Elijah
"We are beginning our descent. Please proceed to your seat and buckle up. We will arrive in Rome under the hour."
The intercom crackles unstably in the 4x4 restroom. Ringing through is the grainy sound of an anxious stewardesses' voice while the Boeing reluctantly bows for land, leaving the comfort of the open air. The faulty wiring of the plane would concern any passenger flying thousands of feet above ground. It's a mere distraction, one I drown out, scrubbing blue unscented soap onto my blood-stained fingers.
The child in row D couldn't take her eyes off of the remains of life I'd been too busy to wash before boarding. The vampire the blood belonged to sank to the bottom of the ocean off the coast of Croatia a few hours ago, strapped to a net of stone. A quick execution.
With the shortage of willing donors, the traitors have to do.
The taste of him still lingers on my tongue. O-Positive. Sickening.
The door raps softly. "Excuse me? We're landing. You need to get to your seat now."
"One moment."
Placing my overnight on the seat cover, I extract a glock and rounds, careful not to touch the silver within the magazine. When it's loaded, I tuck it under my belt, concealed under my coat and place the bag on my shoulder, opening the door just as the stewardess begins to knock again impatiently.
She takes a step back upon first glance, the usual reaction. What follows is both fear and visual enchantment. Mesmerized, her mouth wavers open and closed, trying to form words.
"Please... um, please buckle..."
"Yes," I murmur, smirking darkly. "Safety first."
The door swings loudly behind me as I move through the aisle toward the front of the plane, scanning the passengers intensely. Ever since the ban on firearms dropped for air travel, making the skies as dangerous to fly as the ground is to wander, weapons are carried and even flashed to ensure a higher understanding of the world we have become to others.
Humanity has turned it's back on each other... and this is just the beginning.
I lower into the seat assigned to me, ignoring the lingering looks from passengers.
I already know what they're thinking.
Could he be one of them?
A vampire?
Is he going to kill us?
After the third of our kind publicly made themselves known, it became necessary to accept detection was inevitable. Without Cassandra, even with the districts and the punishments, it's impossible to completely weed out the doubters.
Bodies have begun to turn up around the world, drained, frozen with a look of unnatural fear etched forever into their features. As if the riots, the night curfews weren't bleak enough. The panic that took the world by storm when the first vampire released a poorly-made video violently draining a missing girl... it's damage was irreparable.
It didn't matter how quickly I got there, how quickly I executed him.
The planet saw the truth. And the uproar started there.
The two other traitors were just more confirmation.
The transfer from plane to airport is where I move the gun from the back of my body to the front, walking calmly as the passengers shuffle quickly in huddles for the exits. It's a known fact that the streets are dangerous. As even though it's hardly true, a vampire could be lurking around any corner.
Some businesses are still open, though barred by gating. Customers must purchase through the barriers. The other establishments have packed up shop, decided to wait for the end without the risk of perishing on the way to work.
Those people believe the apocalypse will come soon.
As far as I can tell, what Cassandra said is true.
This is going to take years. This hell... there is no escaping it.
With the loss of the sun, as I exit the airport without transportation, unafraid of the menacing streets, comes the cold. It's hardly autumn, but there is heavy snow falling from the black sky. To the people I pass, the weather is hardly bearable. The north has been evacuated for months as it is now unlivable tundra.
"Stop! Hey! Stop!"
I can hear the screams from a mile away, but I continue on, unable to stop for the common robbery or harassment. The tribunal isn't far. I walk for a few blocks until I hear another cry, this time a child's wail.
I stop, listening for the distance of her location.
In the seconds it takes to reach the area, her cries are accompanied by manic ramblings. I slow to a steady pace to remain undetected and call out to make myself known.
"Hello?"
Out of all places, I discover them in a forgotten alleyway, although they appear to be anything but the usual homeless that dwell in these parts. Their clothing is expensive. The bags of groceries on the woman's arms indicate they took refuge in this hidden place.
As I near, the woman on the ground, clutching the now silent child, holds up her hands fearfully. "Stay back! Don't come closer! I...I have a gun!"
"I have no desire to harm you," I reply calmly. "I am a physician. What ails her?"
"Stay back! I mean it!" she sobs incoherently, her features paling when my face catches the light from the flickering lamppost. My size must terrify her, but she goes quiet, allowing me to approach.
