“Your wounds … are not … mortal. I promised … I would not … kill you,” Wilhelmina replied with a nod to Raina. She paused a moment to clear her throat, her wheezing seeming to grow worse by the minute. “But you are … too hurt … to beat me.”
Raina shook her head. “Speak for yourself. I’m not the one coughing up blood.”
“Raina … child,” she said, her smile vanishing, “you must … kill me … before … I die.”
Seeing how bad off she was, Raina relaxed her sword and her stance slightly again. “Look, I really don’t want to kill you. Okay? Just put down your sword and give it up, already. Just forfeit the challenge.”
“Never,” Wilhelmina insisted with a shake of her head. “You must … kill me … before I die.”
“Why are you so hung up on that idea?”
“Because … I know … Duvessa,” she replied, stepping closer. “I know … what she wants … to do. I would rather … die … by your hand.”
Raina glanced over to the Grand Duchess. Duvessa’s eyes were wide with anticipation, and she made an anxious, excited, even angry “get it over with” sort of gesture of encouragement at her. She looked back to the Countess and could not help but to feel saddened by her state. Sorrow tugged at her chest and throat, worsening as her enemy neared. She realized at this point, however, it was not simply Wilhelmina’s sadness that she felt, disappointment for having failed in her quest for vengeance, but rather Raina’s own pity for her.
Wilhelmina … or Elizabeth, actually … already had been through so much, having survived so many terrible things, and she had struggled so hard to reach this point. Raina suddenly almost felt guilty for having wounded her at all, although she could not completely dismiss what she’d done. The crazy bitch had killed her friends and stabbed Brenna, possibly even poisoning her, and she had inflicted plenty of harm upon Raina. They shared a common origin, both victims of Duke Sebastian’s lust and Duvessa’s schemes, but they were still very, very different souls. Raina could forgive and forget, willing and able to move on with her life in spite of what had been done to her; Wilhelmina was a spirit purely consumed with the idea of revenge, as she had been for decades since her Change, and she had demonstrated that she was selfish enough to destroy anyone who stood in her way of achieving it.
“Promise me … you will not … let me die … in vain,” Wilhelmina wheezed as she drew closer. She swung at Raina, a sloppy and insincere attack. “Promise me … you will … finish .. what I have … started.”
She half-swung her sword at Raina again before halting it and instead poking it outward, jabbing her ineffectively in the left shoulder – enough to sting, but not enough to actually stab through the material of her already torn and bloodstained blouse. The pain of that minor jab, that relative pinprick of a wound, actually did something to Raina. It seemed to flick a switch back on inside of her. Almost reflexively, Raina cut her sword upwards against the Countess’s, striking it near the hilt, and the blow surprisingly knocked the weapon right from her hands. Wilhelmina’s sword dropped to the thin red carpet of the hotel lobby floor right at the Grand Duchess’s feet just as Raina reciprocated and lunged forth without thought, burying the full length of her sword into the Countess’s abdomen.
Wilhelmina gasped and hunched over into Raina, placing her hands upon hers as she held the sword inside of her belly. Instead of pushing away, the Countess gave Raina’s sword a sharp tug, burying its length within herself clear to the hilt. Blood oozed over the guard of the katana and onto Raina’s fingers, so very hot, wet, and slippery. Its coppery scent reached her nostrils immediately, as did Wilhelmina’s breath, tinged with cigarette smoke, as they stood face-to-face. Wilhelmina shuddered and her lower lip quivered as she somehow held herself aloft. Raina simply stood in place, her eyes wide but her face otherwise blank and devoid of emotion. She could not believe this had been her own doing. She simply could not fathom that she was killing someone, let alone that she had bested Countess Wilhelmina von Reichenbach in a duel.
