Chapter Five: Death and Rebirth
Maria Clark strolled down the busy city sidewalk, fuming and venting her irritation out on Leon Miller, who walked at her side. He listened calmly to her worrisome rants, his hands hidden deep with in confines of the pockets on his thigh length leather jacket. A cigarette hung haphazardly from his lips, small streams of black nicotine smoke billowing up from the burning tip to be swept away by the early winter chill brushing all throughout the bustling streets of Manhattan. The night life had long since retired to their beds, some alone and some in good company, and since it was Sunday those of them like Leon who were required to wake early for work in the morning had been given a blissful reprieve that was rarely given.
"He probably just forgot, Maria." The brunette sighed softly around the burning cancer stick in his mouth, "Raph is a busy guy. He did say he had a deadline to meet and all."
"But he promised me that he would call!" Maria exclaimed, flipping her long blond hair back over her shoulder. She was wearing a spaghetti-string neon pink tank-top and low cut jeans with holes in the knees; a light wind breaker covered her bare shoulders. "He's just being rude. He can get so heartless sometimes, you know that. I just wonder what set him off this time..."
"So he didn't call you. So what?" Leon frowned softly at the girl, "Raphael is smart and capable of taking care of himself."
"But he swore to me!"
"Jesus, Maria, you sound like a spastic groupie chick trying to control the guy's life." His frown deepened, "Maybe you should move in with Raph and start dating him instead."
"Oh stop it," She pouted at him, linking her arm through his and nuzzling her cheek against his shoulder, "You know I've only got eyes for you. I'm just worried about Raphie is all..... He wouldn't just ignore me or forget to call me. His word is as good as his life."
"Mmhm...." He dragged on his cigarette, pleased by her affections and words, "Well, stop worrying. He's probably still at the studio; pulled an all nighter or something. I bet he's covered in paint and in dire need of a cup of coffee."
"Raphie hates coffee." Maria smiled at her companion, "He's more of a tea guy."
"Then we'll all go out for frig'n green tea," Leon scowled at her, "Happy now, you Raphie know-it-all?"
"Yeah, yeah," She worried her bottom lip gently with her teeth, "but I'll feel much better once we get to the studio and I can yell at him a bit."
"Fine."
They took their time walking, Maria yaking Leon's patiently listening ears off about whatever happened to cross the woman's mind. Raphael's studio wasn't far from their apartment, about a twenty minute walk or so through the wild sea of tourists and people hurrying off to work. As they got closer to their desired destination, though, the street began to get more and more crowded; people swarmed the sidewalk and flowed over out into the road, grouping up into a large, tight circle around an area near Raphael's studio.
"What's all this?" Maria asked more to herself then anyone else, her blue eyes narrowing as they came to the studio and found that they had all congregated outside the building's door. "Is Raphie holding some sort of sale or something?"
"He didn't mention anything like that going on today..." Leon's dark eyes too passed over all the people crowded around his friend's shop, gazing up over all their heads to try and see what was happening.
"Maybe it was spur of the moment."
"....I don't think so, Maria." Leon removed his cigarette from his mouth, dropping it to the pavement and grinding the heel of his black boot over it and putting it out, "Something's happening."
"What? What's happening?" Maria looked up at him anxiously, blue eyes wide and nervous.
"I don't know... come on." He took the girl by the hand, leading her into the throng of murmuring people, "There are police officers up at the door, we'll ask them."
"Police?!"
Leon forced their way through the crowd, shoving people aside and growling angry responses to their offended remarks as he cut off their line of vision. Tugging Maria along behind him, he finally burst through the chaotic mass of people and bent down to slip under the yellow crime scene tape and walk up to the studio's front door.
"Hey, hey, hey! You kids can't be back here." An officer waved his hands at them, moving to usher them back under the tape.
"No way. This is our friend's studio." Leon glared hotly at the officer, "What the hell is going on here? Where's Raphael?"
"Friends? You know the man who owns this place?" The officer stopped in his ushering, look at them in surprise as Leon and Maria both nodded at him. The man reached up to scratch the back of his neck, "Well then, I guess you better go talk to the Captain then..."
"You guess?" Leon arched a brow at the officer, "Don't you know what's going on?"
"Yeah, but.... hold on, I'll get him. Captain! Captain Jones!" The officer cupped his hands around his mouth, calling for his apparent Captain as he walked off to a group of officers just inside the studio doors.
"Leon..." Maria squeezed the man's hand, "What's going on? Why are there police officers at Raphie's?"
