Four years since I became the last living Voronkov of our blood line.
I still remember the words you said to me that night. They are on repeat in my mind, beating against my skull like a drum. I cannot escape them.
Do you remember what they were, my dearest brother?
‘You have failed us all.’
Those five little words were shot like a bullet through my heart. I had never meant to fail you, Markus. You must understand this. That night, I had not set out to bring death to our doorstep. I was still so young, all I wished to do was impress you. I wished to show you that I could still be everything you had trained me to be. I also admit that I wished to catch Kirill’s eye. You remember Kirill, do you not? He was the sun when you were the ice.
I never meant to fail you.
Things simply got out of hand, and I found myself in too deep. I promise you, Markus. It was the last time that I had ever allowed myself to back down, to run from a fight. If I had been as strong then as I was now, you would still be alive and none of this would have happened.
I learned my lesson.
It will never happen again.
I suppose you do not believe me, do you?
It is strange, but I can still feel your disdain. You were buried four years ago, and it is as if you have never left my side. You are constantly in my head spewing your ‘advice’ as if I still need it. I do not know why I am even writing this letter, now that I think of it. Either I am going insane and believe that you can read these words, or I am simply needing someone to speak to, someone that understands.
Either way, allow me to begin.
Tytonidae.
It is a group that is like no other. We are viewed as assassins, mercenaries. Insults are tossed at our feet, but it is nothing we are not used to. We know what we do is hard work. It is dirty, and we crawl into bed each night with blood on our hands.
It is because of this faction, that I learned the truth of my new life.
We can never truly die…
As soon as I walked in to the meeting, I had felt the tension.
It blanketed the room, choked the very air from our lungs. Of course, the oxygen wasn’t exactly a necessity for the gathered crowd, but it was something close to a convenience.
You had spoken to me again that night, your voice whispering like the little devil on my shoulder.
I do not like the feeling of this, little sister.
I had taken my usual place against the far wall, the leather of my gloves like a lovers embrace as they tightened over my hands. Velveteen was already in the center of the room, her head held high as she began to speak. I should have known then that this was no ordinary meeting. Her voice had quivered once or twice, as if she was having a difficult time keeping her anger at bay. It was a strange thing, to see the woman I hold in such high esteem in such a state. Despite the unease twisting in my stomach, I slipped the earpiece in and turned it to the usual channel, the static echoing in my mind as I studied the room. I was still fairly new to the faction, and not one person looked my way. To them, I still had much to prove, though I knew in my heart I would do just that. Despite your five little words, Markus, I knew that I was capable of. Velveteen began to speak again, her voice stronger than before as she began to name off our targets. It was then, that the unease settled like ice in the pit of my stomach.
You had seemed to think the same, for your voice filtered with concern through my thoughts. It was because of the tremor of doubt in your voice that I knew then, you could not be real. The real Markus Voronov would have never cared for my safety.
Go home, Iskra. I do not like this.
It wasn’t that I feared the names given. I hardly knew of them aside from their transgressions, but the feeling wouldn’t ease. I had felt the unease only once before, when I had followed one of your orders. Closing my eyes, I swallowed past painful lump in my throat when images of my team flashed through my mind, their bodies bloody and mangled from the impact of the IED. The carnage had left me breathless then, and the feeling in my stomach had nearly taken me to my knees. It was a mixture of pain, fear and anger. Anger that you had lead us into a trap, despite my warnings. Fear that you had done it on purpose, that you were simply trying to rid me from your life, and pain. Pain, because I had promised these people I would protect them, and instead, I had only managed to kill them.
It was the same tightening I felt in that moment, the same gut wrenching doubt that only increased as my leader continued to give directive. It took me digging my nails into the back of my neck to stop herself from speaking out of turn. Would I ever trust another?
This isn’t Russia. She isn’t Markus.
No, but it is far worse. You are being foolish. You cannot handle this. You are not strong enough.
