Walk Into The Light - Shadows of the Night 6

Chapter 24

Hey,

Internet's back up and I'm finally back with another chapter! Holidays were great, but damn, it's good to be back again :-)

I hope you like this chapter. The beginning's a little different, but it just felt right to me! Let me know what you're thinking! This week's song: "The Curse" by Agnes Obel.

Lara

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Chapter 24

The end comes

In the wake of death's soundless walk.

It hurts. At first.

It's vast, sudden and terrible. At first.

The end comes

But it brings a gift

Something no one and nothing else can give.

Oblivion, so profound and great

It carries silence, stillness and peace.

* * *

ANDY

Two weeks since we last saw her. Since she-.

Fuck. I'm not thinking it.

The rumors had already spread. If there's one thing in this city people loved to do it was talk. And talk they did. They said Anna died. Theories on how and why she did, seemed to be up for grabs.

I saw it with my own eyes, but I was not going to believe. Not until we saw Alexander. The head vampire stormed into the battle field when Heléna Bathoryn died and the shield she created fell.

He moved in the way only old vamps do – quick, almost mechanic motions that seemed like illusions to the human eye. I'd never seen the head vampire move that fast.

The last I saw was him picking up Anna, staring at her loose arms and limbs with the impassionate gaze of a five-hundred-year-old vampire. He vanished, seemingly blinking into nonexistence, without a word to Dark Death or anybody else.

We'd heard nothing from him ever since.

Me and Giuliana almost didn't make it out alive. It looked like Dark Death didn't like unexpected bystanders, particularly if one of them was part of the Circle and the other a gifted Italian witch. We had to perform a binding spell in front of them that would forbid us to offer the information to anyone else.

Perhaps that was why the Circle was still fucking clueless.

My mind shunned the memory of that moment when I truly lost it. The cool, quiet place I always stepped into when entering battle or, dammit, when I worked for the Circle – it was gone, blown to smithereens when I saw her fall and crumble to the floor. Lifeless. Dea-

No, I was not saying it. Not fucking thinking it.

* * *

It took us ten days to find the head vampire. And we only did with highly illegal magic, using Anna's blood to track her. Blood spells are messy and dangerous, but damned effective.

No witch in her right mind leaves remains of her hair or blood lying around where anybody can get it. We're careful when it comes to that. Anna left enough blood for a handful of nasty blood spells on that street.