Seven - Vanadine

Muscles straining against the invisible bonds that rooted him in place, Vanadine felt the darkness begin to creep in. Anger and rage at his captivity seemed to develop thoughts of their own, driving him to lash out and maim.

Who does this mongrel halfbreed think she is to bind us like this? Burn her alive! Tear out her heart! Kill this bitch in the worst of ways and let all know we are not to be challenged.

Vanadine closed his eyes, concentrating on his human side, embracing the lighter, more forgiving aspect of his psyche.

This is why you can never be with someone like Carine. His mind said. One slip and she would be dead. One tiny misstep and you would be watching her life force drain out onto the ground.

Thoughts of Carine, her beauty and vulnerability, pushed the darkness aside a little and his thinking cleared as he watched the twisted horror of his former friend come into view before him.

“I will have you, Vanadine, willingly or under duress but either way you will be mine!”

The image of Carine’s face gave him strength, strength enough to shatter the magic Horann had tried to bind him with and he surged forward, grabbing her by the throat as he slammed her against the wall, hammering the breath from her lungs. Dust rained down on them from the roof, covering their shoulders like ash.

Horann gulped against the pressure around her throat, her eyes wide at the power Vanadine had somehow gained.

End her! Rip the life from her now!

Vanadine brought his hand back, the nails thickened and black, almost like talons, ready to strike and tear through skin, fat, muscle and tendon. He paused as he noticed Horann looked to be amused, smiling even.

This is what she wants. He knew. To corrupt me even at the cost of her own life? Madness must have taken her completely.

With pity for Horann in his heart, Vanadine released her throat, ending the revulsion he had felt at the contact. Her skin had been scaly and cold, yet not like a lizard or snake but more like some diseased, cancerous thing. He wiped his hand on his trousers as he felt a look of disgust twist his features.

“So close, Vanadine,” Horann hissed through her damaged throat. “So nearly there.”

“I find it hard to believe you have sunk so far as to welcome your own death in order to destroy me,” Vanadine said, wary of any trick she might try. “How is that any kind of victory? You would never see what I became.”

“Yet the knowledge I had won would sustain me in the afterlife for eternity.”

“Then I have a gift for you,” Vanadine said. “Something I think you need.”

“Really?” Horann asked, eagerly, her narcissism overriding her wariness. “What? Your submission?”

“That will never happen,” Vanadine assured her. “Here,” he said gently as he clapped his hands to the sides of her head. “This is the real you,” he added almost sadly. “This is the horror of what you have become. Chosen to become.”

Vanadine felt pressure building in his mind as he sought to penetrate her defences, shrinking his own thought down to a needle sharp drill that skewered her thoughts and invaded her mind.

It was a chaos of conflicting images and thoughts and Vanadine realised Horann barely remained in control of her own mind. The darkness he sometimes felt lay raw and untempered by the humanity she once had. Hate, rage and self pity surrounded him as he wormed his way inside her brain.

“No!” Horann shrieked. “No. please!”

Yet Vanadine was relentless, finding the image Horann had constructed of herself to keep her mind from seeing what she had really become. With a powerful thrust he slammed the image of her reality into the space, shattering the original image she had made as if it was thin glass.

Finally Horann saw her true self, the twisted, diseased parody of what she had been and horror replaced some of the hate and rage she felt. Her mind shifted around his, filling back in as he withdrew his thoughts. When he released her skull, Horann slumped to her knees, a thin keening sound issuing from her puckered, dry mouth. Something that might have been tears traced down what had been soft cheeks at one point and Horann looked utterly broken.

“Help me” she pleaded in a small, pained voice. “Please, Vanadine, help me!”

“There is nothing I can do,” Vanadine told her sadly. “Nothing anyone can do. What you have done, have embraced, cannot be undone. This is your fate and future.”

“I will kill you for this, Vanadine,” Horann promised weakly. “I will extract every last scrap of humanity within you and once you have been taken by the darkness I will end you.”

Yet her promises sounded hollow, her threats weak even to her own ears, Vanadine thought and he disregarded them with disdain.

He leaned in close, smelling the mixture of rot, mushrooms and diseased flesh that made her natural perfume, with disgust.

