Turf Of War
William Langley It’s a grey day, damp and misty. The wind is from the south, moist as the kiss I placed on #Katherine’s lips after convincing her that today is not a game. No pleasure, strictly business The ruins of the old city are visible in the distance, threaded through with wisps of morning mist, reminding the people what we took when we first came here, after the war. What this place once was and what remains now. I walk towards the old cottage with faint wet squelching sounds of my boot each time it pulls free of the grey-green muck. The cottage too holds secretes beneath it like the city in the background does. In fact it’s not a cottage at all. It’s a gateway to my favorite office. Also in secret. The air is wet and heavy, and shallow pools of water dot the ground. Must’ve rained last night or in the early morning when I was too busy indulging myself in things only my kind could, to care for the outside world. It’s a charming attraction this place has. Makes you forget you have to pretend to be human to fit in. It isolates you, or me…It isolates / me / and makes me do as I wish without consequence. I have come this way before. It was then decorated with black roses on each side of the now muddy path, so elegantly that it pleased even #Adria’s eyes, whom this property belonged to in half, then. The land was bought and built on for me in secret and given to my sisters on their shared birthday in public. In private, #Tia and I knew that it was constructed to fit and satisfy each and every one of my needs, my quieted desires that I could no longer openly express in the new world. Hidden passage ways and disposal gates all concealed below the extravagant walls and paintings of the Salvatore manor. That too was a selfish act. I even had the black and iron sealed on the large S that welcomes you in our doors, so large it can be seen at the end of the road but the stag that was once the Salvatores’ mark changed itself to a large dark wolf. A beast my sister and I found more appealing to our true natures. A token of the empire we ruled together and not what our father threw at our feet out of hatred and well…Perhaps duty. Now the house belongs to someone who is not named Salvatore but still one that shares my bed. A safety measure to make sure what I’ve assembled will remain intact no matter the outcome of the war to rise. The call from @HomicidalDaft came in the early morning when I was just finishing the night’s heavy result. He had called in a favor after seven years of not seeing me in person. We fought together during #TheBrotherhood’s civil war and its grand collapse but managed to keep in touch from casino to casino. He’s a groupie but never a member. Always unaligned and with a great desire to live among humans. That is not a thing to be proud of in our society and I would have politely declined if I didn’t need the release and if it weren’t for @SeductiveBeaut. Her I know from a better life, a better city, a better me… So I obliged. The path becomes narrow in its end at the door and a low squeal accompanied by a loud puddle being smashed in, lets me inside the wooden door, left alone in a manner which would raise no cautions. “Downstairs.” Says David. So eager to get it done he can barely stand. He’s an impatient man. That personality trait is one of the main reasons I have not yet offered him a position in the companionship. I sometimes wonder if he is waiting for me to… Stepping aside, @HomicidalDaft walks to show me the way to / my own / place. “So when are you telling her?” I ask without moving. Without following. He watches me and I watch him. We both so clearly know what I’m talking about but none adds anything to it. “I’m gonna say it’s not my territory so not my business” David shakes his head lightly and attempts to move past me, a very stupid act when I’m trying to make a point, so with a finger on his chest, I push him back, pulling off my stern expression. “BUT! Revealing yourself to the human section is strictly forbidden.” “Oh you care about the laws now, do ya? Mate, don’t make me laugh at work.” His accent coating every word, he brushes me away and I grab his arm to make myself clear. “She’s gonna find out one way or the other and she’s gonna want to take you down. Oh she’s good, I’d know. She nearly wiped out my city, don’t think for a second that her cute little business is only training assassins for money! She’s training hunters and you’re too young to get in the way of / my / business. Tell her before she finds out and draws attention. Minimum damage. No blood wasted.” “I don’t work for you!” David snaps. “Oh you do! All vampires do.” I snap right back at him. “Gentlemen!” The third party arrives before David and I grab each other and start throwing punches, a fight