:: Gold and Crimson ::



As the wailing fit choked down into hoarse hiccups, the smiling angel turned to the expressionless vampire standing a few steps away.


"Are you all right?"


The angel broke the silence first, his protruding fangs the only belying factor in the seraphic smile.


Fionna nodded curtly, wordlessly staring at his partner.


Finn waited for a few seconds before he gave a resigned sigh.


"Shall we go then?"


As the smiling vampire turned to go, Fionna's gaze sharpened into daggers as if to nail him to the spot.


"Why?" he demanded quietly, unconsciously imitating the desperate cry emitted by the crouching boy.


" 'Why' ?" Finn echoed with a faint smile, then gestured towards the pile of bones and rags. "Do you mean those ladies?"


Fionna's expressionless face twiched into an involuntary grimace, answering his partner.


"Why not?" the slightest shrug rustled the dark cape over slender shoulders. "I am not yet healed enough to aid you in a physical fight, and when that boy joined the fight, they desired to help."


His partner's words only confused him, but his amber eyes caught the slight movement as the hiccupping of the boy stopped for an instant.


Why would the kidnapped women wish to help their killer?


As if reading the question that rose within him, his partner shook his head, the silken locks falling into his face. "You misunderstand the whole situation, Fionna."


Raking back the errant locks with long slender fingers, Finn gazed down at the quietly crouching boy at his feet.


"Who killed your mother, Emile?"


Staring at the skull with strands of yellow hair falling onto his grasping hands, Emile heard the question as if from far away.


. . . Who . . . killed . . . your . . . mother . . . ?


But maman isn't dead...


She's alive, here, she's smiling at me...


"Leonine de la Farouche is dead, Emile."


The far away voice continued to drone on, battering him, but he tried to ignore it, holding his mother tightly to his chest.


How can anyone say you are dead when you are here with me?


"Finn...?"


A startled voice was all the warning he got before a slender but powerful hand grabbed him up by the throat, then he was staring at the face of an angel.


An angel of death...!


Despite the gentle, almost loving expression, something within him fought against his mind that told him to trust the angel.


Snarling like a wild animal, Emile would have clawed at the face except he was holding his maman...


"Your mother is dead, Emile," the melodious voice should have been pleasant, relaxing, but each word struck him like a physical blow, the sapphire eyes blazing into his mind.


"Maman isn't-" dead, he wanted to shout, but the cry choked in his throat before it could come out.


The angel's smile had widened ever so slightly, and the death in the blazing eyes killed his words before they could come out.


"Do you know what I am, boy?"


"You are a monster..." Emile spat, glaring back power for power. "You are a vampire, and you killed my mother!"


The fragile skull cracked within his small hands, but he took no notice, letting the bone fragments fall to the earth and grabbing the vampire's shirtfront instead.


"May the Holy Mother hear -" he started to murmur, but a quick hand slapped the words away from him.


Tearing his gaze away from the sapphire orbs, he glared into slitted golden eyes.


The breath caught in his throat.


' Come, Emile '


Golden eyes smiling at him, and even though he knew he shouldn't, he had to obey...


' There's my good boy, mon enfant '


Hypnotic gaze, the gold blinding him even as a sharp pain in his neck made him sink into oblivion...


' You're not my father... You can't be...! '


Then a different kind of gold filled his vision, warm, honey gold...


' Emile, mon petit...mon cher ange... '


Luminous emerald eyes glinting tears that she would not let fall.


' Let me free you from your torment... '


The slender hands that used to rock him to sleep when he was a baby, the hands that helped him up when he fell, the hands that hugged him when he did well in his learnings, the hands that always told him how safe and loved he was...those hands held him close, and he smelled her blood, the sweetest blood that threatened to overwhelm him.


' Maman...'


Terrified of what he would do, he called out to her, begging her for quick release...


Hot hot tears fell into his eyes, but he did not even blink, only staring at the beautiful face as if to take the memories with him, and he did not even glance at the wooden stake in her hand, the hand that loved him.


