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World of Darkness: Balance of Power - [Fic] The Book of Embraces


Atomicweasel

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Natalie sat cross-legged in the middle of the small studio building at the KU Arts Center, old newspapers disemboweled and littered all around her. Her eyes itched. She was tired of looking at the canvas propped up on the floor in front her. A half-formed blond woman with fierce blue eyes stared back at her from the easel. Natalie glanced at her watch. 1:53 am. her little Tag Heuer said. It had been a gift from JJ. For her 19th birthday.

"Nnnmmgh." Natalie groaned. He would be pissed when she got back to their little apartment on Vermont street. He didn't like it when she walked home alone after dark. She stood slowly and stretched into a deep yawn, lifting up on her tiptoes, reaching her fingertips toward the ceiling. Her spaghetti strap top climbed up her flat tanned midriff past her belly button, her small breasts lifted with her, her eyes squeezed tightly shut.

When she blinked her eyes back open, Natalie found herself staring at the portrait again. Something wasn't right. There was something missing. The woman with the guitar had been so haunting. Her smile captivating and sweet but tinged with something. A restrained little curve of the lips. A Mona Lisa smile. Hunger. Natalie suddenly decided. That's what her painting lacked. The woman had looked straight through her, straight into her...and then she'd smiled and Natalie had shivered.

She needed to put that shiver in the painting. That fingernail across the spine. That tickle at the base of the neck like a whispered 'gotcha.' How do you paint that? Natalie wondered as she padded over to the easel again. She rubbed her palms into her eyes and then bent down to retrieve her brush. Tentatively she began to stroke the fine hairs of the brush across the canvas, putting down the curving slope of the woman's lips. She mixed a touch of gray into the blue eyes, a hint of coldness, of icy glare.

JJ's gonna kill me. Natalie decided. She kept painting anyway.

The knock at the door nearly made her jump out of her skin. The brush slipped through her fingers as she reflexively jerked her hand back from the painting and skittered across the floor, leaving a pale crimson streak across the bed of newspapers.

"Oh shit," Natalie muttered under her breath. "JJ?" She hurried over to the door and pulled it open...

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The face that greeted her behind the door was familiar. It was staring out of her painting in fact...but with that elusive fascination/discomforting quality fully intact. She was still wearing that slightly-too-big Salvation Army overcoat and that goofy red and white bandanna to keep wild, curly hair the color of ripe wheat out of her eyes. She had bell bottoms on...honest to God bell bottoms. Tattered and frayed at the hems. Old brown leather sandals and no socks. The neck of the guitar poked up over her left shoulder.

"Hey," she said in a tired-sounding voice, with that same kind of disquieting smile. "I'm Charlotte." She put a hand out to shake. "Mind if I come in?"

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Natalie could only stare in numb shock, her mouth open in a dumb 'oh' of surprise.

"I'll take that as a yes," Charlotte said, strolling into the studio.

"Wh-what are you doing here?" Natalie finally blurted. She saw Charlotte walking toward the painting and hurried to intercept her unexpected visitor, dashing over from the door and racing around in front of the easel to stand in front of it protectively. The door swung slowly shut on its own.

Charlotte tipped her chin up. "What's that?" she asked, gesturing past Natalie at the painting behind her. She sounded amused.

"Nothing. It's nothing," Natalie said defensively. This was her studio, her space, and yet she found herself circling the painting to match Charlotte's movements, blushing like a kid with their hand caught in the cookie jar. "it's not finished yet."

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Charlotte smiled, but didn't show her teeth. In truth, almost every inner voice she had was screaming at her to just take the girl; grab her and hold her and drink. But she had her way, and even starving she would do it her way.

She reached out to take hold of Natalie's shoulders and gently, but firmly, turned her around to look at the painting as she came up from behind to press herself against her back.

"It's like a mirror," she breathed next to Natalie's ear. "Only better. Do you know why I came here?"

Charlotte unfolded the sketch Nat had tossed into her guitar case earlier that night. The sketch she'd made of her.

"I feel like there's something between us," Charlotte explained. "You shared something with me, and I want to return the favor."

