The Deathly Grip of Darkness - Talitha/Bruis

[Talitha]

There was something about the darkness, the way it crept in on her, enclosed around her like a fist and refused to let go until the rays of the morning sun pierced through it, and sent it into retreat, back to the dark corners of Valir. As of late however, the dark corners were growing in number, and the darkness seemed to take hold of the city earlier each afternoon. Talitha had only been out on the streets since she was twelve, and now, at seventeen she still had much to learn about the city. She had drifted through the city’s entirety, sleeping where she could, eating when she could. There was a kindness to the folks in the West Quadrant that had seen her belly almost full on many occasions. But there was growing competition, more and more homeless children, orphans and people who for some strange reason, had lost a guardian. Even with her grubby little ear to the ground, Talitha knew nothing of the vampyrs that scurried in those shadows that currently surrounded her entire being.

Tonight, that would change.

Her heart thumped hard and fast in her chest, her mind racing as she tried to decipher one alleyway from another in the unfamiliar darkness. She always found somewhere out of sight to stay before nightfall, always. But she had been held up, and distracted, and now the sun had sank below the horizon on her and the darkness had consumed her greedily, swallowing her and spitting her back out into the streets that she no longer recognised. The rickety homes (if you could call them that) lacked windows or candle light, and the streets were void of activity, void of anyone who could tell her where she needed to go. She was completely lost and she was panicking, her heart racing faster than her mind could. She never went into a building that she wasn’t familiar with, because they often belonged to someone else. Even the abandoned ones, usually had some small group of homeless staying in them, or were home to some shady black market dealings.

Her amazing blue eyes were wide and worried, and she turned another corner onto a larger street, almost in a run as she tried desperately to find her bearings. She needed a landmark, something to set her internal map of Valir back into its proper orientation. This street looked more unfamiliar than any other she had visited in the last hour, and she wondered with a heavy sigh whether she had just been going in circles. Her head hung in defeat, locks of dirty, almost black hair falling in her line of sight. She leaned against the cold stone wall of a building and sank to a sitting position, her eyes filling with tears. She was more alone now than she had ever felt before, and she was a girl who had spent most of her life alone. It had only been in the last few weeks, when she had met these new people, that she had started to depend on others, to crave interaction and put her faith in others. But they were nowhere to be seen, and most nights a lot of them disappeared until day break.

Her head snapped up as she heard footsteps, and she stood up like a bullet, her flight mode kicked in, determined to get out of sight before something bad happened. As it was, she was too late, her mind had betrayed her and had occupied itself with thoughts for far too long. It wasn’t like her, to miss a noise like the sound of walking, especially when there was more than one set of footsteps. Her fear filled eyes were locked on to three shadowed figures standing just a few feet away from her, and they certainly, had not missed her presence like she had missed theirs. Then why wasn’t she running? She could easily slip back into the small alleys and hide from them, why was she still standing there before them, stunned and staring like a fascinated child? There was something about them, she couldn’t even see them, they were just shadows. Her mind fought with itself, but she did not move. Her eyes just searched into the darkness as hard as they could, attempting to make out their faces. Who were they? And why was she so reluctant to flee like she normally would?

What was wrong with her?

[Bruis]

For a creature that had enjoyed Valir as his playground for the past six centuries its variance and unpredictable nature had always held a fascination for Bruis. The slender streets of the West Quadrant with its ambitious flock, the palatable excitement in the air surrounding the Entertainment Complex in the South Quadrant and the Eastern Plaza with its hopeful vendors each deserved their respect, but as far as his own selfish interests were concerned there was no place as intricate as the North Quarter of the city. The buzzing hive of the North Marketplace and the crooked broken toothed alleys of the public housing projects seemed to call to their Prince, asking him to fill them with people once more. People worth calling his own.

Flanked by his two personal body guards Bruis strode purposefully and unaffectedly down the broad causeway that lead along the western border of the markets, the thousand blank eyes of derelict buildings boxing them in before they turned sharply to the left, plunging themselves into the maze of rat infested hovels head first. For summer it was a cool night, not quite enough to make one shiver but certainly enough to aid the hairs on one’s neck to standing in the presence of something sinister. His heavy boots pounded the litter strewn alleys as he conveyed himself through the darkness, taking no care to conceal himself now that he was in familiar territory. His route back to the Club from the outpost each evening was varied so often that no one knew it but himself, preventing the likelihood of ambush.

But tonight Fate had an ambush of a different nature in mind.

