URBAN NOSGOTHIC 2 : CALL TO ARMS

Chapter 9

Disclaimer: Legacy of Kain created by Eidos.

I know. You're due some proper review responses, but I haven't had time to do them this week…the chapter got finished first, and I hope you'll forgive me if I wait until next time before doing them. ^_^  So for the moment, suffice it to say, thankyou, all of you. You make my day with your kind words.

This chapter contains some snippets of dialogue from Defiance itself.

I do not remember a great deal about my exit from the hospital.

In fact, I'm not even sure we left in the conventional manner. My head is buried against Janos's arm, my eyes closed. I can hear his feet click as they touch floor again, but even that is muffled. Pale fabric from his tunic lies across my ears, deadens sound.

I'm so tired. Part of it must be the drugs, the other part…

…just that I don't think I can do this anymore. It's too much. I gave up everything, my virtue, my self-esteem, any honour I might have had. And now I am letting my sanity slip away, because let's face it, isn't it so much easier to give in?

If I thought that by struggling, by fighting, by offering up something I hold dear, I could make a difference, I would. But I really have nothing left to give, and so I have nothing to fight for.

It's suddenly cold, and strangely, Janos seems to be getting warmer. It feels as if his body is containing a fire so hot his skin is radiating it out in all directions. My drugged-up body thinks this is nice. It snuggles against the vampire's sudden warmth, gets in as close as it can against the clothes, the blue skin. My brain is replaying for me a clip of Janos, drenched in human blood, walking up the stairwell, and is trying desperately to galvanise me into struggling.

But you know what? I. Don't. Care. He is rescuing me. He is warm when everywhere else is cold. He is the only one of them who has never hurt me. Who would care if I was to go to sleep here, in the grasp of an Ancient, and never went back to Kings Cross again?

Then I hear that voice. And suddenly I am almost awake, cuddled in the vampire's arms, and the fear starts to prick at the back of my neck.

Is it me, or is Janos's hold on me starting to become a little too close for comfort?

"Put her down," says Raziel's voice, and he sounds neither angry nor upset. He…just is. His voice is the same as the rest of him, hard-done-by, weary, tested beyond endurance. Flat.

And yet…something…as if the only tiny glimmer of trust he still had in the cruel world has been horribly betrayed. 

Raziel. Raziel is here. Think, woman!

Shit. Yes. Raziel. Kain's killer. Suddenly being in Janos' arms seems like the only safe place to be. I have no way of knowing if Raziel has finally lost any slender grip on sanity and compassion for stupid human girls called Rhianna he may once have had. If he has discovered the truth about his destiny, he may just want to kill me, as Kain did, blaming me for his predicament.

He may just want to kill anyone and anything.

I claw at Janos' arm, trying against any useful hope of success to huddle even closer to his body for protection. I hear him hiss.

When you are surrounded by bastards, find the strongest bastard and make him your best friend. It may not be all that sensible in the long run, but it keeps you alive.

The Ancient's arms tighten on me, and suddenly I'm finding it hard to breathe. Heat pulses through his skin, and with my eyes open now I can see that the beautiful cobalt of his torso is marred by veins of volcanic red, yellow, orange.

Janos burns.

I'm sure he never used to look like this.

My view is restricted by being pressed so hard against his body. My brain finally gets its own way and at last I struggle, trying to see more, but it's so ludicrous to feel my limbs flopping and flailing against him that I soon cease. I might as well be punching at rock.

"Put. Her. Down." Raziel repeats, and I hear that oh-so-familiar noise. He has flicked his arm sharply, as if hurling a pebble to the ground, and the wraith-Reaver is suddenly alive, stretching from his shoulder to over a metre beyond his claws.

I know all this, although I can see nothing but Janos.

Janos's chest abruptly echoes with laughter, and it is not a pleasant sound. It must be that I'm pressed so close to his ribs: his voice seems to rumble like far-off thunder, deeper than before.

"Why, Raziel? Mortals are such fragile vessels…do you care for this human child? Is she…special to you?"

I don't care for that tone at all. That tone is relentlessly mocking, and I wish I could see Raziel's expression. Something is going on here, and it doesn't feel good. It feels like when you walk in on your parents having an argument. There is that abrupt, uncomfortable silence, and you know you've unwittingly put yourself in the middle of a private fight and you really, really don't want to be there.

