I wanted to post this chapter yesterday but the website wouldn't let me access my account. Weird.
Thank you, lostfeather1 and Vixen of Mischief, for your reviews! I'll try not to disappoint you ^^
Now, as you probably noticed, I deleted all the old chapters: lostfeather1 told me it's the only way for you to get an e-mail alert, so. Plus it feels better to have a clean slate to work on.
Right, on with the story then… I didn't change a lot of things here, mostly details, especially at the end.
*Edit: again, this chapter is impeccable thanks to the tireless work of FateMagician, my Beta Reader. Thank you so much for your help!
Enola tore down the cemetery path after the two riders, following the hoof beats. Thanks to her vampire speed, she quickly caught up with them. With a silent curse, she dove behind a tree when the Horseman turned around to retrieve his axe stuck into a tree trunk; obviously, he had tried to chop his prey's head off and missed. She didn't want to risk a fight until she knew exactly what she was up against, and she didn't want to ruin whatever plan the human man had in store for the creature. If he was leading it into a trap, she couldn't afford to distract it. I'm surprised it doesn't suspect it's a trap… Or maybe it does, but it wants its head back too badly. Or it's so furious the possibility didn't even occur to it. How reckless.
Footsteps: the human had gotten off his horse. She heard hinges squeaking, a metallic clang… two metallic clangs. A shocked exclamation, closely followed by the dull noise of a body hitting the ground. Hurried footsteps fading away.
THUMP!
Something landing heavily. Or a heavy something landing. Again the squeaking of hinges and the clang signaling some gate had been closed. But this time, there was no sound of a fall: only the loud noise of impossibly heavy footsteps. Is that the Horseman? Jeez, he won't be easy to toss around in a fight.
Enola stepped away from the tree and glanced around: they had passed the rows of graves and reached an empty clearing. She frowned in perplexity. Where was that gate she had heard? Then her eyes fell on the red-eyed white horse calmly standing in the grass, near…
The young woman smiled in satisfaction. Branches were scattered on the ground, as if they had been used to conceal something. She strode to them and quickly noticed the grate in the ground. The horse stared at her but did nothing to prevent her from going near the hatch. In fact, it—no, wait, it's a he—even greeted her with a snort and a nod. Obviously he recognized the darkness in her, her undead nature, and considered her a peer. Great. A hellish horse thinks I'm his friend. Nonetheless, she returned the nod. No reason not to be polite, right?
She crouched, grabbed a bar of the trapdoor, and pulled, revealing a vaulted masonry tunnel that stretched about ten feet below. Thin pipes the colour of oxidized copper ran along the ceiling and tangles of roots shot out every crack. A damp, mouldy smell wafted to her nose which automatically scrunched up in distaste. It wouldn't disturb a human much, but with her superior sense of smell, it caught in her throat. She jumped and landed agilely and soundlessly, crouching as she sniffed the air with a grimace: the Horseman smelled strongly of dry blood, dirt, and rotten wood—and of something else, something cold she could only call death—so she would have no trouble tracking him. She could also hear the two series of footsteps quite clearly—one light and hurried, the other heavy and angry. She jumped on her feet and ran straight ahead.
The human had strewn fake skulls made of plaster along his path, and with each one he crushed the Horseman's fury seemed to redouble, and the smell of death to intensify. Blinding him with his own rage... That's clever. And dangerous. Funny how the Horseman had lost all the elegance with which he rode his horse. He was angrily stomping after the human, his gestures determined but completely devoid of grace. All right Nola, it's not too late to turn back and get the hell out of here, he's Death incarnate for f– oops!
She threw herself back behind the corner she was about to take. The headless Horseman had stopped dead when a dark-skinned black-haired woman, exhibiting another skull in the same lantern-thing as the man's, had called out to him.
"Wanna talk about it?" she taunted with a raised eyebrow.
"Feeling mocked yet?" the man added, emerging from a passage behind the Horseman.
He still had his own skull replica, and the creature hesitated, but a couple of seconds later he went for the woman as if he had seen something that had made up his mind. She let out a gasp and fled.
"Snuff the light!" the man shouted before disappearing into the tunnel he had come from.
Damn it! There was no way of knowing if this had been planned out or if the creature had been supposed to go after the human man. So far they were well-prepared, I doubt they didn't anticipate that… Shit! If this wasn't part of their plan, Enola had to intervene… But how could she know? All right, for now just follow them and see what happens. It wasn't long before she had to stifle another curse: the human woman had just whirled around a corner when her voice rose again in a cry of pain.
