Sorry updates are so slow x
22nd August 2010
"What are we doing here Nik? It's the middle of nowhere." Grace sighed sprawled across the back seats, she had given up on sitting still and in one seat days ago.
"It's not nowhere love, just Tennessee." Nik replied with gout much effort, his eyes fixed on the road ahead, occasionally drifting to the mirror.
"Yes but we aren't in Graceland or Nashville are we. Nope we are out in the country side. What in the world are we doing in the country side?"
"I didn't take you for a complainer Grace."
"And I didn't take you as boring." She snapped back at him, raising her head and locking eyes with him in the mirror for a second before he turned back to the road. "I spent three days in a hotel in Pensacola and I didn't even get to go to the beach. I may has well have never come." She flopped back down onto the seat muttering her final words like a curse under her breath.
"What was what love?"
"You heard me Nik." She snapped, for once her temper seemed to be short and her patience thin.
"Do you really feel that way though love because I can turn round right now and drop you off. I've have no need for..."
"For what, me? Well thank you if that wasn't already abundantly clear." The sarcasm dropped off her tongue as she chided him. "That's the issue Nik, I feel useless. You have this master plan that you're executing - Stefan knows where he fits in but where do I? If I'm here to just look pretty and play the innocent card when you get in trouble then drop me off in the next town."
The breaks screeched and the car haunted to a stop, sending grace flying into the back of the seats.
"Nik!" Grace snapped, clutching her head. "I said next town not the middle of the..." her voice trailed off as she caught a glimpse of his eyes in the mirror.
"Grace you're here because that's where you wanted to be - I didn't drag you here you came willingly. You practically demanded I took you so calm down.
"I know, sorry. Can you at least explain to me what we are doing here. Please?" She relented, still massaging her head.
"We are here to find a wolf pack love."
"And what do you want with a pack of wolves?"
"Well that information that would require me spilling my super secret evil plan." Nik chuckled, turning the key in the ignition and pulling away.
"I never said it was evil." She huffed in reply, this time electing to wear her belt.
"Was that not implied when I killed your friend?"
"Elena was not my friend." Grace snapped.
"Of course not love, sorry."
"Anyways, go on you were saying something about spilling a super secret plan."
"Well as you know I broke the curse and became a hybrid, thus the natural progression from this is to make more of the same - my own pack."'
"And how do you plan on doing that?" Grace has a doubtful look on her as she flicked her eyes between the back of Nik and Stefan's heads. "I know Stefan may dress the part but I don't see any witches present."
"I plan on creating the first hybrids the way I created the first vampires." Nik simply replied.
"And that is?"
"By getting them to ingest my blood and then kill them." He replied, as if it were the most obvious thing.
"And you think that will work?"
"It's only logical."
"Of course." Grace said rolling her eyes. "Because everything you do is dictated by logic."
"Now we've got that sorted, what's the actual plan like beyond the pipeline dream. The step by step calculated plan?" Stefan intervened, his nonchalant attitude giving nothing away but Grace could tell that if nothing else he was bored.
"Yes, where to my evil genius hybrid?" Grace sighed.
"Seems I have been promoted."
"I'll demote you to a neat pile of severed limbs if you carry on." Grace laughed in reply.
At that he merely joined her with a chuckle, she looked far to innocent and sweet for him to ever take such a threat seriously. His mistake. "We're currently heading to find a man called Rays Sutton."
"Now that wasn't so hard was it." Grace said glaring at Nik through the mirror but behind her eyes there was a faint smile.
"I suppose it wasn't."
"So this Sutton is obviously a wolf but why just one man - I thought you'd want an entire pack?"
"I do little one, Sutton is the key."
"Find him find the pack." Stefan chimes in, his voice bored and indifferent as always.
"An astute observation Stefan and a correct one at that."
"It's nearly the full moon and wolves are pack animals." Grace said looking up at the sky through her window, even though it was day it didn't require much imagination to picture a large moon looming overhead. "Even if he doesn't live with his pack he'll likely be meeting up with them to prepare for the shift."
"You are learning well little one." Nik remarked and it was true, the days spent with Kathrine and the bits of information Grace had managed to pick up from the other supernatural people she had encountered since meeting Nik had really helped her hone a decent understanding of the supernatural.
"Slowly but surely. But what if Sutton isn't home - it's near enough the full moon what if he is already with his pack - they'd be long gone by now." She paused. "What if he heard you were coming?"
"What makes you think he knows I'm after him."
"All this time you've been hunting him down you haven't killed everyone you're come across - who's to say one of his friends hasn't tipped him off. Even if they hadn't, news that the original vampire newly turned hybrid is passing through travels fast - he'll know your coming maybe not that your coming for him but he will know none the less."
