The dead who lives

Alexandria placed a steaming cup on the table, letting herself go in the chair.

She felt damned tired, she needed to rest after the long waking hours, yet the excitement of being in front of Levi and having his hands tight around the neck still vibrated inside her: pure adrenaline that moved between the veins. What she had experienced could be described as a sort of melody that had been hidden from her ears for too long - the ballad of blood. And that feeling was both sweet and exhausting, even if she never would have allowed herself to confess it, in particular because she had no idea where that thought came from. Was it the thrill of having tested his homicidal flair? Or was it something else? She struggled to understand it even after all that time, but as on other occasions she didn't want to spent to much effort over it - there were other issues to deal with.

Surely, the fact that in the past her brother had been among the most valiant soldiers of the forgotten armies, that he had learned to master almost all the weapons known over the centuries and even in the melee clash had given many opponents a hard time, it made him a creature even more fascinating than he already was. A sort of impalpable, yet terribly evident aura dispersed from his figure had always fascinated her - to the point of developing a sort of perversion in experiencing on her own skin the feeling of being at the mercy of his power, forced between the coils of an apparently invincible being.

Nakhaš was born and died in the war, rising and continuing to reap lives like a sort of God come down to earth; in the arteries flowed - in addition to the poison of the King's most threatening python - the fury of the leaders and she was enchanted by it like a little girl with her hero. Yes, Alex was fascinated by him, she was bewitched by the first man who ever dared to challenge the laws of that world to return to the side of his sovereign; she saw in him a spark that in herself she felt had gone out for too long and envied him.

Swallowing, the Wolf-Chimera took a long sip of the herbal tea that she had prepared both for herself and for the guest, feeling the sweet taste of the peach on the tongue together with the pungent note of the ɛvɛn - one of the last, she remembered finally feeling the taste of something other than air. After long weeks of abstinence she finally managed to indulge in a flaw, but above all the illusion of being still human. Yeah, because that little red thing, larger than a currant, was the only object that could replace Solomon's care.

And she had almost finished the escort, finding herself sipping every use.

She swallow the reddish concoction hoping to ingest those thoughts too, then, when was sure she no longer felt the sensation of his fingers pressed on the neck and the bitterness of an all too imminent sentence, she looked up at thee interlocutor.

Levi unfastened his sweatshirt, revealing a t-shirt that was too tight and showing a still darting musculature with which he had caught her off guard, a detail that Alexandria, noticing, found almost annoying. If over the years she had stopped paying any attention to her appearance, also in view of the fact that she no longer had anything to fight for, he had continued to behave as usual: he must not have stopped for a single day to following the practices learned during the very long military training in Israel and, unlike her, in fact, the body had not given way even to a curve.

"So what are you doing here akh?" she asked him without warning, trying once again to distract herself from the unprofitable thoughts of the moment and putting an end to her almost totalitarian silence that, from the alley in the center, had accompanied them to her home. All the way Z'v had voluntarily avoided any kind of chatter, conscious of not knowing how to manage the emotions that stirred inside her, nor of what to expect from that unexpected visit. Moreover, as in her previous life, she had preferred to remain silent rather than to create empty speeches aimed only at masking her anxieties, fears that every moment had become bigger and less logical and that, inexorably, made her mother come back to her mind. Several times, during her childhood, that woman had reproached her for not being able to entertain the diners, leaving promising friendships or possible suitor, but Alex had understood the advantages of that attitude only many years later, when the need had become a vitally important and Willhelmina had almost broken her arm in an attempt to explain her mistake.

The Alexandria of that moment, however, was the faded memory of Countess Varàdi, a girl who had everything in mind, except to die and come back to life in other guises. That stubborn brat had been the second child of a nobleman too prone to gambling, a type that had forced her to marry by the end of 1743 with a small Austrian Duke, whose assets could have healed the various debts and restore the family name - but nobody in those days would have thought that such an imposition could lead to death. Unfortunately, being too complacent and polite had screwed her.

