A slow update as this story winds down towards its end. . .

Nothing much to say here, but a thank-you again to everyone who read/ is reading this.

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"On the last day I spent in Paris I returned home early, after causing the queen to faint and fall down a flight of stairs, which cut my visit short as I could not harm the heirs. When I walked into the room, Katherine and Elizabeth were staring at each other. There was dead silence in the room, while on other occasions the noise had woken people four or five houses down the street. I knew instinctively that this was the serious quarrel, and that all the others had been mere warm-ups. Even torches were lit, which had not happened at all before.

" 'What's going on here?'; I asked, just to break the silence; because any fool could see what was going on.

" 'I'm going to kill her,' Katherine said, drawing herself to her full height of four and a half feet.

" 'And I'm going to laugh at the attempt, you trivial creature,' Elizabeth rejoined, smiling condescendingly. That was what did it, what broke the camel's back. With a cry Katherine jumped at Elizabeth, taking her by surprise and punching her squarely on her jaw.

"Elizabeth, however, was two hundred years older than her and was taller and stronger. She recovered instantly, slapping Katherine across the chest, sending her flying across the room. Katherine collapsed in a heap, a foot or two away from the fireplace. Then Elizabeth leapt at Katherine, aiming a kick with one foot fully extended and stiffened, a killing move. I could not have stopped it in time, and Katherine was lying there too stunned to move.

"As Elizabeth's foot reached Katherine however, she did something strange. She turned almost transparent, hollow. Elizabeth's face stiffened in shock as her foot went right through Katherine and into the fireplace behind her, crashing through the grating. She screamed and wrenched it free as Katherine scrambled away, still semi-solid.

"By now I was trying to stop the fight. As I ran between Elizabeth and Katherine, shouting at them to stop, Elizabeth jerked her head and I went flying, crashing upside down into the wall behind me and landing on the bed face down. I was pinned by some force, and unable to move, but I could see the fight.

"Elizabeth's leg was blackened to about halfway up the thigh, and her dress was on fire. She ripped it off and threw it in a corner." Remus paused again as James asked a question.

"Was she wearin' anythin'?" he asked with a smile bordering on a leer, which died instantly when he remembered he was talking to a vampire and his girlfriend was sitting next to him.

"No, James," Remus said, irritated, "she wasn't, and there was bouncing also. Go knock yourself out.

"So as I was saying, when she threw away her dress in a corner, it inflamed some rags already lying there, and that part of the room started to smoke, but I could not cry out, as my mouth was clamped shut as well. I doubt Elizabeth would have listened anyway; her leg was deadened by the fire and she was pretty much insane with the pain and rage. Her foot would probably take about five years or so to heal, unless she drank from an Ancient, and that was hardly likely to happen considering she was trying to kill a fellow coven member.

"Elizabeth was hitting Katherine with the same thing she had hit me with, and Katherine eventually solidified to hit back. They fought for about an hour or so, and James, in case you were wondering, Katherine's clothes got ripped off also; cotton in those days was hardly refined. Here, wait a second," Remus added, then implanted his memories of the night in James's head. James closed his eyes and leaned back in rapture, while Madeline frowned at Remus.

(That was not nice, Remus,) she thought angrily. (stop corrupting my boyfriend!)

(It's not like you could stop his playboy subscription, Madeline, and this is better anyway. He won't like the end in any case; maybe it'll encourage him to have sex instead of watching this stuff.) Remus responded. Out loud, he continued with the story, watching James's face blanch as he got to the end of the memory.

"After about an hour, Katherine was beginning to show signs of fatigue. Her body was wet with sweat, and she was tiring fast. Elizabeth was also sweating, but not nearly as much. Suddenly she got too close after a punch and didn't pull away in time and from some place Elizabeth pulled out a glowing knife and cut her open from her groin to her chest.

"There was so much blood then, but thankfully no organs spilled out, as a vampire has them slowly digested away before he becomes a hatchling. Katherine stood stock still for a second, than took a step towards Elizabeth, arm outstretched, before she collapsed silently on the floor, blood spreading rapidly. Elizabeth took a step backwards as Katherine reached out, and with her dead leg she inadvertently hit a wooden timber in the corner where she had tossed her dress. The rotting timber had been weakened by the flames, and it collapsed, bring the upper storey and roof crashing onto her. The hold on me was released as suddenly as it had come, and I leapt up and ran to Katherine's side.

"As I had feared, she was still alive, and in tremendous pain. I knew that nothing short of Alexander's blood could heal her, and she would die from blood loss in the next few days, every moment like a thousand needle points of pain. She was doomed, and we both knew it.

