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Darkness Descends – Prelude to a Party
Lucien: <watches Eden from the shadows of his dimly lit office>
Eden: <walks to the door, the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end, turns and looks around>
Lucien: <quietly from the shadows> Can you feel me?
Eden: <smiles slowly, very softly> Yes.
Lucien: <still quietly> I remember the last time I saw you in the sun. You weren’t nearly as beautiful as you are in the darkness.
Eden: <walks back into the room> I’m not now, Lucien.
Lucien: <shakes his head, still quietly> We are *all* in darkness. And you have *always* been beautiful. <steps into the dim lighting> I’d ask you where your parents are, but I think I already know. I can smell their blood on you.
Eden: <nods> They aren’t anymore. <steps toward him> I can’t smell anything but their blood.
Lucien: <looks at her, smiles slowly, ferally> And how did they taste?
Eden: <smiles, her fangs glinting> Thurston was moldy and vile. <shrugs> I don’t remember how Ophie tasted. <looks at him> There’s not much left of her though.
Lucien: <nods> I would have done it myself, but.. your father wouldn’t have it. It’s.. <rolls his eyes> tradition.. or something.
Eden: <looks at him> He should have let you.. he might be alive now. <smiles wickedly>
Lucien: <looks at her, smiles genuinely> All the more reason for him to do it himself, for *I* might not.
Eden: <shakes her head> I could *never* hurt you Lucien. <quietly> Besides You wouldn’t have let it get out of control.
Lucien: <walks over to her, nods> No, I wouldn’t have. <looks at her> He was weak. Always. And now he’s gone and I am here to guide you through the darkness. <smiles> Welcome to eternity, love. It’s all downhill from here.
Eden: <smiles quietly> I’m glad it’s you, Lucien. <looks at him> Was I supposed to end up here like this?
Eden: <grins> I feel like Carrie after the prom.
Lucien: <laughs, takes her hand> You weren’t supposed to show up in my office, but.. I know you well enough to know you never do what you’re supposed to. And you weren’t supposed to be.. well.. such a mess. But.. again. It’s you, so we have to expect these things.
Lucien: <touches her face with his free hand> I think it’s perfect, however.
Eden: <looks up at him> I think it’s fitting that I found my way here. <turns her head into his hand>
Lucien: <nods> So do I. <looks at her> And I think it’s fitting that you look as you do. Everyone’s waiting for you, Eden.
Eden: <smiles> For me? I should go like *this*? They’ll lock me in brookhaven.
Lucien: <shakes his head> No, they won’t. <looks at her> You’re in good company tonight. Genja is here. Glen. <smiles> And Viktor. Constantine, Mikhail and Damien. And, of course, Edward. Everyone here knows what you are now. It’s sort of like your birthday.
Lucien: <shakes his head> Or maybe a baptism.
Lucien: <looks at her, quietly> Even my father saw fit to show himself.
Eden: <smiles up at him> Yes.. a baptism in blood for the evil. <blinks> Your *father*?
Lucien: <nods> Yes.
Eden: <looks at him> Is Edward going to lose his shit when he finds out I … well.. ate our parents?
Lucien: <smiles> Edward won’t care about that. He’s waiting for *you*. It’s sort of like his birthday, too.
Eden: <smiles> It is? Did they do this to him too?
Lucien: <shakes his head> No. <looks at her> One of you has to remain.. as you are.. to propagate the family name. He was chosen to be your protector during the day light hours.
Eden: <smiles> He’s always been my champion.
Lucien: <smiles> He loves you.
Eden: I love him too, Lucien.
Lucien: <looks at her> We’ve all been waiting for this day for a long time. Even Edward.
Eden: <looks at him> How is it I didn’t know about it?
Lucien: <smiles> What, exactly, could we have said that you would’ve believed?
Eden: <smiles> Well I guess there is *that*. <shrugs> If you’d told me I would have believed it.
Lucien: <nods> But it’s much more dramatic this way, isn’t it?
Eden: <laughs> Yes…yes it is. If you could have seen this dress… before… <shakes her head>
Lucien: <smiles when she laughs> It’s very becoming as it is.
Eden: <smiles at him> I have a feeling things are going to be *very* interesting. <looks up at him> I love you Lucien. Thank you.
Lucien: <looks at her> I love you, too. You’re welcome.
