(Continuing thanks to Saemay and whimsyfox for editing and encouragement!)
It was bound to happen sooner or later—the jobsite accident that required her extra touch. Lena wasn't all that surprised when Alex materialized in the kitchen and interrupted their lunch. Hal wasn't either, although he looked alarmed at Alex's exclamation.
"Tom needs you! There's been a bad one at the hotel," she cried to Lena.
"Tom's been hurt?" Hal asked as he rose quickly from his chair.
"No, one of the crew. Tom's with her. They called for the ambulance but Tom says it'll be too late." Alex turned back to Lena, who was now standing near the kitchen table, ready to travel.
"Witnesses?" Lena asked shortly.
"Loads," Alex replied.
"Angel it is," Lena said, and she transformed into her classic angel disguise, complete with flowing white pantsuit (she didn't do robes), white wings, and soft radiance emanating from within.
"Stay with Hal," she told Alex, and she was gone in a flash, focusing on Tom's soul to Bullet Train to his location.
He knelt by an injured bricklayer, applying pressure to slow the bleeding from her badly damaged thigh. Nearly 20 people surrounded them, some of them bleeding slightly, a few with more serious damage.
"Hey Tom," Lena said softly as she appeared next to him. He jumped and nearly lost his grip on the woman's leg at the sight of her. Lena knelt next to him.
"Disguise," she said quietly as she laid a hand over his on the woman's leg. "Witnesses."
"Oh, right." Tom nodded, looking at the crowd that had stepped back in disbelief when Lena appeared. Some of them had dropped to their knees. Several were praying.
"You can move your hand now, I got this," Lena said.
She rested her hand over the woman's leg and the injury closed, the bleeding stopped. She held herself still as the pain of the injury moved to her own leg and dissipated. She took the bricklayer's emotional pain too, and felt in it a shock, a sense that something wrong had happened. Lena found more injuries: organ damage and a bad concussion. She took them in, and clenched her teeth as the pain and fear the woman carried rolled through her and was gone. The bricklayer was unconscious but no longer badly injured. She would wake up soon and wonder what had happened.
Lena stood up and surveyed the scene. Apparently a pallet of bricks had collapsed, partially burying the woman. The bricks looked like they had been blown away from her, probably Alex's doing, and were laying around the construction area. The pallet itself looked suspiciously weak and broken. Sabotage? That would explain the sense she got from the bricklayer that something had gone badly wrong. But why sabotage? Lena was suddenly glad that she had told Alex to stay with Hal. Things were feeling all kinds of wrong about this deal.
"What's with the other injuries?" Lena asked.
"A few got hit by flying bricks when Alex cleaned 'em off 'er."
"The medics can deal with them," Lena said. "Check that pallet, Tom. It doesn't look right."
Tom's quick glance confirmed her suspicions and he nodded his agreement, a grim look on his face. "It ain't right. It was done on purpose," he said. "I'm clearing the site and having everything checked."
"Hal." Lena said. She could see by the look on Tom's face that the same thought was forming in both of their minds. Hal was unprotected. "I have to go."
She was gone, leaving Tom to deal with the mess at the site. He looked around at the wondering crowd and shrugged.
"She's a mate o' mine," he said. If the crew could adjust to Alex the friendly ghost, surely they could handle a visit from an angel.
Sirens sounded in the distance. Tom jumped to it then, giving orders to shut down the job site, all injured personnel to wait for medical assistance, all uninjured personnel to begin an immediate safety sweep of the premises. This was no accident, and they needed to find out what else may have been tampered with.
# # #
Lena had been gone less than a minute when the vans pulled up and parked; they lined the streets in both directions. They were all very professional-looking, complete with the name of a home renovation company plastered on their sides: Harker's Home Restoration. Hal got the joke but he didn't appreciate it any more than he appreciated the appropriately-dressed vampires that piled out of the vans and approached the house. They wore matching brown uniforms complete with the company logo and carried what appeared to be tool pouches and cases. He doubted very much that their tools resembled the ones Lena had purchased for the house.
