city_limits Predators And Prey
Jenny had not gone out with the intention of getting herself hopelessly lost, but somehow, between following the old man who had dentures too big for his mouth earlier on in the afternoon and the woman whose mind was repeating a song which had the lyrics, 'Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, banana phone', she had wandered from a part of town that she knew to a part she really did not. And at some point, the sun had set, twilight had passed and it was well and truly into the night.

Not, that there were no people on the streets, because there were and, in Jenny's eyes, the sun might as well not have set, because the life around her was making her heart pump, adrenaline and endorphins rush through her, as she enjoyed being around people. The feeling was so intense that it made her pupils dilate, even in the darker-lit streets, the hum of conversation in the back of her mind, making her feel more alive than she had for a while. She was not too fussed about trying to find her way back. If she was desperate, she could get a taxi and just get the driver to take her home.

Jennifer had not realised she was humming the banana phone song - it was since stuck in her head and it was quite frustrating - until someone looked at her strangely. She tilted her head and lifted an eyebrow at the woman who hurried across the road. Jenny just lifted her shoulders in a shrug and saw a ginger cat disappear around the corner in front of her.

Kitty!

Heedless of the fact that it was a dark alley she was headed into, she went after the cat and smiled when she saw it pawing impatiently at a closed trash can. She crouched down and made a small sound, the cat turning its head, green eyes flashing with the reflection of the light as it wandered over, rubbing its head against her outstretched hand.

The wind pushed a couple of papers skittering across the alley and she watched them disappear into the shadows, leaning forward a little when she heard voices. Or at least, she thought she had. Maybe people were not actually speaking. Her hand kept rubbing absently behind the cat's ears and over its body as it purred contentedly and pushed itself into her hand, lapping up the affection.

Jenny had obviously been caught looking, as the next thing she saw was a pair of steel-toed boots in front of her vision, before she was being picked up by the shoulders of her jacket. The cat let out an indignant howl, hissed and then shot out of the alley, like someone had set its tail on fire and Jenny was left, puzzled and afraid, the buzzing of conversation in her mind seeming to increase in response to her panic.

"How much did you hear?" The guy asked, voice gravelled from too many years of smoking, perhaps or maybe, like Clint Eastwood, he was putting it on to be scary. He pushed her up against the wall, holding her almost up off the floor. The toes of her shoes were barely touching the ground.

"I believe my friend, here, asked you a question," another man said, slinking out of the shadows. He had a hat sitting on his head like it was a size too small and Jenny eyed it for a moment. "It'd be wise to answer. Can't have little girls ruining all our plans."

Jenny started answer when the first guy shifted his grip, obviously impatient with the time she was taking to answer and she found his forearm pressed against her throat. She let out a strangled yell, not quite sure what the hell she had done to promote this kind of reaction. She had not really heard much, just the sounds of voices. And considering how loud her head was on the best of days, mumbled words were not all that high on her radar.

"I-" She coughed, trying to get air in past the ridiculously hairy arm pressed against her throat.

"You've got ten seconds..."

"That's more than you have."

The new voice was little more than a whisper. Something focused, feral. Something immediately followed by the second of Jennifer's assailants being snatched into the darkness, as if attached to invisible bungee cord, yelling out in alarm, before his voice cut disturbingly short. There might have even been an opportunity for some sort of corresponding action on behalf of his companion, but he was human. What chose next to reach out from the darkness, slash blade across throat, severing vocal chords before plunging the same up through throat and jaw, was most definitely not.

Blood sprayed across the wall, as he was pinned to the same. His attacker female. There was something of a poetic irony about that.

Letting him drop uselessly to the floor, vampiric features were obvious, but this elder brunette had deliberately elected not to feed. It was a kill for the sake of excitement and challenge, not nutrition. Looking Jennifer's way, her saviour smiled through fangs.

"Nice night for a walk...?"

Jenny had dropped to the ground when her assailant had been yanked off her, lifting her hands to cover head out of some kind of instinctive protection, as if that would stop whatever it was which had attacked the men - and she did not have to have supernatural senses to smell the coppery tang of blood now fresh and hanging in the air or to hear the squish of something passing through flesh and the muffled flump of bodies hitting the floor.

