Chapter 2: Chaos Renewed

Tobias stood in the middle of the crowded sidewalks, visible only to those he wished to see him. Something was off in his city, he knew it. Could smell it on the air, could taste it like trash on tongue. The Dark Ones didn't organize that often, and when they did it was an easily squashed attempt. Yet Tobias sensed he was missing something. A detailed he'd overlooked or some piece of knowledge he hadn't acknowledge. Whatever it was, the niggling sensation at the back of his mind would stop.

He began walking then, allowing himself as he often did to mingle seemlessly into the human traffic. They didn't even bother to blink at him, so obsessed with their own lives that they didn't stop to realize that death walked among them. He was the true Harbinger of Death to those who dared to sacrifice human lifes for their own gain. Yet he couldn't deny his own guilt. How could he, when he in fact traded off on that lifeforce to remain in existence. No, he didn't kill, but he did have to take human blood to remain alive and at full power to keep the Dark Ones at bay. And this he hated himself for almost as much as he hated his breathren he hunted.

Carelessly, he forced a man in his way to change directly by a simple excertion of his will. It was all to easy to manipulate humans and the rush of emotions one could inspire in them was an addicting high he had avoided throughout his existence, yet now he used it as needed, no longer even able to feel that dark swirl in his mind that told him he was heading in a bad direction. He was far gone, no longer moral or detatched. He only had his own sense of honor that dictated that the Dark Ones deserved mercy delivered at his hands. He truly was a dispicable creature.

He heard the scream long before it reached the ears of the humans around him. A woman, off in the distance. He quickly flashed himself over a block, using the wave of energy from her voice to zone in on her location. In a deep, dark ally laid a woman, cradling a small figure to herself and sobbing uncontrolably. There was little blood left from the gapping hole in the child's neck. The Dark Ones didn't waste a drop of the precious lifeforce. Tobias knew immediately that this had been a retaliation aimed specifically at him by the Master who had organized the earlier attack.

He couldn't stop the emotions then, the blinding hatred that had him choking back a feral growl. Memories swamped him, taking over his mind and knocking the wind from his longs in a long, strangled sigh. Children playing, a field with lush grass and toys scattered about. A dark, hideous shadow plunging their world into blackness. The screams, endless screams of pain and terror. The fear, so raw and powerful, washing over the creature, an evil laugh escaping him. Then, Tobias stood there afterward with blood-red tears streaking his face, the demon inside him sated and sleeping, leaving him to deal with the aftermath of his evil. He was evil, always had been from the day he'd been turned.

Tobias wrenched his thoughts away from those memories and quickly put a lid on the dangerous rage bubbling up inside him. This is what the Master wanted, to test Tobias and make him lose his cool. To bring back the true demon that lived within him. He wouldn't let it happen, not again.

Tobias took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then another. He looked to the woman who had a group of humans gathering around her, yet she was looking past all of them, her eyes locked directly on his. As soon as he met her eyes the earth shook beneath his feet. No doubt she was seeing the glowing red of his eyes, the beast so loosely caged within him. Yet he saw every detail of her, her blood-red hair, the slash of green eyes that were now tinged with red, swollen lids and tear-stained cheeks that encompassed lush lips and a small, pert nose. She was very pale, scared and weak with fear, anger at the small child's death, and he realized then the reason she was looking at him. She thought he was the one who'd killed the child. The Master had taken his form while he slaughtered the innocent one.

Tobias immediately flashed himself out of the ally, up on to a nearby roof so he could observe the woman. He reached out to her mind, carefully connecting with her mentally and observing her thoughts and emotions. She was in chaos, total chaos. There were no coherent thoughts, only the need to move, the need for revenge, for justice. It was so deep-seated a rage that felt he would burn just from the contact with her mind.

He sent her soothing calm, wanting to reduce the painful ache within her. He didn't want to examine why, exactly. After all, he was truly the demon that made up his being, and had proved it time and again. He was certainly capable of taking a child's life. Yet this woman needed him and he had the unexplainable urge to sooth her.

While in her mind he left a loose link to her that he could follow if he needed and took to they sky, choosing to soar back to his house instead of flashing there. He needed the night air to clear his head, and he would just make it back to the house before the sun rose.

Yet one question remained with him: Why did that woman worry him so?