Summary: A slayer barters with a demon to rescue her lover, and finds herself unwittingly projected nearly three hundred years into the future with no memory of the life she left behind.
Author's Notes: The demon Paimon is based in Christian mythology.
*~*~*
“The devil takes a hand in what is done in haste.”
Pain gnawed at every corner of her body, dulling the senses so horribly that she eventually felt nothing at all. And that was the worst—a feeling even more horrible than pain. For no matter how horrible her pain was, she knew she was human if she felt it. She knew she hadn’t completely abandoned herself. She knew she wasn’t so lost in grief that agony-riddled-fury had drowned out all capacity for love.
She didn’t ever want to grow so barren that she forgot love. Not just the memory of her love for William, but she knew well how grief could eat away at one’s insides. She never wanted to lose herself like that. She refused to become a shadow of whom she had been; the girl with whom William had fallen in love. She refused to damn herself for the sins of another.
She might not feel pain anymore, but Elizabeth hadn’t stopped weeping. She cried until she forgot how it felt to not cry. Cried until her tears made scalding treks down her cheeks. Until every hollowed curve of her worn, battered body was a flood of tears.
She cried until she had no more tears. She cried so hard they came back.
And it never ended. Never. Sleep only worsened her pain—the pain that wasn’t purely physical. The pain that wouldn’t will itself into nothing. No, sleep provided dreams, and dreams provided wishful remembrances of the past and mockingly cruel depictions of the present. Whenever she closed her eyes, she saw him dust. In the whispers between wakefulness and sleep, she would feel his lips caressing her brow, his calm, soothing voice promising her he was with her still. She would feel his hands on her at night, but when she rolled over in her bed and reached for him, her fingers would brush the linens of an empty mattress.
No matter how often she felt him, he wasn’t there. He wasn’t with her.
William was gone.
William was truly gone.
There are always ways.
Elizabeth remained enclosed with his ashes for two days straight. She couldn’t bear the thought of leaving the room without him. The room into which they’d walked side-by-side.
The room where he’d last touched her hand. Last caressed her cheek. Last graced her lips with his kiss.
The room where he’d given her the last I love you she would ever hear him voice.
Oh God.
The world hadn’t tears enough. She was locked within her sorrow, unable to move from the place where he’d last lain. She had his dust collected and placed in a vase stolen from the inn’s front parlor, if only to ensure no bit of him went lost.
The pain in her body might have numbed, but her heart was screaming. Her heart never stopped screaming, her blood rushing so hot she was sure she would eventually boil and melt. Her stomach couldn’t tolerate food, thus she declined the kindly innkeeper’s attempts to make her eat. Similarly, she refused drink though her throat was parched.
Her body wasn’t suited for life anymore.
There are always ways.
Intellectually, Elizabeth knew she had to snap out of it. She was strong. She was beyond strong. She wasn’t a wilting flower, nor was she a child born of innocence; she wasn’t one to give up just because the one she loved was dead. Even though she couldn’t stop weeping, even though her soul would continue screaming, she knew she couldn’t give in.
She knew this. Her heart did not.
Her heart was determined to know an end to pain. Her heart wanted rest.
And never beat again.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered into her tear-stained pillow. “I’m so sorry. It should’ve been me, Will. You tried to get me out. You tried so hard to free me of it.”
God, he had. He had so desperately. Every night, he would lie beside her, running his hands down her arms and through her hair, stroking her cheek with curled fingers and begging her sweetly to let this be the night she didn’t return to her prison. Begging her to let him hold her for a little while longer. To watch the sun hit the canvas she’d made out of their wall.
He’d asked her every night, and he’d never gotten impatient with her need for time. Her need to prepare herself to leave the only home she’d ever known, and therein everything upon which she’d been raised. In such a short while he had defied her conventional knowledge of vampires. She’d been raised by a man who thought vampires were nothing more than Satan’s messengers, and while that sort of radicalism had never seeped into her blood, the backwards mentality was there all the same.
Then William had come along and redefined her; he’d made her into a human.
She hadn’t been human before.
How was it that it had taken a vampire to show her how to live?
A vampire now gone. The man she loved, ripped away from her by the person supposed to be her father.
The man who was supposed to be her father had taken away the one thing which had made her human.
Kenneth had taught her to hate.
William had taught her to love.
And here she was. Alone.
There are always ways.
William had sacrificed everything for her, and now he was gone. William had freed her and he’d died for it.
