Carpathian 03 - Dark Gold

a little sigh that he had to follow a few more rules than he might like, he dropped the last man to the wet grass and sent out a call to the incoming gang. Waves of terror hit them as a group. They fell silent, looking from one to the other. Aidan found himself grinning. Maybe he had to be good, but that didn't mean he couldn't enjoy himself along the way.
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    The lead driver pulled his car over to the side of the road, dragging great gulps of air into his lungs. He was sweating profusely.
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    You are going to die tonight. All of you. The fog covers a monster. Death. It is calling.
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    Just to make his point, Aidan leapt into the sky, his body stretching, contorting, until he was a giant winged lizard with sharp, conspicuous teeth. His tail was long and thick with scales, and his eyes were ruby red. He came out of the fog, right at the line of showy cars, and breathed fire across their hoods.
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    Doors sprang open, and gang members burst out onto the street, shouts of terror echoing through the fog. Aidan laughed softly as he landed just to the right of the lead car, shape-shifting as he did so. His long muzzle shortened, fangs exploded, and his body compacted itself into lupine muscle and sinew. Fur rippled down his back and arms, emerging in a wave over his skin.
    He loped after the men, red eyes glowing.
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    "Wolf! Werewolf!" The scream caromed along the street, and a gun went off. It was impossible for anyone to see more than a scant foot in front of him, but to Aidan the air was perfectly clear, and he knew the exact location of his prey. He chased them for some distance, reveling in his ability to run so swiftly. There was joy in his heart. The joy he had felt some seven hundred years earlier. He was having fun.
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    "It was a dragon!" a harsh voice yelled as they all ran, their footsteps loud in the darkness.
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    He followed another voice. "This isn't real, man. Maybe we're having some kind of mass hallucination."

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    "Well, you stay and check it out then," someone called back. "I'm getting the hell out of here."
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    The wolf loped closer, scenting the human. The man was slowing down, certain none of this could be reality. The wolf leapt, covering a considerable distance in a single spring and catching the human by the seat of his pants. He got a mouthful of denim, and the man gave a high-pitched scream. Without looking back, he bolted to join his friends, his boots loud on the street as he escaped.
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    Aidan laughed out loud this time, the sound echoing eerily, carried on the thick bed of fog. He couldn't remember the last time he had had so much fun. The gang members were yelling back and forth, cries of fear. To even the odds a bit more, he concentrated on the cars, rolling them over, one by one, so that each car was sitting on its roof, the wheels spinning uselessly in the air.
    Then he did the same for the rival gang. They needed to rest in the park for a time anyway.
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    After assuring himself that neither gang had any fight left in them, he took to the air once more, this time racing back to Alexandria. He landed on the stone pathway in the garden outside the kitchen. A fish leapt in the pond, and the sound of splashing was loud in the night air. The wind was beginning to gently shift, slowly pushing its way through the fog. Tails of the white mist swirled lightly and drifted here and there like veils of lace. The effect was beautiful. It was all beautiful.
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    Aidan inhaled deeply and looked up at the sky. This wasn't his homeland, but it was his home.
    The vampire had been wrong about that. Aidan had grown to love San Francisco over the years.
    It was an interesting city with interesting people. True, he missed his own kind and the wildness of the Carpathian mountains and forests. He would give almost anything to touch the soil of his homeland. The ancient land of his people was forever in his heart, but this city had its own call, its diverse cultures melding and making for an incredible world to explore and enjoy.
    
    Aidan used his keys to open the kitchen door. The house was quiet. Stefan and Marie were asleep in their room. Joshua slept fitfully, obviously uncomfortable at being so long separated from his sister, though Marie had allowed him to sleep in the little sitting room off their bedroom on the first floor. Stefan had kept his promise; the house was locked up tight, its iron grills shut