CHAPTER 11: THE HESITATION
“What did you say?” the thug looked at Raziel in horror.
“I said I’m the one who killed your leader. I ate his soul,” Raziel repeated his statement again. “You got a problem with that, you brute?”
All the thugs glared murderously at Raziel. Melissa was stunned. She had never expected that a vampire who threatened to suck her soul during their first encounter with each other was now willing to stand up for her. She blushed a little bit, hoping that Raziel or the thugs didn’t notice it.
“So you’re the one!” another thug growled. “You killed our chief in order to keep that little whore all to yourself! How could you?!”
“So what? I was just hungry,” Raziel replied, as if there is no fault in killing anybody.
“You are going down! You and that evil bitch are going down!!” the leader of the thugs yelled and charged at Raziel. The others followed suite. Raziel pushed Melissa aside and braced himself.
Everything happened so fast. Melissa couldn’t help being even more stunned. The vampire actually beat off the thugs without as much as breaking a sweat (if he ever sweats, that is). Glowing aura came out of his three-fingered claws and Melissa could see the way he sent those thugs flying with just one swipe of either hand. He was too quick for them to catch, and they topple like cards blown by the wind every time they gang up and tried to attack him in groups. Soon, blood could be seen squirting and smearing everywhere: the rocky floor, the nearby cars, on Raziel’s clothes, everywhere. People who came out of the pub to see what the commotion was all about and passers-by who stopped to see the fight turned from fascination into horror.
Raziel didn’t care about all those eyes staring at him in trepidation. His only thing in mind was to protect Melissa and kill those bastards before they kill the both of them. One by one, he slashed their throats, sending streams of blood everywhere in the air and hitting on things or people he didn’t bother to care. One by one, the thugs fell onto the ground, clutching their throats and gasped and gurgled for breath before they stopped struggling for life abruptly, slipping suddenly into their deaths. People began to scream in fear as Raziel removed his scarf and sucked the thugs’ souls down into his gutter. Melissa was speechless throughout the whole process. Never before has she seen someone so oblivious towards his surroundings and do his thing as if it were none of those people’s concern.
Soon, Melissa could hear the sirens of police cars. Someone must have called the police. Melissa grabbed Raziel’s arm and chanted a spell. Immediately, they disappeared into thin air in front of everyone before the police cars reached towards the crowd surrounding a number of dead bodies.
The duo found themselves in Melissa’s apartment a few moments later. Melissa has used teleportation to send her and Raziel back home. She didn’t want to do this and create a scene among the people but she had no choice—she and Raziel were surrounded by people at that time and she was sure that they would gang up and hold them down until the police arrived if they were to run and escape, and she didn’t want to risk the vampire killing those innocent people to just to make way for an escape.
“You idiot! You are so outta here!! How could you do this in front of everybody?” Melissa exclaimed. “You could’ve gotten us arrested or killed!!”
“I have no concern of what you humans think. They were trying to kill you and I cannot allow that,” Raziel replied coolly.
“So…” Melissa said hesitantly after a momentary silence, “why did you want to save me?”
“I have no intention to save you!” Raziel snapped almost immediately, his eyes flared at her in denial.
“Then why did you fight those people when they tried to attack me?”
Raziel stared at Melissa for a minute or two before looking away and muttered, “I swore to kill you. I will not let anyone else to do the job. Your soul is mine, and I swore to get it with my own hands. Are you satisfied, woman?”
Without warning, Melissa hugged the vampire from behind and said, “Thank you…”
Raziel was dumbstruck. The witch was actually letting herself near him. Has she lost her nerve? Was she willing to give her life up and surrender her soul to him? Was that the gesture? It was worth a try. Raziel slowly, but silently, materialized the sword in his hand and had a good grip on it, ready to strike. He noticed Melissa’s eyes closed when she hugged him in her arms tenderly. Raziel couldn’t wait to get her off his body and into his gut. Quietly so as not to alert her, Raziel raised the sword, the sharp tip of the sword aiming her ribs, ready to tear her apart…
Again, he felt the reluctance building up inside him. It wasn’t that feeling of weirdness. It wasn’t that feeling of everything being not right. It wasn’t the reason that she didn’t beg for mercy. It wasn’t also the feeling of everything being too simple. It wasn’t the feeling he felt when he tried to kill her for the first time. It wasn’t all that at all. None of those. The way her eyes closed and her serene smile made him hesitant. The feeling of her arms around him and her dark hair as she laid her head on his back made him feel guilty of what he was trying to do. He couldn’t explain it. He found it hard to understand this feeling. He suddenly felt warm inside and when he noticed the sword he was holding and realized what he wanted to do, there was a dead weight in his gut and an aching in his heart (although his heart is pretty much undead).
Raziel sighed. His hesitance had made him fail his intentions once again. He dematerialized the sword and shoved Melissa’s arms away, “You don’t have to thank me, woman. There’s nothing to thank.”
Melissa watched as Raziel climbed out of the window and sat on the fire escape stairs, staring at the full moon on the sky. She blushed yet again at the suave way he looked at the moon, as if he was yearning for the beautiful being that resides in the moon to come down. She joined him, resting her arms on the window sill as she and the Soul Reaver stared at the moon-lit sky.
Suddenly, there was a frantic knocking at the door, breaking Melissa out of her blissful thoughts. She groaned and stomped towards the door, ready to give this party-pooper a piece of her mind. She opened the door and yelled, “Whaddaya want?!”
She was surprised to see Judith’s friends and brother at the door. Their eyes were scared and desperate. Raziel came back into the apartment and to the front door to check what it was all about.
“Tiger? Medusa? Hanson? Guys, what are you doing here at a night like this? You should be home.”
“We need your help, please, this is urgent!” Karen begged.
“Can’t it wait? You always ask for predictions…” Melissa was cut short by Mickey’s tiny voice.
“It can’t wait! And it’s not about predictions! It’s something to do with Lavender!!”
“What is wrong with the half-succubus?” Raziel asked, curious.
“One word,” Kent replied. “Hunter.”
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