Chapter 22: Witness

Is misery

Made beautiful

Right before our eyes?

Will mercy be revealed

or blind us where we stand?

-Sarah McLachlan

"Jesus!" Bethany fought back more knife-sharp tears from falling as Victoria yanked her arms up further. Some time ago, her left shoulder was yanked out; it hung now, gracelessly, bound to the opposing arm at the wrist. Looking up, she read the blaring red digital clock panel as it ticked another moment of this very long afternoon away.

"And?" a rather nasty voice asked, a slightly hiss accompanying the words. Her eyes snapped forward, Bethany's dull green irises meeting the intent, deep violet orbs of Amelia. The vampire turned her wrist, the bloodied switchblade glimmering in the harsh florescent light. Immediately, the gaping wounds on Bethany's chest, shoulder, and arms throbbed painfully, begging her to comply with her captors.

"And...and that's it. The process ta-takes about thirty minutes to ready, fifteen to complete..." her eyes wandered away to some unknown point as she continued quietly, "so long as the host is receptive to the blood supply."

"Receptive? Explain that."

"Wh-when we initially used the process, we used a regular vampire and one of our, uh...captive lycans as the donors to Marcus." Swallowing the hard lump of fear in the back of her throat, she slipped into medical mode. "But the viruses were so vastly difference from the original viruses in Marcus that his body rejected the blood flow and actually forced it back out the IV port. The virus itself actually becomes a hybrid, not just the cells, but the viruses can still be separated and retain certain qualities of their original forms. So the hybrid virus is very picky. So we got one of the older vampires, one originally bitten by Marcus, and an older, pure born lycan and the transfusion worked."

"So why not just do that again? For William?" Victoria growled, tugging at the bindings on Bethany's wrists.

Giving a yelp and hiss of pain, she loosed a few more tears. "William was different. None of the original, feral forms of the virus existed in any of the lycans. Most of them were killed off after he was captured, the rest during the early centuries. But Ny- the girl," she carefully tread around using Nyssa's name; the first and only time she invoked the name lead to a pummeling by the male lycan who stood silently in the corner of the lab. "Being a direct descendant of the Corvinus line somehow caused the two viruses to return to their original forms, probably happening at her conception. It provided not only the strongest forms of the virus, but similar DNA and blood qualities that would interact easily with William's body. "

"Then why keep her alive for so long in your care?" Anna asked, eyes a faint blue as she stared down their prisoner.

"As a baby, she didn't have enough blood in her system to stimulate the cells in William's body to react and begin regeneration. See, we had to develop a whole system just to weaken the vampire virus in her blood so that it would not cause issues during the transfusion." Finally tired of waiting for the punchline of her torture, Bethany looked into Amelia's eyes. "I know what you are planning to do."

"Really?"

"And I can tell you right now, it won't work. Not with a pile of ashes; her bones are roasting over coals right now and without flesh, there is no chance of revival."

Her voice died as Amelia's lips rose into a delicate but diabolical smile.

As Amelia rose, Victoria grabbed the back of Bethany's neck, turning her with a swift move, causing her to stifle a round of screams. Amelia waited until she reopened her tightly closed eyes, nodding to a very silent Kelley who pulled back a white sheet on the lab table. Despite knowing her part, willingly playing it as well, Bethany couldn't stop a soft, choked sob of disgust and disbelief from rising up in her chest. From the blackened arms to the dried, leathery flesh of the neck, Nyssa looked like a mummy rescued from a museum fire, the smell of singed plastic and flesh still potent.

"How-"

"You have a choice," Amelia interrupted, once again brushing her fingers through Nyssa's hair. "Either help us to complete the process or..." She looked over to Thomas with devil's eyes, "you learn the literal meaning of 'fed to the wolves.'"

Bethany gave pause before going off on a rather self-righteous spectacle, the pains in her body a reminder of what one lycan could do to her.

Meanwhile, outside the mind of the indecisive, the four Clan immortals set their plan to motion.

