Varian
"Petri." Ravensport addressed icily, dark eyes narrowing.
Varian straightened, his mouth tightening grimly against the baring of his fangs as he hissed beneath his breath, "Conspiring with a scientist isn't your M.O., Hunter."
Dark eyes flared with a hint of malice as Ravensport said to the men standing at his side, "Kill 'em, leave Petri for me."
Varian felt Ruby and Blanch tense on either side of him as the armed men surrounding Ravensport inched forward, leveling their weapons.
Blood was going to be shed.
The first shot rang out, prompting them into the fray. Bullets ricocheted throughout, glass shattered, walls chipped, and the tangible smell of ammunition laced with silver was unmistakable.
A guttural cry rent the air as Blanch slammed two humans, their bodies dropping like lead to the floor, their weapons clamoring across the sleek marble.
Ruby met an onslaught of silver-laden bullets. They hit her like a raging fire, crippling her to her knees in a shroud of momentary pain. In an attempt to dislodge the rounds, she rolled and came up swiftly to her feet, fangs lengthening.
She rounded to find her attackers already dispersed at Talon's feet.
He gave a charming, relishing grin before sauntering off, leaving her to glare exasperatedly at his back.
Varian hurtled towards Ravensport and dropped into a somersault as a forearm whisked above his head. He released a sharpened growl as would a vicious, enraged animal and whirled to rake his talons across the hunter's back.
Ravensport exhaled painfully, staggered from the blow, the smell of blood hitting the air. He regained his momentum and whirled, brandishing a small, leather pouch.
Varian advanced, undeterred by its contents.
Gathering a fistful, Ravensport spewed forth a dusty fog of gray particles. The mass struck Varian's face like tiny specks of fire, issuing a ravaged growl from his throat as he wrenched away, realizing the contents powdered silver.
The pain was meager and brief, catching him unaware to the sudden clenching of a silver chain as it entangled heavily about his neck, eliciting a violent, perilous roar from him.
The insufferable pain toppled him. His fingers moved instinctively to the entwined, silver rings cutting mercifully into his flesh but a searing ensued.
He hissed and jerked his hands away.
He felt his senses and strength wan beneath the crippling length of chain.
Lily
Lily lay slack against the padded wall; the oppressing, florescent lights beaming intolerably upon her left her weakened and heavy-lidded.
Her mouth parted which further worsened her sand-papered mouth, her shallow breaths escaping her slowly.
"Lily?" Jackson's voice resounded in her ears and she winced beneath the abruptness of his tone, "Are you alright?" he called from the opposing wall.
She managed a feeble nod, though within a raging fire comparable to the infernal sun charred her insides. She clenched her eyes against the ebb and flow of Jackson's blood, coursing steadily through his prominent veins, the sound of it like a grating to her senses and the smell potent on her nose. Everything seemed to have a pulse, even the unbearable lights suspended above her.
Her stomach clench agonizingly with a ravenous, unforgiving hunger unlike anything she'd felt.
It was debilitating.
She moaned, her head growing heavier upon her shoulders as the weight of her body grew languid.
Her ears strained against the protesting of denim and the whisper of Jackson's cotton shirt as he kneeled next to her.
She tensed instantaneously and scrambled out of his reach, putting as much of a safe distance her padded cell allotted.
"Are you mad?" she raged, warding him off with a shaky hand, "Stay away from me, Jack."
He stared at her almost dumbfounded, no trace of her biased, overbearing boss, but a man of worries.
His large, round eyes peered imploringly back at her, "Lily, you're dying."
She closed her eyes and dropped her hand, the weight of it too much for her to withstand, "What are you suggesting?" she rasped.
He was silent a moment as the obvious stretched between them. When she opened her eyes again she noticed the pallor of his skin beneath the lighting.
He swallowed, the constricting of his throat drawing her ravenous gaze, "If we're going to get out of this hell, than you're going to need to feed."
Her heart jolted as her eyes drew towards the adamant pulse that throbbed at the base of his throat, "You don't know what you're asking."
He nodded, "I do and it's our only option."
Her eyes widened with a nagging fear, "What if I can't stop?"
His eyes rounded briefly with a fleeting fear and than quickly composing his expression he replied, "I trust you."
She managed a grin, "You trust a newly-turned vampire?"
He shrugged his shoulders causally in a carefree ease though she could smell the hint of his fear, "I trust my ex-employee."
Lily arched a brow, his attempt a humor prompting a small smile from her, "I'm fired?"
He nodded, "Most definitely, I can't have you waiting tables and thirsting after my customers." He teased but taking note of her weakened state, added with an edge of severity, "I nearly got you killed, let this be my apology, k?"
