The Eavesdropping Demon

[Victria 0]

“It was like something out of a nightmare. They were...they were demons of darkness. They were pale...and their eyes...they glowed in the darkness of the lifeless ship.”

 

Several rooms away, Victria stood quietly, her sensitive hearing picking out every word of Ah-Windu's conversation with the boy - the only survivor of the freighter that her people had attacked. She could sense the nervousness in the boy's faltering voice and smell the fear that radiated from him as he recounted his experience. His description of her people amused her: demons of darkness. She liked that. It incited fear, and fear was a powerful weapon.

 

As she listened, her fingers caressed the blood-slick throwing star that had recently been embedded in the boy's body. It was a nasty piece of equipment, not meant to be extracted without significant tissue damage. She had examined the markings in detail, but they were merely decorative and held no House affiliation glyphs. That meant that those that attacked the freighter were either rogue (which she thought highly unlikely), or they were not tied to any particular House.

 

Though rare, there were some Nightstalkers that preferred to Hunt without being tied to the rest of society. Some of them simply staked their claim in the Old City. Some banded together in small clans of their own. But there were those that had not forgotten the ancient religions. Those few still worshipped their Scorpiad Masters with the zeal of fanatics and lived every moment to serve them. Of all her kin, they were the most determined - and the most dangerous.

 

She lifted her free hand and licked her fingers clean, savoring the intoxicating flavor. The boy's blood was sweet and untainted and tasted faintly of some unknown world. She wanted more.

 

As she licked the blood from the rest of the sharp blades, flashes of the boy's most recent memories filled her mind - blood / slaughter / death. It wasn't enough to receive a clear picture of what had actually happened, but it did match the story he'd given. If the boy was being used as bait for at trap or some sort of weapon, he was unaware of the fact. He'd not been bitten and had no trace of the virus that all Al-Ucardians carried in their bloodstream. Had his survival simply been fate? She had a hard time convincing herself of that. Her people never did anything without a specific purpose, goal, or order they were following. The attack on the ship, the planted incendiary device, and the sole survivor had all happened for a reason. But what?

 

Perhaps if she could get a larger sample of his blood, she could glean more information about his attackers. How traumatic would it be for the boy to wake up and find her feeding on him? Victria grinned to herself. An evil thought, but she'd never been a saint. It was only a thought, however. She knew the doctors would never let her close enough to scare the boy, much less get another taste of his blood.

 

Slender fingers pressed an obscure release on the throwing star. The blades snapped back into hiding, making the device nothing more than a harmless looking disc. She tucked the disc into one of her pockets thinking it might come in use later. Before Ah-Windu had a chance to leave the boy's bedside, she slipped out of the room and out of medical, heading for Security.