Chapter One

For our sovereign
All Hell will arise

. . .

The first time Azrael saw her, it was through a veil of dark blood covering his eyes and most of his body. He laid on the ground, clutching at consciousness with what strength he had, head in the grass and screams trapped in his broken chest, pleas for the others to flee slipping in whispers past his lips.
The first time Azrael saw her, she fought like the demons of ancient ballads, tearing and biting and slashing with armored claws. The clash of her scorching gauntlets against the Reaver blade was deafening, even then, when all sounds seemed so far away and alien.
The first time Azrael saw her, she saved his life and those of almost four hundred other vampires.
The first time Azrael saw her, he cursed Rahab and Zephon and Melchiah and thanked them with all the strength remaining in his tired muscles, knowing that the three Kainite vampires had saved his Lord's clan and had condemned them all to death.
«You are a difficult bastard to kill, hmm?»
Azrael didn't have the strength to answer. He shifted his gaze to his brethren, pleadingly asking for someone to take over his leader position for a little while -only until he didn't feel so certain he was about to die, only until his flesh had knitted itself together somewhat. He coughed up blood and felt soft hands lifting his head and silently begged for it not to be Nerissa Graves, begged she wasn't about to bash his head against the ground, blood and brain matter spurting from his cracked skull.
But it wasn't her, and with what voice he still had he begged for forgiveness.

