(AJ's POV)
When Adeline finally dropped his arm, he noticed she was humming something, although it wasn't what he had expected.
Truthfully, he had thought she would have been humming the Ballad of Swan Lake, seeing as that's the song that made her think of the ghosts the most. But no, it was an old Cure song, from the late eighties.
"Expectant." The words to The Cure's 'Last Dance' roll off her tongue easily, it was from the first album she'd played on the Dandies' stereo.
"Too... punctual." Disintegration had been a good album.
She looks up at William, who is looking at her warily as she reaches for something at her side, perhaps something tucked into her sock.
"But prettier than ever." She recites, twisting a small three inch blade between the heel of her left palm and her right forefinger tip.
"I really believed this time it's forever."
She giggles, and with that, something inside her snaps, breaks, tears. There's a word for it somewhere, out there. But it's her sanity that snaps, her heart that breaks, and her resolve to keep William alive that tears.
It's fast, faster than anything William could've predicted. The small blade in his shoulder. He looks down at it, stunned and that was his fatal mistake. Or maybe it was allowing Adeline to wrap her hands around his neck, and kiss him.
Maybe that's what allowed her to kill him. She tightened her grip, her sharp nails digging deep into his skin, and she tears off his head in one smooth movement, blood spraying all over her.
She laughs, maniacally, until she feels the pain, the searing pain of her own destruction, forgetting the consequence of the game she'd been stupid enough to start and end. It was like... darkness running through her veins, as all of the bite marks, the bite marks she'd gotten from William turned black, oozed some kind of black pus.
"I don't know what's happening..." AJ whispers with some maniacal laughter, she pulls William's limp, headless body closer to her, half mumbling to the body, half to herself.
"William? What's happening? Baby?"
She looks up at the space where his head should be. And starts screaming, like she'd forgotten everything she had done not five seconds earlier.
"No...n-no...no! I didn't, I couldn't- What the hell have I done?! I can't- I wouldn't have...I..."
Dissolving into tears, they intermingle with soft cries of pain as the reality sinks in.
From the porch, William and Lottie's ghosts watch.
"I told her not to go after a Dandie." Lottie whispers and William looks after her, leaning against the wood-paneling, still in disbelief.
"Why? Because you knew she'd go crazy?" He snorts.
Lottie shakes her head.
"Because I knew she'd get hurt. I knew something bad would happen, but I could never communicate it to her. She always thought she was superior to me, even though I was her elder." Lottie drops her head, tears welling in her eyes. "I didn't mean to leave them, my friends. I love them, all of them, and now they're all dead. She killed them, every. Single. One. Because I hoped, for a fleeting second that I would be able to- to talk her out of it. To just make her see the light, she was just turning so dark."
"You don't think I-"
"No! I know you don't- er- didn't. You wouldn't have, no one would have, wished this on her. She was such a sweet girl. I wonder where she went wrong?" Lottie asks and William grasps her hand, holding her smaller one in his. He knew it was hard for her to watch.
"Don't blame yourself, Lottie. Soon enough she'll be with us, and she'll be sane again...I'm just not familiar with this process, that's all. Why did her bite marks turn black?"
Lottie almost laughed, a Dandie not knowing the ins and outs of the game. It was pitiful.
"From the place of the initial bit mark received to create the imprint, the skin will burn, the by-now faded marks re-appearing as black burn marks, from there the reaction has occurred in blood, the imprint causing the cells to revert to their human form, causing said vampire to really turn human again. In a sense all those years the vampire has spent as a vampire coming flying at them, making the vampire (well, now human) brittle and weak, on death's border. So in other words, Adeline has every year after 1923 to now colliding with her. It won't be long, the more years the person suffers, the quicker the death." She explained, trying to think of a bright side. But there was none, at least, that she could see.
The two looked up at the pained cry as she pulled the small blade out of William's body, twirling it before her eyes, grinning.
"She's not- don't let her be doing what I think she-" Charlotte stated, covering her eyes.
William couldn't bring himself to look away, knowing it finally had reached the end, the last straws of AJ's sanity were burning away into nothing.
(Amelia's POV)
Amelia watched the scene in front of her unfold with equal parts confusion and horror. As AJ pulled the blade of the knife out of William's dead body and twirled it in her fingers, she knew what she was going to do.
Immediately, Amelia ran forward, trying to stop her friend. She couldn't let her do this! The moment that she moved, a strong pair of arms wrapped around her torso and held her back.
"Seb, let me go! Let me go! I have to stop her! LET ME GO!" she screamed, tears running down her face.
"I'm sorry, Mimi, I can't do that," Seb replied, his voice cracking with emotion.
Amelia struggled for dear life, but Seb refused to let her go. She screamed and thrashed.
When all was said and done, Amelia stopped fighting as the sorrow became too much to bear, as AJ's body slumped forward to the ground, blood still rapidly draining from the slit in her wrist. Amelia sobbed and sobbed as Seb held her close.
Everyone else stood around them, shocked at what had transpired.
Amelia managed to calm down enough to speak, but even then all she could register to the others was, "Fire. We n-need t-to b-burn them," before she lost it all over again.
The others all looked at her, then at two vampire's bodies before them, and knew it would do no good to argue.
Pierre used his earthbending to create a small ring around the bodies, sort of like a makeshift bonfire pit. As he was doing this, Bob walked over and knelt by Amelia and Seb, putting his hand on her shoulder.
"Amelia, there was nothing you could have done. She made her choice the moment she took his hat on New Year's Eve. The best thing you can do now is allow the smoke to clear the bad memories and remember the times before all this happened," Bob suggested.
She sniffled, but nodded in agreement, "Yeah, like the times she'd come home tipsy half babbling about some cute guitar player, or god forbid the way they'd moved around the furniture at her favorite Starbucks, so her 'spot' wasn't by the window and she couldn't people watch…"
"Just like that. Now, before I…begin the impromptu cremation, would you want to say anything?" he offered, just as she stood up and ran toward the hybrid, kneeling beside her lifeless body, simply staring, too shocked to think of anything meaningful.
Instead, all she could manage was, "You impulsive, insane, impatient, lovable idiot."
And reaching over to close her eyes, Amelia almost felt like she was being watched. Standing back up and walking over to join the others, she sighed and closed her eyes.
"Go ahead, Bob. Let's just…finish this."
He nodded, raising his wand before he spoke, "Incendio."