Death Itself Was Undone [VDM]

[Judah Marck]

Blood was spilled, the room smelled of it, the cloying copper scent mixing with the raw earthen smell of the dust and the lingering foulness of the ingredients they'd combined to initiate the process. It filled Judah's nostrils as he took a steadying inhale, palms resting against the stone, feeling the roughness of it against the open wound on his palm. The dagger had done it's work, each of them offered their sacrifice and something was happening, the very room itself shaking with unmistakable power but it wasn't enough.

His gaze sought that of Louvel and then Gregor, the unmarked hand reaching for the shoulder of the tall, white blonde haired man beside him with a fond squeeze. There was an unguarded wildness in his gaze, at war with the wary and considerate expression he wore. "It's working, guys, I think... Did we miss something?" Jude's voice was low, hushed and he didn't wait for his question to be answered before picking up the chant again. Hopeful.

Perhaps it was just a matter of time? None of them knew, not really, but surely the other two may have a better sense than him of what was going on inside the depths of the growing shadows.

He was watching them intently, his voice raising louder with the passion of his chant when something rocked him. A wavelike force clattering around inside his skull, sharp and painful in his brain. It was nothing he'd ever felt or heard before, it was full of wrongness and yet he wanted to respond, to reach out and soothe the pain of that cry away. "Alaric..." Instead he merely gripped tighter to Gregor, wondering who else had heard it.

[Gregor (DELETED 8093)]

Nothing was happening.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and shrugged it off. Not out of malice, but because rage flared beneath the cold alabaster of his visage. Was this what they had been reduced to? A once great lineage, a handful of whom were skulking around in the darkness, scraping together bits of disgusting pieces to try and perform some ritual that wasn't even going to work. Was this who they had become? Sycophants of a phantom. Was this their inheritance? Fury did not begin to cover what Gregor felt as the air stilled and the little group was left with nothing. But there are two kinds of rage. Most people feel the heat that comes with anger. The irrational need to lash out. To scream. To thrash. To buck against the injustices of the world. To bring the back of the hand against the cheek of every unnamed oppressor. Gregor though, his was a cold fury. One which settled deep in his chest and made his veins run icy. Everything seemed to slow down. Every thought became crystaline. Every intention became pure.

Were they Von Der Marck – the children of an absent god?

There was a sound like an anguished cry, and Gregor's pupils dilated. A natural instinct to act. Human civilization was all about condoning basic biology as something intelligent. People were naturally drawn to each other because the desire for companionship was a deeply hard-wired instinct. People created intricate rules and mores governing the protection of children, because successful procreation was one of the primary drives of most 'successful' species. Laws existed to create the illusion of order and establish a natural hierarchy: those who made the rules, those who enforced the rules, those who had to abide the rules. Even still, people dressed all of these things up as if they were not just byproducts of evolution. As if by applying cosmetic human thought, they could disguise the fact that most people essentially just wanted the same things no matter who they were.

And then they made an ungodly big deal about how removed from nature they all were. Fact: A baby crying usually generates a natural response to comfort said baby. The sound that Gregor heard elicited a similar response from him, or at the very least it yanked him out of the festering rage he felt. It was some witch's brew of that same instinct and the magical forced which he frankly didn't understand which caused him to move. One moment, he stood as still as a statue, and the next he was reaching out in front of him, his pale palm sliding through the air. His overcoat clung to his shoulders, swaying in the air like a cape. He could feel it. He could feel the claw of darkness reaching out to him. He could feel a choice had to be made. A sacrifice. Giving up of the self for the betterment of all.

Was Gregor the one to make that call? Was he strong enough? He had taken vows at one point. To protect. His gaze shifted for only a moment so he could peer into Judah's eyes. The man certainly needed this more than he did. But then again, so did all of them. The once great lineage. It would be great once more. Because he was Gregor von der Mark and the blood each of them had spilled was not just part of the ritual. They all came from the same place. They had each given a tiny piece of themselves, but another step had to be made. He came to a stop and he could practically feel the air getting colder. The very edges of his plane of vision went grayscale. Under his breath, barely a whisper. "I stand before the gates of death unafraid. Take me into the darkness and bring back our father."

