ENEMIES SHALL FALL
Rewards for Obedience
"And I will grant peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and no one shall make you afraid; I will remove dangerous animals from the land, and no sword shall go through your land. You shall give chase to your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. Five of you shall give chase to a hundred, and a hundred of you shall give chase to ten thousand; your enemies shall fall before you by the sword."
—Leviticus 26:5-8
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DECEMBER 7TH 2039
8:10PM MST
UNKNOWN
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The space that silence left behind was filled with laughter, and it was a beautiful, glorious thing.
With the warmest of blessings, the two men who had assisted in bringing in the bodies were gifted with an early sacrament, already off to the nearby town to receive their communion. Inside of the small, half-collapsed home that he had outfitted for these purposes, Father Esteban celebrated their prize with prayer.
In the adjoining rooms, two bodies awaited their holy anointment. One man and one woman. Two members of Major Jasper Whitlock's coven. Two blessed gifts bestowed upon him. Once more he paused to pray silently, smiling at the sound of his congregation rejoicing outside. Two of their brothers had just received communion. That meant more blood was to be handed out tonight in celebration of their finds.
His guests lay prone on the floor of their respective areas; their rooms each split by a wall with a crumbling gap in its upper corner where some sort of window used to be. It was perfect for the interrogation that would soon be underway.
First, he stepped outside, laying his hands on the foreheads of the three who greeted him with bowed heads and cupped palms. With a thumb Esteban traced the holy cross on each of their foreheads and watched as they pressed kisses to the hem of his vestments before scurrying off.
"Saint Vincent," he called, and within seconds a young man stood before him, bowing reverently. "Ready your brothers and sisters for communion, and set the borders while we wait for the return of our siblings from the north." This morning they had finally received confirmation. Two of the five northern targets were eliminated, meaning two fewer sinners that he and his congregation had to worry about.
Two fewer sinners that the Major could call on for help. Not to mention the two Esteban could now personally remove from the Earth. The promise of judgment for more sinners warmed him all over.
"Yes, Father," St. Vincent's head, bare since they removed his hair ceremonially, was still bowed. "Should we also send for our contact?"
Esteban laughed outright at that. The laughter covered up his very real anger at the mention of the Volturi messenger that he detested. "Now, my child, why would we do that?"
"Forgive me, Father," St. Vincent replied swiftly, head lowering forward in supplication, "I assume your intentions foolishly."
"Nonsense," Esteban spoke warmly, a smile carrying on through his voice. "Rise, my brother. My child. Today is for celebration and for ceremony," Esteban waited for St. Vincent to meet his gaze before he gestured toward the dilapidated building that would serve as his altar. "Today is for righteous glory and for the revenge of God, the true Father." He reached out and traced the scarified cross with his thumb. "Send two trusted and strong to stand over the man and one to accompany the woman. Be swift with your selections and send them to me with haste. I trust you to arrange the rest and call for me when your siblings arrive from the north."
With this dismissal, face lit bright with the implications that more celebration, and a shorter time period before their next round of communion was ahead of them, the young saint stepped away, off to fulfill his duties.
Esteban returned to the building. In the corner, across from the entryway, stood two of his burdens.
The girl had quieted substantially since the two sinners had been taken into their custody. Her wide brown eyes watched the doorways with what could only be fear—Heavens knew it wasn't out of any learned respect or piety. At her side was the older man—the savage who their messenger had inflicted on him—standing, as always, with his hands behind his back, a respectful nod always at the ready for him. Esteban hated the sight of them.
He ignored their presence—whatever protection this strange duo supposedly provided him with had better pay off—and entered the room where the more favorable loan stood. The cloaked boy rarely talked even when spoken to, but he followed orders with a swiftness Esteban couldn't help but cherish. The trap they'd set with his ability had worked after only hours of attempting to fish someone out of the woods.
They'd snared plenty of animals and handfuls of humans, but when two vampires breeched the unnatural sensory field (a shame that such a respectful boy was inflicted with such witchery and therefore doomed to hell) they'd departed swiftly to retrieve the bodies.
"You may return to the base room," Esteban said with a smile, "I will handle it from here, my child."
