A friend in need
Set at the end of WTNF
Chapter One:
For hours Damien Kilcannon Vryce had been sitting in the small chapel close to the harbour, trying to find peace in prayer. As if on their own account his feet had carried him to this modest, ancient building of faith whose incense-soaked walls, blackened by the smoke of innumerable candles, cradled him comfortingly like a mother's womb. And comfort he needed desperately, maybe more than ever before in his life.
Kneeling in the warm twilight Damien had called to God from the depths of his tortured soul, had prayed for forgiveness for his manifold sins, but God hadn't answered his desperate pleads like he had back in the lands of the Undying Prince, defending the warrior knight and poor little Jenseny against His own fallen prophet.
With a sigh Damien bowed his head onto his folded hands and tried anew to submit himself into prayer, to offer God his faith and his love for the Church, but his thoughts stubbornly kept returning to the pained face of the Hunter, and he caught himself muttering intercessions for his condemned companion in an endless loop.
‚You brought me to this. You and your philosophy. You and your human influence!'(WTNF, page 611). Tarrant's horrified accusation still ringing in ears Damien realized with a shudder that while he was safely praying in the House of God the Hunter very possibly tried to purge his corrupted soul from the 'taint' of Damien's humanity by the ruthless murdering of innocent women.
The priest shivered with dread. If the Hunter had been right he was burdened with more guilt than he had been able to imagine in his worst nightmares. Allying with evil incarnate he not only had to take responsibility for Tarrant's victims of tonight and so many other nights, but for the looming demise of his companion and for the unending torture the adept would doubtlessly have to endure in hell for his betrayal.
Dear God , how far down on the road to hell had Gerald already dragged him that the mere thought of the Hunter's impending suffering made him sick with terror? Instead of praying for the helpless, young women who might very well beg for their lives at the very moment he pleaded for the continuing existence of a hellish abomination so evil that it defied description. And Gerald's words had left no room for interpretation. On this occasion he wouldn't settle for a quick kill or a single hunt, but cleanse himself with blood and human fear in quantities.
Tarrant had made his choice. He would be what he was meant to be, while Damien' soul had been warped and twisted by the Hunter's mere presence until he wasn't able to tell right from wrong anymore, exactly as his undead companion had foretold so many months ago.
Sighing Damien finished his prayer and rose with a groan, rubbing his sore knees. As much as he wished it helping either Tarrant or his victims was out of the question. Gerald had made himself abundantly clear that he wasn't keen on Damien's presence, and if the Hunter didn't want to be found the priest had no chance in hell to track him down, not to mention covering the vast distances Tarrant easily conquered on his leathery wings.
Vryce was just about leaving for his hotel room and maybe a very late dinner, or very early breakfast, when the door flew open and a young woman, not more than eighteen at most, stumbled into the church and collapsed on the floor. With regard to her slightly provoking attire Damien assessed her as a barmaid, and comely as she was with her long dark braids and blue eyes she had probably been pretty busy warding off unwanted attention by drunken customers a few hours ago. But right now her delicate, pale features were so distorted by utter exhaustion and terror that even her own mother would have had difficulties recognizing her.
Damien stared, for a moment not able to process what was happening. When he was able to move again he approached the whimpering girl warily. Maybe some drunks had stalked her on her way home, hungry for some female company, willing or not, or she'd been quarrelling with her lover, but for Damien's taste the strange situation felt a bit too much like a hideous nightmare coming true, and his eyes never left the church entrance.
"What's happened to you, Mes? Can I help you?" Damien enquired compassionately. He tried to keep his voice low, soothing, but the girl's eyes were still glazed over with fear, and her teeth were clattering too much for a coherent answer. Sighing inwardly Damien put a comforting hand on her slender shoulder and shook her gently to get her attention.
Her eyes still out of focus the girl started muttering something in between the choking sobs that forced themselves out of her chest, but the only word the priest could make out was something that sounded suspiciously like "demon".
