Chapter 40: A Fitting End

                                    

                                          
"Well.....it's been quite the past three nights, hasn't it?" Lily remarked as she plopped herself into the driver's seat of the black sedan and revved up the engine, with a now-unarmed Frank Vargas in the back. Surprisingly enough, Mavis's words had seemingly pierced her so much that her whole attitude towards the Dark Stake had done a complete 180. "You know.....I think this was all just a big misunderstanding. Surely we could learn a lot from all of this, right?"
"If this is some ploy to get me to turn to your side, too, then tough cookies, 'cause I ain't falling for it," Frank insisted. "I want nothing more to do with you or the rest of your kind. The Dark Stake may have been disbanded.....but others will carry on our legacy."
"'Others'? The others will approve," Lily countered. "Once we clear up everything about us, the humans will want to help us, not hunt us. Hopefully."
She paused for a moment before continuing. "You and I aren't really that different. You know that, right?"
".....What? How?"
"It's like what Mavis said back there; you cared for the people of Cluj-Napoca just as much as Lord Balfort cared for the vampires of the Vermillion Enclave. We both loved those who were close to us with all of our hearts.....and then when they were murdered, we both went on a killing spree against the other side."
Frank scoffed. "Don't compare me to you. I'm nothing like you. You monsters made the capital your hunting grounds way before we were formed."
"Yeah, I don't deny that. But the point still stands. We murdered people you loved, you murdered people I loved, and I, in turn, murdered even more people you loved. I guess it really is a cycle."
"I'm not going to humor the words of a cold-blooded killer any longer," Frank spat, folding his arms and defiantly looking away. "If I had my weapons on me right now, I'd—"
"Frank.....like it or not, we're both at fault. So you may as well just give me this," Lily pointed out. "Murderer to murderer? At the very least, we now share the pain." 
To lower Frank's guard even further, Lily took out her flute and played her mother's old lullaby once more. 
He sat in stunned silence for a few moments. "What.....what is that song?"
"I used to play that for my mother to help her sleep whenever dawn broke. You know.....before you sent your men to kill her and all."
".....It actually sounds quite touching."
"Thank you."
"But I only killed two of your own, and you killed at least nine of mine," Frank argued. 
"I wasn't only seeking to avenge my parents. I wanted closure for everyone who died in the first attack. You eliminated a lot of good vampires.....but then again, we drained a lot of city folk, too. So we're even, more or less. All of this, stemming from hate and bigotry.....it's quite tragic. A thing isn't beautiful because it's like everything else. Sometimes, you just have to accept others' differences." Lily sighed. "It's a shame, though.....I really wish you could be around to see the new world we make." 
The former Dark Stake leader chuckled mockingly. "As if I'd want any part of it. Now, hop to it. The sooner we get back to Cluj-Napoca, the better." 
"Oh.....wait. Perhaps I misspoke. What I meant to say was 'I really wish you could live to see the new world we make'."
Frank's eyes widened. "Wait.....what?!" 
Lily locked the doors and slowly opened the black sedan's glove compartment and pulled out the same loaded X-Bow that Theo had utilized earlier; he had returned it to its proper place before previously getting out of the vehicle. Realizing what was about to happen, the man hurriedly tried to escape the sedan, to no avail.
"You can't hurt me! The Vermillion Enclave and the Dark Stake already made a truce!" Frank cried. 
"But you said you didn't want anything to do with the union.....so wouldn't that make you not part of the Dark Stake anymore? Plus, who exactly is around to make sure that truce is honored?" 
She loaded a stake into it and pointed it directly at Frank's heart, all while the man was absolutely panicking and losing his mind. 
"Astăzi este ziua ta să mori (Today is your day to die)," Lily sneered in Romanian.
Frank fruitlessly attempted to beg for his life one final time. "Wait! Please! Have mercy! No, no, no, no, NO—"
And then she pulled the trigger.
Turning back around to face forward, she put the black sedan in "drive" and casually pulled away from the Vermillion Enclave's front gates, with Frank's now-lifeless, impaled body limply slumping in the seat behind hers. 
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Instead of returning Frank Vargas to Cluj-Napoca, Lily instead took the black sedan to a completely random corner of the surrounding forest, intent on getting rid of Vargas once and for all by burying him in an unmarked plot of land that no one would ever find. Once she had located a good spot, she parked the car and deactivated the engine, then got out, opened the trunk, pulled out a shovel contained inside it, and got to digging.
The resulting hole was both decently deep and rectangular; almost identical to the covered holes you would find with graves in local cemeteries, except without the tombstone. Soon, she decided that it was deep enough, so she tossed the shovel to the side and climbed back to the surface, ready to recover Frank's body from the sedan. 
Lily certainly handled it with less care than one would usually handle a dead corpse, with the imagery resembling her tiredly dragging along a packed leather sack or a very heavy cooler rather than a deceased individual. When she neared the "grave", she mustered her strength and slung Frank over her shoulder into the hole, with some of his bones noisily cracking once he had hit the bottom. 
Finally, she leaned back into the "grave", recovered the shovel, spat on Frank's corpse one final time for good measure, and spent the better part of the next fifteen minutes filling up the hole, until the "grave" was barely noticeable. By the end, it was so inconspicuous that if you hadn't known there was a "grave" there, you likely would've never seen it. 
Her quest had finally come to an end at long last. Those responsible for the Hoia Forest wildfire and the deaths of her parents had all been killed, as well as the former leader of the Dark Stake himself. 
As she took the shovel with her and walked back to the black sedan, she turned around to look at the "grave" one more time, breathing a sigh of relief. Feelings of success, victory, triumph, justice, and closure enveloped her as she teared up again. 
At last, it ends..... she thought. Mom.....Dad.....you can both rest easy. Though I will miss you, I will be alright; I shall keep you both in my heart every day. I think I know some people who can take me in. If they'll have me, that is. 



With her mission finally done after three nights of agony, suffering, and bloodlust, Lily threw the shovel back in the trunk, started up the black sedan's engine, and drove back to the Vermillion Enclave.