The night was as black and foreboding as one can expect in a cemetery near midnight. The ground itself seemed to pulse with the memories of those buried beneath, and the air was heavy if not with grief, with unfinished lives. The wind howled through the trees to meet with unsuspecting snow falling haphazardly from the night sky. Though a blizzard reigned, the moon still reared her face with stubborn resolve.
The moonlight shone against the cold stones as ethereally as if they were not tombstones, but the lopsided beauty of Stonehenge. A lone figure stood amidst the landscape, a handful of wilted flowers at her feet. Several feet behind her, a scythe was stuck violently into the snow, hilt first, aching to be used as the blade shone in the dim light. Her breath came out in white puffs from a pale pink mouth. She was nearly translucent in the lack of light, her impatience only reined by stubborn will but still visible on her face.
She was a contrast to the wilted flowers, standing beautifully before a yet unmarked grave. Any other would have had trouble finding the grave amidst the snowy knoll, but she knew who was buried there-she’d been at the funeral. Her eyes lingered for a moment on the dead flowers, and her emotionless expression was filled with a silhouette of an emotion that was gone even before she tried to hide it.
She whispered something incoherent, something meant only for her and the grave. Her eyes were not sad, as most are in cemeteries; the gray eyes had no emotion left in them to give. It was not as if she felt nothing - her chest was filled to the brim with unspoken emotions. Over the years, she had gotten very good at hiding her emotions, at hiding who she was and what she truly felt. Only a single tear had ever dropped from those eyes as cold as the winter sky, and it had been a purely selfish teardrop, shed when she had lost everything.
Her coat whipped around her in the wind, flapping violently about as the zephyr’s speed picked up. The snow came down in harsh stinging flakes, hitting her face with such fury that the emotionless valkyrie flinched. She raised pale hands to cover her hair with the hood at her neck, and as the hood slid over her eyes and nose, her face remained expressionless. The hood and coat offered little protection from the cold, but she did not shiver or shift her stance. The ground beneath her feet suddenly trembled, and a sigh escaped her. She stepped back several feet; not in terror or alarm, but in the foreboding way that revealed that this was what she expected.
As the ground at the grave trembled and shuddered, she took another step back, wrapping her right hand around the scythe that waited. She pulled it from the cold ground with the same force she had originally placed it in, and lithely flipped it once in the air before brandishing it at the sea-like movements of the grave dirt. With her left hand she took hold of the cold metal, her thumb resting on a mild indent on the scythe handle.
Her stance and poise boasted that the weapon was not merely an extension of her arm, but of her soul. If any had seen her from a distance, a hooded creature with a black ankle-length coat, wielding a scythe in a moonlit cemetery…they would have thought themselves mad. But nevertheless, she waited in a statuesque pose, eyes hidden behind the fur-trimmed hood, her body screaming in protest against the stinging cold of the mounting blizzard. She waited as the owl waits, and as her prey’s hand became visible through the pale snow, her mouth twisted into a sadistic grin. Her pale blue hands ceased their protestation, and the scythe was her warming agent. She flipped it once, twice, waiting for her prey to leave its hole. Unbeknownst to the creature, she waited with such heartless and furious abandon that it had no hope of escaping. Her patience was a mask of pure over-trained will.
As a tuxedoed young man climbed from the grave, his face marred by decay, his black tuxedo brown with six feet of dirt, the feral instincts of the soulless creature sped to the surface at the prospect of a meal. A small laugh escaped the woman- it dared to think she was prey? She held the scythe, sign of the grim reaper and of death itself, and this pathetic zombie had the audacity to hunger for her blood?
The cold was gone from her limbs, even as the blizzard picked up in force. The two foes faced each other on the picturesque moonlit battleground. There was a dramatic pause as it cleared its feet from the grave and regarded her. The dull brown eyes of the dead met the steely gray of the warrior, and a small smirk lit the warrior’s lips. The pause was broken with this flair of emotion, and with a roar the creature lunged.
The excitement left the air as she dodged the creature’s attack. At least a vampire would have been a minute challenge; this zombie employed merely a lunge-and-snarl system of attack, as most zombies did. She had hoped halfheartedly for a vampire to climb from the grave…at least a vampire would have been a source of entertainment for a few minutes.
