Muir glanced between Joseph and Esial, tilting his head away from the hand Amon had on his throat. Joseph was pale, his hands shaking around his raised gun and Esial looked rough laying naked in the ashes, rope running under his flesh in places and torn out of others. Despite the situation and what he had been through, Esial's fear was totally and completely centered on Muir and what might happen to him. Muir had no idea what he did to deserve friends like these.
He wasn't too worried about Amon, to be honest. It was annoying, and he certainly would die if Amon decided to plunge the knife in for fun, but Muir was certain Granger was lined up for the perfect shot, hidden out of sight and waiting to see if Amon would make the wrong choice.
"Let's all calm down here," Muir said, relaxing a little against Amon to indicate ease and a willingness to lead by example. "We're only here to get Esial. You know as well as we do that we're not here for you."
Some of the tension left Amon's shoulders and he nodded slowly. "You came here too quickly. I assume the fledgling called you."
"You assume correctly," Muir said warmly.
"So you are here without permission."
"Yes," Chief Staton said softly. "As you can imagine we would like to do this without bloodshed. You can simply let go of Muir, release Esial into our custody, and do what you will. I know the kinds of strings you can pull. I have no issue overlooking this for now."
"For now," Amon repeated.
She gestured to the bodies sprawled in the ashes, all sucked completely dry of blood. "Someone is going to have to tell their families and their governments where they went. You might be lucky to get out of the mess it might bring down on you because of the civil war in this country."
"But you won't allow me to return to America."
"I'm afraid I may have to make some reports. What is done after that is up to you and your actions. You have killed a lot of people today, Amon-"
"I had to! I had to feed my Sire! This is the only way he feeds!"
Muir shook his head gently at the Chief as the knife hovered closer to his chest, Amon tensing up and shaking. This was a sore topic and they were in dangerous territory now.
"I understand that," the Chief said carefully. "And it must be hard having Isut Jeoalt as your sire, am I right?"
Amon nodded. "It is."
Muir glanced at Esial, who gave a full body shudder.
"Just let Muir go, we'll take Esial, and we'll be on our way," the Chief said. "You can take all the time you need working out a plan for what you want to do next, but we would like to go home."
Amon trembled. "My Sire needs Esial. I can't let you take him now."
"What does he need Esial for, Amon?"
Amon glanced at Esial and Esial shook his head. "Amon, my father hasn't given him what he wanted in the 5,000 years I burned in the sun. He's not going to change his mind now. I won't.... um, I won't tell them everything you did if you let me go. Please."
Muir could feel Amon trembling and made a small signal with his hand to let Granger know to take the shot when she felt comfortable with doing it. Amon was clearly too emotionally unstable to be reasoned with.
Amon stared at Esial for a long time, taking small gasping breaths. He sounded like someone who had lost everything. It made Muir nervous. Why hadn't Granger taken the shot yet? Had she not seen the signal? He made it again with his other hand.
Amon jerked around, putting Muir between himself and Granger just as she pulled the trigger.
The silver bullet cut through Muir's ear and he hissed, flinching away and raising an arm to catch the blade coming for his chest.
He thought he saw Joseph running to help, the Chief laying down fire, and he knew Granger was shooting, but Amon was too fast.
He saw a spray of ash from where Esial had been laying, and Amon and Esial were suddenly sprawled on the other side of the clearing, fighting and clawing and biting at one another like wild animals.
Muir shouted for Esial to get away, but there was a blood red rage in his eyes, and he wouldn't stop. He had something in his hand, long and pointed. After slashing his claws across Amon's face and grabbing his throat, he was finally able to get the stake down into Amon's chest, hammering it in with his palm.
Amon's mouth opened and he let out a scream that sent Muir, Joseph, and Grander instinctively running for cover.
In an instant, he puffed to dust and Esial keeled over on the ground, gasping for air and coughing as old ash kept getting into his lungs.
"Esial," Muir breathed, getting across the clearing when his instincts would let him. He scooped the man off the ground and into a bone crushing hug. Esial returned it with shaking arms, burying his face in his shoulder.
"He's gone," Muir murmured. "He's dead. He's gone and you've killed him and I'm so proud of you, Esial. I'm so, so sorry."
He ignored the sigh he heard from the Chief who muttered about paperwork followed up by a discussion with Granger and Aaron to weigh the pros and cons of just pretending Amon left on a trip and never came back.
Joseph knelt in the ashes and wrapped his arms around both of them.
"Esial I am so glad to see you," he breathed.
"I'm sorry!" Esial gasped after another coughing fit. "I'm so sorry!"
"You have nothing to be sorry for, Esial."
"I got us caught cause he wanted me and the amulet," Esial gasped. "And the amulet isn't even here anymore! It's gone! And I misbehaved and fought him and got you hurt, Joseph, I'm so sorry!"
