'Uh Richter,' I called out in my head, my voice barely a whisper in the mental space we shared.
The red eyes shone brighter, the figure's black hair suddenly erupting into flames, lighting up the room in a hellish orange glow that cast shadows across the walls.
The dead bodies of my foster parents, Mr. and Mrs. Wilson, lay sprawled across my bedroom floor. Their necks were torn out, ragged wounds that looked like something had simply ripped their throats apart with it's teeth.
Blood had pooled beneath them, seeping into the hardwood and staining it a dark crimson that would never come out.
Mrs. Wilson, who just this morning had asked me if I wanted pancakes for breakfast. Mr. Wilson, who had asked me if I wanted him to drive me to school today.
Dead.
Because of me.
The figure that had Mrs. Wilson draped across her lap like some twisted pieta picked up the corpse by its scalp, her fingers tangling in the graying hair, and threw it against the wall with casual, terrifying strength. Blood spattered across the white paint, leaving a grotesque pattern.
I should have been horrified. I should have been screaming, running, calling the police. Instead, I found myself staring her down, watching as she stood from my bed with an almost casual grace.
She had a bronze leg, the metal refracting and gleaming because of her fiery hair.
She had a goat leg, covered in coarse black fur that disappeared beneath her dress.
She had bat-like wings extending from her back, leathery and dark, easily spanning eight feet when fully extended.
She had two pairs of fangs, upper and lower, from which blood still dripped in slow, drops that hit the floor with soft pattering sounds.
She wore a black silk dress that reached her ankles, clinging to her form from shoulder to ankles.
She had that same damned smile, bloodied just like her face, the crimson accentuating her lips and making them seem impossibly full and inviting.
She was...
She was...
She was beautiful.
Devastatingly, impossibly, supernaturally beautiful.
Even covered in the blood of two innocent people, even with those monstrous features, even standing in a room that reeked of death and copper, she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
It was wrong, so fundamentally wrong that it made my stomach churn, but I couldn't deny it.
Still, I looked past that overwhelming beauty and the strange pull I felt toward her as I spoke once more in my head, more urgently this time.
'Richter, bro you there? I really need you right now.'
Then I felt it, the familiar sensation of Richter stirring in the depths of our shared consciousness, that click that meant he was about to take control.
"Stay, child."
The words hit me at once, wrapping around my mind like silk chains.
Richter's advance stopped, halted mid-transition. It was almost like a trance.
She walked closer, step by step, and the sound her bronze leg made against the floorboard was wrong, too heavy, not uniform, with an undertone that sounded almost like a bell tolling. But then, why?
Why did it make her more...
More...
More beautiful?
I had seen one of them before, she was like a vampire, the first creature that had died at this body's hands. An empousa, though I hadn't known the name then. That one had been beautiful too, but nothing like this.
This was...
This was...
I couldn't explain it.
Richter was quiet in our shared headspace, unusually so. Usually, when monsters appeared, he was chomping at the bit to take control and start swinging. Now, there was nothing but silence from his corner of our mind.
And I didn't want to leave.
The thought should have terrified me. I should have been fighting whatever influence she had over me, should have been calling for Richter, should have been reaching for the Vampire Killer in my backpack on my back.
Instead, I stood there like a deer in headlights.
She stood in front of me now, close enough that I could smell her, a mixture of blood, smoke, and something floral that reminded me of jasmine. Her fingers clasped my auburn hair, the touch sending electric shocks down my spine as she brought me in close.
Her nose brushed against my neck, and I felt her inhale deeply, a satisfied hum vibrating through her chest.
"Mmm," she moaned, the sound sending shivers through my entire body. "You smell so... feminine."
I wanted to recoil, wanted to ask what the hell that was supposed to mean, but for some reason, I didn't. Couldn't. The words died in my throat before they could form.
"It's almost your essence," she continued, her hand trailing up my cheek with feather-light touches that left burning trails on my skin. She lifted her hand to her shining red eyes, examining her fingers as if they'd come away with something visible.
Her fingers continued to trail down, the nail on her index finger sharp enough to leave a thin mark on my neck as she went, not quite breaking the skin but close enough that I could feel the pressure. "Tis almost a shame to meet someone so beautiful."
Her voice sang in my ears. It was hypnotic, overwhelming, drowning out the rational part of my mind that was screaming warnings.
Why was it so...
Beautiful?
Everything about her, the way she moved, the way she spoke, the way her hair danced with flames that didn't seem to burn her, it all enraptured me. Even the wrongness of it, the knowledge that she was a predator and I was prey, only seemed to add to the allure.
Again one of her hands lifted up my chin, forcing me to look directly into her eyes. They were like pools of liquid fire, drawing me in. Finally, through the haze of whatever spell she'd woven around me, I managed to ask.
"Who are you?"
For the first moment since I had laid eyes on her, her movements faltered. Her smile faded, her gaze went blank and distant, as if she was looking through me rather than at me. When she answered, her voice was different.
"I'm..."
She shook her head sharply, blinking several times as if clearing away cobwebs. When she looked down at me again, there was something in her expression... surprise. Then that predatory smile returned, wider than before.
"I am Eudoxia, firstborn empousa to Hecate."
As she spoke her name, I felt something else. Why did she look less... beautiful?
"Why did you kill them?"
The question came out unimpeded, without flourish. I looked down to the corpses of my foster parents, then back to Euxodia.
They hadn't deserved this. No, they had been good people all thing considered.
Again her face went blank, that same mechanical expression as before. I should have run then, should have broken whatever hold she had on me and gotten the hell out of there. But I didn't. Couldn't.
"I was getting hungry while I waited for you."
The casual way she said it, like a child grown bored from a toy should have made my blood run cold, the definitive words being should have. She'd killed two innocent people, people I had known and no matter how their blood matted the sheets I slept on or the floorboards I walked on.
