Chapter Thirty-Three

Danyel looked up and saw a large deer standing directly in front of him. Its antlers were so huge that they passed him in height, and they were tipped in silver. Danyel reached out to it, intrigued by its silent gaze, and the deer's eyes suddenly flashed a bright lilac before it turned and ran away. Danyel blinked a little, wondering whether it had also been a part of his vision.

He glanced up the mountain to where the school stood in the distance. Its great stone body was imprinted against the fog that shrouded it, its tall spires stretching high into the mist. Danyel faced the behind of the building and if he peered close enough he could just make out a part of the courtyard and row of dormitories behind it.

He had tracked her when she left, Lady Marienne. He couldn't stop thinking about her since they'd met. She was fierce and brave and... he needed all the help he could get. He had been desperate enough to come here.

He walked to the school in a daze, easily vaulting over the high stone walls and staying hidden from anyone's view. He could see her now, standing in the large window of her dorm which overlooked the courtyard.

She was alone in her room and gesticulating wildly; having a conversation, or more likely an argument, with an imaginary figure. She won it in the end and stood there triumphantly, her hands planted on her hips as she looked down in victory at the poor soul who couldn't say a word back.

He creeped up the vines beneath her window, knocking at the glass when he got close enough. She spun towards him in shock, her argument forgotten.

'The hell are you doing here,' she demanded, throwing the window open fast enough that it smacked right into his face.

'I followed you here- were you talking to someone?' he interrupted himself as he climbed through the window and looked around to make sure they were alone.

'Oh! Just that horrible cousin Violet!' she grumbled, 'She said my bonnet was silly- well, COUSIN! Your face is silly!'

She glared at the empty space before her, having clearly dealt out the sickest burn, and Danyel stared at it in perplexed confusion.

'That is a very good comeback,' he said, although he secretly thought it was the exact opposite.

'Why thank you,' she flopped down on the bed, tired after her incredible triumph, 'Unfortunately, I couldn't think of it at the time, and now she's been dead for hundreds of years.'

She shot back up, suddenly remembering the presence of the unwelcome man in her room. 'Anyway, back to my earlier question— The hell are you doing here?!'

'I- uh-

Marie interrupted him again, dragging him by the arm out of her dorm and down the corridor towards the opposite side of campus.

'Well, you'd better meet James and Andrew too' she huffed, 'And explain yourself to all three of us!'

They marched through the thankfully mostly empty corridors before they arrived at the boys' dorm. She knocked loudly and waited a moment before she barged in.

They were doing their homework together, sprawled on the bed; James was begging to just copy off Andrew's but the human was insisting that he teach it to him instead.

They sat up in shock when they saw the eternal that came in.

'You-!'

The eternal stepped forward, cutting him off, 'The name's Danyel, how do you do?' he smiled pleasantly, shaking the confused boys' hands and kissing the back of Marie's, who rolled her eyes in minimal tolerance, as he bowed again and introduced himself all around.

Andrew thought in surprise that he seemed rather an amicable fellow. It was hard to imagine him as the man behind the gruesome murders.

Danyel stood straight and tall in the center of the room, staring down all three of them with his hands planted firmly on his hips. A gentle breeze from the open window, ruffling his hair and billowing out his loose white shirt.

'Now join me and together we shall rid the world of evil,' Danyel stated grandly.

Okay, what was actually wrong with this man??

'We'll never join you,' Andrew spat out venomously at a seemingly taken aback Danyel.

'Oh, alright,' Marie said at the same time. The boys swiveled to face her in shock.

'Oh! Will you really, my lady?' Danyel asked joyously, 'It will go so much faster with the both of us!'

'Don't call me that,' she snapped, pushing past him and plopping herself down on her favourite rollie chair.

James was like in a dream-state as he and Andrew gazed open-mouthed at his sister who was entertaining the villain's crazy ideas. He couldn't believe what had happened as he looked over at Andrew for answers, but the other boy looked back with just as many questions.

Marie rolled herself to the middle of the two beds, pointing at Danyel to sit on the unoccupied one. He did as he was told, and she finally demanded that Danyel had better explain himself.