I hear Raziel shift his weight as he composes his answer in his head. Scrape, stamp: hoof on stone.

The room echoes. Wherever we are, it's big, and cold, and most likely made of stone. Oh, goody. Nosgoth. Now, over Janos's shoulder, I can just about see the sky, smooth and grey, scattered with darkening clouds. The Pillars of Nosgoth rise against the horizon, ruined, like charred sticks, still seeming to smoke in the heavy air.

Janos…? What's happening?

"No," says Raziel eventually, "but her body will be a barrier to your body and I do not wish to waste my time cutting useless human flesh apart."

My much-maligned useless flesh crawls.

It's happened. Raziel has finally lost it. Thrown his toys out the pram and all his marbles with them. It had to happen sooner or later. Just like me, he's quite, quite mad. I wonder briefly if they have asylums here on Nosgoth, then my brain supplies me with an image of the Eternal Prison and I very quickly stop thinking about it.

"You're not leaving this chamber," Raziel says to the Ancient. "I will kill Janos if I have to."

Even now, Janos does not let me go. So this is how I'm going to die. Caught in the middle of what is possibly going to be the most vicious one-on-one vampire fight in Nosgoth's chequered history. A backswing from the wraith-blade, maybe…or a swipe from Janos's claws?

Janos's muscles move in his torso and back: he is spreading his wings. Now he shifts me, dropping the cradling grasp and taking me instead by the hair. My bodyweight drags at me as I am swung from claw to ground, my bandaged knees just grazing the stone.

Why is hair-pulling always considered a girly way to fight? It is agony. The pain shoots through each follicle and down through my scalp as I am dangled from the Ancient's hand like a ragdoll.

I squeak. "Please –"

Janos looks down at me with a savage little smile. His eyes –

Green. Green and empty…

"You pathetic creature," he says, almost kindly (is he talking to me or to Raziel?) "you haven't got a clue…"

"Why did you bring her here?" Raziel asks.

Now I can see him, admittedly through a blur as my eyes water in the pain of being held by my hair.

"She knows the truth," the thing that I am belatedly realising is definitely not Janos says. "She has knowledge of the future. She has seen our triumph. Tell him, human, tell your Soul Reaver what his precious Janos Audron read. We have already won…"

The manuals…

I knew I was right to worry what would happen if Janos found out I never finished the game.

Raziel looks directly at me for what seems like forever.

I meet those blank white eyes with all the fear and pain that is in my heart. I want to shake my head. No, no. I don't know anything. Don't kill me. Please don't kill me…

But the fear and confusion have struck deep: I cannot move, and just hang there, useless and silent. What is he thinking? His expression is totally unreadable. How much does he remember about that time so many months ago? How many years have passed for him since he came to my world and saved me from Gary? The demon that is Janos now waits, patiently, and huffs a sigh, claws repositioning to get a better grip on my hair.

Raziel puts his head on one side and his eyes narrow to blazing slits.

"Don't you know?" he mocks, eventually. "This is all a game to her." And charges forward, the Reaver held high.

Two things happen.

One, Janos takes to the air with a screech and rush of massive wings, dropping me without a second glance.

This time I am slightly more prepared, and I fall well, rolling on my shoulder.

Second, Raziel leaps over my prone body, clawed feet brushing my hair (have you any idea how terrifying that is? Unless you've ever been caught beneath the hooves of a rearing horse, I doubt it) and starts taking what look like wild, undisciplined swipes at the Ancient.

Part of me wants to cheer. Raziel, while obviously being not the most balanced of people, is not insane after all. It is Janos who has lost his mind to the pull of a stronger influence: Janos who is the danger to me. And once again, Raziel's intervention has preserved me.

The other part of me, the larger part, wants to tell Raziel to run. Janos is very strong, and he is practically older than legend.

I don't think I can look at this anymore.

