Cassandra Pendragon
Ahri looked at me like a deer in the headlights, insecurity clearly written across her face. “I… won’t that just kill her?”
“I’m afraid we’re well past that point,” I replied hurriedly. “She’s lost too much. If we do nothing, she’ll wither away and my energies are obviously deadly for her… there’s just nothing else we can try. And there’s a chance… unless we’ve been lied to from the start she’s already accustomed to immortal powers. With a little luck, your fires won’t hurt her too badly, the sun burns brightly as well, after all. It’s just… you’re also harbouring a seed of Corruption, and I’m not so sure she’ll…” my words trailed off. Another thought had struck me. A while ago, Ahri had told me that Amazeroth had engraved a rune on her core, one that would allow her to identify traces of Corruption wherever she went. Unfortunately, the thing should have activated ages ago. If it wouldn’t react to her own energies, it should at the very least react to mine. It hadn’t. And that meant, it was probably something else entirely and the bastard had lied to us, once again.
Her multicoloured eyes narrowed suspiciously at my silence but right now was neither the time nor the place to try to figure out what the puppeteer had planned. That could wait a few more hours. “…she’ll be able to deal with it. But there’s no other way.”
“There is,” a familiar, childish voice rang out from the stairs. I closed my eyes, trying to shove away the rising tide of anger. Did nobody actually listen to me?
“I can do it,” Layla continued. “My blood might not be as potent as yours, but her lineage runs through my veins. It should be enough to keep her alive for a while.”
“What are you even doing down here,” Ahri hissed. “I told you to stay put!”
“You can scold me all you want later, but this really isn’t the time.” The child was right but I was seething just as much as Ahri. I prayed she’d never run into Reia, otherwise the two of them might just drive me into an early grave. “She’s a part of my family,” Layla continued quietly. “I want to help. And this is about as much as I can do. Please?” I ground my teeth, torn between respect, understanding and plain annoyance. By all the gods, what would her mother say, if she was here?
“I couldn’t look my mum in the eyes anymore, if I allowed our progenitor to pass away while I could have helped.” Damn it, she was probably right. Also, considering everything I had learned about vampires, I wasn’t too sure what would happen to her bloodline if the woman died. I didn’t expect her whole family to follow suite, but I was prepared to bet they wouldn’t get away unscathed.
“Your call,” I said, focusing on Ahri. “If you want the girl to live, Layla’s our best bet. I’m not liking it, but if she wants to, I’m prepared to let her try. But mark my words, if she takes too much, I’ll end her without thinking twice.” The vixen nodded, hesitantly.
“Fair enough.” She stepped back and motioned for Layla to come closer. “If that’s really what you want, go ahead. We’ll make sure nothing happens to you.” I had to fight down a sad smile when the little girl slowly approached the withering woman. What kind of fucked up world were we living in that I thought allowing a child to feed a vampire was the best alternative? And what did it say about me? Would I have made the same decision a few weeks back? Probably, but I wasn’t sure.
Back on Boseiju, it had been easy to tell right from wrong and I had had the luxury to actually do what I thought was right. Now, I was more concerned with what was actually possible. The same thing had happened on the slave market. When ideals became corrupted by reality, had they been ideals in the first place? Or was I simply coming to terms with the simple fact that life was pain and it wasn’t possible to go through it unhurt? I might also have been too much of a coward to tell her no and accept the responsibility for another death, one that Ahri wanted to prevent. Were my needs to do what the vixen at my side wanted warping my judgement? By the Great Fox, hopefully not. Otherwise I’d be screwed seven ways to Sunday. How had Lucifer put it? Love was a fucking nuisance. It was just too bad I didn’t believe that. Not one bit.
While I had been busy pointlessly dissecting my motives, Layla had approached the dying creature. She dropped to her knees and brought her wrist to her mouth, her fangs shimmering in the light our wings emitted. A flash of ivory, a sharp intake of breath and the coppery smell of blood rose, tinged with a hint of something else.
I couldn’t quite place it, but it reminded me of the latest hours of the night, when the sun was just about to rise in the east. Cold, but also filled with the promise of warmth and light, powerful enough to vanquish the shadows. Maybe this hadn’t been such a bad idea, after all. The angel whom I had recognised was associated with the rising sun, more abstractly, the cycle of ends and new beginnings. And smelling even a hint of her on Layla’s blood was reason enough to hope. Maybe a phoenix could rise once more, fed by her own blood. It would be rather poetic, but probably, I was just grasping at straws. One of the two.
