CRY FOR BLOOD

Part IV

By Wesley Overhults

Gotham Heights

Brother Blood enjoyed believing that he was a simple man.  He was a humble man who only wished to do the work he was called to do by his god.  He didn’t tolerate any obstacles in his way when it came to accomplishing his goals.  He demanded this attitude from the rest of his congregation.  If the Dark Lord’s will were to be done then there could be no obstacles.  He had commanded Brother Blood to perform the ritual that would bring Him back into the mortal plane.  Brother Blood would see to it that it was done or he would die before the sun rose and the new day began.

“I made a very clear instruction to you that you not try to warn The Daughter,” stated Brother Blood as he looked at the cowering couple in front of him.  “I cannot see how the Dark Lord even in His infinite wisdom could stomach the sight of you wretched humans, much less lie with one to produce a sire.  You shame The Daughter with your improper parenting.  You have no idea of the treasure you possess in Her.  You are unfit to even continue another second of your existence and before this night is done I will see you dead.”

“She’s going to come after you,” warned Mrs. Thorne.  “The police will–”

“Do nothing,” finished Brother Blood as he struck the woman across the jaw to silence her.  “We of the Church of Blood answer to a much higher authority than your pitiful human laws and the people who enforce them.  Nothing your champions of justice can do will stop our holy mission.”

“Please, Brother, I implore you to leave them be,” said Meredith.  “When The Daughter arrives, if you have killed them then She will be lost to us forever.”

“Keep your forked tongue in your mouth and remember your place,” admonished Blood.  “Still, your words do ring true.  Though you humans do break so easily, I will try to restrain myself until The Daughter arrives.”

Meredith watched Brother Blood leave the room, presumably to check with the guards posted at the front door and see if they had spotted anything.  She turned her attention back to the Thornes and felt nothing but anger towards them.  All her life, Meredith had been raised in the Church of Blood.  She was taught to revere The Daughter as a goddess but when she learned that The Daughter was Rachel that reverence turned into pure jealousy and hate.  It should have been her.  She had dutifully served the Church all her life and yet fate had chosen to spurn her loyalty and let the Dark Lord sire someone who was so unworthy of His lineage.  Meredith didn’t want Rachel to die so Armageddon could begin.  Meredith just wanted Rachel to die, period.  She couldn’t let anyone in the Church of Blood, even her parents, be aware of that though.  She had spent many years carefully controlling her jealousy so Brother Blood wouldn’t sense it.  Now that she was so close to the fruition of her plan, her restraint was beginning to slip.  She just hoped Brother Blood didn’t realize it until it was already too late.  She had worked too hard for anything to stand in her way now.

Rachel Roth took a very deep breath and then stopped her march towards her own home.  The noise of the bus she took to get there faded into the distance and the only noise Rachel could hear now was the beating of her own heart as it threatened to burst forth from her chest.  She had no other alternative though.  The Church of Blood had her foster parents in their custody, innocent lives that were drawn into a war they didn’t ask to become a part of.  The Thornes had been good parents to her and she wouldn’t see them harmed if she could help it.  They were screwed either way though.  If Rachel let the Church perform their ritual then their god would come and wipe out the entire human race.  If Rachel chose to run, the two people she cared about most in the world would die.  Was it worth losing the only real parents she had ever known just to save the rest of the world?  What kind of life would she have, always constantly running and looking over her shoulder to make sure the Church wasn’t on her heels?  Maybe if she could end this tonight then she wouldn’t have to run.

“This is either going to be the bravest thing I’ve ever done or the stupidest,” she said to herself before resuming her walk towards her front door.  “Let’s hope I live long enough to find out which it is.”

The two Church members at the door brandished their knives on instinct and then quickly returned them to their sheathes once they realized who was approaching them.  All the Church members knew what had happened to the one disobedient man who dared to strike The Daughter and they wouldn’t allow themselves to share his fate.

“Brother Blood awaits You inside,” said one of the guards.  “Your human parents still live.”

“Great, thanks for that,” said Rachel nonchalantly.  “Take me to your leader or whatever.”

