Misery Loves Company //Ashton//

[Ashton Wentworth]

He could see her growing more desperate with ever passing second. It was visual, her black veins popping out more clearly against her porcelain skin. The bones in her chest starting to jut out at odd angles, like she was dehydrating at an unnaturally fast pace. He would certainly have to tell Rutherford about the success of the spell that he had used against her, it would prove useful again in the future for certain. Oh, how he loved unwitting guinea pigs. There had been a few long moments there where he had really be worried, that she was going to get the upper hand. He didn't like to admit it to himself, but he wasn't immortal like her. Even though she had her weaknesses, obviously. He could only hope now that she was going to take the deal, that she was going to allow herself to be reluctantly saved in exchange for whatever information might be locked inside of her head. It really would be a shame for somebody like her to die untapped, she didn't need to take her secrets to the grave. His eyes darted once to the body of the female vampire he had been holding hostage earlier, the same one that she had killed to keep from talking. At least he hoped that meant that they knew some of the same things at the very least. It was near impossible to get a corpse to talk, he was skilled in many things, necromancy wasn't one of them. Narrowing, his eyes turned back to hers, getting more and more impatient with every passing wheeze of his chest. Normally whenever he was wheezing this bad, it was on the way down to the nurses station in the ministry because he and her little boyfriend had gotten into yet another fight over something stupid. She hadn't even punched him, just tossed him around and it was the same effect. Somehow, he didn't think that Stavros would have been too pleased with that information whenever he found out.

“You think far too highly of me,” his scoff at her words spurred yet another coughing fit. Neither of them was in fighting shape, and even more apparently, neither wanted to be here any longer. “I don't think of you at all” He spouted, spitting something from his mouth, it seemed that he had bitten his tongue the last time she threw him against the wall, as a small amount of blood flew from his mouth and hit the already foul floor. Gesturing to it with a cruel expression, “You want to lick that up, bottom dweller?” No doubt, if she didn't know that it was already poisoned, she might have tried it. How desperate was she starting to get? “My knowledge only extends so far.” Carefully, he followed her glance behind her. He didn't move as she scooted backward, slumped against the wall in defeat. He assumed it was defeat, she wasn't that good of an actress if he could recall their first meeting. “You know enough I'm sure” he lowered his wand an inch or so, letting his tired shoulders rest. He had been shouting enough spells over the course of the last few hours. Judging by the amount of corpses in the room, they had been effective enough. Though, he knew that he hadn't even done half of the damage than they had done to themselves. Animals. “Though, I have to admit, the prospect of dying to a kid like you does disgust me,” “Such kind words” not looking at her, he let his eyes move around the room. Until she got some blood, it seemed that she was down for the count. He was closer to the door than she was, so there was no way in hell he was going to let somebody push past him and into the room to come to her aid. If they even had any other humans here for that purpose, he didn't think so given how hard it was for him to get in here earlier.

“I doubt I’ll know anything you want to know, but what the hell, try me on for size.” That got his attention. Lowering his wand the rest of the way he nodded. “Good girl” reaching across the small space to the shattered bar, he found a glass that was still mostly in tact. With the tip of his wand, he made a small cut in his arm, and let some of his blood pour out into the cup. “You answer, and I'll clean it out for you.” He hoped the fact that if she didn't answer, he would force the dirty blood on her anyway would have crossed her mind. Healing the tiny cut and not bothering with any of the other injured area's on his body, he set the glass on the sticky floor. “The woman that you killed, who controls her?” he knew that while the woman had been important, she hardly was the one actually pulling the strings. There was something bigger at work. “Now that her coven's gone. Who's going to replace her?” start small, and build from there.

