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farfromstrange · 1 year

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Total Eclipse Of The Heart | Matt Murdock

Pairing: Matt Murdock x f!vampire!Reader

Masterlist ° Parts 1 , 2

PART THREE: There is a lot about the mythology behind vampires to be found on the internet, but is it really true? Matt finds the mystery woman that has been turning his head and she once again makes him question everything he stands for, including his religion.

Warnings: Description of vampirism, mentions of death, mentions of blood, religious imagery & symbolism, blasphemy, dark themes!, not proofread

A/n: IM BACK WITH THIS STORY Y’ALL! This is actually pretty tame compared to the rest. Anyway, after I don't know how long, I have finished the chapter for this series. It's shorter than what I usually write, but I'm saving space for the smut. It's coming, I promise. If I'm correct, it might actually start happening in the next chapter, but it could also be the one after that. We'll see. I don't have a schedule for this story and I don't have the time to update regularly, so just lay back and be surprised by random updates!

18+ MINORS DNI

Vampires - (in European folklore) a corpse supposed to leave its grave at night to drink the blood of the living by biting their necks with long pointed canine teeth.

A person who preys ruthlessly on others.

That’s how Google defines it.

He wasn’t sure what the internet would bring him. He wasn’t even sure what he was searching for when he activated the text-to-speech function on his laptop very late at night as he sat in the complete darkness of his apartment, his figure only illuminated by the red light of the obnoxiously large billboard outside the windows, a light he could not see. He only heard the faint buzzing over the beating of his own heart and New York City screaming beneath him. He tuned it out, focused on what he found most important, and dove into the world of mythology and science - because how else could he explain the strange woman that seemed to follow him anywhere?

She had him in a chokehold. Every time she was around him, he felt compelled to follow her. He felt drawn to her in a dangerous way that seemed almost magical. Matt Murdock didn’t believe in magic, he didn’t believe in the reality of mythology. He believed in facts, and there was the fact that superhumans existed, the Avengers taught him that much, but who this woman was exceeded what he chose to believe. It was unholy, ungodly, and a sin in the eyes of the God he worshipped. She couldn’t be what he suspected because if she were, he would have to take God’s word and put an end to the creature that she was.

He came across an article that seemed ridiculous to read. Even saying the word sounded foreign to his ears as he asked Google to search for one species specifically, one that was not supposed to exist, only a product of centuries of retellings and then the modern media that twisted the picture.

She wasn’t supposed to exist.

“In European folklore, vampires are undead creatures that often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighborhoods they inhabited while they were alive.”

Deaths in the neighborhood. The suspected drug overdoses left the victims bloodless and caused some to go crazy. The injection sites were not often on the neck but on other body parts as well. All of that happened under his nose in Hell’s Kitchen, his home, his turf, his neighborhood.

“They wore shrouds and were often described as bloated and of ruddy or dark countenance, markedly different from today’s gaunt, pale vampire which dates from the 19th century.”

He couldn’t see her but he doubted she looked like that and still appealed to the eyes of human men. At the gala, the men present had practically devoured her, but she had only had eyes for him. In a room full of eligible bachelors and people looking for a quick fuck, she had chosen him. He wasn’t supposed to feel so warm when thinking about her. Her hands were on his body, her distinctive scent, and the lack of a heartbeat. He wasn’t supposed to be aroused by thinking about where her hands had wandered before and the promise of doing it again. And he wasn’t supposed to want her after what she did to the fisherman only the night before.

“Vampires are typically said to be of pale skin and range in appearance from grotesque to preternaturally beautiful, depending on the tale. Another frequently cited physical characteristic is the inability to cast a reflection or shadow, which often translates into an inability to be photographed or recorded on film.”

Preternaturally beautiful. It was as if there was no other word that could have explained her better. She was beautiful, a temptress, the snake in the garden of Eden that drove Eve to her certain demise, and Matt wasn’t sure who he was in this scenario - was he Eve or was he God? Was he going to bite the apple or was he going to serve justice for the cruel acts of the devil? Or perhaps he was a secret third option. Maybe he was the Devil standing behind the snake that was Lilith and they would both fall to their demise. He was no saint, he was merely one of God’s disciples, and he had sinned enough for a lifetime.

“A bloodsucking creature that rises from its burial place at night, sometimes in the form of a bat, to drink the blood of humans. By daybreak, it must return to its grave or a coffin filled with its native earth.”