The two Church members led her inside with the enthusiasm of small children.  Rachel made her way into the living room and saw her foster parents cowering in the corner with Meredith and another Church member standing watch.

“You care for these people,” said Brother Blood as he came down the stairs.  “Your Father would be ashamed of You.”

“Well maybe I’m going to let you complete your little ritual and that will make everything alright with Daddy,” said Rachel.  “There’s just one condition.  Let them go right now.  They’re not part of this.  This is between me and you people.”

“You are hardly in a position to bargain,” noted Brother Blood.

“You need me,” reminded Rachel.  “Let them go right now or I will walk out of this place and never come back.  I know none of your people are stupid enough to lay a finger on me to stop me.  So let my parents go right now and you can do with me whatever you want.”

“Rachel, you can’t,” said Mr. Thorne.  “Get out of here.”

“Do not even dare to call Her by that filthy name,” snarled Brother Blood.  “Her name is Raven.  It was the name given to Her by the Dark Lord.”

“I’m still waiting on my order,” reminded Rachel.

“If you insist,” agreed Brother Blood.

He motioned to two of his Church members and they led the Thornes out of the house.  Rachel watched through the window as the Church members took her foster parents outside and then returned inside, locking the door behind them to make sure the Thornes couldn’t interfere in what was about to happen.

“Where does this need to happen?” inquired Rachel.

“Wherever You would like,” replied Brother Blood.

“My room,” ordered Rachel before moving towards the staircase.  “If I’m going to die, I’d at least like to be comfortable while it happens.”

She opened the door to her room and looked around at it.  She had spent so much time in this room and in the end, it was her prison.  Ever since what happened with Megan and Eric, she had shut herself off from the rest of the world.  This room became her prison and now it would be her coffin.  She thought it was fitting in that weird way that could only make sense to her.

“It’s changed a lot from what Megan described,” noted Meredith as she and Brother Blood entered Rachel’s room while its owner took a seat on her bed.

“You might want to take a look at what’s inside that shoebox there on my desk,” noted Rachel absently.  “There’s some stuff I’d like you to have after I’m gone.”

“It won’t matter after You’re gone and the Dark Lord arrives,” reminded Meredith.

Rachel inwardly grinned as Meredith opened the shoebox anyway and looked through its contents.  She was starting to get a handle on these new abilities and she could feel the jealousy radiating from Meredith.  She knew that Meredith was jealous of her and she hoped that was the ace in the hole she needed to get herself out of this mess.

“You have agreed to cooperate with us so we will not restrain You,” stated Brother Blood.  “Do remember the bargain You struck with us.”

“I remember it,” noted Rachel.  “Hey, Meredith, you like the pictures?  That’s what a real friendship looks like.  Not that you would know anything about that.  The closest you ever got was using your voodoo to make everybody like you.”

“I didn’t need any friends,” retorted Meredith, the bitterness creeping into her voice despite her efforts against it.  “I had my church family.  They took care of me just fine.”

“Yeah, looks like they did,” said Rachel.  “So what gets under your skin more, Meredith?  Is it the fact that Megan was my best friend and not you or is it the fact that I’m the daughter and you’re not?”

“Be quiet or I will silence You myself,” warned Brother Blood, drawing the dagger from the folds of his cloak and readying it to deliver the final stroke.

“You’re going to kill me anyway so what difference does it make?” inquired Rachel smugly.  “As to you actually hurting me to shut me up, we both know that won’t happen.  You can’t actually hurt me except to kill me in this stupid ritual.  My father won’t allow it, will he?”

“It should’ve been me,” snarled Meredith and now the jealousy was out for all to see.  “You have everything I ever wanted and You don’t deserve it.”

“And you do?” goaded Rachel.  “For all your piety and your righteousness, you’re just a jealous, greedy bitch.  I’m kinda glad your power doesn’t work on me.  I’d be disgusted with myself if I fawned all over you like everyone else does.  I think if that happened I actually would want this jackass to kill me just so I could get away from you.  Is that why Megan killed herself, Meredith?  Did she just want to get away from you?”

“I was her best friend!” snapped Meredith angrily.  “I saved her and brought her into the Church.  I gave her a purpose.  You didn’t give her anything close to what I did!”

