URBAN NOSGOTHIC
Chapter 11
Raziel is out of his seat in seconds, and he is spitting out his words as if they are poisoning him.
"What is this?" he snarls. "What has happened to you?"
Kain frowns. Of course, he doesn't know, he can't see the changes in himself. "Poor Raziel, are your wits finally decaying along with the rest of your pitiful frame?"
And all in one horrible moment I see Raziel lose it.
Maybe, my ever-active brain reasons as I dive out of the way of a raging, incoherent ex-vampire, maybe the sight of Kain, his destroyer, regaining youth and beauty where his own are lost forever was too much for him. Perhaps a reminder of his past he could have done without. A vastly surprised and furious Kain slams onto the bar, back first, Raziel's claws at his throat. The barman drops behind the counter as peanuts and broken glass shower down on both of us.
"Die now," suggests Raziel, sounding quite calm. Ironic really. I'd been worried about Kain causing havoc in society, and in the end it is Raziel's temper that has failed us. There is a moment's grace before Kain's eyes flare up like embers and he lashes out with one hand, moving too fast for the naked eye to follow.
Berserk.
It had been one of my favourite moves. It wasn't perhaps as impressive as Immolate, but I had always preferred it for some reason. Raziel is not expecting it, and hits the back wall of the club, hard. The glow of his pale eyes dims slightly as his consciousness wanes. I share a glance with the terrified barman and think, what if Raziel is defeated? What will happen to me then? And everyone else here?
The thought that I might be responsible for releasing Kain onto my unwitting world, on top of everything else, makes me want to curl up and cry for my own weakness, my own stupidity. My eyesight blurs as the tears come, uncalled, and streak my face wet.
Raziel rises like the Kraken from the deep, and hurls himself at Kain. A table breaks as Kain lands on it heavily, backhanded by a swipe from the Reaver. There is screaming now, as the patrons flee the club, and soon there will be more sirens, more police, more danger.
I hear my own sobbing above the hissing of the angry vampires, and the reality of the situation starts to fade. Because this can't be happening. Really. It can't. I'm not really on the run from the police who think I tried to kill my drug dealer boyfriend, and I can't be about to be killed in a goth-club brawl, I can't hear chairs breaking and bottles shattering, and I can't, I can't, I can't....
"You can't what?"
I hadn't realised I was speaking aloud.
There is suddenly a horrible silence in the club, save for a few crackles of what sounds like static. I dare to look for the source of that sound.
The jukebox has crumpled in a heap of CDs and broken plastic. Electricity from torn cabling jumps and sparks cheerfully around the fallen body of Raziel, who is lying in an undignified sprawl with his back twisted around a cracked joist. The Reaver flickers in and out of existence around his arm.
Oh, Raziel...
Seeing him broken like this somehow hurts me more than all the rest of the shit that has gone down tonight. This fight was my fault. Okay, my fault in a crazy, illogical way, but still my fault. And just as his body is broken, so, finally, am I. I have no fight left in me. A swift look through my mental eye confirms, yes, I would rather be arrested, rather be killed, than continue with tonight. The show's over. Elvis has left the building....
"Can't what?"
Kain repeats his question as he bends over my shuddering form. I feel his claws brush my hand where it lies outflung, and there is bluish blood on them. Even as he touches me, Raziel's hooves kick out as he tries to move his snapped spine. He wants to help me, or maybe to try one last time to kill his nemesis, I don't know. But he can't.
"Can't what, human?"
Kain laughs. He strokes my curled back as one would pet a dog. "Can't talk, maybe?" His arms reach under me, and I am unresisting as he lifts me effortlessly from the floor to perch me on the bar so I can look at him eye to eye. But my eyes are only for Raziel, the glow of his own eyes darkening as his life-force slips away. "Can't look at me, it seems," says Kain, and his tone holds all the threat of gathering storm clouds. "Odd. You couldn't drag your eyes away from me earlier."
He leans in, and now I am all awareness of him, and particularly his teeth, as he rudely shoves his head into the hollow between my neck and my shoulder. He is scenting me, not biting, and yet it is so dreadful, so invasive - "Can't resist?" he murmurs, his fangs scoring across the nape of my neck without drawing blood.
But all I can see is Raziel as he fades, the pale flickering of the Reaver the last bit to vanish, until there is only the smoking ruin of the juke, and he is gone, quite gone.
Kain sighs, happily, as if he has been waiting for Raziel's demise before he moved in, and he strikes at my neck, tearing open the bite that has only just begun to heal.
As if this is a catalyst, my numbness falls away from me to leave only a great raw pain, and I scream until I think my throat is torn both inside and out. He laughs. The blood is flowing out too fast, as if he is summoning it forth. I recall school days spent in gym class doing headstands. All the blood draining to my head until I felt quite dizzy - and this is the same, only the blood is draining away...
My arms flail hopelessly, and as my head lolls back, I can see my grubby trainers stained bright red with the overspill of my own blood. Red shoes. Ruby slippers...My lunatic brain chatters, Auntie Em, Auntie Em! There's no place like home...there's no place like home...
Kain crushes my body to his and shakes me like a ragdoll. I feel at least one rib give under the strain, but somehow it no longer seems important. It seems distant...happening to someone else. Someone speaking to me?
I feel Kain's lips close to my ear. He snarls: "Can't what now, little human girl?"
And Raziel, seeming almost to glow with power and renewed vitality, steps out of the spectral realm right behind him and snaps, "Can't die, old man."
