Chapter Seventeen: Blood and Desperation.

The dark doesn’t scare me, for I grew up in an eternal night. Whispers don’t scare me, for I have lived among a world of secrets. Pain doesn’t deter me, for I have known more hurt than many could even bear to fathom. I am not wary of loss- because I have already vowed to give away everything. Ghosts don’t frighten me, for I have seen those of my own past. In fact- you will have a very hard time finding anything to use against me, because I am not afraid of anything you could possibly imagine. Quite simply, I am not afraid. Some days I think it is downright impossible for me to be.

“I hear something-” Megan speaks up, and I want to slap her. She has said this same thing approximately every fifteen minutes, sometimes sooner, and each time it is said as though I don’t already know that there is something to be heard. The voices bubble and quell up and down the hallways, they seem to grow louder as night descends, but perhaps that is all in my imagination. We have been ignoring them thus far, we cannot understand them- and perhaps it is some faint hope of ours that if we act as though they are not there, they will fade away.

And yet even as they grow eerily louder- we cannot make out any of their words. It is almost as though they speak another language- though something inside me says that there are simply too many speaking at once for even one of them to be heard. They try so desperately to speak, only to be ultimately unheard in the end. But then I suddenly feel Megan slam into my back with a brunt force and I whip around, she is rubbing her nose and lets out a huffy response-

“They pushed me!” She protests.

“Let’s not go making accusations. They have no physical bodies- they can’t possibly push you. You probably just tripped or something.” I dismiss, checking her nose very briefly to make sure it isn’t broken before looking back to the front. Nonetheless I keep my eye on the ground, everything shimmers with a violet hue as it grows darker and darker, night vision taking over once again. The same side of me that hates the light makes me comfortable in the darkness- and that is how I know that the eternal night is where I belong, where I was born, and where I will forever be. I could never be one of those sangmêlé that leave behind Muortum for a better life among the humans- it is just as much a part of me as I am of it. I get the feeling it has always been that way.

And then- well, and then I hear something, as I run my hand over the concrete walls to judge distance, I hear and feel something that brings a new layer to these whispering voices that fog the deteriorated corridors. I push my ear against the wall and close my eye, trying to name the sound as I draw a lungful of the the stale air.

“They breathe.” My eye flies open, I can hear the rattling sound against my ear, a very disconcerting sound when it lies so close. “The bodies he hid in the walls- they’re breathing.”

“How?” Megan places a hand on the concrete, as though she can feel the rock itself bend with each wispy breath that I can now hear behind it. I grab one of the blades strapped to my legs and unsheath it, I weigh it in my palm, using my strength of mind to fight off the madness that this place emanates. It seeks, swarming around the mind, looking for the slightest chink, the slightest fault, to beat against and bash its way in. This is what my Miss Kay always warned me against- chaos and madness, the pure evil that seeks to change what a very person is and believes. I don’t give myself time to think of what horrors may await on the other side of the wall- I slam the blade into a large crack that has exposed itself. The effect is very nearly instant- and I know that it is some sort of trick, any other concrete wall would not break so easily, even after many years. But nonetheless, the hardened rock mixture crumbles away like rotted paper mache. It does reveal, as I had suspected, the fleshless skeletons of malformed and likely abused humans- but I doubt there had been flesh on them for quite some time. This batch, at least, had scorch marks- which told me the flesh had been burned off before they had ever been…”buried”, pardon my use of the term. What sick mind does this sort of thing? I imagine not even a reliquit in one of their “episodes” could manage this sort of carnage and atrocity.

“There really are bodies in the walls…” Megan muses aloud.

“Careful. Most of this is in our heads.” I warn, as we walk past into the now gaping hole in the wall the bones start to rattle and clatter harmlessly- as though trying to speak through some code of clicks and clacks, or are having a seizure of epic proportions. I almost feel sorry for them, but then- they are already dead.

“So there aren’t really bodies in the walls?”

“No. There are.”

“I don’t get it, again…”

“There are bodies in the walls, ok? That part is real. But I have a theory- are you following?”

“Yes. Aura has a theory. I am following.” Megan laughs slightly as she realizes she is both following my thought process and my actual footsteps. The hole leads us deeper into the building, closer to the center, after we climb through that three foot thick wall of concrete. Unfortunately, for Megan at least, the further in we get- the less windows there are, and the more her visibility deteriorates.

“You mind if I light up…?” She asks, I know she isn’t speaking of cigarettes, but she has that sort of childish humor. Some people just never grow up.

“I don’t mind. But not too bright. And don’t you dare point it at me either, I’ll have your head.” I make the comment casually, but she flinches at the phrase ‘I’ll have your head’, likely because she has seen me decapitate many beings before. I say it as though I don’t mind her fire- but honestly, I am very skeptical and wary of it. Fire and ice? We’ve been over this before, it sets me on edge.

