The devil was a woman

m o u t h f u l of white HOT fire, tongue coated in p o i s o n, RAGGED nails painted in m y own blood; there’s a H U N G E R in me, something vicious a THIRST to be CELESTIAL, godly, divine– and yet. ----- blood pours from her lips like the sweetest song.

[cyphersfour]

Claire Holt for Lucky Magazine

[porcelainfcngs]

@desobscurites

The art of surprise was long since lost on her, impossible to sneak on a creature who heard everything and had spent several life times making an effort to cover her tracks. Not for fear of being found, but for the simple fact that she preferred her solidarity. A difficult feat within the coven her sire stood at the helm of. How strange, that she could pick his cologne after only a select few moments in his presence, the blonde almost immediately working over every contingency she’d thought of should all hallows eve go up in flames. “It gets worse every year.” As if she didn’t still hold the lingering taste of blood on her tongue, the parents of the little girl she pushed back and forth on the swing, long grown cold. “They don’t even run anymore.” Letting go of the chain, she turned just enough to glance over Philippe, the little girl barely moving under her compulsion. “We’re welcomed with open arms..-- what a time to be stuck in a place like this.”

[porcelainfcngs]

@barczaks

“You know,” The blonde broke cover of the shadows with the struck familiarity of another, the amusement that settled low in her throat sounded in a playful like hum as she sidled up beside him, pressing the pad of her thumb to the spot of blood at her lip. “If I’m not mistaken, I might have seen someone dressed as your lovely counterpart tonight. I knew Halloween was losing some of its.. finesse, but I had no idea people were reaching so violently for creativity. I suppose ---- it could have been worse. Soon enough they’ll be dressing as you.”

[porcelainfcngs]

isaaclandon‌:

Isaac hummed in delight, feeling the mist swirl around with a whisper of voices. This night was so full of surprise and unpredictable promise that he was on edge in anticipation, alf tempted to dance around the graves and sing a few of the dark songs buried in the recesses of old memories. “Mind your footing.” He cooed in warning. “The air is restless, and they do say that vengeful spirits are the one that possess the most power in the afterlife. An ounce of disrespect, and you may just find yourself and quite the horrid predicament.” His lips turned upward into a sly smile and he fixed his eyes on the individual. “Isn’t that just exciting?”

Despite the rather harrowing nature of all hallows eve and the rather enticing notion for further chaos, Anne had never quite trusted it. Terrible things always seemed to befall this night, regardless of how much mischief she was or wasn’t up to. With Malachi leading the figure head of the coven rather publicly, she’d left both he and his own to their own devices, opting to break the midnight air. “If vengeful spirits were really something I thought I could avoid, I sure as hell wouldn’t have settled for this supernatural hotpot.” She had no doubt there were many a number awaiting her on the other side. Her brow rose in skeptical curiosity of the rather chipper man. “Undeniably so, it would seem. Not so horrible as to keep you away, however.”

[porcelainfcngs]

@benedictsaez​

There was no doubt in her mind that it would really only be a matter of time before he caught up or caught onto what she’d done. A misplaced tracker and a trail that should have led him directly to his hit gone cold while she led him on yet another wild goose chase across town. Sucking the last of the blood from the tip of her thumb, Anne perched herself up on the breakfast counter of the home she’d followed him to, the woman he’d sought out long since deceased, lay haphazardly on the kitchen floor, the run of crimson slick on the tiles beneath trailed across the ground in the shape of her heeled boots. “I wondered when you might catch up. I thought for sure you’d figure it out quicker this time. --- Wine?”

