DISCLAIMER: Blade: The Series and its characters are the property of Spike TV, New Line Cinema and Marvel Comics . No infringement intended.
CHALLENGE: Written for Passion & Perfection's Big 5000.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
THANKS: To Ann for the beta.

Scelero
By ralst

 

Part One

The smell of death lingered at the back of Krista's throat, choking her with its cloying sweetness and promising a speedy return. The corpses littered the street. Bodies reduced to piles of flesh and bone, left to rot in the sweltering heat of a forgotten summer. Maggots squirmed beneath the skin, birds pecked at the exposed guts, and the air was wrought with the sound of animals squabbling over human meat.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Chase sighed, her white gloved hands gesturing expansively at the carnage before them.

Krista wanted to be sick. "What happened here?"

"Humans." Animals scurried in their direction; the blood crazed desire for fresh kill destroyed the instant they caught the vampires' scent. "They're far more deadly than we could ever be," Chase explained. "If they weren't so boring, I'd actually be jealous."

Navigating her way through the human debris, Krista stopped to study the barely recognisable face of a young woman; she couldn't have been more than sixteen, her face swollen with death's putrefaction, the dried smear of lipstick incongruous against the mottled flesh.

"She's just a child."

Chase gave the body a dispassionate kick. "Old enough to die," she said. "Old enough to kill, too, if that knife by her side is anything to go by."

The knife looked rusty, but Krista could smell the blood staining its blade. "Why would she go into a war zone with nothing but a kitchen knife?"

The question was met with silence as Chase wound her way through the maze of bodies, her eyes searching for an unknown prize. She cared little for the follies of men; if they chose to kill themselves en masse, over something as stupid as politics or religion, it was just more proof of her own superiority. So long as there were still living bodies to bleed, she didn't care what they did.

"Chase?" The blonde continued her silent perusal. "Chase, why are we here?"

They had travelled halfway across the globe to find this particular battleground, and Krista was no closer to discovering the reasons why. Marcus had said it was important, but little more, his confidences obviously restricted to his blonde lieutenant.

"Chase," she growled.

"Really, Krista, you must learn to behave like a good little watchdog and stop asking questions." Kneeling beside one of the bodies, Chase began rooting through its pockets; her white gloves stained brown with the remnants of a discarded life. She rolled the corpse onto its back and tugged at the blood hardened cloth. "But you'll be glad to know our little sojourn is at an end," she said, slipping an unidentified object into her pocket.

"And I don't suppose you plan on telling me what that is?"

"You're right." Chase peeled off her gloves and threw them at the body. "But if you want to frisk me..."

"I think I'll pass."

"Are you sure?"

Krista had grown used to Chase's dangerously flirtatious comments, but the sight of her bounteous curves and seductive smile amidst a sea of decayed flesh, left her feeling sick. She turned her back on the other woman and started for the car.

Her actions now unobserved, Chase said a silent goodbye to the man at her feet; she could remember the first time they met, his hands clawing feverishly at her human flesh, as Frederick spewed his poisonous laughter into the air. He'd been little more than a boy then, his smooth face contorted into a cruel mask of entitlement, as he'd carried out his master's wishes and his own twisted desires. She'd wanted to kill him that day, and every day since, but once again her desires had been thwarted. His decrepit body, old beyond even its wizened years, had given up life too easily; the traces of anguish too faint to appease Chase's need for vengeance.

"Chase!"

With reluctance, she let go of the past and turned to join the brunette in the waiting car. She would be as happy as Krista to escape the stench of death, but she had no plans of sharing that little piece of information with the woman; she did have a reputation to uphold, after all.


The hotel room was airless. Threadbare sheets covered the twin beds and provided the only splash of colour in an otherwise drab interior. It was a long way from the decadent elegance of the hotel rooms they'd shared at the beginning of their journey, but the shutters on the windows made it ideal for their purposes.

"There's no hot water," Krista complained.

"And we both know how much you enjoy those long showers."

Krista tried not to think about the phials of serum that she'd been forced to leave in Detroit; the handful she'd had in her possession had long since dwindled to nothing, and if she couldn't make contact with Blade's man, she'd be forced to consume blood just to survive. "How long until we can go home?"

