Subscription Book #1 (April week 1-2) Chapter 2

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Redeemers Lullaby
CHAPTER 2
TEARS OF THE ROSE

Vash dreamed and it was the most forlorn and crestfallen dream of a vision from his tragic past. It tore Vash’s heart so much to look back at those sorrowful memories the memories that were two years gone on this exact date, the day of the rain; the day when the tears of heaven fell to the wounded and fragile earth. It was hard to believe that such mournful tears of blue water were completely artificial however they were, they were not real, they were false rain but not false tears. For on that day like every day on this date for hundred years the rain fell and the gods cried for what was about to happen.
The woman of his past was there; the memory mocked him with the image of her truest beauty and grace, she was so beautiful he wanted to cry. He had not seen even a mage-rendering of the image of the magnificent blonde waves that flowed out of a perfect face and framed a perfect body clothed in black robes that made her red lips and golden hair all the more colorful. All the while her black robes made her look like she was crying inside as if she were going to a funeral; or trying to hide the thing growing in her belly beneath those robes.
She waited in the rain without a parasail or any other protection from the torrent of storm that pelted the city in artificial teardrops. She stood in the court yard of an ancient tomb and burial ground of the great Alavari King Umbrall who was the tyrant warrior elf who had conquered and enslaved all of the human lands and divided nations of men. This was a place of its own tragedy and loss, the Alavari king was a tyrant who used his slaves to build the city, now his empire was rubble.
“I’ve waited for just an hour, but it seemed like I waited my entire life.” Salina said to the wounded man waded through the rain of the Alavari ruin. Vash had been shot, Salina knew then by Scythe himself most likely. The night before Koron had caught her in bed with Vash and was furious; Salina knew just from looking at his torn slashed and incarnum burned body that they had had a battle on one of the rooftops of the city of Xion. What had happened to him after she did not know, Scythe saw him as a threat to his coup and would do anything to get rid of him; he would not stop until he was dead that night. Salina wondered how he had survived.
“Salina, Scythe just killed your father in a duel and nearly killed me; Koron’s coup has devastated the underground crime families and there is chaos everywhere in the syndicates. We have to get out of here, Scythe knows about our affair. He gave me a choice to join him in his consolidation of all of the crime families into one entity under his rule, Flail is dead you father is dead Salina and the other family leaders of the other syndicates will be too.”
“I know Vash, Koron only wants more and more power; he cares nothing for you or even me. He doesn’t care about the members of Arsenal and the other Syndicates spilling blood over all of Xion; scythe doesn’t give a damn about us Sabre. He has given us one ultimatum join him or die and many are joining him even our former friends; we can trust no one Sabre, anyone could be loyal to Scythe we have to do this all on our own if we want even the slightest chance to survive.”
“We’ll leave tonight; meet me here at midnight in the Alavari tomb. I will arrange everything just pack whatever you can carry and we’ll take the next slip-liner out of this damned city and this damned continent. We will live Salina, we’ll finally be free and we can live the lives we’ve always wanted and share the love we’ve denied ourselves for so long. Come with me Salina together we will finally be happy and we’ll leave Arsenal behind and start a new life. I’ll start a new life for both of us and our love will endure all.
“Yes but there is something I haven’t told you Vash, something you need to know; oh Adonai I wish this could wait for a better time but that is something we are running out of and will never have. I want to run away with you so desperately I need to be with you and I would do anything to preserve our love, I only wish you could see how much I love you Vash. But before we go I have to tell you something important: I’m pregnant, I’m pregnant with your child Vash, and if we are discovered we all will die. “
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A figure stepped evil out of the shadows a menacing creature of pure malice and hate. He fumed sanguine blood lust and had the aura of inky death all around him. He was a man who had forgotten his true name; forgotten his very humanity. This was a man who had given up a good noble life for a life of vengeance and a never ending obsession with a vendetta of sick genocide and carnage. He was single minded now on her, on her affair; on her betrayal of him and betrayal of his coup and her place in it. He cared nothing of love but he cared everything of loyalty and he would use that to destroy her and Vash.
Scythe spat out truculent words like a white asp spits out venom trying in vain to make Salina afraid of him, but she had lost all fear of him long ago. To her his was so pitiful, so lost, the man she was forced to marry whose real name was Koron Thanatos was blinded by his own greed and lust for the power over the terrorist cell. He spoke to her as if she were an object as if she were his property; in the end she hoped to show him just how wrong and delusional he really was.
He spoke in hatred and malice curling the words into some kind of magical curse as if to summon a hoard of demons from the nine hells to take her and her unborn baby with him into the abyss. The madman growled and glared at her his olive completion going bone white with the lack of blood going into his face as if he was ready to kill her in cold blood and devour her, “You will never escape me Salina, you are mine. I know something you don’t think I know and it will be your undoing!”
Salina subconsciously felt her abdomen and the unborn baby, Vash’s baby, growing inside her womb. Did he know, did he truly know she was pregnant with Vash’s child? If he did know that would devastate her just like he said that knowledge would kill all hope of reasoning with the evil and demon-like madman. Salina knew that if Scythe knew that she was pregnant he would use the threat of killing her child and her along with it to use against Vash and her father the leader of the syndicate, “What do you know Koron? What did I do against you that was so terrible?”