“I gave her the love of a best friend,” retorted Rachel.  “Yeah, that matters a lot more to me than it does to you but it does matter, doesn’t it?”

“I can smell the pungent stench of love and compassion coming off of you,” realized Brother Blood as he looked at Meredith Hiller.  “You have dishonored the Church, Sister Meredith.”

“Better use that knife on her then,” suggested Rachel.  “I mean what would my father say if you allowed her to go unpunished, right?”

“She’s manipulating us!” cried Meredith, trying to hide the fact that she had actually cared for Megan.  “She’s playing on our emotions!”

“She is finally behaving as The Daughter should,” reminded Brother Blood as he stalked towards Meredith.  “Meredith Hiller, you have forsaken your faith and must be punished for your transgressions.”

“You are a false prophet,” proclaimed Meredith.  “You are unworthy to claim the title of Brother Blood.”

Brother Blood attempted to strike at Meredith with the dagger but something unexpected happened.  The photos in the shoebox Meredith still held in her hands exploded from their housing, flying upward through the act of an unseen hand.  The flurry of photos made Meredith and Brother Blood both stagger backwards and halted Blood’s strike.  The photos glowed with black energy and surrounded Meredith, moving in circles so that her gaze couldn’t escape the images of Rachel and Megan, best friends who had been torn apart through her machinations.

“I’m getting pretty good with these powers,” decided Rachel, getting up from her bed and telekinetically wresting the dagger from Brother Blood’s grasp.  “I can see the feelings you’re having right now.  You all look like a bad acid trip with all the colors and emotions swirling around inside you.  It’s making me kinda dizzy.”

“Then I will allow You a reprieve,” declared Blood as he intended to strangle her with his bare hands.  “The Dark Lord specified that You must die during the ritual but He did not specify what condition You were in before the ritual commenced.”

“Oh but I bet he’d be really pissed if you hurt me,” reminded Rachel.  “See here’s the thing, you have no leverage here.  I’m the one with all the power and now I’m finally deciding to exercise it for once in my life.”

It only took one telekinetic shove to get Meredith and Brother Blood out the door and into the upstairs hallway.  The rest of the Church of Blood moved to attack but halted when they realized they couldn’t harm The Daughter.  Rachel felt good about finally getting the chance to lash out at her tormentors.  For too long, she had turned her anger inward and let it fester and grow.  Now she felt like unleashing it on the people who truly deserved it.

“All of you leave except for him,” she ordered the Church of Blood, singling out Brother Blood.

“Do not leave me to Her,” said Brother Blood in return.

The Church members looked to Blood and then to Rachel, realizing that even though Blood was their leader they couldn’t disobey a direct order from The Daughter.  Rachel was counting on that, counting on their devotion to their insane religion.  They would abandon their leader just because she told them to.  That power was intoxicating and she had to make sure that she didn’t get drunk off that power.  Blood was the one she wanted.  She knew his church would crumple without him and his followers would scatter unless he was there to keep them together.  If she cut off the head then the body would be helpless.

“Looks like church is out,” quipped Rachel as the Church members ran out of the door rather than suffer her wrath.  “Honestly, this whole night worked out a lot better than I expected.”

“I am Brother Blood,” snarled Blood as he suddenly pounced toward Rachel.  “I will not allow everything I have worked for to be destroyed by some spoiled child.  I will send You to meet Your Father if necessary.”

Rachel hadn’t counted on Blood’s reaction.  She tried to telekinetically shove him out of the way but Blood wouldn’t be denied.  He backhanded her across the jaw and Rachel could taste the blood in her mouth as she tried to regroup after the ferocious blow.  She didn’t know what to do now.  She hadn’t actually counted on a fight and was woefully unfamiliar with how to use her powers in a combat situation.

“Didn’t think you would do that,” admitted Rachel, wiping the blood off her lip.  Again, she tried to use her telekinesis against him but he wouldn’t be moved no matter how hard she tried.

