A/N: I am happy to announce that I have updated yet again at a rapid pace. This chapter isn't as long as the previous, but I hope it is still as interesting. I'll try to post Chapter Eight as soon as I can, though I haven't written any of it yet. Regardless, I hope you enjoy this chapter. Thank you for your interest!


It was silent for a long time. Monsieur Alucard simply gazed at me, his eyes never moving from mine, and I could feel him searching for something deeper. I tried to keep my cool, although I never did like being examined so closely by anyone; I've always been more comfortable in the audience, watching the person in the spotlight perform. There had been times when I'd been the center of many people's attention before, and even if I did find it enjoyable, it was because of my profession . . . which I will cover some other time, hopefully.

Minutes passed, and I wondered if perhaps Monsieur Alucard had found what he was looking for in me. He sat as still as a marble statue, which I knew was possible for someone without a pulse but was unsettling.

I imagined myself in a field of dead grass, surrounded by sculptures the size of trees. The sky was endlessly black, but for some reason, I could see the intent expression on each statue's stone face. I was dressed in a simple cream-colored, cotton chemise and ballet slippers, and I couldn't remember how I'd found myself in the middle of the stone forest or why I was there.

All I knew was that every statue was staring right at me, and I couldn't remember how to speak or move. Gradually, I felt my lungs begin to stiffen. My breathing halted and I suffocated, all while my skin turned to a cold, haunting pale grey. . . .

I had to stop thinking so morbidly, I reminded myself. People didn't turn into statues, unless you believed in the Greek mythology that led to Medusa. I suppose you could count Pompeii's victims to be statues as well, but being covered with molten lava and frozen in time was a bit different than actually turning to stone.

I shook my head dismissively.

"How do I know you're an angel?" Monsieur Alucard's voice broke the still air then and caught me by surprise. It took me a minute to answer, actually.

"Well, I have wings," I said simply enough after I recovered from the shock.

His eyebrows arched in interest. "There's something I'd like to see."

"All right, but if I need them later on, you're paying for it. I'm a relatively young angel, so I can only summon them once every three days." I sighed. "It will take me centuries to become more powerful."

"If you need to use your wings over the course of the next three days, Lieut. Aurelle, I will cover for you. Consider any enemies that bother you during that time frame slaughtered." He granted me a dark smile.

I thought of Monsieur Alucard before me on the battle field, slaying people as easily as one would break a toothpick, with blood spraying everywhere, and I shuddered. It was a kind gesture, but I hoped I could handle any upcoming combat on my own.

"Your thoughts are quite flattering, Lieutenant," he chuckled. I'd forgotten he could still see inside my mind.

"I'll get this over with," I muttered to myself and lifted from the chair, grabbing my cane along the way. Usually, I would prefer standing straight up, but I didn't feel like stretching the skin over my still-unknown injury. I thought of asking Monsieur Alucard about it suddenly, but I figured I could simply ask him after my little display.

I looked the room over and decided that the best place to stand would be in front of Monsieur Alucard, with my chair moved and a few meters between us—I didn't want my wings to knock anything over, after all. So, I moved the chair and stood before Monsieur Alucard, although I had my side facing him so I wouldn't have to watch him while I did this. Summoning my wings took a lot of concentration.

"All right, watch closely if you will," I instructed. "This sort of thing only takes a few seconds."


I closed my eyes on Monsieur Alucard's room, and focused my mind on peace. I pictured the ocean, just like the one I used to admire when I visited Greece one year; it was a vibrant, enthralling bluish-green, seemingly made out of crystal and far prettier than anything else in the world. Its calm waves would tumble over themselves with bubbling, frothy tips and vanish into the deep only to resurface seconds later.

I remembered standing by the ledge on the cruise ship, my hair done in ringlets that framed my face and flowed down to the end of my shoulder blades. I was wearing a white, sleeveless dress made of silk that went past my toes and skimmed the floor. I tied the dress at my waist with a dark-blue fabric belt and walked the ship barefoot, feeling truly in my element.