[porcelainfcngs]

@lucaxjack

The long lost system of tunnels beneath the town weren’t completely forgotten -- lost to those who held no use for them and a staple piece of the town for those ever in need of a place more than slightly under the radar. Anne had long since found refuge in them while passing hands with those paid by virtue of their own life to deliver to her every necessary item she was tasked with finding; everything for a price, of course. The trickle of rain a stark contrast to the harsh pelt it hammered down on the concrete above, the damp concave of the tunnel that opened up into a near underground cellar had housed the her regular dealings. Boots clicked against the shattered stone beneath, echoing eerily against the cold walls that covered her in darkness. The reverberating sound of a heartbeat ahead didn’t quite slow her in her steps, despite the fact that both the organ in their chest and the scent that clung to him not that of the man she expected to see. “Interesting place for a midnight stroll.” Never mind that she’d only ever known the tunnel to remain empty, those within it would likely have already known of their existence, it seemed almost impossible for one to simply stumble upon any of the entrances. Pity for him, she’d never left a loose end in any of her deals; if he just so happened to bare witness. “Turning around would serve you better, a pity should you get lost down here.” She spoke rather lightly, manicured nails dragging with incessant noise across brick.

[porcelainfcngs]

@tristanriversx

If there was one thing that Anne could well enough do, it was be where she was neither wanted nor needed with as little care given to the idea that she might upset someone. Finding her way into Tristan’s home had been little more than a blip of exertion, and as she trailed lithe fingertips over mindless trinkets upon the mantle she couldn’t have found more reason to detest remaining so stagnant as to plant roots anywhere on her travels. “You had a visitor earlier,” The blonde chimed as she felt the air shift with the presence of another, “He was rather annoying. I hope you weren’t too fond.” Though she’d hardly left a mess in her wake, she’d become much too particular in which details she left behind whenever she fed, the body that lay limp in the lavish bathtub for instance, held no traces other than the two puncture wounds in his throat. 

[porcelainfcngs]

jobrotzmann‌:

@porcelainfcngs

No one ever bothered to lock the door, what was the point when the house homed a trio of vampires who came and went as they pleased? Recognizing the fact that if someone unwelcomed found themselves stumbling in, it’d be a measure into their own misfortune, not Josephine’s or anyone else’s. Like a meal on wheels that delivered themselves to their front door. It was a swell idea, and for a hot second, Jo considered ordering a pizza– solely for the delivery boy. But just as the thought arose, it was dismissed since the front door clicked free and the familiar scent of overpriced perfume wafted in followed by bottle dyed blonde hair. “Auntie Anne, looking as pompous as ever.” Jo muses, tipping her head back to gaze at the woman. “It’s like a family reunion.” 

“Oh, Josephine.” Anne cooed with barely an effort to hide her disdain for the awful familial recant that fell from the redheaded vampire sprawling the couch like some overly exerted human. “Watch the tongue,” her own clicked against the back of her teeth in a sound much brighter than the woman it sounded from. “Not even I could find a big enough apology gift for Malachi should I accidentally tear your throat out for calling me that again.” There was little else she detested than the notion of any such connection; she was as much a lone standing vampire as there could have been. Her lacking interest in piecing together people in her life with sentimentality sounded like a mouthful of hydrogen cyanide. “Shoes off the couch, we’re not animals.” 

[prozny]

[porcelainfcngs]

@painxintheneck; @barczaks

[righteousripper]

Sweet Blood Of Mine; Anne

[porcelainfcngs]

painxintheneck‌:

He didn’t need for Anne to tell him so to know of her disapproval. Malachi could read her cold expression perfectly. The people who didn’t understand Anne were under the impression that she always carried an expressionless look on her face. That she was frigid and detached. But Malachi was able to read her perfectly. The slight frown, a subtle smirk, the way her eyes glassed over him, how she tilted her head each time she was being condescending, the way she used her hands to speak when she was worried about something. Anne was not someone who carried her emotions on her sleeve but that did not make her devoid of them. There was some disappointment, concern, annoyance and a little bit of surprise that her sire was still around after all his run-ins with danger. “You should’ve known. You know I like the attention.” He mocked, wetting his lips with the drink he nursed in his hand. “Lukas Grey revealed himself  in a violent - almost gruesome way. And he decided to throw Iris under the bus. It made people restless. Desperate to learn the truth. They wanted to know if we were just as horrible as he was, or painted us to be. Iris spent her time hiding in our home for days. She eventually gave a speech about how we are all not the same. How we are not all monsters. All I did was show them she was right. Actions matter more than just words, Anne. They have Lukas Grey, a werewolf, turning on camera after being accused of murder. And then they have me, a vampire, saving a woman’s life. Arthur, he has it all wrong with this Syndicate business. It not a war between gangs. It’s a war between species.” 