As soon as I get close enough, inhaling the inevitable scent of death, I don't have to look at the child to know she's dying. My first instinct is to heal her, to offer her my blood. It will take a matter of seconds, and the bones that are broken will re-align, the blood that's filled the sidewalk will matter not.
But I cannot do it. Not with a witness.
"Are you her mother?" I ask, bending down, grabbing the girl's face. Blue eyes stare back at me, blinking but surely, she's near blindness by now.
"Sister. Oh, God. Is she going to die? She's going to die."
"What happened?"
"A car... it came out of nowhere. It didn't stop. I... I wasn't looking. I didn't think—"
"You shouldn't be alone at night. It isn't safe," I say, doing the opposite of what I'd normally do in this situation. Normally, I'd check whether she can be moved, if her spine is intact. But there is no time for that.
"I don't have my equipment. There is a store still open around the corner," I say, lifting the child off the ground and towards my chest. She doesn't make a sound. In the street hangs a dead calm as if they were vacant, but I know better.
I lay the girl onto the snow-layered sidewalk, pointing to the store.
"Get bandages. Now."
She's hesitant to leave her sister. "But—"
"Now!"
She stumbles onto the street, hurrying towards the corner store guarded by an armed man. As soon as she's inside, I look down at the child, and then all around me. I can hear her faint heartbeat, barely thumping. Her face resembles that of a corpse. She's all but deceased.
There is nothing to do. No place to prevent blood flow. No wound to stitch.
The damage is inside.
The child's eyes flutter weakly. There are no signs of fear or discomfort on her face.
Her voice cracks. "Daddy?"
She falls unconscious the moment the word is out, and my head shakes, a wallowing pit forming in my chest. What did they do to deserve this?
I lower the girl to the snow, glancing up to see the frantic sister paying for supplies in the window, red-faced and terrified. For centuries, I've dedicated myself to the preservation of life. I've healed more than I've killed. It doesn't spare me from Hell, but it keeps a conscience clean.
It allows me to live with myself, with the horrors I once inflicted with pleasure.
The battles I've fought, the people I've cut down.
I have to make a decision. There's no time.
I push back the sleeve of my coat, feeling the tingling extraction of my fangs elongating. Keeping my head down to prevent my eyes from being seen, I sink the fangs deep enough into my wrist to drive out blood.
Prying open the child's mouth, I place my wrist over the gaping hole, watching drops of my blood land in the back of her throat. She'd be healed with even a taste, but after three drops, I surge to my feet and disappear, speeding to a stop when I'm far enough from sight that her human eyes cannot detect me.
The woman runs out into the street, gasping when she finds her relative lying alone in the snow. And when the child begins to sit up on her own, the bags of supplies drop to the floor, scattering around her feet.
I've executed creatures for doing what I've just done.
This woman will wonder how this child's injuries disappeared. No doubt she will begin to wonder who her sister's rescuer truly was, if he was one of the monsters roaming the world, the one who survives on blood.
This is a momentary victory for them. The world will only become harsher.
Free from the guilt I would have endured leaving that child to die on an icy curbside, I head in the direction of the tribunal. Rome is one of the least-affected cities. Places like New York and Tokyo are a cesspool of waste. The crime is constant, the distrust unmatchable to anywhere else. Overrun with millions of people out of jobs, a step outside could prove fatal at any moment.
It was nearly a month ago when we gated and boarded the building that had weathered centuries without disturbance. We only require use of one entrance where we move in and out. Most vampires have been sent off, with only a few remaining with advanced technological skills. In exchange for guaranteed substance, they work round the clock to prevent leaks or sightings from devices worldwide.
The bag I'm carrying consists of weapons and quarts of human blood from one of the few banks left in Scotland, a detour I made once I'd finished what I went for—to punish and execute a creature for wanting to be what he was made for.
We are programmed for violence. We are made to roam the dark nights, to feast on flesh.
It's the reason we are called monsters, and those people are right.
That's exactly what we were made to be.
And yet, we no longer live in a world where freedom is an option.
We've been exposed. In a never-ending night, we are watched and hunted.
Stop signs are sprayed with graffiti by trigger-happy morons, aching for a confrontation with the blood-suckers. They are egging monsters that are tiring of the hiding.
