by Lily Luchesi
“You know, you might have been born before me. You might be over five hundred years old, you might be the strongest witch who ever existed, but compared to me you are nothing. And that is why you always hated me. I came along after you and had humans and creatures alike following me, listening to me, and respecting me. You thought you deserved priority because you came here before I did. I suppose you thought that earned you some respect, but you never got any…because you never deserved any. You’re fake, in more ways than one. You demand attention like a child having a tantrum.
“You are shallow, a shell of what a real woman— regardless of species —should be. You wanted what you could never have; you wanted my success, my life, and my husband. When you saw Jonathan and realized you could not have him, you ripped him away from me in the worst way! Even worse, when you realized that you couldn’t have that Price, you went and got yourself another: a pale replacement that even you know cannot hold a candle to the original.
“I’d say you wanted to copy me, but calling you a copycat is the equivalent of calling Mt. Everest a hill. You’re a jealous snake who can’t stand being bested by someone you think is lesser than you are. You talked a big game, but when push came to shove you had only one cowardly trick up your sleeve: murder.
“That’s the thing, though: the one thing you could never change: despite your age, your power, and your determination, you could never be better than me. So you destroyed my whole life. You’ve cursed me, killed my friends, and killed my lover. Now, Fiona Guilfoyle, you will never curse or kill another soul. I have made sure of it. Your hate-filled existence is finally over.”
Angelica knelt down and felt an aura behind her. She could smell Danny’s drying blood, and took comfort in his presence. Everything she had just said had been held in for a century. But there were no words to accurately describe the hate she had for Fiona, for what she’d done. She had even went and got another Price, because she could not have the original Price she had wanted. She was pathetic.
Turning the blade straight, she cut into the holes the bullets had made, making Fiona shriek in a similar manner as Camille Fuller had when Danny had staked her in her coffin. Angelica dug the knife deeper, breaking through bone and muscle to reach the beating heart. She could feel its pulse; it rang in her ears as loud as the shrieks. She cut wider, opening the chest. She heard Danny stifle a gag. This was like doing a post mortem on a living person.
“I’m glad you can feel pain,” Angelica told Fiona conversationally. “You can have the physical manifestation of the emotional pain you gave me when you killed Jonathan.”
She turned the knife and cut one of the arteries— she thought it was the carotid —and her face was sprayed with blood. Instead of making her hungry, she felt sick. This blood was tainted, and any who drank of it would be tainted as well. Closing her mouth, she kept cutting veins and arteries until the heart was able to be lifted out with a bare hand. With each cut, Fiona’s cries became more pained; they sounded wet and labored as her blood welled up clotting in her body.
Angelica felt its heat and pulse on her palm as her hands became coated in blood. She pulled the heart out with a yank, causing more blood to spurt out in a small fountain. It stopped flowing quickly, and at that very moment she saw the dark light in Fiona’s eyes fade and she died as she lived: alone and angry at the world.
“Danny, text Bart. He’ll send a vamp down with an urn and lighter fluid,” she ordered. “Do you remember the prayers said at Catholic Mass for the dead?”
He nodded. “Of course I do.” As he said that, a vampire came with a witch from the Grand Coven. The vamp left her and the lighter fluid before going back to the PID.
“I’m here to control the flames, nothing more,” the woman said, gazing down at Fiona’s corpse. “Such a shame. She was the best of us, but her heart had been tainted by evil.”
Angelica paid her no mind. She was digging easily into the cold, hard ground, burying Fiona’s still-warm heart deep within the Earth. Once that was done, she stood and gestured silently for the lighter fluid. She liberally doused the body with the liquid and with salt she had been keeping in her jacket pocket. Taking a lighter, she tossed it onto the body.
It lit up like a wildfire, and the witch assisting them had trouble keeping them in check.
Angelica looked up and nodded to Danny to get ready to pray. There was no official prayer (except for Wiccan ones, and while Angelica was not Catholic, she was definitely not Wiccan) to say at the burning of witches, but this one had been tried and proven satisfactory many times. She would say a line, and Danny would represent the witnesses praying for the soul of the deceased.
“Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord.”
“And let perpetual light shine upon her.”
“May she rest in peace.”
“Amen.”
“May her soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.”
“Amen.”
As soon as they were done speaking, the flame shot up into the starry night sky, flickering a deep, blood red. Angelica watched in apprehension, as this had never happened before. The center of the flame began to burn black, and the darkness overtook the blood red before suddenly being dispelled into the sky, disappearing into a bright, white light. The flames died down, and what was left was a pile of ash and bone fragments, still smoking.
Angelica wondered how she’d get the ashes into the urn, when the white witch said, “May I?” and used simple telekinesis to put every last bit of ash and bone into the urn and shut the lid. She nodded a goodbye and disappeared, leaving Danny and Angelica alone.
“Quickly, come with me.” She grabbed Danny’s hand and they carried the ashes over to the edge of the harbor. The water was calm now, slowly and lazily washing up against the half-sunken ships. The three-quarter moon shimmered on the water.