that would end with me beating sense into him but would most likely leave behind no useful results. Jason who has joined us after the Fosters came to town, tilts his head down showing me the passage. “Get the one in the living room?” I suggest a task for him and he does so, giving me his ‘Please don’t kill each other’ look before he climbs up the dusty stairs and leaves open the downwards rail for me. Here I see only a normal cottage abandoned by the rich careless owners of the expensive mansion but as I reach the end of them, another world reveals itself through the iron door. A world much cleaner, much more cared for and much more captivating than of the one above. Jason has laid out all the favorite tools, polished and ready for me on the table. Near it a chair and in the span a moaning man half beaten to death. I always enjoyed the dramatic efforts Jason would put in his job, like how now the green apples sit perfectly in shape on the bowl for me. “Drinking vervain I’d heard of but injecting it to your blood and screwing the quality? You’re making our job hard. You bad bad / bad / boy!” I scold William Langley, #Frankie’s father before settling down on the chair and putting my feet on it. “Oh well I guess the old way wouldn’t hurt.” I pick my way between the knives and daggers on the wood, carefully, and once done, grab an apple to cut for myself, easily and relaxed while Hudson squirms and complains silently. David knew I may want to take my anger out on someone, most likely William. He knew that I’ve been forced to restrain my violent outbursts in the mansion as I need the loyalty of my family and the one of Fosters, but what I do behind closed doors and hidden from the locals’ view is none of their concern. So he most likely / is / expecting me in my truer form. We sit in silence with me trying to calculate the ways in which I could make the old man talk but he’s a hunter and hunters are usually trained to kill from a very tender age. That means having to sit through torture without ever opening your mouth has been a chore , the way normal kids take the trash out or close open windows in their homes. That is also why I’m the most eligible for the job. David is too harsh and has beaten the man to broken bones and a bloody nose with knuckles broken and a finger cut off, well maybe two, can’t tell from where I am, and @SeductiveBeaut…Well she / can / be an artist with torture but not when it’s someone she cares so deeply about. Someone that to my knowledge has refused to even accept the fact he is who we / know / he is. #Frankie maybe only knew it by paper and by an alias name but…I…I know it because I can see the genes. I can smell it on him even from here. I don’t usually concern myself with the business of the fragile and mortal, they are in the end only of flesh and bones but…She was one of us once and she was going to join, willingly so yet she chose the life span of a normal person as she saw fit. That does not mean she went back to being human the second her body accepted it. Once you pledge allegiance to a race or a nest, you will forever be of that nest and of that race. To me…Frankie will always be one of us and one of us always deserves respect. Jason returns from his task, holding the severed head in one hand and the body in his other. The eyes of the dead vampire have been squashed in with thumbs and what remains is an empty eye socket and blood. Blankness and blood. My wickedness makes myself chuckle. “Jay let us see if he can still play catch?” Immediately Jason snorts and throws the severed head for William to catch, which he cannot because of his maimed and restrained hands. No one can recognize the head as it is covered in blood, rotting, and bursting with maggots. I had it thrown to the garden before I found the need to detach it from the body and leave it as decoration inside the living room. A lesson for her as much as it was for him. “Oops…My bad. Didn’t remember you couldn’t exactly use your hands.” I smirk with a snaked eye as I chew the cut piece of apple. “That one pissed me off. I mean…You don’t get to be the leader of the most savage organization the earth has seen with an uncalculated heart but…What can I say? I go soft sometimes for what’s mine. Seventy five years he served us…Seventy five good years before the fall even but…” Sad contempt as if I felt sorry for the dead vampire washes over me, making me remove my feet from the table to lean towards William as if speaking to a friend and not a foe, mostly for myself than for him. “You can’t look at what’s mine. Plays with all the bad nerves. He was lucky he was one of us and I had to respect him with a quick death.” William has a hard time breathing, I can…David did him good by his methods, probably drowning him over and over