I glance at Onoskelis. They were clearly doing a wickedly terribly job at it.
I pull my phone from my pocket as we sit at the bar, leaning our baseball bats on the floor. My teeth clamp together when I see I've received no message from Lance. He was also doing a wickedly terrible job. His scouts had to have picked up something. Somewhere.
Zetrov was getting closer, and their silence had made me bite my tongue in anticipation. Why hadn't they acted? Have they found the sword? Are they waiting for the perfect moment to strike? I pull my mask off, and set it beside me on the bar counter, rubbing my eyes as though I was stressed.
As soon as Camille is in earshot, I mouth off. "Now, what do you get when an Italian, a Scott, and a..." I scratch my cheek. What was someone called when they came from hell? "Demon walk into a bar?" I finish swiftly. Cami looks at me, and almost was about to laugh but then she realizes that I wasn't here to make small talk.
"Murder?" Ashley asks, sipping a drink that a guy had brought her. I lick my lips, pursing them.
"Wrong." I grab a toothpick from behind the counter.
"Bad table manners?" Skelly guesses. I smile slightly, mostly because of the way she said it.
"Wrong again." I stick the toothpick into my mouth, moving it around with my tongue, and meeting the slightly worried gaze of Camille.
"Then what?" Ashley asks.
"A party." And then I tilt my head, and smirk.
And only a minute and a half later did I have Camille behind the building, pushing her briskly in front of me like a force shield. In a way, she was. No, I wouldn't hurt the bartender but I did need her.
"The last time someone kid napped me, it was Aurora." Camille struggles in my hands. I grip her arms harder.
"That's why I'm counting on you. You have until tomorrow." I turn her around a corner, away from prying eyes, and bite into my wrist, forcing it against her mouth until I'm sure she's had a nice sip. "My number is still programmed in your phone. Now, this is how it's going to work. Klaus knows where the conniving little De Martel is. You use whatever means necessary to get that information for me, or I'll come, and I'll snap your neck." I let her go, and she looks at me in shock.
"Why are you doing this? I apologized for what I said."
"You think this is about you?" I ask, laughing. "Of course you do. Poor Camille. 'I don't have the balls to look a monster in the eyes and tell him I've fallen in love with the beast.'" I mock. Actually, I had no intention or interest in killing Camille, but I was selling the act.
I needed to dispose of Aurora. The only way of doing that was to find out where she is first. Klaus knows. Conclusion: if the hybrid won't tell me, he'll tell her.
"Are you trying to start a war with Klaus?" She asks in dismay. I shake my head.
"No. But he and I have run into a disagreement on how to do things." I explain like it was completely acceptable that I threaten her life. Technically, I'd be turning her into a vampire, but she knew that obviously. The scared look in her eyes and all. "Or maybe I just finally snapped." I add, shoving a crazed look into my eyes. It worked because Camille backed up.
"Niklaus won't tell me." She shakes her head. "He wouldn't."
"Actually, you'd be rather surprised what he'd tell you over a few tequila shots." I snap, then internally slap myself. "You're quite draft for someone with a psychology degree." I observe. I'm about to say something else when everything goes black.
My head twisted at an awkward angle and I gag, then am floating in darkness. Good, old fashioned neck snap. Which meant one of two things. Either someone was saving Camille from me, or they are kidnapping me.
Why someone would be so stupid as to kidnap me, I didn't know. It would only end bad for them unless I had information that they needed and planned on torturing it out of me. Though they'd fail because I've a high pain tolerance, and might be a masochist. As well as sadist, which is a strangely poetic mixture that I often took pride in.
I really hoped that I wasn't kidnapped. That would not be a great way to spend my Halloween. But alas, If I wake up anywhere other than behind Rousseau's, I'm going to regret wearing white. Thankfully, no one will question the blood on my clothes today. After all, it's the one day a years people can dress up however they want and won't be judged for it.
How completely American.
So, when I do finally flutter my eyes open, I'm not too surprised to feel a wooden stake in my gut. I wince, trying to move my hands to pull it out, but a burning sensation stopped me. Brilliant. White light blinded me. I blink rapidly to look at my surroundings.
To my surprise, it was a white room. With glass on one side, which showed more white rooms on the other side. Was I in... A doctor's facility? It did look like it. Or a laboratory? Well, I've never been experimented on before, that's for sure. I hissed in pain, feeling vervain sting my wrists as I move.
