Chapter Fifteen - Choices
“Leora, turn this way!” shouted Elijah. He caught a shadow in the corner of his eyes.
“But we’re moving further away!” said Leora, who looked back.
They were running.
They had tried to have Elijah carry the scroll and ride on Leora’s back, but the never ending incoming vampires were relentless and just as fast as Leora, and he needed his hands free to perform his magic attacks. So they decided to keep as usual, Leora running with the scroll and him covering her.
Elijah pointed his athame at the shadow which had emerged as a vampire. Green energy shot out of this athame hitting the vampire in the chest. The vampire melted away as his energy spreaded across the vampire’s body and regrouped at the crown of the head to disappear.
That was another dead vampire. However, as soon as he took another breath, three more vampires came. His muscles ached. How long can he last? Never in his training he had done this level of magic for this long. He would need to rest, but these dang vampires keep coming—whether they were the masked ones or not. The only good thing was that they have yet to meet the witches, werewolves or hunters since they had left the auction room.
He looked onward. He recognized, despite the bodies and damage, that they were near Twilight's Gate. An idea popped into his head.
“Elijah,” called out Leora as she slid to a stop when two vampires appeared in front of them.
Elijah stopped and looked back. The three vampires had caught up with them. They were trapped. Sweat was dripping from his brow.
“Um, Elijah?” repeated Leora, who then looked back.
In a split second decision, he shot his green energy at the vampires ahead. “Keep going forward!” he said.
Elijah had formed a plan. He would siphon off that giant pulsing energy that coursed through the pillars of Twilight's Gate. Then he would have enough power to get him and Leora away and to the parked car one block away that he had magically cast to look like a tree.
They ran into the courtyard, jumping over bodies of the vampires he had blasted. When they got there, they halted to a stop on the terrace.
“What the fuck! What are these here?” yelped Leora. She remembered seeing them in the museum where she was gutted by the wassins that were after Elijah.
“I can’t keep fighting these vamps without a rest,” said Elijah. “I need the power in Twilight’s Gate so go there!”
“B-but,” sputtered Leora, her eyes wide with alarm.
“I can’t fight them right now! C’mon!” Elijah dashed past Leora. He was halfway to the Twilight’s Gate when he realized Leora hadn’t followed him. “What are you doing? Goddamn, Leora!”
“I should’ve done this in the first place but YOU take the scroll and escape! Forget Twilight's Gate!” shouted Leora as she threw the glass box that held the scroll to him.
Leora was not too shabby with her aim. Too bad he had butterfingers. He caught the glass box, but he fumbled and dropped it, breaking the box. He quickly snatched up the scroll and cradled it like it was a bomb that could go off at any moment.
“What the hell, Leora? You can’t make decisions like that out of nowhere!” he shouted, aware at the slight hypocrisy since he had been doing that ever since the start of the auction. Then he saw the trio of vampires that had been chasing them appear and stood menacingly behind Leora. “Behind you!” he screamed. He dug deep into himself to see what he could do. Did he have enough energy to strike at the distance he was at? Fuck, he wished he chose distance magic elective class instead of the healing one with that shitface Thompson.
Leora had turned around to see the trio of vampires. They grinned at her. One of them took a step forward toward her.
“Fuck,” said Leora and she hunched down, getting herself ready to fight.
Suddenly, Josephine appeared from behind the trio of vampires, blasting the head off of one of them.
“Bitch!” screamed one of the two surviving vampires before Josephine grabbed his face and slammed him into the ground, head first. The vampire’s head looked like a watermelon had been smashed with a sledgehammer.
The last surviving vampire cowered onto her knees and raised her hands. “Please, I’ll leave,” she begged but stopped upon looking up to Josephine’s face.
Josephine’s eyes were glowing blue. Without a warning, she kicked the vampire in the face like she was teeing off a golf ball over a mountain. The vampire flung back and up over the two stories high nearby wall.
“If you’re still alive from that, I’d run the hell from this place as far as I can,” called out Josephine as her glowing blue eyes returned to normal. She turned to Leora and winked. “Missed me?”
Leora smiled. She ran up to Josephine and gave a big hug around the hunter’s waist. “Thank goodness you’re here!” she said.
“Yup,” said Josephine. She stroked the small vampire’s head before looking onward to see Elijah running to them with the scroll in one of his hands.
Elijah stopped in front of them, huffing hard. “About damn time!” He was so relieved that the hunter was there. He wanted to hug her too, but stopped when Leora suddenly pulled away from Josephine.
“Is Zea coming?” asked Leora alarmingly.
