Late evening to full night, May 1st 2011
By the time Lola returned to her little house in the city from visiting her father, the sun was a little past setting and her face was pale. The visit had not gone well. All she wanted, as she walked up to her door and fumbled for her keys - the replacement set, as she'd never found her other keychain - was to take a long, hot bath and go to sleep. Surely Icarus would understand if she begged off from going out to Beltane.
She had the keys in her hand and she was reaching for the door before she realized it was open. There were no sounds from the house, and none around the house. There were no sounds of birds calling as they went to roost for the evening and no normal happy yaps of greeting from Buster.
She knew - knew - that she had shut and locked the door when she left. Maybe Cally had come home early and taken Buster out, and she hadn't quite shut the door" The door-hinge creaked, just a little, as she swung the door the rest of the way open and frowned. Stepped into the dark house - she never had lit the lamps, but surely if Cally had come home she would have" "Cally' Buster?" Her uncertain call echoed through the house. She could barely see until she was able to fumble over to one of the lights and turn it on.
The place was a wreck. Almost all of her things were knocked over and gone through. It looked like someone was looking for things of value. Her call into the house should have been enough to alert anyone and there were still no sounds from the interior. Silverware was strewn around the kitchen, dishes were broken. It looked like a bomb went off in some places, they were so thoroughly destroyed.
"Oh, god - " The word choked out breathless as she took her stunned survey through the house. A robbery - why hadn't they taken the silverware" It was real silver, surely valuable, her mother's set. She stumbled over the wreck of her loom, hand flying to her throat when she realized that the fabric in progress on it had been slashed into ribbons before the loom itself was destroyed. Her eyes were wide and getting wider, and if Cally had been here - what if she had been home when the robber came" And where was Buster"
"Buster! Cally"! Are you - " Her voice lifted as she stumbled again, hurried, ran up the steps to the second floor, the bedrooms. Oh, please, please let Cally not have been home. She forgot everything else, personal risk disregarded, as she ran up the stairs as quickly as she could.
The door to Cally's room was open, and it looked as bad as the rest of the place, but Cally was nowhere to be seen. It wasn't long before she found the pool of red. Something had bled on her floor, and been dragged off behind a closed door. The trail was obvious, and in a sick way, inviting.
The loom, the fabrics, months and years of work, shredded and splintered, but that was nothing. Her books and paintings " nothing, just things. When she saw the pool of red, the bloodstain trailing toward her closed bedroom door, she moaned. "Oh no. Nonono. Cally' Buster?" If they were in there, hurt " Lola's hand was back at her throat, the other shaking violently as she opened the door and took one step in.
Her bedroom had been even more violently demolished than the rooms downstairs. She saw the wreck of it and then her eyes flew to the pool of reddish hair lying curled on the floor. The breath left her lungs. The painting Ollie had made for her, slashed and torn, fallen half-over - her voice choked out, barely audible. "B...Buster?" Oh, god. Her eyes filled with tears and the only small, tiny blessing was that Cally hadn't been home after all. Buster must have interfered with the robbers - why else would someone kill such a small pup" She was shaking her head side to side, as she took another step into the room, toward her poor dead dog.
Then the world turned upside-down.
Connor had been waiting, there in her closet, in the shadows where she couldn't see. He had a knife, already bloody. He had madness in his eyes and he - he wasn't himself. She fought, as best she could, and managed to yank the knife from his hand, to hurt him. But he was a bare-fist boxer, stronger and tougher than she was by far. It....didn't go well for her. When he finished, when he tossed her down so that he could go pick up his knife and finish the job by slitting her throat, Lola was sobbing for breath through a throat marked with livid bruises, through the blood that filled her mouth. She could barely see through the swelling of black eyes, barely move through the bruising, the aches, and the raw pain. But she moved. She scrambled for the bottom drawer of her dresser and clawed it open, yanked out the little snub-nosed pistol Jon had given her so many months ago when Anubis kidnapped Caro, and turned.