I felt not much at all. Not an emptiness but more like I couldn't quite grasp it.
I wanted to ask her more, how long had she been waiting, how did she know where I lived, what did she want with me, but I felt the familiar click in my mind. Richter was coming forward, and I didn't know why he was surfacing now after being silent for so long. But as I looked at Eudoxia, a part of me didn't want him to take control. A part of me wanted to stay here, in this moment.
I longed for her... for some reason.
That thought terrified me more than anything else that had happened tonight, and a lot had happened.
Richter POV
I looked in disgust at the whore in front of us, my fist moving as fast as I could make it. It sliced through the air with a whistle and met her face with a satisfying crunch.
BOOM
She flew backwards, crashing into the wall with enough force to leave a crater in the drywall. Her head went completely through, disappearing into what I assumed was the next room.
"Whore, don't touch Julius again," I spat out, rolling my shoulders and cracking my knuckles.
I let the bag fall from our shoulder, opening it in a swift motion and pulling out the Vampire Killer, before the backpack even touched the floor. The bronze length uncoiled itself across my knuckles, hand, and arm like a living thing, eager for battle.
"I killed one of you before, doesn't matter if you're firstborn or shit, I'm killing you this time too."
"Hahaha," a silky laugh permeated the room, seeming to come from everywhere at once. Her head snapped up from the hole in the wall, her glowing red eyes meeting our green ones. Her hair floated around her head and set the wall her head had gone through alight with those supernatural flames.
"The bad company is here."
"Bitch, I'm adorable," I uttered, dashing forward and getting in front of her in a heartbeat. My arm, with the Vampire Killer coiled around it, struck forward like a piston.
My fist met her gut with the force of a sledgehammer. I expected her to go flying like before, maybe crash through another wall or two. Instead, she stayed rooted to the spot, her feet not even sliding on the blood-slick floor.
I looked into her eyes, her face still smeared with blood from the Wilsons, and felt my stomach turn at the fact that I had let her get so close to Julius.
Her words had trapped me in the depths of Julius's mind, held me back somehow, and I hated myself for it. The thought made me want to tear her apart with my bare hands.
"Hahaha, you really are an idiot, aren't you?" she said, grabbing my wrist with inhuman strength. "I'm the firstborn of the empousa. You're using a whip that's made from my essence."
The Vampire Killer disappeared from my arm in a puff of smoke and flame, dissolving like it had never existed. It didn't matter.
I spun, bringing a roundhouse kick to her midsection and sending her skidding across the room, her feet leaving gouges in the hardwood floor.
"Slut, you think I care?" I said, massaging my wrists in preparation for the fight ahead. "I beat one of you to death with my hands before, I'll do it again."
I dashed ahead, but her flaming hair lashed out at me like a living whip. I ducked under the burning strands, feeling the heat singe the top of our head. My fist struck forward, but she lifted up a hand to block. I smiled.
My other hand struck like a snake, gripping the wrist of the hand she was using to block and pulling it away from her face.
I brought her own hand down, hitting her disgusting face with our elbow. The impact sent a spray of golden blood, the blood of these dammed monsters, across the room.
She tried to recoil from the pain, but I didn't let go of her wrist. Instead, I hit her in the face again.
And again.
And-
Her bat-like wings suddenly closed in front of me, creating a dark barrier between us. My instincts screamed danger, and before they could fully close around me, I let go of her wrist and leaped backward.
"Dumb animal," the whore spoke, emerging from her wing-cocoon.
Her face was bloodier now, not only with that of red human blood, but her golden ran down from her nose in a steady stream. It reflected from the fire that was her hair.
Again I dashed at her, ready to continue the beating.
"Stop."
Our body came to a complete halt, every muscle freezing mid-motion. I could feel her supernatural command wrapping around us like chains, the same power that had held Julius enthralled.
She grabbed our wrist with a grip like a vice.
Fire circled us, rising from the floor in a perfect ring that grew higher and higher until it blocked out everything else. The heat was incredible, but it didn't burn, instead, it felt like being surrounded by warm honey.
When the flames died down, we were no longer in the apartment. Instead, we found ourselves in a forest, surrounded by tall trees that blocked out the moonlight.
The air smelled of pine and damp earth, completely different from the copper-scented, smoke infested death room we'd left behind.
I willed our body to move, to break free from whatever hold she had on us, but it didn't respond. I was trapped.
I looked at her with pure fury in my gaze. I wanted to set her fucking alight, to let her burn just like her hair was doing, so she could go back to whatever hell these monsters spawned from.
"You're really a rabid animal, huh," she said with that sickening smile of hers. "I much prefer the other one. Either way, good luck."
The Vampire Killer appeared in front of me, materializing from thin air and landing on the forest floor. It was bathed in flames now, the bronze glowing white-hot.
"And if you can't deal with it, hang yourself with that. I do wonder from which cloth you are cut though, then again both of you may be cut from different cloths. How fun. How fun indeed."
Flames engulfed her, and just like that, she was gone. Julius and I were alone in the dark forest.
'Richter,' I heard from our mind, Julius's voice dazed and confused. 'Where are we?'
I gnashed my teeth, feeling control return to our body as her influence faded. I grabbed the Vampire Killer from the ground, noting that it was back to its normal bronze color and temperature.
"I don't know, Julius."
A/N: May I repeat Julius has terrible luck, but at least he gazed on a hot millenia old vamp. Either way I have things planned so stay tuned for me to explain what the fuck happened and why.
Or maybe I don't (I would be bitch made if I didn't explain anything though lol).
So I hope you dudes and dudettes enjoyed it. Reviews, stones, comments, pretty much anything is deeply appreciated.
Thx for reading. Author out.