Chronicles of the Underworld - Soul Eater

12 - Stakes

"Checkmate, darling."

David turned around and aimed at the vampire's forehead.

Fulgur froze, his body taking on the colour of his eyes.

"I'm sorry.", David said. "Really. But that's how it is. He's betrayed you."

"What?", the vampire muttered.

"Mortimer."

They looked at each other in silence. Lucie stepped next to him, folded the arms before her chest. She recognized the black uniform, and it brought back memories from when she used to wear it. Before they burnt it off her body and tied her up with strings of silver.

"He didn't send you after a vampire messing things up in Prague.", David continued. "That's just what he told you. The truth is, he sent me after you because you're part of a defective triad."

Fulgur took a step back.

"You know how it works. One of you dies, you all die."

The vampire released cold breath from his lungs. "You're despicable."

"And you've betrayed your only loved ones.", Lucie said. "How..."

The vampire started falling backwards.

-

Alexandria pressed her hand onto her mouth. How could she have been so stupid?

She had felt the trace with which Salem's soul had left this world, this dimension, this life.

He didn't exist anymore.

Nothing was left of his soul.

She detached her hand from her mouth and turned into the dark hallway.

She could feel the thing moving closer.

She pulled the blindfold over her eyes.

-

"Well... That was anticlimactic. Shit."

David stared at the motionless vampire to his feet. Fulgor was breathing, but his eyes were empty.

His soul had been devoured and would never find redemption nor life after death.

"You are so fucking disgusting."

Lucie walked past him, the air around her sizzling with energy.

"It's not my fault.", he said. "I'm..."

"I'm talking to Mortimer.", she replied. "I can feel his presence. This entire thing is fucked up. You know what we just witnessed?"

"Enlighten me."

"An execution." She kneeled down and closed the vampire's eyes. "The crow king's games. What punishment. I can feel him here."

"You want to leave him a message?"

Her amber eyes flared up.

-

"Come on! We're close!"

Aurel pulled her with him and Columbia smelled the fresh air from outside. She smelled the sky, the grass, the forest, life itself. It gave her new strength and she started running with him. They ran towards the door.

Paws were drumming on the roof.

"Prepare to fight again!", she hissed at him. "They'll be waiting. They'll..."

Columbia became an anchor.

Aurel turned to her as she sunk to the floor. She didn't move at all, as if all force had left her body.

"Columbia?", he asked.

-

Alexandria moved through the hallway without making a single sound. Beneath the blindfold she kept her lids pressed together, mimicking her lips, trying to prevent any wailing sound from escaping. Pure terror had hatched in her chest.

She pushed herself further, kept her hands in front to her so that she could feel objects in her way. She had not drawn her sword since she knew that the soul eater couldn't harm her physically.

Her mind kept racing around the question about what had terrified Salem so much as to have forgotten about the creature. She could feel it in there, its massive darkness, calling her and making her want to flee at the same time.

She reached the living room. She entered it, could feel the beast entering the hallway she had just left. Moving further in, the tip of her boot stroke something physical. A whimper wanted to rise from her throat.

She stopped. She calculated her position, figured that she must be in front of the window. There was enough room for the thing to move in behind her.

And for that other thing.

"Hello.", said someone.

-

"I know you can hear me, Mortimer. I've been waiting centuries for such a chance."

Lucie felt a deep rage that had long been buried in her chest coming undone.

"You've banned me from your kingdom, my home. You've tortured me. You've marked me for all eternity. You've reversed my magic. Instead of healing people, you make me destroy them. Every day it takes the most out of me to contain myself. I'm eating myself so as not to harm anyone else."

She looked at the vampire. He was another victim, born into a system of oppression and control.

"You think you have destroyed me, but that is incorrect. I have risen. I have survived because, and now listen, this is very important, mark my words, because it will be me who will tear you down. Your kingdom will be ash, your city even more of a ruin than it already is. I will destroy everything you are."

She pulled a necklace from her coat pocket. It was deformed and black, as if it had been exposed to high heat.

"Maybe you remember this. You gave it to me before you went into battle, so that I'll always remember you. I've never taken it off. You were very dear to me. You know that because you have seen it when the flames consumed me. The silver was burnt into my chest. After all these years, it still hurts. That was your way of punishing me for falling in love with someone else. When you find this necklace at the body, I want you to know that I'm waiting for you."

She clenched the fist one last time around the silver, then she placed it between the vampire's fingers.

"Always.", she whispered.