Chapter XXXI

The Unfortunate Events of October 31st: Part Two

"N o…" Hamilton reluctantly held himself off from immediately following. The urge in Jeremiah's eyes had told him to stay away, to get himself, Lysander, and Gabriel out of here, and while everything in Hamilton was telling him to hightail it back to the castle, he didn't want to let Jeremiah out of his sight for too long. He was so afraid of what would come from this damned attention.

"Come on," Hamilton tugged Lysander and Gabriel to follow, hating the distance he couldn't even feel between him and Jeremiah.

"What about Jeremiah?" Lysander worried.

Hamilton bit his lip, turning their hasty walk into a run until they reached the vehicle they'd arrived in at the rear of a far-off lot. They'd escaped the eyes of many and with not a single soul around them at the moment, Hamilton opened the backseat door and lightly pushed for his sons to enter. "Go home," he insisted. "Master as quickly as you can and find your father. I have to go to Jeremiah to make sure he escapes those following him. Do you understand?"

"We don't want to leave you," Gabriel said.

"I'll be perfectly fine," Hamilton promised. "Do this for your brother, yeah?"

They nodded and Hamilton kissed their foreheads with a faint smile. When he closed the door to the car, Gabriel and Lysander disappeared into their controlled mastering, and Hamilton opened his hearing to track what direction he should start. He'd taken to the rooftops of the buildings, ran and leapt with faultless agility as he drew nearer to a commotion overflowing with distress.

"Jeremiah," Hamilton said under the loose mask of his costume. "Please, no…"

Alongside the colossal burst of fearful anxiety pushing into the atmosphere, the strong waft of blood carried into the late October air, and when Hamilton leapt from one rooftop to the next, he halted when he descended into the dark crevice of a backstreet and happened upon a nightmarish scene.

As if faced with one of the many brutish and mentally lost rogues from a time long past, Hamilton's still heart ached far more than it had in many years. Littered about the stone ground were the bodies of the two officers that'd pursued Jeremiah, their limbs torn and torsos shredded to pieces.

When Hamilton took a step forward and the sound of his movement scuffing the ground drew Jeremiah's attention, the blood coating his son's mouth was spotted as well as the soulless white of Jeremiah's eyes that stared daggers into him.

"Oh, my sweet boy," Hamilton said. "What have you done?"

"God, help us all," a low, panicked voice whispered, and when Hamilton turned his eyes to the mouth of the alley, three additional officers appeared. They'd clearly come due to the urgent report spoken through their two-way radios but happening upon a bloodbath had frozen them in their tracks.

Marking them as his next targets, Jeremiah's cold stare sent a crash of alarm into the officer's; he may as well have put his focus onto them due to the sound of their heartbeats and the tense apprehension filling their veins. Although he could see them clearly in the surrounding shadows, it was more like he was following the pull of the nearest source of vitality; the aroma of their fight or flight instincts powdering the air struck Jeremiah's nose. The mix of fear and appall were magnetizing.

When one of the officers raised a blinding flashlight at Jeremiah's face, they gasped as they took in the fearsomeness of his altered form: the pointed ears, the snarl of his blood-coated mouth, angry rut in his brow, and the dangerous length of the knife-like nails sprouting from his fingertips all looked ferocious.

Jeremiah hissed and sprang in their direction, the officers flinching and screaming as a force collided with Jeremiah to avoid them.

Barreling his son off to the side, Hamilton's heart twinged when he shoved Jeremiah with all the strength his body wielded, and he turned a serious gaze up at the officers. "If you know what's good for you, you'd run!" he warned, not quite sure if he could hold a being like Jeremiah off, more so since all his thoughts were taken up by grief at the understanding that all of this was bad and his son couldn't see him.

A hand wrapped around Hamilton's arm then and he was slung away with great strength, the impact of his body striking the wall of the alley creating a splinter of cracks in the surface.

Hamilton's brain rattled and his vision dazed, but Jeremiah disregarded him and kept his sights on the men in uniform. They trembled and backed away, one now shouting commands and warnings into his radio, and when they retreated from the mouth of the alley, Jeremiah pursued.

"Jeremiah!" Hamilton shouted, working himself up and he shook the dizziness away.

Screams erupted when Jeremiah stepped from the alley, spotted now by panicked pedestrians that scattered in all directions, others feeling trapped in silent fear ducking behind stalled vehicles.

The moment Jeremiah darted for the officers, Hamilton sprinted forward and cut him off, swatting away the bat of Jeremiah's claws when they swiped. Due to Hamilton's persistence, Jeremiah's attention fastened onto him just as the former slayer wanted, and a bloodcurdling roar resounded all over. This being shooting hatred from his eyes looked into Hamilton as if he were nothing; he was less than a stranger.