She had twisted, sitting on the floor. He had been close, so close, leaning over her with the knife ready, moving to strike. When the gun had gone off, once, twice, when she emptied the six-round clip, she'd seen the surprise cross his face, and the life go from his eyes while he fell down. Fell onto her, and she couldn't even scream through the wreck of her throat. Couldn't move, couldn't do anything at all but sit there with freezing cold shudders wracking her frame and try to breathe.
*************
Icarus, to some degree, was not like other vampires she had known. To be honest' Icarus was ignorant to a great deal of his nature - because Lurks weren't like other vampires.
On the totem pole of bloodsuckers, where Silviu Sava had sat at the bottom' Icarus was all the way at the top, so far away from 'proper vampirism' as could be. Lurks were wild, feral, mindless beasts in most cases.
On the totem pole of Lurks, Icarus sat at the bottom, as it were.
There is a bond that is formed between vampire and victim' but Icarus knew little about it - and had he, he probably wouldn't have given a sh**. All he knew was that one minute, he'd been shooting pool...and the next' Something had felt wrong. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, and he couldn't even have told you where it had come from, if asked. He just knew something wasn't right, was very, very ungood, in fact.
Lola. That was the one thought he had, and he wasted no time in getting to her house - nearly killed someone in the process, but close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
It did not make him feel better, either, the second he pulled up in front of her house (the whole neighborhood knew he was there, too, with the scream of the Suzuki's engine), to see the door standing right wide open. When needed, Icarus could move damn fast, and right then" He needed it, darting up the walk, up the stairs, and into the house. The door snapped shut sharply in his wake - and his nose told him more than he liked.
Blood. Cordite. Fear. Connor. A snarl touched his lips, eyes snapping around. "Lola!" If she hadn't heard that, she definitely heard the sound of Icarus taking the stairs two at a time. Heard it as meaningless sound, as noise with no sense to it.
Downstairs was destruction. Upstairs was destruction and three flavors of blood: dog, man and woman. Upstairs was death in two flavors: dog and man, and upstairs was sheer animal terror. Her hand still held the little gun in a grip that hurt, white-knuckled, her whole body shaking and the gun shaking with it, pointed at the dead body fallen over her legs. Her eyes were wide, white-ringed all around, and her pupils would have been pinned with the fear if the left weren't blown out and fixed - concussion.
Thread of sound, not even a whimper, closer to the keen of some wild thing in desperate pain, strangled by the damage to her throat. That was all that escaped at the call, the meaningless sound, and the impact of feet going up the stairs two at a time. Blood and cordite and fouler things filled her nose, and it was so, so cold in the room. Shock.
By the time he reached her bedroom, his mind had filled in many gaps - not because he was an analytical thinker, but because he was an animal - an intelligent animal, but an animal all the same.
He passed Buster and felt a small twinge of regret. He might not have had much use for the puppy (because quite frankly, the puppy hadn't felt much use for him; it was a vampire thing), but he knew Lola had cared for him.
The bedroom was its own personal disaster, to his eyes - the smell of gunpowder was strong, as was the blood. The second he saw her, with Connor atop her" He snapped forward, wrenching the corpse away with a snarl. He knew the man was dead - could smell it, filling his head, but his own hind-brain couldn't be controlled, at times. He tossed the man aside as a child does a toy, as if he weighed nothing, before crouching down.
This" This was the difference between Icarus, and another Lurk. Had someone else found her" She might've become corpse number three - there was blood everywhere, both hers and Connor's, and a lesser beast might not have been capable of ignoring some baser drives.
He had to grit his teeth to deny the rush the smell filled him with, but he reached out, fingers closing around her hand, the one with the death grip on the pistol. It was probably empty (it had better be. She better have filled that bastard with every slug), and it wouldn't've done him damage besides some pain, but he was more worried about her hurting herself on accident.
Even while he did that, though, his eyes were looking at her - taking stock of any damage Connor had inflicted.
"Lola," said again - but this time, he was sure she didn't hear him. Maybe couldn't. His other hand reached down, sliding under her head, fingers probing carefully at the back of her head.
