The Council - Ida's release Part 1

She stood there in basic issued baggy grey sweat pants and matching sweat shirt, clenching a single bag standing before the committee that had locked her away years ago. Her pale blue eyes had grown even paler over the years, her long blonde hair was scraggly, untamed, unbrushed and just a complete mess, much like her mind. Her skin tone had grown even paler, unfed from the source of life for years until a week ago when she was woken from a fifty year nap, locked far beneath the prison in a protected room preventing her mind from reaching out, or others from reaching in.

“Are you listening to me?” The woman sitting at the council table asked.

Idallia looked up from under her mess of hair, she was thirsty, thirstier than she had ever been, the thirst was the only thing on her mind, the only thing she could focus on.

“Bring her another bottle.” One of the men said and within seconds a bottle of synthetic blood was placed into her hands.

She had been drinking these all week, they were horrible, nothing like the real thing and they barely touched upon the thirst she was craving. She needed real blood. And since when did they start putting this stuff in bottles? Who came up with this crap? Knowing she wasn’t getting anything better for some time, she downed the bottle, chugging it quickly so as not to have to deal with the awful taste that it left behind.

“Better?” The woman asked.

Idallia clenched her bag just a little tighter. She wanted out of here, and despite the deranged thoughts that ran through her mind right now, she knew she had to keep her cool if she was to be released. She thought about Ellie, trying to refocus her mind from the thirst. It seemed like only yesterday she was with Ellie, running wild and free…. Fifty years. She bit her lower lip and merely nodded.

“Good then we shall continue.” The woman spoke again as she picked up a piece of paper and rattled it as if trying to make some sort of point. “Idallia Draconia, on behalf of the High Council of Vampiring Affairs, further referred to as H.C.V.A. You are being released back into society, your debts for your crimes forgiven as of this day, the sixteenth day of December in the year two thousand and seventeen.” The woman looked over the paper at Idallia to make sure Ida was still paying attention. She cleared her throat and then went back to the paper. “You have already undergone a week long crash course on today’s society to associate yourself with our more modern times. As part of your release you will be required to undergo our work release program. You will be assigned to a location; you will be bound to a small town of which you will not be allowed to leave for the time period of one year, at which time your progress will be evaluated.”

The woman nodded and one of the guards came forward with a band.  He stepped up to Idallia and then leaned over and placed the band around her ankle snapping it in place. The band made a strange hissing noise as if it had come to life. As Idallia looked down she watched the band seem to take on a life of its own and begin to merge with her skin, becoming part of her until the only thing left was a shadow of its existence.

“The band that has been placed on your ankle is a monitoring device of sorts. It is to ensure that you do not leave the location you are assigned to. You may not go more than five miles in any direction of your assigned work location.  The closer you get to that five mile radius; you will feel the pain of the band, a burn as if the sun was setting upon your bare flesh. If you cross the radius, you will die. It is also a tracking device, we will know your location at all times.  Any questions so far?” The woman looked directly at Ida again.

Idallia stood there in silence, shifting her weight from one foot to the other feeling anxious to get out of here. She kept her mouth closed, hiding the fangs that she could not seem to control.  Other than quenching her insatiable thirst, her mind was also on Ellie. How would she find Ellie if she was restrained to a five mile radius?

“Very well… “ The woman stood up.  “More will be explained to you on your way out and once you arrive at your destination. You are being sent to Creekwood.” The woman closed the file and passed it off to someone else. The two men that were seated at the sides of the woman also stood up.

“There is one more thing.” The woman made a motion at the door and it was opened and a young human girl was led into the room. The girl looked terrified, no more than eighteen or nineteen years of age.  “She is yours.”

Idallia’s eyes rolled over red. She could not hold it in. The ravenous hunger was out. She was fast and had that girl in her hands within the blink of an eye. Just as her fangs were about to sink into the girls flesh she felt a searing hot burning that radiated through her entire body. The pain was so great she was forced to release the girl and drop to her knees in a cry of pain.

