New Life
#1 of New Life
After a bit of a Supernatural binge i felt like doing something a bit different.
Been told i don't do first person so well so this is a bit of practice.
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The last thing I remember was being thrown off a bridge with several bullets buried in my chest. I could do nothing, there was nothing to grab onto, nothing but a long bloody drop to smash my body far beyond repair.
I can see my partner, Adam, on the bridge above me. His clothes are ragged and bloody. Under the shirt there must be almost nothing left of his body. There was twice the number of gunmen blasting away at him than there were for me.
I saw him, even at this late point with no hope, pull out his last back up gun. He didn't even get a chance to aim before god knows how many bullets stripped the flesh from his arm and sent the gun flying over the edge. I could only watch as he dropped to his knees.
The last thing I saw before my view of him disappeared was a figure standing over him with a long slender knife. A second later he was thrown over the edge with the knife buried in his heart. That last foot or so seemed to take an eternity.
I had a perfect view of the sky, a bright blue, one or two lazy clouds floating by. The air is full of our blood raining down. My pistols are only a few feet above me. I'd only got one shoot off before the sheer force off all the bullets forced me over the edge. Above that was Adam's baby Glock, shot to shit just like us.
We were dead. We could maybe survive the bullets. If we hadn't been in such bad shape we might have had a chance at surviving the fall but this time it looked like we were done.
The last thought that ran though my head was "All these years of fighting and we end like this, failures."
***
"Too bright" was the very next thing that passed through my head. I'd opened my eyes to searing white light. Stood over me was a figure dressed in black with a white priest's collar. I couldn't make out any of his features but I could see the outline of wings. I assumed the obvious.
"Oh fuck I'm dead aren't I? Is this hell?"
"Well that is one of the more unusual responses I've had. Most mistake this for heaven."
"Can't be heaven, they'd turn me away at the gates." Why can't I smell him... slowly panic started to sink in. I couldn't smell him, my hearing was strangely muted, my sense of my body was gone.
"Yes they would have. But I have removed the taint from your soul."
"You what? Who are you?"
"A simple priest. Aptly name Gabriel. And I have been blessed with the power to heal the soul. I have removed all taints that would bare you from heaven but it is up to you to remain that way now."
Oh shit... that was bad... surly he couldn't have. I've searched for most of my life to find a cure, I have pursued every path that science and supernatural and came up with nothing. It galled me that this... this little... priest might be able to do it.
"Put it back." I breathed. If I let myself open my mouth anymore I might just scream at him.
"I beg your pardon?"
"The taints put them back. Undo it!"
"But why? You were cursed. That curse would have-"
"It was not a curse. It was part of me." Good God it was a huge part of me. I'd made it part of me. Without it I was... dead? Oh fuck. "Please just put it back."
"That curse would forever bar you from heaven. You would be trapped in limbo forever."
"Good! I like it here. This is my world and I've spent a very long time creating my place here."
"I am sorry. I cannot undo it. Even if I could, to give anyone that curse would damn me."
"It would be a sacrifice I'm more than willing to make."
"The people I save from monsters are usually more grateful... or at least a little more disbelieving."
"I know a lot more than you do. I'm a lot more involved in that world than you are." I strained to sit up but something held me down. "What is this?"
"I get quite a few people that hunt your kind staying here. My daughter works with them and she suggested it. She said your mind might have been reduced to that of a bloodthirsty beast."
"My mind is all mine and if I could move I'd probably kill you."
"If I untie you will you pursue that goal?"
Not much point. The bastard's already done it. "No I suppose not. Wouldn't gain me anything. Besides, I'm something of a scholar and I'd be very interested in knowing more about your... ability."
"It is a gift from God, you cannot hope to acquire it."
I took a moment to gather myself. "Incidere." I muttered, not wanting the priest to hear it. Air honed to a blade sliced through the first strap out of the priest's view.
"Beg pardon?"
"You know little about me. There's very little I can't 'acquire' in one form or another."
Only then did I remember Adam. Normally I wouldn't have to worry about him at all. If this priest had worked his magic on him... he was different to me. His "curse" kept him alive, I didn't know what would happen to him without it.
"Where is my friend?"
The priest nodded to the bed on my other side. "Fine. He'll need a little more time to recover than you. He's been dead for a long time."
When I turned back to the priest I saw him differently. The bright white light was only the sun, now hidden behind a cloud. The wings were painted on the wall behind him. His hair was blond, his eyes blue. "How long?"
"I was hoping you'd tell me. I'm quite curious about the both of you to be honest. You crashed through the roof of my car. Your friend hit the road. I could tell you were going to die. I could tell neither of you would make it into heaven. I brought you here so you could heal and be safe from the monsters that did this to you."
