Drown Under Earth - Shadows of the Night 3

Chapter 44

Hi!

Another chapter, and it's super long!!! Things will be getting rough, and we're not even close to the final chapter! Ah, I wish I could say more, but please just read and let me know what you're thinking! Thank you all for reading. :-)

Lara

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Chapter 44

There are principles we operate on, convictions and beliefs that help us navigate through our daily lives. There are paradigms we simply know are true, something we can rely on and trust. One of my big principles, the pillars my whole world was built on, was in the middle of crumbling. One universal truth no one and nothing could rattle.

What if that universal truth was put to the test? What if – even for just a single moment – among all the monsters I was looking at, vampires looked just like their human counterparts?

* * *

I never thought of myself as overly heroic. All those people talking about right and wrong, about the greater good, and all that holier-than-thou crap? Too many things happened to me to consider myself one of them. Lying and saying things you didn’t really mean, acting like you were somebody you could never be? Cutting off the proverbial toe just so that the shoe did fit? No. I’d rather walk barefoot.

I was responsible for my actions. I had to look at myself in the mirror each morning. As long as I could without looking away, I was fine with who I was and what I did. Easy, neat, simple.

And still, I came here, thinking that I would trap the Raven just like that, believing that I was willing to die for my friends, hell, maybe even for the rest of New York. If it was the only way to protect the people I loved, I would sacrifice the head vampire himself without batting an eyelash. The end justified the means.

So here I was doing the stupid thing. I walked right into that holier-than-thou trap. That was my own fault – or stupidity, take your pick.

Alexander didn’t choose or agree to die the martyr. I thought that it wouldn’t matter. All that mattered, all that should have mattered, were the people I cared about and the greater good.

How the hell could it matter if he died? Alexander was a vampire, just another monster the world would be glad to be rid of.

But it didn’t feel right. Why didn’t it? I stared at him for a long moment.

The answer never came. However, I was almost knocked unconscious by the one revelation that did come. There was an important detail I, somehow, missed. The bigger picture. I, a witch of the Circle, just handed Alexander to a lunatic rogue. If the head vampire died at the hands of said rogue witch, what would the vamps do? If he died this night, we weren’t one big step closer to chaos, mayhem, and destruction, we’d be in it up to our backsides.

“Medici,” I said and earned myself a sizzling dose of Justin’s electric shockwaves.

The Raven, who had lost his dark gray coat somewhere along the way, was moving towards the head vampire, his arms swinging at his sides. Alexander stared at him. Nothing about him in motion. The air was crackling with the anticipatory ebb of power.

“Medici!!!”

I screamed through the pain that had my eyes watering, my whole nervous system going berserk. I sagged further in Goth kiddo’s arms as the onslaught of dark power stopped.