manicmuser87

[manicmuser87]

Chapter 6 - Parlour Chats

So this chapter is Boris explaining himself to his girls. I kind of wanted to show the impact of Boris's actions on his existing Coven, show how reckless he was and also give a chance to get to know Maggie, Dora and Volkov a bit better before Adrian wakes up.

Boris reached the parlour, just as the crows' harsh cries filled the chilly pre-dawn air. He’d had enough time to put on a fresh shirt and wipe the worst of the blood from his face and chest. Most of his wounds had closed, but there was still a pink and puckered area on his chest where the holy water had burned him. It was weeping a little. The wound from the silver chain was worse, and it itched like hell. What he craved most was a steaming bath, then the soft velvet of his bed, but his daughters awaited. Both of them were perched in the tall leather chairs by the dimming fire. Maggie sat quietly, sipping blood from a crystal glass, her countenance unruffled. On her command, her maid poured a drink for him, offering it with a gentle hand. It was thoughtful of Maggie, and he would have expected nothing less from her. Dora on the other hand, he frowned, noticing her deliberately flick the ash from her cigarette over the woollen rug. Her back was very straight, left leg crossed over right, and she stared into the embers, furiously puffing on her cigarette. She had not acknowledged him.

“Leave us,” Boris muttered to the maid as he accepted his glass from her. She brushed past him, her eyes down but burning with curiosity. He drained the glass quickly, suppressing the moan when he felt the blood warm his tired bones. It was good, but not enough. He no longer felt like a walking corpse, just a very tired man. He poured himself another glass, waiting for the girl to leave.

As soon as the door clicked shut, Boris braced for his quick-tempered youngest to rush at him, but Dora sat oddly silent. Her blue eyes were distant, lost in thought. It was Maggie who broke the silence.

“Papa, what happened tonight?”

Boris sighed, sinking into a chair, the glass heavy in his hand. “I misjudged a situation,” he began, voice raw with the admission. “The boy attacked me. He crossed a line.” He ran his hand over his still-healing neck, flicking a ragged bit of skin into the fire. Maggie's eyes drifted to his collar, her face uneasy, but she remained silent, waiting for her sire to continue.

Boris’s voice was slow and measured, chasing each word carefully. “Adrian was unhinged. He has been deteriorating. I had no choice but to drain him.” Boris paused, thinking of the way that Adrian had looked as he tortured him, the glazed look in his eyes as his knife scored his chest, and how his breath had quickened, not merely with effort, but with a gleeful edge, a tinge of mania that had both chilled and excited Boris. 

“Why did you turn him, though?” Dora’s voice rang out from the fireplace, pushing him out of his memories. She still wouldn’t look at him.

The photo of Fionnula staring at him from the bomb shelter floor burned in his memory. “I meant to kill him,” Boris said, “but, I saw Fionnula’s face and I couldn’t let him die.” The words were true, that was how it had happened, but somehow he felt like he was being dishonest.

Maggie said nothing, but her gaze lingered on him, unblinking. She knew when he was telling the truth, and when he was hiding behind it. Fionnula had brought out a lighter side of her sire. After her death, Papa had withdrawn into a deep melancholy, and his fascination with “the Boy” was the only thing that had brought him back to life. She had tolerated it. That had been her mistake. Now Papa's fascination was looking more and more like an obsession, and they would all have to deal with the consequences.

“What are we going to do about the Queen?” Maggie asked quietly, her hand reaching out for his. He took it, too old and proud to look grateful, but she felt it in the tight clasp of his fingers.

She was mentally trying to figure out how it was going to work with two young, needy fledglings in their home. There was a reason there was a rule about one fledgling every century. She could only go so far with Dora, and she was nervous of the intensity with which she had seen her sire regarding Adrian. She decided she would send for John, her oldest brother. Ask him to come home and help, just for the next hundred years while things settled.

“I will write to the Queen tomorrow and explain," Boris said, his stomach sinking as he thought of his sire. "She has shown leniency for others who have committed larger crimes. If I prove Adrian strengthens our legacy, she will have no cause to deny him.” Boris smiled, but it was strained. “We will be fine, yes?” He glanced at Dora, taken aback to see the dark glare she was directing at Maggie, betrayal etched all over her face. Her shoulders stiffened as she felt his stare, and she whipped her head towards him.

“You shoulda bumped him off after he torched our house,” she snapped, taking a long drag of her cigarette. “Why’d you make us trail that brat here, Pa? He was nothing to us. Nothing! Now he is here. In our house. What happens if he wants to cook us all again, you think about that, huh?” She had seen the hate in that kid’s eyes that long-ago night when he had broken into their house and couldn’t understand her father’s reluctance to remove the threat he posed.

“He was never nothing.” Boris slammed the glass onto the table, blood spilling hot over his knuckles. His voice dropped, rough with old grief. “He’s Fionnula’s brother.”

Dora met his gaze, her face flushed. “You think I don’t miss her too?” Her voice cracked, all the hard edges gone. For a moment she looked lost, then she glanced at Boris’s scarred neck. “That kid is not like her. He wants us dead.”

Boris watched her, saw the quiver at the corner of her mouth, the way her foot tapped the air. He knew her sharp words hid her fear. If it was true defiance he would have shut her down, but this was different. She had never handled change well. He wanted to tell her she was right, that the boy was a danger, perhaps even more so now that he belonged to them, but none of that would change what was necessary. He rubbed the back of his hand over his jaw, feeling the uneven, tender skin where Adrian’s chain had burnt him, and let the silence fall between them.

It was Maggie who finally broke the spell. She set her drink decidedly on the table, drawing her sire’s eyes.

“Will he be safe, Papa?” She looked at Boris, her brown eyes boring into his, searching for answers. She pressed on. “The laws are clear: A sane mind, prepared, and loyal, and he is none of these. Dora is right. Without securing his loyalty how do we know Adrian will not kill us in our sleep?”

Boris closed his eyes for a moment, searching for the answer inside the tired ache at the base of his skull. It was true he had broken all the ancient covenants by turning Adrian without preparation, or consent, or any of the conditioning rituals. He had acted not with reason, but with something far more dangerous: impulse. But it would not do for his daughters to know that. Boris waved a weary hand dismissively, his patience strained. Maggie’s questions were the same as his own. Boris would not know the answers for sure until Adrian woke. No mater what happened, however the chips fell, Boris needed the support of his daughters, not their questions.

“You will help me rehabilitate him,” Boris said, fixing his gaze on them both. “It’s not optional.” He hated the need to say it aloud, to fall back on the ancient, parental prerogative, but he saw Dora gearing up to rebel and pre-empted her, his tone flat. “If you can’t, or won’t, say it now, and I will see you placed elsewhere until Adrian is stable.” It hurt, even as he said it, to threaten her with exile.

Dora’s hands coiled to fists and unclenched again, her fingers pale against the ivory of her cigarette holder. She said nothing, but she pressed her lips together so hard they turned white. After a long moment she gave a sharp, almost jerking nod and turned away, studying a crack in the mantel as if it were the most fascinating thing in the world.

He didn’t want to leave it like this with Dora, but he had no choice. He’d brought Adrian in, and now they would all have to adapt. He met Maggie’s eyes, just as the rooster crowed. Within the next 24 hours, Adrian would wake, and the first meeting would decide everything.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

On the third floor, Volkov paced the corridor, his footfalls measured and soft. At every faint sound behind the door he stopped and listened, breath held. Old habits, hard to break. The boy lay in the guest bed, pale in a nest of silk and velvet blankets. They had cleaned him as best they could, but red still ringed his neck and arms. His lips parted in sleep, revealing the lengthened canines. The sight made Volkov’s skin crawl.

He didn’t like the boy. Didn’t trust the raw, bruised hunger etched into his face, even unconscious. He had seen fledglings turn rabid, or worse, spiral into madness. With this one’s history, he would wager on madness.

If it were his decision, he would stake him now and be done with it. But it wasn’t.

Boris’s warning rang in his mind: Do not disturb him. So Volkov sat outside the door, waiting for the boy to wake. He didn’t know what kind of creature would open its eyes in that bed, only that part of him prayed he would never find out.

[manicmuser87]

Just reblogging this in case I need later!!!!

Simple limited HTML codes for Ao3 writers (because really, the tutorials help no one)

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[manicmuser87]

First Ever Kudos!!!

Look, I don't write for anyone else apart from me, but I am not gonna lie, it is nice to get some feedback!!! I just got a kudos on my AO3 - so happy.

[manicmuser87]

Chapter five - Homecoming - or Actions have Consequences.

Boris made a rash decision, now he has to face his household in the aftermath.

Warning: Boris carries around Adrian's body like a sack of spuds for almost the whole chapter while complaining internally about how tired he is....well if you put the boy down Boris, then you would be much more comfortable. Also there are gossiping servants.

Song is "Sweet but Psycho" - Ava Max, Because we are introducing Dora here - and her character was legit based on this song.

If you would rather read on A03 - I finally made an account: https://archiveofourown.org/works/69647371/chapters/180680146

Chapter 5: Homecoming

A Tudor Manor House - London

Boris’s breath was strained by the time he reached his home on the outskirts of London.  He had pushed himself to reach the manor before dawn’s first light.  His body ached with the lingering effects from the silver and the holy water. His burns itched. Adrian was a dead weight in his arms, slowing his steps even further. He was grateful when the old manor loomed, the familiar spires appearing through the trees.  The house was protected behind a thick stone fence, its gothic grandeur thankfully untouched by the recent war.  Boris glanced to the sky, noting how it had lightened slightly from a pitch dark to a deep navy, the first warning of dawn.  By his reckoning, he still had at least an hour and half before the sun breached the horizon.

At the perimeter wall, Boris shifted Adrian over his shoulder, clasping an arm around the back of his knees to pin him in place. Climbing one-handed, he weighed his next problem. A royal-blooded leader didn’t simply create a fledgling without the Queen’s blessing. A letter would need to go out, some careful explanation offered. Normally, Boris kept the rules like scripture. Surely the Queen would see this slight as an exception rather than a rebellion. 

Chest heaving with the effort, Boris reached the top of the wall and sat for a moment to rest.  The fight had taken more out of him than he’d realised. He was both physically and visibly spent. Boris couldn’t even hide the mess of blood and wounds on his torso to protect his dignity, because that blasted boy had ripped open the front of his shirt, leaving all of his injuries exposed. The silver burn around his neck was particularly vicious, the skin red, black, and flaking.  

Adrian looked even worse, his face a mottle of red smears and bruises. His hair was matted with blood and his clothes were drenched in it.  

For a moment Boris considered the servants’ entrance, but quickly discounted the idea. Slipping in like a thief would make the boy appear to be something shameful, a secret to be hidden. That would undermine his authority. He would have to face the main door. 

The patrol guard appeared from the shadows, gave a sharp nod when he recognised Boris, then moved on. Boris had been seen. That meant there was no turning back.

He glanced up at the manor.  All the lights were on, his daughters would still be awake.  Dora and Maggie.  They would not be pleased with him bringing the boy home, and would be horrified to learn that he was now their brother. Boris pulled Adrian back to his chest, groaning as his overworked muscles screamed at him. He leapt lightly from the top of the wall, landing in a crouch.