Her eyes were squeezed shut, she was pretty sure she had felt blood hitting her but hoped to God it was not, because that was a whole level of disgusting she was not quite ready for and might be a little too much like some of her nightmares. She worried at her lower lip before straightening up again, looking at the brunette who had saved her.

If the vampiric features had not been enough of a signifier, one look at the woman told her almost all she needed to know, anyway. The fuzzy static which made up the woman's aura told Jennifer that she was like Avery. Another, "Vampire!" It kind of slipped out before she could help herself and, even though it was a rather disturbing sight, to see someone - even if they were a vampire - with blood everywhere around them, Jenny was abjectly fascinated. That was the main reason she was not turning tail and running for the hills; what any sane person would have done.

"Thanks..." She said quietly, clearly intrigued by the woman who had swept out of nowhere to save her butt.

"Hmm..."

Victoria was not usually like this. Not usually like this, at all. She was meant to be the pleasant one; the vampire who, so well-adjusted in her human life, was she, that the brunette had apparently developed a subconscious level of self-control more of her brethren never bothered to undertake. In the last year or so, that quality had slightly hardened out of necessity, but even there, she was gracious and polite.

Not now, though... Something had realigned her inner self. Reprioritised urges. Given her the new impulsive need to control. To dominate.

To take.

Extending a hand of assistance, the moment it was taken, Victoria hauled the girl up to feet with a sharp, practiced movement. Not for the sake of standing, however: Now it was Jennifer's turn to be pushed up against the nearest wall. Not where the vampiress' last kill had been made, but one unyielding surface was as good as another. The knife was still held in one hand, but Victoria was not doing something so predictable as licking it clean. Instead, she simply stared into the younger woman's eyes with her own of yellow hue. A predator deciding what to do with its newly-captured field mouse.

"Pretty... What's your name?"

Jenny tipped her head as she was hauled to her feet, about to say something when she found herself against the wall, again. Why was she up against the wall, again? She held the eye contact for a moment, but it made her intensely uncomfortable; all kinds of eye contact did, reminded her of times before when people would try and make her talk and tell her she was not hearing things, that she was not seeing things.

Her gaze moved around the alley, looking briefly for the cat before her eyes slid to the knife. Her breathing was shallow, sharp and her heart racing. Whilst the thrill of being around people had subsided into fear, then relief and now she was teetering on that line of fear, again. One foot metaphorically toeing the marks in the sand.

"Jenny, what's yours?" She answered, after a moment. It would have been accompanied by an outstretched hand, but no luck there. She just blinked at the vampiress and, impulsively - and with no regard for personal space; she really needed to get onto learning about that - reached up to touch Victoria's forehead. It was a gentle touch, a brushing of fingertips before she finally thought better and dropped her hand. "I've never seen... Does every vampire have this look, too or do some just look like normal people?" She asked, curiosity apparently outweighing fear, though, her heart was hammering in her chest and her limbs were trembling a little. The fear was there, coiled in her stomach. It was causing her breathing to be slightly faster.

"When we're hungry..."

The experimental touch reminded Victoria of the first time she had seen her own fanged maker demonstrate that facial change. She had been nothing less than absolutely fascinated and, while familiarity had blunted it, somewhat, she still found a curious sense of satisfaction from tracing fingertips slowly over the elder woman's ridges of vampiric crest. It made her feel somehow closer to the true essence of what she was. What they both were. Victoria was a very tactile creature and although in a mood to dominate just about everything in sight, the almost reverential brush of fingers had a way of almost pacifying her. She smiled at the appreciation, for she now yearned for, what? Praise? Yes... Yes, in a way, she did. Some sort of reward. She wanted followers. Wanted to enslave.

Especially when she could smell, hear, that most palpable sense of outright fear.

"My name's Victoria, Jenny... Can you say it?"

Jenny's eyebrow lifted at the question. Could she say Victoria? What kind of question was that? She nodded, even as she found her mind tripping over the word, like she couldn't quite get her mouth to engage with her brain - not a problem she usually found herself saddled with.

"Yeah," she mumbled as some kind of answer, hands having dropped down and her fingers were now twisting almost nervously in the sleeves of her coat, trying to work out what was going on now. "It's a pretty name." She supposed lots of people looked different when they were hungry, but she liked to think she did not grow fangs. That was definitely just a vampire thing.

