Hallows: Duets

Prologue: The Enemy

The Plot In You- Enemy 

The perfect soldier. That's been the goal of the Helsing Family from the moment they discovered the existence of the supernatural and they'd do anything to obtain this goal. Backed by the church, our resources have essentially become limitless. Everything we do is for the salvation of humanity. To rid the world of evil entities that feed on our mortality. 

At least, that's what we're told our entire lives so we endure our training. 

I remember the first time my father hit me. The pride in his eyes as I lay on the ground bleeding out. Beaten beyond recognition. I wasn't ready to stop fighting but I could barely move. I was five years old. It wasn't long after that when he put a blade in my hand. That same night, I went home, and waiting for me was a monster. 

Abigail Drake was the Texas Coyote—a serial killer with a taste for the blood of hunters who had taken the vow. My mother had been after her for weeks. It is something one would expect from these creatures. For it to come in the night. To cloak itself in darkness. I still remember the sound of my mother gasping for air as that animal ripped her soul out of her body. The moment she hit the floor, lifeless.

At the time, I didn't know what it meant and for years after, I refused to believe the truth. That thing didn't kill my mother out of spite. She did it out of love. I was twenty-seven when I figured it out and by then, it was too late. I devised my own fate. I betrayed the only two beings that ever cared about me. That ever loved me. For nothing other than the lies I was brought up with. For a vengeance that wasn't real. Just more lies and manipulation from the person I thought I loved the most. My father. 

I can still hear Ashley gasping for air as she clutched her swollen abdomen. It keeps me up at night. Taunts me day in and day out. Every time I look into B.B.'s eyes. I see it. The fear and betrayal in Ash's eyes. I hear the screams of the people Dante killed in order to keep his daughter and Ashley from dying because of what I did. 

"What did you do, David?" she cried as the wound on her shoulder inflicted by a holy relic attempted to remove all the impurities in her body. Starting with the baby still growing inside of her. 

I'd wished for death long before that moment, but never needed the relief of it until then. These f*****g marks all over my body keep me alive. They keep me going. With a simple command, I lose everything that I am and the order to kill the thing growing inside of Ashley had been given the moment her second pregnancy had been announced. 

Dante and Ashley Blackstone expecting their second child. 

The words had warmed me. I was happy for a moment. I loved the idea of them finding everything they sought to have in their life without me. I had left Hellbourne after Dante and I fought in Texas. After finding out what I was. After I tried to take Ashley from him. I only wish he had finished me off that night. I wish she hadn't stopped him. 

I would have died happy with his hands around my throat as he crushed me into nothing. I wanted him to. A part of me had wished for Dante to kill me for years, but sweet little Ashley wouldn't let him take the shot. It would have destroyed him. It would have destroyed all of us, but there would have been peace and his daughters wouldn't have become what they are. 

Belladonna is so much like her mother but she's the equivalent of her father. The way she smiles like it might be the last time she'll ever be happy. The sound of her voice has traces of him in it. The way she snaps when she's overwhelmed. The passion for a life that isn't guaranteed. She always plans ahead and I think it's because a part of her knows that she's not going to make those plans.

She deserves more than the life she was dealt. I hate that I had hand in her suffering. Dante's death hit us all really hard. I barely remember the days that followed. When I returned to Hellbourne, Ash was alone with two little girls she wasn't equipt to raise without him or the others. Carson and Lucien were alone. I had lost track of Teegan's daughter for a while until I saw her with B.B. and Stacy. I had taken Dylan to his mother in France but it had been a mistake. Marco didn't fare any better. 

Hiding them from the hunters was difficult. I had wanted them to stay away from Hellbourne but it's in their nature to find their way home. To protect the gates of hell. 

The two of them created something beautiful. Delilah from an early age showed promise of something undeniably rare. Her focus and dominance were absolutely divine. Just like Ashley's. Unlike Ashley, Delilah didn't like to fight. Her power spoke for itself. Like her father and when all else failed, Carson, Lucien, and B.B. made sure no one disrespected their Queen. Things would be different for them if she had not ended up on that chandelier. They would have changed the world together. 

B.B. What is there really to say about B.B. that hasn't already been said? She kind of snuck up on all of us. From the very start, I knew she was going to be dangerous. Her ability to draw people in. To have them kneel before her. Her radiance is as bright as her father's. The one thing that B.B. has that Dante only ever had for Ash and me, is empathy. While he thought the world owed him for his suffering, B.B. honestly believes it's her who owes the world. 

Merciful Death hadn't been around since the fourteen hundreds when it walked through the entire Colombian region becoming a saint. The Golden Viper is the kind of death merchant that devastated entire Empires. It hadn't been around since the reign of Gilgamesh. One of the oldest and most powerful Reapers to ever live. He was believed to be half god. If things were only that simple. 

Dante was created to breed stronger Hallows. To unite the stone. The Blackstones are officially the only Hallows that can breed with others of their kind. Well, the dual wielder can. There are others. Accidental experiments but they're not like her or him. They can't create more of what they are the way B.B. and Dante were able to. Even if the same steps are followed. I'm not sure what makes them different. 

My thoughts all take me back to the year when it all went wrong. Maybe it had gone wrong from the moment Ashley came into our lives. It had been Dante's thirteenth birthday. I saw the way he looked at the girl sitting at the piano in the middle of the founding festival. I had never seen so much emotion in his eyes. It wasn't love. It was hate. Pure, unhinged, and all-consuming. She woke up something ugly in him. Something only she could love. 

"You deserve to live like this," were Dante's last words to me. 

I'll never stop believing in those words because they're true. I deserve to live with all this guilt and pain. I deserve to suffer the wrath of the marks I accepted to carry. I don't deserve to look that little girl in her eyes and tell her how much I love her. How much I wish that she would smile the way Ashley used to. And if she kills me if any of them kill me. It would be a mercy. Short mercy because I know what awaits me in hell and I can't wait to get there.