again. That was a thing that he did. Standing up, I walk over to Langley and lean down. “That’s all a man ever wants, right? Respect. I thought him and I had an understanding like you and I do” I point a hand to William and then to myself. “I wouldn’t go and just fuck your daughter now would I? We have to respect these lines, some unspoken law between the men, you and I get that. He?” Empathizing, I show the dead vampire’s head to William with an angry palm pointed his way. “Oh he didn’t and there’s so much a man can take.” “I won’t answer to a low life vampire…” He groaned, barely speaking, barely breathing. If I had the time I would chain him to the wall and go about my days without caring but time is of the essence now. “My brother is called William and I keep him in respect. Don’t know why you don’t want us to know what’s true and what’s not. Now see my buddy over there?” My head tilts to show @HomicidalDaft waiting bored on the end of the dungeon like basement. “He is a bad host. You know how the war works. They all have PTSD and all of that shit going on. He used to be a general, you know? Yeah…Impressive for a lowlife vampire, isn’t it? But that’s the thing with the kids, isn’t it? They’re too impatient, too quick to thrust the knife into their enemy’s thighs…” Following my words, the dagger still stained with the sour sweetness of the apple, runs over his thigh, pressing enough pressure to tear at any given moment but it never does, it only teases the skin with a hard movement, following the muscles that I could slowly tear out. “I always wondered why they couldn’t wait two minutes longer before their belts came off. Rushing is for boys. Those years are way behind me…I’ve become a very patient man.” “I’ll die without giving you shit!” He said through gritting teeth, finding enough strength to lean up from his chair, well…What he could hold up which is his neck. “I’m a very patient man, Mr. Langley so don’t wait for death to devour you…” Leaning down to his old wrinkles face that homes black and purple bruises here and there and has dried blood on it, I whisper lowly. “I’ve come to do anything but.” William Langley stared into my eyes and I stared into his, boring myself with all the old memories it has to say. He is bleeding and he will eventually bleed the vervain out but something about that fierce look…That smirk, the way in which he holds himself…It reminds me of my own father and there is no man I have ever hated more than my father. “Bring me the bucket.” I order Jason and he does so, bringing the steel like bucket filled with cold water close to me. “I thought you didn’t do that…” David notes, his arms folded as he stands with no amusement showing, I can feel it even with my back turned at him. As Jason works the chords and brings out my little toy, something I haven’t used in years, I suddenly grab his hand , forcing my dagger into the tip of his finger and lifting it upwards till the nail is so viciously torn out. The shocking scream of pain finally pouring out pleases me greatly. It reminds me of the time @VengefulFangs and I made our father sound like that. Yet it doesn’t let me go satisfied for long, in fact I pull the blade out only to slam it down and cut off the injured finger. So sharply and swiftly it goes off for a second but that is why it hurts. The aftermath. He had lost two fingers but they were not cut off, only broken. I guess I started the game myself. “He called me a low life, oh trust me I’m gonna have fun with him! Just because I introduce myself as Damon Salvatore doesn’t mean I’m any less of a lord.” I spit out, walking over to the remote that controls the wires heading for the bucket and in the mean while #Jason makes it his mission to insert William’s legs inside the bucket. He struggles but Jason being a vampire wins. “YOU PSYCHO! I have had worse, boy!” From the pure adrenaline in his blood, he speaks, shouting with an energy he did not display moments ago. “I was born the count of the greatest republic the earth has ever seen!” Adjusting the voltage, I settle for a good 100 without the three that starts to warm the poor victim. I hate being called a boy, that’s what my father used to call me. “Let’s say I have pride.” I twist the little circle and cause a loud whizzing sound to travel from me all the way over to William and like flashlights, the dark damp basement brightens and as do lightening , the voltage travelling seems like a bright burning blue , making William’s body enter shock and the water beneath, forcing it to repeat itself over and over and over and over again. He dances and we watch. Oh how I’ve missed this! “What’s your name?” I whisper, knowingly so. Knowing that he won’t be able to make up my words far from registering it and replying to them. I