Ekron

Crepuscular Lullaby - 8

Vladimir was waiting at the Necropolis, near the entrance that led to Carmina's palace in almost complete darkness; he looked at his watch, it was five minutes before midnight. He decided that it was the right time to begin. He came out of the Necropolis and there were three guards at the palace entrance. He took the machine gun out of the poncho and gave them a lead bath before they even grab their obsolete rifles. The goats woke up in an inner chamber of the palace and flew through its corridors heading to the entrance. In the throne room, Carmina was laying on her back with her eyes closed on the platform nearest to the room door and Alondra remained unconscious laying on the other. The wire rolled on the crystal ring between them was shining and the ring itself had become black, liquid and began to oscillate. Sephia had her arms extended over Carmina's head with their palms pointing to each other, and between them, a blue flame floated in the air.

Carmina opened her eyes and said to Sephia, "Continue, whatever it is, the goats will handle it," and closed her eyes again.

Vlad ran into the palace and found the hall indicated by Trimurti, stood before its entrance, threw the smoke grenade to the agreed wall, and pressed the brooch under his neck. Smoke filled the place, hiding the wall behind it and two images of him appeared trembling in the fog. A couple seconds later, he heard two powerful impacts, like if two cars would have crashed against the wall. Vlad deactivated the holograms to see clearly, ran to the wall and found the two goats nailed, buried in it with only the tip of their rear legs showing out. The holes were separated by several feet, so he started shooting into the nearest one. The goat inside was trying to get out, and it would have succeeded if Vlad would not have discharged all he had left of the first magazine on it, until the animal did not move anymore. The other goat had half body out of the hole, Vlad changed the magazine and shot to its legs, but it didn't have much effect, then he turned on the chainsaw and severed half of the long and powerful rear legs of the beast. The goat came out anyway, it was ten feet long with four curved horns in its head and vulture wings on its back. It aimed at Vlad, and even with only half of its rear legs, aided by its wings, it managed to charge on him with the force of a big bull, piercing his four horns on Vlad's stomach. Metallic mesh in the poncho prevented the wounds from being fatal or disabling and Vlad got trapped over the goat's head leaning to his left, while the animal kept advancing to find a wall to smash him. Vlad's left leg got within the reach of the goat's jaws, and the animal severed it at knee height. Vlad hit the back of the beast with the chainsaw, but it seemed to have a metallic plate there, and his weapon did not cut through. Then he severed the right wing of the animal; that slowed its advance but did not stop it. Then he swung the chainsaw and cut the goat's right front leg at shoulder height. The beast stopped and shook its head to get rid of Vlad, the boy fell backwards to the floor a couple feet in front of the beast. The goat advanced limping over him and opened its mouth to bite his head. Vlad put the rifle's barrel inside the beast's mouth and shot a discharge of ten bullets to its brain. The goat's corpse fell over Vlad.

The pain was overwhelming, but he had to find a way to travel those hundred yards to the throne room in time to save Alondra. Vlad freed himself from under the beast and looked around; behind the goat corpse he saw the severed right front leg of the animal. He realized that it was roughly the same size as one of his own legs. He crawled to the goat leg and grabbed it, then took out the ducting tape from his pocket and tied the beast leg to the outer side of his thigh. The tape was extremely resistant and adhesive, so it endured the task. He stood up and walked limping towards the throne room with the rifle in his hands, slowly bleeding out from his left leg.

The goat claws produced a metallic noise on the floor when Vlad walked. In the throne room the witches heard that sound when it was already close.

Carmina opened his eyes and said to Sephia, "It's a goat, continue and finish it," and closed her eyes again.

Then Vlad blasted the lock of the throne room door with a short discharge of his rifle and pushed it open with the barrel. Sephia turned towards him, the Black Vulture of Kish flew to her hand, unfolded, and activated. Vlad aimed to her chest and discharged ten bullets into it. Sephia fell dead to the floor with the Black Vulture in her hand, which deactivated and folded again. He approached the platform closer to the door. Carmina had her eyes closed and he severed her head with the chainsaw, it fell to the ground. Then he threw his rifle away and took Alondra from the other platform grabbing her by the back of her armpits. The glass ring went back to normal.

As he could, he dragged her limping across the room to a wall near the four-poster bed. He rested his back against the wall, turned her around, and sat on the floor hugging her. He kissed her forehead and combed her hair away from her face. Alondra opened her eyes, they were green and human, he smiled at her. She looked at him and then the sclera of her eyes turned blue, eight-pointed stars of a darker blue replaced her green irises and white vertical lines appeared crossing their centers. Under her eyelids, two black moles emerged, one to each side.

"Nooooo!" screamed Vlad in desperation.

Her body slightly floated over him and she stretched her right arm to the side, the Black Vulture of Kish flew from Sephia's inert hand to hers, but she did not activate it, only unfolded it to form a hundred degrees angle. Then she put the tip of that vulture wing on Vlad's neck, and using other spiritual means she lifted him against the wall until his feet didn't touch the ground. At the same time, she stood up letting her feet slightly separated from the floor, stretching her arm to keep contact between the Vulture and Vlad's neck in every moment.

Looking at him almost in rapture from below, Carmina said, "You reminded me of The Beast of Nineveh."

That said, she elevated further from the floor and let him fall flat on his back on it, under her feet. Then she opened her legs and mounted his belly, Vlad moaned, still soared from the goat's charge. She put her face closer to his, placed the Vulture between them, unfolded it completely and activated it, dangerously near Vlad's neck.

"I'm not sure you have to die," said Carmina and smiled in a way that froze Vlad's blood.

Then Vlad raised his right arm. With duct tape, he had tied the metallic cylinder to the inner part of his forearm and plugged the needle at the end of the wire into his palm, securing it with tape too. He put the tip of the cylinder in contact with the left side of Carmina's head, then he put together his thumb and little finger. An electromagnetic bullet came out of the cylinder and crossed Carmina's skull from side to side. The Crom Witch fell to Vlad's left side and the Black Vulture deactivated.

Vlad crawled closer to her and hugged her on the floor, he closed her eyes with his fingers, so she would look more like his sister and less like a demon, then cried in silence caressing her curly hair. The crystal statues started to come back to life. Some steps called Vlad's attention, it was Trimurti, that had come to collect Carmina's corpse.

"No, let me keep her," and Vlad clung to the witch's dead body.

"Please, understand, she is not your sister anymore."

"Nooo!"

"I'm sorry."

Trimurti blinked, Vlad's eyes became white, and his body became atonic. The Macsk grabbed Carmina's hair and took her away from Vlad; then dragged her by the red mane across the throne room and disappeared through the door.

Anubis and Llacme regained life and coughed. By a side of the throne there was a short spear, Llacme took it with her right mechanical hand and broke it in pieces. Anubis took Vlad's body carefully in his arms and placed it on the platform further from the room door.

"What will you do with him?" asked Llacme.

"Kill him and bury his body in the best mausoleum of the Necropolis, accompanied by his sister. After all, he avenged the one buried in that grave."

The Black Dog took the severed rotten redhead skull from the floor and put it in its place on top of the lifeless body on the platform closer to the door. Then he looked at Sephia's corpse and recognized her from a diffuse, unreachable place in his memory.

END OF "CREPUSCULAR LULLABY"