Chapter 13- Vision
I lay there awake, looking into his eyes, trying my best not to let mine betray me. I was more afraid than I would let on, but I wasn't lying when I said I was confident. I had a feeling that this moment was ordained long ago by forces beyond our control, and that everything would turn out alright as the prophecy Alexander Corvinus spoke of stated. It would be quite a hitch, however, that Lucian did not know who, or where this female Lycan was. Would his men know? Was it one of them who had created her? Would they even own up to it? I felt like the deeper I was pulled into this centuries-old war, the more questions I had than answers, and yet I was learning so much as I went along.
Lucian stroked my hair, and his touch jarred me from my reverie. I ran my fingers through his, a melancholy smile on my face. I wasn't sure if I was on Earth, in Purgatory, or in waiting for Hell; but the battle aside, I knew that when I was next to Lucian I was in Heaven.
"All this talk of me being an angel," I mused tenderly, "and yet you never even considered once that you might be the angel, and not me."
"That's quite impossible, love," he said, smiling, his eyes beginning to close sleepily.
"It's not so impossible," I countered. "You've handled me with such care from the beginning. You're gentle with my body, with my emotions, with my heart, and about how you tell me about your world and bring me into it. Only an angel can behave with such grace. An angel or a Lycan," I amended with a grin.
"You may not find the other Lycans as gentle as I am," he laughed in spite of himself. "They will do you no harm, but they're a bit brash and a bit blunt at times."
"But not you."
He hesitated slightly. "Normally, yes. You will see a different side of me when we're fighting the vampires, though. I hope you are prepared to see me that way," he cautioned.
"Yes." I nodded with certainty. "Yes, I'm prepared. It's not like you'll be lashing out at me. I can take it."
"You won't still see me as an angel."
"Yes I will." I would stand my ground on that forever.
His lips turned up, and he exhaled contentedly. "And once more I don't give you credit where credit is due. But I fear that you do idealize me too much."
"I wouldn't say that I idealize you. I just see how good you are, through and through. Do you know how rare a find you are in a man?"
"I suppose I don't," he said thoughtfully. "I never was one to bring attention to myself vainly."
"Well that's all the more attractive. Still, take my word for it, Lucian; you're as rare and beautiful as men come."
He kissed me, sending the electrical current through my body that would never lose its intensity over time. "Get some rest, my love. You will need all the strength you can get for tomorrow. There will be a lot of travelling, a lot of walking, and not a comfortable place in sight for sleep. We may not even sleep as we refine our war plans."
"Okay," I whispered, adrenaline beginning to pump through me and threatening to cancel out any sleep I might be able to get. I swallowed hard and steadied my breathing as best I could, concentrating on Lucian beside me. He was the one person who would be able to soothe me now. I prayed silently that neither of us would be taken from the other. "I love you so much, Lucian. Never forget that, even in battle."
"I could never forget that, my darling. I love you too, Maya, for eternity. Good night; sleep well." His words were so definitive. If I were lying in the face of certain death on the ground, his words tonight would resound in my mind as I lay dying; my last comforting thoughts.
"Good night. You too."
We held each other close, and I drifted off into an anxious sleep. Even in such a perfect moment, nothing could have prepared me for the images I would see in my dreams that night. The images came to me one after another in a confusing montage with seemingly no chronological organization; a young female vampire tied to a pillar with sunlight shining through a portal in a high ceiling; eyes with ashen blue irises staring viciously into mine; a female's form from behind transforming into an irate and sinuous Lycan, her roar echoing into the dark twilight under a waxing gibbous moon; a silver dagger held over the heart of a form I couldn't make out; a fearsome-looking creature with fangs, talons and a bluish pallor to his skin; my frame leaning forward as I blazed with high speed toward armed vampires; myself holding hands with another young female vampire with short hair, our arms raised in triumph; Alexander Corvinus' words: "one female vampire, and one female Lycan in league with one another;" and Lucian looking onto me in fear and sorrow, refusal on his face. "NO!"
"NO!" I woke up screaming, breathing heavily and sweat pouring down my face. "What was that?"
Lucian did not wake up at the sound of my screaming, which left me there to ponder, as my breath gradually slowed, if my dream might not have been prophetic. And yet I couldn't make out every image I'd seen, or make sense of any of it. What the hell was going on? Or was my brain simply warning me to give in to my fear and cower away?
Never.
