"Silver nitrate. Bet you weren't expecting that"
Lucian, great leader of the Lycans, falls. Without a scream, without a whimper, only a sigh.
Pain. Pain like nothing on earth. Burning away everything. Strength. Dignity. Hope. Gone, gone, gone. Life. Love. Sonya…
And there perhaps it should have ended. Lucian slain by Kraven. As it was written, so it shall be, what were once lies now purified to ring true. On the surface, anyway. Kraven the hero would still be a falsehood, but Kraven the coward would have done the deed nonetheless.
Yes, maybe that would have been a fitting end to this story. But sometimes the book refuses to close quite so easily. A last surge of adrenaline through spoiled muscle, a breath of air just reaching exhausted lungs, the memory of just what is being fought for surging into the consciousness just before it would have lapsed forever. And suddenly the end is not an end, the axe hovers on the brink of its fall and life continues, even if but for a few stolen minutes.
Howls and swords clashing, ripping skin and tearing fur. Each breath brings with it more pain, but still they come, each one a small miracle in the midst of all this bloodshed – my legacy, my curse.
The seemingly lifeless body on the ground twitches slightly, a quick shaking breath and leaden eyelids forced open, seeing grey, grey, all detail blurring out of sight.
Pain, pain, pain…
He fights to keep his eyes open, blinking to clear his vision and fighting against the voice inside his head that tells him to close his eyes, close his eyes and wrap himself up in sweet numbing exhaustion, let it carry him away. He can feel the liquid silver still banding through him, his blood turned to poison that even he cannot rid himself of. The most he can do is to fight the acid's progress to his weakly beating heart, that task in itself sapping his energy and concentration.
"Silver nitrate….weren't expecting"…."exactly why we need Michael"…"What are they gonna do to Selene?"…"It's Victor"…"feared a blending of the species"…
Blending of the species. Michael. The Death Dealer. Me. Sonja…The scent of vampire blood in the air, bitter and pungent. A full syringe unbroken on the stone floor, a long metre away.
Blending of the species. Me. Michael. Amelia.
The scent of vampire blood in the air. A full syringe unbroken on the stone floor.
Blending of the species. Me.
Slowly, painfully, the fallen lycan pulls himself up on shaking arms, unblinking eyes fixed on Raze's fallen pack, dragging, forcing, willing himself forward, inch by inch, until a clawing, twitching hand grips cool glass filled with dark, dark blood. The needle slides into a silver laced vein, any sting lost in the whirlpool of other pains wracking his dying body, and with his last ounce of energy, Lucian pushes the blood in to his veins, vampire venom to mingle with the poison already there.
Whatever doesn't kill you…
His whole body shakes, falling back to the ground as muscles warp, bones split, crack, reform. He's changing, mutating into something new, bastard child of the bloodlines, Amelia's blood forcing the transformation of his poison riddled body.
More than five hundred years ago, in a village in west Germany, ravaged by fire and by one of our number - maddened after capture by the Death Dealers. We came too late, no survivors to recruit, our old comrade gone too far in his frenzy, the villagers torn and past saving. But then the moon twisted out from behind the clouds, full and bright, and those twisted shards of bodies grew and changed and joined us in lycan form.
The night alive with howls at the miracle the moon had wrought.
And the morning split with cries when their lycan forms melted back to mangled human bodies, capable only of a few brief breaths and then death.
The changes halt, and Lucian's eyes snap open. No pupil, no iris, just black, deep black. He feels less changed from himself than in his familiar lycan body, but at the same time totally alien, senses heightened to a point that is near painful. He sees the tiny particles of dust in the air, tastes the scents of each individual vampire and lycan within these walls, all competing for attention. And he hears, amidst all the noise and howls of battle, two voices…
"They'd kill you too, just for helping me." The boy, Michael, the one who had seen, who had understood.
"I know."
Lucian pulls a hiss through jagged teeth. Death Dealer. Not just any. Victor's own trained killer. Selene. Then black eyes widen.
"What are they gonna do to Selene?"
Blending of the species. Michael. Selene.
Me, back in chains on my knees, watching her burn.
Sonja…
It will not happen again.
