Chapter 12: "Confessions of the Twilight"

-"It takes more than just blood to kill a chevalier. Things like irrational love, lust, desperation, power and sometimes even loyalty, can cause a more powerful self-destruction."

The dark starred mantle that is known as night sky fell upon the city of lights, filling every corner with its raven color and its stars. As it fell, every corner, alley, street, and house filled the capital with the many electric lights that had named the city. A chilly breeze flowed, cooling everything it had on range, even the most remote, deep and hidden places in the tallest buildings and structures of the city; which are more likely to be unknown to the eye of the average, wandering men. The rain returned once again, as a soft and pleasant shower, which somehow brought more life to the Parisian night. The sound of the raindrops was accompanied by the sound of a beautiful lullaby, that by now it was well known to the city, but it indeed produced such a feeling of relief and well-being to anyone that heard it.

A cracking fire burned, enlightening with a yellow-orange glow that gave more of an aspect of twilight than shadows to the room. And it burned in such a way, that it warmed the place giving a cozy and sleepy feeling, rather that the feeling of the fierce, burning flames.

Her sleeping figure lay on the warm floor, moving occasionally, as she tried to find some rest in her dreams. The music continued as she kept sleeping, but once that she started to react it stopped, and the warmth of the fire disappear into a more embracing and familiar warmth.

"Where am I?" she asked sleepily, "Am I still sleeping?"

"No, but stay still you are still weak." a voice pleaded.

The queen disobeyed and moved; even though her body was not numb anymore, some pain remained. She opened her eyes and realized that her body was warm and covered with a long dark jacket. Her eyes scanned the room, looking for the voice of her savior, but from her position she only could see the fire, and the ruble and debris of the building.

"Is this still the Cinq Fleche building?" she asked with curiosity.

"Yes, it is." the man said, "I still beg you to remain still, you where about to catch a cold."

His cold hand, which was covered with gauze, removed a bang of her dark hair from her face, but his hand was stopped as she slowly raised her hand to hold his. She grabbed the gauze and pulled it, uncovering a soft and marble white hand. She turned her head in disbelief of maybe finding somebody else, and saw him sitting besides her.

"It's really you, after all this you are here." she said as tears gently fell from her eyes.

"Yes it is me; I had to keep my promise this time." Haji said looking at her.

He gently wiped the tears from her face, as she kept looking into his deep blue eyes. She tried to move, but she was stopped by her chevalier, who kept stroking her long and dark hair. For her it seemed like an eternity since she had seen him for the last time.

"Your hair has grown so long," he said as he kept stroking her hair, "almost as long as when we used to live in "the Zoo"of Bordeaux."

Her white face flushed into a shade of pink at the sound of the complement, it was indeed true that since she waked up her hair had grown longer than the last time she was awake; now it was almost the same length while living in the zoo.

She occasionally kept looking at his hand, trying to look discreet, but it was hard not to see that his hand was "human" once again after almost forty years.

"How come that you escape from the Metropolitan opera house?" she asked curious.

"After you left," he said clearing his voice, "the opera house, was destroyed. But I somehow survived the explosion. My head and torso remained intact, but my body took long to recover. During your sleep, I kept hiding in New York, it was until a year ago that my body healed completely and I could use my powers to look out for you."

"But, didn't Amshel pierced through your torso?" she asked confused.

"He did not damage my heart." he said smiling, "It takes more than just blood to kill a chevalier. Things like irrational love, lust, desperation, power and sometimes even loyalty, can cause a more powerful self-destruction."

Her eyes once again flooded into tears, she could not help it. Since she woke up she had passed through a lot of things to find him once again. The long sleepless nights of blurred memories, the indescribable aching pain, the nightmares caused by migraines, all which reduced to relief of feeling his presence besides her when she woke up after such surprises.

He kept stroking her hair while she lay down on the floor; her body was still too weak to move, but even though she did not wanted to interrupt such tender moment.

