Hi guys. It's me. I took a break from posting Guess the Author's to write this. Yes, this one is written by me.
It seems like a long time that I've posted something that actually is! I need to give a hundred, million, billion thanks to Saskia and Sara Kraft for beta-reading this for me!
They made it so much better and picked out all of my slips and plot holes. This is definitely dedicated to them. This story is alternate universe. As per a suggestion, this story diverges from normal Superman...action. I wouldn't call it a wham, but if you're susceptible to such things, I'd read the author's note at the bottom. (It does ruin some of the surprise, however, so take that as you wish.)
Fire and Ice
by Robert Frost
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.-----
She was never sure what had pulled her gaze to the elevator doors that day. It could have been a number of things: the burning chill flooding down her spine, the sudden awareness of her blood pulsing hot beneath her skin.
It might have been the thickly lashed dark eyes that met hers from across the room.
Like a rabbit stunned by the barreling headlights of a car bearing down upon it, their gaze held—intense and dark and ferociously unfitting for the brightly lit newsroom. The man stepped across the newsroom with the graceful confidence inherent in charmed lives.
She half stood, her eyes flickered back and forth from her screen to the man, glimpsing his tall figure now silhouetted in Perry White’s office. Lois shoved herself back in her chair a moment later, forcibly shuttering her eyes against the strange attraction. Her blood pounded in her ears, rushed through her head, flooded her body. She felt both warm and exposed, chilled and hidden.
Even with her eyes closed, the image of the man burned into her retinas. He was handsome; there was no question about it. Thick, dark hair curled over his forehead and the stranger’s deep, almost black eyes had already held her transfixed. But Lois Lane knew attractive men. She was no stranger to tall, dark, and handsome, or the blonde Greek-god yuppies who populated the pulsing dance clubs in Metropolis.
When the door to Perry’s office creaked open, a voice bellowed out her name, startling her from her mental cataloguing of the man’s attributes. She cracked open an eye and saw Perry standing in the doorway, giving her a patented glare with doleful eyes.
“You care to join the ranks of the living anytime today, Lois?”
Behind Perry White, the stranger cracked an odd, self deprecating smile, his teeth a blinding white.
Uncharacteristically flustered, Lois stood and headed toward her boss and walked into Perry’s office, that keen, aware feeling back in the pit of her stomach. Perry had retreated to his desk, and the stranger stood, gesturing to the single chair.
“No, please go ahead--” she began, unnerved by the man’s presence.
“Please, sit,” the man said, in a tone that brooked no argument. It was pleasant, deep and rich, and as soon as the room quieted, she longed to hear it again. It was a moment before she realized that Perry was speaking to her. She shook her head briefly, trying to focus. This was unlike her—she was never one to be turned and distracted by a pretty face! With a conscious effort, she focused on his words, though they felt like they were coming from a long way away.
“I’m assigning him to be your partner for a few days, though if you two work well together, we could make it permanent,” Perry was saying, gesturing at the two of them with his hands. He pointed to a picture of Elvis almost warningly. “Partnerships worked for the King; they’ll work for you, Lois.”
The words sent a spark of her usual self flooding through her, igniting her volatile spirit.
“I didn’t get this far in my career by taking every greenhorn under my wing, Perry,” she thundered, giving the stranger a harsh look designed to quench the odd butterflies twittering in her stomach. “No offense to you.”
The stranger, her new colleague, chuckled, revealing those pearly teeth again. “Absolutely none taken,” he said, giving her a look of his own. Her eyes widened nearly imperceptibly as their eyes met for the second time, and she recognized a primal hunger there. “I work alone, anyway,” he told Perry, quite firmly.
Lois’ head jerked up at this. The man didn’t want to be mentored by her? Was he insane? Did he even know who she was? She was Lois Lane, the best of the best. What man in his right mind would prefer to work alone? She watched him shift his weight, the words twitching on the tip of her tongue.
“Excuse me? You work alone?”
The man’s eyes registered surprise at her harsh tone, but they were quickly masked again in a pleasant grin. “Yes,” he said, a bit more firmly. “Working with you is out of the question.”