The chair was hard underneath me, and was a white color like everything else. There were several long tables, each adorned with different probing and dissecting tools. I shiver, not because it was cold in the room-and it was- but because of the thoughts that raced through my mind.
"Bloody Hell." I mutter, my lips chapped and dry. I look down at my arm. Above the Mark of Cain. My jacket was pulled off. If that denim jacket was ruined I'll unleash my wrath on whoever my captor was. Anyway, above the Mark of Cain, an IV was in my arm. Well, not an IV. What's the term?
My blood poured out into a bag. Like a blood bag. "As much of a Philanthropist I am, I never gave consent to be held against my will, and drained of my blood." I choke out, looking up and focusing on a face. He wore a lab coat. I narrow my eyes. He looked familiar. Perhaps he wasn't.
"Merida, as found guilty for conspiring against the Elite, the Protectors of the World, you've been sentenced to a decade of dessication." The man says in a strangely normal American accent.
"I'm no charlatan, but at least read me my rights. Isn't that how you Americans do things?" I ask, coughing, and tasting blood on my tongue. My own blood. The man didn't acknowledge my words at all. Instead, he goes on to speak in a monotoned voice.
"You've been injected with Necrotizing fasciitis, and the higher your heart rate, the faster you'll die." He says, pulling a plastic covering off a syringe. I grit my teeth together, my fangs coming forward and my eyes darkening.
"I dropped out of College, but I was a major in Bio Chemistry, and if I'm not mistaken, you just said you injected me with a flesh eating disease." I hear a beeping sound, and it was accelerating. My heart beat. Well, at least the doctor had style.
He'll have style when I stain those clean white coats of his with his spleen. And his blood.
"Good. So you know how the disease works." He says, his husky voice typical for an American who thinks he's doing something for science. A mad scientist. I'll admit, Dr. Jackal was not someone I needed to meet. I didn't want to become Mr. Hide. Or worse, Frankenstein.
"Every minute you keep that needle in my arm is another liter I suck from your coratid artery when I get out of here." I hiss, snapping my teeth together with a clattering sound. The man before me didn't seem to care. I watched with narrowed rageful eyes as he stuck the syringe full of something into my arm.
"Good luck. There's an entire coven of Zetrov witches binding you to this room." He says calmly, setting the syringe onto the table. I blink, feeling my head swim. Probably because he injected me with something.
"Yeah well, each star on my chest resembles someone I've murdered. Half of them are witches and the other half wolves." I retort, my words slurring together as my consciousness fades. "So I don't need your 'good luck'." I snap, my head lulling backwards.
---
When I wake again it's to chanting. Through the glass in the far side of the room I could see several alive people. Witches, as it so happens. I try to blink away the red on the edges of my vision, but nothing. My mouth tasted like blood still, and I could feel something crawling under my skin. Right, something was crawling under my skin.
Eating my vampire flesh, apparently.
Whatever he gave me obviously knocked me out, because my heart beat measured by the beeping on the machine hooked up to my arm hasn't stopped yet. I felt a pressure that lay over me. Like a hundred pounds of sand. I guessed it was whatever these chanting witches were up to.
It was hard to complete a thought, to think. My head was blurry like I was drunk, but worse. My lips were dry, but fortunately, the needle in my arm that stole my blood was gone. I could just pray to Onoskelis, right? She'd get me out, I knew that.
But this was Zetrov. Right when they went silent, did they attack. Why? Why now?
I struggled with the ropes, and even though I was weak, I screamed. It came out high pitched and loud enough to burst eardrums. And with that my ropes around my wrists dropped. I pull my hands in front of me, seeing the red burns on my wrists begin to heal.
Thank the Romans for vampire healing.
I untie my ankles, and stand up, pulling whatever else I was hooked up too off with a yank. The beeping machine suddenly goes flat as I do. Losing the connection to my heart beat.
I swoon, catching myself on the chair. That disease was putting a real damper on my day. I grab the bat that was on a table. The one I had behind Rousseau's. I'm Going to need it.
I didn't know of a lab in New Orleans. Which probably meant they dragged me a town away. They have witches, clearly. They surrounded this room now. There's no way to tell how many there are. Chanting in sync with each other. So that meant I'm on my own. I'm off to find my own way back to New Orleans.
