Raina slowly descended the steps leading down from the altar, gripping her sword more tightly with her right hand than her bandaged and sore left. She realized that she was already at a disadvantage in her condition, but the difference in their weapons was enough to give her confidence. Camille’s rapier had only one purpose, to thrust, and so Raina was aware that her attacks would come almost exclusively from one direction. Some strange part of her had actually wanted to fight Count Haruto from the moment he had surprised her by joining the protest, as the Japanese origins of her shinkendo training would have been an excellent match against his similar method of swordsmanship. Perhaps some sick, masochistic part of her had wanted to re-enact her bloody duel with Countess Wilhelmina, who had similarly trained in Japanese styles of sword fighting.
Of course, Raina was well aware of the fact that Camille was a very accomplished fencer and had competed in (and won) a series of sport fencing competitions throughout Europe – those that allowed vampires to compete, at least. A few countries thereafter had even banned all vampires from competition, citing Camille’s unfair advantages in speed and agility. But sport and combat swordplay were two completely different things. One could not practice with a ball-tipped foil and expect to know how to truly kill another person bearing a sword, especially when one was accustomed to fighting under the limitations of safety rules. It was one of the many reasons she was all the more glad, if not outright lucky, that she had long trained in shinkendo, a style meant for use in actual combat. She had trained with a wooden sword or bamboo staff most of the time, but they had always been taught to regard those substitutes as though they were live weapons, so the transition to using a real sword in her training came quite naturally.
Camille slashed the sword about a few times theatrically as she backed away to offer Raina a fair bit of distance. Her rapier swished loudly as it whizzed through the air, echoing off the old church walls of the Hall. They positioned themselves longitudinally to the audience of the IVC, with Camille almost symbolically positioning herself in front of the right-hand side of the IVC. Raina was aware that she was standing near Loki’s place of seating, but she did not look at him. She could not afford to become distracted and give her enemy an opportunity to strike first. However, she did allow herself a brief glance toward Olivia and Sophie, who sat together on the right-hand side pews near Camille. Olivia looked a bit concerned, but still sat bolt upright and proper as ever. Sophie actually clung to her aunt with tears in her eyes, apparently convinced she was about to witness Raina’s death. Hoping to reassure her, Raina smiled just a bit and winked. That was when Camille chose to strike.
From her classic stance of fencing, with her right foot forward and her left hand raised high in a fist, presenting the slimmest target possible to her opponent, Camille thrust straight for Raina’s heart with the very first attack. Given the distance between them, Raina was able to deflect it easily, although she felt terribly slow as Camille had almost completed her repose before Raina could even begin to counter. As such, the horizontal slash that Raina made was avoided easily as her foe simply took half a step back and leaned away in an extreme but swift dodge.
Before she could even return to any form of a stance, herself, Raina felt what seemed like a gigantic needle being stabbed into her left side as Camille scored her first hit. Surprisingly, the puncture wound hurt a lot more than Raina had expected. The rapier only entered her by perhaps an inch or two at the most, right between her lower ribs. It happened so quickly, in and out in a blink, that the hit felt less like she was being stabbed and more like someone had shot her in the side with a BB gun. Worse still, the wound immediately burned with a terrible heat that soon made it feel as though Camille had just stabbed her with a red-hot iron brand. All this passed within two seconds of the hit as Camille retreated a full step and smiled at her, satisfied.
“I claim first blood!” she announced proudly, holding her rapier up vertically before her own face as she placed her left hand upon her hip.
“Well, well … déjà vu,” Raina replied sourly through her clenched teeth as she assumed a different stance that was a more relaxed version of the one Camille had earlier assumed.
Camille shook her head. “You cannot defeat me, your grace.”
“I’m not going to defeat you,” Raina said, “I’m going to kill you.”
Camille surprised her slightly by swinging outward at Raina’s face in a slash. Of course, at worst, the blow would have hurt, but it probably would not have broken her skin. Nevertheless, Raina instinctively parried the slash with her own sword. Camille’s rapier seemed to slide back off of Raina’s katana, withdrawing only slightly before jutting forth and piercing her right shoulder this time. Even as Raina flinched in reaction to the sensation of being punctured, Camille withdrew and thrust at her yet again, this time entering her quite deeply. Raina found herself half-curled over the sword that had practically impaled her abdomen, entering slightly to her right and scraping as it hit something hard within the middle of her torso that made her legs nearly come out from underneath her.