Her eyes drifted to Victoria's left a little, just beside her ear, and above her shoulder, the static black-white-grey of the vampire's aura, the not-living, not-dead light that still confused Jenny. She scrutinised it, all too aware of Victoria's eyes on her. She may or may not have been avoiding eye contact.

Following the line of sight, only to see nothing behind her, Victoria frowned with annoyance, thinking it an attempt at distracting her attention. Even when in her usual hunting mode of comforting seduction and tease, she rarely got angry at something like that. Now, though, she felt slighted by such a thing. To think that her potential prey had the audacity to try something like that... How dare they? The girl had no right to do so. She was above the mediocrity of former humanity and should be worshipped like a goddess for it.

"Get on your knees!" It was not a request. She practically flung the girl down, levelling the blade at face. "Say 'Victoria'... Say it! Say it and kiss my foot..."

Victoria's footwear of preference was often not high-heeled shoes, but feminine boots, stopping just short of the knee. One of them sliding forward for the expected meeting of mouth.

Jenny felt her palms scrape as she was thrown to the floor, an indignant and startled sound escaping her lips. Her adrenaline surged again, heart hammering in her throat and threatening to steal away her breath. She glanced up at Victoria and frowned, cringing back away from the foot and the blade.

The dark colours swirled around Victoria and swam in Jenny's vision. The hair on her arms lifted as her skin broke out in goosebumps. "Vampires look different from everyone else," she said, carefully adding, "Victoria," to the end of the sentence. "Even when they're not hungry." She glanced at Victoria's boots and then leaned back against the wall, shifting back against it like it would protect her rather than trap her in. The noise in her mind got louder, pressing herself against the wall, the sound encompassed her. It was... Distracting. She touched her temple briefly, like it would make the noise go away.

"I said kiss my foot... Not good enough."

It was possible that, under other circumstances, Vicky was intelligent enough to pick up on the subtle clues of what Jennifer was actually perceiving. But although not enraged, her own view of things was as needful for the need to make others submit to her will, as she was normally willing to politely compromise. Which was to say, a lot. Taking ahold of a fistful of hair, the vampiress forced her victim to slide back up against that wall and pinned her there, flush against own body. The hand with knife now holding the blade across one of the girl's wrists; a vampire was possibly capable of sawing right through the bones.

"Am I wasting my time with you, Jenny? I mean, I did rescue you and all... Don't I deserve a little respect? Aren't you thankful for what I did?"

Jenny made another quiet sound, more scared, this time, as she tried to cringe further back into the wall, like she could fuse into it, become part of the bricks. Or maybe fall through it and end up on the other side of the club. But being even closer to the wall was not helping the noise in Jenny's head. For a brief moment, it was like she could not even hear Victoria's voice. The words took a moment to filter in and, by that point, she had fingers twisted in her hair and the cool blade of the knife - still bloody from its previous encounter with someone's flesh - pressed against her wrist.

"I... Y- yes." Jenny mumbled, soft and obviously distressed at the alarming turn of events. She swallowed, throat dry as she worried her lower lip nervously. "I mean yes, I'm thankful. I'm glad that you stopped those guys..."

Her voice shook a little. Each intake of breath meant she could feel Victoria pinning her down. She was suddenly claustrophobic, panicked because maybe this vampire was not like Avery. She was no longer sure what to say - not that she had been, in the first place - because it seemed that nothing she said would make this situation better. Her mind swam, a psychic sensory overload. She was never so close to people who were... Different. It felt like her whole body was prickling. A full body shudder ran through her.

The token submission was enough to give the vampiress a new reason to slightly relax posture and her switchblade retracted back into its handle with a shing. Clearly, Jennifer was no real threat to her and the bloodied weapon was slipped discretely back into clothing. The energy affecting Victoria was causing a severe spiritual shifting within her and she looked up at the sky, jaw momentarily clenching, right along with the hand still in Jennifer's hair, before she returned gaze to the mortal girl. Something was stressing her.

"Good," she agreed, with a brief smile of her own. "See, the last girl I turned... We had something great. But she did this magic spell, see and... And she's never disappointed, but... I always wonder how it could've been, y'know? If she didn't? And then she went off with this total prick who never appreciated her... Not like I did..."