"Jeremiah, please," Hamilton begged, dodging when his lost boy reached for him.

Worries for the attention drawn onto them spread when an even darker shadow expanded from Jeremiah's back.

Unfolding in their great span, the dhampir's wings burst through his shirt, tearing the fabric as it fell away. Hollers of horror rang through the streets as the onlooking pedestrians scattered further, and when the scent of their franticness seemed to draw Jeremiah's cravings, the pulse of his wings pushed him to chase the nearby urgency of a young couple hurrying away.

No one in the vicinity was safe, no man, woman, or child. Jeremiah's hunt pinpointed each heartbeat nearby as attractive prey, and when he zipped through the air and reached to snatch the screaming woman from the ground, a blond figure replaced her vision and reluctantly sent a solid strike bashing across Jeremiah's face.

"Get out of here, now!" Hamilton ordered the quivering couple. He hated this, the aggression in the air, this entire situation, and the fact that he'd just laid a harmful hand on his son. I have to , he thought miserably to himself. Never in all his years as a parent had the thought to hurt one of his boys flitted through his mind, but he also couldn't allow any more blood of the innocent to stain Jeremiah's hands.

In his quick recovery after colliding with a stalled car, Jeremiah kept his blazing eyes on Hamilton whose back was turned for a second too long. The dhampir neared in a flash, utilizing the hooked talon at the end of his wing, and he rammed the dreadful point into Hamilton's back.

Hidden eyes were glued to the scene when Hamilton lurched and groaned and was raised off the ground, but there was awe mixed into those watching from afar when Hamilton plucked himself free and avoided the hammering fist driven his way.

The hole in Hamilton's lower stomach poured blood, but he was grateful to hardly feel it as anything other than uncomfortable as his flesh slowly closed .

When Jeremiah's fist fractured the Earth before him, Hamilton grappled his arm and whipped him to the ground. He could only counter, couldn't treat this bout like the sort of tasks he'd partaken in several decades ago. And he was rusty. It'd been a long time since Hamilton had to put up any form of effort to survive a brawl to the death. Even as a mentor to his young sons, the survival instincts were absent from Hamilton's core, even more so distant from him as the face looking back at him was that of Jeremiah's.

After all, he didn't want to fight this battle!

Not a second went by when Jeremiah struck the stone, and he was hot on Hamilton's trail. He tackled the former slayer into a towering light post, causing sparks to rain from above as it toppled.

Rolling away from the pierce of Jeremiah's hand that attempted to strike his chest, Hamilton spun into a devastating kick that rammed against his son's face. "Wake up!" he cried. "Please, wake up, Jeremiah!"

Hearing no such words, Jeremiah's claws at last met their target, scoring Hamilton's face, tearing through the flesh of his cheek, and he went down hard.

Hamilton struck the side of a box truck, denting the surface before falling to his hands and knees. When his eyes looked upon his fingers as he pushed himself to stand, trickling drops of blood staining the ground fell from his eyes and wounds. He hated to feel these sorrows in a moment so harrowing, but Hamilton couldn't help it.

As the loose, scarf-like mask fell away from his face, the rake of claw marks across his cheek mended themselves, and Hamilton watched Jeremiah's focus fall onto another; an older man dressed as a clown crouched behind another car. In the man's hand was a mobile phone he used to record what was happening.

Either too afraid to move or too focused on the footage he captured of this moment, the man remained where he was as Jeremiah followed the tune of his heartbeat.

Stepping into a cloud of his mastering, Jeremiah reemerged from the black mass directly before the man, menacing clicks and snarls sounding from him, and his sudden appearance apparently at last brought the man's thoughts to retreat forward.

"AHH!" the man fumbled his phone and fell flat on his bottom.

Jeremiah screeched and pounced, but the weight that met his backside changed the course of his hostility. He reached behind him and buried his nails into Hamilton's shoulder and ripped him away, but Hamilton held onto Jeremiah's arm so as not to be slung to the ground again.

"Wake up, Jeremiah," Hamilton urged. He then turned his weight against Jeremiah's shoulder to hold him down, but the power put behind Jeremiah's wings lifted them off the ground.

They soared high above the buildings as stunned eyes watched from below, sirens blaring from afar as red and blue lights weaved through the streets toward where the outlandish reports of real monsters originated.

As Hamilton clung to his son who brought them further into the sky, it was almost as if Jeremiah had forgotten he was being held onto by another.