Damien straightened and drew his sword. It was still possible that the girl was hallucinating, had taken some drugs from the black market maybe, but he wanted to be prepared, just in case. His eyes locked on the door Damien waited, but except the cool night air nothing entered the little chapel.
Vryce stood still like a stone, wishing the young girl would stop whimpering and shaking while he pricked up his ears, all senses alert. To his amazement he realized that he had started shivering as well, the night air that had been so balmy a few hours ago, inviting for an idle stroll and some drinks in a dae, suddenly frigid. He could see his breath in the frosty air, an impossible and very uncanny drop in temperature, and the warrior knight tensed with apprehension.
Damien's hairs stood on end when the black-haired beauty dragged herself to her knees and clung to him while her shaky voice rose in a despairing scream. "He's devouring me! Oh, God, help me; it hurts so much, please!"
An icy gust of wind out of nowhere toppled the candles until only the moonlight illuminated the church with its ghostly light, and the massive alter oak door closed on its own account with horrifying finality.
Damien slowly turned around on the spot, eying the dark corners warily, but no faeborn demon with fangs and claws jumped at them from the shadows. The unknown girl had let go of Damien's pants and had dropped back on the hard stone floor, gasping for air as if every breath would be her last. Damien had no doubts that her life force was dwindling fast, and that some demonic entity was feeding on her right there in the house of God. With sinking spirits he realized that deep down in his heart he knew what was happening, and that not only the Hunter had to make his choices that night.
"Gerald?" His strained voice eerily resonated in the small chapel that had felt like a secure haven minutes ago but resembled a death trap now.
There was no answer, just a threatening, brooding silence, but the shadows seemed to gather in the chapel's corners until Damien's sight was limited to a few feet, and by now the air had turned brittle with an unearthly chill that burned his lungs and seared his throat.
Shivering with cold and a dreadful foreboding Damien bent down to wrap the poor girl in his cloak, but was stopped dead in his tracks by a malicious chuckle he knew only too well.
"Do you like my present, priest?"
The deep shadows behind the altar with the golden, interlinking circles parted, and the Neocount of Merentha stepped forwards in a soft rustle of silk.
His heart suddenly in his mouth Damien stiffened. So his ominous gut feeling hadn't betrayed him. Never before Gerald had hunted in his presence, but tonight the Hunter's determination to suffocate the remaining faint remnants of his humanity seemingly overcame the last barricades.
Damien felt sick to his very bones, but to his own amazement the accustomed fierce disgust and moral revulsion mingled with overwhelming pity not only for the Hunter's prey but for the undead adept as well, that lost soul that had been wandering in the darkness for centuries now, powerful beyond human imagination, but enslaved nonetheless, bound for eternity by a compact with the forces of evil that cut him off from repentance and salvation from the clutches of evil by God's grace.
"Don't harm her, Gerald", he pleaded gently, on the verge of tears. "She's so young. Let her go home to her family."
Tarrant snorted disdainfully. "Set her free graciously and commit another crime in the eyes of the Unnamed, forfeiting my last credit with my creators? I don't think so, priest. I've told you once before that courting death at my age is not on my agenda."
Looking at the whimpering girl Damien shivered. "Gerald, please", he tried again, "don't do this to yourself. If you need food, well, I've offered before. Take from me and let her go in peace, not for her sake, but for yours."
"How thoughtful to care for my well-being, Vryce, if a bit belated, unfortunately. Will you pray for my evil soul while I roast in hell, I wonder? But certainly a busy man like you, accepted back in good graces by your precious patriarch as a reward for my downfall, won't have much time to spare for a broken tool."
Although the smooth voice was oozing with sarcasm Damien felt the underlining tension and despair on a visceral level. Daring a direct look at the adept he trembled and quickly gazed away again. Vryce had seen the Hunter interacting with unsuspecting humans without drawing any unwanted attention, and he'd been assuming for a long time now that Tarrant adapted his looks to his intentions and moods just the way he adapted to the worst fears of his victims, bringing them to life for his pleasure.
