by HDA Roberts
Then I made my second big mistake of the evening.
I lowered my shields and stepped towards her, to comfort her.
Again, familiarity with her had made me a lot less wary of her predatory side... the side that had just lost its father, the side that was now grieving...
And really, really angry.
That one step was all the excuse that side of her needed to take over.
She rushed me, screaming like a wounded animal, and lashed out with her bare hands.
Hands that had sprouted ten razor-sharp claws.
She may not have been the oldest of Vampires, but Crystal was still very fast, and she was damned strong, besides. I raised my arms reflexively, and that saved my life, but only just. Instead of taking my throat out, she merely slashed it, breaking my arm in the process.
Not pleasant, but I’ve had worse....
But then she hit me again.
I was still reeling from the first blow, which actually helped me dodge out of the way a little. Luckily, she was too crazed to follow me in time, so the downwards swipe of her other hand didn’t tear off the front of my skull as it should have, it simply opened four long trenches in my face from forehead to chin, taking my left eye out altogether and slashing the other into uselessness.
It was agony, but I couldn't even spare the time to scream. Almost like her attack was the breaking of a dam, the others Vampires leapt out of hiding and the first couple were on me in less than a second. My Shadows surged to protect me, but I took some very nasty cuts before my attackers were thrown off.
I might have hoped that a mass of conjured Shadow would have convinced them that coming after me was a bad idea, but it didn’t even slow them down. They must have been like Crystal, enraged and manic with bloodlust, because a veritable pile of Vampires quickly dropped on me and started clawing at my defences.
They weren’t making progress, but they were a distraction, and I was worried that Crystal might be getting crushed in the scrum.
God, Crystal... I had bungled that badly. But what else could I have done? The world was actually at stake!
Well, one problem at a time.
I cast a Triage Spell, to keep my remaining blood on the right side of my skin and that blood oxygenated, followed by a Numbing Spell. Those two would keep me alive and thinking until I could get clear and start healing myself properly. I was a bit worried about the hole in my neck, so I took the time to cast Wound Seal. It was a simple bit of Magic which pressed the edges of the slash together in a rather ugly mess that did nothing for the internal damage, but would keep me from dying if my Triage Spell failed for some stupid reason.
With my immediate needs attended to, I took a look around for Crystal through my Mage Sight. I wanted to make sure that she was alright. The Vampires were still clawing at my Shadows, trying in vain to get at me. Many had lost claws and even teeth trying to dig their way through.
The ones that weren’t... they were busy licking my blood off the carpet.
That was pretty disgusting, but it was nothing compared to the sight of a Ghoul dropping my missing eye into his mouth like it was a hard-boiled egg.
To this day, that image remains firmly at the top of my list of nightmare-fuel.
I turned away from it, shuddering, and continued looking for Crystal. I found her in the middle of the pack, trying to claw her way through my defences with the others, her face a mask of grief and berserker rage.
If I was to have any chance of explaining myself, then I needed to calm her down. I focussed on her mind and drove a small probe past all that blood-lust and into the core of her, where I found... exactly what you'd expect to find in the mind of a girl that had just watched her boyfriend decapitate her father.
Fury, hatred, disgust, regret, guilt; it was an ugly brew.
There was no fixing that quickly, but at least I knew where she was now, and my probe would let me keep track of her. That allowed me to use my Shadows a bit more liberally. I slid them outwards, and then expanded them quickly, flinging the other Vampires away and leaving Crystal on her own, looking slightly confused. Before she could recover, I wrapped her up in a Shadow Cocoon as gently as I could and brought her in close to me.
I felt bad about doing any more damage to the hotel, but I didn’t have time to waste, so I just pulled the Shadows in tightly around us and bashed our way out through the doors leading to the garden before taking us straight up into the night sky. I didn't stop until we were three hundred feet up.
She thrashed and screamed against the wrap, so I removed it, leaving only a harness in place around her waist and shoulders. I pulled the Shadows holding me back as well, so that she could see me (or what was left of me after the damage she and her family had done).
It took her about five minutes to reclaim her sanity, all of that time spent spitting and clawing at the air. But, finally, she calmed down, and the rage on her face slowly transformed into a terrible grief. That sight was like a knife to my heart. I’d done that to her, I’d caused that pain.
"Why?" she said at last.
A difficult question to answer. She hadn’t seen what was on the other side of the Gateway, nor had she seen what Vallan had dumped into my brain. How could I explain those things to her without making an already wretched situation far worse?
Email?
Don’t think I wasn’t tempted.
Instead, I shook my head and took a breath (a slightly gurgling one. That throat-slash had been very deep), and did my best to explain the truth to her. I took her through the whole encounter step by step so that she'd understand why I’d done what I had.
When I was finished, Crystal looked horrified, likely not helped by the fact that she’d insisted on being shown Illusionary projections of my memories as I talked. I’d edited them a bit, but she still likely got far too much information about what Vallan had been up to.
