The Sky Rains Red, Leverage, NC-17
Fandom: Leverage (Vamp!Nate verse)
Title: The Sky Rains Red
Pairings/Characters: Nate/Eliot, Parker, Sophie, Hardison, Ryna (OFC)
Rating: NC-17 (for violence)
Word Count: 3337
Summary: Follow Close the Door, Pull the Shades and I'll Find A Way. Something is very wrong with Nate, and he doesn't know what it is, he only knows that if he doesn't run, he'll kill everyone he holds dear.
A/Ns & Summary: For those following the Twitter stuff and the comment_fic bits, this is the feral!Vamp!Nate alluded to all week. First chapter of a few. Not sure how many. There is violence, there will be much blood kink. Hello, vampire! And just for fun, a little Eliot-whumping.
He isn't sure at first...something is just different, off. Eliot sleeps soundly, stretched out on the bed, his bare back a tempting sight as Nate turns from the window, listening for some sound to give away whatever has him tense and on edge.
There's nothing to give away an intruder, no sense that this is external to him, to something in his body that just isn't right. He tries to crawl in beside Eliot, to rest because they have a big day in the morning, taking Ryna to her first day in her new school and a meeting with a client, but he's restless and can't sleep.
It's more than that. More than being restless because sleep and night time don't go together in his world. He can usually relax enough to rest.
He can lay there in bed, but he knows he'll eventually wake Eliot, so he gets up and pads out of the room, his bare feet making nearly no sound on the hardwood floors. He pauses for his bathrobe, pulling it on over his pajama bottoms and bare chest, easing down the hall to check on Ryna.
She's asleep in the middle of her bed, the new kitten curled up beside her. He raises his head, sniffing the air, then standing, his hackles raising. "Good kitty." Nate murmurs, approving of the protective streak in the scruffy little cat.
He can hear her heartbeat, can almost taste the heat of her blood. He blinks and realizes he is in her room, standing at the end of her bed, his face fully changed.
He forces himself back a step, then two. Into the hallway. He forces himself to close the door and move away. Each step takes conscious thought, takes an act of will to keep him from going back.
He can still smell her. She wouldn't taste exactly like Eliot...she is younger, the blood sweeter...less of it. She would never even feel him, wouldn't fight.
He shakes his head and pushes himself into the kitchen, draining the last of the blood in the fridge cold. It doesn't help. He can still hear her heartbeat. If he closes his eyes he can feel her tiny body in his arms, smell her hair, taste her--
"Hey." Eliot is behind him, sleep warm and lazy. He wouldn't fight, wouldn't think to try until it was too late. The need inside him is growing. Nate grips the counter, head bowed. Something is very wrong with him and he isn't sure he won't hurt the people he cares about.
"Eliot. Go be with Ryna." His voice sounds dark, echoing in the giant gourmet kitchen.
Eliot's hand is on his back, the heat of it seeping into Nate. "What's wrong?"
Nate turns and Eliot steps back when he gets a look at Nate's face. "Nate?"
Nate can't look at him. If he does, Eliot will die. He can feel his control slipping. He pulls the biggest knife in the set off the block and holds his hand out with the handle to Eliot. "Go protect your goddamn daughter."
Eliot snatches the knife and backs away. Nate follows to the door of the kitchen, holding the frame as Eliot keeps moving. "What's wrong?" Eliot asks again, fully awake this time.
"I don't know." Nate replies. "But if you don't move your ass, I'm going to kill you. I don't think I can control it very much longer."
Eliot bacs away until Nate can no longer see him. He doesn't need to see him to know where he is. He can smell him, his blood heated by fear…fear for her, fear for Nate…he's with her now. She's safe.
They aren't safe, not until he is gone. He has to get away while he still has conscious thought.
It feels a little like drowning, only inside himself. The burning in his chest might be his lungs, if his lungs actually worked anymore.
He stumbles out of the house, away from the temptation of...people...people that matter...shakes his head as he trips down a hill and squints back at the place he's just been. Names...he knows them...people who would taste so sweet...fire on his tongue...warming his belly.
He wants them, craves them.
He shakes his head and pulls himself away. No. Not them. Can't have them.
