Author: catstark

Insomnia hit hard last night. Therefore though I would like to give an explanation on this passage, I have nothing. I do like this passage though. Hope you do too.

From Inside the Grey House:

“Why the hesitation?”

“What decides the attitude of a person when they are turned?” Her words sounded serious. This was apparently something she thought of often.

Vincent looked down into her eyes, finally understanding part of the hesitation he had always sensed in her. His hand went to her hair, tenderly caressing the nape of her neck. “A human’s darkest desires determine how devilish she is when she is turned. Her strong humanity acts as a counterbalance to even it out.” He paused as the words sank in. “In other words, nothing changes unless the human wants it to change.”

For this scene, I had to figure out how much blood a vampire took from Natalia. I started by figuring out how much water I could hold in my mouth for comfortable swallow. Then measured that. Then did the math to figure out how much it translated to in pints of blood. Not entirely accurate as I am not average human sized, but figured it was probably close enough. And no, I don’t remember the volumes anymore. I didn’t write it down.

From Inside the Grey House:

Joseph managed almost twenty swallows: over two pints of blood. She was lightheaded and needed to rest, but knew the fight wasn’t over. She understood now what Joseph had been thinking when asking her to fight. She had to get up and finish the fight. Natalia heard a sound behind her and knew Joseph was standing. She slowly opened her eyes, trying to get to her feet. Vincent tried to help her, but she once more pushed him away.

While Natalia spars with a friendly vampire, a man from her pass watches and sees when her humanity leaves.

From Inside the Grey House:

Natalia had learned a lot since her first match against Vincent. For one thing, don’t stop slashing when up against a vampire; it gave them time to recover. She fought a few before Vincent, but none who were the age or had the same skill of Vincent and his lot. As Joseph retreated, she slashed him a few more times, tearing up his shirt and skin. The smirk grew and her random thoughts faded, emptying her mind of non-essential clutter. The warrior inside took over, and the smirk faded to a coldness that made Joseph smile and Charlie shudder.

The werewolf watched as the smirk left her face, remembering a time when nothing but humanity accented her features. She had never looked this inhuman, even the two times she saved him from Zechariah. Charlie studied the woman he once loved and knew for certain she was gone for good. She belonged on this stage and others like it, fighting, plotting, winning. He felt a chill as he stared at her expression, wondering how it had come to this. He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned. His smile returned as he beheld Rebecca.

Edwin. The antagonist. I loath him. I never liked Edwin, but once I understood, and wrote, his history, I hated him with pride. Before writing his history, he was a flat character, with loathsome desires. After I wrote his history, I was able to write him as a three dimensional character with loathsome desires that I was able to hate with all my heart. I really liked that I wrote his history; it made him a better character. Here’s a little bit of Edwin.

From Inside the Grey House:

Edwin crossed his arms. “Do you realize that you are the only vampire I know that will admit to my face what you really prefer? That’s why I respect you Vincent: I know where I stand with you and you always answer truthfully.” He indicated some stragglers as they entered the building. “The people that follow me say yes to whatever I suggest. At first it was great, but now, I find it tedious. They do, too. A lot of them no longer listen to me. That’s why I’m doing this Vincent. That’s why I’m putting my head on your chopping block: because they don’t listen to me anymore and I grow tired of it. I’m done being Acting Captain. They will listen to what I say.”

From Inside the Grey House:

Natalia smiled. She understood the implication. He was almost hers. “If God created the devil and the devil created pleasure, then couldn’t you say that God created the devil in order to create pleasure?”

He whimpered as she massaged him.

“Do you really believe that a deity as powerful and loving as God wouldn’t want us to feel pleasure? His first home for us was paradise. He created us to fit within one another. He created us to feel. Don’t you want to feel good? Don’t you want to know how it feels to lay naked next to a beautiful woman after making mad love to her? Don’t you want to know what Ifeel like?”

She stepped more fully in front of him. She was tall enough and the dress was short enough that it wouldn’t take much to slip him inside her. She didn’t want to, but wanted him to think she would. Natalia wondered what Vincent thought of all this. “Can you feel me? Can you feel my heat radiating, threatening to consume you? Wouldn’t you like to be consumed?”

From Inside the Grey House:

The sword was about three and a half feet in length, looked like a two-handed sword but was lighter than a rapier. It was well balanced, a quality piece of work. The blade had the look of a Damascus sword, but the folds of metal were red, orange and yellow. The runes on it were almost invisible unless hit by direct light. She traced the symbols, wondering what they would do in direct sunlight. It was one o’clock in the morning. She would have to wait a few hours to find out. Backing away from the car, Natalia swung the sword, feeling the weight and balance. It really was a fine sword.

The reality of the sword slowly seeped into her being as she looked around. With the sword, she could kill all the vampires in the house, in the city, probably in the world. She was pretty sure the sword had been made by the Order of Light in the 16^th century. The Order of Light had been a group of priests, monks and mages who decided they needed a little bit more help against vampires. The Order of Light was based in Siberia. They created swords and trinkets to help in the fight against Hellspawn. This sword was magic and seemed to have the same effect as sunlight on vampires. The blade simply had to cut the vampire in order to kill the creature. As far as Natalia knew, this relic was the only one left from the Order of Light’s magical arsenal. It was an extremely dangerous weapon and had to be hidden from Vincent’s enemies.