Danny squeezed her hand, his warmth filling her with courage to finally finish this. She popped the lid with one hand and held the urn suspended over the edge of the beach.
“I solemnly give to you, O Lord, the ashes of mine enemy. Return them to Nature, in what she believed, and I pray You, give her new life as you see fit, in Heaven or Hell. Amen.”
They both watched as the ashes seemed to slide out by themselves, making arcs in the air before them, before they scattered, dissipating in the soft Chicago wind. It was over. After a century and a quarter, it was finally done. The evil that had plagued the world had been vanquished.
Angelica felt her entire body sag with both relief and exhaustion. Wherever that power had come from earlier, it was now drained from her. She wrapped her arms around Danny’s neck and let her body fall into him. She had expected to cry— at least with relief —but instead she simply felt tired. Lighter, without the weight of “what if” on her mind, but very tired. She needed blood, sleep, and more blood.
Danny held her to him, hands gently caressing her back and her dark hair. “It’s over, Angie. You did it.” He pulled away from her. “Let’s go home.”
She arched her eyebrow. “Whose? Yours or mine?”
He smiled down at her. “Ours. If you’ll agree to it. You can even keep your apartment if you want, but, after today, I can’t imagine being apart from you. I came too close to losing you.”
For the first time since being turned, Angelica felt true, pure joy rise in her breast, and she wrapped her arms around Danny again, kissing him enthusiastically. “Yes, Danny, let’s go home.”
***
“What was that? That power you found all of a sudden?” Danny asked.
It was an hour before sunrise, and they were both laying in his bed— their bed. He touched Angelica and felt how warm he had made her; how alive she became. The bite on his neck throbbed pleasantly in time with his heartbeat.
Angelica was looking up at his ceiling. “I wish I knew. I didn’t think I was even capable of that kind of power. It was thrilling and frightening all at once. I think that well might be
dry now. It feels like every drop of power I had was used in throwing back her attacks.
“I don’t get it, Danny. Today was the day she could hurt me, despite my lineage. What could have happened to change that fact?” she wondered.
He placed a kiss on the top of her head. “There are all sorts of things you might discover about yourself now that you’re turned. That is probably just the tip of the iceberg. I just hope you know that, as long as I’m here, you won’t have to adjust to this change alone.”
***
The fight was long from over. Leander Price had been watching what he had assumed would be the final battle between his protégé and the halfling. He was not prepared for what he saw, the sheer power rising up from inside Angelica, making her immune to Fiona’s magic.
It was when he felt Fiona’s essence dissipate that Leander knew: Angelica had been turned. For the first time in decades he felt real fear grip his heart and slither down his spine. He knew what this meant, and he was terrified. He stumbled away from the mirror in which he had been watching the battle, inadvertently smashing it in his haste. His hands were shaking and his heart was racing.
He had never thought that this would happen. Not in a million years. He thought she’d be dead before she was turned.
“We’re all fucked now.”
Epilogue
Vampires need a coffin to sleep in. No exceptions. A few days here and there in a bed is all well and good, but Angelica wound up making Danny’s second bedroom into her own little light-proof sanctuary with her coffin and most prized possessions, some of which were two hundred years old. She gave up her apartment, but kept ownership of the building just in case she needed it again.
Living with Danny had not been that big of an issue or transition. He took over as deputy director in the daytime while Mark was indisposed over in London. She still took over her duties at night in the PID headquarters.
She kept tabs on Brighton and Mark. The vampire they were hunting was older than she was, and he was quite cunning and made Vincent seem like nothing more than an annoying gnat. Whatever she could do to help Mark and Brighton out in executing him, she would. That took up most of her time, while Danny easily took care of local affairs.
They both worked well together, and lived quietly…well, when you didn’t count bedroom activities, that is. They occasionally went on assignments together in the night, hunting rogue vamps and flesh-starved shifters, but mostly their time was spent at home. Angelica, when it was nighttime and a rare day off, would read quietly or sometimes write in one of her journals. Danny would be content to simply watch her, still trying to convince himself that she was really there, with him.
Danny learned a lot about Angelica in the six months they lived together, including the fact that her love for pop culture was very deep seated. He resigned himself to the occasional midnight Supernatural marathon, watching classic sci-fi films and shows, and, his favorite, listening to her read poetry by the firelight.
What he loved most were her t-shirts. Nearly every day there was something odd and different to see, before she changed into her work clothes. Of course, he knew some of the obvious ones like the iconic anime phrase “It’s over 9000!” The same with her Tolkien shirts, and her store of classic novel shirts and scarves.
The ones he didn’t know were always funny, at least to him.
One day it was a black shirt with blood splatter that read, “Eat the rude”.
“Is that your new life motto?” he asked, sitting down at the kitchen table. She glanced down at her shirt and laughed.
“You never watched Hannibal?”
“The guy who eats people? I think I’ll pass.”
There was another shirt that said, “I wake pies and make the dead.”
“Does that have anything to do with you calling me a pie maker that day, when you found out I had you turned?” he asked, recalling the odd statement.
