Louse summons Alex Mercer. He doesn't stay to listen to explanations or kneel before a pink-haired child, he simply escapes. He is now free. Free from Blackwatch, free from the sins of his maker, in a whole new world where no one knows him. And he's not going to let anyone ruin that.
[BIOLOGICAL IMPERATIVE] (ZnT/Prototype)
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1. Home, Part 1
Alex Mercer was a mess.
But of course, considering that a nuke had exploded near him and he'd only had the protection, if you could even call it that (no, the answer was no) of the helicopter he'd been flying, it was a wonder he could even think.
He could feel what was left of his body. He ought to look like roadkill right now. He had saved the city, but he never had plans to sacrifice himself for it. He needed to live.
So he dragged the mess he had been reduced to through the sudden cloud of dust. He had devoured humans aplenty in his fight against Blackwatch, not all of them guilty, not even most of them. He wouldn't mind repeating it, but he didn't need such a large meal. One animal would suffice. A small bird, even.
Damn it, he couldn't die in a place like this. He had barely scratched the truth after countless days of constant fighting. He knew the truth about his past, about what had happened to the city. But the most important thing remained a mystery to him. He had not yet had a chance to know himself, to do more than react to his circumstances or be what others wanted him to be. He couldn't die before he really lived!
He emerged from the dust cloud, crawling like a worm.
This was not Manhattan. Comprehension penetrated even the haze of pain and the desperate need to feed. It couldn't be Manhattan, too green. It wasn't a jungle of glass and concrete, he was in the middle of nature. He didn't understand how it was possible and he didn't understand what those kids were doing there, so many kids wearing a uniform, but he didn't care.
They spoke in a language he didn't know and that was strange too (he had devoured people from all kinds of countries, absorbing everything they were and their abilities), but he didn't care either.
The only thing that mattered to him was that many of them had a pet. Too many strange animals, but....
A small bird, huh?
Yes. With what little strength he had left, he threw himself over the shoulder of one of those children, devouring the bird that had been perched there in the air. There was nothing left of it even before he touched the ground. The child in question, with tears in his eyes, screamed more incomprehensible shit. Other screams joined him, forming a chorus of frightened children. Not a single one of them was past puberty, and the boys' voices were even higher-pitched than the girls'. What a nuisance, God.
Good thing he already had enough to rebuild his body and get out of here, fast. He reconstructed his body from the bird's biomass. The usual clothes too, of course. He'd gotten used to them.
Or rather Alex Mercer's body, he thought, grimacing.
He could think of that sort of thing elsewhere. As irritating as they were, he didn't want these kids to get hurt. Besides, looking around, he had bigger problems. There were too many strange animals. Hypotheses danced through his head, the voices of thousands of dead men screaming inside, as eager in their own way to know the truth as he was—even if they were only 'fingerprints' inside him of the people they once were. The minds of thousands working on it. But it was still too early to decide anything.
He did some stretches, as if to make sure his body was in perfect condition, he craned his neck.
Alex looked back and arched an eyebrow at the sight of a girl with pink hair. Not dyed pink, with pink hair. It wasn't the strangest thing he'd ever seen in this place, but you could say it was the straw that broke the camel's back.
What was going on here? After putting an end to the viral outbreak he himself had started... You could say that he was Alex Mercer and not just because he had become used to it, but because he had been the first person he consumed and therefore the one who gave him life; the same argument, of course, could be used to say that Alex Mercer was his father. Then he would be so in more ways than one.
Well, what he was getting at, right after finishing that mess had he gone into another place with strange and dangerous experiments?
Alex shook his head.
He'd had enough of playing the hero. He wasn't going to investigate this. Whatever was going on here, he highly doubted it had anything to do with the Blacklight virus; with him.
For some reason, the girl began to move closer to him despite what she had seen him do and that was perhaps the strangest thing of all. Not her hair or the company she kept.
Alex Mercer turned his back to her and took a great leap, propelling himself over the stunned kids and over the castle walls as well.
To the spectators it must have seemed like he was flying, but that wasn't true, of course. Not that it was beyond his capabilities, though. In reality, with his arms and legs outstretched, he was just gliding, propelling himself by manipulating the biomass his body was made of. It gave the impression that blood was flying from his wrists as he did so.
Even without flying, this way he could cover a great distance without touching the ground. Not as far as in Manhattan, with so many buildings to run on and jump off again, but enough to leave that castle with the strange animals and even stranger people behind.
After that, well...
He would find out one step at a time.
That was what freedom meant.
——
Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière, third daughter of the Vallière family, could do nothing but stare open-mouthed as her Familiar (the one who should be her Familiar) jumped and practically flew who knows where, but away from her, away from the Academy.
Professor Colbert made an attempt to catch it and return it to where it should be, accepting the contract with her (why had it gone through the portal and now it was leaving?), but even a Professor from Tristain's academy wasn't fast enough.
Whatever it was, her Familiar was amazing.
The thing that should have been her Familiar. Now there would be no one who could catch it anymore. The opportunity has slipped through my fingers, hasn't it? It's over. It's all over.
Her legs trembled uncontrollably. That was why she hadn't even tried to intercept it herself, even if it was with one of her infamous explosions. It might have worked. At best, she would have knocked it out of the air and been able to complete the contract. At worst, the explosion would have killed it, and at least she could have tried again, if Professor Colbert would let her (and why not, it wouldn't have been her fault, unlike the previous failures).
But it was too late, of course. Now that thing wasn't even a speck on the horizon.
That opportunity had vanished, too. Completely. Just like her...
(future)
Louise was overcome with dizziness. She fell forward and only by a miracle managed to stop the fall, regaining her balance. Not that it mattered. It wouldn't have mattered if she had fallen head first into the grass, eating dust like some Commoner.
In any case, she couldn't fall any lower.
But of course, considering that a nuke had exploded near him and he'd only had the protection, if you could even call it that (no, the answer was no) of the helicopter he'd been flying, it was a wonder he could even think.
He could feel what was left of his body. He ought to look like roadkill right now. He had saved the city, but he never had plans to sacrifice himself for it. He needed to live.
So he dragged the mess he had been reduced to through the sudden cloud of dust. He had devoured humans aplenty in his fight against Blackwatch, not all of them guilty, not even most of them. He wouldn't mind repeating it, but he didn't need such a large meal. One animal would suffice. A small bird, even.
Damn it, he couldn't die in a place like this. He had barely scratched the truth after countless days of constant fighting. He knew the truth about his past, about what had happened to the city. But the most important thing remained a mystery to him. He had not yet had a chance to know himself, to do more than react to his circumstances or be what others wanted him to be. He couldn't die before he really lived!
He emerged from the dust cloud, crawling like a worm.
This was not Manhattan. Comprehension penetrated even the haze of pain and the desperate need to feed. It couldn't be Manhattan, too green. It wasn't a jungle of glass and concrete, he was in the middle of nature. He didn't understand how it was possible and he didn't understand what those kids were doing there, so many kids wearing a uniform, but he didn't care.
They spoke in a language he didn't know and that was strange too (he had devoured people from all kinds of countries, absorbing everything they were and their abilities), but he didn't care either.
The only thing that mattered to him was that many of them had a pet. Too many strange animals, but....
A small bird, huh?
Yes. With what little strength he had left, he threw himself over the shoulder of one of those children, devouring the bird that had been perched there in the air. There was nothing left of it even before he touched the ground. The child in question, with tears in his eyes, screamed more incomprehensible shit. Other screams joined him, forming a chorus of frightened children. Not a single one of them was past puberty, and the boys' voices were even higher-pitched than the girls'. What a nuisance, God.
Good thing he already had enough to rebuild his body and get out of here, fast. He reconstructed his body from the bird's biomass. The usual clothes too, of course. He'd gotten used to them.
Or rather Alex Mercer's body, he thought, grimacing.
He could think of that sort of thing elsewhere. As irritating as they were, he didn't want these kids to get hurt. Besides, looking around, he had bigger problems. There were too many strange animals. Hypotheses danced through his head, the voices of thousands of dead men screaming inside, as eager in their own way to know the truth as he was—even if they were only 'fingerprints' inside him of the people they once were. The minds of thousands working on it. But it was still too early to decide anything.
He did some stretches, as if to make sure his body was in perfect condition, he craned his neck.
Alex looked back and arched an eyebrow at the sight of a girl with pink hair. Not dyed pink, with pink hair. It wasn't the strangest thing he'd ever seen in this place, but you could say it was the straw that broke the camel's back.
What was going on here? After putting an end to the viral outbreak he himself had started... You could say that he was Alex Mercer and not just because he had become used to it, but because he had been the first person he consumed and therefore the one who gave him life; the same argument, of course, could be used to say that Alex Mercer was his father. Then he would be so in more ways than one.
Well, what he was getting at, right after finishing that mess had he gone into another place with strange and dangerous experiments?
Alex shook his head.
He'd had enough of playing the hero. He wasn't going to investigate this. Whatever was going on here, he highly doubted it had anything to do with the Blacklight virus; with him.
For some reason, the girl began to move closer to him despite what she had seen him do and that was perhaps the strangest thing of all. Not her hair or the company she kept.
Alex Mercer turned his back to her and took a great leap, propelling himself over the stunned kids and over the castle walls as well.
To the spectators it must have seemed like he was flying, but that wasn't true, of course. Not that it was beyond his capabilities, though. In reality, with his arms and legs outstretched, he was just gliding, propelling himself by manipulating the biomass his body was made of. It gave the impression that blood was flying from his wrists as he did so.
Even without flying, this way he could cover a great distance without touching the ground. Not as far as in Manhattan, with so many buildings to run on and jump off again, but enough to leave that castle with the strange animals and even stranger people behind.
After that, well...
He would find out one step at a time.
That was what freedom meant.
——
Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière, third daughter of the Vallière family, could do nothing but stare open-mouthed as her Familiar (the one who should be her Familiar) jumped and practically flew who knows where, but away from her, away from the Academy.
Professor Colbert made an attempt to catch it and return it to where it should be, accepting the contract with her (why had it gone through the portal and now it was leaving?), but even a Professor from Tristain's academy wasn't fast enough.
Whatever it was, her Familiar was amazing.
The thing that should have been her Familiar. Now there would be no one who could catch it anymore. The opportunity has slipped through my fingers, hasn't it? It's over. It's all over.
Her legs trembled uncontrollably. That was why she hadn't even tried to intercept it herself, even if it was with one of her infamous explosions. It might have worked. At best, she would have knocked it out of the air and been able to complete the contract. At worst, the explosion would have killed it, and at least she could have tried again, if Professor Colbert would let her (and why not, it wouldn't have been her fault, unlike the previous failures).
But it was too late, of course. Now that thing wasn't even a speck on the horizon.
That opportunity had vanished, too. Completely. Just like her...
(future)
Louise was overcome with dizziness. She fell forward and only by a miracle managed to stop the fall, regaining her balance. Not that it mattered. It wouldn't have mattered if she had fallen head first into the grass, eating dust like some Commoner.
In any case, she couldn't fall any lower.
2. Home, Part 2
Louise had been quick to pack her bags. At the academy she had rather few possessions, only her clothes, her pride and her wand. Two of those things would be of little use to her from now on.
She wasn't leaving a single thing behind.
To everyone's surprise, including Professor Colbert and Headmaster Osmond, she hadn't fought against her fate. She hadn't thrown a tantrum, she hadn't insisted.
Instead she had resigned herself. She'd silently accepted it.
Was this growing up? Well, it didn't sit very well.
"Louise!" A familiar voice.
A very irritating voice. Louise gritted her teeth. Although she would never admit it out loud, she knew she wasn't the only one who had crossed the line more than once. She'd given as hard as she'd gotten. But really, did that woman have to come and make fun of her even now?
She had been so proud that she had made it back to the dorms without crying after her failure at the summoning ritual and the talk with the headmaster.
She wanted to leave the academy, at least, with some dignity.
With her head held high.
But apparently the Zerbst bitch wasn't going to allow her even that. She stood in her way for surely the last time, but that was no consolation. She had stopped him from closing the carriage door, forcing Louise to face her.
She sighed deeply.
Okay, if I have to do it, then I'll do it.
Not only had Kirche come, but she had also brought her little friend. The little weirdo who always went around with a book in her arms, as if she wasn't an exceptional student and a skilled mage, as if she really had to try so hard. She had spent many sleepless nights so that she wouldn't take away even the single thing she could be proud of: her excellent grades as far as theory was concerned. If she had been surpassed even in that, she wouldn't know if she would have been able to continue so long at the academy.
You don't have to worry about that anymore.
"What do you want, Zerbst?" Her voice lacked the usual heat, it was barely more than a whisper. The girl was like a bucket of water with a hole in it. No matter what she did, the water would gush out and she would be left empty.
Kirche didn't scoff, didn't laugh at her.
She frowned.
"What are you doing?"
Oh, was that why she'd come so far? Did she want to force her to admit it? All right, what did it matter, she had nothing left to lose. Her pride had been crushed in front of all the first-year students. Who would be second-years from now on. Without her.
"I've been expelled."
"You can't be blamed because the familiar ran away. Even the teacher couldn't catch it. I mean, he looks like a clueless old man all the time, but there's a reason he's a teacher. They can't blame you."
She said it as if she could make it true if she repeated it enough times.
"Of course I'm to blame. It couldn't have eaten that familiar or escaped if the smoke from the explosion hadn't covered it up."
"That's not..." Kirche stuttered for some reason. She was weird today. Well, today everything was strange. Or rather, this was the natural result of the painful past year. No, even further back, all her failures at home, in front of countless tutors. In front of her mother's eyes. In front of her entire family. It was the natural result. She was paying the price for her arrogance, that was all. So it was only natural. "That's not what I mean, Louise. You summoned something. I have no idea what it is..."
Of course.
Not her, not the teachers, not even the headmaster.
No one had any idea what it was, which should have been exciting. She had summoned a new species, she wasn't one of those who had to settle for ordinary animals like toads or birds, even if she had secretly begged the Founder to give her anything, as long as it was something, as long as it legitimized her as a mage! Only it had flown the nest. And now she had nothing.
"But it's something. They can't say you're not a mage, that you don't have some kind of elemental affinity."
"My failures proved that, too. You can't give a wand to a commoner and expect them to blow up the kitchen at work or the fields they plow. But I'm still a failure. And I can't stay here."
Louise explained calmly, as if it had nothing to do with her. To her surprise her eyes weren't wet, not even an eyelid trembled.
Wow.
Quite a thing, huh? At least she was going to leave the academy with her pride. At least the Founder was granting her that. It was cold comfort, but she'd gladly take it.
"Are you done yet? Okay then." She got into the carriage, closing the door behind her. "Driver, I'm so sorry to have kept you waiting."
But Kirche didn't give up, she hadn't had enough yet. Of what? She didn't even know why she was here, why she was saying those things.
Why she was talking like she gave a shit about what would happen to her.
She kept up with the carriage, clinging to the edges of the window and pulling her head as close as she could.
"Louise, I... I'm sorry."
The girl thought about it, but not too much.
"So am I."
The plain and simple truth. What else could she say?
The carriage silently continued on its way back to... home?
Home is where they want you to stay longer, she thought bitterly.
——
Alex Mercer was pretty sure he knew what had happened to him. Not how or why, just the end result. The only problem was that it was madness straight out of some science fiction book. Something strange had happened one way or another, he had found himself from one moment to the next in a completely different place. But "that" was just too far"fetched. So he decided to avoid coming to a conclusion until he devoured some of the local wildlife.
By which he meant a human being, of course.
An animal would be of very little use to him, and otherwise he would already have all the answers, since he had eaten that bird.
Like a predator, he advanced into the shade of the trees until he found the perfect victim. Some farmer going to plow the fields, hoe on his shoulder, humming some song that didn't ring a bell.
"What the heck?"
He didn't have time to scream or to try to run. The mass of tentacles engulfed him and devoured him without leaving even the bones. But it didn't kill him. It couldn't be said that it had killed him, at least not completely, because the most important thing, what makes a person what he was, remained inside Alex. Memories.
The answers he sought.
He wasn't in Kansas anymore. Probably because he was a farmer, he didn't have all the answers, but those kids had been doing magic and one of them had summoned him here. Brought to another world, evidently.
The discovery didn't perturb him, quite the opposite.
Alex smiled, excited by the future that stretched out before him like a blank page covered in warm sunlight at dawn.
He was free at last. Free in every sense of the word.
A new world.
A world where the sins of his creator wouldn't haunt him. A world without Blackwatch, without Blacklight, without the necessary technology or knowledge to carry out the experiments that had nearly wiped out New York.
Perhaps a world to call home.
In any case, he was now truly free and the taste of freedom was sweet.
——
Miles away, floating in the field where the Springtime Familiar Summoning took place, still floated the portal through which Alex Mercer had come to this world. It reflected nothing at the moment, at least, it was nothing more than a green oval, but it was still there, as if....
As if waiting.
As if this had only just begun.
She wasn't leaving a single thing behind.
To everyone's surprise, including Professor Colbert and Headmaster Osmond, she hadn't fought against her fate. She hadn't thrown a tantrum, she hadn't insisted.
Instead she had resigned herself. She'd silently accepted it.
Was this growing up? Well, it didn't sit very well.
"Louise!" A familiar voice.
A very irritating voice. Louise gritted her teeth. Although she would never admit it out loud, she knew she wasn't the only one who had crossed the line more than once. She'd given as hard as she'd gotten. But really, did that woman have to come and make fun of her even now?
She had been so proud that she had made it back to the dorms without crying after her failure at the summoning ritual and the talk with the headmaster.
She wanted to leave the academy, at least, with some dignity.
With her head held high.
But apparently the Zerbst bitch wasn't going to allow her even that. She stood in her way for surely the last time, but that was no consolation. She had stopped him from closing the carriage door, forcing Louise to face her.
She sighed deeply.
Okay, if I have to do it, then I'll do it.
Not only had Kirche come, but she had also brought her little friend. The little weirdo who always went around with a book in her arms, as if she wasn't an exceptional student and a skilled mage, as if she really had to try so hard. She had spent many sleepless nights so that she wouldn't take away even the single thing she could be proud of: her excellent grades as far as theory was concerned. If she had been surpassed even in that, she wouldn't know if she would have been able to continue so long at the academy.
You don't have to worry about that anymore.
"What do you want, Zerbst?" Her voice lacked the usual heat, it was barely more than a whisper. The girl was like a bucket of water with a hole in it. No matter what she did, the water would gush out and she would be left empty.
Kirche didn't scoff, didn't laugh at her.
She frowned.
"What are you doing?"
Oh, was that why she'd come so far? Did she want to force her to admit it? All right, what did it matter, she had nothing left to lose. Her pride had been crushed in front of all the first-year students. Who would be second-years from now on. Without her.
"I've been expelled."
"You can't be blamed because the familiar ran away. Even the teacher couldn't catch it. I mean, he looks like a clueless old man all the time, but there's a reason he's a teacher. They can't blame you."
She said it as if she could make it true if she repeated it enough times.
"Of course I'm to blame. It couldn't have eaten that familiar or escaped if the smoke from the explosion hadn't covered it up."
"That's not..." Kirche stuttered for some reason. She was weird today. Well, today everything was strange. Or rather, this was the natural result of the painful past year. No, even further back, all her failures at home, in front of countless tutors. In front of her mother's eyes. In front of her entire family. It was the natural result. She was paying the price for her arrogance, that was all. So it was only natural. "That's not what I mean, Louise. You summoned something. I have no idea what it is..."
Of course.
Not her, not the teachers, not even the headmaster.
No one had any idea what it was, which should have been exciting. She had summoned a new species, she wasn't one of those who had to settle for ordinary animals like toads or birds, even if she had secretly begged the Founder to give her anything, as long as it was something, as long as it legitimized her as a mage! Only it had flown the nest. And now she had nothing.
"But it's something. They can't say you're not a mage, that you don't have some kind of elemental affinity."
"My failures proved that, too. You can't give a wand to a commoner and expect them to blow up the kitchen at work or the fields they plow. But I'm still a failure. And I can't stay here."
Louise explained calmly, as if it had nothing to do with her. To her surprise her eyes weren't wet, not even an eyelid trembled.
Wow.
Quite a thing, huh? At least she was going to leave the academy with her pride. At least the Founder was granting her that. It was cold comfort, but she'd gladly take it.
"Are you done yet? Okay then." She got into the carriage, closing the door behind her. "Driver, I'm so sorry to have kept you waiting."
But Kirche didn't give up, she hadn't had enough yet. Of what? She didn't even know why she was here, why she was saying those things.
Why she was talking like she gave a shit about what would happen to her.
She kept up with the carriage, clinging to the edges of the window and pulling her head as close as she could.
"Louise, I... I'm sorry."
The girl thought about it, but not too much.
"So am I."
The plain and simple truth. What else could she say?
The carriage silently continued on its way back to... home?
Home is where they want you to stay longer, she thought bitterly.
——
Alex Mercer was pretty sure he knew what had happened to him. Not how or why, just the end result. The only problem was that it was madness straight out of some science fiction book. Something strange had happened one way or another, he had found himself from one moment to the next in a completely different place. But "that" was just too far"fetched. So he decided to avoid coming to a conclusion until he devoured some of the local wildlife.
By which he meant a human being, of course.
An animal would be of very little use to him, and otherwise he would already have all the answers, since he had eaten that bird.
Like a predator, he advanced into the shade of the trees until he found the perfect victim. Some farmer going to plow the fields, hoe on his shoulder, humming some song that didn't ring a bell.
"What the heck?"
He didn't have time to scream or to try to run. The mass of tentacles engulfed him and devoured him without leaving even the bones. But it didn't kill him. It couldn't be said that it had killed him, at least not completely, because the most important thing, what makes a person what he was, remained inside Alex. Memories.
The answers he sought.
He wasn't in Kansas anymore. Probably because he was a farmer, he didn't have all the answers, but those kids had been doing magic and one of them had summoned him here. Brought to another world, evidently.
The discovery didn't perturb him, quite the opposite.
Alex smiled, excited by the future that stretched out before him like a blank page covered in warm sunlight at dawn.
He was free at last. Free in every sense of the word.
A new world.
A world where the sins of his creator wouldn't haunt him. A world without Blackwatch, without Blacklight, without the necessary technology or knowledge to carry out the experiments that had nearly wiped out New York.
Perhaps a world to call home.
In any case, he was now truly free and the taste of freedom was sweet.
——
Miles away, floating in the field where the Springtime Familiar Summoning took place, still floated the portal through which Alex Mercer had come to this world. It reflected nothing at the moment, at least, it was nothing more than a green oval, but it was still there, as if....
As if waiting.
As if this had only just begun.
3. Alex Mercer, Hardworking Husband, Part 1
The farmer he had just consumed wouldn't be useful to him just because of the information contained in his gray matter. He transformed into the farmer in the blink of an eye; not only in body, even his clothes changed since, of course, they weren't clothes at all.
He didn't like this body too much, but he had no plans to wear it for too long anyway. Just to go unnoticed.
This world represented the second chance he had always wanted. Not since he learned of his true nature, but since the first dark and confusing moment, waking up in a morgue about to be opened for an autopsy.
Confused and scared (even more than the poor bastards after discovering that today's corpse really was not one), with enemies on all sides, without even memories to draw strength from.
At first, deep down, he hadn't cared about the reasons why they were hounding him. He had only wished they would leave him alone.
Alex frowned.
Everything wasn't perfect, of course. He knew he wasn't Alex Mercer, he knew he was the virus, but in too many ways he had been a better Alex Mercer.
A better person, a better brother. And he'd gotten used to it. He could never see himself any other way.
He could never see Dana any other way.
She was his sister, his only family.
She was everything.
Of course he wished she were here. He wished he could be by her side, holding her hand, even though she couldn't respond or talk to him or smile at him, not anymore. It would be enough for him to be there. But...
She was no longer there. Not in this world or any other.
And perhaps she would never be again.
Alex Mercer, in the farmer's guise to go unnoticed, set off before he could think too hard. Before his regrets paralyzed him like a statue.
-Maybe it's better that I disappear from your life, anyway," he uttered in another man's voice.
Maybe she'd wake up someday.
She wouldn't find him by her side, but then she too would be free at last.
It would be several hours before he found the target, he could only see if it was suitable or not after eating it, however.
He had no time for research!
Of course he hadn't intended to keep the farmer's body. It would be easier to live in peace and quiet discovering himself if he didn't have to worry about having the money to pay for everything. Nor be forced to restrain himself from tearing off the head of the first nobleman who gave him a dirty look or insulted him.
He had seen in the farmer's memories that nobles did what they wanted without consequence, almost all the time. It had been that way in his world (that is, before heads ended up rolling) and they didn't even have access to magic, only a supposed divine right.
His requirements for the right target were very simple, he didn't think he was going to waste much time looking for one. Alex wanted to be a noble, but not too important so that not much would be expected of him and his actions wouldn't draw attention to himself.
Oh, and the noble in question had to be a man, of course.
These times weren't much kinder to women, noble or otherwise, than they were to commoners. His patience wouldn't hold out for long.
He was not famous for his patience and he was famous for many things.
Not in this world, though, and that was the point.
Bottom line, Alex caught a nobleman on his balcony drinking wine and probably watching the rabble go by, rock hard with his sense of superiority. If only he knew who was at the top! Meaning, of the food chain.
But Alex gobbled him up before he realized it, just to make sure he didn't make the slightest noise.
He even made sure to catch the glass of wine before it exploded on the floor. He didn't spill a single drop. It was wrong for him to say so himself, but it had been a perfect job.
He leaned back in the seat, very pleased with himself, twirling the wine glass in his left hand. He rummaged through the memories of the guy he'd just scarfed down to find the most pertinent details. He had done it so well that he didn't even remember the time of his death. The warm wine going down his throat, the view from the balcony and then nothing. Darkness.
That was not pertinent. But satisfying.
"Raymond II of... Oh, a viscount, whoops. Too notorious for my taste."
He shook his head.
Tough luck, he'd have to try again. Alex drank all the wine and concluded that he now knew at least one more thing about himself: he didn't like wine. He left the empty glass on the railing. No one stopped him on his way through the mansion or looked at him for too long, advantages of being important, he supposed. Still, he couldn't wait to discard this skin. It would bring him nothing but trouble.
At least he wouldn't have to try a third time.
Thanks to good old Raymond, he had a good list of nobles' names in his head. Even the less important ones. He was, that is, he had been a manipulative prick and tried to keep tabs on everyone, to have everything under control. So now all he had to do was think it through, choose from hundreds of possible skins.
The servants guarding the doors of the mansion were the first to speak to him.
"Where are you going, sir?"
"I'm going to whatever I want," Alex answered simply.
In a jovial, joking tone, but of course the servants (or should he say vassals, to make it sound more formal and old-fashioned, perhaps) didn't take it as such. Rather they crapped themselves.
But Alex kept walking in search of his new life.
As soon as he reached the outskirts of the city he thought about doing the usual thing, propping a boot on a tree and taking off over the trees, proceeding to fly with blood dripping from his wrists like an emo Peter Pan. But then it occurred to him to try something else while he was at it. New world, new possibilities.
Raymond was a Triangle mage, which supposedly meant he was powerful, though he hadn't had a chance to prove it. And supposedly the spell to levitate was a no-brainer, any mage could do it no matter how incompetent they were.
It sounded interesting, so he put it to the test and did manage to rise above the trees.
At first he was pleased.
Sure, his method was better, but what child had never believed in magic? And what child hadn't suffered the terrible disappointment of learning the truth, that the world was a dull place and that's why there were so many fanciful tales?
But then something went wrong and Alex collapsed.
He let himself fall, and did nothing to prevent it. He was many scientists. He knew how to accept the consequences of a failed experiment (the really scary thing was the consequences of a successful experiment, as he was). Besides, it wasn't like the fall could do anything to him. What's more, he landed smoothly, graceful as a cat.
Okay.
That had been a resounding failure. He'd probably have to eat more mages before he could get that sort of thing under control.
I know who'll be next, he thought.
Under the cover of night, Alex avoided all the guards by transforming into the first animal he had devoured after arriving in this new world. A bird, more specifically a crow.
He landed on the balcony and returned to his original appearance to pry open the door and enter the bedroom.
His target was there next to a woman; his wife, his whore or mistress, he didn't care. He caught them asleep, but made just enough noise for the target to wake up.
He looked at him, his eyes wide as saucers, but at the same time not exactly aware. He looked as if he thought he was still dreaming and the stranger who had burst into his quarters was nothing more than a nightmare rippling through the shadows of the night.
Alex's flesh and clothing began to change, to deform. Preparing for the feast. Then the target smiled in relief.
"I must be dreaming, after all."
Those were the last words of Count Edmond Dantes.
He probably wouldn't have screamed even if his mind hadn't sought refuge in the fantasy he was dreaming about. The shock of seeing his true form, especially for someone who had no conception that such a thing was possible, would have been too much for anyone.
No one in this world was really prepared for him.
And if things went well, they wouldn't have to be. He was sick of fighting. He'd had enough for a lifetime.
The woman, Angélique, fortunately woke up when he was done with his business.
"What's the matter, you can't sleep?" she asked, nervously. The reason was something Raymond couldn't have known. Edmond treated his wife like a punching bag.
Although he made sure not to bruise her in visible places.
Not because he minded people knowing that he knew how to "tame" his wife, but because it would give a very ugly image in public. She had to look pretty even while suffering that kind of abuse.
What a monster I've picked, he thought.
He wasn't very happy about it, but hey, justice had been done. He'd been eaten without a trace. And he didn't have to act like Edmond, he'd wear his face, but that was it. He didn't have to live his life the same way.
He didn't think he would be discovered just because Edmond had a change of heart, some sort of mysterious epiphany.
At worst they would suspect the use of a love potion (he would worry that such things existed in this world except that Dana was well away and he couldn't be affected, he was pretty sure), not that Edmond had been replaced by the mysterious Familiar who had escaped from that ritual.
When they didn't hear from Alex they would probably assume he had died, killed by some mage or some other fantastical creature. They had a lot of ego, after all.
"I thought I heard something, but it's nothing."
He thought she'd say something like "no one would dare try to steal from you or hurt you." Which would be silly, of course, in this world and any other there wouldn't be a shortage of people desperate or ambitious enough (the line was a fine one) to do anything.
But it would be the kind of placating phrase one might expect from what she was, a woman trapped in a marriage to a monster in human skin.
However, she chose the safest option to avoid punishment: nothing. Just saying nothing.
"Good night," Alex said.
Impulsively, he bent down to give the woman who was now his wife a kiss on the cheek.
She tensed from head to toe as if from the corner of her eye she had seen him raise his fist, but even after feeling the touch of his lips she didn't allow herself to relax. Quite the contrary. Now she was not only nervous, but confused as well.
Alex lay down on the bed, although he didn't need to sleep at all. In this he would also have to pretend, at least for tonight, later he would find an excuse to "sleep" alone.
Besides, he could use some time to think.
For example, to think about Edmond and Angélique having a daughter. A part of Alex was very glad that, for whatever reason, he had never laid a hand on the child. Then he would have thought his death had been too quick.
For example, about whether he could come to love what were now his wife and daughter, even if it was only a fraction of the love he felt for Dana.
He didn't like this body too much, but he had no plans to wear it for too long anyway. Just to go unnoticed.
This world represented the second chance he had always wanted. Not since he learned of his true nature, but since the first dark and confusing moment, waking up in a morgue about to be opened for an autopsy.
Confused and scared (even more than the poor bastards after discovering that today's corpse really was not one), with enemies on all sides, without even memories to draw strength from.
At first, deep down, he hadn't cared about the reasons why they were hounding him. He had only wished they would leave him alone.
Alex frowned.
Everything wasn't perfect, of course. He knew he wasn't Alex Mercer, he knew he was the virus, but in too many ways he had been a better Alex Mercer.
A better person, a better brother. And he'd gotten used to it. He could never see himself any other way.
He could never see Dana any other way.
