Chapter Two: Heartbreak

It’s all about power\ I couldn’t control\ Breaking the will\ and breaking the soul\ they suck us dry\ until there’s nothing\ left, my oh my, my oh my…

To say that the stairwell upon which Mr. Daemon and Eclipse now stood upon was derelict would be phrasing it mildly. Beer bottles, long since emptied of their contents, were thrust into far-flung corners of the stairwell, often shattered, resembling a mosaic of muti-hued broken hearts, wistfully lingering on the steps in hopes that passerby would halt a moment to hear their various tragedies. The escort and his ward’s errant footfalls shunted aside piles of old take-out boxes, aluminum beer cans, and ashtrays, sending aforementioned ashtrays to tumble away down the stairs in a wonton fashion, as heedless as a toddling babe evading it’s mother’s outreaching grasp, and possessing just about as much grace. These spent refrains of the lives of people long ago departed were nestled in the burnished, spent glory of decaying leaves, that lingered there like departed souls. The two sloughed through the sewage, leaning slightly upon the railing for support, though it proved unnaturally moist with something other than humidity, and Mr. Daemon’s face, whose feature’s were as about approving as a lemon’s of a good day, doubled and twisted back upon itself that it seemed of becoming lost within its own folds, and staying stuck the way forever, a mother’s often ignored warning now heeded with regret as it came true, as his fingers stuck in an unpleasant fashion to the cold iron. It seemed, then, that Eclipse could easily perceive every tear ever wept within these stairs, be it in rage, frustration, or desolation. This new knowledge gusted through his very essence, and he suppressed a slight shudder, not out of horror or revulsion, but out of pure delight.

For his Sire’s legacy reigned. The ebon seed of treachery and doubt that could not find fertile ground through glamour and deceit in the dark-eyed, solemn youth, found it through lifeblood. And even as the shade of his heart was soiled three-fourths blacker, he delighted in it. There is some darkness within him now, and despite the fact that once he would have fought against such, denied the shadow for his mother would have wished it, he now wished to fall beneath its mantle without question. At last the two achieved the top of the stairs, and Eclipse found himself within the section of New York with the moniker of The Village, a secluded area of whimsical seduction and the supernatural. The streets were populated with mock artists. One knew the type; fine leather jackets still ripe with the scent of the proceeding plant and the warehouse, with the immaculately polished silver buttons and the stiff collar, with fringes at the sleeves, or not, cross-stitched or hand-knitted ebon baraes, hair shaggy, and unkempt, the rebellious hair tired back in a loose ponytail secured by a worn ragged rubber band.

They wore a black and sleeveless shirt, faded and tattered, and baggy camo pants, with holes liberally ripped in them to allow the visibility of their knees. Their eyes were listless and glazed over, breath sharp with the tang of pot, or else vapor trailed from between their fingers as they indolently dangled a cigarette, cradling the swiftly burning-out cig as though they were priceless slivers of silver. The girls wore brightly hued skirts and warps imported from India, or else beaded Native American headbands, and their lithe hands drowning in easily tarnished silver and bedecked with semi-precious stones. Walking through such an exotic mix was like tossing R&B, Metal, Harley Davidson’s, and freeze-dried cultures and tossing them into a blender, and being as uncertain as to what to call the result as the people themselves.

Venders stood in idle, jealous, calculating, possessiveness beside their cart of cheap trinkets, mostly pewter peace signs on deer hide throngs, headbands, and an abundance of heavy metal CDs and Emo Kid buttons and various other knick-knacks. With a superior glance down the length of his abnormally long nose, Mr. Daemon maneuvered their way past outrageously priced shops, past the various Tarot card-reading signs. Yet all the while the intoxicating feeling of “anything could happen here,” and it often did, followed Eclipse, like exotic perfume, even as he neatly sidestepped brightly wrapped joint rolls and bongs, and black-clad tables with incense holders manipulated into fantastical animal shapes, mythical and otherwise, from which incense burned from various nostril or eye openings.