Angelica giggled. “Oh, man. Yeah. Long story short: this character owns a pie shop and can bring the dead back to life.”
Danny just shook his head. He loved her, but she had some very odd tastes!
One morning (well, pre-sunrise morning) he saw her shirt and burst into laughter.
“What?” she asked, bewildered.
“I take back what I said about the Hannibal shirt: this is your new life motto!”
The shirt read, “I’m not a psychopath, I’m a high-functioning sociopath.”
She giggled with him, playfully swatting his behind as he went to pour a cup of coffee while she stood at the stove, cooking. For some reason, he had never taken Angelica for the domestic type. She had made breakfast the day after they had first slept together, and he figured that that was because she was still playing at being human then. He’d had no idea that, despite now being unable to eat, she loved to cook.
“How do you justify frying bacon for your boyfriend with your badass reputation?” he asked, sipping the coffee. Was it possible that she even made that taste better than usual?
She sighed. “I identify as a feminist, and I disobey any and all gender roles set by a puritanical society of bygone days. However, you provide me with my meals, so I find it fair that I do the same for you. And besides, I enjoy cooking. It is rather relaxing. If I could still eat human food, I’d make sure we shared these duties. Unless you’re a bad cook. In which case, never mind.”
He stepped behind her and kissed her. “I love you. With all of my heart, I love you.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder. He thought that he had never seen her so relaxed since they met. While they knew that Leander was still out there, they had made an agreement to take time from hunting “big game”, as she called it, to enjoy being together. As long as she could still slice some of the throats of minor paranormal criminals, she was happy. And if she was happy, so was he.
He traced his hand over her arm, looking at the tattoos they had gotten together. It was odd looking at it. Because she was a vampire, skin healed at a faster rate so her ink looked much more faded than his did.
Hers read, “No matter how many deaths that I die, I will never forget.”
His was the next line, “No matter how many lives that I live, I will never regret.”
They were oddly fitting with their respective existences, and they were another way to bond them both forever. He was hers, he knew that, but he always was looking for another way to show it. She had Claimed him in traditional vampire fashion, they had gotten the tattoos, but yet it still didn’t feel like it was enough to prove his love.
He considered human marriage, but what kind? He was Catholic, and Angelica couldn’t touch holy water or eat the wafer. She claimed she was a Christian after her father’s upbringing. He wanted to broach the subject, especially while they were on hiatus, but didn’t dare push her too far. She was still wary of her own self, and he didn’t want to make her turn tail out of any kind of fear.
“I heard from Brighton and Mark again,” she said, moving away to wipe some bacon grease off of her arm. “They’re getting married. They are both afraid that the vampire might…you know…before they get the chance. They’re doing it as we speak.”
Danny smiled. How similar his thoughts were with Brighton sometimes, but then, they could sense each other so it wasn’t that big of a stretch. “I’m happy for them. I’ll be happier when they come home, of course, but still. And I don’t think they should be worried about the vampire. They aren’t the same people they were the last time they faced him. I think they’ll be okay.”
She smiled, “Yeah, I think so, too.” Her phone beeped with a text message and she said, “I have to make a call. I’ll be asleep by the time you leave. Oh, and can you do me a favor?”
He nodded.
“Stay an extra two hours. I have a shifter squad taking care of a rogue downstate, and I’d love it if you could do intake. I have more calls to England I need to make after sunset.”
“No problem. Love you.” He leaned in and kissed h
er.
“I love you.”
***
“Are you sure?”
Angelica’s pale face was lit up by her laptop screen as she talked with Mark and Brighton. The newlyweds looked anything but blissful.
Brighton bit his lip, a familiar gesture. “Yes. Linwood has a cousin working in homicide where it happened. The cousin found the demons and called us about it. Despite being a Psi, he’s quick on the draw when it counts. You’ve got to get out of there. Now. Because if you’re in danger that means Danny is in danger.”
“I don’t run, Brighton, you know that,” she said indignantly. Despite her outward calm, her stomach was rolling. Why now? Why when she was finally, truly happy?
He gave her a stare that plainly said, “What kind of idiot are you?”
“Angelica, you can’t possibly stay where you are. Not until this threat has been neutralized,” Mark said.
She sighed, feeling her heartbeat speed up. This was her lot in life. The hunter was always going to be the hunted. She could never be happy for prolonged periods of time. No vampire ever could.
“I will not run and hide,” she said decisively. “But I will leave, if only to save Danny’s life. And if I am in danger, so is everyone I know. I need to go off the grid completely for a while. A long while.”
Her face must have betrayed her desolation, because even Brighton looked sad.
“This is goodbye,” he said.
She nodded. “Yes. For a few years, at least. Possibly…possibly longer. There’s a good chance you’ll all be long dead by the time I can safely return. …Thank you guys. You’ve been my friends and the closest thing to family I have ever had.” She felt her breath hitch and mentally swore.
“Angelica…I am not one given to outbursts of affection, but you have been like a sister to me. You helped me. Even when you unraveled me and brought me down to the most human level I deserve to be at, I always respected and loved you,” Brighton said.
