Nikol lay where he was, still unable to bring himself to move. He'd felt it even as he slept, the sheer immensity of Pras’ being. It had shocked him to the core, frightened him beyond measure. His heart was hammering away too wildly, his blood roaring in his head. He couldn’t think. He closed his eyes, willing his body to cooperate. When his heart slowed; when he could finally take a long, deep breath, he looked over to where Pras was hiding away from him in the shadows. He frowned. How dejected he looked! Pras sat with his back to the wall, arms wrapped around his knees that were drawn up to his chin. His head was down. His beautiful, black hair cascading all around him.
“What were you going to do just now, Pras? Kill me?”
Pras head came up sharply. “No!” His head drooped again. “To be more honest, there was a certain risk that you might die if I was unsuccessful.”
Nikol tried to move, braced himself for the pain that would come with it. He glanced downwards in astonishment. Raised his arm experimentally.
“You healed me. How?” He shook his head. “No, first I want you to explain.” He waited. Pras remained silent. “Pras? How long are you going to hide there in the shadows? I want to see your face.”
There was a sudden movement. His heart tripped. His blood become unruly again. Pras was suddenly before him. His eyes glittered dangerously. He was the same, yet fundamentally not. His countenance had become predatory and terrible and yet, he was the same, was he not? Something crucial had changed. It was as if a switch in Nikol’s brain had been turned on and now he couldn’t shut it off. How could he not have felt this intensity before?
His mind scrambled backwards through time, searching searching for a hint, anything in every memory of their encounters. There was no sense of anything but the serene and welcoming presence that had lured him back here again and again. Pras was the same as he’d always been and he knelt there, so still and watchful but there was nothing serene about this creature. He was beautiful. Beautiful. Those magnetic eyes drew him in. Beneath the anxiety, there was chaos and something so overwhelmingly potent, Nikol’s body reacted violently. His heart trembled. Heat and ice course through his veins. He became convinced that he was drowning.
“I know you’re not human, you know?” He reluctantly dragged his gaze away and brought a trembling hand to his mouth. “I’m thinking this is probably a good time to tell me what you are.”
Pras contemplated him for a few moments before replying baldly. “Something that feeds on human blood.”
Nikol’s eyes widened. “What manner of being would want to take my blood?”
“The vampiric kind.”
He let his curiosity got the better of him. “Are you something that was here before humans populated this region of space?”
When Pras stared at him nonplussed he chuckled. “I assure you, I’ve come face to face with things stranger than you in my line of work.”
“My kind originated on the first world. Humans forgot we existed long before we even crossed the great divide and yet, we’ve always walked right beside you.”
“Strange,” Nikol mused. “I wonder how many like you I might have encountered and never realized it. It seems such an odd thing, considering the... nature of our partnership. If anything, I wish you’d explain that. Why take my blood now? After all this time, I doubt it was simply for sustenance.”
Clever wasn’t he? “I thought to bind you to me and make you immortal by giving you mine after bleeding you dry.”
Nikol blinked. “Why?”
Pras cursed under-breath. This was going neither the way he’d expected or hoped. “Because you said--I don’t want you to die, Nikol. I don’t want you to leave this place, never to return to me.”
Pras words washed over Nikol in a breathless torrent. His hands were curled into tight fists on the floor. Whatever wild thing was bubbling forth within him, he was trying to restrain it. Yet, his smile was wicked, his mouth slightly open and showing deadly, sharp fangs. Somehow, Nikol was certain he didn’t realize he was doing that. The predator leaned forward slightly. Nikol lay where he was, fighting off the urge to move. It seemed to him that as he was just now, Pras just might take his head off if he did.
“I would not be happy here if you took my free will away from me, Pras. I happen to like being an agent of the Guild of Assassins.”
Pras growled low in his throat. It was the only warning Nikol got before he was upon him. He loomed over him. Pras hefted him up by the chin and slammed him back down hard. Pain exploded in Nikol’s eyes. His hypnotic gaze trapped Nikol, engulfing his mind. There was so much rage and sorrow there.
“Will you try to run away? You see it now don’t you, the real me? Aren’t you afraid, Nikol Aren’t you afraid of what I might do if you don’t give me what I want?”
He voice was a strained whisper but he may as well have been shouting. Nikol’s vision wavered. He choked, tasting blood in his mouth. But he was, wasn’t he? Afraid.
“Pras...” Darkness engulfed him.
It was that final plea that undid Pras. He suddenly became aware of the damage that he was doing, the light in Nikol going out. Horrified, again he tried to move away but Nikol had taken hold of his wrists at some point and now he wouldn’t let go. He couldn’t get away from the grip, not without hurting him. The tears that sprang to his eyes were bloody. The inexplicable rage that had swept him away was gone now, chased away by guilt and self loathing. This wasn’t what he’d wanted.
“Anything but this,” he lamented inaudibly. “Anything but this.”
Nikol’s eyes opened. They were red, blood cells had exploded when Pras forced his way into his mind. There was no reproach in them. Just a weary sort of anguish and... No, Pras had to be imagining the rest. Wishful thinking. It was only wishful thinking. Nikol’s mouth moved. Pras leaned in closer to listen.
The pilot’s word’s were a hoarse whisper. “What did I do? To make you so angry. What did I do to make you weep?”
Pras regarded Nikol in thunderstruck silence. He brushed the back of one hand across his face, then stared down in consternation when it came away stained with crimson wetness. Time stretched out until the air between them became oppressive. He rose wordlessly in one fluid motion. Nikol stared up at him in bewilderment.
“Sleep.” He commanded again, this time putting far more weight behind the compulsion than before.
