Elijah
We are out of time.
Every one of us knows it.
There have been no miracles, no fated appearances from the divine.
We are, very much, alone.
I clip my heavy belt, a belt newly armed. Unsure of what we face in the next day, I will go into it prepared for battle. I glance over my shoulder as I button my shirt to where I know Cassandra stands, dressing as well. The fact that she's wearing the same outfit she did when we stormed these halls years ago, armored in tight leather and weapons of silver, proves she's as sure of the ominous hours ahead as I am. Her silence over the past days have been deafening.
"Paris and Damien will return in a few hours," I say, actually surprised when she turns, meeting my eyes. She's expertly hidden whatever is behind them. "I... wanted them near me for whatever we face." I'm unsure how to define her silence. "You think they'd be safer at a distance?"
She chuckles darkly, pulling on boots. "He's going to come for me, so I think it's safe to say that they would be. You should tell them to stay away until tomorrow."
"That will be no easy feat. They are loyal to you, Cassandra."
"You are their master. They'd listen to you. They obey your order."
"Are you so sure of our failure?" I jest, having to feign amusement. "Is there no hope for us then?"
"There is always hope. I just... I'm scared for them."
"As am I. We must trust Jehovah will not fail us..."
She turns with an abruptness that startles me, headed for the door. My eyes intake how she's shaking. I ensnare her before she can slip away, seizing her arm tight. She looks from my fingers to my eyes, and I see a franticness in the light irises, a terror that scares me to the bone.
"This may be our last day on earth together, Cassandra. Do not cower from me."
"Please," she whispers.
"Please what?"
"Don't."
"Luce mia... I don't understand. Help me understand. You are world's away from here, from me. You flinch when I come near. You hardly speak, and when you do, you're nearly in tears."
She's staring at the ground, as if her life... our lives... depend on it. I stare at her, at a loss for what to do.
"We both have... secrets, I think. Things we cannot say."
"Our vow is broken," she whispers, ominously. "Our souls will pay for it."
"No, they won't. Our choices are not our own. They haven't been for a very long time."
Her soft hand wraps around my wrist. She still won't look at me, but when she speaks, I hear the tears she's restraining. "Elijah... please."
"Look at me." I nudge her chin upwards. "Please, amore mio. Look at me."
Her eyes are round, frozen wide. They tremble, rimmed with water.
With hands resting on her cheeks, I guide her closer, until our noses are pressed.
"I know you know things we don't. I know you carry a burden. I can see it... feel it. We are not the secretive kind. I know if you haven't told me, it's for a reason. I'm not going to pressure it out of you. But what I see in your eyes scares me."
"I... don't want to scare you," she whispers, apologetically, nervously rubbing the golden citrine against her throat. It's an answer so unlike her, I lose the careful words I had prepared.
"Listen to me, Cassandra de Ricci." I shake her to listen, imploring her to look into my eyes and see the desperation within them. "Listen! If I must bide in Hell to atone for everything I've done and kidnap you from his very clutches, I will. My faith in our souls, which do exist betwixt another, is too great for me to believe otherwise. No matter what happens today, to either of us, I will find you. This is not the last day I look upon your face."
She begins to weep, but she nods, over and over again, until she's falling onto my chest. I hold her tightly, chin against her hair.
"I don't regret loving you," she laments, drawing me closer by my coat. "I need you to know that, Elijah. Whether we win or lose, I want you to hear how much I love you."
"I don't need to hear it. I know your heart, as you know mine. Our love does not need words."
She pulls her head back, offering me her blue eyes, surrounded by so much red irritation they appear to be like crystal. I swipe her tears, smiling down at her. It takes everything within me to smile in such a moment.
"I am your protector. My place is at your side. We have not lost. I refuse to let us act as if we have."
"We won't lose. We will do what is necessary... whatever is necessary."
"We will."
"Promise me," she insists weakly. For a moment, I can only give her silence, shaken by her insistence. She's asking the impossible, for me to accept the loss of her. I nod unsurely, so terrified I forget how to function. "Elijah, please."