She released the drawing and reached around Natalie to caress her belly gently. "I want to share something with you that will create a bond of intimacy between us," she whispered into Natalie's ear. "So that part of you will live in me forever."

Her hands ran thrillingly up Natalie to take gentle hold of her shoulders again.

"Is that what you want?"

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At first Natalie relaxed into Charlotte, leaning back. She felt a liquid calm as Charlotte caressed her, the woman's fingers cool across the soft warmth of her skin. And then it hit her...she was letting this strange woman seduce her, lull her into submission. A sharp pang of guilt accompanied her growing sense of confusion. Charlotte's lips brushed against Natalie's neck, sending an a little thrill of excitement through her. No--I can't do this.

"Wait, stop!" Natalie gasped as Charlotte's hand pushed upward, bunching her top up under her breasts. She spun hard and shoved Charlotte away from her. "You need to--"

Charlotte hissed, a predatory glint hardened the blue of her eyes. Her lips peeled back from her teeth, revealing two sharp fangs.

"--leave..." Natalie gasped. The blush drained out of her cheeks, leaving her pale with fear. She stared for a moment at the monster before her, transfixed. Then Charlotte came at her and Natalie bolted. She whirled around and raced for the studio door. Something brushed past her, a blur of movement, and Charlotte was standing right in front of her, looming tall and blocking off the door. Natalie twisted, skidding across the concrete floor. She fell to one knee, rose to run, but Charlotte's hand snaked out and grabbed her by the wrist with a grip like cold steel.

Natalie was yanked back, spun around. Charlotte had one arm around Natalie's waist, crushing the svelte girl against her. Charlotte opened her mouth wide. Natalie tried desperately to wiggle free, but Charlotte was impossibly strong. She tried to scream, but Charlotte had a fistful of her hair, jerked her head back...and sank her fangs into Natalie's slender neck.

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The effect was instant, galvanizing. It felt as if lightning was shooting through her body, tensing her muscles from her head to her toes. She seized up in mid-breath, eyes frozen wide open. Then warmth spread out from where Charlotte's lips pressed against her skin. Warmth that unclenched her muscles and let her relax. No, not let...forced her to. Natalie became aware of her heartbeat, and with each throb she felt blood pulse out of her. She knew there was a hole in her, knew that she was bleeding. But it felt good. The beats of her heart were like tiny orgasms, each one building on the last. She gasped and curled her toes, anticipating each new pulse just before it hit.

For Charlotte, this was the first feeding since she'd come out of her healing torpor. Natalie's blood was sweet and rich and full of life. Feeling blossomed in her fingers and hands and feet, and spread down her arms and into her face as her old flesh remembered what it was to live again. In a growing fury of lust, she turned around to pin Natalie's unresisting form against the door, pressing her against it as she nursed frantically at her neck. She didn't even notice that the hot liquid wasn't spurting out on its own anymore from Nat's ruptured artery. It was pulsing weakly, dribbling into her mouth...but it wasn't enough, she wanted MORE.

With a frustrated grunt, Charlotte pulled Natalie away, swinging her around...knocking a lamp off the end table beside a chair in the process...and bearing her to the floor.

The hammer of her heartbeat in her own ears faded for Charlotte, and the urgency of the hunger passed. Still shaking a little from the intensity of the feeding, she lifted herself off of Natalie and her eyes widened in sudden shock and dismay.

The mortal was pale and trembling, her eyes fluttering around as if unable to focus. She struggled to raise a hand to the wound in her neck, but couldn't move...

Charlotte shook her head. "Oh shit," she whispered. "Oh SHIT. Uh...uh...do you have a, uh, a first aid..." The vampire's eyes found the bloody holes on Natalie's neck. They weren't bleeding. Just a trickle. There was nothing left.

Natalie's eyes began to roll up into her head, and she took what would be her last breath.

There was no time for stammered apologies or self-recrimination. No time for hemming or hawing or trying to convince herself what to do with considerations of wrong or right. She would either act, or not act. Natalie would either die, or...not die.

She bit her wrist hard, and pressed it to Natalie's mouth, holding the back of her head as well so there was no getting away.

