The legacy of the dark blood

Chapter 58

The punishers

The odd creature extended its tentacles towards another of the substation's towers to move nimbly in the area, not finding anything important.

"What the hell is that thing?" asked Liz, feeling her heart rate accelerate.

"How did you even know it would come all the way out here?" Nick asked her with bewilderment, almost pretending that what had happened didn't surprise him. Liz only shook her head, for a moment she drew an expression that reminded Nick of Anika's distressed face, he didn't rule out that the agent was developing a similar ability. He looked around, besides the main door, there was no possible way of entry for any threat, so he identified the area as safe and returned to Liz "Forget it, show me the book, the one on blood alchemy" he ordered, holding out his hands to meet with a gesture of astonishment from the girl.

"Do you really expect us to start reading here?"

"Just do as I tell you!" he ordered once again, raising his voice. Liz obeyed, recognizing that it was better not to start a fight with him.

Holding the book in his possession, Nick quickly turned the pages after checking the index, disregarding the condition of the paper. He turned straight to the section "consecration: compendium of beasts", skipping past the part where the offering of flesh to bring the beasts into the world was narrated until he reached the pages where the beasts were described, the Vernichter (annihilators), Zereisser (rippers), Knochenbrecher (bonebreakers) and Blutsauger (bloodsuckers) were nothing more than shadows of the demons Holzmann had consecrated himself to.

Nick turned to the next pages, which showed the methods of transferring dark blood to victims, the most effective of them, vampirism. It was, however, the next page that was the most grotesque; some humans were flayed after their bodies yielded to the power of the infernal substance, the results being the flayed creatures they found lurking around the library, with the name Läufer (runners); the next page showed the same skinless beings, along with the image of a salamander and a snake. Nick reviewed the next few pages for before continuing to review the sections in detail.

"Would you mind sharing the info?" Liz asked. Contrary to her expectations, Nick did not respond with affronts.

"I suppose you know that the Holzmanns also used animals in their rituals" Nick showed her again the image of the grotesque flayed creature together with the salamander and the snake "what you see here is a common water salamander, one of the most emblematic species of amphibians in the region, and what you see next to it is a Kreuzotter, one of the few species of snake around here".

"I understand," sighed Liz, "But what relevance does that have now?" Nick didn't answer, just moved on to the next page, which showed once again the image of the salamander, a mosquito feeding on blood next to a disturbing image in which the flayed monsters were force-fed salamanders while the skin of snakes was grafted onto them.

"It's simple," Nick answered in a depressed voice, "mosquitoes drink the blood of beasts, or humans and animals that are defiled, then amphibians like frogs and salamanders feed on them, and that's how they too become tainted; and the chain continues, because the vipers feed on rodents and amphibians" he reviewed one of the paragraphs that accompanied the horrible images "once an individual receives the dark blood, it can also receive the flesh of the beasts, he can also receive the flesh of the beasts to acquire their superhuman gifts" he turned the next page to show an image of the horrid being he had seen rising from the waters, with the name Bestrafer (punisher) "according to the writings, Holzmann was looking for an intelligent creature that could protect the confines of Reich der Finsternis from the waters. The vipers' scales fuse with muscles, creating an almost impenetrable layer of skin, and their tentacles are actually extensions of their limbs with powers similar to those of a constrictor snake. They have the gift of intelligence, the ability to hide in water and are apparently also sensitive to temperature changes. Their skins also function as electrical insulators.