Chapter 2: Ruins
Author: Terraphim
Rating: Mature for sexuality and violence
Disclaimer: I don't own Selene, Michael, or any of the other characters mentioned. They are owned by Len & Co. and Screen Gems. I do wish I owned Michael, but that's for my own nefarious reasons…
Spoiler Warning: Underworld and Underworld Evolution
Summary: Selene and Michael begin the difficult process of aftermath.
Carbonized wood crumbled beneath her boots as Selene walked through the ruins of Ordoghaz. The vast house's remains were few: the brick chimneys, metal cabinets filled with ash, remnants of papers and computers, and even some support beams that hadn't been totally destroyed. Some charred bones were found, but the few bodies that had not completely crumbled to dust were unidentifiable.
Selene stood in the middle of the destruction, an unreadable expression on her face. The harsh autumn wind slaked its icy claws through her hair and fingers, tossing ashes around her like a grey aura.
There was nothing left. There had been fourteen centuries of immortal history in the house and it was all gone.
"Selene–" she heard Michael say.
She looked over at him.
Michael was watching her, concern in his eyes. "Are you okay?" He asked simply.
She nodded. "I'll be fine," she said.
Forcing herself to wrench her eyes away from the destruction, she surveyed the rest of property. A good portion of the garage still stood and through the dust and shadow she could see at least two intact cars.
Good, she thought, at least we won't have to walk anymore for a while. Her energy had been depleted by the almost sixty mile trudge that she and Michael had carried out over the last two days and she knew he was just as exhausted.
Turning towards the treeline at the front of the property, Selene saw something else that had survived the blaze that had claimed most of the property – the gatehouse, half-hidden by foliage, was intact, untouched by fire.
She pointed towards the gatehouse. "Come on." They made their way in the pre-dawn darkness to the small building. It was locked, but proved unchallenging to Selene, who kicked it open. The lights turned on automatically. "Good, the generator is still working."
Built almost like a lighthouse, the Ordoghaz gatehouse's ground floor served as nothing but access to the stairs that led to the higher levels. Three stories in all, the building had a tightly-wound staircase. Selene ignored the second level as well, leading Michael up to the highest floor, a finished attic.
There was no one there. The mansion had been in a state of lock-down when she and the other Death Dealers had accompanied Viktor to the underground to fight the lycans; the vampires left behind in the house had been so terrified at the news of Amelia's assassination that the Death Dealers normally assigned to the gatehouse had been inside the main building as well; they had been trapped there when Marcus began his massacre.
They should have stayed in here, Selene thought grimly. Maybe then they might have stayed alive.
Michael reached the landing of the attic behind Selene. He was surprised by what he found.
"Why is this here when the house was twenty-five meters away?" he asked her. "Did someone live here?"
The attic was divided into three different parts: a bathroom, a closet, and a room that appeared to be filled with sofas and a television set.
Selene shook her head. "No one lived here; not for decades, at any rate. This used to be the gatehouse. A servant would live here and welcome guests that arrived on horseback or in carriages."
That's more than decades, Michael thought, although he didn't say that. "Why does it look so…residential?"
She sighed. "About thirty years ago, a group of the older, civilian," she spat the word out bitterly, "vampires, the ones that never did anything useful, petitioned to Kraven to keep the Death Dealers from tracking our 'filth' of the battle into the house. He agreed and demanded that the unused gatehouse be converted into a place where we could get cleaned up after fights. They were ashamed of the soldiers. They didn't want to have to see us. As the years passed, it became a place that the younger Death Dealers liked to pass the time in. They were the ones that brought in the television."
"What's downstairs?"
"More practical facilities; there's a small infirmary and an armory, as well as more storage units for the Ziodex blood. So we can rest here for a few days and re-supply. There's blood, weapons and clothing. From here we can move on."
Michael didn't want to play Twenty Questions with Selene, but he had one more query.