There's a knock upon our door. Tearing me from my own fears, I start for the door but her insistent fingers pull me back. Her rosy lips tremble.
"Promise me!"
Dio ci aiuti. God help us.
I gape at her, stunned by the outburst. It tells me we have much to be frightened of.
There's another rap at the door, and then Erika's frantic voice.
"Elijah..."
"Porca miseria! Yes! I promise!" I bark, shaking with rage, needing to be free of this room, of her despair.
She will not die today.
She will not die today.
She will not.
If I say it enough times, perhaps someone merciful will hear me.
Throwing open the door, I face Erika. She's too preoccupied to realize she's intruded on a truly appalling conversation. "What is it?"
"It's Camari! She's... she's acting strange! Talking strange!"
"Strange? Tongues?"
"Yes, like there's someone else here!"
No. No, not this soon. It isn't even dusk.
"Take me to her." I look into the room, wordlessly holding out my arm. Cassandra, snatching her pistol and bullets from the table, rushes out after us. Too concerned to have her trailing behind me to load her gun with silver, I pull her to my side, practically dragging her to keep with our pace, despite how reluctant her legs are to comply.
Erika's room, the largest one in the building, has violent sounds emerging when we reach it. It sounds as if someone's throwing every item around with the intent to destroy. I shove the door with my shoulder, met with resistance.
"Camari, open the damn door!" I shout, barging in by breaking the barrier. The woman, an otherwise peaceful creature, is digging into her own flesh with a shard of silver. The creature has turned on herself. Erika chokes loudly behind me at the gruesome sight. We both race to stop her, pinning her down amongst an annihilated room.
Cassandra wastes no time trying to tear the shard from Camari's hands. I have to pry open her fingers for Cassandra to even get hold of it. Camari lets out a shriek, fighting us, glowing eyes zeroed in on Cassandra, who is backing up into the doorway, sensing the increasing danger.
"Camari, please stop! Stop!" Erika shouts. "It's me, Erika! This isn't you!"
Suddenly, Erika's lover stills entirely. She stops fighting.
It's then that the walls around us begin to emanate destruction, following turbulent suit. An eruption of chaos behind every wall. There is no reaction but terror to feel in the atmosphere.
"I want her," Camari taunts, a slow, spreading smile taking over her petite face.
Her eyes haven't left Cassandra, who releases the safety on her gun, arming herself, steel-faced and determined to survive.
"Give her to me!" the possessed vampire howls, pushing against our grip. "He desires her! He'll have her!"
I look at Erika, running out of options. "Speak to her! Now!"
"I'm trying!"
My fangs grind as I slam the woman's face into the stone, pinning her down. My attention has already turned to the blade at my hip, prepared to do whatever I must when this escalates. When Erika's pleadings begin to seem futile, and the other rooms sound equally occupied, I realize there is no choice.
There is no time to save her.
"Erika..."
"Don't!" she snaps, already anticipating my thoughts. "Don't you dare!"
"ERIKA! This is not Camari! Not anymore!"
Cassandra flies back into the hardwood, eyes locked on something outside of the door. "Elijah... We have to go!"
A swarm tramples their way through the threshold, as if programmed for one thing and one thing alone. My wife. I release Camari, leaping up before they can reach her, tearing through flesh with my bare hands. I don't see faces. I don't see creatures of my kind, creatures I may have shared sustenance with just this morning. As far as I'm concerned, they are shelled corpses without feelings, who cannot live another day.
I hear Erika's tearful pleadings in the background of slaughter. She won't hold her for long. "Camari! Stop!"
My body shields Cassandra from the violence, pinning her right up to the wall behind me. As long as we're within these walls, we are trapped... doomed. We must fight our way out of here. My teeth drive into flesh while my hands pull on limbs, dismembering them, one by one.
"Camari!"
Cassandra's gun comes up in my sight, aimed decisively at the voracious creature springing out of Erika's grasp. The death of Erika's lover transpires so fast, it warrants questions.