Elizabeth sucked in a deep breath, but no amount of wishing could keep away the incursion of tears. She couldn’t will away the pain consuming her insides. She couldn’t bring William back.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered again into the pillow, tears ribboning down her cheeks. “Oh Will…”
There was no answer. No soothing timber of his warm, loving voice. No tender brush of his lips against her brow. No gentle caress of his hand. There was nothing. Nothing.
She’d killed him. She hadn’t listened. She hadn’t left when she had the chance.
She’d gotten him killed.
He’d saved her life and she’d gotten him killed.
There are always ways.
Her voice cracked uselessly against the muted air. “Please,” she begged, her body breaking into tremors. The walls around the numb collapsed and all at once, pain laced through every vein in her tortured body. The skies opened and rain came down upon her. She couldn’t do this. God, she couldn’t do this. Her body was ripping itself to shreds and nothing save William could ease the pain.
She’d condemned the man she loved.
“Oh God, please.” Sobs wrenched through her throat, squeezing her windpipe until she couldn’t breathe. “Please. I’ll do anything. Please!” Another wave crashed over her. “Will…”
There could be no living like this. No living. No dying. No in between.
She’d cost them everything.
There are always ways.
The voice would not leave her alone. Elizabeth knew what it meant. What it was asking of her. What it wanted her to do.
She’d been raised by a man who knew dark magicks, even if he never shared their trade. She knew what the voice wanted her to do.
She knew because it was her own.
William had sacrificed everything to save her.
Perhaps, then, it was time to sacrifice everything to save him back.
*~*~*
The Travers’ cabin was empty when she arrived. If a part of her was surprised, she didn’t feel it. She didn’t feel anything upon moving through the halls which had seen her upbringing. She walked past the room that had housed her through her earliest years, every beat of her stretched with apathy. She didn’t shiver. She didn’t draw in a significant breath as her chin wobbled. Not even when her eyes fell upon the porcelain doll which sat in a small wooden rocker Kenneth had carved for her fourth birthday. It was the last genuine thing she remembered him doing.
She wasn’t here to reminisce. She was here for one reason.
Kenneth’s room had always been off limits to her. Not once had she walked across the forbidden threshold; not once had she had the desire to do so. Even as a child she’d known enough of her surrogate father’s wrath not to test him. She’d been obedient and studious. She’d done everything she was told from wash the dishes to take out the nest by the Black Lake. She’d done everything. Everything.
And here she was, moving through her once-home. Doing her best to ignore the shrill ringing in her ears and the wild palpitations of her heart. Doing her best not to break down for the knowledge of what the cottage’s inhabitant had taken from her.
Elizabeth swallowed hard and pushed into Kenneth’s room without hesitation. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but strangely she wasn’t surprised to feel nothing. It wasn’t as though she was raiding the Quirinal Palace; it was just a room. A room like any other. A room which was home to a loathsome creature.
She hoped to God he did not return while she was here. Her hands were trembling, and her body was threatening to give way just at the knowledge that she was standing in the air which belonged to William’s killer. If she saw him—if her eyes fell upon his hideous face—she didn’t know what she would do. God, she didn’t know if she could trust herself not to do something horrible.
The call for justice was overbearing. Her tears had long since crusted dry on her cheeks, but there was no end to the pain which saturated her every cell. No end to her mind’s screams and the agonizing ache which diseased her heart. If she slowed down, if she allowed herself to know exactly what was lost and what would never be hers again if her spell didn’t take, grief would be consumed with fury.
And fury which would bring this bloody village to its knees.
“Keep a straight mind,” she whispered, her eyes immediately landing on the training crossbow Kenneth kept mounted on the wall. It seemed years had passed since she’d last seen it. And before she could stop herself, she’d removed it from its seeming place of honor and had it in her arms, its pack of arrows slung over her shoulder. Better, she supposed, to be armed in enemy territory than to be taken completely off guard.
Elizabeth was rather surprised to find his belongings visible to the naked eye rather than under guard of lock and key. He had a large, hand-carved display-shelf dedicated to his assorted weapons aligning one wall, and a perfect duplicate along the parallel wall.
This one was filled with books.
Books which would potentially unlock the gates of Hell and return William to her side.
The idea of her love being trapped in a world of eternal torment had her dried-eyes dampening all over again. Demon or not, he was not made for Hell.
He might have been a monster before meeting her, but he’d been a man every second thereafter. Perhaps not at first, but he had. She’d touched him. She’d tasted him. She knew him.
A man such as he didn’t belong to Hell.
He belonged to her. And she would save him.
No matter what it cost her.
