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Nocturnal Bloodlines Main page Nocturnal BloodlinesFEEDBACK - Oh Yes Please -You can email us docwho2000@hotmail.com author: docwho2100 and mightygupo Consensual relationship depicted between adult women in this story. If you have a problem with that or are under 18 please do not read. ------------------------- Chapter 2 Tara reached out and caught the stake as it came towards her heart. She jumped down from the roof in front of the blonde. "Throwing stakes about and talking of killing my kind, who do you think you are girl, a Belmont." Tara chuckled, dropping the stake on the ground. "Look, go home, get married, have babies, live. Leave this place of death." Striking out, Buffy used her fast reflexes hoping to catch her off guard. She spun around and kicked out. "I am Buffy Belmont, what do you know of my family." She pushed in close, stake close to her intended target. Tara drew back from the fist, allowed herself to take the kick, then crossed her arms in front of her chest, blocking the stake. "I live in Transylvania. Of course I have heard of the Belmont's. I must say if you are a Belmont, you are far prettier than the last I met. And more womanly." Tara said in a monotone, although there was a part of her that liked the girls spunk, even though she was about as much a Belmont as Tara was a horse. Buffy drew back, "You have met other Belmont’s?" Buffy watched the woman but as she made no motion to attack, Buffy held her ground. "Who are you?" "I have known other Belmont’s... but the Belmont line is no more. As I was traveling here I heard of the death of the last two. They died without bearing sons." Tara answered without answering. "There is no one to take the mantle. So once again, Buffy... whatever your real last name is, just go home and get it out of your head that you are a vampire killer." Tara sighed and turned her back on the girl. "You lie," Buffy spat. "How dare you say that against my family name. Buffy moved having found a way to reach the blonde. She managed to move even and look in the blonde's eyes. She managed not to flinch at the extreme loneliness there. "You will dirty my family name just as your kind dirties the Earth." She flew at Tara and grabbed hold of the young woman. Tara looked deep into the woman's eyes seeing pain and fear. And in that moment knew that the woman spoke the truth. She let the woman grab hold of her, biting down on her instinctive urge to pull her sword and cleave the woman in half, for every since her mother and brother had died, the only ones that had touched her was the monsters she fought, monsters like herself. She softened slightly. "Forgive me. I didn't know that they had a daughter, the people only said they had no child to take over the lineage." Buffy froze and released the woman. "What?" she questioned softly as she let go, her concern for her family holding off the slayer senses screaming at her for blood. "What are you saying?" "I am saying they said they had no child to take over the lineage. The Belmont's gift and curse." Tara explained quietly. "There was no male heir, and it has always went to the males. There was no males so no one to carry on the bloodline." "Gift?" Buffy furrowed her brow, "You talk in riddles and you leave me to believe you are not as you seem." Buffy drew her dagger, "What are you?" "I am Tara Vlad Tepes." Tara introduced herself. "I've no wish to fight you, and I have to get to that castle." She pointed at Castle Dracula up above them. "I've not time to explain to you. If you are a Belmont then you must get far away from here and live. There might be hope yet with your existence. Go and I will take care of this." The name rang familiar, almost as if it was something Buffy had been forced to read one day at the Council by one of the stuffy tutors only to be forgotten when the next lesson had been given to her. She furrowed her brow and continued to circle warily as the name and its meaning danced for a moment on the tip of her tongue before it receded. She let her eyes flicker in the direction of the castle and felt her body tense, like a cat about to leap at it's prey. "The castle? It must be you I have been sent to stop from spreading a black taint across the land once again. Who are you working for?" The slayer could not believe this thing that felt neither fully vampire nor human could be the dark evil prophecy had proclaimed would come again, but she might be a minion the slayer could use to gain information from. "Devils woman!" Tara said exasperatedly. "Don't you get it, I have come to put an end to that castle." Tara reached out and looked into the woman's eyes. And then pulled her close, knowing it was probably a mistake. "And you are the last living Belmont which I am sure that my father's minion's around here have already heard and are taking word to him now. If you die, then the family line that has fought my father when he awakes is gone from the face of this earth. If you want to kill me, then you can try, Belmont. But you will be killing your one true ally in this fight. Just as I fought with your great great grandfather, and the one before him. Do you even know your own lineage, girl?" Tara pulled back "Your father?" Buffy whispered starting at the woman as what this person had said slowly began to filter through her shocked surprise. She gripped her weapon tighter unsure whether to trust her slayer instincts and attack or attempt to sort through the foreign news she had just received. Trying to pick through everything the slayer swayed slightly as she focused on three words leaving the other powerful statements behind for the moment. "Last living Belmont? What are you saying?" "I am saying that your parents have died, Belmont. And you are there only child. If they had other children they must have died in childbirth or while young. I am sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but we don't have time for pleasantries. The bloodline is dead as of now, except there is you. You are the chance that your bloodline has. That is why I am telling you to leave, get married, and have children. Because if you die childless, then so to the Belmont's. I have defeated him before, I shall do it again, even if it is at the expense of my own life. We are put into this world, and we have to do things with our lives, most of which we don't want to have to do, and some like you, and me, have to make even greater sacrifices than the rest of the humans. But