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The Diary of Deora

Her footsteps echo in the litter-filled alleyway, a cat yowls, a box turns over, and a car hums by. It's the first car she's heard in an hour. Not much action down here at one A.M. Still, she's got a coat, and she wouldn't miss this for the world.
"Aincha gettin' dizzy?"
She jumps. But she knows the voice. "Jesus, you prick!"
The young man uncurls from a shadow. "Toldja not to call me that. You been pacin' for a half hour. Nice jeans."
"You've been there for half an hour? You are a prick."
"In more ways 'n one. I wanned t' see if yer serious."
She frowns, a bit disconcerted. "Hell yes, Joseph. You know I trust you with my life."
"Good; yer life does depend on it. Heavily."
"You want to start backing that up? You and your friends don't give a fuck about what goes on in this town. Nothing touches you. You give me that kind of power, and I'm in. Now."
He sneers. "Wouldja kill yer parents for it?"
"I already did, you idiot. Why do you think I'm in a foster home?"
The young man tries to suppress a pridefil grin. "No shit?!"
She glances away, to her surprise, embarassed. "Well, I've never admitted it was me. The kind of life they led, nobody noticed." She stares at him, the violence in her eyes sudden and undeniable. "I will not be used again. If you don't trust me, kill me now, but I am NOT going away."
He stares back. There is a long pause. "Fuck yeah."
He lunges at her, faster than she's ever seen him move, grips her back, clamps his crushing, sharp jaws onto her neck, holding her, binding her like a preying mantis. Her first instinct is shock, her first thought, that he took her offer to kill her. But she isn't dead; he's groping and nuzzling... and fear turns to rage.
"Get the fuck off me, you pervert! You bastard! I trusted you, I can't believe I... was so stupid... you dick... you... asshole..." The dim alley light is fading, her spasms are weaker, and she's sinking, floating, and her strength drains away.... She's been cut before, lost a lot of blood. She recognises this. Well, it feels creepy, but death could be worse... take a nap now....
Then her tongue is on fire, and she chokes, and somehow clamps onto the source of the burning fluid that gushes into her throat, sputtering as she does, and she NEEDS it, and she WILL have it. She gulps it, drowns in it, and her stomach and her lungs and her heart are burning, flaming like a gasoline fire, and she keeps drinking, and somewhwere in her body that's not quite anywhere, her senses peak, and she feels like she's ridden a rocket up into orbit and exploded into a million pieces of spinning debris, and it feels better than any screw she's ever had.
She tumbles in space, sort of sighing and gasping for breath, for some kinda long time. And slowly, she's aware that it's morning, and she can see things clearly, and the cat is back, purring as it digests its dinner, and some homeless guy hasn't bathed in a month, but he still smells like Starbuck's, and the air is just a little bit colder than it was when she got here, and hey, it's not morning, but she can see better, and Joseph is sitting on a garbage can full of chinese food and wet cardboard, and he looks like the cat sounds.
"Now it's time to take you home to Mother, " he says.

A young man leads a young woman through a series of alleys and streets. At times, they leap like cats to the roof of a building, and cross the tar-coated surface with a suppressed excitement. They drop to the street again with no sign of exertion. The man grins like a child, almost giggling, and the woman's face is a celebration of surprise, delight, and exhilleration. Suddenly she tugs him on his sleeve, and as he turns, she streaks past his other side, laughing and running at fourty miles per hour, her long skirt dancing around her warm leggings like Superman's cape.
"Dammit!" He speeds to catch her. "I toldja, only one! You gotta be careful!" He easily matches speed, and she stops, again catching him off guard.
" I know, Joseph. I'm not stupid. Even though that bum did taste terrible... Can't you just let me run a little while we're out here? I feel GREAT!!"
The young man stands with his arms folded, not quite managing to look as stern and commanding as he clearly wants to look. "Time fer that later. Ruth's expectin' ya."
"You never had a dog, did you?"
"What?"
"Never mind. Let's go." She follows him, skipping, as he jogs at a nice human pace, coming at last to a non-deserted part of town; a street of night clubs and coffee shops, open at two in the morning, and showing no sign of getting sleepy. The man and woman thread through the crowds, and she pinches some butts on the way. She is clearly having a good time.