Her temper flared, as she watched the man bid a goodbye to Perry and step out of the office. It was a few moments before she realized that she was still in Perry’s office, gaping after the man.
“Whatever made you hire that insufferable, pigheaded…” she let loose a long string of uncomplimentary adjectives as she wheeled around to face Perry, “...excuse for a man?”
“His work is quite excellent. Here, read a piece.” Perry selected a random sheet from the man’s file and handed it to Lois, who perused it quickly with a critical eye. Eventually she had to put it down—she could find no fault in the writing or the story, and indeed the words were elegantly crafted and masterfully wielded.
“I still think hiring him was a mistake, Perry,” she finally spat out, shoving the paper back at her editor. “I don’t trust him.”
“Well sniff out his story and get me a Pulitzer,” Perry said tiredly, running a hand through his thinning hair. “But as of now, he’s got the desk across from you and he’s a full time member of the staff. Play nice.”
Lois responded to the veiled hint to leave with a rebellious glare, and exited the office. Sure enough, the man was setting up the desk opposite hers. She watched him for a moment, still vaguely compelled by him. He set a frame on the desk, though from her vantage point, she couldn’t tell who occupied the picture. She was halfway to her desk before she realized that she still didn’t know the stranger's name.
-----
Lois Lane was her name.
Clark rolled the name on his tongue, tasting it. It was a good name, one suitable to her. She was flawlessly beautiful, and embodied a feeling in him he hadn’t felt in years.
A feeling he had figured that was solely in his past.
The newsroom had emptied considerably by seven o’ clock, though Lois Lane still sat in her chair, typing furiously. He watched her for a moment, a smile threading his face. Those deep eyes had captivated him when he had first entered the newsroom, though he realized somewhat belatedly that he had held her gaze for far too long. Robert would have said he was getting sloppy in his old age, he thought wryly. But Robert still didn’t understand why Clark had joined the newspaper in the first place.
“You could be anything, man,” he had said, giving his friend an incredulous look. “A doctor, a playboy. Something with a little bite to it.”
Clark Kent hadn’t found the joke humorous.
He had decided to take residence in Metropolis some years ago, though he had wandered from profession to profession. Robert had been his confidant and benefactor, as well as the reason he stayed sane. The recent deaths in the area had unnerved him, however, and prodded him to finally take his life seriously. The paper had been proclaiming them the work of a dangerous serial killer, and the hits had been far too close to home for Clark to twiddle his thumbs and remain idle in his apartment. Working at the Planet provided him a very logical excuse to investigate the killings, and as Robert had reassured him in his moments of doubt, he had been accepted point blank.
His musings were interrupted by a sudden presence at his desk, and the woman very nearly startled him.
Impressive.
“We were never properly introduced.” she said abruptly, sticking out her hand for him to shake. He took it, their fingers lingering as their hands brushed against one another’s. “And I’m about to leave for the day, so I had better do it now. I’m Lois Lane, the investigative news reporter.”
“Clark Kent,” he volunteered. He paused, inhaling for the briefest moment. She smelled delicious. For a moment he fought against something deep inside him, a primal, instinctive longing to lunge. “Was there something you needed?” he finally gasped, the words strangled. Lois looked at him oddly, but with her scent so nearby, he had to fight to keep his eyeteeth from lengthening, to keep the bloodlust clear from his mind.
He hadn’t slain a human in nearly a century—he’d be damned if he started now.
Lois was speaking, trying to tell him something, but her words weren’t registering. Every sense was consumed by her smell, by the red haze in his mind. She had no idea how vulnerable she was in the presence of such a monster. How she would run if she had any inkling of the dark, dangerous thoughts in his mind—thoughts he loathed and craved. He had never had such a terrible time keeping himself under control. Even as a newly turned vampire, he had been remarkably patient, exercising painfully tight self control. After his third killing of a mortal—each death followed by endless bouts of starvation—Clark had sworn to never again succumb. He would rather die.
