Melchiah had known that Raziel was coming for him; would have known even if Kain had not told him to expect his long-dead brother.  All six of Kain’s creations could hear one another to some degree, and even now Melchiah could feel the distant buzz of his four remaining brothers’ thoughts.  And now a fifth, not so distant, was steadily closing.

     What is death, truly, to a vampire?  Melchiah did not know.  He must have been dead once, to live again as an immortal.  What would it be like to die again?  The prospect was mildly frightening, but a strange kind of peace filled him. 
     What had he been like, in the mortal life now forgotten, before Kain had resurrected him?  Had he been strong, or brave, or handsome – all the things he was not, now.  Melchiah knew full well that he had received the dregs of Kain’s vampiric gift.  Raziel, Dumah, and Turel, for the most part, were charitable enough to refrain from pointing this out constantly, but Zephon had no such reservations.  His just-elder brother, insecure in the portion of his own gift, mercilessly reminded Melchiah of his inferior position – mocking his children, his adaptations.  Always the last to evolve, was Melchiah.

     Raziel’s presence was getting closer.  Melchiah shifted his immense bulk, waiting.  He heard the cries of his dying children as they perished under Raziel’s claws; could feel each thrust of a spear as it ripped through a moldering torso.  This was Melchiah’s greatest shame – he had passed on his weaknesses to his beloved children, and for all his strength he could do nothing to help them.  They were easy prey.
     The mutations which had twisted all five remaining brothers in the centuries since Raziel’s execution had been no kinder than Kain’s initial gift.  It gave Melchiah some satisfaction that his tormentor Zephon had become more immobile than Melchiah himself, immured permanently in a husk of stone and wood.  More insect than anything else, Zephon’s children prowled the dead cathedral, catching their unwary human prey in silken webs.  Melchiah could not repress a shudder of revulsion – he himself was certainly not lovely to look upon, but that part of him which still admired mortal beauty could find none in their clicking claws and extended limbs.
     All of them had suffered to some extent under the relentless push of evolution.  Raziel’s wings had damned him to the Abyss.  Some, like his brother Rahab, had managed to turn the change to their favor – in Rahab’s case, the touch of water no longer burned.  Dumah had even kept his form remotely human, and later found a way to manipulate matter telekinetically.  Pity that his pride in his accomplishments had led to his demise, thought Melchiah.  Perhaps Dumah, in a more benevolent moment, might have deigned to pass on his secrets to his younger brother.  Melchiah had watched his brothers evolve with envy and despair, each of his own successive Changes seeming only to add to his grotesque bulk.  His legs, once able to bear him like any other creature, atrophied and then disappeared altogether under the weight of his torso.  The ability to phase through matter had developed because eventually there was no other way for him to move about freely.

     A vibration, strengthening slowly, reached Melchiah’s sensitive foot-pads through the stone floor.  The machinery which served to lift him to ground level in times of Clan Meeting must have been activated.  Raziel could not be far now. 
     Melchiah’s disgust at the form his body had taken had led him underground, away from the prying eyes and thoughts of his brothers.  There, at least, he could be content, devoting himself to ruling his Clan and making sure there was no insurgency from the humans still left in his realm.  Still, the desire for beauty he did not possess led Melchiah to flay the skins from the most perfect human specimens and wear them himself, their pain-wracked faces staring from his body in mute terror.  The bloody human remains were pulverized and the blood extracted for his kin with the tremendous grinder hanging from the ceiling.  Permanent stains marred the stone, testament to the death he had brought to others.

     Now that death was swiftly approaching.  A tremendous shudder racked Melchiah’s throne room as the floor fell overhead; Raziel must have destroyed the supports.  Time now to weigh which of Kain’s words to impart to his older brother; how much to warn him of what lay ahead.
     Melchiah could almost pity the two immortals now locked in a futile struggle.  Kain, his master, blinded by ambition; Raziel, his undead brother, blinded by revenge and his own inflated sense of good and evil.  He was glad that he would not be a part of the upcoming cataclysm, since the Wheel of Fate would not start turning again without that first, disastrous lurch.  Time, held captive for too long, would rip the very earth apart.