As Adrian’s head settled against his shoulder, Boris thought of the fire the boy had set five years ago in Rathmines.  Dora, his youngest fledgling was too young to wake by day and had to be carried by Maggie through the wine cellar’s hidden passage, staying in the tunnels until nightfall.  Maggie’s favourite maid had died, disintegrated to ash in the flames.

Even now, with every reason to despise him, Boris could not bring himself to destroy Fionnula's little brother, but he knew his daughters would not be so generous. His arms tightened briefly on Adrian before he forced them still.

Taking a deep breath and steadying himself, Boris pushed open the heavy oak door and stepped into the opulent foyer.  His senses were immediately assaulted by the sweet tang of jasmine and nicotine.

Dora.  

She came at him fast, her blonde curls bouncing, sequins reflecting in the light with each sharp click of her heels.  She was his flapper child, embodying the best and the worst parts of that decade in a tiny vivacious package. From the pout of her lips, to her ivory cigarette holder, she was pure Prohibition glamour, the sort who could dance all night and wink at the cops as they closed the place down.

Her arms twitched upward, halfway to a hug, then she froze. Her quick blue eyes dismissed the body in his arms, and focused on her sire.  She gasped the state of him: the torn coat, the burn raw and blistered at his neck, his blood spattered face.

“Pop,” she breathed, “you look like you’ve been through the wringer!”

Boris instinctively shifted back before he could think, angling his body to shield Adrian. The flicker of hurt on Dora’s face made him swear inwardly, especially when her focus snapped to what he was protecting. 

Her face blanched, then twisted in recognition, her lip lifting in a snarl. She started to sink back into a crouch when a firm hand gripped her shoulder. The touch alone was enough to remind Dora where she was and who she was challenging.

She didn’t need to look to know it was Maggie, her older sister, pulling her back. Dora was shaking with shock, her fledgling energy barely under control. 

“Dora, sweetheart, let Papa catch his breath. He has just arrived,” Maggie said softly but with quiet authority. The undertone was clear: calm yourself down before you cause a spectacle.

Dora reached frantically for her cigarettes, pulled one out, then struggled to light it, fingers trembling so violently that she almost dropped the match.

What had Papa done?

Boris eyed Dora warily.  He noticed servants starting to peek around the doorway.  His jaw clenched.  He needed to maintain control.

Not for the first time, he thanked the gods for Maggie, his second-eldest fledgling, who kept his household with precision and efficiency. Her touch alone had calmed Dora. That quiet authority , which reflected his own, was why he had turned her, why he had always relied on her, and why he would need her now more than ever

He acknowledged her now, meeting her eyes and offering her a tight smile. “Thank you moya dorogaya.”  

She returned the smile, but her eyes were cold, and Boris knew that she was also displeased.  He let out a sigh. It was rare he angered both of his daughters in the same night.

Dora took a long drag, then exhaled shakily, the smoke curling around her head.  She tapped her fingers against the ivory cigarette holder, a sign of anxious energy.  Her eyes never left Adrian, fixed on him like she couldn’t risk letting him vanish from her sight.

Boris’s gaze swept the room, hunting for Volkov, his personal guard. He needed Adrian upstairs. Away. Now. But Dora’s voice cut across his thoughts.

“I know that kid,” she declared, looking at her sire with a betrayed expression. “That’s Fionnula’s brother, the little monster who burned down our house.” She paused, her fangs flashing in her unease.  “Why have you brought him here?”   

Boris let his gaze bore into his youngest, a silent warning.  He knew how she worked. Her flamboyant persona, her little affectations were a mask she hid herself behind. But he was her sire. He made her. He could see through her façade, and she was terrified. He felt a pang of empathy.  She had been the one most affected by the fire. She had been helpless to save herself.  By rights he should have killed Adrian back then, but he could not, bound by a promise. He hadn’t realised how the boy had haunted her. A part of him wanted to pull her close and calm her, but there were too many servants, multiplying by the second, and she was challenging his authority.  He couldn’t let it stand.

 “Dora, enough.”  Boris said, sharper than he intended, his eyes glancing at Maggie for support,  but Dora continued, unaware of her audience.

“Is he dead?” She asked, trying to get closer to the body. At that exact moment, Adrian let out a low groan, his fluttering eyelids briefly showing an incriminating flash of crimson.  Dora jumped back as if she had been scalded. Her voice cracked into a gasp,  “You turned him!” Dora’s accusation sparked a ripple of murmurs among the servants, their hushed voices buzzing in Boris’s ears as they crowded the edges of the foyer. Close to the action, but not too close.

Boris realised he was in the rare situation where his control was not absolute. He needed to reassert his authority and fast.  He focused on the internal cord tethering him to Dora. Just the lightest pressure and she jolted.  Maggie came up behind her, her hand supporting her sister, preventing her from falling.

“Hush now Dora.” Boris’s voice was steel, but exhaustion etched his features. He then turned to the servants, pushing down his weariness, reminding them who was in charge.  He finally saw Volkov, appearing like a shadow in the doorway, and their eyes met. Five centuries of battles, betrayals, and survival passed silently between them in that look. Boris inclined his head, a gesture they both understood, and Volkov moved towards him.

Boris commanded all of their attention, and in that moment he made a snap decision, his voice firm despite his fatigue.

“Adrian is my heir." He announced. "You will all treat him with the respect his station demands.”  He ignored the gasp from Dora and the way Maggie’s eyes burned into the side of his head. 

Volkov was now standing beside him, and he handed Adrian over. The boy’s head lolled back in his guard’s arms, exposing his throat. The tell-tale puncture wounds stood stark, shining red and raw. 

Boris tried not to think about how empty his arms felt. He muttered some quick quiet instructions to Volkov. “Take him.  Bathe and change him and prepare the third-floor room.”  His guard nodded at every directive. Before he turned to go, Boris called him back,  “Volkov, guard him. Alert me the moment he wakes.” 

With an inward shudder, Boris registered the servants’ shifting unease, the tightening of shoulders, the way Volkov’s brows knitted, wary as he supported Adrian’s weight. Even asleep, Adrian looked raw and hostile, a patch of dried blood congealing under his nose, hair matted across his brow in blood-soaked clumps. 

He waited as his guard bundled Adrian up the spiral stairs, noting the careful arc Volkov took to steer clear of Dora’s reach, and the lingering glare she shot after them.

Then he turned to the crowd that had gathered in the foyer.  The servants.  His daughters. For the first time in a long time, he wished he was anywhere but in front of a household of staff.

He addressed his daughters first.  “Moi docheri,” he said, voice rich with paternal warmth that left no room for refusal. “Go to the parlour and wait for me. I will change, and then we will speak…properly.”

Maggie nodded, but he saw in her body language, the way she held her head, that she was furious. Too well trained to challenge him in public, she hid her anger behind a rigid obedience.

“Of course, Papa,” she said smoothly. “Come, Dora.” Dora followed reluctantly, her heels sharp on the marble, her cigarette burning low.

Boris sighed as they ascended, then turned to the servants still lingering in the foyer. He frowned at them, his face impatient.

“Back to your duties. Anyone who disturbs the boy will be destroyed.”  It was not an empty threat, and they knew it.  The servants scattered. Boris watched until the last one was gone, then drew a slow breath.  He thought about Dora’s terrified anger and Maggie’s restrained coldness.  

Shoulders squaring, he started up the stairs.  Whatever storm waited in the parlour, it would be faced on his terms.

Russian Translations:

Moi docheri: My daughters

moya dorogaya: My dear

[manicmuser87]

Working on this chapter now!

It is a beautiful sunny Sunday. I should be out enjoying the end of winter and the spring-like weather - but I am stuck - because Boris needs to get Adrian home!!! (It just took me two hours to get these three paragraphs done)

At the perimeter wall Boris shifted Adrian over his shoulder, clasping an arm around the back of his knees to pin him in place. Climbing one-handed, he weighed his next problem: the coven. A royal-blooded leader didn’t simply create a fledgling without the Queen’s blessing. A letter would need to go out, some careful explanation offered. Normally, Boris kept the rules like scripture, surely the Queen would see this as an exception rather than a rebellion. 

Chest heaving with the effort, Boris reached the top of the wall and sat for a moment to rest.  The fight had taken more out of him than he’d realised, both physically and visually. Boris couldn’t even hide the mess of blood and wounds on his torso to protect his dignity, because that blasted boy had ripped open the front of his shirt leaving all of his injuries exposed.  The silver burn around his neck was particularly vicious, the skin red black and flaking.  Adrian looked even worse, his face a mottle of red smears and bruises, hair was matted with blood and his clothes were drenched in it.  

For a moment Boris considered the servants’ entrance, but quickly discounted the idea. slipping in like a thief would make the boy appear to be something shameful, a secret to be hidden. That would undermine his authority. He would have to face the main door. The guard appeared from the shadows, gave a sharp nod, and moved on. Boris had been seen. That meant there was no turning back.

[manicmuser87]

Chapter 4 - Transformation

So the first four chapters deal with Adrian's turning. This was the core idea (the turning scene and the waking scene) that these characters were based on when I was a teen. It is non-consensual. Adrian desperately does not want to be a vampire. I wanted to put that psychological horror of having your body act out of your control. I wanted it to be horrifying with erotic undertones - because that is what vampirism is to me - both Adrian and Boris are not cute fluffy vampires. They are both dangerous. The symbolism in the end of the photo in the bomb shelter is that is Adrian's humanity, discarded.

Anyway - If anyone reads this - I hope you like hanging out with my head monsters.

Song: Change (in the house of flies) - Deftones - and yes I am a Queen of the Damned fan. Sue me.

Chapter 4 - Transformation

Adrian’s back pressed into the cold concrete; the air crushed from his lungs. The vampire loomed over him, his eyes burning with a hunger that chilled Adrian’s blood. The broken silver chain lay discarded on the ground, a mocking reminder of his failed trap.  His heart thundered, each beat a desperate plea for escape.

Then Boris’s thumb dug cruelly into the wound on Adrian’s arm, and pain flared like a million shards of glass tearing through his muscles and tendons. He shook violently. Wooziness clouded his vision, his eyes rolling back on the verge of a blackout. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t move. Just trapped beneath the vampire’s solid weight, suffocating in the agony of his own defeat.

Boris ripped the cross from Adrian’s neck, the chain snapping like a thread. Leaning close, he lowered his head, hair brushing against his cheek. His voice was low in Adrian’s ear, “Is this how you imagined it would end?” 

Adrian’s head rolled back, and Boris wrenched him back into consciousness, hand clamping around Adrian’s jaw, squeezing until his teeth ground together. Adrian smelled the pungent-sweet scent of the vampire’s breath, cold and wrong. Boris’s lips parted, exposing a glimpse of wet pink tongue, and those evil fangs, more animal than human. He said nothing, and somehow that was more terrifying.

A scream built in his chest, but all that came out was a strangled gasp. He thrashed, hands reaching blindly for anything, his knife, debris, the shards from the jar he’d smashed. His fingertips grazed glass, but then Boris jerked Adrian's head up and back, exposing his throat. The world spun. Adrian’s neck burned with a line of heat as the vampire’s teeth found purchase. Pressure. A wet pop and then there was only the sound of his pulse breaking into a harsh staccato.

