Raphael watched for a while, finally tearing his gaze away, tossing her diary in the flames.
And then we were in a field of green. Peaceful, rolling hills. Raphael knelt, bloody, a thin sword in his hands. It was clear from his clothes and the blood on the sword what he’d tried to do. “Why will you not let me die?” he cried to the sky. “I failed you!” His eyes were squeezed shut, a single, remorseful tear rolling down his cheek. “I failed.” His voice was quieter this time. He dropped to his hands, muttering over and over, “I failed you.”
What was this supposed to make me feel? Sorry for him? Frowning, I spun away from the pathetic man and was once more in front of the old church. Back to reality. I pushed open the doors, spotting Raphael instantly.
Ready or not, here I come.
His posture was hunched. At first glance, he didn’t even look like the Raphael I thought I knew. His torso was bare, showing the ancient marking on his back. His head hung low, his hair sticking every which way. He looked like an animal, a hunter.
A Demon.
From his position at the back of the church, where the cross and Jesus statue laid, toppled, he smirked. It wasn’t broken mere hours ago. Maybe Raphael was in the middle of a breakdown. Kind of like me.
“Well,” Raphael spoke, straightening his back, lifting his arms. Free of his priest’s uniform, I could now see the muscles the black outfit usually hid. To think, before all this, I would’ve ogled him. He wasn’t a bad-looking man, and I used to think that he was in his twenties. Not that much older than me. Now I knew much better.
“Look who it is. Kassandra Niles,” he practically hissed my name. “Come to right the wrongs of the world. Here is some advice: the world is full of wrongs, and you can never right them all.” His tone dripped anger, and as he talked, I saw that his Daywalker teeth were out.
Shirtless and his Demon teeth were out? Yep. Definitely a mental breakdown.
A deranged Demon was worse than a non-deranged one.
“I think by now you know the truth,” Raphael stated, stepping off the altar, standing opposite me in the long middle aisle of the church, a good seventy feet away. “About me.”
“I do,” I whispered, gripping my rose blade tighter, “no thanks to you, Teach.”
The grin that graced his lips was very reminiscent of Crixis. It infuriated me further. “You disappoint me. You and that boy always loved your witty banter. That was a pathetic attempt at it.”
Shrugging, I said, “They can’t always be zingers, but a girl’s got to try.”
Raphael stared me down, what felt like minutes passing until he asked, “Would you like one, final lesson, Kass? One for the books?”
“I have a feeling you’re going to give it to me even if I say no,” I deadpanned, readying myself.
“Oh, I am definitely going to give it to you.” Raphael lowered his voice so that I barely heard, “You do not have the strength to stop me.” If the Raphael I thought I knew said that, I’d know he meant the lesson. With the current Raphael, though, the way he spoke it, made me think he had other things that he was going to give me beside the lesson.
That wasn’t going to happen. Not while I was alive and kicking.
“The most basic lesson of all.” Raphael disappeared from my view. I waited with bated breath, ready for whatever was coming next. There was a gust of wind behind me and he whispered in my ear, “You cannot trust anyone.”
Not liking his closeness or the tone in his voice, I spun, my rose blade cutting through the air. I sought to…to do something. To decapitate him. To hurt him somehow. I’d take anything at this point. But, of course, it wasn’t that easy.
Raphael used his Daywalker speed to catch the blade with his hand. The silver sword cut through his palm as he squeezed it, his blood oozing out, dripping on the floor. Funny. It looked like anyone else’s blood. It didn’t look dirty and traitorous.
Though his teeth were out, his eyes were still green. He looked Human when he didn’t speak. My sword cutting into his hand, was nothing to him. And, just as he said, my strength was no match for his. No wonder he always beat me when we sparred. He was a cheating Daywalker and the first Purifier. A card up each sleeve.
“I knew I never liked you,” I hissed into the small space between us. It was a lie. While I didn’t necessarily love the man, I did like him. I did look up to him, a little. Plus, his looks were always on par.
Just look at us now. A picture-perfect pair of angry psychos.
