The Judgement Of Divinity (TMOE #2)

Chapter 18: Compensation

Lucius knew very little about bats. The few encounters he'd had with them had been during his years at the Hydrina theatre, but they had been far away and he'd never wished for the opposite. So how was he supposed to know what to do with some eerie amalgamation between that and a human?

Some of the younger adults had said they were blind, but Samueli had claimed differently and Lucius trusted his judgement. Oh how Lucius wished they were though, since he was currently in a pitch black room and realised he was the one struggling with sight.

A gunshot sounded behind him and Lucius muffled a scream. It was on the other side of the door he had entered through, and he could guess that damned Derek had decided to destroy the doorknob.

The vampire screeched at this, and Lucius gritted his teeth as shivers ran down his spine. Too many of those screams and he'd end up with ear damage not so dissimilar from Ivan.

If he ever made it out of there of course.

He sure wouldn't if he didn't move though, so Lucius hurried to crouch down and move as quickly as he could to the side of the room. With a wingspan like that the creature would with all certainty have problems moving around the space, much like the garm had down in the sewers, and Lucius was determined to utilise this to his advantage just like back then.

The problem was the fact that the vampire did not need to move around much in order to be a threat, and Lucius didn't have time to curse before he was flying across the room again as it swung its large wing right into him, landing him against what he guessed was the wall furthest into the room.

He groaned as he got up from the floor, readying himself to dodge the next attack but caught a glimpse of light in the corner of his eye.

There was an opening to another room where a thin beam of moonlight was shining through thick curtains. He exchanged caution for speed and dashed in there, thankful both for light and a possible escape route.

To make things even better the creature was much too large to fit through the doorway, and Lucius took the liberty of sneering in its direction before pulling the curtains to the side.

The window had been nailed shut with an array of planks, only allowing the pale moonlight through irregular cracks.

"Fucking shit," Lucius whispered under his breath as he immediately got to work trying to tear them away.

A crashing sound reached his ears, and he pinched his lips together in dread before looking to the side, now able to discern the undesirable sight of a vampire-beast staring back at him from the doorway while using its monstrous hand to tear away pieces of the wall as if it was a brittle, rotten tree log.

"This is so unfair!" Lucius had to exclaim in its direction while trying to remove more planks from the window. It was a slow process, covering his hands in splinters and for every plank he managed to pull down, the creature did the same thing to pieces of the wall.

Finally, it managed to cram one of its wings through the door, now Lucius' pain of splinters stuck in its skin, and swung it towards Lucius, who just managed to step back enough to dodge it. He drew a breath through his nose, trying to swallow his fear as the creature let out another shrill scream.

It wasn't so easy, and he stood paralyzed for a good couple of seconds before moving again. The next plank he removed caused a couple of its neighbours to loosen as well, and Lucius breathed out as moonlight hit his face.

The creature however, let out another devastating noise as its wing was illuminated as well, and Lucius watched in confusion and wicked relief how the creature's skin instantly paled before shifting into a much darker, almost black shade, and it hurriedly retracted its hand from the light.