Post by ShadaAntoinette on May 25, 2010 2:37:02 GMT -5
When Shada finally awoke, she was alone in her room. The moon was high in the air, which she could see outside her window and the oozing warmth she had felt before was gone.
With a grimace, she scooted to the foot of the bed, where she sat for a long time, her head in her hands. Miranda was dead. Her best friend in the whole world was dead, and Lief had known. The knowledge fueled the raging fire inside her again and she knew what she had to do: hunt him down and make him pay.
She rose from the bed and went to take a shower, she needed the hot water to warm her cold body, and the refreshing feel would help to ease her mind. She had expected a bit of pain from her wounds, but found there were none, which meant that Azazel had healed her after she had passed out. She hated to think about him touching her, but what could she really do except scrub herself until she felt clean again.
Leaning her head against the wall of the shower, she sighed and squeezed her eyes shut. Her mind just couldn't seem to fathom the fact that Miranda was dead. It hurt her, it really did.
Vaguely, she heard the bathroom door open.
"Nightshade." His voice was gruff, as if he had been drinking again, and she didn't want him here, not now, and not ever.
"What, Azazel?" She asked, voice full of tears again. "What do you want?" She hoped that he wasn't going to say her, or try to make love to her at that moment, she was in no mood to fight him.
"Why did you snap at me? Why did you tell me you didn't love me? Who is Angheliiratiaa?" Questions seemed to tumble from his mouth, some of the words slurred. He had said the name Angheliiratiaa...How did he know about Liir? "Answer me." He said.
"Azazel... I was born with..."
"That's the same load of bullshit you told me earlier. I want the truth from you." She didn't have to see him to know that he was getting angry.
"What do you want me to say? I was telling you the truth."
"I want to know why you don't love me anymore. I want to know why you are still here. I thought you still loved me, that you were here because you wanted to be with me again. But you don't do you?" Okay, nothing was making sense. When had Liir....oh. Liir must have taken over while she was unconscious and told Azazel these things. Fuck... what the Hell was she supposed to do?
"Azazel...." She began. He ripped the curtain back from the shower, effectively tearing the scarlet fabric from the rings.
"I want you to tell me the truth. I want to hear you tell me you don't love me anymore." He growled at her. She didn't want to talk to him in this state. She didn't even want to be in the same room as him right now. "TELL ME!"
"I can't. I can't talk--" He slapped her, his massive palm leaving an imprint on her skin.
"I said tell me." He snapped. "Or do you want me to hit you again?"
"No, Azazel, please..." He raised his hand to slap her again, and stopped. "I...I don't love you. I came here to tell you about Pandora and that was it."
"That's what I thought." He turned his head and looked at the wall for a moment. "And Angheliiratiaa?"
"Liir is my soul sister. She is a part of me." Shada told him, her back flush against the wall of the bathtub. "I wouldn't lie to you." Actually, she would, just not about this, when he was as close to her as he was. This was all kinds of bad news. She watched as the muscles in his jaw clenched as he looked at her.
"You BITCH!" In a flash, he had struck her with enough force to crack the wall behind her, a feat since she had pretty much been trying to disappear into it. "You think you can just come back here to tell me you killed our only child and then leave? You belong to ME and I will tell you when you can leave! I tell you when you don't love me anymore!" He hit her again, for good measure, bloodying her nose. The weak cry that accidentally escaped her mouth seemed to stop him from hitting her again. His bleary green eyes looked her over and he lowered his hand.
"Shower." He commanded, turning on his heel and leaving the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.
When he left, she slid down the cracked wall to her knees and cried. This was a nightmare, and coming back here was a mistake. She knew that now. She never should have come here. Never. And she had to get out, get out before he killed her.
When she was dressed, she exited the bathroom and immediately checked to see if Azazel was in her room. He wasn't, not even in the downstairs living room, much to her relief. She had made up her mind, she was going to get out of here, even if it meant she would have to jump from the window. Her window overlooked the cliffs, and the drop was a long one. She didn't care. She had to get out of here and away from him. Now that he knew about Liir, and that she'd had no intention of becoming his Queen, it was dangerous to stay. Besides, she had to find Lief. He owed her his life in exchange for Miranda's death.
She hurriedly packed a few things and placed them in a back that she used Magick to shrink to a size where she could conceal it in her pocket before rushing down her stairs to the living room.
"Going somewhere?" Apparently she hadn't checked very well because there he was, sitting in the shadows behind the stairs.
"Um..." She couldn't speak. He stood up and came around the stairs to look at her, his green eyes dusky.
"I asked you a question, Nightshade. I expect an answer." He snapped. She flinched.
"Aye." She said, lifting her chin. "I'm going to kill your best friend." He began to laugh, cynically, maniacally even.
"Oh, you think so? And what if I say you can't?"
"I don't care. I'm going and not even you are going to stop me." She felt more and more brave as she spoke. He just stood there and laughed at her.
"I see. You think I am going to allow you to leave this castle again, to find and kill my friend. Are you out of your damned mind?" He lifted an arm, but this time she didn't flinch. Instead, she eyed him. He leaned against the stairs.
"I don't need your permission." She said. "I AM going, whether you like it or not." He took a swig from a bottle she hadn't seen him holding before now and eyed her with jaundiced eyes.
"Lucky for you I have things to do today." He growled at her. "I give you two weeks. If you think I won't know how or where to find you, you are mistaken. All you need to know is I will find you and you WILL be back here. Now get out of my sight, you fucking whore." She grit her teeth but got away from him as quickly as possible, lest he change his mind. She was free! She was free! And she was going to make sure he didn't find her. His mistake was thinking she would allow him to bring her back here without a fight.
As she cleared the entrance of the castle, she looked up to see Azazel standing on the roof of her tower, looking down on her. She hurriedly ran from the castle and disappeared into the woods. Even after putting miles of distance between herself and the castle, she could have sworn that she could still feel his eyes upon her. It was unnerving, assuredly, but she didn't care. She was free again! Her elation was quickly snatched from her when a hand landed on her shoulder. She screamed and turned around, ready to fight Azazel off, only to find her sister, whom she had not seen since they turned nineteen.
"Lilith! You scared the Hell out of me!"
"I am sorry, sister. I have news from Father. He wants you to come home." The elder twin told her younger sister. "We are having...problems and we need all the help we can get.
"What does this have to do with me?" Shada asked, shying away from her sister. "Father forsook me when he allowed the doctors in Sunnyvale use me as a pincushion. He forsook me again when I asked him to deliver me from Azazel. He allowed me to be beaten and raped, and now he wants me to come readily to his side? No!"
"Father insists that you come and aid us." Lilith persisted.
"No. He turned his back on me and left me here, so this is me turning my back on him." Shada crossed her arms over her chest.
"You would renounce your own flesh and blood?"
"As Father did to me, aye." Shada said, stubbornly. "He didn't care enough about me to help me when I needed him, why in the Mother's name would I help him?" Lilith's lips thinned but she nodded.
"As you wish, sister. But you will come to regret this decision, I assure you." In a burst of teal colored fire, the elder twin disappeared.
It had been years, far longer than Azazel had 'given' her, and so far she had come across several promising leads only to be disappointed and angry. It seemed the gorgeous Baninae man had just up and disappeared. It irritated her to know that he had gotten away so easily, but then it also hardened her heart against him. He was going to die a severely painful death when she found him, even worse that the one she had imagined all those years ago.
Her Vampiric aura had gotten her by..charming her way in and out of Mortals' lives, using them as sustenance and a place to stay until she learned of her next lead, and then moving on, leaving a house of bodies behind. She made sure to cover her tracks, making the deaths look like suicides or murders. None suspected her of killing the innocents. She was becoming a skilled killer, cold and calculating, and she didn't care anymore. She was obsessed with killing that man, even if it killed her.
Finally, a lead came in. In a small town not far from where she had been staying, there was a man fitting Lief's description living in an old house. For some reason, she had a feeling it actually was him this time, so she took the first coach to the town to see for herself.
When she had arrived there, she did her usual thing of asking people in local taverns about any strange men in the city or town. Instantly, just by hearing some of the drunks talk about him, she knew. She had found him. And he was going to pay. She had told them that he was her husband and he had sent for her, and they had believed her; apparently they believed she was pretty enough to be the man's wife, though with the way they were looking at her, they thought she was just a woman. They were thinking about catching her after she left the bar.
