Chapter Twenty-Seven: Elira and the Beast
by thelittletree
Elira knew she was going to die. Horribly at that. And all for a stupid mistake. Sharp teeth would make short, painful work of her, and she would die knowing she'd just proven Vincent's idea of fate right. He would blame himself -- she knew he would. He would run and hide, and never let anyone that close to him again. And it would be because of her.
'Oh god, Vincent, I'm so sorry...'
She landed on her back with a hard exhalation of air that ripped her throat, and the trauma of impact numbed her entire body. A moment later, the wolves were growling over her, snuffling and baring their teeth. When one suddenly opened its fangs, its muzzle rippling and its dark eyes shining, she screamed and cringed in expectation of the first bite.
But no bite came. It snarled at her as if to warn her against trying to move, and then resumed snuffling with its companion as if she might be carrying treats in her pockets.
Feeling was coming back slowly into her limbs, and everything ached. She noticed that something in her pack was digging uncomfortably into her spine, but she didn't dare try to shift positions. What did these wolves want? After seeing them race down into the valley, it was hard to believe they were still just curious. She thought about the way they'd circled them, not exactly attacking but doing enough to make it seem as if they would. Had they only been trying to detain them? Could they be that intelligent?
Her ears picked up the sound of boots pounding the ground, approaching. Vincent... He was coming to help her. He would shoot the ground, scare the wolves away, pull her to her feet and then they could battle their way out of this together. It would become just another experience under their belt, something they could argue over later as he lectured her on the importance of listening to him when he told her to run. She could almost hear the gruff, worried tone of his voice, see him rub his forehead as she argued back. She was almost looking forward to it.
But then the footsteps stumbled to a halt and she heard Vincent give a strange, choked moan that escalated into a wailing howl. The sound reverberated through her memory, bringing to mind the day in Odriam when she'd seen him transform for the first time. He'd given himself over to anger while trying to protect her from that boy...
'Oh no... Vincent, no! Don't give in to Chaos! I'm here! I'm fine! Please, don't...'
Despite the wolves, she struggled to sit up, bringing the tranquilizer gun in her hand with her. Suddenly alert again, the creatures moved to growl in her face, but she couldn't let her fear control her. This was more important! Not sure what else to do, she gave a clumsy swing at the closest wolf with the gun, hoping perhaps to knock its head away and buy herself a moment to get her sneakers under her.
But the gun passed through the beast's muzzle as if she'd been trying to hit a patch of fog. She stared for a moment in incredulous shock. What the hell? Hastily, she scooted away and lurched awkwardly to her feet. The wolves followed her on silent paws, but as if they knew they could no longer threaten her, they'd stopped growling and seemed content merely to watch her. Were they spirits of some kind?
But she didn't have the time to speculate. Crouched on the ground and facing away, though she could see one ear shooting up through his hair, Vincent gave a thick, muffled exclamation of pain as the demon's wings broke through his back into the physical world. Automatically, she raised the gun and fired at the side of his thigh, not wanting to risk accidentally hitting his pack, the tent, or the wings instead. But nothing came out of the barrel. She felt a tingle of fear as she realized that, since Vincent had started injecting the darts himself, she hadn't thought to continue loading the gun. He'd said it was obsolete.
He'd obviously been wrong.
At the sound of the gun, she saw Vincent turn his head to look at her. Through bloody eyes he stared, and even with the changes to his eyes and his mouth, with two sets of the demon's incisors intruding over his lips, his expression was clear. Shocked disbelief, and a kind of broken madness. And then he began to shudder.
"E...Elira?"
It almost wasn't his voice. Rough and guttural it seemed, raw with pain distorted by the fangs. Elira felt something in her tremble. 'He *did* think I was dead...'
And then he doubled up again with a low groan through clenched teeth, and Elira could see his body start to change. Jolted back to reality, she thrust her hand into her pocket for the darts, not sure if there was time to do anything. "Hold on, Vincent," she whispered, hardly aware she was speaking. "Hold on." Her fingers kept shaking and she grunted in panicky frustration as they slipped again and again on the package.
"Too...late... R...run!"
But what would running avail? She glanced up in time to see the last second of painful transition between man and demon, and then Chaos was flexing its wings as if the long stay within the human body had made them stiff. Then it was slowly standing to its full towering height and turning to look at her over one massive shoulder, twitching the bone and membrane of a wing out of the way. She could almost believe it was trying to taunt her into some action.