“Take … me,” Wilhelmina croaked thinly. “Please … Raina … drink…”
Raina’s first instinct was to shake her head and refuse. She was already horrified enough that she was standing there with a sword thrust inside another woman’s body. But Wilhelmina raised a hand, grasped her shoulder, and deliberately dug her fingers into the open wound. Raina gasped with the sudden flare of pain, and the switch was flipped again. Before she even knew what she was doing, acting with the same mechanical reflex as a trigger causing a gun’s hammer to fall and fire a shot, Raina’s teeth were suddenly buried deeply in the tight, warm, delicious, and softly glowing flesh of Wilhelmina’s throat.
Knowing what she had done, Raina gave in to it. She bit down with everything she had, and she felt that luminescent flesh give way, felt it rip softly in her maw like an impossibly tender and juicy steak. The rush of seemingly scalding hot, sweet, heavenly delicious blood flooded her mouth immediately, so much that it gushed out past her lips and down her chin, and she began to feed. She swallowed, she gulped, she sucked at that fountain of delicious hotness, and everything else ceased to be.
The world vanished as she stood with her eyes closed and her mouth buried in a feast of delight. She knew only the taste and scent of blood, so sweet and yet sharp, and the sound of her own pleasure-filled groaning. The blood ran down her throat like a hot river, down, down, filling her with heat, and it seemed to carry on down beyond her stomach, making things lower clench and spasm with what she could only liken to an intense orgasm. A taste of blood was nice, yes, but this … this was everything. This was what she had needed. Conscience be damned, consuming the life of another was like nothing else she had ever known, and more than anything she felt she should ever want to know.
It seemed to last an eternity. Wilhelmina’s body grew limp and gravity sought to pull it away, so Raina wrapped her other arm about her and held fast to that source of hot, wet preciousness. The gush slowed and became more of a trickle. Raina sucked hungrily, greedily, and noisily. She wanted more. She needed more. The moment, all of that sweetness and heat, it had to continue! It had to last! This couldn’t be it! She bit down harder and felt her teeth almost meet. She opened wide again and sucked at the gash she had made, hoping for more. Very little was offered for her efforts. There had to be more! Something this good had to last longer, surely! Something this good should last forever!
The taste lingered, but the heat diminished and only remained within her body, spreading out with an intensely numbing, narcotic effect. Her whole body radiated nothing but warmth and pleasure, but the end of that fountain, that spring of blood was so sad, so devastatingly disappointing. Disheartened, dismayed, and utterly miserable now at its disappearance, Raina suddenly found herself sobbing. She was completely overcome with both grief and pleasure at once. She felt completely mad, utterly insane. She was certain that there was no high greater than this, and yet she was horrified, crushed to know that it was ending.
Frustrated, almost angered, Raina let go of Wilhelmina and took half a step back, barely opening her eyes. The Countess’s body slid off of Raina’s sword limply, bonelessly collapsing upon the floor in an awkward heap. Raina swayed for a moment, tried to regain her balance, and then fell to her knees, dropping her blood-sheathed sword. She looked upon the body of Countess Wilhelmina von Reichenbach, the same body that had once been Elizabeth Ellen Fallamhain, and realized dimly that she had killed her predecessor, someone of her own blood. She was only gradually aware of people around her, and then of someone shaking her by her shoulders. She felt completely drugged, beyond intoxicated. She felt herself actually drooling slightly as her lips remained parted, blood trailing down her chin and onto her chest.
A face appeared before her. She narrowed her eyes, gradually convincing them to focus, and she recognized Duvessa’s face, beaming with pride and elation. She was speaking to her, but she could not make out the words at that moment, not immediately. She could hear quite well en
ough, but her brain almost refused to process what she heard. Slowly, it began to make sense.
“Raina? Raina, dear, can you hear me?” Duvessa called to her as she delicately put her hands upon her shoulders, carefully avoiding her wounds. “Raina, love, are you okay?”
She blinked slowly, feeling as though she were still in the midst of some dream … or perhaps a nightmare. She looked to Duvessa with heavy eyelids, licking her lips and swallowing what sweetness remained upon her tongue.
“What?” she finally managed to say.
“Can you hear me, dear?”
“I … yeah … I guess.”