"So I am once again forced to take the power I want." I roll my eyes, grabbing my denim jacket up. I didn't know where my mask was, and figured that Ashley still had it. Either way, it was the least of my problems. I pull my phone out of my jacket pocket. Sending one message.
To Lance: Turkey
A code word. In seconds The League would be swarming into New Orleans. Into America. Zetrov was making their move now. Tonight, and I had a growing suspicion whatever they were planning has to happen tonight. It's Samhain, and this is the point where the veil is thinnest. Whatever they had planned, it had to do with hell.
Then I toss my phone away, and my jacket. I swing my bat over my shoulder, dabbing at my lip and pulling away, not knowing if it was blood or lipstick that came off.
I walk over to the glass window, narrowing my eyes at the row of witches. They all had their eyes rolled back. Their chanting louder than the hum of the machines in this place. One thing was for sure, these white walls won't be white for much longer.
I swing the baseball bat, shattering the glass. As it rains like teardrops around me, the witches all raise their hands, in sync. I'm thrown against the wall, and hear a terrible crack. My back tore in pain. They hold me there, with their hands outstretched. The bat in my hand falls to the floor. "An American phrase comes to mind: Son of a Bitch." My Scottish accent wasn't scratching now. Adrenaline surged through my veins, along with bloodlust. The smell of living, beating people had shot through the glass as it shattered.
I curl my lip back, licking over my teeth, the taste of my own blood still stale in my mouth. Then I'm dropped. The witches chanted loudly, but I leap forward into action, sweeping a large slice of glass from the floor and in one fast movement, take off the closest witch's head. Their trance breaks, and their eyes roll forward. Great, now it's a fight.
The next one freezes when she looks at me, very young girl. Fifteen, maybe? I took her hesitation to my advantage, and grab her by the neck, then urgently bite into her throat. My laps at her blood slowing her heartbeat to be in sync with mine. I keep it strong in her body, even as her energy drains. The taste of her blood pulsed though me like electricity. It quickly made up for the hunger and the blood drain I got earlier.
When her heart gives in, I push her away, and watch as the lifeless form crumples onto the ground. I look up, my eyes dark and red. Filled with hunger and lust. "Next?"
---
My hand drips with blood, the pale skin hidden underneath the red until my elbows. Where it was splattered. They push another body away from me, and my chin drips with crimson liquid. Much too thick to be wine. I'd gotten my fill, but this was only the beginning of Halloween. I still had a full day ahead of me.
I grab the bat off the tiled floor, which was now stained. My eyes scan the hallway I had fought through, raking the bodies that either were dead or the dying. It was time for War, and the fall of Zetrov. Again.
I turn on my heels, pushing through the door with a bright neon sign reading "EXIT". Blinding sunlight hit me and I scream in surprise, darting back into the building. I look at my hands, realizing with a sinking feeling that my golden daylight ring was gone.
"Could my day get any worse?" I mutter, looking at my finger where my ring was not there. I grit my teeth, feeling the disease eat away at the left side of my body, under my skin.
"Onoskelis." I mutter, knowing that this disease will kill me, at least temporarily. My vampire blood would only speed up the process rather than stopping it. I know that because I once used the same disease to torture someone with.
I know, I'm all class.
The demon appears, and looks me up and down. "Merida what-"
"Don't. I need you to get a message to Cain." I bark the order, scratching my cheek where I could feel something crawling. I could feel it crawling everywhere. My skin felt feverish and itchy. "Zetrov will be coming for the sword, if they don't already have it."
"What makes you so sure?" Skelly asks, grabbing arm to keep my upright as I stagger. I spit blood out of my mouth, clearing my tongue from the stale liquid.
"The Witch. Valerie." I shake my head. "The veil is meant to be the thinnest tonight. That's why they took my ring." I palm my forehead. 'But they need you out of the equation. You pose a threat to them, you can stop what they're doing.' The witch had said. They needed me out of the equation. These witches, this kidnapping, it was a distraction. They was all just playing me.
"What are you talking about?" She was getting frustrated.
"Bloody Hell, Onoskelis." I snap, banging my fist onto the wall behind me. "I can't do anything until the sun comes down, for God's sake make yourself useful and find out what Zetrov is planning, why they need the Sword, and how I can stop them!" I roar, and this makes her, a demon, recoil from me. She bows slightly, then vanishes.
I lean against the wall, letting all my breath out and sighing.
Length: 3140 words