The need burns inside him and somehow he remembers drowning. The water covers you, pulls you down and the world goes away and the parts of your body you can't control lose themselves to the burning need...the sensation of peace just before you give in, and he wants that, the peace...the giving in...wants the fire to cool...wants the chaos to calm.
This is his fault. He never should have let Nate convince him they could do this...that they could be a family.
Eliot's hand holds the knife, fingers wrapped around the handle. He stands outside Ryna's door with it, watching.
Something is very wrong and he doesn't know if he can trust Nate. Of all people. The only man he'd trusted in a long time.
But he isn't a man at all. He's a goddamn vampire, and that had been novel, interesting, sexy as all fucking hell...but this is just wrong. And now it isn't even just his life he was gambling with.
Eliot hears the door close, feels the absence of Nate like he does when he leaves after they've been intimate, and he eases a little out of the hall, moving for the nearest phone. "Hardison. Shut up and listen. Do not open your door for Nate. Something's wrong. He's...I don't know but pass on the word."
He would need to go find him, but he isn't leaving Ryna. He paces the hallway. He should never have brought her into this. To damn himself was one thing. This was...
"Eliot?"
He turns, hiding the knife behind his back. "Ryna, honey, it's the middle of the night. Go back to bed."
"I had a scary dream and Merlin wants some milk." She rubs at one eye and holds the kitten with the other.
"Okay, a little milk for both of you, then back to bed."
He pours a half a glass for her and a splash in a saucer for the kitten and breaks out the cookies, giving her two. She smiles around her missing front tooth and Eliot sinks to a seat in the chair beside her. He has damned them both to this, and here he sits having milk and cookies, while Nate...well, he isn't sure exactly what Nate was doing, he only knows that it can't be good.
He doesn't feel safe, not until daylight comes and even then it isn't exactly safe that he feels. He gulps at his coffee, watching the door, the knife in easy reach. "I feel like a dork." Ryna says, startling him.
Eliot looks up, smiling. "You look great."
The school uniform is maroon and white, the skirt stopping just at her knee, the jacket over the crisp white shirt making her look sophisticated. Her hair is pulled back in one ponytail instead of two, making it seem darker, all the honey blonde highlights tucked in under darker hair.
"I look like dork." Ryna counters, putting her backpack on the table. "Where's Nate? He promised he'd keep an eye on Merlin."
Eliot got up from the table to get her breakfast from the stove where he'd been keeping it warm. "Nate had…something he needed to take care of. Kind of an emergency." Eliot says, hating lying to her, but sure he couldn't tell her the truth.
"Is he going to be back tonight?" Ryna sat at the table as Eliot set her plate of eggs and toast down in front of her and went to the fridge for juice. "I don't know, honey." His eyes fell on the drained blood container. It's empty, but still there, the lid opened, marks from Nate's teeth in the Styrofoam. Eliot grabs the juice and pours a glass for Ryna before pulling the container out and getting a plastic bag to put it in.
Maybe it is nothing, but Eliot doesn't want to take that chance.
He pulled his phone from his pocket as it vibrates. "Hardison. Any word?"
"No sign of our fearless leader, if that's what you mean."
Eliot glances at Ryna and steps into the living room. "I need you to check for reports of dead bodies with a vampire signature. Start here and search out in all directions. I need to find him."
"Are you really saying our boy is off book and killing?"
"I don't know, Hardison. That's what I'm saying. I'll be in as soon as I get Ryna to school."
Eliot doesn't want to let himself think about the look in Nate's eyes just before he left, just before Eliot let him leave. There were seconds there Eliot wasn't sure Nate even really knew who he was. It was like he was just gone, and all that was left was the vampire. Uncontrolled.
He shudders and drops into the chair in his office. He needs to stop dragging his heels, needs to get out there and find him, figure out what's wrong with him. He drags a hand over his face and opens the drawer of his desk. He's already got one knife strapped to his leg inside his boot, but when hunting a thing that can kill you before you even know it's there, there's no such thing as overkill, so he attaches another to his belt before standing.
He heads for the door, but gets stopped by Sophie and Parker. "Where are you going?" Sophie asks, hands on her hips.
"To find Nate."
"Alone?" Parker asks, crossing her arms.