“You are weak,” stated Blood as he grabbed her by the throat and lifted her into the air with just one hand.  “Your human emotions have always made You weak, Raven.  You choose to run away from Your destiny and spite all the work I have done.  I will not allow this disobedience to continue.  I am Your Father’s right hand.  I am His acolyte; I am His prophet.  I have bathed in the blood of hundreds of mortals, drank their very souls to sate my eternal hunger.  I shall bathe in Yours next and then I will be the anointed one.”

Rachel vainly struggled against Blood but his grip was too strong to break.  She could feel him tighten his fingers and it threatened to crush her windpipe like it was nothing more than a piece of paper.  Her vision was starting to grow dark as he cut off her supply of oxygen.  He was killing her and there wasn’t anything she could do to stop it.  It was then that something happened inside Rachel Roth.  It was almost like a survival instinct only magnified times a hundred.  A reservoir of untapped power suddenly sprang forth inside her.  Black energy exploded out of her body and the force of it broke Blood’s grip on her throat.  Rachel wasn’t herself anymore.  Blood had called her “Raven”, had told her it was the name given to her by her real father.  That was who she was in that moment.  She was Raven and she saw the world through the crimson, blood-red haze of her father’s power.

“You would dare to strike The Daughter?” she questioned Blood in a voice that clearly wasn’t her own.  “Your faith has been broken, Sebastian Blood.  You have rebelled against the Dark Lord and you must be punished for your sins.  I rebuke you in the name of my father!”

Tendrils of dark energy lanced forth from Raven’s fingertips and wrapped themselves around Brother Blood, lifting him up and threatening to tear him limb from limb.  Raven looked upon the man who claimed to be her father’s greatest prophet.  The man was nothing but a false prophet, a pathetic worm who only wanted power for himself.  He was so eager to follow her father into hell and she decided that she would grant him his heart’s desire.

“Please, I have only sought to do Your will,” pleaded Blood, knowing full well that the voice Raven was using was more her father’s than hers.  “I have done everything in Your name.”

“You will be punished,” repeated Raven as she held up her other hand and released a flock of demonic ravens from it.

The unholy creatures swirled around Brother Blood, pecking and clawing at him before coalescing into one giant bird that enveloped him in its wings.  She could feel Brother Blood’s very soul, or what was left of it, seeping out of him.  She was going to drag him straight to hell so he could face a far worse punishment from her father.  Raven had lost control of her emotions at that point, letting her anger and the demon inside her consume her.  All the feelings of loss she had experienced over the years were finally free from their cages.  Somewhere inside her, she knew what she was doing and realized she had to stop herself.  She wasn’t Raven, she was Rachel Roth.  She was born to a human mother, a mother who loved her enough to get her away from the monster her father was.  The human part of her knew that she couldn’t take Blood’s life no matter how much he might have deserved it.

‘You are my only daughter and you will prove to everyone now that you are your father’s daughter,’ ordered a voice inside her head that she could only guess was her real father’s.  ‘So commands Trigon the Terrible.’

“I will not kill him but he will no longer be a threat,” decided Raven aloud.

The dark energy that was her birthright receded back into her body and she watched Blood’s limp body crumple to the floor.  She gazed into his eyes and was satisfied with her work.  He was still alive but he was nothing more than a vegetable.  He had experienced horrors such as no living being had ever known while enveloped in her dark energy and those experiences had broken his mind beyond repair.  He was still alive but wouldn’t threaten her or anyone she loved ever again.

“I do love them,” said Rachel to herself as the darkness within her once again gave way to her human nature.  “I love my foster parents.  I loved Eric.  I loved Megan.”

Rachel Roth had tried to shut herself down inside for so long but there was one emotion she couldn’t turn off and it was the love she felt for the people around her.  Maybe that love was what kept her darkness at bay all these years.  Maybe it was what would keep it at bay now when it tried to overtake her.  Rachel wasn’t the heartless bitch everyone thought she was.  In fact, she was quite the opposite.

“Rachel?”

Rachel turned and looked at her foster parents as they stood in the doorway, not daring to cross the threshold and get anywhere near her.  She could see the love inside them, its bright violet glow mixing with the yellow aura of fear they also felt.  They were afraid of her and she had no right to put them in danger any longer.

