Angelique Chapter Ten Date: 12/15/01 12:27:46 PM Central Standard Time From: Aesgaard "Angelique !! Don't go to sleep !!!" Did she hear that ? Or was her mind hearing things ? Angelique's whole body was numb and wet. She could barely stand in the still barely lit corridor. The water which had risen to her shoulders had frozen her further in the last few minutes than in her entire time down here. She couldn't breath as she slowly faded off to a permanent sleep. The ship groaned around her as the Titanic slipped further underwater. She then felt the door to which her shoulder was frozen shift. Did she do that ? Something was moving it as the water poured through the opening. Her hazy vision showed a hand in the door opening. Her eyes widened wearily as someone pushed the massive hatch to one way. She noticed an arm and a face. It was him !! "Angelique !!" His voice roared over the rushing water. He braced his back to the door as he pushed the the door and the several tons of hydraulic pressure to the side wide enough for her to pass. The water also rushing through also threatened to carry her through with it. "Give me your hand !!!" Her mysterious guardian reached to her. "W..w..who a....a...are y....you ?" Angelique could barely think. She had to be dead, and this superhuman spectacle a hallucination. She placed her small white hand in his mighty palm and was lurched through the opening like a huge wet rag doll. Behind her, the water tight door slammed shut with a resonating crash. Partially collapsing, Angelique felt herself lifted up like a baby. Her huge protector up close was taller, larger and stronger than any normal man she had ever seen. His face was flawless, his steel blue eyes had a bit of nobility to them. He was handsome and regal bearing impressed her as he carried her through the flooded hallway. "W..who a..re you ?" she asked again as he searched the way back up. "This is not the time." his voice reverberated with an indecipherable accent. Scowling at the water still pouring into the ship, he carried her with fond protection and the demeanor of a hero. Looking back one minute, he noticed the weight of more water shattering a set of wood doors and charging toward him. "By Ymir's beard !!!!" He clutched Angelique tightly and ran back the other way. Sighting another staircase climbing up out of the water, he looked back and then charged up into the middle class compartments. Behind him, the hallway completely flooded. Climbing another staircase, he noticed there were still people moving through the ship. He grabbed a handful of blankets for Angelique to wrap up in and turned to some of the other passengers. Above their heads on a short staircase, some of the third class were trapped behind gates spouting curses at the White Star Line employees beyond the gates. "Let us through, you dogs !!! We're all going to die !!!" "Not till they're through tending to the first and second class passengers." The porters calmly held the keys out of range. Angelique briefly caught a glimpse of Rose and Jack rushing through the hall as her hero turned to some of the passengers. Speaking in German to them, he placed Angelique down for them to warm her as he briefly left her. "Why won't you tell me who you are ?" her mind was slowly returning. "My mother told me to protect you." he spoke again. "That's all you need to know." He turned to the spectacle at the top of the stairs. Pushing through the enraged and hurried men, he emotionlessly eyed the gate as if it was no match and ripped it down with hardly an effort. Angelique's eyes widened as her anonymous hero re-collected her and took her up into the cold North Atlantic air. Panic, screaming and the futile sparks of flares being fired filled the air. Trussed in in her blankets as some Christmas ham, Angelique felt herself lifted over all the heads and placed down into a boat just now descending. She looked back up the rising wall of the ship as she gazed one more time on the stranger who had saved her life. Huddling in her few inches of space, she noticed as he watched her departure with noble anonymity. >From beyond time and space, Angelique heard the strange music which had followed her on board. She drifted off briefly, but when she looked back, the ship was far enough away to be blocked by the head of the person next to her. It's stern was high up into the air as a skyscraper just before cracking in half and sliding beneath the depths. With it, it took the identity of her hero............and a vampire in its hold.