Hearing them talk with her preternatural hearing, she smirked to herself. Let them come. I will show them that I am no ordinary woman. Liir kept silent, as she had since Shada had yelled at her for speaking to Azazel the way she had. Sure enough, though, as soon as she was about three blocks from the tavern, well away from the prying eyes of pedestrians, the two men tried to attack her. She'd pretended not to know that they were following her, but she had kept a sharp ear to them; their intoxicated scents filled her nostrils with the stench of unwashed bodies and booze. Oh yea, this was going to be a good night.
The first man grabbed her by her arms and yanked her back against his body, laughing.
"Thought ye would get 'way did ye, girlie?" His breath stank, but she didn't bother speaking. The second man followed his buddy as he dragged her into the alley.
"We's gonna have a good time, aren't we, girlie? Gonna show us how ye please yer man." The second, smaller man produced a dagger the size of her palm and brandished it at her.
"That's what you think." Her eyes began to glow, which instantly wiped the smirk from the smaller man's face.
"Wot are ye?" He asked her, his voice quaking.
"Something you were stupid enough to think was a defenseless woman." She grabbed the other man's wrist and yanked him over her shoulder, which popped her elbow out of place. She growled in fury and kicked out at the second man, connecting with his privates and sent him flying and screaming in a higher pitch than normal, into some trashcans. The first man, who was up again, tried to strike her face, which she saw coming and dodged, jamming her claws into his guts. Her hand passed through him like a hot knife though butter, tearing him in half.
His buddy, the now castrated man, managed to sink his knife into her kidney, which stunk like fire, though it did nothing but piss her off. She ripped the blade out and threw it at him, catching him in the throat, though it went all the way through and stuck into the bricks of the building behind him. He gurgled and went down; she watched his aura dim and fade, knowing he was dead before walking away. Luckily her dress had been black, otherwise she would have been pissed.
She stepped out of the alleyway and kept walking down the street as if she hadn't just been accosted by two men until she made it to the house Lief was said to occupy. It stood before her, the white bricks gleaming in the moonlight. A light was on in the upper floor. Good. She removed the fashionable, annoying shoes that the women of the time wore and crept up to the house. She let herself inside and crept up the stairs, following his aura trail.
The door was closed when she got to the room, but she wasted no time kicking it in. When the splinters settled, she noticed the room was empty.
"Where are you Lief? I know you're here, I can smell your fear." She flipped the bed with ease and blew a hole in the closet door big enough for her to see that he wasn't there. "Come out, come out where ever you are! Come face Death like a man, you son of a bitch!" She stomped to the next room and repeated the process, moving around in the house until all of the rooms had been checked. It hit her, perhaps he wasn't here yet... that the light had been a beacon of some sort. She growled to herself and did her first half Trace to make herself invisible. Oh, he would have a little surprise when she found him!
About ten minutes later, a woman came home. She was a well-dressed woman, with auburn hair and hazel eyes like Miranda's, but her face was wrong. Her face was not very attractive, to say the least. She had the swollen belly of an expectant mother, and Shada's heart went out to her, knowing that in a few short moments the father was going to be a dead man.
Sure enough, the man she had been looking for had come home. He looked just like he did the day Miranda died, though he had updated his looks to fit the times. He embraced the woman and called her Emily. He rubbed the woman's belly fondly and crooned to it before he went up the stairs, a strange look on his face. Shada had watched this all from the balcony on the second floor, so he had to walk past her to get to where ever he had been going.
"Emily, get out of the house!" He shouted, seeing the mess she had created.
"What's wrong, Lief?"
Just get out now! There's someone in the house!" Yes, there was, but Shada had no use for the woman and her child. She wanted Lief and that was it. The downstairs door slammed and Shada heard the woman's footsteps retreating in the distance.
"You found me, did you?" He asked, eyes searching. "I was wondering when this day would come."
"Oh did you? Good, then you know why I'm here." Shada made her voice appear to come from all around him, an omnipresence, if you will.
"I do. And I want you to know that I did not kill her. I loved her."
"Oh, like you claimed to love me? Like you claimed to love ever single woman in the fucking building?"
"No, I loved her. I loved her with all of my soul. I really mean that."
"You didn't and you know it. Miranda was gay, the only reason she even fell in love with you in the first place was because of your aura." She circled him, still invisible due to the half-Trace.
"She was gay?"
"Don't play stupid, Lief. You knew she was gay, that's why you doted on her. You thought you could get under my skin by going through her." Shada snapped.
"No.."
"Aye, you did. I know you did. That was why you had her send that note to me. You wanted to see if I had fallen for you yet. And guess what? I didn't, and I haven't."
"The fact you're here now tells me otherwise." Shada began to laugh at him, hard and cynically.
"Please, Lief. I'm here to kill you. I've never held feelings for you. For the Goddess' sake, why don't you wake up and smell the O negative? I'm different than the other girls. I'm immune to your bullshit. Wanna know why? I'm the Devil's daughter. I'm a Demon."
"A Demon?" He seemed lost for a moment.
"You once told me that I was an enigma to you, because you couldn't read me like you could the others. That's why. I am Satan's daughter." She came fully back, to where he could see her; she was standing in front of him.
"I don't believe you."
"You wouldn't, you sad excuse of a man. You think of yourself as the Gods' gift to women, but you're not. But I see someone was taken in by your bullshit. Emily was it?"
"You leave her out of this! She has nothing to do with you and I!"
"Oh, I think she does. She's carrying your child, is she not?" He was getting angry now. Scared and angry, a potent mix.
"You leave her alone."
"Lucky for you, I have come for you and not her, is all I am going to say. You are going to pay for what you did to me, and what you did to Miranda. Get ready to die!" She lunged at him, which he dodged deftly. She screamed and lunged for him again, this time grabbing him, though they both broke through the banister and fell to the main floor of the house. She landed solidly on his chest with her knees, but he shoved her off him and sent her sprawling across the floor.
"I wanted you to be my woman, Shada. I wanted to rule the night with you, that is why I Turned you! I wanted nothing more than to be able to bury myself inside you each night and take my fill, but you told me no. You injured me and you cast some sort of magick over me. But I wanted you all the more. I gave you to Azazel so he might break you of your wild streak, but as I can tell, he didn't do a good job of it." She shrieked in fury and decked him in the face, knocking him back to the floor. Her eyes were black and her fangs were out; his were out as well, and his face was contorted with rage. "Miranda was just the first step. I knew if I chose her first that you would get jealous and pursue me as well."
"You disgust me!" She screamed at him. "I hate you!"
"No, you don't, Shada. You love me. You stand before me because you love me, and you know it. You couldn't stand that I had chosen Miranda over you, I could see it on your face! I can still see it now!" The old Lief was back now. He still thought all women loved him, even when he knew in his heart that she hated him. She moved quickly and kicked him square in the chest, knocking him into the stone fireplace.
"You wish I loved you, Lief. You wish that I had given myself up to you like you wanted me to."
"Oh no. You did. You gave yourself up to me better than I had ever imagined. I took everything from you. Your blood, you life, your virginity and then your friend. You had nothing left but me. But you threw it all away. And for what?"
"This." She suddenly appeared in front of him and grabbed him by his now disheveled golden mane and slammed his head into the stones of the fireplace repeatedly until the back of his head resembled nothing more than raw meat in a bone casing. He reared back and punched her, his fist colliding with her sternum, breaking it audibly. She hit the far wall of the house with a groan, breaking the interior wall of the stairs as she flew.
"Shada. Shada. Shada. You will never be able to beat me. You know this, don't you? I am your Sire, and far superior to you. There is no way that I'm going to allow you to keep this up. You're destroying my home."
"Fuck. You." She snapped, picking herself up from the floor.
"Oh, I plan to. I'm going to make sure you follow me to the ends of the earth." He was healing as he walked toward her, his head regaining its shape by itself. He reached for the button of his pants but she was faster. She took a running start and planted both of her bare feet into the middle of his chest. She hit the floor hard enough to fall through it and he broke through the fireplace wall, showering him with broken bits of brick and dust.
"You will never touch me again, Lief. You are going to die here, but I am going to make sure you suffer first." She jumped out of the hole she had made and rushed him, grabbing him by his hair again. "Just you wait, Lief. You and I are going to spend a lot of time together. So much you will be sick to death of seeing my face." She laughed crudely and dragged him from the hole his body had created, across the room, out of the house and down the front steps.
A group of people were gathered around, including Emily, Lief's pregnant...whatever she was to him.
"It would be wise to disperse, unless you would like to die as well." She snapped gruffly.
