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Chapter 25
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Wolfwood had begun to think that Vash was leading Milly and himself on a wild goose chase through London. The cross on his back was becoming heavy and his breath was growing heavy as the burden on his back weighted him down. He had begun to think Vash was either deceiving them or was losing his mind, one of the two, at least.
He could feel the impenetrable silence as the coming neared him, though, as everything that had been clam and cool was being brought to an end. And he wasn't there to see it. Yet.
It turned out Vash's instincts were better than his own, which could be expected. He had led them down a long, winding street named Blueberry Lane. It wasn't quit the name he was looking for in a fitting end. In fifty years from now, did he really want people to know it had started on a street named after a perfectly harmless fruit?
Nonetheless, it was not his choice to make, and quite abruptly, Vash stopped in front of him. This nearly caused the priest to slide into the blonde, his shoes slipping dangerously on the wet and slick cobblestones. He was about to curse at the vampire before he noticed the reason he had stopped. Beside him, Milly gasped.
Wolfwood was stunned.
He didn't think he had actually seen so many vampires crowded into one space. He had always thought they preferred to travel in groups of six or seven, like a small family. But this…the amount of bloodsucking creatures before him could amount to a small village, a whole town! And there was only one reason so many would be brought together in one place at the same time. They wouldn't have done so if someone hadn't called them.
Knives, he thought, stepping up beside Vash.
It seemed, as soon as that thought left his mind, the closest daywalker to him, the one farthest from the action, turned. Almost as though he had been drawn by the name.
Wolfwood watched then, as one distraction caused another vampire to turn, a woman. Then another, a man. Then another, and another. And quite soon, a good third of the whole London vampire population was solely focused on the three people before them. At least a hundred or so against three, to them the numbers were completely fair.
"What do you say?" Wolfwood murmured to Vash, the first words exchanged in a full while.
Vash didn't even blink. His eyes seemed trained on something that wasn't there, and a frown was steadily growing on his face. "I say we find Meryl," he answered
stiffly, stretching his fingers towards his single gun.
Nodding, Wolfwood retrieved the large cross from his back and set it on the ground to his side, fully erect and at its full height. He cast a quick glance at Milly, who stood at his left. She had her large stun gun held in both hands, a determined look on her face. Damn, he wished he could have a cigarette…
"Are you ready?" he asked Milly.
She didn't even look his way. Her light blue eyes were narrowed in front of her, glaring at the vampires facing them. "Are you sure Sempai's in the middle of all that?"
Wolfwood's eyes returned to the mass of dark forms no more than fifty metres from them. "Not a doubt in my mind, honey," he answered quickly, without
hesitation. Hesitation would give him doubt, he knew.
"On the count of three?" Vash questioned beside him.
Milly and Wolfwood nodded simultaneously, eyes focused forward.
"One…" Wolfwood started, his hand straying to the first buckle on the cross.
"Two…" Milly supplied softly, her knuckles turning white on the grip of her gun.
"Three…" Vash ended, and his hand went straight for his weapon.
Within seconds, everything around them was thrown into complete chaos.
Wolfwood's hands skilfully unclasped the rest of the buckles wrapped around the cross, and heaving the large object into the air, he tore the wet cloth covering from it. As the cloth flew away, past and over Vash's head, he crouched down low and lifted a shining, metal cross onto his shoulder.
He liked to refer to it as the Cross Punisher, and any that interfered with the Lord's will would come face to face with it in time.
As Milly held her stun gun straight ahead, firing the first shot through the rain and hitting the first vampire to move, Vash levelled his own gun to the oncoming rush of half-blooded daywalkers. Wolfwood narrowed his eyes, flipping his shaggy hair from his face before aiming his weapon at the bloodsuckers. The torrent of pounding rain crashed like a tidal wave onto the metal's surface, and without a moment's hesitation, the priest's cold and stiff fingers settled on the grip of the weapon and he pulled the trigger.
Instantaneously, a barrage of silver-coated bullets from the machine gun crashed into the front line of vampires, and he was satisfied to see more than a few disintegrate to dust before his eyes. Pushing against the force of the backlash, Wolfwood steadied his fingers on the trigger and aimed for the vampires as they flung themselves towards the three.
He was now quite sure that the whole population of bloodsuckers was quite aware that he was firing quite happily away at them with his cross punisher. Now, he knew, came the hard part, and the as the Punisher ran out of bullets, he flipped it off his back.
The large cross hit the ground beside him, and Wolfwood surveyed the carnage before him one last time before triggering the mechanism in the centre of the cross. The arms of the large weapon flipped open, revealing several revolvers tucked neatly within, side-by-side. Just waiting to be used.
The misguided priest pulled two from the cross and swiftly faced the vampires. Off to his left was Vash, picking off random targets with his silver gun, which was a complete surprise. He had gotten the impression Vash was not the one to take killing lightly, especially not the murdering of his kin. But then he noticed that the bullets were not killing the vampires, merely stalling them, disabling them.
To his right, Milly held her stun gun. It wasn't lethal, but it hurt, and could take down as many as four adversities in one shot if aimed right.
