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By Khystra Callen Cal was headed for the Pink Panther Club. Angel had told her it was a good place to find people who didn't qualify as human. Maybe someone to be her mate for the night, maybe someone she could kill. She'd been pacing up and down Angel's place the last little while, a bit of the old savagery creeping back in. He could tell she needed to go let off steam. Her life wasn't go-go-go anymore, a continuos life-and-death struggle, and she wasn't used to it yet. He knew she'd always be like this, primed for action, itching for a fight. So he sent her to the Pink Panther. She could feel her nanobots slithering around just under her skin, and it was getting her itchy. No, not itchy, just antsy. They were feeding off her enhanced aura, unfortunately tapping into the wildness that came off her in waves, and were responding to it. She felt like one wrong move, one accidental touch, and she'd attack. Oh well, not to worry about that now. She slid past the bouncer at the Pink Panther with barely a sideways glance. She knew he wasn't human, but his scent alone marked him as little or no threat. The bouncer visibly shied away as Cal passed. Her aura was strobing off huge waves of energy, in time to her heart beat. Classifying her with as a Big Time Predator. Once inside, her oversensitive ears were assaulted by the pounding of the club's artfully hidden sound system. Her colony toned down her hearing before she suffered serious damage. She found an out-of-the-way table that gave her clear views of both the dance floor and the front door. Better safe than dead. She sat down, and allowed her colony to leave the confines of her body and flow across her skin, under her clothes. The antsy feeling faded, a little. She still was feeling something, but wasn't sure what it was. She sifted through memories which Moro said belonged to Cal, but of which Cal could not yet claim. Searching for a name to place on this feeling. After quite a number of songs, one of the waitress screwed up her guts and walked over to Cal's table. The Big Time Predator hadn't done anything hostile, so might as well see if she wanted a drink. "Want anything from the bar?" the waitress asked, almost managing to keep the quaver out of her voice. "Draft." Cal said absently, still hunting through her memory banks for what was going on with her body. It has started when she was around Angel, and had gotten stronger when Gunn had shown up. But it wasn't that bad, not really. Maybe she should just let it run its course. She conceded to this, and went about the task of figuring out what was in the bar with her. The waitress nodded, and went back to the bar, thankful to be out of the powerful aura. It made her skin crawl. And she had a hard enough time as it was keeping her skin where it was supposed to be. Given half a chance, it would crawl off and do something unspeakable in a corner. Cal had succeeded in separating out most of the scents present in the bar by the time the waitress returned with her beer. Barely noticed that the waitress hadn't asked for any money for said beer. Another perk of being strong, was the general guess. Vampire with demon parasite. Demon. Demon. Demon. Incubus. Dragon. Demon. Werewolf. Human. Human. Vampire . . . no demon parasite? Cal paused in her random sampling, homing in on that one scent. Male, yes, vampire, yes. But no demon. Subspecies, she and the colony concluded. Mutation, offshoot. Interesting, but not really worth hunting down and killing. Not when there was good music, fascinating sights, and nice cold beer. Meanwhile, the owner of the interesting scent picked up hers. Wasn't sure what she was. Never smelled anything like her (the her part was a given, the scent was yummy female). Hunted down the scent, saw the slender redhead sitting across the dance floor, nursing a beer. Rats, not a vampire. Vampires don't drink. Not beer, anyway. The owner of the scent was very pretty, with high cheekbones, silken black and red hair, and striking almond-shaped blue eyes. Those eyes roved the interior of the building. Hunter's eyes. He liked hunters. If she wasn't a vampire, like him, tragically, that made her prey. He would kill her, drink her dry, and toss her aside, like so many before her. Something pulled at his heart. Something in her eyes. Like Jessie. Lonely. Maybe? No, don't think about that. Thinking about Jessie still hurt too much. She'd been gone over a year, but sometimes, he could still feel her. Maybe no one believed that he was a vampire, no one in the human world, but some human had obviously believed Jesse was a vampire. He'd tracked her scent to a large building on the east side. Getting in wasn't a problem, neither was finding the lab where she was kept. The hard part was controlling himself when he saw what those human butchers had done to her. He'd broken into the lab, killed everyone there, destroyed the computers and all the information they contained, before finally turning to Jesse. Killing her was a merciful thing, she'd been taken apart, to the point where she couldn't heal. He'd loved her. And he'd killed her. Maybe he was supposed to be alone. Weren't all vampires destined to be alone? Alone for all eternity. He moped for a moment, idly considering going back to the recording studio. Finish up the new cd. Hash around the new concerts. All that mundane stuff. No, let himself mope a little longer. He was an immortal, and he had all the time in the world. But when he looked back up, the huntress with the striking eyes was gone. He followed her scent, just in time to see her walk out the door. He rose to his feet and followed, slipping out of real time and into high speed to avoid the groupies lurking at the entrance to the Pink Panther. She was moving faster than he thought, she was well ahead of him. He would catch her though, and savour her blood as he looked into her hunter's eyes. Cal had given up after one drink. She wasn't in the mood to get drunk, not in the mood to dance, and certainly not in the mood to hunt, although she'd seen several possibilities making themselves scarce whenever her eyes passed them. The feeling in her was curdling. No, she wanted to go home, curl up on her feather bed, and pout. No friends, no boyfriend, nothing. She'd wanted to stay with Angel very much, but after Moro had returned her memories (or at least, her hunter's instinct), all she wanted to do was rip his heart out. It was the demon, not Angel. Angel was good, Cal reminded herself as she strolled down the street. No muggers, not in this part of town (even if there were, they weren't human, and savvy enough to avoid predators like her). Cal heard a single scraping footstep, and then there were cool hands on her shoulders, spinning her around. It was the demon-less vamp from the bar. He smiled showing sharp little fangs. He was familiar. She had seen him before . . . goth rocker maybe? Cute, too. Curly blond-brown hair, deep brown eyes, kissable lips. And ooh, gold lame. She loved gold lame. And he bit her! She was shocked only for a second, enough for him to get a taste of her. Then her defences went up. Her body started producing blood, first to replace what had been lost, then as a defensive measure. His eyes widened and his cheeks ballooned outwards as he was caught by the firehose blast. The force of the blast blew him backwards, sending him ass over teakettle. He righted himself instantly, staring at the spray of blood around him, on his clothes. His already wide eyes opened further and the blood around and on him seemed to vaporise. He looked up, The wound in her neck was still open, and the jet of her blood hung in the air like a grisly 3D sculpture. He grimaces as the blood moved, seemingly seeking in the air. Seeking what? That was all he had time for as the gravity-defying blood found its target and, moving with oily, unnatural speed, splattered against his face. He gagged and clawed, realizing quickly that the blood wasn't leaving. It moved over his face with purpose, peeking under his tightly closed eyelids, peering up his nose. For three agonizing seconds it minutely investigated his fangs. Then, it retracted with frightening speed, back into the huntress' neck, and the wounds healed instantly. "Sorry, the colony was curious." The huntress said amiably, and turned to go. "Sorry if I scared you." He suddenly realized he didn't want her to go. He didn't know why, he just didn't. "Wait!" She paused, turned. "Yeah?" He held out his hand, "I'm Lestat." She smiled, and shook. "Cal." And she thought, why not? Later, she found out what the feeling was. Oh boy, did she ever. And it was so very, very nice. |