These Endless Days, 11/?
Title: These Endless Days
Rating: R
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Universe: Creatures of the Night (Part Three)
Characters/Pairing: JJ/Hotch; Morgan/Prentiss
Genre: Supernatural/Drama
Summary: There's a war coming.
Chapter Eleven
Emily half expects that she'll be locked in the dungeon - not for the first time in this long, and twisted feud with the woman that had birthed her.
But no.
Semi-conscious, she's taken back to her room. The only thing that's changed is the fact that the door is spelled shut. Even if she'd inherited any of her father's magic, it's useless in this situation. Blood magic is a completely different ballgame. Only the person who set the spell can remove it, and that's definitely not going to be happening any time soon.
The windows, too, are spelled shut, and her bag has been taken away. There's a bed, a dresser, and a nightstand, none of them made from wood. Nothing she can use to her advantage, even if she weren't a prisoner. The stake had been her first and her last hope, and now it's gone.
The wound on her hand is still black, and still just as painful. It's no surprise - it had been made by the weapon with which she had intended to kill her mother. The mark that it leaves is not trivial.
Soon, you'll love me the way you always should have.
The words do not bode well for whatever Elizabeth has planned, and she definitely has something planned. She hasn't kept her title as the world's most powerful vampire by being idle.
Stuck in this room, she doesn't have much opportunity for escape. Not right now, anyway.
Morgan knows where she is, and he, no doubt, will have told the team, but the last thing Emily wants is for them to try and bring the fight here. It's not just because she knows they aren't strong enough (even if that's the main reason). After seven hundred years, she has a little too much pride to let herself need rescuing.
No.
She'll get herself out of this the way she always gets out of trouble. Time, experience, and a more than a little bit of luck.
Her hand, she wraps in a makeshift sling made from torn up bedsheets. It won't help the healing process much, but it should avoid letting it get knocked around too much when things inevitably go further south than they already are now. Her right arm still has the burns from the fireball; the wounds will take much longer to heal than broken bones, especially so, considering that she hasn't fed tonight.
Fire and wood; the vampires' death knell.
Considering the circumstances, she's not sure that keeping her satiated is high on her captor's agenda. Keeping her weak might be part of the plan - to twist her mind, when it's vulnerable and uninhibited. Emily resolves to keep her mental barriers in place, no matter the cost.
It's a plan that becomes a lot harder twenty minutes later, when the door swings open. Emily stiffens at the sight of her mother. She's calm, and composed, as though they hadn't just had a fight to the near-death. That's probably one of the advantages of being two-thousand years old and nigh immortal.
'Have the bones healed yet?'
'Yes,' Emily says shortly, not bothering to mention that it had probably taken all of her energy to do so.
'Good.' Elizabeth curls her fingers, and plucks something out of the air. It's showboating at its finest, but then, she's never exactly been modest, either.
It's a goblet. Finely wrought, probably worth a lot in today's money, but it's never going to be sold to anyone. The dark red liquid that fills it is unmistakeable. Human blood. Somehow, Emily doubts that it had come from someone who had consented to the removal process.
'I'm not drinking that,' she tells Elizabeth matter-of-factly. The other woman's lips curl into a smile.
'Somehow, I knew you were going to say that.'
'Yeah, this thing I like to do. I call it "not being a crazy, homicidal monster."'
'Do you really think so little of me, Emily? I gave birth to you, after all.'
'Blood doesn't mean crap.'
'We're vampires, Emily. Blood is everything.'
The look in her eyes is...
Emily's not sure she's ever seen this look. She's seen hunger, and she's seen apathy, and she's seen cold-blooded fury, but this...
It's a strange mix of pity, pain, and sadness. As though Emily's refusal of her is a deep-cutting wound. It's a trick that Emily won't fall for. After all, it's not even twelve hours since she'd been told she was a burden (which, really, had not been much of a surprise).
'Who sent you?' her mother demands, and Emily flusters.
'What are you talking about? I came here of my own volition.'
'I can sense the magic in your mind, Emily. You might want me dead, but you aren't foolish enough to commit yourself to a task so risky. Who sent you?' Now, her words are smooth, as though coated in honey. Emily can hear the blood magic that would compel her to tell the truth, and yet she cannot resist it.
The answer, when it comes, is a surprise, even to her. It's as though a door has unlocked inside her memories. Something that she should have forgotten is wrenched from the depths of the abyss by her mother's words.
'Gwydion.'
Elizabeth laughs. 'So the old fool is still alive. And seeking to bring me down, no less. Well I shouldn't have expected anything else.' She brushes a hand across Emily's cheek. 'But you...you knew you couldn't do this. You knew you couldn't bring yourself to kill me. After all, that's why you made yourself fail.'
What?
No.
No. That's not what happened.
Isn't it?
There were far less foolhardy ways for you to have gone about this. After all these years, one of you should be dead.
She's trying to break your mind, Emily. Stay strong.
'I didn't make myself fail,' Emily says, bitterly. 'You're stronger than me. It's not exactly surprising.'
'Deep in your heart, you know you love me. You always have.'
Emily jerks away from the cold hand against her arm.
That's all you've ever wanted, isn't it? To be loved?
Don't fall for her tricks. You're better than that. You can beat this.
On any other day, with any other enemy, this would have been true. She's been building up her mental barriers for a long time, and it takes a hell of a powerful opponent to break them - when she's at her best.
Now, she's injured, she's hungry, and mother dear is blasting the mind-fuck at full power.
Wonderful.
She ought to think of something positive; a strong feeling of happiness that she can hold onto, to remind her of what she's fighting for. The pathetic thing is, though, happy moments in her life are few and far between.
On some level, she likes the team. Maybe she even trusts them. But two months out of seven hundred years isn't nearly strong enough, or significant enough to keep her grounded. Instead, she takes the opposite path. She focuses on her anger, on her hatred, which probably isn't healthy, but at the very least it will be a constant reminder of exactly why it's such a horrible idea to fall into the sway of Elizabeth's charms.
If she keeps holding on to that, then maybe she can last long enough to figure a way out of here.
Elizabeth stands, and for a moment, Emily wonders if she's going to leave, but instead, she walks towards the window. She can see the first whispering rays of light just starting to peek through.
Fuck.
'It's morning, precious,' Elizabeth says warmly, drawing the curtains open. She ties them back with a flourish that makes Emily certain that no amount of strength will pull them closed again. 'Don't you want to see the sun rise?'