“Annabelle!” I’ve totally forgotten about her. I was back at her side in an instant, getting on my knees and leaning over her tiny body to reach for her forehead. Her skin felt boiling hot. Her illness speeded up. Comprehension was growing inside me I would lose her within the next hour. Maybe even less. Tears settled in my eyes.
I felt Dimitri’s hand on my left shoulder. His other hand stroke through Annabelle’s hair, like the loving gesture of a brother.
“She dies”, I sobbed, unable to hold back the waterfall of tears behind my eyelids.
“No, she won’t.”
My eyes wandered from her to him. “This isn’t the moment for reassuring lies, Dimitri.”
With both hands, he turned me to him. “She won’t die. You know what you’ve to do.”
I shook my head determined. “You can’t make me choose one love over the other. That’s not fair.”
His index finger moved up my neck and caressed my chin. Even now, his touch steered up the fireworks, making the butterflies fly in my stomach.
“It’s not just about my life in exchange for your sister’s, Izzy. We have to end the apocalypse. Your choice is my insignificant life against the world.”
Sadness mixed into desperation. How could he think so low about me? I had to tell him. “Dimitri, if I have to choose, I always chose you over the world. I love you. And even if I would choose otherwise, I could never go through with this.”
He bowed his head and took both my hands into his. They were warm, calm and simply Dimitri. “The choice is not only yours.” When his glance met mine again, we were so close, I could already feel his breath on my lips. I couldn’t help myself any longer. Just now, nothing mattered anymore. He needed to understand and there was nothing else I could say to make him believe me than to say it without words. I leaned into him and placed my lips softly onto his. He responded instantly and the kiss gathered intensity. Despite the nightly chill, I felt hot all over, as if bathing in lava and there was nothing else I wanted to do for the rest of my life. “I love you, Elisabeth”, he muttered when we parted for the split of a second. His kisses went on over my cheek to my ear. It was hardly fair as I was unable holding back now. His left hand tangled in my hair and pushed my head into my neck, while his lips ran up my collarbone over my throat, my cheek, until they’d finally found back to my lips. And my lips were asking for more. A sigh escaped me. Slowly he pushed my right hand out of my lap, I barely noticed it, all I wanted was more of him. Step by step I gained the upper hand, intensified the kiss, he startled, then gave in. The kiss was almost painful, when… he’d stopped and leaned back. My left grabbed for his neck, wanting to pull him back to me, when I saw it. In the centre of his torso, where his heart was, lurked out a blade. My blade. My hand was still attached to the weapon.
“No, no, no, NO, NOOOO. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?” A new wave of tears flooded down my cheeks. I shook him, wanted to wake him up, but his weight dragged me down and I landed on top of him. “Dimitri, no.” My heart was falling apart. Anastasia was screaming inside me. Right then it was our scream. We were one, united in our grief. I put his head into my lap, stroke through his hair and buried my face in the familiar spot between his shoulder and his neck. Minutes or hours passed, but I didn’t move. If I could just be protecting his body, Death couldn’t take him from me. There was a noise at the top of the stairs. I lifted my head and saw Tatiana. When she spotted my tearful face, she slapped her palm over her mouth, restraining herself from crying out loud. As if the weight of the entire world has been dropped on top of her, her legs gave way and she sunk to her knees.
And right behind her was him. Death has come. He passed her and descended the stairs to me in mortifying caution. I shook my head determined. “No, don’t!” I managed to bring out behind a veil of tears. “Not him. Take me to end the apocalypse, but not him.”
He’d reached the bottom of the stairs and kneeled down in front of me. Again the temperatures had dropped. “Not him”, I whispered, more desperate than ever before, caressing over Dimitri’s cheek as if to keep the warmth inside his body. My eyes never let go of my father. His hand reached for my face. I didn’t jerk back. His touch on my cheek was icy and almost hurt. “Not him”, I repeated sternly. There was no fear for my own life anymore. “Have me instead. Do with me whatever pleases you, but leave him to the world.” I knew the answer before he gave it. Death knew no mercy, not even for his own daughter.
