Dies irae, dies illa, solvet saeclum in favilla Who: Eric & Kendal; policemen & paramedics (NPCed) Where: St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church When: Dawn > Late morning
Eric touched his cheek as he entered the church’s main hall. It felt like skin, at least, which was a relief. He knew he was starved, mostly because he had had to switch his normal sleeping patterns. It was like being in the seminary again. After his ordination, he had been able to spend more time awake in the afternoons and evenings, sleeping in the mornings. Now, however, due to the fact that he had to be awake for lauds and then welcome scared parishioners into the church, he was once again a diurnal creature, which did not bode well for him. His whole system was thrown off balance and he was always hungry. It was difficult to tell when he was truly hungry or just in need of some form of sustenance.
Walking into the sacristy, Eric located the thurible and filled it with incense before lighting it. The fire still made him flinch to this very day, but he managed to light the censer without hurting himself. He blew on the fire a couple times before releasing the lid to kill the flames. A nice, steady smoke rose through the holes on the lid. Sliding the thurible off the table, Eric waved it around a few times to see if the smoke would stay. Once he was sure it was ready, he walked back into the main hall and began his lauds.
“Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,” he sang out in the clerical monotone. As he walked down the center aisle, he heard a commotion just beyond the closed church doors before it was quickly silenced. Curious, Eric stopped singing and walked towards the main doors...before they burst open of their own accord. Stepping back away from the sudden flash of sunlight, Eric squinted and saw a group of seven people assembled in the doorway.
“Good morning, Your Eminence,” a rough voice said, as its owner stepped forward.
“Good morning,” Eric responded, trying to get a clearer vision of his visitors. He didn’t particularly care for the way the man had said his title. “Can I help you?”
“He’s not burning!” someone hissed. “I thought sunlight killed them.”
“Devil’s work,” a third voice responded.
“We are all God’s creatures,” Eric interrupted. “I was created by God just the same as--” his statement was interrupted as the metaphorical wind was knocked out of him. Eric quickly realized he was on his back on the floor of the church. The thurible had spun away from him and was now lying underneath one of the pews, ashes tumbling out. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded, trying to get up.
“YOU SHUT UP!” the man sitting on top of him growled. He was the same one who had said his ability to stand the sunlight was devil work. “Abomination!”
“Please, I don’t want to hurt you--”
“Do you hear that? He’s threatening me in the house of the Lord!” the same man announced.
“Sir, you are on my chest. If anyone has broken sanctuary--” a backhand made him stop as his own fangs cut into his lower lip.
That was it. Using all the strength he had, Eric shoved the man off of him. Number three landed a good five feet away and didn’t get back up. Eric rose to his feet, brushing himself off. He wiped the drop of blood on his chin away.
“Please, we can discuss--” he avoided a fist as it rushed to collide with his face. A second...and then third man were suddenly on him. Eric tried to evade all the attacks but there were simply too many of them. There was a fourth man and then suddenly -- “AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHHHH!” Eric screamed.
“The cross burns him!” a feminine voice declared. Eric looked down. It was made of silver and someone had practically stabbed him with it. It had partially stuck to the front of his robes, which were now sizzling as the flesh beneath burned. He swiped the cross away. It skidded to a stop by someone’s feet. Eric looked at his hand. It was covered in something brown.
Shit.
Eric grabbed the front of his cassock and began to panic as the dirt sewn into the front of his robes fell onto the floor in front of him. He pressed what dirt he had stuck to his hand against his chest. This moment of distraction was all the other people needed. Eric was exponentially stronger, yes, but there were five men in their party...and two women decked in silver, as they had been informed to do.
A single gunshot.
Eric fell to the ground as pain exploded in his left leg. He screamed. Dirt was still falling to the floor.
Another gunshot.
Facedown on the marble floor, Eric’s could feel something sticky where the dirt had been sewn over his chest. The stickiness began to spread slowly - and it was then Eric realized he was bleeding. The man he had thrown had recovered and was now standing above him with a gun pointed at his head.
“Kill the abomination!” a female voice screamed somewhere in the furthest region of Eric’s mind.
“No,” came the response.