"Where are you taking my husband?" Emily asked, tears in her eyes.
"None of your concern. My suggestion to you, Miss, is to find someone else. Lief is not going to be around to see his child born." Shada pushed her way through an angry crowd, all of whom tried to break her hold on Lief's neck, which she had grabbed shortly before coming outside, but were unable to since they were Mortal and she was not.
The shouts of angry people, the crying she knew to be Emily's and the sounds of distant sirens were enough to make her scream. And when she did, the entire block was reduced to rubble and bodies. Nightshade Antoinette Angeheliiratiaa Kaaviha De Embrell had finally gotten her prey and she was not going to let him go so easily.
She found an old bomb shelter on the outskirts of town, which seemed fitting since it was just a hole in the ground. She opened the heavy hatch lid and threw Lief down into it before she leapt after him. She landed on his back, which broke with a sickening crunch. He cried out, scratching at the ground, trying to get away from her.
"Superior to me, are you? Heh. You're weak, Lief. And I am going to break you. When I'm finished, your going to wish I had killed you." She snarled at him, again grabbing him by his throat and dragging him to the back of the dark space, though she could see perfectly. Immediately, she found some lead pipes lying on the ground. She grabbed them and bent them around Lief's wrists, twisting them together so he would not be able to slip free. She knew from what he had told her that he couldn't Trace if something was holding him back, and this seemed like a fitting thing to use.
She also found several ropes that looked like they were supposed to be a clothes line, but she used it to tie his wrists to the ceiling beams above their heads. Stepping back, she watched him squirm and try to Trace.
"You were the one stupid enough to explain to me all of the Baninae abilities. I'm well prepared for whatever you try to do to escape." She snapped her elbow back into place; the aching had begun to get on her nerves. She rolled her shoulders and cracked her knuckles. "Are you ready to pay for your misdeeds, Lief? Are you ready to give your life to me?" Her eyes were cold, and she seemed to have lost all of her humanity.
"You're a madwoman!"
"Now, Lief, there's no need for name calling!" She conjured a wicked looking tool and showed it to him.
"What's that for?" He was shaking, but he tried to appear stoney, like she was.
"Oh, you'll see. And then you won't!" She laughed wickedly and came at him with the tool. He tried to get away, but his bonds held fast. She grabbed him by his chin and made him look at her. She forced the tool into his left eye, which held the lid open enough so that she could remove the eye. She gripped the eyeball in her claws and pulled; the optical nerve stretched and ripped free of his skull with a sickening squelching noise. All he felt was pain and instantly his brain kicked his sight into his other eye. He screamed.
"Stop it! Stop!"
"Oh no Lief. Not on your life." She tossed the offending organ over her shoulder and removed the tool from his face. His eyelid flapped down uselessly. Then she proceeded to remove his other eye. He was blind!
"You're a monster! I wish I had just let you die!"
"I get that a lot, so you can just get in line!" She squealed with laughter and tossed the eye over her shoulder. Oh, she had just started with him and he was already screaming for her to stop. What a joke. She snorted and made the item in her hand disappear from where ever it had come from. "Y'see Lief, I'm going to take everything from you and make you regrow it. Everyday I am going to do the same thing, first with your eyes, then your mouth, your ears, and your chest, which means your organs, luv. You are going to be just an empty vessel. But, since that isn't how the Baninae die, you will regenerate everything I have taken from you. And, with time, you will break and beg me to kill you, and at which time I may or may not consent to do. Ya never know. I mean, come on, we can do this forever you know. All we have is time."
"They will come for you. My friends will come."
"Nah, no one cares about you, hunnie. The townspeople were happy to see you go. Emily was probably the happiest. No one will miss you. And so, this will end you. I know it will. But, if I don't kill you, I will just leave you here and be on my merry way. I will seal you in this hole and that will be the end of you."
"You wouldn't. I know you, you're bluffing."
"That's the beauty of it! I'm not joking! I plan to do just as I've told you, and here ya thought what, that I was just going to let this go, to allow you to live your life and forget all about what you did to Miranda! What a joker you are!" She laughed as if he had told a funny joke and slapped his chest hard enough to make him cough and wheeze. "All right, enough talk. Let's continue with the fun, shall we?"
Shada did just as she had told him and reveled in the way he screamed until she had cut out his tongue. Then he made strange noises, that she enjoyed with all the vigor of a woman at a party. Oh, she had the upper hand, and she was enjoying herself. She'd even gone so far to tear out his finger and toenails, taking great pride in doing so.
Lief looked like a rug when she was done with him, his body cavity was empty and blood was everywhere. The pile of organs that she had removed from him was big and would get bigger as she repeated the steps. She wondered how long it would take him to snap and beg her to kill him. But instead, she sat down next to the pile of bloody organs and pawed through them, seeing what she could do with them. An idea sprang to mind and she began to snap bones, rip flesh and do what she was planning. To make him his own funeral outfit from his own organs. A few hundred would do the trick.
A few nights later, as she was returning to the place she had been keeping Lief, she was caught by the townspeople. It was said there was a beast stealing men from their beds and killing them. Now, Shada wasn't the one doing it, but since she had publicly dragged Lief's pathetic carcass from his home and down the city streets, they assumed she was the one doing it.
And thus, the hunt was on.
She managed to run, but since it was daylight, she was in a weaker state, even though she had managed to teach her body to accept the light for a few more hours than she was naturally able, but she was still weakened. She could only keep running for so long....
She managed to break away from the mob chasing her, hiding away in a natural cave for a while, contemplating how long it would be before the Mortals gave up on the search and left her alone. She figured it would be at least until dark. She sat down in the dirt and waited, scared to her core, not knowing what they would do to her if they caught her. She had no idea that she was soon to find out.
About an hour or so later, a Mortal stumbled on her cave, and before she could do anything about it, he called to the others, effectively blocking her escape in the cave. Screaming in her native tongue, she knew she was caught. She had been arrogant, and this was what she deserved.
The men bound her with rough ropes, the twine scratching her flesh. They called her a monster, they spit on her and they tied her to their horses, so that she couldn't get away and dragged her the few short miles back to town.
Rocks and sticks bruised her as she went, wishing this would just be over. The pain was making her head ache, though it was nothing compared to the humiliation of being caught.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, they finally made it to town. They unhitched her from the saddles and let her arms relax. She moaned, writhing in pain. It hurt.. her whole body hurt.
"Let's go. Take it to the stocks." A male voice commanded. Hands grabbed her arms, and dragged her; she knew they had to be Immortal, there was no Mortal alive that would be able to drag her this easily. Still, she didn't really care about that, she just wanted to know what the Hell they were going to do to her. They lifted her higher off the ground, hitting her head, quite solidly on the bottom of something, which made star bursts erupt in her vision. She hissed at them, cursing them in as many languages as she dared to. One of the men chuckled, seeming to understand what she was saying, which made her more angry.
"Don't you worry, you won't live long enough to make good on your threats." He said, yanking her arms into the stockade and slamming down the locking mechanism. She hissed at him again, showing her fangs to him. He merely grinned and shook his head at her, before walking away with his buddy. She was left there, at the mercy of the people in the marketplace after that.
Hours passed and it was clear that something bad was going to happen. She could hear the distant sound of hammers and a feeling of dread coursed through her system. What could they be building? Hopefully a house or something, instead of what she knew it had to be: a gallows.
Something slimy hit her cheek, startling her. Instinctively, she tried to move her wrist, but was unable to. Her sense of smell told her it was something rotten, which made her look up angrily. A group of young children were standing not but five feet from her, rotten tomatoes in hand. She snarled at them, her eyes turning black as pitch.
"Throw that at me, and see what I do to you!" They mocked her, which made her more angry, and she started to fight the stocks, tried to break herself free.
"Peace, be still, Creature. Allow me to read to you from the scriptures." A thin man with bright blond hair and calming brown eyes approached her, laying a hand on her wrist. She looked up at him with little more than hatred on her face.
"Trust me, peace is the last thing I'm getting." She growled. He looked taken aback.
"Everyone deserves a chance at salvation." He said. "Even those who have chosen a life of sin." She could do nothing but laugh.
"Please, spare me. The last thing I want to hear is that." His grip tightened on the book in his free hand.
"You are to die this night, wouldn't it be better to have your spirit clean before you meet this end?" She seemed to mull it over, her eyes changing to a deep green.
"Eh, do what you wish. I can do nothing to stop you anyway." It wouldn't matter what this man said to her, she was damned anyway one looked at it. Her father was the Devil, after all.
