Much thanks to whimsyfox and Saemay for editing and encouragement.
A definition of terms: Nephilim are mentioned historically as being born when angel and human get together. Only the first generation of offspring is Nephilim. There were very few of them because mating between angel and human was banned early in Biblical history.
Seraphin Nepos is a term of my own creation. It means 'angel descendants' and refers to those whose ancestors were angels. Seraphin Nepos have some angel genetics somewhere in their background but that doesn't mean that they have special gifts or powers. Lena considers herself within the category of Seraphin Nepos. She is also Nephilim because her father is an angel, which makes her a first generation offspring.
It was early evening and Tom was just back from a visit to the Sutherland/Riley family. He sat with a frown at the kitchen table; he ran a hand over the scars on his head, an unfinished and forgotten sandwich in front of him.
"What's the matter Tom?" Hal asked as he and Lena entered the kitchen. "Everything all right with Beth and Ben?"
"Oh yeah, they're doin' great," Tom said. "I was thinkin' about Alex. She didn't come along today and she ain't been at work much the last few days."
"She hasn't been here either," Lena said. "She has a secret, apparently. I'll bet that it's a male secret, one she doesn't want us to meet."
"That's what I reckon," Tom said. "I don't like it."
"Nor do I, Tom," Lena said. "I'll see if I can talk to her about it when she gets home."
# # #
Alex found a welcoming committee when she returned to Honolulu Heights that night, one that she neither appreciated nor tolerated.
"I've met a ghost who knows stuff and can teach me stuff, and I'm spending time with him, okay? Now lighten up," she said.
"I want to meet him." Lena was adamant.
"Yeah, well, he doesn't want to meet you. He says it sounds like I live in a nuthouse and I should be glad to get away from it when I can."
"She has a point," Hal said. "Trying to explain this household to anyone and make it sound close to normal would be a challenge."
"I don't care. He comes to me or I go to him," Lena said. "Tomorrow."
"Fine, Nana. I'll bring him over tomorrow after work," said Alex. "I'm supposed to help Tom at the hotel anyway."
"Great!" Tom exclaimed. "The crews miss you when you're gone."
"How can they miss me, Tom? They can't even see me."
"Yeah, but they know you're about. They see you helpin' me move stuff, and you kept that stack of lumber from fallin' on a couple of the carpenters the other day." Tom smiled at Lena. "She's dead helpful. Alex the friendly ghost." He wasn't even trying to make a pun.
"So, what's your young man's name?" Hal asked.
"Byron."
"Not Lord Byron, I hope?" Hal asked, teasing her.
"Ha ha, very funny. No, he's not a Lord anything, he's just a fella who died in 1952 and hasn't found his unfinished business yet," Alex said. "He's a fella that I fancy, so don't screw it up!" She pointed a finger at them all threateningly as she went upstairs.
Byron failed to appear the following evening however. Alex came home alone, slightly crestfallen. He hadn't met her as planned, and she was certain that the prospect of meeting the crazy Honolulu Heights household had scared him away. Lena was ready to hunt Byron down, but Alex asked her for one more day to bring her new friend to them. Lena agreed, more to avoid the nuisance of tracking a ghost with a vampire tagging along than anything.
The housemates had gone to their rooms for the night when Hal and Lena, their doors ajar, heard Alex talking to someone downstairs. It seemed that Byron had changed his mind. Hal pulled on a shirt and called into Lena's room as he passed.
"I'll get Tom. Apparently we get to meet the famous Byron after all."
Lena got up and put on a pair of jeans. She considered changing out of her 'Hand Over the Chocolate and Nobody Gets Hurt' t-shirt, but decided not to bother. Suddenly she felt a rush of evil in the house and heard Alex scream. She instantly manifested fully into her true battle form and took the bullet train to the living room.
The famous Byron, an immaculately dressed young man in argyle and tweed, was shoving Alex through a door where the fireplace should be. He laughed cruelly as he slapped her face in order to break her grasp on him. The men with sticks and ropes grabbed her arms and pulled her into purgatory. Byron slammed the door shut as Lena reached him.
"You're too late!" he crowed triumphantly before he saw what she was.