"Okay, so we need the purest of strains of the virus possible in order to jump-start Nyssa's body," Kelley thought aloud before looking to the others. "Where will we get those? None of us were bitten by Marcus or William."

"No," Amelia started, still looking at the scientist as her eyes flicked back and forth, a burning concentration in her green eyes. "But remember Marcus; they used a pure-born lycan to balance out the virus. I'd hazard a guess that a pure-born vampire's blood might cause the same reaction." She sighed and glanced at her comrades, eyes already alight with understanding. "I'll be the donor for the vampiric strain. Now, we need a pure-born lycan; so let's get the men together-"

"I'll do it." The group's gaze shifted over to Victoria, watching as her hold slightly loosened on her prisoner's bindings. Small at first, her smile grew with a sigh, "There's probably other pure-borns here, but...I'd like the honor," she looked to Amelia with a soft, questioning look on her face, "as long as it's okay with you." The vampire nodded her head, returning an encouraging look.

Unconsciously, her hand continued to stroke the silky brown locks on Nyssa's half-singed corpse. Realistically, the child's body could reject the blood, leaving them with pools of their virus-laden bloods congealing on the floor; they could not get their hopes up, no matter how good the odds of a revival. But even so, the fact that this process had successfully restored life to two bodies in much worse condition created a well of light and potential that every doubt seemed to fall short of quelling.

Amelia moved away from Nyssa to one of the computers, punching in a series of keys and watching as the monitor flashed information. "Well, the good thing is," she said, punching a few more things in, "the program is self-explanatory. Each step is automated and functionally independent. It even explains pre-process protocol for the donors and the recipient." Looking up, she watched as Kelley bit her thumb nail in concentration. "You will have to run the program. It's fairly simple; I'll do the port sites on Nyssa and Victoria, you'll have to do mine, then I'll guide you through hooking up everything and starting it. Think you're up to it?"

"Of course," Kelley replied , breaking her silence and moving up beside to her side. With a quick glance, she read through the preparatory instructions and nodded her understanding.

"Good. Victoria, Anna, go to the supply hold and get two transfusion kits, an IV starter kit, and several packets of blood."

"Blood?" Victoria looked at her, slightly raising her eyebrows. "Will she need more after we do the transfusion?"

"No, but we need to feed in order to sustain our energy and blood supply during the process." With a swift and harsh shove, Victoria sent Bethany's body to the cold floor and she followed Anna out into the hall. "Thomas, you need to contact the main houses and have everyone ready by sundown. We're going in for Selene and Michael."

"With...Nyssa?" he asked carefully.

"Hopefully," she gave him, not wanting to guarantee anything, "but with or without her, we need them out of there."

With a nod, Thomas left the room swiftly, pulling a radio from his belt as he went.

"This isn't going to work." Kelley and Amelia looked down at Bethany as she struggled to a sitting position.

"Why?" Kelley asked, her voice low and gravelly as it passed through her clenched teeth.

In a life or death situation, Amelia believed that someone whose life was on the line would try to think rationally and be calm. Obviously, for overzealous and egocentric vampires, this did not occur. "She's fucking dead," Bethany hissed, rolling her eyes. "And it's for the best. With her out of the-"

Amelia barely registered Kelley's startled yelp; she was far too absorbed in the volcanic heat and fury rising within her breast, causing her to dart forward and snatch the other vampire up off the floor. Now Bethany hung, suspended three feet from the floor, driving blunt fingernails into the soft, pale flesh of her neck. Amelia's sadistic, purely-vampiric nature enjoyed watching Bethany choke against her increasingly tight hold.

Speaking not a word, Amelia brought Bethany to her knees once more, leaning over and sinking engorged fangs into her neck. Fiery hot and revitalizing, the blood slipped down her throat, igniting every neuron and dendrite into a flurry of interactions. Memories, centuries and minutes old, filtered through her brain, giving her the insight and knowledge of one very sick medical career.