If this supposition was true Gerald's face didn't bode well. The ivory visage resembled a stone mask, devoid of any human feelings, and the black eyes were fearsome pools of darkness, eternally hungering for living warmth and human suffering. It might have been a strange illusion wrought by the eerie moonlight or Damien's own feverish imagination, but behind Tarrant's back, deep in the shadows, huge leathery wings seemed to span the whole breadth of the chapel. Nobody sane could have considered the adept a human being that night, and Damien swallowed convulsively, pushing down the acid bile rising in his throat.
Tarrant stepped closer, too close for Damien's peace of mind, and leaned over the young lady who was staring up at him in wide eyed incomprehension like a deadly bird of prey. When he brushed a strand of hair from her face, almost tenderly, the girl recoiled from his touch and tried to crawl away from him, but in vain. The black gaze banned her as surely on the spot as iron manacles around her slender wrists.
"Isn't she beautiful, priest?" the Hunter murmured, his eyes half closed. "So pliable and delicate. So responsive to my manipulations. If you forget about your foolish notion of saving her I might forgive you and share the fun with you."
Tarrant straightened and faced his companion, his eyes brimming with malevolence. "Poor priest! When did you last – how shall I put it politely? – enjoyed the pleasures of the flesh? With your unfortunate pilot, I suppose? No wonder you're such a dour sourpuss. Tonight I feel benevolent enough to reward you with a gift: her body for you, her soul for me. Sounds a fair deal to me."
With a sneer the adept pulled the girl up by one of her thick braids in an appalling mock offering, and his face frozen with shock Damien's hand closed around the hilt of his sword. This had gone far enough.
The barmaid's eyes had gone completely blank, and Vryce seriously doubted that the girl would ever be her old self again, even if she survived the night. He vividly remembered the horrifying stories about the few of the Hunter's victims that had 'escaped' his clutches just to end their lives with their own hands, unable to bear their memories.
Deliberately Damien relaxed his death grip on his sword, his mind racing. Certainly Gerald wouldn't stoop low enough to expect him to rape that innocent child, would he? That was not his usual style, and at any case the adept knew perfectly well that Damien would never harm the young woman. The Hunter might be a sadistic, ruthless killer and an abomination, but he was no fool, and he did nothing without a reason.
Something was very strange about the situation and reminded Damien of a play, staged deliberately for his benefit by a true master of psychological manipulation. It was a pity, though, that nobody had yet bothered to brief him on his part, especially because in Tarrant's current mood each mistake could easily be his last one.
"NO! Don't hurt me anymore, please!" The girl's shrill scream of pain cut through Vryce's reverie like a sword.
"I'm running out of patience, Vryce! But if you don't want your share of the prey, bad luck for you…"
He tries to provoke me! Damien realized with a start. Whatever his reasons he's manipulating me. Again. But not this time, my friend. Not now. I won' t let this happen!
"Gerald", please, you don't have to do this. You'll find a way, I'm sure of that. We'll find…"
"We?" Tarrant snapped at him and for the first time since Damien had made his acquaintance there was a faintly hysterical note in his voice. "There is no 'we', priest. You wanted me dead right from the beginning, remember? Do you dare to deny that my final death along with a nice eternal trip to hell was included in your pretty little bargain? Don't be a hypocrite, Vryce! It doesn't suit you.
Damien flinched, taken aback by the truth ringing in Tarrant's voice. Yes, he had wanted the Hunter's demise with all his heart, had regarded ridding the world of Tarrant's taint forever as his holy mission, but his feelings had changed over time to caring, camaraderie and maybe to something deeper he couldn't admit yet, not even to himself.
He doesn't know, Damien marvelled, completely puzzled. He prowls through my soul, greedily devouring my fear along with my blood as befits a true predator of the night, but he cannot read my true feelings for him. Dear God, have mercy on this blackest of souls.
Without thinking about the consequences of his actions Damien stepped closer and put a comforting hand on Tarrant's icy shoulder.
