Part 3- 'Like A Moth To A Flame…'
The years had been hard on Vladov Kinsky, though given he was a man approaching his eighties he looked remarkably well, but then reaching eighty had taken all of 200 years. He had not noticed it at first the way time seemed to be moving slower for him than everybody else, Ilyana was ageing to him it appeared at least as a normal child.
Being part human the implications of sustained life would not take full effect until she reached her teenage years. So she grew normally, and it was not until her eighteenth birthday and Vladov had caught his reflection in the dirty mirror of their room at an inn that Vladov realised the terrible price he was paying for his guardianship of Ilyana.
By all appearances he should now have been the age of thirty, a life constantly on the move, constant worry and lack of sleep ought to have taken their toll on his features, the onset of fine wrinkles at the corner of his eyes, a heavy sagged look crossing his brow, but no, he looked as healthy and as fresh faced as a twenty year old. He had dismissed it then, more out of wishful thinking than anything else, and persuaded himself into believing that he was just blessed with a constant youthful appearance.
But the years, the decades and eventually the centuries fell away, and Vladov had loved and lost more than once in those bitter years. Throughout the years he had kept a stringent watch on his guard Ilyana. She was constantly by his side, as dependant on him as he was determined to ensure that Count Vladislaus still believed she was dead.
It had taken all of his strength and all of the skill of the Order of Lights to ensure that they survived. He had remembered hitting the ice, a spell on his part as he descended had thinned the ice enough to ensure they broke through it, but the freezing cold depths of water were beyond his novice call, and before he lost consciousness he had sent out a desperate cry to the Order, who readily complied.
Ilyana and he had been separated in the cold depths, somehow she had drifted through the water to apparently wash up through a crack in the ice and appear on the opposite bank. To all this he was of course oblivious, though he was extracted from the lake and revived within minutes by the Order, he had believed even as he awoke that he still carried the child safely within his arms.
He had stared stupidly at his open and empty hands, as a wave of terrible guilt and loss washed over him, 'Is it done? Is the child vanquished?' The voice had appeared in his head, an intrusive, unwelcome guest. The Order was asking for confirmation of his kill. 'Yes…' He lied, though not entirely a lie, he may not have staked the child, but surely she had drowned? Dead either way, they would not care how.
It was only when Vladov had raised himself to his weary feet and through some urgent notion glanced at the other side of the lake that he had noticed the bundle, a shapeless form causing a mark in the tall reeds. Through some blind hope he ran across the lake, running, stumbling, hoping. It seemed forever before he reached the place and dropping to his nears, he saw the back of a head, an abundance of black curls. The form was unmoving and his heart broke as he turned the child over. She was as cold as the ice itself; her lips had already turned blue, her skin yet more deathly pale.
Possessed by grief and desperation Vladov had taken his knife and inflicted a deep gash in the palm of his hand, the blood took a while before it would flow because of the cold, but eventually it seeped out, warm and sticky liquid he hoped would answer all his prayers.
He pressed the whole of his hand over her mouth and waited with baited breath, he seemed to wait an eternity. Little Ilyana did not move an inch, he waited forever before he gave up, letting his hand slip slowly from her lips his head hung mournfully as his blood smeared pitifully across her face.
Vladov was still engulfed in his grief when he caught the first scream from Ilyana's now piercing lungs! She was alive and Vladov had never been gladder of anything in his life.
Somewhere along the point from stealing Ilyana, being hunted by the Count and plunging into a frozen lake, Vladov had come to have a deep attachment to this little girl. He had begun to see her as the younger sister he had left behind when he was taken from the village he had been born. The attachment had grown so fast that it scared him a little, but it was within the same instant he knew that his sense of protectiveness was so great that he would lay down his life for this girl if it was ever needed.
For now it was enough that she was alive, but if she continued screaming that wouldn't last long. Rapidly pulling the coverlets around her he scooped her up into his arms and making low across the lake's edge stuck close to the bushes, here he crouched, hidden until he was certain all was quiet. He eventually rose and vainly trying to ignore the cramp in his legs, ran across the vast snow covered plain. He had run and run, unsure of what to do next.