'I have to save her.' His dark eyes were large with fear, the black pupils as soul sucking as a void. 'Her... Poppy.' The name fell from his lips in feverish reverence like he was a man obsessed. 'I see her every time I close my eyes, she's here, in the crater, and everyone's dead, she's in danger, and the lilies... they're everywhere, all around her, she's not okay, I can't let them GET TO HER-

He was ranting and shivering all over. 'The lilies... I can't let them get to her,' he kept repeating, over and over.

Andrew gripped James's arm, freaked out by the crazed eternal. The other boy looked at him in worry as his bottom lip slightly trembled.

Marie shivered. 'But you created the lilies. You helped them bloom when you murdered a dozen people and placed them around in a gruesome heart.'

Danyel shook his head fervently. 'I have done everything in my power to keep the lilies away. I've killed, yes— to protect her. Not to feed them.'

Marie looked at the boys, her worst fears being confirmed. She'd somehow known it as soon as she'd heard; the crime scene had been far too different. It was as clear as the two suns.

The lily killer sat directly in front of her. But he wasn't the only murderer they needed to find.

Danyel's lifeless eyes fogged over. His pale skin was near translucent as he started to shake violently. Marie waved an arm in front of him in alarm but he couldn't see her through his cloudy pupils. His jaw was tightly clenched. Blood started pooling inside his cheeks from where his fangs cut him. Scarlet droplets trickled from the corners of his mouth.

James wrapped his hand around Andrew's wrist, partly checking that his pulse wasn't too quick and partly trying to keep him steady. Andrew was shaking visibly, pale with fear at the sight of the eternal's sudden fit.

Marie reached out tentatively and patted Danyel on the back. 'There, there, don't worry. We'll take care of it,' she soothed, trying to calm him down. She looked over at the boys desperately, not knowing what to do. None of them had quite expected his story to go this way.

Danyel slowly came out of his vision, his breathing becoming more steady as he listened to Marie's calming voice.

'We just need a game plan,' she continued soothingly, patting him on the shoulder. 'We need to find this... Poppy, perhaps we can locate and follow a lily delivery, since you think they're going to her?' Instead of killing off the courier, she thought to herself in silent anger.

A part of her still sympathized with him against her better judgement, if he'd really spent millennia wrapped in terrifying visions it was bound to make him go off his head a little. He was still convulsing slightly and looked like he was about to throw up. Marie doubted that he'd even spoken to another living being in centuries; his attire suggested than he hadn't been in society since when she herself was human.

Danyel sniffled, resting his head on the arm slung over his knees, 'There are no more lily deliveries coming in now, I brought down the last plane carrying them.'

'You,' Andrew whispered, his voice barely audible, 'You killed all those people.'

'A handful compared to the destruction I've seen,' Danyel replied, his voice hoarse, 'It is but a few in exchange for the lives of many.'

'It's still wrong-

'Is it right to do nothing to stop what I've seen? What I see every time I close my eyes?' Silence fell upon them for a moment before Danyel continued, 'As for the cargo shipments,' he said, going back to the topic, 'The only cargo shipments are the ones from the island to PENCO; building materials for the development in the crater.'

PENCO was expanding into a shopping complex right in the middle of town. They had caught a glimpse of it when they were crossing over the bridge, towering over the small houses scattered around it. Marie wondered if the island owned company really had no idea that a mall couldn't possibly profit by being in the crater, though she hoped that it would at least create job opportunities if it managed to survive.

'Well, there's no reason why we shouldn't just check it and make certain,' she said decisively, it would take at least a few weeks longer to check all the shipments and secretly she just wanted to find Danyel a less homicidal use of his time.

James and Andrew both agreed with her, realizing what she was up to. They didn't really have any other option except to keep an eye on Danyel by using made-up dead ends and red herrings to spend time with him. Hopefully, with time, they could help him realize the error of his ways. They couldn't lock him up forever. And he was unkillable.

They got up to escort Danyel out of the university, out of the actual entrance this time. Marie flung open their dorm room door at exactly the same time as the opposite dorm opened theirs.

They were faced in the corridor by Evan and Jesse.