From Inside the Grey House:

Natalia’s eyes were closed, and her hands were gripping Vincent’s arm as she did her best to hold on to consciousness. The scream was still threatening to rupture from her throat and burst through her teeth. She breathed deep trying not to think of the pain. Her ankle was broken, no doubt about it, but Lilly would heal her quickly and she would be all right. She felt herself being picked up and someone pulled her good leg out from under her. She was told to brace herself as someone placed warm hands on her calf and slowly brought her left leg straight out in front of her. She closed her eyes, knowing if she saw the break she would pass out. The gasps from onlookers made her understand how bad it looked.

“Natalia? Can you hear me?”

Natalia nodded as she heard Lilly’s voice. Her eyes were still tightly shut.

The healer spoke again. “I have to set the bone. This is going to hurt.”

Today, seven years ago, my husband of 19 years, 2 months, died. Worse day of my life, by far. I therefore wanted to share a scene of someone dying. The issue with that: I have two scenes with deaths.

I don’t want you to read those yet. Because spoilers. I was about to say what the scenes are from, and I don’t even want to do that, because that reveals too much. Therefore, I am giving you the first page of an unfinished book called Greystone Maine:

Brenda stared down the barrel of the rifle, the head of the cow in sight. She found it a few days ago, and thought about killing it right away, but needed to find a safe place to cook it first. There were too many dead out here and if they smelled the meat, would come running. Or shambling was maybe the better word. She found a cave close to the cow, up the side of the mountain. There was a path, but it was tricky to navigate. She would be able to out maneuver them if it came to that.

She knew she wouldn’t be able to take the entire thing back to the cave, but she would be able to take a nice sized chunk. And tonight, for the first time in four years, she would have fresh meat; she would have steak.

Brenda cleared her mind and stopped thinking about steak cooked to perfection with butter and juices. She pulled away from the rifle and shook her head. Her last meal before the world went crazy was steak, potatoes and sweet corn on the cob. Dad cooked everything on the grill. It was her favorite meal. Her dad died while cleaning the grill. Or rather, he was bitten and she shot him when he tried to attack her.

She took a few deep breaths and aimed her rifle again. She saw the cow, and its rather wide eyes. Brenda frowned and moved her head away from the rifle. Her own eyes owned wide.

“Son of a bitch!” She cried out. The dead below looked around for a moment, then went back to tearing apart her cow. He beautiful brown and white Holstein.

While looking for a scene with a complete different word, I reread this one. I like most of the scenes, chapters, books short stories I like, but some scenes catch my attention more than others. This is one of them. I like having characters tell how they decided to be with the other.

Since I liked this scene a lot, I decided to find a word in the passage to have as my “Daily Prompt” rather than use what the random word generator suggested. Feel free to tell me if you like the scene.

From Inside the Grey House:

He shrugged off her question. “Is that how you knew I wouldn’t kill you, or were you taking a chance?” He stopped pacing and turned back to Natalia.

“I wasn’t sure what you would do.” She stepped to him to unbutton his shirt. Her fingers whispered against the soft fabric of the shirt. “But once I saw you, I knew I had to take the chance.”

His hand went to rest on her jaw line, his thumb caressing her cheek. “Why?”

“It’s called lust, Vincent. I’ve spent a lot of years staying away from men; hungering after a creature I had no way of controlling.” Her hands caressed his now exposed chest. He was cool to the touch, as if he had just taken a cold shower. “There was a female Slayer who found her way into your household and into your bed. She described you with such shameful words. It was obvious how much she wanted you.”

“What was her name?” The large vampire tried hard to control his features, not wanting to show any of the emotions claiming his mind.

“Charlene.” She stopped her seduction, curious at the turn of the conversation. “Do you remember her?”

His eyes closed as he nodded slowly. “I met her in China, over a hundred years ago. We didn’t spend much time together, a month at the most. I didn’t know she was a Slayer.”

She gave him a slow smile, full of admiration and understanding. “You completely turned her head. Her entries fascinated me. I was all for finding out what kind of vampire you were. Then I saw you, and knew I had to have you.”

From Inside the Grey House:

“I was in the room when Anthony told you he was going to kill Theodore for what he did to Tina. I was there, Vincent, when you told him it was out of the question because Theodore is one of Edwin’s favorites. Saw the look in his eye when you explained the dangerous, delicate balance your men have to keep with Edwin’s lot. You saw it too, which is why you ordered him to leave the blood-sucking pervert alone. So I went, and I took care of the situation.”

“Edwin will order your blood. As he is my Captain, I’ll have to do as he orders.” His voice was deadly cold.

Natalia laughed. “Do you think I’m stupid, Vincent? I’ve killed five of his men so far, or didn’t you know? Have you heard word one from him? No, you haven’t. And you won’t. When I hunt, I hunt as a Slayer, so no one knows. Do you actually believe I would endanger you or your men?”