The Homunculus Knight

Chapter 48: Bargaining

“Think of it as less like a religion and more like an infection. Fell Worship is rarely a thing of temples and public rites. It's usually a festering undercurrent, small collections of cultists, or even a singular believer hiding in the wilds or among our livestock. They are subtle, perverse things that spread their diseased beliefs in places beneath our notice. If untreated, the infection can grow and grow until the symptoms become noticeable, but by then it's usually too late to avoid a calamity.”- Voivode of Souls, Tomaz Gens Lotario.

A noted scholar once claimed that ignorance is the bedrock of fear. According to this wise man, the mind can accept terrible knowledge and grim certainty far easier than it might the mere unknown. That imagination, when left with nothing but time and ignorance, can summon forth more terror than any truth could ever hope to. When Wolfgang learned of this argument, he’d found it quite logical and applicable to his worldview. Now, as the nightmare facing him prepared its next strike, Wolfgang found a major flaw in the scholar’s thesis.

Aloysius Wolfgang knew exactly what Isabelle Gens Silva was capable of. He’d studied the former countess intensely, pouring over the scraps of her ruined library and any other resource he might glean some understanding of the woman from. That intimate, well-researched analysis of Gens Silva’s genius and madness pushed Wolfgang into a state of terror beyond anything he’d ever known.

The story of Isabelle’s sudden meteoric rise into the heights of Duchy politics and her equally dramatic fall were well known across the vampire nation. Her story was told wide and far; quickly becoming a parable against arrogance among the nocturnal nobility. It was also not completely accurate, with some of the official details being edited to fit a more useful narrative. But as one of Igori’s direct scions, Wolfgang knew something closer to the truth than most, even though he’d been too young to play a part in events. That truth, more than anything else, is what frightened Wolfgang to his dead marrow. Isabelle Gens Silva hadn’t just challenged Igori and lost. She’d challenged the Archduke, his entire court and even the very rules of reality and… she’d almost won.

Now that same creature, who nearly triumphed against gods, mortals and monsters, was now in possession of the Alukah’s power and trying to kill Wolfgang. At first, he’d fallen into the same idiotic trap that kept snaring him this entire disaster and tried to deny the conclusion his mind reached. Only by luck and his thread-cutter knife did Wolfgang survive long enough to force through the disbelief. But by then the battle had started anew and the three servants of Voivode Igori found themselves matched at every turn.

Isabelle unleashed magic potent enough to stymie two fearsome strigoi and still had enough power leftover to push Wolfgang to the edge of his skill. A constant bombardment of spells of a dozen different varieties smashed into Wolfgang’s defenses, each a fickle act of inspired mage-craft. It was only Wolfgang’s honed talent for counter-magic that kept him alive. The art of negating or disrupting a foe’s spell required extraordinary arcane sensitivity and skill. Wolfgang had the skill, and his glasses helped him compensate for the sensitivity. The dozens of magical duels he’d fought with more puissant vampires of Igori’s court offered him enough practical experience to barely survive Isabelle’s wrath.

Then, just as the feeling of ash against his wounded flesh became too common to ignore, Wolfgang realized the terrible truth. Isabelle wasn’t fighting the three vampires to a standstill, she was merely delaying them while other spells finished. Two demons entered the fray in a surge of hungry malevolence. Wolfgang’s attention had been so focused on Isabelle’s magical attacks he’d not even noticed the slight flow of power leading from her to the newly incarnated Hellkyn until they’d burst into the Mundane. Vainly, Wolfgang wondered if he might cut that link with his Aisan knife, but such possibilities fell away as Isabelle’s cruel focus smashed into him.

A voice thick with malice stroked against Wolfgang’s mind like a scalpel along exposed nerves. “Now, where were we?”

As those words echoed in Wolfgang’s ears, his magical defenses shattered. Overlapping spells conjured up by a mad genius and powered by an ancient monster tore Wolfgang’s wards apart. Umbric magic struck physically, mentally and spiritually, seeking to rend all three facets of Wolfgang’s being. Once again, the only thing that saved him was the knife, its cursed edge severing Isabelle’s spell before it destroyed him utterly.