Even with their skills combined, the vampires were still advancing, shoving off the steaming, disintegrating corpses of their fellows as they fought to get at the three partners, their enemies. And Wolfwood was the only one who was shooting to kill.
Grimly, he aimed both his guns and began firing at will, shooting off bullets that cut through the rain and imbedded themselves in any vampire unfortunate enough to come in their path. There were six bullets in each gun, twelve guns. That made seventy-two pieces of silver for more than a hundred opponents. Angrily, he cursed his bad luck and continued to pick off the vampires coming too close.
Milly was, perhaps, the first to realize that they were fighting for a hopelessly lost cause. Not only were the day walking bloodsuckers flooding in like the tide, there seemed to be no end to them. And they were getting closer.
She almost felt like giving up and running, when, quite suddenly, as she shot off her stun gun once more, she realized that Meryl was still stuck somewhere in the middle of the whole mess. Waiting, just waiting for someone to help her.
Oh, sempai! Milly cried in her head, watching as the vampires finally broke the ten foot mark as Nicholas pulled two more guns from the upright cross at his side.
She shook a wave of water from her hair and blinked quickly before deciding her next move. She had several options, but only one really appealed to her.
She was supposed to be a vampire hunter, after all. Meryl's faithful collaborate, her best friend since their late teen years.
With one tremendous cry that broke the pounding of the storm overhead, Milly hefted her large gun off around, and as the first vampire reached her, swung it around in a wide arc. The heavy piece of machinery connected with the vampire's head full force, sending the man swinging around and the gun into another target's head.
Then, the tall woman hefted the huge gun over her shoulder with one arm and batted her cloak aside quickly. Her hand came back with a pointed stake just in time to spear a bloodsucker through the heart. She didn't even wait to watch its death as she ripped the wooden stake out and went onto another. Milly's eyes were no longer a peaceful blue, but twin pairs of stormy cobalt rocks, cold as ice and harder than granite.
Within moments, she was engulfed in the fray in a fighting rage, determined to find her partner.
Vash had been aiming to aim. He had been aiming to slow his fellow daywalkers down, to keep them at bay while he tried to scan the area with his mind, searching frantically for Knives. Soon, however, he realized that they couldn't be kept back much longer. To his right, Wolfwood went under the fray after Milly, four guns stuck in his belt, two in his hands. They were the last of his weapons, as he had already used up five of the revolvers while shooting madly at the vampires.
Now Vash was the only one left clear, and the lord give him mercy, he had no more bullets.
The crowd was descending fast, and he realized that nearly none of the vampires held guns, only crude weapons such as cudgels, daggers, chains and even fists. Teeth, too, he supposed, but that didn't bother him. He had a set of his own, after all, and if these half bloods could fight bear handed so could he, even in his weakened state.
Vash tightened the grip on his gun and brought it crashing down on the first vampire's head, and then threw himself forward into the thick melee, striking out with his hands and fists, grabbing chains and wrapping them about their owner's necks, redirecting bludgeon paths to their owner's heads, faces, limbs. Frantically, blinded and drenched by the onslaught of rain, he tried to catch sight of Knives, get a whiff of him, sense him. The enormous presence of the vampires around him, however, made it extremely difficult, each with their own thoughts and abilities.
It didn't take too long, however, because the impenetrable brotherly bond between two brothers was utterly inseparable.
It was just a prick in the edge of his mind as he sent his fist in a wide arc towards a particularly troublesome man. The thought of pure, irrefutable joy, happiness, sick pleasure.
Knives, he knew. No one could feel such things like his brother could.
Vash went down under a crowd of vampires, and they forced him abruptly to the wet ground. His face connected with the pavement with a loud splash, one side of his head dunking down into a large pool of grimy, dirty London filth. The blonde was crushed under the sheer immensity of weight atop him, and his weakened state of mind only caused him to collapse sooner.
But Vash was determined, and he didn't often find himself very motivated. Such was the reason why today was so special. He could actually find the effort within himself to do something, something. He hadn't quite figured it out yet, but when the time came, he was sure he would know.
And now, it was almost time.
Vash gasped as someone's knee connected with his spine, and he felt himself being forced down to his stomach. Which wasn't a good thing, because once he was down there, he would probably be down there until someone decided to release him, and when Meryl's life was on the line. T
The mere thought gave him enough strength to grit his teeth in pure agony and claw a gloved hand forward along the ground. Slowly, he pulled himself forward, towards the outside of the huge pile atop him.
His other arm was trapped painfully at his side half numb with horrible little jolts of pain winding through his nerve endings like relentless bolts of electricity. Still, though, he managed to pull himself from under the vampires holding him down.
A torrent of rain crashed onto his dirtied face as soon as she wriggled through the pile, and with renewed vigour he shoved himself free of the vampires.
The scene that met him was nothing sort of disturbing.
Disgusting.
Enraging.
There was Knives, in the centre of the circle, the vampires all around him trying to fight off the furious onslaught coming from Milly and Wolfwood. They had managed to corner the two, but Vash didn't notice. There was Knives, no more than ten feet, so close. And there was Meryl, in his arms, in his grasp.
