Twenty-Eight
Never Was
Juliet had been dreaming.
She stood in her old bedroom in Lord Highland's manor, the night Mika left. Though there was no calendar in the room, and no noticeable hint that it was that very night, she knew it. Juliet knew that she stood on the cusp of her heartbreak. She had awoken alone in the master bedroom, the sprawling bed and i's exuberant canopy weighing down on her with an oppressive force. The feeling forced her from the bed, stark naked, and made her way through the house, looking for her lover. She searched the ground floor, but found no sign of him, and climbed the stairs. When she entered her old room and shut the door, she stared around in vain, unable to comprehend why he would be missing. Part of her wanted to put clothes on, another part of her wanted to curl into a ball and cry, but she didn't know why.
There was a knock on the door.
"Mika?" she asked, turning towards the heavy wooden door. It was already open, though she vividly remembered closing it. The knock came again, from farther in the estate.
"Mika is that you?" Juliet called, walking into the hall. Again, knocking. "Please, wait! I'm coming!" she began to run down the hallway, stopping at the large, spiraling staircase. She looked down, and instead of seeing the bottom of the stairs on the first floor, she saw a never-ending spiral, twisting down, down, down until there was nothing but a speck. The knock reverberated upwards, vibrating through her ears and coercing her to follow it down.
Juliet took the first step, then the second, and then she was walking steadily downward, then she was running. She was running frantically down the stairs and she didn't know why. As she followed the spiraling path she passed by people, floating in the center of the stairs. They scared Juliet immensely, because as she ran, they aged, graying and becoming wrinkled and ugly right before her eyes. She then noticed that they were all people she knew, people from town, Jens, her friend and employer, Kathy van Horn, and then they morphed into people she didn't know, but somehow recognized; a bronze-skinned woman with wild hair, and even wilder eyes, mummified before her. Perhaps that is why she kept running, flying down the stairs at frightening speed with no concern for what lay at the bottom.
Did the entire situation seem odd to her? Of course it did, but she found herself wondering what other choice she could have made. Had she stayed upstairs, would she have found Mika? Would the knocking have stopped? And what, exactly, was beckoning her down to the first floor?
Just as she began to fear the staircase would never end, just as tears began to form behind her eyes, and she wondered if she would ever stop running, the stairs gave way to ground, instantly transporting her to the bottom of the staircase, the entrance to the foyer. She tripped and fell to the ground, right at the feet of a person. Hopefully, she looked up, praying to see Mika. Instead she was met by the strangest man she'd ever seen.
He was round in the center, with short legs. Dressed in suspenders and loafers, he clutched a strangely medically accurate heart-shaped watch against his stomach, eyeing her from behind a pair of small round sunglasses. He looked at the watch, then down at her again, shaking his head. Idly, Juliet wondered if perhaps this man had been waiting for her, and she was late.
"Well, well," he said, the heart-shaped watch in his hand pulsed and glowed a vibrant red shine. "I found you. Finally, I found you. It took me a very long time. They hid you very well," he smiled wickedly, and Juliet blanched at the sight. The smile was one of pure malice, showing nothing but the intention to cause terrible pain. "But I found you."
She stared at his watch, watching it pulse in an effort to keep from looking back at his terrifying smile. She tried to ask him who he was, what he was talking about, but the words wouldn't come out. Her heart was thumping wild with fear, and she watched, aghast, as his watched pulsed in time with her. Without warning, Juliet looked to his face, and he was smiling. He squeezed the watch, and she fell, crippled to the floor as her own heart screamed out in pain, compressed within a vice. Juliet watched, horrified as the man began to laugh. He squeezed the watch again, and this time her voice escaped, and she screamed for dear life. His laughter grew louder, and he let his grip on the watch lessen. The pain in her chest eased slightly, and without hesitating to question the connection between her heart and the one he held in his hand, Juliet took the chance.
