Destined (20 page)

And just then she was stopped. For a second she seemed to hover, frozen in mid-air. Then she felt something around her foot. She looked down, and saw in horror that the vile beast’s tongue had wrapped itself around the bottom of her leg, like some sort of lasso, and was pul ing her back. For an eternal moment time seemed to stop as despair gripped her. She had been so close!

Laura thrashed against it, but she was being pul ed back. Right into the mouth of the beast. Panic held her, but she realized that in one hand she stil held that smal piece of crystal from before. She slashed down at the tongue, connecting just before reaching the creature. The creature cried out in pain, a horrible sound, and flailed to the side, sending Laura flying into the wal .

She had no time to balance herself, and crashed into the marble heavily. Pain radiated across her back, horrible pain, and her lungs expel ed al the air that had been in them. Then she slid down. She looked up, and saw with horror that the creature was flying through the air right at her. She didn’t have enough time to move.

“You wil pay for this, Cubus!” The creature crashed right on top of her, crushing her with one giant paw. Its claws extended out, curling around Laura’s body. She felt the marble beneath her cracking again. She felt the heat of the creature’s breath on her. And she felt the massive weight pressing against her body, crushing her slowly. pressing against her body, crushing her slowly. Suddenly Laura was in the air – she had been thrown. She flew fast, and didn’t have the strength or the time to regain balance before she slammed heavily into another column.

Her vision blurred. She felt dizzy and weak. And again, the creature bounded up to her. Laura reached weakly for something, anything to fend the beast off. But there was nothing. Again, she felt the crushing weight of the heavy paw pressing down against her ribs, robbing her of breath and movement. Suddenly her fingers brushed against something slick, something like glass – a crystal shard! The creature was on top of her, looking at her through those evil dark eyes, taking its time to crush Laura slowly. Weakly, Laura’s fingers wrapped around the hilt, of the crystal piece. If she could just get it in her hand…

“What are you looking at?” The creature snapped its head back to where Laura’s arm lay. It let out a guttural chuckle and kicked the crystal away disgustedly. And Laura’s hand fel to the floor, empty. She was going to die.

Slowly, the creature moved its massive snout close to her. She could feel its breath, hot and heavy and putrid, across her entire body. She was trembling with fear. There was nothing left – she could do no more. This was the end.

The creature’s jaws opened menacingly, and Laura turned her head away just as they begun to close onto her. This was it. She shut her eyes tight, and waited for the end.

But it didn’t come.

Instead, Laura felt the vibrations through the air as the creature snapped its jaws at her just inches from her face. And it picked her up again, and threw her across the room.

Laura flew, over the pool, and hit the far wal . Again. She slid down slowly. From the other side, she could see the creature peel its lips back in a vicious smile. It was toying with her! It knew it had her beat, and was taking its sweet time. Weakly, Laura tried pushing herself up – and fel back down. She was weak, too weak to fight anymore. She looked up, and saw the creature walking slowly around. Taking its time. Enjoying the moment.

Determination gripped Laura again. She did not want to lie there helplessly and wait for her demise. She pushed herself up, forcing her body to respond. Her legs didn’t want to listen, and her arms didn’t want to listen, but she made them. She got up, and started to run. It was a weak run, a pathetic run, as she stumbled over her feet and nearly fel on every second step. She was exhausted – her body was weakened

– but she knew she had to get away. She ran, lurching forward unevenly, limping even, but it was no lurching forward unevenly, limping even, but it was no use. She didn’t have the same speed as before, and creature was just behind her. Something slammed against her side – the creature’s paw, most likely –

and black sparks flickered across her vision as she flew to the other side of the chamber.

Again, she hit the wal . And this time her head recoiled back, slamming the unforgiving marble with enormous force. She slid down, and col apsed at the bottom. She didn’t even try to move. She knew she could not. Her legs and arms felt like jel y, and horrible pain radiated from the back of her head. She watched as the creature looked at her, and began walking around the pool again. Coming towards her slowly, taking its sweet time.

She knew she should be scared, but she was beyond fear, now. Her body felt useless and broken. She was coming face-to-face with death, and was too exhausted to feel fear.

Instinctual y, she wil ed her feet to move, wil ed her body to respond, but it didn’t. Nothing happened. Was this the end? She felt herself start to drift away. The pain from the back of her head had spread across her entire body, so that every breath brought a horrible mixture of anguish and vertigo.