For a long moment, the boy did not react. Rarely was his hood lowered but in this moment the scraggly dark hair was visible to Esteban. The unkept mess atop the boy's head only made him look younger; a hint of unease trickled down Esteban's spine with that thought before he pushed it away.
The boy was staring through the open doorway into the room that held the unconscious girl. Then, slowly, he moved his gaze until his red eyes locked onto Esteban's. When he spoke, Esteban had to school his reaction.
"You should not be so sure about what you're doing."
Even his voice made him sound wretchedly young. Esteban dug his fingers into his pockets as he stifled his irritation and unease, and wrapped scarred fingers around his rosary. The feeling of the sharp teeth against the pads of his fingertips was instantly soothing to him, and as he split his thumb across the canine on the end he inhaled slowly.
Instead of losing his patience, he turned into the first room, praying silently.
The giant man had been laid on his back, his arms spread wide and his head facing the eastern wall. Sometime between his capture and being placed into this room he had lost one of his shoes, his curly dark hair riddled with twigs and leaves.
Esteban wasted no time and knelt beside the man's legs, ridding the second foot of its shoe and tearing the pants just above the knees. It was almost remarkable, seeing skin so smooth on a man so large and imposing; what sort of covenmate of Major Jasper Whitlock could proceed through life un-maimed? Esteban could not make sense of it. He pulled his rosary out from his pocket with his right hand and gripped the man's leg with the left, turning the back of the bare ankle toward him.
Then, he began a new prayer.
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and Earth.
Esteban cut with a practiced hand, slicing through the tough skin with just the right amount of pressure, and the snap of the tendon giving way echoed joyously in his ears. Then he removed the wire from his other pocket and began to unravel it, using his teeth to cut it into pieces. He didn't measure it; having done this countless times, he no longer needed to. With a practiced swiftness he wrapped the wire around the gaping wound, once, twice, round and around until he'd tied it tight after five circles.
It would prevent the wound from healing correctly and the ankle from being able to support any weight.
Then, the same treatment to the knee. A slice across the front of the kneecap to rip the tendon in two, and then some perfunctory tears through the ligaments on the sides. Wire wrapped around each injury five times apiece, leaving the man's knee open, weeping, and angled incorrectly.
By the time he was finishing up the second leg, the two members of the congregation the young St. Vincent had chosen appeared in the doorway. Esteban gave simple instructions—restrain the arms at the shoulders, press into the wounds if struggling occurs or persists, and tear off the head if necessary—before standing to leave.
Now, if this behemoth of a man turned out to be as strong as he looked, he wouldn't get very far; not on his feet at least.
Esteban emerged back into the main room only to find the Volturi boy still standing there.
The two looked at one another for a long moment while the silence between them stretched out further, heavy with its presence. Esteban did not care to find out if it were simple defiance or the stupidity of the child, he wanted him gone. He was going to uphold his end of the deal: he would kill the Major, and locate the witch to deliver to the messenger. He would kill whoever got in his way, and he would do it swiftly.
These two captives, if they were not who he was looking for, would make for very effective bait.
"I said," Esteban spoke slowly, his anger beginning to show, "I will handle it from here."
Once more he turned his back on the demon child and moved into the room where the girl lay prone. The third of his chosen assistants already stood off to the side, head bowed as he awaited further instruction. Esteban smiled toward the tall man and repeated the instructions he had just given to the other two; no doubt this man had already overheard, but something important could stand to be repeated.
Esteban thought back to the vague description he'd received of their witch—a small, fast woman—and prayed that this was the prize. The girl truly was that—just a thin scrap of a girl, barely a woman if even that. Her ankles were so thin in his grip that he contemplated just squeezing ever-so-slightly to snap them cleanly. The daydream was pushed aside as Esteban once more retrieved his rosary and began to pray as he carved through the tendons of each of her ankles.
He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty. From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.
After tying her ankles with wire, Esteban attempted a clean rip of the girl's leggings in order to expose her knees, but when they refused to part cleanly he simply tugged them off of her body. Her venom was already leaking into the fabric as he pulled her feet free.
It was as he was turning her knee to the side, adjusting the position where he sat beside her on the floor, that he chanced a stray glance upward. Still standing in the main room, staring at him as he worked over the sinner from the Major's coven, the Volturi boy still stood, red eyes wide and watching each and every movement.