The man began to speak, reading from the book; she turned a deaf ear to him, watching the sky continue to darken as the sun went down. Sometime during the course of his reading, he threw something on her, presumably holy water, since he was a Priest.
It ran down her face, leaving a burning trail in its wake. She could literally feel the blisters that welted her face from it as she started screaming, and fighting the stockade again. She managed to get one arm free, which didn't help since her head was still caught. She shrieked this time, trying to get free to wipe the burning liquid from her face, but was unable to. Her blackening eyes went to the Priest again, who was staring at her with his mouth open. She screamed at him, cursing him and his to a thousand years of torture before she slumped, the fight leaving her. There was nothing she could do, nothing at all, other than wait for the stuff to evaporate. She added his face to the list of people she was going to kill when she got free, muttering to herself.
It wasn't too long before they took her from the stockade, forcing her to walk through what could easily be called a gauntlet of people toward just what she thought, a gallows. She was forced up the stairs until she tripped on the skirts of the gowns she was wearing, in which case they dragged her to the platform.
The Magistrate read off her crimes as the hangman placed a black satchel over her head, settling the noose over that. Her bound hands made it impossible to Trace, like she so desperately wanted to, instead forcing her to endure this humiliation further. She strained to hear what the man was saying, knowing that half of what he had said already were fabricated lies. Sure, she was a Witch, but she hadn't cast against anyone, it wasn't something she did. Apparently, they had used her as an example, of what would happen to anyone who was a Witch. She was appalled that they would make up anything to kill someone these days; it wasn't how she had grown up, after all. This was a str-- suddenly her stomach jumped into her throat, she heard a really loud popping sound in her neck, which hurt for a split second and dulled immediately. A white noise like sound entered her ears, like a roar, and then she knew no more. Shada had been hanged to death. For the first time, a Baninae had been caught and hanged, fortunately though that wasn't how Baninae died, and a few days later, she gasped awake.
Soil and fabric pressed against her face, entering her mouth and nose. She was choking.... she was choking! Immediately as this thought entered her brain, she started fighting her way to get air, pawing through whatever it was that was on top of her. Her mind was fuzzy, as if something was covering her brain, like a blanket. She wasn't sure what happened to her, she just knew that she needed air for the first time in centuries.
Air! I need air! That thought raced through her mind as she neared the surface, closer, closer. Her clawed hand burst through the earth, reaching, pushing earth away so she could pull herself out.
Her head popped free and she gasped for air, clawing at her mouth to remove the blockage. Her mind started to feed her bits of the information she had been missing and one thing became clear: They had buried her under other bodies. They had buried her. She looked down, seeing the remnants of flesh and other fabrics other than the scarlet satin of her gown. They had buried her. She'd had to dig her way out of the grave, fighting for air.
Her frazzled mind began to make sense of everything, making her very, very angry. A pang sent her groaning to her knees and she knew it had been some time since she had fed properly, the death aside. The wind rustled her hair, throwing the scent of two Mortals her direction. Her head came up with a snap, eye glowing darkly in her skull. She had to feed.... she rose to her feet, her skirts dragging around her. Her foot hit a headstone, making her stumble, growling at herself. She didn't care about anything right now.. she wanted blood and she could smell it nearby.
Rounding the fence, sectioning off the part of the cemetery she'd been buried in, the scent got stronger. Keeping her footsteps light, she hid herself behind a tree, watching. It was a man and his son, and the boy couldn't have been more than twelve or thirteen. She smiled to herself. She would feed well this night. And then she would return to Lief in his hole.
"Father, you know it is forbidden to come here after dark, we could get into a lot of trouble!"
"I know, son, but I wanted to visit your mother's grave, and this was the only time I could do it. I promise, we won't stay long." Oh, he couldn't promise that, not with a predator lurking just outside of their view.
She waited for them to leave before she struck, taking down the boy first, while the father tried his best to fight her off. But before too long, she was full and there were two more bodies to add to her list of victims. Happily, she strode through town, breaking into houses and killing each member of her shit list, starting with the sodding Priest who had doused her in holy water. His death was the sweetest.
And with her justice complete, she returned to Lief to begin his torture anew.
Around three hundred years later, Lief finally broke down and begged her to kill him. She laughed at him at first, telling him she would when the time was right, as she tore his eyes out again for what seemed like the millionth time. All he did was sob and continue to beg her.
"Patience. Your final outfit isn't ready yet. When it is, I will allow you to die. Until then, shut the Hell up." She told him sternly. That just made it worse, until she had to remove his tongue. Luckily she had removed his teeth first; she had found that he liked to try to bite her whenever she did this.
Humming a bit to herself, she put the finishing touches on the outfit she had made for him, or his organs and such. three hundred years of work.. he had given her more of a show than she had imagined She was surprised to learn that, but then she wasn't surprised that he would try to defy her like that. She was used to it. Then again, she had been starving him, forcing him to watch her feed when his eyes had come back, only to remove them again. She had done everything she had felt necessary to him, and finally she was ready to call it even with him. He had paid for what he had done to Miranda.
That night, Shada dragged a still slowly healing, starved Lief above ground for his death. She had made a large campfire and the flames were hot enough that she could feel the heat from the distance she was standing now. A wicked smile crossed her lips as she thought about what she was going to do. She forced his now foul smelling organ clothing on his body and marched him toward the fire. The sun was high in the air and the beams were starting to make him smoke, which meant that his healing was not working right, which she had counted on in the first place.
"Are you ready to finally embrace death?" She asked. "Ah good. Emily is here." No she wasn't. But he didn't know that. "She's laughing at you Lief. She wants me to throw you into the fire." He made a noise in his throat, which only made her laugh. "Don't worry, she's okay. She found someone else who would marry her. She and the child...oh wait, why the Hell am I telling you this? You can't hear me." She sighed and shoved him forward. "Come on, you bastard. I'll give you what you want. You finally earned it." He tripped and she yanked him to his feet roughly. This was finally it. It was finally over. Lief Zombardi was going to die.
The sunlight was already starting to melt his skin, which was making him fidget in his bonds. Annoyed, she shoved him hard enough for him to sprawl head over heels into the fire. The embers hissed and the fire itself turned a sickly green color. "Burn in Hell." She snarled, watching him burn; he made a high pitched gurgling noise for a while, until it suddenly stopped. As soon as it did, it seemed that whatever had been making her into a crazed serial killer had broken as well. She fell to her knees, clutching her head and screamed, long and loudly, bloody tears coursing down her face.
Whatever it had been, it wasn't her. She was not a murderer. The Baninae did not practice killing, unless on the battlefield, and only in certain situations. But she was free! Her mind was clear now and the weight of Miranda's death had finally lifted.
"NIGHTSHADE!" Azazel's voice startled her back into reality, and the old fear sprang up. She wished whatever had given her the psychopathic edge had stayed longer, but it hadn't. "What have you done?"
"I killed him. I finally killed him." She began to laugh and cry at the same time, hysteria coming over her. "I actually killed him!" He stopped a few feet from her, and looked at the fire where Lief's remains were burning. She Traced away from the fire, lest he get any ideas. "I killed your friend, Lief. I tortured him until he begged for death." Instead of getting angry, Azazel stood there and watched her, as if he were just looking at her for the first time.
"YOU? You tortured him?"
"I did, and I'll do it to you too, you better stay away from me!" She screamed at him.
"You actually tortured someone." He was trying to understand how she, the woman who was now shying away from him, could ever torture anyone. He knew her far better than that. "You, Nightshade De Embrell-Doom, killed someone?"
"I KILLED HIM!" She screamed at him, laughing at the same time. He shook his head and sighed.
"Come on, let's go home, my little madwoman."
"Don't you touch me!" She was trembling but not from fear. Her emotions were so haywire, she had no idea what to feel, or even if she should. She was at her wit's end. He raised his hands in defeat.
"I won't, I just want to take you home. You need to rest."
"I don't need anything from you! Just leave me alone!" To his credit, he didn't get angry. Perhaps it was because he had no idea what she would do if he did get angry, or perhaps he was proud of her for defying him and actually killing her nemesis. Either way, he stepped back and waited for her to calm down. All he wanted to do was get her home and in bed. She looked like she needed to feed too.
"Nightshade...Shada. Come home. I need you..." He pleaded with her. He didn't know if she was going to respond to him or not. "Please, I want to be with you again."
"No... No. You want to beat me, just like before. Well, I've had enough of you. I'm not going to let you do it. Never. Never." He sighed again and Traced to her, grabbed her and Traced home. She was still repeating the word never when he stripped her, washed her and put her to bed.