Camille made the mistake of leaving that sword within Raina for just a brief moment too long, apparently pausing to savor the glory of inflicting that painful wound with a wicked, fang-flashing grin. Raina grabbed the shaft of the rapier and hooked the backside of her katana’s blade against the side of the foil as she twisted her body aside to the right with a jerk. The movement brought her a terrible amount of pain – in fact, she honestly regretted the move – but it also pulled the sword in the opposite direction of Camille’s right palm. Just like that, Raina had removed the sword right from an unsuspecting Camille’s hand, leaving her unarmed.
Raina continued the rightward spin as her left hand held the rapier that still protruded from her body. She raised the katana with her right, clearing its blade from the rapier, and as she turned fully around, she brought it down and across in a hard slash. Camille was quick enough to avoid being decapitated, but not enough to completely escape injury as the tip of the blade cut deeply across her right shoulder. A thin splash of blood was flung directly across the large golden ankh on the front of the lectern. Camille gasped in shock at first, and then cried out in pain through her clenched teeth.
For a moment, as Camille stood just out of range with a stunned and hurt expression, Raina stared directly into her eyes as she jerked the rapier out from her abdomen. The agony and weird sensation of something sliding out from her insides nearly made her vomit. Although she winced and shuddered, Raina’s lips remained sealed and not a sound of weakness escaped her. She held the rapier up with her left hand, looking for a moment as though she were offering the sword back to her enemy. Raina then allowed the sword to slide down within her grip until its hilt touched the back of her knuckles. She threw the bloodied weapon aside, casting it over the lectern and far beyond to clatter against the wall at the back of the altar.
Camille’s eyes followed the travel of her confiscated weapon for a moment, glanced back to Raina, and then back toward the weapon. Clutching her wounded shoulder, blood oozing from between her fingers, she began to lean in the direction of the altar as though she meant to go after her sword. Grasping her sword again with both hands, Raina swiftly swung her katana upward and across, expertly stopping it just an inch or so away from Camille’s throat and causing her enemy’s eyes to go incredibly wide.
“Don’t,” Raina warned her in a low voice.
Camille’s eyes flicked to Raina’s once more, considering the seriousness of that threat. Of course, holding the sword before her neck like that was more symbolic than practical. She couldn’t very well sever her opponent’s head with only a couple of inches’ travel, even with her vampirically enhanced strength. She could slice her throat open from ear to ear, however, simply by moving the blade’s edge a bit closer and then jerking the sword back to make the cut … but that was, of course, assuming Camille would be stupid enough to move directly into the blade rather than backing away from it. As had
been the case with Countess Wilhelmina, Raina was well aware that Duchess Camille was not stupid. She was, however, foolishly arrogant.
Rather than leaning away from the blade or heading straight into it, Camille took her hand away from her wounded shoulder and whacked it against the flat side of the katana in a sudden blur of movement. The movement did surprise Raina, and it did afford Camille enough of an opportunity to step out of her range and begin to run after her weapon. However, Camille was a vain sort of High Court. Not only had she chosen to wear a full-length dress that limited the movement of her legs to some degree, she also had made the mistake of leaving on her high heels when she had chosen to issue her challenge. Camille was taller than Raina by a few inches, standing nearly six feet tall in those heels, and she had much longer legs – and yes, Raina was a bit envious of them. But Camille’s poor choice in combat attire allowed Raina to catch up to her before Camille had even topped the last step leading up beside the lectern.
Camille had pulled her hair back into a tight and elaborately-woven braid in the back, which Raina gladly used as a leash. Switching the sword to her bandaged left hand to reach out with her stronger right, she jerked Camille’s head straight back by that thick braided mane and literally pulled the Elder off her feet. Raina stepped aside as her opponent fell, and Camille slammed onto the bare hardwood floor beside the red carpet of the center aisle with a hard and heavy thud, impacting first with the back of her head and her upper shoulders. Duchess Camille’s eyes rolled up into her head and her mouth remained agape as she lay still in a crumpled, awkward position upon the floor, knocked completely unconscious.