"Yes, alone. You two deal with the client, I've got Hardison working on tracking him."
"Hardison says he's lost it, that he's wild. Is that true?"
Eliot tried to reign in his impatience. "Something is wrong. I don't know what it is. That's why I want to go find him."
"And then what?" Sophie asked, stopping him when he would have pushed past her. "What are you planning to do with him?"
"I don't know, okay? He…he needs me to find him, Sophie."
"Your daughter needs you more." Sophie responds. She holds up the bag with the blood container in it. "I know someone who can analyze this, see if there's something in it. Let me do that before you go throwing yourself in harms way."
"You do that, I'll track where he's gone." Eliot pushes her aside and stalks toward the door, slamming it shut behind him, because she's right, he knows she's right…but he is too. Nate would do the same for him. Has done the same for him.
Hardison had given him a place to start, a murder. The body was drained of blood, left on his front porch a few blocks from their new home. Then another in an alley behind a bar a mile or so away. At least it was a start.
Eliot drags himself away from the search in time to go pick up Ryna, fuming and barely containing the fury at his failure. Nate was clearly hurting, not himself. All Eliot can do is leave off the hunt and protect his daughter. It would be dark before too long, and with the dark, the vampire would once again have the upper hand.
Ryna is waiting outside the school when he gets there, a man in a navy blue suit beside her, one hand on her shoulder. Eliot swallows down the anger at the idea of this man touching her at all, and gets out of the car. She's obviously been in a scuffle, her nose a little bloody, her shirt untucked and hair a mess.
"Mr. Spencer, I'm Brody Heller, school principle."
Eliot scowls at him, then reaches for Ryna's hand. "You okay?"
"Kathryn caused a fight, Mr. Spencer. I don't need to tell you that this behavior is unacceptable."
"Ryna, tell me what happened?"
She's pouting, then pulling away from Mr. Heller. "Nothing. The boys were mean."
"Boys?" Eliot looks to Heller. "What happened?"
"From what I could gather, your daughter punched two young men who made fun of the way she talks."
"If she did the hitting, why is it's she's the one with the bloody nose?"
"There was something of a scuffle before our teachers could break it up."
Eliot so did not have the time or the patience for this conversation. "Ryna, get in the car. Mr. Heller, I will explain to her that she can't hit people. Anything else?"
"See that you do, Mr. Spencer. The next time I will have to suspend her."
Eliot slides into the driver's seat as Ryna is buckling up. "Want to talk about it?"
"No."
"Fine." He gets them home with little more said, slamming into the house.
"Are you mad?" Ryna asks as they get inside.
"What?" Eliot turns to look at her. "You know you can't just go around hitting people."
"I know. They just made me so angry." She tosses her backpack on the floor and crosses her arms. "Stupid, couldn't even do it right."
"Do what right?"
"They teased me 'cause of my voice, the way I say stuff…but they kept doing it wrong." She pouts at him, and gives up when she realizes it isn't working. "I didn't hit them until they pulled on my ponytail."
Eliot sighs and sits her on the couch. "Ryna, I know how hard it is sometimes not to just smash someone's face in. Believe me I know. But, you need to learn that hitting doesn't always solve everything. Sometimes all it does is make things worse."
"Mr. Heller made me apologize to them."
"Good. Now, why don't you go wash your face and change your clothes? I'll see about dinner."
"Is Nate back?" Ryna asked as she got to her feet. "Is Merlin okay?"
"I'm sure Merlin is fine." Eliot avoids the question about Nate as she goes running for her room, hoping the kitten was enough to distract her. He isn't ready to tell her that Nate may not be coming back.
It burns through him, the need for blood. His face is sticky, his skin cold. The dark is nowhere near dark enough to hide him, to hold him safe. He stumbles bare foot and bare chested and blood-brained through streets puddled with the rains that have washed the blood from everything but his face.
She's dead.
He stops in the middle of the alley, squinting up at the bright orb of the moon above him and remembers the way she screamed, the way her tiny legs kicked and her heart pounded faster and faster until it couldn't keep up anymore and the blood stopped.
She lay so small and unmoving on the dark ground, her hair spread out around her, the smell of her rising up to his nose and making him want more. It wasn't enough.