- - -
"You know earlier it wasn't a critique when I said you hadn't killed everyone we came across - it's actually quite a redeeming quality." It hasn't taken them long to find the house. Grace has waited calmly while Nik and Stefan went in to go and find this Sutton man but her patients had worn thin after all of three minutes. She had arrived just in time to bare witness to the carnage.
"There is nothing left of me to redeem." Nik replied coolly, the woman in his hands looked on terrified as Stefan crosses the threshold into her home. "Kill this one quickly." He said pushing the brunette into Stefan's waiting arms. "And make that one suffer. I'll be in the car." And with that he sauntered off leaving Grace inside with the two ladies and Stefan.
She stood there immobilised - by disgust or intrigue she couldn't tell but still she stayed and watched as Stefan with very little effort twisted the neck of his current victim even more harshly until it produced the sickening snap he was looking for. It was then as her body hung limp in his hands she could felt a cocktail of ugly emotions boiling inside her but yet still she remained. Even as Stefan twisted the neck further until it was ripped clean from the already dead ladies body she remained unmoving. Not even the arc of blood that left warm red drops over her face moved her.
The other lady was also immobilised, her fear stricken body go do all but tremble as Stefan turned his attention to her. It took him five minutes to science her screams - Grace only knew because she counted, every single second was etched into her skull like a bad dream but unlike any dream she had ever had, she couldn't wake up nor could she tear her eyes away like it some sick voyeuristic experience.
In a way it sort of was.
"You know," Stefan Murdered, bringing Grace back to reality. "For a human, blood doesn't seem to phase you as much as it probably should."
"I was desensitised a long time ago."
"Desensitised by the same thing that left you permanently terrified of small confined spaces, I find that hard to believe."
"And I find the fact you're a hundred years old and in love with a teenage clone of your first love but you don't see me complaining all that much about it." Grace replied evenly. "Look, I watched him dismember and maim people, I was physically put through the experience of being shut inside a small space feeling like I was drowning in darkness - I reacted differently due to my experience. I couldn't suppress the memory of the murders so..."
"You became desensitised to them."
"Precisely."
"And that allows you to stand there and watch the murder of two innocent woman without so much as raising a finger - how does that fit in with your moral mission." He said, stalking towards her until they were toe to toe, forcing her to look up.
"I'm on summer vacation with two ancient mass murders who said anything about morals." She replied, looking him dead in the eye only to be greater with the glassy empty voids they had become. "And truthfully I don't know why I watched."
"Oh I do, you couldn't help yourself."
"Something like that."
"You wanted to watch." He whispered.
"No." She replied, her voice equally low. "It was my that I wanted to..." She searched for the words but she could find them because some part of what he was saying seemed to make sense to her.
"Then what was it like?" His question was met by simple silence, raising his hand to her face he slowly dragged the pad of his thumb across her cheek and onto her lip, wiping away what she could only assume was the splatter trail left by the blood. "Grace you've covered in another woman's blood and you haven't even bothered to try and get rid of it. Look at you - you aren't even worried you'll be next." He chuckled, his hand dropping lower, over her chin and down to her neck.
"Try me." Graced glowered at him but Stefan merely shrugged and loosened his grip, lifting his hand to her chin and tilting her head up.
"You know what I take back what I said before, I agree with you."
"About what?"
"You are far worse than Nik, at least everyone knows he's crazy."
"You think I'm crazy?"
"Not crazy, something else."
"I'll take that as a compliment." She said stepping backward out of his grasp. "Now help me find Rudy."
"There's someone else? I thought they were the only ones here."
"They are the only people but they also have a dog and you a going to help me find him."
"A dog?" He asked , an incredulous look on his face, the most emotion she had seen from him all month and it was in response to a dog. "You want me to go find a mutt. Why?"
"Why? Because he's missing that's why and I'm not just gonna leave him out here."
"I take it back you are crazy, what are you gonna do with him if you find him?"
"Take him with us of course."
"Yeah not gonna happen."
Grace ignored him and walked toward the door, careful to avoid the various limbs strewn across the floor. "Come on Stefan, the sooner you help the sooner we can leave."
"Help you with what?" Nik asked, he was standing there leaning again a truck, his arms folded and a sense of mild impatience on his face. "And what took you so long?"
"Just got into a little disagreement but we settled it and Stefan agreed to help me find Rudy and then we can be on our merry way again."
"Who on earth is Rudy?"
"Not quite sure yet, all I know is he's a dog."
"No." Was Nik's only reply, he knew her well enough to realise what she was thinking.
"Why are on earth not Nik? I've always wanted a dog."
"Because..."
Taking his silence as defeat she turned and walked off beyond the house.
"Follow her." Nik instructed Stefan. "And for goodness sakes just help her find the dog so we can leave."