The first pull of blood was savage but shallow, tearing, as if Boris meant to drag out the last shreds of his resistance through the veins. A sharp pain burned in Adrian’s chest, making him gasp. His arms spasmed in panic, his back arching as his muscles twitched violently. Boris paused suddenly, forehead resting in the crook of Adrian’s shoulder with an intimacy that mimicked a lover. Adrian shuddered in revulsion as Boris pulled back, slowly licking the blood from his lips.  He closed his eyes as if he savoured the taste. 

“Holy water in your blood little hunter?” There was a strange sort of fondness in the vampire’s tone. He bent down, taking another mouthful as Adrian convulsed, arms pinned to his sides by Boris’s iron grip. His body was held upright only by the vampire’s merciless strength. “Shame it won’t save you,” Boris murmured, licking his lips. Then he bit deeper, cruelly slicing the artery.

Adrian screamed, his life gushing into Boris’s throat, each gulp a torturous pull ripping the blood from all the muscles and tissues of his body. All his senses blurred, a cold delirium swirling over everything. He tried to think of Fionnula, of the sunlight on her freckles.  He tried to say her name. His jaw wouldn’t move.  A blackness slithered in at the edges. Boris tightened his hold, and Adrian’s body writhed, buckled, subsided. Blood dribbled warm onto his collarbone. 

Boris eased him down, letting his limp body collapse to the concrete in a broken sprawl. His face paled to the colour of ashes. Cold, so cold, was his last conscious thought before his vision faded and he slipped into darkness.  

As his body rolled, helpless, the photo of his family fell from his coat, fluttering onto the floor beside him.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Boris sat back wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. The blood he’d ingested knitted his wounds, restoring his strength. He gazed at the hunter sprawled like a shattered husk on the concrete.  Hidden under the spatters of blood and smears of gore was a soft beardless face. A boy, just on the cusp of manhood.  Adrian’s eyelids fluttered, still fighting for his life even now. His breath was a rattling wheeze, his heartbeat was slow and stuttering.

Boris felt a reluctant surge of admiration. The boy had been a worthy opponent. It was rare to come across a human with such a strong will. 

Something pale caught his eye. Next to Adrian’s outstretched hand lay a photograph, crumpled but unmistakable. He picked it up, his expression softening with recognition at Fionnula’s smile. He remembered how she had loved her brother. She always spoke of him with pride and yet, the boy before him bore no similarity to the charming, mischievous little brother that Fionnula had often mentioned. The years of isolation had changed Adrian, made him into something crueller and darker.

His hand brushed the raw wound at his own throat, wincing at the sting. The boy had got him good. The silver burns would take days to heal.

“He is not as you remembered,” Boris murmured. He missed her.  She had been his.  Gone now, yet in Adrian’s sharp cheekbones and expressive eyes, he saw her echo.  But this boy’s youthful beauty was a mask, hiding an awful darkness, a danger which stirred in him both dread and the excitement of possibility. So much raw potential here. He would make a formidable weapon, could he be tamed and tempered.

Boris hesitated, his hand hovering over Adrian’s pale face before withdrawing, a shiver of unease flowing through him.  He was still alive, but he would not be for long.  Frowning he tried to calculate how Adrian would fit into his coven.  He’d not performed any rituals or rites; the boy was not tamed. And he was young.  Not ready.  

His gaze returned to Fionnula, frozen in the photograph, a younger facsimile of Adrian holding her shoulder protectively.  He looked to the boy again, imagining what he could be.  He was everything Fionnula wasn’t:  Cold, lethal, underestimated.  His.  

That last thought was pushed down, an unnecessary indulgence. Completely irrelevant.

Fionnula would have wanted Adrian to live, not die in this concrete tomb, Boris was sure of it. He ignored the part of his brain that reminded him that she had rejected this. That she would not want her brother to live like this.  That part of him had died with her. The decision had already crystallised in his mind. He would turn him. Though even as he made that choice, a chill of dread whispered that the darkness he’d sensed in the boy might be a force that even he could not control.

He reached for Adrian’s discarded knife, squatting down next to the now fully passed out boy. He could have used his fangs, but he found it pleasingly more poetic to use Adrian’s own weapon against him.  Boris sliced his arm along the vein, deep enough for the blood to well and glisten.  He raised the boy’s head gently, letting the blood drip hot against Adrian’s parted lips.  “Drink,” he whispered, his voice a low command.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Adrian blinked, Boris’s voice pushing him back to consciousness. His brain was fuzzy,  his mouth was wet.  Why was it wet?  He looked up, his eyes struggling to focus but when they finally did, and he saw the vampire leaning over him, the horror surged through his body paralysing him.  Boris was cradling his head.  His mouth was full with foul taste of the vampire’s blood.  Suddenly,  Rosa’s warning rang like an alarm bell in his head: Never taste their blood, it will make you their slave.  

He spat, gagging, trying to shove Boris’s arm away from his face, but it was as hard and unmoving as iron.  His fingers slipped in the warm, gushing blood.  He couldn’t’ get purchase.  He spat again. “No!” he choked as the red drool dribbled down his chin, pooling at his throat. His green eyes blazed with defiance.

 A terrifying rumble came from the chest of the vampire.  Was he growling? Purring?! Adrian felt sick, but he wasn’t sure if it was fear or disgust.  The sour taste clung to his tongue choking his senses.  He retched, body arching.  Boris’s grip tightened on him.

“Do not fight this, moy malen’kiy okhotnik,” the vampire murmured, an attempt at soothing that did anything but.  The wound on his wrist had closed against Adrian’s unyielding mouth. With a hiss of impatience, Boris slashed it open again. He seized Adrian’s chin, using his thumb and forefinger to squeeze the soft flesh of his cheeks so hard that Adrian thought his skull was going to burst open.  His lips were forced back, but he clamped his jaw firmly shut. 

Adrian thrashed, the movement causing pain to flare sharp in his neck, as his head was still caught in the vampire’s vice like grip.  His vision was going spotty from lack of air.  He tried to catch a breath through clenched teeth, but drew only another mouthful of blood. He spat frantically, crimson drops spraying Boris’s arm and face.

“Not this,” he choked, horror etching his voice. “Kill me…”  His plea cut off as Boris slammed his wrist closer against his mouth. 

"And waste all this potential?” Boris growled, his tone dark and possessive. Potential for what?  Adrian wanted to ask, but he was pretty sure he knew the answer. His struggle intensified as frantic thoughts tore through his mind. He couldn’t swallow, couldn’t lose himself to this monster.  He pictured Renfield from Dracula  a broken slave, craving lives, grovelling at his master’s feet.  No, I can’t be that, he thought, I’ll die first.  He resolved not to swallow, to hold his breath until his body gave out. 

His mouth filled with blood and saliva. With a desperate choke his throat betrayed him, a reflexive swallow. Adrian tried to retch again, but there was nothing left. It was inside of him now, absorbing into his blood stream. His body revolted, arching in resistance, but every clench in his throat only dragged more of the parasite blood deeper. He didn’t want it God, he didn’t want it, but the taste was getting stranger, not sweet and foul anymore but metallic and something inside him started to enjoy it.

A searing pleasurable warmth was racing down his legs, electric and alive, igniting his arms, pulsing through his chest, unstoppable.  When it struck his brain, his thoughts shattered, clouding into chaos, ensnared by the alien blood binding his cells.

Boris released his jaw, patting his cheek gently.  Adrian jerked backwards trying to get some distance, to maintain some control. His eyes widened in terror, a guttural snarl escaping as his body trembled with a craving he despised. “Get… it… out o’ me,” he slurred, trying desperately to cling to reason. His will was fraying, hanging on by a thread, stuck in a loosing battle against the insidious urge to seek more. 

Boris had moved away from him and was now leaning against the beam, his gaze steady with quiet satisfaction.  The changing expressions on Adrian’s face entertained him.  There was something exquisite about watching someone war with themselves and knowing with certainty what side would win.  Adrian’s eyes glazed over as the blood took hold, becoming something more animal than human.  Boris smiled, remembering his own turning centuries ago, the relentless pull of his sire’s blood, and knew a single sip was enough to begin binding Adrian to him. 

Shivering and panting, Adrian’s drugged gaze found Boris’s, then locked in. He was wild with desperate thirst yet burning with defiance. “More,” he rasped, the plea torn against his will, only to choke it back with a savage growl, refusing to yield fully.

“Come to me then,” Boris coaxed, extending his wrist. Adrian’s defiance flickered, each throb of Boris’s blood in his veins whispered promises of relief, of power, if he would only surrender. The thirst overwhelmed him, drawing him inexorably toward Boris. With a shuddering breath, his resistance crumbled, his body sagging as the fight drained away, leaving only a desperate need.

Adrian rolled onto his stomach, too weak to stand.  He pulled himself across the dusty concrete toward Boris’s boots, his eyes never leaving his target.

A sharp stone bit into his palm as he rose laboriously to his knees. The sudden sting sliced through the haze in his mind. Jesus help me. He moaned in horror at the cold realization that was kneeling submissively at the vampire’s feet. Begging. He fell backward, the rough concrete scraping his hands, grounding him in a fleeting moment of clarity as tears streamed down his cheeks.

“I… don’t want this,” he pleaded, his voice breaking, a silent beg for death. Boris heard Adrian’s heart racing. So fast. So fragile.  

Boris crouched before him, his posture softening as he reached his finger out to catch a tear, an offer of comfort.  Adrian flinched violently, pulling back in revulsion.

“Please…,”  he begged, straining to drag himself away.  Desperate for something, anything other than this. This humiliation. This need. But he couldn’t seem to control his own limbs, his body betraying him.

Boris ignored the rejection. He would have Adrian begging for him soon enough.  Very soon.   He sat next to Adrian companionably, so close that their thighs brushed gently together.  “Stay,” he whispered, weaving compulsion through his tone, and Adrian found he couldn’t move away. Couldn’t think about moving. The thought just dissolved, leaving him blank and still.

Slowly and methodically Boris exposed the pale skin of his forearmt, resting the back of his hand on the knee closest to Adrian.  Adrian shifted to a sitting position, his interest piqued despite himself.  Boris reached for Adrian’s knife and ran the sharp tip of it along his inner wrist, the blade grazing teasingly across the purple vein without breaking the skin.

Adrian’s gaze locked on the knife, his parched lips pouting as Boris slid the blade back and forth in a smooth hypnotic motion.  He pressed it in, just a little harder each time, but never quite piercing.  The vein swelled and pulsed, darkening under the vampire’s pale skin. Adrian found himself wanting, no, needing to see the blood, to smell it, to taste it. His tongue pressed against the back of his teeth, the saliva filling his mouth. He felt lightheaded. He couldn’t think anymore, only feel.

“Please,” he rasped again, this time his breath was ragged with want.   

Boris thought about torturing him.  He could hold back until he went mad for it.  He could make him beg like a dog.  But something made him pause.  Maybe it was the pure desperation already etched on the boy’s face, or the way there was a hint of defiance and shame in the flush of his cheeks.  Maybe it was just that at this moment, he held complete power over him already.  Whatever the reason, he showed mercy, dragging the blade across his swollen vein. The vein opened, dark blood flowing in a ribbon down his arm.  The scent crashed over Adrian like a drug, his pupils dilating, as he lost all sense of control.  But he still couldn’t move, didn’t want to.  