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Natalie came to with a breathless gasp. She was sucking air like a fish pulled from the water, but she felt a stale emptiness in her chest. A hollowness. Her lungs weren't getting anything...and then she saw Charlotte, crouched in the middle of the floor, watching her.

"You bit me! Wha...what did you do to me!?" Natalie stood up sharply. Her own voice sounded impossibly loud. She could smell the rich oily scent of her paints, the woodsy canvas, her own acrid sweat upon her clothes, and the coppery splash of blood. "My neck..." Natalie pressed her palm to the side of her neck. She felt no wound. She looked down at her hand and saw no blood, but her little spaghetti strap top was covered in it, all the way down to her waist.

Natalie glanced up at the flickering overhead light. It seemed terribly bright. She could see the thread crossed through the buttons of Charlotte's cheap coat. She could see the wood grain of the window behind the crouching woman.

"What did you do?" Natalie repeated, dizzy with fear. "What did you do to me?"

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"There you are," Charlotte replied with an audible tinge of relief. "Had me a little worried there for a second."

She looked away, at the unfinished painting still on the easel.

"I've...immortalized you."

Then her face pinched as if tasting something awful and she groaned. "God, that's lame. I can't believe I said that. Okay..."

Charlotte looked back at Natalie and said, "It's like this. I'm a vampire. Things got a little crazy, and...one thing led to another...and now you're one too."

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“You’re fucking crazy. That’s what you are...” Natalie answered Charlotte, How the fuck am I going to explain this to JJ? she wondered. She couldn’t even explain it to herself. Her top was still damp, soaked through with blood...her own? She had seen Charlotte move as fast as a phantom, but that was impossible. Had she been drugged?

Natalie’s hand shook as she pulled her sparkly orange cell-phone out of her pocket. A little plastic kitten head dangled from the corner and swung slightly in Natalie’s trembling grip. “And you know what? You’re fucking going to jail.”

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"Really?" Charlotte's eyes glittered in the dark as Natalie produced her phone. "What's that?"

There was another blur, and abruptly Charlotte was next to Natalie, plucking the phone out of her hand. She lifted it up and inspected the buttons and screen curiously, then burst into an amazed laugh.

"Holy shit, this is just like one of those...flippy things on that show!" the vampire exclaimed, and held the phone to her ear. "Beam me up."

She closed the phone and stuck it in her pocket, then gave Natalie a resigned look.

"I'll save you some trouble and say I unplugged the phone over on the wall there, and I locked the door..." she held up Nat's keyring, "...with this. So here's the deal, I'm not going to hurt you or anything, but I only have a couple of hours before sunrise to get you in a safe spot so you won't explode and burn up."

She nodded. "If you want proof, take a deep breath and hold it as long as you can. Let me know when you're ready to hear more."

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Natalie jerked back in fear, bouncing her head off the wall behind her. "You're fucking nuts!" She cried out, reaching back to rub her head. "Give me my cell-phone back! Give me my keys!"

She kept backing away from Charlotte, looking around for anything she could use as a weapon. One of the other students had left an exacto knife lying on a drafting table and Natalie drifted towards it, licking her lower lip as she fixed her eyes on Charlotte.

"You...need a lot of help," Natalie stalled "and you need to stop this before...uh...something really bad happens." She took another slow step back, guiding herself along the wall.

"If you leave right now and give me back my things I won't even tell anyone what happened, okay?" Natalie bargained. "You can just leave. Right now." Natalie tilted her chin at the door and licked her lip again. Something in her mouth felt wrong. Her teeth felt wrong.

God, what did this fucking hippie bitch do to me!

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Charlotte turned and walked over away from Natalie towards the sink on the far wall, this time at a reassuringly normal speed.

"Something bad's already happened," she said. "About the only good news I have left is that things probably can't get any worse."

She rapped her knuckles on the counter by the sink, then looked over at Natalie.

"Feel your teeth," she advised. "Gently. Or...shit, I dunno is there a mirror around here? Look into that. I'm being totally serious here. You are a vampire now."

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