“I don’t think that was her priority,” said Josephine. “She went off to fight some floaty vampire.” She had seen Zea do that when she glanced back momentarily as she went off to catch up to Leora and Elijah.
“Oh,” said Leora.
“You sound disappointed?” grinned Josephine and nudged Leora with an elbow. “It’s okay, I don’t mind the competition, but I also want to bang her so I am conflicted.”
Leora narrowed her eyes, and Elijah shook his head.
“Oh my Horned One,” said Elijah under his breath.
“I have no idea what you are even talking about,” snapped Leora.
“So it’s only me! Yaaaay,” chirped Josephine.
“Can we just focus and like to run the hell out of here?” said Elijah, nearly screaming.
Then the ground shook once more, but this time swayed like the waves of an ocean.
“What the fuck?” said Josephine as Leora grabbed her to balance.
Elijah, barely holding himself up, looked back at Twilight's Gate and realized that the black energy going up the pair of pillars were pulsating with the waves felt in the ground. Perhaps something that was powering both the Twilight’s Gate and what’s running in the ground came from the same source? He looked at the astral lines and saw the waves were coming from a spot he was near where he was moments before. It was exactly halfway in the courtyard between the pillars and the terrace. This was the epicenter.
“Follow me!” he shouted. “There’s a stable spot!”
They ran to the spot Elijah’s was leading them to. The closer they got, the less the ground shook. That was the only reason they were able to move without falling over other than, which none of them had at the moment, flight ability. When they reached the epicenter, they all stood waiting.
Then the ground stopped moving. Large gaps of earth opened. Masked vampires poured out of them. The masked vampires surrounded the trio in a semicircle.
“Fucking hell,” growled Josephine as she readied her gun.
Elijah pressed the scroll into Leora’s hands. “This time don’t give it to me. You stand the best chance to escape,” he said. His voice trembled and his eyes were watery.
“We’re going to get through this,” assured Leora. “I can’t exactly--”
Elijah closed Leora's fingers around the scroll. Tears falling off his cheeks and landing on her skin. “This is all my fault. You need to save yourself and your kind. Thanks for being my friend,” he said.
Leora shoved the scroll back into Elijah’s hands. “Listen, I can’t--,” she repeated.
“We’re not going to die,” laughed Josephine. “So wipe those tears and boogers, witch boy!”
“What is wrong with you? We are fucking surrounded by like fucking five thousand vampires!” said Elijah to Josephine.
“It’s 756,” said Leora under her breath, but it didn’t seem neither Elijah nor Josephine heard her.
“I am a really good fortune teller,” smiled Josephine. She wiggled her eyebrows as if Elijah should know.
Elijah, forgetting he started crying, slid the scroll into his waistband and raised his hand. If he were going to die, he would at least slap the shit out of Josephine.
Josephine held his hand, still grinning.
“Well, I know we’d still be alive in the next thirty minutes because,” started Josephine.
Leora’s eyes lit up. “757!” she blurted.
Elijah pulled his hand away and looked at Leora. “757 what?” he asked, irritatedly.
“Zea,” grinned Leora as Josephine nodded her head.
The first row of masked vampires fell. Zea stood between the trio and the surrounding vampires, her white hair billowing in the air. She spat on the ground before turning to them.
“Sorry, I’m late,” said Zea.
“Right on time! This is going to be so much fun!” chuckled Josephine.
“Now y’all are going to get fucked up,” said Elijah. With renewed hope, he readied his athame.
“You came,” smiled Leora.
“Ah, the vampire that walks in light,” called out someone from Twilight’s Gate.
The surrounding masked vampires went onto their knees and bowed their heads.
The four of them turned to the speaker. The speaker was a stocky man with raven hair and a well trimmed goat-tee. Beside him was a very muscular man in a white suit with a tumeric colored robe over his chest.
This was Vincent and Kenra.
Vincent looked Zea straight into her blazing light blue eyes. “And the fodder known as Zea,” he bellowed. He then clasped his hands behind him.
“Before I kill you, how did you survive, Peter?” asked Zea. “Were you the mole all this time?”
Vincent smiled. “He didn’t. Well, the former—Peter—did die. But he was the only body I could inhabit before you graciously blew up the bank,” he answered.
Zea scrunched up her eyebrows. The speech pattern, and if she imagined Vincent’s voice in a much higher pitched, sounded awfully like….
“I don’t know how you are possessing Peter’s body—be that magic or whatever. I will kill you and you will stay dead, Nova!” Zea seethed.
“Ah, I forget how funny you are, Elizabeth,” chuckled Nova, his lips curling into utter joy as he watched Zea’s anger drop. “Yes, that was what you whispered to Peter in his last moments. I am Elizabeth.”