There's a part of him that doesn't understand, that wants to cover her, save her, hide her. There is shame, but it flushes away under the rush of heat, blood moving inside him, calling out for more...more...But she is dead, and she has no more to give.
A scent comes to him on the wind. Spicy, old. A smile spreads over his face, blood slicked fangs pressed against his lips. The old man has what he needs, the girl lies forgotten and Nate cuts through the night for his next taste of blood.
"This is bad." Parker says softly beside Eliot.
"You don't have to tell me that." Eliot growls. He squats beside the third body they had found as they try, and mostly fail, to find Nate.
"No, Eliot." She tugs on his shirt sleeve and he looks up.
"Shit." The sun is going down. Obviously they'd lost track of time as they wound through the dark alleyways and dirty warehouses. "We need to move."
Without the sun to hamper him, Nate is faster than Eliot, stronger than Eliot and driven by a bloodlust they haven't quite figured out yet.
He feels him before he realizes it is Nate. "Parker, freeze." They both stop dead as Nate's face moves through the shadows nearest Parker. "Just don't move. Hold your breath and wait. Given the choice, he'll come for me."
"That's your plan?" Parker asks, wide eyes staring at him. "Stupid plan."
"When he comes for me, you run."
"What about you?"
"I can handle myself." Nate shifts through the shadows, moving closer, sniffing the air. Parker stiffens when she feels him, his face close, nose in her hair. "Hey, Nate...we just want you to come home." Eliot says, drawing his attention. His hand circles the knife in his belt. The last thing he wants to do was hurt him, but he will if he has to.
Nate turns to him, something like vague recognition in his eyes. "Ellll..." He shuffles toward Eliot, sniffing the air as he gets closer. The recognition fades after a moment and his face fills with hunger, need.
"Now Parker, run!"
Eliot steps back and Nate follows, hands already reaching for Eliot. He doesn't get to see if Parker listens, if she actually runs, because suddenly, his foot hits something and he's falling, Nate falling with him, teeth bared.
There's an odd sweet smell to the air as Eliot comes awake, like cinnamon rolls or donuts maybe. His head hurts and there's blood on his shirt.
"Fuck." He's not sure why he isn't dead. He had led Nate away from Parker, had tripped over a something, and he had expected to die when Nate caught him, when Nate bit him.
His hand goes to the wound, not Nate's normal clean bite, but a gouge of flesh torn, blood still oozing from it. Not the most efficient way to drain a human body of blood.
He sits up slowly, looking around him. The place is dark, the shadows darker still and Eliot is sitting in a pile of dirty, moldy clothes or blankets or something. Slowly he becomes aware that he's being watched.
Nate is there, waiting, watching him...looking kind of like a tiger ready to pounce. "Hey..." He moves slowly, getting his feet under him to stand, despite how woozy he feels. Nate springs to life, shoving Eliot back down, cocking his head and shoving a cinnamon roll at him.
"Eat, El."
"Easy, Nate." Eliot says, keeping his voice low, steady. He takes the food, biting into it when Nate didn't move, watching his mouth. After Eliot takes a second bite, Nate moves back and Eliot breathes a little easier.
He gets the sense that they're in a basement, no windows he can see. He shifts again, moving his feet. He needs to be able to move.
Nate clearly fed on him, but didn't kill him, and Eliot is clear on why that is. He needs to figure it out fast though, before Nate changes his mind.
Nate shuffles around in the shadows, then suddenly comes back, pushing Eliot's head aside and licking at the wound. His hands are rough, his eyes wild. The taste seems to agitate him. Nate's hands push on him, then one fists in Eliot's hair, dragging him from the makeshift bed and throwing him into a corner. "Mine."
"Yeah, Nate. Yeah. We been through this." Eliot mutters, climbing to his feet even though his head is ringing from hitting the wall. "Yours. All yours. Just let me help you."
Nate's head tilts, as if he is trying to understand him. Eliot watches his eyes darken, watching the little bit of recognition in his expression fade, rage flooding in behind his eyes.
He braces himself for the fight, but the blood loss is affecting him and Nate always was faster, and before he can do much more than get a hand on Nate's shoulder, his teeth were sinking in and the darkness fell even faster than before.