His body crumpled to the ground almost immediately, even as he was lifted out of it. With the eyes of a spirit, he could see the doorway in front of him. A patch of pure and inescapable darkness, the likes of which might have been used to describe a black hole. He felt no chill because he had no skin. He felt nothing. Stepping towards that place of shadows, he spared no glance back. Not even when he passed what was little more than a silhouette. Broad shoulders. Very masculine. Was this who he had given everything for? A pause. He could see the shadow beginning to take greater shape. "Alaric von der Marck." And then the rest was in German. "Your children await you. They are yours to protect now, to cherish. They are broken, and it is your job to fix them, to make them strong. Do not disappoint me." He said.

And then the figure was gone.

And there was nothing around him but emptiness. Trapped in that place of shadows.

[Mirella (DELETED 8125)]

Mirella felt the change in atmosphere, in the clearly magickal force that enveloped the stone room. The scream...it made her want to collapse in agony, clutching her skull. But she refused. She remained standing, but her gaze moved from the stone ceiling to the others in the room. To her family.

Brown eyes were drawn, almost glued, to her cousin, to Gregor, as he took those steps forward. She wanted to cry out, to beg him not to move - but then he collapsed, a crumpled heap of flesh and bone. She spoke part of the chant just once more, her voice breaking as she did, before an agonized scream escaped her own throat, and she felt her knees go weak beneath her. Gregor.

Gregor.

Her cousin, so close by family standards they might as well have been brother and sister. The Aegis. Gregor.

This ritual was something wrong. Something broken. It wasn't as simple as they'd gone into it thinking. This was why it had failed before.

A life for a life.

Only death could pay for a resurrection like this.

Gregor.

[Louvel von der Marck]

Louvel's chanting did not stop. Not even when Judah mentioned that it was working and in the next breath asked if they missed something. He continued through ignoring any distractions waiting for the result that had to be reachable. It was there among them. He couldn’t rationalize it other than the earth enriched air moving over his shoulders delivered the confirmation, pulling at his hair sending the unruly lengths flying in its wake. It was in the final chorus of the words that flowed so easily from his lips, words that felt like they would be the only said from that moment forward, it all came crashing down around him.

The power of the room shifted and the faith that brought him there, the courage to cut a vein and offer up what was never his entirely to begin with came back at him tearing in so deep. The sight of Gregor stepping forward left him to watch, unable to move. Watch as the man crumbled, knocked down by a force unseen, a contender not considered until it was too late. The weight of the world as he knew it felt as though it landed on him and drove him deep into the earth beneath his own feet.

Orbs blazing with rage lit up the depths of the Keeper’s sockets. Thick veins surfaced systematically bursting in quick succession from his temples through his jaws and down his neck. Like a sudden rise of defiance in all that was supposed to be considered acceptable his hands clenched and fists lifted upward. A guttural roar was released as the flesh like white knuckled balls of steel slammed down with a crushing force over the surface beneath.

“V-E-R-D-A-M-M-T!” His jaws felt like they were snapping with the cry of anger that boiled up from the place only one could summon within him. With a disturbing and venomous hiss all that he felt imploded with his protest at Gregor’s body landing on the cold cursed stone. His eyes locked down on Gregor and that is when he felt a monster was borne within him. “N-E-I-N!”

[Leonie von der Marck]

The dark -haired woman continued her chanting, even as an anguished shriek rattled around and exploded in her skull, causing a hiss of pain to rush past her lips. She couldn’t be certain, but it sounded the same as the rushing shouts always audible whenever she lost control of herself. Her head rang again, an echo of the otherworldly sound that somehow conveyed everything she could ever comprehend, all in one go. One hand clapped to her forehead for a moment and left a crimson streak, in a futile effort to soothe away the ache, but she could feel it, thumping in her blood. Another hiss ripped from her throat; whatever was on the other side, whatever force tried to suck the very life from the room - if the way the flames flickered was any indication - was now part of them, had connected as forcefully to those gathered as they had to one another at the start of the ritual.