The woman stood behind Idallia, grabbed her hair and pulled her head up to look at her. “You will protect her, keep her alive. You may feed on her, but if you kill her, if anyone kills her, you too will die.” The woman yanked up the pant leg on the girl to show her ankle, “She too is bound, and is connected to you. You will learn to co-exist with humans as we do in the world.” She dropped the girl’s pant leg and then released Ida’s hair. “Learn to like the bottles.” She smirked and moved away. “Guards, take her away.”

One of the guards grabbed her dropped bag; another one grabbed her arm and lifted her to her feet.  They led her out of the prison and to a van that was parked in the large garage. She was placed in the back along with the girl, as if some sort of cruel joke to entice her to feast upon the girl’s throat. The scent alone was driving her insane. The girl sat across from her in the van, moved as far into the corner as she could possibly go, huddled up upon herself trying to make her body as small as she could. Idallia could smell the fear, making that temptation all the sweeter.

The council woman had said she could feed off the girl, but in her current state she feared she would not be able to stop. Her body still burned from her earlier attempt. She moved her hands up on either side of her head trying to force the maddening thoughts away. All she could imagine was red… crimson, the taste of life draining out over her tongue. The sound of the girl’s heartbeat played like a drum to her heightened senses. She could hear the blood moving through veins. She closed her eyes tight, her hands now over her ears trying to block out the sound. “Stop it…. Stop it…” She started to say to herself talking herself out of what could potentially be the girls and her own demise.

One of the guards passed back another one of those bottles of so called blood. Idallia took the bottle and then hurled it hard against the back of the van. “WHAT IS THIS SHIT!??” She screamed out as the bottle exploded and the contents spilled out splashing all over the back of the van, over the girl, and over herself. The girl screamed, Ida moved, in a flash she was sitting next to the girl, had the girl’s head back, her hand wound in the soft tresses of goldne hair framing a lovely paled face. The girl’s neck was exposed. Ida could see the pulse. She was never one at restraining herself. She had always taken what she wanted regardless of the consequences. She always had Ellie with her, she never worried about consequences, Ellie had always looked after her. But Ellie was not here now, could not save her from this band of death. She pulled tighter on the girl’s hair. Her mind was no longer her own, she had no control. She had always struggled with control but now she was ready to let herself die for just this one kill, one bite!  She felt the burning sensation starting in her ankle, the pain was immense but the hunger was greater.  The girl was screaming further feeding to her maddening hunger. She leaned in, her fangs extended ready to strike.

Suddenly she was feeling something she had not felt in a very long time. It was almost as if she could feel the cool breath of her lover against her skin, a soothing against the burn. She shivered and looked around. The sensation had been so close like she had been touched, and she knew that touch, only one person could make her tremble that way. “Ellie…” She breathed. She felt her mind easing from the panic of eating the poor girl and ending both of them right then and there. The pain of the burning began to subside.  Her grip upon the girl loosened.  She smiled, released the girl’s hair and pushed her aside.  Ellie knew she was alive, sensing her distress and somehow was calming her through a distance. Even if it wasn’t the case, it was what Ida believed in her mind, and it was enough to sate her… for now.

It had been a bright sunny day, the last thing she had remembered. She'd been meant to meet up with her best friend Tori and was running late, which wasn't unusual. She'd just called Tori to tell her she was stopping for gas, and Tori had grumbled something along the lines of what a ditz she was. But then she had slid the iPhone back into the pocket of her shorts and walked over to pay. And that was the last thing she knew before it happened.

When she awoke in the prison, it was in a daze. It reminded her of the one time she and Tori had stolen alcohol from her parent's liquor cabinet and gotten totally smashed. But she could not remember the actual memory, just some hazy far off feeling that something was very much wrong. It was so dark, why was it so dark? She was unable to move and strange shadows moved about. She had only ever watched horror movies about such places, why was she in one? Dreaming, yes she must be dreaming. What was going to happen next?

