Author?s note: I?ve been watching far too many vampire movies. This is what came out. Enjoy.
Pairings: Heero x Relena, Duo x Hilde
Summary: A.U. Vampires. Once they were lovers. Now Heero hunts creatures of the night, while Relena stands shrouded in its darkness. It took more than half a decade, but fate has spun them again into a web of magic and prophecy, death and love, betrayal and blood.
Warnings: Dark themes. Violence, gore, future lemons, etc.
This one is for Di-chan and Muraki-chan, vampire fans like me. And Morrighan, whose support for this fic has been astonishing. And Blackrose, for the book that is total LOVE!
Crimson Drowning
Prologue
Tawdry traveller, beware
Of that spectre gibbering there;
Close your eyes and urge your steed
To the utmost of his speed; ?
For beneath that cross, I ween
Lies a Vampire?s corpse obscene!
---Excerpt from The Vampyre (Strigoiul) by Vasile Alecsandri
Somewhere in the East Coast, United States
He should have never taken her with him.
Her place was in the van, as procedure demanded, with Jiang, their Watcher, monitoring his progress as he hunted down their quarry, not inside an abandoned warehouse in the city?s docks, tracking down a vampire.
Meiran, however, had other ideas. She wanted to be with him, out in the field, whether Wufei liked it or not. She was not going to get any experience sitting in a van, waiting like some old-fashioned Chinese wife.
?Seekers do not hunt,? he had told her when she told him she would be accompanying him when he went to the warehouse.
?Yes. But Hunters can?t hunt without Seekers.?
Wufei frowned. While orders came from their Keepers, the Seekers were the ones who would disseminate the information to their teammates. Without it, they would be hunting blind. ?You can not withhold information from me. That is forbidden. I could have you dismissed for that.?
Unfazed, Meiran smiled coldly, and her eyes narrowed into slits of black jade. ?Try me.?
Wufei didn?t know why he bothered arguing with her. He?d known her all his life, and he should have known what a pig-headed woman she was. Dangers caused her little concern, and only added to her determination.
She would have been a Hunter, but Wufei managed to convince the upper echelons to not assign her as one; she was far too reckless to do her job properly, he had told them during her evaluation. Meiran has yet to forgive him for that.
That was probably the reason why the woman was putting him through hell as their team?s Hunter. Perhaps after this mission, he could talk to their Keeper about getting her reassigned, but the thought of having her out of his sight didn?t sit well with him.
He should have never let her come with him.
They had arrived in the docks just an hour after sunset. Meiran immediately went inside the warehouse, not bothering to wait up for Wufei to join her.
Cursing, Wufei had no choice but to follow her into the warehouse, but not before quickly donning a well-insulated coat, nighttime gear, and lightweight armor. He brought two guns, and enough silver bullets for two days. Poking over his shoulder was sleek, ancient katana.
?You look like a mix between a SWAT member and a ninja,? Jiang had commented when he first saw Wufei dressed in his Hunter ?uniform?. Protection and firepower were important for Hunters. One could never be sure when dealing with vampires.
The night was cold and crisp, as winter was slowly and insidiously creeping into the city, blanketing it in thick, heavy snows. Winter was the season when vampires were more active. The cold never bothered vampires, and it made drinking warm human blood and fluids all the more pleasurable.
Since winter came, they?ve had a twenty-five percent rise in vampire-related incidents, twelve percent of which ended in the death of the victims. The three teams assigned in the city were overworked, and Wufei?s team had been sent here as a relief.
They had been here for a week when someone reported that a vampire was stalking the docks, and made his home in one of the abandoned warehouses. In normal procedure, they would hunt vampires in the mornings?they were weaker then (at least the more common ones were) but this one had been an urgent call, and their Keeper gave them no choice but to hunt the vampire in the night.
This is foolishness, Wufei thought, grimacing as he entered the warehouse. The lights were on, and at first glance, everything seemed to be well. The warehouse was dry and dusty, cold as a freezer. The stench of droppings, rusting metals, and salt filled it. Looking around, he saw Meiran cautiously enter one room just several feet from where he was. The office, Wufei surmised.
Meiran had barely gotten inside the office when its windows exploded into shards, shattering the silence inside the warehouse. Wufei saw a flash of red and black fly through them before the warehouse?s lights went out, save for the one in the office. In a heartbeat, Wufei was sprinting to Meiran, his night vision gear on. In his ear, Meiran was shouting like mad.
?We have a Judas! I repeat, a Judas! Dammit!?
?Get out of there!? With a vicious kick that shattered the office door into splinters, Wufei burst into the room, guns raised and ready. His eyes swept sharply across the office, not lowering his guard even when he saw that it was empty save for him and Meiran?and several withered corpses lying on the floor.
Meiran finally lowered her gun, and squatted beside one of the bodies, a grim look on her face as she examined it. Making his way to her, Wufei kicked aside one of the corpses, frowning as it disintegrated into dust, leaving only its rumpled clothes. They looked eerie when viewed though his night vision, all grays, greens, and black.
They held little smell, these withered shells, since all trace of bodily fluids have been drained out of them. Sucked dry, by the looks of it, their desiccated mouths frozen in a silent scream. Wufei pulled off his night vision gear, and rubbed the dust away from the lenses with the edge of his shirt.