Nakhaš stared at her for a time that seemed infinite, perhaps superimposing the image he had in front of him with that of almost thirty years ago, trying in every way to see something different and unknown in it. He must have expected anything from the young woman in front of him, yet she had done nothing but keep her hair longer and stop dyeing - after all, it no longer made sense to hide the warm gray of her hair, given what awaited her. And so, almost disappointed, he allowed himself a sigh: "If you tried to be nice, you would get much more from people, you know?" he resumed her making an ironically annoyed grimace and recalling the comment that the sisters used to make her when they returned home after long walks in the city.

Z'év didn't like it at all and cut off that stupid conversation before he could go on to other painful memories: "Cute girls are the first to die" as she had learned at her own expense.

The silence that fell in the room immediately afterwards was fraught with palpable embarrassment; what should have been a harmless joke in Levi's head had turned into a thin blade, capable of pricking the still uncovered nerves of a girl who had never really accepted her departure. And she was terribly aware of it, just as she was aware that her brother would never have dared to retort - however naive, spontaneous and sometimes even a little prankster, perhaps up in the clouds, he still kept a different inner personality and, precisely that, would have prevented him from adding more.

"Anyway," the landlady turned her gaze on his, studying him: "do you want to answer me?" She would have liked to understand what was in the man's millennial mind, to grab his every thought so as not to suffer the wait, but on the face of the Israelite, Z'év met only a mask of amusement that did not seem to want to help her.

The pale scar that marked Levi's cheekbone shriveled up slightly and his serpentine gaze, proud and inquisitive at the same time, tried to make her uncomfortable along with that ambiguous grimace - an expression that as a whole made her stomach twist.

The King's General was an enigma on two legs and she had not yet learned to decipher any of his actions, even if she wanted it with all of herself.

"How many years have passed since Solomon's death?" the question came out of his mouth with a strange note of malice, then, slowly, he took a sip from the concoction that she had put to him without stopping to stare at her.

Why was he peering at her like that? And for what perverse reason should such a delicate matter come up? Alexandria had no idea and, if she could, she would have preferred never to have it.

"What's that got to do with it, akh? Did you come here in the hope of being able to vent all your repressed frustrations? Well, if you hope that I'm gonna cry or apologize, know that you have made a void journey" and as soon as those words came out of her throat the memories tried to attack her, violent as always, merciless in the presence of a sinner who did not know how to find the longed for redemption. A name, only a mass of letters pronounced by the Chimera in front of her and the emotional balance had inexorably started to falter, causing her to alter the features of her face and betraying what she had just said with so much false security.

The skin at the base of the septum began to pucker slightly, her lips thinned in a dark line and the canines became as sharp as blades, taking her one step away from taking a first sketch of the creature that she really was - and if in front of her there hadn't been the first of them to experience so much horror, she doubted he would remain impassive.

Nakhaš, however, unlike others, had never dared to look away from her face, not once. He had seen her in the worst conditions, yet no spark had passed through his eyes except that of wonder.

He looked at his brothers in the way in which beautiful things are observed and, even if Z'év knew that she had never been pardoned with such a gift, not even in human life, the way Levi had stared had encouraged her in the days in which mirroring had appeared as the meanest thing in the world.

And then, in the past, he had told her to find her far more charming in death than in life.

Suddenly, the guest shifted his attention, almost remembering something and, biting the lower lip, he began to weigh the words to use.

"No, akhòt, I could never wish for something like that, you know" he admitted, hardening his gaze on the void, almost reproaching her for having even thought of such an eventuality - and indeed, if not in situations that had bordered on the extreme, her brother had never dared to raise his voice, nor to hurt her: with those he loved, Levi was as sweet as candy.

"Twenty-six years."

Alexandria's voice broke the silence only after a few moments. Answering that question was tantamount to accepting the persecutions of memory that she had tried so hard to suppress - pity that with his arrival Nakhaš had already loosened her resistance to those constant harassment.