One woman, her senses having taken complete leave, due, most likely, to the rather fat joint she dangled from one languid hand, eyed Eclipse with eyes bright with bird-like interest as he passed. “So pretty!” She cawed, rather like the raucous shriek of a crow, her hand closing over Eclipse’s wrist. Her eyes, however glazed, focused on the cross silhouette burned upon his forehead. “So very, very, pretty,” she crooned, in a softer tone. Then she giggled, and reached up as if to touch him. Eclipse snarled, a feral, primordial sound, and hissed, eyes smoldering like sullen embers, and made to pull away. This did not occur as planned. One of her various beaded pieces of jewelry had entangled in a snag in Fëanor’s blankets, and had caught and held fast. The woman giggled again, and pulled ineffectually. With a snarl, and a flash of his pallid fangs, Eclipse wrenched Fëanor free of the asinine woman’s grasp, and, as casually as if he were plucking a piece of jewelry from a blanket, to better inspect its worth, enclosed the woman’s throat with his free hand. That accomplished, he drew her to her feet with an impatient jerk, until slender, elegant slope of her nape was level with his jaw line.

The woman’s inane giggling swiftly subsided into terror-racked shrieks. A few people turned curious gazes in their general direction, but quickly turned their heads. “Not my problem,” was the phrase to live by, here. Live and let die. Eclipse had the opportunity to kill her then. He very well could have. He could scent the fetid aroma of pot, cheap perfume, and the peculiar odor of fear. And beneath it all, the vague, rich, coppery undertone of blood pulsing through her veins. Mr. Daemon tightened his grip on the stake concealed under the volumes of his jacket. And then, with a tilt of his head, as if straining to hear some insignificant noise over the senseless babble of the streets, he released the woman, who promptly sank into the begrimed street, racked with halting, hiccoughing, sobs of fear. Mr. Daemon gave hiss of suppressed fury and alarm, and once again took hold of Eclipse’s minute hand.

Moments later, they stood beneath the dirty and faded awnings of a warehouse long out of business, as torrents of rain raced like suicidal charm bracelets off the gutters of the building, and onto the damp pavement below. Mr. Daemon squinted upwards at the rain, as he polished his fogged spectacles with a satin handkerchief, his initials neatly embroidered in crimson at one corner. “Where are we going?” Eclipse ventured after a moment. “The Guardian’s Council,” was Mr. Daemon’s noncommittal reply. Moments later, a large black stretch limo hissed to the curb, sending a spray of muddy curbside water into the atmosphere. The car’s headlights glowed with the feral blaze of a sleek predator. Wordlessly, Mr. Daemon opened the rearmost door, ushered Eclipse in, and slammed it shut just as swiftly. Moments later, he entered on the opposite side. He rapped a knuckle upon the tinted glass door separating the driver from the occupant, and the limo drew smoothly away from the curb, and into the unknown.

It was just after midnight when they reached London’s city limits. Two buses and a taxi later, they arrived at the Guardian Headquarters. From the exterior, the business did not reveal any superficial signs of being an extraordinary establishment. Indeed, had anyone been passing by at the moment, they would have given the moderately small building an inquisitive but polite glance, seeing nothing anomalous about it. But even the building, for its entire insincere attempt at being innocuous, could not fully hide the ominous air the lingered over it rather like an unsolicited storm cloud above a long expected picnic. The building was nothing more than a squat brick establishment that huddled sullenly between its leaning and slightly cockeyed counterparts that towered above it at an impressive altitude, the words of prophets scrawled in barely coherent penmanship across its protruding bricks. The forlorn wooden sign perched like a dour vulture on the supplied chains above the building, its ebon wood baring the legend “Guardian’s.”

The astute person might notice, however fleeting the awareness was, that the sign failed to specify Guardian’s in what, exactly. That’s because, no matter how brazen or astute a entrepreneur may be, he or she would never risk their own weasely black guts by being so bold as to post “Guardians of The Slayer, “, , as their trade. The interior, on the other hand, was most impressive, compared to the shabby exterior. The floors, when not covered in expensive oriental rugs imported by somewhat questionable means from the Orient in an array of rich hues and elaborate patterns stitched in gold thread with gold tassels, was the purest polished jade marble with faint wisps of alabaster interlaced within it.

The waiting room, such as it were, was decorated with the critical eye of an experienced, and expensive, artist’s eye. A rich crimson oriental rug lay over the length of the floor. A rounded glass coffee-table sporting a demon beneath, with upturned palms supporting the glass as it leered upwards, was laden with musty tomes with exotic illustrations and titles that intrigued, such as “Demon Types and Identification, Assassins Monthly,” and many with the simple titles of “Spells.” There were also the usual rags that the Council regarded as a necessary evil, such as Newsweek, The New York Times Dispatch, National Enquirer, People, ect. Mahogany bookshelves graced the walls, lined with fiction accounts and other more...useful books, and the chairs were sway-backed and lined in red velvet plush cushions, arms curving gracefully. Various painting graced the walls in gilded frames.