Suddenly, there were hands on him, grabbing him, making him stand. His left leg refused to cooperate and his chest was still leaking blood. Backwards, backwards they pushed and pulled him, pressing him up against something...wooden. They spread his arms and pushed his legs together. Eric’s brain struggled to catch up. Something rough and scratchy around his wrists. They were tying him to something with his arms outstretched. More of the scratchy stuff around his throat, pulling him against an uneven surface. The smell of his own blood assailed his nostrils...and then he realized what they were doing. His eyes flew open as his head rolled to one side in time to see them drive a custom made silver nail through his right hand. He screamed as they pounded the wedge through his hand, breaking bone and burning flesh. Eric could smell his own death approaching.
THWACK.
Despite his dwindling energy level, he still found it in himself to scream as they drove the nail through his left hand this time. Screaming as it sank into his body, burning his flesh, tearing his soul apart. He realized they were crucifying him, right on top of the life-sized crucifix that stood behind the altar. He hardly felt the nails that went through his feet.
“If you truly are a child of God, you would be saved,” the man with the gun chuckled.
Jesus was tested in the same way by the unworthy, Eric thought. But that was all he could do. There was nothing left in him to speak.
“Oh, wait, you’re missing something.”
A stickiness ran down the side of Eric’s torso as someone sliced his side open.
“Now you are truly like Jesus.”
There was the sound of things being picked up, things being broken and doors being closed. Darkness fell over the church and over Eric, whose eyes refused to open. Broken, beaten and bloody, Eric hung upon the cross much like Jesus had so many centuries ago. He tried to find the strength within him to pull free of his bonds but the pain was so intense in his palms and on his feet that he couldn’t even begin to move. His strength ebbed away as the last of the dirt fell away from his chest and as the last of his blood drained from the wound on his side.
Only one thing could save him now.
A feeble, desperate prayer.
Kendal was actually behaving herself today. Or rather, she was intending to. While Melody had been joking (or not) about her being the frat boys’ queen, it turned out that she actually had known one of the deceased. So she was taking it upon herself to go out of her way to visit his parents. Condolences and all that jazz. She doubted they would really appreciate it -- not from her, anyway -- but he had been decent enough, so whatever. They could fuck off, she was doing this for him. Besides, they knew she was coming so they had plenty of time to evacuate the building if they really felt the need.
She was unimpressed by her reflection. She still needed a fair amount of make-up to look truly alive and while she suited secretary chic in certain circumstances, she was currently about as conservative as she ever got and it was not to her tastes. The choker, however, was still a necessity. Even if it looked a little out of place. Adding a touch of colour with her earrings, she ignored Aldwin’s suggestion that perhaps she shouldn’t go out today -- no, wait, the earrings are too much with the choker -- and grabbed an equally red purse. There. That was better. Conservative turned conservative chic. Or something. It suited her better anyway. Originally, she was going to make the effort to show even more respect for the poor bastard by walking to his parents’ house, but after realising the only person who would actually know or care was herself, she called for a cab.
In the middle of a junction, Kendal changed her mind. The condolences could wait. “Hey, wait.” She tapped quite determinedly on the glass partition, “The other way.”
“That takes you to the other end of--” Silenced by the pair of narrowed eyes fixed on his reflection in the rear-view mirror, the driver complied. Which was just as well, otherwise she was going to get out and walk. These shoes were not meant for treks, but Eric was in that direction. She remained blissfully unaware that this was not actually a conscious decision. Not her decision, at any rate.
“Stop here--Here, please.” Without waiting for the cost of her journey, she shoved money into his hand and stared at the Catholic church with an expression that almost acknowledged she wasn’t sure why she was here. Not that she was giving it enough thought for that to bother her.
“Lady, this is a fifty.”
She spared him a glance that questioned whether he thought she looked like she really needed the money then turned to face the church again. “Yeah, keep it.” Shouldering her bag, she continued to follow the inexplicable pull towards Eric.