I cannot control them all... not without her.
I move swiftly through the tunnels, descending into the tribunal undergrounds and the cameras follow, observing my traveling. I'm past the third door when I'm hit with a wave of unease, an uncomfortable energy right in the middle of my chest. It stops me in my tracks and I must reach out, grounding myself with my hands on the coarse stone walls.
It's her.
I wait for it to pass, this everyday occurrence.
I wonder what's made her uneasy, what she's enduring wherever she is.
My fingers rake over the stone, my eyes tracing the course bleakly. The color of it is the exact shade of the tunnels in Cairo. Our memories are a necessary poison to my brain, and as much as I try to push them out, focus on the crumbling world around me, I am failing.
She's too important.
There's no reason for any of this without her.
There's a grainy screech from the camera monitor, and then the microphone speaks.
"Do we need to head down there? Huh? Carry you up?"
I scoff, closing my eyes with annoyed amusement. "Another word and I'll horde the blood I've brought you, Damien."
"What type?"
"O-pos. A-pos. It was all they had."
"Ugh. Keep it."
I laugh tiredly, straightening once I'm freed from the rush of anxiousness. "Shut the fuck up and open the door."
It unlocks from the inside, a new system of protection. The second I'm inside, I'm greeted by Paris, who smiles excitedly.
"Anxious yet?"
I hand him the bag so he may disperse the blood to everyone in the building. With the shortage, we're all living on hardly anything. "For what?"
"Tomorrow."
Only a soul such as Paris' could anticipate a satisfying ending to all this destruction.
"I'm trying not to think of it," I admit.
"What for? Tonight, the hell is over."
The impressive walls of the tribunal, walls that were erected centuries upon centuries ago, have been recently stripped of any wealth. Any paintings, gold plates, any item of value have been sold to supply funds to districts. The building is empty, unable to offer any further assistance. My own accounts I've begun to dip into. Without money, incentives for a human to quietly provide blood for our banks in this panic, the vampires would begin to starve and divide, turning to the unsuspecting mortal for sustenance.
I will go bankrupt before I allow that to happen.
Three months.
91 days of global darkness. 91 days of sinister chaos.
Tomorrow will be 92.
Tomorrow, the world will hang on the balance.
"And if she doesn't return?" I whisper.
His hand rests on my shoulder, encouraging me to face him. "Do you actually question that?"
For months, I've had to relive the last moments between Cassandra and I. In those moments, I harmed her. I doubted her. I gave her exactly what she had been accusing me of—judgment. For months, I've brewed in retrospection, understanding the expectations I placed over her head, required of her.
Her argument was valid. It's no wonder she made the deal... why she left.
She's experienced torrents of emotions that I've been able to pin-point, but what's shocked me is how little she's felt fear. She's in the fist of Satan, and I've felt joy in her, even wonder.
He's changing her, and there's nothing I can do to stop him.
And I become bitterer every day.
"She's divine, Paris. Why would she come back? Even with the end to the apocalypse, she'd return as a human. Everything she's learned she'd have to give up. The power she's inherited would be taken from her."
His eyes are stubborn with shock. "She died for you, Elijah."
"I did the same. I sacrificed the same. I've given everything for her. My body, my soul."
"I don't understand how you could doubt her. You are bound by fate. You transcend mortal love... even spiritual love."
"She was meant for him, for Satan."
"I refuse to believe that."
He's not alone in that, and yet, still I argue. "She's changing."
"She went mad when you died, Elijah. Certifiably insane. She locked herself away and fantasized day and night on how to bring you back from the ground. She is ours. She is our family. You are worried because the day you've waited for has finally arrived, but do not insult her by questioning her devotion. She will show, and you will be happy."
The man has lived through four centuries and still manages to see beauty.
In my seven, I've struggled to remain so optimistic.
This world may be beautiful, but it fights back. It drains it's inhabitants.
It's never fair.
If it were, she'd already be with me. If the world were fair, we'd still be in Russia, in our cabin, and there would be no threats, no stakes, no deadly sacrifices to be made. We'd have met before I was changed, and I would be human. I would give her what a man is supposed to give a woman.
I'd protect her.
But alas, our world is far from fair, and we've paid dearly for the days we've had.