It blinds me for a moment, a red-white haze coming over my vision as the fire comes into existence, illuminating the area and essentially telling my night vision to “shut the hell up”. Not that my night vision was the clearest anyway, but it sure was better than the teasing little dingy rays coming in through the stupid reinforced windows. Half of half night vision is a complicated thing to describe- everything is dark, yes, but yet I can still see- as though everything is through a dark purple light filter. It is not clear, because it is not pure. In fact, sometimes my sight is the slightest bit blurry- like a camera not quite in focus, and other times it shifts like the camera is moving- occasionally even showing double, which I imagine would happen all the time if I did indeed have both eyes.

“Ok, so this complicated theory?” Megan asks, she is behind me, so her levitating orb of light casts shadows all around me, including my own flickering and distorted one, on the ground. I can see the cracked white lacquer on the walls, it has worn away and chipped with time. There is a toppled wheelchair and a gurney in the center of the hallway, which I have to climb over carefully, lest I risk disturbing the things and awakening more tormented souls. Last thing I need is a gurney thrown at my head. And I can just imagine Megan taking a one-way roller coaster trip on a spirit-powered psycho wheelchair.

“The theory is that only some of what we’re seeing is real.”

“Like?”

“Like the bodies in the walls. Like our general surroundings. Like the things we know are there. But you can feel it too, this place wants into your mind. It already is, in a little way. Nothing is without flaw, to believe that there is is a flaw in and of itself. Our minds are flawed, so even with our strong will- it has already found a way in, some small fracture, to work into. It has not consumed us, because we are used to such things- but the more time we spend in here, the stronger it will become. It will trick us. Deceive us. Those skeletons were not truly moving. That wall didn’t really close up on its own. There are no whispers.”

“Interesting theory. And what, do you think, is this power that wants to deceive us?”

“I have a suspicion it may be a demon, perhaps one that has laid dormant here for some time now, perhaps one that was awoken by a tragic incident.”

“That’s stupid. Mortals can’t awaken demons, they’ve been trying for years and it’s never worked. Demons go on their own accord.” I go rigid at her words. I do not tell her of my suspicions that shroud the journal. I do not tell her that I believe Heramon, the demon of that little village, was the result of some terrible conjuring gone wrong. If it happened then, who is to say it could not happen again, or anywhere else? What was with the people of the past and digging into matters that they had no business with? But more so- what if this is a trend that has not simply died off with time, what if people are still trying...and somewhat succeeding? This is where we are in a bit of a “toughie”, lesser demons pop up now and then- and they are tricky, but not insurmountable. Demons of ancient times, however? They are fairly a death sentence. Nearly impossible to defeat and growing stronger with each kill, it would take Lord Death himself to fell one of them. If the humans so foolishly manage to conjure one of them up beneath our radar- it would cause a domino effect, if it was smart enough it could conjure up more and more of its “friends”. That is why I pray this is not the circumstance- demons are the personification of man’s sin. They didn’t used to be so numerous- but I suppose the good in humanity has faded with time, making them all the more numerous. I hope that one day, I will meet a human, I will save a human, who will give all others hope and insight. Who will turn them back onto the right path, so that so many of us will not die, as we are dying now, in such vast numbers, so that they may see the light and never need us to protect them again- though I know that will never happen. These people need a savior- and whatever “god” you believe in, even if he offered one up before? These people have killed him. They have refused to live by his memory, or guidance, or whatever you choose to say. They have killed their own savior, and I am not certain there will ever be another resurrection.

“So…. most of this is in our heads?” She speaks up after a period of silence.
“Yes. And that is what makes me cautious, because if the true danger lie in our heads- then it is only assumable that in a worst-case-scenario, our deepest and darkest nightmares are capable of coming true.” I do not say fears- slayers don’t have fears.

“What do you think this….demörka, is doing right now?” Megan asks, Madame Rouge taught her to use the term “demörka” instead of “The Dark Ones”. They mean the same thing, I guess it’s just about preference, or how you were trained. “I mean- why do you think it hasn’t attacked us yet, all up close and personal?”

“I would love to say that it is afraid of us- but that likely isn’t the case. I get the feeling it is watching us, “feeling us out”, seeing where our weaknesses lie, and at the same time luring us deeper into its maze. The deeper we go into the darkness, the harder it will be for us to find our way out. But no matter what, we must not get separated.” As I say this, I step over a broken glass jar, Megan’s fire glints across the glass and dirty walls. Unlike most dilapidated asylums, this one does not have the ‘graffiti’ delinquent mortals are known for, probably because any who dared to step foot inside were swallowed up- just as Megan and I had been. The only difference was- we were both damn sure we were getting out alive.

