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Post by MeloraBelikov on Jun 30, 2010 14:51:15 GMT -8
Melora looked up at him, still in a daze. Something with him wasn't right. He was still bleeding. But he was a vampire, he shouldn't keep bleeding like that. She attempted to stand, but her body wasn't having it, so instead she knelt beside him, inspecting his wound. She hadn't seen anything like that before, even wounds from silver bullets closed, encasing the bullets inside their victims, poisoning them and finishing the job if it hadn't been done correctly already.
The mechanical Melora took over, the one who could think and feel, but couldn't express such even slightly. "Azura, this looks serious. What can I do for you?" She was likely in a worse of state than he was, drawing closer to her death, but concern for her friend won her over. Though she spoke without any tone, her words served to make this point obvious. "What should I do to help?"
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Post by AzuraGallu on Jun 30, 2010 15:08:42 GMT -8
"I need to find the knife," he ground out, another sharp pain wracking his body. He knew it sounded random and arbitrary, especially since he didn't know if she was lucid enough to remember the event. Still, he managed to gather himself together enough to stand and turn his body toward the house.
Mumbling something that sounded vaguely similar to what he'd just said, he walked, with surprising grace toward the open doorway, up the steps and into the ruined kitchen. Bits of tile and grit crunched beneath his feet as he examined the hallway they'd emerged from, eyes scanning for the red glint of blood-stained metal.
A sweat broke out on his brow, visible even in the poor light of the room. Finally he'd found it, digging through a mass of rubble consisting of broken mortar and brick with shaking hands.
His worst fear had come true, and he knew it'd be a miracle if he could make it out of this place alive. Thoughts of his clan rushed through his mind, about all the things he'd failed to set up for them in case something like this were to happen. But he took some solace in the fact that he'd left his aunt in charge and that she would choose a good king. A worthier king than he.
Eyes focusing on the shimmering dark powder caked to the handle of the knife, he stood and walked to Melora once more, certain that the heat he suddenly felt was coming from the inside. He sat cross-legged across from her, placing the knife between them.
"Silver..."
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Post by MeloraBelikov on Jun 30, 2010 15:23:05 GMT -8
Swaying a bit as she sat back on her heels, she inspected the knife. He was correct, the blade was caked with silver powder. Obviously the intended use was not for a direct kill, but to poison the poor vampiric bastard who was unlucky enough to get hit by it. In this case, Azura. He seemed all too calm for someone who had just found out they might die, but that was the general idea she had all the time. When Melora went into battle, she knew there would be one of two outcomes. Live or die. For Vampires, that reality was blurred due to the whole immortality thing. For Melora, death was inevitable. For Azura, death could be avoided possibly forever, assuming he managed not to get hit by, say, silver poisoned knives. It occurred to her that he had excellent self control considering that the concept of possibly dying might be less real to him than herself. Still, this was good, it would buy them more time, an increased heart rate on his part would only serve to poison him more quickly.
"Now what do we do? Whatever it is, we need to get to it now."
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Post by AzuraGallu on Jun 30, 2010 15:35:52 GMT -8
"Give me a kiss." It was a statement, not a question. And it would have been a demand had he not felt so damn terrible. After all, it was the least she could do since he'd saved her ass...more than once.
He regarded her steadily, only clue to his condition the sheen of sweat on his brow and the slight feverish shake of his entire body as he sat on the cold ground in the middle of a Russian winter. Steam was literally coming off his body, unheard of for vampires since they generated no body heat.
In fact, he was so hot the sweat from his body had slicked his hair, drops of sweat departing the ends to splash on the ground and melt the cold around them.
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Post by MeloraBelikov on Jun 30, 2010 15:49:44 GMT -8
"What good would that do you, exactly?" She asked, eyebrows raised. She didn't wait for an answer, however. She was dizzy, sick, confused, suggestible, and willing to do whatever Azura told her if it meant she could be of some help to him. With her broken wrist tucked close to her stomach, she leaned forward, using her good arm to run her fingers through his slick hair. Fuck it. If they were going to die, she'd wanted to fuck him at least once. This wasn't quite what she had in mind, but it was as close as they would get. With her fingers laced in his hair she pulled him forward to her, cold lips closing over his warm ones. What an interesting role reversal. Her lips were soft against his, hesitant against doing anymore. But Melora never half-assed anything, and she wasn't going to let her life possibly end with doing so. Her lips pressed harder to his, more passionately locked in a kiss now. Her cheeks warmed slightly from a blush, but not much. She captured this moment in her mind, hoping that if they lived, she'd remember it. Melora couldn't tell if he was caught by surprise, he hadn't seemed to be joking about it, but if he was he'd certainly be taken off guard.
