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 truly 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 villain 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: tjolear@ibm.net But, please, put something in the header so the other people I share my account with will know it's for me. Thanks. _____ Act 1 Of Pain and Pleasure Chapter 3: Contractual Arrangements 101 - Give and Take Part 2 "No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks." - Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft Darkness; calm, soothing, peaceful, quiet. It cradles him. It holds him close. Nothing would hurt him in it, because nothing can reach him through it. A blaze of Light suddenly intruded; bright, blazing, painful. With it comes a lilting voice, "This won't hurt a bit... It's going to hurt like HELL!" The joyous laughter fades as the Darkness swallows the Light, swallows the pain. But the darkness isn't as black, as all-absorbing, as all-consuming as before. The Light flashed into existence again; stronger, brighter, more painful then before. "You're a jerk, but your still my brother. So, yes, I do care." The Darkness swallows the Light, and with it the storm of feelings these words bring with them. Love and hate. Annoyance and appreciation. So many things left unsaid, too much said that should not have been. The Light, again brighter and more painful. "I've always wanted to see if you actually could skin someone alive with a dull knife, thank you for volunteering!" Darkness once again swallows the voice, with it's sing-song quality and the emotion felt but the hate felt leaves a metallic aftertaste behind. The Light, burning even more of the darkness away, if only temporarily. "I'm glad you like the game, we play here every Saturday. Consider yourself given an open invitation to play." The Darkness flows back in, enveloping the light and the satisfaction I feel, pulling it away from me. But I don't want it to! I? What is I? The Light burns into the Darkness again. "There's an art to using a branding iron. It's a rare, and in these days seldom practiced, art. But you're in luck, I'm a certified practitioner!" Screams echo forth from the core of the Light. The Darkness envelops them. It tries to muffle them, to suffocate them. To suffocate the hate that fuels them. To suffocate him. With that the screams grow louder and the Darkness is forced back from them. Pushed back until, creaking and moaning, it shatters. The black shards of Darkness rush back towards him, riding on flaming waves of Light. Before he can react they are upon him, pushing upon him, into him. They eat away at the pain in him, and at other parts of him, but he doesn't care. He welcomes them in, even as sight grows dim, because he recognizes them now. They are the cool, cold, calm Darkness of a well planned vengeance and the flaming Light of hot rage. They are him. *** "Someone stop the heavy metal concert in my head," the man groans as the drum solo subsides enough for him to find his voice. As the room starts to come into focus he forces himself upright, in stages. First he forces himself to his knees and, after a few minutes of idly wondering why there was plastic on the white carpet, convinces his legs to straighten up. He grabs at the cold grey stone wall while negotiating for his legs to stay straight. Only then does he spare the energy to turn his head and take in his surroundings. The other walls and the ceiling are all grey stone, just like the wall he continues to use for support. Two wooden doors, one to his left and the other in the wall he was facing, both a with a glossy black coat of varnish. Fluorescent lighting in the ceiling. White carpet on the floor, covered by plastic sheeting. One bed against one of the walls, a single with black sheets and a white pillow. A perfect stranger sitting on the bed's edge, looking at me. Dead goat in the center of the room, with bodily wastes... Hold on one second, the man's still foggy brain struggles to fit together the last few items it had entered. One, stranger, looking at me. One, goat, dead. One very big mess. What the hoek?!? "Ah, hello," the man's voice sounds rusty in his own ears as he spoke to the stranger on the bed. "Would you mind telling me why there's a dead goat in the room? And perhaps you could tell me who you are and where I am?" The pounding in his head was gone, so the man felt he could try to speak at his normal volume without chugging a bottle of Tylenol. He kept his eyes trained on the bed, and the person seated on it at all times and readied himself to make a dash towards the door he was facing. It wasn't as quite as close as the other door, but it wasn't as close to the bed either. Part of his rapidly clearing mind spared an instant to be thankful that his stomach wasn't doing three-quarter twists right now. The stranger smiles like a proud parent as he slowly stands up. His arms are wide apart, and his hands are visible. Almost as if he doesn't want to spook the man. The man can't help but feel a flicker of envy as he realizes he's dealing with a GQ covermodel. The stranger starts to calmly speak in a calm and soothing tone, "My name is Jean-Claude, you have been my