Black Flowers
Like tangerines. Citrus, acid on the tongue, opening the senses to a fresh spark. Blood oranges.
***
Side by side with the other - almost - just a little bit behind. Enough behind. ("I am better.") Stalking prey. Through darkened streets and the intimations of urban decay, past some disaffected kids with no purpose in life other than to piss off their parents, and into woods. She thinks of old stories, of forests creeping with hidden horrors, always just out of sight but vaster than you could ever understand. They were wrong about the woods though, most of the evils are in the streets, where you don't expect them. But sometimes they do hide in the trees. Wolf howling. Where are you going, Little Red Riding Hood? What big teeth you have. She's sure the story's ending was changed. Girls that stupid don't get saved by friendly woodcutters, they get ripped apart, flesh tearing and screams echoing and you can't put them back together.
These Red Riding Hoods won't be that stupid. They turn the tables. They become the wolf.
Collisions, flurries of fists and feet. Yells and grunts. Buffy throws one to her, and she has a brief flash of a ball game; adrenaline comes through her, a short hard thrill. It (he?) lands on the ridiculously archaic stick ("wasn't hip to the Bronze age") and there's a silent explosion, the bone-dust falling around her. She breathes it in deeply but it's not the same, it's gone too soon. No evidence left.
This is why killing vampires is never enough.
Craving, hunger. In so many ways. Her eyes devouring Buffy, who's flushed and dishevelled, dusting off her hands (dirty job, but someone's got to do it) and she hates her for this attitude which is so false (or she hopes it's false), which is so different. Watches her unashamedly, receiving the electrics and despising her when she turns away and walks on. Faith snaps back onto the prowl, her senses intoxicated with the pain-scent. Eager for blood.
***
Once, on her own (of course, B would never stand for this) she ties one up, waits until the sun comes up. The sky golden and pale pink- white, casting a red glow, bathing in blood-light. The vampire's eyes are sick and bewildered with terror, and she smiles. Just a little smoke at first, and she hardly notices his agonised cries as it begins, mesmerised by the column of dusty grey, and then a combustion. Light producing more light, flames engulfing him as he screams long and terible. She can see through the fire, raging greys and oranges, a strangely spiritual vision as he dissolves down to the bones and quickly is nothing, cleansed.
She had hoped this would produce the effect, the look of terror would send her the rush. But it's still too swift, and afterwards the feeling dissipates like the cloud of dust.
***
She lights a cigarette, a brief flare and then a red spot in the dark; nicotine curls up, envelops her mind. Takes a sip of her drink. The glass is cool on her lips and the liquid bitter and lime. She wishes it were warmer, more metallic.
B near, too near and not near enough. Her hair so fair, reflections of light coming off and Faith can pick out every individual strand. Her eyes are clear like green glass, lashes fine and the skin of the eyelids porcelain delicate. Just like she'd shatter if you touched her too hard. Inviting someone to try. The way she laughs and moves her head. Lips pink-red, like roses, like strawberries, filled with blood she can see throbbing beneath the thin skin. Her tongue running casually over them and they're moistened, glistening. Seductive. The skin is pale and close, absolutely pure, and Faith understands why virgins have always had such a lure. It's like the skin of a fruit, stretched out tautly over something sweet and liquid. Begging to be broken, bitten, so the taste can burst through.
***
Even before, she was fascinated. Ten years old and her mom lying sprawled on her back, the cut on her head spilling red. Kneeling down, she caught another smell above the vodka, she touched the red in wonderment and saw that in the shit this was beautiful. Fourteen and she fucked a guy into self-harm. Watched him carve the flesh, and the dripping blood. He wrote her name on his skin and she entered him then. Soon she left, but she couldn't forget him, knew it was because he had something of her forever and couldn't forget those crimson splashes.
Blood ties - so in B's body, she inscribed herself into her life, short stinging lines of letters, deeply engraved. Why Buffy can never forget her. And she has Faith's blood on her hands too, from the darkness when she slid the knife in. Faith felt it flow, stunned, stunned by the life running away.
Beating up vampires and they bled before they turned to dust, she smashed them and that was the thrill. But then it wasn't lasting and when she first drove the stake in and the noise was flesh and she first walked in the dark she knew there was too much red-black out there. Filled up her mind and she was knives in the night. The scarlet on the silver, she would inhale, it would be in her and complete a void. Ate away at the edges of the vacuum, made more and filled that too. Huntress she was, drunk on the bloodscent.
Not hard to understand the vamps. Bloodsuckers and ruthless, callous, cruel. Abandon. She wishes for this. B drives her wild, the seductive virgin; not so virginal though, she has tasted and been tasted and carries in her the feral of the Slayer. Her pale, pale skin beckons. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Faith has been to hell and she has been tainted with that brush. Blood and ink- black calling out to her.
***
Watches her, watches her, eyes drinking her in; not enough. Draws closer to her and the faint scent fills her vision, goes to her head and renders resistance futile.
Kisses her in the half-light, she feels the pulsating lips respond and is wild. She pierces the skin and tastes just a little. Insatiable. She moves down to the so-pale breast, inhales, settles her lip. Bites down. Breaks through the skin and the life is released.
Bitter, metal, less than she wished for and so much more. She possesses her. An exhilaration comes over her, like her brain is split and all the cold of the night is raining on it, black and glittering. Dark flowers opening up in her mind; blood roses.