Finally, after a few seconds her hand slipped from his hair and her consciousness slipped from her mind. She fell limp against him, head falling into his lap. Her breaths were ragged and shallow, her stubbornness about being able to fight rather than hide had caught up with her, and she was now suffering the consequences for it.
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Post by AzuraGallu on Jun 30, 2010 16:03:22 GMT -8
Azura let out a very uncharacteristic purr the moment her lips met his. He was expecting some kind of protest, yelling, maybe a slap to the face. But what he was met with was something completely contrary to what he believed to be her behavioral norm.
To his disappointment, as soon as it had started, it ended, with her passing out completely on his lap.
"Well, I still got it." He said with a chuckle, the action causing him to cough. He turned his head away, not wanting blood to come up onto Melora, though it'd make no difference. Afterwards, the ache persisted within his chest, and he steadied himself by placing a hand down, forgetting for a moment that she was there. His hand met her hair, and he brushed his fingers through it, a smaller cough following.
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Post by Doctor on Jun 30, 2010 20:46:10 GMT -8
His chorus of voices sang together a string of impressive but redundant profanities as everywhere Anshel turned his path was crossed by the seemingly endless horde of enemies. And all he had to protect himself with was brute force and some poor bastard's leg. Upstairs, downstairs, round and round, he ran and swung and found nothing but an infestation of Blackraven scouts. The manor was lost to them now.
But, damn it, they weren't about to let these fuckers take it and the weapons inside. He came to a stop once the garden was visible through the windows. Seeing Azura and Melora on the turf brought a sigh of relief and a determination to thoroughly waste the nightmare of a home. Anshel dodged into the kitchen adjacent to the exit and clicked the stove on. Tossing tablecloths over it, they were quickly set aflame. With one in each hand, he dragged the fiery sheets back into the hall, throwing them to the windows. Moth-eaten drapery burned to nothing as scorch marks painted the walls. The vaulted ceilings, too, took to flame. It would burn. All of it.
Sprinting outside, out of the smoke that began to cloud the hallways, he finally allowed his wings to extend with a flap, the subsequent gust spreading the embers near the entrance.
Anshel only allowed himself a cursory glance at his companions before dragging them up. Melora was thrown across his shoulder, her body folding over like the bloodiest, sorriest sack of potatoes one could imagine. His bicep, once again whole, flexed in an effort to keep her top-half upright and out of the way of his expansive devil's wings.
"Hold on to me!" The voices demanded of Azura as Anshel grabbed him around the waist. An arm wrapped lightly around his neck, not tight enough for him to feel confident in the vampire's hold, but he was too desperate to vacate the premises to mind safety.
Without a word of farewell to the blazing estate, Anshel launched them up, above the trees, towards the lights of the city.
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Post by MeloraBelikov on Jun 30, 2010 21:02:46 GMT -8
The first thing she felt was how bright the light above her was. Melora's eyes fluttered open, only to shut tight again, because the next thing she felt was pain. Not just pain, but fucking pain. Her entire body ached, her shoulders stung, and her wrist was completely immobile. What the fuck. Finally her she decided she would open her eyes despite the initial shock of the light.
She found herself in a bed, in a completely white room which simply smelled sterile. Oh Christ, she was in purgatory, she decided. Nothing good, nothing bad, just existence.
Upon a secondary glance around the room, she decided she couldn't be in purgatory. For starters, if she was being entirely honest, at this point in her life she belonged in hell. Also, the room had a door, a chair, and a bedside table. So....maybe hell's waiting room? Melora puzzled over this for a little while. She had to be dead, for sure.
Had Azura died? Would Anshel miss her? Of course he wouldn't, the prick. The media was probably having a field day guessing how she died. The Banglaire would prevent an autopsy. The Americans would have the whole thing televised, taking shots in the dark as to the cause. Likely "natural causes". European tabloids would likely list it as "drug overdose". Russia would think it was... She mused on this for awhile as she was laying there, wondering what to do next aside from stare at the white on the walls.