“Got it. Don’t get separated.” I hear her nod in affirmation, it causes her frizzy hair to jostle and get caught on one of the lingering coat hangers, which she quickly disentangles.

But it takes only that slight distraction to shatter all that is real. The fire vanishes- sheer darkness, mortal darkness. The transition from light into sheer darkness makes my vision go a bleak grey, I cannot make out a single thing. I clutch at my eye and let out a sharp swear word, I hear Megan shuffle in stunned confusion for a moment- and then I hear nothing. Absolutely nothing, no voices, no movement, no Megan- nothing. It is a very disconcerting silence after so much previous activity. Everything is so abrupt- it stirs something within me, something I have to choke back down because it tastes so much like bile and disgust.

“Megan?”I call out, testing the waters of the silence. My own voice reverberates down the halls, the only sound to greet my ears, there is not even the scampering of a field mouse, which would be expected in this season- particularly in an abandoned building such as this. I would almost think I had gone deaf, could I not hear the echo of my own voice bouncing down the halls. The grey sheet that seemed to have covered my vision fades away slowly, like the ringing in one’s ears after an explosion had went off right beside them, or within a very close proximity. I am not so unused to being blind- and so I am rather glad I can still hear rather than see. One who has already had one eye destroyed learns not to lean too sturdily on something they have already partially lost. It is best to put effort and confidence into something that is less likely to fail- like Bloodlust; my whip is unbeatable. He will never fail.

“HotShot?” I look around as the last of the visible ‘ringing’ fades away, everything is shrouded in that violet blurry haze, but it is clear enough to give me adequate perception- for now. It is clear enough for me to be able to see that Megan is, as I had thought, no longer with me. The demörka had overheard us, and altered our circumstances accordingly. The truth was- Megan could be standing right in front of me, but this force that had dubbed this entire building its “realm” or “kingdom”, had made her invisible, and inaudible. I could only assume the same was true for Megan. She could not see me, nor hear me calling out to her either. I knew she could take care of herself- but two slayers are always better than one, especially on a higher up job. There was now a greater chance for injury, and we were faced with the trouble of ending this “curse” solo, more or less, without communication. We would have to do things independent of the other, and it was more like a challenge- who would kill the dark one first? Who would shatter this madness, and finish the job? At the same time, whomever did manage it would be faced with the task of meeting up with the other once they had done so- which would prove quite the challenge in this maze.

“This is like a game….” I speak to myself slowly, as I walk forward. Tall heels crunch over broken glass and bent metal rods.

‘A game…..A game….’ The whispering voices return with a haunting series of snickers. This is the first time they have spoken clearly enough to be understood- as if they have gained power from Megan and I getting separated. I suppose for most it would be easier to go mad on your own, and that is what this power thrives off of- madness.

“You have set the field and determined your players….” I speak a bit louder, looking up at the cracked ceiling, speaking to this entity that I knew would be paying very close attention to every move both Megan and I made. I knew it wanted to play a game- Demons always do.

“But don’t you think you should come out and find us? It can’t be very amusing just watching us….” I jump over another toppled wheelchair, and it turns on its own accord- a futile attempt to frighten me. “We’re waiting you know. We’re waiting. And we’re ready.” with this statement I fling the wheelchair down the hallway, I can hear it clatter down some odd flight of stairs before there is a brittle crunching sound. I follow the path of the wheelchair with even strides, the stairs are slippery with some slick substance that may be blood-but I do not fall.

“This is positively pitiful, is any of this meant to scare me?” I shake my head. “You can use all the scare tactics you want, but they won’t work. I’m not afraid of anything.” I look over to where the wheelchair has tumbled, it is next to a lacquered white wall- the wall with the “etching” on it. I kneel down, pushing the now bent hunk of metal and cracked leather aside to get a closer look.

It is precisely as the picture showed it, a crudely etched eye, scribbled over with another unsteady and frantic hand. I press my hand against it, and when I pull back small flecks of the lacquer have come off and are sticking to my skin. I brush them off and narrow my eye, poking next the gaping center of the “eye” where it has been frantically chipped away and gouged at. This time those determined forces send a gurney hurdling at me, and I sweep it aside with a sharp jerk of my arm, not removing my attention from the gouged spot.

“What are you….?”I mumble to myself, the thin patch crumbling a bit to give way to a small gust of cool air. “Scratch that- where are you….?” Wind howls from the small opening, and I remove the blade from my calf and drive it into the small opening.

Suddenly, a shriek like that of a dying animal tears through the air, shaking the hallway and rattling my teeth. I don’t stop, and I pry my blade, causing more plaster, concrete, and cracked white lacquer to crumble away and reveal just what I had expected, an entrance of sorts. I continue to chip away at the wall despite the reverberating shrieks that continue without end, until a gaping empty tunnel is revealed to me. A long and steep staircase delves down into the depths of some unknown chamber, one I cannot see into from my current vantage point. I know not why feelings of foreboding and icy adrenaline kick in as I pass into that threshold, taking the first step down the steep stairs, I curse softly as my head throbs dully.

