[center][b][u]Collab post between Kingfisher and OneFatBadger[/u][/b][/center]

[center] [img]http://i.imgur.com/uRFBukv.jpg[/img] [/center]


It didn’t take long after the lights went out for the city to fall into chaos. What little illusion of a structured society that had existed beforehand was snuffed out with the electricity, and armies of the once powerless were storming the streets. The previously ever-present divide between wealthy and poor quickly became a distant memory, as houses were pillaged, shops were looted, and blood ran through the gutters like rain water. 

Maddie had been strolling leisurely down the street when she’d caught sight of the small gaggle of girls in their fishnets and black miniskirts, with their roughed up hair and racoon eyes. She’d tailed them back through the darkness, and now what was left of their group were hogtied on the cold kitchen floor. 
	
“P-please, we don’t have any money.” Sobbed the blonde one, eyeliner running down her tanned cheek, her ginger friend tightly clutching her arm. 

[color=ed1c24]“Not so cocksure anymore, are we, buttercup?”[/color] Maddie sneered with a sharp laugh [color=ed1c24]“and trust me; you’ve got the only currency I need.” [/color]

She pressed her hand firmly against the blonde’s neck, causing her to yelp slightly, before tilting her head sideways, and then sinking her long needle-like fangs into the young woman’s sweet bronze flesh. Someone screamed, but the world had drifted away and become an ethereal shard at the back of Madeline’s subconscious. Blood, sweet and red and hot, poured into her mouth, swelling inside her, filling an insatiable hunger. She was a little girl in the cramped flat in Liverpool, pulling the legs off of spiders, then she was walking across the moors, strolling side by side with Doctor Blackwood, and then she was breaking free from her bonds and darting through the night with Archibald, the hunt seeping into every cell in her body, stirring the beast from its slumber. 

A sharp jolt tore her away from her gorgeous nightmare, and then she was tumbling across the kitchen floor, dazed and confused. Her eyes cleared and blood was dripping out of her open mouth, her face contorted in an inhuman snarl. 

A dark figure now stood between her and her prey, his lithe form clad in a huge brown trench coat, a dark silk hood obscuring his features. 

“Please don’t let her hurt us-“one of the girl’s was squealing, then the figure politely gestured for silence. It was a calm, soft gesture, which would have been unassuming in a lesser-man, but held power in his nimble fingers. 

Maddie hissed, and their eyes met. Her marron glare was the swing of the machete’s blade, the roar of the oncoming hurricane, the sweet scent of fresh blood billowing on the wind, and the purring of the vengeful night-horror’s that lurk beneath the beds of children and adults alike. His murky green stare was the thundering of hooves on pagan soil, the clash of dancing steel in sweltering sunlight, and the mourning of a love so ancient it predated Santa Somabra itself. There was an icy sadness in those fog-like eyes, but then there was grim determination, a zealous code of honour, and a brazen chivalry that Madeline Hollinghurst had long since thought dead in this world. 

[b]“Leave them be,”[/b] he bid her in a voice that was soft yet firm [b]“there’s enough darkness in this city, what with all these lights off.” [/b]

Maddie gently guided one claw-like fingernail over her wrist, an autistic tick drifting in from a life she had given up decades ago. [color=ed1c24]“Not scared of the dark are we?” [/color]she cooed [color=ed1c24]“Although I suppose in this city, you’d be stupid not be.” [/color]

The figure looked her over, and there was a glimmer of sympathy in those murky green eyes [b]“Of all the things to fear, darkness holds the most merit.” 
[/b]

A sharp grin spread across Maddie’s face, stretching to the edges of her likeness [color=ed1c24]“That’s subjective. There’s no certainty that darkness will drink your soul, whereas I’ve made an art form of mutilation.”[/color]

One of the girl’s whimpered quietly, and Maddie suddenly became aware that she still had blood dripping off of her sharp pale fangs. 

The figure softly clasped his hands together, his long trench coat rustling slightly. [b]“I’d welcome it if death could bare my weight.” [/b]When he spoke he had the voice of a soldier. 

The beast’s long dark wings fluttered from within Maddie’s stomach, and she felt the hunger growling inside her. “[color=ed1c24]You’d be surprised how much a reaper’s scythe can hold,”[/color] she said with a little wayward giggle [color=ed1c24]“Why don’t you hop on and find out?” [/color]

[b]“I’d commend you achievement, but with my departure to infierno so too would depart your only chance at finding Señor Treviño.”[/b] The figure stated plainly. 

[color=ed1c24][i] Diego Treviño[/i] [/color]

A tide of thoughts flooded through Madeline’s brain, surging through her synapses.[color=ed1c24] [i]Ally[/i].[i]Friend?[/i].[i]Traitor[/i].[i]Cunt[/i].[i]Prey[/i]. 
[/color]

[color=ed1c24]“For your sake, you’d best not be lying to me,” [/color]she said darkly [color=ed1c24]“You’ll not have the opportunity to make the same mistake twice.” [/color]

Her mind was humming loudly in her ears, and the shadows of her subconscious began to tick away like the flick of a knife. 

[b]“Lying is free and fluid. Like Señor Treviño’s location if you prove to be untrustworthy.”[/b] He replied boldly. 

[color=ed1c24]“How about I peel back your mind and see what tasty little secrets are scuttling around in there?”[/color] her voice cracked like a barbed whip, lashing out across the kitchen. 

[b]“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”[/b] He didn’t blink or shift his weight about, and simply stood between Maddie and her prey, his face an emotionless, statue-like mask. 

[color=ed1c24]“This had better be worth it,”[/color] Maddie hissed [color=ed1c24]“I was so looking forwards to draining these one's dry." [/color]