The force of the attack knocked Wolfgang along the ground, sending him skipping like a thrown stone. But instead of a placid pond, Wolfgang danced over broken rock, his skin and muscle shredded by each impact. Landing with bone cracking force, Wolfgang screamed in pain as the full extent of his wounds became clear; he’d been peeled. Great strips of tattered flesh hung from his back, arms and chest like scraps of soot-stained cloth. Trying to sit up, Wolfgang bit down another howl of agony as broken bone ground against torn cartilage. Most of his skeleton was fractured, and Wolfgang guessed a kilo or two of his flesh was scattered upon the stones he’d skipped over.

Yet despite all this, Wolfgang kept his two most precious objects intact. The neurotic level of protection he’d enchanted his glasses with paid off yet again, the lenses still clinging to his haggard face. And in his barely regrown hand Wolfgang also clutched the thread-cutter knife, its blade still humming with occult power. Staring at the baleful obsidian and bronze dagger, Wolfgang willed blood to his most important body parts and dulled his sense of pain. He’d lost all his defensive enchantments and was using blood at a worrying rate. With terrible effort, he managed to stand up, ignoring the horrible grinding and ripping sounds his body made.

Staring out across the battlefield, Wolfgang watched his doom unfold. Even in his exaggerated warform, Tallclaw was wickedly fast. Moving with such celerity, Wolfgang’s untempered eyes couldn’t track him. But the spear-carrying demon was even faster, moving between lightning blows with mad ease and frantic excitement. Strikes from the Hellkyn’s cursed weapon planted seeds of bone in Tallclaw that grew into brambles of ivory and horn. The strigoi discarded and disgorged entire sections of his shifting flesh, trying to excise the occult venom. But despite his rapid transformations and adaptations, Tallclaw was losing. Wolfgang could see the vicious strigoi’s growing exhaustion in his body’s increasing simplicity. Tallclaw replaced damaged limbs and organs with new growths that lacked the chimeric nature of his usual creations.

Elsewhere from the battle between undead beast and infernal hunter was another contest, this one even more bizarre. A small knoll of damp, stinking dirt had grown out of the cavern floor. Dozens of elderly faces formed from mud and rotting vegetation decorated the mound, each with their mouth open and expelling worm-like tendrils that hunted Shortooth’s rats. The vermin were scattering, fleeing the root-worms and their voracious hunger. But with every consumed rat the knoll grew imperceptibly large and its roots quested farther. Great swaths of Shortooth’s swarm were skittering along the cavern floor, trying to reach Tallclaw and join forces with him. The rats found phantom wolves and hungry oil waiting to intercept them, and many were torn apart by the now reduced spells once used to restrain both strigoi.

But all these sights of battle and impending doom merely tickled at the edge of Wolfgang’s awareness. His mind was now focused on the nightmare fast approaching; Isabelle was coming for him. Looking into the Aether, Wolfgang tried to find a frame of reference for what he was witnessing. He’d seen madness before, how psychotic rage and unrestrained sadism polluted the Aether. But what leaked from the former countess was something else, something infinitely more frightening. It was hate married to genius; it was brilliance directed by malice; it was a force of ruin, and it wanted nothing more than to end him.

When Natalie had come close to losing control, the Aether reacted, reflecting her emotions and power in a form Wolfgang could interpret with his glasses. That hurricane of blood and darkness filled with screaming faces had been harrowing enough; but paled compared to the metaphor Isabelle’s hate offered him. Wolfgang stared upon the innards of a monolithic machine created from flesh and bone. Skeletal waterwheels sat in canals of black blood, turning endlessly to power cogs, screws and pulleys formed from white bone and red sinew. Springs of woven cartilage were wound tight by interlocking mechanisms, their energy released as hooked tendrils of darkness shot forth, seeking Wolfgang’s flesh.

Blinking away his momentary entrapment in the fractal factory of Isabelle’s mental state, Wolfgang held up his thread-cutter knife and thought desperately for some way to survive what was coming. Isabelle floated over the cavern floor, avoiding the smears of gore Wolfgang left in his wake. Clutched in her hands was a cracked vampire skull of unknown origin, and she wore a cruel smile upon her borrowed face.

Landing softly perhaps four meters away, Isabelle stared at Wolfgang with cold unblinking eyes. “That knife and your glasses are both acceptable tools. I’ll put them to better use once I’m finished with you.”