There was something she was supposed to do, but every time she almost got a grasp on what it was, her mind would blur once more. She felt fear, intense fear, but it was as if someone had injected novacaine into her mind, and it was all too numb for her to even think straight. She stood silently in a room, it was so dark in here, why was it so dark? Hands touched her, drug her about, she knew there was a bracelet on her ankle, but she was still too confused to give any intelligible response to anything asked of her, which luckily was not much.

She shook her head, long wavy curls of blonde hair tumbling about her face, trying to unscramble the goo that now replaced all of the things she still subconsciously felt she should be remembered but could not. Strange voices, talking about strange things came from a nearby room. They ushered her in and she cringed as she saw Ida sitting there and they said the words, 'she is yours'. Lyric went to speak but found there was really no way to respond to how bizarre this all was. And suddenly, she screamed as she felt Ida grabbing her, saw her teeth and even in her glamoured stupor she knew this was not going to be good.

Her mind flashed back for only a second, just enough for her to remember the last episodes of Trueblood that she and Tori had watched last summer, but then it slipped away again, she couldn't even think what Tori's name was right now and could barely envision her face, but the word vampire rung in her head, whatever weird dream this was, these were definitely vampires. She went to open her mouth to scream again, but before she could make a sound they were being led out to a van, she struggled only the tiniest bit, there was not much use with how strong the arms were the pushed her inside. She curled herself tightly against the seat, far away from the woman who clearly wanted to bite her and drink her blood.

Lyric screamed loudly when the bottle burst all over her, the pretty pink dress she'd bought at the mall last week now soaked in blood. She tried to cover herself but before she knew it, the woman had her teeth ready and Lyric felt her neck exposed again. She screamed and pleaded for her not to, but the words that came from her lips were far too incoherent to make much sense. And then just as suddenly as Ida had grabbed her, she was now pushed away.

She curled into a ball as the van rumbled along the road to their destination. In her pocket, her phone was on silent, and Lyric was completely unaware that it was gathering more and more messages that were not being received. She rocked back and forth mumbling confused words to herself over and over, wondering when this nightmare would end.

Ida sat back against the seat of the van. She closed her eyes and for a moment she could see the visage of Ellie standing before her, holding her arms out waiting for Ida to once again be locked away in that protective embrace. Oh how she wanted to be there more than anything, more than this hunger she was fighting, more than she wanted to rip the girl’s throat out. She wanted to be home, in Ellie’s arms.  She reached out, wanting to touch and be close to the woman that was her world, had been the life even after her death, the only one that truly understood her and the only love she had ever known. Just as she was about to touch Ellie, she faded, trickling away to another existence, back to this harsh reality.

Her eyes opened, she felt something strange, wetness against her cheek. As she raised her hand to touch her face she streaked the blood that had fallen from her eye across her cheek, pulling her hand back seeing the red stain upon her fingers. Tears? She shook her head. No, she wasn’t going to resort to this. She turned her head back to look at the girl cowered in the corner of the van, visibly shaking. This was twice already she had threatened to bite the girl, and twice she was pulled away. She didn’t dare try a third, she knew if she got close again it would be over… for both of them, and now she had a purpose, a reason to keep going, Ellie.

The van was dark, the only windows in the back were those two small squares of glass on the back doors, and those had been blacked out with paint leaving the inside of the van very dark, though that wasn’t an issue with her, Idallia could see just as clearly as if it had been daylight. Her eyes were still red, her fangs still extended as she continued to battle her bloodlust and knowing that just inches from where she sat was this delicate warm body thriving with life giving goodness. ‘Just a little sip…’ she would say to herself and find herself moving just a little closer to the girl. ‘Don’t do it…. You won’t be able to stop.’ And she would scoot back again.

The torment felt as if it was going on and on for hours. She had no idea how long they had been in that van, stopping several times to get gas. She knew it was becoming daylight by the change of temperature in the van, and the slight increase in light in the still very dark confines. The girl barely moved, through the entire ride, staying as small as she physically could, shaking like a mouse being stalked by a cat. And just like the cat, Idallia sat there perched at the edge of her seat, watching, and ready to pounce at the slightest movement the mouse might make all while battling the games her mind was fucking her with.

