Clarissa wrapped her arms tightly about her knees and rocked herself gently back and forth. She let the tears of blood stream unchecked down her face for several long moments before she finally stirred.
When she did move, she reached over, and lifted the blood-soaked remains of the diminutive shirt to her face. It was blue and ever so tiny; just big enough for a little person. She sobbed.
How old had he been? Five? Six?
She clenched her fist, crushing the fabric together with inhuman strength. Small drops of blood squeezed between the spaces of her fingers, but she didn’t even bother to lick them up.
What had she become? A monster? A hideous beast of nightmares? She had been so sure she could fight it. The wicked, no one else. They were the ones she had chosen to hunt and kill, not ... little boys.
Clarissa dropped her head across her arms and sobbed. She’d killed a child; there was nothing worse than that. No crime was beyond her now, no punishment could be deemed unworthy. If she were to live a thousand years and kill an evil man every night of her wretched existence, it could not make up for this one terrible act. She was beyond redemption.
Lifting her eyes to the heavens, Clarissa shook as the waves of anguish pummeled her. They thrust inside her like spears, deep into the core of her heart. Every attempt to push them back failed, and her will slipped uselessly around the edges of sorrow like rough fingers trying to climb a wall of glass. The pain struck too deep, too close to the foundation of her soul. She let loose another sob. What soul? I don’t have ... a soul anymore, she thought, not now.
She went rigid in pain. Nothing could have prepared her for this. That boy had needed help! Why did he have to have an injured hand? She might have been able to resist if he hadn’t been bleeding.
Clarissa’s gaze shifted to the edge of the rooftop on her right. His body lay down there, in a pile of stinking garbage. A little boy, and he was food for rats.
Clarissa stood. “LUCIAN! YOU BASTARD! MAY THE GODS CURSE YOU UNTIL THE END OF TIME!” Her scream ripped through the night and echoed in the wind. She looked down at her hands, the hands that had ripped open the flesh of an innocent child and felt the spears inside her heart twist around again. She had a sister, Athlien, in Sederia. They hadn’t seen each other in months. Before she had become a vampire, she had been planning on visiting her after she finished the job for Arcalian. Now, she wondered if she would kill her only sister if she ever saw her again. Yes. There was no doubt in the thought, barely even hesitation. She would rip the heart from her own sister with as little care as she had when she’d destroyed that young boy.
The spears drove in deeper, twisting more. She could feel her heart being pierced, her soul being ruptured. Since her fall to Lucian, she had kept a part of herself hidden, safe; a vestige of humanness driven to preserve some measure of itself, no matter how small. It was this that had struggled with Lucian and his dark plans. It was this that had struggled with the bloodlust of the vampire. And it was this that had struggled to find a purpose in the abomination she had become. She had lost every one of those internal battles, one at a time. Her only brief success had been the stalking of the wicked in lieu of the innocents, but now that too had crumbled.
She dropped the bloodied cloth and watched as it tumbled toward the ledge. The wind grabbed the fabric and carried it gently away in the darkness. It was not alone. The last vestiges of her humanity followed it, through the darkness, through the night. Blown by an icy breeze, her soul slipped away from her, dancing from her grasp like ashes on the wind.
Drasmyr (Prequel: From the Ashes of Ruin) Page 56