“What is this….force?” I grind my teeth subconsciously, indeed it is a force. One to be rivaled with. It pushes back, both in a physical way and a mental way- ‘Go back…!’ It shouts at me, each step becoming harder and harder to push through as I go deeper and deeper. ‘You are not meant to be here! Leave! Go back!’ It howls as the voices above fade away with their incessant wailing. Tortured souls. Manipulated souls. Souls that will never be able to pass on until this place is cleansed. This force that was now trying to push me away, is also what is controlling them. This sealed up entrance leads to the demon’s lair, and I would do well to be very careful indeed. Up until this point, I had been rather confused as to why it wouldn’t come after me, but now it all made sense. It was stronger down here. It would wait until I made the venture down here, until I was weakened by it, to take me down. After all, why would you waste the energy if there was clearly an easier way?

Finally, the steep stairs give way to a room, at first quite dark, but the moment I set foot inside irksome fluorescent lights flicker to life, making my eye burn like hell as I hiss and cover it uselessly.

There is blurry sickly white for the longest time before it all fades away to an image, and the sight that greets me is rather surprising.

“A lab….?” I kick a rusty old bucket with my foot, it clatters noisily across the half-clean-half-dirty floor. There’s a layer of dust and grime, but it somewhat looks like somebody at least halfway tried to keep the space in some sort of order. There are white tiles on the floor, white paint on the walls, a white ceiling- really, it was rather desensitizing.

It looked like a mix between a doctor’s office, a surgical chamber, a torture room, and a photo developing center. Old filing cabinets lined one wall with faded ink platecards, something that vaguely resembled a surgical table sat in the center of the room(with extra reinforced restraints, I might add), freshly polished and cleaned surgical utensils lay on a tray beside it, the only truly clean thing in the room, plastic curtains were hung up sporadically, hiding the greater part of the chambers, and photos hung up on clothes lines that were strung up with no real rhyme or reason.

“Sick…..” I scoffed as I strode past the lines of photos, many revealing shots of a skull drilled through to expose the human brain. Lobotomies, a disgusting human procedure. They think we’re horrid- but they’ve yet to look at what some of their own have done….

“You enjoy my work?” I turn to see a willowy man wearing a pristine white lab coat and blood soaked white latex gloves staring at me. His hair is white, his coat is white, his gloves are white drenched in red, the walls are white- everything is a sickening woozy white.

Everything except his eyes.

His eyes are the sort of black that looks like the pupil has absorbed both the iris and whites, completely dark. Nothing but dark.

And yet, despite his eyes and the way my body tenses, he makes no move to come at me.

“Not really.” I turn with a disinterested wave. “Not really my sort of art.”

“Perhaps I could show you something else…” His voice is warped, like two people trying to speak at once.

“I’m not very comfortable with you showing me anything, Doctor Franz.” As I say his name, he smiles. It’s all teeth. White teeth. Disgustingly white teeth. They are perfect squares, unbelievably perfect human teeth, now I know dental hygiene wasn’t quite so advanced in the early 19th century, so that brings about the question of where he got them…

“So you know of me, but the question is- do you know of my work?” He wears that sly smile like a painted on mask. It makes me want to tear them out. So much white, white everywhere. Then those dark pits in his face that one would call eyes, and the blood on his gloves…. where did the blood come from?

“I know what you did to those people. Those poor, deranged people. And I know that your spirit has been hunting the people of GlennHollow. I know that a soul like yours has no right to live again.” My grip on Bloodlust tightens and I feel him hiss and shudder slightly, waking at the intense air of evil we have walked into.

“Oh, don’t I?” He takes a step forward and I intuitively take one back. If there were any light in them, I would say his eyes were sparked with some grim lust, for power, or for knowledge I do not yet know. “You’re one of them- aren’t you? Not just another false alarm, oh-ho no. You have the build of one of them, of those people in the sky- I can see it. You have the look about you. The wide eye. Pale skin. Dark hair. You’re one of them- the angels….”

“Angels?” I want to scoff at the word. The Doctor surely was speaking like a crazy person, but in his words there were some things that sounded familiar. ‘People in the sky’, was he speaking of citizens of Muortum? Had he met one of us nearly an entire two centuries ago?

“Oh yes...angels….my precious angels….nobody believed us then...nobody believed us about those lovely creatures from the world above...but he did. And he promised, as long as we fed him with souls, he would tell us everything we wanted to know…” Lust for knowledge it is then.