By the time Lola returned to her little house in the city from visiting her father, the sun was a little past setting and her face was pale. The visit had not gone well. All she wanted, as she walked up to her door and fumbled for her keys - the replacement set, as she'd never found her other keychain - was to take a long, hot bath and go to sleep. Surely Icarus would understand if she begged off from going out to Beltane.
She had the keys in her hand and she was reaching for the door before she realized it was open. There were no sounds from the house, and none around the house. There were no sounds of birds calling as they went to roost for the evening and no normal happy yaps of greeting from Buster.
She knew - knew - that she had shut and locked the door when she left. Maybe Cally had come home early and taken Buster out, and she hadn't quite shut the door" The door-hinge creaked, just a little, as she swung the door the rest of the way open and frowned. Stepped into the dark house - she never had lit the lamps, but surely if Cally had come home she would have" "Cally' Buster?" Her uncertain call echoed through the house. She could barely see until she was able to fumble over to one of the lights and turn it on.
The place was a wreck. Almost all of her things were knocked over and gone through. It looked like someone was looking for things of value. Her call into the house should have been enough to alert anyone and there were still no sounds from the interior. Silverware was strewn around the kitchen, dishes were broken. It looked like a bomb went off in some places, they were so thoroughly destroyed.
"Oh, god - " The word choked out breathless as she took her stunned survey through the house. A robbery - why hadn't they taken the silverware" It was real silver, surely valuable, her mother's set. She stumbled over the wreck of her loom, hand flying to her throat when she realized that the fabric in progress on it had been slashed into ribbons before the loom itself was destroyed. Her eyes were wide and getting wider, and if Cally had been here - what if she had been home when the robber came" And where was Buster"
"Buster! Cally"! Are you - " Her voice lifted as she stumbled again, hurried, ran up the steps to the second floor, the bedrooms. Oh, please, please let Cally not have been home. She forgot everything else, personal risk disregarded, as she ran up the stairs as quickly as she could.
The door to Cally's room was open, and it looked as bad as the rest of the place, but Cally was nowhere to be seen. It wasn't long before she found the pool of red. Something had bled on her floor, and been dragged off behind a closed door. The trail was obvious, and in a sick way, inviting.
The loom, the fabrics, months and years of work, shredded and splintered, but that was nothing. Her books and paintings " nothing, just things. When she saw the pool of red, the bloodstain trailing toward her closed bedroom door, she moaned. "Oh no. Nonono. Cally' Buster?" If they were in there, hurt " Lola's hand was back at her throat, the other shaking violently as she opened the door and took one step in.
Her bedroom had been even more violently demolished than the rooms downstairs. She saw the wreck of it and then her eyes flew to the pool of reddish hair lying curled on the floor. The breath left her lungs. The painting Ollie had made for her, slashed and torn, fallen half-over - her voice choked out, barely audible. "B...Buster?" Oh, god. Her eyes filled with tears and the only small, tiny blessing was that Cally hadn't been home after all. Buster must have interfered with the robbers - why else would someone kill such a small pup" She was shaking her head side to side, as she took another step into the room, toward her poor dead dog.
Then the world turned upside-down.
Connor had been waiting, there in her closet, in the shadows where she couldn't see. He had a knife, already bloody. He had madness in his eyes and he - he wasn't himself. She fought, as best she could, and managed to yank the knife from his hand, to hurt him. But he was a bare-fist boxer, stronger and tougher than she was by far. It....didn't go well for her. When he finished, when he tossed her down so that he could go pick up his knife and finish the job by slitting her throat, Lola was sobbing for breath through a throat marked with livid bruises, through the blood that filled her mouth. She could barely see through the swelling of black eyes, barely move through the bruising, the aches, and the raw pain. But she moved. She scrambled for the bottom drawer of her dresser and clawed it open, yanked out the little snub-nosed pistol Jon had given her so many months ago when Anubis kidnapped Caro, and turned.