Paris shakes me, wishing to break me from my thoughts. "All of this has to be for a reason. You had a purpose before. She wouldn't have been able to bring you back if there wasn't a new one to pursue now."
I leave his side, needing to gather my wits. When the student begins lecturing me, there is something dearly wrong. I reach the end of the hallway, unable to prevent the darkest thought running through my tormented mind from slipping past my lips.
"But that's just it, Paris," I whisper, vulnerably, as if it were a crime to say it. "What if I'm meant to be dead? What if I'm merely a fragment of her life that's behind her now? I... I don't want to hold her back from what she could be."
"She's your woman, and she's relying on you. That's all you need to know... right?"
There's no denying him. I glare knowingly, turning.
"When did you get so damn sensible?"
His answer rings through the hollow halls after me. "Well, I learned from the best!"
***
Her gasp is sharp and erotic, hitched with desire.
Her damp flesh burns my hands and I revel in the sweet pain. After so long unable to feel, I'm addicted to her warmth, finding comfort in the soft satiny feel of her bent back, the secret sensitive skin between her thighs, the round curves of her breasts.
Deep in the throes of passion, pushing deeply into her from behind, she sits up against me, beckoning me to her throat, pushing aside her raven-colored locks to give clear access to her rushing veins. With my arms wrapping around her, my fingers digging into her heaving breasts, her blood races at an extraordinary pace, her heartbeat wild and uneven after the hours I've spent inside of her.
No human could provide such pleasure. She moves like a nymph, limber and confident. Her body eagerly takes me in, her nails driving into my flesh, searching for more pain. Charged with lust and curiosity, she begs for more—rougher touches, harder thrusts, deeper kisses. Cautious of her fragile bones, I go farther than I ever have with a willing human.
I sink my teeth through her skin daringly, exposed and vulnerable by the taste within her. Her shallow breaths, accompanied by satisfied moans, turn me into a crazed man, a desperate heathen. I cannot control how hard I plunge into her, how far I sink.
Having taken all of me, her body quivers, and I hear a low hiss of discomfort.
My mouth pulls away reluctantly from her delicious flesh before I can concern myself, aware I'm seconds away from losing control. My eyes drink in the sight of crimson blood streaming like a river over her porcelain skin, rolling over her taut pink nipple, dripping off the slope in single droplets. I bend my body to take her sleek breast into my mouth, rolling my tongue over the sensitive nub while my hands drift over her flat stomach, her chest, gliding through the blood, spreading it up to her throat, where once I've straightened, I clasp tightly with my hand.
"Yes," her seductively hoarse voice moans breathlessly. I can hear the smile, the crazed part of her that gets off on being tortured. While I cannot read her like I can others, her body is easy to decipher. She's weakening, but relentless. She'll bow to me as long as I want her. She'll suffer through her trembling bones until I spare her.
Not wishing to push her beyond her limit, my hand releases her neck to dip between her warm thighs. My fingers instantly meet a wet, swollen cunt, and I smile against her when she flinches at my contact to her clitoris.
"I've pushed you far today, my love," I whisper, rubbing in soft coaxing circles, pulling her towards a quick release. I was ready the moment I touched her. That's what she does to me. I'm blind, blind to anything but her attention.
Her blue eyes can cut through me with one glance. Her smile, when at it's full potential, reminds the cold dead heart in my chest that it once beat, and all of those beats are instantly hers, without a doubt. All of the years roaming the earth were preparation for the life-altering axis she just flipped, inflicting chaos into my life.
I'm discovering what weakness feels like.
I'm discovering emotions I didn't even know I could feel.
She's placed her life in my hands, and I must be capable.
"Elijah," she breathes, burying her hand into my hair. My lips caress her throat, my tongue drifting gently over the punctured wounds I've left in her neck. At this point, I'm hardly rocking into her. Her hips are churning greedily, sliding to and fro on my cock as I roll two fingers over her sex repeatedly, knowing she's close by how she clenches around me, how her clit pulsates and warms beneath my cold fingers.
She tilts her face towards me. Flushed rosy from pleasure and exertion, she's the meeting of all things perfect. "I... I don't want this to end."
"I'm here. I'm always going to be here."
"Good." She grins cheekily, exhausted. "Because I can't live without you."