Out of weariness and just having had his brains rattled around quite a bit, Nikol simply succumbed. Pras watched over him quietly for a few more moments. What exactly was he supposed to do now? The uncomplicated quality of their partnership had been tainted in an instant. Nikol now knew what he was. Even though the pilot hadn’t seemed appropriately daunted by that fact, Pras wasn’t naive enough to think that think that things could just go back to the way they had been before. Nothing would ever be the same. He watched the steady rise and fall of the sleeping man’s chest. Guild of Assassins, was it?
He smiled a tiny, regretful smile and shrugged. “I suppose I have slept long enough,” he murmured, as he turned to leave.
 |
 |
At the end of the west corridor, Pras waved a wrist and the doors slid open. He stepped on a metal plate at the threshold. The was a momentary whir, the machinery’s only complaint after centuries of disuse. It descended, transporting him into the depths of a gaping underground chasm. When the platform finally touched solid ground once more, he disembarked. He glanced up to the entrance, considering. After a moment of indecision, he sent the platform back up to the surface, leaving a way for Nikol to follow when he rose, if he wished.
His purpose from this point on was clear but he suddenly realized he wasn’t at all certain how to proceed, where the man sleeping above was concerned. It was unprecedented, his feelings and actions swayed by mere words or just a look from another--a mortal, at that. It had been unwise to let this attachment for Nikol take root so deeply in his heart. He stopped, waiting as another gargantuan entranceway slowly opened up before him ahead. It had done that, hadn’t it? Taken root so deeply, he could not rip it out, even if he wanted to. It had also been unwise of him to become so out of touch with events taking place throughout the known worlds.
There, Pandora waited in all of her mechanical glory. Pras smiled. The massive, ornate vessel was as pristine as it had been on the day he’d powered it down for the last time, so very long ago.
“Hello, old friend.” He murmured.
When he pressed his palm against the shiny exterior, his ship leapt to life. A sudden surge of warmth shot through his fingertips, sending shivers down his spine. There was a slow rumble form deep within the cavernous bowels of the ship. He winced at the unpleasant creaking sound made by the massive bays doors as they slid open. The air inside was heavy, despite the relative absence of dust. There was a low hum as the filtration system kicked into gear. A mellow feminine voice sluggishly announced that life support systems were operational. Pale blue lights flickered on as he made his way from entryway to the main control tower. He brought a hand up, examining it as he walked. Even decades spent by the side of an enlightened being had not been able to alter the core of what he was. He was a killer, first and foremost. He’d almost taken Nikol’s life.
His fingers tightened into a fist. A precocious child had once told him that he had a propensity to be more cruel toward those for whom he cared than for those he did not. Perhaps one of the reasons he’d remained by her side for decades had been out of spite, just to prove her wrong. In the end though, hadn’t what he’d done to her been beyond cruel, despite his best intentions?
It had been enough to pretend for a while, that he was someone else--that his true nature hadn’t been hanging over their heads the whole time like a dark cloud but now that Nikol knew what he was, there was no going back. The longer that human remained where Pras was, the more likely it became that he would come to a bad end. Perhaps he should send Nikol away and take refuge once again in the oblivion that came with deep sleep. Pras scowled. He couldn’t indulge himself now, could he? Nikol had said the human galaxies were at war with an enemy whose pattern of attack was all too familiar. He needed to confirm his suspicions. He neared the entrance to the ship’s bridge.
Lost in thought, he was suddenly assaulted by a deafening screech over the ship’s speakers and then there was silence. Pras froze where he was.
“Oh hell...”
There was one tiny thing that he’d forgotten.
“Pras?”
Oh, the ship’s voice was calm enough but he knew better than to use that as a gauge of what might come next. He glanced longingly toward the exit. A ship with a human mind could be homicidal when enraged but Pandora’s naturally violent disposition made that an even more likely possibility. She certainly had the means to kill her occupant if so inclined. It would serve him right, he thought wryly. He’d been distracted by the events that had unfolded but only sheer stupidity could have caused him to simply barge right onto Pandora after what he’d done.
“Yes?” He waited, and he wasn’t afraid to admit--with some trepidation, for her wrath to come down upon him.
“I thought it odd,” she began conversationally, “that my fuel cells were at minimum potential. I didn’t recall sustaining damage to my navigation system either and yet... CENTURIES??? You left me down here gathering dust for centuries?”
Pras covered his ears, wincing as the force of her yell made even the bulkheads tremble. “That’s something we both agreed on when we came to this place, wasn’t it?”
“I agreed to go to sleep when you went to ground, Pras. I imagined a few weeks or months at the most,” she grumbled. “I might have even tolerated decades but this--this...” she spluttered. “You trapped my consciousness in this damned hulking mass of metal without my consent. The least you could have done was a little maintenance!”
What could he say to that? It was the truth. He could have reactivated Pandora at some point in the five years since he’d been awakened. He’d been selfish in that regard as well. Allowing the past to catch up would certainly have dispelled his little fantasy. He had no excuse. With no around one to rein him in, Pras was a completely self serving being. That was a defining trait of his kind, wasn’t it? There weren’t many who could influence him in this way, at that. Pandora though, from the beginning she’d possessed this strange ability to make Pras feel like a child--an errant one at that.
He halted at the entrance to the bridge. “What can I say? You well know what manner of beast I am,” he muttered.
“Oh, stuff it!” Pandora hissed.
He jerked backwards, barely avoiding being cut in two as the entry doors slid shut with alarming speed. “You ill-tempered bitch! Open the door!”
“No.”
“Pandora!”
“You haven’t even apologized, Pras. I know you’re not sorry but you could at least humor me, couldn’t you?”
He sighed, “you’re right of course. It was selfish of me. You know I can’t help it.”
The doors slid open again after a moment but Pandora didn’t say anything. She wouldn’t be speaking to him for quite a while
