Raziel watched as the remains of the human church burned to the ground, feeling a mild twinge of
guilt. The structure had been gutted by the flaming torches and now collapsed into itself, sending
ashes into the air and into the vampire's face.
They had destroyed the city in less than an hour's time, murdering it's inhabitants and pillaging the
homes, then burning the church last to eliminate any hope that the survivors of the town might have had.
His brethren enjoyed the spectacle thoroughly, laughing cruelly at the scene of carnage that lay
before them.
Zephon turned to his elder brother, not noticing the guilt that showed plainly in his cold eyes. "Look
at how they run brother, did they really think that they could defeat us?" Zephon cried triumphantly,
eyes shining with dark amusement.
Raziel didn't reply, the knot forming in his throat inhibited such a thing. Instead he turned away and
began walking out of the once beautiful city, now a sickening reminder of what happened when
vampires rampaged.
The city gate loomed before him, at one time a solid structure now a defeated lump of bent and
burned iron. Humans had been impaled upon it's sharper edges, their bodies twisted beyond
recognition. They had been the soldiers, the ones who had come to meet the threat of vampires, he
knew because he had killed a number of them himself. The warriors had been the first to die.
'Do they deserve this?' He wondered, then shook the blasphemous thought out of his head.
Had Kain had known what had gone through his head then he probably would have been killed.
Raziel was thankful to any god who cared to take the credit that Kain could not read minds.
'I must be getting soft.' The vampire thought to himself, self-loathing weighing heavily in his mind.
A slight sniffle made him turn away from his thoughts and towards one of the crumbling homes near
the gate. It hadn't been consumed by fire as many others had, but the open door and blood stained
cobble stones indicated that one of his brothers had already annihilated those who had been inside.
But as his attention focused he realized he could hear the pounding heartbeat of a person inside the building. Apparently his people were slipping, they had left someone alive.
He walked into the ruins of the house, noting the door was not only open but had been torn off its hinges, and thrown to the side. The scent of death he had detected from the street washed over him now, fazing him little as he observed the heap of bodies that had been piled carelessly on top of each other.
The blood was drained out of the majority of them, while a few unlucky ones had been ripped limb from limb. Death glazed eyes watched as the vampire stepped into the room, and he could almost imagine them narrowing in hatred at his intrusion. It should have unsettled him, but it didn't.
'How could someone be alive in that mess?' He wondered silently, thinking perhaps the noise had been conjured up out of his guilt. But no, there it was again, the steady rhythm of a living heart. He hesitated for only an instant before continuing to search for the source of the heartbeat.
She was a younger girl, though no longer a child by human standards. Her once plain green dress
was now horribly warped by the blood and gore that covered her, most of it not her own.
She held another woman of considerably more age who had been completely drained of her life
blood. The young woman sat, crying silently except for the occasional murmur of 'mother'.
The eldest son of Kain felt his heart clench at the sorry sight before him, and cursed at the sympathy
that welled up inside him for her plight.
The curse had been a mistake, a tear-stained face raised itself to look into his eyes, and he felt a
slight chill run through him.
Her eyes were that of a person who has lost everyone, an intermingling of sorrow and fury were the
only things that seemed to exist in the blue intensity of her eyes.
"Have you come to kill me as well demon?" She questioned, her voice cracked from crying, but she
seemed to feel no fear towards him. "Have you come to destroy what remains of my twisted soul?"
A second time he paused, unsure how to contend with her reaction. Fear he could have dealt with, hatred was also something he had become accustomed to. But the anger in her was obviously directed inward, at herself. He shook his head, feeling remorse, when a thought ran through his mind. "No, I have not come to harm you," his voice was unexpectedly soft, "I have come to release you from your agony."
Her damnably expressive eyes filled with distrust, "You lie." She accused angrily.
"No." he responded quietly.
Her smile was bitter, "Prove it."
He walked steadily up to her, half-expecting her to turn and run. She did not move, simply stared up at him, the mistrust slowly fading away to be replaced by another emotion, one he could not identify.
He sat down next to her and very gently reached for her, cradling her in his arms. She stiffened at his touch but did not flee, instead she relaxed against him, allowing him to hold her closer.
"I am sorry." He whispered into her ear, then, with the utmost gentleness, wrapped his hands around her throat and snapped her neck.
He listened attentively as her heart stopped beating.
Raziel lowered her to the floor and looked at her, noticing that her face seemed serene. She had died
quickly and painlessly.
A slight smile curved at her lips, and her eyes stared up at him blankly. He closed them with the tips
of his clawed fingers, she was no longer there to look through them.
He got up slowly, pondering why it was that all of a sudden he actually felt his hundreds of years of
age. He glanced a last time at the body on the floor and saying a soft good-bye, walked out the door
and set the house on fire.
'A funeral pyre.' He smiled to himself, quickly backing away from the potentially fatal fire and
back toward his territory.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Somewhere between heaven and earth a young woman reunited with the family she had lost, and
looked down once more at the world she had vacated.
'I guess you proved it, my angel of death,' she whispered, voice as soft as the wind. 'I guess you
proved me wrong.'