Malachi and Henryk shared a common belief that vampires were the superior species and now with this revelation, he saw an opportunity to enforce that belief. “Henryk stands by me. That’s all that matters. He has his concerns, just as you do. Mainly for my safety.” He reached for the bottle, topping off his glass. “I only keep you in the dark when it’s safer for you to stay there.” Malachi knew there were secrets she kept to herself. Things she hid and never spoke about. Malachi didn’t question her because he trusted her. “I can’t tell you everything unless you are willing to join us and like you said - you prefer your obscurity.” He sighed, looking at her with a soft smile on his face before taking yet another drink. “Do you know why I released you?” There was a short pause. Malachi had learned to enjoy the silence between them. “Because I wanted you to have a choice and a life separate from my own. And you’ve done that, yet - even without the sire bond you keep coming back to me. Why is that?”

“You made us look like a sideshow.” She muttered rather unpleasantly, even if she could mold his projected good nature of their kind to her own will. Given the circumstance, if anyone were to find out she were sired from the man they’d all found curiosity and celebrity in, she’d have rather torn the throats from all those that even considered shoving a camera in her face. Though, Malachi still held greater qualities than she ever had. “Nevertheless, what’s done is done. If anything, at least we all know you’ll utilize the publicity,” though the possibility of him overdoing it was always on the horizon -- go big or kill them all. “You save a woman, and become the future Martyr of the Syndicate and then what?” There would always be question of his sire line in his most reckless moments, and though Anne all too frequently held little regard for it, his new limelight left her wholly uncertain. There was little doubt that the fluctuating attention garnered by the differing species would shift the city beyond the tectonic plates of a gang war, “You’d better know what you’re doing.” She said, rather more exasperated than she might have allowed anyone else to see from her. 

The mention of Henryk’s loyalty didn’t shock her in the least, “how kind of him to finally seem to give a shit.” A bitterness that had not yet seeped from her blackened veins after a time period that she’d found her lackluster sense of trust in the third counterpart of vampires within the pit. A moment where she could have further pressed the topic of the man’s sire reaching out on occasion in the months since she’d left New York; though, safer for Malachi to stay in the dark on that one too. “My safety is much less a thing of importance, my self preservation has long since trumped your own.” The mocking smile that pulled glossed lips to the imprint of a signature smirk didn’t fall short this time. Thee truth was; her obscurity didn’t help her decision in not joining them so surely, the vulnerability however, latched to the two lost souls that had without a doubt found attachment to one another beyond her own comprehension left her unsteady in spending such long periods of time with them. 

The quirk of her brow spurred him onward at the silence which she might have much preferred than the sentimentality attached to the turn of conversation, but once again, Malachi was privy to a side of her all too many believed non-existent. “You’re asking me this after so long?” Pursed lips left the burning desire for drink to linger a little longer, traversing an explanation for her sporadic, yet unyielding loyalty to a man who’d never truly asked it of her. “This life is no different from my last, I take what I want; I conquer who I see fit and I do so without apology.” Statement, nobody need dare to question it. “But I was little more than something to possess myself, human...-- brittle, always living under the rule of another, even with my fingers dug into the flesh of those that tried. It was..--- exhausting.” The sigh that left her wholly unnatural for the blonde. “You could have found anyone else, chosen any single living being that’d struck resonance, but you found me.” After the war, after she’d laid oceanic and dulled hues on the boy in the cattle car, trampled by the woes of being a prisoner; Anne, fighting the shackles of society in every move she’d ever made, had never quite found the release she’d needed in her manipulative ways, no matter how satisfying they’d been.  “You’ve never asked anything of me that would dare warp my own perception of who I am.” Stand straight, do not speak, mind your manners, allow them to use you to their own benefit, live as a reflection of preservation for all but yourself. Their daughter. His betrothed. Their possession. A plethora of standpoints that had morphed the sociopathic tendencies to blossom so sweetly beneath poison lips. “You offered me something that I could never have taken for myself. Over all others, you looked for and found me..-- and so I will find you. Over and over, for everything I can’t offer you in return, I have at least that to give.” It settled like obligation, though she knew far better.