"How many bodies can be changed in three hundred and twelve months?"

The Wolf-Chimera frowned. What was hidden behind that sort of useless interrogation? Where did he want to go? Arguments were being brought up whose nature was more painful and obscure than many others and had no idea why her brother wanted so much to challenge the suture that she had badly sewn on the heart.

She clasped her hands in the lap, forcing herself to show less interest than she really had: "What are you insinuating, Levi?"

He smiled, looking back at her.

"He's alive, Z'év," he began in a hiss, licking the taste of those words from the lips: "He never left us" he continued, suddenly making her stiffen in the chair. His gaze shone feverishly and the smile on his face widened almost unwittingly. Euphoria, like poison, was poisoning his blood and mind - thought his sister. The General had to feel the excitement mounting at the mere thought of being able to reunite with the man he had considered his best friend, only and true brother both in his first life and in that - and that was obviously making him lose the light of reason.

The Wolf-Chimera could feel his excitement even from the other end of the table, but instead of sharing it, she was afraid. What if Levi went crazy during those years? After all, he was still a thousand-year-old creature to whom the only person he had ever been faithful to had been taken away: solitude could have really damaged his psyche.

Obviously, there was not only that belief in giving him so much joy. His good humor must also have been dictated by the fact that, finally, he had found someone to talk to about that madness, an accomplice; after all, he must have looked for all six brothers, just to put something destroyed together, and the first of them he had found must have been her - she doubted she could be his only choice.

The General leaned forward, anxiously. She would have understood him, would have been beside him and, of that, he was terribly certain, Alex could read it on his face; pity that given the past she was no longer ready to trust someone who was not herself, even if it was Levi.

"Why the hell did you come here, akh?"

"Excuse me?" the boy blinked: "Alex ... Solomon is alive, do you understand?" his arms widened, as if to say "look at me, I'm not hiding anything from you", yet the more seconds passed, the less her patience seemed to be hardened enough to face such nonsense - because it couldn't be anything else.

Had Levi really forgotten what had happened? Was it possible that after all that time his hope was still so alive?

Countess Varàdi growled: "Solomon is dead, Nakhaš!" Inside her the blood had started to boil. There was something cruel about the optimistic belief of that being, a kind of subtle malignancy that the sister would never have expected. Those words entered her flesh like blades, lacerated in her what she had tried to lock up in the depths of the mind: "And if you had forgotten it, it was me who made it happen" she finally said, getting up furious from her chair.

She was the source of the pain that had broken the family and he, with that statement, was reminding her of it.

It was she who had made those madmen of the Cultus Sanguinis manage to fire a straight shot into Solomon's chest. She, who had had to watch him fall into the void while his blood was shed on the fringes of grass.

It was because of Alexandria Orsòlya Varàdi if the impact between the bullet and the King's chest had been so strong and unexpected as to move him to the edge of the cliff, where he had definitively lost the balance and had fallen into the sea. His body, she still remembered, had been swallowed by the water with a strange sound, like a stone thrown into a well - and despite the years she continued to hear that sound vibrating with extreme sharpness up to her eardrums.

She still remembered to have jumped into the waves immediately after him, she had not even had to think about what was more important between her life and that of him. She had followed her Lord over the edge of the ground without giving herself any hesitation, exactly as she had done at any moment from the moment he had given her that new existence. For Solomon she would have done anything, anything, even giving up everything she always wanted. What Z'év felt for the ancient King of the Jews was not mere gratitude, but total loyalty, unimaginable trust, assertion and total annulment.

Alex had been looking for her Sovereign for endless and terrifying minutes, groping in that environment that everything was, except suited to a wolf like her, yet she got nothing but coughing and burning eyes. Even Zenas had dived to find the man he was loyal to, but in the end, after a time that had seemed infinite, he had forced the girl out of the water before she could drown too.

"I want you out of here tomorrow morning, akh."