“Holy fuck? Is that true?” said Josephine to Zea.
Elijah’s jaw dropped open, too stunned to say anything.
“Absolutely!” said Nova. “Leader of the rebel House Eagle running around pretending to be an underling named Zea. Elizabeth was with all of you all this time! Fooling everyone. Almost.”
“Why?” asked Leora. “You didn’t have to hide that from us?”
“This doesn’t distract from getting the scroll out of here,” said Elizabeth, unable to look Leora in the eye.
“Well, I would pretend to be someone else if I turned out to Dracula’s failure.” Nova shook his head. “What a shame to be a bloodling of such a legendary vampire. What did they call you? Dracula’s Shame?”
Elizabeth disappeared one moment and reappeared next to Nova, her sword over Nova’s neck. What kept her blade from slicing off Nova’s head was a hand holding the wrist of her sword arm and another hand holding her neck.
“Zea, er,” yelped Leora. “Elizabeth!”
Josephine raised her gun and was about to shoot down the burly man in the tumeric robe that somehow got a hold on Elizabeth.
“Don’t pull the trigger hunter! We don’t want to kill Elizabeth. We want to talk to her for a bit, but we’ll kill her if any of you try anything,” warned Nova. Then he punched Elizabeth in the face. “That’s for previously chopping my head off.”
Blood trickled down the corner of Elizabeth’s mouth. She wanted to spit at Nova, but her focus was on Kenra. Before she could kill Nova, she had to get rid of him first.
“Asshole!” shouted Josephine.
“Don’t shoot,” said Elizabeth. “He’s faster than your bullets.”
“How?” said Elijah, finally uttering words.
“Opposition research. Found Kenra here who could match your speed, be that you both trained after the same master, yes?” said Nova, who looked at Elizabeth. He then patted Kenra’s shoulder.
“We never met,” said Elizabeth as she eyed Kenra, looking for weakness.
“I entered the monastery after she was kicked out,” said Kenra.
“I see. Are they still angry?” asked Elizabeth.
“Very. We were told that if we had a chance to meet you, to kill you, but my employer wants you alive so I will comply until they do not,” said Kenra.
“How gracious,” said Elizabeth. “Who is your employer?”
Nova looked over to a pillar and emerged from its shadows a brown-red wavy haired vampire.
“I think that will answer your question as well as the other one you asked before about the mole,” said Nova.
Elizabeth felt like her heart had been ripped out. “Raine, no,” she said hoarsely.
Kenra, sensing he no longer needed to hold Elizabeth, pulled back but made sure to stand by Nova.
“Elizabeth,” said Raine, who formerly had been masquerading as the rebel leader of House Eagle.
“Oh what the fuck! Shit, this is a soap opera,” said Josephine, lowering her gun.
Elijah, wide eyed, nodded his head in agreement.
“You told Elijah and Josephine to kill Zea because you thought she was the mole,” said Leora angrily. “But Zea is Elizabeth, so she can’t be the mole….” Her eyebrows furrowed.
“Oh my god,” said Josephine under her breath and shaking her head. “You are cute but you can’t be this dumb.”
“Um, Leora, she’s the mole. Yeah, I know it’s confusing that Elizabeth had someone impersonate her who turned out to be the true conniving, backstabbing bitch!” said Elijah. He then snarled at Raine. He jutted his athame at her. “Tell me, Raine! Are you working with Hammer?”
“No, of course not, you idiot,” said Raine. She took a step toward Elizabeth. “And I was not expecting those three imbeciles to be alive at all. I was sure that when they tried to kill you, you’d, well, win.”
“I dunno about that,” said Josephine, scratching her head. “I’m pretty badass! I had her on the ground before. Just saying,” she shrugged.
“Yeah, right, I’m the One-in-a-Thousand and Zea would fry before ever touching me,” said Elijah, affronted. “Ah, sorry, I mean Elizabeth. Too use to Zea.”
“Imbeciles,” said Raine, shaking her head.
“Me too because I can’t--!” said Leora.
“Lemme guess, you can’t burn under the sun,” interrupted Raine. She flicked her wavy red hair and glared at Leora. “I don’t know how that is even relevant, but y’know what? It wouldn’t matter because she can kill you, especially you, even if she had to cover herself to do it in the daylight.”
Leora narrowed her eyes. “I never liked you,” she hissed.
“Yup, no doubt all three of you are imbeciles!” said Raine. She turned to the masked vampires. “Kill them,” she ordered.
The masked vampires rose up to their feet. Elizabeth vanished. A few masked vampires suddenly fell in front of Josephine, Leora and Elijah.
“It’s ass kicking time!” shouted Josephine.
