Gathering of the Damned

A very unexpected fic by me (Kaya) and the amazing Totshafe.

Disclaimer: We don't own Erik or Raziel (big sigh) or any deceased vampire hunters (not so big sigh). Erik is Gaston Leroux's or whoever else my own him and Raziel belongs to those damn lucky Eidos/Crystal Dynamics people.

Enjoy!

Chapter 1: The Meeting of the Damned

Erik tried once more to rise but felt his consciousness slip away into the darkness. He wanted to hold on but, amidst the overwhelming pain he simply couldn't.

"Am I so lost?" he whispered into the darkness, the blood from his mouth streaking across the inside of his mask. Erik winced at another painful spasm, dragging him yet farther away from reality. In the very moment that he lost consciousness he could have sworn that he heard a deep, commanding voice,
"You are no longer lost, child"

He awoke, his head throbbing from a pain that he had never felt before. He looked around, seeing he was laying behind a large stone statue, one in a cemetary most likely. He looked up wearily, seeing a smog-filled sky. All around him was the familiar stench of death. Normally, he would have enjoyed it, but now he wanted to get away from it.

Suddenly, he heard voices from not very far away.
"Do you think he is a vampire or a demon?" one of them asked. Erik looked from behind the statue to see around five or six people. A couple females and around three men, one of them quite large.

"Are...are they talking about me?" he said to himself, hoping they didn't hear him. But a flash of blue stopped his thoughts. He turned around quickly to see something hiding behind another statue. All he could see were two glowing eyes, staring angrily in the direction of the strange people.

The eyes suddenly looked at Erik. There were no pupils, but he could tell the figure was looking at him. He wanted to run away, but his legs wouldn't move.
The figure quickly glanced at the people before sneaking around the statue. It was like a cat, being able to go around objects like that. The figure stopped some way away from Erik and stood up.

"Do you know the way out of here?" it asked. It's voice was that of a man, but the figure held a strange shape. Erik shook his head. It let out a sigh, one of anger and impatience. One that Erik knew too well. It stood up, showing it's full height, around six feet. Erik let out a slight gasp. It was a man, or, what was left of him. His spine was visible and his ribs. He was balanced upon two skeletal legs, two talons at the end. His hands were also like talons. The bottom half of his face was hidden by a scarf of some sort. His skin was a blue color, or maybe it was muscle. Two torn pieces of flesh hung off of his back.
They looked like wings almost. And his hair was black as the night sky, untamed on his head.

"Who are you?" Erik said, fear coming into his voice. He had never really felt fear. Sadness, yes. Anger, more than anything. But fear was alien to him. The figure crouched into a catlike sitting position.

"You don't want to know who I am. I am only a shadow of who I was," he said softly. Erik shook his head.

"Yes, I do want to know"

The man sighed again, looking angrily to his side. "Fine, my name is Raziel. I was a vampire at one point, but I was betrayed by someone who I had been nothing but loyal to. And I am nothing now"
Erik nodded, the story all too familiar to him. Betrayal mainly. Raziel looked at Erik. "And you are"
Erik bit his lip. How was he to explain who he was? There was no creature like like this in France. And he was obviously not in France, let alone Earth.

So he tried.
"My name is Erik. I don't know where I am right now. I am from France, which is in Europe. I think I died somehow. I lived under the Paris Opera House on a lake in the cellars. No one really knew who I was, nor did I want them to know. I fell in love with a young girl named Christine, but she betrayed me as well, falling in love with another man. I took her into my home,
but he came and took her back. I became heartbroken and sick. Then I ended up here for some reason."

Raziel seemed to struggle to comprehend all that was said. He had never heard of France, or Europe, or the Paris Opera House. But he understood Erik's problem.
He too had been betrayed. And he also had died of something he didn't deserve.
Raziel then looked to the black mask covering Erik's face. "Why are you hiding your face like that"
"Why are you hiding your's"
Raziel shook his head. "You don't need to know," Erik seemed to smile casually.
"Then you don't need to know either,"

Beneath his mask, Erik smiled. "Then I see that we understand each other" truth be told he had never expected to speak these words to another person but was this Raziel even a person? Yes, decided finally, after a moment's thought. Erik had long been thought to be less than human because of his death-like appearance… he did not feel that he should think the same of anyone else.

They both were people with emotions and awful pasts and perhaps, thought Erik, perhaps even… allies. He couldn't quite bring himself to think 'friend' yet. "Raziel" in Erik's moment of thought, Raziel's attention had wandered. The vampire hunters were on their feet "Raziel... where am I?" The reaver of souls hushed him, the wraith blade flaring into life on his arm.
"Can you defend yourself well?" he asked, his gaze flickering between the lost man and those intending on harming them. Erik understood how to fight.. he had learned much in his past. "Yes, but not against five armed fighters" "Then I suggest that you stand well back…Erik" He nodded, backing off a good two metres.

Raziel advanced moving with an inhuman agility, wraith blade raised. One woman thrust upward with what would seem to be a spear. He parried, knocked back slightly by the strength of her blow and slashed forward, tearing open her chest. She stumbled back, eyes wide, bleeding onto the ground. He wasted no time watching her die and spun just in time for the blade to catch against the neck of another woman.

A lucky strike.

The second he had taken to think this cost him. Two short blades penetrated his ribs but finding no heart, spilling bluish blood. Raziel cried out, turning and impaling his attacker- a young man who, honestly should not have been caught up in such things.

In the shadows, Erik watched, mesmerized. Despite injuries which could easily have killed a normal person, Raziel fought on taking them all down, showing virtually no signs of the pain he as obviously in. Perhaps the pain took his mind off other things…

They had all fallen now, all but one who now knocked Raziel sideways with a bone crushing blow. Nobody could be that size… Erik was sure of it. His powerful form seemed for a moment to be fragile and rag doll-like. On the ground, Raziel struggled to get to his feet, smashed down by another blow. Erik's gaze fell to a rope nearby at the camp… only feet away.

He hardly thought. In an instant he had it in his hands and in another it was a perfectly sized, perfectly formed noose. Confident in his throw, he cast it out and pulled it tight on the hunter's neck. The hunter stumbled, spluttering and fell back from Raziel, his weapons abandoned on the ground. "Should I kill him quickly?" Erik asked, walking forward to Raziel and offering a hand. He did not take it but simply stood and watched as the hunter was reduced to his knees, thrashing around.
"Yes… it is more than the death was granted"

Erik tugged the rope and the hunter's neck snapped.
"Look away" instructed Raziel and unthinking, Erik complied. A brief rustling of cloth passed and then an unearthly intake of… breath? "It is done"

For once, Erik suppressed himself and did not ask. He had the feeling the he would not wish to know what had just taken place between Raziel and the dead.

So...the product of a night's work. Come on, review and tell us what you think! We do Razzy/Erik dollies!