Guardians of the Dawn || Benji ||

[Aleissa "Leez" Ciantor]

A couple of miles out of the city, the land gave way to farms and woods. Concealed within one such patch of farmland was a field of wheat. Bordered by a fence, the stalks grew almost to Aleissa's waist.

She climbed over the fence and hesitated, looking up at the twilight sky. Away from the city, stars served as streetlamps, though she didn't need it with her sight.

She glanced around cautiously, one leather-gloved hand gripping the handle of a long silver-plated blade. On the other side of the fence stood her Harley, its red and silver plate gleaming demonically in the moonlight. She cast it a last glance and then headed into the field of waving stalks, all seeming to sway in a slow dance under the wind.

Her hair followed, fluttering gently over one shoulder, a blanket of dark brown. She was dressed in her usual garb for hunting: black boots and gloves, grey shirt and trousers and a black leather corset vest tied at the front. Over her shoulder she had her bow and quiver. At her side she had an assortment of knives.

She reached down and plucked a radio from her belt, hitting the transmit button. On the other end, a fellow enforcer gave her the needed directions. A scuffle had been reported and Leez had been sent to tackle what might well be a rampaging neophyte vampire.

She found the trail easily enough. Blood was splashed across several trampled stalks. It led her to the Vampire himself.

The man looked up from the child's body. Clearly she'd been too late.

He'd heard her coming. He was on his feet already, and he sprang at her when she moved into view. With the ease of long practice, she dove sideways and sprang up to her feet instantly. He swiped at her and she ducked again and again, before dancing backward on light feet and spinning to roundhouse kick him in the face.

The Vampire fell backward, tripping over his unsteady feet. Blood was dribbling down his chin and dripping onto his grey hoodie. In her moment of advantage, Leez plucked a knife loose and held it to his chest, staring him down.

"Do you know who I am?" she demanded. He nodded sullenly, his eyes flicking to the silver badge pinned to her chest. A mark of the Enforcer.

"Will you come quietly or do I have to knock you out?" she asked.

His slight hesitation was all the answer she needed. She read the warning in his eyes. Before he managed to lunge forward, she'd driven the blade into his heart. He choked and his fingers, inches from grabbing her neck, faltered. Blood dribbled down his cheek, but this time, it was his.

She yanked her knife out, cringing at the spray of blood that resulted. Stepping back, she contacted her partner to let him know about the result of her altercation, and then looked about for a place to dispose of the body. It was a pity she needed to even consider such a thing. She'd been hoping to be able to spare the Vampire, but she also didn't feel like engaging in a fight if she didn't have to. Rebellious neophytes were best put down immediately.

Especially now. This had been the third attack in the week. There had been a Lycan attack recently too. Leez had no jurisdiction to examine that; the Lycans handled their own business. But it had unsettled her, all these abrupt killings.

It was as if, for the first time, the rogues of both races seemed to be on the same page where violence toward humans was concerned.

She dragged the male Vampire into a small alcove in the woods and pulled out a heavy-duty torch at her belt. Carefully, she focused it on him and pressed the trigger.

A bright yellow beam blazed out and she felt her eyes water in reflex. The Vampire's body was momentarily lit up, before it began to crumble.

She held it there till his body was merely a pile of ashes. then she turned the light off and proceeded to kick dirt over his remains.

Hopefully none of the humans living nearby had seen anything. She didn't want to have to clean up any loose ends.

[Benji Gatz]

Wind caressed Benji's face, tickling it with airy fingers that were cold. He couldn't feel the cold much, it really didn't matter to him. A vampire would grow used to extreme heat and bitter coldness. But the feel of the wind was something he did like, not a gust of wind but a mere breeze got him to smile if it happened to greet him.

His eyes holding a red tint in their usual dark blue depth, the added tint made his eyes a litle bit of a darker violet . Benji could smell the blood from both the child and the vampire. He stood their with both hands in his pockets, standing on the back of a pick-up.

The 2013 Chevy Silverado was a darker shade of red and could be easily mistaken for [glow=yellow,2,300]black[/glow] in the night. Benji brought it so he could use it, if he had to, for any bodies that may not be easily disposed of.

Hearing a small voice play through his radios speakers he took it from off the hood of his car. Benji pressed his thumb on a button and spoke into it, his voice calm and a bit cold.