With a grimace, she scooted to the foot of the bed, where she sat for a long time, her head in her hands. Miranda was dead. Her best friend in the whole world was dead, and Lief had known. The knowledge fueled the raging fire inside her again and she knew what she had to do: hunt him down and make him pay.
She rose from the bed and went to take a shower, she needed the hot water to warm her cold body, and the refreshing feel would help to ease her mind. She had expected a bit of pain from her wounds, but found there were none, which meant that Azazel had healed her after she had passed out. She hated to think about him touching her, but what could she really do except scrub herself until she felt clean again.
Leaning her head against the wall of the shower, she sighed and squeezed her eyes shut. Her mind just couldn't seem to fathom the fact that Miranda was dead. It hurt her, it really did.
Vaguely, she heard the bathroom door open.
"Nightshade." His voice was gruff, as if he had been drinking again, and she didn't want him here, not now, and not ever.
"What, Azazel?" She asked, voice full of tears again. "What do you want?" She hoped that he wasn't going to say her, or try to make love to her at that moment, she was in no mood to fight him.
"Why did you snap at me? Why did you tell me you didn't love me? Who is Angheliiratiaa?" Questions seemed to tumble from his mouth, some of the words slurred. He had said the name Angheliiratiaa...How did he know about Liir? "Answer me." He said.
"Azazel... I was born with..."
"That's the same load of bullshit you told me earlier. I want the truth from you." She didn't have to see him to know that he was getting angry.
"What do you want me to say? I was telling you the truth."
"I want to know why you don't love me anymore. I want to know why you are still here. I thought you still loved me, that you were here because you wanted to be with me again. But you don't do you?" Okay, nothing was making sense. When had Liir....oh. Liir must have taken over while she was unconscious and told Azazel these things. Fuck... what the Hell was she supposed to do?
"Azazel...." She began. He ripped the curtain back from the shower, effectively tearing the scarlet fabric from the rings.
"I want you to tell me the truth. I want to hear you tell me you don't love me anymore." He growled at her. She didn't want to talk to him in this state. She didn't even want to be in the same room as him right now. "TELL ME!"
"I can't. I can't talk--" He slapped her, his massive palm leaving an imprint on her skin.
"I said tell me." He snapped. "Or do you want me to hit you again?"
"No, Azazel, please..." He raised his hand to slap her again, and stopped. "I...I don't love you. I came here to tell you about Pandora and that was it."
"That's what I thought." He turned his head and looked at the wall for a moment. "And Angheliiratiaa?"
"Liir is my soul sister. She is a part of me." Shada told him, her back flush against the wall of the bathtub. "I wouldn't lie to you." Actually, she would, just not about this, when he was as close to her as he was. This was all kinds of bad news. She watched as the muscles in his jaw clenched as he looked at her.
"You BITCH!" In a flash, he had struck her with enough force to crack the wall behind her, a feat since she had pretty much been trying to disappear into it. "You think you can just come back here to tell me you killed our only child and then leave? You belong to ME and I will tell you when you can leave! I tell you when you don't love me anymore!" He hit her again, for good measure, bloodying her nose. The weak cry that accidentally escaped her mouth seemed to stop him from hitting her again. His bleary green eyes looked her over and he lowered his hand.
"Shower." He commanded, turning on his heel and leaving the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.
When he left, she slid down the cracked wall to her knees and cried. This was a nightmare, and coming back here was a mistake. She knew that now. She never should have come here. Never. And she had to get out, get out before he killed her.
When she was dressed, she exited the bathroom and immediately checked to see if Azazel was in her room. He wasn't, not even in the downstairs living room, much to her relief. She had made up her mind, she was going to get out of here, even if it meant she would have to jump from the window. Her window overlooked the cliffs, and the drop was a long one. She didn't care. She had to get out of here and away from him. Now that he knew about Liir, and that she'd had no intention of becoming his Queen, it was dangerous to stay. Besides, she had to find Lief. He owed her his life in exchange for Miranda's death.
She hurriedly packed a few things and placed them in a back that she used Magick to shrink to a size where she could conceal it in her pocket before rushing down her stairs to the living room.
"Going somewhere?" Apparently she hadn't checked very well because there he was, sitting in the shadows behind the stairs.
"Um..." She couldn't speak. He stood up and came around the stairs to look at her, his green eyes dusky.
"I asked you a question, Nightshade. I expect an answer." He snapped. She flinched.
"Aye." She said, lifting her chin. "I'm going to kill your best friend." He began to laugh, cynically, maniacally even.
"Oh, you think so? And what if I say you can't?"
"I don't care. I'm going and not even you are going to stop me." She felt more and more brave as she spoke. He just stood there and laughed at her.
"I see. You think I am going to allow you to leave this castle again, to find and kill my friend. Are you out of your damned mind?" He lifted an arm, but this time she didn't flinch. Instead, she eyed him. He leaned against the stairs.
"I don't need your permission." She said. "I AM going, whether you like it or not." He took a swig from a bottle she hadn't seen him holding before now and eyed her with jaundiced eyes.
"Lucky for you I have things to do today." He growled at her. "I give you two weeks. If you think I won't know how or where to find you, you are mistaken. All you need to know is I will find you and you WILL be back here. Now get out of my sight, you fucking whore." She grit her teeth but got away from him as quickly as possible, lest he change his mind. She was free! She was free! And she was going to make sure he didn't find her. His mistake was thinking she would allow him to bring her back here without a fight.
As she cleared the entrance of the castle, she looked up to see Azazel standing on the roof of her tower, looking down on her. She hurriedly ran from the castle and disappeared into the woods. Even after putting miles of distance between herself and the castle, she could have sworn that she could still feel his eyes upon her. It was unnerving, assuredly, but she didn't care. She was free again! Her elation was quickly snatched from her when a hand landed on her shoulder. She screamed and turned around, ready to fight Azazel off, only to find her sister, whom she had not seen since they turned nineteen.
"Lilith! You scared the Hell out of me!"
"I am sorry, sister. I have news from Father. He wants you to come home." The elder twin told her younger sister. "We are having...problems and we need all the help we can get.
"What does this have to do with me?" Shada asked, shying away from her sister. "Father forsook me when he allowed the doctors in Sunnyvale use me as a pincushion. He forsook me again when I asked him to deliver me from Azazel. He allowed me to be beaten and raped, and now he wants me to come readily to his side? No!"
"Father insists that you come and aid us." Lilith persisted.
"No. He turned his back on me and left me here, so this is me turning my back on him." Shada crossed her arms over her chest.
"You would renounce your own flesh and blood?"
"As Father did to me, aye." Shada said, stubbornly. "He didn't care enough about me to help me when I needed him, why in the Mother's name would I help him?" Lilith's lips thinned but she nodded.
"As you wish, sister. But you will come to regret this decision, I assure you." In a burst of teal colored fire, the elder twin disappeared.
It had been years, far longer than Azazel had 'given' her, and so far she had come across several promising leads only to be disappointed and angry. It seemed the gorgeous Baninae man had just up and disappeared. It irritated her to know that he had gotten away so easily, but then it also hardened her heart against him. He was going to die a severely painful death when she found him, even worse that the one she had imagined all those years ago.
Her Vampiric aura had gotten her by..charming her way in and out of Mortals' lives, using them as sustenance and a place to stay until she learned of her next lead, and then moving on, leaving a house of bodies behind. She made sure to cover her tracks, making the deaths look like suicides or murders. None suspected her of killing the innocents. She was becoming a skilled killer, cold and calculating, and she didn't care anymore. She was obsessed with killing that man, even if it killed her.
Finally, a lead came in. In a small town not far from where she had been staying, there was a man fitting Lief's description living in an old house. For some reason, she had a feeling it actually was him this time, so she took the first coach to the town to see for herself.
When she had arrived there, she did her usual thing of asking people in local taverns about any strange men in the city or town. Instantly, just by hearing some of the drunks talk about him, she knew. She had found him. And he was going to pay. She had told them that he was her husband and he had sent for her, and they had believed her; apparently they believed she was pretty enough to be the man's wife, though with the way they were looking at her, they thought she was just a woman. They were thinking about catching her after she left the bar.