" 'Remus,' she said, her voice so low I could barely hear it, 'is the bitch dead?' I nodded so that she could die peacefully, though I had not checked, and doubted it.

" 'Then kill me, Remus,' she said simply, 'I cannot bear this pain.' While she had been speaking, I had been trying to use my powers to lift the blood up, and I had managed to hold about a litre in a floating ball. I showed it to her and she laughed weakly.

" 'That little amount won't ease my pain,' she said. 'Drink it. I wanted you to drink from me, remember? Now's your chance.' She watched until I had drunk it, then she leaned back, bending her head back and showing her throat. 'Kill me,' she said, and it seemed like a command from a queen, not the death bed ravings of someone who was in appearance a ten year old girl. Obediently I bent my head to her neck, and drank. Then, when she had passed out from blood loss, I took her little body and threw it into the fire. Then I turned to where Elizabeth lay, trapped under burning rubble.

"I got as much water as I could, and doused most of the flames, then I heaved the rocks away. Elizabeth was lying face down in the debris, and most of her lower back, as well as her buttocks were charred black. Blood ran from numerous cuts. The massive wooden beam had crushed the bones of her left arm, and therefore she had been pinioned under the wreckage, unable to move. I dragged her out and rested her head in my lap. Her belly and breast were smouldering and were charred almost black. The entire right side of her face had been burnt to a soot colour. She was badly injured, but not in mortal danger.

" 'So, lover,' she said, smiling wanly, and when she spoke, blood ran from her mouth. 'Want a drink?'

" 'Katherine's dead, but you can be saved,' I told her. She smiled a bit more broadly at that.

" 'Look at my face,' she said, her tone still flirtatious, but dead serious at the same time, 'look at my body. My leg is gone. Do you think I want to live?'

" 'Alexander can help you,' I said as gently as I could. She attempted a snort.

" 'Alexander would not heal me if the prize were all the power in the world,' she said, 'and neither will Magnus, and they are the only ones that can properly heal me. No, Remus, I have killed a vampire, a vampire from my own coven, and it will be the Sun for me.' suddenly she grabbed my collar and jerked my head downwards until our eyes were an inch apart. Her eyes shone defiantly purple from their blackened edges.

" 'But I won't give them the satisfaction,' she hissed. 'Kill me, kill me now. I won't be burnt anymore then I already am.'

"I was trying to pull away, muttering, I think, that she would be fine, that it would all be alright. She held me easily, even after having been in a fight and being burnt. For a couple of seconds she watched me struggle ineffectually against her hand, our faces inches apart. Then she let me draw back slightly, not relaxing her grip in the slightest, and with one long finger on her free hand, cut the place between her breasts, and jerked my face forward into the cut there."

Remus cut off as he saw the look on Jessica's face. It was a curious mixture of disgust, revulsion, anger, and even a smidgen of jealousy. For a moment he felt vaguely irritated that his face was not a quarter as expressive as hers, but what he said to her in a voice tinged with irritation and sarcasm was,

"Look, if you don't like this, I'm reciting the children's edition next week. You can come to that one if you like. This one is straight up front, uncensored. I'm not going to change it, I'm not going to make myself out to be a hero in the hope that you fall in love with me." Remus looked at her for a moment, then added under his breath, "again."

There was a minute of silence in which Jessica tried to meet Remus's glare, but eventually flushed red with annoyance and looked away.

"So Elizabeth had my head there," Remus said, continuing the story, "and I couldn't do anything but suck. Any vampire finds it hard to resist bodily contact with blood, and I was no exception. So I drained her until she was close to passing out, and then I stopped. I think I made to move away once more, but she held me by the back of the neck in an embrace, smiled, and kissed me lightly.

" 'Darling,' she murmured, then fell back, unconscious. I picked her up in my arms and did the same thing I had done with Katherine. In the time it had taken to drain both the women, the flames had grown hot enough to seriously bother me, even with the blood of two pretty powerful vampires in me. I exited through the first floor window, and had not left the street when the house collapsed, taking with it two very powerful vampires, or vampiresses, as you will.

"I left Paris immediately, and upon my arrival, a dark silence greeted me. When I went inside, I found the whole place trashed, and seemingly deserted. There was a fair sized hole in the ceiling, and ashes on the floor that scattered in the cool wind. I scoured all the rooms above ground – the rooms for us lesser vampires, not our leaders – and discovered that they were empty. As I went down the stairs to the lower rooms, where Alexander and Magnus lived, a figure emerged out of the darkness. It was Alexander. We stood there for a few seconds, I on the stairs, and he barely illuminated by a few torches from above, and standing mostly in my shadow and the shadows of the hall.