The way Raphael’s eyes fell to my feet and unhurriedly made their way back up sent a shiver down my spine He whispered a single word as he yanked the rose blade from my hand: “Liar.” Before I knew what was happening, the backend of the hilt hit my face, sending me stumbling to the floor.
As I recoiled and held my nose, which luckily didn’t break, he tossed the blade in the air, catching it with his injured hand. Raphael studied the blade, its delicate, intricate patterns. “Beautiful and deadly,” he mused, swinging the tip of the blade by my face. I felt the tip of the sword under my chin, forcing me to look up. “Simultaneously the worst and best combination, in my experience.”
Before he could use it to slice me, I spun on my hands, leg lashing out, kicking the sword from his grip. In the same twirl, I was back on my feet, using the same momentum for a good side-kick. Raphael caught my foot before it made contact, pulling me closer. The hand that caught my foot now rested on my thigh, dangerously close to a part of me that no one had ever touched. Not John, not Gabriel, not the otherworld Gabriel; Raphael wasn’t going to get there.
“I think you will regret coming here tonight,” Raphael uttered, keeping his hand firmly on my thigh, my heaving chest hard against his. His wounded, bleeding hand cupped my face. The gesture was anything but nice. “I think you will regret it very much.” Without saying another word, he threw me across the church. My back collided with a pew, breaking the wood instantly.
As I stood, his hand was around my neck, lifting me. His Daywalker speed flashed against the stone wall. My feet dangled two feet above the ground. “I think,” I hissed, pressing my boots flat against the wall, “you will regret underestimating me.” Using all the power within my legs, I pushed away from the wall.
Raphael was surprised at the move, and he ineptly fell backwards, straight on his back. I straddled him, very similar to how Leliana did as she and him did the nasty, but instead of sex, I was going to kill him. I reached for a piece of the broken pew, needing something that resembled a stake.
He tensed, grabbing my wrist before I could bring the stake down onto his heart. Whether it would’ve killed him, or he’d merely walk away, inconvenienced, I didn’t know. I didn’t have a lot of dealings with Daywalkers, considering the Council and my Guardians hid their existence from me for the first seventeen years of my life. Yet another reason I wasn’t too fond of the Council.
A laugh came from him. “You think a stake to the heart can beat me?” Raphael grinned, his teeth a frightening length. A blue portal opened beneath him, swallowing him until I was straddling nothing but air.
I stood, frantically glancing around. His Purifier powers, that I seriously wished I had, weren’t as obvious as his Daywalker ones. A Daywalker flash made noise. A rift didn’t. When he didn’t reappear, I shouted to the seemingly empty church, “Come on out. Unless you’re scared.” I waited a moment before adding, “In which case, still come out, because we need to finish this.”
A blue rift opened, and Raphael hopped out, perching himself very much like a bird on the altar. His bare arms rested on his bent knees, a smile widening on his lips. “So brave and headstrong. No wonder you always get into trouble.”
“Trouble seems to find me wherever I go.”
He ran his tongue over his teeth, pondering. “Do you know that I have never bitten anyone before? That I never tasted blood?” My face must’ve given something away, for he continued, “There was always a part of me that clung to my old life. Somehow, I had saved a kernel of my soul,
never experienced the bloodrush. I tried protecting my soul from the world, but it was difficult. Now, I fear there is nothing left of it.”
I gave him an unimpressed frown. “I don’t care about your sob story. I know everything I need to.” Harsh, but Raphael wasn’t on my good side. I threw the stake, a flawless spiral, and he swatted it away like a fly. I bent to retrieve another wooden piece.
“Of course, you do not.” He hopped off the altar. “I never asked you to. I knew you would not. No one ever truly cares.” With a flash, he was in front of me, and I threw everything I had at him. My punches were on-point, my feints well-done, and yet he was able to block every single one. “Tell me: why come here? Why come to me? I was not the one who murdered your old Guardian.”
At the mentioning of Koath, I bared my teeth, kneeing him in the gut, something he hadn’t expected.