He brought his research to work that morning, determined to figure out what he was dealing with. With his headphones in it seemed as if he were working on the legal files Foggy left on his desk, while in reality, he scouted the internet for information on a topic that first suggested to him the Twilight Saga on Netflix.

“Tales of vampires are part of the world’s folklore, most notably in Hungary and the Balkan Peninsula. The disinterment in Serbia in 1725 and 1732 of several fluid-filled corpses that villagers claimed were behind a plague of vampirism led to widespread interest and imaginative treatment of vampirism throughout western Europe.”

“Who are you?” he wondered. “What are you? Where did you come from? Where can I find you?”

“A person may become a vampire in a variety of ways, the most common of which is to be bitten by a vampire. Other methods include sorcery, committing suicide, contagion, or having a cat jump over a person’s corpse. Some people believed that babies born with teeth or on Christmas or between Christmas and Epiphany were predisposed to becoming vampires. While vampires usually do not die of disease or other normal human afflictions, and they are indeed often said to have faster-than-normal healing capabilities, there are various methods for their destruction. The most popular of those include a wooden stake through the heart, fire, decapitation, and exposure to sunlight. Vampires are often depicted as being repelled by garlic, running water, or Christian implements such as crucifixes and holy water. In some stories, vampires may enter a home only if they have been invited, and in others they may be distracted by the scattering of objects such as seeds or grains that they are compelled to count, thereby enabling potential victims to escape.”

“What are you doing?”

Matt flinched. Out of shock, his hand got caught in the cord that attached his headphones to his laptop. He hurried to press pause before his friend could hear the ridiculous research he was conducting, but it was too late. The automatic voice sounded in the office and he wished the floor would open up and just swallow him whole.

“These “undead” creatures cast no shadow and are not reflected in mirrors. They can be warded off by crucifixes or wreaths of garlic and can be killed by exposure to the sun or by an oak stake driven through the heart.”

Finally, he managed to press the spacebar to shut off the narration, but Foggy was already laughing by then.

“Are you researching vampires?” he asked, holding his stomach. “Are you in a vampire cult? Is that why you keep coming to work with bruises on your face? Is it some kinky shit you’re too embarrassed to talk about? Because if so, you’ve got a real issue, dude!”

He slammed his laptop shut before Foggy could steal it from him. “No,” he was quick to answer. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Adjusting his glasses, he pulled one of the files from the stack on his left. If he appeared to be busy, maybe he would leave him alone.

“C’mon, Matt, don’t be shy. Tell me! If it’s a girl you’re doing this for, maybe I can help. I could help you train your mojo, y’know. Or I could play wingman. If it’s a cult though, I’m out. I don’t like vampire cults. They’re disturbing.”

“It’s nothing,” Matt waved him off. “I was just… doing some research. Doesn’t matter. I’m done.”

Foggy wiggled his eyebrows. “Are you sure? A vampire chick would be crazy, man, but it would be hot. I assume she’s hot. Is she hot?”

“This is not about a girl!”

“You sure? You can tell me. I’m your best friend. Well, I’m your only friend, not counting Karen because you do not want to talk to her about this kinda stuff, trust me-”

He sneered, “Just drop it, Foggy.”

The man raised his arms, turning around to face the door. “Alright, keep your secrets, Bella Swan,” he said. “I won’t judge you. Yet. That might change in five minutes.”

Matt chuckled, although it was fake and a little over the top. “Get out,” he said with as much love as possible.

Finally, the door fell shut and he could breathe. Not only did he embarrass himself in front of his friend but he almost blew his cover. He had to be smarter about this. If she was what he suspected her to be, he needed to be more cautious. She could cause all kinds of destruction. If she was this willing to hurt an innocent man, she wouldn’t hesitate to wreak havoc on his life, too, if he didn’t do what she wanted. And he didn’t want to lose his friends to a blood-sucking monster that had no right to exist.

He set his mind on a new mission: find the strange woman and confront her before she could tear his dear Hell’s Kitchen apart.

Dawn came soon enough and on the other side of town in the small abandoned church that they claimed, her coven started to wake from their sleep. She didn’t have to research her favorite object’s species - she knew humans inside and out. After all, she had been one of them a long time ago.