With his arms circled around his son's neck, Hamilton looked over his close view of Jeremiah's face. This being looked nothing like his boy, smelled nothing like him, and the fierceness of his profile was detached. Regardless of the wind being far too loud to hear anything else, Hamilton squeezed his eyes shut, holding on as well as he could, and he whispered into his son's ear.

"Come back, Jeremiah," he implored. "We can't fix what's been done, but we can go home. Please, come home." He touched Jeremiah's cheek and the wicked glare in his son's eyes told of their distance. Every word he spoke went unheard, and his pleading was useless. Jeremiah was so far from him he may as well be gone.

"Please, listen to me!"

Jeremiah froze midair when the shout of Hamilton's appeal at last met his ear, but instead of registering the words and who they'd come from, the dhampir closed a tight grasp around Hamilton's throat and removed him from his body.

Get away from me…

"Jeremiah, wait!" Hamilton tried to hold as fast as he could to his son's forearm. They were so high up.

Absent thought, Jeremiah tore Hamilton's grip from him and shoved, watching without a care as the man who'd given him life gasped and plummeted through the night sky. Sudden cravings were calling to him.

He was starving.

***

Materializing together in the center of the grand foyer, Gabriel and Lysander had yet to let go of each other's hand as they immediately raced for the pull of their father's presence. The halls of the castle seemed so much longer than usual, as though Demiesius' office was at the furthest path with unbeatable obstacles in their way.

There were so many thoughts racing through them, terrors, as they weren't sure how this situation would play out. They were scared for their brother, for their dad, but there was also a sudden worry that entered them for their father. Each of the Titus boys knew Demiesius as a sturdy yet anxious man whose family centered around his heart. Gabriel and Lysander were afraid he might explode when they brought him this troubling news.

As if feeling the anxious approach of his sons, Demiesius emerged from his office, Eros and Nabadias standing over their fellow elder's shoulder; all three of them determined a tenseness meet the air.

"Boys," Demiesius said. His worries were already sky-high at the understanding that they'd arrived home alone. "What's happened?"

Lysander crashed into his father and held on tight, the back of his hair receiving a gentle touch when Gabriel began to frantically explain. "When we were at the festival, everything was fine until…until people started to recognize Jeremiah from the old news report. So many people were thinking about him being a monster, and when we tried to leave, two policemen stopped us."

A cold flash seared through Demiesius' body at the words, as if his heart froze over under a far more rigid temperature. "Where is he?" he questioned, trying to keep his voice calm, and Lysander's embrace grew tighter. Demiesius was beyond afraid at this moment, but he couldn't let his sons see his distress on the surface.

"We don't know," Gabriel was saddened to admit. "Jeremiah ran from us. It was like he wanted to get away before anyone's suspicions stopped on us."

Suddenly unable to reach Hamilton due to an unstable wall of anxiety jumbling his husband's psyche, Demiesius softly pulled Lysander from him. "And your dad?"

A light shake met Lysander's body, hands jittering so uncontrollably Demiesius had to hold them to stop their quiver. "Dad st?stayed to go after Jere?miah," the boy said, voice uneven. "He told us to come to y?you."

"You did good to do so," Demiesius nodded, and he gave Lysander's hands a squeeze as if leaving a speck of his strength behind. He immediately readied to begin his own pursuit until he looked past Gabriel and there Min-jae stood with a fussing Tae-min in his arms.

The whining of the small boy lying in his father's arms turned into a distressing sob, ringing Demiesius' ears in a tune far too familiar for his liking. Suddenly his surroundings felt much like they had on an evening in 1973, when the world was at its bleakest and tragedy gripped his newly formed family.

"Something is wrong with Jeremiah?" Min-jae questioned, nearing as he tried to soothe the baby.

One of the last things Demiesius wanted was for Min-jae to be afraid, but as it seemed Tae-min was already having a reaction due to this stress, the elder tried to hold fast to his composure and stepped around Lysander. As something that was known to Demiesius now, dhampir children were attached to their parents' everything, to their mind and souls far more intimately than that of a mere blood child.

Just as he'd learned some years after Hamilton's initial death, Jeremiah had spoken of his experience being able to feel the moment Hamilton's life faded, and that being the reason he'd cried so heavily that dreadful night as an infant.

As Demiesius' ears rang due to the wail of his grandson, he clenched his fists, and said, "Something has happened in the city. I must see to Jeremiah."

"I'll come," Min-jae immediately insisted.

"No," Demiesius tried not to sound so demanding, so on edge, but he hadn't time to explain further. "Stay with your son; as I must tend to mine."

