Unwilling Partners
Unwilling Partners
Zadie crossed her arms, emoting all the surly joy that an unhappy teenager could muster. As she had fastened her lapbelt, the snort beside her had drawn her attention. The Gangrel favored her with a disdainful sneer as he pointedly looked at her lapbelt and then just laughed, turning the key to awaken the monster 8 barrel engine to his command. The sarcasm was in every line of his lean and hollow face. Seatbelt? Damn, you're already dead, dumbass. You and your nuggets are dumb as a bunch of rocks. Putting the car into gear, he speed off into the night towards their quarry.
She kept the lapbelt on out of spite and just sunk into the leather seat. Never thought I'd be so miserable in a hotrod, she thought to herself, her forehead crunched into unhappy lines. She was so way in over her head and somehow, no matter what she did, somebody tagged along, complained, or just plain spent too damn much time telling her she was an idiot and wrong. She'd been fussed at, snarked at, cried upon and done some of her own crying and she wasn't feeling all that tough anymore. So much for being the mighty undead. Zadie was just 19. And right now, undead or not, she felt every tiny bit of her puny years. Reaching out, she put a finger on the radio to kill the oppressive silence and to drown out the surging appeal of the engine. With teenage logic, she was going to refuse to enjoy the ride, no matter how nice a car it was. And it was damn nice. Even if it belonged to him.
"Did I say you could touch my radio?" His deep growl, tinged with that uniquely Southern accent, broke the silence between the two of them. Cord had some sympathy for the girl. He'd been a complete dumbass as a teenager. But sympathy didn't mean the girl got the right to mess with his radio. Driver's rules were the only rules on the road and that was something she'd best be learning fast.
"Meh," came the snark filled reply. "Probably sounds tinny anyhow."
He shrugged, as he pressed his foot down harder on the gas, feeling the car smoothly accelerate. The car didn't sulk...unlike the girl in the seat next to him. "Pout all you want as long as you do the damn job when we get there. That won't be no problem, right?"
"Yeah. Kill. I can do that." She rolled her eyes. "Fuck humanity. I ain't human anymore, right?" Her lips pressed together as she stared off into the night. Caroline oughta just run. It was only a matter of time, according to all the adults in her life, just a blink before Zadie became one of them and lost what little of herself she felt like she had. Or died the Final Death. Easier just to give up. "I coulda done this by myself," she muttered darkly. "I had to take care of a herd of humans last time. But any dumbass animal can hunt and kill somebody. But I guess that's why you're so good at it."
He ignored her attempt to rile him up. He was good at it, after all. When he needed to be. Not enough years in her for the girl to understand what real control was. "You're right about one thing, sweetness. You ain't human no more." Cord shifted into the next gear, loving the feel of the high powered muscle car beneath him. Better than sex, he thought. "You ain't just an animal either, you're more than that. But you got the Beast inside you. Pretending it ain't there does you no good. Learn to respect the predator inside you or it'll break free when you least expect." His last word rumbled into a low, guttural animal growl that would have sounded silly coming from anyone else. But from him, it sounded like a wolf about to pounce on its prey.
The growl tickled over her senses, keyed up and heightened already. Her scowl deepened as the car purred deep in response, the machine responding smoothly and effortlessly to each subtle press on the pedal. She glanced at him surreptitiously from the corner of her eyes. He was scary, really scary looking. Even for a vampire like her, Cord was just plain spooky. The car rumbled as he powered it through a curve and in spite of herself, she smiled from the press of the g-force on her body. The expression was fleeting though. Leaning over to look at the speedometer to see how fast they were going brought her too close to his area of intimidation. His eyes glanced to hers as she looked up at him and she abruptly realized that she was as edible as the vampire she had emptied in the basement.
She resumed her slouch in the seat, aware that she still felt a little funny. Was there such a thing as bad blood? Could vampires get food poisoning? Wincing, she wrapped her arms around her gut and waited for the courage to ask the Gangrel her question. "Uh, Mr Cord. . .can you get food poisoning from another vampire?"
"Ain't food poisoning, but sure. Don't see why not. Whatever they got in their blood, you got in yours." Cord looked over at her, a bit of a smirk crossing his face. Seemed she was paying for her inability to control her own appetite. "Your snack earlier leave you with a tummy ache?" While there was some sarcasm, there was also a hint of sympathy in his voice.
Her head jerked up imperiously and she eyed him darkly. "Just feel funny. I. . .I'm still a little hungry I guess. I figured that he'd have a bit more inside." Zadie wiggled her feet childishly, looking at the toes of her tennis shoes. They still had the hearts and smilies drawn on them by she and her friends back in high school. She probably shouldn't have worn them. But she hadn't been clothes shopping in a while. After another pause, she ventured, "So you think I'm really in trouble? Renny seemed a bit freaked out, you know? I mean, we were gonna kill the thing anyway, right? But why'd he want me gone so bad? And you." Her voice twanged a bit petulant. "You act like I'm a total waste of time. I'm not, you know."
"If you ain't a waste of time, you'd be a change of pace from most everyone else." And that whine in her voice didn't make it likely she'd beat the odds on that, he thought. "Renny? He's the Yankee Jew, right? He looks like the kind that gets freaked a lot."
Cord was stupid. He'd admit it. But even he knew that draining Midnight's pet was probably big time trouble. If the girl, Zadie, wasn't a waste of space as she claimed, she'd figure that out on her own.