The room was filled with silence for sometime, although they had spent so much time together, and some years alone on their own, they did not needed to speak too much to know how each other felt, so many years of traveling together had shown them this and much more about each other. Even though, the silence was an evasion, they did need to speak about many things of different sorts.

For a moment, she evaded his sight, looking at the burning red fire instead of his cold blue eyes, she did not show it but she felt uneasy, impatient, and mostly thirsty for his blood. After all, it was his blood what she needed to regain forces. She slowly tried to rise and sit, trying to get closer to his body, especially his neck, but she barely could raise herself with her body still sore and partially injured.

"Agh!" she grunted in pain.

"Saya!" the chevalier screamed as he caught her from falling.

"I'm just. . ." the queen replied confused.

He slowly pulled out a dagger from his pocket and swiftly cut his tender and white skin, making blood pour from the scar. He slowly put the blood into his mouth, and reached her soft and red lips, kissing her with such passion and intensity. This although was a "blood kiss" this time it was not entirely lead by necessity or by hunger, but mostly lead by passion, love and care. There are things you tend to miss, and this was one of those things.

Her white skin flushed into a deeper shade of pink almost red, her arms slowly surrounded his neck as they kept kissing. For first time in many years, neither of them though they would enjoy such thing, that they have seen rather as a way to awaken from hibernation.

The moment broke with such awkwardness, like those moments that are interrupted with out any kind of advice but always with a reason behind it, mostly a good reason.

They sat again in the dusty marble floor of the building in debris, watching each other as a couple of teenagers who just had their first kiss, blushed and slightly confused. The warm embracing moment turned into a cold and suspense scene in which is unlikely to know what is to happen next, but by heart you could always tell it is not likely to be something good, but something rather more "evil".

The grunting screams of thirst that usually identified a chiropteran returned, but instead of being a swarm of them, only one injured and partially destroyed chiropteran appeared, sulking slowly through the darkness and moving the debris that blocked his way through the partially lighted room. His grunted screams seemed not to intensify, but there was a kind of intensifying ticking noise in them that provoked a headache to the chiropteran queen.

The loyal chevalier looked at the chiropteran and saw a dark bundle attached to his leg, probably the source of the ticking noises that bothered Saya so much, then he returned his gaze to his queen and saw her covering her ears and about to scream in desperation.

A low-pitched screamed came out of her throat, and the windows and glasses in the entire building to shattered at the sound of the scream, in a rain of thousand pieces of small glass daggers; that could easily leave a small cut with only touching your skin.

As the chiropteran slowly advance toward its target, the chevalier took his queen in his arms and without thinking it twice, jumped through the glass-less windows, which were previously shattered, landing with enormous grace and safe in the nearby deserted grounds of the building. Not an injured leg, not even a single scratch could be seen in his white skin, but it indeed reassured of their inhuman force and of the love he had toward his queen.

Meanwhile the chiropteran, searched confused for its prey, in the higher floors of the building it also seemed that everything was literally coming down.

The glass ceiling that covered the conservatory in the last floor of the Cinq Fleche broke in a shower of glasses, everybody look confused at each other while they covered themselves of the cutting pieces of glass. Serenity in the worst of moments though, was something that the queer chevalier had as one of his many hidden talents; he remained in his seat enjoying of the moment as he saw everyone else ducked near the rose bushes and marble columns.

The queer chevalier stood up and walked around through the conservatory, looking calm as always, shaking the pieces of glass from his clothes. Somehow he did not looked amazed, but almost as if he already knew what could or was going on in that moment.

"David!" the red haired man screamed.

"I know Kai!" he responded as he dialed in his cell phone, "I'm calling Joel right now. "

"That is useless right now." the queer chevalier said laughing, "I suggest that if you appreciate your lives, you shall leave this building."

"How do we know you are not lying?" Kai screamed.

"You have a problem with trust, you know that?" he said as he smirked. "Well, at least in trusting me. But oh, well; stay if you must value your precious Saya over your lives."