Elizabeth sucked in a deep breath and paced forward, her eager eyes falling over the dusty covers of Kenneth’s collection. There were many titles—many volumes she’d seen before. Books he’d brought into the open for the purpose of study or preparation. Books she knew to overlook because they contained nothing of the dark arts. Books which essentially occupied pages stating and restating things the books before it had already said, occasionally with but often without anything innovative.
She had to fall her to her knees to inspect the books along the bottom row. Those with the ominous black bindings. And upon feeling the spine of one, she knew she’d found for what she searched.
Known if by nothing else but for the dark chill which seized her spine.
Of course, the dark chill could have been a delayed warning on part of her singed slayer-senses, for she felt him the next second.
And everything in her turned black.
“Ah, sweet Lizzie,” Kenneth clucked disapprovingly. “Thou hast thy father much offended.”
A cold shudder claimed her shoulders. She did not reply.
“I didn’t know which one of you to expect, but I confess myself unsurprised. After your lover’s rather inventive diversion, it became most evident he would rather himself end up dust.” He sighed wistfully. “A truly romantic notion, I suppose, for a creature so foul.”
Elizabeth’s eyes fell shut, a silent mantra falling on her tongue. She couldn’t allow this. She couldn’t be prompted. She couldn’t be provoked. She couldn’t give in.
“He didn’t tell you then?”
She didn’t answer.
“No,” Kenneth concluded, a perversely satisfied note in his voice. “Of course he didn’t. If he had, he would be here, searching for a way to bring you back…rather than this. Granted, he wouldn’t be allowed entrance to my home, but I suspect he would find a way. Not that I knew the fellow personally, but given his creativity—”
“What do you mean…he didn’t tell me?” She hated the shake in her voice almost as much as she needed the answer.
“You really don’t know? My dear…if you’d wanted, you could have cured him whenever you wished. Your blood works as a powerful antidote to any potent vampiric poison. Something I’m sure dear William knew and, for the tragic love of you, didn’t disclose.”
A dark shudder commanded her body. For a blind second, she feared losing whatever of herself there was left to lose. The tears she’d kept at bay came surging forward with a vengeance, and for a long minute, she thought she might be sick.
Though on what she didn’t know. It had been days since she’d last eaten.
“How long did the poison take?” Kenneth continued conversationally. “I’ve never seen it in action, myself, and I admit I am quite curious.”
It was an instinctive thing, really. She didn’t remember any blank spaces between hearing his repugnant voice and leaping to her feet, the crossbow in her arms coming up and firing as if controlled by a will of its own. It was either some moral strain or a last second firing of consciousness which kept her aim from his heart and rather directed at his arm.
The arrow pierced his skin and imbedded itself in the wall behind him. It was over before she could blink. Before she even knew what had happened. Thus when her mind returned to her, she found herself holding a crossbow and her so-called surrogate father nailed to the wall, pained moans ripping through his lips and murderous malice lighting his eyes.
“You little harlot!” he hissed, pulling hard against the affliction to little avail.
Elizabeth swallowed hard. “Words, words, words,” she retorted, reloading an arrow into the crossbow’s cavity and raising it again. The move effectively ceased Kenneth’s struggles and had his eyes widening with astonishment. And if anything, witnessing his fear only strengthened the force of her hatred. “Give me a reason not to do it, father dear. I beg of you.”
“Lizzie—”
She fired another arrow, this one spearing through the wooden frame above his head, showering him in splinters and dust. “Do not speak to me,” she growled. “Do not even look at me, you befouled—”
“I? I am the befouled?”
“You killed him.”
“No, my dear. It is you who did that.” Kenneth’s expression contorted in pain as he twisted under the force of the arrow, resuming his unsuccessful struggles. “I raised you—”
“I do not want to hear of how you raised me!” Elizabeth barked, her eyes welling again as her eager hands loaded another arrow into her weapon. “I don’t want to hear of how I’ve failed your many expectations or how I’ve tainted the damned slayer line by…how did you put it? Rolling in filth every night. I will not—”
“Lizzie—”
“—I am not yours!”
“You are…the Council’s.”
“The Council ordered this, then?” Elizabeth demanded erratically, the paces between them closing rapidly. “The Council contacted you? Demanded you to kill my—”
“Lizzie—”
“Do not lie to me!” The crossbow lowered so she could enjoy the feel of her flesh smacking his. Her covetous eyes watched as his head rocked with impact. As his gaze widened in surprise and the flash of fear returned with a vengeance. “The Council couldn’t give a damn, could it?”