With little else to do on a cold night, she opted to fight barehanded and keep herself if not warm, entertained. No season premiere or theatre production could compare to the base animalism of a battle against evil.
Throwing the scythe over the head of the zombie shocked the creature, but a sense of victory filled it when it realized she had lost her weapon. With the little cognitive power it possessed, it could recognize at least this much; she was unarmed. If it had been another person, another woman, any other creature on the planet, the zombie would have been correct; it would have possessed the upper hand.
But with her…there was no such thing as beating this woman. Her mentor had once told her, long ago, “There’s no winning against you. The only way to win - to live - is to run.” He had laughed, thinking himself quite witty. As she remembered this moment, long ago in a countryside she barely recalled, she smiled. It was a smile of coldness, a smile without mirth…and the only smile she ever shed.
The zombie roared and lunged at the woman, inhaling a great deal of snowflakes as he panted toward her. She fell directly backwards to the ground, caught herself on her hands, and kicked up with both legs into the zombie’s chest. It was a dangerous, reckless system of attack, and her personal favorite. The zombie rocketed up a good five feet with the force of this kick, and he landed on a tombstone ten feet away, its head cracked open, littering gray fragments of tissue on the snowy hill. Her legs still in the air, her body in an awkward position, she flipped her legs over her head and landed upright.
The woman sighed again, and her stance leaned to the left. She was bored with this fight - she knew that the end of the battle was near, and wished for a more worthy opponent. The zombie lunged once more, slobbering on its tuxedo and roaring as it had before. The woman, already tired of this game, grabbed the zombie’s head as it nearly reached her. It twisted and writhed in her grip, moaning and whimpering like the creature of pure instinct it was.
The woman broke the zombie’s neck with a swift twist. It fell to the ground, still grunting and whimpering like a beaten animal. She walked toward her scythe- now buried in a tree above an angel tombstone- and withdrew it from the stubborn wood. Flakes of bark scattered on the ground as she removed her weapon and turned back to her prey.
She approached the zombie as it continued to writhe in pain. The blizzard had abated somewhat in the few seconds their battle had lasted, and the snow had slowed enough that she could see through the haze of snow to the zombie’s face clearly. Their eyes met, this time under different circumstances than moments before. They were no longer opponents, but prey and predator, sinner and executioner. Her gray eyes were colder than the falling snow, locked onto the zombie. There was no knowledge in the creature’s eyes, no intelligence; just the pain of a neck broken. Still, it struggled, trying to whip its neck back into place. It raised its hands to its neck, trying to twist it back. It was a futile effort; zombies were as strong as one could expect from the walking dead.
He looked at her with eyes she knew well, with the eyes of a former friend, and the warrior shifted her position slightly, arcing the scythe before her. It had been easy to forget that he had once been her friend, especially in the heat of battle. But as he lay helpless before her, gazing at her with eyes that had once been warm and kind…Even the most stubborn and cold of killers could not help but pause with the memory of friendship once shared. She did not. As she raised the scythe, she said merely, dispassionately, “Goodnight, Dimitri.”
And the zombie’s whimpers were no more. There was no blood to soak the cold night, as the body had been filled with formaldehyde days before. There was no one to cry for this lost soul, but the wind howled for the woman’s lost friend; if she would not grieve, it would.
The woman ignored the body at her feet, looking up at the sky. The snowflakes hitting her eyelashes melted on them, leaving wet drops on her cheeks that resembled tears, but were nothing close. Her hood had fallen back to the nape of her neck sometime during the fight, and as she lifted her hands to raise it again, she looked down to the zombie’s corpse.
As with all zombies, the creature had not changed in its Final Death. It looked the same as it had when it had crawled from its grave, and it would not have normally warranted a second glance. But as the woman’s eyes sharpened on the zombie’s collarbone, she knelt beside the corpse.
She reached her hand out to touch the rotting skin, and at the base of the collarbone was a symbol of blood; a blood seal. The seal was merely a circle with seven dashes reaching from the top right quarter of the circle pointing upwards to the right, ending after nearly an inch. She was careful to avoid touching the seal, instead reaching in her pocket for a tissue. She spread the tissue over the seal, and the blood imprinted itself upon it.
