If there was a kind of weather that made her madder than anything else, it was the damned rain. It had started light, falling from somewhere high above the skyscrapers of New York, where she couldn't see the moon most nights, so there'd been no way for Raven to see the clouds rolling in, and now she was running down the street looking for the nearest open door to go into.
There was a time when this city had been called the city that never sleeps, but that time was past. Things roamed the darkness, and much to her eternal regret Raven was one of them, though not the traditional sun allergic vampire or Luna loving werewolf that most people locked their doors against. No one bothered with crosses and the like anymore, since they found out that most vampires couldn't care less about them, which she was thankful for every moment she spent outside. She was one of the few, the humbled, the demon possessed, and crosses hurt, even at a distance. She rubbed her lace covered arm in remembrance of the last very painful time she came across someone with a blessed object, a simple golden cross, just last week. There would be a scar there until the day she died.
But that God would let it be soon, she thought to herself, sniffling against the cold water that was now pounding down on her. This week she was dressed gothic, a memento of their last victim, as a demon tearing out of ones skin tended to go through clothing rather quickly, and scavenged stuff was all she had, anymore. Torn fishnet stockings, lace shirt under a too tight black PVC corset, long tiered skirt that was now tripping her up as she tried to run in the heeled lace up boots. Sometimes she felt bad that the demon had taken to picking victims that at least had the same shoe size as her, but other times she was just grateful for shoes that didn't pinch.
Bright red neon declaring "Tender Mercies" assaulted her as Raven rounded a corner, and she drew back, knowing that it was usually a bad idea to head into a club that was actually open on a Saturday night. Nightclubs always had at least one vampire, and that was in Manhattan, where it was safer. Down here almost everyone in the building would be a vamp or a vessel, and she scanned as human and full of blood as the next unfortunate soul. Lightning cracked above her and thunder rolled through the street, so loud that she almost lost her balance, and the desire for shelter won out.
The club was darker than most, a testament to the keen eyesight of its patrons, and the music was a solid wall of sound that enveloped her body and made itself a part of her, booming in her chest. Raven looked quickly from left to right, trying to find a clear spot in the writhing bodies dancing to the beat. A red haze fell over her vision, and she knew that if anyone cared to look at the women who just walked in, they'd see her eyes glowing like a Christmas tree, but most people didn't care to look past their noses until you were ripping something out of them. If anything had been learned in all this time of being ridden by the devil, that was it.
There! An empty table, close enough to the door that she could run if she had to. She was at it less than 3 minutes later, sinking thankfully down into a dry leather seat, holding her head in her hands and taking deep breaths. She already felt the tell tale wetness at the base of her spine that meant split skin, and her fingertips were bloody, scratching against her scalp. Her wet hair hung limp past her elbows, dripping onto the floor as she willed herself not to give in, not to change, especially in a room full of people who may or may not be clinically alive.
"I won't change...can't lose it, can't change, can't change," she whispered to herself, clenching her fingers tighter in her hair. More pain from her fingertips, and it helped, helped her focus. She became dimly aware of someone standing next to her, tapping a pen against a thick pad of paper, foot keeping time to the beat.
"Want some water?" the native city girl asked, her accent thick and loud overtop the music, though she had to be even with Raven's ear to be heard. "Maybe a little somethin' ... else?" she continued, sounding almost hopeful that it might be the second choice. Raven shook her head, then hissed as the smell of freshly drawn blood reached her - someone hadn't sealed the wound when they'd drunk from her last, and now the stink of it was strong and clinging to the waitress.
"Sanctuary!" Raven yelped out, knowing that every vampire bar worth its liquor license had a few back rooms for the vamps that couldn't control their hunger, free from sunlight and prying eyes. If she was going to change, she might as well do it in a heavily padlocked room with no one else around. If she didn't get there fast though, this little red headed islander was going to be the first to die.
The girl gave a little shriek and hit a bright red pulsing button at her wrist, bringing no less than three pale skinned bouncers to the table in less time than it took Raven to draw a breath. Heavy shackles went on her wrists, another around her throat, and then they were carrying her from the table, over the dancing throng, people occasionally looking up at her when the skinny bouncers bumped into them. With skin at room temperature and hard as cold iron besides, most people didn't want to chance a second touch.
She was tossed into a dirty dingy room, water running down the walls, and a heavy door shut behind her. A hiss of steel came to her ears, and a wet plop as something dead and bloody was tossed into the room - this didn't seem an upscale enough place to toss to her a plastic baggy full of blood - and then it was fully dark again.
And as soon as she was out of sight and sound of the crowd, the demon left her, retreating back into her mind, laughing at her weakness. She smiled bitterly, glad at having her skin mostly intact, and watched the claws retreat from her fingertips, leaving her hands to heal up, though at an accelerated rate. Sometimes when the demon fully came out she'd be curled up in a little ball on the side while it ran rampant. She'd had a full 12 hours to herself once, until it came back. It always re-entered through her mouth and eyes, turning into a thick black fog, and she often wondered why it bothered to rip out of her in the first place if it could just slip back in so easily.
She curled up against a wet wall and grimaced a little as she sat down on the long tail poking out from her spine, ruefully bringing it out from behind her and coiling it around her waist. When the demon wasn't controlling it the thing tended to just lay limp wherever she set it, and she had a tendency to forget that it was there. She leaned back against the wall again, and crossed her arms over her chest, closing her eyes against the gloom. They might let her out in a few hours, or a few days - either way though, it didn't matter. She no longer needed to eat or really breathe, another present from the devil inside. Mostly she still did either out of habit.
Sleep she did need, though, and when she did it was deep, because she rarely got a spare moment to herself. The demon insisted that this was habit too, but she got the feeling it just liked the hallucinating she did after 48 hours or so of hot coffee and yawning. It was dreamless in the traditional sense, instead her memories were rifled through and put on display to her unconscious mind, normally ones involving times when she was happy - it was either an attempt to cheer her up so she didn't wake up grumpy, or a torment to contrast just how bad things were now compared to then. She could never be sure, and the devil was mum.
Tonight there was a montage of times with her mother, being held as a small child in comforting arms, being sung to on the front porch in a low swing, and the air was pure, with sunlight streaming down around them. She was slowly growing up, going from a tiny tomboy to a young woman, and it kept replying over and over, stopping when she was 19 and starting over again, because that's when her mother died. There were no images of the operating rooms, or the cancer treatments, just the happiness of butterflies and snowballs, lollipops and fluffy white clouds.