Granted, Greece wasn't and can never be my home country, but I wasn't thinking of Greece; I was absorbed with the beauty of the ocean. With the water surrounding me at all sides, the sun shining brightly in the sky, and a soft breeze blowing through my hair, I felt more alive than I could ever remember. It didn't matter that I was only eighteen.

"It's amazing, isn't it?" A beautiful boy—my first love—said from beside me, his arms wrapped around my waist. I could smell the cologne on him, and I reveled in its scent as I knew it would stay on my skin until I washed later. I looked over to him, adored his deep blue eyes, and watched as the wind playfully whisked his black bangs across his forehead.

"Yes. It is wonderful," I told him, my English sounding strained from recent learning.

He smiled and kissed me lightly. "I wish I could stay here with you like this forever, Soleil. . . ."


I was forced from my reminiscent daydream by the notion of my wings' bones solidifying and fusing with my shoulder blades. Unbeknownst to me while in my faraway land, tears had rolled down my cheeks and speckled my nightgown. I wiped at my face and turned around to Monsieur Alucard, feeling the air whoosh around me as I carried my great wings at my back.

"Well? They're lovely, aren't they?" I smiled weakly. My recent memory was so sweet, it hurt—but I wasn't about to let that show. Monsieur Alucard was interested in my seraphic status, not my past, and that memory had nothing to do with being an angel.

He stood from his throne and stepped toward me, circling me several times. I felt his hands graze a wing's bone and stroke a few feathers. Then, he whistled.

"Your wings are gigantic," he mentioned, and I was well aware of that fact. One wing alone has a span nearly thrice the size of my own body.

"The colors are peculiar as well," I heard him mutter thoughtfully. "I've always imagined angels to have silver or gold wings—a color to behold and mystify. Your feathers are lilac and white, with the occasional black."

"Angels with higher status have more extravagant wings," I explained. "Archangels have the nicest, which are usually gold, then the lesser—but still honorable—angels have silver. As the nobility decreases, so does the beauty of the wings."

I added softly, "I'm definitely not that important to God's overall kingdom. Angels with hardly any significance at all are given mismatched feathers . . . and an angel's feathers turn black the more he or she does wrong."

"I don't see how you can be expected to act perfectly," Monsieur Alucard replied as he ran a hand across my wing's bone, "especially when you are given the task of living with vampires and killing Catholics."

I stifled a shiver from his hand's presence on me. "Every angel has that expectation—most of them simply stay in Heaven the whole time."

"Without as much temptation," he added, and I nodded in assent. "Lieutenant, I think you've been cheated."

I smiled. "It wouldn't be the first time, Monsieur."

He moved back to his throne and sprawled out in the same casual way he had before. It must be nice to allow yourself to act so laid-back, I thought as I took out my chair again and sat.

"I'm not always this calm, Lieutenant," he answered my thoughts. "However, being around you is quite serene."

I tried not to blush; he was probably just trying to flatter me. "Do you believe me now, Monsieur Alucard?" I asked.

"Well, judging from your wings, and the ability you have to melt metal with your hands. . . ."

I gawked. "How did you know. . . .?"

"You freed me from my shackles at the Catholic-infested cathedral by using that talent," he reminded me with a smirk, and I remembered. "You didn't think I noticed."

"Non, I didn't," I murmured.

Abruptly, his smirk faded. "I believe you, Lieutenant, but I'm still curious." He paused, perhaps for dramatic effect. "How did you die?"

I gulped. This was going to be fun to remember. . . .


I woke with a stir, the bright ceiling lights at the infirmary scalding my weary eyes. I was reclined, so I couldn't see my legs, and it was hard to see my arms over the thick gauze plastered to my face. My entire body ached with an unbearable, itching, burning sensation, though my left arm and legs held a different kind of pain. The agony I felt there is indescribable; worse than wolves eating into your bones cannot even begin to paint a picture. It drove me completely insane, making me long to tear my body apart just to end it all.