"Bring the childs body," pausing for a second he thought he had heard something off in the distance that sounded like an engine. "we don't want anyone happening upon it and wondering why the neck was torn open."

Taking his radio he placed it inside the truck by tossing it through an open window in the back, the interior was grey, nothing to fancy.. The radio landed on the floor, he would wait for the other enforcer, she wouldn't take long. Being a vampire meant you were a lethal predator, and speed fell into one of the greater attributes.

The night was cold, the air was frigid, and there was a scent in the air that was easily recognizable. Benji smiled, showing his pearly whites and chuckled a little bit. Death had an odor he could detect from afar, it was funny to him only because he never could get over that smell. It always over took him, death was something he wondered about.

[Aleissa "Leez" Ciantor]

Leez trudged back through the field of wheat, lifting her eyes as a few stray wisps of snow fluttered past. One tickled her nose and she sneezed.

She'd always loved the snow as a child. Back then, there were no electric heaters and fake fireplaces. Even coffee was a rarity. She'd sit by the stack of burning logs in a corner of the drab main room of her parents' modest home, sipping warmed milk with honey and sometimes even cinnamon if they had any. She would sit cross-legged, a tiny, skinny little thing, and listen to her mother tell stories of things that walked the night. And she would laugh because even at eight, she'd known better than to believe in such myths.

It had been all so easy back then, when she hadn't known what would befall her, when she hadn't had to worry about making decisions that would alienate her from her own family.

A snowflake landed on the tip of her nose, startling her back to the present. She sneezed again and realized she was standing beside the body of the murdered human child. Her radio crackled and she absently accepted the transmission from her partner. Bring the body. Right.

She examined him. He couldn't have been more than seven or eight years old. Light brown hair and scratched cheeks and scabbed knees, like he'd bruised them a lot. The Vampire had torn right through his jugular, spilling blood and guts on either side of the body. If she hadn't known it was a Vampire who did it, she'd have thought it was just as likely a Lycan...

A twinge of sadness shot through her at the thought of the boy's mother. She was probably waiting, or hysterically calling the cops.

Someone would need to get the blame for this so the cops didn't follow up. Leez's eyes narrowed. Why let it fall on a Vampire? It was highly likely a Lycan could have done this. With things as tense as they were right now, another stain on the Vampires would give the Lycans one more reason to lash out.

Leez knelt and wrapped a length of fabric taken from her jacket pockets around the child's torn neck to slop up leaking blood. She carefully scooped up the child in her arms, somewhat surprised at how light he was. It was like carrying a pillow. She made her way back to the fence and easily jumped it, settling on her bike and setting the dead child in front of her. He was starting to rot already, and despite her own vampiric urges teased by the fresh blood, she felt mildly ill.

She rode the motorbike back down the rough road to where the big Chevy pickup stood waiting. Despite the dark, she spotted it instantly. There wasn't much a Vampire couldn't see at night.

Leez slowed the Harley and braked hard, swinging her leg over the side and standing up. She let the motorbike stand and carefully picked up the child's body. She slung it over her shoulder and walked slowly over to the other Enforcer waiting in the back of the pickup.

Right as she opened her mouth to speak, she heard a distinct roar of an engine. A jeep? Perhaps someone looking for the boy?

She heaved the body over the side and let it land somewhat inelegantly at the other Enforcer's feet. "Burned the Vampire," she said by way of greeting. "But I'm guessing this kid's parents are looking for him. I was thinking..."

She hesitated. Her somewhat askew way of thinking had gotten raised eyebrows before and she wasn't sure what her partner would think. They'd only recently begun working together after all. Leez looked up at him thoughtfully as she spoke, her voice lowered. "It could pass for a Lycan attack. I left no evidence of the Vampire behind. And the boy's neck...it's hard to tell what sort of teeth bit into it."

[Benji Gatz]

Watching the Harley near Benji looked around again, the roaring engine he had heard earlier was getting closer. Spotting lights a far ways away he looked back at the corpse she held. Benji cared very little about this boy, Benji didn't know the boy nor did he think about who may be looking for him. He could be very cold at points, and right now Benji wanted to get away from here.

