"Of course not, Davina Claire. The Ancestors want you alive."
"So they can finish the job themselves and you witches can sacrifice her?! Do you think I'm just gonna let walk in and kill an innocent girl?"
"Oh, you foolish boy. Not only have you implicated yourself in matters which aren't yours to meddle with, but on the word of a child." Her lips made a moue, almost pouting, as she turned to face Marcel fully and began to saunter in his direction before she seemed to think better of it midstride.
"Actually, a girl she may be yet, but Davina Claire is not a child. Hasn't been for quite some time now...how many have passed over to the Other Side because of the knowledge she fed you or even spells she cast directly? How many of her sisters has she consigned to death, not through ritual or sacrifice, guaranteed to better herself and repay her community for the honor of her place among them in the Harvest? How many mothers bled, daughters, sisters...best...friends," she glanced in Davina's direction with a heavy look in her eyes before returning to Marcel, "were torn apart and feasted on by your kind, Marcel Gerard?"
Davina gasped as the-the thing wearing her best friend's face mentioned "best friends" and Marcel was half out of his seat when she said his name. He slammed his hand onto the table between them for emphasis as he leaned over the spilled drinks, "Listen here. If you've got a beef with anyone over spilled blood in the quarter, you take it up with me. D hasn't done anything but try to protect herself from the same community that should have been protecting her-not offering her up in some sick, twisted - " Marcel's mouth kept moving for a little while before he seemed to realize no sound was coming out.
Actually, as his eyes darted around the previously packed bar at Rousseau's, he realized he couldn't hear-or see-anyone else.
"Be. Silent, Marcel Gerard."
Except D. Unlike before when she was only an almost see-through apparition, clearly there but not there in body, he could see, smell, and hear her standing almost at the doorway. "RUN!" he mouthed to Davina, over and over, but she didn't respond.
In fact she seemed frozen in place, until the witch-or demon, or whatever had been summoned by the covens-wearing a child's face began to raise its hand, the index finger pointing skyward. As it raised its hand, Davina's body moved almost too gracefully and she stepped closer and closer to their table.
"We offered her grace and she repaid us not with rejection, or pride, or stubbornness." As it spoke, only its lips moved but several voices were heard speaking in unison. "She repaid us by hoarding the power of her sisters, by resisting and directly acting against the will of her elders, and blaspheming her ancestors. Today is not judgment, today is mercy. This child of ours, who we have loved, who we have labored to see born and raised and wield the fury of storms, carried in our arms. She is our daughter."
Aside from the mute spell, Marcel's body didn't feel any different until he tried to tackle Davine and speed them both as far away as he needed to, to escape whatever magic she had wrought. But his feet were planted and all he did was bang his knee pointlessly against the underside of the table for his efforts.
"As I've said many times, this is *witch* business you've forced yourself into the middle of. Had you not interfered, she never would have carried the burden of this power all alone. Had you reflected on the legacies and stories that have kept New Orleans strong since even before you were born, she would have grown ever richer and wiser in her magic. We would have witnessed her ascendancy to Regent, leading the covens and this city as so many have done before her."
He couldn't tell if the windows had been this dark as soon as the spell took effect or if there were really shadows moving outside beyond his almost pathetically limited line of sight, but either way Marcel felt goosebumps break out along his arms and a shiver down his spine, as if someone had crossed over his grave. If he didn't know better, he'd think he was in a mortal, human body. But that was crazy.
Wasn't it?
When Davina was even with where the monster stood, it took her hand almost gently and looked straight into her eyes. Her expression wasn't vacant but it also wasn't displaying any of the panic or even fear that Marcel might have expected, and was even currently dealing with, himself. Tears rolled down Davina's cheeks and she was clearly battling strong emotions but she didn't physically seem to be putting up a fight.
"It is time, my child. You know what you have done."
Marcel fought the air, fought himself, fought his own paralysis and increasingly weaker limbs as he felt everything around him congeal and condense, as if he was first struggling underwater, then quicksand, and finally that he was fighting through solid ground itself.
*D!* he tried to scream to her mentally. *Come on, girl. FIGHT THIS! You can FIGHT. THIS!*
"No, Marcel."
For the first time since she'd appeared and tried whatever spell had set this all in one motion, declaring she wouldn't let the monster kill her, Davina spoke, and this time she spoke to him.
"She-it-this is right, Marcel." She looked down at where her hands were being held by the spirits of New Orleans and tried to blink away her tears. She didn't deserve this, no one deserved what was coming, but it was hers to bear all the same. "This is… everything has a price, Marcel. I always knew that."
"Davina Claire, do you - "
"Davina." it came out as a whisper and by then Marcel was nearly to the ground, barely able to gasp out his words. "Please.
"I'm sorry."
Their eyes locked one last time as the spirits issued her proclamation and for a second before he disappeared, returned to the normal world, exiled from bearing witness to any of her soul's punishment, Davina thought she saw that familiar light and steel in Marcel's eyes. Even as she gave up every morsel of power she'd ever held, even before the Harvest ceremony, as she consigned everything she had ever been and might have grown to be, to the spirits, the last little kernel of her entertained some tendril of hope. Marcel was a vampire. He'd lasted this long. Perhaps…
Maybe he'd still have a place for her in however many centuries when her torment was over.