[FFML] [Dark][Draft] Dawn of Darkness: Into the Abyss


                Hacks from Hell, Unlimited

                   in co-operation with

           Evil Entities for a Darker Tomorrow's                
                     Department Three

                          and

       The Whip Cream and Razor Blades Corporation's             
                 North American Division

                        presents

            Dawn of Darkness: Into the Abyss

   A Vampire Princess Miyu / Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter         
                       Crossover

                           by

                     Joey O'Leary
                          aka
                    The Apprentice

        Anita Blake, Jean-Claude and all other characters taken
from the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter novels are property of
Laurell K. Hamilton.

        Miyu, Larva, and all other characters taken from Vampire
Princess Miyu are the property of Toshihiro Hirano and Narumi
Kakinouchi.

        Unless otherwise noted all other characters are the
mine.  Please get permission before using them.

Thank you's go out to:

        Megazone, Gryphon, ReRob and everyone else who's wrote something
in that epic tale known as Undocumented Features.  You're the ones
responsible for getting me interested in Manga and Anime, again.

        Darren Steffler (aka Twister) for Twisted Path and Twister.  For
showing me the joys of Ranma 1/2 and reminding me that it *is* possible
to have a great self-insertion fanfic without reading UF.  And for Puck,
the Canadian god who, it seems, is about to father a race of half-elves
all on his own.

        Bert Van Vliet.  For revealing to us that it is possible to be
more of a pain to Sylia than Priss and Mackie combined.  Frankly, I'm
surprised you haven't given her an ulcer yet.

        Hitomi Ichinohei.  For amazing me with the number of fanfics
she can have going at once, yet have all of them be of superior quality.
I'm still working (some) on that BGC 'fic I told you about, Hitomi.
Believe it or not, it's what's caused me to create this one.

        Barry Cadwgan.  For giving me (in no particular order):
spellchecking services; inspiration; ideas; comments and criticism;
encouragement; and assurances that just because I'm able to write
characters like Set, is no reason to see a psychiatrist.

        For White Wolf and the rest of the FFML.  For great stories and
a chance to have this thing looked at.

        To Toshihira Hirano and Narumi Kakinouchi, for giving us Miyu.

        And, finally, to Laurell K. Hamilton.  For showing me that it
was possible to mix horror, fantasy, mystery and a bit of romance
together.  For giving us vampires that are truely monsters, but showing
that humans could be monstrous as well.  For Anita Blake herself; a
strong, smart heroine who doesn't shriek when the monsters are after
her, but instead gives them nine millimeter headaches.  And for
Jean-Claude; a hero and villian all at once whom I can't help but root
for.

        Any praise, comments, corrections, advice or out-and-out flames
that you decide shouldn't be made public should be sent to:
tim.oleary@pei.sympatico.ca
But, please, put something in the header so the other people I share my
account with will know it's for me.

Thanks.

____


Dawn of Darkness:  Into the Abyss

Act 1:  Of Pain and Pleasure

Chapter 1:  At the Top of the Spiral

        "Master of puppets pulling your strings
         Twisting your mind and slashing your dreams,
         Blinded by me, you can't see a thing,
         Just call my name 'cause I'll hear you scream!
         Master!
         Master!"
                - Metallic, `Master of Puppets'

        < Scarecrow - Ministry - A.K.A. Psalm 69>

        The first thing that someone who'd just woken up would have
thought was that their eyes weren't open.  For, as far as the eye
could see, in every direction that could be looked at was a murky
black morass, with faint black outlines that could be leafless trees
whose branches were moving in the breeze, with those flashes of unlight
in various noncolors that people think they see when they have their eyes
tightly closed for a while.  Then they would look down and realize that
their eyes were open, that this was the way things truly looked here.
For the ground wasn't black, it was grey.  It was the grey of a corpse
just beginning its trip back to the soil.  Here and there tufts of wilted
grass that glowed a faintly venomous green had forced their way out of the
tough soil.

        Then, they would realize that there was no breeze and, despite the
gibbering voice screaming in the back of their head, would look more
closely at the trees.  The grey trees, with their whip-like branches that
ended in black buds.  The grey trees, covered in overlapping scale-like
bark on mounds that were black, not grey.  Where the scales met, jagged
pieces of grey wood seemed to thrust out in every possible direction, as if
they thirsted for blood and pain.

