Eyes Like Ice

I shot up in bed suddenly at about two in the morning, looking around my dark bedroom as I sniffed the air. I had smelled something. I knew I had. As I continued to sniff, however, not catching even a whiff of anything unsual, I began to wonder if I had just dreamed the scent. Then, I realized I couldn't have, because I didn't dream. I slid off of my bed, inhaling slowly through my nose once more, and I quickly found out that I was right.

I turned to face the source of the scent just a second too late, though, being knocked unconscious by the unfamiliar Levellua before I could react to his presence.

-

When I opened my eyes, I found myself gazing up at a plain white ceiling. I slowly sat up and glanced around the room. I was laying on a king-sized bed, covered in black blankets, and surrounded by several shades of deep blue. I sniffed the air and hissed, instantly recognizing the scent.

Carpenter.

And due to the strength of the smell, I knew that I had to be in his bedroom.

Disgusting, I thought while slowly sliding off of the bed. I then headed for the door, my bare feet making no sound on the carpet as I walked.

I began to wander around the unfamiliar mansion silently, feeling rather strange since I was doing so wearing nothing but a pair of black boyshorts and a tight black cami.

I reached the entrance hall and found that, oddly enough, it wasn't the one I had fought in, which meant that this couldn't possibly be the same mansion I had gone to before. But why would Carpenter's scent be everywhere if this wasn't even his house? Or was the first mansion not really his? Or...did he have more than one mansion?

I stood in the middle of the hall and pondered this until Carpenter's voice said, "I own several mansions, if that's what you're wondering."

I turned to face him, my movements appearing rather unhurried. "Why?"

"So I can move from one to another if I feel that my current one is becoming too well-known." The black-haired male was dressed in a nice suit despite the fact that most humans would've been sleeping at this hour. He took a few steps toward me, stopping when I unconsciously shifted into a fighting stance.

"How can you afford to own more than one mansion?" I questioned while carefully tracking every single one of his movements.

He gave me a smile that would've sent a shiver down anyone else's spine and answered simply, "I'm a criminal. You don't want to know any of the details."

I nodded, not really caring about the specifics, anyway. "To what do I owe your presence this time?"

His smile grew even more chilling. "I've finally decided what I'm going to do with you."

"Oh? And what do you think you're going to do?"

He turned, putting his back to me. "Well, since I can't convince you to willingly join me, and you would fight me far too much if I took you by force, I've decided that it would be best to just kill you."

"You say that like you think it will be easy," I commented, eying him cautiously.

"I don't just think it will be easy. I know it will be." He snapped his fingers suddenly, and I found myself surrounded by five Levellua I had never seen before. A sixth one landed at his side with her back to me.

I cocked an eyebrow as I studied the three males and two females surrounding me. They all looked to be about twenty years old and oddly dangerous. The looks on their faces told me that they hated being where they were, though.

"You've taken these ones away from their original masters, then?" I asked, figuring that they looked like they wouldn't be standing here if they had any other choice.

"Yes," Carpenter replied calmly. "Their masters were easily swayed with money, and now I officially own these ones."

"Is that why you think it will be easy to kill me? Because you have complete control of these six Levellua?"

Carpenter laughed and turned to face me once again. "Not quite."

"Then what makes you think-" I stopped dead when the female standing beside him turned toward me. "No way," I whispered.

The woman looked relatively young, though I knew for a fact that she had to be in her thirties by now. Her black hair reached her mid-back, and her pale blue eyes were filled with fear and worry. It was almost like looking at myself in a mirror, if I ignored the woman's emotions. Pale, pale skin, dark hair, those facial features...

"Mother," I breathed, a bit of shock actually building up inside me.

Carpenter laughed again before he said, "She's been ordered to kill you, and you know that she can't stop until one of you is dead. Are you willing to murder your own mother, Raven? Even someone as cold as you has to be feeling a bit torn about it."

I quickly pushed my shock away, becoming emotionless once again. "No. You're forgetting that there is another option here, Carpenter," I told him softly. I turned away from him, facing the Levellua standing behind me. "I can also kill you, and then none of these innocent beings would have to die."

Carpenter shook his head, smiling to himself. As he turned and headed for the stairs, he ordered, "All of you, protect me with your lives as you try to kill her. I don't want to be harmed."