Hers was an order, the first that she had ever allowed to address to a creature clearly superior to her and, with the same conviction with which she turned to her brother, she immediately tried to chase away those terrible memories by looking elsewhere. She didn't want them with her, neither he nor they; all she wanted was to forget that guilt, to forget the oppressive presence of the sword of Damocles that had brought down the heads of the only family that remained her, condemning all the members. And if Levi believed he could persuade her to pretend that nothing had really happened, was wrong. It was useless to fill one's head with illusions, there was no way to bring back what they had lost, especially if that something - or rather someone - was the only person able to open the gates of the afterlife.

Nakhaš stood up in turn, trying awkwardly to grab her hand: "I swear it's the truth, akoth" he once again bit his lip, hesitating: "I... I saw him, Z'év! Or rather... I felt him."

Silence.

In the room only the breath of the General could be heard, which, like a litany, attracted the young woman's gaze again.

With circumspection she studied the features of the interlocutor, lingering on the lips that had said those words. To swear, what an ephemeral term, she thought. In those days an oath had the same value as dust, words were only words, they were not worth as much as the honor and any moral of a man, or at least not anymore. The advent of the 21st century had taken away everything she and her brothers had always believed in, giving way to an almost nauseating superficiality. Yet, while thinking about how inconsistent the meaning of such a verb was, she remembered that it was Levi who said it, swore it. He, who was born in an era in which a promise was worth as much as life, who once given his word fought hard to honor it. He didn't use certain phrases just for fun, he really believed it.

What if it was really, real?

If what her brother was saying had been true? What would she do?

Everything. She would even have torn the world from the inside just to get Solomon back.

"Explain to me" she urged keeping away, ready to react in case it was yet another shit, but feeling the bowels tighten and the scar on the mouth of her stomach ache as if it had its own life, suddenly recalled by the voice of the one who had given it to her.

Levi's gaze shone, yet the expression remained as serious as possible, heralding a speech that was far from easy to share - perhaps even he was not so sure of his memory, perhaps he knew he had no proof to refute his story.

"It happened a few months ago," he began then, clearing the throat: "I was walking near Charles Bridge, in the direction of the Old Town. As always the route was teeming with tourists and various people, you know Prague, right?" Z'év nodded. Yes, she knew that city well enough to remember those details, after all it had always been a useful commercial outlet for obtaining information and exchanging objects of dubious origin and, since the day she set foot there for the first time, she knew how copious the turnout from all over Europe was.

The brother wet his lips: "I mean, I had just got off the bus and I was walking home when... something made me stop" he paused, grabbing the right one in his thoughts: "I was there, still like an imbecile on the edge of the bridge and I felt the need to turn around. It was something transcendental, a kind of... invocation. So I replied. Alex... I don't know what made me do it, I felt like I was in a trance, I had no will on the body and the more seconds passed, the worse the situation got and-"

"Did you take drugs by chance?" she asked, hoping to find a real explanation for that story.

Levi growled. Despite being a verse completely unrelated to snakes he tried to threaten her in the only way that a wolf could consider dangerous.

"Listen to me, please. Alex, I found myself in the midst of a bunch of fucking schoolboys, you understand? And the scar..." with one hand Levi touched the right breastplate, where the symbol of Solomon was engraved in the flesh, the tribute paid to get his soul back: "the mark has throbbed. It did it with a force equal to that of the moment I was brought back to life. I didn't understand. My body was reacting to something that had no shape and my hands tried to grab an entity that I could not name, but I... I felt it, I perceived its call! And then" he paused again and immediately afterwards Z'év saw him rummaging in his coat pockets like a madman. It took a few moments, then Nakhaš pulled out a plate the size of a cell phone and handed it, forcing her to come closer.

"It's him, Alexandria. It cannot be otherwise."

When her gaze returned to her brother's face, looking for a more in-depth explanation, what she saw was a plea that made her tremble: Levi was asking for a last act of faith.