She was his sister, his only family.
She was everything.
Of course he wished she were here. He wished he could be by her side, holding her hand, even though she couldn't respond or talk to him or smile at him, not anymore. It would be enough for him to be there. But...
She was no longer there. Not in this world or any other.
And perhaps she would never be again.
Alex Mercer, in the farmer's guise to go unnoticed, set off before he could think too hard. Before his regrets paralyzed him like a statue.
-Maybe it's better that I disappear from your life, anyway," he uttered in another man's voice.
Maybe she'd wake up someday.
She wouldn't find him by her side, but then she too would be free at last.
It would be several hours before he found the target, he could only see if it was suitable or not after eating it, however.
He had no time for research!
Of course he hadn't intended to keep the farmer's body. It would be easier to live in peace and quiet discovering himself if he didn't have to worry about having the money to pay for everything. Nor be forced to restrain himself from tearing off the head of the first nobleman who gave him a dirty look or insulted him.
He had seen in the farmer's memories that nobles did what they wanted without consequence, almost all the time. It had been that way in his world (that is, before heads ended up rolling) and they didn't even have access to magic, only a supposed divine right.
His requirements for the right target were very simple, he didn't think he was going to waste much time looking for one. Alex wanted to be a noble, but not too important so that not much would be expected of him and his actions wouldn't draw attention to himself.
Oh, and the noble in question had to be a man, of course.
These times weren't much kinder to women, noble or otherwise, than they were to commoners. His patience wouldn't hold out for long.
He was not famous for his patience and he was famous for many things.
Not in this world, though, and that was the point.
Bottom line, Alex caught a nobleman on his balcony drinking wine and probably watching the rabble go by, rock hard with his sense of superiority. If only he knew who was at the top! Meaning, of the food chain.
But Alex gobbled him up before he realized it, just to make sure he didn't make the slightest noise.
He even made sure to catch the glass of wine before it exploded on the floor. He didn't spill a single drop. It was wrong for him to say so himself, but it had been a perfect job.
He leaned back in the seat, very pleased with himself, twirling the wine glass in his left hand. He rummaged through the memories of the guy he'd just scarfed down to find the most pertinent details. He had done it so well that he didn't even remember the time of his death. The warm wine going down his throat, the view from the balcony and then nothing. Darkness.
That was not pertinent. But satisfying.
"Raymond II of... Oh, a viscount, whoops. Too notorious for my taste."
He shook his head.
Tough luck, he'd have to try again. Alex drank all the wine and concluded that he now knew at least one more thing about himself: he didn't like wine. He left the empty glass on the railing. No one stopped him on his way through the mansion or looked at him for too long, advantages of being important, he supposed. Still, he couldn't wait to discard this skin. It would bring him nothing but trouble.
At least he wouldn't have to try a third time.
Thanks to good old Raymond, he had a good list of nobles' names in his head. Even the less important ones. He was, that is, he had been a manipulative prick and tried to keep tabs on everyone, to have everything under control. So now all he had to do was think it through, choose from hundreds of possible skins.
The servants guarding the doors of the mansion were the first to speak to him.
"Where are you going, sir?"
"I'm going to whatever I want," Alex answered simply.
In a jovial, joking tone, but of course the servants (or should he say vassals, to make it sound more formal and old-fashioned, perhaps) didn't take it as such. Rather they crapped themselves.
But Alex kept walking in search of his new life.
As soon as he reached the outskirts of the city he thought about doing the usual thing, propping a boot on a tree and taking off over the trees, proceeding to fly with blood dripping from his wrists like an emo Peter Pan. But then it occurred to him to try something else while he was at it. New world, new possibilities.
Raymond was a Triangle mage, which supposedly meant he was powerful, though he hadn't had a chance to prove it. And supposedly the spell to levitate was a no-brainer, any mage could do it no matter how incompetent they were.
It sounded interesting, so he put it to the test and did manage to rise above the trees.
At first he was pleased.
Sure, his method was better, but what child had never believed in magic? And what child hadn't suffered the terrible disappointment of learning the truth, that the world was a dull place and that's why there were so many fanciful tales?
But then something went wrong and Alex collapsed.
He let himself fall, and did nothing to prevent it. He was many scientists. He knew how to accept the consequences of a failed experiment (the really scary thing was the consequences of a successful experiment, as he was). Besides, it wasn't like the fall could do anything to him. What's more, he landed smoothly, graceful as a cat.
Okay.
That had been a resounding failure. He'd probably have to eat more mages before he could get that sort of thing under control.
I know who'll be next, he thought.
Under the cover of night, Alex avoided all the guards by transforming into the first animal he had devoured after arriving in this new world. A bird, more specifically a crow.
He landed on the balcony and returned to his original appearance to pry open the door and enter the bedroom.
His target was there next to a woman; his wife, his whore or mistress, he didn't care. He caught them asleep, but made just enough noise for the target to wake up.
He looked at him, his eyes wide as saucers, but at the same time not exactly aware. He looked as if he thought he was still dreaming and the stranger who had burst into his quarters was nothing more than a nightmare rippling through the shadows of the night.
Alex's flesh and clothing began to change, to deform. Preparing for the feast. Then the target smiled in relief.
"I must be dreaming, after all."
Those were the last words of Count Edmond Dantes.
He probably wouldn't have screamed even if his mind hadn't sought refuge in the fantasy he was dreaming about. The shock of seeing his true form, especially for someone who had no conception that such a thing was possible, would have been too much for anyone.
No one in this world was really prepared for him.
And if things went well, they wouldn't have to be. He was sick of fighting. He'd had enough for a lifetime.
The woman, Angélique, fortunately woke up when he was done with his business.
"What's the matter, you can't sleep?" she asked, nervously. The reason was something Raymond couldn't have known. Edmond treated his wife like a punching bag.
Although he made sure not to bruise her in visible places.
Not because he minded people knowing that he knew how to "tame" his wife, but because it would give a very ugly image in public. She had to look pretty even while suffering that kind of abuse.
What a monster I've picked, he thought.
He wasn't very happy about it, but hey, justice had been done. He'd been eaten without a trace. And he didn't have to act like Edmond, he'd wear his face, but that was it. He didn't have to live his life the same way.
He didn't think he would be discovered just because Edmond had a change of heart, some sort of mysterious epiphany.
At worst they would suspect the use of a love potion (he would worry that such things existed in this world except that Dana was well away and he couldn't be affected, he was pretty sure), not that Edmond had been replaced by the mysterious Familiar who had escaped from that ritual.
When they didn't hear from Alex they would probably assume he had died, killed by some mage or some other fantastical creature. They had a lot of ego, after all.
"I thought I heard something, but it's nothing."
He thought she'd say something like "no one would dare try to steal from you or hurt you." Which would be silly, of course, in this world and any other there wouldn't be a shortage of people desperate or ambitious enough (the line was a fine one) to do anything.
But it would be the kind of placating phrase one might expect from what she was, a woman trapped in a marriage to a monster in human skin.
However, she chose the safest option to avoid punishment: nothing. Just saying nothing.
"Good night," Alex said.
Impulsively, he bent down to give the woman who was now his wife a kiss on the cheek.
She tensed from head to toe as if from the corner of her eye she had seen him raise his fist, but even after feeling the touch of his lips she didn't allow herself to relax. Quite the contrary. Now she was not only nervous, but confused as well.
Alex lay down on the bed, although he didn't need to sleep at all. In this he would also have to pretend, at least for tonight, later he would find an excuse to "sleep" alone.
Besides, he could use some time to think.
For example, to think about Edmond and Angélique having a daughter. A part of Alex was very glad that, for whatever reason, he had never laid a hand on the child. Then he would have thought his death had been too quick.
For example, about whether he could come to love what were now his wife and daughter, even if it was only a fraction of the love he felt for Dana.
4. Alex Mercer, Hardworking Husband, Part 2
Alex Mercer thought about it, but couldn't find a suitable excuse to move to another room or kick her out. Considering how her former husband had treated her, he knew she wouldn't protest as long as she could get him out of her sight, but he wanted to get off on the right foot. So Alex kept his eyes closed, pretending to sleep, as his thoughts kept spinning. That's how he spent the rest of the night.
It wasn't as unpleasant as he had expected. For him it was a new experience to lie down with someone next to him. A warm body, the body of someone who didn't wish him harm...
Well, not him, even if the woman didn't know there was a difference. And he would make sure Angélique didn't know. As monstrous as her husband had been, if he revealed his true nature, the first thing she would try to do would be to set him on fire. There was no one in this world or any other who would accept him as he was.
No one except Dana, but she was in as deep a coma as if she were dead. He should be physically able to cry, but he didn't. He just lay still, lost in the darkness of his thoughts and the past that was like an open wound.
Until the sweet, blessed dawn. Until the arrival of the next intruder to burst into this room: sunlight.
"Did you sleep well?" asked Alex.
Angélique clearly didn't know what to think. So even something so simple counted as a strange and unexpected kindness? Wow. Alex didn't know everything about his food just from absorbing them. It's not like he could remember it all perfectly. When he ate someone he got their brains, not their memories.
It sounded like the same thing, but there was an important distinction. People forgot or didn't put the same importance on some things that others did. Some memories fell through the cracks and were lost. For the monster that Edmond Dantes had been, the kind of abuse he subjected his wife to had been nothing more than another fact of life.
It would be different if he had only beaten her from time to time, but since the incidents were so frequent it would take time and effort to excavate it all.
"Yes," she said, slowly and after a while. Changing her mind, getting her to open up to him, would also take time and effort. He was used to being hated. But if he wanted things to continue as they had been since the moment of his confused awakening, he wouldn't have set this plan in motion.
He wouldn't have tried to change anything.
Alex changed out of his pajamas into more appropriate attire. He was slightly worried that he would screw up and sometime claim to be named Alex, not Edmond Dantes, but he couldn't help it. He was always going to think of himself as Alex Mercer. That didn't mean he had to mess up, though.
He left before the woman had a chance to undress. He had no interest in seeing her naked or having sex with her, even though he evidently possessed the necessary equipment.
The human Alex Mercer hadn't felt much interest in the pleasures of the flesh either. He wondered if that would have something to do with it, since that being was the base. Technically no more and no less than the first person he had ever eaten, as much as he wanted to think of it differently.
Alex moved through the mansion to the dining room without hesitation. The layout of his home wasn't a memory he had to dig up. It was instinct, familiarity. He knew where everything was the same way Edmond had after living here for several decades.
Lived and died. To him it wasn't mere information. A part of him was Edmond, as well as everyone else. And yet Alex Mercer was somebody, not merely a collective mess...
Right?
He saw that a little girl had arrived first. She was so small her feet didn't even reach the floor as she swung her legs under the table with an easy, warm smile that could only be seen on a child's face.
She was supposed to be his daughter, Julie, her name was. But what he thought of was Dana. Not as he had known her, but as Alex Mercer had known her long before the disaster that had befallen that damned city. A little sister to take care of.
He thought: My God, you're beautiful.
He thought: My God, I'm glad that son of a bitch never laid a hand on you.
The little girl turned her head and at the sight of him her smile grew easier and warmer. Did it really matter that the love in those eyes wasn't for him?
"Daddy!"
Oh, my little Dana, he thought as he walked over to the table and hugged her. My precious sister. I was supposed to protect you.
"Good morning, darling."
"I made something for you. And for mom."
"Oh, yeah?" He broke away from her, wondering what it was. She'd been waiting to give it to him. A drawing, of course, as good as could be expected from a child her age. "It's beautiful. Thank you."
She's not Dana, he thought. She's really nobody to you. And you won't get anything out of this, nothing at all. Deep down you know that.
Angélique arrived soon after and the girl, as enthusiastic as the first time, showed it to her too. It was amazing that living with such a monster hadn't broken her spirit and innocence.
It should be natural, the poor child was only six years old (and it said a lot that he'd had to dig through what was left of Edmond to remember that fact). Alas, it was indeed a miracle. As far as he was concerned, she'd never have to know what her father was really like. She wouldn't have to lose that innocence.
She is nothing. She's nothing. You know that perfectly well.
The woman would fear you for the monster you are, an inner voice told her, but this girl would hate you with all her heart because you would be revealed as the monster who took her precious father away from her.
A strange protective feeling and an equally strange rage at himself battled within him. If he was sure of anything, it was that it wouldn't come to an end today or any time soon. Just that.
——
They ate as if they were a normal family and then parted. Even though he was but a Count, he could sit quietly while others did most of his work for him. He really could do whatever he wanted and therein really was the rub. Faced with so many options, he had no fucking idea what to do.
He didn't know what he wanted or what he should do. That was what this was all about, he intended to discover himself now that he had no more battles to fight and no one could find him. So he should make some kind of decision, but he found himself paralyzed. He wasn't used to this. From the beginning of his short life what he had done was react to the hostility that had been there before he was born.
Being himself was the biggest challenge Alex had faced in his short life so far.
Fortunately, the universe brought him some entertainment before he did anything stupid. The universe and two of his guards. They had caught a prize by the arms and neck. They twisted and pushed down, forcing the man to his knees before him. This could be interesting.
"What's going on here?" Alex asked, though it wasn't hard to guess.
"Sir, this man broke in. Probably intended to rob you, sir."
"That's not..." protested the trapped prize. "You can't prove that."
"Shut your mouth in the Count's presence."
And he did. He was already screwed, there was nothing that could get him out of this, but he closed it obediently. At least for the moment.
"What do we do with him, Lord Dantes?"
Alex crossed his legs and put a hand under his chin, thoughtfully. He knew very well what he did with people or things that tried to hurt him, what he had done from the first moment. Tear them to pieces. He'd never been given a choice, though. The Blackwatch soldiers were too crazy to give up. Those infected by one of the viruses, whether Red or Blacklight, were more animals than anything else.
He had never had a choice. Another way.
But in this world he had options to spare. Wasn't that the point of all this, of what he was trying here? This man wasn't a threat, and neither would it be useful to devour him. He could tear him apart, but what for? It had nothing to do with right and wrong, it was just that it would be unnecessary. But while he was at it, he could make sure he didn't come back here.
"Don't kill him," Alex said. "Take him out of the manor grounds and cut off his hand."
"What? No!" the man protested as if he could do anything about it.
"What is your dominant hand? I'm asking if you're left"handed or right"handed. "It was a more than classic punishment for thieves. After that, he definitely wouldn't dare trespass on his property again. Besides... "Answer me or I'll let them cut it off at random."
"Left."
"Do you mean it or is it because you think I want to make sure they'll cut off the hand that would be most inconvenient for you to lose? You're wrong, I wanted just the opposite. It would be a mistake to lie to my face."
"I'm... I'm right-handed, my lord."
"You see? That wasn't so hard. Get him out of here. And seriously, don't kill him. One hand is enough. I'm not speaking in riddles, I mean what I say. Same goes for his hand. Cut off his left, not his right."
"Yes, Lord Edmond."
They dragged him out as he whimpered and whined. It had been entertaining, if brief. He was lucky to have lost only one hand. The idea of a man like that sneaking through the manor at night. The idea that if it hadn't been the guards who had found him first, but that innocent little girl....
It had made him furious.
For a moment he had contemplated asking the guards to leave them alone so he could show him his true form and wipe him off the face of the earth.
He had failed to protect Dana and now his sister slept an eternal sleep, but he was not here to repeat mistakes. He would do better this time, all of it. He could finally live the life he wanted. He didn't know what that looked like yet, but he wouldn't wait until he found out. He would do everything right from the start.
After that he retired to his quarters.
Alex sure to lock the door before he started practicing with magic. Edmond wasn't an extraordinary magician, but it would still be too strange to be seen practicing as if he wasn't at all familiar with magic. And, besides, he had Raymond's memories. Alex was convinced that he would be able to do something.
Something yes, but not much.
Like his attempt at levitating, all the spells went to shit soon after. They wouldn't do him much good in a real fight, not that he needed any help, and not for more esoteric things either. Even though he had eaten two nobles, meaning two mages, something was wrong. He didn't understand what.
It would be easy to say it was a matter of practice, but he had never needed it. A minute after eating his first Blackwatch soldier he had been driving a tank down Fifth Avenue. That simply wasn't how he worked. But hey, he'd solve the problem, whatever it was. He always did.
Maybe that was saying a lot considering he was only in his fourth week of life, it wasn't like he had a lot of experience.
But well, he'd give it his best shot.
——
The dark night. A dozen shadows gathered under the moonlight that seemed to be about to disappear.
"They must have all fallen asleep by now," the shadow in the center said. "It's time. Claudio, are you sure you want to do this? You're not a member of the gang. I have no intention of sharing the loot with you or covering your ass. You've already done the job I paid you for."
"I know, you don't have to tell me again." Claudio held the stump of his left hand with the other. "It's personal. You should understand that."
The shadow in the center of the group shrugged.
"As you wish."
The man who led this gang wasn't worried about Claudio being caught. He wasn't stupid enough to have given him information worth telling. He really didn't know anything about them. Besides, if things went wrong and that nobleman caught him, he wouldn't make him talk. He'd kill him for daring to cross him not once but twice. So, even if it had been otherwise, he would have nothing to worry about.
Now all that remained was to go on the attack. Under the cover of night, while all the guards had been rendered useless by wine and water poisoned with a sleeping potion. It would be like stealing candy from a child.
That Edmond Dantes wouldn't even know what hit him.
It wasn't as unpleasant as he had expected. For him it was a new experience to lie down with someone next to him. A warm body, the body of someone who didn't wish him harm...
Well, not him, even if the woman didn't know there was a difference. And he would make sure Angélique didn't know. As monstrous as her husband had been, if he revealed his true nature, the first thing she would try to do would be to set him on fire. There was no one in this world or any other who would accept him as he was.
No one except Dana, but she was in as deep a coma as if she were dead. He should be physically able to cry, but he didn't. He just lay still, lost in the darkness of his thoughts and the past that was like an open wound.
Until the sweet, blessed dawn. Until the arrival of the next intruder to burst into this room: sunlight.
"Did you sleep well?" asked Alex.
Angélique clearly didn't know what to think. So even something so simple counted as a strange and unexpected kindness? Wow. Alex didn't know everything about his food just from absorbing them. It's not like he could remember it all perfectly. When he ate someone he got their brains, not their memories.
It sounded like the same thing, but there was an important distinction. People forgot or didn't put the same importance on some things that others did. Some memories fell through the cracks and were lost. For the monster that Edmond Dantes had been, the kind of abuse he subjected his wife to had been nothing more than another fact of life.
It would be different if he had only beaten her from time to time, but since the incidents were so frequent it would take time and effort to excavate it all.
"Yes," she said, slowly and after a while. Changing her mind, getting her to open up to him, would also take time and effort. He was used to being hated. But if he wanted things to continue as they had been since the moment of his confused awakening, he wouldn't have set this plan in motion.
He wouldn't have tried to change anything.
Alex changed out of his pajamas into more appropriate attire. He was slightly worried that he would screw up and sometime claim to be named Alex, not Edmond Dantes, but he couldn't help it. He was always going to think of himself as Alex Mercer. That didn't mean he had to mess up, though.
He left before the woman had a chance to undress. He had no interest in seeing her naked or having sex with her, even though he evidently possessed the necessary equipment.
The human Alex Mercer hadn't felt much interest in the pleasures of the flesh either. He wondered if that would have something to do with it, since that being was the base. Technically no more and no less than the first person he had ever eaten, as much as he wanted to think of it differently.
Alex moved through the mansion to the dining room without hesitation. The layout of his home wasn't a memory he had to dig up. It was instinct, familiarity. He knew where everything was the same way Edmond had after living here for several decades.
Lived and died. To him it wasn't mere information. A part of him was Edmond, as well as everyone else. And yet Alex Mercer was somebody, not merely a collective mess...
Right?
He saw that a little girl had arrived first. She was so small her feet didn't even reach the floor as she swung her legs under the table with an easy, warm smile that could only be seen on a child's face.
She was supposed to be his daughter, Julie, her name was. But what he thought of was Dana. Not as he had known her, but as Alex Mercer had known her long before the disaster that had befallen that damned city. A little sister to take care of.
He thought: My God, you're beautiful.
He thought: My God, I'm glad that son of a bitch never laid a hand on you.
The little girl turned her head and at the sight of him her smile grew easier and warmer. Did it really matter that the love in those eyes wasn't for him?
"Daddy!"
Oh, my little Dana, he thought as he walked over to the table and hugged her. My precious sister. I was supposed to protect you.
"Good morning, darling."
"I made something for you. And for mom."
"Oh, yeah?" He broke away from her, wondering what it was. She'd been waiting to give it to him. A drawing, of course, as good as could be expected from a child her age. "It's beautiful. Thank you."
She's not Dana, he thought. She's really nobody to you. And you won't get anything out of this, nothing at all. Deep down you know that.
Angélique arrived soon after and the girl, as enthusiastic as the first time, showed it to her too. It was amazing that living with such a monster hadn't broken her spirit and innocence.
It should be natural, the poor child was only six years old (and it said a lot that he'd had to dig through what was left of Edmond to remember that fact). Alas, it was indeed a miracle. As far as he was concerned, she'd never have to know what her father was really like. She wouldn't have to lose that innocence.
She is nothing. She's nothing. You know that perfectly well.
The woman would fear you for the monster you are, an inner voice told her, but this girl would hate you with all her heart because you would be revealed as the monster who took her precious father away from her.
A strange protective feeling and an equally strange rage at himself battled within him. If he was sure of anything, it was that it wouldn't come to an end today or any time soon. Just that.
——
They ate as if they were a normal family and then parted. Even though he was but a Count, he could sit quietly while others did most of his work for him. He really could do whatever he wanted and therein really was the rub. Faced with so many options, he had no fucking idea what to do.
He didn't know what he wanted or what he should do. That was what this was all about, he intended to discover himself now that he had no more battles to fight and no one could find him. So he should make some kind of decision, but he found himself paralyzed. He wasn't used to this. From the beginning of his short life what he had done was react to the hostility that had been there before he was born.
Being himself was the biggest challenge Alex had faced in his short life so far.
Fortunately, the universe brought him some entertainment before he did anything stupid. The universe and two of his guards. They had caught a prize by the arms and neck. They twisted and pushed down, forcing the man to his knees before him. This could be interesting.
"What's going on here?" Alex asked, though it wasn't hard to guess.
"Sir, this man broke in. Probably intended to rob you, sir."
"That's not..." protested the trapped prize. "You can't prove that."
"Shut your mouth in the Count's presence."
And he did. He was already screwed, there was nothing that could get him out of this, but he closed it obediently. At least for the moment.
"What do we do with him, Lord Dantes?"
Alex crossed his legs and put a hand under his chin, thoughtfully. He knew very well what he did with people or things that tried to hurt him, what he had done from the first moment. Tear them to pieces. He'd never been given a choice, though. The Blackwatch soldiers were too crazy to give up. Those infected by one of the viruses, whether Red or Blacklight, were more animals than anything else.
He had never had a choice. Another way.
But in this world he had options to spare. Wasn't that the point of all this, of what he was trying here? This man wasn't a threat, and neither would it be useful to devour him. He could tear him apart, but what for? It had nothing to do with right and wrong, it was just that it would be unnecessary. But while he was at it, he could make sure he didn't come back here.
"Don't kill him," Alex said. "Take him out of the manor grounds and cut off his hand."
"What? No!" the man protested as if he could do anything about it.
"What is your dominant hand? I'm asking if you're left"handed or right"handed. "It was a more than classic punishment for thieves. After that, he definitely wouldn't dare trespass on his property again. Besides... "Answer me or I'll let them cut it off at random."
"Left."
"Do you mean it or is it because you think I want to make sure they'll cut off the hand that would be most inconvenient for you to lose? You're wrong, I wanted just the opposite. It would be a mistake to lie to my face."
"I'm... I'm right-handed, my lord."
"You see? That wasn't so hard. Get him out of here. And seriously, don't kill him. One hand is enough. I'm not speaking in riddles, I mean what I say. Same goes for his hand. Cut off his left, not his right."
"Yes, Lord Edmond."
They dragged him out as he whimpered and whined. It had been entertaining, if brief. He was lucky to have lost only one hand. The idea of a man like that sneaking through the manor at night. The idea that if it hadn't been the guards who had found him first, but that innocent little girl....
It had made him furious.
For a moment he had contemplated asking the guards to leave them alone so he could show him his true form and wipe him off the face of the earth.
He had failed to protect Dana and now his sister slept an eternal sleep, but he was not here to repeat mistakes. He would do better this time, all of it. He could finally live the life he wanted. He didn't know what that looked like yet, but he wouldn't wait until he found out. He would do everything right from the start.
After that he retired to his quarters.
Alex sure to lock the door before he started practicing with magic. Edmond wasn't an extraordinary magician, but it would still be too strange to be seen practicing as if he wasn't at all familiar with magic. And, besides, he had Raymond's memories. Alex was convinced that he would be able to do something.
Something yes, but not much.
Like his attempt at levitating, all the spells went to shit soon after. They wouldn't do him much good in a real fight, not that he needed any help, and not for more esoteric things either. Even though he had eaten two nobles, meaning two mages, something was wrong. He didn't understand what.
It would be easy to say it was a matter of practice, but he had never needed it. A minute after eating his first Blackwatch soldier he had been driving a tank down Fifth Avenue. That simply wasn't how he worked. But hey, he'd solve the problem, whatever it was. He always did.
Maybe that was saying a lot considering he was only in his fourth week of life, it wasn't like he had a lot of experience.
But well, he'd give it his best shot.
——
The dark night. A dozen shadows gathered under the moonlight that seemed to be about to disappear.
"They must have all fallen asleep by now," the shadow in the center said. "It's time. Claudio, are you sure you want to do this? You're not a member of the gang. I have no intention of sharing the loot with you or covering your ass. You've already done the job I paid you for."
"I know, you don't have to tell me again." Claudio held the stump of his left hand with the other. "It's personal. You should understand that."
The shadow in the center of the group shrugged.
"As you wish."
The man who led this gang wasn't worried about Claudio being caught. He wasn't stupid enough to have given him information worth telling. He really didn't know anything about them. Besides, if things went wrong and that nobleman caught him, he wouldn't make him talk. He'd kill him for daring to cross him not once but twice. So, even if it had been otherwise, he would have nothing to worry about.
Now all that remained was to go on the attack. Under the cover of night, while all the guards had been rendered useless by wine and water poisoned with a sleeping potion. It would be like stealing candy from a child.
That Edmond Dantes wouldn't even know what hit him.
5. Alex Mercer, Hardworking Husband, Part 3
Alex couldn't sleep. Literally, that is. He hadn't yet come up with an excuse for him and Angélique, now his wife, to sleep in separate beds. If he took advantage of the cold relationship that the real Edmond Dantes and she had shared, like prisoner and jailer, it would be easy. The abused woman would take any excuse he gave her to spend less time under the attention of her abuser. So that she wouldn't have to fear his judgment and punishment.
The problem was that he didn't want to lean into that. This whole exercise was about taking an opportunity to live his life, not following in the footsteps of others. Of a monster. He'd been called a monster more times than he could count, but Alex had never laid a hand on anyone in his family. Dana had been hurt because of him.... But he'd done everything he could to stop that. At least he could be sure of that. So it was different.
When he was certain Angélique had really fallen asleep, Alex slid out of bed. There was no point in wasting time pretending to sleep through the night. He'd drive himself crazy with seven or eight hours of inactivity every damn night. No, that wasn't an option. He decided to take Edmond's wand, go out into the courtyard and practice a little with his magic, to see if he could learn to control it. Fix whatever it was he was doing wrong. Not that he needed it in a life or death situation. He believed he could fix any problem without revealing his identity.
Modifying his body, transforming arms into weapons. Without any of that his strength and speed were still superhuman. Except perhaps for the Elves, whose abilities seemed to be more myth than history, according to the memories of the two nobles he had eaten there should be no one who even stood a chance. He didn't need anything fancy to slaughter his enemies here.
But it would be cool to be able to do magic. It would be very cool. And it could be useful in other ways.
One of those damn kids had opened some portal to his world. He wanted a new chance, a new life. It was a very attractive proposition when in the other world he had only experienced confusion, pain and the horror of the truth. But... There was also Dana.
Mercer was beginning to think that maybe he didn't have to give up on Dana. She was as good as dead, in a deep sleep. But even if technology couldn't save her, magic could. And Dana would be happy here too. She would miss many things, but here Blackwatch couldn't hurt her. Maybe, if he could master magic, he could open a portal, bring her back, and then....
Then they would be a family again. Then they would be happy again.
That would mean that his disguise as Edmond would be temporary, but he had always been prepared for that. And he could think of nothing better. Crossing the empty, dark corridors, Alex Mercer grinned like a wild beast, although all he felt was happiness. Perhaps because he felt a familiar high, as if victory was within his grasp. The high of a predator catching its prey.
The world is small and full of ironies. Alex walked down the stairs of the lobby in time to see suspicious people enter. Bandits with masks and hoods. Classical bandits, typical of the kind of fantasy this world was. Swords, axes, armor. Before him it was as if they were naked, of course.
"Edmond Dantes himself." The presumed leader spoke. "At least you have saved us from having to find you. Don't bother calling the guards, they're all knocked out by a sleeping potion. You're on your own here."
Alex said nothing. He just held his gaze as if nothing was happening. Because nothing was really happening.
"Not a hint of fear? You show well the arrogance of the so-called nobles. Though you are but a Line mage, the most ordinary of the ordinary. Do you think you're so important? Answer me."
Alex felt a stab of irritation. What was left of Edmond Dantes screaming inside him, rebelling against the attack on his pride. The part of him that was Edmond Dantes. Fortunately, that part of him had to share space with many other monsters.
"I'm still above you. You should listen to your henchmen, who are trembling behind you. They are more aware of reality."
"It's funny you should say that."
"Is that so?"
"Yes."
So. The bandit leader drew a wand. Oh, right. All nobles were mages, but not all mages were nobles. They could fall from grace, be cast out, and this was the result. Even when they fell into disgrace, they used their natural talents to try to take advantage of others and crush them. So in the end nothing changed.
His target was another noble this time, of course, but he doubted he had any scruples when it came to stealing from commoners.
Alex didn't even hear the incantation, irritated with himself for not having considered that as an explanation for his strange confidence. A large stone spear manifested itself in front of him and flew out to tear off his head. He supposed the bandit didn't care. Stealing from a nobleman would earn him the same reward as stealing from one, so it was better to remove him.
The stone spear went through the window behind him and disappeared into the night. Alex remained impassive, his ears ringing with the rain of broken glass.
"Did he dodge it or did he miss?"
"How could he miss an unmoving target? He dodged it. Of course he dodged it."
"But I didn't even see him move. He didn't draw his wand, he didn't chant..."
The fear increased when the frightened bandit stated the obvious. The sheep would eventually lose control of themselves without Alex lifting a finger, at this rate. The truth was the second option, of course. Alex had dodged, why would he let himself be hit? But without moving from the spot. The slightest movement, the minimum necessary, and it had been more than enough.
"Turn and run," Alex said. "I have no patience for this nonsense in the middle of the night. If you listen to the voice of reason, I will spare your lives."
"Afraid, huh?"
Alex rolled his eyes.
"Whatever."
There were no witnesses, but still... Alex didn't transform. He reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out Edmond's wand.
Maybe what he needed to master magic was a good reason. A sense of danger, even if it was false, since he could stop fooling around and employ his true talents at any moment.
"Quiet, I'll take care of him."
Who was the arrogant one now? Waving his wand and spitting an incantation from Edmond's memories, Alex felt like a supreme moron. Like a nerd dressed up in one of his mother's robes and a stick he found in the woods. It was a horribly inefficient system and that bothered him on many levels. He was thousands of soldiers and thousands of scientists, after all. If there was one thing they had in common, it was a taste for efficiency. It was the most logical thing in the world. The greatest result with the least effort. What was so bad about that?