Title: The Sky Rains Red
Pairings/Characters: Nate/Eliot, Parker, Sophie, Hardison, Ryna (OFC)
Rating: NC-17 (for violence)
Word Count: 3337
Summary: Follow Close the Door, Pull the Shades and I'll Find A Way. Something is very wrong with Nate, and he doesn't know what it is, he only knows that if he doesn't run, he'll kill everyone he holds dear.
A/Ns & Summary: For those following the Twitter stuff and the comment_fic bits, this is the feral!Vamp!Nate alluded to all week. First chapter of a few. Not sure how many. There is violence, there will be much blood kink. Hello, vampire! And just for fun, a little Eliot-whumping.
He isn't sure at first...something is just different, off. Eliot sleeps soundly, stretched out on the bed, his bare back a tempting sight as Nate turns from the window, listening for some sound to give away whatever has him tense and on edge.
There's nothing to give away an intruder, no sense that this is external to him, to something in his body that just isn't right. He tries to crawl in beside Eliot, to rest because they have a big day in the morning, taking Ryna to her first day in her new school and a meeting with a client, but he's restless and can't sleep.
It's more than that. More than being restless because sleep and night time don't go together in his world. He can usually relax enough to rest.
He can lay there in bed, but he knows he'll eventually wake Eliot, so he gets up and pads out of the room, his bare feet making nearly no sound on the hardwood floors. He pauses for his bathrobe, pulling it on over his pajama bottoms and bare chest, easing down the hall to check on Ryna.
She's asleep in the middle of her bed, the new kitten curled up beside her. He raises his head, sniffing the air, then standing, his hackles raising. "Good kitty." Nate murmurs, approving of the protective streak in the scruffy little cat.
He can hear her heartbeat, can almost taste the heat of her blood. He blinks and realizes he is in her room, standing at the end of her bed, his face fully changed.
He forces himself back a step, then two. Into the hallway. He forces himself to close the door and move away. Each step takes conscious thought, takes an act of will to keep him from going back.
He can still smell her. She wouldn't taste exactly like Eliot...she is younger, the blood sweeter...less of it. She would never even feel him, wouldn't fight.
He shakes his head and pushes himself into the kitchen, draining the last of the blood in the fridge cold. It doesn't help. He can still hear her heartbeat. If he closes his eyes he can feel her tiny body in his arms, smell her hair, taste her--
"Hey." Eliot is behind him, sleep warm and lazy. He wouldn't fight, wouldn't think to try until it was too late. The need inside him is growing. Nate grips the counter, head bowed. Something is very wrong with him and he isn't sure he won't hurt the people he cares about.
"Eliot. Go be with Ryna." His voice sounds dark, echoing in the giant gourmet kitchen.
Eliot's hand is on his back, the heat of it seeping into Nate. "What's wrong?"
Nate turns and Eliot steps back when he gets a look at Nate's face. "Nate?"
Nate can't look at him. If he does, Eliot will die. He can feel his control slipping. He pulls the biggest knife in the set off the block and holds his hand out with the handle to Eliot. "Go protect your goddamn daughter."
Eliot snatches the knife and backs away. Nate follows to the door of the kitchen, holding the frame as Eliot keeps moving. "What's wrong?" Eliot asks again, fully awake this time.
"I don't know." Nate replies. "But if you don't move your ass, I'm going to kill you. I don't think I can control it very much longer."
Eliot bacs away until Nate can no longer see him. He doesn't need to see him to know where he is. He can smell him, his blood heated by fear…fear for her, fear for Nate…he's with her now. She's safe.
They aren't safe, not until he is gone. He has to get away while he still has conscious thought.
It feels a little like drowning, only inside himself. The burning in his chest might be his lungs, if his lungs actually worked anymore.
He stumbles out of the house, away from the temptation of...people...people that matter...shakes his head as he trips down a hill and squints back at the place he's just been. Names...he knows them...people who would taste so sweet...fire on his tongue...warming his belly.
He wants them, craves them.
He shakes his head and pulls himself away. No. Not them. Can't have them.