Chase didn't appreciate her innuendoes being ignored. "We'll be back soon enough," she said. "I didn't realise you were such a homebody." Her smile turned vicious. "Or are you just missing Marcus' touch?"

Krista ignored the comment. "I'll take the bed by the door."

"So will I." The lascivious grin didn't falter as Chase advanced on her prey. "I do love exploring strangers in hotel rooms."

"Cut it out Chase." It had become a ritual, every time there was even a hint at her misguided encounter with Marcus, Chase would roll out another of her tired flirtations. Krista wasn't sure if it was a defence mechanism meant to assure Chase that she was still desirable, or simply an attempt to rattle her nerves, but she was getting bored with it. "We both know you haven't got what it takes to satisfy me."

Chase would have laughed if she wasn't so busy sizing up her opponent. "You can't be that naive," she drawled, her smile turning cruel. "And don't try and tell me you've never rutted like an animal with one of those barbie-dolls in khakis."

Krista's knuckles turned white as she fought the urge to smash Chase's smug face into the wall. It wasn't the accusation of lesbianism that rankled, but the offhand way in which Chase described her fellow soldiers. She had fought beside those women; seen them bloodied and broken through the cruelties of war, and to have them reduced to a meaningless quip, was more than she was willing to take. "You don't get to talk about them," she told Chase. "Ever."

"Oh? Did I hit a nerve?" Chase lounged back onto the disputed bed, her skirt riding up her thighs in a manner far too well rehearsed to be accidental. "Or, are you just feeling guilty about some little floozy you left behind in the sand?"

Her vampire-inherited strength easily allowed Krista to break off a chunk of wood from the door frame; her emotion-filled lunge ended with her straddling Chase's body, the impromptu stake scratching at the skin beneath the silk and drawing blood.

"I told you never to talk about them," she seethed, her hand tightening around the wood, splinters digging into her skin and leaving her palm a bloodied mess.

Chase smiled, her eyes dilated with an excitement born of inappropriate desires; both for blood and sex. "I always knew you wanted to get inside of me."

"Chase, I'm warning you."

The blonde pressed her body more forcefully onto the stake, staining her shirt with copious amounts of blood; the pain of the cut only adding to its beauty as it washed away the lingering memories of her earlier encounter with the rotting corpse. At that moment, she didn't care if Krista fucked her or killed her, either would be a release from two lifetimes of unwanted memories. "Do it."

The smell of blood overwhelmed Krista's senses and fused with her anger. "I hate you!" she sneered, the stake pressed further into ruined flesh.

Chase let out a whimper that was equal parts pain and pleasure. "Do it," she repeated as her hand encircled Krista's and urged her to push harder. "Do it!"

Krista's fangs ached with the desire for blood and carnage, her hands shaking with the effort it took not to plunge the stake deeper and watch the life flow from Chase's body until she was nothing but a bad memory and dust on the wind. "I hate you!" she screamed.

The stake impacted a wall.

Chase's eyes flared open. Her mouth caught in a half-scream as her body was engulfed in a blaze of agony. "Yes," she hissed.

Krista's teeth sunk deeper into her flesh; ripping and tearing at the broken skin until her face was covered in the midnight-crimson of her temptation. The heady brew coated her tongue and consumed her senses. Heat coursed its way through her body and pooled between her legs, every desire brought to the surface and demanding to be satisfied.

"No!" Krista stumbled back, disgust and horror warring for dominance on her face. "I can't."

"Krista?" Chase had been close to oblivion before Krista's characteristic selfishness had robbed her of the release. She would have snapped her neck for the impudence if she wasn't too weak with the loss of blood. "God, you're so predictable," she complained, her words echoing about the room as Krista retreated to the false sanctuary of the bathroom.

Krista crumpled to the floor, her head cradled in her hands as wracking sobs shook her frame. She tried in vain to purge her body of Chase's blood, the taste and smell refusing to vacate her senses, just as the image of Chase, helpless and welcoming, covered in her own blood, refused to leave her mind's eye.

To Be Continued

Return to Blade: The Series Fiction

Return to Main Page