A Beautiful Saviour

Chapter Fourteen

He was sat on top of a church, crouched solemnly with one hand resting lightly on the slats to steady his posture. The roof of the church was stable enough but he was balanced on one of the many ledges and he knew that should he sway he would fall immediately. The slightest shake of the ground would send him tumbling but still, he stayed on that ledge and watched his kin below. The bloodbath was… beyond words. There were no words to describe the smell of metallic blood splashed everywhere in huge puddles. There was no single word to describe the sick feeling he had in his stomach when he saw flesh scored open by what seemed to be a thousand knives. The staring eyes that looking at the dark clouded sky were empty and lifeless and the expressions on their faces told him all he needed to know.

                They were soldiers in a war and hatred gleamed in their expression; hatred for the enemy they fought, unaware that those on the other side may very well have fought on their side at one time. In this very messed up and unorganised war enemies and comrades were not a constant. He saw the panic on their faces when they realised that they had lost, that they had finally succumbed to a death that should never have befallen a soldier of their race. A vampire was meant to live out the ages of the world, to see the changes of season and year and watch as generation after generation of humans died. Vampires were bound to walk the world with their family as their strength, their race as comfort and that one special beloved to take away the memories that haunted them at night.

                The roaring of vampiric battle cries was chilling. It was a high pitch feline type of growl and it rolled from their tongues with the ease of water flowing in a stream; only this was not as peaceful. This was the stark difference to the tranquillity found at a stream. In the battle there was one in particular vampire. One who had abandoned his usual techniques, whose skill in stalking and waiting and patiently surveying the scene had been cast aside to let him be the angry animal he was turning out to be.

                It was as though Perttu was watching a dream, as he watched his cousin run around the battle field killing efficiently, quickly… far too easily. Killing should never be that easy, or as mindless. The side he was fighting for were impressed, they rejoiced at their blessing of such a soldier but what they did not want to do, was get that close. They did not want to meet this man at the end; they wanted their acclaimed warrior to win the battle for them and then walk away - they feared him. He was not a mere saviour, he was a weapon.

                It was his cousin Joseph’s horrific war cries that were sent up into the air and any who listened heard only pure and adulterated power and resolve to kill any in his way. But to Perttu… To Perttu who had grown up with his cousin being his brother he heard something far different. He heard the pain behind that cry. He heard the tears that were impossible to shed. He knew that that shriek of terror was a shout to the fates who watched down on them and had taken away his beautiful bride and given a fate unfair to them all.

“Joseph, hear me.” He whispered into the night. He made barely any sound but he knew the magic behind it sent it straight to Joseph’s ears.  He saw the hair on his cousin’s back shiver once, like a little evergreen tree would quiver once when a heap of snow fell on it.

                Joseph held a vampire in his very hands, its head in his palms and Perttu knew he was being dangerous here, he was distracting his ‘brother’ who could die by a single miscalculation on that bloody field.

“Come away Joseph.” He whispered. “Come away and sleep awhile. You tire from this battle; can you not feel it in your bones?”

                With a soothing and calming voice, a balm almost, Perttu hoped to hypnotise his brother from the battle field and take him back to the training in the forests that would put an end to this horror. “Let me guide you to where you might rest. Let me help you. You can lean on me. Look at what you have been through so far, look at the death that clings to your legs. Walk away from it. Come to me.”

                Joseph stopped, his form held straight, steady and prepared. He was tensed ready for attack and Perttu watched from his high up spot, gripping the stone ledge with so much strength he felt it crumbling under his hold. “Put him down and walk away.” He ordered. “Step off this battlefield and join us again. Join us again in this fight for peace.”

                It was with a semblance of shock that Perttu watched as Joseph turned around abruptly and his eyes landed straight on Perttu’s. As if he had known all along he was sitting on that rooftop watching him. He had not succumbed to the power of Perttu’s voice.

“Why should I?”

“Have you not killed enough?!”

“Has not every one of us? Have not we all got blood engraved on our hands and the smell forever lodged in our noses? Why should I come away, this war has valid reasons for starting, why not bring about a decision?”

“A decision reached by which side can walk away? Who then go on to fight with the next group with the same agenda, the same disagreements with everyone else?! Do you feel better? Does the pain of losing Elsa go away with every vampire you kill?”

“… It…”

“Does it?!” Long gone was Perttu’s civility. “Do you feel at ease at your fated lot now you have killed?!”

“…”

“Answer me!”

“No!”

                Perttu felt his heart break. Joseph stood in the middle of the dead, like a demon, and yet so very vulnerable in that moment. “Come to me.” He called to Joseph. “Come away from this… Come away from this.” With his hypnotic voice Perttu led Joseph from off the battle field and to the front doors of the church where he was taking no chances. He put Joseph into a sleep only family could do to one another to render them less dangerous, and then he lifted up his cousin into his arms and carried back to the forest and towards the sea he had spent so long pulling crabs out of.

“The next bit must be your own choice. Wake and make me proud. Don’t let me regret calling you my brother. Come back to us Joseph. I cannot give you your mate but I can make the world that little less harsh.”

                He put Joseph’s sleeping form down on the sand and let his bare feet immerse in the cold water. Then he backed away and left Joseph alone and leaving with Perttu were the sorcerer’s, the enchantress and all her kin. They made it so that Joseph was completely, totally, alone…