A few seconds passed before he could reply. “You know well they care a great deal.”
“Enough to kill him?”
“A villain might speak pretty words to you, my dear, but it doesn’t make him any less a villain.”
“A lesson you have personified, thank you.” Elizabeth drew an arrow out of her pack and shoved its point against the fleshy part below his jaw. “Answer me truthfully,” she all but snarled, fire blazing her veins. “Your actions were your own. The Council—”
“Trusts nature will take its course. If not him killed by you, then you killed by him. I didn’t have the same faith.”
The screaming in her head threatened to drown out all semblance of sound. Her arm pushed forward without permission from her brain, and she felt the tip of the arrow tear through his skin. And God it felt so good she wanted to do it again. Deeper and deeper until the old man’s tongue was completely forked.
“Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord!” Kenneth gasped. Gone was the contemptuous gleam of but seconds before; there was only fear now. Fear for something he’d seen in her eyes, perhaps, or fear for something else entirely. She didn’t know. She didn’t care. “You cannot kill me, Lizzie,” he continued. “Your soul—”
“Is not yours to lose, so I wouldn’t worry over it.”
“Do you really wish to kill me?”
And that was the question. The ultimate question. The warring of her conscience against the demands of something she couldn’t name. Her claim with William, perhaps, drawing primal urges forward in lieu of human rationality. Did she want to kill Kenneth? Yes. By God, she did. She wanted to claim back what was taken, and while the books she’d discovered would lead her wherever she wanted to go, the darkest part of her wouldn’t be satisfied until this man was gone. Until he lay at her feet, revenged for what he took from her.
After all, he was the one who had taught her to hate, how it felt to hate…and what to do to those one hated.
He would have killed her. He would have let the town burn her, all because she’d wandered from hate and fallen in love.
She loved, so he killed.
Elizabeth knew it wasn’t black and white as all that. William was a vampire and she was a slayer. They lived in opposite worlds—they were, by nature’s decree, an abomination.
But if to be natural was to be without William and the freedom he’d given her, she didn’t care to ever again embody the world in appearance or action.
Yes, she wanted to kill Kenneth. She wanted to give him back the pain he’d caused. She wanted to adhere to Old Testament law. She wanted blood for blood.
An eye for an eye.
And yet, her human conscience wouldn’t allow her. Not in cold blood. Not even out of revenge.
That sort of act would lead her down a path from which she could not return. It would open a door of eternal darkness—it would contort her, turn her into something black and twisted. Turn her into something she wasn’t.
Thus she answered in kind. If he began the night by quoting Shakespeare, she would end it as such.
“There are more things,” she replied steadily, drawing the arrow out between the flaps of torn flesh, ignoring the pool of blood which ran down the narrow cylinder and spilled onto her fingers. “In heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
The relief on his face was tangible. It made her stomach turn.
“Good girl,” he said.
Then his free arm was moving, and the next thing she saw was the silver of a blade lunging toward her face. And there was no time to think. No time to second-guess herself. Nothing left but instinct. Elizabeth stumbled back in shock, the crossbow coming up again. Her finger caressed the trigger before she could help herself, and with a crushing gasp, she felt the arrow discharge.
It seemed the world was born and divided in that instant. Elizabeth’s wide eyes took in the sight of his. The arrow protruding from his chest, his free-arm outstretched, hands clamped around the handle of the blade he’d produced. The one he always kept on him. The one she’d forgotten.
The one he’d reached for without her notice.
“You…” Kenneth glanced down in wide-eyed horror at the arrow. “You…you killed…me.”
Elizabeth couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t look away. The walls of her mind were realigning. Truths were defined and banished. What was canon suddenly became heretical. What she knew was overwhelmed by what she didn’t.
“The Lord hath accomplished his wrath,” she murmured. “He hath poured out his fierce anger: and he hath kindled a fire in Sion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.”
“You…quote…scripture…to me?” Kenneth’s eyes blazed and his arm made an angry arc, swiping at her with the blade. He hit nothing but air. “You…damned little…”
“I am not damned,” Elizabeth replied, her voice shaking but certain.
“You…”
“I am not damned for loving.” Her eyes fell upon the blade in his hand, which clamored noisily to the floor without further overture. “Nor am I damned for saving myself.”
His next words would forever remain unknown. And she was changed in that moment.
Changed, but never more determined.
The books were waiting for her. As was William. Somewhere, he was waiting for her.
She was changed, but not damned.
Rather, she felt she had the strength to save him.