The creature was on her side of the chamber, now. It was getting closer, stil taking its sweet time. It licked its lips with that broken tongue greedily. Laura tried to watch, but her eyes drifted shut. She was in total darkness for what seemed like eternity.

Then her eyes opened again. Laura thought minutes must have passed, but it had been less than seconds. The creature was getting closer. Laura watched, too exhausted to do anything, as the foul beast moved around to her side of the pool, and labored towards her. It was smiling cruel y. It stepped in front of her. Laura’s head rol ed back against the marble. She felt warmth trickle down her neck, and brought a hand weakly to the back of her head. When she pul ed it away, she found it sticky and wet with blood.

“You see?” the creature said harshly, “You cannot win. And you wil find your place in the pool with the others of your kind,
Succubus.
” Laura’s vision was blurring, and coherent thought strayed out of reach. Wait. What did the creature cal her? She couldn’t remember anymore.

Suddenly, a bright flash appeared across her vision. The creature staggered away, looking absolutely stunned. Laura’s vision was blurred, but she saw – she
thought
she saw – a shape approaching from the side. A human shape. No. Two human shapes.

Again, Laura felt her grasp on reality slipping away. She felt herself fading. She was losing her grip on herself, and knew darkness was forthcoming. Another flash. The creature stumbled back.

Laura opened her eyes and squinted, straining to see. She could not. There were… shapes… in front of her. But what…?

Wait. She recognized the shape. It was…

Madison
? In front of her, with her back turned. That hair, that figure, it could only belong to her. And there was someone else beside her. Someone with her. Someone… she should recognize.

Her mind tried to work, but it was too hard. Her eyes drifted shut, and al she could hear was a dul ringing in her ears. Groggily, she opened her eyes…

She saw a blur at the creature’s feet. Just like that, it was gone, and the creature stumbled down. It swiped angrily at the spot, but another blur came, faster than before. And Laura saw blood pour out of two gnashes on the creature’s legs. It fel forward. The earth shook, but Laura did not feel it.

She was drifting weightlessly in midair. Hovering above a dark cloud of nothingness. She felt heavy, like she was being weighed down, but she did not care. She could not care.

She opened her eyes again. And she saw the creature trying to get up, thrashing wildly at…

something. Stil , the dul ringing was the only sound she heard. The creature stumbled, and fel to its chest. Laura’s eyes were closing again. She was losing herself… and darkness came.

No
. Her eyes popped open. Something in the back of her mind kept her there. A smal pocket of determination she did not know existed. She tried to see, but everything in her vision had become one indistinctive blur.

Al of a sudden, a face appeared past the blurring. Near her. A face that she recognized…

Logan
? He seemed to shine, to push away the darkness that threatened to creep up at the edges of Laura’s vision. His lips moved. He was saying something. To her. She couldn’t hear him. His face was ful of worry, and she saw his hands moving towards her, brushing her hair away. His lips moved again, slowly, as if underwater, and no sound came. Darkness covered her.

~Afterlife~

Laura opened her eyes slowly. She was lying on a hard surface, staring at the ceiling in a dimly lit room. She didn’t recognize where she was.

“She’s up!”

A voice sounded, Laura couldn’t place it. She knew she had heard it before, but where…?

She felt a gust of wind against her face, and suddenly felt hands around her shoulders. And then saw a face appear in front of her. Logan.

“You’re up,” he whispered in disbelief. His eyes scanned her face quickly. He looked terribly worried, and tired, too. But he grabbed her and held her tight.

“I never want to let go again. I never want to lose you again.”

Laura closed her eyes and melted into his arms. It felt… right. But suddenly she realized,
really
realized, what was going on. And immediately, she recoiled against his grip. “What the hel is wrong with you?” she demanded. “What are you doing? Let go of me!”

Startled, Logan backed off. But he stil held her shoulders. “What are you doing?” she asked again.

“Where did you come from?” She tried to move her arms, but they felt as heavy as lead pipes. “I said let go!”

Shock touched Logan’s face, shock and…

disappointment. Careful y, Laura felt herself being lowered as he released her shoulders. But he didn’t say anything.

Wait a minute. Logan was here. And Laura was… alive. Abruptly, she remembered the fight. The one she was going to lose. The one she was going to be
killed
in. But… somebody had stopped the creature. And… she had lived.

