"You will follow me now," she said softly, stretching for the control and finding it, the rage evaporating from her features as rapidly as it had appeared. His fear only redoubled, seeing this, because he was beginning to realize that there were depths to this creature, the likes of which he had now become himself, which he might never understand or predict.
He'd accepted her as she'd appeared, a gorgeous woman, an amazing lover, then as a creature of shadow and darkness and wild mystery. Now he saw yet another side, an evil, vengeful spirit deprived too long of its desires.
He rose in silence, but he did not drop his gaze. If she were going to kill him, at least it would become a natural death. He was becoming less and less enchanted with his new existence. As if to confirm his fears, she moved suddenly closer, wrapped her long fingers around a handful of his hair and pulled him closer. He tried to fight her, and succeeded momentarily in pulling back an inch or two, but the proximity of her was too much. The scent of her, the feel of the blood that moved through her veins, even the glittering beauty of her eyes, all were too much for him.
"I should have fought you from the beginning," he gasped as she released him. "I should have been the man that my father was, but I was weak."
She didn't answer him, but her little show of strength returned the smile to her lips. Turning, she headed back down the hill again, and he followed.
As they moved, he suddenly became aware of other sounds, and of a scent that he knew immediately, though how he knew it was beyond him. Sebastian. Damon. They were near. He scanned the shadows, tracing the lines of the abandoned homes and farms, trying to get a glimpse of them in time to warn them, to try and save them before it was too late.
"They are safe enough for now," Rosa said without looking back at him. He didn't wonder what she was talking about. If he could sense their presence, how long had she known? "We have other things to attend to this night," she added. "If all goes well, perhaps we will even let them live."
It was a small hope, at best, but it was something, and Klaus clung to it, following Rosa ever deeper into the bowels of the ancient village. Ahead loomed a slightly larger building, one that seemed mostly intact, and it was toward this that she headed.
As they approached it, he saw that it was some sort of guard house, or prison. There were iron bars in the windows, very similar to those in the lower rooms of the castle. With a final smile and a small flourish, Rosa unlocked the door with a large, ornate key, cast it open and let Klaus him precede her into the large room beyond. He stopped in shock, a scream building in his throat that threatened to burst through the walls of his chest and crumble his soul.
Behind him, silhouetted by the moonlight that leaked in through the open door, Rosa laughed. It was the voice of purest evil, of darkness and pits of endless blackness.
Chapter Twenty
The gleaming silver light of a full moon softened the darkness. Sebastian couldn't help but dwell on how appropriate that light was as they walked cautiously down the street of the abandoned village. The echoes of the one, horrible scream that had drawn them all from a dead sleep still pounded at the insides of his skull. Though they'd heard no further sound, he knew they were headed in the right direction. The memory of that empty, plaintive cry was too clear for any sort of mistake.
If he'd started up that mountain with any doubts about Klaus' situation, they had been eradicated. Whatever that woman had done to him, if she was a woman, he was in pain now, and Sebastian knew he'd never rest if he didn't do something to try and help.
He took the lead, followed closely by Peyton and Father Adolph. The priest's eyes glittered with a bright, eager fanaticism. Sebastian's veins seemed to run with liquid ice, but he didn't allow his steps to falter. This was no time or place for cowards.
He wished again that the women had stayed behind. He had the sinking feeling that, if the first two or three of them didn't succeed, it wouldn't matter how many others followed. They would all be doomed. He had enough on his conscience having allowed Klaus to slip away in the first place. He didn't want the added burden of these other innocent lives on his conscience.
Two voices floated out of the darkness. One was a woman's, and the other was unmistakably Klaus. The first was chilling, haughty and arrogant and full of dark laughter; the other was raging, powered by fury beyond any emotion Sebastian had ever experienced. Powered by pain.
They spread out slightly as they approached the large, stone structure. With a final bleak smile, Father Adolph plunged ahead, and with sinking hearts, the others followed.
