“That's the fear I have longed for. But that alone is not what I have been searching for all this time. I want to hear the pain. I want to hear your pain every day for the next hundred years.” Malio put the thin stone sideways, pressing into Teresa's mouth at her cheeks. “Don't worry, you won't be alone. I never planned on you being alone. They'll all come in time. One by one, even Martin will one day try to find you himself.”
Teresa writhed as Malio pressed the stone down, cutting into her face further.
“Oh, what's that?” Malio put his ear to her lips. “Someone will talk? Someone will tell Martin where I am? I'm sorry, no they won't. Benardo has made sure of that. You know Teresa, I really have to thank you for that boy of yours. Without his gift, this would have been pretty difficult. With his help I was able to ensure complete secrecy over my location. No one will ever know where you are until they're lying next to you.” Malio laughed. “Until then, I'm going to cut every piece of flesh off you. Everything that you thought made you beautiful will be gone. I will take it all away and we will see what is left in the end.”
Malio began to butcher Teresa well through the hours. Her screams only echoed off the small cave's walls. There was no answer, no salvation, no help to come. She was alone in this punishment. In time, Teresa passed out.
* * * *
Sixty two years passed as Malio tortured Teresa daily. He had cut off her scalp, eyelids, lips, tongue, outer ears, and breasts. He had removed her eyes and reproductive organs. He had kept her alive by dowsing her in fresh blood. Revitalizing her just enough to keep her heart beating, but not enough to regenerate her lost tissues or limbs.
In time Timothy and Phillipe were sent by Martin to find Teresa. Martin had offered them gold in return. And in their stead he would take rule over their lands temporarily. When they did not come back, Martin was forced to take action. It had taken ninety seven years, and now he was ready to search for them, for Teresa. Martin placed a steward in command to rule the now five united kingdoms. After two years of searching. Martin found Malio.
With Benardo's help and the assistance of Damien Attolauss, an old focus vampire, Malio captured Martin. Benardo's debt had been repaid, asking Malio to never contact him again. Damien however, requested a more exacting reimbursement. Damien asked Malio to keep collecting vampeal gifts and that one day, he would come to call on his help in return. Malio agreed and thus Malio's list of prisoners was complete. Malio had dismembered them, cut, sliced, and beaten them all. Eventually he placed them in four separate metal rings. It was then that they became his toys.
Chapter 11
Welcome to My World
Liquid stirred in the sea as a typhoon threw the frigid beach into a frenzy. The black clouds strobed with blue lightning in the sky. Echoes of the thunder tore into the ears of the one person facing the cataclysm.
The water nipped at the small boy's feet, flooding the sand, then receded from it. He was dressed in purple with white Victorian tights and shoes. He was alien to these shores. His hair was shuffled dark brown. His face was young, his eyes dark blue, but not innocent.
The boy called out. “Is anyone there!?” His voice was muted by the rumbling above. “Where am I?” He asked to himself quietly. “Where the hell is this? The last thing I remember is-” He thought about where he was last. “Nothing. I don't remember what happened. Where am I? What is this place? How did I get here?”
It began to rain. The water was black as silt, slippery on the boy's shoulders. It mixed with the purple clothing, stealing its brightness. He wiped it off. It was strange, he knew the texture, it was familiar. It was soothing, it was comforting. He recalled this substance, but was unable to place it. “I can't remember anything. Who am I?”
The lightning cracked the sky open. The rain fell, and was creating puddles in the sand. The blue ocean undulated, violently. The color changed, shifting to black, then to a murderous red. The boy looked down, the pools were growing, the shoreline was receding. The water was flooding his ankles. It was unnerving. There was a pulse in it, a rhythm to the flow. The liquid coagulated, thickening around him. The hue deepened. His childhood came to him, the memories lucid, disturbing. He was unhappy, tormented. He was born in October. His name still alluded him.
The sky settled. A pattern slowly developed, shapes slide together as a feeling of dread gripped the young boy. Something was wrong. He was not supposed to be there. The visceral substance reminded him of who he was. He enjoyed the sensation. The wet, warm nature of it. It was both exciting and frightening.