[klaroline-secrets]

[oretses]

She was a lion’s roar, broken glass, and a thousand tiny paper cuts: frightening, beautiful, and very, very cruel.

Loose Ends I, A.M. (via lewiscarol)

[porcelainfcngs]

@leoncampbells

“You,” She noted after a long few passing moments of watching him linger outside of the pit; longer than most usually did. Uncertain of whether they were all too surely walking into something they had no business in, or even those second guessing their entire presence. Both were usually right -- the pit wasn’t one for.. humans, which really only piqued her interest all the more. “Look lost.” The glimmering light of sunset had long since left the sky and despite the attention that gravitated Malachi, she’d rather find her own mayhem than find it in the ring. “Terribly, terribly lost.”

[ladreaminn]

[porcelainfcngs]

@bergsmxn

[porcelainfcngs]

alecmonrce‌:

If it were physically possible for one’s eyes to get stuck due to the amount of times they rolled them, Alec would surely be the first. Her words sparked annoyance which caused for orbs to continue in their circular motion. He might as well have just continuously rolled them when in her presence. The touch of fingertips against exposed skin had his eyes finally dropping, focusing in on the sight of red contrasted against darkened skin. Brows scrunched over narrowed eyes, following the path that she created until they held on her stopped finger. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he retorted in that same persistent sarcasm, slowly lifting his eyes once more to the contradistinction of soft features. “I’m so pleased that I could be helpful. Missed you? Weren’t you just praising me for my sincerity? Wouldn’t be nice of me to start lying now.” There was the faintest trace of a smirk carved into his features, appearing for a flash of a moment before the annoyance nestled back in once more.

Ever the same, his hardened push on her very existence and her pull to draw him ever closer just to see how hard he’d push the next time. Predictable as it were, she’d found something of a fondness for his stout stubbornness as it reflected her own in a much cruder way than she’d ever dream of being. Her physical softness was without a doubt a gift all it’s own. “Oh come now, don’t be like that.” Finger tips lingered against his skin, the contrast of his warmth to her dead cold touch, “I’d know if you were lying, it’s all too obvious with you. I don’t even have to pay attention. Your pulse rings louder than war drums already.” The tip of her finger flicked up to press gently into the point of his throat, “But hey, since you’re feeling a little shy in our reunion, --- I heard your darling brother croaked.”

[porcelainfcngs]

lucaxjack‌:

Jackson’s gaze fell to the blonde who so nonchalantly walked into the chaos of what used to be the Scarlet Temptation. Her sarcasm dripped in her words and Jackson found himself scowling, “It’s quite obvious, don’t you think?” he mimicked in a high voice to mock her own as he glared her down, lifting the bottle back to his lips. Making the decision that he wasn’t in the mood to deal with her or whatever she was trying to play at, “What the hell are you doing here?” he cocked an eyebrow, gaze never leaving the strange woman as the corner of his lips lifted in a wolfish smile, “You’re not making the best first impression, dear.”