"Vampires," he said quietly to Alex.
"Let's get you out of here," she said, and reached out to rent-a-ghost him. He stopped her from taking him who-knows-where.
"They can't come in without an invitation, Alex. We'll just go upstairs and stay out of sight."
They quietly went to the attic room , stopping at Tom's room along the way to grab a knapsack of stakes. Bless Tom, he was better prepared for emergencies than most Boy Scouts.
"If they can't come in, why do we need stakes?" Alex asked.
"Hetty is an Old One," Hal replied. "Old Ones don't need to be invited in."
"If she comes in, I say we run."
"I'm not much for running, Alex. Clearly the accident at the hotel was arranged to draw Lena away from the house," Hal said. "She will sort that out and return quickly. Let's give her a minute."
A black Mercedes pulled up outside and a small, black-haired female vampire got out. Hetty. She looked up at the house with a satisfied smile as she strode forcefully toward the front door. Everything was going according to plan. Hal's guardian, whoever she was, had been lured away. According to Hetty's spy on-site, the Seraphin Nepos was currently saving some poor sucker's life, which left Hal alone and defenseless.
There were additional injuries for the Seraphin Nepos to deal with while she was there, an unexpected bonus created when the ghost had sent bricks flying into a crowd. Hetty assumed that the ghost would return to the job site and her best mate the werewolf, but even if she stayed at the house, she wasn't much of a threat. Not with the number of assassins Hetty had working for her.
The front door had been forced open by the time she got there, so all Hetty had to do was step inside and call out, "Come on in, ladies and gentlemen, and start looking for that son-of-a-bitch Yorke." She skipped through the house to the now-broken back door and gave the invitation there as well, then hopped up onto the kitchen counter and waited while her horde scrambled to find Hal Yorke for her. Ah, it is good to be the boss, she thought. I've waited too damn long for this.
Hetty looked at the two bodyguards who stayed with her in the kitchen. "Find me some fucking lunch," she snapped, "or give me Yorke's." She pointed to the unfinished lunch on the table and her attendants brought the food to her. She laughed to herself as she took a bite. Yorke sure as hell wouldn't be back to finish it.
The vampires had reached the second floor when Lena appeared next to Hal in the attic. He knew she was coming by the shift in the air.
"There are a shit-ton load of vampires in our house," Lena said without preamble, swords already in her hands.
"Hetty," Hal replied.
"Get out," Lena ordered him.
"Kiss my noble ass," he said, echoing her own eloquence as he set down the stakes and held out a hand for one of her swords.
She looked at him for a moment, torn between her need to protect him and the thrill of allowing him to join her in battle. She looked carefully. She saw Lord Henry Yorke looking back at her. She handed him a sword with a smile and gave the other to Alex.
"I know you're not a killer," Lena said to Alex. "Defend yourself. Block the doors. Find Hetty for us if you can."
Alex nodded and was gone. The vampires were at their door.
Lord Henry turned to see Lena offering him a shield made of the same metal as her weapons, with a gold cross inlay. She wore a cruel smile and her eyes were glowing. She had shifted into battle mode; her hair rose like a mane from her head as flames began to ripple through it.
He took the shield with a laugh. "Oh, that's just rude, my lady." His face settled into its own arrogant smirk as they turned to the door. Lord Henry was ready for the kill.
"Ready, my lord?" Lena asked as two scimitars appeared in her hands.
"Ready," Lord Henry said as the door burst open and vampires flooded into the room, tripping over themselves in their eagerness to be the one to reach their boss' target first.
Lord Henry and Lena had retreated into the room and stepped away from each other in preparation for the attack. They wanted to give their prey a chance to get well into their trap before they began the slaughter. Dust exploded into the air as the first wave of vampires fell under their blades. Those who turned away from the cross on his shield ran directly toward her deadly scimitars.