        And, as their eyes finally adjusted to the lighting of their
surroundings, they would truely see the black mounds for the first time. A
few seconds of denial would pass, before even the most hardened killer would
fall to their knees and lose the contents of their stomachs, but they still
would not be able to tear their eyes from the black piles of writhing flesh,
made up of barely human forms.  Not one sound came from the mouths that
opened and closed, but the eyes were truly the windows into the thoughts of
these tortured souls who prayed for gentle death or soothing madness.  Then
the human urge to survive would finally kick in and they would push
themselves off their knees and, still retching even though their stomachs
were empty, would turn to run as if Hell itself was chasing them. But it
would be too late, for one of the branches would snap towards them, the black
buds opening to show jagged white teeth covered with a rotting green-white
slime and would bite them. Then, a strange lassitude that did not extend to
their minds would envelop them as they walked back to the mound that belonged
to the tree that had bit them, and all they would be able to do is open their
mouth in a silent scream as they became part of the hellish fertilizer for
that particular non-tree.

        Not that Set had to worry about them.  They were, after all, his
creations.  As he walked through his pets to the center of this grove of
evil, he was gently brushed by their branches as he made his way between the
trees.  Set did not stop, this time, to check out his prized pets but merely
stroked and patted the branches near him, causing that particular `tree' to
shiver in joy.  Finally, he came to the end of the trees and walked on the
brilliantly-yellow grass that covered the perfect circle surrounding his
tower.  He did stop to gently kick the fleshless skeleton that lay grinning
up at him halfway there, it promptly turned to a white-grey dust that quickly
blended in on the white-grey soil of the glade.

        This minor housecleaning chore completed, he once again started
towards the inhumanly smooth obsidian tower.  It thrust itself up to the sky
in defiance, three stories of unmitigated darkness.  There were no ledges,
windows or even doors.  A close look would show that there were not even
microscopic cracks to show that this tower, with a radius of 20 feet, had
not been made out of a single piece of darkest obsidian.  It seemed to absorb
not only light, but darkness as well; yet it seemed to shine, to give off
not-light in all the non-colors humanity has ever dreamed of, and more.

        Set did not stop to admire his workmanship but merely walked through
the wall of the tower and into a dimly lit, twenty foot long, corridor wide
enough for four men to walk abreast.  This corridor ended in a circular room
with a radius of at least sixty feet, although the fact that only the outer
five feet of that radius had a floor made it seem much larger.  The rest of
the room formed part of a shaft that seemed to stretch, both up and down,
forever. In the center of the shaft there was a spiral staircase wide enough
for three men to walk abreast if, that is, the outermost and innermost of the
three didn't mind the fact that a single misstep would send them over the
edge of the borderless staircase, praying that they would be able to grab one
of the guardless walkways that attached to the stair at various places, but
with none placed just over or under a similar walkway or one of the torches
that jutted out over the empty center of the staircase, giving off their
faint light.  As with all else in the tower, the staircase appeared to have
been made of seamless obsidian.

        The observant would notice that none of the torches ever seemed to
burn down, to smoke or to produced ashes or embers.  Those with a keen sense
of smell would notice that the pleasant fragrances of the torches were, just
barely, unable to cover the other smells of the tower.  Of blood, the wastes
of various animals and other smells that no ordinary human could ever
identify.  Others would wonder how a place that looked so clean, both inside
and out, could be as quiet as it was or feel empty the way it did; quiet as a
tomb, empty as the eyes of the newly dead.

        All Set absently noted as he calmly climbed the stairs, was that all
was as it should be with his home.  Then, after climbing an uncountable
number of steps he stepped on another walkway and went down another corridor
that ended in a door with no handle, that opened inward as he approached.
On the wall that was visible from the doorway were shelves that reached up
to the ceiling of this room, 18 feet above; twice the height of the corridors.
The shelves were filled with the spines of books, volumes, tomes and grimores
of all sizes and colors; some were plain and others were chased in precious
metals and gems, and some were titleless, but others were marked with runes
and signs of languages not known to 'modern' man that wriggled and writhed
as if they were alive, in pain... and hungering.

        As Set strode into this room and headed straight for these shelves,
he pulled out a carbachon-cut, blue-green sapphire the size of his palm from
one of the pockets on his white jacket.  One would almost think that the gem
had an inner radiance of that same blue-green color that fluttered from one
part of the gem to another, almost as if it were a canary seeking to escape
its cage.  Then, as soon as Set had passed it, the door closed on its own.
And just as before, without a sound.  Just as there had not been a sound
heard since the instant that Set walked through the wall; as if Noise itself
feared to attract the attention of the master of this domicile.