The Power

by Cynthia Roberts

  “Monster?” Lillian filled in as she swiped the blood from her lips. “I call them like I see them, you cowardly pig!”

  At her hated words, Ewan rushed her. She pivoted and kicked out with her booted foot, catching him mid-chest, and sending him sprawling on his backside across the room. “Get up!” she shouted with all of the fury from the memories of what he had done to her in her past, of what he was even then trying to do to her again. She motioned for him to rise, and Ewan did so, dusting himself off.

  “Not bad.” he commented dryly, “But I’ve got better.” he came toward her again, reaching for her with claw like hands. Lillian leaned back away from those hands. She lifted her knee to catch him in the gut, but he grabbed her leg and swept it aside as if it was nothing and, then he slammed her into the wall behind her. Moving into her, he pressed his body firmly to hers, so close that she could feel every inch of every muscle, and then he thrust against her, and she could feel the proof of his sickening desire.

  Whipping back her head, she sent it forward with such force into his skull that he stumbled backward in disorientation. She came at him, striking out and catching his jaw with the back of her hand and sending him flying sideways away from her. Filled with fury and rage, she did not see the gesture he made to his man, as she came for him.

  “And now it is your turn to feel some pain, you coward.” she hissed, but his sudden smile gave her pause, and she knew suddenly what was happening. Whipping around, she tried to run to help Jack before it was too late, but strong arms locked around her from behind. Ewan held her tight against him as she thrashed, kicked, and hit to escape him as Jack’s pain-filled screams filled the air. She watched in horror as they ripped at his body with their claws, their fangs. Blood oozed from fresh, emerging wounds, and all she could do was cry out as Ewan’s arms locked tighter and tighter around her body.

  “Jack!” she screamed out his name, feeling his pain as if it were a part of her. When his head lulled forward, she fell to her knees, dragging Ewan with her. Martin and Gerald moved back, allowing Jack’s lifeless body to slide to the cement floor. She watched in agony as he fell face first to the hard ground, and did not move. Pain like she had never known tore from somewhere deep inside of her and ripped from her mouth in a resounding yell of denial. She was too late! Once again, she was too late! “Jack.” She whimpered. “Oh Jack!” she cried out, only to be rewarded by cruel laughter. She didn’t feel when Ewan let her go. She didn’t move for several seconds, and then realizing that she was free she crawled to Jack’s body, and stared down at him in numbing agony. He wasn’t moving. She couldn’t hear his heart beating.

  Shakily, her hand reached out to touch him, but then she heard it, the cruel, heartless laughter coming from just before her. Looking up, she saw the vampire Martin hovering a few feet above the ground, watching her with white, amused eyes. They had done this! They had killed Jack! Now, they would pay, she shouted inside her mind! Rising, she ran for the vampire that still hovered above the floor, and did not stop. Jumping out, her arms and legs spanned wide and locked around his long, hard body. Tearing his thick neck back to the breaking point, she felt it snap in her hands, and then her fangs sank into the giving flesh there and drained him. The power that seeped into her with his blood was a surprise that she did not fully recognize until she dropped the vampire’s crumpled body to the ground, and realized that she was standing, no floating ten feet above the hard cement floor below. Her gaze swept the room, falling once again to Jack’s lifeless body. A tear slipped from her vampire eye, and fell to the floor. She wasn’t sure how she did it, but her feet regained the floor, and she looked up just in time to see the vampire Gerald flying at her in a rage. She had killed his friend, she read of him. She had killed Martin!

  “And now I will kill you as well!” She sent the shout to his mind as his body caught hers and sent her slamming backward until her back crashed into the hard, unyielding wall. His claws dug at the flesh of her arms, her neck, and she could feel the power leaving her as easily as it had come to be replaced by the weakness that could only be caused by the lack of blood. This was it, she thought. This was where she found her demise at last. It was almost a comforting thought. She could not go another hundred and fifty years without Jack. She wouldn’t!

  In thinking so, she dropped her arms to her sides in surrender as the vampire continued to painfully rip her to shreds. She heard Ewan’s shouted order for Gerald to stop, but Gerald was beyond reasoning, and so was she for that matter. She wanted it to be over! More than anything she wanted to never feel anything again.