~*~
It took an eternity for Klaus' scream to build to its crescendo and burst forth into the night. In that eternity, puzzle pieces fell into place with unerring accuracy. The huge, steel-jawed trap of destiny snapped closed on his heart and threatened to burst it.
The room that Rosa had beckoned him into held only two pieces of furniture. There were twin tables, long and formed of oak planks, standing side by side in the center. These, in themselves, were nothing. It was what they held that ripped at his soul. Who they held.
The scream died away finally, or had it been dead, and he only lost in its echoes? He didn't know. It didn't matter. He moved forward in a trance.
"Father?" He croaked, unable to control his voice. "Mother?"
They were bound hand and foot to the tables with metal chains. The chains glittered oddly, and he realized with wonder that they were plated in silver. It was only the vaguest of resemblance to his own memories that identified the two forms splayed out in front of him as his parents.
Their limbs were thin and skeletal. The skin that coated the bones was yellowed and dry. It was as though they were not bodies, but husks, their skin shed like that of a snake. If he hadn't seen their eyes, catching him in a mindless stare of pain and need, following his every movement with predatory madness, he would not have believed that they could be alive. His mother's gaze brought back his earlier vision to snatch at his heart.
Klaus whirled on Rosa, fists clenched and eyes wild, lashing out without thought at her grinning, evil face. He missed completely, and she stood beside him, smacking the back of his head so hard with her palm that he staggered and crashed against the far wall, where he slumped to the floor.
"Do not think, little Klaus," she hissed at him, "that you are a match for me. I created you, I control you, and it shall ever remain that way. You are no more compared to me than your pitiful friends out in the village are to you.
"I have waited longer than you can imagine for this moment. You will sit, and you will listen, and you will learn."
His eyes smoldered, and his muscles tensed, but he remained against the wall, biding his time and waiting. There would be a chance, a moment when she was not expecting it, and he would act. His eyes returned to the prone forms of his parents, and he was unable to look away as Rosa approached them.
His father's hair, which he remembered as a wild, shaggy mane of black, hung in dry wisps, dancing in the slight breeze that blew in the doorway. Rosa moved to stand by the head and lifted her wrist, cutting the vein with a quick flick of one long, sharp nail. Holding the cut above his father's dry, cracked lips, she let a small trickle of blood fall. Not much escaped before the wound closed in on itself, but it was enough.
Tears came to Klaus eyes as his father began to change, to return from the decay and rot that had so devastated his body. The eyes still whirled with maddened hunger, but now the head was able to move. The arms were able to struggle weakly against the silver-plated restraints. After a moment, the lips parted once more, and he was able to speak.
"Klaus," he croaked. "My son. Oh, my son…"
"There there, love," Rosa almost cackled, running her fingers through her captive's hair slowly, tantalizing him with her nearness and the fresh blood that flowed through her veins. "Your son, relatively speaking, is doing well, wouldn't you say?"
"Not…your love." Klaus' father's body shuddered as his restored senses began to register the ful
l weight of the pain that accompanied his hunger. "Witch."
"So strong," Rosa crooned, slapping the helpless man's head to the side contemptuously. "So noble and true. But tell me, little Hans, would you hesitate to rip the throat of one of the village lovelies if I were to bring her to you and hold her above your lips? Would your strength be so great then, do you think?"
She moved to Klaus' mother's side, repeating her actions of a moment before. As the gray strands of hair resumed their golden glory, and the sunken skin around the eyes filled out, Klaus only watched. Tears filled his eyes, and he was momentarily surprised that he could still cry. Apparently some things human still remained to him. He rose, unsure what to do next.
His mother didn't speak. She saw him, turned her eyes upward to Rosa's, and she began to wail, shaking her head slowly back and forth in a combination of helpless frustration and pain.