Eden: <quietly> I don’t know how you do it. But you always do.
Lucien: <looks at her curiously> What do I do?
Eden: <smiles> You’re always right where I need you when I need you most.
Lucien: <smiles> I do what I can.
Eden: <stands on her toes and hugs him tightly, kisses his cheek>
Lucien: <hugs her back, turns his head toward her and licks the blood from her lips, closes his eyes, growls softly>
Eden: <shivers, and leans into him, purring, catching his bottom lip in her teeth>
Lucien: <smiles against her lips>
Eden: <releases his lip, kissing him hungrily>
Lucien: <returns her kiss with as much fervor, wrapping his arms around her>
Eden: <breaks the kiss, whispers> Wow.
Lucien: <looks at her, smiles> My thoughts, exactly.
Eden: <smiles her eyes a bright almost incandescent blue, softly> After the party?
Lucien: <kisses the back of her hand, looks at her, smiles> I’ll do my best to be patient.
Eden: <quietly> If you can’t be… we’ll sneak off to a corner somewhere. <smiles>
Lucien: <all but purrs> Oh, I have *many* corners that we could make use of.
Eden: <drags her fangs along his neck> I plan to make use of everyone of them.
Lucien: <closes his eyes, growls softly, quietly> I can’t wait.
Eden: <softly> Me either but I think if we don’t we’re liable to be interrupted.
Lucien: <sighs, nods> True enough. <smiles> Everyone’s quite anxious to see you.
Eden: <looks at him and smiles brilliantly> Then it would be unseemly to keep them waiting too much longer.
Lucien: <smiles again when she does> Then let’s not.
Eden: <nods> As you wish, my Prince of Darkness.
Lucien: <looks at her, tilts his head slightly> I like that. <smiles again> And you shall be my Princess of Darkness.
Eden: <smiles> Oooo, I like that.
Lucien: <takes her hand again, squeezes it> I thought you would. And one night, I’ll make you my queen.
Eden: <squeezes his hand back, smiles again> It’s only fitting you know.
Lucien: <smiles> Fitting because you’re a Beckham? Or fitting because you and I work so well together?
Eden: <grins> Fitting because we fit and because the princess *should* become the queen.
Lucien: <laughs> Of course she should. <smiles> Being the princess is like.. waiting for a promotion.
Eden: <laughs> I never thought of it that way… but the Princess of Darkness is much better than the Princess of Darkness Falls.
Lucien: <nods> It’s much larger territory and we are nothing if not ambitious.
Eden: <smiles again> Yes we are.
Lucien: <smiles> And right now, it’s my ambition to get you through this party as quickly as possible so we can have the rest of the night to ourselves.
Eden: <smiles wickedly> I love that our goals always seem to meld.
Lucien: <touches her face again, still smiling> And I love that you’re finally one of us. <walks to his desk, still holding her hand, leans back against it and pulls her to stand between his feet> So, I should give you the basics before we go out there.
Eden: <stands between his feet, her hand in his> All right.
Lucien: <smiles> So, Genja, Glen and Viktor are like us. Glen rules the commercial district and Genja runs the South Side. *I*, obviously, run Old Town.
Eden: <nods> All right.
Lucien: Viktor was turned rather recently and has taken to chaining women to his bed. You should see what he’s done to his room. It’s.. decadent. Mikhail and Damien serve us as ghouls. They make sure we’re safe during the day. Dominic and Alexei run the company for me during the day by proxy and we usually meet at night to go over the day’s reports and to strategize for the next. I do still have dinners and such with clients. Whatever I can schedule for after the sun goes down.
Lucien: <smiles again> Your brother will server you the same way mine serve me.
Eden: <looks at him>Is he already a …. ghoul… that’s an awful term.
Lucien: <shakes his head> No. You’ll be turning him tonight.
Eden: <frowns> I don’t know how to do that.
Lucien: <smiles> I’ll explain it to you when the time comes.
Eden: <smiles> All right.
Lucien: <looks at her> My father has.. resigned.. I guess you could say. He’s lost interest in power and money. Now he spends his nights reading, mostly. He sleeps in the attic. Obviously, the funeral we had for him all those years ago was staged, so the town didn’t start asking questions. A lot of people don’t know about us, but quite a few do. Sorrow, for instance. <blinks> I can’t believe I forgot about Morose. He’s one of us as well.
