Evil Walks Softly Through Darkened Halls
A Forbidden Spec Side Story
By Terri Botta
She waited silently in the dark gloom of the chapel. With no electricity or candles, the room was shrouded in shadows of varying degrees of grey and black. She blended into these shades almost completely, her body compact and motionless in the far corner.
She had known, of course, that her quarry would eventually come to look upon his handiwork. It was just like him to return to the scene of the crime to gloat over his hapless victim. It had really just been a matter of time before he showed up. No doubt the hurricane had something to do with the timing of his visit, but that only served her purposes and not his.
After she
had broken the wards and removed the geas on Lestat,
she had planted a few of her own wards keyed to giving her advance warning
should the demon set foot in
She was well used to engaging this particular entity. It seemed he had been made to be a thorn in her side. Many times they had danced this dance. Many times she had found herself cleaning up his messes, making amends for the havoc he had wreaked upon the world. It wasn’t enough that the humans themselves seemed so bent on their own demise. He had to go and make things worse with his games, but then she supposed that was what he had been made for. The Divine Energy had a strong sense of duality.
Yin and yang they were, negative and positive, destruction and healing. They were opposites, yet neither could ever be rid of the other. The world was a dichotomy, two sides each needed to validate the other. For how could one know happiness if there was no despair? How could one know life if there was no death? The Divine Energy had handed the waking world its lot when it formed from the ether, and there was no escaping that reality unless one were to surrender the corporeal form and become one with the Infinite once again.
How many centuries had she walked the earth? Dozens at least. She was the oldest of her kind, this she knew. She had been the first. Others had come after, ending her isolation and loneliness in her Immortality, but she had been the Eve of her kind: created long before Eve ever existed in the minds of mortals. She saw her brothers and sisters rarely, but she could feel them close to her even when they were far apart. Their presence was a constant comfort in the world of pain and misery in which she immersed herself.
It was her destiny to Heal. She walked among the sick, the dying, the forgotten. She saw the worst humanity had to offer and brought solace. She had always been this way, even when she still counted herself among the mortals. She had always been a bringer of comfort and relief.
It was a lonely life in many ways, although she was never physically alone. On very few occasions she had a companion who walked with her for some years before she had to give them up to Time or Duty. Loss was a familiar ache that lived in her chest, but she knew it well so it did not pain her as much as it once had.
Just on the edge of her mind she felt one of her sisters. That one was waiting as well, but her thoughts were laced with an eager anticipation. She knew why. Two of her wards had been tripped. It would not be long now.
He came slinking in, little more than a shadow slightly darker than the gloom. She waited because she knew that he did not know she was there, and watched as he made his way to the now empty sanctuary. She saw him pass the communion rail and take human form on the wooden dais. Smiling to herself she watched as he stared at the empty place where the vampire had once been. She sensed his confusion when he saw that Lestat was not there and allowed herself to feel a small thrill of triumph. It wasn’t often that she managed to get the jump on him, and this victory needed to be savored.
She knew why he had chosen Lestat. The young vampire was brash and impulsive, but also desperately wanted to have meaning. He needed a purpose; he needed to understand why evil existed, and why he tried so hard to be good when he knew he was damned. His soul was immense and bright, but innocent as well (as if a two hundred year old bloodsucking killer could be considered innocent, but he was.) He knew nothing if the spiritual world, nothing of the Divine Energy that had forged the universe. He continually strived towards an ideal that had never really existed.
In that state of mind, Lestat would have been perfect for the demon: a bright soul ripe for corruption. But then the vampire had defied the beast (Oh how she would have loved to have been there to see that!) and her nemesis had punished him terribly. If he could not have Lestat then no one would, and he would break the bright soul into pieces.
How disappointed he was going to be when he discovered that Lestat was not only still intact, but more stable and complete than he had ever been. The bond between the two vampires had given Lestat the purpose and meaning he had needed, and he would never again be vulnerable to the demon’s schemes.
