MAGIC KINGDOM

Chapter 6 – Seeing Double

Disclaimer: Raziel, Nosgoth and everything pertaining to Legacy of Kain belongs to Eidos, Crystal Dynamics and Silicon Knights (otherwise known as the Knights Who Say Ni!! *well…not really!*). Lupa and Vladimir (The Terrible Two) are my responsibility and belong to me.

This is a hastily written, short chapter…sorry if it makes no sense! Thank you for all your reviews! I really appreciate them. ^_^

The vampire Raziel stared at himself in the mirror. One set of heavy yellow claws came up, gingerly, to touch his face, his jaw, his long cheekbones, as if in disbelief. He twisted his head to appraise the wings that lay furled at his back…

"Lupa?"

Raziel's voice echoed in the tunnels of Dumah's palace. Vampire Raziel, turned, guiltily. A stray feather dropped from the white angel's wings that sprouted from his shoulders.

"What are you doing down there?"

"Damn," Vampire Raziel muttered, "wrong type of wings again…"

He tapped delicately at a watch-like device on his wrist, and his form melted away like frost under the sun to reveal only Lupa, frowning, as Raziel walked round the corner and regarded her with suspicion.

"You look like you're up to something," was his only comment, then he stalked past her, gathering her up with a cock of his head. Lupa followed, glowering and stabbing at the image inducer with one finger.

The snow opportunities within Dumah's realm exhausted at last (and Lupa's whining about being cold and wet and miserable having eventually got to Raziel) they were headed back to the Silenced Cathedral, for reasons best known to Raziel alone. Lupa was not happy about this idea, either.

"Spiders, Raz…"

"Not strictly speaking," Raziel corrected. "Spider-ish."

"Arachnid life-forms! Not a good thing!"

Raziel ignored her and took one step forward onto the drawbridge.

"Zephon's dead, right? So why are we back here? Shouldn't we be going after Kain again? Or Turel? We didn't kill Turel yet. Where does he live? I just don't really see why –"

"Lupa!"

Raziel's eyes flared angrily. She subsided.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I have this irrational fear. I will be master of it. Just not today. It's not like I'm scared of moths or cheese like Vladimir."

"Who's Vladimir? Oh…he's your housemate, isn't he?"

"Yes."
"The one who once gave food poisoning to an entire roomful of people with one round of buttered toast?"

"You have to remember the bad things about everybody, don't you," said Lupa, following him into the gloom.

"He scares me already," retorted Raziel, "and I haven't even met him yet."

A lot of the Zephonim inside the Cathedral were already dead: but the sounds of rustling, rasping, and scuffling inside the walls indicated that many still remained. Raziel walked ahead, the Soul Reaver burning like a brand.

"I just realised," said Lupa, ignoring his repeated requests for silence, "you managed to change the subject very skilfully back there. You still haven't told me why we're back here."

"Haven't I?" said Raziel innocently, and hurried around a corner. The Zephonim crouched there immediately engaged him in battle. "Oh look. A vampire. Duty calls."

To Lupa, it seemed to take a good deal longer than normal for Raziel to despatch the vampire. She was waiting, hands on hips, for him as he returned.

"Didn't work," she said. "Tell me."

"Tell you what?"

"What we're doing back here in this ancient ecclesiastical hole!"

Raziel's shoulders sagged: and in a creature of his build, this was impressively melancholic.

"If you must know," he said, "seeing that painting reminded me of the time before…the days when I was still Kain's favoured son."

Lupa sighed internally: she had hoped that the snowball fight would have distracted him. Obviously this memory was a lurking iceberg, nine-tenths below surface.

"Zephon and I used to get along okay sometimes," Raziel said. "and we…used to share stuff."

"Stuff?"

"You know," said Raziel, shuffling one hoof uneasily, "we were brothers. We shared things. Instruments of torture…double-headed axes…toys…"

"Toys!?"

Raziel looked as embarrassed as was possible.

"Wait a minute," said Lupa, frowning. "You're seriously telling me we came all the way back to this vermin-infested hellhole so you could look for an old teddy bear you used to have?"

She fixed him with a stern glare for all of a minute, then exploded into giggles.

"Mwahhaahahahaha….!"

Raziel bore this outburst stolidly.

"…hahhahahaha…teddy bear….hahahahaha….."

Lupa collapsed against one of the organ-pipes, helpless with mirth.

"I could have said we were here for my seven-piece torture set," said Raziel after a moment or so, "but no, you instantly assume it's something cute and incongruous."

Lupa recovered herself enough to respond.

"You guys were already adults when Kain brought you back," she said, still grinning. "Why on earth would you have toys?"

Raziel shuffled again. "Kain gave them to us," he said. "I think he was worried about being a bad father. That we were having a deprived upbringing?"

"So he gave you toys. I had no idea he was such a sweet guy."

"Well, not first of all," said Raziel, reasonably. "First he gave us puppies. But Melchiah rather ruined that one for everybody and he never gave us pets again after that."

He pressed part of the wall, hard, and a secret door slid back, revealing a shallow alcove. A large, rusty axe rested inside, and a lot of dust, but nothing else.

"No teddy, huh," said Lupa, noting Raziel's crestfallen expression. "Was it a special teddy, den?"

Raziel pushed the panel shut and walked away without a word.

"Hey, Raz…"

Lupa scurried after him.

"I'll buy you a new plush toy if you want," she called. "Any type you like! How about one of those little cute blue guys from the Disney Store? You thought they were good, didn't ya? Raz…wait up!"

Raziel stood at the edge of the Abyss, and gazed in.

He had been standing there, with his back turned to her, for over an hour, oblivious to her pleas that he come back to the Nexus and she'd buy him any amount of stuffed animals, if only he'd come away from the edge and come with her. She'd given up after about six attempts, and was now sat dangling her legs over the drop, fiddling with something in her hands.

The ex-vampire stood like a statue on the edge, seemingly unapproachable, obviously depressed.

"You disgust me sometimes, you know that?" said a voice from behind him. He turned.

Vampire Raziel was standing there, arms folded, dragon wings arching at his back. His dark mouth was curled in a devil's smile, the fang tips poking out over the lower lip in a snaggle-toothed manner.

Raziel was so surprised he nearly lost his footing on the cliff: but something about the way his vampire self was grinning seemed to remind him of someone…

"You stand there, all melancholy, not having any fun, and boring your poor friend Lupa to tears," Vampire Raziel said, almost petulantly.

"Lupa?" said Raziel, taking a step forward. "Is that you?"

His other self giggled in a most un-Raziel kind of way.

"It's me!" he said, smugly. "Isn't it cool? It's Kurt's. I borrowed it for you. Do you want to try?"

He unbuckled the device from around his wrist, and almost immediately Lupa's lupine features emerged from behind the hologram. She tossed the thing to him. Raziel held it in his claws in slight awe. To look like his old self again! How many times had he imagined that over the years?

"Go on," Lupa begged, "it took me ages to get it calibrated right. You have no idea how hard it was. My first few attempts made you look more like Frankenstein's monster…"

"Thanks!" said Raziel, sarcastically.

"only pink…."

"What?"

"…and with bigger hips…"

"What?!"

"Just try it, please? I worked hard on that."

Raziel strapped it onto his wrist and pressed the pad on the face that activated it: then looked down at his claws in confusion.

"This is weird," he said. "I don't feel any different."

"Well, you won't," said Lupa, who was staring at him intently, "it's just an illusion…but trust me, you really look different. For a start, your lips are moving when you talk."

"Really? They are?"

He twisted to try and snatch a look at the phantom wings.

"Plus," said Lupa, in a very small voice, "you're kind of hot."