Okay everyone, welcome to the second edition of Death Becomes Her! Before we begin, I'd like to thank everyone who reviewed, followed and favourited (is that even a word?) this story while I was away. Seriously, you're the ones who gave me the push I needed to finally rewrite it. So thank you.
Someone asked me if the pairing would remain the same and the answer is, of course, yes. Still a slow burn too, so there won't be any big declaration of love within the next ten chapters. Besides, it's not really Enola's style, or Abraham's.
Enola speaks French sometimes, so the translation will be in the notes at the end of the chapters. If there are French speakers among you, don't worry about the quality of the translation: I'm French ^^
Those of you who already read the story, I hope you'll like it better now. The others, I hope you'll like it period.
*Edit: this chapter was edited by FateMagician, my excellent Beta Reader whom I can never thank enough ;)
"Don't forget that we start the presentations next week!" Enola said, raising her voice to be heard over the bustle of her pupils packing their school bags with the haste that typically followed the last class of the week. "No more than twenty minutes, so time yourselves!"
Only when the last teenager had disappeared through the door with a butchered, "Au revoir mademoiselle," did she allow herself to flop into her chair, puffing out her cheeks and exhaling a long breath as tension seeped out of her muscles and her mind. She let her head loll back until it rested against the back of the chair and, her face turned to the ceiling, tried to think of nothing. But the sounds of the school around her—students laughing and talking as they hurried towards the exits, teachers packing their own bags—weren't helping and she quickly gave up with an irritated huff. All right, fine, I'll relax when I'm home. Her hands on the flat wooden armrests, she pushed herself off the chair and proceeded to put away her belongings in the colourful patchwork shoulder bag she used as her school bag, and to turn off the video projector and the interactive whiteboard.
As she busied herself, she hoped that none of her colleagues would come up with the brilliant idea of visiting her classroom to chat with her because she really wasn't in the mood. Her mind felt strained and after struggling to maintain her teacher-facade in front of her students for the last couple of days, she had no strength left for civility. Must be because I haven't slept all week. But if she slept, she dreamt, and quite frankly, she'd had enough of those dreams.
Her kind dreamt only rarely, and when they did, the dreams always had a special significance. Not the 'you're going to win the lottery tomorrow' kind of significance, but rather the 'there's going to be a supernatural shitstorm soon and, lucky you, you're going to be involved' one. Every night for the past month, Enola had been startled awake by disturbing flashes that prompted her to turn on her bedside lamp even though her night vision was near perfect. Even the light of day didn't manage to disperse the creeping sense of impending doom that pervaded her mind and her gut. She had stopped sleeping a week ago in an effort to mend her frayed mind but the images wouldn't stop going round and round in circles in her head.
She wished that her dreams would at least show some originality but noooo, they were always the same. Nothing said 'the end is nigh' better than four horsemen, she supposed.
She also wished that whatever these visions were warning her about would happen already so she'd finally know what the hell was going on—preferably before she lost all of her marbles.
Enola shook off these gloomy thoughts when she reached her motorcycle in the parking lot reserved for the high school teachers. It wouldn't do to have them distracting her while she drove to her flat, especially at this hour when everyone was leaving work and school. Still, I'd better take a nap once I'm home, she thought as the starting roar of her Ducati Monster dropped to a rumbling purr. A blood bag would be nice too. She really didn't feel like hunting tonight, so she'd have to content herself with the flat taste of preserved blood.
Because of the heavy traffic it took her almost twenty minutes to reach her block of flats instead of the usual ten minutes. The building was old, probably dating back to the nineteenth century, but it had been impeccably restored and the flats, although rather spacious and quite comfortable, were affordable. Hers was on the second floor and had four rooms: a bedroom, a bathroom, a kitchen and a living room organized around a small hallway. The great view of Bellevue Cemetery right across the street was an added bonus. As soon as she was inside, Enola got rid of her brown leather ankle boots, hung her dark green pea coat and her white woolen scarf on the coat rack, abandoned her purse on the cabinet next to the door, and made a beeline for her bedroom. She dumped her school bag on her desk chair before collapsing on her queen-size bed with a reluctant groan.