From the outside, the church was horribly quiet. The idea that the building itself was silently judging her was brushed away easily enough, though she actually tried knocking on the closed doors first. She remained unsurprised when nobody answered. Except she needed to be in there. Pushing the doors open, Kendal didn’t stop to see if she was interrupting anything before walking in. Her heels echoed on the floor as she eyed the upset items lying in the aisle, righting one of the candles. Who vandalises a church? At a glance, the place was empty, but she knew it wasn’t. It couldn’t be -- because Eric was there. Setting her bag on the nearest pew, she tilted her head to search the corners of the hall, aware that there were probably doors leading elsewhere, until her gaze fell on the altar and consequently the area behind it. She was walking towards the crucifix before her mind had registered what she was actually looking at -- though something in her knew.
“Eric.” More of a confirmation of identity than anything else. Kendal was no church-goer, but Jesus traditionally wore something like a loin-cloth on most crucifixes as far as she knew, and the vampire was by no means the emaciated, skeletal saviour of artistic licence. “Eri--” The sound of her heels slipping in blood was like nails on a chalkboard, and Kendal landed painfully, one leg twisting out to the side. She gaped at her hands, now slick with blood. Her own drained from her face. While her factory setting caused her to recoil in disgust, the rest of her was struggling to understand what was happening -- what had already happened. She needed to get off the floor. She needed to get off the floor and do something. She kicked off her heels on her way to the altar, a series of bloody hand-prints marking where she had pushed herself back up. In the back of her mind, she was screaming. The rest of her was desperately trying to run on autopilot. It didn’t really occur to her that the nails were silver, just that they were there and definitely needed to be not there.
“Eric,” she was hauling the chair -- the priest’s chair, but apologies could wait until later -- over to the cross, mentally cursing her parents for her lack of height. “If you’re not alive or, or undead or whatever, I am setting my mother on you.” The words were flippant, but her voice betrayed a rising panic that was bubbling to the surface and she was no longer as steady on her feet as she would like to be. Her climb was completely lacking in grace, but she didn’t care. Unsteady hands launched their attack on the nails, and she continued her string of threats. The list of things she was going to make sure happened to him if he wasn’t alive -- undead -- was endless and filled with all the venom that she would have aimed at whoever did this. After awkwardly descending to free his feet, she mounted the chair again to confront the ropes. She was good with knots. But with each knot she untied, the vampire began to slump; dead weight freed from restraints. Trying to support him as best she could, Kendal attacked the last set of knots with her only free hand, well aware that she was not strong enough to keep this up for long.
The last knot came loose and she crumpled under Eric’s full weight, tipping along with the chair. Caught between a rather unforgiving church floor and its unconscious priest, she struggled to free herself without causing further damage. The pencil dress was not helping. “Speak to me, please, Eric.” Kendal took a deep breath and wriggled the rest of herself free. The one major side effect of enough blood loss was that while the volume of blood was quickly replaced, whatever it was that actually kept you ticking was not, leaving her out of breath far faster. “I don’t know how to check a vampire’s vitals,” she protested in something of a whimper. She couldn’t help if she didn’t know how.
Eric could feel his life...his...energy slipping away - and quickly. Even without the silver in his palms or soles, he could still feel the burning. Oh god, the burning. He longed to clench his fists but he couldn’t even do that. The gash in his side had stopped bleeding, but that was only because he very nearly had no blood to bleed anymore. He was dying again and that was just...stupid. He hadn’t even figured out if he had a soul yet. He couldn’t die. It wasn’t an option. He had God’s work to do. With all that Eric had left, he reached for the warm body next to him, clawing at whatever part of her body he could reach.
Blindly, he begged her. “Blood,” he whispered. There wasn’t any time for considerations about whether or not he could stop once he’d begun. He really didn’t even know if he could begin. His jaw felt like it had locked, he could barely move anything. He didn’t know if he could even find the strength in him to start sucking the blood out if he could even puncture a vein. She’d have to do it herself. He wished he could tell her of the blood in his office, but even those considerations were far from his mind. Eric was too far gone for any thought beyond what he needed right now. “Blood,” he repeated, pleading, begging. She was the only one who could save him now. Kendal and God. It was almost funny.
That was movement. And that was speech. Internally, Kendal punched the air. Then the rest of her settled back into its panic -- because now he was rather obviously dying and reality was hitting home. It was painful to witness. “Blood. Right.” So, me, basically. I don’t think anyone else is going to offer. Had Eric been a great deal healthier, she would have been amused at the realisation that she was something of a walking, talking First Aid kit. Or band-aid. As it was, she had sat up, kneeling with her neck craned in search of a sharp object. The nails weren’t an option. She wasn’t about to poison him or something. At any rate, she wasn’t about to stab herself in the jugular, because knowing Kendal’s most recent luck she would miss. Besides, hello, the fangs?