"Bullshit!" Lena grabbed Byron by the throat with one hand and ripped what she assumed was his door off its hinges with the other hand. She threw the door aside; her actions opened Byron's dark corridor into purgatory and exposed the men with sticks and ropes who were dragging Alex away. The men froze in stunned disbelief as Alex wrestled to free herself from them. Only death could control the doors; only the masters of heaven and hell could negotiate with death. What Lena had done was impossible.
Tom and Hal had heard Alex scream, and they charged into the living room as Byron's door went flying. They didn't dare look at Lena; she had changed into something they could not yet comprehend. Instead they focused on Alex, and without a thought for themselves they ran into the corridor after her.
There was no room for Lena, and Alex didn't need her anyway, she just needed the right tool for the job. Lena threw a long knife down the corridor, making sure it sliced neatly through one of Alex's captors and embedded in the wall by Alex's head. The young ghost reached for it as her captor disintegrated, but others rushed in to grab her and hold her from it.
Tom and Hal threw themselves into the melee and knocked Alex free, which allowed her to wrench the knife from the wall and cut the ropes that held her. She swung it again and injured one of the men; he howled an unnatural howl and dispersed into ash. The others fled, overwhelmed with fear for the first time in their existence.
The three housemates rushed back down the corridor and tumbled over each other as they spilled into their living room. As Alex landed the knife left her hand and appeared in Lena's. They watched as she sheathed it into nothingness, drawn in by the mystery of her weapons and by the terrifying creature she had become.
Lena was nearly seven feet tall, her hair a wreath of red and gold fire around her head, her eyes fire-white. Light and heat radiated and pulsed from her, and her grey wings filled the width of the room. She held Byron like a rag doll in one hand as she picked up his door with the other and tossed it down his corridor.
"Leave," she said in an inhuman voice that resonated through the room. The corridor vanished.
"Identify yourself," she commanded as she shook Byron, who was beginning to scorch and char from the heat of her grasp. "Who is your master?"
"Lucifer. The devil," he choked out. Although he was a ghost, he couldn't escape from her grip.
"Tell me your purpose."
"I find ghosts who are bound for a good eternity and send them to my master. Please, let me go!" he pleaded, coughing against the pressure on his throat. "I'll run. I'll leave. You'll never see me again!"
"You send good souls to suffer so you can remain free." Lena stated it as fact, as the reason for his condemnation to come.
"Yes," he gasped as he tugged uselessly at Lena's fingers around his neck.
She held out her arm and roared, "DOOR!" and one appeared, not in front of her but on the floor, a great black round iron door with a ring mounted in its center. Smoke and noxious fumes oozed from around it. Byron screamed, begged, clawed at the hand that held him, but to no effect. She casually squeezed his throat shut to stifle his noise.
"Tell your master that my home and my friends are off limits to his minions."
"Who… are…you?" Byron gasped out the words.
"I am Nephilim Victrix."
She pulled open the great door and threw Bryon into the pit, to his master.
She slammed the door shut and said, "Leave." It did.
She heard Hal's shocked voice from the floor near the sectional where they had landed. "Impossible!"
Hal got to his feet and watched Lena warily as she returned to her usual human form. She looked familiar again but maintained an aura of power and danger; she seemed fixed on him and silently monitored his movements; he didn't trust her.
"What are you?" Alex pulled herself shakily to her feet and stared in terror at Lena. "You… you control the doors. How can you do that?"
"What did you say you are?" Tom was also stunned by what he had seen. He turned to Hal. "Hal! What did she say?"
"Nephilim Victrix. The creature we spoke of to Rook, remember Tom?" Hal kept his eyes on Lena and cautiously walked to the end of the sectional as he spoke. He wanted to give himself some open space so he could move quickly if necessary. She said nothing, so Hal continued his explanation. "The name is a title given to the greatest Nephilim who ever lived, the only one of her kind. She was more angel than human, according to the legends. Her mother was Nephilim, half-human, half-angel, and her father an archangel."
Hal leaned against the end of the sectional as he spoke and tried to appear casual and unshaken by Lena's display of her abilities. In truth, he was doing his best to stay upright as he watched her still form, her cold grey eyes locked onto him. Hal finished the mythology of the Victrix for Tom and Alex's benefit.