A long squawk of a hawk pierced the sky and sent all eyes upward. Circling above them was an impossible large hawk that carried Jociam. He held up a glowing battle ax and shook it. “Death to all vampires!” he shouted. He pointed his ax at Elijah. “Give me the scroll, boy!”
“Fuck off, Boomer! Whatever you had done to that bird I can undo!” said Elijah. He drew a glyph in the air.
“I am not a Boomer. Gen-X!” said Jociam indignantly. He swooped down.
Elijah finished his glyph.
The large hawk shrunk to normal size but as it did so, Jociam jumped off and landed between the masked vampires and Elijah. Elizabeth reappeared by Elijah, her sword drawn.
“And I was expecting you to undo the enchantment,” grinned Jociam. He continued addressing Elijah. “Give me the scroll and we can end all of this. You wouldn’t be affected because you are not a vampire. Let them all die! It is for the betterment of the world!”
“I will not allow that,” said Elizabeth.
“Z-Elizabeth,” started Elijah. “Sorry, again. I am too used to your fake name.”
“Just call me Zea. I never liked being named Elizabeth anyway,” said Zea, who gave the slightest smile to Elijah.
Josephine moved to protect Leora by shooting down an incoming vampire. “Awesome. I like short names!” she said. Then she addressed Jociam. “I understand your anger but it’s misplaced.”
“How dare you? You of all people should understand this!” howled Jociam.
A thin cut appeared across his cheeks. His eyes went to Zea who appeared out of the air, staggering back from him, smoking. “Gotcha,” he said.
“Don’t fight him! He was one of the first ordains,” said Josephine as she tried to grab Leora who moved to catch Elizabeth.
“I got you,” said Leora, catching Zea.
“I’m fine,” responded Zea.
“That is correct. But it seems you vampires don’t know the magnitude of how powerful we truly are,” said Jociam. He raised his ax. “Let’s show them my fellow hunters!”
The remaining hunters appeared over the crumbled, stoned wall that had once been part of an enclosure that separated the estate from the terrace. They were lined up and began shooting down the vampires. Half of the vampires began to go towards these hunters.
“You’re outnumbered,” laughed Nova. “By our sheer numbers there is no way you’d win. Fuck your power!”
“Should have not said that,” said Josephine who shot down a few more vampires.
Jociam eyes blazed with hate.“Then we shall see!” he seethed. His whole body glowed and was so bright that the entire courtyard lit up. “This is the full power of an Ordained!” Then he brought his ax down like thunder.
The air and earth cracked apart. Metal pipes jutted out from the new broken earth. Then something black bubbled out the jagged earth. Some vampires fell through, screaming as they drowned in the black lava like substance that emerged and cooled when it reached the surface.
The broken earth continued to shift apart. No one was safe except Raine, Nova and Kenra, who all stood under the archway of Twilight’s Gate. It seemed that the power of the Ordained that Jociam released wouldn’t touch the ancient stone structure.
A crack started to form underneath Josephine and Elijah. The hunter grabbed Elijah and jumped away before the final pieces of earth fell through. They landed hard.
“Fuck,” screamed Elijah. He curled and held his leg that he had somewhat twisted a month ago. He had sprained it again with that landing.
“Yeah, no shit,” said Josephine as she rose to her feet. Then she helped Elijah up, but he really could only stand on one leg.
The earth stopped crumbling into itself. The aftermath of Jociam’s strike left a giant sized quarter mile wide gash. The gash was so deep that when Josephine peered over she saw pitch black. Whatever Jociam did, it didn’t end here. As far as she could see, Jociam had cleaved a path of emptiness that continued beyond the artificial night in a narrowing fashion.
As for the vampires? Most of them fell into the earth and the remaining were getting slaughtered by the hunters. Josephine didn’t care. She needed to see if her vampires were okay.
Josephine looked around for Leora and Zea. She spotted them on the other side of the gashed earth. Zea had an arm around Leora while leaning on her sword. “Heyo!” she waved at them. “You two alright?”
Zea gave a thumbs up.
“Yeah, Zea saved me!” said Leora.
“The scroll, boy,” bellowed Jociam.
“The fuck is that him?” asked Elijah.
Jociam stood not far from them. His skin and hair had turned white. Hell, even his clothes turned white.
“Yes,” answered Josephine. “Can you do that barrier thing again?”
“Yeah,” said Elijah, somewhat unsure. He was tired and Twilight’s Gate was on the other side of the gashed earth. Too far for him to siphon some energy and replenish.
“I just need you to do that for yourself. I’ll deal with him and his hunters,” said Josephine.