“What happened?” she asked again. “What did

—”

“You’re alive, and that’s al that matters,” he told her.

“Did you… did you
save me
?”

“I had some help,” he smiled.

“What?” None of this was making any sense. He had left, abandoning her in the woods, and now here he was, a knight in shining armor, looking over her with worry creasing his beautiful features, admitting t o …
saving
her? If that was true, it changed everything. “But…why?” she stammered. “If you saved me, why did you… why did you
leave
in the first place?”

“There were other
Vassiz
coming after us. Madison picked up on them before either I or Alexander had. They had my trail from before, but not yours. They did not know your scent. If we split, you would be safe. Madison volunteered to go with me, to throw them off. To make them believe she was you.”

Laura’s head spun. Her body stil didn’t want to respond, but she felt a cacophony of emotions overcome her. That one short explanation was enough to make her heart melt. But at the same time, she was
furious
with Logan for abandoning her. And forever grateful for coming back, for saving her. She was smitten with him again, and yet beyond angry for what he did. Her heart said one thing, and her mind, another.

Logan looked at her patiently. Laura felt the blood return slowly to her arm, then felt the tingles that accompanied it across her palm and fingers. And with as much force as she could muster, she swung her hand towards Logan, catching him across the cheek with a deafening ful -handed slap.

His head jerked to the side. It stayed there for a moment, until he brought a hand up to his face. “Ow.”

He worked his jaw slowly. Then he grinned at her. “I probably deserved that.”

Laura tried again, this time with her other hand, but he caught her arm. And smiled devilishly at her.

“But not that one.”

He knelt down, and kissed her.

Laura’s heart stopped as his lips brushed against hers for the first time. They were soft and warm, tender and ful of smoldering passion. Her breath caught as she kissed him back, using the strength in her arms to bring him closer, to press his body against hers. Al thought evaporated and al hurt forgotten as she shared with him a moment of unbridled passion. A tingling feeling blossomed in the middle of her stomach, and slowly expanded until it encompassed her entire body. She shivered for more.

Slowly, he drew back, and looked deeply into her eyes. “I wil never let you go.”

When Logan let her go, Laura fel back dreamily. She felt al warm inside, and for the moment, everything was righted. She closed her eyes happily as a tingle of shivers ran down her spine. When she opened them again, Logan was stil right there, smiling down at her.

“I was so worried about you,” he said as he traced a thumb along her cheek. “I didn’t know where you were, or if you were safe, or if I would ever see you again.” The tone of his voice was genuine; his
words
were genuine. “You cannot imagine how much it pained me to leave you like that.”

“Then why did you?” Laura asked softly.

“I had to do it,” he told her. “It was the only way to keep you safe. I know you’re stubborn, sometimes –

don’t frown at me, you know it too! – and if I had told you the truth, I feared you would want to come with me.”

“Of course I would have come with you,” she said. He smiled at her again. “And that’s why it had to be the way it was.”

“And… Madison?”

“She does not hate you. She realized other
Vassiz
were close behind us the night we first met. That is why she acted towards you… the way she did.”

“To keep me away?”

“To alienate you from her, yes. And when she told me and Alexander what was going on that night, we al agreed that splitting was for the best. To keep you safe.”

“So that means,” Laura began somewhat

hesitantly, “that there’s nothing… between you two?”

Logan smiled. “No,” he said. “It was al an act.”

He chuckled lightly, and Laura sighed. She loved hearing him laugh, and missed it when he was gone.

“To be honest, I thought my part in it had been so poorly done as to give it al away.”

“So that means that the fight I overheard?

Between her and Alexander…?”

Logan shook his head. “Those two lovebirds have been at each other’s side for hundreds of years. Nothing could come between them anymore.” He pushed himself up, and offered Laura a hand.

“Come. There are some that are eager to meet you.”

Laura took his hand, and looked around her for the first time. She was in a fairly spacious room, with no windows and only one grand door leading out. The floor that she had been lying on was hard marble, and a spectacular white. So were the wal s. If she didn’t know any better, she would have said this was part of the same structure as that great corridor had been.

“Who are they?” she asked.

“Who are they?” she asked.

“You’l see,” Logan smiled. He slipped his hand around the smal of her back and led her forward. Laura took her first step – and nearly fel . She hadn’t realized it before, but her legs felt weak, as if they hadn’t been used for a very long time. But, strangely, based on what she could remember of her condition after the fight with that… creature… she should have been teetering on the edge of death right now. Except that she wasn’t. Her body felt weak, yes, but nothing in particular stood out. There was no injury she felt.

