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Dark Irony	By : WaterShadow Category: A through F > Dark Series Views: 2242 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Dark series, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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An update at last! I thought the inspiration for this chapter would never come, but finally, I wrote out what I was thinking, and I present it to you in the best sardonic humor.
I do not own Christine Feehan or her ideas, nor do I particularly want to, since I suspect my books would have considerably less sex in them.
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Humans, Garran had decided about an hour ago, were strange beings. He had no idea why his standing in the middle of a graveyard near midnight on this evening garnered so many strange stares (and even stranger thoughts), but it was, and had earned him several humans of varying genders walking up to him with such lines as:
“Nothing like a cold body on a warm night, eh?”
“Looking for someone? You found her, though I hope you don’t mind the fact that I’m alive...”
“Hmm, a graveyard, on a cool night like this...makes me want to jump some bones...”
Perhaps what makes it worst is that people are actually saying these things to my face, and not thinking them. Nearly imperceptible to mortal eyes was a blush on Garran’s cheeks. In my youth, children were not nearly this forward to their elders, nor would they be thinking such things so openly...
He supposed it was another thing he would torture ( or is that pleasure?) his lifemate over.
To Carpathians (the ones who had emotions courtesy of their lifemates), emotions were highly dangerous things. There was simply no comparison to the way a human felt and the way a Carpathian felt. Everything felt as if it were being magnified.
Garran hypothesized differently. He did not know how strongly humans felt things because he was not a human, and peering into their minds furthered his theory. It cannot be so that we, as creatures of the earth, feel things more intensely than do our weaker brethren, after all. There are few significant deviations in DNA, except for the fact that technically speaking, they are alive and we Carpathians can be considered dead, because no other things could voluntarily stop their own heart and lungs...
He concluded that by virtue of the fact that many Carpathian males hadn’t felt things for many centuries (though some haven’t felt for millenia, and I cannot even perceive what that must be like), things were bound to feel all-consuming. That is simply the only explanation that makes sense; else, the first original Carpathian was a human who was turned.
He did not think he’d be presenting that theory to the Prince anytime soon, though he felt it a matter worth some attention.
He’d gone to ground again soon after feeling the presence of his lifemate, deciding that it would only be more logical to wait as any vampire in the area would immediately hone in on his mental signature should he send himself out to search. Perhaps, if there is a vampire in the area looking for me as I am looking for him, he would have moved on enough for me to search for my lifemate safely.
Once he found his lifemate, though, what would happen?
Unlike many Carpathians, Garran did not particularly mind the loss of his emotions. From his fledgling days, he had always had a fascination for science, and emotions had little to do with such a pursuit. The only reason he had ever wanted a lifemate was to ensure his soul remained with him and not lost in a void of eternal damnation somewhere.
Enough wondering. Walk around. What do you see? What do you smell?
The comforting scent of the earth mixed with flowers and the ever-present traces of decay met his nose as he inhaled. He saw strange people dressed in black (why is that girl wearing fake nails of that length? It is hardly practical--) walking around, occasionally looking him over. Some were doing a ritual he recognized from a story his mother had told him about a place called Stonehenge (I think she said she had been there to see the druids perform the ceremony, or had participated), but he didn’t think that calling on the devil to reanimate the bodies in the earth was what that ritual was intended for.
None of these children are psychic, but even children should know that devils appear where mischief can be done and answer to any call--
The colors in his sight, having dulled to a faint impression, once again roared into being. The black the people were wearing seemed almost like liquid pitch, the pale yellow streetlights suddenly blazed like an inferno, and in the face of this intensification, Garran winced even as something in him he barely recognized jumped up and down in joy.
Here again, my other half--
Just as his mind went out searching for the bringer of color, he heard a terrified shriek behind him.
Dear gods, the children!
Regretting the necessity of saving the foolish mortals even as he turned his attenion from finding the object of his growing obsession, and felt his focus abruptly shift.
A vampire. Only one of them brought this sensation of filth in unsavory places to his tongue, and it was near the young humans who had performed their mockery of a druid ritual.
“Hello, young ones,” it said in a smooth voice that belied its hidden ugliness. “Getting ready for Halloween?”
The girl with the illogically large nails, Garran observed, answered him. “Sort of, sir,” she said with a shaky laugh. “We’re studying some of the stuff that the witches from the Salem Witch Trials supposedly did--”
The vampire interrupted her rambling with a soft chuckle. “Ah, the Trials. I remember them fondly,” he replied, voice taking on a hint of a hiss. “Foolish men, and even more foolish women met their end there. All spurred by lover’s quarrels and God-fearing people who feared the apocalypse was among them.”
“Er, yeah,” one of the girl’s male companions said with a forced smile. “We know all that--”
“Do you now?” The vampire asked softly, mockery entering its voice. “Do you also know that I was there?”
The young man forced his smile even wider. “Come on now, you couldn’t have been--”
“Oh, but I was,” the vampire interrupted again, stalking toward the young woman. “They did some beautifully terrible things to the suspected witches before granting them final rest.”
Reaching the girl (who was now visibly shaking), it stroked her hair as it crooned. “They used to tie rocks to them and throw them into lakes, hauling them up at repeated intervals, because they believed witches always floated. They’d cut them as well, because they thought witches could heal themselves of any injury.”
Staring down at the quivering girl, it said one last thing before it exposed its teeth and bent down to her throat; “They also broke all the bones in their bodies and tortured them before allowing them their final rest---”
Garran had heard enough. It will not harm the children---
Using his Carpathian speed, he rushed at the vampire and knocked it away from the girl. Knowing that none of the children would have seen anything, he sent them all to sleep. I will take care of them later--
The vampire had risen to its feet, and was staring at him. It inhaled deeply. “Ah, a young one,” it said, all traces of smoothness gone. “I love young ones.”