The longer they were in that van, the more she felt like a caged animal. She was becoming increasingly more agitated and anxious. Eventually she moved herself to a seat even further away from the girl, trying to distance the temptation, though the scent… god that scent. She closed her eyes and tried to find her way back to Ellie again, back to the calm before the storm. “Ellie…” She whispered. She had to find her.  

The van suddenly came to an abrupt stop. The two HCVA guards got out of the van and came around to the back. The doors were unlocked and swung open. The outside stench hit Idallia like running into a brick wall at full speed, a smell of trash, alcohol, urine, and a mixture of other things she was not familiar with. She could smell humans but most of them smelled foul, their blood poisoned with drugs and alcohol and diseases, things that made Idallia cringe.

“Out” One of the guards ordered.

Idallia moved first, stepping out of the van, past the guard who’s name tag indicated his name was Jim and into the twilight of dusk. She squinted her eyes as she looked out at the orange tinted haze. The buildings blocked out what little sun remained resting along the horizon, but the changing colors from dusk to night streaked between the clouds in brilliant shades of dark blues and purples with the occasional sprinkle of stars that were just starting to make their appearance.  Idallia realized it had been fifty years since she had stood out under the night sky, fifty years since she was able to inhale deeply taking in all the scents of nature… only this time, when she did she was quickly brought back to the stench of the location she had been dropped in.

The guards were pulling the girl out of the van, the sweetest smelling thing for miles around. Ugh, how was she going to resist this? She could have the trash, or the honey, but the latter might be the end of her! She growled under her breath and then looked away trying to make out where she was.

Jim handed her the tote bag she had with her earlier, the only possessions she had in this world. She grabbed the bag and held it close, using the knowledge of the contents as a security blanket of sorts. She looked around, taking in the strange builds of the cars that sat in the parking lots, the buildings, she watched as an older man who had to be in his sixties practically dragged a younger woman probably no more than nineteen or twenty into a store labeled XXX Videos and More!  The girl was poisoned with some sort of drug that Ida could smell in her veins and she radiated fear. The bright neon lights hissed as if they were alive drawing her attention to the signs, Videos… what was a video?

“This is it.” Jim said drawing Idallia’s attention back to the building before them. “The Drunk Tank, your new home.” He smirked and placed a set of keys in her hand.  “Upstairs on the third floor is your apartment. You will find a folder with all your information, license, any documents you might need, documents for her.” He motioned to the girl. “Her name is Lyric, as you have already been told, she is under your protection. If she dies, you die. The bands work by your emotion as well, which you have already discovered in the van. If the magic thinks you are going to kill her, you will feel the pain.”  He paused a minute and then continued, “Remember, you can’t go more than 5 miles from this point here. The radius has just now been activated.” As he spoke he clicked on a little button device in his hand and it beeped and a little light turned from red to green. He then tossed it to Ida. “If it goes red, you are dead.” He laughed at his little rhyme clearing getting a kick out of all this. When nobody else laughed or seemed amused by him he straightened himself up and carried on. “There is a key on the keychain I gave you to a safe in your apartment. The safe contains your money, what you need to get started anyway. You will be on your own to make this business work for you.  Once those funds run out, that’s it, you are not getting anything else from HCVA….. And last thing…” He pulled out a small little device and turned it on, the face lit up with little different colored pictures on the screen. “This is your phone. It is only a one way phone. Meaning you can only contact your parole officer with it, and anyone from HCVA can contact you to check in on you. If it rings, I suggest you answer it.” He placed the phone in her hand. “Any questions?”

Idallia looked down at the phone in her hand. “Yes…”

“Then call your parole officer, I’m not here to answer them” Jim smirked again and straightened up his jacket and puffing out his chest as if he were some hot shit.

“Good luck.” He laughed and shook his head before following his partner back to the van. “Oh, and just so you know, statistically, only about five percent of those that actually get released into these work programs survive the year…..” And with that he closed the van door and drove off.

