URBAN NOSGOTHIC

Chapter 14

I'm saving up my review responses until the next time, because…this is the penultimate chapter!  Thank you so much to all my readers for all your support - you're all stars.^_^

Looking at Kain, I am reminded of a time once, when I was very small, I saw in my parent's back yard a huge old ginger tom-cat, all scars and heavy cat-muscle. He had prowled past my play-mat and favoured me with a single glare from his low-browed, inhuman eyes, and then he had been gone. But his memory had lingered in my nightmares for a week or more afterwards.

To a six-year-old, he had been a tiger, a vast threatening presence in my safe little garden. And now I had the real thing, the tiger on my porch, the vampire in my lounge.

But he knows that I know that he knows that I know he knows I know….

I snap out of it and say: "Kain?"

He glares. Time to put theory into practice. I don't speak aloud, I just think really hard, as hard as I can.

One step.

When he doesn't move I push harder, putting all my terror and my pain into it (what if this doesn't work? What if he tries to kill me again?), until I can almost see in my mind's eye his booted foot taking that step.

He jolts forward, almost as if I have shoved him hard in the small of the back. Raziel is watching us calmly, the Reaver absent from his grip, his weight leant casually on one hoof. I exhale in a gasp of relief (it would be pure relief, but I can't conceal even from myself the edge of delirious satisfaction) and think, somewhat crazily: good boy. Well done, Kain! Now roll over! Roll over, boy!

Fortunately my control only seems to extend to non-insane requests, because I would never have been able to forgive myself had Kain suddenly flung himself on his back like a puppy. As it is, he merely stands, still glaring. But he does not move

My delight only lasts for a few seconds, before that nasty little voice that we all have inside us says: but if you can control them - what the hell does that say about you, girl? He bit you. Not once, but twice. He tried to kill you. Make you dead.

And then of course I hear Kain's voice again - Maybe she wants to be hurt…

God, I am a psychological screw-up. I summon supernatural aid to save me in my time of need - and then, perversely, my own psyche turns on me and makes my rescuer my torturer once again. Fairy tales are bullshit, children. They only come true for those who are pure and untouched in heart and mind. Otherwise you know damn well that Prince Charming had Snow White chained to the sink and popping out his ugly thuggish children right left and centre. Because if you have dreams - some day my prince will come - then you will in the end discover that when your dream comes true it is, by its very nature, no longer a dream. And that's when it becomes reality, boring, ugly, simplistic, cruel reality. I start to feel vulnerable. I need support -

Raziel's claw closes on my shoulder. "Rhi?"

"I'm - all right, Raziel." And to my own surprise, I'm telling the truth. I'm logy with drugs, unsteady through loss of blood, but I'm okay. I am okay. I am feeling almost calm. His claw feels smooth and cool on the bandages. I can do this. Wow. For the first time in my life.

Kain sits down on the sofa with a huff of boredom, and starts thumbing through the manual to Blood Omen 2. Occasionally he will snort in annoyance as some discrepancy of plot or underplaying of his abilities is made known to him.

Raziel and I walk out to the kitchen. More police tape here, and the blood on the floor where my boyfriend was skewered by the Reaver has been cordoned off. The sky is pink with new sunlight, and birds are chattering in the garden. Raziel's head and eyes turn to follow the flight of sparrows under the eaves.

Has this really only been one night? I feel at least twenty years older.  But now, as I look out to the dawn and see the unfamiliar play of new natural light on Raziel's wasted frame, I feel that odd sense of peace stealing over me again.

A scuff of boot-tip on the lino, and I turn, the old angst clutching at my chest. Kain has left his book - he is now standing in the kitchen doorway, peeking out at the sunlight with an indefinable look on his sharp face. His boots are well inside the pool of shadow thrown by the fridge.

"Rhianna," says Raziel, his eyes still on the flight of the birds as they dive and swoop around the washing line. "Is it time for us to leave?"

I cannot answer. Suddenly I am sick with the idea of his leaving, as if he were the best friend I never had.

"Would you come with me?"