When she woke up from her slumber, he was the first thought on her mind. It was getting sickening, this need for him. She yearned to touch him. He occupied every living brain cell constantly, and she couldn’t get his handsome face to fade from her vision. He was always there, every second, every day. Perhaps she was getting sick. Perhaps she had a tumor (that wasn’t possible) and she would pass away. If she had been human, that would have been a rational fear, but she wasn’t and so she had to admit to herself that she was not only infatuated with the stranger, she was obsessed. And perhaps her feelings were a little confused because he was simply different from any other man she had been infatuated with before. He was different from the men she had wanted before. Her mind reacted much differently than it usually did, and so did her body. She had never craved to tell someone the truth to the point they understood fully until he came along, and he screwed up the plans she made for her residency in New York.

Part of her was screaming to leave. They could start over somewhere. There were several identities left that they could use, but with everything that was going on around them, they were bound to stay, and she was bound to suffer through wanting him until she could finally have him. Though she feared that even then she couldn’t let that peculiar creature go. And she didn’t even know his name.

Well, that was until Talon came strutting into the main room with a brown folder in hand. She half suspected it to be the record of another victim, but she had prevented that the night before. No, what he was holding was much more precious and she considered giving him the kiss he had been craving for so long. But she wasn’t one to give in. The poor man didn’t deserve to be played with. He was one of them, after all.

Holding a mug filled with a mixture of coffee and some leftover B-negative blood, she took the file that was handed to her. “What is this?” she asked.

“The information on the man from the gala,” said Talon. “I thought you said that-”

“Huh.” She licked her lip, set down her drink, and resumed opening the documents. “I didn’t think you’d find him this fast.”

“The guest list was exclusive. It wasn’t that hard.”

“You’re right, I should have given you a more difficult task. My mistake.” Her tongue dripped with the venom of sarcasm.

When she flipped the file open, she was met with the face she adored so much. She sucked in a breath of approval, tracing her finger over the man that was Matthew Michael Murdock, Columbia graduate, and attorney at law in his little law firm in Hell’s Kitchen. Partners with Franklin Percy Nelson and working alongside their paralegal Karen Page, who was just as beautiful as the rest of the group.

“Gotcha!” she murmured with a smirk resting on her red-tinted lips. “Now you only have to find me…”

“Why don’t you visit them?” Talon burst her bubble.

She looked at Matthew’s ephemeral face, then at the man before her. “They’re humans,” she deadpanned, “They don’t work at night unless they’re healthcare or security personnel. Lawyers qualify as neither.”

“If you want a taste, you could just visit him at home.”

“If I want a- Talon, seriously, did you eat your own brain for breakfast? I require an invitation to enter anyone’s home because I am a vampire. You are a vampire too, which means you cannot enter someone’s home without an invitation either. Do you really think he would let me in after I dug my teeth into an innocent man’s throat and almost tore his neck apart right in front of him?” She cocked an eyebrow. “I don’t fucking think so.”

He pouted. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, just get out of my face,” she said.

“Yes, boss.”

Without a heartbeat, she was hard to track. He roamed Hell’s Kitchen for a sign of her, but she was nowhere to be found. She wasn’t at the docs or in dark alleyways. She wasn’t hunting in the woods like an animal. He preyed at places he thought she would appear. She never came.

But this pull kept him connected to her, and so he soon found himself walking to the border of Hell’s Kitchen, far away from the city center. He could smell her miles away. She tainted the air with her scent, drawing a line toward her whereabouts. He followed that line until he reached the huge metal doors of the abandoned church he had only read about once.

Carefully, Matt pushed his hand against the cold material. The lock gave in. The cold air hit the lower part of his face. The stone radiated little to no heat and the curtains on the colorful windows offered no entrance for sunlight. At night, they were open, and the paintings were as clear as day in the light of the chandelier. During the day, they kept them close.

Vampires are allergic to sunlight, he remembered reading. It still felt like a fever dream. He couldn’t believe that he would even suspect such a thing. He was delusional, sick even. He wanted to know, but he was also afraid to take the first step into the walls of God’s house. It was no longer holy; the building had been tainted by the demonic possession, children of the Devil.

He clutched the crucifix around his neck tightly, and then he dared to enter.

She stood at the altar, having smelled him long before. A chuckle passed her lips and she turned around, her eyes sparkling like those of a viper, and her voice sounded like the song of a thousand sirens trying to draw him under their spell.

It was working.

“This isn’t going to hurt me, you know?” she said.

Matt licked over his lips. “Oh yeah?”