' I love you, Emile... '


Smiling with tears falling from her smooth cheeks, Leonine raised the stake so that for an instant, the stake came into his field of vision.


' Maman... '


He did not close his eyes. He wanted the last thing he saw in this world to be his mother's beautiful, loving face, and he saw.


Crimson filled his eyes, blocking his vision but all too late.


He saw.


The white beautiful neck ripped into an ugly mess of bloody flesh, the blood falling over him, into his face, his eyes, into his mouth...


Again and again, he saw the white white neck ripped open by a black claw, the same black claw each time...ripping through flesh, ripping through sanctified silver chain, ripping through his eternal nightmare...





Shuddering, Fionna turned his eyes away with an effort, and stared at his smiling partner.


What was that...?


Why could Finn stand there smiling as if nothing was wrong...but then again, he was always like that.


Instantly calming himself - if only because he didn't want to let his partner get the chance to tease him about his panic later on - the golden eyed vampire sneaked a glance at the small face pale to a point that it seemed that the boy must fade away.


The emerald eyes were no longer looking at him, and Fionna gave a tiny sigh of relief.


It seemed that eye contact roused this strange mental bond that he did not wish at all to share, since he could see only pain in the visions.


"Do you understand now?"


Finn was asking, and for a moment, Fionna couldn't tell if the question was meant to be for him or for the boy still dangling from his partner's slender hand.


"It was that beast..."


The hoarse thin voice issued from pale exhausted lips, green eyes wide and dull.


"That thing killed my mother..."


Why hadn't he seen that...?


"That thing killed all my mothers...!"


The women that he had brought to replace his mother, the innocent women who, despite their fear, pitied him, tried to love him...!


But by next night, they were always dead, their throats gashed open just like his mother.


"And I couldn't stop it..."


If he could weep, he would...but only the coldest blood trickled from the edges of his eyes.


"A waste, little one," Fionna reached out and wiped away the blood, licking his fingers and tasting the sorrow, the powerful yet helpless soul.


Dully, Emile looked up and saw the amber eyes from his nightmare.


"You live."


A flat statement, neither surprise nor relief apparent in the inflectionless voice.


Equally expressionless, Fionna nodded, although inwardly, he had to smile at the expression.


An Undead neither lived nor died. It merely existed, and "death" meant complete vanishment.


"Because my mother took her own revenge..." Emile murmured, mostly to himself, turning his gaze back towards the sapphire eyed angel still dangling him.


Too worn out, he couldn't care less what kind of situation he was in.


All he could care about was his mother.


His mother, and all the subsequent women had all been frozen in time, so that even though they were dead, the body neither rotted nor wasted away completely. He did not know whether it had been his own will that froze them or not, but he had to know what happened to them at the end before he was killed...


"What did you do to...with my mother?"


Smiling gently, the gray eyed vampire let him fall to the ground.


"I am sometimes called 'Death Master'," Finn replied, knowing that no further explanation was necessary for this boy.


He could tell that Fionna looked at him in askance at the lack of explanation, but the honey blond boy nodded tiredly.


"Mother mentioned your kind, although she said it was rare for any Undead to become a Death Master."


' A Death Master can communicate with the dead and give them temporary life energy to animate them. '


With his all too clear mind, he could bring out the memory as they had once sat in a brightly sunlit room, the sun playing on her mother's hair as if blessing her even as she taught her son about the Undead.


' Usually, there're two ways to animate the dead. One is to completely bring them under control and give them one command to follow through. Another is to give them their own freedom to act, but the second one is impractical, since the dead people don't wish to be disturbed and they turn on the one who disturbs them. '


And how do I defeat such a powerful Undead?


He had asked, wide eyed in fear and trepidation.


The sun seemed to darken for a moment, the room chilly, even as his mother shook her head.