A telekinetic strike slammed into Wolfgang’s gut, knocking him to his knees and positioning him for another blow, this one to the back of his head. A gurgle escaped Wolfgang as his forehead smashed into the rock. Over the sound of his fractured skull settling, Wolfgang heard Isabelle continue speaking. “My sire would bring his beaten enemies before him just as you are now; flayed, broken, and kneeling. I always found it overly dramatic, but now… well, I can understand the potent symbolism. I’ve stripped you of your power, your freedom, your very skin! Next I’ll take what little remains of you, and I’ll do it slowly.”

Daring to raise his head against the reborn countess, Wolfgang noticed an odd tic in her face. Every second or so Isabelle would twitch or grimace, as if something was agitating her from within. With his glasses on, Wolfgang saw deeper than the tic, and how bloody storm clouds were leaking through gaps in the bone mechanism. Wolfgang also noticed something else, something that brought the tiniest measure of understanding. The currents of magical power linking Isabelle to her summoned demons were not the only ones present. A subtle but unmistakable potent arcane bond connected Isabelle to the skull she held. Looking past all of Isabelle’s magical power and gathered spells, Wolfgang focused on the link between the skull and… not Isabelle, but Natalie’s body.

Daring to take a rattling breath, Wolfgang spoke raggedly. “I understand now. That skull, it’s yours, isn’t it? You’ve become something like a lych, and are possessing my grandniece. This is how the plague was cured; the homunculus doesn’t have your secrets, he’s had you this entire time.”

Staring up into Isabelle Gen Silva’s borrowed face, Wolfgang continued. “I must admit I don’t know how all the pieces fit together, but the result is most impressive. Claiming the new Alukah as a host and subverting the Tenth Temple to protect you is remarkable. And it seems the delusion the priestess suffered was not without reason. How long until you extinguish my grandniece and steal her flesh?”

Isabelle scoffed. “I will not kill Natalie; she and I have come to a mutually beneficial agreement. Also, your pretense at familial loyalty is anything but convincing; both of us can see your vain attempt to create discord between us.”

Telekinetic force yanked on Wolfgang’s left arm, pulling the limb out from his body. Frantically calling up his defensive magic, Wolfgang tried to stop what he knew was coming. The half-finished ward splintered under Isabelle’s magical fury; and so did his elbow. The attack wasn’t much more than focused kinetic energy, the arcane equivalent of a haymaker. But it was more than enough to pulp flesh, and Wolfgang bit down a scream as his shredded forearm along with the thread-cutter knife rolled away from him.

Forcing his pained moans to end, Wolfgang noticed the spasms upon Isabelle’s borrowed face were worse, and one hand was twitching absently. The signs of a possessed host fighting for control were rarely this subtle, and Wolfgang guessed there was some element of truth to Isabelle’s claim of an agreement with Natalie. Still, some manner of internal conflict was happening and Wolfgang saw little option other than trying to escalate it.

While his grandniece was dangerous, Wolfgang doubted she could keep the summoned demons under control. It was better for Natalie to seize control than allow Isabelle to continue her madness. “Why are you stopping Natalie from taking back her body? Are you breaking your word? My research says that is something of a pattern with you.”

A cruel snarl split Isabelle’s face, and she approached him but stopped at two meters' distance. The great machine of hate Wolfgang saw in the Aether stuttered slightly but kept working. Speaking slowly, Isabelle hissed. “She’s not trying to fight for control over her body; she’s arguing for me to give you mercy.”

Wolfgang’s eyebrows raised in surprise, and Isabelle clarified. “On the topic of familial loyalty, Natalie is displaying more than you deserve. She wants me to simply kill you and be done with it. But, I disagree for reasons both personal and pragmatic. Igori is beyond my reach for now, but as his spawn, you offer opportunities for… recompense. Which, considering how much pain you’ve caused with that disgraceful derivative of my work, seems appropriate. So I’m going to kill you slowly, methodically. Peeling your body and mind open so I can savor all those secrets I felt during my earlier mental attack.”