She ran from him, from the crushing pain in her chest as he squeezed the watch. Juliet turned the corner, running though the mansion with abandon. She ran into the foyer and found herself engulfed by a wall of flame. The heat ripped at her skin, charring it and turning her every breath into ash. She screamed, and the flames found their way inside her body, burning her from the inside out. Anytime she tried to move, the fire, which seemed to encompass her body in a tube, followed her. There was no escape, everything she touched, each sofa, each lamp, the heavy velvet curtains that hung behind the great wooden table, burst into flames, crumbling to ash before her. Everything except for the ancient grandfather clock near the fireplace. Juliet clutched it with all her might, willing its flame-retardant body to merge with hers, to stop the pain. She watched as flames consumed her home, devouring everything around her, leaving nothing to remember, yet she lived, her body breaking down into flecks of ash and bone. Juliet spent an eternity inside of that fire, watching the clock tick, hours upon hours. One day, two, three, so many that she lost count of the hours as her flesh crumbled and her eyes and lips dried up into nothing. The wall of flame closed in on her, becoming a vice around her body, keeping her in constant agony as she gripped the clock. Years went by, then decades, centuries, millennia. The pain never ceased.
Then, as if by the hand of Gods she'd never truly believed in, suddenly the fire was gone.
She lay on cold stone, vaguely aware that she was alive. Her body, however, was still burned, black, flaking, and not functioning. Before her stood a man, crouched down and hunched over, visibly shaking. He was clad in all black. Juliet's eyes widened painfully. She hoped against hope that it was the one she sought.
Her hand, black and charred as it was, moved towards him, beckoning him near, her ragged breath produced its own smoke and she wheezed, "Mikaaaa?"
His shoulders tensed, and he turned then, a jerky, barely contained movement that made her broken body shiver as she watched. Juliet struggled to look up at his face, she fought the urge to scream at the pain that coursed through her body, certain her blood had evaporated, certain her heart would soon stop and the need to give up overwhelmed her. But she couldn't give up. She needed to see him. She needed to see Mika before she let go.
Finally her eyes fell on his face, and she gasped, choking on the blackened air that filled her lungs. Mika's eyes were hollow, soulless, and his mouth, filled with needle-like teeth, dripped fresh blood down his chin and onto his black shirt. She realized a body lay under him and she tried to scream, but found she couldn't. Her throat was ripped out, terrifying amount of blood poured from the jagged wound. Juliet tried to reach with her arm to cover it, to stop the bleeding, but Mika was there then, standing over her, the blood from his mouth dripping onto her face. Juliet stared, dumbfounded, suddenly aware that she was the body beneath her lover, and she watched in silence as he ravaged her throat before her.
'How can there be two of me?' she thought, laying idly, her eyes searched helplessly for her blackened form in the shadows of the smoke, and found her own gaze. The blue eyes of her charred body were pouring tears onto the ground, staring back at her. She could feel both pains, the burnt flesh sitting uselessly on her body, and the stilling of her heart from blood loss. Mika stopped his attack on her as the realization washed over her, she was dying. This is what dying felt like. As she took her last hiccupping breaths, his face appeared before her eyes, both sets, and there were two Mikas, one for each of her. Their mouths bloody, and eyes pitch black and void of all feeling, they leant forward and brushed their lips against hers.
Right before they plunged their clawed hands into her chest, and ripped out her heart. In her last fleeting moments of life, as the blood drained from one body and dust flew from the other, two pairs of eyes beheld two separate things in the hands of their lover/killer.
A heart, pulsing and oozing red, and a diamond, large and shaped like a dagger. The two Mika's turned from them and walked towards each other. One held out the heart and the other held up the diamond dagger. Both Juliet's watched with fading eyes as the dagger came down on the beating heart, rending it in two for the Vampire's to feast upon.
WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
"Somebody sedate her!" a harsh and masculine, voice barked. The small woman on the slab in front of him began convulsing violently, shrieking like a banshee.
"NO NO NO NO NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" her back arched, her mouth open in a painful 'O'. "GET AWAY FROM ME! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
As the medics rushed to tranquilize her with their knock-out breath (which only served to calm her rages for a good fifteen minutes), Mika ver Leth rushed inside. "What's happening now? Is she alright?"