He sensed her, of course, long before he saw or smelled her on the light breeze. No more than one-and-twenty and certainly of womanly age. Her fear was almost overwhelming and he smiled sadistically even as his guards snickered at their master’s change in mood. The irritation he had exerted at the outpost was all but forgotten as Bruis melted into the shadows, re-emerging not ten paces from her dirty tear-stained face. A residue of moonlight slid down the wall of the building behind the trio, released momentarily from a cloud that had held it captive. Three shadows in a row, their faces dark and menacing, their thoughts all focused on the one prize. Bruis smiled.

“Now, little one,” he crooned. “There’s no need to cry.” His voice was soft and soothing, like a lullaby to a tired mind. He took a few steps forward, his dark curls ruffled in the breeze. His eyes, when they came into view were so startlingly clear that Aurillians had composed songs about them, his face pale with a kind of dreadful beauty that would inspire fear before brilliance. His cold smile still dominated his lips and he held out a strong, bejeweled hand to the urchin before him. “We haven’t hurt you yet.”

[Talitha]

The moonlight sliced through the clouds and cast a glow over the scene that had unfolded before the startled teenager. Her startled mind quickly turned to one of sheer horror at the words that were spoken to her in such a matter-of-fact tone that she instantly believed that she was about to die. The breeze blew through the narrow street, gently blowing her hair out of her face, her own eyes staring transfixed into his own, as wide as the large, near full moon that towered above them. She made a small, squeaking sound as she attempted to speak, but realised that her fear had paralysed her voice. His words betrayed his outstretched hand, and in a long, lingering moment when she gained her senses she could calculate only one thing.

She needed to get the hell out of there.

She took off almost as suddenly as he had appeared, her human egs carrying her as fast as she could into the once feared darkness of the nearest alley. It had scared her before, but now she sought out its tight grip more than anything she had ever desired before. It enclosed around her willingly, swallowing her out of human sight. She had no idea that these men were not human, and she didn’t plan on sticking around long enough to find out anything more about them. Unfortunately, her short, legs were hardly enough to outrun the two Vampyr guards that Bruis had by his side. And she would barely enter the darkness before her night headed down the path of terror.

[Bruis]

Unfortunately for the girl, Bruis' curiosity had seeped into her mind 2 blocks away and it was a simple trick for the Vampyr to pass information along to his henchmen. One step ahead of her they had disappeared into the alley she had sought sanction in, their superior make-up allowing them to be in front of her before she would even see them coming. Her escape route effectively severed, Bruis strolled through the moonlight until it slid limply from his form. He whistled jauntily as though he had planned to meet her here all along, his bright eyes peering at her as he positioned himself in the absolute center of the alley entrance.

“You didn’t really think it would be that easy, did you?” he chided, a roguish grin reminiscent of his Aurillian heritage coming unbidden to his statuesque features. As sure as the sun would rise sooner than it ought, the guards closed in on the girl, clamping their inhumanly strong hands firmly about her upper arms in a painful grip. Bruis made his way over, sauntering with an air of overbearing arrogance until he came face to face with the useless orphan. His nose was inches away from hers, the pointed canines he rarely used very much within her view as he stared her down. “It’s not that bad, you know,” he whispered, as though for her ears alone.

[Talitha]

She gave a shriek that fell on deaf and uncaring ears as she was seized, and she struggled with no success against the strong hands that held her in place. Her struggling stopped as he came into view again, and she held her breath subconsciously as he came to stand just millimetres from her face. Even if the guards weren’t holding her there, she had that sinking feeling in her feet that she had felt when they’d first arrived. Something that silently told her to stay, even though she had no idea what it was or why it was so.

She didn’t dare even study his features, her eyes glued to his, like he was the most fascinating thing she had ever seen in her short years. His words however, whispered to her like a naughty little secret, confused her, as he was obviously referring to something specific that she had no idea about. What was he going to do to her? Flashes of rape and knifing flashed through her mind, but something inside told her that this was not his intentions. And she managed to whisper out the first coherent words of the night.

“Wh-what do you mean?”

[Bruis]

“Being dead,” he whispered against her lips before backing away so suddenly that it would hard to determine if he had ever really been that close or if it was a figment of her narrow imagination. The bodyguards were silent, their hungry eyes downcast as a sign of respect to their Prince whilst he did what he would. A cheeky smirk ghosted about his mouth, the prominent canines having retreated behind his full lips so that they too seemed mythical rather than something that could have really been there all along.