I turn my face into the ground, curling into a ball around my injuries as best I can. I can hear the humming swish of the Reaver as it cuts the air: the scream of rage as the demon-angel passes by above my head. Twice Raziel jumps my body to avoid crushing me: twice Janos's claws or wings graze me as he swoops low.
Your hearing can be a wonderful thing, when your eyes no longer wish to see the horror before you. I learnt this when I first met Gary. The scuffle of Raziel's hooves on the ground are loud in my ears: his cries of pain drive through me as he is hit. And of course, from above, the eagle-screech of the Ancient and the ever present, overpowering downbeat sounds of his wings.

Without apparent warning something falls across my back, and I make a muffled cry as the weight of it drives home.

Feathers brush the exposed back of my neck. Janos has fallen across me, and he is heavy, heavier than anything that flies has a right to be.

His body arches. He is in pain, so much pain. Raziel has knocked him from the sky.

Can't breathe…he's too…heavy…

"Raziel,"Janos gasps, and it is then that the weight is lifted: Raziel turns the Ancient's body with one hand, rolling him off me. My ribs ache as oxygen returns to my lungs.

I stay curled up, breathing hard and gratefully. Lying on my side now, I see Raziel bend to Janos.

Janos's eyes, on a level with my own, are lucid and yellow. He is master of his own mind again, and all he wants to do is die. He wants Raziel to kill him. His hands, stained now with his own blood, pluck at the wraith's cowl in his desperation to be heard. His voice is cracked, ruined, but certain in its intent. Raziel seems frozen. Slowly, too slowly, he raises the Reaver high.

He means to do it.

I turn my head away once more. Although I am not, cannot be, sorry for Janos - (sympathy for the vampire? I can't even feel truly sorry for myself anymore) in my thoughts I am one with the wounded Ancient – let me die, it would be better if I died, then at least I could be sure I wasn't losing my mind…

Silence.

The Reaver does not fall.

For a moment, all I can hear is the wind moving in the vastness of this room.

Then, like an echo of thunder, the downbeat of those outsized wings. I risk a look, and can no longer see Janos's broken body on the ground. Raziel is in a defensive crouch, staring up into the ceiling space.

His gaze flicks to me for brief seconds. Then he convulses, his body wracked with green lightning that strikes from high above. Blue blood sprays across the floor in a messy arc.

I can't help the scream that is ripped from my throat.

No…not again…

Raziel drops like a dead thing, twitching and spasming as little crackles of green fire dance over his hands, his legs.

And gradually, just as it had done in the goth bar all those months ago, his body begins to fade, dissolve, until there is nothing but tiny motes of blue light and dust.

I become aware of my terrified sobbing only when the last of him has faded and gone. My breath whispers in my chest. Everything hurts. Everything aches, even my hair. I do not look up when the demon-angel's voice says, with gutteral triumph: "Now it is finished…"

Because it is.

I slump sideways before I am even aware if I've been hit or not. With my past, I always assume I have been. It's easier, and you're more prepared for the bruises when you come back from unconsciousness.

And I drift, not conscious, not unconscious, but somewhere else…

Somewhere in the blue, the green, the grey, somewhere below the swirling mists where lost voices call to each other in pain…

Help me.

It won't help.

There is no home.

Raziel….

…somewhere there is Raziel, and somewhere that voice that is so loud it makes every cell in your body tremble says: "Join the Wheel, little soul…there's no escape…"

…and somewhere, I wake up.

And waking, even though it is on the pavement, even though it is with my head on the roughness of the kerb, even though my whole body is so cold I feel I will never be warm again…

…waking is a blessed relief.

Maybe I didn't really want to die so much after all. Huh.

The roar of traffic, although far-off, confirms my location. A fluttering, as of paper or ribbon, catches my dulled hearing and demands attention.

Am I really lying on the street in my hospital pyjamas? The severed tube of the IV drip rubs on the concrete and, wincing, I pull the useless needle out of my vein and throw it into the drain. My hand is numb and sore from the surgical strapping, and will bruise later, if I live that long.

The flapping papery noise is coming from my left.

It is a banner, a barrier, one of those ones that says "Police Line – Do not Cross" on it. The end has been tied loosely into a knot, and it is the short, tied-off stub of ribbon that has caught the breeze and is fluttering noisily.

A hand made up of three huge talons closes on the stub and silences it. Against the pre-dawn sky, silhouetted against the neon sign of Kings Cross Underground Station, Kain raises one claw to his lips, warning me to be quiet.