That morning Lucian and I caught an early flight at seven AM out of Boston to London. The seven hours droned on uneventfully. Lucian and I held hands almost the entire time, trying to catch a bit of sleep here and there. I was itching to listen to my iPod sitting at home miles away, and my thoughts drifted to my cozy bedroom where it lay on my nightstand. I tried to picture where I'd be sleeping tonight, if I slept at all, in stark contrast to now. Would I be sleeping in the middle of a forest somewhere? Would I be bunking out low below a sewer somewhere? Lucian said vampires and Lycans didn't typically interact with humans- I imagined I may have been one of the first in a long while. And what of the Lycans? How would a group of all male half-werewolf creatures think of this frail mortal coming into their world unannounced, stating that she wished to fight with them? Surely they'd think I- and Lucian- had gone mad. And it occurred to me with a start that they may not even know he was still alive. He said he had narrowly fought through death after being shot with silver nitrate bullets. Maybe this wasn't a good omen at all, even with Corvinus' apparition the night before. Maybe this was the mark of Armageddon. Nothing in the Bible was certain to be the actual foretelling of the end of the world, and Revelation was all symbolism only meant for John to understand- maybe I was at the brink of the end of the world; fire and ice. Surely though, this war was something monumentally marking history, whether many knew of its happening or not.
I shook my head to clear it of such thoughts, and began to obsess again over my dream, or nightmare, I wasn't sure which. I was still deep in thought, lines set hard into my face, when the plane landed. Lucian shook me gently out of my reverie.
"Come, love. We must find a cab to the train station."
"Okay," I nodded.
When we boarded the train, Lucian had more instructions for me.
"Maya, what I have to tell you is very important. From this moment forth, your morals are left at the door. When we reach the limits of the city where the vampires and Lycans are, you will make no eye contact with any humans in order to avoid bringing any attention to yourself. You will shroud yourself in mute and indistinct colors. Everywhere you move, move swiftly, except as I told you before when you're in a wide-open space. All transportation you can hijack is fair game. Whatever weapons you find, you poach. We will provide you with ammunition and munitions, but once the battle is in full force you will stop at nothing. Do not hesitate to pry a weapon out of the hands of a dead vampire- or Lycan. Any death on our side is tragic, but a weapon is of no use to a dead man; it is of use to keep you alive. And finally, if you have to be creative, be creative. Throw things as a distraction. Break something that will start a fire. Throw water onto something that will electrocute. Anything that's heavy that you can shove into an enemy's path, shove it with all your might. Even a few seconds of time that you buy yourself could save your life and allow you to make a move or make an escape."
"Okay, the weapons thing I can understand, but grand theft auto? Jesus Christ, Lucian!"
"You cannot afford to be without a high-powered vehicle! This isn't just warfare; it's very modern, high-tech, and deadly warfare. Remember that each side is using ultraviolet and silver nitrate bullets, respectively. Anything you can use to plow into your adversaries at high-speed outside the gates of the mansion, you use. You will have to be ruthless."
"Shouldn't I just stay in the car then and fight them that way?"
"No. It will only do you good outside the mansion. Once you're there, you'll eventually have to get out and fight one way or another, either with a gun or your sword or dagger. You need to be out of the car to really make a good shot or strike at each vampire you encounter, and besides they would fire at your vehicle without a second thought with the intent of destroying it- with you inside. Then use the vehicle to make your escape if you see our enforcements retreating. We only retreat to restock munitions, if there are none left and we can find nothing else, and to reconvene and revise our plans of attack."
"Okay. So the plan is hijack, poach, plunder, pillage."
He smiled wryly. "Something to that effect, yes. I know it seems very hard to absorb all of these instructions right now, but believe me, once this is all happening, you will not think twice about doing any of it. It's all for your survival, and everything you do, every step you take, every tool you utilize is for your survival."
"I'll be in the heat of the moment."
"Yes," he confirmed.
"Wow, this is some convoluted undertaking, here," I breathed, my head still spinning and attempting to comprehend.
"Just don't think twice about anything you do. You haven't done this before but you'll find that your instinct will take over a lot quicker than you think as you move. Just concentrate on your surroundings; who's coming at you, and what they're doing, where ledges and corners and nooks and pillars are in the room, and your brain will react." His eyes shifted out the window as the train began to slow. "Now here's our stop. We're heading straight to the sewers where the Lycans convene. We will search for my closest friend and second-in-command, Raze."
"Alright."
We stepped off the train with our backpacks upon our backs, and headed towards the city where the vampire's mansion was located, and the underground lair of the Lycans. My heart pounded nearly in time with my feet as we walked more than briskly towards the most surreal experience I would ever witness in my entire lifetime. I tried to swallow the impending sense of doom as nausea and bile threatened to escape my throat.
A/N: Another kind of short chapter by about a page, sorry. The whole spiel Lucian gives about the weaponry and everything was so much more dramatic and almost frantic in tempo when I constructed it in my head; I probably should have written it down right then and there. I suppose it sounds more like Lucian though to come out very controlled and planned out. Maybe it turned out better this way, rather than being rushed and frantic. Lucian keeping his composure and being so assured is truer to form anyway.