Okay, here be Thrall II. Before you read it, read the original Thrall. Seriously, please do. It's good, and you will have no idea what's going on otherwise.
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thrall II- prologue (in which the stage is set)
several thousand years ago, shortly before the rise of Greece-
Helios walked to the crest of the hill, his ice-blue irises tightening as they faced the sun directly. "Knivvus," he said. "Where is your wife?"
"She's dealing with the blood mage," replied the demon. "Did you say goodbye?"
Helios shook his head. "I don't want to."
Knivvus glanced at him. "Why not?"
Helios shook his head. "She might convince me to stay."
Knivvus sighed. "Would that be a bad thing?"
"Yes." At his friend's uneasy glance, Helios elaborated, "I could kill them all. You know... I'm something... else, now. I'm not... human. I've realized that."
"You're right," Knivvus said. "You aren't human. But you aren't a demon, either."
"No. So what am I?"
"I'm not sure... This sort of thing has never happened before. Demons and Undead don't normally copulate, and even if they did, I hardly think their children lived long enough for their blood to enter a human. No, you are something else entirely. You should think of a name for yourself."
"Why?"
"It seems fitting, I think. Demons normally choose a name for themselves when they turn fifty."
Helios darted a sharp glance to his side. "Fifty?"
"We live a lot longer than humans, Helios. Do you want to take a name for yourself?"
Helios blinked. "I think I will choose one when it occurs to me. Shall we go?"
"Who's Knivvus?" Sara asked when her lover paused in his story.
"My father," he answered. "And his wife is my mother, killing the last blood mage."
"So your family is responsible for the destruction of a species."
"Blood mages are evil. They feed on energy, not surplus energy, but energy that's being used at that moment. They're one of the few species Earth evolved possessed of the innate ability to defeat demons, vampires, elementals, the like. Obviously, they can kick human ass, too."
"And here we think we're superior," Sara said dryly. "So how did your mother kill that one?"
"The last one? Well, blood mages really aren't a problem if you have a Soulslayer sword."
"Soulslayer sword?"
"A family tradition. Sends you straight to oblivion, bypasses the afterlife entirely."
"Nasty."
"Quite. I have one, perhaps someday I'll show it to you."
"So what did Helios end up naming himself?"
"Dracula," said a voice next to them. Sara jumped and whirled around. A tall guy, at least six feet, with black hair that tumbled down to his shoulders, had appeared in the room. Sara was perfectly happy to have him there; he looked like Hayden Christiansen. He turned to Grissom and said, "Neko. I need to speak with you."
"Excuse us, Sara," he said, rising. They left, and Sara heard them speaking quietly on the other side of the door in a language she'd never heard before.
"Catherine and Warrick, you have a dead body in North Vegas. Greg, you have a trick roll, and Nick, you have a robbery."
They headed off to their assignments, everyone but Nick, who stood, glaring silently at Grissom. Sara, who would be working with Grissom, was present as well.
"What?" Grissom asked.
"What the hell is this, Grissom? Greg has been a CSI for like, a year. He's a CSI 1. It was years before you let me work solo."
"Nick, we're tapped out. We have two homicides and a robbery and a trick roll, protocol dictates that there must be two CSIs present at a murder scene, and we have six people on this shift. There's nothing I can do."
Nick shook his head, clearly still pissed, and left.
"Sara? I just wanted to let you know... don't let this scare you, okay?"
"Why would it scare me?"
"You'll see when we get there." Grissom made a right at the light and continued, "It was, ah, an accident. He lost control."
"Who's 'he?'"
"Dmitri. He should be arriving at the station at around one to confess."
"Dmitri? Dmitri who?"
"Akalov."
"That rings a bell," she said.
"Yeah, he's quite a character. Turned three hundred years ago by Dracula himself, vanished off the face of the earth the day the first signature was put to the Declaration of Independence? A portrait of him stolen from a museum a few years ago?"
"That Dmitri Akalov."
"That one, yes. I'll be sending you off to the lab with some evidentiary cargo for you to take to DNA. Conveniently enough, he will be arriving soon after, and you and Brass can interrogate him. I should be arriving near the end of said interrogation."
"And then what?"
"Good question."
It was exactly as he'd predicted.
They arrived at the scene, in which a woman had had her blood drained rather neatly. Evidently, it had all ended up in Grissom's friend Dmitri, as not a stray drop was to be found. Sara swabbed some saliva from the wound and lifted a fingerprint from the nightstand. Grissom collected a pair of fibers and got a print from the doorway. Grissom ordered Sara off to the lab with the evidence they'd collected, and not five minutes after she'd arrived, a man arrived and confessed to the murder.
He looks rather a lot like Nick, Sara realized. And he did- he had many of the same facial characteristics as Nick; that same heroic jaw, and his eyes were shaped the same way, as was his nose. Other than that, however, there was no resemblance whatsoever; Dmitri was several shades paler (as vampires were wont to be), his voice smoother than velvet, his hair dead black, and his eyes... Sara found that she couldn't stand looking into those eyes. Empty wells of blackness, with no discernible pupils, just... solid black. No color whatsoever.