Death. The unattainable dream for a vampire. Though many of his kind lived
carpe diem, slaking their lust for women and entertainment in human pursuits, he had never done so. He was too solitary, too disgusted with himself to think of frittering away time in such mindless, wasteful activities. He had resigned himself to an unnatural existence in the woods of eastern Europe, sating his thirst with the blood of animals. Unfulfilling, yet it allowed him to exist.
And that was when Robert had found him. Newly turned as well, with a natural aversion to killing humans, Robert quickly befriended the lonely man. They traveled together through Europe, eventually traveling to the United States. It was there, in the golden land of opportunity, that they had discovered the benefits of practicing medicine—an overabundance of blood.
Both Clark and Robert had set to become doctors, excelling in their courses. They never aged, never grew past 29 and 36, respectively, and therefore they had to move around every time too many questions were asked. They delighted in the big city of Metropolis, however, and found that they could oftentimes hide in plain sight, melting into the background. Robert had continued to practice medicine, and with the new blood bank technology, provided an endless source of food and energy for the two vampires. While Clark enjoyed saving lives, he hated witnessing the pain and suffering.
Clark breathed out through his nose, though he technically didn’t actually have to breathe at all, and the red haze cleared. He tried to focus on something: the black night outside the window, the mad typing of the copyboy in the corner, anything to get his mind off of her. There was no way he could continue on this knife-balance, never knowing if one day the temptation of her smell might send him spiraling into the darkness.
Lois was looking at him curiously, blissfully unaware of how close she had come to death—how much she appealed to him. Her beauty hurt him; it was pure and unblemished and good, the opposite of himself. His eyes darkened as he thought of what might have been, or what could still occur. Her high-cut suit obscured her neck, but he knew it would be the same snowy white as the rest of her body. Just the thought of her lifeless body left him ashamed and aching. He said something, he had no idea what, to answer Lois’ incessant questions. It must have worked, or else his abrupt behavior offended her, because she returned to her desk and started gathering her things.
Suddenly loathe to see her go, he stopped her with a quiet exclamation of her name. Lois’ dark eyes met his again, and this time the bloodlust battled with an entirely different kind of desire. “Goodnight,” he finally said, to answer her curious head tilt.
She nodded briefly, though she seemed quite unnerved by him. He watched her go, a deep longing forming in his heart. She simply embodied life, everything denied to him. He had spent the day totally aware of her, of the way her heart raced when she spoke on the phone to what was obviously a source, the frantic way she’d scribbled notes, and above all, her scent, which called to him as no other human’s had. It was a pleasure bordering on pain. It called to mind all the impulses he stifled: his hunger, and both his lust and bloodlust.
It called to mind his demonic nature.
Noticing that night had fallen, Clark stood and slipped his messenger bag across his shoulder. He would need to purchase a briefcase, he noted dully as he walked across the gently humming newsroom. Well, that made for an interesting to-do list, anyway.
1. Buy a briefcase
2. Try to refrain from tasting Lois Lane
3. Find whoever it was who was killing off vampires in Metropolis.
Simple, Clark thought sarcastically as he stepped off the elevator and across the Daily Planet lobby. The night was cold for October, but the weather rarely affected him. The sun, if he remained exposed for too long, caused him to weaken violently and sport a massive headache, but it did not cause him to burst into flame as so many old wives tales promised. He had a theory that prolonged sun exposure could kill him, though he had never been of the mind to test his hypothesis. He had liked garlic—back when he could still eat—but it neither hurt him or helped him now. He had been a religious man before he had been turned, and crosses had never repelled him. He had traveled all over the world during those days, restlessly seeking a place to belong. It was then, when he had been in London, that he discovered the anguish of fire.
A barn was set aflame due to the negligence of a stable boy, and Clark, who was living in the woods near the manor at the time, smelled the smoke. He sprinted to the scene, horrified at the bright fire. His hearing, much more perceptive than a mere human’s, picked up the terrified whinnying of the horses inside, and worse yet, the cry of a young boy.