"You'll never have to."
"And if he takes me?"
I freeze, my mouth halting against her cheek. Everything stops.
"Who?"
"And what if I want him too?"
My eyes shift to hers suspiciously. "Want him?"
Kindness drains from her features as her red lips turn up mischievously.
I grab her face before she can look away, one hand gripping her jaw. "Who the fuck is he?"
With cool breath on my neck, bringing an ominous feeling of death I've experienced once before in my life, I turn to face the darkness as it speaks to me directly.
"She'll never be yours. She's happy with me. She's never coming back."
My eyes suddenly open, my startled gaze landing on a stony ceiling. I don't normally shake, and yet, as I sit up in bed, my body is rattling with fury, with disbelief. Vampire's do not dream, and it didn't feel like one. It felt real. Horrifyingly real.
My gaze drops to my naked form, the evidence of pleasure unfulfilled stiff against my flesh. Shifting off the bed, I stand rigidly, so tense it's hard to move. I can taste her blood on my tongue still, remember the exact feel of her damp skin. I can hear her sounds.
The nearest object to me is a gasoline lamp. Overcome with rage, I pick it up and thrust it towards the wall. At impact, it crashes loudly and the glass rains down onto the ground. The smell of gasoline whiffs up into my nostrils. The wall has an indent. I don't bother cleaning the mess, nor do I regret the reaction.
Grabbing pants on the way out, I race for the door, needing to cast out the dark thoughts that beckon.
***
"I figured I'd find you here."
Seated on the edge of the roof, I turn my head towards the person who disrupted my seclusion.
"Erika."
She's holding a goblet. The contents are blood. I can smell it from here.
"You've been AWOL all day."
"Mm."
"You know what that does to them, right? They don't function right without you."
I smile, reluctantly. "Four-hundred years... You'd think they'd want some kind of distance from their creator."
"That's just not how this works."
"I know," I chuckle. "I kind of like it, but don't tell them that. They'll get soft."
"Damien, soft? Yeah right. The guy is probably torturing someone right now."
She holds out the cup of blood. "Thought you could use some."
"I'm fine. Give it to one of the boys."
"You didn't get a share. Paris noticed."
She thrusts it into my hand, despite my sigh of aggravation.
"I'm sure you want to be healthy when you see her."
I nod, looking down into the thick liquid. "What time is it?"
With no rise or fall of the sun, it's become difficult to know.
"Two hours to midnight."
I lift the goblet to my lips, scoffing. "Three months. Goddamn."
"I miss her," she says, smiling slowly. "I miss her laugh the most. It's odd but whenever I smell leather, I'm constantly reminded of her. What about you?"
I give her a subtle side-glance. "I miss everything."
"Even her temper?"
"Especially her temper."
She nudges my arm, chuckling. "Well, with all this death gone, the world will repair itself, Elijah. You and her can move on from all of this, live happy."
I nod, refusing to show her my creeping concern for the approaching stroke of midnight. "And what about you? What will you do?"
"Well, as much as I love Damien and Paris, I do very much feel like a third wheel between them. They're too damn affectionate."
I laugh, nodding, understanding where she's coming from. "Yes, I wondered when you'd get fed up of it."
"They're good in bed, but I like being the center of attention, as you well know."
"I do."
"I'm thinking I'll maybe go somewhere warm... a beach maybe. Fuck a few vampires, a few humans. Party on a binge. What do you think?"
"I think you're insane."
I pass her the goblet instinctively, finding comfort in ensuring the health of the others around me. She rolls her eyes, taking it.
"So want to tell me why you've been sitting out here all day?"
"I had a dream... I think. I don't know if I was unconscious, but it's possible."
"It couldn't have been a dream."
"Well, it sure as hell wasn't happening."
She's quiet for a moment. "What was it?"
"It was... Cassandra. We were making love, but she was still human. I could feel her heartbeat. Her blood was red. It felt like it did when we were in Russia, at the beginning. It was just us... and then she brought up desiring another man."
"What?"
"And then a voice in the room said she was happy with him, that she was his now."
"Samael?"
"Who else?"
"It's probably him fucking with your mind. He probably senses his loss, and is trying to punish you for it."
