Just as I rounded the corner and came into
sight I whipped my sword around and felt the impact as it sliced
neatly through the newborns neck. A hiss escaped the crimson lips
as the head toppled to the left and fell with a solid thud to the
ground. The body seemed to slide down an invisible wall.
Behind the carnage was what was left of its
meal. A drained female about my own age, and disturbingly similar
in appearance.
I heard, smelled, death as it walked through
the door to my right. A hand gripped my neck and lifted me clear of
the floor.
Memories of a birthday filled with horror
skated through my head as I eyed the oldest vampire I had ever
met.
If I had not been dehydrated and a little
thirsty I would have pissed myself. As it was I nearly threw up all
over the giant blood sucker.
He smiled wickedly, knowing I was but caged
animal snared and moments from being gutted. I spit directly in his
eye and laughed.
“
You will pay for that
little one,” he said as he used his free, clawed, hand to wipe my
exact thoughts of him off his face.
“
Really? I was thinking I
might get a satisfying reward or free Bahamas cruise or something.
Never crossed my mind I might have to actually earn something,” I
choked out.
I was stupid but call it Kamikaze all you
want, I was going out with a bang.
I took my right hand and pulled out a blade
as my left dropped the sword and reached for another.
“
No, bad girl. You mustn’t
play with sharp objects or someone could get hurt.”
He swiftly swatted the blades from my hand,
in a blink of an eye.
“
No jokes now I see,” he
told me, as he eyed my reaction.
I was deader than a door nail and I knew it.
No saving Dimitri I guess…
I felt my power licking at my insides. I
would save that for the moment this old ass grandpa of a vampire
struck.
“
Such a delectable morsel
if I do say so myself,” he continued, sniffing me.
I was seconds from being a rare steak
kabob.
“
Shall we dine frisky
one?”
“
Sure thing Dracula, but
where are all the guests?”
He narrowed his eyes at me and growled.
“
Any last requests my
dear?” he asked, eyes full of desire and hunger.
“
Yeah, what blood type am
I?”
“
O positive perhaps?” he
asked, smiling once more.
“
Nope, why don’t you go
ahead and find out you old bastard!”
With a savage snarl his fangs ripped into
me. I curbed my urge to scream and fight.
After a millisecond I smiled.
“
I’m a new vintage,
fucktard. I’m the new and improved batch, and since your drinking
straight from the bottle, well, the hangover is a
bitch!”
The elder vamp choked, clearly confused, and
in that moment as the mouthful he’d ingested hit his system he
understood.
His mouth sizzled like my blood was acid.
His hold on me weakened and I dropped slightly less than gracefully
to my bended knee, giving him a rueful smile.
My throat, nearly crushed, hurt like hell. I
was not breathing so well, but I still had to be a smart bitch and
talk back.
“
I’m a little something I
like to call a hybrid. My type is so rare that you won’t find it
running amok here. In case your wondering though, I’m a type O
negative.”
A roar shook the whole building, threatening
to crumble it around our ears. I stood up, wobbling just enough to
lose a little face.
I waited for him to attack, which he
did.
As he moved towards me, I allowed all the
pent up emotions and baggage I was carrying to flood me, making me
a battery conduit and like a nuclear explosion I hurled everything
I had at the freak.
Instantly inflamed, literarily not
figuratively that is, his momentum caused him to crash into me and
the blade I’d silently maneuvered into my grasp. I struck him in
the eye as his weight collapsed on me. A writhing, screaming,
putrid, blood sucking demon now crushed me to the floor as he
burned.
Fortunately my own flames were not as
hazardous to me as they were to him. His deafening cries rocked me
to my core, his claws shredding my arm and the side of my face, and
his fangs merely an inch from my carotid artery.
I pushed the charred body from my own as the
last screams escaped him. Ashes coated my black leather outfit,
giving away my battle with an elder.
I coughed some of the soot from my lungs and
pulled myself up, careful to avoid the puddles of blood surrounding
me.
“
That was a blast of fun
that I’m not so eager to endure anytime soon,” I whispered as I
dusted what I could of Dracula off my clothes.
I realized as suicidal as I may have become,
I desperately wanted a shower and a hug. A shower was doable. The
hug I’d just gotten, even if it was from Sir Count A Lot.
I picked up my weapons, pulled one from a
smoking eye socket, and limped my way back to my car.
As I drifted into the base, I saw Commander
Ian’s profile and winced.
He was standing at the gate, arms crossed,
clearly wearing a pissed off look.
“
Hi,” I offered, smiling
innocently.
“
What the fuck is your
issue?”
“
I needed to clear my head…
my heart… and a few demons from Lincoln Ave?” I replied, each
excuse getting more snarls.
“
Ash has went over my head
and contacted the council and asked for permission to slay your
boyfriend, against my direct orders, and I have been trying to
maintain chaos and madness just to keep him alive long enough to
stake him myself!”
I cringed as his volume rose, and jumped on
the last word.
I stared in utter shock. Wait, what? Did he
mean…
Before I finished that blood-curdling
thought I was out of my car and on my feet and running.
I hit the front entrance before my car door
could bounce back and close. Ian was just now realizing I was no
longer there pleading for my life as he bit my head off.
I hurtled down three hallways, down a flight
of stairs, and across a courtyard as I saw Ash’s backside.
He’d just gone through the main door. He’d
get there before me, I was sure.
I moved faster than I ever had. My whole
being was just shy of flying.
When, what seemed like an eternity passed, I
reached the main room into Dimitri’s cell just as Ash was opening
the cell door.
Dimitri looked up as he noticed Ash and what
was obvious in his hands. Ash had a sharpened stake and he was on
Dimitri now, who was not fighting back. He was not fighting
back!
I knew deep down that Dimitri could snap
Ash’s neck before I could get to him.
