Penance

**Title:** Penance
**Author:** Verena & Raven

**Story Summary:** Der Showdown des Abenteuers "Die Last der Erben" aus der Sicht von Brian und Joaquin.

**Disclaimer:** Unsere Charaktere, Atlanta in den 50ern, Hintergrund ist White Wolfs Vampire Requiem Universum

*Atlanta’s streets are as deserted as I have never seen them before when we rush past the city boarders. Well, deserted may not be the right word considering the whispering, ghostly masses streaming through the streets, heading towards an unknown destination. We have stopped talking, for there is nothing we could talk about anymore, since the riddle is solved. Ginny’s gaze is fixed on the road, but the white of her knuckles she clenches the steering wheel with is telling enough about her condition, and I need not turn to know Joaquin looks as miserable as I feel.*
I have never felt more helpless before in my entire life and requiem – and, ironically, never more powerful. The potency of the ruby, of the old Indian charm, is pounding in my blood, sharpens my body, strengthens my will and my soul. I feel as if everything I try to handle, can impossibly go wrong… with the little problem that I absolutely don’t know how to handle this bloody situation.

I should never have touched that damned stone.

I should never have entered that fucking tomb at all.

And why was I so damned curious and eager to get into that cave?

Atlanta
 will be destroyed in the next hours, I know for sure. Not slowly, not suffering as during the disease, but shortly and brutally wiped out by
hordes of ghosts hungry for vengeance. And worse... I have set them free, I am their focus and the center of their power and now they are waiting for me to lead them to battle. To kill every living and undead soul in the entire town.

I never wanted this to happen, never wanted to become a token in this ancient, bloody feud –powerless and, despite all potency, beyond the smallest amount of control. But I will be the one to blame for this, if I don’t stop them … however I shall do this.

I have to do something… anything.

If only I wasn’t that scared…

I’ve seen many things in my life. Even though most of our kind would still consider me a mere whelp, based on my age, I probably have experienced
more than many of the ancillae that walk the streets at night in this city. There were things among them that outdo the most hideous stories, things you could fill books with, and not just as ordinary ghost stories. Things that make this world deserve to be called dark.
As I now watch the army of ghosts and animals sweep through the empty streets, like poison running through veins that have no chance of spitting it back out, I wonder how I could have thought that I had seen enough already.
Such a naïve thought.
There are dark figures before the night sky on one of the high office buildings, watching. I recognize them impassively, Melissa and her coterie. They don’t run from what they’re seeing, but as our car drives past them and their eyes recognize us, two of those old, powerful vampires flee from the terrifying presence of the blond Daeva.
My head turns to him, my thoughts and feelings so hollow that I’m unable to change my expression from that impassive mask. He seems to sense my eyes on him, turns as well and our gazes lock. I don’t know what will happen tonight. If any of us will feel another sunset that will waken us from our rigour, or if this whole city will be going to hell. I have no idea what to do to
stop them or if any of us even can.
And our time is running out.

*The masses of creatures gathering in the park would take my breath away… that is, if my breathing days didn’t end long ago. Growling wolves, proud stags, clumsy bears and even bisons who died off decades ago are waiting for us and everywhere the ghost warriors, threatening shadows with bows and sharp tomahawks they raise into the air as we pass them by, up the hill which is the natural center of the park. I do not know why, but I know I have to go there, that this is the place where everything will have its end… somehow or other.*

He comes! He comes! He will lead us to our vengeance…

The whispering voices are everywhere, and Ginny and Joaquin are flanking me as the crowd backs off from my path. My entire life I have longed for such admiration, such power over the hearts of men and now I wish I could just hide somewhere.

My gaze meets Joaquin’s for an instant, and I try to gather strength from his seemingly calm face. I guess he feels different inside, but nevertheless I am so glad Ginny and he are here with me, that my coterie accompanies me in these last moments. I
wish you could protect me, as you always did in a fight, but I fear, this time I am beyond your protection, maybe beyond anything but divine help. If only I could believe that there is something like a god somewhere out there, that the universe is more than a brutal, dark and unwelcoming place.

Yet I am glad you are with me, since I have a dark sense of how this chapter of the story will end. Come what may, I have to save the city, for there are too many innocents, who do not deserve death because of their ancestor’s deeds.