The question nearly knocks me off my feet. I notice that he says, "me" and not "us" - I rather fancy Kain would not be at ease in my company, nor I in his, if we all returned to Nosgoth. Who knows what, if any, influence I would have over them once on their home turf. I goggle up at him, and he is still gazing outside, not looking at me. I want to say something beautiful, something profound. I want it to be like in the movies.

But what I say is, "I - is that possible? - I can't."

"I understand."

His answer is too quick. He knew - of course he knew - what my answer had to be. His claw brushes across my head, briefly. "You are too fragile for Nosgoth, little one. You are just coming out of darkness, and I would be callous to drag you back into the shadows with me."

The sun starts to shimmer above the horizon, and I hear a further scuffle as Kain retreats to the lounge. This is starting to feel like an uncomfortable moment I once had when I was ten. My cousin had come to stay and my mother had been insistent that I hugged him goodbye. He had been unwilling, and so had I (after all, every ten-year-old girl knows that boys are full of germs), and so we had stood a foot or so apart, shuffling rebelliously, neither willing to give in. So it is with Raziel and I. We stand, and we shuffle, but we cannot say goodbye.

I mean, surely he's absolutely crawling with germs.

I am just about to open my mouth to say something stupid and trite, when I hear the front door slam open and all thoughts flee my head. My internal juke-box, hot-wired for panic situations, burbles: your boyfriend's back and you're gonna be in trouble…hey-la, hey-la, your boyfriend's back. And he is. Larger than life and angry as hell.

He takes his time getting to the kitchen, long enough for me to notice Kain slip out from behind the door and start stalking him. Raziel, at my back, stands perfectly still. For once, he's not protecting me. Why?

"I knew you'd be here."

He suddenly strikes, too fast. A slap across my face. Kain is a mere foot behind him, but like Raziel he now seems frozen. Why won't they move?

My cheek stings, but compared  "You're coming with me. To the police. I told them you took the gear and tried to kill me. You're going to tell them that too."

He wants me to take his fall. After all this. The disbelief is a welcome distraction from the fear. I shake my head and say, "No."

I think it's the first time I've said no to him in six months. His face drops, becomes pale and waxy with rage and, I realise, fear.

I've never managed to frighten him before.

Raziel shifts his weight, meaningfully, and Kain, behind my boyfriend, snaps his fangs together to make his presence known. But they remain in position. I try to think at them, kill him, stop him - but the focus is somehow gone and they make no move.

My boyfriend leans in, and speaks low, menacingly. "You listen to me and you mind me," he says. "You are coming with me, and you will tell them exactly what I tell you to tell them. I'm not going to prison, do you hear me?"

"No." I can't believe it's my voice. I sound like a toddler defying her father.

"No what?"

"No, I won't do it!"

"Yes, you will!"

"I won't!"

And as if my raised voice were a signal, Kain and Raziel move.

Kain grasps my boyfriend lovingly by the throat, pulling his head back so the neck is exposed, and Raziel draws his arm back to allow the Reaver full room to flower around his wrist and forearm.

"Is this a human I can kill?" I hear Kain ask Raziel, dryly, and the man in their grasp shudders and kicks, but to no avail.

Raziel hesitates, and lowers his sword arm. Quickly, he digs into a fold of his cowl, and brings out the manual for Soul Reaver, slightly ragged at the edges where his claws have torn the delicate pages.

He glances at me, and I could swear those blank eyes look amused. He taps Kain on the arm to attract his attention. Kain looks exasperated, but turns anyway, keeping his death-grip steady on my boyfriend's neck (his face is starting to go purple instead of pale).

There is a moment of consultation between the two vampires, and a great deal of turning of the manual's pages. Kain sighs in irritation, but Raziel seems insistent. Eventually, he turns to me, while Kain snaps my boyfriend into an arm-lock behind him.

"Rhianna - if you will not come with us…."

He pauses, and Kain concludes for him.

"…can we take him instead?"

He shakes my boyfriend for emphasis.

And I do the only thing possible. I burst out laughing.