Destiny Demons

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I walk out of the house, slamming the door behind me. Lena is standing in front of me, wrapping her arms around my waist. She kisses my lips softly and whispers, "I love you, Dru."

"I love you, Lena, more than I can possibly express in words," I say nearly in tears.

Then everything goes black with a scream from Lena. I wake in darkness, alone. I can hear laughing and a woman"s cries coming from somewhere. I can"t tell if it is Lena or someone else and I begin trying to find the source or maybe just a wall, so that I can find a door. I try to find a way out of the dark abyss that I have found myself in. I can"t find a door! I can"t even find a wall and I squat down holding my knees to my chest and scream, "Stop!", but n.o.body answers. n.o.body stops. It keeps going, the laughing, then crying and more laughing. It is maddening!

I sit in the dark and cover my ears trying to close it all out. I"m scared. Scared of what is happening. Scared to know where Lena is. What might have happened? What could be happening?

It keeps on until suddenly there is a woman"s scream then a burst of laughter and silence. The silence rings in my ears and is almost deafening. As I sit in complete darkness, my mind wanders to what might have happened. Playing scenarios of what is going on and how this all will play out. I feel the tears p.r.i.c.king the backs of my eyes for the first time in years as the fear tightens its grip on me, choking me, suffocating me. I suddenly begin to hear a panging sound of metal against metal. With every pang, there is a dull pain shooting up my arms, first one then the other with the next pang. As the pangs get louder and the pain more real, I start to pull myself to consciousness. I don"t know how I got here to wherever I am but the panging is getting louder as I surface.

Pang. I grimace and my fangs come out.

Pang. I move my head trying to wake up.

Pang. I am becoming aware that I am suspended in air.

Pang. No, my back is against a wall and my toes are touching the floor.

Pang. I am hanging by my arms.

Pang. The red sea of rage inside of me pulses.

Pang. I open my eyes to see vampires. Six vampire stand around me as two drop hammers. I look around the room to my arms and see stakes, metal railroad stakes, driven through my wrists. My blood is pouring out, running down my arms and torso. I can feel the blood trickling down the underside of my arms and soaking into my shirt. I look around, still fuzzy and groggy and manage, "What?" but no more comes out. They are all still looking at me, hatred painted on their faces.

"Ah, Drusilla, you"re awake. Good," says a vampire as he comes into my view. He is tall and very skinny with a long, thin face. His blond, nearly white hair is combed straight back and I recognize him as Rurik. He is exactly as Lothair had described. "I was hoping that you would be awake to see this."

With confusion, I ask, "To see what?"

"To see a Kethra die," he hisses with a devious smile on his face.

"What?" I croak.

He snaps his fingers and the vampires disperse, disappearing through a door on the other side of the room.

"If you think that you can kill me, then kill me, but I grow bored of you melodrama," I hiss at him trying to shake him.

He pulls back as if he has taken offense to my insult. "Drusilla, is that what you think is happening? You think that you and I are here for your death alone? That would be far too easy." At that, the vampires reenter the room dragging a weak, pale, barely conscious Lena.

"Let her go!" I demand pleadingly.

In a flash, Rurik is in my face. His dead blood tainting his breath as he whispers, "No that would be far, far, too, easy. I want to see you broken! You will be begging for death long before it finds you." His face breaks into a sinister smile, "Besides, I have my orders."

"Orders?" I ask.

"Yes, I have orders to bring an end to the Kethra and I have the final two within my clutches," he finishes and laughs.

It hits me. This is it! This is the end that I have been dreading. This is the moment that I will watch my sweet Lena die. "Please, let her go, she can hide and no one will ever know."

"Ah, Drusilla, I cannot ignore my orders," he says harshly with distain. Instantly, he is holding Lena by her throat against himself. As he holds her, he whispers in her ear, "Don"t make a sound or it will be worse for her." He motions to me and she nods in understanding. The first vampire hits her across the face. I hear her whimper and Rurik holds her up as the others continue their onslaught. Finally, Rurik releases her and she falls to the floor as they circle in and start kicking her as she stays perfectly quiet. For what seems like hours, they relentlessly continue their a.s.sault. Stopping for a moment so that she can heal, then begin again.

Rurik raises his hand and they finally stop. Stepping back, I can see that she is bruised and b.l.o.o.d.y. Her eye is swollen and her nose is bleeding, again it would appear from the dried blood still on her face.

"Now, as I said earlier, I wanted you to be able to see a Kethra die today and you shall." Rurik snarls and raises a dagger. No, that isn"t a dagger. That is a ceremonial athame! What is he going to do? What does he have planned? The questions begin to spin in my mind as he strolls toward Lena.