Did Cassandra fire?
Did she die by bullet? By blade? Will this end Camari or will she spring up like a demon?
The walls vibrating with the haunting groans of hunters makes it difficult to tell. It isn't until Camari has fallen face-forward that I catch sight of the pistol at the end of Erika's outstretched quivering arm, and inhale the overwhelming scent of gunpowder.
There's no time to dwell on Erika's loss. The second woman she's fallen in love with, dead at her feet, practically at my orders. She doesn't even have time to touch her, to mourn over Camari's lifeless body. Her loyalties, even in a moment such as this, shift to the only person in this room worth protecting. Cassandra. With the added help, we scuffle our way out of the deadly corner, rushing into the hallway.
"Go, go, go!"
Doused in blood and guts leaking from my fingers, I usher Cassandra forward while Erika blows through her own constituents, who answered to her loyally just hours ago. We are in the midst of invasion, with every soul, possessed with the devil's own strength. The fighting becomes harrowing, near-misses that show we're at a losing advantage. There's just too many of them.
"Get her outside! Now! Go! I'll hold them off!" Erika bellows over her shoulder, a demand I'm unable to refuse, even when Cassandra begins to panic, realizing we're having to leave someone behind.
"No!" Cassandra cries, slipping from my fingers while bodies hang from my shoulders. "Elijah! We can't! Erika!"
I knew this would be difficult, but tearing Cassandra away from the only family she's ever known, leaving Erika in the midst of certain death, abandoning our values to ensure survival, it's a traumatizing punishment. I'm brought to my knees, attacked from behind. Fangs sink into my shoulder, into my back, wild like a rabid animal.
"Keep going!" I snarl to Cassandra through my clenched fangs, tearing the bodies from my back. I grab the last dagger on my belt, driving the blade into the body swinging from my back. The screech of the vampire as she angers, slicing through my back with a similar item, brings me to a halt.
The stab wound burns, although already healing. Just then there's another creature, racing towards me. Gunshots sing through the air, nearing. The man drops at my feet like a stone. My eyes widen, seeing Cassandra doing exactly what I told her not to. She bends to a knee, driving her knife through the vampire's back, piercing his heart, pinning her sight on the manic creatures on my back.
Within seconds, she's brought the gun up level to my face. She fires.
The arms instantly slacken. The rabid creatures slip from my body, but Cassandra doesn't stop firing until she's standing over them, burrowing bullets into their corpses. The wound in my side has nearly closed by the time she's grabbing onto my arm, failing to pull me up.
"Oh god, there's blood all over you!"
"Cassandra!"
We turn at once, hearing Erika's voice. I feel a brief, naïve moment of relief. It's overturned almost instantly. Cassandra's hands, frantically searching my body for wounds, slow to a stop at the sight of Erika at the end of the hall, mixed in with the other fangs.
Instantly, I know it's not Erika. Not anymore.
This time, there is zero pushback from my wife. By the time I'm pushing her along, she's already sprinting in the opposite direction. I'm reaching to take Cassandra into my arms as we slide around the corner, when she suddenly falls back a step, screeching to an abrupt stop.
Samael is gazing at us both, expectantly, here, in the flesh.
I don't think; I react. Seeing him so close to her, I snag her arm, securing her behind me, placing myself between them. The devil's eyes are black with desire, desire for one thing.
"You're not taking her," I utter explicitly, feeling her warm hands on my waist, her warm gasps against my nape.
He shakes his head. "No, I'm not." His hand comes down on my shoulder. "I've come for you."
The stones disappear. The howls of the ravenous vampires become mere echoes.
The sound, reassuring feel of Cassandra under my hands is gone.
When my world stops shaking, when my vision comes to, and I take in the wilderness all around me, the crispness of fresh air, the absolute silence of barren land, all I can do is stare into the eyes of the devil, terrified.
Not of him. Not for myself.
"They'll kill her," I tell him, wide-eyed. "They'll tear her apart!"