During mutterings about ‘motherfucking fascists’ and voicing her hopes that they all developed serious allergies to substances they could never avoid, she managed to shift both of them around so she could actually see what she was doing. “You’re going to have to settle for a wrist,” she informed him, trying not to sound like she was psyching herself up for, well, pain. “Because the neck is out of the question unless you want me on top of you -- which my skirt won’t allow for.” See, light conversation. She was fine. She wasn’t just talking out of sheer nerves. “And I apologise if this is a little undignified,” the words were forced through gritted teeth as she pushed her wrist into jaws that didn’t want to open any further, his fangs scraping across the skin while she tried to place them over where she guessed the main vein-thing was. Aldwin was the med student. This was vaguely-educated guess-work. Her ‘ow’ was squeaked, but she could only impale herself so much far before her sense of pain tried to pull back again. Houston, we have blood. A significant amount of. Distress and impatience won out over caring endurance after all of five seconds: “Drink, please. That isn’t permission, Eric, it’s a demand. Even if I do really need to stop feeding myself to you.” Cradling his head, she tilted it forward slightly. The stuff was going down his throat even if she had to rely on the laws of gravity.
There was no way to tell if Eric was still alive or not. From a completely medical point of view, he would have been considered dead and his body dumped in some morgue somewhere. In fact, even Eric wasn’t quite sure if he was still alive. As the last tired blood escaped his lips, Eric drifted off into a place that was neither here nor there. He opened his eyes and found that there was someone waiting for him when he woke. Mary. Not the Virgin Mother of God, but his Mary. Her dark chestnut brown hair hung over her shoulders and her deep brown eyes looked straight at him. She seemed like she had been expecting him and sighed relief at his apparent arrival. It’s time to go home, she said to him, though her lips never moved. Her hand extended towards him, but he was too weak to lift his own. He had missed her, his Mary, and had longed to see her again somehow. Eric, she spoke again without moving her lips. It’s a demand.
Something pressed against his lips and then...the warm, sticky nourishment slid down his throat Someone was talking above him. Mary, what about Mary? Someone lifted his head up, allowing the blood to slide more easily down his throat. Memory caught up with him and he remembered where he was, suddenly he was aware of everything around him again - the stickiness of the cassock soaked with blood pressing against his side, the burning in his hands and feet...and then the scent of the human holding him up. His thoughts were slowly clearing as he fed on her, his lips managed to latch themselves around her wrist as he dug his fangs in just a little bit deeper and drank. He wasn’t sure if anything in this world was allowed to be so delicious as the blood he was consuming this very moment.
The realist in Kendal was politely pointing out that there was a chance she could pass out in a minute or so. If not through increasing blood loss, then through sheer relief. He was feeding, and, actually, the fact it hurt like a bitch was grounding. It meant her mind could take a step back and actually think about what happened. She was in a partially ransacked church, her bag left somewhere by the door. There was blood on the floor, all over him and all over her. Her shoes were... somewhere. The realisation that the blood she was wearing was probably all Eric’s was now making her feel physically sick. “Jesus Christ, what have they done?” An incredibly poor choice of words, but not ones that she had meant to share. The gravity of the situation was only just beginning to set in, and it went beyond the life of one vampire, as callous as that seemed.
“Eric, honey,” her voice was unsteady -- the pet-name was for her comfort, not his. Addressing the issue in Kendal-speak was a coping mechanism. “You’re going to have to stop that in a minute. I’m either going to pass out or throw up.” She paused before reluctantly adding, “Or cry.” Her tone suggested the latter was far more likely, but Mr. and Mrs. Hathaway would win Parents of the Year before she admitted that. Then again, all three was a possibility. Not to mention she would most likely need a transfusion after this and was probably about to go into shock. Unless she was already there. According to the television, a blanket was needed. And a paramedic or a cop handing out cups of tea or coffee. “If you accidentally kill me, I’ll be pissed,” she continued, sniffing. It was a fucking good job her make-up was waterproof.
