Chapter 61 - I Will Be Back

"My love, stop with that resistance! I don't want to harm you any more! I just—"

I didn't let Christina finish.

My well opened and the power rushed out. I could barely direct it in the right direction, but that was enough. Propelled by the force of its own tension, the power I stored in my well slammed into Christina like a train.

It wasn't a physical hit, but due to the nature of the aspect, the results certainly were. Christina flew head-first into a wall, leaving an almost-body-sized hole in it through which I could see the dark sky outside.

My chest heaved from the mental and psychological strain. My eyes were wide and my mind was blank. I could barely believe I just did what I did. Yes, it was the plan, but to actually succeed, and like that?..

JJ looked no less shocked. He stared at the hole for a moment, the awful sight of his back to me. Then he turned to look at me, his only working eye was wide in astonishment and a proud grin on his burnt lips.

I grinned back, though my mind didn't process entirely yet if I had a reason to be happy, when my eyes registered movement behind JJ. I didn't know if it was my reaction that spurred him into action again, or his own sharp senses, so swift he was to turn towards it.

Christina was looking at us through the hole in the wall. Or, I guessed that it was Christina from what was left of her hair and dress, because the creature I saw had little in common with the woman who came into that restaurant earlier.

She looked like the Nosferatu from the oldest vampire movies, when they weren't Twilight-shaped pretty boys, but creatures of pure horror.

Her skin, pale before, now turned entirely grey. All her teeth looked as sharp as her fangs, which grew a centimetre longer. Her features became sharper and less-human, and her eyes were pure red. The rags her dress became after the long fight sagged on her unnaturally-shaped body with its wasp waistline. And behind her back I could see a glimpse of two huge bat-like wings.

I could also see that her 'meet-and-greet' with the wall didn't leave Christina without gifts. Her left hand hung powerlessly, and her body looked like she went through a wringer. Despite all that, she bared her teeth at JJ, and then, to my terror, at me.

My blood ran cold in my veins from the madness and the deadly promise in her stare, but then JJ stepped between us, blocking Christina's line of sight.

"This is your last chance to leave, Christina," he said, his voice rough, but firm and cold. "You might want to try it, but now this will inevitably attract unwanted attention."

I didn't hear anything for several seconds, until Christina finally spoke. Her sharp voice fit surprisingly well with her new form.

"After not seeing you for so many years, to leave you again… The thought alone crushes my heart! But you are right. I do not wish for us to unite in death. No! For us, the creatures of night, the eternity is in life. I will return to you, I promise! To you… And that thief you seem to have adopted under your wing. Oh, I will return for her!"

Christina let out a bark of evil laughter followed by a flapping of wings. It went quieter and quieter until soon disappearing entirely. All the while I sat, huddled in on myself, and tried to erase the horror of Christina's last words out of my mind.

Without her, my surroundings grew quiet. I could hear the distant sounds of cars moving from the outside, creating white noise in my devoid of thoughts head. It took a while for something coherent to form within it, but when it did, my eyes flew wide open in alarm.

Christina was just outside, looking like a harpy! What if someone noticed her? What if someone called the police to this restaurant? Actually, what if someone called the police here even earlier?

I raised my eyes to JJ, hoping for him to have the answers, but all these thoughts flew out of my mind when I saw him falling to his knees with a soft thud. I tried to stand up, forgetting my improvised cover, and hit my head on the underside of the table. As I hissed in pain, JJ toppled over and fell on his side.

A surge of panic overwhelmed me and forced me to crawl out from beneath the table and then run up to his motionless form. I fell on my knees next to his head, but I felt too afraid to even touch him.

Now that JJ was close and still, I could see every detail of his awful state. It looked like he had no unwounded place on his body. Was he dead? How could I tell if he was dead or not? If he was a person, I'd measure his breathing or heartbeat, but vampires had neither!

I forced myself to take long, deep breaths and think. I could look at his aura. While I didn't know how auras of dead vampires looked like, until now most auras were self-explanatory with their aspects.

I closed my eyes and opened my well. JJ's aura glowed bright before me, but I could see the way its aspects were weaker than I've seen before. Aspects of pain and wounds were scattered over him, and I wondered for a brief moment what would happen if I took them away, but Alexandra's warnings rang in my head.

I already broke one of her rules today. That was enough. I couldn't risk JJ that way. He was still alive, after all, that I was sure of.

A faint wail of a police siren called my attention to the physical world. I shut my well closed and turned towards where it was coming from. The street. Someone DID call the police, and it was approaching, fast.