"I didn't know you invited company for lunch," Lena called to her lord as they hacked their way through the crowd.
"I didn't. They came unannounced," he called back to his lady.
"Unwelcome guests! What shall we do with them, my lord?"
"Kill them all!" Lord Henry Yorke's voice rang through the house with the power of an Old One in command and greedy for destruction.
Lena echoes his words. "Kill them all!" The power of her voice matched his and caused the walls to hum.
Hetty heard their voices, felt Lena's power radiate through the house, and ran. She had only felt that kind of power once before, during the Seraphin war. Hetty beckoned to her bodyguards and they rushed the back door, only to find it blocked by Alex outside, holding it closed. In desperation Hetty fled the kitchen. The front door was closed and pinned in place by a sword not of this world. She was trapped. Her guards threw chairs through a window in the front of the house and helped her escape before the ghost could stop them.
Hetty rode away from Honolulu Heights full of rage and fear, her plan in ruins, her horde on its way to obliteration. She finally understood the nature of Hal's guardian; she was the great Seraphin Nepos, unnamed, unknown, and unheard of since the war. Hetty knew she was defeated. As long as the Seraphin Nepos was with him, Hal Yorke was beyond her grasp.
Upstairs the press of vampires in the hallway continued, forcing more victims toward Lord Henry and Lena until panic set in and the vampires began pushing out of the attic room, screaming and cursing for their fellows to RUUNN! Lena and Lord Henry followed and drove them back to the first floor, quickly checking each room as they went to make sure there were no stragglers.
They worked as a team, old soldiers both of them, experienced killers who knew the dangers of ambush as well as head-on combat. When they got to the studio he barred the door while Lena moved with supernatural speed to throw on her favorite Motorhead song, "I am the Sword*," and crank up the volume.
She looked at her lord. "Four minutes to clear the house before the music ends?"
"As you wish, my lady," he replied as the guitar riff tore through the air.
More terrifying than their well-choreographed movements were his laughter as his blade sliced effortlessly through his victims, and her voice rising above the din as she followed the lyrics of her song. Lord Henry appreciated his lady's musical choice; it added to his enjoyment of the kill. She even changed weapons as she spoke their names, wielding a battle axe and a mace in turn with her scimitars. She was breathtakingly ferocious.
They reached the first floor to find Alex barring the broken window, her only way to keep vampires from escaping.
"Hetty's gone," she called out to them. "I couldnae stop her."
"Next time," Lena growled as she unfurled her wings. She spread them across the front room to corral the last of their prey as she and Lord Henry worked together to kill them. He moved with lethal speed and grace; he laughed at his prey, teased them, encouraged them to attack so he could kill them all. He was fearless and cruel, and magnificent. She moved like a lioness, precise, powerful; she stalked her prey with confidence and an easy smile. She was horrifying and brutal, and glorious.
Alex couldn't tolerate their ruthless joy of the slaughter. She went outside to guard the back door, but it was a wasted effort. None of the vampires even reached the kitchen. When the screaming stopped Alex returned to the living room.
Hal and Lena faced each other as dust settled around them, eyes locked on each other, an energy connecting them that Alex couldn't explain. Lena broke their look and spoke to Alex. "Would you let Tom know that everything is okay? He's probably worried." Alex nodded, glad for the excuse to get away from them, and she left. There was a brief moment of silence in the house, before "Born to Raise Hell," the next track on the CD, started to play.
Their weapons disappeared as Lena's lord approached. The curse was dark over him and she wanted it there. They had returned to their primitive natures, the veneer of civility cleared away by the thrill of murder, and Lena knew that her burning eyes signaled to him just as strongly as his curse spoke to her. Battle was an aphrodisiac and victory an even greater one, but the chance to challenge each other head-on left them both nearly breathless with excitement.
