Chapter 30 #2
“I didn’t see you complaining as you lived for centuries off my wealth and power, the access I gave you to mortals to feed on.
I didn’t see you complaining as I put up with your silly hobbies and your desire to take care of humans,” he spat.
“I didn’t see you protest when my resources were deployed to hide the way you murdered your way through half the boys and girls in London as a newly born vampire with no pain and no regrets.
So you can drop the act now before you protest just a bit too much.
Because one boy didn’t change all of that for you. It’s not possible.”
The air was filling with smoke and screams, the door blocked as vampires struggled to fit through and ended up trampling each other in the chaos. Alexander darted forward, tackling Vladimir to the floor, relishing the way that his head hit the marble with a resounding crack.
“It absolutely is fucking possible,” he growled, “because I loved him.”
It was true, and the biggest regret of his life was that he’d never get the chance to say it to Tobias again.
He drew in a breath and raised the stake high, but before he brought it down, there was an ear-splitting noise, and his leg exploded in pain. He reared back, clutching at his thigh, looking down at the shredded mass of flesh that had been his left knee.
“Stakes.” Vladimir rolled his eyes. “Effective, but a bit passé, don’t you think?
” He pocketed the gun that he’d pulled out of his jacket to shoot Alexander with.
“Why don’t you stop this tantrum now, Alexander?
I swear, this is as bad as it’s been since you were a child, and I cannot have the heir to the Damianos family running around setting fire to things and plunging stakes into people.
Think clearly. You kill me, and we all die. ”
I know.
Alexander staggered to his feet, stars bursting in his vision as his left leg crumpled. It wouldn’t have time to heal, not before he died. Because killing Vladimir was going to be his last act, no matter what. “When you put it like that…”
He hung his head, the model of contrition, giving as much of a little bow as he could. The smoke was so thick now that his eyes were watering from more than the pain, the two of them shrouded from the rest of the ballroom in the alcove, the scent of charred flesh permeating the air.
“I’m sorry, Father.” The words were like ash on his tongue.
Vladimir smirked, clearly enjoying the display of subservience. It was all he’d ever wanted from Alexander, after all this time. Proof that his son would never eclipse him. He grabbed Alexander by the back of the neck and pulled him up, gathering him into an embrace.
“Of course you are,” Vladimir whispered into his ear.
“For not killing you sooner,” Alexander finished in the same breath, stabbing the stake that he’d somehow kept hold of as deep as he could through his father’s back.
His father stiffened against him, then sagged forward, putting the entirety of his weight on Alexander. He fell to the floor, gritting his teeth at the pain in his leg, but he knew it would be over soon. Blood was pouring out of Vladimir’s back, and Alexander felt it when his heart beat its last.
Everyone in the ballroom did.
The weight on him started to lessen as Vladimir’s body began to disintegrate, Alexander’s hands falling through the back of his father’s rib cage until he was touching lung tissue and heart muscle, the ash-wood stake impaled through his heart the only solid thing left remaining.
He pushed what remained of the body away from him, staggering free, his skin coated in the ash that was flaking from Vladimir.
He looked down and watched as the flames engulfing the dais reached for Vladimir’s remains.
The papery remains caught, the body bursting into flames.
As it was consumed, the ballroom started to fall quieter and quieter except for the crackling of the fire he’d set, but even that started to die down.
Alexander looked up from the burning corpse at his feet to see the vampires his father had sired collapsing one by one, a wave of them stretching out from the centre of the ballroom to its edges.
The flames were being smothered as the vampires turned to ash.
As the vampires playing in the band died too, a complete hush descended in the room.
Alexander was the only one still breathing, the blood dripping out of his ruined leg falling audibly on the floor.
He tilted his head up into the clouds of ash that the breeze from the open windows was stirring, relishing the silence and the fact that, with this one simple action, he’d rid the world of the evil that was his father and put an end to his own pain.
Maybe he’d even see Tobias again soon. Maybe he’d even be able to apologise. He closed his eyes, trying to make peace with the mistakes he’d made before he died.
“Alexander?”
Every one of his nerves felt like it was on fire. Was this what it felt like to die? The fact that he was hearing Tobias calling his name must mean he was losing his grip on reality. But then he felt hands on his face and Tobias called his name again.
His eyes burst open. “Tobias?”
“Oh my God, you idiot.” Tobias breathed. “You killed him?”
“Alexander,” another voice said in a near whisper. He looked past Tobias’ brilliant blue, perfectly whole eyes in his blood-stained but intact face to see Maria, staggering forward before she dropped to the floor. “You really killed him.”
His sister was dying, just like he must already have, for Tobias to be here. He gritted his teeth through the pain – why was his leg still shooting agony through his entire body? – and stood, limping over to her and grabbing the hand she extended to him.
It felt real, and that more than anything, along with the shallowness of her breath, made him shake his head.
This was all real.
“Maria rescued me.” Tobias’ voice was soft behind him. “Your sister saved my life.”
So Vladimir had lied to him. Or Maria had deceived him. It felt like a stake through his own chest, the knowledge that he’d as good as killed his sister as well as himself while Tobias was somehow, some way, still living. “I thought you were gone,” he gasped out.
Maria’s eyes were closed, her face growing slack. “Take care of each other. I love you, Alexander.”
His sister’s hand was crumbling in his, the skin turning to powder underneath his fingers.
The girl he’d practically raised, his only true friend in the brutal world of the Damianos clan, breathed out twice more and then never breathed in again.
When her face started to crumble, he had to look away, sitting back in the middle of the devastation he’d created, finally perfectly numb.
He was next. At least he would die with Tobias here.
Because Tobias hadn’t vanished. He was at Alexander’s back, propping him up with his own body, his arms around Alexander’s chest and his chin on Alexander’s shoulder.
The last thing he was going to feel was Tobias’ skin against his, Tobias’ breath on his neck, Tobias’ arms around his.
“I like it better this way,” he said, his voice hoarse with smoke. “The ending of our story where you’re the one who gets to live.”
“Well, I don’t.” Tobias’ voice was thick with tears, and Alexander just tightened his grip on Tobias’ forearms, because there wasn’t anything else to say.
He was at the end of his life, and while he’d acted in rage and devastation, he could go happily knowing that his last act had been to kill anyone and everyone who could hurt Tobias.
“You have to live for me,” he begged Tobias. “You have to live for the both of us. Promise me.”
“I promise,” Tobias whispered. “I love you, Alexander.”
“Not as much as I love you, little deer.”
He sat and was held and waited, for too-long minutes, to die in his lover’s arms.