city_limits Raw Champion
Vampire...

Elfleda had often exhibited a liking for them and had made herself known to this one, in particular. More than a year ago, maybe, but the red-haired former Watcher was just the sort of predator with which the Corruptress seemed to express a liking for. Someone with potential and eagerness to prove herself. A creature of the dark who had long ago embraced her killer's instinct and learnt to enjoy it. Grace might be crude, but certainly had her uses and had caught the emissary's attention, long ago.

On her way out of a hotel lobby, the vampiress seemed like any other. Elfleda, however, had other ideas for this one's journey and, were one to look closely, a subtle black mist might be seen, trailing her across the ground. It kept its distance for a time, watching, waiting, but once feet had stepped through that door and into the outside world... The eventual effect was not unlike stepping into an unexpected puddle, except, perhaps, that there was no water. Instead, Grace Hutchinson quite literally fell, feet-first, into quite a different place. Somewhere water did exist, but mostly in the form of random condensation.

The drop had been without ceremony. A portal of blackest fog had opened suddenly at the redhead's feet and sent her falling into what seemed to be not only a tunnel without light, but the thickest, most overwhelmingly evil of dark embraces possible. Perhaps there were no physical arms involved, but the ebony fog cushioned the fanged woman's descent, allowing her to land as gracefully as any cat. Underground, this place was and with all the smells one might expect of it. This other thing, though... This presence... It reeked of spiritual wickedness, like the sinful mother of shadows it was. something able to fuse with the vampiress' demonic inner self and tease, delight and intimidate, in equal measure.

"Grace..."

It was spoken, like a lick of tongue to ear. Something enriched with perversity, with crystal-clear English accent, speaking simultaneously to body and mind. A half-telepathic tease, apparently not content with the idea of fully giving up the material world.

And then it was, as the thing somehow inhaled its gaseous self into solidity, that the nocturnal vision of red-haired huntress began to detect flashes of white skin framed by hair, eyes, lips and dress, black as pitch in the dead of night. A creature who had shown favour, in times past and one which, now, appeared to smile in greeting. One pale hand reaching out, as regal owner awaited in expectation of this fanged servant's kiss to the same.

Grace had been checking her stomach when it happened, hiking up the fabric of her shirt to make sure the wound had not reopened and a feeling of vertigo took hold of her as she descended, weightless as any feather, to land in a place she had no conscious memory of. Down in her bones, maybe, in the place where her heart no longer functioned, but not in her brain.

"Missus."

She did remember her, the one she had been introduced to as 'Beth' when on a rooftop in Las Vegas, studying the skyline. And her forehead ridged as her fangs made themselves visible, as though simply being in that presence again touched something instinctive inside her. Something feral.

"Excuse my sorry state, I was cleanin' up a mess. Some boys ain't got no sense." She took the hand in her own, pale skin on pale skin. "You've got some way of announcin' yourself, Missus."

"Yes..."

Sliding both hands into a seductive cupping of vampire's face, 'Beth' leaned in with that same curved smile of deathly lips. "My, my," she spoke, her voice now realigned to something much more in the physical plain, than ethereal, "haven't we been a naughty girl... I think I rather like that in you, kitten."

A fond lick of black tongue was given to the very tip of redhead's nose and those fateful eyes bored into the undead woman's own, like some erotic furnace. Elfleda was rarely anything less than intense, even when adopting a rather more casual manner. Grace could be a horridly dirty creature, content to kill and torture at her leisure, which was so very lovingly perfect in this mother of wickedness' view. A quality even played out physically now, as Elfleda moved into a sensual hug of embrace with the vampire, offering up a purr of her own.

"I've brought you here to show something special, my dove," she cooed into ear, voice low, but no less appealing for it. "Mightn't look it, but this is a door to the most wonderful of playgrounds... Would you mind, my dear, darling girl, if you helped to bring others here, too? There are such wonderful friends who'll play, you see. Mind you, they can get awfully excited. Sometimes even enough to rip things, limb from bloody limb... Our other friend, Rhiannon, came here, so I'm told. I don't think they liked her, very much."