“But never did he ever offer us an actual specimen…..beautiful…..” Ok, so being called beautiful by some creepy possessed doctor was not something I ever wanted to hear. Instead of being flattered, I feel even more vexed.

“What did you do, Franz?” I snap. “Who did you bargain with in exchange for this knowledge?” Bloodlust hisses and I crack him against the grimy tiles threateningly. The fact that someone was trading knowledge of Muortum and its people (a practice expressly forbidden), in exchange for this man killing and tormenting people for their ‘souls’ (which everyone knows cannot be adequately gathered by a mortal), really rubbed me the wrong way. No, it was worse than simply rubbing me the wrong way. It made me pissed.

“Oh, you know him….but lets not talk about him now….Lets talk about you….” I already knew Franz was a demon from the moment I set foot on these grounds. But I also know he was once human. Now, I have heard of a human being possessed by a demon- but Franz seems very much still in control. So….a human turned into a demon? The idea is preposterous and unheard of- and yet it chills my bones to the core. My mind races for a proper explanation, but it can find none.

“I won’t tell you anything.” I lash out with Bloodlust, and he simply grabs the braided length as it approaches his neck. He holds it in his hand as it sizzles and hisses, I can see his skin turning black, almost...melting. And then the putrid smell of burning demon blood meets my nose, it makes me gag- but he doesn’t drop Bloodlust. In fact, he holds on even tighter.

“Why are you so defiant? I will take very good care of you….” His hand starts to look less and less like a hand, until it finally just falls to the ground with a wet ‘splat!’, a shapeless lump covered in black.

“What you’ve done is unforgivable. And what you will continue to do is worthy only of the most swift and harsh punishment.” I reel Bloodlust back in, kicking off the shapeless fleshy lump with my boot.

“You’re supposed to protect humans….yes?”

“Yes…” I reply skeptically, taking another cursory step back. Maybe if I increase the distance between us, I can increase the speed of the next strike so he cannot block it.

“I am human….” He drawls, stepping closer.

“No, Franz. You ceased to be human long ago.” I say stonily.

“Hm. Yes. This is true. But I was once human, does that not count for something?”

“No. No it does not.” I hiss at him, baring my fangs. At this gesture his eyebrows raise considerably.

“Such lovely pointed teeth you have…..I think I would very much like to study them….”

“Shut the hell up.” I bark, taking another few steps back. I want so badly just to have this over with, to kill him quickly, but being rash will only lead to disaster. I have to bide my time, wait for an opening. Wait until he doesn’t expect the blow, then he won’t be able to block it...

“You act so defiant...so dreadfully repulsed… as though what I’ve done is so terrible….but do you know how terrible it feels to be weak? So utterly powerless? To be living in a fools paradise where we are at the top of the food chain- only to be so close to the bottom that you can’t even look up to see how lowly you really are? Can’t even see the more powerful beings standing right above you?”

“Of course I do!” I spit at him, he wipes the clear venom laced saliva off of his boot with a dismissive hand. What does this used-to-be-human, who lived in such ignorant bliss for the longest time, know about fear? Know about being powerless? All he ever did was exert power over the weak, he was never locked in the punishment rooms for weeks on end, he doesn’t have these memories of terrible weakness, of having the life you know you should have had torn away from you and burned up so badly you can’t even remember it, he never had to fight for his life because it would have been extinguished so very easily if he didn’t.

“I know how it feels to be weak. No person is ever born strong. Strength is something we make ourselves- we don’t steal it by salvaging it from those who are already weak!” I lash out Bloodlust and, as he did last time, he grabs it. But this time, I am ready. I take the blade out from my boot and take three very calculated and precise quick steps forward. I may not be as skilled as Megan, but I know how to hit a target with a knife. One doesn’t simply forget so many years of basic training.

There’s a wet ‘thunk!’ as the blade grinds and tears through his stomach. Not really on target, but any damage is better than none at all.

He looks down at the blade and releases Bloodlust to yank it out of his stomach, but I’m already on top of it, Bloodlust is around his wrist and I yank, hard enough to sever his regrown hand again. But I don’t stop there. 1,2 arc, 3, 1,2, arc, 3. Over and over I repeat this mantra to myself in my head, the whip cracking one after another in quick succession. If you give a demon time to recover, and in this such case, regrow his hand, you’ll lose what little advantage you have. Right now, my body only has two impulses. Fight. And win. I want to whip him into a bloody mess, tear out his heart, and burn it so he can never hurt people again.

His hands, or what would be hands (they look more like oil slicked nubs at the moment) are in front of his face, like a sort of guard. I recognize it, the way his arms meet completely with his elbows pointed down, he really is protecting his face. Protecting his head. He knows I aim to decapitate him. Somehow, he knows that is my goal. I guess I’ll just have to tear his arms off to get to his neck then. And I’m so close to doing it too. His right arm is hanging on by a tough ligament midway through his upper arm, in a few seconds, that would be gone too. I would be able to immobilize him by decapitating him, and then nothing could stop me from cracking open his chest cavity and burning his heart to ashes.