"Safe? They'll just come after us again. We can't stay in here forever. They can wait out there forever."
"Who?"
"Vampires mostly. Bastards stole my idea for the bullets." My bullets are hollow and filled with a mixture of wolfs bane and garlic water.
"Didn't they do it in some films?"
Well that was unexpected. Those films were a long time ago. "Yes. Sort of. I do it differently."
"Does it work well? I healed you before I could tell."
"They do. Sends vampires into a fit at the least and puts them into a coma at best. Werewolves are worse off. They still have a living body to sustain, older werewolves can recover from a few but it leaves them pretty weak. Younger ones are turned completely human for a time, then the bullet holes finish them off."
"Useful. Would you mind if my daughter used them?"
"I don't own them, as you so clearly pointed out. Wolfs bane and garlic water, not silver, not some fancy UV tracer round. Vampires walk around fine in the sun as long as their well fed. Silver does squat to werewolves."
"Thank you but I believe my daughter knows that already. Try as I might she wants to go out and help the world by killing monsters. She wanted to kill you two but I could see you had good souls. You've devoted your lives to-"
Revenge. Back when I was human my family died during a vampire's battle for territory. Adam's did too. He got infected along with his step-father. A smaller coven took them in. I went looking for the werewolves. Just preferred werewolves to vampires. As soon as I could control myself I left. I spent time after that learning everything I could and preparing for war.
When we eventually got back in touch we met up and compared powers. He wasn't expecting much more than fur and fangs from me but I'd been studying magic for over a year. I had a few tricks to match his. Then we marched to war. By this time the coven war was slowing down. Both covens were weakened after the war. I prepared a long spell to help even the odds and we went after the bigger coven. We decimated them.
The smaller coven suddenly decided to move away to their old territory. We finished them too and passed out the word that vampires weren't welcome. For over a decade no vampire dared come near. Then we had one or two scout the area every year. We killed them. It was over twenty years before a coven made a move and discovered we were only two.
Since then we've killed vampires and werewolves as a matter of survival. We've had a couple of dealings with witches after some rare magics I'd developed. We hadn't devoted our lives to anything but ourselves and our survival.
I told the priest as much but with fewer details. During my short telling I'd sat up. Besides a raised eyebrow he didn't comment on it.
"Whatever your intentions you've done good. Whatever you believe your souls are both... clean. You don't have to be a saint to go to heaven."
"I don't plan on going to heaven."
"You wish to go to hell instead?"
I undid the strap on my legs and tried to stand. I felt so slow and weak and I couldn't remember the last time I felt so shaky. "No. I want to stay right here."
"We all die eventually. It is part of life."
"Maybe. Where are my things?" I was dressed in someone else's bed clothes, they felt new but if I was myself I'd know for sure.
"Gone. They were... covered in your blood. It was infected and I burnt them."
Bad. "No blood left at all?"
"No, I must do all I can to prevent the spread of infection. I'm sorry."
"Great fine, my weapons?"
"I didn't stop to pick them up. The knife broke, the revolver broke. I had to pull bits of them out of you."
"My amulet?" It was some of my best work. It made me immune to all targeted spells, it made me impossible to find by magic. It had brought plenty of witches to me trying to steal it. Adam wore a similar one.
"In the top drawer. Had to pull that out of your ribs." He pointed to the cabinet next to me. "Strange thing. I can feel... the magic I suppose. I can see people's souls, I can usually see... the soul's equivalent of body heat, that amulet... absorbs it. To anybody with lesser power it must make you all but invisible to their senses."
"Useful when you make as many enemies as me." Very quickly I pulled the amulet out and put it on, the strong chain was the perfect length to stay on when I changed. I almost never took it off, and only when I was safely behind a lot of magic shields. I felt naked without it.
I went to Adam's bed and put his amulet on him. "How long have we been here?"
"Three days." Wow, we were lucky nothing had happened to us. "This place is holy ground. You're safe from them here."
"Holy ground? Can I cast spells here?"
"You already did."
"Different spell. I need to get somewhere and I don't dare leave this place as a human."
"You mean like teleporting?"
"Yeah." I expected more of a reaction. All I got was a raised eyebrow again.
"Really? You can do that?"
"Yes, I can teleport to a marker I set up. I can re-infect myself there." No! I can do better. Humans are blank slates. I don't need to go werewolf again... wait maybe I do for a while. "Could you make me human again? If I came back to you as a werewolf again?"
"Um... why? I thought you wanted to be a werewolf?"
"Can you?"
"I don't know. If you chose the curse willingly-"
"I did the first time."
"In grief. Had your family survived-"
"If I'd known about the supernatural I'd have done the same eventually."
"Maybe."
