Unchain Me, Sister

Lea of Mirkwood

(Writing this at rehearsal, since there's nothing left on my college summary to do here…)

(I've been reading some Laurell K. Hamilton, so if this has any shades of that, I apologize. Sort of.)

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As night fell, creeping up in a blackening veil from the horizon reaching up and capturing the highest of the sky, David awoke, his cold heart beating again, like reflex. He reemerged from death and became once again the walking undead that could pass among the living, rather than what he was in day: a cold, dead corpse. He was hanging upside down to the ceiling like a bat, gnarled, clawed toes adhering to the roof of the cave with a preternatural strength. Dropping gracefully and noiselessly to the ground, he could already feel his bones reshaping and popping back into their human arrangement so he could walk without pain. He stalked over to the main cave and found himself crouching behind the coffin that held Fiona. They only had the one, true coffin. It felt to David, who was so insistent on revamping (so to speak), the modern vampire's image, that the coffin was too B-movie Christopher Lee-as-Dracula. But here, this one, chained with iron and strung with crosses Dwayne had draped across. The tiny pockmarked scars on the younger vampire's hands would remain a reminder to him not to obey Fiona again.

"Fiona," whispered David, and he knew she could hear him. "The sun is setting, sister. You've been there a week." The long box shook and he heard a muffled cry. David chuckled. "Yes, my lovely sister. A week of peace for us out here. A week of…reflection for you in there. You must be terribly hungry." Another rattle. "Is it safe to let you out tonight? Do you think so? Or will you take me over again? You can't starve, you know. That's what makes this so beautiful. You'll sleep, you'll lay here, and if I leave you here some more, it will drive you insane."

A wild sort of keening noise emitted, faint and squalling through the cracks. David laughed again and leaned closer, making the crosses glow with a bright white light. He reached over and picked up a long leaden pipe and slid it under one of the chains. Outside, down the beach a mile or so there was a beach party with a bonfire. Stupid kids, thought David. Bad luck for them, to be sitting outside when I let out a crazed, starved vampire. With a jerk and a clatter David threw the crosses and chains from the coffin. He stood quickly and kicked the top away with his black boot. The lid fell off with a grating slide and thumped on the ground beside it. Fiona rose up with a wailing gasp and David almost recoiled. Her skin was a horrible grayish white, drawn taught over the bones of her face. Deep eyes were sunken in, ringed with dark flesh that looked half-rotted with death, the pupils and irises the same deep black. With lips as pale as the rest of her face, they looked like they were drawn into her mouth. The skin of her neck appeared to have melted away and molded to the bones and tendons stretching from skull to collarbone. She opened her mouth, fangs gleaming the only thing bright white in her hideous mask of a face and screamed, the unearthly sound ringing out and echoing. She crawled from the satin lined length and scrambled towards the exiting tunnel with light barely filtering through the bloodred clouds. A cold laugh rang from David's throat.

Ten minutes later he rose from his fixed place staring blankly at her empty coffin. He followed her scent down the beach until he could clearly smell the metallic tang on blood on the air and found the circle of teens around the bonfire. The air was thick with stolen liquor and smoke. Across the sand, now-smooth limbs wrapped almost lovingly around the limp body of a young woman, Fiona lapped and softly drank of the shredded wrist of her victim. All around the fire lay bodies ripped and torn, drained of almost all blood.

"Feeling better?" asked David, his voice carrying perfectly across the smoky air.

Her head snapped up and a grin spread across her now soft, beautiful face. The skin was so immaculate and cheeks tinged pink that she looked human and could have passed for it.

"It's all so beautiful." Fiona paused to bite her teeth into the crook of the girl's arm. Fiona's eyes fluttered in pure ecstasy.

"Lovely."

She rose to her feet and slid over to David, wrapping her arms around his waist in a swift, smooth movement.

"I wanted you," she murmured in a low voice thick with blood like someone sounds after drinking maple syrup or honey. "So powerful you make my bones quiver." Her face drew close to his and lips brushed across his skin, touching, teasing, her hot breath caressing and smelling of the sweetest blood. "You could do everything, you know, David. You could be a master, you could take over Max. Did you know that?"

"Could you?" whispered David as Fiona moaned words he almost couldn't hear they were so soft. "Do you have it?"

"No…not now. I haven't made anyone. I don't have my army. You do. You have it." Her hands ran up his sides underneath his coat and gripped his shirt tightly under the leather. They collided in a hard kiss, full of rolling necks and pressing lips. Heavy breaths mingled and they pressed against each other tightly, layers beginning to shed. David bit down hard and blood of Fiona's mouth flowed out into his.

"You're mine," he growled. "You're mine, sister. Say it."

Fiona gasped and gripped him tightly to keep from swaying, bruising immediately, but David didn't acknowledge the pain.

"Say it."

Tighter.

"Yours!" cried Fiona finally and David's mouth came down on her neck.