Now, Azrael arched an eyebrow when he saw the house.
Dellmeadow had let them in without the expected fuss, even though the sobs and cries of the tradesman's family had been so loud it was impossible that the guards had not heard them. They had barricaded themselves inside their beautiful little manor, as little good it would do them in the end.
The alderman offered to have the door kicked down and the family dragged in the square. With an elegant gesture of her hand, the Dragonborn declined, nodding to one of the younger vampires instead.
The fledgling hurried to the side of the locked door as Nerissa Graves started talking.
«Locking guests out is quite unmannerly, Marcus,» she said casually. She always sounded so unaffected, even when she was anything but. «Come now, unlock the door. You are not a stupid man. We will let your family go, as usual.»
The children, I want them out of the house. Touch a single hair on their heads and you will regret it bitterly.
 The ten vampires accompanying her gave their assent in silence.
They waited silently for ten minutes. When Marcus made no move to let them in, Nerissa sighed, and gestured to the fledge beside the door. The young one opened it with a single powerful kick, eliciting a bloodcurdling scream from within the house.
This family had risen from poverty to luxury in a matter of months, and it was evident in the opulence of the place they lived in -full of useless pretty trinkets that no nobleman would have ever bought if he were one to keep an eye on his riches. The stench of expensive perfume wafting from their skin permeated the whole place, pungent, unpleasant and too strong for Azrael's vampiric sense of smell. He could see his Lady's own mouth twitch in a grimace of disgust, her green eyes crinkling slightly around the edges and becoming even stonier because of it.
The humans were nowhere to be seen, although their ragged breathing and muffled sobs were giving them away.
Find them.
 Azrael and Zimri did not move from their spot at Nerissa's sides as the Dragonborn latched her hands behind her back, waiting for the younger fledglings to bring the humans out of hiding. When they got back, dragging four screaming people among them, she greeted them all with that sharp-toothed smile that sometimes made Azrael want to shrink back and snarl.
«Marcus. Jeanne. Greetings,» said the Dragonborn, her voice dangerously quiet beneath the children's loud sobs. «Please, sit. We need to talk. Among adults, by the way, so if you do not mind...»
She nodded at the fledglings, who picked the screaming, wriggling children up and bodily took them from the house, closing the door on their way out and not bothering to come back inside. Azrael and Zimri both took a step back, standing so still they could have passed as statues, waiting for Nerissa to be done with her games. Azrael was both amazed and terrified at how similar she and Kain were at times. Like a cat with her prey, she liked to toy with her victims before finishing them off, and this instance was no exception. This man had erred -an unforgivable mistake, Azrael would admit that much- and as his Lady had promised, there now was hell to pay. It was only a matter of time, and they all knew it -had known since she'd summoned them that morning, that fucking grin plastered to her face, her eyes burning with a fire that had long since gone out of control.
This human knew that too. Azrael distractedly asked himself how could he condemn his whole family to death so easily, and to such a horrible death too. He could almost smell the stench of burning flesh beneath that of their blood.
«Really, Marcus» his Lady was saying, rummaging in a cupboard, glass tinkling, «I can't see where you went wrong. We paid well -I can't imagine another, much less a human, would have paid you as much as half of what I was giving you.»
The man was crying. Fat transparent tears were streaming down his ashen cheeks, mixing with the blood from the crushed flesh of his broken cheekbone. His wife was sitting beside him, wailing, her cries so shrill they almost hurt to hear. Azrael was tempted to demand her shut up, but he knew that would only make her cry harder.
«Humans and their greed» his Queen breathed, finally finding what she was looking for. She uncorked the bottle, sniffing the contents. The smell of alcohol filled the room and the other vampires' nostrils. «You could have never imagined you'd get your hands on such a fortune, but you wanted more, didn't you? Always more, more, more.»
She delicately placed the bottle on the table along with a glass goblet. The man's eyes followed her movements as broken hiccups escaped him, his face drenched with tears, snot and saliva.
«I'm disappointed, Marcus» she informed him, and Azrael watched in silence as she opened a shallow cut on the man's throat. She held the goblet to the bleeding wound, ignoring the man's muffled, terrified sobs and the incomprehensible pleas of his wife. She filled the goblet midway, cauterizing the wound with a flickering flame when she was done. The man shrieked and for a moment Azrael thought Nerissa would snap his neck then and there, but the Dragonborn only ignored him.
Returning to the bottle, she poured wine into the goblet, mixing it with the blood and heating it up with the flame dancing on one fingertip. When she smiled, her grin showed teeth.
«I want to know the reason why» she said serenely.
It was like cutting an invisible gag tied on the man's mouth. He started pleading almost immediately and his incoherent babbling made Azrael's Queen grimace in annoyance. Azrael almost sighed, his tanned leathery wings drooping slightly.
«Hush» his Lady hissed, raising an armored hand. The man immediately fell silent, his hiccups and sobs ringing in the relatively silent room. «I asked for reasons, you bumbling bastard, not pleas. Who convinced you to do this? Or was it your own idea? One of my own fucking died thanks to your little game.»
«M-m-my Lady I w-was fo-forced to do it, I t-told them I didn't- didn't want to, I'm sorry, I'm so- I'm sorry, have mercy-»