Gerald's eyes widened with shock, and he blinked, just this once, his gaze passing between Vryce's face and the human hand on his shoulder with stunned disbelief. For a short moment the marble mask softened visibly, and a pitiful look passed over his delicate features, so forlorn and human that Damien's heart wept for him.
The priest held his breath, hoping against hope, but much too soon the white face hardened again, and looking into the empty eyes, windows to a lightless world of terror far beyond human imagination, Damien had to grit his teeth to prevent them from clattering.
The fierce attack came without so much as a warning, and the breath was knocked out of Vryce when he hit the hard stone floor with Gerald hovering over him like the angel of death.
White teeth glittered in the moonlight, and when Tarrant bent down for the kill Damien murmured a short prayer, putting his soul into God's hands.
"That's not quite what I had in mind", the Hunter whispered, his voice low with twisted delight. "You concealed it well, priest, but when you touched me your emotions were too strong to stay hidden. Now I know your heart, and what you can sacrifice for the young lady's sake."
Gerald's cruel smile made Damien's skin crawl. Whatever 'sacrifice' the Hunter had in mind he was pretty sure he wouldn't like it, not one bit, but when the adept continued his worst expectations were exceeded by far.
"Just imagine tempting one of God's faithful servants to embrace a demon in the house of God, Vryce, an act so vile it defies description and worthy of a creature they call the 'darkest prince of hell'. Don't you think that's a fitting deed to redeem me in the eyes of the Unnamed, priest? Enough to earn me a reprieve, at the very least?"
Damien was struck speechless. 'Embrace a demon?' When the terrible truth dawned on him Vryce almost choked on his own breath. He'd been foolish to delude himself into believing that he might be able to show his companion a way back into the light. The darkness inside Tarrant was too deeply rooted, his soul warped by the forces of evil for nearly a millennium to suit their sinister purposes. It was too late for him, maybe had been too late since the true night he slaughtered his innocent family.
Black despair welled up inside him and bitterness, finding an outlet in a helpless outburst of impotent wrath. "You sick bastard! No way that you use my accursed feelings for you for committing a sacrilege! Get it over with and kill me, if that makes you feel better, but keep your blasphemous fantasies to yourself, Hunter."
Tarrant didn't even bother to answer, but the girl that had been lying apathetically on the floor, her breath barely discernible, suddenly started writhing and screaming again in agony. Horrified Damien squeezed his eyes shut, revolted beyond words.
'To protect the innocent in peace and in war, with my own life, with need be…' Those had been the words he had sworn once, when he'd been accepted into the Order of the Golden Flame, words of faith and honour that had been written down by the Prophet nearly a millennium ago. By the very man who'd wholeheartedly succumbed to the seductive whispers of evil, leaving his tainted mark on everybody he associated with, including himself. With all his resolve Damien suppressed a sob. This wasn't the time for crying; duty came first, as befitted a knight.
"It's all right, Gerald. But let the poor child go first? I don't want her to witness it. You know I will keep my word.
For a moment Tarrant just stared at him as if weighing his soul, a slight frown on his face. "You really never fail to surprise me, priest. Have it your way, then."
The Hunter straightened and faced the girl, his grey eyes taking on an uncanny light of their own. To Damien's heartfelt relief the barmaid instantly calmed down and opened her eyes slowly, as if waking up from a trance.
"What am I doing here, Mers? What happened to me?" The young voice was still a bit shaky, and the girl's eyes passed apprehensively between the two men, but otherwise no lasting harm seemed to have been done to her, and for that only Damien was grateful. Hopefully she would never know either what price he'd have to pay for her safety or how close her encounter with death had been that night.
"You came here to pray, child, and fainted", Vryce replied, sounding much more priestly than he actually felt. Pulling himself together he offered the young beauty his arm to help her up. "I think you should go home and have some rest."
"Thank you, father. Maybe you are right." The pretty girl managed a small smile, but shot a wary glance towards Tarrant who had retreated partway into the shadows again. When the door closed behind her Damien took a deep breath and turned round to face the Hunter.
"Now it's just the two of us, Vryce."