Reach Out For The Sunrise Ch. 03

"What's wrong?"

"Why does anything have to be wrong?" Rayne asked huskily, blinking out of a daydream to look defensively at him. "And what the fuck is it with you, waking up at the crack of dawn, anyway? You were on the lash all night. Can't you sleep in like a sane man?"

Lord Warren smiled at this small, deflective outburst. He was more than used to them from Rayne by now.

"I'm going home this evening. But first, Signora Bocaccio is taking me out for a spin behind the wheel of that very pretty little Ferrari. She figures, and I concur, that the roads will be quieter the earlier we go. You can come along, if you really want to."

Rayne did not look at him but he murmured; "Where are you going?"

"Just for a little run," Dom smiled and sipped his coffee. "Herculaneum is across the bay, under the volcano. I thought it would be fun to take a look before the tourists get there."

"How long will it take?" Rayne asked him, brightening a little at the prospect of a distraction.

His companion surveyed the distant, smouldering peak shrewdly and gave it some thought.

"With me behind the wheel, without traffic, I'd say about fifteen and half minutes!"

In the end it took nearer to half an hour but Rayne still felt mildly sick when the sleek two-seater sports car pulled to a standstill in a deserted Neapolitan car park and he all but fell off Aldo's lap, out onto the tarmac. It was still only around 4.45 in the morning and there was a stillness in the air even this close to the edge of Naples. Rayne Wylde had not been the worse for drink in several years and to be driven on hairpin bends with a hangover at more than 100mph was a little more than even he could stomach this early in the day.

Whilst Dom enthused to Aldo about the handling of the F430 and they talked the indecipherable language of torque and brake horsepower. Rayne wandered around what looked like a warehouse car-park and got his land legs back. After a little while the mortal pair followed him.

"It is a beautiful morning, no?" Aldo swept an arm around him and Rayne tried not to be too irritable. "You were up late last night giving the boy some sweet love, huh?"

"Yeah."

"So why you not still snuggled up his sweet ass?" Aldo kissed the back of his neck.

"Fuck off!" Rayne pushed him away, with a tolerant half-smile. "He's got the mother of all hangovers. I figure he needs some P&Q."

They had been ambling after Lord Warren towards a section of lop-sided fencing at the edge of the road. Rayne looked seriously at him now. "Can we get in this early?" he asked sceptically.

"If we walk around the perimeter this way, yes I think we may still get into the old city before the gates open and tourists come," Aldo mused. "When we were children sometimes we would come here to play, there was not so much tourism then of course. This is what you want, si?" He asked this question of Dominic who had his palmtop out and was consulting it now with the distracted air of a nutty professor.

"That's the ticket," the older man murmured, with a little nod. "There's been speculation by a couple of my Covenors for years that there are weak spots in the Veil at sites like Herculaneum. How often does a girl get the chance to check out something like that without being over-run by Japanese tourists all taking pictures?"

He looked up with a boyish grin. Rayne squinted at him in the morning sunlight, wondering why he did not have the decency to be hung over like everyone else. Then he turned to survey the not terribly substantial gate and the empty, insignificant looking portacabin that housed the ticket booth.

Aldo stepped up to it, wriggling the chain and padlock on the gate.

"è bloccato," he murmured. "It was never so when we were small. Perhaps we climb over a wall, no?"

"Get out the way you lump," Dominic nudged him aside with a sigh. "Don't they teach you anything practical in porn star school?"

He pulled a key-ring from his jacket pocket and selected a long, narrow object like a large, bent paperclip, apparently at random. After a few moments of wriggling the object in the heavy padlock and swearing under his breath, it clicked open softly. Aldo looked impressed.

"I bet you didn't learn that reading 'Cosmo'!" Rayne snickered. "You overlooked something though."

Dominic stared enquiringly at him and the little vampire lifted his eyes towards the security camera above their heads.

"Oh that!" Dom huffed impatiently. "I glitched that before we even started on the lock."

"Glitched it how, exactly?" Rayne asked as they slipped through the gate and pulled it to, draping the chain through it and clicking the padlock shut so that it still looked inviolate.

"Same spell that I use for traffic cameras," Dominic explained airily. "What's the use in being a Third Level Wiccan Adept if you can't occasionally do something useful with it?"

Aldo was looking at the older man rather oddly.