Raina took a full step back and habitually swung her sword down and across in a traditional gesture meant to fling away the blood from her blade. A small dotted stripe was painted across the carpet and polished hardwood. She watched her fallen opponent for a few moments, surprised to soon see Camille’s limbs begin to lightly twitch with convulsions. Camille had hit the floor hard, but had Raina really pulled her down that hard? The river of adrenaline in her veins made it a bit difficult for Raina to gauge her own strength. If she had pulled upon the High Court’s hair any harder, Raina probably would have ripped it right from Camille’s scalp.
Judging by the strange spasms Camille was making as she lay upon the floor, and as blood began to seep from her ears and nostrils, Raina abruptly went from loathing the Elder to suddenly pitying her. In spite of her words, Raina had not meant to kill her, only to stop her. She had hoped that Camille would surrender. Raina had wanted to shame her, hoping to teach her a lesson in humility. She had not, however, wanted to kill a fourth person in one night. Because this was an Elder, Raina honestly began to dread the consequences of what she had just done.
“Shit,” she murmured as she lowered her sword to her side. Raina turned to Olivia. “Call an ambulance.”
Olivia just stared at her with wide eyes, frozen in place. She didn’t appear to comprehend at all what Raina had just said, let alone the fact that the command had been directed at her. Raina stamped her bare foot upon the hardwood floor to get her attention, and Olivia jumped slightly.
“Call a fucking ambulance, already!” Raina cried, regrettably allowing herself to slip out character in front of the IVC for just a moment.
“Yes … y-yes, your grace, right away!” Olivia finally replied as she seemed to emerge from her shock-induced trance. She reached within her inner coat pocket and withdrew a cell phone, obviously fumbling about with its buttons as she tried to dial for help.
Raina’s eyes returned to the sight of her fallen enemy. Camille had stopped twitching. Blood still gushed readily from the wound to her shoulder, forming a small pool upon the floor underneath, but it was not a terribly large amount, nothing at all like the arterial sprays and horrid gore that Raina had earlier seen in the evening. The flow of blood also had begun to increase slightly from her nostrils and her ears. How long did it take for a person’s blood pressure to lower to zero after their heart stopped beating? Did it just stop suddenly, or did it just gradually sort of bleed out, like someone poking a hole in a water balloon? Weird thoughts, of course, but she could not help thinking them as she stared.
She was not sure why the sight of the Duchess lying upon the floor, either dead or dying, was so disturbing to her. She had just killed three men earlier that night, three human men, and she had killed them in a far more horrible manner than this. But then, she had honestly meant to kill those three men because, after all, they had been trying to kill her and her friends. Of course, it would seem that Camille also had meant to kill Raina. But Raina honestly had not meant to kill her.
The idea of killing someone over a disagreement seemed stupid to her, a terrible waste. Okay, so they’d had a difference of opinions on something – so what? That hardly seemed like a valid reason to bring about someone’s death. Sure, Duvessa had killed and tortured people for far more petty things in the past, but damn it all, Raina did not want to follow that kind of example. Seeing the apparently lifeless form of Camille upon the floor before her, and then allowing her eyes to be drawn upward to observe the torture scene still being projected upon the wall, Raina began to wonder if maybe it was too late for that. Perhaps she had already become the very thing she had sought to avoid, the brand of cruel, sadistic monster that she had hoped Duvessa had taken with her to the grave.
Raina had wanted to make something useful of herself, to turn the horribly bizarre and tragic set of circumstances surrounding her Change and nomination as Duvessa’s successor into something positive. She had wanted to make Brenna proud, to make her dear friend and lover’s death truly count for something. Raina wanted to believe that Brenna’s death had not simply been a random tragedy. She wanted to use this golden opportunity that she had been given to right that which was wrong, to do something noble with all of this damned nobility that had been forced upon her. Instead, in trying to stop the senseless acts of violence being committed by those of the High Court … she had, herself, committed a senseless act of violence.