Lord Henry leapt on her in an embrace that was an attack at its core, and she met him gladly. There was no calming influence, no tenderness in her touch, only the barbarity of battle.
They assaulted each other with kisses while getting their clothes out of the way. He shoved her onto the sectional, ripped off her jeans and pants, and sent them flying. She laughed and goaded him.
"I thought you were quick on your feet, my lord. What is taking you so long?"
"You beautiful fiend!" Lord Henry dived onto her and buried himself in her with a force that would have torn another woman apart.
"You gorgeous beast!" She shredded his shirt and dug into his skin.
He laughed at the pain as he pounded into her, determined to own her at last, to master her as he had done in his dreams. She met him stroke for stroke, a violent choreography of lust and domination. She saw the change coming, the manifestation that meant the man was gone and only the vampire remained. She was eager for it.
When his eyes blackened and his fangs unsheathed Lena threw them sideways off the sectional onto the floor, landed astride him without missing a beat, and pinned him, digging her fingers into his chest. Her wings wrapped around her to keep the vampire from reaching her flesh, but it didn't keep him from clawing against their strength. She rode him like winged death commanding her pale horse as he twisted and bucked beneath her.
"God damn you, you fucking vampire! I will defeat you! I will ride you clear to hell!"
"Do it! You fucking bitch! Join me!"
She climaxed fiercely and kept on going, determined to drive the vampire into submission. Only after she felt him shudder with his own climax did she slow down as she began to realize what was happening between them. The vampire stopped fighting her when he came, and after a few seconds he laughed.
"I concede—my lady," he panted. "You win—this battle—at least."
She heard the arrogance and satisfaction in his voice. It brought her back to herself, to what she was doing, and to what she had risked—his death and her destruction. She stopped moving. Then she was gone. A split-second later the music froze in mid-lyric: "born to raise he—"
Lord Henry lay on the floor and caught his breath. His hands were raw and bloody from tearing at her wings. He got to his feet with a smile and a wince and looked himself over; bloody gouges in his chest and ass where she had dug in, bloody stripes along his back where she had torn into him. The woman had wicked fingernails. He liked it.
He laughed and called out to her, "Gone so soon? Where are you my lady? Is the game already over?" He licked his blood from his fingers and pulled up his jeans. He didn't bother to fasten them; Lord Henry was still in the hunt. He casually grabbed her jeans and pants from where they were hanging over the bar as he moved toward the stairs. He might return them to her, in time. He could sense her. She was in their bathroom. With any luck he could trap her there.
He tossed the remnants of his ruined shirt into his room as he strode down the hall. As he reached the bathroom, the door opened and a cold wet cloth was thrown onto his face.
"Here," Lena said, "in case you want to wash your face or your dick."
"I prefer something besides water to 'wash my dick'," he said with a sneer as he yanked the cloth off of his face. "I have plenty of strength left for another fuck," he added as he moved toward her.
"So do I," she replied as she casually wiped the vampire dust off her face with her own washcloth. "but I don't feel like fighting your fangs for the sake of fucking you, so wash up. We're done. Besides," she added with a cool, measuring look, "I got what I wanted."
"Whereas I only got part of what I wanted. Hardly fair," he said as he took another step towards her. She didn't retreat; Lena was once again in control of herself and waited for her presence to bring Hal back to her. She was already fully dressed and planned to stay that way.
"Well, I do have to keep you alive, so you will never get everything you want from me," she reminded him.
She no longer felt the need to challenge the vampire, so her presence was able to calm the curse without inflaming the vampire's bloodlust. They both knew it and she was ready for it to happen. After a tense minute Hal reluctantly tossed Lena's dirty clothes into the laundry basket and moved to the sink to wash the blood and vampire dust from his hands and face. He was coming back.
"We just played a very dangerous game," he said quietly.
"Too dangerous," she agreed.