And so the lie the had remained, Vladov had through reasons he had stated as simply being ones guilt at the death of an infant, respectfully resigned his post in echelons of the Order Of Light, and stated his desire to live the life of a recluse.
The Order had seen no reason to doubt, and no compunction with which to bind him, he was released therefore, sent into the world with just enough knowledge of the Order's spells and craft to enable him to seek a living as a healer.
It was enough that he had taken that wretch of a child out of this world; they had no further need of him. But unbeknownst to them, that child had lived and was living, as his ward and in his care.
But at times his ward had proved difficult, the Great Northern War had proven one of those times. They had been travelling, along the borders of Estonia, the year had been 1718 and with Vladov foolishly believing that they would successfully negotiate the rare trodden and forgotten paths of the dense forest, and avoid the armies that littered the plateaus below.
And for a while they did, but it had been his mistake, too many years of becoming complacent as to what Ilyana's true nature was, and what she could not help had led him to think that they would shelter in amongst the trees for the night, safely tucked away beneath the evergreens and hidden form the soldier's campfires burning only a few miles away.
It had been his mistake, to have assumed that the small cup of pig's blood he had carried with him would be enough for her, to satiate that thirst he had known to always been burning inside her. There had been nothing, no sign that she needed, thirsted for something more. Realisation had come in the middle of that cold night.
Vladov had awoken to find her gone, and in the far distance he head screams, below him, far into the campfires that still burned, he heard the blood-curdling screams. Battle hardened soldiers screamed in abject horror. He had raced down that muddy path, always knowing and dreading what he would find.
Still a few feet away from the soldiers camp, Vladov literally stumbled upon his first horror, falling to the ground he raised himself slowly only to find himself staring at the sightless hollow eyes of Russian soldier. The young boy's gaze was fixed in a silent scream, the last sound he had made, two sharp puncture wound marking his neck and confirming every thought Vladov never wanted to have.
Dragging his feet further, the horror building in his mind, Vladov found her at last, the damage done, the night and the soldiers proving a cruel temptation she could never have forsaken. By the time had had found her she had decimated that small platoon of soldiers, nothing but cold bones and sightless, fear stricken gazes remained.
And she, Ilyana, kneeling in the middle of it all, her hands and her face coated in blood, the fangs, inheritance of her birth were protruding, shining and glistening in the cold darkness of the night. She stared up at him as he stood above her, the tears streaming down her cheeks, the violet eyes overflowing.
'Vladov…' she whispered, her voice etched and marked by a pain beyond the years, carried over to him, a mournful call in the dark. 'Vladov…' she repeated, 'what have I done?'
And all the regret, all the pitiful sorrow she had to offer she knew would never be enough, realisation had come to her as well, this monster they had for so long fought to keep chained inside would be abated no more. In a frenzied moment she had lost herself, control fleeted away in a simple puff of breath.
'Kill me.' Resolution firmed her words and her voice at last, as she stared up at her companion, the man she had looked up to as a brother for so long, her comforter, her friend. 'Kill me…!' She all but screamed at him.
He shook his head, she stared at the small cross he wore around his neck, a simple silver cross it glinted in the moonlight, one of the small remnants he carried of his faith and a token of what had once been his allegiance to the Order of Light.
Ilyana pulled herself to her feet and stepped towards him, he pulled back almost instinctively, 'kill me, in the name of the God you swore to serve Vladov, in the name of the Order you betrayed by letting me live…kill me!'
He moved back yet as grief and bitterness shook her to the core, she lunged for him once more only to fall at his feet, a pitiful mewing mumbling from her lips as she fought to rub away the blood encrusted on her hands. She ground her hands into the dirt, willing the soil to carry her sins away.
Vladov knelt down besides her, wrapping his strong arms about her, he drew her close to his chest, 'we will do better Ilya…' he used his pet name for her, the one he'd imprinted on her as a child, 'I promise you, I will do better.'
