URBAN NOSGOTHIC

Chapter 15

Raziel does not respond to my outburst – he lets me have my moment and I am grateful to him, because to be honest I don't think my brain could have taken in any explanation while it was still reeling from the idea of my boyfriend in Nosgoth. But when the cackling eventually subsides he says: "It would seem to be the perfect solution.,.."

I look into my boyfriend's furious and terrified face.

"What are you going to do with him?"

"Kill him?" suggests Raziel, as off-hand as if he'd been suggesting we all go out for nachos. He looks at Kain, who hikes his sculpted eyebrows in a dismissive expression. "We could kill him there. And your "police" would never know."

I cannot look my boyfriend in the face.

"No. Not kill him," says Kain, obviously getting into the swing of things. He stretches his shoulders out as if bored with the whole concept. "You know, your little idea has merit, Raziel. Not to mention the exceptionally pleasing levels of irony…"

I look at Raziel, suddenly suspicious. He holds up the manual to the game as if it is a talisman. In many ways I suppose it is. How many times have I hidden behind its fantasy, using the game to block out the carnage in my real life?

"You gave me the idea, Rhianna," he says. "Our lives – here they are. You can keep our lives, our destinies, in these little boxes and little folds of paper. I think…I think I can do the same with this part of yours."

My boyfriend manages to take a choking breath as Kain's grip relaxes just enough so that the victim doesn't die too early.

"What do you mean?" I ask, feeling (and sounding) stupid.

Kain shoves his burden at Raziel, who catches my boyfriend easily and holds him at arm's length. He then approaches me with that slouching feline grace, and I try to stop my natural reaction to being stalked in that way – i.e., to run like buggery and not look back.  His sharp, dark eyes catch mine and hold them.

"It's really very simple," he says, as if talking to a child. "When you play at being one of us – why do you do it? what is it you like about it?"

I'm lost for an answer, and my lips tremble as I struggle to think of something under his brilliant, unnerving gaze.

"Too slow. I want instinctive." He snatches me by the neck and I wail as the wound under the bandages feels the pressure of his claws. Raziel hisses warningly behind us, but does not interrupt.

"Now.  Don't think. Just say. When you are me, girl, when you are fighting in Meridian, what is it you feel? Why do you do it?"

I splutter, terrified: "B-because it's f-fun…"

"Precisely!"

He lets go, cradles my head instead against his shoulder (with just that suggestion of the strength which could crush my skull like an egg if it felt so inclined) and pets my hair for a moment as if I were a favourite lap-dog. "It's fun. It's fun," he adds with a nasty grin, glancing up at Raziel, "to be me."

Raziel sniffs disparagingly and makes no comment. "You enjoy killing the Sarafan," Kain says to me. "You enjoy the power. You enjoy feeling my ability, my strength…"

His sharp-nailed hands brush across my cheek. "You want it," he says, softly, "don't you?"

I do not want to answer him. It isn't fun to kill, is it? I'm not really that sort of person, surely.

"And him," Kain continues, nodding at Raziel. "Why…is it fun to be him?"

I look at Raziel, and this time the answer is right there at the front of my mind. It has been all along.

"Revenge," I say, quietly. "I got to feel his revenge when I was Raziel."

Kain looks satisfied, but still the look in his smile, his eyes, as he says you enjoy the power…

Is it in me, after all? After all I've been through, would I still be out there standing on the little guy's likely appendage if I could?

My reverie is interrupted by Raziel's voice again. "Then let me have Rhianna's revenge," he says, "let me play your game."

And now I am alone again, in a house still full of police tape and blood, spare controller in hand, trying to work out what the hell I'm going to do now.

They did take him, you know. I don't know how they did it, but one minute they were there, the next minute they weren't and neither was Gary.

Gary. I don't think I've ever named him before, have I? It just seems easier to say "Kill Gary, Raz!" when I'm manouvering Raziel over to yet another Nosgothian vampire, and to add "Die, Gary!" as Raziel, guided by me, expertly swings his staff to impale the little bastard.

I've been playing the game for about an hour. And I hate to admit it, but Kain was right. I do enjoy the power. It's in all of us, although we hate it and fear it – we want the power. It calls to us, just as Kain's ferocity and Raziel's vengeance call to us. These are folk who have strength unheard-of in our world. Let them use it now, as they offered, for my sake.

Oh, and Kain bit him.

He bit him, and he didn't bite him to kill. There was a lot of screaming, and more blood, and then they were gone. So I've amused myself by naming all the vampires Raziel comes up against Gary, because the law of averages says I'll be right eventually.

I expect the police will have a lot of questions to ask me. But they'll never find him. Or his drugs. There will just be me, with my wounds, and my PS2. Maybe I'll clear out of here and go to live with Carrie in Wales.

We never did say goodbye, me and Raziel. Not really. As I said, it was too quick. And I don't know what I would have said, anyway. What is there to say? "Bye, Raz, thanks for helping me sort my life and nearly getting me killed, see you around, don't forget to write…" But I still missed him, the odd blue alien look of him, which was when I dug out the spare controller my boyfriend used to keep hidden in the bookcase, and started to play. Just to check on him, you know. Make sure he was all right.

About half an hour ago, the postman came. He dropped two bills and a flyer through my door. The flyer was from a local gaming store, and it named a new game in which I had a particular interest…

And when I saw Kain and Raziel together in the promotional shot, I laughed out loud, almost tried to peer behind them to see if there might not have been a terrified human in there with them….

But mostly? (and maybe it was cruel of me) I just laughed.