A nurse passed by, her curly red hair bobbing and eyes a distant green. I tried calling out to her, but I couldn't make my mouth move. I willed my arms to wave and legs kick, so I could attract attention to myself, but nothing seemed to be working. My eyes wouldn't blink. Yet somehow, I was still breathing. . . .

"What the hell happened to me?!" I cried out desperately, but only in my mind. More nurses passed me by, a doctor or two, an anaesthesiologist, but no one noticed me screaming. My legs and arms still wouldn't move.

"Hey!" I yelled with all my might, but my mouth was glued tight. "Listen to me!"

No one would. I was talking to myself, screaming with a voice no one could hear. I wanted to cry, but it was if someone stopped up my tear ducts. So I wept silently, all within the confines of my brain.

I needed to look away from this, I thought. If I could just focus on something else, like the fine stitching in the gauze around me, I might calm down a little bit. But my eyes wouldn't budge and began to sting from the lack of blinking.

My weeping only intensified. How could this be happening to me? Why couldn't I move, and why was everyone around me walking around like it was no big deal? This made no sense. . . .

"She looks so peaceful," a woman said from beside me, though the sound was muffled from the bandages around my head. She wasn't in my line of sight, so I didn't notice her before.

"No one really knows how she's feeling," a man on the other side of me answered. He had the authoritative tone of a surgeon. "She's brain-dead."

"The hell I am," I told him, even if he didn't seem to hear me. I wasn't going to give up; at some point, someone had to notice my struggle.

"Why do you keep her alive, Dr. Browinski?" the lady wondered.

"We haven't gotten a message from her parents yet signifying if it's all right for us to turn the machines off," he replied casually, as if I wasn't in the most agonizing throes of my life right beside him.

"What do you mean, 'her' parents?" I recognized the speaker that time; it was Lieut. Thompson. He led my platoon on the battle field, and even though he was hard-nosed and stubborn, he was a very nice man if you got to know him.

"Lieut. Thompson," the doctor sounded surprised. "I wasn't expecting you to visit Pvt. Shorupska."

"He was in my platoon, goddamn it," Lieut. Thompson sounded outraged. "Not to mention Shorupska here is one of my best men. Why the hell wouldn't I visit him?"

"Well, I have some confusion to clear up," Dr. Browinski remained annoyingly nonchalant, even with Lieut. Thompson sounding like he was about to jump someone.

"What?" Lieut. Thompson asked impatiently.

"Pvt. Shorupska is a woman."

It was silent for a moment. "What the hell do you mean?"

"When we had to strip him of his clothing and gear to operate, we found immediately that . . . well, he is a she. Apparently, the true Jason Shorupska is back at home, finishing high school and preparing for college. This girl must have filled in for him to allow him a regular life."

"You're really a girl, Shorupska?" Lieut. Thompson was addressing me now. He moved to look at me through my eyes, and I could see a glimmer of something in his eyes.

"Sorry, Lieutenant," I sighed, but he didn't acknowledge me with an insult or loud curse with his American accent.

"She can't hear you," the woman told him.

"Stay the fuck out of this!" I growled at her. She continued talking.

"Dr. Browinski has confirmed that she's . . . brain-dead," she said in a hushed tone. "As soon as there's word from her parents in the States, we can let her rest peacefully."

"Good luck trying to reach my parents from beyond the grave," I spat.

"I don't understand," Lieut. Thompson sounded subdued, which was scary to hear. He was usually so gung-ho and lively . . . now, he was on the verge of being pathetic.

"Shorupska was—"

"We're not sure that's even her real name, Lieutenant," the woman cut him off, and I felt like strangling her.

Apparently, so did the lieutenant, for his next words were bitter. "I don't care what his—uh, her—name is. This private stepped on a hidden ground grenade. How does that make a person go brain-dead?"

