I am of Odin. You hang me by the tree. Pierce mine eye to give me knowledge!
Lenora put a hand over her mouth and tried to fight back tears. She watched helplessly as the big blond man put a dagger to his eye and drove it in deep. Finally, she grabbed his muscular arm to pull it away, but he drove it deeper and deeper. The blood flowed down his face like rivulets, and she had to stop herself from licking it off him.
He pulled it away, and the mess that was in his eye socket immediately covered over with a heavy, thick skin. He focused his other eye on her, and yanked his arm away from under her hand and yelled at her in a hodgepodge of languages. “Kaste mig across ir visi like ca ustedes can!”
“Grandfather–”
He growled and turned away, heading to the window. It was dark outside, as it was dark mostly these days. The sun never showed in these vampire cities that were set aside for the supernaturals like the Indian Reservations in the old days. He could have gone with the leeches or the wolves. As it happened, he didn’t get a choice.
He also didn’t remember.
The Sundering happened a mere hundred years ago – a drop in the bucket for a vampire or immortal. The mortals had won the War, their Hunters sneaking in and destroying supernatural society, while the Spies destroyed it from within. Decimated, the supernatural world accepted the peace, though Lenora knew that it was only to bide time.
Many mortals voluntarily joined the supernaturals in their locked-down “cities” – entire swaths of land encased in metal. Lenora could not travel through New America in one day, no matter how fast she ran.
But here, now, she looked at her grandfather and finally gave in to the temptation, and began to lick his face clean of the blood. He surrendered, in fact, put his arms around her and drew her close, whispering her name as “Faith” and trying to make out with her. She came out of her reverie, realizing what he was doing, and scrambled off him.
The big blond man sat up and chuckled. “Playin’ hard te git, I see,” he said, and reached for her.
“Grandfather!” she cried.
“You want to play that game, I will–”
She dashed out of the room, even as the blood called for her.
————————–
Lenora sat down at the table in her tiny kitchen, studying a map. Allibeck, one of her many lovers, came over and sat down next to her. “Lenora, you know the Coven Council met.”
She set her pencil down and turned to look at him.. “What are they going to do?”
He took her hand. “They want to behead him and stake him out in the sun.”
“That won’t do anything.”
“It will put him outside.” He kissed her hand. “Lenora, we can’t have him running through the City destroying us again.”
She winced. This latest meeting of the Coven Council was over her grandfather’s tearing through a building, staking and destroying vampires in a public haven. He had destroyed eighteen vampires, including an elder. This wasn’t the first time he’d done this. In fact, she had staked her life on it the last time that he wouldn’t do something like this again.
“Be glad that they want to only do that to him and not to you. Your word was broken.”
“He’s gotten worse, Al. I don’t know what to do. He’s not here anymore.” She looked up at him. “He tried to take me again.”
Allibeck growled. “He should be destroyed.”
“He can’t. You saw what happened when we tried.”
“Set him outside of the city. Let him be with the wildlings and the mortals where he belongs.”
She put the map aside. Allibeck looked at it, and picked it up, folding it. “There is no place safe here for him, Lenora. There is nothing you can do.”
———————-
Lenora went to the court later with her grandfather, who had taken to dressing in a combination of buckskin and a psychedelic purple jacket. Surprisingly enough, to her, there were hordes of people in the court to see this, humans and vampires alike. Someone threw something like a stone at her grandfather and it hit him square in the back. He did not move.
Lenora took his hand and led him to the docket. “It’ll be all right, grandfather, stay here.”
He looked at her, his damaged eye healed and a bright, bright blue against his pale face. He watched her go, a look of confusion on his face. He looked around the room, unsure of where he was.
“Christopher Alexander Donovan.”
He turned to the vampire head of the Coven Council, and he immediately dropped to his knees. So did many of the other people in the room, as the vampire had invoked some sort of power to get through the clouds of insanity to make him pay attention.
The vampire head grinned, fangs showing. “You have, yet again, destroyed our sanctuary. Your kin have spoken for you in the past. You have not honored them.”
“I…” He slipped into another language again. Lenora didn’t know it, but the vampire did, and answered in kind, nearly snapping the words out. He switched to another language again, mixing words. The vampire yelled at him, and he rocked back, as if he had been slapped. Lenora again put her fist in her mouth to stop from crying, at seeing a man that she had known and loved for decades, get virtually backhanded for something he had no control of.
Finally the vampire turned his head to the assembly. “Being that he cannot be destroyed by us, he will be sent away from us, outside, into the cold tundra. The creatures beyond will deal with him.”
“I will deal with him.”
Her voice was beautiful. Lenora turned from the assembly, and saw a dark woman in the crowd. Vampires were jerking away from her, hissing, trying to get away from her. She found herself doing the same, even she wanted to both attack and run from her. The woman’s black hair was braided with feathers and painted quills, cascading down her back. Her dark skin was flawless, perfect. She wore only a dress and boots, her breasts bare.
Vampires all around ran from her, running to the exits. Some of the Coven got up and made as dignified an exit as they could. Humans remained, mostly confused. Lenora ran to the farthest end of the room and stood there, not wanting to leave her grandfather, but not wanting to be near this beautiful Indian maiden, either.
The woman walked forward and stood before him at the docket. Only a few vampires remained now. The head vampire had disappeared. “Makawagosh,” the maiden said, and her grandfather raised his head, his eyes clear.
He said something in a language that she had heard once. The maiden placed her hand on her grandfather’s heart. Then she could see it glow – his heart, his chest – and the look of peace that crossed his features. He fell down, landing so that he was half-in, half-out of the docket, like a rag doll whose strings had been cut, and the glow faded.
Then the woman shimmied like a mirage, and disappeared from sight. Hardly anyone was left in the room. The humans walked up to her grandfather. Lenore wanted to, but was afraid of what she’d find.
“He’s dead,” said one man.
“Thank God,” said another man.
Lenora, furious, launched herself from that perch and attacked the man who said that, not caring if he was marked by another vampire. She set to draining him of blood, to prove to him that even though her grandfather was dead, his legacy still lived on in her.
Words: 1297
Comment: Clarification of a story line between Eeep’s player and me. This is not canon, as it will definitely change due to circumstances, but at this moment in time, as time is linear from here, this is how Casey meets his demise. Anticlimactic, I know. But it’s meant to be.