"Do I really have to sleep ?" she mumbled to herself.
Unless you absolutely want to maul the next person who irritates you even a little bit, you do.
"If I get rid of the body, no one will know..."
I thought you weren't a killer.
"Ugh. Fine, you win. Visions of doom, here I come... "
With a resigned sigh, she found a comfortable position, closed her eyes and let herself sink into the deep dark trance that vampires called sleep—it rested their minds and replenished the strength of their bodies when they needed it.
"COME AND SEE," a voice boomed – a tall white figure, its features indistinct, black horns curling on either side of its head, its arm extended in beckoning – and evil poured from it like waves of thick black oil – four whitewashed trees deep in the woods, almost glowing in the darkness, then the first burst into flames and the smell of ozone mingled with the stench of brimstone – the ground shivering as eight pairs of hooves pounded against it, their heavy rhythmical beat almost enough to restart a dead heart – four glowing-eyed horses, four horsemen, one without a head, another carrying a flaming sword, riding abreast like an unstoppable roller, sweeping away everything in their path–
Enola's eyes snapped open and her hand flew to the switch of her bedside lamp. The pale gold light pushed the shadows back and she sat up, running a hand through her shoulder-length auburn locks as she quickly scanned the room.
"Évidemment," she muttered, annoyed at herself, when once again the creatures from her dreams failed to materialize in her bedroom. "Idiote."
Now, Enola was hardly a believer and she had never read the Bible, but she recognized the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse when she saw them. The question was, however, were they a metaphor for some imminent catastrophe or was the actual biblical Apocalypse about to happen? Every day she prayed to whatever deity was bored enough to listen to her that it was the former. She liked the world not any more ravaged by war, disease, and famine than it already was, thank you very much. Besides, she didn't even want to consider the theological implications—she was fine thinking that there were no such things as God, the Devil, Heaven, and Hell.
Fortunately her nap had done her some good, soothing her raw nerves and giving her enough strength of will to push the visions to the back of her mind, at least for the time being. And that was exactly what she did as she left her bed and went to the kitchen in search of a blood bag, though she still felt unease tightly clenching her insides like a cold hand. A bag of O negative in one hand, she retrieved her half-finished copy of Mervyn Peake's Titus Groan from her coffee table, determined to lose her worries in the twisted corridors and the forgotten recesses of the castle of Gormenghast. And then she'd play Neverwinter Nights for a while. Maybe courting a virtual character with a pair of horns and a tail would help her relax...
Naturally, nothing went according to plan.
Enola hadn't even read ten pages when she heard a horse neigh. She froze, the straw she had stuck in her blood bag still in her mouth, and a terrible suspicion reared its head as she recalled her dreams. For a few seconds, the part of her that wanted to bury its head in the sand fought with the one that demanded to know what the hell was going on—the latter won. Her body as taut as a bowstring, she put her book back on the coffee table, got up, went to the window, and, after a deep breath that did nothing to calm her, she looked across the street.
"Oh, fuck."
A beautiful white horse was pawing the ground right under the metal arch marking the entry to the cemetery. When the animal shook its head, she caught a glimpse of its blood-red glowing eyes. And on its back was a broad-shouldered man, if you could call him that, wearing the red coat of an eighteenth-century British soldier and a bandolier of shotgun shells; to his back was strapped a shotgun and to his waist, a broadaxe. No, he couldn't be called a man because, well...
He had no head.
This was one of the Horsemen she kept dreaming about. Death, if she had to guess.
"It's all real..." she breathed, her heart stuck halfway up her throat. "Bordel de merde, the fucking Horsemen of the Apocalypse are fucking real, and they're here..."
Her mind started running in circles like a rabbit chased by a hound, always coming back to 'we're all going to die'. Even nature seemed to feel the wrongness the creature exuded. The night was utterly silent: there wasn't the slightest breeze, the slightest creak in the trees, as if it were holding its breath. Time seemed to have frozen—to stretch as slowly as a ribbon of molasses hanging from a spoon—as she watched the rider's perfect control of his horse, his precise gestures, his elegance, as if he were one with his mount.
