Her brother might’ve collapsed a man, but what awoke was not her brother. No, as Emily desperately tried to free herself from his side, she become conscious of the fact that whatever this monster was, there wasn’t any trace of her brother inside. It was a demon reborn, and it threatened everything they had worked so hard for. The prophet had awoken.
Chapter Three
“Everyone get outside!” Xander shouted as the very walls of his ancient castle began to come apart. Everywhere he looked, his undead children scrambled in panic under the prophet’s tremendous power. “I want everyone out alive… we leave no one behind!”
The last two that arrived to the front were Samuel and Emily, who barely made it through the door as the archway above them came down with thunderous force. They left the castle’s grounds and were ushered towards the front courtyard where the rest of Xander’s clan lay in wait of their unholy leader.
“Keep your distance!” Xander commanded his steadfast followers, “We don’t know what we’re dealing with and I’m not about to go losing half my goddamn army!”
“You can’t hurt him,” Emily begged, “C’mon, there must be another way.”
“My dear,” Xander replied with a grave earnestness, “I fear that we may be the ones that are going to get hurt. I’ve dealt with a demon before… and it didn’t turn out well.”
“Then we must allow Steven to fight this battle,” Samuel interjected, “His strength alone can exorcise the demon that inhabits his body.”
“You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t warm up to any information that you divulge,” Xander said snidely, “We’re in this mess because your people were too scared to stand up to mine.”
“And you’re a fool if you send any of your men into battle with hopes of slaying him,” Samuel added, “If anything happens to the man inside… I’ll see to it personally that you’re put down like the dog you are.”
“Big talk,” Xander scoffed, “For such a little man.”
“Stop it!” Emily bellowed as she once again stood between them, “The last thing we need right now is both of you at each other’s throats. If my brother is going to make it through this, he’ll need us to stand together—.”
“I say we storm him the moment he exits the castle,” Ava said confidently as she approached from the rear, “We’re a hundred strong… and he’s just one single man. I can do this, master, please allow me to try.”
“You don’t understand what you’re dealing with,” Xander replied.
“Oh, I think I’ve got a very good idea what I’m dealing with,” Ava said, “…And if I had of been allowed to carry out my plan before he awoke… none of this would’ve happened.”
“It wasn’t your call to make, Ava,” said Emily, standing tall in the face of the much stronger vampire, “It wasn’t then… and it certainly isn’t now.”
Ava raised a fist in anger, but those feelings were quickly dismissed when Emily’s eyes burst forth with the flames of a supernova, radiant and coursing with a blaze similar to an exploding white dwarf. In that moment, the Celt realized that nothing she could do would save herself from the summoner’s wrath. No longer was Emily a fledgling among true kindred, she was a goddess among immortals— the type that Fiona and her always hoped to one day become.
“Master!” signaled Horace, brandishing a silver sword and running towards the group with the rest of his ghoul companions in tow, “You must protect your coven. My men and I will rush the castle and attempt to subdue the attacker.”
“Of what castle do you speak?” Samuel asked as he pointed to the rapidly decaying fortress.
Just then, several explosions shook the foundation, and one after the other, all of Xander’s ammunition storages began to tear away at the ancient stone as they collided with the falling stone debris. Fires raged across every parapet, every watchtower, and even the central keep couldn’t hold back the inferno’s path.
For over four hundred years, Xander had managed to keep this castle out of the reach of the council’s eyes and in one blaze of atrocity, all his work withered with the embers that fell to the ground. He dropped to his knees and cursed to the Heavens for abandoning him, only the second time in his undead existence; the last being after first discovering his newfound vampire heritage.
“Look!” several of the vampires shouted in unison.
“It’s him!” bellowed the others.
They were all bloodthirsty and looking to exact vengeance on the person responsible. They licked their fangs and savored the thought of being the one to deliver the final blow, the reward being blood unspoiled by the impurities of human— that of a real, live blood demon.
Steven emerged from the castle’s entrance, sheathed in a fiery blaze and levitating over the very ground that was quaking from his supremacy. The only thing that remained of Steven was his frame, a lifeless shell that the demon was given control over. Suppressed both physically and mentally, Steven could all but watch as his body was used for ominous devices— constructed by the very men that took him aboard as a young vampire hunter.
“I said to stay back!” Xander yelled out to the rest of his clan as he saw the hunger in their eyes, “We don’t know what we’re dealing with here… and I won’t have your sacrifices be in vain!”
That did little to calm his vampires down, and Xander felt control slip from his grasp. He was losing them to the bloodlust.
“I disagree, Lord Franson,” Ava said with a sadistic smile, “We know exactly what we’re dealing with.”