Rhiannon. Grace growled down in her chest, her yellow eyes brightening for an instant before the colour dulled again. How typical. Some things you could never get away from, no matter how hard you tried. But she had a secret, oh yes, she did.

"What others?" She asked, turning her head, so that she could speak into Elfleda's ear. Elfleda, Beth, the name hardly mattered, what mattered was, being this close to her was like... It was like home.

"You plannin' some kind of party, Missus? I like parties. And there ain't been a good one here yet. What's cookin'?"

"With hope, raw champion..."

Grace was rewarded for her admiration with a pulse of what must have felt like spiritual viagra washing through her frame. She was just a dirty puppy, this one, that was all. Elfleda merely had to teach her how to lick one's own paws clean. Or perhaps get them filthier, still. She might not need to breathe and yet Elfleda still made sure to offer that most ticklish of soft breeze across ear, each and every time she spoke.

"They're not too different to your brethren, you know... Even if they'd just as soon have you for dinner, as the living. Used to number amongst them, you see, my love, my sweet... Now they wander in permanent hunger... One even to rival your own morbid thirst." Then, with one drift of hand carefully up Grace's spine, Elfleda nestled its fingers into the back of vampire's head, entrusting her with a gentle flood of images. Namely, those able to give her a visual map of how to get here and back. Of how to gain access to the quarantined zone. Of just a few of the nasty examples of life, which apperently slithered there, in that guarded place of the mutated damned. "Of course, if you ever feel like a challenge, yourself, I wouldn't dare stand in your way... Unlife's there to offer fun, after all, is it not?"

For Elfleda was intimately familiar with the concept of culling. If it helped Grace become a more efficient killer, then by all means, ran the logic. Let her slay a few beasts - if she could escape with limbs still intact.

"You'll do it for mummy, won't you, angel...? Bring those lovely, slavering beasts just what they desire?"

Grace's tongue appeared between her front teeth, and she licked at her lower lip, reasonably sure she was salivating. She could feel Elfleda's fingers on the back of her head, brushing against her scalp and her broken ribs no longer hurt. Something which was like a chuckle escaped from the back of her throat and she swayed towards the dark-clad figure, as though a sudden strong breeze had started to blow.

"Tunnel rat," she muttered thoughtfully, the images playing back and forth in her skull like an endless pornographic movie. All manner of nightmares resided in the place the Corruptress described and she could see herself at the head of an army of them. Destruction. Glorious destruction.

"Might like that. Challenges have been thin on the ground lately. I do appreciate your kindess in informin' me, Missus. Whispers always abound, but you never know what's true and what ain't, do you?"

"I most certainly do, darling girl..."

The physicality of that embrace seemed to dissolve into air, becoming an intoxicant of fragrant whiff made for savoured inhalation. One not only capable of eliciting needs, but pure instinct. Instinct on a foundation of annoyance and cruelty formed out of vindication. A vehemence, unlike any other. The feel of one having been wronged, cut to the bone and in need of horrific retribution. To go, do wickedness upon the world, then light a match and watch it burn, secure in the knowledge that whatever remained, would be worth the ashes fallen upon dirt.

"I most certainly do."

The blackness cleared and Grace found herself in an alley, not too far a distance from where she had earlier been taken. The knowledge of where to go, how to get there, now safely resting in her mind.

"Mmm."

Grace could still smell Elfleda after she faded away and she licked her bottom lip, as though the odour were a taste, instead. Another chuckle rumbled out, echoing off of the dirty walls housing the alley. She turned to make her way towards the street, slightly favouring one side.

"Gonna' have big fun, ya'll," she muttered, thinking about fire and blood. She wondered how Little Miss Girly-Girl would take to having one of the things Elfleda had showed her following her home, one night. That would be a laugh and a half. "Big God damned fun..."