I feel hands trying to yank me back, trying to stop me, and I drive my heel back and twist it. My stiletto sinks into soft flesh and sizzles upon the contact with demon blood, I hear a hissing screech- one of doctor Franz’s assistants just got more than they bargained for. The screech is distinctly feminine, and I know it must be Julia Barone. The nurse who committed suicide alongside Doctor Franz and-

“Hector!!” The Doctor shouts, the next thing I know big meaty hands have picked me up by my hips and slammed me into one of the walls, leaving an indentation at least six inches deep of collapsed tile and insulation. All of the air is forced out of my lungs, and my body feels temporarily dazed. This isn’t normal….usually I can recover from a blow like this in no time….but my head feels so blurry….

“Do you know what we do to hostile patients, Angel?” Doctor Franz takes several steps closer, healing at a nearly unbelievable rate. The effects of my attack are disappearing too quickly, the advantage I had is ticking away like seconds on a clock. But my body- it’s almost like it is self destructing...why…?What…?

“Nice stuff, isn’t it? Makes the mind go nice and blank….” Hector flashes a gap toothed grin, sandy blonde hair covering what would be his eye sockets. He holds up some sort of metallic utensil braggingly, my vision is swimming too badly to clearly make out what it is- but I assume it is a needle. Had that….had that been inside of me? Had he pierced my skin and injected me with something that was now turning my body into lead? My high level of pain resistance was working against me- if I had been more sensitive to pain, I would have noticed the needle. But how…? How could it slip through my hard leather armor…? There weren’t any chinks or tears, any weak patches- were there? No….there couldn’t be….I maintained it religiously….I would have noticed...I would have repaired it…

Where…? Maybe if I could pick out where he had injected it into me, I could attempt to draw it out the first chance I got...my body wasn’t completely numb yet, and it wasn’t getting any worse presently- so perhaps they had underestimated the dosage required to put me out. If I played along for a bit, found out where they injected it, I could leech the medicine out- like sucking the venom from a snake bite. Thank god for logical thinking under high pressure circumstances.

I tested my theory by flexing my fingers slightly. A bit blurry, but yes- the capability of movement was still there. They hadn’t injected me with enough tranquilizer. But now came the hard part- acting like a dumb drooling doll whose mind went blank until the opportunity arose to leech out the venom and take them down. I would have to make my decision and stick with it, because they wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. The instant I chose to strike would be vital, because I would have to take out all three of them in quick succession, or my chances of failure would go up with each passing second.

“Yes….much better~” Franz coos as I force my body to go lax, not an easy task for me I must say. I’m so used to being tensed and ready for battle that lowering my guard and relaxing is right next to impossible, even more so in the face of the enemy. But I didn’t become as skilled as I am, as confident and highly ranked, by being confined by the “impossible”. I became the way I am because I have, and continue, to push against the boundaries of possibility.

He has Hector, clearly the brawn of the operation and not exactly the most blessed in the area of intellect, strap me down to the sterile steel table. He smells like bleach and stale cigarette smoke. It is all I can do not to gag as the disgusting smell invades my keen nostrils. But somehow I manage, and I stay as still as possible- perhaps even, too still….

“Let’s see those teeth first…” Franz gestures, and the next I know Julia is working my jaw with her thumb and index finger, trying to get it open. It hits me that I am supposed to leave even the muscles in my mouth pliable and lax- and I allow her thin prodding fingers to work it open. She pulls it even further open and holds it that way. I suppress my gag reflex when Doctor Franz rams his gloved fingers into my mouth. It is uncomfortable. Degrading. Humiliating. It is repulsive and intrusive.

“Oh~, what have we here, Angel…?” I feel his fingers rake across the roof of my mouth, slipping over the tracker, firmly implanted in the tissue.

“Trying to hide something are we….?” It is hard to fight the urge to bite down as hard as possible and spit out his severed fingers- but I manage it. Not yet. The time is not right yet…

There is pain, terrible pain because it is alien- a sort of torment I was not forced to endure in training, as he takes a pair of pliers and sticks them in my oral cavity, seizing the edges of the disk and pulling as hard as he can. But it is not just one consecutive pull- no. The tracker is lodged in too deeply, and as his hand grows tired he relaxes for a few seconds, and then resumes pulling again.

Muffled sounds of discomfort make their way out of my mouth, but I leave my body lax- I force it to be. The firm skin is being shredded by the anchor, the part of the tracker that is located at the tip of the rod burrowed into the flesh and is larger than the rest of the rod, like an actual anchor. It deploys in the instant after the initial needle pushes into the skin. This sort of torture, having it forcibly ripped out, is only meant to be experienced by the dead. By those who can no longer feel the terrible sensations they are enduring.