So yes, he found it irritating. If he was facing, say, an army of a thousand mages, he could wipe out fifty before they managed to finish the incantation for a decent spell. Magic simply took too long. When the commoners developed guns, the nobles of this world would be even more screwed than in his, because at least they had fought on equal terms. What was all this magical nonsense compared to aiming and firing?
Almost a minute for the strongest spells, when even the basic, disposable flintlock pistols could be fired six or seven times in a few seconds with a belt.
Yes, they would be hopelessly screwed.
Alex knew how to make them, of course, he had eaten more than one engineer, but—
He dodged the attack, leaping to the top floor, landing on the railing, graceful as a cat. The attack in question was more stone spears. The bandit leader wasn't tremendously imaginative. Alex finished launching his own attack after landing.
A water hammer that flew far and fast, but fell apart halfway. It didn't even come close to hitting the enemy. Once again he had failed. He understood what to do, the words, the sensations involved, but he couldn't do it! For some reason, his attempts at magic were always worth shit. Alex clicked his tongue.
He supposed that at worst he could force another mage to do what he wanted. Open a portal, seek out his world, and then get rid of the evidence. But that would complicate things, although the chances of carrying out his initial plan didn't seem very high right now.
"That's it?" Another guy laughed, "What a failure as a nobleman. What a bad joke."
He was a guy missing a hand. It took Alex longer than he would admit associating him with the man he had recently punished. In his defense, cutting off a thief's hand was an exceptionally common punishment in the era this world seemed to be in. Besides, he hadn't been paying much attention. It had been a momentary diversion, nothing more.
As the leader began to recite another incantation, Alex seized the opportunity.
"Knock knock."
"What?" Maybe it was surprise, confusion, and the tension of the moment. Maybe they didn't have those kinds of jokes in this world, in Halkeginia.
"No one, sorry. You won't be able to knock on any doors when I cut off your other hand."
It wasn't literally true, but it didn't have to be.
"Bastard!"
Alex nodded.
"I'm a bastard, I'm a monster. I'm a lot of things. Right now I'm just a very bored guy. I've had enough of you guys."
Magic hadn't worked and he had no reason to believe that trying it again would do the trick right now. The time had come to unmask himself. Could they see his face squirming in the darkness barely illuminated by the moonlight filtering through the windows? It wasn't a risk. In any case, he could get rid of all the witnesses without any doubt. They had even done him the favor of putting the soldiers to sleep, the reinforcements that could interfere in this...
Yes, the time has come, he thought.
The tension was about to explode. But none of them could have imagined the real explosion.
"Go back to bed, honey. It's late. I'm just... I'm just looking for your father."
Alex Mercer felt his heart in his throat, in a even more metaphorical sense than usual, since he didn't have a heart. At least, not a physical one. The bandits had put the staff, the guards, to sleep. But his wife, his daughter...
Dana, he thought, feeling like throwing up. Dana. That wasn't her name, but he couldn't remember her name now, and he didn't care.
The bandit abandoned his efforts to attack him. He propelled himself, making a platform of earth appear under his feet, which acted as a trampoline. How fast. How had he done that...? No, he hadn't started reciting a different spell or something. He had taken advantage of the half-finished spell, transforming it from an attack to something to help him move.
In the direction of the voice. Dana. Dana.
The monster of Manhattan shot out. His arms twisting, lengthening. Transforming into very organic, wet, throbbing blades.
There were screams. Boots hitting the ground, running in the opposite direction. They had seen him. They were running away. He didn't care.
He only cared about one thing. Soon, very soon, these arm blades would be dripping with the blood of the Enemy.
Alex Mercer, Hardworking Husband, Part 3: END
The problem was that he didn't want to lean into that. This whole exercise was about taking an opportunity to live his life, not following in the footsteps of others. Of a monster. He'd been called a monster more times than he could count, but Alex had never laid a hand on anyone in his family. Dana had been hurt because of him.... But he'd done everything he could to stop that. At least he could be sure of that. So it was different.
When he was certain Angélique had really fallen asleep, Alex slid out of bed. There was no point in wasting time pretending to sleep through the night. He'd drive himself crazy with seven or eight hours of inactivity every damn night. No, that wasn't an option. He decided to take Edmond's wand, go out into the courtyard and practice a little with his magic, to see if he could learn to control it. Fix whatever it was he was doing wrong. Not that he needed it in a life or death situation. He believed he could fix any problem without revealing his identity.
Modifying his body, transforming arms into weapons. Without any of that his strength and speed were still superhuman. Except perhaps for the Elves, whose abilities seemed to be more myth than history, according to the memories of the two nobles he had eaten there should be no one who even stood a chance. He didn't need anything fancy to slaughter his enemies here.
But it would be cool to be able to do magic. It would be very cool. And it could be useful in other ways.
One of those damn kids had opened some portal to his world. He wanted a new chance, a new life. It was a very attractive proposition when in the other world he had only experienced confusion, pain and the horror of the truth. But... There was also Dana.
Mercer was beginning to think that maybe he didn't have to give up on Dana. She was as good as dead, in a deep sleep. But even if technology couldn't save her, magic could. And Dana would be happy here too. She would miss many things, but here Blackwatch couldn't hurt her. Maybe, if he could master magic, he could open a portal, bring her back, and then....
Then they would be a family again. Then they would be happy again.
That would mean that his disguise as Edmond would be temporary, but he had always been prepared for that. And he could think of nothing better. Crossing the empty, dark corridors, Alex Mercer grinned like a wild beast, although all he felt was happiness. Perhaps because he felt a familiar high, as if victory was within his grasp. The high of a predator catching its prey.
The world is small and full of ironies. Alex walked down the stairs of the lobby in time to see suspicious people enter. Bandits with masks and hoods. Classical bandits, typical of the kind of fantasy this world was. Swords, axes, armor. Before him it was as if they were naked, of course.
"Edmond Dantes himself." The presumed leader spoke. "At least you have saved us from having to find you. Don't bother calling the guards, they're all knocked out by a sleeping potion. You're on your own here."
Alex said nothing. He just held his gaze as if nothing was happening. Because nothing was really happening.
"Not a hint of fear? You show well the arrogance of the so-called nobles. Though you are but a Line mage, the most ordinary of the ordinary. Do you think you're so important? Answer me."
Alex felt a stab of irritation. What was left of Edmond Dantes screaming inside him, rebelling against the attack on his pride. The part of him that was Edmond Dantes. Fortunately, that part of him had to share space with many other monsters.
"I'm still above you. You should listen to your henchmen, who are trembling behind you. They are more aware of reality."
"It's funny you should say that."
"Is that so?"
"Yes."
So. The bandit leader drew a wand. Oh, right. All nobles were mages, but not all mages were nobles. They could fall from grace, be cast out, and this was the result. Even when they fell into disgrace, they used their natural talents to try to take advantage of others and crush them. So in the end nothing changed.
His target was another noble this time, of course, but he doubted he had any scruples when it came to stealing from commoners.
Alex didn't even hear the incantation, irritated with himself for not having considered that as an explanation for his strange confidence. A large stone spear manifested itself in front of him and flew out to tear off his head. He supposed the bandit didn't care. Stealing from a nobleman would earn him the same reward as stealing from one, so it was better to remove him.
The stone spear went through the window behind him and disappeared into the night. Alex remained impassive, his ears ringing with the rain of broken glass.
"Did he dodge it or did he miss?"
"How could he miss an unmoving target? He dodged it. Of course he dodged it."
"But I didn't even see him move. He didn't draw his wand, he didn't chant..."
The fear increased when the frightened bandit stated the obvious. The sheep would eventually lose control of themselves without Alex lifting a finger, at this rate. The truth was the second option, of course. Alex had dodged, why would he let himself be hit? But without moving from the spot. The slightest movement, the minimum necessary, and it had been more than enough.
"Turn and run," Alex said. "I have no patience for this nonsense in the middle of the night. If you listen to the voice of reason, I will spare your lives."
"Afraid, huh?"
Alex rolled his eyes.
"Whatever."
There were no witnesses, but still... Alex didn't transform. He reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out Edmond's wand.
Maybe what he needed to master magic was a good reason. A sense of danger, even if it was false, since he could stop fooling around and employ his true talents at any moment.
"Quiet, I'll take care of him."
Who was the arrogant one now? Waving his wand and spitting an incantation from Edmond's memories, Alex felt like a supreme moron. Like a nerd dressed up in one of his mother's robes and a stick he found in the woods. It was a horribly inefficient system and that bothered him on many levels. He was thousands of soldiers and thousands of scientists, after all. If there was one thing they had in common, it was a taste for efficiency. It was the most logical thing in the world. The greatest result with the least effort. What was so bad about that?
So yes, he found it irritating. If he was facing, say, an army of a thousand mages, he could wipe out fifty before they managed to finish the incantation for a decent spell. Magic simply took too long. When the commoners developed guns, the nobles of this world would be even more screwed than in his, because at least they had fought on equal terms. What was all this magical nonsense compared to aiming and firing?
Almost a minute for the strongest spells, when even the basic, disposable flintlock pistols could be fired six or seven times in a few seconds with a belt.
Yes, they would be hopelessly screwed.
Alex knew how to make them, of course, he had eaten more than one engineer, but—
He dodged the attack, leaping to the top floor, landing on the railing, graceful as a cat. The attack in question was more stone spears. The bandit leader wasn't tremendously imaginative. Alex finished launching his own attack after landing.
A water hammer that flew far and fast, but fell apart halfway. It didn't even come close to hitting the enemy. Once again he had failed. He understood what to do, the words, the sensations involved, but he couldn't do it! For some reason, his attempts at magic were always worth shit. Alex clicked his tongue.
He supposed that at worst he could force another mage to do what he wanted. Open a portal, seek out his world, and then get rid of the evidence. But that would complicate things, although the chances of carrying out his initial plan didn't seem very high right now.
"That's it?" Another guy laughed, "What a failure as a nobleman. What a bad joke."
He was a guy missing a hand. It took Alex longer than he would admit associating him with the man he had recently punished. In his defense, cutting off a thief's hand was an exceptionally common punishment in the era this world seemed to be in. Besides, he hadn't been paying much attention. It had been a momentary diversion, nothing more.
As the leader began to recite another incantation, Alex seized the opportunity.
"Knock knock."
"What?" Maybe it was surprise, confusion, and the tension of the moment. Maybe they didn't have those kinds of jokes in this world, in Halkeginia.
"No one, sorry. You won't be able to knock on any doors when I cut off your other hand."
It wasn't literally true, but it didn't have to be.
"Bastard!"
Alex nodded.
"I'm a bastard, I'm a monster. I'm a lot of things. Right now I'm just a very bored guy. I've had enough of you guys."
Magic hadn't worked and he had no reason to believe that trying it again would do the trick right now. The time had come to unmask himself. Could they see his face squirming in the darkness barely illuminated by the moonlight filtering through the windows? It wasn't a risk. In any case, he could get rid of all the witnesses without any doubt. They had even done him the favor of putting the soldiers to sleep, the reinforcements that could interfere in this...
Yes, the time has come, he thought.
The tension was about to explode. But none of them could have imagined the real explosion.
"Go back to bed, honey. It's late. I'm just... I'm just looking for your father."
Alex Mercer felt his heart in his throat, in a even more metaphorical sense than usual, since he didn't have a heart. At least, not a physical one. The bandits had put the staff, the guards, to sleep. But his wife, his daughter...
Dana, he thought, feeling like throwing up. Dana. That wasn't her name, but he couldn't remember her name now, and he didn't care.
The bandit abandoned his efforts to attack him. He propelled himself, making a platform of earth appear under his feet, which acted as a trampoline. How fast. How had he done that...? No, he hadn't started reciting a different spell or something. He had taken advantage of the half-finished spell, transforming it from an attack to something to help him move.
In the direction of the voice. Dana. Dana.
The monster of Manhattan shot out. His arms twisting, lengthening. Transforming into very organic, wet, throbbing blades.
There were screams. Boots hitting the ground, running in the opposite direction. They had seen him. They were running away. He didn't care.
He only cared about one thing. Soon, very soon, these arm blades would be dripping with the blood of the Enemy.
Alex Mercer, Hardworking Husband, Part 3: END
6. Alex Mercer, Hardworking Husband, Part 4
Chapter 6: Alex Mercer, Hardworking Husband, Part 4
Damien grinned from ear to ear.
This was his chance.
Two unexpected events had occurred, saving him from the most unexpected of all: Edmond Dantes was not some run-of-the-mill magician who relied solely on his noble power to crush any obstacle in his path, but a very dangerous sorcerer.
He had saved the biggest surprise for last.
From the stories he had heard about him, it had almost been his panicked expression upon hearing his wife and daughter's voices. But no.
Unfortunately, it had been the way he transformed his arms, without even reciting a spell. It didn't matter how many surprises he had up his sleeve. As long as he reached the hostages before him, he would win. And he had the advantage.
Damien would never reach them in time.
It was improbable, but not impossible. Not yet, at least.
Damien quickly turned around. Without slowing down. In fact, without even slowing down for a second. Edmond was there, with those horrible black arms. And sharp. Whatever was shining in the darkness must have been bone, but it looked like the steel of a sword. A piece of bone on each arm, sharp enough to tear him apart.
If he caught up to him.
Only if he caught up to him.
He was breathing heavily, he had to admit, because of the fear, that pressure in his chest like a dagger. It was humiliating, but he had to admit it. And running like this didn't help, naturally.
But Damien was strong.
Being strong doesn't mean not being afraid. Someone without fear was nothing more than a living corpse with nothing to lose who would soon end up in a ditch.
Only people with something to lose, with fear, could be strong enough to protect those valuable things.
Damien had proven that countless times.
He had survived countless bad situations thanks to his incredible strength of will, his skill, and his intelligence. This wouldn't be any different. He hadn't bitten off more than he could chew.
He completed the incantation.
Quickly a stone wall rose in the middle of the hallway. Hard and sharp stones like stalactites intertwining to form an unbreakable barrier.
Or it should have been.
But, incredibly, it was destroyed in the blink of an eye.
Edmond Dantes smashed it to pieces with a casual swipe as he passed by, as if he had barely even noticed it.
Damien swallowed hard.
And on top of that, he was fast.
Too fast. He couldn't comprehend what he was seeing. If those arms had broken tons of stone in the first attack, then his fragile body stood no chance.
Furthermore, the difference between the power of a mage who could at least cast a spell without an incantation and one who needed them, whether they were a Triangle or Square mage, it didn't matter, was obvious. It was a huge, insurmountable gap.
So...
So
No. No. No. She was already there. He could see the woman and the girl. He was no monster, but he would use anything at his disposal to survive. Hewould cut that girl's throat if necessary. He didn't want to do it mainly because if Edmond allowed things to reach that point, then he had made a judgment error and they wouldn't have been effective hostages.
"Close your eyes, sweetheart."
That was the last Damien heard.
He made no move to close his eyes, but suddenly there was only darkness. It was so swift that he didn't even feel pain before the end.
——
Alex Mercer, his body covered in another man's blood from head to toe, something he was intimately familiar with, breathed deeply like a beast. He was not satisfied at all. The prey had come too close, and its end had been swift and painless in its haste.
He had reduced it to pulp against a wall, and that was how it had ended.
In front of his wife and daughter.
Of Edmond. Well, it didn't matter now. There was no difference anymore.
Angélique had had the common sense and quick reaction to hold the girl close to her chest, preventing Dana, that is, Julie, from seeing anything. But still, it was over. That woman's eyes were wide as plates.
He had done something that surely no one else on the planet could do. If he had had enough time to get used to magic before trouble rained down on him, this could have been avoided. Maybe he would have been able to deal with the intruders using only the wand and the combined knowledge of his two noble victims. But that hadn't happened, and now it was irreparable.
He could try to lie.
According to their memories, wandless and chantless magic wasn't impossible. There was the famous Karin the Heavy Wind and the spell that earned her nickname.
In general, there were various examples, even though most were simple accidents or not entirely intentional at least.
But he could try to excuse himself that way.
About his arms, well, like a spell he had just discovered. One of his own creation, perhaps. Edmond had no talent, and it wasn't a particularly convincing explanation, but faced with the unknown, the terrifying, people sought any possible explanation to fit events into the box of their common sense. Even if they had to force it.
The biggest problem of all was not even that Angélique had seen him, but that she must have already suspected something.
That something was wrong with her husband.
That he wasn't the same, even though they had spent very little time together.
Now, what?
Would he have to run?
Would he have to try again?
He could, but he didn't want to. He was tired of running.
"Mom, what's happening?" the girl asked tearfully.
——
The Valliere mansion stood among the trees of the forest. Her tomb.
The carriage moved slowly between the rows of trees. It gave the impression that the journey could stretch to infinity. Of course, that was nothing more than a childish fantasy. Just like her struggle against her own nature.
All nobles were magicians, but not all magicians were noble. Louise was going against even something as simple as that. It was time to accept reality. She couldn't say that her failures were proof of her skill as a magician, as Kirche had tried to argue. Failures were nothing but failures.
Perhaps explosions would be useful on the battlefield, but she would gain neither honor nor glory unlike her mother. She had no skill, just an unexpected side effect. She was a failure.
The carriage stopped. The end had arrived. Louise got off with trembling legs. The whisper of the tree leaves seemed to convey a secret message to her. A dark message, which was nothing she didn't already know.
She bid farewell to the driver as appropriate. Nobles had to be polite, elegant. She might be a failure, but at least she hadn't forgotten that. And then... She crossed the threshold of her prison.
Her sisters were waiting for her. Éléonore to revel in her failure as usual, and Cattleya to support her desperately, although she could barely get out of bed, as usual. Both things were painful for Louise in their own way. But worst of all was, of course, her.
Mother, she thought. Oh, mother.
On her face as cold as steel, she saw what she had expected. I know. I know, at least Cattleya is sick, I'm just a failure. I know. I know.
Mother spoke, but her words didn't reach Louise's ears. They washed over her like the tide.
Not listening to her mother would normally be unforgivable. It still was. Louise was listening, or at least trying her best, but... she heard nothing.
Karin's face changed in the end.
"Louise, you know this is for your own good, right?"
The girl raised her head, straightened her back.
"Of course, mother."
And she smiled. A very wide smile. But the light in her eyes was already dead.
——
The girl's question had been left hanging in the air. Now, what would happen? What should happen?
"Nothing, dear. Papa has saved us."
And Alex, was he safe? Had he escaped? Perhaps yes, but when Angelique returned his gaze, he understood that she knew.
She knew something was walking around wearing her husband's skin...
And she didn't give a damn.
His fears had been unfounded.
Alex Mercer, Hardworking Husband, Part 4: END
Damien grinned from ear to ear.
This was his chance.
Two unexpected events had occurred, saving him from the most unexpected of all: Edmond Dantes was not some run-of-the-mill magician who relied solely on his noble power to crush any obstacle in his path, but a very dangerous sorcerer.
He had saved the biggest surprise for last.
From the stories he had heard about him, it had almost been his panicked expression upon hearing his wife and daughter's voices. But no.
Unfortunately, it had been the way he transformed his arms, without even reciting a spell. It didn't matter how many surprises he had up his sleeve. As long as he reached the hostages before him, he would win. And he had the advantage.
Damien would never reach them in time.
It was improbable, but not impossible. Not yet, at least.
Damien quickly turned around. Without slowing down. In fact, without even slowing down for a second. Edmond was there, with those horrible black arms. And sharp. Whatever was shining in the darkness must have been bone, but it looked like the steel of a sword. A piece of bone on each arm, sharp enough to tear him apart.
If he caught up to him.
Only if he caught up to him.
He was breathing heavily, he had to admit, because of the fear, that pressure in his chest like a dagger. It was humiliating, but he had to admit it. And running like this didn't help, naturally.
But Damien was strong.
Being strong doesn't mean not being afraid. Someone without fear was nothing more than a living corpse with nothing to lose who would soon end up in a ditch.
Only people with something to lose, with fear, could be strong enough to protect those valuable things.
Damien had proven that countless times.
He had survived countless bad situations thanks to his incredible strength of will, his skill, and his intelligence. This wouldn't be any different. He hadn't bitten off more than he could chew.
He completed the incantation.
Quickly a stone wall rose in the middle of the hallway. Hard and sharp stones like stalactites intertwining to form an unbreakable barrier.
Or it should have been.
But, incredibly, it was destroyed in the blink of an eye.
Edmond Dantes smashed it to pieces with a casual swipe as he passed by, as if he had barely even noticed it.
Damien swallowed hard.
And on top of that, he was fast.
Too fast. He couldn't comprehend what he was seeing. If those arms had broken tons of stone in the first attack, then his fragile body stood no chance.
Furthermore, the difference between the power of a mage who could at least cast a spell without an incantation and one who needed them, whether they were a Triangle or Square mage, it didn't matter, was obvious. It was a huge, insurmountable gap.
So...
Am I going to die?
So
Do I not have a chance?
No. No. No. She was already there. He could see the woman and the girl. He was no monster, but he would use anything at his disposal to survive. Hewould cut that girl's throat if necessary. He didn't want to do it mainly because if Edmond allowed things to reach that point, then he had made a judgment error and they wouldn't have been effective hostages.
"Close your eyes, sweetheart."
That was the last Damien heard.
He made no move to close his eyes, but suddenly there was only darkness. It was so swift that he didn't even feel pain before the end.
——
Alex Mercer, his body covered in another man's blood from head to toe, something he was intimately familiar with, breathed deeply like a beast. He was not satisfied at all. The prey had come too close, and its end had been swift and painless in its haste.
He had reduced it to pulp against a wall, and that was how it had ended.
In front of his wife and daughter.
Of Edmond. Well, it didn't matter now. There was no difference anymore.
Angélique had had the common sense and quick reaction to hold the girl close to her chest, preventing Dana, that is, Julie, from seeing anything. But still, it was over. That woman's eyes were wide as plates.
He had done something that surely no one else on the planet could do. If he had had enough time to get used to magic before trouble rained down on him, this could have been avoided. Maybe he would have been able to deal with the intruders using only the wand and the combined knowledge of his two noble victims. But that hadn't happened, and now it was irreparable.
He could try to lie.
According to their memories, wandless and chantless magic wasn't impossible. There was the famous Karin the Heavy Wind and the spell that earned her nickname.
In general, there were various examples, even though most were simple accidents or not entirely intentional at least.
But he could try to excuse himself that way.
About his arms, well, like a spell he had just discovered. One of his own creation, perhaps. Edmond had no talent, and it wasn't a particularly convincing explanation, but faced with the unknown, the terrifying, people sought any possible explanation to fit events into the box of their common sense. Even if they had to force it.
The biggest problem of all was not even that Angélique had seen him, but that she must have already suspected something.
That something was wrong with her husband.
That he wasn't the same, even though they had spent very little time together.
Now, what?
Would he have to run?
Would he have to try again?
He could, but he didn't want to. He was tired of running.
"Mom, what's happening?" the girl asked tearfully.
——
The Valliere mansion stood among the trees of the forest. Her tomb.
The carriage moved slowly between the rows of trees. It gave the impression that the journey could stretch to infinity. Of course, that was nothing more than a childish fantasy. Just like her struggle against her own nature.
All nobles were magicians, but not all magicians were noble. Louise was going against even something as simple as that. It was time to accept reality. She couldn't say that her failures were proof of her skill as a magician, as Kirche had tried to argue. Failures were nothing but failures.
Perhaps explosions would be useful on the battlefield, but she would gain neither honor nor glory unlike her mother. She had no skill, just an unexpected side effect. She was a failure.
The carriage stopped. The end had arrived. Louise got off with trembling legs. The whisper of the tree leaves seemed to convey a secret message to her. A dark message, which was nothing she didn't already know.
She bid farewell to the driver as appropriate. Nobles had to be polite, elegant. She might be a failure, but at least she hadn't forgotten that. And then... She crossed the threshold of her prison.
Her sisters were waiting for her. Éléonore to revel in her failure as usual, and Cattleya to support her desperately, although she could barely get out of bed, as usual. Both things were painful for Louise in their own way. But worst of all was, of course, her.
Mother, she thought. Oh, mother.
On her face as cold as steel, she saw what she had expected. I know. I know, at least Cattleya is sick, I'm just a failure. I know. I know.
Mother spoke, but her words didn't reach Louise's ears. They washed over her like the tide.
Not listening to her mother would normally be unforgivable. It still was. Louise was listening, or at least trying her best, but... she heard nothing.
Karin's face changed in the end.
"Louise, you know this is for your own good, right?"
The girl raised her head, straightened her back.
"Of course, mother."
And she smiled. A very wide smile. But the light in her eyes was already dead.
——
The girl's question had been left hanging in the air. Now, what would happen? What should happen?
"Nothing, dear. Papa has saved us."
And Alex, was he safe? Had he escaped? Perhaps yes, but when Angelique returned his gaze, he understood that she knew.
She knew something was walking around wearing her husband's skin...
And she didn't give a damn.
His fears had been unfounded.
Alex Mercer, Hardworking Husband, Part 4: END
7. Behind the Glass
Chapter 7: Behind the Glass
The old Osmond, director of the Tristain Magic Academy, sighed as he heard the wooden door creak slightly when pushed. He hadn't been spying with his special magic ball, but he didn't need it to know who was behind the door.
And no, it wasn't his sexy secretary with glossy hair, but a bald man who visited him even more frequently as if he were his true secretary.
Although he didn't take work off his hands, he just wasted his time.
He understood him, but it was still true.v
Nevertheless, precisely because he understood him, Osmond greeted Colbert's shiny bald head with a smile.
"I know it's closed, but still, how can one avoid thinking about it?" Colbert responded as if he had spoken. Osmond supposed his look had said more than enough.
"It's something that has never happened before. But a familiar had never run away either. To begin with, the ritual is designed so that only beings willing to help the mage answer the call."
"I know."
Osmond rolled his eyes. Well, he wasn't a professor at this prestigious academy for nothing. And in turn, Osmond hadn't become the director for...
Well. Maybe that wasn't a good example.
"Everything I can say in this conversation, you already know. You've forced me to discuss it to exhaustion. I hope this time you have something new. What should concern us is that familiar of hers, whatever it is, that can gobble up other people's pets, ahem, I mean Familiars and even take on human form. I mean, not me because I have nothing to do with that. But you get the idea."
Words trying to lighten the matter. Nonsense, nothing more. Whether it was his concern or not, Osmond couldn't help but think about the creature's transformation, even though he hadn't witnessed it with his own eyes, over and over again. And what that creature could do with those abilities.
Since it looked human but wasn't a mage or a commoner, but a thing. An animal.
It wouldn't have left the summoning circle after all. It had been destined to be a Familiar, and that wasn't possible for a human.
Its clothes had also caught his attention, from the vague descriptions he had gathered, but that was an old story that could be set aside along with the past.
The mere existence of the creature was a more immediate concern.
He would worry about where it had come from exactly once it was dead.
"There's something... I have a feeling I've overlooked something," Colbert, hesitant, continued speaking in the end. "I can't get it out of my head."
Night had fallen.
It had fallen a long time ago, but naturally, Louise was unable to fall asleep. She couldn't sleep and didn't want to, because that would mean the next day would arrive sooner.
If it were up to her, the night would be eternal.
That way she wouldn't have to face the days to come.
To what was left for her, after so many years of effort. Empty hands and a twisted heart.
"This is my home. This is my room," she said, as if she could believe it if she repeated it enough times.
She clumsily rolled out of bed, lacking energy. She went to the bathroom and washed her face as if that would do something. And then she made the mistake of looking in the mirror.
Louise was overwhelmed by the urge to punch the glass, shatter her reflection into a thousand pieces.
The only thing that stopped her was that mother would find out sooner or later. She would make her pay for such stupidity, and besides, if she couldn't do magic, at least she should have manners, the education her parents had given her.
At least she shouldn't be embarrassed with childish gestures of frustration as if she were just a commoner.
"All that is expected of me is to open my legs," she murmured, her voice barely audible, but what did it matter, she was alone, no one would hear her.
No one had ever heard her silent screams.
No, there was Cattleya, she shouldn't be unfair, but...
Louise couldn't complete the thought.
Maybe because in her mental state she couldn't find the right words, maybe it was much simpler and there were no buts.
So she fell silent and laughed half-heartedly at herself.
As if she didn't have enough, she felt a stab of pain in her right hand. No, thousands of stabs. She had only thought about doing it, but it was as if she had actually punched the glass and the broken pieces had pierced her hand, her knuckles, between her fingers.
A horrible pain. To her shame, she swallowed the urge to scream, avoiding disturbing everyone at this late hour of the night.
But not the tears.
Louise cried for the first time since she was a child.
"Everything and everyone... is against me."
Louise finally punched the mirror after all. If it was going to hurt anyway, at least let it hurt for some reason.
It did. She destroyed her hateful reflection.
But, amidst the pain, tears distorting her vision, and her shock from the failure and the day longer than those of the journey to the mansion... It couldn't be anything, but, for a moment...
She thought her reflection had red eyes.
The portal that had given Professor Colbert so many headaches flickered during the night like the trembling flame of a candle on a stormy night, resisting, but in the end, its light went out, disappearing without a trace.
After all, its work was already done.
Behind the Glass: FIN
1
The old Osmond, director of the Tristain Magic Academy, sighed as he heard the wooden door creak slightly when pushed. He hadn't been spying with his special magic ball, but he didn't need it to know who was behind the door.
And no, it wasn't his sexy secretary with glossy hair, but a bald man who visited him even more frequently as if he were his true secretary.
Although he didn't take work off his hands, he just wasted his time.
He understood him, but it was still true.v
Nevertheless, precisely because he understood him, Osmond greeted Colbert's shiny bald head with a smile.
"I know it's closed, but still, how can one avoid thinking about it?" Colbert responded as if he had spoken. Osmond supposed his look had said more than enough.
"It's something that has never happened before. But a familiar had never run away either. To begin with, the ritual is designed so that only beings willing to help the mage answer the call."
"I know."
Osmond rolled his eyes. Well, he wasn't a professor at this prestigious academy for nothing. And in turn, Osmond hadn't become the director for...
Well. Maybe that wasn't a good example.
"Everything I can say in this conversation, you already know. You've forced me to discuss it to exhaustion. I hope this time you have something new. What should concern us is that familiar of hers, whatever it is, that can gobble up other people's pets, ahem, I mean Familiars and even take on human form. I mean, not me because I have nothing to do with that. But you get the idea."
Words trying to lighten the matter. Nonsense, nothing more. Whether it was his concern or not, Osmond couldn't help but think about the creature's transformation, even though he hadn't witnessed it with his own eyes, over and over again. And what that creature could do with those abilities.
Since it looked human but wasn't a mage or a commoner, but a thing. An animal.
It wouldn't have left the summoning circle after all. It had been destined to be a Familiar, and that wasn't possible for a human.
Its clothes had also caught his attention, from the vague descriptions he had gathered, but that was an old story that could be set aside along with the past.
The mere existence of the creature was a more immediate concern.
He would worry about where it had come from exactly once it was dead.
"There's something... I have a feeling I've overlooked something," Colbert, hesitant, continued speaking in the end. "I can't get it out of my head."
2
Night had fallen.
It had fallen a long time ago, but naturally, Louise was unable to fall asleep. She couldn't sleep and didn't want to, because that would mean the next day would arrive sooner.
If it were up to her, the night would be eternal.
That way she wouldn't have to face the days to come.
To what was left for her, after so many years of effort. Empty hands and a twisted heart.
"This is my home. This is my room," she said, as if she could believe it if she repeated it enough times.
She clumsily rolled out of bed, lacking energy. She went to the bathroom and washed her face as if that would do something. And then she made the mistake of looking in the mirror.
Louise was overwhelmed by the urge to punch the glass, shatter her reflection into a thousand pieces.
The only thing that stopped her was that mother would find out sooner or later. She would make her pay for such stupidity, and besides, if she couldn't do magic, at least she should have manners, the education her parents had given her.
At least she shouldn't be embarrassed with childish gestures of frustration as if she were just a commoner.