Boris brought his wrist up to Adrian’s lips. “You want it?”  He asked, and Adrian nodded frantically.  “Take it, then, malysh,” he whispered, releasing his hold on him.  Adrian lunged, hands gripping on for dear life.  His lips  sealed  over the healing wound.  

The taste was much more intense this time. A fever-pitch metallic sweetness burning a path through his throat. The world reeled. Each swallow yanked him further from himself, stripping away shame and filling the void with raw, animal pleasure. The dull agony in his veins mutated into an electric longing. Admitting it even to himself would have been another defeat, so he clamped his mouth tighter, desperate to control just this: to draw only as much as would keep him alive, not enough for the chains. With every pulse, the blood thinned the distance between them. He could feel Boris’s tremor where their skin touched, his own hands locked in a manic grip on the vampire’s wrist. He hated the way his jaw worked, the way his tongue lapped at the wound, insistent and greedy. It was depraved, but to stop would be worse.  Adrian drank deeply, each gulp a torrent of warmth, his body shuddering with forbidden ecstasy. 

Boris cradled his head, fingers threading gently through matted hair, touch soft as a lover’s. “Easy, moy okhotnik,” Boris murmured, his voice soothing as he tilted Adrian’s face upward.  “You’re mine now.”  Adrian’s face twisted, revulsion clashing with pleasure. His eyes flickered back and forth from green to crimson as the blood’s addictive heat sank its hooks deep into his brain and chest, connecting them in an irrevocable bond.   

Boris steadied him, but Adrian sagged limply into his lap, fingers curling and uncurling in Boris’s shirt, clawing for leverage, for dignity, as a damning heat swept over him. His whole body bristled with static, a burst of awareness erupting beneath the skin. He had always imagined death as cold and slow, heavy with regret never this blooming radiance, feverish and obscene, like every cell in his body begging for one more taste.  Boris’s hand lingered at the nape of his neck, grounding him through it. He brushed a thumb across Adrian’s brow, a repulsive tenderness that felt more violation than violence.

“Sleep.” Adrian slumped further, his head lolling back against Boris’s armpit. He was so tired. He had a thousand things to say, all of them urgent, but his mouth wouldn’t work and his eyes slid closed, the world squeezing down to a red-lit tunnel.  

Boris picked him up as if he weighed nothing.  He paused for a moment, looking at the gaunt pale face of the boy he had defeated, then claimed, his expression unreadable.  He carefully inspected the boy’s damaged arm, noting the bleeding had ceased.  Then pulling Adrian closer against his chest, he ascended the bomb shelter’s stairs into the cool moonlight.  

The shelter was silent again. In its shadows a crumpled photograph of a smiling girl and her brother lay forgotten.

[manicmuser87]

Chapter 3 - Will you come into my parlour said the spider to the fly

Adrian finally confronts Boris- he is 19, terrified but driven by vengeance. Boris is curious about what this child who has chased him over the years is up to - so he indulges him, underestimates him and is then in for a bit of a torture session.

Warning: Depictions of torture, knife play, psychological mind games - blood and acid (holy water) - feedback helps me improve!!!!

AI drew the picture of Adrian as I cannot draw

When Adrian returned to the bomb shelter it was fully dark. He crumpled the last of the blood-soaked rags into balls, and threw them randomly about the shelter, hoping it would confuse the vampire and mask his location. Now all that was left to do was wait. He crouched against the wall. It was freezing. So cold he almost couldn’t stand it. He shivered, wrapping his coat tighter around himself. The silence in the shelter was broken only by the distant drip of water and the frantic thrum of his heart. He gripped the silver chain in his hands so tight that his palms went numb and his wrists ached.

The wound on his arm still throbbed. Adrian had removed the bandages, and now the fresh blood soaked his sleeve, stiffening the fabric, and filling the shelter with a pungent, almost sweet scent reminiscent of a butcher shop. It was so strong it was overwhelming, even to a human nose. Surely it would be enough to attract the vampire. The thought that this might be all was for nothing was not something he could cope with. Not right now. Not when the chance for vengeance could just be a heartbeat away. All he had to do was not screw it up. He thought of his sister, imagined her as a guardian angel watching over him and it made him feel less alone.

“Not long now Fi,” he whispered, and the silence swallowed the words, but saying them made the cold a little less sharp.

A crunch of gravel outside and he stilled, every nerve alert. The air seemed to freeze, even colder than before and that familiar knot started twisting in his belly. He was here. Adrian’s eyes searched frantically in the dim light, then he finally saw him: A formidable shadow silhouetted against the night sky. His boots scraped on the grime-coated stairs, as he descended closer and closer to Adrian’s hiding spot. Adrian pressed his back to the cold concrete, silently willing his heart to beat a little less loud. Rosa, an ever-present figure in his head, rasped out her sage advice. The only way for a human to defeat a vampire is to surprise him. He squeezed the chain in his hands, tighter now, feeling the cold bite of it through his gloves. His body was tense with nerves. It would be so easy to do it. Jump the monster now, but he held himself back, waiting for the exact right moment to strike.

The vampire paused suddenly, halfway down the stairs. Still not close enough. Adrian watched, breathless as it inhaled, deep and expectant, nostrils twitching at the gamey sweetness. Its lips drew back, exposing canines so white their tips glimmered in the dark.

“I can smell you from here, Ah-dree-ahn.” The way he said Adrian’s name, elongated and sing-song made it sound like an insult or worse, something intimate.

Adrian shifted, wedging himself deeper into the angle of the wall, every muscle locked. He felt the old familiar terror rising up in his throat but he pushed it down. No time for that now. He forced himself to measure his foe. To watch the gait of his step. Calculate how fast he could move. As the vampire’s boots landed on the concrete close to his head, Adrian felt his chest clench in anticipation. Just a little closer. Come on, come on. 

“I won’t bite if you come out,” the creature promised, taking another few steps forward.

Now! Adrian struck. With an accuracy which was eighty per cent luck and one hundred per cent pure adrenaline, he looped the heavy silver chain around the vampire’s neck, before yanking it taut.

The reaction was instant and violent. The vampire shrieked, thrashing against the burning links. The shelter was suddenly flooded with the sharp stink of burning flesh. Adrian had anchored the chain around a support post, and now he braced against it with all his weight. When the creature pulled, it only cinched the links tighter.

“Yes!” Adrian hissed in victory, but his thoughts raced along with his heart: I did it! It’s actually fucking working. I’ve got him! He did have him, but holding him? That was another matter entirely. His shoulders felt like they’d come out of their sockets. The vampire gave a sudden heave, which shook the beam and made dust fall from the ceiling.

Adrian clung on tight. One more surge like that and the chain might rip free. God. Don’t think about it. Don’t. He gritted his teeth to stop himself from screaming. The wound on his arm ripped wider in the struggle. Agony pulsed through him, causing his muscles to convulse. Sharp throbs radiated up to his shoulder. He didn’t know how much longer he could cling on before his muscles gave out, but the thought of what would happen if he let go kept him fighting.

The vampire finally staggered as the silver overwhelmed his body, sapping his strength. He sank to one knee with a guttural snarl. The pulling stopped giving Adrian’s arms a much needed reprieve.

It twisted to look at him, eyes glinting in the darkness. Adrian tried not to meet his gaze. Rosa had warned him that if a vampire’s eyes met yours, you lost your will before you even felt it was happening. Instead he kept his focus on maintaining the upper hand, on not letting his pain and blood loss get the better of him.

Now that he had the vampire caught, Adrian's body finally caught up with his mind. His hands shook, he felt dizzy, and nauseous, but he forced himself not to lose focus and he maintained his grip.

“You have gotten better at this,” the vampire croaked. Its voice was raw and Adrian noted with satisfaction that it was nothing like the smug tone from minutes ago. Not even close.

“Ye can mock me if ye like Victor, but yer the one burnin’,” Adrian snarled, as the cold sweat beaded on his brow.

“I’m not Victor,” the vampire choked.

Adrian twisted the chain tighter ignoring the sick throb in his arm, the feeling of wetness on his shirt sleeve.

“I know that already...Boris ,” he scoffed, “yers for eternity? When I am through wth ye, ye'll wish ye never clapped eyes on me sister!”!” He dragged the vampire closer to the beam, each tug grinding against charred flesh, the vampire’s knees tearing on the concrete.

Boris’s eyes narrowed “You’ve been reading my letters. Resourceful little hunter,” he paused, then a slow deliberate grin spread across his face. “It is a shame you never got to read what your sister wrote to me. Fionnula was quite....poetic."

The words bruised, as strong as a blow. He didn’t want to think of Fionnula’s writing letters to this... this thing. And that filthy smile on his face made him want to gouge the bastard's eyes out.

“You lie,” Adrian spat. But his voice came out thin, embarrassingly so, and the doubt crawled in, twisting into anger. How dare he.

The rage surged through Adrian, he yanked the chain roughly, forcing Boris flush against the beam. The silver bit into the vampire's neck, sapping his strength even further with every twitch. He strained and hissed as Adrian bound him tight to the beam, but each movement only deepened the burn. Taking a loop of chain from the other end, Adrian wound it under the vampire’s elbows and back around the post, pulling it tight. Now Boris’s arms were pinned to his sides, and any attempt to struggle would only drive the silver deeper into his skin.

Adrian, his own breath coming sharp and uneven, stepped back to look at his captive. He wasn’t so terrifying now, was he? This monster who had destroyed his life, his family, his childhood. The monster who had left his sister to die amongst the rubbish on the street.

“You have her eyes, you know,” Boris taunted, “Fionnula’s. Same fire. Same trembling hands.”

The eyes you closed forever, you bastard, Adrian thought, his hands clenching into fists. Boris’s words, her name in his mouth, opened something dark inside him, a cold fury dissolving his reason. His blood pounded in his ears. His vision tunnelled. All he could see was the smug grin on the monster’s face.

Adrian yanked his knife free from his boot. His eyes burned with unshed angry tears. Suddenly killing him wasn’t enough. He needed to hurt him. The blade of his knife ripped through Boris’s coat in savage, uneven jabs, buttons scattering across the floor. A pale flash of a silk shirt underneath made Adrian sneer in contempt. Fucking toff!

He made short work of the delicate material, tearing it with knife and hands, exposing a pale ribcage spotted with old scars. The blood soaking through his sleeve left red spatters on Boris's pale skin, but Adrian ignored it.

Up close, the vampire looked almost delicate, blue veins mapping the surface, glimmering with unnatural health. But Adrian was looking for new wounds something recent, something that would hurt. He hated this man. He wanted to hurt him more than he wanted to breathe.

He found a puckered seam along the collarbone. Without hesitating, he raked the knife edge along it, eliciting a yelp that ricocheted off the stone, louder than any human scream. Adrian smiled, grim and ugly, dragging the knife in a slow teasing caress across Boris’s chest. The skin split easily. The sight of vampire’s blood delighted him. He watched as it oozed, slow and viscous, leaving a dark trickle down the whiteness of his torso. Adrian wanted more.

“You think that will kill me?” Boris’s voice was strained, but his eyes were sharp. Watching him. Judging him.

