The Volturi

Nine Lives Pt. 3 (finale)

Requested by lily_writes_words

Warning: This entry contains graphic depictions of murder, mayhem, and cursing. Reader discretion is advised. 

The metallic smell of blood hung in the air. Bodies, most of which were dismembered, laid on metal tables. Some were chained to the wall, sitting with lifeless eyes transfixed on nothing in particular. 

"She's using Dark Magic..." Katherine whispered as she looked down at one of the surgical tables. 

"You think so?" Alec asked from the opposite corner of the room, "I thought she was becoming the next Jack the Ripper!"

Demetri growled at his coworker silencing any other sarcastic comment from being directed towards his wife. The tracker surveyed the carnage his daughter had created in the rundown morgue. Organs, such as eyes, tongues, and even livers laid in basins or suspended in jars waiting to be used and bloody medical instruments laid in disarray on tables or still in the bodies. The sight alone made Demetri sick to his stomach.

It had been three months since since Maria had runaway, taking the spell book with her. To say tracking her had become a hassle was an understatement. His childe, like any other hybrid of gifted vampires, had inherited the opposite of her fathers abilities. Instead of being able to track anyone, she was able to deceive and cloak herself beyond detection and with the magic she inherited from her mother she was able to hide herself from her mothers attempts to locate her with tracking spells. She was mostly untraceable...until she was in need of more fuel for her powers and rituals and that was when people would start to go missing.

 It was only then could her family find her. 

Demetri turned away from the rotting corpse of an infant with its chest ripped apart and heart and lungs missing. "Why would she do this?" Felix asked, sidestepping a bloody summoning circle.

Katherine was the one to speak up. "The Liber Noctis corrupts," she continued, "It calls to young witches and warlocks when they're at their weakest, offering them what they truly desire."

"Which would be?"

Katherine shrugged and crossed her arms. "For each its different. Some want wealth, others power, there's even been cases of witches wanting immortality."

Jane set down the jar of blood she found. "But Maria has all three of those." 

Katherine focused her attention onto one of her daughters victims. The woman was no older than twenty-four. Her hair was blonde but it was hard to detect with how much dried blood hid its natural color. The woman had defense wounds on her arms and legs, even her once manicured nails were pushed back at unnatural angles showing how hard she fought. Katherine dared herself to look lower to the woman's abdomen. 

Her body was newer than the others, if Katherine was to put a time of death she would say around a day or two old. The woman was cut open much like the others Katherine had seen before but there was something off about the woman in general. Katherine took a step closer and that was when she saw it. Although Maria had put the woman's organs back in place, she had failed to tuck her intestines back in properly. 

A memory of Maria when she was younger stirred inside her mothers mind. Katherine, against her better judgement grabbed a pair of gloves from the nearby glove box. 

"Kat?" Demetri called as he watched his wife pull the gloves into place and dive into the woman's stomach.

"She wouldn't have..." Katherine stopped, "The uterus is missing..."

Alec turned his head to the side. "The what?"

Jane sighed and shot a glare at her brother. "Try reading a science book instead of playing The Sims every night."