“In nomine patris, et filii, et spiritus sancti.” She whispered, arcing two fingers of her right hand into a cross shape over the tissue. The blood seal burned away, leaving a fissure in the tissue in the shape of the seal. She bagged the evidence with a small Ziploc she kept in her coat pocket - along with other miscellaneous objects- and placed it in the pocket of her jeans.
She rose, still looking at the zombie with veiled curiosity mixed with dismay. She spoke to it again, “The only consolation I offer is death to your murderer and creator…whom I shall find with this.” She patted the Ziploc with her evidence. It was evidence of who committed the crime, of who murdered a friend and companion. But with so many friends dead he was merely the latest in the long line of the buried. In this cemetery alone she could count at least ten she had once known. Her line of work - if it could be called that - had a very short lifespan.
She looked up at the sky. Clouds covered the white orb as she looked up, as if it intended to evade her entirely. She smirked at this thought, and amused herself for a moment with the prospect that nature itself feared her.
She looked back down to Dimitri’s corpse, frowning slightly as her attention shifted back. She knew that only a vampire of incredible power could create a blood seal to control its zombie minions; otherwise zombies wandered aimlessly, as was the norm. But this blood seal was implicit; it reminded her of something she couldn’t place. The symbol itself was magical in origin, another oddity; vampires often created their own blood seal, and didn’t use ones already in existence. Seals were often as simple as a circle, or the vampire’s initials, and not often magical in form.
Irritated at her lack of knowledge, she frowned and twirled her scythe in several figure eights in an effort to cheer herself up. The formaldehyde had stained the silver of the blade, and she reached into her coat pocket for the handkerchief she kept for this specific purpose. The handkerchief hadn’t been washed in several days and was stained with blood and other miscellaneous unidentifiable fluids - there was even a small sheen of gray matter. She found an area of clean white and used it to clear the blade of the preserving liquid, throwing the cloth to the ground. She left it by the zombie, to be taken care of later, by the associates she employed for this specific purpose.
She’d called the clean-up crew before she’d left for the cemetery, to notify them of her intent to cause destruction. They’d been unnerved that the destination was a cemetery, but Ilara had paid them no heed. The men did their job well, and were paid satisfactorily for their duties. Satisfied that the evidence would be gone at dawn, she started toward the edge of the cemetery, stopping only when she heard a suspicious sound. Any sound in a graveyard at night could be considered suspicious, but as she cocked her head slightly to the side, listening intently, it became apparent she was not so much listening as reaching her senses outward.
If she had not been so over-trained in awareness sensibilities she would have closed her eyes, but she rarely closed her eyes even to sleep. Nevertheless her eyes partially glazed over as she reached out with a power both inexplicable and misunderstood. She suddenly flinched as if she had been slapped, and her eyes regained their focus. The warrior - this chestnut-haired vixen of the dark- was none other than a sorceress with powers she kept hidden, sometimes even from herself. It was a power she did not often employ, as she believed the power she had over nature was in itself unnatural. She often denied herself use of this sorcery, opting instead for the familiarity of her scythe and fists. As the magic rushed back to her from its radar-like expedition, her full lips curled into an unattractive snarl.
She clutched the scythe as if with anger, and her eyes narrowed to mirror this response. “Idiots.” She hissed to the night. “God-forsaken idiots.”
With only this as parting words to the zombie not five feet from her, she raced off deeper into the cemetery, to the older section where three teens gathered around a dilapidated grave. She had sensed them touching the forbidden magics, magics that were forbidden in all civilized - and some uncivilized - cultures.
It was necromancy that she had heard; it was an audible sin as much as one she could sense with her magic. She raced across several hills with sleeping corpses below her, running at full speed towards the epicenter of the magical earthquake. She could feel it building in her very soul, spreading its dark tendrils deep inside the earth. She withheld a reactionary shudder toward the evil and sped forward.
The three teens were dressed all in black, with five blood-red candles lit in the formation of a five-pointed star. As the she approached them at top speed, she slowed, curious. She had never before seen a rising in progress, and she was already too late to stop the ritual. She halted at a thick oak next to another angel statue -they seemed so common in this cemetery. With an accusatory glance at the angel statue, her scythe gripped tightly in her right hand, she leaned against the tree.