The need burns inside him and somehow he remembers drowning. The water covers you, pulls you down and the world goes away and the parts of your body you can't control lose themselves to the burning need...the sensation of peace just before you give in, and he wants that, the peace...the giving in...wants the fire to cool...wants the chaos to calm.
This is his fault. He never should have let Nate convince him they could do this...that they could be a family.
Eliot's hand holds the knife, fingers wrapped around the handle. He stands outside Ryna's door with it, watching.
Something is very wrong and he doesn't know if he can trust Nate. Of all people. The only man he'd trusted in a long time.
But he isn't a man at all. He's a goddamn vampire, and that had been novel, interesting, sexy as all fucking hell...but this is just wrong. And now it isn't even just his life he was gambling with.
Eliot hears the door close, feels the absence of Nate like he does when he leaves after they've been intimate, and he eases a little out of the hall, moving for the nearest phone. "Hardison. Shut up and listen. Do not open your door for Nate. Something's wrong. He's...I don't know but pass on the word."
He would need to go find him, but he isn't leaving Ryna. He paces the hallway. He should never have brought her into this. To damn himself was one thing. This was...
"Eliot?"
He turns, hiding the knife behind his back. "Ryna, honey, it's the middle of the night. Go back to bed."
"I had a scary dream and Merlin wants some milk." She rubs at one eye and holds the kitten with the other.
"Okay, a little milk for both of you, then back to bed."
He pours a half a glass for her and a splash in a saucer for the kitten and breaks out the cookies, giving her two. She smiles around her missing front tooth and Eliot sinks to a seat in the chair beside her. He has damned them both to this, and here he sits having milk and cookies, while Nate...well, he isn't sure exactly what Nate was doing, he only knows that it can't be good.
He doesn't feel safe, not until daylight comes and even then it isn't exactly safe that he feels. He gulps at his coffee, watching the door, the knife in easy reach. "I feel like a dork." Ryna says, startling him.
Eliot looks up, smiling. "You look great."
The school uniform is maroon and white, the skirt stopping just at her knee, the jacket over the crisp white shirt making her look sophisticated. Her hair is pulled back in one ponytail instead of two, making it seem darker, all the honey blonde highlights tucked in under darker hair.
"I look like dork." Ryna counters, putting her backpack on the table. "Where's Nate? He promised he'd keep an eye on Merlin."
Eliot got up from the table to get her breakfast from the stove where he'd been keeping it warm. "Nate had…something he needed to take care of. Kind of an emergency." Eliot says, hating lying to her, but sure he couldn't tell her the truth.
"Is he going to be back tonight?" Ryna sat at the table as Eliot set her plate of eggs and toast down in front of her and went to the fridge for juice. "I don't know, honey." His eyes fell on the drained blood container. It's empty, but still there, the lid opened, marks from Nate's teeth in the Styrofoam. Eliot grabs the juice and pours a glass for Ryna before pulling the container out and getting a plastic bag to put it in.
Maybe it is nothing, but Eliot doesn't want to take that chance.
He pulled his phone from his pocket as it vibrates. "Hardison. Any word?"
"No sign of our fearless leader, if that's what you mean."
Eliot glances at Ryna and steps into the living room. "I need you to check for reports of dead bodies with a vampire signature. Start here and search out in all directions. I need to find him."
"Are you really saying our boy is off book and killing?"
"I don't know, Hardison. That's what I'm saying. I'll be in as soon as I get Ryna to school."
Eliot doesn't want to let himself think about the look in Nate's eyes just before he left, just before Eliot let him leave. There were seconds there Eliot wasn't sure Nate even really knew who he was. It was like he was just gone, and all that was left was the vampire. Uncontrolled.
He shudders and drops into the chair in his office. He needs to stop dragging his heels, needs to get out there and find him, figure out what's wrong with him. He drags a hand over his face and opens the drawer of his desk. He's already got one knife strapped to his leg inside his boot, but when hunting a thing that can kill you before you even know it's there, there's no such thing as overkill, so he attaches another to his belt before standing.
He heads for the door, but gets stopped by Sophie and Parker. "Where are you going?" Sophie asks, hands on her hips.
"To find Nate."
"Alone?" Parker asks, crossing her arms.