But something seemed wrong, seemed stuck. It was as if they all stood, with baited breath, in the chasm, waiting on some dark birth from a struggling, ancient mother. Her gaze went wide as she looked about her, wildly, trying to glean whether anyone else had come to the same conclusion. Blood wasn’t enough. The relic Jude had tossed to the center wasn’t enough. They were not enough and Leonie could not fathom leaving the jaws of this rite wide with no climax, no outcome. Even failure was preferable to limbo, but before the woman could so much as give voice to such ponderings, the cousin who remained as mysterious and unreachable as he had since their childhood stepped forward, then crumpled to the musty floor.

She could feel the anguish from the others before she ever heard it, but she couldn’t so much as gasp her surprise, or process her own grief at the clear and irrevocable loss of one of their number. Because Gregor was dead, by his own choice, his own act, and she would not cheapen such a conscious sacrifice with a shriek or a cry. Somehow, soul-deep, she understood… possibly would have made the same choice herself, had it been known to be necessity.

Life for life…

It seemed almost too obvious. She forced back the tears that threatened to cloud sharp hazel eyes, in favor of her attention upon renewed activity at the center. Something was happening, the force awaiting just beyond the shadowed veil seemingly taking shape, whether in her mind or before their very eyes. Her breaths quickened, growing heavy and she noted, vaguely, that the wheeze had all but gone.

”Look."

It was but a single word, but it held equal parts wonder, terror, trepidation, and excitement. They could mourn their fallen cousin later; his sacrifice could not be in vain, because - or so it seemed to the von der Marck Lioness, who could not peel her eyes away - it hadn’t been a waste.

[Judah Marck]

There was no comprehension as to what was about to occur, and for a few moments after Gregor's body dropped, weightless and lifeless to the ground. Judah stared down at his younger cousin, thinking how oddly peaceful the boy looked, sweet even the way he could only when having a sleep free of taunting dreams. He wasn't sleeping though, there was no rise or fall of his chest, not even the faintest twitch to show that life still inhabited the body that had once housed his fierce spirit.

Their Aegis, their protection and he done his duty.

Louvel's shouts were what finally broke through his numbness, Judah had stopped chanting at some point, stopping moving and his own chest barely shifting with the effort of his shallow, stuttered breathing. There was a horror lurking at the edge of his consciousness, a reality that his fragile sanity was not up to the task of facing. Tragedy had come in waves that sort to destroy all around them, cold and crashing down to drown out hope. Jude clung tightly to the few things that might keep him afloat, his family, his son and his duties to them all. What had it cost him? What had it cost them? This sense of needing to rise to purpose, to complete the ritual and return to them their original reason for being.

"Gregor."

He felt cold, drained of the warmth that kept his personal brand of fire alive, that burning passion and enthusiasm for everything around him even in the darkest moments. At his Uncle's grave he'd stood, a renewed passion, a mission to rise to. At his Grandfather's he'd pledged that he would make him proud, and at his wife's he'd promised his young son that he would restore a name and be the best man he could be for them all. For the von der Marck's.

His body sunk under the weight of realisation, hands clammy with cold sweat as they pressed to Gregor's chest, pulsing as if he could start the heart again, bring him back. His hands shifted to the man's face, tilting the head and opening his mouth with gentle pressure. His lips were slack against Jude's as he covered them, fingers pinching the nose to stop the air escaping as he tried to breath life into dead lungs. It couldn't have been more than a few attempts before Leonie spoke. A glance was spared, little more and his eyes seemed unwilling to focus beyond the sting of panicked tears pricking at his eyes. Tears would do no one any good, if he just kept trying, kept counting out the pumps of his hands and measured breaths then maybe there was a chance.