  “Jack.” she whimpered his name one last time, and she closed her eyes to the hated world around her, but then suddenly Gerald was being torn from her body. Her eyes shot open just in time to witness Ewan lifting the vampire’s body into the air, turning it over and sending it slamming down onto a tire rotator. The metal bar at the center erupted through the vampire’s chest in a bloody, meaty mess. Lillian slumped forward, watching in satisfaction as the vampire fought to free himself, as he stared with white eyes of shock and disbelief up at Ewan who had done this to him, to his friend!

  Lillian stumbled forward as Ewan’s white, accusing eyes shot to her. His muscles were tensed, and he was furious, furious that both of his would-be friends had been killed, one by his own hands.

  “Do you see what I will do for you!” he shouted uncontrollably at her now. Lillian continued to stumble forward on weakened limbs. “All for you, Lillian!” he shouted. “Jackson, the mortal bastard, stood in our way once before. I had to kill him, to get rid of him for us!” his words stopped her in her tracks. She stared over at the insane vampire. Did he really believe this shit? “But then you left me anyway. I did it all for you, for us, and you still ran from me.” he growled as he tossed his hands fitfully into the air. “I’ve searched for you, for all of these years, diligently looking for your face in every crowd.” he continued his self-righteous speech.

  “For what? To cause me more pain, more misery?” Lillian blurted out in a rage all her own. “You killed the only love I have ever known, not once, but twice!” her gaze lowered to Jack’s body, and tears of denial sped down her cheeks. “You think that I could love you? That I could ever look upon your hated face with anything but contempt without plotting your demise?” She began to limp toward the vampire, Gerald, who was still moving, if not less vigorously than before.

  “We are what we are, Lillian. We kill for a living.” Ewan smiled, with a wave of his hand as if to say none of that mattered now. “You are no different than I. I loved you. I still love you. Just look at what I’ve done for you!” he motioned toward Gerald who’s thrashing limbs were beginning to settle as the blood oozed from his chest and mouth. “I killed my best friend for you.” Ewan said as if that would sway her decision, make her love him back, as if the act had made her see him for some kind of matriarch instead of the psychopath he truly was! Lillian fell to her knees next to the head of the vampire on the tire wheel. Looking up, she met the white eyes of the demon who had plagued her existence for the last hundred and fifty or so years.

  “He’s not dead yet.” she voiced, and a slow smile spread across her face. She had felt it with Martin, the vampire’s strength surging into her body when she had killed him. When she had taken his immortality, she knew that she had also taken his power. What was Gerald’s power, she wondered as she watched Ewan reciprocate her smile. Carefully, she grabbed hold of Gerald’s thick neck, and took in the vampire’s scream of denial with great satisfaction. She watched Ewan watching her as her fangs slid past her bottom lip, and then she opened her mouth wide and drove those same fangs into the giving flesh of the vampire at her mercy. She had no mercy! She drank what was left of his blood, felt it pour pass her lips, slide warmly down her throat, and then she lifted her head from the now, quite dead vampire, and she waited. Waited as his power surged through her. Such strength, like she had never known seeped into her every limb, her every muscle. Closing her eyes, sh
e felt the strength fill her completely, and then slowly she stood and opened her glowing, white eyes to face the last, and the greatest of her enemies. Tilting her head to a side, she sized him up. He would not come easily, she knew that. But she now had the strength of three to his one.

  “You will not live to see another night.” she promised, and his face paled, if that were possible. The smug expression slipped from his face as well, and he stood there, staring at her in confusion and wonder. He opened his mouth to say something, but just then they heard running feet coming toward them at accelerated speeds. Lillian looked to see Josh aimed with a cross bow, and Troy with a long, silver blade running toward them. Josh planted his feet firmly, and took a shot as Troy looked at the havoc that surrounded them.