I would lose them both.
Dimitri looked at me with haunted eyes
assuming I had chosen this, a moment before Ash struck the fatal
blow, standing over him like the ferocious and feral hunter he was.
Dimitri must have guessed or known my answer. He closed his eyes,
and then he looked at me one last time before he bared his chest to
Ash.
He was letting me go! He wasn’t going to
fight!
With the last of my strength I hurled myself
in front of Dimitri, covering him, just as Ash’s stake arced down.
I had moved faster than Ash could see and in doing so had sealed my
fate along with Dimitri’s.
The sharp and deadly stake pierced my back
with disconcerting ease, sinking all the way through my heart to
the other side and out again, passing conveniently between my ribs.
I only felt the first flash of pain. The stake was the final act
that caused my already shattered heart to break into a billion
unrecognizable pieces.
Ash was my demise it seemed. My failure had
caused all this… pain and death.
I let out a nearly silent and strangled cry,
as my body collided with Dimitri’s. The stake had been lined up
perfectly with his chest. As the tip exited my chest it slid in
his. He never moved, never stopped it. I had moved fast, but he’d
had just the barest moment to stop it from entering him. My body
had slowed the descent just enough to give him that doorway of
time.
We looked into each other’s eyes and saw
nothing but eternal love, which not even death could stop or deny.
His arms wrapped around mine and crushed me to him so the stake was
driven deeper into his own chest and into his own heart. His lips
found mine as the air left my body.
I left this cruel and miserable world, in
the lap of my dying lover, with my ex standing only a few feet
behind me screaming my name as he realized what had happened.
Ash had meant to save me. Instead he had
been death’s hand. He’d given me what I could not give myself, the
only way out of this for all of us.
Dimitri’s tears were the last thing I saw.
He’d finally cried for me, beautiful crystal-clear and all for me.
I saw my face, eyes large, black and haunting, staring up at
him.
The stake was still pinning us together and
he was not removing it. We were finally connected to one
another.
As darkness and shadows claimed me I heard
the door being ripped off its hinges and Ian screaming for me. He
could not save me, nor could anyone else. Only I could have, before
the fated moment when I chose all of this. The one moment before I
had broken my promise to my lover brought him back here, to save
him, and into this cell. I chose the way we parted this world,
together, and in one another’s arms.
I was leaving behind so many people that
still needed me. I could no longer protect them. Ian needed a hero
for his people and she was nothing but a memory now. A memory that
with age, and time, would be fleeting and forgotten along with so
many others who had fallen before, either by my own mistake or
another. Another hero would come along, possibly, and save them… or
none would and the human race would perish. Love could save us, but
love had doomed us.
I never expected this. I never expected the
end to come like this.
I never asked myself if God was real. His
acceptance of this fucked up world clashed with everything I’d been
taught.
Would I be admitted to heaven or hell?
There was no heaven or hell after death. I
knew this just like I knew all of this was my own damned fault and
I would suffer eternally for being one of the reasons that mankind
was snuffed out.
Heaven and hell were on earth. I was leaving
that behind and my soul, if I ever had one, would cease to exist.
Maybe I would be reincarnated as a little kitten, if there was such
a thing as reincarnation.
My life flashed before my eyes. My short but
hard life had been a useful one and all my childhood, teenage, and
adult memories rolled before my eyes. I had sacrificed everything
for those I loved, including my life in the end.
Epilogue
Shaeden Angelissa died in the arms of her
lover, at the hands of her ex.
In the instant that she had sacrificed
herself, for the man she loved more than her own life, and the
stake had been driven through her heart into Dimitri’s, a miracle
occurred.
Her sacrifice and Dimitri’s willingness to
die with her, or the blood from her heart into his, was the magic
that broke the binds that bound Dimitri’s soul. The chains broke
and he was freed. His humanity restored, and guilt and sorrow
crashed over him like a wave on a beach.
Shade’s sacrifice had not been in vain. She
had unknowingly given Dimitri his soul back. She had awakened it
and brought him to life. Her love had been so strong that it had
defied death.
When Dimitri had realized that he was not
going to die, but instead he had his soul back, he screamed for his
angel. A broken man, with a shattered and now restored soul, roared
in pain and denial.
He tore the stake from her chest, and his,
and tossed it aside blindly. He used his fangs to rip open his
wrist and held it to her slack mouth.
He had no idea if it would work, but he
would try, until the last drop of his blood left him and turned
cold as his own wounded heart.
When he realized it would take too long, he
snatched the blade from her belt and slid it across his neck. It
sizzled as it cut him from ear to collar bone, but he never felt it
and never even noticed.
Dimitri dropped the blade and crushed her to
him. He held his bleeding wrist to the wound in her chest and bent
so that she lay across his lap and the blood poured from his neck
down into her open mouth.
He froze so that every single drop made its
way into her. Not a muscle moved, not a sound echoed within the
jail, and not one person stopped him.
Dimitri would turn her into a full-blooded
vamp, and together they’d escape to find a secluded spot, so they
could be together forever. He was a full-fledged vampire now, but
he was alive. His blood could possibly sustain her. He’d never be
alone. He refused to accept that line of thinking and focused on
saving his only reason for existence.
Tears, he was blind to, fell from his face
to hers washing away the blood on her cheeks.
Ian was shouting orders in the background,
but not one man stepped up to take her body from Dimitri. It was
obvious he was trying to save her, and if anybody could it was him.
Lane was crippled with fear and loss as she stood incapable of
moving in a corner, knowing there was nothing she could do but
hinder the vampire who held her best friend in his arms and
struggled to save her.
Ash slumped to the ground, beside them both,
at her feet in absolute loss. He stared at the floor in front of
him, ignoring everyone and everything, hoping his punishment would
come swiftly and harshly.