“Rot in hell, you bastard,” Adrian growled, yanking a jar of holy water from his coat, his fingers brushing the vampire’s chained arm with a fleeting, possessive grip. He unscrewed the lid, his gaze locked on the vampire’s, green eyes clashing with jet black. Fire and Ice.

“Tell me why ye cut her throat?” Adrian's voice dropped, soft and dangerous, almost a whisper, as he leaned closer, the jar’s rim grazing his chest. “She was no harm to no one.”

“I didn’t kill her,” Boris said. He was calm. Too calm.

“Wrong answer,” Adrian poured the jar of holy water over Boris’s pale chest. It hissed and burned, making the skin bubble. It was horrifying but also fascinating to see how it reacted to the vampire's skin. Boris screamed, his body convulsing under the assault, muscles straining against the silver chains. Adrian’s nostrils flared, assaulted by the evil stench of scorched skin.

For a moment, Adrian lost himself in it, letting the last drops of holy water drip onto the melting flesh of the vampire's chest. The skin blistered and popped, like pancake batter on a hot skillet. He didn’t notice how Boris’s eyes flashed crimson, or how they flickered in recognition, noticing the sadistic fervour lighting Adrian’s face.

Adrian was muttering now, almost incoherently. The blood loss and pain from his wound compounded with the adrenaline of the fight had put him into an almost drunk-like state.

“All yer airs and graces.. pretending to be a gentle…hah a gentleman, but I saw through them…I saw you. I see what ye ...really are,” he rambled, pausing suddenly then hurling the empty holy water jar against the beam. The shattered glass rained down around them. The vampire watched silently.

“Ye had our …Fi... fooled, but ye don’t fool me,” Adrian slurred.

“Is that what you think.” Boris smiled, a deliberate provocation. “That I fooled her? I didn't need to. Fionnula knew what I was and she loved me for it.”

Adrian didn’t even pause. He grabbed his knife and drove it under the vampire’s ribs. Aiming upwards, hard. The knife caught for a moment on something unyielding, before tearing through with a sickening give. A gasp tore from Boris’s throat, sharp and wet. He shuddered, teeth bared, spattering dark red blood across Adrian’s sleeve.

Adrian jerked the knife free and drove it again, higher, finding the notch above the heart. He was shouting something, words lost to the roaring in his own ears. All the things he’d never said to Fionnula, all the apologies he’d rehearsed and discarded, all the prayers he’d swallowed. All of it there in the hateful, desperate rhythm of the knife in his hand. His momentum carried him forward, his body pressing against the vampire’s slumped form.

Boris gritted his teeth, a pained shudder racking his frame as the knife dug deep, his eyes never leaving Adrian’s, watching the hunter’s rage with predatory patience. Boris’s hands twisted behind him loosening the chain. It slackened slightly. Then a little more.

Adrian finally yanked his knife back, then paused, his eyes widening in horror as the wounds sealed in front of him, leaving bloodstained pale flesh. His vision was blurry, soft at the edges, chest heaving, he couldn't seem to catch his breath.

“Ye… really are a demon… aren’t ye?” he whispered. “Me sister…she would have never loved a demon.”

“And you are a child,” the vampire snapped. “A little boy, playing at being a hero. Your sister is dead, Adrian, dead and buried for five years now. You can’t save her.” The chain was loose enough now that Boris’s arms were no longer pinned at his side.

Adrian recoiled at the mention of his sister’s death. The vampire’s eyes shifted back and fourth across Adrians face as if it could read the heartache and desperation. Boris’s voice lowered, his eyes dangerous as they bored into Adrian's.  “If Fionnula could see you right now, which of us would she say was the monster?”

“You’re the monster!” Adrian screamed, jerking back like he'd been burned. His hand flew to his coat, yanking out the stake, brandishing it with a trembling grip. “Ye seduced her, then ye slit her throat!”

Boris tested the chain behind his back, but he kept his gaze locked on Adrian’s face, holding the boys attention where he needed it. The chain was no longer cutting into his neck.

“I didn’t need to slit her throat to get her blood, you idiot,” Boris growled.

Adrian drove the stake down, hard. aiming for the heart, wanting to see the light leave the vampire's eyes. But his arms weren’t strong enough. All of his muscles were twitching and trembling uncontrollably. The stake pierced the skin, then it lodged in bone. Not deep enough. And no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t push it further.

Boris’s face twisted in pain, lips bloodied but he didn’t scream. He just stared. Unflinching. And Adrian… wanted him to scream. Needed him to feel the same pain that had wrecked his insides since the day his sister had been found in that damn alley.

That realisation made him pause. His hands were slick with blood, some his, some not. The vampire’s chest rose and fell in shallow gasps, streaked with drying wounds that had already begun to seal. The stake slid out with a soft clatter.

Adrian stumbled back, bile rising. What am I becoming? Am I the monster?

That hesitation cost him.

With a metallic crack, Boris yanked off the chain, the silver blistering his hands. It clattered to the concrete floor. The sound snapped Adrian to attention. Too late. He slashed out, but his boots slipped on the blood-slick floor. He couldn’t get his balance, he was too dizzy. Boris was already on him, a blur of motion and force. Adrian hit the concrete hard, the impact jarring his spine, knocking the air from his lungs. Above him, the vampire loomed, fangs bared, the picture of menace.

“My turn,” Boris whispered.

[manicmuser87]

Chapter 2

Phew! So I can hyperfocus like a mother fu.... (ahem) Like a mother and I have just spent 12 hours straight on this chapter - trying to wrassle it into something that is more than fragmented thoughts and pretty poetic parts that I couldn't bare to part with. I was tough! My eyes are too blurry to look at it any more - so I am going to post it, then come back to it in a couple of days then edit it again.

So story notes: I kind of wanted chapter 1 and the start of this chapter to seem like Adrian could perhaps be a little unstable and projecting a "vampire" to help him cope with Fionnula's death. But by the end of this chapter I wanted to show that the threat is real.

Story warnings: Adrian cuts himself, not for self gratification but to attract a vampire - however the imagery might not be nice for some people. there is also grief, playing with knives and just general trauma as this kid tries to make sense of where he is and what he is planning.

If you do read this, please let me know if the Victor/Boris thing is confusing. It is something I am self conscious about.

Song: In the Shadows: the Rasmus

Chapter 2:

A man or a Monster?

The sun pushed through the London fog, red and low. The eerie light lengthened the shadows in the abandoned bomb shelter where Adrian crouched on the cold concrete. A tattered coat lay spread before him.  His hands steady, despite the feverish glint in his green eyes. Stakes, jars of holy water and a thick silver chain gleamed in the dimness. His knife caught the reflection of the light and he idly twisted it, enjoying how the silver metal seemed to glow red. Then he stopped. He didn’t have time to play.  He tossed the knife onto his coat next to the rest of his arsenal.  He didn’t need to look at it to remember what it was for.

Adrian lifted a holy water jar, unscrewed its lid and drank deeply, the blessed liquid cold and tasteless.  Rosa had sworn it could taint his blood, rendering it poison to vampires.  It was a failsafe.  If somehow he was caught…he shuddered at the thought.  If the vampire bit him… at least he could drag the bastard down too.  There would be some bitter satisfaction in that

His fingers grazed the hilt of his knife,  before he reached for  it, pressing it hard against the unblemished skin of his inner arm.  He dared himself to push further, trying to fight back the nausea that roiled in his belly.  Doubt flickered across his gaunt face. What the hell was he doing?  Only five years ago he had just been a kid playing with his sister in the street.  Who was he now?  Some madman squatting in a concrete tomb, about to carve his own flesh? What would she think if she could see him now?  He let out a groan, shaking his head as if dislodge her face from his thoughts.  He didn’t want Fionnula in his head.  Not now.  But he couldn’t block her out.   

Her laughter haunted him as if echoing through time itself. And in his mind he saw her.  Saw their childhood home.  She was  primping before a cracked mirror, auburn curls bouncing, her best yellow dress pinned just so. “Get out of it, ya wee monster,” she’d teased, shoving him playfully as he mimicked her preening. Then the door knocked, shattering the cozy warmth with pure ice.  It had been him.  The real monster. 

She had introduced him as Victor. He didn’t know what he was then, but he knew there was something wrong.  The man’s cold gaze had brushed over Adrian, instantly dismissive. Adrian didn’t understand why, but his stomach twisted into an uncomfortable knot.   His parents were oblivious, clearly not sharing his unease.  His mother had blushed like a girl at manners. His father was just relieved she hadn’t chosen an Englishman.  Fionnula had noticed his reaction though.  She always saw him. Her hand slipped into his, squeezing tight. An old habit.  “Quit yer scowlin,’ she had whispered, “Yer embarrassin’ me.” So Adrian had swallowed down his unease, telling himself he was stupid to be worried.  But he hadn’t been.

Angrily he pushed  the blade of his knife harder, a quick flick then his skin tore.  It hurt, it fucking hurt.  His arm throbbed as the blood, black in the half light, began to trickle down towards his fingers. He shoved his hand over the empty jar to catch the drops.  He had to leave a trail. Needed enough to lure the vampire in, to make him follow. Every drop counted. He tried to ignore the pain, although inside he was screaming.

Pain was good, he tried to comfort himself.  Pain means you’re alive. You can feel.  Not like them. Not like Him.

After Fionnula’s death, he had hunted that man down. He got no tips with the name Victor, but Boris…well, that was a different story.

That man was known.  It was easy to find where he lived, then scope out the place.  It was posh. Up on the South Side of the Liffey, of course, where all the real monsters lived.  But he  still couldn’t help but wonder what had drawn Fionnula into that world.  It wasn’t her.  She didn’t fall for all that fancy stuff.  The house was too grand.  She didn’t belong there…and neither did he.

But he’d gone in anyway, slipping through an open window like a thief in the night.  It had been the worst mistake he had ever made.  

He'd  followed the sound of music and  laughter, feeling a  petty sense of satisfaction as his boots left muddy prints on the marble tile.  He remembered coming to the doorway and then being…stuck. He couldn’t move, or perhaps he didn’t want to.  It was a strange, heavy feeling, one he’d never had before or since. The door swung open on its own and what he saw in inside still haunted him: pale creatures with jewel-like eyes, gliding with unnatural grace, sipping blood from crystal goblets.  They had looked at him and smiled, with teeth too long and large to be anything close to human. He’d watched in frozen horror, as they slashed the veins of chained captives to refill their glasses. 

A heavy hand had landed on his shoulder, cold as ice, spinning him around.  It was him.  The man he’d been told was called Victor.

“Did you find what you were looking for?”  The accent was different than before, slower and more deliberate and Adrian felt sure the vampire  was mocking him, even as his grip threatened to splinter his collarbone.  He’d spat at him then, aiming for bravado and landing closer to self-destruction. The spit hit the vampire’s chin, and for a moment, Adrian half-expected a show of rage.  Instead, he’d merely smiled, tongue flicking out to taste the insult, eyes never leaving Adrian’s. Then he’d laughed, the sound thin and sharp, before tossing Adrian down the marble stairs as if he weighed nothing at all.