All of the Levellua grimaced at this, though every single one of them lunged at me when I tried to go after Carpenter. My claws lengthened, and I quickly found that those were my only means of blocking the katanas and daggers my opponents were armed with. Claws were terrible for fighting off any type of weapon, however, so I decided to use flips and jumps and ducks to evade the weapons instead.

"Don't go easy on her," I heard Carpenter command when he noticed that the Levellua weren't fighting nearly as well as they could have. They instantly obeyed him, moving faster and hitting harder than before.

I jumped back to avoid a swing of a sword, not realizing that there was another Levellua standing right behind me. I leapt right into the tip of a dagger, wincing as the weapon slid into my body, barely missing a few vital organs. I spun almost immediately afterward, yanking the knife out of my back even as I knocked the woman back with a powerful blow to the jaw. She flew back into a wall, hitting hard enough to crack the surface, then she slowly slid to the floor, unconscious. I barely noticed this, too busy using my stolen, blood-covered dagger to block several more sword swings.

The conscious Levellua all jumped away from me suddenly, their attacks ceasing. I didn't know why until I saw Carpenter standing at the bottom of the stairs, causing me to remember vaguely hearing a shout of "Stop!" only moments ago.

The male regarded me with a curious expression for a moment before he said, "Before I kill you, I have to know...Can you feel alive without emotions?" I looked at the floor and didn't answer. "Is that why you enjoy killing so much? Because it makes you feel alive?" Once again, I didn't reply, although he figured out why relatively quickly. "Why do you keep living even though you can't feel truly alive?" I didn't say a word, but I did think the question over.

Why did I keep living when nothing could make me feel alive? Or at all, for that matter?

The answer dawned on me after only a few seconds.

I'd always thought, subconsciously, at least, that if I kept on living, I might someday be able to feel something...Maybe because of a different master, a new place, a simple loss of whatever caused my emotionlessness, or maybe just a few people I could call my friends...Like Dominick and Riley and Spike. My eyes closed when I thought of them.

God, don't let them come here. No matter how confident I made Carpenter think I was, I knew I was going to get slaughtered in the next few minutes. I didn't want any of my companions to have to witness my brutal, bloody demise.

Why brutal and bloody, you ask? The answer was simple.

Because I'd be damned if I was going to go down without one hell of a fight.

"No reason?" Carpenter asked, snapping me out of my thoughts. "Good. That means I can help to put you out of your misery." He glanced around at all of his Levellua, then he ordered simply, "Continue."

I instantly had that group of Levellua rushing toward me again. Due to the fact that they were all moving from the same direction in one big clump, I easily managed to dart around them, heading for Carpenter once more. I lunged, expecting to be able to reach him without anyone interfering, but when I swung my claws, I found myself slicing through not his stomach, but my mother's. She staggered back from the force of the attack, and Carpenter stepped aside to let her fall onto the stairs. Heaven forbid he catch the woman and get some blood on his fancy clothes.

Before I could react to having just seriously wounded my own mother, I found the tip of a katana blade poking out of my stomach. Another sword pierced my flesh and slid straight through my body a mere second later, leaving another blade tip to poke out of my belly. Blood quickly spilled to the floor as I hissed in pain.

My mother surged to her feet, now ignoring her wounds, and aimed her own dagger at my throat. I blocked the weapon with my bloody knife and easily knocked it aside, backhanding my mother a moment later her to send her to the floor right along with it. I then lurched forward, sliding right off of the katana blades. Carpenter's cocky ass was still standing no more than a foot away from me, too, so it wasn't hard to stumble forward and stab my dagger into his shoulder without being stopped. He merely winced, backhanding me like I had backhanded my mother before yanking the weapon out of his flesh. I hit the bloody floor and slid, grimacing until my body finally stopped moving.

Carpenter gazed down at me thoughtfully, and I looked right back up at him, though my vision was beginning to dim, making him somewhat hard to see. He held up a hand when one of the unfamiliar Levellua prepared to behead me with his blood-covered katana.

"Would you like us to finish her off for you, Master?" the male asked, growling the last word.

"Actually, no." Carpenter then turned and began to head up the stairs calmly. "I'd like you to bandage her and lock her up downstairs. I've decided to do something else with her, and I need her to be alive for it."

I barely had time to wonder what dreadful plans he had for me now before my eyes closed and I took a lovely little plunge into the dark, dreamless abyss that was unconsciousness.