A brick of lead formed in Wolfgang’s gut and he was surprised the metaphorical weight hadn’t ripped intestines free from his ruined flesh. One of the key attributes of Countess Gens Silva, he’d noted in his research, was her obsessive drive. Very little would stop her from gnawing away at a problem until she was satisfied with the outcome. Wolfgang was now that problem, and his very mind would be what Isabelle pulled apart. The dramatic brutality of her attacks and grandiose displays of magical power suddenly took on a new light as well. Isabelle wasn’t simply torturing him for the vindictive joy of it, but to put cracks in his psychic defenses she could exploit using the Alukah’s power.

Madly, Wolfgang took his eyes off Isabelle and found Marcus in the distance, holding a weakly struggling Cole in a grapple. There wasn’t enough good left in Wolfgang to feel proper sympathy or regret for what the Dullahan had experienced; just a vague, bitter ache of understanding. Wolfgang’s mental defenses were potent, but he would not delude himself into thinking he could resist for long. He wasn’t like Marcus or any of the duchies’ knights, with a mind sturdy enough to utterly fracture before it submitted. Isabelle was going to break him; she was going to crack open his mind and devour its contents before leaving him ash and bones.

Frantically searching around the cave for any way to change his fate, Wolfgang saw the battle between Strigoi and Hellkyn reach a new stage. Shorteeth’s swarm had congregated around Tallclaw and was even climbing over and into the embattled monster. Teeming vermin gnawed on the cursed horns growing within Tallclaw, while larger rat constructs harried the spear demon. Fast as the Hellkyn was, it seemed fragile judging by its unwillingness to get caught between the giant rodents and Tallclaw’s numerous limbs. But the spear demon did not fight alone; the knoll of dirt had spread itself out into a wide arc of black soil that was slowly enclosing the two strigoi. Wrinkled faces sat among the shifting dirt, hungry tendrils reaching from them for any rat that got too close.

The lead weight in Wolfgang’s belly grew heavier, the demons were slowly winning. Bitterly, he wondered how much fighting the Paladin to a standstill cost the strigoi. Glancing at his severed forearm and knife lying perhaps a meter away, Wolfgang tried to calculate his odds of reaching it before Isabelle could react. A quartet of snarling wolves materialized around him then, sinking their fangs into his flesh and murdering any newborn plans in their crib. Wolfgang didn’t even try to struggle with the growling lupines as they held him in place. It would be pointless; anything would be pointless in the face of his coming doom.

Forcing himself to stare at Isabelle, Wolfgang took short hyper-ventilating breaths as the reality of his situation came crashing down. He was going to die; his mind would be ripped apart, his flesh reduced to ash and his soul… his soul would settle a terrible debt. A lifetime and unlifetime of detached stoicism shattered like fine glass as the dozens of mocking warnings he’d received from his betters came to haunt him. Wolfgang had thought himself clever enough to dance between the different webs of intrigue and arise as his own master. Now the monstrous arrogance of that supposition cut into him with the cold clarity of truth. Cleanor once rebuked him by saying few were lucky to learn from their mistakes, and Wolfgang knew after this series of calamitous failures that he was anything but lucky.

Bowing his head, Wolfgang tried to grasp for the final lifeline available to him. “I-I surrender! I surrender to you and throw myself upon your mercies. I offer my knowledge and services as a willing vassal! Let me submit and serve you until the red dusk! Please! Please, I beg you!”

The sting of humiliation and debasement filled Wolfgang’s heart like poison. Shuddering gasps escaped him as ossified emotions slowly returned. Long desiccated reactions, he thought discarded by decades of cold undeath, slowly bloomed like desert greens beneath bitter rain. Wolfgang sobbed as he begged for his life. “Mercy! Please! Mercy!”

Telekinetic force wrapped around his throat and hoisted him up. Dangling like the hanged man he was, Wolfgang met Isabelle’s disgusted gaze. Barely an arm span away from him, she stood there dripping with the regal disdain of any true nocturnal noble. “Predictably pathetic. We both know this has gone far past the point of negotiation.”

Desperately, Wolfgang surrendered his last shreds of dignity and pleaded with the only person who might spare him. “Natalie! Listen to me! My sister’s name was Berenice! Spare me and I’ll share my memories of-”

The grip on his throat tightened, and Isabelle hissed. “Don’t you dare plead with her! We both know you’d have offered her and Cole up to the Voivode without batting an eye. Besides, she'll have those memories when I’m done with you.”