"All that is expected of me is to open my legs," she murmured, her voice barely audible, but what did it matter, she was alone, no one would hear her.
No one had ever heard her silent screams.
No, there was Cattleya, she shouldn't be unfair, but...
Louise couldn't complete the thought.
Maybe because in her mental state she couldn't find the right words, maybe it was much simpler and there were no buts.
So she fell silent and laughed half-heartedly at herself.
As if she didn't have enough, she felt a stab of pain in her right hand. No, thousands of stabs. She had only thought about doing it, but it was as if she had actually punched the glass and the broken pieces had pierced her hand, her knuckles, between her fingers.
A horrible pain. To her shame, she swallowed the urge to scream, avoiding disturbing everyone at this late hour of the night.
But not the tears.
Louise cried for the first time since she was a child.
"Everything and everyone... is against me."
Louise finally punched the mirror after all. If it was going to hurt anyway, at least let it hurt for some reason.
It did. She destroyed her hateful reflection.
But, amidst the pain, tears distorting her vision, and her shock from the failure and the day longer than those of the journey to the mansion... It couldn't be anything, but, for a moment...
She thought her reflection had red eyes.
3
The portal that had given Professor Colbert so many headaches flickered during the night like the trembling flame of a candle on a stormy night, resisting, but in the end, its light went out, disappearing without a trace.
After all, its work was already done.
Behind the Glass: FIN
8. Leave behind the prison of the distant shadows of the sinking sun (1)
Chapter 8: Leave behind the prison of the distant shadows of the sinking sun (1)
The girl had been born into a noble family, though she hadn't shown a hint of talent, no matter how many of the nation's best tutors paraded through its halls.
Which meant she had been hungry, of course. She was human like any other. But she had never gone hungry, which was quite different.
Never. She had always had everything she wanted and more.
She had never had to worry about missing a single one of the three daily meals. Neither did her family's servants, to be honest. They might not have been treated like humans, but they were paid well.
Now, however, she was hungry.
A voracious hunger, a hunger of the wolf. A hunger that seemed to drag out the most primal senses of a human being. Curled up in the darkness, she trembled like a leaf in the wind, her teeth chattering, her tongue passing over her lips again and again.
As if hoping to find some scrap of food stuck there, and resisting to believe there was nothing. But it wasn't any loop. Louise quickly broke it, shaking her head. Barefoot, with only a nightgown, she opened the doors of her room's balcony.
The cold night air penetrated her to the bone, but there was something false, hollow, about that sensation.
(Am I dreaming?)
It was almost as it should be, but the cold didn't bite, even though she wore practically nothing.
(Could I be dreaming?)
So, why worry?
She climbed onto the balcony railing and let herself fall, welcoming the night with open arms. She landed on her feet with a strange elegance and without really intending to. That's when she convinced herself.
Yes, this can't be real.
If it was a dream, and it had to be, then it meant that...
She was free.
For the first time in her life, she was free from other people's expectations, free from her mother's shadow, free from disappointments, free from the eternal struggle to be more than what she was. Now she could just be herself, period. There was no one who could reproach her for it.
Free.
Free!
From everything... except that hunger...
Yes.
She couldn't think of what she wanted to do, much less do it, now that she was free if she didn't satisfy that hunger first.
She had time. You could live a lifetime within a dream. But she had to have priorities; intruders could do what they did best and shatter her dream to drag her back to reality at any moment. She had to hurry.
A whole life could be very short.
So Louise ran wild and free through the night.
With every step she took, the unreality became apparent, as if she needed more proof. Because soon she found herself running through the forest near the property at dizzying speeds, speeds no human was capable of, even with magic, and yet she didn't collide with trees and branches.
All of that was impossible.
She didn't feel the cold, she didn't feel the earth and grass beneath her feet, she didn't feel the pain of walking barefoot through a forest.
Just a hunger that came from nowhere.
Moreover, she had suddenly found herself in the middle of the forest. Without a clear transition. Without the thread of logic that connected the points of reality.
It was a dream, and nothing made sense, and it didn't have to. She just had to stop thinking for once, simply let herself go and not spoil it. From now on, she would only have peace in dreams like this one. If she didn't achieve it tonight, well, she would have practice.
She was sure it wouldn't be the last time she dreamed of escaping through the window and running to only Brimir knows where.
Dreaming is free, she thought.
She thought: That's all this past decade has been. A dream.
Louise suddenly stopped, clutching her stomach, squeezing it as if trying to contain something inside. Everything was false; nothing reached her, only the persistent hunger. But she didn't feel like she had control over herself (this was a dream, just a dream, after all, she had to go with the flow, she wasn't lucid), so she couldn't turn around and raid the pantry.
What could she do?
A deer appeared hopping in the meadow, and all thoughts left her head as if torn away by a storm, leaving only a burning ball of instinct.
To satisfy that hunger devouring her from within, naturally, she could only devour another living being.
And that's what she did, but not with her own hands. Her hands transformed into claws that allowed her to tear the animal's flesh as if it were paper. The blood splattered her, and that was the most real thing of all, the pleasure of satisfying it was much more real than the hunger.
The pleasure of the animal's blood going down her throat and...
Something strange.
The pleasure of the animal's blood flowing down its throat and...
Something strange.
She didn't devour the rest of the animal, at least not in a conventional way. It dissolved into black and red, and seemed to enter her.
So what?
It's a dream.
Things that happen. She could dissolve herself at any moment. After all, she was so weak and insubstantial... Or at least most of the time. Now, however, she felt as if she were on top of the world.
"What are you going to do now?" Angélica said. Tense, reserved. More afraid for her daughter than for herself. Like any mother, or so she imagined. Not that she had experienced it firsthand, not really. The answer to that question was very simple. The only issue was whether he would have enough time.
He had stopped to look at her, and that had not been part of his plans. To look at them, rather. He was aware of which of the two was the real prize, as far as he was concerned, and so what if it didn't matter?
"Finish off the enemies," he said simply. He had to try, at least. Lately, he had been feeling more magnanimous, but he wasn't crazy enough to let them live. He was pretty sure they wouldn't try to screw him over again, but they could talk. And rumors spread like wildfire. Especially among the lower caste. The dirty commoners, as the latest additions to the collective would say.
Angelique nodded as if giving him permission, and she held little Julen tighter against her chest, as if protecting her. He didn't need her permission, but it was good to know that, at least for now, she wouldn't sound the alarm, she wouldn't ruin things for him. She must have thought the little one would be the first to die if she did that. And she wasn't wrong. Alex wouldn't like it, but the little one would fall like so many others if circumstances forced her to. It was a matter of survival. And freedom, which he was discovering was synonymous with life.
So, with her permission, he darted off. Just another shadow among millions of nighttime shadows. Nothing more than a flash in the eyes of anyone out there, only there was no one watching. The surviving bandits would simply be swallowed by the night without anyone noticing. Even they, more often than not. They weren't very observant either.
The first of them was grabbed with a whip and crushed like a piñata against the ground before he could even scream. The second, not only had the misfortune of deciding to rob his house out of all the possible nobles, but he also stumbled upon a bear trap. Very suddenly and without warning. In a way, what he did next was a mercy. Well, in the world he lived in, it wasn't out of the question for him to recover his leg. Anyway, what was done was done. That was for sure. All of that was entertaining, but not exactly the ideal method of search and capture.
So for the next ones, he decided to be more pragmatic. A burst of tentacles made their way out of his body and through the darkness of the forest, the dense, dense darkness. The tentacles found them and disposed of them one by one, it was already done. Unless, of course, they had left a fool covering their rear. Waiting for a return that would never happen. The local equivalent, so to speak, of the driver in getaways.
Even if he wasn't aware of that last individual, the tentacles would have found him almost for sure. Besides, even if he survived, so what? He couldn't know anything about what had happened in the mansion. He would simply flee thinking that a noble had massacred his crime partners because they had screwed up royally. Come on, nothing noteworthy, something that happened every day.
As if several horses had run over her... It was a very exaggerated metaphor because in that case the horses would surely have trampled her to death, but she had the right to exaggerate, to complain, even if only inside her own head. If she did it out loud, she would destroy what was left of her noble pride and the few shreds of her identity that somehow remained standing with her own hands. And anyway, no one would pay attention to her. So that was all she could do.
Anyway. Obviousness aside, she was really too tired. Louise considered for a moment whether she might actually be sick, being punished for lying immediately, as if she hadn't suffered enough already. Fortunately, it was only for a moment. She opened her eyes, got up, and the first thing she saw was that her white sheets were stained with blood.
With the first glance, she knew. It was too much blood to be her period. Unless she had had a spontaneous abortion while still a virgin, which would be a strange miracle and great news, it had nothing to do with her vagina, no sir.
Louise choked back a scream. She didn't know how she had been able to, but she was grateful. The last thing she needed now was for everyone to come in worried, demanding answers, when she was the first one who wanted to know the damn truth.
And she couldn't even start thinking, she didn't know where to begin with this. It was such a nonsense that she could believe she was still asleep.
(because all that had been a dream, right? nothing more than a dream)
Louise looked at the balcony and checked that its doors were still closed. That didn't mean that an intruder couldn't have sneaked in, of course. Rather, it was the only way to explain it. And instead of robbing her, because it didn't seem like anything was missing at first glance, or doing... worse things, had they simply sprayed her with blood? Not only the sheets but inevitably her clothes too.
What was this?
A ridiculously theatrical death threat to one of the daughters of the prestigious Valliere family? Even if she was the third, the youngest, the most useless and least valuable, she was still a Valliere.
Enemies of the family, trying to blackmail her parents, insinuating that they could have done it and if they didn't give in, they would come back to finish the job?
Louise shuddered.
Much to her regret, she couldn't think of any other explanation. None that made sense, anyway. In that case, she should change as quickly as she could with trembling legs and hands and immediately inform her parents.
But it was already a shame, a failure. Someone whom even the servants probably gossiped about behind her back.
She had had to come home with her head bowed, humiliated, and in a few days another scandal?
With everyone making up their own truth, giving no importance to whether the explanation they preferred made sense or not? Maybe it would be better to get rid of the evidence and pretend that nothing had happened.
Madness, but
(anyway the blood was obviously from that deer and nothing had happened here)
maybe she had the right to be mad, given the circumstances.
Getting rid of the first half of the evidence was easy. Louise changed clothes and hid the bloodied bundle under the bed. If she told the servants not to enter to clean her room, they wouldn't, and they wouldn't even ask questions. All the commoners knew that it wasn't convenient for them to ask too many questions, that it was easier to obey.
But the sheets were another story.
They would be too visible under the bed, and moving them would end up splashing blood all over.
"Now what do I do?" Speaking to herself, she put her hands to her head.
By the time Alex returned, Angelique had already put the little one to bed. She was waiting for him alone, and to her credit, she didn't seem nervous at all.
She was intelligent enough to know, after what she had seen him do, that the guards wouldn't be much help to her if he decided to kill her.
But it was one thing to know that your situation couldn't improve, and quite another to have the fortitude to stand there with your arms crossed, as if you were the one in control of the situation.
They didn't start talking immediately, but she guided him to what was now their matrimonial bedroom (it was up in the air whether it would remain so for long, but for now it was). She even turned her back to him. If she wasn't brave before, she had to learn to be to survive in this place.
And for her daughter.
Our daughter, she weakly corrected herself.
It wasn't true, and now that she had found out about him, it might never come true. Not betraying him didn't mean she wanted anything to do with him. She could have decided it was better to be on his side than against him, plain and simple.
She shouldn't get false hopes.
Even Danah would turn her back on me if she found out that I'm not really her brother...
No. No!
The mere thought was a betrayal, and he had no time to waste on such useless speculations. Danah slept a world away from him, a world he might never be able to return to, a world he maybe shouldn't return to.
After closing the door of the room behind them, he said the most stupidly obvious thing that could have occurred to him.
"I imagine you'll have a lot of questions."
Breaking the ice was never Alex's strong suit, and most of the other people he had encountered were Blackwatch soldiers, who shot first and asked questions later, obviously, leaving no one alive.
"First of all, show me your true face. We're alone. No one's going to find out."
"As you wish."
It was a reasonable request.
Anyway, there was no point in hiding anything from her anymore. So he returned to what he would always think of as his true form. Not just Alex Mercer's body, but also the clothes he had been shot in that day at Penn Station. He was a vengeful bastard, so he had made sure to take his killers with him, although he supposed things hadn't turned out as he expected.
The woman looked him up and down as if searching for some sign that she could trust him or perhaps traces of humanity, no matter how unnatural everything he was capable of doing was. Unnatural and exceptionally brutal, something humanity had taught him since he had taken his first breath.
Whatever she found, she didn't say anything about it.
"I don't even know where to start. You've done... some kind of magic without a wand. Are you an elf?"
"A...? No." Relevant information floated to the surface of his mind from various sources, and he couldn't help but laugh in response. Angelique's face darkened. Perhaps she thought he was mocking her, perhaps his laughter had seemed threatening to her. Why not both? "I know where to start, but you wouldn't be able to understand it."
"Because I'm a woman?"
Alex rolled his eyes.
He supposed he understood why she had made that leap. There were men like Edmond aplenty in the modern world, but a medieval society, where divorce would be considered a sin if it existed in the first place, was much worse. No resources, no way out.
He could be as noble as he wanted, but because she was a woman, she had been under that man's power for a very long decade.
"Because you're from this world. I come from a place much less primitive than this. In my world, I was a renowned scientist."
Naturally, Angelique was left speechless.
"This is too much. Do you expect me to believe you come from another world?"
Alex shrugged.
"Now that you've found me out, there's no point in lying to you."
Subterfuge wasn't his thing. Every now and then, out of necessity, he had eaten a soldier or scientist to infiltrate a Blackwatch base, but sooner or later he found himself unable to contain his pleasure in murder, and his sword arms and extendable tentacle would start flying, painting the base with the entrails of his enemies.
"Do you have any proof?"
"You haven't seen anyone like me until now, isn't that enough?" The question wasn't serious. Humans were stupid and irrational; of course, it wasn't enough. Besides, it was too much to ask her to believe the truth when her culture apparently had no conception of other worlds, not even as a theory, in the first place. "It's more... You're no fool, although you'll need to act like one in front of your hubby. Think a little, and I'm sure you'll find the answer."
Or rather, she would have already found it.
While he hunted down the remaining bastards, she would have been connecting the dots.
"You're that Familiar they're looking for. The one who escaped his master. Louise Valliere, the Zero. The failure."
"Bingo," Alex said without a second thought, even though not even with the help of the brains of the nearly ten people he had recently eaten did he know the name of the brat (apparently, little girl) who had summoned him.
But he doubted that happened every day, so they must be talking about the same person.
"Is that your proof? You're saying the ritual brought you to our world?"
It proved nothing.
Of course not, it was obvious. He wished he had something conveniently stored under his kilos of biomass, like a laptop, and that's what she wanted.
He would add it to the list of things he couldn't give her.
"That's what I'm saying, but if you're expecting definitive proof that will make you fall to your knees and force you to accept the truth, I'm afraid there is no such thing." Following a flash of inspiration, he changed his face, only his face, to Angelique's for several seconds. Others might have had their hearts frozen. Angelique barely blinked. "If I don't count, of course."
There was no one like him. Not in this world or the previous one, now that he had done a bit of general cleaning. Which wouldn't last long.
The show had to go on, and Blackwatch wouldn't give up, even though it would be the most sensible thing to do; they would cling to the project as if sacrificing enough personnel and innocent people on the altar of progress would eventually work out well for them.
And even if in the end they had entire squads of supersoldiers with the same powers as Alex, the happy hour would only last until they cut the salary of one of those squads. Then all hell would break loose again.
But who knows with those fanatics.
In any case, Angelique didn't respond. She could only look down.
"Anyway, that's not important. Sit down," she patted the bed next to her. Just in case it wasn't clear. "Tell me who you are, what you want. I don't care if you're some kind of demon as long as my daughter and I are well."
She had priorities.
He respected that much more than someone insisting on doing the right thing as if that were always the best.
Speaking of which, should he listen to her? Was it the right thing or the best thing?
Alex Mercer sighed.
And took a seat.
"As you wish. My name is Alex Mercer. They call me a terrorist, murderer, monster. I am all those things."
She didn't exactly give off the image of a noble lady full of dignity as she was supposed to, but first, she should have given up on that a long time ago, and second, no one saw her. She had woken up early, which helped, but there usually were at least a handful of servants bustling about, taking care of various tasks. So, it was also pure luck.
She got rid of the damn sheets in the lake, the first thing that came to mind, and by the time she returned to the mansion, her legs were trembling, and she felt on the verge of fainting. But she wasn't tired at all, not even a bit. It was just stress. Fear.
Louise didn't return to her room using the same method; she simply snuck into the mansion as if the servants hadn't seen her descend.
No one questioned her.
That was the last time she left her room for days.
Because it was obvious that all that about the nighttime escape and the deer she had torn apart with her own hands, somehow even absorbing it, hadn't been a dream, impossible as it seemed. As much as she refused to accept it, deep down, she already had.
So yes, she was afraid. Very afraid.
It was as if she had reverted to being a scared little girl of the night shadows. Trembling when a branch brushed against the window and mistaking it for the arm of some nightmare beast not found in any bestiary for sure because no one had survived long enough to document it.
For any child, the world was dark and full of terrors, since they didn't know how things worked. They couldn't know, so they were full of mysteries, and that darkness, the darkness of not knowing, danced the worst fears.
She had returned to that mental state as if she had never left it. It was a very familiar poison on her lips.
Mom was the first to try to get her out of the room, naturally, which didn't seem so natural was that she didn't break down the door as soon as she heard her refusals. She didn't do it the second or third day either.
Eleanor came to insult and act superior... Well, she was superior. In any case, nothing new and even less effective.
But then it was Cattleya's turn, who was coughing heavily. Who was fucking sick, but had forced herself to crawl out of bed anyway. For her.
She could clearly imagine her whole body trembling as she struggled to stand, barely managing it even leaning against the door.
And she almost broke, she was very close.
But as much as she feared Mother's wrath, opening the door and seeing Cattleya's tear-streaked face would hurt much more.
Relief.
What you fear the most but relief. That you don't have to try anymore, that you can stop trying, and just languish. Like her. But without the excuse of a terminal illness.
Enough, she shouted to that powerless inner voice.
Anyway, she ignored Cattleya's pleas too and spent one more day in bed, separated from the world that had nothing good for her. On the fourth, she heard Mother's steps approaching down the hall (she knew it was her just by the walk, of course) and thought that was it. It wasn't possible for her to let her spend one more day in bed like a useless object. She would break down the doors and get her out of there even if she had to humiliate her in front of all the mansion's servants and her family.
Louise was wrong.
Another day, Karin only spoke.
"As you wish. If you won't listen to me, maybe you'll listen to someone else."
She walked away without personally insisting. How strange.
Could it be Cattleya? If she kept trying, eventually Louise would break down for her. She knew that, and maybe Mother knew her well enough to know that. Maybe. But she didn't think it was about that. Unless she didn't know that Cattleya had tried, and in that case, she didn't know her or her sister at all.
"Louise, open up."
Her heart stopped abruptly.
It hadn't even entered her possibilities. Before, she had been, well, practically a nobody, but now she had an important title and great responsibilities. Although technically they were promised, she believed he would have forgotten about the silly girl he had seen once many years ago...
What was he doing here?
Was it really his voice or was her imagination playing tricks on her? It had been so long since she had seen him that he would have changed a lot, his face, his voice, everything. She couldn't be sure it was the same voice she had heard in those distant days that seemed like a dream.
Yes. Mother doesn't understand me at all.
Lord Wardes' presence was not reassuring to her, rather just the opposite. It only increased her feeling of humiliation.
"I understand you don't want to talk to anyone right now. Not your mother, not your sisters. Especially not me. After so much time apart, I must be little better than a stranger to you. But what you want isn't always what you need. Life is very tough, Louise. You can't bear it alone. You know that better than anyone."
She shouldn't be alone right now.
She should be at the academy with a Familiar by her side. Someone who would always support her, who would never abandon her, no matter what, no matter who she was. Cattleya was such a person, but... her days were numbered. Besides, there was something special, something that was supposed to be special, about the bond between a mage and their Familiar. She had longed for it intensely for far more than to prove to everyone that she was a mage. That she deserved a place in the academy. She hadn't been thinking about such trivial matters.
Deep down, she had only wanted a companion.
Louise opened the door, and Lord Wardes immediately overstepped boundaries, acting as if no time had passed at all since then. Except they hadn't done any of that back then, of course. It would have been highly inappropriate.
Cutting to the chase, Wardes kissed her.
And for a moment, Louise considered letting herself be kissed, closing her eyes and being swept away by memories sweetened by nostalgia, pretending that her life hadn't fallen apart.
But then she thought better of it. Wardes, thankfully, was reasonable. He didn't resist as she pushed him away at the first attempt.
"I know very well what you're worth. I've always known. Pay no mind to those fools, Louise, my love. You're very special."
Louise's expression twisted into something resembling a smile, perhaps. Was that the truth? Or just hollow words? With what kind of eyes was he looking at her? With what eyes had he always looked at her?
"Why?" She cut to the chase. Now that she had nothing to lose, she could dispense with pleasantries and subtleties, of the dances that nobility liked the most: those of the tongue. "Tell me, convince me, and we'll marry tomorrow. I'll be yours for the rest of my life. What exactly makes me special?"
It should be very simple if he was telling the truth.
Louise smiled from ear to ear as if she were losing her mind.
Despite that, they probably wouldn't understand half. But he told it. Putting all the cards on the table.
"That's it."
What would the verdict be? Maybe he didn't even want to win; maybe he just wanted to be judged by someone who knew his whole story and could see beyond. Maybe...
Somehow he interpreted it as consent, as he kissed her again, pushed her onto the bed and threw himself on top of her. But for Louise that was the least of it. She was mulling over his words, as if she had heard wrong.
That was not the case, of course. She had understood him perfectly.
She had heard every last word of that nonsense.
He must think her very naive. He must think that he could easily manipulate her, right? A little girl, stupid and without self-esteem, something that everyone seemed to see no matter how hard she tried to hide it, or maybe those efforts were precisely what gave her away.
In any case, the memories of that distant day shattered into pieces.
There had never been anything real there either.
"Oh, Louise..."
She never got to know what he had to say to her.
For something like a malformed wing "grew" on Wardes' back and the blood began to gush out.
Am I... still dreaming?
"Yes. But I understand enough," she replied, and Mercer would have thought she had read his thoughts if he hadn't known for a fact that there was no such magic. "I understand that you were forced to live a horrible life and, now that you are free, you just want to continue being so. That's good enough for me."
She wasn't exactly a priest absolving his sins, but it had never been something he believed in or needed. Angelique was on his side and the girl would continue to believe that he was her father, so she was already won over.
Maybe this could turn out well.
Maybe a happy future awaited him, after all.
Leave behind the prison of the distant shadows of the sinking sun (1): FIN
1
Louise was hungry.The girl had been born into a noble family, though she hadn't shown a hint of talent, no matter how many of the nation's best tutors paraded through its halls.
Which meant she had been hungry, of course. She was human like any other. But she had never gone hungry, which was quite different.
Never. She had always had everything she wanted and more.
She had never had to worry about missing a single one of the three daily meals. Neither did her family's servants, to be honest. They might not have been treated like humans, but they were paid well.
Now, however, she was hungry.
A voracious hunger, a hunger of the wolf. A hunger that seemed to drag out the most primal senses of a human being. Curled up in the darkness, she trembled like a leaf in the wind, her teeth chattering, her tongue passing over her lips again and again.
As if hoping to find some scrap of food stuck there, and resisting to believe there was nothing. But it wasn't any loop. Louise quickly broke it, shaking her head. Barefoot, with only a nightgown, she opened the doors of her room's balcony.
The cold night air penetrated her to the bone, but there was something false, hollow, about that sensation.
(Am I dreaming?)
It was almost as it should be, but the cold didn't bite, even though she wore practically nothing.
(Could I be dreaming?)
So, why worry?
She climbed onto the balcony railing and let herself fall, welcoming the night with open arms. She landed on her feet with a strange elegance and without really intending to. That's when she convinced herself.
Yes, this can't be real.
If it was a dream, and it had to be, then it meant that...
She was free.
For the first time in her life, she was free from other people's expectations, free from her mother's shadow, free from disappointments, free from the eternal struggle to be more than what she was. Now she could just be herself, period. There was no one who could reproach her for it.
Free.
Free!
From everything... except that hunger...
Yes.
She couldn't think of what she wanted to do, much less do it, now that she was free if she didn't satisfy that hunger first.
She had time. You could live a lifetime within a dream. But she had to have priorities; intruders could do what they did best and shatter her dream to drag her back to reality at any moment. She had to hurry.
A whole life could be very short.
So Louise ran wild and free through the night.
With every step she took, the unreality became apparent, as if she needed more proof. Because soon she found herself running through the forest near the property at dizzying speeds, speeds no human was capable of, even with magic, and yet she didn't collide with trees and branches.
All of that was impossible.
She didn't feel the cold, she didn't feel the earth and grass beneath her feet, she didn't feel the pain of walking barefoot through a forest.
Just a hunger that came from nowhere.
Moreover, she had suddenly found herself in the middle of the forest. Without a clear transition. Without the thread of logic that connected the points of reality.
It was a dream, and nothing made sense, and it didn't have to. She just had to stop thinking for once, simply let herself go and not spoil it. From now on, she would only have peace in dreams like this one. If she didn't achieve it tonight, well, she would have practice.
She was sure it wouldn't be the last time she dreamed of escaping through the window and running to only Brimir knows where.
Dreaming is free, she thought.
She thought: That's all this past decade has been. A dream.
Louise suddenly stopped, clutching her stomach, squeezing it as if trying to contain something inside. Everything was false; nothing reached her, only the persistent hunger. But she didn't feel like she had control over herself (this was a dream, just a dream, after all, she had to go with the flow, she wasn't lucid), so she couldn't turn around and raid the pantry.
What could she do?
A deer appeared hopping in the meadow, and all thoughts left her head as if torn away by a storm, leaving only a burning ball of instinct.
To satisfy that hunger devouring her from within, naturally, she could only devour another living being.
And that's what she did, but not with her own hands. Her hands transformed into claws that allowed her to tear the animal's flesh as if it were paper. The blood splattered her, and that was the most real thing of all, the pleasure of satisfying it was much more real than the hunger.
The pleasure of the animal's blood going down her throat and...
Something strange.
The pleasure of the animal's blood flowing down its throat and...
Something strange.
She didn't devour the rest of the animal, at least not in a conventional way. It dissolved into black and red, and seemed to enter her.
So what?
It's a dream.
Things that happen. She could dissolve herself at any moment. After all, she was so weak and insubstantial... Or at least most of the time. Now, however, she felt as if she were on top of the world.
2
So even bad people have good things happen to them, he thought. Could it really be possible that he had gotten away with it? That she was being sincere? Yes, she had contradicted herself quite quickly, but any scientist was an inquisitive mind, their questions endless."What are you going to do now?" Angélica said. Tense, reserved. More afraid for her daughter than for herself. Like any mother, or so she imagined. Not that she had experienced it firsthand, not really. The answer to that question was very simple. The only issue was whether he would have enough time.
He had stopped to look at her, and that had not been part of his plans. To look at them, rather. He was aware of which of the two was the real prize, as far as he was concerned, and so what if it didn't matter?
"Finish off the enemies," he said simply. He had to try, at least. Lately, he had been feeling more magnanimous, but he wasn't crazy enough to let them live. He was pretty sure they wouldn't try to screw him over again, but they could talk. And rumors spread like wildfire. Especially among the lower caste. The dirty commoners, as the latest additions to the collective would say.
Angelique nodded as if giving him permission, and she held little Julen tighter against her chest, as if protecting her. He didn't need her permission, but it was good to know that, at least for now, she wouldn't sound the alarm, she wouldn't ruin things for him. She must have thought the little one would be the first to die if she did that. And she wasn't wrong. Alex wouldn't like it, but the little one would fall like so many others if circumstances forced her to. It was a matter of survival. And freedom, which he was discovering was synonymous with life.
So, with her permission, he darted off. Just another shadow among millions of nighttime shadows. Nothing more than a flash in the eyes of anyone out there, only there was no one watching. The surviving bandits would simply be swallowed by the night without anyone noticing. Even they, more often than not. They weren't very observant either.
The first of them was grabbed with a whip and crushed like a piñata against the ground before he could even scream. The second, not only had the misfortune of deciding to rob his house out of all the possible nobles, but he also stumbled upon a bear trap. Very suddenly and without warning. In a way, what he did next was a mercy. Well, in the world he lived in, it wasn't out of the question for him to recover his leg. Anyway, what was done was done. That was for sure. All of that was entertaining, but not exactly the ideal method of search and capture.
So for the next ones, he decided to be more pragmatic. A burst of tentacles made their way out of his body and through the darkness of the forest, the dense, dense darkness. The tentacles found them and disposed of them one by one, it was already done. Unless, of course, they had left a fool covering their rear. Waiting for a return that would never happen. The local equivalent, so to speak, of the driver in getaways.
Even if he wasn't aware of that last individual, the tentacles would have found him almost for sure. Besides, even if he survived, so what? He couldn't know anything about what had happened in the mansion. He would simply flee thinking that a noble had massacred his crime partners because they had screwed up royally. Come on, nothing noteworthy, something that happened every day.
3
Louise woke up with an unusual tiredness. She had never been what one would call an athlete (although she did put in more effort than her former classmates, who used magic even to go up and down stairs, as if Brimir's gift to men had to be used for any triviality), but yesterday she hadn't done much at all. She hadn't even left the mansion. And only left her room for the three meals. In fact, now that she remembered, for dinner she had claimed to feel unwell and asked the servants to bring it to her bed. And yet she felt as if she had been working from dawn to dusk, in the field like a commoner (of course she could only imagine it, even if she were a minor noble, she would never work in the fields).As if several horses had run over her... It was a very exaggerated metaphor because in that case the horses would surely have trampled her to death, but she had the right to exaggerate, to complain, even if only inside her own head. If she did it out loud, she would destroy what was left of her noble pride and the few shreds of her identity that somehow remained standing with her own hands. And anyway, no one would pay attention to her. So that was all she could do.
Anyway. Obviousness aside, she was really too tired. Louise considered for a moment whether she might actually be sick, being punished for lying immediately, as if she hadn't suffered enough already. Fortunately, it was only for a moment. She opened her eyes, got up, and the first thing she saw was that her white sheets were stained with blood.
With the first glance, she knew. It was too much blood to be her period. Unless she had had a spontaneous abortion while still a virgin, which would be a strange miracle and great news, it had nothing to do with her vagina, no sir.
Louise choked back a scream. She didn't know how she had been able to, but she was grateful. The last thing she needed now was for everyone to come in worried, demanding answers, when she was the first one who wanted to know the damn truth.
And she couldn't even start thinking, she didn't know where to begin with this. It was such a nonsense that she could believe she was still asleep.
(because all that had been a dream, right? nothing more than a dream)
Louise looked at the balcony and checked that its doors were still closed. That didn't mean that an intruder couldn't have sneaked in, of course. Rather, it was the only way to explain it. And instead of robbing her, because it didn't seem like anything was missing at first glance, or doing... worse things, had they simply sprayed her with blood? Not only the sheets but inevitably her clothes too.
What was this?
A ridiculously theatrical death threat to one of the daughters of the prestigious Valliere family? Even if she was the third, the youngest, the most useless and least valuable, she was still a Valliere.
Enemies of the family, trying to blackmail her parents, insinuating that they could have done it and if they didn't give in, they would come back to finish the job?
Louise shuddered.
Much to her regret, she couldn't think of any other explanation. None that made sense, anyway. In that case, she should change as quickly as she could with trembling legs and hands and immediately inform her parents.
But it was already a shame, a failure. Someone whom even the servants probably gossiped about behind her back.