Esteban bit his tongue until fresh venom flooded his mouth. He resumed his work and finished his prayer.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.
He tore through the two ligaments jutting out from the back of her fragile knee, and she came alive with a gasp.
Esteban shuffled back as the man behind him lunged for the girl. Thankfully she did not attempt to move. Instead, she allowed herself to be yanked up and shoved forward, her arms suddenly wrenched behind her back as she was folded in half, nearly face-to-face with her own mangled knee.
In the next room, a furious scream shattered the silence of the small homestead. A ferocious eruption from the giant man Esteban had already lovingly carved into, only minutes before. Esteban clicked his tongue at the outburst, but the smile on his lips was one of satisfaction. He looked toward the doorway and finally the Volturi nuisance was gone.
Amen.
"Ah-ah," he stood and moved to the girl's other side. She had still yet to make a noise other than the initial gasp she'd sucked in when her consciousness, and her control over her body, was restored. To her credit, she wasn't even shaking. She allowed his penitent to fold her over; she had undoubtedly seen her state of undress and felt the pain in her ankles, and she did not shift, breathe, or speak. He kneeled down again, and when he reached a hand out for her other knee—he would leave her knees unbound for now; the twine almost felt like overkill for a girl so frail—she flinched when his hand gripped her.
He shushed her, the way one would shush a crying child. The sound somehow silenced the other room, too. "Nearly done."
Ligaments would suffice for her, he decided. Without her achilles tendon intact it wasn't as if she would be able to stand on her skinny, bare legs. He turned her leg inward, pressed his rosary against her pale skin and made two swift cuts, neatly tearing her cruciate ligaments with a delightful pop-pop echoing through the now-silent house.
It was her pained cry, muffled in her lap, that forced the man to erupt once more.
"Fucking—let GO of me! Alice!" The man's bellow was so unnecessarily loud in the adjoining room. If Esteban stood and shifted to the side, he would be able to peer into the gaping hole, but he didn't want to acquaint himself with the screaming man just yet. "Alice!"
"Alice, is it?" Esteban remained on his knees beside her, enjoying the way she flinched again when he turned her knee, injury-side-down, and released his hold on her. She flinched a third time when he grabbed her by the back of the neck and lifted her up, simultaneously signaling for the man restraining her to ease up a little.
The girl, Alice, had wide, black eyes that raced around the room, trying to absorb as much of her surroundings as possible. She was breathing heavily, but slowly, as if trying to combat the pain of her fresh injuries as best as she could. Esteban had to admit, for a young woman her size she was doing an impressive job.
It looked as if she hadn't been marked up much in her life, if at all. Her bare legs sported no blemishes of any sort and the visible skin of her neck and wrists appeared unscarred, too.
Esteban was a little disappointed by the darkness of her eyes. It seemed they'd both been in the middle of a hunt when they'd been interrupted by his snare; there was only a very faint spark of gold around the pupils, nothing but black filled out the rest of her iris. He smiled, knowing the pain of her thirst would soon be the least of her worries.
The screams of the man in the neighboring room grew louder, more insistent. "Don't you lay a fucking hand on her—Alice, Alice it's alright."
"It is," Esteban agreed, speaking over more of the man's shouted bravado. Even though his own voice was far from the loudest one in the house, Esteban continued to talk. "Who is in the next room?" Alice had still yet to look at him directly. He reached out and grabbed her chin roughly, turning her head toward him, forcing her to look at his face. The fear he could see in her eyes only delighted him further.
Scaring her was only the first part of what he had planned for the covenmates of the Major.
"Is that your mate?" Esteban spoke inquisitively. "Your friend?"
"Your worst fucking nightmare, more like!"
Esteban sighed, a smile still lingering on his face, then he stood and brushed a small amount of dirt and grass from the front of his vestments. "Usually…" He grinned at her fearful expression as he prepared to leave. It felt as if he was letting her in on a small secret. "I give my guests the option of discussing amongst them who gets to come apart first, but," he turned, gesturing to the thin wall that separated the rooms in the loosest sense of the word, "it seems we have a volunteer."
A/N: FYI—Esteban's chapters will be the worst of them from here on out, as far as trigger warnings are concerned.