The Bloodstained Fool Child
There was a predator in the bar.
Typically Eligius didn't pay attention to the goings-on of his kin, no matter what bloodline they were from. However, tonight there was no ignoring this one. The predatory energy of the other vampire was almost overwhelming, a siren song of blood and death that made all of his teeth ache.
If the brutalized and blood-drained bodies of young women that had been showing up in the local area hadn't tipped him off before that it was one of his kin, tonight definitely did.
Lifting his glass of whiskey to his mouth to take a slow sip, Eligius kept his eyes on the fool child across the smoky din of the bar. The predator was pretty. A lithe little killer with artfully tousled tawny hair who laughed at all the right moments until he didn't. Young when he had been turned and younger still now as a vampire.
It had been a long time since he had guessed the age of someone working as an exoleti. The practice and any of what was now referred to as homosexual acts had been harshly penalized before Eligius had even been born, then outright punishable by death not even twenty years after he had been Turned. Not that that had stopped it, as laws and rules had never stopped anything entirely in the sordid history of this world. He himself had had at least two consensual relationships with men in his mortal life before he had been married. Both had been brief and with other soldiers while out on campaign, simply an exchange of pleasure for a brief time.
Where was this fledgling's sire?
He feared the answer was that this child had been abandoned. Even worse, Eligius suspected that the sire may have done so deliberately and cruelly.
This child was a predator through and through, but clumsy. None of the kills had been hidden well and the cause of death was only hidden because every victim's neck was ravaged as if by a rabid dog. That was probably the only reason why a hunter had not found this child before Eliguis had.
Well, that and this one wasn't a Rogue. There would have been a lot more dead if that was the case, and not only the fifteen young brunette women that Eligius had been able to connect together across New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts over the past year.
Something about the entire situation still felt…amiss…to him. Like the feeling he had gotten on a battlefield before the tide had turned in the favor of the other side. As he had when the elderly Senator who had proclaimed himself to be his friend had pinned him to a wall and drained him of his blood, eventually revealing that he meant to use Eligius against his wife's father in some petty spat.
The boy bent his mouth to the ear of the woman he was pressed against, his eyes hungry and expression cold as he whispered in her ear. Eligius was sitting at the perfect angle to read his lips as they formed the words Do you want to get out of here? Her eager response made him feel bad for her, but at least she would live tonight.
Any of his kin worth their salt would have noticed him long ago, and this boy was not that. Eligius rose to his feet in full view of both him and the girl to…nothing. No reaction at all, not even an acknowledgement. It was a response that made this situation all the more amiss because Eligius was old enough now that he couldn't entirely shield his presence. His age was a weight that had the mortals scurrying out of his path as he crossed the bar after the couple, one that he knew how to wield like a scalpel or a cudgel.
Faced with over a millennium of life, the child had not even blinked.
Perhaps the more important question wasn't where this fledgling's sire was, but who it was. The child might not be killing like a Rogue, yet the lack of even noting the obvious presence of another predator was a sign of one.
As Eligius stepped out into the alley behind the bar, he heard the girl giggle from somewhere to his right. Not that he needed the indicator from her as the predator aura of the child filled the narrow alley. The only reason she probably wasn't running scared was all of the alcohol she had consumed blinding even her animal brain to the monster hunting her.
Moving in a blur, Eligius grabbed the child at the back of his neck - like a dog being scruffed but without the fur - and jerked him backwards several inches. Then he grabbed the girl by the arm, pushing her aside as the pretty shell fell away within a second. With a snarl, the boy became the predator he really was inside on the outside. He clawed after her, making noises like a rabid beast, but Eligius was taller and stronger than he was.
The girl screamed but stopped when Eligius hushed her. “Quiet, child,” he said gently, moving his hand from her arm up to stroke her hair soothingly. “You're safe, but you need to go back inside. You have friends there?”
She nodded meekly, wide eyes focused past his own face onto the snarling visage of the boy. There was terror in her now, the scent of it ever so sweet to the predator in his own soul. Good. The girl needed to be afraid.