Some part of him knew it was futile, but he could not just stand back and do nothing, staring hopefully at swirling shadows that gave them nothing but pain. His head turned sharply, hands still in motion, to stare angrily into the black abyss but it was no longer just empty darkness. There was something in that void, that hollow, shapeless horror that had taken from them their troubled young cousin. A life forfeit and for what? Judah knew that the question was about to be answered, his body growing still and rigid, a new wave of torturous cold crashing through him. "What have I done... His whisper was not directed in any one place, perhaps it was to all, to the figure emerging from the endless blackness or the dead ears below him that would never hear another sound.

"What in god's name have I done?

[Alaric von der Marck]

The shadows dispersed, and Alaric could see them. He could see the room as if through a fish-eye view – he could see people gathered, people he did not recognise. But looking at them, they felt like dreams. They felt like long lost memories, things forgotten, things that the subconscious was trying to piece back together again. They had that quality to them, as if he'd seen them only hours ago, but how, why? The harder he looked, the harder it was to pin it down. The harder he looked, the more he felt like a voyeur staring into a home that was not his own, like an omniscient being watching a play that he’d walked in on halfway through.

A blonde male stepped forward. Alaric could not feel anything for him, could not know that it meant anything. With a mind half lost and a consciousness still bleary-eyed from centuries of sleep, he could not understand that this group of men and women meant to free him. This was merely a sleep kick, a moment of synaesthesia. A strange dream or memory sent to torture him, to provide a break in the never-ending darkness.

The male’s body crumpled, and the reactions were immediate. He meant a lot to those gathered. This was not a play, it couldn’t be. No one’s acting was ever that good. Deaths were always extravagant, rarely affected with the proper emotion. How can an actor react to the death of a loved one if he himself has not experienced the death of a loved one? These people were not acting.

When the soul stood at Alaric’s side, the gate broke open. That flimsy veil between here and there cracked, split and swept aside like curtains onto the greatest stage.

The words, at first, were misunderstood. When one goes so long without hearing a single word spoken, one begins to forget how to speak, one’s brain rusty and unable to translate the sounds into meaning. They bled into Alaric’s mind on a delay, a puzzle slowly connecting. The soul was gone before the command was understood. Before Alaric could utter apologies or gratitude, before he could offer any kind of response, the soul had drifted back into the shadows. Alaric could easily have followed, turned his back on the heat and the colour, the light and the tragedy. But he was a moth, and his children were the flame. Children.

In the ritual room, from the swirling portal of shadows and death, there stepped a figure swathed in darkness. To those gathered it might look as if he had stepped from a well of ink, the substance of a magical quality slowly but surely shaping the figure of a man. As soon as the ink fell from the elder, he crumpled. The gravity was too much after centuries of floating. The air he sucked into his lungs was like sand, the light too bright, the ground too hard. But that didn’t stop him from curling his fingers into the worn brick, the cracks tugging at his nails. The pain was welcome. It was a reprieve. He was alive.

And he was emaciated. Naked, hungry, a husk of a thing freed from death that had only reluctantly let him go. The only thing he wore was the ring which glinted on the finger it had lived on, centuries before. The ring of the Patriarch.

Grainy eyes fell upon each and every face, dancing from one to the next as he gazed up from his fallen position. They finally landed on the body beside him, upon the desperately sad man who spoke in a language that Alaric recognised, but one which he could not understand. They all wore strange clothes, they all looked so… young. He did not know them. They were in the midst of tragedy, and he was a mere interloper. A thin-fingered hand lifted and heavily fell on the shoulder of the one trying to revive the fallen. What more could he do? What more could he possibly offer?

He did not know what was happening. He knew nothing, except what he been told by the soul of the fallen. They were broken, he had said. They needed to be fixed. It implied that they needed strength. Strength was not what Alaric felt, in that moment. He was lost, he was strangling on the very air he breathed, and his body felt like brittle wood that was going to splinter at the slightest movement. He gripped the shoulder reassuringly, but looked to one of the others for answers, eyes continually dancing between the faces of the young.