"Move on to where?" He knew that they would have to be on the move again, and soon. From what Selene had told him, just because the Old World coven had been destroyed and Marcus killed, it did not mean that they were safe. The remaining vampires would still be after them for killing the two male Elders, the humans were still after him, and the lycans would most certainly attempt to kill them if they had the chance.
Selene looked even more forlorn at his question. "I don't know," she said softly.
She sounded so vulnerable; Michael pulled her into a hug to which she surrendered gratefully, her head resting on his shoulder. He kissed her temple and rocked her slowly like a child needing comfort. He marveled that she let him hold her this way; it was a true testament to how much her emotional barriers had come down for him. They stood that way for several minutes, not saying anything, just holding each other.
When she finally broke away, Selene's posture was straighter, and when she spoke, her voice was stronger.
"The bathroom has a shower," she said, sounding much more like the cool, confident woman he had met a week ago. "I'll go find you something to wear."
As exhausted as he was, the thought of actually showering was an even more welcome thought than sleep. The hygiene-minded doctor in him was screaming at the state that he was in, covered in mud, blood, and God knew what else. As Selene went back down the stairs, he headed to the bathroom, divulging himself of his jacket, boots, and pants in record time.
Michael felt he was washing off a year's worth of filth instead of just a few days of it. The hot water swirling down the drain at his feet was at first a muddy red as the blood of several lycans and one very dead hybrid Elder came off. Thank God this soap is unscented, he thought; even without a ridiculous smell on the soap, its aroma was more powerful than any cleanser Michael had ever smelled, a by-product of his new abilities perhaps? Of course, he reasoned, Death Dealers tailing lycans would need as little personal scent as possible. How did Selene manage to not get killed centuries ago, then? Her personal scent was intoxicating to him and had nearly driven him crazy with want on more than one occasion, and only his self-control had kept him from attacking her. Then what do you call what happened with the tree, Corvin?
Michael had always considered honestly the best policy.
Really, really good sex.
Still under the almost scalding deluge, Michael grinned as he inspected his hands. His fingernails, blessedly human-looking, were still crusted with blood, dirt, and even a little paint from his Pollack impersonation in the abandoned warehouse, when he had done everything in his power to protect Selene from the sunlight.
Now she doesn't even need that, he thought. Selene had made very little of her sudden tolerance to daylight after her initial reaction. She had accepted it quickly and moved on. Watching her, he had realized that he, too, was becoming accustomed to the astounding changes in his life over the last week, and far more quickly than he could have anticipated.
As if I could have seen this coming. He half-smiled under the water, laughing at naïve he must have been, only a few days before.
Even with the water flooding around his ears, he still heard her come back up the stairs and enter the bathroom. Behind the partition blocking him from seeing her, he heard her set something down and leave again.
When he was finally clean, he found what she had left: a pair of dark brown cotton slacks and a black t-shirt. He looked down with distaste at the pants he had shed. They were disgusting, stiff with grime and organic materials from the immortals he had fought and the sewers and pits he had fought them in. They can't be saved, he thought, I'll just throw them out.
Having discarded of his old clothing and donned his new, Michael left the bathroom, feeling even more renewed than when he had woken up whole and healed in the Cleaners' helicopter. Hearing Selene in the other room, he walked in to find the largest sofa pulled out into a bed. It was set up completely, complete with pillows and a blanket. Two packs of blood lay on the coffee table next to the bed. Selene was taking inventory of a pile of weapons she must have collected from the floor below, a group of magazines at her side. She looked up when he entered.
"Good," she said, ejecting a clip from the gun she was holding. She set the weapon down and walked over to him. "I'm going to go clean up. You get some rest."
Before he could say a word, she was exiting the room, shedding herself of her corset as she walked. A few seconds later, Michael could hear the water running again. A screech of something metallic startled Michael. Heavy metal shutters were automatically covering the windows, shrouding the room in even more complete darkness; day was coming and the vampires had created a system that automatically protected them from the sun. Yet despite the even deeper darkness, Michael could still see; this must have been another sense heightened by his new immortality.