  “No!” she heard the word rip from his lips, and she turned back in time to see Ewan run. She did not wait. She took pursuit, feeling her feet move beneath her with speed she had never possessed before. Ewan jumped, scaling the wall, and disappearing through a high window, and Lillian followed, jumping high on the wall before she clawed her way to the window and easily slipped through it. She could hear Josh and Troy as they burst out the door to follow. She could hear their running footsteps below, but she paid them no heed. Her only thoughts were of revenge, of murder! She wanted to kill him slowly, to make him feel some of the pain that he had thrust upon her with such magnitude!

  Ewan was running, running before her with such speed and grace, but she was faster, stronger, and she closed the gap between them in mere seconds. Then diving onto his back, she brought him low, and flipped him to the ground. Her fists slammed into his face again and again as she straddled his stomach to hold him there. She let her rage out in solid blows of her fists slamming into his body and face again and again, but it wasn’t enough! Her hands came open, the claws digging and ripping into the flesh and skin of his cheeks, his jaw, until there was nothing left but blood and flesh that resembled ground hamburger. White eyes stared up at her from the face of the monster her lashing had made him appear to be. Now his outside would match his inside, she thought with satisfaction as his pleading white eyes seemed to beg with her to stop, but it only fed her rage. He had not given Jack a chance!

  “Murderer!” she hissed as tears poured from her eyes. She could feel his hands digging into her upper arms, the nails digging into her flesh.

  “My love.” he returned, and it was all that she could take. Tearing him up by the shoulders, she sank her fangs into his neck and drained him. When she was through, she allowed his lifeless body to slip back to the earth. Only then did she realize, that she was racking with sobs. “Jack.” she cried out. “Jack!” She screamed his name as she stood, and twirled around with her arms out beside her. She felt Ewan’s power slipping into her, but she didn’t want it. She didn’t want any part of his evil. “Jack.” she whimpered, falling to her knees. Oh my love, I failed you again. I failed you again. She could not take it! It would drive her insane! She ran. She ran because she had to run. She leapt from one rooftop to the next, not stopping until she was spent, and then she crawled to the ledge of the building she was now on, and sat down, pulling her knees up to her chest. Lowering her chin to her knees, she sat there staring out at the lit city that had become one big cemetery to her. Jack was dead. He was gone, and it was all her fault. He had come there to save her, knowing what he was up against, knowing that he more than likely would fail, but he had come anyway, had come because he had loved her. Tears rained down her cheeks, tears of pain and denial and then ultimately, acceptance. Jack was gone. It was her fault. It was as simple as that. She didn’t deserve to be here and Jack not to be! If either of them had deserved to survive it had been Jack. She could not move, the guilt held her place, and she didn’t want to. She wanted to sit there, and stare out at the damned, cold city until the sun rose. She wanted to surrender it all this night. She did not want to wake in another cold, dark, empty night. She would not. So, sitting there, she allowed the numbness to creep in on her, to settle in her heart. It would all be over soon, she promised herself. All of the guilt, the goddamn pain and misery: it would all be over soon.

  Chapter thirty-six

  It was Troy who found Lillian just before sunrise, and not a moment too soon. She sat there on the rooftop like some damn statue, not moving. She didn’t seem to even know that he was there when he covered her with the UV blanket he had brought with him and carted her off the roof. Hoisting her over his shoulder, he rushed down the rounding fire escape to the street below where Josh waited. It was a race against the rising sun, and he feared that he would not make it. He could feel the first rays of sunlight as they touched his face, and he cursed as he jumped the last ten feet to the ground, and ran Lillian to the awaiting limo, which had been constructed for such emergencies, and held no windows in the back where he placed her, still wrapped in the blanket he had covered her with. He knew that she slept now. The sleep was like a drug when it came upon her. She slept rather she wanted to or not. Josh jumped behind the wheel, and drove them toward home, as Troy cradled Lillian’s seemingly lifeless body in his arms. She would blame herself for Jack’s death. He knew that. He also knew that finding her there like this tonight had been a suicide attempt. She had wanted to die, and she would be angry with him that he had not allowed that to happen. Would she try it again?

  “Damn it!” he cursed beneath his breath. “Goddamn it all!”