Too internalized in the mirage I witnessed the last time my eyes were closed and my wits were down and vulnerable, I can only offer back indifference. "Perhaps."
She takes my hand, squeezing. "She's coming, Elijah. She is."
We don't need to say anything else. She sits with me a while in silence and then stands when midnight is nearing, leaving behind a gold pocket watch. My eyes roam over the rooftops of Rome, taking in the land of my birth. Italy. I was once a young man, set steadily on architecture for a career. My father wished me to marry a young woman of the family he worked for. Before the plague that brought disease and sorrow to everyone and everything I loved, I was ordinary.
My life was just as insignificant as anyone else's.
I had a family.
I had an outlook on how my life was to be mapped out.
I imagined myself growing old, having children, dying in contentment.
Instead, my future became marked with war, and death, and blood. There would be no growing old, no children, no wife to care for. Born out of poverty, I rose to dine with kings, to fight by their sides. I've witnessed empires fall and rise, and until now, I was grateful for the chance.
Sitting here, I can remember the face of my mother. With hair the same color as my own and light eyes that brightened her entire face, I can somehow still see her so perfectly. Back then, she married him for convenience. Respect and loyalty came later.
But they were never not a family... a team.
They have left me now. They left a long time ago.
But in the time that I have lived, there has been only one with a soul I feel at home in.
And as I look around me, letting the seconds tick away, the hope I'd refused to goad returns with a vengeance. I allow myself to believe in justice.
She is my lifeline. There is no reason for me to be here if not for her.
She will show.
She doesn't desire him.
She hasn't released me.
We are bound by a force greater than time, greater than magic. Light or dark. Good or evil. She is my friend, my confidant, my lover, my wife, my soul.
We have been tested, and each time, we have prevailed.
She will not feed his desires. She will return to me as if no time has passed at all.
Desperation claws at my insides, forcing me to move to dull the restless ache I've endured without her for three months, a never-ending sickness I carry through night and day. The roof is large and spacious and the floor is frozen with frost.
The wind picks up, torrential and wild with tension. The sounds of Rome die down as if the crime were coming to a complete stand-still. My feet stop moving immediately, my fingers grasping the delicate pocket watch which clicks and clicks with each second that races by.
And then it stops.
The ticks stop. My eyes swivel down to the two hands frozen vertically on the twelve.
Midnight.
The stroke of it.
Church bells begin to chime loudly at the dawn of a new day, a new routine that was implemented once the sky went dark. They ring throughout the entire city, echoing through this rooftop.
I stare out at the buildings, eyes wide, waiting for the noise to cease.
The entire minute passes, one deafening ring after the other, and then my world goes quiet. It stays quiet for precisely one moment, before coming back to life with the wail of a siren.
My hand slams into my chest as if to clutch my unbeating heart, feeling a shot of pain inside.
"No... it can't be," I whisper aloud.
She has to come. She has to be here.
Three months. She said three goddamn months.
Similar to when she summoned me from the ground, I feel a loss of my senses, a dizzy panic that hangs over my head. The watch scatters on the ground as I reach out for the edge of the building to steady myself.
"Cassandra," I gasp, gazing around the roof wildly. Anger hits me in a rush, refusal to believe she'd betray me. "CASSANDRA!"
I receive no reply.
Still holding my chest, I try to reach out to her in the only way I can.
Dimensions will not stop me. I will call out to you, she said.
The heavy door to the stairwell opens with a slow groan, and multiple footsteps make their presence known. I do not turn to look at them. I just stare at the city, at the crumbling world.
She's forsaken it? She's forsaken me?
My Cassandra?
It must be him. He's done something to her, tricked her. I refuse to believe it.
The remnants of the dream I experienced not even a day ago surface in me like an infection, breaking down my faith, ridding me of any rational thoughts.
I can hear her voice, taunting and deep.
And what if I want him to?
His, overflowing with pride... victory.
She's happy with me. She's never coming back.
Mist of disbelief gathers in my eyes as I hang on each second, expecting a miracle.
Three months, she said. Three and he'd release her if she desired it.
"Where is she?" Paris asks fearfully behind me.
It destroys me to say it, raggedly coming through my lips in the midst of both physical and mental agony.
But it must be said.
There's a dying world around us.
And there is no end in sight to the destruction. Not anymore.
"She... didn't come."