Chapter Twenty-Seven

Dante's POV

Hank- Barnabas- walked into the seer's home, making sure no one was following him. I suppose that the seer could have told him that I was following him, but I'd been paying enough attention and doing enough research that I could've guessed without a seer what she was going to tell him. So I (maybe arrogantly so) was perfectly comfortable with my spying.

He was going to fall.

The irony was delicious, really. The idea of a Nephil falling from grace, just like those who were at fault for our existence. It wasn't supposed to happen at all, but somehow he was going to be the next in a line of our fallen leaders. Now what I didn't know was who he planned on taking the mantle after he was gone. It would be stupid of me to think that he would hand it to me, although it would make perfect sense.

I take you everywhere, I make you save the life of and mind-erase my bastard child, I keep you around to know just enough of my secret plans that aren't as great as I think, even with my amazing magical potions, but no Dante I don't think you should lead my empire and make it better!

I rolled my eyes at the thought. Barnabas' empire was not as well built as he thought, if it was about to crumble at something that literally shouldn't have been possible. Still, all I had to do was bide my time. I would come of use to him again, and I would know more. I thought back to that whole debacle with the girl and that hospital trip and chuckled. He almost lost his entire plan because she was willing to die for her own cause, and I'd dare even say that made her stronger than him. Shit had been a good plan, too. Threw me for a loop, and I considered myself very well planned. She'd healed well, due to her slight Nephilim blood….

When it hit me I almost fainted.

A child.

That child.

OF COURSE! I took off into the night.

It was obvious. The only one he could have him replace him would be the one that was about to take down the second of her own predecessors.

He was desperate, which meant whatever was about to happen, it was getting close. I didn't know if I was enraged or elated.


Hank's POV

Nora stared at me, her eyes torn between distrust and worry.

"There's been an accident," I told her.

She said nothing, and I struggled to keep my calm.

"Your mom fell down the stairs. She was wearing heels and lost her balance. She has a concussion."

For a moment, her entire face changed. I wondered if this would how she looked when she'd found out about Harrison- no, it didn't show enough pain. I knew what that felt like. I remembered.

"How bad is it?" she whimpered.

"When I left the hospital, they couldn't tell me anything. I came straight here to get you. I've already signed you out with the attendance secretary. I'll drive you to the hospital."

Surprisingly, she went along with it very nicely. I wasn't even mind-tricking her. It was almost sad that her previous experience with her father- with Harrison- made this so simple with her mother. As she stepped in the car, she made this pained cry. I almost felt bad for her, and I reached out to squeeze her shoulder, but I stopped myself. I knew why we were here, and it wasn't to have a bonding moment with her.

Isn't it? Shared blood is pretty bonding!

I had to quiet my bitter thoughts. I needed to keep in character. The mission was too serious.

And then she stopped moving and didn't sit in the car.

"I want to call the hospital."

Don't you start- "We're on our way there now. In ten minutes you can talk to her in person."

"Excuse me if I'm a little worried, but this is my mom we're talking about." She sounded unmoved. It was one of those moments where half of me was extremely pissed that she couldn't just go with the plan, but the other half was proud that she had enough sense (without any real memory) to know not to trust me. Excellent intuition. But right now, it was annoying as shit.

I handed her the phone and listened to her ask whether or not Blythe was in the hospital. Blythe was very much in the hospital; I made sure to be thorough. It was unfortunate that Blythe had to fall the way she did, but all I did was make her a little dizzy. She may be annoying, but I considered humans an unnecessary situation to avoid if I possibly could. I wouldn't have actually pushed her- she just was collateral in the bigger picture.

The bigger picture. I couldn't help but sound morose while I explained to Nora how I 'found' Blythe at the bottom of the stairs. The bigger picture involved….involved a descendant. Because I wouldn't live long enough to see my plans come to fruition. Because somewhere, somehow, I wouldn't be able to succeed. Because my….my descendant was working with a fallen angel, somehow, to bring me down. The empire I'd been forced to work for, that I'd put my sweat, blood and tears into, that I'd created into something bigger than me and beautiful, GONE.

Because of a fucking descendant that wouldn't get in the fucking car.

'Get into the car,' I commanded her. I didn't have time for this. Part of me would have rather let the entire creation die, to find a way to have any and every Nephil end it all, rather than hand it all over. Nora looked at me, trying to subconsciously refuse me. I kept repeating it.

Get into the car Get into the car Getintothecargetintothecargetintothecar…..

She gave me a bewildered look, and I looked at her nonchalantly. She finally sat down and while we were driving, I was looking, waiting… I didn't see who I was looking for.

Damn it, Materrazzi! Where are you?!

I turned to Nora, and when she turned to look at me I began to speak. "I want you to know she's in the best hands. I requested that Dr. Howlett oversee her care. Dr. Howlett and I were roommates at the University of Maine before he went on to Johns Hopkins."