The thought made Michael yawn. It's funny, he thought. I guess if anyone has to go suddenly nocturnal, it should be a doctor. We're awake at night anyway. At least this aspect of his strange new hybrid nature wouldn't be such an adjustment.
He sat on the bed and looked at the blood packs. He was hungry, but not enough to take any more time away from sleeping. He lay down on the bed and was asleep before he could shift to a more comfortable position.
Selene took even longer in the shower than Michael did. She scrubbed every inch of herself, until her white skin was a raw red, and still she scoured herself.
It was therapeutic.
The sight of the ruined mansion had disturbed her far more than she had expected. It was really a symbol of the life she had left behind, the life she knew she would be leaving behind, the moment she had picked up Viktor's abandoned sword.
Still, a small part of her had hoped for understanding. Very small, she thought. The fact was, though, that she didn't miss her old life. She had not realized it, but she had spent the last six hundred years in such a deep melancholy and routine that it had taken the cataclysmic truth about Viktor to shake her from it.
No, it was before that, her rationality told her, it was the moment Viktor told you to gain your absolution by killing Michael. Viktor had sealed the deal of her defection, but even before she had learned he was the one responsible for the slaughter of her family. In a split second of dilemma, her life had changed focus from one of living for the reliable kill and had moved on to an unknown future. She had shed her routine, her predictability, and had accepted the inevitable expulsion from the life she had known, all for Michael. And she didn't regret it.
It was amazing to Selene, the lengths she was prepared to go to protect him, to ensure that he remain alive and at her side. It stunned her, how much she had let him in emotionally.
And other ways, he brain told her; heat that had nothing to do with the shower rose up in her face. She quickly shoved such thoughts to the back of her mind.
She drew strength from him; the latest example of this had been the simple hug they had shared in the hallway. It had restored her in a way that not even fresh blood could. And after seeing the wreckage of her former home – a manifestation of her former life – she had needed that comfort that he offered. It reminded her of why she gave it up in the first place and she had been in peace, if only for a moment.
How had he done it? Michael, too, had lost everything of the life he had led, and yet he was the one offering comfort to her? This astounded Selene more than anything else.
She shut off the water and toweled herself off, and then donned the only clothing she had found that wasn't leather: a pair of black sweatpants and a long-sleeved black cotton shirt. As she dressed, a wave of bone-deep weariness struck her, reminding her she hadn't had a full day's sleep in more than a week. The amount of sleep she'd gotten with Michael in the abandoned warehouse had been minimal and…interrupted.
Several times.
Stop that! Selene had to tell herself. What was wrong with her, thinking like this? She had never, in her many centuries, been this preoccupied with a lover.
Shaking her head at her own ridiculousness, Selene emerged from the bathroom, her hair still dripping. She went into the room where she had set up a place for them to sleep, and the sight she found made her almost smile.
Michael was sleeping on his side, chin curled into his chest, breathing softly. He had not even bothered with the blanket, which still lay neatly folded at the foot of the bed.
She almost didn't want to disturb this peaceful picture, but her own exhaustion won out. She gingerly joined him on the bed, pulling the blanket up and over them both as she lay down. Michael didn't wake or stir. Selene settled against the sheets and closed her eyes.
Selene was in a room with stone walls that were covered in ornate tapestries. A bright fire warmed the air and helped the weak winter light streaming from the windows to illuminate the chamber. She stared moodily into the flames, watching them dance and listening to the wood crackle.
A woman ran into the room, her hair in wild disarray and her dress slipping off one shoulder. "My lord!" She yelled excitedly. "My lord, it's time!" She beckoned Selene to follow and ran out of the room again.
Not of her own accord, Selene walked in the direction the eager woman had run, to another chamber. This one was closed off, the windows covered in thick curtains. The air was thick, almost strangling. A bed covered in even more curtains was situated right in the middle. There were women everywhere, bustling about with bowls of water or holding lengths of cloth. A solitary lady was on the bed, her belly swollen with pregnancy and her legs spread with impending delivery. Despite the strained, pained look on her face and the sweat that covered her, she still smiled when she saw Selene, who took her hand.