you need to get it in your head..." Tara reached out and tapped the side of Buffy's temple. "... that you are the only one left. If you chose to go up to that castle the way you are right now, you will die." "I am the slayer first and a Belmont second." Buffy spoke the words neutrally, all emotion gone as she pushed deep the immense sorrow and other strong emotions that threatened to devour her, having had those very words drummed into her head by everyone even her parents through their letters in the last year. For a brief instant, she was Buffy Belmont a 17 year old girl standing in some darkened village mourning the greatest lost she had ever known and feeling truly alone and afraid for the first time in her life. Just as that threatened to engulf her and paralyze her mind and spirit, the slayer essence reared up, growling. Reaching out it ensnared those feelings and pulled them deep within Buffy so she could focus on her mission. She had hated that statement of her destiny more and more over the last year and suddenly it took on new meaning as Tara's words struck her. For some reason it never occurred to her to doubt the truthfulness of the woman's statement's even though she was standing her telling Buffy she was somehow linked to the castle and the very people she had been sent here to destroy or die trying. "If I die another will be called and finish what i begin. It is you that stand in my way, I will complete what I came here to do and I will start with you." She moved back ready to attack and yet something made her hesitate as she once again looked into Tara's eyes. "Then there is no way that I can talk you out of going to that castle?" Tara asked with a deep sigh, knowing that her plans were going to have to wait. "Who is your father and why must you go to the castle?" The slayer shifted to the balls of her feet but still held the attack at bay. "And how could you have fought with my great great grandfather? He was a simple shopkeeper and, and he lived so long ago that you would have to be, dead..." She brought the dagger around again and placed her other hand on the folds of her dress searching to see if she had extinguished her supply of stakes. Tara shook her head, wondering if this was indeed the Belmont's last hope. "My father was Vlad Tepes Dracula. That... that is what he became. And yes, a simple shopkeeper and great warrior as well. He was a good and strong man. He defeated my father a hundred years ago. That was a battle to behold." Tara said softly. "So your simple grandfather saved thousands of lives. And really, did you think the daughter of Dracula wouldn't have vampire blood running in her veins. I may be alive, but I am still a creature of darkness. So I say that you have a choice. If you must go to the castle, then you can kill me here, and go to your own death, or you can come with me and we can retrieve your legacy, and you can learn your families magic, and you can stand a fighting chance." Tara stated simply. The dagger shook in Buffy's hand as two separate thoughts and feelings warred to control her next actions. The slayer hearing the name of the one she had been sent to destroy wanted blood and the fact his bloodline stood here in front of her demanded death. Yet something prevented her hand from striking out, the bare, plain truth this woman spoke continued to amaze Buffy. She should have been trying to draw the slayer's blood, to stop Buffy just as Buffy yearned to stop Dracula and those who served him. "My family's magic? A great warrior and the daughter of my enemy wishing to destroy her own family. Nothing is as it seems, is it?" The dagger was lowered to her side as she stared at Tara. "My family is dead. They died over four hundred years ago." Tara said emotionlessly. "And yes the Belmont's magic. Surely you didn't think they fought Dracula without some magic did you? And remember one thing... in Transylvania nothing is ever what it seems. So Belmont, my patients wears thin." Tara reached up to her vest and unbuttoned the clothing over her chest. She pulled it aside, holding it open for the slayers weapons. "Do you plunge the dagger in and release my life’s blood, or do I take you where you can get some information?" Tara looked at the slayer, moving slightly so that the moon would shine on her vampiric inherited luminescent skin, to give the woman a good target at her heart, and waited for the answer. "Do not utter my family name again," She said quietly as she gazed at the bared skin in the moonlight. For a brief second she found thoughts of not her stake or dagger but her fingertips touching that pale skin and before she could stop herself she found the free hand had actually started to extend towards that goal. But she quickly pushed those aside and tore her eyes away as she snatched her hand back. "Your blood still may be mine if you follow your father in any form, thought or action." Buffy's words were a statement of fact, not a threat or taunt. "What information do you offer?" "My time following my father in his revenge is long over. And sorry, I can't speak of such things here. Can you trust me enough to come with me on a day and a half journey? I can find us horses if you can." Tara asked softly, closing her clothing back over and fastening it, pushing thoughts aside as they tried to surface. It was easily done, over three hundred years of bottling emotions had made it so, so quickly done that they were gone before Tara was even truly aware of there existence. "Trust you? No, I can not," the slayer replied truthfully. "I will need to discuss this with my Watcher. Can you spare enough time to come back to the tavern with me so I can let Giles know where I will be for the next few days? He has contacts here he had planned on meeting as I patrolled the town, I am sure he will welcome the possibility of information." "As you wish, my Lady." Tara said with a slight smirk that flickered in her eyes, before she could stop it, then tamped it back down making sure to school her mask of cold indifference. ~Emotions are for the weak, creatures like me do not deserve emotions, cannot allow it in, remember that Tara.~ "Lady?" Buffy's eyebrow rose slightly. "Is that a compliment or a mockery or perhaps a touch of both?" The slayer turned and started back towards the tavern, the dagger already secure once again as she bent to pick up a stake. "My name is Buffy." contact: docwho2000@hotmail.com page last modified - February 15, 2006 graphics from www.eosdev.com |