My Immortal The Vampires of Berlin - Chapter 39

Death of a Vampire

Everything was deathly still after the cave-in. The tunnel, once filled with noise and fury, now echoed only silence. Bodies and weapons lay strewn across the rubble-strewn floor like discarded toys after a violent storm. Overhead, a gaping wound in the ceiling let down harsh columns of torchlight from above, cutting through the dust like searchlights in a tomb.

At the center of the destruction, Zina was entombed up to her neck beneath a jagged mountain of debris. Her charred, half-melted face still smoked faintly, flesh hissing as it clung to bone. Her eyes twitched, barely alive—rage and pain locked in a silent scream. Dumitra was gone. No sign, no sound.

In the corner, Wolf and Axel lay deathly still, unmoving, their bodies crumpled like rag dolls in the shadows. The stench of blood, ash, and scorched rock hung heavy in the air.

Something had ended here. Something else was beginning.

Klaus staggered to his feet, dazed and bleeding. As he scanned the wreckage, his breath caught in his throat. A pair of small, dust-caked boots jutted out from a mound of debris. For a moment, his heart stopped.

“Dieter!” he screamed, scrambling toward the pile.

His frantic shouts jolted Wolf into action. The two men dropped to their knees and clawed at the rubble with bleeding hands, hurling aside rocks, metal, anything that kept them from the boy. Their movements were wild, desperate—every second an eternity.

From the summit of her stone prison, Zina’s voice sliced through the chaos like broken glass. “Nazi devils!” she shrieked, her scorched lips curling into a sneer. “You’re the rot that’s devouring Germany! The Third Reich will bring the end of days!”

They ignored her, digging faster.

Each taunt only sharpened their urgency.

Suddenly, Sebastian dropped through the hole in the ceiling, landing near the trapped vampire. Wolf and Klaus were too consumed with rescuing Dieter to notice him.

But Zina saw him. She thrashed against the stone, her voice ragged and shrill. “Listen to me!” she howled. “You must kill the girl! She will end us all!”

Sebastian paused mid-descent. He glanced at her, unimpressed. “Still talking? Stay right there, sweetheart. I’ll be right back.”

He slid down the debris, calmly plucked the canteen from Wolf’s belt, and climbed back up toward the snarling half-melted creature.

Zina’s voice turned frantic. “Kill the girl! You have to kill her! You don’t understand !”

Sebastian crouched beside her, his expression icy. “I’ve got a better idea. Ever hear of facial symmetry? Thought I’d help you even things out.”

Zina’s eyes flared with panic. “You fool! You don’t know what you’re doing!”

He held up the canteen, letting the light catch the battered metal. “Holy water. Straight from Berlin Cathedral. That language universal enough for you?”

Terror, real and raw, bloomed across Zina’s ruined face. A creature who had once commanded empires now whimpered like a cornered animal. “Please,” she begged. “Stop. Listen to me. You need to—”

“Burn in hell.”

Sebastian tipped the canteen and poured the water down her face. Smoke burst from her skin with a sickening hiss. She screamed as flesh liquefied and peeled away in strips, her features collapsing into a molten ruin.

Without hesitation, Sebastian drew his blade and slashed her throat. Her body convulsed once. Her head tumbled down the rock pile—and as it hit the ground, it burst into flame. In seconds, there was nothing left but ash.

Down below, they clawed Dieter free from the rubble. He coughed violently as Wolf scooped a handful of dirt from his mouth.

“I lost my damn helmet in the blast,” Dieter groaned.

“It didn’t fit your pea-sized head anyway,” Wolf muttered.

The group chuckled, but the levity vanished as a voice echoed from the shadows behind them.

“We must leave. Now.”

They turned.

Eva stood at the edge of the debris field, pale and solemn, eyes glowing faintly in the torchlight.

Sebastian stepped forward. “You heard her. Let’s move. She’ll show us the way out.”

No one budged.

“I’m not following her,” Klaus said coldly.

“Me neither,” Dieter added, brushing dust from his jacket.

Sebastian frowned. “What’s the issue?”

“She’s evil,” Klaus said flatly.

“She’s not evil. She’s traumatized. That’s why she’s... strange. But she saved us. More than once. And she clearly knows these tunnels.”

“That sympathy’s going to get us all killed.”

“No,” Sebastian said. “It’s how we survive.”

Klaus pointed at Eva, his voice rising. “You want to trust someone being hunted by vampires? Think for a second—what the hell did she do to make monsters like Zina and Dumitra want her dead? Because whatever it is, it’s bad for us.”

“She’s the only reason you’re still breathing, you ungrateful bastard.”

Klaus stepped closer. “Wake up, soldier. That girl is death in a dress.”

“She’s not evil,” Sebastian snapped. “She’s just trying to live—same as the rest of us.”

The argument burned for another five minutes, echoing through the ruined tunnel until Sebastian, through sheer force of will, convinced them. One by one, they fell in behind him.

As they walked, Klaus leaned toward him and whispered, “You sure this isn’t a trap? That she’s not marching us straight to the Russians? Or worse?”

Sebastian glanced down the corridor, where Eva led them with quiet certainty.

“That part’s easy,” he said. “They all want her dead.”