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Post by Jenny on Jul 28, 2014 22:44:00 GMT -5
Within the city, with the help of their allies, Amon and Kae had exterminated Tlaz’s coven, save a few stragglers whom the pair hunted down one by one, following leads and whispers in the dark.
Amon crouched on the edge of a tall building, Kae squatting beside him only a pace behind, surveying the alleyway for their target. He no longer felt any fatigue, no weakness of body ever since he had died for the second time of his entire existence. The second time had been the worst pain of all… or perhaps he had forgotten the feeling of change. His death had made him a vampire again. The only blessing he had from that period of time in which his cold heart had warmed and beat again was feeling human again, experiencing the emotions that had long ago faded, and being able to hold Kae without feeling the trembling shivers as her body reacted to his cold skin, or the fear that his strength may crush her, or a natural movement may break a bone in her body.
It had been a gift, even if the giver had been a loathsome man, one he would not have traded up for anything. But it did not last, and thus he was the very same cold corpse of a being that thirsted for blood as he had been.
The vampire they sought practically scrabbled across the dirty alley among the refuge. The male stopped and stiffened, sniffing the wind like a wild beast. Even from here, Amon could smell the tainted smell of him. A cat spit and hissed, arching its back and streaking away in fear. Then the alley was silent and the only sound that Amon could hear was the beating of his lover’s heart beside him.
Amon looked at Kae and jerked his head to the side, indicating that this was the one. He stood up from the edge in a quick and easy movement, then stepped off of the ledge. If Kae did not know him, she would have thought this suicidal, but it was not the case for this one.
Amon spread out his arms, his clothes rippling, coat flapping as his body plunged down several stories. Just as the vampire noticed that Amon was falling towards him, his body twisting sharply in awareness, Amon was on top of him, his booted feet landing on the vampire’s shoulders. It looked for mere moments like they were some acrobatic team. Amon then shifted his feet on either side of the vampires neck, twisted his body, and broke the thing’s neck. Of course this would not kill it, but it would hinder the male for a bit of time as his bones worked to bind up the shattered bone. Amon then shifted his body, causing the vampire to fall on his stomach. At the same time Amon removed his gun from the holster and fired a silver bullet into the vampire’s heart.
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Post by KD on Jul 28, 2014 22:56:02 GMT -5
Kae, for the record, insisted that the cold skin and lack of heartbeat didn't bother her. Amon's good qualities outweighed his bad ones, in her opinion. After all, among the numerous scars she now sported, Kae still had the scar on her thigh where her brother had carved the word 'whore' when she was twelve; the fact Amon had managed to get past her defenses and coax her into loving and trusting someone again rather spoke of who he was rather than what. She glowered when he jumped. He wasn't suicidal, just a show off, she thought. She swung over onto the fire escape and leaped down it rung by rung, dropping to the ground right as Amon was putting a bullet in the vampire's brain. "If you don't let me kill off one or two of them, I'm gonna start forgetting how," she complained.
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Post by Jenny on Jul 28, 2014 23:10:41 GMT -5
Amon grinned at her and holstered his gun, not flinching at the heat of the smoking barrel. “I do get a little carried away.”
After all, he was not solo any longer. But inside, Amon could not forget how Kae had been given those scars. It was unlikely one vampire could do much while Amon was watching her back, but the image of her bleeding and wounded was so deeply engrained in his mind that instinctively, he always put himself before Kae as a shield despite Kae’s experience.
“The next one then,” he crooked an arm around her as they started back towards home. His voice was light and natural, but he had not yet told her what he had learned from Jaz not a few nights ago, that these vampires they hunted, those left of Tlaz’s coven here in the city, were not the last of them. There were dozens of dens around the globe, hundreds upon hundreds of vampires or those humans that had worshipped her as a god, and Tlaz’s legacy thus remained. Humans were not just means of consumption to them as a means to survive, taking their blood, but there was needless slaughtering all in the name of sacrifice.
Tlaz was dead, her once-mortal shell destroyed, but if she was indeed a god – a goddess that was worshipped by denizens of the underworld – then no one, no vampire or any living mortal, was safe from her corruption.
Amon had already made up his mind to go to a coven across the sea once the city was clear, but he was hesitant to bring Kae along. She would be furious with him, but she would be safe, under the watch of Jaz, Nikolai, and his friends here. He was loathe to bring up the subject, his demeanor forced, his face terse.
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Post by KD on Jul 28, 2014 23:17:20 GMT -5
Kae kept glancing at him, taking in the set of his jaw and the look in his eyes. She'd been doing that a lot lately, trying to figure out what was bothering him. She had a suspicion but wasn't one hundred percent certain. She raised an eyebrow and said with deceptive casualness: "Jaz headed back to New Orleans tonight. Did she tell you goodbye? She mentioned something about the leftover covens and was surprised when I didn't know what she was talking about. Like she was expecting someone else had mentioned it..."