"You have nothing to be sorry for. You were having a normal reaction and they took it out on the both of us," Joseph said gently. "And we're both safe now and everything will be okay. We're not mad at you."
"Of course we're not, Esial. We can let you into our bond if you need that reassurance-"
"No! No more bonds. I can't do anymore bonds!"
"Alright. No more bonds. Here, how about we get up and get going, hmm?"
Esial nodded into Muir's shoulder. They stood and Muir took off his jacket, tying the sleeves off at Esial's hip so his front and back was covered be the main body of the jacket. Aaron came over and gave Esial his jacket to wear as well and they took up a circle around him, carefully walking down the path through the trees.
"It's a bit of a walk," Joseph warned Esial. "Do you think you can handle it?"
Esial nodded, staring into the middle distance.
................................................
Dawn was beginning to break by the time they got back to the cars, and Kyle was so jumpy he threw a hatchet at them as they approached.
"Woah," Aaron called out, his deep voice carrying soothing notes even at longer distances. "What's up?"
"Sorry," Kyle breathed, trying to steady his shaking hands. "There was something that approached us last night and tried to speak to Khalid."
Khalid, who had been asleep, woke at his name and sat up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and glowering at the coming sun.
"Did it say anything?" Esial asked, scaring the group. He had been dissociating for nearly the entire trip back to the cars.
"Not really. There was a sort of hissing noise, and I thought it was the wind in the trees, and then this shadow came up and dropped this in through the window." Kyle held up Esial's amulet and the vampire lunged forward, grabbing it and holding it to his chest with a shaky breath.
"I thought it was an explosive or something so I threw it back out of the car, but it didn't do anything and I finally went to grab it and have a look at it. It really freaked me out, though."
"I bet," Muir said sympathetically. "Let's get out of here while the sun it up, then."
They piled into the cars, and Esial nearly put the amulet on himself after stringing it on a piece of paracord he found under the front seat. He stopped, glanced at Khalid and down at the amulet.
"I... I want this back, but you can have it for now," Esial said softly, handing it to Khalid. "It will keep you from burning."
Khalid stared at it for a moment before he smiled and sat up, hanging it around Esial's neck. "I'm just planning to sleep under a blanket. I'm tired."
"And hungry?" Granger asked from the front seat where she sat next to Aaron who was driving.
He nodded and she offered her arm to him. He hesitantly bit in and drank.
"I should be feeding him," Esial mumbled.
"Not after what you've been through. Besides, we have no idea what they did to you in there. It might hurt a fledgling so we'll want to wait until we're sure you're safe to drink from."
"And you've been through enough as it is from what I understand," Aaron said pleasantly.
Esial nodded, looking down at the amulet. When the sun came up, he closed his eyes and enjoyed every moment of the warmth on his face and neck as they started the drive to Khalid's village.
Khalid slept the entire way, his soft noises and the way he nuzzled against Esial as he snored endearing him to everyone in the car. Esial was surprised to find himself seated next to Kyle for the ride. The human had been avoiding him for a long time, and while neither of them started a conversation, it didn't seem like Kyle really minded sitting next to Esial. Then again, he could have just been sleep deprived.
"I'm glad you're alive," Kyle said when Khalid's village finally came into view in the distance.
"Mm?" Esial said, coming out of his doze.
"I'm glad you're alive."
Esial sighed and leaned his head back against the seat. He wasn't so sure. There was too much to worry and think about. He missed the person he was at the start of all of this. When he was simply a zookeeper and working to rejoin society as an ancient vampire. Where his only worries were getting his assignments in on time, remembering how a phone worked, and keeping up with the new words that seemed to develop overnight. He felt a strange sense of guilt as he realized he hadn't thought about his crocodiles in days, if not a week. He had to stop thinking about them, he supposed. There was a good while there where he thought he would never see them again and thinking about them just hurt.
"Thanks," he murmured, when he realized he had taken too long to respond to Kyle. He got a weak smile in response.
He made it out the other end. He survived.
He huffed as thoughts of his crocodiles came back to him along with memories of Matt. Stupid Matt.
Those were simple thoughts and simple feelings. Comforting and nothing like the complex emotions that seemed to eat through his spine when he thought of Isut Jeoalt and his father....
His father was still out there. He was.... maybe not alive, but aware. Conscious. Still here. And attached to that monster. What in the world had Torash done to anger Isut Jeoalt like that? What had Esial done to deserve all of this? Or was it all his father's fault? His wonderful, loving, doting father who had made an amulet for him and promised to teach him magic and patched him up whenever he got a scrape while playing.
Esial leaned his head away from Kyle and closed his eyes, attempting to doze again and get away from his thoughts and feelings.
Chapter 38
From Dust to Ashes Taglist: @whumpsday @honeycollectswhump @writereleaserepeat @tragedyinblue @hyrules-sleepiest-knight
