Shadows {ROM, OPENISH}

[AJ Romanov]

I wasn't always this way
I used to be the one with the halo
But that disappeared when I had my first taste
And fell from grace
It left me in this place

Night.

The time when all the creatures of the darkness came out to play and a whole new world came alive under the guise of shadows and mist. The time when business was dealt with that had nothing to do with the mundane day to day activities of life as the humans knew it.

From a perch that looked out over the city, a figure crouched negligently on the crumbling ruination of a building that had been seiged by Hurricane Katrina and left a shell of its former self. Kneeling like she was, Anastasia Romanov had a birds eye view of the coming and goings of mortals and immortals like while she contemplated her first course of action.

Having just arrived in the cultured city, AJ could feel the vibrations of supernatural powers that flooded through the streets and alleys. No longer did she wonder why some of the most powerful forces of the world called this city their home. The multi cultured community had strong leanings towards the unexplainable and anything out of the ordinary was viewed as normal here... Rather than a spectacle.

Truly? Why cower under ground when it was so much more please to hide in plain site? What better way to keep your families and society out of the limelight than to give the humans exactly what they expected in a place they expected it?

Clever Americans. To think she'd put off visiting the new country for so long.

Rising from her position, the petite woman shifted her long black jacket closer about her and adjusted the shades she wore at all times. The sound of footsteps approaching her had long since registered and she knew exactly who awaited her as she turned away from the city.

The man waiting stood a good foot above her own slender form but to AJ he would always be her beloved brother. She'd practically helped raise him from the cradle and had done her best to protect him when their lives had been decided by enemies of their mother country. That night, she'd sworn on her parents graves that she would take care of him.

Unfortunately, to her ever lasting grief, she hadn't been able to protect him from the monster who'd used them like puppets and cast them aside like broken toys. To her everlasting torment, her gentle, loving brother had been turned into a creature that hunted the night and was forced to take the life blood of others just to survive.

For that... For that she would never ever forgive herself.

Letting her eyes range over his dark form, AJ took in his handsome good looks and smiled slightly. Her brother had been all of 20 when he'd been changed but his looks were notably aristocratic as were her's. No longer a boy but a man with a man's desires, he had no trouble attracting women like flies but more often than not... He choose to avoid them.

In reality, that was probably best for all since the hunger kept him ever on edge.

"Roman..... Did you find anything in your canvas of the city?" she asked into the silence even as she moved to stand by his side.

[Alek Romanov]

Fresh air, brisk wind, full moon…yes, he did like the scenery of this new world. All was quiet below, all was quiet above…and all was quiet within? No, not so much. But that, at least, he was used to.

A smile pulled at the younger Romanov’s lips as he surveyed the world below, shifting his stance on the nonexistent New Orleans roof. It was almost like a scene out of that amusing vampire movie…what was it called? AJ had forced him to watch it at some point, when neither of them could day-sleep for want of peaceful dreams. Underworld, the dramatic music had declared, and an opening with a pale faced vampire looking down at a rainy city from a rooftop flashed onto the screen.

A pale faced vampire, quite like himself. Dark, brooding, tortured…hungry. The tall man smiled once again, shivering in pleasure as his sharp teeth pricked his lower lip. Those vampires were better at hiding themselves, though. Those vampires weren’t so stupid as to sell drugs that would make Powers beyond the seas twitch with unhappiness.

And it was because of those stupid immortals that he stood there that night, instead of being holed up in his house, trying not to go mad and watching the movies his sister rented for him.

It was hard to decide if he were happy, or annoyed. Oh, to be out in the world again! So much had changed…

And so much hadn’t. Just like his hunger, the world was just as everlasting and disgusting as it always had been. He could smell its stench from way up there.

“Hmm?” His sister’s voice called him from his reverie, and a fond smile instantly replaced the hungry look that had crawled into his face. AJ Robertson, his last remaining sibling and the only mother figure he had, was his lifeline into the world. She alone could keep his mind out of the dark, red gutter that it was eternally squatting in.

He pitied her. How she must love being tied down to a madman.

Blinking as her words finally sank in, he shook his head, kneeling down so that he could meet her eyes. Absently, he pushed his shoulder-length hair into a ponytail, securing it with a tie from his wrist. “Unfortunately, no. I spoke to some more…willing females,” He bit back a shudder as he remembered the lustful looks he’d received while questioning the young vampires. “But they didn’t tell me anything that we don’t already know. There are just the rumors about a drug that could give the undead ecstasy. When I asked where I could find these drugs, they told me to go to ‘The Church,’”

A hunter’s smile slid onto his lips then, as he glanced down at the city below them. Slowly, he rose, head tilting like a bird’s, and he could feel his incisors lengthening against his gums. “What say you that we go to confession, dear sister? It has been so long since we’ve been given absolution.”

