Dragon Knights Fan Fiction ❯ My Immortal ❯ Acquaintances ( Chapter 3 )

Disclaimer: Hey, look, don't sue me; the gerbils made me do it!

 

AN: Hmm... Well, we finally start to get into the real plot a bit in this chapter. The bad news is that, as with most things that I wrote a year or more ago, it's not nearly as well-written as I seem to remember it being, eh heh heh. And of course I'm far too lazy to make any major changes (plus B-chan might maul me), aargh... But just know this - the bit about the bathroom doorknob might seem like one of the least likely plot devices you've ever read, except that I wrote it because my bathroom doorknob is like that. Luckily nobody has ever tried to get in there that way, but still...

 

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Chapter Three: Acquaintances

 

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And so the tutoring continued. Kharl was surprised to find that Rath gave him no more real trouble. He wasn't exactly the friendliest student he'd ever had - they didn't really talk that much - but somehow, apparently, he'd earned at least a small amount of begrudging respect. Anyway, it gave him a chance to catch up on his reading. On Friday he used some of his new-found fortune to treat himself to dinner out, though that didn't mean quite the same thing for vampires...

 

Of course, it wasn't what it sounded like, either. 'One would be too many' - that was what they said. There were... places he could go...

 

In fact, he was just beginning to think that he could get though this entire job without any more serious trouble, until he came over one Wednesday to find that Rath had barricaded himself in the bathroom.

 

By now he had been deemed fit to find his way to Rath's room on his own, so it came as a surprise when he was greeted by a butler. He muttered some apologies as he took Kharl's coat, and led him to the room.

 

"Run that by me again?" he said, staring at the firmly locked door.

 

"The young master apparently walked home by himself several hours ago," the butler explained. "No one saw him come in, and he will not let anyone see him now or tell us what is wrong."

 

Kharl sighed. He ought to get a raise for this... "Let me talk to him for a few minutes, would you?"

 

When the servant had left, he put his ear to the door. There was water running. "Rath? Hello?"

 

He was just beginning to wonder whether the boy had tried to drown himself, when he heard what sounded like someone leaning against the door. "Kharl?"

 

"Yes. Ye gods, you sound like you haven't slept in days. Are you okay?"

 

"Go away."

 

Kharl made himself comfortable, back against the door. "Sorry, wrong answer." Silence. "I could break this door down; I'm sure your parents could more than afford to pay for a new one. I might even be able to pick the lock." Silence. "Why should I go away?"

 

"Because it's none of your business."

 

"Oh, but it is. You're my pupil, and today is one of the days I'm supposed to teach you. Wouldn't it be funny if I had to say I couldn't because you'd locked yourself in a bathroom? Perhaps I could teach you through the door, pass papers underneath and that sort of thing?"

 

"It's not like you really do anything anyway," Rath snapped. Kharl smiled; ah, that was more like it.

 

"Of course, of course," he agreed. "However, what little I do do is at least making sure you do the work, and I can't even do that if you're locked in a bathroom. And besides," and here he surprised himself, "I must say I'm a bit concerned."

 

There was another pause, and Kharl was beginning to think he'd scared him off, but then he surprised them both and said, "Sorry. But today just isn't a good day, seriously. I'm not doing this to be mean to you or anything. Just... go away."

 

"No." Kharl smiled in a somewhat bemused way. "I'm afraid I can't do that. Do I need to repeat myself? I'm concerned."

 

"Why? You're not getting paid extra to be concerned, you know."

 

Kharl almost laughed at that. "Of course. But... I suppose I find you to be an interesting person. I'd really like it if you could consider me as more than an employee. I guess I'd like it if we could be friends. I know you must hear that all the time from your other teachers, but obviously they're not doing a very good job of it if a whole school full of them let you sneak out and hide yourself in a bathroom."

 

He heard what was very nearly a chuckle. "Yeah... I do hear that a lot." Silence.

 

Kharl sighed. "You're not going to let me in, are you?"

 

"No."

 

"Really?"

 

"Yes."

 

"Well, okay then." He walked away. Inside, Rath blinked. Kharl smirked.

 

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And a few minutes later he returned, screwdriver in hand. On the other side of the door Rath jumped as he got to work.

 

"Who's there? What are you doing?"

 

"Me again," Kharl said cheerfully. "I don't know if you noticed, but this is a very unfortunately designed door. What is the point of being able to lock it, I ask you, if all one has to do is unscrew the handle from the outside?"