"Is he hurt?" Min-jae questioned over the writhing cry of his son. "Is Jeremiah hurt?"

Demiesius couldn't answer the fretful question even if he wanted to, and he couldn't waste any more time. The longer he couldn't reach Hamilton or Jeremiah, the deeper this angst would sink its claws into him. "Stay here," he instructed yet again. "Tend to your son as I see to mine."

And then Demiesius looked to Gabriel who seemed to be trying to pass a calmness of his own into Lysander, but the youngest appeared far too frightened of the unknown to find peace. Never had Demiesius seen such fear in his sons, and while he wished to cleanse them of it to bring reassurance and a return of their usual smiles, the night was far too daunting.

"Go to your brothers," Demiesius said, softly turning Gabriel and Lysander and pushing them on. He couldn't spend any more time here to inform Sebastian and Avery of what was going on. They would grow their own fears as well, but he had to go, and he had to go now.

Ignoring any further arguments Min-jae was on the verge of making, Demiesius was accompanied by Eros and Nabadias, and they traveled as a unit to a point that sat at the center of London. The dark world opened up when the elder's stepped from their respective shadows on the rooftop of Nocturnal Heights. The cool of the breeze was thick with tension, yet welcoming in its temperature, the sound of the wind's howl from this high up like a haunting score as they each listened and tried to determine where to go.

To listen, however, was made difficult due to the activeness of the city on a night like this. Vampires and humans alike were out and about, and this location was just as lively as any human establishment below. Excitement and ecstasy ruled the atmosphere, but still Demiesius tried to push through.

"Focus, Brother," Nabadias said, nearing the edge of the roof and he scanned the night's skyline.

When Demiesius made an attempt to bring Hamilton's focus onto him, to utilize their mental link and call out to him, still nothing stuck.

Where are you, my love?

Speak to me!

The harder they listened, the further they listened, the elder's ears were met by screams and laughter. But the screams were coming from various directions, all of which sounded like genuine terror but told nothing of why such terror was experienced. They could see the Halloween festival from where they were, could feel the intensity of the thrill taking place all over the city, but nothing about this liveliness was helping. If anything, every gathering, whether big or small, was causing a hindrance to Demiesius' focus.

"Please, listen to me!"

"There!" Eros shouted, grabbing Demiesius' forearm, and he rushed them to the south edge of the building. The distant tone of distress was heightened but sounded like Hamilton.

When Nabadias joined them and their vision spotted a dark speck rising into the sky, the restlessness burdening Demiesius went into overdrive. The world was open, filled with onlookers down below and all over. The far away speck rising into the sky was that of a being no ordinary or unaware human had ever laid eyes on until this moment.

Tonight, it seemed, the cloak once draped over immortal existence would be thrown away, but that was the least of Demiesius' worries at a time like this. He had to reach his husband, and he had to reach his son. Regardless of the watchful world, they were his focus.

"Apprehend him," Demiesius said, Eros and Nabadias moving without second thought, and he sprang from the rooftop of Nocturnal Heights and toward another.

Demiesius pushed himself as hard as he could, able to hear Hamilton's fright clearly when he was suddenly tossed from Jeremiah's hand midair and was sent hurling to the ground like a weighted stone. He seemed so impossibly far away, even more so when Hamilton's form disappeared beyond the ledge of a lower building. He wasn't screaming, wasn't afraid of how hard he would strike the ground, and he seemed to reach out for Jeremiah who only grew further and further away.

Demiesius pushed the strength in his legs faster, and he pushed from the edge. In the second Hamilton's body nearly struck the cobblestone below, the vampire's weight dropped safely into Demiesius' arms and they haphazardly came to a stop when the elder turned to protect Hamilton, the elder's back colliding with the stone pillar of a building.

Stunned by his husband's abrupt arrival as the stone crumbled around them, Hamilton's red-blemished eyes looked upon Demiesius as though every hope was already lost and he clung to this man he loved. "Demi," he cried out, "I couldn't reach him!"

Demiesius didn't know what words would work to conjure a comfort in Hamilton.

"He looked at me like I was nothing!"

The elder downed a solid and burning ball of ice in his throat. There was nothing he could say. Without wasting any more time, Demiesius merely returned Hamilton to the front steps of their home before leaving him behind with a plea to have faith and comfort their young sons. If there was anywhere Hamilton was needed, it was their home.

As Demiesius emerged from his shadowy transport, the awestruck onlookers of mortals on the streets watched as he stepped from the mists of his mastering, and Demiesius tracked the movement of his brothers from there.

Nothing would be the same after this night.

The veil over the immortal world was gone and so too was his son.