Fated Manor

The sky cried and screamed upon the world. Rain pounded the concrete sidewalks, thunder rumbled in the distance, and lightning brightened the city's streets. Pulling her hood tighter, the girl quickened her pace as a sense of dread filled her veins. Someone was watching her, and she couldn't figure out from where. A thrill flooded her, drowning out the dread, at the prospect of tonight's adventure. Her black heeled stilletos splashed in the puddles accumulating around her. Taking a sharp turn down an alley, she made it halfway before darting behind a dumpster situated outside the back door of one of the clubs on this strip. Holding her habitual breath and focusing on her senses, she heard footsteps making their way closer. A large hooded figure stalked slowly past her hiding place, a glinting knife grasped in his hand, and the girl had to stifle her chuckle at the thought of that having any chance of even harming her. She pounced from her spot, fangs extending, and latched on to the wanna be murderer's throat savagely. Upon instinct, the man drew his knife back and stabbed her in the neck with it. A flush of pleasure flooded her at the pain, and she moaned sucking harder. “Wh-what the f-f**k, y-you crazy bi-b***h,” the man’s voice began to slur as she pulled more of his blood from his veins. A mocking laugh left her, and she dug her mouth in harder, and a groan of pain left him. With one final pull, she releases him from her grip, and he crumples to the ground. Flashes of the man’s memories flood her brain. Visions of the women and children he violated, mutilated, and dropped into the ocean attached to bricks still breathing on his rickety ocean boat. Girls rejecting him and the rage and embarrassment that followed. His mom drunkenly calling him foul names and blaming him for his father leaving. The same father violating him repeatedly before he left, never to return. This sick excuse of a man had a rough life and used it as an excuse to harm innocent people. His death was a gift to all his past victims and the future ones he'll never have the chance to meet. She pulls the knife from her throat and cut the bitten skin from his neck, wiping the evidence of what killed him. She hucks his body into the dumpster and grabbed a pack of matches from my pocket with a small container of lighter fluid. Pouring some of the fluid in the dumpster and lighting the lighter before tossing it in too, she disposes of the body well enough to not draw eyes to how he died. The lighter fluid doing its job of burning the body despite the rain. She shoves her hands into the pockets of the trench coat she is wearing over her black lace dress, the pattern on the lace getting dense to hide her privates and sheers out to show her pale skin. Her 7-inch black stilettos make a clicking noise on the concrete as she exits the alley. Darkness had just fallen on this party city bathed in blood, so the earliness and relentless rain had resulted in the streets only being occupied by a few people who were homeless and huddling under awnings, or making their way into the cheap bars to spend their last few dollars on a few drinks to keep them warm when they venture back out. She whistled as she strolled listlessly down the strip. Neon lights and flicker street lights buzz in her sensitive hearing. She senses one of her kind lurking in the shadows ahead, recognizing the signature. She remains relaxed as she approaches the bar where he's waiting. Strolling into the stereotypical biker bar style pub, her eyes roam over the rugged men littered in tattoos of varying quality wearing leather jackets. Skipping over the servers in short daisy dukes and tied up tops their breasts spilled out of and connected to a man sitting in the far corner. His eyes are already watching her from where he sits, she c***s her head to the side with a grin, and stop at the bar to grab herself a Manhattan before making my way to him. “Lyra,” he greets, tipping his tumbler of bourbon at me before raising the glass to his lips. She gives him a smile, before following suit after taking her seat in the booth across the table from him. “What do I owe this pleasure to Ric,” she question him as she kicks her feet up onto the booth where sits, the toe of my heels grazing his inner thighs. His eyes darken with lust, but grits out, “I'm not here for that this time, little one, though it pains me to deny ourselves the pleasure.” She pouts her lips in response, but straighten herself up, “alright, alright, I get it. Business then pleasure,” she teases with a wink, causing his green eyes to roll. “What up though Ric, it's not like you to be here so close to the solstice?” He gives me a long sigh, and tosses the rest of his bourbon back and raises his hand to a server. Gesturing to the glass, she nods and hurries off to get him a fresh drink. “I don't even know where to begin with this