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Post by Jenny on Jul 28, 2014 23:24:41 GMT -5
Amon shifted his eyes towards her, the expression dissolving on his face. It had seemed to him that Jaz would not directly blurt out such a thing, especially when it came to the covens of vampires, a den Amon was not keen on having his lover follow him into. Usually vampires kept it among themselves, these locations, worried that others would go flocking to them out of curiosity and to certain pain or even death.
He stopped and took her hands in his, turning towards her body. “Listen, Kae…”
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Post by KD on Jul 28, 2014 23:40:26 GMT -5
Kae was of the opinion by that point that Jaz had probably deliberately dropped that fact in case Amon hadn't mentioned it because Jaz, for all she was a good friend, enjoyed leaving a bit of chaos behind before she left and could also be a serious bitch. But they loved her anyway. "I made her give a couple of names she'd found out and did research on some of them." Kae's bank of computers were her pride and joy and the databases she'd started building up were considered almost flawless by other vampire hunters. "Cross referencing names and images was a bit hard since so many of them go back a hundred years but my databases are pretty good by this point so I was able to track a couple of them down to their last known lairs and calculate a pattern on how they move. The most recent one is in Italy and the computers should pinpoint a more accurate location by the end of the night. Just in case you'd already figured out where they were and were actually stupid enough to think if you left me behind, I wouldn't follow you." Her hazel eyes were narrowed into slits as they fixed on his.
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Post by Jenny on Jul 29, 2014 0:01:35 GMT -5
Amon should have known she would deduce what was happening with that sharp mind of hers. Of course he also knew that indeed she would have followed him to Italy once she had pinpointed the location. Amon would have had to take his own time finding the lair, only being given the general gist of his location. She may have even been there before he did and if that had happened…
If she tried to take them on alone…
Amon shuddered at the thought. He let out a long sigh, and ran his thumbs over the backs of her hands. “I knew you would figure out eventually. Tlaz’s influence has spread across the world from where she began her reign ages ago. This isn’t over, killing the vampires in the city was just the beginning.”
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Post by KD on Jul 29, 2014 0:15:14 GMT -5
She went still. Jaz had mentioned covens that were connected but she hadn't dropped Tlaz's name, obviously preferring to leave THAT part to Amon, as Tlazolteotl was still a sore spot for Kae. "She didn't outright say they were worshipers of Tlaz but that makes sense. Can't escape the bitch even when she's dead." Time hadn't tampered Kae's bitter anger toward the vampiress. She had never liked Tlaz, not even when she'd been Amon's lover (more accurately BECAUSE she'd been Amon's lover, even if Kae hadn't been able to admit that jealousy at the time). Learning about the sacrifices Tlaz allowed to be made in her name, her cruel tortures and mass slayings of humans had driven Kae into a fury and the discovery that she'd twisted herself into Amon's mind to the point she literally was trying to take him over had been the last straw, driving her to swear to take Tlaz's life or die trying. And for all of Tlaz's hold on Amon, in the end he'd taken her life in order to save Kae's.
Jaz had also not mentioned to Kae what she'd mentioned to Amon: a couple of those coven's leaders, especially those fanatically devoted to their 'goddess' memory, would probably target both Amon and Kae. Not only for Tlaz's death but the fact the vampires didn't like the implications of a vampire choosing a human over another of their kind, especially one of Tlaz's pedigree. It was bad for morale.
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Post by Jenny on Jul 29, 2014 0:25:35 GMT -5
Amon chuckled. “No. If only it could be that simple. There is something about blood that changes people, mortal or not. With some vampires, we can co-exist with mortals. With others, once they taste blood and how easy it is to hunt and kill humans, they believe themselves to be gods themselves. There lies the danger. Tlaz’s philosophy resonates with these kinds of vampires, and those humans that are romanced by being involved in the underworld. There are humans who get a thrill when they taste blood, believing themselves to be something more than they are not.”
He raised a brow. “Kae, it would have been foolish to have ventured out behind me. You are an accomplished killer, but when it comes to vampires, if you run out of bullets, that would likely be the end of you. I should have told you, I’m sorry.”
