Failure

Chapter 4: Failure

Still, the hesitancy. But she was with him, her husband far away and forgotten. The face he had come to love – so close, so inviting, looking melancholy and expectant. He let his fingers trace her noble lines from her cheekbones to her chin. She was letting him touch her. She was moving closer. He held her in a light embrace, wishing the moment could last forever.

She gave a sudden lurch. He was puzzled. Had he done something wrong? Her face contorted in a silent scream. His mind was blank as she sank to her knees, her fingers desperately clutching him. He refused to accept the obvious, that she was mortally wounded.

How could everything be taken away from them at this moment?

"Run. Run. Save yourself," she said. She crumpled to the ground, her fingers clawing at the grass. The pain was almost enough to kill her love, but not enough. She looked at him. She wanted him to be the last thing she saw.

He did not run. They had known he would not. He hovered over his dying lover, looking wildly around for the ambushers. Then the fatal darts pierced his body, and he howled with his agony and the knowledge that he would die without avenging her. He thought he caught a glimpse of them and staggered towards them. His legs gave way; he was on his knees. His last move was to throw himself toward his lady and clutch her hand with one final spasm.

"We were lucky," said Hermione.

"Yes," said Severus. "Who could hope to find a pair of clandestine vampire lovers?"

Both Hermione and Severus were glad the five human girls were alone when they arranged their deaths to appear to be by vampire and werewolf.

It was time to run and hide.

It was time for suicide. They had talked it over and decided that, while the opposition might kill them cleanly, it was likely to torture them and stake them out for the vampires. Thus, when the dark wizards burst into their bedroom in the wee hours of the morning, the intruders ran into rattling chains, stepped on ankle twisters and noise makers, and had their wand movements restricted by netting. Severus woke and cast a Disillusionment charm that stripped away their beliefs and had the dark wizards pondering the meaning of their lives. Their hesitation gave Hermione a chance to pull the cord that ignited the gunpowder under the bed.

Welcome, oblivion.

Oblivion welcomed them with a pain in the rear as the gunpowder rapidly propelled the bed upward. It gave them a splitting headache as the bed split the ceiling, followed by a twisted back when the bed fell back to the floor. Fuming from the fizzle of the gunpowder and cranky because of his headache, Severus dispatched the stunned dark wizards and turned on Hermione. "You aimed too much of the gunpowder outward. You wanted to take our attackers with us. Always with you, the petty revenge."

"We'd be happily dead if you hadn't been cheap and skimped on the powder," she retorted.

"There was plenty of powder. It just didn't get through the thick plywood sheets you insisted we sleep on. Just because you can't abide a soft mattress."

"It's not a soft mattress; it's a sagging mattress," she said.

Fairly certain they would not go back to sleep, they hopped an early train to the next town where they had a breakfast of coffee with heavy cream and waffles with fruit as they recovered from their reversal.

Several evenings later, there was a knock on their door. Severus opened it cautiously while Hermione hid behind a couch, poised to attack.

"May we enter?"

"I think not," said Severus.

"That's wise, but not necessary. We come as friends. We admire your efforts even though they have been fruitless."

"I don't understand," said Severus, thinking the war between the humans, werewolves, and vampires had started in earnest.

"We're aware that some group, for reasons unknown, has been provoking both sides to start a war, and we're aware that you have been trying to prevent this."

"I see," said Severus.

"We even know that the provocateurs, may they rot in shit, tried to blow up you and your comrade – who may as well come out from behind the couch – but they were caught in their own evil stratagem while you managed to escape. Our congratulations to your daring and cunning."

"Thank you," said Severus, "but why have you come to us when we've obviously failed to prevent the war?"

"There may be some hope – if not in stopping the war, then in keeping it from spreading everywhere."

"Won't all vampires, as part of a minority, join with their brethren?" asked Severus. An idea occurred to him, and he said, "Well, perhaps not."

"We are glad you are as intelligent as we hoped although that both makes it possible to work with you and risky to work with you."

The vampires dared not stand long in the open and promised to return. Severus thought the intrigue had become too complicated and wanted to leave. New Zealand sounded good. Hermione quipped that he could join the other sheep. He replied that he had a thicker skin than that and her intemperate opinion didn't faze him. She couldn't live with the shame of a job left incomplete, and she would not be happy until all the vampires were involved in the conflict and the countryside ran with blood. Thus it was that three nights later, the two were approaching a small, but imposing castle. Both patted their concealed wands. Revealing their true nature would expose them as agent provocateurs and undo all their work. The honor guard of two vampires at the drawbridge almost managed to conceal their leering and hungry looks at the human damsel.

"Severus, I'm scared," she whispered.

Oh, great, he thought. Just what I need: someone who can't think straight out of fear.

They were led across the courtyard and up the stairs to the throne room where the Duke and Duchess of the fief presided. They bowed to the royal couple, and the Duchess addressed the assembly. "So these are the peacekeepers. We need peace. Others have undermined their efforts elsewhere, but perhaps if we cooperate, we can secure an untroubled domain where all can prosper. There has been a tacit accord with our human neighbors, and under it, our small duchy has been regaining its strength."

"We shouldn't stand by while our fellows are being hunted," interrupted the Duke.

"As if they've ever lifted a finger to help us," said the Duchess. "They prospered while we were being chased back into this remote castle. Now, it's our turn."

"I'm aware of that," said the Duke, "but we should make a nominal effort so we don't appear to be traitors."

"Tell them we are fully occupied in securing our own borders," said the Duchess. "Tell them we are preserving a haven." She stood. "And let them rot in hell as they would us!"

"Don't you want to help your fellow vampires?" blurted out Hermione.

The royal couple paused for thought.

"Why would you favor the vampires over your own kind?" asked the Duke.

"Why are you trying to draw us into the war instead of seeking peace?" asked the Duchess.

"We should come back at a better time," said Severus, placing his hand on Hermione's shoulder and backing out of the chamber. "You obviously have much to discuss among yourselves."

"When you have decided on your best policy, you know where to find us," he said as he and Hermione backed out of the chamber door.

"We've got to get out of here and out of the country," he told Hermione.

Quicker than thought, they departed that scene.

But quicker than that, the vampires were seen.

As quick as they could, they flew down the stair.

But when they arrived, the vampires were there.

Across the drawbridge, they believed themselves free.

But the vampires appeared, mean as could be.

Severus called out her wand she should use.

To keep her cover, she had to refuse.

Hermione made a final dash. The vampires were on her; they had her arms and legs; their teeth were in her.

"Kill me, Severus!"

True as love, a green lance of light connected her heart to the tip of his wand.

The creatures snarled over the bushy-haired lump of dead meat, no longer of interest to them. Severus snarled. The creatures, now in a dead lump, were no longer of interest to him – neither was his life. He charged back across the drawbridge. The vampires trying to raise it were the next to be sent to his zone of indifference. His zone of indifference widened in inverse proportion to the tight and unbelievably beautiful lances of light. The door to the tower blown off its hinges along with his cover story formed a gross counterpoint as did the bodies littering the stairway to the throne room. Before he had finished, the royal couple were positively indecorous.

He walked out of the castle into the dawn of his world of indifference.

It was cold. Very cold. The sun was bright. Every blade of grass cast its sharp shadow. Wrapping the cloak tighter did no good; the cold inside was sharper than the cold outside. The trudge up the hill was over sharp and uncaring rocks. Under a bright and uncaring sky, he placed a flower on her grave.

END