When the package finally came open in the pocket, she gasped aloud and fumbled for the darts. Before she could grab any of them, however, Chaos made a move toward her, leering and hissing with a kind of anxious pleasure. Instinctively, since she was unprepared, she stumbled back.
The demon opened its mouth and she saw a long, black tongue lick along the points of its teeth. "Ah yesss. Fear me, human. It'sss time, I think, you learned sssomething about fear."
Elira stared in incomprehension, surprised the thing had spoken to her. Its voice was thick and angry, like the thunder of an approaching storm amidst the hiss of rain. And then, like hearing a finger-snap, she came to herself and realized that Vincent had been right: she would have a better chance with the gun, firing from a distance if she could manage it. If only there were more trees in this area to duck behind.
The demon began to advance on her again with that mocking slowness, and the two wolves followed at its sides like trained pets. The other wolves were nowhere to be seen, and Elira wondered a moment before she turned and ran if all of this had been Chaos' doing from the beginning. Had they walked blindly into a trap it had prepared?
She could hear the demon pursuing her, its breath a rumbling snarl. She stumbled once, regained her footing, and then glanced over her shoulder in time to shrug away from the sweep of a great clawed arm. But the demon didn't seem perturbed. In fact, her resistance seemed to amuse it.
She was nearly overcome by despair when it reached out a hand a simply plucked the tranquilizer gun out of her grip. It took only a small amount of effort for it to crush the weapon, and then it dropped the piece of useless metal to the ground.
Chaos was only playing with her the way a cat bats at a mouse, she realized wretchedly. It knew there was nowhere for her to escape to, and she couldn't run fast enough to give her the time to grab the darts and then plunge them into an exposed area of hide. She was basically at its mercy -- except she was sure that it had no mercy.
Its next swing was close enough to send her tripping on her own feet until she fell to the ground. And then it laughed, a horrible hissing sound. "Poor human, ssso helplessss. You're making thisss too easssy. After all of thisss time, I wasss exssspecting more fight from you, little thorn in my ssside. You teassse, but you don't deliver."
She managed to scrabble to her feet, but not in time to escape those claws. They were quick to grab the pack on her shoulders, and then she was being swung around to face the demon. It leered unpleasantly, and its breath was hot and acrid on her face. "I told him it would come to thisss. I even gave him the chancssse to sssave your life. But he wouldn't lisssten, and now I have no choicssse. Sssuch a pity. Sssuch a tasssty little thing." It ventured its tongue forth as if to touch her face. Disgusted, Elira cringed away, fighting uselessly against the powerful grip it had on her arms. It laughed again and withdrew the gesture. "You csssertainly don't ssseem asss eager for a kissss now asss you did in Cosssta Del Sssol." And then, suddenly, something came over its face and its horrible eyes began to close. When it breathed out a hoarse groan of perverse pleasure, Elira felt her stomach recoil with nausea.
"Oh...yesss... Yesss, I've never felt thisss much emotion from him! Fear...desssperation...hatred..." It opened its eyes again and Elira tried hard not to flinch at the obvious hunger in its expression. "I think I'll play with you awhillllle longer," it drawled with a dreadful grin. And, without warning, it crouched and propelled the both of them into the air.
Elira swallowed the scream that wanted to burst out of her mouth, knowing with a terrible certainty that Vincent was experiencing every second of this along with her. And, when it came time, he would see and hear and feel her death in all of the gory detail Chaos was undoubtedly going to inflict. If only there was some way to win this time...
The rush of air made her eyes water, and she gasped when the wings finally opened to an air current, feeling light-headed. She almost didn't notice the soft bump of something against her thigh, something in Vincent's pocket.
Almost.
As Chaos opened its wings to the embrace of the air, Vincent began to get a little of his wits back. So much had happened in the last few minutes, his grief and despair had gotten the better of him; but Elira needed his help now and that meant he had to gain some control over his emotions, especially the fear. Chaos had ruled him through fear for too long and, with the woman he loved caught in the bind, he knew the time had come to throw off the oppression. It was the only way to save her.