“I know this.” The boy reached down and let the water gather in his cupped left hand. He took a sip. It was alkaline, not bitter, but base. It coated his lips, tongue, and teeth. “Blood.” It tasted. “Delicious.” It ran down his cheeks, spilling on the white satin collar, coloring it a sharp burgundy. His attention was fixed on what was descending down his throat. He closed his eyes.
The rain stopped. The wind blew strong. The boy remembered, he knew who he was.
“Malio Signante. Welcome.” The ululation spoke his name.
Malio opened his eyes. There was a black shadowy figure before him. The outline was jagged, the line itself was blurred. An image of red thorns jutted out from its sides. It had the shape of a man. The presence was ominous. It was not a man.
“Who are you?” Malio asked with decent.
“I am the one that calls the shadows from the cold night in aide to slaughter the masses of the living world.” The figure announced.
“That means nothing to me.” Malio bickered.
“I am the one that holds the power to curb nations and end wars. The strength to force control, to command obedience eternal. A black rose that strikes the heavens with a cataclysm to overturn the lands of men and the obelisks of the old world. Pain knows me. Gods fear me. Man whispers of me. I am the demon that waits in the dreams of all who slumber. The sovereign of nightmares, the slaver of men.” The unknown man's cloak of darkness faded, his form came into definition. He stood tall with layers of dark brown and black clothing. A pair of round silver glasses hung from his left coat pocket. His shoulder length curly brown hair framed his chiseled face. “I am the demon vampire, Salas.”
“Am I supposed to understand who you are?” Malio was arrogant. He started to walk with an attitude towards the demon.
Watching the insolence unfold, Salas tilted his head up to the clouds. A calm hushed the scene. A long red spike shot down from the clouds, impaling Malio through the chest, instantly pinning him to the sand. The sleek spear was smooth and solid. It pierced Malio's heart, leaning him into a compromised position. Malio's blood flowed across the weapon to the sand. He had lost before realizing there was ever a confrontation. Malio looked down. Salas was standing on the surface of the red water.
“It's blood.” Salas said to Malio.
Malio coughed, attempting to speak. “What?”
“The 'red water,' it's all blood.” Salas whispered in Malio's left ear. His movement unregistered by Malio. “My glorious blood.”
“What are you?” Malio managed to say with difficulty. Blood was leaking out from both sides of his mouth, dripping onto the spear.
“I told you. I am a demon. I feed off eternal ephemeral emotional strife.” Salas backs away. “As you do, except literally.”
“That makes no sense.” Malio was beginning to choke.
“I know. It just seems easier to fuck with you when you're like this.” Salas smiled.
“Why?” The blood in Malio's chest was filling his lungs.
“Why?” Salas smiled again. “Maybe it's because you called me Molly?”
Confused, Malio coughed, unable to ask what Salas was talking about.
Salas raised his right hand, palm up. “Or maybe it's because you threatened my host.” Salas closed his fist.
Several thin shards sprang out from the main spear that was embedded inside of Malio. They pierced his arms, legs, hands, feet, face, and skull.
Malio died ins
tantly, a sudden rush of pain was crippling his mind. Salas walked up to Malio's body and touched the spear. It melted, and released him to slump to the ground. The thud dispersed the sand, and sank half of Malio's corpse. Salas knelt down to his right ear.
Salas whispered. “I'm not done with you yet.”
Malio's chest inflated with air, the breath of life was returning to him. The wounds remained, they somehow no longer seeped blood. The holes in Malio's flesh did not seal. Slowly, Malio opened his eyes. “What did you do to me?”
“Isn't it obvious? I killed you. Isn't the gapping chasm in your chest proof of that?” Salas got up.
Malio coughed again, there was no pain, no ache from his wounds. “What did you do to me?”
“I control everything here. The weather, the seas, all are mine alone. Reality itself is under my will here.” Salas opened his arms, gesturing to the area around him. “In this realm I am better than god, for I wield suffering, pain, resurrection. I have dominion over life.”
“If you want to kill me, why raise me?” Malio panted as he spoke.
