Haaaaallo! BlackKnight93 here, back from a loooong hiatus from fanfiction writing. I've had this idea for a Trinity Blood fic rolling around in my head for years and I finally feel like I have enough material to complete it, so, here it is!
I'm not going to lie, this first chapter is exceptionally brutal and in the basis for the rating thus far; but don't worry, it doesn't stay this violent. Eventual Abel/OC. But first, the violence. Reviews are like cookies; I can never have too many and there is never a bad one. Enjoy!
Come to Harm
Chapter 1: Brutality and Rescue
Jeers, taunts, brutality. Experimentation. Rape. Alessandra had grown used to them all, so when one of her captors lobbed a large stone at her head, she didn't even bother to duck. The stone hit her square in the nose with a sickening crack. Blood ran down her chin, dripping on to her chest. Normally, a person would cry out in pain, or scream, or attempt to cradle their injury in their hands. Not Alessandra. She was Methuselah, just like them, born or no.
The blow had undoubtedly broken her nose. They did this for sport; stones, books, metal, whatever they could find, they flung at her, seeing how many bones they could break before she gave in to the pain and passed out. Her pain was a game to them. She could already feel the wound healing itself because of her cursed regenerative ability.
"Dolt, you barely hit her! Throw harder!" One jeered to the other.
"She's bleeding, better than you did, ass!" Alessandra stared blankly at the wall. She would not give them the satisfaction. The first vampire groaned loudly.
"This is taking too long. I'm bored already." The one who had thrown the stone walked over and kicked Alessandra in the ribs with what she suspected was a steel-toed boot. She wheezed involuntarily as the air was forced from her lungs. "Let's go, Terran whores are more lively than this wretch."
"Mmmh, dinner and a show. I'm in." The vampires left her to her misery, slamming the door behind them. As soon as Alessandra was sure they were gone, she crawled weakly to her lumpy cot and pulled the scratchy blanket over her head. She sobbed quietly, as she often did, and quietly wished the same wish she did every night. Send someone, please, she begged no one in particular, either to save me, or to kill me. She missed her parents, her brother, her sisters…but they were long gone now. This was her life. The brutality and cold indifference were all she had to look forward to.
"This way, Father Nightroad." The corridor was dark and dank, and with the benefit of infrared vision, Father Tres Iquis, the android priest, led the way. Father Abel Nightroad stumbled blindly along behind him, one hand feeling along the wall, the other clutching an absurdly large handgun. The blueprints the Venetian police had provided were of little use in the darkness. The Vatican had recently been alerted to the presence of a vampire safehouse in this building, and that the vampires in question were tied to numerous murders and kidnappings. That was enough to merit an AX investigation, hence why Abel had to trip along in the darkness, without the guidance of a flashlight, behind his robotic partner.
The hallway seemed to go on forever. As dark and cold as it was, Abel surmised they were just above the canals of Venice, high enough to keep the water out, but below street level. It had been mid-morning when Abel and Tres entered the tunnel that had led them to this corridor, but in the corridor itself, night ruled supreme. The perfect hiding place for vampires.
"There should be a door around here somewhere, Tres, wouldn't you think?"
"Positive. Three paces forward, on the right." Abel followed Tres, feeling along the wall with his shoulder so he could keep his gun drawn. Right where Tres said, the wall ended abruptly, forming a shallow niche that held the door. It was made of reinforced steel, and it was locked, but this didn't deter Father Tres. He slammed his shoulder into the door, breaking the locks and forcing it open. Somewhere far away, a klaxon blared.
"Damn! It had a sensor! We have to hurry, Tres."
"Awww, pussycat, it's no fun if you don't play too." The vampire looming over Alessandra fastened his trousers, a cigarette clenched in his pointed teeth. Alessandra lie huddled in the corner, her tattered dress pushed up to her waist. The vampire knelt next to her crumpled body, trailing a sharp claw up her thigh, reveling in the blood that bubbled up as he sliced her skin. "Perhaps later I'll get some friends together and we'll have ourselves a little party, hmmm? See if one of them can make you scream. Or maybe, all of them," he sneered. Cigarette ash fell onto Alessandra's face and she tried not to flinch. It was still warm. Her lack of a reaction angered the vampire. He seized her chin hard enough to break her jaw if she had been human and twisted her head around, forcing her to look at him. "Pay attention when I'm talking to you, you insolent, worthless little whore!" The imminent barrage of curses and insults was ultimately cut short by the loud, startling blare of a klaxon somewhere down the hall. He threw Alessandra to the floor, spewing curses. "Intruders? How did they even make it this far?!" He seized the gun he had lain on the rickety little table in Alessandra's cell when he'd entered and kicked open the door. He stormed out into the hall, and a shout of anger and terror died under a hail of bullets. Alessandra yanked her skirt back down over her thighs. Whatever was in the hallway, it wasn't good. She curled up tightly in a ball in the corner, hoping to make herself small enough to not be noticed in the dim light the one light bulb suspended from the ceiling provided, praying that whatever it was would just go away.