She watched the mutilation of lycan pups, vampires chaining them to walls then pulling each layer of their transformed flesh back to study the reaction, while their parents lay strapped to tables with various forms of silver being injected into their bloodstream, destroying veins and arteries at different speeds. Next, the memory of a finely decorated room and the feel of velvets and silks beneath her back as some vampire grunted above her, the satisfactory sound of sexual elation flitted through her mind's eye. Centuries worth of experiments and medical theory flitted through her mind, some things logical, others, like the experiments, completely off track. Only once did a memory of anything of a personal nature cross in the memories, a spiteful anger arising when Bethany thought of that one, driving her to further testing on lycan prisoners.

Memories fused through Amelia's stomach with the deep red liquid at lightening speed. She beheld Bethany's hands ever so gently stitching together various patches of William's skin over a pieced together skull while assuring a vigilant Marcus of the success of their treatment.

"Its not that complicated my lord. Let me explain..."

Amelia let the body fall unceremoniously to the floor, wiping away the remnants of the vampire's blood from her face. Within, her stomach gurgled, happily digesting Bethany's blood, and she returned to a state of ease.

After several deep, cleansing breaths, she looked up and almost laughed. Kelley, poor Kelley, stood pressed against the wall with wide, disbelieving eyes. It wasn't fear, but utter shock that filled her gaze as she went from looking at Amelia to the dead Bethany on the floor.

"What?" Amelia asked, feigning insult, "You've never seen a vampire feed before?"

"No, I've seen that, just not..." Kelley waved her hand limply, "you feeding." Amelia laughed softly, running her tongue along the back of her fangs, tasting the last drops of the sweet liquid. Kelley looked to her again, "Anything about the procedure?"

"Yes. Actually a rather interesting conversation with Marcus himself." She nodded her head toward Nyssa, "I'll get her IV started. When Victoria gets back, prep her as well. We need to act fast."

"Why?"

"Call it intuition," she sighed, moving over to Nyssa and checking the tight skin for any sign of a blood vessel, "But I don't think we're going to be alone much longer."

"DONOR CONTACT AND INFORMATION RECIEVED. STAGE ONE COMPLETE. PLEASE STAND BY."

"Okay, it recognizes you both are hooked up and that you are fully grown adults," Kelley called out from behind the computer terminal. "And now it's telling me to wait."

Amelia smiled at Kelley's now barely noticeable discomfort. Kelley picked some medical training long ago out of passing boredom, being taught things that would be useful to mortals in a combat situation. It took a few minutes of encouragement and instruction, but she placed the IVs perfectly in both of the donor's arms and hooked up everything correctly to the machinery. Victoria just bit her tongue, trying not to show her lack of enthusiasm when a slightly shaking Kelley came to put the line in; Amelia kindly asked Thomas to stand next to her just to make sure she didn't jump off the table.

Turning her head to the left, she gave another long gaze at Nyssa. Petrified she would have to place the IV through the ankle, a hard and by all means desperate act when placing a pick line, it had taken her almost an hour to find the brachial artery in the child's right arm; thankfully, the heat had not shriveled up the blood vessel and she quickly placed the line.

"STAGE TWO PREPARATION COMPLETE. BEGIN PROCESS?" The mechanical voice echoed through the room, finishing up as a pop-up on the computer screen came up with two buttons: ABORT or START.

Kelley looked at everyone, three exam tables across, two pick lines leading to one body through two separate machines. "Are we ready?" With both Amelia and Victoria nodding, she clicked the START key.

The machines began whirring, the blue crackle of radiation startling Thomas slightly. Faster and faster the cogs within spun, zipping the blood from both donors through a series of tubs and small holding spots as the radiation purified the virus in each blood type.

"Ten percent complete," Kelley read off the screen. Amelia closed her eyes, the feeling of her blood being drawn from her body more noticeable now.