“In this place you cannot die. No matter what degree of damage I deal to you. Your essence will never fade. I will not allow it. Time stops here. The real world sits frozen from us. In this reality we are lost. They will never miss you, they will never find you. We stand apart from existence. A separate dream that few can enter or understand. That is why I need you to understand that I have only killed you. Next I will murder you. In my world I can murder you without end. You will die. You will bleed. You will rise and I will tear you a sunder ad nauseam.”
Malio felt fear again.
“I know everything. Since the moment you came here. I've read your mind. I know the explicit things you've done in the night. I know what you've done to people and what you thought about when you did it. The beautiful horrors you've prided yourself on for the last four hundred years. I know your hatred, your pain. The irritation you've endured, it's truly rapturing.” Salas smiled wide. “It's blissful.”
High above the scene, Zack witnessed Salas playing with Malio, the blood was dripping from Malio's chest. Zack viewed the dream without physical form, a sequence that transpired below. He was front row to the savagery of the demon vampire. It disturbed him.
“Now you are in the nexus. Here dwells the pain and fire that are born from hell. Here the motion of ants creates thunder that surpasses the heavens. In my world time absolves the mind. I am your only door to salvation.” Salas bent down and reached into the blood sea. He pulled out a fist sized stone with an edge on it. “Honestly, I quite liked this memory.” The stone took the shape of the same fragment that Malio used on Teresa when he first captured her. “Although I believe the execution was wrong.”
Salas let go of the rock and it shot through Malio's partially open mouth, knocking out his front teeth, destroying his face. It exited through the back of Malio's skull. He dropped again, falling dead.
“Such frailty. Are all the vampeals of your age so weak? I shudder to think just how flimsy Zack actually is.” Salas laughed.
Zack's perspective lowered, placing his eyes directly in line with Salas'. The sight of Malio dying again and again had a nice ring to it in theory, but in practice, it was unreal, cruel. The power Salas had here was indomitable. He stood a pillar in the sky, untouchable by all. Zack both envied Salas and hated what he represented. Salas was an abomination, a force unmatched. His description of himself as god in this place was not far off. What Salas was doing now was pointless. Malio had lost, Zack wanted it to end.
Zack called out. “Salas, stop this. He's had enough.”
“Get up.” Salas said as Malio stumbled to his feet. “We have a lot of time to play. There's so much of you that is intact.”
Zack's demand meant nothing to Salas. He either didn't hear him or chose not to.
“So killing me isn't good enough? You have to hurt me little by little?” Malio managed to say with a lisp. His tongue was difficult to manipulate. Part of his jaw was missing, the muscle was disconnected on one side.
Salas didn't answer. His hands moved in, sinking past Malio's ribs, breaking as straw. Salas took hold within, extracting Malio's lungs. More blood splashed onto the sand.
“Hey, he's powerless here! Stop this! You just keep killing him! Why do this!? You're just toying with him!” Zack yelled at Salas.
Salas didn't respond.
Zack was getting sick, and nauseous from all the spilled blood. Malio was nothing more than an upright piece of animated flesh now. His chest had been flayed, ripped open, torn apart. He was meat. His face distorted, the back of his head was oozing. Malio's hands were punctured. His legs bore several holes, his arms and feet had been shredded by the red spear. His blue eyes were afraid of what Salas was going to do next.
Zack was looking through Salas now. He felt his breathing, the slow, cold nature of it. The pleasure he gained from the sight of Malio's shambled body.
“Malio, I must wonder one thing. Something that has been on my mind since you came here. With all the gifts, you've stolen, did you ever expect to actually kill Zack? Did you think it was honestly going to be that easy? To drink his blood and walk away with my power at your disposal? Did you think you could do it by yourself? Or did you have help? Well Malio? How much did Damien really help you?” Salas was asking about a man that Zack knew nothing about. A complete stranger that Salas seemed to know about from a previous host.
Malio vomited threw his chest, the blood and bile spewed without end. Malio coughed, clearing a throat that had already been destroyed beyond normal use. He spoke, understood only by Salas. “You tell me. You've read it all, haven't you?”