"Such a lovely couple, don't you think?" Rosa said, her voice dripping with the honeyed tones of contempt. "Such a noble couple. You should be proud, Klaus. Your father is the one man in all the years of my life that has resisted me. Even after I had fed on the life-blood of his veins, he returned to her. Even after I offered him eternity, an eternity with me and all that that entails, he returned to her!" Rosa's voice rose in pitch, and the honey melted in a flash of hatred to venom.
She grabbed Klaus' mother by the hair, lifted her head slightly off the table and looked at her as a farmer might look at livestock he was considering for a purchase. Klaus lunged toward her, but he stopped when he saw the ice in her eyes. He knew he couldn't get to her in time to stop whatever she was going to do, and he gnashed his teeth in frustrated rage.
"She's a pretty thing, I suppose," Rosa admitted grudgingly, "but hardly in my league, wouldn't you agree, Klaus?"
He leaped then, unable to contain his fury. If he died, then he died. If she was going to chain him here to rot into eternity with his parents, that was fine. He wasn't going to just stand there and let her play with them like they were obscene, inanimate toys.
She dodged him easily and let his mother's head crack back down onto the table. He looked about wildly, but she was not in sight. Then she was there, her arms wrapped around him from behind, and her teeth at his throat. It happened so swiftly he couldn't even react, and the sensation of the blood flowing between them melted his strength. With a moan, he pressed tighter against her, his mind screaming in negation and his body ignoring his attempts at control.
"You are mine, my love," she whispered in his ear. She no longer held him too tightly, but he had no strength to fight her. He didn't want to fight her. He sagged back against her softness as the tears returned to his eyes. He felt his parent's gaze upon him, felt their pain and their helplessness, but he could do nothing. He had failed them and made all their sacrifice for naught.
"You see, Hans," she said, smiling down at his father over Klaus' shoulder, "he is the spitting image of you! With the gold hair, he is even more handsome, don't you think? Does it pain you to see us together? Don't you wish things might have been, different?
"But you two have each other, and that is what really matters, after all, isn't it?" She had calmed herself, but the ice was still in her voice, as well as the tinge of madness that had somehow eluded Klaus until this night. She released him and moved across his parents from him.
Her head suddenly jerked up, and seconds later, Klaus sensed it as well. The others were here. Only the distraction of his parents and his short, aborted attempt to rescue them had hidden the fact from her senses, and it would be less than seconds before they would be hers as well. He knew, somehow, that no matter how they might have prepared themselves, if she knew they were there, they had no chance. He did the only thing he could think of then, hoping that the momentary effort it would take Rosa to stop him might prove enough. He lunged for his father's nearest arm and ripped at the chain, exerting all of the force of his transformed muscles.
The silver burned like a flame, but he did not release it. He concentrated and used the pain to focus his strength. He felt the wood of the table give way beneath his effort, and his father's arm was free. He lunged for the other arm, but Rosa was too quick. She was on him in a second, slapping him against the stone wall of the chamber and turning on him with a snarl of pure bestial rage.
Things happened very quickly after that, more quickly than Klaus' new and improved senses could follow. His father reached up and grabbed Rosa's flame red tresses in an iron grip, a grip fueled by years of festering hatred, years of hunger. It was not enough, of course, but it held her in place for just an instant, long enough for the room to be filled with moving bodies, warm, blood-filled bodies that sent Klaus mind momentarily over the edge with desire. He staggered to his feet then, fighting madly for control of his spinning emotions.
~*~
They gathered around the building just in time to hear what Klaus heard, and to hear the frustrated rage of his reply. Sebastian's mind reeled at the implications of what he'd heard, the evil that could have spawned such an abomination.
Enslaved. Trapped all these years on this mountain while this evil creature stalked and hounded their son, hungering for what they could never reach, and unable to die. It was staggering, beyond his comprehension.
And how would Klaus feel in the face of it all? He had always been such a strong-willed man, so much in control. Now all that was stripped away. Even the past, the years he'd believed himself the master of, were nothing but a long, drawn out lie. A charade played out to Rosa's whim. Even now, with the truth laid out before him, he was helpless to change a thing. He had fallen into her clutches completely and irrevocably.