“Go back to them,” Eligius told her and she ran like the Devil himself was on her heels. Then he turned towards the fledgling, who was still snarling like an animal, but now there was something in those eyes. Something…aware. Frightened.
Tightening his grip on the boy's neck, Eligius moved them along the alley in the intent of getting him away from his prey. The fledgling stumbled several times but he could tell they weren't the machinations of trying to get away. No, after being pulled away from the pounding pulse of the mortal hearts in the bar and the fear scent of the girl, the boy was suddenly remarkably docile.
“Who are you, child?” he asked as he kept them moving across an empty street into another alley.
A shaky inhale answered him and then he heard the boy stammer, “E-Edward.” Then the voice - very mild with what Eligius recalled as a Midwestern US accent - whispered, “Are…are you going to kill me?”
There was such desperation in that question that he stopped halfway through the alley and looked down at the fledgling - Edward - with an arched eyebrow. “Should I?” he asked as he watched the face of the other vampire.
“I killed them. Those girls. I deserve it.”
“Why?”
Edward shrugged and replied bitterly, “Does it matter? I did it. Tried to stop but his voice won't shut up!” As he said the last words, his voice broke as it rose several octaves and he lifted a hand in a clawed shape to drag it down the side of his face.
Oh.
This boy was no killer. No monster in the modern era who needed to be put down like a dog to protect the hard-won secrecy of their kind. No, this child was a victim just as much as the girls he had killed.
As a member of Nazar's Á-zi-da for centuries, Eligius had seen so many of both over the long years. He had helped hunt them when they brought too much attention to themselves and determined if they could be saved. The Rogues had all been too far gone, feral things that no longer had any capability to think beyond the blood they fiercely craved. All of the rest had been like this poor child. Someone who had been used and abused by their sire instead of getting the care and guidance they needed when coming into this life.
His hand was the sword, however, not the one extended in aid. Typically that task belonged to other members of the Á-zi-da, gentler ones who knew how to guide wounded fledglings. Eligius had never even turned anyone in his long life…yet…this boy stirred something in him. And it was not just that the child was pretty.
“Do you want to die?” he asked gently. When Edward looked at him, Eligius added, “It is not a question of deserving death. Our kind are ruled by different laws, ones your sire no doubt never shared with you. Do you want to die, Edward?”
The boy stared at him in fear for a long moment and then stuttered, “N-no.”
Nodding, Eligius said, “Then we will find you help. You are not the first fledgling abused by a sire that abandoned you, nor will you be the last.”
Deciding to take a chance, he released his hold on the boy…and waited. Waited to see if the boy would run, if he would need to truly take him down here and now. Eligius hoped he would not, as it would be a shame to lose a child who could be so much more than a mindless killer.
Edward did not run; he merely stood there awkwardly in the alley, pale skin washed out by the harsh yellow of the few lights set above shady-looking back doors and his tawny hair ruffled like scattered straw. The boy shuffled back and forth from one foot to the other, his eyes pale grey in the light.
A lost fledgling, shoved from the nest before his downy feathers were even fully grown in.
“Come,” Eligius said gently, holding out his hand.
“C-can you make it stop?” Edward asked, voice small and soft. “His voice?”
Nodding, Eligius replied, “We will try.” Then he added, “I will not let you hurt any more girls, child. You have my sacrametum - my oath, my word.”
Tears welled up in the boy's eyes and he wrapped his arms around himself, hugging tightly as he breathed, “Thank you. Thank you. I…I've been so alone.”
On a whim, Eligius reached out and pulled the boy forward into his body, wrapping his arms around him securely. The smaller man felt frail now, instead of the wiry live wire that he had pulled away from that young woman earlier. Edward was stiff for a long moment before he went limp against Eligius, letting out a quiet sob.
As he held the poor, broken child while he cried, Eligius silently swore that he would find the monster who had obviously tried to brutally break Edward. He would go to Nazar himself with what had been done to the boy and get permission to remove this stain on their kind from the world so they could never hurt someone again.
exoleti - male sex worker (Latin)
á-zi-da - right arm; with violence (Sumerian)
sacramentum - an oath or vow rendering the oath giver to the gods (Latin)
Typically Eligius didn't pay attention to the goings-on of his kin, no matter what bloodline they were from. However, tonight there was no ignoring this one. The predatory energy of the other vampire was almost overwhelming, a siren song of blood and death that made all of his teeth ache.