The woman on the bed suddenly let out a cry and her head fell back. Her red hair tangled in her face and the lord whose head Selene was in smoothed it back with his hand, exposing a signet ring of lacy gold in an ornate setting around a C.
…The women around the laboring lady all held their breaths. The midwife had her hands between the lady's legs, guiding an infant into the world. For a few tense seconds, the boy-child did not cry nor make a sound of any kind. The midwife gently smacked the child.
A squall filled the dense air. The mother laughed at the sound of her child's voice, taking in deep breaths.
Selene's host's eyes began to tear, as the baby boy was gently wiped down, wrapped into a tight bundle, and handed to his mother. She cooed over the child for a moment and then looked up at Selene.
"Here, my lord," she said. "Here is you son and heir; just as we hoped." Her smile brightened the dark room.
"His name is Marcus," Selene said.
The woman's smile faltered a little but held. "Appropriate for the son of a warlord," she replied, holding her child closer to her bosom. Suddenly, her belly rippled and she let out another laborious cry.
"Another one is coming!" cried the midwife. An attendant took the born child from his mother, placing him in a cradle not far from her.
"It's bad luck to have twins!" another attendant hissed at the midwife, who quickly hushed her.
…The second child took much longer than its brother. After several minutes, the woman in labor began to cry with exhaustion.
"I can't do this anymore!" the mother keened.
…After a few more minutes of wails, the other twin came out, crying his dissatisfaction at the bright, cold world he had been pushed out into. After being wiped down, he joined his brother in the cradle.
"William." Selene declared, "After his grandfather."
The mother smiled again, exhaustion painting her features. The attendants removed her blood and sweat-soaked blankets and sheet, replacing them with fresh ones, all the while allowing her to remain lying down.
Selene walked to the cradle holding the newborns. They were both tiny, exactly the same size, their skulls already covered with a fine orange down; they'd have their mother's hair.
…The scene in Selene's head shifted to a new place, a brightly-lit room, where the redheaded woman was helping one of her children – now a toddler – learn to walk. Selene laughed with the walking boy's twin in her arms.
"Don't worry, Marcus," she said, "Soon you'll be walking as well, and then your mother and I won't be able to keep up with you and your brother. You'll take the world by storm, both of you." The child looked up at her, blue eyes piercingly intelligent; then he began to fuss, reaching out for his brother on the floor.
Selene's eyes flew open. So I did get some of your memories, Selene thought unhappily. Damn you, Corvinus. Over the past few days, she had had little flashes of unfamiliar recollections that she had guessed had belonged to the first immortal, but she had been uncertain about her inheritance of anything lucid. Perfect, she thought, as if thing weren't already complicated. She sighed quietly. There was nothing she could do about it now, she reasoned, so she might as well go back to sleep.
It was then that her awareness shifted back to the present; she was in the Ordoghaz gatehouse, lying in bed with Michael. At some point, he must have woken enough to pull her to him; his arms were around her waist and she had placed her arm around his torso. It was a strange position to find herself in yet she did nothing to adjust it; she didn't want to.
She shifted slightly in his arms, resting her head on his chest; Selene couldn't believe how comfortable this was, after so many centuries of sleeping alone.
In the darkness, her eyes fell on the pendant Michael still wore. Her thoughts went back to the scene she had witnessed between him and his ancestor; how Corvinus had not seemed to care when she had returned to his office without Michael, grief obvious in her body language. The old man had not even asked about Michael, only the damned key. He must have accustomed himself to his children killing each other, to be able to show no emotion when it had happened again.
And in the end Marcus, his firstborn, had killed him. That must have been just as, if not more, agonizing, because until the end, Corvinus had done everything to protect his sons from her. And yet he gave me the strength to do what he could not; was that righteousness in his mind, after the lecture he gave me on what I've done?
Still, her own weak argument lingered in her head: "Anything I've done can be laid at your feet…" Did she really believe that?
Plagued by her thoughts, it was a long time before Selene was able to sleep again.