"Crane! Crane, help me!" she shouted a few seconds later, and her voice bounced around the tunnels. "I think I broke my ankle! Crane!"
Your prey is weak, strike now, the predator in Enola whispered, but she shook her head. Tonight, she wasn't after the humans, but the undead creature. Still, she paused her chase, uncertain. It could be another ruse to lower the creature's guard even more. But I can't take that risk. If it wasn't a ruse, the human woman would be killed for sure, and even though she didn't know her, even if she drank human blood, she still respected human life. Besides, she wasn't about to let the woman die when she was obviously working against the apocalyptic Horseman.
"Crane, I need help!"
The desperation in the human woman's voice made up Enola's mind. She rushed forward, a metallic taste rising in her mouth at the thought that she would very soon confront her prey, and her fangs almost lengthened. But at the same time nervousness twisted her insides because her prey was Death itself and although she was already dead anyway that axe of his looked perfect, and sharp enough, to cut off her head.
"Keep quiet, I'm coming for you!" the man shouted… and his voice was coming from behind the vampire.
She muttered a curse. If he saw her before she reached the others, he would no doubt delay her, and him in the process, and his partner would end up dead.
"Hurry!"
There! The Horseman had just disappeared into large round opening in the wall of a tunnel section. Enola sped up, slid to a stop in front of it… and froze. It was a dead end. The opening—it was an opened door—led into a vast, strange room: brick-walled like the tunnels, it had the shape of a hexagon. A hexagonal black stone slab was embedded in the middle of its stone floor, and inlaid with a white marble trinity knot—a triquetra interlaced with a circle. Six mighty stone pillars, reinforced with metal, surrounded the black slab, each casting a fan of shadows thanks to the torches affixed to the walls. Strong chains hung from them and tall seven-candle candelabra stood between them. A large rectangular window had been opened in the wall on the right and looked onto a small room.
The Horseman was slowly advancing on the human woman, who was crawling backward on her elbows with a panicked look on her face; the edge of his axe was burning bright, as if red-hot. Obviously, he was enjoying each step he was taking, relishing the fear on his prey's face, her helplessness. And suddenly…
"Hey!"
The Horseman spun around, startled—for the first time in a long while—by the unknown feminine voice.
"Why don't you pick someone who can actually fight you?"
Now that she stood close to him, Enola could feel the unearthly aura he radiated, like a cold invisible mist that nipped at her skin and her unbeating heart. Fear's spidery hand began to crawl out of its hole again but she squashed it vindictively, too proud to let her adversary see it.
As for the Horseman, he carefully gauged the woman standing in front of him: she was in her early twenties, neither short nor tall, slender and rather pretty with thick auburn waves that coiled on her shoulders and a heart-shaped face with soft features. She was also strangely pale, her cheeks and lips barely dusted with pink. Her big eyes the colour of old gold were staring at him defiantly, without the slightest trace of fear in them.
Now this was new.
And she was ready to fight too, standing with her feet shoulder-width apart, her arms at her sides and her hands open. Foolish girl, was his first thought, one he quickly reconsidered. There was something off about her… He could feel it. A darkness, something dangerous and feral. Death clung to her, but not just superficially as it would if she merely were a killer—no, her flesh and bones were steeped in it, as though she was already dead. She couldn't possibly be human... and yet she was trying to save a human's life.
Ah well. As strange as she was, he wasn't in the habit of asking questions to his future victims, even if he had been able to. No one stood against him and lived—human or not, she would die once his axe had detached her head from her body, as everyone else did. The Witness couldn't go anywhere, so he might as well take care of her first.
So, here we are : the first time Nola and Bram meet face to… uh… well you know what I mean. Naturally, because they are who they are, it'll end violently. I did say it would be a slow burn, didn't I? I'm talking to my potential new readers here, I know the rest of you already know this stuff.
Anyway, not much happening here, sorry: at first I wanted to include the next chapter in this one but it would have been too long.
Just one thing I should probably specify: you may have been reminded of the Twilight serie (bleh) when I mentioned the colour of Enola's eyes. Please, for the love of all that is holy, DON'T BE. It's insulting (sorry, Twilight fans who may be reading this). My vampires have normal eye colours, up until they… well. You'll see in the next chapter. I'll upload it some time next week.
And now, if you'll excuse me, I'll go and find a good Detroit : Become Human fanfiction so I can forget about real life for a while (school? responsibilities? what are those?).