"It is said that her power was so great that God trembled when she was born. She was the reason for the edict that angel and human never unite again. Hers are the most powerful Seraphin Nepos, angel descendants, in all creation."
Finally Hal spoke directly to Lena in the hope that he would break her terrifying concentration on him. "She was your ancestor. Why would you claim her name and reputation for yourself? Why challenge the devil like that? It was either very brave or very stupid."
"Or I could be telling the truth." Lena gave the vampire a slight smile.
"You're not."
"How do you know?"
"Because the Victrix died over 300 years ago. I was there," he said, then hesitated. "I was… involved."
"Hal, what do you mean, you were involved?" You didn't… you didn't kill her, did you?" Alex shook her head in disgust. "What am I saying? Of course you did."
"I didn't personally kill her, but yes, I participated in the campaign that led to her death."
Lena tilted her head slightly, as if she were looking at an interesting insect pinned to a specimen tray. "Don't you mean 'commanded the forces that butchered her'? I think that would be a more accurate description," she said in a quiet, chilling voice. Hal looked increasingly uncomfortable as she spoke.
Lena walked slowly toward Hal as she continued, an ancient predator toying with her prey. "You led a horde of vampires and humans to the village where she and her family lived. You set them loose to murder, rape, and pillage."
She casually ran a hand down the back of the sofa as she took another step. "Your spies caught the members of her family first, of course. You used them to force her to surrender. You told her that you would turn the humans into vampires and send their souls to the devil if she didn't give herself into your hands." She quivered with rage at the brilliant, brutal threat the vampire had used.
"You forced your least favorite vampire pets to test her blood to make sure she was Nephilim. Did you enjoy watching them explode when the first drops of her blood touched their lips?" Hal nodded in spite of himself. He had found it amusing.
She took another step, and her grey eyes turned diamond-white again as they remained fixed on Hal. He began to slowly back away from her. "You had your men build a platform, a stage on which to torture her. You had her stripped and nailed into place with knives so your men could torment her at will while her family watched. When they had finished you commanded your human soldiers to drain her of her remaining blood so you could use it to poison your enemies." She paused, raising an eyebrow. "Waste not, want not."
Lena kept the vampire within reach as she backed him across the room. He would not escape this time. "You had her children tested as well. In fact, every child in the village was brought before you and bitten to test for Nephilim blood so you would know that you had Every. Single. Member. of her family in your grasp."
She glowed now; the rage inside her burned through every pore of her skin. Alex trembled with fear and shock, and Tom stood with her, an arm around her protectively. Neither of them dared intervene between Hal and Lena.
Her wings unfurled and arched across the room to trap him within their steel curves as she continued. "You had your human minions hack her into pieces and throw the pieces into her family's home. They did the same to her Seraphin Nepos children." She paused and wrestled to control herself. "Your men filled the house with kindling and you personally set fire to it; you drank her husband's blood slowly so he could watch them burn."
She had him backed against the wall leading to the kitchen. Lena leaned into him until they nearly touched, the heat of her rage singeing his face as her ice-cold voice finished her story. "Did I leave anything out?"
Hal shook with fear, but he faced her. "No," he whispered. "No."
She put a hand around his throat and lifted him easily from the floor. Her touched seared his skin. "Puny, arrogant vampire. Did you honestly believe you could defeat me? That was my daughter you killed."
Hal felt as if he were being consumed by flames as her eyes raked over him. He felt weak, light-headed. He blacked out as she tossed him across the room, over the dining table and sectional. He landed limply on the sofa as she disappeared.
# # #
Hal came to as Tom gently slapped his face and Alex hovered nearby with burn ointment. He sat up slowly, shaking his head. His throat was on fire. He touched it and winced.
"Here, Hal, let me put this on. It should help," Alex said, as she sat next to him and applied the ointment.
"How long?" he croaked out the words. It hurt to speak.
Tom ran to get him a glass of water as Alex answered. "Just a few minutes."
Hal drank the water and it helped, a little. He asked for another glass and got it. "She may be gone for a long time," he said. "We should put me in the cellar while I'm still willing to go."
"Do you think she's comin' back?" Tom asked.
"I do," Hal said. "She gave her word. But in case she doesn't, Tom, I need you to give me a stake. If worse comes to worst, I'd like to think I can be man enough to save you the job of killing me."
