The bloodline of Maximilian Orlock by Aim

 

1.  Does evil need a reason?

 

Tp, tp, tp.  Long thin fingers taped on smooth black mahogany.  All patterns of the wood and reflections on the surface were lost in the fathomless dark colour.

 

He was hungry.  A strange irony that he was here sitting at this vast dinning table.  Yet it was not food, or even the food of vampires his hunger demanded.

 

His face was utterly even save the fierce expression of his eyes which could have bled rage.  A paradoxical cold rage restrained behind the gates of those eyes.

 

In centuries it hadn’t broken free of that cold control, instead remaining his pet. 

 

All he need do was feed it…Tp, tp, tp.

 

His eyes flared briefly…Tp tp, tp.

 

Nothing like boredom to truly provoke the beast.  This room was too smooth, too flawless, too calm.  He needed it to split, plead, writhe.  A shadow of a smile past over his dark expression.   A sadistic smile for the taste of metallic zest of his own need, his own pain.  It wasn’t quite masochism there was too much distance, too much enjoyment.

 

Just then one of the small shadowy creatures he allowed to roam his castle slipped in. It’s red eyes eternally wide in shameless gluttony.  A demon.

 

Glancing at it He found himself soothed.  Even if it was him it was sniffing out as a potential meal, tasting in the air what he himself had relished just a second ago.

 

He could see himself reflected in its eyes in more ways than one.  He found that these creatures touched a part of him far deeper than anything else could reach.

 

It hungered like him, pained like him.  With it here he no longer had to observe the painfully placid dinning room but could gaze instead in the depths of hell through the window of its eyes.  It was a view that put him much more at ease. 

 

It made its way towards him crawling slithering, and he watched it affectionately.  It was a stupid, wretched creature.  A mere animal.  Yet they were alike in ways.  One did not have to be born a demon to become one, be possessed by one…or perhaps possess it.

 

Such was his life.  Torn between worlds.  He liked to think of himself as perhaps the ‘Adam’ of the demon race, it's evolution to something more.  He shared natures with these demon creatures. 

 

Superior since he possessed a brain, and dare he suggest, a soul, though uniquely twisted so perversely it had conceivably become something entirely new and exciting. 

 

He crushed the demon creature mercilessly as it reached his feet. 

 

That was why he needed vampires.  Demon’s weren’t much good for conversation, or games of a more cerebral nature.

 

Orlock stood and left the room with silent purpose.  He was feeling better and had decided to relieve his hunger. 

 

Many could not understand why he kept a torture chamber.  Him being the monarch who placed such rules that protected humans from any ‘needless fun’.

 

They all seemed to have simply attributed it to being evil.  It was true.  But Oh! It was so much more interesting than that!   

 

A shame that they were all terrified of asking.  It was no secret.  He followed his own rules.  He only used what he needed to satiate himself.  He just had two different appetites.

 

Something stopped him in his tracks as he walked.  Death, violent raging death.  He forgot about the torture chamber.  Surely it had not been so soon before Jack had…

 

Orlock was gone.

 

 

 

2.  Rage

 

Jill stood trembling over Raff’s body.  She flickered crazily divided between her cathartic frenzy and feelings of absolute horror.  She felt as if she were splitting.

 

He had snuck up behind while Jack was preoccupied with Connor and his gang.  It was in his untidy grasp that she had awoken feeling pain she was absolutely certain was beyond the point where she should have died. 

 

He had shaken her mercilessly, and she found herself drifting in and out of consciousness with the influence of acidic adrenaline.

 

He was yelling something or other to both Jack and the gang.  Obviously only on his own side as usual.

 

His words were not intelligent but had the panicked tint of a man who had been smelling his own death on the tip of his nose for days.

 

But it was what he had whispered at her that had made her snap.

 

Raff was one of those cowardly cruel people.  The kind who if they received a hard time kicked the shit out of the dog.  Metaphorically or literally.

 

His name calling was enough to set off a spark.  But it was what she had seen him do along with everything that he represented that had provided timber and a bucket of gasoline. 

 

Her whole life had been about running.  About sweat and blood and tears and pain.  The depth of that pain and there was nothing she could do.  NOTHING.  Always only more running.  It seemed there was no more kindness in the world. 

 

She never thought it could be any worse.  That all that hurting could be for such immeasurable selfishness and stupidity as this man possessed.  

 

No sooner had this thought occurred to her, her whole life came crashing down around her as none of it could survive the weight of this knew meaning, and her rage was released .

 

She couldn’t even remember quite what she had done.  She had put absolutely no thought into it, only feeling. 

 

All she knew was now Raff was at her feet quite certainly dead.

 

Now for the consequences.

 

She wanted to scream, but instead she just stood there He eyes wide, she was vaguely aware of something trickling down her numb cheeks.

 

 

3. Happy Families

 

Jack stared on.  His opponents had taken this distraction and disturbing revelation as an opportunity to escape.  He would hate himself later, honestly allowing his quarries to get away twice within such a short time span, twice.  At least Raff was dead now… At what cost though…?

 

Jill was very still.  Some part of him ached with the need to protect her from all this, though he knew he couldn’t.  Another part Shrugged at the scene, that was life, it was up to her how she dealt with it. 

 

Still, what if she cracked, that would be like watching her die ‘all over again’.  He thought with a pang.  Emily or not, the feeling would be the same.

 

He walked up to her briskly turning to face her. 

 

His features went slack.

 

 If Jill had been more aware at that moment she might have been taken of guard by the quirky vulnerable expression Emily had loved so much.

 

Jill’s face was blank, but her eyes, her eyes were so full.  Brimming with pain, regret, hatred, longing, desperation they overflowed with tears that slid soundlessly down her cheeks. 

 

Jack had got what he had wanted.  All those defences, all that anger that had stood in his way from getting to know her, had fallen completely.  She stood before him naked.

 

‘She is Beautiful, it’s a shame about those eyes’. 

 

That voice, that voice: Orlock.

 

It seemed his sire was content to watch and was not making his physical presence known.

 

‘I am disappointed in you Jack.  You were no where near this quick.’  Orlock continued in Jack’s head, obviously pleased.

 

‘Perhaps I chose the wrong sireling.’ Orlock goaded with seemingly innocent seriousness. 

 

Jack ignored him scowling.  It seemed perhaps they had both won a victory in the matter of Jill. 

 

‘She’s not you yet.’  Jack returned icily.  Orlock chuckled strangely pleased.  It occurred to Jack that Orlock was glad he had caught on in some way.

 

And what of himself then?  Was he like Orlock?  Certainly not.  But in some ways…

 

Jack’s scowl deepened, they were all part of the same ‘family’ All of them divided, split loyalties, but something twisted its way through connecting them.

 

It was perhaps the only thing which stood out about his sire.  The apparent want to continue his bloodline.  For what though.  To make them like him?

 

Are you lonely? He stopped the jibe before it could escape his lips and shivered.

 

It would have been the most perverse use of the idea lonely in possible existence.

 

Just what was the intention behind the Bloodline of Maxamilian Orlock, the Demon King?

 

As of late disturbing clues were trickling into his consciousness.

 

Jack had a feeling he and Jill would find out.  Some hundred, thousand years maybe.  They had an eternity.

 

Lucky, lucky, lucky.

 

Fin