Freshly cut flowers wrapped reeds at the water’s edge framing our stage. The water flowed beyond the ceremony area smooth and quietly. Birds sang and squirrels chipped in the morning. The minister stood facing our small gathering. Sure of my footing, I brought my eyes around the trees.
Garin stood tall in his black suit next to the minister, his eyes on me as I came around the old oaks into his sight. He hadn’t seen me for two days. I missed him but I had so much to finish up. A simple wedding still seemed not that simple. His suit came from his mother’s storage. A quaint two hundred year old suit that looked as fresh as if tailored yesterday. We didn’t have the retinue of best men and bridesmaids. I would have had Bethany next to me. I missed her so much. And without a bridesmaid, we did not need the best man. I told Garin he fulfilled the role of my best man and that I wanted only the two of us.
My mother and sister and her kids spread out sitting in the white chairs. We asked Branoc if he could attend but with the Aravant project closed and the Massai facility ensuring safe products he was drawn into another urgent issue. I hoped whomever Branoc helped knew the quality of whom they employed.
Garin’s eyes showed me he approved of my dress. A short flaring skirt of loose ruffles with pearls and lace that clung tight to my torso and cupped out from my breasts. Hovering over them the antique pearl necklace of Garin’s family that I wore to the Victorian Festival. My shoulders bare but my long white silk gloves ran up to my biceps. Underneath the gloves, my nails had a fresh coat of my blue indigo bunting polish. I held a bouquet of vibrant tiger-lilies and white swirly something with ferns and other greenery. My hair pushed the Anime-like dress solidly into my theme. It splayed out from the top sides of my head like little whips wrapped in white ribbon near my scalp and ended in curly ends. Ephemeral filaments of my hair and some ribbons framed my face and more ribbons weaved among my hair with a swirl of baby’s breath and spiked out the back of my head –combined into the headdress of a warrior princess. My smile, that seemed to leak out of my heart and spread across my face, crinkled the skin at the sides of my eyes reminding me of the little glittery dew drops I pasted there under my curled eyelashes.
My eyes stayed riveted to his as I walked down the aisle scattered with lilies and mint. A glorious feeling, really, coming to him here – giving ourselves to each other. His beautiful, perfect face smiled and his hand reached for me. I could hardly breathe but when he laced our fingers together, as we faced the minister, his grip focused me. The minister flowed smoothly into the magical words and vows that would wed us together forever.
I worried my voice might crack or choke but when the part came where I sealed our vows I did fine with, “I do.”
Garin followed with a flawless and nearly exultant, “I do.”
The minister suggested that he should kiss the bride now.
Garin touched my jaw and brought my lips up to his. I crushed my dress against him and pulled his head to me with my free hand. I fell into this fabulous kiss and the whole world became just he and I succumbing to deep joy and triumph and the rightness of it all. We parted and gazed into each other’s eyes. My deep grin of unstoppable emotion bursting from my heart culminating in happiness that knew no release except across my lips.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Mr. and Mrs. Ramsburgh.”
We turned smiling happily toward our little party as they clapped exuberantly for us.
Then my world spun into a tornado of slow motion. Alarm spread across my sister’s face. My mother stood screaming with fear and pointing above and behind us. The chairs tumbled as the children scattered toward the reception table, with its long draping table cloth set out with food and flowered centerpieces near the oaks – to hide.
A red mist spritzed behind Garin and me and as we turned, I saw the minister’s body fall with a gash from ear to heart.
“Oh happy day!” a cruel voice grated. “A pity you overlooked my invitation.” He motioned to the pair of vampires flanking him, “Mr. Ramsburgh, let my assistants restrain you both. You wouldn’t want anything to happen to that beautiful blushing new bride of yours.”
I pulled at the black jumpsuit assassin gripping my arms.
Garin spat, “Theron Aravant!”
-:- Twenty-Eight -:-
“What about the children and the family, Doctor? Should we kill them?”
“No they could be useful as threats later.”
“There are too many to take with us.”
“We can find them easily. Let them be, for now. Though I may change my mind. These two we will take back to my little dungeon at my house and we’ll have some fun with my old inquisition toys. Engines of entertainment. My little miracle machines. A little payment for their disruption of my project.”
