Sanguine

The Fall of Magdalena

The vampire hunt still took awhile to reach its end. As hard as everyone tried, no progress was ever made. Of course, Mircalla easily evaded her father and his army, but finding Magdalena was proving harder than expected. Not even Mircalla ever caught so much as a glimpse of her and she was a vampire. It should've been easy, but it wasn't.

"Looks like our years of ignoring Magdalena has given her the skill needed to escape us," Margreta muttered bitterly when Mircalla visited her in another dream only to reveal that she was still unsuccessful. The same could be said for Margreta and her friends. The trio did continue to try and find Magdalena and save Mircalla, but they were no more successful than anyone else.

At one point, Maximiliana did find some papers that used to belong to Magdalena and after showing them to Margreta and Cornelius, a few tears were shed because those papers were actually journal entries and they were all quite tragic. For all of Magdalena's absentminded ways, she was still a human with thoughts and feelings and the abuse and neglect she had suffered because of her ignorant and uncaring family had clearly left its mark. In every piece of writing she had tucked away into a secret part of her room, she complained about her cruel family and longed for one far kinder and more open to someone like her. It was still a hard pill to swallow that sweet, stupid little Magdalena might've been the true monster all along, but the more research the trio put into Magdalena, the more it made sense.

"I never realized..." Margreta whimpered, wiping dark eyes as she set aside another one of Magdalena's unhappy letters.

"Nobody did," Cornelius tried to console his sister in law.

"But that's no excuse," Margreta replied. "Now because of us, she and Mircalla both are dead."

"But we can fix things," Cornelius continued to encourage. "All we need to do is find Magdalena and then we can put this whole thing to rest!"

"You make it sound easy," Maximilian sighed.

"It is!" the man promised. "Vampire or not, even Magdalena has limits and provided death hasn't changed her wit, all we need to do it outwit her!"

"Be careful," Margreta warned. "The last time we wanted to outwit Margreta, she far outwitted us."

"Yes, perhaps. But now that we know more about her and how she things, we have a new bit of insight! We know her story. Maybe we know how to get to her now," the young baron reminded his friend. Margreta slowly started to see his point and at last, a plan took shape.

"You have a plan?" Maximiliana asked when Margreta called her in to talk.

"Yes," her older sister replied. Then she explained.

"What!? No! Are you mad?!" Cornelius cried once Margreta finished.

"Perhaps," Margreta said with a smirk, but then her face grew stern again. "But unless you have a better plan..."

"I don't," Cornelius said quickly. "I just don't think this is the best idea..."

"Nor do I," Maximiliana confessed with a cringe. "But I agree with my sister. This may be our only hope."

"So be it then," Cornelius bowed slightly. "What will you have me do?"

The next night, beneath the full moon, the trio pretended to celebrate the one-month anniversary of Magdalena's death. Just as planned, it lured Magdalena out in all her vampiric wrath.

"Dost thou dare mock me in my pain?! Dost thou dare mock my woes?!" she howled. "For thy impudence, thou shalt suffer a damning wrath most nightmarish to behold!" she finished. Then she reared back, pale face seeming whiter than the moon as her eyes flashed blood red. She lunged upon the trio with a horrific strength, but as this was all part of a plan, the trio was ready. Cornelius jumped up with a razor sharp knife while Maximilian cast a net over the young vampire and Margreta stood nearby with garlic, crosses, stakes and silver in her hands. Magdalena shrieked, having not expected the ambush. Thus was the fall of Magdalena.

"HA! We did it!" the trio cheered, celebrating the fall of Magdalena. Their cunning plan had worked and Magdalena was finally, finally captured. Margreta quickly spread garlic and salt around Magdalena's writhing, angry form. She continued to spit vile curses upon them, but they cared not, for they had won. They had caught Magdalena!

But their celebration did not last long because, without even being called upon, Mircalla appeared before them all, looking even more frightening than Magdalena had.

"Magdalena Karnstein..." Mircalla's voice was low and slow. A languid yet hateful fire burned in her dark eyes. Magdalena trembled in the net, cowering beneath the wrathful, vengeful visage of her youngest sister.

"Mircalla! What hast brought thou here?" she squeaked, former opulence and terror lost to Mircalla's far surpassing strength and power.

"You have, dear sister," Mircalla replied, voice still flat and firm. "You wished to destroy me, did you not? You wished to usurp my title and take back what you believed to be rightfully yours?" she waited coldly for an answer and Magdalena was finally bullied into one.

"Yes," she squeaked. Mircalla gave a cruel, triumphant smirk that frightened them all yet seemed so characteristic of her.

"Good. It is good to know that you know your place. Below me. And you admit your crimes of treason?" she purred.

"Treason?" Margreta rasped in fear. "Mircalla, we were going to avenge you and fix all this! What are you doing?"

"I am doing just that, dear sister," Mircalla hummed in a matter-of-fact way before lunging at Magdalena faster than any of them could blink. All they heard then was a horrific screaming from Magdalena, desperate and shrill.

"Have mercy! Have mercy! Let me gooooo! Please!" but Mircalla only snarled over her, turning into a giant black cat as she ravaged the poor girl to death, refusing to stop until Magdalena had taken her last death throe.

Only then did Mircalla cease her vicious attack and rise again, the remains of her work visible beneath the full moon. All that remained of poor, stupid, vicious Magdalena were severed limbs spattered in sanguine liquid. Thus was the fall of Magdalena. Mircalla, however, was only growing stronger and taller, a strange light entering her eyes.

"I have triumphed," she said softly. "I have vanquished my creator and have inherited her power. Nothing can stop me now..." then before any of her friends could blink, she vanished like she had never been there.

"What do we do now!?" Cornelius despaired first as he knelt beside Magdalena's bloody remains. Though he had never known the girl himself, he remembered Mircalla constantly talking about how stupid she was. Back then, it was funny, now it wasn't. To see Magdalena's remains scattered so carelessly, bathed in their own blood, wasn't funny. It was tragic. And the fact that Mircalla was the one to do this and with so much contempt was sickening. Sure, Mircalla had no love for any of her sisters, especially not stupid Magdalena, but surely even she could've scraped up some mercy for the poor victim of suicide and killed her quickly. Such a torturous death had not been deserved, everybody agreed. But Mircalla delivered it anyway. Speaking of which, where was she? While Margreta and Maximilian prayed over Magdalena's remains, Cornelius stood and looked around. Mircalla was nowhere to be seen. Once again, she had escaped them, but this time, this seemed more permanent.