It was amazing how carefully Layla handled the decaying body, gentle but decisive as if she had years of experience to back her up. I couldn’t quite imagine that Alassara would allow anyone to feed on her daughter but when Layla placed the, by now, mask like head in her lap and almost caressingly pressed her opened wrist against the mouth, pumping her fingers to get the blood flowing, I couldn’t help but wonder. She seemed just a little too… self assured. How… right, she had probably been on the receiving end of the treatment quite a few times. She had already told me that she fed off sentient races and I assumed that it wasn’t the mindless frenzy I had watched before. No, it probably looked exactly like this.
At first, there was no visible reaction, the woman didn’t stir, her arms limp, her face wilted and dead. Despite my worries, I felt myself rooting for her, hoping for a movement of the flaccid lips, for a surge of energy that would make her cling to the proffered arm, but nothing happened. A rivulet of blood trickled down her chin and painted a crimson mosaic on her destroyed chest, but still she remained motionless. Until the first drop slipped into the glaring, charred wound above her heart and vanished with a spark of red and golden light.
I was nervous and reflexively wrapped my tails around Ahri, pulling her closer. My eyes didn’t waver from the scene while I wondered if I was going to have to fight any second now. Suddenly, an all encompassing, low rumbling sound made me flinch, the vibrations transmitted through the floor. Anxious I looked around and when my gaze travelled upwards, I saw a veritable web of fissures that spread through the ceiling. Something important must have just collapsed.
The cracks widened, debris and dust sifting down in dark clouds and from one second to the next, I had trouble breathing, never mind seeing through the polluted air. “Girls, we gotta move,” I screamed at the top of my lungs, my exclamation ending in a rattling cough when I inhaled more of the pulverised bone than I had bargained for.
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Without thinking, I pushed Ahri to where I prayed the stairs were and thrusted my wings forward, groping blindly for Layla and the fallen vampire. Even my second sight was massively impaired, the swaths of dust as dark to my enhanced vision as the night. A spike of panic raced through me when I couldn’t find them instantly, the rumbling turning into a deep, thunderous grinding noise that made my tails curl up. A few steps away from me, I heard Ahri cough, her voice raspy and clipped. “Cassy, here’s the door! Move! Come on, please!” Damn it! One more second… there!
I felt cloth and skin and someone grabbed onto my wings with a startling amount of strength. I was already running when I swept the rest of my wings along the floor, latching onto everything that even remotely felt like it might belong to a person. “I’m here,” I barked, brushing past Ahri and sprinting up the stairs.
Too slow, I thought when I saw the avalanches of broken bones that flooded through the widening cracks in the walls and ceiling. With a twist of my awareness, I wrapped a few of my wings around Ahri and pulled her and the squirming bundle of flesh I had picked up closer. We vanished into a shower of sparks, reappearing a good stretch further up the passage. “Again,” I grunted.
It hadn’t been more than 100 metres, I was sure of it, but I still wouldn’t make it in time. I didn’t know why, but from one moment to the next, the whole structure we were trapped in collapsed. It wasn’t gradual, small cracks had turned into all out destruction in an instant, as if the whole thing had truly just died. Gods, hopefully Mephisto had been wrong, otherwise I was about to turn one of the largest buildings in this town into so much as rubble and smoking debris.
With a defiant grunt, I pushed my magic outwards, highlighting a path in front of me. Silvery light filled the passage, my wings hummed with suppressed power and when the ceiling came down on us with an earsplitting roar, we vanished once more. Time stood still while we hung between one moment and the next, a fallen leaf caught in a storm. The forces of creation raged around us, reality reduced to a blur of colour and sound, threatening to swallow us whole, and then, the maddening visions splintered. The world claimed us again and I fell to the ground, panting heavily. My wings tingled and I couldn’t open my eyes, the barely sealed wound in my neck pulsing like crazy. I was dizzy and for a moment, all I could do was concentrate on the slow, fluttering beat of my heart and Ahri’s warmth, still nestled into my tails. I inhaled deeply, trying to clear my head, but I immediately gagged, the smell of blood and sex so thick around me that it almost felt like the air had turned liquid. Disoriented, I focused on my hearing, trying to make any sense of the cacophony of noises around me. Grunts, moans, the scurrying of fast moving feet, objects clattering on the floor and above all else, the slurping sound I had heard when the vampire had bitten me. My fur stood on edge and I instinctively fanned my wings out, creating a crackling barrier between us and the madness that was consuming this place. Rallying all the strength I had left, I opened my eyes and hissed in surprise, once I took in the macabre tableau in front of me.