He acted as if I hadn’t touched him. Grabbing my hair, he pulled me head back, baring my neck. I attempted a punch, but he caught it, not letting my fist go. “What do you have to gain from this?” He bent my wrist, nearly breaking it. “My dear, headstrong Kassandra…” He bent his head down, far too close to my neck for my liking. With my free hand, I punched his side, but I was like a fly on an elephant. Small, insignificant, too useless to be a bother. “You have everything to lose from this.”
I blinked, and we were on the floor. This time, positions were reversed. Raphael was on top of me, his lean legs holding mind down. His whole body pressed hard against mine; I felt like I was suffocating. He moved to hold both my wrists over my head with a single hand. I knew better than to waste energy and struggle.
He had me.
But there’d be an opening, sooner or later.
His other hand grabbed my chin, our noses touching. His green gaze bore into me, and something occurred to me.
“It won’t work,” I told him. His grip on my chin tightening as I spoke, but it didn’t stop me from saying, “Your compulsion won’t work on me.” I was reasonably confident of this, after what happened with Kirk in the cemetery. I liked to think I’d grown since then.
Raphael did what all crazy guys did: he smirked. “How interesting. I have never heard of anything that could resist a greater Vampire’s compulsion. However, you do make me question what I know.” His lips neared my ear, his breath hot on my skin. “I will not lie to you anymore, Kass.” The hand holding my chin loosened, and it moved to my neck. It didn’t stop there, either. It kept moving down. “I have thought about this…more than I should have.”
Oh, boy. What mess did I get myself into now?
The hand that groped me returned to my neck, and Raphael drew his mouth from my ear, pressing it against mine before I could argue. It didn’t register what he was doing until he bit my lip. The bite drew both blood and made me wince. Raphael’s mouth was suddenly on my neck.
I knew what was about to happen. I’d been bitten by John and the other world’s Rain. It wasn’t fun. It hurt. No endorphin-releasing nonsense that movies and books said it was.
My hands, still restrained above my head, tensed.
Raphael bit me.
Chapter Thirty-Five – Raphael
The moment she walked in, I knew I lost it. Whatever held me together, whatever kept me sane…I didn’t care anymore. I was going to end this one way or another. And due to the fact that I’d tried to purify myself, to end my own life, and failed, I would say I had a leg up on her.
I supposed I was more like Crixis than I wanted to admit.
Kassandra looked so angry, so filled with rage. She didn’t care that I wasn’t the one who killed Koath. She merely wanted someone to pay. This was the game board Crixis laid in front of us, and we were either too blind or too tired to see it.
We fought a little. She surprised me with her tactics once or twice. I didn’t want this to end too quickly, for I enjoyed myself far too much. The man upstairs would be greatly disappointed in me; but then, he hadn’t looked out for me in a long time.
I did not care anymore.
And that was why, as I laid atop her, holding her at bay quite easily, I kissed her. Lines had already been crossed, one very particularly bloody line was about to be crossed, so what was one more?
It was a soft kiss, nowhere near as rough as the rest of this encounter. In my life, there’d only been one woman. She opened my eyes to the world of love, and then she turned my heart black. The love of my life turned me into a monster. She was a monster. I…should not have given into temptation. I should’ve purified her straight away. But I didn’t, and here I was: full of self-loathing and resentment.
My teeth nicked her lip, and I pulled away as she winced. Her mouth was soft and inviting, but there was another part of her that called to me.
Her neck.
I took my face to her neck, my supernatural hearing detecting her increased heartbeat. The blood pumped faster. Baring my teeth, I hesitated. What was I doing? Was I truly going to…to bite her?
God help me. I was.
Her skin broke for my teeth easily. Like a knife through butter, they slide inside, puncturing her vein. Her blood flowed into my mouth, and I heard her whimper, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. As I swallowed a mouthful, my body spasmed. Was this how everyone tasted, or just her? She was…her blood was…
“You are more than what you believe you are,” a light, feminine voice broke through the silence of the church.
I withdrew my teeth, taking my mouth off her neck. Beneath me, Kass was frozen. Blood did not ooze from her wound. I quickly looked around the church, standing. A woman stood, dressed in a flowing white garment, near the altar, near the broken statue. Stood might not have been the most pertinent word, though. She floated.