Isabelle’s bloody gaze met Wolfgang’s and terrible vertigo filled him as he was pulled into their crimson depths. Everything became crushing, suffocating darkness as Wolfgang drowned in an elder vampire’s will. For the first time in decades, Wolfgang’s lungs burned with the desperate need to breathe. Frantically struggling against the smothering power, Wolfgang tried to suck in air but couldn’t. His mouth wouldn’t open, his body wouldn’t move, he’d been entombed in pure darkness.

A voice rang out through the void, its clarion call painfully loud to Wolfgang. Isabelle’s words were cold as arctic winter and slipped into his mind like sharpened scalpels. “Shall we begin?”

Mina desperately rubbed the strong rope binding her wrists along the stone table’s sharp lip. She was making some progress but not enough for her liking, especially considering what she heard from elsewhere in the tower. Alia and Mina had been stashed on the second floor of the guard tower, in what had once been a refectory. Kit and Yara tied them both up and kept Mina trapped with gravity magic. The Magi apologized the entire time and kept insisting it was for Mina’s own good. In comparison, the Thrall kept suggesting killing Mina as punishment for ‘betrayal.’

The pair had both claimed Natalie hadn’t been subverted by Isabelle and that it was Mina herself that was under some kind of geas. It was a ridiculous lie, and Mina couldn’t understand why they expected her to believe them. How could she, someone raised by priests in a grand temple, be controlled by fell magic? But the absurdity of the claim wasn’t nearly as distressing as the implications. That Kit spoke such a strange lie spoke to his altered mental state. Whatever magic Isabelle used to twist his mind was surely potent and insidious.

So trapped as she was, Mina was left with nothing but desperate panic and feeble attempts to work miracles. That changed when something above her in the tower exploded and the gravity magic faded away. Wasting little time Mina had got to work trying to free herself. She’d exhausted most of her magical reserves healing Alia and feared another spell might push her into unconsciousness. Leading to her current predicament desperately scrabbling against the stone table.

Unfortunately, the rope was good quality and Mina feared she’d wear through her wrists instead of the sturdy hemp. Glancing over at the sleeping Alia, Mina bit her lip and worked harder, ignoring the growing pain of friction burns. Within the stone tower, noises were muffled but Mina could still hear hints of the battle raging outside. She didn’t know what happened above her, but guessed it wasn't good and involved Kit. Staring down at the rope, Mina pondered, trying to freeze it. Her skill in cryomancy was relatively lacking, and in her worn state it was very possible for Mina to not just freeze the rope but her hands.

The door to the makeshift jail cell slammed open then and Mina spun her head to see Yara enter. Thrall and Priestess just stared at each other for a moment before Mina frantically worked her wrists against the stone faster. With an annoyed grunt, Yara dropped her two burdens onto the floor. Cole’s pack landed with a thunk, and Ranger Nokin fell limply to the cold stone. Unsheathing her dagger, Yara approached Mina cautiously. Eyes darting about like a trapped rodent, Mina lunged for the formerly enchanted hairpin now sitting on the floor. Yara moved with shocking speed and kicked the pin away, arriving with her boots centimeters away from Mina’s head.

An exhausted sigh escaped the thrall as she looked at her knife, then back at Mina. “My mistress doesn’t want me to kill you; but said nothing about not hurting you. Please don’t make me do that.”

Glaring up at Yara, Mina gnawed on her gag. Going to the ranger, Yara dragged the dwarf over to Mina and said. “She needs to stay alive. Can you help with that?”

Frowning, Mina looked at the ranger, nodded, then gestured to her mouth. Without expression, Yara knelt down and cut the gag free and moved the knife to Mina’s throat. “I’ve been commanded to keep the three of you alive.”

Yara’s voice grew tense, and the knife pressed in a little bit, just enough to remind Mina of its sharpness. “My mistresses are fighting to save us all, and I won’t let you harm them. So I’ll say this again, don’t make me hurt you.”

Frowning, Mina spoke, her voice raw. “Mistresses?”

Not moving the knife, Yara seemed to debate her words before saying. “Natalie and Isabelle fight together.”