The head medic fought back the urge to roll his eyes. "Night terrors. Recent trauma. Normal."
Mika stood rigid, watching helplessly as four medics simultaneously breathed the noxious gas onto Juliet's face. She calmed instantly. The Vampires backed away from her, and their leader descended upon her freshly bandaged midsection, inspecting for any stretches or tears in the part-stitching/part-magical saliva bond that had formed. The sutures had torn along the center of the wound, which seemed to bleed endlessly.
"This is no good," he sighed, running his fingers along the torn flesh. "This wound isn't healing. She's barely holding together." With steady hands he applied a generous amount of healing saliva from his own mouth, slathering the viscous fluid upon the wound, which visibly tightened. He then bandaged her stomach tenderly, applying three layers of the thick white cloth to her skin. Upon completion, he looked to his Prince, whose eyes had darkened. Mika's face flashed a warning, but the medic still spoke. "We should try to make her comfortable."
"NO!" Mika barked, rushing forward and grabbing the medic by his frock. He slammed the Vampire into the stone wall at the foot of the bed. The small medical bay shook from the impact.
"Sire, she's clearly-kkk!" Mika silenced the medic's protest, pressing his forearm into the Vampire's throat.
"You will do everything you can to save her." The Prince's words were guttural and growling, forced from his throat when all his body wanted to do was break the man in half. "You keep her alive, dammit. I am your Prince! You have to obey me, you-"
There came a strangled coughing sound from beside them, and the medics around them gasped. A gravelly voice rose up, "Whatever you have to say to him, you may as well redirect over here." Mika turned his head towards the bed. Jewel stared at him, leaning upon her elbows.
Her eyes were bright, ethereal blue, clear of the insanity from before, they stared at him with intelligence that belied her frenzied screaming from earlier. Mouth agape, Mika dropped the medic from his grasp, and the Vampire rubbed weakly at his throat. "You-" the Prince began.
"I'm awake." She snapped. With great strain she sat up, and immediately the medics rushed to stop her, but she refused, casting them a dark look the promised violence if they stepped any nearer. "Mika ver Leth." She hissed. Mika fought back tears, instead placing a stoic expression upon his features. They stared each other down for what felt like eternity. Jewel's upper lip twitched with visible restraint. Suddenly she was unable to meet his gaze, falling backwards onto the stone slab with all color drained from her skin. Needing no further instruction, the lead medic rushed to her side, inspecting the now blood soaked bandages over her abdomen. Mika's gaze never left her face, and from her prone position she continued to meet his eyes. The other medics rushed to their leaders side, obscuring his view, but still he stared where he knew her eyes were.
Time passed slowly as Mika watched the medics care for the woman lying on the stone slab. Her life hung by a thread that they continuously reinforced, only to have become worn down time and time again. The Prince crouched, and then sat, never taking his gaze from that spot. His eyes grew tired, stinging and reddened even as his teeth began to ache from his tightly clenched jaw. He wrung his hands like a man waiting at his child's birth, waiting for news of life.
Finally, the medics stepped back, and Mika could see Jewel's body, pale and still, her eyes closed almost tranquilly. All of the Vampires stared at him as he took a tentative step towards her, then another, until finally he stood next to her. Mika knelt before her, reaching for her frail hand, a mask of pain on his face. But he could not take it, for it had moved. He looked to her, and found her eyes upon his face, her mouth an extreme scowl.
"Juli- Jewel." He corrected, visibly relieved. Jewel did not respond, her only action, her eyes searing onto his. Hesitantly the Prince took a step back. "You're in good hands." He tried to sound reassuring, hoping that by showing he was trying to take care of her, she would be relieved, perhaps less hostile. He turned for the exit.
"Mika ver Leth," she said again, and Mika turned to find her eyes had never left from him. He moved to speak but she cut him off. "You'll regret letting me live."
Promptly, and without any further words, she lost consciousness, leaving Mika to stare dumbly at her body and wonder if perhaps she was right.