"You better keep a lid on when you get inside. She gets pretty hardass."
"You told me, Joseph..."
"Hey, I'm jus' concerned, ok? My ass on the line, too."
Now they come to a club, packed with gothed-out, lofty headded poetry readers and slam dancers. Some of them are both. The neon signs flash pretentious quotes from all cultures. The building shakes with the music it emits, and the air inside is thick with stage smoke.The young woman laughs.
"Hell of a place for a lady named Ruth. My grandma's name was Ruth."
"Now it is again. C'mon." He leads her to a door at the back, where a small but nasty man stands guard. He opens the door for them.
The young man nods. "This is Uriel."
"Uriel?"
"Ruth got a thing about bible names."
"Really. How many guys did she call 'Lazarus' ?" She walks through the doorway...
And into a medieval banquet hall. The cacophony of the club is gone suddenly, and there is only the barest whisper of wind, and a distant church bell. The room is huge, with a cavernous ceiling lost in darkness. The walls are half-timbered stone, the floor is covered with some kind of sweet smelling straw, the great table is a huge expanse of pollished oak, set with silver platters and goblets and candelabras, and at the end, a huge chair casts a black shadow in the light of a strange translucent window.
The shadow says, "Come forward."
The young woman finds that she has walked to the chair, without knowing it.
The shadow says, "What was your name?" The young woman hears herself say her name: the real name she has not used in years. The shadow takes form, and a strong and powerful eye looks into hers, and she is given a new name: Deora.
And the young woman finds herself chanting, repeating the words told to her, as she drinks from a silver chalice, drinks of of the blood of the shadow;
"I swear by this blood that I am of the House of Ruth.
"I swear by this blood that I shall obey my Lady Ruth, Lord of the House of Ruth.
"I swear by this blood that I shall bring no harm to my lady Ruth, Lord of the House of Ruth.
"I swear by this blood that I shall bring no harm to any member of the House of Ruth.
"This I swear by the blood of my Lady Ruth, may it burn its way out of my veins should I ever break this oath."
The young woman waits, in dread? Or shock? At last, the shadow nods. "Go."
She retreats, curtseying deeply as she does, and hoping very very much that it looks sincere. Did she do that right? She has to force herself not to scurry like a hamster as she crosses that threshold into the comforting smoke and thunder of the club. She can feel the music thudding wildly in her body, in place of the frightened heartbeat she can no longer possess. She can feel the blood from the chalice burning her veins all over again, worse than Josephs' blood did. Much worse.
She jumps as something touches her shoulder. It's Joseph.
"Well," he smiles. "That went a lot better'n I expected; she di'nt snuff ya."
"God, Joseph, you are a bastard and a half." Deora storms off through the nightclub crowd, which parts for her like she's Moses. She sighs. Yeah, there probably is a guy here called Moses. She flees the club, striding randomly through the city. She has nothing out here to be afraid of now. Not out here.
Why can't we just drop all this crap and get on with enjoying life? Or death. Or whatever. That I can take. Running and jumping and bending metal, and even feeding on goddamn blood. Especially the blood. That's the best part, the blood. That I can handle. It's the thousand fucking year old Feudal Mafia Ladies I didn't even know I had to work for that I'm not sure about.
She slumps her butt down on a garbage can in an alley, still recovering from that persona's grip.
Her head snaps up, eyes alert. Somebody's there.
The alley is dark to her, even with her unnatural sight. Her ears strain to catch what might be a sound.
"now you see..." The voice is a cold whisper. A dank tendril caressing her ear, soft, inevitable. "now you know..." it is behind her, next to her, within her. It has been waiting, will always wait. "now you understand...we are not of the light...we are not of the living...we are not human..."
Deora searches frantically for the speaker. For the direction of the voice. For the smell of the body. She senses nothing.
She is very afraid.
"now you are one...with the end of things...with the decay of life...with the stench of the grave..." And slowly, the faintest of scents creeps into her nose. Faint, but sharp, and rank, and filled with tiny motes of dust, with the spores of fungi and the odor of spoiled food. She gags, and sneezes, and tries to wipe away the foul residue. I 'm a vampire, I don't need to breathe! I haven't been breathing. It doesn't seem to matter.