“Theron, we thought you died at the plant.”
“Almost. Your accomplice Brett might have done so had he detonated his bomb sooner. He did destroy my project and my team. Surprised he made such a sophisticated device to cleanse the vampires, as if he had inside knowledge of vampires or a vampire had built it for him. Nevertheless, the damage is done, you stopped my plans and you are going to pay the invoice. Let’s go.”
They sped through the forests with us as their prize like lions gripping gazelles in their saber filled jaws. Theron ran in front with the two guards carrying Garin and I bound. The terrain changed from the deep forest into hay fields sprinkled with trees in the fence rows. Birds scattered before us.
Then I saw a flash. Like a sparkle of hope. Garin broke free of his bonds as we crossed under a thick hedge of trees along a field. He ripped at a strand of barbed wire and whipped it around the neck of the assassin carrying me. The barbs hooked into the vampire’s flesh and he pulled it like a chainsaw blade. The barbs buzzed through the assassin’s neck but it stopped at the spine folding the barbs into nubs and grinding and slicing the metal. The assassin remained alive but severely damaged. Blood gushed over her chest and dappled my white dress with another dash of red over the drying mess from the minister. Her arms released me and I fell to the ground.
Garin flipped over and whipped the wire at the assassin he had escaped from. Her sword flayed the wire into snippets of steel that stained the air. She struck her sword at Garin. He rolled and latched a hand around a fence post, ripping it from the ground and shedding the fence staples holding the rest of the wire. He batted at the sword but the unbalanced post swung around slowly, even with vampire strength, compared to the finesse of the sword. She struck and Garin parried, the post absorbing the blade creating enough friction that with speed Garin surprised the assassin – he yanked the sword from her grasp. He twisted about and wrenched the sword free of the post as he tore back into the hay field. The assassin drew her second sword and sprang at Garin.
I glanced to the assassin next to me. I already saw the magic stitching rapidly repairing the monster that lay there. I pushed the grip of her sword up from her scabbard and pushed my bonds against the razor edge of the exposed sword until the bindings fell free. I pulled at the sword, and keeping it low, I pushed it through the remaining unwired neck of my captor. More blood drenched my dress as the body kicked. I tightened my grip on the sword. A corner of my mind said I’d never get these spots out, but the biggest part of my mind screamed – where is Aravant?
Garin and the assassin exchanged a blur of thrusts and parries, attempted disengagements and a redoublement. Garin batted her blade in one instant and spun toward her allowing him to bring his sword down and cut through her thigh. She wobbled but their swords rang. He tapped her sword again and spun his sword in a tight arc that separated her elbow. He sliced through her torso and she fell back into the bloody grass.
Garin didn’t have time to finish the vampire as Aravant sprang seemingly from the top of the trees so sudden and with such surprising force that he bowled Garin repeatedly across the grass. Aravant followed him and struck blows into him with his fists until he had his feet under himself to strike with his sword.
&n
bsp; I ran at the assassin. She dragged herself along to press her pelvis against her torso and quicken her healing. Her sword lay beside her but untouched so focused she remained at reattaching the severed parts of her body. I quietly knelt as I approached. Then I had her sword in my other hand. She saw me and hissed like a cornered cat. Her healing uncompleted to do anything other than reach for me with her good hand and flail along on the severed stump of an arm. But with her speed she could certainly catch me. I stood my ground as the fangs strove to latch upon my thigh and I unflinchingly stabbed at her face, running both swords through her eyes and deep into her skull. The bones screeched as I turned to the side and pulled the swords away from the slumping body. I swung the blades over my head and down together hard, like splitting wood, and severed the head from its body – painting my shoes and stockings in sticky crimson and black blood.
Garin flung himself at Aravant, his sword slicing and re-slicing the air before him as he attacked. Aravant caught the tip of his blade in the corner of his sword’s hand guard, then opened his arms so they spanned the distance of the sword and used his claws to rip at Garin’s shoulder.