There Idallia stood, lost, confused, bewildered, and surrounded by things she had no idea what they were or how they worked. She was still wearing the jail issued standard sweats, looked a mess, even more so now with the blood stain across her cheek.

She looked at this phone in her hand. The screen was no longer lit up; it was just a black surface.  She started to shake it a few times trying to get it to light up again but nothing happened. She watched out of the corner of her eye as someone else leaving the bar walked out with a similar device plastered to his ear. He was talking away into the phone. Idallia lifted hers to her ear and listened but heard nothing. “Hello?” she spoke into it but got nothing in return. She felt like a fool talking to this thing. “Broken, fucking broken…. YOU GAVE ME A BROKEN PHONE!!” She screamed in the direction the van had taken off to and then hurled the phone in that direction aiming at nothing in particular, just wanting to be free of it.

It was then that she started to feel warmth around her ankle. “What the fuck?” she looked around realizing that her human was missing. The warmth started to intensify. She could smell the girl close by, surrounded by the pungent scent of vomit and urine. She could tell the girl was frightened, could hear the increased heart rate over the other sounds; she could hear a couple of men around the corner in the alley messing with the girl. “You have got to be fucking kidding me!” She growled and made her way over to the alley entrance.

Lyric had closed her eyes so that she could not see Ida edging closer and further away again, not that it made much difference inside the dark van, but it was sort of like a little kid hiding under a blanket saying if she couldn't see the boogeyman, that he could not see her either. But the fear persisted. She would feel Ida move even further away to a different seat entirely, but that only made it worse, she couldn't see her, and she had already felt how fast this woman could move, so it didn't seem to matter how far away she was, Lyric just knew that if Ida was going to bite her, it was going to happen whether she wanted it to or not.

She still couldn't remember all of the little glimpses of nagging thoughts in her mind either, not that she had been an altogether observant and put together person before, but it was still driving her crazy that she couldn't remember anything for more than a few seconds before it slipped away like smoke in the wind. The van would stop and she would want to beg to be allowed to go pee, but she dared not speak, these people were monsters, that much she was sure of, and so she had held it until finally they stopped and were being pulled out of the van.

This place was absolutely disgusting, it reminded her of somewhere though. She stood there with a glassy-eyed expression as the guard was talking to Ida, none of what he said made any sense to her. The street they stood on resembled the one Tori lived on with her dad, even the drunk man stumbling by had a familiar quality, but it didn't make her remember anything just yet, it just made that nagging feeling return, the one that said she had forgotten something, but didn't know what it was still.

However, when the guard handed Ida the phone, that sparked something inside of her. She slyly pulled her phone from her pocket and pressed the home button, but she couldn't even remember her passcode, but through the locked screen were a string of alerts, text messages, phone calls, most of them from someone named Tori, some of them said mom or dad as well. That started to kick her memory back into gear, but not enough for her to remember her passcode, she walked a little bit away from Ida, she didn't want her to see the phone and take it away.

"Hey there sweet thang.....you new around here? Don't see anythin' this pretty round these parts much..." A thuggish man had grabbed hold of her arm and was leading her towards an alley. She felt terrified and yet stuck, she wanted to run but she was still feeling really fuzzy, the only thing she managed to do was slip her phone back into her shorts pocket. And while the man missed seeing what she slid into her pocket, he didn't miss the way her shirt rid up when she had done that, nor did he miss the opportunity to slip his hand under it and cup her breast and sneer a bit as he whispered in her ear.

"Why don'tcha...." he said, and chuckled as he looked at her, and then to his circle of friends standing with him. ",,,,why don'tcha just be a sweetheart and let us admire this thing of beauty you got here....seein' as how we been deprived of it ...." Lyric screamed again, that blood-curdling scream that made even the men jump back a bit. But the one with his hand up her shirt simply moved closer and covered her mouth with his hand. "Now don't be makin' a racket or there'll be more trouble...."

Oh how she actually wanted Ida to come find her, she'd heard something about having to protect her from that guard and the woman back at the prison, and while she knew that she might not like her ways of protection, in that moment she just wanted someone to make all of this go away.