Hearing them talk with her preternatural hearing, she smirked to herself. Let them come. I will show them that I am no ordinary woman. Liir kept silent, as she had since Shada had yelled at her for speaking to Azazel the way she had. Sure enough, though, as soon as she was about three blocks from the tavern, well away from the prying eyes of pedestrians, the two men tried to attack her. She'd pretended not to know that they were following her, but she had kept a sharp ear to them; their intoxicated scents filled her nostrils with the stench of unwashed bodies and booze. Oh yea, this was going to be a good night.
The first man grabbed her by her arms and yanked her back against his body, laughing.
"Thought ye would get 'way did ye, girlie?" His breath stank, but she didn't bother speaking. The second man followed his buddy as he dragged her into the alley.
"We's gonna have a good time, aren't we, girlie? Gonna show us how ye please yer man." The second, smaller man produced a dagger the size of her palm and brandished it at her.
"That's what you think." Her eyes began to glow, which instantly wiped the smirk from the smaller man's face.
"Wot are ye?" He asked her, his voice quaking.
"Something you were stupid enough to think was a defenseless woman." She grabbed the other man's wrist and yanked him over her shoulder, which popped her elbow out of place. She growled in fury and kicked out at the second man, connecting with his privates and sent him flying and screaming in a higher pitch than normal, into some trashcans. The first man, who was up again, tried to strike her face, which she saw coming and dodged, jamming her claws into his guts. Her hand passed through him like a hot knife though butter, tearing him in half.
His buddy, the now castrated man, managed to sink his knife into her kidney, which stunk like fire, though it did nothing but piss her off. She ripped the blade out and threw it at him, catching him in the throat, though it went all the way through and stuck into the bricks of the building behind him. He gurgled and went down; she watched his aura dim and fade, knowing he was dead before walking away. Luckily her dress had been black, otherwise she would have been pissed.
She stepped out of the alleyway and kept walking down the street as if she hadn't just been accosted by two men until she made it to the house Lief was said to occupy. It stood before her, the white bricks gleaming in the moonlight. A light was on in the upper floor. Good. She removed the fashionable, annoying shoes that the women of the time wore and crept up to the house. She let herself inside and crept up the stairs, following his aura trail.
The door was closed when she got to the room, but she wasted no time kicking it in. When the splinters settled, she noticed the room was empty.
"Where are you Lief? I know you're here, I can smell your fear." She flipped the bed with ease and blew a hole in the closet door big enough for her to see that he wasn't there. "Come out, come out where ever you are! Come face Death like a man, you son of a bitch!" She stomped to the next room and repeated the process, moving around in the house until all of the rooms had been checked. It hit her, perhaps he wasn't here yet... that the light had been a beacon of some sort. She growled to herself and did her first half Trace to make herself invisible. Oh, he would have a little surprise when she found him!
About ten minutes later, a woman came home. She was a well-dressed woman, with auburn hair and hazel eyes like Miranda's, but her face was wrong. Her face was not very attractive, to say the least. She had the swollen belly of an expectant mother, and Shada's heart went out to her, knowing that in a few short moments the father was going to be a dead man.
Sure enough, the man she had been looking for had come home. He looked just like he did the day Miranda died, though he had updated his looks to fit the times. He embraced the woman and called her Emily. He rubbed the woman's belly fondly and crooned to it before he went up the stairs, a strange look on his face. Shada had watched this all from the balcony on the second floor, so he had to walk past her to get to where ever he had been going.
"Emily, get out of the house!" He shouted, seeing the mess she had created.
"What's wrong, Lief?"
Just get out now! There's someone in the house!" Yes, there was, but Shada had no use for the woman and her child. She wanted Lief and that was it. The downstairs door slammed and Shada heard the woman's footsteps retreating in the distance.
"You found me, did you?" He asked, eyes searching. "I was wondering when this day would come."
"Oh did you? Good, then you know why I'm here." Shada made her voice appear to come from all around him, an omnipresence, if you will.
"I do. And I want you to know that I did not kill her. I loved her."
"Oh, like you claimed to love me? Like you claimed to love ever single woman in the fucking building?"
"No, I loved her. I loved her with all of my soul. I really mean that."
"You didn't and you know it. Miranda was gay, the only reason she even fell in love with you in the first place was because of your aura." She circled him, still invisible due to the half-Trace.
"She was gay?"
"Don't play stupid, Lief. You knew she was gay, that's why you doted on her. You thought you could get under my skin by going through her." Shada snapped.
"No.."
"Aye, you did. I know you did. That was why you had her send that note to me. You wanted to see if I had fallen for you yet. And guess what? I didn't, and I haven't."
"The fact you're here now tells me otherwise." Shada began to laugh at him, hard and cynically.
"Please, Lief. I'm here to kill you. I've never held feelings for you. For the Goddess' sake, why don't you wake up and smell the O negative? I'm different than the other girls. I'm immune to your bullshit. Wanna know why? I'm the Devil's daughter. I'm a Demon."
"A Demon?" He seemed lost for a moment.
"You once told me that I was an enigma to you, because you couldn't read me like you could the others. That's why. I am Satan's daughter." She came fully back, to where he could see her; she was standing in front of him.
"I don't believe you."
"You wouldn't, you sad excuse of a man. You think of yourself as the Gods' gift to women, but you're not. But I see someone was taken in by your bullshit. Emily was it?"
"You leave her out of this! She has nothing to do with you and I!"
"Oh, I think she does. She's carrying your child, is she not?" He was getting angry now. Scared and angry, a potent mix.
"You leave her alone."
"Lucky for you, I have come for you and not her, is all I am going to say. You are going to pay for what you did to me, and what you did to Miranda. Get ready to die!" She lunged at him, which he dodged deftly. She screamed and lunged for him again, this time grabbing him, though they both broke through the banister and fell to the main floor of the house. She landed solidly on his chest with her knees, but he shoved her off him and sent her sprawling across the floor.
"I wanted you to be my woman, Shada. I wanted to rule the night with you, that is why I Turned you! I wanted nothing more than to be able to bury myself inside you each night and take my fill, but you told me no. You injured me and you cast some sort of magick over me. But I wanted you all the more. I gave you to Azazel so he might break you of your wild streak, but as I can tell, he didn't do a good job of it." She shrieked in fury and decked him in the face, knocking him back to the floor. Her eyes were black and her fangs were out; his were out as well, and his face was contorted with rage. "Miranda was just the first step. I knew if I chose her first that you would get jealous and pursue me as well."
"You disgust me!" She screamed at him. "I hate you!"
"No, you don't, Shada. You love me. You stand before me because you love me, and you know it. You couldn't stand that I had chosen Miranda over you, I could see it on your face! I can still see it now!" The old Lief was back now. He still thought all women loved him, even when he knew in his heart that she hated him. She moved quickly and kicked him square in the chest, knocking him into the stone fireplace.
"You wish I loved you, Lief. You wish that I had given myself up to you like you wanted me to."
"Oh no. You did. You gave yourself up to me better than I had ever imagined. I took everything from you. Your blood, you life, your virginity and then your friend. You had nothing left but me. But you threw it all away. And for what?"
"This." She suddenly appeared in front of him and grabbed him by his now disheveled golden mane and slammed his head into the stones of the fireplace repeatedly until the back of his head resembled nothing more than raw meat in a bone casing. He reared back and punched her, his fist colliding with her sternum, breaking it audibly. She hit the far wall of the house with a groan, breaking the interior wall of the stairs as she flew.
"Shada. Shada. Shada. You will never be able to beat me. You know this, don't you? I am your Sire, and far superior to you. There is no way that I'm going to allow you to keep this up. You're destroying my home."
"Fuck. You." She snapped, picking herself up from the floor.
"Oh, I plan to. I'm going to make sure you follow me to the ends of the earth." He was healing as he walked toward her, his head regaining its shape by itself. He reached for the button of his pants but she was faster. She took a running start and planted both of her bare feet into the middle of his chest. She hit the floor hard enough to fall through it and he broke through the fireplace wall, showering him with broken bits of brick and dust.
"You will never touch me again, Lief. You are going to die here, but I am going to make sure you suffer first." She jumped out of the hole she had made and rushed him, grabbing him by his hair again. "Just you wait, Lief. You and I are going to spend a lot of time together. So much you will be sick to death of seeing my face." She laughed crudely and dragged him from the hole his body had created, across the room, out of the house and down the front steps.
A group of people were gathered around, including Emily, Lief's pregnant...whatever she was to him.
"It would be wise to disperse, unless you would like to die as well." She snapped gruffly.
"Where are you taking my husband?" Emily asked, tears in her eyes.