You were back, and this time, your voice was stronger. It was almost as if I could look straight over my shoulder and see you standing behind me. I hadn’t, however, because we were already moving. The faction had already filed out, and it was only myself and Every remaining. I saw her look of concern as she glanced my way, and I knew I had to push you aside. You were only going to succeed in causing me to fail, and I would not allow that. I remember it now, the stubborn pride that had lead me to my first mistake. You had told me I was not strong enough, and I was once again struck with that desperate need to prove you wrong.
It was that – it was you – that lead me to my death.
Things had not gone as plan that evening. When we arrived, they knew they were coming. They were waiting for us, and the traps were laid out. We spent most of our time trying to figure a way in, and during that time, they ended up coming for us. Some times on their own, sometimes in pairs. They would sneak in when we were distracted and attack, but we never allowed them to walk away without a wound of our own.
After a while, people began to grow restless and wary. We were not making much progress, why were we still there? We could come back when they least expected us. It was that time that deals were struck. We were to go against them, one on one. If we won, we won. No one else was to intervene in a fight. You had been silent this entire time, but I still felt your doubt as it burned against my back. It only increased when I went against Reginald Black.
I tried to shake the feeling from my mind, the doubt from my heart, but it was there. I fought him, but I made mistakes. I made mistakes because you could not trust me. You would not allow me to have one moment of peace, brother, to do what needed to be done.
Because of that, I fell.
The final blow had taken the fight from me, and the faces of my faction mates blurred when my knees struck the ground. I watched in horror as my skin turned to ash and I crumpled into nothing. I remember something else, though. I remember you screaming my name.
Tell me, brother…
How does the guilt feel?
- Iskra.
♦ катастрофа ♦
KEEP WISHING YOU WERE ME, AND I'LL KEEP MAKING YOU HAVE TO
Unchain me, sister – thou shall not fear...
Part II
Dearest Markus,
You used to tell me that death would get easier with time. I doubt you remember it, however. It was one of your many cliché quips to get me to do your bidding. I remember the first time you ever uttered the words to me, though. I remember them all too clearly, actually.
I was just coming home from school, and I instantly knew that something was wrong. Mother wasn’t at the door to greet me, and I couldn’t hear the clinking of metal from father’s garage. A sense of foreboding filled me, and I remember how my feet remained firmly planted to the porch, as if by some sheer force of will, my life couldn’t be changed. Nothing would happen if I didn’t open that door. Of course, as luck would have it, you opened it for me. I knew by the dead look in your eyes that it was terrible. I tried to run away from you, to deny the truth as you simply stood there, one hand holding open the screen while the other reached for me. If it wasn’t for Kirill, I probably would have ran.
You didn’t even tell me what happened, Markus.
You just stood there while your best friend pinned me to his chest and uttered those six words, like they were something that should have offered me comfort.
’Death will get easier with time.’
I had lost my parents, Markus. My parents. I was just a little girl! I was only ten. and you couldn’t even hold me. You left that part up to Kirill while you through yourself into work I didn’t understand. I know I owe you everything, but I still hate you for that. I hate you for allowing me to stay up for nights crying. I hate you for making me have to beg the police for information on what happened to them. I despise you for allowing me to learn that their accident wasn’t an accident at all from some steely-eyed cop with his gut hanging from his uniform.
I hate you for all of those things, Markus, but I still love you. I had no choice.
You were my only family.
And all you could say was death will come easier with time.
I wish I would have shoved that saying up your ***.
As I grew older, though, it all started to make sense. You didn’t know how to be a parent, or a big brother. You only knew how to lead. You had secrets that father had bestowed upon you, secrets that I was never supposed to know – and secrets you couldn’t keep from me. Did you really think I was that obtuse, brother? I knew something was wrong the moment you put bars on my window. Bars. At first I thought it was to lock me in, but when I noticed that they began to appear on every window of the house, I realized it was to keep something out. As a little girl, I could not begin to fathom what could terrify you and Kirill to the point of hysteria, what kind of monster would lead you to turn our home into a prison. The saddest part of it all, Markus?