guest these last few nights. We are at the Circus of the Damned. As for the question about the goat, I'm surprised you don't remember why it's here or why it's dead. I would be more then happy to tell you however, if I knew your name." The man could feel the voice calming him down, even as he mentally grumbles at genetics for giving him the `John Q. Public' model while Jean-Claude got the `Apollo' treatment. "I can't remember seeing you before, or hearing of this `Circus of the Damned' either. But, if it will get you to tell me what that goat's doing here, sure I'll tell you my name. I'm..." The man's voice suddenly flounders to a halt as he tries to cover his embarrassment. "My name is..." His face contorts as he tries to remember this one basic fact. A fact that is one of the cornerstones, if not the cornerstone, of his existence. Jean-Claude's voice is touched by sadness as he starts to speak again. "I was afraid of this, between whatever was done to you before and what I have been doing, there would almost certainly be some memories and information lost." A deeply sympathetic look flashes across his face before it once again assumes a pleasantly concerned look. "There is, unfortunately, no easy way to tell you. So I will just state what is; you are now a vampire. That is why there is a dead goat in the room, you drained it of all its blood." As the man just stares incredulously at Jean-Claude he continues on, "Whoever brought you over was not gentle about it, you `woke up' insane, and I have spent over forty minutes putting your mind back together." Silence rushes into the room as Jean-Claude just stares at the man, waiting for his reaction. After a few open-mouthed minutes the man laughs nervously for a few seconds and starts to speak in an incredulous voice. "A vampire! Oh, come on! Vampires aren't real..." The man's voice trails away as a memory pushes itself up from the bowels of his subconscious. Of his head pressed against the goat's neck. Of fangs, his fangs, piercing it's flesh. Of the hot tangy taste of its blood. And swallowing, and swallowing and swallowing. As the now pale-faced man grabs at the wall for support another, an even more unwanted memory surfaces like some deep-sea Leviathan. Of being tied down by bonds he can't see or touch. Of seeing his blood spatter on the white jacket of the person slowly peeling back the skin of his foot, and hearing his captor's laughter. Laughter at his screams. Laughter at his futile struggles to move. Laughter as he prays and curses every god and demon he's ever heard of. Laughter as he begs and pleads and promises to do anything... When he opens his eyes again, he finds that he's back on the floor, leaning against the wall. Jean-Claude is looking down at him, a concerned look clouding his face. "Who did this to me?" The question is asked with a hoarse voice, before Jean-Claude can do more than open his mouth the man is speaking again. "Why did he do it? And, what's going to happen to that sick S.O.B.?" By then end his voice surprised both the man and, although he doesn't show it, Jean-Claude. It is absolutely neutral. No change in tone or emphasis after the first sentence was uttered. Just a flat, even monotone. The man can't help but think that it would be called dead, as he tries to hold in the laughter that thought produces. Barely. He holds it in because it isn't funny, and because he gets the feeling that if started to laugh right now that he'd never stop. Jean-Claude stares at the man for an instant, deep blue eyes meeting those amber orbs, which for a second had turned into cold black pits of nothingness. "First," he calmly replies, "I don't know who did this to you. Second, I can't say why for sure. One possibility is that some have always enjoyed the pain of others. And, third, whoever did this to you has broken the law. But you said `he', can you describe him? It would make finding the culprit much easier, anything at all?" He crouches down besides the man and stares intently into his yellow eyes. "No, I don't remember anything..." The man's voice dies away for a few minutes as his eyes are draw by Jean-Claude's. Then he suddenly starts to speak again. "There was only one of being responsible. Male and... white? For some reason I seem to associate that color with him." His voice trails away for a second before resuming, "I'm sorry but that's all I can tell you. I can't even remember what his voice sounds like." After a few quiet moments the man's head shot back up to meet Jean-Claude's stare as he licked his lips and began to talk, hesitantly, again. "You said that you did something to make me sane again, can you also help me get my memories back? Help me sort out what's real and what's not real? I'm so messed up that part of me doesn't even believe in the supernatural in general, or vampires in particular." The raw emotions in his voice are echoed by those in the scents he's giving off, hope and fear. Hope that he'd be able to remember who he was, that his mind wouldn't be so messed up as to disbelieve in vampires. And fear because he wondered if his mind couldn't be fixed or, even worse, that the memories that were locked away from him would drive him