"Calm down, mate. Let's hope it don't come to that," Tom said, but he got one of his best stakes, Conan, and gave it to Hal at the door to the cellar room.
Alex was in tears and blamed herself for getting them all into this mess. "I should have listened to Lena, I should have known better than to trust a stranger. Hal, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry!"
"I'm just glad we got you back," Hal said with a brave smile. "We wouldn't have, without her. We should be grateful."
Hal closed himself into the cellar and waited for Tom to lock him in. He turned on the light and sat on the floor, waiting. Tom and Alex sat on the bottom cellar step, also waiting. Because of the soundproofing in the room they couldn't really tell what was happening, so Alex checked in on Hal regularly.
The first time Hal sat with his back against the wall, and he smiled at her concern. "I'm alright Alex."
The second time, he was in the center of the room doing press-ups. He didn't interrupt his count to speak to her.
The third time, Hal was pacing while muttering musical lyrics. He didn't notice her.
A few minutes later they heard him fling himself against the door and rattle it to see if it would open. They heard a chuckle, and Hal began to sing the ubiquitous "You'll Never Walk Alone"* in a clear and bitter tone, and they knew their friend was gone.
# # #
Lena needed to kill something, fast. She disappeared from Honolulu Heights with one focus: demons. They would be easy to find. She reappeared just outside of Atlanta, Georgia, over an abandoned warehouse-turned-entertainment-venue where the night was in full swing. Battered and scarred pit bulls waited in filthy cages or on huge chains as their owners wagered on their skills and negotiated for their next fight. There were three arenas going at once; the losers of each battle were viciously put down by their owners. A woman was being brutalized in the back room. Demons circled overhead, feasting on the cruelty that flowed in waves from the activity below.
"This will do for a start," she said, as she drew her swords and destroyed the outliers. She tore the roof off the building and worked her way down, took out the demons who fled their human hosts first, then chased down and killed the ones who were firmly attached to the humans who had given them entry. The less corrupt humans she allowed to escape. Midway through the slaughter she found herself singing "Love is a Battlefield"* and laughed at the wretched irony of it.
Within minutes the remaining dogs were free, the building was ablaze, and Lena was setting the battered woman down at a safe distance. She cradled her as she drew the woman's injuries from her. She took them all, the beating, the burns, the vicious penetration of rape, and let the pain roll through her and dissipate. Finally the woman opened her eyes, haunted by the horror she had endured.
"I can take that too." Lena soothed her, rested a hand on her forehead, and drew the woman's terror, anger, and humiliation into herself. Soon it too, was gone.
Sirens sounded in the distance. The authorities had nothing left to do but put out the fire and sort out the burned bits of humanity. Lena had found plenty of flammables in the old warehouse.
Lena scooped the woman into her arms and flew her home.
"What are you? My guardian angel?" the woman whispered. They were her first words.
"Believe what you like, but don't tell anyone else unless you want a trip to the asylum," Lena said, and she was gone.
She focused on demons again because their evil was easy to sense, the souls they corrupted like beacons to her nature. She reappeared in the midst of a group of pedophiles auctioning their child victims to the highest bidders. They lasted less than a minute.
She gathered the five children to her; the oldest may have been 9 or 10. She wrapped them in her blood-spattered wings and sang a soft song in the old language as she drew their horrors from them. She handed a telephone to the oldest so he could call for the police. She didn't worry about the story they would tell. She was gone.
Several thousand miles and several hundred human deaths later Lena had dispatched enough monsters to calm herself down for the return to the one monster she wasn't allowed to destroy, the one she no longer wanted to destroy. She refused to consider why.
She had also taken enough human anguish into herself to atone once again, just a bit, for being absent when her daughter needed her the most.
She had been gone just over an hour.
Lena took a quick dip in the Irish Sea to wash off the blood and ash before zeroing in on the new bathroom for her final stop. She peeled off her salt-water soaked clothes and stepped into the shower for a quick wash. Alex was suddenly in the bathroom with her.
"Where have you been? Hal is in the cellar! He had us put him in the cellar! With a stake!"
"Has he used it yet?" Lena asked as she rinsed the shampoo from her hair.
"I don't know!"