She couldn’t hear the specific wording of the chant, merely their tone. From this distance she judged that they were in their mid-teens; it was hard to tell with such heavy darkness and snow. Even she had her limits.
She could feel the build up of magic from thirty yards away, and it slid over her uncomfortably, leaving an oily sensation on her skin. She shook it off; it was merely the dark magic emanating from the spell. It was unpleasant and uncomfortable, leaving her in an even worse mood. It felt like being dipped in a vat of dirty, slippery grease.
She let a bit of her own magic seep through her pores, and the sensation boiled away, replaced with her own reassuring warmth. Holy Light spells never ceased to calm her when she was around demons or Hell magic; her own power was a security blanket of sorts. She waited to see if these children were worth her violent attention, or if she could move on to bigger game.
If the raising worked she would have three new necromancers to take down, which she wasn’t too keen on. She shook her head slightly beneath her hood. They were but misguided children, thinking that the powers of Hell could be used so freely. Over the howling wind she heard jumbled Latin and nearly laughed. They’d be raising no zombie with that unfinished incantation. She had been foolish to think them a threat.
The Hell magic waned, dissipating into the air with an audible popping sound. The evils in the air dissolved into the earth; it was this she was concerned of. The magic itself was a danger if left unattended in a graveyard. Magic had a tendency of running wild if left unchecked. She would need to take care of it before leaving the cemetery.
The teens could tell they hadn’t succeeded in raising their pet zombie, and she heard an argument forming amidst them. It was likely the first attempt at a zombie raising for all of them; she wondered what sort of person would attempt necromancy at fifteen, after all. Perhaps they need to be taught a lesson, she mused. A smirk lit her lips at this thought. She was bored, and with little else to do or fight, why not scare some teens off necromancy? She’d be doing humanity a favor, after all. She descended the hill at her own pace. There was little reason to hurry, now, with the failed spell still poisoning the air.
As she walked toward them she wondered why they were trying to raise such an old body- this part of the cemetery was over a hundred years old. Perhaps they were inexperienced, perhaps not; she needed to know if that corpse was special or random.
She knew little of necromancy, only sparse facts she had picked up here and there- one being that necromancy was easier with a fresh body. A desecrated body or one bitten by a vampire were more susceptible to zombification. Her gait slowed as she realized that this was how Dimitri had turned into a zombie; he had been bitten, and called out by someone. But whom, she wondered. Not these children, certainly; likely a vampire, maybe the one that had killed him. She pushed this thought to the back of her mind, and continued down to the teens. She would deal with that question later, when she had time for it.
The wind had picked up; nature reacted fiercely to unsuccessful magic. An unsuccessful raising ritual of a zombie inspired extreme rage in the elements. Zombies were against the very nature of existence and evolution; much like all the other creatures she fought on a daily basis. As with all things, nature would find a way to show its superiority- either with evolution or gale-strength winds.
The teens were so caught up in their argument they didn’t notice her until she sat on a gravestone next to them and poked one of the candles with the scythe. The candles were expensive, made with “Witchwax” a special brand that once lit, never extinguished. At least, that was their sales pitch.
“So.” She said, giving all three teens a start. She lazily held her scythe out in front of her like a scepter. “You took midnight as the witching hour a bit too…literally.”
She could see up close that it was two girls and one boy- the boy was dressed in blue jeans and a leather jacket, struggling not to look cold. The two girls were bundled up in scarves, mittens, and boots, and even in the low moonlight their excessive eyeliner was visible. All of their clothes, from their hats to their boots, were black. The entire scene was so very clichéd, she thought.
The boy put himself between the girls and the warrior. She was surprised at this, though she didn’t show it. It was rare for her to view courage- so many creatures simply ran from her in terror. Then again, these were humans, misguided, yes, but not evil or mutated. “Don’t hurt us.” The boy pleaded.
The woman slammed her scythe into the ground before her. Her anger was palpable, and her left hand seemed to glow in the lack of light. She raised her hand, still glowing, and outstretched it toward them. She shot several bursts of Holy Light at their feet, neutralizing the Hell Magic still in the dirt. Sometimes residual magic from a failed rising could create a zombie; her magic counteracted it.