She had had to come home with her head bowed, humiliated, and in a few days another scandal?
With everyone making up their own truth, giving no importance to whether the explanation they preferred made sense or not? Maybe it would be better to get rid of the evidence and pretend that nothing had happened.
Madness, but
(anyway the blood was obviously from that deer and nothing had happened here)
maybe she had the right to be mad, given the circumstances.
Getting rid of the first half of the evidence was easy. Louise changed clothes and hid the bloodied bundle under the bed. If she told the servants not to enter to clean her room, they wouldn't, and they wouldn't even ask questions. All the commoners knew that it wasn't convenient for them to ask too many questions, that it was easier to obey.
But the sheets were another story.
They would be too visible under the bed, and moving them would end up splashing blood all over.
"Now what do I do?" Speaking to herself, she put her hands to her head.
4
She looked him up and down.By the time Alex returned, Angelique had already put the little one to bed. She was waiting for him alone, and to her credit, she didn't seem nervous at all.
She was intelligent enough to know, after what she had seen him do, that the guards wouldn't be much help to her if he decided to kill her.
But it was one thing to know that your situation couldn't improve, and quite another to have the fortitude to stand there with your arms crossed, as if you were the one in control of the situation.
They didn't start talking immediately, but she guided him to what was now their matrimonial bedroom (it was up in the air whether it would remain so for long, but for now it was). She even turned her back to him. If she wasn't brave before, she had to learn to be to survive in this place.
And for her daughter.
Our daughter, she weakly corrected herself.
It wasn't true, and now that she had found out about him, it might never come true. Not betraying him didn't mean she wanted anything to do with him. She could have decided it was better to be on his side than against him, plain and simple.
She shouldn't get false hopes.
Even Danah would turn her back on me if she found out that I'm not really her brother...
No. No!
The mere thought was a betrayal, and he had no time to waste on such useless speculations. Danah slept a world away from him, a world he might never be able to return to, a world he maybe shouldn't return to.
After closing the door of the room behind them, he said the most stupidly obvious thing that could have occurred to him.
"I imagine you'll have a lot of questions."
Breaking the ice was never Alex's strong suit, and most of the other people he had encountered were Blackwatch soldiers, who shot first and asked questions later, obviously, leaving no one alive.
"First of all, show me your true face. We're alone. No one's going to find out."
"As you wish."
It was a reasonable request.
Anyway, there was no point in hiding anything from her anymore. So he returned to what he would always think of as his true form. Not just Alex Mercer's body, but also the clothes he had been shot in that day at Penn Station. He was a vengeful bastard, so he had made sure to take his killers with him, although he supposed things hadn't turned out as he expected.
The woman looked him up and down as if searching for some sign that she could trust him or perhaps traces of humanity, no matter how unnatural everything he was capable of doing was. Unnatural and exceptionally brutal, something humanity had taught him since he had taken his first breath.
Whatever she found, she didn't say anything about it.
"I don't even know where to start. You've done... some kind of magic without a wand. Are you an elf?"
"A...? No." Relevant information floated to the surface of his mind from various sources, and he couldn't help but laugh in response. Angelique's face darkened. Perhaps she thought he was mocking her, perhaps his laughter had seemed threatening to her. Why not both? "I know where to start, but you wouldn't be able to understand it."
"Because I'm a woman?"
Alex rolled his eyes.
He supposed he understood why she had made that leap. There were men like Edmond aplenty in the modern world, but a medieval society, where divorce would be considered a sin if it existed in the first place, was much worse. No resources, no way out.
He could be as noble as he wanted, but because she was a woman, she had been under that man's power for a very long decade.
"Because you're from this world. I come from a place much less primitive than this. In my world, I was a renowned scientist."
Naturally, Angelique was left speechless.
"This is too much. Do you expect me to believe you come from another world?"
Alex shrugged.
"Now that you've found me out, there's no point in lying to you."
Subterfuge wasn't his thing. Every now and then, out of necessity, he had eaten a soldier or scientist to infiltrate a Blackwatch base, but sooner or later he found himself unable to contain his pleasure in murder, and his sword arms and extendable tentacle would start flying, painting the base with the entrails of his enemies.
"Do you have any proof?"
"You haven't seen anyone like me until now, isn't that enough?" The question wasn't serious. Humans were stupid and irrational; of course, it wasn't enough. Besides, it was too much to ask her to believe the truth when her culture apparently had no conception of other worlds, not even as a theory, in the first place. "It's more... You're no fool, although you'll need to act like one in front of your hubby. Think a little, and I'm sure you'll find the answer."
Or rather, she would have already found it.
While he hunted down the remaining bastards, she would have been connecting the dots.
"You're that Familiar they're looking for. The one who escaped his master. Louise Valliere, the Zero. The failure."
"Bingo," Alex said without a second thought, even though not even with the help of the brains of the nearly ten people he had recently eaten did he know the name of the brat (apparently, little girl) who had summoned him.
But he doubted that happened every day, so they must be talking about the same person.
"Is that your proof? You're saying the ritual brought you to our world?"
It proved nothing.
Of course not, it was obvious. He wished he had something conveniently stored under his kilos of biomass, like a laptop, and that's what she wanted.
He would add it to the list of things he couldn't give her.
"That's what I'm saying, but if you're expecting definitive proof that will make you fall to your knees and force you to accept the truth, I'm afraid there is no such thing." Following a flash of inspiration, he changed his face, only his face, to Angelique's for several seconds. Others might have had their hearts frozen. Angelique barely blinked. "If I don't count, of course."
There was no one like him. Not in this world or the previous one, now that he had done a bit of general cleaning. Which wouldn't last long.
The show had to go on, and Blackwatch wouldn't give up, even though it would be the most sensible thing to do; they would cling to the project as if sacrificing enough personnel and innocent people on the altar of progress would eventually work out well for them.
And even if in the end they had entire squads of supersoldiers with the same powers as Alex, the happy hour would only last until they cut the salary of one of those squads. Then all hell would break loose again.
But who knows with those fanatics.
In any case, Angelique didn't respond. She could only look down.
"Anyway, that's not important. Sit down," she patted the bed next to her. Just in case it wasn't clear. "Tell me who you are, what you want. I don't care if you're some kind of demon as long as my daughter and I are well."
She had priorities.
He respected that much more than someone insisting on doing the right thing as if that were always the best.
Speaking of which, should he listen to her? Was it the right thing or the best thing?
Alex Mercer sighed.
And took a seat.
"As you wish. My name is Alex Mercer. They call me a terrorist, murderer, monster. I am all those things."
5
Against all odds, Louise managed to get rid of the bloodied sheets. She instantly ruined the clothes she had changed into by sliding down one of the pipes, filling her pleated shirt and loose skirt with dust, dirt, crap.She didn't exactly give off the image of a noble lady full of dignity as she was supposed to, but first, she should have given up on that a long time ago, and second, no one saw her. She had woken up early, which helped, but there usually were at least a handful of servants bustling about, taking care of various tasks. So, it was also pure luck.
She got rid of the damn sheets in the lake, the first thing that came to mind, and by the time she returned to the mansion, her legs were trembling, and she felt on the verge of fainting. But she wasn't tired at all, not even a bit. It was just stress. Fear.
Louise didn't return to her room using the same method; she simply snuck into the mansion as if the servants hadn't seen her descend.
No one questioned her.
That was the last time she left her room for days.
Because it was obvious that all that about the nighttime escape and the deer she had torn apart with her own hands, somehow even absorbing it, hadn't been a dream, impossible as it seemed. As much as she refused to accept it, deep down, she already had.
So yes, she was afraid. Very afraid.
It was as if she had reverted to being a scared little girl of the night shadows. Trembling when a branch brushed against the window and mistaking it for the arm of some nightmare beast not found in any bestiary for sure because no one had survived long enough to document it.
For any child, the world was dark and full of terrors, since they didn't know how things worked. They couldn't know, so they were full of mysteries, and that darkness, the darkness of not knowing, danced the worst fears.
She had returned to that mental state as if she had never left it. It was a very familiar poison on her lips.
Mom was the first to try to get her out of the room, naturally, which didn't seem so natural was that she didn't break down the door as soon as she heard her refusals. She didn't do it the second or third day either.
Eleanor came to insult and act superior... Well, she was superior. In any case, nothing new and even less effective.
But then it was Cattleya's turn, who was coughing heavily. Who was fucking sick, but had forced herself to crawl out of bed anyway. For her.
She could clearly imagine her whole body trembling as she struggled to stand, barely managing it even leaning against the door.
And she almost broke, she was very close.
But as much as she feared Mother's wrath, opening the door and seeing Cattleya's tear-streaked face would hurt much more.
Relief.
What you fear the most but relief. That you don't have to try anymore, that you can stop trying, and just languish. Like her. But without the excuse of a terminal illness.
Enough, she shouted to that powerless inner voice.
Anyway, she ignored Cattleya's pleas too and spent one more day in bed, separated from the world that had nothing good for her. On the fourth, she heard Mother's steps approaching down the hall (she knew it was her just by the walk, of course) and thought that was it. It wasn't possible for her to let her spend one more day in bed like a useless object. She would break down the doors and get her out of there even if she had to humiliate her in front of all the mansion's servants and her family.
Louise was wrong.
Another day, Karin only spoke.
"As you wish. If you won't listen to me, maybe you'll listen to someone else."
She walked away without personally insisting. How strange.
Could it be Cattleya? If she kept trying, eventually Louise would break down for her. She knew that, and maybe Mother knew her well enough to know that. Maybe. But she didn't think it was about that. Unless she didn't know that Cattleya had tried, and in that case, she didn't know her or her sister at all.
"Louise, open up."
Her heart stopped abruptly.
It hadn't even entered her possibilities. Before, she had been, well, practically a nobody, but now she had an important title and great responsibilities. Although technically they were promised, she believed he would have forgotten about the silly girl he had seen once many years ago...
What was he doing here?
Was it really his voice or was her imagination playing tricks on her? It had been so long since she had seen him that he would have changed a lot, his face, his voice, everything. She couldn't be sure it was the same voice she had heard in those distant days that seemed like a dream.
Yes. Mother doesn't understand me at all.
Lord Wardes' presence was not reassuring to her, rather just the opposite. It only increased her feeling of humiliation.
"I understand you don't want to talk to anyone right now. Not your mother, not your sisters. Especially not me. After so much time apart, I must be little better than a stranger to you. But what you want isn't always what you need. Life is very tough, Louise. You can't bear it alone. You know that better than anyone."
She shouldn't be alone right now.
She should be at the academy with a Familiar by her side. Someone who would always support her, who would never abandon her, no matter what, no matter who she was. Cattleya was such a person, but... her days were numbered. Besides, there was something special, something that was supposed to be special, about the bond between a mage and their Familiar. She had longed for it intensely for far more than to prove to everyone that she was a mage. That she deserved a place in the academy. She hadn't been thinking about such trivial matters.
Deep down, she had only wanted a companion.
Louise opened the door, and Lord Wardes immediately overstepped boundaries, acting as if no time had passed at all since then. Except they hadn't done any of that back then, of course. It would have been highly inappropriate.
Cutting to the chase, Wardes kissed her.
And for a moment, Louise considered letting herself be kissed, closing her eyes and being swept away by memories sweetened by nostalgia, pretending that her life hadn't fallen apart.
But then she thought better of it. Wardes, thankfully, was reasonable. He didn't resist as she pushed him away at the first attempt.
"I know very well what you're worth. I've always known. Pay no mind to those fools, Louise, my love. You're very special."
Louise's expression twisted into something resembling a smile, perhaps. Was that the truth? Or just hollow words? With what kind of eyes was he looking at her? With what eyes had he always looked at her?
"Why?" She cut to the chase. Now that she had nothing to lose, she could dispense with pleasantries and subtleties, of the dances that nobility liked the most: those of the tongue. "Tell me, convince me, and we'll marry tomorrow. I'll be yours for the rest of my life. What exactly makes me special?"
It should be very simple if he was telling the truth.
Louise smiled from ear to ear as if she were losing her mind.
6
Alex finished telling his story. He shortened it considerably so they wouldn't still be talking by sunrise (he may have only had a few weeks of life, but they had been very eventful weeks), and also simplified it because it would already be difficult enough to understand even for someone from his world with the knowledge that was common sense.Despite that, they probably wouldn't understand half. But he told it. Putting all the cards on the table.
"That's it."
What would the verdict be? Maybe he didn't even want to win; maybe he just wanted to be judged by someone who knew his whole story and could see beyond. Maybe...
7
Wardes spoke and Louise was instantly paralyzed.Somehow he interpreted it as consent, as he kissed her again, pushed her onto the bed and threw himself on top of her. But for Louise that was the least of it. She was mulling over his words, as if she had heard wrong.
That was not the case, of course. She had understood him perfectly.
She had heard every last word of that nonsense.
He must think her very naive. He must think that he could easily manipulate her, right? A little girl, stupid and without self-esteem, something that everyone seemed to see no matter how hard she tried to hide it, or maybe those efforts were precisely what gave her away.
In any case, the memories of that distant day shattered into pieces.
There had never been anything real there either.
"Oh, Louise..."
She never got to know what he had to say to her.
For something like a malformed wing "grew" on Wardes' back and the blood began to gush out.
Am I... still dreaming?
8
"I know it's a lot to process," said Alex. And that, despite my best attempts, you won't have understood half of it. But there was no need to add that."Yes. But I understand enough," she replied, and Mercer would have thought she had read his thoughts if he hadn't known for a fact that there was no such magic. "I understand that you were forced to live a horrible life and, now that you are free, you just want to continue being so. That's good enough for me."
She wasn't exactly a priest absolving his sins, but it had never been something he believed in or needed. Angelique was on his side and the girl would continue to believe that he was her father, so she was already won over.
Maybe this could turn out well.
Maybe a happy future awaited him, after all.
Leave behind the prison of the distant shadows of the sinking sun (1): FIN
9. Leave behind the Prison of the Distant Shadows of the Sinking Sun (2)
Chapter 9: Leave behind the Prison of the Distant Shadows of the Sinking Sun (2)
A malformed wing.
It wasn't any of that. Who was she trying to fool? Herself, of course. No, nothing had suddenly grown on Wardes' back. The truth was that something had pierced his chest and come out through his back. Wet and slippery with his blood and entrails.
That thing was the monstrosity her own arm had transformed into.
Is this another dream?
It was a weak attempt to resist reality, which shattered into a thousand pieces as Wardes' blood splattered on her face, making her instinctively squint.
There was no fear or anger in his eyes. Not even pain.
He looked at her with eyes widened in surprise. This ending wasn't a possibility that had even crossed his mind. We are two of a kind, she thought as Wardes' lifeless body fell on her, pressing her further into the bed. If it weren't for the hole in his chest, which pierced through him cleanly and exposed his organs, the scene would have seemed of a very different nature. It would have looked exactly like what had almost happened before a part of her resisted.
Before a part of her...
Changed?
The word was too mild. How could she still consider that grotesque monstrosity as part of her body, to begin with? It didn't resemble anything she had seen before. Nothing at all...
"What's going on in there!"
Louise's heart stopped.
It wasn't a metaphor; it stopped for several painful seconds, during which she felt as if a knife had been plunged into her chest.
Mom.
Mom is still out there, of course, and I...
She heard Wardes exhale his last breath as he choked on his own blood. The blood that kept pouring onto the sheets, painting them red. The pool spread endlessly. It seemed unbelievable that there could be so much blood in a human body.
Despite the horrific scene, as if it had nothing to do with her, Louise stood still as a statue. Not even her eyelids trembled.
Because...
She couldn't accept it.
"I asked what's going on." Knocks on the door.
Mom would break it down sooner or later. I have to do it, but what? What do I have to do, what the hell can I do?
Now that things have come to this point.
Wardes was dead.
No, she had killed him. Which meant she was not only a failure but a murderer. The strangest thing perhaps was worrying about that instead of what had happened to her left arm, but strange or not, that was how it was, and it shattered her mask of calm and left her trembling. The idea of being exposed as a murderer, a criminal, a failure, and a disgrace to the family in every possible way.
She couldn't let things end like this.
Couldn't let?
It was all over. She couldn't say: No, that's not how it happened and turn back time like the hero of her favorite novel. What was done was done. The blood that kept spilling over her was a reminder of that. And the pressure of Wardes' lifeless body, which had ceased to be human. Yes, it was just a piece of meat now... Because she had killed him and would pay for it.
What could she say?
Get on her knees, begging for mercy? Say it was an accident? That she hadn't meant to?
As true as those things might be, they wouldn't change anything even if they believed her. And they wouldn't. Not after seeing the monstrosity her left arm had transformed into.
Time didn't go backward, but it felt like it was moving very, very slowly. The only thing she could hear was the beating of her heart, each beat as loud as the strike of a hammer.
Was this the explanation?
She had always been a failure as a noble, as a mage... Why wasn't she even a human being?
Impossible.
Impossible.
Maybe she was a failure and a murderer, but that was impossible. There had to be an explanation. She resisted the idea with all her might, knowing that if she accepted it, it would truly be the end. Her identity would shatter, and she would end up as an empty shell.
Then...
Wardes' corpse began to dissolve like a dream at dawn. Even the blood spilled everywhere. Everything dissolved into a dark red substance that entered her.
An instant before mom forced the door open.
Trembling from head to toe, with wide eyes, she tried to open her mouth. She tried to find some explanation.
Mom approached.
"Where is Louise?"
Huh?
She swallowed.
"Lord Wardes, where is my daughter?"
Louise stood up on trembling legs and staggered to the bathroom in her room to check what she already knew deep down. The mirror didn't reflect what it should.
She raised her hands to her face, what should be her face, but only saw Wardes touching his cheeks.
Wardes, who should be dead, was right here. And she, who had killed him, where was she?
She started to laugh. She couldn't help it.
"What the hell is this?"
If she didn't laugh, she would be crying her lungs out, like a newborn baby.
She had thought her life had collapsed around her, that things couldn't get worse. Once again, life had shown her how wrong she was.
Now everything was unrecognizable.
"Did you sleep well?"
Angelique opened her eyes slowly, stretching. She had let her guard down faster than he expected. But well, she was a sensible woman. If he had wanted to harm her, he had had many opportunities. Every moment was an opportunity; with a single touch, he could drink her and add her to the collective.
So for now, she was willing to trust him.
Anyway, he couldn't have done anything worse than passing by and letting Edmond continue being Edmond.
"Pretty well," she said. "I don't remember the last time I went to bed feeling safe." She swallowed.
Even though it should be something to celebrate because things had finally changed, admitting that hurt. Alex understood perfectly the need and the void. He might be a monster, but no one had more empathy than him, as he could literally put himself in the skin of thousands of people.
"I'm glad."
That's why he noticed immediately that Angelique started to feel uncomfortable under his gaze.
"What are you thinking about?" she dared to ask at last.
Only then did he realize she might have thought he wanted to take her as a wife in every possible sense, as he was looking at her so intently. To be fair, the original Alex Mercer had always thought that kind of thing was a useless distraction from his goals. They could make a baby, but they already had a daughter as far as he was concerned, so why bother having sex with her?
"Nothing. Just a bit curious about what it's like to dream. In the physical sense."
In the other sense, well, he had plenty of dreams.
"Ah. But if you're... How did you say? A kind of collective consciousness, shouldn't you remember the dreams of thousands of people?"
"I do. But it's not the same; I've never experienced it."
Angelique looked away, thoughtful. After a while, she spoke again.
"The truth is, I don't know what to tell you. It's something so normal that I've never thought much about it. It's like trying to explain to a blind person what it's like to see."
The disabled were humans, who had to lose a significant part of their lives sleeping as if they were dead, but it was an interesting comparison. He couldn't say it was entirely wrong.
"I understand. Well, it was just a bit of curiosity. It's okay."
"No. Wait, Alex."
There was something strangely pleasant about hearing her say his real name. Well, it wasn't that strange. There was a reason he wanted to do this, wasn't there? If it was useless, if it didn't give him pleasure, didn't make him happy, then he would have been wasting his time from the beginning. So what he should really say is that the pieces were starting to fit together.
And it hadn't even taken that long. It had been easier than he thought.
"Dreaming is actually not that different from life, except you don't feel anything physical because it's not real, of course. Everything can change at any moment. Things just happen. There can be fear, you can see horrible things, but no pain."
It wasn't anything he didn't already know due to the memories, the scars on his soul from voices that screamed incessantly, but when she said it, it seemed somehow different.
I hope Danah is having good dreams, he thought.
"Thank you," he replied simply.
She should be happy.
She was this close to seeing mom lose her temper for the first time in her life (hers and mom's, probably; it was hard to imagine she had ever been different from how she always remembered her, as it happened to any child) and all because she was worried about her.
The only thing she felt was fear.
"I don't know, Lady Valliere. Something happened, and by the time I realized it, she was gone."
Lies close to reality flowed naturally from her tongue. Lying was one of the long list of things she was bad at; she always had her feelings written on her face.
"Somehow I don't remember. I don't know what she could have done to me. I'm sorry."
Louise made a bow.
"Alright." Her frown remained, however. "Help me look for her, then. She can't have gone far."
Her throat was dry. She swallowed hard.
The lies kept flowing too naturally. She knew they weren't her lies, that she wasn't just being Wardes in appearance.
I wish this were just a nightmare, she thought.
She understood more than she wanted to. Something was flowing inside her.
Memories that weren't hers. Wardes wasn't dead, actually. Not completely.
Leave behind the Prison of the Distant Shadows of the Sinking Sun (2): FIN
1
A wing.A malformed wing.
It wasn't any of that. Who was she trying to fool? Herself, of course. No, nothing had suddenly grown on Wardes' back. The truth was that something had pierced his chest and come out through his back. Wet and slippery with his blood and entrails.
That thing was the monstrosity her own arm had transformed into.
Is this another dream?
It was a weak attempt to resist reality, which shattered into a thousand pieces as Wardes' blood splattered on her face, making her instinctively squint.
There was no fear or anger in his eyes. Not even pain.
He looked at her with eyes widened in surprise. This ending wasn't a possibility that had even crossed his mind. We are two of a kind, she thought as Wardes' lifeless body fell on her, pressing her further into the bed. If it weren't for the hole in his chest, which pierced through him cleanly and exposed his organs, the scene would have seemed of a very different nature. It would have looked exactly like what had almost happened before a part of her resisted.
Before a part of her...
Changed?
The word was too mild. How could she still consider that grotesque monstrosity as part of her body, to begin with? It didn't resemble anything she had seen before. Nothing at all...
"What's going on in there!"
Louise's heart stopped.
It wasn't a metaphor; it stopped for several painful seconds, during which she felt as if a knife had been plunged into her chest.
Mom.
Mom is still out there, of course, and I...
She heard Wardes exhale his last breath as he choked on his own blood. The blood that kept pouring onto the sheets, painting them red. The pool spread endlessly. It seemed unbelievable that there could be so much blood in a human body.
Despite the horrific scene, as if it had nothing to do with her, Louise stood still as a statue. Not even her eyelids trembled.
Because...
She couldn't accept it.
"I asked what's going on." Knocks on the door.
Mom would break it down sooner or later. I have to do it, but what? What do I have to do, what the hell can I do?
Now that things have come to this point.
Wardes was dead.
No, she had killed him. Which meant she was not only a failure but a murderer. The strangest thing perhaps was worrying about that instead of what had happened to her left arm, but strange or not, that was how it was, and it shattered her mask of calm and left her trembling. The idea of being exposed as a murderer, a criminal, a failure, and a disgrace to the family in every possible way.
She couldn't let things end like this.
Couldn't let?
It was all over. She couldn't say: No, that's not how it happened and turn back time like the hero of her favorite novel. What was done was done. The blood that kept spilling over her was a reminder of that. And the pressure of Wardes' lifeless body, which had ceased to be human. Yes, it was just a piece of meat now... Because she had killed him and would pay for it.
What could she say?
Get on her knees, begging for mercy? Say it was an accident? That she hadn't meant to?
As true as those things might be, they wouldn't change anything even if they believed her. And they wouldn't. Not after seeing the monstrosity her left arm had transformed into.
Time didn't go backward, but it felt like it was moving very, very slowly. The only thing she could hear was the beating of her heart, each beat as loud as the strike of a hammer.
Was this the explanation?
She had always been a failure as a noble, as a mage... Why wasn't she even a human being?
Impossible.
Impossible.
Maybe she was a failure and a murderer, but that was impossible. There had to be an explanation. She resisted the idea with all her might, knowing that if she accepted it, it would truly be the end. Her identity would shatter, and she would end up as an empty shell.
Then...
Wardes' corpse began to dissolve like a dream at dawn. Even the blood spilled everywhere. Everything dissolved into a dark red substance that entered her.
An instant before mom forced the door open.
Trembling from head to toe, with wide eyes, she tried to open her mouth. She tried to find some explanation.
Mom approached.
"Where is Louise?"
Huh?
She swallowed.
"Lord Wardes, where is my daughter?"
Louise stood up on trembling legs and staggered to the bathroom in her room to check what she already knew deep down. The mirror didn't reflect what it should.
She raised her hands to her face, what should be her face, but only saw Wardes touching his cheeks.
Wardes, who should be dead, was right here. And she, who had killed him, where was she?
She started to laugh. She couldn't help it.
"What the hell is this?"
If she didn't laugh, she would be crying her lungs out, like a newborn baby.
She had thought her life had collapsed around her, that things couldn't get worse. Once again, life had shown her how wrong she was.
Now everything was unrecognizable.
2
He felt his wife finally wake up. Alex Mercer had spent the whole night sitting on the bed in his own form, not Edmond's, waiting and watching. But nothing had happened. If he hadn't gutted one of the thieves, a lookout, then that one had escaped with his tail between his legs as he had supposed. Whatever he told wouldn't be believed, so he supposed it didn't matter."Did you sleep well?"
Angelique opened her eyes slowly, stretching. She had let her guard down faster than he expected. But well, she was a sensible woman. If he had wanted to harm her, he had had many opportunities. Every moment was an opportunity; with a single touch, he could drink her and add her to the collective.
So for now, she was willing to trust him.
Anyway, he couldn't have done anything worse than passing by and letting Edmond continue being Edmond.
"Pretty well," she said. "I don't remember the last time I went to bed feeling safe." She swallowed.
Even though it should be something to celebrate because things had finally changed, admitting that hurt. Alex understood perfectly the need and the void. He might be a monster, but no one had more empathy than him, as he could literally put himself in the skin of thousands of people.
"I'm glad."
That's why he noticed immediately that Angelique started to feel uncomfortable under his gaze.
"What are you thinking about?" she dared to ask at last.
Only then did he realize she might have thought he wanted to take her as a wife in every possible sense, as he was looking at her so intently. To be fair, the original Alex Mercer had always thought that kind of thing was a useless distraction from his goals. They could make a baby, but they already had a daughter as far as he was concerned, so why bother having sex with her?
"Nothing. Just a bit curious about what it's like to dream. In the physical sense."
In the other sense, well, he had plenty of dreams.
"Ah. But if you're... How did you say? A kind of collective consciousness, shouldn't you remember the dreams of thousands of people?"
"I do. But it's not the same; I've never experienced it."
Angelique looked away, thoughtful. After a while, she spoke again.
"The truth is, I don't know what to tell you. It's something so normal that I've never thought much about it. It's like trying to explain to a blind person what it's like to see."
The disabled were humans, who had to lose a significant part of their lives sleeping as if they were dead, but it was an interesting comparison. He couldn't say it was entirely wrong.
"I understand. Well, it was just a bit of curiosity. It's okay."
"No. Wait, Alex."
There was something strangely pleasant about hearing her say his real name. Well, it wasn't that strange. There was a reason he wanted to do this, wasn't there? If it was useless, if it didn't give him pleasure, didn't make him happy, then he would have been wasting his time from the beginning. So what he should really say is that the pieces were starting to fit together.
And it hadn't even taken that long. It had been easier than he thought.
"Dreaming is actually not that different from life, except you don't feel anything physical because it's not real, of course. Everything can change at any moment. Things just happen. There can be fear, you can see horrible things, but no pain."
It wasn't anything he didn't already know due to the memories, the scars on his soul from voices that screamed incessantly, but when she said it, it seemed somehow different.
I hope Danah is having good dreams, he thought.
"Thank you," he replied simply.
3
"Lord Wardes, I demand an explanation." Mom's voice was cold and authoritative as always. She had never seen her lose control, shout, or bang on the table, none of that; she didn't need to ensure she was obeyed. Even so, seeing her reflection in the mirror, Louise knew she was approaching her boiling point. She had to do something.She should be happy.
She was this close to seeing mom lose her temper for the first time in her life (hers and mom's, probably; it was hard to imagine she had ever been different from how she always remembered her, as it happened to any child) and all because she was worried about her.
The only thing she felt was fear.
"I don't know, Lady Valliere. Something happened, and by the time I realized it, she was gone."
Lies close to reality flowed naturally from her tongue. Lying was one of the long list of things she was bad at; she always had her feelings written on her face.
"Somehow I don't remember. I don't know what she could have done to me. I'm sorry."
Louise made a bow.
"Alright." Her frown remained, however. "Help me look for her, then. She can't have gone far."
Her throat was dry. She swallowed hard.
The lies kept flowing too naturally. She knew they weren't her lies, that she wasn't just being Wardes in appearance.
I wish this were just a nightmare, she thought.
She understood more than she wanted to. Something was flowing inside her.
Memories that weren't hers. Wardes wasn't dead, actually. Not completely.
Leave behind the Prison of the Distant Shadows of the Sinking Sun (2): FIN
10. Leave behind the Prison of the Distant Shadows of the Sinking Sun (3)
Chapter 10: Leave behind the Prison of the Distant Shadows of the Sinking Sun (3)
1
Louise felt as if she were floating in the air. She had to look down to make sure her feet were touching the ground. With the appearance of her dead fiancé, she stepped out of her room with uncertain steps. Accompanying her mother in her own search.
What madness. Has my life really turned into this kind of madness? Am I dreaming?
Only it was impossible. It clearly couldn't be a dream. And, considering everything, what happened last night couldn't be a dream either. She had gone out the window. She had gone hunting and filled her guts with the meat and blood of a deer. Only, not exactly her guts. She had dissolved. Like Wardes.
What am I?
"What am I doing?" her mother suddenly said to herself, making Louise jump. "She couldn't have gone out the door, I was here."
Once again, Louise should have been happy. Her mother didn't seem like herself, she was so worried. But she could only think of her own fear. Besides, she also felt angry. Because it was simply too little, too late.
Why now?, she thought, looking at her mother's face, pale as a ghost. You never abused me, but I never felt loved either.
Her mother returned to Louise's room, glanced out the window, shook her head. Her hands were trembling.
Louise approached her from behind.
"This is a matter for me and my family, Lord Wardes. You... Go back where you came from. It was a mistake to bring you here."
To the world, a voice whispered in the darkness of her heart. Her mother didn't know she was talking to her. No matter how much she told herself that, she couldn't help but believe that was the true meaning of her words.
Louise swallowed.
She turned around and left. She didn't look back even when she heard her mother land on the soft grass. She had jumped from the balcony, choosing the most direct and fastest route, of course. Well, it's not like she would get hurt, or like she could help her even if she did something dangerous.
The servants stepped aside as she passed. Wardes... That is, Louise went down the stairs holding onto the handrail. The size, the center of balance. Everything was wrong. It wasn't just the agitation in her heart. Anyone would find it difficult to walk in someone else's body.
Will I have to get used to it?, she thought.
And she trembled from head to toe.
But it went away almost as quickly as it had come after she left the mansion, half-dizzy, not knowing what to do.
She only realized when a maid called her, however.
"Miss Vallière?"
She even looked around for two or three seconds, despite the maid looking directly at her.
"Ah... Yes," she said, feeling more stupid than she already was. "It's nothing."
She started looking for her mother, her steps as uncertain as ever. She didn't know what to say to her once she reached her, how she would get by without punishment. She didn't care. After everything that had happened, Louise wasn't even sure she was still a human being.
