A Beautiful Saviour

Chapter Four

Almost late he had ran hard to get to the battle he was needed at. A battle between two sets of vampires was not all that common anymore. Not since the ‘white days’ anyway. But still they occurred. When he was almost at the south of England, coming up to the battlefield that the moon lit up for him, he wondered to himself whether he had ran ‘to’ the battle or ‘from’ Elsa. He had ran like hounds were snapping at his ankles.

                He had been greeted like a brother. His arms clasped in a tight hold that told a little too much about the people he was fighting alongside. Their fingers had dug in and gripped his arm in a sign of desperation and sincere relief that he had come to aid them. Time was dwindling and as the commander of one unit was guiding him through the ranks of preparing vampires and explaining the details to him, Joseph was undergoing the change.

                Letting go of the human illusion of himself he allowed his fangs to lengthen and sharpen to a point. His fingernails and toenails followed suit, followed by every hair on his body so his very skin was littered with blades. His body; thin, muscular with discretion and wiry, seemed to grow a little and his hair fell to the middle of his back, glinting in the moonlight like shiny metal. His animalistic nature crept out of him while at the same time he was listening intently to what had happened and what was going to follow. That had been on night one. They were now two nights into the battle and his appearance was still that of a murderous animal, the human form seemingly forgotten.

                The ground was streaked with lines of red. Blood red. A dark colour that was thick as it coated the dirt on the ground. The little pebbles and grit that made up the battleground stuck to the thickened liquid that was drying only too quickly and becoming a sticky substance. It wasn’t nice to look at and it wasn’t nice to walk on. In. It slicked the soles of his feet and where it hadn’t yet started to dry it sprayed softly as he took his steps. The oozing mess leaving patter stains on the backs of his calves. He had travelled with only the clothes on his back and he was glad he had taken them off before the battle. He looked forward to the bathe in the nearest river that he would take after the battle and he looked forward to putting back on human clothes. When he saw Elsa again he would be handsome again and clean, hopefully that way she would not be ashamed to be seen with him as she no doubt would be if she were to see his body now - coated with thick hair and a gory mess that wasn’t even his.

                That mere fact that a woman was plaguing his mind during the midst of a battle was a sign that she had edged too far into his life. Another annoying voice in his head was telling him it was a sign that he was ready to put aside this life of his and start afresh. His stomach lurched with the thought of a better life, one that included the fairer sex who could teach him the meaning of gentleness and maybe even laughter; as she seemed accustomed to doing.

                Two days into war and the sounds of slaughter were so common he no longer heard them for what they were. They drowned out most conversation between his own side but in general he couldn’t make out which were cries of anger and which were pain. And which was saddened grief at the loss of a friend. He stopped telling which noises came from friend or foe after little over a day and he found he didn’t want to know. His fallen brethren he would no doubt see at the end and that would be the time to mourn them. To weep and fall to the floor for them. Not that he would weep, he was trained not to weep but he would kneel in honour for them though.

                The tiny fine hairs that coated his skin were now on edge, little blades of their own ready to slice into anything that dared to touch him. Keeping his arms crossed over his chest making the sign of an ‘X’ he was fully ready to defend himself and even attack but his skill lay not in the actual fight, but in the tactics of stealth.