He shook his head.
“I’ll never forgive you”, I muttered under my frost-clouded breath. “You understand?”
He nodded. Then he vanished, leaving me with my grief, which from now on would be a part of me.
Above me the purple horizon melted back into the dark cloak of the night. It had become silent around me with the cloak of death, settling upon the scene, turning the world back into the tranquillity of a hot midsummer night. The apocalypse had come to an end.
Chapter XXI
Afterglow
Two weeks have passed, if Victor hadn’t told me, I probably wouldn’t have noticed. Time had lost all its meaning to me. If there was something left in the world still holding importance, then it was Annabelle’s life. Her life was his sacrifice. I was missing him so much. The memory was eating me up from the inside, like a giant hole growing there where my broken heart was located.
It wasn’t helpful having nothing to do. After the battle Victor had brought Annabelle and me to Deerpark Manor. Most of the Guild members had been killed in the battle, but the Council had also suffered enormous losses. Victor had said it will take time to rebuild what had been destroyed. The Council was lacking leadership since then.
Over the last weeks I haven’t seen him very often and neither Tatiana. She’d locked herself into her room and didn’t come out for days, not even for dinner. Everyone had to grief in their own way, on their own terms. Victor had to file so many reports he’d spent most of his time in the Winter Palace for giving witness to the happenings and the Consul’s betrayal. Half of the other children had been freed as well and a provisional Council was currently guaranteeing their safety. The other half, probably those in favour for unleashing the apocalypse over mankind, had vanished together with the surviving Guild members and went into hiding.
The only positive in the whole mess was Annabelle. She’d recovered quickly from the plague and tormented me with lots of questions. I tried explaining as best as I could. Foremost, she asked, when could we go home to mum and dad?
I wasn’t sure if I was ready to see them yet, but she got her wish sooner than I’d preferred. The provisional Council was eager to normalise the situation and had arranged our return to our life in Beacon Hills. They would strip my sister’s memory from the last weeks since her capture and replace them with false information.
Anyway, the day I’d been dreading for had arrived and we assembled in the courtyard outside Deerpark Manor for saying our farewells. Alfred stood stiff in the back. I’d already thanked him last night for everything. The loss of Master Dimitri had conjured a sad expression on his face. Not seldom I spotted the old English butler holding back a tear. He was still placing a set of plates and cutlery on the table for him as if he would appear in the dining room at any moment. Unfortunately, the laws of the universe were not working this way. You couldn’t bring back people from the dead. Who knew better than me, Death’s own daughter?
Annabelle was waiting behind me, two magicians at her side. The men would escort us back and made sure of the little details as Victor used to say. I wished Tatiana could do the portal, but Dimitri had told me one night, Tatiana and portals do not do well together. Apparently, she’d tried once and their journey ended in the middle of the Saharan desert. It took them days to get out and not without major sunburn.
Victor took me in his arms and patted my back. “Time heals, you’ll see.” I couldn’t comment on this. I didn’t want it to heal. Healing would mean forgetting him. Right now, this was my biggest fear that his face would blur in my memory until one day,
I wouldn’t remember it at all. There was no way I would let this happen, even if I have to endure a life of misery for the rest of my existence.
“I want to become a tracker”, I said instead. We’d talked about that the other night already, but I wanted him to remember the promise he’d given to me. I couldn’t stand the idea of settling back into my life as if nothing had happened. I wanted to fight. Fighting would keep me occupied. Also, after knowing all what I’d learned over the last weeks, I doubted very much that I could ever settle back into the human world. Not permanently. After all, I was the Princess of Death. I wasn’t entirely human. I wasn’t one of them. My life, if it could still be called this way, belonged to the supernatural world now, the place hidden in the shadows of human existence.