A shiver ran up Mina’s spine, but not from Yara’s strange words. Something was happening in the local Aether, something terrible. Mina’s trained Aetheric senses screamed for her to run, to fight, to do anything but lie here helpless as evil slithered into reality. Sudden nausea and panic filled the priestess as her mind processed the unmistakable aura of Hellkyn. Forcing herself not to vomit, Mina whispered. “Oh fixed-stars no…”

Staring up at Yara, her eyes wild and panicked, Mina spoke quickly. “You can’t do this! Isabelle is conjuring demons! DEMONS! We need to stop her! Please! Please, don’t let her destroy us all!”

Yara pulled the knife away from Mina, a strange, queasy look on her face. Even a non-mage like the thrall could sense the corruption festering in the Aether. A surge of hope filled Mina. “Do you see now? Isabelle has taken over Natalie’s body and is warping your minds! Those Hellkyn are hungry, she’ll feed us to them!”

Shaking her head as if dispelling a fly or treasonous thought, Yara walked over from Mina and towards Alia. A surge of utter terror welled up in the priestess. “Wait! Stop! Please, please don’t hurt her!”

Glancing back at Mina, Yara gripped Alia’s bound wrists and dragged her to where the priestess lay. Rolling Alia so her poorly healed scalp was facing Mina, Yara pointed her knife at the ugly tatters of skin and hair still dangling in horrible flaps. Mina’s efforts had grown swaths of fresh tissue over the worst damage, but the sight was still wretched. Staring at the grisly wound, Mina asked. “What are you doing?”

Yara spoke slowly, as if to a simpleton. “Isabelle fights with magic. This isn’t a magical injury.”

Confused, Mina’s eyes flicked between Alia’s mutilated scalp and Yara’s cool expression. “What? No, she-”

Mina paused mid-sentence as part of her mind locked onto Alia’s wound. Before in the desperate fight to survive and then save her girlfriend, Mina had viewed the injury through a healer’s lense. Now, another set of Mina’s skills were speaking to her, the set she’d been assigned to the city watch to help refine. Many times Captain Ironteeth had asked her to look at a corpse or badly injured person to determine what hurt them. While her mistakes with the Heart-stealer had shaken Mina’s confidence some, there was no mistaking the source of Alia’s injury. Someone had struck her girlfriend with a bludgeon, probably a club or mace. Pure fortune and Alia’s werefolk bones were all that kept her alive.

But the near-miracle of Alia’s survival wasn’t what choked off Mina’s words, or filled her chest with ice. Only one person among the caravan used a mace, only one was strong enough to badly wound Alia and not kill her outright. Evidence warred against memory and as Mina focused on her terrible recollection of Isabelle’s betrayal, she realized the memory wasn’t complete. One moment she’d been challenging the vampire with glasses, the next she was kneeling over Alia and trying to keep Isabelle contained. Everything in between those two instances was a terrible blur that just wouldn’t come into focus. Mina knew what happened, but couldn’t remember exactly how.

“Gods…” Mina whispered as truth slipped its blade into her heart. Alia’s stony expression flashed through Mina’s mind; as did Kit’s words and Yara’s claim of treachery. While her mind rebelled at the conclusion all the evidence pointed at, Mina couldn’t discard it. Staring over at her brutalized partner and listening to the battle outside, Mina rasped. “What have I done?”

Different emotions warred inside Natalie as she stood in her mindscape. Never had she encountered something like Isabelle’s malice. Even the Alukah’s mindless hunger was in some ways easier to handle than what she’d just experienced. The entire battle between Wolfgang and Isabelle, if one could even call it that, had been profoundly distressing. Even now flickers of what Isabelle intended for her enemies danced in Natalie’s mind.