The remaining hunters came to Jociam’s side and pointed their guns at them. He brandished his ax that made arches of light in the air. “Give me the scroll now, boy or I will take it off your dead body!”
“That’s not going to happen because,” Josephine snatched the scroll from Elijah’s waistband and threw it toward the middle of the gashed ground, intending it to drop into the bowels of earth forever. “It’s gone!”
“No!” shouted Jociam. He swung his ax like a baseball bat and released it. It spun into the air like a boomerang and hit the scroll with a loud bang, changing the scroll’s trajectory. The ax flew back into his hands while the scroll landed at Leora’s feet, smoking but not damaged at all.
Leora snatched the scroll up right away.
“Fuck, I forgot you could do that,” said Josephine. She turned to Elijah. “I am gonna set you here.” She placed him on a slab of a piece of the terrace that was next to them. Then she rolled her sleeves up. “Jociam, you and I are going to have a talk.”
Josephine eyes lit up in neon blue once again. Then her gun glowed. “Excalibur,” she said under her breath
Josephine’s gun morphed into a sword.
***
“Here, take it and run. You’re way faster than me,” said Leora to Zea. “I can’t...and you’re not even listening to me,” she sighed. She watched Zea move toward Twilight’s Gate. “Now you’re walking away. Alright, I’ll just stay right here with the scroll. Y’know, the thingy everybody was after. Why am I still talking?”
Leora continued to watch Zea approach Twilight's Gate.
Raine took a step down the stairs toward Zea.
“Raine, you don’t have to go to her to talk to her,” said Nova, concerningly. He started to go after the red haired vampire, but Kenra grasped his shoulder, pulled him back and whispered something into his ear.
Raine raised a hand. “As we discussed,” she said to Nova. She continued to approach Zea.
Nova nodded apprehensively. He then whispered to Kenra, “Stay put.” Kenra grunted in acknowledgement before looking onward.
Zea and Raine stopped within arms reach with each other.
Raine smiled sadly. “You want to know why I betrayed you?” she asked.
Zea’s jaw muscles tightened. “Yeah,” she said.
“Elizabeth,” started Raine. She put a hand on Zea’s shoulder. “I know you risk your life on a daily basis keeping us safe, trying to find a way for us to be free.” Her eyes started to water up with a tint of blood. “But you’re not here to see our friends—the ones who were able to come back.” She paused, searching for the right words.
“It’s the sacrifice we all knew,” said Zea. “We all agreed.”
Raine took a step forward, her nose nearly touching Zea’s. She moved her hand from Zea’s shoulder up to the face. She gently stroked Zea’s cheeks. “We’re losing,” she said. “The seniors are losing their faith. Loss after loss, we can’t ask them anymore sacrifices. And the new ones? We’re just sending more of them to die with no hope of change, let alone winning.”
“You want us to give up?” said Zea, her voice cracking. Blood started to rim her eyes.
“No,” said Raine. She moved her other hand and combed away a tendril of white hair from Zea’s forehead. Despite the raw scratches and bruises, Zea was still beautiful. Always will be even what she’s about to say will break the white haired vampire’s heart. “The EC isn’t like it was before. There are changes going on for the betterment of us all. There are council members fighting for us. I’ve been asked for House Eagle to join House Raviv and that they will have one of us be a member on the Council.”
“They always lie,” said Zea bitterly.
Raine shook her head. “No, they have been helping us. I didn’t take their words until they proved it. Those intels at the beginning of the year that helped us with Axel was from them. Come join me, join us,” she pleaded.
“So the others agreed, the ones back home?” asked Zea.
“Yes,” answered Raine. “And those who didn’t were free to go unharmed. If you choose not to, we will let you walk away too.” She momentarily glanced at Leora with the scroll over Zea’s shoulder. “Look,” she pleaded again, “The Council wants the same thing here as we do, safety for all vampires. Join me and we’ll take the scroll to Obscuralis to be properly destroyed.”
Zea shook her head. “I can’t,” she said
Raine leaned in and kissed Zea.
Leora, seeing this, looked away shyly. Nova sighed and Kenra remained neutral.
When Raine parted her lips away, she ran her hand through Zea’s hair. “I love you, but I love our people more. You once told me that a leader is someone who has to make choices and live with them.”
“Yes,” said Zea, choking out her words. Blood tears ran down her cheeks. “As I will live with this one.”
Zea ran her sword through Raine’s chest, through the heart.
“Raine!” shouted Nova.
Kenra disappeared.
Raine tried to say something but was too stunned as Zea slid out her sword. She collapsed onto her knees before being caught by Kenra. Kenra’s stoic gaze met with Zea’s sad eyes for a moment before they both flash away.
Chapter 16 - Worthy