"23 percent." She shook her head, the dizziness already kicking in; this process couldn't take very long as the blood needed to be fresh from the donor and the radiation had to occur almost immediately as it left the donor's body in order to preserve the integrity of the virus.

"29...30 percent." Amelia looked past Nyssa to Victoria; Thomas stood next to the table, letting her squeeze his hand tightly.

"38...40 percent." Breathing now grew difficult, Amelia's heart pumping her blood through the lungs faster and sucking it out just as quickly. Sweat began to build on her forehead.

"48...49...50 percent," Kelley laughed slightly, "Halfway there guys!" She watched Nyssa now, hoping for any sign of success. So far, she remained gray and drawn, patches of burnt skin unhealed. With a soft voice, she prayed that this would work.

That's when it hit Amelia, that awful, empty feeling in her stomach. Something was going wrong; even in a weakened state, her heart and mind crashed together to create the knots in her guts.

"54 percent...55- what the fuck!"

The doors to the lab slid open and a flood of black forms overtook the room. Thomas moved to fight, but suffered a direct blow with in the face with the butt of one of the Dealer's guns. Victoria screamed as they threw her off the table, her IV popping out, blood flowing down her arm instead.

"No! NO! NO!" Amelia screamed, a loud crack resounding as another Dealer rammed her chest with his gun. Coughing against the pain, she struggled against his hold as another tore the IV port out of her arm, flinging it away. She tried to look up at Kelley, but she only heard the retaliatory growl of the lycan female being muted with punches and kicks. Looking about frantically, she knew they were out numbered and out gunned in this lab room and briefly wondered what happened to all the men outside.

She would have pondered it further if not for the barking command of one of the dealers. "Bag the girl's body. I'm sure Marcus and William will want her." One man produced a body bag from one of the cabinets, spreading it open as two others lifted Nyssa's body off the table and threw her unceremoniously inside. They zipped it and quickly took it from the room. That voice came again, "Bring those into the hall with the rest of them."

Amelia collapsed to the ground, her body incredibly weak as she continued to bleed out, her subclavian artery throbbing hard as it pushed platelets up to clot the damaged portion. A pair of arms wrapped about her, lifting her into a loose embrace. "They destroyed the machines," Kelley told her with a raspy voice; blood streaked down her pale face, making her look vulnerable and scared. "And there are only half of our men left; I don't know where the others went." With a shudder, Amelia slowly sat herself up, leaning on her companion's shoulder for support, the tears in her eyes a combination of physical pain and mental anguish.

"We failed her," she whispered, stifling her sob so the surrounding Dealers would not hear. "After everything, every battle, every fight, we couldn't even save her."

"Maybe..." Kelley began cautiously, "maybe she wasn't supposed to come back. Maybe...she's supposed to be...at peace." Amelia looked at her incredulously before the feeling faded into submission. Perhaps it was for the best; Nyssa spent her years living fear and doubt, a poor, tortured pawn in whatever plan was laid out for her life. Maybe this was her reprieve, the peace she needed to find and the rest she never had while living.

But Selene? And Michael? Is this their peace as well? To lose their only child after fighting so long for her? Does this make their suffering justified at all? In her mind, it did not. But for whatever the reason, whatever the divine or demonic plan, Nyssa Corvin no longer lived and it was out of their hands now. Completely.

Looking about, she saw that only several of the lycan warriors remained with them, all huddled together on the floor, awaiting the vampires' next move. She spotted Thomas, hand over a slowly healing head wound, but could not find-

"FUCK YOU!" Victoria screamed. They dragged her out of the lab, dropping her weakened body face down on the floor. The leader, someone Amelia briefly remembered being called Christian, stooped down, grabbed a fist full of the lycan's hair, and yanked her head upward.

"Learn your place, cur." He hissed when she spit in his face. Obviously, Victoria had quickly come to grips with her small odds of survival and decided to go out with whatever fight she had left in her. Christian drew his gun, aiming at her forehead when she looked up at him. Thomas, unable to see out of one eye and bleeding severely, tried to stand but another lycan held him down, trying to spare them the loss of two warriors instead of one.