"I don't know, Maria." He responded truthfully, eyes snagging on the shattered studio window. A sudden feeling of nausea washed over him, "but I think someone might have broken into 'Raphael's'."
"Broke in?!" Maria's eyes widened even more in total panic, "But he was here last night alone! What if something happened to him, Leon? What if he's hurt?"
"Shh.... Calm down Maria, we don't even know if that's what happened." Leon tried to soothe his worried companion, all the while trying to convince himself of the same thing.
Both of their attentions were drawn back to the officers as the same man now came walking back to them, directly behind another man in a khaki trench coat and a large shiny badge pinned to his chest. The man held a walkie-talkie in his hand and was balding at the very top of his round red head.
"Captain Nathaniel M. Jones," The man introduced himself, taking Leon's hand in greeting, "Now what is this I hear about you two being friend's of the studio owner?"
"We are, sir." Leon nodded, gesturing to himself and Maria, "I'm Leon Miller and this is Maria Clark. What happened here? Is Raphael alright?"
The man looked between them silently, a regretful look in his beady brown eyes. "Well, that's hard to say. We received a call around three thirty this morning from a man passing by here who saw the studio window broken, He thought perhaps a robbery had taken place and was reporting it, but when we got here..... well, it appears more happened here then just a mere breaking and entering."
"What? What happened?" Maria cried fearfully, gripping Leon's hand like it was the only thing keeping her from drifting off into space, "Where's Raphie?!"
"You'd both better come with me..." Captain Jones said simply, nodding his head towards the door and leading the two over and through it. They passed by a number of officers standing about the main room of the studio, studying each nook and cranny with such intensity that it made Leon's head start to ache. Captain Jones suddenly stopped when they reached the archway that led into the workshop and turned to face the two with a grave expression, "Now... we aren't sure exactly what went on in here yet, but it is pretty obvious that a struggle of some kind took place."
Leon moved past the man, tugging Maria along with him and stepped hurriedly into the workshop only to come to a shocked halt after three steps. His dark eyes widened to an alarming size, Maria choking back a sob mixed with a cry as she buried her face into the sleeve of his jacket. There, scattered all over the tile were Raphael's usual art supplies - paints, brushes, pastels, and pencils - some of the bottles broken, smearing the thick paints all over the floor, but that wasn't the alarming part.... mixed in with the paint and broken bottles was a dark, dried crimson color spilled all over the room in dizzying amounts. Blood. Everywhere, there was blood absolutely everywhere.
"Oh god...." Leon shuttered, a burning sensation he wasn't familiar with stinging the back of his eyes and blurring his vision.
"We've taken samples of the blood and have already received word from the labs concerning its origin." Captain Jones broke their silence, invading and interrupting their thoughts.
"And....?" Leon swallowed thickly against the lump in his throat, forcing the words out in a strained rasp.
Captain Jones regarded the two for a moment, weighing what he figured their reactions might be to his next words. Sighing heavily, the round man stuck his hands down into his coat pockets as he spoke his words carefully, cautiously.... regretfully, "The blood was compared with the some past medical records and came back positive as the blood of Raphael Ellio."
Maria cried out loudly, gripping onto Leon's jacket tightly and crying hysterically against him. The man wrapped his arms around the girl's shaking shoulders, alarmed and frightened by the feel of tears of his own wetting the skin of his cheeks. He looked at Captain Jones pleadingly, "Is....Is there no....?"
"A body has not yet been found." The Captain answered the unspoken question.
Leon nodded tensely, Maria emitting another shrill cry. "And.... what about... is he still alive?"
"We don't know, Mr. Miller." The man answered slowly, "but with all the blood in this room, and all of it belonging to Mr. Ellio...... the chance of him actually surviving so much blood lose is slim to nothing."
Leon clamped his eyes shut, tightening his hold around Maria and bowing his head to hide his face in the girl's soft blonde hair.
Captain Jones slowly approached the two, placing a hand on Leon's shoulder and leading the two out from the room. He glanced back once, face grave and ashen, at a complete lose as to how such an enormously messy crime could have been committed without a single shred of evidence left behind other then a broken window, more blood then he was comfortable talking about and a back door left wide open.
Raphael shifted uneasily on the stool he sat upon, head bowed and eyes locked firmly to the floor beneath him. Hector sat on a similar stool beside him, blond hair pulled back and neat as it always was, his handsome face set in stone seriousness as he returned the sharp stares of the four regal beings standing before them. Three men and one woman..... they all appeared reasonably young, but there was great age and power in their noble but cold eyes.