She was going to have to tear him away because he was going nowhere. Eric was so far gone that he felt like he was going to die if he stopped. A weak hand raised and rested against her wrist, still drinking her dry. His fingers wrapped around her, clutching her wrist and drinking deeper. Eric, honey. The words slapped him back into reality and his brain screeched brakes. Using more self-restraint than he knew he had, he opened his mouth and practically yanked her arm away from his mouth. His arm fell back beside her, wounds still wide open. His eyes still closed, he just lay there for a moment, willing everything in his body to circulate the blood in his body. It was barely enough, the few drops he had taken from her.
“Blood,” he whispered. He needed more of it. He was still drifting in and out of his own consciousness, slipping between this world and whatever else was out there. He wasn’t ready. There was still so much to do. “Don’t cry,” he added with a sigh of breath. Raising his hand and letting it drop, pointing towards the hall that led to his office, he gulped, her blood drying by his lip. He knew she was tired and weak from the blood loss, but he needed her to be strong right now. If he was going to survive. “Office. Blood,” he murmured before his head lolled to the side. She had to be quick. The wounds on his hands and feet were still open and burning through him even though the silver had been removed. I am spent, he thought before he realized he had better stop reciting Jesus’ last seven words or he might be leaving the world before he wanted to.
It was a moment or so before she realised that childish whining of ‘ow’ was coming from her. Removal of fangs was apparently more painful than the placement. There was also the fact she’d had enough. No more free meals from Kendal. At least, not for a while and not unless it was an absolute emergency. Like now. The first time was her being a complete retard. But he wasn’t healing. Why wasn’t he healing? Vampires had, like, super-everything. They were supposed to bounce back. She was pointedly not looking at the wonderful mess that was her wrist and ignoring the fact she was actually still bleeding. Though her efforts at brushing away tears that hadn’t quite fallen yet had left a smudge down her jawline. For the benefit of the tape, any blood on Miss Hathaway’s face is most definitely her own. Ew.
“Office. Right.” Struggling to get to her feet -- she wasn’t exactly what one could call steady -- Kendal reeled and grabbed hold of the nearest surface. The church was swaying around her. It’s because I just bled on the altar, right? She trailed her fingers along the wall. What she was seeing was movement -- what she touched was completely stationary. Then again, she was walking... stumbling, so both perceptions were true in their own way. But that really wasn’t what she was worried about right now, so if the office door would just--Better.
She returned with the bottled blood clutched to her chest. It was refrigerated. The idea of the contents being cold made her stomach turn, but for once Kendal really wasn’t thinking much about herself. She was fairly certain she’d be unconscious at some point in the near future, but she was still rather determinedly cracking open the first bottle. “Sit up and drink -- you’re not dying on me.” Breathless and still a little dizzy, that didn’t sound anywhere near as demanding as it had in her head.
Staying completely still, Eric tried to work his mind on what would get him healed. His brain was clearing up slowly. Kendal’s blood had helped but what he wouldn’t give for a vat of angelic-blood right now. He needed the soothing. Thank God he had some in his office. With any luck, Kendal would bring some instead of the disgusting fae blood he had an overabundance of. In the silence of the chapel, Eric began to fully relax as his mind drifted off again to thoughts of her darling Mary. If he just let go, they could be together again. He wouldn’t have to deal with the pressures of being a Vyri, he wouldn’t have to answer to anyone except God and he wouldn’t have to deal with being hated by a people he had done nothing to but loved. All of it could be his if he simply...let go.
Eric’s head lolled to one side as he let himself die again. The first time had been easy enough. The second time shouldn’t be quite as hard. He found himself capable of thinking, however, even if he could not move. Who would take care of the lost lambs of Scarlet Oak? Eric shoved that thought out of his head. There would be another. The Cyri would send another to work in Scarlet Oak. The sheep would be taken care of. Eric had done his duty by doing what the Cyri asked him to do. Be the face of the Catholic Church, open his arms wide to the people and make them love him. He had done the first two and had apparently failed the last. It was a fair deal for him to die, by that train of thought. There would be noone to miss him anywhere. Grayson would move on and it was all a shame that Kendal had gone through all that trouble. He wished he could do something for her, but it was too late to think about that now.