“Miss Elisabeth”, he whispered in my ear. “Now is the time for grief, not for action. It might take a while until the new Council will approve your request. And then I need you to be ready. I’m sure Lord Brunswick will cross our path in the near future again.” Lord Brunswick. He’d escaped the battle with his two sons, the other Cullen brothers. Indisputable, he was working on a new plan, how to overcome humanity. In Victor’s opinion, Brunswick was a bigger threat than Wayland. While Wayland feared the Catholic Church more than anything, Brunswick was willing to declare open war against humanity and the cleric, even if it would mean the downfall of the supernatural world. I remembered his expression after the sudden death of the Guild’s headmaster. It could only mean, his time had come. And this meant vengeance. Vengeance to the world, to all humans, to the church, everyone who was in his way, whoever wasn’t sharing his believes. Where Wayland saw grey zones, he apprehended only in terms of black or white — for him or against him. In all his paranoia, his enemies deserved to be crushed.
Victor squeezed my shoulders and brought me out of my dark thoughts. “Take care of you, my child”, he held me back at arms-length. “I’ll send word to you, promised.”
“Thanks. For all.” I meant it. They all had risked and sacrificed so much for me.
Tatiana was next. I didn’t know how to approach her, but she took the decision off me and gave me a hug. “Don’t play with demons, Izzy. You understand. You’re not fully trained yet.”
“I’ll keep it in mind.”
She let go of me and made a step backwards. I needed to know. “Friends, right?”
She forced herself to a smile. “Best friends.”
“Forever”, I confirmed.
Who had thought that one day I would become BFF with a witch who’d declared killing me a sport only months ago?
“Ah, Izzy”, she slapped her forehead. “Before I forget it. I have something for you.”
She turned on her heels and dashed back into the house. Moments later she returned holding a dreamcatcher in between her slim fingers. “Take this one as a parting gift.”
“Another one?”
“Yes, but this one is an experiment. Instead of hindering your soul from wandering it channels your soul. That means, if it doesn’t kill you.” Her glance turned glassy, obviously unsure of her own skills. “Guess, you’ve to test it to be sure.”
“Excuse me, Miss.” It was one of the magicians behind me. “We really have to go now.”
I nodded and swallowed down the bitter taste on my tongue. These people here have become my family and here was everything which reminded me of Dimitri. I glanced to the side, to the little hill before the forest. On top of the hill was Dimitri’s grave. The place, where I’d spend most my time over the last week. Even if I couldn’t see the engraving from here, I knew it by heart. “See me in your dreams”, I whispered. Anastasia used to say this, but we’ve long become one and the same person, my old life was like a distant memory. Certainty was nudging me, one day, this current life will turn to memory as well.
“Goodbye, my love.”
***
Month after month passed in agony, while life gradually normalised as if recent events had never happened. The leaves changed colour and fell off.
Mum and Dad had been beside themselves of having us back. At the beginning, they’d been so afraid of losing us again, they stayed an entire month with us, didn’t let us out of their sight once. Of course, the FBI had all kinds of questions for us, but Tatiana had been right. They had already a predefined opinion in this case and it wasn’t too hard convincing them. Besides, the provisional Council didn’t leave anything to chance. The story appeared bulletproof and any evidence pointed straight to Dimitri and Tatiana. Conveniently, two completely burned bodies had turned up in the woods and the forensics claimed them with high probability as the Crazy Slovak Duo from Hell as the press had nicknamed them. I couldn’t stand the allusions, I usually left the table when my mother started what great of a person Jake was and I should feel gratified having been his girlfriend. It was hard not being allowed to have a picture of Dimitri for the sake of keeping up appearances. He was the villain and the world was completely unaware of his sacrifice.
At least Annabelle’s nightmares had stopped soon after the psychiatrist appointment had started. But any picture of Tatiana turning up in the Herald was making her cry. Sure, she would get over those horrors one day, too.