The girls screamed and the boy stepped back. He was either brave or stupid; he stood his ground. The girls cowered in fear behind him, holding each other’s hands as if it was their last chance at life. Something stirred within the woman; perhaps it was the whimpering of the blond, or the panting of the brunette…either way, the passion and anger seemed to dissipate in her, and she shook her head as if to clear it. She had intended to scare them off, but for some reason she couldn’t bring herself to do it with actions: she would try words.
“I give you a warning: Don’t try a zombie raising, or any other type of Hell magic in this city, ever again. I have killed vampires, demons, zombies, succubae, and humans all in the pursuit to stop that evil. You may be children, but I will kill anyone that uses Hell Magic.” She stepped forward, and the three automatically stepped back. “I will not tolerate it. Do you understand? I will know if you use the tiniest bit of Hell magic, and I will come for you. I may not know your names or where you live; but I will find you. When I knock on your door, you will not survive to get a license.” She paused theatrically. She didn’t enjoy terrorizing children, per say, but sometimes…it could be fun. ”Understood?”
All three nodded earnestly, eyes round and full of fear. The warrior snapped her fingers and the red candles lost their flame, dissipating into the wind. It was a cheap parlor trick, but it worked well enough: the girls shrieked and ran, but the boy stayed, rooted in place.
The woman stepped forward, grabbed the boy’s collar, and brought him in close. His eyes widened in shock when his eyes locked onto hers, and he raised his hands to grab the arm that held him in place. “Why this grave?” She demanded.
The boy sputtered, kicking his feet. He was suspended four inches above the ground by this woman’s arm, and she quickly quelled her anger and set the boy on the ground, but still held him in place. Even so, he was not answering her question. Perhaps she had been too rough with him- she tended to do that; it was merely her nature to be violent. She asked again. “Is there anything important about this grave?!”
The boy continued to spew out monosyllabic terms such as “Uh”, “Er”, and “Um.” After a few seconds he finally forced out, “We just liked the name! That’s all!”
“Did you see anyone here?” She demanded.
“See…who?” Rasped the boy.
She glared at him with gray eyes and tossed her head, hood falling to the nape of her neck again. Her face showed clearly in the dim moonlight, aquiline and deadly in its beauty. Her deep brown hair whipped about in the wind. “Did you see anyone in this cemetery aside from me?”
“No, I saw nobody!” Said the boy. He started to sob. “Please let me go.”
Irritated, the woman threw the boy to the ground, careful not to throw him onto a gravestone. He was on his feet faster than a cat doused in water, and was off running with just as much speed. He looked back once, and the woman raised her left hand, sending out a bolt of light once more- it hit yet another angel statue. She was getting very sick of looking at these angel statues, and rather enjoyed watching bits of it scatter in a ten-foot radius. Flecks of cement littered the boy’s back. After that, the boy didn’t look behind him at all, and soon he was out of her sight.
The woman raised her scythe from the ground and looked down to the gravestone. “Éclair French. I’ll be damned if that’s not a fake name.” She scoffed, pressing a button on the scythe that minimized it into a two-foot long sickle. She slid this under her coat and behind her, latching it into a belt loop of her jeans.
She moved toward the cemetery gates, past where Dimitri’s corpse had once lain, and her brow furrowed. The body was gone, but the handkerchief remained. She bent over and retrieved the cloth. It was unlike her cleanup crew to leave such evidence. It was also unlike her to not hear them; the two men were friendly and genial, but often made an absolute ruckus in their work. Upon closer inspection, she discovered that the only footprints in the snow were her own and the zombie’s. The zombie, it seemed, had simply disappeared. There were no footprints leading from the place it had been slain, no marks that it had been dragged, and no evidence it had walked away. After all, she thought- How would a decapitated zombie walk away? Then again, she wondered, how could it simply dissipate into thin air? After their Final Death, zombies simply continued to rot. There was no magical disappearing act, and certainly no more coming back to life.
The wind picked up even further and the blizzard deepened. She actually stumbled a bit walking about, thrown by the force of the wind. She couldn’t see anything in the haze and sting of snow, and grunted when she tripped over a gravestone she hadn’t seen. She stumbled back up, swearing.