After several moments of listening to his confused thoughts, she decided that it was time to reveal herself. Her sister had come closer and was waiting nearby; her mind was slightly impatient but biding her time for the right moment. With a flick of power she made the candles come to life, flaring and filling the chapel with their sudden light. The demon jolted and spun around to face her as she stepped out of the shadows.
“You!” he gasped. “What are you doing here?”
“I could say the same of you,” she replied calmly, her hands folded in front of her chest.
She saw him look behind him to the barren spot on the floor and smiled at his puzzled expression.
“If you are looking for your victim, he is gone,” she said.
He shook his head. “Impossible. You could not break my wards. And even if you could, his mind was in pieces. I would have heard him screaming all the way to the Next World.”
His hubris was so obvious that she almost laughed. He had always been a vain and selfish creature, and so often his own pride brought him down more than anything else.
“He is beyond your reach now. You won’t be able to touch him ever again.”
The demon scoffed and scuffed the invisible line where one of the wards had once been with his toe.
“Not even you could have Healed him in the state he was in. The last time I looked in on him, his spirit was broken and raving.”
“You would have liked to believe that, wouldn’t you,” she countered softly. “You would have liked to have broken him and claimed responsibility for putting out his light.”
She stepped closer, her feet making no sound on the tiled floor. “But he was stronger than that. Once the geas was broken, he came out of it. His mind was weakened, yes, but you had not broken him.”
He grinned a smile of pure malice, showing his rows of pointed teeth. “He will. He won’t be able to withstand it a second time.”
She laughed quietly and shook her head. “I told you, he is beyond your reach. You will never be able to harm him again.”
She felt him casting out a mental line, searching for the vampire and reaching for him. She waited calmly while he did so because she knew what he would find. The bond she had forged between Lestat and his child had quite a few built in protections to defend against certain types of attacks. It wouldn’t be long before the demon would get hit with one of them. What made it even sweeter was that she knew he wouldn’t be expecting it.
She felt the surge of energy and the backlash that followed. The demon took it full force because he was unprepared and the power of the blow almost knocked him down. He reeled a bit, his eyes spinning and then growled at her.
“What have you done?” he demanded.
She smiled innocently. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out… eventually.”
Snarling, he came at her, but she had felt his anger building and moved easily out of his path. They switched places and she found herself standing in the sanctuary while he was now facing her from beyond the communion rail. He was powering up, preparing to lash out at her again, and she immediately put up a barrier.
“Careful,” she warned. “I might be forbidden from killing you, but that doesn’t mean I can’t hurt you.”
“You could never do anything to hurt me,” he challenged, throwing a bolt of energy at her.
The blast hit her barrier but it held fast, absorbing the attack. While she was unharmed, the very fact that the demon had attempted to assault her opened up a host of options that hadn’t been available to her before. She could now consider herself to be in immediate danger and was allowed to use whatever means necessary to defend herself.
Offensive maneuvers, however, were not her strongest suit. While she could put up a significant fight if she had to, she much preferred more peaceful means to resolving conflicts. In that respect it was very good to have a sister who had no qualms about shedding blood, and who also had a particular score to settle with this specific demon.
She materialized out of the ether, her red hair wild, her green eyes flashing. She was dressed in dark hunting leathers, and she held a great broadsword that she swung effortlessly with only one hand. She appeared behind the demon and sliced the blade in a downward, backhanded arc that neatly lopped off the creature’s head from its neck. It rolled on the tiles as she landed lightly and faced her, her wide mouth curled up into a triumphant smile.
“Sister,” she greeted, bowing.
“Sister,” the newcomer replied, balancing the huge sword on one shoulder.
The demon’s headless body had fallen to the chapel floor and was now flailing about, searching for its missing part. She watched as her sister nonchalantly strolled over to the severed head and looked down at it. The large, shocked eyes blinked and the mouth moved.
“Ach, Ye’ll live. Unfortunately,” her sister said, her deeply accented voice echoing in the room.