Kai looked angered at the blond chevalier who, stood on top of one of the marble columns.

The chevalier rose up in the sky in form of what you could like to describe as a kind of giant bat, and flew out of the collapsing building; they saw then the truth in his words, and did what he had recommended, escape if they appreciated being alive.

"What about Saya!" Kai once again asked, "Didn't we came here to look for her?"

"She is fine. Now leave." a voice from above called.

They evacuated the building as fast as they could, moving rapidly from staircase to staircase.

As they reached the bottom floors, a sudden explosion was heard, and most of the building which was not in ruins or already collapsed, disappeared. They kept moving even though of the explosion, it was not time for asking questions or wondering what could be possibly happening. At the moment they reached the ground level, the building collapsed entirely once and for all, destroying the once powerful pharmaceutical enterprise.

"First Yanbaru, then the Opera House," Kai said panting as he moved out of the debris, "is every place we go on a mission, destined to be destroyed?"

"Maybe you bring the bad luck hon." Mao said reluctantly.

"Gee, thanks." he replied sarcastically as everyone else laughed, "We need to look for Saya."

"Well, it seems she . . . they had founded us." Lewis said perplexed.

A tall figure walked in the darkness, towards them, it was Haji with Saya in his arms; everyone did not knew how to react, because it seemed as something from the daily basis, but at the same time it seemed as something shocking when you stop seeing it after a few years. He lay Saya's feet on the ground, and she carefully grasped Haji's arm in order not to fall to fall, she seemed to be still a little bit weak. Then as always, a familiar loud and somehow sarcastic laugh was heard, from behind them.

The queer chevalier was sitting in the wire fence, watching the "reunion scene" while everybody's attention focused on Saya and Haji. It was when he laughed, that everybody's attention moved from the couple to the chevalier on the fence. He slowly descended with a grace you could only find in a non-human being and moved toward the group of people.

"Oh, dear! Such a lovely reunion." he said sarcastically, "I should have brought my camera! What a shame though."

"Nathan!" Saya said as her eyes literally red glowed with anger.

"Nice to see you remembered that your chevalier would be here." he said as he stood a fair distance away from her, "Though you haven't told him about the kids, have you?"

She stood in silence watching the chevalier in front of her, she did not answer because she knew it was true. Nathan saw her reaction and just laughed as he walked forward towards her. He grabbed her hand and saw her directly to the eyes.

"It seems you haven't." he said sighing as he let her hand go, "Well, it seems we all keep secrets, don't we Saya?

His words seem to infuriate her more and more, how could he stand there and talk so calmly about something it did not concerned him?

"It seems you know a lot about secrets." She said daring, "Right, Nathan?"

"Oh, well, I might know a thing or two, maybe more" he said trying not to laugh.

"Well," David said "it would be helpful though if you said some of those."

"Maybe I will," Nathan replied,"But not here and not now, maybe I will if you let me visit the daughters of my precious Diva. Would you?"

"It's a deal" he said as he picked up his phone, "But you will have to come with us."

"Ok." Nathan said sighing, "I'll make the sacrifice."

"Joel would be expecting us in the Red Shield Headquarters, in an hour or so." he said as he ended the call, "Lets move on."

The way back to the headquarters was longer than usual when you spend that time with people you would rather not like to spend time and in a situation you would like to somehow escape of its awkwardness.

The van stopped by the harbor, as everybody descended and moved along, Saya and Nathan stood behind before they went into the ship.

"Why are you willing to help us?" Saya asked him confused.

"My dear queen," he said," it is only matter of time until it is all revealed, and believe me it is not a thing that we need. Besides I am a chevalier with no mistress, it was my choice to tell you what is going on."

"What do you mean?" she asked perplexed.

"You'll see." he said with a smirk as he walked to the ship.

Everything seemed like twilight, not one thing nor the other, but both; just causing to raise the same questions as always; questions that caused to confuse and raise more theories that changed their current perspective on their reality.