The fall  had left Adrian with three cracked ribs. Something he didn’t know at the time, but by god he felt it.  He had struggled to his feet, doing his best to ignore the pain that jolted through him with every movement. By the time he was upright, the vampire was there again, roughly pushing him towards the door.  When they’d reached the threshold, the fiend had caught his chin, fingers squeezing his jaw.  He could still remember the cold breath on his face. “Your sister is gone, boy.  If you ever come back here, your parents will have to bury another child.” His voice had been low and awful, more felt than heard.  “Forget this place. Forget me. Forget her. Go.”

Adrian’s jaw had throbbed for days, the warning ricocheted loudly inside his skull.

But no matter how terrified he was, Adrian could not forget. Revenge was all he had.

A sharp pain in his arm brought him suddenly  back into the present.  He’d accidentally pushed too hard and cut deep, deeper than he had intended. The  blood flowed heavier now,  streaming from his wrist into the waiting jar.  He clenched his fist, willing the blood to flow faster. The sting went bone-deep, and a light headedness tickled the edges of his vision.  Adrian shook his head, forcing it away, sharpening his focus until nothing existed except the spreading red and the cold glass filling, drop by drop. His eyes grew heavy, the room tilting sightly, and he sank back into the past.

He’d gone back to that house, filled with helpless fury and all the arrogance of being fourteen and having nothing left to lose. This time he had gone at dawn, with his father’s pocket book of matches. He set fire to velvet curtains and overstuffed couches, watching the flames spread, consuming all that expensive material. Darkening the wood until the walls hissed and cracked. It had made him feel vindicated, almost powerful, in a small, stolen way, seeing all that luxury turn to ash. He could still remember the smell of it. The blaze had roared, black smoke choking the Dublin sky, the heat searing his face as he stood transfixed, feeling the destructive strength of his vengeance. Let the bastards burn.

His triumph was bittersweet.  He had been seen. Adrian had to flee Ireland or face the law. So he packed what little he needed: stake, holy water, the battered photo, and a couple of shirts. He left at dawn, boots muffled in the fog that crawled over the canals and stilled the city’s heart. He didn’t look back. Not at the tenement, not at the low shadows where his father might have watched him go, not even at the city that, for all its cruelties, was still the only home he’d known.

He glanced down at the jar between his knees.  It was half full, and that would have to be enough.  He needed his strength. He pressed an old ripped shirt firmly to the wound, wrapping it tightly to staunch the bleeding. It seeped through anyway, staining the white fabric stitch by stitch. His hands shook, blood loss mixed with exhaustion, but his bandage was complete. He took the spare rags and dipped them into the jar.  The plan was to deposit them in the street around the bomb shelter.  Send out a signal loud and clear. An invitation.  A challenge.  I’m here, come and get me.

His arm throbbed.  It was the kind of pain he couldn’t ignore.  He wondered if he had seriously hurt himself.  In his head, a distant iteration of Fionnula’s voice mocked him.  “Ya big eejit, you can’t even manage a wee scratch?” He bit his lip and forced himself to his feet, his good arm filled with blood-soaked rags. It was twilight.  He didn’t have much time.

He remembered the moment when he’d realised the vampire had followed him to London.  He had been wandering aimlessly, slightly drunk.  Rosa’s death was still a raw wound.  He’d glimpsed the familiar silhouette, a shadow looming over him on the street. He never saw his face, but he knew it was there.  Then it became more frequent, almost like a haunting.  Any time he let his guard down, he would feel that knotted stomach feeling, and he knew the monster was close. It felt like the vampire had been toying with his mind, seeking to scare him and confuse him. Sometimes he stalked Adrian, and it was menacing.  Other times, it felt like he was just... watching.  Once Adrian had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. A man had followed him with a knife.   He was cornered.  He thought he was going to die.  Then the vampire had shown up, like some distorted guardian angel.

He had met Adrian’s eyes as he twisted the man’s neck with his bare hands, the limp body falling to the ground.  Then he had just stared at Adrian. That had been the worst part.  Frozen in the alley surrounded by the scent of old piss and rain. Helpless fear washed over him, before he remembered he had his own knife. He had thrown it in desperation and by dumb luck, the blade had hit the target, slicing the vampire’s cheek.  Blood spilled from the wound.  Then as Adrian watched, the skin knit back together, horrifyingly slow.  The vampire’s lips twisted into a mocking smile before he turned and vanished into the shadows

That encounter had left Adrian confused. Why didn’t the vampire kill him? He had been right there, defenceless.  Maybe it was pity. Or amusement. Or both. Adrian couldn’t tell. It felt like a tease; a game of cat and mouse and Adrian was not going to be prey. 

He was fine with being bait though.  Bait for his own trap. He clung to Rosa’s lessons, repeating them in his head,  forming a kind of mantra as he planned his strategy. “Never taste their blood.” “Surprise is the best strategy.” “Silver can burn a vampire.” He coiled the silver chain wincing at the weight on his sore arm.  Adrian’s plan was simple:  lure the monster in, block the exit.  Surprise. Fight.  The vampire; Boris?  Victor?  Whatever he was calling himself now, would have to go through him if he wanted to leave.

 “I want ye to feel it, ye bastard,” Adrian muttered, imagining the feeling of his knife cutting through the vampire’s flesh. “I want ye to hurt and know it was me.” The shelter’s damp chill seeped into his bones and Adrian shivered, wrapping his arms around himself. Was this darkness changing him?  Turning him into a monster too? No! he thought fiercely. I’m not like him, I’ve never killed anyone.    

Adrian pulled the photo of his sister out of his pocket, needing to see her face, to remind him who he was. Why he was doing this.  For her. Always for her.  He wanted revenge, plain and simple, to make the bastard hurt like she had. He would honour Fionnula’s memory by avenging her death.

“For ye, Fi,” he breathed. Saying it aloud made his resolve harden and solidify. He was all in. No more room for fear or doubts.

Blood would spill this evening.  He prayed it would not be his.

[manicmuser87]

The beginning.

So this is my first chapter of my story:

the song is Linkin Park - In the End

Chapter One: The hunt consumes

London, Autumn, 1946

In the dim flicker of a single candle, Adrian hunched over a tattered map of London’s streets. The map rested on a cluttered desk, which barely held the chaos of his life: frantic notes scrawled in fading pencil, candles melted down to deformed stumps, and a dog-eared copy of Dracula, its pages worn and stained. His entire focus was on one thing, and he was right on the verge of success. He was sure he had just discovered the territory of the vampire who had stolen his sister.

Her name was Fionnula. She had been his protector, but more than that, she had been his friend. He had seen other siblings fighting on the street, but their relationship was not like that. There was a soft kind of mutual respect between them. She didn’t scold too much, and he tried not to annoy her…at least most of the time.  He remembered how her hand would grasp his when things got too much. When he closed his eyes he could still see every detail of her face, as sharp as if he had only seen her yesterday.

Adrian exhaled slowly, his breath shaky. It had been four years, but the pain was still raw, like a wound that he couldn’t stop picking at, never allowed to fully heal. Her death had created a hole inside him, a feeling of emptiness that nothing filled. He missed her. He wondered where she would be now had she lived.

He pulled an old crumpled photo from his pocket: It was a family tableau: his sister seated in a wooden chair, her smile bright. He stood behind her, hand on her shoulder as their parents flanked them. Her teasing laugh echoed in his mind, and if he concentrated really hard, he could still feel her hands ruffling his hair, trying to rile him up. She was his best friend, even if her nails accidently scratched, or she grassed on him for stealing a sip of his dad’s Poitín.  Sure, he’d loved her. But it was not enough to save her.

Regret. A feeling that had made itself at home in his body. He was her brother, or at least he used to be. Brothers are supposed to take care of their sisters. It had been his job to keep her safe, but he had failed. Now all that he had left was this photo, this frozen moment in time. Her whole life now reduced to a picture in black and white.

Thinking about it made him sick. He hated that everything Fionnula was, everything she was going to be was now just... gone. He would have given anything, anything, for one more day. A day in the sweet ignorance of the before, instead of dealing with the agony of the after. He slammed the photo onto the desk. He couldn’t stand to look at her anymore.

Vengeance. It was his purpose. The reason he was still alive. To say he was obsessed was an understatement. The thought of revenge devoured every waking moment and even sometimes permeated his dreams.

His hands trembled, but only slightly, as his focus returned to his map. He had marked out the sites of suspicious deaths; slit throats, broken necks. He used red wax. It was weirdly poetic for him, but it felt right somehow. Red was blood. A reminder of a life stolen. Some of the deaths he’d learned of had been gang scuffles. Such events were common, but Adrian had gotten sharp enough to tell the difference. He’d figured out the tells, how to distinguish the fangs from the gangs. There were clues if you knew how to look: the location of the body, which part of the neck was cut, how messy it was. He could tell the difference at a glance.  It made him mad as hell that it was so easy for the vampire to hide beneath the violence of other humans.

But he carried on, not letting it discourage him. He recorded and he marked and he made connections on his map. And now it had paid off. Adrian had found him.

His eyes flicked towards a pile of broken furniture pushed out of the way. He snatched a rough stick, something that might have once been the leg of a stool. Carving was good. It kept his hands busy. His sharp knife gouged the soft wood, shaping it into a stake with slow, forceful strokes. His thoughts wandered, lost in the steady rhythm of his work.

The last time he’d seen his sister alive, she’d been with him. The vampire had guided her down the street, her hand tucked into his elbow. Like he owned her. It had been autumn, the leaves swirling at her feet. He remembered because the day had been grey and miserable, but she stood out like a ray of sunshine in her yellow dress. That was his last image of her, brighter than her surroundings. She had been larger than life. Then she had died.

They had found her in an alley. That was what the Gard had said, standing there with his cap in his hands. The memory made him shake with rage. Discarded. Like she was nothing more than a pail of slop. The idea of her being found that way, broken and bleeding out, had destroyed him. His whole world had narrowed to that precise point in time. He remembered how his mother’s keening wail had pierced the air. The Gard muttered something about gang attacks, but Adrian didn’t believe him. Even before he knew what the vampires were, he understood it wasn’t some dumb gang death. Not his sister.

The knife carved faster, gouging deeper, the splinters flying in all directions. He was lost in the past. Remembering. He had been a boy possessed, tearing through her room needing to find something, anything that would tell the story of what had happened. He found a box with love letters, and a ring. It had been hidden well, stuffed inside her mattress, but Adrian had been determined to tear the whole room apart if he had to. 

The letters confused him more than anything. They were all signed off with the same sentence. “Yours for eternity, Boris.”

Fionnula had called him Victor. He remembered that distinctly. It was plain, almost stuck up. But Boris? Boris. That was foreign. From the East. A spy, maybe? What was she doing with someone like that? Why would she cover for him? The name created more questions than answers.

Fionnula’s death was a pulled thread, unravelling his entire family. His mother a ghost, his father lost to the drink. That had hurt him the most. His Da, once his childhood hero, now stumbled through the house, his eyes bloodshot and distant. Empty bottles littered the corners of their once tidy home, each one a marker of his surrender to grief. Adrian had heard him mutter Fionnula’s name in slurred, anguished whispers late at night. He was lost in the bottom of the bottle, leaving Adrian to navigate the wreckage of their family alone.

Adrian paused, running his thumb along the stake’s freshly carved point. It pricked his skin, a bead of blood welling up. He stared at it, imagining the stake piercing Boris’s chest, the vampire’s black eyes widening in shock, his body crumbling to dust. Just little crumbs of him being carried away into the wind. The thought made him smile, just for a second, then it was gone, chased by a frown. 