Idallia could see the four men surrounding Lyric, one of them had his hands all over the girl. She cursed under her breath.  She could not believe she was about to do this… help a human. The fear coming off the girl was the same type of fear she had in the van when she thought she was going to die, and it was this fear that was linking them together with the binding magic of those anklets. The burning was getting more intense, moving up her leg as if someone had set fire to her flesh. She shook her leg in attempt to put out the flame though she knew the only way to rid it was to save the human.

“Hey!” she called out to the group of thugs. “She’s mine!” She hissed feeling sickened even speaking those words regarding a human. She had never claimed a human and had no intent to ever have one, yet here she was, stuck with this one. The man who had been fondling Lyric released her and turned toward Idallia with a big grin.

“Well well lookie here fellas, looks like we gots another one that wants to play. Come on over here sweetheart.”

Idallia was in no mood to play games.  She had fifty years to make up for, new things all around here. She was out of her elements, out of her time and away from Ellie. She could not control it when her eyes bled over a dark red. Her fangs extended from her upper teeth. She looked up from the wild mess of blonde hair. Her cheek was still streaked with the fallen blood from earlier. The quickly falling light of day cast an eerie shadow across her visage coordinated in just the right time to appear as if she were controlling it with her actions and words.

The men started to back off. “Yeah yeah alright, she’s yours.” The one said holding his hands up in front of him. “What the fuck is that” Said another.

The leader of that group didn’t get another step or another word in. In the blink of an eye she was no longer at the opening of the alley, but standing in front of the man with a hand around his throat. The ravenous hunger had taken over; there was no going back now. She didn’t care if they smelled of drugs and alcohol, all she could smell now was the blood that ran just under the surface of skin.

Ida had never been ‘nice’ in her feedings. She rarely if ever used glamour. She preferred her victims to squirm, to scream, to try to run away and she fed on that fear. The fear is what intoxicated her mind and generally made her want to be with Ellie rolling around in the aftermath of blood, riding that high fucking until the light of day. She could almost feel Ellie with her now, like in the days of past.

Without a second thought, her fangs were buried into the man’s neck. He squirmed, he screamed and she drank harder, gulping in that life giving fluid, feeling the warmth of the blood gush over her tongue and down her throat, tasting that sweet metallic taste that she had been deprived of for so long. Her fangs sank down harder, wanting to pierce that vein over and over again, turning herself on with just the mere satisfaction of how it felt sinking her teeth into flesh once more.

She could hear screams like faint whispers behind her, lost in her own feral mind. She could feel his heart slowing, she could feel the fight leaving his body, and just before he would get to that point of no return she felt a sudden pinch upon a nerve around her neck. It was a pain that forced her fangs to release the man.

Idallia let the man fall in the ruble of trash that littered the entire ground for as far as the eye could see. She tried to turn to find the source of the pain, but the pain was too great, bringing her to her knees. She couldn’t look back, she could barely move, it was as if this nerve was paralyzing her.  A man leaned down and whispered into her ear.

“This is the only time I will save you. Next time, you will meet the true death.”  His voice lowered as he added, “Remember, they are watching you, always watching you.” He released his hold on her and stepped back.  When Idallia turned around, she saw a handsome man dressed in hospital scrubs, but he was no normal man.

“Take your girl and get inside. I’ll take care of this. The others have already been taken care of and won’t remember anything, so has she.” As he was speaking he hoisted the fallen man over his shoulder and started to walk off whistling a random tune, calling back, “I’ll be seeing you again.” He gave a slight motion with his hand and carried on with his whistle and disappearing into the dark.

The girl….. Idallia turned around seeing Lyric standing there with wide dazed eyes, lost in some other world.  Idallia made her way to the girl, grabbed Lyric’s arm and started to drag her to the building, stopping to pick up her bag that had become disregarded. She glanced back one more time to see if she could see the man who had spoke to her. She knew he wasn’t just a man, not a human man anyway. He was a vampire, and a much older and stronger one than she.

Continued in Chapter 1 thread CLICK HERE