Time to go to bed, Eric. As his head drooped ever further down towards the floor, barely a centimeter away from dipping his nose in his own blood, Eric waited for the choirs of angels singing to herald his coming. Instead, all he got was silence and the sound of the tippy-tapping of feet. Kendal’s feet. She was saying something about drinking. “No,” Eric murmured. No, it was time for him to go and be with his God and his wife. His time on earth was done. He was done. There would be no more rising for him. Ever.
“No,” Kendal echoed, confused. “No?” Fuck that for a game of soldiers. Seriously. Setting the blood down on the floor for just a moment, she pushed his head back again without much care for whether she injured him again in the process. Either he hurt more, if that was even possible, or he died, and no one she knew -- parents excluded -- was going to willingly do the latter. “You’re getting it anyway.” She grabbed the bottle and started pouring it into a mouth held open with her own fingers. “I don’t do ‘no’.” If he really wanted to die he could at least remember which Hathaway he was talking to. With her own mind starting to fog over, Kendal was getting annoyed. Annoyed and exhausted, but stubbornly refusing to lower the bottle. It was getting hard to think past her own usual automatic responses, and even then the fire was gone from them. She wanted to sleep -- next to a possibly-dead vampire or not, she didn’t care. There was a reason she was awake, though, and she found herself practically clinging to it.
“One of us needs to call 911,” she murmured absently. “Paramedics and cops.” One of them also needed to remember that detail.
He didn’t want it. He didn’t want the blood. He didn’t want to live again. The bright light never came, though, just a nothingness. As he drifted off into the darkness, he felt someone pinch his cheeks together to open his mouth. He was too weak to stop her from forcing his mouth open and pouring the bottle down his throat. And, perhaps, somewhere deep inside him he really wanted to rise again. Perhaps.
Slowly, the realization dawned on Eric. He didn’t know if he had a soul. Had he forfeited it when he agreed to become a vampire? It explained why he simply felt like he was falling asleep instead of the choirs of angels he had been expecting. Suddenly, he didn’t want to know what was on the other side unless he was certain he would be received by a flock of saints and St. Peter. The wounds on his hands and feet were still open, unable to heal from the silver that had gone through them, but he was bleeding less and less and the blood flow into him was helping clear his mind and restore feeling to his limbs. He managed to curl his fingers without much effort and forced them closed to put pressure on the wounds. He’d have to figure out what to do to preserve the relationship between vampires and humans, the image of the Vyri...and...he’d have to contact the others at some point. Discuss it with Liliya. His brain was going a mile a minute.
Better be swallowing it, Eric. Because she wasn’t going to be running the gauntlet that was swaying walls and an uncooperative office door any time soon. Kendal needed medical attention and she was acutely aware of the fact. Keeping her mouth shut for once, she kept her mind on the task at hand, pausing only to stop and try to pay closer attention to how much was left in the first bottle. The moment it ran out, she dropped it entirely and focused her attention on trying to open the second one. It had been far easier the first time round. Now, she was fumbling and gaining entry required that she break a nail in the process. Later she would consider being annoyed. At least she didn’t have to open his mouth for him. Thank God for really fucking small blessings. Shifting so she could lean her back against whatever it was that was now behind her, Kendal kept her attention on holding the second bottle up and as steady as she physically could. She wasn’t about to admit it, but just thinking about holding her arm up made her want to curl up and sleep. But if she fell asleep right now, she might not wake up again, and she didn’t have the mental capacity to consciously acknowledge any fear that notion brought. So she wasn’t going to think about it. Watching the bottle’s blood level go down seemed a far better idea. When it ran out, she was calling 911. She was now hardly registering the vampire she was actually feeding. He was too much to take into consideration right now. The moment the bottle was empty, she dropped it as she had the last one, arm falling to her side in tired relief. Call 911. She murmured the number in a slurred mantra while she located the cell in her coat pocket. Her head tipped forward as she concentrated on the keypad. 811... 924... Fuck. Forfeiting her third attempt, Kendal visibly gave up. The phone slid out of her hand and she slumped as though the puppeteer had seen fit to cut her strings.
