The Devil You Know (editing)

Chapter 5

My face must have shown my surprise and terror because when he spoke his voice was alarmed. "What did I do?"
I was confused to why he didn't seem to remember me. I spoke my confusion "do you not recognize me?" I was on the brink of tears, I don't know if they were tears of happiness or anger, and my voice wasn't doing any better. I could have sworn it cracked in the middle but Warren didn't show that he had noticed.
His eyes seemed to size me up, as he stared intently at me. "Should I?"
He looked hesitant at first, but after a minute he seemed to gather his courage and moved closer to me, so that he was only arm's length away.
My eyes darted to the floor to try to escape those captivating gold orbs. I felt his hand reach out and cup my cheek in his soft hand. The palm of his hand was warm against my cheek as he pulled my head up so my eyes would meet his. I got lost in them, remembering the way they looked when the light went out in them. The way I thought it was a dream when he had stopped breathing, when his heart stopped pounding and the blood stopped moving.
"I'm sorry, I don't know you."
Something dawned on me in that moment.
"Axel." My voice was small, barely above a whisper. But he heard me and he came running. "Elizabet! Did he hurt you?!?"

I pulled away from Warren and got to my feet, turning to Axel who was standing in the doorway, tense, as if he thought Warren would attack me at any moment.
"Axel, come with me for a moment." I walk past him, into one of the tunnels that pulls away from the main cave that was under the city. Axel follows me down the ancient shaft of the cave. He tries to speak but I motion for him to be quite.

We walk till we come to a dead end; hundreds of yards away from the cavern that Warren still occupies the same spot. Warren won't be able to hear us from that far away. Even I who have lived for over five hundred years would have trouble hearing that far. Still I whisper, not taking any chances.
"You know who that is, don't you." I spoke, already knowing the answer.
"Yes." he said, I could hear the guilt in his voice. I want to fire question after question, asking why he didn't tell me, and how could Warren even be alive?
"When." I asked. Crossing my arms over my chest in a defensive manner. Axel shifted his weight and ran his hand through his hair. A sure sign he was holding something back. "As soon as I saw him, I knew."
'YOU KNEW!' I kept my voice to a loud whisper but I felt like screaming. Axel put out his arm to touch my shoulder but then thought better of it.
"Elizabet, your eyes light up when you see him, and the dark tint in your eyes fade. You're genuinely happier around him."
He seemed sad to admit this to for some reason.
My head was spinning as I touched my hand to the wall beside me to steady myself.
"Elizabet," Axel spoke in a soft whisper that had me looking up to his eyes. "You guys met in the 17 century, and you fell in love. "Axel's face surprised me. It was contorted in anger which didn't make sense. Why would he be angry?
But more importantly how could I not remember my so called 'true love'?
"Why can't I recall loving him Axel?" I spoke in a voice so small that I barely recognized it as my own. It sounded so fragile and venerable. I would hate myself if anyone saw me this way. But with Axel, he's different. I feel as if I could trust I'm with my life and I know he wouldn't judge me. I felt safe with him near me, I took comfort in knowing that I could do almost anything, say almost anything and he would never leave my side.

I reached out for Axel, as I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him to me, holding him close.
He seemed surprised at first but soon relaxed into my hold, slipping his arms around my waist. Wordless tears slipped past my eyes and fell down my face. Wetting his shit beneath me, but he didn't seem to care. "Shah, Elizabet don't cry. I can't stand seeing you upset." He soothed.
As my tears slowed something clicked in my head as I move away from Axel. My eyes glowing with anger that was only getting stronger by the second.
"Why, Axel Why." I accused. Axel's guilt was pouring off in waves that would have anyone do anything just to get a smile back up on his face.
Axel is a very powerful vampire and is feared by most.
He got his powers by killing a witch. Witches are the most powerful creatures that have ever walked the plant. They can destroy cities in the blink of an eye, level mountains without a second thought and cause earthquakes with just a flick of the hand.

Most have never met a witch, and if they have, they didn't live to tell the tale.
To gain power witches drain the essence of any creature, it's a slow and agonizing process. It feels as if someone is stabbing you over and over again. This can go on for days, even weeks. Witches might be powerful but they're also sick and twisted creatures who enjoy watching people suffer. They inevitably killing kill everything they capture.

The only people who have survived a witch attack are Axel and I. but his experience was worse than mine by far. He was kept like an animal in a cage, by a witch named Michael for 30 years. Keeping and only feeding him enough blood to keep him alive, not mobile. 30 years he had stayed like this. 30 years he was tortured and when he took that witches life he regretted killing him. The man who had kept him captive, almost killing him several times. He was sad when he died.
Axel's compassion is his asset, it's what keeps him.... Human. But it will be his downfall and it will end up killing him. I know this, everyone knows this. Axel thinks I'll kill him, but I never will. He reminds me of when I was human, he reminds to keep my humanity. He keeps me sane.
When he killed Michael, the witches' power were released to go back into the earth. The root to all the magic that exists. But instead Axel absorbed it, taking in the magic that was not meant for him. Especially since he was a vampire.
For days his body rejected the magic trying to push it out of him, and in the process almost killing him. He said there were no words to describe the pain he felt. He told me that not only did the magic try to tear him from the inside out but also tortured him with images from the past. Ones for him slaughtering thousands for fun, destroying towns and killing the children within the walls. When he told me this story, he said "ElizabetI have never wanted to die so much in the years I have lived. Never wanted to end it all. I always felt grateful for the gift I was given, the chance to live forever. But in that moment it felt like I was cursed. That damned to live a life like this. In pain, in agony and in regret for the rest of my life." He looked me straight in the eye as he spoke these words to me. "No being knows true pain until they have felt the regret of taking another's life. You might be able to live with all the pain. Because that can dull over time. But that memory doesn't, it stays vibrant and alive, reminding you of what you did. That will never die."

He barely made it out alive. But three days after Michael's death, the pain stopped, it just dulled out. He wasn't able to move for another day, so he just slept there on the floor. Barely moving, or breathing.
The next day he said he was able to get up and walk around, but something was different, something was off. He had found where Michael had kept the blood that he was feeding Axel. But as soon as he reached for the door that was to open the metal cabinet. The handle rocketed off the door and had landed across the room. Axel told me that "it was the weirdest thing I had ever felt, for the next few days things around me would randomly explode if I got to mad or sad even to happy. It seem to react to my emotions. I soon learned that it was the magic that I had absorbed. It took me decades but I finally figured out how to control it, how to bend it to my will." After that he was a vampire no one wanted to mess with. Human or otherwise.

But when he gained that power, he gained the ability to wipe years of people's lives, centuries even, and he has the ability to manipulate it to the where if you saw your parents you wouldn't even recognize them.