insane. And that, this time, there would be no escaping the insanity. Jean-Claude was suddenly on his feat again, as if reality had skipped a few frames of him. "It is possible, we will try first thing tomorrow night. However, I would not get my hopes up. In the meantime someone here will run some tests to see what effect, if any, your experiences have had on you." "But, first, you can take a shower in the bathroom," his arm seemed to float as it pointed to the door on my left. "By the time you're done the mess will have been cleaned up, and the plastic removed. There are towels in the bathroom and clean clothes will be on the bed when you are done." After getting a nod of agreement from his guest Jean-Claude left the room. His graceful movements making the stranger wondered if he was actually walking or just flowing. *** The man gladly stumbles into the shower after putting his clothes in the wooden hamper by the door with a near glowing finish. He immediately turns on the hot water, partially because he remembers enough to know that he detests cold showers and partially because he wants to clear some of the cobwebs still in his head. Until Jean-Claude had mentioned a change of clothes he hadn't noticed the state the current ones were in. Which, considering the sight they presented and the smells they gave off, could be considered a minor miracle. He grimaced at the though and made a note to learn better table manners, immediately. He scrubs himself clean vigorously, since not all the mess got on his clothes. But, after a while, he admits it's not a state of physical cleanliness he's trying to achieve, it's a mental ones. His mind has more holes then a piece of Swiss cheese, and many of the things he does remember seem to either be incorrect or out of place be he remembers enough of what was done to him to hate. To hate the man who did this to him, because even if he regains all the memories he's lost he will never be that person again. That person had been human, he wasn't. But, even more importantly, that person had been clean, innocent, pure. He wouldn't, couldn't, be any of those things, not with his memories. His memories, that gave him just enough to know some of what had been done to him. His memories, that gave him enough glimpses at the life he had lived to know just how much he had never appreciate it as he should have, because he took it for granted. His memories, that showed him just enough to know just how much had been taken from him. *** True to his word Jean-Claude had seen to the room, it looks spotless and absolutely normal when the stranger comes out of the bathroom, wearing only a thick white towel. The goat, the mess, and the plastic are all gone. There isn't even any marks on the wall he had leaned against. As he moves towards the bed, his toes being swallowed by the thick carpet, he goes over the clothes that have been put out for him. A pair of white Nikes, with black trim, lying besides the bed are the first thing he notices. Although he couldn't really care if it had been made by President's Choice, the fact that they were sneakers endeared them to the stranger immediately. The dark brown short-sleeved shirt met with his approval as well, and the white socks were per the course. He, however, wasn't crazy about the denim jeans. They were better then leather, mind you, but he just preferred slacks to jeans, as he found the former almost always more comfortable then the latter. A few moments latter, after putting the slightly damp towel in the brown hamper with its wet twin, he stood before the other door. As he stared at the doorknob as if it were some strange lifeform he wondered if going along like this was such a smart idea. This Jean-Claude could be stringing him along for a ride. He could even be the one responsible for his present situation. A second after that thought flashed across his cranium the stranger shook his head. No, when he did meet the one responsible for this, he'd know him, his hate wouldn't let him down. But Jean-Claude had to have a reason for helping him, TANSTAAFL after all. That, however, didn't change the fact that Jean-Claude was the best chance he had. As he began to open the door, one of the stranger's free floating thoughts slid to the front of his mind. He had always hated tests. *** The pair the stranger was following were definitely not a matched set. The lady was wearing the standard Doctor/Mad Scientist ensemble. White lab coat, top and pants all appearing even brighter due to her dark dress shoes. The style her dark brown hair was in, a bun, and tinted glasses that were so thick he had to restrain himself from asking if she had welding as a hobby added the finishing touches to that impression. She was alive, about five feet and seven inches tall, in her mid twenties and would have been pretty if she didn't look like she was still ticked that she didn't get reincarnated as a drill sergeant. While nothing showed on her face she smelled excited and curious. Probably due to the fact that she had a new toy to play with, the stranger guessed. The other one was... different. If you went from his clothes he was a color-blind clown who had been convinced to wear a