"For the record, state your name please."
"Dmitri Akalov."
Brass blinked, Sara knowing it was because of the bell his name rung in his head. "And why are you here?"
"I'm confessing to the murder of Eris Ares."
"Really. Wanna tell us what happened?"
"Well... first, let me explain something."
"And what's that?"
"I'm a vampire. A real one. I need blood to survive, Detective Brass."
"I see, I see."
"You don't believe me."
"No, I don't. But please continue."
"I was feeding. I chose Veronica Ares. It was a mistake. I... I should have been more careful. I'd been working on my latest project a lot, and I hadn't fed in a few weeks."
Sara shifted uncomfortably.
"I should have gone to a friend and asked for a donation, to get it under control first, but I was so hungry, and she was only a few blocks away. So, I started feeding, and... I couldn't stop."
"So you killed her."
"It was an accident! By the time I realized what I'd done, she was already dead."
"So what did you do?"
"I got the hell out of there, is what I did. I went to a friend of mine, and he told me to confess, so I waited until one and came in."
"Why did you wait?" Sara chimed in.
"To give you guys some time to investigate the scene."
"I see, I see. So, Dmitri. You say you're a vampire. Prove it."
"What do you want me to do? Turn into a bat?"
"No. No, but that would be pretty interesting. Can you do that?"
"Nope. I can make it look like I have, though."
"So do it."
"I can't."
"You just said you could, Dmitri. Pick one."
"I have the ability to do so, certainly. But I am forbidden from doing so in front of humans. We do have laws, you know. Also, we're obligated to obey human law. Which means confessing if we kill someone, as I'm doing."
"You know, I've met a vampire. Bastard took advantage of a close friend of mine, went by the alias Angel? Ring a bell?"
"I know who the Angel is, yes. But another law of ours, I'm not allowed to tell you who he is in his human life."
Brass opened his mouth to say something, and Sara cautioned, "Brass."
He glanced at her, sat back, and sulked, staring at Dmitri. The two men made eye contact. The staring contest lasted about thirty seconds before Brass looked away.
Sara blinked. She'd never seen that happen before. Then again, she'd never seen eyes like Dmitri's before, either.
As if on cue, the door opened, and Grissom stepped in. "Jim, I need to speak with you. Sara, you too."
----
You get to read the next chapter? Later. Tommorrow, maybe. Probably. With all these RPs taking up all this space (hint hint), I'll have to. It's like the show, except daily. And this would never be on the actual show. Haha.
Reviews make me giddy with delight.
----
thrall II- prologue (in which the stage is set)
several thousand years ago, shortly before the rise of Greece-
Helios walked to the crest of the hill, his ice-blue irises tightening as they faced the sun directly. "Knivvus," he said. "Where is your wife?"
"She's dealing with the blood mage," replied the demon. "Did you say goodbye?"
Helios shook his head. "I don't want to."
Knivvus glanced at him. "Why not?"
Helios shook his head. "She might convince me to stay."
Knivvus sighed. "Would that be a bad thing?"
"Yes." At his friend's uneasy glance, Helios elaborated, "I could kill them all. You know... I'm something... else, now. I'm not... human. I've realized that."
"You're right," Knivvus said. "You aren't human. But you aren't a demon, either."
"No. So what am I?"
"I'm not sure... This sort of thing has never happened before. Demons and Undead don't normally copulate, and even if they did, I hardly think their children lived long enough for their blood to enter a human. No, you are something else entirely. You should think of a name for yourself."
"Why?"
"It seems fitting, I think. Demons normally choose a name for themselves when they turn fifty."
Helios darted a sharp glance to his side. "Fifty?"
"We live a lot longer than humans, Helios. Do you want to take a name for yourself?"
Helios blinked. "I think I will choose one when it occurs to me. Shall we go?"
"Who's Knivvus?" Sara asked when her lover paused in his story.
"My father," he answered. "And his wife is my mother, killing the last blood mage."
"So your family is responsible for the destruction of a species."
"Blood mages are evil. They feed on energy, not surplus energy, but energy that's being used at that moment. They're one of the few species Earth evolved possessed of the innate ability to defeat demons, vampires, elementals, the like. Obviously, they can kick human ass, too."
"And here we think we're superior," Sara said dryly. "So how did your mother kill that one?"
"The last one? Well, blood mages really aren't a problem if you have a Soulslayer sword."
"Soulslayer sword?"
"A family tradition. Sends you straight to oblivion, bypasses the afterlife entirely."
"Nasty."
"Quite. I have one, perhaps someday I'll show it to you."
"So what did Helios end up naming himself?"
"Dracula," said a voice next to them. Sara jumped and whirled around. A tall guy, at least six feet, with black hair that tumbled down to his shoulders, had appeared in the room. Sara was perfectly happy to have him there; he looked like Hayden Christiansen. He turned to Grissom and said, "Neko. I need to speak with you."