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Post by AzuraGallu on Jun 30, 2010 21:17:16 GMT -8
Upon their landing at...wherever the hell they happened to be at the time, Azura was completely overrun with the effects of the poisoning. He vomited once he was placed on the ground, mind churning with ways to end this quickly. Then, to his surprise, he dredged up a cure.
It was something his father had mentioned long ago about what to do if he'd ever gotten a silver weapon-inflicted injury. Granted, he wasn't speaking of powders, but the general parameters of the rule would work.
Dilution.
He rolled onto his back, away from the purged contents of his stomach, all thick clots of blood, and attempted to speak to Anshel. He opened his mouth a few times, only air passing his lips the first few. Then, in a surge of pure stubbornness he'd finally sounded something that made sense.
"Food..."
After that, he only remembered an agonizingly long wait before a nice wet thump shook the ground beside him, and then the blood. He'd lost all sense of himself as he'd latched onto the corpse, clawing and ripping at it with teeth and fangs. By the time he was finished it was unrecognizable, and he was completely soaked. Blood bath was entirely the proper term.
He'd come to minutes after that, peering sheepishly up at Anshel, raising a brow at his odd demonic form.
Hours passed, maybe a day or two before he found himself walking down a darkened hallway in a small medical facility in Russia. He'd bought a new set of clothes, much more casual than his royal attire, and was cleaned up, free of the caked on blood from several assaults. Besides a few bandages on his torso, the silver causing his wounds to scar over like a human's, he looked completely fine.
Cold metal of a handle met his palm as he pushed open the room's door quietly, eyes meeting Melora's battered form.
"Little Hunter..." he frowned, walking to her bedside.
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Post by Doctor on Jun 30, 2010 21:43:12 GMT -8
Once Melora was safely deposited on the concrete of an emergency room entrance, he flew the vampire into the density of the forest that hugged the southern face of the facility.
The king being barely lucid, Anshel could not make out Azura's words and was at a loss with regards to how he'd gotten into such a sorry state. Blood still oozed from his chest and he was shivering violently, very unlike a vampire, but a single request was forced out: "Food." And with little time to think, let alone plan, Anshel sprinted back to the hospital where an ambulance had just arrived. Shoulder first, he rammed the side of the tiny box of a vehicle. It crashed on it's side. With but a small window to avoid the ground's security, Anshel tore open the back, an aging man and a medic lay sprawled inside, unconscious. Grabbing them both, he flew with haste back into the thicket, tossing the bodies on the ground before Azura.
That was two days ago, and now, walking behind the vampire past the fluorescent lit walls of the same hospital, he reflected on the chaos of that night. Oh Satan, Azura had been the easy one, he thought. He dreaded having to explain to Melora how she was still alive.
Nevertheless, he put on a face too jovial for a man who had done what he had done and strode in behind his companion into the girl's room.
"My darling wife! Thank goodness!" His voice carried into the hall before he shut the door behind them firmly.
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Post by MeloraBelikov on Jun 30, 2010 21:50:15 GMT -8
"Hey Azura." she smiled a tiny little smile, relieved to see him. Being alone in hell would suck.
Melora was startled. First Azura, and now Anshel? She could understand if it were just Azura, but had the devil himself called Anshel back to hell? An eternity married to Anshel....she was beginning to rethink the part about being in hell alone sucking.
"If this is what it's like to be dead, it sucks." She noted to both of them. "The least they can do is take the pain away. And maybe they could stand to hire an interior decorator." In her state she truly believed herself to be dead, going so far as to look over the medical equipment all over the place.
"Also, when did we get married?"
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Post by Rima Elaine Donavon on Jun 30, 2010 22:04:52 GMT -8
The blackness hadn’t comsumed her enough. Rima had watched while Azura, Melora, and the one of the group whom she had trusted most, Anshel, left. Ragged coughs wracked her body over that next bit; she couldn’t move. Her guts were clenched, body stiff and numbed by the sickening smoke. This place, once known as Belikov Manor, would be nothing more then smouldering ash within the day.
A voice rang in her ears when there was nothing more for company then the crackling of fire, and the heat of the parched air in the fast-burning home. “So you’ll be joining me then? This easily no less? Fallen prey to another's flame after you helped them to survive?” It was Thomas, her baby, twin brother. And he had the audacity to critisize her. Grey-blue eyes that watered with tears from the impure air, focused on the dancing air above the nearest flame. It was just down the hall, and coming closer. There he was: Thomas’ ghostly form, flashing a fanged smile. “I always thought you were tougher then that.” She gave a weak mental stab to thin air, worsening her condition. “You’ve proven me wrong… Oh what am I saying? I am not going to let you die in this rat hole.” The icy chill cooled the burning heat around her, strength returning to her bones as the spirit took control of her mind and body. The movements felt as though they were in slow motion, but eventually she lay several hundred feet from the crippled inferno of a house, staring up at the sky.