If the brutalized and blood-drained bodies of young women that had been showing up in the local area hadn't tipped him off before that it was one of his kin, tonight definitely did.
Lifting his glass of whiskey to his mouth to take a slow sip, Eligius kept his eyes on the fool child across the smoky din of the bar. The predator was pretty. A lithe little killer with artfully tousled tawny hair who laughed at all the right moments until he didn't. Young when he had been turned and younger still now as a vampire.
It had been a long time since he had guessed the age of someone working as an exoleti. The practice and any of what was now referred to as homosexual acts had been harshly penalized before Eligius had even been born, then outright punishable by death not even twenty years after he had been Turned. Not that that had stopped it, as laws and rules had never stopped anything entirely in the sordid history of this world. He himself had had at least two consensual relationships with men in his mortal life before he had been married. Both had been brief and with other soldiers while out on campaign, simply an exchange of pleasure for a brief time.
Where was this fledgling's sire?
He feared the answer was that this child had been abandoned. Even worse, Eligius suspected that the sire may have done so deliberately and cruelly.
This child was a predator through and through, but clumsy. None of the kills had been hidden well and the cause of death was only hidden because every victim's neck was ravaged as if by a rabid dog. That was probably the only reason why a hunter had not found this child before Eliguis had.
Well, that and this one wasn't a Rogue. There would have been a lot more dead if that was the case, and not only the fifteen young brunette women that Eligius had been able to connect together across New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts over the past year.
Something about the entire situation still felt…amiss…to him. Like the feeling he had gotten on a battlefield before the tide had turned in the favor of the other side. As he had when the elderly Senator who had proclaimed himself to be his friend had pinned him to a wall and drained him of his blood, eventually revealing that he meant to use Eligius against his wife's father in some petty spat.
The boy bent his mouth to the ear of the woman he was pressed against, his eyes hungry and expression cold as he whispered in her ear. Eligius was sitting at the perfect angle to read his lips as they formed the words Do you want to get out of here? Her eager response made him feel bad for her, but at least she would live tonight.
Any of his kin worth their salt would have noticed him long ago, and this boy was not that. Eligius rose to his feet in full view of both him and the girl to…nothing. No reaction at all, not even an acknowledgement. It was a response that made this situation all the more amiss because Eligius was old enough now that he couldn't entirely shield his presence. His age was a weight that had the mortals scurrying out of his path as he crossed the bar after the couple, one that he knew how to wield like a scalpel or a cudgel.
Faced with over a millennium of life, the child had not even blinked.
Perhaps the more important question wasn't where this fledgling's sire was, but who it was. The child might not be killing like a Rogue, yet the lack of even noting the obvious presence of another predator was a sign of one.
As Eligius stepped out into the alley behind the bar, he heard the girl giggle from somewhere to his right. Not that he needed the indicator from her as the predator aura of the child filled the narrow alley. The only reason she probably wasn't running scared was all of the alcohol she had consumed blinding even her animal brain to the monster hunting her.
Moving in a blur, Eligius grabbed the child at the back of his neck - like a dog being scruffed but without the fur - and jerked him backwards several inches. Then he grabbed the girl by the arm, pushing her aside as the pretty shell fell away within a second. With a snarl, the boy became the predator he really was inside on the outside. He clawed after her, making noises like a rabid beast, but Eligius was taller and stronger than he was.
The girl screamed but stopped when Eligius hushed her. “Quiet, child,” he said gently, moving his hand from her arm up to stroke her hair soothingly. “You're safe, but you need to go back inside. You have friends there?”
She nodded meekly, wide eyes focused past his own face onto the snarling visage of the boy. There was terror in her now, the scent of it ever so sweet to the predator in his own soul. Good. The girl needed to be afraid.
