Malicious Tales

Chapter 7

    Malice trashed against her constraints, trying her hardest to escape and screaming bloody murder all the while. Literally. She pushed her power into her screams and all around the room the vampyric doctors and nurses fell to the floor, writhing in agony as Malice’s monstrous shadows tore at them from the inside. She could hear shouts all around her, some from her half-brother as he tried to get her to stop, but she ignored everything but her own instincts, which were yelling at her to continue.

    “Malicious, stop this at once, or I’ll kill the boy!”

    Malice stopped suddenly, her eyes shooting open at her father’s order. Lord Ruin stood outside the glass, holding Salem against the point of a dagger of shadows. Narrowing her eyes at him, Malice grudgingly shut her mouth, pulling her power from her victims and back to herself. Lord Ruin smirked at her, releasing the half-Daemon once more.

    “Mallie, it’s alright. You don’t need to worry about me. Look at it this way, they’re going to kill me anyway, so it’s this or the guillotine. This way benefits you, doesn’t it? So take it. If I have to die, I choose to die this way.” Synister spoke softly from his table, smiling at his distraught half-sibling. Taking a deep breath, Malice composed herself, giving Synister a small nod. Turning back to her father with pure hatred in her eyes, she spoke.

    “You disgust me, Father, you truly do. I hope you suffer for the rest of your life. And when life is finished with your pathetic existence, I hope you burn and rot in your own personal hell. Now get on with your damn process already!” Malice demanded, somehow managing to keep her voice steady through all her terror. Ignoring his daughters insults and curses, Lord Ruin grinned evilly and clicked his fingers, signalling the start of Malice’s painful transformation into a fully fledged Necromancer.

    Salem looked on with horror, seeing his dearest friend, the woman he loved, screaming agony as black bolts of shadows streamed from her brother’s chest to hers. He couldn’t even bring himself to close his eyes, feeling like he needed to be there for Malice. The two Zombie guards holding his arms showed no emotion, watching the process with complete disinterest. Lord Ruin stood next to him, a disbelieving smile on his face, no doubt marvelling at his own cunning.

    “C-can she die from this?” he asked quietly, not actually sure if he wanted to be heard. But heard he was.

    “Well, She’s half Fallen anyway, so technically she was born half dead. Or half alive, depending on which way you look at it. Either way, That’s half a life less to worry about,” Lord Ruin tried to explain.

    “..You don’t actually know, do you? You’re just winging it aren’t you?”

    Lord Ruin shrugged, but his smirk told Salem all he needed to know. Salem shook his head in disdain. Malice was only an experiment to her father. Lord Ruin didn’t care whether she lived, he only wanted to see if the process was possible, and who better to test on than his own children? That way if it didn’t work, nobody could say the Lord of the Fallen never sacrificed anything. And if it did work, all the better, because it got rid of his traitor of a son and gave him a powerful, non half-breed daughter instead. As far as Lord Ruin could tell, it was a win-win situation.

    Shaking his head again, Salem looked back to Malice, who, after a half hour, had finally stopped screaming, settling with sobbing every now and then. Synister wasn’t making any noises. He didn’t even look like he was breathing. Finally, all the shadows had disappeared, and the process had come to an end. Salem breathed a sigh of relief as Malice began to move, her eyes slowly opening.

    Malice felt like crap, and that was a serious understatement. Her arms felt like rubber, and she couldn’t feel her legs at all. Her ears were ringing, and her head hurt like hell, as if someone had hit her with a baseball bat. But underneath all the pain, she could feel something else. The power. It flowed through her blood and soul, slowly getting stronger as the minutes past. Her eyes fluttered open, and she got quite the shock when all she could see was red. She wasn’t sure if it was blood, or if her eyes had just gone wrong, and she wasn’t sure which option she was hoping for either. Gradually her vision started to clear up as her power got stronger, and she could actually feel her legs again, which is always a good thing. Lifting her head, she saw Salem staring at her, looking as if he was going to cy, and Lord Ruin, looking for all the world like a typical proud father. Giving Salem a shaky smile, she turned her head to see Synister, who was hanging limp from his medical table. Choking back a sob, Malice reached out to him, only to remember that she was still bound to her own medical table.

    “Get these things off me. Now,” she ordered, keeping her voice level. Lord Ruin nodded, and two of the vampyric doctors rushed over to release her. Slowly, so as not to lose feeling in her legs again, she trudged over to her half-brother, placing a hand on his cheek. Closing her eyes, she rested her forehead against his, letting the tears slip out with a sigh.

    “I’m so sorry, Brother. You never realised how important you are to me,” she said quietly, taking a moment before wiping her tears and turning to her father.

    “Well, come on then. Don’t we have a war to lead or something?”