Spellbinding

Cold.

Damien's very existence seemed to be that. Never much more. He wondered how long it would be before the ice turned to fire.

The eternal flames of hell.

Their long reach, begging him to come home. Sometimes he thought he could feel its warmth, it's eagerness to envelope him, singe his ice cold skin.

At first, Damien prayed for an end. Living as who he had become proved too difficult - too unbearable. Seeing those he cared deeply about withering away to nothing, leaving behind those who would become too old to safely live around.

But that was centuries ago.

Now, Damien had accepted his fate. Understanding now that there was no end to his existence. He was meant to suffer, he deserved to suffer. His very existence was a laugh in the face of the God Damien's family had once prayed to.

Damien closed his eyes for a moment and placed his cold fingertips on top of his pale lids. The sickness had come swiftly.

It had become an unusual and downright uncomfortable feeling, being that his mortal body had not felt sickness in over one hundred and seventy-eight years.

Damien's body shook visibly as the memories of himself cowering on a thinly stuffed mattress, the grips of the infamous Scarlet Fever wracking his fragile body resurfaced. For a moment he felt...human.

Damien rose from his chair and shrugged on his grey cotton jacket that had been hanging across the back of his chair. Work could wait, he had more important things to do.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

London, England 1790

The streets were no longer safe - they never were, but now especially the danger was savage.

Evil things moved around at night. The darkness acting as cover for what would have been seen had it happened earlier in the morning.

Damien folded his newspaper and smoothly tucked it under his arm with a sigh of exasperation. The headlines were not good.

He continued quietly down the street way, repeating under his breath his recent findings. His speech would need to be perfect before he could present it to the other scholars. The senior scholars had already laughed off his ideas of vaccinations and genetic immunity, sighting that his ideas were too fanatical and senseless. Damien shook himself from thought, realizing that he had arrived at home.

The house was quiet when he walked through the tall iron gates of the family estate. Damien whistled happily to himself - a tune he had heard his father whistle long ago.

Not long after the door opened, Damien was faced with reality.

"Brother, come quick!" A frantic voice called as soon as Damien opened the door. Instantly, Damien rushed to the great room where his sister had called from.

"What is it Dellie?" He asked worriedly. His sister rushed into his arms and let out a few panicked sobs. Damien smoothed the top of her hair, gently soothing her the best he knew how.

"It is Alfred, he's gone mad!" She shrieked, "Mummy was cross with him and now he's acting like a child."

Damien pulled his younger sister backwards to look into her deep hazel rounded eyes, "Calm down Dellie, you know how he is," he sucked in air and held it, waiting for her to follow suit, before releasing it again. "Where is Alfred?" He inquired, raising his brow slightly once her breathing returned to normal.

Dellie sighed, "The attic, I tried to tell him that he wasn't allowed up there but he would not listen to a word,"

Damien lifted a finger, "Not to worry mon chô, you tried your best." he reached out and pinched her cheek with a dazzling smile. Dellie smiled and made her way back to the fabric at the table.

Damien shrugged of his jacket and hung it on the banister before taking the stairs two at a time.

The attic was strictly off limits. After the passing of their father, the attic which was once a reading den was transferred to the hands of Damien.

Alfred preferred to claim that it was only because he was not the favourite child that the gift had skipped his hands. The truth had not entirely been far from that.

The main reason was that Alfred had not been a trustworthy or organized being at the time of their late father's passing. It seemed only natural for their Father's most loved possession to be passed down to the child that shared the same appetite for order and process and a general interest in academic knowledge.

For some time now, the attic had become Damien's second lab. There, he sat until the early morning light poked through the window behind his desk as he worked on the endless papers he'd been writing.

For them, a lack of sleep was a non-issue. Unless your waking moments happened to be what you tried to escape from. Only then was it torture.

Damien found Alfred casually sitting on the windowsill, his legs stretched out across the length of it. His dark brown curls hid most of his face, but the tight set of his jaw and shoulders was enough to know that Alfred Belmont was in a rotten mood.

Alfie snapped his head towards where Damien stood when the attic door swung closed with a light click, a sound even humans would have noticed. Alfie turned back to the window upon noticing who it was.

"I am not in the mood to talk, brother," he sighed, turning around between his fingertips one of the glass marbles that had been resting on the desk before him.

"And who says I was willing to converse with you?" Damien asked, making his way to the window.

"Funny," he frowned, "Mother has no reason to be cross with me," Alfred murmured bitterly, clenching and unclenching his grip around the marble.

"I don't think she's cross," Damien insisted, "just worried." He ran a hand through his own mess of curls and plopped down into the wooden desk chair.

"She has no reason to worry brother!" Alfred answered, throwing his hands up in the air. "I've already told her I would be careful."

"Alfred the city is on the verge of a hunt, we can not risk exposure, not after-" Damien trailed off. Although the incident had happened years ago, it was still fresh on their immortal hearts.