Lena gently took his hands in hers and healed the wounds he had received during their violent tryst. She moved behind him and cleaned his blood from his back as he washed himself off and closed up his jeans. They didn't speak or look directly at each other, but he watched her in the mirror as she cared for him. Her touch finished calming the curse, and it quickly returned to its normal pale pink shadow.
"There's a shit-ton load of vampire dust in our house, and I need to find my shoes," she said as she left the bathroom.
"Good luck." he smiled self-consciously. They had gone flying, along with her jeans and pants, and were probably in a pile of vampire dust and empty uniforms. "I'll help you look." They stopped in his room for a clean shirt; they went downstairs and found her shoes behind the bar in the living room, one on the floor and one hanging off a whiskey bottle. They were shy with each other, and slightly awkward as they returned to the scene of their explosive reunion.
There was a knock at their damaged front door. Lena answered it to find Dominic Rook outside. He stared at her. Rook wasn't expecting to see a beautiful redhead with rich brown eyes. Who is this woman? Isn't this house being monitored? he asked himself as he reached for the cross in his inner jacket pocket.
"Please come in, Dominic," Lena said, but Rook didn't budge. Hal spoke from behind her.
"It's Lena, Rook. She's a shape changer. Do come in."
Rook continued to stare suspiciously at Lena. Finally she smiled and said, "Get out the mirror and see for yourself, Dominic. I'm not a vampire."
She and Hal waited in amused silence as Rook got out his pocket mirror and carefully checked. She waved at her reflection and Hal smiled at his lack of one. They had both assumed an appearance of their former comfortable relationship when Rook had turned up at their door. He put away his mirror as Lena ushered him in. Once inside he surveyed the scene.
"What can we do for you, Dominic?" she asked. Hal remained close to her but Lena didn't worry that his fangs might make another appearance. If anything, Hal was slightly protective of her in Rook's presence. He retained a touch of Lord Henry in his manner, as he had done since their trip to London.
"I came to see what we could do for you," Rook replied. "I am too late to warn you of the attack, which was my original goal. I see that a warning would have been unnecessary. Perhaps we can assist you with cleanup instead? It is one of our specialties."
Lena looked at Hal. This was his call, as he would have to deal with the presence of humans in their home. Hal thought for a moment, then nodded.
"You assistance with cleanup would be appreciated," he said coolly, "as would your information about Hetty and her attack on our home." Hal wasn't acknowledging it yet, but he was upset at his team's failure to find Hetty before she reached Barry and the house.
"Of course, I will be happy to share with you the few bits that we were able to glean from our sources," Rook responded. He made a quick call on his mobile and his crew appeared. MiG's dressed in workmen's clothes casually drove away the Harker's vans while another van pulled up in front of the house. This one was discreetly labeled as belonging to a cleaning service.
Hal directed Rook and Lena to the kitchen, where there was no battle-related damage. He thought it best to isolate himself from the 'cleaning service' personnel.
"I got covered in dead vampires again," Lena said as they went. "Hal, this is never coming out of my hair."
"I have a couple of lungs full myself," Hal said. "I'll be coughing them up for a week."
Lena got a pitcher of filtered water from the refrigerator. Hal got glasses, and offered one to Rook as well. He declined. The two old combatants had long drinks of cool water to help rinse the vampire dust out of their systems, after which Hal made some tea for all three occupants of the kitchen.
Rook kept himself together but inwardly he couldn't help noting the remarkably casual attitude that Lena and Hal had toward what had been a massive strike by Hetty's minions. Only the most dangerous killers could be so relaxed after a slaughter of this magnitude. Rook suspected that they had been a fearsome team. His suspicions were quickly confirmed.
"I enjoyed killing with you," Hal told Lena with a smile as they waited for their tea to brew. "It was good to let off some steam."
"I told you if we killed for the same reason we could do it together," Lena reminded him. "It was fun, wasn't it? Vampires are so easy to kill, once I find them. Lately, thanks to you, they've been coming to me."