And there was blood. Too much blood.
Ignoring the pandemonium going on around him, Vash ripped himself free from the daywalker's grasp and threw himself at the unsuspecting back of his brother.
Knives, Meryl. Blood, blood, blood. Blood in the rain, blood on the cobblestone street. Blood running through the cracks between the stones, staining the ground in pools…
So much blood! his mind was screaming at him, and he wrenched his twin from Meryl's limp form with a strangled cry.
Furiously, Vash whirled Knives around, and shoved him away. His twin stumbled forward slightly in the rain before righting himself quickly. Vash snarled as his brother turned, and to his disgust, he was grinning, smiling like a madman. He licked his lips, blood running in thin rivulets down his chin, smeared on his cheek.
Meryl's blood…
"Vash…how nice of you to join me!" Knives shouted to his sibling over the roar of the rain. "Lovely day, isn't it?"
Vash stared at the man before him, mixed thoughts running through his mind, pulling him in every which way all at once. Hate, anger, fear, revulsion, contempt, sadness, sickness, desperation, they all spun through his mind like a whirlwind, bidding him to do something, bidding him to shoot his brother, to go to Meryl, to cry,
to vomit, to scream, to laugh…to laugh.
"Knives! What have you done??" he screamed, his mind hurting with the overpowering emotions swirling around within him.
His twin lifted his face to the rain for a moment, letting the water pound down on his face and wash Meryl's blood away. Vash watched as the red liquid seeped down Knives's neck and soaked into his cloak.
Then, the lighter haired twin smiled, icy eyes fixed on Vash.
"The spider lied to me, Vash," he grinned maniacally. "She said you would kill me if I bit her. And I did! But I'm not dead, now isn't that curious?"
Vash stood frozen as Knives began to laugh, his words echoing in the pained depths of his mind. The rain roared in his ears, and he was faintly aware of Milly calling out his name, being restrained by vampires. He was just barely aware of Meryl, who lay in the rain behind him, bleeding, bleeding. He hardly noticed as Knives began backing away, signalling to his remaining followers. He didn't see when Milly and Wolfwood were released and the vampires began to dissipate before moving off.
He couldn't have been standing there fore more than a minute, however, and when he blinked, they were alone. There was no one but the rain. And the questioned remained as she numbly turned to Meryl, as he approached her limp form, as he bent over her.
Would he kill his brother?
Slowly, Vash reached out a numb hand, leaning over the petite woman's still form. He could see the great gash in her neck, blood still seeping quietly from the wound. Hesitantly, he touched her face, and was surprised by the lack of warmth in her skin. She was so pale, lips parted silently in a frown, eyes closed in rest. Vaguely, the thought, It wasn't supposed to happen like this…
And it wasn't. It was never supposed to happen this way. Nothing like this was ever supposed to be. Never.
"Short girl…" he asked quietly, barely audible over the rain. There was no response.
Behind him, Milly stared down with forlorn blue eyes. Meryl was so still, so death-like. She wanted to go to her partner's side, but as soon as she took a step forward the priest's arm blocked her way. She glanced over at him, tears running down her cheeks, mingling with the rain. He stared back, face straight but sunken, as though he had lost something dear to him.
Without a second thought, Milly threw herself at the priest, ignoring the wound on her arm and the cut on her side, ignoring the blood seeping down her side. And she cried as Wolfwood's arms slowly wrapped around her trembling form.
And Vash cried, tears coming unbidden to his eyes. He shut them tight as his tears began to fall, and suppressed a choked sob.
"Meryl…Meryl?" he repeated her name quietly, and ran his fingers along her cool skin.
Was she dead, was she gone already? He didn't know, he couldn't tell. There was still took much blood, her skin was too cold, her face was too pale. But he didn't know.
He was surprised, then, when there was the soft touch of fingers across his cheek, wiping away a stray tear. It didn't help any, however, and as he opened his eyes to stare at the small woman, more fell. Her grey eyes were clouded somewhat, but she managed a sort of weak smile.
Something clenched inside of the half-blood, and he grit his teeth against the pain of it, feeling now more than ever the weariness than had crept upon him the past days. And it hurt.
"I'm sorry, Vash," she whispered to him as her eyes drifted shut
Vash didn't know if it was the terrible pain of losing a friend that caused the pain in his chest or something much more significant, but it hurt nonetheless. Unable to force back a sob, he gathered the small woman in his arms and hugged her body close, simply because it seemed to help his pain.
This was never supposed to happen…
"Meryl…" Vash rocked back and forth slightly, tears flowing freely from his eyes. Behind him, Milly cried loudly, her sobs louder than the rain pounding down upon him.
He simply sat there on the bloody street, crying his eyes out, before he noticed something very strange. Very strange indeed…
As far as Vash knew, the dead didn't breath, however faint it might be. And unless she had been turned already, which was quite impossible, she wasn't a vampire. That only led to one thing, and the aching inside of Vash receded somewhat as he lowered Meryl's bloody form to the street once more.
She was alive.
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--Cayenne Pepper Powder