The night had fallen completely and the alley, dark normally during the day, was tar colored. The air was almost as thick, it seemed, as well, greasy and oppressing. Had he been human, he might have been scared. He moved as a shadow, and in the dark corners of the alley that made him undetectable.
As he walked, he heard the screams of a woman from around the corner ahead. Following the screams the sounds of movement and splashing echoed off the narrow alley walls. He quicked his pace. He heard a grunt and as he turned the corner saw a woman fighting off three men, obviously frightened and outmatched. Still, she swung her purse wildly and panted with the effort. Her hair was tosseled and one man was bent over, hands nursing an obviously painful strike to his groin.
She turned to run, trying to make her way through the hole she had opened and was spun around violently as one of the men, tatooed and lumbering, ripped her blouse from her body. Xerxes saw her fear, primal, urgent, and hopeless. In that split second before her neck was twisted around with the rest of her body, he saw her resignation. He saw his sister.
She had come home beaten, bruised and bleeding often. When he had tried to ask her who had done such things she would just cry and shake her head. Eventually, her pain would overwhelmn Xerxes and he would hhold her, shaking, in his arms.
He wouldn't let another woman feel that pain. Not this one. Not if he was here to stop it.
With little more sound then a summer breeze through the dusty streets of his hometown he dove across the street, tackling the man who had ripped the woman's shirt, sending him sprawling. As he rolled over the man, coming up with liquid grace, he smashed his head against the pavement, hearing a satisfying -thwump-, the hollow sound of a head collapsing. Instead of stopping and turning, he kep this momentum moving foward, away from the other two thugs. He took two more strides and ran up the wall, easily going vertical for a story or more. At the height of his ascent, he pushed off with his feet, twisting and flipping in the air.
The first thug, now rising from his wound to the groin never saw Xerxes draw his dull black blade. He never saw the slight flick of the wrist that sent it arrowing towards him. It hit him, penetrating through abdomen to fall on the ground behing him and he still hadn't quite figured out what had happened.
The man fell over, bleeding, but alive. Xerxes mentally snickered, a wound like that would take hours to kill him. He wouldn't last that long, Xerxes would make sure of that.
All this happened in the half of a second that he was in the air. He landed facing his third victim and smiled calmly. The bulky man in front of him was anything but calm. He was at least six feet tall, and looked built like a tank. His large muscles buldged beneath his torn black hooded sweatshirt. His face, where not covered in grim tattoos, were covered in scars. Not a man to trifle with, most would say. Xerxes wasn't most.
The vampire was confident enough to turn and face the woman who, despite it all, was holding her exposed chest.
"Run," he said simply. She ran.
The larger man took what seemed to be the perfect opportunity to strike. He pulled his gun from it's holster and fired, without preamble or warning. Already he was smiling, satisfied with himself. He obviously hadn't grasped the situation fully. He probably never would.
As the chamber of the weapon was filled with the explosive gunpowder and the bullet began its course through the barrel, spinnin to maintain accuracy, Xerxes waited. When the muzzle flashed as the metal and fire that propelled it surged from the tube, Xerxes waited. Only when the bullet was well on its course towards the well-dressed man, did he dip his head down and to the left. He watched with amusement as the bullet whizzed by, sailing towards the wall of the alley.
Then, Xerxes drew his own firearm, reliable and effective. He never turned to see the man's expression, he simple fired backwards at the man, three times to be sure. though he had spent more then one lifetime perfecting his aim, he could still miss. He reholstered his gun and then turned to the man, still standing and in shock. Three red spots were expanding on his chest.
"You missed," the smaller man said and cleared the distance between the two in a blink. The man's body began to fall, but Xerxes held it up, and looked into the man's eyes as his life drained from him. "I am the devil, here to claim your soul." Then he sunk his fangs into the man's flesh and savored his meal. Euphoria surged through him and he reveled in his kill.
It took several long moments for him to finish feeding and his victim was alive for much of that. When he finally did die, Xerxes tossed his body aside as discarded trash and moved to pickup his dagger. He absently slit the dying man's throat, showing some mercy to those that had shown none.
His shoes clicked as he walked away from the three corpses, they clicked because he wanted them too.
Breakfast for one
Xerxes walked alone in the rapidly darkening alleys of Nachton. These readily forgotten streets held a tangible fear; and it assaulted the man. He could smell the fear of the victims, helpless passerbys cornered and dragged here to be beaten, raped, or killed. Worse, though, was the fear of the thugs. These men fought hard to hide their fear, did their best to battle it with brutality - but they were rank with it, and it was vile.
Xerxes held no particular aversion to crime, he had once been forced to steal for the food he ate, oh so many years before. But, he never fed on the helpless, never killed without provocation, and never grew accustomed to it. Since then he had stolen and he had killed; but his crimes were not from anger, and they weren't against innocents. There was a difference between himself and these bastards. Governments were corrupt, wealthy were selfish, and the wicked didn't desrve to live; Xerxes, when he was forced to feed, sought out the scum of the world; those that took life for granted and gave nothing in return for the gift they had received, the gift Xerxes would never regain, the gift of humanity.
Tonight was one of those nights. Xerxes Asha, thief of anceint Persia, prowled the streets once more.
((ooc: need to break this up into parts since I am @ work and have to reboot computers all the time))
Xerxes Asha
18 years ago