Bruis moved back to lean his back against the mouldy brick wall of the alley, raising a boot to steady himself against it’s cool surface as he removed a gold jeweled cigarette case and matching lights from his pocket. He proceeded to light himself a smoke, taking a long drag and ignoring the long wispy tendrils of smoke that raced into the dark night air. “And trust me,” he said with a laugh, smoke jetting from his nose at the snort. “If I were that way inclined, it wouldn’t be rape. And you would enjoy it.” The bodyguards snickered.

A sudden change in atmosphere didn’t cause the Prince to look troubled any, even though he felt slightly threatened. The footpads, too dim to sense the danger continued to mentally applaud their master before he silenced them with an upraised hand, the cigarette jutting out from between two of his slender masculine fingers. Wisely, they took the hint.

“We have company,” Bruis announced calmly before taking another drag.

[Sellica]

Sellica really hadn’t intended on venturing into the North Quadrant that evening. She had enjoyed a reasonable amount of time that afternoon torturing a Brudjan footpad for information that annoyingly hadn’t come before she had been summoned to the Palace. Her duties there had taken less time than they normally did and she had returned to the outpost only to find that the piece of scum she had been intending on removing from crudding up society any further had actually escaped, although how was still a mystery. Needless to say, Sellica had been put out and obviously now she had decided to go hunting for something to take out her frustration on.

But she definitely hadn’t entertained the thought of coming across Bruis.

The scar over her heart where his blade had pierced her to the hilt gave an odd sort of twinge as she swept her cold blue eyes over him, almost a kind of recognizance. His arrogance was betrayed in his every movement and it incensed her to the point of no return; God she wanted that turd dead. She longed to inflict the sort of pain on him that he was still bringing to her, but she knew that with his henchmen firmly planted on either side of him and her on her own it was a slim shot. But she could still save the girl.

She calmly began walking towards the carefully positioned quartet, her sassy heeled boots stabbing the night air with indignant vindictiveness. Her right hand rode comfortably on her denim clad hip, her left swinging close to a shank she kept sheathed in a thigh holster. When she was nearly ten feet away she tilted her head slightly to the side, a curious action but one that allowed her to get a good view of what her opponents were packing weapon-wise.

“Still looking for someone your own size to pick on, Bruis?” she asked in her soft dangerous voice. “Shame you can’t find a big enough prick to match up on.”

[Talitha]

What in the name of god was going on here? Had he just dismissed her thoughts? As in he had actually heard them? Her struggling against the two brutes holding her was reinstated, even after the frightening as all hell guy told them to be quiet. She pulled and yanked against them, and even considered crying out for help, but that strange feeling in her stomach told her to keep her mouth shut. When another figure finally loomed into view she was disappointed, just another scrawny looking woman, probably in over her head just like she was. But then she started talking, and her eyes narrowed as she seemed to hold no fear in her voice. Bruis, was that the man’s name? The one who seemed to hear her thoughts?

Who the fuck was this guy?

She was still reluctant to call to this woman for help, in case she was on his side, since this Bruis character didn’t look too perturbed by the whole situation of being snuck up on, and since she’d witness many muggings and rapes, she knew that the men were usually jumpy, and didn’t want to be caught, dropping all and running at the first sign of trouble. This was obviously not one of those scenarios, and she was either saved… or just having her impending doom prolonged. Either way, her eyes, momentarily on the woman, were again stuck back on ‘Bruis’.

What was wrong with her!?

[Bruis]

“Sellica,” he greeted her casually, flicking the butt of his cigarette and sending it airborne like a miniature firework. “Nice to see you out and about. And without your muzzle,” he smirked. “How very droll.” The bodyguards snickered again on cue, and a long exhalation from the Prince allowed him to rid his breath of the milky residue of the smoke before he grinned at the newcomer. “She won’t hold us up for long,” he said then, although whether the comment was directed at the girl attempting to leave the party or the brutes who held her in place was uncertain. He pushed himself off of the wall and circled around the back of the trio until he stood directly behind the girl, leering at the blonde woman from the junction where her neck joined her shoulder. Then, in the most annoying manner possible, he licked his lips with deliberate relish.

Almost as though he knew what inner turmoil the human brat was in, Bruis then projected his own thoughts into her mind through a series of pictures flashing in sequence, changing almost with each of her frightened heartbeats. First was the image of him bending now, to kiss her neck while his lengthened incisors scraped her soft, dirty skin. The second image was of the pair in a room draped in deep purple velvet, the pair sprawled languidly on a overly large bed with all the foods she could desire on a silver platter close at hand. The last, most illicit image was the girl on her back with him boldy between her legs, the pair entwined in a passionate embrace. His breath on her neck in reality signaled the end of the parade in her mind’s eye, and for a moment the night was still.