"Well, go tell him not to, you idiot," Lena replied coolly. "Tell him I'll be there in a bit."
Alex disappeared. Lena stepped out of the shower and quickly wrapped her hair in a towel. She dressed and grabbed a comb on her way to the cellar. Tom was sitting midway down the cellar stairs.
"He's gone," Tom said.
Lena's hearing was sharper than Tom's. She heard whistling and the movement of feet from the cellar. Hal was clearly not gone. He was working on his dance moves to the tune of "Cabaret."*
She went to the cellar door as Alex joined Tom on the step. Alex took Tom's hand and leaned her head on his shoulder. They were worried about their friend.
"I was there, you know. In Berlin," Hal said as he sensed Lena's presence. "We loved the war. Hitler provided us with limitless banquets during the course of his endeavors. We grew fat and lazy from the lack of hunting for our own food."
"I can imagine. Except for the fat part. You are too vain to allow yourself to get out of shape," she replied.
Hal chuckled."My lady." She suspected that he was bowing sarcastically on the other side of the door.
"Pet."
"Are we back to that? I suppose we may be." Hal's voice was just across the door from her now. He casually leaned against it, his back to her. "I have returned to my old self, although the feeling is waning with the reintroduction of your influence."
"I hope we are not back to that, Hal." She leaned her back against the door as well. "I hear you have a stake with you."
"Yes. Conan, I believe is its name. It has been keeping me company in your absence. It is a woeful dance partner."
"How are you?"
"Still here, in spite of my best intentions. I had thought to stake myself and rid you of me before your return. It seems I am a coward, after all." She heard the bitterness in his voice.
"It isn't cowardice to keep your word."
"Excuse me?"
"No quitting, remember? We agreed."
"We also said no leaving."
"I didn't leave you, Hal. I'm right here. I just had to go let off some steam."
"Because you could no longer be decent. Did things get out of hand, as you said they do when you can no longer be decent?"
"You mean, did people die? Yes."
"Vampires?
"No, I hunted demons. They are easier for me to find, and I needed a quick kill tonight."
"Ah, a quick kill," he said with a touch of humor in his voice. "I could have used one as well."
"If we killed for the same reason I would have brought you with me," she said.
"If we killed for the same reason you wouldn't be here," he reminded her.
"True." She took the towel off her head and began trying to comb her damp hair.
Hal felt her influence settling him, but he needed her voice. He didn't know why. Perhaps he just wanted to make sure she was still there, still with him.
"You've showered," he said. Her scent was reaching him.
"I took a dip in the sea to wash off the blood and ash, then showered to wash off the salt water. Now if I can just get a comb through this hair—" she tugged at it impatiently. "Damn it!"
"I could do that for you," he said. "You were always so impatient."
"Or I could just cut it off and save myself the trouble."
"Why don't you?"
"I do, once in a while, but I don't really like it. I usually keep it long. Vanity, I guess." She slid down to sit on the floor with her back to the door. He followed on his side. They continued the conversation that drew them both back toward their humanity.
"When you manifested—was that your true form?" Hal hoped that it wasn't. She was much too frightening.
"The really pissed-off version of it, yes," she said as she worked the tangles out of her hair.
"Your hair turned to flames."
"I'm naturally a red-head."
"That explains the temper," Hal said, gently teasing her.
"Watch it Fangboy," she replied.
"You were well over 6 feet tall."
"Yeah, that happens sometimes in when I'm in battle mode. I'm actually only about 5-foot-6. My usual height."
"Your eyes? What color are they naturally? Not white lightning I hope."
"Brown. Like my mother."
"And your daughter," Hal affirmed. He remembered her clearly, remembered the fire in her brown eyes; they had remained fixed on him throughout her torture.
"Yes, like my daughter," Lena said quietly.
"I feel as though I should apologize for what I have done to you, for what I did to your family." Hal also spoke quietly. "I can think of no words that are appropriate, however. They are too weak, and would make a mockery of your pain."
"Maybe you could make me a card. I saw some markers and glitter in a desk drawer."
"Yes, of course. I should have thought of that. A sorry-I-slaughtered-your-family card is just the thing."
"I wonder how many of those you could hand out, if you chose," she said.
"Thousands. You?" he asked.