     The floor shook again as the last of the locks barring his sanctuary clicked open.  The path to his throne room stood bare, and Melchiah prepared to meet his long-lost sibling.  Footsteps echoed in the tunnel, timed almost perfectly to the beat of his heart.  Borrowed blood hammered in his ears.  Was this the last battle for him?  Let it then at least be a good one.
     Melchiah watched his older brother enter his rotunda, then allowed a gate to drop down behind Raziel.  He did not move, letting his brother come to him.  Kill me if you can, Melchiah thought, but it will be on my terms, not yours.  At the thought, he growled, and the low rumble finally caught Raziel’s attention.
     “Show yourself, creature!” Raziel hissed.
     Creature.  Not a man; not even a beast, but a creature.  Almost sadly, Melchiah replied, “Do you not recognize me, brother?  Am I so changed?”

     His brother had changed as well; no longer the handsome warrior was Raziel, only an animated corpse.  Some tiny measure of sympathy stirred in him even as Raziel drew back in horror.  We are alike, Raziel, in our ruined grace, thought Melchiah.  It might have been kinder had his brother not been resurrected into this ruined land only to become Kain’s cat’s-paw.  “You should have stayed where the Master sent you, Raziel.”  For no one can save you from yourself.
     “Where is my Clan?  Answer me, little brother, or I will beat an answer from your horrid lips!” demanded Raziel, not yet knowing that his children had been wiped from the face of Nosgoth.  No answer was necessary, was it?  Surely it was clear that the Razielim were gone, slaughtered down to the last fledgling who bore tiny nubs of wings.  Melchiah remembered that purge all too clearly, and he had brought his own Melchahim ever closer so that they might escape Kain’s bloody wrath.
     Horrid lips.  You who stand there in your rotting glory have no right to call me horrid, thought Melchiah.  “Everyone is afraid, sibling.  You awake to a world of fear.  These times of change are so – unsettling.”  We are all afraid, Raziel – afraid of what will happen when you and your creator fight to right the Balance of this world, he reflected.  “Do you think I feel no revulsion for this form?”  - this sad, poor mockery of the man I once was?  “Do you believe for one moment that our lord would risk his empire on an upstart inheritance?”  No, thought Melchiah, Kain will risk it on you, unfortunate Raziel.  He is sending you to reave the portions of the soul he lost, and he will take it back from you, his soul magnified a thousandfold by your tireless effort. 
     Raziel cut Melchiah off with a wave of his hand. “Enough riddles.  What are you saying?”
     Melchiah spoke the truth, heavily.  “You are the last – to die.”

     He knew as he lumbered after his nimble sibling that the battle was in vain.  All too easy for Raziel to pierce his body cruelly with spikes and escape unscathed.  In one tremendous effort, Melchiah chased his brother into the grinder, only to have Raziel leap out to commandeer the controls.  The moment of my liberation is at hand, thought Melchiah.  Finally, a way to end this miserable existence, to fly free of this game of pawns and empires.

     The massive saw descended, inexorable.  He could still push through the gate, but no…
     “Tell me, Melchiah.  Where can I find Kain?”  Raziel asked, his voice ringing in the high chamber. 
     “The Master is beyond your reach.  He makes himself known when he sees fit, not when commanded,” answered Melchiah.  And he sees fit to lure you ever closer; first to free his blade, then to free his soul. 
     Sharp teeth cut into Melchiah’s tough flesh.  The sensation was pure agony, but there was a joy in it – the joy of leaving behind an unpleasant memory, of finding beauty in the very act of dying.  As the blades crushed him to the floor, Melchiah spoke his last, his awareness already making the long, slow slide down into oblivion.  Thank you, brother, for the greatest gift you have given me, for finally…
     “I am… released.”