“Wo bin ich?”

His voice was sandpaper – but he did not cough. He swallowed the pain, he did his best to clear his throat, to make it less dry. It didn’t work. The language was definitely German, but it was an archaic form -- a looser German, and not the standardized version of the language that most spoke today. But it was close enough, and probably easy enough to understand.

“Wer bist du?”

He could only hope that they spoke his language.

Translation: * "Where am I?"
** "Who are you?"

[Mirella (DELETED 8125)]

And now, it was time for a scream of surprise, as the inky black fell away from the figure and revealed a very thin (almost malnourished looking), very naked man. It was like that moment when you're face to face with a dog, and all of a sudden that dog starts barking in your face; Mirella jumped from a crouched position, eyes focused on Gregor - on his body, on the frame that had once been her cousin - back almost to the wall, the back of her head actually lightly thudding into the stone.

"Ow," she mumbled, one hand coming up.

Is this what we paid for with Gregor's life? A man so weak and thin he would probably collapse if he tried to stand?

To his eyes, Mirella had to look the strangest. She still hadn't changed from her performance garb; a halter bra top patterned with brass scales and long pants with the hip region patterned to match, her hair pulled back in a single braid and coiled at the base of her skull. And in th moment he spoke, Mirella both half recognized the language he spoke, and wished she spoke it herself. If only to scream at him, tell him what they had done for him, just who had sacrificed himself for him.

The fact that she didn't, meant she would probably need to learn. Or someone who did know needed to teach him English. And preferably quickly.

But, since she did not speak his language and did not know what he was saying, Mirella could only really say one thing to him. Ask him a question in a single word. So she did. "Alaric?" Her voice cracked with unshed tears.

She had to make sure, make absolutely sure, that they hadn't screwed this up. That Gregor's sacrifice had not been in vain. That the figure they had indeed summoned, was the right man.

[Louvel von der Marck]

Rage filled the Keeper. A rage rarely felt in the earth’s son. Mara had brought the child to the world with the hope of making it a better place when she left it. Now her intentions were to be tested. He felt her attempts across from beyond to calm the storm that continued to rise within him. Heat filled him as the motion of Judah pushing on Gregor’s chest worked through his brain. A deep inhale then the low release of what could do no good rushing into the mouth of the fallen. He felt frozen, ready to curse altogether everything and everyone that brought him to that moment. Then she arrived.

“We are travelers, Little wolf, explorers if you will. No one is truly forsaken. Trapped perhaps beyond simple and explainable reach but we eventually return all in due time.” The stroke of Mara’s hand could still be felt across his temple over twenty years later. “Never forget this, Louvel, never let go. It is what brings us back. When all seems lost it is the only thing that can.”

Louvel felt the pressure of his jaws threatening to crack the line of white enamel behind his lips. He wanted to break, to destroy before he was ever willing to let go. The tempest that rose within him was quelled with the voice that only he could hear, the presence he was sure only he could feel. His throbbing fingers clawed their bruised tips across the blood slick surface beneath. A voice prompting to look caught him in the movement of his body. The whisper of asking what had been done flowed through him as he fixed his eyes on the frail form that appeared.

The scent of wet earth and blood filled his nostrils as they flared. He pulled all of it deep into his lungs and held onto it as if there would be answers to what could not be explained otherwise. Was he truly looking at the patriarch this was all for? The very one that the sacrifice of whom he loved on the ground beneath his brothers hands. The one that growing cold as the earth beneath their feet? Mossy orbs fixed on the man who appeared to be as weathered as the stone around them, older perhaps than the dirt that surrounded the walls of the makeshift tomb the room had inevitably become. It was then that he spoke. Louvel wasted no time on entertaining shock, elation or indulging in anything other than what he currently felt. Gregor made a choice and he was to accept it as well as what appeared before them in turn.

“Willkommen zuhause, Alaric von der Marck.” His voice was solid, purposeful in it’s tone. “Wir sind Ihr Blut und riefen wir Sie zurück.”