The stake got thrown into the corner, and he turned back to the desk. Searching. His knuckles brushed against the book.Dracula.

He snorted. He couldn’t read it, not really. She had read it to him. 

Rosa. His guardian angel. Bent and bowed, the old lady had taken him in when he was lost. Alone. A starvling in the blitz-torn London. She had lost her husband  and son in the war, and kept an extra cot in the back room for “strays.” She called herself Auntie Rosa, and served him cabbage stew and boiled bread ‘til he felt sick.  Slowly the edge of his hunger dulled under her care.  Adrian had trusted her, or at least as much as he trusted anyone. 

Rosa wore six scarves around her neck and had a sharp look in her eye, not worn down by her age. She never asked about Dublin, or why he startled awake at the creak of floorboards. She sharpened his stake for him on her whetstone. She replaced the holy water when it ran low, and when it was quiet, she taught him her dead husband’s trade: how to pick locks.

Most nights when he was with her, Adrian had stalked the streets, shadow to shadow, looking for the telltale signs: the listless homeless suddenly peppy, the pinprick wounds hidden behind crisp collars, the scent of iron. Blood. Fresh and raw, like the butcher’s bin. London’s monsters hid well. They owned the right people. But Adrian was patient. Everyone slips eventually. Even vampires.

Rosa had been his light in the dark for almost three years, but illness can snuff out even the brightest flames. One morning he had woken and found her cold in her chair. Adrian had sat with her through the morning, the cold November air numbing his cheeks, waiting for the proper words that never came. After the ambulance took her away, he couldn’t stay in that empty flat. So he left it to the rats and carved out a solitary life living in a flat above a pub, earning his keep with odd jobs.

They thought he was strange. A kid with no family was common after the war, but they couldn’t understand why he kept to himself. The publican’s wife sometimes slipped him dinner, her gaze dodging the crosses on his walls. He couldn’t tell her why they were there. She wouldn’t understand that he needed them. They were his ward against the evil he knew was hiding in the shadows. Her unease only deepened his loneliness.

Adrian raised his candle, looking around the place he called home. Had it really been two years since Rosa left him alone in the world? He was nineteen now,  almost a man, and he still hadn’t accomplished what he’d sworn to do: find the vampire. Stake him. Make the bastard say her name before he ended him.

He pushed his hair from his eyes impatiently. It was getting long again, now skimming the tops of his shoulders. Maybe he would ask the publican’s wife to cut it for him. But probably not. He didn’t even know her first name.

Adrian gritted his teeth, turning back to his map. He let the red wax fall, marking an old bomb shelter on the map. It had been a hot spot, two murders in the space of a month. The papers blamed the gangs again.  Like always. By now though, Adrian had learned Boris’s mark. The bodies had been drained. If Adrian could afford to bet, he would say he had found the vampire’s territory, or close enough to it at least. This was where he would strike.

He didn’t care if he lived. Not anymore. If he could hurt Boris on his way down then that was enough. 

His hands thrummed with energy as he shrugged into his coat and cinched the belt tight.  Adrian checked his pockets, the contours of each object reassuring beneath his fingers: holy water cool against his thigh, the garlic’s oily stink already on his skin, Rosa’s cross, abrasive beneath his threadbare shirt. He took the crumpled photo from the desk one last time, did not let himself look, only pressed it to his lips before squaring his shoulders and blowing out the candle.

[manicmuser87]

So apparently I am meant to pin a post to introduce myself. Lol whoops.

Me and my dog Sunny!

So I am Tash. I'm in my late 30's. I used to be a teacher. I also used to be a teenager with a crazy vivid imagination which kind of took a back seat to the adult life of husbands and children and pets and bills etc. So fast forward to 2025 where I found an old CD-rom (I know right - I am ancient) with some of my old stories on it - some Buffy fanfic - (why did I think Dawn and Spike was a good ship?) Some Marauder fanfic (dreadful - never seeing the light of day). And then some of my original characters and I remembered....

I remembered that image that popped into my head during science class at school of a vampire hunter turned into something he hated the most. The vampire's name was always Boris. (apart from when he was Sven or Victor). he was always Russian (I don't know why ), and he was always evil as hell. And my vampire hunter was always Adrian - he was always a little bit dark himself (it is why I called him Adrian - then found out the baby name books lied to me and it doesn't mean dark at all) and he always woke up as a vampire fucking MAD like in destroy mode! So I found these guys on my old creaking CD-Rom on my old windows 98 desktop which sent out puffs of dust when I turned it on, and decided you know what - you guys have been suspended in the ether for too long. Lets bring you out of 2002 and into 2025

And so (long story huh, sorry) now I am here - sharing my little adventures with Boris and Adrian - and new (repurposed characters Josh, Alexei, Dora, Maggie, John, Volkov, Olga, Maryshka Jessie and Ray). Hope you like them - if not, happy to chat about other stuff too - cos you know I am diverse like that - if a little obsessive and hyper focused as well. So here's to making a Tumblr for the first time when you were born in the 80's!!!!!

[manicmuser87]

Trying to get into the character of Adrian

AI made Adrian for me - because I cannot draw.

Sometimes I feel like my chapters are flat, because I want to push the story forward but I don't spend enough time in my character's heads. So just playing a wee game where I pick a song that I think shows me a facet of their character - then write their thoughts, their feelings in the moment.

This one is Adrian: the song is Shatter Me: Lzzy Hale and Halestrom

Adrian exhaled, as Boris leaned in again, the older vampire’s hands unyielding on his hips, guiding, containing, claiming without a word. The bite mark Adrian had left on his shoulder was already fading, but Boris hadn't retaliated. 

He didn't need to. He just stood there present, grounded, dangerous, waiting for Adrian to fall in line. And God, he was falling. Something twisted in Adrian's chest, a sharp crack of panic beneath the rush of arousal. What are you doing? He was the one who was angry. He was supposed to be in control. He was the one who had lost everything. And yet here he was, clawing at Boris’s chest like a pet, needing the contact, craving the pain it brought. He tried to pull back. He couldn’t. Boris didn’t hold him physically. He didn’t need to. His sire just watched him with that infuriating calm, like he knew this moment better than Adrian ever could. 

"You want to mark me, Adrian? Then do it properly." That voice that voice drew him like gravity. Like prayer. Like sin. And Adrian knew what it was. Knew Boris was twisting him, uncoiling the worst parts of him, using pain and memory and the ruined tangle of their history to reduce him to this…this….a thing that wanted to bite and be bitten, that couldn’t tell the difference between fear and want. 

He hated it. He hated himself. And still, he went. Teeth grazing Boris’s skin, fingers digging in, needing to scar him, to hurt him, not to win, but because it felt so good to lose. And when Boris murmured  "Good boy," something in him cracked wide open. Fuck you, Adrian thought, eyes burning. Fuck you for knowing me. Fuck you for making this easy.

 He wasn't in control. He hadn’t been since Boris had walked through the door. And what made it worse, what made it unbearable, was that it wasn’t compulsion. It wasn’t blood. It wasn’t the bond. It was him. His own ruin, laid bare. 

[manicmuser87]

A little snippet from Boris's point of view

(Boris was created by AI, because I cannot draw but I needed to see what he looked like.)

This part of the story comes right before Jessie runs off and is accosted by Alexei. It is my first time really trying to get into Boris's methodical mind. He cares about Jessie - But Adrian is his sun and moon. He is attuned to him like no-one else. And if he is slipping, Boris won't let ANYONE get in the way.

It is long - you don't have to read it, but if you do, feedback is nice. I have a thick skin - hit me with your constructive criticism.

Song: Sia, Unstoppable.

He felt her before he saw her. Centuries had taught him the language of being watched: a subtle prickle along the skin, a sudden weight in the air, the faintest tug at the mind. It was amazing what the body could tell you when you learned to listen to it properly.

Only the most careful, the meticulously precise, could evade his attention and this spy was careful.  Good, but not good enough to evade his notice.

His eyes swept the garden, sliding along the apartment block walls, the skeletal trees, the humming electric fence. Nothing. Only a mangy cat, crossing the yard, her paws leaving small holes in the snow. The air was charged.  It was too quiet. Too deliberate. 

The spy was not close enough for him to detect their scent.  Boris moved his surveillance further afield.  There!  An odd distortion in the shadow of a chimney on a neighbouring roof. Still as if she was a fixture,  but unmistakenly there.  He honed his vision, tunnelling in on her.  A woman, by the silhouette, unmistakably tall, poised.. She started slightly under his gaze and he had expected her to flee, but instead she gave a  gave a crisp hand signal: a royal salute. Court business. But a court of whose favour?

Boris’s frown deepened. Bold, he thought, but naive if she thought she could fool him. There was no point saying anything at the palace; they would just pretend she was guarding him, but he knew better. She wasn’t here for his protection. She was here to watch, to measure, to report. And she would be rewarded for it.

He glanced up to the fifth floor of the apartment building.  There was a light in the window. Someone was awake. He glanced at his watch, it was 5 pm. The sun had gone down half an hour ago. They would both be awake by now. Adrian groggy and bad tempered and Jessie anxious and high strung, because Adrian was still there. 

Boris had been monitoring Adrian’s movements over the past two weeks, and his patterns had been much more structured than his usual chaos. His fledgling had been leaving the apartment as soon as he woke, then walking aimlessly around the streets until it was close to dawn, then returning back to the apartment to sleep. Boris didn’t have time to follow him, himself. He was too tied up in meetings and events. Too caught up in the responsibility of being a heir to the throne. So he had paid someone else to do it. 

Unfortunately, Adrian hadn’t taken well to being shadowed, and what remained of the vampire Boris had hired was found in a neat pile beside the statue of the Bronze Horseman. Boris still wasn’t sure whether to be proud of him or irritated for the work it had caused.  

He wanted to go in to the apartment and see them both, but he hesitated.  Boris’s days were timed to perfection.  His visits were always at ten sharp for the young one,  Jessie.  He made sure he was there no matter what the court threw at him because he knew Jessie had been spending her days alone as her sire meandered. But today she wasn’t alone.  Adrian had broken the pattern. Out of routine meant unpredictable Adrian. Maybe even destabilised Adrian. 

Boris’s eyes narrowed as he pulled out his phone. He couldn’t walk away, not when he couldn’t foresee the next move. With a quiet sigh, he drafted a message clearing his schedule for the rest of the day, something he’d been doing far too often lately.

It didn't matter. For him Adrian would always come first. He sent the message and shoved the phone deep into the pocket of his woollen coat. Looking up, he scanned the rooftop.  Empty. The spy had slipped away. He shrugged. They’d be back soon enough.

Boris needed something to keep his hands busy, something that would make him look like he belonged here. A cigarette would do. From his pocket, he pulled a crumpled pack of pre-rolls, lit one, and inhaled. The smoke curled into his nose, hot and acrid, clinging to the back of his throat like soot. He didn’t cough.  He never coughed, but the bitterness stuck to his tongue.

He drew in another breath anyway, letting the ember flare. The taste was wrong. Human wrong.  It was a burnt-plant tang that clung to his senses like mildew. He could already feel it working its way into his blood scent, the faint trace that would follow him until he burned it out with a real drink. 