He stopped clutching the golden cross dangling from around his neck, building the perfect contrast to the crimson of his leather-clad suit. The irony of the Devil’s horns paired with the religious piece of jewelry went straight past him, but never past the woman standing right before him on the steps of the small, abandoned chapel in the heart of New York City.

“Aren’t vampires supposed to burn at the sight of a crucifix?” He realized that burn might have been too strong of a word. “…or something equally as dramatic?” he added, the hint of a dark smirk gone lost in his voice.

She chuckled. The sound bounced off the high walls decorated with poison ivy and cobwebs, and the cracks in the stone were proof of the significant age of the catholic landmark. “That’s what humans like to believe,” she said. “In your pretty little heads, it goes something like this: If the sight of Jesus on a cross can make the undead shake in their boots, God must surely be stronger than the evil lurking in the dark. I would know, I used to be like you once. A long time ago. But no, that’s actually a common misconception. The only emotion this crucifix elicits in me is pure, unbridled rage.”

“And you think I’d believe that?”

“I would say take a look in the mirror, but,” she clicked her tongue, “I don’t think you are going to see anything. Not because the mirror would be empty but because you can’t see. That’s important to clarify.”

He chuckled. “Okay, I get it. You also have a reflection. You know, you could tell me anything you want, but that still doesn’t make me believe you.”

“You don’t have a choice though.”

“Oh, I do. I always have a choice,” he said and his conviction was adorable.

“What, you want to throw garlic at me next?” The silence told her that he played with the thought. “Sweetie,” she cooed condescension in its rawest form, “That’s not even going to leave a rash. Don’t like the smell or the taste, but then again, I do not require sustenance, so nobody cares that I don’t like garlic on my food.”

“So, no fear of crucifixes, no allergy to garlic and you have a reflection. Is anything they teach us about vampires real?”

“Fair question, but no. No matter how badly you want those myths to be a reality, they’re just myths. Stories. Retellings. Children of the human imagination.”

“Bram Stoker’s Dracula.”

“Classic literature without meaning,” she said. “But it’s a good book, nonetheless.” He could hear the smile in her voice, which was about the only thing about her that was audible to his ears.

There was something terrifying about acknowledging the existence of vampires. They were dead, abominations, creations of Satan – vampires were unnatural, born from the deepest, darkest pits of hell. It was everything that he gathered after hours of research, and somehow it still wasn’t enough because she simply didn’t fit the picture he had drawn up in his mind of what a vampire would be like.

Her lack of bodily functions made it almost impossible for him to anticipate her behavior and it had him right on the precipice bothering on insanity.

“How did you know?” he questioned next.

She frowned. “That you were the man from the gala?”

Matt nodded.

“I can smell you,” she stated. “I can smell you and hear your heartbeat, that’s how I knew. And you smell oh-so-sweet. I could never forget that smell.”

He wanted to wipe that smirk off her face. She played with the same weapons he had. Her ears were as good as his and she could smell him the way he smelled her. Terrifying, he thought. She was everything he stood against and yet she was the most alike to him than anyone else.

“You figure out my name too?”

“Yes.”

“That I’m blind?”

“Blinded as a boy, lost his father young, grew up in a catholic orphanage. Graduated top of your high school class, then the top of your college class. You became a lawyer. You fight for justice. But then at night… oh, at night, the devil comes out to play. Daredevil,” she dragged out the word, “The man without fear.”

His tongue poked the inside of his cheek. “You did your research, huh,” he said. “You know everything yet nothing at all about me.”

“I could say the same about you.”

“Oh, I did my research too, alright.”

“Well, that was terrible research. Half of what the internet says isn’t true anyway.”

Scoffing, Matt chose to ignore the sheer mockery in her tone. He hated how comfortable she was around him. She had all the advantages and he was naked before her. For a man without fear, he sure was shaking in his boots just thinking about her, but it wasn’t just fear. Matt was excited. His body vibrated with the thrill she sent down his spine and he swallowed the urge to strut up to her and pull her against him, do all the lewd things she had on her mind and that projected onto him.

But he didn’t. Instead, he asked for her name. She complied, of course, saying her name in the sweet poisonous tone she always used. It was a beautiful name, made for her even. He would never tire of hearing it.

Eventually, after her name vanished from where it had hung in the atmosphere for him to taste every last sound of it, she spoke again. “You’re very educated, Matthew. I’m impressed. I like that I can talk to you on an intellectual level, although that outfit of yours is a disgrace hiding behind my favorite color,” she said.