Suddenly the silence was shattered by a voice—undoubtedly masculine—calling from further into the cemetery :
"I received your message!"
Enola saw the Horseman's back stiffen as he turned its full attention towards the owner of the voice: another man—fortunately for her sanity, this one had a head—on a very normal horse standing on the path that led into the graveyard, his features blurred by the mist rolling among the graves and the trees. She could see he was tall and thin, but little else, even with her superior sight.
"My reply!" the man added, raising an arm.
The gesture revealed he was holding something in his hand: a kind of big cylindrical lantern… except there was no flame burning inside it, but something whitish, vaguely spherical, lit from the inside… It looked like a skull. Enola blinked in puzzlement. Was that the Horseman's head? Was the guy really suicidal enough to dangle it in front of its undead axe-wielding owner?
At the sight of the skull, the white horse reared with a piercing neigh as if brutally whipped—or rather, as if reacting to its master's sudden fury—and, spurred by its rider, dashed towards the fool who had dared taunt them. Needless to say, said fool hurriedly made his mount whirl around and took off into the mist, hounded by the hellish beings.
Only then did Enola realize that she had been holding her breath, and she exhaled slowly, forcing her fingers to relax her white-knuckled grip on her blood bag before it burst. She was very much afraid and part of her wanted nothing more than to draw the curtains and stay in the safety of her flat... Only she wasn't stupid enough to think that anywhere would be safe if the Apocalypse did break out. Plus she'd never be able to look at herself in a mirror if she just abandoned the mortal to his terrible pursuers.
And finally, her natural curiosity was beginning to show its excited face: who was that man? Why the hell had he drawn the Horseman after him? Was it a trap? It had to be… Otherwise it was the most twisted suicide attempt she had ever heard of. Maybe he had a way to destroy the creature somehow... In that case, perhaps she could help.
"I'm going to do something stupid, aren't I?" she sighed, pulling at a strand of her hair.
A gunshot cracked in the distance.
"Oh yeah, I definitely am."
She bared her teeth and let the predator come out, pushing the fear back until she could only feel the thrill of the coming hunt and the adrenaline crackling along her nerves like sparks. She was a vampire and she would not hide like frightened prey.
Half-empty blood bag forgotten on the counter, Enola hastily put her ankle boots back on before going back to the window. She opened it, climbed on its sill with a few swift movements, and jumped, landing on the pavement without a noise. The winter air pierced her clothes with ease but, while she felt the cold, it didn't cause her any discomfort—one of the many perks of being undead. She leapt to her feet and dashed towards the graveyard, stopping at the entrance to listen for hoofbeats. A vampire in a mist-shrouded cemetery during a cold winter night... How much more cliché can this get? Ah, I can hear them... She took off straight ahead at her supernatural speed, a fleeting blur gone in a blink of an eye with a faint rush of air.
So... How was it? Be honest.
Now, those of you who have already read this story, don't worry: Enola might be a little afraid of the Horseman now because she knows he's Death incarnate, but it won't last long. She still won't have any qualms about kicking his ass.
You'll have to wait until the chapter after the next one before she actually meets the Witnesses and co, but I promise it'll be worth the wait. You'll discover a few more things about my vampires, but shhh… Spoilers.
Next time we'll play a game of who's chasing whom and Enola will meet the infamous white horse for the first time (yes, he's important too!). Speaking of, I'm going to change the name I'd chosen for him before. I've got this whole scene prepared in my head… Anyway, that's for much later.
Oh, and kudos to those of you who recognize the video game character I mentioned ^^ Please tell me I'm not the only one here who likes Neverwinter Nights…
Don't hesitate to drop a review, even if it's just to say that you liked the chapter. It's always nice to hear from you. Just… If you have something negative to say, make it constructive please. I'm always looking to improve myself.
Here are the translations of the French words.
- Evidemment = obviously.
- Pretty sure you can figure out what "idiote" means. I should specify that this is the feminine form: there's no final e in the masculine one.
- The equivalent of "bordel de merde" would be "son a bitch" used as an expletive, or something similar. It's not a literal translation: "bordel" means "clusterfuck" and "merde" means "shit".