“I do not think you love at all, my former kin,” Garran replied, voice low. “I know you want to kill these children. I will not let you.”
“You presume to stop me, fledgling?!” The vampire laughed wetly, displaying cracked and bloodstained teeth. Its eyes glowed like deceptively cool blue-white flame. “I was slaughtering my first humans when your parents were still learning how to feed!”
The fleeting thought that he was indeed a fledgling compared to a vampire as old as this one claimed to be came and went as Garran reviewed his options. “I will stop you because there is no choice for me in the matter,” he said resolutely, gathering his energies into himself in preparation for the upcoming fight. “You will not escape unscathed, my lost kinsman.”
“Very well, foolish one,” the vampire said, bloodthirst seeping into its aura and making it even uglier than before. “Your blood will be a pleasant drink to my victory.”
Garran refrained from replying. Such a phrase like that is altogether too tempting for one to insert a witty comment akin to those comic book heroes my brother requested I read and see--
Movement.
Claws out, the vampire had charged at his right, hissing defiance as its obscenely long tongue slavered in presumed anticpation of his blood meeting it.
His emotions blocked, Garran moved to meet the rushing vampires. Grabbing one of its outstretched arms, he stepped beyond it and used the energy of its movement to flip it onto its back with as much force as he could. Keeping hold of the arm, he used the movement itself to crack the arm like a whip, breaking it at the elbow.
The vampire hissed again, rolling onto its knees, then its feet, cradling its injured arm as it stared at Garran with new respect. Forcibly, it yanked its own arm into alignment, shrieking as the bone popped back into place with a sickening click.
Garran didn’t wait for it to recover its bearings. Casting aside all grace, feeling impatient and angry as he hadn’t in many centuries, he tackled the vampire and drove his fist through its chest. Feeling the cold flesh part around his hand, he ignored the fingernails-on-glass sound of its screech as he searched for the sickeningly slow center of its life.
It wasn’t easy. The vampire was doing everything it could to throw him off. It dug sharp nails into Garran’s straddling thighs, making his vision flash unpleasantly red, making him fight to stay astride the foul being attempting to slay mere children because it no longer cared about any life but its own--
With no warning, Garran was blinking up at a sky that had started clouding over, blocking the starlight and the small sliver of moon, aware that the hand in the vampire’s chest had just started to burn due to the poisonous blood coating it, and the vampire standing over him with a hideous grin.
“Foolish little fledgling,” it said in a mock-conciliatory tone. “Attempting to beard your elder in a game you couldn’t possibly win.” It lifted a hand in front of its face for a moment. Garran was gathering himself for a move when, impossibly, the vampire plunged his own hand into his chest.
It didn’t stop at that. It drove its hand all the way through, exiting out its own back, then even more horribly, wiggled its fingers.
No heart...
“Don’t know what to do now, do you, little fledgling?” The vampire continued to gloat. “Can’t burn my heart out and kill me, can you? Now look at you. Helpless on the ground, unable to think--”
Garran locked eyes with the vampire at that moment, then slowly bared his teeth in an expression too wolfish to be called a smile. It held no joy, and no sorrow.
It was a message of death.
The vampire tried to escape Garran’s eyes, but as Garran well knew, it wouldn’t be able to run unless Garran released it; something he had planned on doing all along, but not in the way the vampire would have wanted.
“Burn,” Garran said softly, focusing his will on the vampire.
As if responding, the vampire screeched as flames began licking at its decaying skin. It made a gesture before it dropped to the ground and rolled, trying to smother the flames.
Before Garran could react, he was tackled by something much more substantial than the vampire had been.
Ghouls?! Where was it keeping them?!
Garran twisted and threw the ghoul off of him, but just as he was standing up, another tackled him and pinned him under its grotesque form. He tried to get some leverage against the foul thing, but its teeth were at his throat, seeking to break the skin there to drink the blood that was furiously pounding within.
NO--
Suddenly, the ghoul was gone. A mound next to him showed him two smouldering corpses that were releasing foul vapors as they tried in futility to escape their second deaths.
Garran turned to look for the vampire, and to his shock, that part of himself that he didn’t know he possessed leapt up to his throat, choking him in a way that he couldn’t find threatening.
The vampire was running, one of its arms somehow detached from its body, dodging thrown projectiles (a part of Garran not staring dumbly noted that the airborne missiles were rocks). Leaping into the air, it transformed into a gull the color of soot, its yellow bill tainted red and its body still leaking acidic blood.
The person who had saved Garran had stopped throwing the rocks after the vampire had transformed. The severed arm of the vampire was at the person’s feet, twitching in its own wasted effort to escape.
The person was the one who had most of Garran’s attention at this point. Braided hair the gold of the first dawn’s rays hung down a beautifully molded back to end at the hips. The pants were a faded dark blue, staying close to the curves of the legs without actually being skintight. The shirt was more of a tunic of a lighter blue with faint embroidery at the hems.
However, as the person turned to look at him, he received two shocks.
First, the person had the greenest eyes he could ever remember seeing in his life.
Second...the person was male.
As if he had been a figment of Garran’s imagination, the man vanished from his sight.
Taking a moment to pack some soil into his wounds (minor things, all), he had one last thought before he once again sought his resting place.
Who was that man?
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The plot thickens like standing blood...
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Dark Irony