WALPURGIA ✔️

Chapter 25 - G o t y o u

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Sarah rushed to open the door to Madame Genevieve, crying as the scratching of knives sounded behind her.

She shouldn't have entered Rebecca's room! She should have just ignored the crashing sound!

But her feet had carried her to her student. Her sixth sense had frozen in fear.

"Rebecca!", she had slammed the door open, awaiting to see the beautiful red curled witch with the soft smile.

Instead two snarking creatures had greeted her. Jezebel and Delano had awaited her, both fixing their attention at her. Before she could leave, she had been pulled inside and the door had been shut behind her.

Delano's black eyes almost burned a hole into her skin. Jezebel's wavering form greeted her.

"Oh! Another participant", Jezebel cooed, having taken the form of a beautiful, busty woman. One of her victims.

Jezebel only took the form of her victims.

"How nice of you to seek us out, Sarah!" Delano's strong hands let go of his wife's body. The vampire-daemon scanned Sarah intently, every glance burning and itching uncomfortably.

"What shall we do to her? The hallway illusion is growing old, is it not?", Delano mused, cracking his knuckles.

Sarah couldn't move.

"What do you suggest then?", she purred, her foot rubbing against his body as he stood in front of Jezebel. Delano's eyes twinkled.

"Marie is surely lonely."

The door knob escaped from her grasp. Maniac laughter sounded behind her.

"Sweet, sweet Sarah! Loved by her daemon mother, hated by her witch father! A hybrid, like us! Hated! Beaten! Exalted! Exactly what you deserve!"

The obnoxious chanting hadn't stopped ever since she fled the second floor. She cursed Genevieve's name loudly - cursed be her idea to make the first floor even bigger!

No door in sight! The ones she passed were useless - storage rooms, bewitched rooms - all to her disadvantage.

Jezebel's scratching voice still wouldn't shut up. Heavy steps still sounded around her, making her flinch around.

Above her - nobody.

Next to her! - nothing.

In the corner - in the room - down the hall!

A glint of hope in Sarah's eyes. Jezebel got louder. A door! The door had appeared behind her!

The heavy steps started approaching her. Sarah hurried. She twisted it open - revealing a mirror behind it.

She had been tricked.

In the reflection, herself and two smiles behind her.

"We hunted you down several times, and several times you escaped our grasp. The scars on your body prove it."

She shut the door and took off.

The lit up halls had brought her nowhere. Think, Sarah, think.

The sound of several limbs dragging over the floor didn't leave her a choice.

Sarah ran straight into the oozing black abyss, only to hit a wall.

"Enough running from your fate. A well-behaved hybrid, ignoring her true nature. What else did you think would happen?" The voices sounded right beside her.

"Nighty night, sweet creature of the dawn."

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Genevieve backed away at the sight.

"Dear god!", she clasped her hand above her mouth.

Genevieve was shaking from head to toe.

It took her several moments to identify the torn corpse.

Sarah.

The grey hair.

The scars from the previous hunts.

Unmistakably so. It was Genevieve's best friend, Sarah, who was leaning against her office door.

Genevieve approached her, shaking, reaching out to lift her lumped head.

"Please", she pressed through her tears. "Please, by god, don't be dead."

A small cry escaped her lips.

A smile had been carved onto her face. Empty sockets stared back at her. Her right arm was fully gone, the half of her left one too. Her whole upper chest only consisted out of bones, her organs had been spilled out onto her lap.

The blood trail was thick and long, and as Genevieve followed it, she almost fell to her knees.

Rebecca's room.

It clicked.

Who had awakened Jezebel?!

"Whitlock!", she yelled. He didn't appear instantly. She sobbed. "Whitlock!!"

The elderly wizard appeared behind her, her relative in his arms. He was as pale as Sarah's lifeless skin. "I found her in the garden. Surrounded by blood and salt."
Genevieve's eyes fell to Sarah's corpse and to Rebecca. "Is she wounded?", Genevieve touched the pregnant woman.

She was still warm.

But something smelled of iron.

"Her back, her wrists, her chest", Whitlock stuttered. "It's horrible Madame!"

"Bring her to my room! Now!" She yelled for Diane to come too.

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"She'll heal", Diane breathed, retreating her glowing hands. "But some wounds will stay. The family sigil on her right wrist for example. Or the Brandt's initials on her back, along with several sigils."

Genevieve urged to see them.

Their sigil she knew, the Gladiolus with the crescent moons, Baldwin's too, the Iris with his initials; but the last one, 'dV', was unknown to her. Lilly and Iris. Her back was a flower garden. Gladiola on her wrist.

Genevieve traced them all, but only Baldwin would appear vividly in her head. Even in her darkest dream, she was still searching for him.

The green candle flickered.

Whitlock drew out his wand.

"My room is a safe spot. The goddess and her daughter themselves cast a spell on it." Genevieve held her breath as the longing in Rebecca only got stronger. She really sought after him.
"Jezebel must be furious", Diane cried as Rebecca winced in pain.
Genevieve retreated her hand.
"How did she escape her?", it was the one question that was on everybody's mind, but had escaped Diane's lips.

"Sarah couldn't", Diane unnecessarily commented and massaged the girl's hands.

"If Sarah couldn't, then neither could Rebecca", Genevieve strongly voiced. The first Chauvette pressed a firm kiss onto the hair of her troubled girl. Rebecca was trashing in her sleep. "They spared her. They are playing with her."

"But why?", Whitlock just couldn't understand.

"The goddess protects her", that we all knew. "As well as I do. She has plans for them."
"I understand her, but her daughter? A mixed creature?"
"I don't know either", she brushed over Rebecca's sweaty forehead.
"Does it bring joy to them?"

"Most likely. They can't touch her, but they can drive her mad", Genevieve sighed deeply.

"I should have listened to Sarah."
"Madame-"

"No, she was right. I should have really sold it when even Ferdinand voiced his concern about the grimoire. Goddess knows he's blind to such things, but I still kept it."

Rebecca started wincing. All eyes fell onto her.