I’d done my best to lay it all out in as calm and sensible a manner as possible, but I knew that it wouldn’t matter in the end. From her perspective, Vallan was essentially her father, and her father was now dead because of me. There was no getting away from that.
From now on, when she looked at me, that was what she would see. Not the person she’d been living with for the last nine months, not the man who loved her; the murderer who’d taken her father from her.
Even before I was half way done, I knew that our relationship was over, and I couldn’t blame her, not after what I’d done. Yet still, I tried, hoping against hope that she might find it in her heart to forgive me, or at least... not hate me.
"My God, Matty, some of those were kids," she said in a tiny voice once it was all over.
"I know. But I didn't do it for them; I want you to know that. This wasn't about punishment-"
"It was about stopping the Gateway, I know Matty. I know you well enough to know that you wouldn't... that you wouldn't do it for revenge or something like that."
"I'm sorry, Crystal. I'm so sorry for the hurt I inflicted on you, for doing that in front of you. I should have... I should have done better."
"How many?" she asked, gesturing at the air around me where I'd created the memory-projections. "How many did he murder?"
"I don’t like to guess.”
“Try.”
I cleared my throat again, “It's all jumbled together. Upwards of ten thousand, just going by what he tried to ram into my mind. Likely... likely more than that."
She swiped at fresh tears on her cheeks.
"I... I knew," she whispered.
"You what?!"
"Not this much! But he'd say things here and there, when I wasn't supposed to hear; just allusions, innuendo. I figured he was just going after the odd transient, not... this, I swear."
The odd transient?! You know what, not the issue right now, one problem at a bloody time...
"He was your father," I said instead, trying to be understanding, though this really did raise a couple of unpleasant questions about culpability. "You would have
thought the best of him."
She nodded, but didn't look any happier.
"What happens now?" she asked, looking me over, guilt crossing her features as she saw my injuries.
"I’ll have to report your Elders to the French and British Conclaves. I’ve seen too much not to.”
"Oh Matty, that's my family!"
"Then tell me what to do, Crystal. They've killed people, innocent people. What should I do?"
She looked confused and hurt.
"Okay," she said. "Will you put me down, now?"
I nodded and lowered us back to the hotel. The Vampires were still there, I could hear them shouting at one another in French and Spanish as we touched down in the garden.
"I love you Crystal; very much," I said softly.
"I know that, Matty.”
She placed a little kiss on a relatively intact part of my cheek and then backed away from me.
"Goodbye," she said with a terrible finality.
"Bye," I replied.
She turned and walked indoors, not looking back. The shouting increased. I heard Crystal's voice raised in shrill French before the windows and door were slammed open and a flood of Vampires charged me again. I conjured a Portal to Hopkins' house and slipped through just before the first of the creatures would have got to me.
It was only as the Portal closed, and the noise was cut off, that I realised, for the first time, that even though I'd told Crystal that I'd loved her, she'd never said it back to me.
And now she never would.
Chapter 4
"May I see what he showed you?" Hopkins asked me when I was done telling the second part of my story.
"You don't want to see that, Jen. I'm getting rid of it as soon as I have a spare moment."
"I think I should, and I think we should store it, we may be able to give some people a little peace."
"You heard what I told you, right? It's really ugly stuff."
"Still.”
I nodded and lowered my Mental Shields. I lit up the part of my mind where I was storing the memories so she wouldn’t have to rummage.
She touched the walled-off area and slid her probe in very gently. She recoiled after barely a second before sobbing hard.
"Jesus Christ!" she snarled, rubbing tears from her eyes. "Why didn't you stop me?!"
"I bloody tried!"
"Well not hard enough, and now I have to scrub it if I ever want to sleep again, thanks a bunch!"
I sighed again. They blamed me for everything.
And speaking of people who would be blaming me for things...
"Where is he?!" barked a loud, angry, familiar voice from down the corridor. "Where is that stupid son of a bitch that stuck his dick into a nest of Vampires and then didn’t call me?!"
"You called Cassie?" I said in a tiny voice.
"I texted Tethys," Hopkins said with a grin. "You can't blame me for this."
I had wondered what she was doing with her phone while I’d been talking... oh well.
"Just you watch me," I muttered as Hurricane Cassandra touched down just outside the guest room.
The door slammed open to reveal the woman who was my Warden Commander and one of my very best friends. She was a little taller than me, classically beautiful, with fine features and a figure that was muscular and yet feminine. Her long black hair was tied into a bun at the back of her head and she wore casual clothes; jeans, t-shirt and summer-weight jacket... all under a scowl that could curdle fresh milk.
"It's not as bad as it loo-" I started, but didn't get to finish as she darted across the room and wrenched me into a hug.
"You idiot! You absolute, complete, bloody idiot!"
"Yes," I said, not really able to disagree with that.
"How could you be so stupid?!"
"Sorry Cassie."
"What the hell happened? Start at the beginning and make it good, or so help me, I'll strap Demise to your back so you never go anywhere alone ever again, understand me?!"
"You're this mad without even knowing what I did, yet? I don't think I want to tell you."
"Graves!" she barked, making me jump and Hopkins start sniggering.