But there was one thing she was very clear about. The memories floating in her head made sure of that. Memories of another life.
Memories of a traitor. Wardes had been a member of a terrorist organization called Reconquista, and they had dark plans that would soon be set in motion. Louise didn't doubt the information contained in her memories. Doubting it would be like doubting her own name and identity. Wardes' memories were much clearer even than her own life.
Henrietta had to know. For the sake of her dear friend and the kingdom.
Louise had killed her fiancé with her own hands (for the love of Brimir!), but there was no reason to let the princess's fiancé die. She shouldn't know that either. But she knew. She knew without a doubt.
When she found her mother, things didn't go as she had expected. Karin didn't even say anything. She ran to hug her as soon as she saw her. She would never forget the way her eyes had widened, as if she couldn't believe it, as if she had already assumed the worst.
However...
Although Louise returned the hug, she did so without any feeling.
It wasn't that she hated her mother. It wasn't about that. She had just feared her for years because she didn't want to disappoint her. If she hated her, she wouldn't care what she thought in the first place.
It was just that...
Now I don't know how to love you.
Too little, too late.
There was a wall between them that had nothing to do with her shame, her constant failures, or recent events, so to speak.
She suspected that wall would have been there even if she were a prodigy, not Louise the Zero. Maybe if she were sick like Cattleya. Maybe then the barrier would have crumbled.
"I'm sorry," Karin said.
"Me too. You have no idea how much."
2
Angélique was worried about something, she wasn't being particularly subtle, but they couldn't talk about all their problems openly. She chose to wait until they were alone to confront her about it. In turn, she chose not to waste both their time pretending nothing was wrong. She gave in right away.
"I need to ask you a favor." As a sign of submission, she didn't even look him in the eyes. No, she didn't think it was fear, although she had plenty of reasons to fear him. "And that's what I want to say. It's not an attempt to blackmail you, I know very well that I have no power over you. I'm asking you a favor as your wife."
"Skip the prologue and spit it out," Alex said, amused.
"I want you to kill my parents."
Wow, he hadn't expected that. He hadn't expected anything in particular because he didn't know her that well. They hadn't even been together for a week after all, but that possibility hadn't even crossed his mind. Alex didn't love his parents. Neither the original Alex Mercer, nor the human parents who lived in his memories still. But he understood that most people had a positive bond. That this request was something significant.
"Why?"
Angélique lowered her gaze even more.
"Because it was they, naturally, who made sure I married Edmond. And they knew. They always knew..."
Alex nodded slowly.
Revenge was a natural impulse he understood perfectly.
"Will you kill them? I have nothing to offer you. Everything I have... is already yours to take or snatch from me, if you so desire, but... Please..."
Angélique got on her knees.
"You are the only person I can count on."
Alex didn't think too much about it. He had no reason to.
"Alright. I'll do it."
Despite having desperately wanted it, she reacted as if he had slapped her when he gave her what she wanted. The surprise was that great, but she quickly regained control of herself. She raised her head. She looked at him with empty eyes.
"Why do you think it's what you would do if you cared?"
If he loved her, her mistreatment would enrage him and he would want to seek revenge.
Alex might not be sure about many things about being human, but he was sure about that.
When he had doubts, he only needed to imagine what he would do if Dana were in her place. For now, this exercise was failing. He could only project his feelings for Dana onto Angélique and her daughter. But well, there would be time for that to change. They hadn't even known each other for a week.
"You're right." Alex clicked his tongue and pointed a playful finger at her. "You're too smart for your own good. Maybe that's why Edmond wanted to keep you on a leash."
Angélique froze, there on the floor, on her knees before him. A scene that was undoubtedly familiar to her. Thanks to his memories, it was familiar to both of them. He knew he had managed to mess up. Alex grimaced.
He knelt in front of her and hugged her.
It could have the opposite effect, no matter how much he intended it to be a show of affection. He had the complete story after all, even if he couldn't fully understand it.
"It was just a joke. Don't overreact."
Angélique relaxed in his embrace. Forcing herself to do so. Her body was no longer tense, but her mind was another matter. It was hard to overlook the latent tension.
"I know, Alex. You're not one to threaten. You don't need to."
Very smart, indeed. And that was despite them not even knowing each other for a week.
Could this work as he wanted because she was so smart or was the exercise doomed to fail precisely because of that? In any case, after a while, he broke the hug and made things clear. He spoke to her, holding her shoulders and looking her straight in the eyes as if to convey his sincerity.
"I'll kill them for you."
"But kill them. Just kill them, don't devour them. I don't want any part of them in you."
"Okay."
Anyway, absorbing them wouldn't be very useful for his purposes. It wasn't like they were going to help him love Angélique. Clearly, they had been incapable of that all their lives.
3
Louise told her mother the truth in broad strokes.
That Wardes had tried to force her and she had panicked. It was the truth and besides, what good was a dead man's reputation? Karin was even more strangely affectionate and understanding. She acted as if she hadn't been locked in her room for several days, refusing to come out, to obey her. She acted as if she had forgotten everything instead of imposing discipline.
She didn't even seem like the same person.
Was she trying? Or had she always been capable of this, but hadn't seen the need until now, because she saw her so weak, so fragile? She didn't know. The truth is, Louise didn't want to know.
In any case, as soon as night fell over the mansion, she escaped by jumping out the window for real. She couldn't ignore Wardes' memories swimming in her head. And she couldn't risk sending a letter, with the number of spies in the government.
To begin with, a brat like her had no right to contact the Princess just like that, no matter how much they had been childhood friends, but even if she had a direct line, the chances of the letter ending up in Henrietta's hands were slim.
So it was clear. She only had one option. Go personally to tell her everything. They had been friends, so she would believe her, right? And if she didn't, well...
She could prove it. Even if it meant revealing herself as a monster in human skin.
A shiver ran down her spine.
Like a black bullet, she shot through the darkness of the night. She ran through the forest surrounding the property without hitting a single tree. She was faster than any carriage, but had no trouble controlling that speed. Inhuman. She had obviously become an inhuman being. Louise remembered the day when everything had gone wrong. Inspired by that, she jumped. The force of her takeoff made the ground and the highest branches of the trees tremble. Louise rose above the treetops. The moons seemed to come down to greet her.
Although she was immensely scared, she couldn't help but think this was better than any magic. Her lips formed a smile. Maybe it would even look grotesque now, but she didn't care. She almost felt like she could fly and that made her happy.
That feeling wouldn't last. More reason to hold onto it while it did.
With this speed, she should be able to reach Henrietta's castle before sunrise. As for the way back, she wasn't so sure, but it didn't matter. She would come up with some excuse if they noticed she was gone. She had a feeling Karin would accept any excuse right now.
Louise landed forcefully. She kept running for a while, mainly to gain momentum and take off again.
A laugh escaped her throat. Illuminated by the light of the moons, seeming to dance in the night sky, Louise laughed as if she were being reborn.
4
Alex was prepared.
"You don't need to come up with an excuse. If anyone asks, just say that, as always, I've gone wherever I pleased and didn't find it convenient to inform you. Edmond's personality is perfect for us now."
"Well, I could have come up with a good excuse. But you're right, it's convenient. Right now, I can't think of anything."
He stroked her hair. Mostly because he thought that's what he should do.
"Be careful. And come back soon, okay?" she said, whispering in a barely audible voice.
"You don't have to worry about that. I know I told you a story of killings and massacres, but I can be subtle and stealthy when I want to."
Angélique nodded.
"Thanks again for agreeing. Part of me doesn't want to go that far. A voice tells me: for Brimir's sake, they're your parents. But I'm going to go crazy. If they don't disappear from this world, I won't be able to stay sane. I don't want revenge, not really. Just peace, Alex. Do you understand?"
"I think so. Just wait for me."
Alex opened the balcony doors and looked into the unfathomable dark night. The stars wouldn't accompany him on his journey. Well, he didn't need them. Besides, the second moon of this world compensated a bit.
"I'll make them pay."
He didn't turn around to see her reaction. Alex Mercer shot into the night.
Leave behind the Prison of the Distant Shadows of the Sinking Sun (3): FIN
1
Louise felt as if she were floating in the air. She had to look down to make sure her feet were touching the ground. With the appearance of her dead fiancé, she stepped out of her room with uncertain steps. Accompanying her mother in her own search.
What madness. Has my life really turned into this kind of madness? Am I dreaming?
Only it was impossible. It clearly couldn't be a dream. And, considering everything, what happened last night couldn't be a dream either. She had gone out the window. She had gone hunting and filled her guts with the meat and blood of a deer. Only, not exactly her guts. She had dissolved. Like Wardes.
What am I?
"What am I doing?" her mother suddenly said to herself, making Louise jump. "She couldn't have gone out the door, I was here."
Once again, Louise should have been happy. Her mother didn't seem like herself, she was so worried. But she could only think of her own fear. Besides, she also felt angry. Because it was simply too little, too late.
Why now?, she thought, looking at her mother's face, pale as a ghost. You never abused me, but I never felt loved either.
Her mother returned to Louise's room, glanced out the window, shook her head. Her hands were trembling.
Louise approached her from behind.
"This is a matter for me and my family, Lord Wardes. You... Go back where you came from. It was a mistake to bring you here."
To the world, a voice whispered in the darkness of her heart. Her mother didn't know she was talking to her. No matter how much she told herself that, she couldn't help but believe that was the true meaning of her words.
Louise swallowed.
She turned around and left. She didn't look back even when she heard her mother land on the soft grass. She had jumped from the balcony, choosing the most direct and fastest route, of course. Well, it's not like she would get hurt, or like she could help her even if she did something dangerous.
The servants stepped aside as she passed. Wardes... That is, Louise went down the stairs holding onto the handrail. The size, the center of balance. Everything was wrong. It wasn't just the agitation in her heart. Anyone would find it difficult to walk in someone else's body.
Will I have to get used to it?, she thought.
And she trembled from head to toe.
But it went away almost as quickly as it had come after she left the mansion, half-dizzy, not knowing what to do.
She only realized when a maid called her, however.
"Miss Vallière?"
She even looked around for two or three seconds, despite the maid looking directly at her.
"Ah... Yes," she said, feeling more stupid than she already was. "It's nothing."
She started looking for her mother, her steps as uncertain as ever. She didn't know what to say to her once she reached her, how she would get by without punishment. She didn't care. After everything that had happened, Louise wasn't even sure she was still a human being.
But there was one thing she was very clear about. The memories floating in her head made sure of that. Memories of another life.
Memories of a traitor. Wardes had been a member of a terrorist organization called Reconquista, and they had dark plans that would soon be set in motion. Louise didn't doubt the information contained in her memories. Doubting it would be like doubting her own name and identity. Wardes' memories were much clearer even than her own life.
Henrietta had to know. For the sake of her dear friend and the kingdom.
Louise had killed her fiancé with her own hands (for the love of Brimir!), but there was no reason to let the princess's fiancé die. She shouldn't know that either. But she knew. She knew without a doubt.
When she found her mother, things didn't go as she had expected. Karin didn't even say anything. She ran to hug her as soon as she saw her. She would never forget the way her eyes had widened, as if she couldn't believe it, as if she had already assumed the worst.
However...
Although Louise returned the hug, she did so without any feeling.
It wasn't that she hated her mother. It wasn't about that. She had just feared her for years because she didn't want to disappoint her. If she hated her, she wouldn't care what she thought in the first place.
It was just that...
Now I don't know how to love you.
Too little, too late.
There was a wall between them that had nothing to do with her shame, her constant failures, or recent events, so to speak.
She suspected that wall would have been there even if she were a prodigy, not Louise the Zero. Maybe if she were sick like Cattleya. Maybe then the barrier would have crumbled.
"I'm sorry," Karin said.
"Me too. You have no idea how much."
2
Angélique was worried about something, she wasn't being particularly subtle, but they couldn't talk about all their problems openly. She chose to wait until they were alone to confront her about it. In turn, she chose not to waste both their time pretending nothing was wrong. She gave in right away.
"I need to ask you a favor." As a sign of submission, she didn't even look him in the eyes. No, she didn't think it was fear, although she had plenty of reasons to fear him. "And that's what I want to say. It's not an attempt to blackmail you, I know very well that I have no power over you. I'm asking you a favor as your wife."
"Skip the prologue and spit it out," Alex said, amused.
"I want you to kill my parents."
Wow, he hadn't expected that. He hadn't expected anything in particular because he didn't know her that well. They hadn't even been together for a week after all, but that possibility hadn't even crossed his mind. Alex didn't love his parents. Neither the original Alex Mercer, nor the human parents who lived in his memories still. But he understood that most people had a positive bond. That this request was something significant.
"Why?"
Angélique lowered her gaze even more.
"Because it was they, naturally, who made sure I married Edmond. And they knew. They always knew..."
Alex nodded slowly.
Revenge was a natural impulse he understood perfectly.
"Will you kill them? I have nothing to offer you. Everything I have... is already yours to take or snatch from me, if you so desire, but... Please..."
Angélique got on her knees.
"You are the only person I can count on."
Alex didn't think too much about it. He had no reason to.
"Alright. I'll do it."
Despite having desperately wanted it, she reacted as if he had slapped her when he gave her what she wanted. The surprise was that great, but she quickly regained control of herself. She raised her head. She looked at him with empty eyes.
"Why do you think it's what you would do if you cared?"
If he loved her, her mistreatment would enrage him and he would want to seek revenge.
Alex might not be sure about many things about being human, but he was sure about that.
When he had doubts, he only needed to imagine what he would do if Dana were in her place. For now, this exercise was failing. He could only project his feelings for Dana onto Angélique and her daughter. But well, there would be time for that to change. They hadn't even known each other for a week.
"You're right." Alex clicked his tongue and pointed a playful finger at her. "You're too smart for your own good. Maybe that's why Edmond wanted to keep you on a leash."
Angélique froze, there on the floor, on her knees before him. A scene that was undoubtedly familiar to her. Thanks to his memories, it was familiar to both of them. He knew he had managed to mess up. Alex grimaced.
He knelt in front of her and hugged her.
It could have the opposite effect, no matter how much he intended it to be a show of affection. He had the complete story after all, even if he couldn't fully understand it.
"It was just a joke. Don't overreact."
Angélique relaxed in his embrace. Forcing herself to do so. Her body was no longer tense, but her mind was another matter. It was hard to overlook the latent tension.
"I know, Alex. You're not one to threaten. You don't need to."
Very smart, indeed. And that was despite them not even knowing each other for a week.
Could this work as he wanted because she was so smart or was the exercise doomed to fail precisely because of that? In any case, after a while, he broke the hug and made things clear. He spoke to her, holding her shoulders and looking her straight in the eyes as if to convey his sincerity.
"I'll kill them for you."
"But kill them. Just kill them, don't devour them. I don't want any part of them in you."
"Okay."
Anyway, absorbing them wouldn't be very useful for his purposes. It wasn't like they were going to help him love Angélique. Clearly, they had been incapable of that all their lives.
3
Louise told her mother the truth in broad strokes.
That Wardes had tried to force her and she had panicked. It was the truth and besides, what good was a dead man's reputation? Karin was even more strangely affectionate and understanding. She acted as if she hadn't been locked in her room for several days, refusing to come out, to obey her. She acted as if she had forgotten everything instead of imposing discipline.
She didn't even seem like the same person.
Was she trying? Or had she always been capable of this, but hadn't seen the need until now, because she saw her so weak, so fragile? She didn't know. The truth is, Louise didn't want to know.
In any case, as soon as night fell over the mansion, she escaped by jumping out the window for real. She couldn't ignore Wardes' memories swimming in her head. And she couldn't risk sending a letter, with the number of spies in the government.
To begin with, a brat like her had no right to contact the Princess just like that, no matter how much they had been childhood friends, but even if she had a direct line, the chances of the letter ending up in Henrietta's hands were slim.
So it was clear. She only had one option. Go personally to tell her everything. They had been friends, so she would believe her, right? And if she didn't, well...
She could prove it. Even if it meant revealing herself as a monster in human skin.
A shiver ran down her spine.
Like a black bullet, she shot through the darkness of the night. She ran through the forest surrounding the property without hitting a single tree. She was faster than any carriage, but had no trouble controlling that speed. Inhuman. She had obviously become an inhuman being. Louise remembered the day when everything had gone wrong. Inspired by that, she jumped. The force of her takeoff made the ground and the highest branches of the trees tremble. Louise rose above the treetops. The moons seemed to come down to greet her.
Although she was immensely scared, she couldn't help but think this was better than any magic. Her lips formed a smile. Maybe it would even look grotesque now, but she didn't care. She almost felt like she could fly and that made her happy.
That feeling wouldn't last. More reason to hold onto it while it did.
With this speed, she should be able to reach Henrietta's castle before sunrise. As for the way back, she wasn't so sure, but it didn't matter. She would come up with some excuse if they noticed she was gone. She had a feeling Karin would accept any excuse right now.
Louise landed forcefully. She kept running for a while, mainly to gain momentum and take off again.
A laugh escaped her throat. Illuminated by the light of the moons, seeming to dance in the night sky, Louise laughed as if she were being reborn.
4
Alex was prepared.
"You don't need to come up with an excuse. If anyone asks, just say that, as always, I've gone wherever I pleased and didn't find it convenient to inform you. Edmond's personality is perfect for us now."
"Well, I could have come up with a good excuse. But you're right, it's convenient. Right now, I can't think of anything."
He stroked her hair. Mostly because he thought that's what he should do.
"Be careful. And come back soon, okay?" she said, whispering in a barely audible voice.
"You don't have to worry about that. I know I told you a story of killings and massacres, but I can be subtle and stealthy when I want to."
Angélique nodded.
"Thanks again for agreeing. Part of me doesn't want to go that far. A voice tells me: for Brimir's sake, they're your parents. But I'm going to go crazy. If they don't disappear from this world, I won't be able to stay sane. I don't want revenge, not really. Just peace, Alex. Do you understand?"
"I think so. Just wait for me."
Alex opened the balcony doors and looked into the unfathomable dark night. The stars wouldn't accompany him on his journey. Well, he didn't need them. Besides, the second moon of this world compensated a bit.
"I'll make them pay."
He didn't turn around to see her reaction. Alex Mercer shot into the night.
Leave behind the Prison of the Distant Shadows of the Sinking Sun (3): FIN
11. Leave behind the Prison of the Distant Shadows of the Sinking Sun (4)
Chapter 11: Leave behind the Prison of the Distant Shadows of the Sinking Sun (4)
Bright lights reflected off the chandelier, creating prisms. The voices of hundreds of people rose into the air. Laughter flowed along with the wine. Did they laugh while drinking, or did they laugh because they were drinking? By this point, no one remembered or cared about the difference.
An elegant party. Something slipped into that decadent atmosphere.
'Something' slipped in from the darkness of a starless night. If anyone had been looking in that direction, they would have seen nothing, only felt the movement. They surely would have said, "It must have been the wind," and gone back to their business. But no one was looking in the first place.
So Alex Mercer slipped into the noble's party without any problems, naturally wearing a different face. Edmond Dantes had every right to attend that party, but for obvious reasons, it was not convenient for that mask to be seen here.
Alex Mercer flowed through the dense crowd of partying nobles without even touching any of them. They might not notice his presence until his work was done. Humans were really poorly designed. It was madness akin to sheep not realizing there was a wolf among them.
Looking into his eyes, in an instant, they should feel that he was not human. They wouldn't scream, wouldn't jump to conclusions, but it was something evident, for sure. Alex Mercer continued through that hall without anyone getting in his way. He was wearing the mask of one of the few nobles who had arrived late. Only this man was paid for it, however, haha.
He could kill anyone in this world easily. To not jeopardize his identity, he wouldn't cause a scene, but isolating them wouldn't be much more difficult. Besides, he had a more personal reason for wanting to be alone with Angelique's parents instead of quickly disposing of them. Could it be called a personal reason when he wasn't really angry with them, had no desire for revenge?
In any case, he would call it that, why not?
From the beginning, this had been about pretending until the mask became reality, after all.
It didn't take long to find his targets. Angelique hadn't given him a detailed description, in fact, she had barely been able to speak, as if she was starting to have second thoughts, or as if the memories were too much for her, but it didn't matter.
He had seen them through Edmond's eyes, and that was enough.
One of the few benefits of having a perfect memory is that he knew without a doubt when he was wrong and when he was right in cases like these.
He wasn't wrong.
He stood behind them, but even so, they didn't notice his presence until he spoke.
"You are the Dumonts." He was going to make it sound like a question, but in the end, he changed his mind. Too much effort for little gain. They would suspect him a little anyway because they didn't know this mask. Besides, he wasn't exactly an actor. He never needed to be. Humans filtered the world through their eyes. What he said had always been less important than his ability to 'resemble' who he needed to resemble—"Do me the favor of accompanying me for a second."
"Aren't you going to introduce yourself?" asked the woman, Rose. "Or at least tell us what you want from us in the first place."
"Well, I'm just a nobody, it doesn't matter."
"Then why should we listen to you?"
"Because it's not me who wants to talk to you.
I'm just delivering the message."
"Who?" said the man, Alan. Neither of them deserved the epithet of father. "Look, if you're here, we're both nobles. I respect that. I don't think nobles should fight each other, especially given the current state of things. It's nothing but a waste of time and effort. But I must confess that you are testing my patience."
Alex resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
Too much talking. Nowadays, people would say: Get to the point or I'll send you to hell. Not very refined, perhaps, but then time wouldn't be wasted.
"A certain Edmond Dantes, count of I'm not sure what. He mentioned something about a transaction from a few years ago? I suppose that will mean something to you."
But it wasn't a question, of course; the change had been instantaneous on both of their faces, more obvious than ever.
I suppose there's no other choice. The man sighed. "What the hell is going to happen now? When and where do we have to meet?"
"Tonight. As for where, he will show you."
"So Edmond is here?" Rose said. "I didn't know he was attending."
"Not technically. He's not here to celebrate and will leave as soon as his business is settled. At least that's what he told me. Anyway, gentlemen, can we finish this as soon as possible? After all, I know your bad reputation... I don't want to give him reasons to get angry with me. Understand me."
"The sooner we finish, the better, yes," said Rose.
Edmond had been merely a count, but his reputation was bigger than that, apparently.
They followed him, finally. He thought they would be chatting for an hour.
He led them to a dark, secluded room and disappeared around a corner.
"Where is he...?"
Only to reappear with the correct face.
"Edmond," said Alan, swallowing hard. "What's the problem?"
"Nothing, Angelique is a good woman, as always."
"Then why do you want to see us?" asked Rose.
Alex took a step forward, like a panther about to pounce on its prey. The night air seemed to be urging him to attack. The wind blowing was like a war cry.
"Do I need a reason to see my in-laws?"
"Well, no, not really, no, but..."
"But nothing. There's no but that matters. I was wondering, since we're here, why did you sell her? Do you feel good about it?"
"Now you bring this up, after all these years?" Rose asked. "Sorry, but I'm not in the mood for your little games. If we have anything to regret, it's because of you."
Alex smiled.
Alan seemed nervous, unable to speak. Apart from being selfish, a coward, at least the woman had guts. Anyway, everyone was selfish, especially him, but that didn't change the mission he had here.
"You knew well what Edmond Dantes was like, and yet you sold your daughter to me. Am I really the one to blame? You just accepted the highest bidder, no matter what he was like, it wasn't your concern. You had already sacrificed to raise her, and it was time for her to start paying you back, I suppose. Am I wrong about anything?"
"What do you want?" asked Rose. "To divorce her, send her away? In any case, it's not something you should be discussing with us."
"Us? You're the only one talking. Your husband was brave enough to sell his daughter like a common whore, but not brave enough to face me, even though I'm just a Count."
Alan blushed with anger, opened his mouth, but nothing more came of it.
"You're right about one thing, however. Talking is useless. I just wanted, so to speak, to test the waters a bit, although I really don't care what you're like."
Alex let his face, only his face, return to its original form, smiling even wider.
The Dumonts gasped in unison.
"I'm her new husband," he introduced himself. "Your daughter sent me to kill you, but first I'll make you suffer."
Black tendrils shot out from his chest like bullets, and with them, he ripped out their vocal cords before they could scream for help. The carpet in that empty and dusty room quickly turned red.
"It's not my style, I prefer to crush my enemies quickly and decisively, but it's what I should do, right? If I really loved her, I would seek revenge, not just fulfill a favor. It's common sense, isn't it?"
Alex laughed softly.
He advanced towards the Dumonts, who writhed on the floor in pools of their own blood, seeking an escape from an irreversible situation. You reap what you sow, and they had planted the seeds over a decade ago. Therefore, the consequences were inescapable. Now that their daughter had acquired, so to speak, a minimum of power, of course, she would use it against them.
They had put her in that position in the first place.
Edmond might have been just a Count, but he was still nobility. Even if Alex had never come to this world, one day they would have paid for their sins. As soon as Angelique had gotten fed up and tried to kill Edmond.
Then all the power would have come to her hands.
But he had come, so their fate would be much worse than what awaited them at the hands of Angelique.
He imagined she wouldn't have the stomach to do the worst she could imagine to her parents, even if they were just pieces of shit who had given up their responsibility as parents and didn't deserve to be called that, even if she hated them with all her soul.
Alex was different.
Alex could do that and more. And now he had them at his mercy, unable to scream.
"It's nothing personal, but it's what I'm supposed to do, I guess, so I'll do it right." He shrugged. "Otherwise, this exercise of pretending to be human wouldn't make much sense. I don't really know who had the idea first, who's the worse of the two, etc., so I'll be fair."
Alex transformed his right arm into a blade sharper than any sword. He used it to cut Rose's face around her mouth, exposing all her teeth. The blood was hot and thick, flowing non-stop. Through his hands, through the blade of his sword, accumulating on the floor, mixing with the blood of the woman and her husband.
"You have a nice smile. You should have shown it to your daughter more often."
Of course, the woman wasn't crazy enough to be smiling in a situation like this. A smile was just baring your teeth, after all. Her perpetually exposed teeth almost looked like a smile.
Even though they were stained with blood.
He left her whimpering on the floor, her voice barely reaching beyond her own ears, and approached Alan. As he had said, he was going to be fair. In a sense, Alex Mercer was a man of honor. When he said something, he meant it. And no one could stop him.
He painted an identical smile on the husband with his sword. They were whimpering and writhing too much. Their biggest privilege was perhaps that they didn't know what pain was. Alex remembered being tortured thousands of times in thousands of different ways. Naturally, he even remembered the end as if it were his own death. They had no idea what pain or fear was.
Alex was very far from being a human being. That was the point of all this. However...
Even he was closer to being human than these people. I don't just know pain, I am pain. Hundreds of thousands of voices screaming that would never be silenced. Like deep wounds. Like forgotten ghosts.
I can be more than that, he thought.
Alex shook his head. It was true, but that wasn't important right now. He had two vermin to deal with. Now they were squirming on the floor as if begging for mercy, as if he cared. Annoying.
He had already ripped out their vocal cords, but Alex cut out their tongues anyway. First the woman's, then the man's. Just as he had said, equitably. He was going to distribute the punishment fairly, no doubt about it.
Alex smiled as he did it all. The Monster of Manhattan. He was more accustomed to crushing his enemies in the most efficient, albeit certainly brutal, way possible. However, he was also good at torture. He had a large number of torturers inside him and had experienced torture from both sides.
Besides, all those Blackwatch bastards enjoyed it. They filled their mouths with the idea that they were saving the world, but there was nothing they liked more than slashing people and kicking puppies after setting them on fire.
"Speaking of which, as parents you're supposed to love your daughter. What happened to that? I'm really curious, but I promised I wouldn't absorb you."
He managed to penetrate the fog of fear and pain. Although it was impossible for them to fully understand, their eyes were bulging out of their sockets. The fear of that ominous word was stronger precisely because they didn't understand it.
"I could ignore her," he said, shrugging, "but since I'm doing this, I want to do it right. So that will always remain a mystery to me. I am a scientist at heart. I only like unresolved answers to the extent that I can pursue them and corner them until they give me everything they have. Well, even if I healed your throats and tongues you wouldn't tell me anything, so I guess it doesn't matter. I suppose I haven't rushed too much after all."
He stomped on Alan's hand, making it crunch like a dry twig. Even on the brink of death, Rose trembled more violently upon seeing that. The reason was very simple. Because she knew her hand would be next. What you knew for certain could be much scarier than what you didn't know at all. The cruelty of the world was greater than that of your imagination, no matter how experienced you thought you were in that regard.
And these, as he had said, were no experts. They knew nothing of this.
"And if I have rushed, well, my life has always been defined by violence, so I was restless. I had been too long without food to play with. Eh, I'm a good person, okay? I know I promised not to do these things, but this doesn't count because you deserve everything I do to you."
He was talking to himself out loud uselessly, but for some reason he couldn't stop. Maybe because he had no one to listen to him. Not even Angelique, who had heard his story. Especially her. If he told her too much, she would fear him more than be grateful and everything would go to hell.
He had told her a tragedy, after all, in which a newly born being was forced to fight for survival and obtain answers. Not the story of 'something' that had begun to enjoy despair, adrenaline, bloody and rapid evolution. Not the story of something that was really starting to get bored of living in a cardboard world that he could tear in half whenever he wanted.
"Maybe it's an unchangeable biological imperative, and all this is useless. Maybe. But for now, I won't think about complicated things, just enjoy."
They had really been a good excuse to let his hair down.
Alex continued in the darkness the silent torture of the two worms while a few rooms away the nobles continued with their noisy and opulent party under the blinding lights.
Leave behind the Prison of the Distant Shadows of the Sinking Sun (4): FIN
1
Bright lights reflected off the chandelier, creating prisms. The voices of hundreds of people rose into the air. Laughter flowed along with the wine. Did they laugh while drinking, or did they laugh because they were drinking? By this point, no one remembered or cared about the difference.
An elegant party. Something slipped into that decadent atmosphere.
'Something' slipped in from the darkness of a starless night. If anyone had been looking in that direction, they would have seen nothing, only felt the movement. They surely would have said, "It must have been the wind," and gone back to their business. But no one was looking in the first place.
So Alex Mercer slipped into the noble's party without any problems, naturally wearing a different face. Edmond Dantes had every right to attend that party, but for obvious reasons, it was not convenient for that mask to be seen here.
Alex Mercer flowed through the dense crowd of partying nobles without even touching any of them. They might not notice his presence until his work was done. Humans were really poorly designed. It was madness akin to sheep not realizing there was a wolf among them.
Looking into his eyes, in an instant, they should feel that he was not human. They wouldn't scream, wouldn't jump to conclusions, but it was something evident, for sure. Alex Mercer continued through that hall without anyone getting in his way. He was wearing the mask of one of the few nobles who had arrived late. Only this man was paid for it, however, haha.
He could kill anyone in this world easily. To not jeopardize his identity, he wouldn't cause a scene, but isolating them wouldn't be much more difficult. Besides, he had a more personal reason for wanting to be alone with Angelique's parents instead of quickly disposing of them. Could it be called a personal reason when he wasn't really angry with them, had no desire for revenge?
In any case, he would call it that, why not?
From the beginning, this had been about pretending until the mask became reality, after all.
It didn't take long to find his targets. Angelique hadn't given him a detailed description, in fact, she had barely been able to speak, as if she was starting to have second thoughts, or as if the memories were too much for her, but it didn't matter.
He had seen them through Edmond's eyes, and that was enough.
One of the few benefits of having a perfect memory is that he knew without a doubt when he was wrong and when he was right in cases like these.
He wasn't wrong.
He stood behind them, but even so, they didn't notice his presence until he spoke.
"You are the Dumonts." He was going to make it sound like a question, but in the end, he changed his mind. Too much effort for little gain. They would suspect him a little anyway because they didn't know this mask. Besides, he wasn't exactly an actor. He never needed to be. Humans filtered the world through their eyes. What he said had always been less important than his ability to 'resemble' who he needed to resemble—"Do me the favor of accompanying me for a second."