"Why'd you always gotta be a jerk?" she snapped. "Can you say somethin' nice 'bout anybody? Damn, but I ain't ever seen nobody as ugly on the inside as they was on the out." Full of self-righteous anger, she stared at him, hoping that his annoying calm would break. Man had to have been human once, she thought and then thought better of it.
"Going to say what's the truth. Kinda unfortunate for you that truth here in vampland is pretty much always ugly." Damn Ventrue and Toreador always talking around the truth. Like if they spit enough words out at it, it'd go away. Or maybe just like one of the Nosferatu, it would hide away and only come out when the bosses needed it. But if that was how they wanted to live their unlife, weren't no skin off his back. Least until their little bullshit disturbs our peace, he thought, sticking his arm out the open window to let the high speed draft blow across it.
Zadie let out a sigh since staring didn't seem to faze him. Air was probably fetid anyway; she had forgotten to breathe since heading off to Midnight's place. She'd need to make sure to remember to breathe at the bar. No need to freak a patron. Inhaling slowly, she savored the old feeling and shook her head to clear it. Her world was so very confusing now. The elation of sucking out the man's heartblood had gone, she still felt funny, and she wasn't certain why. When she got home, there was a lot of reading to be done. But for now. . .well, now she had to suffer the penance of riding with someone who just plain wasn't pleasant. Frowning again, she turned to the window to watch the scenery go by. It occurred to her that she could jump out and probably be just fine. And that was beginning to be rather appealing.
"There's got to be something redeemable about this mess," she muttered as much to herself as to the window. 'I just can't make myself believe that I don't got a choice in the matter. That somehow, given my own choice, Gramma and I ain't the type to wantonly kill young'uns. And we wouldn't have been killlin' nobody without Cotton and Midnight threatening us or the Doctor's damn screwup in the first place by choosing the dumb asses to ghoul." She hit the door abruptly, hard. "I don't want to be like you! You're wrong! We can choose to be better, kill the ones that are bad. Not kill innocents. I ain't no ravening monster!" The picture of Caroline's face, terrified and white, flashed in her mind, and she ground her teeth as her jaw grit in frustration. She coulda broken her cousin's neck so easily then, had felt that strange rush of gleeful power as she had held her life so tenderly. IT was there. Cord didn't lie. But she couldn't admit that he was right. There had to be good still inside her. It couldn't have been sucked out so easily.
He shook his head in disgust. "Ain't you been listening to anything I've been saying? Just because you got the Beast in you don't make you a monster. But ignoring it will get you there like a rushing freight train." He wasn't no monster. He killed when it was necessary, hunted for what he needed. She spit upon the animals but he was pretty sure they was a whole lot wiser than she was. Ain't no fucking use. She was too young or stupid or both to get it.
Cord's eyes narrowed as he turned his head to catch her gaze in his, refusing to let it go for a long minute before speaking. "And hit my door like that again and you'll wish you were standing in front of that train. That'd hurt less."
Her lips pursed out so far that a cup coulda been set upon them. The pout turned into a sneer that turned into an uncertain frown. "How d'ya control it then?" she asked. He made her feel stupid and she hated that. The Professor did too. What did Momma see in older men? Rooster and Shane were hot and thought she walked on water. Snarky, her new name for the Prof, and Snarly, her new name for Cord, were not proving half as delightful to be with. A knowing smile slid over her lips as she replayed the new names in her head for sound. Very cool! she approved of her own cleverness and waited for his answer.
"Understand it, come to terms with it. Realize you ain't human or animal but something inbetween. Something better." You just stopped fighting with it all the time and put it to work fighting for you.
"Better?" she asked with a raised eyebrow. "We feed on people's blood. We're just giant, soulless mosquitoes that give orgasmic hickies."
If she really thought that, then she was dumber than she looked. And that was saying something. "We're predators with smarts. All the hunting instincts that humans had fucked out of them so long ago mixed with brains."
A slow evil grin crossed Cord's face as he neatly slid the car to a stop 100 yards away from the two story house that the last of the ghouls was holed up in. "We ain't mosquitoes, honey. We're the wolves prowling 'mong the sheep." And the growl of the car's idling engine almost seemed to be coming from him.
A chill walked its fingers up her spine. The grin on his face mirrored the delighted purr of the Beast inside her. IT hadn't been satiated yet and it was hunkered down inside her. And like a predator, it was stretching leisurely, flexing its claws, still hungry. Dropping her generation had made her stronger and rabidly hungry. She knew that she really needed to re-read that spell again. The hunger had been an unwanted side effect. Her stomach roiled as Cord's eyes bored knowingly into hers as her Beast tried to rise to greet him. But her inner wizard took control quickly, discipline gained from eons of patient spell casting taking hold.
The calm voice in her brain told her curtly that if she bogarted the blood again, Cord would probably shred her. And that same cool part of her mind told her again that he had the makings of a perfect gargoyle and to play her cards careful. She had time. The Beast just snarled, impatient and hungry.
"I ain't no wolf," she snapped curtly as her chin rose defiantly. In her mind's eye, the dark-robed Tremere in her chuckled, stroking the Beast to patience as the magic swirled around them. But this time the figure had her face, not the Professor's. She shuddered again, not quite certain which one was the worst one to yield to. She closed her eyes and then opened them, only to find Snarly still regarding her. "Take a damn picture!" And she opened the car door and jumped out.
"You keep telling yourself that, honey," Cord said, the smile still on his face as he stepped out of the car. "Maybe one day you'll say it enough that you believe it."
Didn't matter anyway, he thought, as he moved towards the house, his pace the slow lope of the predator stalking its prey.
He was more than enough wolf for both of them.
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