Mr. Daemon seated Eclipse on one of the Victorian era sofas, and then, with a whisper of cloth on stone, retired into a double binary mahogany door. Eclipse, lulled by the long journey and the onset on dawn, slouched into the shadow-enshrouded section of the sofa, gazed down in a vague expression of lazy affection at his sister, and drifted off to sleep.

Come nightfall, after much exhaustive argument and determined persuasion, the head Guardian of the Guardian Council finally prevailed in his argument, which would soon conclude the matter of each of the Slayer’s children’s fate. It had been determined, despite the protests of Mr. Daemon, who reiterated each moment he got that Eclipse, while clearly a vampire, due to his unfortunate Siring at such a tender age, did not seem to posses the desire to place in jeopardy either his sister, or others he came across. Such statements were met with incredulous glances and comments flew around the Council like, dazed, angry hornets. “Didn’t you state that he has bitten at least one person to date?” Demanded the Head of the Council, Vandualgh. “Yes-but it was in isolated case, and from what I understand, he was attempting to flee with his sis-“ “Flee from what? What does he have to fear if he is indeed harmless, as you claim?” And “Didn’t you also state that he seized one woman by the throat on your way here?” Clamored a second. And finally, “And was it not you yourself, Mr. Daemon, who said the youth expressed increasing hostility towards yourself and others you encounter? Didn’t you say he attempted to bite you?” “Attempted,” Mr. Daemon stressed.

“We must do something about the boy. We can’t have him endangering the Slayer…” Said Vandualgh. Shocked silence greeted this new pronouncement. “Don’t be absurd, Vandualgh,” scoffed one. “I fail to see how a young boy is going to be a threat to the next slayer-who is likely several states away, at the moment. It’s just a question of locating her.” “But she’s not several states away.” A longer pause than the first. “What are you going on about, you daft old bat?” Demanded Smogg. “The Slayer is none other than the sister of the vampire in question.” Outright calamity ensued at this statement. “What?” “But that’s impossible!” “We’ve never had two slayers arise from the same country, let alone the same state…!” Vandualgh waited for the hubbub to die down. “While it is highly irregular and unusual for circumstances of this type to arise, it is fair to say that Fëanor is no ordinary Slayer, just as Eclipse is no ordinary vampire,” rang out Mr. Daemon’s voice in the sudden silence. “Well, then we must be rid of this…. Eclipse at once,” argued Smogg. “He is a potential threat to our Slayer, and must be destroyed at our earliest connivance. Who among you does not agree with me on this manner?” He challenged, his eyes narrowing as they swept across those gathered. None dared. “But the child has not fed!” Came yet another outburst from Daemon. “Excatly. He has not fed yet. But soon, very soon, the sheer need will overcome what little human remains within him. And he will then doubtless kill her.”

“A Slayer with a child is a tragedy. A vampric child from Slayer loins is an abomination.” So the matter was closed with that ill and somber statement. Eclipse must be put to death.

Hours later, Daemon stood in the foyer, eyeing Eclipse. Eclipse, succumbing to his vampric nature with each toll of the hour, had begun to ravage his forearm in his desperate need to feed an all-consuming, animalistic, hunger. The flesh was raised and torn, and darker stains of blood long dried were evident upon the length of his arm. Daemon had feared it would come to this. Often, if a vampire, which only needs to feed about once every month or two, is deprived of prey or the means to acquire prey for prolonged amounts of time, they often resort to feeding upon themselves. “Eclipse,” he hailed, softly. Eclipse gazed up at him with his dark, smoky, eyes. “Walk with me, for a moment,” he forced, in a tone as forced and insincere as his plastered smile. Eclipse narrowed his eyes. He inhaled. Regret. And fear. And anger. All emitted as loudly as a shout into the silence from Daemon. But, he nodded his consent, and placed his beloved, slumbering, sister down on the sofa. And so the two ventured out of doors. No sooner had the door’s locking mechanism slid smoothly into place with a barely audible click, Fëanor began to howl. It was a terrible sound. The sound of a soul between torn in two.