The vampires pick her up to reveal her wrists to him and with one look at me he turns, slicing her wrists. She gasps and the blood begins to pour down her arms. I watch in horror as they are not healing as they should. Kethra are capable of healing almost immediately, heck her eye is already back to normal but these gashes in her wrists are still there. Rurik turns back to me and holds up the athame.
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"Do you have any idea what this is, Drusilla?" he asks. As I nod, he is directly in front of me, looking into my eyes. "This, Drusilla, is an athame. A very old ceremonial athame that belonged to a grand witch over two thousand years ago. Grezelda was her name and she spelled this athame with the essence of a Kethra to kill Ketheras!"

I remember Grezelda was a legend among witches. She had been by far the strongest witch the world had ever seen and still to this day, no other witch could hold a candle to her. She spelled her athame to kill Ketheras? That is why Lena"s wrists have still not yet healed! The athame must be the only weapon in the world that could be used to torture and kill a Kethra, or you could just kill her quickly if that is what you chose. Not that Rurik will make it that easy.

He backs up toward Lena again and in one swift motion, spins and cuts her throat. I watch as the gash continues to bleed, not healing. He holds her and watches me as I turn pale and cry in agony of the pain I am watching in front of me. My heart is shattering in my chest and leaving a hole of misery. Her eyes catch mine and she whispers, "I love you", as she smiles and closes her eyes. Rurik plunges the athame into her chest and she falls limp in his grip. He drops her on the floor and turns to me. He walks up and touches the blood soaked blade to my neck flat and the singe is h.e.l.lish on my skin. His smile becomes menacing as he turns the blade and begins to cut me from my neck down my sternum. He stops at my heart and slightly pushes it into my chest before removing the athame completely.

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"Not quite yet, Drusilla," he said as he turned and left the room with the others, after he ripped Lena"s heart from her chest. Then her lifeless body was on the floor in front of me and I was utterly alone." I continued reliving that day as I explained to everyone. "I was alone, in this room for what seems like hours as I look at Lena, dead on the floor. I can only guess that he wanted the reality of what he had done to truly sink into my mind and heart. Finally, he came in sometime in the early afternoon. By then, I was broken and weak, I wanted to die, he was right. I was begging for death long before he came in. He turned the athame in his hand and ran it down the other side of my neck down to my heart. This time though, he finished driving it through me. It didn"t really hurt like I thought it would, though. It was calm, tranquil, and serene. Then the world faded to black," I finished telling them all and went silent.

I looked around, finished with the memory and see everyone looking at me. Aiden had his arm around Liza as she cried into his shoulder. Lothair"s face was red and he was perfectly still. Leon had taken a seat next to Aiden with a look of pure terror in his eyes. Casimir was holding his gla.s.ses as his arm was across his chest and his other hand was covering his face. Denise looked at me with sympathy as she held back her tears. Silas and Aaron stood like statues, not moving or even breathing, for that matter. Veda and Mitch.e.l.l were pale as Veda sat in front of Mitch.e.l.l with his arm around her shoulders. Adam gazed into my eyes with anxiety and pain in his. I turned toward him and took his hands. "I"m sorry I snapped," I thought to him and he closed his eyes in acceptance of my apology.

Everyone was so quiet when finally, "We have to find that athame!" Leon stated.

"I know. I never knew that anything like that even existed." I answered.

"I forgot she actually spelled it to kill…," Casimir said from behind his hand. "Dru, I knew Grezelda once. I knew of her athame, but I had forgotten about the spell until now. I"m so sorry."

"What?" I mumbled, "What do you mean, you knew Grezelda once? She died over two thousand years ago."

He didn"t answer. He just stood there with tears in his eyes. "What have you not told us, Cas?" I asked.

"There is a lot about my life that I can"t remember. Grezelda is somehow apart of that. I do remember that she believed in violence, it was the only way with her. Violence could solve everything."

"Hmm, kind of like me," I smirked. "Did you always have a thing for violent women?"

"No, Abby, she wasn"t just violent. She was vengeful, ruthless. She showed no mercy, to anyone. She was extremely powerful and I think I fell in love with her as I had tried to understand her. And for my weakness, she…" he paused as he turned and walked to the cliff looking out in the distance, as if remembering the memories.

"What did she do to you, Cas?" I whispered.

He turned back to us and said, "She was beautiful, wild, and feral and I… wanted her, I think. I do remember that she was wicked! She was as evil as the demons that she hunted. I think that she had used me to trap a Kethra, one of the originals. Or maybe I wanted to help? I can"t really remember the details, but I do know that an original Kethra, one of the true a.s.sa.s.sin sirens, was caught and caged. I remember Grezelda took the caged woman or I brought her to Grezelda and with a wave of her hand, she sent me across the room. I remember hearing chanting and I began to feel dizzy and lightheaded. The next thing I remembered, I was alone in the middle of a vast forest. No one was around for miles. I was alone and scared and hungry. I remember being so hungry," Casimir wrapped his arms around his stomach at the memory.