"Sir," one of the Dealers nearby interjected.

"I know the orders," he barked at the other man, "but one missing lycan bitch won't make that much of a difference in the end." Aiming, his finger squeezed at the trigger...

The sound of gunfire echoed through the corridor, but it did not come from his gun. Amelia's eyes grew wide, realizing the noise came from outside. Screams and the rat-tat-tat of automatic guns filtered down into the long hallway from the entrance above. Christian cursed under his breath.

"You four, stand guard! The rest come with me-AAAAHHH!" Everyone looked over as Victoria sank enlarged fangs into his arm, drawing blood out in fast, hungry droughts. "Shoot the bitch! Shoot her!"

Suddenly, the hall was flooded with the missing lycans, all of them dashing out and opening fire on the Dealers. Knowing how weak Amelia remained, Kelley pulled her over to the side of the room, out of the firefight. They watched as Thomas charged forward, tearing out Christian's throat with a feral growl . Three of the lycans transformed, the full moon outside fueling their animal lust for blood. Dealers fought back valiantly, but all was for naught as one by one, the lycan warriors picked them off.

Within two minutes, the clan regained the power and every Dealer lay splayed on the floor in a dark pool of his own blood.

"What the fuck were you guys waiting for?" Kelley screamed at the small group, "A personal invitation?" The men shifted back and forth, some wiping their blood-caked lips on dirty jacket sleeves. "We lost the equipment. And now...they have her body back! We have no chance of reviving her, thanks to you guys playing hide-and-seek with the Dealers!" A slight froth built at the corners of her lips, her words pummeling them with guilt despite their victory.

"Hello?" A radio on one of the lycan's belts crackled. He made to speak into it when Victoria yanked it from his hand.

"What?" She barked back.

"Um...is Amelia there?"

"Why? What is it?"

"Well, um, we came out to track the Dealers that got away with Nyssa-"

"And?"

"Um...they never got away. The car and all of their bodies are out here." Victoria's eyes went wide before she ran down the hall, Kelley and Thomas fast on her heels. Sliding on sticky blood, she cussed loudly, grabbing onto Thomas' extended hand to keep from falling. The threebooked up the stairs and into the night.

Falling snow seemed to mute the stench of the garbage and give the impression of rolling hills instead of mounds of trash. The sky was cloudy, the full moon peaking out through cracks in the icy giants as they continued to dump thick snowflakes onto the land.

They ran only a short distance around one of the larger piles when they came to the group of lycans. They searched around a car, seemingly crashed into the base of the garbage hill. The Dealer's bodies lay in different locations: one, most likely the driver, sat hunched over the steering wheel, a large, gaping hole in the back of his head dripping blood and tissue down his back. A second lay halfway out of the front passenger door, his head missing entirely. The third lay just a few yards away, ragged blood wounds on his back, neck, and face still oozing blood.

"Wait," Thomas said, accepting a rag from one of the lycan to wipe at his face. "There were four that left us."

"Yeah," the group leader rubbed the back of his neck warily, "He's up there." They followed his finger up to the side of the trash mound and almost near the top, the four dealer lay upside down, his face torn to ribbons.

"Us?"Victoria asked, staring at the black figure outlined in the snow.

"Maybe. We have other patrols out tonight and they may have overheard something on the Dealer's radio frequency. But there's no tire tracks, no bullet shells...nothing, like they were caught completely off guard or something. And we didn't hear anything lycan outside so-"

They all stopped speaking and moving as Kelley stormed to the car and tore the back door open. She stared for a moment before a loud, shaky laugh escaped her lips, almost a sob of humorous anguish. Reaching in for a moment, she turned around to the group and held up a slashed and tattered body bag. It was empty.

A/N: (smiles)

Until next chapter,

anthestria