The sweet scent of blood carried itself from a ways away, he could smell it way before he spotted the Harley. The blood was belonging, it held the air and made something tug at Benji on the inside. What tugged at him was a memory, a memory he knew would never replay itself. The years after Benji turned 12 he was somewhat of a terror to the locals, playing out to be a helpless boy through shear lust for blood he had stood at the lowest level that could be to him. An ignorant blood sucker.

Benji took a moment for himself before responding to her, his eyes settling on her face. She was just newly stated to accompany him, or so that's what he liked to believe. Benji was used to working alone, and it would take some time to adjust, he would need to learn how to operate with another of his race.

Placing a pleasing smile upon his lips as to what she had said he nodded slightly, almost a little to quickly.

"You could be right," He said setting his position on the matter, but he wanted to make sure so he took a look at the boy. The marks were very deep, but they weren't to deep for a lycan. A lycan had a high chance of biting off a limb or even crunching the head off of such a small boy.

"although you could consider that a lycan attack would have severed a few limbs off of this small boy. No, the appearance of a Vampire attack is clearly here." Benji lay the cloth back over the boy and sighed a bit irritated, if this had been a more of a pureblood vampire attack then maybe the marks would match up to that of a lycan. That would have left them an easier job and a bad spoil to the lycans standings.

"I'll put the boy in a box in the back of my truck," pulling his hands out of his pockets he placed them on the ledge of the truck bed, kneeling down. "I will strap the box down and tape it up so it looks less suspicious."

[Aleissa "Leez" Ciantor]

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[style=font: 7pt arial; line-height: 11px; letter-spacing: 1px; padding: 7px; text-align: justify; color: #ABABAB; width: 400px;]Leez bit her lip at her partner's input. There went the Lycan idea. He was right, now that she thought about it. A Lycan was far less accurate and careful about where their teeth went. Vampires were more invested in the one-bite job. It would be too tricky to make this seem like a Lycan attack, unless they actually went ahead and did something to the evidence themselves. That wasn't something she was okay with, however. So she simply nodded up at the other Enforcer, her eyes full of silent musing, and turned around to go back to her motorbike. Halfway there, she froze. The sounds of the Jeep sounded much closer. Leez bit her lip again and glanced back over her shoulder at Benji to see if he'd done covering up the body already. From the corner of her eye, she caught a flicker of yellow. Headlights. She turned and saw the Jeep round the curve in the dirt road and head toward them. Hesitating only a moment, Leez darted forwards toward her bike. A Harley in the middle of a field very close to a missing child was horribly suspicious. There was no good reason for her to be out here. Benji's pickup, however, looked a lot more natural. She reached the Harley and hesitated before grabbing its handlebars and wheeling it, still switched off, back to the pickup. When she reached the back of the large vehicle, the large Jeep was already less than three hundred yards away. They probably hadn't seen the pickup yet, but that would change really soon. Leez glanced up at Benji, muttered, "I'll need to hide this," and without further ado, grabbed the heavy Harley around the accelerator pedals and lifted it, gritting her teeth at the toll it took. She wasn't a pansy human; this was nowhere near impossible. She was a trained Enforcer; she had been practically fine-tuned to a machine. But this was still making the muscles in her forearms feel like they’d been pulverized with a sledgehammer. She nearly dropped the motorbike on the child's corpse, but managed to safely tip it into the back of Benji's pickup with a rather resounding clang of metal. "Whoops," she mumbled. The Jeep came into view and she ran around to the side of the pickup, leaping in to the passenger side. "C'mon, let's go! If they ask, say you're buying a patch of land. But I'd rather not stick around to be questioned."

[tr][td][style=padding: 5px; background-color: #111111; text-align: center; color: #ABABAB; font-family: georgia; font-size: 10px; margin-top: 2px; line-height: 10px; border: 5px solid #75484C; border-radius: 10px; opacity: 0.7;]WORDS ;; 413 || TAGGED ;; BENJI || MUSE ;; Two Steps From Hell || NOTE ;; Sorry about the delay. Didn't realize you'd posted![/style][style=width: 400px; margin-top: 5px; margin-right: 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 9px; opacity: 0.5; color: #757575]made by prism of, btn, sgo, and ls~[/style][/td][/tr]
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