"Aren't you going to introduce yourself?" asked the woman, Rose. "Or at least tell us what you want from us in the first place."
"Well, I'm just a nobody, it doesn't matter."
"Then why should we listen to you?"
"Because it's not me who wants to talk to you.
I'm just delivering the message."
"Who?" said the man, Alan. Neither of them deserved the epithet of father. "Look, if you're here, we're both nobles. I respect that. I don't think nobles should fight each other, especially given the current state of things. It's nothing but a waste of time and effort. But I must confess that you are testing my patience."
Alex resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
Too much talking. Nowadays, people would say: Get to the point or I'll send you to hell. Not very refined, perhaps, but then time wouldn't be wasted.
"A certain Edmond Dantes, count of I'm not sure what. He mentioned something about a transaction from a few years ago? I suppose that will mean something to you."
But it wasn't a question, of course; the change had been instantaneous on both of their faces, more obvious than ever.
I suppose there's no other choice. The man sighed. "What the hell is going to happen now? When and where do we have to meet?"
"Tonight. As for where, he will show you."
"So Edmond is here?" Rose said. "I didn't know he was attending."
"Not technically. He's not here to celebrate and will leave as soon as his business is settled. At least that's what he told me. Anyway, gentlemen, can we finish this as soon as possible? After all, I know your bad reputation... I don't want to give him reasons to get angry with me. Understand me."
"The sooner we finish, the better, yes," said Rose.
Edmond had been merely a count, but his reputation was bigger than that, apparently.
They followed him, finally. He thought they would be chatting for an hour.
He led them to a dark, secluded room and disappeared around a corner.
"Where is he...?"
Only to reappear with the correct face.
"Edmond," said Alan, swallowing hard. "What's the problem?"
"Nothing, Angelique is a good woman, as always."
"Then why do you want to see us?" asked Rose.
Alex took a step forward, like a panther about to pounce on its prey. The night air seemed to be urging him to attack. The wind blowing was like a war cry.
"Do I need a reason to see my in-laws?"
"Well, no, not really, no, but..."
"But nothing. There's no but that matters. I was wondering, since we're here, why did you sell her? Do you feel good about it?"
"Now you bring this up, after all these years?" Rose asked. "Sorry, but I'm not in the mood for your little games. If we have anything to regret, it's because of you."
Alex smiled.
Alan seemed nervous, unable to speak. Apart from being selfish, a coward, at least the woman had guts. Anyway, everyone was selfish, especially him, but that didn't change the mission he had here.
"You knew well what Edmond Dantes was like, and yet you sold your daughter to me. Am I really the one to blame? You just accepted the highest bidder, no matter what he was like, it wasn't your concern. You had already sacrificed to raise her, and it was time for her to start paying you back, I suppose. Am I wrong about anything?"
"What do you want?" asked Rose. "To divorce her, send her away? In any case, it's not something you should be discussing with us."
"Us? You're the only one talking. Your husband was brave enough to sell his daughter like a common whore, but not brave enough to face me, even though I'm just a Count."
Alan blushed with anger, opened his mouth, but nothing more came of it.
"You're right about one thing, however. Talking is useless. I just wanted, so to speak, to test the waters a bit, although I really don't care what you're like."
Alex let his face, only his face, return to its original form, smiling even wider.
The Dumonts gasped in unison.
"I'm her new husband," he introduced himself. "Your daughter sent me to kill you, but first I'll make you suffer."
Black tendrils shot out from his chest like bullets, and with them, he ripped out their vocal cords before they could scream for help. The carpet in that empty and dusty room quickly turned red.
"It's not my style, I prefer to crush my enemies quickly and decisively, but it's what I should do, right? If I really loved her, I would seek revenge, not just fulfill a favor. It's common sense, isn't it?"
Alex laughed softly.
He advanced towards the Dumonts, who writhed on the floor in pools of their own blood, seeking an escape from an irreversible situation. You reap what you sow, and they had planted the seeds over a decade ago. Therefore, the consequences were inescapable. Now that their daughter had acquired, so to speak, a minimum of power, of course, she would use it against them.
They had put her in that position in the first place.
Edmond might have been just a Count, but he was still nobility. Even if Alex had never come to this world, one day they would have paid for their sins. As soon as Angelique had gotten fed up and tried to kill Edmond.
Then all the power would have come to her hands.
But he had come, so their fate would be much worse than what awaited them at the hands of Angelique.
He imagined she wouldn't have the stomach to do the worst she could imagine to her parents, even if they were just pieces of shit who had given up their responsibility as parents and didn't deserve to be called that, even if she hated them with all her soul.
Alex was different.
Alex could do that and more. And now he had them at his mercy, unable to scream.
"It's nothing personal, but it's what I'm supposed to do, I guess, so I'll do it right." He shrugged. "Otherwise, this exercise of pretending to be human wouldn't make much sense. I don't really know who had the idea first, who's the worse of the two, etc., so I'll be fair."
Alex transformed his right arm into a blade sharper than any sword. He used it to cut Rose's face around her mouth, exposing all her teeth. The blood was hot and thick, flowing non-stop. Through his hands, through the blade of his sword, accumulating on the floor, mixing with the blood of the woman and her husband.
"You have a nice smile. You should have shown it to your daughter more often."
Of course, the woman wasn't crazy enough to be smiling in a situation like this. A smile was just baring your teeth, after all. Her perpetually exposed teeth almost looked like a smile.
Even though they were stained with blood.
He left her whimpering on the floor, her voice barely reaching beyond her own ears, and approached Alan. As he had said, he was going to be fair. In a sense, Alex Mercer was a man of honor. When he said something, he meant it. And no one could stop him.
He painted an identical smile on the husband with his sword. They were whimpering and writhing too much. Their biggest privilege was perhaps that they didn't know what pain was. Alex remembered being tortured thousands of times in thousands of different ways. Naturally, he even remembered the end as if it were his own death. They had no idea what pain or fear was.
Alex was very far from being a human being. That was the point of all this. However...
Even he was closer to being human than these people. I don't just know pain, I am pain. Hundreds of thousands of voices screaming that would never be silenced. Like deep wounds. Like forgotten ghosts.
I can be more than that, he thought.
Alex shook his head. It was true, but that wasn't important right now. He had two vermin to deal with. Now they were squirming on the floor as if begging for mercy, as if he cared. Annoying.
He had already ripped out their vocal cords, but Alex cut out their tongues anyway. First the woman's, then the man's. Just as he had said, equitably. He was going to distribute the punishment fairly, no doubt about it.
Alex smiled as he did it all. The Monster of Manhattan. He was more accustomed to crushing his enemies in the most efficient, albeit certainly brutal, way possible. However, he was also good at torture. He had a large number of torturers inside him and had experienced torture from both sides.
Besides, all those Blackwatch bastards enjoyed it. They filled their mouths with the idea that they were saving the world, but there was nothing they liked more than slashing people and kicking puppies after setting them on fire.
"Speaking of which, as parents you're supposed to love your daughter. What happened to that? I'm really curious, but I promised I wouldn't absorb you."
He managed to penetrate the fog of fear and pain. Although it was impossible for them to fully understand, their eyes were bulging out of their sockets. The fear of that ominous word was stronger precisely because they didn't understand it.
"I could ignore her," he said, shrugging, "but since I'm doing this, I want to do it right. So that will always remain a mystery to me. I am a scientist at heart. I only like unresolved answers to the extent that I can pursue them and corner them until they give me everything they have. Well, even if I healed your throats and tongues you wouldn't tell me anything, so I guess it doesn't matter. I suppose I haven't rushed too much after all."
He stomped on Alan's hand, making it crunch like a dry twig. Even on the brink of death, Rose trembled more violently upon seeing that. The reason was very simple. Because she knew her hand would be next. What you knew for certain could be much scarier than what you didn't know at all. The cruelty of the world was greater than that of your imagination, no matter how experienced you thought you were in that regard.
And these, as he had said, were no experts. They knew nothing of this.
"And if I have rushed, well, my life has always been defined by violence, so I was restless. I had been too long without food to play with. Eh, I'm a good person, okay? I know I promised not to do these things, but this doesn't count because you deserve everything I do to you."
He was talking to himself out loud uselessly, but for some reason he couldn't stop. Maybe because he had no one to listen to him. Not even Angelique, who had heard his story. Especially her. If he told her too much, she would fear him more than be grateful and everything would go to hell.
He had told her a tragedy, after all, in which a newly born being was forced to fight for survival and obtain answers. Not the story of 'something' that had begun to enjoy despair, adrenaline, bloody and rapid evolution. Not the story of something that was really starting to get bored of living in a cardboard world that he could tear in half whenever he wanted.
"Maybe it's an unchangeable biological imperative, and all this is useless. Maybe. But for now, I won't think about complicated things, just enjoy."
They had really been a good excuse to let his hair down.
Alex continued in the darkness the silent torture of the two worms while a few rooms away the nobles continued with their noisy and opulent party under the blinding lights.
Leave behind the Prison of the Distant Shadows of the Sinking Sun (4): FIN
12. Leave behind the Prison of the Distant Shadows of the Sinking Sun (5)
Chapter 12: Leave behind the Prison of the Distant Shadows of the Sinking Sun (5)
She opened her eyes abruptly but didn't feel scared. She was half convinced it was a dream. As a Princess, she knew how valuable her life was, as well as her death. She knew she had enemies, both those who wanted to control her and those who wanted to get rid of her.
But here?
In the heart of the palace, so easily? It had to be just a nightmare. Soon she would finish waking up. It wasn't even the first time she had thought she saw strange things on the threshold between sleep and wakefulness... It was normal. But this time it was real.
"I'm sorry, Princess. Don't scream."
That voice. She hadn't heard it in a long time, but that voice was definitely... The hand withdrew.
"Louise?"
How on earth had she managed to sneak not only into the palace but all the way to her room? Clearly, there were many people she needed to fire and replace if a girl (with or without magical difficulties) had somehow eluded them. Now it was Louise, but if it had been an assassin or kidnapper, they would only discover what had happened in the morning.
Henrietta trembled from head to toe. She sat up in bed.
"How did you manage to sneak into the palace?"
"That doesn't matter, Princess. I'm here for a very good reason."
"If you want me to try to get you readmitted to the Academy..." —I'll do it gladly, she was going to say. In fact, she had already planned to do so, just as she had planned to visit Louise, but she was always so busy.
In any case, Louise didn't let her finish.
"That doesn't matter now. In fact, I don't want to go back there for anything in the world. I can't. I'm here for another reason."
"Okay. Tell me. You can tell me anything. We're friends, aren't we?"
Her best friend, even if by default. Well, the same went for both of them. They were united by the same loneliness.
Henrietta lit the lamp so they could talk more comfortably. Louise was over her, close enough that she didn't really need light to see her, but it was better this way anyway.
"I have important information. About Reconquista."
"Reconquista? How?"
"They want Wales's head, and they will soon put their plans into action."
Her heart nearly stopped. No, it did skip a beat or two for painful seconds when she thought it wouldn't start again.
"How do you know that?"
"Because my ex-fiancé Wardes is a member of Reconquista."
"And he told you everything? Just like that?"
It was hard for her to believe that Viscount Wardes was a traitor. But even if he were, would he be so stupid as to reveal his secret to a girl? It didn't fit.
"You don't believe me."
It wasn't a question.
"Louise, we're friends, but... Well, yes. It's hard to believe. That he would tell you just like that, risking everything."
Louise looked away.
She was very calm and serious. She wasn't as Henrietta remembered her and, judging by what she had heard about her, not as she had continued to be either. She had always been full of life and energy, but that change could be explained by her expulsion from the academy. The information she claimed to have didn't have to be the explanation.
She hoped.
Besides being a bit implausible, she didn't want to believe that Wales's head was at stake. Naturally.
"Okay, you don't believe me. It doesn't matter, I can prove it."
Louise looked her in the eyes. And in the next instant, her face was no longer hers. It was Wardes's face.
Henrietta swallowed.
This wasn't any magic she knew. If she could appear to be Wardes, what told her that Louise was Louise? Henrietta grabbed her wand with trembling hands.
"Princess, don't be afraid of me. Please, I just... I just came to help." —Brimir, even her voice had changed!
"How can I be sure you are who you say you are? And not some abomination trying to deceive me."
The face of... whatever it was, became the face of her friend Louise again.
"An abomination," she said, or it said, her voice barely audible. "Yeah, of course. What else would you think? That's what I am."
Louise began to cry. Even though Henrietta wasn't even sure it was really Louise in the first place, seeing that broke her heart. Henrietta swallowed and extended a hand to her shoulder. She wanted to comfort her, but in the end, all she did was let it drop.
She simply didn't dare, even though part of her recognized that whatever was in front of her, if it had bad intentions, she would already be dead.
"I just want to help you, Princess. I can give you all the information you need. Reconquista's bases, its members, its spies, all the information Wardes had."
"How is that possible? If you are Louise, what happened to you?"
Louise began to tremble, crying silently, but with increasing intensity.
"I don't know, I... Please, Princess, don't judge me, but..."
"But what?"
Her heart was pounding harder and harder. Each beat was painful. It was more painful than the few seconds her heart had stopped, fearing for Wales's life.
"Wardes started saying strange things and wanted to take advantage of me. Before I realized it, I had killed him... And I think... No, I absorbed him."
"Holy Brimir."
Henrietta wasn't sure how she had the presence of mind to say anything at all. Now she was convinced that Louise was who she said she was, but that wasn't a good thing. Quite the opposite. She wished that girl were anyone or anything else.
Louise didn't deserve this. Besides, as much as it embarrassed her, she wasn't only scared for her friend. She swallowed. She felt like she had done it too many times in the few minutes after waking up.
"Tell me everything you know."
Henrietta got out of bed, sat at her desk, and took out paper and a quill. She was used to having everything written for her, but she wasn't useless. Of course, she could write it herself for a change. Louise remained silent for a while but eventually began to speak, her gaze fixed on her own lap.
Henrietta wrote everything down quickly and attentively, without asking questions.
"Thank you, Louise," she said at last. "I don't know if this will be enough to take down Reconquista, but it's enough information to cut off their arms, at least."
Louise nodded slowly.
"Are you afraid of me?"
Henrietta decided it was best to be honest. If she lied, Louise would realize it anyway.
"I'm afraid for you, but also of you. I don't know what's happened to you. I don't know what might happen to you, if this is over. Do you understand me? We are friends, we will always be friends, but... Yes. Yes, I am."
She couldn't tell how Louise took her honesty. Her expression barely changed.
"I'm scared too," she said simply.
Henrietta stood up and approached her old friend. Although hesitant, she dared to hug her. Instead of relaxing, Louise tensed in her embrace. It should be the opposite, Henrietta thought, but she didn't pull away. Slowly and after a while, the poor girl returned the hug.
"I want to go back to those days," Louise said, her voice on the verge of breaking.
"Me too. You're going to make me cry if you keep this up..."
After a long time, they separated. Henrietta wiped Louise's tears with her fingertips, then, following an impulse, kissed her on the forehead.
"Take care. Please."
Maybe she shouldn't let her go, not after what she had shown her. Not when things could easily get worse, somehow. But even if she forced her to stay, even if she tried to investigate what was happening to her, it would lead to nothing. She wasn't a queen. The Princess had no real authority. If it were known what had happened to Louise, what she was now, they would demand her head.
So she could do nothing. Only this. A kiss, a hug, and her best wishes.
But she knew very well that life was cruel. If this had happened in a few years, when she took the throne, things would be very different, but it happened precisely now. When it had to happen.
Well, the ways of Brimir were inscrutable.
Cattleya was lying on the floor. Maybe she had come to visit her, maybe she had simply passed by on her way to the living room for breakfast. In any case, she was lying there. And there was blood on the floor.
Louise fell to her knees and screamed for help.
It never stopped. It was one thing after another. It never stopped. Rationally, she knew this had happened before and would happen again.
Her condition had ups and downs, like anyone with an incurable disease. It would be like this forever, and she wouldn't die of natural causes, but that her condition worsened precisely now felt like divine punishment. The last nail in the coffin.
Help arrived, responding to her screams. Her parents ensured that the nearest doctor arrived as soon as possible. That still meant a four-hour journey. Four hours too many.
Even if he had arrived in the first second, nothing would have changed. The verdict was very clear.
"There's nothing I or anyone else can do."
He told them in prettier words that they could do nothing but watch her die, helpless. Mama withdrew to cry in her room as if she couldn't admit she had a human heart, despite the concern she had shown for her just yesterday. Louise supposed that at least tha hadn't been a public spectacle. In any case, she didn't care. Mama was who she was. She wouldn't change at this point.
As for Louise, of course, she remained sitting beside Cattleya, waiting for her to open her eyes. If she did so before dying.
Watching her breathing weaken. It was clear that the healer was right. Cattleya had reached her limit, and there was nothing to be done but watch her go. At least with human abilities.
Louise suddenly realized that she could fix this.
When she transformed, she had become stronger, faster, more everything. Well, no, not everything. She had lost many things too, and perhaps Cattleya would choose to die rather than discard her humanity if she could respond.
But she couldn't respond, so the decision was in her hands.
The problem was that Louise didn't know what had happened to her, so she couldn't know how to transmit this condition. Louise tried cutting herself to test it. If it was like some kind of disease... The thought was cut short when she saw what had come out of her body, splashing her sister's clothes.
Dark red blood, only it didn't seem like blood. It was something different and strange. I can't even bleed like a normal human being, Louise thought.
She shook her head. That was the least of it now. If she did nothing, Cattleya would die. It was better to live in any way than to die prematurely.
She hadn't asked her, but she knew Cattleya would agree with her.
Louise cut herself again and let 'it' fall onto her sister's lips.
The blood that wasn't blood moved on its own, entering Cattleya's mouth.
Leave behind the Prison of the Distant Shadows of the Sinking Sun (5): FIN
1
Henrietta woke with a start when a hand covered her mouth.She opened her eyes abruptly but didn't feel scared. She was half convinced it was a dream. As a Princess, she knew how valuable her life was, as well as her death. She knew she had enemies, both those who wanted to control her and those who wanted to get rid of her.
But here?
In the heart of the palace, so easily? It had to be just a nightmare. Soon she would finish waking up. It wasn't even the first time she had thought she saw strange things on the threshold between sleep and wakefulness... It was normal. But this time it was real.
"I'm sorry, Princess. Don't scream."
That voice. She hadn't heard it in a long time, but that voice was definitely... The hand withdrew.
"Louise?"
How on earth had she managed to sneak not only into the palace but all the way to her room? Clearly, there were many people she needed to fire and replace if a girl (with or without magical difficulties) had somehow eluded them. Now it was Louise, but if it had been an assassin or kidnapper, they would only discover what had happened in the morning.
Henrietta trembled from head to toe. She sat up in bed.
"How did you manage to sneak into the palace?"
"That doesn't matter, Princess. I'm here for a very good reason."
"If you want me to try to get you readmitted to the Academy..." —I'll do it gladly, she was going to say. In fact, she had already planned to do so, just as she had planned to visit Louise, but she was always so busy.
In any case, Louise didn't let her finish.
"That doesn't matter now. In fact, I don't want to go back there for anything in the world. I can't. I'm here for another reason."
"Okay. Tell me. You can tell me anything. We're friends, aren't we?"
Her best friend, even if by default. Well, the same went for both of them. They were united by the same loneliness.
Henrietta lit the lamp so they could talk more comfortably. Louise was over her, close enough that she didn't really need light to see her, but it was better this way anyway.
"I have important information. About Reconquista."
"Reconquista? How?"
"They want Wales's head, and they will soon put their plans into action."
Her heart nearly stopped. No, it did skip a beat or two for painful seconds when she thought it wouldn't start again.
"How do you know that?"
"Because my ex-fiancé Wardes is a member of Reconquista."
"And he told you everything? Just like that?"
It was hard for her to believe that Viscount Wardes was a traitor. But even if he were, would he be so stupid as to reveal his secret to a girl? It didn't fit.
"You don't believe me."
It wasn't a question.
"Louise, we're friends, but... Well, yes. It's hard to believe. That he would tell you just like that, risking everything."
Louise looked away.
She was very calm and serious. She wasn't as Henrietta remembered her and, judging by what she had heard about her, not as she had continued to be either. She had always been full of life and energy, but that change could be explained by her expulsion from the academy. The information she claimed to have didn't have to be the explanation.
She hoped.
Besides being a bit implausible, she didn't want to believe that Wales's head was at stake. Naturally.
"Okay, you don't believe me. It doesn't matter, I can prove it."
Louise looked her in the eyes. And in the next instant, her face was no longer hers. It was Wardes's face.
Henrietta swallowed.
This wasn't any magic she knew. If she could appear to be Wardes, what told her that Louise was Louise? Henrietta grabbed her wand with trembling hands.
"Princess, don't be afraid of me. Please, I just... I just came to help." —Brimir, even her voice had changed!
"How can I be sure you are who you say you are? And not some abomination trying to deceive me."
The face of... whatever it was, became the face of her friend Louise again.
"An abomination," she said, or it said, her voice barely audible. "Yeah, of course. What else would you think? That's what I am."
Louise began to cry. Even though Henrietta wasn't even sure it was really Louise in the first place, seeing that broke her heart. Henrietta swallowed and extended a hand to her shoulder. She wanted to comfort her, but in the end, all she did was let it drop.
She simply didn't dare, even though part of her recognized that whatever was in front of her, if it had bad intentions, she would already be dead.
"I just want to help you, Princess. I can give you all the information you need. Reconquista's bases, its members, its spies, all the information Wardes had."
"How is that possible? If you are Louise, what happened to you?"
Louise began to tremble, crying silently, but with increasing intensity.
"I don't know, I... Please, Princess, don't judge me, but..."
"But what?"
Her heart was pounding harder and harder. Each beat was painful. It was more painful than the few seconds her heart had stopped, fearing for Wales's life.
"Wardes started saying strange things and wanted to take advantage of me. Before I realized it, I had killed him... And I think... No, I absorbed him."
"Holy Brimir."
Henrietta wasn't sure how she had the presence of mind to say anything at all. Now she was convinced that Louise was who she said she was, but that wasn't a good thing. Quite the opposite. She wished that girl were anyone or anything else.
Louise didn't deserve this. Besides, as much as it embarrassed her, she wasn't only scared for her friend. She swallowed. She felt like she had done it too many times in the few minutes after waking up.
"Tell me everything you know."
Henrietta got out of bed, sat at her desk, and took out paper and a quill. She was used to having everything written for her, but she wasn't useless. Of course, she could write it herself for a change. Louise remained silent for a while but eventually began to speak, her gaze fixed on her own lap.
Henrietta wrote everything down quickly and attentively, without asking questions.
"Thank you, Louise," she said at last. "I don't know if this will be enough to take down Reconquista, but it's enough information to cut off their arms, at least."
Louise nodded slowly.
"Are you afraid of me?"
Henrietta decided it was best to be honest. If she lied, Louise would realize it anyway.
"I'm afraid for you, but also of you. I don't know what's happened to you. I don't know what might happen to you, if this is over. Do you understand me? We are friends, we will always be friends, but... Yes. Yes, I am."
She couldn't tell how Louise took her honesty. Her expression barely changed.
"I'm scared too," she said simply.
Henrietta stood up and approached her old friend. Although hesitant, she dared to hug her. Instead of relaxing, Louise tensed in her embrace. It should be the opposite, Henrietta thought, but she didn't pull away. Slowly and after a while, the poor girl returned the hug.
"I want to go back to those days," Louise said, her voice on the verge of breaking.
"Me too. You're going to make me cry if you keep this up..."
After a long time, they separated. Henrietta wiped Louise's tears with her fingertips, then, following an impulse, kissed her on the forehead.
"Take care. Please."
Maybe she shouldn't let her go, not after what she had shown her. Not when things could easily get worse, somehow. But even if she forced her to stay, even if she tried to investigate what was happening to her, it would lead to nothing. She wasn't a queen. The Princess had no real authority. If it were known what had happened to Louise, what she was now, they would demand her head.
So she could do nothing. Only this. A kiss, a hug, and her best wishes.
But she knew very well that life was cruel. If this had happened in a few years, when she took the throne, things would be very different, but it happened precisely now. When it had to happen.
Well, the ways of Brimir were inscrutable.
2
Louise returned home, if it could be called that, as quickly as she had left. She arrived before dawn and no one noticed her absence. However, that didn't mean nothing had happened while she was away. She received an unexpected shock as soon as she woke up and left her room.Cattleya was lying on the floor. Maybe she had come to visit her, maybe she had simply passed by on her way to the living room for breakfast. In any case, she was lying there. And there was blood on the floor.
Louise fell to her knees and screamed for help.
It never stopped. It was one thing after another. It never stopped. Rationally, she knew this had happened before and would happen again.
Her condition had ups and downs, like anyone with an incurable disease. It would be like this forever, and she wouldn't die of natural causes, but that her condition worsened precisely now felt like divine punishment. The last nail in the coffin.
Help arrived, responding to her screams. Her parents ensured that the nearest doctor arrived as soon as possible. That still meant a four-hour journey. Four hours too many.
Even if he had arrived in the first second, nothing would have changed. The verdict was very clear.
"There's nothing I or anyone else can do."
He told them in prettier words that they could do nothing but watch her die, helpless. Mama withdrew to cry in her room as if she couldn't admit she had a human heart, despite the concern she had shown for her just yesterday. Louise supposed that at least tha hadn't been a public spectacle. In any case, she didn't care. Mama was who she was. She wouldn't change at this point.
As for Louise, of course, she remained sitting beside Cattleya, waiting for her to open her eyes. If she did so before dying.
Watching her breathing weaken. It was clear that the healer was right. Cattleya had reached her limit, and there was nothing to be done but watch her go. At least with human abilities.
Louise suddenly realized that she could fix this.
When she transformed, she had become stronger, faster, more everything. Well, no, not everything. She had lost many things too, and perhaps Cattleya would choose to die rather than discard her humanity if she could respond.
But she couldn't respond, so the decision was in her hands.
The problem was that Louise didn't know what had happened to her, so she couldn't know how to transmit this condition. Louise tried cutting herself to test it. If it was like some kind of disease... The thought was cut short when she saw what had come out of her body, splashing her sister's clothes.
Dark red blood, only it didn't seem like blood. It was something different and strange. I can't even bleed like a normal human being, Louise thought.
She shook her head. That was the least of it now. If she did nothing, Cattleya would die. It was better to live in any way than to die prematurely.
She hadn't asked her, but she knew Cattleya would agree with her.
Louise cut herself again and let 'it' fall onto her sister's lips.
The blood that wasn't blood moved on its own, entering Cattleya's mouth.
Leave behind the Prison of the Distant Shadows of the Sinking Sun (5): FIN
13. Still a Child
Yeah, just like In Awe of the Power, I thought about updating only when I finished the story. But I thought it was about time to post something so people don't think I forgot about it. I'm also fairly close to the ending anyways...
Oh and yeah, we are back to numbered scene breaks. Idk. I felt like it.
Chapter 13: Still a Child
1
Alex returned to her room with the morning sun. Angelique noticed instantly. Of course, she hadn't slept a wink all night. She knew what that meant. She had asked for it, wished for it countless nights. Still, her heart raced as if it would explode.
What's wrong with you? It's too late to back out now, and you have no reason to. Her life had been constant torment for years. Each day had blended endlessly into the next, forming a chain that strangled her, with no night or rest at all.
That's why it wasn't a mistake.
She only wanted peace of mind. She only wanted them to suffer as she had.
They had ruined her life. She couldn't be a saint who forgave them for it, even if they were her parents. She knew perfectly well that blood had little to do with family, sometimes.
"You're awake." It wasn't a question.
Of course. She hadn't understood more than half of his story, although she sincerely believed it was true, but anyone could understand the simplest things. For example, that he had good eyes. And good ears.
She wasn't going to let something like that go unnoticed.
"I couldn't fall asleep in the first place," Angelique sat up in bed. She felt vulnerable in her robe and little else, the sheets slid down when she changed position and that didn't help, obviously. She looked Alex in the eyes. Although she wasn't sure what she expected to see there, in any case. "It's done." This wasn't a question either. Ah, Brimir. "How was it?"
Something changed in Alex's expression. Something subtle, something dark.
Her heart accelerated a bit more still.
She had always been afraid of him (if there was anything that defined Angelique's life, it was fear), but now that she knew more than enough about what he was capable of doing, her throat practically closed up, thinking of the possibilities.
"Disguised as one of the guests at a party they were attending, I snuck in, made sure to separate them from everyone else and killed them."
He said it coldly and clinically. As if it were nothing.
Why would he give it importance? He had killed more people than Angelique could count. More people than lived in the kingdom of Tristain, if his story was true to reality, and she believed it was.
If anything, he wouldn't be exaggerating, but minimizing.
"Is that all?"
Alex paused for long enough that she thought he wouldn't say anything else. She was wrong again.
"I made them suffer for you. It didn't seem enough, a quick death with practically no pain. They did something much worse to you."
Suddenly her throat was completely dry.
Angelique swallowed.
"And you, what exactly did you do?"
"I mutilated them. I cut their throats to make sure they couldn't scream, and I made them suffer. But of course, not before telling them why I was there." Alex frowned. "Why are you making that face?"
He had seemed so kind, so different. Was he really the same person she had been getting to know? Or well, not a person, not exactly. But more human than she had been used to by far, anyway.
How could he be capable of what he was telling her at the same time?
"I just wanted you to kill them. I couldn't live peacefully knowing they were out there, enjoying their lives while I..." She swallowed again. Suddenly she couldn't breathe properly. I have to calm down. Losing control had never served her any good. "But that's all. Do you understand? I didn't want, I never asked you..."
Alex looked away.
He protested immediately, but he looked away first. That said a lot. Or so she thought.
"You should be happy. You have to be. Don't tell me you would have been satisfied that easily. Killing them before they realized what was happening, not even making them suffer."
Was he right or not? She wasn't even sure. Hearing him explain, so patiently, so reasonably, on his part, it was easy to think that he was. But right now she only felt like vomiting.
Now she was forced to wonder to what extent she knew Alex Mercer. If she hadn't been merely blinded by, yes, by her adoration. She would have kissed the feet of anyone who had freed her from the hell of living with Edmond. Of surviving.
Even the feet of an inhuman creature. That was obvious, but...
"I can't be happy, Alex. I'm not even sure I remember what that was like. I just wanted... peace of mind. But you've given me something else to think about when I have trouble sleeping at night."
It wasn't smart to make him angry. No one needed to tell her that, she wasn't that stupid. But if something so trivial was going to provoke him, neither she nor her daughter would last long, anyway.
Besides, she needed to know.
She wanted to know where the line was.
There were habits and customs for which she had been trained. As much as she disliked using that comparison, it was apt. She had been treated like an animal. Not as a person, much less as a woman.
One of them was exploring ever-changing limits to avoid being punished.
Drawing the lines that Edmond, in his madness, refused to draw. Even knowing deep down that it was useless, she had to cling to the hope that she could avoid the inevitable until it came upon her again. Then repeat it all over again.
Who could blame her? It was a matter of human instinct, looking for patterns even where there was nothing at all.
Looking for security.
And now...
Alex had an impossible expression to read.
"Alex, did you enjoy it?"
Alex grabbed a vase with a tentacle that came out of his back and threw it against the wall, shattering it into a thousand pieces. Angelique flinched as if he had punched her in the face. Her legs trembled. Still sitting on the bed, she suddenly felt unstable, as if she were actually on a piece of wood adrift in the endless sea.
"Why would I do that? I don't even know them. I can't hate them. Not really. Not when I don't even love you."
There was something strange in his tone.
She couldn't express it in words, except that Angelique believed she had found the line. A firm line, which wouldn't change at the convenience of the person who was now her husband. So the woman extended a hand to grab his hand, but Alex didn't see it. Or ignored it on purpose. He turned around, transforming into Edmond and walking out the door. She supposed it was a good sign. If he bothered to transform into Edmond, that meant it wasn't too late. That he hadn't decided to discard that identity and this life.