“Unite my brethren!” Ava trumpeted to the rest of the pack, “For far too long, vampires had to sit back and take it from Hell’s minions! I say that we prove to our unholy god that we, too, belong among their upper echelon of frightful beasts! Tonight, we dine on demon!”
With only his firstborn’s words of foolishness, Xander lost his clan; not to another, but to their own hunger for justice unduly delivered unto them. Almost every vampire under Xander’s clan leapt forward and took up Ava’s challenge. After all these years away, Xander may have controlled the stone beneath their feet, but she had become the unnamed master of their will— the one they would follow into battle.
Few stayed back in accordance to their true master’s wishes, the youngest of their pack still loyal to the one that made them; and then there was Esther, maybe the only one who truly understood their master’s heart.
Fiona tried to spring into action with her sister, but was forced to watch as Xander grabbed onto her arm, refusing her right to join in the battle of her sister’s life.
“No! Let me go!” Fiona screamed as she tried to distance herself from the master she wished to leave behind. She scraped and clawed, but it did little good against the strength Xander possessed and Fiona was forced to watch as the battle commenced.
“Watch,” Xander whispered into her ear as he directed Fiona’s eyes towards the coming assault, “Watch the path foolish actions and bloodlust would have led you down. Watch… as your sister dies for the sins of our kind.”
Chapter Four
“Steven, please don’t do this!” Samuel clamored overtop of the cries of pain, “You mustn’t give into his accursed demands!”
One after the other, vampires dropped to the ground under the weight of Steven’s power. Some were strewn about the ground as mangled corpses, others charred to the bone from hellfire unleashed, and the really unlucky ones were those that had to see the carnage unfold before taking their turn on the offensive front.
Each of their fates ended up at the same precibus, death by honor. They were too proud to stand by and watch their home turned to ash; and they paid accordingly for such a foolish venture.
There was no honor among the undead, an emotional response that they clung to from their previous lives. There were only those that accepted their unholy fate, and those that were crushed beneath the weight of their own humanity; a fact these untimely vampires were finally starting to grasp.
Ava was the first to approach and also the
first to fall, but as she lay amongst her dead brethren, she realized that the only reason she yet lived was for the bemusement of the blood demon. He was toying with her, relishing in her defeat and self-doubt, sucking all the despair from what little soul she had left.
“I’ll see you in Hell, you foul demon!” Ava screamed as she jumped to her feet and launched another attack. She moved like water, fluid and intricate with her motions while she cut a path straight towards the blood demon that possessed the young Steven Johansson. Ava was good, but she wasn’t good enough.
“No, you’ll see me reigning in Hell,” the blood demon scoffed as he grabbed Ava by the throat and lifted her high into the air, “You vampires and your silly, little games… come now, did you really hope to defeat me?”
Ava struggled for her life, but in the end she just wasn’t strong enough. The demon was a member of Hell’s highest order, created by the dark lord himself and impervious to the attacks of a lesser being.
“Ava!” shrieked Fiona as she clawed out for her helpless sister.
The blood demon turned his head slowly until he stared down Fiona, still wrapped up in Xander’s arms. A smile was stretched across his wicked face; enjoying the agony he was putting them through, like killing two birds with one blasphemous stone. Without little care for the life of another, he snapped the neck of Ava and reveled in Fiona’s misfortune.
“Please, you’re better than this!” Samuel shouted. He started to walk towards the blood demon with little thought to his own wellbeing. Likely, he was going to die here tonight, but if he could walk Steven away from the abyss’ edge, then his death would carry meaning. “I know you, Steven. I know the man you are… and I know the man you’ll yet become. Don’t give up fighting… never give up!”
“The boy remembers you well, Samuel Anderson,” the blood demon said with a smirk, “He remembers you giving him a chance… and then promptly stabbing him in the back. He remembers lies and betrayal… disingenuous words of wisdom and false promises that lingered on grandeur. You’re barking up the wrong tree if you think he’ll listen to you… he’s got no love for you in his heart.”
“Lies, you’re not Steven talking!” Samuel fired back as he stared down what remained of his former student, “Fight it! I know you can defeat this monster—!”
Samuel’s speech was cut short, a boot to the sternum delivered from the blood demon, powerful and beyond anything he could withstand. He was shot up into the air and dozens of yards away. He narrowly avoided the edge of a cliff, through no control of his own. He landed to the ground with a thud, barely able to keep conscious as the searing pain coursed through every battered bone in his body.
“Pitiful humans,” the blood demon squawked, “…So damn squishy. At least these vampires put up a fight… well, sort of.”
Back at the edge of the castle grounds, Xander and what little of his clan remained in awe of the demon’s power, now several yards back from the summoner.
She stood tall in the face of certain danger, reminded by the fact that her brother still lay buried inside that monstrous fiend.