"When her legs and arms were blown off, she bled profusely and suffered from a terrible amount of blood loss. This caused various parts of her brain to die slowly, until nothing that a person could use to function normally was left. It's only her body alive right now."

"What? My legs and arms are. . . ." My head began to spin. "But then how can I still feel them?"

"Why can't you just pull the plug now?" Lieut. Thompson questioned the doctor. "I would hate to be stuck in a body like that."

"Whatever soul this woman had is gone." Dr. Browinski sounded so sure. I felt sick.

"Well, it's not right to talk about someone like they're not even there when you're standing next to their body," the lieutenant pointed out. "We should go."

"Of course," Dr. Browinski agreed.

The woman and doctor were soon gone; I could hear their footsteps trailing off into the distance. However, Lieut. Thompson stayed at my bedside for a moment after, looking me into the eyes with nearly tangible sadness.

"I'm sorry this had to happen to you." He put his hand on my chest, right above my heart. "I don't care what the doctors and nurses around here say, you know; if I can still feel your heart beating, how can you be gone?"

I felt myself beginning to crumble. "I hope they treat you good in the after life, Shorupska . . . um, whoever you are. You're definitely one of the toughest ladies I've met in a long time."


I couldn't remember anymore. It was too painful.

My body was shaking horridly, and my breath came in short, sputtered gasps. I heard a strangled voice in the distance, but I soon realized it was my own, saturated with long-forgotten sobs and whimpers. I hugged myself as tight as I could, but I still felt the way my skin never seemed to stop burning, and how my arms and legs still felt like phantoms, merely memories of the limbs I used to own. My wings were pulled in tautly around me so no one could see past their broad, long feathers and stare at my weakness.

I felt someone trying to pry through my wings' shield.

"Lieut. Aurelle, don't hide from me," said Monsieur Alucard in his smooth, deep voice.

I pulled my wings closer. "I need to be alone for a moment." I tried to fake my usual reserve, but I failed pitifully.

"No, you don't. The reason you're crashing in this way is due to your habit of bottling everything inside. I bet you didn't even tell Vanessa how you died."

He was right. At the moment, Monsieur Alucard was the only person who knew how I'd died besides me—but I was not about to tell him.

"Give me a minute," I pleaded. "I don't want to talk about it."

"When is the last time someone showed you affection, Lieutenant?"

The question was so alien, I didn't know how to answer at first. However, it didn't sound important, so I answered sourly, "I can't remember."

"How about now?"

I was too shocked to cry.

"I try to show the most minute amount of concern for you, and you push me away. Well, I suppose that is what I get for being nice to angels. No wonder I was never fond of this emotion."

I unfolded my wings slowly, unsure of what I'd just heard. "Monsieur, you care about me?"

"I'm not heartless." He made it sound like it was obvious.

"But me? Even after the way I've treated you?"

"Lieutenant, hardly anyone is fond of vampires, especially ones with reputations like mine." He smiled. "Besides, you broke your relentless code of honor for me. I was given the chance to taste a bit of your blood, which has the most intoxicating flavor."

"I gave you blood because you needed it." I thought about that for a moment. "You did need it, right?"

His grin only broadened. "You'd always treated me with so much disdain and repugnance, I began to ponder exactly how deeply those feelings ran. Once you offered me blood without even a minute's hesitation, I knew your disgust was all for show. To top it all off, you didn't just sacrifice a drop, but a vein's worth, of blood for me."

"I don't like vampires," I stated firmly. "I've never liked vampires."

"I know," he leered with a sly smile, "but somewhere in that lively heart of yours, there is a chamber gushing with your sweet blood dedicated to me."

I felt my stomach plummet to the tips of my toes, and Monsieur Alucard laughed. "That is a face I will forever find amusing."

Suddenly, a faint sifting sound filled my ears. I looked around the room until my eyes trained on Vanessa, her ghost a ghastly sight to see in such a setting. Her gaze bounced back and forth between me and Monsieur Alucard, her eyes wide with perfidy and mouth agape in outrage.