Chaos, violence, indulgence… if the gates of hell had opened here and now it wouldn’t have looked any different. Naked bodies writhed on the floor in the throes of passion, dark silhouettes stalked the shadows, fangs glimmering in the frenzied light of flames that gnawed away at the curtains and tapestry, pale corpses laid in a pool of their own blood, the floor slick with their spilled fluids. Here and there, a human figure tried to escape, only to be pulled back or thrown to the ground by a sinewy arm. A moment later, a moving shadow would crawl along the body and come to rest against the neck, adding another fountain of blood to the growing, crimson tide that slowly spread through the whole building. Windows rattled and the walls shook, unleashed mayhem holding the place in a vice like grip.
“What the…” I murmured, unable to process what I was seeing. From somewhere behind me, Layla whispered, her voice trembling with fear: “the hold is broken. Gods, without my uncle to control them, the bound vamps have given in. We need to get out of here!”
“You don’t say,” I grunted while I tried to get to my feet and threw a quick glance over my shoulder. Ahri was already standing, her wings spread wide. She moved to my side and pulled me upright, her lips drawn into a tight line. Layla and the nameless woman were an entangled heap behind us, but neither seemed to mind. The girl was deathly pale and had her hand clasped over the still bleeding cut on her wrist and the other one was out cold. At least her wounds had somewhat healed, gaping holes turned into patches of raw flesh and slowly regenerating skin.
I turned towards the nearest exit, my wings flaring when one of the enraged vampires raised his gaze from the gasping body he had been feasting on. A silvery blue tongue of light slithered through the room and the undead fell back to the floor, a smouldering hole in his chest where his heart had been. “Come on, then,” I hissed and brought my wings forward. A glistening tunnel formed, clearing our way. Only one creature remained, blocking our path, but before I could even move, a crimson flash of heat and flames flew past me, consuming the vampire in an instant. Not even the fangs remained when a shower of ash gently drifted to the floor.
I gave Ahri a weak smile and used my tails to pull Layla into my arms while the vixen swiftly picked up the unconscious woman and threw her over her shoulder as if she had been light as a feather, carefully keeping her away from her burning wings. We ran. My feet slipped on the soaked carpets and blood covered wood, occasional strikes against my wings threatened to throw me off balance, but for as long as I managed to hold my wings in position, we’d be safe. 15 meters, 10… we’d make it. Nobody could stop us now and if they brought the whole damned manor down on us, I’d just teleport us out of here, one of my wings had already pierced the wall and I felt the sun on the other side. With a thought, I cleanly cut through stone and metal, opening an exit. The glaring light of a midday sun broke through the chaos and I heard pained hisses all around me, follow by the smell of cooking meat. Served them right.
A few more steps and we’d be out of there, but suddenly I stumbled. Growling, I tried to keep my balance, but it felt like I was trying to run under water, everything around me slowed down to a crawl and I felt a strange pull, just behind my navel. Hell no, not now!
“Ahri,” I screamed, “run!” While my wings already flickered as if on the verge of disappearing, I threw Layla in her direction and spread them wide, cutting through everything around us in a heartbeat. Our eyes met, wide with fear, and I heard her voice as if across a deep chasm: “Cassy, no!” And then, I vanished into sparks and dreams, sliding down a long, dark tunnel, unable to control my body. I had been summoned again! But how? Nobody in this world should know my name! How could they? Unless… oh please, by all the gods, Lilith had told me that she was going to try and delay whoever had been hunting for her. What if she had been caught? What if I was being called by another immortal? If that was the case, there was no way I’d be able to get out of it alive. By the Great Fox, I was so screwed. I felt trapped, mistreated, cursed and alone, all at once, but instead of tears, a snarl formed on my face. Defiance and anger, cold and calm, if I was to give my siblings a show they would remember, I’d need my past.
It was easy, as if the light had been slumbering just beneath the surface, awakened by the violence of the last few minutes. All I had to do was ask and bury my own vulnerability… my life under a blanket of frozen anger. Clarity and strength flooded my heart, my fear turned into a pillar of crystallised memories and my wings burned more brightly than they ever had before. When the world stopped spinning around me and I felt hard wood beneath my feet again, my eyes were pulsing in an iridescent blue, interspersed with only a few streaks of silver.
I knelt in a burning pentagram, a creature of light and magic, my skin barely visible through the glare. “Well then,” I thundered, each syllable accompanied by a blinding surge of flames as the circle nullified my powers. “You’ve called for me and here I am. You got your wish.”
“I can’t believe it, it actually worked,” a melodious, high pitched voice squealed from behind the fire. When I raised my gaze it fell on a surprisingly short, wingless shadow with a book in its hand.