It was the other stable hand, a boy no older than twelve. Clark burst from the woods, and shouldered open the door. It splintered easily under his massive strength, another handy vampire perk. He sought the boy among the thick black smoke, through the shrieking cries of the horses around him. Clark immediately threw a hand back and fractured the wooden wall, allowing the horses to stampede out, fleeing from the licking flames. His eyesight was nothing in the thick smoke; he had to rely on his sense of smell and exceptional hearing. He tracked the wheezing breath of the boy until he found him buried under fallen rubble. Like a man possessed, Clark heaved the weight of the wood off the boy, and tucked him against his chest. The boy’s sweaty hair mashed up against his chin; his teardrops and screams fell against his chest and his ears. He vaulted over fallen pieces of equipment and wood, desperately searching for a way out of the hellish place. Where the horses had fled was now completely engulfed in flame, in fact, the whole room seemed to have walls of fire. He briefly wondered if this might be his tomb, when he spotted a small break in the flame. It was just enough for the boy to fit through. Clark fell to his knees and urged the boy through, the cool air outside offering a tantalizing glimpse of relief.
When he was sure the boy was through, he thrust out a hand in the flame, desperate to break down the wall. The fire tore at his skin and he screamed, his thoughts of facing death bravely forgotten. Over and over again, he threw himself at the wall of the barn, and into the inferno. When his strength had just left him—when he couldn’t find the will to pound at the door one more time—the wall gave way, and Clark fell out into cool darkness. People were yelling and milling around, but he paid them no mind. Through vision blurred with tears of pain and rocked by dizziness, he wildly searched for the boy. It was only when he saw the young boy in a fierce embrace with his mother that he allowed his head to flop down in the grass and surrendered to unconsciousness.
A taxi squealing past wrenched Clark from thoughts of the past. He shoved his hands in his pockets, his memories having left him emotionally drained. He blinked a few times as he began the trek home, hoping to clear the fuzziness from his mind.
He hadn’t slept in days. Not since he had discovered the second body.
Though the public wasn’t aware of it, the serial killer loose in Metropolis wasn’t preying on a random assortment of men and women. He was killing vampires, staking them in the heart and then shooting them in the head.
Ashes to ashes… dust to dust… When a vampire was staked in the heart, he did not crumple into dust. Indeed, Clark had a theory (he had a lot of theories) that vampires did not ever rot away into nothingness. They did not live, though they never fully melted into the earth. Perhaps earth rejected them. His kind coexisted somewhat peacefully with the humans in the city. There was always an occasional rogue who killed for sport, but most of his people took what they needed and left. He and Robert were some of the rare few who made do on bagged blood and abstinence, but he could hardly change social customs thousands of years old. It was a common misconception that he thirsted for blood often—indeed he could go for days without it. But any vampire could recognize another vampire; they had a scent distinctly different from the humans around them. And every murder victim recently, unbeknownst to the police, was a vampire.
Clark was not used to feeling hunted. He and his kind were the predators. They were benevolent, yes, and only killed a small percentage of the humans, but as it was, they were the top of the food chain. No one knew they existed, and they tended to lead solitary lives anyway. Robert was his closest friend, yet he only saw him a handful of times a year, oftentimes just to collect a new supply of blood.
But a killer was loose in Metropolis, and Clark had vowed to bring his reign of terror to an end.
-----
A couple of author's notes that would have ruined the surprise had I posted up there...
My inspiration for this world comes from a mix of the novel "Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer and the new show, Moonlight, on CBS. (Both are excellent, by the way.) I've never read Dracula (though I plan to this year) nor have I seen any other show or movie involving vampires. (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, ect.) I'm essentially a big 'fraidy cat, so I avoided everything involving bloodsucking demons like the plague. That is, until I read Twilight, and now I can't seem to get enough of them. This is a point I'm going to emphasise now.
In this story, simply biting a person will not turn them into a vampire. A vampire has to consciously make that decision.
I think that's all for now. I know this is quite a stretch from the Superman mythos, so I'd really appreciate your thoughts on it. But if you don't want to read anymore, I completely understand as well.
~Laura