The next day after that, after hiding from human eyes in the shadows of trees once a few grains of energy returned and Thomas left, had passed with regeneration and healing. The burns on her arms would heal at a human rate, but her breaths were fuller.
At an awkward angle, she cut her hair. Rima’s reaction to the bare movements had been painful, both mentally and physically. Long hair had been been one of her closest things, a memory of the past. It was left shoulder length in a ragged style, giving an edgey appearance.
She needed to find a clinic now to cleanse and bandage the burns on her arms. To prove difficult. She thought to herself. Considering that bastard Anshel has my ID and credit cards back at the Headquarters. Come hell or highwater, she would get those back… right after she got into a bank account. Though that would be damn near- Not if her Housekeeper was able to access the safe. That had all her backup information. But then again, another problem: no phone.
“Hell on Earth.” Rima snarled, beginning the slow, tedious walk back to civilization, throat burning. It became a thousand times easier when a young, recently married, human couple gave her aid by allowing a ride, that was easily wiped from their minds, along with a bit of blood letting.
Her treatment took a day, and the payment was wire transferred through, after she had used the clinic phone for her numbers. The length of her forearm was wrapped, and the upper arm on the right side as well. A change of clothes had also been a necessity. The white tee shirt, blue jeans, and charcoal grey jacket would suffice to hide the evidence.
Now two days later, Rima walked through the streets, intent on meeting up with somebody her maid hired to get her someplace she could recognize. But to no luck. However, she was near the area where Anshel and the group were. Rima could feel that much.
'A warning to you, Dear Hunter.' She projected into Anshel's thoughts, her voice carrying an edge it had not before. 'This will not go forgotten.'
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Post by AzuraGallu on Jun 30, 2010 22:15:43 GMT -8
Azura chuckled. "This isn't Hell. You're quite alive. Glad to see you so happy to see me. It bodes well for our future meetings, especially since you still owe me."
He flashed a fanged smile, knowing that seeing some part of his vampiric nature would irk her to some degree before turning to face Anshel.
"Where is her clothing?" He was dead set on the machine they'd taken apart just before the ambush. He was positive no one had gotten a hold of it in the manor, but he wasn't so sure about the staff. The Blackraven's could have spies everywhere, and he wasn't willing to take that chance.
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Post by Doctor on Jun 30, 2010 22:37:37 GMT -8
It didn't surprise him she was up and talking; it was part of the deal, after all.
"Yesterday," Anshel answered Melora, feeling like his face would break from the falseness of his smile. "Don't you remember? You wore a terribly ugly white dress even though I told you that ivory or gold would've complimented your complexion better."
He dropped a sack at the foot of her bed and pointed at it in response to Azura's inquiry about her clothes.
"Since you're very much alive, Ms. Belikov, we should probably get g-"
His train of thought was cut off by a tiny threat that wormed its way into his mind. Ms. Donavon had escaped the flames as well it seemed. He would have been happy for her if the result hadn't been an inevitably violent confrontation with her in the future.
He cleared his throat. "Excuse me. I was say-"
"So, where's this friend of yours, Anshel? The ink is hot!"
He jumped at the interruption and whipped himself around to find Nybras stepping out of the hospital room's cabinet, the smell of brimstone wafting in from behind him, clinging to his sharp navy suit which clashed terribly with the obsidian of his hair and horns. The demon really needed to go lighter on the product, because the slickness of his hair screamed used car salesman more than it did Advisor of Hell.
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Post by MeloraBelikov on Jun 30, 2010 22:47:08 GMT -8
Now aware that she was awake, she started to wonder what medication they'd put her on. She was seeing things. "Um....sorry to interrupt, but does anyone else see that?" Melora sat up slightly, wincing at the pain in doing so. Maybe they hadn't put her on any medications. The man from the cabinet had horns and an ugly outfit, and she considered it for a second. She would never even hallucinate a suit that ugly. "Who are you, exactly? And how did you just pop through the cabinet? I want to learn to do that."
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