Rois de la Nuit

I picked up a black vase decorated in burgundy crosses. It was nice, though clearly a fake. That had been what had caught my eye. It was unnaturally shiny and the feel of the half-slippery plastic had me slightly nauseated. Plastic is evil in my humble opinion. And so I have this tendency to destroy it whenever I see it. In this case however, there was something very different about this. I looked inside and saw something hiding on the bottom. A human eye wouldn’t have been able to catch the difference in the slight sheen from the plastic to the mystery item, another lucky fact I hadn’t ever been one.

I reached inside the plastic vase and my fingers brushed the smooth surface of what could only be a photograph. I pulled it out and smoothed the rounded sides to look at what scene had been frozen in time. As I gave the picture a quick glance hoping to find something useful like a photo of a dead body or something, what I saw instead was something very, very wrong. There were two people hugging each other and laughing. The girl had her head thrown back in laughter and I had to admit that the little huntress was very pretty when she smiled.

It wasn’t the huntress that made the picture wrong.

I was more focused on the man next to her, arms wrapped around her waist. The man’s dark hair curled around his collar. His dark eyes were squinted in a moment of laughter and life. He was a handsome young man and I could say that without shame. I could say that because he looked exactly like me. I swore under my breath. That wasn’t good. That couldn’t be good. Vampire women had been very careful when I had been with them And the only humans I had been with….well…they were….

Passionate.

That, however, was beside the point. I had seen what happened to the child of a vampire and a human. None had ever survived. So how was this possible? It wasn’t and that was what had me bothered about the whole situation.

I heard Angelion call my name in that superior tone of his and slipped the photograph into my pocket, tossing the vase aside and sighing in sadness when it didn’t break on the carpet. If I was lucky, than maybe I would get the chance to actually destroy it later. After all, those things were so easy to crush. It was just another thing that made them so pathetic. I made my pace deliberately human slow just to piss of Angelion. For some reason: it pissed him off. He was at the door to a small study, and moved back inside when he saw me coming down the hall.

I rather liked this place that we had stumbled upon. Whoever owned it had exquisite good taste. I gave a soft knock on the study door, testing the dark wood as I entered. It was a nice old door, though it was far more worn than it appeared to be. I had to admit that I was impressed by that fact. “Are you doing to stand around and admire the door all day?” Angelion snapped.

I rolled my eyes in reply. It was a wonder why he always called me child instead of himself. It truly was an extremely ridiculous wonder to me. “I rather like this door,” I said with a slightly hurt look. Neither of us actually believed that act. “Besides, it’s likely far more interesting than anything you could possibly bring for me.”

I heard a growl. I was not going to look at Angelion, just to spite him. However, he was determined to have his way. I heard him snatch something from the table. Papers crumbling as he began to storm towards me. It was shoved in my face. I blinked several times before I stepped back so I could bring into focus what was before my eyes. The words that I used then were older than Angelion. They were also probably the predecessors to words that would in later centuries grace the face of sailors with color. I had never thought to see this again and Angelion knew that. Only who he was saved him from the beating I would have delivered any other man for returning this to me.

It was my turn to growl. “Where did you get this?” my voice was low, level, calm, and pissed as hell.

“I thought that might get your attention. Why don’t you start looking around the room instead of just at the door?” the younger vampire ordered.