Not Dead Yet

1988 July

It was half an hour before Alana could move without crumbling to the floor in grief. Her hands still shook with the effort. She gave Marius a glance with empty eyes before she shoved past him to grab her luggage and exit the building. He hurried after her silently. Aquarius was summoned with a twist of her wrist. A vial collected the ageing potion he secreted and she downed it mindlessly. Fifteen minutes saw her in the front seat of a stolen car wearing clothes that she had packed for such occasions. Marius was still trailing after her awkwardly and he slid into the shotgun seat of the noisy vehicle with a grimace. Alana was hardly the only magical being to loathe such forms of transportation.

"Where are we going?" The question was asked two hours later as they sped towards the Carpathian Mountain chain which separated the Wallachian Plains from the Transylvanian Basin.

"Apuseni Mountains," Was the monotone reply. Marius stiffened understandably. He would be gutted alive if he was caught trespassing on the other coven's territory. And he would be caught. He had killed enough of their brethren that no charmed amulet would mask the stench of their blood on his hands. He accompanied her in silence. It was a crime to turn his back on his sire regardless of the situation. He would not do the same with this child.

Five more hours and he considered it a wonder the vehicle had not broken down. He briefly wondered whether the witch had used magic on the thing. Alana was cloaked in black with the usual mask she donned for her jobs. She had trembled whilst adorning it, brief images of Azrael's corpse flashing behind her eyelids. The Apuseni Mountains, also known as the mountains of sunset, were located to the west of the Transylvanian Basin. The landscape was picturesque and adorned with immense forests, fresh rivers and the odd dramatic cliff. It was unfortunate the neither could appreciate the scenery. Their presence was noted after they had been walking for just under an hour. Marius had shuffled closer to girl uneasily hoping she had some semblance of a plan in mind. Alana continued unaffected in the direction of Bihor peak. The vampire escort watched the pair somewhat offended at the shorter figure's disregard. The person obviously didn't put them in their eyes!

Marius shivered as they passed through the heavy illusion that protected the coven's meeting hall. The magic was ancient but still standing from a time when witches and wizards had reluctantly signed a treaty with the vampires to preserve the secrecy of magic. It was maintained by regular blood donations from the vampires and identifiably dark in nature. The uneasy peace between magicals and vampires was mostly born of their lack of numbers but many still remembered the past bloodshed between the groups with fear.

The court building was an enormous stone structure with clear traces of Roman influence in its architecture. Alana shared none of his terror as their following made themselves known. Instead, there was a calmness in her stance that had never been there before. She stood with the same dangerous, detached ease Roul often did despite being surrounded on all sides. She was a woman with nothing to lose. The interior of the building was reminiscent of Russian palaces and excessively elaborate in decoration. There were several thrones in the main room with only six occupied by vampires. Two women took up the right seats of power, one with stiff posture while the other elegantly dr.a.p.ed across the piece of furniture. One of the male leaders watched the proceedings with boredom while the other two held a detached curiosity in their gazes. This was the vampire court of the second coven of Romania. Alana fell into a bow easily and Marius followed suit and prayed no one lopped his head off while he wasn't looking.

"Greetings to the Apuseni Court," Alana broke the silence with her hollow voice.

"We do not welcome those of Wallachia," One of the men sneered. His nostrils flared at the stench of blood. Marius steeled himself further.

"Would you greet any non-vampire if they were not with one?" Alana questioned. She received a hiss in reply. Taking that as a sign to continue she began, "We have both found issue with the current actions of those of Wallachia. They have recently made the mistake of spilling the blood of my beloved and I fully intend to repay the favour. I only wish to inquire as to whether Apuseni will deal with the aftermath?"

The reactionary laughter did not put Alana off in the least.

"Who are you to speak of blood?! Have we not lost far more at the hands of those retches?!" It was unexpectedly the relaxed woman that replied with anger. It seemed to unsettle the others. Marius swallowed thickly. Rienne had fought countless battles on the frontlines and he had once witnessed her tear a vampire in two. He was mentally screaming at Alana to stop provoking them.

The girl in question simply removed her earrings in answer. The danger of the ministry tracing her was non-existent outside of the country and she had never spilt vampire blood so she had little to fear. She had, however, spilt the blood of magicals and muggles alike and that information was what reached the nostrils of every vampire present. The scent, however, was easily overpowered by Azrael's stronger claim. The reactions were instantaneous. They had not had a witch in their presence for millennia nor one with such youthful blood and magic connected to an old vampire. The younger ones present in the background choked on the strength of the aura while the elder ones shifted in interest. A wizard-vampire bond in Europe. One with a child no less. Marius was giving her a wide-eyed look and pleading to whatever deity had cursed him with such a ruthless child and sire. Alana rolled her shoulders with a sigh as she extended her aura outwards comfortably. The room suddenly felt much smaller.