"With weapons like yours, I can't imagine that anything would be hard to kill. Thanks for the use of the sword, by the way. And the shield—brilliant touch, my lady."
"I thought you would appreciate it, my lord," Lena said, matching Hal's light tone as she used the title.
Hal turned to Rook. "It was inlaid with a gold cross," he explained. Rook got the significance immediately. As an Old One, Hal would have been unaffected by the cross. The shield had become a second weapon he could use against lesser vampires.
"My weapons don't generally take orders from cursed beings," Lena explained, "but a sword and shield are pretty straightforward, and because they are mine they can't be used against me."
"Which means there was no risk to you in loaning them to me," Hal said. "I was careful to avoid touching the blade."
"I assumed you would be."
"So, Rook," Hal said, turning his attention to their guest, "tell us what brought you here. What did you learn, and when?" His question was casual but carried Hal's distrust of Rook.
"First of all, let me apologize for not notifying you sooner," Rook said smoothly. "I did call, but received no answer. You will find my messages later, I'm sure." He continued. "We don't have our resources in place to monitor supernaturals as we once did. We are still in the process of replacing those of us who fell during the British apocalypse, and of course our focus has changed. There is bound to be instability during transition, and this is the reason that I believe we were unaware of Hetty's arrival in Barry until it was too late."
Rook explained the bits of information that he had received: an undocumented ship at the docks, vans belonging to a curiously-named company being off-loaded, known vampires sighted among the company employees. By the time news had reached him that Hetty had been spotted, Rook had put the pieces together and was trying to warn the residents of Honolulu Heights. He had been too late.
Rook's crew cleaned the house in short order and gathered the empty uniforms to take along as a way to get an accurate count of the number of vampires that had been involved in the attack. A quick estimate had the number at 80-something.
Rook asked Hal and Lena to tell him what had happened and made notes as they did. They left out the violent sex part of the story; Rook might sort that out for himself as he sorted through the evidence and notes his team collected. He thanked them for their cooperation and they thanked him for his assistance in cleaning up the mess.
As he left, Rook turned to them once more. "If we could have warned you, perhaps Hetty would have been dealt with as well today," he said.
"That is my only regret," Lena agreed. "She escaped the house before we could reach her."
"She must have recognized you," Hal told Lena. "I doubt that she will make another attempt, knowing what you are."
After the door had closed behind Rook, Hal continued. "We will keep looking for her, nonetheless. I need to speak to my team," he added coldly.
"Gently, Hal, gently," Lena said. "We don't kill our employees for failing to complete a task."
"Of course. Perhaps sending a notice of the day's activities will be enough to obtain the desired response. I suspect I should wait for a bit, however. I would be prone to use very harsh language at this point, and we don't want anyone dying of a heart attack due to being overly-chastised."
She laughed at Hal's sarcasm but agreed with his point. Lena was also upset that Hetty had reached their home, and wouldn't be able to communicate calmly about it for a while either.
They tacitly agreed not to discuss their sex act, which each considered a loss of control, a personal failure, and a bad mistake. Neither one of them was ready to poke at the gaping wound in their relationship just yet. Instead, they took measurements for a replacement window and boarded up the gaping hole that Hetty's bodyguards had made in the front of the house.
Lena ordered the new window online while Hal took his turn in the shower. She ordered new front and back doors and door frames, steel-core with sturdy deadbolts as well. The installers would be there tomorrow.
By the time Tom and Alex got home from work the house was in order, Hal and Lena were clean and appeared to be back to their usual selves, and supper was ready to set on the table. They shared the day's events over their meal.
Tom had found two more places where 'accidents' had been set up to happen, but was comfortable that work could resume as usual tomorrow.
"I don't like knowing that someone did that to my crew," he said. "I reckon we'll be more watchful from now on."
