Venom

Venom

He is overtaken.

Writhing in pain against a death-grip. His mind undulates: pleading with his body for the hastening of the numbness, pleading with the pain to linger. Daggers pierce his flesh with ease as a muffled cry struggles one last time to meet the cold night air - in vain. The man's venom seeps into his wounds, stinging, burning, promising. His heart longs to hear his own cry, the ecstasy of his suffering.

Rivers of salt cascade over fresh wounds - glorious bliss. Face taut because his mind demanded his eyes clench long ago. The promise of death in the eyes of another had been agonizing, but remotely empathetic. It had infuriated him. He wanted the luxurious rapture in the man's gaze to devour what was left of his soul leaving him hollow and fulfilled.

He knew Death would meet him, he had waited patiently for so long. It is at this moment that his life should be seen from beginning to end. But destiny would make no promises, and fate would not grant him the pleasure of reliving his conquests. His lips twitch and curl in amusement under the man's palm. He had not anticipated to anger destiny. He waits.

The warm figure looms over him, pressing against his cold body. The hand is warm and wet with blood. If only he could taste the nectar seeping from his own neck, flowing onto the hands of another. Sweat and blood. Victory and torture. His body is motionless, the pain is magnificent. The man's fingernails dig deeper, quickening the ache. He delights in the throbbing. The gnawing at his mind almost sensual.

But where was Death? This horror, above all others he had not foreseen. Oh the glorious rapture of his pain, his pleasure. He had tasted death before -sweet and innocent, lonely but anxious, heartless but sympathetic, and always, always -- arriving just in time to escort gratitude into silence. He longed for that Death, a different Death. He longed for memories. The eyes of a victim when the last breath of life escaped greedily into death's arms. The taste of their blood on his fingertips, liquid, replete with horror and fear. And fear. His insatiable, gluttonous desire for fear. Oh how it tasted so sweet mixed with his venom. And his voracious appetite for the smell of death. The smell that overtook him as he ravished life. No words could describe the need it fulfilled inside him.

He had supplied Death with an endless flow of victims tainted with his venom and a small piece of his soul again and again and again. Surely Death would grant him mercy, above all others. But Death makes him wait. The sweet victories promised in the eyes of so many victims would not meet him tonight.

His body shivering in the night; he feels the pressure of the impending darkness surround him. Painfully slow, it taunts his body and his mind, feasting on his agony. Pain and pleasure mingled again, but like death ebbing, the waves did not bring promise of complete disguise. Unlike anything before, crests of pain peaked past pleasure and pleasure past pain - never moving in time together. One never concealing the other - giving away nothing but the presence of each other. Wretched Death that makes him wait, unfulfilled. But if he could beg Death for mercy; a well-deserved end to his torment. A slow ride back to the earth. He would.

'Why does the shadow mock me so? You know me well. I await you at the door, yet you will not come in. Lower the bar, and defeat will see me over. Let me repay this debt to nature's grace. Sweet killing, hasten my lament. Promise me a tenement of clay and I will return your favor in kind, bringing you ash and dust. Build again - a man of more heartless fashion, with cruelty unmatched, cursed from birth such that he may never know the difference between pleasure and pain. Another who would taste blood and suckle from its life. I beg you -- let me yield my breath and succumb to the night giving birth to another creature, even more devoid of life -- yet breathing, living, serving, one purpose.'

At that moment all pain is confused with pleasure for the last time. He feels nothing. Death has cheated him in a way it cheats no others. The mind plays tricks on the body, and light and darkness collide. And as they pass in the space that is left where the soul's shell once warmed the body, mercy is granted.

There was no other way. Death demanded this of Lucius Malfoy. And now, the insatiable thirst passes to his heir as Draco Malfoy releases his father's neck and revels in Death's unspoken promise.

Fini.