URBAN NOSGOTHIC
Chapter Nine
Legacy of Kain created by Eidos Interactive, Crystal Dynamics, Silicon Knights.
Thankyou for all your kind reviews! Oh, and a brief word to my anonymous reader - I'm sorry you didn't care for my story. Thankyou for reading anyway, and I hope you find other stories that are more "in character" that you will like. Although hey, what am I doing? If you didn't like that chapter, you sure as hell won't be reading this one... :)
Walking back towards the less hazardous side of town, flanked by Kain and Raziel, I recklessly begin to feel safe for the first time tonight. It is coming up to four a.m. and the streets are silent again. I haven't heard any police sirens coming to investigate the dead lying in Cattle Lane. Having plucked up the courage to check, I am able to confirm my suspicions. The white leather of my trainer is laced with clotting blood.
Kain sees me looking, snorts, and says: "You travel with Raziel, woman, and you let a little blood distress you?"
I cannot meet his eyes.
"Don't you know what Raziel is?" he continues. "He is not some little watch-dog you can pull around on a leash to protect you on your walks in the park. He is a killer, just as I am. He killed his brothers."
Belatedly I realise that this Kain must come from the time before the events of Soul Reaver Two occurred. (I really have no intention of trying to go through the whole 'game' issue with him. Well. Not now, anyway). His entire demeanour demonstrates it. He is angry, yes, but part of him seems nervous. Nervous around Raziel, and especially around the Reaver. Is he worried about the unfolding of events to come? I risk a look at him, darting my gaze over his demon's face and body, being careful not to stare at him. Vampires are like cats in many ways - territorial, solitary, predatory. A stare would be a challenge, and me challenging Kain would be about as foolhardy as a kitten facing down a lion.
He is staring at me, though, and I feel his eyes burning into my forehead as I lower my face. Stupid! Stupid for drawing his attention!
"Rhianna," says Raziel, in what for him amounts to a lazy drawl, "which way now?"
Glad of the distraction, I hurry to catch him up. We are now almost at the main street, and I can see the neon glow of shop fronts.
It's a good question, and Raziel knows I'm in a quandary. He looks down at me helplessly - for all his strength, he's useless in this situation - and I struggle to think of a solution.
I can almost feel Kain's superior grin on my back as I glance up and down the street. A staggering human presence causes both my 'bodyguards' to tense and crouch, but it is only a passing drunk, barely able to stand. He leans on the streetlamp mere metres from Raziel and I, and blinks at both of us blearily. None of us move.
The drunk eventually finds his voice and says: "Hi..."
"Hello," says Raziel, not unfriendly-like.
"Hi," I whisper, raising my hand in a tiny wave. My over-riding worry is that the drunk will try and accost Kain, at which point no amount of alcoholic camaraderie will save him from certain death.
But our new friend isn't interested in Kain (or, more likely, he simply hasn't managed to focus on him yet) and he simply reaches out and grasps Raziel's bound forearm. Raziel, exercising admirable restraint, does nothing immediately.
"You...yourraluckyman..." the man slurs, the words spilling out of him in a jumble. "She'sa, she's a, she'a wonderful girl. Lucky."
His vacant eyes lock onto Raziel's blue arm, and he lets go his grip.
"You look after her," he adds. And belches. If he throws up on me, I swear I'm going to cry.
"I will," says Raziel, to my surprise and Kain's obvious disgust. He watches the drunk sway off across the road with a sort of quizzical fascination, then says, quietly, "We need to discuss some things -"
Kain strides up to us both, obviously bored (and quite likely annoyed that he is not the centre of attention), and says: "This hapless wandering is starting to try my patience, human."
"Then return to Nosgoth, if you can," snaps Raziel, whose lack of patience with his sire is obviously on a par with Kain's lack of patience with me. At Kain's furious, impotent glare he adds, "Oh, can you not? Then be silent and let her think!"
"You do not tell me what to do!"
"I will do whatever I wish," Raziel counters. " I have free will. I am not your lackey any longer."
Kain looks amused at this assertion of freedom on his fledgling's part.
"No?" he queries, maliciously. "Strange then how this small female has you running around like a mercenary to protect her. Or are you in love with her, Raziel?"
Raziel bristles noticeably.
"You always were a womaniser when you were made new," Kain continues. "But please, my boy...a human girl? And one without a tongue in her head, it seems. I'd credited you with more taste. Not that she isn't pretty enough, I suppose..."
He is circling me now, as if I were a prize thoroughbred. I half expect him to smack me on the thigh to check for muscle tone or to force open my jaws to see if I have a healthy set of teeth. And my treacherous body is betraying me again. It wants him to do it.
Raziel says, in a voice that is little above a growl, "There is no relationship between me and her."
Kain is very close to me now, directly behind me. I don't dare move.
"Oh really?" he purrs. "I think the relationship between you and her is all-important. Think about it."
With that he brushes past both of us, knocking shoulders with Raziel as he goes, and stalks off up the main street, not waiting for either of us. It may be my imagination, but somehow his skin looks paler than before, and his hair longer.
Before I can properly consider the implications of this, Raziel taps me on the arm with one claw. "Can you find us somewhere to rest?" he asks. "Your neck - we should bandage it properly. You smell of blood and will attract unwanted attention."
My hand is already probing absently at the fang-marks in my skin as I watch Kain pace up the street, and in a sudden moment of crystal clarity I know where it'll be safe to take them.
I think, you see, that I finally figured it out. Oddly, enough, it was Kain's words that triggered the possibilities in my mind. It's as I creep to the public phone in the dingy cloakroom hall to make the phone call that's been preying on my mind ever since Cattle Lane that I begin to put the pieces together.
The voice on the other end of the phone makes a weary query.
"Yes, police?" I manage. "Can you send someone out to Cattle Lane? I think there's been a fight. Maybe drugs. I think some men are hurt."
The voice, suddenly interested, begins to fire other questions, but I hang up. Safety in anonymity. And besides, they're probably looking for me already, to "help them with their enquiries" regarding my boyfriend.
Raziel turned up exactly when I needed him. So did Kain. One saved me from death, the other from the fabled fate worse than death. Reluctant white knights or not, they rescued me.
In fairy tales, the heroine is often saved by a Mysterious Stranger who turns up in the nick of time to kill the dragon or stop the wedding. But fairy tales have a great advantage over real life. They stop. They have an ending, a happy ever after.
This princess is never going to be happy, so no ending. Are my rescuers going to be stuck here with me for the rest of my life? I have sudden visions of them sat in adjoining prison cells, being taken out periodically for scientific tests, of Raziel causing havoc by phasing in and out through the cell bars and of Kain eventually being put down like a rabid dog because he is too dangerous to keep...
So, my train of thought continues as I return through the smoky haze to the bar where I left them, if I'm taking it as gospel the ridiculous idea that I have somehow summoned the pair of them from their Playstation limbo to aid me in my hour (or, as it's turning out, twenty-four hours) of need - how the hell do I get them to go back?