"You placed a spell upon the camera?" he queried carefully.

"Uh-huh." Dominic nodded to him.

"You show me how to do this?"

Dom smiled beatifically. "Darling, if you ever have a couple of years spare, come and visit me in England and I'll see what I can do," he chuckled.

"What if we need to get out in a hurry?" Rayne asked warily.

"We've come to check the atmospherics, darling, not raise the dead!" Dominic exclaimed with a shake of his head. "You are very jumpy this morning. When they open the gates for the normal tourists we just walk out like we're supposed to."

"For a Peer of the Realm you don't exactly set a good example," Rayne told him with a dry little laugh.

~~~

The sun was casting long shadows along the narrow streets of the ruined town when they walked slowly down the long ramp leading to what had once been the harbour front. It was still euphemistically titled so though the sea was now almost half a mile away and modern buildings surrounded the ongoing excavation of the ancient town of Herculaneum.

"Fuck!" Rayne breathed, gazing up at the vast rock walls all around them as they journeyed lower. "How long did it take them to blast a hole big enough to build a city in? And why not just build it up there?" He pointed towards the top of the red-walled cliffs.

"Stupid boy!" Dominic laughed fondly. "They didn't dig a hole to build it. The archeologists dug the hole to get it out again. This whole area has been buried countless times by eruptions since Herculaneum was a thriving port. It was under the rock for centuries."

"And it survived?" Rayne was incredulous. "Those houses over there look like... well, they could have been empty for what… a couple of decades maybe? How come they're not just crushed or burned down?"

"The pyroclastic surge that buried Herculaneum was like..." Dominic hesitated, considering his words. "It was like treacle, I suppose. Lots and lots of very hot treacle, moving very fast. It rolled down the hill, roasted the inhabitants to death and filled up their houses like little treacle pots, from the bottom to the top. Then it just rolled on over them and covered it all up until you couldn't even tell there had been a town here at all. When it all cooled and set, the houses were preserved in it like flies in amber."

Rayne blinked at him. He was feeling rather sick again and wishing he hadn't asked.

"Treacle?" he echoed numbly, his head full of images he would rather not be thinking of, most of them involving melting flesh.

"More or less," Dominic answered cheerfully and wandered ahead, whistling to himself as he peered into the empty buildings. "Didn't they teach you anything at school?"

Aldo flashed a mischievous look at Rayne and the vampire rolled his eyes as they followed Dominic deeper into the deserted city. From time to time the elderly mage stopped and checked his little Palmtop, then swung off onto a different side street. The other two wandered after him, somewhat warily. It was quiet here, even though the modern town was slowly coming to life up above them and the echoes of doors slamming, car engines turning over and voices raised in greeting sometimes filtered down to them. It was also rather spooky. The hair at the back of Rayne's neck was prickling but that could just have been the lurking thought of hundreds of sweet-roasted ghosts watching them.

Even Aldo seemed uneasy and very little fazed the tall Italian.

"Here," Dominic said at last, coming to a halt in front of a tall, red-walled house that might have still been inhabited, it was in such good condition.

Rayne could feel his skin prickle as they passed through the shadows of a hallway into a long corridor with rooms running off it. Dominic was still peering at his little gadget and murmuring to himself, occasionally glancing up at mosaics on the walls or sculptures in the numerous niches and alcoves, and making small noises of appraisal.

"What does this do?" Aldo asked, gesturing to the handheld device curiously.

"Well, primarily it's a mobile phone and palmtop computer," Dom explained cheerfully. "At the moment it's showing me a plan of the city, so we don't get lost, and identifying the suggested hotspots. It also has a built in thermometer and barometer so it's checking for rises and drops in the temperature and the atmospheric pressure."

"So we'll know if it's gonna rain," the vampire added in a mocking undertone.

Dominic fired a narrow-eyed look at him. "You know as well as I do that breaches in the Veil are often accompanied by profound shifts in temperature not explained by any logical occurrence," he reminded his companion. "Stop taking the piss."

"Sorry," Rayne said with a grin. "This place is setting my teeth on edge a bit."

Aldo slid closer to the little vampire.

"This, I do not like," he said in a quiet voice. "It feels as if we trespass here, no?"

"That's just what it feels like," Rayne agreed. "Like someone does not want us here."