His mock tone of voice led her to a plethora of thoughts, too dimwitted to cling to the edge of her own sarcasm to seek his own, too caught in the booze he’d consumed. It didn’t shock her as she scent of it lingered while he spoke. “Aren’t we quite the charmer.” The breathless sense of laughter that spilled beyond her lips drifted to silence as she swiped the bottle from his hand without question, thought or apology. “Is ‘I was in the neighborhood’ still an acceptable non-answer?” The amber liquid swished throughout the glass bottle before she brought it to her lips. “I happen to be quite interested in the art of demolition.” A play off her own words, the crumbling building around them perked her interest for the screams she’d heard, and little else. “I don’t care much for first impressions, not when I can offer a thousand of them if I wish it.” She paused long enough to hold the bottle back to him, “You’ve terrible taste, by the way.”

[righteousripper]

Sweet Blood Of Mine; Anne

[porcelainfcngs]

painxintheneck‌:

The angry count was pretty high. Higher than it ought to be. And if you counted him in the mix – which he would, and he did – it was off the charts. He knew he had gone and done a reckless thing and that there were consequences in the horizon. What he’d done affected his progeny. Affected his lover. He made the decision on his own without thinking of them. Selfish bastard and all. Seemed like the best way to come out of the vampiric closet. Flair. Like he would give Iris the spotlight? Shock the world and silence their doubts in one whole swoop. Better than standing on a podium with a prepared speech. This way vampires wouldn’t have to fill out the paperwork and peel off the red tape.  Didn’t want to go up with an affidavit on index cards. Whole point was integrity. Mean what you say and say it when it happens.  And she’d’ve talked him out of it, if she could’ve. He’d had enough simmering and there weren’t many things he could say when she was all close, so he took a seat on the edge of the coffee table.  "I know my actions will have repercussions and I had no intention on inflicting you with them. You like your obscurity. I’ve got no excuse for what I did. So, if you choose to keep your distance I won’t hold it against you.” 

She mentioned Henryk and how he felt about it. How it was affecting him. Malachi knew that Henryk wasn’t happy about it. It was buggering up his dreams – making them violent and hard again, and hard to shake.  “It’s not the business I’m concerned about. This place? Has been a good distraction.” He couldn’t believe he wasn’t drunk yet.  The edges were still sharp and nothing was dragging on, and when she talked her voice was like it had always been.  He kept the glass loose in his fingers.  Watched her move real slow, her spine straight and set back to curve.  He needed a smoke. Christ, he loved smoking. He patted a pocket down for a pack, and then he patted down another until he found it. “Henryk is worried that this might be the thing that finally gets me killed. Like you, he’d rather have vampires stay in the fiction category.”

The scoff that sounded in her throat was little more than amused as she made herself quite at home. “I don’t care for the consequences of what you did, never have -- never will.” She’d already spend her lifetime both defending her sire and finding enemies not even her own within the wreckage of his actions; but she didn’t choose attachment to him in the naivety that this wouldn’t follow -- even after she’d done the unthinkable and pushed him further in his own monstrosity. “It was going to happen one day, I just never imagined it’d be with you on the coat tails of some half breed mutt.” That and it could have well and truly been executed in a much better way, at least in Malachi’s standpoint. “I’ll have my obscurity one way or another, the knowledge of what we are won’t change that.” She’d refuse to allow it. Even if it meant slipping from country to the next much sooner than she’d ever intended. “I’ve considered it you know, life is a lot more peaceful whenever I’m without you, but --- that’s not how we work, is it?” Every few years, she’d find him. Like clockwork, she’d become predictable in her loyalty to him. It was only a wonder this wouldn’t shake that loyalty. 

“Henryk should give you a little more credit where it’s due. Perhaps the world hadn’t known what you’ve been all this time, but the darker parts of it have, and yet you’re still here.” It irked her, of course, but she was nothing if not adaptable. Her need to allow him completely aware of her irritation was simply a force of habit. They told each other everything. “We can still be played off as fictitious, given the right leverage, someone will come along and claim it little more than disease and we’ll fade into the dark again.” The anonymity of their kind was without a doubt the most thrilling aspect, and she’d never understand those that wished for the limelight. “You have painted quite a large target on your back, so..--- you’re going to have to tell me what your next step is from here, Mal. If you’re not likely to live in the dark anymore, you can’t expect me to remain in yours.”