Chapter Text
Things looked worse than they'd ever been.
It didn't start out that way, as Carmilla and her daughters were doing last minute preparation for extermination day. The angels never came at the same time, so the night before they would prepare everything as best they could, then that morning they would finish the rest before heading to the safehouse to meet with Zestial and the other overlords.
This year, the extermination had come in the morning, at 8:32am; time enough for most sinners to be awake, but not enough for them to fully fortify had they not done so the previous night.
The three Carmines had only been a couple hours into their final preparation work when heaven opened up, and angels started swarming the streets.
Carmilla always made sure the last of the work they needed to do was the work that was closest to the safehouse, but that didn't make it any easier to run through angel-infested streets when the extermination began. The three of them had locked up the building they were checking and immediately took the fastest route to the safehouse.
Clara led the group, Odette right behind her and Carmilla taking the rear as the three of them wove through streets of screaming sinners and swooping angels.
For now, the crowds would give them some amount of protection. The dense population made it less likely that any weapon would hit them, as well as concealing who they really were on the off chance the angels would target the overlords specifically.
Suddenly, one of the angels dove down, aiming for Odette.
Carmilla shouted a warning, diving atop her daughter and feeling the blade graze her shoulder instead.
The angel turned around, whirling their spear to attack again and Carmilla grabbed it, feeling the steel cut into her hand as she pulled back and kneed the angel in the jaw, before feeling something collide with the side of her head.
Fortunately what managed to get her wasn't an angel, but a sinner nearly double her height who shoved her violently to the side as it tried to escape death from the skies. Carmilla was sent flying from the blow, colliding awkwardly with the pavement, and blood began to leak from her forehead.
Clara shouted something that was lost in the ringing of Carmilla's ears as her daughter rushed to help her.
Carmilla stood up, trying to wipe the blood from her eye as her head pounded. They couldn't stop, abandoning the crowd that continued to thin and ran, Carmilla closing her fist to prevent the wound from leaving a trail directly to them.
Clara made a sharp turn into a gap between two buildings, barely big enough for Carmilla to squeeze in with enough space to turn around.
Carmilla found herself wishing she had Zestial's ability to blend in with shadows to hide them, her white hair and the glow of her boots would surely give them away.
Across the street, an angelic spear lay abandoned in the corpse of a sinner, and Carmilla formulated a plan.
“You girls get to safety,” she told them, “I'll draw their attention and follow when the coast is clear.”
Neither girl looked enthusiastic about that.
“And what about you?” Clara asked, “you can't fight with a head injury.”
“I will not be fighting,” Carmilla corrected her. “I will be drawing their attention away from you while you get to the safehouse, and then following.”
“Both of us are in better shape for a distraction,” Clara began, “we—”
“Absolutely not.” Carmilla hissed, “I will not have either of you getting hurt or worse. I'm the only one here who has experience with them, so I need you to trust me with this.”
She knew her daughters were right, that both of them were in better shape to distract the angels. The blow she sustained to her head hadn't stopped throbbing, and the light from the fires that endlessly burned in hell were beginning to give her a headache. There was no way she would be able to last long if the tides turned and she could no longer run.
She longed to hug her girls, to tell them how much she loved them and how proud she was, but if she did that then they'd know something was wrong and would do everything they could to protect her, even if that included dying. She could not have that.
“It'll be alright,” she assured them softly, “but please tell Zestial that I'll be late.”
She had made him agree that when he heard those words, he would leave her and do everything he could to protect her daughters. He fought with her on that, insisting he would never leave her to die, only relenting almost a week later when he realized she wouldn't budge.
Carmilla didn't wait for their response, running out and grabbing the spear from where it lay in the ground, the exterminator who just left the building nearby spotting her and giving chase.
Hell was full of poorly designed structures and ill-maintained buildings, which was a nightmare for a newcomer to navigate, giving Carmilla an edge as she ran. In addition, the architecture allowed her to leap across rooftops and climb buildings where she otherwise wouldn't have been able to. Wait, when did she get on a roof?
Her diversion had been a bit too successful, and Carmilla couldn't even count how many angels were beginning to surround her, but perhaps that was due to the way the blood from her head wound was affecting her depth perception and making her vision swim.
Carmilla planted her feet and steadied the spear in front of her. Despite the coded message she had her girls send Zestial, she had no intentions of dying without a fight.
An angel lunged at her, and she jumped over their swing, impaling them into the ground before looking back at the crowd. For some reason, the angels didn't all immediately charge her, letting only one try and attack her from behind.
Carmilla moved slightly to the side, grabbing the angel's forearm to hold them in place and swinging her boot around, colliding with the side of their face.
To her surprise, the white smiles they wore on pitch black skin with horns was a mask, and the mask of the angel she hit cracked through the middle and fell off as they collapsed to the ground.
She would bring that information to Zestial when she returned, but for now she had a fight.
If she returned.
For the first time in a long time, her survival was far from a guarantee, and Carmilla felt a spike of mind-numbing fear go through her chest at the thought.
Apparently she stayed still longer than she thought and barely moved in time as a spear was swung at her, managing to slice her shoulder and knock her to the side.
The unexpected movement caused a wave of nausea to overtake her, and Carmilla nearly fell off the edge of the building.
Mierda.
Carmilla grit her teeth at the angels as several moved towards her at once, and she was forced to go on defense, blocking what she could and dodging where she had to as the rapid movements only made her headache grow worse.
Pathetic. She very likely had a concussion and was outnumbered by more than she could count and they still couldn't take her down.
She gave a cry and wrenched a spear from one of them, kicking through them as they fell into her and swung the spear around into another.
She had to try.
She didn't want to leave her girls alone.
At that thought, she lunged again, not bothering with technique as she did her best to simply shove the spear through as many angels as she could.
Despite her ferocity, she could feel her body growing sluggish as she failed to avoid another hit, crying out as the steel pierced through her side.
Carmilla stumbled backwards and fell off the roof, the wind from her fall tugging stray strands of hair from their tie and sticking them to the blood on her face. She abruptly landed hard on the ground and released a pitiful wail as she felt and heard several things break.
Despite her being unable to fight, the angels seemed hesitant to move towards her, and Carmilla blearily looked at them, closing her fist around the spear again. She dared them to come closer.
An angel walked over and before she could aim the spear, it was kicked from her hand and sent flying out of reach.
This was it. She had no weapons, couldn't sit up, was completely surrounded, and no one was coming.
Carmilla released a breath and closed her eyes. She didn't know what came next. Would she get reincarnated? Would she just disappear? Was there a second afterlife beyond all this? Would she remember anything?
At least her daughters were safe. That thought wrapped around her like a blanket, and she felt at peace.
Distantly, a tear slid from her eyes.