"If the Apuseni coven has no interest in distributing the spoils, I shall leave them for the vultures to pick."

"What do you want?" Vampires were long-lived creatures and many had old wealth and riches. The spoils of war would be great indeed. What price did the child want?

"My library needs filling and any magical tools found which are of no use to you I will gladly take. You are welcome to the rest."

1988 August

Four days later saw Alana equipping herself for battle just as the sun began to set on Romania. Aquarius sat quietly in wait beside her. The coven had been celebrating for the previous week with excessive feeding as they continued to digest the vampire in their stomach. She was not kind enough to refuse the opportunity to strike when they were weak.

"If any of them escape just throw this at them," She had handed Marius a few pouches of herbs before heading to the Arges River. The eagle nest fortress the Wallachia coven owned overlooked the river from Poenari cliff. The illusion ward hiding the place was similar to the one in Apuseni. Ancient didn't always translate to strong and there were clear methods to evade the vampire's blood-based wards. She quickly donned an amulet soaked in a few potions as well as part of a sachet of Marius' blood.

It would give her twenty minutes before the old magic sensed her if she was lucky. She scaled the cliff with Pisces pressed against her skin like a tattoo beneath her jacket. An overhang had her quickening her movements to make up for the lost time. She reached the top and mentally patted her back. 'That was some wuxia level footwork,' she thought before pulling out a wand. The walls of the fortress were cursed to high heavens against anything and everything, unlike the cliffs. Tactfully, she threw Aquarius at the stone and cast a silencing spell. She hoped her plan would work.

A rumble and then, "Burp! Pop! Glug, glug, glug, pleugh!" She gave Aquarius a pitying look at his loss of purity to the ancient, cursed stone of the citadel wall. She winced at the disturbing sounds coming from her companion. She would definitely have to make it up to the creature in the future. This was animal abuse, damn it. Twelve minutes saw the slime turn a dark black from the cursed wall. Its inventory slots were bursting with stone and whatever other materials made the damned structure. She'd let the poor thing dump it later. Alana used the remainder of Marius' blood and her wand to coat the newly formed hole with hastily scrawled runes before slipping safely through.

Her footsteps were swift and light with silencing spells woven into every object on her person. Even her breathing was unheard with the face mask covering her mouth. Lastly, protego aer was cast. It was a simple spell which filtered the air within a one-metre radius of the caster. It was mainly used as an air freshener but had multiple applications besides masking her scent. Vampires were weakest after feeding but their senses were not dulled in the least, only their speed and strength. It had taken little convincing to get Marius to provide the layout and timetable of the castle's activities. Consequently, she knew exactly where she was going and that most of the vampires were currently feeding. The black figure leapt from turret to wall with ease. Meanwhile, Aquarius went to work.

Alana encountered the few vampires not feeding with the sharp blade of an experienced assassin. A silencing charm and then a short inflamare seared the vampire's insides where the wand was inserted into the wound. She found Azrael's remains in the same place she had envisioned him and fell to clasp the man's skull reverently. Bones were all that was left of her lover and friend. She bit back the tears as she knelt on the bloody pavement. He had left her too soon. The room was a cellar of sorts, close enough to the building's ward stone to draw its energy for the ritual. It was a horrible place to die, especially for someone so dear to her. She gathered the remains into a bag and shattered the rune formation with a burst of potent magic. Twenty minutes was up. She made her way up the stairs as the wards recognised an intruder and turned a startling red. The coven's celebration in the main hall was halted abruptly. The moment a vampire opened the door, however, the air was pierced by screams.

Alana considered herself a kind person at heart. Her assassinations were brutal but her targets nearly always criminals themselves. Her thieving was less innocent but, more often than not, she was stealing an object of illegal origins anyway. Perhaps, Roul was also kind, in his own way, to always offer her such jobs. This though… she drew a line at Azrael. He was family. He was important to her and they had trampled on his dignity and desecrated his body. The coven had broken their own sacred laws and cherished blood ties by killing their own member's sire. They were less than criminals in her opinion, they were beasts to be culled.