“Call the GCPD and tell Detective Colton to come here,” ordered Rachel.  “I’m sorry but I won’t be here when they show up.  This is goodbye, Mom and Dad.  I can’t stay with you because they’ll always be after me and you’ll always be in the crossfire.  I’m sorry to have put you through this.  You were the best foster parents I ever had and you deserved a better daughter than me.”

Rachel closed her eyes and summoned up her dark powers.  They enveloped her like a cloak and in a flash of black she was gone.  Catherine and Robert Thorne stared at the spot where she had been and stood there dumbstruck.  The sirens of the police cars echoed in the distance.

The good thing about being able to teleport was that she didn’t have to rely on the bus anymore.  Rachel counted that as one of the few positive aspects of her new abilities.  The Church of Blood would always be out there so it was time to get out of Gotham.  She just had one final stop to make before officially starting her life on the run.  When the teleportation ended, Rachel found herself inside the cemetery and made her way to one headstone in particular.

“I just wanted to say goodbye before I leave,” she told the headstone, placing the rose she got from a flower shop at its base.  “I’m sorry, Megan.  You did something really bad to me but I know it wasn’t your fault.  You were a really great friend and I should’ve been a better one to you.  I should’ve tried to help you instead of being mad at you.  I hope you can forgive me for that.”

Rachel Roth closed her eyes and said a silent prayer to the forces that ran the universe.  She hoped that there was an afterlife so that maybe, just maybe, she could see her best friend again.  Rachel doubted that she would ever go to Heaven even if there was one.  She could always hope though.  With her prayer finished, she kept her eyes closed and summoned her dark powers once more, She disappeared from sight and all that was left behind was a black feather that gently floated to the ground to rest beside the rose at the grave of Megan Waters.

It was all gone now.  Brother Blood was gone and his Church was left to fend for themselves.  Meredith Hiller couldn’t process what was going on.  She couldn’t deal with the fact that her entire world was falling apart.  There were no words to describe it and Meredith needed words more than she needed air to breathe.  Words were her weapon and now she had been stripped of them.  She saw the other Church members argue with one another on the best course of action.  All she could do was stare at the cover of the book they had retrieved from Brother Blood’s private study.

“We are not allowed to touch such a thing,” said one Church member.  “Brother Blood forbade it.”

“Blood no longer exists,” stated Meredith as she opened the book.  She was almost blown off her feet by the influx of power and soon all the members of the Church of Blood saw the glowing, red eyes that hovered in the air.

“Your God is most displeased with your incompetence,” stated Trigon.  “With Blood gone, you are of no further use to me.”

“Please have mercy on us, Lord,” begged Meredith as she and the others knelt and subjected themselves to Trigon’s soul-crushing gaze.  “We have failed to be an obedient church.  We have failed to carry out Your will.”

“My daughter showed Blood no mercy and I should do the same to you as well,” said Trigon.  “Yet I find myself inclined to do something else.  Mortal named Meredith Hiller, you showed the making of a fine acolyte.  Your jealousy, greed, and anger please me.  I only wish my daughter could act as you do.”

“Oh thank you, Lord,” gushed Meredith and she felt her heart surge at the words of her savior.  “I will rededicate my life to Your service, Lord.  I will not fail to carry out Your commands ever again.”

“The mantle of Brother Blood shall be left vacant until I am able to find a suitable replacement,” decreed Trigon.  “Until that time, the Church is yours.  You are now my acolyte, Meredith.”

“I humbly accept my position, Lord,” said Meredith, finally turning her eyes upward to meet Trigon’s.  “If it may please You, I wish not to be called by that name anymore.”

“And what shall I call you?” inquired Trigon.

“I wish to be called ‘Raven’,” said Meredith.  “I wish to be the daughter You deserve.”

San Francisco, Three Weeks Later

It had been a hectic life on the run but things might have been starting to settle down.  Rachel didn’t want to put too much faith in it though.  She spent her entire life in a constant state of skepticism and some habits were very hard to break.  She was starting to settle now and the craving for human connection was gnawing at her.  She couldn’t exactly give in to that craving though, at least not in a conventional sense.  She had, however, discovered the power of the internet and its wonderful ability to bring together those who were deemed socially unfit by their peers.

