Chapter 1 - Another night in the life

A soft, solemn melody floated down to the streets from a thirteenth floor balcony. The sound came from a finely tuned violin in the hands of an eighteen-year-old woman, the polished oak wood of the instrument caught glints of the street lights as the woman’s slender fingers danced along the strings, expertly playing Mozart’s greatest violin piece. Her eyes were gently shut as the horse hair bow slid across the tight strings flawlessly, her short, light brown hair moved with the gentle breeze that blew around her, rustling the leaves in a nearby maple tree as clouds rolled away from the moon letting it illuminate her thing figure. Her slender neck led down to a large chest and down to a thin waist and well defined hips outlined by the tight jeans she wore. Her left arm was adorned with a long, weaving tattoo of black ink in the outline of a Celtic sign, her right arm harbored nothing but a small scar, on the back of her neck another Celtic sign lay in leaf green ink. Her lips parted slightly as she continued the piece off of memory, her eyebrows tightening as she let herself be carried away by the music she played for the entire world to hear. Beneath her red painted lips two sharp fangs protruded from her upper lip, glistening white as ivory or snow. Her skin was pale and soft, like silk, to the touch. It harbored no heat, no beating heart, and no pulse to tell that she was alive, yet she still stood on the balcony as if she were alive. To the normal eye she would seem human, as human as they come with her enticing looks and the gentle scent of roses and vanilla which she always seemed to carry upon her skin, but to the most trained eye she would appear to be nothing more than a monster without a soul. Slowly her talent ended and she let her right arm relax to her side, the bow still in hand. She stood there for a few moments as clouds rolled back over the moon, and then revealed it again. Slowly her eyes opened to reveal deep, ocean blue irises with hints of gold flecks around their pupils. She blinked and looked up at the moon silently, almost solemnly, longingly as if she her non-beating heart was aching for someone or something before she took a step back, her bare foot erecting a quiet ‘smack’ sound from the concrete balcony on which she stood before she turned and re-entered her apartment, closing the door silently. Inside the apartment many candles of different color were lit; blue, red, green, purple, yellow and white all illuminated the room, casting shadows around the walls and corners. To her direct left sat a polished wood table and two black metal chairs facing each other on opposite ends of the table, to her direct right sat a metal desk that held a crimson laptop on its shining surface with a stool hidden beneath it, directly across from her sat black book shelves filled with many books; all mostly fiction, but some shelves contained books on magick and spells. Directly before her stood a black painted table, on it say the brown case for her violin, beside this table to the left was a leather sofa and to the right sat a flat screen TV with video game consoles, DVD and CD player. The woman walked along the hardwood floor to the table and replaced her violin gingerly in its case with the bow securely strapped in its place beneath the lid before closing and locking the case. She let out a long, deep sigh as she sat down on the couch, listening to the leather groan under her weight. Beside the now closed violin case sat a tall champagne flute filled with red liquid, which the woman turned her attention to as she gingerly picked the flute up by the fragile stem and gently swirling the liquid around. Her eyes traveled up to a small shelf above the TV where pictures sat in frames; many of a man and a woman smiling. The woman’s eyes softened as she raised the glass to the picture.

"Here’s to another year, my love," she whispered silkily to a sole picture of the man before taking a sip from the glass. Her eyes studied the picture, as they had done several times before. She couldn’t help but admire his short, dark hair and honey brown eyes, the same eyes she fell in love with years ago. The same eyes she watched grow cold and lifeless as she held him in her arms, forced to watch him die while she would only continue to live. Why only her? Why could she not save him from death, like she had been saved? It was unfair to her to have to watch her fiancée die the night before they were to marry, all because some human had to make a point? What was the purpose of his death? The question always haunted her now, the answer always evading her as she sipped at the liquid again.

"I thought you would be still out on the balcony playing," A husky voice came from the hall, making the woman look over. A man who looked to be about her age with sharp, ice blue eyes and chin length, jet black hair, he seemed to be around six feet tall with a slender figure not seen on most men.

"I’ve finished for tonight," the woman answered dismissively as she drained the rest of the glasses contents before placing it back on the black table before her, "Going hunting are we, Cain?" she asked boredly as she watched him slide a long black trench coat on before slipping his feet into heavy looking boots adorned with buckles.

"I prefer to chase for my meal, Kyrie, not sit at home idly drinking it from champagne flutes as if it were wine," Cain sneered at the woman, making her eyes narrow.

"You know we’re not supposed to cause an uproar, Cain, who knows what’ll happen to us if they find out what we are," she said dangerously.

"I say let them find out," Cain snuffed as he snapped one of the buckles closed on his boot, "I don’t want to keep living in secrecy,"

"And I do," Kyrie snapped at him as she turned so that her hands rested on the seat of the couch beside her, keeping her body suspended from falling to the fake leather fabric, "Do you think I want to live in secrecy, Cain? As if I, of all people from our race, haven’t suffered enough from this plague, this disease,"

Cain looked at her, not realizing he’d tread somewhere he wasn’t meant to tread.

"It’s not like we talk about our personal lives, Kyrie, how am I to know what to say around you and what not to say?" he asked indifferently. Kyrie sighed deeply and returned to her original position.

"Go on your hunt, leave me be," she said quietly, "Just be back before sunrise,"

"Always am," Cain said light-heartedly before saluting his good-bye and walking out the door, closing it quietly. Kyrie stood and walked around the corner into the kitchen where a sink sat embedded into the counter beside a drying rack for the dishes and beneath cupboards stocked with nothing but glasses, guns, bullets and other assorted weapons used by her and Cain. She turned towards the fridge and opened the bland white door, pulling out a green bottle of the same red liquid that had been in her glass before shutting the door and returning to her spot on the couch, refilling her glass.

"I’m not going to go out and save you if you get into trouble," she muttered to herself as her eyes turned towards the balcony door where a mist was drifting past silently. She put the flute to her lips and tipped the liquid past them, swallowing quietly before turning on the TV and flicking through channels until she came upon a show she could settle on contently for the night.

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