“Go back to them,” Eligius told her and she ran like the Devil himself was on her heels. Then he turned towards the fledgling, who was still snarling like an animal, but now there was something in those eyes. Something…aware. Frightened.
Tightening his grip on the boy's neck, Eligius moved them along the alley in the intent of getting him away from his prey. The fledgling stumbled several times but he could tell they weren't the machinations of trying to get away. No, after being pulled away from the pounding pulse of the mortal hearts in the bar and the fear scent of the girl, the boy was suddenly remarkably docile.
“Who are you, child?” he asked as he kept them moving across an empty street into another alley.
A shaky inhale answered him and then he heard the boy stammer, “E-Edward.” Then the voice - very mild with what Eligius recalled as a Midwestern US accent - whispered, “Are…are you going to kill me?”
There was such desperation in that question that he stopped halfway through the alley and looked down at the fledgling - Edward - with an arched eyebrow. “Should I?” he asked as he watched the face of the other vampire.
“I killed them. Those girls. I deserve it.”
“Why?”
Edward shrugged and replied bitterly, “Does it matter? I did it. Tried to stop but his voice won't shut up!” As he said the last words, his voice broke as it rose several octaves and he lifted a hand in a clawed shape to drag it down the side of his face.
Oh.
This boy was no killer. No monster in the modern era who needed to be put down like a dog to protect the hard-won secrecy of their kind. No, this child was a victim just as much as the girls he had killed.
As a member of Nazar's Á-zi-da for centuries, Eligius had seen so many of both over the long years. He had helped hunt them when they brought too much attention to themselves and determined if they could be saved. The Rogues had all been too far gone, feral things that no longer had any capability to think beyond the blood they fiercely craved. All of the rest had been like this poor child. Someone who had been used and abused by their sire instead of getting the care and guidance they needed when coming into this life.
His hand was the sword, however, not the one extended in aid. Typically that task belonged to other members of the Á-zi-da, gentler ones who knew how to guide wounded fledglings. Eligius had never even turned anyone in his long life…yet…this boy stirred something in him. And it was not just that the child was pretty.
“Do you want to die?” he asked gently. When Edward looked at him, Eligius added, “It is not a question of deserving death. Our kind are ruled by different laws, ones your sire no doubt never shared with you. Do you want to die, Edward?”
The boy stared at him in fear for a long moment and then stuttered, “N-no.”
Nodding, Eligius said, “Then we will find you help. You are not the first fledgling abused by a sire that abandoned you, nor will you be the last.”
Deciding to take a chance, he released his hold on the boy…and waited. Waited to see if the boy would run, if he would need to truly take him down here and now. Eligius hoped he would not, as it would be a shame to lose a child who could be so much more than a mindless killer.
Edward did not run; he merely stood there awkwardly in the alley, pale skin washed out by the harsh yellow of the few lights set above shady-looking back doors and his tawny hair ruffled like scattered straw. The boy shuffled back and forth from one foot to the other, his eyes pale grey in the light.
A lost fledgling, shoved from the nest before his downy feathers were even fully grown in.
“Come,” Eligius said gently, holding out his hand.
“C-can you make it stop?” Edward asked, voice small and soft. “His voice?”
Nodding, Eligius replied, “We will try.” Then he added, “I will not let you hurt any more girls, child. You have my sacrametum - my oath, my word.”
Tears welled up in the boy's eyes and he wrapped his arms around himself, hugging tightly as he breathed, “Thank you. Thank you. I…I've been so alone.”
On a whim, Eligius reached out and pulled the boy forward into his body, wrapping his arms around him securely. The smaller man felt frail now, instead of the wiry live wire that he had pulled away from that young woman earlier. Edward was stiff for a long moment before he went limp against Eligius, letting out a quiet sob.
As he held the poor, broken child while he cried, Eligius silently swore that he would find the monster who had obviously tried to brutally break Edward. He would go to Nazar himself with what had been done to the boy and get permission to remove this stain on their kind from the world so they could never hurt someone again.
exoleti - male sex worker (Latin)
á-zi-da - right arm; with violence (Sumerian)
sacramentum - an oath or vow rendering the oath giver to the gods (Latin)
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