But for all Vladov promised to Ilyana it was not enough, her resolve had been shaken, every foundation rotted right down to its core, she had seen the nature of the beast, and the reflection was a truth that could not be borne.
Vladov had awoken that second night to find her gone. He had never intended to fall asleep, but an almost relentless vigil had left him exhausted, a momentary lapse and she had taken her chance.
His fears resounded not only for those she would encounter but for Ilyana herself, for more than a century he'd been by her side, a restraining hand, a gentle reproach. And now she had shaken him off, and was out there, among the multitudes of unsuspecting souls, alone and unrestrained.
Vladov had begun his search immediately, and soon found he was not the only one on her trail. There was another, a hunter, Vladov of heard of these men, loyal to the Pope in everything, from every aspect of their lives and through the death they meted out. A vampire hunter was hunting his Ilya, for all her flaws she was still his little sister, and despite what he had seen in her mere hours ago, she always would be his little Ilya.
It seemed the slaughter of the soldiers had becoming a thing of common knowledge, the puncture wounds on their necks and the ease and voracity with which blood had been spilt pointed to one thing alone, the presence of a vampire.
It had taken all of Vladov's skills; every lesson in tracking he had learnt from the Order to find her a second time, and when he did find her, it seemed she had gotten close to what she had asked from him, death.
Out in the borders of Latvia and an abandoned farmhouse he found her in a makeshift bed, her arms and legs chained to the rusted metal bedposts, a dozen stakes punctured varying parts of her body each painful in its own right, but none dealing the final killing blow.
It was cruelty in its vilest form; she had been left to bleed to death, chained and useless, unable to use her superior strength normally intrinsic to a vampire to free her self. Vladov
Would later find that she hadn't had that sort of strength for days, Ilyana had been deliberately starving herself of the very sustenance she needed. She hadn't fed in the last weeks that he had been looking for her, not pig's blood or any other.
The sight of her chained to that bed, half-naked and nearing death haunted him from that day to this, he would see her, weak and emaciated, her normally strong physique reduced to pathetic bones and sagging skin.
And it was the hunter who had done this to her, reduced to that pathetic state, he had broken her body in so many pieces, but to her mind and to her heart he had been yet more vicious.
Ilyana would not tell him what the hunter had done to her, but Vladov knew, deep inside he knew, she would never have let anyone close enough to hurt her, that hunter had gained and betrayed a trust with Ilyana that had left her broken for months on end. He had tricked her, used her and left her for dead.
Eventually Ilyana recovered, enough to realise that though she could never be reconciled with what she truly was, she had a right to exist all the same. Her claim to the life she had been given was hers alone, and no hunter, no manic preacher from the Holy Vatican was to take that from her. She did exist and would carry on existing, and if that meant her life would be one amongst the shadows then so be it, she would live in darkness.
And her energy, the characteristics she had been equally blessed and cursed with would be used to her advantage; she would in turn seek out the monsters that fed on the fears of others, the warlocks, the ogres and everything of every vicious nightmare that preyed on the innocent she would dispose of. And all of it cloaked within the shadows of the night.
She trained and honed her skills; with the help of Vladov she became as skilled as any hunter allied to the church, and for them her hate had yet to be abated, for their monks and their killers and for their God the bitter hatred ran deep.
It was with amusement then that she watched from atop the hill as a hunter of the church struggled with the puppets summoned by the necromancer. She heard the monk call out to him as he was besieged from all sides.
'GABRIEL…!' he yelled before the monk found himself being to the ground. Ilyana's eyes twinkled, her gaze shifting and her stare fixed on the hunter once more. She saw him struggle as his sword arm was gripped by the putrid rotting flesh of a walking corpse.
'Better to put him out of his misery,' she smilingly thought, her teeth gritted she set an arrow in her crossbow, pulling the mechanism taut, her eyes fixed glinting in a cold light she took careful aim at Gabriel's head…