“Why,” he challenged her, “because blood is red?”

“Perhaps, or maybe it’s just because red looks good on almost everyone.”

He scoffed.

“Dear Matthew, I know I’m currently breaking your mind, but fear not! I don’t want to kill or eat you. Not your blood anyway.”

Her eyes trailed over his body. Needy they were. Aroused, even.

He caught up on it. The longing glance, the lick of her lips, letting the saliva drip from her tongue to her bottom lip. He didn’t need to see to imagine her wild eyes undressing him.

“What do you want?” he asked. The last thing he wanted was for her to get the wrong idea.

But that dangerous woman already had the wrong idea. In her head, it was the right one. An attractive man entering her temporary stay… she would be the last person to say no to that.

“Nothing,” she stated. “I don’t have an ulterior motive. I know you want to have a reason to hate me other than the fact that I stand against everything your little catholic heart stands for, but I can’t offer you that.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Myths, novels, folklore, and everything else that even remotely borders on fantasy is something that feeds your human brain with things you understand. You want to believe what you know to be true to justify my untimely death if you were to drive a stake through my heart or something equally as dramatic. That way, you wouldn’t have to feel guilty for murdering me, but since you can probably tell that there is a faint heartbeat in my chest, it’d still be murder.”

“Untimely? I doubt that a vampire’s death could ever be untimely.”

“Three and a half centuries is pretty early for my species. Equals about the age of twenty in human years.”

“I don’t understand,” he expressed, desperate and he looked so small then, standing below her.

“My advice,” she said, taking a step down from her pedestal, “delete everything you think you know about vampires from lore or mythology and start making up your own mind.“

“Why?”

“Ask yourself this instead, why not? Why believe anything you can’t prove to be either false or true just because you have a gut feeling, or your worldviews are different? Isn’t that called prejudice?”

“Prejudice?” he said.

“Yes. I know big words too, Matthew. I mean, I am very old.” Her smirk told him she took this anything but seriously. “Well, you are Catholic,” she said. “Catholics thrive off of prejudice.”

Matt shook his head. “You have no right to judge me.”

“I’m not judging you. I’m simply telling you to open up your mind to the possibility that there might actually be a power that’s even stronger than God. Just the possibility. Consider that. Rethink the world, rethink your religion, even. Rethink everything and reconsider what’s important. Once you’ve done that, come back and have tea with me. If we’re still not on the same page then, you may drive that stake through my heart after all. I know you want to. God knows you want to. The only person who doesn’t know,” she said, tilting her head to the side as if she was talking cutely to a child, “is you, Matthew.”

“Deal,” he spoke before his brain even got the chance to think about it. “But don’t think for a moment that you’re in control of me. I can make my own decisions, and if I end up deciding to get rid of you, that’s my choice too.”

The vampire shrugged. “That’s fine by me. I do not fear death in the way you humans do.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” he chuckled breathlessly, “When I’m done with you, you’re gonna wish I’d been so merciful as to kill you.”

“Feisty, I like it.” A smirk danced on her lips in a heated rendition of salsa. “I look forward to talking to you again, Matthew.”

Her heels sounded faintly against the stone floor as she disappeared into the darkness of the abandoned church walls.

“You’re going to sleep in your coffin now?” he couldn’t help but toss after her.

The sweet sound of her usually so dooming laugh filled his ears. “Bed, actually,” she said, not even raising her voice from wherever she stood to stop and listen to him. “Coffins are so eighty-seven.”

Matt shook his head. He had always feared the creatures of the night, like the sisters at the orphanage told him to, and the priests at church always taught God’s disciples to be weary of Satan because Lucifer hides behind the most beautiful faces. The snake lurks in the dark and every person, male or female, represents Eve in the Garden of Eden, submissive to the silver tongue of the devil. That’s why you have to be on the lookout, they told them. He’s in people you don’t expect, and the creatures of the night wait for you to let them in so they can corrupt you.

Somehow though, this one was different. She was much different from what he expected and somehow, that intrigued him more than it scared him. She could have killed him but she didn’t. She could have eaten him but she didn’t. She had the opportunity, yet she chose not to.

He left the church instead of following his instincts to trap her and lock her away. He left and he decided to rethink everything as she told him to.

What could possibly go wrong?

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