"I don't like knowing that Hetty had time to plan an attack," Hal said. "She had to be aware that you are a healer," he said to Lena grimly. They knew what his statement meant. Hetty must have been watching them for at least a month, because that's how long ago Lena had helped a neighbor boy after a bicycle wreck. It was the only time she had demonstrated her healing ability outside the house.
They had heard a frightened scream coming down the hilly street in front of the house, and Lena had run to the door with Tom right behind her. A little boy crashed his too-big bicycle into a parked car and went flying into the middle of the street. He landed badly; Lena heard the snap of his leg breaking. His father was running down the hill calling his name, but was still a good distance off.
Lena had leaped from the front step over the hedge and into the street to find the boy with a compound fracture of his right leg and a bad concussion. Healing him took just a few seconds, and by the time Tom had joined her, the boy had only a couple of scrapes and a headache to show for his accident. The father arrived, breathless and terrified, to find his son woozy but not badly hurt.
Lena had recommended that the boy be looked at by a doctor, as he had been knocked unconscious. Tom had carried the broken bike up the hill as the father carried his son. Tom had returned shortly with a freshly-baked chocolate cake, a gift from the boy's family. The whole event had taken just a few minutes, the healing itself just a few seconds. Apparently someone had been watching the house very closely and very carefully.
Lena had already realized the significance of Hetty's attack and had contacted her head of security with a private request: investigate everything that moved near Honolulu Heights and everyone who lived or worked in the area. She needed to find a spy.
Alex didn't have much to say about the battle against the vampires until later that night when she and Tom were alone. Only then did she tell him the story from her perspective, that of a fairly normal, humanesque ghost locked in a house with two of the most terrifyingly offhand killers in the world.
"They weren't defending themselves, Tom, they were hunting. They were killing for sport, and laughing about it. Lena was singing, Tom, singing while she chopped vampires to pieces. And Hal, he wasn't Hal, he was Lord Hal again, with the dead eyes and the cold sneer and the laugh—Tom she knew it, she knew it was him and she loved it. She wanted it to be him, so they could kill together. She called him 'my lord' and she meant it."
"She told me to block the doors so the vampires would be trapped inside. Hetty heard her voice, just her voice, and broke through the window to get away from her. They moved like they had been together all their lives, like they knew what the other was gonna to do. How much killing does it take, Tom, to know what another killer is gonna do in the same spot as you?"
"It was just vampires, Alex, not real people," Tom said. "I know it looked bad, but if I was here I'd have been killing right along with 'em. Maybe not singing or laughing, but killing my share. I've killed loads of vampires, Alex, and Lena said it ain't done me no harm."
Tom tried to reassure her, but he hadn't been there, he hadn't seen it for himself. Alex knew that something had happened to both Hal and Lena when the vampires attacked. She had seen things in them that she would rather not have known, and she had learned that together they were even more terrifying than either Hal or Lena had been alone.
# # #
*"I am the Sword" written by Ian Fraser Kilmister, Richard Burston Michael, Michael Kiriakos Delaoglou, Philip Anthony Campbell.
Released on the album Bastards in 1993
Murder I am, you know it was me
I was the one, that you didn't see
I was the cut, down to you bone
I put you there under that stone
I, I am the blade, I am the dream of the brave
I, I am the knife, I bring grief to your life
I, I am the sword, I am the word of the Lord
Do what you will, I bring you the edge
I am the one to sever your head
I cut so deep, I can cut straight
All depends on the moves you make
I, I am the blade, I am the promise unmade
I, I am the knife, I bring death to your life
I, I am the ax, to stop you dead in your tracks
I, I am the sword, I bring the fear of the Lord
Centuries pass, dust in the wind
I shall remain, shining in sin
The metal I am, the iron you feel
The song of the dead, the chorus of steel
I, I am the blade, I break the oath that you made
I, I am the mace, I am the blow in the face
I, I am the ax, to cut down heroes like rats
I, I am the sword, I do the work of the Lord