Victoria was rambling. The specifics of her relationship with Star, not coming through with much in the way of clarity, but there was enough to show that the situation was now frustrating her. It was not being said with emotional honesty, of course... She did like Star and, while slightly disappointed that the girl did not want as constant a relationship with her, as she initially had with Deanna, what was now influencing Victoria was causing her to think in a very different way to normal. Star had not submitted to her... Not fully. Not 100%. She needed someone she could control. Someone she could own.

An entire throng of worshippers.

"Jenny..." Head tilted one way, then the other. Like a bird of prey trying to get a fix on how best to make its approach. the free hand moving up, trailing fingertip down the younger brunette's line of jaw. "I didn't mean to be angry... I'm usually not, it's just..." An impulsive, literal growl was heard, deep in Victoria's throat. Something like a cross between big cat and crocodile. "If I could give you a way to live forever, you'd be grateful, right? You wouldn't run off? You don't look like a girl who would... Not if I promised I could protect you, huh?"

Jenny listened, kind of wishing Victoria would let up on the grip, the twisted fingers in her hair, because it was getting to be painful and, with her pulse rushing up in her ears and everyone inside the building talking in her head, she did not need anything else to be causing her pain. "I'm sorry," she offered as some kind of condolence. People did that. When someone told you a story about something sad, you apologised. "That must suck. Do you miss her?"

It seemed only appropriate to ask. Nerves made her stomach twist again, head tilting away as Victoria's finger slid along her jaw. She swallowed, feeling a little bit sick at the way the conversation had turned. Definitely not like Avery. What did she mean, 'turn'? Make Jenny a vampire, too? But what would happen to her? What if she didn't want to become a vampire? Did she have a choice?

She did not know if she particularly wanted to live forever. After all, it was an abnormally long time and Jenny liked things such as sunrise and walking all day - which she would be unable to do as a vampire. The growl made her flinch back, again, looking up at Victoria with wide eyes, pupils large in the dim light. "Protect me from what?" She settled on asking, for once clamping down on her impulse to say what she was thinking. Maybe if she were a vampire, she would be able to see what she looked like? That maybe she would be able to see in herself what she saw in others.

"Yourself..."

It was difficult to tell whether Victoria was having a genuine moment of intuitive insight or was just wrapped up in the moment. Either way, she frowned at her own revelation, blinking, as if the answer given made no more sense to her, than it would for anyone else listening in. The impulse to own, to have someone she could not only emotionally control, but who would automatically feel loyal to her, resurfaced in her mind and Victoria's expression drifted back towards hunger, again. Jennifer was beautiful, like that girl she had met in the library, the other day. But that one was not here. 'Jenny' was.

And she wanted to have her.

"Protect you from the world... From anything... It's a gift where you never have to feel weak, ever again... You're never ill, you get to do whatever you want... Everything's yours..." The vampiress' words now more silken than before. The breathey, feminine quality of her voice, drifting to just above a whisper, as the hand previously at wrist, slid itself seductively around one side of waist. Yes, she thought, Jenny could be her next masterpiece. Perhaps the first of many. A timeless example of art, untouched by time. Victoria's need to create, to recraft, now compelled by a desire to own, bordering on the procreative. "I can give you that... You'll be perfect..."

Jenny gave a weak smile. "I don't think I'd ever be perfect," she said quietly, glancing down at Victoria's hand, feeling it against her waist, aware of the touch and feeling even more trapped by it. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears, "I'll always be different." Her own voice was soft, almost matching the tone of Victoria's. It was unconsciously done, she wasn't intending on mimicking the woman, it just seemed to happen.

She wet her lower lip and swallowed again. "What about watching the sunrise?" She asked finally, features briefly twisting into something resembling pain for the briefest of moments. Her breathing hitched and she shuddered again. She did not like being in such close proximity to someone whose aura gave her such an intense physical reaction. She was not feeling drained, or elated particularly, but she could almost feel a friction, like her own was fighting against Victoria's, trying not to succumb to the pressure of the supernatural. She felt her skin prickling all over again and she let out a stuttered breath, like it was hard to breathe with the other woman so close to her.

At another time, Victoria would have been compelled to actually talk it through at length. She had with Star. Like she was now, though, it was making her impatient. The elder of the brunettes did not want to have to wait. Her default way of doing things was jarring with what she now felt more naturally at home with. What she wanted to do, was to have the girl beg for it, take her somewhere intimate, then just take care of the act and make sure it was done. Without doing that, it was like having a jigsaw puzzle and finding oneself in need of a missing piece to complete it.

