Christmas Consort

Dead At Last

Silas!

Kylie remembered. I'm not the only one in danger, she thought. Past the tingling, past the itching, Kylie blinked heavy lids open. White lights blinked on the wall. Coming from the tree, she realized. A man was talking. Talking about forgiveness. Talking about lost love.

Kylie focused and slowly inched her head around. Silas was still on the ground, his blue eyes watching. He was alive. Lara's back was blocking the other person in the room. Lara was stiff. She sat there holding Silas's hand as if she cared what happened to him. As if this whole bloody mess wasn't her big plan.

But that meant...Kylie couldn't think what it meant. Her head pounded and itched as if flies with hundred pound bodies crawled about. She winced and saw the larger figure beyond Lara was dressed in dark clothes. He was the one talking. Had been talking. He was quiet now. He leaned forward and put a hand to Silas's forehead.

Kylie saw two things at once. 1) He was the Man in Black, and 2) he held a viciously curved blade over Silas. The lights twinkled off the metal. She heard the Man in Black say 'So sorry'. He brought the blade over his shoulder ready to lash out. Kylie gasped in a breath to scream, but she was too late.

An arch of blood followed the trajectory of the knife. Some of it hit her face, her eyes. Kylie cried out blindly and groped for Silas

Lara was smiling. She hadn't meant to smile. The blade moved so fast she didn't realize its business was done until her vision went dark. 'Dead at last' was the last thought she ever had.

***

Silas gasped in air as Jackson Ridley pulled the stake from his back. It was air he did not need to survive, not yet anyway. He needed it to speak.

"Kylie, it's okay. Everything's okay now." He reached for her and drew her into his arms.

"Silas?"

"I'm right here. Everything's going to be all right now." She curled into him crying and shaking as he rocked her. "It's okay."

Ridley gently took Lara's head and placed it on the female vampire's stomach. He slipped his arms under legs and torso and took the corpse out back where the sunrise would take her. This task was as familiar to him as slipping on his black leather jacket, and it was regrettable only for the pain he inflicted upon his old friend, Silas Boone.

Daylight was still a few hours away. Ridley wished it was closer. He was more comfortable standing in the morning sun watching a corpse burn to dust than he was being in the same room with a human woman clinging to a vampire.

Occasionally new melodies came to him as he disposed of the vampires he had killed. Not tonight though. Lara's theme was already written and known much the world over.

There was no improving on some lots in life.

^*Ѱr