know…I’m cruel like that and so, as the punishment for him not answering, another 100 meets his body, making him go straight into what seems like a caesurae but is not. The wire in the water goes on whizzing till the smell of flesh and chocking sounds are what remains. I have to roll my eyes and take a journey all the way over to him and grab his seemingly lifeless head to make him look at me. “What’s your name?” Through a hardly breathed exhale, he groans painfully. “Justin Charles.” “William…” I say with a nice deal of empathy feigned. “I’m a vampire. I can tell when you’re lying.” Playfully, I reach for his hand with the dagger still in my grasp and poke at where a finger used to be, making him scream in pain. “What’s your name?” “Jus…Justin Charles” He says sleepily, his head hanging over his shoulder now that I’m no longer supporting him. Going through electrical shock does take a lot out of you! I fiddle with the controller in my hand, looking down at it, trying to decide and his eyes, having lost their fierce gaze, close and open like an old woman’s in her nap. Truth is I get off on it. Not on inflicting pain but on inflicting fear. Of knowing I have all the power in the world. Clicking a button here and seeing something shake so vigorously over there. It’s why I like toys when torturing. To master that is to be a master. Another round of screams, this time very short lived, washes over him and then he goes silent, shaking in the chair as the electricity bakes his body, making him feel every ounce of it inside. The silence is taunting. For the company I keep anyhow. In one hand, holding the remote and in the other a dagger that threatens his ring finger, my body lowers itself to him while tears, uncontrobally leave his eye socket. “What’s your name?” His body shys away from me, shrinking into the seat but his eyes, without control stay still on my hands, not knowing which one to look at in their fear. He pants, expecting pain to follow and I act as a true servant of the expectations, tugging the dagger on his ring finger and cutting skin where it could hold and quickly remove the white of his flesh, exposing blood and bones. “What a simple thing it is to snap your neck. You are so fragile you mortals. Such things of…skin and air. Such things of a past. The future belongs to the strong. To the immortal race. To me and to my kind. Look upon your master…” I commend him, murmuring and he only wiggles, like a worm on a stick. “What’s your name?” “William!” He says with as much power as he can gather. “William! William Langley” “Wasn’t so hard, was it?” Slowly pulling away the blade that holds the rest of the skin on her finger, I let the real pain to consume him. The pain of loss and the pain of the agony to come. “How did your wife and daughters die, William?” “Wolf attack!” “Don’t lie to me, William. How did your family die?” “I can’t…Please no, no more…I can’t” “How did they die?” I shout. “I killed them! I killed them!” Crying the admission, he drops his head back, moaning his cry out. The information is brand new even to me and I have no idea what I am to do with it…How I am to deliver it. That’s another thing about me…I’m too selfish, I’m not so good with delivering bad news, disappointing news… “Why?” I ask him with my knife at his throat, now angry and out of my own posture, out of the torturer I need to be to get the job done, ask him as Damon, seeking answers for a colleague. “WHY?” “She…She…was sleeping with another man.” He tries to yell but all that comes out is a low whisper which would probably make any man have to lean down to hear. Contempt dominates my face. “Wasn’t my daughter…She wasn’t my daughter so I killed them both. I killed them both.” He cries, weeping, as if the confession was being spoken for the first time and he as I do, is just understanding the meaning of his words. “I didn’t mean to…I hated her…I hated her…I let Francis go. I let my daughter go. I couldn’t…I couldn’t kill her too. Please…Let me go! Kill me! Kill me!!!” “I’m a disgusting lowlife psychopath and I have more honor than you!” I spit on the ground. “You killed the daughter you raised because she wasn’t your blood? and the mother of your other child? You call yourself a man?” I hold chin as much as touching him disgusts me and force him to look up with my hand on his neck. “You know what I’m gonna do? I’m not finishing you off as much as I want to. I’m letting her take care of you so you know how / badly / you’ve fucked up.” God I fucking hate men like my father! Pushing him back into the chair, I ask Jason to clean this mess up on my way out of the basement, a job well done. “Did he just call me a psychopath?” I stop to stare at David. “Ouch! I take great pride in being a very functional sociopath! Now I’m hurt…