' No, Emile. No human can possibly stand against a Death Master. Your only chance is to run, and pray to the Virgin Mother that he shall not catch you, for even then, it is a very slim chance. Promise me that you'll run, if you ever have the mischance to meet such a powerful Undead. '


And he had promised, not really believing that he would have to ever come across such a powerful Undead.


Hadn't her mother and her colleagues gotten rid of most of the powerful Undead in the city...?


But here was one now, and even though he himself was no longer a human mortal, he didn't stand a chance...not when even his mother had been controlled by the Undead.


I can't keep my promise with you, mother... I can't run...I don't want to run and continue my existence...


"Did you command them, or were they acting under their own volition?" Emile asked the ground, not even bothering to look up.


"All I have done was to unfreeze their time and give them what energy they needed in order to move," Finn replied with a genuine smile in his bluish gray eyes. Fionna was intelligent and smart, but this boy had a quick turn of mind that he liked...


Nodding tiredly, Emile puffed a tiny sigh.


"I've nothing more to ask... Kill me."


Fionna started, staring in dumb amazement at the boy.


Did he have a deathwish, this young vampire?


"Why should I...we bother to?" Finn turned on his heels. "Come, Fionna. We leave the city while night is still young."


"Finn..." calling him once to stay his partner, Fionna turned his amber gaze to the boy staring at them.


"Do you truly wish to die...Emile?" he uttered the name for the first time, making the wide green eyes fix themselves upon him. "If you wish to die, then we do not have to lift a hand. This city will kill you before the night is over." After Finn and I leave you... he added to himself silently, but the boy seemed to hear it.


Indecision flickered in the dull eyes.


Holding the weak gaze with his own, Fionna continued, wishing that he had Finn's power of gaze.


"The beast that...attacked tonight... It was a creation and had no mind of its own. It was following orders from its creator."


A flicker of intelligence came back into the dead gaze, and Fionna nearly smiled.


"The creator knows that the beast was killed, and he knows that you exist. If you exist, then you must want revenge, or so he will think."


"And try to kill me?" Emile finished for the amber eyed vampire, and considered the idea.


Of course he wished to ultimately revenge himself on the "creator" that must have started the whole nightmare for him; turning his father into a vampire in order to end the Farouche line, the lineage that down the centuries produced the most powerful exorcists and holy priests.


But not now.


He was still too weak.


As much as he hated to admit it, he was weak. So weak that he couldn't even imagine himself facing the Death Master - he had only thought of surrendering.


"Thank you for your advice," he smiled tightly, looking away from amber eyes that still hurt a little to look at.


The Death Master was looking back as well, and Emile bowed stiffly in silent gratitude.


"Well, since that's decided, shall we go?" Finn smiled at both Fionna and Emile, startling them.


Both his brows rising in an expression of surprise, Fionna wondered what his partner could be up to. It had been his own intention to bring the young vampire with them and had been prepared to battle for the decision... He had not expected Finn to readily agree to bringing the boy with them.


"I beg your pardon, but it seems that you included me in your 'we' ?" Emile asked over politely, suspicion dawning within him.


"For your own protection, young one," Finn smiled as if there were only truth in his spoken words. "I can see that you are not completely aware of what it means to be a vampire, and I know my partner is very soft that way. Fionna could not possibly leave you behind, knowing that you will be finished off."


Half disbelieving, still, Emile could not find any decent reason for the Death Master to wish him harm in the future, so he nodded cautiously.


"I will need to gather some things before I can leave," he replied, and without another word, disappeared into the church.


After making sure that the boy was truly out of hearing range, Fionna flickered a questioning glance towards his partner.


"He is not just a vampire, Fionna," Finn chuckled, the fluid sound tingling in the air. "He is an exorcist as well."


His breath caught for a moment, and Fionna remembered the holy water and the silver chains...


"Can you imagine what a treasure he will be to us?"


Turning his back on his chuckling partner, Fionna gave a tiny sigh.


What a waste of brain cells wondering what his partner could be up to.


Of course Finn acted only according to his desires, not for any soft feelings, unlike him.