" 'Remus,' he said, and his voice seemed to be checked, as if he were trying to control it, and himself.

" 'Alexander,' I replied, not sure how to respond.

" 'Do you know what has happened in the past few days, Remus?' he asked, his voice still controlled. 'Do you know what has happened because of your inability to stop a catfight?'" Remus paused, looking at the others. "Um, that wasn't the word he used, of course, but I hope you realise I've been translating the whole of my story so far, from the Latin used in those days.

" 'No, Alexander,' I said, chary of the doom that seemed impending, 'I do not know, but I hope you realise that I would have gotten killed had I tried to intervene in the matter.'

" 'Perhaps it would have been better had you died,' he said, but without much conviction, 'because even your death would be preferable to what has happened.'

" 'Tell me,' I said, and he did. He told how Magnus, being coven leader, could sense the battle taking place. He told me how Magnus had felt the deaths of two of his coven, had sensed their hatred for each other, despite being members of the same species, and even of the same coven.

"He told me how this had angered Magnus, even more than it had saddened him, and he told me of how, after Magnus had announced the deaths to the rest of the coven, Piotrvich had thrown himself into the fire in the great hall. As Alexander told me this, I remembered that Katherine had said Piotrvich fell in love with all his victims. I figured that he loved Katherine, although it could have been the grief of Elizabeth's death as well. I hadn't known him too well, and I didn't pursue the matter too far.

"Alexander then told me that Mikhail had hauled his brother's barely moving, smouldering body from the fire, and insisted that Magnus give his brother blood to restore him. Magnus, in annoyance and anger, had refused him, saying that Piotrvich was dying due to his own foolishness. Mikhail had struck Magnus, demanding that Piotrvich be given blood, whereupon Magnus had swirled his hand, and all the blood in Mikhail's body had come bursting out. Magnus had made Mikhail's blood fly to where Piotrvich was lying, and splash upon him. Magnus had then told Mikhail's corpse that Piotrvich had indeed received blood. He had then flown off, bursting through the roof of the castle.

"When I had left for Paris, our coven had numbered nine. It was now five in number, if one counted Francis. Out of the four vampires barring Francis, there was Moira, who had vanished with Francis after Magnus had flown off; there was Alexander, who had stayed at the castle; there was Magnus, seemingly crazed at the loss in one day of about half his coven; and then there was me.

" 'What should I do now?' I asked Alexander after he had told me what had happened.

" 'Do what you will,' he said, dismissively, 'just don't go off and die. I have need of you yet.'

" 'What about you, then?' I asked. He waved a hand dismissively. 'I stay here. This is where the Last True Coven was formed, the last one that Nur formed. I will not leave this place. Ever.'

" 'Where do I go?' I asked, feeling a bit apprehensive at leaving the sanctuary of the coven, or what was left of it. 'What do I do? Am I still of the coven, can I leave it?'

" 'Go where you will, Remus,' Alexander replied, smiling slightly, 'do what you want. Go underground if you will. You're still part of the coven, but you can form your own, except that they will all have to swear Magnus as their leader when he calls you.'

" 'Calls me?' I asked, surprised.

" 'His silent voice,' Alexander replied. 'No matter where you are, if he calls you, you will hear it.'

"I turned to go, and he turned to walk back into his room. Then, I stopped, thinking of what he had said. I turned around, ready to call him, but his keen ears had already detected my pause, and he was standing, arms clasped, waiting for my question.

" 'This going underground business you mentioned,' I said, 'what is it?'

" 'Simply this,' he replied, 'that sometime during your immortal life, you will feel that you have done whatever you were meant to do in your life. You will have no will to live anymore. You may fancy watching a sunrise again. If you feel like this, then bury under the ground, bury deep, and close your eyes. You shall fall into a trance-like state, and you will be able to survive without blood indefinitely. It won't be much of a living, but if you do it, when next your parched lips taste blood again, you'll hunger for it, you'll gain all the fervour of a virile stallion. As a plus point, your power will increase tremendously if you do this. The longer you abstain from blood, the more your power will increase.' He paused a bit, and then cocked his head at me. 'Now, go, before Magnus comes and decides to kill you for not stopping the fight.'

"We exchanged terse goodbyes then, and I left the castle. It was to be a long time before I saw it again."

Remus shook his head, seemingly to clear the memories lodged there. "Just wait a second," he said, "Just give me a bit of a break, and then I can resume my narrative."

Without waiting for the others to nod an acceptance, he leaned back in his chair, touched his fingertips together in front of his face, gazed thoughtfully straight ahead at a blank spot, and lapsed into silence.

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And the next update will be the last, the final chapter of this story. Please RR this, the penultimate chapter.