«A murderer, a traitor and now you lie to me, as if you didn't stink more than enough already. I should have expected it, I guess, hmm? Such glory it would have brought you, being the one to kill me off. The great Dragonborn, falling to the clever mind of a mere human. What would you have done with my carcass, Marcus? Would you have torn my heart out to gloat about your victory? Nailed my wings on your door? Written letters using my feathers as quills?»
The man only wailed pitifully and out of the corner of his eye, Azrael saw Zimri roll her own. Their Queen smiled indulgently at her second lieutenant, but that smile never reached her eyes as she bent forward, so close to the face of the former tradesman that she could see the tiny flecks of green in his brown eyes.
«You disappoint me, Marcus,» Nerissa breathed, her low voice now carrying the faint traces of a guttural growl. «Though I have to admire your inventive. Mixing blood and water in our stocks… quick. Easy. Clean.»
Horridly painful, too. Azrael knew well what the effects of water on vampiric flesh were.
Nerissa's burning gaze trailed to the sobbing human woman. Now her grin was showing teeth and Azrael allowed himself a small smile.
«Azrael, if you please?»
It was an order, of course, and Azrael stepped forward, coming to stand behind the woman. The human only cried harder, and the vampire thought about the faint sting her tears would cause on his skin.
«My Lady,» he murmured, his gravel-like voice in sharp contrast with the woman's terrified sobbing. Nerissa smiled sweetly at her former tradesman.
«Why is this happening, Marcus? Answer me.»
The man sniffled, exhaling a shuddering breath before nodding. Because… because I mixed water in your last stock of blood, my Lady. I am so sorry- I didn't-»
«Hush. What else?»
«El… else? My Lady, I… please, I don't...»
«Her name was Mereth, you worthless scum. Azrael.»
His talons pierced Marcus' wife's frail chest as if it were made of butter, the human's breath stuttering as her lungs filled with blood. Red liquid oozed from her mouth, spewing from her nose, air gurgling into her soft throat. She convulsed wildly, impaled on Azrael's armored hand, before her eyes finally rolled back into her skull, body slumping on the table she sat at with her husband. The man was screaming wildly, eyes wide and crazed, struggling in his invisible bonds as if Nerissa's grip on his mind would ever give beneath his human strenght.
The remaining living human was drenched in sweat and blood, voice gone hoarse from screaming, when Azrael's Lady cut the bonds, his tears flooding his face as he cradled his wife's corpse close.
Nerissa looked bored now. She grabbed the bottle of wine and capped it anew.
Have they secured every window and door, Azrael?
-Yes, my Lady.
Good. We're done here.
Azrael bowed, his wings brushing the table, and held the door to allow Nerissa to pass. He ignored Marcus' calls -no, no, please oh please- and went behind her and Zimri, pulling the door closed on the screaming man. Nerissa tossed the bottle to one of the younger vampires she'd brought with.
The Dragonborn blocked the door by melting its metal hinges, the lock and handle dripping in sizzling silvery drops to the dry brown earth and Marcus' screams reaching the pitch where Azrael wondered how his vocal chords hadn't yet ruptured.
Nerissa bowed with mock solemnity, before setting fire to the house and all those within with a wide, lazy movement of her hands.
The fire emerged from her gauntleted hands with the speed of a striking snake. It latched on the house and tasted it, licking up the walls, slipping into the cracks in the roof, dripping into the rooms and turning them into a roaring inferno in a matter of seconds. The flames reached their scorching fingers high in the sky, turning the night into day as they caressed the stars and the air began to tremble with the heat. The reds and oranges and yellows of the fire had been carved into Azrael's mind long ago, but he still found beauty in it every time, despite everything.
He wondered what that made him.
The children in the vampires' grasp screamed as the flames devoured their home and family. They were largely ignored as Nerissa turned to face the townsfolk, that steel glint never leaving her irises. There were murmurs and shaking of head, but they all died down when she raised a hand, the armored fingers still engulfed by slowly dying flames.
«I trust I do not have to comment on this display» she said, voice casual and . «You asked for my protection and agreed to my price. I need a new tradesman.»
There was a good number of willing ones. Nerissa's smile turned pleased.
They departed from the silent village shortly after, taking the children with them and leaving a burning house as warning for all its inhabitants. The humans watched them go in silence, their expressions a mixture of hatred, fear and the kind of devotion that knew no bounds -the devotion of men and women who could see and touch their God, instead of only hearing of Him. Azrael had been used to those expressions all his vampiric life, but never had he seen such different emotions all splayed in one single moment.
The grin that was splitting his Lady's face told him she had.
His Lady, yes -his Mistress from the moment she'd fought Kain and saved them all from his wrath. His Mistress since Rahab and Zephon and Melchiah had found something into the dark pits of their hearts, and had handed them over to the Dragonborn.
A dragon with white wings and dark skin and flames woven into her hair, with a mad grin upon her lips and a tendency to drink too much. An angel without a halo who'd fallen upon Nosgoth without the skies breaking and without the earth recoiling from her presence, a sword at her hip and armored gauntlets at her hands, whose only desire was to set fire to the world.
Her name was Nerissa Graves, and a grave she would be for all those standing in her way.

I do not own in any way, shape or form the characters featured in this story, nor the story's cover, nor the quote at the beginning of each chapter. I only own my OCs and the plot.