Scythe spat at her failed attempt to convey some degree of innocence; she knew well and good that she had had an affair with Sabre she had betrayed him and sided with Vash and her impotent and weak father who was incapable of leading this cell in his old and decrepit state. Scythe had led the coup of Flail and he had won he had defeated Flail and the syndicate had been unified; all the rest had been dealt with. Vash was his last opposition and if Salina sided with him she would die as well, “You know all too well to adulterous whore you betrayed me with Sabre.”
Salina would have laughed if she was not so terrified of the madman’s magical power and ruthless single minded devotion to claiming more and more power. She in the deepest part of her wounded heart that he would kill her without hesitation if he thought he would work against him if he thought she was a threat to his lust for power and his dark ambitions of total domination and revenge, “Koron, I never loved you, you used me as a toy wrapped around your arm; you used your magic to convince my father to give you my hand in marriage. You’re insane Koron Thanatos.”
Scythe spoke back spiting more venom at the beautiful woman whom he forced to marry, “That name means nothing to me, my name is Scythe and that is the only name I will ever have woman! You are my wife Salina, Sabre is a traitor to the syndicate; I gave him a chance to side with me after I caught you two in bed. I shot him off of the skyscraper and I saw him fall, yet he still lives and you still side with the old order instead of my rise to power.”
“I know you are pregnant with Vash’s child Salina; I’ve known for some time, you cannot escape my power.” Salina looked at him with a freighted and mournful as they stood in the Alavari ruin and in the rain. How could he have known? He is going to kill her child and she herself and Vash all the same. They would all die if she did not do something to stop the massacre of her entire family at the hands of this madman. She had to plead to him now; she had to make a deal with him. If she and her unborn baby could live Vash would die; but if she refused him they all would die.
“What must I do Koron to save my child from this fate?” She said turning her blonde head away from his dark face in shame and regret. There was no other solution there was no other alternative to save her baby she had to betray Vash; and by betraying him that would mean his death. It would mean the death of the one man she loved more that any one person on the planet. It was a deadly negotiation with a madman he wanted her to kill her and if she refused she would die.
“Kill Vash, Kill your lover in front of my eyes Salina,” Scythe raved on smiling a wicked grin handing her a silver and jeweled dagger meant for clean killing, “Kill him and show him that even two who are bound by true everlasting love can betray one another. I want him to suffer to his last breath, I want for him to see in his last moment your beautiful face and I want him to know it was you who betrayed him. Kill him or you and you baby will die; those are you’re only options.”
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Vash waited in the Alavari ruin grounds waiting to take Salina away from this wretched life of crime and violence, he was ready to change. Salina had truly changed him; she had softened his cold dead heart he thought was incapable of human feelings with her all surpassing kindness and love. She was truly a person Vash cherished; he was willing to give his life for hers if only for a chance to take her away from this eternity and path of terrorism. He was done with it all.
He was done with trying to overthrow the government; he realized. It had all been a waste, a waste of lives a want of effort. Salina’s love had changed him, changed him for the better; he never knew how powerful true love could be. He never knew how powerful the effect of a love of another had on a callous and wounded heart. Vash supposed that all of his pain and his rage was caused by lack of love. Like the beast of some fairy story true love broke the spell and transformed him into what he was before he became a monster. Vash was glad that this nightmare of his criminal activities and his mindless killing in the Arsenal Terrorist Syndicate was almost over.
His thoughts were suddenly interrupted. A music box began to play in the middle of the ruin, Salina’s music box. It was a haunting chilling melody of sadness and forlorn sorrow the melody plaid like the strings of a fallen angels harp and drew him into the center of the Alavari ruin. In the center of a empty plate held by the statue of a crying siren lay the music boy, and on top of it was a white rose one of the roses he had given Salina on their last night together before Koron’s coup. The rose was white and innocent a symbol of death…his death…
Suddenly he felt something hot like lightning pierce his shoulder-blade and he saw as it went out of his body that it was the magical lightning of an incarnum pistol. His flesh sizzled with the heat and made a smell as it went through. He did not feel the pain from the first bolt but he felt the second and third green lightning bolts rip through his abdomen and lungs. Vash fell to his knees to the feet of the crying Alavari statue every bolt that past trough him was like being struck by lightning or being enveloped by fire.
On his knees he down at the white rose he had dropped, the music box still playing its somber song the notes of the lullaby echoed with the pops of the incarnum bolt and the crashing of the lightning above. The rain mixed with his blood on the ground charged with the surges of magical energy coursing through his body he was shot again and again; but no one would burned no one, no one blow made him cry so much as to see one person join the assassination. Salina was there, and she held in her hand a ritual sacrificial dagger.
Salina stabbed him, stabbed him directly in his heart, tears streaming down her face she rubbed her belly where their child was growing as if to explain in a silent motion why she had betrayed him why everything was turning to ash and why he finally was paying for his many sins. She leaned down and whispered a last message in his ear and said, “Wait for me to die, we will fly away to heaven one day when the moon doesn’t hang as high as it used to…Goodbye my love...”As Vash died all he felt on his face was rain mixed with blood, and as everything faded into the icy chill of pure blackness; and the Lullaby ended.