  Lillian awoke with the numbness, the coldness already settled deep inside of her. She lay there against her mattress, her cheek pressed firmly to her pillow, and she thought of Jack. How could she not? She thought of Jack coming to save her. She thought of Jack falling, dying. She thought of crawling to his body, of not being able to hear his heartbeat. He was gone. He was bloody, fucking gone! Again!

  Wallowing in self pity, and aching misery she laid there for several hours, not feeling anything but cold and utterly alone. It wasn’t until much later that she vaguely recalled seeing Troy there last night, seeing him as he came for her on the roof, and had covered her with a blanket. He had saved her. She hated him for that.

  When a knock sounded on her door, she did not answer. She just lay there in total silence. The door opened anyway, and she could hear someone descending the stairs. “My lady?” It was Reginald, and the worry in his voice caused tears to squeeze from her eyes.

  “Leave me be old man!” she shouted, and the old man heaved a heavy sigh, and did just as she had asked: left her alone to her miserable self. They would never understand, any of them. How could they? They did not know what it was like to be immortal, to be the cause of the death of the one they loved, not once, but twice.

  “Jack.” she whimpered painfully, and she closed her eyes once again to the world around her.

  When the shrieking sound of sirens filled the house, Lillian rose at last. What was going on? Rushing from the room, she hurried up the stairs, through the door and into the living area. There she saw Troy who was standing back, tears in his eyes as he watched a man cover the lifeless body of his grandfather.

  “Reginald.” Lillian covered her trembling lips. “What happened?” she demanded as the paramedics started to wheel the old man’s body from the room.

  “Heart attack.” Josh said lowly from across the room. “He was old. It was his time.” he said like the grown up he was trying desperately to be even though she could feel in him how very much witnessing the death of his grandfather had affected him.

  Lillian could only watch as Reginald’s lifeless body was wheeled from the room. Vaguely, she recalled the last words that she had spoken, no, had shouted at him.

  “Leave me be, old man!” The hated words echoed in her head now, and the ultimate guilt consumed. Walking to the front door, she watched as the gurney carrying the man who had been like a father to her was placed into the back of a red and white ambulance. What more could happen, she wondered in devastation? She felt when Troy’s strong arm came around her shoulder, but she could not bring herself to surr
ender to the bloody pain and misery that demanded her attention. So pushing away from him, she whispered in a forlorn voice, “I’m sorry.” and then she walked back into the house, back down those, cold, black stairs, back to a corner in her room, where she turned her back, and slid down the wall. Dropping her face into her hands, she gave in, gave in to it all until it consumed her body with racking sobs of torment. Everyone was gone. Jack. Reginald. Gina had left nights ago, leaving her alone with Troy and Josh who would despise her because now she had allowed their grandfather to pass as well. It was unfair, so bloody unfair! How was she supposed to survive now? How was she supposed to go on, knowing that she was to blame for everything!

  The funeral, per Reginald’s request, was held at night. They buried him next to the woman he had loved and raised two daughters with: his adoring wife of fifty years, Lucille. Lillian was one of the first to drop a single, white rose atop the dark casket before it was lowered into the hollowed ground. She had not attended Jack’s funeral, had not listened to the news to hear of the horrible story of his demise either. She couldn’t bring herself to do it. She had stayed locked within her home within her misery until this night at Reginald’s funeral. She owed it to Reginald to come here. He had been such a loyal friend to her for all of these years, had never even let it cross his mind, the thought of betraying all of her sinister secrets! She owed him this small symbolized gesture, but she couldn’t bring herself to say goodbye to him either. She had lost so much, so many of those that she had loved, and their memory or her guilt would never leave her.

  As she boarded her private jet that night, with Troy at her side, the thought of flying off into the sunrise crossed her mind. It would be a fitting demise, she thought, but Troy too, had lost someone that he had loved greatly. He had confessed to her once that he loved her. She knew that it was just an infatuation, but he was a good, loyal friend, and he did not deserve to suffer any more than he already had. As Troy tenderly pulled the lid to her coffin over her head just before sunrise, Jack’s handsome face filled her mind. She could see him smiling, laughing at her when she had told him how old she really was.