She closed her eyes, the hunger in her magnifying tenfold at the thought of sinking her newly-obtained fangs into the pulse that beat wildly at his throat.
He didn't know what he offered and neither did she.
It could mean his death.
The thought of drinking blood not only repulsed but excited her. Surely it was the fiendish part of her that delighted at the idea of drinking human blood? Strange how the word human fell so foreign-like to her musings, considering she was no longer of the human race, but than again, according to Varian and her father, she never truly was human?
Her breaths escaped her sharply and as she leveled a hungry glint upon the pulse that beckoned her, she felt the pull and tug of it, no longer able to resist the undeniable thirst raging within her.
Ward
Hughes shuffled frantically through the wrinkled papers scattered amongst the floor, a panic ensuing within his chest as the virus worked a path through his veins.
"Damn you, McDermott! Damn you and your twisted science!"
Ward stared impassively and almost triumphantly down at his superior, "You thought me a fool, who is the imbecile now? Look at you, on your knees, pathetic old fool."
Hughes pudgy face reddened with hysteria, his withered-veined hands trembled as he shoved papers aimlessly aside, "Give me the antidote!"
"Do you think believe me now?" McDermott exclaimed, wagging a finger to the locked cell across the room, "I have proof."
Hughes eyes wavered to the door he hadn't noticed before, "What are you saying, that you have a vampire here?" he couldn't believe the words himself as he uttered them, but he would play McDermott's game long enough to get the remedy.
McDermott chuckled, "I have discovered the unknown and all that which we thought impossible is possible!"
Hughes began to cough and when he drew his hand from his mouth, it was smeared with blood, "The antidote!" he cried.
Ward stepped around him and eyed the man disdainfully, "No, I think I'd much rather you rot with disease."
He laughed but his sardonic laughter was short-lived as something struck forcibly against the door of the padded-cell with a deafening crack.
He froze and turned toward the door.
The sound came again followed by an unceremonious snapping of bolts as the lock gave way into pieces, dropping loudly to the floor.
Ward stared at the dispatched lock and than raised his eyes to the lissome frame emerging from the cell, eyes hazed with a blood-thirst and lips pulled back in a fang-baring sneer.
Ravensport jerked on the chain coiled about Varian's throat, each wrenching bringing about a charring of flesh which struggled to heal beneath its silvered weight.
Varian
Varian sensed the others nearby, struggling to ward off the swarm of armed men as more came careening around the corner, wielding more weapons merged with silver-bullets and other means to destroy them.
Their tactics were to weaken them and with the first swarm of men, they did exactly that. He felt the others strength diminishing as his own, their urges to feed growing more perilous with each attempts to derail the attacks coming head on.
They were outnumbered. The amount of armed men circling them grew incredibly large and the smell of silver almost unbearable.
Ruby and Blanch fought side by side, laying a path of bodies along the way and yet weakening beneath the human forces.
Talon moved adeptly quick, side-swiping two armed humans and seizing up their weapons and tossing them aside. He turned swiftly only to collide headlong into a net weaved of silver.
Again the smell of charred flesh as Talon buckled to the floor, grappling with the pain as he released a throaty growl though clenched fangs.
Ravensport inched closer, the unforgiving chain snaked about his arm to maintain a firm unrelenting grip. The hunter leaned forward but kept a secure distance. Dark eyes leveled coldly with a pair just as equally dark and brimmed with pain, "You took from me that which cannot be redeemed." Ravensport hissed.
Through the haze of pain, Varian managed to maintain his perusal hold, "You forget, Ravensport, she would have died if I hadn't turned her."
For a moment, Ravensport's dark eyes glazed over with the memory of pain and loss but hardened quickly with rage as he straightened to his feet, still holding the length of chain to keep Varian at bay, "I would have much rather Marguerite have died of natural causes than have her condemned to an eternity of damnation."
Varian narrowed his eyes, tensing at the intensifying pain caused by every subtle movement, "You wish to destroy the vampire that turned your Countess centuries ago, yet you use our blood to live through the ages, is that not contrary to what you do?" he almost laughed at the irony of it but even that caused him discomfort.
Ravensport stiffened, "I became a hunter so that I could kill you, in order to ensure that I be the one to deliver a stake through your heart I had to inject vampire blood into my system. Believe you me it was done so unwillingly but well worth the intolerance." His eyes darkened ever more, "Because of you Marguerite is the very vile, grotesque creature I detest! I will see to delivering her from the dark hell you condemned her too."
He reached within the folds of his jacket and withdrew a 9 mm. pistol. He leveled it steadily at Varian's chest and with a satisfying grin fired several rounds.
Pain exploded across Varian's chest and he gave an exaggerated breath, feeling all the pain entirely more intense, realizing the bullets were not of silver but solely wooden and embedded deep into his flesh.
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