"Yes, alone. You two deal with the client, I've got Hardison working on tracking him."
"Hardison says he's lost it, that he's wild. Is that true?"
Eliot tried to reign in his impatience. "Something is wrong. I don't know what it is. That's why I want to go find him."
"And then what?" Sophie asked, stopping him when he would have pushed past her. "What are you planning to do with him?"
"I don't know, okay? He…he needs me to find him, Sophie."
"Your daughter needs you more." Sophie responds. She holds up the bag with the blood container in it. "I know someone who can analyze this, see if there's something in it. Let me do that before you go throwing yourself in harms way."
"You do that, I'll track where he's gone." Eliot pushes her aside and stalks toward the door, slamming it shut behind him, because she's right, he knows she's right…but he is too. Nate would do the same for him. Has done the same for him.
Hardison had given him a place to start, a murder. The body was drained of blood, left on his front porch a few blocks from their new home. Then another in an alley behind a bar a mile or so away. At least it was a start.
Eliot drags himself away from the search in time to go pick up Ryna, fuming and barely containing the fury at his failure. Nate was clearly hurting, not himself. All Eliot can do is leave off the hunt and protect his daughter. It would be dark before too long, and with the dark, the vampire would once again have the upper hand.
Ryna is waiting outside the school when he gets there, a man in a navy blue suit beside her, one hand on her shoulder. Eliot swallows down the anger at the idea of this man touching her at all, and gets out of the car. She's obviously been in a scuffle, her nose a little bloody, her shirt untucked and hair a mess.
"Mr. Spencer, I'm Brody Heller, school principle."
Eliot scowls at him, then reaches for Ryna's hand. "You okay?"
"Kathryn caused a fight, Mr. Spencer. I don't need to tell you that this behavior is unacceptable."
"Ryna, tell me what happened?"
She's pouting, then pulling away from Mr. Heller. "Nothing. The boys were mean."
"Boys?" Eliot looks to Heller. "What happened?"
"From what I could gather, your daughter punched two young men who made fun of the way she talks."
"If she did the hitting, why is it's she's the one with the bloody nose?"
"There was something of a scuffle before our teachers could break it up."
Eliot so did not have the time or the patience for this conversation. "Ryna, get in the car. Mr. Heller, I will explain to her that she can't hit people. Anything else?"
"See that you do, Mr. Spencer. The next time I will have to suspend her."
Eliot slides into the driver's seat as Ryna is buckling up. "Want to talk about it?"
"No."
"Fine." He gets them home with little more said, slamming into the house.
"Are you mad?" Ryna asks as they get inside.
"What?" Eliot turns to look at her. "You know you can't just go around hitting people."
"I know. They just made me so angry." She tosses her backpack on the floor and crosses her arms. "Stupid, couldn't even do it right."
"Do what right?"
"They teased me 'cause of my voice, the way I say stuff…but they kept doing it wrong." She pouts at him, and gives up when she realizes it isn't working. "I didn't hit them until they pulled on my ponytail."
Eliot sighs and sits her on the couch. "Ryna, I know how hard it is sometimes not to just smash someone's face in. Believe me I know. But, you need to learn that hitting doesn't always solve everything. Sometimes all it does is make things worse."
"Mr. Heller made me apologize to them."
"Good. Now, why don't you go wash your face and change your clothes? I'll see about dinner."
"Is Nate back?" Ryna asked as she got to her feet. "Is Merlin okay?"
"I'm sure Merlin is fine." Eliot avoids the question about Nate as she goes running for her room, hoping the kitten was enough to distract her. He isn't ready to tell her that Nate may not be coming back.
It burns through him, the need for blood. His face is sticky, his skin cold. The dark is nowhere near dark enough to hide him, to hold him safe. He stumbles bare foot and bare chested and blood-brained through streets puddled with the rains that have washed the blood from everything but his face.
She's dead.
He stops in the middle of the alley, squinting up at the bright orb of the moon above him and remembers the way she screamed, the way her tiny legs kicked and her heart pounded faster and faster until it couldn't keep up anymore and the blood stopped.
She lay so small and unmoving on the dark ground, her hair spread out around her, the smell of her rising up to his nose and making him want more. It wasn't enough.