 

Silence. "Kharl?"

 

"Hmm?"

 

There was a click. "You can come in."

 

He raised an eyebrow. "But why? I've almost got it open."

 

Rath smiled slightly. "Yeah, but it'd suck to have to put it together again when you go."

 

Kharl came in. And nearly dropped the screwdriver when he discovered why Rath had barricaded himself. His face was nearly unrecognizable, though at least he'd cleaned it up somewhat and nothing appeared to be broken, but Kharl wasn't so sure about the rest of his body. His hair was matted, his clothes were ripped, and he was strangely frightened that Rath might be leaning against the bathtub because there was no other option. 'Don't be silly - he walked the whole way home! He's probably just a bit tired...'

 

Rath smiled at him, snapping him out of his daze. "You know, you're the first person who noticed that? I gotta say I'm impressed. Or at least, if any of the servants noticed, they were too chicken to actually do anything. You know, I think they're a bit scared of me... Shut the door, thanks."

 

Kharl knelt down next to him, amazed and secretly thanking the powers that be that it wasn't dark yet, with all this blood lying around... "What happened?" he asked, absentmindedly reaching out to touch Rath's cheek; he flinched. What on earth...

 

He shrugged. “I got in a disagreement with some... acquaintances of mine... They say my money is too good for me. I couldn't agree more, but even so they seemed to think they needed to emphasize the point...”

 

“Who?” he said curtly, absentmindedly swatting Rath's hands away as he checked for broken bones. A couple of bruised ribs at worst, but nothing broken... Though, lord, it looked like one of them had had a knife...

 

“Acquaintances.”

 

Kharl sighed as he prodded Rath's arm. “Does this happen often?”

 

He shrugged again. “Not too often. They seemed particularly irritated today.”

 

“Any idea why?”

 

“No.”

 

It's because it was snowing. You know it is, don't you?

 

“Oh, good.” Kharl rocked back on his heels and eyed him sternly. “You really have to tell me who did this, Rath.”

 

“Acquaintances,” he said, staring right back. Kharl glared.

 

“I'm not taking no for an answer, you know. I assume your parents don't know about this? Yet, that is?”

 

Rath blanched. “Don't you fucking dare!” Kharl scoffed.

 

“Really, such language...”

 

Rath grabbed his sleeve; the desperation in his eyes shocked him for the second time that day. “Look, if I tell you who, who's to say you won't just turn around and tell my parents? Or the school?”

 

“This isn't just pride,” Kharl said slowly. “They've got something on you, don't they?”

 

“No!”

 

“Yes, I think they do...”

 

Rath glared. “Just answer the question!”

 

Kharl smiled wryly. “Alright, on my honor... If I let any names slip to anyone, I'll quit, okay? So I won't be any more trouble to you? Sound fair?”

 

“Not really... Why do you even want to know, if you're not going to tell anyone?”

 

Because I could punish them far worse than anyone else, and just might... “Just in case,” he said. “You know, just in case thing get too bad, and you... can't tell us yourself, right away...”

 

“That's what friends are for,” Rath snapped.

 

There was a moment of silence. Kharl stared. What a peculiar sinking feeling; it'd been a long time since he'd felt like that...

 

Then Rath grimaced. “I... I'm sorry. Could you go get me some aspirin?”

 

So Kharl got the aspirin, and a glass of water. He raised an eyebrow as Rath swallowed both pills at once, and then drank the water, the whole glass at once. Rath grinned. “Usually I take three, you know... Fedelta and Saabel.”

 

“What?”

 

Rath rolled his eyes. “You wanted to know, didn't you? Do you need me to write it down or something?”

 

Kharl gaped slightly. “...Thank you.”

 

Rath shrugged. “Whatever.” He stood, painfully. “Look, I'm feeling pretty crappy right now, so could we please skip it for today? The tutoring?”

 

Kharl stared. He thought Rath might have said 'what?', but he wasn't really sure. Skip the tutoring, he said. What did Rath think he was, some kind of insane demon? Well... But still. He could have laughed out loud. Instead, he shocked himself for the third time that day, by standing up and hugging him. 'Thank you...'

 

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Kharl licked his lips appreciatively, before dropping the fresh corpse in his hands. It'd been... so long... There would be hell to pay, no doubt. It could be decades before he heard the end of this, knowing vampires. But he was doing this for a just cause. Right?

