Author's Notes: Hmm!! The night of reckoning is at hand! It is nigh! It is nigh!! Run now, mortals, fear for your souls before Razzy slurps 'em up!!

Lunaticpandora1: Glad to have filled your need for the day!!

Solain Rhyo: Hmm... I hope so! I don't like the next chapter for some reason... the number eight bodes ill omens for me lately.

Laila: And Kain is not a cruel man? My dear, I think you are mistaken... Heehee!

--Amanda--

The sword was scarier than Kain was. I gave him his due credit for being ultimately frightful when he was almost yelling at me. Still, seeing the thing smoking and spewing that tangible corona, it was no mystery why I doubted Kain's little introduction. Raziel had hoped to find out the truth, and perhaps if he had to, destroy Kain. I warmed up to his dilemma, which soon was forgotten underneath all the troubles I went through to find a way for him to get home.

I shook myself and tightened my hold on the sheets, crossing my arms over my chest. "Is this some kind of fucking joke?" I heard myself ask.

Kain was not impressed. He knelt by the sword, gripping the hilt, finally stopping the blade from swinging like a metronome, back and forth. "I do not jest lightly. I will tell you the truth, and whether or not you take it to heart is not in my jurisdiction. I tell you, Raziel lives inside this sword and has been this way for nearly three moons."

Before I could reason with my emotions, I threw myself at him. I was overcome by a silent storm of rage that until now had been beyond my notice. I was careless, and let the sheet fall away from me as I attacked him. We went tumbling across the dusty floor, and I was unceremoniously dumped onto the bed within seconds. I had accomplished approximately jack shit in being angry.

"What precisely are you trying to do?" said Kain, thoroughly amused as he grinned at me.

I turned away, grabbing a pillow. "No harm in trying to vent my anger. In case you haven't noticed, Raziel means... meant... a lot to me."

"It appears we have something in common, then," he replied quietly. The sword remained where it was. My eyes kept going back to it. Kain wasn't lying; but why would Raziel be in that thing? How did it happen? I still didn't quite understand everything Raziel had told me about what he had learned - he really didn't tell me much in the first place.

It occured to me that I did know a little. "Aren't you Raziel's father?" Yes. Raziel had mentioned something about Kain bringing him back to life from corpsehood.

"He told you about me, did he?"

"I take that as a yes."

"He was my firstborn son. He was my best lieutenant and my faithful... servant. I daresay that perhaps we might have been friends at one point."

Could've fooled me. I took a steadying breath. "Well... what do you want from me? What is you need? Do you want to go home? Well, that's easy. We can take the portal back--"

"It closed behind me. I made a few small enemies with the guards of the portal as well..." He made an attempt at looking sheepish. I giggled crazily, covering my mouth before I was wrought with another stabbing pain in my mind. I tried to keep quiet, but it was so difficult... I forgot he was even in the room and erupted into a fit of laughter, broken with sobs. I was scaring myself, but at that moment I didn't care. I was crazy; nothing bothered me anymore.

When I collected my senses again, he had sheathed the Reaver and was staring at me with an impotent look of disgust. I kicked my feet under the blankets and smiled to myself.

My thoughts were disrupted when a voice hooked my attention. I bent my head to listen, and it spoke my name. I recognized Kamael's voice from anywhere.

Amanda! Where are you? he demanded harshly, his voice filled with the bubbling, indescribable anguish of a man who had lost his child. Did you know that your master is lying dead on the floor of my estate!?

My eyes snapped over to Kain. "You killed Darius?"

He looked smug. "Of course. How could I let him live?"

"Then I'm pretty much more dead than I was when he damned me with his blood," I murmured, rubbing my face. "I am -- was -- in his thrall. But he hasn't... given me his blood for almost a month and it's almost time for his usual feeding. I'll lose my mind if I don't get it."

The vampire sighed. He seemed more annoyed than concerned. Kamael continued to speak to me, using what science-fiction freaks called 'telepathy.'

I don't know how you escaped, but trust me, my heart, you will be found and destroyed on sight! I know he harbored very little love for me, and he only cared only about the comfort he lost when I hollered in agony. But still, it hurt to know that I had lost the one vampire I could openly talk to about my problems even if he always blamed my troubles on me.

Kain tensed suddenly. I watched him, opening my mouth to speak before he shushed me. He crept to the window and pressed his back against the wall, staring with cat-yellow eyes into the stillness of the growing night. Then he crouched onto the floor, peering over the edge of the dirt-stained window sill with slowly widening eyes. He reminded me of a cat, slowly preparing himself for a launching attack. I stayed silent, watching his feet shift on the ground noiselessly when, less than a second later, he vanished completely.

I heard scuffling feet on the gravel, then a crunch. Gurgling as the intruder submitted to Kain's powerful bite. I tried not to listen as he fed, but it was so hard not to because the attack was so close to the window. Finally the body dropped, and Kain returned from where he went out. A shirt and a jacket was in hand, and while the Reaver was still close to me, I wished he would take it away. I still didn't want to believe that Raziel was trapped inside a sword.

He dropped the clothes onto my head. I complained at him while I turned my back and slipped the shirt on, and then dove my hands into the arms of the jacket. It didn't feel right to be wearing the clothes of a dead man.

"Was he a vampire?" I asked quietly, suddenly a little worried that he'd gone and killed his first human in the modern world.

Kain nodded, to my relief.

I stood up, with some effort. My head immediately fell like a skull full with cotton instead of brains. I sat down again for awhile, staring at my boots and feeling immensely sick to my stomach. I tried it again and I walked toward him as he stood by the window. I leaned in the windowsill, and saw that the vampire's body had already crumbled into nothing. I sighed, listening to Kain pull the Reaver out of the floor with a dull 'thunk'. He sheathed it and I was relieved.

"Now where to?" I mumbled quietly, my eyes aching as a tear rolled down my cheek. I was once again fighting with my heart against the truth, railing away that it wasn't true. I would see Raziel again. He would no longer be just a voice in my mind, whispering to me. Loving me.

I started to cry.

--Kain--

I heard mortals crying before. I have seen it when they lie helpless in the claws of death. Perhaps it would have been more merciful to destroy her. Before I could raise a talon to berate or perhaps comfort, she was wiping at her face in a sudden burst of agitation.

"Stupid me," she growled. "Crying. Jesus. All I do is cry, like the whole world is a goddamn funeral procession. I even told Raziel, 'You know what, I cry too damn much.' I don't remember if he agreed with me or not."

I hesitated, before speaking. "He would have said that you cry as much as you need to. No more and no less. He was ...very valiant, and true unto himself to the end."

Amanda looked up at me, her expression unreadable. Then she looked past me at the Soul Reaver and sighed. "Well... he probably wouldn't have been any other way but himself." She dusted her pants off and walked toward the door. "We'd better find a way back into that room."

I nodded as I fixed my Clan symbol around my shoulder again, in its rightful place. I didn't expect to go home this very night, but we had a full night of adventure ahead of us. The best adventures last for a long time.

--Author's Notes--

So... it's not precisely the best. In fact, I really hate this chapter. You get your really good ones (chapter 6) then you're really crappy ones.. this one. I don't know what it is... it's just there... but I really hate it... Somehow... -spasms- They just aren't interacting right...