Beyond Human: Queen's Shadow Series

19.) The Hard Way

~~~Apollos

"We can talk this out,"  I say yelling at the top of my lungs. I allow all of them to hear me. "I don't want to fight you all, I don't want to kill anyone I just want Claire back." Something in me didn't want to kill them all, even though moments earlier I was fine with it I just wanted the killing to stop just for a little bit. I went months without killing, months without fighting I felt safe and I felt great. Fighting for myself was always something I felt comfortable with doing but it was something that I hated. I hated the man it made me, I hated how much I had to do it I hated what I had to do.

Killing people, killing vampires, killing werewolves, and killing others just leads to be more bloodshed. People are simple, they believe they have to attack everyone. They believe Lucifer will make this world right, they believe in so much nonsense. Same with God, angels, and even the devil they don't have a use for a human who doesn't worship them. Though mostly I can't speak for God I can speak for angels, they don't give a fuck about humans. From what I've learned they use us as breeding tools to make more Nephilim. The product that is universal, from animals to otherworldly people. Myth and legend are things that have taken place in those areas.

Lucia is close behind, 'Apollos we have more coming.' My head was out of the battle, Lucia cracked her whip and with one hit sent completely cut a werewolf in half. She cracks it again, this time wrapping it around another's head. He howls in pain before she breaks his neck. She took them both out without even missing a beat. We were getting close, the attacks were becoming more and more frequent which means they wanted to keep us away. "Claire I'm coming for you."

'We can't kill her yet, because only you have the dagger.' I think to myself what is he talking about? Then I remember my vampire stake, how my ever-changing weapon can be anything I need. That's why they attacked now, they need this weapon to kill them. Why didn't I see it before? Even though it was meant to kill vampires, it could also do other things. This was the weapon that was meant to kill them, I grip my sword tighter. My vampire stake and my sword are the same things and I had to kill them with it. 'We're going to kill you, and then we're going to kill the rest of the royals.'

'Oh shut up you fools.'Lucia said calmly, but incredibly critically. 'That's all I ever hear,' her psychic thoughts show a level of audacity that I've never seen.  '"Oh we're going to kill you and the royals, we're going to pillage your capitals and kill all of your descendants, progenies, and, anyone we loved."' she was mocking them, but she was right. 'Let's be honest you're not original you all talk too much and frankly, we're still here.'

'You insolent bitch,' with one crack of her whip she cut him off as she said 'I found you.' that was part of the plan, she created a distraction to get to them quickly. They went at the back of the tunnel, as we got closer I saw them holding her hostage. They were using her as a shield, it was a dead end and they knew they were trapped. Two vampires and three werewolves had a knife to her neck there was nothing I could do. I planned to use my time-stop ability to get to them, to kill them all, and be done with it. 'Brother now is the time to use that ability of yours.'

'You take one step and we will slit this brat's throat ear to ear.' I clench my shield, was I even fast enough? It's then that Claire did something I didn't expect. She slit her own throat, the anger got the best of me. I entered my limit breaker, and through my shield at the vampire's head decapitating him. His face was in shock, but his body fell limp to the floor. Lucia cracked her whip four times and with each hit, they took out the other four assailants.

Her neck regenerated quickly and she hugged me, I'm sorry I didn't mean to scare you. I just know you didn't want to hurt me, and thank you for saving me. I picked her up and pull my shield out of the wall. She was covered in blood but she regenerated quickly. I didn't want her to hurt herself for me to save her, I should have just used my time-stop ability. I should have just torn them apart and explained it to Lucia, I'm quite sure she would understand.

'It's okay, I've been through worse thank you for protecting me.' why did children have to suffer the most, why did they have to witness the world in its ugliest ways? Can't we adults keep that shit to ourselves? We drag whole nations into war, we could have saved so many lives if we just fought our wars out between ourselves and leave the kids out of it. This is the way of the world, though, and I had to accept that. Once all the kids were together, we had one virgin left. They killed most of them and she was wounded.

"What else did they do?" I asked everyone. They looked at me and said, 'They killed a lot of the priests. They also most of the human nuns,' I take a deep breath as I prepare for more bad news. "How many died?" I asked, 'More than enough,' I hear Kaoru say, "We need to know the number," I say 'No, what we need to do is need to prepare for the second assault,' I look at him and say, "Second?" 'I saw a few of them escape.' They knew what they were doing, this was to weaken us. We were going to be attacked again, they sent their weaker ones: disposable units. I should've seen this coming.

'Never underestimate a zealot,' I hear Kaoru say, 'They either give up or they double down,' Lucian's name began to make more sense, they knew they weren't coming back. That's why they did everything they did. How many are coming? I think to myself. 'Just one, and I'm already here,' I feel a punch in my stomach and then multiple blows to my face. He uses telekinesis to push Lucia and Kaoru back and then he threw me outside. It was still sunlight outside, the only way that the vampire got to the church was through cloaks and other clothing. They had to have gotten their supplies and everything else from somewhere.

The sun was setting but he walked out into the sunlight, a sunwalker. 'So, you're Lilith's ninth child? My name is Clovis,' "A sunwalker?" I force myself to stand up and he's already beside me. 'So you're Lilith's bastard child? I'm not impressed. Please tell me you can do more, Son of Lilith,' "Yes, I can. The World," I say. I didn't have time for this, I didn't see Lucia or Kaoru anywhere around me which means he must have knocked them out. With one swift cut, I decapitated him, I don't have time for this. I unfreeze time but the body was still standing.

My eyes widen in shock as the body pinned me to the car and then he unleashed a flurry of punches on me. I was getting deeper and deeper into a metal car, it's then that the head regrew and he said, 'Oh, that's your ability? Do you think stopping time is going to help you?' He stopped and grabbed me by my neck, I tried to break his grip but there was nothing I could do, I was so weak. 'Do you think,' It's then that he tried to impale me in my chest and he did, his hand went through me? I didn't collapse to my knees, I wanted to because I was fighting to stay conscious and with all of my strength and telekinetic ability, I pushed him back.

'I thought you could do something. If that's all you can do is freeze time, then I should put you out of your misery now,' It's then that he reaches his hand with the intent to decapitate me, I cut his arm off before he could take my head off and I stand up with my sword. He grabs his arm and reattaches it before it hits the ground and says, 'I see now. So you're much stronger than you let on? Show me what your limit breaker can do,' He knew my abilities, it's then that I start to attack him at full power and he didn't even need a sword, he uses his bare hand to parry each blade. The sword may have been cutting him but he was still parrying the blade.

Each time he parried, he was getting a punch in. It's then that he smacked the sword out of my hand and then he shoved his hand underneath my waist and ripped out my intestines He knew where invulnerability stopped. 'You regenerate quite quickly. Let's see how fast you'll regenerate ripped in half,' The pain I felt was excruciating, and it was only made worse by the sickening crunch I heard. At that moment my legs were ripped off of me and as my legs fell to the ground, he had me by my neck, 'I expected so much more from the man who killed Hans,' He dropped me on the ground as if I was a piece of garbage and put his foot on my face, 'Pathetic. I'm not going to kill you. To be honest, sending those religious imbeciles to their death was more than worth this ass-whooping I gave you. Next time, give me a real challenge, you waste of life,' and with that, he walked off.

I blacked out as he took his shoe off my face. 'Oh, and before I go, my name is Clovis Khan. Remember that when you wake up, you piece of trash. You weren't even worth my time,'

End of Chapter 19: The hard way