Someone watching from the other side of the street would think he was just another man killing time, head bent, smoke drifting lazily. They wouldn’t see the way his jaw shifted to keep his fangs from pressing down in distaste, or the subtle tension in his shoulders as he forced himself to stay put. It was a poor disguise, but it was enough for now. He was halfway through his second revolting stick when he heard it:. Adrian’s voice. Not the calm, measured tone Boris had drilled into him, but raw, and emotional.  He was angry, yelling.  Adrian didn’t yell.  Ever. 

That was all the motivation he needed. He dropped the cigarette, crushing the ember into the snow beneath his boot, and headed inside. It took him exactly one minute and thirty-seven seconds to reach the fifth-floor apartment. Boris’s card slid through the reader, and the door swung open. Jessie had her back to him, but she was the picture of rage; her back taught, her hands squeezed into fists, but it was Adrian’s face that shocked him. 

He was standing in the kitchenette, pale, and gaunt, his eyes over bright and bloodshot.  Boris had rarely seen him like this. He knew that expression and what had caused it. Adrian was not easily frightened; death, injury, chaos, they barely touched him. He only truly feared his own vulnerability. He couldn’t stand it when someone hit too close to the mark, pierced beneath the defences, and truly saw who he was beneath the mask.

Boris was aware Adrian and Jessie were arguing, but his attention was locked on Adrian. The boy’s eyes were cast downward, fingers digging into his hair, body trembling with barely contained tension. Boris knew those signs, understood the familiar, terrifying prelude. Adrian was two seconds from detonating. 

“Enough!” Boris’s voice cut through the room, low and commanding. Both of them froze, heads snapping to him. Neither had noticed his entrance until now. That was dangerous. They should have. But that was beneath his focus for now. He stepped forward towards his shaking fledgling. Slow and deliberate. 

Adrian flinched, stumbling backwards until his muscles braced against the fridge. His chest was rising and falling too quickly and his fangs descended.  This wasn’t aggression, it was imminent collapse. Boris took another step. “No!” The word trembled from Adrian’s lips, unsteady and rough. Boris did not break eye contact with his him, but was aware with increasing certainty that needed to be alone with him now. A single distraction, a the wrong word said in heat, could send Adrian over the edge. 

“Leave Jessie”. Boris said, maintaining a calm tone. He could sense her tensing in his periphery. She was angry and volatile. He knew she was going to push back before she even opened her mouth. 

“You’re kicking me out? I thought I wasn’t allowed to leave?” She was right.  He had prevented her from leaving to keep her safe, but if she didn’t leave now, her sire might injure her irreparably.

The choice to kick her out was measuring the odds. She might get kidnapped outside the flat, but they could deal with that.  She would��be in immediate danger if she stayed. He did not have the time or energy for the explanation so he turned, his expression deliberately dark and violent.  Just a glimpse of the power he had.  Not all, but enough.  She hesitated, so he lifted his lip, allowing his fangs to descend, the threat a clear message.  He smelt her fear and it made him sick, but he knew she would leave now and that was important.

He turned his glance back to Adrian, who was tense and silent watching them. 

“You know what! Fine I don’t need this. Screw both of you.” Jessie yelled behind him, then slammed the door. 

Boris didn’t even look. It was a tantrum, nothing more. Adrian relaxed slightly against the fridge, after she left, some of the tension leaving his body. “Jessie?” He whispered, almost a moan, his eyes drifting to the open door. 

“She will be fine, Adrian.”  Boris said, already pulling out his phone, sending a quick text to his guard. Jessie out of apartment – surveil – track- eliminate danger. A swift calculation was made in his head. His guard would be there in under half an hour.  If Jessie chose to run  she would not get very far.

[manicmuser87]

Short:  When Adrian met Rosa

Moon Writing Challenge accepted @hypermoonlover

I am writing a story where a vampire hunter becomes what he hates the most. I haven't really gone into his life in London as a teenager hunting the vampire who killed his sister, so this was a cool way to look at a piece of his history which probably won't end up in the larger story, so thanks for the opportunity.

Music (cos I am always listening to something when I write): Counterfeit: You can't Rely

The first time he had seen the old lady, he had thought she was a ghost.  It had been about 2am, or at least that was how many times the bells had tolled.  The mist had rolled up from the Thames and was cloaking the dark street in a mysterious light, where shadows turned into demons, and the glow of the gas lamps was cold and unfeeling.  She had been sitting almost in the street, her back against the cold wet bricks.  It was her eyes that told him that she was alive, very much so.  They were bright in a face otherwise dulled by time.  She sat so perfectly still that she could have been a statue, carved by the moonlight.

With the confidence of the young, Adrian was sure the woman had to be ancient, if she was a day.  Adrian’s breath caught in his throat as he stood rooted to the spot, the damp chill of the cobbled street seeping through the holes in his boots. Those eyes, sharp, unyielding, and far too knowing for the frail figure they belonged to, seemed to pierce through the fog and straight into him. He couldn’t shake the feeling that she saw not just the boy before her, but every secret he’d ever buried, every fleeting thought he’d never dared speak. The weight of her gaze made his skin prickle, and he felt it form into goosebumps.

He wanted to move, to hurry past and pretend he hadn’t seen her, but his legs felt traitorously heavy, and he knew he couldn’t run, even if he tried.  The bells had long since fallen silent, but the echo of their tolling lingered in his ears, a grim reminder of the hour and the strangeness of this encounter. Adrian’s heart thudded, each beat louder than the last, as if trying to drown out the eerie quiet that cloaked her. She hadn’t moved, not a twitch, not a breath that he could see, and yet those eyes burned with a life that felt too vast, too ancient to be human. He wondered, with a shiver that wasn’t entirely from the cold, if she was waiting for something, or someone. The thought that it might be him sent a jolt through his chest, and he took a hesitant step back, the scrape of his heel on the cobblestones sounding so loud in the stillness that it almost frightened him.

Slowly the old woman stood, her body unravelling, creaking almost, as she reached her full height, about the same as his own.   She took a sudden lurch towards him, and it was enough to make him squeak, a little sound, that he tried to forget as soon as he made it, feeling the flush of embarrassment creeping up the back of his neck.

As the woman steadied herself, her eyes never left his, glinting with a knowing that made his stomach twist. “You’ve been skulking where you shouldn’t, boy,” she rasped, her voice low and gravelly. “Prowling the alleys, pilfering from the market carts, thinking the shadows hide your sins.” Each word landed like a stone, heavy with accusation, and Adrian’s breath hitched as he realized she knew, knew of the apples he’d nicked, the coins he’d slipped from unattended stalls. Her gaze held him fast and he felt the weight of her judgment, ancient and unyielding, threatening to unravel him completely.

“I..”  he started, but the words caught in his throat.  

“They have noticed, you know.  He has noticed,” The woman grinned then, and it was horrifying.  “They know what you have been up to, when you think no one is watching,”  She pulled from the expanse of her shawl a wooden stake, pointed at one end.  Adrian gasped; his eyes locked on the stake clutched in the old woman’s gnarled hand. It was his, unmistakably so, the crude whittling marks along its side a testament to his own fumbling work, carved in the dim light of a forgotten alley where he’d huddled for warmth. His mind churned, as he wondered how she could have gotten it. He thought he had been so careful.  Had she rummaged through the tattered sack he called his own, hidden among the crates by the docks? Or had someone else, some other shadow in this merciless city, found it among his meager belongings and passed it to her?  The sight of his stake, gripped in her claw sent a sudden burst of terror through him, a force in his stomach, travelling up to his throat, almost making him retch.  He was being watched…by Him? The made his heart thunder with dread as he stood frozen on the misty cobbles and suddenly, he felt like a sitting duck, like he was prey just waiting to be hunted.

Adrian’s legs trembled beneath him.  The old woman’s eyes, sharp and gleaming, seemed to pull at something deep within him, drinking in his fear, his guilt, his very being. “You are a child, playing at an adult’s game", her voice was barely above a whisper as she appraised him, her gaze lingering on his face, You are in danger, boy, but I can help you.” she said, her voice softening now, a gravelly lullaby laced with urgency, She stepped closer, the wooden stake vanishing into the folds of her shawl, and extended a bony hand, its wrinkles etched deep in the moonlight. “Come, boy,” she murmured, her tone both command and promise, “my home is near, you will find your answers there. There is no safety in these streets tonight.”

Her words wove through the fog, stirring a strange trust in his chest, though his heart still raced with unease. Adrian swallowed hard, and fighting against every instinct screaming to flee, he felt his hand rise, hesitating, then clasp hers. It was stupid, he knew it. It was so stupid to trust her. But the reality was that he had no-one, no home, no family left to him, just the vengeance, the hole inside him that couldn't be filled by anything other than the death of the fiend that had killed his sister. The woman's hands were surprisingly warm and dry, and this grounded him a little. At least she was human, he thought as he followed her back into her home.

Writing challenge! You must write one short, for every single thing your currently working on!

Self explanatory. You can reblog thid post.

It is,

"Moon Writing Challenge 2025" so just title it that, and tag me!

Have fun!

BY THE WAY; YOU CAN DO THESE SEPARATELY

[manicmuser87]

When you are all set up to write, but your pet is so needy!!!! Ah well it is only a five minute distraction.

[manicmuser87]

Just putting this here for later, because currently the three characters I am writing are all nuns, too focused on vengeance, their own pain or killing things to even be thinking about this...but you never know, maybe in a couple of years or so....

On writing sexual tension

⊹ standing too close. like just barely not touching. why are their shoulders breathing on each other??

⊹ conversations that sound normal but feel like foreplay. “pass the salt” has never been so loaded.

⊹ one of them says something flirty and the other freezes for 0.2 seconds like “oh.”

⊹ eyes dropping to lips and then—back up. with effort.

⊹ holding eye contact just a little too long. like... are they gonna kiss or duel??

⊹ unintentional physical contact that lasts one second too long and now they’re both broken

⊹ a hand on the small of the back. that’s it. that’s the tweet.

⊹ tension so thick that other characters start noticing like “hey are you two okay?” (they are not)

⊹ “accidental” sleepovers. “oh no there’s only one bed.” yeah. suuuure.

⊹ biting back a smile. biting back a moan. biting anything really.

⊹ one of them walks away and the other has to physically restrain themselves from watching the hips

⊹ lots of sighing. frustrated sighs. horny sighs. “i want to kiss you but I’m emotionally unavailable” sighs.

[manicmuser87]

It is so weird to try and write from the point of view of someone who has seen centuries pass, seen the loss of everything they hold familiar, even down to the very words people use. To write someone who has seen everything at least once, and watched civilisations fall like sand. Someone who has seen even the strongest ideologies rise to glory, then be forgotten. Sometimes when I am in Boris's head, trying to figure out how he manages it, it can get claustrophobic. But there is always this curiosity that comes through, and it is based on humanity, that despite everything, there is always someone in the world who is going to surprise you, to react differently than expected, to walk the path least travelled, and I think that, more than anything is what keeps him going. (Is it weird to speak of my characters as if they are real? )

[manicmuser87]

I needed to see this today, particularly the last one. Writing for yourself is so much easier than writing for an audience