It was you I feared those beginning years, not your monster.
It was when you pulled me out of school my sophomore year for sneaking out on a date with Ivan that everything began to click into place. You didn’t do well at trying to hide it, either, when Ivan turned up dead three days later with a hole between his eyes and a warning written on his chest. Neither of you thought the news would have travelled back to me, neither of you suspected that I would know that warning by heart, did you? Stay away from her. After that, it only took three nights for me to piece the puzzle that had been plaguing me for years together. That warning was the last piece.
You were the monster.
And you created me to be your spitting image.
The only relief I gained was the knowledge that we were not the scariest ones out there. No, that was what the battle was about, wasn’t it? The war you sent me into when I was only sixteen? Those were the very words you whispered into my ear when I took my first kill. My victim’s blood hadn’t even begun to dry on my skin before you leaned over and said ’Death will become easier with time. Remember, Iskra, we are not the scariest ones out there. We are just the beginning. Do not be afraid...’
I had begun to believe it, you know, that death became easier. With each kill, I grew colder to the knowledge that I was ending a life. Each time the light faded from someone’s eyes, I became more robotic, more inhumane. I began to believe that I was born to be the monster you created, that it was my fate, my destiny. I slaughtered women and children in your name, and for what? In the end, it didn’t matter. In the end, you died because of me. In the end, you only proved to me that death doesn’t get easier, we just become more monstrous.
I suppose, though, that you don’t care about the past. You only care about my present. You only care about what’s going on in my life that you cannot control, because it drives you insane. I can practically hear you now; ‘What is the point of this letter, Iskra?’
The point is, death doesn’t become easier, especially when you’re killing someone you once cared about. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I hardly knew Jamie, even when I was a fresh vampire and she had her legs wrapped around my creator’s head like a hat, but I did know her. I knew Juliet, too. I should have found the irony in the manner in which I killed her, but all I could think of when I pulled the trigger and the bullet exploded from her skull was how it was going to kill Juliet to find out. It was one thing for Tytonidae to hunt her down and massacre her in the sewers, it was an entirely different thing for the killing blow to be dealt by her estranged childe.
I should have taken pride in my first real vampiric kill, but I couldn’t. I could hardly breathe, to be honest with you. It wasn’t like I needed the oxygen, but it was a comforting feeling, and it was one that I was being deprived of in that very moment. I remember watching as she stumbled forward from the force of the blow, and then she succumbed to ash at my feet. It shouldn’t have bothered me. I have killed so many in my lifetime that I have lost count, and yet, this one woman had left me speechless.
All because of you.
So, no, Markus.
Death doesn’t become easier with time.
There will always been someone to give you pause. - Iskra
♦ катастрофа ♦
KEEP WISHING YOU WERE ME, AND I'LL KEEP MAKING YOU HAVE TO
Come to your brother – thou shall not die…
Part III
Markus,
I’ve re-read the letters I have written you, and I still do not feel relieved. I do not understand the point in this activity. Corinth has tried to explain it to me, but that has only lead to be threatening to have Aksel dispel her. I find her endearing at times, but most of the time I wish she had a physical form that I could punt across the Atlantic. She ceases to make sense to me. Perhaps it is because she is British. You never did like those from Britain, and you thought I did not know why. What was her name, Markus? Cindy? I cannot recall, all I remember is hair the color of fire and eyes the color of moss. Really, you would have thought someone with a name like Cindy and that rare coloring would have been gorgeous.
I always thought she resembled more of a troll.
Then again, she did find her way into Kirill’s bed one evening.