The second bottle was angelic blood and Eric would have breathed a sigh of relief if he had any breath and if he could do so without choking. Instead, he merely gulped down what Kendal poured down his throat and felt the pain in his hands and feet slowly turn into something less bothersome. As the pain ebbed away and his thoughts became loud and clear, he opened his eyes and saw Kendal trying to push buttons on her phone before she fell. Rising, Eric used what strength he had and the peaceful advantage given to him by the angelic blood to move her to a spot that didn’t have so much blood. He stumbled as the gunshot in his leg screamed. Reassuring himself there was more angelic blood to be had, he pushed through it. He tucked her coat around her and checked her vital signs. She was fine, just a little drained (literally). Stumbling towards his office, he opened the fridge and downed another bottle of angelic blood, adding to his sense of calm before braving the phone. He punched in 911. “There’s been an attack at St. Francis’ Church...a young lady needs medical attention,” Eric was surprised at how clear his voice came across. When the operator on the other said the ambulance was on its way, Eric hung up without answering her query about his state.
The next phone call was to Elizaveta, whose phone number was drilled into his head. He was less coherent this time. He looked down onto his desk. Fresh smudges of blood were all over it. He’d have to get a second desk. Now wasn’t the time to consider that, however. He needed another packet of dirt. He discovered his side was still bleeding as well. He'd have to hurry. After Elizaveta assured him Galileo would be sent with the driver as soon as possible, Eric thanked her and reminded her to be swift and discreet. Quite unnecessary, considering who he was speaking to but he needed to hear himself say it. Before his last phone call, however, he stumbled towards the fridge again and despaired. He was out of angelic blood. He settled for fae to at least replenish his still dwindling blood level and threw the bottle down the moment it was empty. Kicking his shoes off, he found that the holes in his feet were still wide open. Trying not to look at any more of his wounds for fear of losing his nerve, he punched in Grayson’s number. When his best friend’s voice came on the other line, he had enough sense to apologize for the rather early phone call and begged that he send someone - anyone - with a few bottles of earth elemental blood to Elizaveta’s home. Before Eric could give the address, however, he realized he probably shouldn’t have exerted himself so much as he passed out under his desk, phone still in his hand. The thought of calling Liliya, Queen of the Midwest did not even occur to him.
Kendal’s head complained of the sirens. Everything had been so quiet before. Peaceful, albeit in an incredibly disturbing way. And only when she wasn’t talking. Where was Eric? Opening her eyes might have helped with that answer, but they weren’t cooperating. ID says Hathaway. Kendal Hathaway. She could have told him that. Not that she’d known he was there. An eye was opened for her and a bright light immediately blinded it. Head jerking away of its own volition, she frowned at the one-sided retina burn, “Deeply unnecessary.” The words were definitely Kendal Hathaway, but the voice was not. A slurred muttering. It was irritating. There were two of them, she realised. On either side of her. Medical surround-sound that was as disorienting as it was supposed to be comforting. They were talking in low voices about a vampire attack. “Didn’t attack me,” she corrected, vaguely aware that someone was doing something to her wrist. “They crucified him.” Pausing, she focused on the paramedic that was looking at her face and not the bite mark. “Eric... Cardinal. Not Jesus.” The guy’s expression changed to one of confused concern and she swore. “Cross, silver nails.” This was giving her a headache. The dressing on her wrist was too tight. And being informed they were going to lift her like she was brain dead did nothing for her mood. “Go look.” What was intended as a sincere request came out as a petulant demand, lacking in weight because she lacked the force to put behind it. Though it really didn’t matter. She was unconscious again before the oxygen mask found her face.
The policemen that came to investigate the scene afterwards noted the blood and took several samples of it, sending it a laboratory for testing. As far as they would get, however, would be the blood of four or five willing donors to the Cyri house. None of it would be Kendal Hathaway’s as they were expecting. They followed the trail of blood towards the office, where it abruptly ended. The office was far from immaculate but they could find nothing out of place. The trail of blood simply stopped, as if the man had disappeared. Or as if Galileo had done a wonderful job of fixing the office before taking Eric to his master’s home, but the policemen would not know that. They simply left and went back to the station to file their reports amidst piles of paper and maybe coffee and a doughnut.