“You’ve dealt with these things before,” Emily said with her head turned back towards Xander, “How do you suppose I fight this thing?”
Xander gave her no response, his attention drawn towards the burning remains of the castle— his legacy, going up in flames before his own eyes.
Emily could’ve sworn she saw a tear in his dried up eyes, a glimmer of the man he used to be. The events that triggered it, however, gave Emily little time to reflect back upon its meaning, and she was forced to step into action. If her brother was battling for his soul, then she was going to give him the fighting chance he needed.
“Fight him, Steven,” begged Emily, who now stood only a few yards from the demon, “You can’t give into him…you can’t let him corrupt your soul.”
“Oh, come now, sister,” the blood demon goaded, “You left me to run off with Xander… no … no, that’s not quite right… you hide me away! You thought of me as a liability, someone that would only get in your way.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes, I do believe it is,” the blood demon said with hoarse laughter, “You didn’t think I could make it out alive… so you locked me away; but it wasn’t because you thought I would get killed, no, you thought that I’d get you killed.”
“You’re not Steven! He would never say such things, never think such awful things.”
“Oh, wouldn’t I?” the blood demon asked, “All my life I’ve been following behind my baby sister. You were always the shining star in the family. I’m glad our parents died… because I couldn’t live another day underneath that hell of a shadow you had me under.”
“He’s scared, Steven! He can feel your soul rising, taking over control of the body he unrightfully invaded. He’s not welcome there, Steven, and he’s trying to drag you down with him—!”
“Be quiet, you stupid bitch!” the blood demon scowled as he unleashed hellfire upon Emily from his bare hands.
Emily, too, commanded such raw power from within her spirit. It took over instinctually, and before she could even blink, her hands were ready to absorb the blast. She shook under the sheer power the demon wielded, but held true in hopes of seeing her brother once more. The hate inside the monster was strong, and getting stronger, but not powerful enough to break the love Emily had for her brother.
“I’m here for you, brother!”
“Shut up, shut up, both of you shut up!” the blood demon cried out in frustration, “You don’t get a fucking say in this, boy!”
“That’s it, Steven! He can feel you clawing your way up! Fight him, goddamn it, and fight him until you can’t fight anymore!”
“You destroyed my goddamn castle, demon,” said Xander as he grabbed the demon by the throat. Unshackled from his self-righteous burdens, he now stood ready to defend everything he had already lost.
His defiance was short lived, however, and he was shoved back down to the ground with only a single thought from the all powerful demon. His best just wasn’t going to be good enough this time.
The demon’s momentarily lapse in concentration was all Emily needed to channel enough energy to send a counter-attack back towards the creature inside Steven. The two white spiraling dragons that came to her all those months ago once again came to her aid and crashed against the blood demon. He was propelled across the courtyard and into the fiery blaze that was once Xander’s castle, now nothing more than a mound of rubble.
“Steven… I hope that you forgive me…”
Emily collapsed to the ground under the heaviness of her soul, pulled down by the actions she had to undertake. She passed out, her last thought going to the memory of her brother, now laid to rest under stone and mortar.
Xander rushed over to Emily’s side and grabbed her close as she drifted away from this world, off to a plane he could never imagine. Xander had lost much, here tonight, and he feared that he might’ve lost the last piece he held close.
Suddenly, a single hand tore through the stone confines of the castle and broke Xander’s concentration. It was Steven, or at least it was the beast controlling him. Unfazed by the attack, he picked himself up from the rubble and started to stride back towards the group.
And in the blink of an eye, Xander could once again see everything he had worked for go up in flames. His war was over before it even truly began.
“Remember the day we first met?” Samuel asked as he shuffled back into the courtyard, now turned into makeshift arena. He was covered in blood and barely able to stand upright, yet his resolve remained unshaken. He would see this through to the end, or die trying.
“It wasn’t so long ago, was it? I was attacked by a group of unruly bikers. You stood up for a man you didn’t know, all because it was the right thing to do. You barely made it out of there alive, but afterwards, before you passed out, you told me that you’d do it all over again if you had the chance. That’s the kind of man you are… a
fighter, in the truest sense of the word.”
“Stop it!” the blood demon cried as he pounded his head in defiance, “You know nothing of our torment! We live and breathe as one now… a god— no, no, no, we’re gods among men! You cannot contain us… you cannot stop this flesh and blood heart from beating. You’re weak… and we… we’re strong!”
“Not strong enough.”
“Do not test me, Samuel Anderson,” the blood demon screeched as he continued to forward, “Never think you can control me!”
“I don’t need to… Steven’s doing that for me.”
“No!” the blood demon shouted, “We’ve found harmony! Y-you’re nothing but a dissident… insincere and t-tugging on heartstrings that have been severed for the worthless appendages they a-are.”
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