InsaneJournal

Day Fourteen
Who: Armand and Toph
Where: Along the beach, to start.
When: After dark
What: Armand arrives
Rating? This could be a PG-13 for descriptions of burning alive.
Status? Complete



The small televangelist who had somehow gotten a hold of the icon held it up, and Armand saw the very face of Jesus blasted into the fibers. Dora, her name was, but he didn't really care about that. She could have been anyone. The veil was the important thing. Just a simple piece of white fabric, but the face of the savior...

Gabrielle had gone down into hell itself, maybe as some sort of reaction to losing her son. She had been reckless, impulsive, since Lestat had pulled his disappearing act. And she'd brought the Veil from the very grasp of Satan. Armand couldn't stop staring at it. His mind slipped back more than five hundred years to when he'd been the one creating religious imagary. He could smell the paint. And then, to see that his best work was thrown in the mud when he was kidnapped, and he had failed. He hadn't protected the icon.

This one, though, was a million times more precious. A real relic. Not made by human hands. The sun was going to rise soon. Any sane Vampire would be safely inside by now. But though Armand felt the drowsiness of the coming day, he didn't seek a resting place. Instead, he stood where he was, on the steps of a church, and waited.

It had been so long since he'd felt like this, that there was anything in the world worth sacrificing himself for. So long since he was last filled with this religious feeling, this faith, this hope. It was overwhelming. But it left no doubt to him what must happen. He was evil, the Veil was good. Therefore, to sacrifice himself to the power of the icon, that would be a good thing.

His eyes started to hurt. The sun was starting to lighten the sky, though it hadn't made its appearance yet. It wouldn't be long. He looked to the East, waiting. Others pulled at him, told him to stop, but he pushed them away. Soon enough, they had to go into their resting places themselves, and left him alone. Only mortals would see him die. But, since it was to them that the world belonged, maybe that was fitting.

As the sun crested the hills and sent it's first rays shooting to the steps of the church where the vampire stood, he saw his first sunrise in over 500 years. How nice, that he would die in beauty. His skin started to smoke, and the pain shooting through him was unendurable. But he did endure it, and even somehow remained on his feet.

Something was wrong, though. Flames should have been shooting out of his skin by now. He'd been so sure his death would be quick. But the minutes passed, and he just smoked, blackened, but didn't burst into flames. His wild mind, crazed by the warm, early-morning sun, remembered the story of Those Who Must Be Kept. Put into the sun for a whole day, and they survived. He wasn't going to die. He was too old.

He fell onto his knees, screaming in denial. He'd come here to die! His sacrifice had been rejected. But not by everyone, it seemed. Maybe the sun didn't want him, but someone did. A burst of golden light shot out of the sky, illuminating the vampire, and when it lifted, he was gone. To a mortal watching, it would have just seemed another miracle. They had been quite common since the Veil had been brought to earth.

Armand, however, nearly passed out. An unusual thing for a vampire to do, but he wasn't fully himself from the sun. The light, he was sure, was God's wrath shining down to kill him after all. So when he found himself deposited onto the sand, his skin still smoldering and blackened, he was shocked. Was this hell? It really didn't look like hell. And it couldn't be heaven, not when he was in so much pain.

He'd landed on his knees, just as he'd been when he'd been back on earth, and slowly, he rose. He winced with every step. Already, his body was trying to heal, but the damage was extensive. He was still formed exactly as usual, of course, but his skin was black. It was nighttime here, and as he looked around, a few things became apparent. He was by the sea, and he was nowhere in North America. Even in Florida, it wasn't as gorgeous as it was here. And it just didn't feel right, somehow.

Where was he? Where had his sacrifice taken him? Who had rescued him? He didn't know, and, standing in one place, he looked around.