The alley around her tenses, expectantly. She looks to a shadow, to a corner of the wall. The shapes there move, melt away, as if rotting before her, dissolving. Behind them stands a corpse. Gaunt, haggard, smeared in grime, draped in the moldering remains of a funeral shroud. Its face is tight skin over sharp skull edges, its eyes are cold, dark, and empty. "now you see..."
Horror creeps into Deora's mind, like the questing roots of gripping vines, squeezing her, entwining her. That is what I am, that dead thing. That is what I have become. The promise of eternity is a devil's pact, the promise of power a lie, my oath of fealty worse than useless...
With a spasm of revulsion, Deora rips free of the foreign thoughts. "You lie! You are the liar! I'm not a goddamn corpse, and I will NOT obey YOU!!"
In less than an instant, the specter is upon her, gripping her wrists in an iron hold, as if she were a toy. As if she were not powered by a fiery, supernatural liquid flame. As if she were merely human.
"compared to me, you are merely human...and I am but the weakest among us..." The whisper is harsh, now, strained. The creature leans close to her. Its gruesome smile widens. "take care, girl...watch your step...our place is not with the living...not above the ground..."
There is a cough behind her assailant. "Really. Then whatcha doin' in an alley by an Italian rest'raunt?" A match flares, as Joseph lights a cigarette. "Speakin' a which, you gotta get some meat on ya, kid. All that stalkin' and spookin' is wearin' you out."
The creature eases its grip upon Deora's wrists, and pulls back slowly. Its eyes narrow, simmering with hatred. It turns toward Joseph. "you will regret this..."
"Yeah. I bet. Just get yer butt outta Ruth's territory."
The specter's eyes narrow further, and seem to recede in their sockets. Then, softly, its body fades into mist, distorts in curling eddies, and is borne away by the night breeze, like a soap bubble full of smoke in a magician's act. The smell of decay assaults Deora's nose again, then is gone.
She fights the urge to collapse in Joseph's arms. He looks so damn smug. "You sure took your fucking time."
"Just got here, I swear. But I did see you break that hold he had on ya. Fuck, he was pissed." He takes a drag of his cigarette, blowing out smoke in a parody of the phantom's disappearance.
A shiver escapes her. "That was...so..."
"Yeah. They're like that. I been messed with, too. They can really get inside, if ya don't watch out."
Deora leans against the rough brick wall, hugging herself tightly. "I thought Ruth was scary. Well, she still is, but it's different. That thing was a... wormy horror." A pit of depression and despair. Worse than I used to have at home. "Ruth is a threat. Like I don't dare disappoint her."
Joseph grinds out his cigarette with his boot heel. "Yer right, you don't. An' that's what saved yer ass. He was playin' Doctor fuckin' Killdaire with yer brain, but he can't counter a blood oath." Joseph pauses, and giggles. "Fuck, he was really pissed."
Deora starts walking, slowly, back toward the club. "Joseph?"
"Yeah."
"What is he?"
Joseph shrugs. He shoves his hands in his pockets as he strolls beside her. "He's from another House. One o' the freaky ones. You mighta' noticed they don't like our style."
"They have a thing against Ruth?"
"They got a thing against ev'rybody." He glances at her, almost embarrassed. "And they don't all look like that. He's prob'ly a newbie, like you. Only they're kinda hard on their trainees. Poor bastard prob'ly hasn't eaten in weeks." He kicks an empty liquor bottle. "See, there's different ways to be vampires, and most of it's in yer head. Way I see it, we're more alive than normal folks. They're more dead."
"I'll drink to that..."
Joseph smiles. "You're feeling better, I take it."
Deora stretches her arms. "I have to start sometime." I hope I sound more confident than I feel! She smirks, and indicates her new, superior vampire body. "If I can't handle stuff with this kind of advantage, what's the point?"
Joseph nods, and smiles evilly. "Good. 'Cause the night ain't over yet."

Web Weaving by Argante D.H. © 1997-2005
Content Development by Argante D.H. © 1992-2005

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