"I began walking north when I saw a sight I will never forget. A man with long dark hair speaking with the most beautiful woman I had or have ever seen before. She was tall, with stark white hair and the reddest lips. She was perfect in every way! But the most amazing part of it all was the white unicorn with them."

"Wait! What?" I gasped. "You actually saw Laylan and Artimous?"

"Is that who that woman was?" Casimir asked.

"A dark haired man sitting on a fallen tree in the forest with an impossibly beautiful woman with white hair and red lips. And a unicorn, a white unicorn with green eyes a golden horn?" I stated and Casimir nodded. I glanced over at Leon, who was looking at me with what was almost a smirk on his face.

"After the woman and the unicorn left, I watched the man walk away. I decided to follow him, and it wasn"t long after that I saw an original Kethra." Casimir explained. "The Kethra attacked the man and I attacked the Kethra. I suddenly had the strength of a hundred men and I took her down. After she was down on her knees, bleeding, the scent of blood was too much to ignore and I attacked her, sinking my fangs, which I hadn"t known existed, into her neck. With her blood, I felt stronger. I felt powerful, I felt indestructible."

"The Krznik," I confirmed.

"Yes, I don"t remember being a Krznik before then. I only vaguely remember being a normal mortal."

"And the man?" I asked.

"He taught Casimir how to control it," Veda spoke up. "Didn"t he?" she asked Casimir and he nodded in response. "He took Casimir in and taught him to control the darkness, the Krznik. Explained the he was a soldier of G.o.d as Casimir could be."

Casimir"s face twisted in confusion as Veda began to approach him. "How do you know this?" His voice was barely audible.

"I know this because Daemon now only exists here," Veda stated and pointed to her head. "As Laylan lives only in Abby"s mind, Daemon lives in mine. I don"t understand it personally but I just know that it is," Veda finished calmly.

"But..." Casimir was speechless. "It can"t be."

"Was his name Daemon?" I asked Casimir, who nodded his response. "You never said his name, yet she knew it, didn"t she?" His mouth fell open as what I said sunk in.

"So let me get this straight," Lothair spouted, breaking everyone"s thoughts. "Abby has a woman, or G.o.ddess rather, living in her mind that Cas saw talking to some guy named Daemon, who lives in Abby"s best friend"s head and Cas was born mortal over two thousand years ago and turned into the Krznik by some witch who spelled an athame, whatever that is, to kill Kethra. And that athame was used to kill Dru, who is now Abby, who has this Laylan chick in her head?" He finished rattling everything off and took a breath.

I took a slow steady step toward Lothair, reaching for his hands. "Yes, Lothair, it would appear that you were the only one of us born with their curse. Apparently, once upon a time, Casimir was just another human who was deceived by something beyond his knowledge and understanding. Yes, I used to dream of Laylan, the G.o.ddess, who once came to the Mortal world, here with her dear friend, Artimous, the unicorn. On her trip here, she met a man by the name of Daemon, who later helped Cas and now lives in Veda, my best friend"s mind. Somehow, we really are connected. We all are exactly where we should be. Here, together," I finished with a smile. "Let"s work all of this out later. My head"s starting to hurt from all of this. Plus, we are supposed to be having a family picnic and we haven"t even eaten, yet." I finished and blinked the barbeque pit into a full roaring flame. Everyone laughed and we were all having fun before we knew it.

As the day went on, I began to feel something very bad was coming. I hurried all of the parents home and disappeared to my room. I ran to my wardrobe and pulled out some leather pants, a leather corset and my big black boots. I had forgone the trench coat, thinking that it might get in the way. I put on my makeup extremely dark around my eyes for a dramatic look to match my mood.

"Abby? What are you doing?" Adam asked as I walked out of the bathroom. He was sitting on my bed closing my diary and looking concerned and worried.

"They"re coming," I answered as I neared him, "tonight. They will be here soon." I reached up and touched his face. I remembered the vision that I had seen and I couldn"t let it happen. "Adam, I want you to stay here, in the house. I don"t want you down there." I pleaded; my hands began to shake at the memory of the vision.

"What"s wrong? What else did you see?"

"You," I started, "Ailia had you, you were screaming, then…" I barely managed before I snapped. Tears streaming down my face. "Adam, please, just stay here, in the house."

"Okay, I promise, I will stay in here," he whispered as he wrapped his arms around me. We stood for a moment holding each other, when I felt it.

"They"re here," I said as I pulled away. I walked straight through the house to the back gla.s.s.

"Abby?" I heard Veda say.

I turned and looked at her. "What are you two still doing here?"

"I knew something was up and I was right wasn"t I" Veda answered with a smile.

I turned to Silas, "Keep them inside this house. Do not let them outside the door."

"Okay, they will stay safe," Silas a.s.sured me.

"And to answer your question, Veda, yes, something is up. They are here and we must go now." I looked over and Silas turned pale. "Cas, Lott, it"s time."