There's a part of him that doesn't understand, that wants to cover her, save her, hide her. There is shame, but it flushes away under the rush of heat, blood moving inside him, calling out for more...more...But she is dead, and she has no more to give.
A scent comes to him on the wind. Spicy, old. A smile spreads over his face, blood slicked fangs pressed against his lips. The old man has what he needs, the girl lies forgotten and Nate cuts through the night for his next taste of blood.
"This is bad." Parker says softly beside Eliot.
"You don't have to tell me that." Eliot growls. He squats beside the third body they had found as they try, and mostly fail, to find Nate.
"No, Eliot." She tugs on his shirt sleeve and he looks up.
"Shit." The sun is going down. Obviously they'd lost track of time as they wound through the dark alleyways and dirty warehouses. "We need to move."
Without the sun to hamper him, Nate is faster than Eliot, stronger than Eliot and driven by a bloodlust they haven't quite figured out yet.
He feels him before he realizes it is Nate. "Parker, freeze." They both stop dead as Nate's face moves through the shadows nearest Parker. "Just don't move. Hold your breath and wait. Given the choice, he'll come for me."
"That's your plan?" Parker asks, wide eyes staring at him. "Stupid plan."
"When he comes for me, you run."
"What about you?"
"I can handle myself." Nate shifts through the shadows, moving closer, sniffing the air. Parker stiffens when she feels him, his face close, nose in her hair. "Hey, Nate...we just want you to come home." Eliot says, drawing his attention. His hand circles the knife in his belt. The last thing he wants to do was hurt him, but he will if he has to.
Nate turns to him, something like vague recognition in his eyes. "Ellll..." He shuffles toward Eliot, sniffing the air as he gets closer. The recognition fades after a moment and his face fills with hunger, need.
"Now Parker, run!"
Eliot steps back and Nate follows, hands already reaching for Eliot. He doesn't get to see if Parker listens, if she actually runs, because suddenly, his foot hits something and he's falling, Nate falling with him, teeth bared.
There's an odd sweet smell to the air as Eliot comes awake, like cinnamon rolls or donuts maybe. His head hurts and there's blood on his shirt.
"Fuck." He's not sure why he isn't dead. He had led Nate away from Parker, had tripped over a something, and he had expected to die when Nate caught him, when Nate bit him.
His hand goes to the wound, not Nate's normal clean bite, but a gouge of flesh torn, blood still oozing from it. Not the most efficient way to drain a human body of blood.
He sits up slowly, looking around him. The place is dark, the shadows darker still and Eliot is sitting in a pile of dirty, moldy clothes or blankets or something. Slowly he becomes aware that he's being watched.
Nate is there, waiting, watching him...looking kind of like a tiger ready to pounce. "Hey..." He moves slowly, getting his feet under him to stand, despite how woozy he feels. Nate springs to life, shoving Eliot back down, cocking his head and shoving a cinnamon roll at him.
"Eat, El."
"Easy, Nate." Eliot says, keeping his voice low, steady. He takes the food, biting into it when Nate didn't move, watching his mouth. After Eliot takes a second bite, Nate moves back and Eliot breathes a little easier.
He gets the sense that they're in a basement, no windows he can see. He shifts again, moving his feet. He needs to be able to move.
Nate clearly fed on him, but didn't kill him, and Eliot is clear on why that is. He needs to figure it out fast though, before Nate changes his mind.
Nate shuffles around in the shadows, then suddenly comes back, pushing Eliot's head aside and licking at the wound. His hands are rough, his eyes wild. The taste seems to agitate him. Nate's hands push on him, then one fists in Eliot's hair, dragging him from the makeshift bed and throwing him into a corner. "Mine."
"Yeah, Nate. Yeah. We been through this." Eliot mutters, climbing to his feet even though his head is ringing from hitting the wall. "Yours. All yours. Just let me help you."
Nate's head tilts, as if he is trying to understand him. Eliot watches his eyes darken, watching the little bit of recognition in his expression fade, rage flooding in behind his eyes.
He braces himself for the fight, but the blood loss is affecting him and Nate always was faster, and before he can do much more than get a hand on Nate's shoulder, his teeth were sinking in and the darkness fell even faster than before.