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Post by KD on Jul 29, 2014 0:44:22 GMT -5
"Yes you should have, and you're forgiven." Kae rolled her eyes at him and started down the street that would take them home. "I've run out of bullets before. That's what they make knives and stakes for. And gloves with silver spikes on them." She flexed her hand which was sheathed in one of said gloves, for emphasis. Neither time nor horrific battle had tempered Kae's confidence. When Amon had first met her, that gung ho attitude had been half love of battle and half suicide, since Kae had literally not cared whether she had lived or died. Granted, she balanced out her small stature and human vulnerability by becoming an expert on various ways both traditional and not- she'd almost made Nikolai sick one night by explaining why hydrofluoric acid was more effective on vampire flesh than sulfuric acid -but before Amon, she'd basically had the life goal to kill as many vampires and other creatures that attacked humans before they killed her.
Amon had given her something to live for, but the flip side of that was she was as fanatically devoted to defending him as he was her.
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Post by Jenny on Jul 29, 2014 0:52:52 GMT -5
A smile spread across his face. “Yes, there are those kinds of weapons too.”
Amon sobered. “But standing alone in the middle of a den of vampires without anything but a knife and your fists is absolute suicide… though you’d rather go out fighting.”
This subject was making him ache. He reached up and pushed a lock of hair away from her face. “Just be cautious, ok? If we’re in this together, you can’t be out of my sight, not even for a moment.”
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Post by KD on Jul 29, 2014 1:03:10 GMT -5
Her gaze softened as she looked up at him. "I'm not going to go off and fight them alone. I'll admit I've done some pretty stupid things, but I'm not that stupid. Plus, I have no intention of letting you out of my sight either."
She paused to let the wards around the yard of their home recognize them before moving to the door. Kae had never worried about enemies following them home. Between the wards Jaz had set up, the spells Ambra had laid down, and the security measures Kae herself had set up using her mixture of magic and technology, the place was so heavily fortified anything powerful enough to break through would probably have destroyed the house in one blow anyway. Kae had wanted to put up the bodies of a couple vampires in the yard for decoration but Amon had wisely nixed that idea.
It had been a dump when Kae had lived there alone, all her focus had been on her computers and little else. Amon's presence didn't exactly mean she started learning about interior decorating or anything, but she did keep the place cleaner and had better furnishings.
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Post by Jenny on Jul 29, 2014 16:20:55 GMT -5
Amon nodded at Kae, giving her a small smile. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
He paused beside her as the wards were allowed to come down for the few moments they crossed the yard, and felt the energies hum back to life as they returned to their full power. It was an excellent burglar deterrent, for one. There was a wealth of technology inside their home that would be a hacker’s wet dream. No one but Jaz, Ambra and Nikolai were invited to swing by whenever they wanted, for neither Kae and Amon were extensively social. The wards were enough for him. After all, bodies being left to hang from poles, or heads on pikes, vampire or human alike, would stench up the place, especially to one whose senses were unnaturally heightened such was his case.
The house inside and out may need a bit of fresh paint, but Amon did not stay long in that house unless he had a mind to remain beside Kae while she worked with the databases, or in the case that they decided to privately make love. Kae had insisted on moving her many devices, screens, and the like into a central room without windows where the light could not be cast, so Amon could work with her at all hours of the day, if they were researching a lead or hacking into unauthorized databases. Amon did not sleep but would lay awake with his lover in his arms as she had to succumb to sleep and he even insisted on it, not wanting her to go without sleep as she was wont to do.
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Post by KD on Jul 29, 2014 16:37:06 GMT -5
That was yet another very good influence Amon had on Kae. As he'd know from his early acquaintance with her, it wasn't uncommon for Kae to fall asleep right in front of one of her computers, slumped over the keyboard, sometimes waking up with key imprints on her cheek. She slept better when Amon was with her, often falling asleep curled against him, especially when a nightmare- less frequent when he was with her than they had been -tore her from sleep. There was a sleep couch in the computer room but there was a proper bedroom as well, with heavy velvet curtains spread over them that Kae had nailed down at the base and sides so no sunlight got in. She'd always been a night dweller, only working a few hours in the day and that was only for business purposes for the rare client that didn't have phone or e-mail, and preferring to work, and play, at night.
She worked at one of her computers now, trying to nail down the cult's lair in Italy. She frowned at the screen, looking over her shoulder at Amon when he walked in. "You know...Nikolai is Italian. You don't think any of the covens there have a connection to him, do you?" Oh, she didn't like that idea...but it might explain why Tlaz had seemed so focused on convincing Nik to join her.
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Post by Jenny on Jul 29, 2014 16:50:37 GMT -5
“It isn’t likely, but it is possible. Tlaz’s worshippers have been around long before even Nikolai himself had been born as a child. We’d have to ask him for a better physical description, a name perhaps, or an accent. But Italy’s Renaissance was so very long ago, there is no telling where he may have went. Or perhaps he is dead,” Amon frowned lightly, placing a hand on her chair and bending at her shoulder to peer at the computer screen.
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