Title: Perfect Misery
Author: Eterniata
Email: eterniata@aol.com

And the rain came down in torrents. The crystal droplets fell from the sky so close together they wove a blanket to cover the landscape in front of me. I stood under the granite and marble of the mansion, its eaves offering some slight cover. The rush of the water, the buzz of it, echoed in the cavernous space behind me and then reverberated into my ears. The sound of the rain reinforced the hollowness behind me, inside me. The trees, the benches, even the sky itself peeked from between the wavering grayness in blinks so fast that my preternatural vision could barely catch it. The sheets of water were almost alive. Perfect sheets of perfect misery. Watching them became a game; I stood and watched them wash everything away.

It was hypnotizing, really. I couldn't tear my eyes away from it. It drained the color from everything out there, rendered it as dull and lifeless as the heart within my chest. The body of the human I'd just fed on lay twisted in a heap at my feet, her once-blonde hair now matted with dirt and rain water, and the blood that ran down her neck from the place of my feeding turned from crimson to pink and then swirled away in little streams. The rain took the color from that, too.

Perfect sheets of perfect misery-the thought bounced around my brain and I stared unblinking at the downpour. How appropriate for me. Empty house, empty rooms, empty soul. Nothing here for me now that she is gone. The loss of my dark queen had left me as drained as the body at my feet, my love swirling away and disappearing like the dark fluid I had just been contemplating. Our love had been perfect, once upon a time. It was eternal ... literally. At least, it was supposed to have been. I'd never counted on immortality without my Princess by my side to keep me content in her arms. I'd never imagined the Slayer actually finding us, taking her before my eyes. Despite the grayness before me, I saw in vivid color the pale hair of the huntress falling over her face as she bent over the pile of ashes that had once been my wicked, perfect lover. In my mind's eye the blue of her eyes glinted at me, the white of her teeth flashed more predatory than my own killing fangs had ever been. The scent of pine filled my nostrils, and I saw the end of my own existence in the flash of her brown stake as it whistled towards me. Self preservation had taken control; animal instinct had made me drop, roll, and run. There was no hope of her catching me. And, until now, I hadn't thought of how I had run from the fight and left the remains of my soul in that pile of ashes that was blown away to nowhere. I hadn't considered the consequences of my existence anywhere without her. Now I faced it, and for once I found no pleasure in the kill, no thrill in the blood that warms me as it fills my mouth, my throat. This last one wasn't even a challenge.

I glanced down at the body. My feeding had taken the pink from her skin and the rose from her lips. I knew she would soon be under another sheet quite different from the rain that draped her now. The dirt that was swirling past her would then cover her like a warm blanket. Oh, how I envied her her escape from all feeling. I originally took her because she looked like the Slayer from a distance. She had the same lithe body, quick movements, catlike grace ... from a distance, as I said. I was beside her in a blink of her mortal eye and knew in the same instant that she was no more my lost love than I was Prince of England. She barely screamed before I had her neck to my mouth. The sound of the rain covered her ever-quieter whimpers. Once those sounds would have made me growl with pleasure, but now it's just sustenance. I gripped her hair, and for a second there was a glimmer in me as the strands caught in my fingers like spun gold. So like the Slayer's own glowing crown.

But there was nothing now. No dark queen to love me. No glory in the kill to make me want to go on.

However, there was the release out there somewhere. The Slayer...she who pursued me to send me from this world and took instead my reason to exist. I know she is waiting to catch me, to kill me and end my suffering. If she knew how it would free me, would she still be so quick to stake me? If she knew how I was craving the darkness, would she deliver it to me? I can almost see her doing it: her strong body ripe with the scent of her blood and her fear as it tenses for the fight, her hands gripping the stake as she watches me. What would she do if I simply bared my chest to her and let her have her way with me? I think she might oblige me.

I caught a glimpse of color out of the corner of my eye. I didn't turn, didn't move, not a flicker of an eyelash. In between those torrents I saw that golden hair flash again. The instinct to flee that I expected to overcome me didn't make a move, either. The smell of pine came to me on a wave of wet wind. I reached up slowly and began to unbutton my shirt, felt myself smiling as I did it. The sound of the Slayer was beside me now. And still the rain came down in torrents. Perfect sheets of perfect misery. I stood and watched them wash everything away.