[AJ Romanov]

AJ

The name of the place caused AJ's brows to arch and she shook her head. THE CHURCH? REALLY??? SERIOUSLY?? Leave it to someone like a drug dealer to have a sick sense of humor like that. IF there was one thing she had clung to in her immortal life, it was her belief in her religion. Having come from a highly religious society and upbringing, the petite young woman never went without the cross at her neck or the rosary beads in her coat pocket. Sure, she might be damned but that didn't mean a girl had to loose complete faith now did it? Part of her, a secret part that she didn't understand, hoped that the merciful lord that had let her be created as a monster had a plan and that somewhere... someway....

Salvation might still be possible if she just hung on.

Shaking her head at her own foolish thoughts, AJ pasted on a false grin and shifted her sunglasses further up on her nose. Closing her eyes for a moment, she breathed in the scents of the city and then allowed herself to move towards the edge of the building. One of the perks of having been made by an abnormally powerful vampire and having royal blood of their own was that they had skills above the norm of other mediocre vamps. With a smirk tossed over her shoulder at her brother, the female stepped out into air and felt herself falling only to be caught by a gliding sort of motion that brought her to rest casually and carefully upon the ground.

Looking upwards to make sure Roman was following, the brunette then checked her weapons and was content to find them in place. Roman often teased her about being a walking arsenal and that no man dared try to bed her for fear of being silvered to death with all the blades on her person. Personally, that was quiet all right with her because she didn't have the time or energy to waste on males whos manhood was threatened by a female's weapons being bigger than his. That thought brought the pesky memory of a wolf with eyes bluer than the Aegan sea to mind and she shoved it away ruthlessly. After all these years, that son of a bitch still had the power to haunt her.

As Roman landed beside her, the older sibling glanced at him. "What direction, brother? I think you are right... it has been far to long since our last confession and I'm feeling..... Devoted this evening.... I think its time to take a look at the old testimant and do some meting out of justice of our own."



Roman:


It was with unemotional eyes that Roman watched his sister stand and step off of the roof. He still felt those dredges of fear, whenever he or AJ used their unnatural abilities, but it had become deadened over the years. He was used to the floating, the hypnotizing, the strength and speed...so much so that, sometimes, he even found himself looking forward to the next time he could use one. But he supposed that was only natural, given that he was a monster.

Everything not created by God must try to justify what they did. He was just one of many.

Closing his eyes, he stepped off of the roof, a half smile sliding onto his lips as his heart jumped. He felt the cool wind on his face and he tilted his head back, not slowing his descent until the very end in an attempt to keep up the feeling. Maybe, one day, he wouldn't slow down...just plummet back to the earth and feel the full extent of the falling. But no, he couldn't do that now; his sister was waiting.

As his feet hit the ground, he looked up at the older Romanov, fondness flashing onto his face until that stoic, deadened mask returned. She was beautiful, his sister Anastasia; timeless and fierce as a storm gale. She was passionate, merciful and as demanding as any woman should be...and yet, there was always that guarded part of herself that she kept from everyone around her. What it was, not even he knew...but he had an idea that it revolved around what they had become, what he had become. And, perhaps, a certain ex-knight who'd betrayed them, all those years ago.

Even now, the thought of Quinton Merrick made a shiver run up his spine; fear almost as violent as that of memories of his maker. That night in the cellar of the large mansion, the look of disgust on the older man's face...it had only added to the nightmare that was his life. But he got over it. He always did.

Moving forward as he let go of the air around him, he started to walk toward the busy nightlife down the road. The Church, the other vampires had told him, was a large building near the docks, as the owner liked his privacy. Some sense of foreboding prickled his senses, but he pushed it back, feeling safe with his sister close by. Nodding toward the row of clubs, bars and drunken humans, he turned back to her.

"It is through the gauntlet, unfortunately," He said with a slight roll of his eyes. Catching her arm with his, he looped her hand around his lower arm and led her forward, doing his best not to cringe as the sounds of heart beating surged into his ears. He wanted to taste them so much, but he refused to give into the urge. Leaning into AJ slightly, he forced himself to keep walking.