"You'd best wipe that smile off your face, my Lady, I've got words for you, too! My Charge shows up missing body parts and you contact the Succubus instead of me?"
That shut Hopkins up. No matter how old you are, or how powerful you are, a scolding from Cassandra made you feel about three inches tall.
"Now spill! And who poked your eye out? I will bloody gut them!"
"Um..." I said, before looking to Hopkins for help, but she was staring at something very interesting on the ceiling, the cow.
I took a breath and told the story all over again, which I would rather have avoided, to be honest. Everything was too raw, what with one thing or another. I just wanted to find a nice, quiet place where I could fix my eye and maybe scream into a pillow for a bit.
Cassandra's face fell as I went on. By the time I was done, she was holding my hand in an iron grip.
"Can I have a moment with him, my Lady?" Cassandra asked softly.
"Of course," Hopkins replied.
My sister smiled, patted my shoulder and left the room, closing the door behind her.
"How are you?" Cassandra asked me once we were alone.
"My first murder, my girlfriend tried to eviscerate me, and I'm fairly certain I’m single again. I'm not terrific."
Cassandra smiled tightly, "It wasn't a murder-"
"Yes it was. It's important that I recognise that. He was defenceless and helpless, and I killed him anyway."
"He was an animal, Mathew. From what you’ve said, he needed to be put down."
"I know that, really I do..."
"But?" she pressed.
“I should have found another way. A better way.”
“In the five seconds you had available to you?”
“It was more than that.”
“Not much. Not enough. If you want me to give you a reason to wring your hands, I can’t.”
“I didn’t want to kill him, Cassie, I swear.”
“God, you think I don’t know that?” she said, leaning against me. “I’ve seen you hide fly swatters, for heaven’s sake.”
I smiled a little, a very little.
“I know he was a monster,” I said, “I know that if ever there was a person that needed a little off the top, it was him, but... I still hate that I had to do it.”
She smiled sadly.
“And I hate the fact that I’m not taking it far worse than I am,” I admitted.
“Yes, I was wondering about that. Quite a bit less vomit in your narrative than I was expecting.”
“Ha, ha.”
She smirked. “Nobody has the right to tell you how to feel about something like this, Mathew. You feel how you feel. It probably helps that the man was as evil as it’s possible to get without growing horns.”
“I do feel bad. I hate what I did, and I truly despise how it hurt Crystal... but I don’t feel guilty. I’m not revolted with myself. Shouldn’t I be?”
“That’s between you and your conscience.”
"Isn't that more or less your job description?"
"And don't you forget it, either," she replied with a smile and a gentle elbow to my ribs.
We sat there for a while in an easy silence, her presence reassuring me.
"Did I do the right thing?" I asked after a while.
"Yes," she said without hesitation. "The question that will determine whether or not you sleep for the next few centuries is whether you did it for the right reasons."
"What do you think?" I asked.
She leaned down and placed a gentle kiss on my forehead, "I think that you acted to preserve life, and that you did what any good man would have done in your position. I think you were faced with a terrible choice and that you decided on the lesser of two evils by a very long way. And, in the end, you were right, your peace of mind isn’t worth more than an innocent life,
much less the thousands or millions his actions would have taken. That's part of your burden, Mathew Graves, you do the hard thing so that others get to live and thrive. That's what Archons are for."
"That's quite some small print in the employment contract."
She laughed and leant her head against mine, "Ain't it, though?"
Hopkins left us alone for a while, but she eventually came back, carrying a Memory Crystal. It was an ugly, purple thing that I didn’t especially enjoy sticking my mind into, but she was right about needing to preserve those memories.
I copied Vallan’s sins into it, and then I purged them from my mind. It was an immense relief. Having those images, those acts, in my head was like carrying a weight on my soul, and I can’t describe how good it felt to get rid of them. All that remained was the vague knowledge of what those memories had contained, like a list of movie descriptions, rather than the whole library.
Hopkins insisted that I stay over, so she could keep an eye on me, and Cassandra invited herself. I called Tethys, mostly just to check in, but I filled in a few of the blanks for her so she wouldn’t worry.
I used the rest of the night to meditate. I used to hate it, but after I’d gotten used to it, I found it rather relaxing, and the mental focus was great for Magical Healing. It was about four in the morning when I started, and well after nine when I finished, opening a brand new eye to see shafts of brilliant light shining through the bedroom window. Cassandra was sitting in the corner, a greasy, half-eaten sandwich in her hands. She saw me move, smiled for a moment... and dropped her breakfast as a look of shock came over her face.
"What?" I asked, worried.
"Nothing! It's... it's pretty!”
Pretty? I'd never heard Cassandra use that word before... ever.
I cast a little Light-Refraction Spell that created a plane of energy that acted much like a mirror.
"Oh," I said, actually managing a smile. My eyes used to be a horrific scab red where there should have been white, with a dreadful black iris, the result of a Magical accident. My right eye was still like that, but my left... it was white and ocean blue again (the other one used to be brown).
I smiled wider.