Oh, yes, my dearest brother. I remember that night all too well. It was one of the worse – and best – nights of my life. Best, because she was out of my life forever. I no longer had to listen to her incessant whining about how it was too cold or the water was too hot. The worse, because in order for this to happen, Kirill had to make yet another conquest. A very loud, very irritating one at that. You taunted me for days after, making sure I knew that you saw my jealousy. I, of course, recall telling you to take a look in the mirror like the witty teenager I was before slamming my door in your face. You could give me a gun and train me to be a killer, but I was still a teenager at heart. It infuriated you to no end.
Thinking on it now, I wonder if I should hunt Cindy down and see how she fairs. I already took care of Melissa and Cheyenne. Of course, those were the only names I could pick out of that ever growing black book you and Kirill always seemed to share. It is funny how I was the on to constantly receive the warning glares when I even remotely tried to flirt with a boy, but you two could go at it like hungry wolves for nights on end. It was rather sexist of you, really. Enough about that. The point of this letter wasn’t to call your prowess into question, but to instead talk about the good you did for me.
You see, my other two letters have been designed to point out your flaws, how you have failed me time and time again as a child. How you trained me to be your hired gun, and not a human being. For the longest time, I had only seen the flaws in what you had to offer me – and then you died. You died, and I saw the beauty in your lessons, the magnificence in your guardianship. You never let me be weak. You never let me fall. Even when I found myself near death, you refused to coddle me. You simply picked me up, dusted me off, and told me to do better next time. Others would find that heartless and unforgiving.
I find it invigorating.
It is because of these lessons, it is because of how you trained me, that I am the woman I am today. Yes, I lost my way when you died. I had no one left. You were murdered before my eyes and Kirill was in the wind. I was virtually alone for the first time in my life. I had no idea how to operate in a world without you, and the life I chose – at the time, seemed wrong – had become so right. It was because of that path I took that I became what you truly wished for me to be. Unforgiving. Cold. Relentless. Merciless. It is because of that cold night when I was near death, starved and drugged out of my mind that I finally realized the truth to my existence.
I was always the monster, Markus, and Juliet only provided me the road to becoming who I truly was.
With your harsh reality and her warmth, I was able to stand on my own two feet again. Even as you constantly nagged at me to fight, to not give in to the undead she had created me to be, I knew you were just frightened. You were no longer there to be able to lecture me, to make sure I followed the right path. Instead, I was on my own. Well, of course, until Kirill finally hunted me down. I am sure you had something to do with that, as well. Despite you always hating the connection you saw between the two of us, he was your best friend and the only one in the world you trusted enough to keep me safe.
Not that I need it, of course. I could dance circles around him now, and I know it infuriates him.
Again, I am beginning to ramble.
I cannot help it. I find it entirely too easy to speak my thoughts to someone I know will never hear them. It is far more therapeutic than that journal I have been ordered to keep.
To get back on track, brother, I know that you would be pleased with how I have turned out. Of course, it is not the leader of our army, who even in a letter that should never be seen I will not name, but I am involved in something. Tytonidae. I have mentioned it a few times, but I never fully explained my part in it. You see, it was the one faction in all of my new life that spoke to me. We are sent to kill those that break the Masquerade, which, in this life – is law, really. You trained me to protect myself and those like me, and that is what Tytonidae offers. I able to put everything you have ever taught me to the test here.
I suppose, now that I think about it, it is you I should thank for my promotion. I raised quickly within the ranks, and became a member of the council. You might not think it is much, but to me, it is. They saw my dedication, my strong will and I hope, my lack of heart as something to be admired. Of course, if you ask Micah, the leaders husband, I am sure he would point out it was actually the knowledge I had a heart that sealed the deal for him. He, among others, like to try and see the best in me. I will never fully understand it, but who am I to judge their desires?
So, my darling brother, I have finally found the point of these letters.
They are to thank you and condemn you all in one.
I am, after all, only the monster you made me.
Your little sister, - Iskra
♦ катастрофа ♦
KEEP WISHING YOU WERE ME, AND I'LL KEEP MAKING YOU HAVE TO