She could have left them to the triumvirate of Europe. She had little doubt that at least one of them would be willing to avenge Azrael. However, greed had always been her biggest shortcoming as well as her biggest motivation. Azrael was hers. She had laid her claim in silent hours of companionship and cautious touches, in hushed discussion and gentle smiles. Alana let the nerve toxin spread and felt satisfaction at their pain. If poison was a coward's weapon then she would bear the title proudly if it meant Azrael was avenged. They had poisoned her with grief and it was only fitting that she return the favour.

Sarin was a clear, colourless, and tasteless liquid that Germany had developed as a pesticide in 1938 and weaponised in the World War. It was also very illegal. As a gas, it dispersed into its environment and once inhaled, it would repeatedly stimulate a body's nerve cell receptors causing seizures. Half of the vampires which came in contact with the vapour immediately fell to the pavement twitching with newly acquired blood running from their constricted eyes, noses, mouths and sweat glands. The effects would not last long though and were even numbed by the quickly adapting body vampirism gave.

It was with a decisive mind that Alana wove through the masses and struck the vulnerable bodies of each vampire. Death came quickly to those intelligent enough not to run. Unfortunately, those were few in number. The youth gave chase with the instincts of a predator in her natural habitat. Her movements were filled with unnatural grace that easily outclassed the weakened vampires. She had turned the massacre into a concerto dedicated to Azrael. Her rendition of Danse Macabre. Black descended on the proclaimed immortals as their souls were reaped with merciless efficiency.

Elsewhere, Death was watching its child with avid fascination. She was perfection in its eyes, biased as it was. A soul of such strength that it had quivered with the urge to see it crushed by its hands. The soul had been beautiful in its acceptance, clinging to it at the end despite knowing what Death was, what it could do to it. And, oh, how it knew. Had Death not tried to twist that small existence into insanity before drawing it into the confines of its darkness. Death's entourage murmured in appreciation behind the being. Chaos, Pain and Decay were naturally inclined to appreciate their leader's child. Fate was also present and gazed at the proceedings with mild interest. She personally thought Death's choice to be lacking but let the intransigent being be. She rolled her dice once again and gazed at the child with disappointment. Such a shame.

Marius circled the edges of the wards in agitation. He heard nothing thanks to the rudimentary, rune-based silencing ward the girl had put around the fortress' own illusionary wards. It was the better part of an hour before he heard a snap and felt a figure flee past him in the darkness. The parcel of herbs was thrown and he stared as an assassin vine erupted from the package where it hit the earth. The vampire was trapped and mercilessly strangled to death by the violent plant. Marius shivered. Alana had prepared the seed and a number of grown-enhancing herbs in the sachet knowing the plant would sprout only when it had earth to draw life from. Assassin vines were extremely violent and, as their name suggests, would kill any living thing that came close to it.

Alana leaned away from the clawed nails and brought her wand up to propel the vampire backwards with a concentrated blast of magical force. Had she been more skilled, she would have already cast fiendfyre. In time, she would learn. The girl digressed and hurled Aquarius at a rising man. He was promptly crushed by the same cursed stone that formed the fortress's walls. Pisces poked his head out to snap at a female vampire. The summon was harmless but she appeared threatening enough to cause the woman to step back. Alana was knocked back by a force she felt to be magic, though it was weak. She met the eyes of the coven leader from across the courtyard and smirked as she decapitated another writhing body. She was not foolish enough to be distracted by the man who had no wand. Patience was a virtue. Aquarius was spraying chlorine trifluoride at the prone forms available to it and soon a multitude of burning corpses paved the way to Consus. The vampire saw the state of his coven but seemed resolved to go down with his proverbial ship. Alana was loathed to give him the satisfaction but there was little alternative.

She shoved the man to the ground with a dragonhide boot and snarled. This was the first person she had hated so deeply in this world. Her magic whirled in an uncontrolled frenzy before it tore across the man's skin as though it were a feral animal. Alana felt her core burn in protest and bit her lip in frustration. She was reaching the limit of her stamina. She reinstated her control over the energy and shoved it into the significantly older male. The tendrils of Death that clung to the vampire could be felt by the girl and she shoved them away in the search for his core. That once frail bond with Azrael seemed to ignite with life and she pulled. She pulled with every ounce of her being even when her own scream tore from her c.h.e.s.t to join that of Consus. Then suddenly, it was free and she was stepping back from the body of Consus as the very soul he had stolen tore him apart with an unholy fury. Alana was half crying in relief at her partner's justice. Perhaps, her heart could finally rest. She swayed on her feet with multiple bruises and cuts stinging her body. She still had a few tasks to complete. With that thought, she turned to round up the stragglers.

Edited 24.10.2019