"The only maybe would be if I'd choose werewolf or something else." I faced that decision now. Since I'd become a werewolf I'd hunted down a ritual to make me something else. Only at the end did I discover it wouldn't work on werewolves, only full blooded humans. Now I could do it but I'd have to survive the best part of the year human. Humans are fragile, witches can use magic to make themselves much more resilient but I don't have that skill.
"I have to go somewhere. I'll be back later."
"Where are you going?"
"Europe."
"I see. How long will you be gone then?"
"A few hours."
"I see."
"I'd like a private room. I'd like no one to enter but I'll settle for no one touching the drawings on the floor. This is very, very delicate magic. Messing up one of them could do anything from kill me, to levelling this entire area." That was true. I usually spent a long time preparing the circles and reinforcing them with magic so that they wouldn't deform in any way. I had several of them around the main cities of America and the UK and one in a remote place in Scotland where I kept my workshop and lab. I hadn't had any physical links with my lab in decades, only going there by my magic circles, it was my most secure and private lair.
"I'll keep that in mind. What is it like? The teleporting thing? Do you do the flashy Star Trek thing?"
"Maybe I'll take you along sometime. It's very disorienting. I don't know what it looks like. Where is the room please?"
"Don't you want to get dressed?"
"I have clothes where I'm going, and weapons and more magic. I might be human again but I can still be dangerous when I'm armed." The priest nodded and led me out into the corridor. He opened the door on the left and looked in before waving me in.
"You have an opportunity to start over. You're human now; you're not part of that world anymore. Use your spell, take you and your friend far away where they don't know you. They'll just think you're dead. I'll fake your cremations. No one will know you live. Your amulets will help."
"That..." That sounds nice. I could return to Britain. I could join the werewolf pack in Scotland, I could live peacefully. I could finally get out of the constant war. I wouldn't have to look over my shoulder constantly. I could have a family. "We can discuss that when I get back. And thank you. Whether you've done good or bad I'm not sure but you were trying to help. You can call the Hunters to get a reference for us both. Give my name as Atra Lupus."
"I'll pass that on to my daughter, she handles all the dealings with them."
"I need a knife. This needs to be done in blood."
"Blood? This isn't black magic is it?"
"I wouldn't call it that. I'm not doing anything evil with it. It won't desecrate your holy ground. At least if it will I'll know about it. In that case I'll wait until Adam's awake, you can fake our deaths and I can get us both out."
"You'd desecrate this place? For your own purposes?"
Oh such a tough question. I've done much worse and never looked back. "Yes."
"Then I won't help you do it."
"Fine, but this is pointless talk. It might not come to that. A knife?" I don't know if I'd reassured him but he left the room muttering something about the kitchen. I did my best to sweep the dust form the wooden floor while I waited. The priest didn't keep me waiting long and didn't stay long afterwards, he only stayed long enough to point out the key in my side of the door.
I slashed my palm and cut a piece of my sleeve to draw with. It took me fifteen years just to get the circles working and at least that time to make them reliable. The patterns are extremely complicated, lots and lots of lines surrounding runes all looping round to make a circle with a six inch area with only the outer lines connected. I always left the gap and filled it in when I used the circle. It stopped anybody else being able to use them since they don't know the pattern to fill in. The fresh blood is burnt away by the spell. The rest of the circle is usually made with specially prepared silver that contains large portions of my blood.
I drew two here. One complete one to use to get to Scotland and one to get back to. Only the two outer lines were needed to jump to a circle. By the end of it I was feeling very woozy. I didn't have the resilience I used to. I bandaged my hand with another strip of my sleeve and stood in the complete circle.
The circles handle most of the magic, most of my spells work like that, I make drawings or objects to do the fancy stuff and I just feed them the energy. These needed a little more concentration on my part. I started chanting in Latin. Roughly translated it meant "Take me safely through the flow of the earth to my destination." I repeated it four times before I started feeling the magic flowing through my body.
The best way I can describe it is turning into liquid. Except I'm turning into magical energy. Magic can move very fast. It took me a grand total of thirty seconds to get from the US to Scotland. It's impossible to describe the transition. It's an amazing feeling, it would be all too easy to just lose yourself and if my circles were and simpler it would probably have happened to me by now.
My circles forced me to leave. It was painful at first but after a few years it became easier. When I arrived in Scotland I realised for the first time how much being a werewolf helped me. I suddenly felt like I'd swam straight across the ocean and taken at least half of it into my lungs. I vomited and vomited and even when my stomach ran dry I vomited.
Every muscle ached, my eyes hurt, my ears hurt, my teeth hurt. The smooth floor and material of the bed clothes felt like iron files rubbing straight through to the bone. Being a werewolf I was used to pain but even with that experience I could do nothing. Eventually I fell unconscious but that only lent images to the feelings.