And that thumping heartbeat was calling out her name, even if voice refused to.

"You never want it, when you're changed... And if you do? There's always IMAX."

The way in which she forced Jennifer's head to one side, was a lot more typical of vampires. Victoria dipping head close to literally breathe in the girl's scent. It was a primal urge and one she had always taken enjoyment from, like gastronomic foreplay. Beyond any artificial chemicals, she could detect natural oils and more. "Not that I need your permission," she warned; that same growl from before, now taking on the form of a purring undertone to voice. Lips pressing to the curved exposure of throat in a form of experimental kiss, although more truthfully using the sensual gesture to detect where pulse quickened thinnest under skin. Jennifer's hair held secure in her vampiric grip. "I'd just prefer it... And trust me, it's got a pay-off like you wouldn't believe."

"The IMAX isn't the same," Jenny protested weakly, head having been pulled to the side and she was breathing a little more quickly, the panic curled in her chest, stealing her breath. It was not like she could deny the way that the touch of lips against her neck sent a bolt of something through her, but she could not put a name to it. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to pull away a second or so later, leaning to the side a little and curling her fingers in the sleeves of her coat. The cold was seeping in through her jeans and from where her back was pressed up against the wall, feeling it creeping into her body. It was only going to get colder and later. And then there would not be people around.

She tried to shake her head, voice not working as she lifted her shoulders, trying to get away and hunch them up as if it created a barrier to protect her neck. "M-maybe not tonight?" She tried after a moment, closing her eyes against the buzzing and the fear and the blood that she knew was somewhere near her feet. The smell of it still hung in the alley, though it was not as easy for her to smell now. She was thankful of that. "'Cause... 'Cause these things take time and you gotta' think it through and... I-"

"Shhh... Your body's ready, sweetheart... The rest of you just needs to follow..."

There were times protests did ensue, but this happened to be much more familiar territory for Victoria. It just so happened that her objective now was not purely that of nutrition, but in making herself a loyal companion. Following her own induction into the undead, Vicky had had discovered a massive increase in libido, transforming her from moderately curious student of the occult, into a sexually voracious nocturnal predator. It just so happened that her priorities had now been realigned to bring the latter aspect out far more than at almost any other time.

She was going to take great pleasure in teaching Jennifer about a whole variety of new appetites...

Just had to make her a vampire, first.

With a fresher, louder purr, Victoria leaned in, placing mouth against her victim's neck. Below wait, one thigh nudging gently between Jennifer's, in a downright blatantly provocative move. One the vampiress was more than happy to revert to; seducing her prey in back alleys, once sexual interest was confirmed, was her typical hunting technique and while she would never be so crude as to grope and paw someone, she did have a way of teasing someone into arousal, if sensing an opportunistic door might be open. Even the slightest arousal could be detected by scent and beneath a curtain of lips, Victoria's fangs grazed dangerously over throat. Her sensual feminine bite oh so ready to be administered to that waiting neck.

The position held for five seconds, maybe ten... Victoria treating it like a variety of French kiss, as tongue swiped and swirled, like a mother cat's cleaning kitten. She should have given the bite, by now... Would give it. Jennifer was all but hers, but as with any food, there was something to be said for tenderising the flesh, marinating it, until nothing but the sweltering temperatures of desire could exist. Only then could thirsts be slaked.

But was she doing it for the girl's benefit or purely her own?

And just when it seemed those razor-sharp ivory daggers might sink into skin, Victoria relented... Mouth trailing up to ear, only to whisper, once more, "Say my name..."

Jenny definitely did not think she was ready. She had never been close to people like this, before. Never been intimate with anyone, so, having this kind of attention lavished on her was new. Her breath caught again, the touch of tongue curling against her neck. She squeezed her eyes shut, belatedly realising that there was a thigh between her legs.

And then she felt kind of dirty. It never happened in alleys like this in movies or stories. Then again, this was no movie or story and Victoria was a vampire apparently wanting to make Jenny one. And that was a move that Jenny was not entirely sure she wanted. Or was ready for. What if she was just as crazy as one of the undead, as she was as someone who was alive?