At the door, Sebastian hesitated. At that second, Rosa's head cocked to one side, and he knew that she was aware of them. There was nothing left but to move, and to pray, though he was already certain that they were doomed. If Klaus, with his new strength and super-human speed was nothing but a child before her, how could they hope to prevail?
With Father Adolph at his side, Sebastian plunged into the room, and the world became a blur of surreal color and motion, a scene from some low-grade horror extravaganza with himself as an unwilling supporting actor.
Several things caught his eye as he spun crazily through the door, pushed from behind by Peyton, who was bellowing like an enraged bull. Klaus stood by the side of a long wooden table with a chain dangling from his hand. His head was thrown back in pain, and small wisps of smoke rose from where his hands clutched the metal.
Klaus moved toward the chain on the other side of the table, and Rosa was on him. It happened so quickly that Sebastian didn't really see the motion. One second Klaus was lunging at the table, reaching desperately for the chain that bound his father's other hand, the next he was flying through the air and she stood there in his place, readying herself to leap on his prone form in rage.
Then Sebastian saw the thin, emaciated arm of Klaus' father shoot upward, grasping her by the hair and jerking on it with surprising strength. It did little but slow her, but that was all that was necessary. With a cry, Father Adolph leaped forward, drew his arm back and let fly with one of the small jars of Holy Water.
If there has ever truly been a hell on earth, it existed in that small stone chamber. Everything that had begun moving so quickly stretched out; time itself elongated to emblazon that moment more clearly in history
As the jar of blessed watert arced across the room, small droplets of its precious cargo flew free, taking their own separate trajectories toward the target. The entire scenario was punctuated by the priest's voice, chanting prayers and blessings.
Rosa's head jerked up, as though she sensed approaching danger, but even she wasn't fast enough. The jar impacted with the top of her head, perfectly, or possibly providentially thrown, and shattered into a thousand tiny shards of clay and glistening droplets of water.
She spun even as it hit her, not at all fazed by the pain that such an impact should have caused, and her eyes were the eyes of madness and
evil as she pinned Father Adolph with a leering stare. Smoke rose from her skin, and it was obvious that the Holy Water was working, eating away at her like some sort of powerful acid. Despite this, she smiled.
On the table, Klaus' father screamed. A goodly portion of the water had doused him as well, and he writhed in agony as it ate through the thin protection of his skin toward the bone beneath.
There was no time to consider what might be done for him. Rosa moved forward, still grinning, though it seemed more as if a body topped by an animated skull were stalking them. The skin still receded from her bones, melting away her substance. The only indication that she was not through with them so easily was her eyes. They glowed with rage, and her steps were slow and purposeful.
"You have sealed your own doom, holy man," she croaked through a throat that was deteriorating rapidly. "I will take you, use your own blood to heal myself, and torture you throughout eternity for this."
She was out of whatever mind she still possessed at that moment, and this was the only thing that saved Father Adolph from a swift death. Peyton, who'd seen all he wanted to see, leaped at her from the side. He brandished the large pewter cross in his hand, and he moved like a cornered bear, his speed and agility belying the bulk of his massive frame.
"Take this, bitch," he bellowed, and without hesitation, even as her arm swung to the side to brush him away, he pressed that cross directly between her eyes, imbedding it in the melting skin of what remained of her face.
Rosa staggered back and smashed Peyton aside, but the cross remained in place, welding itself to her features. She clawed at it, screeching in pain and jerked from side to side, but she could not yank it free.
It was a horrible thing to watch, especially remembering the cold, ethereal beauty she had possessed scant moments before. She fell to her knees for a second, shaking her head as if in confusion, and then she was gone. Just like that. There was a slight, vision-warping glow of flame-red gold, and then she was simply not there.
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