“How long was I out?” she asked Logan.

“A few hours, at most.”

“What?” Surprise painted her tone. How could she have healed so quickly in only a
few hours
? She remembered hitting her head, and brought a hand up to where she thought she had made impact. To her surprise, there was nothing there. No scab, or gnash, or bump. But she distinctively remembered finding blood there, before. “How?”

“Those people that want to meet you?” he replied, a twinkle in his eye, “one of them was able to heal you after the battle.”

“
Heal
me?”

Logan smiled at her again. “You’l see. Come.”

She put a hand around his back, and walked by him to the door. Twisting the handle, he pushed it open, and Laura gasped. They were looking right at the grand chamber where she had encountered that vile creature. The same shining pool spread across the floor, but its waters looked calmer, somehow. Slightly more relaxed. She looked up at the ceiling, and was relieved to find that the crystals there were blue. It meant this was the chamber on the
first
side of that curtain of black. Quickly, her eyes fol owed the hal down, to where she remembered flying through a tear in that terrible darkness. She saw that the black shadow was stil there, but the gnash the creature had cut was gone, replaced by solid black. For some reason, seeing that was strangely reassuring to her. Then she noticed a bundle of shapes in a far corner. She saw Alexander and Madison, first, staring deeply into each other’s eyes, and behind them… a group of people she did not immediately recognize. They were tal and muscular – tal er than anybody here by a head. Their bodies were lean, and perfectly proportioned. They were also completely unclothed.

A light seemed to radiate from the group, encircling al their bodies like a halo. Laura realized it was much the same as the light that graced this hal , the one that came from everywhere and nowhere al at once.

There were three men and three women in the group, and they were al facing away from her. But as the door Logan had pushed swung completely open, al six immediately turned to face her. And she gasped again. The people were the
same ones she
had seen in the pool
earlier. And she had been right in her estimation of their beauty. When their faces were not twisted in pain, they simply had the most beautiful, most perfect proportions she could imagine.

Each of the six people looked slightly different, each in their own way, but each was stil perfect, and more beautiful than the last. She remembered seeing Madison for the first time and being struck by her beauty; seeing these six, however, was like holding a glowing star to a flickering candle to compare which was brighter. Laura didn’t even want to think where she stood on that hierarchy.

One of the people – a man – stepped forward.

Laura Cubus
.

She spun around. The voice had appeared in her head, but it wasn’t her own.

Do not be alarmed.
The man from across the hal was looking straight at her, and smiled with easy eyes.
This is the way in which we speak.

Laura looked to Logan, but he was completely unfazed. “Can you hear him?” she whispered in his ear. Logan shook his head. “If he is speaking to you, you wil be the only one to know.”

Laura frowned.
Hello?
she said in her head. There was no reply.

“You need to speak out loud for
them
to hear you,” Logan told her, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking.

“Oh.” That was… a little discomforting. “Hel o?”

she said again, raising her voice. Alexander and Madison looked up to her, and both of them smiled. Alexander’s arm – the one that had been burnt so badly – and his shoulder looked completely healed.
I am thankful you are feeling better. Were it not
for you, we would not be here.

“Oh. Uh… thank you?” Then she remembered what Logan said. “Were you the ones who healed me?”

The man smiled at her.
Yes.

“Thank you,” Laura said, and this time she meant it. “You know who I am – but I do not know you. I have seen your reflections in the pool. Was that… real y you?”

We have been imprisoned there for thousands
of years, held captive by the beast who tried to take
your life
.

Woah. Just who
were
these people? If they had the power to heal her… and the power to communicate like this… who knew what other gifts they shared? Who could possible imprison them?

But thanks to you, we are now free again. For
that, we are forever in your service.
As one, al six of the people dropped down to one knee and bowed their head. Each placed their left first firmly on the ground, and two fingers on their forehead. Laura was taken aback by the gesture.

“But I… I didn’t do anything,” she admitted, feeling flustered. “You can stand – you should not do that for me. I couldn’t possibly have…
freed
you. I wasn’t even the one who defeated the beast that held you captive! That was Logan, and Madison.” She heard Logan chuckle lightly under his breath. And the six did not move from their positions. They looked like glowing Greek statues, perfectly sculpted in every way in their stil ness.

