Blood Rose Ch. 08

Kaeli shut her eyes, awaiting the fatal thrust—and she heard the sound of a body being impaled, but she felt no pain. She opened her eyes. The bloody blade protruded out the back of the brown leather jacket on the body that was flying through the air above her. Dorian landed with a horrible grunt of agony with the sword still embedded in him.

"DORIAN!" Kaeli shouted.

"NOOOOO!" Electra shrieked.

There was a strange crackling sound then. With the first rays of morning light seeping in, the black blob of energy that had formed above the arcane circle on the floor had begun losing its integrity. The sun's rays were now touching the edge of the weird shape, and just like a vampire, it was reacting to the sunlight with steam, and slowly it started undulating and finally imploded and dispersed.

Electra whirled on Kaeli with a ferocious snarl on her face."You!" she hissed, aggressively advancing on her—before she suddenly stumbled forward, Elizabeth having leapt on her back, attempting to claw and wrestle her to the floor. Electra managed to swing her around and grab Elizabeth by the throat the same way she'd done to Kaeli, and began walking with her in the direction of the sunbeam that was streaming in. "Now what should I do with you, I wonder?"

***

Anthony had remained as focused as he could on keeping the two hunters pinned and out of the way through all this, but as soon as Electra had Elizabeth by the throat, his conviction had begun to waver.

"All that potential," Electra mused. "You could have so much power. You could be something truly great, and you choose to let all that potential be for nothing. You're a complete waste!" She stood holding Elizabeth right at the edge of the sunbeam, and lifted Elizabeth's hand by the wrist and began teasing it by barely inching it in and out of the light. Steam hissed from Elizabeth's fingers and she gasped for pain. "It's still not too late," Electra said. "Accept me as your teacher and you can still save yourself from the light!"

Elizabeth remained defiantly silent as Electra continued torturing her with the sunlight. Anthony winced.This isn't what's supposed to happen!

Anthony thought back to the night he made her. He did it because he wanted to share all the glory he was destined for with her. They were supposed to rise to power together. He did it because he loved his sister. He always had. And he only wanted what he thought was best for her.

But now, if she didn't do things exactly as Electra wanted, Elizabeth was going to die.

No... not like this... not my sister...

Anthony released the hunters. He flickered to where the two women were, and grabbed up Electra by the waist, making her drop Elizabeth, and dove with Electra in his arms into the burning light. Electra shrieked in agony as both of them began to burn. But Anthony remained silent, only looking toward his wide-eyed sister. Without saying a word, he was telling her "good-bye." Flames sprouted from their bodies, and their flesh began turning to ash. Anthony closed his eyes for the last time, letting the ashes of his burning body merge with Electra's as they slowly crumbled away.

***

The room seemed to have gone silent. For a while the only sound Dorian heard was the sound of the vampire girl's sobs, but slowly that seemed to fade out. He also felt nothing; the blade no longer hurt. He barely even felt it when someone pulled it out.

"Dorian? Dorian!"

He strained to see, and found he could make out the image of Kaeli's face looking down at him with tears in her eyes. "Hey, Kaeli," he rasped.

"You saved my life," she sniffled. "Even though I'm not human anymore."

"You're Kaeli. What else could I do?" He sighed. "It's over, isn't it?"

"Yeah," she nodded through her tears. "She's gone. You're finally free of her."

"Yeah I am," he said, even as he felt his insides going cold, and the numbness spreading. He could finally let go.Melissa...

"They're waiting for you," Kaeli managed to get out.

Light seemed to fill Dorian's eyes, blotting out Kaeli's image. But through it, he thought he could just barely begin to see the outline of a structure. Slowly it became clearer. It was a house. It was his house. It was the house where his family lived. He was coming down the walkway, and he could see the front door open. And standing in the doorway was Melissa, where she'd been patiently waiting all this time, holding their baby in her arms. Dorian returned his wife's smile, and stepped across the threshold and into his family's embrace.

"Honey, I'm home."

***

Elizabeth didn't know how long she spent on her hands and knees crying, staring at the pile of ashes that had been her brother. But at last she managed to turn her attention away, and looked through her tear-filled eyes toward where Kaeli knelt over the body of the poor dead hunter. But then Kaeli slowly looked up, seeing the other two hunters standing over her with their weapons drawn.

Slowly Kaeli stood, and said, "If you're gonna kill me, guys, then do it. Please."

"Kaeli, no!" Elizabeth shouted, rising to her feet and running to throw herself over her.