I thought that this would be comforting, as most people tended to move aside at the name of the school. However, she only looked at me more suspiciously. Fuck! My tension and anxiety were about to bleed out of me, when I finally saw who I was looking for.


Dante's POV

"Well guys, he did say to do the worst we could so that we'd be believable, right? That she had to see everything she needed to." I suggested, smiling.

"Uh boss, I think he meant to do the whole mind-trick thing. He only said a minor crash was necessary."

I turned around and smiled.

The two were brawn that I'd hired to be on my own team. They were more devoted to me than Hank, but that didn't mean they weren't still afraid of him. I'd been working on that.

"I always tell him that I like to be thorough, and put some flair on my work. Therefore no, I think he meant make it realistic. Or do you want to test that?" I put a little extra venom in my voice. How often did one get the opportunity to make vulnerable a leader that how cowed so many?

Keep calm. Don't let them ruin this for you.

The guy paled, and the other one next to him covered his mouth. "Nope, sorry boss. Realistic. Got it."

"Thank you."

I rammed the car into the Land Cruiser.


Hank's POV

Their car rammed into the side of mine, and for a moment, in my rage, I forgot my own plan.

I could understand what Matterazzi was trying to do, to spook us, but I didn't think that he'd planned on actually pushing us off of the cliff. I'd said "make it believable", not "potentially kill the girl"! I would be fine, but Nora might actually die from this and that I could not afford at the moment!

I began to race ahead, hoping that he might realize that there might have been another way for this. He simply swerved around me. Nora looked into the back of the car and gasped.

"Stop the car! It's a trap. Put the car in reverse!" she screamed. I was unperturbed.

"They destroyed my car!" I sped the car up, trying to at least get us to the area where Blakely waited for us. This cliff was at least a mile or two away from the lab area, and the worst I'd planned for was a damn crashed car, not a tumble all the way into a ravine!

What the absolute fuck!

Again, I could replace the car and I knew that I would heal, but the girl's survival was an entirely different issue that I hadn't been trying to make more difficult than it needed to be!

"Look out!" Nora screamed.

In my thoughts, I hadn't moved the car quickly enough. I jerked, causing Nora's head to crack into the window.

"No no no no no!" I shouted.

The car tumbled over and over, and after what seemed like us falling forever, we finally crashed into the rocks next to the small stream in the ravine. I crawled out of the car, feeling like I was crawling bare through glass.

I probably was.

In the few moments I was conscious, I felt that my face had been gouged into with multiple glass shards, and my fingers had been crushed under the wheel. Cringing and then shouting with piss-inducing results, I cracked and slipped my broken fingers out of the wheel. I never thought that unbuckling a seatbelt and opening a door could be so painful. I passed out momentarily from the pain.

I woke up in a panic, not knowing how much time had passed. Some time had to have passed, because my fingers were already beginning to heal. My face was still bleeding.

Nora! I heard myself shouting. While I'd been worrying about myself, she could be dead and then it would truly all be for nothing! I turned, and luckily my men (luckily, those bastards better be lucky that I can't put my hands in fists!) had pulled her out of the wreckage.

"Get…me…to her!" I gurgled, loud enough that one of them were able to help me walk to her.

She looked awful. Like….deathly bad. It was by the grace of whatever was there for me that she hadn't broken her neck or it hadn't been cut and she'd died instantly. Her worst injury was a gouge on the top of her head, with a glass shard poignantly sticking from it. But the rest of her was nothing but bruising and glass cuts- she hadn't looked so swollen since that time I'd had to handle her in the cabin. I suppose for a human, what she had was bad enough to kill her. Karma, we'll call it.

"Nora?" I said, using my palms to shake her shoulders. "Can you hear me, Nora? Don't try to get up. Stay on your back. I'm going to get you to the hospital."

Her eyes opened as far as they could, swollen as they were, and she had nerve to flinch at how I looked. If it weren't so painful to squeeze the glass filled skin on my face, I'd have laughed. She gurgled, and went unconscious. I began pulling the rest of the shards out of my face.

"Sir, you look….are you going to be okay?"

I turned to Dante and actually scowled, before I cried out in the pain.

"Sorry sir….I thought you wanted it to be realistic as possible. It ought to make the whole transferring blood thing-"

"GET ME TO BLAKELY'S." I commanded, glass adding some extra steel to my voice.

If I could have cuffed him then and there, I would. He was always an arrogant overachiever, thinking he was undermining or 'adding flair' to something I'd commanded of him. However, I was in so much pain, and Nora's life was likely fading. If we didn't get the blood in her soon, she would die, I would die, and everything would be left to the likes of Dante.

Hank is losing his cool- his plans are having really simple flaws! Read and review!