Eden: <smiles> I didn’t even know this…you.. us…vampires were real. Now I am one.
Lucien: <smiles> You’re in good company. When a new vampire is created, it’s quite a big event. We all set aside our differences for the night to celebrate and welcome the new one into the circle.
Eden: <smiles> But after tonight you won’t speak again?
Lucien: <smiles again> Oh, we’ll speak, but we’ll go back to our usual rivalries.
Eden: <nods and smiles> I see.
Eden: <looks up at him taking his arm, quietly> Lead me to my destiny? <smiles>
Lucien: <looks at her, smiles> It would be an honor.
Lucien: <pushes away from the desk and leads her out of the room>
Reprise (Night 1)
Sorrow
Sorrow sat behind the counter at the Crow’s Nest, banging away at the typewriter. He barely even noticed when the lights flickered, they did it so often. He pushed his reading glasses up on his nose, the only indication he’d noticed at all, and continued writing. The light coming from the wall lamps was weak against the encroaching darkness and outside the wind blew hard against the windowpanes. He glanced at his watch and realized it was probably time to quit. The Theme of Laura (Reprise) played quietly through the store and he thought about Ava at home, their son Payne, or Malice as most people called him, sleeping soundly in his bed and smiled. The years had been good to them after their last reconciliation and Sorrow was quite content with his life. Ava’s dance studio had done well, but she’d taken a few years off to stay home with their son.The bookstore didn’t do a huge amount of business, but it did enough to pay for itself and give them a little extra income at the same time. Business had actually improved since Sorrow had changed the hours of operation to after dark and by appointment only, probably because it added to the ambiance, or because his best customers were vampires. He’d changed the hours when Morose was turned so he could devote daylight to taking care of his brother and to help Bree with Skin Deep’s books. Morose no longer tattooed anyone, it was too dangerous for him to be that close to fresh blood, but he’d made Bree a partner and he still designed tattoos for people.
Sorrow thought back on his wedding to Ava as he gathered his things together and prepared for the trip home. They’d been married during the first snow of the winter at twilight outside of Lucien’s parents crypt because it was the largest crypt in town. It had been a black wedding and there had been a large number of crows watching from the dead trees around them. It had been a spectacularly creepy affair and Morose had even been able to attend. Emily had made a several tiered wedding cake for them, with black trees holding the top tier and crows adorning it. It had been perfect. In fact, everything was perfect.
Almost too perfect.
Payne “Malice” Corvinus had been born to them almost a year to the day of their wedding. He was born at midnight on a Friday the 13th which is where “Malice” came from. People just naturally expected him to be at least partially evil, though not quite the anti-christ. That honor was reserved for Lucien’s son. Except that he’d never had one. Before he was turned, Lucien fathered a little girl, Alessandra, with Jenna Townsend. It did, however, fall to Genja to spawn the anti-christ, apparently, as in the intervening years, Kat had given birth to twins, a boy and a girl. The boy had Genja’s eyes and there was no doubt who his father was. Those years were notable because no children had been born in the Falls in years, and then suddenly, over the course of a couple of years, at least eight had been. Only for the town to dry up again, it seemed.
Sorrow locked up the store and headed out to his car. He was still driving the 1970 Javelin, they still lived in the same house, but they’d made some improvements. Like the wrought iron fence that surrounded the front yard, making it accessible only by a large double gate with crows perched above the entrance. They’d even bought him a pet raven, as Ava had promised. Yes. Life had been good to them. And now Sorrow headed through the darkness and the fog to reap some more of that goodness.