"I'm not sure I'm ready," Jenny all but whimpered, eyes still squeezed shut like she was expecting a bite or to have her neck twisted. The roar of the people in her mind was deafeningly loud, as a few of them started spilling out onto the streets and her lips turned down in the corners, pain in her mind. Frightened as she was, she could not focus on blocking some of it out, turning it down. "Please..." It came out far more pathetically than it had sounded in Jenny's head and whether she was asking - begging - Victoria not to do it or for someone to appear and save her or even for the crowds around to just stop thinking, she did not know.

"Good enough for me," replied the vampiress with a smile of satisfied viciousness. "Would've hated to torture it out of you... I think we both know I would, if I had to."

With that, the girl found her head forced not just to one side, but now as arched back as physically possible. Victoria's favourite position, for it projected an image of submission, like few others. The huntress hinging jaws wide, as she prepared to transform captured prey into personal legacy. Fangs hungering for not just the gush of blood to wash over them, but the sensation of slicing down into the flesh of her vampiric daughter-to-be. Soon, fear would give way to submission, then later, elation. She would be there when Jennifer made her first kill. She would teach her how.

And the girl would assist her in forging a veritable kingdom of blood.

They all would.

Then it came... Victoria's fateful bite. The beautiful curve of Jennifer's neck visited by the impact of her future sire's claiming fangs, marking her as a possession, a pet, a student of eternal lore. Elder brunette taking from her, draining in rich, intoxicated swallows... Catching her flavour, revelling in the taste, until it came for a reversal of fortune and the time for Victoria's crimson essence to be exchanged. She would cradle the girl's head, until she weakened from life, itself. A new inner darkness taking root, taking hold... Recreating her as an undead killer and rendered with all the perfection of mother night's embrace.

Or at least, it would have, were it not for a hand taking a fist of Victoria's own long hair and yanking her away, before any such act could take place.

"Hands off, Elvira," announced the far more thuggish brute of intervening male vampire. "She's mine."

With that, Victoria found herself punched squarely in the face.

Of all nights to be popular with the undead... Jennifer was still for a moment, shocked when Victoria was ripped away from her. The male vampire had moved between Jenny and Victoria, almost like he was protecting her but not quite, since the young psychic was quite sure that if she stayed still, she would find herself on his menu, rather than Victoria's. And she would certainly not be coming back from the grave if he got his fangs into her. She was not about to dwell, though, when she had the chance to escape. She knew she could, but was unable to get her legs to work. Fear had frozen her in place.

She covered her neck with one hand and then used the wall to finally get to her feet, glad that the vampiric new-comer was far too preoccupied with keeping Victoria away from her to notice that Jenny was moving. She hoped it was the same for Victoria. Her legs felt a little weak with something approaching relief and fear. Lots and lots of fear. She covered her mouth with her other hand, as if it would keep her from making too much of a noise before she bolted around the corner, slipping on a wet newspaper, but catching herself before she fell and getting lost in a crowd of people exiting the nearby nightclub.

Her eyes stung with tears, breath catching on a sob of relief and terror as she pulled her coat around herself, keeping her eyes peeled for a cab she could fling herself into to go home and hide away until the sun came up. Her hands were shaking. The crowd moved slowly, but it was enough that she felt sheltered.

Vampires couldn't track scents or anything... Could they?

Victoria had been dazed, lifting hand to mouth, at the feel of her own blood trickling down, in place of that from her chosen food. A verbal altercation was heard, as her newly-possessive self leapt on the interloper's back, stab-stab-stabbing with her blade into his ear. Whether or not brain damage was something their kind could heal from, was secondary, only to the instinct to cause him harm for having intruded on her territory. She went for an eye next and the vicious battle was joined in full.

By the time she emerged from that alley, dusted ash being brushed from clothes in frustrated annoyance, a loudly cursing, "Fuck!" Was hissed out and the vampiress knew she had lost her chance. she had a name, but precious little else to go on and growled out an aggravated, "What're you looking at?" To a vaguely startled on-looker, before realigning features back to their formerly preserved illusion of humanity.

Too many people, too much of a crowd... And far too little patience to expend energy on the fact. No, Victoria would just have to look elsewhere for prey and the night was still young.

Maybe her fourth victim would be more appreciative.