The dust had settled into a gray-green burial shroud over the ancient coffin's lid, and oh did she want to disturb that hateful mocking dust where it lay. One thing held her hand back from the lid. Her hand held immense power between her fingers, it glowed a faint silver gray like fog out like noxious fumes from a sewer grate. She lifted her right hand and watched the ghostly figures in the fog dance over her knuckles and slowly, she opened the hand that held the last wild power source this side of Mideel.
The tiny white blaze drifted down from her palm and landed lightly, almost dreamlike on the coffin's dusty surface. Her amber brown eyes watch the thing do its dance on the dust laden surface leaving lines behind it. Moving faster, the blaze joined its curving lines as it moved across the lid. Faster and faster it painted in the dust a perfect picture of the figure beneath the lid. Quicker and sharper did the figure take shape in the dust. All at once, the blaze finished and laid still on the dust figure's brow. Hand still outstretched, she watched the stone lift slowly from the dust painting and nestle itself softly into her weathered palm amidst the dirty weather lines of her hand. All along she stared unbelieving.
Here he was. Here he died as that bastard said true. Her eyes lingered on his partially closed eyes, almost if he were dozing with them open, then they drifted lower, they found the wound.
Yes, the bastard spoke true, but they both were dead now. Her lips twitched into a wolf like snarl that made her look all the less human. She hooked her long fingers into the crack of the coffin, that bastard that killed him even had the audacity to not close the lid fully.
Suppose it don't matter now. she thought, the wolf grin becoming that of a fanged serpent, the skin around her eyes turning a faint sky blue. Good he's dead. The skin on her face began to split into scale like segments from her exertion, yet she lifted the lid and set it on the cold stones beside his cold grave. She caught her reflection in a small icy puddle on the other side of the coffin. The creature watching her from the waters' surface stared from amber brown eyes, the only human bit about it. Her shoulder length white hair had stiffened into long lethal looking horns which curled almost lovingly around her snake like face. Her nose and mouth had elongated into a sky blue muzzle covered in smoothed scales which protruded into crystal patterns. She held her curled hand to her face and watched the webbing between her already long fingers slip down to their unusually long tips, her nails becoming great white talons.
Long breaths pulled down into her cooling lungs which exhaled burned the skin of her throat. It worked. Her blood cooled and she calmed as she metamorphosed back into her gangly human form. Soon enough, the pressure her elongated arms and her lengthening body exerted on her poor black shirt and matching jacket eased as her sudden rapid growth reversed. A seem screamed out and split along her black pant leg before she noticed she had been changing, one of her worn boots groaned miserably and soon enough the other sung out too.
Soon the pain screaming along her body quieted and she turned back to the man before her. Human hand held above him, she let the stone ball drift down to him. He lay exactly like his portrait, hands crossed over his stomach, long black hair laying every which way, red cloak wrapped around him concealing his wound. She could see it, she could taste the air of bitter rot about him. Another few days too late and she would have found him bloated like a deer on the roadside. Her eyes took in all. The way his ribcage sloped alarmingly inward, his sallow almost yellowy color of his once handsome face. The way the flies had buzzed madly around the coffin before she smote their tiny meaningless lives with an icy glance.
The worst was the wound its self. Stabbed in the heart like some weak minded vampire of the past.
That's not all…that bastard did something, can't you smell it? the tiny stone ball hissed at her, its voice condensed with pictures, memories that it picked up from the room. It sent them almost exultantly from beneath its fog cloak, and she watched. Watched the man from the bar and another man in a black cloak, its hood pulled over his face, lift the lid like she had done as to not disturb the dust. Watched the one under the hood pull the knife (which was now in her possession) from his belt as the other sniggered quietly.
And she saw. The way the blade fell, buried in the sleeping mans' heart. His black shirt and red cloak concealed all the blood as the man shuddered and died in his sleep. Horror wrote itself in her near human eyes as she watched the two men unbutton the dead man's shirt, then leaning in closer, they blocked her vision, but she knew. She knew.
The rib cage told all. Unbuttoning his shirt like those shitless assassins had done, she balked at her find, and stepping backwards, she vomited uncontrollably into another open coffin near by. The stone tittered uncontrollably at her as she buttoned his shirt looking the other way. Yes, the rib cage told all.
"You know what to do." she spoke wiping her mouth on the back of her sleeve. The ball seemed to sag in mid air as if it were as drowsy as the man's eyes showed him. It slipped between his cloak and his shirt and nested itself in his stab wound. A slow jerk twisted his body as his left hand raised to the air. His synthetic claws touched the stone above his heart as he slowly sat up.
He stared blankly at her. "You are ?" he spoke after studying her for a moment. Ignoring the question, she drew the blade (the same as the one the stone showed her) and as fast as a cat strikes, she jammed it into the top of the coffins' edge. He looked at the quivering blade quizzically. She spoke softly as he strained with his own thoughts.
"You died."