All and everyone would be fine again, Annabelle, mum, dad, the world, humanity, everyone, except me. I was beyond repair. I’d become introverted, only spoke the absolute necessary. Most of the time, I had problems following conversations. Sleeping was a real horror, or better say, the waking up part, when I startled upright in bed, bathed in perspiration and screamed Dimitri’s name. So, I tried avoiding sleep altogether. Sometimes I wanted people around me, but once I was with them, I craved for nothing else than being alone. Mum did her best, she really did, but some things are so messed up, they can’t be fixed anymore. My psychiatrist recommended I should go back to school as soon as possible. Mum was against it, but Dad supported the idea. Without Vicky school wasn’t the same anymore. The events of the last term gave me some credit with the teachers. Otherwise, I couldn’t understand why my marks weren’t dropping off the scale. I didn’t even do my homework and didn’t participate in class either. Only once Mr Smith asked me to read a passage from Shakespeare. It didn’t go well. There was too much memory of him inflicted on the written word. I started crying bitterly and ran out of class. Mum had to pick me up. Mr Smith didn’t ask again. At lunch I sat alone under the tree in the same spot Tatiana and Dimitri had used sharing their lunch break. Interesting how things could change. Now, I was the outsider. The freak.
People started talking behind my back as if I was barely air. Those people included my parents. After dinner, when mum and dad did the dishes I heard them whispering.
“It’s not getting better”, mum said under her breath. “It’s like living with a ghost. I can’t get through to her.”
Dad shook his head. “I know, it needs time”, he answered. “Maybe a change of air would do her good.”
Soon later, the change of air arrived in form of a letter from the University of St. Petersburg, offering me a fully paid scholarship. It was a bit awkward explaining them that I was actually speaking Russian perfectly now and Beacon Hills suffocated me like no other place. In the end, this wasn’t even a lie. Mum was completely against it, but dad was an accountant. A free scholarship was a relief to his bank account. Then again, mum would need some more convincing. There were another two months before my scheduled departure. The scholarship was a lie in itself. It only meant my request becoming a tracker had been approved.
Tonight was yet another night, where I stared at my empty paper of homework without truly seeing it. Within three hours, I barely managed to bring one fragment of a sentence onto the paper. And yet again, I called it a night. My eyes were burning from the lack of sleep and certainty settled in my mind, I couldn’t avoid my nightmares forever. Just when I leaned forward for switching off the desk lamp, I pushed my French dictionary off the table by accident and revealed the dreamcatcher Tatiana had given me. I picked it up and held it again
st the light. “Let’s see where it will take me. Soul wandering couldn’t be worse than the nightmares.” And if it would mean death? Tatiana’s warning was ringing in my ear. Well, death couldn’t be worse than life. For me at least that was true.
I swopped the dreamcatcher over my bed rest, switched off the light and slid under the blanket.
“See you in my dreams.”
Epilogue
A giant staircase with a red carpet rolled out in front of me, leading up to a palace. The Palace. I would never forget this location. I had no idea how I got here. It didn’t feel like a dream, therefore it was too real. In a dream you couldn’t smell and yet the air was full of jasmine. My soul, restless from months of restraint, was wandering again. All I could hope for was that it would find its way back as miraculously as it had brought me here.
I glanced up to the firmament. Stars? But there were none, just darkness. It shouldn’t be night in St. Petersburg yet. Was I dreaming after all or—
My eyes widened in recognition. “The Other Place”, I breathed out. The place between life and death. Was I dead?
“Izzy?”
Oh God, I was sooo terribly dreaming.
“Izzy?” the voice rose in my back. “Is that you?”
I turned and there he was. My heart missed a beat, maybe more than just one, but this was okay. Broken hearts didn’t beat anyway. He was dressed in a suit and dark cloak, highly polished leather shoes and was wearing a bowler hat. His attire came with a cane, which he was holding in his left hand. However, besides the strange outfit, which clearly belonged to the nineteenth century, it was him! “Di…” Saying his name was painful, I couldn’t give into this dream. It would just damage me more when I woke up. It’s like growing a false hope inside you and seeing it crushed afterwards.
“Izzy!” He raced over to me and before I could say another word, he held me in his arms. His touch, oh God, how could I’ve survived all those months without him touching me, was all sparkles and fireworks. In the next moment, his lips were on mine. Alright, that was it. I gave into the temptation even if it would kill me the next morning, when I would wake up and figured out all was just a dream. His kiss was so much more intense as if our souls were merging. I wanted it last forever.
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