[Keara Sonnet]

Keara’s head lolled to the side as her eyes scanned the side of the room, then the other. It was quite obvious she was canvasing the surroundings to see if there were any other options than sitting here at his mercy. Even as her eyes covered every square inch of the place, despite how blurry they were getting since her body was having issues healing from the spray, his blood, and whatever he had done to her, she couldn’t see a single thing that would be useful. There were dead, rotting bodies everywhere, empty bottles, but not a single thing she could use to replenish her strength. The only thing she could do was kill him, but it was unfortunate that they were a soundproof room. Even if she killed him, she wouldn’t be able to move to the door quick enough before the last motor functions in her body shut down. The spell he had cast was immobilizing her faster than she had ever heard of. It took a minimum of months for a vampire to become a mummified version of themselves. And that was a starving vampire. She had heard of some taking over a year just to get to the stage she was at. The only thing she could think of was a blood-draining potion, but for that to happen, it had to go somewhere. The only way for the blood to just disappear from her system without going elsewhere was for it to be used, but her knowledge of spells was not vast enough for her to know if there was a single one that could do that to her.

Her eyes dropped to the ground as she gave up her search, but as she did so, a sudden smell of fresh blood overcame her senses. They flickered back up to him just as he spit blood onto the floor. Her eyes followed it and an overwhelming urge to run to the spot hit her, but she knew better. Despite how much her body needed it, Keara wasn’t that pathetic. “ You want to lick that up, bottom dweller?” A hiss grew from deep within her throat, but she ground her teeth and held it back. Mostly because she didn’t feel like wasting any energy on moving just to open her jaw, but also because she knew it would do no good. Ashton was going to just get a kick out of her feeble attempts to be pissed off. Hell, if she was in his position, she would probably do the same. “You know enough I'm sure.” She would have shaken her head in response, but it wasn’t happening. The only thing she could do was keep it back up against the wall. Her eyes stayed on him, though. When his wand finally lowered, she closed her eyes and took a moment to feel a small bit of relief. At least that was one thing she didn’t have to worry about for the time being. One shot from that spell and she was sure to lose whatever mobility she had left until someone eventually came into this room and gave her some untainted blood. Who knew when that would happen. “Good girl.” Though she wanted nothing more than to get up and punch him for calling her a girl, Keara instead ignored it. Her eyes remained closed, her head back against the wall, and she just listened. She could hear him shifting, then the sound of glass. Pieces of shattered glass were being shuffled around. Opening one eye, she saw he was bent over the mini-bar, pulling out one of the only intact glasses left. Opening the other eye, she watched him curiously. There were still some liquor bottles there that may not be damaged, but she didn’t think it was the time for drinking.

Gripping her hands tightly, she wanted to yell and scream at him, to tell him to get done with whatever he was trying to do and get out of there so she wouldn’t have to deal with him, so she would have a chance at someone finding her once he opened the door and allowed the stench filling the room to enter into the club. But as he moved his wand, her eyes narrowed and she bit back her words. For a moment, she thought he had changed his mind and was just going to finish her off, to tie up the loose end, but he instead pointed it at his arm and a small cut form, some of his blood pouring into the glass he had pulled from the wreckage. Again she could feel the strong desire to lunge at it instantly. Her body could feel nothing else, but her brain knew so much better. By now, she wouldn’t be able to move, let alone lunge. She could crawl, but it would be futile. His blood was tainted, it would only do more damage. Plus, it would be embarrassing. She had no interest in resorting to crawling. “You answer, and I'll clean it out for you.” She picked up her head from against the wall a few inches, her eyes slightly widened. Was he honestly going to help her after all he had done to get her to this state? What was he thinking? He was Ministry, she knew that. Ultimately, wasn’t it his job to kill people like her when they killed humans? She narrowed her eyes again, but leaned her head back. It was too difficult to worry about. She was just going to have to go along with the show. “Fine,” she muttered, closing her eyes.

