A Beautiful Saviour

Chapter Seventeen

“What are we doing?” He said to them. “Why are we killing our own kin?”

                No one answered him and he frowned at them all. “Does no one remember the white days? Does no one here understand what will happen if this is not sorted out now?! Do you all want to die?!”

His cry seemed to reach deaf ears as they stared at him and his insolence. Until one came forward, one with whom he had fought alongside on many occasions. “Joseph? I thought you were united in this? I thought you knew what we were doing. We’re fighting for freedom, our kin would take that from us if we did not fight back.”

“Then the question is why are our kin trying to take it from us?” His calm manner was startling everyone and he was sure he had their attention only because of their shock.

“We take if from you because we can be so much more than we are. If we do as our king says and you follow our lead then we can come out in the open without having to be afraid of the humans. We can be strong and we can be united as one!” A vampire he had seen at many of his battles, as his enemy, spoke out to him.

“Why are we not united already? We each have our clans, our leaders but together we form one, we rule ourselves and no one is left behind. We speak our minds to our fellow kin and no one rules over the other inexplicably.”

“But that doesn’t happen!” The vampire cried out and thrust his hands at Joseph, the claws nails almost tearing at his waistcoat but Joseph caught the vampires wrists… and the vampire froze for a second. The hairs on his arms were sticking up and yet Joseph wasn’t cut. The vampire wondered what magic it was that pushed the blades rather than have them injure but then it didn’t matter to the vampire anymore, he wanted to explain why he was so angry. “Some of us have spoken for years about how we don’t want isolation and still we have to live in fear from our very food source! Other vampires in clans that offer freedom overlook us that are forced to remain hidden in caves and wilderness!”

“Then that is a failing that should be address, solved, not fought over!”

“Nothing changes with voice alone!” Another vampire spat the words at Joseph and the one whose wrists he had hold of, suddenly pulled free.

                The façade was gone. The surprise element of his control magic was lost on them and all at once they lunged for him; and each other. Naked bodies of pure weapon leap to him and he knew now he didn’t even have to move his hovering feet. He simply sighed and they stopped mid-air, their poses – of leaping in the air – were captured like a photograph. With bent knees and exposed bellies they now hovered in front of Joseph, high in the air.

“I do not want to see another age of white days. Those hideous times are behind us. They need to be behind us.” He said simply.

“We don’t care about the white days!”

“We want to fight today!”

“I don’t even remember those times!”

“It would be an honour to return to them and fight for what we believe in!”

                And so they all began shouting at him but that last comment pushed his patience too far. He was losing control again.

“Honour.” He whispered it softly to himself. “Honour! Honour you say?!” He screamed it, pushed with all his force those he held in the air and watched as he sent them flying backwards to land in heaps on the floor. “How dare you speak of what you do not know! How dare you say the word honour when talking of that time! How dare you.”

                He reached out a hand, palm upwards and with everyone’s captivated attention, he slowly brought his finger inwards to form a fist and the young vampire who dared to speak of honour came toward him. Dragged by magic along the floor, along the blood and the mud and bodies the young vampire screamed at the indignity and then again when his mouth was covered in mess from the floor. No amount of struggling would stop him from being dragged towards Joseph though, he would be taught a lesson now.