Heaven Sent

Chapter Thirty-Seven

                                             Elijah

Blood.

So much blood.

The walls are doused with it.

Chaos.

Unspeakable chaos.

My mind, a range of terrors joining as one, slips in the pandemonium. Crimson innards drip from the passage, a painting of desperation and rage. Friend or foe, it makes no matter. My failing mind finds focus on my hands, which grip the clothing of a frantic savage. The strike of his nails does not discourage me from the bare skin of his throat.

Animalistic sounds fill my ears, the gargles of the dying, the screeches of those still in flight from the wrath of my sons. Still, there were many tenants living in this haven. My path is unclear to Cassandra. Even when this creature falls down dead, another appears in his wake, preventing me from the path I seek.

For this is the sight I fear.

Like a haze in a dream, the occurrence's around me are unsettlingly familiar, something I've already been witness to. A nightmare I have already foreseen.

My eyes scan the room for weaknesses. I feel the discouragement in Damien, and in Paris. Layered over that is a deep, instilled fear in the woman I love, whose pain has burdened me since I've arrived.

She's wounded.

She's been tortured.

I allowed this to happen. We shouldn't have been here. We should have escaped.

"He's doing this on purpose!" Damien shouts, swarmed by madness.

My body and mind are weak, too weak to attempt such a decision... but I see no other choice.

I must unleash another part of myself. The animal. The predator.

I must pray I possess the strength.

Shoving the bodies aside to make room for myself, I begin to shed the items that will prevent me from changing. The jacket, my vest, my shirt. I discard whatever weapons are in my possession, knowing the citrine cannot be useful to me in a moment such as this, locating the primal part of me always kept dormant, a power I rarely tap into, for it is a draining advantage.

Shape-shifting is the difficult part, a painful transformation, although quick.

Once it occurs, there is no creature to stop me. The panther is more than the vampire, more than the man. It instills fright in possessed creatures, bringing forth their mind with just enough time to understand their death nears. The killing is easy this way.

I rip through them ceaselessly, one after the other, allowing the monster within to unleash horror unto the creatures until they are cowering, until they are fleeing from my wrath. But I do not let them escape. I do not yield. My mind is not sound, not when I feel her so frightened. So unsure.

I feel his nearness.

I feel his pathetic desperation to acquire this woman.

The last time I became this, this animal, was in these very walls, tearing through these very creatures. The bodies I left in my wake then are nothing compared to the corpses I trample over search for more signs of life. Damien and Paris are pressed against the wall, astonishment palpable in their expressions as I leave them behind, scaling the historical monument, a graveyard now, for my wife.

I leave them to handle the rest, unable to remain.

I have to reach her.

Her terror chills this monstrosity. She is unsettled in a way that urges me to run faster, to get to her faster. I ascend the stairs, pulled to her proximity by a force beyond my control.