"Possibly. I think you have bigger things to worry about right now, Elijah."
At the cracking of wood under footfall, I spin to find three creatures approaching. I'm instantly sure they aren't vampire. Although they are inhuman. Demons, most likely, carrying thick chains of silver.
I glare at him, bristling. "You think those will hold me?"
"No. I haven't forgotten you possess certain abilities. You're a creature of the night... you possess the power to shape-shift. I already anticipated this." He flicks a single finger at one of his nymph's, beckoning the she-devil to him. My ability to anticipate his next move is dwindling due to Cassandra's rising terror, of which fills my gut like disease.
She's alone, surrounded, trapped.
"So, this one was Angelica's fearless lover, was he?" the woman taunts, chuckling as she saunters around Samael, who stands still as marble, watching this with enjoyment. It's impossible to remain alert. My body may be here, but my mind is elsewhere, calling out to my progenies.
They may be her only chance.
"Let's see how fearless he is now."
She's slithered to me with speed, to catch me by surprise. It's probably why my hand curled around her throat stuns her. The playfulness in her eye's changes. She can't get free of my grip. Filled with an unspeakable rage, uncontrollable, my fingers begin to squeeze, digging right into her flesh.
Her flailing, the sounds she makes as I choke her, becomes sweet music to my ears.
And then I'm down, brought to my knees from behind due a severe blow, struck by a piece of silver. The woman falls at my feet, escaping my wrath, scrambling up as Samael observes.
"He's a vampire! How? How can he do that, master?"
"My brother makes a mockery of me, granting power to this... creature."
I reach back to dislodge the silver. The immortal prevents it. Samael nods to them, bending down before me. "The chains, ladies. He will not be strong enough to morph now... This way, he will get to experience it all. The moment your sons are slaughtered... The moment Jehovah turns his back on you because you no longer serve purpose... and the best of all. The moment Cassandra is dragged back to Hell, where she belongs. I intend to ensure you are powerless to stop it."
The silver is spreading. It is a pain I have known before, and no less dispiriting.
When the weight of the chain falls onto my flesh, I drop my head, refusing an utterance. My insides are screaming. I am instantly weak, brought to a low depth. The silver is draining my energy, sucking life from my body with each second it remains on my skin.
"You... really want to do it this way?" I gasp, finding it in me to lift my face to him.
"You forced me here, Elijah. I offered plenty of chances for you to reconsider."
"They're hunting her. St...Stop them."
The shivering begins. One of the demons, the one I just had in a vice grip, tears wood nearby.
"Do you know what they are looking for?" Samael provokes, blinded by his hatred.
My eyes. Open. Open. Jesus, open now. "Where... where am I?"
"A stake," Samael continues, as if I hadn't spoken.
"How original," I mutter, gazing at him. It requires everything. "You are a god. You are better than stooping this low, Samael... She saw something in you. Are you really going to let them kill her?"
"No." He shakes his head, feeling powerful, no doubt. "Their task is to tear the citrine off of her neck. Only then will I go to retrieve her."
"We're still in Italy. I know it," I state, glancing around, seeing the familiar landscape of my homeland. It fills me with hope. Samael grabs the back of my neck, forcing me to focus on him.
"You are right. You are mere miles away from Rome. I did this on purpose."
"Found one!" a demoness laughs a short distance away. Samael's black eyes pour into mine, the depths full of hatred and jealousy. His grip tightens in warning. I'm powerless. I can do naught but listen.
"I wanted you within arm's reach of her. I wanted you to feel how close you could have been to saving her, to fulfilling your purpose. You see, here? Here, you will die, knowing she has no one else with the power to save her."
Maybe it's deliriousness. Maybe it's exhaustion. I hear my own laugh, a weak, rumbling sound. I watch it wash over Samael like an omen, igniting his unmanageable temper.
"You... you really don't know her at all, do you?" I groan.
His untamed eyes flinch. "You'll do well to shut your mouth."