She had twisted, sitting on the floor. He had been close, so close, leaning over her with the knife ready, moving to strike. When the gun had gone off, once, twice, when she emptied the six-round clip, she'd seen the surprise cross his face, and the life go from his eyes while he fell down. Fell onto her, and she couldn't even scream through the wreck of her throat. Couldn't move, couldn't do anything at all but sit there with freezing cold shudders wracking her frame and try to breathe.
*************
Icarus, to some degree, was not like other vampires she had known. To be honest' Icarus was ignorant to a great deal of his nature - because Lurks weren't like other vampires.
On the totem pole of bloodsuckers, where Silviu Sava had sat at the bottom' Icarus was all the way at the top, so far away from 'proper vampirism' as could be. Lurks were wild, feral, mindless beasts in most cases.
On the totem pole of Lurks, Icarus sat at the bottom, as it were.
There is a bond that is formed between vampire and victim' but Icarus knew little about it - and had he, he probably wouldn't have given a sh**. All he knew was that one minute, he'd been shooting pool...and the next' Something had felt wrong. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, and he couldn't even have told you where it had come from, if asked. He just knew something wasn't right, was very, very ungood, in fact.
Lola. That was the one thought he had, and he wasted no time in getting to her house - nearly killed someone in the process, but close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
It did not make him feel better, either, the second he pulled up in front of her house (the whole neighborhood knew he was there, too, with the scream of the Suzuki's engine), to see the door standing right wide open. When needed, Icarus could move damn fast, and right then" He needed it, darting up the walk, up the stairs, and into the house. The door snapped shut sharply in his wake - and his nose told him more than he liked.
Blood. Cordite. Fear. Connor. A snarl touched his lips, eyes snapping around. "Lola!" If she hadn't heard that, she definitely heard the sound of Icarus taking the stairs two at a time. Heard it as meaningless sound, as noise with no sense to it.
Downstairs was destruction. Upstairs was destruction and three flavors of blood: dog, man and woman. Upstairs was death in two flavors: dog and man, and upstairs was sheer animal terror. Her hand still held the little gun in a grip that hurt, white-knuckled, her whole body shaking and the gun shaking with it, pointed at the dead body fallen over her legs. Her eyes were wide, white-ringed all around, and her pupils would have been pinned with the fear if the left weren't blown out and fixed - concussion.
Thread of sound, not even a whimper, closer to the keen of some wild thing in desperate pain, strangled by the damage to her throat. That was all that escaped at the call, the meaningless sound, and the impact of feet going up the stairs two at a time. Blood and cordite and fouler things filled her nose, and it was so, so cold in the room. Shock.
By the time he reached her bedroom, his mind had filled in many gaps - not because he was an analytical thinker, but because he was an animal - an intelligent animal, but an animal all the same.
He passed Buster and felt a small twinge of regret. He might not have had much use for the puppy (because quite frankly, the puppy hadn't felt much use for him; it was a vampire thing), but he knew Lola had cared for him.
The bedroom was its own personal disaster, to his eyes - the smell of gunpowder was strong, as was the blood. The second he saw her, with Connor atop her" He snapped forward, wrenching the corpse away with a snarl. He knew the man was dead - could smell it, filling his head, but his own hind-brain couldn't be controlled, at times. He tossed the man aside as a child does a toy, as if he weighed nothing, before crouching down.
This" This was the difference between Icarus, and another Lurk. Had someone else found her" She might've become corpse number three - there was blood everywhere, both hers and Connor's, and a lesser beast might not have been capable of ignoring some baser drives.
He had to grit his teeth to deny the rush the smell filled him with, but he reached out, fingers closing around her hand, the one with the death grip on the pistol. It was probably empty (it had better be. She better have filled that bastard with every slug), and it wouldn't've done him damage besides some pain, but he was more worried about her hurting herself on accident.
Even while he did that, though, his eyes were looking at her - taking stock of any damage Connor had inflicted.
"Lola," said again - but this time, he was sure she didn't hear him. Maybe couldn't. His other hand reached down, sliding under her head, fingers probing carefully at the back of her head.