“Does it hurt love…? Oh I’m so sorry….” His free hand brushes against my collarbone and he gives another sharp pull. The flesh gives way, and a trickle of blood turns into a flood. He pulls out the tracker, now drenched in blood, and holds it up. The flat disk is dented from the pliers. The rod is bent from his yanking. The anchor, roughly two centimeters in length with two “arms” each about a centimeter in length, is still intact.

“Lovely device.” He smirks, before handing it to Hector, who promptly crushes it below his foot. The pain, the blood, I can hardly see straight. What is this feeling that is coming over me…? Rage? It feels like rage….but so much stronger...No...No….I have to wait for the right moment...I can’t waste my patience….

The doctor turns to reach for another tool, and Julia accompanies him. Two out of three backs are turned. But where did they inject me…? Then I realize it. It is hard to detect above the throbbing inside of my mouth, but as I let my guard down, as I allow my body to succumb and become vulnerable to all of the pain I am feeling, I can feel the numb spot on my hip. But how…? How did he pierce my armor…? The hard leather surely wouldn’t give way for just a simple needle...No….head games...it is all head games. Madness, trying to make me believe things that aren’t there. Make me forget things that really happened. Hector grabbed my by my hips, if it was in fact a laced blade, a sharpened scalpel or something of the like, it is not completely implausible that it would have forced its way through the fabric. Not with the sort or strength Hector grabbed me with.

Two out of three backs turned. I know where I was tainted. Chances are looking as good as ever. Now is the time to act. Now is the time to release this strange rage-like feeling that has been building up inside of me.

The leather straps snap like rubber bands under too much stress as I wrestle against them, and I pounce off of the table. In order to reach the site of infection- I would have to remove the torso of my armor. Embarrassing, without a doubt. But now was not the time to be bashful. Now, speed was vital. Seconds. I would have a matter of seconds. I grab Hector’s big meaty head between my two hands before his lacking IQ points could register what was happening, and I twist it all the way around his neck. A full 360 degrees. And then I drop his limp form. Even for a demon, that sort of move would leave him motionless for a while.

Julia and Franz have heard the racket, but by the time they whip around I have undone the front laces of my armor and have torn off the leather cuirass, bending over at an inhuman angle to suckle the venom from my hip. The blood from my own mouth slides down the pale skin and I spit out the tainted blood before it can work it’s way back in through the gaping wound in my mouth. What is this strength I feel, building on top of the rage-like emotion bubbling within me? Why do my lips feel so natural pressed against tender flesh- even though it is my own, and my back is bent as such an angle it would snap the spine of a mortal? Blood...so much blood….it’s all in my mouth...and it feels- good.

Before I know it, I have done what I swore I would never do.

I have succumbed to the dark side of me, the side of me that is a vampire, the side that my father gave to me.

But it doesn’t feel as I thought it would. I don’t want to seek and destroy, my throat doesn’t burn for the crimson fluid, a primal need that will never be satisfied once indulged, as I thought it would be. I want blood. Yes, want. But...I don’t need it. It feels good, even inside of my injured mouth, even laced with toxic medicine, even though it is my own. It feels natural. Complete. It feels like...like a gift. If feels less like a curse from this father I’ve never known, and more like a blessing. Because as I suck at my own tender flesh, I slowly start to swallow- and I feel stronger. Better. Faster. Pain seems to leave my body as that odd feeling boils over, I feel invincible. Immortal. As though I could take on the world with nothing to hold back. As if to my very core, I am made of only titanium and sheer wrath.

I pull myself upright, the cuirass of my armor tossed aside and leaving me only in my tight tanned leather pants and my hardened leather boots that come up to my knee. My long hair is tousled and messy from today’s adventure, and thankfully it is long enough not to give the doctor and his nurse a peep show of my assets. It drapes down in curtains of raven strands to conceal the cups of my fabric bra (Don’t wear lace and tight leather at the same time, just saying- it can get pretty itchy...), without the extra support from the tight confines of my cuirass I feel...loose. Like how MaryFlu must feel, considering it’s a very rare occasion when she wears a bra at all. I know that I have a nice chest, I’ve had men even speak to it instead of my face because they were so brash, but that doesn’t mean I have to flaunt it. I don’t want to be like those girls who would do anything for attention, anything to sate lust. Having a nice body doesn’t make you a nice person- as I have proven so completely.

I wipe the blood from my mouth with the back of my hand.