Irritated with herself, she left the cemetery in a huff, disappearing into the parking lot adjacent to the cemetery. She’d spent enough time in that graveyard, she thought. She had other problems to deal with tonight than stupid children and disappearing zombies.
A man stepped from behind another angel statue- the same one that she had encountered in her fight with the zombie- and touched it. He, too, wore a long coat that reached to his ankles, though his was leather and hers had been wool. His hair was so dark a brown it was nearly black, and his eyes were an unearthly green that shone with surreal light. He looked into the distance where she had disappeared, and lowered his head. He had worked so hard to get to the woman. Now, she was nearly within his grasp, she was so close. The great and fearless sorceress that was both cruel and compassionate was so near that he could barely contain himself.
A smile lit his lips, and he looked to the zombie of Dimitri, slobbering at his side. The blood seal was once again bright with enchantment, and the man inspected the zombie’s neck. He had repaired the wound while the woman had been distracted, and he had done an excellent job. He didn’t use magic often, and when he did he was often slightly afraid it would backfire. Luckily, this didn’t. He needed this specific zombie for his strategy to work.
The vampire spoke to the zombie. His voice was a sultry bass that had made women swoon for centuries. “Whom do you follow?”
“ Herrrr,” drooled the creature, slumped over. Zombies, the man noted, always had horrible posture. It seemed a generalization, but if he dug deep into his memory, every zombie he had ever seen- or created - had possessed a perpetual slouch.
The zombie tried to bite the man, but in a movement too quick for any mortal to see, the man hit the zombie back twenty feet into a tree. The creature made a thumping sound, and more gray matter leaked from the wound on its head as strips of bark littered the snowy ground. The vampire thought perhaps he should fix the zombie’s head wound, too, but decided against it. It didn’t need its brain; the zombie never actually formed thoughts that were in any way coherent. The zombie whimpered but lumbered up again to stand by its master, eyes vacant and drool dripping to the ground. “Ilara Foxxxxx.”
“Right,” said the vampire. “Follow. Follow Ilara Fox.” With zombies, it was best to use short, simple sentences, the vampire knew. Otherwise, they got a touch confused and would wander aimlessly, eating the brains of random people. He needed the zombie focused, and he knew it was a lot to ask from such a simple creature driven by instinct.
Some unexpected humanity shone through the creature’s eyes. “Ilara Fox…friend?”
The vampire hit him again. It seemed that the memories of the zombie’s life as a human were surfacing. It could actually be more help than a hindrance; it would seek out safe ground, near its old friends.
“Not friend. She is enemy. Ilara Fox is enemy.” Said the vampire, placing his gloved hands into his pockets. He was lucky to be a vampire - the cold didn’t bother him as it once did when he was a human. The heavy snow did, however - it ruined his hairstyle.
The zombie lumbered upward again, its jaw hanging wide open. It tried to speak, only to discover its chin had been dislocated by the vampire’s blow. It did force out a partially coherent, “Eat?”
The vampire shrugged. “Yes. Eat. Eat Ilara Fox.” You can try, the vampire added silently. The zombie wouldn’t last very long against her, but he needed this particular zombie-the zombie of a dead friend- to heighten the already-growing situation. His plan had taken decades to implement, and he was now near the end of his tactics.
“Eaaaaaat,” moaned the zombie in pleasure, as it shambled toward the cemetery entrance. It limped off into the night, following the scent of Ilara’s magic through the darkness. Whoever it encountered along the way was in for a bit of a surprise, to be sure, the man thought. He could control the creature enough to tell it to seek a specific target, but it was still an animal of instinct.
The vampire brushed a hand through his hair, trying to straighten it out after the blowing wind and snow had finished damaging it. He smiled, and with the same expression Ilara had gazed up at the sky minutes before, he regarded the moon. It hid itself in the clouds, and the man smirked; it seemed as if the moon intended to evade him entirely. He smirked at this thought, and amused himself for a moment with the prospect that nature itself feared him- the exact thought Ilara Fox had entertained minutes before. He had no way of knowing this, omnipotent as he claimed to be, but both he and Ilara Fox shared the unbreakable bond of murderer and victim.
Who was victim and who was murderer remained to be seen.