Rachel sighed as she took a sip of her coffee and stared at the computer in front of her before typing in a URL.  The statement of the message board stared back at her, telling her to “Look To The Skies” in a sense of urgency that demanded her attention.  She had discovered the message board during her frequent web-crawling and had hemmed and hawed about getting an account for the better part of a week before finally coming to a decision.  She wasn’t going to become what her father wanted.  She was going to reach out to people, make friends with them, love them.  She was going to be human.

Rachel stared at the screen and tried to think of an appropriate handle.  She wasn’t exactly Rachel Roth the innocent teenager anymore but she was hardly Raven the demonic daughter either.  So maybe she should pick something that represented how stuck in the middle she felt.  She grinned as she typed “Gotham_Raven” into the text box and then clicked the button to register.  It wasn’t a Facebook account by any means but it was at least something.  She poked around the board, scrolling through whatever threads she found interesting before logging off the computer and finishing her coffee.  Once that was complete, she headed outside.

Rachel’s powers were starting to become a real annoyance.  The latest case was that moment when she received a flash of emotional pain.  Someone was hurting or at least hurting worse than normal.  Rachel trained her eyes towards the source of the emotional cry for help.  She was learning to develop this sixth sense, the ability to read and track people by their emotional auras.  She could sense the fear coming from a nearby rooftop and ascended to it in a quick teleportation.  She stood there and watched the young girl peer over the ledge, watched her try and summon the courage to end her life.

“You’re about to make a really big mistake,” said Rachel, startling the girl with her words.

“I don’t know who the hell you are but you need to not be here,” stated the girl as she whirled around in Rachel’s direction.

“You’re hurting,” said Rachel as she gingerly moved towards the girl, giving her the impression that she wasn’t a threat.  “Trust me when I say that I know what that’s like.  I know what it’s like to want to do what you want to do right now.  It’s not worth it though.  You may not believe in God or an afterlife or maybe you do.  Personally, I don’t but even I know that what you’re going to do isn’t right.”

“I don’t want to keep going on like this,” said the girl.

“The let me do what I do and I’ll take away the pain,” promised Rachel before hugging the girl who couldn’t have been much older than she was.

Rachel touched the girl’s forehead and let all the pain flow into her, bottling it up in a corner of her soul where she could keep it separate from her own emotions.  The girl looked at her with a hollow quality to her stare before wandering towards the door that would take her back inside the building.  Rachel knew the girl was emotionally numb after having her pain and fear taken away but she would recover with time.  That was the wonderful thing about humans.  They were resilient like that, always able to bounce back from things.  Some new, better emotion was always waiting to fill the void left behind by the damaging one.

“I could save everyone a lot of grief and trouble,” muttered Rachel to herself as she looked over the edge of the roof and saw the city the way that girl had.  “I bet you’d like it if I did that, Dad.  You’d like me to just take that little step and close my eyes.”

Rachel tried to separate the emotions she siphoned from the girl with her own but they were too similar and they bled together.  She wondered what it would be like to take that one step.  She wondered what it would be like to fly for a split second and then feel nothing at all.  She had spent too long trying to do that though, feeling nothing at all.  There were things you couldn’t numb yourself to though.  She had spent too long trying to pretend that she didn’t care about things, that she didn’t feel love towards the people around her.  So now it was time to try new things, to become something else that was different than Rachel or Raven, at least the Raven her father wanted her to be.

“Sorry, Dad,” apologized Rachel before looking up at the skyline of her new home.  “Making you happy isn’t very high on my to-do list these days.  I know you’d probably like it if I died so I think I’ll just live to piss you off instead.  I really hope I turn out a huge disappointment for you.”

Rachel felt the dark power well up in her hand and she shoved all the foreign emotions that weren’t hers into that energy.  A bird of dark energy flew from her hand, fluttering its wings as it glided through the air.  It dissipated quickly, the negative emotions searching for someone else to infect with their poison.  Rachel felt herself cleansed somehow and let a genuine smile grace her lips.  She watched the sun finally come up from the horizon and then disappeared in a flash of black, a shadow dispersing in the light of a new day.