The experiment that both of them represented.
Or maybe something more already.
Maybe something more.
2
Louise saw nothing drastic.
For reasons she didn't understand (there were so few things she understood about her new life), her transformation had occurred a few days after the summoning ritual. After being expelled from the Academy.
So maybe she had done it too late to save Cattleya.
She had to try anyway, it was her older sister, but the mere idea left her feeling cold. Half dead.
I'm already completely dead. Dead dead. I'm not even a human being.
After a while it seemed to her that her face color had improved, but she wasn't sure if it was real or if she was just seeing what she wanted to see. In any case, beside the bed, staring at her and holding her hand so tightly that if Cattleya could react she was complaining of pain, Louise fell asleep.
Without dreams. Neither good ones, nor nightmares.
Her life had turned into a nightmare. Why would it follow her even to her dreams, her only refuge?
No.
Louise was so tired, so hurt, that she simply shut off.
3
When she woke up, the room was empty. Sunlight was coming in through a hole in the wall. For long seconds in which her heart barely beat, Louise thought she was still dreaming. Then she finished waking up.
"Cattleya! Sister!"
Her desperate cries went nowhere.
Naturally, Cattleya had left long ago. Leaving her alone, in the darkness of the room. For hours. How far would she have gone? And what did she intend to do, if she intended anything?
It was undeniable proof that she had saved her older sister's life. That the miracle she had desperately wished for had occurred, even though everyone had told her to stop dreaming. To accept reality because if not it would be more painful. Even before this, since she was little she had lived with the knowledge that someday, sooner rather than later, Cattleya would die horribly. She hadn't started wishing for this miracle just now. She had wished for it countless nights. Sleeping with her sister, head resting on her chest, feeling her heartbeat. Fearing to wake up next to a corpse. Wanting to cry bitterly and barely containing herself.
But she couldn't even enjoy this miracle, it was just another problem in her hands.
Another nightmare to follow a brief period of rest.
This is what her life had become. Now she could only blame herself, which was the worst. She had known that something could go wrong. That it was even most likely, but she hadn't cared.
Not as long as she could save Cattleya.
Her older sister was alive, but had she saved her?
Louise set off. Running faster than any carriage, practically flying.
She leaped, like her familiar when he escaped from the academy.
Hehad ruined her life, leaving, transforming her into this. Without a doubt. It didn't take much brains to notice the similarities. It had to be that creature's fault, somehow.
Wherever he was, she cursed him with all her might.
But once again the fault was only hers, really. If she hadn't tried to rise above her status, pretend to be what she wasn't, then she would never have brought that being through the portal.
None of this would have happened.
What did it say about her that, if she had known, she would have let it happen anyway?
Just so she wouldn't have to wake up to see Cattleya's corpse?
She couldn't even complain because she had no desire to change things.
4
A newborn walked through Tristania, the capital of Tristain.
She had been born a few hours ago.
Her mind was empty. Without personality, without memories. It only contained the memory of a painful and terrifying birth. Alone in the world. She didn't know anyone like her, so fear defined her existence.
Of course, she didn't know where she was either. She had just wandered away from her birthplace, perhaps looking for others like her. Every living being had the need to look at itself in the mirror, so to speak. In an empty brain, only instinct remained. Her instincts had the reins.
What did her own instincts drive her to? The most natural thing in the world. She sought warmth, love, companionship.
She found something very different. Several men with mocking voices laughed around her.
"Wow, what a hot chick. Barefoot and all."
"She looks like a noble. Maybe recently expelled from her family."
Laughter. The creature instinctively understood the "lust" contained in them.
"What matters is that she's a first-class female, noble or not."
"Surely she's looking for fun. Going around with those huge tits practically in the air, she's tempting us. She's just playing hard to get, ignoring us."
"Maybe, maybe. What a whore."
They surrounded her and dragged her into an alley. The newborn creature defended herself weakly. She wasn't sure what she was defending herself from, or if she should defend herself in the first place. She didn't know why she had come to this world. Maybe the other beings, who had been in this confusing world longer, knew better than her.
She tried to speak, to say something, anything. Nothing came out of her throat.
They threw her onto the dirty floor of the alley and tore the material that had been bothering her on her chest anyway. But still, the creature panicked for some reason. The panic was an emotion quickly drowned out by hunger.
The alley filled with screams. Sounds of cockroaches being crushed.
Hours later, Cattleya woke up in a sea of intestines and blood.
5
Something moved in that scarlet sea. The organs went back inside the empty shell and the wounds closed in the blink of an eye.
6
Louise stopped quickly.
That's how quickly she lost what little trail there was. Footprints, fallen trees. She had no idea why Cattleya would leave in the first place. Even if she had noticed the changes, even if she had been scared, questioning her humanity like her, why would she leave and where, instead of staying in her home?
Cattleya spent most of her time at home due to her illness. The place she used to go when she was depressed, to hide from the world, was her own room, not some convenient place near the mansion grounds.
She put her hands to her head.
"Why does nothing go right for me?"
Louise screamed, just to release her frustration.
It didn't help. Not really.
She couldn't have peace until she found her older sister and brought her back home.
If someone saw what she had become now, they would try to kill her as the Princess, her own childhood friend, had almost done. But unlike Henrietta, those people wouldn't back down, their hands wouldn't tremble.
7
Henrietta sighed.
She had used the information provided by Louise to strike several supposed Reconquista bases. Each and every one of them turned out to be where she said, although she hadn't really doubted it.
She was sitting on the throne that belonged to her by right and she had the feeling that it was expanding in the corner of her eye like a beast ready to swallow her in one bite.
The information was undoubtedly correct and that meant that her childhood friend had not only killed someone, she had absorbed their memories somehow. That must be dark magic that perverted the soul.
"Maybe I made the wrong decision."
But, looking into her eyes, she simply hadn't been able to. Although it was possible that the Louise she had known... had disappeared without a trace. She hadn't had the stomach to do her duty, and now, whatever happened, it would be her fault.
"Why is it so difficult...?" She swallowed, unable to finish the sentence.
No one answered the unasked question. She was alone, and she hadn't told anyone about what happened last night. They wouldn't be able to guess what she hadn't said, anyway.
Henrietta felt as if she were nailed to the throne and could almost feel the weight of the crown that hadn't yet been given to her, since her mother was slowly rotting, dead in life, in the dark room while she had to take care of everything.
Yes. It was very difficult.
She hadn't been able to give up on her mother, just as she hadn't been able to give up on Louise.
All for the same reason.
Transitory childhood memories.
The clouds hid the sunlight, plunging the throne room into darkness.
8
"But what the fuck?"
A guy stumbled into the bar and immediately crashed into a table. For some reason, the table gave way very easily, it split in half. Of course the plates and cutlery fell noisily to the floor. The table must have been on the verge of collapse. Fuck, what a scandal.
It wasn't the first time Charles had seen a drunk who should have stopped drinking long ago enter unsteadily wanting to continue the party, but it was never pleasant.
He quickly finished what was left in his jug, he had already ruined the atmosphere and his good mood. Charles stood up, picked up his coat and headed for the door. He didn't want to have anything to do with this.
For having the reasonable response he was the first to die.
The newcomer's back opened and a tentacle full of spikes emerged violently along with a shower of blood.
"Holy Brimir!"
Charles didn't get to hear that, just the air escaping from his lungs and the blood dripping from the hole in his throat.
He died before the tentacle threw him against the wall and his head exploded. That is, he was lucky, after all. Better luck than the rest. The black corruption spread, changing him, but there was no Charles in there anymore. He was a soulless monster. The void inside him could be seen in his eyes, which had lost all spark of warmth or life.
That's why he was lucky, he had already escaped the terror.
For the rest, the horror movie had just begun.
None of those present had any conception of what the black conception really was. They knew nothing of the world of skyscrapers, the world in which viruses like this, made by man, were not even the worst threat. They must think while the dead continued to pile up and rise to come after them that they were being surrounded by demons.
Most of them still looked like human beings, but a few were already changing.
Shedding skin, increasing in mass, their bones breaking or twisting, ending in a form where they looked more like animals that no one had ever seen.
Like hellhounds.
Like winged demons.
Like giants, both arms iron maces.
The air filled with screams of horror.
Only horror, for the most part. The massacre, at least, was brutally efficient. Many died before they could feel the horrible pain.
9
Cattleya rose from the sea of entrails and blood. She was surrounded by mutilated corpses, covered in blood from head to toe, even her hair. She tried with all her might not to think about it. She had awakened, but the world around her was still a nightmare.
It had been a nightmare since she was born.
Weak. Fragile.
Deprived of things that normal people took for granted, but this was a step beyond.
Cattleya staggered out of the alley, her clothes torn and covered in blood.
Her mind emptied.
"I need help. Please. I don't... I don't know what's happening to me."
It didn't take her long to find some guards, but that wasn't something to celebrate. She made the mistake of trusting in the kindness of strangers. Cattleya had always depended on kindness, on the pity she produced, but family was a completely different story.
A gasp of pain was torn from her throat.
She suddenly found herself lying on the ground. She didn't realize what had happened until her left arm exploded. No blood, flesh, or bone came out. Nothing one would expect, just a strange black substance.
She had only asked for help, she didn't deserve this brutal treatment. Was it because she didn't look like a noble, as dirty and ragged as she was? No. Cattleya wasn't so childish as to believe that commoners were treated decently as a general rule, but that alone wouldn't justify this level of violence in broad daylight.
No. It was something else.
There were black tentacles coming out of her back, and Cattleya didn't even feel pain, but she could feel them as if they were nailed to her spine.
But what disturbed her most was that her clothes weren't stained with blood.
That is, they hadn't been until her arm exploded, despite having woken up in the middle of a sea of blood.
10 Alex paced around the room like the predator he was.
He couldn't get the conversation with Angelique out of his head. Had he enjoyed it? Giving free rein to his powers after a good period of rest, when most of his life had been one fight after another, well yes. Deep down he had, he didn't like what that might say, but he had a need to use what he was capable of doing.
But the act itself? The pain, the torture?
No, how could that be impossible?
He didn't know Angelique's parents. He didn't know them even through Edmond's memories, he had seen them very little, and only before making the transaction. After that, he had considered his purpose fulfilled. They weren't a family and never would be.
He knew nothing, so he couldn't hate them.
He didn't love the woman or the girl either, no matter how much he was trying, so it wasn't about revenge.
So what was it?
There were no coincidences. Things happened for a reason, calling it coincidence was just giving up, stopping thinking.
Could it be about the others?
Alex suddenly stopped. Frozen.
The thousands of agonizing screams of the dead. Insistent, always in the back of his mind. As much a part of him as the biomass that composed him, like his arms and legs.
Alex Mercer was a practically newborn being. His life was counted in months, very recently in weeks.
He didn't understand himself perfectly.
On top of that, he was a new class of life, but why not? That made sense.
Humanity's greatest strength and downfall was intelligence (that is, the tendency to seek patterns where there was nothing but noise, like three holes vaguely in the right places made anyone see a face), and although many people wouldn't agree, Mercer was essentially human. He had been created to be so.
He was essentially a hive mind. What made him think he could contain the tide by sheer force of will? Real life didn't work that way.
What made him think his thoughts, his actions, and his body were his alone? Just of the base model called Alex Mercer.
He clenched his fists.
The voices seemed to grow louder.
11
The guards surrounded her, prepared with their wands. They only saw her as a monster, and it was no wonder. Cattleya was afraid of herself, of whatever she had become. She opened her mouth to explain herself, to try to calm the situation, but it became impossible when she discovered the most natural thing in the world.
Her body was no longer her body, why would her will be?
In other words, the tentacles attacked on their own. They dismantled the half-dozen guards who had been hovering over her in more or less the same number of seconds.
Blood and viscera. Bone fragments. All kinds of things were flying through the quiet afternoon air.
A horrible spectacle over which she had no control.
"No! No!"
No matter how much she screamed, they wouldn't stop.
The tentacles weren't part of her body, they were the ones in control.
Everything was horrible, and the worst of all for Cattleya was that she didn't understand anything. She had felt sick, vaguely remembered fainting, it wasn't the first time nor would it be the last, well, until it wasn't a faint but the slow death to which the disease had condemned her since birth.
She couldn't comprehend how everything had ended up this way.
There was no connection. She wished she could believe it was a nightmare, but she felt it. It was horribly real. This was her life now.
Understanding why wouldn't change the situation, wouldn't improve anything, but Cattleya couldn't help but focus on that while the tentacles continued the massacre. Why? Why, damn it?
Was this the result of the disease she had been incubating? Not death, but something a thousand times worse?
Then, as a few people she had once considered friends had told her, she should never have been born. It was impossible to argue with that. If everything had been destined to end like this from the beginning, her birth had no meaning at all. But the fact was that she had been born.
Wishing she hadn't been born and wishing to die were two completely different things.
She was afraid. Very, very afraid.
Cattleya was forced to admit that the tentacles weren't moving entirely on their own. Not anymore. She didn't want to die, so she had to fight, no matter the cost. What else could she lose?
Her desperate desire to survive made her evolve.
12
The corpses of the massacred guards and the people who had died simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time gathered in Cattleya, who no longer looked like a woman at all. Her previous form could barely be guessed under the layer of biomass that writhed and expanded, absorbing everything it could.
Soon she would disappear completely.
Soon she would be nothing but a monster, all tentacles and teeth, completely unrecognizable.
Still a Child: FIN
Fairly predictable, I guess, but at least I didn't "subvert your expectations".
Oh and yeah, we are back to numbered scene breaks. Idk. I felt like it.
Chapter 13: Still a Child
1
Alex returned to her room with the morning sun. Angelique noticed instantly. Of course, she hadn't slept a wink all night. She knew what that meant. She had asked for it, wished for it countless nights. Still, her heart raced as if it would explode.
What's wrong with you? It's too late to back out now, and you have no reason to. Her life had been constant torment for years. Each day had blended endlessly into the next, forming a chain that strangled her, with no night or rest at all.
That's why it wasn't a mistake.
She only wanted peace of mind. She only wanted them to suffer as she had.
They had ruined her life. She couldn't be a saint who forgave them for it, even if they were her parents. She knew perfectly well that blood had little to do with family, sometimes.
"You're awake." It wasn't a question.
Of course. She hadn't understood more than half of his story, although she sincerely believed it was true, but anyone could understand the simplest things. For example, that he had good eyes. And good ears.
She wasn't going to let something like that go unnoticed.
"I couldn't fall asleep in the first place," Angelique sat up in bed. She felt vulnerable in her robe and little else, the sheets slid down when she changed position and that didn't help, obviously. She looked Alex in the eyes. Although she wasn't sure what she expected to see there, in any case. "It's done." This wasn't a question either. Ah, Brimir. "How was it?"
Something changed in Alex's expression. Something subtle, something dark.
Her heart accelerated a bit more still.
She had always been afraid of him (if there was anything that defined Angelique's life, it was fear), but now that she knew more than enough about what he was capable of doing, her throat practically closed up, thinking of the possibilities.
"Disguised as one of the guests at a party they were attending, I snuck in, made sure to separate them from everyone else and killed them."
He said it coldly and clinically. As if it were nothing.
Why would he give it importance? He had killed more people than Angelique could count. More people than lived in the kingdom of Tristain, if his story was true to reality, and she believed it was.
If anything, he wouldn't be exaggerating, but minimizing.
"Is that all?"
Alex paused for long enough that she thought he wouldn't say anything else. She was wrong again.
"I made them suffer for you. It didn't seem enough, a quick death with practically no pain. They did something much worse to you."
Suddenly her throat was completely dry.
Angelique swallowed.
"And you, what exactly did you do?"
"I mutilated them. I cut their throats to make sure they couldn't scream, and I made them suffer. But of course, not before telling them why I was there." Alex frowned. "Why are you making that face?"
He had seemed so kind, so different. Was he really the same person she had been getting to know? Or well, not a person, not exactly. But more human than she had been used to by far, anyway.
How could he be capable of what he was telling her at the same time?
"I just wanted you to kill them. I couldn't live peacefully knowing they were out there, enjoying their lives while I..." She swallowed again. Suddenly she couldn't breathe properly. I have to calm down. Losing control had never served her any good. "But that's all. Do you understand? I didn't want, I never asked you..."
Alex looked away.
He protested immediately, but he looked away first. That said a lot. Or so she thought.
"You should be happy. You have to be. Don't tell me you would have been satisfied that easily. Killing them before they realized what was happening, not even making them suffer."
Was he right or not? She wasn't even sure. Hearing him explain, so patiently, so reasonably, on his part, it was easy to think that he was. But right now she only felt like vomiting.
Now she was forced to wonder to what extent she knew Alex Mercer. If she hadn't been merely blinded by, yes, by her adoration. She would have kissed the feet of anyone who had freed her from the hell of living with Edmond. Of surviving.
Even the feet of an inhuman creature. That was obvious, but...
"I can't be happy, Alex. I'm not even sure I remember what that was like. I just wanted... peace of mind. But you've given me something else to think about when I have trouble sleeping at night."
It wasn't smart to make him angry. No one needed to tell her that, she wasn't that stupid. But if something so trivial was going to provoke him, neither she nor her daughter would last long, anyway.
Besides, she needed to know.
She wanted to know where the line was.
There were habits and customs for which she had been trained. As much as she disliked using that comparison, it was apt. She had been treated like an animal. Not as a person, much less as a woman.
One of them was exploring ever-changing limits to avoid being punished.
Drawing the lines that Edmond, in his madness, refused to draw. Even knowing deep down that it was useless, she had to cling to the hope that she could avoid the inevitable until it came upon her again. Then repeat it all over again.
Who could blame her? It was a matter of human instinct, looking for patterns even where there was nothing at all.
Looking for security.
And now...
Alex had an impossible expression to read.
"Alex, did you enjoy it?"
Alex grabbed a vase with a tentacle that came out of his back and threw it against the wall, shattering it into a thousand pieces. Angelique flinched as if he had punched her in the face. Her legs trembled. Still sitting on the bed, she suddenly felt unstable, as if she were actually on a piece of wood adrift in the endless sea.
"Why would I do that? I don't even know them. I can't hate them. Not really. Not when I don't even love you."
There was something strange in his tone.
She couldn't express it in words, except that Angelique believed she had found the line. A firm line, which wouldn't change at the convenience of the person who was now her husband. So the woman extended a hand to grab his hand, but Alex didn't see it. Or ignored it on purpose. He turned around, transforming into Edmond and walking out the door. She supposed it was a good sign. If he bothered to transform into Edmond, that meant it wasn't too late. That he hadn't decided to discard that identity and this life.
The experiment that both of them represented.
Or maybe something more already.
Maybe something more.
2
Louise saw nothing drastic.
For reasons she didn't understand (there were so few things she understood about her new life), her transformation had occurred a few days after the summoning ritual. After being expelled from the Academy.
So maybe she had done it too late to save Cattleya.
She had to try anyway, it was her older sister, but the mere idea left her feeling cold. Half dead.
I'm already completely dead. Dead dead. I'm not even a human being.
After a while it seemed to her that her face color had improved, but she wasn't sure if it was real or if she was just seeing what she wanted to see. In any case, beside the bed, staring at her and holding her hand so tightly that if Cattleya could react she was complaining of pain, Louise fell asleep.
Without dreams. Neither good ones, nor nightmares.
Her life had turned into a nightmare. Why would it follow her even to her dreams, her only refuge?
No.
Louise was so tired, so hurt, that she simply shut off.
3
When she woke up, the room was empty. Sunlight was coming in through a hole in the wall. For long seconds in which her heart barely beat, Louise thought she was still dreaming. Then she finished waking up.
"Cattleya! Sister!"
Her desperate cries went nowhere.
Naturally, Cattleya had left long ago. Leaving her alone, in the darkness of the room. For hours. How far would she have gone? And what did she intend to do, if she intended anything?
It was undeniable proof that she had saved her older sister's life. That the miracle she had desperately wished for had occurred, even though everyone had told her to stop dreaming. To accept reality because if not it would be more painful. Even before this, since she was little she had lived with the knowledge that someday, sooner rather than later, Cattleya would die horribly. She hadn't started wishing for this miracle just now. She had wished for it countless nights. Sleeping with her sister, head resting on her chest, feeling her heartbeat. Fearing to wake up next to a corpse. Wanting to cry bitterly and barely containing herself.
But she couldn't even enjoy this miracle, it was just another problem in her hands.
Another nightmare to follow a brief period of rest.
This is what her life had become. Now she could only blame herself, which was the worst. She had known that something could go wrong. That it was even most likely, but she hadn't cared.
Not as long as she could save Cattleya.
Her older sister was alive, but had she saved her?
Louise set off. Running faster than any carriage, practically flying.
She leaped, like her familiar when he escaped from the academy.
Hehad ruined her life, leaving, transforming her into this. Without a doubt. It didn't take much brains to notice the similarities. It had to be that creature's fault, somehow.
Wherever he was, she cursed him with all her might.
But once again the fault was only hers, really. If she hadn't tried to rise above her status, pretend to be what she wasn't, then she would never have brought that being through the portal.
None of this would have happened.
What did it say about her that, if she had known, she would have let it happen anyway?
Just so she wouldn't have to wake up to see Cattleya's corpse?
She couldn't even complain because she had no desire to change things.
4
A newborn walked through Tristania, the capital of Tristain.
She had been born a few hours ago.
Her mind was empty. Without personality, without memories. It only contained the memory of a painful and terrifying birth. Alone in the world. She didn't know anyone like her, so fear defined her existence.
Of course, she didn't know where she was either. She had just wandered away from her birthplace, perhaps looking for others like her. Every living being had the need to look at itself in the mirror, so to speak. In an empty brain, only instinct remained. Her instincts had the reins.
What did her own instincts drive her to? The most natural thing in the world. She sought warmth, love, companionship.
She found something very different. Several men with mocking voices laughed around her.
"Wow, what a hot chick. Barefoot and all."
"She looks like a noble. Maybe recently expelled from her family."
Laughter. The creature instinctively understood the "lust" contained in them.
"What matters is that she's a first-class female, noble or not."
"Surely she's looking for fun. Going around with those huge tits practically in the air, she's tempting us. She's just playing hard to get, ignoring us."
"Maybe, maybe. What a whore."
They surrounded her and dragged her into an alley. The newborn creature defended herself weakly. She wasn't sure what she was defending herself from, or if she should defend herself in the first place. She didn't know why she had come to this world. Maybe the other beings, who had been in this confusing world longer, knew better than her.
She tried to speak, to say something, anything. Nothing came out of her throat.
They threw her onto the dirty floor of the alley and tore the material that had been bothering her on her chest anyway. But still, the creature panicked for some reason. The panic was an emotion quickly drowned out by hunger.
The alley filled with screams. Sounds of cockroaches being crushed.
Hours later, Cattleya woke up in a sea of intestines and blood.
5
Something moved in that scarlet sea. The organs went back inside the empty shell and the wounds closed in the blink of an eye.
6
Louise stopped quickly.
That's how quickly she lost what little trail there was. Footprints, fallen trees. She had no idea why Cattleya would leave in the first place. Even if she had noticed the changes, even if she had been scared, questioning her humanity like her, why would she leave and where, instead of staying in her home?
Cattleya spent most of her time at home due to her illness. The place she used to go when she was depressed, to hide from the world, was her own room, not some convenient place near the mansion grounds.
She put her hands to her head.
"Why does nothing go right for me?"
Louise screamed, just to release her frustration.
It didn't help. Not really.
She couldn't have peace until she found her older sister and brought her back home.
If someone saw what she had become now, they would try to kill her as the Princess, her own childhood friend, had almost done. But unlike Henrietta, those people wouldn't back down, their hands wouldn't tremble.
7
Henrietta sighed.
She had used the information provided by Louise to strike several supposed Reconquista bases. Each and every one of them turned out to be where she said, although she hadn't really doubted it.
She was sitting on the throne that belonged to her by right and she had the feeling that it was expanding in the corner of her eye like a beast ready to swallow her in one bite.
The information was undoubtedly correct and that meant that her childhood friend had not only killed someone, she had absorbed their memories somehow. That must be dark magic that perverted the soul.
"Maybe I made the wrong decision."
But, looking into her eyes, she simply hadn't been able to. Although it was possible that the Louise she had known... had disappeared without a trace. She hadn't had the stomach to do her duty, and now, whatever happened, it would be her fault.
"Why is it so difficult...?" She swallowed, unable to finish the sentence.
No one answered the unasked question. She was alone, and she hadn't told anyone about what happened last night. They wouldn't be able to guess what she hadn't said, anyway.
Henrietta felt as if she were nailed to the throne and could almost feel the weight of the crown that hadn't yet been given to her, since her mother was slowly rotting, dead in life, in the dark room while she had to take care of everything.
Yes. It was very difficult.
She hadn't been able to give up on her mother, just as she hadn't been able to give up on Louise.
All for the same reason.
Transitory childhood memories.
The clouds hid the sunlight, plunging the throne room into darkness.
8
"But what the fuck?"
A guy stumbled into the bar and immediately crashed into a table. For some reason, the table gave way very easily, it split in half. Of course the plates and cutlery fell noisily to the floor. The table must have been on the verge of collapse. Fuck, what a scandal.
It wasn't the first time Charles had seen a drunk who should have stopped drinking long ago enter unsteadily wanting to continue the party, but it was never pleasant.
He quickly finished what was left in his jug, he had already ruined the atmosphere and his good mood. Charles stood up, picked up his coat and headed for the door. He didn't want to have anything to do with this.
For having the reasonable response he was the first to die.
The newcomer's back opened and a tentacle full of spikes emerged violently along with a shower of blood.
"Holy Brimir!"
Charles didn't get to hear that, just the air escaping from his lungs and the blood dripping from the hole in his throat.
He died before the tentacle threw him against the wall and his head exploded. That is, he was lucky, after all. Better luck than the rest. The black corruption spread, changing him, but there was no Charles in there anymore. He was a soulless monster. The void inside him could be seen in his eyes, which had lost all spark of warmth or life.
That's why he was lucky, he had already escaped the terror.
For the rest, the horror movie had just begun.
None of those present had any conception of what the black conception really was. They knew nothing of the world of skyscrapers, the world in which viruses like this, made by man, were not even the worst threat. They must think while the dead continued to pile up and rise to come after them that they were being surrounded by demons.
Most of them still looked like human beings, but a few were already changing.
Shedding skin, increasing in mass, their bones breaking or twisting, ending in a form where they looked more like animals that no one had ever seen.
Like hellhounds.
Like winged demons.
Like giants, both arms iron maces.
The air filled with screams of horror.
Only horror, for the most part. The massacre, at least, was brutally efficient. Many died before they could feel the horrible pain.
9
Cattleya rose from the sea of entrails and blood. She was surrounded by mutilated corpses, covered in blood from head to toe, even her hair. She tried with all her might not to think about it. She had awakened, but the world around her was still a nightmare.
It had been a nightmare since she was born.
Weak. Fragile.
Deprived of things that normal people took for granted, but this was a step beyond.
Cattleya staggered out of the alley, her clothes torn and covered in blood.
Her mind emptied.
"I need help. Please. I don't... I don't know what's happening to me."
It didn't take her long to find some guards, but that wasn't something to celebrate. She made the mistake of trusting in the kindness of strangers. Cattleya had always depended on kindness, on the pity she produced, but family was a completely different story.
A gasp of pain was torn from her throat.
She suddenly found herself lying on the ground. She didn't realize what had happened until her left arm exploded. No blood, flesh, or bone came out. Nothing one would expect, just a strange black substance.
She had only asked for help, she didn't deserve this brutal treatment. Was it because she didn't look like a noble, as dirty and ragged as she was? No. Cattleya wasn't so childish as to believe that commoners were treated decently as a general rule, but that alone wouldn't justify this level of violence in broad daylight.
No. It was something else.
There were black tentacles coming out of her back, and Cattleya didn't even feel pain, but she could feel them as if they were nailed to her spine.
But what disturbed her most was that her clothes weren't stained with blood.
That is, they hadn't been until her arm exploded, despite having woken up in the middle of a sea of blood.
10 Alex paced around the room like the predator he was.
He couldn't get the conversation with Angelique out of his head. Had he enjoyed it? Giving free rein to his powers after a good period of rest, when most of his life had been one fight after another, well yes. Deep down he had, he didn't like what that might say, but he had a need to use what he was capable of doing.
But the act itself? The pain, the torture?
No, how could that be impossible?
He didn't know Angelique's parents. He didn't know them even through Edmond's memories, he had seen them very little, and only before making the transaction. After that, he had considered his purpose fulfilled. They weren't a family and never would be.
He knew nothing, so he couldn't hate them.
He didn't love the woman or the girl either, no matter how much he was trying, so it wasn't about revenge.
So what was it?
There were no coincidences. Things happened for a reason, calling it coincidence was just giving up, stopping thinking.
Could it be about the others?
Alex suddenly stopped. Frozen.
The thousands of agonizing screams of the dead. Insistent, always in the back of his mind. As much a part of him as the biomass that composed him, like his arms and legs.
Alex Mercer was a practically newborn being. His life was counted in months, very recently in weeks.
He didn't understand himself perfectly.
On top of that, he was a new class of life, but why not? That made sense.
Humanity's greatest strength and downfall was intelligence (that is, the tendency to seek patterns where there was nothing but noise, like three holes vaguely in the right places made anyone see a face), and although many people wouldn't agree, Mercer was essentially human. He had been created to be so.
He was essentially a hive mind. What made him think he could contain the tide by sheer force of will? Real life didn't work that way.
What made him think his thoughts, his actions, and his body were his alone? Just of the base model called Alex Mercer.
He clenched his fists.
The voices seemed to grow louder.
11
The guards surrounded her, prepared with their wands. They only saw her as a monster, and it was no wonder. Cattleya was afraid of herself, of whatever she had become. She opened her mouth to explain herself, to try to calm the situation, but it became impossible when she discovered the most natural thing in the world.
Her body was no longer her body, why would her will be?
In other words, the tentacles attacked on their own. They dismantled the half-dozen guards who had been hovering over her in more or less the same number of seconds.
Blood and viscera. Bone fragments. All kinds of things were flying through the quiet afternoon air.
A horrible spectacle over which she had no control.
"No! No!"
No matter how much she screamed, they wouldn't stop.
The tentacles weren't part of her body, they were the ones in control.
Everything was horrible, and the worst of all for Cattleya was that she didn't understand anything. She had felt sick, vaguely remembered fainting, it wasn't the first time nor would it be the last, well, until it wasn't a faint but the slow death to which the disease had condemned her since birth.
She couldn't comprehend how everything had ended up this way.
There was no connection. She wished she could believe it was a nightmare, but she felt it. It was horribly real. This was her life now.
Understanding why wouldn't change the situation, wouldn't improve anything, but Cattleya couldn't help but focus on that while the tentacles continued the massacre. Why? Why, damn it?
Was this the result of the disease she had been incubating? Not death, but something a thousand times worse?
Then, as a few people she had once considered friends had told her, she should never have been born. It was impossible to argue with that. If everything had been destined to end like this from the beginning, her birth had no meaning at all. But the fact was that she had been born.
Wishing she hadn't been born and wishing to die were two completely different things.
She was afraid. Very, very afraid.
Cattleya was forced to admit that the tentacles weren't moving entirely on their own. Not anymore. She didn't want to die, so she had to fight, no matter the cost. What else could she lose?
Her desperate desire to survive made her evolve.
12
The corpses of the massacred guards and the people who had died simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time gathered in Cattleya, who no longer looked like a woman at all. Her previous form could barely be guessed under the layer of biomass that writhed and expanded, absorbing everything it could.
Soon she would disappear completely.
Soon she would be nothing but a monster, all tentacles and teeth, completely unrecognizable.
Still a Child: FIN
Fairly predictable, I guess, but at least I didn't "subvert your expectations".