Reckless: Prince of Pierce - Act 2
by redmoon
Prince of Pierce - Act 2
Logan was very quiet. He was very different. He had taken to wearing his black, wool turtleneck and jeans when he met with the Slayer, though she knew for a fact he still wore his brown blazer and khakis to work. He was not particularly happy that she had called. He had been riding the roller coaster that was their shared life for longer than even the thrill seekers would call healthy. He scratched one eyebrow with his pinkie finger irritably. She shouldn’t have called him at his house. Rachel was just beginning to trust him again. Things were normal at the Kilpatrick house again. Hanna was speaking to him. She shouldn’t have called.
“I wouldn’t have called,” Niki admitted. Beyond the bitterness she harbored for him and his perfect life, she did experience the annoying guilt for perhaps having ruined the life of a perfectly good wife and perhaps now emotionally scarred daughter. “It’s just that if Pearce really is a danger... well, he knows where you live,” she looked genuinely concerned for Logan and his family, and she hoped he could tell.
“Me and my family are just fine, thank you very much,” Logan replied as if she had touched a tender spot. “Pearce is cursed: he couldn’t kill time, let alone innocents.”
Niki sighed. She knew he was right. She had no answer as to why Tom had been so concerned about the harmless vampire, except that barkeeps of the Nail Biter were traditionally dead if they couldn’t see dangerous people coming. “I know,” she said simply. “I just thought you should be warned,” her eyes shifted uncomfortably, “...in person.”
Logan blinked. He could smell that she had been drinking. That meant she had been using. That meant she had been slaying. Which of course meant that she wanted him. Grinding his teeth, he stood and walked to the door of her apartment. “Thanks for the warning,” he said curtly.
“Wait,” Niki stood so fast her head was spinning. That and the alcohol made her promptly collapse back onto the couch. “What are we going to do about Pearce?”
Logan didn’t slow his pace. “If he comes after my family,” he said, opening the door, “I’ll make him wish he’d never been born.” The door closed with loud finality.
October 10, 1980
Pierce raised the glass to his lips. The warmth of the freshly spilt blood filled his cold mouth. His cohort cheered, raising their own wine glasses, filling their own cold mouths with the same freshly spilt blood. The cheers almost covered the muffled wails of terror coming from the other room.
The Prince leaned back in his simple chair. It was a simple house, after all. Those for whom there weren’t enough wine glasses had to drink their blood from water glasses or mugs. These people obviously didn’t entertain much.
On the good linen, staining the white tablecloth, their hostess lay staring blankly at the ceiling. Her arm lay above her head, across the Prince’s plate from which he had drawn the first and last of her precious blood. Even vampires had class.
He was eternally grateful for the Japanese and their Feng Shui: People would actually invite whole groups of strangers into their homes to rearrange their furniture for them. And why not stay for dinner? Pierce smiled. They hadn’t gotten around to moving the chesterfield yet, but that could wait.
The wailing in the other room rose to a panicked scream as Mault dragged the young woman from the living room into the dining room where she saw her older sister on the table. As her screaming continued, Mault raised his hand and struck her hard, sending her down onto the floor with a whimper.
“P- Please...” she begged, falling to her stomach as Pierce rose from his chair and approached her. “D- do- don’t kill me– please!”
The Prince slowly knelt and took the young woman by the arm, lifting her from her prostrate position and lifting her to her knees. He took her chin and lifted her tear stained and makeup streaked face to look at him. His own face, now in human form, drew close to hers and he closed his eyes, inhaling the deep scent of her fear. It made him giddy.
“Ah, terror,” he drew back and laughed to his inferiors who laughed with him. They knew his sadism was unparalleled in the city and his ability to avoid the Slayer was legend. No one who ever served the Prince had ever been slain. It was worth enduring his theocratic inclinations.
With a nod to his second in command, Fetters, he turned his attention back to the second course. Terror. There was nothing more intoxicating. He gently drew the woman to her feet and maneuvered her trembling form back to the wall. Placing his hands on her stomach, he pressed himself against her against the wall. His voice was quiet, his lips near her ear. Whatever he said, it inspired such terror in her that her mouth hung open and she was unable to scream.
Fetters handed the Prince the dagger and Pierce took it in his hand behind his back, concealing it from the view of its next victim.
With a rush that couldn’t be beaten; couldn’t be described by mere language, he drove the dagger into the quivering mass of terrified flesh. Even as he felt the warmth surround his fingers, then his hand, then his wrist as the blade drove into wall, her eyes were searching the room... surely someone would help her... someone would...
With a scream of pure rage, her brother charged into the room, a golf club raised above his head. In the darkness of the dining room, the Prince had the advantage before the poor man had even decided to act.
With one swift and fluid motion, the vampire caught the charging man’s swing by the wrist and twisted until he dropped his weapon. He motioned for the surrounding vamps to back off, Fetters lifting the pierced woman from the floor.
The Prince twisted the man’s hand until he fell to his knees with an expression of fury and agony. Pierce regarded this expression with a mixture of fascination and delight. Soon all of that passion would turn to terror. What a passionate terror it would be. With a crack, he drove his knee into the kneeling man’s face, released his wrist and toed the golf club from the floor where he caught it.
To the wide eyed look of the man with the now broken jaw, the Prince of Pierce drew back and drove the handle of the golf club through the man’s stomach, driving all the way. The man screamed in agony for many seconds before Pierce let go of the club and let him fall to his side where he gurgled and died.
The vampire sighed with satisfaction. He had proven his ruthlessness to his subordinates and perhaps improved his reputation. All of that was secondary to the rush of the smell of terror which now completely filled this house, pounding between his temples, coursing through his body like a fever.
With a bold laugh, he raised his fist into the air as if he had just defeated some worthy opponent. The others laughed triumphantly as well. Their Prince was worth it.
Pearce watched the night pedestrians go by. They passed his companion and him without much notice. Holiday shopping maybe. Jolly and turkey and all that. It was so depressing.
“Sad, isn’t it?” the vampire in black stated beside him. The unnamed vampire had led Pearce to this street because of the people on it. The tragically unconcerned people. “They don’t know how close they are to death. How could they know? Why should they know?”
“I can’t hurt them,” Pearce said after a pause. He had been declawed, as it were, not that he felt any less of a desire to see them suffer. Perhaps he had all the more reason now.
“What if you could?” the vampire asked, turning slightly in the deep shadows of the alleyway. “What if you could bring back the days of the reign of terror? The days of the reign of the Prince of Pierce?” The other vampire said nothing. “What would a fallen prince do?”
“What a prince was born to, I expect,” Pearce said thoughtfully.
“But what if a prince had a Slayer to deal with... What would she say about his reign?” The unnamed vampire in black turned back to the passing people. The ignorant people. The blissful people.
Pearce said nothing for a long time. The people passed by and it began to snow. Their breaths fogged in front of their faces. They didn’t notice the two figures in the alleyway, the two figures whose breath couldn’t be seen.
“Can you reverse the wish?” Pearce asked, surprised at how little he sounded like he cared. Since the night he had lost his stomach for terror, it had been the single thing occupying his unconscious mind. For the first few months, he had looked for ways to undo the wish, but no one of any magical inclination seemed to want to go up against a vengeance demon.
“I have some contacts in vengeance circles,” the vampire in black said simply.
Pearce drew the cold night air into his lungs and exhaled it, just as cold. “Go on.”
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