"I told you not to take the piss," Dominic accused and stalked off, still frowning studiously at his phone. He changed the application and began taking pictures.

A broad archway at the end of the corridor led out into a long rectangular garden area with a sunken pool, empty of water now. There were plants and even some grass in need of mowing. It might have been sleeping, not deserted for hundreds of years. The sunshine made Rayne feel more at ease though. He was unhappy in the shadows of the house. It felt as if he was being watched there.

"Dom," he said in a low tone. "This wasn't a good idea. Let's just go, shall we. There's nothing to see. No one lives here, it's obvious."

When he turned to look for his friends he found himself alone. For a second it was as if he looked at two different scenes, similar but slightly awry. There were flowers in the garden and he could hear music and the sound of water playing in the long pool. He heard his mother laughing and then the sound of a man's voice; not his father's voice. The laughter took on a strange, breathless quality. He crept closer, seeing the spill of her dark hair through the leaves, pressing through the undergrowth, driven by a childlike curiosity. And then, suddenly, it was as if he was a child again, making himself small, determined not to be heard. Through the shrubbery he saw her sprawled on a cushioned dais, but the filmy gown she wore was like nothing he had ever seen her wear in life. It was roughly tugged asunder and a man he recognised now with a shiver of horror was moving urgently between her thighs. Her hands caressed him, nails painted red as blood.

A shadow moved over the sun and he looked up, startled. It went darker then, as a rough hand gripped his arm. He tried to cry out as a man, who's face was that of his uncle Brian, the man who had abused him as a boy, dragged him into the darkness and pinned him to the ground, ripping at his shift. Brian wore a brief toga and nothing else. He had been dressed in a similar garment to Brian's, or he was until it was torn from him and his legs wrenched apart.

He lifted his head, scenting the heat on the air as he breathed in. The atmosphere was choking, like breathing ash. It was snowing! He brushed a pale flake from his bare arm and it disintegrated, crumbling to the earth. Others descended, the pall growing thicker. As he watched, fascinated, he became slowly aware of a low, rumbling sound. It was like listening to someone trying to open an ill-fitting door in the next room; a slow, grinding, rattling noise. The very walls of the house were groaning. Lurching over him, Brian was groaning too, his hot, hairy body bucking hard between Rayne's legs.

And then there was screaming, not groaning. They were thrust aside, caught in a stampede of frantic humanity. People were running for their very lives. He looked up and saw Brian's anger turn to alarm, and then to sheer terror. Rayne closed his eyes tightly and kept them closed. He did not want to see anything that could put such dread into Brian's eyes. And then the dark was everywhere and heat swallowed them up, rising to an inferno around him, swallowing light and sound, and then there was nothing.

~~

He swam slowly back to his senses in the car park, lying on the ground beside the Ferrari. Dominic was trying to trickle water into his mouth and he choked and spat it out. It tasted of ashes.

"Lady! Bless you!" Lord Warren exclaimed, his hands very soft and warm on Rayne's face. "What happened, darling?"

"Aldo?" Rayne coughed weakly, struggling to sit up.

"Here, caro," the huge Italian said at once, bending over him and helping him to rise.

"What happened?" Dominic demanded. "One moment you were being sarcastic, then you just went down. We thought you'd been shot or something."

"You were standing, staring as if you saw something we did not see," Aldo told him. "Then it is as if you are attacked by bees, yes. You slap and struggle with nothing, then you fall. Boom!" He clapped his hands together. "We could not wake you."

Rayne shook his head. Had it been a dream? There were still fragments in his mind, it had seemed so real. Brian in a toga; his mother, alive, out there. But transplanted to another time, another place. And the shadows, and the falling ashes.

"I was there," he said incredulously. "I was in the city as the ash shut out the sun. I saw the darkness come."

He saw Aldo and Dominic exchange a look that seemed to doubt his sanity. Rayne put his head in his hands. He still felt drunk, and slightly disorientated.

"Take me home," he murmured, closing his eyes again.

~*~

Xavier woke in darkness. He came awake almost instantly, his blood pumping in fear, searching out the source of the sound that had jarred him awake. A crash from somewhere in the apartment. He listened. He heard his mom's voice, she was yelling, crying. The bastard boyfriend was yelling too. He held his breath and listened. Sometimes they just yelled for a while and then it got quiet. Sometimes the yelling got worse. This time it got worse.