one Lyra,” he says dejectedly, as he ruffles his brown messy waves with his hand. “I guess it started a few months ago, it was just a rumor, but I was curious. Apparently someone had bought that old property way out in Holloway Hills, the old Stirling Manor. A few of us went out to get a peak of the new owner, and Lyr… I'm lucky to have made it out alive… Thomas and Bert… not so lucky.” Her eyebrows furrow at this information. Thomas, Bert, and Ric were some of the oldest vampires registered. Having been turned in the 14th Century, they have roamed this earth for centuries. I'm older than most, but significantly younger having been turned in in the mid 1800s. Though she's younger, she was gifted with abilities that haven't been seen amongst their kind, and those gifts are why he's telling her about this. “What do you need me to get for you Ric,” she asked with an uneasy sigh. Lyra has been alive too long to not trust her instincts, and right now they were screaming at her to walk away from this. The only reason she hasn't is she owes Ric her life. As a newborn vampire who's master had abandoned her, she was on a binging spree. Unable to control her bloodlust, and had unwittingly turned her emotions off. Ric found her and guided her from the edge while escaping Greece before she was exposed and killed. He has never asked anything of her, and if he was asking it had to have been important. “While exploring the compound I sensed a witches grimoire. One I need, and I'd like you to obtain for me,” Ric's green eyes pierced me as he chose his words carefully. He was hiding something, what exactly she wasn't sure, but that debt flashed in her mind. “Okay, I'll travel to Holloway tonight and make an entry tomorrow night. Did you notice anyone else there, or was it just the one,” and they spent the next few hours discussing the layout of the property. Ric even had gotten his hands on a blueprint of the house. The tension never left Lyra, and the feeling of impending doom only grew more fierce. ☆☆☆☆☆ An owl's cry filled the forest as Lyra made her way silently through the thick underbrush. Her enhanced sense trained on her surroundings, waiting for any sort of indication of another being. She had her energy held tightly within her, making it impossible to sense her, one of the many things her power allowed her to do. She quickly made it to the edge of the treeline, and paused in the brush, eyes searching for any sign of something in the manor before her. It was a huge dark brick home she knew to house a number of bathrooms, offices, dens, dining rooms and even a ballroom on the main floor. On the second floor held guest rooms with ensuites, linen closet, and a room the last owner renovated into a theater. The top floor was a loft style master room with a kitchenette and its own living room taking up half, and the other half was a massive library and an office. There were some permits filed to build a basement space, but we were unsure what exactly was put down there. The windows with iron detailing were all dark, and there was no movements on the expansive ground she could tell. With a deep breath she shifted the power to not only cloak her energy but her body from sight. It took a lot of energy and concentration, but it was effective. With her presence cloaked she raced across the landscaped yard. Passing flowerbushes, stone fountains, and a marble gazebo as she raced at top speed to the servants entrance. As silently as she could, she wiggled the handle, finding it unlocked, and with an inward chuckle she enters the manor, closing the door silently behind her. The floors were a dark black and gold marble and the walls were laid with a black wallpaper with a gold floral fountain patterned embossing. Pictures and paintings in matching gold frames lined the wall. Massacres captured in pictures, macabre paintings of monsters feasting on human bodies, greyscale photos of bodies in various states of decay. Various statues depicting people in agony or despair set a few feet apart down the never ending hallway. Black doors with gold hardware were closed as she silently crept down the dim hall. Only the dim light of flickering gas lanterns on the wall to guide her way. She senses the familiar signature of a witches grimoire and makes her way towards it, up the stairs, and through the halls. The impending sense of doom intensifies, but she cannot sense anyone in the house. Reaching the final set of grandeur dark oak stairs, she pauses. Lyra closes her eyes, and while keeping her signature insignificant she reaches out with the tendrils of her power seeking for something, anything. Suddenly a presence registers. She freezes and her entire body tightens. The presence was unlike anything she's ever felt before. Raw power more intense than anything she had ever felt in her time on earth, and that power… was coming from right behind her.