* Wolfgang suspended by a thousand fishhooks piercing his flesh. Caustic fluid drips from above, landing on his chest in a steady patter and sizzle. *

* Voivode Igori screaming as a sharpened beam is slowly forced into him. His disturbingly youthful wails cut off as the wooden post reaches his lungs. *

* A vampire with strange tattoos is locked in a box with a dozen thumb-sized holes in it. Sunlight flows through the holes and forces the vampire to contort herself to avoid the burning rays. *

* Three portly men run through a midnight forest, chased by a pack of snarling wolves. One of the men trips and the others leave him to the hungry pack. *

Trying to push the cruel visions away, Natalie refocused on events within her mindscape. Isabelle hadn’t dived into Wolfgang’s mind like Natalie expected, but somehow dragged her uncle into the red lily field. A stone slab now sat among the flowers, Wolfgang atop it like a sacrificial goat. Bitterly Natalie thought a ritual offering wouldn’t be in as much pain as her kin currently was. Isabelle’s magic took the form of a shroud of liquid darkness that wrapped about Wolfgang and squeezed. It reminded Natalie of the experiment Isabelle conducted upon the Screamers back in Vindabon, and she wondered if the similarity was her mind’s way of trying to process what was actually happening.

Wrapped up in hungry shadows, Wolfgang tried to thrash and scream, but could do neither. He was a fly trapped in a spider’s web, doomed to slow suffocation, before his very essence was putrefied and drained from him. The sight sickened Natalie and glancing at Isabelle looming over the altar; she asked. “Is this really necessary?”

Isabelle offered one of her typical dismissive glares. “If we want to survive? Then yes, we need to extract every last drop of useful information from him.”

The fierce look on Isabelle’s face softened imperceptibly, and she added. “You understand what I’m doing to him is merciful compared to what his superiors would do to all of us if he succeeded? I’m merely trying to gain an advantage; they’d do worse and enjoy it.”

Before Natalie could stop herself, she snorted in derision. Isabelle whirled about, annoyance dripping from her. Crossing her arms in defiance, Natalie snapped. “Don’t delude yourself and don’t lie to me. This is vengeance, you’re torturing him for what Igori did to you. Our souls are linked; remember, I can sense all the jagged up things you are imagining.”

Lips parted in a snarl Isabelle said. “And? Don’t dare and say you didn’t enjoy watching Cole burn the creature who killed your father.”

Memories of the Alukah’s tomb and her father’s horrible fate flashed through Natalie’s mind. “We both know that was different! That was destroying a monster before it could hurt more people, this is-”

Isabelle cut her off. “Exactly that, except I’m being more efficient. Why is it better to kill someone and let all their knowledge wash away rather than getting everything of value from them before doing the deed? Wolfgang is a disgusting little parasite responsible for the deaths of thousands. He unleashed a bastardized version of my research for probably no reason other than his own advancement or curiosity! If anyone is undeserving of mercy, it's such a craven waste of tissue such as him!”

Natalie could almost taste it now; the sickness within Isabelle she’d hoped was in remission. The erratic rage and blistering arrogance tainted by self-loathing flowed from Isabelle in noxious waves. No longer focused and forced into structure by an obsessive goal, Isabelle’s mental state was cracking. Natalie thought of some alchemical apparatus designed to manipulate caustic substances. When the device was working and moving, the acids were kept from burning through the machine. But now that Isabelle had achieved her goal of beating Wolfgang and was distracted from her next objective, the apparatus was malfunctioning. Excess bile and poison settling in fragile components, making them crack and seethe.

Normally Natalie would try her best to drain the machine, to finish shutting it down before things got worse. But the battle wasn’t over; the two strigoi still lived, as did Wolfgang. The full terrible workings of Isabelle’s mind were still needed; now wasn’t the time to challenge her, even if it was for her own good. Letting out a sigh and knowing this was a mistake, Natalie nodded. “Fine, just… just be efficient, we still need to rescue Cole.”

Jutting her chin out in a display of haughty dominance, Isabelle nodded then grabbed Natalie’s hand. She pulled her to the altar and made Natalie touch the oily darkness. “Let us continue your education. Besides, your help might make this easier on both you and hi-”

A noise echoed through the mindscape, a creaking groan known to any who’ve walked in a forest. Somewhere nearby an old tree was moaning as its trunk bent with the wind. Except there wasn’t any wind, and within the mindscape there was only one old tree…

Natalie and Isabelle whirled about to see the ice willow shifting, its snow-flake leaves dancing in some unfelt storm. Nearby, the fanged yew sapling also moved, its ivory needles clattering against each other like a morbid rattle. Sucking in a breath, Isabelle hissed. “No, that’s not possible. That-”

She turned to Wolfgang’s bound form and shrieked. “You fool! What have you done?!”

