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I don’t think Emerson expected we would turn on him and take the side of our human town over him. I don’t think he even considered that we would want to kill him.
His eyes darted between us, and I saw his fear. He knew we would end him if given half a chance.
What we didn’t anticipate, what neither of us noticed in our rage, was that he had managed to get his hands on a large iron stoker, now red hot from the flames. He swung it with speed and force at Oswald’s left side. He tried to block it but was caught off guard. His sword was drawn, but even so, this had given Emerson the opening he needed. Feet bounding up the stairs, we gave chase. I thought he was trapped in the hall, but he didn’t stop running.
When I saw the window ahead, I realized his plan and knew he'd be lost to us if we couldn’t catch him before he reached it.
I put all the force I could in my pace, mere inches away from him as he crashed through the glass and wood, tumbling through the air to the ground and landing on his feet like a cat. Without glancing behind him, he was racing off into the forest. Gone.
Tracking him was possible, but we would have to leave Roanoke unguarded to do so safely, and I wasn’t willing to abandon these people again. I had already failed them once and needed to see to the living to offer peace.
Slowly we gathered the survivors, and there weren’t many. Most of them had died with the horror of the atrocities they lived etched on their faces. We gathered them in the square. Compelling them to cover themselves, to forget their plight for now, and to be still. It was the best comfort we could give them at the time.
We then set out to gather the dead. Children and men who were murdered in their homes instead of in the church, elderly, and women who bled so deeply that they didn’t clot and just bled out wherever he had left them. We dug a mass grave two miles into the woods.
Deep and wide.
We gently placed every single person Emerson mutilated and harmed in neat rows. We were keeping families together as best as we could. There were gaps, the men he’d burned in the church and the survivors. So we smartened up their loved ones, tucking away the horrors, wiping away the blood, making it look like they could be sleeping.
Oswald and I did the same with the living. They were cleaned and given back their modesty. We led them to the grave and gave each of them a choice. We could heal them and spare their minds or send them to be with their loved ones who were ready to be put to rest.
Each woman chose death.
The weight of what happened was too heavy for any of them to bear.
I judged not a single one of them.
One by one, we took them gently into our arms, compelled to be unafraid, and took their lifeblood. After placing them with their families, we covered them all. Burying them didn’t need to take all night, but we didn’t use our excess speed to fill the grave. No, we dug like mortals and suffered with our guilt for bringing this fate upon them.
Croatoan leaders came by with their mystics as the sun rose, and we finished our task.
They saw us covered with blood, the townspeople gone, and Emerson was missing.
Understanding colored all of their eyes. They knew he was the reason, and they knew he wiped the town out. Their magic and elders told them what was passing in Roanoke after we left. They knew they couldn’t reach us in time to help, but they came to support us.
It was a comfort we didn’t deserve but deeply appreciated.
We had an agreement. They would never speak of us or the grave and would let what happened die with the town. We would leave, never to return, and we would one day find the monster that did this and give him his due.
That's what I intend to do tonight.
As Rolando and the others prepare for our fight, I look inward and vow to all of Roanoke that their justice would soon be served.
Rolando once asked me why the council didn’t intervene with Emerson, and the truth was darker than he’d expected.
They didn’t care.
When Roanoke happened, the world was much larger. No one even noticed the little town was gone until years after it happened. Emerson wasn’t stupid, he didn’t do anything on such a large scale again, at least not that Oz or I heard about. Isaac, head of the council and a slimy power-hungry vampire, deemed it unnecessary to deal with Emerson. He insisted it was my responsibility to deal with him and wasn’t willing to help in the search or dispatch of my progeny.
Oz and I had almost caught up to him in Brazil, Spain, and India. Once we caught sight of him back in France but we were around a slew of humans and unable to act on the sighting itself. He’d disappeared and used the cover of the crowd to hide his scent.
Our contacts quit seeing him, our other coven members had similar experiences. We tried for centuries before we decided it was best to position someone to keep their ears open. Taka knew all about Emerson, what he’d done, the things he was capable of, and the company he kept. He chose to go in anyway, wanting redemption for his own mistakes and seeking to earn a place of respect in our coven.
Pulling up to an abandoned house on the outskirts of town we arrive at the last place I expect to be.
Emerson, here?
My assumption that he lives in comfort, believing himself untouchable enough to take up someplace that would allow for him to live out his grandiose fantasies, proves false.