Aravant spun back holding a section of Garin’s flesh in his fist. He tested the air with his sword before Garin and then lunged again nicking the side of Garin’s weapon. He whirled in and used his fist to punch into Garin’s face with such power his head snapped back exposing his neck. Garin, caught surprised, brought his arm up reflexively to protect it and Aravant’s sword sliced through his arm at an angle dropping Garin’s arm into two sections, each wrapped in strips of suit coat.
Garin struck flipping his sword around and up. Aravant flinched back as his suit-vest ripped open from belly to chest, narrowly missing further damage than nicks in his skin.
Aravant swung in a curving arc that Garin batted to the side and down. Aravant’s sword dipped into the grassy field, plowing a deep groove and spaded earth to the sky as he swung the sword around the opposite direction. Garin twisted his sword to meet Aravant’s blade.
Garin lunged, the point of his sword slicing at Aravant’s face. He caught the side of Garin’s sword against his hand guard, with his free hand grabbed a loose flap of Garin’s coat, and pulled him passed using his own momentum to keep him going. As Garin reeled by, he slammed the large pommel of the sword into Garin’s nose.
Garin stumbled back, his face foamy with broken features and flowing blood. Garin stumbled back a pair of paces until he could revive his attention. He blinked and shook his head. He ran and leaped into the air with his sword swinging at Aravant. Aravant turned and brought both hands to the grip of his sword. Narrowing his eyes he struck against Garin's with a crack of energy that seemed to radiate like a magical wave. But he did not stop. Their blades rang repeatedly in a swirl of motion.
Aravant clashed his sword against Garin’s putting their faces within inches, he whispered, “You cannot prevail.”
“Taunts get you nowhere.”
“They can be as good of a weapon as this sword. Or these vampire grenades.”
“You’ll die too.”
“Not if I’m quick.”
“That’s not the way they are designed.” Garin pushed away and attacked with his sword.
Aravant’s blade dug through Garin’s wrist. He shoved and severed tendons and muscle. Then he whipped the edge around and stabbed through the inner part of Garin’s bicep striking through the bone. Garin’s sword spun through the air with his hand still attached. Aravant rolled away to a standing and ready posture. “Now you can only nibble my knees.”
Garin launched his body at Aravant. Flipping in the air like a big fish crippled on a hook. Fangs stretching for Aravant.
“No!” I yelled. My sudden noise distracted Aravant enough that his sword pierced Garin’s chest instead of his neck. Aravant redirected Garin’s body away from him and swiveled his attention to me. Aravant looked at me standing with two swords, blood skimming off the blades and my arms covered in bloody gore. My eyes lifted from Garin near death on the ground, anger filling my brow, my hands flexing on the sticky wetness of blood between my fingers. I gripped my swords and attacked with a warrior fury.
Aravant laughed but he squared off to receive me. I swung my swords at him and he moved with speed and never connected steel to steel. The unanticipated free swinging weights spun my body around. Then his sword hammered down at me. Short reflexes brought my blade tip up and I met his next strike with my other sword. But he drove me back. Drove me back and down toward the grass and the dirt. I remembered something of the stylized fighting used on the old kung fu and Anime movies I watched as a kid and incorporated those into Garin’s teachings. I cut across his wrist with the tip of my sword.
“Ach! Your sting is painful young lady,” Aravant said, transferring his sword to his other hand. I pressed my attack. He easily defended against it but I held his attention. He didn’t see how Garin slid behind him and blocked his footstep. Aravant fell backward in surprise.
I stabbed him with both of my swords as Garin kicked and crushed Aravant’s ribs.
Aravant’s arm swung around with his sword at Garin.
Instincts can be strange and unpredictable. I flicked my swords under Aravant’s blade. His sword clanged against my twin swords and pressed their metal tips into the earth but I held and Aravant missed beheading Garin. Aravant swished his sword back and brought a power stroke to bear. Garin kicked him hard, spinning Aravant in the air. I yanked my swords out of the ground and cut through his neck. But in his spinning, the two grenades he prepared flipped into the air out of control. Garin twisted on his back using his feet in a fluid sweep to push me far back across the field. I landed like a bounding airplane, the swords falling from my fingers like crashing aircraft debris roiling free of the fuselage and I tumbled dozens of times across the grass finally stopping half a field away. But the pieces from those grenades zipped and buzzed through the air around me peppering the atmosphere in angry bursts. An engulfing fire ignited the grass and timber along the fence row where we battled. I ran toward the fierce flames but the inferno burned too hot and burned too thoroughly for me to see let alone get close to Garin. Surly he died in there, saving me.
