Josanna ran into Alec's mansion, leaving the door open behind her. She scanned the faces of the vampires in the sitting room, but Alec wasn't there. She ran up the stairs with lightning speed and checked Alec's study. He wasn't there either. She went to his room and didn't bother knocking, and she found Alec standing by the foot of the bed with his face buried in the soft flesh of some human's neck.
Blood over-spilled where his lips suctioned to the woman's flesh. His hand covered her mouth, fingers dug so deeply into her cheeks that bruises bloomed under the pressure. His other arm held her tightly around the waist, ensuring she couldn't wriggle free of his hungry mouth. The woman whimpered as her weak fingers tried in vain to peel Alec's hand away from her face.
Josanna stood there, speechless, and her eyes fell on other men in the room. They had bloodstains down their chins and the breasts of their shirts. They sat there laughing and smoking as they watched the feeding.
One called in a sing-song voice, "Oh, Alec. Your sister is here."
At this, Alec threw the woman to the floor. She landed face first in a sobbing heap. He licked the blood around the edges of his mouth, but it did nothing to clean up the mess. His eyes were lost in the bloodlust still coursing through him.
The woman tried to push herself up off the floor with shaking arms, but collapsed, and her gasping sobs only grew louder. Her face was hidden under her mane of tangled grey hair.
Alec finally locked eyes with his sister. She held her chin erect and defiant, but said nothing.
Alec asked, "And where have you been?"
Her heart would have been hammering if it could beat. "I think you know."
Alec smiled threateningly. "And how is Damien?"
The woman on the floor began to crawl towards Josanna, reaching out for her. She had hardly made it far when Alec pressed his boot on her ankle. He wasn't exuding much pressure, but it was enough to halt the terrified woman. When Alec was satisfied she wasn't going anywhere, he removed his boot.
Josanna straightened out her shoulders. She tried to steady her breathing and held out her hand. "May I see your palm?"
The men in the room tittered, but neither Alec nor Josanna saw what was so funny. They ignored the drunken jeering, and Alec approached her, passing over his palm. She snatched it and examined every detail. She nearly had her face in his bloodstained hand. Josanna even licked her thumb and smudged out some of the blood so she could get a better look.
"What is it?" Alec asked.
Josanna held up her own hands before her. She inspected the right and the left with concern plaguing her features. She threw down her hands and groaned. Now, covered with the blood from Alec, she left red streaks on her white nightgown as her fingers grazed it. "You need to forgive Damien, Alec," she demanded.
Alec barked out a laugh. "I don't need to do any such thing! He destroyed my portal. It will take my men weeks to rewire the machine, and we'll be lucky if the wiring is all he mangled."
"No, Alec, this is much more important than the portal. Your fates are interwoven, and if you two are at odds-"
"Then, so be it. He made his choice." Alec turned away. He sounded wounded when he said, "And so did you, if you choose to stay with him."
Josanna's lip trembled. "Alec... No."
"Yes," Alec said. "You betrayed me. Going with him, going to Victor, after everything he has done! Oh, yes. I know."
"And I told father I never wanted to see him again!"
"I am your father! I am your sire!" Alec turned to her, spraying blood as he spoke, his voice shaking, his neck strained with repressed emotion. "I turned you. Not that sniveling coward! Me! I saved you... I tried to save you, and in so doing, I lost everything! All of this is because Victor cast me out! To save his reputation! And you side with Victor to wreck the entire vision, the entire future, I have tried to provide for our people?"
"No! There's more to it than that. Please!"
The woman on the floor cried out, and Alec snapped a gaze at her that struck fear in the men sitting idly by. It prompted one of them to move. He grabbed the woman by her calf and drug her across the floor. He covered her mouth with his hand and sneered, "Be quiet! Or that man will shred you like a paper doll." This made her scream. The vampire gripped her shoulders and rattled her with such violence she lost consciousness. She went limp in his grasp, and then held her against his chest like a sleeping babe. He shushed her, rocking her unconscious body.
Josanna pleaded again, "There's more to that story, Alec."
"There is nothing else, Josanna. It's you and me, against Victor, against the world." Alec said, calm now, "What's it going to be?"
Josanna's eyes drifted off, knowing Alec would never concede.
Alec saw she wasn't convinced and added, "Did you know your boyfriend's father is opening up his own portal? The week that mine is destroyed and the papers are threatening me with god-crimes, Death is opening up his own portal. Now, who do you think helped him do that?"
"Not Damien," Josanna said.
"No? Then who?"
"The Fates."
Alec blurted out one sharp, bewildered laugh, and his eyes lost all their intensity. He asked, "How did you know about them?"
"What?"
Alec saw a new opportunity, and he nodded. "Come. I want to show you something." He turned to his men and said, "Help yourselves."
They began to laugh. The woman awoke as the men descended upon her with sharp teeth. She began to scream and kick with newfound vigor.
Alec walked Josanna out the door, and once they entered the hall, the woman's screams stopped dead.
Alec led her back to his study, where he unlocked a drawer in his desk and pulled out a wooden box. He flipped up the latch on the box and carefully opened the lid. Laying upon a dusty red velvet insert was a wood-gripped, tarnished revolver. Six perfect silver bullets lay cradled in their beds beneath the long barrel. The hollow-point bullets were stamped with magickal symbols.
Josanna's brow creased as Alec lifted the firearm as if it might break. There was a brass plate on the butt of the handle, and it too was stamped with magickal lettering Josanna had no clue how to decipher.
Alec said, "I've been searching for this weapon for years. It's legendary. This pistol has a power beyond Death, a power I'm sure Damien can't even wield."
Josanna decided to stay quiet and give Alec all the time in the world to brag and boast and reveal his plan.
"This pistol kills whatever it shoots- a god, a Titan, an angel. It can kill even Death himself with no chance of an afterlife. It eradicates them from the very fabric of existence."
Alec paused, and again, Josanna waited. She watched his eyes pour over the steel barrel with admiration befitting idolatry.
"The Fates came to me last night in a dream. They were beautiful, ghastly women, and they gave me this. I was surprised to find it next to me when I woke. Josanna, I've thought of it a thousand times. I could never get close enough to Victor to stake him. No fire I could start would spread fast enough. This can end Victor. One shot. No mistakes. No mess. We could be free of him. We could run the vampire kingdom the way it should be run. This is everything, Josanna. Everything I worked for. I just-" Still admiring it, he set the revolver back down in the box. "...need to find the opportune moment, and then this whole painful chapter of our lives... will be done."
Alec reached out a hand and closed the lid.