Abel cast his eyes around the hall, following them with his gun. He ignored the bloody mess that had once been a vampire on the floor. Tres had made short work of him when he burst out from his hiding place. Up until now, every room on this floor had been empty, but Abel wasn't taking any chances. Abel slowly made his way towards the room the vampire had burst from, expecting an ambush at any moment. He pressed his back to the wall next to the open door and signaled Tres to cover him. He spun, pointing his gun into the room, and did a quick sweep. There were no other vampires. Abel lowered his gun and stepped into the room. Something moved in the shadows, startling him. He raised the gun and slowly moved towards the corner where the movement originated. Crumpled in the corner was a girl, no older than fifteen, with dirty hair caked in blood. Her skin was also dirty and bloody, and she was clad in the tattered and stained remains of what might have once been a very fine, very expensive black velvet dress that seemed to be a few sizes too small for her and patched with burlap. Her eyes were a vivid emerald green. She stared at his gun, trembling, as he lowered it in shock.
"Please, if you're going to shoot me, just do it." He didn't look like the usual vampires that came into her room and waved guns in her face, or stuck them in her mouth or…other parts.
"Shoot you? Why would I shoot you?" Abel was horrified.
"Please. I just want to die." Abel's heart cracked and sank into the pit of his chest.
"I'm not going to kill you." Abel put his gun back in its holster under his arm and slowly approached the injured girl. "I'm here to help you. Are you hurt?" The girl looked at him, a sad and terrible expression on her face.
"Not in any way that isn't healing." He reached out to her and she shied away. Abel could feel his heart breaking.
"Who did this to you?" Someone somewhere was responsible for this, and Abel knew the vampire in the hallway had something to do with it. He hadn't been expecting to find a hostage. His sorrow for the poor child boiled into scalding hatred and anger deep in the pit of his stomach. He fought to keep his demeanor calm and even for her sake.
"Father Nightroad, status report." Tres' monotone voice startled them both. He loomed in the doorway, gun drawn. He slowly leveled it at the girl in the corner, who tightened back into a ball. Dammit. He sighed in exasperation.
"I've found a hostage, Tres. She's hurt, pretty badly too." Tres lowered his gun.
"There were no reported hostages in this building. Only vampires." Abel turned from Tres back to the girl. His partner was right, there had been no reported hostages, which meant she had probably been here longer than the Venetian police had had intel on the vampires who occupied the building.
"Please, we're not going to hurt you. How long have you been kept here?" She shrugged and winced.
"A long time. Months, maybe years. I stopped counting." The poor, pitiful thing. She was so frightened.
"Let's get you somewhere safe, hmm?" Abel reached out to help her stand. The girl flinched like he was going to strike her. His anger returned. When all he did was hold out his hand to her, she took it hesitantly.
Her fingers were icy cold, colder than any human hand he had ever held. Cold as a vampire's hand. Abel chose to ignore it and helped her to her feet. She wobbled, barely able to stand. Abel watched blood trickle down her exposed knee. His eyes narrowed, anger growing stronger. When the girl swayed, he caught her and steadied her. He leaned her gently against the wall and took off his coat, wrapping her in it and scooping her up into his arms. She didn't protest, holding his coat to her chest. It was warm, and it smelled faintly of cologne and candy. Had her prayers been answered after so long? Did God really listen to the prayers of a vampire? Was the man holding her…an angel? Am I dead?
"C'mon, let's get you out of this hell." Abel gingerly carried the girl out of the room. "Close your eyes, you don't want to see this." Abel walked past Tres, stepping over the corpse of the vampire in the hall. It did not concern him; nothing concerned him, except getting the girl in his arms to safety.
The Vatican doctor Abel delivered the girl to gave him the surprise of several lifetimes. She was not only as cold as a vampire; she was a vampire. She had been beaten, tortured, and raped, and she reacted with such fear to the instrumentation in the exam room that she had to be forcefully sedated. Not only was the girl before him a vampire; she was Alessandra Caramia di Ambrosio, the sole surviving heir of her family. Her sisters and brother had been massacred five years before on their way to a gala event in Venice. Her parents had been away on business. There were no leads at the time and the case went cold. After a year, she had been legally declared dead. She had only been ten years old at the time of the slaughter.
"But…the di Ambrosio family is a human family…" Abel stammered. "How is that possible?"
"I'm not certain, Father. The vampires that held her must have perfected a way to convert humans. Without knowing her family background, I wouldn't have ever suspected her of being human. The Bacillus is completely integrated into her blood." Abel glanced woefully at the girl lying unconscious in the bed. "Beatings this brutal would have killed a human. They probably converted her so they could continue to torture her." It made Abel sick to think about. The doctor had found evidence of a recent rape when he'd first delivered her to the Vatican, and her ribs had been freshly broken. As they spoke, her body was mending itself, piecing itself back together, so that nothing would remain but the memories of what had been done to her. Faded scars littered her body, leftovers from a time before she could heal her own wounds. It filled Abel with rage.
"But to what end?" He muttered to himself. Abel quietly knelt next to the battered body in the bed and brushed her limp hair from her face. He gently kissed her forehead and pressed his forehead to hers, unconcerned about the blood, dirt, and sweat that covered her. He reached for one of her fragile hands and held it in his own. Under the influence of heavy sedatives, she didn't respond. "If you can hear me, little one, I swear, as God is my witness, I will never let you come to harm again," he whispered. Abel stood and turned back to the doctor, body rigid and face hard as steel. "I am entrusting her to your care, Doctor. If she has been prisoner for as long as we believe she has, she might have overheard at least some of the vampires' schemes."
"Of course, Father Nightroad." Abel turned and left the infirmary, fuming silently. He would keep his word, no matter what. He would protect her, no matter what the cost.