Eternal Night

(III) Chapter 13: Hello Darkness, My Old Friend

Lyra stood in the entryway, stunned and statuesque as she took in the scene before her. Blood. There was so much of it. Jacob had already rushed past her to remove an unconscious Carmen from the massive hunk of splintered wood of a broken bookcase, the man calling her name as he did so. Once she was free, he placed his hands over the gaping wound in her abdomen as a green light was emitted from his palms.

As he healed the woman with his magic, Lyra's gaze turned to the empty pile of clothes that looked exactly like what Danny had been wearing, the material soaked in a pool of blood and ash. There was the glistening of something metallic tucked into the collar of the shirt and she bent down with tears in her eyes as she fished out a pair of dog tags.

POLVOSTY, DANIEL
543 43 6249
O POS
CATHOLIC

Her heart sank into her stomach as she clenched the embossed metal in her hand, eyes prickling with unshed tears.

"Is it Danny?" Jacob asked.

She turned to look at him.

His face was stained in blood and soot from their fight with the witch – it had taken everything the two of them had had to obliterate Sarah, last of the Blood Thorn coven. Breaking that collar from around her throat had been the trick, though the task had nearly killed both of them. It was a wonder he still had any magic left in him – she felt completely drained, her limbs weighed down like lead.

Lyra only nodded in reply to his question, watching as his entire body shuddered with the grief of it. When he had done what he could for Carmen, the light in his hands flickered out as he leaned back on his haunches with an exhale, clearly exhausted.

Finally managing to unroot herself, she suddenly noticed an unconscious Tristan in the other room. She quickly made her way over just as Rémy and Vlad came bursting into the room from the secret staircase in the wall, the latter of the two looking especially concerned.

"Oh my god... CARMEN!" Rémy shouted. He leapt over the railing of the second level and landed with a loud thud as he practically fell to his knees at her side. Lyra did her best to block him out as she examined Tristan's body. It was riddled with bullet holes – thankfully none of them fatal. But he had lost a lot of blood.

"Jake – I got another one bleeding out over here..." she began but then she heard it – that awful strangled cry as Rémy realized who else had been hit.

Lyra closed her eyes, willing her heart into stone.

We're lucky to be alive, she told herself. We're all so damn lucky to be...

"NO! VESPER, NO!"

She whirled her head around to find Rémy now crawling on all fours toward the shadows near a broken window where a limp Vesper Baquero lay in a pool of her own blood. The moment Jake reached her and Tristan, she was on her feet, racing back into that crimson-soaked room.

"Vesper? Vesper, sweetie... wake up," Rémy was pleading, shaking her. "Come on, Imp. I need you to wake up. Please, wake up!"

Vlad was at his friend's side in an instant as he firmly removed the girl from the man's trembling embrace.

"Rémy..."

Dracula's voice was so calm, so steady...

Rémy relinquished his hold on the girl as Vlad took her into his arms, lifting her up so he could place her on one of the nearby tables to get a better look at the damage she had sustained. Lyra held her best friend's brother on the ground as he wept, her eyes fixed on their king as his ice-blue eyes scanned the lifeless body in front of him. She followed every sweep of his gaze – from the gaping wound in the dhampir's gut to the slender blade on the floor.