The breezes across the field seemed to halt, my whole world held its breath, as the flames rushed skyward bringing the trees down. I fell to my knees in the scorched grass, in my bloody wedding dress, and cried the tears of true sorrow. Garin had saved me but traded his life for mine. I sat in vigil outside the perimeter of heat. Several times I thought of running into the flames and joining him. I should but he saved me. He wanted me to live, he protected me, but I had to calm those urges that scattered through my head to end it all. Not knowing what I could do I paced in my bare feet. Eventually I walked across the field and found my shoes along with the two swords. I returned to maintain my vigil at the fire’s edge. My beautiful wedding dress red and covered in soil and rent like my torn soul. My scattered mind thinking the dress storage company will never get this out and fixed. We hadn’t had more than a kiss as husband and wife. My beautiful husband – dead!
I should find my family. But unsure of which direction other than a general sense we had been going to Aravant’s house and nearing Livix. If I went east I should find more signs of civilization.
But I stayed at the edge of the flames. Charred embers of wood burned hot as the scorched trees toppled. A great black cloud like a beacon rose into the sky but I expected the smoke would be ignored as a farmer clearing brush from his fence row.
The day scorched into evening. The setting sun stared boiling red and hard over my shoulder as I faced east, still contemplating the fire’s burn. The setting sun faded. I didn’t know I had so many tears and so much sorrow but the pain flowed from my wounds. The fire lit my darkness until the narrow hours of night when I slipped into an empty sleep.
-:- Twenty-Nine -:-
I awoke late the next morning as the sun heated the day. The world had transformed before me. The fire-scorched field a
nd fence row appeared as some sort of moon landing war zone. Smoke rose from the tips of twisted blackened branches like the tendrils of black spiders that dropped from the sky. Pockets of glowing coals radiated intense heat. The blackened grasses ringing the blasted area now replaced with ridges of smoking charcoal and black soil covered in sooty gray ash like dirty blowing snow drifts.
I stepped forward as I could. I first saw the blistered and cooked half skull of Aravant, vile and surprising. His body disintegrated and absent save for an oily blackness. Then I saw Garin’s charred finger and the wedding ring I had so recently slipped onto his finger, melted into a dirty pool of solder on the soil under the blackened bone. A strip of his silk suit coat lining fluttered nearby, mostly covered in blasted soil. I squatted down and brushed away some dry ash by waving air at it. I pulled at the piece of fabric and found sitting under it an inhuman pair of vampire fangs. My eyes glanced at the ruin of Aravant’s partial skull and saw the curled black lips revealing similar teeth still strongly attached to his deathly leer. The two assassin remains lay outside the fire zone. These must be Garin’s vampire fangs. Dense and heavy with durableness unlike anything from this world. I wrapped the two fangs in the silk and tore a strip from my already rent dress to scoop up the finger and gold droplets and wrap the teeth with them. I stood shakily.
Wiping tears across my face I trudged east. I expected with my smudged and tear stained face I’d be left alone. A girl in a ripped bloody wedding dress carrying swords with pain and anger burning my eyes. I squeezed my fistful of cloth and vampire teeth – all I had left of my True Love.
-:- Thirty -:-
I knelt at the water’s edge. Nothing of the wedding remained, scrubbed clean by both human and vampire helpers returning the area to the forest. I found a few sharp brown tiger lily petals stuck between blades of grass and reeds as I wandered close to the river. The water shown like glass on this warm sunny September day, duplicating my wedding. The rest of the world remained far away. I plucked a few reeds and wove them into a raft the size of my hand. I kicked off my shoes, rolled up my jeans, and stepped into the clear water. The current tugged softly at my ankles while I thought of my good fortune remaining human and not a vampire so I only have a single life span to mourn the loss of Garin. I choked back the beginning watershed damming my eyes.
The Vampires Of Livix Twin Pack (Volumes #2 & #3) Page 32