"You'll do well to abandon this now and release me before she hears of it," I snap back.
"You really enjoy testing my patience, don't you? I have half a mind to kill you now."
"That citrine is her protection, Samael. It was God-given. Do you really think he's going to allow one of your minions tearing it from her?"
"I'll tear it from her throat myself!" he bellows, standing. "Do it! Do it now! I'll hear no more!"
"Death will not make me go away, Beelzebub. I'm coming for you."
The stake. My eyes zero in on the approaching woman, holding the weapon for my demise.
"Tell me, Elijah? How did you see her death playing out? Was it slow? Painful? Quick? Painless? Were you there to see it?"
"Ending my life changes nothing," I get out as the woman bends down before me, where Samael was moments ago. She pushes my coat aside, slowly. I feel the sharp edge of the wood against my chest. My eyes remain on Samael the entire time. "Do whatever you want to me. She will feel me wherever I go."
An ominous creature in black, the grim reaper looks down upon my execution.
I feel it. The end.
The stake finds its home against my flesh, hovering over my organs which have long since gone dormant. I've been long overdue for the grave... for whatever tortures come after this. The knowledge that Cassandra will feel this is what terrifies me. The thought of it... of Paris and Damien experiencing the loss of a master... an excruciating blow.
My arms dig deeper into the chains with what little fight I can possess.
A hand fists in my hair, tearing my head back. A malevolent grin fills my vision.
The wood digs deeper, not yet piercing the flesh, but close enough that I stiffen, bracing myself for the pain, and then the nothingness that is sure to follow. There's a moment, right before death, a single beat of uncertainty. The anticipation reaches a peak, and you should feel right with the next part.
I felt it once. I thought I'd feel it again.
I don't.
I'm left stunned, marveling at my own inability to protect those I love.
Luce mia, forgive me.
With a loud grunt, she drives the stake straight through my heart, lodging it deep within my chest cavity. I choke, convulsing, sensing the tearing of the organ. The pain is blinding.
Darkness is everywhere, but I'm still choking.
"What?" a disembodied voice snarls. "WHAT IS THIS?"
My eyes open, taking in the horrified faces surrounding me.
This isn't death.
The look in Samael's eyes that spells defeat awakens determination within me. The women fall back when my arms fight against the silver to free my hands.
"Stop him!"
They don't, watching as I unwind myself, peeling off my own flesh in the process, too overcome with anger to be cautious. The silver drops onto the cold ground with a deafening thud, right beside the bloodied piece of wood that was seconds ago, lodged deep in my chest.
How is this possible?
Samael, blindsided, begins to shake with fury. Unable to move until I'm free of the silver entirely, I reach back to remove the blade from my ribs. The silver makes my movements slow. Perhaps Samael senses that, senses he must move before I can.
"HOW?!" he bellows, reaching for the gun at my side before I can.
The struggle that had just begun comes to a complete standstill, both of us freezing, struck by a disastrous wave of shock. What he sees in my coat pocket fills his face with a smile. What I see brings fast tears of fright to my eyes.
No. God, no.
We look at each other, hovering immobile for a single moment to let the significance sink in.
"She's still protecting you... even now," he whispers gravely, eyes falling to the citrine jewel tucked in my coat... orange citrine Cassandra must have placed there to keep me alive.
Which means one thing...
She knew. She knew he'd come for me first.
She knew I'd need it.
Promise me, she said. Promise me.
We will do what is necessary... whatever is necessary.
"No..." I beg hopelessly when he stands, releasing a satisfied sigh. "Samael!"
He turns his back to me. "I'm sorry it had to be this way."
"SAMAEL!"
"Finish him," Samael orders to our audience. "I don't care how you do it."
He disappears, and my nightmare truly comes to life. The vision that's remained on the precipice of my mind for so long. With a howl, I tear the blade from my back, watching the three demons huddle around me, prepared to complete their orders.
Rigid with determination, I point my weapons at them, flashing my fangs with a threatening hiss.
"I suggest you... run."