"I would need a sorry-I-slaughtered-the-irredeemable-beast-in-your -midst card. Thousands of them."
Tom and Alex huddled on the cellar stairs and listened to Lena's side of their conversation and what little they could make out of Hal's. They drew closer together, looking to each other for comfort as the true nature of their housemate became apparent. They had not considered that Lena was also a prolific killer.
"What were you hunting?" Hal asked. "When the genocide started. I asked Bernard but he said that you had never told anyone."
"I was hunting the brothers, the founders of your species. The first vampires."
"Our legends say that they live in a secret temple deep in the mountains of Asia, surrounded by guards and servants whose only job is to feed them and keep them safe. It is closed to the world, and each generation is allowed to breed enough children for the next generation to maintain its watch."
"Your legends were correct. That's what made them so hard to find," she said grimly.
"But you found them."
"Yes. Are you older than Hetty? You may quite possibly be the oldest vampire left, Hal."
"I am older than Hetty by about 50 years, although suddenly I am uncomfortable with discussions of my age."
"I know how you feel," Lena said wryly. She continued, "I guess it levels the score between us, in a weird kind of way. I was killing them while you were killing my daughter and her family."
"It does not come close to leveling things between us," Hal said. "I didn't know them or love them. And I'm sure their deaths were quicker than your daughter's."
"I don't tend to drag those things out, so yes, I'm sure they were."
"Whereas I derive great delight in being as cruel as possible for as long as possible to my prisoners."
"Not your finest feature, Hal."
"After spending time under your influence, my lady, I would have to agree with you," he said.
"You know, if I had just had the sense to track you down and keep you from killing a couple of centuries ago, we'd be a lot better off by now," she said.
"I don't believe either of us was ready for this a couple of centuries ago," Hal said. "I was focused on becoming a vampire of legend and you were too angry to be on the same continent with me, let alone in the same room."
"Sometimes I think we're still not ready," she replied. "Speaking of ready, are you ready for me to open the door?"
"Yes, I believe so."
"Are you sure? Your voice sounds odd. Your fangs aren't out, are they?"
"No. I have a burn on my throat. It is making me a bit hoarse."
"What?" Lena unlocked the door, threw it open, and stepped back to allow Hal to exit.
He stopped in the doorway to the cellar room. She could see the curse, a pale pink blush across his features. She could see deep burns on his throat where she had choked him earlier. They were not healing. She reached out to take the injury from him, but he stepped back.
"Don't touch me."
"Hal, I'm not going to hurt you."
"I know what you want to do, you want to heal the burns, to take the pain yourself," he said. "I cannot allow it."
"Excuse me?" Clearly Hal had forgotten who was in charge in their relationship.
"What kind of creature are you?" he asked her. "After everything I have done to you, everything you know about me, how can you reach out to me in kindness? What kind of creature can do such a thing, would want to do such a thing, would want to heal an injury to a monster like me?"
"I would, Hal. I'm the same creature as I was yesterday. I knew who you were and what you had done before I came here. Your discovery of it doesn't change who I am. Now stop being a drama queen and let me heal your throat," Lena moved toward him resolutely. "I'm not letting you out of the cellar until I do."
He backed away from her shaking his head. He wanted to feel the pain, to be reminded of what he had done to her, to be punished.
"Hal, it hurts me to see my fingerprints burned into your throat. Please let me heal you." Lena tried cajoling as she backed him into a corner, literally.
He could see from the look in her eyes that she was telling the truth, so he acquiesced and closed his eyes. He didn't want to see the pain on her face as she took the burns into herself. He felt her hand gently move into the position she had held him in earlier and he felt the pain leave him. He waited a moment until he heard her step away from him before opening his eyes.
"Thank you," he said.
"You're welcome," she said. "How long did it take before you started to go nutso down here?"
"About 30 minutes. Slightly longer than I expected," he replied as they climbed the stairs to the first floor. Tom and Alex hopped up and moved ahead of them into the first floor hall.
"That's a good sign. The curse continues to weaken," she said.
"Not that I would turn down a goblet of freshly drawn blood if you offered it to me," he said as they continued toward the upstairs and their rooms.
"There's a reason I washed off before coming home," she said. "I didn't want you trying to lick me clean."
They stopped at the door to Hal's room. "What do you need?" Lena asked.