Salas sneered. “Well, yes. I have.”
“Then what's the point? Kill me already.” Malio was begging for death. He wanted it to end.
“Yes, I will. No, I haven't. Satisfaction is the only real reason why I do anything anymore.” Salas quickly answered. “I'm not done with you yet.”
Salas extended his right arm. A long red spear of blood shot up from the ground to fill the gap of his open hand. He picked it up, and was wielding it in the air. It reached over eight feet tall, the shaft was thin, it was double edged. Salas smiled as he turned the blade horizontal.
“What now? Are you going to cut my head off?” Malio spewed blood from his lips as he jested. He was inviting death now, taunting Salas.
“Not yet.” Salas slashed at Malio's left lower leg.
It was loped off with ease, completely and cleanly. Malio's leg had fell to the sand, cut a few inches below the knee. Malio began to fall after the leg. Salas corrected this by stabbing Malio swiftly in the right shoulder, pinning him in mid air. With Salas' left hand, he took a hold of the weapon. It separated at his touch. Salas struck at Malio's left arm, above the elbow. It rolled off Malio's hip and on to the ground. There was little blood to be spilled from his body now. It had been mostly drained.
Zack watched in disgust as Salas was taking immense pleasure in mutilating Malio. “END THIS, PLEASE!!” Zack screamed out to Salas.
Salas peered down to the reflective ocean at his feet. Seeing his image, effectively looking into Zack's own eyes. He spoke. “Before me lies the soul of the vampeal that without my intervention would have murdered you and set me back hundreds of years. I will not stop. Not for you, not for him. My will is absolute on these waters. I will continue for I wish to.”
Salas pierced Malio's left shoulder now, using the other hand to pull down. The right side of Malio's body split in two. From the right shoulder down to the in-seem of his leg. Malio was dismembered.
“He deserves this. I've seen what he's done.” Salas swung up, severing the last few inches of flesh holding the right side of Malio's body together. It fell, and gathered into a slippery pile of bone and tissue with the rest of his body.
“STOP!” Zack yelled out. His own heart was suffering at this putrid sight.
“No.” Salas said simply.
In the distance
, a presence entered. A familiar scent wafted towards Zack. Cherries and lavender, the sweet smell helped to replace the blood, vomit, and entrails on the ground. Zack saw long black hair and a flowing blue dress at the reaches of his vision. It was Kyli, her kind eyes were unmistakable.
“Zack! What are you doing? What's in your hand?” Kyli's voice was worried, she was concerned.
“Kyli, why are you here?” Zack called out.
Salas stopped sectioning Malio, momentarily. “She can't hear you, Zack. Only I can hear you while we're standing within my domain.”
“Zack? What do you mean? I can hear you fine. Zack, tell me what's in your hand. What are you holding up?” Kyli walked closer, she couldn't quite see the visceral reality before her.
“See, she can hear me. Now stop. I need to tell her where we are. I'll need her help to defeat Malio when this ends.” Zack said to Salas.
“You don't get it. Look at him. There is not a more lustrous way to demonstrate defeat. He embodies the very definition of the word. Besides, she already knows where you are.” Salas said out loud to Zack, returning his attention to Malio.
Kyli arrived to view the current horror. “Zack, what have you done?” Kyli gasped, as she placed her hands over her mouth and face. “I agree, you've won. But at what cost? Look at yourself, Zack what have you done?”
“Kyli, its Salas. He did this, he killed Malio, I had nothing to do with it.” Zack told Kyli.
Kyli didn't react.
“Does it make more sense now? That she can't hear you? She can only see us, hear us as I talk.” Salas told Zack.
“Zack, stop this. You've cut him to shreds, he's not even bleeding anymore. This isn't what I trained you to do. None of this, I didn't teach you any of this.” Kyli smelled the pile of wrecked flesh. She winced. “Zack, I can hear you. But what sense is this supposed to make to me? Why cut him into pieces? Why? Why would you do this to him, Zack?”
Demon Vampire (The Redgold Series) Page 51