There was no suggestion of a physical self when Chaos took over his body; he always became an immaterial consciousness in the back of the demon's mind and it took a lot of strength to be anything else. The urge to give over control, to submit to instinct and rage, was always there whether he wanted it to be or not. Lately, he'd gotten better at pushing the urge away and fighting for control, but it still required an effort. Like following a windy path, hand-over-handing along a rope, he struggled forward until he came to a place where he could influence the demon's actions. And then he poured all of his will into forcing Chaos to land.
For a moment he thought he was getting through, but when Chaos gave the mental equivalent of a head shake it knocked him away. 'Don't be a fool, human!' the demon's voice snarled at him. 'Don't you underssstand yet how easssy it would be for me to kill her?'
They were high, maybe twenty-five feet from the ground. And, despite all of his efforts against it, Vincent was swept away in a torrent of fear as the demon suddenly let Elira go. Her terrified scream as she dropped away shuddered him to the very core, and he knew the sound would haunt him forever. Desperately, he grappled with the will of Chaos, trying to force it into diving after her, but to no avail. His fear was making it too strong for him to fight it.
And the demon laughed its horrible, hissing laughter. 'Oh, yesss... You can't help yourssself! Your love for the human makesss you weak! But I'm not finissshed yet...'
Vincent was more than relieved when Chaos turned to race toward the ground, catching Elira carelessly under the knees and neck less than a foot from the ground. Vincent could see through the demon's eyes that she was fluttering on the edge of consciousness and a sudden idea made him strive to compel the arms to drop her now; so close to the ground, she might have a chance. But Chaos shook him off again and was on the way back up before Vincent could make a second attempt.
'Tell me you will go back to Neo-Midgar, Vincsssent, and I will let her live,' the demon bargained suddenly. 'You may even keep her with you. Jussst sssay you will give thisss journey up and I will give you back your life.'
The offer was more tempting this time than when he'd been sitting in the tree above the valley. Chaos would spare her life, and he could go back to working with guns. He would enjoy the work and her company, and it would be enough like the life of a normal man to satisfy him.
But what would Elira think when she realized he had given up? Would she even want to stay with him, coward as he was? Especially when staying with him meant she would age while he remained forever the same? And what promise did he have that the demon would keep his word -- when demons always lied?
No, he couldn't accept the terms. Maybe there had been a time when he might have, but that time had passed. He didn't want to die, and he didn't want to merely survive. He knew now that he wanted a second chance. The idea that he could have Elira for himself -- as his lover, his companion, perhaps even his wife -- was giving him another small taste of freedom from fate, and it made him hungry for more. 'No, Chaos.' He felt more composed than he knew he had any right to be, but the tide of fear was finally receding in the face of the hope for something better. 'I'm going to continue. You're not going to frighten me into going back.'
Chaos gave a growl, and Vincent fully expected him to reply with some new threat or bargain, but they were both interrupted by a sudden stabbing pain in the abdomen. It took Vincent a few moments to recognize the feel of the tranquilizer darts, and then Elira was laughing breathlessly at what she'd been able to do. Chaos gave a wail of wrathful denial as it was forced back under Vincent's own skin, but there was nothing it could do.
The full impact of their situation didn't hit Vincent until the moment gravity began to assert its authority, some fifteen feet from the ground. Still in his arms, Elira cringed as she realized how impulsive her actions had been and gripped his shirt. "Oh god, I've just killed us," he heard her say over the growing rush of wind.
But flying certainly had taught him a few things about landing. Bringing his legs up gave him enough weight to spin until he was in a proper position to hit the ground on his feet and, shaking off the sedatives' effects as best he could while clutching Elira to his chest, he prepared for touch down.
He bent his knees as they hit the grass and quick reflexes allowed him to fall forward into front roll, but the encompassing darkness of the tranquilizers made him clumsy. Instead of being able to get his feet back under him, he merely fell back to the earth hard on his backside and then continued the descent until the back of his head hit the ground.
Oblivion threatened and it was so hard to fight. But he knew they couldn't stay out in the open like this. Elira had passed out in his arms, perhaps from fright, and something about the way her limp fingers were curled up in his shirt made him determined to get them to a safer local. His entire body was trembling as he pushed himself to his feet, and more than once he almost fell as he made his way to the western cliffs of the vale. But he managed the distance before he finally dropped heavily to his knees and lay her in the tall grass under a shallow overhang of rock.
Mere seconds later, he was unconscious beside her in the grass, half-shielding her with his body.