Hal put out his hand like a traffic cop signaling a stop. Lena met him, palm to palm. Their fingers curled over each other's hands and locked them together. Hal felt his body hum as she calmed him once again. Her blood sang to him softly, sweetly, an alluring melody. He found himself looking at the pulse in her neck, and she noticed.
"Bad idea, Hal."
"Still tempting, and a sweeter death than Conan would provide." He had left the stake in the cellar.
"I don't want you dead."
"Excuse me?"
"I don't want you dead." She met his look honestly as she pulled away from him. "I was so angry, so very angry tonight. Three hundred years of rage exploded out of me and when I got you in my hand I wanted to rip you to shreds and send us both to hell." Her grey eyes began to lighten and glow with the memory of her rage. She blinked, took a breath, and returned to herself. "I didn't stop on my account, I stopped on yours. I'm not quite ready to let the devil have you, after all."
Hal had no answer. He simply stared at her, incredulous.
"I'm sorry I hurt you, Hal," she said softly, looking at the floor.
"I'm sorry I hurt you," he replied. "Good night." Hal closed the door to his room as she moved away. He undressed and lay awake on his bed, trying to fathom the beautiful, terrifying, generous, murderous creature that she was.
# # #
Tom and Alex stayed safely in the kitchen until they heard Hal and Lena go to their rooms.
"Tom, she's as bad as he is," Alex said. "She's just as much of a killer."
"I reckon so. Maybe that's what it takes to control him," Tom replied.
Alex began to tremble again. Now that Lena was home and Hal was safe, she could relax enough to realize how very close she had come to a very bad end that evening.
"She controls the doors, Tom. How can she do that? She could destroy any of us, in a snap."
"But she didn't, Alex, she saved you. Me and Hal couldn't have done it, we couldn't have gotten you back by ourselves." Tom put a hand comfortingly on Alex's shoulder and she stepped into him and wrapped her arms around him with a sob. He patted her back awkwardly. "It's okay, 'Lex. It's over now, ain't it? Everything is back to normal."
"I'm scared, Tom. Like, buried alive again scared. What if the devil was after me? Maybe because of Hatch? What if they come back, Tom, the men with sticks and ropes? They've tried twice now, and you know what they say, third time's the charm." Alex found herself practically blubbering into Tom's ear, which was highly unusual for her. She didn't blubber.
"C'mon Alex, I reckon it'll be okay. If they come back, we'll take care of 'em, won't we?" Tom tried desperately to comfort his friend while feeling guilty for enjoying her hug. "Look, let's watch some telly and forget about it. I'll stay with ya for a while, for all night if ya want. As mates," he added quickly.
"Aw, thanks Tom, that's sweet of you, but I know you need some sleep before work tomorrow. Maybe I can stay in your room tonight? As mates, yeah?" Alex couldn't face the long dark hours alone.
"Yeah," Tom said. "Yeah, we can do that."
Tom wore his shorts to bed. Alex sat in his desk chair until he was settled, then she carefully laid down on top of the covers next to him.
"Thanks, Tom. You really are the best of us all," she said quietly.
"I love you, Alex. You're my family," Tom replied, because it was dark and he was feeling protective and brave.
She slipped a hand through his and kissed his cheek, and he felt her lips for real on his skin. "Thanks Tom, you're my family too."
*Rodgers and Hammerstein, from the musical Carousel. The song includes these lyrics:
Walk on through the wind
Walk on through the rain
Though your dreams be tossed and blown
Walk on walk on with hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone
*written by Holly Knight and Mike Chapman, sung by Pat Benatar. The song includes these lyrics:
We are strong
No one can tell us we're wrong
Searching our hearts for so long
Both of us knowing
Love is a battlefield
You're begging me to go
Then making me stay
Why do you hurt me so bad
It would help me to know
Do I stand in your way
Or am I the best thing you've had
Believe me
Believe me
I can't tell you why
But I'm trapped by your love
And I'm chained to your side
We are young
Heartache to heartache we stand
No promises
No demands
Love is a battlefield
*from the musical of the same name, playwright Joe Masteroff, composer John Kander, lyricist Fred Ebb. Cabaret is set in Berlin in 1931, as the Nazis are coming into power.