The Children of Judas. They kill their victims with a single bite, draining their fluids at a single draught. The lesson echoed in Wufei?s mind as he counted the bodies, including the one he?d disintegrated. Ten. Ten humans, all sucked dry of blood and bodily fluids. Judging from their clothing, they were an assorted mix of dockworkers and the homeless.
?Three X marks,? Meiran said, tracing the heavy, dark lines on the skin with her gloved hands before abruptly standing up and dusting herself. She looked unhurt, though there were shards of glass on her clothes. She inhaled deeply, her warm breath forming an airy cloud as she exhaled. Her fingers curled around her gun, her eyes wide, wary, and alert. ?Definitely Judas.?
?I told you to get out.? It was still and quiet again, making Wufei uneasy. Above him, the single light bulb flickered on and off as it swung from its chain, throwing shifting arcs of shadows across the room, revealing dark stains on the floor.
?To where? It could be out there waiting for us. We?ll be safer together.?
She was right. Alone, she didn?t have a chance. She was only a Seeker, and she didn?t have the necessary training to get into a fight with a Judas. Damn her infuriating timing and logic. He nodded curtly. ?Any word from Jiang?? With all the ruckus a while ago, their Watcher should have come screeching here with the van, but so far, they have heard nothing from their third teammate.
She tapped her earpiece and said some words in Chinese, her shoulders stiff with tension as she waited. After a moment, she stared at Wufei and shook her head. ?He must have been killed, or if he?s lucky, he?s left the docks when I gave the alert.?
If that is so, then damn him and his non-existent honor. He donned his night vision gear again. ?Get behind me. We?re moving out. The Judas might come back.? For once, Meiran didn?t argue with him and followed his orders.
Stepping out of the office and into the now-dim warehouse, Wufei cursed to himself as he assessed their situation. They needed to get out of the warehouse first; being in close confines with one of the most feared order of vampires was unwise. Especially in a dim warehouse filled with container vans and boxes where the vampire could appear from at any given moment.
If they survived this, he would kill their Keeper with his bare hands. This was supposed to be a routine kill of an ordinary vampire prowling in the city docks, not a Judas. They would need a special squad to get rid of them. Their priority was to get Meiran and him out of here alive, then inform their Keeper of their discovery.
What was the Judas doing here? How long had it been here? There hadn?t been any Judas sighting in the country for years, and there had been no warnings or intelligence about their possible presence.
?There must be royalty with it, or he?s hunting a traitor. A Judas??
?I know what a Judas is for,? Wufei snapped in a voice scarcely above a whisper. ?Keep quiet, it might hear us." He glared at her, and added with a note of frustration in his voice, "I should have left you in the van." Then I would have had you get out of here and out of danger.
It was the wrong thing to say. Meiran?s face stilled for a moment, and then he could see her face darken with anger. "You don't think I'm not good enough," she said in a hard, flat voice.
"That is not what I said. This is neither the time nor place to argue about this. Let's go." He started to turned his back to her, ignoring her fury.
The Judas came swiftly, hardly making a sound, except from the soft hiss in the air as it moved. It swooped Meiran into its arms. Wufei saw only a red blur, and heard a shriek of pain from Meiran. But before Wufei could make his move, the Judas leapt out of his reach, and went to the darkness.
?Chang!? Her pale, frightened face was the last thing he saw before she and the Judas disappeared from his sight.
?Meiran!? Wufei?s shout came out as a sharp hiss between his clenched teeth, and the sound echoed against the warehouse?s walls, mocking him. He tightened his grip on his gun, blood roaring in his ears. The air around him grew colder, making the hairs at the nape of his neck stand up. Yet he could feel himself sweating, beads of cool water sliding from his forehead down to his face.
He had to go on. He had to tell their Keeper about the Judas. He had to leave Meiran behind. It was his duty as a Hunter, as someone who hunts the night.
With barely a pause, Wufei turned around, and headed to where the Judas had gone with Meiran.
He barely took a few steps when the warehouse was once again bathed in light.
The Judas stood tall not a few feet before him, its hair and eyes as red as the spilled blood that pooled beneath its feet. Jiang?s body, or what was left it, lay on the floor beside it, dry as dust, his mouth open in a silent scream.
?Welcome,? a smooth, cultured voice said from behind the Judas, the speaker?s body hidden in the darkness of the shadows in the warehouse.
Wufei saw a tall man step out of the shadows. He had sharp, aristocratic features, and brows that seemed to fork into two directions. ?The Hunter, I presume??
He smiled at him. "I believe I have something of yours." Meiran lay in his arms, limp and seemingly lifeless. His smile widened, showing sharp, pointed teeth. "I wonder what you would do to get her back?"
-To Be Continued-
Author?s note: I?m evil, I know.
I hope you liked the beginning. You?ll see the main cast in the next chapter, which is half-finished. As I?ve told many people, the plot of this fanfiction is derived from a novel I?m writing. My descriptions suck.I?m sure you?ve guessed whom Wufei met in the warehouse.
Comments and Criticisms are most welcome.