 

The object that had recently been Fedelta hit the floor with a thud, but by then Kharl was already airborne.

 

Okay, so maybe it was over-kill. Yeah, yeah, yeah, whine whine. Scum like that didn't deserve to live. Considering the circles he probably dealt in, he practically had 'shoot me' plastered to his forehead anyway. He could taste the drugs in his blood, tainting it; it was a shame that his first kill in centuries was something so diluted...

 

The city lights glistened below him. He could make out places by now; he'd been here nearly a month. My, how time... flew... On a clear night like this, if he concentrated, he could imagine that he was flying over an ocean, and the lights below were actually reflections of the stars above. This high up he couldn't really hear anything, which helped increase the illusion. And here he was, flying the narrow line in between, never quite able to be part of either...

 

Of course, from there it was just a small step further to imagine that he was flying over an ocean upside down, and that was horribly unpleasant.

 

Why was he doing this? It wasn't like he hadn't had friends he'd been willing to kill for since he'd sworn off it. Friends came, friends... went. Was it just that he'd never had a reason? Was it that the bad guys had never been so full of shit before? Or... what?

 

The good guy might not be so pure either, he reminded himself. He should have asked. Having someone blow a few fairly large-ish holes in you can make you pretty forgetful, even if they had healed up already. He'd liked this shirt... Oh well. He still had another stop to make tonight.

 

It had been easy enough to track down the two boys. If Rath could sneak out of the school when there were people in it, then surely he could sneak into the school when there weren't people in it and look at the records, especially when he happened to be a vampire... And to top it all off, Saabel slept with his window unlatched. How careless of him.

 

Kharl landed with a quiet whump, scattering black feathers. Saabel muttered something and rolled over, but he didn't wake up.

 

Kharl paused next to the bed and delicately fingered a few strands of the boy's green hair. Gods, what a child. There was someone in his room who wanted to kill him, and he hadn't even woken up. He supposed that someone like this wouldn't have lasted long anyway. Was it really possible that such an amateur had done such horrible things to Rath?

 

He leaned down. "Saabel," he whispered. "Saabel, it's time to wake up."

 

Saabel groaned. "'Uck. Go 'way..."

 

"No." Kharl traced a long, thin red line down his cheek with a claw; Saabel's eyes snapped open.

 

"Shit!" Eyes wide, Saabel scrambled away and, in his hurry, fell off the bed. "Who are you?!"

 

"A dangerous madman." Kharl lifted him up by the collar; Saabel's hands automatically flew to his pockets. After about five shots he seemed to realize that it wasn't having any affect; Kharl rolled his eyes. "Please stop that. I'm going to have to buy a new shirt as it is." Frantic, Saabel twisted his head and managed to bite him, and then watched as the skin healed in front of his eyes.

 

Kharl sighed. "Are you done? This is all making me very... hungry..." He smiled. This tended to be rather informative with vampires.

 

He had to admit that he was impressed; after just a few moments of horrified silence, Saabel managed to say, "What do you want?"

 

"What did Rath do to you?"

 

Saabel gaped. "W-what are you talking about?"

 

Kharl glowered. "I really don't have time for this. Rath Illuser. You have a grudge against him, and you also know something that he doesn't want anyone else to know, and it wouldn't surprise me much if they were the same thing. What is it?"

 

Saabel stared at his wings for a moment, and made a strange choking sound. "If I tell you, will you leave?"

 

Kharl smiled again. "Of course." He let him go as a gesture of good will; Saabel collapsed to the bed, coughing.

 

"Freshman year. It was freshman year," he finally managed to say. "He was this snotty rich kid, you know, so we kind of picked on him... And then one time we got in a fight, and he... killed a couple people. With his bare hands. Their names were Gil and Bierrez." He grinned in a rather deranged way. "We were really impressed. We asked him to join us, but he wouldn't. His loss. Now he doesn't even fight back." Saabel shrugged. "He doesn't want anyone to find out that he's a murderer, so he doesn't talk either. It's a shame; he would've made a great - hey, what're you-! Oh my g..."

 

Kharl spat. Disgusting; this one tasted worse than the first one. So, Rath had a gang after him. But more importantly, Rath was a... He shivered. Like he could complain. Ye gads, was there ever going to be hell to pay. Then he kept his promise and left, leaving nothing but feathers behind.

 

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AN: Reeeeeeeeeeeviews. Cooooooooooffee. But mostly reeeeeeeeeeeviews.