“The woman that you killed, who controls her?” Sighing, Keara opened one eye to look at him again, then at the glass on the ground. Did she really want to go so far as to give this guy information? Anything that would lead him back to Centara wouldn’t be good. Though she was on her own side, Cen had become a rather good friend. The last thing she wanted to do was ruin that friendship, but she honestly didn’t see another way out. She just had to either be a very good liar, which she was rather proud of her skills in that department but she knew she wasn’t perfect at it, or she was going to have to make sure she only told the most minute details. “No one.” It was true. She was a clan leader, therefore answered to no one. Though she was supposed to answer to Cen in the end, she never did. Kea had to admit, it wasn’t shocking. “Now that her coven's gone. Who's going to replace her?” Groaning, Keara opened her other eye and looked at him with pinched eyebrows. “Please tell me you are not the expert in vampires for the Ministry, because if so, you really have not done your research.” She debated on how much information she wanted to give in relation to the coven bylaws. The last thing she wanted to do was give him more power against the clans, but in the end, was it really a problem if he knew how they were run? “If a coven is destroyed, no one comes to take its place. It’s just gone. Poof, thin air,” she said with an unenthused tone. It wasn’t a happy thing when a clan disappeared. It meant the end of an era. Some clans lived for centuries, and many of them held a lot of history behind them. But when every last vampire was destroyed, it meant that all the history went with it. Though, he was far from wrong about her clan being gone. The vampires in the room were not all related to her clan. Keara knew of at least two others that were not present, both of whom she didn’t get along with. Both of whom were also rather vengeful. She wouldn’t be surprised if there were more, but she never stepped foot into their clans territory. Since the woman failed to side with Centara in this battle, she had become off limits. Even in neutral status, Keara knew her bounds. “Next?” she mused, waiving at him to continue as she closed her eyes once more. She wondered how many of these she would have to do before he would just hand over the glass, or she just became motionless. She really didn’t care what happened first. The pain of starvation was starting to subside so she knew the second would be coming in time.

[Ashton Wentworth]

This was progress, that meant that it had to be good right? If nothing else, he could prompt her with the threat of registering her against her will of nothing else worked. At least, he hoped that might get him a little more information. Merlin what he wouldn't give for a drink right about now, or at the very least some morphine. His head was starting to buzz, and the fumes from the blood were making him nauseous. “Fine,” Another string of condescending comments sprung to mind at her single word. He bit his tongue to keep from spouting off something sarcastic, it would only lead to another path, one that wouldn't get him what he wanted, one that wouldn't allow him to walk out of here alive. Which, admittedly, was going to be rather hard to do anyway since they were both covered in blood of the dead monsters. “No one.” perhaps another spray to the face would change her mind, he would just have to find the damn spray again and use what was left of it to force her face apart. Then again, he was tempted to dump the contents on her just for pissing him off, for throwing him around the room like a puppet. “Please tell me you are not the expert in vampires for the Ministry, because if so, you really have not done your research.” He could feel his jaw pulse in displeasure as he waited for her to keep talking. He lifted the glass in his hand, threatening to tip the contents out and onto the floor, where she could lap at them like a dog if she got that desperate. Though, it might still be a little while before her brain stopped functioning enough to keep her from doing it. She knew his blood was tainted, she knew what it would do to her, but eventually she would reach a point where she no longer cared, and then she would do herself in. Perhaps that would be easier, just leaving her here with a glass of poisoned blood until she got too desperate, too hungry she had no choice but to drink it.

Luckily for the both of them, she started talking again. “If a coven is destroyed, no one comes to take its place. It’s just gone. Poof, thin air,” Her tone was annoying, but he said nothing. “Next?” this was worse than pulling teeth. He had spoken to a lot of thick headed people in his life, even those who were more monosyllabic than he was. Yet, she was being deliberately difficult, even with her own life at stake. With his jaw clenched, he glanced over his shoulder to see if he could spot the spray. “Unlike you, I can walk over to that bottle, and unlike you, I can harm you...not the other way around” he warned. At least, not anymore, he had been worried there for a little while. “So why don't you cut the shit, and tell me what I want to know” he said, pouring half the contents of the glass onto the floor. The look on his face should have been enough for her to know that he wasn't going to be offering up any more. He would blast through that wall to get out of here if he really had to. Settling into a position that wasn't cutting the blood flow from his legs he waited, and then she started talking again...