"I don't have a problem killing her through you," the younger of the two hunters said to her. "It's just two more vampires on the pile for me, whether that's my former girlfriend or not."

But then another body was between them. Tyler stepped up, facing the hunters, standing between them and their prey. "Outta the way, Tyler," the younger hunter said.

"Not gonna happen," Tyler said. "You're not touching her, not without killing me."

The hunters just looked at Tyler, and at Elizabeth. They looked at Kaeli for a long while. Finally the older one with the sling on his arm sighed and lowered his head, holstered his gun and turned away. The other watched his partner turn to leave, and sighed himself and relaxed his throwing knives. He turned Tyler around and cut the ropes binding his hands, and turned to the exit. "Come on, Tyler, let's get outta here."

Tyler paused to look at Elizabeth, and then turned to follow them.

"Tyler, wait!" Elizabeth called after him in a strained voice. "You're just gonna leave? You're not gonna say anything to me?"

Tyler stopped and turned back to her. After a moment's pause he approached her again. "Elizabeth..."

"Tyler, do you love me or not?"

His answer stunned her: "I wish I didn't. That'd make this a lot easier. The truth is I love you more than I've ever loved anyone, but I can't handle this right now, knowing what you are and all. It's just too much for me to process. I'm sorry, Elizabeth, but I can't be around you right now."

And with that he turned with a somber "I'll see you," and followed the hunters out the door, leaving Elizabeth to drop to her knees and sob into her hands. She took some small comfort in the gentle embrace that Kaeli put around her shoulders.

***

The day passed with Elizabeth laying on one of the empty beds in the penthouse, mostly in Kaeli's arms. Her tears had stopped by the time night fell again and it was safe to leave. As they got up to go, Kaeli offered, "Are you okay?"

Weakly, Elizabeth nodded, but she wasn't really sure. Losing her long-lost brother and the boy she loved in the same day was going to take time to recover from.

"Listen," Kaeli said, "you've probably figured out I wasn't telling the truth when I came to Annabelle's mansion. I didn't mean to become this, and when it happened I thought I'd turned my back on my family... on my team... on God. But I'm still here. I can't be a hunter anymore, but I still have a future. And so do you. You still have a future."

Elizabeth took a moment to chew on that, and dared try to smile through her worn face. "Can you take me home?" she asked.

Kaeli nodded, and they headed for the elevator. "You have some blood at your place, by the way?" Kaeli asked. "I'm getting kinda thirsty."

Elizabeth smiled a bit more naturally.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~:EPILOGUE:~

Nina stepped out into the darkened chamber, lit only by the light of the moon. And the beam of moonlight seemed to be spotlighting the pile of ash on the floor. She had felt it when her master died, but she was still having trouble believing it. Every part of her brain refused to believe those were Anthony's pitiful ashes lying there. He couldn't be gone.

And yet with each step closer she came, the heavier the horrible truth became. Her master really was dead. She knelt down in front of the charred pile, and ran her fingers through the ashes.

All of a sudden a small spot of blood on the floor next to the ash pile caught her eye. She wasn't sure why; there didn't seem to be anything special about it; it was just a little bit of blood. But for some reason her attention began turning away from her master's remains to it.

Slowly she extended a hand and dipped a finger into the spot of blood that was somehow still wet. She looked hard at the red spot on her finger, and found she wanted to taste it. She didn't know whose blood it was, or why she was looking at it so intently, but she was already bringing her finger to her mouth, and extended her tongue—

The instant a single drop of the blood touched her tongue, an incredible rush of unimaginable pain surged through Nina's body. She stood convulsing and screaming, her thoughts unable to form a cohesive idea, her insides burning, and then her mind burning...

The convulsions slowly stopped as all that was Nina Portman faded away, and in moments she was no more. The woman who stood in her place looked down to examine her new body. It was not quite as fit as her own had been, but it would do.

Mostly she was just impressed that she had pulled it off. She'd been preparing, training and meditating on this every night for centuries for just such an occasion, but she honestly hadn't been sure it would work. But she had succeeded. The final technique of Blood Rose had now been truly mastered.

But any elation she might have had was hampered by her anger. The plans she had spent the last several years preparing had been destroyed, and she would now have to rebuild them from the beginning. But it was nothing she couldn't do. She had learned nothing over the past four hundred years if not patience. One day they would pay.

One does not simply walk away after crossing Electra Rose.

THE END

See also Young Bloodfor Elizabeth's college years.

Coming Soon, the third and final Vampire Tales saga: Queen of Darkness.