Duvessa was beaming with joy. “You won! You have defeated her!”
Raina glanced aside and down to her fallen enemy. Wilhelmina’s eyes focused upon nothing with a glassy and lifeless stare that seemed to be deliberately aimed at Duvessa. In response, Raina could only manage to say, “Huh … yeah.”
“Are you okay, dear? Are you badly wounded?”
As Raina’s eyes drifted away from the Countess’s body, they wandered about the surrounding area’s carnage. Not far away, Ian had dropped to his knees and was mourning quite intensely over Jen’s body … and the severed head that lay nearby. William, Robert, and Loki were tending to Brenna and Mary. Lady Svetlana stood alone over Noriko’s corpse, looking utterly and completely lost as she glanced about the area with a blank expression.
“Raina?” Her attention snapped back to Duvessa as she felt her arm being gently shaken. “Talk to me, dear. Are you all right? Do you need medical help?”
“Brenna,” she replied simply. “How is she?”
Duvessa glanced over her shoulder for a moment, and then back to Raina. The smile she gave was visibly forced. “Please, Raina, don’t worry about her. Right now, your well-being is…”
“How bad is she hurt?” Raina demanded, feeling herself quickly sobering as fear took hold of her once more.
Duvessa gave no reply as her smile quickly faded. Raina felt some twist of guilt within herself, realizing that it actually was what she sensed from the Grand Duchess. Ignoring the twinges of discomfort that came with sudden movement, she awkwardly brought herself to stand with Duvessa’s help. She wavered and nearly fell, allowing Duvessa to catch her, and she again found herself staring at the remains of Wilhelmina von Reichenbach. Her throat was a ragged, bloody mess from the savage bite wound that had been inflicted upon her. Her clingy black Spandex cat suit was torn and glisteningly wet with blood, the material having pulled away from the cut and stab wounds she’d suffered, as though the outfit had been designed to make such injuries look that much more obvious. Had Raina really just done all of that? Had she really just killed someone? Already, she could barely remember any of it. She hoped that she could soon forget all of it entirely.
As though she were snapping back to her senses as well, Lady Svetlana rushed over to assist the Grand Duchess in helping Raina along, escorting her over to where most of the men of the surviving House of Fallamhain were gathered. As they drew near, William was already carefully arranging Mary’s hands upon her stomach, one gently atop the other. Her eyes were closed. Aside from the pool of dark blood that soaked the already red carpet under her head, she looked to be sleeping. William looked up to them with a somber expression and shook his head as he wiped the blood on his hands upon his pants. It seemed that Lady Mary Fallamhain was dead, too.
Brenna was still moving, still conscious. She was curled upon her side and writhing about in pain, kicking her legs slowly as she clutched at the wound to her front while Loki kept a folded-up scarf pressed against the exit wound in her back. Brenna had suffered only one wound as a result of Wilhelmina’s rampage, whereas Raina had endured many, but Brenna’s was far more serious. Robert moved aside as Raina knelt beside Brenna, gently laying a hand upon her shoulder.
“Lady Mary is gone, your grace,” Loki informed the Grand Duchess sadly. “The sword went through her heart. She died quickly.”
“If not for that damned silver, she might have lived,” Duvessa sighed as Raina brushed a few strands of hair from her Maker’s face. “Let us hope that Lady Brenna will not share her fate.”
“Who, me? Nah, I’m fine,” Brenna joked through her clenched teeth. “Never felt fucking better!”
Raina could hardly manage to speak, but no longer because of the intoxicating effects of the blood she had consumed. “Brenna?”
Brenna opened her eyes, although only barely as she squinted to look up at her. She managed a strained smile.
“Hey! There you are, my sweet,” she said with a slight chuckle as she closed her eyes again for a moment. “Did we win?”
“She’s dead. I killed her,” Raina said softly. Saying it aloud still did not quite make it seem any more real. She somehow felt the invisible dread of something sinister still in her life, as though Wilhelmina might spring to her feet and attack her from behind at any moment.