Raphael recognized one among the four ancient vampires, Mirishka, the only female and overall the most dazzling. On either side of her was a man, one tall and lean with long auburn hair that fell down his back and to his waist, falling sightly into his equally brown eyes. He wore black slacks and a black long sleeved dress shirt covered by a high necked red vest and clung to his body seductively. On Mirishka's other side was a man who also had long hair, but the strands and his eyes were of a black granite color that shone luxuriously in the lighting of the room. He wore slacks as well, but with a white collared shirt that hung open at the top few buttons; a pipe smoked softly from his thin lipped mouth. The last standing vampire was a man with hair equal in length of the other two males, his a black darker then any Raphael had ever seen before. This man wore white linen pants that fanned out at his ankles and a shirt that matched them both in color and material; his eyes gleamed amber gold from beneath black lashes.
The youth swallowed thickly as he averted his eyes pointedly from the stares that seemed to burn straight through him. Shifting his weight on the stool once more, he nearly jumped right out of his skin as a voice shattered the silence around them.
"This is the mortal you changed without consent, Hector?" The man in the white linen said, voice deep and laced with annoyance.
"It is, my Lord." Hector spoke evenly, squaring his jaw and lifting his chin in an almost proud manner.
"And who exactly is he?" Questioned the same man, eyes boring down into Raphael's hesitant face, "Of what importance was he that you would dare to break our laws?"
"He is-"
The man cut Hector off with the rising of a hand. He continued to stare at Raphael darkly, "I want to hear it from him. He can speak, can he not?"
Raphael stared at the ancient vampire, blue eyes wide and frightened. He looked to Mirishka, who merely watched him with a soft expression, and then actually turned to look up at Hector uncertainly. "I..."
"Speak to us, boy, not him." The man snapped at him and Raphael looked back to the four immediately.
"Go on..." Hector lightly touched the youth's shoulder, despairing to the feel of it tensing even more so under his hand. When Raphael looked to him, metallic blue eyes heavy with curiosity but more so with mistrust, "They only want your name."
Raphael waited until Hector released him fully before returning his gaze to the vampires standing before him patiently. His throat felt tight and his chest had ached with a vicious fear when the blond at his side had touched him; the gesture, though meant to comfort, had only heightened his anxiety. "R-Raphael Ellio..." He rasped out quietly.
"Raphael," The male with the red vest repeated his name, "do you know why you are here?"
"W-well," He glanced at Mirishka, remembering what the woman had told him earlier, "isn't this like a trial?"
The man seemed to turn this over for a moment and then nodded, "I suppose that is about right. In a sense at least..."
"It.... it's against the law to change someone against their will, right?" Raphael avoided the look he felt Hector giving him, keeping his eyes set firmly to the auburn haired male he was speaking to, "The one who does it is punished because of it, isn't he?"
"Normally, yes," The man with the pipe answered, "but..... I believe this situation is a bit different then most cases of this nature."
"Yes, yes it is." The man with the vest again.
"Nonsense!" The man in white linen exclaimed, "Hector has done an outrage against our people! He has broken the law and shall be punished accordingly!"
"Now see here, Antoine," Mirishka spoke up sternly, "The very idea of subjecting Hector to the stone is not only outrageous, but certainly unacceptable."
"Ha!" The man in linen, Antoine, scoffed loudly, "You say this merely because he is your charge."
"And would you not also protect the sanctity of your own charge's life?" Mirishka snapped, "Let us say that it was not Hector here before us, but your own Amilia here under the same conviction that Hector is. Would you not protest her subjection to the stone?"
"Amilia is of no concern to this event." Antoine hissed loudly, his eyes washing out and fangs filling, "She did not rip a child from his mortality merely to use as a means to warm her bed!"
"You insult my son's honor and in so doing so you insult mine as well," She too hissed angrily, "You will do well to refrain from ever doing so again."
Raphael watched and listened to this argument with wide eyes, fear gripping him tightly as the regal beings before him seemed to transform into wild eyed monsters snapping and biting at each other's throats. He felt Hector shift beside him and felt the blond's hand on his shoulder again, but he did not pull away or initially tense to its fell as he had before. Unconscious to what he was doing, the youth actually leaned into the touch, more afraid of the ancient vampires' quarrel then anything Hector could possibly do to him at that moment.
"Both of you calm yourselves!" The man with the pipe shouted loudly into the enraged hisses of the two arguing vampires, "What impression do you suppose the poor child must have of you know, what with your behaving like wild beasts?"
"True, true," The man in the vest agreed, placing a hand on Mirishka's shoulder to calm her. He looked to Antoine in all seriousness, "Antoine, you must reconsider. Can you not see what Hector's death would do to Raphael?"