"None of your concern. My suggestion to you, Miss, is to find someone else. Lief is not going to be around to see his child born." Shada pushed her way through an angry crowd, all of whom tried to break her hold on Lief's neck, which she had grabbed shortly before coming outside, but were unable to since they were Mortal and she was not.
The shouts of angry people, the crying she knew to be Emily's and the sounds of distant sirens were enough to make her scream. And when she did, the entire block was reduced to rubble and bodies. Nightshade Antoinette Angeheliiratiaa Kaaviha De Embrell had finally gotten her prey and she was not going to let him go so easily.
She found an old bomb shelter on the outskirts of town, which seemed fitting since it was just a hole in the ground. She opened the heavy hatch lid and threw Lief down into it before she leapt after him. She landed on his back, which broke with a sickening crunch. He cried out, scratching at the ground, trying to get away from her.
"Superior to me, are you? Heh. You're weak, Lief. And I am going to break you. When I'm finished, your going to wish I had killed you." She snarled at him, again grabbing him by his throat and dragging him to the back of the dark space, though she could see perfectly. Immediately, she found some lead pipes lying on the ground. She grabbed them and bent them around Lief's wrists, twisting them together so he would not be able to slip free. She knew from what he had told her that he couldn't Trace if something was holding him back, and this seemed like a fitting thing to use.
She also found several ropes that looked like they were supposed to be a clothes line, but she used it to tie his wrists to the ceiling beams above their heads. Stepping back, she watched him squirm and try to Trace.
"You were the one stupid enough to explain to me all of the Baninae abilities. I'm well prepared for whatever you try to do to escape." She snapped her elbow back into place; the aching had begun to get on her nerves. She rolled her shoulders and cracked her knuckles. "Are you ready to pay for your misdeeds, Lief? Are you ready to give your life to me?" Her eyes were cold, and she seemed to have lost all of her humanity.
"You're a madwoman!"
"Now, Lief, there's no need for name calling!" She conjured a wicked looking tool and showed it to him.
"What's that for?" He was shaking, but he tried to appear stoney, like she was.
"Oh, you'll see. And then you won't!" She laughed wickedly and came at him with the tool. He tried to get away, but his bonds held fast. She grabbed him by his chin and made him look at her. She forced the tool into his left eye, which held the lid open enough so that she could remove the eye. She gripped the eyeball in her claws and pulled; the optical nerve stretched and ripped free of his skull with a sickening squelching noise. All he felt was pain and instantly his brain kicked his sight into his other eye. He screamed.
"Stop it! Stop!"
"Oh no Lief. Not on your life." She tossed the offending organ over her shoulder and removed the tool from his face. His eyelid flapped down uselessly. Then she proceeded to remove his other eye. He was blind!
"You're a monster! I wish I had just let you die!"
"I get that a lot, so you can just get in line!" She squealed with laughter and tossed the eye over her shoulder. Oh, she had just started with him and he was already screaming for her to stop. What a joke. She snorted and made the item in her hand disappear from where ever it had come from. "Y'see Lief, I'm going to take everything from you and make you regrow it. Everyday I am going to do the same thing, first with your eyes, then your mouth, your ears, and your chest, which means your organs, luv. You are going to be just an empty vessel. But, since that isn't how the Baninae die, you will regenerate everything I have taken from you. And, with time, you will break and beg me to kill you, and at which time I may or may not consent to do. Ya never know. I mean, come on, we can do this forever you know. All we have is time."
"They will come for you. My friends will come."
"Nah, no one cares about you, hunnie. The townspeople were happy to see you go. Emily was probably the happiest. No one will miss you. And so, this will end you. I know it will. But, if I don't kill you, I will just leave you here and be on my merry way. I will seal you in this hole and that will be the end of you."
"You wouldn't. I know you, you're bluffing."
"That's the beauty of it! I'm not joking! I plan to do just as I've told you, and here ya thought what, that I was just going to let this go, to allow you to live your life and forget all about what you did to Miranda! What a joker you are!" She laughed as if he had told a funny joke and slapped his chest hard enough to make him cough and wheeze. "All right, enough talk. Let's continue with the fun, shall we?"
Shada did just as she had told him and reveled in the way he screamed until she had cut out his tongue. Then he made strange noises, that she enjoyed with all the vigor of a woman at a party. Oh, she had the upper hand, and she was enjoying herself. She'd even gone so far to tear out his finger and toenails, taking great pride in doing so.
Lief looked like a rug when she was done with him, his body cavity was empty and blood was everywhere. The pile of organs that she had removed from him was big and would get bigger as she repeated the steps. She wondered how long it would take him to snap and beg her to kill him. But instead, she sat down next to the pile of bloody organs and pawed through them, seeing what she could do with them. An idea sprang to mind and she began to snap bones, rip flesh and do what she was planning. To make him his own funeral outfit from his own organs. A few hundred would do the trick.
A few nights later, as she was returning to the place she had been keeping Lief, she was caught by the townspeople. It was said there was a beast stealing men from their beds and killing them. Now, Shada wasn't the one doing it, but since she had publicly dragged Lief's pathetic carcass from his home and down the city streets, they assumed she was the one doing it.
And thus, the hunt was on.
She managed to run, but since it was daylight, she was in a weaker state, even though she had managed to teach her body to accept the light for a few more hours than she was naturally able, but she was still weakened. She could only keep running for so long....
She managed to break away from the mob chasing her, hiding away in a natural cave for a while, contemplating how long it would be before the Mortals gave up on the search and left her alone. She figured it would be at least until dark. She sat down in the dirt and waited, scared to her core, not knowing what they would do to her if they caught her. She had no idea that she was soon to find out.
About an hour or so later, a Mortal stumbled on her cave, and before she could do anything about it, he called to the others, effectively blocking her escape in the cave. Screaming in her native tongue, she knew she was caught. She had been arrogant, and this was what she deserved.
The men bound her with rough ropes, the twine scratching her flesh. They called her a monster, they spit on her and they tied her to their horses, so that she couldn't get away and dragged her the few short miles back to town.
Rocks and sticks bruised her as she went, wishing this would just be over. The pain was making her head ache, though it was nothing compared to the humiliation of being caught.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, they finally made it to town. They unhitched her from the saddles and let her arms relax. She moaned, writhing in pain. It hurt.. her whole body hurt.
"Let's go. Take it to the stocks." A male voice commanded. Hands grabbed her arms, and dragged her; she knew they had to be Immortal, there was no Mortal alive that would be able to drag her this easily. Still, she didn't really care about that, she just wanted to know what the Hell they were going to do to her. They lifted her higher off the ground, hitting her head, quite solidly on the bottom of something, which made star bursts erupt in her vision. She hissed at them, cursing them in as many languages as she dared to. One of the men chuckled, seeming to understand what she was saying, which made her more angry.
"Don't you worry, you won't live long enough to make good on your threats." He said, yanking her arms into the stockade and slamming down the locking mechanism. She hissed at him again, showing her fangs to him. He merely grinned and shook his head at her, before walking away with his buddy. She was left there, at the mercy of the people in the marketplace after that.
Hours passed and it was clear that something bad was going to happen. She could hear the distant sound of hammers and a feeling of dread coursed through her system. What could they be building? Hopefully a house or something, instead of what she knew it had to be: a gallows.
Something slimy hit her cheek, startling her. Instinctively, she tried to move her wrist, but was unable to. Her sense of smell told her it was something rotten, which made her look up angrily. A group of young children were standing not but five feet from her, rotten tomatoes in hand. She snarled at them, her eyes turning black as pitch.
"Throw that at me, and see what I do to you!" They mocked her, which made her more angry, and she started to fight the stocks, tried to break herself free.
"Peace, be still, Creature. Allow me to read to you from the scriptures." A thin man with bright blond hair and calming brown eyes approached her, laying a hand on her wrist. She looked up at him with little more than hatred on her face.
"Trust me, peace is the last thing I'm getting." She growled. He looked taken aback.
"Everyone deserves a chance at salvation." He said. "Even those who have chosen a life of sin." She could do nothing but laugh.
"Please, spare me. The last thing I want to hear is that." His grip tightened on the book in his free hand.
"You are to die this night, wouldn't it be better to have your spirit clean before you meet this end?" She seemed to mull it over, her eyes changing to a deep green.
"Eh, do what you wish. I can do nothing to stop you anyway." It wouldn't matter what this man said to her, she was damned anyway one looked at it. Her father was the Devil, after all.
The man began to speak, reading from the book; she turned a deaf ear to him, watching the sky continue to darken as the sun went down. Sometime during the course of his reading, he threw something on her, presumably holy water, since he was a Priest.