Stumbling to her, I couldn’t find any words to say. The woman had bright, loving eyes, wavy, dark hair. Though she floated a few feet above the ground, her stature was short. She looked like Kass, but she wasn’t.
“You think you’ve been abandoned,” she spoke, reaching her hand out to my face, gently caressing my cheek. I felt my Vampire teeth withdraw. She held my gaze. “God never abandons his children.”
“But I…” I quieted, unsure of what to say. “…I do not have a soul.”
At that, the woman smiled. “Every being has a soul. It matters not that you’ve been touched by darkness. Repent for your sins, Raphael. Remember that even the worst sinners are welcomed back at his table.”
I didn’t speak.
“You have much work left to do. Many are counting on you. This is not the end for you.” Her hand moved up to my temple, and images flashed in my head. Unlike the images Crixis had forced into me, these felt real. These felt prophetic.
A girl sat, hunched, on a broken swing set. The wind blew her hair in her face, getting some in her mouth. She ran a hand through her hair to get it back in order, her face new and unrecognizable to me. She was young; maybe twenty.
She was crying.
Even though I did not know her, I had the urge to help her. A very different experience than the one I’d just had with Kass.
Next she was in a house, talking to a man I hadn’t seen in ages. She was in the middle of a heated discussion, but she trailed off, turning her head. She seemed to look right at me. A frown appeared on her heart-shaped face before she walked away.
“As you can see, you will soon be needed elsewhere,” the floating woman spoke, my mind returning to reality. “But not until she is taken care of.” As I glanced over my shoulder, looking to Kass, who remained motionless on the floor, the woman shook her head. “Not her. Another being is coming. A creature that predates even Crixis.”
I found my voice after all this time, “Who are you?” How could anyone possibly know what the future held? Sure, I knew Kass had visions, but…to know exactly what would happen? To show it to me and have it be so real?
“A concerned third party,” she answered. Her expression morphed into one of sternness and slight anger. A white light grew behind her, filling the entire church
. Her hair lifted, flowing as if it were in water. Her eyes that were so much like Kass’s began to glow. The light got so bright, it hurt my eyes, and I had to shield them. “And if,” her voice, loud and thunderous, hurt as it entered my ears, “you ever lay a hand on my daughter again, I will escort you to Purgatory myself.”
With a gust of cool air, the light faded, and the woman was gone.
I stared at where she’d been, seeing a faint, white outline of a winged being. I fell to my knees, incredulous, amazed. Whatever madness Crixis had stirred within me was gone, and regret filled its place, along with sorrow.
What had I done? What had I almost done?
That woman…Kassandra’s mother?
The light outline disbursed, soon the color of my dark church. I sat there, still, hearing Kass fumble to get to her feet. The clanging of metal bounced off the walls, and I waited for her to reach me. My punishment for my cruelty, for my impure thoughts, for what I’d said and done.
Kass stood before me, pressing the edge of her sword hard against my face, cutting me. I didn’t stop her. I couldn’t. I deserved this.
Holding onto her neck to stop the bleeding, she said, “I don’t know what game you’re playing, but I can tell you that this isn’t going to end well for you.”
Her spunk, even in this situation, made me smile, but the smile soon fell away as I replied, “In all honesty, I never believed it would end any other way.” Holding my head low, I closed my eyes. “Please. Find some way to…end it.” I knew I looked like an animal, her blood staining my mouth, and I knew I should be put down like one.
Kass increased the pressure for a split-second, but she didn’t slice. She didn’t swing. Instead, she slowly lowered her sword and headed for the backroom. I didn’t move an inch while she was gone. When she came back out, she tossed something to me. It rolled until it hit my knees.
Opening my yes, I saw the Sorcerer’s staff.
“It took me to another world. Just like this one, except…it pretty much ended. Crixis turned me,” she told me matter-of-factly. “John never went crazy. I never met Max. Koath never came back. Gabriel was the Devil. And you—you were something else, too. I thought you weren’t human because of my death in that world.” She shrugged. “Everything seemed to come back to that. But apparently not you. You were always this. You punish me for lying, but you’ve been lying from day one!”
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