Week Twelve: Saturday When: Late Night Where: Hotel Who: Nikolaos, Dorian, Mikkos, Guards What: Demons - Nikolaos's Point of View - Narrative
Bright light made him squint as he stared across the room at the other still held captive. Trapped there behind bars that never would have held him if it weren't for the light keeping the shadows at bay. How long had it been now? The days began to blend together. Weeks he knew, weeks with so little change. No words, no orders. He was left in this fucking purgatory for acts he had not committed. If he were going to be damned no matter what he did then why keep to the rules of allowing this one life? Why do any of what he was told to do in coming here? Bitterness had begun to snake its way through his veins, slowly feeding the fuels of fires that already nearly tore him apart.
His entire life meant nothing. All teachings were thrown away. He knew this now, the evidence was too striking for him to deny now. Even his mother had somehow managed to slip away. Crawling back to the depths to lick the boots of the old man too lost in his own fucking head to see anything anymore. He spent years under his tutelage and for what? For this disrespect. Never had he put disgrace upon the family and yet he was left to that fate. Denied entrance back into hell, viciously kept here. Forced to remain. He wore scars upon the flesh of the battles fought in attempt to regain rightful place.
Guards were dead. Blood of kin coated his hands and never did Nikolaos feel satisfaction in their fall. This was not what he had wanted. This was not what he had thought would come to pass. But how obvious it was now that he'd never be enough. That always his fathers shadow would veil him from true sight of ever being considered leader. All the tests were false; an act to convince both that he would take up place next while other plans were made.
Betrayed. Backs turned. He could see it in their eyes. The way they wished to sneer as they looked at him, the way lips twitched in the act to remain blank. Lips were torn from the faces of those that dared to lose that false state of indifference. Eyes ripped from the sockets of any that happened to glare in his direction. Tongues removed from those that had no right to speak to him of honor or respect. For each that fell another remained. The numbers were indication that something was amiss. More now then there had been before; none spoke word to father or son. None answered to their demands or snarls for obedience. Yet they remained here. Watching over the other. Only uttering that he was to be kept from escaping still. Why? That they would not answer. There were no answers to be found through their pain or their deaths. No answers to be found through the others that no longer remained.
Nikolaos would not even be here if it were not for words that answers would be given tonight. He was told that it was his father that called him here. That solution had been reached. He held no hope in such utterances; he had no faith in any sense of what had been returning to him. The family he had come to respect was lost. The work done his entire life mattered not. His worth had been made clear.
Still he showed, taking stance in the shadows and waiting. Waiting for the arrival of the man called father. Waiting in silence. No guard glanced his way and Nikolaos now no longer looked to them. They were not his kin. They were not his brethren. Not any longer. They were meaningless to him. Worthless flesh that every inch of him wished to tear apart.
He did not have to wait long before his father's presence was felt.
It was Nikolaos who wore a sneer as the man entered into the room. He did not seek to deny what was felt, he plainly displayed his hate. His bitterness for all that had come to pass because of him. Nikolaos would never be enough as his father never had been. His faults were Nikolaos's own. His disgraces to be worn by the son. What truly angered Nikoloas more then all else was how little he seemed to care for what he has forced to befall his son. That he felt no shame in all he had done, in those fucking choices made.
Hands tensed at his side, claws flexing. He eyed him, awaiting word for why he was here. It was apparent he was waiting for him to speak. But the questioning look upon his father's own features was not what he expected to see. Likely the look upon Nikolaos's own was not what the elder demon had sought tonight.
But what they wanted mattered nothing. As suddenly the entire room was flooded with that brilliant light. Nikolaos hissed, drawing back but there was no where to draw back to in the room. No where to move to avoid the startlingly intensity. Near blind guards took that moment to strike out in their planned attack. Tonight was the night that those that held no worth to the family were to be removed.
Nikolaos did not question but reacted. Primal in nature, moved by hatred, claws slashed against the hands that grabbed at him. He had not come tonight ill prepared. He had not allowed his guard down from the moment that all of this had begun and tonight had not been the night he decided to do so. A jagged blade was plunged deep through the chest of one guard while the trigger was pulled with the other hand. The shot echoed in piercing intensity through the room, cutting through the air to imbed in the chest of one of the light users. It was a blind shot, Nikolaos guessing to where he remembered the man. It was enough. Enough to dim the light in the room. Enough to draw some of the shadows back.
Creatures crawled out of them, pointed talons and sharpened teeth tearing through the flesh of any that opposed them. The room once near vacant save a few guards now was suddenly swarming with bodies. The attention no longer remained on the run away but on the three. The guards had their orders and like Nikoloas before them, they knew better then to ever disobey. They knew to fight till the death here rather then ever think to return a failure.
Another shot took down an approaching guard before the weapon was dislodged from his hand, sliding across the floor into the remaining light. Nikolaos turned, large wings flaring out to remove the demon at his back as blow claws and blade sliced through the demons and more that had come to fill the room. It was chaos. He could hear his fathers snarls in the distance but could not see him through the horde. He heard the snap of bars and the shuffle of chains signaling the others struggle.
They were there. Among the masses. Fighting for their own survival.
Growling Nikolaos tore the blade upwards with both hands, slicing a man in a half as bodies continued to appear and disappear within the shadows of the room. Blood sprayed across his face, the red clouded his vision and still he pushed on, never once allowing any wound to stop him. Never allowing himself to feel any pain.
Into the shadows his body faded, avoiding the sharp strike of a sword that sought to remove the arm holding the blade. From the shadows he appeared to snap the neck of another. The body dropped, crumbling to the ground to join all the others that now were trampled in the fray.
Nikolaos could hear the shout of orders. The familiar sound no longer meant for him. "Take them down!" it was the tone of the words that drew Nikolaos's attention. The way it was spoken, the demand that meant nothing of just with hands or weapons. He knew the tactics of the family. How to take prisoners. He knew the drugs used, he had spent many years seeking resistance to it and more. It was that used to take Dorian down not weeks before.
Tonight wasn't just about death.
He saw the man cutting through the mob. He saw the flash of the needle. He felt the hands and claws digging into his flesh to try to hold him still. Viciously men were torn off of him. A head caved as he crushed the life from him to drag him away. Ribs snapped at the violent tear to force others back. Even the shadows were alive seeking to grab men off of him.
But the numbers were too high. They knew the demons they would be fighting tonight. They too came prepared.
Nikolaos snarled into the chaos as he felt the needle dig in, breaking off in the flesh as he thrashed against their hold upon him. One….two…..three….Nikoloas fought to keep his mind aware, refusing to let his body fall.
The darkness he fell into was not that which could save him.