With a sound like ripping flesh, the shroud wrapping Wolfgang split open. Fine gray dust dribbled out from the tear, reminded Natalie of a slit grain sack. Isabelle gripped onto Natalie’s wrist and pulled her close. Eye to eye, the older vampire said. “Listen to me, your parasite is-”

The shroud exploded with a keening wail and an eruption of the dust surged out in a rapidly growing dune. Staring at the powder, Natalie realized what it was. Ash, vampire ash. A God’s warning spoke in Natalie’s ear and her blood turned to ice. “No-No, that wouldn’t work, we’re in a mindscape?”

Isabelle cut Natalie’s confused babbling off by shoving her with inhuman strength. Landing among the lilies, Natalie rolled to her feet and saw Isabelle facing the growing ash heap. Magic swirled about the former countess as she prepared a spell. A wave of cursed soot smashed into Isabelle and bloody runes surrounding her glowed and cracked. Elsewhere the willow groaned and bits of ice fell from it. The darkness trapped inside the tree grew larger, small cracks formed on the trunk and slivers of deep red shone in them.

Snarling with fury, Isabelle roared. “Parasites! One and all!”

The ash reared up and smashed down on Isabelle, burying her in its shifting bulk. Natalie ran forward, seeing Isabelle’s thrashing shape fighting against the hungry soot. Reaching the edge of the ash heap, Natalie hesitated, flashes of the Rabisu and of all the horror that came with it filled her mind. Paralyzed by indecision, Natalie watched as Isabelle’s unburied hand desperately groped for help. Sickening fear filled Natalie as she was torn between choices. Could she try to help? Or would that merely doom them both as the Rabisu awakened?

As Isabelle slipped beneath the ash, Natalie jolted with surprise as a third option came into light. This was her mind; both Isabelle and Wolfgang were guests in it. Shutting her eyes, Natalie focused on the psychic link between her and Isabelle. Using one of the first lessons her mentor imparted, Natalie pushed on the link and tried to banish both friend and enemy from her mind. But as she did, something foul sunk its claws into her psyche, a hungry malevolence that would not go without a fight.

Gritting her teeth, Natalie focused on the presence, on the ashen horror Wolfgang unleashed in her mind. She could feel it, its cruelty and inscrutable malice. The ash spread itself out, growing larger as it swallowed up flowers by the dozen and buried Isabelle deeper in its depths. It resisted Natalie’s efforts, denying her will and dismissing her intent. Slowly the ash heap slithered towards the ice willow, hints of Isabelle’s struggling body appearing as it moved. Pushing her mind against the monster, Natalie fought to expel it from her mind. All her lessons from Isabelle and Pryia came streaming back but to no avail. Whatever this was, it resisted Natalie’s control.

Terror flared in Natalie, but something deeper soon replaced it. Rage, cold and domineering, grew within Natalie, the wrath of a ruler denied. How dare this thing attack her and Isabelle! How dare it try to infect her mind! She was the mistress here, this was her domain and anything within it was subject to her will! With those emotions came a power, something ancient and terrible called up by her panic. A low growl escaped Natalie’s throat as fury and force built within her. How dare this parasite! How dare it defy her!

Thrusting out one hand, Natalie snarled as her mindscape shifted. Droplets of blood dripped up into the sky from the lilies, a reverse rain of crimson that filled the air with red mist. Soon, the scarlet fog congealed, into a massive clawed hand that crashed down on the ash heap. Something screeched in a voice not meant for mortal ears and Natalie wavered for a moment and then answered the shriek with a scream of her own.

Talons of black and red gripped the ash and chains of blood flowed from the hand into the heap. Natalie felt the malice animating the ash recoil in shock. As a cruel laugh bubbled up from the young Alukah, she snarled. “Leave! Or be bound to my will!”

Like any predator realizing it was outmatched, the ash retreated, letting go of Natalie’s mind and letting her finally shut the link. With a surge of vertigo, Isabelle, and the horror Wolfgang unleashed were gone. Eyes wide, Natalie watched as the clawed hand melted away and the power within her faded. Staring down at her own hands, Natalie tried to process everything that had just happened. Tasting the last hints of what had been dredged up in her moment of desperation, Natalie muttered to herself. “Annoch… the Binder…”