The prophecy said of your coming
.

“Prophecy?” She remembered Alexander tel ing her something about one the night they first met. That there was a fleeting mention of some vague prophecy somewhere in the vampire creed. But she didn’t possibly believe it could be related to
her
. “What prophecy?”

‘When the darkness comes, and hope is lost, a
shimmering star shall be revealed. And she will free
the fallen ones, restoring order to the rule of man.’

Laura frowned. That sounded… prophetical y epic. And… completely vague. “What does it mean?” she asked. “And how can it possibly have anything to do with
me
?”

There is more, of course. A tome dedicated
entirely to the prophecy, writ long ago. What I
quoted you is just a glimmer of the surface.

“So what does it say?” Laura asked.

It says many things, of course. Debate has
raged through the eons about its true meaning. But
some things are certain. It speaks of a new coming
order, a realignment in the place of all. There is
mention of a human child, taken in the dream, and
ripped to reality. She is the shimmering star of
hope. It is told that before her eighteenth namesday
she will return to her world of birth, and with it she
shall set the fallen free. The order of rule will be
realigned in those who set the prisons, but she shall
come both as one of them, yet set apart. It speaks of
you, Laura
.

“Wha…?” She shook her head. “I don’t

understand. You… are the fal en?”

Yes.

“The fal en
what
?” She asked the question, but in the back of her mind, a growing suspicious was tel ing her what they were going to say.

We are the fallen angels, both ancestors and
descendants of the first life on earth.

Fal en angels? She may have been surprised by it, once, but not after everything she’d seen in the past few hours.

Our realm is that of the dream, and that is the
world we are properly set to inhabit. It is where we
stayed, before we found ourselves held captive.

“And who exactly imprisoned you?” Laura

asked. Again, she had a feeling she knew the answer…

Our brothers, the
Vassiz.

“Brothers?”
That
, Laura was not expecting.

“What do you mean, brothers?”

The
Vassiz
are descendants of our kind. They
are a hybrid, a mixture of human and angel flesh.
The powers they hold come directly from our
lineage. The story of their ancestry is not well
known, but I will share it with you. It is a story of love,
and sadness. The first came to be when one of our
kind forsook everything given to us in the dream
world to come into the world of humans. He spied a
mortal woman, and fell strongly in love with her. He
came to her dreams, spending time with her there, at
first, but on waking she would not remember
anything that happened while she slept. Every night,
he would see her in the dream, and every night, she
would meet him as if someone new. This lasted for
many years, until the woman he loved became
burdened with age and fragility. But he did not want
to lose her to the embrace of death, and so – against
all advice and rationality – he crossed the prohibited
barrier from the dream world to the human world. He
came into the human world in the flesh. It is there
where he met his true love again, and she fell into
his arms. They lived happily together, but time was
still short. He did not want to lose her, and so,
desperate to extend her life, granted her the gift of
angelic blood. He did this by extracting his own
blood and feeding it to her. He thought it would keep
her alive and with him forever. But he was wrong.
The transformation gripped her very soul, and she
lost everything about her that made her human.
She became little more than wild beast. And she
thirsted for human blood. When he saw what he had
created, it pained him greatly, and he took recluse
from his love. He locked her away, barring her from
him forever . But he could not predict was the spawn
that would come forth from her. For the humans she
bit before she was locked away transformed into
others much like her. Their numbers grew quickly,
but each successive transformation retained less
and less angelic blood. The result of which,
paradoxically, was that less and less of the beast
instincts were activated in them. And so, over time,
the creatures that had been let wild in the world of
man began to conform to the rules of society. They
began to retain more and more of their humanity,
and soon – the
Vassiz
race was born.

“But… I don’t understand. How did you become captive? Are there more of you anywhere?”

We are the only ones left. A war broke out
between our kind and our brothers. It threatened to
shroud the entire world in darkness. It raged for
many years, with many casualties one either side.
Neither had an advantage, but we were slowly
destroying both worlds we lived in – the dream world
and the human world. In the end, to preserve life on
this earth, the six of us you see before you today,
three male and three female, were set to be
imprisoned here, in exchange for an armistice. But
we were betrayed. After we were placed here, the
Vassiz
leaders ordered all other angels to be killed.
They were overtaken without warning, and had no
chance. It was a genocide.