“Rock on.” A spasm of pain made her whole body tense for a few moments, ruining her smile. “God … dammit! It feels like … like my insides are on fire.”
“I know,” she agreed softly as the numbing, narcotic effect of the blood gradually continued to wear off, allowing the burn and ache of her wounds to return. “I feel it, too. It’s the silver. Her sword was silver-plated.”
“Yeah, I heard.” Brenna’s mascara was smeared and running from the tears of pain streaming from her eyes, contrasting darkly against the brilliant green of her eyes as she opened them again. She met Raina’s gaze directly. “Guess I’m gonna die, huh.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Silver poisoning … Mary’s already dead from it,” she insisted, her words still strained with discomfort.
“Mary took it right through her heart. Silver didn’t have anything to do with it,” Raina explained. “Silver’s not a poison, it’s just an irritant. It just hurts a lot because vampires are allergic to it. You’ll be fine.”
“Well, if you’re wrong … this is gonna suck.” Only now did she look genuinely concerned as she continued to hold her gaze. “Hey … is that your blood?”
“Some of it, yeah.”
“Did she get you, too?”
Raina glanced at the cuts on the back of her hands and knuckles, and touched the wound to her cheek. “Nothing serious.”
“Doesn’t it hurt?”
She shrugged, wincing a little bit at the pain that movement caused in her shoulders, then lied, “It’s not so bad.”
Brenna’s eyes rolled over to Duvessa, who knelt beside Raina. “She’ll be okay, right?”
“Of course, dear. Raina will be just fine,” the Grand Duchess reassured her. “Just relax. Help is on the way.”
Brenna closed her eyes and nodded. Already, Raina could hear the radio chatter and static noise of emergency crew radios as several police officers swarmed into the hotel lobby, some directing the surrounding witnesses to go outside while others assessed the situation. Two uniformed city police officers with their service pistols drawn and held low at their sides approached.
“What’s going on here? Who’s hurt?” one of the officers demanded almost forcefully.
“Oh, officer! I’m so glad you’re here!” Duvessa said almost dramatically as she stood with her empty hands raised innocently. She quickly explained the situation to them, essentially that Countess Wilhelmina had attacked them and killed several of her people before Raina had, in turn, killed the Countess. They soon holstered their pistols. One of them radioed for medical assistance and stood over Brenna while the other instructed everyone else to back away from her and follow him.
Raina remained where she was as Brenna’s blood-slick hand quickly and firmly took hold of hers. The look in her eyes and the feeling of genuine fear and worry that filled her simply forbid Raina from even considering the idea of leaving her side. The officer standing over her shined a flashlight in her face, examining her from where he stood.
“You’re all vampires?” he asked.
Raina nodded silently.
“Her, too?”
She nodded again, then felt Brenna squeeze her hand firmly for a moment to get her attention.
“Hey,” Brenna said, smiling as Raina met her gaze again. “Did I ever tell you how much I love you?”
Raina felt something of a smirk pull at the corners of her mouth. “Yeah, a few times.”
“You know I mean it, right?”
“I know,” she acknowledged with a nod. “I love you too, Brenna … more than anything.”
Brenna drew in a deep breath and suddenly seemed to relax as she closed her eyes for a moment, opening them again almost sleepily. “Whoa. Now, that feels better. Not so bad now.”
Raina’s worry deepened. She felt something strange inside of herself, something turning loose, like a knot of some tension she’d been holding onto for so long that she hadn’t been aware of it until it was suddenly being undone. Looking into her eyes, seeing her relaxed smile, perhaps she was realizing in the same moment, able to admit to herself just as much as Brenna was that they were both going to be just fine, now. The worst had passed.
“Maybe the silver wears off after awhile,” Raina suggested. That wasn’t entirely true. The pain of her wounds had only been diminished before because the rush of Wilhelmina’s blood had overwhelmed her. The burning had returned and, although it was not too much to bear, it was certainly there as much as it had been, before.
The Darkest Colors Page 53