It ran down her face, leaving a burning trail in its wake. She could literally feel the blisters that welted her face from it as she started screaming, and fighting the stockade again. She managed to get one arm free, which didn't help since her head was still caught. She shrieked this time, trying to get free to wipe the burning liquid from her face, but was unable to. Her blackening eyes went to the Priest again, who was staring at her with his mouth open. She screamed at him, cursing him and his to a thousand years of torture before she slumped, the fight leaving her. There was nothing she could do, nothing at all, other than wait for the stuff to evaporate. She added his face to the list of people she was going to kill when she got free, muttering to herself.
It wasn't too long before they took her from the stockade, forcing her to walk through what could easily be called a gauntlet of people toward just what she thought, a gallows. She was forced up the stairs until she tripped on the skirts of the gowns she was wearing, in which case they dragged her to the platform.
The Magistrate read off her crimes as the hangman placed a black satchel over her head, settling the noose over that. Her bound hands made it impossible to Trace, like she so desperately wanted to, instead forcing her to endure this humiliation further. She strained to hear what the man was saying, knowing that half of what he had said already were fabricated lies. Sure, she was a Witch, but she hadn't cast against anyone, it wasn't something she did. Apparently, they had used her as an example, of what would happen to anyone who was a Witch. She was appalled that they would make up anything to kill someone these days; it wasn't how she had grown up, after all. This was a str-- suddenly her stomach jumped into her throat, she heard a really loud popping sound in her neck, which hurt for a split second and dulled immediately. A white noise like sound entered her ears, like a roar, and then she knew no more. Shada had been hanged to death. For the first time, a Baninae had been caught and hanged, fortunately though that wasn't how Baninae died, and a few days later, she gasped awake.
Soil and fabric pressed against her face, entering her mouth and nose. She was choking.... she was choking! Immediately as this thought entered her brain, she started fighting her way to get air, pawing through whatever it was that was on top of her. Her mind was fuzzy, as if something was covering her brain, like a blanket. She wasn't sure what happened to her, she just knew that she needed air for the first time in centuries.
Air! I need air! That thought raced through her mind as she neared the surface, closer, closer. Her clawed hand burst through the earth, reaching, pushing earth away so she could pull herself out.
Her head popped free and she gasped for air, clawing at her mouth to remove the blockage. Her mind started to feed her bits of the information she had been missing and one thing became clear: They had buried her under other bodies. They had buried her. She looked down, seeing the remnants of flesh and other fabrics other than the scarlet satin of her gown. They had buried her. She'd had to dig her way out of the grave, fighting for air.
Her frazzled mind began to make sense of everything, making her very, very angry. A pang sent her groaning to her knees and she knew it had been some time since she had fed properly, the death aside. The wind rustled her hair, throwing the scent of two Mortals her direction. Her head came up with a snap, eye glowing darkly in her skull. She had to feed.... she rose to her feet, her skirts dragging around her. Her foot hit a headstone, making her stumble, growling at herself. She didn't care about anything right now.. she wanted blood and she could smell it nearby.
Rounding the fence, sectioning off the part of the cemetery she'd been buried in, the scent got stronger. Keeping her footsteps light, she hid herself behind a tree, watching. It was a man and his son, and the boy couldn't have been more than twelve or thirteen. She smiled to herself. She would feed well this night. And then she would return to Lief in his hole.
"Father, you know it is forbidden to come here after dark, we could get into a lot of trouble!"
"I know, son, but I wanted to visit your mother's grave, and this was the only time I could do it. I promise, we won't stay long." Oh, he couldn't promise that, not with a predator lurking just outside of their view.
She waited for them to leave before she struck, taking down the boy first, while the father tried his best to fight her off. But before too long, she was full and there were two more bodies to add to her list of victims. Happily, she strode through town, breaking into houses and killing each member of her shit list, starting with the sodding Priest who had doused her in holy water. His death was the sweetest.
And with her justice complete, she returned to Lief to begin his torture anew.
Around three hundred years later, Lief finally broke down and begged her to kill him. She laughed at him at first, telling him she would when the time was right, as she tore his eyes out again for what seemed like the millionth time. All he did was sob and continue to beg her.
"Patience. Your final outfit isn't ready yet. When it is, I will allow you to die. Until then, shut the Hell up." She told him sternly. That just made it worse, until she had to remove his tongue. Luckily she had removed his teeth first; she had found that he liked to try to bite her whenever she did this.
Humming a bit to herself, she put the finishing touches on the outfit she had made for him, or his organs and such. three hundred years of work.. he had given her more of a show than she had imagined She was surprised to learn that, but then she wasn't surprised that he would try to defy her like that. She was used to it. Then again, she had been starving him, forcing him to watch her feed when his eyes had come back, only to remove them again. She had done everything she had felt necessary to him, and finally she was ready to call it even with him. He had paid for what he had done to Miranda.
That night, Shada dragged a still slowly healing, starved Lief above ground for his death. She had made a large campfire and the flames were hot enough that she could feel the heat from the distance she was standing now. A wicked smile crossed her lips as she thought about what she was going to do. She forced his now foul smelling organ clothing on his body and marched him toward the fire. The sun was high in the air and the beams were starting to make him smoke, which meant that his healing was not working right, which she had counted on in the first place.
"Are you ready to finally embrace death?" She asked. "Ah good. Emily is here." No she wasn't. But he didn't know that. "She's laughing at you Lief. She wants me to throw you into the fire." He made a noise in his throat, which only made her laugh. "Don't worry, she's okay. She found someone else who would marry her. She and the child...oh wait, why the Hell am I telling you this? You can't hear me." She sighed and shoved him forward. "Come on, you bastard. I'll give you what you want. You finally earned it." He tripped and she yanked him to his feet roughly. This was finally it. It was finally over. Lief Zombardi was going to die.
The sunlight was already starting to melt his skin, which was making him fidget in his bonds. Annoyed, she shoved him hard enough for him to sprawl head over heels into the fire. The embers hissed and the fire itself turned a sickly green color. "Burn in Hell." She snarled, watching him burn; he made a high pitched gurgling noise for a while, until it suddenly stopped. As soon as it did, it seemed that whatever had been making her into a crazed serial killer had broken as well. She fell to her knees, clutching her head and screamed, long and loudly, bloody tears coursing down her face.
Whatever it had been, it wasn't her. She was not a murderer. The Baninae did not practice killing, unless on the battlefield, and only in certain situations. But she was free! Her mind was clear now and the weight of Miranda's death had finally lifted.
"NIGHTSHADE!" Azazel's voice startled her back into reality, and the old fear sprang up. She wished whatever had given her the psychopathic edge had stayed longer, but it hadn't. "What have you done?"
"I killed him. I finally killed him." She began to laugh and cry at the same time, hysteria coming over her. "I actually killed him!" He stopped a few feet from her, and looked at the fire where Lief's remains were burning. She Traced away from the fire, lest he get any ideas. "I killed your friend, Lief. I tortured him until he begged for death." Instead of getting angry, Azazel stood there and watched her, as if he were just looking at her for the first time.
"YOU? You tortured him?"
"I did, and I'll do it to you too, you better stay away from me!" She screamed at him.
"You actually tortured someone." He was trying to understand how she, the woman who was now shying away from him, could ever torture anyone. He knew her far better than that. "You, Nightshade De Embrell-Doom, killed someone?"
"I KILLED HIM!" She screamed at him, laughing at the same time. He shook his head and sighed.
"Come on, let's go home, my little madwoman."
"Don't you touch me!" She was trembling but not from fear. Her emotions were so haywire, she had no idea what to feel, or even if she should. She was at her wit's end. He raised his hands in defeat.
"I won't, I just want to take you home. You need to rest."
"I don't need anything from you! Just leave me alone!" To his credit, he didn't get angry. Perhaps it was because he had no idea what she would do if he did get angry, or perhaps he was proud of her for defying him and actually killing her nemesis. Either way, he stepped back and waited for her to calm down. All he wanted to do was get her home and in bed. She looked like she needed to feed too.
"Nightshade...Shada. Come home. I need you..." He pleaded with her. He didn't know if she was going to respond to him or not. "Please, I want to be with you again."
"No... No. You want to beat me, just like before. Well, I've had enough of you. I'm not going to let you do it. Never. Never." He sighed again and Traced to her, grabbed her and Traced home. She was still repeating the word never when he stripped her, washed her and put her to bed.