three-piece suit. The tomato-red clothing made his short, dark and slicked-back hair seem even darker then it really was. It also did nothing to hide how pale his skin was. He was about five foot three, and he was a vampire. Nothing to worry about though, he's less then a year old, and nowhere near as powerful as I am. Of course, he's not a Master vampire... The stranger stopped suddenly as he realized that he knew several things he shouldn't have. First, that the woman was human and the man was a vampire. Second, that he knew what emotions the woman was experiencing. Third, he knew how old the vampire was, and how powerful he was. Fourth, why is his not being a master vampire important and why didn't he remember why it's important! As he tried to find answers to his questions with his meagre memories, preferably answers that didn't include the words `because you're not human any more' he realized that the previous objects of his attention had stopped as well, and were starring at him. He thought about complaining but decided not to. After all he had just been doing the same to them and, anyway, it didn't seem like a good idea to tick off people you're asking for help from. So the stranger decided to just stare back. After a few minutes of silence the vampire starts to talk. He sounds like a two-bit gangster from `The Untouchables' as he talks. "Ya feelin' any better now kid?" Concern, honest concern seemed to be in his voice. The stranger can't help but wonder if it's because The Hood is afraid that he'd attack him, just like he almost did back in the room. It's all the stranger can do to keep himself from laughing, partially because of the utter absurdity of the question and partially because he couldn't believe someone would really that way in real life. "Sure," The stranger answers back, "I feel like a brand new man." The urge to laugh vanishes as soon as he says this because it's both extremely true and very false. True, because he was different than what he was before. False, because he wasn't a man, wasn't Homo Sapiens now. And even if he had still been human, he still wouldn't be a man. A man wouldn't have begged for death, or screamed for pity or had... those things... done to him. No, he wasn't a man. The chill gloom that had almost tangibly enveloped him suddenly evaporated away as hatred, the lovely dancing flame of spite, burst forth from him, to him, again. The stranger can barely keep himself from physically hugging himself as he mentally embraces the warmth of the flames. Embraces it with all that makes him, him. He knows it will keep the cold away. He knows that it gives him a reason to go on. Revenge. Mr. White had done these things to him, taken these things from him. And Mr. White would pay for them as well. When he looks at The Doctor and The Hood again he sees that they're staring at him again. Although they control their faces, they either can't, or won't, control their scents. He can smell their fear, and he revels in it. It is like a subtle perfume to him, or perhaps the smell of a good meal. This isn't the kind of associations he likes to have with fear so the stranger tries to push them back to the dark depths of his subconsciousness. And succeeds, for now. After a few seconds of silence The Hood shrugs his shoulders and they continue on their trip down the featureless, silent corridor of grey stone. Torches in metal wall sconces provide the corridor's only lighting. The shadows fence continuously with the flames, attacking and giving ground in a constant battle. Finally a door of gleaming brown wood, breaks the stone's unchallenged rule. The Doctor pulls out a much scratched key from one of her lab coat's pockets and steps into the room. The Hood takes up what could only be called a `guard' position to one side of the open portal as The Doctor continues to hold the door open, with the first impression the stranger's yet to see faintly twisting her face. Impatience. The stranger cautiously examines the room, from the corridor, hoping to have his nervousness vanish. What he can see isn't all that encouraging. He can't quite decide is the grey stone room is supposed to be the fitness center from hell or Dr. Frankenstein's lab-away-from-lab. A computer center is next to a Nautilus, a table with multiple beakers and bunsen burners on it is next to a set of dumbbells. And from their, things get confusing. Despite a small voice that screams at him to run he enters the room. It takes more then he'll ever admit not to freeze in fear when The Doctor promptly closes the door behind him and locks it. Part of the reason he keeps from doing so is pride. Another part is a burning need to know what he now was, what he could do. But, mainly, it was the flame he had embraced. A flame he would never let go. No, he would let go of it, but not before he had his vengeance. A childhood saying starts to echo in his mind as he watches The Doctor start up a computer system that looks like it came from Mission Control. The saying builds up from a whisper to a shriek as he waits for The Doctor. It is a mantra to him. It is a promise to Mr. White. Do unto others as they have done unto you. *** Concluded in part 3 of Chapter 3.