Raina felt something brush across her tongue and she tasted High Court blood, warm and very sweet. She blinked and saw her own left hand before her face, smeared with blood. She had wiped the remaining blood from the blood of her sword and begun to lick the sacred elixir away without even the slightest bit of conscious thought. Either due to her injuries or her emotional state, Raina realized that she was slipping into bloodlust yet again. That taste of blood had shocked her back into conscious thought, making her aware of her own actions, but she was not entirely in control of herself anymore. She continued to lick away the blood from her fingers, sucking at her own fingers as though she had dipped them in red cake frosting.
High Court blood, the most sacred and worshipped of all, was something she rarely afforded herself an opportunity to drink in any quantity. Just a little taste now and then, either when offered by Loki or when she accidentally bit down upon her lip or tongue, but nothing at all close to her first feeding. No, nothing had ever come close to the feeling of Countess Wilhelmina’s death, that spurting fountain of sanguine wine jetting into her mouth, hot and fresh and beyond sinful in its deliciousness. Never before or since had she felt comfortable throwing herself into such reckless abandon, least of all in front of so many witnesses. She did not clearly remember the specific actions of killing Duvessa’s daughter, only the sensations – the taste, the warmth, and the literal orgasm that had arisen from such an ecstatic experience.
“Your grace! Your grace, please!”
Raina felt hands upon her and solidness against her knees as warmth spilled over her chin. She again found herself being dragged back to reality, just as she found herself being dragged away from a groaning Duchess Camille. Again slipping into bloodlust, momentarily blacking out once more, Raina had apparently dropped to her knees and began to suck upon the open wound in Camille’s shoulder. She looked up and aside to find herself behind restrained carefully by Loki, who looked both concerned for her welfare
and horrified by her actions. She looked back and saw Duchess Camille’s consorts – two males, one female – huddling around their fallen mistress, only then feeling it safe to approach as Raina was pulled away and held in check by her own consort. Camille’s eyes were not open, but she was writhing about and moaning something incoherent … presumably something in French, although too slurred to be understood by anyone. She was alive after all. She was alive, and Raina had been feasting upon her. Jesus.
Raina had come to the Hall that night, prepared to show the IVC that the laws of the Code allowed acts of animalistic viciousness and cruelty to be committed with impunity. She had not, however, been expecting to give a live demonstration that would only serve to reinforce her point that, yes, vampires were every bit as bloodthirsty and savage as the human race perceived them.
Raina had long wondered how it was that a vampire of over two hundred years’ age could have somehow given birth to a daughter that was only just over a century’s age. Female vampires did not give birth, for their wombs were barren, and male vampires were sterile. The bond between a vampire and their bloodspawn was sometimes regarded as a maternal or paternal relationship, but it was almost never literal unless the parties involved had been related by blood as humans before the Change.
It was only then, as Raina buried her blood-smeared face in her hands in a futile gesture to hide her shame, that she fully understood. Duvessa had claimed that Elizabeth Fallamhain, better known as Countess Wilhelmina von Reichenbach, was her daughter. It may not have been as true with other races, or even other bloodlines of the High Court race, but this much was certainly true amongst the House of Fallamhain: a bloodspawn quite literally became their Maker’s child, both in name and in spirit.
Duvessa’s cruelty, her sadism, her lust, her temper, and even her sense of self-righteousness had found its way into Raina’s veins. It had taken her over completely, corrupting her from within. She was born of blood, daughter to a demon queen. She was a thing of nightmares, suffering, and death. It was truly a matter of nature over nurturing, for she was proving herself to be a product of genetics rather than upbringing. She was lasciviousness and bloodshed incarnate, a daughter of the mad Roman Emperor Caligula in soul, if not by descent. Try as she might to deny it, to feel remorse for her actions and to pretend to be horrified by her own tendencies, she realized that ultimately, inevitably, she would become Duvessa. Countess Wilhelmina’s senseless slaughter of Duvessa’s servants and consorts should have been proof enough that her traits of madness were hereditary. Raina had been a fool to turn a blind eye to that possibility for as long as she had already.
The Darkest Colors- Exsanguinations Page 15