“You know why I still come here?” He asked, whispering in her pointed ear. “To remind myself of what I must never become. To remind myself of what happens if I let the darkness win. And to pity the thing that once was my friend,” he added. “Goodbye, Horann, I will not be returning again.”

A low moan escaped her as he opened the door and left. Vanadine headed away from the city rapidly, not wanting to risk her recovering and alerting the Council to his presence. Before he transported himself back to where the thin lay, his ears picked up a wail of pure pain, rage and humiliation.

***

Earth was silvery with predawn light when Vanadine’s feet his the grass in Victoria park. He headed to the place he had made for himself above an abandoned shop and lay on the old mattress that had just been discarded when he found it. Dust motes danced in the sun’s morning rays, disturbed by his entrance, their random patterns reflecting his thoughts as he stared up at the gaps in the plaster where it had collapsed.

Guilt plagued him at what he had done to Horann, a nagging doubt in his mind that he should have just left her with her own misery and not added to it.

She deserved it. The dark part of him said savagely.

Vanadine clamped down on the thought, shoving the evil back into the prison he had created for it. No one deserved what had happened to Horann even if she had brought it on herself like a habitual drug user. Once hooked on the darkness, it took over, destroying the light of humanity and washing it away as if it had never been. Vanadine thought back to Horann as she had been years before.

They had been little more than children and all but inseparable. He had been tall and strong as now while she had been slender and as tall as him. Long hair had flowed down from her head, framing an angular but beautiful face as the tips of her ears had just protruded from the dark strands. He remembered how beautiful she had seemed back then, the sun glinting in rays from her midnight hair and an easy smile on her pink lips. Her eyes, dark violet, had been upturned at the corners, an indication of her Asian heritage and they had done everything together. Shared everything as they were the same, both human/Elf hybrids in an Elven world where they had been barely tolerated by most.

“How did they produce us if they are unable to enter the human world?” Horann had asked as they walked through the city streets.

Denant was populated by a few species which made Vanadine wonder why he and Horann were so hated. A succubus walked past, hips swaying and with an overtly sexual look plastered on her face. She stared at Vanadine as if he were some kind of commodity and, he supposed, to a succubus he was. Her attention turned to Horann, unfazed at whether she reeled in a man or woman.

“Need anything?” The dark, sultry voice was all part of the package with the succubi and all designed to seduce.

“Not today, thanks,” Vanadine said, ignoring the painful ache in his abdomen.

“Shame,” the succubus purred. “The three of us could have had fun.”

She had walked away and Vanadine had shuddered at the loss as her power over him faded. It had taken every ounce of willpower he had not to follow, grab and have the creature. Yet he knew it would be hollow, without any kind of feelings attached and ultimately, disappointing.

“What were we talking about?” Horann asked with a smirk as she looked at him sideways.

“Uh…” Vanadine faltered as he struggled to get thoughts of the succubus from his mind. “Where did they get humans to mate with?” He asked.

“Oh, yes, I remember now,” Horann had said with a sarcastic tone to her voice. “So?”

“How would I know?” Vanadine asked. “Unless one fell into a thin by mistake, I cannot see any other way. “Maybe that is why there are only the two of us,” he added.

“Hmm…” Horann had hummed. “And why make us if they just hate us?” She asked.

“Again, you are asking the wrong person,” Vanadine said. “Maybe jealousy as we can navigate the thins while they cannot. Maybe because we are of mixed races and threaten the purity of the Elf race? Who knows?”

Still not sure. Vanadine thought as he lay, his eyes dipping closed.

An image formed in his mind, soft brown curls and hazel eyes that blazed with defiance in the dark.

Carine. How is it you have such a hold on me?

He had never had any feelings for a human before, never been attracted to any although he could say whether he found one pretty or not, so what was it about this human that was so compulsive? Of course she was beautiful, even when the red welt had appeared on her face. Her figure had been feminine, with larger hips and a small belly but she had seemed fit and agile as well.

Images of her, naked and pinned beneath him as she writhed in passion, filled his mind and he groaned as the pressure built in his abdomen and his erection strained to be free.