There is fire on the hill and as we come closer, I see the lit torches, forming a circle with a natural stone table in its middle.

“I trust you”, Ginny said, and I guess she meant it. She is staring at the scary crowd, hands at her daggers, as if searching for a real enemy she can combat with, brave, snippy little warrior. Do you have a clue of what I am about to do here?

They both stop outside the circle, backing away from the burning torches, but the fire no longer scares me and I pass them by. Hundreds, maybe thousands of eyes are on me in this moment, and now I know how a prisoner must feel on his way to his execution.

The stone feels cold under my hands, and again I look back to my coterie for a moment, and my gaze comes to rest at Joaquin again. Best friend I ever had, do you realize that this may be a farewell forever?

Because if I do not manage to stop this army of ghosts, there is only one way left…

Slowly I climb onto the stone table, rise and look around, over the shadowy figures, that hissing, growling, whispering mass looking up to their focus, their source of energy.

They must be separated from the energy that feeds them and holds their dead bodies upright. And they will be separated when the focus is destroyed.

Me.

There’s this feeling in my guts, churning and cold, and I wonder why, when it matters most, I always feel as helpless as the child I was when my world crumbled for the very first time.
I can do nothing but listen, Ginny by my side, my gaze locked on that man I came to know so well. But I feel oddly detached from myself, from everything that’s happening around me. I’m only half aware of Ginny’s lips moving in a silent prayer.
What’s the point? There’s no one that will listen.
The ghosts shout angrily, the animals stomp their feet, none of them want to hear that vengeance won’t undo what’s been done to them, won’t take back the agony of raped women, starved children, slaughtered kinsmen.
They want their fight, their retribution, not believing that afterwards, nothing will have changed. Nothing will bring them back, nothing will ever dull that pain.
I should know.
Up on that altar he is beginning to understand that his words won’t lay them to rest. Not this time.
For a moment I just want to bury my fingers in his hair. To touch the side of his face, his brows, his jaw, his skin. Just to kiss him.
But I can’t move, and it feels like the ground is slowly pulled out beneath my feet and I’m free falling.

*No one ever did penance for the deeds… no one ever paid the price!*
The waves of hatred, anger and vengefulness are leaping high, drowning my helpless words. No, they are not here to listen to cheap excuses or and
pacifying sayings. They are here to claim expiation, to claim vengeance themselves.

The first ones are turning from me to leave the hill and there are murmurs of disappointment in the crowd. I see Ginny and Joaquin faces sticking out of the crowd, while they are slowly surrounded by a ring of dangerously growling animals. Her eyes are lowered and I guess, she is praying, but his eyes are fixed on me, though unreadable. They will be the first to fall, first them, and then the rest of the city.

“I do.”

I did not speak very load, anyway, there is a change in the crowd. The whispers silence, heads turn and the whole world seems to hold its breath. Strangely enough, I feel completely calm now, for now I know exactly what to speak and say.

“I do pay the price.”

The torch is in my hand before I even know that I took it. The flames I ever feared since I awoke from the dead now seem warm and promising to me. I see the terrified look in Joaquin’s eyes as he finally realizes what I am up to, but it’s far too late to stop me now.

“There you have my penance.”

And with these words, I thrust the torch at my own chest.

It feels like no less than a dagger is driven into my chest. The sight is burning itself into the back of my eyes, another one that will never, ever leave me.
I don’t hear the mourning cry that rises up to the black heavens, don’t see anything but his figure engulfed in flames that burn too high, too bright, too powerful, surreal. Don’t even panic at the sight of what could just as easily turn me to dust in mere heartbeats.
I watch the flames blaze until there’s nothing left, crimson tears burning their way down my face, and I’m not surprised to find myself on my knees.
I died years ago, now only a consciousness in a moving corpse, lost to everything that is actually alive, that truly… feels. Or so they say.
But this is pain, pure and unadulterated, and if it’s still this that means being dead then I’ve never been alive in the first place.
There goes yet another one that kept me going. And again I can do nothing but watch.
And still I can’t help thinking… if there was ever a way to go that he deserved – this was it.