"Excuse us, Sara," he said, rising. They left, and Sara heard them speaking quietly on the other side of the door in a language she'd never heard before.
"Catherine and Warrick, you have a dead body in North Vegas. Greg, you have a trick roll, and Nick, you have a robbery."
They headed off to their assignments, everyone but Nick, who stood, glaring silently at Grissom. Sara, who would be working with Grissom, was present as well.
"What?" Grissom asked.
"What the hell is this, Grissom? Greg has been a CSI for like, a year. He's a CSI 1. It was years before you let me work solo."
"Nick, we're tapped out. We have two homicides and a robbery and a trick roll, protocol dictates that there must be two CSIs present at a murder scene, and we have six people on this shift. There's nothing I can do."
Nick shook his head, clearly still pissed, and left.
"Sara? I just wanted to let you know... don't let this scare you, okay?"
"Why would it scare me?"
"You'll see when we get there." Grissom made a right at the light and continued, "It was, ah, an accident. He lost control."
"Who's 'he?'"
"Dmitri. He should be arriving at the station at around one to confess."
"Dmitri? Dmitri who?"
"Akalov."
"That rings a bell," she said.
"Yeah, he's quite a character. Turned three hundred years ago by Dracula himself, vanished off the face of the earth the day the first signature was put to the Declaration of Independence? A portrait of him stolen from a museum a few years ago?"
"That Dmitri Akalov."
"That one, yes. I'll be sending you off to the lab with some evidentiary cargo for you to take to DNA. Conveniently enough, he will be arriving soon after, and you and Brass can interrogate him. I should be arriving near the end of said interrogation."
"And then what?"
"Good question."
It was exactly as he'd predicted.
They arrived at the scene, in which a woman had had her blood drained rather neatly. Evidently, it had all ended up in Grissom's friend Dmitri, as not a stray drop was to be found. Sara swabbed some saliva from the wound and lifted a fingerprint from the nightstand. Grissom collected a pair of fibers and got a print from the doorway. Grissom ordered Sara off to the lab with the evidence they'd collected, and not five minutes after she'd arrived, a man arrived and confessed to the murder.
He looks rather a lot like Nick, Sara realized. And he did- he had many of the same facial characteristics as Nick; that same heroic jaw, and his eyes were shaped the same way, as was his nose. Other than that, however, there was no resemblance whatsoever; Dmitri was several shades paler (as vampires were wont to be), his voice smoother than velvet, his hair dead black, and his eyes... Sara found that she couldn't stand looking into those eyes. Empty wells of blackness, with no discernible pupils, just... solid black. No color whatsoever.
"For the record, state your name please."
"Dmitri Akalov."
Brass blinked, Sara knowing it was because of the bell his name rung in his head. "And why are you here?"
"I'm confessing to the murder of Eris Ares."
"Really. Wanna tell us what happened?"
"Well... first, let me explain something."
"And what's that?"
"I'm a vampire. A real one. I need blood to survive, Detective Brass."
"I see, I see."
"You don't believe me."
"No, I don't. But please continue."
"I was feeding. I chose Veronica Ares. It was a mistake. I... I should have been more careful. I'd been working on my latest project a lot, and I hadn't fed in a few weeks."
Sara shifted uncomfortably.
"I should have gone to a friend and asked for a donation, to get it under control first, but I was so hungry, and she was only a few blocks away. So, I started feeding, and... I couldn't stop."
"So you killed her."
"It was an accident! By the time I realized what I'd done, she was already dead."
"So what did you do?"
"I got the hell out of there, is what I did. I went to a friend of mine, and he told me to confess, so I waited until one and came in."
"Why did you wait?" Sara chimed in.
"To give you guys some time to investigate the scene."
"I see, I see. So, Dmitri. You say you're a vampire. Prove it."
"What do you want me to do? Turn into a bat?"
"No. No, but that would be pretty interesting. Can you do that?"
"Nope. I can make it look like I have, though."
"So do it."
"I can't."
"You just said you could, Dmitri. Pick one."
"I have the ability to do so, certainly. But I am forbidden from doing so in front of humans. We do have laws, you know. Also, we're obligated to obey human law. Which means confessing if we kill someone, as I'm doing."
"You know, I've met a vampire. Bastard took advantage of a close friend of mine, went by the alias Angel? Ring a bell?"
"I know who the Angel is, yes. But another law of ours, I'm not allowed to tell you who he is in his human life."
Brass opened his mouth to say something, and Sara cautioned, "Brass."
He glanced at her, sat back, and sulked, staring at Dmitri. The two men made eye contact. The staring contest lasted about thirty seconds before Brass looked away.
Sara blinked. She'd never seen that happen before. Then again, she'd never seen eyes like Dmitri's before, either.
As if on cue, the door opened, and Grissom stepped in. "Jim, I need to speak with you. Sara, you too."
----
You get to read the next chapter? Later. Tommorrow, maybe. Probably. With all these RPs taking up all this space (hint hint), I'll have to. It's like the show, except daily. And this would never be on the actual show. Haha.
Reviews make me giddy with delight.