[Leonie von der Marck]

What have I done?
Wo bin ich? Wer bist du?
Alaric?
Willkommen zuhause, Alaric von der Marck. Wir sind Ihr Blut und riefen wir Sie zurück.

Leonie stood stock-still as the voices sounded all around her, the familiar mixed with the brand-new. English and German, though the newcomer’s dialect was different enough to mark him as out of this time. Too much was happening for her still-hung-over brain to process, and the Lioness struggled for a moment to take it all in. She registered, somewhere, Jude’s frantic attempts at reviving Gregor, could hear Mirella’s pain, and Louvel’s indomitable strength through the chaos of tragedy.

Strength. Be his strength.

It was what Jude had called upon her to bring to the table, after all, because even though the two might know her secret, the abilities tucked deep down, both also knew that they couldn’t be called upon at will. Might, even, be left so dormant and atrophied that they were things she could never get back if she even had a mind for it. So strength it was, and in her typical way, Leonie had compartmentalized her grief, her disbelief, her fear, and her purpose so she could focus upon what needed focusing.

Or who, rather.

She recognized him from his portrait, from etchings in the old family documents. The lines of his jaw matched the ones in Jorge’s painting hanging in her family home, even, shadow-like and unpredictable as these things are wont to be, had a distorted look of her father in his youthful face. Her head tilted to one side as she watched the male - faded, wizened, and as confused as any of them could have expected him to be - trying to comfort Judah, who still worked over their fallen cousin. Something sparked within her at that sight and in one beat, she was no longer afraid of what they’d brought back to life.

She knew, somehow, deep in her gut and in the very center of her soul, that Gregor wouldn’t be coming back to them, no matter how skilled Judah might be in CPR. They’d already pulled off the ultimate revival, after all… fate, God, whatever it was would not be so kind to them again, not in the same night, and some little instinct in the back of her mind was pressing her to act. To do more than stand and stare dumbly at the picture before her in what was surely shock.

She cleared her throat, gently, as sharp hazel eyes glanced about the room for something she’d spied earlier on but hadn’t really registered in favor of the runes and the broad table. But it registered now. It was old, likely moth-eaten and musty, but she strode past the group anyway, every act laced with purpose, and snatched the dusty cloth off a chair. She gave it a strong shake, the snapping sound of thick, sturdy material sounding in the ensuing silence, before walking back to the risen male, glancing at the item as she went. It looked like a ceremonial robe, perhaps would not even fit the tall frame, but anything was better than doing nothing, she supposed. Gingerly, she offered it to Alaric, holding it open and still watching him carefully as her free hand smoothed over Judah’s shoulder in what she hoped was a comforting way, something to let him know she was still there, with him as much as she could be in the moment.

“Der Ritus ... es hat funktioniert, und es brachte Sie nach Hause. Harper Rock. Wir sind Ihre Eigenen. Von der Marck.” Leonie allowed the words to hang between them a moment before it crossed her mind that they hadn’t seemed to plan well for him at all. Not that they had known what to expect, mixed in with doubts over it working, but it occurred to her, while observing his emaciated state, that he would need sustenance, and soon. She drew in a deep breath and held out her wrist, not quite aware of what she was doing until it was done. “Sie müssen ausgehungert werden. Bitte nehmen Sie mir, was Sie brauchen.”

What was one more offering, after all? The blood they’d shed clearly hadn’t fed the man, and though the fear had somehow left her, it seemed reasonable that a hungering… vampire on the loose in a manor filled with living family members could only be a recipe for disaster. She swallowed hard as she waited to see what he would do next, their risen Patriarch.

“Willkommen zu Hause, Alaric. Wir haben eine lange Zeit auf dich gewartet.”

(“The rite... it worked, and it brought you home. Harper Rock. We are your own. von der Marck.”
“You must be starved… Please, take from me what you need.”
“Welcome Home, Alaric. We’ve waited a long time for you.”)