Stealthily he got up and went to the door of his room, opened it a crack to look out down the hall and into the living room. The yelling had escalated to throwing things. An ashtray shattered against the wall. The bastard boyfriend had a fistful of his mom's hair and was screaming in her face. He hit her and Xavier exploded out of his room.

He jumped on the bastard boyfriend and pummeled him as hard as his seven year old fists could, a wordless scream of rage issuing from his throat. He didn't remember being thrown off, just what it felt like as his back slammed onto the floor, the breath whooshing from his lungs, the fist that came down and struck him.

The dream shifted, and he was no longer in the apartment where he had grown up. He was in a… village? Nowhere he had ever been before, yet it felt familiar. Stone buildings, narrow streets. He was looking up, and he was terrified. Something bad was happening. Something terrible was coming. The heat… so hot… he was running through the narrow streets looking for his mother, people running, screaming… where was she?

He twitched in his sleep but did not wake. The warm morning sun caressing his backside.

It took his sleeping brain a few minutes to process the fact that the sun was not the only source of warmth caressing his arse. A gentle hand was stroking his exposed skin, taking its time as it wandered over the dips and curves of his sleek behind.

His eyes opened and for a second he was still in the panic of his dream, heat and ash and screams all around him. Then he recognized where he was, and the hand stroking softly over his flanks. He shifted on the chaise so he could look up at Rayne, a little smile on his lips, his long lashes blinking sleepily.

"Good morning."

"Awright, Sweetheart?" the singer purred huskily. He looked tired, and unusually pale in the bright morning sunlight. His hand continued it's gentle passage up and down Xavier's flank. "You're a sight for sore eyes."

Xavier stretched his lean body, feeling his back pop.

"Mmmph… yeah! I was dreaming... Weird dream…" he said blinking slowly, still coming awake really. He yawned. "Something about running through streets, and it was so hot, but it was snowing."

For a moment Rayne just stared at him, blinking owlishly; his pale eyes shimmering with the reflected light from the pool. His hand stopped moving and came to rest on his lover's hip. Even though that side of him had been partly in the shade his skin was just as hot here as it felt on the sun-kissed parts of him.

"Snowing?" he repeated quietly, as if this triggered off a strange chain reaction in his head.

Which in fact it did. For a couple of seconds he was sprawled on his back again, head turned towards the light, watching the mysterious grey flakes land on the exposed skin of his arm. He shuddered violently, muttering; "Too much to drink!"

Xavier gave a soft chuckle.

"Maybe," he said, thinking Rayne was talking about him.

Rayne looked at him again, coming back from whatever inner landscape he'd been looking at. "I came out to tell you breakfast is on the table."

Xav lifted his shoulder in a lazy shrug. "Not really hungry."

Which was weird. He was always hungry.

His companion's eyes narrowed speculatively. In the short time he'd known Xavier he had never known the boy to pass up an offer of food; not even when he was recovering from the kidnap and assault by Steffen in San Francisco.

"You okay?" he asked warily.

"I'm fine." Xav answered with a little grin. "Just not hungry." He rolled to his back and laced his fingers behind his head in a comfortable pose. "Where'd you guys go?"

Rayne's eyes wandered slowly up his body from his shapely thighs to his big baby blues. He shrugged one shoulder.

"Just out for a... a ride."

He shivered involuntarily, his hand moving to Xavier's thigh again, craving his warmth.

As Rayne's cool fingers trailed lightly up his leg Xavier's cock twitched and thickened. Xav had to grin. It was ridiculous how Rayne could just touch him and he was hot and ready for him.

"If you're not hungry," Rayne whispered, letting the backs of his fingers move lightly up the underside of Xavier's stiffening sex; "you don't mind if I eat, do you?"

Without waiting for a response, he bent his head and let the tip of his tongue follow the path his fingers had just taken.

"I don't mind…" Xavier murmured, and shivered with pleasure as the tip of Rayne's wet tongue caressed over him. The little metal ball in his tongue pressed into the sensitive spot just under his glans and he let out a soft sigh. It took only that much and he was fully erect, his sex laying like an exclamation mark pointed at his navel. Rayne's soft lips parted around him and Xav's eyes slid shut, a soft purr humming in his throat.