Darkness Descends (Night 1)
And you can’t fight the tears that ain’t coming
Or the moment of truth in your lies
When everything seems like the movies
Yeah you bleed just to know your alive
She woke in an empty room. Remembering very little of what had actually happened, she pushed to her elbows and looked around. The body of her mother, at least that’s who she thought it was lay casually tossed aside. The once pristine which silk dress now bore testament to the battle she’d fought to survive. She closed her eye, and remembered:
She’d gotten dressed that afternoon with more care than usual. Ophelia had insisted she use a certain bath oil and hair serum. Eden remembered laughing when her mother brought in the ancient apothecary bottles. She’d used them because she was saving the fight for the bigger issue, and the oils didn’t smell bad at all. They brought to mind midnights, thunderstorms, night blooming flowers, and a hint of church; not that Eden went there often. She’d followed the ritual cleansing set before her bathing from the top down and then the anointing. Her mother had come in for that, growling softly she remembered the humiliation of the older woman’s hands on her most private places. She’d swatted the hands away only to be told, “I’ll get your father to do it.” That threat had been enough for Eden to submit. Her hair had been brushed until it gleamed. Eden wondered where Edward was. He was usually there when she was dressing for a party, talking to her, helping her choose which outfit to wear. It had been something they’d done for as long as she could remember. It seemed odd to her that he wasn’t here now. Eden realized sometime during the course of getting ready that *this* wasn’t one of their regular parties. When she asked Ophelia, the infuriating woman had only shaken her head telling her that she would see her brother soon enough. She’d dressed in the white silk dress that had allowed no room for foundations. With a low cut front, a back that dipped low enough to show ass cleavage, and a slit up the side to the top of her hip, she knew she would be bare beneath the thin, unlined, soft fabric. The shoes chosen for the evening complimented the dress perfectly, and at five and a half inches with a one inch plat form, they made her legs look amazing.
As Eden admired herself in the mirror, she saw her mother approaching from the doorway with a wrapped box. She stepped up behind her daughter and passing the box in front of her smiled in to the mirror. Eden took the box, opened it and seeing what it held tilted her head questioningly, “Why?” The older woman answered cryptically, “It’s time, Eden.” Eden had no idea what her mother had meant, and instead of questioning, lifted the diamond encrusted platinum choker from the black velvet and placed it around her slender neck. Her mother took the clasp and fastened it so it sat perfectly on her collarbone. Eden put on the matching cuff bracelets. Her mother led her from the room, to the basement.
Eden hated the basement, she never went down there on her own. Yet this time was different. Her mother led her to a hidden door. Pushing a series of hidden buttons within a symbol Eden had seen around but never noticed here before, they entered a labyrinth of tunnels before ascending into a room, the room in which she now stood.
And I don’t want the world to see me
Cause I don’t think that they’d understand
When everything’s made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am
Her father had been waiting for her and Edward was still nowhere to be seen. Eden watched her father, a man she’d grown to despise, warily. “Why am I here, Thurston?” He smiled, a thing so hideous Eden still flinched in its wake, “You’ll see soon enough, girl.” His voice, though not loud, echoed off the walls around her, disorienting her. He walked toward her, as she stepped back, and with super human strength and speed, was on her sinking his fangs into her throat. Eden writhed in his embrace somewhere between pleasure and pain. She felt her knees go weak as the world went black.
She woke the first time attached to Thurston’s wrist, taking violently from him that which she needed. She realized she’d driven him to his knees. She could hear Ophelia screaming in the distance for her to stop, a sound so far off and hollow Eden couldn’t bring herself to heed it. She was too focused on the blood, thick and viscous. The metallic saltiness slid over her tongue and down her throat. She could feel it strengthening her even as he grew weaker. She felt him go still and continued to drink, taking from him everything he had until his body disintegrated and she was left with a mouth full of ash. Retching violently, her stomach revolted sending his life’s blood spewing everywhere. Eden turned in time to see Ophelia coming at her, arm raised, a wooden staked poised to strike. Eden leapt to her feet and shoved the woman back, with such force her head hit the stone wall, split and bled. Eden collapsed, waking a short time later, the smell of blood permeating the small chamber. She launched herself at her mother the source of the fresh blood, unable to control what was happening and unaware even that it was. She had no recollection of tearing her mother apart, but as she stared into the dead eyes of a disembodied head, she knew. As Eden looked around at the carnage she’d caused only one thought came to mind, a thought she voiced out loud, whispering, “Thank god Edward isn’t here.” Her own voice echoing off the stone as her father’s had.
Eden exited the room the way she came. She descended the stairs, maneuvered the maze of tunnels, finally coming to a door. She realized as she stepped into Lucien’s office that somewhere she’d taken a wrong turn. She could hear the party just starting, the voices and music. She heard Edward’s voice, the one she’d been searching for, and heaved a sigh of relief. Eden tilted her head listening, completely unaware she wasn’t alone in the room.