The demon gurgled. Cut off from its oxygen supply, the head was alive but had no way of making sound. A few feet away, the body still crawled about with questing hands, and she watched as her sister kicked the head a little further from the rest of its form.
Leering down at the head, her sister gloated and wiped the blood from the sword with her finger. “Do ye remember this claymore? It was me father’s,” her sister taunted, brandishing the blade. “I been waitin’ centuries to give you pain.”
Her sister spun the claymore in her hand, examining it carefully before looking down at the severed head again.
“Wish I could kill ye but me sister’s right. No tellin’ what scum’d come crawlin’ outta the slime to take yer place. At least wit you, I know what I’m dealin’ wit.”
The head rolled a bit, mouth still gaping and her sister laughed.
“Funny. It don’ look like ye got much ta say, do ye? I wonder why. Odd how ye didn’t seem ta be at a loss for words when ye gave up me Clan to the English.”
Her sister leaned down and grinned at the head. “I told ye I’d get ye back fer that. Now allow me ta introduce ya to another Scottish invention.”
She watched in amusement as her sister gripped the hilt of the claymore and lined up her shot.
“FORE!”
Her sister swung the blade and hit the head with the flat side, sending it flying. The head crashed through one of the stained glass windows that hadn’t been broken by the hurricane and went sailing out of the building. Both of them looked at the shattered window and waited to hear the dull thud of the head landing on the street.
“Ach that felt good,” her sister crowed.
She laughed and bowed slightly. “I can see that you were enjoying yourself.”
Her sister grinned. “Well, he did attack ye. Gave me the right ta defend ya.”
“So it did, but I still think you were having too much fun.”
Her sister cocked her head and shook it. “Nah. When I toss the head in the river, that’ll be when I’ve had too much fun.”
She chuckled. “Somehow I doubt that.”
Her sister regarded her and smiled. “Ye look good.”
“Thank you.”
“Been a while since I’ve seen ye. Ye should come home more often. Get outta this crazy place. Sometimes I think it’s beyond our ken ta help anymore.”
She politely disagreed. “There are still those who need my talents.”
Her sister shrugged. “Ach, there’ll always be those. The point is are ye doin’ any good?”
“I think so. It might not seem that way, but I do believe that, overall, my work is worthwhile and necessary.”
Her sister nodded. “All right. But I’ll tell the others that I saw ye, and that yer okay.”
She bowed. “Thank you.”
While they had been talking, the headless body of the demon had risen to its knees and was now crawling about the chapel. It overturned one of the chairs, commanding their attention, and they looked at it curiously. Her sister sighed.
“I’d best go find the head. If I throw it far enough, it’ll make it to the sea before he finds it,” her sister said.
She nodded.
If her sister tossed the head in the
“Fare ye well, Sister. Be seein’ ya,” her sister commented with a wave.
“Be safe.”
Her sister grinned. “Always.”
With that her sister left through the chapel doors. The body sensed her passing and struggled to its feet, stumbling after her. She followed, catching up with the body at the top of the stairs. Her sister was long gone.
She watched dispassionately as the body staggered about, fumbling for the railing and the top step. This demon had caused her such trouble. He was responsible for countless deaths and untold destruction. The breaking of Lestat would have been a minor afterthought even though it would have destroyed one of the brightest souls she had ever witnessed. It would have been nothing to him.
For one brief moment she allowed herself to feel anger at all the demon had done, and her rage made her vision turn red. So much pain and death had been dealt at his hands, so much misery and senseless waste. To now see him so cowed and defeated was a victory that begged to be savored.
But it wasn’t like her to be vengeful or vindictive. She was a healer. She brought comfort and solace to those who were in pain. Her touch was a balm to wounds and aches. Her voice was a tender song to soothe a hurting soul.
She was peace. She was love. She was all that was good in the world and all that humanity hoped to one day become.
She kicked the body down the stairs, watching it as it tumbled helplessly over itself in loud somersaults, then blithely stepped over it as she walked out the door.
Even all the good in the world needed a little evil sometimes.
FIN