[Talitha]

Her whole body jerked as his thoughts entered her mind, like being dunked in the icy waters of winter before the images flashed before her in such rapid sequence, yet it played out slowly, and took an eternity before the moment was over for the poor orphan, raised in a hovel not unlike the ones she was surrounded by now. In fact, she could have walked a different path every day for the rest of her life, and still remember the way home on her death bed years from now. That place haunted her dreams, and yet she was still in that nightmare, where her next meal was only a dream, a hope in her mind. The first image brought a sick sense of fear to her stomach, that strange sensation that had overcome her at the second he had first appeared to her, slipping out of the darkness like he controlled it.

The second image sent a flicker of jealousy into her hardened by life heart. Just the idea, the mere flicker of an image like that set a fire in that heart of hers, the one that yearned for all the good things that so many others in Valir were privy to. Could he give it to her? Could she live in expensive clothes with everything she desired at her beckoned call? Just to be able to eat whenever she wanted to, that alone would satisfy her. To not have her weak body, deprived of nutrition dictate whether she was able to walk for long. So wear fine jewellery like that woman in the markets had, the woman whose bone pendant now hung from a strip of leather around her neck.
‘In the eyes of another, you shall be seen.’

The words rang out as the third and final image flickered into her now tortured mind. It set a knot into her already churning stomach, and he would have heard her breath hitch in her throat as the image seeped out from her mind into the rest of her small body, warmth, like that she imagined his body would create in such a situation crawled over every inch of her, like creeping fingers greedily consuming her until she had nothing left to give. She managed a whisper, one so quiet she only heard her breath as certain syllables were made, but her mind spoke it, and therefore he would have heard it.

“Can you give me that?”

[Sellica]

“Of course he can’t,” snapped Sellica, the scorn evident both in her voice and the posture her spine immediately assumed. She knew enough of Bruis to know that he would trick the young human into accepting him as genuine when really he was thinking only of himself. The Aurillian’s cold blue gaze wandered over the girl’s frightened face for a full minute as she contemplated just what it was that he could want from her, anyway. She was pretty, granted, but she had nothing extraordinary about her or at least nothing that couldn’t be seen in a number of girls her age who wandered these streets at night. She didn’t seem particularly strong willed, and she certainly had no physical resilience.

Why then?

Deciding that she’d had enough foreplay, Sellica strode forward, whipping her shank from it’s cradle and lashing out at the bodyguard on the right with her long left leg as she went. Her booted foot landed solidly on his eye socket with a satisfying thud, and he reeled from a blow that he wasn’t expecting to be so forceful. The other guard let go of the girl, and Sellica saw a window of opportunity that she’d rather not have slammed in her face. “Get out of here! Now!” she barked, her voice belying her sense of self-worth as she spun to face the unharmed guard who now advanced on her, his fists raised in a peculiar sort of martial-arts gesture.

“RUN!” she yelled again, advancing on the guard.

[Talitha]

She was dropped unceremoniously and landed on the hard stone alleyway with a painful thud, her knees taking the blow of the fall. She fell forward to her hands and knees, looking up and scrambling out of the way as the woman advanced on the guards, attacking them with strength that surprised her. She seemed so frail, just like she was, a mere girl… how was it possible? At the second command to go, she jolted and launched to her feet with everything she had. Her anger, her determination to save Talitha had seeped into her mind, removing what was left of Bruis, and the stunned girl ran for her life.

When she was sure she had turned enough turns and made enough distance between her and the scene that had befallen her she collapsed against the nearest wall, sinking to her butt and pulling her skinny legs up, pressing her thighs to her chest. She wrapped her arms around them in a comforting position and stared up at the gap in the alleyway that revealed the sparkling white dots that littered the inky black night sky. Her mind raced over what had happened, and Bruis’ thoughts seeped back into her mind like a poison with no cure. She wanted those nice things, to be lavished upon with no barriers, nothing to stand in her way like her weak bones.

“Bruis,” she whispered to herself, playing with the name experimentally. What on earth had he done to her? She still had no idea how, or exactly what he’d done, but as she sat there, alone and in a dark, smelly corner, she suddenly wished for that purple velvet, that silver platter, and the warmth of his touch… whether that woman said he would deliver it or not.