“No more dirty tricks. We’re going to have a real fight. Deal?” The doctor smirks as he takes in my appearance. I must resemble a bird that has had its feathers ruffled; my hair a mess, my mouth still bleeding somewhat profusely, nearly half nude, and probably sounding half crazed. But you know what? I didn’t have any sort of feeling that I would lose. Not anymore. I just felt...strong. Like any weakness I might have had before had vanished into the air.

“And what are you going to do, disarmed as you are?” He chuckles. It is true, Bloodlust is still on the floor, next to the crushed wall where the impact knocked it out of my hand.

“A hell of a lot.” I crack my knuckles and take slow steps forward, pacing myself, stretching my arm back for a good swing.

“Play time is over.” I slam my fist into Julia Barone’s face as she laughs. It pushes right through, the force shattering her skull like it was made of glass. It was almost like her head simply exploded, the burning black blood coating my arm up to the elbow. I had never been able to punch right through a skull before. Perhaps there was something to this blood consumption thing.

“You’re next.” I say menacingly, shaking the sizzling droplets of black muck off of my arm with haste and disgust. I didn’t want to play anymore. I wanted to kill. Destroy this demon once and for all. I wanted to find Megan and tote her back to Muortum so we could file our formal report and get my armor mended. But in order to do that, I had to defeat not only the body of Doctor Franz, but destroy the heart as well. I wanted to wipe him from the face of the earth. And for some crazy reason, I really felt like I could do it. I felt like I had all the power in the world.

“Why don’t we simply sit down and talk about this, Angel?” This time, he makes the first move, rushing at me with a razor sharp scalpel in one hand and another syringe in his other. I simply spit the blood out of my mouth and grab both of his wrists the instant before they reach me. He is caught off guard by the quickness of my body. To be honest, so am I. I have always been fast, but never this fast...He is moving lightning quick- and it seems like my body is no longer bound by the restraints of reaction time.

“Dance with me.” I smirk and twist him around, holding onto his wrists as I plant my foot against his spine and shove. The force my leg puts on his back, coupled with the force of my arms yanking him back just as hard as my foot is shoving against him- it is enough to break bones like twigs. He starts to scream, and I feel a sinister smile creep across my face.

“Come on now, this doesn’t hurt….” I coo, shoving even harder. I feel his spine pop- but I don’t stop there. This man- he deserves far worse than this. He deserves endless torment, not just momentary agony.

“Tell me what I want to know, and maybe I’ll let you go…” I whisper in his ear as I relax my foot for a moment only to shove even harder in the next second. I can feel his muscles tearing like rice paper. No soul can think logically under such torture. Clearly I wasn’t going to let him go, but people will tend to say anything for a moment’s respite. Especially people like Doctor Franz. Cowards like Franz would always think only about themselves, and would always cave under the slightest pressure.

“A-Anything!!” He screams, and I grin. His screams sound so glorious….

“Who made you a demon? Who told you about our world? Who are you capturing souls for?” I bark out my questions. At first there is only silence, so I push harder. “I’m not a very patient woman, Franz.” My boot pushes terribly hard- threatening to rip him limb from limb.

“Grim the Reaper!!! It was….Grim the Reaper!!!” He cries out between tortured shrieks, and my mind goes blank.

“Liar.” I say coldly, giving one final shove and tearing his arms from his body completely. He falls to the floor pitifully, his sickly white room painted black with his sizzling blood.

“No- It’s the truth!!!” He screams as I place my boot on his head.

“Goodbye, Franz.” I crush his skull beneath my foot with a wet crunch. I can’t explain what I’m feeling at this moment- the immense feeling of power is gone, it left with the threat. And the words he said make me so incredibly wary…”Grim the Reaper”.... the felled king of Muortum...King Grim...who almost led the entire world into destruction…

“Sleep well….” I mumble as I pick up Bloodlust and lash his heart out, alongside his two accomplices. My hands burn something awful, covered in blisters and tender pink flesh from sickly demon blood, but I ignore it as I shove the three withered hearts into a paper bag I found in the corner and staple it shut. These three would never hurt anyone...never again….

“Aura!” I hear thunderous footsteps and look up as Megan tears aside a crinkling plastic curtains. “Thank God I found you!” She exclaims, scratches run up the side of her face and I don’t really believe I want to know exactly what’s happened to her. She’s breathing heavily and her frizzy red hair looks even more disheveled than usual.

“What is it….?” I ask cautiously, standing up with my paper bag- the bottom quickly becoming soaked in what looks like black oil.

“I found….I found...the kids!”

Author's Note

This took forever to write- and I know it needs a lot of revision, as always- feedback is very much appreciated.

Reviews

[EmaleighLynn]

OH MY FREAKING GOD.

THIS IS BLOODY AMAZING.

Aura is so awesome. The moral of this chapter: don't get on Aura's bad side. LOVE LOVE LOVE this. Can't wait for the next chapter!